The Face in the Picture pt 1

I wanted to give my readers (both of you) a Christmas present.  In that this is a non-profit blog, I didn’t have much to spend.  So I am giving you a story.  Over the next couple of week I will share with you all a short story written specifically for Christmas.  It is vaguely based on a sermon illustration I heard a long time ago.  But I took a 3-minute illustration and made it into a 4-part short story.  Please read and, I hope, enjoy a Christmas gift for you.  Merry Christmas and may God bless your Holy Days.

The Face in the Picture

Everyone in the little town of Greenwood knew it was going to be a tough Christmas for James Edward “Buzz” Sawyer. But they figured he could handle it, because you don’t get a nickname like “Buzz Saw” if you are not tough. Buzz was the successful, and approaching legendary, head coach of the Robert Frost High School football team.

When he arrived, Frost High School was a program that celebrated a five-win season. Over the years Buzz changed everything.  He replaced the pastel blue and cream school colors with black and royal blue.  The school mascot morphed from the “Poets” represented by a quill to the Warrior represented by a Celtic savage.  But most dramatically he changed the psyche of the football team; over time his teams acquired his toughness.  The Frost High School Warriors were a force in 3A football.  In 15 years there were three state titles, 10 regional championships, and dozens of players had received scholarships to play at the next level.  His teams had a reputation for discipline, loyalty, character, and definitely toughness.

Buzz had a motto almost as famous as his toughness. “There are no rearview mirrors on a football helmet.” When he arrived, he used this slogan to help his team to move away from their past losing tradition. He used it to keep players focused on the next play, not their last one, regardless of how the last play went.  As the team began to experience success, this motto reminded them that past success did not generate future wins. In every practice, every team meeting, every pregame talk, somewhere he would say, “There are no rearview mirrors on a football helmet.”

Only two people knew about Buzz’s tender side, his wife Sandy and his daughter Christa. Christa had no memory before their life in the little town of Greenwood. Sandy and Christa loved being in a coaching family. They were deeply involved with the boosters and almost all the team events.  During the first few years at Frost High, Sandy, a college soccer player, even helped coach special teams a little.  When Frost won its first ever state title Sandy and Christa headed up the trading card fundraiser that commemorated the historic occasion.  Christa, overly proud of her dad, secretly ordered 2000 trading cards featuring his picture, and a place on the back for his autograph.   

In the fall, when the Warriors began their defense of their championship title, Sandy was not feeling too well. A summer cold and cough would not go away. By homecoming, the diagnosis was non-smoking lung cancer. When the Warriors faced a second round opponent and Sandy wasn’t in the stands for the first time since she married Buzz, no one’s concentration was on the game. A lesser team bounced the Warriors out of the playoffs, but in view of Sandy’s illness, no one seemed to care.

That Christmas, their last together, was picture perfect. The football team came in mass to carol Sandy. Sandy and Christa decorated the Christmas tree using only Buzz’s commemorative trading cards. And Buzz bought a beautiful hand carved nativity set that was placed under a spotlight in front of the picture window. Were it not for Sandy’s illness, it would have been a perfect Christmas.

Two days before fall practice began, Sandy died. At her request, all the Frost High players, past and present, served as honorary pallbearers.  In the church where they prayed for her healing, they said goodbye. The funeral procession drove by the stadium on the way to the cemetery where they buried “Coach Sandy.”

That season was a disaster. Expecting to rebuild, Coach Sawyer didn’t expect a lot, but 5 wins and 5 losses was unacceptable. After Sandy’s death, he really didn’t focus on being a coach as much as being a father. He and Christa clung together and found their strength in their faith and each other.

That Christmas began a new tradition for the Sawyer household.  Neither Buzz nor Christa had the heart to put up a Christmas tree.  So they didn’t have any decorations except for the nativity set. They put their presents in front of it, put a spotlight on it, and that was all the decorating they did that year.  It was the most painful year of Coach Sawyer’s life, and it was also the last year that he and Christa could enjoy peace.

It was during this year the relationship between Christa and her dad began to change. Buzz knew it was the pain of Sandy’s passing, but it was complicated by the fact that Christa was acting like a teenager; for these and other reasons things changed. Christa the bubbling, free spirit that was once a delight to be near had become a surly attitude that was willing to fight over any little thing.

On top of everything else, Buzz was concerned about his job. The boosters and community had gotten used to winning and no coach can keep his job in a town accustomed to winners by producing 5 and 5 seasons.  Last season’s record haunted him with the restless specter of failure that could only be appeased with a spectacular season.  His response to every crisis of his life had been to work harder, work smarter and remember there are “no review mirrors on a football helmet.”  So Coach Buzzsaw dug into his work.  Spring practice took on a passionate urgency for players and coaches alike.    The days were long even for a workaholic like Buzz.  Before the next fall, everything looked fine. Buzz was back to his old self. Christa had come into her own playing softball and the Warriors were about to put together a great season.

No one noticed what was missing: the closeness Buzz once had with Christa. Even though they noticed, neither spoke about the growing distance between them.  The excitement of football can mask a lot of pain. So Buzz and Christa hid their pain in a run to the state title game. With 38 seconds left, …(to be continued next week)

Secret to Great Ministry

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong”

This morning I had coffee with a friend of mine who gives new meaning to this verse.  Jennifer has a past that is somewhat less that pure as the wind driven snow.  In fact there was a time in her life when it would be hard to imagine anyone less suitable for a life of ministry.  That is all I’m going to say about that (I will provide contact information so if you like you can invite Jennifer to tell you her story).  It would be foolish to think God would use some one like her, but He has, indeed He does more with her than with a lot of premium people.

Jennifer leads a ministry to women who are coming out of prison, addition and/or various dysfunctions.  She has an impact on the lives of people disproportionate to her upbringing, experience, or education.  As we (Jennifer her husband John, my wife Lorie, and I) talked this morning I was a bit overwhelmed by what God has done, is doing and may yet do in the life of this one person. 

As we talked about the joys and frustrations of their ministry (John is all in) I kept wanting to ask one question.  It is the kind of question that I love to ask in an interview or conversation and then share in some way or another.  That question is “What is the secret to the success of your ministry?”  But I the answer was obvious.  I have seen the answer in the lives of other heroes of ministry.  I saw it in the life and ministry of a man who ran a crisis pregnancy center in a pretty rough neighborhood.  I saw in an older minister that ran VBS programs in the public housing projects of Atlanta.  I saw the same secret in a preacher that at the age of 83 still preaches and leads more sinner to Christ than men half his age and twice his energy.  You may have seen the answer in your heroes of faith. 

It is not that these heroes have a profound creative theological perspective, nor an advanced degree.  It is not their mastery of Hebrew, Greek, German or a dialect spoken only by a few thousand people.  It is not their ability to preacher sermons that knock your socks off.  Nothing wrong with any of these things and most of the heroes can do many or some of these.  I have known people who could do almost all of these and were ministry duds.  Here is what Jennifer and every other hero I have ever known had, and they have it in common.

They have all had a profound, dynamic and active love for God and for people.  As we talked this morning there was a story of a person whose life was a shambles but found their way to grace.  I looked and Jennifer’s eyes were filling with tears.  They didn’t over flow on to her face.  But a story of God’s grace meeting a sinner is always a profoundly moving moment for a hero of faith.

Here is the take away.  We can all grow in our love for God and people.  I will never be a great theologian; I just don’t run that deep.  I will never be a master of languages; I failed freshman English twice.  I will never be able to preach like Dave Stone or Andy Stanley; I stumble over my words and never realize it.   (I once, speaking of an out of balance ceiling fan, said, “Could someone turn that fan off.  It’s whacking off is bothering me.  Yes I said that, at least it was during the announcements.)  What I can do is love God, and love people.  I can grow in that love.   If I want to be like the people I most admire and respect there is a simple pattern to follow: Love God and Love People.

For more information about Jennifer and her ministry follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/herhopegainesville/?fref=ts

Pray for France, but how?

After Friday’s cowardly attack by faithful disciples of Islam, we have been asked to pray.  But what are we supposed to pray?  I have heard some pretty inane prayers.  Generally, it has been a vague petition for God to bless the people of Paris or France.  What do we mean by that? 

Are we supposed to ask God to protect those who are lukewarm toward Him from those who are driven my demonically twisted concepts of Him?  To be sure Islam is wrong and those who practice Islam, in whatever form, are lost until they come to faith in Jesus Christ.  But they are neither more nor less lost than those who are indifferent toward God.  The non-believer who wants nothing more than to be left alone and allowed to pursue a life of pleasure and self-satisfaction is in no better condition spiritually than the Islamist that is prepared to die a martyr. 

The West has already lost to Islam, unless and until, we reject a worldview that is godless and morally uncertain.  It is impossible for the inherent weakness produced by post-modern thought and political correctness to be able to stand against the misguided moral certainty of Islam.  In the West, we do not know what is right or wrong, we can’t clearly define marriage; we are not even sure what is male and female.   While leaders of Islam are contemplating world conquest, our President is concerned with the dressing room situation for one terribly confused child in IL.   If post-modern thought is correct, then the attackers in Paris cannot be condemned.  Political correctness only works in polite society.  It only works in a culture where you can, if you choose, be stupid.  It will work as long as the culture at large has the moral foundation to protect you while you are being an idiot.  In other words, the politically correct are doomed in any society other than a Christian worldview.

If we wish to condemn the actions of this weekend’s assault, then on what basis do we bring that condemnation?  On shared human values?  Political correctness says you cannot impose your values on a person or a group.  Do we condemn them because they broke some moral law?  What moral law?  The attackers were consistent with the teachings of the Koran.  If we say what they did is wrong, we must appeal to a lawgiver who has the authority to speak with finality.  That is the one thing that a post-modern, politically correct understanding of the universe cannot allow.

The very thing that can allow a society to rise up against the moral malignancy of Fascism, Nazism, Communism, or Islam is the one thing that western democracies are incapable of using.

As I look at Isaiah 8-10, I see that God used a wicked people to bring judgment and to awaken Israel from her moral slumber.  I don’t believe that the preservation of Western Democracy is very high on God’s priority list; however, I do believe that repentance is very near the top of that list.  So then, in answer to the question how do we pray for France and all nations, for that matter, I believe our prayer should be something like this:

Almighty God,

By Your mercy and grace, use these circumstances to awaken us to our need for a true, heart felt, and lasting repentance.  Use the pain of this moment to cause us to turn to You and by Your grace draw us to You.  Help us Lord, our God to surrender to You our rights, our will, and our control, and give ourselves over to You completely.

In the Name of the only One who gave Himself completely to your will,

Jesus Christ

Amen. 

Trash Talking

Let’s face it, we love trash talking and we love to trash talk in sports and we love those athletes that trash talk well.  Now there is a difference between trash talking and cussing.  Cussing requires no creativity; it is merely repeating vulgar, offensive, or explicit words.  You can teach a parrot to cuss, as happened with a bird that was kept on the bridge of a naval ship on which my uncle served.   No trash talking is more of an art form than simply insulting someone.  It is the barb and the sting of a well-turned phrase that is deeply painful, true, and to which there is no retort.  Trash talkers may cuss, but the best trash talking contains only words that are, in themselves, acceptable in polite conversation.

If the first aspect of trash talking is creativity and a rapier wit, the second is the ability to back it up.  Trash talking an opponent and then having them clean your clock is the ultimate rebuttal to trash talk.  To tell a linebacker, “My mom hits harder than you,” and then have him knock you out of the game, defeats the whole point of trash talking.  When you talk smack (aka trash) and then get smacked around, the trash talk comes back on you and hangs on you like ugly on an ape.  It is the kind of thing that will out last the game.  In fact, years later, you may still face good-natured (or not so good-natured) ribbing for your imprudent words. 

It is reported that the Celtic Larry Bird was one of the greatest trash talkers of all time.  On one occasion, when the Celtics had the ball on the side line during the TV time out, Bird went over to the opposing bench and said, “ I’ll come across the court, take the pass, go to the left side of the arch, and hit a three.”  Which, when play resumed, is exactly what he did.  Then he went over to the opposing bench and said, “I told you what I was going to do and you still could not stop me.”   That is pretty good trash talking. 

Not all trash talking is that good.   When King Arthur and his brave knights attacked the French defending a castle, they were taunted (aka trash talk) by one of the defenders.  “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries,” is pretty memorable, but not very biting.  By the way, talking about someone’s momma is pretty easy in trash talking, but usually not very creative.

In my opinion, the apex of trash talking is found in scripture.  It combines a reference to the ultimate smack down, beautiful poetry, and bold confidence that dwarfs a blitzing linebacker on an unprotected and unsuspecting quarterback.  I do not mean to speak lightly of Holy Scripture, but there is a real beauty and joy when you can get in your mortal enemy’s face and major trash talk.  The passage I have in mind is often read with serious and solemn voice and inflection, which I suppose can be appropriate.  But it is also the celebration of winning.  This passage calls for celebration and exuberance.  Don’t worry, there is no penalty for un-sportsman-like conduct. 

The passage of course is, “O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” 

Woody Allen, who appears to me to be the image of perpetual fear, speaking of death once said, “It is ‘absolutely stupefying in its terror’.”   In contrast, on April 8, 1945, in Flossenburg Concentration Camp, shortly after the last prayer in a short worship service, the Nazi guards entered the room.  “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us.”  The phrase ‘come with us’ was code for the scaffold.  Bonhoeffer said to the other prisoners, “This is the end; for me, the beginning of life.”

I love trash talk, especially when it is in the face of our most hated enemy.  I will indulge in a little paraphrase just for the joy of it.

“Yo, Death, what happened to our plan for a Victory? Looks like you got smacked around so hard you got nothing.

Hey, Death, the worst you got is pathetic.  You may get one tiny moment in an eternity of shame and defeat.  So sit down, shut up, and just wait to go to Hell!”

On an unrelated note:

If you are a minister and the child of a minister I would like to send you an invitation to participate in a project I have started.  It will not cost you anything (doesn’t pay anything either).  It is a tribute to the ministers whose children entered the ministry.  Rather than sending out a bulk email that you may not want, or that may not apply to you I will ask you to send me an email saying.  “I’m a PK and would be willing to listen to your ideal for this tribute.”  I promise I will not spam you or try to sell you something.  Reply to Charlie@colemanssi.com

Encouragement for your week

I sometimes become discouraged about the world in which we live.  We have the best resources in the history of mankind to distribute bad news.  We are daily bombarded with stories of corruption, decay, and rot of society.  It seems that evil is so pervasive and powerful that ministry is all but impossible. We wistfully long for the golden age of the church, whenever that was, and wish that the world were a little more receptive to the gospel. 

But the growth of the church in the first century was a glorious move of God.  When the day of Pentecost dawned it has been estimated that in Palestine there was only one follower of Christ for every 3 million people.  Over the next forty years, the church grew at an average rate of 40% a year, every year.  Within two generations it had reached across the Mediterranean basin and mission efforts had gone from Spain to India.  It might be tempting to think that the ancient world was a more moral and noble world than our own.

I came across a quote from the noted historian Alfred Edersheim:

“Absolute right in Rome did not exist, might had become right.  The social relations exhibited, if possible, an even deeper corruption.  The sanctity of marriage had ceased, female dissipation and general dissoluteness lead at last to an almost entire cessation of marriage.  Abortion and the exposure and murder of newly born children were common and tolerated.  Un-natural vices which even the greatest philosophers practiced if not advocated obtained proportions which defied description.”

Almost sounds like he is describing the early twenty-first century.  So as you recover from Sunday, if you are feeling discouraged, remember we may be just around the corner from a glorious move of God.

Our Bible colleges are in trouble.

I’m writing this not to make accusation or to bring judgments against my fellow believers.  Nor do I claim to have all the answers to the challenges faced by our Bible colleges.  I believe our colleges are being lead by deeply committed and faithful Christian servants.  I write this because I am deeply concerned about what is happening to our Bible colleges. 

Perhaps what our Bible colleges are evolving into is the very best option and will result in more and better-trained ministers.  Nevertheless, I am concerned. These are my observations and concerns.  I do not claim to back them up with volumes of research or superior wisdom.  You may of course agree, disagree, or dismiss me as a crackpot.  All I ask is that you will use this as a prompt to hold our Bible colleges accountable.   Let me outline six of my concerns. 

1   The cost of Bible college is very high.  After two years at one of our colleges, my daughter is back home taking class at a local community college.  We simply could not afford the cost.  She worked about 20 hours a week as a waitress, applied for every scholarship she could, kept up her grades and lived frugally.  But at the end of two years, she concluded that $16,000 a year (before aid) was too much.    I am sure that her’s is not a singular story. 

I am not sure what, if anything, can be done.  But we may price ourselves out of higher education if we are not careful.

2 We have a dependence on federal money.  Most of our colleges would close within a matter of months, if not days, if their students did not receive Federal grant and aid.  This is either the result of high college cost or part of its cause.  This dependence on Federal money comes with certain strings attached.  These strings, I fear, will become more numerous, more egregious, and stronger in the years ahead.   What if our colleges were given the option of providing gay-married housing or loosing eligibility for Federal Money?  “That will never happen,” some might say.  Sorry, I just don’t trust our government that much.  Never forget that the one who pays the fiddler gets to call the tune.   Our Federal government may call a tune we can’t accept.

3 Related to the above is the relationship between accreditation and federal money.  One of the ways that the tune is being called from the outside of our colleges is via accreditation.  Accreditation is voluntary, but it is needed in order to have access to the Federal money.  I remember taking classes that were utterly useless, completely unrelated to ministry, but required because of standards set from the outside.  Might this be the door through which a Trojan horse enters?  I am not sure who coined the term, “Follow the money”, but here it needs to apply.  Are we submitting to accreditation standards because we are hoping to obtain a vigorous academic stand or because it is a pathway to money?

If you are not convinced that I am crackpot by now, allow me to bring that conclusion home now.

4 I am deeply concerned that our Bible colleges are moving away from an emphasis on specialized ministry.   One Thursday night at Christian service camp the preacher at Vespers said, “Some of you young men need to stop running from the call of ministry.  You need to make a commitment to specialized Christian Ministry.”  I made a commitment to answer that call.  I think we should extend that challenge to our Bible Colleges. 

Yes, we need Christian businessmen, teachers, councilors, and for that matter, all the other trades.  By the way, notice how none of our colleges seem to be offering vocational-type training.  Maybe we don’t need Christian plumbers, carpenters, or auto mechanics.  Or maybe we are being smoke screened.   We need preachers, evangelists, church planters and missionaries more than ever.  Somewhere (and I suspect it has a lot to do with more students, more money, and more bragging rights) many of our colleges have made vocational ministry just one of many options.

Hiding behind the guise of “all our students are preparing for ministry,” some of our colleges have lost the commitment to help men answer the call to be a preacher.    Some of our schools are still doing a fine job of preparing ministers, but, at some, the ministry training department is POINTLESS. 

5 For reasons that escape me, many of our colleges are pushing for athletic enrollment.  Once up on a time Bible Colleges played each other in sports for the fun of it.  College athletics were a recreational outlet.  Now it seems that college athletics have become a recruiting tool. Sometimes called the Flutie Effect, there is said to be a correlation between athletic success and enrollment.  It is argued that having extensive athletic programs allows our colleges to recruit students that would go to state/secular schools.  But allow me to offer an observation.  This gets back to, “Why do we have Bible colleges?”  It seems that this is another de-emphasis of ministry.

When I was getting ready to go to Bible College, I wanted to be a preacher.  All other considerations aside I was going to make my decision on that criteria.  Now students are asked to choose a Bible college because they run a spread offense or they need a shooting guard.   

6 My final point of rambling is many of our colleges are experiencing an identity crisis; there is a loss for the heart of the Restoration Movement.   I believe it is a mistake to think that we have perfectly and fully restored the church of the New Testament and that we can’t learn from any other faith community.  But it is also a mistake to divorce ourselves from our historic plea and effort to restore the church.  Many of our colleges are doing just that.  In fact, some of our colleges have no tie to the thought and commitments of the Restoration Movement, except taking money from Christian churches.  It is possible to graduate from some of our schools and be completely comfortable in a commitment to a denominational church.  In fact, I worked for a time with one of our colleges that had no Christian Church/ Church of Christ staff, no classes on the Restoration Movement and no students from any Christian church.  Their only tie was the monthly contributions made by some Christian Churches. 

Which is the point of all these ramblings and ranting.  Our church leaders, ministers, elders, and mission committees need to hold our colleges accountable.  They need to ask tough questions and refuse to accept vague generalities and clichés.  I don’t believe we should hold colleges hostage with our giving, but we do need to ask the hard questions and, if those answers are wanting, reconsider support.  If, however, those answers are faithful and true then our support needs to be aggressive and generous.  I fear we are betting the future, with all our chips on the table, on what may be a bad bet.