The Red Balloon

The ancient, air-condition-less mini-buses used to transport us through the desert brought us to a small parking lot that overlooked the courtyard filled with children.  An L-shaped two-story building where the children lived provided borders to the left and straight ahead, and a small road through the property created the final border to the right.  Beyond the road a little ways was the Pacific Ocean.  Its cool breeze was gently swaying the trees putting the finishing touch on a perfect setting.

Our tour of Mexico was coming to an end.  About three dozen high school and college aged kids from The Salvation Army in Northeast Ohio had spent several days in May of 1989 giving witness about Jesus’ love via the traditional Salvation Army Brass Band.  My fondest memory of that trip was the children’s home in Acapulco.

Before we exited our buses, a large pickup truck pulled up next to us with more children seated in the back.  They were kids from other sites belonging to the children’s home who had come to greet us as well.  The truck had a safety rail on each side of the bed consisting of four long horizontal planks of wood spaced six inches apart.  The planks were nailed to four wooden posts along the walls of the truck.  Several sets of little eyes peered through the slats at us.  All of the children greeted us with great enthusiasm.

The festive atmosphere our hosts had created was impressive.  There were streamers, balloons, multi-colored lights and piñatas.  The tables were set up with popcorn for an appetizer and as much lemonade as we could drink.  Although I wasn’t accustomed to fish that hadn’t been covered in batter and deep-fried, that fish was amazing.  Many of my fellow students opted out of the main course because the fish were presented to us whole – head and eyes and all.  Yum.  After the meal we had a great time with piñatas and just hanging out with the kids.

Everyone was having fun except for a little girl who was about three years old.  She wore beautiful white dress and had big brown eyes.  She stayed close to her big brother who was about seven.  I felt compelled to do what I could to help her have fun, too.  As I approached her she turned and buried her head into brothers chest.  I reached up and grabbed a red balloon that had been positioned high on a tree and offered it to her.  After a few fruitless minutes trying to convince her to receive the gift, she cautiously accepted the balloon.

She wouldn’t give it back.  I tried to play a game of give and take but she refused to let go of her red balloon.  Other people gave her different balloons.  After awhile she would get tired of trying to holding both.  She had to choose which one to keep.  The red balloon won every time.  At the end of a couple of hours she had softened to me, and even let me hold her for a bit.  Nonetheless, she refused to return the red balloon to me even for a moment and never said a word, even when I spoke the tiny bit of her language that I knew, “por favor.”

The time came for us to go and we boarded our busses.  I was sitting in the back of the bus next to the window.  My conversation with one friend was interrupted by some other friends.  They encouraged me to look out of my window at the pickup truck parked only a couple of feet from our bus.  Directly across from me was that beautiful little girl in the white dress.

Her eyes were welling up she fixed an expressionless gaze at me between the slats of the wood railing . . . and she was still holding onto the red balloon.  The driver started the engine and the truck made a loud noise.  She was startled, but never took her eyes off of me.  Her ensuing gesture lodged that evening deep into my memory, easily recalled even these 23 years later.

The tear graduated into a full-blown cry.  She looked down at her balloon and then back at me.  Then, with wisdom far beyond her years, she carefully squeezed the balloon through the slats and stretched her little arms across the gap as far as they would go.  I reached across the divide and accepted the incredible gift from her.  As she released her grip, she paused her sobbing and whispered the only word I would ever hear her say, “adios.”  As the truck pulled away she cried, waved, and repeated the word “adios” until the truck was gone.

Everyone on the bus sat speechless.  I didn’t say a word until we arrived at our destination for the night. I kept that balloon for the better part of a decade and eventually lost is during one of my many moves.  But, the memory of that little girl has never faded. She provided insight into how our complete surrender to trusting the Attractive Shepherd affects both parties.

Jesus is thrilled that you’ve seen the value of the new life that he offers, but it’s so much more rewarding when you give it back to him.

This is a sample from chapter 7: Unnecessary Miracles of my book The Attractive Shepherd.  Click on “About The Book” and “Read Chapter 1″ above for more info.  For samples from other chapters click on “Book Exerpets” just under the Twitter updates on the right side of this page. Comments are appreciated.

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

Josh Williams, the youth pastor at Evangel Baptist in Boardman, used the video Lord Save Us From Your Followers as the discussion topic for the young adult group over the past two weeks. He’s been gracious in allowing me to sit in (since I’m slightly out of my 20′s).  This video sparked great discussion, but there’s one thing we discovered about our approach to our relationship with the unchurched that stands out.

Dan Merchant, the Christian guy who made this great flick (click on the pic above to see a preview), interviewed people from all angles of Christianity.  He also presented insights from those who oppose Christianity.  Near the end of the video he highlights the heathen (as she calls herself) radio host of KINK in Portland, Oregon.  She went on a trip with World Vision to Africa and, as a result, managed to raise support from 800 of her unChristian listeners to sponsor children through that Christian organization.  So, Christians and non-Christians can work together to provide for the poor.  But, should we?

Our dilemma was combating the idea of secular humanism – the belief that people can have morals or be ethical without God.  In a world where the significance of the Good News of Jesus Christ is diluted to the point of equality with other religions, even by some in the church, our group took seriously the charge to keep the Truth in the forefront of everything we do.  There is danger in serving alongside people who aren’t serving for the same reasons we are.  By providing aid to the poor in cahoots with atheists and agnostics, aren’t we giving credence to their points of view by association?

I was extremely pleased and impressed by the outcome.  Proper evangelical doctrine states that everybody is depraved because of our sin – precisely the opposite of secular humanism.  If we truly believe this than we must take that thought to its natural conclusion.  We have nothing within ourselves to garner good deeds that hasn’t been derived from God.  This is true even after being saved.  The good we do is not of ourselves, but the Holy Spirit has enabled us to do it.

So, what if God decides to put an inkling of good in the hearts of people who have so far rejected him, just like he did for you before you were saved?  Isn’t the basis for prevenient grace the idea that we don’t even have the ability in our fallen state to reach out to God, so the Spirit graciously gives it to us to make salvation possible?  Christian, if he put the potential to recognize Light in you, don’t you think he can do it for someone else, even if they don’t identify it as being from God?  Here’s what the Apostle Paul has to say:

When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. (Romans 2:14-15, The Message)

As it was approaching 11 pm, and as I am not a youth, we decided to call it a night.  Our chat ended with a great thought: In our honorable quest to keep the Truth about Jesus pure, let’s stop throwing the baby out with the bath water.  What if, instead of pointing out the evil things that separate us from the unchurched, we acknowledge the good things we have in common without watering down the truth of the Gospel?

I have a hunch that God places goodness into the hearts of people who hate him as a way to attract them to himself.  It’s up to us to make the connection obvious.

Zee truth to leev by

Reblogged from Pasture-ized:

Looney Tunes star Pepe Le Pew and your average psycho in a murder movie have something in common.  Though their victims race for their lives, or in Sir Skunk’s case for their olfactory nerves, the pursuers manage to keep pace.  Compounding the disturbing nature of these scenes is the casualness of the chasers.  The murderers seldom get past a brisk walk. 

Read more… 243 more words

Here's a post from the first week of my blog that most of you missed . . .

A Gun to a Skittle fight

There’s one thing that could easily have prevented Trayvon Martin’s death.  It trumps the racism discussion.  It goes beyond the conversation about a corrupt police department.  I’m not saying who should be found guilty of what, but there’s one thing that is certain: If there’d been no gun there that evening, young Martin would be alive today.  Before I get comments about the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, be assured that the right to bear arms isn’t my point either.

Zimmerman had a permit for his weapon, but he brought a gun to a Skittle fight.  Yes, there had been a series of thefts in the area and Zimmerman had a right to protect his neighborhood.  However, in his zeal for justice (if that was his motivation) he overshot the mark.  He either forgot or never knew his role in the process.  The nature of the Neighborhood Watch organization isn’t to enforce the law but to protect their communities by alerting the authorities about law breakers.  The recording of the 911 call made by Zimmerman makes it clear that he was advised by the professional not to engage with the young man he had suspected might break the law.  If the gunman had been there just to watch, the gun would not have been necessary.

I’ve found that my approach to protecting the name of Jesus Christ has often overshot the mark.  Yes, it is my right (and obligation) to not shy away from making clear the Good News to everyone.  In the past, though, my zeal was the equivalent of bringing a gun to a Skittle fight.  My role as a Christian isn’t to watch for sinners so that I can bring down the gauntlet of eternal judgment, it’s to make people aware of the awesome mercy of a God who loves them beyond their wildest dreams.

We miss the opportunity to give greater insight to people wondering about the real Jesus because we consider their actions or beliefs about him to be an ultimate rejection of the truth.  We’re always ready for a faith brawl when, more often than not, people aren’t looking for trouble.  If Jesus could hang out with “sinners” without condemning them – and he had a right to – then we must follow his lead.  But, they’re just going about life and we drag them into a spiritual gun fight.  When that happens, spiritual casualties are the result.

In Matthew 10:34 Jesus says ““Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. (NIV)”  The sword he’s speaking of is division among people who have heard the truth.  Luke’s use of the word “division” instead of Matthew’s word “sword” helps make the point.  Before we take up the sword, let’s first be sure those we’re protecting ourselves from have at least had the opportunity to reject the real Jesus, instead of a misinformed picture of the Messiah that we may have given them.

And, let’s be absolutely sure we know our role in God’s plan of salvation for the world: to be his witnesses, not his judges.

Cookies and Dysfunctional Relationships

The winning streak I had over my cookie addiction had a great effect on me.  In addition to the diet, and only by the grace of God, I was able to sustain a habit of jogging just under two miles a day for three days a week.  As a result, I lost 25 pounds rather quickly and my clothes had become baggy.

The church where I was pastor was in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.  Our secretary’s name was Sandy.  Young people from our church who lived in the area would often stop in and hang out at her office after school.  One afternoon I went into Sandy’s office to use the copy machine and Luie, a high school student who attended our church, was there chatting with her.

“Hey, you’ve lost weight,” Luie blurted in my direction.

“I’ve been working hard.  Is it really that obvious?” I replied.

“Yeah, I can see that you’re wearing a belt now.”

“Luie, I’ve always worn a belt.”

“Yeah,” Sandy interjected, “but now we can see it.”

Whether or not people knew it, the belt had always been there, dutifully doing what it was meant to do.  Its presence had been obscured by the physical side effect of my undesirable attraction.

I had become more aware of the presence of my belt as well.  Before I lost weight its only function was to satisfy the requirements of proper office attire.  You can be sure that if my belt would ever have been the cause of a wardrobe malfunction the slack would have been taken up (so to speak) by my robust waistline.  Having lost weight, my belt was a bit loose even on the smallest hole.  The duty of the belt, which I had previously taken for granted, had become increasingly apparent.

God must feel like that belt did.  Aside from my strange use of personification – or rather, deification – with regard to functional accoutrement, the parallel is fitting (pun not intended).  Our undesirable attractions hinder our awareness God’s presence.  He’s there to satisfy the requirements of acceptable standards of religiosity and nothing more.  Our relationship with God becomes merely functional and we end up taking his presence for granted.

This illustration displays a fundamental deficiency with our approach to living lives to the fullest extent.  Our faith often doesn’t take into account the nature of a healthy relationship, one in which both parties benefit from the interaction and the participation of both are valued.  A relationship in which only the desires of one of the participants are regarded is considered dysfunctional.

We only recognize he’s there when we need him because we undervalue what we have to bring to the relationship.

This is a sample from chapter 6: Divine Desire of my book The Attractive Shepherd.  Click on “About The Book” and “Read Chapter 1″ above for more info.  For samples from other chapters click on “Book Exerpets” just under the Twitter updates on the right side of this page. Comments are appreciated.

Happy Birthday Mr. Potato Head

Today marks a significant milestone in American culture.  Sixty years ago Mr. Potato Head came to life on TVs across the country.  In fact, he was the first product ever to be marketed directly to children. So, when you kids remind you incessantly about toys they see during commercial breaks – you can thank Sir Spud.

During the news report this morning an expert commented on why this toy has done so well for so many generations.  The many accessories encourage creativity from children.  A rep for the toy maker noted that there are over 300 parts available.  Among my favorites are the sets with Star Wars names like Artoo-potatoo and Darth Tater.  So there’s some huge number of potential combinations so kids can compose a truly unique presentation.

Brace yourself for the Christian parallel.

Maybe that’s a reason so many people have left church.  Before anybody gets irate, be assured that the only rules to a creative spiritual journey with Jesus is the Bible.  For decades, even centuries, church-goers have left it up to church leadership to tell them how to engage with their Savior through Christian service.  What if we gave people freedom, guidance and empowerment to do their own thing?  Church would truly represent the whole body instead of a few believers.  If God has put the church together the way he wanted it to be (1st Corinthians 12), with spiritual gifts and passions he has given his people put to use, maybe we should try to see the picture he put together?  And, Christians would engage in their walks much more.

Talk with God about the passions he’s given you and how he’d like you to use them.  Before you know it you’ll be off your spiritual tater-tush and living life to the fullest extent.

My Grandma was a mall-walker!

On our last mall-walking excursion Vanda reminded me that my grandmother, who had gone to be with God almost exactly two years earlier, had been a regular walker at the same mall.  I was literally following in her footsteps.  It occurred to me that Grandma must have been a participant in what Vanda describes as the slow-forming flash mob in the mall parking lot when the doors open at 9 am. I wondered if Grandma avoided, like I do, the scale outside the GNC store that belts out ”have you weighed yourself today?” if you pass close enough to its motion detector.

Grandma must have sat among the coffee table rearrangement brigade at the center of the mall. She was great at meeting people and engaging in life with them – and sitting around having coffee every morning after a brisk lap or two was a great way to do it. Grandma was a true mall-walker, of that I’m sure - and that certainty offered insight into the faults of my own perspective on the phenomenon.

My description of mall-walkers in my March 13 blog Mall Walkers paralleled the way outsiders can feel unwelcome at a new church – not looking or acting like the regulars (with regard to attendance, not in a Jamie Lee Curtis yoghurt commercial way).  I can easily picture Grandma Knick dressing appropriately for the work out and even putting her hand along the wall as she walked to prevent turning too soon and shortening her hike.  One thing I am sure about: she never looked down on anyone.  I would have been the first to defend the purity of her intentions if someone would have suggested she walked with the air of superiority that I imagined others doing in my previous blog.

The main premise of last week’s blog remains intact.  It is up to the church to develop a welcoming atmosphere.  What the Holy Spirit has reminded me of is the danger of projecting the negative attitudes of Christians from my experience onto people whom I’ve never met.  I wrote about how the church tends to not accept those who aren’t like them, yet that’s exactly what I did in my assumptions about the mall-walkers.  If my Grandma walked those halls in her way, I’m sure there’s a few others like her who do today. The majority of the Pharisees we read about in the New Testament were evil in their pursuit, but as a group they were highly regarded and many truly dedicated their lives to holy living.  Do you remember the Pharisee Nicodemus in John 3?  He was eagerly seeking the truth from Jesus Christ, and Jesus gave it to him.

Vanda and I left the denomination we had grown up in, and that most of my family still belongs to.  The following summer we went to a family reunion.  My Grandma gave an impromptu speech about how it didn’t matter where her children and grandchildren went to church, as long as they believed in Jesus Christ and followed him as best they could.  Though she didn’t say my name, Grandma gave me her blessing in front of the whole family.  But, she still walked the way she always had in the denomination she and grandpa served in for several decades.

So, now I can walk the mall with just the right mix of pride and humility: pride in the heritage passed down from Grandma, and humility from the Holy Spirit’s corrective about how easy it is in the pursuit of truth succumb to hypocrisy.

 

St. Patrick’s Day: Shamrock or just sham?

St. Patrick’s Day has taken the same road as Christmas.  Many of the people who celebrate it aren’t Irish (although as one of my facebook friends pointed out, St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish). Christmas is a Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  Many who celebrate it aren’t even Christian.  During the Christmas season Christians and non-Christians alike spend lots of money on each other, visit family, spread seasonal cheer, watch parades and, of course, drink beer at parties.  St. Patrick’s day is all of those as well – except maybe the first three.

We used to walk to school on the west end of Syracuse, NY, through an area called Tipperary Hill.  Lots of bona fide Irish people there.  The traffic light at the main intersection has the green light on top and the red on the bottom.  You’d expect there to be accidents with color blind drivers, but I can’t remember any.  I’ve heard that city officials have tried to put a proper light there but they’ve given up because it always ends up being vandalized.  The proud Irish have claimed that hill!

There’s a pub on the main road called Coleman’s (check out their leprechaun phone booth in the pic) that offers green beer around St. Patrick’s Day.  People would be lined way up the block early in the morning to partake in this brilliant gimmick.  If you haven’t heard, Syracuse is Orange country.  The nickname for the Syracuse University sports teams is “Orangemen”.  I was a huge fan and still cheer for them if Ohio State isn’t in the running.

But the Irish don’t take kindly to wearing orange on their day – something to do with an English-protestant king (William of Orange) defeating an Irish-Catholic king in battle near Dublin in the 1600s.  So, whoever decided to call SU’s teams the Orangemen . . . not funny.  I was unaware of this faux pas and wore a bright orange SU shirt on the way to school one St. Pat’s day right past Coleman’s.  The ensuing insults weren’t so bad, but being chased down the street by a couple over-zealous partyers was a bit nerve-racking.

There are genuine Irish people who celebrate being Irish.  They know their history and their customs.  Unlike the saying, not everybody is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.  I imagine some of the authentic Irish look on with disdain at those who’ve diluted the meaning of their festive day.  My friends who are truly Irish put their energy into celebrating who they are – not on grumbling about who other people aren’t.

Christmas and Easter could be much more festive for Christians if we’d do the same.  Besides, the Irish have a disadvantage in keeping their festivities pure: you can’t pray for somebody to become Irish.

What Mariano Rivera and God have in common

Ry Torhan, the youth pastor at The Gate, and his wife, Heather, went to see the Harlem Globetrotters.  Ry gets along well with everyone.  When he sat down next to a man who was there with his family, they quickly hit it off.  At halftime an official for the team invited the man and his family to follow him.  A few minutes later they returned, weighed down in complementary Globetrotter gear.  Before the team rep left he invited the family to the VIP room after the game to meet the players and to get their autographs.

Not only did this man receive autographs, he gave out plenty of his own.  Though everyone else seemed to know who this guy was, Ry and Heather didn’t have a clue.  The Torhans continued to interact with the stranger and enjoyed the game with him as if they had been friends for years.  During a surge in the autograph signing, Ry felt comfortable enough to joke with his neighbor, “My fans are courteous enough to not bother me during the game.”

Toward the end of the game, the suspense finally got the best of the Torhans.  Ry told the man, “We know you’re somebody, but we’re not sure who.”

The wise stranger replied “Everybody is somebody.”

He eventually revealed his identity as Mariano Rivera, the ace reliever for the New York Yankees who is considered to be one of the best closers in baseball history.  Mr. Rivera was cool with Ry’s inability to recognize his stardom, and even let Ry have his picture taken with him to show there were no hard feelings.  Ry proudly displayed it as his profile picture on his facebook page.

It’s a good thing Ry had left his Boston Red Sox baseball cap in his bag.

Mariano Rivera has at least one thing in common with God – and I’m not talking about the productivity in the area of “saves” (sorry, bad joke).  They both believe that everybody is a somebody.  There are no throw aways.  When God makes people he leaves a spotless cutting room floor.  We are all made in the image of God.  God’s kingdom is an interesting blend of exclusivity and inclusivity: only people who follow the Attractive Shepherd’s voice can be counted in, but everybody has sheep potential.

 Nobody hears without ears

It’s obvious that the people Jesus considers to be his sheep have not done so by their own merit.  All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  But, some of us can hear his voice and some of us can’t.

Jesus had a curious saying about people who could hear his voice: “Whoever has ears, let them hear (Matthew 11:15, NIV).”  He was encouraging people with ears to use them, but he wasn’t talking about the floppy things attached to the sides of our heads.  Jesus was referring to our ability to hear spiritual things, which requires spiritual ears.  But, who has these ears and how did they get them?  The rest of Chapter 5: A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing will tell you! This is a sample of my book The Attractive Shepherd.  Click on “About The Book” and “Read Chapter 1″ above for more info.

What puzzles me about The Hunger Games

This is a first for me.  I’ve never read a book before seeing the movie.

Reading fiction is something that I don’t do easily. Vanda, my wife, is a librarian and has made progress in introducing me to this new world.  The volume of encouragement from Vanda and our book-worm daughter, Emma, to read this book bordered on embarrassing so I gave it a go, and I wasn’t let down. Suzanne Collins has struck a perfect balance of adventure (some call it “violence”) and romance – enough of each to satisfy those drawn to them without even the slightest hint of repulsing readers who are not of those particular literary persuasions.

One of my difficulties with reading fiction is that there are so many names that I have to put faces to. I’ve begun a ritual of writing down the names and a brief description as characters are introduced, but that wasn’t necessary this time. I don’t know if there are less characters to remember than the average novel, but the way each is so masterfully developed helps me recall them easily even near the end of the story.  Now I can join in with my wife and daughter when they look at the movie trailers and give kudos to whomever was responsible for casting.  The book was written so well that all of us have the same pictures in our minds of what each character looks like.

So, here’s what puzzles me about the only book of about 300 pages that I’ve finished in less than a week.  At the risk of sounding sexist I’ll put it this way: How can so many women love this book when the main premise is the death of children?  What is so compelling about this story that caused Vanda and Kimmy (our extreme book-reading friend), gentle women of God, to abhor the killing but continue to read the book with the anticipation of children at Christmas?  The description of the children and the clarity with which their deaths are portrayed should make it even more disturbing.  But they’ve already read the next two books of the series!  This is the same woman (Vanda) who has never made it through an entire showing of a Lord of the Rings movie.  She even helped host a program based on The Hunger Games at the library in Poland, OH, last night where she had as much fun at as the kids did.

After reading a little of the author’s bio, I’m able to venture a guess.  Suzanne Collins writes to comment on the savagery of war.  Having watched a chick flick or two with my wife I’ve learned that there’s one thing in common with all of them: there’s always something to cry about (Even in a comedy there’s always some crying to be done).  So maybe it’s not so much that women overlook the carnage of The Hunger Games.  It could be because it brings the horrors of war to the surface and tells of how innocence fights to overcome it.

Anyway, two thumbs up from this non-fiction reader.  Why two thumbs up even with my refernce to the violence?  Because that’s all the thumbs I have.