At first thought, it would appear that basketball legend (well at least while he was playing and shortly after retiring; everything he’s touched since then has gone the way of the typewriter) Isaiah Thomas has gone back to school and is turning heads at the University of Washington.

But some common sense would tell you that it is possible two people can have the same names, and in fact be two different people. Though this was hard for some folks in a small town in South Carolina to imagine (in their defense, you just don’t see this in town’s populated by only 10,000 folks), it really isn’t that hard to believe if you think about it. These are in fact two totally different unrelated Isaiah Thomas’.

One might think, “Oh, Isaiah (the freshmen) Thomas must have had a Dad who was a big Detroit Piston’s fan.” Nope, very much the opposite is the case. In fact, his father is a huge L.A. Lakers fan. But he lost a bet back when the Pistons were playing the Lakers in the NBA finals; the Lakers got swept. Now he would have to name is son Isaiah (his last name was already “Thomas” so no change required there), the star player for the Pistons.

Getting a barbed wire tatoo around your biceps thinks that’s a bad idea. Sports Talk show host Jim Rome felt the father should have taken the punishment himself for his stupid actions. He should have changed his own name. Why make the kid pay for it? Seems like a case of the sins of the father coming down on the children.

Fortunately Jesus interrupts the cycle and saves me not simply from my sin, but the sin of my father, and first father Adam. My generational debt before God has been canceled. Fortunately.

A few weeks ago, Amy and I visited one of the widows in our church (this by the way is my Grandma-all the “widow” pictures on google images were way freaky looking). We did it because God tells us that He cares about such people and visiting them is a non-negotiable (James 1). More specifically each community group takes responsibility to watch over a widow or two so that none fall through the cracks, and I hadn’t been doing the greatest job as a leader. We spent about 45 minutes talking and listening-more listening than talking-and had an absolute blast. She blessed us just as much as we blessed her. Amy, Connar, and I will definitely be back.

So what’s my point? I can’t fix stuff. Another church member has provided that kind of support for her; he’s the man. But I can listen, and I have a wonderful wife and a really cute kid, so I try to put my best feet forward. Giving of yourself and time, even it’s something as simple as visiting a widow or fixing her stuff, can provide more joy than anything else you do. Perhaps more joy than bringing in a big redfish-though I hope to do that again soon….

We’ve been discussing Tim Keller’s The Reason for God in our Christian Ed hour after church. The last two weeks we’ve explored the personal and communal evidences of the effects of sin.

The lad leading our discussion asked us how we think the folks around us view their own human nature. Do they view themselves as naturally good? Are they like John Locke and believe we are a blank slate, and neutral until outside influences move us to lean more toward good or evil? Or do they see themselves as naturally prone to evil (original sin)? Do they view themselves as sinners or as simply good people?

These are good questions to think through. If you don’t know how someone would answer, you probably don’t know them well enough to effectively contextualize the gospel. As I write this, I’m realizing how I really need to get to know folks more deeply. At an individual level, I definitely need to spend time asking better questions and listening more.

But on a general level, what I’ve seen people espouse about their relation to status before God is this: they believe themselves neither a sinner nor a saint. Instead it’s more of a hybrid. Kind of like a “sainter.” They’re not perfect, but neither are they bad enough to label themselves a sinner and need a bloody death on a cross to save them.

Unfortunately there is no hybrid third category of “sainter” and we all need the cross just as much as the one next door or next continent. But the good news of the gospel is that Christians are the same time sinners and saints (declared righteous before God). Either we are a sinner and saint, or we are simply a sinner. There is no “sainter.”

I got back from a 4 day long church planting conference in Orlando last Friday. It was a great opportunity to get some training, see a few familiar faces, and to network with some other like minded people. There were folks from nearly 20 different denominations, 37 states, and one dude was even from Ghana.

His name was Prosper (but he wasn’t about Health and Wealth) and he spoke about the work of church planting in his own country, and how they were using the same materials. Since I hate generic impersonal prayers (I can only pray generically for so long before I just quit), I asked him how we could pray for him.

Amy and I pray every Saturday night for persecuted Christians and those scattered throughout parts of the world we often neglect to think about. But sometimes our prayer time can become generic like “please protect believers from persecution” (well not that generic, because I”m a bit more creative, but close to that). I can only keep that up so long.

I was expecting him to give me some info on persecution, but he really informed me of the more realistic Islamic threat. In Ghana, Christians are free to preach the gospel and assemble. At the same time, Muslims have been coming in from the North (not Yankees, their north) and have been witnessing Christians switching to the “dark side.”

None of these conversions happen due to persecution but rather to temptation. Let me explain. Christian women have been faced with hard choices. Either have little or no money and wonder who will take care of you, or become a second, third, or fourth wife of a wealthy Muslim.
In additions, Muslims will build wells and give money to folks in order to build mosques there. Gotta love those guys.

The security that comes from money has been the major idol in their land. We’re so wealthy here in America, that we can hold on to the same idol but keep going to church. Thus the idol is a little less obvious here in the States, but certainly just as prevalent and every bit as dangerous. That and polygamy isn’t exactly legal here.

Anyhow, in case you were wondering how you could pray SPECIFICALLY for Ghana, or Africa in general, this one is “on the house.”

There were some big pre-Super Bowl parties this year. Some athletes, play-mates, entertainers, and musicians hosted 500 dollar a head (for the cheapest ones) shindigs. But no party had the A-listers like Jeff and Geoff’s 62 Annual Super Bowl Fish Fry.

Having to participate in youth Super Bowl parties the last several years, I was unable to throw one myself. Until this year. A fishing buddy of mine approached me about doing some sort of fish fry Super bowl Party at my house because his apartment was too small.

Let me get this straight. You’ll help me recruit others to come to my house to eat fish and watch football? A no-brainer. I live for hospitality.

So he and I invited some of our paddle-fishing forum buddies. There were about 7 or so kayak fisherman, plus a friend from my church (had to be a fisherman). That number, like Jesus feeding of the 5000, does not include women and children. Some brought wives, kids, and a girlfriend.

My co-host Jeff was an ex-cook (or should I say former-he still cooks?), so I put him in charge of frying the fish. All of the trout and redfish were harvested by one person since everyone else had trouble catching keeper sized trout. I stuck to frying french fries and hush puppies.

Even though it was B.Y.O.B., no one got out of hand and everyone had a good time. Connar didn’t want the party to end because some of the kids entertained him the whole time.

Of course the down side of a fish-fry is that we woke up to the smell of fried fish this morning. Yet by the afternoon we were fully cleaned up and mostly “fish free” until we heated up the left-overs. All in all, an awesome night. All had a good time. All knew I was a pastor. Hopefully all left with a better picture of Christianity. Hopefully one day Jesus, the great party crasher, will crash theirs.

I totally recommend taking a step of faith and hosting one of these parties yourself. Or like my friend Jeff did to me, recommend a friend to take the step and co-host one.

Click on the pictures to get a better look at the party. Definitely click on the one with Connar and the fried shrimp.

Here’s my 2nd and probably final “Fatherly blog thought” for a bit. Connar loves to hear and watch me play guitar. He goes crazy for it. So I regularly break out the 6 string and sing to him. Or sing over him is probably more accurate.

Here I am singing Allison Krauss’ “You say it best when you say nothing at all.” I find that an appropriate song, though he “can’t” say anything at all yet. The smile on his face lets me know that he loves me-another line from the song if you’re not familiar with it. And that smile is plenty enough for the time being. Of course he could say to me, “You say it best when you sing nothing at all.” But he’s too young to tell my voice is bad and hasn’t developed the chutzpah to say that yet.

This practice and specifically this picture (click on the picture to get a bigger and clearer image) remind me of Zephaniah 3:17

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

That’s what God does to His children, and I think that is downright cool. Surprising. Counter-intuitive, but amazing. I guess to be consistent with my Allison Krauss reference, I should have just posted the verse and the picture. You write it best, when you write nothing at all.

Well, it doesn’t look like a lot came from my interview with the Kansas City Star Reporter. What can you do? The opportunity to be interviewed was nevertheless still worth my 15 cell phone minutes. And to hear that my readership comprises more folks than I realized was worth the price of admission. To read Rick Montgomery’s article, click here. I don’t endorse all that’s written, I’m simply presenting someone’s thoughtful reflection on faith and football. I’ve reflected on it enough lately, so I shall let someone else speak on it for a change.

I’ve learned so much about God as Father from simply being a father myself. Now I will say that the Fatherly imagery in the bible instructs us that God is far more than simply a warm, loving, delighted parent (Ancient Near Eastern “father” imagery refers to a Sovereign King), but then again, He is not less than that.

Because a Christian is saved by grace and not anything that he does (Eph 2:8-9), he/she has different motivations to live out his/her faith than a Muslim, a Jew, or “Oprah-ite.” Though motivations differ from the latter (where he/she does good deeds TO get in good with God), such are actually far more numerous for the former. Motivation for a radically sacrificial life comes from the knowledge one is already saved, from the fact that good works have been prepared in advanced for Christians to do, that sin is no longer their master, etc…..

But I’ve really begun to experience a new motivation. There’s nothing quite like watching your child grow. From laying down like a blob, to rolling over, to sitting up, and now to crawling. It brings great delight to my heart to see Connar grow.

Now I would still love him just as much if he stopped growing. But when he does grow, develop, and learn, it’s an absolute blast for me as a father. I imagine it brings God the Father great joy to see His children growing/learning/developing. Even in small steps. He still loves us when we stop growing for a time, but if we knew how much joy it brought Him to see His children growing, shouldn’t we then do all that we can to put ourselves in the path of growth: fellowship, worship, sacraments, the bible, prayer?

Today was an up-and-down type of day. I had planned on doing some early morning fishing, finishing by 10 am. However Connar’s teeth had other plans and he ended up staying awake from 3-4 ‘ish’ A.M. Not conducive to a 6 am wake up time.

That’s OK, because it left me more time to spend at Wachovia this afternoon, figuring out why checks I had supposedly deposited were bouncing. Of course I had never seen these checks before. Apparently someone got a hold of my account and was cashing bad checks. They call that fraud where I come from. So after an hour and a half in Wachovia, we seem to have the problem mostly solved.

Now for the “up” part. I got a call from Rick Montgomery from the Kansas City Star. He wanted to interview me for an article he’s writing on God and football- inspired by Kurt Warner’s outspoken Christianity. A little while ago, he stumbled upon one of my posts on scripture verses and eye black. Crazy, eh?

So we talked for about 15 minutes this afternoon, and he’s going to have the article done sometime this afternoon. He may or may not quote me. But it was still cool to have a visitor to the blog who is an accomplished writer for a major newspaper. I’ll post the article here as soon as it comes out.

One usually isn’t intellectually stimulated by Sports Talk. Yesterday was an exception. Sports reporter and adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s University Sal Palontonio has a new book out called How Football Explains America. He attempts to show how distinctly American football really is, even how it explains things like Manifest Destiny.

I only heard a snippet yesterday of an interview when he discussed the huddle. Other countries don’t get the “stop” in the action that we call a huddle. He began to explore the formation of the huddle as having its roots in the American ideal of free association. He discussed Alexis de Toqueville’s observation about how uniquely American free association is. And because of this, the huddle simply couldn’t have developed in Europe.

Then he moved on to the 2nd Great Awakening and how widespread free association became as revivals and churches began to spread across the Midwest. The football huddle formed out of this environment, having not only philosophical but religious roots. One of the founding fathers of football was studying divinity at Chicago.

I can neither confirm or deny these assertions, but they sure seemed thought provoking. I will probably order this book soon, once I finish one or two more on my ‘need-to-read’ list. But I’m already beginning to see how football COULD better explain America.

Florida fans, you can’t scoff at this book. He’s been in talks with UF to get this book used in their curriculum! NFL films president Steve Sabol calls this book “an intriguing blend of history, philosophy, and football.” Throw in theology (which I think he already does, and you have a grand-slam).