http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm Wilt Dairy: The View From the Milkhouse - A Southgate Baptist Church blog by Pastor Eric Mounts en-us Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:41:10-0400 Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:01:00-0400 BlogCFC http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss emounts@southgatechurch.org emounts@southgatechurch.org http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/rz6lBcmRL7s/A-New-Book-on-Jonathan-Edwards I took some time off this past week to try to catch my breath in between a high school graduation, a college graduation a wedding in three weeks and the celebration of my half-a-hundred birthday. I had pre-ordered a book I saw at a conference in April. It is the book entitled Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word. It is written about one of my heroes by one of my mentors. Let me explain. Since 1989 I have been reading stuff about the work of God in the soul of man to save him. I have sought to understand what others have written about regeneration and conversion. The trail has inevitably led to books about Jonathan Edwards. Everyone trying to understand the salvation of the soul inevitably is led to Edwards' writings. He mediated an outpouring of the work of God in New England in the early to mid 1700s. Historians look back on this period and call it the "Great Awakening". I have found no one with more provoking things to say about God's work bringing men to himself. He wrote a lot. I am still trying to recover from what I have read. The Yale edition of his Awakening Writings and his Religious Affection are two of the most influential things I have ever read. Sometimes reading things out of our time period can give one a fresh insight into our time. I have found that true in Edwards. When I finished my DMin degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois I had to connect with a faculty member to mentor me through research and analysis on a final project. The program director had told me about Doug Sweeney. Doug had come to the history department at Trinity to work next to a brilliant colleague in John Woodbridge. Doug had been for several years a part of the Jonathan Edwards Works project at Yale University. Their office is in the Divinity School at Yale. After his PhD work at Vanderbilt he took up this station for a few years and joined a small cadre of scholars who were laboring to thoughtfully publish and edit the works of Jonathan Edwards. He wrote so much and the work was carried on at such a level that the project lasted for over forty years of publishing. Doug is brilliant. But what I most appreciate about him is that he is a humble Christ-follower deeply committed to ministry. But that was Edwards, so what should we expect? Inter Varsity press just published Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word. The subtitle is "A Model of Faith and Thought". The book includes a well written narrative of his life that is quite readable. It is very well written and reads like a good story. Doug is a good writer. He may have got that naturally from his father who used to edit books for Moody Press. He worked with Joe Stowell in his first book on taming the tongue, (if I have my story right) from a group of messages that he originally worked up in some embryonic form while pasturing at Southgate. The book's footnotes are a treasure trove of invaluable bibliographic insight into the life, thought and ministry of Jonathan Edwards. As the title says, the book traces Edwards' commitment to the ministry of the Word for his days. It was a characteristic that defined him. Edwards loved the Word and ministered with a Biblically saturated vision of life and thought. Edwards is a wonderful model of a pastor-theologian. He loved Christ and sought him passionately. He loved the Lord with his entire mind and worked hard to equip his mind to think well and live accordingly. He is a great model of not spinning out in one side or the other. His was a ministry pregnant with both mind and heart. I found the book a great encouragement to read and a provoking challenge to stay at a ministry defined by and saturated in the speech of God. The book is very attractive and a really good readable introduction to his life and thought, Edwards, America's greatest theologian. Watch for Sweeney's stuff, it is worth your while. Just Reading Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:01:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/6/13/A-New-Book-on-Jonathan-Edwards http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/6/13/A-New-Book-on-Jonathan-Edwards http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/ijWDR0U_K0M/Abbeys-Peom Our daughter is graduating from high school in a few weeks. She is our baby. We have made a graduation announcement and published it before a reception in their honor for each of our children. In it I write a poem in which I try to capture a bit of their life and growing up. Here I am publishing Abbey's poem which will go into the mail this week. Here is some background detail that may help you read the poem. She was born in Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan. At two she lost her front tooth. The dear one broke a lot of bones growing up. She came to follow Jesus Christ at five years old after I read her the story of famed Phoebe Bartlett who came to Christ as a five year old during the Great Awakening back in Jonathan Edwards' day (1730's). It was after hearing Edwards' account of her conversion that Abbey came to follow Christ in placing her faith in Him. She is fiercely loyal to her brothers. But Caleb sometimes shoots her with his air assault pistol, which is the equivalent of an indoor bb gun with rubber pellets. Her best friend has related to her...for eighteen years. They were reared together and have spent hours together. They went to Florida to be with Claire's grandparents one Spring break. They liked to never have arrived home with cancelled flights coming north. She has always messed with us about her middle name, arguing that it should have been "Joy". The girl has a personality that will not quit. She loves to travel. God was gracious to let our family travel to Europe in 2003. She had the beverage cart thing down. She would awakened from dead sleep to arise to the occasion for meals, pop, or any refreshments. As she grew up she called us "rollers", we rolled out west twice for two week jaunts that were crazy long...driving. She prefers to fly. Here is her poem. What a delight it has been to be her father as she was growing up. In early Spring of '91 Our streak of boys Their end did run A girl, 'twas so And Abbey came Thereafter all was not the same What delight, what zest to living Would we have missed If God wasn't so giving A Lansing birth come in a Sparrow A band width of humor That's been everything but narrow O sure, tooth knocked out And bones a broken Forged a personality that's no small token At five with Phoebe She felt Christ lead'n With Him to go a back to Eden A love to go and travel A flyer looking beverage carts to see Albeit born to a "roller" family...? A friend for life in a girl named Claire A mountain of memories And one spring break of particular flair A deep love for her two brothers A loyalty most fair One even persevering through air assault cares A coach-Mom for softball, life and ladiness A special bond with Dad "33" is her number in which to be clad Though it wasn't Nels We missed with Linn But we know now what we didn't then To finish off God brought a girl She came after those two great boys And she indeed has filled our joys So Abigail Joy is right! Family Sun, 10 May 2009 23:27:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/5/10/Abbeys-Peom http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/5/10/Abbeys-Peom http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/e3U2GNF9ARM/Jesus-Death-and-Bobs-Sorrows "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows he carried..." Isaiah 53:4 We are on the cusp of Passion Week! Good Friday is a week out. As we approach this day which lives in the infamy of our consciences because of what it accomplished, many of our thoughts are drawn to Calvary. Christ's death accomplished everything that God intended. One of his intents was the bearing of our grief and sorrow. Wow! What a load to bear. The world is full of hurting people. Take my friend Bob. To have mercy upon my pall bearers and create margin in my life to think, I walk five times a week. It is five of the best hours of my week. Thirty minutes of thinking and a thirty minute prayer walk. Ok, I pick up some ditch trash too. But, anyway, along the way you get to know the neighborhood. It is fun to connect. Isabella is impersonating Marley down the road, just a pup. Leroy, I've dubbed him the mayor of Petre Road, is out each morning with the funniest quips on each pass. Jim drives by with discipline and his methodical deliberate manner each morning and of course his gentle wave. Some mornings Kirk is going to work. He'll stop and we share prayer requests. Jimmie is usually at work unless he is in his yard on a Saturday. I've known "big Ab" since the 5th grade. Laurie usually runs by with her dog. Maybe that is why deep down I began to give up running...I do not want the woman preacher down the road lapping me! Digg'ems kids are waiting on the bus and Mr. T is out checking on the paper. Then there's Bob. Bob walks with his buddy on good days. I can tell that they both love each other. The shaggy golden lab looks happy as they walk. He is working in his seventies. He is always warm and friendly to me. He walks with a little hitch in his gitty-up, but it works. I have always found him so pleasant. Sustained small talk is growing larger. I found out Bob worked with Dad at International Harvester Trucks, or Navistar or whatever it is or was. They golf on the same day now. He'll drive by and stop and chat or just slow down and wave. I've noticed that the dog rides shotgun to Bob...even if his wife is along. I have not met her. We got some neat invitations printed up for our Easter worship at Southgate. I put one in my coat pocket and thought of inviting Bob and his wife to worship. I had the privilege to invite him and give him the invitation the other morning. It was a characteristic jovial exchange, but I learned something about Bob. He is hurting and going through the storm of his life. This old broken world is full of Bobs. His dear wife is facing Alzheimer's Disease. He graciously received the invitation, then told me about his morning. He got her up and bathed her and got her dressed. She then had to go to the bathroom, but the disease has taken her wits about her and she forgot to undress to make it all work. So Bob was into another rendition of the bathe and clothe routine. That was his morning already. It was nine o'clock. I do not know him well, but he sure seems to me to be honoring his wedding vows. The other thing that strikes me is that Bob is hurting and this is sorrowful. Into this world of care, God Himself came in Jesus Christ. It was a world full of care, reeling from the effects of sin-a world convulsing and waiting to be redeemed. Sure Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He was our substitute. "He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace fell upon Him. By his stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5. Sure all that is vital and central to the meaning of the cross and the hope of the gospel. But in addition, Isaiah suggests that God's love was also manifested in his participation in our suffering. Jesus was way out in front of the brokenness of this world, Alzheimer's and all. He was facing the awful carnage brought on by sin's entrance and bearing its weight too in this act that brought redemption. He has carried Bob's sorrows. He has borne his griefs. He loves Bob. Way ahead of the sad ending to Bob's wife's life, he participated in the grief and bore it at Calvary. I don't get it all, but what I get, I like. I am still pondering it. Oh yes, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. That is first. But God, in his loving genius was completing redemption's plan in other ways. He bore our sin and our sorrows. This one acquainted with grief was, among other things, acquainted with our griefs, yeah and he bore them. I wonder if Bob knows how deeply his Creator loves him. I wonder if he knows that Christ died in his place so he could be forgiven. I wonder if he knows how pleased God is with his faithfulness to his wife. I wonder if he knows that God is noticing. I wonder if Bob knows God has already entered into his sorrows. God's love for us is manifested in different forms. I wonder if Bob has any idea of the encouragement it is to have God invade our suffering with his presence. I wonder if Bob knows God is inviting him into a relationship with him. I wonder if Bob knows anything about the pardoning love of our Creator God who could not love us more! I want to find out. I want Bob to know that after Good Friday and Aslan's death on the Stone Table, Narnia is beginning to thaw out! The curse has been broken. Some day soon it will be evident to all and bring joy...as far as the curse is found. "No more let sin and sorrow grow, nor thorn infest the ground, He comes to make his blessing known, as far as the curse is found!" "It is finished!" John 19:30 Hope Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:10:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/4/3/Jesus-Death-and-Bobs-Sorrows http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/4/3/Jesus-Death-and-Bobs-Sorrows http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/3lrPXQDac1A/On-Using-Words "The preacher sought to find out acceptable words; and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these my son, be admonished:" Ecclesiastes 12:10-12 The garage tools of a preacher are words. We seek to craft them in such a way as to enchant and delight the listener and smuggle unwittingly (for the resistant) the commodity (truth) right to the point of need. To the compliant listener, the work of communicating is less difficult. Their love for the truth leads them to a predisposed trust of the substance of what you are trying to communicate to them. A few of them can keep you going. Communication is tough. The days are now gone (from Colonial times) when the preacher's voice was the dominant influence in the community. Now we face what one has called the "ubiquity of communication" in the media. There are a lot of word-competitors out there. For years we have been able to hear hours of preaching every day on the radio and now, we can go 24/7 with podcasts of everyone on the internet. And that is just preaching. There is talk radio and anything you want to hear on the internet...all the time. There are cable news networks with ceaseless repetitions of breaking news in real time...moment by moment contact with stories and uninterrupted analysis of what is going on. Go to the internet and watch whatever TV you want and missed. Or, go to Best Buy and get the whole season. Watch 24 in real time...and then go for therapy! Who said we could not drink out of a fire house? Although, some are identifying new disorders of separation from ourselves that are breaking out in this sea of information that we are unable to reasonably process at all. But that is for people who are actually giving a little time for reflection. Who has time to even think any more? The prudent are giving time to such a discipline. There is nothing like the power of unplugging for an hour and thinking about what we just heard. But that is for another blog. I love words. I love the vocabulary of the English language. Words fascinate me. Who knows why? Maybe it started in college when J. Don Jennings told me about devouring each month's Reader's Digest word list as a boy growing up in West Virginia. You are not supposed to use words like that if you are from West Virginia, are you? By the way, you can only say that if you have some origin from the great mountaineer state. My people are originally from Mingo. I love that. Some of you who have heard my subject verb agreement and listened to tortured grammar can now say, "We'll that explains a lot." I love their simplicity and affection for family and hard work. There is nothing quite like their lives devoid of our complexities. But I have been working for years trying to recover from Appalachian English which has nuanced rules you just pick up by osmosis listening to the Elders. Early on, I thought it all hung on words. I am getting over that a bit. I still work very hard (and I love the work) to communicate. With a prideful heart, you conclude it all depends upon your words. With godly perspective, you come to understand that in spite of you (the vessel), God uses His powerful Words to pierce the darkness of our hearts. I still work hard to make my communication clear and directed to needs in our heart. But it is not being cute that matters. I remember a few years ago D.A. Carson, a brilliant New Testament scholar at Trinity Seminary, wrote on a sermon outline I submitted to him, "Cute, but without substance." That was good for me. Cute can never pass for substance. In the end it is not "enticing words of man wisdom" (I Corinthians 2:4). It is still the demonstration of the Spirit of God's presence with power. While reaching for clarity, I lean into the Spirit of God desiring His authenticating passion. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What else do we need to communicate? The Good News certainly does not need any of my jet fuel added on! But on we communicator's go. In college when I would speak on campus I most usually would conclude it was awful and go to my dorm room horribly defeated. I would retreat to the solace of going to bed and pulling the sheets up over my head and hiding from the faces I could still see in my mind's eye who were stabbing me with eyes that seemed to say, or so I was convinced, "This is some of the worst stuff I have ever heard." My roommate Drew would come in and find me in the fetal position under the covers and gently ask, "Ok Mounts, who did you speak to on campus today?" He already knew my sense of how it went before asking. I am still am convinced that my judgment was not that far off in college. We still laugh about using the "sheeties" for such retreat. But on we speaker's go using words. By now I have matured a bit in my perspective. These days, I just lay in bed on Sunday nights and laugh at ridiculous missteps I have made. I lie there picking out pieces of my Johnson and Murphy's that lie lodged between my teeth. If you dental floss with titanium cable, you can get those parts of your shoes out from between your teeth before you go to sleep on Sunday nights. Last Sunday as the service closed one of our Elders approached me about a plumbing emergency we had going on in the building. It closed down virtually all of the bathrooms in one section of our building. I was to give instructions about a select group of available bathrooms. My mind was racing. We were at the close. It is always difficult to call God's people to a summing response, followed immediately with instructions about which bathrooms were available. I was going to have to use a series of unpremeditated words of instruction. Racing off in thought, I got up and opened my mouth...communicating, kind of. International travel and speaking has taught me how closely I am tied to colloquial popular speech and metaphor in the current American context. Desiring to end positively and yet wedge this bathroom announcement in, I took off...spinning and crafting words. Clearly, we experienced a train wreck when I identified the available bathrooms with the concluding instructions that these bathrooms were "good to go". "Good to go", what kind of speech is that in relation to available water closets? What idiot conceived of such expression? It was me! The place erupted in deserving laughter...yes, laughing at me. I joined in. So now when I get into the "sheeties" on Sunday nights, I no longer hide in the fetal position. Some Sundays I feel the same way I did back in college. But I have made an ounce of progress to realize that communicating God's truth is a miracle. The miracle is that God uses weak vessels. The story of Balaam's Ass has always carried obvious encouragements to me. God speaks through His Word. He uses the likes of me to speak. It is more of a glorious witness of God's greatness that is flows through such cracked pots. So on it goes. I'll use some more words tomorrow. Then I'll come home and then I'll go to bed and know that whatever was accomplished was not because I was cute or even substantial, but that God speaks in His word and when united with faith it powerfully transforms the hearer...a transformation that is the ultimate apology for the usefulness of the communicator. "Man does not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4. "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." I Corinthians 2:2 You Have To Laugh Once In A While Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:06:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/3/14/On-Using-Words http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/3/14/On-Using-Words http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/vxcAuaqnVds/Harold-Hoehner-On-Cambridge-Scholarship-Potty-Training--Leaving-A-Legacy About ten days ago Harold Hoehner died. He was my professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. As I understand, after his morning jog, he experienced a cardiac event and went to heaven rather abruptly. This New Testament Scholar and director of PhD studies at Dallas was seventy four. It made me realize that as I stumble onto fifty years of age those who have gone on before me in previous generations begin to pass off of the scene. Again, "we're it!" surrounds my conscience in something with much greater stakes than tag. I had Dr. Hoehner for two classes at Dallas Seminary. One was for a class in New Testament Introduction. This thorough going Cambridge scholar was encyclopedic when it came to the history and chronology of the inter-testamental period. He knew all the stories that added color to the important fill that helped the learner. Most every class was a combination of a beginning Aggie joke (humor indigenous to Texas as the Aggies fall prey to the butt end of the barb) and an engaging discussion of the matters before the class working through the content. He drew from such a deep well that the discussions for him seemed effortless. He was scholarly, but approachable and his humor made him humane and tricked you into thinking he was common. His mind and heart were anything but common. He was a thorough going New Testament scholar. I had him for the section of 1 Corinthians in the Greek cycle that all ThM students took at that time. He understood the grammar of the New Testament and could unpack the nuances of the language with such clarity. I will always remember an experience I had in my section of the 1 Corinthians class. After we exegeted 1 Corinthians 7 we all had to write a position paper on marriage, divorce and remarriage. He chose from our section a range of positions on the topic and got us all up in front of the class on a panel to defend our position. At the time, I was espousing some bizarre position that divorce in the Bible exclusively and only related to the break ups of engagement/betrothal (not unlike the Joseph and Mary issue that Joseph contemplated after God overshadowed Mary). At the time myself, Bill Gothard, and three independent fundamentalists pastors in South Carolina held that view. Gothard could not have even defended that view on that day, but nonetheless I tried. I have never been skewered so graciously nor has a rotisserie ever treated its prey with such dignity and respect. His questions made me think about thoughts I had never considered before. He pressed me in frontier areas of my thought that blazed virgin trails. Isn't that the job of the master teacher- to lead in thinking and reflection? As he pressed me in front of the class before whom I was empanelled, He treated me with so much regard and held affirmation out for my convictions. All the while, he was frying my ideas on the text and other passages he brought to bear on the issue. He closed with a pastoral charge to all of us to hold these positions with the utmost grace as we dealt with people. He knew way ahead how easy the arguments go down in front of your peers in class and knew well before we saw it clearly how painful the issue of divorce is for the church. He urged us to maintain our convictions earnestly, holding onto them with grace as we deal with the broken. I have never forgotten how he dealt with me that day. Grace, scholarship and careful thought soaked in the text were the order of that day...and every day in Dr. Hoehner's classes. The best vantage point I have ever heard to explain a Biblical recognition of changes in God's economy (dispensations) was his rehearsal of a debate he was involved in (if I am remembering right) at his beloved Houghton College. In the middle of the debate he asked his foe if he had brought a lamb to worship the previous Sunday. His partner reluctantly admitted that in fact, he had not. Dr. Hoehner then inquired into whether approaching God was different before Sinai than after. Then he pressed to ask if at the consummation of all things relating to God would be different. On all four fronts his interlocutor had to admit change. That is just recognizing Biblical change and not making the text walk on all fours...or is it sevens? I think even the DTS doctrinal statement only lists four seasons of God's relatedness to humanity in redemptive history. I've used his "Did you bring a lamb?" question since that time. Yes, it is finished...gloriously finished once and for all. The curtain was changed...just unraveled right in the face of being made obsolete. How delightful is the new and living way. I had few personal encounters with him. He did not know my name. But around 1987 I ran into him at a national conference. We exchanged pleasantries and he began to inquire just where I was and what was going on in my family's life. At the time we were potty training Caleb, our oldest. It is not everyday that you get the opportunity to discuss potty training toddlers with a Cambridge scholar! But I will always remember the advice he gave to my wife and me. He said, "You know my wife and I stressed over potty training with our oldest and the more we stressed the less successful we were. We decided that as long as he was potty trained by college, we were ok. We relaxed and then it happened." We laughed and departed, but that was probably some of the best advice we ever received on potty training. "Relax, it will happen!" That reminds me of the many faceted sides to a neat guy: scholar, quick witted aggie jokester and down to earth friend and mentor. That is a great package and one which will be sorely missed in the DTS family and God's kingdom. Oh sure, he was not perfect. It is funny to read his introduction to his magnum opus on Ephesians. I think he was only fifteen years or so late on the deadline for publication. The series the book was to be included in might have been out of print by the time he went to press. He blew by all length restrictions and wrote himself out of anything but a stand alone publication with New Testament scholars galore from all over the world commenting on the jacket cover. All of us do something with our lives. Dr. Hoehner's something was with the text of the New Testament and with students. His students live indebted to him. His memory spurs us on to careful thought and life long learning. Thank God for Dr. Hoehner. Shout Outs Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:42:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/2/24/Harold-Hoehner-On-Cambridge-Scholarship-Potty-Training--Leaving-A-Legacy http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/2/24/Harold-Hoehner-On-Cambridge-Scholarship-Potty-Training--Leaving-A-Legacy http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/8d0UcxeViNg/Paul-Dixons-Socks Dr. Paul Dixon has had a pretty significant influence on my life. I was in his evangelism class as a freshman in college at Cedarville University (then college). His passion to see people come to follow Jesus is contagious. I stood in the window before one of our classes and watched the photographer shoot the now famous picture of him and Dr. Jeremiah walking down the sidewalk in locked step. None of us knew at the time what a metaphor that would be for the seamless transition to a new leader at Cedarville that God would bring about. His twenty five year run as president was pretty outstanding. He has always bled the mission of Cedarville and he would share that mission with others and ask them to be his partner in paying for the all the buildings they built during his tenure at Cedarville. One of the several forums, included chapel and his indulgence in friendship, which galvanized his impact on me, was a discipleship group he invited me to be a part of at his house. It did not hurt his impact upon me that he and his wife were zealous fans of jacket basketball back in those days. I can still hear that which is unable to be mimicked in Mrs. D's cheers from those short stubby pull out bleachers near the Jacket bench. But let me get back to our discipleship group. Several of us would go to their house at some obscure hour in the morning and he would work at anchoring our roots into the disciplines that would take us deep in following Jesus Christ. He opened his Bible and taught us lessons in following Jesus. They were always simple and full of clarity and challenge. We were memorizing scripture together and seeking to follow hard after Christ. I do not know why I was sovereignly chosen. I was in the group with several others, including a trustee's son who seemed to me to be trying to figure out whether he was going forward with Jesus. I wonder what ever became of him. Dr. Dixon had his arm around him pointing to Jesus. In that group I learned an important lesson that I have never forgotten. It is amazing what God uses to speak to your heart. Paul Dixon's socks! We usually took our shoes off so we were not messing with Mrs. D's carpet. There was always a time when we knelt to pray together. I remember one morning watching him kneel at his chair. I can still see it in my mind's eye and it was the impression on my heart at the time that had stuck with me. Now the impression was not related to the quality of the socks he wore. They looked to be right off of the shelf of some great haberdashery. They had no worn marks on them. For years I have been of the mind that your socks go through several lives. The first life is the cotton stage. Then you move onto the polished nylon stage when the cotton is gone in the strategic places and you move toward the silk stage. Caleb's Emily invaded our space a few years ago and now has taken up the dishonor of my sock collection. Who cares unless they have to take your shoes off in ER and you show them your silk socks? Well, thanks to Emily and the last few Christmas gatherings, my sock drawer is working its way back to Dr. Dixon. But we knelt one morning and in my mind's eye I could see that he was just a man. Sure, all of our spit dried up around him and we swallowed our tongue when spoken to by his immanency, but he was just a normal guy. He got cut from his basketball team in high school (probably the only thing in his life he has not been outrageously successful at), and went home and cried, he told me once. That's normal. When we all knelt at those chairs we were just in the stuff of following Jesus together. There was no hierarchy. He was not super man president; he was just a common guy with gifts from God who gave them liberally to the Lord's work. Now this is not your locker room speech about the other team putting their pants on one leg at a time, but I realized that God uses ordinary guys in ways that please him. Now I have certainly learned that he does not always use us in the same ways and to the same extent. Some thirtyfold, some sixty, some a hundred. You know the drill (Mark 4:20). That sort of bothered me at first. He wears socks and all just like me (now granted his socks are better) and is a normal guy. I wanted him to be super-human, an angel of God. I would felt better about the leadership at Cedarville. But I have learned the genius of God in thinking otherwise. He just uses common ordinary people who love Jesus and his work in extraordinary ways. Then he collects all the glory. He just turned 70. Happy Birthday Dr. Dixon! But I hate that. As I am about 120 days away from a half a hundred, I have realized more and more that the heroes upon which I have been standing are finishing out. Dr. Kempton died. Vernon Grounds is 94. Joe Stowell is 65. Bill Wheeler is 85 (his hair looks like that anyway). My buddy Marv is weak. They do not stay around forever. Oh the glory of Jesus, our eternal and unchanging Lord! What is most bothersome is to consider that they are finishing and, with my peers, we are it. I feel so inadequate to be one of Ezekiel's gapsmen and step up into their wake. I am not like them. I do not have their gifts. I always wanted so much more out of the leadership I followed than what I find in my own heart. Where now are the giants? It is then that his socks bring me back to my knees, where I ask God to make my ordinary extraordinary for him and for his glory. In our weakness, his strength is made perfect. Happy Birthday Dr. D! I hope you got a couple pairs of new socks. Thank you for your faithfulness. Friendship Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:06:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/1/30/Paul-Dixons-Socks http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/1/30/Paul-Dixons-Socks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/0ttcSsT0cfo/Love-At-First-Bite Well, it is probably best characterized as "Love at first bite!", but that is getting way ahead of the story. Let me help you catch up. Christmas of 1984, Andi and I found out that we were going to have a baby. I was in my last year in seminary and she was finishing her seventh year as a school teacher. We moved back to Ohio and I had the privilege of starting as an associate pastor at Southgate and Caleb Mounts made his dramatic entrance in August of 1985. This left handed, high energy fellow full of wit and imagination has, with his brother and sister, filled out home with joy for these twenty three years. The memories stick out like large road signs unable to be missed along the autobahn of our memory. The guy has always had a hidden sense of flair and savvy. His first Bible lesson in two year old Sunday school was on boy Samuel of old. He was so fascinated by God coming to visit him and calling out his name. He was also very fascinated with grape juice at the time. He loved to have a "jink of juis" as he lay in bed going off to sleep. His heart was full of zeal to retell the story of Samuel, though his zeal was ahead of his ability to lay out the story in sequential order. So as he was telling me the story he seemed to loose the edge on the narrative by explaining to me that when God called out to Samuel and he finally recognized, through Eli's tutelage, that God was speaking to him, he answered and said, "jink of juis". No Caleb, that's not what he said, but you were right. Boy Samuel was in bed, and juice just seemed to wedge right in there to fit into the story. In a way, that seems so long ago. During those years, we were made alert to a problem that our nursery was having with Caleb at the time. He was a biter. Yes, on multiple occasions we were called out of services to find a young man looking down at the carpet as the nursery workers told the tales of biting in the nursery. The biting always focused around one individual, one Emily Alexander. She was his peer and has yet a vivacious fun loving personality that is assertive and explores one's attention through initiating conversation. Caleb would have none of it at the time. He felt cornered by her overtures and responded summarily with the bicuspids to the shoulder or arm...whatever. We were constantly apologizing to her mother and father about our son's response to their daughter. But the story gets better. These two grew up together. At varying and opposite times, we know now through true confessions that they harbored secret and not so secret interests in each other intermittently, though never simultaneously, as they grew up. As pre-school days approached, Caleb, with our family, took off for six years in Michigan. They were officially off of the grid of each other's lives from four to ten. Reentry and re-assimilation took place just before adolescence-just in time for multiple AWANA Wednesday nights and more Sunday School together. They even co-starred together in some children musicals, although looking back I cannot remember "Morph" saying anything at all about his interest in his co-star Emily. The high school student ministry days gave rise to banter and group activities but neither side ever conceded too much of their more secret admirations for each other. Again through high school, the embers were never simultaneously hot for each other at the same time. Then came what looked like Kadesh Barnea-the high school watershed. Emily courageously asked Caleb to go with her to her high school's prom. Caleb summarily refused...yes, he said no. But it took a turn for the worse. Soon after, and near the last minute of possibility, he asked one of her best friends (OD) to his prom. Needless to say that was a bit of a setback for their relatedness. Off it was to Cedarville University for the both of them (and some of you by now are a little ahead of me). The first semester it was some group together kind of activities where a new realization of the ability to join company again emerged. As the second semester of the first year emerged, yes, they came together as an item. Fast forward four years and a lot of shared company at our house and our family has come to really appreciate this lovely lady. So it was with joy that nine days ago we watched Caleb's plan go down and those two are now engaged to be married. Who would have ever thought? What an expression of the grace and favor of God upon our son. "He that finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord." Proverbs 18:22 We're new at this, but very delighted. Our baby is getting married...to one neat girl. I remember her comments in high school when we sat down with the youth group and debriefed with them after seeing The Passion of the Christ. This was no ditzy blond, this was a young lady developing in affection for Jesus. I was impressed, seeing her in a whole new light. It is a good tale, full of fascinating twists and turns that is headed now for the altar and the vows. They were so fun to be around the night they were engaged. They are two happy people, who make us happy watching them. It is a tale that began, I suppose, with love at first bite...just a few feet away from where, the Lord willing, they will be married in a few months. God writes cool stories of grace! Family Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:21:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/1/14/Love-At-First-Bite http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2009/1/14/Love-At-First-Bite http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/K-5Erm6ptMs/Christmas-When-God-Wrote-Himself-Into-Our-Story Twas the night before Christmas And all through the globe Most everyone was clueless to God's pending abode Adam's path had led us away Great distraction the norm for our day When bursting into the darkness we made It was God enfleshed in a manger he laid Whoever could have it conceived? Virgin birth, 'twas hard to believe The story of Christmas, God sized most indeed A plan conceived Only God ahead could foresee He made us, we left him We preferred our own way He drew up a story To bring salvation's day Only a genius could make this story work But the cost to Our Maker Certainly no perk A twist unforeseen, An outsider come in The One who had made us To us condescends We messed up our history Our yarn twisted in knots So he entered our story We central in his thoughts Who would have imagined? Why chase rebels down? His heart of affection Has brought Him renown He entered our story He took up our form He invites us to embrace him To new hope be reborn God such a genius, unanticipated joy He wrote himself into our history With this new baby boy Devotional Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:56:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/12/24/Christmas-When-God-Wrote-Himself-Into-Our-Story http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/12/24/Christmas-When-God-Wrote-Himself-Into-Our-Story http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/99zXO2HheLc/Pastoral-Treasure Pastoral ministry is one great adventure. It will certainly break your heart and test your spirit, but it holds out exhilarating joys and privileges. One of the great privileges is to relate to God's people and care for them as a Shepherd, to share their joys and bear their burdens. The longer the pastoral tenure the deeper and wider the connections you can have with people. That was vividly brought home to me in a visit I had recently with a dear sister. I got a message that I was to return a call to my dear sister who is eighty six. She is now a widow and I had heard that these were not the easiest days for her even as I had noticed that she was attending worship with less frequency. Our friendship goes back some twenty three years when I served here at Southgate as an associate. She and her husband, one peach of a guy, started coming to Southgate to help their granddaughters through their broken home. The couple had a church background of a mainline protestant sort. From the outset, on this errand for their granddaughters who had a prior history with our church, God seemed to capture their hearts with what they were experiencing here at Southgate. Andi and I invited them to an outreach Bible Study at our home then on Overlook Drive. Her husband was taken aback by the invitation. He was such a pleasant and neat guy. He was an invader through the Normandy Beaches during World War II, albeit nine days after the first wave. As I recall, he strung communication wire across Europe following the tide that would liberate Europe from tyranny. He was a great athlete in high school and valorous soldiering just fit him. He set the state record for the high school long jump back in his day. I remember it as 19' 10 ¾"...but I would always miss it when I tried to guess as he would ask. He never forgot the length. It was embedded in his memory. He barbered and was a gifted conversationalist for years. But this valorous man wanted no part of a group discussion in Bible Study. He was first guy to come to my house and let me know that he would not be participating in the discussion in the Bible study...but he would come. The great irony was that he may well have said the most out of all in the group. I miss him. I had the privilege of baptizing him in the mid nineties. We had by then a measure of shared history together as a threesome. He had gone through colon cancer which sent him into a deep reflection on his on journey with Jesus Christ. He got on his knees and got squared away with Christ before the surgery went down. His wife had been a prior pacesetter, having responded after a Billy Graham invitation as she began with Christ several years earlier. I had been in their home and prayed with them and laughed with them and shared happy and sad times together. My friend who came to visit me always had such an elegant spirit about her. She is a classy gal, always taking good care of her self. She dresses well and with a quiet smile was just made for what was pleasant to be around. She was full of a sort of English-proper, but as kind and common as the best of mid-western culture. I will always remember the afternoon her husband died. He was waning in the hospital and I was just coming up to the room as he breathed his last. When I joined her she was just realizing that the Lord had come to receive her husband to Himself. I have been around those tender moments before but this one was different. She was sad and gently weeping, but she was savoring...yes, savoring. She was savoring all that it meant for her to be his wife. We sat together and she rehearsed all the ways God had blessed her in giving her Roger. She was releasing him to heaven savoring all that was theirs on earth. It was striking and touching. While deeply wounded with grief, she was greatly moved to praise God for the years they had shared together. Several more years have past and she is going it alone...with Jesus. They had already moved out of their place into a nice condo. Her sister was close by to enjoy contact and shared errands. But fatigue sets in and memory fades out (I'm arriving forty years early to my sister) and sustaining life gets more difficult. Now was the time. She was moving to Alabama with her daughter for a season. At eighty six, it may be the closing season. God knows. We both felt the texture of what could be as we said goodbye. She told me, "I just did not want to leave without coming to say goodbye." What a good visit we had. It was the fat of the pastoral landscape. It was sweet and affectionate. What a privilege to commit her to the Shepherd of our souls who exists and therefore, we are not left in want of anything. She will be fine and then in due time better than she has ever been. They do not sell the treasures of relating at Wall Mart. They are on the priceless aisle of living. As she left I savored again the rare joy of being a Shepherd. It is good work that on its best days fills your heart with joy. People matter. When will we get that? Self indulgence is self defeating and does not at all deliver on what is promised. Looking out for number one can lead you to be estranged from family and friends and living out your days in a cold sterile room at some forsaken rest home. People are life's great treasure. God knew that all along and spared nothing to send Jesus to provide us the chance of life right side up. Pastoring is the people business. It has its own reward well before the great day when all of the final judgments will be in. May we be found valuing the right things as we live out our very few days. People are the right things and relating well is a treasure and a privilege in life. "Shepherd the flock of God among you...with eagerness." 1 Peter 5:2 The Church: The Body of Christ Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:38:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/11/29/Pastoral-Treasure http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/11/29/Pastoral-Treasure http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/6AF6PcLF1K8/Busted-Advertisements On both sides of the Atlantic buses are sporting advertisements for life without God. In London the buses herald: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Oxford University's atheist Richard Dawkins gave nine thousand dollars to the campaign. Not to be outdone, D.C. buses broke out with "Why believe in god? Just be good for goodness' sake". Both jingles hold several ironies. First, the term probably is a fascinating concession to other possibilities. Probably is not one of those convictions well suited to lead us to live and die for the idea. Secondly, many in western culture who have given up God long ago seem yet to be proficient at worry and a lack of life enjoyment. There seems no necessary connection between espousing atheism and finding a long lost worry free life that is full of joy. Finally, history is one long persuasive closing argument on our inability to be good for any sake. Let's face it we are pretty good at not being very good. For years I have been around people who claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ. The most care free folks I know follow Jesus. The people I know who seem to enjoy life best follow Him. They do not need spirits, money or a great party to pull it off. In fact these folks can sleep at night, enjoy simple conversation and value the raw pleasure of serving others. They are also those who suffer well, weather betrayal and find forgiving others liberating. They know how to laugh and what to laugh at and in proportion what to cry over. Just real people who have found life in Him! (John 17:3) God has His advertisements out there from his authentic family. The peace with our past, the rest with right now and the hope for the future is worth its weight in gold-notwithstanding current bus ads to the contrary. There is no remedy for worry like knowing "He has the whole world in His hands", no remedy for meaninglessness like "Jesus loves me this I know". There is no cure for self righteous arrogance and no inducement to humility like the realization that we cannot be good enough (Matthew 5:48), but don't have to be. People that show genuine goodness are those who have ceased striving to be good and embraced Jesus and found his life poking through in their relatedness to others. Everybody is for His ways: loving neighbor and enemy, treating others like you desire to be treated, returning good for evil, living beyond yourself. Even Dawkins would appreciate that social strategy. It was the brilliant French Mathematician Pascal who said, "People despise Christian faith. They hate it and are afraid that it may be true. The solution for this is to show them, first of all, that it is not unreasonable, that it is worthy of reverence and respect. Then show that it is winsome, making good men desire that it were true. Then show them that it really is true. It is worthy of reverence because it really understands the human condition. It is also attractive because it promises true goodness." Good News Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:10:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/11/17/Busted-Advertisements http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/11/17/Busted-Advertisements http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/lgPLi_KgL0E/Octobers-Encouragement I read once where Abraham Lincoln died with articles in his pocket that spoke well of his presidency and his leadership. Those in leadership understand this gesture. Everyone wants to feel like they are making a difference and that they are doing a commendable job. October is pastor appreciation month. It is a month where congregates are told to affirm their pastors. Through the years, not only in October, but all through the year, simple little notes and not so simple gestures have been enacted to affirm my own efforts in pastoral ministry. I actually keep the notes. They are in my tax records for each year; yes, right there next to the utility bills are the notes in a file collected all together. I do not keep them to re-read them. Hardly ever do I go back through and read any of them. But I see them if I poke around in an old tax year trying to find something. It is the visual equivalent to the vitamin for ministry-a shot in the arm to keep you going. Quite a part from cards, I can remember some life altering encouragement which reshaped the trajectory of several situations. I remember once a few days out from going on vacation in the mountains of Tennessee that my car did not check out right. Because of the need for some special parts, my brakes could have potentially failed and my mountain vacation car was on the fritz. I went to the Saturday morning prayer meeting and we all prayed about it. I got a call later that afternoon that a local car dealership had worked out a matter and I was to pick up a new car for a week for my vacation. The kids were amazed. Their parents had their hearts filled with gratitude. The stories are legion. How much good beef have I eaten through gift cards of thanks through the years? Some of the stories are funny. I had a lady once bring me her husband's camel sport jacket for dress. It was beautiful and it fit just right, seemed hardly warn. I wore it out. The first Sunday I wore it, it looked great. I wanted to thank the guy for giving it to me. I went right up to him and started the conversation only to notice her in the background gesturing me away. Come to find out, it was his graying hair and the mix with the camel jacket and her taste that was not working. He had no idea I was wearing his jacket...and she wanted to keep it that way. That is ethical tension. One time a group of anonymous families put together a coalition and had a "clothes horse" man take me to a men's store to spend the money on a few suits. I was flabbergasted. My heart was full of joy, until I began to contemplate just why this gesture had emerged. Was it about their love for me? Or was it, in the end, about their sense that I dressed like an idiot? I was afraid to ask. Was it grace or a referendum on my wardrobe? Maybe another reason why these affirming gestures mean so much is because of the other comments that pastoral leadership receives. I cannot print what I have been told...about myself. Some one wrote a book once called "Well Intended Dragons". Maybe you have to be there in pastoral ministry to appreciate the title. Believe me the dragons are out there. It is their fire breathing feedback that makes one appreciate all the more the encouragement from others. I have had associates fight back their emotions as they repeated to me what they had been told. I have picked up the fragments of their vision of themselves and sought to glue it back together. That old "sticks and stones" proverb is a lie. After a while, you come to expect negative feedback and listen for the truth and do not take it so personal. As Warren Wiersbe used to say, "In time they shoot through the same hole. It does not hurt as bad." As Gordon McDonald encourages one looks for the kernel of truth in every bushel of criticism and grows from it and prays through it. But thank God for the Barnabas-s out there that encourage. They are worth their weight in gold. I was particularly amused at a recent prayer meeting when a brother identified October as the month of pastoral encouragement. He charged the group to encourage the pastoral staff. He was waxing on in his challenge and he may have over reached when he drove the point home with "we need to really tell them what we think of them". It got real quiet and there was a lull...and then he quickly added "I mean, tell them something good." The whole room exploded with laughter. We laugh at times so we do not cry. Everybody knows there will always be those who take the freedom to tell them what they think of them...good or bad feedback. Thank God that the lion's share for me through the years has been encouraging. What a privilege it is to serve God's great family...the church of Jesus Christ. The "at a boy" we in pastoral ministry yearn for is the last one, the one from the Great Shepherd of the sheep. We live and work to hear in the end "Well done, you good and faithful servant." Pray that we may order our lives to make that a reality. It is required of a steward that he be found faithful. The Church: The Body of Christ Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:00:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/10/23/Octobers-Encouragement http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/10/23/Octobers-Encouragement http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/kNkSqwY_TiA/Rise-Up-Oh-Men-Of-God There is a phrase in the King James Version translation of 1 Corinthians 16:13 that has always intrigued me, "quit you like men". Maybe a part of the intrigue is tied up in not entirely understanding what the phrase meant. I find the New American Standard's translation so much more clear, "act like men". That is one charge the men in America need to hear. But then, who is clear on what it means to be a man, a man of God? I remember as Andi and I were rearing our boys (now men, 23 and 20), we frequently pounded in that notion, "the man of God is not a striker". For obvious reasons, we had need of that verse a lot as the boys grew up. Striking was regular fair. I think we derived that challenge from Titus 1:7 and the King James Version's take on the qualifications for the office of pastor. While we pushed hard on anti-striking, we could have filled out the rest of the profile of the man of God with more proportion. The striking part just seemed so relevant as they grew up. What is striking is the influence a man of God can have over his home, work and community. In many families, I have noticed that there is more spiritual fervor in women than in men. While I applaud and welcome godly aspirations in a wife and mother's heart, an influence pattern I have observed (especially in the shadow casted in a son's life) is that an ounce of the husband/father's godliness seems multiplied in influence to that of a gallon of godly aspiration in the wife/mother. Now this is not some raw sexist comment as much as it an observation I have made about what seemed to be even the negation of a godly mother's influence in the home in the face of the ungodly role model of a father. There are certainly always exceptions. I have seen some incredible single mothers and of course, the prophet Daniel and his three friends did not do bad surrounded by pagan and ungodly influences in the courts of ancient Chaldea. And they were all by themselves as young adolescent boys. God sets apart the godly for himself. But the argument of this paragraph is for the indispensible place a godly man has to play in his home. We need godly men. This past week I spoke to man who worked through a really tough experience with a family member he loves. In the midst of working through the carnage that a "professing follower of Jesus"-male had wrought upon his victim, a counselor (a dear godly women) grabbed a hold of my friend and asked something like, "Where are the men? Where are they? How come a male can get away with this in the church? Where are the guys standing up to this man and saying, 'No, this is not the way to live. You cannot do this to women. This is not acceptable and you must change.'?" Is that the kind of culture of expectation we are cultivating in our churches? Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Iron sharpens iron, as the scripture asserts. Too often we hold out little expectation for godliness, when it is our collective hunger together for righteousness that is a big part of maintaining our resolve to go on in the Jesus' way of life. In my weakness, it is both the power of Christ and the holy expectation of my brothers and sisters that goads me on to faithfulness to Christ. I am not advocating heavy handed moral policing as much as brotherly expectation articulated and expected and applied. We need it from each other. The church that is alive and captive to righteousness has it. We know better and expect it of each other. There is too much at stake not to stimulate each other onto love and good works and holy living. Like never before it is a time for husbands and fathers to "act like men". Men are loyal to their wives and clearly one-woman men. Men are faithful to their promises and commitments. Men lay down their lives for their wives. Men are pure and shun all sexual indulgence outside of marriage, physical and mental. Men take up the honor of their wives and affirm them and protect them. Men take up the duties of fathering creatively and with joy. Men don't let other males jack around in sin and indulgence without calling it what it is and levying a healthy expectation for repentance. Men it is time...time to rise up and "act like men". Friendship Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:10:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/10/7/Rise-Up-Oh-Men-Of-God http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/10/7/Rise-Up-Oh-Men-Of-God http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/rMjs1XCxGxY/September-11 Seven years ago this week (on September 10th) Eddie Torres started his new job with Canter Fitzgerald in New York City. The world was good...a new job and a wife seven months pregnant. Things were falling into place for Eddie. He died his second day on the job. He perished in the Twin Tower tragedies of September 11, 2001. His wife recently published a memoir of this experience entitled American Widow. Eddie was ready to tackle the world and had momentum by the throat working to his advantage! On that tragic day seven years ago he never came home. He went into eternity. Those close to him will always remember him. He will not be forgotten by those who loved him. Reading a review of Eddie's wife's memoir I began to think about how life can turn on a dime. James, the half brother of Jesus, wrote, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.' But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil." James 4:13-16. It is the right time of the year to read that verse about the vapor. Morning vapors with the cool air and the lowlands make for that moist morning fog that is so evident just for a few hours. Then, it's gone. That is life. "If the Lord wills, we shall live..." We shall live. That seems like such an assumed baseline that is somehow our birthright, yet the Bible urges us to reckon life as a precious gift from our Creator. "It is in Him that we live and move and have our very being...He gives life and breath to all things." Acts 17:25, 28. We'll all die once and then live somewhere forever (Hebrews 9:27). When Eddie died and when we die, the thing that will matter most is what we have done with God's son Jesus Christ! In that Acts 17 speech that the apostle Paul gave to the sophisticated listeners at Athens, he directed their attention to the God of the universe who sustains our lives. Then he invited them to repent. "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Acts 17:31-32. That call was not new, Jesus began his ministry with a simple call with a familiar ring, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel." Mark 1:15 Repentance is not a super popular concept today. It is an affront to our perception of us. To a person we tend to all be "way ok"...until we honestly pull up next to God's standards. Then we take the equivalent of what is much more than a back seat to His standards. A back seat to God in eternity is a fate none of us want nor is it inevitable or even necessary. God made other plans for us. We're invited by grace to His party...one that will last forever. The good news is that we can live with hope and when it comes...die with hope through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God ran after us in Jesus and accomplished the errand of the cross and the assurance of his promise in the empty tomb. Now he invites us, while we live, to acknowledge our sin, turn around (repent) and give ourselves to Jesus Christ in faith. To know Him is have life eternal and celebrate that life before death (John 17:3). To not know Him is to perish in eternity. Someday we'll leave the house for the last time. There is nothing in life quite like the assurance (because of his grace) of knowing that for we who have savingly laid a hold of Jesus, to absent our bodies is to enter the presence of our Lord. It is a win-win way to live and die....forgiven, hopeful and living with joy. Heaven is for everyone who can stand it and who has found joy in repentance and faith. If tomorrow is your last day, are you ready to meet the One who gives you life and breath and the opportunity throughout your life to savingly come home to Him through repentance and faith? He stands at the door knocking, ready to meet you (Revelation 3:20). What a friend we have in Jesus, He who loved us and gave Himself for us so that we could live with hope and have everlasting life. Good News Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:55:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/9/11/September-11 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/9/11/September-11 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/3vyqUj9Ua_k/Get-Your-Butts-Out-There-For-Good Bill Maher, late night comedian and recently minted social commentator was interviewed by Larry King on CNN last week. Maher's sarcasm and cynical humor is a hit with his following. He is irreverent and edgy in driving home the barbed ends of his humor. If you are on his ideological page he can be very funny. The interview took place a few days after mega-church pastor Rick Warren hosted the presidential candidates for a discussion. Maher has a jaundiced view of what he calls "religion". His take: "It's not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It's mainly about salvation. It's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die...They believe in this comic-book figure called the devil who's going to poke your ass in hell if you're bad." It is healthy for the church to ponder her critics. Are we disinterested in the common good of society? That position is certainly off mission for Jesus. Luke said of him, "You know about Jesus of Nazareth,...how he went about doing good..." Acts 10:38. His ministry was certainly much more, but at root it was not any less. If a church is not concerned for the common good of humanity, they are not following Jesus. John Wesley, a follower of Christ from the 18th century, said, "Do all the good you can in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." Maher is for Wesley's vision. Jesus winsomely combined doing good with offering hope. He knew that what ails us at root is our sinful selfish heart. We need a change of heart. We need to be saved. Heaven is our hope. Hell is reserved for those estranged from God who could never stand being around Him. Dallas Willard said, "Heaven is for everybody who can stand it." Hell is an obnoxious thought until you ponder the justice for which we all yearn. Everybody wants the murderer to face the charge, the rapist and the pedophile to face "the judge". The sexual trafficker will face "the judge of all the earth" (Genesis 18:25). Liars complicate our lives. Oddly, I am attracted to God by hell. Hell is God's response to evil. I want a God who gets ticked with evil. What I was less free to acknowledge for a while was the destructive seeds of evil present in my heart. I myself was estranged from God. How could that sixties slogan have become one of our culture's most deeply held convictions, "Hell no, we won't go!"? We still need a Savior from our culpable guilt before a holy God. Yes, Bill, we need to be saved. And the good news is still "there is Savior who has been born who is Christ the Lord!" (Luke 2:10). And the news gets better at Good Friday and Easter. What critics with Maher are less willing to acknowledge is that these saved folk are the same people who are engaged in more work for the common good in America and around the world. Ask FEMA who provided the most volunteer labor in the aftermath of Katrina. Whole sections of the worst of New Orleans were given over to Franklin Graham's Samaritan's purse. Why? No one else could muster those volunteer armies. Those armies of the saved got their butts to New Orleans and found high joy in serving for the common good, and they would argue, for the glory of their Savior. Sure, Maher is right. There are churches who are simply after saving their "ass from hell". But they are not following God's entire book. People do all sorts of things in Jesus' name that are not in the book. There is some pending justice for that as well. Southgate is pleased to be a part of a band of volunteers from churches all over Springfield who find joy in serving others in Jesus' name and work for the common good of all of us. Bill, you protest too much! We do not need less engagement, our world needs more of these volunteers whose involvement stems from their gratitude for God's work in their life to save them from the eternal consequences of their sin. According to the book, when your butts are saved, you just can't help but pour your life into making life better for all in the name of Jesus Christ. And along the way, you invite them into life, forgiveness and peace through knowing Jesus Christ as Savior...in deed and in word! The Church: The Body of Christ Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:03:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/8/22/Get-Your-Butts-Out-There-For-Good http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/8/22/Get-Your-Butts-Out-There-For-Good http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WiltDairy/~3/dccDJu5PsfQ/Ethiopian-Reflections-1 I had the privilege of spending most of my June in the East African country of Ethiopia. I taught for three weeks at the Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa. I had twenty-seven of what seemed to me to be the finest students in all of East Africa. They ranged in ages from early twenties to forty-nine. Most all of them were completely immersed in ministry and several had already planted several churches. They were bright and engaging and very helpful to teach me the culture of Ethiopia as well as warmly to embrace a "frengie" (read 'white dude') teacher. Ethiopians by nature are warm and personal and polite. They very much appreciate relationships. They have each other. While the West is given to a "I think, therefore I am" individual mentality, those African brothers and sisters are reared in a setting where "We are, therefore I am" is the way to look at life...as well as the way to each injera (communal). That made for a quick development of chemistry as we were in it together...for three weeks that I will never forget. Having been back now over a month, I am still savoring the experience and celebrating what God is doing in that great continent. Phil Jenkins (Penn State) has suggested that the epicenter of influence and leadership is shifting in global Christianity. It is shifting from the West and the Northern Hemisphere and shifting South. Simultaneously it is moving East and centering in Africa. Yes, Africa is emerging as the center of God's great global Christian movement. Ethiopia is poised to lead in this new nexus of influence. Around fifteen million of the seventy five to eighty million people in Ethiopia would own an evangelical faith. That would include garden-variety evangelicals, along with Pentecostals and Assembly of God brothers and sisters and a retinue of Scandinavian Lutherans who are warm in their embrace of the necessity of a personal commitment to Jesus Christ our Lord. I was there just after the twenty fifth graduation at the Evangelical Theological College. The Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology is just down the road. These fully accredited institutions are well groomed and pulsating with vitality and thoughtful training for ministry in Ethiopia. The leadership development infrastructure is in place and I sensed the Ethiopian church is poised to lead. The church there is now sending missionaries out throughout Africa and other Middle Eastern and Asian countries. They are supporting these folks with monthly support, but need a little help from the West to put together the outfit and passage. SIM, whose ministry there has shaped the movement of God within Ethiopia in extraordinary ways, would love to hear from us as they build a network to be alongside the outfit and passage needs of these Ethiopian globetrotters leaving with the gospel and its attendant hope for Adam's children. The church is vibrant and healthy. They are joyfully serious about this moment in Ethiopian culture and how to exalt Jesus in meeting needs and calling people to Him. They are engaged in feeding the poor, educating the young, HIV ministry and education, community development and jobs creation, along with evangelizing those yet to follow Jesus and training them for gospel ministry. One marquee example was a church in one of the poorest sections of Addis (in a city where all are poor by Western standards...and still paying our gas price per gallon). Since the liberation from the tyranny of communism in 1991, this church has planted eighteen churches in the city area. They are paying for staffs for all of these churches through the offerings received...from these Macedonian like saints who are giving out of their poverty. Jesus is most important to them. The church reminded me of a pack of Issachar brothers (I Chronicles 12:32). Remember it is said of them that they understood their times and knew what to do...that is the Ethiopian church. What a privilege to be next to twenty seven of their emerging leaders and teach them and build into their lives. All of us who follow Jesus have a story. But some stories are full of more incredible providence. Two in the class had been victims of their mother's ingestion of abortion inducing drugs during gestation...and they lived to tell about it, notwithstanding their mother's fears that they would be deformed. They were perfect. One brother was imprisoned for three months for his faith, another for eight years. They were sharp and eager and so appreciative of the chance to learn and equip themselves for what God has next. I taught the assigned topic of Advanced Evangelism. God visited our class and in engaging conversations we had, as an extention of the class over two weekends, five Ethiopians came to embrace Jesus Christ. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. They had such joy in rehearsing the stories as they returned to report to the class. Their reports were always followed by class eruptions of clapping. Their names were different, but what we share in Christ brought us all together for a memorable twenty four days that I will take to my grave. The class ended in a circle of prayer with one dear brother crying out for the Lord's blessing on us. Priceless, something Visa cards and material culture cannot touch. May their tribe increase...and may God bless the church in Ethiopia, poised as they are to lead the new center of global Christianity through this new millennium. Good News Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:07:00-0400 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/8/14/Ethiopian-Reflections-1 http://blog.southgatechurch.org/Milkhouse/index.cfm/2008/8/14/Ethiopian-Reflections-1