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.

Yesterday was a day of highs and lows, and I’m not talking about the tides. However they, by the way, have been awful lately, and what I’m blaming for my lack of fish in the boat (or rather kayak). Anyhow, I was down because the promised article from the Herald was no longer a possibility due to the proximity of our coffeehouse/art show (in two days). Then all of a sudden, a woman called and interviewed me. And 30 minutes after that, someone came by to take pictures. My office has never looked so good. Seriously. All the art crammed in the tight space covered over some of the other clutter.

To read the article, click here. I think they did a good job.

One of the reasons we do this coffehouse/art show each year is to give the community, our church, the Church in general a chance to more greatly appreciate the arts. Art, music, writing, story-telling don’t have to be explicity Christian to be good. God is a creative, story-telling God whom we honor by reflecting back that creativity through pursuing art, music, story-telling, and/or simply by appreciating the aforementioned through the arts.

My Reformed background has always expressed a high regard for arts, music, and cultural engagement. The Reformed view of the arts is to appreciate beauty and the creative processes God has given to men and women because they are in fact made in the image of God. Animals can’t do this, nor can their descendants. Christians ought to celebrate this unique God given creativity through the arts.

In addition to simply reflecting a creative God, art, music, story-telling point us to a greater story behind our story. To depict God’s world, even in its brokenness, points us to some aspect of God’s Ultimate story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. It needn’t be explicitly Christian, nor done by Christians for it to be of great benefit to us.

The NFL Draft was last Saturday and Sunday. And yes, I’m one of the football starved degenerates (I’m mad there’s no NFL-Europe anymore) that actually gets excited about it. Of course I had an elder retreat, sermon prep, and dinner with friends on Saturday night that precluded me from wasting my time following it. And just for the record, I DO think I could do a better job drafting than the Bucs usually do. But I’m probably wrong.

Anyhow there are two dominant strategies for how to pick a player: go with an area of need (for instance if you need a QB, then pick the best QB you can) or simply go with the best overall player available, regardless of need. Either way a team is obviously picking a person based solely on what they can bring to the ball club.

While I believe it is important to network as much as possible (two of my musicians for our upcoming Coffeehouse came from networking: they were friends/contacts of my friends), I need to be very careful not to treat relationships like an NFL draft. We are all prone to pick relationships based upon what others can do for us.

But the pattern we see in Jesus’ behavior and heart is very much the opposite. He perfectly modeled Phil 2:4 “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.” I’m not discounting the need to have friendships that build you up and don’t drain you. We need these.

But I know my tendency is to look at people like I would if I were drafting them to make “my team” better. Yet if I look at Jesus’ life, he builds his team not with high draft picks, but with un-drafted free agents that all other teams look over. And strangely enough, just like football, these un-drafted free agents can (they don’t have to) do amazing things for His Kingdom. Interestingly enough, retired Denver Bronco’s receiver Rod Smith, undrafted out of Missouri Southern State University, is the NFL’s 15th leading receiver.

But our final motivation to not look at others like an NFL draft is that Jesus doesn’t look at us like that. Fortunately. He didn’t choose us because of what we could do for him but simply out of love.

Sometimes its good just to laugh. Sometimes its just good to fish. This video combines both of them. Its a spoof on American Idol star Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus take the wheel.” Hope you enjoy.