Bandits No More

Don’t you hate it when people make all sorts of religious claims that they can’t back up? Do you wonder, even marvel on occasion about how many people have made radical change in their lives on the basis of some alleged “truth”?

It is the modern way, after all, to base our lives entirely on claims that can be proven. This is why we have learned to trust in science rather than God.
*(editorial adjustment – I am not intending to villify science or scientists here, but rather want to challenge the pulpit from whence American Culture would have science be the preacher)

Houston, we have a problem.

This week’s Journal of the American Medical Association reports a Harvard study that concluded that “a high intake of foods such as cereals, fruits and vegetables did not lower colon cancer risk.” Why, we have known for years that a diet high in fiber would reduce the risk of colon cancer! How did we know this? Scientists told us.

Oh My Galileo! What are we to do? Perhaps last year’s science did not have the last word on how we ought to live.

Neither did last year’s religion. In fact, there is a sense in which the last word on how we ought to live was uttered nearly 2000 years ago by Jesus when he said “Go thou and do likewise.”

Then again, there is a sense in which we have to keep on re wording that for other people to hear. Or, even better, perhaps if we were actually to “go and do likewise,” the debate between science and religion might actually become interesting rather than bitter.

Here’s my message for the second Sunday of Advant, What Next? I understood the end times pretty well when I was a teenager – when I read mostly dispensationalist literature: Lindsey, Walvoord, Pentecost, etc. Then I read the bible for myself – and in context. In this message I discuss the connection between the “First” and “Second” comings of Jesus and how we can be prepared.

My old podcoast provider was situated in Florida and has been having problems since Hurricane Wilma. I’ve finally gotten my first advent message, Why Advent? online and available for you to enjoy in mp3 format.

A few days ago I argued that the need for church planting is greater than we usually think. A sub-section of that argument, was a claim that our common ways of grouping people “White folks,” “Black folks,” etc., are not very useful in our quest to understand people. Tell me someone’s race – or ethnicity, and you don’t tell me a whole lot.

But we still think this way – locally and globally.

The Lebanese Political Journal has a useful post on how we Americans think of the Middle East, particularly on our simplistic equation between “Middle Eastern” = “Muslim” = “Arab”, and even more, how we seem to assume all Arabs are the same. Read the post at the Lebanese Political Journal for a full discussion. The short summary? They’re not all alike – not even close. If we’re ever going to understand the Middle East and its peoples and act wisely toward them, we’ll need to learn about the differences.

At prayer meeting the other meeting a lady mentioned visiting her grandchildren in the Big City. One of the grandchildren is into hockey (not the biggest sport in Texas), so she went to watch one of his games. In the rink next to the one where he was playing, she saw 4 year olds out learning hockey. We start them mighty young, don’t we?

Have you heard of the Dads out there who want their sons to become the next great quarterback or pitcher? They start drilling them while they’re in preschool, never letting up. That’s how Tiger Woods got where he is, so we think that’s the way to go.

Study after study tells us it’s the same with education. If we want our kids to be well educated, we need to start while they’re young. We need to read to them, talk to them, and interact with them so they will become curious about the world around them and start picking up the tools to explore it. Educators lament that they don’t have the money to start the programs to pick up the kids whose parents have dropped the ball on this. Now education is different from hockey, quarterbacking and golf. Though many can become skilled in these sports, it seems much easier for the multitudes to become proficient in their educations.

What about our relationship with God? Are parents so determined for their kids to grow up living in and exhibiting the love of God that they start them early on the road of being a disciple of Jesus? What’s the difference?

One key difference is in the role of exemplars. Quarterbacks emulate Peyton Manning. Golfers want to be the next Tiger Woods. In education, we are surrounded (on TV) by doctors, lawyers, and scientists (not all mad), modeling a life of learning. But who do we look at for a model of discipleship?

Surely we have many local models – the experienced saints in our local congregations – who have been long-time followers of Jesus, who have learned much of the “obedience of the faith,” and whose lives are models of holiness. Or do we? I see at least three problems in this area: First, many modern Christians eschew the discipline that comes with following Jesus. We have many long tenured members, but they’re often more known for being crotchety than for being holy. Second, because of our misunderstanding of the nature of humility, we’re loath to lift up the didactic and attractive role of holiness. Third, out notion of holiness is too tame. Our athletic kids want to grow up to be like Peyton Manning & Roger Clemens – not a water boy or a bat girl. As long as our public example of the Christian life is nothing more than going to church on Sunday, attending meetings, and not being as bad as so and so, why would anyone want to do it?

In the bible the Christian life – the life of holiness – is a life of following Jesus. It’s dangerous – it’s not for nothing Jesus tells us to take up our cross. They’re conflict involved. Real loss – and real victory – awaits us. What we do in response to Jesus can make an eternal difference in the lives of the people around us.

Parents – keep your eyes open for the next Lydia, Paul, Phillip or Priscilla. Show them to your kids. Tell your children, “See what they’re doing? It takes a lifetime of discipleship to get to that level. Let’s start now!”

I’m at a meeting at a church in another town yesterday. At an appropriate break time, I find the nearest men’s room. Being a pastor, I am curious about most aspects of other church facilities, so I “investigated” the layout of this restroom. For the age of the building, it was spacious. Very well laid out. Then I noticed, on the wall behind the sink area, this image.

Why does a men’s rest room in a United Methodist Church have a framed picture of a gorilla in it? Which committee do you suppose decided this?

Yes, even more curious than I was before, we checked the women’s restroom. It was adorned with a picture of flowers.

One of the latest complaints I’ve heard from American Christians is that our culture is dropping “Christmas” in favor of “Holiday.” It’s said that stores like Walmart and Target won’t even use the word anymore. I confess that I’m not terribly observant and haven’t noticed it in my area. I did try a search of Walmart.com for the word “Christmas” and Google tells me it occurs about 57,100 times. That’s a bunch. Target appears a little more heathenish – “Christmas” only occurs there about 33,700 times.

But then it wasn’t too long ago Christians were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We used to say, “Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, not a time to buy things.” If that’s our former complaint, would it be accurate to say that we’re now pining for the “Christmasization” of Commercialism?

Let’s face it. The world is the world. It’s not the church. Why ought we be surprised with they act like the world? If we finally note that they’re acting like the world, we’ll stop emulating them so frequently.

During our special Annual Conference session November 19th a retired pastor and District Superintendent made the contention that new church plants are only for the Houston area – not for the majority of towns in the Conference. I can think of two reasons one might hold such a view, one clearly wrong, and one that is questionable, yet commonly believed. Note: I do not know if the one who made the original comments adheres to these or any other reasons.

First, one who is against church planting outside Houston – easily thought of as the Big City of the Conference – might think most of the other towns, whether static in population or not, have all the churches they need to reach the resident population. My guess is that the city that has 50% of its residents in church any given Sunday is highly exceptional. There are lots of unreached people out there – even in a small, highly churched town like Pittsburg. The Baptists and non-denominational churches certainly don’t think there are enough churches: they keep planting more, whether through intentional placement or through church splits. We may quail at the idea of copying the Baptists, but in how many of our East Texas towns is the main UM church larger and stronger than the largest Baptist church? In how many towns are there multiple Baptist churches that are larger and stronger than our UM churches? If they can keep up the church planting (and growing), why can’t we? So the idea that there are simply plenty of churches to reach the people is clearly false in my judgment.

The second possible reason is related to the first. Some believe that one church can be for all people. These are the folks who think the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP) is evil. This principle, developed by theorists in Church Growth, basically says that people like to go to church (and do just about anything) with people who are like them. Some of us hear this idea and hear it as an expression of racism. We think it’s wrong to want to go to church only with people who are like us.

Before I came to my current appointment I served Westbury UMC in Houston. Westbury is rightly known as a multi-cultural church. One of my favorite things about the congregation was that it wasn’t just Anglo folks like me: we had Africans, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Europeans, etc. One might point to Westbury as counter-evidence to the HUP. Here are people who are clearly different going to church together and enjoying each other’s company. But that assessment would be wrong, and in its wrongness I see why the HUP need not be considered as a justification for racism – or any other evil “ism.”

The difference between Westbury and the vast multitude of monochromatic churches was not that the people there decided not to identify those who are “like us” on the basis of race. Racial difference just didn’t matter. If you could go to Westbury and ignore race, you’d notice that most of the people were alike: they were (mostly) middle class professional people. We lazy Americans too often judge “likeness to us” based on skin color since skin color is something we can see instantly (unless the lights are low), with no thought required.

HUP – as I understand it – does not make the claim that homogeneity is the ultimate destination for the church, either in the eschaton or here and now. HUP is a descriptive sociological claim – people congregate with people who are like themselves, not a normative theological claim – churches ought to be composed of people who are alike.

If this is so, can we ask this question: Is it the case that one of the questions people ask when they are considering going to church (any particular church, that is) is, “Is there someone there like me?” If this is one of the questions people who are not in our churches ask, is it then legitimate to ask the general question, “What barriers must we remove that are presently keeping people out of our church?” in a more particular way: “What can we do that might break down the barrier the keeps this particular group of people in our town from coming?” Or, to put it another way, “What can we do to make this particular group of people comfortable in our church?”

“Comfortable” is a dangerous word. It’s hard to read the New Testament and not see that the Gospel – the Good News that Jesus is Lord – is highly discomforting for those committed to living the way of the World. Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC in Ohio has commented that when it comes to language, he wants to be as clear and accommodating as possible [I paraphrase] so that he makes sure the people understand the Gospel well enough to be offended at it and not their method of style of presentation. Shifting from the rhetorical to the social arena, we see Jesus doing something similar – he loved sinners in a way they never expected – yet his relationships with them led them away from their sin, not to affirmation in their lifestyle (Ex. Zacchaeus, the woman caught in adultery).

What does all this have to do with church planting in the Texas Conference? Just this: Our assumption in small town United Methodism has too often been that one church will accommodate all people. Actually our practice is a little different – we really mean that one white church and one black church will accommodate all people.

In the first summer of my first appointment, it crossed my mind that we ought to do a vacation bible school. That’s what churches do in the summer, isn’t it? Our problem was that our little church only had one or two children. We had loads of retired adults who could teach, but not enough children. Simple minded fellow that I was, I looked across town (about a quarter mile) and saw the black UM church. They had lots of children, and few adults available to teach at VBS during the day. It sounded like a perfect match. As I recall, our combined VBS went well that year, but I sure got a bunch of lectures. “Preacher,” I was told, “Our churches are supposed to be separate. That’s why the Conference spent so much money to build them their own building.”

Now I don’t know if the Conference was motivated by an ecclesiastical version of “separate but equal,” but my (white) members certainly perceived it that way.

Having pastored a multicultural church my longstanding theory (and previous experience) was confirmed: Black people aren’t all alike. The senior pastor I worked with their commented that he (and African American) had observed the same thing about whites – we’re not all alike. If these observations – first, that people tend to congregate with people who are like themselves, and, second, that not all people in any given racial, ethnic or social category are all alike – are accurate, then surely one White church and one Black church surely won’t be enough to reach everyone in any town. Some people find their primary identity in their race. My guess is that neither Black church leaders nor White church leaders will be prone to label their monochrome way of doing church as illegitimate anytime soon. Nonetheless, there are many in our communities for whom ecclesial segregation is the main barrier that is keeping them out of our churches. So without eliminating our white and black congregations (instead multiplying them), we need also to plant intentionally integrated churches. Some will say this is impossible to do in East Texas. I have two answers to that protest. First, church planting is hard no matter where you are or what kind of church you’re planting. Second, God loves calling us to do things that can only be done in his power.

While we plant and grow churches where distinct people groups (and we’ll have to work by their own self-identification, not our own), we will include as part of their discipling, the skills and inclination to expand the circle of those they count as “like me.” To do this, the leaders (especially the pastors) will have to be more mature than their people in this area, so they can preach unity in Christ. Beyond preaching and teaching, we’ll also have to find ways for congregations to gather regularly with each other across the various boundary lines we’ve identified.

My guess is that racial, ethnic and even language boundaries will be easier for us to cross than the socio-economic barriers. The UMC is mostly a middle-class denomination. Our leadership comes from that stratum of society. We have many ministries to the poor. We even have brought them into some of our churches (St. Johns in Houston strikes me as a good example). It will be very difficult, however, to bring them into leadership and equip them to be pastors and church planters. The main barrier is the educational requirement. The normal route to becoming an Elder is a four year college degree, followed by a 90 hour (at least) masters. Some of the Baptist and Pentecostal groups that offer lower educational hurdles for pastors (or none at all) seem to be doing a more effective job of planting and growing churches among the poor. We UMs tend to look down our noses at them – at their questionable theology, their quaint hymnody, their crass emotionalism. But just as we’ve learned that neither the White or Black way(s) of doing church is/are the one right way, we’ll need to learn that the middle class educated way of doing church isn’t the one right way either.

The Rolling Stones have been signed to play halftime of the upcoming Super Bowl. It reminds me of the time I recognized “Hotel California” playing on Muzak at a funeral home.

While I am not old enough to remember it well, I know that rock and roll was once-upon-a-time counter-cultural. The “establishment” didn’t like it. Adults opined aloud that western civilization was coming apart at the seams at the sound of electrical music.

I have seen the photographs. Men used to almost always wear ties and fedoras when out in public. Women always wore dresses that actually covered their bodies, and often wore hats and gloves, too. You know, the “Leave-it-to-Beaver” world that Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell seem to want us to go back to? When The Government and Big Corporation America ran things and all was well with the white-washed world?

Those days are apparently gone as once edgy rock and roll is now safe for the Super Bowl halftime.

Let’s face it; following the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake debacle of 2003, the NFL is not going to take a chance at offending everyone again. No; these days Super Bowl is the epitome of family entertainment. It has got to be safe for everyone.

The Rolling Stones are safe. Who’da thunk it 40 years ago?

For our family Thanksgiving gathering this year we met up at Quartz Mountain Resort Park on Lake Altus in western Oklahoma. None of us had ever been there before, but considering we were traveling from East Texas, Central Texas, the DFW area and NW New Mexico, it provided somewhat of a compromise.

Our family stayed in the 3 bedroom cabin, my parents and youngest brother & his wife (and dogs) in a 2 bedroom cabin, and my other brother’s family in the lodge. The cabins were described as “rustic” – that means that haven’t been renovated recently. They worked just fine for us and were nicely furnished. The 3 bedroom cabin had a full kitchen so we were able to prepare our own meals – including Thanksgiving Dinner. Our cabin could have easily accommodated several more people. If the weather were warmer, one could even sleep out on the screened porch.

The lodge was much newer. I didn’t see much of the interior, but it looked quite nice. Unlike the cabins, it had TVs in the rooms – and had no nearby parking. The parking lot was closer to the main building and people were getting luggage carts or just hefting their stuff to their rooms. All the staff people I encountered were friendly and helpful.

The staff described the pool as indoor-outdoor. Since it was cold during our visit, the garage-door-like windows along both sides were closed. I suppose in warmer weather they open it all up.

We only ate at the restaurant on Wednesday night, so I can’t report much about it. They were very slow in seating us. More than a problem of seating a group of 12, I think they were severely short of staff. We observed a long table (the one they eventually put us) sitting unbussed for at least 20 minutes. My wife and I shared the Blackened Chicken and Pasta in Spicy Alfredo Sauce. It was very tasty, but it’s a good thing we shared. Other than my mother’s French Onion Soup coming out cold, all reported their food good.

For me, beyond seeing family, the highlight was hiking up to the top of the mountain (a small granite hill, to be more precise – maybe 500-600 feet up). I wish I had one of those in my back yard. I know I’d be in better shape. The trail we took was fairly strenuous, but was easily doable by my 9 year old daughter. The one downside of hiking around so much was seeing all the refuse people had dropped on their treks. Soda and beer cans seemed to be in almost every crevice on the mountain. I wish we’d brought a garbage sack with us.

I’ve posted some photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/55768008@N00/?saved=1 if you’d like to get an idea what the place looks like.