When I'm at My Worst...

As an adult, it becomes easier to become cynical maybe even hopeless. Surely, neither quality is desirable but just a by-product of living in a fallen world.
When I'm at (or near) my worst, I sometimes resonate with Sgt. William James (main character in) The Hurt Locker as he talks w/ his baby boy.
Start watching at about 0:40. "But you know what, buddy? When you get older, some of things that you loved might not seem so special....By the time you get to my age maybe it's one or two things."

Resolved Re: Scripture in 2011

This year, I have some ambitious aspirations regarding the Word of God.
By God's grace in the latter half of 2010, I memorized 2 Timothy and 1 John. I have been employing a tweaked version of this method. My greatest "fears" are pride, forgetfulness and spiritual obesity (if that is even possible or an appropriate analogy). I fear pride b/c of my own propensity to take something given to me and steal the divine "copyright" for my own glory and ambition. I fear forgetfulness because, well, look at God's people Israel in the Old Testament. I fear becoming spiritually obese, that is, I would not in turn apply it and live out its powerful truth. In other words, if I have faith and hope and knowledge and speaking (or memorizing) ability and determination and great self-discipline and not love my wife, kids, God's people and his image bearers, who cares what I memorize. I'm just an intellectually, overweight "spiritual" wanna-be.

In 2011, I hope by God's grace to:
1) Read the New Testament in Spanish.
2) Read the Old Testament in English (probably chronologically).
3) Read through a third of the Greek New Testament. I studied New Testament Greek for over 5 yrs and am not staying as current in the language as I would like. There are right around 7,957 verses in the New Testament. Over the next 1,095 days (3 years), D.V., that would translate into about 8 verses a day. Of course, I need to allow a fudge factor for missed days (about 15% of the total) and that'll put me over 3 years from now. While it could have benefit to my soul as I become more proficient, I should not be disappointed if I miss the mark after 3+ years. If anything, I will just keep pressing forward until it gets done.
4) Continue memorizing and reviewing portions of the New Testament.

Over the years, God has allowed me to get through the Bible a number of times, read it in about 6 English translations, use different "plans", and I have come to the conclusion that sustained exposure to the Word over years and years will not only sharpen my discernment but also will forge the story of Scripture more deeply into my heart and mind. While I do believe that piety and transformation are the effects of exposure to God's voice, I believe that the little-by-little, day-after-day, month-after-month, year-after-year, decade-upon-decade reading will bring about gradually the piety and transformation that (from our consumer mindset to sanctification) we long for NOW. We won't have to work ourselves into a "tizzy" about meditation on the Word of God, b/c we will find that the Scriptures starting seeping into many areas of our thinking and confronting us w/ the need to destroy rationales and every lofty opinion that raises itself against God's knowledge. The amazing thing about Spirit and Word working in concert is that they change my will. I have no boasting outside these gifts of Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria. Really.


For some brief yet helpful thoughts on Bible reading and New Year's resolutions, see:
Matthew Hoskinson series on Bible Reading.
John Piper on the "flexibility" resolutions.
Matt Perman on looking back and looking forward.

A Model Homeless Ministry

Running a non-profit must be a hard business. It must specialize in the art of "friend-raising" and a heart of compassion. I ran across this WORLD magazine article on a Manhattan rescue mission and Ed Morgan, its leader. As someone who witnesses homelessness and disenfranchised people on a daily and more stark basis (say, than suburbia or rural America) and who has tried to get closer to them, I am intrigued by organizations who wear the name Christian and are able to keep the Gospel front and center while not tail-spinning into just mere do-gooder"ness".

Ed Morgan runs his organization like a business so that donors will be attracted to it not just pity it. "Most charities measure process--how many meals are served and how many beds they have, but we measure permanent results. We are outcome-focused."

As an example of that he lists 5 things necessary for the homeless in his mission to graduate from the Bowery Mission recovery program:

1. Connected to Christ.
2. Connected to family.
3. Clean and sober.
4. Employed with a place to live.
5. Have a plan for the future.

It is this kind of commitment to people (note I didn't say poverty) that will avoid either the token, occasional drop of a few coins in a bucket or the relentless giving to the poor thus confirming or sinking them deeper in their poverty. I pray that all of us would grow in our understanding of the Gospel and its radical claim on our time and assets. Not that we are all called to run a homeless shelter, but we are commanded to do good to all men and women. God help us.

"You don't change lives through social services. That's called behavioral modification. Recovery from homelessness is an affair of the heart," Morgan says.

An explanation about the picture:

This is Larry Purnell. I knew him for over a year as we employed him at our office to do so some menial chores (like cleaning the sidewalk around the clinic). We eventually had to let Larry go because he was just not doing the job or even showing up. It was sad for me to see that happen. In this picture, Larry is about 51. I'm not even sure if he is alive today. One of interesting things I got to help Larry with was taking him to a center where people who get arrested get to reclaim their stuff. Larry had been stuck in the clink for a few days and needed to get his effects back. Larry had been in and out of jail and was dependent on his mother. Until she died just a few short years before. This is one of several men I have befriended. I wonder how Kenny, Willie and Mark are doing.

What's a Job Worth to You?

Would you even leave something more comfortable and less strenuous for the less comfortable/more strenuous job?

I've heard it said that if you find a job you love, you never work another day in your life. While I certainly sympathize with the sentiment behind that, I don't agree fully. Work is a privilege given from the Creator God to partner with him in his creation. It was quite ideal and even worshipful before this world got all jacked up. Then it became toil, painful, bloody and death-hastening, but it wasn't devoid of significance. Vocation in this broken world is still significant. It groans for something better; something more enduring--yes. But, it and the paycheck are to be enjoyed, wisely managed and dispersed justly.

Malcom Gladwell said, "Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning." See more from my post about his book Outliers.

Work is not only a privilege, but it is also significant. It is very much a part of human identity. All humans were created to work, and all humans have the opportunities to rest both physically and spiritually-eternally.

How important is your work to you? Would you leave a higher-paying job for a more-fulfilling job? Let me know your thoughts.

Why Charities Should Die

From the Clouds of Common Grace...

Nancy Lublin of Fast Company magazine dares to propose that some not-for-profits should just shut down. Not that an external force should come and force them to close their doors but to so clearly envision their mission from the beginning that they know when it has been accomplished. Kind of like knowing when to pull out the troops. That is a noble business model.

Here are a couple notable quotables from her brief article:

"A not-for-profit exists to cure something, address an issue, or elevate the status of a group of people; if and when that's achieved, we should be done."

"The broader principle here is that companies and organizations don't exist simply to exist. A not-for-profit should ideally be not-for-perpetuity. We should not be donor-funded jobs programs. People give not b/c they believe in us as employable human beings but b/c they believe in what we do."

A Healthy Baptist Minimalism

My friend, and newly installed pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York City, Dr. Matthew Hoskinson, has written a helpful article "On Being Baptist." Not totally satisfied with all the definitions of Baptist identity or distinctives, Matt has set out to prove what for him it means to be a Baptist (at a minimum). He clearly spells it out:

Baptists are distinct from other world religions in that they are Christian, Baptists are distinct from the rest of Christendom in that they are Protestant, and Baptists are distinct from the rest of Protestantism in that they are credobaptist in practice and congregational in polity. This essay focuses on the last of these statements.

He really did a good job. For he concludes:

Baptists are credobaptist in practice and congregational in polity. They may be more than this, but one cannot be less than this and still wear the label. Within the wide stream of Baptist thinking there are many different currents, some healthy, some not. But what defines and distinguishes Baptists from other Protestant groups are these two doctrines.

While I'm sure he has not written a new proposal, he is clear on what distinguishes the Baptist church. It would probably do well to subject the B-A-P-T-I-S-T distinctives to this shorter criteria. If we do, our acrostic might look like T-...S. Hmmm.

The Inner-Inner-City: Hamtramck, MI

Some of you know that my family and I spent some formative years in metro Detroit (wait: all yrs are formative). While not in the city proper, we were exposed to different American and ethnic subcultures. While training at the local theological seminary, I met a guy who lived down the street from me who had a bunch of kids (his youngest is the same age of my oldest)- Jay and his better half, Kristin. He actually was in the same seminary. The dude has a great story that another friend Ken Tullos has captured on a video. I hope that Jay keeps reaching people for Jesus in that urban island and that Ken keeps making videos in and around Detroit for the glory of the one true God. The only improvement I would have made to the video was to add a bit of holy hip-hop=+). Even then, the music was cool and compelling. Word!

Hamtramck from Kenneth Tulloss on Vimeo.