When It's not the best time of the year

Blue Christmas Service
Wednesday, December 19
4:30 PM

The constant refrain on radio and television, in shopping malls and churches, about the happiness of the Christmas Season, about getting together with family and friends, reminds many people of what they have lost or have never had. The anguish of broken relationships, the insecurity of unemployment, the weariness of ill health, the pain of isolation, the gut wrenching loss of a child, the loneliness of no longer having a beloved spouse to share each day, the loss of a dear family pet - all these can contribute to a feeling of being alone, of 'feeling blue' in the midst of others 'being happy' and 'celebrating'. There are years when we hurt at Christmas time and can't get into the festivities others seem to be able to do.
It's at such times that we need to make the space and take the time to acknowledge our sadness and concern. We need to know that we are not alone. For these reasons, Broadus invites you at 4:30 pm Wednesday, December 19 to come and join in sharing and hearing prayers, Scripture, music, and sharing communion in ways that acknowledge that God's presence is for those who mourn, for those who struggle - and that God's Word comes to shine light into our darkness.
Please accept this invitation to be with us - a time for those feeling 'blue' to experience the wonder and hope of Christmas. No need to RSVP - our doors will be open to all who come so please feel free to invite others to come with you as your support, or if you know that they too are finding that Christmas hurts.

Jamaica Mission Trip Planned

On August 19th, while we were sitting in church, the southern coast of Jamaica was battered by Hurricane Dean. Shortly thereafter, the Virginia Baptists committed to providing supplies and work teams to repair the homes of folks who are now homeless. We are getting a group together to be one of those teams.

One week, between February and April, we want to take a group to Jamaica to repair homes and make relationships that, we hope, will turn into a long-term partnership between our church and Jamaican Baptists. My hope is that eventually we can partner with the Jamaicans to work in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

If you would be interested in swinging a hammer for a week and meeting some new folks from a different part of the world--and being a part of God's restorative and redemptive work in the world, please let me know. I'd love to work along side you.

Interesting Evangelism Strategy

 

Sigh.


I saw this invitation to a new life in Jesus in the parking lot of a state park in Michigan this weekend. I was in Grand Rapids visiting Mars Hill Church. Mars Hill was a great experience. Their mission statement is telling of their commitments, "To live out the way of Jesus in misisonal communities and to announce the arrival of His Kingdom by working for measurable change among the oppressed." Somehow, I don't think the owner of this vehicle has the same spirit as my new friends at MH. Just a guess.

A New Social Gospel?

I remember thinking as far back as early in college that I didn’t fit in the categories that were out there.  It seemed like (now remember this IS 1980’s Texas I’m remembering); it seemed like people were either conservative Christians or liberal democrats/ atheists.  I didn’t mind a lot of the ethical positions of conservative Christians, but my atheistic/ democratic friends (that was a sort of redundancy back then and there, I must admit.)  cared more about the things that Jesus seemed to care about than my conservative Christian friends.  It seemed like people were either on this ‘side’ or that ‘side’ and I didn’t fit either one.  I appreciated some of moral positions of one group and some of the economic/ social positions of the other group. 

 

I remember even asking in seminary, in an ethics class, who’s doing this right?  Who is really embracing the “Politics of Jesus”—to borrow from John Howard Yoder’s wonderful and challenging book--?  The response was “The Catholics”.  Well, ok.  Maybe.  But, nothing against Catholics at all, but that didn’t seem like a likely path for me. 

 

What I have since come to discover is that there were then and are now a LOT of people feeling like I was and do.  People feeling like our faith and our faith commitments had been hijacked by political parties who use religious leaders to drive the masses to their political brethren.  I’m not really a ‘masses’ kind of person.  I bet you aren’t either.  It doesn’t seem so revolutionary to say it, but it seems like it is to practice it: Jesus is bigger than any one political party.

 

I’ve come to appreciate the folks who identify themselves as ‘emergent’.  They are seeking and finding a new paradigm for what it means to live out our faith in all areas of life: social issues, economic issues, political, religious—without being herded as, you know, ‘the masses”.  It just seems like with the emergent folks, the fences are lying in scrap pieces all over the landscape.  It’s messier than having the fences in place, predictably dividing us.  But Jesus was pretty messy too.  It just seems to me that our nation needs a little less vitriolic religiocentic partisanship and a lot more thoughtful, prayerful, engaging, loving, truth-telling Jesus following on whatever the issue may be and whatever the cost to us.

 

Here’s an interesting article from Newsweek about what’s happening among New Evangelicals trying to transform the world:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566389/site/newsweek/

 

 

Transformational Ministry

Here is a link to a story that PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly did on Lawndale Community Church in Chicago.  It’s another example of a local church making a significant difference in the life of its community. 

 

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1102/feature.html#

 

This kind of ministry seems to me what Jesus would have us be about.

 

Here’s the church’s website too: http://www.lawndalechurch.org/

Email address change

Greetings.

I have changed my email from ericahowell@earthlink.net
My new email address is:

ehowell95@gmail.com

After October 31, I will not be able to receive mail through earthlink.
Thanks and sorry for any inconvenience. 

Eric

PS For those of you who received so much enjoyment from 'erica', your days are thankfully numbered.

Recent Concerts

The last two weekends, we have been treated to some remarkably wonderful music as part of our House Concert and CoffeeHouse series.  We are so fortunate in Charlottesville to be blessed with tremendous talent in music and the arts.  At our House Concert we had Peyton Trochterman and High Society perform.  They were great.  These guys blew away the small-but-enthusiastic crowd away with thoughtful lyrics, trumpet riffs by John D’Earth, and Matty Metcalfe on the accordion.  The whole evening was a lot of fun for everyone.  Here’s a link to his site: http://www.peytontochterman.com/.  The Paramount Theater has invited High Society to perform a CD release party.  They are the first local band to be welcomed to the Paramount—and with good reason.  On Sunday evening, we were blessed to have Alex Mejias give a warm, spiritual Coffee House concert at Broadus.  Alex is a local musician who loves to play re-tuned hymns and other spiritually rich melodies.  He left Monday morning for Nashville to record his next album. 

 

My only regret about both events is that more people weren’t there to enjoy them.  I don’t really know what to do about that (if anything can be done.)  Perhaps we need to do a better job getting the word out or personally inviting people.  Well, whatever the case, this kind of stuff is just too good not to share.  I genuinely feel that way about our whole church experience.  This stuff is just too good not to share. 

 

Huge props to the folks who pulled these events together, Jacob Goodson in particular.  All of you did a really nice job! 

 

One Old Church Adapts

One of our alert members forwarded me this article from this week's New York Times. A white, Southern Baptist Church in Georgia that was sinking woke up to the changing reality around them . . .and changed radically!

An Old Church Adapts

Radical change has a cost and some people were left behind along the way. Not every congregation can and should so radically change, but perhaps far fewer do it who should.

One interesting aspect of this church's transition is the response the church made to a changing world. In their case, the change in the world was evident to those who had eyes to see--internationals were transitioning the neighborhood in significant ways.
For most of us the shifts are less obvious--but just as significant. Our community specifically has groups of people who are as different from traditional Baptist church-goers as the Eastern Europeans and Africans in Georgia. To significantly reach post-moderns may require shifts in our approach and outlook that rival that of the Georgia church and feel radical to all of us to varying degrees.

It seems like the big first issue is to recognize that we are increasingly in a post-Christian culture. This should be no real surprise to us. Peter said that Christians would be residents in an alien culture. The opportunities are no less than the Georgia church faced--increasing numbers of neighbors who do not know much at all about Christ and even less about church.

The second big issue is: what, if anything, are we going to do about it? How pro-active will we be in living out the gospel and sharing the story of Jesus right here in ways that meet people right where they are?

Sep 9 Town Hall summary

Thanks to everyone who was a part of our visioning town hall meeting last week.  The attendance and interest was impressive.  In a nutshell, on behalf of the visioning community, we presented three aspects of the process at this time.  1) We revisited ‘core beliefs’ and distributed a revised draft.  You can view that draft by scanning a couple of posts below.  We welcome your comments.  2) We began a process to identify and articulate core values of the church.  Core values express the ways that we do church.  Every church is different.  These values ought to express what is at the very center of what makes Broadus what it is.  3) We presented three areas in the community for focused ministry in the coming years: a) Senior Adults, b) Wilton Farm, c) Fontana, as representative of the many other similar neighborhoods in the Pantops area.  The visioning community has divided into three teams to research and examine these areas and paint a picture of what these ministries could look like over the next 10 years.  We will come back with a report and further conversation in Town Hall session on November 18.  Thanks for your input and continued participation in this process. 

What is postmodernism?

The term ‘postmodern’ gets thrown around a lot these days to describe everything from philosophy to architecture to technology, to how ‘disobedient and disrespectful’ the younger generation is today.  But what does it really mean?  Admittedly the definition is a bit slippery.  I heard a bit of an interesting conversation on NPR last night that was helpful to me in articulating what postmodernism is all about.  The speaker put it in terms of English grammar and a bit of history. 

 

When the Enlightenment emerged and, with it, science and reason, the world of thought was broken into two very different spheres: Fact and Opinion.  Facts were things that could be ‘proved’ scientifically.  Opinions were anything that could not be ‘proved’ by the methods that were approved for proving things.  Get it?  So, Fact and Reason is the world of science.  Opinion is the world of emotion and religion.  Religion, faith, belief—whatever you want to call it was (and still is) relegated to the realm of personal opinion.  So that’s how you get politicians who can say, “My religion will have no influence on the way I govern the nation.”  Think about that statement again.  What they are saying is that My religion (the world of opinion) will not have an impact on the way I govern (the world of facts and reason) the nation.  In a modern context that is a perfectly acceptable answer.  Or take a church-going religious person who prays on Sunday (his personal opinion) and then runs his business (the world of reason) during the week according to what is reasonable for generating maximum profit without any consideration for Christian virtues that might inform how he treats his employees. 

 

This distinction gives rise to breaking our lives apart into Public and Private.  Economics and Science are public.  Religion and Faith are private.  Thus, “My (private) religion will have no influence on the way I govern (public) the nation.”  Well, that’s just one example.  It’s really a question of how we know things.  How do you know something is true?  The modernist says, “I have facts that prove it.  If it cannot be proven by the scientific method, it’s just your personal opinion.”  

 

Now, in terms of grammar.  In grammar, there are three persons: 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd.  (I, you, he/ she/it)

 

First person is the world of opinion (What I believe to be true; what I feel)

Third person is the world of ‘fact’ (What is proven)

 

Postmodernism looks at this and asks two questions, “Who are you who believe something to be true?” and “By what criteria do you determine something to be fact?”  The answer that postmodernists offer for both questions is the 2^nd person—the world of social location—the you (plural, likely).  Each of us is part of a larger story that any of us standing alone.  Acknowledge it or not, you are part of a complex social matrix comprised of your socioeconomics, skin color, religious heritage, national identify, time in history, and on and on.)  This “2^nd person” identity is informative and formative for who you are even when you think you are coming to independent conclusions about what you believe.  And furthermore, this “2^nd person” identify is formative for how you determine what is factual (3^rd person). 

 

Some postmodernists go so far as to say that there is no 1^st person and no 3^rd person.  You cannot come to independent conclusions aside from who you are in your social location and there are no universal facts at all—everything is a product of your social location.  (While I’m compelled by the postmodern correction of modernism, I think this goes a bit far—but hey, who am I, right?)

 

This move to postmodernism has everything to do with young people returning to Tradition in worship and church.  The modern manifestation of church is a worship service disconnected from the social construct (the Tradition) from which it comes.  It’s a ‘contemporary’ service that doesn’t use church language, church symbols, or anything having to do with church.  It only focuses on the 1^st person (what are you feeling today—what is your private belief in God and why you should have such a belief (the fact of the authority of the Bible).  Postmodern or ‘emergent’ movements return to the second person and young people are leading the way.  They are saying, “We know we are part of a bigger story and we want to experience it.”  So, let us experience the richness of the Tradition, but make that Tradition as expansive as possible, including elements not found in our parents and grandparents American, Protestant services—that’s not wide or deep enough.  Give us Celtic meditations, Orthodox prayer practices, Catholic candles, give us incense and silence, give us ways to express our own appropriation of the Tradition and then let us lead the way.  Be honest about the chaotic and mysterious origins of the Biblical letters and their formation as the church’s canon.  It’s a 2^nd person book of narrative, not a 3^rd person book of fact disembodied from the community that produced and collected it.  I want to be part of something bigger than me, but also something that makes me part of the community as well.  Give me a worship/ church experience that is 3^rd person (tell me what is known and I can trust), 2^nd person (let me experience who we are together), and 1^st person (let me experience all of this for myself and make it my own.)  Isn’t it interesting in light of the grammar of faith that theologians long ago figured that God is best understood to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--One in three persons.

 

      

Visioning Update--Core Beliefs

Thank you to everyone who came to the Visioning Town Hall conversation Sunday evening. I was impressed by both the number of people who attended and also the good questions, interest, and commitment demonstrated by so many of of you. Thank you! As promised, here is the draft of the core beliefs that we discussed. I can't figure out how to link to a word document, so I've just pasted it here. Enjoy!

Core Beliefs

September 9, 2007 Draft

Genesis
God created the world and all that is in it. He created human beings to be in relationship with Him, but when we choose our own desires and exercise our own wills against God, we repeat the sin common to all humanity, alienating ourselves from God, damaging our relationship with one another, fragmenting our society, and abusing our world. Shame, guilt, selfishness, arrogance, greed, and cruelty degrade our lives. All creation suffers in our broken world.

Gospel
The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to restore us to full relationship with God. As the complete revelation and physical embodiment of God, Christ came to restore wholeness of body, mind, and spirit and to show us how to love as we were meant to love. When we confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, we experience reconciliation with God, forgiveness of our sins, fullness of life in this world, and hope for eternal life in the world to come.

Acts
We believe that a church is a local body of baptized believers whose commonality is their individual experience of Christ as Savior and whose unity is their voluntary association as a spiritual community committed to worship, evangelism, fellowship, study of the Bible, and service in Christ’s name. We desire to be worthy of the New Testament designation of the church as the “body of Christ”; thus, with Him as our Savior and example, and with the Holy Spirit as our empowering guide, we will strive to live as a community of faith, to embody the love of Christ in relationship with one another, to minister to the broken world, and to share the good news of Jesus with everyone who does not know him.

Reconciliation
We live with the assurance that God restores us to right relationship with himself through our faith in Jesus Christ. Having received this gift of salvation, we are called to share the gospel message and live our new life in Christ in ways that foster peace and reconciliation among people and nations.

Destiny
Until Christ returns, we will strive to be faithful stewards of God’s creation and
ambassadors of his kingdom on earth, trusting the future to God, knowing that he alone has the power and grace to bring all history to completion and fulfill our hope to live with him in the eternal and perfect kingdom to come.

Scriptures
We affirm the Holy Bible as the inspired Word of God and the basis of our beliefs. We interpret the Bible in the light of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and the complete revelation of God.

Choosing a Bible Translation

I get asked from time to time, “Which Bible translation should I buy?”  It’s a reasonable question.  Over 50 modern translations exist in the English language.  But that is further complicated by the many commentaries and versions added to the biblical text: The Women’s Bible, The Student’s Bible, The Oxford Bible, The Ryrie Study Bible, etc.  These take one of the 50 translations and then add some commentary.  So which to choose?  Hard to say.  If I were going out right now to buy my first Bible to study and take to church, I would probably buy the Life Application Bible in either the New International Version (NIV) or the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).  But the Bible I use these days is the English Standard Version with no commentary.  I enjoy this translation especially for use in preaching as it avoids the old English of the King James, but still reads nicely.  Plus, I believe it to be accurate in most cases.

Here’s an attempt from another pastor to give some help for Bible translations.  http://www.firstpresb.org/translations.htm.

Bottom line when you are standing in Barnes and Nobles looking at the shelves and shelves of Bibles: find the one you think you will actually read.  And then enjoy!

Questions for God

I ran across this page on the web: http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/questions_for_god.html and I thought it was interesting.  There are several dozen “Questions for God” on here and answers from religious people are listed if you click on the links.  I must admit that I’m more than a little reluctant to click the links.  What will be there?  Anger?  Smug self-satisfaction?  Unqualified certainty?  Most of these seem like genuinely good questions.  I hope the answers are humble and equally good.  But, like I said, I’m a little afraid to look.  Sometimes I find myself more comfortable with the questions atheists ask than the answers Christians provide.  It’s not that I think they are unanswerable, but sometimes it’s more honest to live a bit in the tension of the question than to leap to the simple answer.  Well, here’s a few of the questions.  Got any answers?  Got any more questions?  God knows that I do- maybe a few answers, and definitely a lot of questions.

 

 

·  Why don't you show yourself?  You supposedly made us and want us to believe in you, right?  Why the big mystery?  You're also omnipresent, right?  Why don't you show yourself to all of us at once and have a personal discussion with us?  You can pick the date and time, we'll all stop what we are doing, I'm sure.
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why do you let your followers murder and rape us?  Why do you let your Catholic priests sodomize our precious children?  I think it's safe to say that we really don't like this.  Isn't your Catholic hierarchy hand chosen by you from the top down?  Are you afraid to admit to making a mistake in your choices?  Can you please admit the mistake and let our children grow up in a normal, ethical and safe environment?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Did you really make Eve from one of Adam's ribs?  Why didn't you make her from dust just like Adam?  And, why do men and women have the same number of ribs if you stole one from Adam to make Eve?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why do you make your followers suffer so much?  Why do they die at the hands of other religions?  Can't you put a stop to this?  You're omnipotent, right?  Can you 'show us your stuff'?  Why do you let all those Church buses crash?  Why do you let all your religious followers die in plane crashes, terrorist attacks, car accidents, famines, floods, hurricanes, tornados, etc.?  Is this part of 'Your Plan'?  If you needed more Angels or something, why didn't you just create more Angels?  Why do you cause so much pain down here?  Are you sadistic?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why are their so many conflicting religions?  Did you make man so screwed up that he cannot hear the 'true' word of God... yours?  Every religion that exists today and every one that has existed throughout history has professed that THEIRS is the only true religion.  Did you come to Earth as Zeus once?  Did you make all these religions because you thought certain societies could only understand certain concepts?  What about the Jews?  The Muslims?  The Baptists?  The New Adventists?  The Mormons, Hindus, Incas, Mayans, Protestants, Apaches, Buddhists, Methodists, Gideons, Greeks, Quakers?  The Catholics (American, European, South American, etc.)?  Were you just looking for some diversity or is it just a childish game to see who will follow the 'right' religion?  Which is the 'right' religion?  I'm sure many denominations would REALLY like to know that they're worshipping the 'wrong' God, don't you?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Was physics different when Noah built the ark?  I mean, seriously... how did he get all the animals from all over the world... and the dinosaurs, etc. on that boat?  How did he get penguins to the Middle East?  How did he get them back after the big flood?  Why didn't the dinosaurs eat all the sheep?  I know from reading that you are jealous and envious and want nothing more than for all of us to believe in you...  wouldn't you like to let us in on your secret?  Come on, how'd he do it?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Who can hear you and communicate with you?  Are the Catholics correct in saying that only their priests can communicate with you?  Why is this?  To ensure the hierarchy and security of the Catholic Church?  Or, can anyone communicate with you as most of the other religions believe?
View answers we've received.
 

·  Why is there war?  How does it agree with "Thou Shalt Not Kill"?  Why are there so many wars in Your Name?
View answers we've received.
 

·  If you made Adam & Eve first, and they had three sons Cain, Abel & Seth, what happened next?  There's 4 men and 1 woman, right?  What happened next to propagate the species?  Who did the children marry?  Who did they procreate with?  Isn't incest bad?  Adam & Eve had other children, so brothers and sisters; or Eve's sons and Eve were having sex?  God, why aren't we all retarded genetic mistakes?  Why didn't the whole human race get physically deformed and mentally handicapped from mixing familial genes?  Surely you knew about the gene problem, right?  Or did it not exists back then?  Did you just create it recently in one of your more spiteful moments?
View answers we've received.
 

·  The Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not kill."  Didn't you order Moses to do a lot of killing?  Why did you do this if it violates one of 'your' commandments?  Why did he wipe out entire cities, kill all the men and rape the women and children?
View answers we've received.

Feel Good Feeling

This summer has been pretty rough for sports fans—doping, cheating, arrests, blah, blah, blah.  But just when you think that sport might be hopeless, check out video of the 12 year old in last night’s Little League World Series.  This kid, from rural Georgia, had a moment he will never forget the rest of his life—hitting a home run in the world series—but not just that—hitting a walk-off homerun in extra innings to WIN the world series.  It’s Kirk Gibson, Casey at the Bat, Michael Jordan vs. the Utah Jazz.  It’s basically, and I’m not exaggerating here, it’s basically every little boy’s dream.  It’s what we do in our backyards and playgrounds, as we count down the clock . . .I still remember it, bouncing a ball in my driveway, “Howell on the wing. . .5 seconds . . .4 seconds . . .he’s trapped . . .3 seconds . . .oh he dribbles around . . .he jumps, he shoots . . .he scores!!!!”  Well, every kid scores the winning shot in the backyard.  When you miss, you just collect the ball and try again until it goes in.  I’ve never really hit that shot in the big game, or hit the homerun, or caught the winning td pass in the final seconds, or birdied the 18^th to win.  I’ve had my moments, maybe just enough to have a shadow of a glimpse of a hint of the kind of feeling this kid from Georgia has this morning, watching himself on the lead story on Sportscenter living the dream and giving hope again to every little boy—even the little boys inside grown men.  Is it the boy or the man in me who had to choke back a goofy tear watching that today? 

Please add your prayers

In our community this past weekend, a little boy visiting his grandparents slipped outside and fell in a swimming pool.  He nearly drowned and is now under the care of UVa Hospital.  His outlook is uncertain at best, but his family is keeping their faith and lifting prayers for him.  Through this site, they have been joined by thousands of people all over the world.  Please take a moment to visit and pray for him.

 

https://www.caringbridge.org/cb/inputSiteName.do?method=search&siteName=judegilliam

 

 

Headed to Wilmington

This weekend, I am traveling to Wilmington, NC to meet with the pastor and staff of First Baptist Church, Wilmington.  I’ve gotten to know the pastor, Mike Queen, a bit and asked if I could come and visit with him, pick his brain, and just observe how they do church.  FBC Wilmington is particularly interesting to me for a couple of reasons.  First, Mike is an impressive guy based on my limited interaction.  I’m just looking forward to spending a little time with him.  Second, FBC Wilmington is a CBF church that is trying some unique ministries in the community and seeking to reach people. 

 

I’m not saying that no CBF churches are doing this, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of role models out there.  I’ve enjoyed being exposed to churches that are doing outstanding ministry and reaching people for Christ, but I’ve not seen many CBF churches on the short list of churches that are really knocking it out of the park.  Why is that?  I don’t really know, but maybe we have so identified fundamentalism with evangelism, contemporary expressions of worship, focused outreach, empowered leadership, and church growth that when we turned our backs on fundamentalism, we turned our noses up at some of the very practices that make for dynamic churches.  A lot of CBF churches are very proud of our classical worship, our traditional programs, support for historic Baptist principles, and so forth and we are genuinely perplexed as to why our churches are plateaued or declining.  We’ve looked to the past to find our inspiration.  We just need to remember to look to the future to find our direction as well.   Maybe it’s time to reconsider what it really means to be a ‘moderate’ church and celebrate those things while not rejecting everything that is new, fresh, and dynamic.  Well, I don’t know if CBF Wilmington is doing those things, but it will be an interesting weekend to learn from some fellow travelers on the journey.

 

What I love about Broadus is that we’re a church that has taken some bold risks in our history.  We’ve been willing to try some things.  I appreciate the church supporting me in my last few months in the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Program that has enabled these trips.  They have been a meaningful learning experience for me and I hope that some of that learning helps us as a church now and in the future.

 

You can check out FBC Wilmington at www.fbcwilmington.org.  

Resilient Consumers?

The headline in today’s paper reads, “Consumers return to shopping ways”.  Keep in mind that this article is right on the heels, and in fact right on the same page, as article after article lamenting the tightening of the credit market, the poor housing market, and how our foolishness in regard to borrowing more than we can repay and purchasing more than we can afford.  So, basically, there is good news.  Consumers are still consuming.  Whew!  That was a close one.  I thought we were in real trouble.  But never fear—the American consumer will come through in a pinch. 

 

I guess it’s the patriotic thing to do.  President Bush goaded us all to go shopping to show the terrorists that they cannot stop our way of life.  Interesting, isn’t it?  Our way of life is shopping.  Bush was right about this one.  He understands, in this case, the nation he leads.  We are a nation defined by our consumption.  That consumption is apparently insatiable.  80% of US households have at least one credit card (including ours).  10% of those carry balances in excess of $10,000.  In fact, according to cardweb.com, the average debt carried is over $8000 per household.  Now, that number is grossly skewed by the relatively few who are in huge huge debt, but 21% of cardholding households carry debt of over $2000 according to http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/creditcardsmarts/P74808.asp.  We are people in debt and getting deeper.  But hey, if terrorists can’t slow us down, what’s a little housing slow down going to do?

 

Apparently nothing.  That’s the message of today’s article, “Consumers went shopping for everything from clothes to furniture last month, helping to calm fears that a key segment of the economy might be faltering.”  Retail sales rose 0.3% in July after a 0.7% decrease in June.  Analysts were worried about what July would bring and breathed a sigh of relief to see that the American consumer can be counted on, “Consumers are holding tough,’ according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.  ‘They are surprisingly resilient in the face of near-record high gasoline prices and the unraveling housing market.”

 

So congratulations, you bold, courageous, resilient consumer!  You have come through again.  Nothing can slow you down—even if you can’t afford it.  (cue the “real American heroes” music from that beer radio commercial).  Our greed and need to consume knows no bounds.  Thank goodness and thank visa and mastercard.  Where would we be without them? 

 

um, maybe solvent, and maybe at a little more peace with ourselves and the world.

Of subprime loans and debt

The business pages of the papers and the crawlers on the screens of 24 hour cable news networks are screaming the news this week that the sky is falling.  If not the sky—the roof is certainly caving in.  For several years, the developed world, and Americans in particular, have enjoyed easy credit through low interest rates.  And who was complaining?  We were able to purchase the home we are in because of low rates.  Many others have had the same experience.  And we’ve all ‘saved’ lots and lots of money.  But ironically, we are worse off now than we were before.

 

The problem is that we didn’t know when to stop.  So Americans borrowed for a mortgage, and then a 2^nd mortgage.  We borrowed to buy a newer car—a nicer car than we could have ever afforded with cash.  Then we borrowed for nicer clothes, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and trips to McDonald’s.  We didn’t even have to meet a loan officer or fill out much paperwork.  Just swipe the little card through the little machine and bingo—we walked out of Lowe’s with a new saw, out of the Gap with a new pair of slacks, out of Applebee’s with the sweetness of dessert still on our lips. 

 

That sweetness has turned sour for many of us.  Maybe it was unexpected medical bills.  Maybe you got layed off or business slowed or the car went in the shop.  Something happened.  You didn’t plan for ‘something’ to happen.  And now you are in trouble.  Big trouble.  The bills keep coming.  You are still paying off clothes and groceries that you used up months ago.  It’s harder to wake up in the morning when you feel this way.

 

It’s not just Americans.  America itself is finding it harder and harder to roll out of bed.  As a nation we may come soon to the point where we must finally confront the extravagance of our living over the last generation.  Our government has tried to put pressure on China for human rights abuses, unfair labor practices, and unbalanced trade policies.  China responded by threatening to dump billions of dollars of Treasury Bills on the open Market.  China owns something like $900 billion in US Treasury Bills.  Basically it means they’ve loaned us this money.  If they dump the TBills on the market, the value of the dollar plunges.  If that happens, our economy is in big trouble.  All this to say that because we have borrowed so freely, we are now owned.

 

How’s it feel?  Jesus came to set us free, but more and more of us have willingly enslaved ourselves to Visa, Mastercard, and Discover Card.  We’ve consumed too much.  And just as the world economy is undergoing a painful corrective, maybe it’s time for us to go through one too.  Several years ago, my family discovered the ministry of Dave Ramsey.  By following his advise and plan, we cut expenses, paid off debts, put a little away for a rainy day, started buying more with cash, and made a lifestyle commitment to get out and stay out of debt.  I don’t want to be a slave to anyone besides the one Lord by whom I am bound. 

 

If you want to get yourself free, but today you are despairing, check out Dave’s ministry at www.daveramsey.com.  Buy his Total Money Makeover, buy a CD, whatever works for you.  Tomorrow, you will be on the road to freedom.  And I must say, it is a great feeling to be becoming free!

The System of Wealth

I was part of an interesting conversation this morning about wealth.  I guess it wasn’t really about wealth but about the unofficial ‘system’ that has much determinative power over people in terms of their ability to achieve, succeed, and have some measure of control over their destiny in life.  We have been studying the systems of first century Israel—the time and place that gives context to Jesus’ many statements about wealth and his indictment of those who are greedy, selfserving, and oppressive.  In this system, the top 10% of people had most of the wealth and power.  The bottom 90% were poor.  There was no middle class.  So priests, landowners, tax collectors and the like had control, while carpenters (like Jesus), fishermen (like most of his disciples), and others were among the poor. 

 

These distinctions were rigid and very rarely did anyone cross between the two.  It’s like starting a game of monopoly with one person having all the properties, more cash, and then stacking the rules against their opponent.  So, oh by the way, that was the conversation this morning.  In koinonia Sunday School, we played Monopoly.  Only by first century rules.

 

So, the priest team got Boardwalk and Park Place with hotels on it.  They got surrounding property as well.  Everytime their opponents made any income, the priests got a cut of it.  Likewise, the taxcollector team had its advantages.  They had property and hotels and houses.  And everytime a fine or tax was paid, they doubled what was really owed like the 1^st century tax collectors, skimming off the top.  The third team, the poor people, only had those two crummy purple properties and a little bit of money. 

 

Other than that everyone had to obey the rules, roll the dice and pay up.  In short, everyone had the same opportunities, but not everyone had the same resources and safety net.  The game was predictable.  All the money flowed one direction, which left the poor with only the kindness of the rich to either give them alms or float loans enough to keep the poor in the game, all the while losing ground with every turn.  It’s easy to see how frustrating and helpless this would be in the first century.

 

The salient question is: to what extent is this game being played in America today?  To what extent is the division between the rich and poor such that the poor are basically powerless over their own destiny, unable to genuinely affect the destiny of their and their kids lives?  Is this really the land of opportunity?  And what is the trajectory our nation is taking?  Are we becoming more of a place where people can achieve or are becoming more of a place where people are locked in? 

 

And, then what is the church’s role in all of this?  Many would say that we have no role in it except to give to help those in need.  That’s great.  I have no problem with that.  But what happens when my faith calls for more than just being kind—it calls me to be just.  I think the church is also called to a prophetic role of living Jesus ‘Upside-Down Kingdom’ (Thanks to Donald Krabill for that description).  Somehow the church has got to find a way to really make a difference in our communities—a difference that models God’s Kingdom, that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

An Example of Transformational Ministry

I have begun to make friends with and have great respect for Mike Queen, the long-time pastor of First Baptist Church, Wilmington, North Carolina.  Recently, FBC Wilmington went through the process of purchasing the old jail from the city.  They have turned the old jail into a ministry center.  Apparently, the church received some criticism for their plans, but went through with courage and conviction.  The result is that the center has been transformed.  And surely many lives will be as well. 

 

Here’s a story on the local news about their project: http://wect.com/Global/story.asp?s=6844768.  It’s text and a video of the newscast. 

 

I think that this is the kind of thing that churches should be about and I’m proud to know Mike.  At the end of August, I’ll be traveling down to Wilmington to visit with Mike and his staff and get a sense for what FBC does and is all about.  This is a CBF church that seems to ‘get it’ when it comes to ministry and being missional in their own backyard.

 

One well-known Christian leader wrote this to Mike:

 

 

Mike,

You and the folks at First Baptist are certainly to be commended for your foresight, insight, and faith-sight to acquire this facility and make such good use of it. You well deserve the affirmation of this opinion piece. It is another affirmation of the response of you and your congregation to God’s calling on your ministry. I am glad to count you as friend and a fellow Baptist Christian!

 

Another wrote this:

 

Mike,

In these days when many of us in the Wake Forest community, including you, are reeling from the tragic death, but always resurrection, of our basketball Coach Skip Prosser, it is so very good to get resurrection news about the transformation ministry in the old jail in Wilmington..... and the courageous ministry and leadership of you and Jim and your board and congregation of First Baptist Church, Wilmington...... this is a well written, well deserved news article. Let's always take risks, for Christ sake! Stay strong in hard places! May God's peace be within you!

 

 

Blessings,

 

Eric

How Rich Are You?

When we read the biblical accounts of the Rich Young Ruler, we feel better that Jesus is not talking about us. When we read any of Jesus' many scathing condemnations of the rich, we think about people today who are much richer than we are. That's just human nature I suppose. Most of us don't think of ourselves as 'rich'. That's a designation that belongs to people who have much, much more. Of course all of us can find someone who has much, much more. So, by that train of logic, no one is 'rich'.

How do you know who is really rich? According to Donald Kraybill in his piercing The Upside-Down Kingdom, about 10% of people in Jesus' day were in the wealthy class. The other 90% were poor. There was no middle class. Jesus, as the son of a carpenter, would have been at the top of the poor heap. So would most of his disciples: fishermen. But there was a significant and impenetrable gap between the poor and the rich. When Jesus talks about the rich, everyone would have known who he was talking about: the chief priests, tax collectors, government officials, and others who benefitted from an unbalanced economic system in which all the resources flowed upstream.

So, given that today, we have a pretty large middle class (upper middle, middle middle, lower middle, etc. notwithstanding), who is really rich? For whom will it be harder to enter heaven than thread a camel through the eye of a needle? According to the folks at www.globalrichlist.com, you might be surprised. It might be you. According to them, I am in the upper 1% of household incomes in the world. Where are you?

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 55,146,441 richest person on earth!

Good Morning!

I've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's marvelous Life Together with a small group of people this summer.  In his chapter on "The Day with Others" Bonhoeffer wonders what we should be like every morning when we wake up and face another new day in the light of the resurrection.  He writes:

 

If we were to learn again something of the praise and adoration that is due the triune God at break of day, God the Father and Creator, who has preserved our life through the dark night and wakened us to a new day, God the Son and Savior, who conquered death and hell for us and dwells in our midst as Victor, God the Holy Spirit, who pours the bright gleam of God's Word into our hearts at the dawn of day, driving away all darkness and sin and teaching us to pray aright--then we would also begin to sense something of the joy that comes when night is past and brethren who dwell together in unity come together early in the morning for common praise of their God, common hearing of the Word, and common prayer.

 

Do you feel like that in the morning?  My wife says that she's thankful that I'm generally in a good mood in the morning--and most of the time without coffee.  For this I am thankful.  But I'm not sure I share Bonhoeffer's resounding praise of the glory of the dawn.  But I'm willing to have my attitude changed.

 

I've always been impressed with friends in the African-American church who share their prayer requests together and often (and sometimes repeatedly) thank God for "waking me up this morning."  You just never hear that in the 'white' church.  We take waking up this morning for granted, as much as we do cereal left in the box, a little fresh cold milk and a cup of coffee.  It's sort of our birthright I suppose.  I might be in a good mood, but I don't really ever feel thankful to have awakened this or any morning in particular. 

 

Bonhoeffer was living in a different context of course.  He was leading an underground seminary during the pre WW II Nazi Germany.  He was suspected by the German authorities for being a traitor.  So, I suppose he would be thankful for waking up after another long dark night of avoiding the SS.  But I don't think this is all that Bonhoeffer has in mind.  He is convinced that a Chrisitian should not only be thankful but feel praise and adoration in the morning because of all that it represents.  The arrival of morning is not just evidence that you have survived a night, but is the promise of another day, it's an echo of resurrection morning.  "It is the time of fulfillment, the resurrection of the Lord.  At night Christ was born, a light in the darkness; noonday turned to night when Christ suffered and died on the Cross.  But in the dawn of Easter morning Christ rose in victory from the grave. (Life, 40)" 

 

Good morning to you . . .whatever time of day it is in your life.

The mortal blogging sin

I know I've committed the mortal sin of blogging by not posting for over a month. No excuse, just got a bit out of the habit and spend much of the month of June out of town--on family vacation to the Outer Banks, on a Sunday School camping trip, to DC for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Assembly. Anyway, it's been a big month. It's good to be home for a little while.

Broadus News:
/ Saturday is the groundbreaking for our Habitat House we are building with the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club. I shared a nice breakfast meeting with them last week and met many folks with whom I'm looking forward to working. One thing they have in common with us. Both of our names are mouthfulls. Can you imagine the sign Habitat has to post at the job site, "This house brought to you by the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club and Broadus Memorial Baptist Church." Yikes.

/ The visioning process continues to proceed. Hopefully by early Fall, we will be ready to have more congregational wide conversation and participation.

/ We had our firstr Crave Experience last Wednesday. It's new to us, even those of us involved in the planning of it. So it was a learning experience, but an experience that God was in and used in the lives of at least several people in powerful ways. Always much to be thankful for.

/ Vacation Bible School is in a couple of weeks. Broadus VBS has grown every year for 4 straight years. I suspect this year will be the largest yet. Cool. But the neat thing is that every child gets personal attention and love. That's really cool.

Hope to see you soon.

Peace, Eric

Hitting the Trail

I'll be hitting the trail this weekend for what has become an annual Memorial Day Weekend men's backpacking trip.  Each year for about 4 years now a group of about 4-6 of us strap on the packs, get out the gorp, and suffer through three or four days of slogging.  Actually, we do some hiking, but the trip is as much about eating.  Steaks, potatos, pancakes.  We basically try to outdo each other each night for dinner.  Good stuff. 

 

So, let's see. . . 

 

2004    The Priest Wilderness

2005    Ramsey's Draft Wilderness

2006    Cranberry Wilderness, WVa

2007    Mt. Rogers Recreational Area

 

There are some beautiful places where we live.  These experiences make me appreciate the magnitude and beauty of God's creation each time we go.  Good stuff.  Later . . .

Stuck in Heaven

So my four year old paused briefly in her constant verbage from the backseat and asked, "Daddy, when I get to heaven, will I have to stay there?"  "What, honey?" I asked, not quite sure what to make of the question.  "Daddy, um, when I get to heaven, will I be stuck there?"  "Stuck there?"  "Are people stuck there?" 

 

I've been asked a lot of hard theological questions in my ministry and haven't been shy about saying "I don't know" when I didn't know.  But this question really got me.

 

So, I asked, "Well, honey, Heaven is a wonderful place . . .where else would you want to go?"  And then I got my answer about what could be better than Heaven . . ."I want to go to Disney Dancing Princesses on Ice!"  

 

Oh, well, hard to compete with that, even for eternal bliss, the constant abiding presence of holiness, the very presence of the Divine. 

 

Of course this is the same little girl who asked the other night, "Daddy.  Daddy.  Will you watch the Barbie and the Twleve Dancing Princesses on the Island of the Magical Rainbow with me?"  Darling, I'm sure that someday I'm going to wish we had more dancing princess movies around here, but, um, no, I just can't sit and watch that movie.  I'd rather be stuck in heaven.

Get Out There

So I heard a presentation yesterday from the Community Health Director of a local hospital.  In her very interesting presentation about a wide range of subjects, she said that the hospital offered Blood Pressure and Heart Health Screenings about monthly.  So, once a month, people would line up to come to the lobby of the hospital on a Saturday morning to have their blood pressure checked and other tests for free.  Some people would come who had just been checked out the month before "Just to be sure."  The hospital is glad to help anyone who needs it, but suspected that they weren't really reaching the people who needed it the most. 

 

So, they started setting up the Screenings at Wal-Mart, just outside the McDonald's in the store.  So, with the waftings of Big Macs, French Fries, and Chicken Nuggets in the air and the stampeding sounds of the masses collecting bargains at the Superstore, they offered the same tests.  Here's what they discovered.  In the same confines of the hospital, only 20% of people were in the danger zone physically.  At the Wal Mart McDonald's 55% were in the danger zone.  The Community Health servers had to go to the people to help them; the people who really needed the help weren't coming to them.

 

Seems like the Church could learn something from this example.  It's only when we get out of our walls and meet people where they are do we find the people who really have the needs.  Jesus said that he had come for the sick, not the well.  We are most effective when we join him in that work.

Garden State

I saw an interesting movie the other day: Garden State, starring Natalie Portman and Zach Braff (also directed).  It's a film that has many familiar themes to movie-goers, but is also a good example of post-modernity for anyone who is still wondering what that whole thing is all about. 

 

I won't give away any plot spoilers, but just to say that it's a "boy meets girl", "boy falls for girl", "will boy stay with girl" kind of movie.  Nothing too unusual there.  But the larger themes of the movie are revealing.  The story is centered on Andrew Largeman's return home to his mother's funeral.  She drown in the bathtub and may or may not have committed suicide.  Either way "Large" doesn't feel a lot of sadness for her.  In one scene, he describes how he couldn't cry at the funeral.  He tried to think of every sad memory and movie scene, but he couldn't make himself cry.  The bigger picture is that he has become so numbed to the world because of medications his psychologist-father gave him as a kid, that he basically feels nothing.

 

After deciding to go off the medications, his eyes begin to open to the world around him, the 'real world' of the here and now (which basically is a world centered on Natalie Portman).  In the process of waking up to his own reality, his newfound awareness is subtly contrasted with the false worlds all around him.  His dad relies on medications as a way to numb himself and others to pain and love.  His friends believe in get-rich-quick schemes (taking merchandise off the store shelves directly to the return desk, a pyramid scheme, and those real estate tapes that promise huge returns for little time), based on what life "could" be rather than what life really is.  God is not real, but is only a bottomless abyss (as is the search for some kind of Platonic ideal for life.  Life just is what is in front of you--how very Aristotilean.)

 

It's not a downer of a movie.  "Large" has some interesting adventures and comes to the conclusion that he must stop waiting for life to happen.  It's happening every day and he has to take it for what it is--the joy and the pain.  But it is a post-modern commentary on the foundations of modern life: religion as void (except for its hope of forgiveness), science is suspect, the economy is a game, family is broken.  The only thing you can really trust is your own experience and the world as you experience it in this very moment.  That's sort of the conclusion of both the movie and post-moderns.  In this way the title of the movie is biblically ironic.  What if Garden State were not just the slogan for a state, but a state of being biblically described.  We live in anything but a "garden (of eden)" state of being.  Life is broken.  Sometimes its hard.  But it's life and it's the only one we have.  It's worth living for.

 

The thing that Jesus showed us is that life is also worth dying for.  And that's something missing from most post-modern reflections on the world.  In the opinion of God, you are worth dying for. 

 

 

 

    

Another Worst Church Sign Ever?

 

Thanks to my friend Ashley for this one.

 

Mosaic Church in LA was a great experience last week.  Their Origins and Ethos Conferences are really exciting, interesting, and insightful.  I could sit and listen to Erwin McManus all day and got to for the better part of three days.  He's just really really good.  And the ministry that Mosaic is doing is out of the box for what most of us know as church.  But of course, Los Angeles is out of the box too.  It's definitely not Charlottesville or anywhere else I've ever lived.  But the postmodern mindset and lifestyle that is pervasive in California isn't far from the rest of the country and in that way it is already here and all over the place in some ways.

 

Check out Mosaic's take on televangelists.  Go to Youtube.com and search for Mosaic Church Televangelists.  You'll immediately find their 2:30 min video.  It's pretty amazing.

Live From Los Angelas

I'm here on a morning break during the Origins Conference hosted by Mosaic Church.  This conference is really about being exposed to the vision and mission of this particular church.  And it's quite a church. 

 

Basically a typically sized Southern Baptist community church that was active in missions through this 1990s, The Church on Brady transitioned in the late 90s into this powerhouse ministry that is reaching thousands of young, single, urban seekers with the message that God loves you and God wants to unleash you on the adventure of a lifetime.

 

This conference is built around exploring the 5 core values of Mosaic, but the highlight is getting to listen to lead pastor Erwin McManus speak throughout the day.  Erwin is really, really good.  He's passionate, articulate, driven, humble, and full of energy.  But it's an energy that invites you in rather than overwhelms you.  You want to believe his vision and feel like that to be a part of this movement, you would find some of your sense of calling.

 

That's not to say that Mosaic and Erwin shouldn't have legitimate critiques: do they foster a growing sense of discipleship and love of God in those they reach?  Is the life of prayer emphasized sufficiently?  Where is the call to justice and mercy beyond evangelism?  These are just some of the questions that should be answered.  But if they are erring, it's refreshing to see a church erring on the side of engagement with the culture, adventure, revelence, and passionate evangelism.  They really believe they are on mission to save the world and everything else is driven by and organized by that vision.

 

What works in LA will not work in most places in America, including Charlottesville.  LA's just a different kind of place.  (That's an understatement!)  But Cville is such a neat place with so much culture, talent, and interesting people who are also seeking Christ in their own way . . .we have a lot to learn, but Broadus has the heart and the mission to be a part of God's work in our part of the world.  I can't wait to continue to see what God does in us and among us, and, perhaps most importantly, through us in the world.

 

If Mosaic is any indication, it's quite an adventure.  

 

I'd love to hear of churches whose ministry you find fascinating.  If I know anything about your favorite, I'll respond with anything I know about it.   

Habitat News

Well, after over a year of waiting, it looks like we are finally going to get started on our Habitat for Humanity build. We are going to partner with the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club for a July build. The dates aren't firmly set yet, but it should be sometime in mid-July. So that's very exciting. Broadus intends to do a three-year mission rotation. One year is international; one year is regional; and one year is local. So, in 2004 we took a group to work with missionaries in Macedonia for a week. In 2005 we took a group to Owsley County, Kentucky. We were supposed to do the habitat build in 2006, but things are just now beginning to move. So it's our 2007 project. It's too early yet to think about what 2008 might hold, but maybe an international trip. Adam Peters and Ashley Roberts are the volunteer coordinators for Broadus, so they will be the ones to line us up to work. So get out your gloves and hammers. We are going to help get two families into neighboring houses in Charlottesville!

We are all Hokies Today

God bless the students, faculty, and family of Virginia Tech as they deal with the aftermath of the terrible tragedy. I was about three years out of Texas A&M when the bonfire fell and killed 12 students. That was a terrible accident, nothing on the order of what happened in Blackburg, but it changed the campus life from that day on. Va Tech will never be the same after this.

I pray for the campus ministers and the Christian students on the campus that can find in their faith something to offfer their friends about hope and peace and the presence of God in the dark valleys of life.

Some in our church know Leslie Mimms. She says she is fine and just asks for our continued prayers for her friends and the campus.

Let us pray that nothing like this ever happens again.

Covenant Group

Tomorrow I leave with our whole family for Montreat, NC for our annual Covenant Group Retreat.  In my last semester of seminary, we entered into a covenant with about a dozen other Duke Divinity students.  This covenant is geared to helping us keep focused on doing the kind of ministry we felt passionate about upon leaving seminary.  It's about maintaining vocational holiness, working toward interracial justice and deepening those relationships, and about faithful stewardship of our resources.  It's also about the relationships between us.  We have a good time together, but it's also an encouraging time to be with other people who share the same kinds of vision for ministry and the kingdom of God.  As our kids get older, I don't know what the future holds for our annual gatherings, but while they are lasting, it's something we look forward to. 

33

I'm writing on Easter afternoon (He is risen!) but my thoughts are drifting back through this whole weekeng of worship services.  It's been quite a whirlwind.  We had a Maundy Thursday meal and service on Thursday, Tenebrae on Friday, and Easter services today.  Together these make up the "Amen corner" of the liturgical year (with apologies to everyone else watching the Master's this afternoon.)  It's exhausting as a pastor to lead these three heavyweight services in one weekend.  But that's what it's all about.  No complaints, just thinking back and relaxing this afternoon.

 

At the Tenebrae service on Friday, the service decended into darkness as our thoughts focused on the horrible crucifixion Christ endured.  In the pitch darkness at the end, a bell was rung 33 times signifying the 33 years of Jesus life when he was crucified.  I'm 33 this year.  It's odd to the be the age of Jesus.  I guess I always picture him looking older, wiser, more experienced.  He was all these things of course--but older.  It's odd to hear the bell rung 33 times and think of my own life and what I've done (or, more to the point, haven't done) in life compared to Jesus. 

 

I'm well aware that we all fall short of him and that there's little point comparing.  It's not a comparison I really want to make or intended to make.  But there was the bell ringing 30 . . .31 . . .32. . . 33 times and it wasn't just his age that I was remembering, it was my life that was being judged--if not by God, then by myself at the least.

 

From now on I will be older than Jesus ever was.  Kind of strange to think about.  I wonder what he would have been like if he had kept living to his 40th birthday or 50th.  How would he have changed?  Is it right to wonder how Jesus would mature through the ages?  I don't know.  I similarly wonder what I will be like in those years and how I will change.