Category: hmm… thoughts

I want this to come out the right way. I don’t want anyone to misread me to think that I’m attacking Focus on the Family or James Dobson. So, what I’m about to say may sound harsh and may sound like I am not uplifting…. but I don’t know any other way to say it.

I want to delineate between the ministry of Focus on the Family (which I like) and the political person of its founder, James Dobson.  This is who I am talking about…

This isn’t my guy. I don’t care what Slate says… He doesn’t speak for me as an evangelical, his thoughts are not my thoughts, and his agenda is not my agenda. And I don’t think I’m alone.

It seems to me that leaders in the "middle" politically and those interested in reaching today’s culture are distancing themselves from the man they used to court… and here is why. Personal arrogance. He assumes that the following he has built teaching families how to rear their children can be used as political influence… and he will discover a striking defeat because  the  middle is tiring of his tirades and  too far right meddling.

There is a perfect example of this from Christianity Today:

In a March 1 letter
to L. Roy Taylor, chairman of the NAE Board, Focus on the Family
Chairman James Dobson and others said the NAE vice president’s activism
on global warming is "a threat to the unity and integrity" of the
organization.

"The issue that is dividing and
demoralizing the NAE and its leaders is related to global warming,"
wrote the leaders, none of whom are members of the association. "If he
cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals on
environmental issues, then we respectfully suggest that he be
encouraged to resign his position with the NAE." Article

Instead, it is Dobson who choses to divide evangelicals over his personal agenda. Who is James Dobson to try to bully the National Association of Evangelicals into firing someone? Does he really think that getting a leader fired is an act of unification? Does he not see that young evangelicals are passionate enough about social action, the environment, and the war in Iraq to gladly vote in moderately liberal Democrats instead of the super far right Republicans Dobson demands? Does he think that antics like this impress anyone?

What do I mean, "He doesn’t represent me?" Simply put… his scare tactics belittle Christians and that annoys me. He assumes that we are not sophisticated enough to figure out issues on our own… so he pushes his agenda further and further to the right… completely isolating most evangelicals in the middle. His solutions rarely involve compromise, instead he and his organization seems to insist on either getting his way or begging listeners to call their congressmen.

Why aren’t you hearing more about this? Well… truthfully, most will vote by their silence instead of their mouths. Many leaders will simply stop mentioning Dobson and his politics… because they fear the flaming they will likely receive. And that’s probably the way it should be… the best way to not encourage someone’s influence is just to let it go.

What am I looking for politically? I’ve not seen a candidate for President come out about the issues I am actually interested in voting for. And I think that this election will come down two extreme moderates… and I haven’t seen one yet.

I don’t know what it is about us guys… but we like to bite off more than we can chew. We like to think that we can do it all.

I can’t. Or rather… I chose not to. I must not be a "real man" who can do it all. So, I dropped one of the things in my life that was causing me a massive amount of stress.

For an indefinite period… no more grad school.

I need to focus on the massive wide open doors of ministry in front of me and stop trying to kid myself that I belong in "serious academic" study. My job right now is to be a husband, dad, and pastor. That’s important enough for me.

Perhaps one day the door will open again and it will be obvious for me to continue? But for now, I’m closing that door by choice to focus on other things. You know what? I feel better for doing it too. I feel like it’s one great big stressful ball of stuff I don’t have to think about for now.

Amen.

About two weeks ago I had the pleasure of filling in for Bob as he was on his way to San Diego. The text and audio are available on the church website.

I know that some of my readers don’t know much about me or even what I sound like… so here you go.

Immediate Response text

I was thinking about this in light of some "tongue in cheek" conversations lately about me. Everyone seems to know what they are looking for me to do and be… believe me, I don’t ever and can’t possibly measure up to everyone’s "list."

So here’s my quick list of what I’m looking for in a church attender:

• Faithful: Makes attendance a priority (Want a number? 45+ Sunday’s per year),   makes the church’s vision a priority in their lives, prays for the church, gives to the church, talks positively about the church, deals with conflict in accordance to what Jesus teaches.
• Available: Not wrapping their entire lives up in the church, but is available to serve in accordance to the gifts God has given them. 1 Corinthians 12 teaches that the church body is made up of many parts… unavailable parts mean that the church is handicapped in it’s mission.
• Teachable: They learn from God’s word with open ears. As James writes, the exemplify the difference between "hearing" and "receiving."

This isn’t a new list. This has long been taught by Sonlife… and I like it.

There are a lot of people trolling the community for "the perfect church" in their eyes. As if fallible people could somehow create something infallible? Along the same accord, I wonder how many people trolling church’s are willing to ask themselves, "Am I a good church attender? Am I willing to be faithful, available, and teachable at any church?"

So, before you compare people to your ideal… make sure you’re looking at yourself with "sober judgment." Romans 12:3

And my responsibility is to live up the expectations that God has for me, not those of public opinion. Praise God for His abundant grace and mercy!

Last night a member of YMX and friend sent me an email that just dropped my jaw. After exchanging a couple of emails to make sure we were really talking about the same thing and that he wasn’t kidding… the emotions of someone offering such a blessing to us started to sink in.

It’s amazing when God’s people do something that is a pure blessing. It is incredibly encouraging… which is what I told him. To which he replied, "Encouragment is what we do.
That and make fart noises with our armpits."

I slept until 9:00 AM this morning. That’s the first time for that in quite a long time. It definitely reflects the length of days last week. I’m hoping for a more relaxed pace this week.

I don’t visit tons of college campuses, but I do visit several per year. And every since I was a college student at a Christian college I’ve been bothered by this.

What is that? It’s something I call "pseudo-homosexualality." I know that isn’t a word, but once I describe it you’ll recognize it straight away. I’ve seen it on every Christian college campus I’ve been on in the last few years. Wheaton, Trinity, Cornerstone, Cedarville, Grace, Huntington, and of course my alma mater, Moody.

What? It looks like this. You are sitting there in a college coffee shop, minding your own business. And two completely straight guys are taking turns rubbing one another’s feet at the table next to you. If you weren’t on a Christian campus, say if you were at the local Starbucks, you would immediately say to yourself, "Whatever, they’re gay. Not for me but whatever." But on a Christian campus you see stuff like that all the time. Other examples: Girls holding hands for long periods of time. Girls cuddling on couches. Guys giving one another extended backrubs in public. Two girls rubbing lotion on one another’s hands in chapel. Both genders being far too flirtatious with the same sex in public.

I am not saying that what they are doing makes them gay. All I am observing is that if this behavior were happening outside of the "safety of a Christian college bubble" it would automatically be labeled as homosexual. Instead… it’s not really homosexual behavior since the people are straight, it just looks homosexual.

I don’t want this to be misread as gay hate speach. (Though, I believe any sex of any kind outside of the marriage of a man/woman is against God’s law. Gay or straight.) This is just an observation from something I see at all Christian campuses I visit. There is a ton of overly feminine behavior out of the guys!

Not to pick on Grace simply because I’m here now. But, the decor in most of the buildings is very feminine. To the point where I wondered if they were interested in attracting guys at all? Maybe it’s the same at all the colleges we visit. But I’m noticing it here. I’ll have to be on the look out for that at other colleges.