Bible Study

What Does A Relevant Church Look Like?

Share This:

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 …

Read Post

Grace and Works

Share This:

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 …

Read Post

The Face of True Religion

Share This:

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 …

Read Post

The House Rules: Five Essentials for Your Mission Trip

Share This:

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 …

Read Post

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

Share This:

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 …

Read Post

When Jesus messes up our plans

Share This:

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 …

Read Post

Fences

Share This:

I’ve spent a significant amount of time lately thinking about fences. Far too much, actually. Susan and I have a few acres outside of town, and it’s just about time to put fall calves on the pasture. So most weekends—and many evenings—for the last month or two have been spent setting posts and stretching wire. Barbed wire and I are not good friends. No matter how I prepare, how good my gloves are, or how careful I am, the end of a fence-building day means a session with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a tube of ointment. That’s just …

Read Post

Privilege, Peripheral People, Rising Lights, and Two Emails

Share This:

As I write this, I am sitting in my comfortable East Tennessee home.  My reality is safe, secure, well-fed. But then an email comes from Brazil, telling the story of a family of children brought to our campus, chilling in its matter-of-fact recital of the children’s condition. This group of seven siblings, ages 3 to 17, were discovered in a shack near the City of Youth living in conditions of wretched poverty and malnutrition. The youngest sibling, now a 3-year-old, was a baby who the family ‘adopted’ after he was abandoned by his mother and left to fend on his …

Read Post

God of the Shadows (Part 2)

Share This:

 He restores my soul.  (Psalm 23:3) I want God to look like me. Not physically, of course, but to share my values, to reaffirm the way I see myself, to make me comfortable with who I am. As I said last week, “To restore my soul.” I want my soul to be restored—especially the way I define it. Restored. It means that our hearts are not heavy, that we feel good about the world and ourselves. You know… generally upbeat and positive, blessed. It means we and our God live in a place of light and brightness Or does it? …

Read Post

God of the Shadows

Share This:

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)   I did not expect to meet God there. At least not my God. My God is the God of light. Of purity. Of beauty. Of Sunday mornings in contemporary cathedrals. My God is the God of 1 John 1:5—and I encounter Him in places of light. In the words of the Psalmist, He restores my soul—and He does it in places that feed my soul. And none of those descriptors fit that …

Read Post

But God. . . (Part 2)

Share This:

A little theological digression here before we get back to Graziella’s story… How often in the follower’s life does the story turn on those words? But God. . . The case can be made that the thought embedded there is central to our identity. It is an affirmation that He is the creator, that He is sovereign, and—perhaps most important—that He is actively engaged in the lives of those He calls His own. This whole thing is God’s game, not ours, and He can suspend the rules and change the outcome as He chooses. David said it this way: ”Though …

Read Post

Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gleice

Share This:

A Saturday night service at the City of Youth. One hundred fifty or so children who call this place home fill the chapel. Throw-away kids, abandoned, exploited. They all have scars of abuse on the inside; some wear them on the outside. Prayer time. Gleice walks forward from the back row, takes the microphone from Pastor Derli, bows her head. “God, thank you that I am perfect in Your eyes.” Yeah. God, make her perfect in my eyes, too. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. That verse again.  The one that demands activity—and it is …

Read Post

GETTING EVEN (or perhaps) Why I am Comfortable as a Pharisee

Share This:

I’m not altogether sold on this idea of grace. I mean, seriously, love with no strings attached? On the surface, at least, I have always been the kind of guy God should want on his team. Some mischief as a teenager, but nothing serious. Always hard-working, loved the Lord my God, and pretty much honored my parents. I’d have made an excellent Rich Young Ruler. I want Jesus to pat me on the back and say, “Good job.” And I really, really want him to recognize what a good deal he got when he got me. Instead… I find that …

Read Post

We are the Pharisees

Share This:

Didn’t expect to meet God there . . . Over the past decade, I have had the chance to experience grace in some very unexpected places. In a remote village in Mexico, while holding the baby of a teenage prostitute in Brazil, on death row at Angola prison in Louisiana. These are places of darkness, but as I read the New Testament, it becomes more and more apparent that these are the places where Jesus walked. These are the people he loved. This is where we encounter grace. We are lovers of structure, of hierarchy, of people who understand their …

Read Post

Christmas Blessings

Share This:

May the Truth of Christmas permeate your thoughts in these last days of Advent waiting. May the peace of God fill your heart as you learn to trust. May you experience God’s richest blessings as you celebrate our Savior’s birth.   Merry Christmas to each of you! Thank you for stopping by here during this busy season. I look forward to continuing our journey of dirty faith in the year ahead.

Read Post

God’s gift to the world: Himself

Share This:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 Wasn’t it just like God to become man? The name of the college text is long forgotten, as is the name of the author, but the words still ring true. Because, yes, it was just like God to become man. This is the lasting reality of Advent, that God himself took on the form of a man, and encountered us in our humanity, our brokenness, our need. But… the incarnational …

Read Post

Life Lesson from Orphans #3: Dependence gives birth to faith

Share This:

Easy lesson here, but it is one we tend to forget. God can handle this, whatever “this” is. Every time I travel to Brazil, I am absolutely overwhelmed by the experiential faith of our kids and graduates. Experiential because it is faith based on a reality that has already been made manifest. They get this faith thing because they have seen the hand of God in their own lives. I have told you before about the impact our graduate church is having on the neighboring community. Our graduates see the drug addict sleeping in the weeds who believes he has …

Read Post

Life Lesson from Orphans #2: Gratitude, Entitlement—and Joy

Share This:

Thanksliving I have to confess to never having heard the word before yesterday’s children’s sermon. And that first hearing was accompanied by a brief but vigorously engaged dispute between two six-year-olds about whether the holiday actually was Thanksgiving or thanksliving. Plenty of laughs in church yesterday. Thanksliving.  I kind of like that. It is a lifestyle I have seen over and over again with our kids in Brazil. They get it. Theirs is a deep, profound gratitude. A gratitude that humbles and graces when encountered. A gratitude that absolutely bankrupts any attitude of entitlement. A thankfulness for life itself. Those …

Read Post

Privilege, Peripheral People, and Rising Lights

Share This:

As I write this, I am sitting in my comfortable East Tennessee home. My reality is safe, secure, well-fed. But when I travel to Brazil, I encounter a far different kind of reality. Poverty beyond my comprehension. Kids who know a life I can never understand. Twelve-year-old boys with death warrants against them from drug lords. Girls taught since early, early childhood that their only value in life is in the depraved pleasure they can bring others. A very different reality… Yet somehow I am supposed to believe that God loves them as much as he loves me. Rich and …

Read Post

The Hand on Our Shoulder: Investing in eternity

Share This:

Day 29:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. (Isaiah 58:9-10) It’s tough work, this caring for kids the world has abandoned, exploited, and abused, but it is what we are called to do. And from the very birth of this ministry, hundreds of you have stood alongside us — investing in …

Read Post

Ripples

Share This:

Day 28:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses. (Acts 1:8) Several years ago, a group of young Hope graduates formed their own church. A couple of years ago, we watched as a group of former street children—young women who had been trafficked as little girls and young men who had escaped cycles of drug abuse and poverty—were introduced as the church leadership team—the ministers of the fellowship. The really impressive thing is that this is a serving community, missional in the truest …

Read Post

A Father’s Love

Share This:

Day 26:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them. (Job 29:11-13) Is “father” really a dangerous word? Unfortunately, for many children who come to Hope Unlimited—especially our girls—danger is exactly what the word connotes. Their fathers (or often stepfathers) are the ones who beat, sexually abused, or abandoned the child he should have been protecting. The experienced evil instead of a father’s love. Only when they encounter the Father …

Read Post

Dayara: Dreams realized

Share This:

Day 18:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalms 139:13-15) Even before she was born, Dayara fell victim to …

Read Post

Small Voices

Share This:

Day 15:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6) It is hard to imagine that small voices can make such a din, but when a preschool has almost 600 children, it gets noisy—quickly! Several years ago, we asked a very important question: “Is there a way to intervene in children’s lives before they hit the streets, before they reach the mortal-risk level?” About that time, the City of Campinas asked us if we would consider operating a preschool …

Read Post

Gleice: Perfect

Share This:

Day 10:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalms 51:10) Gleice walked forward, took the microphone from Pastor Derli, and asked the other children to bow their heads with her. Then, quietly, she said, “God, thank you that I am perfect in your eyes.” We never know what baggage, guilt, and negative self-images children bring with them to Hope. But we do know that our God can heal these hurts as He restores the children. As another girl—one who had been prostituted by her own …

Read Post

Earning Their Trust

Share This:

Day 9:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his …

Read Post

Prayers and Pray-ers

Share This:

Many of you readers are new here, so I’m reprising this post from several years ago. Its words are timeless…   Reading 1 John again this evening… “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Must walk as Jesus did.” That’s a tough one; one I’m not sure I have completely worked out. But I do know that it starts with relationships — both with God and with others. And I think John’s point is that …

Read Post

Leaking Grace

Share This:

I want to leak grace. I want the presence of God to be such an overwhelming reality in my life that this clay vessel simply cannot contain that reality. David said it this way in Psalm 23: You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. When people look at me, I want the grace of God to be first thing that comes to mind. I want the grace of God to be the basic fact of my existence. But I often find myself empty. Not just not overflowing, but nowhere close to even full, much less leaking from excess. …

Read Post

Calling … and Following

Share This:

I’ve heard it more than once . . . Okay, I see the numbers. I know there are 153 million orphans out there, and they need to be loved.  I hear the need… and I am really glad you’re doing what you are doing, but God hasn’t called me to do this.   Well, actually He has. I do get this.  I understand your point.  You are not ready to sell everything and move to Brazil, Mozambique, Thailand. But you are called. Look at Scripture’s definition of acceptable religion:  In the book of James – “Religion that God our Father …

Read Post

Orphans, the Border Crisis, and the Echo of God’s Love: Part 2 of 3

Share This:

If you missed the first post in this series: Part 1   The echo of God’s love resonates not just in our hearts but also in our heads. When we see the thousands of children pouring across our southern border, we have no choice; we have to act in Christian love, in charity as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13. They are children – not adults who have made informed choices to break our laws and enter the U.S. illegally. We must live out biblical compassion. But, but… love is every bit as much a head thing as it …

Read Post

Orphans, the Border Crisis, and the Echo of God’s Love

Share This:

They need more than hugs. When we see children in trouble, orphans, a trafficked girl, a little boy who has walked hundreds of miles in search of safe haven, we act. We have to, because that’s what followers of Christ do. We are compassionate, because our Lord was compassionate. We see these children as our own, because we ourselves have been adopted by the Father of Love. But we are also called to be wise, to show that compassion in a way that is more than just a fleeting hug – a way that transforms for a lifetime, an eternity. …

Read Post

Noise

Share This:

Reading Psalms 46 today. Sometimes this work seems overwhelming – caring for orphans, that is. The world really does not care or there would not be 153 million children left to fend for themselves. Even our churches seem pretty complacent about it. Much more interested in repairing the crack in the stained glass than the holes in the lives of our children. Our children, because they are ours. All 153 million of them. Then there is the constant noise… Societies that hawk sexuality on every television screen, and every magazine – and then profess outrage that little girls and boys …

Read Post

Three Things That Don’t Happen At A Relevant Church

Share This:

(Stained Glass and Relevance, Part 2) 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 that is where …

Read Post

Stained Glass and Relevance

Share This:

This is not another post on the topic Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church. I may join that conversation at some point, but not today. Instead, I want to talk about three good friends of mine; all friends for a long time. All men in their fifties. They are serious followers – not just Believers but Followers of Christ. Daily study of Scripture, raising godly families, really living the Christ life. Very concerned about their impact in this world. Compassionate, generous. All very engaged in local churches since childhood. All have stopped attending church. When I read the millennials discussions, …

Read Post

Worship That Unselfishes

Share This:

Yes, I know that is not a word. But it ought to be. A verb here, not an adjective. Follow the reasoning. True worship always, always carries our focus beyond ourselvesto the object of worship. True worship, not just that last slow song sung before the sermon on Sunday morning. Psalm 96 kind of worship: “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.” Webster actually does a pretty good job of describing it. “Worship is to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission.” William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury one hundred years ago, described …

Read Post

Doctrine, Religion, and Living as Christ Lived

Share This:

A few days ago, I threw out an aphorism on Facebook. Perhaps it was food for thought for some deliberative believers, or perhaps I just wanted to stir the pot. It seems a bit of both happened: Doctrine can become vanity, a self-indulgent exercise to escape the hard work of following. A disclaimer here: My professional training is as a theologian. To no small degree, my livelihood is doing doctrine. But I am also called to live within the context of a world of people that Christ loves, andthat he calls me to love, too. I am called to be …

Read Post

Blessings and Materialism, Part 2

Share This:

Let’s be honest here. We are the wealthiest society the world has ever known. The rich young man Jesus encountered in Matthew’s gospel? That’s us. We sit in our beautiful homes, we drive nice cars, we take really cool vacations, and our churches are often monuments to materialism. Our nodding acknowledgement of the place of God in our lives is usually something along the lines of “I am so blessed” – as if God is responsible for our materialism. But are we? Blessed, I mean. I am not so sure. In Scripture, blessing always leads to a deepening of the …

Read Post

Blessings and Materialism, Part 1

Share This:

I have been following an online conversation the past few weeks about the use of the word “blessing.” I’ve pretty much sat out the discussion, but some of the comments really have me thinking. The current seems to go something like this: First-world Christians like to attribute the “good” things in life to being looked on with favor by God. We say thinks like… “Just moved into our new house. So blessed.” “Blessed to have healthy (or happy, athletic, attractive, intelligent, etc.) kids.” Or during the Sunday evening mission trip report: “After spending a week with [insert specific disadvantaged group], …

Read Post

Separating the sheep from the goats (a parable along the way to revolting numbers)

Share This:

  Here’s a bit of Bible trivia for you: There is only one person in the parables of Jesus who is given a name. Do you know who it is? Think about for a minute. Lazarus Do you know the story of Lazarus and the rich man? Lazarus is a poor beggar who lies at the gate of the rich man’s home, hoping to grab a few “crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.” Interestingly enough, it is not the rich man who has a name, but the poor, crippled beggar. Even more interesting, the name Lazarus means “the …

Read Post

Pews, Pain, and Following: Beyond Comfortable Faith

Share This:

Begin with the obvious: church pews are neither comfortable nor welcoming. At their best, they are butt-numbing distractions from worship and learning. At their worst, they are the symbol of much of the critique of the American church: archaic, irrelevant, and unsuited for our times. Historically speaking, the pew is a relative newcomer to church furnishings. The early Church met in homes, and the advent of cathedrals did not bring pews; most cathedrals and parish churches were largely devoid of seating. Congregants stood. Only with the coming of the Reformation and the sermon-focused church service did pews begin to appear. …

Read Post

His Children

Share This:

  I was reading Psalm 90 this week: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.  Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,  From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2)   Okay, God, we understand. All of this is yours. You are in charge; it’s your work, not ours. But You have told us to care for your children, for the least of these. So what is our role? And even more, where are You when our best efforts to touch their lives seem thwarted? I have to admit that I …

Read Post

Cures, not Band-aids: Continuing the conversation…

Share This:

I want you to care about orphans, about the hungry, and about the poor. And I want you to act. Now. But I also want you to think deeply about what you do and why you do it. Cures do not involve social tourism, warehoused kids, or one bowl of rice a day. True, New Testament engagement with the least of these means acting intentionally, sacrificially, thoughtfully. It requires long-term commitment. Jesus always acted with the big picture in mind. Look at the encounter with the Samaritan woman. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that …

Read Post

30 Days of Prayer for Hope 2013

Share This:

There are 153 million orphans in the world today, and many more children are abused, exploited, or abandoned on city streets or even inside their own homes. With so great a need, sometimes it’s easy to wonder—where is God? The Bible tells us He dearly loves and has a plan for each suffering child. In Him, we all have a certain hope. He loves them more deeply than humanly possible. And He calls us to be the hands, feet, and heart of that love. We believe that prayer makes a difference in the lives of the children the world has …

Read Post

Significance

Share This:

A couple of years ago, I joined friends from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church for their Sunday morning Café service. Like many large churches, MPPC meets in several venues with varying worship styles, and Pastor John Ortberg appears on the big screen in each locale. I don’t remember the specific text for the day, or the title of the sermon. But one line is etched in my memory. Too many people live for the feature story when they should be living for the obituary. Think about it. Our society makes it clear that “significant” people drive really nice cars, have good …

Read Post

Neil

Share This:

Everyone should have a friend like Neil. I first met Neil almost three years ago when Hope Unlimited received a significant unsolicited gift with a note that he and his wife Kay would be visiting Orlando (they’re from the UK). The note was nice, but, honestly, the check had gotten my attention, so we made plans to meet for lunch that August. Over lunch, Neil and Kay began to tell me their story—especially their journey to Hope. During a time of prayer at their church, Neil and Kay (with encouragement from some of the church’s elders) felt a call to …

Read Post

Fewer Churches, More Church…

Share This:

I’m serious here. There is an apocryphal story, almost certainly not factual, but a good story nonetheless. Let’s call it a parable. In the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent IV was in the papal coffers surveying the vast collection of coinage in the church’s treasury. St. Thomas Aquinas, out for an afternoon stroll, stopped by for a visit. Standing amidst all the wealth, Innocent called out, “Ahh, Thomas, no longer can we say, “Silver and gold have I none.” Thomas replied, “But neither can we say, “In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” I live in a small, southern …

Read Post

What will $60,000 get you?

Share This:

If we’re talking about a home, you may have to look pretty hard, even in this market, to find a nice one. But if it’s a car you want, that kind of cash can set you up really nicely. Or maybe all you want is a week for the family at Disney World – and that wouldn’t put too much of a dent in $60,000. You could have dinner for two at Morton’s Steakhouse in NYC for two hundred consecutive nights. Or (more my speed), 20,000 Whataburgers—extra jalapenos, please. But what kind of Kingdom impact does $60,000 have? According to …

Read Post

Sending it ahead

Share This:

What is a meaningful life? What does it mean to have an impact? The way the world usually measures it, the answer typically includes wealth, recognition, prestige, and perhaps power. Only on rare occasions does the answer immediately include service, especially service to those the world has forgotten. By most standards, Paul Husby met the definitions of meaningful and impacting.  He was the CEO of 3M Corporation for the nation of Brazil; he was at the top of the ladder.  A few years ago he returned to the U.S. from Brazil to retire, having already led that meaningful life.  But …

Read Post

Breaking the Cycle

Share This:

Transforming the lives of children at mortal risk, providing them and their future generations a productive future and eternal hope.     Mission Statement (emphasis added)   One of the most disturbing realities of the abandoned or exploited child crisis is that it is almost always multi-generational. As such, it is self-propagating and constantly growing. Virtually every child who comes to us from the streets or from a situation of abuse is “simply” the most recent in a family lineage of lost children. A prostitute mother has six or eight children for whom street life, abuse, and exploitation is the norm …

Read Post

Sovereignty

Share This:

Reading Psalm 90 this week: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2) Okay, God, we understand; all of this is yours. You are in charge; it’s your work, not ours. But You have told us to care for your children, for the least of these. So what is our role? And even more, where are You when our best efforts to touch their lives seem thwarted? I have to admit that I get a bit frustrated …

Read Post

Advent (again)

Share This:

I have to admit that I often find myself conflicted at this time of year. (Perhaps even conflicted about using the word “conflicted”; it seems far too trite, too trendy a word to approach a serious subject.) There is so much right about Christmas:  celebrating the coming of our Savior, hearing the wonderful music of the season, the lights, the smiles of anticipation and then realization on the faces of children.   But there is also much to give us pause: conspicuous consumerism, embarrassing scenes of adults fighting over the must-have toy of the year, excess. These things leave me wanting …

Read Post

Advent 2011

Share This:

Advent. Coming. The celebration of the incarnation.   Why?  Not why celebrate; if any event in the course of human history called for celebration, it is this one.  But why did God choose to “become flesh and dwell among us”? Why leave the glory of heaven for the travails and rejection of this world?  Why face the pain of the cross?   The answer is actually quite simple in its profoundness, “for God so loved the world . . .”   Wasn’t there an easier way?  In a word, “No.” For you see, love is not remote; it requires engagement, involvement. …

Read Post

The least of these . . . Really?

Share This:

If we are to be completely honest, I think most of us will admit to having a bit of a problem with this verse. Not the stranger or sick part, and certainly not the hungry and thirsty part, or perhaps even the naked part. We get those. But there is one more thing in that passage that may make most of us pretty uncomfortable.   I was in prison and you visited me.   I don’t think so.   I can look at the others that Jesus called the least of these, and understand and sympathize with their plights. If …

Read Post

Salvageable

Share This:

My friend, Barry, has a very interesting business, and it strikes me that his model is a really good metaphor for how we might view the orphans of our world. I’m going to tell you about that, but first let me give you some background on his business. Barry buys and sells steel. As you may know, steel usually comes in thin sheets – 48 or maybe 60 inches wide – and often over 100 feet long. The long sheets are then coiled and sold to manufacturers as “cold rolls.” With standard cuts, there is often significant waste. If, for …

Read Post

The Way Church Should Be (And Sometimes Is, But Too Often is Not)

Share This:

Our daughter and son-in-law began encouraging us to attend with them several months ago. They had been going for awhile and were experiencing a real difference in their lives; we saw it, too. But it is really different from what we are used to (not our kind of music!), so it took gentle persuasion from them for several months before finally convincing my wife to give it a try. A week later, at her encouragement, I showed up, too. It did not take but a trip or two for both of us, as well as a friend she invited, to …

Read Post

Are you serious?

Share This:

Last Sunday Philip and I both spoke at The Moody Church Fall Missions Conference. The church got its very start as a ministry to homeless children and orphans, and thankfully, they haven’t forgotten their roots. Dwight L. Moody was a traveling shoe salesman in the mid-19th century, but his passion was for the children living on the streets of Chicago. Just a few years after his conversion in 1855, he and two ministry partners turned an abandoned saloon into a Sunday school mission for children. The church quickly grew and, although it left the saloon behind many, many years ago, …

Read Post

Dirty Faith

Share This:

You may not like what I have to say, but I have thought about it — and I think I am right. I know I am Biblical. As I write this post, I am in Brazil, a pilgrimage made a few times a year. This trip includes my wife, Susan, and Jerry and Gail Edmonson. Jerry is lead pastor at The Fellowship At Cinco Ranch, a thriving church in the Houston metropolitan area. We call it a vision trip. Part of my job as President of Hope Unlimited for Children is to engage people about the cause of mortal-risk children, …

Read Post

Prayers and Pray-ers

Share This:

Reading 1 John again this evening… “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Must walk as Jesus did.” That’s a tough one; one I’m not sure I have completely worked out. But I do know that it starts with relationships — both with God and with others. And I think John’s point is that we cannot claim that our walk with God is good if all the other parts of our lives don’t reflect that …

Read Post

Seeing as God Sees

Share This:

It’s Friday evening; I am sitting on the front porch, watching the thunderstorms begin to roll in, and, quite honestly, feeling a bit overwhelmed. There is a payroll to make, other bills to pay, income is down for the month of July, political maneuvering in Brazil threatens our program, and things are just not rolling as smoothly as they should. Things look pretty dark right now, both literally and figuratively.   God, don’t you understand? We are the good guys here. How about a little help?   Then I read I John 1:5. “God is light; in Him there is …

Read Post

Good Soil

Share This:

I’ve been reading Francis Chan’s Crazy Love the last few days. In Chapter Four, “Profile of the Lukewarm,” he issues this warning: Do not assume you are the good soil. But of course we are the good soil. We’re in church virtually every Sunday, tithe (at least on the net), stay married, and have polite kids. Isn’t that the definition of good soil? Maybe not. Maybe that is the definition of the place where the seeds were planted, but the fledging plant was so overwhelmed by the thorns of the world’s cares that it suffocated. Perhaps we are the exact …

Read Post

Forgiveness

Share This:

But first be reconciled to each other. Natali had a lesson to learn. As a young graduate of Hope, she knew that the choices she would make in the first months on her own would profoundly shape her life. Her witness led her boyfriend to Christ, and he quickly became a leader at the graduate church. As they moved toward marriage, she encouraged him to be reconciled with his family. He was, and then he asked the tough question: “What about you and your mother?” A bit of background… By the time she was ten, Natali’s mother was prostituting her …

Read Post

Light: Shining in the Darkness

Share This:

I am pleased to welcome Jeremy Stanley this week. Jeremy is a storyteller at heart. From the Hollywood Hills to a leper colony in Kenya, everyone has a story to tell. Having spent many years in the film & television industry in Los Angeles, Jeremy’s focus and passion is now exposing injustice and sharing stories of hope and redemption around the world. It’s easy to find despair in the darkness. It envelops you. It overwhelms you. You hear stories of children being murdered in the streets.  Of little girls losing their innocence and prostituting themselves at desperately young ages.  t …

Read Post

Materialism

Share This:

Have you ever thought about the “why” of materialism?   Sunday night I left Tennessee for Brazil; left my very comfortable home for a 16-hour, three-leg flight. I was met at the small Vitoria airport by one of our houseparents. We traveled through the relative affluence of the ocean-front residential section of town then began to wind our way up broken streets to Hope Mountain. We passed squalor; we came within feet of the brutal children’s prison at Cariacica; we saw filthy children sitting on street curbs.   Discomfort. Back in the beautiful Springtime of East Tennessee, it is very …

Read Post

Was He one of us?

Share This:

My friend grabbed me immediately after the service. “I finally understand that verse.” A question in my eyes. “The ‘I had no place to lay my head’ verse. Tonight, for the first time, I understand it.” We were at Saturday night worship the night before Palm Sunday at The Net Fellowship, a church formed by former street children who are graduates of Hope Unlimited’s residential program. Joining the graduates, their families, and members of the community who have become part of The Net were about two hundred children who presently live at the two Hope campuses in Campinas, Brazil. And …

Read Post

Separating the sheep from the goats (a parable along the way to revolting numbers)

Share This:

Here’s a bit of Bible trivia for you:  There is only one person in the parables of Jesus who is given a name.  Do you know who it is?  Think about for a minute. Lazarus Do you know the story of Lazarus and the rich man? Lazarus is a poor beggar who lies at the gate of the rich man’s home, hoping to grab a few “crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.” Interestingly enough, it is not the rich man who has a name, but the poor, crippled beggar. Even more interesting, the name Lazarus means “the one …

Read Post

More revolting numbers…

Share This:

This isn’t about our capability to change the world; it’s about our will to do so.   I’ve written on a number of these blogs about the plight of at-mortal-risk children. They do not choose to live as they do; all choices have been taken from them by poverty, by culture, by environment.   The challenge of changing the world is not about our capability: according to the Borgen Project, spending just $19 billion between now and 2015 could essentially eliminate global starvation and malnutrition; $12 billion per year over that same time period could provide education for every child …

Read Post

A Case for Revolt

Share This:

2.5%.  That’s how much American evangelicals give to Christian causes.  Not 15%, not even the biblically-mandated 10%.  Just 2.5%. But here’s the really disappointing number: 98% of that tiny 2.5% primarily benefits other Christians. This basically means that of every $100 of income earned by American evangelicals, about 5 cents goes to touch the lives of those that Jesus called “the least of these.” A nickel. This is not about hard economic times preventing us from giving. In fact, the opposite is true: since the Great Depression, income has risen on a fairly consistent curve, with only a few blips along the …

Read Post