Next Chapter is coming!

Well I just finished the second chapter of my as of yet untitled
fiction book. I will get it typed this week and post it as soon as
possible. Thanks for all the great comments about the first chapter,
I hope the chapters to follow will not disappoint.

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Religious Right or Wrong

This article appeared in USA Today. It blows me away that some of the "Christian" leaders in this country can take such non-Christian stances.

Hugo Chavez, the populist strongman who runs oil-rich Venezuela and rails against U.S. influence in Latin America, has a new helper: Pat Robertson.
When the veteran televangelist called Monday for assassinating Chavez, it was small-bore news in an American context — notable mostly because it's not every day that you hear a Christian activist advocating murder. But Robertson has said outrageous things before and is quickly dismissed.
Abroad, though, his comments quickly fueled anti-American sentiment.

Since Chavez was first elected, in 1998, claims that Washington is plotting to kill him have become routine. Robertson — a prominent White House ally, who once sought the Republican presidential nomination and won four states in the primary campaign — gave them credibility. "If (Chavez) thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said on his The 700 Club, a TV show seen by nearly a million people a day.

Threats to heads of government are not taken lightly overseas, particularly when the White House has a policy of "pre-empting" foreign threats. Over the past half-century, the United States plotted against leaders of Cuba, Congo and the Dominican Republic, and encouraged assassinations in South Vietnam, Chile and elsewhere.

Robertson tried to claim Wednesday that he had been "misinterpreted" and later apologized. But the impact of his remarks was widespread. The National Association of Evangelicals worried that the comments could endanger U.S. missionaries and aid workers who are wrongly perceived as collaborators with U.S. intelligence agencies.

They might also have worried about the political interpretation. Not long ago, Robertson was at the forefront of the campaign to sanctify displays of the Ten Commandments across the land. Now, the Christian Coalition founder publicly advocated immoral and illegal action. What part of "Thou shalt not kill" is it that he fails to grasp?

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And this comes from Church Marketing Sucks. I think this is exactly how Christians should respond to this. With holy anger.

Pat Robertson Assassinates Jesus

As you can expect, the news channels are swarmed with chatter over the latest stupid thing Pat Robertson has said: The U.S. should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (watch the 700 Club video). Stupid comments like this and thousands of others do real damage to the cause of Christianity.

Why does anybody even listen to this guy?

The headlines today are amazing—it's actually hard to tell the satire stories from the real ones:

Real or Fake?

• Pat Robertson: "Kill 'Em All, Let God Sort 'Em Out"
  
  
• Evangelist Pat Robertson calls for assassination of Venezuelan president
  
  
• Roberston: "Thou shall not kill, except this time."
  
  
• US evangelist calls for assassination of Chavez
  
  
• TV host urges US to kill Chavez

[For the record, it's fake, real, fake, real, real.]

Stupid Things Christians Say

OK, we've been here before: prominent Christians saying stupid things. It's not exactly a great public relations move, and it certainly doesn't help the image of the church.

Now let's be clear about what we're saying. We're not saying that Christians should be silent in the face of injustice. We're not saying Christians should keep quiet about sin to help our marketing. That's a crock. We're saying Christians need to be careful what they say. There's a big difference between "assassinate that guy" and "that guy's doing something wrong."

Think before you speak.

In the Aftermath of Stupid Statements

Now that Robertson has opened his mouth and inserted both feet, what if potential visitors associate your church with Robertson's comments? Sadly, it happens all too often that Christians are characterized by the unguarded comments of people like Robertson.

But there are a few things you can do:

• Keep your distance. It's the classic political move: distance yourself from the one in trouble. In this case it might be as simple as reiterating that your church doesn't have the same stance as Robertson. It could be a simple side comment in a sermon or a newsletter article. It's also worth noting that you want to distance your church from his comments, but not necessarily him as a person. Christians should still support one another, even when we say stupid things.
  
• Humor helps. Laugher can often defuse a situation, and in this case poking fun at Robertson's comments seems like a good way to go. Spoof ads or skits making light of the situation would show the difference between your views and Robertson's and also reassure potential visitors that you're not a bunch of wackos. Again, it's important to have some balance: laughing at his comments is OK, laughing at him seems a little harsh.
  
• Stick to your strengths. Make sure people don't associate your church with something stupid a Christian said by making it clear what your church stands for. Grace, mercy, love, justice, etc. should be so blatant in your church's sermons, newsletters, banners, posters, web sites, etc. that it's obvious that comments about assassinating a world leader wouldn't jive in your sanctuary.
  
• Offer your perspective. When people discuss the issue, offer your perspective. Take the opportunity to explain that not all Christians would agree with something like what Robertson said. It would be ideal if a member of your church staff could offer that perspective to a local newspaper covering the story.
  
• Apologize. This is something we're often not good at, especially when it doesn't seem like we're the ones who should apologize. But offering an apology can be a gentle and graceful way to show where you stand.
  
• Pray. I hate to bring up prayer in a public relations post because it just seems too easy to co-opt prayer. But it's still important, even if nobody knows about it. Pray for Pat Robertson and Hugo Chavez. Who knows—mysterious ways, right? Maybe one day Pat and Hugo will laugh about this mess over drinks.

Dealing with something like this doesn't need to be a huge ordeal for local churches. It could be as simple as a joking reference and a more serious comment at the beginning of Sunday's sermon. But these kind of statements do have a long-term effect on our ability to communicate, especially with non-Christians. That may mean a college ministry or an outreach group will be dealing with stupid things Christians say six months down the road. Being aware of these issues and defusing them is the key.

And so is keeping them from happening. Think before you speak, even if you don't have a nationally televised cable show.

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Reality Church?

I ran across this on Dan Kimball's blog. If you don't know Dan, he is the author of The Emerging Church, and Emerging Worship and is a key thinker in the Emergent Movement.

The First Stage: We begin going to a church, exciting, thrilling, love Jesus, the church is exciting, all things new.

Second Stage: We begin getting involved, learn behind the scenes things, feel privileged to know the church staff and leaders more personally, we are totally excited.

Third Stage: We see things you start to question, the thrill of the big church meetings wanes, as it seems more and more predictable, the leaders seem more human now and not as special as first.

Fourth Stage: We start to get tired of serving in ministry. It seems routine now and we only see it as fueling the big meeting that we don't really like anymore. The leaders we once were in awe of now seem not only normal, but there is a suspicion of self-serving vs. serving the church in their motives. We lose excitement and wonder if church is even something we should be part of. We grow more disillusioned by the day.

Fifth Stage: Total disillusionment, begin feeling bitter towards church leaders, and wonder why people don’t question things more. We sit in the big meeting and feel very alone. We look at the crowds around us and don't feel like we belong anymore. Is church just a produced big meeting? We are tired and it even angers us to see excited new people joining the church as we now know how it really works and how they too will eventually become tired like we are and see church is a program and organized religion.

Sixth Stage: We silently drop out of church. We read the Bible and early church history and see that they didn't have bigger weekly meetings in the early church. We read "house church" literature and begin thinking this is the real New Testament church. We get excited about really doing church the right way and not the big organized way. We find a few other disillusioned Christians and either form or join some sort of small house church gathering. We want it to be simple and not "organized" or programmed or big, but pure like the early church. Everyone all sharing together, true community will happen here, unlike the bigger programmed meetings.

Seventh Stage: Fairly quickly, we realize it isn't too easy leading people. Even in a small house church. People don't show up, or you have people dominating conversations. There is the same bickering, some gossip, people whispering to others that they are not happy with how the meeting went etc. We sometimes try to sing worship songs with ten people and it feels very odd. So you don't try to sing anymore, but do secretly miss the corporate singing that happens in a larger group. Eventually we find the same disappointments in the smaller house church that we did in the bigger programmed church, but at a different level. We get even more disillusioned, as we realize that even the key leaders (including ourselves) and the people of the house church are just as messed up as the big church leaders and people in those churches.

We also feel subtly uncomfortable that the house church feels a bit inward focused. It would be weird to have non-Christians break up the intimate dialog and prayer we have taken such a long time to establish together. But we know something has to be done, as we keep thinking about those who don't know Jesus and that our house church might not be the best place to invite them. Plus dealing with little kids running around every week during your meeting certainly limits your full engagement into the Bible discussion. We get more disheartened as our 4 year old knocks the entire strawberry shortcake dessert onto the kitchen floor as he was trying to get at it early before it is served at the house church.

Eighth Stage: We stop going to any church of any kind. We forget it all. Watch a lot of TV. Play video games. We go see the Dukes of Hazzard movie.

Ninth Stage: We begin missing other Christians, and regular fellowship. We do some introspection and eventually deal with the disappointments and high expectations that we had. We begin a new level of maturity and thinking about the church and church leaders.

We start thinking about our options. We don't want to go to a preaching-driven church that just has everything revolve around the senior pastor or the preacher, as that subtly creates passive spectators who depend on the preacher to "feed" them weekly - rather than maturing as Christians whom should primarily be "feeding" ourselves (since we aren't infants anymore). We don't want to go to a hyper-Reformed church where we feel guilty all the time and get caught up in the everybody else is worldy and wrong but us mentality. We don't feel good about the seeker-type of churches where everyone is so happy, the music is hyper-cheery and we fill in the blanks in the notes they give out. That excites us for a little while, when we fill in the blanks, because it feels like you are really learning. But after a while we see the stack thickening in our Bibles that we stuff them in and realize that we have never even looked at them since we filled them in. We look at our notes that we filled the blanks in on, and can't remember a single thing from these sermons, even the one from two weeks ago.

Tenth Stage:  So, we slowly go back to our original church that we at first felt good in because of the overall vision and mission that drew us to it in the first place. We find that the leaders do admit freely to you there are weaknesses and flaws and mess ups and ego issues, but still try their best to blend both the bigger meetings and smaller home meetings for the purpose of the mission. They try to be organized, without being "Organized".

It's not perfect, but we begin to enjoy and even more appreciate the benefits and momentum of the church. But now we get involved with more realistic expectations of what church is and understand the leaders are just like us, trying their best to serve Jesus. We become happy again with a balanced life and imperfect church family all serving on a mission together.

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* Due to the rather large amount of emails I am getting from people about this post and asking questions - I wanted to say this is not an entirely real situation, but one made up from lots of different experiences and stories. Nor do I think everyone has to go through all these stages. Nor do I think everyone always ends up back at their original church. Sadly, some churches should never be returned to!

I am just thinking of the churches that people leave that really are OK, and just trying their best and making some mistakes along the way. Pondering some of the unrealistic expectations we make sometimes of church and church leaders. I'm glad it is stirring up some thinking and from the emails, sure seems like a lot of people have personally experienced some of these stages.    - Dan

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The baby is here!!!

Jessica gave birth today to Rowan Anastasia Clarke at around 1:00pm
The baby weighed 8lbs, 7oz. and was 20 inches long.
Mother and baby are doing fine, and dad is freaking out with joy.

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It's GO time!!!!

Well, today is the big day for my friends Adam and Jessica.
Jess is being induced this morning. I am about to walk out the door
to drive down to the hospital.
Please pray for them and their baby. This is pretty exciting, I am
really happy for them.

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Just trying out a new feature

Blogger has a feature that allows you to email your posting directly
to your blog. I am trying it for the first time right now. We'll see
if it works well or not. By the way, if I was a greedy turd, i would
tell you to check out the ad links on the side of my site. but i'm
not, so i won't.

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Site Update

I added a list of postings and essays that I have written over the past 2 years. They are on the right hand side. Some of these are about postmodern Christianity, some are about me, some are about life in general. I am proud of all of them, and would love for you to visit them and comment on them if you like. Thanks.

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continuation of chapter 1

Lynn flopped down into a large soft chair across from Ray and next to Seth.
“Mind if I join the boys’ club?” she asked.
“Our pleasure,” answered Seth.
Seth was a regular at the coffee shop and had engaged in several light-hearted conversations with Lynn and the other baristas.
“So, what are we talking about?” inquired Lynn.
“We’re just sharing work stories,” explained Seth.
“Don’t even get me started,” laughed Lynn. “I have plenty of stories.”
“Don’t we all,” said Ray, making more of a statement than an inquiry.

At this point it was closing in on three o’clock and Ray was far from finishing his sermon. He wanted to stay and talk some more, but he knew he had to work on his message. He asked Seth if he would be at the shop next Wednesday. Seth assured him that he would.
“Looking forward to talking with you again,” Ray said, gathering his things.
“Me too,” added Seth.
Ray exchanged goodbyes with Lynn, and with that, he left the coffee shop.
Lynn was working a double shift, so as she was taking a break, she enjoyed her vanilla latte, the quiet jazz music in the air, and the company of a real-live hero.

Seth was the first to strike up a new conversation.
“How long’ve you know Ray?” he asked.
“A few months,” she answered. “I had waited on him a lot and eventually had a real conversation with him one day. He’s a pretty cool guy.”
“He seems like it,” said Seth. “Not really what I expected a minister to be like.”
“What did you expect?” Lynn questioned.
“I don’t know, it’s just that, well, as far as I could tell he isn’t your typical uptight cookie-cutter type of Christian,” answered Seth.
“I know what you mean,” she encouraged. “He’s not pushy or abrasive,” she added.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Seth confirmed. “Why can’t all Christians be that way?” he added.
“That is a really good question,” Lynn concluded.

As Ray left the coffee shop he felt a few drops of rain on his face. The rain was soothing and cool, a contrast to the warmth of a typical August day. Although Indiana is known for its moderate Springs and Falls, the Summers and Winters could be incredible aggressive: Not today though. Rain was sometimes scarce in the late summer months, so this shower was pleasantly welcomed.
Ray quickly hopped into his beat up S-10 pick up. He hated the idea of getting water spots on his papers. Although he had contemplated buying a laptop, for now he was happy handwriting his messages. There was a certain sentiment to handwriting a sermon. It conjured thoughts of ancient scribes penning the Gospels and the Epistles.
Ray switched through radio stations trying to find anything worth listening to. As he expected though, all he found was the same bubble gum pop music that he found nauseating. He had said to his oldest daughter once:
“Come on Sis. I mean seriously, how many ‘Ooh’s’ and ‘Yeah baby’s’ are necessary?”
He pulled a zippered CD case from the backseat. Feeling his way through the case, he found the prize he was looking for and popped it into the player.
He usually listened to audio books while in writing mode. He tried to stay clear of “church” music in order to avoid getting emotionally caught up. He tried listening to worship CD’s once, but found his messages were encouraging and uplifting, but not as challenging. So today’s background noise would be chapter 4 from a book entitled “And God said…” Actually, it was originally titled, “Et Dieu a dit…” The author, a French philosopher from the 1800’s was named Xavier Boche’.
Although it was translated into English, it was still fairly heady stuff. From what Ray could tell, the point of the dissertation was that Christ had not abolished the laws of the Old Testament, but had fulfilled them, even simplifying them in two laws. Ray had to agree. For several years he had come to believe that one could follow the original ten commandments by simply adhering to the 2 commandments that Christ had given to his early followers: Love God and love your neighbors. The problem, as Ray had seen it, was that people still focused on working for salvation, as if they could earn it. Ray began string thoughts together.

“If we could earn salvation…” he thought aloud.
“Then why would we need Christ?”
“If we could earn grace…” he continued his thoughts.
“Why should we depend on God?”
He sat for a few seconds, not really thinking but just waiting.

Then it came.
“Because we can’t earn it. That’s just it. God offers it to everyone. After we have accepted his gift of grace, our lives change and we want to do good works. Not to gain salvation by because it is already given to us ,” he concluded.
This was nothing new to Ray. He had debated the grace vs. works argument when he was in seminary. He assumed that most people had abandoned the idea of salvation through works a long time ago.

He was in the middle of his thoughts, somewhat swept away, when he jerked back to reality to the screeching sound of tires, but not his. Then, blackness.

“So, you mean to tell me that there are single guys in the fire department?” Lynn giggled with amusement. “I thought that all women went crazy for a man in uniform.”
“Well, it’s a little misleading. I’m not single because I have a lack of opportunity. I am single, cause I’m not looking,” Seth explained.
“Well that’s a shame,” said Lynn. “Cause I was just about to ask you out.”
Seth thought to himself for a second. “Was she joking? Oh man, this is uncomfortable.”
He didn’t respond.
“Well, awkward moment, eh?” Lynn asked shifting in her seat.
Seth cracked a smile. “Yeah,” he agreed.
Then a thought popped into Lynn’s head.
“Oh crap, I am so sorry. I must have missed something. I had no idea that you were, well, you know, not into girls.” She awkwardly apologized.
“What?!” Seth half gasped, half choked. “I’m not gay! I’m divorced!”
“Great. I’m an idiot. I am so sorry, I guess I assumed that if a good looking guy tells me her isn’t looking to date that he must be trying to say something else,” she tried to explain.
“Don’t worry about it, the guys at the station tease me all the time,” Seth tried to comfort her.
“No really, I am sorry. I will by all of your drinks from now on,” she was still apologizing.
“Well that’s a deal, but only if we drop the subject,” Seth concluded.
“Agreed,” added Lynn.

She continued, cautiously. “So, uh, if you don’t mind me asking. What happened?” her tone had changed.
“You mean my marriage?” asked Seth.
“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me, it’s none of my business,” she back peddled.
“No, it’s ok,” he replied. “We were young, just 19 and 20 when we got married. Things were great for a few years. I was hired at the department; she was a receptionist at a doctor’s office. Like I said, things were great.”
Lynn just sat there, silently, taking in the story.

“So a few month at the fire department and we were fighting all the time, about everything. Our shifts suck, twenty-four hours on at a time. Seven o’clock in the morning to seven o’clock the next morning.” Seth continued.

“Wow, I thought I had it rough working a few mornings here and there,” replied Lynn.

“Yeah, well, while I was at work, she was out with her friends hitting the bars and clubs. One night she met a bartender and the rest is history,” he looked away towards the window.

“Oh no,” Lynn was feeling pain for him.

“She started having an affair. I felt so stupid. I had no idea. It went on for two or three months. Then one morning, I came home from work and the house was quiet. She wasn’t there. All of her stuff was gone. All she left was a letter on the kitchen counter,” he remembered.
“She left you a ‘Dear John’ letter?” Lynn almost shouted.
“Yeah, well actually a ‘Dear Seth’ letter, but it basically said that she was leaving me, she found someone else, it wasn’t my fault, blah, blah, blah.” He motioned with his hands as he said the last three words.
“I just remember falling to the floor and crying so hard. Then like a one-two punch, I realized that she had taken our dog too. I was literally all alone.” There was a quiver in his voice.
“Oh my gosh, that is so low,” replied Lynn.
“Yeah, so that was five years ago, and I haven’t dated since,” Seth added.
They sat back awkwardly for a few silent seconds.

“So,” Lynn broke the tension. “What holds you back?”
“I don’t know, fear of getting hurt again, I guess,” answered Seth.
“Yeah, I guess that would do it,” Lynn offered then continued. “Don’t worry, I won’t stalk you or anything, but uh, you know, if you ever would like to go have dinner and some company you can give me a call.” She wrote down her phone number on a napkin and slid it over to him.
He reached for it hesitantly. Looking at it for a second, he spoke up.
“I just saw this number,” he said.
“What? Where?” she asked, concerned.
“On the wall in the restroom,” he said, smiling.
“You jerk,” she said, laughing, then slugged him hard in the shoulder.

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