New Horizon

There comes a time to walk away. Like, perhaps . . . now. When I was in graduate school, one of my fellow students was (as are most graduate students), let’s just say a bit full of himself. In one of our seminars, he leaned back in his seat, looked at the professor, and said, “Dr. Christian, how does one become a well-established author?” Dr. C started just a bit and then grinned. Well, first you need to have something to say. I think I took Dr. C’s words to heart many years ago and have tried not to write …

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PRAYER FOR HOPE: 30 Days, 30 Faces

THE POWER OF PRAYER IS NOT IN THOSE WHO PRAY, BUT IN THE GOD WHO ANSWERS THEIR DEEPEST CRIES. At Hope Unlimited for Children we have seen God display His power in response to earnest prayer over and over again. Doors that would have remained closed have been opened. Hearts hardened beyond belief have changed. Children’s lives have transformed—and today their own children experience the benefit of our long-ago prayers. Next month we will begin 30 Days of Prayer for Hope. On each of the 30 days leading up to Orphan Sunday (November 8), Hope supporters will receive an email …

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A relevant church does not . . .

This post originally published here on June 2, 2014. When I see followers of Christ disengage from the church, I start to worry. About them, yes, but more about the church. That is especially true when I hear them say they find the church largely irrelevant to what God is doing in their lives and in the world. Irrelevant. A really, really important word. I have to confess that I have not worked out all it means to be relevant, but I think I know it when I see it. I also know what it is not, and it seems …

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Lessons from an absent father

Indulge me a bit here if you don’t mind, and perhaps we will stumble across an insight along the way. Dad would have turned 100 on September 2nd—tomorrow. I wish he were here to mark his centennial with his family, but instead he’s been an absent father — gone almost a quarter of a century, a victim of a physical heart not nearly as strong as his true heart. But perhaps in his absence, there has been some room made for growth of those he left behind. Dad was a typical small-town Baptist pastor, passionate about his faith, but not …

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Beyond the walls

Watched an old Tony Randall movie over the weekend. Paul Douglas, playing farmer Pop Larkin, responded to his wife’s caution about a neighbor, Oh, he’s all right of a fellow.  He just hasn’t has learned that ‘Do unto others’ part yet. Probably true of a lot of us—and of a lot of our churches. We do a good job of looking like church and followers on Sunday morning, but how do we make sure it spills over into our week? How does worship become a lifestyle of following Christ? That can be a problem. Can we truly seek God for …

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The church (small “c” intentional) and “The Dones” (Part 2)

Last week I introduced you to The Dones.  Good committed followers of Christ who have decided that the institutional church is largely irrelevant to what God is doing in the world and in their lives. So they walk away, not from engagement, but from their local church. They direct their lives, giving, and service elsewhere. I have been there, and I get it. I am not one who believes all ministry has to be done through a local community of faith. We are the Church, and the local manifestation of the community of followers does not have a particular hold …

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Why are “The Dones” done? (Part 1)

About once a week or so, someone sends me an article about folks who are dropping out of church. I usually read them because this is a topic of real interest to me. I have a number of close friends who have, for the most part, walked away from church. Done with it. These friends are scattered across the U.S., know each other only as my friends, but the common traits are pretty remarkable. They have all become empty-nesters in the last few years; they are all successful; they all lead very busy lives. Any one of them would tell …

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Fits and Starts

A lesson here, if we will hear it . . . The answers are not always easy, but these are children our Savior loves. And so will we. Enrique is a 17-year-old with a lifetime of bad choices behind him. He was first brought to Hope Mountain when he was 13 and terribly addicted to drugs. He was gone within two hours. Another few months on the streets, and then he was brought to Hope Mountain again. And again, he was gone within two hours. That cycle was repeated over and over again—at least ten times in the next few …

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A Busload of Hope

I like the way this story ends. The buses at our City of Youth are absolutely indispensable. They ferry our staff from their homes to the campus, they pick up children from nearby favelas, and they carry our kids to the many off-campus activities—outings to museums and ballgames,  Saturday evening services at our graduate church, and monthly birthday celebrations at the mall. Without them, all of the extras that make our programs work are gone. A few months ago…  a devastating loss. We had sold both of our older buses, and with the help of a great donation from Princeton …

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What Does A Relevant Church Look Like?

While leading a discussion of Dirty Faith at a local adult VBS this week, the topic of the Church and its relevance came up. It’s been a year since I wrote the below post, but Christians are still having the same discussion. Still asking the same questions. Perhaps it’s a good time to revisit these thoughts for those of you who are new here— and for those of us who need to re-evaluate.   (Originally published June 2, 2014) Three Things That Don’t Happen at a Relevant Church (Stained Glass and Relevance, Part 2) When I see followers of Christ …

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Moving the Conversation

This one caught my eye. Because every child deserves a good home — no matter what that home looks like. And we have the responsibility to make sure that homes are safe places for kids. A member of the Hope team sent me a link. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the ranking members of the Senate Finance Committee, have sent a letter to all 50 governors seeking the names of all private foster care providers state inspection and accreditation practices financial information child abuse rates The Senate interest prompting these letters started with a news organization’s investigation …

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Shapers

A bit of a more personal note today if you don’t mind . . . Several years ago, I began to reflect on the people who had impacted my life. Some distantly… A friend from high school who was a star football player from a wealthy family (by our small-town standards) who took time to be friendly with every person. Some a bit closer… A Sunday School teacher who made time to take a group of 11-year-old boys camping almost every Friday night, but then insisted that we stand and recite our assigned Bible verses every Sunday morning; to this …

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Grace and Works

Talking about grace and works in Sunday school, using Peterson’s book on Ephesians. I get the struggle. I understand that guilt and self-reliance push us to try to earn God’s favor by our good deeds.  But at the same time, I also think we set up a false dichotomy between the spiritual (grace) and the physical (works) to the point that we want to dismiss the physical as irrelevant to our lives of faith. But the lesson from the New Testament is that the Lord of Eternity is also Lord of the Present. Remember the story of the healing of …

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The Face of True Religion

Reading Micah 6 this week.  Really glad he is a minor prophet.  I don’t think we would have been friends. . . . what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? I like the formalities of my religion, the stained glass, the order of service, the readings, the hymns. Especially the hymns. First growing up in the church of the south, and then living within her embrace as an adult, I find meaning in the rituals of southern churchhood, both deep and sometimes mundane. From Wednesday-night …

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When Dirty Faith Gets Too Close to Home

I think God must have read my book. He’s letting dirty faith get far too close to home. It is very easy to practice dirty faith while safely ensconced 5,000 miles from the kids of Hope. They become numbers and good stories, not hurting children whose eyes hold pain, and whose hearts understand a side of the world I will never fully comprehend. It is a safe faith because the dirt under my fingernails gets washed away on the twelve-hour flight back home. It is not ever-present, ever-pressing. I like my dirty faith to be clean. But then there is …

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The House Rules: Five Essentials for Your Mission Trip

It’s that time of year again. Yesterday our church commissioned the youth summer mission trip team. Nine teenagers, three adult leaders, headed to Atlanta for a few days of work. Good kids, good sponsors, and a really good project practicing dirty faith among the kind of people Jesus loved. They will join thousands of other churches on the ubiquitous Mission Trip that is standard summer fare for church youth groups throughout North America. If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, read Dirty Faith, or heard any of my radio interviews, you know I’m kind of on the fence about short-term …

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Hidden Treasures

I like old wood. I mean really, really old—and really, really like.  And with those qualifiers, last week was a special treat. Susan and I had been looking at a small farm near the acreage we now have. Small, but bigger than our place. We ended up deciding against making an offer, but we spent several afternoons after work walking through the fields and woods. On our second afternoon there, we “discovered” (the land owners had always known it was there) an overgrown and dilapidated 18th century cabin. Not too dilapidated, and not too overgrown, but well past its prime—by …

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When Jesus messes up our plans, Part 2 (Or, perhaps, Peripheral People 1)

I have asked this before, and I probably will again, because it is a really good start-thinking-about-what-it-means-to-be-a-follower question. Yes, that sentence did set a record for most hyphens in one compound adjective. What does your Jesus look like? Not the stained-glass guy behind the baptistery, but the one who walked this earth 2,000 years ago. What did he look like? How did he sound? Did he like the foods you like? How did he smell? Would he have fit in with your friends? At your church? Did he have good manners? Think about it for a minute while we go …

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When Jesus messes up our plans

I guess post-Mother’s Day, it’s okay to write this one. My Mom had an interesting relationship with God, or, at least, an interesting understanding of her relationship with God. Perhaps it was a little shy on the grace measure of things. She had this great fear that God was going to spring the big one on her, the demand that she would have to do something she really did not want to do. Jonah became the operative story for her—and China her Nineveh. She passed away with fears unrealized; God let her live out her life as a pastor’s wife …

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Grace – and cost – in unexpected places

God’s tough to put in a box. And his grace, by definition, is free. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t costly. I preached at our home church a couple of weeks ago and commented that spiritual awakening rarely finds its genesis where we expect it. I had no idea how soon I would discover the verity of those words. So, to begin, a story . . . A few years ago my friend Cassidy introduced me to a couple of Amish families in northern Indiana. Over the years we became friends; I‘ve spent time in their homes, have enjoyed talking theology, …

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