Category: personal

do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. hebrews 13:2

over the past four to five months my wife, pam, and i have really been dealing with the biblical concept of hospitality. truthfully hospitality is a concept that i find frustrating. it frustrates me because i don’t understand it. it is completely foreign to what i have been told in this world. hospitality is much more than just “having people over.” hospitality focuses on the “alien” or “stranger”. it means bringing those who are on the “margins of society” into your lives. it is not just meeting the needs of food, clothing, or lodging, though that is definitely a part of it. hospitality involves bringing those who are on the margins actually into your lives and homes.

in my opinion hospitality is simply not practiced very well within western CHRISTianity. if nothing else i know that i don’t practice it very well. yet it is of incredible importance in both the old and new testaments. this means that the follower of CHRIST, which i am trying to be, needs to practice it. this is not something that is easy for me to practice. i would rather give money to help, or go to the place of need and serve. bringing the “alien and stranger” into my house is something else entirely.

pam and i have been taking small steps. we had a homeless friend over awhile back for supper with our kids and us. it was a wonderful experience. the next step for us is to “adopt” two l.s.u. students who are from india. according to the university these guys have been in the states for two years and are still desperate to know someone. we’ve made the contact and started the process of getting them over to our houses regularly. the next step is actually getting them into our homes. we’re not doing this as some form of evangelism to india (though if they come to know CHRIST i would be please as punch). we are not trying nor will we attempt to prostelize them. this is merely an attempt to bring some guys who are on the margins of american society into our homes and practice hospitality.

i don’t really know what i’m doing but i do know that i really want to understand what GOD means by “do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” and i guess this is the start of understanding that.

i’ve been majorly sick the past week. starting sunday afternoon i developed the mother of all flu’s. it was awful. i didn’t go anywhere near the church until earlier this morning. truthfully i didn’t care what happened at the church – not because i don’t care about my family that is there but rather because i didn’t care about much other than when my next dose of medicine was coming up and how long i could sleep that time. i felt miserable. this post however is not about me. it’s about the staff that i work with.

i work with two wonderful people, jessica and alan. together we make up the youth ministry staff that leads a team of volunteers in getting the youth ministry going and grooving. technically i’m their boss, but truthfully we are a team. they didn’t miss a beat without me there even though we have a pretty major girls event this weekend (the feminar). everything, including our wednesday night service (the view) ran wonderfully. kids were assured of GOD’s love, parent’s were assured that they matter within the youth ministry and everyone was pushed and encouraged in following our wonderfully dangerous LORD and SAVIOR. and i had nothing to do with it.

i love my staff.

after four days of being stuck in the house because of the mother of all flu’s i’m presently sitting in the cc’s coffee house on seigen lane drinking a grande decaf mocha and eating some banana bread. i took pam’s car to church this morning taking the boys to school and stopping in the office to make sure that life had gone on without me (as anyone who knows the youth ministry knows everything went great without me there. jessica and alan make everything happen and all i do is stand around and take the credit for it all). afterwards i went to drop off pam’s car at our mechanic. sunday pam’s car started having trouble going into reverse. now personally i’m not entirely sure why we have to have the reverse gear. i think life should always go forward with our past merely pushing and supporting us. you should never live your life in reverse looks backwards. i tried this answer with pam but she insisted that she needed to be able to go in reverse. once again she has rejected my logic.

anyway, i took her car to berry automotive once again trying my “life should always go forward” joke and once again getting a blank look from the person i told it to. unfortunately, since no one was at the church office when i went this morning i couldn’t secure a ride back from berry’s automotive. therefore, i decided to walk across the street and have a cup of coffee while i phoned a few people for a ride. i called bill, my pastor, and secured a ride up to the church with him. then i went to order my coffee. this is where life became good.

there where three barristers working at the siegen lane cc’s this morning. i knew all three of them and better than that all three of them knew me. it’s not unusual for me to know one or even a couple of people working at cc’s but knowing everyone working at the store at a single moment has never happened to me before. even better than just knowing them, and being known by them was that they all three initiated a conversation with me. not just some “hey lets have small talk while i fix your drink” conversation but rather an extended conversation jumping from ” where’s that coffee cup that you used to always bring?” to “how are things at church?” and “how’s pam?” we ended our conversation with a discussion of the best cheeseburger in town (riverside patty hands down). i didn’t even have to tell them what i wanted to drink, they knew it already. while other people were in the cc’s i was the one who was the “regular”. for some of you this is no big deal. you’re probably a ‘regular” at several different spots but that’s not true for me. cc’s is the only spot that i am a “regular” at and it feels good to be a “regular”.

now, i’m going to go back and finish my banana nut bread.

when i get sick i get majorly sick, just ask pam. i’m out for days. all i do is sleep. of course, me being sick is not really the point i wanted to make during this entry. instead i want to talk about how great it is to have a basset hound. the only thing i do well when i am sick is sleep and it just so happens that basset hounds are experts at sleeping. even better than being expert sleepers bassets love to sleep beside people. every time i lay down montana is there to jump on the couch and lie down with me. 45 pounds of slightly smelly bed warmer. just what the doctor ordered.

the good side of being sick has been that my body picked the absolute best days of the year to be sick on. it has been rainy and cold (at least i think it is cold – i haven’t been outside the house since 7 p.m. sunday). the perfect weather for being sick in. pam is making her fantastic chicken noodle soup tonight and that will only make things better. so let me hit the facts again:

• sick
• cold, rainy weather
• basset hound warming device
• homemade chicken noodle soup

if you got to be sick then that’s the way to be sick.

i feel miserable. i’ve been suffering through a 101.7 degree fever today. i’ve done nothing but slept all day. this is the first time i’ve looked at the computer (or done anything other than move from the bed to the couch) and typing this is actually wearing me out. i think i will have to stop now and sleep around two hours to recuperate. if you have an orange tree that is bearing fruit and wouldn’t mind bringing me some freshly squeezed orange juice i would appreciate it.

i love tony campolo and i love jordon cooper. campolo i love because he is campolo and there is nobody else like him (though there are many of us who pretend to be like him) cooper i love because he constantly finds good article and links and pastes them on his blog.

yesterday jordon cooper posted part of an interview with campolo concerning his book “speaking my mind“. as usual with campolo the interview was great. here’s just a snippet of the interview.

if john kerry or george w. bush were to call you up and ask for your guidance on issues facing america today, what would you tell each of them in turn?

to kerry, i think my major issue would be “do you understand us? do you understand evangelicals and why we’re so upset about the pro-life issue? do you understand why we believe all life is sacred?” i’d encourage him to do justice and to do righteousness.

to george bush, I’d say “the GOD of scripture is a GOD who calls us to protect the environment. i don’t think your administration has done that very well. the GOD of scripture calls us to be peacemakers. we follow a JESUS who said those who live by the sword will die by the sword, who called us to be agents of reconciliation.”

i would point out to george bush that the CHRIST that he follows says “blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”-which doesn’t go along with capital punishment.

i would say different things to each candidate, but i would respond instantaneously to the invitation to speak to each of them. all the way to the white house, i would be praying, “GOD, keep me from chickening out. help me to not be so overawed by the high office of these people that I fail to recognize i answer to a higher authority.”

you really should read the rest of the article it is great. campolo has a way of hitting the “nail on the head”. he does a great job of avoiding becoming the mouth piece of the right or the left. he’s for CHRIST rather than a conservative or liberal ideology. i love that.

my wife, pam, loves working with the 9th & 10th grade girls within our student ministry. she leads one of our sunday school classes for the age group and does an amazing job with them. some time in the past her group started sharing nicknames and other things that they had been called in their past. when pam was in eighth grade some of her classmates decided it would be great to call her “pampon” – combining her name (pam) with the feminine hygiene product (tampon). it was a real middle school thing to do.

in a moment of openness pam told this nickname to her girls. of course, being 9th and 10th grade girls several of them started calling her “pampon”. it is a great inside joke. only the girls in her group know it and they only use it in a “family” manner that is full of love.

today pam went to the grocery story and as she was walking out to her car she heard “pampon” shouted out by one of her girls that saw her across the parking lot. all the other people walking across the parking lot got a good laugh out of the name. “pampon” is a great thing to have to answer to.

today was the pack 205’s annual pinewood derby. if you’re not familiar with a pinewood derby just imagine 100 kids and their dads taking a piece of pine and converting it into a gravity led speed demon. it’s an emotion ridden day. kids enter with high hopes and then slowly but surely all but 20 get those high hopes unmercifully crushed. it’s a great family day.

i know this from experience. the first year i did a pinewood derby with one of my children was horrible. our car raced four times and it never once crossed the finish line. it was horrible.

slowly but surely we have improved. this year noah wanted to get the “judges’ favorite” award and as i discussed earlier he wanted an ice cream sandwich car. so we built it. it looks very much like a real ice cream sandwich. we spent most of our time working on the design and very little working on axles. the axles really are the thing that determines how fast you car goes. you have to sand them down and then polish them if you really want your car to go. i did a little of this but not near as much as last year. last year i spent a week polishing the axles. this year it was only a day. i was pleasantly surprised when noah’s car racked up 2 second places. that was the good news. the bad news was that he then earned 2 fourth places. still not too bad.

the best part was that noah’s car was hands down everyone’s favorite. there was no doubt about him winning the “judges’ favorite” award. it happened just like he wanted it too. you can go here to see noah with his medal for “judges’ favorite.”

i graduated from southwestern baptist theological seeminary, a fact that i used to be proud of. now a days i’m not as excited about my alma mater. paige patterson is now the president of southwestern and the changes within southwestern that worry me have happened mainly during his watch. but let’s not talk about those things right now. instead i want to talk about patterson’s “youth ministry” article in the january/february 2005 southwestern news alumni magazine. patterson was once a pastor (i think it was back in the 80s but he was at least once a pastor for a few years) and as such he is expertly trained to write the lead article in a southwestern news volume that is supposed to be all about student ministry.

the title of patterson’s article is “iconoclastic student ministry”. here’s dictionary.com‘s definition of “iconoclastic:

• one who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.
• one who destroys sacred religious images.
• the original iconoclasts destroyed countless works of art.
• characterized by attack on established beliefs or institutions

judging from the title of patterson’s article it is apparently meant to destroy the art of youth ministry. if that’s not his point i would at least guess from the title that he thought that the words of his article would destroy the status quo of youth ministry. who knows? for your reading entertainment i have decided to post his 17 steps for iconoclastic student ministry. i’ll also post a few of my thoughts in italics after his points.

• don’t try to entertain young people all the time – i agree with this one though i love him calling the teens “young people”
• call a man as your minister to youth or youth pastor in charge of youth ministry – patteson thinks its okay for a woman to be an associate but not the person in charge. according to him the leader really needs to be a male – what a load of crap.
• teach young people how to share their faith – i like this one too but i would prefer to show them how to share their faith as a natural, non-forced, non-used car salesman part of their life. JESUS “sells” HIMSELF. he doesn’t need me to force HIM on someone else. HE just wants me to open my mouth and honestly dialogue with people who have real needs. HE will be their answer.
• teach young people basic theology – i love this “young people” stuff. we better teach youth that CHRISTianity is all about believing the right things rather than exploring theology with each other and hitting hard questions. 😉
• chior tours and social projects are worthy activities for young people, but do not make them an end within themselves – patterson says that everything must be judged by wether someone comes to CHRIST or not. apparently feeding the hungry is only GOD honoring when at least one of the hungry people becomes a CHRISTian
• lead your young people to ask GOD about HIS will for their lives
• teach young people the whole biblical revelation – wow, i wish i had thought of this. i wonder which part of “whole” he is really hinting at
• teach the young people what the bible says about sex – sex is the big “no-no” isn’t it? apparently teaching our teens not to have sex it’s more important to patterson than helping them to get involved in “social justice”, or having a growing relationship with CHRIST
• teach young people to love JESUS and GOD’s word the bible – who knew? JESUS and the bible are equal?
• make men out of the boys and women out of the girls – i guess this beats the alternative. i do love the fact that patterson’s idea of a man involves the guy regularly using a gun (a previous article)
• the pastor must spend time with the young people – i agree totally but i would add that the pastor must never ever call them “young people”
• be sure to include parents in the youth ministry equation – i whole heartedly agree
• be sure most of the the young people are in regular services with everyone else in the church – i can’t complain with this one
• teach young people the meaning of sacrifice – no complaint here
• have a regular time for Q&A with your young people, and do not duck their questions – i wonder if one of the questions will be from one of my girls asking me “why is it that GOD has called me to be a minister and paige patterson says i can’t be?”
• keep your sense of humor and have a good time – reading patterson’s article gave me a good laugh
• finally, lead the young people in some great adventures – i agree with another one

as you can see patterson’s article has shaken the foundations of youth ministry as we know it. i only hope i can be half the youth minister that paige patterson is. 🙂