In reality, my parents did what was most important for me and that was expose me to and encourage me in my faith. Through their influence, especially Mom’s, we children were at just about every church function possible. Mom continually volunteered, and often drug us along. I can remember being drug to the homes of the elderly to deliver birthday cakes and sing happy birthday to those long forgotten. I really didn’t want to go and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but now I relish the memory and the woman who made me do that.

I remember my alcoholic little league football coach taking jabs at me about being a choir boy. Mom picked me up early every Wednesday from football practice so I could attend the children’s choir practice at church. I hated it then, but now, I’m very glad she did it. I’m glad my football coach took some shots at me too. Others remember her compassion as well. A childhood friend reminded me earlier this year of the chocolate chip cookies Mom baked for him right after his mother died of cancer when we were in Middle School.

That’s my Mom. Like a bulldog she seldom backed down from her convictions or in her protection of her children. She also never wavered in her care and while she hated we were all grown and in less need of it she has always been ready to offer plenty of advice on how to take care of ourselves, our spouses, and our children. She has been a great gift.

As her first born she understandably has some regrets in how she raised me as I do and will with my first born. Nothing can erase the memories of those events, but nothing is better than to be forgiven. And today I publicly pronounce that I forgive my parents  for anything that they might have done wrong. In the end, they got the most important thing right. They gave me a legacy of faith in the matchless Son of God, Jesus the Nazarene, our King, who in the end will bring her home when He desires and who will most likely receive her grand children, and her grand children’s grandchildren.

I love you Mom, and I’m thankful for the privilege of being your son. I hope Jesus does a miraculous work and lets you stick around a few more years, but if He doesn’t I’m glad we have a hope that this is not the end.

I’m enjoying a book by Bill Dallas on second chances called Lessons from San Quentin. At one point he asked a veteran prison guard what would happen if an earthquake hit and all the walls crumbled.

The guard said, “Every short-timer in here would run for the hills like there is no tomorrow…. Death row guys would be shufflin’ out of the gates in their ankle restraints as fast as they could…. And the Lifers who have made peace with themselves would stay right here. They wouldn’t run. In fact, I’d bet that most of them would immediately search through the rubble to help the injured. They know they‘ll leave this place when their time is up. They’ll walk out the front door with dignity.”

I love how he says the Lifers have made peace with themselves. These are second chance people. And after spending years in San Quentin himself, Dallas makes a point that the short-timers are often so focused on getting out, and on what they hate about their surroundings, that they don’t really experience change from the brokenness. But the Lifers are broken by it. In San Quentin they become the life-givers, encouraging others, caring about others and many experiencing transformation through a relationship with God.

How about me? Am I allowing my own struggles to drive me to God to see his transformation and grace? Or, am I so focused on getting through it and blaming others that I receive no real benefit from the experience? How about you?

Is not an excuse for inaction…

While your perfect situation

Your dream job

Your Dream

Is awaiting heavenly approval

God’s blessing

Do SOMETHING!

Volunteer in the nursery…yes men I mean YOU!

Do SOMETHING!

Only drink water for two weeks and send the money you would have spent on beverages to Living Water International.

Do SOMETHING!

Might God be waiting on us

To just try to be obedient

Loving others and showing compassion

Before our dreams are realized

Or ChAnGeD!

Moving into a residence that they could afford if they didn’t smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.

Staying in a residence as long as possible until they receive a seven day eviction notice at which time the scramble begins.

They either miraculously coming up with the funds to pay the back rent or

Move into another more affordable shelter only to repeat the same thing a month later.

They have either had their electric or water cut off at least once, and typically receive multiple cut-off notices in a given year.

What I have discovered is they didn’t just decide to live this way, but saw their parents do the same thing. They were children who have had 25 different addresses who in Mrs. Thompson’s second grade class couldn’t remember their phone number, because it had changed again. Most of them know no other way to live.

They have used the church as a financial means to rescue them from circumstances because the church most likely refused to do anything other than just pay their bills. We’ve allowed them to play the victimization card instead of changing the game because writing checks is far easier than holding them accountable. So, we’ve become enablers instead of change agents when it comes to the poor.

In reality, these people need freedom from a cycle of living that has proven oppressive and hopeless. They need freedom from being consumed with what they want and given a chance to see what they need.  They need a friend who is willing to say, “No. I’m not going to give you what you asked for, but I’m going to dig deeper into the crap that is your life in order to shine the light of Jesus on that which is broken and even wicked.”

We, the Church, need to risk being their friend even when much of the time it ends in rejection, or it involves time, effort, money and risk. We, the Church, need to be willing to invest in their conversion.

“The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” – Acts 3:5-6 NLT

I wish this approach had multiple success stories, but the truth of the matter is that if there is change it is not immediately obvious. This leads to the temptation to just write checks and dismiss the people as hopeless. However, when I look at the life of Jesus Christ the Nazarene there is no evidence of “easy grace.” So, why then do we expect it to be easy? Especially when we’re not Jesus…

The phrase is a marriage of Romans 8:37 and 2 Corinthians 12:10. It is the mysterious fusion of two opposites, conquerors and losers; strength and weakness. Life sucks, but yet it is glorious all at the same time.

It is imperative for someone to be converted to realize just how big of a Loser we are apart from Christ. We go about winning a lot of small meaningless battles without Him. We really bring Him nothing worth bragging about other than our brokenness, so that He can be glorified in putting us back together as He intended us to be while looking forward to the eventual finish of that work on the other side of death. It’s the death of Christ that makes us worthy. Without it we are worthless. It’s this admission of our Loserdom that keeps us from really being converted. It’s why time and relationship and truth and love and conflict is necessary to help people not only go from life to death, but to live in the reality of this new life.

Because it is also imperative to realize that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God shown to us through Jesus Christ in order to enjoy the converted life. Nothing can overcome His love. Even if we are led as sheep to the slaughter and it looks as if we should be pitied the reality is that our suffering can produce an immeasurable amount of joy and because of this we more than Conquer fear, failure, and death. In fact, those aren’t even battles for us to win anymore.

Weird, right?

But awesome!

So, what are your losses? Do you feel like sharing them here?

Have you found a way to rejoice in the midst of your loserdom?

“35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?36 As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Part 4

An instant?

A week?

Six weeks, after taking a class at a church?

I don’t think that there is an answer, but that it is different for every person. So, some exchange their allegiance for Jesus in an instant and some over a period of years and some somewhere in between.

The issue lies in the fact that in order to determine where people are in their journey we need to hear their story, and sometimes it takes a while before you hear the whole story. We almost just rubber stamp the whole thing as if God really didn’t want to use humans to help other humans come to faith. So, they come, we listen, they pray, we dunk, and they leave unchanged.

We aren’t willing to sit with someone for an hour or two in order to witness the intersection of God’s story with the story teller’s. It’s emotionally exhausting. It’s mentally exhausting. It’s a battle with unseen forces to help people exchange their story for His story, and we’d just rather there be a pill to prescribe.

So, I am convinced that…

there are far more people who prayed a prayer after someone than are actually converted.

there are far more people who are baptized than are actually converted.

there are far too few churches that see this as fraud.

there are far too many of us, especially in the South, who refuse to challenge someone’s “I believe in God” to substitute for a real allegiance to Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

there are far fewer churches who are trying to change their “five minute, come speak to a pastor and before the song ends pray a prayer invitation approach” into bringing people to Christ so that they might be radically transformed by Him…who die and are raised to new life.

And so there are far less Converted People than we Church people might like to admit.

Part 3

When we evangelize, or when someone walks down an aisle during an invitation, or when we strike up a conversation with a stranger what are we expecting to happen?

Is a five minute conversation followed by a “Pray this after me…” the best we can do?

I believe, whether we want to admit it or not, that if most pastors were honest they would admit that “quick” conversions are more about the pastor than the convert. Giving more time just doesn’t make economic sense.

After all there are hundreds of people, maybe even thousands, whose attention we pastors want and if they quit giving us their attention then what?

Attendance falls, offerings decline, and we get replaced.

As long as attendance grows, emotions flow, people are energized, and we dunk a few each week it is difficult to pay attention to the fact that 9 out of 10 of those “quick” conversions aren’t conversions at all. Instead, they are a McDonalds Drive Thru God Appeasement Attempt that goes something like this, “Surely if I do this, then God will__________.”

We Church leaders then excuse our part in the fiasco -

“It’s not really my fault.”

“God is sovereign!”

“I gave them a chance!”

Right?

Part 2

I wonder if there was someone who was raised in the church, came every time the doors were opened, who just seriously threw a fit over that modern piece of machinery being installed in her church. “Only pagans use that! It’s a distraction, I just can’t worship.” she would argue.

There once was a time when the hymnal was introduced to the church pew.

I wonder if there was someone who was raised in the church, came every time the doors were opened, who just seriously threw a fit over the fact that, “It shows a lack of discipline if people can’t memorize songs. Plus, we have enough songs already why do people need to keep writing new ones? It’s a distraction, I just can’t worship with people reading books the whole time.”

Once upon a time praise choruses moved from fireside youth retreats to Sunday mornings and were first projected using overhead projectors and then video projectors.

I wonder if there was someone who was raised in the church, who came every time the doors were opened, who just seriously threw a fit over the fact that, “You mean the screen is going to cover up the stained glass window! My grandfather paid for that stained glass window! It’s a distraction, I just can’t worship knowing how much sacrifice went into that window and you’re going to cover it up with a screen.”

So, I walk into a local place of business of people who attend church, who confess to be in one every time the doors are opened, who asked what I thought of the band last weekend. I said, “I thought they were great. ” She said, “Why did that guy in the back have a hat on? It wasn’t respectful. It was a distraction.”

Whenever tradition or cultural norms dictate our ability to focus on what Jesus did for us and does to us we’ll never be able to profess that our church is full of people like this…

I’m sure that they said that they believed, but in practice would they be obedient? I think God wondered the same thing, which is why He doesn’t tell them where the weak point was in the defense, nor does He give them a secret weapon. Instead God has them do something completely ridiculous. (I think Veggie Tales got this one right!) Just march around the city seven times and blow your horns. Prior to the “battle”, it is recorded, “Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.”

I wonder how often we refuse to hear or see the victory, the healing, the miracle, the impossible made possible because we just can’t admit we don’t believe it. It’s like a great golfer or gymnast who before attempting a difficult shot or routine fails to visualize the success. In despair we continue to plead with God when praise is required to give us new eyes and ears.

I found this little video as I began trying to de-clutter my Google Reader after a Lenten Fast from reading blogs. I find great encouragement as we wait for the opportunity to double the size of our family, and as we wait for the cancer in mom’s lungs and the rest of her to miraculously disappear.

Mom and Dad, Kristi, Shelbi, Baili, Mallori, Kamri, Lucas, Lilli this is for you. Be encouraged Our God has delivered us!