Just the right words.

Come on slackers, catch up---

OK, kids, it's the twenty-first century and we all need to catch up. So, this week some good old Baptist boys and girls introduced me to the newest level of social networking---at least for me--twubs, which are Twitter groups built around content aggregated #hashtags. Whatever? If this kind of new stuff pulls your chain at all you may want to browse through their site here and get a little first-hand info on this new wrinkle in the www world.

Of course, I discovered this technology through the good graces of our friends @ sbcvoices.com, one of the best gathering places for erstwhile convention watchers, analysts, critics, groupies, voyeurs, and commentators. For the past few days the twub #clarklogan has enabled me to follow the various installments of the latest denominational soap, The Old and the Reckless, comments and thoughts regarding he dismissal of Clark Logan as VP of the Executive Committee of the SBC. Interesting stuff all around. The tensions in the SBC viewed from the many angles of the convention watchers. Shoot, this geezer agrees with the young guys in most of this stuff, and can hardly wait till the episodes resume after the usual weekend hiatus.

So, don't be left in the dark. Catch up with a twub connection today, where the news is always hot, the rumor mill always grinding, and gossip is a spiritual gift.

Pause.

This poster and others like it stop me in my tracts. When it morphed onto my memory screen Thursday  evening, it gave me pause. It reads---One hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I live in, or the kind of car I drive. However, the world will be different because I was important in the life of a child.

Well, duh! Here I am with nearly sixty years under my belt and still need to be reminded what is important in this life as opposed to what is merely urgent. To be completely accurate, it wasn't the poster that made me hit the pause button. Rather, it was the presence of our grandson John Lewis Carpenter, visiting for the weekend. Listening to this two-year old sing his ABC's, and do his ciphers (as Uncle Jed Clampett used to say), watching his movements, and interpreting his sentences ---these all combined to call the poster forth from the the cellar of my consciousness and ponder the priority thing again. This is a tap on the shoulder for all of us, the gentle reminder that setting and keeping priorities is a life-long pursuit, a valued discipline that we never out-grow, a practice that intrudes on every season of life.

Life's urgencies scream for our attention. Many of us live in personal triage most of the time, slotting the emergencies according to their perceived severity. The old saying that the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" is basically true, vividly depicting the mechanics of ranking the claims on our resources. Urgencies usually win the day because they are either loud or potentially messy. The hatchet in the head trumps the toothache just about every time.

As a result, things that matter often get relegated to the back of the line. Sadly, even those of us with some mileage must be reminded of the subtle distinction between what is urgent and what is really important. Of course, many of life's urgencies matter too, you know, like work, and sleep, and health, and leisure, and the economy, and who's in the White House, and what's for dinner, and line after line of minutiae, commitments, obligations, and preferences. Let's not trivialize all of the competing claims on our resources. A toothache is troublesome even if it's not getting blood all over the place.

The key is possessing a scale with which to weigh the various items, and then having the discipline to move the light weight stuff back and the weightier matters to the front. Sounds simple doesn't it. But, of course, it is not. Wisdom is the deal here. You see, we have to have wisdom to weigh things accurately. And, wisdom is, guess what?---decided on a BIblical scale. What is wise is that which reflects the values of heaven. This, of course, is the sticking point, using the wrong scales to appraise the value of things.

The weigh stations can be deceptive too. What may seem important may actually weigh differently on the wrong set of scales, their value being inflated because the scales are unbalanced. That is why the first decision in priority setting involves the measuring devices you use to rate things. Our world-view, determined by faith in Jesus Christ, our dependence on the eternal Word of God, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, should be the scales by which we weigh life's involvements. Everything looks a bit different when viewed through the lens of our Biblical world-view.

Gets kind of involved doesn't it? More than at first thought. All because a precious little boy and the memory of a provocative poster made me take pause and think about what really matters.

Thanks John Lewis. You're right.

Axiom IX and institutional resistance

Personal faith is organic. Not hereditary mind you. Christ invites each of us into a living, dynamic personal relationship that is fresh and exciting every day, bursting in the newness of personal growth, the incredible possibility of being transformed into his likeness from glory to glory, that is, every single day. The constant motion of this organism resists inertia. You see, if this relationship is real, it is new every day, throbbing and pulsating, the fearful and wonderful workings of new life. Unless, of course, there is dysfunction.

Then there are two. In actuality, two are always better than one, for all the practical reasons noted in King Solomon's memoirs (see Ecclesiastes 4:7-12). At the same time, two forms a cohort, thrusting the individuals into a collective, necessitating boundary lines, formal or informal agreements, rules to govern the new dynamic of "we". A good many of these rubrics, whether written or spoken, or not, are instituted to protect the "we", to insure the inviolability of the partnership. Thus, the institution is created, a set of structures or covenants or rulings to guide and protect the "we".

The Books of Acts records the formalization of the Christian "we". Yes, of course, the "we" was established at the foundations of the earth. As truly, Jesus talked about the "we" when he called out the apostles and taught them, and later when he said, "... on this rock I will build my church..."  (Matthew 16:18). It is in the Acts, however, that the "we" was actualized. One of the noteworthy aspects of the church in the Acts of the Apostles is the flexibility of the "we" to accomplish the mission assigned by the Lord. All through the Acts the Apostles, then the various church leaders, adjusted the institution to the demands of their growing and spreading ministry. The Apostles of Jesus weren't threatened by these organizational shifts. They invited them for the sake of the Gospel.

Throughout history the Good News of Jesus has been hindered by the inflexibility of the institution assigned the share it, you know, the "we" part of our faith. And, here's the deal. Cut to the chase, as they say. One, there's nothing lacking in the Lord of the Church. Two, there's nothing lacking in the message of the church. Three, there's nothing lacking in God's plan for the church. So, in the face of all the declines defining the church in this part of the twenty-first century, what is the problem?

It's the institutional thing Dr.Chapman. It's what the younger guys are trying to tell us in their exodus from convention entanglements, the spoken words of low annual meeting attendance, mission dollars going elsewhere, and many other denominational ills. The institution is fixed and inflexible, weighted down by an ancient structure that just doesn't work any longer. It's what Axiom IX is about, the need not just for fine tuning, but organizational re-birth, structural change, organic transformation, something perhaps revolutionary, a total makeover.

In the Book of Acts, the leaders of the young church never felt compelled to protect the "we". They forged ahead under the promise of his power and presence, with a message that turns the world upside down. When the institution got in the way, they re-arranged, re-aligned, and re-shaped it to facilitate the mission, the spread the message.

That's the deal, and one of the reasons the GCR is such an inspired idea. Also, one of the reasons for the whiplash that the GCR statements created for the institutional people. You see, the structure we've created and sustained all these years no longer aligns with the mission it was designed to achieve. This explosive Good News, illustrated in Scripture as new wine, is just too effervescent and potent for the old worn out container we've used to package it. Oops! Spillage. Leaks. Something wrong with the wine? Not hardly, this life-changing message still bubbles with new life. Ruh roh! It's the container.

The thinness of our organizational fabric is nothing new. Younger Baptists, and a few of us geezer types, have been telling denominational leaders this for years through the unmistakable votes of fewer feet at meetings, conferences, and events, reallocation of financial resources at times, and out and out straight forward suggestions for organizational change. Recent events have substantiated the need for strategic thinking at the executive level of our denomination. You see, our assignment needs a sleek new structure to support and facilitate it, something equal to the times. 

And, that's what impresses this geezer about Axiom IX. Of course, that's what creates the institutional Resistance too. Go figure! 

Listen to what history says, loudly...

History speaks. The actual words are events and people, dates and places, the interwoven fabric of life that was. The spoken message is clear and distinct, calling out to us the refrains of experience, the multi-faceted lessons of success and failure, the people who did and the people who did not, the ones we celebrate and others we'd as soon forget. Skeletons lurk in the orations, surprises in the vocabulary, a veritable thesaurus of reality defining every human possibility, the full spectrum of life. Since there is nothing new under the sun, this wise guide speaks recurring themes, and asks of us only the discipline of hearing.

There's a good bit of debate about what history says to us, even in our small denominational bubble. Today there are many who believe history's words beckon us back to another place and time, to a  moment frozen in our memory, a snapshot back there somewhere we'd like to re-capture. You see, there are many people who live in the past and long for the simple joys that may have been more real to them back then. As we Southern Baptists ponder the future, and as competing forces grapple for the soul of our denomination, these isolationists hear history's voice encouraging us to not only look back, but to aim back, move back, hold something back there up as our paradigm, an ideal, structure, or form that fit well those times, but maybe not these. They are separatists. They hear history calling, "come back here".

History doesn't call me back. Yes, it is a good rear view mirror to see where I've been and help me navigate where I'm going. Historian David McCullough said, "History is a guide to navigation in perilous times." To my ears, history's word is "LEARN", that is, examine what happened back there to inform was is happening here. Certainly, you can't go back. Sure, there are plenty of snapshots we'd like to re-live, erase some things, use the edit program on others, do the replay on still more. But, the beautiful garden of the past is guarded by flaming swords. We can't go back.

Church planter Paul wrote something about this. "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). Here is history vividly speaking, as this man was guided along by the Holy Spirit. The words here push us forward, not back, the straining and pressing on toward a goal that is waiting, yet to be achieved. This is a significant world-view issue. I mean, isn't the best yet to come?

OK, the world is in a mess. But, it is what it is, and we have been dispatched here to change it. We're not left to our own devices to accomplish this assignment. The Lord that is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow is not only with us, but he is in us. History screams, "LEARN THIS", and our faithful counselor "...teaches us all things" (John 14:26). So, our path is not back there in another time and place, but right here, the here and now, with the unchanging truth as our message and the eternal Lord as our exemplar, the Spirit of truth our guide.

Truth is portable, meaning, it is truth at all times and all places. It is not circumstantial or temporary or flexible. When we look back through the lens of truth we see mistakes and errors, the times when we fell short, targets missed, goals fumbled. History asks that we learn from them. Since we cannot re-live those moments, we must let them become part of our life instruction.

Southern Baptists have been at many denominational cross-roads. Traffic is treacherous and fast. We must stop! look! and listen! And, learn. You see, that's what history is speaking to us, in words that are loud and clear.

OK, it's July, and it's hot---

July has a aura about it. And, I'm not talking about new age emanations or bio-rhythms or anything out there on the fringes of reality. Named after Julius Caesar, and you remember what happened to him, it is the hottest month of the year in our hemisphere, and usually the beginning of the sauna season in our neck of the woods. It also the provides perfect climate for the South Carolina state bird---that would be the mosquito---to flourish, and for some of the lesser pests of the insect world, like no-seeums, to multiply and grow. July is Biblical too, by the way---the grass withers and the flowers fall
(1 Peter 1:24).  Aren't we all glad.

More personally, July could be a bummer, introspective and dark, depression time. Harriet's mother died in July, 1974. My mother died in July, 2008. I was diagnosed with stage four transitional cell carcinoma in July, 2004, had two cancer surgeries in July the same year. More recently I brought blood with the hammer just the other day, another blight on July. That honey do list will kill me yet! And, not to mention a few vacation disasters, air conditioning malfunctions, the car engine that blew up heading to Hilton Head one year, or the July we almost froze to death camping in Colorado. Yes, there have been times when I'd just about as soon skip July, rip that page right out of the calendar, or delete that part of my Outlook program.

But, today I read a Bible verse. Yes, once again God gave me an amazing truth that has snatched me from the jaws of this potentially all-consuming, man-eating bitterness and delivered me to the refreshing fields of His provision. Very simply it reads, "But, he gives us more grace" (James 4:6).

Isn't it just like God to pour on the grace when we're really ready for a good pity party? And, you know I'm not specifically talking about saving grace here, but rather the grace that sustains, the grace that is sufficient for the troubles of life, the grace that sees us through, the grace that carries us. How often we evangelicals talk about this unmerited favor that brings us new life and covers our sin with his wonderful provision. At the same time, we often forget the abundance of his grace for the many hardships and tests, the proverbial dog days of summer or dark nights of the soul.

An old German proverbs reminds us, Who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is sweet. Experiencing the heaviness of July and those realities that give us pause makes his generous and most blessed provision even that much more precious and sweet.

Bitterness is often the result of the July moments that happen. As we contemplate and remember them the bile rises and that old root of bitterness grows deeper and deeper, often leaving us sour, disappointed, and resentful. The other day an older gentleman said, "I don't want to be a bitter old person." When I was silent, he added, "But I guess I will be, because I've always been a bitter young person." That was sad, as if it were a foregone conclusion, as if there was not a remedy, an antidote to the toxins of bitterness.

Problem A is that so many of us seek to solve these deep seeded tragedies with sugar coating---a new car, a make-over, addictions of every kind, you know, cosmetics. A Yiddish proverb reminds us that "If you are bitter at heart, sugar in the mouth will not help you." True.

That's where grace comes in . You see, "he gives us more grace." The writer of Hebrews also wrote, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows to cause trouble and defile many" (Hebrews 12:15).

You see, when it's your July, and it's getting hot, he gives more grace!

And, that makes me thankful. Rejoice and be glad!

Vulture Wars

The vultures are circling and something or someone is going to get---how do they say it in Pumpkintown?---ett. The so-called peaceful and unifying Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, last month has the scavengers riled and many good, innocent, and unaware servants of the Kingdom will be sucked into the vortex of their motion. Feathers flying and plenty of dust in the air, their venue is control of the convention, more precisely, the direction of our work in the future. The choice in relatively simple: backward or forward, which will it be?

Everyone has analyzed this annual meeting and taken the high road for the most part. Smiling, back-slapping Baptists enjoying a couple of days of good preaching, and tame business. Except for a few off the wall motions it was a united bunch, affirming the GCR and handing the Acts 29 stuff off to the institutions. Trouble is, there's a good bit of proceeding proceeding under the proceedings, if you get my drift. You know, as in hidden agendas, elephants in the room, and planks in the eyes. The blog world and Face Book are the feeding ground of this new predatory wave as the factions mark off their territory and declare their positions.  Beware!

The small attendance was a first shocker. Unofficially, 8,700 messengers registered for the meeting, around 1,500 more than the previous year in Indianapolis. With the seminary locale promising more and younger registrants, the low attendance communicates the disinterest among rank and file Baptists. For most missionals, the meeting is irrelevant, a not so necessary possibility if nothing else is happening. They'd much rather spend their precious convention and meeting allowances attending the high octane and useful conferences sponsored by the other missionals. By and large, the only people actually interested in what happens at the convention level are the bloated convention bureaucracy that has become the central theme of convention polarities. I'd love to see a registration break-down of pastors, lay leaders, associational staff, state convention staff, and SBC institution staff just to see who actually attended the meeting. Most likely we wouldn't be all that surprised.

The vultures are the competing interests in SBC life. OK, Mr. Recording Secretary, I wasn't there. Our flights to Atlanta and Louisville were canceled and we decided not to go for a half-day, you know, with the recession and all. Still, it seems that the sides are gathering, the arguments taking shape, and possession of the convention is up in the air. I always suspected the line in the sand would be between the doctrinal opposites, maybe the Calvinists and us other guys. Shut my mouth wide-open, it's not them, per se. It seems to be the people looking and moving forward in one corner, and the people looking and moving backward in the other. Neither of them may swoop down and gobble you up. But, the whirlwind created by their swooping may just sweep our mission right over the horizon and out of sight. Cooperative versus separatist. That's the gig. Maybe the gag. Ruh roh! The gaggle. Do vultures swarm in gaggles. No, they operate in venues and form a kettle. Look it up. It's a mess no matter.

That's the sad part. The mission could get lost in the struggle. And, then we all lose.

Know what? It's time to re-think this whole thing, and maybe do away with the buzzards and vultures once and for all. No telling what we could do without the vulture wars.

A Reflection for Sunday, July 5, 2009

The jury is still out on whether or not Abraham Lincoln was a believer. Historians have debated the very real inconsistencies of his life---the things he said publicly, the intimacies of his personal practices, and his handling of the war and the issues troubling the nation at the time, and their final assessment is a very definitive, we don't know!

It is true that he never joined a church, was not baptized, and hardly ever spoke of the Lord Jesus. From these we can certainly assume absence of personal faith. While he did speak often of God and reference the Heavenly Father in his writings, they appear to be more deistic than Christian. Still, that final judgment isn't ours and we can admire him for being a great leader for the day. If you want to enter the debate about his personal faith you can read a Christianity Today article here.   It doesn't settle the argument but does raise some great questions about a person that most Americans identify as one of our greatest presidents.

Lincoln said, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is be to on God's side for God is always right."

This is profound, a fitting lesson for the Independence Day weekend, a question that lingers this very day in the chambers of the American heart, a pinpoint of accuracy in the blend of our corporate identity. Are we on God's side? Depends on who you ask, I suppose! You see, the character of our corporate identity has been diluted by the admixture of pluralistic beliefs and values. The American God of the twentieth century is a tree or polar ice cap to the extreme environmentalists, the almighty dollar to the materialists, Allah to the Muslim, Jehovah to the Jewish population, an unknown deity to the wicans, you know who to the satanists, eros to the pleasure seeker, and on down the line, the line being as long as the human imagination.

Of course, it wasn't like that among the founders, our national spiritual identity. Revisionists read the original source documents of our history through tunnel-vision lenses, refusing to let America's first citizens speak for themselves. Maybe there were an enlightened few who were deists, a few free thinkers here and there. But, they were mostly bold Christians. Their God would have been the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus. Faith was important to them. That faith was predominantly Christian. Don't let a bunch of historians with hidden agendas tell you different.

Being on God's side is a real question for pop religionists in America. Before answering, however, we need to clarify the God we're talking about. He is not a nebulous, unknown supreme being with generic characteristics and syncretized traits. He is the Lord God of the universe, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, revealed in the the sixty-six books of the Bible, and manifest most completely in the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So, before you answer this question, be sure about the God we're talking about.

Happy Independence Day!

Just kidding around the other day I said, "Happy Independence Day" to one of the younger folks at church. She looked at me like I had sprouted another eye-ball and said, "It's not Independence Day, it's the Fourth of July!"  

OK, call me a stickler. But, to me that's like saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I mean, it's not exactly incorrect. At the same time, however, it's not totally accurate either. Yes, we can jump into the circle of rhetoric and make a case that July 4 would have little meaning apart from the event that it celebrates. That Independence Day is commemorated on July 4 is meaningful, our day to honor the American Revolution and its outcome, our Independence from England. But, we don't say Merry December 25 or Happy January 1. If I said Happy February 14 to Harriet I may get whacked up-side the head. The date is incidental. What happened then is remarkable.

So, entrenched as your local holiday correctness police, let me wish you HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY. Celebrate it thankfully and safely. Enjoy the leisure and recreation that the day affords, and give thanks to all the people that make the world go around while the rest of us celebrate. If you want to say a prayer of thanksgiving for the courageous men who actually framed and signed the Declaration of Independence, go here for a list. Read their short biographies and offer a word of gratitude to the Sovereign God who placed them at just the right place at just the right time. They really risked a lot to declare freedom for the colonies, and to provide the legacy that is ours today.

Need a little food for thought. Here's a wise and pithy quite from one of the odder characters of the revolutionary generation. While greatly admired by many of the founders, he was eccentric and more than often misunderstood. It's a good quote for the day---

Wherefore, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissention. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of good citizen, and open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind, and of the free and independent states of America. From Common Sense, Thomas Paine (January 10, 1776).

He wanted all the human distinctions to fade into the background, except the common traits of being good citizens, open and resolute friends, supporters of the rights of mankind, and of course, supporters of the free and independent United States. Good sentiments.

I wish I had said that. But, since I didn't, I'm glad he did. Happy Independence Day.