ie:missional

Five or so hours sleep put the traveler into a stage of extreme fatigue; that’s five or so hours over 42 hours, thousands of miles and twelve time zones. Needing to stay up late, but totally unable to do so, he crashes to shuffle on his iPhone around 7:00 PM local time and, despite a high-volume conversation in the hallway, he falls into a deep sleep convinced that 6:00 AM will come too early. Unfortunately, 11:00 PM comes first and time zone insomnia with it. He opens the window and listens to the sounds of the city.

Some things are the same no matter where you stay. Cars in motion all night, car alarms, police sirens, conversations, and the thumping sub-woofer of local dance clubs. Tonight there is also some poor sap trying unsuccessfully to get a woefully out of tune car to remain starting. He guns it and gets a few feet before trying again. Over and over. Finally, it catches and he guns it in what can only be a cloud of smoke and an engine begging for oil.

Thoughts of the day come to mind.

Sheremetyevo airports. Any air traveler through Moscow has experienced the insanity that is Sheremetyevo 1 and 2. “1″ was built in 1959, about the time that eight people a day would fly while “2″ was built in time for the opening of the famously boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics. While safety is rarely an issue, convenience always is. There are not enough seats for waiting passengers, not enough restrooms, not enough line space at Sharometyeva 1 and entirely too many assertive taxi drivers and both. The traveler wonders why both aren’t plowed under or completely renovated. He wonders if landing in an open field would not be better.

The international airport (”2″) is pretty clean and has designated smoking areas outside the main seating areas. The domestic airport (”1″) was built for about 1/10th of the traffic that it currently handles. The smoking area is pretty much gates 8-17, where the lingering blue gray second hand haze waits as a carcinogenic welcoming committee. By the time the flight leaves the traveler has smoked a pack without lighting up.

The traveler also never quite gets accustomed to the fact that lady custodians clean the men’s restrooms without ever fully closing them. This time was better, though. A mop across the doorway refused a goodly number of anxious men, but did not completely solve the issue. At least one fellow stepped over the mop handle to take care of business anyway, while even those who waited for the obstacle to be removed (like our faithful traveler) found themselves hearing the “swish, swash” of the mop whilst standing at the urinal. She never spoke and neither did he.

The drunk. Aeroflot is the official, though certainly not only, airline of Russia. With a significant number of Soviet era aircraft still in service (a few seem not to have been painted since Brezhnev), it always is a crap-shoot as to whether the plane looks and acts airworthy. Thankfully this was a Boeing 767, the plane secure and the flight smooth.

Alcohols tends to flow freely on Russian flights with many of the smaller bottles that Americans are familiar with giving way to flasks. The traveler remembers another Russian flight where flasks gave way to fifths before the plane ever left the runway and in-flight luggage rustling for another when the first bottle of vodka went dry.

About four hours from Moscow, one particular lush missed his seat by about twenty rows, settling beside a woman of about twenty who was playing video games by the seat light. Behaving as friendly drunks are wont to do, he made a boor of himself until two flight attendants herding him and his stupidity back to his seat. At landing the traveler was amused to see two green uniformed Russian policemen enter the plane and meet our friend Otis in the back. He was escorted, quasi-sober, to a waiting police van that surely had been used in the old M.A.S.H. TV series. No one really seemed to car since public drunkenness, though a problem, is not a crime in Russia.

The ticket exchange. The travelers’ companion had need in the afternoon to make a change on a return flight, thus both experienced the undeniable inefficiencies of Russian business, learned, no doubt, from Russian government. With the advent of the internet, heck, with the advent of the telephone, these type changes take fifteen minutes back home: call the airline or the agent, ask for another flight, put charges on the credit card, print out the new ticket (or have it sent to one’s PDA or smartphone) and live the rest of your day. Oops.

Russia is a cash society–no checks and not a lot of places that take credit cards, so few people use them. They two men arrive at the S7 office to find just four people in the “line” to be served, most for ticket changes or purchases. Two and a half hours later they were leaving. One lady behind the counter serving every customer. Three copies of this, two copies of that, “Do you have a passport and your birth certificate?”,”Can you sign here?”, cut this paper with scissors, tape these two pieces together, walk to the copier/printer/fax (the one for the entire office). If one did not know better, the temptation would be to think the entire process was intentionally designed to delay. A second lady in the “travel agency” section of the office who was incapable, unwilling or incompetent to help, spending only about thirty minutes of the total time working. The rest of the time she was talking or walking through a mysterious door just off the lobby which, ostensibly, housed more employees who were doing nothing.

The lobby waiting area was entirely too small, so people were constantly going outside to smoke (for which the traveler was thankful), make phone calls or go buy something to drink at the corner store. There being no actual queue or “Please Take A Number” gizmo, each new arrival simply asked, “Who is last?” and then assumed his or her place in the proceedings. The traveler noticed that no one ever got mad, ever stomped out, or cursed out the employees contrasting starkly with his homeland where threats would have been made, promises of a class action law suit would have been offered, constant, loud complaints would have been leveled and the only helpful employee would have likely been equated with her gender of canis familiaris. But, since there is no expectation of efficiency, there is no problem when none is experienced.

Traffic grid. The traffic in Krasnoyarsk cannot touch the traffic of Novosibirsk, another Siberian city several hours away by air, but is trying to match it in spirit. Lane cutting, poor street layouts, make-it-yourself parking and bold-beyond-brains drivers combine to make it an strange experience. The street layouts are such that you must constantly be watching the signs, rather than the road, in order not to miss your left hand turn. If you do miss it, there might be several blocks before the middle line breaks open to allow the correction. Inexplicably, the names of the roads are not on road signs, but are on the sides of buildings creating a situation in which drivers have to constantly be looking sideways for street information rather than straight-ahead for the automobiles, trucks and buses. Adding to the chaos is the strangeness of their only being one traffic signal facing the driver and it isn’t overhead, it’s on a sign post where the street sign should have been. The lighting sequence features yellow light in all directions with each change from red to green or green to red. The yellows are supposed to encourage caution from all drivers that the traffic flow is about to change. Instead it encourages those going from green to red to accelerate and those going from red to green to leave the line early. The traveler also notices an almost equal number of left and right hand cars, learning that Siberia is the used car lot for Japan.

12:46 AM. Eyelids are getting heavy. Perhaps sleep will return after all.

The Slovenian Choir, Perpetuum Jazzile, perform a storm and then Africa by Toto:

Saw it again last night: a pastor admits to committing adultery, repentant and broken, but out of the ministry nonetheless. I’m not sure that there is anything that weighs on me like hearing that news. This particular pastor led a dynamic church that has seen 100 people saved in the last three weeks, yet he still succumbed to the same temptation that has torn down the mightiest of warriors.

Having been married for more than twenty-five years and having been in the ministry for twenty (next month), I thought it would be appropriate to review some of the things that I think about when I hear such news. These are in no particular order, but should be considered well when desiring to avoid marital infidelity.

1. Get enough rest. Mental and emotional fatigue are open doors to bad decisions, even sinful ones. Many a man “burns the midnight oil” for the kingdom, or so it is supposed, only to find himself in the hotel room or church broom closet with a woman not his wife having lost the will power to say “no,” or even to think it. Pastors, you are not superhuman and while each of us need differing amounts of rest, listen to your body and rest when you need to do so. You cannot push the envelope of energy continually lest you run the risk of mental or physical adultery.

2. Stay true to the Word. This one should be obvious, but there will never come a time that we do not need the Word. Early in ministry we are afraid to even attempt to live without it, but often in later years coasting becomes the norm. “If I can just make it to retirement,” becomes the mantra for too many pastors who’ve long ago lost passion, but are trying to ride out the wave. Don’t become a hireling! The only way to remain a faithful shepherd is to be guided by the Word every step of the way.

3. Be careful. Don’t allow the thirst for adventure to cause you to become careless in how you relate to women. There will never be a time when flirting becomes acceptable or when lingering looks become godly. Internet filters or tracking software (X3 Watch or Covenant Eyes) may be necessary to keep your mind where it needs to be and out of the gutter. Have the TV removed from your hotel room if necessary or at least disconnected from the cable. When your wife says, “Stay away from [a particular woman],” then stay away from her. Somebody else can take her phone calls and do her counseling or she can go to another church.

4. Love your wife always and make love to her as often as possible. Make sure the passion that brought you to marriage does not get swept away in the busyness of life and ministry. When Paul instructed Timothy that a man who ignored the needs of his family is worse than an unbeliever, are we to believe that he was only talking about groceries?

Continue to pursue your wife as if you are still trying to convince her to marry you. Don’t take the attitude of Ward Cleaver: “What’s the use in chasing the bus after I’ve already caught it?” When your kids are young, get them accustomed to early bed times so that you and your wife can spend time together and when they are old, lock them out of the master bedroom for the same reason. Have date nights and don’t apologize or feel guilty.

Keep sex on the leading edge of your marriage. I think we’d be shocked at how many pastor’s wives go to bed with a book because their husband wants to debate online whether or not sex is “gospel-centered.” I think marital sex is God-given, God-blessed and God-expected. Paul wrote to the Corinthians couples that they should only abstain in times of prayer and fasting “with consent” and then resume their normal activity so that Satan did not find a way to tempt them due to a lack of self-control-a lack of self-control that resulted from a lack of sex. I hardly think that once-a-month passion is what he had in mind. Regular sex with one’s spouse is self-control.

If you are a pastor, teacher or evangelist and you travel so much that you have to reintroduce yourself to your wife and children each time you return home and you have such infrequent sex that you have to get the manual out each time, then you are living in a state of foolishness that borders on outright sin before God. Did you miss the part about being tempted for self-control? It amazes me how many guys would pass up a woman in need (with a broken down car, for example) for afraid of “causing a brother to stumble,” but cause their wives to stumble regularly due to the lack of attention and affection shown by her husband.

5. Live your heart. If you are in the middle of a career of ministry and come to the recognition that your passion is no longer for pastoring a local church, then change. A friend and I were discussing this very thing at lunch today. Guys get wiped out, lose their heart, lose their passion and then, it seems, it is easier to commit adultery than to get out. GET OUT OR GET HELP. One or the other. I’m aware that the Bible says, “The gifts and callings of God are without repentance,” but honestly, does that mean a specific job? I could go today and work at Chili’s and still fulfill my life’s calling.

If you find yourself in the midst of a career-crisis as a pastor and you, deep down, know that you’ve no more to give as a pastor, then plan an exit strategy and start following it. Read Wild at Heart if you haven’t already.

6. Do not let your church (or religious culture) force you into a way of ministry that destroys your ability to minister to yourself and your family. Every pastor is different in structure, personality and function. As soon as you understand how you function best (early morning, late night, mid-morning) you should organize your schedule around it, then communicate it to your church. If you need to be in the office from 6:00 AM until 2:00 PM, then come in early, leave and go fishing or to the gym or whatever. Or go home and help your wife with dinner; or cook dinner so she can go to the gym. Or vacuum the curtains…I understand that is the sexiest thing a husband can do.

If all of your local associational meetings are at night (y’know, when the wife and kids are home and help is needed) then skip them. I see no biblical admonition to attend, but I see multiple biblical admonitions about being a husband and father. As a pastor you are on call 24/7 and often are doing work related to ministry while at home or up early. Don’t feel guilty about calling another pastor and going to the movie after lunch. He needs it and so do you.

7. How about let’s dispense with all the “rock star” talk? John Piper wrote a book called, “Brothers, We are Not Professionals.” Perhaps someone should write one entitled, “Brothers, We are Not Rock-Stars.” Our current star persona promotion of good speakers, exceptional church planters and mega-church pastors borders on idolatry and calling people “rock star” or something similar does not help. In fact, what we have created and continue to promulgate makes mental or moral failure probable if not inevitable. Jesus said, “He that would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all.” When James and John’s mother wanted to know if her sons were going to be rock-stars in the kingdom, Jesus asked about their ability to endure suffering and sacrifice. I’m sure that ticket sales would drop dramatically if torture were the promoted result.

God has called us to one primary calling and that is to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. This can be done from an office or Starbucks, from a house or a boat, from a seminary or an urban center. When we lose that simple focus, rather than following wherever and whenever it leads, then downfall becomes, all too often, the norm.

A couple of months ago while trying to find a song on a Harley Davidson ad, I stumbled across Amiestreet.com, an awesome site for downloading indie music as well as a few better known bands. There is some really good music here and many of the downloads are much less than iTunes or Amazon, some as cheap as $.20 with none over $0.98. Each week also features a number of free downloads.

The site has a few outstanding features, not the least of which are most music previews are longer than a minute each-much better than the 30 second clips on iTunes, many of which aren’t even the best parts of the song. Amie Street also has a cool music player that opens on the bottom of the page and plays the samples in order (either whole albums, top 25 or genres) while you check out other pages, artists and reviews. Amie Street, along with most everyone else, has a Facebook page.

Community reviews tend to be a little skimpy, with many of them resorting to “Great song!” type announcements just to bump up a rating history; but if you prefer to be your own judge this is not problematic.

The song I eventually found from the Harley ad is Brother John by Middle Distance Runner. Their Monochrome Boys is also outstanding. A free download today Pulling on a Line by Toronto based Great Lake Swimmers, a really good song. Power chick of the day is Molly Jenson with the rocking The Edgy 8 Ball Song which features, I think, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot on guitar. As with much indie music there are some really creative albums covers and names such as The Low Anthem’s project, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin.

Purchases are done by putting money on account via credit or debit card and then buying from the account. A recent special gave a 25% bonus so that a $7.50 deposit was given a $10.00 value for purchases. (Am I wrong, or is that really a 33% bonus?) As with any other mp3s, these play in iTunes or other player of your choice.

If you like indie music or are just looking for stuff you haven’t heard before, check out Amie Street.

This is not a Christian music site; language can be an issue periodically.

An aspect of missional ministry that is of great importance is the willingness of the local church to find partners in the community that open bridges into that community over which the gospel of Christ will travel. While building networks with other churches is also important, the community is impacted in a different way when governments, schools and businesses find that churches are interested in helping these entities become successful in their own mission.

In 2007, our then Pastor of Worship, Dan Brothers, had a vision to take our annual Christmas production outside in partnership with a local resort area. It was a pretty big step for us as it required a pretty large number of volunteers, but went very well with a good attendance. In Christmas of 2008 we again partnered with this resort and, based on our first partnership, they gave us a better location and offered to help with assorted expenses. We also agreed to allow our stage and sound equipment to be used by other groups at times when we were not utilizing it.

Last week two of our pastors, Ronnie Cansler and Joey Jernigan, and another leader from our church met with the marketing and management groups from the resort in order to get a jump on Christmas for this year. Because of weather concerns in December our goal had been to utilize a tent to help in the event of rain and give us the option to provide heat to those who attend. When the resort learned of that possibility, they agreed to foot the cost for all of the weeks of use with the exception of the two weeks that we actually use the tent. In return, our stage (which we build on site, tear down and remove) can be used by various school groups who come to sing carols, etc. We provide audio and lighting volunteers.

We would have been content to have that agreement as it allows for tremendous influence in our community but there was more. This particular resort has campgrounds and a 1,500 seat amphitheater. The management has agreed to allow us to do VBS, Bible clubs, mission VBS, etc, pretty much anything that might be on interest to those who are camping. We can also utilize the amphitheater for a concert series or other special musical event. They’ve given us the option of giving any message as long as the participants have the option to leave at any time.

Why would they do this? First, because our partnership has been done with an eye toward excellence. Each year that our stage and decorating is taking place, it amazes the employees of the resort than so many people will do this as volunteers. Second, because it generates income for the resort. At Christmas we are included in their marketing plans. Campground ministry opps will be another promotion that they can utilize if they desire. Any concerts that we perform or host generate gate revenue that otherwise would not exist for them. Third, because they have become convinced that we really have their interest at heart and are not simply looking out for our own. In community partnerships this is a key.

In many communities churches are seen as self absorbed, self focused and disinterested in anyone not already interested in them. Any meaningful partnership will require that churches demonstrate extended, not passing, interest in the benefit of businesses and organizations already in the community. It is this extending of ministry outside the campus parameters that catches the attention of non-believers. Each and every time they ask the question, “Why?” is another opportunity to give a reason of the hope that is in us.

I get the question occasionally about what, if any, secular music we do in our services. We have done a lot recently; here’s the list.

For our series on work entitled Take This Job and Shove It, we did the following:
Take This Job and Shove It, Johnny Paycheck
Bang on the Drum, Todd Rundgren
Sixteen Tons, Tennessee Ernie Ford
Taking Care of Business, BTO
Forty Hour Week, Alabama

For a sermon yesterday on baptism, we opened with:
Come Alive, Foo Fighters

Yes, we do an occasional lyric tweak as required. And, yes, our band is multi-talented.

We also introduced a song that’s a year or so old, but new to us. It’s called Our God Saves, by Paul Baloche. Simple but powerful; worth checking out.

“Whether you agree or disagree with what you will hear, we feel that none will deny the right of these views to be broadcast.”

A friend recently told me about a project at the University of Texas in which 1950’s era interviews by Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes fame. The name of the show was The Mike Wallace Interview.

There are some really interesting subjects here: Reinhold Niebuhr, Margaret Sanger, Aldous Huxley, Malcolm Muggeridge and others. Each appears to be about 30 minutes long and carries the original ABC lead-ins and Mike pitching, and smoking, Phillip Morris cigarettes (his sponsor). The worst part of each episode is the theme music which is laughably bad; it sounds like a Saturday Sci-Fi channel movie.

This link to the lineup an be found here.

Ellen DeGeneres talks to Gladys Hardy from Austin, TX.

I did not vote for Barack Obama and if he were running again on the same platform, I could not vote for him again. I’m glad to see that circumstance has knocked askance the ride of his team from their ideological high horse. I’m disappointed that he will doubtless use executive orders to undo what precious few restrictions on abortion in America, but glad that he’s demonstrated some pragmatic common sense about the reality of our current economic situation. And, I’m hoping that he will prove Rush Limbaugh wrong on many things just for the sake of doing so.

But…

Today is a day in our history that I’m not sure any white American can fully grasp. Many think or even say, “Well, I know it’s significant, but…”

Harry T. Moore. Titusville, FL. Christmas Night, 1951

Mack Charles Parker. Poplarville, MS. 1959.

Clarence Triggs. Bogalusa, LA. 1966.

Cynthia Wesley. Birmingham, AL. 1963.

James Chaney. Philadelphia, MS. 1964.

Or maybe the more well known, Emmitt Till, who was murdered for the unpardonable sin of whistling (supposedly) at a white woman. Or Medgar Evers, assassinated by the cowardly Byron De La Beckwith, for the crime of registering African Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote. This list represents a few of the more than 40 people, white and black, who were murdered for their role in attempting to bring equality to those who had been proclaimed equal a hundred years before.

Few, if any, white Americans understand the depth of despair experienced by those of our friends who strove for dignity during the abominable Jim Crow era of the south. I’m not talking about Ludacris, L’il Bow Wow or Don King. I’m talking about the African American male who said to himself, “I AM a man,” while those around him reviled him as a nigger or a brute. About men who had to stand by as white men could get away with murder in the same county where they themselves could be jailed or beaten for the most minor infraction. For women who had to endure all manner of harassment, including rape, just to satisfy the demonic carnality of the true beasts. For families who had to get food from the back of a restaurant instead of sitting inside it or drink from a water fountain that said “colored.”

If you are white and paid attention through election night, perhaps you read or heard Whoopi Goldberg say, “I feel like I can unpack my suitcase now,” and thought it was just liberal hyperbole. For many people it was not.

I do not fully understand it; I wish I could. Every president until now has been white, so their world experiences were close to mine. It was almost an expectation that we were going to have a white man as president for all times. Martin Luther King was prescient in saying that he believed a black man would become president as soon as 25 years, but definitely within forty, which is either this year or close to it.

So I congratulate soon to be president Barack Obama for the standard he now bears and hope that he is able to accomplish great things.

Crystal Night. The Night of Broken Glass.

October 1938 saw the forced deportation of thousands of German Jews to the Polish border where some were allowed immigration but many waited. All were uprooted from their homes and dispossessed, many traveled penniless. This deportation was an inevitable result of the cumulative 90 discriminatory, anti-Jewish laws passed in Germany from 1933 to 1935.

Living in Paris was the seventeen year old son of two of the displaced, Herschel Grynszpan. From his sister, who was with their parents, he had received a post card telling him of their plight and asking for any money he could spare. The family had lived in Hanover for twenty seven years. After receiving the post card, Grynszpan purchased a newspaper where he read in graphic detail of the deportations from Germany. On Monday, November 7, he took a loaded pistol to the German embassy where, “in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews,” he shot Ernst vom Rath, fatally wounding him.

Not wanting to miss a golden opportunity to further their warped agenda, during the night and morning of November 9 and 10, 1938 (seventy years ago today), Nazi goons all over Germany set fire to more than 200 Jewish synagogues and smashed the windows of 7,500 of Jewish owned stores and businesses. One writer called it,

the crowning moment in the wild domestic terror that Germans perpetrated upon Jews.

In villages, towns and cities across Germany, Jewish residents were awakened to the sounds of shattering glass and beaten flesh. Around 100 were killed and some 30,000 taken to concentration camps. A picture from the day shows German citizens lining a street while Nazi policemen march Jewish men toward a transport to Dachau. A Bible twisting sign held in the crowd reads, “Exodus of the Jews.”

It bears remembering that Hitler did not come into power by a coup, but by the will of the people of Germany. Runaway inflation, national shame and the loathed Treaty of Versailles primed the country to listen to the pseudo psychological babblings of the mustachioed madman. The primary motivation that prepared ordinary Germans to accept the leadership of a man who was obviously either crazy, demon possessed or both was not reason; what Hitler believed did not make sense and was against any real science. It was not based on history; Jews had been in Germany, and Europe, for generations. It was not based on parasitism; Jews contributed greatly to the German economy, being hardworking business people.

It was based on fear. German nationalistic pride was in shambles. The German economy was suffering from runaway inflation. The German military forces were supposed to be severely curtailed and military aircraft non-existent. The German people lived in fear of the future and into the leadership void stepped Adolph Hitler, who was welcomed with open arms and admired with open hearts.

About a month ago, we had the opportunity to go to a nearby town and hear a presentation by Holocaust survivor, Eugen Shoenfeld, retired professor from Georgia State University and author of My Reconstructed Life. He recounted his story from the age of 17 when he boarded a crowded train car with scores of other Jews where they rode four days with virtually no food and only a bucket for a toilet. Upon finally arriving at the destination, they began disembarking into two lines at the heads of which stood a man in a leather jacket who was motioning some people to the right and others to the left.

The place was Auschwitz.

The man was Dr. Joseph Mengele.

Many of Schoenfeld’s family were unwittingly condemned on the spot, while he and other family members joined the hundreds of Jews already in laborious, sickening captivity. Schoenfeld lived until he and the remaining survivors were liberated by American soldiers. The irony of being freed by American Lt. Schwartz was not lost on the young man.

Following the story of his life, the retired professor reminded us of the emotion that drove virtually an entire country to support Hitler: fear. He reminded us that fear causes otherwise rational people to do completely irrational things. At that moment in our country, we were just in the beginning of the economic meltdown from the mortgage crisis. Wall Street was in a panic and it seemed that decision after decision was being made as a result of fear, whether a hastily conceived bailout or 401(k) owners selling out stocks and moving into cash. Fear is not a link to wisdom or patience.

Fear, no matter what the “boogie man” behind it, causes people to willingly, and often eagerly, sell their future for a “mess of pottage.” It happens over and over again in our world. Fear of one government causes submission to a war lord. Fear of liberalism causes conservatives to make bad decisions. Fear of another terrorist attack, well, interpret events as you will. Fear war and you vote for Barack Obama. Fear Barack Obama and you vote for anyone else. Regardless of who is president, we can never allow fear to lead us to willingly give up our basic rights. Once given, they are rarely returned. Just ask the Germans. Wearing the cloak of fear, the Reichstag gave unfettered authority to Hitler, making themselves puppets in his dictatorship.

Leadership is forged in time of crisis to be sure, but the hammer of the molding is never fear. Life leadership has to be from faith, wisdom and boldness, never from fear, uncertainty and weakness. If there are any citizens that live free from fear and exhibit the patience to evaluate circumstances based on the truths of God, it ought to be His people. Let it be so.