Coming soon: Pregnancy, Publications, and Pimps

(Sorry for blog gap:  great Christmas weekend, home heating system woes, final hurdles to get the paperback version of Between the Lines out there on Amazon...you know; "life is what happens while you're making other plans.")

Coming in January:  interviews with Sal Pitchon of New Life Solutions and Rod Beck of the Gulf Coast Family Newspaper.  Both of these guys saw something that bothered them enough (maybe even got them mad enough) to go do something.  "Nature abhors a vacuum;" well, God abhors a "vacuum" in the good news and work he has in mind for this old world.  So he plants a bit of his love and sense of justice in us, and voila, away we go!

Also coming, but a little later, an interview with Courtney Furlong of NightLight Atlanta.  Two other organizations along the same lines, human trafficking, are TraffikFree.org (Theresa Flores in Ohio) and iahti.org (Jeremy Lewis and James McBride here in the Pinellas county/Clearwater area).  This is one of those things that draw many people together, Christian or not, and rightly so.  (Only 3 weeks ago a restaurant we USED to go to was raided.)

Pregnancy, publications, and pimps - is there anywhere God isn't interested in going and redeeming?  Nope. :)

Water - A Christmas Gift

Here in south Pinellas County, Florida, we've been under a mandatory boil-water order for the last 36 hours.  That's a half-million people.  Seems a 4' diameter water main broke a few miles from our house. 

They're talking Sunday for an all-clear.

We're fixed better than most - the RV fresh-water tank gives us all we need.  But most people don't have that blessing, do they? 

This Christmas outage reminds me of something that Ecclesia church in Houston, among others, started doing a few years ago.  The statistic they quoted:  If we took the amount of money Americans spend on makeup and put it toward providing clean water sources, everyone in the world could have clean, safe water.  (Really?  Wow!)  The numbers on how many people die due to contaminated water are just insane.

So they gave water to the world instead of presents to each other.  Not 100%, I'm sure, but wow.  One between-the-lines Christian group that does this is called The Water Project, and the one Chris is Twittering on now is Living Water International.  Maybe the next time you want to make a difference...here's a beauty.

One little non-coincidental footnote: Pastor Chris Seay was previously a minister to students at Baylor, founded University Baptist Church in there in Waco, and mentored an introverted, awkward guy named David Crowder.  You think Chris is a leader?  And how.  Like the leader in Herbie's story.

Jackson Browne - The Rebel Jesus

I never heard this till this morning, which is really weird because I grew up with JB and the Eagles filling the radio.

Sometimes artists are our conscience.  Funny, how a guy who is professedly NOT a Christian (hey, he's honest...I just wish he would follow Jesus) calls it out so well.  As a friend of his said of him years ago, "Now Brother Jackson here says he's not a Christian..Yet!"  Merry Christmas.

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
While the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
As their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
There's a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

So why aren't we being Good Samaritans more often?

The Good Samaritan couldn't have been good if he'd been running to meet his next appointment, could he?  Are you in an urban trance, in which the bustle of life helps you to suppress your better impulses?  I think maybe a lot of us could stand to be in a recovery program on this.  Me, certainly.

I ran across this TED talk (13 minute video) by Daniel Goldman a few years ago.  Like all the TED talks, it informed and inspired me.  Perhaps, on this Christmas Eve, it will also inspire you.  Merry Christmas.

Leadership - wait for Herbie

While I was out walking the neighborhood a few days ago, I came across a great leader. He was at the front of a line of about 20-25 kindergarteners who were tending their way from the park to their vans over at the school.  It's Christmas break here and this looked like a daycare group out for some fun.

When I first passed the group, they were swirling near a street crossing.  A few minutes later, I stopped to watch and see what they would show me.  It just seemed like God was letting me know there was something there for me.

There they were, spread out along 100+ feet of sidewalk.  Kind of in bunches, where a little one stopped to look at something, or (clever, this) let a gap open so he could sprint and close it.  Much noise all across the line.  Well, it didn't take them a mile to get spread out this way.  More like 200 feet.

There was a man at the head of the line, and a lady at the end.  Kind of like shepherds with their little flock.  He led, at a slow pace that the little ones could follow; she stayed where she could see everyone at once and make sure all the noses arrived.  He kept looking back over his shoulder as they spread out, then stopped and waited for the gaps to close.

He was a great leader.  He was going somewhere, all right, but that somewhere involved the somewhos.  (Every-who, actually.)  He didn't hector anyone, but he did call them, saying, "Follow me."  They knew his voice, even if they were looking in all other directions.  And he waited until they could and would follow.

She was a great leader, too, kind of like the other half.  She kept her eyes on all the little sparrows, and alert for dangers all around.  When you're a parent, it seems like you save your kid's life about every other day from cars, dogs, lostness, automatic doors and such.  Try 20 at once, if you dare.  I doubt we pay these people enough.

Eliyahu Goldratt wrote in The Goal a few years ago a story about a scout hike.  The fast ones ran way ahead, the slowest one (Herbie) fell far behind, as usual.  Alex, our protagonist, is the frustrated adult leader of this troop.  He wants Herbie to get the lead out, and he's tired of hearing the bitching up and down the line about slowpokes and Herbies.  He stops them all, gathers them, and puts Herbie at the front of the line.  Well, everyone stays together, but the fast ones complain about the trudge.

Alex asks, "Well, can you think of any way to help Herbie?"  The boys end up distributing the contents of Herbie's pack among themselves, leaving Herbie free to swing away at his best, unburdened pace.

Alex made the connection between the production-line bottlenecks he had at work and the scattered troop.  The goal of a production line isn't to make part of a product quickly, and part of it someday.  The goal is for all the parts to arrive in the customer's hands together, working.  You do that by finding the bottlenecks and fixing them:  more machines, faster machines, better training for operators, etc.

The goal of a scout hike isn't for some to arrive early, and some late.  The goal is to arrive together.  The goal of a Christian life isn't for some to arrive early, and some late.  The goal is to arrive together.

Jesus said, "Follow me," but he also said ""So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all."  Sounds to me like a leader is emotionally (and sometimes physically) at the front and the back of the line.

We often extol the virtues of people who appear to have arrived somewhere "first" (pulpit, bestseller list, etc. - think of any Christian bestselling author, for example).  We keep calling them "leaders" without asking, "Is anyone following, or able to follow, these people?"  Rarely do we look closely enough to see if the Herbies arrived at the same time.  I'm afraid they don't.  I suspect we'd rather have apparent heroes than real ones; they're easier to come by. 

But sometimes I'm Herbie.  Sometimes you are.  We need the real heroes, the real leaders, who look over their shoulders, wait, and call the rest of us who can't or won't quite keep up.  We need leaders who call us to lead, and co-followers who help us carry (or dump) our baggage. There are seasons of life where we need someone to save our lives, it seems, every day. We need human faces and voices who remind us that our Father, who is good, is watching and enjoying us, his kids.

We can learn a lot from kindergartens.

The time we have

(warning:  Narnia movie spoiler)

Cyndi and I went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader this week.

At the end, Aslan gives Prince Caspian the opportunity to go on into Aslan's country, beyond the wall of water at the end of the world.

Caspian approaches the upswooping water, feels it with one hand for a few moments, turns back to Aslan and replies, "I've spent too long wanting what was taken from me, and not what I was given.  I've been given a kingdom."  Much as he'd like to live with Aslan in Aslan's country, he returns to serve his people in Narnia.

We cried.

Reepicheep, our tender warrior mouse, asks Aslan if he can go up into the country...."it would be my honor to go there," he says.  Aslan tells him no one would be more deserving; Reepicheep doffs his sword, says his goodbyes, and paddles up the water into the Land.


We cried harder.


Aslan tells two of the Pevensie people that they have accomplished all they can in Narnia and won't return...but will know him "by another name" in their own world.


We made it to the car and wept.


I've never been the "Oh, God, this world is so terrible, I just can't wait for heaven" sort of Christian.  I like heaven, love life, and don't like the pain/death between the two.  "Heaven" is ours to share with others now, I believe, and continue on into forever.  But that scene really touches the ache in me for what God intended, what could be, what a life well lived really looks like.  John Wimber called it living in the tension between the now and the not-yet.  Peter Senge called it creative tension.


In The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo says, "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.  Gandalf replies, "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

The Pevensies and the Hobbits were called out of their "normal" world.  They learn that "normal" isn't all there is, that it isn't even "normal, we just call it that.  They learn that there are real vistas and valleys, that God and glory are real, that Deceiver and disaster are real.  Calm, normal, stay-in-the-queue life is only a shadow of Life that matters, for those who are called into it.

Three of my favorite verses can be compounded like a Life prescription:  "This is the day the Lord has made; choose this day whom you shall serve; choose Life."  Yes, and the ache seems to be part of it, maybe even part of the passion.

I can imagine the three of them sitting at an English pub in the 50s, or maybe in some heavenly hangout, smoking their pipes, and talking:  C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien...and Jesus.  Maybe Wimber, too.  We've been given a kingdom, and every day is a new adventure walking and serving in it.  Of course it isn't "normal."  Why should it be?

NOPE

Matthew Serra was 28 years old when he OD'ed on a combination of prescription drugs two years ago.

My friend Walt Jones was 27 when, finally clean of drugs, he died in a car accident.  I went by Walt's grave a few years ago.  20 years later, according to the headstone, Walt is still 27.  It's an eerie place, this place where tragedy can remain forever young.  As my years approach twice Walt's, I wonder what our time would have looked like.

Matthew's father is Mark Serra; his stepmother, Laurie.  They lived through his many-years cycle of victories and defeats, rehab and relapse, jail and bail.  In the end, the drugs were stronger than Matt.  The surviving Serras are, in some sense, still consumed by the drug war.  But they're gaining ground now, not just wrestling in the no-man's land of addiction.

Mark and Laurie wanted to make a difference.  They wanted Matt's death, not just his life, to make a difference.  (Strangely, the D.A.R.E. program wasn't here, so there was a huge gap in schools.)  Working in schools isn't something that "religious" groups can do easily here.  Law enforcement people are, well, cops - part of the story, but not all.  Especially to teens and tweens.  What could a couple of grieving, pissed-off, motivated, capable people do?  Being Christians, they wanted to do something more like redemption than revenge.

They discovered the NOPE (Narcotic Overdose Prevention & Education) Task Force, an anti-drug group in Palm Beach, Florida.  That looked right - open their wounds, that others might live.  That others might choose life instead of drugs, that others might be encouraged in their struggle.  They established a Pinellas County chapter, contacted law enforcement and school board people, and went to work.  As Mark said when we met over breakfast, "We've got skin in the game."

Cyndi and I went to one of their talks at Oak Grove Middle School here in Clearwater last week.  Ever seen 200-300 quiet middle-schoolers?  No, although I've seen a few tender moments in youth ministry work we've done.  (It's easier in high school.)

Robin Wikle of the Pinellas county school board led the presentations. (Side note:  the Pinellas school system is a $1.5 billion, 100,000 student enterprise.)  She, too, has skin in the game; her 23-year old son is in jail right now on drug charges.  (Her story is in the St. Pete Times here.)  Her backdrop was poster-size photos of a dozen local people who couldn't be with us anymore:  Matt's the oldest; the youngest was in middle school.  They have plenty of additional posters for bigger stages...many more people die here of prescription drug overdoses than car accidents.

Sheriff's deputy Frazo gave the stats; the one I remember is that in 2009, someone died in this county every 35 hours from a prescription drug overdose .  He showed the kids a crime-scene picture of the body of Jared Kirstein, a case on the east coast this year.  Jared loved to surf, and made a bad, last decision one night.

Deputy Frazo's own life-staining memory is of a mother who had to identify her son at a similar scene.  She kissed the dead boy's forehead inside the partly-zipped body bag.  And the sound of that zipper closing over the still face will haunt Frazo the rest of his life.  He brought a body bag and an urn and showed them to us.

The early word is, deaths are up in 2010. 

Laurie told Matt's story.  Star athlete, star student, the student every other student wants to be.  He was injured in his teens, painkillers were prescribed, and eventually became a way of life.  The opiate (oxy-, roxy-, hydro-) drugs eventually led to sleeplessness and counter-drugging with Xanax and similar drugs, resulting in a death spiral.  Mark sat on the back row, choked up, as always.  Two years and counting.

She said that two-thirds of teens say their parents haven't talked to them about the dangers of prescription drugs.  Hence, NOPE in the schools.

Several times a week this little scene plays in our schools.  These people don't open their scars for just anyone; they open them because it's life or death.  NOPE isn't a "Christian" thing; it's just the kind of thing a Christian might happen to be called to by a God who's busy redeeming all of us, as much as we'll let him.  There are plenty of non-Christians who love their children, who have skin in the game, too.  NOPE is a classic of people who find common cause shining light into darkness, because they themselves have experienced the darkness.

Will Mark and Laurie's grief remain forever young?  I hope not.  Will their passion to change the world remain forever young?  I hope so.

Tonight is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.  There's pain in the night, and a time to weep, in our dark seasons.  There's an opportunity to come alongside those who are weeping for their Walts and Matts.  And there's always an opportunity, in the darkest places and times, for Light to shine.  May His light shine into your darkest sorrows, this season of Immanuel, God-with-us.

Red-Letter Christians

Does it bug you when people think you're like the Christians who eat up the airwaves with sales pitches and opinions and overwrought anger?  Does it bother you when the political party you favor takes your support for granted, even though you may have to hold your nose when you vote their way?

About 5 years ago, I had started to intentionally distance my self from the labels of "Conservative/Republican" and "Liberal/Progressive/Democrat."  They were messing up relationships before I could even get started.  You say, "I'm a Christian," and many people start thinking of someone famous, and what they do or don't like about that person.  Instead of taking you as you are.  And then I went to listen to Tony Campolo speak on the topic of Red-Letter Christianity, and he gave tongue to a lot of what was bugging me.   

He made an opening point that Jesus said in essence, "make disciples like me."  Jesus did not say, do it all the same way that St. Paul did in cities across the eastern Mediterranean.  God handed us those examples as a great set to start from and learn from, but didn't tell us to make more Pauls.  He also gave us all the stories of his work with the Israelis in the Old Testament to learn from, but he didn't say to ordain more Elijahs.  Tony's point was, if we want to be like Jesus, let's do kinda like Jesus did in those red-letter things in the New Testament:  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Focus there, use all the other stuff to help.

To be a Christian isn't to be a Democrat or a Republican.  To be a Christian is to be a Christian.  Too much of Christians' agendas are being set, it seems, by politicians and televangelists.  Rush Limbaugh says "Hop," and next thing you hear is Christians quoting him.  What the heck is that about?  Or John Stewart cranks out a great joke about the Republicans, and then...

You see what I mean.  The cart gets before the horse so easily.  And just FYI, you might be surprised to learn that while Tony "leans Democratic," he's hardly a party-line guy.  Refreshing.  Between the Lines. Right where God wants us.  Not locked up in a stereotype.

He also reminded us that talk is cheap on TV and in Washington.  Upset about teenage pregnancy?  Do more to physically help girls "in trouble" and spend less time carping about immoral youth.  (Side note:  last I checked, "youth" didn't invent "immorality.")  He's not saying "don't teach," he's saying "teach and do something."

I don't see many politicians doing anything but argue.  Doesn't that kinda discount their credibility with you?  Show me a man who's feeding the homeless out of his pocket, and I'll show you a man I want to hear from about public-funded assistance for the poor.  He's got a hand in the game.

Lots of organizations - political, religious, business - claim to speak for me and you.  Truth is, none of them do. Got an opinion on something in the public arena?  Call, write or visit your Senator.  (They spend a lot of time back home; check it out.)  Look, your call directly to them is better for them than all those polls you hear about.  (I'm not making that up; I've heard that over and over, in person, from long-experienced Capitol Hill people.)  If you don't speak, it's hardly their fault if they misrepresent you.

Tony Campolo ticks me off every time he opens his mouth, but he makes me think.  (I like that part.)  He makes gigantic sound-bite suggestions about public policy, but I don't think he has a clue just how hard it is to craft a consistent, fair, practical public policy on anything.  (I've done some of this in my previous line of work, and it ain't ever as easy as the pundits, including Tony, think it is.)  And it's OK for him to set out some solution to a problem, particularly where he's backing it up with his own actions and money.  It may not work on a big scale, but how cool that it's working on a smaller scale?

I can find a half-dozen topics where I would be opposed to Tony's ideas, on both theological and practical grounds.  I still enjoy his writing and his thinking.  My ideas may be out to lunch, and he may help me see that.  He's conversational, approachable, helpful - someone we could all use from time to time.

Three Spirits of Christmas

Maybe it isn't every day that Walmart provides vignettes of Christmas.  Or maybe it is.

The first scene was right out of retail hell:  two very pissed-off, red-faced customers chewing out an assistant manager lady in the front aisle.  "We've got money, right here, cash on the barrelhead, and we've waited for over an hour to get waited on to buy that TV!"  Etc...you fill in the blanks. (Over a TV?)

The manager listened to this tirade, offered to help them right away, and of course that didn't satisfy the Spirit of Wrath.  "No!  We're gonna go buy it someplace else!" and stomped off in a huff.

I felt so bad for the manager lady that I went up to her and wished her a very, very sincere Merry Christmas.  (Maybe I should have confronted the Wrath...can't make peace with angry people, maybe affirm the manager though...I don't know.  That bothers me.)  She smiled a bruised smile and said, "It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last."  I guess Wrath is a year-round resident.  Wrath believes that a TV is worth more than a heart, I suppose.

I went about my shopping, and had my usual encounters with people at aisle intersections.  "Oops, sorry, excuse me."

One lady beat me to it, and she didn't waste time with apologies.  She went straight for Blessing:  "Merry Christmas!"  She kind of murmured it, but the eye contact was the real thing.  I crossed her path a couple more times with better collision-avoidance on my part, and realized what she was doing.  She was wishing everyone she met a Merry Christmas.  Just choosing to spread a little Life as she went along.  I hope she ran into the manager lady.  I guess Blessing visits Walmart from time to time.

As I headed out to the parking lot with my cat litter, I met two ladies with three heaping shopping carts.  I smiled; "The country ladies used to load up like that at Piggly Wiggly back when I was bagging groceries."

"We're buying for local shelters."  She mentioned a couple, and I asked who they were working for; it isn't exactly commonplace for people to load up that way and do a shelter delivery run.  (Maybe it should be...hmmm.)  She answered that they were buying on behalf of one of our Florida (US) Congressmen - seems he does this every year.  Looks like maybe Blessing can shop along with Giving at Walmart, too.

Some years ago someone in Huntsville had rolls of stickers printed up that said, "Kindness is Contagious."  The idea was, you take a bunch of stickers with you and offer to stick them on people (like "I Voted Today" stickers) after you'd said or done something kind for them.  I took a dozen on a business trip to Washington, DC and scattered them along the way.  Lots of fun.  And I'll never forget the expression of the gate attendant in Nashville when I said something simple and nice to her, and gave her one.  Looked like it made her day.

Some days you'd give anything for just a little kindness - a glance, a word, a touch.  Here's hoping that you receive the Blessing of God, and that his spirit of Blessing will inhabit you and overflow from you.  After all, kindness really is contagious.  Even in Walmart at Christmas time.  Merry Christmas.

The gift of availability

I often tell people that I've been given the gift of availability.  Mike Yaconelli said several years ago, "I think the Christians will be known as the people who have time for you: 'Wanna talk?  Sure.  How long you got? Long as you need.'"  I took that to heart, and as I say, I've been given the gift of being able to take that to heart and put it into practice.

If you don't know who Mike is, here are a few quotes from a way-off-the-chain, passionate, flawed guy who had a lot of encouragement to share with us not-there-yet Christians.  More on him in a future post.

We used to go to a church that had a sign you could see as you exited the parking lot:  "You are now entering the mission field."  This news story from Wichita is a reminder of that truth, and an illustration of just how beautiful the light can be that shines into the very dark places of sexual abuse.  I doubt that anything in Shelly's church experience prepared her for this, but I'm certain that God prepared her for that time and place and family.  What did she do to prepare?  I have no idea, but I know that she chose to be available for two young girls, and changed their lives forever for the better.

Statistically, there's a rape/abuse or post-abortion victim on every pew.  Several, actually.  Now that's a mission field.  Who's being available for them?  I hope we all are...

Tomorrow, the story of a local couple who lost their 28-year old son to prescription drug overdose.  They decided to say NOPE, and make their grief available to others, that others might live.

Misfit Christian book PDF is now downloadable

The pdf (text only; no cover yet) of Between the Lines: Christianity for Misfit Christians is now online .  Free download.  No digital rights management (DRM) or anything like that.  Over the next few days I'll convert the master file into Kindle, Nook, and MobiPocket formats for e-readers (test readers wanted), and send it off to Amazon CreateSpace for paperback-ing.

You may be wondering, "Why is he giving the book away? Is he that desperate?"  Well, maybe.  Aside from believing that sharing is a cardinal virtue (see John Piper's website for a detailed explanation), I liked a lot of the book Free by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine.  But that's a maybe-future post.

Feedback welcome.  (Merciful feedback, please!  Flesh-and-blood human here...)

JC

They Like Jesus but...

Finding your voice sometimes means listening to someone else's.

One voice that has helped me since 2005 has been Dan Kimball.  Dan is a caring, thoughtful voice for change, in my opinion.  I first heard him speak at Youth Specialties' National Youth Workers Convention on how odd a lot of "Christian" paraphernalia ("Jesus bars," "Testa-mints" etc.) looks to non-Christians, and how it un-helps us.  Very refreshing.  He doesn't mock anyone; he's genuinely concerned that we pay attention to those we're sent here for.  (Even more refreshing!)

When he wrote the book They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations, I knew it was a "buy" for me.  He's writing primarily to church leaders, so this book may not be for everyone, although it's a good read for someone who wants to hear a full-on encourager.  He basically interviewed friends who fit the title, and asked them "why."  (The fact that he has friends who aren't churchgoing Christians should be a clue; he's a pastor who spends a lot of time in coffee bars. On purpose.)

If you'd like to hear the vantage point of some people who love Jesus but not the churches they see (or, often, the Christians they see), I encourage you to consider this book.  For me, Dan let me know that I'm not the only crazy one out here who thinks Jesus band-aids are silly, that "churches" are too much like ecclesiastical bowling clubs, and that my time is best invested in Jesus and the ones he came to save.

Here's hoping you find blessing in the book.

Book status update: pdf posting tomorrow

My first book, Between the Lines: Christianity for Misfit Christians, is ready for print layout.  In this electronic age, the first thing that gets done is posting the pdf to the website.  That will happen tomorrow morning, God willing and internet working.

Pray for grace, please.  Thanks,


JC

Validation

I come from an aerospace background, some of which is about the business of system and software validation:  does this new system do what the specification says it should do?  There are lots of ways to do that, like simulation, test and analysis.  The goal is always to help the product be what it's designed to be.

This little video (16 min) illustrates what happens when someone decides to validate other people.

Peter Lord was recently interviewed here by Seth Barnes of Adventures in Missions, and said he wished he'd preached less and invested deeply in just a few people instead.  He described the American church as "better than nothing" but pointed out that the weak aren't heard in groups larger than 12.  And "church is particularly for the weak."

He also once said, "If you want to improve a product, find out what's wrong and fix it.  If you want to improve people, find out what they're doing right and commend it."

What would happen if we started validating the beautiful parts of each other that our good God designed into us? Maybe even more often than pointing out each others' (real) deep flaws?  There's a lot in the Bible along those lines. Let's give it a try.

I'm not those guys on TV

Televangelists troll up money and preach to camera lenses. Politicians spin and package their agendas. Many of both pretend to somehow represent Christians.  Even worse, they pretend to represent Jesus.

In talking to normal people, I find that I often have to overcome a bunch of damage done by these politi-vangelist people.  Their fog of disinformation keeps getting in my way and deceiving folks who really want to know Jesus better.

I know I’m not the only one, but I got a huge reassurance a few days ago.  Janet Conrad of Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented has a blog and Facebook page – the name says it all.  Her Google alert query found this site.  Her site has hundreds of fans who are also tired of being sterotyped.

From that link also came Mark Sandlin’s blog, The God Article.  He’s a pastor in North Carolina.

I think the lesson the politi-vangelists can teach me, by negative example, is to jettison stereotypes.  I live a better life when I keep my eyes open and know people one at a time instead of by labels.  Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would guide me into all truth, to help me to distinguish right from wrong, evil from wounded.  He’s always been trustworthy.  Why not now, too?

Prayer

I was re-listening to a favorite talk from a few years ago by Mark Oestreicher, then-president of Youth Specialties (YS).  He called the talk "A Rant from a runt on what the church is doing wrong in America."  You can read the text version here if you like.

He reminded me again that prayer can be aided by silence and time.  One way that has been used in the history of Christianity is to have things like prayer walks, stations, gardens and such.  One that shows up in architecture is the labyrinth, which is a path with designated locations to pray about specific things.

Two years ago I walked through a labyrinth at a YS youth workers' convention.  They had assembled a quiet place, with an audio "tour guide" and relaxed background music to lead you from station to station.  It was a wonderful time between  me and the Lord, where just for a season he made an ordinary place into a holy space.  (If you think this sounds a little creepy, it wasn't.  Actually, the creepy New-Agey stuff is mimicking Christian tradition, not the other way around.)

There, the idea crystallized for me that we are held, and beheld.  Held by God, in his arms; beheld, as in gazed upon with love and acceptance.

I also heard the phrase, "Living as the body of Christ hasn't been tried and found wanting; it has been tried and found hard."  It's hard in the sense that living as a no-kidding inter-dependent community is counter-cultural.  But it's very, very rewarding.

Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that two of the major themes of the book are along those same lines.

Having told you a little of why I think labyrinths are a good thing, I'll suggest you consider learning a bit more.  Maybe you need a way to help yourself get alone and quiet with God.  Maybe you need encouragement to be quiet and still, in the midst of our noisy and busy worlds.

The one I walked was developed by Johny Baker and a very small but very creative group of Christians in London.  The details, including an online version, are here.

If you're feeling stuck and prayerless, perhaps using a new-old format will help.  I hope so.

Obviously, I overestimated my abilities...

...at incorporating edits in the book manuscript, doing layout, etc.  It'll be a couple of days, because the lady who edited/reviewed this for me did a wonderful (detailed) job.  (Thanks, Christina!) I needed this!

Hope for the desperate

He looks and acts kind of like the postman he was; tall, quick-talking and moving.  He hasn’t handled mail for ten years now.  He’s been too busy.

The Clearwater Center of Hope (aka Clearwater Dream Center) exists for the purpose of helping men escape drug and alcohol dependence.  But it never exactly had a master plan.  You could almost say it crept up on Dale and Vicki Hendry.

Dale went to Countryside Christian Center in 1993 after a rough divorce because he thought it would be a good place to look for a new wife.  (Hey, you’ve done some funky stuff, too.)  There, Jesus met him and saved him.  The wife, Vicki, came later, in 1998.  She too was newly Jesus-found.

They started helping people who needed help.  Dale started giving people groceries, eventually handing out 6000 pounds per month.  One person led to another, and another.  By 2000, Dale felt like God was asking him to quit the post office and go to school (Bible, etc.) full time.  I’m pretty sure people said he was crazy.  I’m pretty sure he said he was crazy, a few times.  And more people kept coming.  Somehow, God kept providing enough housing and food for them.

There’s never a shortage of people who need help escaping their chemical prisons.  Even today, partnering with over a dozen other churches and organizations, there’s always a shortage of resources to help them: people, housing, money, and so on.  These men are addicted to powerful drugs.  It takes the strongest drug of all, God, to overcome them.  But God works miracles.  Strangely enough, we’re usually surprised.

God raised up a ministry in the rough High Point neighborhood.  He raised it up independent of traditional churches, but connected to them.  He didn’t insist that the ministry sit under a particular label or franchise.  He just gave a couple a calling, showed them one step at a time, and kept building.  One step at a time.  One man at a time.

The Dream Center program is intense; Monday through Friday are 12-14 hour days.  Study, work, study some more.  Other activities and work fill the weekend.  Accountability is very high.  Not everyone makes it.

Men come in with multiple DUIs, arrests, and often years of jail time.  Many are homeless.  Desperation is pretty much a prerequisite.  Men who choose the God-drug often graduate from the program and stay clean.  Those are the stories that make your heart sing.

Sometimes the stories don’t end so well.  Jason was a major-college graduate, with lots of potential and a crack addiction.  He cycled in and out of the program several times.  While out the last time, he said, “Pastor Dale, I’m going to die out here!”

A few days later, he jumped off a 13-story building.

Those are the stories that break your heart, leave you asking how to go on.  Dale’s buried 9 men who died from their addictions; about one a year.  But God’s call on his life is why he keeps on.  That, the graduates’ success stories, and a couple of core beliefs.

“If you fall, it’s just another step to your recovery.”

“I think of us as standing between these guys and the world; we show the world how we oughta be loving these guys.”

That’s the kind of Good News I need to hear.  And do.  Thanks to all the people who work in and with the Center, a whole bunch of people get to hear and do it, too.

Book status update: post this week?

The book manuscript came back from the editor today. Reading it tonight, incorporate edits/revisions tomorrow, format for paperback, final print/look, then off to CreateSpace for them to produce proof copy. Post on website for download Wed/Thursday. 

Optimistic schedule?  Yes, actually. Why not? :) I love electronics!