Brandon C. Jones's Blog, page 15

Sleep Through the Static (Our Hundredth Post!)

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis’s book, Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission , is a helpful resource on how churches can transform from people that meet an hour a week into communities that proclaim and display the good news of God’s kingdom in the context of their everyday lives.
When discussing pastoral care, which is the responsibility of every Christian—not just paid pastors, Chester and Timmis highlight four truths that even Christians overlook:·      God is great (so we do not have to be in control)·      God is glorious (so we do not have to fear others)·      God is good (so we do not have to look elsewhere)·      God is gracious (so we do not have to prove ourselves)
How often do we tell ourselves each of these truths? How often do we tell other Christians? How often do we tell people in our community?
If we are not proclaiming this good news, and it really is good news, chances are people are hearing other voices that drown them out. Chester and Timmis say people often believe distorted truths or outright lies instead of God’s truths, and the results are disastrous.
One reason people tune out God’s truth is because of the constant presence of other noise in their lives; think of it like the white noise of static. The static can come in different forms as long as it is a constant presence in our lives. Static can make everything urgent, everything hopeless, or everything doomed to the point where we feel anxious and uncomfortable at all times. We become distracted easily from what matters most: the good news of the kingdom of God.
In response, God has aimed to transform elements of our daily lives, including breath, light, sunlight, bread, and water into opportunities for us to receive his grace, but the static of the world all too often bleats out God’s voice. We cannot even take a break from the static to receive worship while we fritter about, distracted from God’s rhythms of work, rest, praise, prayer, Word, and sacrament.
If we struggle to rest on God’s promises, then chances are others struggle too. Might we make it a point to insert God and his truths into our daily conversations? What would it look like were we to tell people through our talk and our actions that God is great, God is glorious, God is good, and God is gracious? What would it look like if we were known more for our God-talk than whatever hobby-horse issue we happen to be known for instead, whether it’s being a fan of a certain sports team, proprietor of a certain business, or expert on a certain subject?
Throughout Scripture God speaks to his people, but they don’t often listen. I fear I do not listen to the voice of my heavenly Father very well either. How about you? One thing we can do is speak his promises everyday through our own lips. We would change the effects of the world’s static not only on our own lives, but also on those who hear and see us everyday. 

Reformation Day and the Baptists

Almost five hundred years ago today, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther wrote to his local Archbishop, protesting the church’s practice of selling indulgences, mainly to poor people, in order to raise funds to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. His letter included 95 theses in which he challenged the practice with key questions and points. Among his objections was the notion that the church seemed intent on taking over God’s prerogative in forgiving sins through Christ by advertising that people’s sins can instead be forgiven by giving money to the church. Luther’s arguments quickly spread as they were translated from Latin into German and copied through printing presses. As Luther’s fame spread he continued to publish commentaries and discourses that challenged common church teachings and practices of his days. Within a few years Luther was summoned by the powers that be to appear before a hearing and either renounce his views or take ownership of them and face the consequences. He chose the latter, and with his decision what we now call the Reformation had officially begun. October 31st is now known as Reformation Day, commemorating a key event in the history of God’s people, the church, and as Baptists Reformation Day can be our day too.


The word Protestant has become empty of the meaning it used to have. Luther and most all the others who protested against the church centuries ago had hoped their efforts would help the church see its error and return to its rootedness in Scripture. But that never happened. Some Christians recognized this sooner than did others. As the Bible was translated into people’s native languages and printing presses made copies of Scripture available to all kinds of people who never had access to it before, issues arose in which Christians would find Scripture supporting a variety of beliefs and practices regarding things such as the government of the church, the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, the meaning of baptism, and so on. Some people, but we won’t call them Christians, even re-opened issues that were discussed centuries ago among a majority of Christian leaders such as which books are genuinely God’s Word, whether God is Father, Son, and Spirit, and whether Jesus was fully divine and fully human. As things were settled during the first few centuries of the Reformation both through heated church disputes and even political disputes/wars, the landscape of Christianity in the West eventually stabilized and has looked mostly the same for the past two hundred years.
I grew up in an American tradition that traces its roots back to 1949 in Ft. Worth, Texas. Some people would say the roots of the tradition of my youth really go back to John the Baptist as they follow what they call a “trail of blood” throughout the history of the church in which the church constantly persecuted the “true believers” of Christ. Those who agreed with the “trail of blood” story would look back on the history of the church from the close of the first century onward as mostly bad until their group came along to set everyone straight. They would not use the word “Protestant,” because they felt as if their group and its heritage never protested to reform anything since they were never a part of the official church from the start.
Several years ago I learned that the “trail of blood” was a nice story, but nothing more than that. Historically, Baptists have a rich heritage that goes back to England in the early seventeenth century among people who insisted both on a separation of church and state and on baptizing only people who publicly confess faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Baptists called for a further reforming of Protestant churches, and so on October 31st even Baptists can recognize our place within the story of God’s people. We call others who believe in the same gospel as us brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we differ on certain doctrines and practices that are not essential to the gospel itself. We also recognize that there is much more that ties God’s people together than separates us.
This Reformation Day be thankful that we worship a God who speaks. He has spoken through prophets of old. He has spoken through Christ. He has spoken through his Word. And, yes, he has spoken through his churches too. The first few chapters of the book of Revelation include messages from Christ to individual churches in the first century. I think of them often because they tell me Jesus hears each church. He knows each situation personally. And, even if a church is thoroughly imperfect, he loves them—even the lukewarm ones.
John’s Gospel includes a prayer from Christ to the Father on the night he was betrayed. In that prayer Jesus says, “My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (17:20-23). Sadly, Reformation Day also reminds us that Christ's church is not unified, but split into a thousand pieces. I know why people say "Happy Reformation Day," but as Stephen Holmes argues, "happy" may not be the right word.
Lord, as your children, may we find unity in you, despite our diversity. Amen!

Oh, Bother! No One’s Listening

If you are a parent with small kids, then you probably know some of your kids’ favorite books. The movie Despicable Me includes a few scenes with a beloved book that the main character had to read at bedtime to three small children before the book was “accidentally destroyed maliciously.” There are some books in our house that I have wished were destroyed too. Other books, though, I enjoy quite a bit, including a book from the Hundred Acre Woods at Pooh Corner entitled Oh, Bother! No One’s Listening. I won’t spoil all the plot twists and turns of this children’s book, but the title already tells you everything you need to know about it. There are times when people, even those closest to you, aren’t listening. Group settings, like most stories in the Hundred Acre Woods, make listening even more elusive, even among a bunch of close friends like Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and the rest of the gang.



In my training to be a pastor and teacher I’ve taken numerous classes aimed toward homing my communication skills, but this fall I have been challenged for the first time to develop my listening skills. You read that right; listening is a skill. In some ways it is a harder skill than speaking, because it requires compassion, humility, and curiosity in others. None of those things comes easy, so we often replace listening with waiting our turn to speak next. In a group setting, we may one-up people constantly by downplaying other people’s concerns, reassuring them that we are immune to whatever is ailing them, or sharing an amazing story that makes us look good, all the while never bothering to listen to anyone but ourselves.
If you have small kids, it is no wonder they love books entitled Oh, Bother! No One’s Listening. We big people are much too important and busy to take the time to care about the concerns of the little people in our lives by actually listening to them. As we grow up we just get used to people refusing to listen to us, so we return the favor by never listening to others.
As a result our compassion and love for others grows cold. We tire of stories we’ve heard countless times without once trying to figure out what the storyteller is really trying to tell us about how they feel here and now. We never allow people to develop their thoughts. Instead of silently counting to ten before taking our turn to speak, we ignore everything the other person is saying while thinking up what we will say next. We may be polite and refuse to interrupt someone else mid-sentence, but as soon as we have our chance, maybe a breath from the other person, we will seize our turn to talk again.
Listening skills will not change overnight, but like all other aspects of life they will never change until we first desire and then act to change them.Mister Rogers, who was on public television for years, carried a piece of paper on him that read, “Once you know a person’s story, then you can love anyone.” And it’s right. The Bible spends most of its pages telling us a story about God and his people. There are plenty of details that are surprising, while some things seem boring to us today. All along, God is telling you and me where we fit within the greater story of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation.
Throughout Scripture God says plenty, but he also listens plenty. The longest book of the Bible, the Psalms, are part of God’s Word to us and yet every word of the Psalms was written for God to hear. He has heard such words again and again for centuries, not to mention all the prayers he invites us to share with him. Jesus went from town to town teaching, but he also listened to people he met. He often listened to them on their own turf, whether seated at a well or at someone else’s home. Jesus’ presence with others and caring for them offended the self-righteous people in every corner. For they thought sinners were not worthy of being listened to by such good and upstanding people as them.
As God’s church, he has placed us in communities full of people made in his image with unique stories of their experience being human in our fallen world. If we will not take time to listen to them, why do we expect them to listen to us when we proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom? The self-righteous always have news to share, but it is rarely good news to anyone who is listening. In contrast, Jesus has called us to carry out his mission of proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom, which is a task he himself often began by listening to others. What would happen if we started proclaiming Jesus’ message by following Jesus’ example? I’d love to find out.

If you are interested in developing your listening skills, I highly recommend John Savage’s Listening & Caring Skills: A Guide for Groups and Leaders (Nashville, Abingdon, 1996).

The Cross and the Jukebox - A Recommendation

The movie High Fidelity focuses on the owner of a record store and his ups and downs in life. This man doesn't own a record store for mad profits; he owns it because he loves music. Music speaks to his soul as art, and he can't get enough of it. When wooing a lady he would make mix-tapes to express his feelings. Some of you reading this get what I'm saying, while others may like music some, but don't really get into it that much. And that's okay.

But if you love music, if you define it as an art, if your moods, emotions, and past experiences in life have a soundtrack to them, then I highly recommend checking out Russell Moore's podcast series "The Cross and the Jukebox." Moore focuses mostly on country music, but there are some folk, pop, and rock songs he includes as well. Moore's series includes songs of pain, brokenness, and hurt, as well as others that speak to situations in our country's past as Moore relates each song to the message of the gospel.
In High Fidelity the characters often discuss "top-five" songs for certain occasions. Recently, a friend of mine asked for my top-five songs that cause theological contemplation:
1) "Casimir Pulaski Day" by Sufjan Stevens



This song is a story about a boy remembering a friend who died of cancer when they were young. He sings about a night at Bible study when "we prayed over your body, but nothing ever happens." Toward the end he sings about Jesus and says that he "takes and he takes and he takes." There is a double meaning to Jesus' taking. He took his friend. She died. But he also took our place.
2) "Intervention" by Arcade Fire

This song speaks of someone fighting battles for the church but losing the war at home. A haunting line describes someone "singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart." I've thought of it before when singing in my church.
3) "I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie

This band's name doesn't ever fit their music, and this song is an honest look into what someone who left religion behind thinks about death. Strangely, he sings about holding his girl soon after death "in the blackest of rooms." Quite a contrast to the white light you often hear about.
4) "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles

"All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?" Is not Christ's church meant to be a family so intimate that our community ought not have such lonely people among us?
5) "Time" by Pink Floyd

A poignant description of life as we grow up, grow old, and then find ourselves "hanging on in quiet desperation" with "plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines." Boy, life can leave you directionless without a guide. Know of any?
Well, that's my list. What would yours look like?

Searching for Love while Down and Out in Paris and London

My grandparents lived through the Great Depression. I once heard a story from my grandmother about the time she retraced her steps for over an hour while walking along an arid pasture near Clyde, Texas because she thought she might have walked by a nickel. When I was in college and long labeled a “career student” by my grandfather he was always asking if I needed money. Sometimes I did, but most of the time I did not. I always worked part-time and even some full-time jobs while in college, but my grandfather worried anyways. He would often say, “I just don’t want to see you get destitute.”
Destitute is a word forgotten by people my age. My grandparents’ generation lived it. They had stretches where they could not take for granted the basic necessities of life. There was no easy credit. There was no governmental safety net. When you were broke, you were broke, and you might be without a place to live, decent clothes to wear, and basic hygiene, all of which would make finding any job difficult. I used to have no idea what that would be like until I recently read George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.
Orwell never says how or why he ended up broke in Paris, but he writes of his experiences living in a run-down apartment and trying hard to make it through daily life. There is a friendship with a Russian waiter, a cat-and-mouse game with their landlords, pawn shop exploits, run-ins with cagey socialists (who were more likely con men acting as socialists), and vivid descriptions of what life as a busboy was like in the late 1920s. Orwell then follows the lead of supposedly steady work across the channel to London, but the job doesn’t pan out and he fares even worse while there.
In England laws were different than in Paris, so charity houses were set up to keep “tramps” on the move. They would spend each day traveling to a new hostel in which they could only stay one night and then move on again the next day. It was obviously a short-term “solution” to a long-term problem, but whoever considered politicians to be any good at tackling something even just one second longer than their current term in office?
Orwell also writes of his experiences with church soup kitchens, and as a pastor it was painful to read his descriptions from the other side of the exchange. The whole bait and switch seemed apparent. Come for free tea and toast, but then stay through our worship service in which we have a special message just for the “unsaved sinners” among us today. When Orwell describes one such church service he concludes, “A man receiving charity practically always hates his benefactor—it is a fixed characteristic of human nature; and, when he has fifty or a hundred others to back him, he will show it.”
Of course, not every run-in with Christians was negative for Orwell. One clergyman simply gave meal tickets to those who needed it without preaching at anyone, and Orwell noticed how there was genuine gratitude felt toward that clergyman instead of contempt. Of course, the consensus among the tramps receiving their tickets was that such a good clergyman would never become a bishop!
Orwell finishes his book by sharing what he learned from being destitute in two of the largest cities on earth: “I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.”
What I learned from Orwell is confirmation of what McGill identifies as the difference between love and mere charity. Inasmuch as love is self-giving, opens us up to neediness, and brings us back to the God who loves us, charity received is as cold and callous as charity given. This is not to say that charity is pure evil, after all, Orwell and the crowd he ran with utilized it begrudgingly. But charity is not the same as love. Charity talks, while love listens. Giving charity is painless, but love requires you to enter someone else’s pain. Few people want to do that because, as John Savage argues, “you can enter the pain of another only at the level you can enter your own.”
We have strong and creative ways of protecting ourselves from our own pain, and might our preference of charity over love be another mode of protection? Jesus did not say that the world will know his people by their charity. He said we would be known by our love. What are you known for?

Learning By Doing

You cannot learn how to swim on the Internet, so Brandon Bass has joined a swim class at the Boston Sport Club swimming pool. Most of the class members are in elementary school, but not Brandon. He is 28 years old, has a height of 6 feet and 8 inches, and weighs around 260 pounds. If you follow the NBA, then you may recognize him as a player for the Boston Celtics. Brandon has a young boy who knows how to swim and encouraged his Dad to learn how too.
Was it embarrassing to join a kids’ swim class? Yes, a little. Was Brandon scared to get in the pool? Yes, a lot. He never grew up around swimming pools, so he does not even know how to float. He cannot even tread water. But instead of letting his pride and fears rule him, he knows it is a good idea to learn how to swim. He wants to be able to enjoy swimming with his kids and be there to help them were they ever in need of help while in the water.
Some things in life you can only learn by doing, and being a Christ-follower is one of those things. Christ was sent to proclaim good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43). Christ sent his followers to do the same (Luke 9:2). You cannot learn how to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God without actually doing it. Is it embarrassing? Sometimes. Will it make you feel anxious and nervous? Sometimes. But Christ, our master, has sent us to do something, not just learn about it and discuss it among ourselves, although those can both be helpful activities. The best way to learn how to do it is through practice, ideally under a mentor within a church.
Jesus mentored his followers before sending them out together. As his people we are to mentor others. If we are not being mentored by someone, then we ought to be someone’s mentor. Being a mentor does not mean you are a walking biblical scholar. It does not mean that you have the answer to every question imaginable. It does not mean you live perfectly without error. It simply means that you are in the practice of proclaiming good news of the kingdom of God, perhaps you are even proclaiming it by displaying it in your everyday life.
Christ told us to go and make fellow Christ-followers. Francis Chan once talked about having children and telling them to clean their room. Any parent can relate to this command. What if, Chan says, your child returns to you excitedly and tells you, “Dad, thank you so much for your command. We kids had a talk about what it means to clean our rooms and even discussed ways we might be able to clean them some day in the future.” Did they obey? No. The best way to learn how to clean your room is by doing it, and a good parent will be happy to mentor you as you learn.
Brothers and sisters, what is keeping you from learning how to be a Christ-follower? Are you out of the practice of proclaiming good news of God’s kingdom? Are you satisfied discussing and reading about it without ever doing it? It’s time to get in the pool.

I Imagine That Today I Am to Die

The late Jesuit priest Anthony De Mello examined his conscience often and shared his system with others. His words are in italics:
I imagine that today I am to die.
I ask for time to be alone and write down for my friends a sort of testament for which the points that follow could serve as chapter titles.
1. These things I have loved in life:
            Things I tasted: Kansas City barbecue, seared scallops, medium rare steak, and ice cold             
            beer.
            Looked at: Beaches, mountains, canyons, prairies, my wife’s eyes that bounce around as                   
            they look into mine, and my children faces.
            Smelled: Cooking and canning, grilling, and the homes of loved ones who have passed.
            Heard: Laughter, waves on the beach, and all sorts of music.
            Touched: My wife, my children (especially their hair), my parents, grandparents, sister,             
            baseball bats, golf clubs, and garden plants.
2. These experiences I have cherished: Whitewater rafting, relaxing at the beach with my wife, our wedding, going to the Indy 500 with Dad and later Devil’s Tower with Mom, holding infants in my arms and gazing into their little faces.
3. These ideas have brought me liberation: My relationship with God defaults to “on.” God says “yes” to me in Jesus Christ.
4. These beliefs I have outgrown: My relationship with God defaults to “off.” People must perform to be accepted and loved.
5. These convictions I have lived by: Creation, fall, redemption, and new creation.
6. These are things I have lived for: Gospel of Jesus Christ, family, friends, and God’s gift of the arts.
7. These insights I have gained in the school of life:                        Insights into God: What it means for him to belove itself.
            The world: Ambivalence, because it’s one big beautiful mess.
            Human nature: Ambivalence, because we are one big beautiful mess.
            Jesus Christ: As his siblings we are one with him and are to look for him in others.
            Love: It is self-giving, so it opens us up to neediness. It’s not philanthropy.
            Religion: It involves our whole selves, bodies too. We are not the heads on sticks that             
            moderns liked to think we were.
            Prayer: Short and sweet prayers are just fine. It’s okay to be repetitive too.
8. These risks I took, these dangers I have courted: I drank and drove in my early twenties. I struggled with loneliness and turned to substances and lust to cope, instead of turning to God.
9. These sufferings have seasoned me: Losing three of my grandparents and my Dad in a span of a few years. Living for a year and a half while working meaningless entry-level jobs and facing perpetual rejection for what I hoped would be my vocation.
10. These lessons life has taught me: I’ve tried to stop assuming that I really know other people and can cast judgment on them, because when I look back at how tangents of my life would be were it not for God’s grace I could easily have ended up in prison, been lonely, and/or enslaved to idols. By definition grace is undeserved.
11. These influences have shaped my life (persons, occupations, books, events): my parents, grandparents, sister, and youth pastor growing up. My friends made in college. My assorted blue-collar and office jobs, so I suppose they weren’t all meaningless. I’ve read many books, but Ragamuffin Gospel and Suffering: A Test of Theological Method stand out as ones that have shaped me deeply.
12. These scripture texts have lit my path: Hebrews chapter 2, Colossians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 2, John chapter 1, and the Psalms.
13. These things I regret about my life: See risks and dangers above. I’ve never gone to Kenya with my wife.
14. These are my life’s achievements: Married for over ten years. Three kids and a hope to adopt one more. Serving as a pastor and a teacher.
15. These persons are enshrined within my heart: parents, grandparents, sister, pastors, friends and, of course, my wife and children.
16. These are my unfulfilled desires: Contentment with what is. Taking my family to Kenya.
I choose an ending for this document:            A poem-mine or someone else’s            Or a prayer,            Or a sketch,            Or a picture from a magazine,            A scripture text,            Or anything else I judge would be an apt conclusion to my testament
            Thanks God for sharing life with me and new life through Christ.
Consider filling out this exam yourself. Fill it out again in five years, ten years. What might change? As a pastor I often share the big picture of life, death, and resurrection with others, but my voice gets drowned by those who make money based on our fears, consumerism, and loneliness. Satan also holds us down by telling us to pretend we’re perfect when we are not. Instead of confessing our sins and being sinners, we are encouraged to fight our battles alone and often fail alone by "hanging on in quiet desperation" as Pink Floyd once sang.
When you take this exam you cannot help but conclude that your possessions do not matter at all and your accomplishments do not matter that much either. It is relationships that count. Which relationships in your life need attention? What are you going to about it?

Faith of a Child

Much has been written about a supposed mass exodus of young adults from the Christian faith. The blame game can be played from many angles, including segregated youth ministries to boring worship services. However, when Pew Research asked young adults who left their faith if they ever had a strong faith as a child, only 11% of the respondents said, “yes.” In other words, when 100 young adults “leave” the church, 89 of them haven’t left their faith behind; they never had meaningful faith in the first place.
These young adults all grew up in church and Sunday School, heard the stories we told them, and were well informed of all the things they were supposed to know about our faith. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, when they started living on their own their upbringing in church did not make much of a difference regarding what they hoped for, what they valued, or how they responded to the inevitable trials and troubles of grown-up life. It seemed they fit in with everyone else around them. We church people shake our heads and say, “that’s too bad,” as if we had nothing to do with this scenario that gets played out each year as young people leave our homes and our churches.
Might it be that these young adults grew up with parents and grandparents that, despite being part of a church, lived like everyone else around them? Of course, how “everyone else” lives will vary greatly from a college campus, hipsterville urban neighborhood, richie-rich suburbia (or exurbia), to a small town. But the point remains that unless our faith is expressed through living differently than the world around us and openly sharing our faith with our own children through the ups and downs of our lives, then all we are really teaching our kids is that our faith doesn’t matter much. They will understand this unspoken message loud and clear whether or not we bother to drop them off at a church on Sunday mornings before driving away (or even staying a while ourselves). Most of them will reasonably conclude that their faith must not matter much either.
Sociologist Christian Smith, when assessing the faith of young adults, concludes that parents are “huge, absolutely huge, nearly a necessary condition” of instilling faith in their children. He says, “without question, the most important pastor a child will ever have in their life is a parent.” And, believe it or not, this is great news for us parents. We do not have to be theologians, historians, or trained teachers to pastor our children through their young spiritual lives. We need to be open and honest with them about our own spiritual lives. We make mistakes, lots of them, and children notice when big people say they made a mistake and that they are sorry. Children notice when big people pray with them and for them, and not just with formulaic syrupy prayers, but prayers that openly share hopes, dreams, fears, and doubts. Our children will pray like we do in front of them. You can draw the conclusion of what happens when you never pray in front of them.
Children absolutely love to share about what they are learning each day. Ask them what was shared in Sunday School. Ask them what they thought about the sermon. Ask them what they thought about the songs we sing at our gatherings. Listen to them. Really listen; don’t just have your ears open while your eyes are glued to your smartphone.
Most importantly, love them as your neighbor. As God’s people we are commanded to love our neighbors as Christ has loved us. The closest neighbors each parent has is their children. Be gracious to them. Apologize to them when needed. Share your faith with them. Sing with them. Read to them. Pray with them. Rejoice when they rejoice and mourn when they mourn. At young ages children will come to you with things that are big deals to them, and they might only be a tiny scratch or a fight over how a game is played. But parent beware, if you always minimize such things when they are little, do not be surprised if they start assuming you will not help them with their problems as they get older and their problems genuinely get bigger.
I too lament that people leave the church as young adults, but we are not innocent bystanders watching a deer get nailed by a semi-truck in front of us. We all can do something. Parents can especially help, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, and church family all have important roles too. Pray for our communities. Ask parents how you can help. Foster real relationships with your church family, ones that involve prayer, confession, and forgiveness. If we model such things as big people, I bet the little people around us will catch on too. Didn’t they catch on to what we were doing already?

Thanks

Father,
Thanks for sharing life with us.
Thanks for the bright colors outside. The prairie landscape allows for fierce winds, but fiercer are the sunsets these days. Every color imaginable hurries to fill up the sky and then night falls and the stars come out, one by one, even some planets nearby. Days are filled with bright blue skies and dark green grounds, and our eyes can get overstuffed in minutes. Even better is the rare day I get to see all of this while swinging my golf club around.
Thanks for the sound of pouring rain, even the midnight thunder. It reminds me of your promise to have your rain, which sustains life, fall on all of us—whether we deserve it or not. And I’ll be honest; I am one of those who don’t deserve it. Thunder isn’t as powerful as laughter, though. Belly laughs from an infant always bring a smile to my face. Giggles from a toddler can’t be beat. And chuckles among us grown-ups, although they can be rare for some of us around here, are still little pleasures. Music is such a gift too. I love playing through our songs of worship each week and am even thankful for other songs I hear that I won’t get out of my head. Might as well let them stay there a while.
Thanks for our daily food. It is fun to reap harvests that began as tiny little seeds and now are lush plants full of abundant crops. As my hands and arms itch from picking the bounty, my mouth waters, thinking of ways we can use our new found produce. More than mere fuel for metabolism, meals can deliver different tastes, textures, and looks—full of rich colors and even bolder flavors. The savory and sweet harmonize often throughout our days, showing us that life itself in this fallen world has its silky smooth and bitter crunchy parts too.
Thanks for the feeling of my beloved’s hand holding mine. Thanks for hugs from little arms on the top bunk that pour out over the edge and cling tightly around my neck. I’d try writing about the tingling and rush of a kiss, but my words can’t do it justice. Thanks anyways, though, knowing that a kiss, of all things, once betrayed your son Jesus. I’d rather think of other kisses, if you don’t mind.
Thanks for sharing new life with us through Jesus. If life here and now can be so sublime, we’ve yet to coin a word that befits eternal life. But I can’t wait to experience it anyways with all my senses ready to worship you in your kingdom. I can’t wait. I hope others feel the same way.
Until next time,Your Child

A Foreign Heritage

I am adopted. My father was adopted. His father was an orphan. After that I cannot tell you much about my heritage, but in our area of the Dakotas most families can easily tell you their heritage in one word—German. Or to be more precise, German-Russian, which really means Germans who relocated to Russia before re-relocating to the Dakotas. The Russians stayed put.
As a Christian I have another kind of heritage. As Rich Mouw would put it, “there are certain kinds of being Christian, and I think being Reformed is the best kind.” He’s right that there are certain kinds of being Christian, but I grew up Baptist (as Mouw did Reformed), so I think being Baptist is the best kind. That is not to say it’s the only kind, though. When I think of the heritage of being a Christian, I am thankful for the orthodoxy that ties so many different ways of being a Christian together. Namely, those ancient beliefs in what makes the gospel of Jesus Christ the gospel: God the Father, Almighty maker of heaven and earth; Jesus Christ his only begotten, our Lord; the Holy Spirit; and the church. The church, as God’s people, extends her heritage beyond Christ’s Resurrection to the group of people whom God chose to produce Christ, Israel.
Israel’s heritage had ups and downs, as has the church’s, and—if we’re honest—you and me too. One thread, though, runs throughout most of our years on earth—God’s people often live as foreigners, wherever they are. Peter makes this a theme of one of his letters to Christians, saying “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear” (1 Pet 1:17). Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel—and the father of all who trust Christ—had no land of his own. Joseph, Abraham’s great-grandson, was betrayed by his own brothers and sold to traveling salesmen. He ended up as a foreign slave in Egypt where he lived in reverent fear. Once, he rebuffed the affection of his boss’s wife and ended up thrown in prison. But he feared God more than people, knowing that any sin is a wicked deed against God himself. Peter must have had Joseph in mind when Peter encourages fellow Christ-followers to live as foreigners in reverent fear.
What does it mean to be a foreigner? Well, it means you’ll be “different.” Peter makes sure to say this does not mean obnoxiously different because we still ought to honor authority and respect others. Rather, we are to be appealingly different from those who know no heritage but that of the world. We are no longer to plunge into the cesspool of wickedness like we used to do. Sure, insults, criticism, and judgments will come at us anyways, even after we decide to fear God above people. Christ heard such insults too. But, Peter says, “above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8).
Peter is quoting from Proverbs here in which the author contrasts the reaction of hatred to the response of love when someone does something wrong (Prov 10:12). Hatred exaggerates, fuels, and breeds more wrongdoing. But love snuffs it out like a blanket smothers a fire. If love can do that, what could deep love do? What would deep love look like in our church? Would it be foreign to us?