THE CHURCH’S GAME-PLAN…

I sat with Brenda, my wife and Alabama graduate, and watched her team put on the most impressive defensive performance for a championship game in recent college football history. Only one time in the entire game did LSU even move the ball past the 50 yard line – when there was 7:30 left in the game. And even then, BAMA’s defense proceeded to push them back 6 yards on the very next play. And a fumble on the following play gave BAMA the ball back on the 50 yard line.

The Crimson Tide didn't allow the Tigers to convert on a third down until the fourth quarter.

“We knew they were going to come out and try to run the ball against us," Tide’s Cortney Upshaw said. "It's great to get the win. We really didn't call many blitzes. We were just hoping to contain them."

Contain them? Can you say, “Total domination”, from start to finish?

LSU offense managed just 92 yards of total offense. Only 39 of that was on the ground, which had been LSU’s greatest weapon against BAMA when they squared off back in November. After the game, Tide defensive end Jesse Williams said, "Toward the end, I could definitely tell they didn't want to play against us any longer. It was sort of like the light at the end of the tunnel."

Well they could at least be sure that light was not an oncoming train, because that train, the Tide defense, had already been through and flattened them!

But even as I watched and cheered that unbelievable defensive performance, I was reminded, as impressive as it was, unless they had mustered some degree of offense, a win would still have been impossible! If they had played to just “not lose” instead of going out there with an intentional game plan prepared, practiced and in place; or if they had let fear keep them from trusting the skill of their young sophomore quarterback – they still might not have won. Many believe that was what kept them from victory the first time around against LSU.

CHURCH:  Offense or Defense?

Is it possible that too many churches expend so much effort defending AGAINST evil, that we do well “holding the fort”, but fail to have a winning, offensive game plan?

Or from the opposite spectrum, are there too many churches that place so much emphasis on the offense that they have poor defense against the game plan of the enemy of our souls? 

Interestingly, it’s not only on the defensive side of the ball that a team must defend well! What do you think the offensive linemen do? They are opening and defending the paths for the runners to run thru. And they are defending against the other team’s desire to get to and crush the quarterback – thus hoping to crush the will of the team itself. Even when we are on the offensive, we find ourselves strongly defending against the wile attempts to get us off God’s Biblical game plan.

Could this be why we are losing ground in the evangelical church in America? Are we becoming too much like the NCAA BCS conferences, arrogantly criticizing each other for poor defense and too much offensive emphasis or vice versa? We talk so much about excellence in “doing” church these days. Does that excellence pertain to just one side of the game plan or both? Offense or Defense?

The team that will win consistently and win the right way is the team that has a strong defensive game plan, builds on the Word of God and strives for authentic, Biblical transformation. That team also possesses a strong offensive game plan that includes both risk and solid, spiritual consistency. A plan that both defends the faith and aggressively develops a playbook that includes plays for pushing the church into the world – that’s our goal line!

Let’s not settle for getting to the 50 yard line, CHURCH! And let’s not settle for just keeping tabs on the enemy near the 50 either!

Jesus never told us to just hold on. He said, “Go and make disciples...”  We must be intentional about gaining ground against the enemy!

But we dare not adopt only an offensive game plan that calls for just slinging the precious truth of God all over the field with no depth of defense for the truth – truth that translates to behavior and is validated by more than just impressive statistics! We ARE called to stand in unwavering defense against the evil and perils of the enemy of the souls of mankind!

It’s just a tho’t!   What do you think?

DOUBT or FAITH?

If "perfect love casts out all fear," then Perhaps faith, growing out of that perfect love can cast out doubt!

Just some thoughts....

Doubt is fear.
Faith is boldness.

Doubt is self-centered.
Faith is God-centered.

Doubt offers questions that cast unbelief.
Faith offers solutions that come from the hand of God.

Doubt focuses on the obstacles.
Faith focuses on the possibilities!

Doubt operates only on the surface.
Faith operates in the depths and heights of HIS knowledge and power.

This day and for the rest of life, may doubt be FORCED to give way to the faith you choose to exercise!

Jono's Near Death Experience (reprint)

On July 2^nd, 1989 Brenda and I, along with our two sons, Davey (3) and Jonathan (19 months) were travelling from West Cliff, Colorado, where I had been speaking at a youth camp, heading back to Marion, Indiana, where I served on staff at Lakeview Wesleyan Church. I had spoken at this camp a couple of times before and decided this time I’d love to take the whole family out to enjoy the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Besides, my mother had just died three months earlier and I really dreaded being separated from the solice of being with my three favorite people in all the world. So I took vacation time and we made that 27 hour trek together in our little Honda Accord – stopping on the way there and back to see friends, family and make one or two tourist trap visits.

After the camp ended that Saturday (July 1), we drove all the way back to Topeka, KS, where I had been on staff at Fairlawn Heights Wesleyan Church prior to moving to Indiana. We attended Sunday services and were invited by Ed and Sharon Rotz to join their family for lunch and an afternoon at the pool of one of the parishioners. We were excited about getting to spend some time with folks we’d grown to love in our years there in Topeka.

At the pool that day, our boys, Davey and Jono, were playing well with the older kids from families there at the church. All of the adults had congregated down at the deep end of the pool while the kids splashed and played at the shallow end. Davey had already become quite a decent swimmer, even at three and a half. Jono was wearing the safety arm floats and was being carefully watched, it seemed, by a couple of the older girls. So we settled in comfortably to converse with our friends.

Suddenly someone screamed, “Jono!”  I turned to see Jonathan, face down, in the shallow end with no movement and no pronounced ripples of water around him to indicate that he’d come to that position within the past few seconds.

All of the kids had gotten out of the pool and were snacking at the nearby picnic tables. Jono had taken his safety arm floats off for snack time. He had then slipped away from everyone, unoticed, to follow a ball that had trickled off the edge of the pool and into the water. Apparently in reaching to retrieve the ball, he fell into the water and no one knew exactly how long he had been there.

When I heard the scream from one of the older kids, I immediately began to swim to try to rescue my son. Before I could get there, Ben Rotz (about 9 years old at the time) jumped in the water, grabbed Jono around the waste and yanked him up the steps of the pool and out of the water. As I saw my son being dragged from the water, I was still a few yards away, trying to run through the shallow water and get there as fast as I could. His face was pale blue and there was no sign of breathing from his limp body. Having been a lifeguard, I had only seen that look once before. My heart sank.

It was not Jono’s day to leave us, though. By the time I got to the steps of the pool I heard the glorious sounds of coughing, spitting up and gasping for breath. The life began to come back into the face of my little buddy. Unknowingly, young Ben Rotz had saved Jono’s life by yanking so hard on his midsection as he drug him out of the water. Needless to say, we were beyond just being grateful to still have our son with us.

Soon after the incident we said our goodbyes to friends and hit the road for Chicago, where we would be rendezvousing with our staff at Wriggley Field for a July 4^th Cubs game. On the way, still rejoicing over Jono’s miracle, I did the “dad thing” and talked to the boys about how much fun the day was. After some chit-chat and a moment of silence, Jono piped up, “I fall down.

“Yes, you did, Buddy. And you scared your Daddy and Mommy.”

Jono then said, “And I see Gwamma too, Daddy!”

My first reaction was surprise since, at his age, and given the long distance we lived from my parents, Jono had only seen Mom a few times in his short life. Before Mom’s death, they had been living in Southern California, where Mom was the Dean of Nursing at Azusa Pacific University. The boys spoke with them at least once a week via phone and we would exchange primitive VHS clips of the boys activities and grandparent greetings. But something told me that these were not just flippant, childish words from a kid who barely knew his Grandma. So I cautiously probed a bit further.

“Who did you see, Buddy?”

“I see Gwamma.”

I felt a lump in my throat and my eyes clouded over with tears. I wasn’t sure if this was a conversation I even wanted to continue. Then I felt Brenda’s hand touch my arm from the passenger seat. I looked over and saw her reassuring smile. So with her strength adding to the emotion of the moment, I choked out the next question to Jono.

“Are you sure you saw Grandma, Little Buddy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where did you see Grandma?”

“When I fall down. And Gwamma was sad, too.”

At that moment I envisioned my Mother’s face with her highly expressive, pleading eyes that always emerged when a subject of urgency or pain was discussed. It was the kind of face that could make a 19-month old child see hurt or sadness.

Barely able to compose myself by this time, I asked, “What did Grandma say to you, Jono?”

“She say, ‘Swim now, Jono! Swim!’”

I don’t know how to explain what my Little Buddy saw that day. But I often wonder if his vision of his Gwamma was what kept him from panicking and filling his lungs with irreversible amounts of water. Thus leaving enough earthly life for Ben to yank him up and inadvertently jumpstart his drowning little body. Or did he actually catch a glimpse of the other side where his Gwamma was encouraging him to stay in his earthsuit a while longer?

One day I’ll shed my earthsuit and find myself in the presence of God. I’m confident I’ll then know the answer to those questions. For now, though, it’s a joy to watch Jono grow and fall in love with Jesus more and more each day. Occassionally we talk about that day. And though he has no memory of those events, he does wear a smile when reminded of how sweet the plans must be that God has for Jono if he chooses to follow HIM.

Status Quo:

STATUS QUO!:
What leader believes that status quo -- an unmitigated commitment to maintaining yesterday's comfortable level of productivity, will move anyone toward the goal? If a coach leads his team with this mantra, unwilling to make changes in the game plan to meet the onslaught of the oposition, the team will establish a pattern of losing quickly! And the fans (or alumni) will run him out of town on a rail! If a company CEO makes status quo the theme of every sales or trustee meeting, the stockholders will sell fast or "can the man!" Restaurants go out of business because of it! Banks and other financial institutions die out or fall prey to a buy-out because of it! Colleges close their doors, retailers lose business, manufacturers go bankrupt, mechanics can only work on yesterday's vehicles, computer programmers are stuck in last year's OS, teachers and professors become irrelevant, missionaries become ineffective, and Congress...well, they are just Congress -- still wreaking the havoc of years and years of business as usual! 

So why on earth do we presume that churches will survive, much less thrive, when we give in to the comfort of having it "the way it's always been!"

Change, that is purposed and directed by the Holy Spirit of God, is the only way to be sure that we are open to the refreshing creativity of God's hand leading us on to victory! If you don't believe me, read what Jesus said about complacency to the "fig tree" in Matthew 21:18-22.

It's a thot'

Tonight on the Porch (repost from '08)

"Tonight on the Porch" is a Journal Entry from June 21, 1988 when my son, Davey was 2 and a half years old. He's now 25 and in 2009 married Amanda, a wonderful, pure and godly young lady -- I had the privilege of reading this entry from my journal to them at the wedding:
======================


Tonight on the porch in Grandma’s big swing
With you on my lap asleep
I was still looking at the star you pointed at minutes before
And I pondered what, for your life, God might have in store

I wonder, Little Buddy, if somewhere tonight
A dad with his little girl might be looking at that star
Perhaps they are close by; most likely quite far
But this I know for sure – she exists
Because your mother’s prayers for her persist

Her name is a mystery – her face, by us, not yet seen
Yet nightly prayer to the Father for her we bring

Father, may she grow to be more in love with You
Than with anything or anyone
May her passion for life be only surpassed by purity and virtue
May she be set apart for You and compromise for none

May her father and mother have great wisdom
In those formative years
May they teach her the graces, Godly passion
And how to embrace life with laughter and tears

May she be free from self-centeredness or abuse
May she learn to rise above fear and not live by excuse
May she be tender enough to see the hurt in others
And bold enough to help lead them to You

‘Cause I know somewhere down this road of life
Little Davey will be a man – and he’ll need a wife.

And Father, while I’m at it – for Davey I pray
May these strengths and virtues – his life display
May his parents instill faithfully your incredible love in stride
And Your example of manly love with your church -- Your “bride”

Father, give him a heart that for his bride will fight.
Not as the world makes love a cheap competition
But with romance so Godly it looks like heaven’s extension
Prepare his life; strengthen his heart;
Make Him Your tender warrior; brighten his LIGHT

And Father, wherever that little girl is with her daddy tonight
Could You mix a little image of Davey in her heart-light?

Lent: About Giving Up or Taking Up?

Was Ash Wednesday (or Lent) really about "giving" something up, or was it more about "taking" something up? As humans we tend to think of discipline or self denial as "giving up" rather than the discipline of "taking up." Jesus said that true denial of self was "taking up the cross and following..." Is it a traditional cop-out to just give up something we like, rather than taking up something that's way out of our comfort zone? Perhaps grace and faith is about filling our lives with more of HIM, which will naturally push the other stuff out anyhow.

I dunno -- It's just a thought.

ONLY BUZZARDS ARE PRISONERS

Put a buzzard in a pen 6 X 8 feet that is entirely open at the top. In spite of its ability to fly, it will be a prisoner there for life. You see a buzzard always begins its flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 ft. Without space to run, it won't even attempt to fly. It will remain a prisoner in a small jail with an unused opening to the sky.

Right now, if you get off the plane in Haiti and look around at all the rubble, death and devastation, you could easily see what that buzzard sees -- no room to take flight. Not enough resources to lift you above the fray -- just destruction and a feeling of helplessness. "What can I possibly do to help these poor folks who have lost everything?" Suddenly you are confronted with one...no two...three....a dozen Haitian Christians -- people of deep Jesus-faith who, though they have lost every earthly possession (and even beloved family members), are still smiling and singing the praises of the ONE they serve.

I was blessed to spend a moment in time walking among these people of faith! One such group was led by a young pastor of a Wesleyan Church outside of Petit Goave, one of the hardest hit areas in the earth quake. He had a group of "scouts" from his church called Brigade de Eglise Wesleyenne (The Brigade of the Wesleyan Church). Every morning as hundreds of hurting people lined up to receive medical attention, this group of servants was there to lead in 30 minutes of praise and worship with scripture reading. Then this group, who all had suffered staggering losses themselves, rolled up their sleeves and carried the wounded, ran errands, helped in translation, and helped keep order in the crowds. They did this every day that we were there. No buzzards in that group!!!

THE KEY: THEY LOOK UP!
Because of that they WILL take flight!