Strategic excuses – The excuse you come up with that makes some strategic sense, but you really want to do because it’s awesome.
Examples:
– A speaking gig in Hawaii, Vail, or the Florida Keys rolls in. Hey, those kids need Jesus, too.
– My church won’t give me time away for continued education, so I’m going to time a pregnancy so that I can attend a conference on my maternity leave.
– We host an annual youth group end-of-year bash, so I need to put in a deck and buy a massive grill. The hot tub is really for building community.
– I want my kids to have their friends over all-the -time, so we built a 3 story tree house. Sure, we bought my next door neighbors house for the tree and leveled their home, but we got a good deal and now my kids don’t have to go anywhere.
There’s nothing wrong with a strategic excuse. (Well, OK… Maybe some are a smudge selfish) In fact, I think 90% of the people who complain about the strategic excuses their friends have– do so because they haven’t figured out how to make it happen.
“The Bible isn’t for people outside of the church to understand. So it isn’t your place to make the Gospel accessible.“
That may be the dumbest quote I’ve ever heard in relation to using sound missiological principles to reach a dead and dying people group. And yet, this quote apparently came from the mouths of smart, biblically authoritative evangelicals upset with the work of a young leader.
Just so people know: This isn’t the position of middle-of-the-road evangelicals. It’s not even the position of anyone reasonably conservative in the evangelical world. It’s a radically fundamentalist position which denies the very presuppositions of evangelicalism!
History counters this statement: The evangelical missions movement of the 19th and 20th century saw hundreds of thousands give their lives in work and thousands more give their lives as martyrs making the Gospel accessible to unreached people groups. Such a statement slaps those people in the face.
Such a statement devalues the activity of nearly every evangelical in their daily workplace. It denies the action of church planting. It denies the the very notion that we, as believers, can impact the Kingdom with our actions.
In short– its not an orthodox position. We must rally behind those who are reaching the lost!
It is our job, as believers, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, to bring the Bible to the lost and see the Gospel renew the people and their land. (Ephesians 2:10)
The statement above is why the church needs a change in leadership. We need people with level heads who are smart, savvy, and reasonable. Those holding extreme positions are not bad people. They just shouldn’t be in authority.
Middle-of-the-road evangelicals are tired of culture wars. We are longing for fresh voices and fresh leadership. We simply want to right wrongs, reach the lost, and love their neighbors. (All in the name of Jesus, under the power of Jesus, and for the purpose of making Jesus known) We will continue to distance ourselves from extremist.
While extremists lament and pontificate, we will continue to reaching the lost, righting wrongs, and loving our neighbors.
People at high levels who say/think/perpetrate these thoughts devalue the entire purpose of the Gospel in order to protect their own self-interests. At the end of the day, that’s what the statement must be about. Protecting their self-interests. The statement isn’t true and doesn’t represent the tenants of our movement— so to say such a thing reveals that they are putting their own interests above all else.
The lesson is– if you take a stand for truth you must be willing to stand up against the religious establishment, and continue to speak the truth in love despite their sneers and allegations of heresy.
Today is no different than the time of John Wycliffe, who died shunned by the religious establishment.
Sadly, shunning is part of reforming.
For those who are bringing fresh wind into the sails of the movement, my encouragement is to boldly ask those people set aside what they are comfortable with for the sake of the Gospels spread.
The spread of the Gospel to unreached people groups, whether home or abroad, is never comfortable. It has never been comfortable. And we cannot win hearts until we are willing to walk in the tension of discomfort for the sake of others.
Here in San Diego, gardening season doesn’t really end. It just kind of reloads. Our summer garden stuff is starting to give way to fall plantings. Lettuce, onions, bok-choy, broccoli, cauliflower, and a wide variety of other things are just a few weeks away!
Photo by goto10 via Flickr (Creative Commons)“Let’s go watch freshmen arrival day!”
I have a sick sense of humor. But I loved being on campus the day the new freshmen arrived at Moody. And one year I really did take the day off to enjoy the drama and help out a little bit with confused parents and freshmen.
It’s a day full of highs and lows. For incoming freshmen its a huge day when their parents drive away and they have to figure out life without the security blanket. For parents you can tell its a bit rough. Well, not for everyone. But its rough for some parents!
The joke was that you could tell birth order by how many people made the trip.
First born: The whole family came even if they drove from across the country. Mom, dad, and siblings all waited in line for the dorm room keys and welcome packet. Little brothers wandered the courtyard while mom and dad made nervous small talk with other parents. After they get all of their kids stuff into the tiny dorm room, they explored campus a little before taking their child out for one last meal together. They walked, ever so slowly, back to campus. If mom can think of anything they’ve forgotten she will stall it by making a trip to Target. But in the end, before dinner, there would be tears as they drove away. The first born would hold it together at least until the car was out of sight.
Middle child: Typically, one parent made the trip for boys and both came if it was a girl. Since they knew what to expect they would make their child stand in line while the parents unloaded the car. With keys in hand they did the whole routine a bit faster. And the whole thing was noticeably less emotional. They would drop everything off in the room, make a quick run for lunch, and try to get out of their child’s hair fairly quickly. Interestingly, it was usually the child who was left crying on the curb as the parents drove off. Almost in shock… as if to say, “But when you dropped off Chip you stayed a lot longer, you just left me here?” Once a middle child, always a middle child. Suck it up, kid.
The baby: This was an either or scenario. And the truth was that I would just hang out on freshmen day to see how it went. Some families just sent dad. You could always tell this scenario by where dad had parked. He would pull into the visitors lot in the family minivan and park in the 15 minute zone. Immediate loading and unloading only. Dad would get out of the van looking at his watch. He’d carefully unload all of the kids stuff onto the sidewalk while the child raced to go get a cart. Typically, the child would return just as dad was finishing up. The child expected dad to load up the cart and go upstairs… just like they had with the other kids. But dad would look at his watch, then point to the 15 minute parking sign. He’d give a hug to his baby and get in the car. Stunned, volunteers would help the student with her things while dad zipped out of the parking lot, and the child cried. Dad would give one look back and race off with a huge smile. The other scenario was equally funny. Mom and dad would make the journey, unpack the car, give their kid a hug… and hold hands as they basically skipped back to their car. As they pulled away, the windows were rolled down and Barry White was blasting. Something tells me mom and dad got a hotel room nearby… just in case their child needed them, of course. Freedom!
My first freshmen day
I was an atypical freshman at Moody. Since I needed to pay my own way through school, I actually had moved to campus in May of my senior year to start working full time. (I skipped the last 2 weeks of school, then came for graduation.) But about two weeks before classes started they allowed us to move from our summer dorms onto the floor we’d been assigned.
This meant that I was the only one on the 7th floor for two weeks. (Uh, since I had a master key, I confess I moved in a few weeks early. Don’t tell the dean.) Since I wasn’t arriving for freshmen orientation and I was done with my campus job, I actually lost track of which day people showed up. Somewhere in there my RA had came. But he had gone to a retreat and was never around. Essentially, I was by myself on a floor with 16 rooms. It was a big empty space and I’d had fun figuring out things to do in my spare time.
Somewhere in those two weeks it became a habit that I’d not carry clothes to the showers. It was funny as an 18 year old to walk the long hallway to the bathroom naked. Who am I kidding? Given the same choice I’d probably do the same thing today.
So, on freshmen check-in day, I was leaving the bathroom and heading back to my room. I had my towel over my shoulder and that was it. As I went to put the key in my door I heard a gasp. Yup, a first born was checking in down the hall. Mom, dad, and kid sister had an interesting first meeting with their sons floor mate!
Oops.
After that, I got dressed and went through the line to officially check-in. The girl in front of me wouldn’t stop talking. She thought she had met her husband. And I got introduced to the idea of a stalker.
This is our cat, Lovely. There is some disagreement on how we keep cats. We allow our cats to be both indoors and outdoors.
Lovely is about 3.5 years old. We got her back in 2007 from an ad in the paper. Her brother got lost along the way, sadly.
Here in California she has thrived. She hunts birds of all varieties, lizards, snakes, mice, rats, and lots and lots of bugs.
She’s also very active in the neighborhood cat community. Some of the cats play together and some just spend countless hours defending their territory. Lovely does a little bit of both.
I’m not a huge cat person. But I do love her function in our family. She is cuddly and nice to Megan and eats all the critters I’m afraid of.
Books are great. Reading is fundamental. I’m all about practical resources and history and stories that carry you away to far away lands.
But lets not get to the point where we stop thinking creatively about resourcing ourselves. Or acting in a way worthy of a historian writing about us. Or living a life that is a fantastic story which carries us to far away lands.
You don’t change the world by sitting on a couch and reading a book. Change is an action.
Don’t use books as a way to wuss out.
Think for yourself.
Act for yourself.
You can create.
Put the books down and get outside– live a story-worthy life.
Inspiration is one thing. Inaction is unforgiveable.
There’s lots of fun stuff happening in our garden. Watermelon are coming in strong. And we’re hoping to pick a big batch of jalapeño this weekend. Right behind that are a whole heap of eggplant.
Our little garden experiment is going quite well. Thanks to all who encourage us.
