Month: February 2005

I’m thinking of challenging my students and other to begin fasting on Friday’s in preparation for our mission trips coming up.

Last night I had the pleasure of sleeping at Good Shepherd. I hadn’t wanted to do this before, but I am not sure why. It was actually a pleasant experience and I’ll be going back tonight.

Good Shepherd is actually a retired monastery and present United Brethren church… I will admit to being confused on that part. Actually, it reminds me an awful lot of a youth hostel in Europe. This would be a lower class youth hostel but good enough for what I wanted.

It had a warm room, a semi-comfortable bed, a desk, hot showers, and silence. Just what a tired grad school guy needs!

I’ve had a bit more pleasant time down here this trip as there are many more students in my class and all of us seem to desire someone to hang out with. So far I haven’t had to eat alone nor have I been bored during free time.

This evening I will be looking for something to do and I may ever go to South Bend to see my dad and go to a ballgame at my alma mater, South Bend Clay High School.

For as long as I can remember people talking about seminary I can always remember it being called “cemetery.” The joke is always that this is where pastors go to kill their faith.

I am now in my 2nd semester at Huntington’s Grad School. The classes are fantastic but I am still greatly saddened by two things that are “missing” from my first 2 classes so far.

1. 40 hours. This is how many class hours I’ve spent without even a reading from God’s Word. We talk a lot “about the Bible” and church stuff without actually tearing into God’s Word. It has saddened me nearly to tears.
2. 40 Hours. This is how many class hours I’ve attended without spending more than 10 seconds in prayer at a time. Actually, I have prayed more with profs and students over food than we have over each other and our ministries! It has weakened me to the point of tears.

I’m not giving up. I’m not checking out. I’m not mad. But I do want to institute change. We should not be teaching God’s people about ministry without looking to the only authority that matters… God’s Word.

This is an illustration for my talk this evening. To see the rest of my notes, please follow the link.

During lunch yesterday I was distracted from time with my family by a facinating conversation at the table behind me. It was both a real live look into relationships and a sad story of bad choices.

Two young women came in and both were in their early 20’s. One wore the scrubs of a dental hygenist while the other one was just dressed in normal jeans and a sweatshirt. It drew my attention in that they were clearly happy to see one another, hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and were from the South.

After a few minutes of chatting they started to talk about the wedding plans of the woman in the scrubs. There was the typical excitement.

As lunch wore on the other young woman shared of her newfound love. She talked about her boyfriend and how they met at church. (Peeked my ears!) And then she talked about how she had waited for him her whole life and couldn’t wait to get married. Her friend chimed in, “I don’t know about you but I am in the same boat, I can’t wait to give my virginity to my husband in May.”

There was a cold silence from across the table. Then the optimistic chirp of someone trying to cover up her pain. She said, “You know, I always thought I’d wait to have sex until I got married, but I am just sure that Joey is the one.” She went on the explain that they hadn’t waited and that they were not only sleeping together but had moved in together “to save money to get married.” She then showed her engaged friend her “promise ring.” Her friend wasn’t unsupportive at all. In fact she didn’t miss a beat and the conversation continued on talking about their respective boyfriends.

As the conversation continued, the young lady shared with her friend how lonely she was. She wasn’t able to make or keep friends. “All I ever do is spend time with Joey. We both work and their’s barely any time for each other.” She talked about the friends at church who don’t seem to want to be around them anymore. She talked about the loneliness that now encompassed her life.

Later she talked about her last visit home. She had intended to take Joey down to meet her parents but he didn’t want to go since they couldn’t share a bedroom. So she went alone. She told her friend, “I wanted to stay down there for a couple of weeks, but I missed Joey so much… all I could do was cry.” She cut her trip home and quickly changed the subject to her college classes.

As Kristen and I talked about this conversation we had eavesdropped, we were both overcome by sadness. Here was a fantastic young lady, full of energy and potential, that had just given it all away. She and Joey had made a choice to do something that was outside of God’s plan for her, she knew it, and just chalked it up to “we love each other.” As a result she had lost all her friends. Her relationship with her parents was array. She was lonely. She had sacrificed her relationship with the living God for some relationship with a guy! It’s not that she didn’t know Jesus or wasn’t sealed by his blood, it is that there was no peace because there was rampant and unrepentent sin in her life! What she called good was destroying her and it made every fiber of my being ache. I was just sick for this young lady.

It is my fervent prayer that as we look to God’s Word about relationships we will take His loving Words for us seriously… even to the point of sacrificing what we want to please God with our whole lives.

This is a paper I wrote for my Historical Foundations class as a reflection on the book A History of Christian Education.

“Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

– Acts 2:40b-41

Certainly the Christians did not invent baptism. The practice of symbolically washing or identifying yourself through baptism existed all throughout the ancient world and was common among several ancient pagan religions. But Christians quickly repeated what Jesus had modeled to them. They used baptism to identify new believers with The Way.

Throughout the New Testament’s epistles we read of new believers being baptized soon after conversion. In the period around the first Pentecost thousands were baptized. (Acts 2:40) Paul baptized John the Baptist’s disciples in Corinth. (Acts 19:5) To the church in Ephesus Paul insisted that baptism united the church, (Eph 4:5) Paul and Peter agreed that baptism was to be used to symbolically identify all believers with Jesus. (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21) Among the first generations of believers is was clear that baptism was free and available to all. Remarkably, no restrictions are placed on who may be baptized, when they should be baptized, who should do the baptizing, where baptisms should take place or even how baptism should take place.

Even though the churches practice of baptism had a clear cut direction at the close of the apostolic period, it all changed quite mysteriously. It seems that as The Way became known as Christianity, it took on the formalities of earthly institutionalized religion. Much like Judaism, matters of the heart were soon made institutions as well. Within a few generations baptism was not widely practiced among the laity, even becoming restricted to social class.

It began simple enough as the church sought to make sure that they were baptizing true believers. After all, since these people didn’t have the gifts of an apostle, how else could they distinguish between believers and pretenders since they no longer had circumcision as the entry point as with the God-fearers in Judaism. As this baptismal education grew more formalized, it eventually began to exclude people. During Ignatius’ time this education was open to all and attracted mostly “from the lower, less-educated classes.” (A History of Christian Education, Findley Edge, p.78) By modern standards, this would have been acceptable and well received.

However, as the church became more institutionalized the ordinance of baptism became less available to the lower classes and more a sign of dedication which was reflected in a conscious step rather than an elementary faith step like before. Earlier baptismal education led the way to formal education for ministry. Ultimately, baptism became the entry point into priesthood instead of its originally intended identification with Christ. Such was the case with Gregory of Nyssa. In the 4th century he was not baptized until after he decided to take an active role in his local church. (Edge, p. 90) By the end of the 4th century it was clear that baptism was being made an ever more important separation between laity and clergy. “When Auxentius, bishop of Milan, died, Ambrose was soon named to replace him though Ambrose was still a catechumen. He was baptized and, eight days later, installed as bishop.” (Edge, p. 94) This is a clear paradigm shift from what the first century Christians practiced, taught, and believed.

Into the Middle and Dark ages the church became more and more restrictive and further institutionalized in their baptismal views. It is not that there were not commoners who believed, it’s that in the church they didn’t seem to matter. People became a commodity and not a resource. Little seems to be known about their baptism. Somewhere along the way the church fully associated baptism with salvation. As infant death was common during these times, it only made sense to baptize infants before death could snatch them away to hell. This really didn’t have anything to do with Scripture so much as it became a practical solution to a practical problem. Since the laity was ignorant of Scripture and only responsible to the clergy, why not cut out the education and conversion altogether and baptize everyone?

It was not until the Age of Reason that the people started to question the teachings of the church. It was widely assumed that the church operated both within and alongside the Scriptures. However, while the masses were uneducated the church had managed to create more of an institution than a living breathing organism. Baptism had become so institutionalized that records of infant baptism were substituted for birth certificates. Therefore, if you were not in good standing with the church, not only was your marriage illegal but your children did not really exist.

At the end of the day, the Reformation cried out… where are our ordinances? When the laity was exposed to the truth found in Scripture they were saddened to the point of outrage.

It’s Wednesday and I have a lot to do. For the most part this generally means that I am totally scatter-brained and other worldly useless!

I still have to finish my talk, gather a game, do either a PowerPoint or a talk sheet, and finish preparing the room.

Outside of church I must also finish my school work for grad school, keep Kristen going on her “pay bills in February to be ready to take over if I drop dead,” and worry/dread about the trip down to Indiana tomorrow and all the details that go on with that.

As I shared last week, I am in desperate need of a break and this trip to Huntington is just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes I struggle with making time for my relationship with Jesus and for some reason getting away to go down there gives me time to do that. Perhaps that is more valuable to me than the education?

Secret wish: I would never say anything in my class, but I long for this class to be in and about God’s Word. Sure, it’s about church history… But could we please open out Bible’s this time!

What a load of crap that slogan is!

I’m preparing a talk in our series The Wild World of Relationships and I was reminded of this mentality. The idea is that somehow dating in high school makes you a better mate in marriage.

Example: You’ll hear “How will I know what I like if I don’t try a bunch of different people out?” There is some truth to this, but this comes with a lot of baggage. This idea becomes the excuse for a performance and “me based” mindset to relationships. Quickly this turns into a list of likes and dislikes. Some of the loneliest singles I’ve ever met keep lists that are treated like the inspired Word of God. “No one over 6-4 or under 5-6, no one who has ever smoked, no one who has pulled a prank on their sister, someone who is a good kisser, someone who is white, someone who is funny, someone who is loaded, on and on and on.

Result: People date like mad. They are so in tuned to look for the perfect spouse, or just have fun, that they are willing to self-inflict great wounds on themselves. In the name of “testing things out” students will fall in and out of love. They get hooked up with bad apples. They want to be accepted so they do anything it takes. They give of themselves emotionally, lose friendships, give of themselves physically and sexually, and give of their time and dedication… All in the name of “you don’t know what you want until you’ve shopped around a bit.” What a crock!

While it rarely kills, it does hurt deeply. There are so many walking wounded among us that we don’t even see them anymore. It saddens me that more adults don’t share their pain from adolescence to help those younger than them along. They chose to mask it into terms like “I really was foolish” or “I didn’t walk with the Lord all the time.” Why don’t they just tell the truth?

I for one made mistakes as a high school student that have scarred my life. I don’t desire to hold that as a candle over my students, but I do want to warn them.

This morning in our “giggling gals” Bible study we came to a very tough chapter for Protestants, Revelation 18.

Historically, Protestants have attributed this chapter to judgment on the Roman Catholic Church. I am not comfortable with that judgment at all. Not because I am “so politically correct” so much as I just don’t see where the the interpretation applies anymore.

During the reformation I can clearly see the imagery being tied to Rome. The Catholic Church was in need of reform. When Luther read the words, “the seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sits” he no doubt thought of Rome’s seven hills. There’s good reason too as this “seven hills” has long been a symbol for Rome. But who’s to say that this isn’t talking about a “type of Rome.” Certainly, as we look forward the post-modern world is not ruled from Rome in the same way as it was during Luther’s day! Is the Vatican powerful? Absolutely. But no longer do even the leaders of Western Europe look to Rome for advice.

As I told my group this morning, I don’t know who this is representative of, but it is a person who is to come that is downright sinful. John describes them as someone whom “the kings of the earth commit adultery with.” It’s clear to me that this isn’t the RCC in whole because of the wondrous and marvelous reforms that she has gone through. Truly we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water… But it is more likely to be something that is a type of what the Catholic Church was during the reformation.

Since I am a baptist pastor… I’ll blame it on the Lutherans! It must be those people across the street and not me.