be prepared

Shelter from the Storm

Frank

In 1999 a tornado struck downtown Salt Lake City. It was unprecedented and unpredicted. Yet locals responded almost instantly with disaster relief. The primary reason was credited to the Mormon Church’s teachings on preparedness. From the AP: “For decades, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have urged members, which make up about 70 percent of Utah’s population, to stockpile a year’s supply of food as a hedge against the unexpected. Before survivalism was popular, Utah companies sold food in 40-pound bags, 100-hour candles, and water storage barrels. And the church has a silo filled with 19 million pounds of wheat just in case normal distribution systems break down.”

A couple of years ago a wildfire forced several evacuations south of us and a local high school was one of the evacuation centers. That high school was only a mile and half from our church building. it seemed like a perfect opportunity to serve- to deliver food, clothes or blankets or just to be present to provide comfort through prayer. But we did none of that. Why? One, because we weren’t prepared and two, because our church facility isn’t centrally located in the community no one was physically near to respond.

I don’t share this out of disappointment, but rather with the benefit of hindsight to consider what we can learn and what we can do better.

Bobby Ross Jr wrote an article in Christianity Today on the response of faith-based organizations to the tornado that hit Moore, OK. What was fascinating in that post was how different denominations and organizations had their particular niche. You didn’t have twenty different organizations all bringing fresh water; some groups specialized in preparing and distributing meals, others in medical care, others in meeting basic needs of clothing and shelter, and still others specializing in grief counseling.

So what lessons can we learn from Salt Lake City and Moore, OK?

  • Don’t take on too much.

Obviously it is too much to ask a single congregation, no matter how big or small, to do everything. I like how the groups in the article above knew their strengths and didn’t try to grasp beyond their reach. My church and your church need to identify one thing we can excel at and direct our resources there. Is it a food bank? Is it pastoral counseling? Is it manpower to sift through rubble to look for survivors?

  • Have a disaster-plan.

What if an earthquake strikes Sunday morning, do your brothers and sisters know where to go and what to do? If there is a disaster during the middle of the week, does your church leadership know how to reach everyone and is there a centralized meeting location to meet for immediate help? Who is the point-person(s) to contact and coordinate relief?

There are several pieces to this:

  1. Being linked up with the local Red Cross to let them know your church is available for evacuations and registering with the local VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, mentioned in the CT article above) so that they know you can help and what your resources are on the relief side
  2. Having a current contact list with emergency contacts (out of the area in the case of local disaster) of church members, having specified rendezvous points (because phone lines may be down or jammed with high volume) and having a specific communication plan (who contacts who and how to manage accountability) when it comes to checking on the welfare of the congregation
  3. And having supplies and resources in case of emergency- disaster kits including food and water, medical supplies, and blankets/bedding for those who are hit hardest in your fellowship. Plus it is important to have funds in reserve so that supplies, hotels short-term, or just benevolent hand-outs for those who may have lost homes. (So many churches today operate on a razor thin budget that this may seem impossible, but what would your church do if one or many of its members found themselves homeless due to natural disaster?)

These are just a few tips and are by no means exhaustive. A good article for reference is this article from Leadership Journal.

Yesterday the freeway through town was closed due to a massive sandstorm caused by winds gusting to 60 miles per hour. The winds in Oklahoma reached 200. My house shook. Cars struggled to stay on the road. Yet what we experienced was nothing compared to living in tornado alley. However, we live right on the San Andreas Fault. I joke that when the “big one” hits, we’ll have ocean-front property. Yet personally I don’t have a 50 gallon drum full of purified water. I don’t have gasoline or a generator. I don’t have a year’s worth of non-perishable food in my pantry. If/when a major earthquake shakes our community, will I be prepared?

And if I’m not prepared how can I expect my church to be?

You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.
(Isaiah 25:4)

Six Degrees of Jesus

Frank

In the business of the Christmas season, I’ll be reposting some of my favorite posts and scaling back my original content. Reading Multiply by Francis Chan and gearing up for a Multiply Movement study in the New Year, I’m going to select posts on evangelism this week and Christmas next. This particular post was first published in September 2009.

***

You’ve probably heard of and likely played the six degrees of Kevin Bacon where the theory goes, you can link any actor to Kevin Bacon in six moves or less. For example try Marilyn Monroe. She was in Some Like it Hot with Jack Lemmon. Jack Lemmon was with Kevin Pollack in Grumpy Old Men. Kevin Pollack was with Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects and Kevin Spacey was in 21 with Laurence Fishburne who was with Kevin Bacon in Mystic River. Fun, isn’t it?

This is based on the theory of the Six Degrees of Separation that holds we’re all separated by everyone else in this world by six people or less. With 8 billion people living on Earth, that seems daunting and may not be practical considering those living in poverty in the Third World. But on the surface, it is a sound theory. Throw in Facebook, Twitter, and the like you might even be able to reduce those six degrees to only three.

Now, apply this theory to the spread of the Gospel and you can easily see how the Early Church was able to spread throughout the entire known world within a generation of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Today, we can apply this theory to the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:18-21 (go and make disciples of all nations) and we can have hope that “the gospel… be preached to all nations.” (Mark 13:10)

Looking at it numerically, compare a minister who is the only one preaching the Gospel in his church and converts a person a day through his preaching with a disciple of Jesus who only converts one person a year. But that person then goes on and converts one person and so on. Maybe you’ve seen these numbers before. After ten years, the minister has brought 3650 people to Christ while the church that started with one has only grown to 1024. But after twenty years, the first church has grown to 7300 and the second has over 500,000 disciples! Within a generation (say, 30 years) this second church will have converted a billion people.

Now consider the six degrees theory and there’s no reason to not believe that the Gospel cannot be preached to the entire world in our generation. When you pass a stranger on the street, you don’t know who might be connected to him or her within these six degrees. For example he may be within six degrees of a former president (2 or 4 depending on whether you’re considering friends or acquaintances), a movie star (3), a Playboy Playmate (2), a TV star (4), a rock star (4), John F. Kennedy (5) and a former major league baseball player (2). That’s celebrity, but looking at your average joes, this person could also be within six degrees of a kidnap victim (1), a missing person (3), a victim of a school shooting (3), a cancer victim (1), a cancer survivor (2), a victim of spousal abuse (1), a murderer (2), a gunshot victim (1), and a gang member (2). Spiritually, this person could be within six degrees of a minister (1, obviously), a Christian author (1), a Christian recording artist (2), a foreign missionary (1), a renowned Biblical historian (3), and a Christian apologist (3).

If you haven’t guessed, in the numbers I’m talking about myself. I don’t run these out to boast. In fact, I’m pretty convicted because I know for a fact that my Christian influence does not reach as far as most of who I describe above.

Think about your sphere of influence. You never know who you may be linked to. More importantly, you never know who that stranger in the checkout line may be linked to. What’s stopping the Gospel from being spread? Our closed mouths. I rant and rave on this blog that a lack of authentic Christianity hurts the Gospel message and I strive to call us higher to a public authentic Christian life. But it doesn’t matter how we live if our mouths are still closed.

Despite the unlimited reach of the internet, this blog isn’t enough either. Besides the overall lack of traffic, I’m not necessarily sharing the Gospel with anyone. This blog isn’t geared towards unbelievers, but believers. Yet I rely on this blog as an evangelistic crutch. It’s one thing to put these thoughts to paper (or computer screen) but it’s a whole other to share my faith with a stranger, a neighbor, or a co-worker. So this blog is a cop-out for not sharing my own faith. But I’m convicted to change.

How though? I recently heard a series at Living On The Edge titled “Going Public With Your Faith”. Unfortunately by the time I got around to writing this post, those lessons are no longer archived but you can get the lesson on CD or MP3 by going here.  Some practical advice: write out and practice reciting a short five-minute testimony. Sharing our faith is more than an invite to church, it’s sharing what God has done in our lives. Next, memorize the basic scriptures on salvation. John 3:16 is an easy one, but overused. Revelation 3:20 sounds good, but is out of context and doesn’t apply to non-believers. Romans 3:23 is key for our need of a savior. But if you really want to cut right to it, why not turn to the first sermon ever preached? Everything anyone needs to know is right there.

My church follows a similar outline: establish the Bible as the trustworthy, reliable word of God, define what a disciple of Jesus is versus what the world defines as a Christian, define sin and its consequences and then define grace through Jesus, describe the sacrifice of Jesus and our redemption, and finally what our response should be to the Gospel: “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.'” (Acts 2:37-39)

You can trim that down and share it with someone in one sitting. Who knows what that seed may produce and who knows who may hear the same message six connections away?

Repost: What Would You Take?

Frank
Reposting as it seems half of Colorado is up in flames. I wrote this when a relatively small fire by comparison threatened my community a couple of years ago. That was nothing. The Facebook updates from my friends are downright scary as these fires continue to spread from Fort Collins, down to Boulder, and on to Colorado Springs (where these pictures are from). Please pray for cool weather, no wind, and especially rain. Pray for the safety of the hundreds of firefighters risking their lives to fight these blazes and for all those who have lost or will lose their homes. Pray, pray, pray.

Last week a blazing fire came perilously close to my community, momentarily displacing many of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Though I was still a few miles away, the reality of losing it all hit home. Upon receiving the notice of evacuation, this is what one of my friends posted on Facebook:

For some reason,the desire for a bigger,nicer home was always a desire deep within my heart..after the events of the last two days, reading Matthew 6:19-20 has burned that desire into an ash heap, especially upon the realization that the most important things we took with us were each other, visual memories with our family and friends (pics), and some “important” papers (wouldn’t have cared if those burned actually).

One of my friends from campus ministry always used to say about things, “well, it’s all going to burn anyway” in response to everything from losing a CD to giving more on Sundays. Yes, it will all burn someday. So what’s important?

If a fire was bearing down on your home, and you had little time to choose, what would you take with you?
(Photo credit: Courtney Colby submitted to the Colorado Springs Gazette and Helen H Richardson, Denver Post respectively)

Trip Planner

Frank

Last weekend my family decided to take a last-minute spontaneous road trip to the beach. One of my best friends growing up was in the neighborhood, i.e. the same state, camping on the beach and invited me to stop on by to say hi. How could I refuse? The problem however, was that I’m not good at acting spontaneously. I get wound up and stress out too easily when things aren’t planned out in my head. These plans also conflicted with plans we already made, nor did it really fit in our budget, rocking the boat even more. But we persevered, hitting the road at 3:00 when we were shooting for 11:00. Despite saying several words I shouldn’t have, and stressing out far more than necessary, it was completely worth it. It was the first time my son was brave enough to play in the ocean. Plus my friend has a son roughly the same age and they hit it off right away. As I posted on Facebook when I got home, I’ve never seen my son have so much fun.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? (and are willing to share online)

As much fun as that was, however, I still prefer to have a plan. Normally when we road trip as a family and aim to leave at 11:00, we get out the door at around 1:00. That’s even with a plan. In other words, I need to be a better planner.

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD‘s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)

Are you a good planner? What’s your secret? (really, I need all the help I can get!)

Every long holiday weekend is filled with “news from AAA that more people are planning on hitting the road for vacation than last year…” combined with news about gas prices, drunk driving arrests, and of course lists of the most popular destinations. The same news can be heard throughout the summer. Kids are on vacation, the weather is great, and highways are… under construction.

You have to go into the summer with a plan. Where are you going? Which weekend? Will the family you plan on visiting actually be home then? Will you be back in time for so-and-so’s wedding? Is there a baseball game in town while you’re there (actually this is usually the first thing I check)?

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

What are your priorities when planning your vacation?

Our spirituality should be no different. We need a plan. I mentioned yesterday how we need to plan out our spiritual work-out regimen. Too often we close a book not knowing what to read next or rely on flimsy verse-of-the-day calendars to guide our spiritual growth. And we wonder why we get stuck nursing on milk? Planning a whole season is an even greater challenge. What books to read? What topics to cover? What specific prayers to pray? It helps to enter into the season with a plan. You can’t go on your road trip without a map.

“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” (Proverbs 21:5)

What are your spiritual plans for this summer?
If you don’t have a plan, now is the time to build one. If you can’t think of any plans, ask for input (Proverbs 20:18). Don’t let this season pass without a measure of growth. Look back at your vacation photos with no regrets.

Today continues this summer’s ‘virtual small group’ (VSG in the tags). I hope you come back as I take this season to reflect on the wonders of God’s creation, share vacation stories, etc, with the prayer that we come out of this season closer to God than how we came into it.

Culture War: Be Prepared- Gay Marriage, Continued

Frank

This is my last post on this subject. I hear Santa in the distance and I have a lot more ground to cover in the next week. But there are still some open arguments regarding Newsweek making the “Religious Case for Gay Marriage” that I haven’t covered.

My first post went over the all too often poor examples of marriage in the Bible. I made the case that just because the examples aren’t what we’d call today “traditional marriage” doesn’t mean that we should discard the Biblical commands regarding marriage. I also defended these same commands against the argument of cultural relevancy- that the rules were for the time, and don’t apply to us today.

My last post then went to define marriage both civilly and religiously using examples from the Bible for each. I left with the conclusion that because of the nature of the sacrament of Marriage, that there can be no Biblical justification for gay marriage.

Yet the author, Lisa Miller, makes the claim that, “scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be married – and a number of excellent reasons why they should.” I already pointed out that scriptures actually do give us good reasons why gays and lesbians should not be married, but now I want to look at why you could make the argument that scriptures do, in fact, give many reasons why they should.

  • Old versus New Covenant

The first argument for the Bible not disallowing gay marriage is the fault of the Religious Right and their narrow reading of the Bible. Levitical Law calls homosexuality an “abomination” (Lev 18:22 -‘detestable’ in the NIV) but calls eating shellfish (creatures of the sea without fins and scales) the same. Yet, I doubt those who proclaim “God hates fags” would also say that God hates Red Lobster and everyone eating there. It is important to remember that we are not under Levitical Law. Jesus died “once for all” (Heb 10:10) and established a “new covenant” (Lk 22:20) and “fulfill[ed] them [the law]” (Mt 5:17) so the Levitical Law no longer applies to us today.

That’s not to say there’s not wisdom in those laws. These laws were written thousands of years before we understood disease and bacteria, yet there were laws about isolating contagious lesions, avoiding coming in contact with blood, not eating animals that died because of disease, not eating scavenger birds (also an abomination), or pork that we know today carries trichinosis.

So do we throw those laws out? Not if they’re affirmed in the New Covenant. I already noted that Jesus explicitly defined marriage, affirming the Genesis account of a man leaving his family and becoming one with his wife. But Jesus never explicitly discussed homosexuality. Paul, on the other hand, does. In Romans, Paul describes how the sinful nature has driven those who have chosen to reject God and explicitly calls out homosexuality:

Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. (Rom 1:26-27)

It’s worth pointing out after quoting this, that Ms Miller notes that the Anchor Bible Dictionary comments that the Bible never refers to sex between women. Yet the above passage does exactly that. She wants to use that reference to claim that the “unnatural relations” described above don’t necessarily mean monogamous homosexuality. I’ve heard this argument elsewhere. Either it’s claimed that this scripture refers to homosexual prostitution related to pagan ceremonies, or that it refers to homosexual acts between heterosexuals (that’s a tough one to prove since homosexuality, as our culture defines it today, is never defined in the Bible).

She goes on in her argument that Paul’s condemnation is “really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery.” Funny, those words could be used to define the culture around homosexuality today. But she quotes the scholar Neil Elliott who argues that Paul is referring specifically to the Roman emperors Nero and Caligula and that the condemnation isn’t against someone who commits any of these acts individually, but rather those who commit these acts collectively. Uh, huh. I won’t quote it here for space, but read the first chapter of Romans and tell me honestly if you can reach the same conclusion. Besides, Paul can’t be referring to specific people in this passage. This passage sets up the definition of our sinful nature and our shared need for salvation. If this only applied to Nero and Caligula, then I guess he’s writing the whole book of Romans just so those two can be saved. I wonder then why he talks about Mosaic Law since neither of them were Jews. Hmmm.

  • David and Jonathan

It’s an old argument that David and Jonathan had something else going on than just fighting along side one another. The quote “he loved him as he loved himself” shows up a couple of times in 1 Samuel 18 and again in 20 referring to Jonathan’s affection for David. However, isn’t that phrase just a re-wording of the Golden Rule? And is it that uncommon for two people who share battle to develop a kinship that words cannot describe? Ask a veteran of WWII if they “loved” any of their fellow soldiers in this way and I’ll bet you’d get a unanimous response. Besides, there’s nothing wrong, or even unexpected, for men to have bonds with other men that seem to go beyond the bond these men have with the opposite sex. Think about drinking buddies, bowling night, Monday Night Football, paintball, MMA, and so on and so on. There’s just something about bonding with the same sex and it has nothing to do with sexuality. Women have it too- gossip, fashion, scrapbooking, etc. You can then relate to David’s feelings upon hearing his best friend had died. “I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”

  • The Gospel of Inclusion

Perhaps the strongest case for permitting homosexuality is the inclusion preached by both Jesus and Paul. It is often pointed out that Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery in John 8. That is then used as a blanket example that Jesus does not condemn sin. Yet that ignores the ending of the story where Jesus explicitly tells the woman, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (Jn 8:11)

Paul wrote, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ” (Gal 3:28). Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann is quoted in the article using this scripture to support gay marriage. I guess if we’re neither male nor female, then it doesn’t matter who we marry. But again, that is contrary to the sacrament of marriage, as described earlier. In addition, that also takes that quote out of context because Paul is relating that the New Covenant applies to all, not just Jews, and that supersedes the Jewish customs of circumcision and diet.

Yes, the Gospel of Jesus is inclusive. He did not tolerate sin however, and neither did Paul. “What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” (Rom 6:1-2) “But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.” (Gal 5:13) God’s grace that comes from Jesus’ death on the cross is the Gospel of inclusion. Jesus died for all, and that includes homosexuals. But he also called on all of us to repent of our sinful nature, whatever that may be. There is no religious case for gay marriage, and to argue that there is ignores much of the Bible and reads meaning into verses that isn’t there. But in order to refute that, you need to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (1 Pt 3:15-16)