Security Guards? Really?

     Have you seen the latest video depicting youth violence in the Seattle bus tunnel? I have been alarmed of late by the growing number of security tapes from school busses, outside businesses in urban areas, and now in a metro bus terminal; videos that depict kids nearly killing other kids (and in the case of Chicago teen, actually doing so). Watching a group of girls pummeling, kicking, and even stomping on the head of another girl should be enough for any of us to become alarmed. But evidently not for three security guards who stood by watching, even nonchalantly, as the girl was beaten nearly to death. None of the three “guards” made an attempt to intervene. I found myself asking out loud, “For who’s security are they there? Who or what are they supposed to be guarding?”
     I was even more appalled when I learned from a Seattle law enforcement official who was being interviewed, that the Metro Bus Company (owned and operated by the county) had contracted with security guards who were instructed to never intervene in situations of violence, only to observe and report. I thought that’s what the cameras were for! Again, for who’s security was the company contracted and what were they to guard if not the safety of their citizens and passengers?
     Then, get this, when doing a Google search on the story to get the details, I typed in “youth violence in Seattle” and the first article that came back was dated a year ago. It outlined a $2 million plan the city and county were throwing money at to curb youth violence. I’m missing something. They want to spend $2 million on a program to curb violence and at the same time instruct “security guards” to just let innocent minors to be beaten and robbed without coming to their aid? What is all that money going to accomplish if citizens are not decent enough to protect innocent bystanders from being hurt and if the government that is doling out that money discourages even security guards from protecting people? Is not this a bit ridiculous?
     And then I shook my head as I thought how so many churches are a lot like that. Quick to dole out money to send to missionaries, overseas and domestically, supposedly to introduce the Gospel to those who do not know Christ, but at the same time doing little if anything to reach the unsaved who live in their communities. As a church, we are in danger of the government’s “just throw money at it” mindset. Jesus told us in the Great Commission to make disciples….that’s for us to make disciples, not just send money to people who are supposed to do that in other countries and communities.
     You know, that $2 million dollar program in Seattle may not be a bad idea. But it will do little in comparison to the Seattle people (and Chicago people for that matter) simply acting decently and coming to the aid of their fellow humans. Helping to support foreign missionaries is not a bad idea either, unless we are not busy living out and sharing our faith with our neighbors, coworkers, friends and relatives. If we become consumed with reaching our Jerusalem, it will be a more natural thing for us to want to expand our witness to Judea, Samaria, and the rest of the world. So let’s first get busy sharing Christ with those we have contact with!

Squirrel!

     “Hey little squirrel!” He looked up at me with his beady little eyes, his mouth dropped open, and he turned and scampered off in the opposite direction….across the church lobby!
     Let me explain ☺. We have a beautiful lobby in our church with some very comfortable furniture and big open windows. Some days it is quiet out there and I like to use it to study, pray, and even for some of my meetings.
     While sitting here on the leather sofa in front of the floor to ceiling south window, a squirrel suddenly appeared from behind the couch facing me and was startled to see me sitting here. Roofers had left an area open without screening it and we knew some squirrels had gotten into our attic. They’ve evidently figured out how to make their way down to join us for worship, because Heather Heath chased one out the door several weeks ago on a Sunday. We called the roofers and they came out and closed up the entrance. Trouble is, their entrance was also their exit. Since then, having no other way out, they’ve joined us down here and we’ve chased four squirrels out through our main level doors.
This morning (Thursday), our courageous office manager thought she had taken care of the last one as she stood with her eyes closed, while praying and trembling, holding the door open to let one little guy out. He was happy to leave, but not as happy as Becky was to see him go!
     Then came the little guy around the couch to meet me. I felt sorry for him. He ran down the lobby bridge area, along the glass curtain wall, leaping against the glass panes all along the way, trying to get out. John Knautz and I followed him to several parts of the building (praying he didn’t make it to the basement where the women’s Bible study was going on…..can you imagine that?), opening doors and trying to coax him out. While I kept trying to show him the open doors, he kept leaping against glass windows or doors that were closed. He found himself trapped in the building and just wanted out. Finally, we were able to chase him to a door we had propped open and he made it outside.
     I couldn’t help but think about how I know a lot of people who are like that little squirrel. They feel trapped by their situation and are doing everything they can to get out, but every time they think they’ve found their way, they slam up against a glass pane. A relationship, maybe a few relationships, a job, a house or car, alcohol, sex, prescription pain killers. Wham. Wham. Wham. They just want out of the emptiness or the misery they feel trapped in. I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to coax people through the only door (John 10:9) that will lead to their freedom, but thinking its too scary to listen to a preacher, they choose another glass window pane instead.
     Maybe that describes you. If so, please listen! Freedom is only found in Jesus Christ! He is your answer!
     Maybe you are not like the little squirrel but you are thinking of someone who is. Don’t give up showing him the way! If John and I had given up on showing the squirrel the way to freedom, Becky would still be in the office with the doors closed tight, and we might even have a little excitement in the service this Sunday (not sure that would be a bad thing!).

Ready for Heaven?

    On Thursday afternoon, I stood beside Rosemary VanVleet and prayed with her family that she could be ushered into her new home in heaven in peace. As we finished praying, there was a marked difference in her breathing. A few minutes later, she did just that. With Vernon sitting at her side, holding and gently stroking her hand, she left this earth behind and stepped into eternity to live in heaven. Just three days before I spoke with her at Lutheran General Hospital and asked her if she was afraid. She looked good that evening, was smiling and talkative. But we all knew that her time was short. She quickly said to me, “No, I know where I am going! I don’t know how people who don’t know the Lord do it!”
    Today, Rosemary is in heaven.
    Where are you going? There is no other question that could begin to compare in importance to that question. I am amazed at how people will spend so much energy thinking through and preparing for retirement, which may last twenty years, if they are in good health, but give little thought to where they go after that.
    Some have said to me, “It is presumptuous to say that you know you are going to heaven. You can’t know that until you die!” But the Bible says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13). God’s Word was written so that you do not have to leave this question unsettled. He wants you to know today where you will spend eternity!
    In fact, the Bible indicates that by leaving this question unsettled, you seal your own eternal fate in condemnation. In our natural state of sin, we are separated from the life of God and condemned. Jesus came to the earth, died on the cross and rose again from the dead to provide you with His resurrected life––eternal life in heaven! The good news of the Bible is that if we repent of our sin and believing that Jesus died for us and rose again, receive Him into our life as Lord and Savior, that we will be saved. By receiving Jesus Christ as God’s gift, we can know that we are going to heaven.
    Do you know? Have you responded to God’s grace by believing in His Son and committing yourself to being His disciple? Using Jesus’s words, have you been born again?
    Rosemary accepted Christ when she was a little girl and followed Him her entire life. And now for all eternity, she will be with Him. Maybe you are getting ready for retirement just fine. But if you are not ready for eternity, your twenty years or so in retirement will mean nothing. Are you ready to meet God? That’s the real question. If not, today is the day to get that settled!

Churches Helping Churches

     A 70 year old woman was pulled from the debris of a collapsed building in Haiti on Sunday after lying there for five days! They located her partially by using a sophisticated electronic device that is able to detect heartbeats. Once they knew the area where she was buried, they pinpointed her location because rescuers could hear her singing under the concrete. Can you believe that? She was singing a Christian hymn!
     There are some rare happy stories in this unbelievable tragedy, but for the most part, the story of Haiti is currently disastrous. I want to thank all of you from The Bridge for your generosity in helping us to help them. Our plan is to work with local Bible-teaching churches in Haiti to provide help for those in their neighborhoods, as well as to rebuild and be the beacons they need to be in the rebuilding process that will take years. But once all of the world’s attention has subsided and the humanitarian shipments have diminished, it will be the local churches that will make the real difference. We want to help position these centers of hope for both immediate relief and long-term spiritual and societal impact.
     A number of Christian organizations are currently working through local churches, including Compassion International and Brighthope, but none are working directly to help the churches themselves. James McDonald, senior pastor at Harvest and a new friend of mine, along with Mark Driscoll of Seattle, traveled to Haiti this week to investigate the state of local churches and their position to help the neighborhoods where they are located. They are putting together a consortium of local churches here in the states to work directly with Hatian churches for more than immediate humanitarian aid, but the kind of help that can change the course of Haiti’s future. For more information on this group, check out their website here. One of the benefits of our getting on board with this group is that we open the door to work directly with people with whom we can build long-term relationships and for some of us to actually travel to Haiti and help them rebuild. Gifts that you give to the Haiti project through our online giving will be given as a special church project through Churches Helping Churches, and opening the door for us build an ongoing relationship with a church in Haiti. You can make a special gift for that project here.
     It seems to me that as a church, we have no choice. We are not only followers of Jesus, we are His Body, his hands and feet. We are called to be Jesus to those who are in desperate need, and to reach out with help first to our brothers and sisters so that they, in turn, can meet the needs of those around them.
     Let’s continue to pray for those in Haiti!

Ice Patch

     My daughter hit a patch of ice last weekend and it cost me $500. Just a little patch of ice….that was it. Ice….followed by a little 4” curb, and that was all it took to break the right front strut and render the car immobile. Tow truck….auto mechanic…..$500. Aargh!
     That’s the trouble with ice, it takes you out of control. I once was leaving Wal-Mart’s parking lot
at about 3 mph. As I slowly rolled down the parking apron on to the street, the car in front of me braked, so I did, too. Only my car didn’t stop, didn’t even slow. I was on black ice and at 3 mph, I hit the car in front of me. You know how rugged these modern car bumpers are. I think the total damage was nearly $1,000 for the two bumpers!
     Its a horrible feeling when you hit a patch of ice, whether you are walking or driving. It takes you out of control. I hate to feel out of control.
     A friend of mine recently hit a patch of ice. I think he’s still spinning and trying to gain control. He was unjustly attacked at work for doing the right thing, and then he lost his job over it. This was his dream job, nonetheless.
     Ever have anything like that happen to you? Ever hit a patch of ice in life? Death in the family, best friend moving away, sudden job loss, spouse says she’s leaving, really bad news at the doctor’s office, etc. It can send you spinning, can’t it? You might be feeling like that right now.
     Reading the Psalms, it’s obvious that David felt that way at times. He gives us some pretty good insight as to how to handle spin-outs. Interestingly, handling a patch of ice on the road isn’t that different from handling one in life.
     For starters, hang on. When you first begin to lose control, there isn’t much you can do anyway. You can scream, but that just scares everyone else. You can panic and start whipping the wheel around, but that makes things worse. It’s best just to hang on.
     Secondly, turn into the slide. That goes against nature in that we naturally feel like turning away from it and getting out of there! But just like a slippery spot on the road, out-of-control situations in life are best handled by facing them. If its medical, get all the information you can. If its a relationship, learn what went wrong. If its job related, connect with the people you work for or with. In other words, don’t run. Don’t counter attack. Don’t do what you “feel” like doing. Face the problem.
     Thirdly, when the slide is over (and it will come to an end), assess the damage, fix what needs to be fixed, and move on. There’s no sense spending the rest of your week cursing the ice. You’ve got the rest of your life to live and as bad as this out-of-control experience may be, it doesn’t have to destroy your life. The ultimate outcome of our lives is 10% circumstances and 90% our reaction to those circumstances. More often than not, you will find that the scariest disturbances can turn out to be the most beneficial life incidents when you respond in a way that honors God.
     But I’m still not happy about the $500 car repair.

Guns and the Bible

    In my last blog, I talked about growing up and loving to fish as a child. My dad instilled in me a love for the outdoors in general. But I would have to say that even more than fishing, I loved to hunt. I began traipsing through the woods and into duck blinds carrying just a BB gun when I was barely of school age. I still remember arguing with Dad over who actually killed the duck. I was honestly convinced that the one BB that came out of my spring-loaded Daisy was the lethal shot that landed our dinner.
    What’s interesting is that I don’t remember a lot of what my dad taught me about hunting per se. What I do remember is the gun safety he taught me. He was very concerned that I grew up knowing how to properly respect the power of a firearm and that I knew how to handle myself around a gun. At the age of twelve, like most boys growing up in Wisconsin, I took the DNR’s Hunter Safety Course. But I honestly could have taught the class. My dad had already thoroughly taught me more than the instructor could have had time for.
    I struggle with our society’s attitude towards guns in general. I realize that the misuse of firearms has become a huge problem in our country, particularly in metropolitan areas. Things were different in small town Wisconsin, and I understand that. But I have had people express shock when they learn that I, personally, own guns. Its almost as though they do not believe that a pastor, or any upstanding decent person, should own a gun. But I usually remind people that not that long ago, many more households in America, if not most, had guns, and few of them locked up their guns. Yet, firearm violence did not approach the problem that it is today. What has changed? It isn’t an increased availability of weaponry, that has actually diminished. It is the value system of our population. Owning a gun is not the problem. Lacking love for other people and respect for all human life is.
    I could go on with a lengthy treatise on the culture milieu that has led to our propensity for violence, particularly in the inner cities, but this blog isn’t about that. I have another application.
    I have seen that just as some people view “possessing a gun” to be evil or dangerous, in and of itself, many Christians view “possessing a Bible” to be good or beneficial, in and of itself. Just like guns, its not the possession that makes the difference, its the use. Just having a Bible, or even carrying a Bible to church, does no one any good. There is no magical spell placed on the leather or cardboard cover, onion skin pages, or ink (black or red) that brings God’s blessing to anyone. God’s blessing flows through the truths, the principles, the words of Scripture, to those who read, study and practice them (Joshua 1:8). Having a Bible does nothing for you unless you read it, learn from its teaching, and put it into practice at home, work and with your friends. God doesn’t care if you have a Bible. He cares if you read it!
    So….do you?

The Messy Part of Fishing

     I did a lot of fishing as a kid. My dad started me off at a very young age. I still remember how after my sister had caught a blue gill, I exclaimed, “Hey Dad, throw one in for me now!” I was only four and thought that dad must have had something to do with the fish getting on that hook.
     From my dad’s love of the outdoors and the water in particular, I began to pick up the hobby as my own. A friend and I were so into it that we used to get up before dark and ride our bikes to the river in early summer to have our lures in the water by dawn. We fished like real fishermen. We kept the fish that were big enough to eat, took them home, cleaned them ourselves, and put the meat in the fridge for dinner. Fresh fish was a delicacy in my home.
     I’ve learned that there aren’t very many fisherman who actually clean fish anymore. When people tell me their fish stories, I usually ask, “Do you keep the fish you catch?” I’ll usually hear something like, “No, I don’t like to bother with the mess…” It’s one thing to enjoy the catch. It’s another thing to deal with the messy aftermath. But for me, the best part of fishing was the final outcome….DINNER!
     I rarely fish anymore. But I take Jesus’ words to his first disciples, personally, “I will make you fishers of men.” I view my life as that of fishing for Christ-followers. And I try to keep the fish I catch. There is a thrill in the initial catch but the real reward comes when you see the process completed. I said to friends last night, “I get no greater thrill than to see God change the lives of people.” I then added, “But fishing is messy.”
     In John 21, we love the story of how Jesus told the disciples to throw their nets on the other side of the boat, and when they did, they caught so many the boat began to sink. Fishing is messy. Not only did they have to struggle to get themselves and their catch to shore, they then had loads of fish to clean and torn nets to repair. The success Jesus gave them added to their workload!
     I was sharing with someone recently a few stories of people who’s lives are being changed. As I spoke of the background of some of our new Christians here at The Bridge, and some of the struggles in overcoming their past, etc., his eyes started to glaze over and he responded in such a way that indicated that he didn’t think having to deal with such “messes” would be worth it. I disagree. Its the mess that makes it all the more rewarding.
     All Christians want to talk about how we are called to fish for Jesus, but few want to deal with the mess of keeping and cleaning the fish we catch. But that’s part of it, and in fact, where the real reward comes. I’m glad we have strong stable Christians here at The Bridge. But I am even more thrilled that we get to clean up messes. I’m glad that we are privileged to participate in God’s sanctification process of being involved in people’s lives to help them become what God wants them to be. Sometimes, that’s messy. But it is so worth it!
     Join me on this fishing expedition! But don’t quit with landing the fish. Don’t shy away from or be discouraged by the mess. Enjoy the whole process. That’s when the real reward comes!