In the Zone

How cool of a story is Jesus's birth? A virgin gave birth. Angels filled in the sky. A star appeared that alerted the magi astrologers of the birth of a king. Shepherds came telling wild stories and worshiping. It really is a great story. It's a story most people would tell the rest of their lives. I mean, how can you top a story like that. It would be pretty hard. Jesus, though, did. The story of Jesus's birth is a tremendous story. For an encore, he gave us the story of his death. Tried illegally. Beaten within an inch of his life. Stripped naked. Nailed to a cross. Forgiving people as they mocked him and cursed him. Dying without a single broken bone. And three days later, he arose. The grave could not hold him. Death could claim no victory. Jesus is alive. As miraculous as the birth narrative of Jesus is, it is dwarfed by the truth of his resurrection. Jesus rose up from the grave. Only God can do that. He appeared to people after his death. Only God can do ...

As a kid, Christmas was always an exciting time. I remember, as child, being excited on Christmas Eve night that I could barely go to sleep. And when I did finally crash, I didn't stay down long. By 3 or 4 a.m. I laid in bed, wide awake, giddy with anticipation of seeing the tree filled with presents for me. As soon as any sliver of daylight cracked through the window, I was up, trying to rouse my parents so we could go to the tree and unwrap all the great gifts under there for me. Once I grew older, Christmas started to lose that excitement. Soon the presents under the tree were more practical things than toys. Then there were less of them. As I had kids, I began to realize how much work Christmas was. You worked a lot to afford presents for your kids. You also worked hard and wrapping them and placing them under the tree. Between office parties, gift exchanges, credit card bills, and the hassle of seeing all your family, Christmas lost a little bit of its luster. It just ...

This is it. The last stop at Thanksgiving before we board the express train to Christmastown. It seems like every year as a culture we hop on the Christmas train earlier and earlier. We just can't wait to get past Halloween so we can get to Christmas music, Christmas shopping, and Christmas traditions. In doing so, we trample on the one day that is still reserved for giving thanks to the Lord for his blessings. I want to take a few days to stop and reflect on the many blessings God has provided my family and I. He has provided jobs and food and shelter. I have salvation thanks to the Lord. I have the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. I am thankful for that too. I'm also thankful for the local church. It's a place where I can worship God freely. It provides a sense of family when I live far away from my own. They are willing to help at a moments notice. They have a heart to see people come to know Jesus. In 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Paul writes his greeting to ...

Have you heard the story of the Lawn Chair Pilot? In 1982, Larry Walters, in an attempt to fly, tied 45 weather balloons, filled with helium, to his regular, run-of-the-mill lawn chair. He soon soared to 16,000 feet in the air, disrupting traffic patterns at Long Beach Airport, and caused a 20-minute blackout as he descended into some power lines. It is often hailed as a tale of achieving your dreams and accomplishing what you set your mind to. It is an inspiring story. However, it has a tragic ending. Walters never made any more off his endeavor. He had a bit of fleeting fame. He appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Late Night Show with David Letterman. He tried his hand at being a motivational speaker, but it never panned out. With his fine and costs for the equipment, he never even broke even until he appeared in a Timex ad in 1992.  A year later, disillusioned with his life, he committed suicide in the Angeles National Forest. Larry Walters did some...

This may be unpopular with some of my friends but I just don’t like inaccuracies and hyperbole to get touted as truth without rebuttals. So, this will not be one of my faith-based blogs, but more of a political rebuttal type of piece, though done in love and respect. I’ve been reading many articles and blogs several of my teaching friends in Kentucky are sharing about governor Bevins' proposal to fix the Kentucky pension problem. Here is one of them, though I have read several. Many of the statements are simply untrue and serve as scare tactics. Thus I feel I must rebut them. In one story, I saw one person quoted as saying 30,000 teachers could exit the system and that schools would be understaffed with ratios of 60 students to 1 teacher possible. That is simply not true. First off, I know many qualified people—with education degrees AND teaching certificates—who live in Kentucky who simply cannot get hired. Some of that is due to a glutton of people who obtained t...

It can be a bit overwhelming to watch the news anymore. We see an endless parade of images of death, hatred, injustice, and strife. Over the last week, I've seen countless videos and still photos of the shooting in Las Vegas. I have heard harrowing tales of escape and horror. I've heard the debate over standing or sitting during the national anthem at football games. I've read the hatred on Facebook and Twitter, much of it centered around politics. Evil is everywhere and it can seem overwhelming at times. When we see hatred and injustice and terror and violence and death, how are we, as Christians, supposed to respond? Paul, in his letter to the Romans, tells us how. In Roman 12:21, Paul says that we are to overcome evil with good. Good includes love and service and help for those in need. It includes understanding and pitching in. It means we don't just pray for those who are hurting, but we go to them and try to ease their pain. More than anything it means w...

This week was a horrific week in our country. A gunman opened fire on a crowd of concert-goers in Las Vegas, killing 58 and wounding more than 500 people. It's senseless. It's cold and violent and unthinkable. In a word, it is evil. Let's call it what it is. We can try to explain it. We can look for a motive or an illness or an abusive relationship or any number of things to help us feel better. In the end, I find it best to call it what it is. It is pure evil. Only evil would kill unsuspecting people in mass. Only evil would modify guns to be automatic rifles and rain down bullets at an unrelenting pace for more than 10 minutes. Stephen Paddock is evil, plain and simple. While that doesn't fit into a label or make us feel safer or more comfortable, it is the truth. It's the closest to a real explanation than we'll likely to get through evidence collection or criminal profiles. He was an evil man and he did an evil thing. Evil has been around, almost...

This week, President Donald Trump made news when he announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative put into effect by an executive order by former president Barak Obama. This policy allowed children of illegal immigrants--whom have no memory of living anywhere but the United States--to be free from the possibility of deportation. Even though they were not legal citizens, they would receive some of the rights and privileges of citizenship, like getting to live in this country. The ending of this program sparked protests and social media backlash. Even lawsuits have been filed. At the heart of this issue, to me, is the idea that membership matters. To be a citizen of the United States makes you a member of the United States. As a citizen or member of the country, you have certain rights guaranteed by the Constitution. You have the right to free speech, free religion, and free assembly. You have the right to bear arms and the right to due process...

Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against former Washington State high school assistant coach Joe Kennedy. Kennedy began a tradition in 2008. At the end of the game, he would walk to the 50-yard line, drop to a knee, and silently offer a prayer. Over the years, players and other coaches joined in the ritual. That was until 2015, when another district employee noticed the prayer and reported it to the school board. Kennedy was asked to stop. He was given an alternative time to pray when no students or fans would be around. Kennedy refused, so he was suspended. Eventually, the board chose not to renew his contract. Kennedy took legal action. However, in last week's decision, the court ruled that as a public school employee, he speaks for the school, and thus he has no first amendment rights to free speech or religion. By praying, they wrote, he made the school officially endorse a religion. As I read that story I was struck by the opposite reaction to professi...

A few years ago, a church had a growing youth group. They started small, but over the years more and more students began to attend. The church started a bus ministry, and the youth group nearly doubled in size. However, much of the work was done by the youth pastor and a few committed youth volunteers. They made contacts with the parents and formed relationships. They earned trust by showing that they cared for the teens and the teens' family. Much of the growth came as a result of those relationships. Then something happened. The youth pastor left. He moved on to another church out of the area. The youth who had relationships with him soon stopped coming. This committed group of students, just a few weeks after the youth pastor's departure, stopped coming to youth and stopped going to church. The problem was they had no relationship with the church. They had a relationship with the youth pastor. They had a relationship with the youth volunteers. But they had no relatio...

In 1525, William Tyndale published the first English translation of the Bible. He went back to the original Greek to translate the New Testament for English readers. There was only one problem. An English version of the Bible was forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church and the King of England. Tyndale lived in Germany at the time, but copies of the Bible soon found their way into his native country. He remained exile for 10 years. Finally, in 1535, Tyndale was betrayed. He was arrested and sent to the Netherlands to stand trial under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. They tried and convicted him. As a result of his "crime," he was tied to a stake and then strangled to death. After his death, his body was burned. Tyndale did nothing wrong. He simply made God's word available for English speaking people to read. For that, Tyndale faced death. We have a hard time with stories like this. We want to think that God will intervene and spare people who do good ...

Today is a good day to simply get things done, Pisces. Take care of the annoying tasks that have been accumulating. You have a great opportunity to accomplish a lot. People are less concerned with frivolous drivel and gossip than they are with setting a plan to meet an important goal. Contribute to this trend by getting serious about the tasks at hand.  I took this from a real horoscope website. Notice the simple phrases and words that can be interpreted in any number of ways? Yeah, that's the hallmark of horoscopes. They are written in such a way that you can interpret them to come true. We spend a lot of time and energy on reading and interpreting signs. We wants our dreams analyzed. We see events in our lives as meaningful signs that direct our paths. We even pray for signs of what to do. But how often do we seek revelation from sources other than God and his word? We do it all the time. We ask our friends, our neighbors, our family, our doctors and even social media...

"Sir, your EKG had a funny result and we need you to go to the hospital to have another EKG done." That was not the best phone call of my life. Last week, I went to the doctor for an ear problem. I came out of the visit with a blood pressure problem. While at the doctors, my blood pressure shot up and that became the chief concern of all the medical people in the office. The poked and prodded. They asked lots of questions. They drew blood. They took an EKG. Then they sent me on my merry way. It was while at the pharmacy, picking up medicine for my ear, that the phone rang and the above sentence was spoken. Let me tell you, in that moment, when I was told to go to the hospital for a heart test, I didn't exactly jump for joy. I wasn't thanking God or rejoicing in my hardship. In fact, I was scared. I have a wife and two young children. As I drove to the hospital, all I could think about was a potential surgery or a major heart issue. I sat in the waiting roo...

When I was a kid, someone told the cautionary tale of boating and fishing in the Ohio River. They said that one day there were boating and fishing on the river. When it was time to go, they got the boat up close to the dock to get it out of the water and back on the trailer. The problem was the book got stuck in the shallow water. So the man got out of the boat and plunged into knee deep mud. We waded through the mud and water to get the boat in. Except that it wasn't mud. It was human waste that came from the treatment plant just up the river. It was the last time he went in the river to fish. Yes, that is a very disgusting story. He claimed it to be true. No, I never boated or swam or got close enough to the Ohio River after that to test his theory. From then on I just imagine the mounds of poop deposited just off the bank and in the water. In Philippians 3:1-11, Paul talks about all his accomplishments. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, of the tribe of Benjamin and...

Commitment is hard. Just look at statistics on marriage and jobs. You'll find that in America, at least, we are increasingly a culture that does not like to commit. Co-habitation is on the rise while marriage is in decline. People frequently have two or three careers in the course of their lifetime. Our faith, though, requires great commitment. It means sticking with it in good times and in bad. A committed believe does not walk way when things get messy. They don't look around to see where else they can go. In Philippians 2:12-18, Paul talks about working out our salvation with fear and trembling. What he means here is that our faith requires hard work if we're going to keep it for the long haul. Faith in Christ requires a commitment to see things through, even if we don't like what is going on. A committed believe is committed to their faith and to their church. They plug into a local body, serve the body, tithe to the body, and seek to grow the kingdom of ...

You ever step on a LEGO? Man, those things hurt. I have a house with kids. We have toys all over the place and sometimes they don't get completely picked up. Since I'm the last one to go to bed, I have to turn out all the lights and make my way to the bedroom in the dark. I, inevitably, will step on a toy, usually a small, painful one like a LEGO. Boy, does it hurt. I will grab my foot, hop on one leg to the couch or chair, and quickly make sure I have punctured a major artery. I'm embellishing a bit, but you get the point. Those small little toys can become large stumbling blocks in the dark. So, I use my flashlight to illuminate the path. More accurately, I turn my phone into a flashlight to navigate in the dark. It casts light onto the floor so I can see where I'm walking. It helps me to avoid the tiny, but painful, toys in my path that can make me fall, stumble, and be distracted by the pain. In Psalm 119:105-112, the Psalmist writes about that. He calls...

What is Alpha? That's a very good question that I cannot give a very good answer to. Alpha is a program which teaches spiritual truths, but does so through a video series and small group interactions. It's not your traditional Bible study. It is more organic in the conversations it starts. And, initially, it was something I was afraid of. You see, as people, we are reluctant to try new things. We can be very set in our ways. We like our schedules, our tastes, our pace of life and our ways of doing things. A church is made up of people, so you can only magnify that reluctance. Churches tend to be places based on traditions and by-laws and the way it has always been done. In some ways, churches fear change because it is different and to some people, different is bad. So when I first had the opportunity to start Alpha at our church, I was hesitant. I feared it failing. I feared this new way of teaching. I feared bad theology. I feared the ramifications if this thing went...

You clicked on the story, didn't you? Well, I have to be honest. I made up that headline with the intention of you clicking on the story. It's a tactic often used in what is known as "click bait." These are stories with ambiguous headlines like the one above that are designed to pique your curiosity enough to get you to click on the story. Once there, the author or the site gets money from ad revenue based upon their visitor numbers. It's a scheme, and we all fall for it. We just can't resist clicking on the story to see what it is all about. Usually, it's nothing, but you click and read and they get revenue. So the cycle continues. Sometimes it is even worse than that. People will literally make up false stories to sway your opinion about someone or something. Usually it is politically motivated. It happens on both the left and the right. It's the phenomena we know as "fake news." With the advent of social media, fake news has expl...

Jesus is entitled. Do you realize that? Of all the talk in our culture about entitlements and people who feel entitled to things they didn't achieve, Jesus Christ actually is entitled. And he deserves it. You see, God is entitled because he's God. He made the universe. He is the embodiment of goodness. He is perfect. He is all powerful and all knowing and ever present. By being God, he is entitled to our worship, devotion, adoration, and obedience. In a sense, that's what the Ten Commandments were about. They ratified God's covenant with Israel, but also stipulated that Israel was to only worship God, to obey his commands, and be completely devoted to him. Then, he went out to describe the proper ways to do that. God is entitled. Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus is entitled to those things as well. And yet, despite that, Jesus did not take those entitlements while on earth. Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-11, that Jesus did not take advantage of his divinity on...

I have no desire to be a caretaker pastor. If you don't know what a caretaker pastor is, then let me explain. It's a term for a pastor who simply takes care of the people in the church and does not worry about being innovative, evangelistic, or doing anything that might rock the boat. Caretaker pastors generally keep the people in the church happy rather than trying to make strides to grow the church in a significant way. Generally, this term is applied to older pastors near retirement. They see the end in sight and so they concentrate on keeping things quiet in the church. No conflict means a smooth ride out of the church and into retirement. I've seen it too many times. Often it means that the church is slowly dying. The pastor, rather than rescue the church, is content with keeping members happy. Happiness and peace often means more than growth and evangelistic efforts. I get it. Churches all over America are dying. More will close this week. It's easy to f...

Death is not the end. What a wonderful thought and phrase. For a Christian, we know that separation at death is only a temporary parting until we see one another in heaven again. More than that, we know that at death, the soul departs the body and enters heaven and the very presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That became very real to me this week. My Grandpa died. He had been fighting cancer and dementia for many years. The battle took it's toll. He couldn't get out of bed. He hallucinated about people and objects there were not there. His personality changed. As other diseases progressed, he lost his sight. He was a shell of the vibrant person he once was. So when I got the call early Monday morning that he had passed during the night, I wasn't sad. I was relieved. I knew he was in a better place with a new body and a perfect mind in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. He could walk and run and see clearly. He was no longer limited by a body of death. Paul knew...

As a minister, I keep two mental lists. In one list, I think of all the people I have let down. These are people who didn't follow Christ or who walked away from the faith. These are people, when I see their social media posts or get a communication from them, and I see their life heading in a negative direction, I just shake my head. I wonder what I could have done better. Where did I fail? The other list, though, is much brighter. These are the people who are strong in their faith. Despite cultural oppositions and finacial struggles and illness and life itself, they have maintained a strong faith in Christ. I see it in the way they live life and how they speak of others. I still speak fondly of them and eagerly consume their social media feeds. It does my heart good to see them serve Christ as adults and parents. When I remember them, I remember them with joy. In Philippians 1:3-11, Paul communicates the same thing about the church of Philippi. He remembers the church mem...

On June 16, 1858, after Abraham Lincoln was nominated by the Illinois Republicans to be their candidate for the United States Senate, he gave an acceptance speech that became famous for his doctrine for America. Quoting the Bible, Lincoln said "A house divided against itself cannot stand." It is thought by many to be a statement that cost him the election to the Senate, but may have won him the keys to the Oval Office just two years later. You see, Lincoln believe that a United States was a stronger nation than a divided one. He was talking of slavery--the dividing line between the North and the South and the cause of so much political dissension in his day. He believed that as long as the North was free and the South was slave, the Unites States weren't united. They were divided and the country was weaker for it. Later, as the Southern states seceded from the Union--in large part because of Lincoln's election to the office of President--he used this doctrine ...

I often remember my Great-grandmother. To many people, she was Elizabeth Robertson. To me, she was Ninny. She spoke softly but lovingly. She always wanted to know what was going on in my life. She loved and cared and made the best grilled cheeses. I don't know that she made them any different than anyone else, but they always tasted better than anyone else's. That is still true to this day. She was a Christian woman who never shied away from her faith. She was a constant presence at her church. She talked about Jesus in such loving terms. She shared her faith with her family. To this day, I feel the impact she had on my grandmother and my mother and on me. I don't know that I would be a pastor today if not for the legacy of my Ninny. It's a stark reminder to me that I, too, will leave a legacy with my own children, grandchildren and others. My actions and my words will long outlive my life. I hope it will be in a positive way. At the end of the book of Ruth, w...

In 1974, Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor. He had been turned down for various parts. He had a pregnant wife and an apartment that he couldn't even afford. During this bleak time, he sat down, and in four days, wrote a movie script about a down on his luck boxer who got a shot at the heavyweight championship. The script was so good that movie studios wanted to buy it and film it. Stallone, though, put a condition on purchasing the script. In order to make the movie, a studio had to guarantee he would star in it. Many studios balked. They wanted the script, but not the actor. Stallone persisted, despite his financial troubles. Finally, one studio agreed and the rest is history. Rocky went on to win the Academy Award for best picture. Stallone's career took off. He never faced financial peril again. Stallone took a great risk in order to gain a great reward. Sometimes God asks us to do the very same thing. He has great plans for us, but they require great ris...

One day, an elderly man decided to go into town to run some errands. He lived in the country and that day determined he needed to get things down in town. While in town, he started not feeling well. He became dizzy and short of breath. He grew weaker and had to sit down. Someone noticed and called 911. Because he was in town, first responders reached him quickly. Within 15 minutes, he was at the hospital and diagnosed as having a stroke. Within 30 minutes, he had already been administered medication. Within a few days, he left the hospital with almost no effects from suffering a stroke. Had this man stayed home, he likely would have died. A 911 call from his house, if anyone had noticed, would have meant a response time of at least 20 minutes. Then, he would have another 20-minute ambulance ride to the hospital. By the time a diagnosis would be made and medicine administered, he would have suffered permanent damage. He may have died. This man was a believer in Christ. He doesn...

Wilmer Mclean famously claimed that the Civil War started in his front yard and ended in his parlor. He's somewhat accurate in that assessment. Wilmer McLean and his family lived on a farm near Bull Run Creek in Virginia. As the first battle of the Civil War neared - the First Battle of Bull Run - Confederate General B. G. T. Beauregard used McLean's farmhouse as a headquarters. The family barn served as a make-shift hospital for the wounded. After the battle, Wilmer, having had enough of war, fled the family farm and settled in a house in Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. He moved because he wanted to flee destruction and certain death near Bull Run. However, at the end of the war, an aide to General Robert E. Lee selected McLean's house as the place to negotiate the surrender of the Confederate forces. After everything was signed, soldiers began to raid his house for souvenirs of the signing of the document that effectively ended the Civil War. He fled to escape de...