The Rest of the Old Old Story

Scientific American has an article by the guy who really did invent the world wide web: Tim Berners-Lee.

He says the freedom of the internet needs to be defended, and he has some pretty interesting thoughts, especially if you’re "techie" enough to understand it all. Even if you can’t understand it all, he’s got some things to say about Facebook and other such "communities" that ought to be heard.

I guess he’s been fighting a bit to keep the internet free, and he suggests there are more attacks on that freedom than we realize.

Anyway, I wanted to do my part to spread this information.

If nothing else, there’s something unique about reading an article on the internet written by a guy who, just 20 years ago, had the only web page and only browser in existence on his computer.

Oops!

Brilliant, huh?

Breaking the RV: The Earthly Stuff

It has been raining here in Auburn, but we needed to take the RV to the RV park and empty the holding tanks. I should have learned my lesson when we were leaving.

I tried to back out of the yard we’ve been staying in, but I couldn’t make the turn around their garage (which is in the picture) and out the gate. I ended up having to turn the RV around in their yard, which is a hill. We’ve been parked on just about the only flat spot in the whole yard.

Turning it around was some serious mental work, but we did it. Then driving out was not difficult at all.

When we came back, I decided to back in so that I could retrace the same route I took out. But as we made the small turn around the garage, the back wheels kept slipping.

Apparently, I’ve got some sort of brain deficiency, and I still thought I could make it. My son and I decided we would try backing just a little further, and if we slipped anymore, we’d give up and park out front.

We slid too much.

There was nowhere to go, and when I tried something, the side of a small ditch caved in and we tilted right onto the corner of the garage.

The garage was never really in danger. It’s an old oak thing, almost like a barn.

The RV, however …

We were very fortunate. The corner of the garage came into the RV about a foot, and it chose a large sliding window to do so rather than a wall. If the window had been open, the only damage we’d have had would have been the screen on the window.

It was closed, however, and the window just exploded.

Okay, Now the Spiritual Stuff

I have a pretty bad temper. Rose Creek Village has really changed my life in that respect, as I’ve had a lot of input and help controlling it. I’m almost like a nice person now.

This little incident enraged me, though. There was no one to be mad at except myself, so I said some pretty awful things about my intelligence to myself and anyone else I could get to listen—which was just my family. Fortunately, my wonderful wife was offended at the statements. It would have been disappointing if she’d shrugged and said, "Yeah, that’s what I think, too."

I was excited, though, about the fact that I treated everyone else reasonably well.

I was also somewhat panicked. How in the world would we get this RV off of the garage? The garage isn’t even mine! I’m at someone else’s house!

Amazingly, I quickly got my mind set on God, and I sat in a chair, letting all the horrible, painful emotions that had flooded my body and mind fade away. I immediately started wondering what I should learn from this.

Oddly, the first thought that went through my mind was, "There’s nothing to learn. This was just a chance incident; things happen; and there’s not any purpose to things like this."

That only lasted a moment. I’ve lived for 49 years thinking there’s a purpose to everything and that God doesn’t let anything happen to us by accident. We can be stupid and insensitive and learn nothing, or we can pay attention, learn quickly, and not have to go through the same problems over and over and over.

That’s worked really well for me. Though there’s plenty I don’t understand, I’ve never experienced or heard anything that’s made me feel like I need to give up looking at life that way.

Lessons

So here’s what I think.

1. I think the devil doesn’t want us to have it easy out here. I was really encouraged by the thought that he actually sees us as a threat.

2. I have a lot less problems than most people in the world, and it’s really important that I don’t get sucked into the American “Disneyland” mentality that says our purpose in life is to live in comfort.

3. If I will keep my mind on what is my purpose, following our Father and doing whatever he’s doing, this might not have happened. Before I ever drove to the dump station to dump the tanks, I had thought briefly about how easy it would be to just park out by the road. I didn’t pay enough attention to that thought to hold it before God to see if that’s what he wanted.

Life’s simple. You walk in the Spirit all the time, and you do what he leads you to do.

That’s an oversimplification, but it is, nonetheless, exactly what being a Christian is all about. We get to be spiritual people, walking with and knowing God. It’s foolish to get distracted with the things of this world just because we’re Americans with a lot of money, excellent shelter, constant climate control, and more food than necessary.

The End of the Story

Oh, after I let all the emotions run out, I called a tow company and asked them to send me a genius out to help.

Really, I asked for a genius.

The lady laughed, and she said she would send their “guy” within about 45 minutes.

He showed up, and he looked like Jason Fitzpatrick, that missionary to Mexico that I’m so impressed with.

Turns out he was a genius. He simply used a tree to winch the rear end of the RV around until we were pointed at the gate. That probably didn’t require genius, and any tow truck guy could have done it. The genius was the way he handled me.

I asked him, “Is there hope that this will work?”

He said, “Hope? I’m not hoping. I know this is going to work.”

He was careful, slow, and utterly confident, even though he was pretty young in my eyes. He was totally in charge and very friendly. He never once told me I was an idiot. In fact, he never made me feel like one. He acted like this could have happened to anyone.

It could have … to anyone who is overconfident in his ability to drive in mud and trying something he shouldn’t be trying.

Anyway, I got out of it for a very reasonable tow bill and a broken window. Incredible.

One Final Comment

My wife just got done with whatever she was doing on her computer. She got up and said, “All in all, a really good day.”

I have great people around me.

We’re in California trying to help Christians make a choice to live in such a way that everyone can have what I have and what the Gospel is supposed to promise: great people around all of us because we’re together and including everyone who embraces the Gospel.

I haven’t written a blog post here in almost 3 weeks. It’s not from lack of things to write about.

Quite the opposite. There’s been LOTS to write about, but I’ve been so busy doing it that I haven’t been writing. I’ve barely had time to answer emails, even business ones.

Cow Brain Removal

First, I learned how to remove a cow brain from a cow skull. (Don’t go there unless you don’t mind seeing some gross pictures.)

Don’t worry. It was for my daughter’s science project, not some religious ritual.

Preaching the Gospel

Then we went to California to talk to people about the church.

It was an amazing time. God really opened some doors, and we learned some things about our own inadequacy, God’s sufficiency, and the power of prayer.

The most exciting thing to me is when God’s revelation comes, and the light turns on.

You can see it in a person’s face. It can be shocking, but often when the Gospel of the kingdom comes—that we’re a nation of priests, ruled by God, not just individuals struggling along—then the love of God accompanies it, and it’s warm, drawing, and powerful.

We have to keep praying. Just because someone heard the Word of God with power does not mean that they’ll hold onto it and give themselves to it. The devil is always looking for opportunity to steal away the seed or to choke out a new plant. He is not going to stand for seeing a real church, a gathering of committed—however weak they may be, they are committed—disciples … because the gates of hell will never prevail against them. They will snatch the elect from his grip.

More later …

Well, I’m back from Kenya, Uganda, and England. If there’s anything I’ve learned it’s how desperately the message of the church is needed. God constantly teaches the church, and the world is in desperate need of what he’s taught it.

If you’re a Christian, then what you think of when I say God teaches the church is almost surely doctrinal. It’s matters of theology he must be teaching us, solving the things that divide Christians. However, theology doesn’t divide Christians. Carnality divides Christians. Divisions, schisms, and factions are works of the flesh, and theology is just an excuse denominations use for carrying out the dictates of the flesh. What God teaches the church is the marvelous way that he overcomes the flesh…through love.

We had incredible power in Kenya and Uganda. Pastors showed up asking us what made us different from all the other muzungus (white men) that visit and preach to them. Hearts were opened, and no one could deny the power or the need of our message. What did we do? What did we say?

We didn’t say anything. We lived the way God taught us to live, which is to be a friend to everyone, and people who saw it were moved. They knew that it was good, and they knew that it was from God, and they showed up and asked us how we learned to live with such power. What power? It was nothing more than the power of love.

Please don’t get me wrong. We are not the only loving people who have shown up in Kenya and Uganda. Wonderful, kind, and powerful men of God have shown up and helped struggling Africans in all sorts of ways, digging wells, passing out mosquito nets, starting businesses, and numerous other great acts of kindness and hard work. Lots of  them have done this, and many have done much more work, sacrificed much more,  and are much more worthy of praise than we are. I’m not talking about us in this blog. I’m talking about the life of God.

What people noticed is that we were different from other preachers. The difference is that we knew we weren’t there for words. We were there to bring the life of God because that Life can teach Africans just as well as it has taught us. So we simply showed up and did what we always do. We fellowshipped with the people we met. Since we are God’s people, this allowed the people we met to fellowship with God, and they liked it. They asked how they could have this life, and our words weren’t just words. They were to a purpose, explaining how they could have and be taught by the life of God as we have been.

God’s life hasn’t taught us theology. It has taught us how to get along with one another. Humans can fly to the moon, but they don’t know how to get along. Self-consciousness, emotions, fears, and a myriad of other things stand in the way of us simply being what God is: love. Entering God’s Life is entering a life-long process of learning how to deny ourselves and love. Every one of us has a very long way to go, but every one of us who has lived church life knows what it means to be taught by God to love. This trip taught us once again the immense power of that love. It breaks down every door, opens hearts, and paves a path not just for the Gospel of Christ, but for the Spirit of God that makes that Gospel effective.

In England we met some rather extraordinary members of a small Baptist church. They were godly, loving people who had hurt their careers and social status in order to minister to people. I was impressed. They are much better people than someone like me. They’re harder working, more caring, and certainly run their lives a lot better than I’ve ever run mine. Yet, when we showed up, they told us that we taught them something about ministering to the very people that they have devoted their lives to ministering to. How is that even possible?

It’s because of the power of church life. Modern Christians devote themselves to ministry. Ancient Christians devoted themselves to Christ unless they were specifically called to ministry.  When they were called to ministry, they devoted themselves to learning the ministry they were called to. The power, however, that created the need to minister came from their devotion to Christ. Devotion to ministry is a distraction.

Paul, the apostle, was a student of theology. It’s clear from his letters that he devoted himself to the theology of Christ. The need, however, to teach theology sprung from the life of God at work in the people of God.

Have you ever noticed that those who heard the apostles teach didn’t go anywhere until persecution forced them to? Nonetheless, when persecution spread them out, their faith was infectious. Even after spreading out, as new communities of disciples formed, word spread about the love and faith of those communities (1 Thes. 1:6-10).

This created a need to explain the departure from the typical Jewish faith. These new followers of Messiah, both Jew and Gentile, lived differently than the typical interpretations of the Old Testament would lead you to live. Messiah taught a new way of life, and it had little to do with sacrifices and rituals. As one early Christian put it, “We embrace chastity…dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God…share with everyone in need…live familiarly with men of different tribes…and pray for our enemies” (Justin, Apology 14, c. AD 150). Not much there about ritualistic religious practices, temples, and priests.

I don’t want to get lost in making my point here. God has things to teach us in church life. They are subtle, but they are powerful. They have nothing to do with words, so often they are hard to explain. The fact is, though, that what happened in England is simply typical of the fruit of what God teaches. Where we showed up, everyone had time for fellowship, for prayers, for the discussing of the apostles doctrine, and for prayer. In fact, it’s almost all they wanted to do. They were drawn to it as by some unseen power. That power was the life of God, the very power that draws us as well, that creates the church, that teaches the saints, and that produces a power that will cause the sons and daughters of God to flock to the Gospel rather than having to be chased down by it.

I hope even a little of that is clear. I hope that I don’t sound like I’m boasting about something we did. The things that are learned in church life are powerful. They’re not even to be compared to what you might learn in Bible school, which is almost all completely useless (sorry, but it’s true). All I want is that all who name the name of Christ get to partake in the school of Christ, the church, which is the pillar and support of the truth. All by itself it will produce what people are not obtaining through study, diligent discipline, and toilsome ministry. “It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors,” says the Scripture (Ps. 127:2). Why? Because he gives to his beloved even in their sleep, but only where the Lord has built a house for himself.

“Behold, children are a gift from the Lord,” that Psalm goes on to say. That verse is not a verse on birth control for Protestants, Catholics, Mennonites, and environmentalists to argue about. It is a statement that if you want to reach the world, allowing Zion to bring forth children, it will be the gift of the Lord, not the product of “painful labors.” Modern Christians have never seen the power of church life, so they don’t believe in it. The devil gave the true and Biblical doctrines of the authority and truth found in the church a bad name during the Dark Ages. People are scared of them now, but experience testifies that what the apostles taught and passed on to their churches is true. The church is the pillar and support of the truth, it is the mother of the saints, and God will lead it into things that are true, and not a lie. I would add, into things that are powerful beyond what we could know in our schools, Sunday meetings, and Bible studies.

This is way too long for a blog, but I want to add one more thing. I’ve been saying over and over on this trip that growth does not come from Bible study and prayer in our rooms alone. Growth, according to the Scripture, comes as we speak the truth to love in one another and as every part does its share (Eph. 4:11-16). If you want to grow, you have to be with others to do so, and you have to be with them daily. Sorry, that’s what Scripture teaches (Heb. 3:13). You can pray and read the Bible all you want, but it’s not going to make you grow in ways that will allow you to be an effective minister. Those things are learned in church life. They are learned in the need to get along, having to work things out, having to put yourself aside, and not having the option of separating from Christians you disagree with. Division is death.

I am sitting in a hotel room in Kenya. Why am I here? I am here to preach the Gospel to the longing masses of Kenya. Just yesterday I heard a woman announce loudly with great zeal and joy, “Until these brothers came from the USA, I was in darkness. I was depressed and saddened by what I was seeing in the church around me. I was without hope. But now they have brought the light, and I am ready to shine.”

Keep that in mind. Do I believe in evangelism? You bet I do, and that’s why I’m over here in Kenya, some eight thousand miles away from my six children, crying out of missing them, but also crying because I’m going to miss my new brothers and sisters here in Nakuru when I leave tomorrow. I have been laid out flat in a European airport with my back thrown out, trying to be out of pain enough to get on an overnight flight to Nairobi and out of the way enough not to have airport security carry me off on a stretcher. I have kissed and hugged children with dirty noses and open sores, shared a 10×10 room with five other men, and bounced my way across 120 kilometers of a dirt road we nicknamed “The Eternal Road” for the vigorous shaking it gave us.

Okay, with that out of the way, I want to complain about the American emphasis on evangelism. It is destroying Christians, it has already completely destroyed the church, and it is working on destroying the world.

Twenty years ago, I was in a group called the Navigators. They are ministry mainly to college students and young military. They emphasize discipline, service to others, Scripture memory, and discipling others. What they do is generally good, and their founder, Dawson Trotman, was an exceptional and wonderful man.

They have a publishing company called NavPress that has now, apparently, spawned another called NavPress Deliberate. NavPress puts out some of the best books in the Christian market. _The End of Religion_, by Bruxy Cavey, is the first book I’ve read from NavPress Deliberate. It is excellent.

However…

I read the introduction or preface or something that describes NavPress Deliberate. It says Navpress Deliberate “encourages readers to embrace this holistic…Christian faith.” What holistic Christian faith? The one that includes “caring for  the poor, widow, prisoner, and foreigner…and redeeming the world.”

That’s it? That’s the holistic Christian faith? What about the Church? You know, the thing that’s called the fullness of God (Eph. 1:23), the body and bride of Christ, and in which God receives glory forever. Nothing too important, just the very purpose that he died, at least according to Eph. 5:25-27 and Tit. 2:14.

Today we taught the newborn church in Nakuru to look inward and not outward; to focus on ministering to one another rather than on ministering to the world. That is heresy to evangelical Christianity. On the other hand, evangelical Christianity is a horrendous failure (re: _The Scandal of Evangelical Christianity_ by Ronald Sider), so they’d better start looking at the things that are heresy to them to find out what they’re doing wrong.

Galatians 6:10 says that we’re to do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Why? Because the only way we are going to reach the world is to show them Christ. And Christ has said that the way we will show them Christ is to be perfectly united in love (Jn. 13:34,35; 17:20-23). This is what the Thessalonians did, and it was so powerful that Paul no longer needed to preach in the area of their influence! (1 Thess. 1:7-9).

Paul preached. He did it to start churches, which would then be the light of the world. They are the city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. It’s not your little light that must shine, believer. The good works God wants us to show are to be done by the church together, so that  the great light of the city of God will shine (Matt. 5:13-16). When that happens, my friend, the nations will gather, and they will bring the children of the kingdom on their shoulders (Isaiah 60:1ff).

This is not theory, we are seeing it happen, even in the deadness, greed, and unbelief of American society. It is now beginning to happen in a place much less closed to the Gospel than America is.

Search somewhere for a command in any letter to any church for believers to evangelize. You will find not even one! The closest you will find is Peter’s exhortation to be prepared to answer those who ask you about your hope in Christ. When was the last time you were asked about your hope in Christ? Chances are, that’s exceptionally rare. People do not want to be corralled by a member of the Christian sales force that Evangelicals have mobilized to hide the fact that their Christianity has lost all its power.

I get asked about my hope regularly. At least every week or two. Really. That’s the product of living in the kind of environment that the Thessalonian church lived in, where brothers dwell together in unity. There God has commanded the blessing of eternal life (Ps. 133:3).

Paul knew that words were useless. He wasn’t interested in the being the kind of peddler of wise words and arguments that we evangelicals are (2 Cor. 2:17, where the Greek word means “retail” or “peddle”). He said, “Don’t preach unless your sent” (Rom. 10:15). He said, “Mind your own business!” (1 Thess. 4:11). He knew that it was important that the Gospel be preached only by ministers who adorned it with good works, and who relied on the power of God and not on words (1 Cor. 4:20).

The church is important. Today I heard children singing, “Read your Bible, pray every day,” and then some words that basically said, “This is the way you grow.” It is not the way you grow! That is the lie, my friends, that has allowed wonderful people like those who created NavPress Deliberate to completely ignore the church, the fullness of him that fills all in all, while declaring that they have a holistic Gospel.

Read Ephesians 4:11-16. Really read it. The way we grow is together, speaking the truth in love to one another. You will not grow sitting in your room reading your Bible and praying. You will grow, together with other saints, as every part does its share, as you are trained by your leaders to build the body of Christ by speaking the truth to one another in love. This is the only way you’ll grow. We should teach those children to sing, “Exhort your brother, don’t miss a day,” in accordance with what the Bible actually says (Heb. 3:13).

It is a saying here that African Christianity is a mile wide but only an inch deep. I heard it both in Kenya and in Uganda. Of course that’s so. It’s not just the children who think that we will grow by reading our Bible and praying every day. We need to read our Bibles enough to find out that’s not so.

God is restoring his people, binding them together under his rule so that they can grow like they’re supposed to. Please join the revolution. As a dear Kenyan brother here likes to say, “It is powerful, my brother; powerful!”

If you have a chance come to our conference on June 27-29. Details are at http://www.rosecreekvillage.com/conference.

I don’t normally write about politics or the war in Iraq, but I couldn’t pass this one up. At least one person knew, with the accuracy of a prophet, what would happen if we entered Iraq to overthrow Sadam Hussein. Listen to these words, which were spoken before we went in:

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we’d have to hunt him down. and once we’d done that, and we’d gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we’d have to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi’i governtment or a Kurdish government or Ba’athist regime?…How long would we have to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effor to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?…It’s my view…that it would be a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq. (reference at end of post)

Do you wonder who was so brilliantly insightful about what would happen in Iraq? Would you believe Vice-President Dick Cheney?

Of course, he wasn’t vice-president when he said this. He said this after we drove Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. It was Dick Cheney’s explanation of why the first President Bush didn’t go into Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Obviously, his insight into what would have happened was incredibly accurate.

 I just thought you might like to know. I’m one of those people who likes to hear the truth, but who is aware that often it’s not the truth that’s being told to me. So when I find spots where folks aren’t being honest, I like to point it out. I rather wish that Dick Cheney, so insightful in 1991, would have been equally honest in 2001.

 By the way, the quote came from a book I can’t recommend. Cheney made that comment at the Washington Institute’s Soref Symposium on April 29, 1991, but I got it from Al Franken’s The Truth: with jokes, pp. 43-44 (footnote). After an online discussion with someone, I had read his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, which I found to be rated R and unsuitable for children, but incredibly informative. Lies was full of well-referenced information, much of which I looked up myself, and it taught me how to check up on the success of a president’s economic policy. Of course, it was also full of complaints about Bill O’Reilly and Fox News, which I’m sure would mean a lot more to someone who owns a TV than to me. The Truth, however, has more venting and complaints so far than research and facts. It also continues Al Franken’s unreferenced and unproven claim that George W. Bush stole the 2000 election that he began in Lies. It wasn’t referenced much better in that book, either, which stood out because so much else was well-referenced.

Okay, that’s my justification of myself for reading Al Franken’s books, the second of which I found at Sam’s Club in hardback for $4.27. It’s also my explanation of what you’ll find if you try to read him, too. Al Franken’s not an evangelical Christian. The first earns its R rating from me, and I’ve only read about a quarter of the second.

Well, I appear to have at least found my way to my blog page. Of course, for right now this means leaving behind all those other posts I wrote at shammahrcv.blogspot.com. Those posts are not just little notes, but some of them are rather thorough teachings, some of which I would consider important. I’m sure reading them on a blog is not the most convenient way, but hey, Christianity in America needs a LOT of help, so it seems like it might be worth reading them to someone. Noah told me the last long blog entry was the best thing I ever wrote because it’s so clear.

 More later. My next goal is a SD writeup. We met two wonderful couple up there, though it was by no means the first time that I met one of them, old friends from 25 (no, it can’t be!) years ago in Florida.

 I put up a “Four Spiritual Laws” article at http://www.oldoldstory.org yesterday. I like to think that’s worth reading, too.