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.