I generally see baseball in very pragmatic terms. It serves the sole purpose of ‘getting me though’ the tough times before football season starts once again. Then I drop it like a slippery trout, and it’s off my hands until next season. However lately, its been exciting to follow the Tampa Bay Rays (remember they are no longer Devil Rays, since that was a stupid name to begin with and there actually ARE NO Devil Rays on the west coast).

Whether its the name change, the new “uni’s,” the starting pitching, bullpen, defense, or all of the above, the Rays are now in first place. Yes, over the Yankees and over the Red Sox. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, but it feels good when teams with nearly 200 million dollar pay rolls lose to less funded teams (cheaper owners is really what it all boils down to). Regardless, it is a blast to see a perennial loser beat up on some of the bullies in the neighborhood.

Our team reigns, for now. And I want people to know about it-Sports Center has yet to show much love. But I want more people to know. For the Christian, as evidenced in Jesus’ resurrection, and start of His Kingdom moving forward (His will in heaven being done more on Earth, restoring all aspects of fallen creation), our God reigns. We should have much more confidence (the Rays reigning is only temporary, and maybe REALLY temporary) and far more joy in the fact that our God reigns. As a result, we go forth into the world motivated by our joy, to express this to others via the gospel and our gospel acts of mercy, reconciliation, love, hospitality, renewal, etc…

Sometimes folks who spew forth 95 % garbage, can say very true things. Theologians call this Common Grace, and is part of being made in the image of God. Even people who hate Jesus can say true things. Take Bubba the Love Sponge for instance. Not a fan of Jesus.

I was traveling back home from the church to get my Ipod before heading to presbytery in S. Sarasota (there’s no way I was going to drive 35 minutes there and back and not listen to a good lecture). Well, there were commercials on both of my normal sports talk programs, so I flipped to my 4th (after my CD that I was tired of listening to) option: Bubba the Love Sponge. Every so often I’m curious as to what he’s talking about. He is quite a repulsive individual, yet today I found myself agreeing with him.

Today he was angry with the prosecutor for the Sean Taylor murder case. The prosecutor will not seek the death penalty for the two young men in the case. Apparently one of the dudes who shot Taylor was under 18 years of age when he committed the crime. So the real question that Bubba raised was, “Why do you have to be 18 to be held FULLY accountable?” He reasoned that his kids who are 6 and 7 know right from wrong. “To not know right from wrong, you have to be retarded.”

While I might word that last sentence a little differently, Bubba makes a good point. People know right from wrong at a very young age and yet choose that which is wrong. Whether they are 16 or 18, they know shooting people is wrong.

So on this rare occasion, Bubba, I salute you. It might not happen again for a long time, so savor the flavor.

Amy had her last day of school today. Its been an amazing year for her. God has been so good to her, as He gave her a class of All Stars. The odds of such a truly unique, smart, well behaved, and loving bunch of kids coming together is like 1 in 75 years; kind of like Haley’s Comet.

Anyhow I was formally and cordially invited to come in for a pizza party and take pictures. The party was intended to help the kids could get a little more closure that she would not be coming back. I’m glad I came, because I got to take home the left-over Domino’s Pizza.

One of the girls named Jasmine drew a picture for me. I guess it had me and her in it. BTW-If you ever have the need to feel like a celebrity, walk into an inner city kindergarten class. They treat you like royalty, without acting like Paparrazzi. Upper-Middle class Kindgerteners may do the same, but I wouldn’t know since Amy has only taught in title one schools.

Every time I go there, someone draws a picture for me. No Picaso’s in the making, but their pictures are done with love and do put a smile on my face. Not because of the quality of their work, but because of the desire of their hearts: to bless me.

I think there is some similarity with our praise before God. Our offerings before Him probably look like little kid art. We often think we’re offering Picaso worthy stuff to him, but its probably more like stick figures. Yet God delights in the praise of His children. They make Him smile. Its not the worthiness of the art He’s after, but the desire simply to honor and bless His name.

She’s planning on tutoring some next year, so I may not have seen the last of little kid art. I may just have to share the spotlight with “little T.”

Today I had to make a decision on something that would be somewhat public. I’m staying vague here because of law suits. Not really, but you do never know who will sue you in our litigious society.

Anyhow, I sought some counsel with a friend whom I consider more mature in the Lord than I (though not that counsel from less mature folks is worthless), and who once walked in my shoes. Again, I’m staying generic.

However, I’m so thankful and filled with joy that I have someone-actually I have several folks-that I can ask hard questions to and listen to their counsel. Most Christians have folks like these in their circles, but because of pride, self-autonomy, and disdain for accountability don’t actually invite them into their lives.

But it is a beautiful thing for someone younger in the faith (again, the order can be reversed sometimes) to come to someone older and say, “What would you do in this situation” or “do you think this is really wrong?” I’ll never forget a college girl who asked me my best bud whether or not she should take a job as a bar tender. I still can’t believe that a college person sought counsel! May we all be more like this girl, or woman, now.

I’m not happy about the economy being down, gas prices going up, house prices going down. Mine has dropped a ton! But God’s grace has still been at work in a way we might often overlook. Our main sense of security more often than not is in our houses, bank accounts, savings. They seem to be bastions of security. But they are ultimately are vain idols.

A church planter I talked to several weeks ago informed me that God had been destroying such idols of security before his very eyes. A man with roughly 400, 000 in a particularly company (I can’t remember which) lost just about all of it when that company folded. Suddenly his heart was more open to the gospel. He was willing to talk.

Until the nation recovers, and I obviously do want it to, perhaps we should be more active in praying for/sharing with folks to run to the only REAL security we can have in life and death (Heidelberg Catechism Q 1). When the bottom drops out, people reach for something more transcendent. Like Soren Kirkegaard, a Danish philosopher, we only hope that folks are reaching out to find a nail scarred hand, not more vain idols.

My favorite sports talk host Jim Rome gets emails signed from people, emotions, states of mind, states, etc…Well somehow I’m getting comments from an entity known exclusively as “Spam.” It has found its way to the comment section of my blog. I’m not a fan.

Anyhow, for those who know Amy, I’d like for you to take a guess on when you think she will be delivering “Little T.” The due date is May 21st. I’m taking the over, and I think she is as well. Please post if you think she’ll go earlier or later than that day (if you’re not familiar with gambling terminology).

Lately I’ve been having a fun time scheduling things. I really have. There is not a huge section of my life that is truly organized. OK, there probably isn’t a small section either, except when it comes to Contacts and Calendar-courtesy of Apple and Microsoft respectively. Since I’ve become a pastor most everything big I do, or person I meet with, is put on my electronic calendar. If something happens, and it gets canceled, no harm, no foul. I just electronically delete it.

Now that Amy is due in two weeks, everything I plan becomes extremely tentative. And all the more so as the Vday (or technically B-day for birthday, but I like WWII terms better sometimes) approaches. So now I’ll tell people when I plan something with them, “We’ll say ‘tentatively’ Tuesday at noon” or something like that. I even have to have back up plans for preaching this Sunday, and for my report on the floor of presbytery next Tuesday. I seriously do have a “Pinch Preacher.” No lie. Hope you don’t have to see or hear him.

Anyhow, I got to thinking, as I sometimes do, and thought, “Everything is ultimately tentative.” Nothing is set in stone. There really isn’t a need to add ‘tentatively’ to my plans. There is a tentativeness about life that should simply be presupposed. James 4:13-ff reminds us to say, “If the Lord wills, we will do this or that.”

However, I don’t think we need a literal recitation of these words every time we make plans. In fact it bothers me sometimes when people have to say EVERYTIME “Lord willing, I will see you tomorrow.” I know everything depends upon Lord willing. I’m Reformed and know that all things happen according to God’s Sovereign will.

Maybe I need reminders of that truth sometimes. But it does sound unnecessarily redundant if I already presume EVERYTHING is according the Lord’s will. Maybe I’m just being picky, but you don’t need to say “Lord willing to me” every time you see me. Thanks.

Ever since I listened to a great lecture and follow-up Q & A on evangelism by a church planter from New Mexico (who encouraged pastors to do more work outside the office), I’ve been challenged to follow his lead. So I did a few hours of work in a coffeehouse on Friday. It cost me. Unfortunately the 2 allotted hours in its present spot was taken quite literal. I showed up about 2 hours and ten minutes later to find an ugly stinkin’ ticket on my windshield.

Everybody hates, or at least gets quite angry with the ‘parking ticket cops.’ One of our golf cart parking ticket ladies at Furman was actually attacked by a local, high on drugs. And no one felt bad. I wasn’t an eyewitness and was unavailable for comment. I still am.

Around any downtown area, these ticket cops hover over cars like vultures, waiting for their time to expire. And to make matters worse, they seem to take great delight in ruining people’s days.

Then something hit me as I drove passed the ticket cop with some anger in my heart. I preached the other day on the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. This Sunday, I’ll be preaching on The Parable of the Hidden Treasure (just a shameless plug). I think the parking ticket cop would have made for a much better illustration. I used people least likely to be seen in church: strip club owners or gay folk.

But as community, who likes these ticket cops? Strippers, gay folk, democrats haven’t personally ‘wronged me’ (I know 10 minutes over is still 10 minutes). That only scratches the surface of what tax collectors would do back in the day. They would actually keep the money for themselves. If this ticket lady were keeping the money for herself and charging arbitrary (not 25 dollars if paid on time) fines, then we’d have a pretty close parallel.

And it just reminds me how shocking Jesus really was. And he still is now. How offensive would this parable have been to its original religious audience? Amazingly offensive. When Jesus stops offending us today (remember his greatest offenses were to the religious crowd), we need to stop following a religiously comfortable, fabricated Jesus; and follow the real, offensive one.

This will be my final post on our coffeehouse. We had a decent turnout this year. Quality music by folks who were outside THE Church, outside OUR Church, and inside OUR church. The art was quality as well, in my humble non-artistic opinion. All in all, we left the evening encouraged and probably will do it again next year.

One affect of the coffeehouse/art show that we had hoped for was for more Christians to enter into this creative world. None of us expected we should see such fruit almost immediately.

After the coffeehouse on Friday, several folks hung out for several hours and began to write a song. I wasn’t there but I’m told that four of them contributed to either the music and/or lyrics.

There are some extremely well written hymns (with some being better/worse than others) and it is a mistake to throw them out. However, it is also a mistake to ignore any new hymns/praise songs (I know that many are shallow, but not all, for instance “In Christ Alone”). And it is still a bigger mistake to not continue writing new hymns/praise songs. Has God stopped working in the hearts of believers or our world? Then we ought to write and sing about it.

Here is an excerpt from a song called Sacred Seduction which several of our young adults composed on Friday evening (or I guess early Sat morning) and sang for our offertory Sunday morning.

All that I can see, Is you drawing me into your arms
Wiping clean my tears of fear and alarm
Who can resist, your sacred seduction
Slowly breaking down my defenses

Miriam sang after crossing the sea, Deborah after victory over Jabin, David after one of his many deliverances in Psalm 40, Paul quotes a hymn celebrating Christ’s victory in Phil 2. So why should we stop singing or composing new songs?

I’m now a man with no more baby classes. I probably even look different. We only have to go to Lakewood Ranch once a week (instead of 2-3 nights) for doctors visits. Soon “Little T” will become Connar or Anna Kate. Soon.

Anyhow, I just wanted to follow up on the last post about our coffeehouse, and why we are doing it. Some folks would wonder why we care at all about cultural transformation, restoring neighborhoods, bringing community where there is none, etc…Many Christians have put for the question: why should you care anything about the world around you, or enter into the world and culture since it is all going to be destroyed? They have compared such efforts to polishing the deck of the Titanic (BTW-last week two separate people used this analogy as a way not to think of culture so I find it apropos to use it now). Why do anything when the ship is going down anyway?

Such thought arises from the Anabaptist tradition. During the period of the Protestant Reformation, two streams of thought developed. The Anabaptists sought to flee from cultural involvement, politics, military, etc…They divided the world into spiritual and secular. The spiritual component was sacred and eternal, while the secular world of politics, military, the arts, were left to others. Now there were some amazing Anabaptists who endured fierce persecution from not only the Catholics, but other Protestants (to our shame), so I commend them on such amazing perseverance. Yet I think their cultural legacy leaves something out.

The Reformed view of the world leaves no distinction between sacred and secular. According to this world-view, there should be no major section of the world and culture in which Christians shouldn’t be present. Again, as mentioned in the last post, they don’t have to be witnessing to others in order to fulfill their calling in work. As Christians go forth, they ought to embrace and express truth, beauty, love, goodness about God and His world. Painting a picture of a beautiful sunset or radiant full moon displays something about our creator in the same way that the moon, stars, sky display something of God (Psalm 19:1-2). It doesn’t have to have a bible verse (though I’m not knocking art that does) to honor God.

One day we will have a whole new world, as heaven comes down to Earth. And on that world we will have culture which perfectly and fully emphasizes truth, beauty, and goodness. There is a picture in Revelation of the different kings of the earth bringing their glory to the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:33). We bring the best of our culture into the new world we are promised. It’s more that we are getting a head start in this magnificent endeavor than we are polishing the deck of a sinking ship.