Join us in prayer

Pastor Ed has called the elders and deacons to a special "fifth Wednesday" prayer this morning.  We will be at the church office spending approximately an hour and a half in prayer along these guidelines:

• for the families and individuals of Dove Moutain Church
• for the vision and ministry of Dove Mountain Church
• for the advancement of the Kingdom of God in Tucson
• for the spread of the gospel around the world.

Please join us any time today, that we may be "...likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose."  Philippians 2:2

It's a "longing for Narnia" kind of day...

And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do;  but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning – either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too wonderful to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

Where we are losing the culture war

A recent rabbit trail on the internet provided me the opportunity me to review the current student handbook of a large eastern high school. This is, by the prevailing reckoning, a national and state "school of excellence."

I am no stranger to school handbooks, having authored a few myself, and I realize that they are of necessity both dry and rules-oriented. Here's what struck me about this one:

1.  Of the 31 pages, 14 pages were allotted to behavior policies, disciplinary procedures, and consequences;  11 pages to general information (timetables, lockers, driving privileges, etc.); and only 6 pages to anything related to academics. 
2.  The item with the greatest amount of information in the entire handbook was the the three-page, five-column chart of consequences for every possible behavior, with resultant consequences, delineated down to the fifth offense.
3.   Missing from the book was anything which connected the world of high school to the real world (except a warning about places where students with open lunch driving privileges were not allowed to go), any meaningful statement of intrinsic purpose in the education offered by the school, or anything that could remotely be considered wise, inspiring, uplifting.

Here's what it reflects to me.

1.  A beleaguered administration and faculty have tirelessly enumerated all the creative ways that  mischievous students with a fallen nature (and a boatload of repressed angst over the dysfunctinal home lives they represent) may possible misbehave. Subsequently, they are attempting to insulate themselves against the lawsuits and possible criminal charges which could ensue from their merely trying to get through the day unscathed.

2.  In terms of their academic mission, they have instituted creative protections to ensure that they only need to deal with the better students - Honors and AP classes, weighted grades for GPA inflation, a favored "professional" track (with others relegated to "skilled" and "entry" track), and so on. Their safety nets for the disinterested include a "credit recovery" scheme, grades based as much on participation as achievement, and provisions for "walking" at graduation even if one is a few credits short.

3.  Granted handbooks are not generally the place for philosophical discussions, it is nevertheless startling to contrast the finely honed disciplinary policies and consequences with the absence of anything encouraging, meaningful in terms of the purpose of education, or even remotely uplifting. Motivation, if it exists, is either within the student or comes from sources outside the system. This is an institution based on self-preservation.  

I could say so much more, but I call to your remembrance the fact that this represents one of the "best" of American high schools. Such impoverishment of spirit and substance cannot produce the leaders we need in this nation - and in the world at large. It is an accurate reflection of the lostness of our nation. 

First Sunday in Advent: Hope

You, LORD, are our father,
our redeemer you are named forever.
Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways,
and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before you,
while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
Would that you might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful;
all of us have become like unclean people,
all our good deeds are like polluted rags;
we have all withered like leaves,
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
There is none who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to cling to you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have delivered us up to our guilt.
Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.

Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7

From Today's Losungen

The Prophet Joel as imagined
by Michelangelo
(Fresco, Sistine Chapel
Ceiling, 1508–1512)

Be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God.

Joel 2:23

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

Philippians 4:4-5

Lord, we rejoice that you are here! You are with us, in us, and among us! You came to the simple, the ordinary, and the untouchables to establish your kingdom. We pray that your shalom comforts and gives hope to your children who are affected by disease.

Amen.

Week #2 on this issue

Thoughts to guide your reading of the current issue:

Time for choosing, p. 4, describes a fascinating online experiment by the Tea Party to determine what should be cut formt he federal budget.  I have downloaded the results and will have the available tor ead or borrow in class.

Find Your Family First, p. 36, contrasts the decimation of American families (due to divorce, single parenthood, remote job searches and commitments, etc.) with the forced decimation in war-torn Sudan and other locales (due to armed conflict, refugee status, political asylum, etc.).

Holding Fast, p. 50, highlights the work of some organizations we should learn more about:  International Christian Concern and Operation World.

Signs of the Times, p. 61, goes beyond summarizing the legal conflict Austin's LifeCare Pregnancy Center to telling about its "Earn while you Learn" program, somethign whih matches well with the economic principles we were discussing last Sunday.

Hostile take-over, p. 66, shows the irony in the city of Richmond, where the The Tea Party is suing the city for a refund of  the $8,000.00 fee they paid for using the same grounds that Occupy protestors have used without charge for several weeks.  Are all U.S. agencies toothless tigers?c

Happy Thanksgiving!

I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders.  Psalm 9:1

Sources of compassion: what does the Bible say?

This past Sunday in WorldMovers we discussed the startling increase of Americans using food stamps in the past decade.  In searching for a Biblcal position on thissubject,w e reviewed the scriptures listed here: 

Leviticus 19:10   Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 15:11   For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

Isaiah 58:7    Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

I Samuel 2:7    The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.

Deuteronomy 8:18   But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

Exodus 20:17   Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Proverbs 1:14-16    Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

Matthew 13:11, 12    He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

A compelling question for us was, "What would a present day application of the gleaning principle look like?"  We definitely came away with a concern that we become more responsible, both as individuals and as a congregation, in our provisions for the poor.

Why we read original sources

In classical schools such as the one where I teach, we emphasize the reading of original historical sources wherever possible. There is no arguing that the teaching of history is often clouded by myth and hearsay. In our time, "political correctness" also obscures an accurate retelling of the events of our nation's past.

In regard to the observance of Thanksgiving, such myths have been perpetrated at both extremes of the continuum. The original settlers of New England were not always the heroes that American tradition often paints them to be, and the behavior of the native tribes was both more troublesome and also more benign than many of the stories we have traditionally heard.

For those of us who subscribe to Biblical theology, this should come as no big surprise. Both settlers and native inhabitants were plagued with an inherited sin nature. But both were also recipients of God's common grace, and as individuals, both had marks of God's imago dei, the image of God.

In our reading of Governor William Bradford's own journal of the Plymouth Plantation, my sixth graders and I have made these observations:

1.  The Puritan settlers of New England truly aspired to establish Christ's "city on a hill" in their New England colony, but their efforts were often undermined by human greed and foolishness. Their worship of God was sincere, but their attempts to be informed by God's Word were colored by the political climate and culture of the authoritarian and hierarchical culture in which they had been nurtured in seventeenth century England.

2.  Having come as part of a trading company agreement, they were remarkably unreflective about their displacement of the native populations already present in the land they settled. They blindly accepted their trade charter as somehow giving them the right to claim and settle a land that was already occupied by someone else. While some of them treated the native Americans with respect and reciprocity on an individual basis, as a whole they seem to have accepted the notion that these were suspect "heathens," whose presence they were privileged to ignore, in terms of legal rights.

3.  While some of the natives did treat the settlers generously and open-handedly, far more were brutish and individually cruel to the settlers, apparently motivated by both envy and fear. Although they have been painted as idealistically not believing in the possession of private property, it is clear from the historic accounts that the natives who plundered and stole from the settlers were aware that they were taking that which did not belong to them.

4.  The settlers were more preoccupied with competition with other European settlers than with their relationship to the natives. Much of Bradford's journal details conflicts between the Plymouth colony and later arrivals, often of a seemingly petty religious nature. Bradford was quick to identify someof the later leaders as "heathenish Christians," whose effort at colonization were marked by "disorder" and greed.          

5.  Despite many failures, the accounts in Bradford's journal record many times of humbing and repentance, as the colonists tried to make sense of the trials they were suffering on what they believed to be a commission from God. There is also evidence that, in spite of apparent racial prejudice toward the natives on the part of some settlers, the church leaders themselves were concerned about gratuitious violence toward the natives, and spoke out against it in no uncertain terms.

6.  One of the most enightening sections of the journal was Bradford's account of their abandonment of communalism. "The failure of this experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men, proves the emptiness of the theory of Plato and other ancients, applauded by some of later times - that the taking away of private property, and the possession of it by the community, by a commonwealth,would make a state happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.  For in this instance, community of property (so far as it went) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit and comfort."  Bradford goes on to detail all the ills that this approach inflicted on the welfare and general productivity of the colony. "Let none argue," Bradford concluded, "that this is due to human failing, rather than to the commnistic plan of life in itself. I answer, seeing that all men have this failing in this, that God in His wisdom saw that another plan of life was fitter for them."  We would do well to heed this lesson in our nation today!

Analyzing "Occupy"

It occurred to me while reading Nancy Pearcy's excellent Saving Leonardo to try to apply her worldview formula to what seems to be the worldview of the Occupy Wall Streeters. I must say "seems" because their message is really incoherent, as anyone who has tried to make sense of it can testify.

Here template is;

Creation (where does the worldview say we come from, and by extension, to what end or purpose?),
Fall (how does the worldview account for evil, or thngs that don't work?), and
Redemption (what are we supposed to do about it?).

So as I see it, here is the worldview of  th Occupiers.

Creation:  random evolutionary chance, which means that survival is the end-all and be-all.

Fall:  It can't be just "greed," because they are so covetous of the greedy (which might be greed, right?. It must be "inequity."

Redemption:  If inequality is the only sin, then redistribution is the only solution. It's a pity they don't know about all the places that didn't work, already. Oh wait, they don't CARE.

I remember that during the Cultural Revolution in China, everyone was required to wear the same blue "Chairman Mao" jacket. Newsphotos of those days showed seas of blue-jacketed people in the streets of Peking and Shanghai. Within weeks, members of the Party and government cadre were sporting thickly lined brand new silk blue jackets, while workers trod to factories in beat-up, thin blue cotton blue jackets.  Needless to say, the idea was scrapped.

Remember the lesson of Animal Farm:  

All animals are equal, but pigs are more equal than other animals.

Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday

We plow the fields, and scatter the good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand;
He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain.

All good gifts around us
Are sent from heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all His love.

He only is the Maker of all things near and far;
He paints the wayside flower, He lights the evening star;
The winds and waves obey Him, by Him the birds are fed;
Much more to us, His children, He gives our daily bread.

All good gifts around us
Are sent from heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all His love.

We thank Thee, then, O Father, for all things bright and good,
The seed time and the harvest, our life, our health, and food;
No gifts have we to offer, for all Thy love imparts,
But that which Thou desirest, our humble, thankful hearts.

All good gifts around us
Are sent from heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
For all His love.

42% of us are not the 99%

First of all, you gotta smirk at things like "We are the 99%."  Some things are just too ludicrous to say, and we need a whole host of naughty little boys out there pointing out that the Emperor is naked.

Then you have to reckon with the fact that there is no wisdom out there.  For the covetous thousands to gripe about the greedy four hundred is to say that there is some strange hierarchy which elevates some sins as more heinous than others. 

Then you have to fight the urge not to panic about the state our country is in. We are ignoring the massive debt problem. We are giving up any semblance of a free market and individual liberty on a daily basis.   And most people are too preoccupied with just staying alive (and too distracted by mass entertainment) to give any of it any serious thought. Except the Occupiers, who still don't know what their agenda is.

Actually they have issued way too many agenda statements. A chilling one that came out this week, between "unionize everybody" and "six hour work days" was that homeschooling should be outlawed, because it allows religious fanatics to teach propaganda to their chidlren without the mighty hand of government sanction.    

I'll repeat it until somebody pays attention: 

1.  Look around with eyes wide open. 
2.  Acknowledge the foolishness with fearless tenacity. 
3.  Feed yourself on God's wisdom daily.  
4.  Repent of personal sin. 
5.  Repent of national sin.  
6.  Cry out to God for mercy.  
7.  Warn others.   
8.  Trust God anyway.   

Food Stamps Surge

For this Sunday's WorldMovers discussion of the cover story in the November 19 issue of World, please read the following:

Food Stamps Surge, p. 38
Helping by Hurting, p. 42
Changing Atittudes, p. 43
Punching Paper Walls, p. 88

Pay special attention to Olasky's question, "Is emphasizng work unfair in a year featuring nine per cent unemployment?" and his suggested answer in the following paragraphs.

Already Gone?

One of the first books ever reviewed after the formation of the World Movers Sunday School class was Ken Ham's Already Gone. Since that initial review, I have had numerous occasions on which it was relevant to quote some of the results of the survey by Bob Beemer which forms the statistical basis for that book. Here is a summary of some of the most interesting findings:


• nearly 50% of teens in the U.S. regularly attend church-related services or activities.
• More than three quarters talk about their faith with their friends
• Three out of five teens attend at least one youth group meeting at a church during a typical three-month period
• one third of teenagers participate in Christian clubs at school

A majority of twenty-somethings—61% of today’s young adults—had been churched at one point during their teen years but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e., not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying). 20% of those who were spiritually active during high school are maintaining a similar level of commitment. 19% of teens were never reached by the Christian community, and they are still disconnected from any Christian activities.

• Those who faithfully attend Sunday School are more likely to leave the church than those who do not.
• Those who regularly attend Sunday School are more likely to believe that the Bible is less true.
• Those who regularly attend Sunday School are actually more likely to defend that abortion and gay marriage should be legal.
• Those who regularly attend Sunday School are actually more likely to defend premarital sex.

Top reasons 20-somethings stopped attending church

Reason and %

Boring service 11.9
Legalism 11.7
Hypocrisy – leaders 11.1
too political 9.8
self-righteous people 9.2
distance from home 7.5
not relevant personally 6.3
God would not condemn to hell 5.7
Bible not relevant 5
not finding preferred denomination in area 5
not feeling worthy 4.2
no time 2.9
don’t know 2.4
hypocrisy of parents 2
Bible not true 1.6
Unfriendly people 1.1
Music is poor 1
Miscellaneous 0.6

Comment:   I am publishing these because WorldMovers may have occasion to quote some of these stats in our minsitry of "sound bite sowing." I should mention that Ham's compelling conclusion for these stats is that middle school and high school aged young people want more meat in their preaching and teaching:  doctine (first and foremost), controversial topics like origins and eschatology (Where did I come from?  Where am I going?), and immediate relevance (as we attempt in WorldMovers). I have always maintained that we "dumb down" our faith too much for the young people in our midst. 

I also find it amusing that "poor music" is almost a non-factor, since so many churches are falling all over themselves trying to be "cool" with their music.

The Great Economic Debate

Many times in our discussion of current events, we have paused in WorldMovers class to review the scriptures on the use of money. There is no doubt that (1) our culture is obsessed with the economy; (2) much of the motivation is individual greed. 

A recent debate at Messiah College pitted Jim Wallis of Sojourners against Arthur Brook of the American Enterprise Institute on the question "Is Capitalism Moral?" You may remember that Brooks' book The Battle was World's "Book of the Year" last year, and that we reviewed it in our class.

You can read a summary of this debate here.

Born Again Mormon

I've been meaning to post this link for some time, and the discussion in WorldMovers this past Sunday about Mormon political candidates made me think of it.

Shawn McCraney was a typical LDS young man...served a mission at nineteen, came back home to California to hold several offices in his local Ward and Stake, married a Mormon girl, etc. But he was empty inside spiritually and knew it. One day he heard a sermon on the radio by Dr. Charles Stanley, pulled off the freeway, bowed his head, and surrendered to Christ.

Eventually Shawn attened Calvary Chapel Bible College, and currently is planting a Calvary Chapel at the Unviersity of Utah. But he is best known for his weekly television program, "Heart of the Matter,"which you can see here. While you are on his web site, take a look at his books. His first, I Was a Born Again Mormon, is interesting because of its account of his efforts to say within the Mormon church after becoming a believer. As you could expect, it didn't work.

Since WorldMovers emphasize prayer as our "first response," let me encourage you to pray for Shawn and his family. It will come as no surprise that they are under constant attack from the Mormon faithful.  Father, have mercy!

For the Glory of Old State

A rant for sports lovers, education lovers, and lovers of truth:


1. Nobody wants to “pile on” after a tragedy like that at Penn State, but it’s hard to be silent when it's constantly before us in the news.

2. As good a man as I think Joe Paterno actually was and is, he chose to abide by an old dictum that needs to die: the code of silence. It isn’t right on the elementary school playground, and it isn’t right in the faculty offices of a major university.

3. Without Christ, there is no repentance and no redemption; hence the mixed reactions by those want either the extreme of absolving (in light of his many successes) or the extreme of vilifying (in spite of his many successes).

4. I am sick to death of the way we countenance the pretense of secular institutions. Penn State’s vaunted “Victory with Honor” motto is tarnished, but so should be the “faith” of those who believed that an institution of purely human and frail origins could guarantee any kind of purity or truth.

5. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in these words from the Penn State Alma Mater (sung to the tune of a Christian hymn, by the way): “…our hopes that, bright and free, Rest, O Mother dear, with thee, All with thee, all with thee.” And people think we’re “over the top” when we say we are trusting Jesus and Him only for our eternal security. Make no mistake, American universities are religious organizations…perpetrators of a gospel with no forgiveness, no repentance, no redemption (and a sometimes arbitrary list of sins).

6. Speaking of the Alma Mater, it was sung with reverent enthusiasm by the 100,000+ fans at the Penn State-Nebraska football game Saturday. Did they sense the irony of the words, “May no act of ours bring shame to one heart that loves thy name…”?

7. As heavy as the burden may be, we are not just sports coaches, academic and life skill instructors, birth fathers, breadwinners….we must ALL be men who fear God. That means protecting the innocent, not the perpetrator.

Articles for discussion: November 13, 2011

1.  Editorial by Joel Belz, "Defining the 'Test' Clause," p. 3

2.  review of the movie Footloose, "Banned Behavior," p. 23 

3.  report and commentary on Occupy Movement, "A cause wihtout solutions," p. 46

4.  personal sketch of Gary Varvel, "No Laughing Matter," p. 57

5. book review of Give Them Grace, p. 61

                                   6.  an examination of tithing, "Turning Inward," p. 68

Tomorrow: Afghanistan issues and looking toward 2014

Summary:

Since U.S. forces have occupied Afghanistan in post-9/11 efforts against the Taliban, other Americans have more quietly been bringing civilian aid in the form of community centers and educational services. With the upcoming U.S. withdrawal in 2014 young Afghans are hopeful that this pipeline of freedom and hope from the West will not be closed to them.
 
Scripture References: Acts 16:9-10; John 4:9; John 4:39; Romans 15:26-27
Texts:

A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.

For it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are at Jerusalem. Yea, it hath been their good pleasure; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to minister unto them in carnal things.

Discussion question:

Where do efforts such as these fit in the Christian Great Commission strategy? Are they fulfilling Christ’s Command? What should be our position toward their efforts?