Mother’s Day is coming early this year. I guess you could say it is as early as it could possibly be: the 8th.

While Fathers are supposed to lead at home, mothers have admirably led when the father has abdicated spiritual leadership. Timothy is the product of godly women, of a godly mom and grandmom: 

So how do we honor them on Mother’s Day? How do we honor them in worship? Can we honor them in worship and keep the focus on Jesus? That’s the hard part. It can be a nightmare trying to discern the best way to honor them without cultural capitulation.

In regards to honoring them on Mother’s Day, I’ve canceled Sr. High youth group because some would rather have their children home. But I’m also having Jr. High youth group at our house, because some mothers would rather get a break: that’s how Amy and I think.

But in worship, should we do anything special? Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle, gives 10 tips for things to do IN and after the worship service. Here are a few of those and my takes.

“1. Have a woman lead worship or help lead worship”-I don’t have a problem with women helping lead worship, but how much of what we do in worship should be done so that a certain group feels special?

“6. Dedicate lots of babies. Everyone likes to see babies on Mother’s Day.” Besides the theological differences in baptists and presbyterians, again, I just think this borders on worship as entertainment.  That’s not the point of worship-though I obviously believe it to be a joyous time and my favorite time of the week.

“8. For some women, infertility makes Mother’s Day a tough time. Invite them up after the service to be prayed for, that God would open their wombs.” On the front end this sounds good. I mean who doesn’t want prayer? But I don’t think any women who have tried tirelessly to get pregnant would appreciate being singled out on THIS hard day for them. Perhaps God’s design is for them to adopt? If a mother who was trying to get pregnant thought this were a good idea, I’d be OK. But I doubt-and of course this is speculation- it arose from such a person. Driscoll, who has been influential to me as far as big picture stuff goes, may not be doing the best job of putting himself in the shoes of those desiring to be mothers. I could be wrong-but that’s my take.

You can read the rest of the list here even though I probably wouldn’t recommend any of them.

I’m generally disappointed in evangelicalism’s Mother’s Day service in two major areas.

1.) Sensitivity to those desiring to be mothers, those mothers who’ve lost children, who have no mother, etc…I’m not the most sensitive person in the world. I’m growing in sensitivity, as I think we all must grow in this area. I was not aware how hard Mother’s Day was for some of the aforementioned until a class in seminary. The professor’s wife left town every mother’s day, largely in fact that there was such an in-your-face-emphasis at church that Sunday. I don’t mind offending people with the gospel, but not this.

2.) Worship is God-centered. When we give rewards for the youngest mother, oldest mother, newest mother, we take the focus off of Jesus. We lift up the created rather than the Creator. I’m not out on a crusade to call other churches out. I just want to explain why some churches refuse to do a blatanly specific “Mother’s day” service. It’s is NOT because we don’t treasure and value mothers. It is because we want all focus to be on Jesus. That’s why I won’t ever create a Veteran’s Day, Father’s Day, or Graduation day service.

What should we do? I don’t know what we should do, but here are some ideas that we’ll do at Redeemer.

1.) Children’s Church Mother’s day lesson

2.) Toddler Nursery craft for mothers.

3.) Pastoral prayer thanking mothers and spiritual mothers. Several women at Redeemer have no children, but have been a spiritual mother to Connar and Cade, and I’m SO thankful for them. They are a gift from our Heavenly Father.

Just my thoughts on how to apply Mother’s Day at church. 

The real question is can we honor, thank, recognize a group of people before God IN worship without drawing attention away from Him. That’s a hard one to answer, and I realize I may not be as consistent as I’d like to be with my vision. Honoring them after the service is much easier.

I watched the Passion of the Christ for the 2nd time during the Passion Week. I never thought I’d watch it a 2nd time, but I’m certainly glad I did. 

I wonder now, about 7 years removed from the completion of it, if old Gibby considers it his magnum opus or if he has any regrets in making it? Devoutly defending it with his words, Gibson has not done quite as good a job defending it with his lifestyle. Threatening phone calls, divorce, sexual activity outside marriage, alleged abuse….

How could this be? Here’s one possibility (another possibility is he might not be a true believer-but that’s too easy)

No doubt Mel had a bulls-eye on his back. Promoting Jesus will get you a bulls-eye on your back. Promoting Jesus and abstinence before marriage on the basketball court, like Dwight Howard claimed such a desire to do, landed him with a kid out of wedlock and leading the league in technical fouls.

I for one am happy I’m not in the NBA. I would hate for cameras to focus on me after I made a bad shot, or complained to the ref’s. I would probably lead the league in technical fouls; it takes everything in me not to argue with church softball refs! And I don’t know what its like to have cheerleaders throwing themselves at me while I’m a single guy in my early 20’s. I don’t excuse Howard’s or Gibson’s behavior in the least. Both have hurt their witness because they chose to do so.

But I don’t know the same level of the public bull’s eye-ness as those guys know. With fame comes the bulls-eye.

In this article, Jim Caviezel explains how Gibson warned him that “You’ll never work in this town again.”

I think Gibson understood that there would be a bulls-eye, but he obviously didn’t understand the spiritual depth of such a bulls-eye. He understood the professional attack, but he didn’t realize how prone he was to real spiritual attack. The man who stood up for Jesus probably didn’t consider himself capable of such things (I imagine), just like Peter thought Jesus was loony when He predicted his denial. 

“It could never happen to me.” Famous last words, particularly for our witness.

Little did Mel know Satan cares far more about destroying your character than your destroying your career. If he can get two birds with one stone, then great. But when your witness and credibility is destroyed, as you could clearly say is the case with Mel, Satan can say, “It’s been a good year.”

But there is hope. In this article, Caviezel admits his career hasn’t recovered, but his witness, as far as I can remember from lack of “bad press,” wasn’t destroyed. He can still speak at a Mega-Baptist church and have some credibility.

I got the news Osama Bin Ladin had been killed while watching SportsCenter as it flashed across the bottom ticker. Amy and I were thankful. Not really glad that he was dead, but more so that they had found that joker. I would have been just as glad had he been captured and not killed. 

 

 The next morning there were a zillion blog posts, facebook comments, and tweets. Jonathon Dodson gives a response to the various responses, cautioning people to digest, listen, and think through the various issues (and I think there really are a multitude of them) first.

Should I feel conviction about feeling some sense of satisfaction about justice, although only partial, being served? I’m not advocating throwing a party, but should I, or should we, only feel sadness at his death? We should probably feel a bit of sadness that someone chose to look at Jesus and say, “You aren’t God, and I will not submit to and trust you.” That doesn’t bode well for him, nor for billions like him. This gospel coalition post shaped and directed some of my thoughts the next day.

But should Christians simply mourn the death of a such an evil person and not thank God for justice? Should the soldiers who killed him in war, not thank God for such a deliverance? Should we not thank God for our soldiers doing their jobs well? I think our world and our emotions are far too complex for a simple answer. But I don’t think we should feel guilty for being thankful.

I’m also thankful for the boldness of people to post their reflections, which go against popular sentiment. My sense of justice, as I suspect with many, can sometimes-or rather often-border on a desire for personal retribution. And I did have to repent from being glad that Osama was now in hell. But I still think there is more to it.

You can read more here

While I understand that I’m condemned for my sins and only have Jesus to look to, I don’t think it honors Jesus to not admit there could be no difference between your sins, those of your non-believing grandmother, and those of Osama. 

De Young writes in a more recent post

You can check out several of his scriptural references. This is a great post on moral equivalence.

Doug Wilson, who I rarely ever agree with, has a solid post, questioning the “well, we’re all sinners and deserve death” mentality, saying it actually hurts your evangelism. You can read more here.

In the end, I think we should have mixed emotions. Not celebrating in the streets, but not simple mourning either, nor self-righteously boasting that you are in the minority for your convictions (not calling out anyone but I do know that we’re prone to works-righteousness). I’m thankful for living within a community, albeit sometimes cyber-community where we can graciously disagree with one another. And I’m thankful for some of the pertinent questions which have been raised, as well as others like this one which has recently popped into my mind: what or how should we pray for when we pray for our enemies, particularly terrorists?

Some people believe in God for different reasons, or at the very least, find some evidences more compelling than others. Being primarily a pre-suppositionalist myself, and having submitted myself first to the biblical worldview, I find this approach makes more sense of reality than any other system of thought. However I do find some reasons like Blaise Paschal’s “greatness and wretchedness” principle-that man is capable of so much good and so much evil-one of the most intellectual satisfying (we are created in the image of God and yet fallen).  While Tim Keller takes a more pre-suppositional approach in the first section of A Reason for God he does give “clues” rather than “proofs” that God does in fact exist in the latter chapters. Whether a curious unbeliever or mature believer, who like most of us wrestle with doubts, this book does us both a great service. 

And yet outside of this intellectual framework or body of evidences, sometimes very small things “happen” to us which get our attention and serve as clues of God’s existence and presence. For instance, take running into someone at some place at some time, when only a combination of other events would allow such a “chance” meeting to happen. That’s why this guy says he believes in God.

Those kind of events which we believe couldn’t ever happen if God had not somehow ordered them to fall out accordingly never cease to amaze and affirm. But I’m not sure we can build our faith upon such events, and certainly we can’t use them to definitively give a “reason for the hope we have (I Peter 3:15).” After all, there are other “chance” meetings which turn out pretty bad. I’m sure plenty of folks, due to a series of unusual events, found themselves in the path of the southern tornadoes and died. 

The faith described in this article is personal, and I don’t necessarily question it (though I would probably not connect evangelical, Rob Bell, gay and lesbian award winner). I didn’t watch the video but just read the article.

Perhaps if we ever cross paths-and who’s to say that we couldn’t ever (we could both agree on that), I’d probably ask him to check out Keller’s A Reason For God. If nothing else, he might get a fuller picture of the gospel than with Bell.