A STAARy tale

There once was a little star, shining as stars do in the inky sky that is unobscured by orange streetlights or neon signs.  It sat there, doing its star-ish thing:  twinkling, catching eyes, inciting dreams.

A group of star watchers, studied men and women who were astute at the spatial arts and deemed by some (and mostly themselves) experts at things like this, looked at this star through their telescope.  It seemed to be the right size.  It seemed to be the right distance away.  It seemed to be twinkly enough and eye-catchy enough and dreamy enough to suit their tastes.

In a collective decision and backed by people who don't actually know much about stars but are good talkers and steady influencers, the star watchers decided that this star would be the star for everyone - a sort of star benchmark, it was decided.

News broke.  Other star watchers weighed in.  Some agreed (mostly, it seems, because of the good talkers and steady influencers).  Some disagreed.  Some were so confused by the situation that they figured it might be too hard to understand and therefore not worth trying.

People who watched the stars carefully, though, had some concerns.  There were other stars.  This was just one star - a good star, a fine star, a star worthy of emulation...but not the star to end all stars, not the true measure of stars everywhere.

But the decision was made by the star watchers and the good talkers and those who reported about such things.  So let it be written.  So let it be done.  And it was.

People no longer looked at the whole sky.  They looked at The Star.  If one did try to look at the larger display of twinkles and blinks, that person was reminded of the importance of The Star and how all sorts of money was spent on researching and supporting studying The Star and how looking around was a waste of time and resources.  Pep rallies were held for study of The Star.  There were tales of even t-shirts being printed.  Eventually, it came to the point where the learn-ed and the learning were measured was by their ability to understand The Star.  Those who told about The Star and those who were told about The Star were forced into a kind of star-gazing myopia.

And yet nothing changed for the rest of the sky.  It was still full of shining stars in an inky sky doing their star-ish thing:  twinkling, catching eyes, inciting dreams.  And rumor has it that they're all still there for those who will open their eyes to see.

The Ministry of Church History (?)

I was at dinner last night with a professor of church history.  This is what he said...

"The ministry of church history, inside the church, is to make sure that we properly exalt saints who have gone before without making them idols."

His point is well-taken.

Looking back, we can idolize people of the past.  The years have a way of blurring or dulling the daily bilge that we all have to deal with in relationships and in our own hearts.  Just one instance from my last doctoral class:  Jonathan Edwards, America's foremost theologian and the leader of the First Great Awakening, owned slaves.  How do you write one of the most incredible sermons ever on the Excellency of Christ and own slaves?

The other side, though, is that we have a sense of what should endure and last and be worth thinking about three centuries later.  Church history helps identify what is still helpful in the days in which we live.  That's the "properly exalt saints" part mentioned above.

I've never thought about it in those terms before, but am glad to do so now.

I know four historians on what I would call a personal level.  All of them are churchmen, men who love the church and are doing work in their own congregations to see the Kingdom of God come and lives transformed.  I'm grateful for their ministry and for the ministry of church history.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Kids' Success Depends on Grit

I mentioned this TED Talk by Dr. Angela Duckworth in my sermon on Sunday.  In it, she explained the main characteristic of success among kids she studied:  Grit.  The biblical word for that is perseverance or endurance or steadfastness.  It's that quality of Grit that leads to proven character.  Consider...

"Perseverance leads to proven character..." (Romans 5.3-5)

"Let steadfastness have its perfect effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (James 1.2-4)

"[supplement] to your steadfastness, godliness..." (2 Peter 1.5-8)

You see the connection?  Godly character is formed by Grit.  Of course, you find out how much Grit you have by walking through tough times.  Sometimes we rescue our kids too quickly from those.

Somebody somewhere described the future as the amplification of your character.  I'm not 100% sure that's 100% accurate, but there's enough truth in it to pay attention.  If that's even mostly true (which I agree that it is), then character development is like oxygen to a drowning man - desperately needed.  For us.  For our kids too.

Enjoy these 6 1/2 minutes of goodness...

7 things I'd tell incoming seminary students if they'd listen...

I'll digress from my normal thinking today to reflect for a moment on preparation for ministry.  To all regular non-ministry readers, thank you for the indulgence.

I'm 15 years removed from pursuing my MDiv. degree at seminary.  Technically 13, since I graduated in 2000.  But I took only a couple of hours that last semester, having had 2 years off while we got the Queen through graduate school.  My graduating class was 1998.  So 15 it is.  Anyway...

Consider this the Convocation Speech that I'll probably never give.  Here's what I'd tell incoming seminary students if they'd listen to me...

1.  Your character matters more than your calling and certainly more than your grades.

2.  Your character will certainly show up as you exercise your calling and in your grades.

3.  If you think seminary will be a source of spiritual growth, you're wrong.  If you grow from your seminary experience, the primary reason you will be because you persevere faithfully.

4.  Being rooted in a church will do your soul more good and more for your growth than any book you read.

5.  It'd be better for you to work a "secular" job and figure out people and service than it would to work at a church in your first year or two of seminary.

6.  Your professors will do more to shape you outside the classroom than inside.  So if they're willing (and the majority are), stop by with a cup of coffee and two good questions to ask.

7.  Openness of mind and engagement with ideas does not mean you have to cede ground on your convictions.  You're not stupid, arrogant, or lazy if you hold some convictions with a large helping of humble certainty.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

A Pig, a Scale, and the STAAR test

This was written by Pastor Brent Beasley in Fort Worth who I just so happen to know from seminary.  All credit is his.  And what a commentary...

Here's a little something I wrote this morning in honor of STAAR testing:

The Pigs and the Scale

The farmer wants his pigs to be fat. Of course he does. The fatter the better.

He became concerned when he realized that, even though he fed them all the same, some pigs were fatter than others. The problem, he concluded, was that he wasn’t weighing the pigs enough. So he began to weigh the pigs a few times a year. Still, while some of the pigs were getting plenty fat, many of them were still skinny or, at least, not fat enough.

The farmer decided that the best thing to do to solve the problem would be to weigh them again and again throughout the year. So, the farmer invested a lot of his resources in weighing. He developed new types of scales. He began keeping complicated records of the pigs’ weights. He devised a system where he could compare the weights of the pigs not just individually but between each different pen and also based on what color each pig was. All the while, the pigs weren’t getting any fatter. The only thing that seemed to be getting fatter was the wallet of the scale-maker.

So, the farmer added more weigh-ins. And in the days and weeks leading up to each weigh-in, he held practice weigh-ins for the pigs. One day, the pigs were looking longingly at the food piled up around their pens. “No time to waste sitting around eating,” the farmer said. “I need you to practice weighing. Here are some tips on how to make yourself seem heavier.” The only weigh-in strategy that seemed to help at all was eating a good breakfast.

But even on the days that one particular group of pigs wasn’t weighing-in or practicing weighing-in, the farmer didn’t like them to eat. Pigs are noisy eaters, you know. They might disturb the others who are weighing-in or practicing weighing-in. Besides, there was no one to feed them, anyway. All the workers on the farm were overseeing the weighing of the pigs or the practicing of the weighing of the pigs in some of the other pens, so the pigs that weren’t being weighed or practicing being weighed were herded over to one particular area and told to sit still, be quiet, and wait.

After the last weigh-in of the year, everybody relaxed. But the pigs wondered, “Why bother to eat now, if we aren’t going to even be weighed anymore?” The farmer told them that the weighing was only to help them get fatter. But the pigs didn’t believe him. They knew that the scale was much more important than the food. They knew that it’s the weighing that makes a pig fatter. They had been taught that well.

My week last week (in pictures)

Some of my faithful followers (all 3 of you) know that I am in the process of pursuing my D.Min. (Doctorate of Ministry) at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  I was up last week for a module.  This is my experience in pictures...

The night I arrived...

At my hotel... (clever little folks)

My walk to the classroom building (that's the Admin building across the way)

It started snowing...

I drove in 8" of snow that fell on Tuesday

Tough to find a seat...

But cleared gloriously!

For MLK Day: Remembering

I love both of these speeches.  And I love that God used them for His purposes to accomplish some justice on the earth.

I have a Dream (MLK starts at 1:00).  Don't skip over this.  Listen to it.

And this is a brief quote from the last sermon/speech he ever gave.  He was assassinated the next day.

A New Old Discipline

I have bitten the bullet.

I'm entering again into the world of higher education.  On the student side.  Previously, I have ventured back into the classroom, but the pupils survived my Greek Readings class.  This time I'm on the receiving end, not the giving.

I am pursuing the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago.  I have 10 classes and a project to get a doctoral degree, and I hope to be smarter on the far end of things.  For those who care, I'll travel up 2-3 times a year for Monday through Thursday class periods.

But I'm relearning how to learn again.  I have leisurely read 30-50 books a year for the past 13 years.  Now people will be asking about them, reading my papers about them, and so forth.  Sheesh.  What was I thinking?

But it's a good, new, old discipline that I'm getting into.  It's stretching parts of my brain that haven't been stretched in a while.  I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Learners grow.  I'm counting on that.