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Lesser Things Than Good News

July 20, 2024

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:31-32)

Church business meetings are a necessary evil. However, evil is frequently the dominant feature of the gathering of the saints, and the salt that can become salty. Instead of direction and vision, the meetings have a way of diminishing into an analysis of the finances, what is being spent to pay the staff, and how the church constitution and by-laws are not being followed.

Doing business has its place. The healthy church deals with the necessary business, trusts and empowers its shareholders and volunteers to minister and serve, and talks about what it looks like to be a church driven by the Good News, the gospel.

Honestly, I can’t remember many meetings where the main, consuming conversational point of the saints was Jesus’s good news. It makes me wonder if we’re so uncomfortable with the gospel that we focus on lesser things. Or you might call it “non-eternal business.”

The gospel takes in the hard-to-believe news that the unloveable are loved, the unforgivable are forgiven, and the unworthy are redeemed. It’s much more comfortable to talk about the lack of quality in the restroom toilet paper rolls and the sad state of the local high school football team.

I confess that there have been many times when I have detoured from the good news to a topic that doesn’t penetrate my heart. It’s easy to steer away from the love story of God to an event that will be forgotten in the next few minutes.

I think of the configuration of most evangelical church sanctuaries, where the pews or chairs are arranged to face toward the pulpit. It’s a visible picture of who we have entrusted the telling of the Good News to…the preacher. He or she has been trained and educated to tell God’s story, and we’re comfortable with that scenario or, maybe better said, it’s more convenient that way.

It seems that those most comfortable with talking about the gospel are those who were as far away as the prodigal son, realized their lostness, and then found their way back to the arms of the Father. It’s hard to continue to talk about the pastries being served when you’ve been eating the scraps that even the pigs didn’t want.

Finally, it’s uncomfortable to talk about a God Who operates out of grace when we’re dealing with our personal vindictiveness, a God of love when we can’t even stand the person sitting in front of us in worship, and a God Who forgives when we crave revenge and ill on our neighbors.

Lesser things monopolize our time and focus and crowd eternal matters out of the agenda. We don’t have to be religiously weird, but there is more to life than the Sunday sports lineup, even if your team is called the Angels or the Saints.

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What Would Offend Jesus?

July 17, 2024

I’m at church camp this week. A mass of hyper-active, high energy, squirrel-ish kids and youth who are wondering if they can survive for a week without social media, AirPods, and other noises they’re addicted to.

We’ve already experienced a few things that are the norm for the younger culture: Flatulence at that climactic point in the message where Jesus is about to say something eternally important, squished up sickly-looking faces at the creamed broccoli on the dinner plate, and kids jumping and dancing as they sing an “active worship” song.

They discover at camp that there is very little that offends Jesus…at camp. Many wonder why so many things in their home churches are viewed as offensive. For example, why do some old-timers at church get all worked up when a young person wears a hat in worship? What difference does a hat make? After all, they take their hats off at the high school football game when the National Anthem is played but wear it for the rest of the night. Why can’t they wear their hats in church, take them off during a prayer, and then put them back on? Does the absence of a hat make them more attentive during the ten minutes of announcements, twenty minutes of singing, and thirty minutes of the pastor’s message?

So, what exactly does offend Jesus? Jesus was irritated by people who looked pious but were void of spiritual hunger and humility. His words in Matthew 23:27 caused a stir. He said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.“

Woe, doggies!

Right before that, he said, “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”

That’s the thing about Jesus. He didn’t mind a little bit of mud, as long as the yearning of a person was for inner cleansing and transformation. In fact, he spit into some dirt, made a couple of mud eye packs, and put them on a blind man’s eyes. Interesting, he used an unsanitary method to heal a man’s inability to see, and wash away the limitations of his life.

What offends Jesus? Our blindness to the dirt in our souls.

The ways we are offended are so often based on culture, how we’ve been raised, and what looks good. Back in the 1900s mostly in Tennessee and Kentucky, many rural Baptist churches had a few holes cut in the floor of the sanctuary (worship room). Men sat on that side of the room, women on the other. The holes were for the tobacco chewers to spit during the service. No one was offended by it. It was a natural part of their culture. I doubt that Jesus was offended, either.

In my years as a pastor, I had people in my congregations who were offended by praise music, MIDI music systems, coffee and/or donuts and/or cookies in the sanctuary, ushers not wearing suits and ties, women ushers, kids not being quiet in worship, moving the fake organ pipes, bulletin mistakes, using the New International Version bible, using The Message paraphrase bible, guitars, drums, new people serving in some capacity, and dried out communion bread.

On the other hand, I’d be hard-pressed to remember people being upset by pride, gluttony, greed, lust, and envy. It’s easy to focus on the outer things we don’t have difficulty with, but others do. That means each one of us has a different shade of whitewash that Jesus sees, and maybe…we’re blind to.

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God’s Order

June 28, 2024

“When a trumpet blast is sounded, the tribes camping on the east are to set out. At the sounding of a second blast, the camps on the south are to set out. The blast will be the signal for setting out.” (Numbers 10:5-6)

My oldest daughter is an organizational guru. In her growing-up years, when we’d plan a vacation, she’d pack a month ahead of time. And then she’d unpack and repack! She’d arrange her clothing in just the right order. Businesses should have hired her to straighten out their messes, but she was only twelve. Now, she has the most organized third-grade classroom in the universe.

I am not that way. Perhaps that’s why I’m so amazed by her. I’m awed by order and structure. Yes, I suppose I have hints of it in my writing. I admire a student who organizes her thoughts in a clear and orderly manner, and the words flow.

I’ve just recently made my way through the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers. One thing I’ve taken from those books is the order of God. For the Israelites, everything had an order to it. Their laws created order. Reading Leviticus can become tedious and repetitious, but it sets in place the system and structure for the people to follow. The Deceiver longs for chaos and confusion, but God desires understanding and consistency.

For instance, the order in which Israel’s twelve tribes marched is spelled out. Everyone had their place, their position. Responsibilities (Today, we call them job descriptions) were spelled out. Numbers 18 gives the duties for priests and Levites, as well as what offerings should go for their support.

Leviticus goes into detail about cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and God desired order and structure in what the people were to do to get back to being clean. For example, if there was a skin rash, it needed to be taken care of. If there was sin, certain sacrifices were required. Sin upset the orderliness of God’s creation.

That order is apparent in the New Testament as well. The Corinthian church had issues in their worship gatherings (1 Corinthians 14), and Paul outlines what is needed to bring order into the midst of what had become chaotic. There was even an organizational structure in the first church that was created to care for widows and orphans, of which there were many. Even God’s concept of sabbath rest has an order and structure to it. Our bodies are wonderfully made in a way that rest (body, mind, and spirit) is an ingredient in a healthy recipe for life. Every sabbath day is a day of recovery and renewal. Not a day every so often, but regularly.

In our culture, chaos is a word that is increasingly used to refer to world situations, family relationships, the weather, and airports the day before Thanksgiving. Chaos is not a pleasant word when we use it in a sentence or a life situation.

On the other hand, many people don’t see the purpose in doing things in order or believe that God has an order for how things should be done. Order…sometimes it sounds so outdated, yet it looks so good in the rearview mirror after we have progressed into the land of troubles.

When we stray or mistrust the plans of God, we open the doors to misery.

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Stumbling In His Hands

June 25, 2024

“The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” (Psalm 37:23-24)

As my basketball-playing days disappear into the rearview horizon, I’ve taken up walking more while listening to music or podcasts. In fact, I walked to Starbucks this morning carrying my backpack like I’m a middle school kid off to school. All I need to complete that picture from yesteryear is my Popeye lunchbox.

Last night, as I was out for a short walk around our neighborhood, it occurred to me that my eyes were surveying the sidewalk in front of me for cracks, pine cones, and stones that might cause me to stumble and fall. I’ve sprained my ankle many times over the years, but at the age of seventy, I have a growing concern about my hips and knees and how a misstep could create a situation that would take a few months to recover from.

It seems that stumbling seventy-year-olds are common. As I stepped off the curb yesterday, I remembered these verses in Psalm 37. The picture of the Lord not letting me fall revealed how loving and caring our God is. I may watch out for pine cones and stones as I’m out for a walk, but the Lord I trust will be close to me as I daily walk with Him. In fact, He promises to be so near me that, as I teeter on the edge of disaster, He will not let me fall.

When shadows conceal the clarity of the way, the One who brings light to dark places gives me peace of mind. Even though I can’t see what lies ahead, he can and upholds me. The Message paraphrase says God “has a grip” on my hand. That reminds me of walks with each of my grandkids in their beginning steps. The unsteadiness of each short stride was evident to anyone watching, but each of them also had an unwavering trust in the one whose hand they grasped.

I thank God that He’s unwavering in His love for me and His watching over and out for me.

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Deaf to Debate

May 19, 2024

Harrison Butker is the placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs and a devout Catholic who believes in the importance of family. In his recent commencement address at Benedictine University in Kansas (a Catholic college), he raised up the importance of family. Unfortunately, some of those who were hearing the speech were deaf to the message because they focused on a couple of sentences. The social media universe was burning up with offended modernists who overheated on his suggestion that some of the young women would be looking forward to the opportunity to get married and raise children more than the careers they would have.

Immediately, offended folk called for the Chiefs to cut him from their team and for the National Football League to take action against him. His message was construed to mean that women should be back in the kitchen and not in the workplace. The truth is, Butker never hinted that the grads couldn’t be a mom and have a career or have a career but not be a mom. His own mom, the lady who modeled motherhood for him, is a medical physicist at Emory University, an occupation I wouldn’t be able to even spell correctly if it weren’t for Grammerly.

His point got lost in all the huffing and puffing that sought to blow him down. He was raising the importance of family in a time when it is often devalued. Taken to a deeper level, individual rights and freedom have become sacred while the importance of family has become irrelevant, a relic left over from the old ways.

Even Bill Maher came to Butker’s defense. He said this:

“I don’t see what the big crime is. I really don’t, and I think this is part of the problem people have with the left. Is that lots of people in the country are like this. Like, he’s saying, ‘Some of you may go on to lead successful careers, but a lot of you are excited about this other way that everybody used to be.’ And, now, can’t that just be a choice too?”

Evidently, for some, it’s now seen as a way of degrading women, minimizing their importance.

My only wish is that Harrison would have raised the importance of the coming opportunity of marriage and fatherhood to the graduating men. I’m guessing that if he had challenged them to be a strong presence in their kids’ lives, to place more value on their family than their career, he would have received standing applause.

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Taking Christian Sides

April 20, 2024

Recently, a speaker at a church gathering made the statement in his address that a person couldn’t be a Christian and vote Democrat. He was adamant about that position in front of a crowd that was probably very lean in the number of Democrats present.

I cringed when I saw the video clip of it. It was a blanket statement, kinda like saying all public schools are demonic or moms who work outside of the home don’t make their kids a priority. In my growing-up days, people who drank beer were looked upon with suspicion by the teetotalers of our Baptist church. How could they drink Iron City beer on Saturday and come to church on Sunday?

We have a way of taking Christian sides, structuring our understanding of what a Christian looks like, and creating a long list of limitations on what isn’t acceptable. In essence, there’s a tendency to limit “who is in” instead of deferring to God’s grace. Like the private entrance to an exclusive club, it has become more the norm to admit only the sanitized rather than believe in a gospel where the doors are thrust wide open.

When asked to preach at a church that required everyone to use the King James Version of the Bible, seminary professor Dr. Al Bean would bring a bible with him that was in Greek and read the passage in the original Greek language. Consequently, he was never invited back to speak at the KJV congregations. He was viewed as having a rebellious spirit.

There is confusion in the Christian ranks over striving for a “sacred throng” versus creating an impenetrable fortress. We forget that the early followers of Jesus were a hodgepodge of outcasts and uninvited commoners, with a few well-to-do and greatly despised mixed in. The common thread, the unifying glue that brought them all together, was Jesus. His followers were as different as night and day, as different as a New York Democrat and a Texas Republican…as different as a corporate lawyer and a supermarket bagboy, but Jesus was the glue.

There is an increasing tendency these days to pull apart instead of holding together. What so often is held onto with a firm grip are the things and ideas that are way down the list in actual importance, while the most important, the things of eternal significance, get shoved out the door.

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Back Issues

April 11, 2024

“Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many.” (1 Corinthians 12:14)

I have the mind of an 18-year-old but the back of a 70-year-old. Translated, that means I can do just about anything…run a marathon, climb Pike’s Peak, build a house…in my mind! In reality, I now can only run a marathon or climb Pike’s Peak if there happened to be a video game or a game app that would have features such as those things.

I could never build a house in any universe, regardless of my youthful mind.

Backs are touchy. They affect everything else that’s happening to you. The first thing in the morning, a back is like a wake-up call as you roll out of bed, reminding you that it’s still attached to you like a bad teenager’s pimple. As you bend to pick up a box, it’s whispering to you, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” As you begin to chuckle at something, Barney Fife does in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, it pinches you back to sensibility.

When a back gets out of whack, it’s not a quick fix to return to health. And the thing is, when you favor your back, it begins to take a toll on other parts of your body that are being relied on more than normal.

It’s not a mistake that “back” rhymes with “whack” and “quack.”

Churches with back issues have a long road to recovery. To be clear, I’m not talking about the wooden pews constructed in the 1800s with an extra dose of hardness pounded into the wood. I’m talking about a church with 10% of its members carrying 80% of the load. They are the ones that a church depends upon to the point of unhealthiness. Like the workers on a moving van, after a few years they have to start wearing special back protection braces to help them keep going. In the ministry of a church, the equivalent of a back brace is something that gets them through another week of overwhelming responsibilities, such as an event, thought pattern, or practice that is totally unconnected to the heavy load of ministry.

Many of the “back people” come to a point where they realize people see them as laborers for the church instead of servants of the Lord. The realization is crushing, and causes disillusionment and exit. Instead of seeing a path back towards health, they see a potholed road that is going to continue to jar and bring hurt to their lives.

On the other hand, the church needs “backs” but healthy backs. Backs that can be depended upon but not overtaxed. Backs that can not just sit around but also should have “carry limits.” They should be the lifters, not just laborers. Too many “backs” in the church are expected to take care of things and people but are seldom cared for by the rest of the Body. And so they wear out, rupture a disc, or experience day-by-day pain.

When Paul gave us the picture of the Body of Christ functioning like the human body, it communicated important principles and wise concepts. No part of the Body of Christ is less important than any other part. And… no part should be expected to be all things.

This 70-year-old still thinks young but is now wise enough to know I can’t do “young things.”

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Making Up Words

April 7, 2024


“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

My wife says I make up words. I hate to admit it, but she’s right. For example, I’ll say “I’m as hungry as a bukie!” “What’s a bukie?” she asks. I don’t know. I don’t even know how to spell bukie, which is why my spellcheck is going inbercitous right now.

Sometimes, I can’t think of a word and I kinda estimate what it might be, like “agritentious” or “predentible.” They just flow from the tongue as authentic as organic peanut butter. I must admit that playing “Words With Friends” on my cell phone has caused me to create pseudo-words that would give me mega-points if they were real…but they aren’t. Like a contestant on “Let’s Make A Deal!” about to see what’s behind Door #3, I bite my lip as I move the last letter into place, hoping that “Z-N-A-X-Q-U-A” has found its place in Webster’s Dictionary.

But then I see one of those commercials for a new drug that is being introduced and ask myself, “How did the drug company come up with a name that only National Spelling Bee contestants can correctly pronounce and spell?”

Teaching English Language Arts in middle school the last few years has made me realize some things about words. One, more kids than not can’t spell worth beans. Two, they don’t use spellcheck. And three, they make up nonsensical words. I could write a buk…I mean, a book about it!

I find that a lot of that happens with Scripture, too. Biblical illiteracy is evident, so people make up things that sound good, words that sound like they belong. It’s the other side of the coin of the tendency to cut out from the Bible the words that aren’t liked and sound too harsh for modern man. After all, doesn’t the Word say “God helps those who help themselves?”

No, it doesn’t. I think that was Ben Franklin. But it sounds logical. It sounds like wisdom that many people have adopted for their lives.

Other folk remember half the words and then make up the rest. They know the Bible says something about getting hit in the jaw, so they finish the verse with “turn the other way before you hit again.” Or they combine verses: “If someone hits you in the cheek, do unto him as he has done unto you.”

It brings to mind Marcion, a theologian from the second century who disliked the Old Testament. He rewrote the New Testament but removed all of the Old Testament references. In essence, he made up his own version of the Bible.

There are parts of the Bible that I don’t fully understand, but they are there for a reason. For example, unclear parts of the building instructions for the new bicycle only make sense after the whole bike has been assembled. I read the Word as it is and trust in God’s sovereignty and grace. It makes more sense than the inbercitousness of “buk.”

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Separation Being a Follower of Jesus From Waving Our Flag

March 29, 2024

I’m an American Baptist.

In saying that, I must clarify what it means. American Baptists trace their roots to Roger Williams, a 17th-century Puritan minister who sensed the tension in a church-state union and established the Providence Plantation in Rhode Island. The plantation was a place where people, according to their convictions, could worship freely, a place where the freedom of religion was valued more than the mandates of the governing body.

Thus, there is confusion these days when the name of my denomination is mentioned. It is assumed that American Baptists are clothed in red, white, and blue and leaning heavily to the right side of the political pendulum. Truthfully, the American Baptist Churches, U.S.A., is about as diverse as a denomination can possibly be.

But I AM an American, firmly planted in the roots of freedom and a student of American History. In fact, I’m currently reading a lengthy biography about James Garfield. Two of my favorite books are Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit. I love our country. I recite the Pledge with my students each school day, and I take my hat off in respect and honor whenever the national anthem is sung.

In these confusing times, I am mindful of the increasing tendency to mix my spiritual freedom with my national freedom, as if they are peanut butter and jelly jammed together.

A new Bible recently introduced includes the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution within its cover. I am thankful for those incredible documents, which form the foundations of our democracy, but I am troubled by their inclusion in any copy of the holy scriptures. It’s another indication that many Americans have a hard time separating their personal walk with Jesus from their commitment to their country.

I can sense it inside church communities where people fear being ostracized for having a different view on an issue. Many communities of faith have been transformed more into resembling political caucus gatherings rather than the coming together of the faithful followers of Jesus. Amid it, the younger generation has become disgusted with the hypocrisy and has largely looked elsewhere, or not at all, for their spiritual fulfillment.

Quite frankly, the new Bible that has recently been introduced ($59.95 plus shipping and handling) seems as if it is more an attempt at gaining the support of a certain group of voters than it is in easing the biblical illiteracy of the American population.

Thus, there is an unsettling intertwining of two very different kingdoms, one not of this world and the other too much of this world. One that is better characterized as humble pie and the other more enamored with the heat rising from apple pie.

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Faith Blame

February 16, 2024

“When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ they replied.

 Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you’;  and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this.’ “(Matthew 9:28-30)

Recently, my wife told me about a sermon she had heard that touched a nerve. Without giving you the long version, I’ll summarize. It revolved around a person who was a part of a church, had cancer, and died. It may have only been one person, or it may have been several, whose cold-hearted analysis was, “Guess he didn’t have enough faith!”

It was a spiritual copout, a way of rationalizing why cancer, or any other disease, isn’t always defeated. Quite honestly, it’s a way for some followers of the Great Physician to protect part of their theology. Here’s the rub. There is nothing wrong with believing that Jesus heals. He does. But when healing doesn’t happen, maybe in the way we perceive it should, it’s bad theology to put the blame on the wounded.

It’s also bad theology to blame the community of faith for not having enough faith, to judge it as being lacking in prayer. After all, when a church loses one of its people, it is just as much a time of grieving for them, a wound to the fellowship, as it is for the family of the departed.

I was looking at “faith situations” in the Gospel of Matthew. Whenever Jesus mentions a lack of faith, he’s talking to His disciples, the very ones to are with Him 24-7. Whenever he mentions faith as what has healed someone, it is in connection with one of the least of these. For instance, Matthew 9 is ripe with stories of healing faith. They include a group of men who bring a paralyzed man to Jesus, a woman with an ongoing female malady, the blind, and the mute. In each situation, Jesus affirms them for their faith.

On the other hand, His disciples are questioned for their lack of faith when it comes to their fears during the storm that descends on the lake that they are sailing across, Simon Peter’s fear in the midst of walking on the water, and when the disciples ask Him why they couldn’t drive out a demon. Jesus seems to shake His head in the moments the disciples trust more in the power of nature than in His power.

Still, trying to wrap our arms around the framework of faith is like trying to catch the wind. It’s mysterious, not able to be packaged, and not restricted by our whims or the moments we spiritually high.

To use the “lack of faith” card to evaluate why someone isn’t healed, in my mind, falls into the same category as the disciples’ debate about who of them would be greatest in the Kingdom of God. It misses the point.

Jesus offers hope, peace, and an eternal relationship. The Holy Spirit comforts us in times of need. What an encouragement it is for someone who is struggling to know that his community of faith offers hope, peace, and comfort. What an encouragement for a discouraged soul to know that he is not alone and that his brothers and sisters are with him.

For someone to blame a loss on a person’s lack of faith is the spiritualized Christian way of really saying, “It sucks to be you!” It’s standing above the hurting instead of standing with them.

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