Author Archives: Steve

Starbucks and Sports

Today, with the promise of a free drink at Starbucks, I filled out an online survey about my customer experience. One of the final questions asked my age. The last category was “50 and above.” I’m 49. In less than one month, I will be in Starbucks’ oldest demographic segment. Ugh.

Meanwhile, in sports:

  • The Colts had a tough time with Jacksonville yesterday, yet still prevailed. Lots of people were predicting a Jaguars win. Looks to me like the Colts will do just fine without Edge.
  • Michigan State really blew it. They had the game in hand, and let the Irish come back. But I’m happy with the result.
  • George Bush, Sr., will flip the coin at tonight’s first football game back in the New Orleans Superdome. Then at halftime we’ll here from U2 and Green Day. That’s Green Day, as in Billy Joe Armstrong singing “Don’t Want to be an American Idiot,” which skewers a particular George Jr. Interesting.
  • When I get home from church on Sundays, I have the choice of watching ESPN’s pro football roundup, or the FoxSports pregame show. ESPN has Chris Berman, Mike Ditka, Michael Irvin, and Ron Jawarski. Fox has Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmie Johnson. Can’t go wrong with either. The CBS team, despite Dan Marino and Boomer and Phil Simms, is a distant third. But hey, the subject is still football, so I’ll listen anyway.
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Thoughts on the News Programs

I can barely stomach Fox News anymore. Sorry, Mom and Dad. It’s just so blatantly partisan, a rubber-stamping lapdog for all things Republican. That morning “Fox and Friends” show is an absolute joke. Greta is relegated to the Nancy Grace universe, doing “missing white girl” stories. Bill O’Reilly is becoming a caricature of himself; I just don’t buy his purported fairness anymore, and it is most definitely a spin zone. Britt Hume has begun trashing anyone who questions anything about the Bush Administration (most recently Colin Powell). Hannity and Colmes just play roles, and their views are entirely predictable. The only thing on Fox that I still like is Shepherd Smith’s news hour. He’s unique, and that show deals with actual news. Whatta concept.

The whole “fair and balanced” thing is make-believe, like the term “compassionate conservative.” Terms designed to fool you whilst they act in ways totally contrary to their own label. Fox News is occasionally fair, rarely balanced (though lightyears from either on “Fox and Friends”). When they assemble several commentators, show me the one who leans left?

CNN has this liberal label, but I don’t see it. In general. CNN still aspires to be a professional, objective worldwide news channel, and since they do, indeed, have a worldwide presence, they’re probably the only American broadcaster which can lay that claim with any creedence. I certainly trust CNN, as a news source, far more than FoxNews (I trust the ABC and NBC news operations, too). I’ll take Paula Zahn over Greta any day (though neither of them most days), and I’m becoming a big Keith Olberman fan, much preferring him to O’Reilly’s schtick. Larry King still does his thing better than anybody else. Criticize him however you want (and I’ve found his show far less interesting than in previous years, and rarely watch it anymore), but he’s still a unique TV presence and does his thing with precision.

I also increasingly like MSNBC. In fact, I often turn there first, since it’s easier for me to hit channel 14 (MSNBC) on the remote than it is 17 (CNN). There’s scientific reasoning for you. Of course, channel 44, FoxNews, would be the easiest to finger, but on my preference list, it’s below MSNBC and CNN (though still several pegs above Nancy Grace, who is, unquestionably, The Devil).

As for the major network broadcasts: I like them all. Brian Williams is my first choice. But I like Charlie Gibson, and I also like the new Katie Curic broadcast. It’s fashionable to bash her, but I think she’s doing okay…for someone who made her career on the Today show. It’s just so nice to have Dan Rather out of the picture. And Sam Donaldson, too. Whatever happened to good ol’ Sam, he of the ego matched only by Rush Limbaugh? Well, wherever he’s at, let’s let him remain there undisturbed with the rest of the dragons.

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Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”

Over 20 years ago, a church friend told me about Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer,” a marvelous piece of satire. I found it in a small book and immediately became smitten by it. “The War Prayer” is directed at those who glory in war, and it extrapolates the effects of their prayers for battlefield victory.

“Help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended, the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied. For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet. We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

It’s a pretty amazing piece.

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Caring Too Much About This World

Pam and I have been listening to sermons by Pete Hise, pastor of a highly-evangelistic church in Lexington, Kent. We became aware of this church through someone we met at the ChurchMedia.net conference in June. I wrote earlier about this church, how they’ve had 1300 conversions during the past seven years. Anyway, we really enjoy Pete Hise’s messages. He’s very humorous, very informal, very engaging. He seems to have a lot of fun when he preaches.

We listened to three of his sermons a few weeks ago as we returned from vacationing in Michigan. In one message, Hise told about his annual month-long getaway…to a monastery! He eats and worships with the monks, while planning the coming year at his church–vision, sermons, etc. He mentioned one monk whom he described as the Simon Cowell of the monastery, the guy who decides whether or not a prospective monk gets in. Hise asked him, “What are some of the reasons you would not accept a person who applied to become a monk?”

The monk told about one young guy who seemed like a perfect fit for the monastic life. But before becoming a full-fledged monk, you spend several years as a novice (with a different colored robe). You see if the monastic life suits you, and other monks watch you.

As time passed, this novice kept dropping ideas about how to do things a little better. They could turn down the temperature a bit to save some money. During singing, they could bunch of a little to make it sound better. He had a number of such ideas. And when he came to the end of his novice period, he was told, “We’re sorry, but we don’t think this life is for you.”

This puzzled Pete Hise. “You mean you turned him down for offering suggestions?”

“No,” the monk told Hise. “He simply cared too much about this world.”

The monastic life is a life of denial–of possessions, of ambition, of sex. The monks live not for this world, but for the next world. That is what they set their minds on. This fellow so much wanted to improve the here-and-now. And that disqualified him. Now, you can argue why it’s not a bad thing to improve this world. But it does give something to think about.

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Dancing in Teheran

This week’s Time magazine has a cover story about Iran, with an article about what a war with Iran might look like. Sounds like we’re definitely headed toward a confrontation. My opinion? Sure, go ahead and invade. The Iranian people will welcome us as liberators. They’ll throng the streets as our tanks drive by, showering flower petals on our troops and breaking out the wine glasses. They’ll be swinging, swaying, records playing, dancing in the street. All we need is music, sweet music. There’ll be music everywhere.

George Bush can occupy Iran, and then let the next president deal with it. As soon as he/she deals with catching Bin Laden…and leaving Afghanistan…and Iraq…and rebuilding New Orleans…and filling in that unsightly hole in the ground in The Big Apple…and fixing immigration…and health care…and global warming. Okay, our soldiers in Iran might have to wait a few years. But hey, it’s not like they’ll be in danger or anything. Meanwhile, maybe it’s time for some more tax cuts so we can do some more shopping. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

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The NCD Survey – Measuring Partial Health

My church has taken the Natural Church Development survey several times, and it’s a useful tool for identifying church weaknesses and strengths. But I’ve had some nagging doubts. The folks who developed the survey claim they studied healthy churches in all kinds of settings around the world, and that the survey is universally applicable. But when I take it, the questions always seem geared to a white suburban or smalltown American church. Would they really apply to a persecuted house church in China?

In particular, I didn’t remember any questions about how the church cares for the poor, the dispossessed, widows, homeless, prisoners, etc. The Bible is pretty clear that these are things a church must do. So how can a church be “healthy” when these areas are totally ignored?

Today I looked over an NCD questionnaire, just to see if my suspicions had any basis. There are 91 questions, and number 82 does ask you to give a response to the statement, “Our church does something about hunger in the world.”

But beyond that reference to world hunger, the survey makes no attempt to measure whether the church is doing anything for poor people, for people with AIDS, for single-parent families, for the homeless, for people in prison, for social justice, for immigrants, etc. There is not even anything about race, like whether or not your congregation contains people of other races and ethnicities. These issues may not matter (sadly) in American suburban churches, but they certainly matter in most of the non-Western world. Yet, if your church does help poor people, fight injustice, and seek racial integration, the NCD survey won’t give you any credit for it.

While not dealing with those issues, the survey does ask, “Despite my church activities, I still have sufficient time for my hobbies.” It’s nice that the survey is concerned about my hobbies. I might propose a statement like, “My hobbies get shorted, because I’d rather give my time to church work” That seems like a better indicator of health.

If this survey were truly international in scope, there would be questions like:

  • Our church remains strong in the face of persecution.
  • We lovingly reach out to victims of AIDS.
  • People of various races feel at home in our church.
  • We are an advocate for social justice.
  • We help people around us who live in poverty.

But no, the NCD survey evidently doesn’t require that a church worry about the homeless, the dispossessed, the prisoner, the stranger, people of other races. You can receive a healthy score without doing any of those things, and you can feel good about yourself. If we measure what we consider important, then the NCD survey considers our hobbies more important than poor people. Yeah, Jesus would agree with that.

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The Many Shades of Closeness

One of the speakers at the MinistryCOM Conference, Scott Evans of Outreach Inc., focused on outreach communications. He talked about “proximity,” saying that people are more likely to come to your church if they are “close” to you. But he described three different types of closeness, or proximity.

  • Geographic proximity. This is what we normally think of. People within a five-mile radius of your church are most likely to come for a visit.
  • Demographic proximity. What is the make-up of your church? Lots of seniors? Lots of singles? Lots of kids? Young families? Whatever you have a lot of, you’re more likely to attract more of. A young family that visits a church with lots of other young families is more likely to conclude, “This is the church for us,” than a single who visits that church and doesn’t see other people his/her age arriving or sitting alone (and, therefore, probably single).
  • Spiritual proximity. This one intrigued me. Most churches are probably populated mainly by active and inactive believers, and that’s the type of person most churches attract–people who want to get involved, or people who want to merely attend and inhabit a pew. But is your church welcoming to nonbelievers? Do your pews contain unbelievers who are either neutral to the Gospel, or who are seeking? My own church has a number of nonChristians who seem to enjoy hanging out with us saints. That’s a pretty cool thing.

The speaker stopped with those types of proximity. I’m playing with a couple of additional ones, both of which pertain only to Christians looking for a church.

  • Theological proximity. Before settling on a new church, I would check out the church’s doctrinal beliefs. Seems like a no-brainer.
  • Style proximity. This has to do with preferences regarding how the church does worship or church in general. For instance, if I were looking for a new church, I wouldn’t pick a liturgical church, nor a church still using just a piano and organ. I want a band. A band that rocks. Other persons, though, may look for something liturgical in style.

Evans also said something that we should all think about. He said only 1% of people are believers looking for a new church. And yet, that’s who we seem to target in our promotional materials. We talk about the programs we offer, our beliefs, where we fit in the theological spectrum (“conservative evangelical,” “charismatic,” etc.), our style of worship, etc. But none of this will necessarily attract nonbelievers. To do that, we need to climb out of our boxes and get creative.

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The Obnoxious Cellphone Guy

Last Saturday the hotel sent me a 4:30 a.m. wakeup call so I could get to the Phoenix rental car terminal, return my rental car, take the shuttle to the airport, check my bag, wade through security, and make my 8:00 flight. Which turned out to be way more than enough time. A 5:00 wake-up call would have done it.

On the flight from Phoenix to Chicago, a guy was talking on his cell phone as our plane taxied onto the runway. A passenger a few rows up turned around and told him to turn it off–“It’s dangerous,” he said. He hung up and said he was turning off the phone. But as the plane began rising from the runwway, become airborne, I looked back (he was just behind me, across the aisle), and he was leaning down in his seat talking on the phone again. He thought if people couldn’t see him, they wouldn’t hear him. Wrong.

“Hey, turn it off!” I instructed sternly. Another passenger told him the same thing. He kept talking. “Don’t mess around!” I said, sternlier. “The other passenger said the exact same thing. And the guy finally hung up. Jerk.

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Happy Birthday, Cha Ching

Here’s something of extreme cosmic importance which I just learned and feel an urgent need to record on my blog to alert the world’s English speaking population and Trivial Pursuit players everywhere. It concerns the “Happy Birthday” song. Seems someone holds the copyright on it and makes $2 million a year in royalties. Whenever it’s sung on TV (like the Tonight Show) or in a movie or some other public venue, they get some money. Which is why, in restaurants, when waiters and waitresses (annoyingly) sing to people with birthdays, they use some other song. The song was written by two sisters in the 1860s, was first published in a songbook in 1893, and was finally copyrighted in 1934. Are you not excrutiatingly grateful to Yours Truly for telling you about this?

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A Friend from Way Back

Gilbertsons

Steve and Donna Gilbertson book-ending their three kids.

Last Thursday, while in Phoenix, I stopped in to see my old friend Steve Gilbertson. He’s planting a church called Sanctuary in Cave Creek, a very interesting outlying community in Phoenix–a touch cowboy, a touch bohemian, several touches of other things. After the conference ended for the day, I drove out to the new house they are ready to move into.

Steve goes back farther than any other friend I have–back to junior high youth group days in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. His dad and my dad were good friends at the United Brethren church there. Steve and I quizzed together on some championship quiz teams. He went into the ministry, and in 1989 followed my dad as pastor of the UB church in Fountain Hills, Ariz., also part of the Phoenix metro area. He left there a couple of years ago, and is now doing what he’s always had a passion for doing: planting a new church.

Steve and Donna asked me where I wanted to eat. I said, “Something local. Anything but a chain.” Donna said, “We don’t have any chains here.” Which is fascinating. There’s a Dairy Queen, but that’s it. Cave Creek doesn’t allow street lights, so the place is kind of dark at night; that, too, is fascinating. They suggested a variety of places, and we settled on a steakhouse called The Satisfied Frog. The hysterical part is that The Satisfied Frog is just down the road from a restaurant called The Horny Toad.

We talked and talked and talked, which is what Steve and I always do when we get together. He’s a truly independent, unconventional thinker, and I like to fancy myself that way. This is a friendship I greatly cherish, and which has endured strong for 30 years.

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