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Being A Six Foot Ten Inch Friend

February 7, 2014

WORDS FROM WW                                                          February 7, 2014

 

 

“Basketball can sometimes become the gateway to discovering what is really important about life.”

 

Adreian Payne is six feet ten inches tall, and is an All-American basketball player on the Michigan Sate University Spartans. When the NBA draft happens next summer he is projected to go in the first round.

But basketball has become secondary to Adreian this past year, due to an eight year old girl who comes up to about his waist named Lacy Holsworth.

Adreian met Lacy when he and some of his Michigan State teammates had toured the pediatrics ward of Sparrow Hospital the previous basketball season. Lacy had been diagnosed with cancer. As his teammates were about to leave her room she asked Payne to stay for a moment. There had been a bond that she sensed with him. Perhaps it was because Adreian’s mom had died when he was 13, and so he had endured a lot of pain and difficult times in his life. They traded phone numbers that day and began to text one another. After Lacy finished her chemotherapy treatments and returned home she would come to Spartan home games wearing the number 5 jersey- Adreian’s number. He would bring her onto the court during pre-game warmups and have her shoot a few shots. In her bedroom she has an “AP Wall” where she posts newspaper clippings of Payne’s MSU games.

After she and her family returned from a trip to Disneyland she felt a familiar pain in her jaw. The cancer had returned, and chances were good that this time it wasn’t going away. She started chemo treatments again. One day she said absolutely no visitors…except Adreian!

One day when the weather was really bad and he couldn’t get off campus to go visit her in the hospital he tweeted his 18,000 Twitter followers asking them to pray for Lacy.

The prognosis for this little girl is not promising, but Adreian Payne will walk with her through each of the battles.

Basketball has simply become the avenue for his life to journey with her, and although Payne will probably make a good living playing the sport he excels at one little eight year old girl will always help him remember what is really important.

 

Categories: children, Christianity, Death, Faith, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Being Free, Being Passionate

February 3, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                       February 3, 2014

 

 

Two weeks ago I wrote about my former college classmate, Tom Randall, who was being held, along with two Philippino men, in a jail in the Philippines. After 22 days the charges against Tom were dropped and he is now free.

Praise the Lord!

The other two men, Toto and Jake, are still being held at this point.

As I’ve been reading the daily updates from Tom’s wife, Karen, who I also went to school with, I’ve been amazed by the stories that have come out of Tom’s imprisonment. First of all, over 58,000 people have “Liked” the “Free Tom Randall” facebook page. the prayer support and encouraging words have been incredible.

But then there’s the stories! Tom Randall is passionate about the gospel. He understands the rescue that God did in his life many, many years ago. He has experienced a sense of peace in his life that was punctuated with restlessness. He knows the hope that can stay within a person when everything seems to be falling apart.

His passion for living a life that makes a difference for others has been evident. The charges that had been leveled against him came out of accusations about the treatment of some of the children at the orphanage that he has operated for the past thirty years. Understand that Tom began the orphanage to help rescue lives of kids who had no hope. As time goes on it will become clearer as to how these accusations came to be, but for now it is important to note that the orphanage was begun out a man’s heart for kids…hope for the hopeless. It’s an indicator of what his life is about.

In his time of incarceration he shared the gospel with a number of the men who were locked up with him. He introduced Jesus to them, and several became followers of Christ behind the iron bars of a cell.

It tells us that a person’s passion does not fade away just because his surroundings take a significant dive. Tom would probably say, although I’m presuming here, that God orchestrated this whole thing so he could be a proclaimer of the good news to some men who desperately needed to hear it. So us it is hard to see the “forever of a person’s soul”, but God demonstrates his love for all of us in the creating of temporary harshness for everlasting change.

How will this experience change Tom and Karen? It will only make them more resolved to love the people they have been serving. Passionate people rarely have their flame fade, but rather burn more intensely because of their experiences.

Perhaps the more significant question is how will this experience change us…the thousands of people who have been following it? My hope is that it will give us more resolve to be agents of change wherever God has placed us to serve, that we will seek to be people who will make a difference for the Kingdom.

A passionate life is never totally free because the calling won’t release us from it’s urgency.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Waiting For A Word

January 23, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                   January 22, 2014

 

     I wrote a couple of days ago about Tom Randall’s being held in a Philippino jail. Evidently, this is not a cell like the one Marshall Dillon watched over in Gunsmoke. This is a cell with about 40 men in it, all of them…waiting.

Waiting is an active part of our lives. Waiting in traffic, waiting in the dentist office, waiting for a parent-teacher conference, waiting in an airport terminal, waiting for an answer. Waiting halts us and frustrates us, because we don’t know when the next step will occur…or what the next decision will be.

For those of us here in the U.S. we’re waiting for a word as we go about our routines and conquer our “To Do” list. For Tom and Karen, and their friends Toto and Jake, the waiting is taking on another form. How do you wait in a cell with forty other guys?

You pray, try to remember moments from your past, battle through discouragement and delays. What I’m praying for is that Tom and Karen would be encouraged, stay encouraged, and hope would be a flame that grows brighter within them.

From reports I’m seeing on the “Free Tom Randall” Facebook page, he’s battling an illness that is weakening his physical condition. The danger sometimes in waiting is that things digress. For Tom that’s physically, for others it’s is emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. For many it is the slipping away of all four areas.

If prayer is all we can do on this side of the ocean let us do it with perseverance and power. Although it’s hard to believe, I believe that God, first of all, hears our prayers and, secondly, knows when the optimal time is for them to be answered. Waiting is part of the road leading to the resolution.

And it’s hard!

In Karen’s post today she said a group of pastors had come to the jail and prayed with the men. They were a huge encouragement.

We don’t see all the pieces until we get to the opening for that last piece to fit into and then it makes sense, or as much sense as it can to us. Perhaps a group of pastors from that area coming and praying with Tom is a seed of growth that will happen. Perhaps almost 25,000 Facebook likes is a beginning of a movement about helping not just Tom, but the people he has served and loved.

We must wait, but I pray that our waiting will not be without a celebration moment at the end.

Free Tom Randall!

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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A Guy Named Tom

January 21, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                  January 20, 2014

 

                                     

 

I went to college with a guy named Tom Randall. He had grown up in Detroit, gone to Redford High School, and had a tough outer core about him. We ran cross country and played basketball together at Judson College. Tom was one of the most popular students on our small campus. Being 6’5” made him stand out in the crowd, but he was also an amazing athlete, a stand-out basketball player.

This past week he was arrested, along with two other men, in the Philippines and charged with sex trafficking. Our tendency these days is to hear that someone has been charged with a crime and decide he is guilty as charged. Sex trafficking is a horrendous crime that is rampant across the world. To be charged with it immediately gives most readers a picture of the person as cruel and heartless.

Since I’ve known Tom since 1974, and I’ve seen his journey, I am firm in my belief that he is innocent. The evidence of his life is my convincing of his innocence.

Let me tell you a little bit about him. He became a follower of Jesus in the spring semester of his senior year of college. I would say his decision to be a Christ-follower was the result of the influence of a multitude of people upon his life…guys who played on the basketball team, professors, college administrators, coaches, and his wife-to-be, Karen. Shortly after Tom became a believer he began working in a factory in Elgin, Illinois, making a little bit of income as he faced graduation. He would go into the Director of Admissions, Press Webster (a memorable first name for us all), and talk to Press, and then he would look at all the Bibles that were on one of the bookcases in Press’s office.

“Press, what are you doing with all of those Bibles?”

      “Well, Tom, they are just there.”

      “I’ve got guys down at the factory who don’t have Bibles. They could put those to use.”

      “Well…okay Tom, take a couple of them.”

So Tom would take a couple…and then a couple more..and then a couple more. A little while later Press, who often had to travel for the college, came back to his office to discover his shelves of Bibles were empty.

“Tom, did you take all of my Bibles?”

     “Yes, Press! Do you have any more? I gave them out to the guys that work at the factory.”

     “Did you have to take all of them?”

      “Press, they weren’t doing anybody any good just sitting on your shelf!”

     That what the beginning of his ministry. Soon after college he went to the Philippines where he played professional basketball for a while, and then was involved in a sports ministry where he would travel around in the country, play basketball, and share the gospel. He began a ministry in the Philippines in 1979.

Because of health issues he and Karen had to come back to United States about fifteen years ago and Tom became the Chaplain of the PGA Champions Tour. He would do Sunday chapels, Bible studies, and be available for counseling for any of the senior golfers.

The last fifteen years or so he and Karen have traveled back to the Philippines for a couple of months each year. Their practice is to be their for the month of December. Tom has also taken a basketball team on a tour for a week each year, playing games in different locations, and then sharing the gospel. Their ministry, World Harvest Ministries, continues in the Philippines.

Now, after a lifetime of work and ministry, he’s being held in a jail. Karen has shared that he has been able to give Bibles to several of the other cellmates that are in the crowded room with him. So, in essence, he keeps being a proclaimer as a prisoner.

I don’t know how this will turn out. He has a hearing on Wednesday, January 22. He has a legal team that is representing him. For now we are praying and waiting. I hope you will also.

The evidence of his life is my convincing of his innocence.

     I encourage you to check out one or more of these social media information sites about Tom and Karen’s situation and their ministry.

Facebook pages:  “Free Tom Randall”

“World Harvest Ministries”

web site: “tomrandall.org”

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Worship That Is Dangerous!

December 19, 2013

“Where is the one who has been born long of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)

 

“The elephant in the room” in King Herod’s court was that there was a different star in the sky then his. If Herod could have been voted deity status he would have gladly accepted. In fact, he expected to be worshiped like a god. To have wise men from a long distance away come looking for someone else who they deemed more important than Herod spelled trouble.

It disturbed him, and when he was disturbed he was usually perturbed! Having Herod perturbed was a recipe for disaster for some unfortunate people around him.

Worship is at the core of the church and for followers of Christ, but worship is recognizing that it is about someone other than myself. I’m not the focus. Some people get perturbed with that.

Recently I read an article about some “rock star worship leaders” who were having a tough time. Some of them, brought into mega-church settings to lead worship, were getting disenchanted…and some were getting fired…because they were trying to create a concert-like atmosphere that brought the spotlight upon themselves. In the concert scene of our culture that was the norm, but in church the focus of worship is on the One we are sining to.

Here’s the weird thing! If we focus our worship, individually and corporately, upon the Lord, it will have a strange side effect of inspiring ourselves. Some people don’t get that, and some people are pretty perturbed by that, but “wise men still seek him!”

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Recognizing The Change

December 18, 2013

 

 

I get pretty comfortable with how things work, and how things are suppose to be. For example, I have the same routine each morning after I wake up…unless I go to the YMCA and work out first. Any other day I get up and shower, brush my teeth and then shave. I never shave before the teeth are clean. Go figure! It’s just how it has been and is.

But I’m also a “stuck-in-the-mud” with how things work. I’m used to things being plugged in. Toaster, TV, room air conditioner, coffee maker.

And so it took me a long time to understand and adjust to the new term wireless. Wireless technology seemed to weird to me for a long, long time. I didn’t trust it. If plugged-in gadgets were good enough for my grandfather then they were good enought for me.

I, however, have made the change. I finally recognized that the change was a good thing, even if it was a new thing.

When Jesus came as a new born a “new thing” was beginning. The old thing was familiar, but the new happening required a shift.

On Christmas Eve we sing about the new thing that is about to happen- Jesus is about to be born. But here’s THE thing! God becoming man was meant to tell us about a change- a change that God wanted to see happen within each of our lives. He wanted to see peace on earth…and in each one of us. He wanted to see hope realized in my life and your life.

The story of the birth of Jesus is about a new creation…our new creation…from death to life…from despair to delight…from judgment to joy.

Sometimes things have to be surrendered to.

I pray that this Christmas changes you in God-glorifying ways!

Categories: children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, love, Pastor, Story, The Church
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Leaning on Crutches

December 13, 2013

 

 

I’m sitting in the office of an orthopedic specialist waiting for my daughter. She hurt her ankle playing soccer, and is now walking around with a boot on her left foot and a pair of crutches.

To say that she despises crutches would be an understatement. She hisses at them as she picks them up.

But she needs them, and she needs to lean on them.

Of our three kids she is the one who is most independent and self-sufficient. She can accomplish most of her tasks on her own, and yet when an ankle goes…she needs to lean! In a few days…or (Don’t tell her this!) a few weeks she won’t need the crutches any more, but for now she needs to just live with the hiss.

Sometimes things happen in our life that require a dependency on God that we’re not used to. We talk about being God-dependent all the time, but…we know how to walk! We don’t need crutches! Leaning on God means going at his pace and being led by his Spirit.

Mary’s life was going along as she had planned. She was going to marry Joseph and live a simple life with a few kids in a small community. And then the angel gave her some news that caught her off balance. She was going to be the first virgin to give birth to a child…and he would be the Christ-child…not just any Tom, Dick, and Harry! She had to learn to lean.

Leaning is trusting in uncomfortable ways.

As you look at your life where do you need to lean a little more and trust…and not see the leaning as a crutch that keeps you from experiencing reality, but rather leaning on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.

 

Categories: children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story
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Pregnancy Stories

December 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                 December 5, 2013

 

                                     

 

     When pregnant women converge it is best for men to keep some distance! That isn’t because the women become violent, but rather that they share a bond together that, try as we may, men don’t quite understand. Pregnant women speak a different language. They talk about baby names, breastfeeding, the doctor who will deliver the baby, “Babies-R-Us”, labor pains, and swelled ankles. 

     Most men want to talk about some of those things, but only with the woman that is going to give birth to their child. Men rarely mix conversation of deer hunting season, the BCS football national championship game, and the best tires to buy for their vehicles with talk about 2 A.M. feedings and what they will do to pass the time in the birthing room. 

     When I read the birth narrative story in Luke I notice the moment where Mary greets expectant Elizabeth. She has been told by the angel that Elizabeth is pregnant and is “in her sixth month.” (Luke 1:36b)

     The story proceeds this way:

   “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’” (Luke 1:39-43)

     There was a bond between two pregnant women, and more than that, a revelation within both of them as to what was going on- an old woman expecting her first child, and a virgin impossibly pregnant. They begin speaking a new kind of language that only the two of them could understand. Something of the Lord was happening in each of their lives. 

     It was an improbable meeting. Elizabeth great with child, and Mary, were assuming, just beginning her pregnancy. For three months they shared pregnancy stories, but more than that, shared stories about expectancy…what was God going to do through their two sons!

     

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, love, Parenting, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Moving the Cross Outside

December 5, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     December 4, 2013

 

                                  

 

In our decorating of the sanctuary for the Advent season we needed to move some things around. There needed to be space for a place where Christmas cookies and coffee urns were available, and a few Christmas trees that were promoting the theme of our children’s Christmas program.

In the back of our sanctuary there is a eight foot tall heavy wooden cross that has it’s own handcrafted stand. We use it during the season of Lent and move it to the front of the sanctuary. For those who are wondering, there is another cross mounted on the wall at the front of the chancel area.

So this year we moved the cross outside. It is propped up beside a utility shed, looking lonely and forgotten as we celebrate the birth of the Christ-child.

The symbolism of the events has not gone unnoticed by me, although our congregation does not think the cross is an irrelevant relic.

I do, however, believe that we would rather push the Cross of Christ to the side because it makes us too uncomfortable. If you read the history of crucifixions you will discover how brutal they were. The Romans of Jesus‘ day were known for their brutality.

I feel more at peace when I look at a manger surrounded by hay and farm animals than I do with an execution scene complete with the gambling of the executioners to win the robe of one of those men who is hanging above them.

As followers of Jesus we must understand that “the way” goes through the Cross.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Seeing Your Child’s Future

December 2, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                         December 2, 2013

 

“Words from WW” will be doing a series of blog posts during Advent. Please feel free to share then with others.

 

                                    

 

How would it effect us as parents if we were able to see what our child’s life will be focused on in the future…but we will see it now? How might the hopes of our hearts for our children blossom if someone told us the future impact of the little one that is crawling around on the floor around our feet?

Advent is about hope and promise. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the temple of the Lord as Zechariah was burning incense and going through the duties of the priest, he shared the future of Zechariah’s son, who had not yet even been conceived.

“Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous- to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:16-17)

     It was an angelic proclamation of what was to be. It left Zechariah dumbfounded. He had resolved himself to being a father to no one. His wife was far past the age of childbearing. His future was simply a picture of the two of them growing old together, never enjoying the sounds of infant laughter and conversations of discovery with a child who asked endless questions of “why?”

And then he’s confronted with the news not only of a pregnancy that will start soon, but also of what his offspring will do with his life, the coming again of another Elijah.

Most parents worry about their children. First there is getting them through adolescence and orthodontics; then comes paying for college, followed by the anxiety of finding a job after college. Parents worry that their children will never reach their potential, that the dynamics of out times weigh against twentysomethings.

So, what would it mean for a parent to know that his child will have a life of impact and purpose?

But, in essence, God does have that in his plan! He desires that each one of us live a life of fulfilled promises. Sometimes we just have a hard time believing it.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, Jesus, Parenting, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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