Lightning in a Bottle

On June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted his famous experiment of flying a kite in a thunderstorm and capturing an electrical charge in a Leyden jar. I suspect that this historical event in some way gave rise to the expression of “catching lightning in a bottle.” The phrase itself communicates the idea of the difficulty of accomplishing some elusive or hard-to-reach goal. Franklin’s life is a great illustration of one who achieved some remarkable goals, overcoming significant obstacles in the process.

Benjamin’s father, Josiah, a soap and candle maker by trade, had 17 children by two wives. Benjamin was the 15th of these and the 10th and last son. His father could only afford to send him to school for two years, so by the age of 10, Benjamin was a dropout. A voracious reader, Franklin devoured books and epitomized the self-educated man. He was apprenticed to an older brother at the age of 12 where he learned the printing business. Franklin would go on to distinguish himself in multiple arenas as a publisher, philanthropist, civic leader, and a statesman. Perhaps he is best remembered for the witty sayings published in Poor Richard’s Almanac and as a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

When we face adverse circumstances and challenges in life, far more encouraging to us than the example of a self-made man like Benjamin Franklin is the strength we find to persevere through God’s Word and the support and prayers of fellow believers. The writer of Hebrews challenges us to run the race set before us with endurance, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Hope fixed in Him will not leave us disappointed.

Staff Retreat

The next couple of days our ministerial staff will be participating in a retreat in Concordia, MO.  Our men's ministry has held a retreat there the last couple of years and it's a nice setting to get away and do some reflecting.  Last year's retreat, held just a few short months after our new pastor had arrived, was an extremely productive time together and I'm trusting that this one will be as well.  Easter services this morning were a real blessing with great attendance, wonderful music, and a clear biblical message from our pastor.

Homebound Lord's Supper

One of the things that I most enjoy doing in the area of senior adult ministry is helping organize and participate with teams of deacons that go out to serve the Lord's Supper to our homebound members.  The majority of these are living in institutions that provide extended care for the elderly, but several are still able to live at home.  They just aren't sufficiently mobile or strong enough to attend church services regularly as they once did.

This morning I joined an 88-year old deacon (I think the oldest of the total of 14 who participated) and we went to two different homes.  In the first one lives a couple who has been married for 70 years.  The wife told us that they'd never had a fight in their entire marriage and seemed a bit surprised at our own expressions of incredulity and surprise at that statement.  She asked us rather matter-of-factly if we had experienced fights or disagreements with our spouses, to which we both responded affirmatively.  I hope we didn't burst her bubble.  Her husband is 93 and she is soon to turn 89.  We had a wonderful visit off almost an hour, sharing conversation and prayer concerns (including a 25-year old granddaughter who is battling cancer), before we concluded by observing the Lord's Supper together.

In the second home, we visited a lady who is 96 and lives with an almost 70-year old nephew who is rarely at home.  We've been the team that has taken the Lord's Supper to her for the past few years now so she has gotten to know us fairly well.  She expressed as she often has how lonely she feels at times.  I assured her that we were in the process of reorganizing our deacons' ministry to provide a more frequent and ongoing point of contact with her for fellowship and prayer support and to attend to any needs around that house that she might have.  James' words about pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father consisting in visiting the orphans and widows in their distress (Jas. 1:27) came to mind as we conversed.

I'm grateful for a deacon body that is committed to addressing the needs of our senior adults--especially those widows living on their own.

Tabitha Ministry Video

As promised in the previous post, here's a link to the longer YouTube video that features interviews with women who've been helped by the Tabitha Ministry in the area of the Guatemala City dump.

Weekend Wrap-up

Well, it's a bit beyond the weekend it's true, but I'm just now getting around to sharing a report on Carol Bercian's visit to Missouri.  She arrived safely last Thursday evening and we headed off to Windermere for ChurchNet's Share Hope Summit on Friday and Saturday.  Carol did an outstanding as our missions banquet speaker, describing our ongoing partnership efforts in Guatemala.  She presented a wonderful challenge and those present responded with a very generous offering as well as some additional pledges.

We had a good day Sunday, visiting with the fine folks up at Wyatt Park Baptist in St. Joseph in the morning.  Afterwards we enjoyed a delicious meal at the pastor's home with several other friends and family members.  The evening service at our church was down a bit in attendance (perhaps due to being an hour earlier than normal to accommodate the benefit concert that followed).  I was a little disappointed that more of our members didn't hear Carol's presentation which focused predominantly on the Tabitha Ministry.  She is such a passionate speaker when it comes to her ministry among the children living in and near the city dump in Guatemala City, as well as with their mothers.

On Tuesday evening, Carol spoke with our church's missions committee to outline some possible future projects for teams going to western Guatemala from our church.  Earlier in the day, she spoke to a WMU group at John Knox Village.  We managed to keep her pretty busy while she was here, though she did find some time to do some shopping and sightseeing on Monday and Tuesday.

I'm providing a link for some brief video footage that I shot during our most recent visit there in February.  Brian Kaylor who handles the communication stuff for ChurchNet did some editing of it and it's been uploaded to YouTube.  You can find it here.

Carol brought a more extensive video that includes testimonies by some of the women who actually live in the dump and have been assisted by the Tabitha Ministry.  That too has been uploaded to YouTube but is still awaiting being made public.  I'll share it as well as soon as it's available.

Carol left this afternoon to return to Guatemala.

Busy Weekend Ahead

This is stacking up to be a busy (and prayerfully a blessed) weekend.  Carol Bercian, our missions partnership liaison in Guatemala and director of the Tabitha Ministry in Guatemala City, will be arriving in Kansas City tomorrow evening.  She will be the featured speaker at ChurchNet's missions banquet, a part of the larger Share Hope Summit, taking place at Windermere Baptist Conference Center on Friday evening and Saturday morning.

Following the conclusion of the Summit, we'll be driving back to Lee's Summit (about 3 hours) and will have a get-together that evening for all of those who have participated from our church on missions trips to Guatemala.  On Sunday morning, I'll be driving Carol up to St. Joseph where she will speak at Wyatt Park Baptist Church.  Wyatt Park has partnered with us on our last two trips as a church to Guatemala and their pastor, Josh Stowe, was one of the conference leaders at the training seminar in January of this year.

On Sunday evening, Carol will be speaking at our evening service (an hour earlier than usual) and afterwards there will be a benefit concert for the Tabitha Ministry that will also serve as a wrap-up to church's youth group's Disciple Now Weekend.  Three different bands will be playing and there will be an art auction as well to benefit the Tabitha Ministry.  The concert, advertised here on Facebook, has also been featured on K-Love's concert announcement listing.

It should be an exciting weekend that will hopefully be a strong promotion for ChurchNet's Guatemalan missions partnership and the Tabitha Ministry specifically.

Lee Trevino's Influence and Ours

At the height of his popularity on the PGA tour, Lee Trevino once remarked that there were two things that weren’t long for this world—dogs that chase cars, and professional golfers who miss the green with their second shots. Trevino had a knack for off-the-cuff quips that left the spectators positioned close enough to hear them chuckling in amusement. Growing up as I did in South Texas where I golfed occasionally with my dad, I noticed that Trevino’s notoriety as one of the first Mexican-Americans to achieve success on the PGA tour inspired a lot of other Hispanics to take up the sport. Golf has often been viewed as something of a rich man’s game—given the high costs of clubs and equipment, cart rentals, and green fees—not to mention the exorbitant membership dues of private clubhouses. The economics of golf also dictated that it was predominantly a white man’s sport.

Trevino played a major role in overcoming the racial barrier in golf. He had dropped out of school at 14 to work as a caddy at golf courses in Dallas in addition to shining shoes. After a four-year stint with the Marines, Trevino became a golf pro in El Paso, TX. He won the U.S. Open his second year on the tour and would eventually win 29 PGA events. “Supermex,” or “The Merry Mex” as he was known, was likeable and good-natured, inspiring many young Hispanics to take up golf.

Trevino’s life story prompts me to ask the question, “Whom are we influencing and inspiring by the way we live?” “Are our lives serving as an example to challenge others to achieve greatness?” That greatness hopefully isn’t measured by tournaments won, trophies amassed, or bank accounts enriched, but by faithful service to others in Christ’s name.

An Excellent Blog Post

One of my favorite bloggers, Alan Cross, has written an excellent post that asks the question, "Are Southern Baptists Capable of Being Missional?"  His historical analysis of what has brought the SBC to where they are today is especially insightful. 

Associated Baptist Press article

Vicki Brown of Word & Way interviewed me last week for an upcoming article in the paper.  She emailed me yesterday to say that Associated Baptist Press had picked up the article.  Here's a link to it.

ChurchNet Board Meeting

One of the really positive things to come out of yesterday's ChurchNet board meeting was a very good discussion by two of our teams (Missions Mobilization, Resources and Relationships) with Roger Hatfield, executive director of Future Leadership Foundation.  FLF was founded in 2002 and has concentrated its efforts predominantly in Eastern Europe to this point.  They respond to requests from national entities in several of those countries to provide leadership training events.  Their philosophy and approach to doing so matches quite closely the approach that we have taken as an organization, so there is lots of potential for shared ministry.  I foresee that an eventual partnership between our groups will be a boost for each of us--providing synergy and helping both organizations to maximize resources. 

Fresh Appreciation for Bible Translators

I’ve done something unique the last couple of weeks in the Wednesday night Bible study time.  I typically prepare an outline for the study each week with a summary of the major truths and insights found in the passage.  The past two weeks I’ve tried my hand at offering a paraphrase of a number of the key verses in the chapters we’ve examined.  That’s a far different exercise than engaging in translation from the original biblical languages, but it has caused me to grow in my appreciation for the work of Bible translators. 

Translators are faced with the daunting task of faithfully expressing the meaning of the ancient biblical text in a manner that communicates in our contemporary language and culture.  While many still read the King James Version of the Bible (originally translated in 1611), it’s safe to say that none of us speak 17^th-century English.  Many of the words and expressions from that era would need to be translated into modern lingo for us to grasp their meaning today.

In a sense, that’s the challenge we all face as Christians.  We’re to take the unchanging truths of Scripture and contextualize them in a world that is becoming increasingly biblically illiterate.  To a world that deems the message as archaic and mythical, we have the privilege and responsibility of communicating the Bible’s relevance in a clear and penetrating fashion.  A transformed life goes a long way toward underscoring the legitimacy of the message and the messenger.  Let’s live the truth daily.

ChurchNet Meeting tomorrow

Looking forward tomorrow to our quarterly board meeting of ChurchNet (formerly known as the Baptist General Convention of Missouri).  I'll have the opportunity of giving an update on the recent trips to Guatemala.  In addition, Roger Hatfield of the Future Leadership Foundation will be meeting with us to consider and explore some ministry partnership opportunities in Latin America.  FLF has a long history of providing leadership training events in Eastern Europe, but they're looking to expand and/or re-focus on our southern neighbors.  It should be a great meeting as we prayerfully seek direction about possible collaboration between our two organizations.

Guatemala Wrap-up

We made it safely to Antigua late yesterday afternoon after stopping to visit Lake Atitlan and taking a boat ride there. We got settled in to our hotel and then went exploring a bit in the evening, enjoying a typical Guatemalan restaurant just off of the central plaza.

Today we'll explore some more of the city before returning to Guatemala City after lunch to visit the Tabitha ministry. After that, it's winding down a bit this evening and getting ready for an early departure tomorrow.

It's been a wonderfully blessed week. I don't think I ever commented on the final day's activity after the trip up to the mountains to distribute food on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we split up into 4 or 5 teams (can't remember which right now) and were joined by Mary Wood [former children's minister at our church now serving as a volunteer in Guatemala with her husband Joe] as we delivered bags of food to needy folks in the neighborhood of the church. Several decisions for Christ were made among those who received the food. That afternoon, we went to an institute with young people between the ages of 12-18. We again split up into multiple teams to share the gospel with the students. I translated for Jeff who did an outstanding job of presenting his testimony and the gospel. Again, many indicated by their responses that they had accepted Christ.

That evening, we met at the church for a farewell gathering and were blessed by their words of appreciation and some souvenirs that they gave us to remember them by.  The youth did a skit in which they recounted the areas in which our team had ministered there during the week.  Lots of hugs and tears as we said farewells to some folks we had learned to love in the space of a few days.

Tuesday in Guatemala

Tuesday was an exciting day for the team.  After spending some additional time on Monday weighing more rice and beans in 5 lb. bags and packing those up along with sugar, flour, and powdered milk, we headed out Tuesday morning for a village named Tierra Colorada on the side of a mountain southwest of Quetzaltenango.  We had been forewarned that we might have to hike a good bit of the way as the road was steep and winding.  Fortunately, the van was able to make it all the way to the top.  We were grateful as we probably climbed between 800 and 1000 feet higher than the 7500 feet altitude or so that Quetzaltenango is situated at.  Our first activity there was speaking to the kids in a community school.  There were very well-behaved and paid close attention to the Bible stories and the presentation of the gospel. 

After concluding the presentations in each class, we were invited for a typical lunch (chicken and rice) with some tamales as well at the home of the president of the parents' association.  It was a few hundred yards down the mountainside to the home and the hike back up after lunch was breathtaking--literally.  We were all pretty winded from the thin air by the time we got back up to the school. 

There, we waited as the mothers of the children gathered to receive the bags of food that had been taken up the mountain in a truck (which gratefully also successfully climbed all the way to the village).  Jeff Arnold, our youth minister shared a testimony followed by a testimony from Martha Wakely.  Martha is bilingual so I didn't have to translate for her.  Then Josh Stowe, pastor of Wyatt Park Baptist, shared the gospel utilizing the story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.  Afterwards, the pastor of the Judah Baptist Church (our host church for the week) shared an invitation and several of the women responded.

We learned afterwards when we visited a neighboring church a few miles from this village that earlier evangelical groups that had attempted to share the gospel in Tierra Colorada had been run out of the village with stones.  The principal of the school is a believer and is trying to share the love of Christ with the families who attend there.  She was present on Sunday morning for the worship service at the Judah Baptist Church and returned on Wednesday night for the farewell service to express thanks for the inroads that the gifts of the food bags had made in the community.

We wrapped up Tuesday evening with the final night of leadership training at the Judah Church with representatives from three different churches present. I don't think anyone stayed up too late that evening after we got back to the hotel and had dinner.  It was an exhausting but fulfilling day.

Guatemala Reports

I failed to do any further posting about out recent Guatemala trip while there, though I did manage to send a few brief email updates to the church during the course of the week.  I thought that I'd post those in the next couple of days to give some insight into some of the things we did.

Here's a report I sent on Monday the 14th:

We've had another good day with a few changes of plans. We were going to distribute bags of food in the area of the church this morning but did a quick change of plans when we learned that the school we were planning on visiting on Wednesday was going to have teacher training sessions that day rather than classes. We went and had a great time with about 400 kids (I think) in all. Afterwards, it was lunch time at church, followed by VBS, packing more bags of food for the families tomorrow, and then training tonight.

It turns out that we're delivering almost 200 bags of food at one time rather than individually tomorrow. I had been wondering how we were going to manage time-wise to deliver that many bags. It's a village in the mountains where we're going. Carol has warned us we'll probably have to hike the last part of the way up there. The other warning she gave us was that there are no bathroom facilities there and we're going to be there for a good part of the day. We'll be speaking in a smaller school there in the morning with about 250 kids, and then after a lunch of sandwiches that the church is preparing, we'll be sharing testimonies and a message with about 200 Mayan families who live there. Then we'll deliver the food. Because there are so many families, the food (beans and rice at least) were purchased in bulk (100 lb. bags), so we've spent a good deal of time with the help of church members weighing and packaging the food for delivery.

Also got to see Pastor Santiago from San Marcos today. He's the fellow who has taken in so many homeless kids and is teaching them carpentry skills and helping them with an education. He has a new young man with him named Sergio who's 18 whose parents were killed. He has never attended school in his life until now.

Had a good visit this morning with the leaders of the local pastors' association to assure them that Carol's departure from the convention and Roger's return to Nicaragua wouldn't curtail the BGCM's partnership with this area but that we would be working directly with the association rather than the convention.

A Busy Day

We had a good first day of ministry on the missions trip to Guatemala.  One of the most interesting things about the worship service this morning was having the music and praise time led by a group from the Guatemalan National Police.  They had a drummer, guitarist, keyboard player, and several singers.  When one hears so much about the corruption in the police departments across Latin America, it was very refreshing to see this group lead an impassioned time of worship.  I had the chance to preach to the adults afterwards while other team members taught Sunday School classes for the children.

After lunch which the church provided for us, we weighed and packaged black beans and rice which had been purchased in bulk (100 lb. bags), as well as cooking oil, sugar, and powdered milk.  After doing this with lots of help from the church members, we played a little stick-ball with some of the kids before beginning VBS with about 40 kids in all.  When we finished VBS, we packed 60 backpacks with school supplies that our church members had donated for the children of the church.  We had some extra supplies which we'll be taking to a public school later in the week.

We made a quick trip back to the hotel to refresh for a half hour or so before returning to the church for leadership training.  Our children's minister led a session for children's workers while our youth minister did likewise for youth workers.  Josh Stowe, pastor from Wyatt Park in St. Joseph, led a session for the adults which I translated.  After that it was back to the hotel for a rather late spaghetti dinner.  I think everyone is pretty exhausted after a busy day on the heels of a long travel day yesterday.  Hopefully we'll catch up on some sleep tonight.

Arrived Safely in Quetzaltenango

After a long day of travel (awakened at 4:00 a.m.), we arrived this evening about 9:00 in Quetzaltenango.  Tomorrow morning we will worship with the Judah Baptist Church in the morning, have VBS for their kids in the afternoon, and host a leadership training event in the evening for the area churches here.  I'd give a longer update, but my body is saying it's time to go to sleep.

Guatemala Beckons Again

It seems like I just returned from Guatemala (which I did last month) and now I'm off again this Saturday.  This will be our church's fourth missions trip to the western part of the country.  Our previous trips took us to Cantel, San Marcos and Tejutla, and Totonicapan.  This time we'll be working with the Judah Baptist Church (no h on it in Spanish however) in Quetzaltenango.  That's the same city where we host the leadership training conferences each six months so we'll be staying in the same hotel we do for those trips--the Bella Luna (beautiful moon). 

We had seven from our church slated to go, but one of our ladies wound up in the hospital today with a collapsed lung and won't be able to travel with us.  Two of our number are traveling down early tomorrow (Wednesday) to spend a couple of days training the workers at the Tabitha Ministry near the city dump in Guatemala City.  They will join us at the airport when we fly in on Saturday to make the trip out west to Quetzaltenango.  We're slated to speak in a few public schools, to lead a VBS at the Judah Baptist Church, to spend a day doing outreach and providing fund for hungry families at a mission of the church in the mountains, and to offer leadership training classes for the local Baptist churches in Quetzaltenango in the evenings. 

We'll be joined by Josh Stowe, pastor of Wyatt Park Baptist in St. Joseph, MO and his wife as well as a third member of their church who is bilingual and will help with the translation duties.  It's always a wonderful blessing to be able to spend a week in Guatemala serving alongside some wonderul folks.

Reflections concerning Groundhog Day

As a youngster, I used to receive a good deal of razzing from my fellow classmates about being born on Groundhog Day, February 2nd. That, of course, was long before Bill Murray starred in the movie about a TV weatherman covering the annual forecast of the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania. The weather forecaster becomes mysteriously mired in a cycle in which his life activities are repeated identically each day. Murray’s character ingeniously devises some elaborate schemes to exploit the situation, since he knows exactly what to expect at every minute of the day from the time his alarm clock first sounds in the morning.

Perhaps for some people, such an absolute sense of utter predictability would symbolize comfort. Knowing exactly what was going to transpire every day might seem to offer reassurance and stability. I strongly suspect though that for most of us the invariable sameness of each new day would rapidly become maddeningly frustrating. It would also undercut any sense of excitement and anticipation about the new adventures that each day holds, given that none of us has a crystal ball that accurately predicts the future.

I’m grateful that God allows us the privilege of awakening each day to a clean slate of opportunities and possibilities to love Him and to love others. Rather than living in some kind of a rigidly controlled environment, He affords us the chance to fully experience life with all of its complexities and risks. That being the case, we really do have to learn to walk by faith and not by sight, trusting God for the strength and wisdom to live each day to its fullest.

Guatemala update

We arrived back in Guatemala City this evening after a couple of really good days of leadership training conferences in Quetzaltenango.  We had 72 pastors and leaders in attendance, including some for the first time.  Josh Stowe and Ann Pittman did a great job leading in the workshops and I was able to take a break from my normal translation duties as a result of Steve Mines accompanying us and handling those responsibilities.  Steve's folks were our big brothers who welcomed us to Argentina in 1988 as we arrived there as new missionaries.  It's been good to catch up with him in these days.

It's been cool here with temperatures in the middle 30s in Quetzaltenango at night, but that's a lot better than the weather I left in Missouri with several inches of snow on the ground and chill factors of -20.  We'll visit the Tabitha Ministry tomorrow morning before doing some sightseeing in Antigua later in the day.  After that, it's an early morning departure on Friday as we head back to the States.

As always, the conference participants were extremely gracious and affirming of our presence and contributions in making the training event a reality.  We were also able to visit the Judah Baptist Church there in Quetzaltenango where our church will be sending a missions team next month.

I was also able to visit with Mary and Joe Wood who are volunteering in Guatemala for a year.  Mary was our church's children's minister a few years ago before becoming the minister of education at another church in the Kansas City area.  It was wonderful to spend some time with them today.

Pastor's Daily Devotions

Shortly after Dr. Blake McKinney began his ministry with us as our senior pastor a year ago, he began publishing a series of daily devotions that can be received via email.  They have consistently been outstanding in terms of their quality and focus.  They are brief, to the point, and always extremely practical.  I'm not sure why I have waited until this point to mention them, but I'd encourage anyone who is looking for a challenging and encouraging word from the Lord each day to subscribe to Blake's devotions.

Here's a link if you're interested in signing up for the free email devotions.

The KJV and Change

(I shared the following reflections in our church's newsletter this week).

With the arrival of 2011, we will find ourselves celebrating the 400th anniversary of the printing of the King James Version of the Bible. Shortly after his ascension to England’s throne, James I convened the Hampton Court Conference in January 1604 that called for a new translation of the Bible. Seven years later, the forty-seven biblical scholars assigned to the task had finished their work and the new version had been printed by Robert Barker.

I suspect that many of you grew up reading and studying the King James Version. It really wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that other English versions began to appear that would eventually dethrone the KJV as the most widely sold and read of all Bibles. Most of us heard the KJV preached from on Sunday mornings and studied it in Sunday School. It was the version from which we memorized our favorite verses. Many still love the old English language of the KJV and continue to use it today. For others, the KJV language sounds foreign to their ears and is a hurdle to understanding the meaning of the biblical text.

The lesson I take from this is that the only constant in life (including our Christian experience) is change. Many opposed the appearance of new English translations and branded them as heretical. There are still some fundamentalist churches today who insist on the use of the KJV in their services. Most of us have moved on to other Bible translations that help us to better understand God’s message for our lives. We’ve been blessed by the labor of biblical scholars working with more accurate Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. As we begin a new church year with new worship schedules and a host of new Bible Fellowship classes, I pray that we’ll do so with excitement and enthusiasm, realizing that while change can be unsettling for a while, great good and benefit can come from these new experiences.

New Sunday Schedule

I mentioned in my previous post that today we would be launching a new Sunday morning schedule with three different worship formats.  I'm delighted to say that despite pretty frigid temperatures here in the Kansas City area this morning (about 14 degrees I think earlier) and the fact that we're still kind of in an extended holiday weekend mode, we had a great response to the three different services.  We had around 120 in the 8:00 a.m. traditional service, over 500 in the blended service at 9:30, and 180 or so in the contemporary service at 11:00.  I was also very pleased with a turnout of 24 in the new Sunday School class that I began teaching this morning during the 9:30 hour. I haven't heard the reports yet from the other new classes that were started, but it was encouraging overall to see a good response to these new initiatives. 

This week I've got to catch up on some stuff in the office after being on vacation, especially with regard to our Free Community Garage Sale that we'll be hosting on January 15th.  We've been doing a monthly "First Serve" community service project since June or so of this past year and the "free garage sale" will be our kickoff event for 2011.

Family Time

I found myself at the end of the year with quite a bit of unused vacation days which I would forfeit if not used, so I've been enjoying some extended family time since around the 20th of December or so.  I made a quick trip down to Texas (Dec. 16-18) to see my second son before his overseas deployment and had a great time with him and his wife and our newest grandson, Jonah.  Since then, it's been hanging around the house with my wife and youngest as well as our second son who is home from law school at Ohio State Univ.  We've also had our oldest and his wife over with their three children on two occasions.  Throw into the mix my mom who lives with us permanently, my wife's mom who has been staying with us for a week, and my wife's sister who also spent a few days here and we've had a houseful of company. 

It's almost Guatemala travel time again for me as I'll be heading down there the second week of January for another round of leadership training conferences.  The day after I return, our church is hosting a "free garage sale" for the community.  It's something that we've done in the past and this year we're linking it to a bunch of other civic and non-profit organizations' efforts in conjunction with a week of service for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  In mid-February, it will be back to Guatemala again for a missions trip with our church.

Beginning this Sunday, we're also totally revamping our Sunday morning worship and Bible Fellowship schedules.  We've had two identical blended services to this point (at 9:30 and 10:45).  Our new schedule will begin with a traditional service at 8:00, the blended service at 9:30, and a contemporary service at 11:00.  We're beginning a number of new Bible Fellowship classes to accommodate the worship schedule changes.  I'm looking forward to teaching a coed class of 60-somethings during the 9:30 hour.  We'll be using the Smyth and Helwys Formation curriculum.

There's a certain amount of apprehension on the part of some with the new scheduling (change is always threatening), but there's a great deal of excitement as well about the chance to reach some new people we're currently not impacting with the gospel.  Life is good!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

One of the popular Christmas carols you hear on the radio frequently these days begins with the line, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” For Christians, it certainly should be one of the highpoints of the calendar year as we pause once again to reflect on the incredible truth that God became a man in the person of Jesus. A miraculous birth was accompanied by miraculous signs. Angelic choruses sang to shepherds. A guiding star led wise men from afar to visit the young child. An angel warned the family to flee to Egypt from Herod’s wrath.


The greatest miracle of all though was that Jesus was willing to give up His eternal glory with God the Father and come into this world in the most humble of circumstances. He who had existed with God from all eternity stepped into time and space. Why did He come? The angel said it best when he told Joseph that the baby was to be named Jesus, for He would come to save His people from their sin. In the midst of gift giving and receiving this Christmas season, don’t forget that we’ve been given the most indescribable gift imaginable—forgiveness of our sins and eternal life through Jesus Christ.

The True Origin of the Internet

Couldn't resist passing along this account of the origins of the internet in biblical times that I received from one of our church's senior adults.

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called 'Amazon Dot Com.'

And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?"And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever moving from his tent.

But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secrete himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young man did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites, or NERDS for short.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others."

And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known "eBay" he said, "We need a name that reflects what we are."

And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."

"YAHOO," said Abraham.

And that is how it all began. It wasn't Al Gore after all.

Grace versus Un-grace

I was re-reading Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth this week in preparation for Advent and the celebration of Christmas. A verse I had read dozens of times spoke to me in a new way. Matthew 1:19 describes Joseph’s planned response when he learns that Mary is expecting a child. He clearly knows that he isn’t the father, and the law of Moses would have allowed him to have her publicly shamed and stoned to death as an adulterer. He would have assumed of course that the child had been fathered by another man as there was no other logical, human explanation for her pregnancy. The Bible says that because Joseph was a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, he decided to send her away secretly.


That statement prompted me to think about how true righteousness impacts the way we live. Far too often, the pharisaical kind of self-righteousness that so many practice leads to condemnation and harsh judgment of others who fall into sin. Joseph’s righteousness prompted him to exhibit grace toward Mary—not “ungrace,” to borrow a term from Phillip Yancey. Even as heartbroken as he must have been at the thought of her infidelity, his love for Mary prompted Joseph to show grace and protect her from both shame and death. His actions strongly suggest those that his earthly son Jesus would later take when confronted with the woman caught in the act of adultery.

The passage suggests that true righteousness isn’t displayed most clearly by the visible sins that it is willing to denounce, but by the love and grace it shows toward those who stumble and fall. The Christmas message is that God’s love and grace led Him to give His Son for a stumbling and fallen humanity—each and every one of us.

A Busy Weekend

This was one of those extremely busy weekends for me and the family.  It started on Saturday morning with officiating at the funeral for a long-time member who passed away this past Tuesday.  I had been with her at the care center and had prayer with the family just a half an hour before she passed away.  The couple had lived here in Lee's Summit for more than 60 years and the crowd at the visitation and the funeral home was huge.

That evening I attended Lee's Summit North's production of "The Producers" in which our son plays the leading role of Max Bialystock.  He did an outstanding job with his performance.

Sunday morning it was my privilege to baptize a young man whom I recently led to the Lord after he just showed up one evening on a Wednesday night.  Several of our staff had spoken with him on different occasions, and I had the opportunity to lead him to Christ a couple of weeks ago.  I also had the chance to preach yesterday as our senior pastor was leading a marriage enrichment retreat in Branson for about 20 of our couples.  I preached from John 4 and the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.  If you're interested in hearing the sermon, it's available here.

I attended a matinee of The Producers yesterday afternoon again before heading back to evening services at church where we had a preview of our new contemporary service set to begin on January 2, 2011.  We'll be offering a traditional service at 8:00, the blended service we currently have at 9:30, and the contemporary service at 11:00.  Finally, I wrapped up the weekend with deacons' meeting after the evening service.  It was a busy weekend, but wonderfully enjoyable.

The Need for Humor

My recent post with the Christian cartoons has drawn more traffic to my blog than I've ever had I think, with the possible exception of one or two posts that focused more on denominational strife and turmoil and thus served to attract folks with those interests.  I think that probably says something about our need to laugh and engage in some humor more often than some of us do.  There's far too much bad news and serious stuff out there that we're exposed to on a daily basis, so a little levity and light-hearted humor can be a sweet elixir for our souls. 

I've had the privilege of leading the Wednesday night prayer meeting and Bible study at our church almost from the time I joined the staff over seven years ago.  I really look forward to that time each week of sharing prayer concerns as a family of faith and then delving deeper into a passage of scripture together.  We've done some pretty lengthy studies over these years--spending some 15 months in Mark, a year or so in Acts, and some other protracted book studies as well.  One of the highlights each week though is when the lady who leads us in singing a couple of hymns before we pray and study takes a few minutes to share some funny jokes.  Frequently these are church-related jokes, so we have a great time laughing at ourselves in a sense. 

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that among many other things that there is time for in life, there's a time to laugh.  I'm grateful for at least one time a week on Wednesday evenings when someone purposefully prompts me to laugh by telling some good jokes.  There's plenty of news out there that saddens us, angers us, moves us to cry, or leaves us shaking our head in amazement at man's capacity to do evil.  Some much-needed laughter can be a good antidote for some of the news that poisons our soul.  Here's hoping that you find something to laugh about today.

Hilarious Christian Cartoons

Civil Discourse

I can’t say I won’t be happy when the mid-term political election season finally ends after the voting on November 2nd. It seems that with each successive year, candidates from both major parties are increasingly guilty of engaging in personal attacks on their opponents rather than debating the issues themselves or stating in a positive fashion what they hope to accomplish if elected. What ever happened to civil and respectful discourse? Is waging a campaign of non-stop attack ads the only way to seek election to public office today?

Perhaps the negative example of politicians can serve as a positive reminder for us as followers of Christ to be especially careful about our speech and how we choose to communicate with others. We’d be hard pressed to improve upon the exhortation of the apostle Paul in Eph. 4:29 where he writes, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” Our world could certainly profit immensely from some grace-filled, edifying speech. We may not be able to censor or control what the politicians are saying, but we certainly can and ought to ensure that our own speech reflects the presence of the Christ who dwells within us.

Combatting Acedia

I learned a new word this week as I was reading a daily devotional that I receive via email on my computer each weekday. The writer quoted another author, Kathleen Norris, who has written a book entitled Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life. I had to look up acedia to ensure that I understood it correctly. The dictionary defines it as spiritual sloth, or laziness and indifference in religious matters. A quote from Norris’ book stirred my thoughts even further when she writes:

"It is indeed apathy's world when we have so many choices that we grow indifferent to them even as we hunger for still more novelty. We discard real relationships in favor of virtual ones and scarcely notice that being overly concerned with the thread count of cotton sheets and the exotic ingredients of gourmet meals can render us less able to care about those who scrounge for food and have no bed but the streets."

The quote in turn brought to mind the title of a book I’m currently reading—Adventures in Missing the Point. The constant pursuit of the new and innovative and the deluge of choices that we face daily can certainly cause us to miss what matters most. Norris’ statement about discarding face-to-face relationships with people in our quest to expand our list of “virtual friends” via Facebook and other social networks is convicting. So, too, are her comments about getting hung up on dietary labels of food packages when we’re surrounded by folks who are hungry and homeless.

We can’t meet all of the world’s needs, nor solve all of the crises that arise, but by the grace of God we can do our part to make a difference and alleviate the suffering of others. We need to take our cue from the Lord Himself who seeing the multitudes as distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd, was moved with compassion for them. Let’s resolve not to let acedia win the battle.

Visiting Wyatt Park Baptist in St. Joseph

Life has been fairly busy lately, hence the lack of blog posts. Our senior pastor was attending a course this past week at Fuller, so I had the opportunity of preaching on Sunday evening the 3rd as well as in both services on Sunday morning the 10th. This week I'll be traveling northward to St. Joseph to meet with the good folks at Wyatt Park Baptist Church. They've invited me to share about ChurchNet (the new operating name for the BGCM) and its ongoing partnership with Guatemalan Baptists. Two of their members participated with us last February in our missions trip to Totonicapan and more recently they sent a suitcase full of shoes for the children of the Tabitha Ministry in Guatemala City.

I'm looking forward to meeting with the adult Sunday School classes to share about the partnership and then challenging the church in the morning message to an even greater level of commitment to the work in Guatemala. I'm excited that my weekly prayer partner, a young-at-heart 84-year old,
will be accompanying me. He has also traveled with our church previously to Guatemala.

The day promises to be a busy one as we'll have to hustle back so I can fulfill my responsibilities leading worship and a Bible study at a local care center at 3:00 p.m. After that, it's a missions committee meeting at church at 5:00, followed by worship at 6:30.

Humorous theology video

I saw this video on a friend's Facebook page and couldn't resist sharing it.

Learning a Lesson from Tylenol

In late September and early October of 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking extra-strength Tylenol capsules that had been tampered with and subsequently found to contain cyanide. The criminal behind these deaths was never identified and brought to justice. On October 5th, the parent company Johnson & Johnson took the unprecedented step of recalling some 31 million bottles of Tylenol in circulation with a value of more than 100 million dollars. They did so even though it had been clearly demonstrated that the poisonings were the result of deliberate tampering with the bottles and not a consequence of a production error. In the aftermath of these deaths, Tylenol introduced a new triple-sealed package to prevent such crimes in the future. While in the short-run, Tylenol’s market share dropped from 35% to 8%, before the year was out it had completely recovered, and Tylenol would later become the country’s most popular pain reliever.

I think there are some valuable lessons to be learned from the way Johnson & Johnson handled this crisis. Even though they were not directly responsible for the deaths of those who swallowed the tainted capsules, the company willingly incurred a massive financial loss by recalling all of the existing stock to ensure public safety. Furthermore, they changed their packaging (which also undoubtedly represented an additional outlay of capital) because they were intent on regaining the public’s confidence.

There will be times when we are unjustly accused of wrongdoing. At other times, suspicion will be cast on our motives. It is then that we need to be willing to go the extra mile to demonstrate that we have the other person’s best interest at heart. If a secular company can right the wrongs committed by another, surely we as Christians can do likewise.

Reggie McNeal's Conference

I thoroughly enjoyed the day yesterday at Pleasant Valley Baptist in Liberty, MO listening to Reggie McNeal expound on missional living. He's an extremely engaging communicator who mixes in lots of humor along the way with his critique of the established church for going about business as usual and allowing programs to drive us rather than passionately engaging those outside the walls of our institutions. He sprinkled in lots of statistics and stories of individuals and churches that are "getting it" in terms of the shift to living missionally.

His presentation pretty well mirrored the contents of his recent book, Missional Renaissance, with its insistence on the need to change the church's scorecard in terms of what we count and celebrate. Reggie did a great job yesterday of addressing two of the three shifts he talks about in that book (from an internal to an external focus, and from running programs to developing people). He didn't really discuss at any great length the third focus the book mentions which is the shift from professional leadership to leadership shared by everyone in the community. I suppose he was alluding to this when he did answer a question about the future of the ministry as we've known it in the past.

He made an excellent point when he stressed that leaders are often too quick to sell solutions to problems before they've sufficiently convinced people that a problem exists. I think that's why the majority of our churches find it so comfortable to continue sustaining traditional programs rather than asking the hard questions about which programs really deserve to be maintained and which ought to be allowed to die a merciful death.

I'm glad that several from our staff were able to attend the conference together because it gives us a common framework of experience to discuss these issues. I expect it will provide some great fodder for thought in the coming days.

Good weekend at Windermere

I returned this afternoon (Saturday) from an enjoyable time the past couple of days down at Lake of the Ozarks at the Windermere Baptist Conference Center. The BGCM had scheduled a two-day retreat as a part of our quarterly board meeting. The additional time gave us the opportunity yesterday to do some team-building exercises. We viewed and interacted as a group with a training DVD produced by Franklin Covey entitled "The Speed of Trust." We spent time conversing about what it means to build a high-trust organization and the means of doing so. I thought it was a very productive time and we had some outstanding fellowship as always when we gather.

Today we met with our individual teams to engage in some planning and strategizing before meeting as a group to conduct business and hear the insights and ideas of the other teams. The Missions Mobilization Team that I lead talked about our ongoing partnership with Guatemalan Baptists and ongoing opportunities for ministry there. We continue to explore ways to engage the Lakota Indians living on the Lower Brule Reservation in South Dakota where our church's youth have traveled the past two summers.

One of the major initiatives we're undertaking involves the official launch of ChurchNet, our organizational name and identity. The BGCM remains committed to serving churches as our first priority and the goal is to do so much more effectively as we roll out a new website that will offer a much more interactive approach than our current site. It will feature an extensive resources database that will help churches find the assistance they need as well as allow members to suggest, identify, and contribute resources to the site. The website will also contain links to training opportunities that we ourselves will be leading or that other groups are conducting.

I'm excited about what the future holds for ChurchNet as we move forward with the implementation of our new five-year strategic plan. It's great to be a part of a Baptist group that isn't squabbling and fighting internally and whose focus is on helping churches accomplish their ministries more effectively.

Heading to Texas

My wife asked my Mom the other day if she would like to pay a visit to her sisters and she quickly responded that she would very much enjoy doing so. I was a bit surprised as she doesn't venture out of the house much here after a couple of falls that produced some fractured vertebrae. At any rate, we're going to head to Texas on Saturday to allow her to attend her old church (Acton Baptist Church) near Granbury and then we'll also visit her older and younger sisters before winding up in San Angelo the following weekend to see our newest grandson.

It will be lots of hours of driving and I trust that she can tolerate that okay, but it's been a couple of years at least since she's seen her sisters, so this should be a special time for her. I'm really excited as well about seeing Jonah who is already 12 days old. We've seen pictures but that doesn't compare to being able to hold him.

Averting Tragedy

On August 16, 1920, professional baseball experienced the only death ever caused by a pitched ball when Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was struck in the temple by Carl Mays of the Yankees. Chapman made a habit out of crowding the plate and was frequently hit by pitches. It appeared that Chapman was expecting a curveball and made no attempt to move out of the way. He collapsed from the impact, was helped to his feet and walked to the dugout, but then lost consciousness. Emergency surgery failed to save his life. Chapman’s death prompted a major change in baseball as to this point, just a handful of balls were used per game. They would become discolored and scuffed and harder to see. Following Chapman’s death, dirty or scuffed balls had to be replaced. An unexpected by-product of the rule change was an increase in the number of home runs as the newer balls were wound tighter and carried farther when struck.

It’s sad and unfortunate that a tragedy must take place at times before safety measures are implemented to protect people. Vehicle safety inspections, child safety seats, railroad crossing warning lights, and so many other measures arose to address tragedies after the fact.

I wonder how many Christians ignore warning signs about their relationship with God until a full-blown tragedy occurs. Neglecting the daily disciplines of prayer and Bible study is a sure-fire way to weaken our ability to resist temptation that will inevitably come, attempting to sabotage our walk with the Lord. Rather than courting a spiritual crisis through indifference to God, let’s resolve to spend time with Him each day. It’s a lot harder to put Humpty Dumpty back together than it is to keep him from falling.

Yesterday's Message

Our A-V guys were really quick this time on getting the previous day's sermon uploaded on the church's website. If you're interested in listening to my message yesterday entitled "Life Transformation isn't Optional," here's the link.

The Lord blessed our fellowship yesterday with the addition of three new families, including a family of former missionaries to Africa.

Global Leadership Summit

I really enjoyed my first-time experience at Willow Creek's annual Global Leadership Summit. I attended at one of the simulcast sites here in the Kansas City area at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, MO. Having previously attended other gatherings there including an IMB appointment service and the Baptist Border Crossing, I was aware of both the wonderful facilities and the tremendous group of willing volunteers that the church has to pull off such an event. They surely didn't disappoint this time either.

There were many highlights of the meeting and only one of the many speakers didn't really connect with me. My favorite two presenters were Christine Caine (a pastor and teacher at the Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia as well as founder of the A21 Campaign to fight sexual trafficking of women) and Jeff Manion (pastor of the Ada Bible Church in Ada, MI). They were both outstanding preachers with great messages. I enjoyed Jeff so much that I bought his book that his message was based upon entitled The Land Between.

I really enjoyed attending with our minister of outreach and education as we were able to share impressions and bounce reactions off of one another. I'd love to see our entire staff in attendance next year. With a combination of pastors and Christian leaders as well as prominent business leaders, the conference did an outstanding job of providing inspiration and some thought-provoking insights about leadership in any organization.

Catching Up

I have been very remiss of late in posting anything on my blog. I realize that I had even failed to provide a follow-up report to the Summer Adult Bible Study on Galatians. That turned out to be a great time once again this year. We averaged about 90 folks each night. Our low attendance was about 75 or 80 on Tuesday evening when a pretty violent thunderstorm rolled through town just about 30 or 40 minutes before we were scheduled to begin. I was fearful that no one would show up, but was really pleased with the turnout despite the bad weather. The study went very well and the comments afterwards were very affirming. It's clear that our folks really enjoy doing this each summer.

We've lost three of our senior adults who went home to be with the Lord since I last posted as well. Two of them had been in care centers for quite some time while the other had struggled with Alzheimers but his wife was able to care for him at home. His service will be this Saturday morning at church.

Tomorrow and Friday I'll be attending the Willow Creek Association's annual Leadership Summit via live telecast at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, MO. I understand that they're expecting around 800 at that location. This is the first time I will have had the privilege of attending. I think I'm the only BGCM staff member who has never gone, so I look forward to the experience. I'll be joined by our minister of outreach and education who has previously attended a Summit. I hope to be able to share some insights from the conference.

With the shortened work week due to the conference Thursday and Friday and the funeral on Saturday morning, I've been working to get everything else done by today, including preparing a sermon to preach this coming Sunday. I've been thinking a lot about life transformation of late in light of some things I've been reading, including the public announcement by Anne Rice that she is renouncing Christianity but not her faith in Christ. I'm using her statement and a couple of related stories as an introduction to a message I've entitled "Life Transformation isn't Optional." The sermon text is 2 Cor. 5:14-20. I'll try to share a link to it after it gets uploaded and posted on the church website in case anyone would like to hear it.

Had a good time tonight at prayer meeting and Bible study. We're starting a new schedule in September on Wednesday nights, including restarting the tradition of a Wednesday night supper, and I'm still praying about what series to begin then. In the meantime, over the next three weeks I'm kind of unpacking our church's new mission statement (Love God, love people, make disciples) with appropriate scripture references.

Thanks to those who still stop by and pay an occasional visit to my site. I'm grateful for your readership.

Summer Adult Bible Study Series

This next week I'll be enjoying having the opportunity to lead our adults in our annual Summer Adult Bible Study series. We pattern this somewhat after the old January Bible Studies that were popular for many years among Southern Baptists and which I suspect some still observe.

We started doing these series my second year on staff at First Baptist here in Lee's Summit and have done so every year but one since that time. Our focus this year will be on the book of Galatians with its theme of the freedom we have in Christ. I've also been going through Phillip Yancey's What's So Amazing about Grace with a couple of guys and his insights on legalism dovetail quite well with Paul's emphasis in this letter.

The first several years we did these, we began with either testimonies of folks who had gone or recent missions trips, singing groups, etc., then we had refreshments followed by the Bible study. For the last couple of years, we've dispensed with the other speakers and activities (but not the refreshments of course--we are Baptists after all!). We typically have somewhere between 80 and 100 adults who attend the four-night study--not a bad turnout for a midsummer weeknight activity.

These weeks of the Summer Adult Bible Study series are about as close as I get now to my former days as a seminary professor, and I relish the opportunity to teach the Scriptures to some folks who want to go deeper into God's Word. Prayerfully, we will all also seek to apply the truths we discover to our daily lives.

Safely Back in Guatemala City

Blake and I arrived back in Guatemala City late this afternoon after a very busy time of conferences in Quetzaltenango. The teaching sessions were well received by the 70 folks who were present for the training. As always, there was lots of good interaction and many questions. The trip out took a long time--close to 8 hours from the time we left the airport. That included time to pick up Carol's son David from his school and then the drive out. A detour in Chimaltenango took close to 45 minutes I suspect. We stopped for about an hour as well for dinner. Later, mudslides from the recent tropical storm Agatha caused delays as the normal 4 lanes through the mountains were reduced to two lanes in many places. We saw huge mounds of dirt, rocks, and trees that were covering the roadway in many places. As we got within about an hour of Quetzaltenango, we had to stop for more than an hour while two huge frontloaders were clearing the highway from a slide.

The return trip today took a little less than 4 hours, including a half hour stop for some hot chocolate at a restaurant where we frequently stop on the way back.

Tomorrow we will visit the Tabitha ministry in the morning and deliver a big suitcase of shoes for the children that the Wyatt Park Baptist Church in St. Joseph, MO collected for the kids. Later we will head to Antigua for some sightseeing and shopping. Tomorrow night we'll be eating dinner at the home of Carlos Cerna, the former executive secretary for the Guatemala Baptist Convention and the person who was largely responsible for the early formation and structure of the BGCM's partnership here. It will be nice to see him and his family again.

Friday morning we have an early flight out as we head back to Kansas City.

8th Round of Leadership Training in Guatemala

Our pastor and I are leaving early Monday (7:15 a.m. flight) for Guatemala via Houston on Continental. Assuming the planes are on time, we'll arrive about 1:20 p.m. and drive directly out to Quetzaltenango to spend the night and be ready for the leadership training conferences that start on Tuesday at noon. Like good Baptists, we always start with food. Blake will be leading in 3 sessions that day and I'll follow up with two on Wednesday before we head back to Guatemala City later that day.

We'll do some sightseeing in Antigua on Thursday and well as visiting the Tabitha Ministry in Guatemala City before returning home on Friday. As always, I'm really excited about the trip and the opportunity of being with the folks down there again.

After we return, the following week is our church's Vacation Bible School and then the following week I'll be leading in a study of Galatians for our annual Summer Adult Bible Study series. We've been doing this for several years now and always have a good turnout and a good time studying and then eating some desserts together. I did mention that we Baptists like food, didn't I?

Whirlwind trip to Columbus, OH

I've been off the radar screen the past 3 days in terms of emails, blogging, Facebook, and anything else in the world of computers. After finishing up the Wednesday evening Bible study, I headed out to St. Louis with my third son, Josh, who has enrolled in law school this fall at Ohio State Univ. in Columbus. We drove to St. Louis that evening, getting in shortly after 12:30. We stayed at the home of one of his college buddies and headed out early Thursday morning for Columbus.

We met with the financial aid officer of the law school on Thursday afternoon and received lots of helpful information. The rest of the evening and a good part of Friday was spent assembling furniture (dining room table and chairs, as well as a study desk) and helping him get settled a bit in an apartment.

We traveled back today, covering the distance in about 10.5 hours. Managed to listen to a bit of the U.S. soccer team's match against Ghana which ended the U.S.'s participation in the World Cup. Tomorrow we'll be cheering for Argentina against Mexico. That's a bit tough of course since we've lived in both countries, but we lived for close to 14 years in Argentina vs. 9 months in Mexico, so that tips the scales towards Argentina for sure.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's services as the youth choir and mission trip team will be sharing their program and testimonies of their experiences this week among the Lakota Indians on the Lower Brule Reservation in South Dakota. This is the second summer that our youth have gone there to work among these Native Americans.

Next week will be spent finalizing details for my next trip the following week (July 5-9) to Guatemala for the 8th round of leadership training conferences that the BGCM has sponsored there. Our pastor and I will be sharing the teaching responsibilities this time and I'm excited that he will get to experience firsthand the wonderful fellowship and hunger for the Word and training that the participants always demonstrate.

An Incredibly Sad Tragedy

I stumbled across a link to an article on the Baptists Today website that was sad and tragic beyond words.

It seems that a dispute surfaced in the home of a South African family this past Sunday over what would be watched on television. The father, David Makoeya (age 61), wanted to watch the soccer match between Germany and Australia in the World Cup, while his wife and two adult children wanted to watch religious programming featuring gospel music. When the father tried to assert his authority by changing the channel by hand on the TV set after being refused the remote control, the family responded violently, banging his head against the wall. The family did phone the police, but only after the father was badly injured. When the police arrived, he was already dead. Initial court proceedings also revealed that he had been stabbed in the back.

What can anyone say in response to this senseless tragedy? That such violence could be generated over the choice of television programming is itself ridiculous, but to compound matters even worse, the violence was perpetrated by those who insisted on watching religious programming and listening to gospel music.

Clearly there was a tragic and complete disconnect between the supposed profession of a Christian faith by the family members wishing to listen to gospel music and their actual conduct. The scandal of hypocrisy casts a long dark shadow over this entire incident. When religious zeal (if you can call it that) runs amok and totally disregards the most basic Christian ethical principles imaginable, such unspeakable tragedies can and do materialize.

It's high time that Christians examine their lives for evidence of the fruit of God's Spirit at work in them, rather than merely relying upon some supposed conversion experience or their affiliation with a religious group. I can only grieve the loss of this father's life at the hands of his own family and speculate as to how this senseless tragedy may well fuel the arguments of skeptics as to the truth of the Christian faith.

Link to Sermon on Esther

Our A-V guys have gotten around to uploading the sermon files for the past couple of weeks, including a sermon I preached back on June 13th on Esther. I basically related the story of her life in dramatic fashion, drawing 4 truths from her courageous example and the dialogue she has with her cousin Mordecai. If you have the time to listen to it, here's the link.

Word & Way article on Katy Trail Mission Trip

We had a bunch of our members who did a 4-day, 225 mile bicycle ride on the Katy Trail from Clinton to St. Charles, Missouri recently to raise money for Smile Train, an organization that helps fund cleft palate and cleft lip surgeries in 3rd world countries. Vicki Brown of Word & Way caught up with them along the way and wrote a great article about their efforts.

The group shared their report last Sunday night along with the youth who had just returned from their summer camp experience at Falls Creek, OK.

Update from the last week

I've been too busy of late to find time to post anything to my blog, so I thought I'd take a few minutes tonight and give a brief recap. On the heels of a very successful initial First Serve project the previous weekend, this past week was filled with pastoral ministry responsibilities. I officiated or helped officiate in 3 different funerals in just five days. Then on Friday it was off to Jefferson City for the quarterly meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Missouri. We had a very productive time together. Yesterday I had the opportunity of preaching in both of our morning services as our pastor was vacationing with his extended family in Colorado. I chose to relate the story of Esther as a drama and then focused on 4 principal truths from Mordecai's dialogue with her in chapter 4:13-17.

My main points were these:
1. You cannot always run away from trouble - v. 13
2. Silence is not always golden - v. 14
3. God always raises up a deliverer - v. 14
4. Great blessings carry great responsibilities - v. 14

I'll try and add a link later to the audio file when it gets uploaded in case anyone would like to hear the message.

Tonight I participated with about 20 of our folks in distributing some of the extra publicity cards highlighting some of our summer activities and ministries that were left over from the Downtown Days event. We met at 6:00 at the church for pizza and then split up into 10 teams. We had an odd number so I wound up taking one section by myself and stuck 100 of the cards in the doors of homes. It took about an hour and a half. The walking wasn't bad at all--though it was a bit humid still. The tough part was that almost every home was either a split level or a raised ranch and most of them had anywhere from 5 or 6 to 10 or 12 steps up to the front door. Multiply that number of steps times 100 houses and I got in a pretty good workout. My left knee let me know that it hadn't been exercised that strenuously in awhile.

It was a good evening and I'm relaxing a bit, reading some blogs before getting ready for bed. I have a meeting tomorrow with a couple of guys that I meet regularly with every other Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. We've been discussing Phillip Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace?

Initial First Serve Project now History

This past weekend our church launched its initial First Serve project. These are designed to be a series of events (one per month) that will give our congregation the opportunity to serve and engage the community of Lee's Summit, Missouri with the love of Christ. We chose to participate in the Downtown Days Festival in Lee's Summit that featured several hundred booths with vendors, politicians, non-profits, and other groups offering their products and services, as well as lots of live entertainment and carnival-style rides.

We offered free parking in our church's parking lot and distributed free water to those who parked there. In the downtown booth space which we rented, we distributed free water, popcorn, Flavor-Ice popsicles, and brochures announcing our summer activities. We even had one member who is a licensed massage therapist take her portable massage chair downtown and offered free massages to those passing by.

We had dozens of our members involved in the project and made many significant contacts with families who had recently moved to the area, some of whom mentioned that they are looking for a new church home. In other cases, folks were simply shocked that we were offering free water and popsicles without requiring anything of them in return. We learned a great deal from this initial First Serve project and are excited about future opportunities we're currently planning.

Encouraging News from Guatemala

I wanted to share some good news I received today from Brady Garcia, who at the start of this year moved to Santa Cruz del Quiche in Guatemala to begin a new church. When our initial team from First Baptist Lee's Summit went to Cantel in 2008, he was pastoring a church there. Brady has attended each of the training sessions that the BGCM has conducted in Quetzaltenango in Western Guatemala since 2007 and always is quick to share how the training has been applicable in his local ministry setting.

Brady writes, “Here in Santa Cruz del Quiche, everything is going well, thanks to God. This week we began five cells or small groups. I am working with a group of alcoholics on Wednesdays with 6 attending. Very soon I will begin to offer Bible classes to the children of two schools as we did in Cantel, since I think I have a little bit of experience in this field. The families that are attending church are very committed and we have our services scheduled for Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays with Sunday School and worship in the afternoon. The children meet separately, although we’re lacking some materials for them, but God will provide. Also this week, a group of youth will begin meeting on Fridays. As you can see, brother, I am very busy (thanks be to God), and the best part of it is that here I am putting into practice all that I’ve learned in the training sessions that you all have come to share. Blessings, brother, and I hope to see you in July.”

It's such an encouragement to receive a note like this and hear how God is blessing and using the visits of teams from our churches and the ongoing training sessions to help equip Guatemalan leaders for their ministries. My next trip there will be July 5-9, and our pastor, Blake McKinney, will be going with me as a conference leader. I know that he will be a tremendous blessing to the leaders there as he shares with them.

How People Recognize Authentic Christians

Barry Howard has a great article (in truth it reads like a devotional) today on EthicsDaily that addresses the title of this post. In the process of reading it, I also discovered the origin of a phrase that I've heard all of my life and never knew its source--"the real McCoy."

I hope you'll take the time to read the article. You can find it here.

Barna on Truth

Turns out that George Barna wrote a blog post on Truth the day after I had written and posted my previous entry on the same topic. I particularly liked the quote from George Orwell that Barna cited: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Maybe we're not quite in a time of universal deceit, but I'm afraid we're not far from it.

Truth - A Candidate for the Endangered Species List?

What ever happened to honesty? Last time I checked, the Ten Commandments still contain the words, “Thou shalt not lie.” Unfortunately, lying seems to have become a national pastime, rivaling baseball in its popularity and certainly surpassing it in terms of the numbers who engage in the practice. That point was driven home again this week by a news story about a Harvard student who had gained admission to the prestigious university by falsifying transcripts, submitting bogus SAT scores, fabricating recommendations from professors, and plagiarizing the work of others. Lest you think that this is some isolated case or limited strictly to the secular world, multiple stories in recent weeks and months have also disclosed incidents of pastors and church leaders who have embellished their resumes—claiming to have attended schools or obtained degrees when they had not in fact done so. A prominent Baptist university president is currently under investigation for apparent false claims made about his upbringing as a Muslim terrorist.

What would prompt someone to make a false claim about their own identity or qualifications? Some might suggest the desperation to get ahead and succeed without paying the necessary cost in terms of time and study. Ultimately, it comes back to a display of the basic sin nature that infects us all and presents us with the temptation to build ourselves up in the eyes of others. In Ephesians 4, Paul repeatedly urges us to practice truthfulness. We’re to speak the truth in love (4:15), to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth (4:24), and to speak truth with our neighbor because we’re members of one another (4:25). The transforming power of the gospel is to change us as we reflect God’s light: “for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Eph. 5:9).

You probably remember your parents telling you as you grew up, “Honesty is the best policy.” It really is. May the truth that is in Jesus mold and shape our character so that truth-telling marks our daily lives.

A Personal Record

No, I didn't set any new personal best in a sporting event. That would be nice, but this new record was in the area of ministry. This morning I performed a wedding for the oldest groom that I've ever had the privilege of marrying. Allen joined our church about 8 years ago, beginning by attending a Sunday School class that I was teaching at that time. Allen is a Bible scholar and frequently helps lead chapel services at John Knox Village where he resides. Allen also became a good friend of our third son, Josh, who interviewed him for a class assignment about his recollections of World War II. They've gone out to eat together on a couple of occasions and keep tabs on each other through me. Josh is currently studying in China and thus couldn't attend the wedding today.

So, about that record.... Just how old is Allen? He will be turning 99 on May 10th. He was a bit concerned about how folks might respond to the notion of him getting married a week and a half before his 99th birthday, but when he broke the news to the current Sunday School class he attends (one of our largest at church), there was an overwhelming display of support. That was demonstrated today by the great turnout. We had to find additional chairs for the chapel at John Knox to accommodate the crowd that came.

The funniest moment in the service was when I related the experience of meeting with Allen and his bride-to-be a few weeks ago to discuss the plans for the service. We talked about the components and order of the wedding ceremony itself and when we had completed that, he asked me if I had any words of advice for him. When I told that story this morning, everyone laughed. I told them that's exactly what I did when Allen asked me the question. I generally ask a prospective couple to meet with me for several sessions of premarital counseling, but I told Allen that anyone who had lived successfully for 99 years didn't need any advice from me. I told him I was certain he could offer me a lot of wisdom. All in all, it was a beautiful service. I pray that they will enjoy the time that God gives them together.

Great Staff Retreat

Our ministerial staff has just completed a two-day retreat at a retreat center in Kansas. We tackled some pretty challenging items on our agenda as we seek to move forward into the future, building on the momentum of our recent 150th anniversary celebration. Discussion centered on a new mission statement for the church, a new missional outreach strategy toward our community entitled "First Serve," a possible shift in our approach to Sunday morning worship, some adjustments to our Wednesday night schedule, and some preliminary talks about a more intentional and better-defined process of moving folks along on the path of discipleship and spiritual maturity.

All in all, it was a great experience with a wonderful spirit of camaraderie. Even when dealing with some potentially difficult and divisive topics, there was a great deal of maturity demonstrated as folks felt free to express their convictions and their input was received and affirmed by the rest of the staff. I feel very blessed to be a part of our church and a member of its staff.

Wonderful Weekend

Our church's 150th anniversary celebration this weekend was a tremendous blessing. We had somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 people at John Knox Pavilion last night for our family dinner. It featured some good food, but more importantly, some great music and testimonies by some of our long-time members. We had several tables filled with folks who had been members for 50+ years. The member who has been here longest is a 93-year "young" woman who joined at the age of 11. Several others have been here for 60+ years. It was great to hear their reflections on what the church has meant to them and their families.

Today began with a continental breakfast in the fellowship hall and then a combined worship service that featured three brief messages focusing on the past and the present and outstanding music from three choirs (adult, youth, and children), the handbells, the orchestra, and the praise band. The service featured two songs written specifically for the occasion which were quite beautiful--one performed by the orchestra and the other by the adult choir. The service also incorporated dramatic interpretation of some of the music. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend with a great crowd and outstanding worship experience.

Follow-up Journal article

The second of the two articles in the Lee's Summit Journal regarding our church's 150th anniversary celebration was published yesterday.

Lee's Summit Journal Article on Church Anniversary

I was interviewed a couple of weeks back by a reporter from the Lee's Summit Journal (our local paper) about the upcoming 150th anniversary for our church that we will celebrate this weekend. I hadn't received the history books at the time the reporter stopped by so I loaned her a printed copy of the manuscript that I had on hand.

The anniversary is featured on the front page of today's edition. Overall, I thought it was a pretty good write-up. She majored on the Civil War period a bit more than I would have, but I suspect that's because she skimmed the first few pages of the manuscript where that was treated.

I'm looking forward to the second part that will be published on Friday.

Pete Briscoe on God's love for us

I missed the Aha! on-line conference that Leadership Network did recently, but received an email invitation today to watch this testimony by Pete Briscoe, pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrolton, TX. It's well worth the 5:15 minutes it takes to watch it.