SMITCHing

Half of the country is deeply disappointed with the results of the 2012 Presidential Election, so I began to ask myself, "Why, if I believe in the one and only Living God as The Lord of history, do I also feel saddened by the result?" I found some answers in Ross Douthat's fine book, Bad Religion , in which he argues that the most prevalent heresy among believers is that of a psuedo-christian nationalism where the timeless truths of Scripture conflate with a particular brand of partisanship.  Those who lean red, think this is true of the blues, and vice versa. Douthat goes on to contrast this with a robust mid-century American Christianity where pastors spoke prophetically to leaders of both parties about what was right and good—like the Civil Rights Movement—attracting Christian leadership of every political stripe. Where a black Protestant pastor writing from a Birmingham jail could rally conservative white Irish Catholics, not to mention liberal Jews,...

The title of this post is also the "mandate" our church has adopted, about a year ago now. At a recent meeting of the Lead Team pastors, it was called into question. One pastor heard that it was critiqued as too broad. He asked, "Shouldn't all Christians do that?" Another pastor wanted something more concretely actionable, and pointed out their department's mission statement, which was concrete and actionable. I happened to write the line used in our mandate, so there were some sideways glances at me to see how I was reacting. I'm passed the point of being emotionally invested in the line as it's author. Besides, I never wrote it as a "mandate" or theme line. I wrote it to answer a simple question: how do you explain Christian discipleship to someone who is unfamiliar with the term in general, and with Christian jargon in particular. I wanted to encapsulate what it meant for the Church to obey Matthew 28 by going and making disciples...

George Mitchell, Jr. February 16, 1932—July 31, 2012 You started with nothing. Not even a place to live. You worked hard. Really hard, and you gave your family every advantage. You finished well. Really well, and showed your boys what a good father looks like. You made it look easy, but we know now that it never was. You were the rock. The center that we all orbited, and you never showed the strain. You were far from perfect, but somehow your faults always made the good in you look that much better. I loved you with all my heart, and I still do. I miss you, dad. I always will.

My dad (right), his father and his stepmother in about 1946 when he had all the time in the world As I write this, I'm on two journeys. One defined, which I'm making it with the help of Delta Airlines (I'm in love with their inflight WIFI BTW). Presumably, they'll deposit me safely in Southwest Florida where the other journey continues. That's the one into a future without my parents. They're old. Not just sort of old, but the kind of old where really important things start to break down, and one's body just can't hold the bad stuff at bay. The most recent evidence of this is my dad's diagnosis of stage two lung cancer a few weeks ago. And just in case you think me ghoulish for writing this post's headline, that's an upgrade from his initial diagnosis of stage three, which is why my new best friend is stage two lung cancer. It's given me a rare gift. It's made me realize the importance of time. it's the only thing we ca...

A a couple months ago I got a call from my daughter's boyfriend. He wanted to marry her. Mercifully, I had a heads up, and a pretty solid pitch from her for why he was the right guy. I really trust her. She's not eighteen, or nineteen. She's 24, and she's been living on her own since she was 17. She'd tell you that neither one of us would endorse every decision she's made in the last seven years, but the Lord has been faithful and kept her in His caring embrace. She's wiser than her 24 years. And she's said goodbye to at least one great guy, not because there was anything wrong with him, but because she recognized it was a mismatch. So when I got the heads-up about her boyfriend's call, I was ready to give my blessing. His name is Sterling, and I think it's fitting. He's been refined, "as if by fire seven times". So why do I now feel so oddly conflicted about it? I've thought a lot about that since we first began t...

I ran across this fascinating image today. It's a telling look at the intersection of our ability to see and hear, and it's shocking how little we can detect of the radiant energy that surrounds us when unaided. Just a sliver, really. I think there's a profound spiritual lesson here. We live in a culture that for hundreds of years has told us that what we can know is limited to what we can observe—what we can see and hear. Granted, our technology has let us expand the boundaries of what we can see and hear. The graph tells us that much, otherwise we'd never know about the area outside our sliver of "knowing". But what if there's a way of knowing that transcends the bounds of the graph? What if there's a way to relationally know something or someone with a faculty that perceives beyond seeing and hearing? The Christian Scriptures use a curious word for this kind of knowing: yada . It is used to indicate a uniquely deep relational intimacy, in...

Mike with his nieces A happy heart makes the face cheerful,  but heartache crushes the spirit.  Proverbs 15:13 My brother-in-law, Michael, is a cheerful man. Anyone who knows him would say the same. His eyes sparkle when someone he loves walks into his room. He loves a lot. I can't think of a time when he spoke ill of someone, and the list of his friends is roughly the same as the list of anyone he's ever met. Mike give his heart to others regularly and with little regard to what it might cost him. And even though it's not his fault, Mike doesn't have much to lose in the way of material possessions or status. He's much richer than that. Well into his 50's, he lives in a resident care facility. It's a good one as these places go, but it is not the kind of place most people would choose to live. Mike did. And that choice was an expression of selfless love, because Mike needs constant care. His spe...

Today I heard AJ Swoboda preach about "the love child of our prayer and the Holy Spirit's help is our deliverance." It struck me that he was talking about the intersection of our deepest desires, fears, and hopes with the very presence of God. Jesus called the Holy Spirit our "helper", so his exegesis is pretty solid given the majority opinion in the evangelical church. But I think it's not a functional "helping" where that the Spirit enables us to do things for us that we cannot do ourselves. I tire of that: the God of the Gaps, who fills up the missing bits in our capabilities. But that view is so prevalent: grace as enablement. I believe, after Jonathan Edwards, that grace is not a quality of enablement, but a relational presence—the very Spirit of God alive in us and relationally present to us. Jesus, the incarnate savior, promised to be with us all always. About 1 billion of us Christians. All the time. Everywhere. And always. Okay....