Good 'Ole Country Comfort in My Bones

As I look at the archive for my month old blog, the tally is telling... September: 10 posts... October: 1 lone post. I guess the blogging honeymoon is over already. Since the Hilton Head beach trip, it's as if there's nothing to write about. But that's not really the case. This month has been pretty eventful.

After the beach, we went to the NC State Fair. We went through 9 books of tickets, which we bought in advance to save almost 50%. The Fair has about 6 fun houses, and every one of them has the same layout, and same slide at the end. That was where most of the tickets were spent. The other popular ride, and ticket consumer, was The Crazy Mouse, which is basically a combination Tilt-a-Whirl and roller coaster. Imagine spinning in a circle while riding a roller coaster. Once was enough for me. The kids rode again, with complete strangers.

Then we went with my parents and my family to Aunt Beverly's mountain home outside of Stuart, VA, for a Saturday afternoon visit. This was our first trip there since Lori and I have been married. The kids had a ball. They enjoyed getting BB-gun-shooting lessons from Bev and then shooting tin cans and a personalized bulls eye. After lunch, they got to check out Bev's tarantula, and look for insects in the yard to feed the tarantula.

As a kid, when I used to go to my sister's in the summertime - for what seemed like months at a time - there was no gun shooting (well maybe some) or insect searching (any insects found were unwelcomed). This was back before computers, the Internet, and GameBoys were invented. What on earth did we do?

What I remember is not necessarily entertaining or fun-packed, but good nonetheless. I remember honing my stamp collecting skills by going to the only post office in town to see if there were any new releases. I remember doing nothing in particular during the day, but riding back home after sundown in Bev's yellow Jeep CJ-7 with the top removed. Though it was summertime and miserably hot during the day, it was cold in the evening, especially as you left the bright lights and big city heat of Stuart - with its one traffic light - and headed to the real back roads and cool dark sky of Patrick County. We would have the heat on, and would listen to the 8-track tape of Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection, which, to this day, is still my favorite Elton John record. It was worth being cold.

Back at Bev's house, there was little to watch on TV, as this was pre-cable and pre-satellite, and her mountain antenna reception wasn't that great. We would play Bach records and play with the crazy Siamese cat Moo Moo to the rhythm of the music. We would play guitar some, as Beverly would self-teach herself to play lead to some song, and I would strum along the chords. Not sure if that was the "camp song" - or not - that our parents have fondly reminisced about ever since. We both wished we could play like John Denver.

Sometimes we would venture up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway or beyond. We visited the home of our ancestors in Grayson County and would go look at old tombstones, searching for our great-great-grand-something or another. We took pictures of things, and developed and printed in Bev's home darkroom.

There was no home cooking of vegetables, beef roast, or pork chops... but really good tacos, spaghetti, hot dogs, and Hamburger Helper. During the stay, we would easily eat a whole pack of 100 cookies - half chocolate and half vanilla. It was all good.

I would never trade the times at the NC State Fair with my family, braving the crowd, tolerating the noise, and riding The Crazy Mouse. But as I have grown older, and gotten busier, I often crave the quiet and simple and seemingly humdrum days that I experienced as a child, spending my summers with my big sister in the mountains of Virginia, doing nothing in particular. Those were great memories, without a lot of technological entertainment. It's a rare time these days when there is solitude, with time to think, and quietness, with time to listen.

Our Trip to Hilton Head, SC

This morning marks the end of our "summer" vacation to the beach, this time to Hilton Head - three nights and four days in what was predicted by esteemed meteorologists as 4 days of "severe thunderstorms, lightning, 80% chance of rain, up to 1/4" of rain." What we got was occasional white puffy clouds, frequent blue sky, mild temperatures (80s), and the usual dose of beach humidity. We may have turned the wipers on for 30 seconds one day, but that was it! That's the unpredictability of beach weather.

For me, there is nothing like the beach, and seeing and hearing the ocean. It just keeps on going. I see the beautiful homes here, many along the beach, and just imagine what it might be like to live there. Not necessarily in the home - but on the beach. To be able to sleep on a screened-in porch and hear the real ocean, not the fake ocean as played by my sound conditioner back home. I can dream... and if that day never comes, we still have vacations. Our first night here at the Marriott was a nice view of the entrance road and parking lot. After some confusion and gnashing of teeth, we moved to a beach side room for the last 2 nights.

The most distinctive thing about this beach trip was the environment. Hilton Head is more low key than Myrtle Beach. There are no big lighted signs pointing to the Dixie Stampede just ahead. There are dark unlit roads weaving through quiet neighborhoods in gated communities leading to a marina where a restaurant and its T-shirt store are located. The have putt-putt here, but no NASCAR Speedway Fun Park. They have pools, but no splashing sliding bucket-dumping water park. Lori and I compared this place to Bald Head Island, but with cars and a competitive free-market economy. (Note: Bald Head Island, SC has golf carts for transportation and few restaurants and stores, which seem to be run and/or tightly controlled by the government of BHI - as it probably has to be - otherwise, you would need cars, and that would spoil the point of BHI - which is to RELAX. But I digress.)

We brought 2 bikes here from home and rented 3 from the local bike rental store. Then we became cruel parents and forced our children to ride bikes around the community and on the beach. I really hated putting them through that as it was very traumatic to have to participate in recreation not involving the pool, beach, Cartoon Network, Nikelodeon, Play Station, Nintendo DS or Gameboy. I expect that when we get home, they will fondly talk about riding bikes on the beach, in and out of the edge of the surf, and will look forward to that on future beach trips. I know I will.

Caleb & Seth enjoyed the ocean probably more than anything. They would stand in the water up to their belly, and get smashed by waves, over and over again. I think they would do it for hours if we would let them. But that is a very stressful activity for a parent - maintaining focus on the 2 little bodies playing in the water. So we did that for about an hour each day, and I'm sure that is what they loved the most about this whole trip. Luke's thing was playing in the indoor pool and hot tub. That's a lot easier to manage. And we all watched The Lord of The Rings movies at nights (we had never seen them), as Luke and Caleb fell asleep... and then the rest of us... and the room became quiet. And the ocean kept doing its thing outside.

Happy 10th Anniversary to Us!!

Ten years ago today, Lori and I tied the knot after an amazing 6 month relationship and 6 week engagement. My best friend from high school, who was a legal pastor I believe, married us at the NC State University Arboretum in the presence of our parents and my favorite aunt and uncle. It was a cheap wedding, but has been a richly rewarding marriage.

It seemed like a risk to get married so suddenly, but we both felt God made us for one another. The time has amazingly flown by. If we did not have a 9 year old son (who just turned 9 last week!), I'm not sure I would believe this! She has also given me 2 other boys as pictured to the right (and a cat, the only other girl in the house).

We didn't have a honeymoon right away. I spent 2 of the first 3 weeks of our marriage on a business trip in Ireland. It was tough being apart so soon after getting hitched. We finally took our honeymoon trip in December to Australia. Seth was actually "Made in Australia." The other two came as great surprises along the way, and we stopped after Luke.

The balance is almost fair now... the 3 boys and me combined are almost as much a man as she is a woman. She is lovely, and sexy, and witty, and inventive, and caring, and creative, and nurturing, among other things. And she can cook, which proves she is also teachable (thanks, moms!). She has a smile and charm that wins everyone over, especially me. She has patience to love me unconditionally, and I am thankful she appreciates me and encourages me. She is giving and sacrificing to others, volunteering at a local women's shelter, to bring a smile to someone else's face. Every time our kids cry "Momeeeeeeeee!" I am especially thankful for her, and that they know her soft comforting hugs and love, just as I do.

I think the secret to our marriage is that we allow one another space to be ourselves. We don't so much try to change one another, as we have grown to appreciate the unique qualities and attributes God made in us, and that any individual problem or issue is not a deal-breaker.

I credit Lori with bringing me back to God. We talked about our faith when we were dating, though mine was questionable at the time. Later, we joined a church, and she encouraged me in Bible study, sharing of my journey with Christ with others, and giving. We have had many special times praying together and living through our faith challenges.

In hindsight, we probably have an improbable relationship. But by God's grace we have made it this far, and I love her more each and every day. This has been, by far, the best 10 years of my life.

Funny Things My Kids Have Said #2

On the way to Danville yesterday, Luke kept asking "When are we going to be there?" I asked that he watch the clock (which said 11:20), and that when the 20 became a 55 then we would almost be there. I'm thinking he would watch the numbers increase, and learn to tell time through this exercise. Caleb then said to Luke in his usual animated, cut-to-the-chase way, "LUKE, look out your window. If you see a Wendy's and we're going up a big hill, we're almost there."

On the way home from Danville, which is mostly rural country roads, Luke asked, "Are we in the middle of somewhere?" That one was tough to answer. I think I said, "Yes, but not for long."

Today in Sunday School, Lori said they were naming animal sounds. What does a duck say? What does a dog say? Etc... When they were asked "What does a cow say?" Luke answered, "Eat mor chikin."

Today, Caleb had a "date" with a girl/friend in the neighborhood. I gave him the big lecture beforehand about being a gentleman, and using manners, etc. When Lori picked him up, the mother told her about how wonderful and nice Caleb was! Said he was much better than any other child who had visited before. As Lori was telling me this on the phone on the way home, Caleb heard the bragging about him, and promptly asked his mom, "Can I have a dollar?" (I guess he's considering an allowance again!)

Acts29 Bootcamp - The Center Focus

I spent 2 days this week at the Acts29 Raleigh 2007 Bootcamp. I wrote earlier that I heard the words “Jesus” and “gospel” quite frequently during this conference, and that I was stirred up and mesmerized. Why? It took me a few days to put my finger on it. This may sound like a cliché, but the result of this conference for me was to reorient my attention not so much on how churches compare to one another, but how well they compare to Christ and uphold the gospel.

The whole strategy and foundation of Acts29 is that church planters need to be gospel-centered and preach such that everything that is said or done through and by one’s church ties back to the over-arching story of Jesus. That story is simply this: Jesus was God’s son, sent by God to live and walk among people 2000 years ago. Jesus was fully God and fully man. Yet, he suffered the punishment of death on a cross, which he did not deserve, taking our place instead, as we deserved to be there because of our own sinfulness. In return, we get eternal life and his holiness, which we did not deserve – because three days later, he arose from being dead and is alive today. It is through faith in this man & God named Jesus, not through any effort or qualities of our own, that we are redeemed and have life to the fullest, as we are now sons and daughters of God.

It is the challenge of Acts29 that every bit of everything we do as a local church point back to that storyline. Based on my understanding of church history and my own experiences, this is not new. This is how churches are supposed to have been operating all along. But this is not just a formula for success, as Acts29 expects this to really be engrained in the DNA of the people who lead and participate in the church. It’s not just that preachers preach about the gospel, but that they are humble men, who submit themselves to scripture, and live it out themselves. They even encourage pastors in this network to voluntarily establish accountability circles where they are regularly challenged to be faithful and pure in their relationship with their wives, families, and Christ. Acts29 paints a high-standard for the local church and her pastors, and that’s how it ought to be.

Mark Driscoll challenged these 200+ men who attended this conference that being a church plant pastor is going to be extremely difficult, and only those with intestinal fortitude and fervent gospel-centered leadership qualities will survive. And he’s so right. Even before the going gets tough, there will be temptations. At the conference, Driscoll talked about the typical temptations that bring down many people, regardless of vocation, such as sexual immorality, greed, addictions, or neglecting family to achieve career success. Pastors are far from immune, as there is an adversary in Satan working against them 24 x 7, and building the church seems like a higher calling than being a husband and father. (It is certainly not, Driscoll states.) Succumbing to those types of temptations typically leads to failed ministries, and often busts up marriages and families.

What I worry about for these young pastors is something perhaps as bad as a social moral fall, and that is when familiarity begins to breed contempt - when you remain in ministry, have the appearance of success, and yet somehow have distorted, compromised, avoided, or added to the gospel. I think there is a spectrum of ideology that exists in the Christian church today. In the center is the gospel as it was, is, and is meant to be - relevant, available, helpful, convicting, correcting, connecting, graceful, merciful, and loving all at once. But on the left is a concept often referred to as “watering down the gospel,” and on the right is a concept often referred to as “cultural irrelevance.”

Where church leaders think they themselves are on that spectrum will determine how they assess and compare themselves to other churches and pastors, and vice versa. The center leads to humility, the left, compromise, and the right, pride. There certainly are cases where churches water down the gospel, where they abandon conservative biblical principles in order to appease culture or church plurality, or preach a “prosperity gospel” where the listener learns how to get rich quick in the name of Jesus, or temporarily avoid the existence of the Trinity, in favor of a more widely-accepted, cross-cultural, international, United Nations-approved “God.” Likewise, there are churches where culture and the people in it are ignored unless they conform to the religious practices and traditions in the church. And where hellfire and brimstone and good works are preached, and love and mercy and grace are absent. I think both of these are the extremes, and I believe are the exception to the rule in the Christian church today. What I now believe to be mostly a waste of time is evaluating and wrongly pigeonholing other churches or pastors into either of these extreme groups based solely on reputation or out-of-context information marks.

One type of pigeonholing is this: When a person critiques a church or pastor to the left of where he or she is, it is often evidenced by surreptitiously rebuking the church or leader, sometimes while piously quoting scripture out of context. I have heard many Bible-quoting brothers and sisters automatically equate “watering down the gospel” with any and all of the following: drinking beer or wine, using secular resources in church, being "seeker-sensitive", using business principles to operate a church, serving coffee in church, having a mega-church of thousands of people, advertising, holding attractional events, not having an alter call every sermon, playing rock-style worship music, not using hymns, not having a choir, using resources from other churches or pastors, not saying “Jesus” or “sin” enough in a sermon, using resources from the Internet, not affiliating with a denomination, having church services on December 24 but not December 25, having fun in church or enjoying church in any manner (lest it be branded entertainment), preaching that is topical and not expository, preaching that only uses one verse per sermon, preaching that uses many verses per sermon from different parts of the Bible, preaching a topic that addresses a felt need of the congregation, preaching with a goal of life change (ie. transformation) over Bible knowledge transfer, not having Sunday School, having a church that is culturally “hip” or “cool,” and last but not least, playing cards. It’s as if there is a scorecard, and once you meet 3 of these criteria, you’re automatically a “cult” that “waters down the gospel.” In these cases, in the heart of the critic, the gospel has simply been enhanced with legalism. Critiques like this are often prideful, and serve only to attempt to set oneself apart from “that church” by "out-gospelizing" it.

The other type of pigeonholing, which I confess I have been guilty of, is being critical of churches to the right of the gospel that are irrelevant and inward focused, that hold to tradition and avoid change like the plague. These are churches that are potentially not on mission. It’s convenient, and probably incorrect, to automatically brand these churches as irrelevant just because they have a choir but not a praise band, play an organ, display Jesus pictures on the walls, sing from a hymnal, won’t use Powerpoint to display lyrics, dress up for church, use the King James Version, preach only expository, have a Vacation Bible School program, proclaim drinking beer or wine as sinful, belong to a denomination, hold evangelism fairs, have a steeple on the church building, have Sunday School classes, leave gospel tracts at restaurants instead of tips, or teach information from the Bible without tying it to today’s application. Again, it’s not necessarily a “3 of these and you’re guilty” scenario. There are good churches with good traditions that are reaching people and helping to transform lives in the name of Jesus. And while I don’t personally prefer some of these traits, it is true that tradition without substance can be a significant deterrent for non-believers, just as style without substance can be an inhibitor for truth, conviction, and real transformation.

Lest anyone think I am a heretic, it does disappoint me when pastors and believers miss opportunities to knock a home run in the name of Jesus. Jesus and the gospel is the distinctiveness of our faith. It is the key that unlocks doors and answers life altering questions. Jesus and the apostles spoke challenging and convicting words to people in sometimes gentle and creative ways, and sometimes pointed and unfiltered ways. We need a balance of both in our churches and relationships. We are Christ’s ambassadors here on earth. Some will do it better than others. Some will be more or less accurate and pure than others. Some will get it wrong sometimes. Some will avoid hard truths and preach only love and mercy. Some will avoid love and mercy, and preach only wrath and judgment. Neither of those alone is right, but it doesn’t mean that Christ can’t or won’t use the “fruit” of those churches. It is not our obligation to avoid being like those churches, or to tear them down in public blogs and at conferences. It is our obligation for ourselves to focus on being like Christ and our own churches to be gospel-centered churches. Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 that he will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it! That is a HUGE promise. Perhaps not every product of an imperfect church will be for naught! Let’s stop spending our precious ministry time comparing ourselves and our churches to others, and compare only to the One who is incomparable. And I’m saying this not only to others, but to myself.

Mark Driscoll has said, “The benchmark of what we do is, ‘Is it faithful to scripture and fruitful for people?’ What matters is people meeting Jesus and Him changing their life.”(1) I think that hits it spot-on. Driscoll also said, “The best way to have unity – is to have a bunch of people who are repentant and humble.” That is my prayer for all pastors and believers, not just those at the Acts29 conference. Let’s develop ministries that are faithful to scripture and fruitful for people, and be people who are repentant and humble. That’s the center.

1. Mars Hill Church Sermon Audio, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Jan 22, 2006