Yearly Archives: 2006

Fun Times in the Neighborhood

There seems to be a new sport in my church’s neighborhood: knocking out our windows. A week ago someone threw a brick through a lower-level window into the fellowship hall. Then on Monday a big rock crashed through one of the windows in back. The window next to it is broken, too, but the inner window is intact.

So last night, after our prayer time, we boarded up those two windows tightly (replacing the temporary cardboard). I understand several other windows were broken previously. This is interesting.

A few weeks ago at music practice, a gal who has been attending Anchor ran into the sanctuary and said a couple guys were trying to break into her house. Police came and caught one guy.

All of which affirms that this is right where we need to be. I find it exhilarating.

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No Tears Shed for the Pastoral Prayer, RIP

One thing I don’t miss is the pastoral prayer. It was a childhood bane, something I dreaded every Sunday. I’d stand there shifting from one foot to another as the preacher droned on and on, lifting up every health need, from heart operations to ingrown toenails, and every ministry of the church, and “everyone gathered here today,” and bestowed numerous flowery compliments on God for his sundry attributes and his patience with us ne’er-do-wells, on and on and on. Fifteen minutes seemed to be the minimum length, else it wasn’t worth God’s time to listen.

And yes, it was necessary that we parishioners stand while the pastor was talking to God on our behalf. God, evidently, looks askance at parishioners who sit down while someone else is praying, and he withholds his blessing from that church. It was as if it’s better to focus on your poor aching feet than on actually praying. Some preachers feel the same way about public Bible reading‚Äîthat everyone must stand when Scripture is being read, because it really impresses God and proves that we are spiritual warriors. If you read Scripture while sitting, it just means you don’t respect the Bible.

Maybe once every other month, six times a year tops, the pastor would allow us to sit during his pastoral prayer. As we proceeded through our usual routine of hymns and throw-away prayers, and the moment of the high-priestly pastoral prayer approached, I would find myself hoping, “Please, oh please let us sit today!” Alas, I was nearly always disappointed. But it’s good to have hope.

I grew up in the 1960s and early 1970s, when women wore very high heels to church because, I guess, guys liked them. So lengthy pastoral prayers could be quite an ordeal for women, though perhaps that was part of God’s plan‚Äîafter all, they have pain in childbirth because a woman sinned first, so standing for 15 minutes in high heels is just more of the same just punishment for Eve’s transgressions. One of my distinct, recurring childhood memories involves our family’s drive home from church, and hearing Mom say something like, “I didn’t think he would ever stop praying. My feet were killing me.” I suspect the same sentiments were voiced in numerous other cars as long-suffering high-heel wearers headed home to pot roasts.

Anyway, the churches I’ve attended since 1989 haven’t featured the pastoral prayer. I don’t know if God is glad about that, but I am.

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Ralph Reed, Christian Hero, Bites the Dust

Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, bless his sincere Christian heart, in 1998 sent Jack Abramoff a letter asking for help in making business contacts. He said he was done with electoral politics and, “I need to start humping in corporate accounts.” I am so very very proud of our Christian spokespersons.

RalphReed.jpgYes, we have some legitimate Christians claiming to speak for the rest of us–people like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Kennedy, and James Dobson. But they rarely make me proud. These guys are hugely influential gatekeepers to Christian audiences. Therefore, political operatives and lobbyists suck up to them, coddle them, do whatever it takes to gain their ear. And when Pat and Jerry and the Jims speak, I’m afraid they too often parrot the sentiments of somebody lurking in the background. Which may explain why they say so many stupid things.

Then there are other conservative voices who cloak themselves in conservative values, speak Christianese, know how to push Christian buttons, and pretend to be Christians on TV–people like Ann Coulter (who can write a book about God and politics without quoting any Scripture), Tom Delay, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, and legions of political operatives. Personally, I don’t trust any of them. I think most of them just use Christians as pawns in political games (because that’s what they’re paid to do). They conduct seminars on how to mobilize us, how to get our dander up, how to extract money from us, and how to generally use us. Call me cynical. Frankly, I’ve just had enough of this stuff.

Which is why I shed no tears when Ralph Reed, running for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, lost in the primary last week. Interesting things happen to morality and values when they become entwined with politics. Reed, once the baby-faced posterboy of the Christian right as head of the Christian Coalition, was a good friend of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who will be wearing stripes for a while. Abramoff asked Reed to mobilize Christians against gambling. Reed got his network of pastors and laypersons to start a grassroots war against gambling, and collected a $5.3 million paycheck from Abramoff. Now it turns out that Abramoff was actually working for an Indian tribe, and the money came from casino revenues. The Indians didn’t want to ban gambling; they just used Reed’s grassroots war to scare away new competition.

Time magazine, in writing about the downfall of Ralph Reed, says that to Reed, “Christian voters were pawns in a game of power swapping.” Now, Reed ended up being a pawn. He hoped to move from Lieutenant Governor to Governor to…Senator? President? Now he’s done, and will need to return to, uh, what was that word he used?

Reed concluded his concession speech with these words: “Stay in the fight, don’t retreat and our values will win in November.” Well, let’s hope it is more “our” values than the values of Reed and all the other charlatans who play gullible Christians like a violin.

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The World’s Most Dangerous Road

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Here are photos of the world’s most dangerous road. It’s located in Bolivia, and it’s a very lengthy sucker. This linked page contains a bunch of photos. Imagine driving on that thing!

When we lived in Arizona, a friend and I joined my dad and another schoolteacher, Mr. O’Bannon, in a Jeep trip into the Mojave mountains. Old mines were located in the mountains, and very crude roads led to them. At one point, we traveled a narrow section of road with a ravine on the right side of the Jeep. We three passengers hung on the outside of the Jeep, on the left against the rocky hillside, trying to add some weight to hold the Jeep down.

We also ventured into an old mine. We got in a ways, it was very dark, and we came to an ominously dark shaft in the middle of the tunnel–basically, just a hole spanning much of the tunnel’s width. We skirted around it carefully, hugging the wall, ever cognizant of the fact that a misstep or an unexpected rattlesnake could send us plummeting downward.

I remember thinking that it was neat that Dad let me, a junior higher, his first-born, join the adults in creeping around that shaft. He didn’t say, “Steve, you wait here. Don’t go any further.” No, he let me come. Maybe that was a bit stupid of him, I don’t know. But to me, at that age, it was neat. Like he trusted me to take care of myself. I also remember being scared out of my gourd as I hugged the wall, stepping sideways and wondering just how deep that dark, dark shaft went. Scared, but exhilarated.

I suspect we never told Mom about any of this.

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The Sunday I Sold Out

So I get to church this morning, I’m nervous because I have to preach, and one of the first things that happens is that Chris Kuntz makes fun of the fact that I’m not wearing sneakers. Then Dave Ward comes down the center aisle just before music practice and asks if I have my camera, because he wanted to take a picture as proof that I can wear something other than sneakers to church. Okay, Chris and Dave, that’s just what my frazzled nerves needed.

You see, I always wear sneakers to church. But today, since I was preaching, I donned some casual non-sneakers, not to mention some of my nicer Dockers pants (which didn’t strike Dave as photo-worthy). In retrospect, I feel I sold out to “what will people think” paranoia. Why didn’t I wear my sneakers, as usual? Did I think I needed to impress people because I was preaching? Did that role demand that I dress up and be not me, but not-me? A phony?

I should have worn sneakers. Instead, I sold out to false expectations. I’m a fraud. A mere pleaser-of-people.

I preached about the story in Luke 7 of Jesus and the “sinful woman” at the home of Simon the snobbish Pharisee. As part of the message, I told the congregation we needed to go on a field trip, so I had them all come to the front of the church and gather around a makeshift table, and we sort of acted out the story.

Just before that, though, Pastor Tim Hallman took one of his kids out of the sanctuary to the bathroom. When he returned, he was surprised to see everyone up front. He thought, “Wow, did Steve just have an altar call and the whole church is getting saved?” Alas, that was not the case. But I got a good laugh when he told me about it. Even now, I’m typing this with a big smile on my face.

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Our 17th Anniversary

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Who is that skinny couple on their honeymoon?

Today is our 17th anniversary. Pam and I celebrated last night by eating at Biaggi’s, a wonderful Italian place. On our 11th anniversary, we celebrated in Florence, Italy. Now that was Italian. I’m deeply, deeply in love with Pam. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t understand how I got to that point.

People write books on “The Secret of Marriage,” with a formula for what it takes to stay together. The “keys” to a happy marriage. Communication, shared interests, trust, “keeping God first,” mutual submission–those are some of the keys, and they’ve been helpful in our marriage. But as I look at our 17 years, I can’t reduce it to a formula–“Do this, this, and this, and you’ll have a marriage like we have.” I’ll bet Dobson can’t, either. Rather, every marriage is a unique, unpredictable journey, and to a very large extent, you make it up as you go without really knowing what lies around the next bend and how you’ll handle it. Despite periods of discontent and carnality and restlessness and sometimes, especially in earlier years, wondering just how much I really liked this woman–and I’ll bet most guys go through that–I find myself 17 years deep into this thing, and fully delighted with this person who bears my name.

I’ve always felt a bit guilty that I wasn’t madly in love with Pam when we got married. I’ve known people who were, indeed, madly in love (Ted and Linda come to mind). That’s certainly the only model Hollywood provides. It’s what American culture expects and exalts–that unless you’re madly in love, unless you “just can’t live without her,” then you’re probably not meant for each other. But Pam and I dated for five years, and for me the rational side played a much larger role than the emotional side. I deeply yearned to muster up madly-in-loveness, but it just wasn’t there, and that troubled me for some time.

For me, it was more of a decision. I cared deeply for Pam. Enjoyed being with her. She made me laugh. We shared many interests. And over time I became convinced that we could have a great life together. So I chose to marry Pam and build a life with her. I’d never seen Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock take the rational approach; the movies require madlyness. But in much of the rest of the world, I imagine, marriage may be more of a decision, and various cultural mores undergird that decision (like in “Fiddler on the Roof”). And that sort of explains where I was 17 years ago. I chose to spend the rest of my life with Pam, and my Christian upbringing and evangelical expectations provided glue.

In a way, I’m glad I didn’t marry Pam amidst madly-in-loveness. For me there was no emotional mountain to descend from, at the bottom of which you get mired in second thoughts amidst the day-to-dayness of marriage. Rather, I started with a decision, and I’ve steadily grown in love with her (with jagged dips along the way, though at this point pretty far back down the road). After 17 years of journeying together, I feel deeply in love with Pam–far, far more in love than I was 17 years ago. Maybe after another 17 years I’ll be madly in love. Yes, I think that is highly likely.

Pam-GatlinburgMarriage is mysterious, the way your relationship evolves and circumstances intertwine you in unexpected ways. Just being honest: in earlier years, there were blips when I had doubts about the whole thing–though not anywhere near serious enough to even consider ending it–or I would create distance for selfish reasons, or I would just be a typical male jerk. But then I would roll over some morning (not every morning) and see her sleeping peacefully, and suddenly realize how much I craved her approval and enjoyed her laugh and wanted to never ever hurt or disappoint her. And the amazing thing is, I would go on to find plenty of ways to hurt and disappoint her, and unfortunately I’ll continue doing so. But she continues loving me back, and that melts me.

And now, love is the norm. I really love my wife. I can’t explain how that happened, can’t do bullet points on building a marriage like ours. It was a journey with a multitude of curves and switchbacks and falling rock and blown tires, but also lots of scenic drives together and mountaintop highs. However we got here, we’re here, 17 years after that day in 1989. I’m thankful, and I’m in love, and life is good.

I don’t know what trials and ordeals await around the bend, and I’m not arrogant enough to think we can survive ordeals that other couples haven’t, or that we’ll survive my own stupidity. Too many Christians have written books about their “keys to marriage” and then gotten a divorce. This stuff frightens me, though I fully expect to grow old with Pam and can’t imagine anything else. But the journey will continue, and if as the years pass I more and more frequently roll over in the morning and find myself happy that Pam is beside me, that can only be a good thing.

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The Green Prosperity Prayer Cloth

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I came out to the computer in the living room and worked a bit on my sermon for Sunday. But that’s not what I did first. First, I located the remote. Hey, I’m a guy. I checked the weather channel, then surfed around for a bit. And I stumbled upon a TV preacher named Don Stewart.

Don StewartHe was hawking his Green Prosperity Prayer Cloth, which would bring physical healing and financial prosperity. The TV showed crusades where numerous people were waving the amazing Green Prosperity Prayer Cloth, and they all seemed happy, healthy, and rich. This miracle-working cloth was available for free, just like salvation is free, so it’s obviously biblical. I checked out his website.

As I learned, this Green Prosperity Prayer Cloth has been personally blessed and anointed by Don Stewart. I don’t know if this anointing occurred before or after the actual cut cloth emerged in 12-inch squares from the Guatemala sweatshop; it would be a shame if the anointing occurred afterwards, and those poor workers, though in constant contact with these cloths, missed the value-added blessing and therefore remain destitute. But God doesn’t really care about those Guatemalans, because his focus is on making Americans happy and rich. And evidently some non-Americans, too, because the website says, “Thousands of people around the world have used this Biblical point of contact prayer cloth to receive abundant blessings of financial prosperity.”

I’m wondering if God awakened me at 4 am specifically to alert me to the power of Green Prosperity Prayer Cloths, so that I would change my sermon to fit this new discovery. Yes, I’m that impulsive. Since Indiana is a hard-core red state, maybe I could buy a bolt of red cloth, cut it into squares, and pass them out to people at Anchor as our own Red Prosperity Prayer Cloth. By the end of the year we would all be rich, and the church could hire more staff.

Well, I probably won’t do that, apart from heavenly thunderbolts. But I did feel compelled to send away for my free Green Prosperity Prayer Cloth. All I needed was to submit a prayer request. Turns out that Jordi, who loves being outdoors in the grass, has taken to meowing in protest when I bring him inside. Meanwhile Molly, the alpha cat, growls and hisses at Jordi a lot, and sometimes slaps him on the head with a paw for no apparent reason, other than to assert her dominance. This is most disturbing. So I sent Don Stewart this prayer request:

“I need wisdom regarding our two kids, Jordi and Molly, who seem to be entering a period of rebellion. Nothing I’ve done works. Jordi openly protests my authority, and Molly is sometimes abusive toward her younger brother. This is very upsetting. My wife and I are both frustrated. We feel we’ve been good parents, but something is happening which is beyond our control, so we need prayer for this situation which seems to keep getting worse.”

Turns out Rev. Stewart has a “Miracle Mountain of Prayer” where he takes prayer requests. I need to look into getting a prayer mountain for Anchor. It might be difficult to find one in Indiana.

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Steve in the Pulpit

I’m preaching this Sunday at Anchor. I’m talking about keys and ownership and Jesus at the home of Simon. Just try to put all of that together.

There was a time when I swore off preaching. I had had occasional occasion to preach, but it’s not something I felt comfortable doing. I’m a seminar guy. I love teaching settings with small groups. I like to get people interacting and to guide discussion. I feel at home in small groups. That’s my genre.

Sometime in the early 1990s, I did a series of seminars during a weekend retreat for a church in Indiana. That was fun. But they also asked me to stick around and preach on Sunday morning. I went long, felt unorganized, didn’t think I was connecting, and told Pam afterwards, “Okay, that’s the last time I preach.” There had also been an unsatisfying experience before that which I no longer recall, no doubt for good reason.

Then in 1998 I got roped into doing a missions-related message at the Colwood UB church in Michigan. It went half-way good. In both services. I wasn’t anxious to do it again…but I wasn’t totally against it.

Then last summer I volunteered to preach one Sunday at Anchor while our pastor was taking courses at Trinity seminary. I spoke on “Lessons from My Cats,” and showed lots of pictures of Jordi and Molly. I kept telling myself, “Think of it as a seminar. It’s not, but it’s a somewhat small group and therefore similar.” And it worked. I enjoyed myself. Which is why I didn’t hesitate to volunteer again this summer. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. But ever in the back of my mind is the thought, “Steve, you’re a seminar guy. Push your luck, and you’ll crash and burn.”

So yeah, I’m real positive about Sunday.

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Telephonically Challenged

I have a message on my cellphone, but don’t know how to retrieve it. We programmed in a password, but it won’t take the password. So I’m stumped. I’m wondering who called, and if it’s important. Maybe somebody died.

I am telephonically challenged. My cellphone has a calendar, but I can never remember how to get to it, so I don’t use it. My stress level rises whenever I need to look up a number in the address book, and the thought of programming in a new address freaks me out. My wife just starts hitting buttons automatically, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. At times like those, I resent her transcendent competence.

My cellphone will take pictures, handle text messages, do voice dialing, show me a log of all calls placed and missed, and even let me play games. It’ll surf the web if I want to pay for the privilege (which I don’t). But I’ve not done any of that stuff. I just want to punch in a number, hit SEND, and have somebody answer. The other thing I’ve mastered is recharging the battery. I nailed that task long ago. The sense of accomplishment still gives me goosebumps.

I’m not exactly technologically inept. I do a lot of complicated stuff. I can handcode HTML and CSS. I’m proficient with Photoshop, InDesign. Dreamweaver, and many more high-end programs. I’m great with MS Word tabs. I work with Javascript, XHTML, XSLT (the absolute worst). I design Filemaker databases with complex scripting. I know all about the various graphics formats (PNG, JPG, TIF, PSD, GIF, etc.), with attendant info about dpi and resolutions and what works better on the web and in print. I can bend Blogger and Movable Type templates to my will. I oversee a network of computers (including five servers), design and maintain a half-dozen websites and several blogs, get databases to display on the web, and much more. I love FTPing. I talk enough Geek to fool people into thinking I am one. When I surf the web, I often look at a page’s source code, just to see how they did something.

But I can’t figure out my cellphone. And while we’re at it, I don’t like FAX machines, either.

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God Created. Beats Me How.

I honestly don’t know what I think regarding evolution and how God created the earth. I’ve never voiced that, partly because conservative evangelicals enthralled with this subject are quick to hurl charges of “He doesn’t believe the Bible.” Such charges make me want to, uh, hurl. However, much to my delight (and possibly to my detriment), this doesn’t threaten me anymore, which is why I’m outing myself from the evolutionary cave. So feel free to hurl away.

The honest truth is that none of the creation explanations work for me. In all intellectual honesty, I cannot ignore the fossil and geological and glacier record, continental drift, carbon dating, the new findings in genome research, and so many other things that point to a very old earth. So all of the “young earth” explanations don’t click with me, though people do make some incredibly acrobatic jumps through chaotically twirling hoops. This is very entertaining to watch and well worth the cost of admission.

The literal seven-day creation approach doesn’t satisfy me. Creation science doesn’t cut it, either. Theistic evolution actually strikes some positive cords with me, but it also strikes some resoundingly dissonant cords which I cannot reconcile with scripture. I like a lot of stuff in the Intelligent Design field, though those arguments don’t necessarily rely on a particular understanding of Genesis–just the realization that the complexity of the universe and of earth’s ecosystem required some god-sized thought. But how and when God did it–beats me.

So, accuse me of being a person who doesn’t “believe the Bible.” But I don’t think any of the explanations advanced so far have got it right. This will probably be one of those things that will have to wait for heaven, just as Job never received an explanation for why he underwent his trials. Or consider Jesus. The Jews knew all the Scripture about the Messiah, but never dreamed the Messiah would look and act anything like Jesus did–and yet, in retrospect, those very same verses fit Jesus, and the Bible’s integrity is reaffirmed. You just have to put the puzzle together in a whole different way.

In heaven, when someone asks God how he created the heavens and earth, he’ll probably say, “None of you were even close to getting it right.” Then he’ll explain it, and it’ll all make sense and be perfectly consistent with Scripture. That’s what I think.

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