shades of gay

Last week I heard Dennis Jernigan, a worship leader who's written popular choruses like "You are my all in all," speak about his previous identification as a homosexual, his "deliverance" from it in 1981, and his ministry since then. Jernigan and his wife have nine children, so I guess the transition, um, "took" for him. (Although nine does seem like overkill; dude, we get it, you're straight.)

I have to admit I'm skeptical of gay and lesbian "reversal;" I think some people are born with a tendency toward homosexuality. Now, before you get angry, think it through: that's not a justification of homosexual behavior. However, it is a belief that we live in a world broken and twisted by sin, and just as some people are born more likely to become alcoholics (but can choose not to drink), others are born more likely to experience homosexual desires (but can choose not to act on them).

This is not a popular perspective among Christians because it's not as black and white as believing gays and lesbians have simply chosen to rebel against God. It requires muddling through big questions in a larger grey area: Some homosexuals come from happy families with no history of abuse or parental neglect--if those are the triggering issues, why are they gay? What about the many healthy, heterosexual adults with childhood horror stories--why aren't they gay?

Wrestling with this issue also forces us to rethink our blanket categorization of "them" and makes it more difficult to distance ourselves from a lifestyle we may find distasteful as well as sinful. Perhaps, as fellow rebellers-against-God, we are not as dissimilar as we'd like to think.

In a recent Relevant article, Steve Brown writes, "I have a friend who says that you see a lot of fat preachers yelling at gay folks, but very few gay folks yelling at fat preachers. He was making the point that nobody has the luxury of speaking as an outsider of the human race..." So what about church life: can a celibate, accountable homosexual serve in church leadership? If not, can an unaccountable overeater?

I'm not sure if homosexuality is biological destiny or willful choice. Either way, the church will--must--grapple with these issues in coming years. If homosexuality is a choice, we must provide a compelling alternative community to the ones currently enjoyed by people in alternative lifestyles. (In its reaction to the AIDS crisis, the gay community has modeled friendship, family and sacrificial love for each other in ways the church should have.) If it's an inborn tendency, we must provide a well-articulated, grace-filled rationale for God's design of one man and one woman, and offer support for gay people to choose celibacy or move this direction--with or without having enough children for their own soccer team.

Okay, I can't take it anymore

In that subject line, "can't" is short for "cannot," right? The easy way to discover whether you are using contractions correctly is to replace the abbreviated version with the two words the shortened version is replacing.

So, for instance:

Randall gives each of his pets its own warm blanket to sleep on.--Correct

Randall does not think its a problem to have a "For Sale: Meat and Pets" sign in his yard.--Incorrect (on several levels)

I just read a slick brochure from LifeWay with "it's" used incorrectly. If I'm the only writer in Tennessee who knows these rules, it seems I should be making lots (not lot's) more money.

extra, extra

Most DVDs now come with extras--deleted or extended scenes, commentaries, or "making-of" featurettes. While the printed word doesn't lend itself to this in quite the same way, blogs and websites do allow for behind-the-scenes glimpses into the final product.

Last weekend's Christian Standard included my article for the "year of the elder" (all CS contributing editors will write something on this topic in '08). You can read "Leading Men," about the efforts of a few churches to develop teenage and adult men into spiritual leaders, by clicking here. And while I'm quite aware these won't generate the excitement of, say, the screen tests for Juno, here are a few extras:

--Turns out women aren't the only gender who have trouble being friends in groups of three. One year, Heritage Christian had an odd number of guys in their "Joshua's Men" classes and tried dividing the men into groups of three instead of the usual accountability groups of two. They found it didn't work at all--apparently there is something quite powerful about that one-on-one partnership.

--The Men of Issachar program at First Christian Church in Ft. Myers, FL, got its start when Mike Bauman got restless during his Sunday school class and left to stretch his legs and pop in on his 6th grade son's class. As Mike and MOI co-founder Mark Webb say, "Classrooms are fine, but boys learn differently."

--Although MOI now has a detailed, structured curriculum for every stage of the program, at the beginning Mike and Mark's main goal was "not to get eaten alive" by the junior high boys in their class.

--One of the speakers at the Joshua's Men meetings is Vickie Sloderbeck. She and her husband Jim speak on "intimate issues" (i.e. sex) based on the book of the same name. Vickie wrote the companion workbook to this book.

--Both Heritage and First Christian have seen a need for parallel women's studies. At Heritage that's "WOW"---Women of Worth--and at First Christian it's "Queen Esther's Court," created by Mike Bauman's wife and some other ladies from the congregation. Like MOI, Queen Esther's Court introduces spiritual principles through interactive activities and a structured yearly program.

--A homeschool group in Michigan recently joined the roster of MOI "Allies." The group uses the program to provide activities and discussions for homeschooled boys and their dads, who meet individually and with other home-schooling families once each month.

happy birthday to me

Here's to another year of marching to the beat of my own drum!

mission statement

Yesterday I had lunch with Greg and Jana Perry. They are a delightful couple and although it began as a "working lunch" so I could interview them for Buzz, I left with two more Nashville friends (for those of you keeping score at home, this brings the grand total to eight and a half--one is only two years old).

Greg serves as Executive Director of World Wide Youth Camps, a churches of Christ-affiliated organization that runs Christian camps for orphans in Russia and Ukraine using camp facilities built by the USSR and previously used to promote communism.

Our conversation made me think about short-term missions. WWYC welcomes a few American teams each year, but they intentionally use these teams to not only participate in the summer camps but to facilitate connections between the kids and in-country, native adults who have been trained as mentors. These mentors then take over the discipling, relationship-building and shepherding of the kids. The approach takes advantage of the short-term volunteers while acknowledging that real life change takes time.

Most churches I know encourage short-term missions and many lead groups themselves or partner with parachurch organizations to schedule annual trips. This seems like a good thing: it exposes sheltered suburban Americans to urban poverty and second or third-world cultures and it theoretically supports missionaries in the field.

However, like many aspects of American spirituality it may be more selfish than sacrificial; these trips feel good to those who go, but I wonder how often they function as a distraction to the "real" mission work. After all, missionaries must think up activities for these groups to participate in, and even if they already planned to hold a VBS or teach an English class it would be easier to do it themselves than to use a group of Americans struggling to speak the language and digest the food.

And what about the people being evangelized? Even if the missionary manages to keep regular church, school or Bible study going while preparing for the team's arrival, isn't it confusing for the Africans or Costa Ricans to see waves of foreigners coming and going? Surely they must feel a bit like fish in an aquarium as Americans push their noses to the glass and observe.

I participated in a two-week trip to Venezuela when I was 16 and, yes, it did open my eyes to cultural differences and to the wealth and freedom we enjoy in this country. I did benefit from seeing God's work outside my own little world, and although I did not become a missionary because of the experience I'm sure others do. But 15 years later I wonder if the thousands of dollars we raised to go on the trip wouldn't have made more impact as a cash donation to the mission.

I'm all for our fast-food-eating, cell-phone-texting, self-absorbed teens (and adults) experiencing something of the bigger picture. I'm just not sure we should make this education our missionaries' problem.

Pout to the Lord

A few days ago a reader asked my opinion on the recent controversy surrounding American Idol's "Idol Gives Back" program, specifically the big ending when the finalists sang the popular worship song "Shout to the Lord" amidst showers of confetti and sometimes-on-key emoting. The kerfluffle stems from the show's decision to replace "My Jesus, my Savior" with "My Shepherd, my Savior" in the first line of the song. Christians predictably reacted with outrage and Idol used the correct lyrics in its reprise of the song the next night.

I actually haven't watched AI in years, so I didn't hear about this until it hit the blogosphere the next day. After watching the videos and reading the news blurbs, my overall take is the Christians bellyaching about the word choice are missing the broader point. Yes, it is ironic a show called American Idol removed Jesus, the one permissible "idol," from the show. But replacing Jesus' name makes the song more palatable to a much broader demographic, and American Idol is in the business of making money, not promoting Christianity. Given the total God focus of the song, I'm surprised they used it at all. So instead of focusing on the cut of one word, can't we remember all the other great lyrics that remained in?

 

We modify "secular" culture to fit Christian ends all the time. (I especially enjoy the John 3:16 poker chips with the reminder, "Don't gamble with eternity.")  So they did it back. So it involved really ugly white outfits and a lot of confetti. People still heard words like Savior, and wanted more--that performance was downloaded more than any other that night.

I doubt the elimination of Jesus' name from the song will keep anyone searching for Truth from finding Him; after all, He is a shepherd, constantly looking for his lost sheep and drawing them back home. Rather than feeling annoyed about Idol's slight change, let's celebrate the possibilities they created for our shepherd, our savior to reach more people.

thanks a lot

By most standards, I have a pretty great life. I'm able to support myself writing and I get to work from home. I'm still relatively young and in good health. I belong to one of the best and most fun families I know and I have wonderful friends who love me. I get to travel a bit, my retirement account has money in it and I have all my teeth. Life is good. 

Yet even as I type each of these blessings, "but" statements drift through my thoughts. I can support myself, yes, but it would be nice to make more. I'm young but starting to see a few wrinkles, and I'm generally healthy but still recovering from some stress-induced illness that started a few years ago. I belong to a great family but don't get to see all of them as often as I'd like, and many of my closest friends are 2,000 miles away. My retirement account could be bigger, and it takes some serious coin at the dentist to keep good teeth looking good.

No matter what we have, it's all too easy to focus on what's lacking. Lately, for me, this has taken the form of a house. After ten years of apartment living, ten years of fighting for parking and listening to fights through paper-thin walls and trying to make do with appliances I wouldn't choose and cramming clothes into tiny closets, I want a house. Nothing big, nothing pretentious, just a little house with hardwood floors and a couple of bedrooms and space for a garden in the back. Lately I've been thinking about it a lot. 

This morning, perhaps it was my neighbor sitting outside and yelling at the top of her lungs for her dog to return rather than getting off her butt and walking to him. Perhaps it was being woken from a sound sleep to have three maintenance men come in to fix my oven which consistently cooks things fifty degrees too high. Perhaps it was watching my light fixtures shake as my upstairs neighbor clod around like an angry Paul Bunyan. 

Whatever the reason, this morning I chose complaining (mentally, anyway) over contentment. The fact is, I probably won't get a house in '08 and focusing on the downside of my current situation is a sure road to unhappiness. As moral giant Ann Landers once said, maturity is the ability to live in peace with that which we cannot change. 

So, this morning, I now choose to focus on the good. My apartment has a big balcony with views of trees and grass rather than the parking lot I hate, and the unique entrance from my bedroom means I can see my flowerpots (in lieu of the garden) from several rooms. The living room's wood-burning fireplace kept me warm all winter and the washer/dryer hookups mean I no longer have to save my quarters for a laundromat. When my oven stops working, I don't have to fix or replace it myself. And one of those maintenance guys was quite cute.

April 4

I love my church for many reasons: excellent preaching, consistently intentional and creative worship planning, an emphasis on community service. But I've never been prouder to call Woodmont Hills my church than I was this past weekend. 

On Friday night, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, our choir partnered with the choir from Temple Church across town to present an evening of multimedia, personal recollections, and freedom songs. After each choir led the congregation in worship, the two groups united to sing some of the famous songs of the Civil Rights Movement--We Shall Overcome, Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around, Wade in the Water. While they sang, screens displayed hundreds of black and white photographs from the era, like the devastating one above.

We also watched Dr. King's March on Washington "Free at Last" speech in its entirety; by the end people in the room were shouting "Amen" and when it concluded the entire room stood and applauded. (Preachers, if you haven't already, consider studying his speaking technique. The man gets standing ovations from jaded 21st-century audiences watching poor-quality, grainy video.)

Best of all, the evening's narrator and special guest was Charles Neblett, one of the original freedom singers who shared stages with Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte--and who also experienced jail cells and beatings during his protest days. It was moving to see his quiet dignity, and to watch him sing along with every song.

Not every church has the staff or the resources to pull off this kind of major event. But every church could extend an open hand to believers of a different color and organize a prayer gathering, worship service, or joint project. The point isn't singing a spiritual, the point is singing together, and making it a regular thing. We plan to spend more time with our brothers and sisters from Temple Church, and that may be the biggest reason I love my church.

Why worship team auditions are a good idea

Kinetic update

Two weeks ago I wrote about Kinetic Church in Charlotte, NC. Someone had just stolen their church trailers and almost all their gear, and I encouraged you to give online to help this young church plant recover from the financial blow.

Kinetic is still accepting donations (here's the website), but instead of looking for someone to blame the church is looking for someone to forgive. Yesterday five billboards with five different messages to the thief went up around Charlotte, and today the church went live with a new home page featuring this video message from lead pastor Dave Milam.

In the video, Dave forgives the thieves, invites them to visit the church, then issues another pretty cool invitation: return to the place they dumped Kinetic's Bibles and communion supplies, find a box covered in duct tape, and use the disposable cell phone inside to contact him. 

Pragmatically, I hope the inevitable publicity helps Kinetic raise a lot more money for their trailer recovery fund. But more than that, I hope the thieves see a billboard, visit the website, and take Dave up on his offer--because you know he'll use that conversation for God. "I mean, that's why we bought the stuff to begin with," he says in the video. "So that people could turn their life around and know this guy named Jesus."