Month: November 2018

REBUILDING SHALOM ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME

REBUILDING SHALOM ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME

The ground was thick with men as far as the eye could see, men so jam-packed the mall from the Capitol steps to the Washington Monument that it was hard to move. The year was 1997 and we were there for one purpose: to reaffirm our commitment to the seven promises of a Promise Keeper.

Promise six, reads: A Promise Keeper is committed to reach beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity. Fast-forward twenty-one years and our results are mixed. Despite our best intentions, we still self-segregate in schools, in churches, and social settings. On the national scale, Mr. Obama came to power with great promise for racial reconciliation but left a legacy of nursed grudges. Mr. Trump came to power with the support of white nationalists. As Chuck Colson said, the Kingdom of God will not arrive on Air Force One.

Race relations isn’t the only area where our society is fraying, cultural coherence is also unraveling. Once-strong voluntary associations like the Elks, the Masons, the Lion’s Club, Veterans’ associations, and Rotary find it more difficult every year to recruit and retain members.  Even Promise Keepers, which packed one million men into the mall that day in 1997, has waned. Robert D. Putnam’s best-selling 2000 book, BOWLING ALONE: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, explained that even though more people than ever were bowling, fewer were participating in leagues. This meant they were not nurturing the social networks and civic discourse necessary for a healthy society.

Some argue that social media and soccer moms have filled the gap, but Facebook is not equal to face-time (no, not that Facetime) when it comes to creating healthy community. In fact, I would argue the reverse.

If shalom, the God-blessed flourishing of all people in all communities, is what we want, we must stop bowling alone. And the church should lead the way. Community that builds bridges of understanding, dredges grudged-up swamps, and nurtures the common good (look it up under “love your neighbor as yourself”) is only built by people from different backgrounds and social networks talking face-to-face and working on projects together. You can’t do that on Facebook or gaming with some guy on the other side of the planet.

But you can participate in community building events and associations in your town. And no doubt your church has planned community building events for 2019. I urge you to engage in as many as possible and bring friends. Small groups focus on strengthening the bonds in the body of Christ as well. Commit to one, whether it’s Sunday morning or mid-week.

Rod Dreher, in his sobering work, THE BENEDICT OPTION: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, wrote: “The first Christians gained converts not because their arguments were better than those of the pagans but because people saw in them and their communities something good and beautiful—and they wanted it. This led them to the Truth.”[1]

May God use the beauty of our community to do the same.

[1] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option, New York: Sentinel, 2017. P. 118.

BETTER THAN MEDICINE Health Benefits of a Grateful Heart

BETTER THAN MEDICINE Health Benefits of a Grateful Heart

I have a file labeled: When Science Catches Up with Scripture. Stories from all over find their way into that file; from law, medicine, the natural sciences, child rearing, business, archaeology, and psychology. To qualify, the story must record observations or research on a topic—that’s the science part—that “discover” something already revealed in the Bible. I get a chuckle out of these stories because most of them sound so, “Aha! We’ve found something totally new!” But to those of us familiar with Scripture, they sound like children celebrating when the square block fits the square hole.

I hope to write a book about it one day and if I do the power of gratitude will be one of the chapters.

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT reported on it in 2001 with HAPPINESS EXPLAINED. Harvard Medical School ran a story titled, IN PRAISE OF GRATITUDE in 2011. And BE THANKFUL: Science says gratitude is good for your health, appeared on the Today Show in 2015.

Much of the research on the topic has been performed by Dr. Michael C. McCollough, of the University of Miami, and Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis. A few of their findings on the practice of gratitude include better sleep, lowered blood pressure, and better immune systems. Other researchers found the habit of gratitude associated with less fatigue, lower inflammation, and healthier heart rhythms.[1]

Or, as Scripture has it: A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. [2] That’s the Scripture part, written some 3,000 years ago 😉

But key words in the reports are “habit” and “practice.” Like physical workouts, the benefits of gratefulness come only to those who exercise their gratitude muscles often. Want to bench-press some of those benefits into your life? Try these routines:

Journal your gratitude. Write down five things per week for which you are grateful. The process forces us to pause and think about the good things in our lives and writing makes a permanent record to help us remember. That’s a good thing!

Write thank-you notes. It cheers up others as it increases our gratitude quotient. Win-Win!

Thank your mate daily. Husbands and wives who thank their spouses for the little things have less trouble working through problems in their marriages. Find specific things to thank them for and do it daily.

Compare down, not up, and give something away. It’s easy to find people more privileged and envy them. Most advertisements are designed to make us unhappy with what we have so that we’ll buy something else. But those are gratitude killers. Contentment comes to those who realize how good they have it and share their abundance with others less fortunate.

When Christ’s disciples returned from their first mission trip, they celebrated saying, “Even the demons were subject to us in your name!” But Jesus reminded them: “Do not rejoice in that, but that rather your names are written in the book of life.”  If you have not yet received Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord I urge you to do it today. For He is the greatest of all reasons to give thanks. Thank God for providing you with eternal life through faith in his Son and no matter what troubles come your way, you will always have something to celebrate.

Happy thanks-giving! It’s better than medicine!

[1] Adapted from Lauren Dunn, “Be thankful: Science says gratitude is good for your health,” TODAY (5-12-17)

[2] Tyndale House Publishers. (2013). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Pr 17:22). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

PARTY WITH A PURPOSE

PARTY WITH A PURPOSE

It was a muggy fall evening in 2000 and our youth leader Marty, and I were almost finished. We’d been at the county fair all afternoon conducting surveys to learn the spiritual needs of our community. Among the questions we polled: Do you attend a church? Why or why not? What attracts you to a church or turns you off?

The replies varied on all but the last question: What do you think the county needs most?

Ninety percent responded with, “Something for the youth.”

I was already leading a small outreach to Christian kids on Wednesdays at the middle school, but, frankly, I wasn’t very good at it. Marty was doing a great job with the kids from our church, but they were already “churched” kids and besides, he had a full-time job at the power plant. He was doing as much as he could. A local pastor’s group, of which I was a member, considered opening a youth center downtown, but funding and leadership were insurmountable hurdles, mostly leadership. We knew that anything effective would need a dedicated leader, called to minister to kids, with plenty of time on his or her hands.

Nine years went by and though I prayed about it from time to time, nothing happened. Then one day I got a cold-call, “Hi, I’m Dave Snyder and I’d like to talk to you about a ministry called Young Life.” I had known a Young Life guy in seminary and was impressed so I listened. “My kids are grown, but I feel a burden from God to get something going for the youth. I think Young Life is the way to go. Would you be willing to visit one of their camps and think about serving on a startup committee?”

I visited two camps that season and was so impressed I’ve been involved ever since. Here’s what I learned.

Young Life was founded in 1941 by Presbyterian minister Jim Rayburn. It is known for its high-quality youth camps—they study Disney World for ideas—and enormously fun club nights. They call it a party with a purpose. But it isn’t about the camps, or the clubs, or the party. It’s about the kids.

Teens have tense, pressure-filled, lives. Well over half live in broken homes. Smartphones and social media make escape from peer pressure impossible. Drugs and alcohol are everywhere. The sexual revolution is steam-rolling them into porn addictions, unwanted pregnancy, STD’s, abortion and emotional emptiness. Dave Snyder got involved after attending a law enforcement seminar on growing gang activity in our community.

Young Life starts with concerned adults who are willing to go life-on-life with teens on their turf and in their culture, building bridges of authentic friendship. That takes time, patience, trust, and authenticity. Its leaders go to their games, and hang-out with them at Bojangles to build real relationships. And not just with churched kids, Young Life specializes in developing innovative approaches to reach uncommitted, disinterested teens. It is the most sociologically intelligent outreach organization I’ve ever seen.

Young Life’s mission is simple: Introduce teens—all teens, black, white, Hispanic, everyone—to Jesus Christ and help them grow in their faith. They don’t wait for the kids to come to church, they go where the kids are and earn the right to share the gospel with them.

Most pastors are generalists by default. We do not have the training or the time to invest in teens effectively. Most church youth pastors also play multiple roles for their congregations and can’t spend the necessary time with unchurched kids.

Our county launched Young Life when local teacher, Sarah Reaves, after responding to Dave Snyder’s invitation to attend a camp, volunteered to lead it part-time without pay for its first year. Many kids began relationships with Christ under her leadership. Last year we took a financial risk and invited Matt Rich to lead full-time. He’s been doing great work. Last weekend, twenty-five teens from our community attended fall weekend at a Young Life camp. Eight began relationships with Jesus Christ. I’ve been in ministry over twenty-five years and never seen that kind of effectiveness. That’s why our church has Young Life in its monthly budget.

I hope you will put it in yours.

For more information, or to give online, visit http://www.younglife.org.

OF TIME AND TELOMERES

OF TIME AND TELOMERES

“My arm won’t quit hurting and I can’t figure it out. It hasn’t slowed me down yet, but I’m in constant discomfort.”

“The weather has cleared, and I need to be out working but my back is a wreck. I can hardly move. I’m on my way to the doctor now.”

“My wife used to walk five miles with me every day. Now she can barely make it down the block and the doctors don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I never felt old, but once I did, I got old quick!”

I could fill pages with such quotes, and not all of them from my baby-boomer peers. Some are men and women twenty years or so behind me. They got me thinking about time and telomeres, or frailty, the inevitability of it, and how to handle it.

Telomeres form a kind of protective cap at the ends of our chromosomes. Scientists liken them to the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces that prevent them unraveling. They degrade as we age and as they do, disease becomes more likely.[1] As sure as the sun rises our telomeres will unravel and with them our bodies.

Of course, this is not news. David sang, “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” [2]

And Moses wrote, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”[3]

The young never imagine getting old but are wise to take good care of themselves. I never believed in unions with their high labor costs and productivity choking rules until I saw what low-profit-margin manual labor and inadequate support does to the bodies of young men. It isn’t pretty. Most of them are somewhat crippled by age 55 and unable to work by 60. I still don’t like unions, but young contractors could learn a thing or two from them about the bids they offer and the jobs they take. Their bodies might last longer if they did.

Middle-aged people, even in white collar jobs, can see their slow-down coming. But most don’t take time to think about it. They’re in the middle of margin-less living, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Richard Swenson. And most aren’t setting aside the financial resources that will provide security when they can’t keep up with the guys in their thirties. Spending less and saving more would go a long way to securing their future.

My grandma, who was not known for profanity, shockingly said, “I don’t mind being old, it’s just such hell getting there!” Most senior friends will agree. They know now what their 30-something selves never imagined, and some are depressed by it. But they shouldn’t fall prey to the lie of uselessness. Remember Simeon who blessed the baby Jesus, and the prophetess Anna who did the same (See Luke 2:25-38)? Drink deeply of scripture and develop a life of prayer. Think about the major life lessons you’ve learned—you remember them as stories—and boil them down to short sentences, personal proverbs you can share when the time is right. They are invaluable to the blades of grass coming up behind you.

Frailty is a fact of life, but Christ has overcome it for all who will believe. He died for us that we might live forever and rose from the grave to guarantee that promise. Long after our flower has faded, and our earthly place has forgotten us, we will be living in flawless bodies that time and telomeres cannot touch.

Have you put your faith in him yet?

[1] From Wikipedia.

[2] The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Ps 103:15–16). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

[3] Ps. 90:12