When I was a teen, I devoured prophecy books like The Late Great Planet Earth and heard doomsday sermons that scared the heck out of me. But by the time I turned 20, the skeptic in me took firm command and hasn’t relinquished his grip. I decided I wouldn’t get my underpants bunched up over that stuff anymore. Lots of people with high prophecy IQs restock their bunkers every time the Palestinians throw a temper-tantrum. But I refuse to join the hysteria. So while wars and rumors of wars and all kinds of biblical stuff happens, turning otherwise rational people into drooling doomsday-mongers, I remain cynically calm. It’s one way to relieve stress. Thus far, I have a nearly 30-year stockpile of I-told-you-sos.

I’m thinking about this because lately, our pseudo-news TV shows have been playing up the fear (or glee) among evangelical Christians that the current turmoil in Israel may usher in the Apocalypse. That we’re on the verge of the Left Behind books becoming reality. Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” ran through a whole bunch of reports last Thursday night. Blogs talk about why, this time, The End really–seriously, we’re not kidding this time–is nigh.

I hate to be a spoilsport. I know that Christians for 2000 years have been expecting the latest crisis to trigger the Second Coming, so when I say “It ain’t gonna happen this time, neither,” it’s just gratuitous piling-on. But that’s my view. Maybe it’ll happen in 50 years, maybe 100. But not anytime soon. And boy of boy, does that opinion irk today’s Christians, who yearn for God to flush the cosmic toilet in their lifetime, and who can quote me chapter-and-verse conclusive proof that this time, the stars are correctly aligned. “Steve, just read Revelation! It’s all right there!”

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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.

He 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.

My first real exposure to the Jesus Revolution came in 1972, sometime during my 9th grade year. That experience also taught me that sometimes, even the wisest adults don’t know squat.

I lived in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., and attended a vibrant, growing UB church that was doing most things right. I loved the youth group, and loved my youth pastor, Jack Wade, a former Campus Crusade worker who influenced me significantly.

One night we all bundled into cars and traveled the 40 miles to Needles, Calif., where a Christian rally was being held. That’s Needles as in, “Well I headed for Las Vegas / Only made it out to Needles.” Pastor Marvin Price, Jack Wade, my dad, and probably several other adults accompanied us to Needles High School, where a bunch of sound and music equipment occupied the middle of the football field.

The music was loud Christian rock music, something new to Sheltered Stevie. Our church was progressive in many ways, but not in music. But it was not a concert. It was more of a worship service. For probably the first time in my life, I sang worship songs to the accompaniment of a full rock band. I tell you–it really grabbed my heart, like nothing I had experienced before. It connected. The preacher, probably just another hippie who found Christ, spoke not necessarily with eloquence, but with conviction and urgency. Again, my heart leaped with something I couldn’t explain. I caught glimpses into a whole new level of Christian living, and my heart yearned for it.

An altar call was given. As people went forward, the band sang and the preacher prayed and talked. And as he talked, he occasionally lapsed, just briefly, into another language. It was my first exposure to speaking in tongues. He didn’t make a show of it. A few words, then it was gone. And I remember the words, burned into my mind like it was yesterday. It sounded just like this: “Shone alamos.” Whatever that means.

But that was a sideline, not something I focused on. Rather, I found myself overwhelmed with the newness of this whole experience–the drums and screaming guitars, the long-haired hippie preacher, the urgency and depth of his message, and the overwhelming way in which I sensed the Holy Spirit’s presence in that gathering. It was incredibly real to me, unlike anything I had experienced before (though I’ve had many such experiences since then).

Well, afterwards we headed back to Lake Havasu and were directed into the fellowship hall, where we sat around on the floor. Dad told me, while we were still outside, “Pastor Price wants to talk to everyone about something.” “What?” I asked. “About speaking in tongues.” And I wasn’t even sure what he meant.

Some denominational tussles over tongues in our California churches had embroiled Pastor Price to some extent. Now his whole youth group had just been exposed to someone speaking in tongues, and he felt compelled to talk to us about that. So he did. Now, I heard years later that Pastor Price himself prayed in tongues, but it was purely a private thing; he never emphasized it, never preached about it, never encouraged it publicly. He just privately practiced it. So he knew what he was talking about. We teenagers received a doctrinally sound, balanced presentation about speaking in tongues. Pastor Price did a fine job. He beautifully answered questions I wasn’t asking.

You see, this incredible man of God totally missed the point. So did Jack Wade and my dad. The three most influential men in my life at that point. My mind was still back on that football stadium, still wondering:

“What was that?!?”

I was thinking about the incredible new way I sensed the Holy Spirit in that meeting, and how much I loved experiencing worship with my generation’s style of music. The adults totally missed this. Lousy antennae. The style just wasn’t their cup of tea, or maybe the Holy Spirit simply didn’t target them.

I think about that as I’m around today’s teens and young adults. I may participate in a gathering and find myself concerned about some theological issue, or perhaps a lack of Bible content, or something else. That may be all I see, as a 49-year-old, and I may downplay the event’s value. Meanwhile, a 20-year-old could be experiencing direct contact with the Holy Spirit and wondering, “What’s going on here?!?” Where I see shallowness, he may be thinking, “Wow! They are so genuine! So real!”

So on one hand I can take some pride in five decades of accumulated wisdom, experience, theological knowledge, and general spiritual discernment. But on the other hand, I need the humility to recognize that in contexts related to today’s emerging generations, I can sit amidst them and yet be totally blind to what God is actually doing. If a spiritual giant like Marvin Price can miss it, then I sure can.

Jordi has an insatiable appetite for being outside. If we are home, and there is an ounce of daylight, he believes he is entitled to be outside. And he meows incessantly until we (usually I–Pam’s tougher than me) give in. Jordi cannot be allowed outside unattended, because he will wander into neighbors’ yards, or run full-speed into them in pursuit of a rabbit or chipmunk. So we put a purple collar on him, with a bell which alerts us to his movements, and then go sit on the patio or in the grass to watch him while he stalks innocent animals, occasionally ushering him back within the boundaries of our property.

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, we spend enormous chunks of time outside watching Jordi. A thunderstorm is a welcome treat, because he detests getting wet and shows no desire to go outside. But those are rare treats, it seems. And besides, I actually enjoy watching him. I grab a book and pen and go lay in the grass out back.

I spent a big piece of Friday outside with Jordi. Pam gets off at noon on Friday and I get off at 1 pm, so that’s nice. The temperature was in the 90s, too hot to do yardwork. So, with Jordi following me around the house, meowing and rubbing against me–not so much marking his territory as trying to subjugate it–I chose a new book, located a pen, and headed outside. And whiled away much of the rest of the day there, just laying in the grass. (Jordi, by the way, raced into the neighbor’s yard and caught a robin, which we convinced him to release after he had proudly carried it into our yard. It appeared unharmed.)

The book was Jim Wallis’s Call to Conversion, a 1981 book which he updated after 9/11. I read the whole thing on Friday. Now, I’m not gonna give it a ringing endorsement. The first chapter, the foundational chapter, didn’t totally click with me. And neither did the last two chapters. But in between was some great stuff, particularly as Wallis addressed poverty, injustice, peace-making, and the church in general. I’ve always appreciated Wallis’s writings. He founded the Sojourners community in Washington D.C., a “commune” type thing which focuses on social matters while remaining doctrinally evangelical (though many evangelicals dismiss them as liberals). He’s good on TV news shows. I’d much rather have him representing Christians than Dr. Jerry.

His second chapter deals with how Christians and churches have conformed to the world. And he takes this to an extent which would make most United Brethren either uncomfortable or guilt-ridden. Walls says what we’ve all heard countless times–that the lifestyle of Christians isn’t much different than that of nonChristians. He then calls for the church to be a community of believers that is noticeable to outsiders, noticeable because they are different–different enough to require an explanation. We notice the Amish; people ask questions about how they live, and the reasons behind their lifestyle must be explained. But who asks questions about how Christians live? NonChristians can look at the typical evangelical church without ever thinking, “These people are different. I wonder why?” Very little about us cries out for explanation.

It would be easy to gang up on the larger, richer churches, pointing to them as having conformed to the world. I certainly felt the world’s seductions (materialism, status, pride) more strongly at a large church. But I admit–very reluctantly–that there’s nothing special about how people at my smaller, poorer church live. Nothing about us that hints at a “peculiar people.” I doubt that unsaved visitors leave our doors wondering, “What makes Anchor people so different?”

Wallis says, “Modern evangelists must go through endless contortions to convince people that they are missing something that Christians have. Without the visible witness of a distinct style of life, evangelists must become aggressive and gimmicky, their methods reduced to salesmanship and showmanship.”

Wallis isn’t calling for Christians to adopt legalistic rules or for everyone to form communes. He’s more interested in Christians emulating the love and community of the early Christians, who “were known for the way they lived, not only for what they believed.” At Anchor, we’re probably known for being friendly and accepting, but I doubt that we as a people are known for how we live. Walls says our contemporary worship includes God, but also includes other “gods” with which we’ve made Christianity compatible, particularly the pursuit of wealth (which you do see more in some churches) and a sense of being culturally relevant. “We want God’s life, but we want the good life, too. We seem to believe that we can pay homage to our many cultural idols and still retain our integrity as God’s people.” I don’t know about you, but that cuts deep in my niche of the world.

In our quest for converts, we water down the gospel, make it easy and attractive. But Wallis points to the conversion of Zaccheus, who immediately made reparations to the poor. Zaccheus obviously heard, from Jesus, more than “accept me into your heart and you’ll go to heaven.” He turned his life over to Christ, but also radically changed his lifestyle. And for years to come, people no doubt asked, “I’ve known Zaccheus for years. What made this change in his life?” An explanation was needed.

Do people ask why I’m different? Why my church is different? Is an explanation needed?

Well, that was among the best chapters in Call to Conversion. I can’t begin to describe the power and prophetic nature of his chapter on injustice.