Category Archives: Culture

Culture, Ramblings

Soap box time

I set here at my desk thinking about my two grandchildren and how their lives are saturated by screens.  If it is not a laptop, then a tablet, or even a smartphone.  They seem to be grabbing the very life of my perfect little ones.  I would suppose my mom and dad felt the same way about television, never-the-less, I think it is much worse.  I am not condemning all technology; if I was I would have to throw stones at myself.  I use technology to build Bible studies, sermons, blogs, Christian videos and I am constantly researching the latest insights from great preachers and theologians, all with the help of my computer and its associated screen.  There are concerns.

For those who can absorb information at the rate of hundreds of texts, tweets, emails, Facebook posts, all the while viewing the latest YouTube videos, I can’t imagine by the time they grow into adulthood that a thirty-minute sermon at the church will not be able to hold their attention. It seems there is a shortening of attention span and the lack of a comprehensive learning styles bode well for today’s preachers.  So, does the preacher just keep shortening his sermon and become just one of those legacy things that ultimately pass away?  Or does the preacher of tomorrow have to work harder to open the word and let the Holy Spirit lead to all understanding?  I think the latter.

This social media generation is also being fed by this all-encompassing media blast a very low view of authority.  I believe social media and the tyranny of the screen exclaims itself as the great equalizer.  Everyone has a voice. Facebook tells us we have the right to post the most trivial and the most mundane events, with the expectation that all your friends will read them will all due attention and comment and press the like button. My trip was so good you have to envy me. Opinions become egalitarian; everyone’s post or reaction to a post is presumably important to the whole world.  Everyone has an opinion and there is an assumed equality of importance.  There is no authority other than the mob.  With total equality, there is no authority.  The pastor’s views are no more valid than the teen.

This Facebook mentality is simply too easy.  It requires no commitment beyond a simple click.  We control the message, the duration, intensity, and level of contact. At any moment, we can simply stop reading.  Only to be pulled back because we feel left out.  The level of true understanding of people and committing to a relationship is simply not there.

Some would disagree and state, “I know a lot more than if I wasn’t online.”  I know when my cousin is in her garden, I know about my brother is safe, I know what was preached on in three prior church affiliations; all good stuff. But it is all on a surface level. In her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2011), MIT professor Sherry Turkle observes, “On social-networking sites such as Facebook, we think we will be presenting ourselves, but our profile ends up as somebody else—often the fantasy of who we want to be”. My friended friends might well feel as though they are connected, but, they are just a little further away from who they really are.

There is an art of writing.  To look at a sentence and know it is what is intended, just feels good. When I read most Facebook posts it looks like the education level of the writer is still in the fifth grade. Sure, it is easier to leave a voicemail or send an email than to talk to someone face to face. Turkle notes. “The new technologies allow us to ‘dial down’ human contact”.  Yet we seem to crave real contact and settle for much less.

The solution?  It is not going into a hole and throwing away all our screens.  They are just tools.  From my view from the pre-screen era is that technology is not sinful.  But like any other tool, it can well add an additional vehicle for it.  Where two or three are gathered together, I will be in their company. Turn off the screens and open your Bibles.  Contact someone today and tell them you love them and explain why.  A relationship has to be more than an icon to be clicked on to show your affection.

Bible, Culture, Life, Personal, Sermon Illustration

Knowing and knowing

In teaching ten men on a weekly basis, I have often reached conclusions in my own personal study as I prepare.  Sometimes they are nothing more than a black hole dragging me away from the subject I was trying to understand.  The word “know” throughout the Bible has been most often related to a relationship.  It is more than head knowledge.  It is coming to point of value to the thing or person you have come to know.  It is not just a compilation of facts.  It is coming to understanding and that understanding is worth something.  Only with a sense of importance and a value, does it become known.

An example may help here.  I was returning from Oakland airport after picking up a special visitor to my home.  I left the airport and my GPS device reported immediately there was going to be a 20-minute delay on my chosen route home.  Intellectually I understood what 20 minutes were.  It was a simple inconvenience.  So we pulled into the prime commute traffic heading North.  About three miles down the road I hit the traffic.  in which no one was going anywhere fast.

After experiencing this congestion for seven minutes, my mind told me there would be a reprieve in a couple of minutes or so.  At that point my trusty GPS reported a change in the traffic pattern, “there will be a 54-minute delay on your route. My intellectual understanding of being inconvenienced changed to knowledge.  As we moved as a dreadnaught of hundreds of cars down the five lanes of traffic, I began to be a little irritated with little things.  Little things like motorcycles whizzing down between cars with only inches to spare started to irritate me a little.  I started keeping track of two or three cars that seemed to want to change lanes with every opportunity to gain on the rest of us willing to go with the flow.  It was nerve-wracking.

I was really getting to know traffic. When you know something beyond a simple understanding and then when you become a part of it you are changed.  To know of a future delay and becoming part of it is two separate things.  When you know something as the Bible uses know, then you have to live it. To know is experiencing and being changed by it.  It affects your feelings, your hopes, your dreams, and even your driving habits.

John 17:24 is John’s intent to tell us about knowing God.  His intent is to tell us that knowing God is more than an intellectual head knowledge.  Knowing God is seeing the value.  Knowing God is the relationship.  Knowing God is being changed.  Knowing God is an intimacy. Knowing is more than a warning of an impending delay in my plans, any more than our concept of hell slowing us down.

Culture, Life, Motivation

All of a sudden

Driving across town to do a simple errand I was late.  Every stop light seemed to be just turning red as I approached.  Every light brought on a small incremental growth of frustration.  Call it happenstance, coincidence or luck, but I came upon three green lights in a row.  My countenance lightened as the journey came to an end.  Pulling into the parking lot of my destination I realized I was on time for my appointment.

I have personally experienced instantaneous healings.  I have also heard testimonies of God healing people in a single moment of faith.  But as often as not it was preceded by months or years of faithful praying for that breakthrough. The world I live in has become an instant soup kind of world.  Microwaves, 260 channels on widescreen televisions provide entertainment with a push of a button on a remote control. Today’s culture has embraced the instant, and sometimes we forget the importance of persistence and our Biblical mandate to not give up when the going gets tough.

Before the beginning of the world, there was a plan for Jesus to come into this world. But when the day came for Mary to give birth there was no room in the inn. You would think if God had this perfect plan of bringing the savior to the world he could have made reservations.  Even in promises, even in the promises of God, there will be challenges.  Even when God is in something, problems can and following the reservation less Jesus, often will present themselves.

We look at our local churches and fully expect that if God is in something, it’ll work out perfectly.  But sometimes it does not.  Some Churches do not thrive, some even shut their doors, years of prayers and hopes seemingly unheard.

But they are just stop lights in our paths. Sometimes it takes a long time for God to act suddenly.

Church, Culture, Preaching

Shock and Awe

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For thirty-three years, Jesus never tried to shock people.  Never-the-less, He was never afraid of shocking people.  As I sit back and examine the world in which I live, which includes what is called news and the prevalent excuse for entertainment, there seems to be a juvenile kind of thrill being exampled of just trying to shock people.  Every item tries to stretch the point to a point that would draw attention to itself.

Sometimes this effort to shock people simply comes from a desire to draw disinterested people to attention.  “I don’t have much breaking news, so I will just proclaim something shocking.”  At other times it is just a part of habit.  One person always must have the last word and if it is not extraordinary and shocking no one will pay any attention to me.  I think it is simply ego.

The sad thing is that this shock malady is dripping over into the church.  The title of the sermon must catch ones interest if it is to be effective.

But Jesus was not this way.  In his teaching and preaching, He did not purposely try to shock people into understanding. But when He did it was always with truth and not hyperbole.  I can imagine how a cautious adviser might have spoken to Jesus. “Now, Master, of course, your ideas are important, but please don’t say them so bluntly.”  “You can’t go around calling the religious elite a brood of vipers.”

Jesus was never deterred from His witness to God by asking, “What will people think about this?” or “How will it affect my safety or popularity.”

I believe the church is trying so hard to shock with a title they forget the awe of the message.

Just my opinion.

Church, Culture, Personal

I may be me…

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Church, I want you to step up and make this “love of Jesus” thing real and real to me.  I am here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned personhood, ready for the full-on Jesus stuff.  Step up and show me the supposedly relentless and all loving Jesus; make it real.

Church, the word for today’s world is tolerance.  Tolerance for everything that can be accepted by the broad and wide way.  Right now, I need you to tolerate me.  For that matter, you need to tolerate those of us who, for hundreds of reasons, you may characterize as un-Christian.  I am so weary of feeling the only thing that goes on around here is a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point to make, a cause to defend, a soul to save.  You can’t promote your cause without accepting me as who I am.

I want to be more than a number on a tally sheet.  I want more than to be counted with those who “like” a Facebook site.  I want to be more than a prop in a baptism ceremony. I want more than applause and high fives when I show up and am soon forgotten when the music ends.

I am waiting for the time when you stop doing your thing and listen to my thing.  Stop evangelizing us, preaching at us, fighting us, judging us long enough to simply hear my pain, my garbage. I am fully aware of my own foibles. It is not your place to put up a mirror, that is God’s job.

Listen carefully church.  Even if we are all sinners like the woman with adultery, or the doubting follower, or the rebellious prodigal or even the demon filled man, there is little we can do about it.  It is all that we are.  Don’t value us because of what we could become but love us because we need simply to be loved.  I need, we need, the world needs, a church big enough, tough enough, and loving enough to look us in the eye and love us unconditionally. Not for what we may become but what we are now.

I am well assured you think you are what God wants.  You go about your ministries and try to be inclusionary to all.  You make every attempt to love and care.  In the shoes, I walk in, in the world in which I live, strive, struggle, question, feel rejection and try to just be me, it does not feel as though you care and love.  It feels more like space and silence.

If I am hurting, telling me it will get better does not help. It only adds to the distance and space between us.

If I share that my very soul is wanting.  If I voice my conviction that I don’t feel included, don’t ignore me. It is so frustrating for you to say it is not right to be hurt.  It is a conversation ender.

If I tell you I am starving for compassion, relationship, authenticity, the last thing I want to hear is that I need to be corrected for my hunger.

Oh, you may be doing your thing and it may be good enough for you.  But for me, it is just one more excuse to stay away.  By the way, if the problem is me, it’s me who you are supposed to be reaching.

Bible Study, Culture, Motivation, Worship

Bubbles

“If I do this.”

If I drive an electric car, I will be making a difference to the polar bears.

If I live a good life, I will have good karma.

If I drive defensively, I will not get run over.

If I go to church once and while I will be accepted.

There was an invalid who every day would be found by a special place.  It had five great colonnades or walkways with alcoves on both sides.  They surrounded a great pool of water.  He had come there every day for thirty-eight years.  The common understanding was when the pool was disturbed by a visiting angel, the waters would start to bubble.  “If I am the first in the pool, I will be saved.

Year after year trying to be as close as possible so when the bubbles began he would roll into the healing water. Like himself, hundreds of sick, lame, blind, disadvantaged all depended upon the bubbles.  They put their trust in the bubbles.  They had faith in the bubbles.  The bubbles made all the difference.  The water no matter how cooling or inviting was not good enough; it had to have bubbles to be effective.

Every day was spent staring intently at the surface of the pool.  It was a danger just to blink and miss the first bubble as it disturbed the surface.  In our lives, we too wait anxiously for the next bubble in lives.  That next stirring will make the difference.

The malady of the day is the dependence upon the bubbles and not on the source of healing.  There have been great revivals, great outpourings of God’s Spirit on men.  These great stirrings have made a great difference. The great Reformation drew millions to a new faith-based belief.  The concept of evangelism crusades as espoused by Rev. Billy Graham gave place to millions of lives changed.  But these great stirrings were not little bubbles upon the pool.  They were great upheavals.  They were not choices of what is contemporary one moment and outdated the next.

Faith in bubbles is the problem.  If sing the right song in an easy key and repeat the verse repeatedly, I will be moved.  If we make the church more relevant, you will hear, “Here it is.  Here is the agitation that will turn people to God.  A well-orchestrated worship experience will save the church.”  “The bubble will be our cure.”

We tend to be polarized in our experiences.  When things are going well we have great things to praise God for.  When things are going poorly we have things to pray to God for.  They are both just disturbances in our lives.  And like the poor man at the pool, we are not saved by it.

It is all showman’s tricks.  It is all smoke and mirrors.  It is all bubbles.  It is trading a true faith in God to a faith in bubbles.  The man at the pool was saved not by the bubbling disturbance of the waters beneath the colonnade.  It was no external disturbance that would heal the wretched man.  What healed that invalid by the pool was a person. It is the advent of Jesus into the middle of our lives that provides the healing of spirit and of mind. By faith, we are saved.  Faith in the commander who said, “Pick up your mat and walk.”

The Kingdom of heaven does not come with the observation of the bubbles.

What do you think?

Church, Culture, Politics

Bias, intoloerance, judgement

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For some this is old news, never-the-less, there seems to be a bias in what I see on TV.  Every show seems to want to out due the other in violence, sexual content, and even anti-Christian rhetoric. A couple of weeks ago one person on ABC stated, “It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you… that’s called mental illness.”  There seems to be a tidal wave of prejudice and outright distain for conservative Christian belief.  But I contend that faith remains as the foundation to our civilization.

Prayer and listening to the urgings of God is a very large part of what makes the America which I love.  As it was for George Washington and through to our Vice President whom the “mental illness” jab was pointed. These prayers and listeners were the kind of people wo built our civilization, founded our democracies, developed our modern ideas of rights and justice, ended slavery, established universal education and now are in the forefront of the fight against poverty, prejudice and ignorance. And they are Christians.

To call yourself a Christian in our contemporary culture is to be showered by pity and a wry smile. Those who have a spiritual life are characterized as someone who needs to be re-educated or reprogramed. There is a soft-spoken, yoga posed, tolerance that looks to the next generation that will be taught the right way to think. And all the while they put bumper stickers on their Volvo with “Coexist.”

And that’s just for starters. If you are a Roman Catholic we’re accessories to child abuse, if we’re Presbyterian or Lutheran you are seen as intolerant to change and the world is predestined to be the way it is, if you are evangelicals we’re creepy obsessives who are uncomfortable with anyone enjoying anything more than decaffeinated coffee with your scone.

In a culture that prizes sophistication, non-judgmentalism, irony and detachment, it declares spiritually motivated lives as intolerant, naive, superstitious and backward.

The real story of today’s churches is a saga of millions of quiet kindnesses. They provide warmth, food, friendship and support for those who have the least to hope for.  The homeless, often in the grip of alcoholism, drugs, undiagnosed mental health problems, those whose lives have been torn apart and overwhelmed by multiple crushing blows are being helped and being helped by Christians.

Culture, Motivation, Psycolog, Ramblings

Honor

Over the last couple of months, I have tried to grasp the characteristics or inner needs that drive our actions.  Again, actions are the results or responses we decide to make as we live out our core.  Our core is part and parcel of who we are.  We do not choose to be wanted and accepted, it is a part of our core or center characteristic.  Actions based upon this core have moral consequences.  Actions are never done in isolation.  Actions are what we do in response to our innermost.  These actions require an act of the will.  An example: I have an inner desire for consumption of food, but it is an act of the will to consume good food or not so good food.  Decisions carry with it consequences.  If someone would step on my toe in a crowded elevator, I would feel pain; no decision on my part it is a part of being alive.  But if I lashed out at the perpetrator of the pain and punched him in the nose, that is a decision and has consequences. Pain is part of being how I am. Purposely inflicting pain on someone else’s nose is a decision-making process.

So far in my list of inner wants or core needs I have covered acceptance, curiosity, consumption, and family. The next on the list is probably the most problematic.  Problematic in that our society seems to display the actions that would not express this characteristic.  That characteristic is honor.

Honor as defined in the Bible as kabod in the Old Testament meaning heavy or weighty.  To honor someone is to give weight or give respect and even authority over your life, and timao in the New Testament.  It is characterized as granting honor because of respect, courtesy, and reverence.  Both words speak of acts of honor. Never-the-less, I believe there is an inner desire to acknowledge others with honor.

An example of this characteristic is when I worked for Intel Corporation.  I was asked to go on a sales call with a large customer to be a technical advisor to the discussion.  I felt that I should give the honor to the customer to dress well and be on my best behavior.  I put on a fresh shirt and a moderate tie under my suit coat and went to the meeting.  At the meeting table prior to introductions the prospective buyers constantly asked me questions and almost ignoring the sales manager to which I was there to support.  The sales manager was not wearing a tie or for that matter acted disinterested in the goings-on of the meeting.  The company staff was referring to me because of my clothes and demeanor.  To the chagrin of my sales manager, he was being ignored and I was being honored.

For the most part, most do not act rudely.  Most take care not to offend.  Most react to the honor urge in positive ways.  It is an internal attitude of that should be nurtured.  It is only when we respect, and honor others will others do the same. While the reception of honor is a positive experience, it is not to be sought ( Luke 14:7-8 ). When honor comes from others by reason of position or status, it is not to be taken for granted. The recipients should seek to merit honor through godly character.

The granting of honor to others is an essential experience in the believer’s life. Christians are to bestow honor on those for whom honor is due. The believer is to honor God, for he is the sovereign head of the universe and his character is unsurpassed. The believer is to honor those in positions of earthly authority, such as governing authorities ( Rom 13:1-7 ), masters ( 1 Tim 6:1 ), and parents ( Exod 20:12 ). As a participant in the church, the believer is also called to honor Jesus Christ, the head of the church ( John 5:23 ), fellow believers ( Rom 12:10 ), and widows ( 1 Tim 5:3 ).

Honor, now that is deep!

Comments welcomed.

Culture, Life

Be Still and Know

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I am quite taken by the changes in my lifetime.  I guess it is a part of getting old.  Please don’t call me a cynic, but I really don’t think it is much better.  My current mindset is about the society, our culture, the world itself seems to be more and more demanding of the individual to become less and the grandiose total is becoming more and more.  This attitude of public perfection is the greatest goal for man, is just taking over.  If we think like everyone else it will eliminate all conflict, pain, and want.  If the common politically demanded correctness is achieved, we will all “get along”. Every decision, act, purchase, relationship, in this new group think environment must be evaluated by the current wind of public opinion or popular cause.

Our current culture has no regulation or mandates.  All there is are options, attractions, temptations, seductions.  Duty is seen as an option, not a requirement.  Why should someone have to stand when the national anthem is played?  Don’t we have free speech? Shouldn’t it be an option?

An American philosopher Richard Rorty characterized this new society as, “Maximum material property for all, combined with an anesthetized culture of self-created individuals.”  It is a sheltered and inoculated society walking a zombie walk without worry and angst once bitten by the next big thing.  Let the next film be all that is talked about.  Let the digital death at the hand of a binary sniper remove all the queasiness of accountability.  All the great new things solve little. This beautiful promised world with its own pitfalls and dangers constantly pitch new and fulfilling choices.  And these choices are nothing more than a distraction.

From the lyrics of a song by Steven Curtis Chapman

Be still and know that He is God
Be still and know that He is holy
Be still Oh restless heart of mine
Bow before the Prince of Peace
Let the noise and clamor cease

Be still and know that He is God
Be still and know that He is faithful
Consider all that He has done
Stand in awe and be amazed
And know that He will never change

Be still

Be still and know that He is God.

Comments are welcome.

Culture, Life, Ramblings

The truth is, there is no truth.

The world, the public persona, the culture shouts to us from every screen and signboard is one of “not enough.” There is always one more improvement, always one more perfect solution, always “but wait, there’s more.”  Boiled down to a single phrase it could well be, “the truth of yesterday is not the truth today.” The truth is that there is no truth.  Our culture around us screams for the next big thing. The biggest and best of yesterday is nothing compared to the new and improved of today.  The common societal mantra goes even blatantly further with a wry smile, hinting that the best yet to come. The now is never enough. The truth of today is just a pale shadow of that new truth to come.

Technology promises a plethora of new and better.  Politics promise peace and prosperity.  Cars that can protect ourselves from our own stupidity.  Phones that will never get you lost. Better coffee, better food, better soda that tastes great with no sugar. Always a hopeful future.

Our society promises a kind of heaven on earth.  A world with stable ocean levels.  A world where all have access to clean water.  A world where everyone has free stuff.  A world where there is no money.  A world where the individual is not limited by anything.  Our culture promises a life of satiated desires and political correctness.  But this new world order has no meaning outside of the moment.  No current home will ever satisfy our personal homelessness. No current meaning of life will ever have meaning.  No hope of life now will ever be enough.  There is no joy of life in the now that is sufficient. Where is the satisfaction?

Our lives are bombarded by reality shows that nothing to do with reality.  There a talent shows that allow us to think, “that could be me.”  Commercials that proclaim the latest absolute bargain. We pay homage to the opinion of the latest celebrity for all our group-think. For the world, there is no “same yesterday, today and tomorrow.” Our culture says there is no constancy.

BUT THERE IS.  It is only when we realize that it is possible to be in the world and not be a part of it.  It is only when the constant of eternity is the foundation of our lives can there ever be true satisfaction in our nows.