Friday, October 28, 2005
THE ASTRODOME
The Houston Astros finally made it to a World Series only to become the first team to be swept in their first series appearance. Having grown up in
Astros should play in the Astrodome on Astroturf.
I moved to 
the Astrodome had been dug next door. This was an exciting time as
They would be the Astros and play in the Astrodome. How space-age! And when grass wouldn’t grow under all the skylights, Monsanto created Astroturf.
One Sunday afternoon when the stadium skeleton was up and the concrete for the stands had been poured I got to tour the stadium under
construction. A fried-chicken-eating Rusty Staub gave our family the tour.
Even better, we attended the first ballgame ever played in the Astrodome. The ticket says “Game No. 1”. It was an exhibition game against the New York Yankees and Mickey Mantle hit the first home run in “the Dome” straight away over the 407 sign in centerfield. Mantle and the Yankees were my childhood favorites and now they were opening the Astrodome! It was a great night.
All through high school and college my friends and I would go sit in the outfield seats for $1 a game. Having moved to
When the games moved to from
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
MUSLIM "TITHING"
Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam. The old-fashioned English word for it is “almsgiving.” During Ramadan Muslims are called to make the Zakat contribution. Here is the formula for deciding the amount to give as published by the Zakat Foundation of
One should give 2.5% of:
Cash on hand and in bank accounts
Refundable deposits (as for a rented apartment)
Non-delinquent loans outstanding
Expected tax refund
Value of gold and silver
Value of shares, stocks, bonds, IRA, pension plans, options, etc.
Business cash on hand and in banks plus invoices due
Business inventory
Net income you are entitled to as of the Zakat due date (pay due you)
There are detailed guidelines for some items, but you get the drift. I have no idea of the compliance rate, but Zakat is considered obligatory.
You might try working the formula in your own case and see the resulting figure.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
DEATH - 3
The second time I was in the room at the moment of death I was looking directly at the person’s face. I saw the moment the jaw relaxed (when the tension of the life-force dissipated) and the mouth dropped slightly open.
The passage of time and the transitions it brings are hard to fully comprehend. At one moment you are “x” and the very next moment you are “z.”
When I was eleven years old our family moved from
The moving van had loaded and left. The car was packed. We were getting ready to leave. I walked over to the house and put my hand on the brick wall. It was a symbolic act but a great moment of transition.
This was still my home to which I was connected as long as I was touching it. But when I moved my hand away, it would never be my home again. My address would change. My bedroom would change. And most everything else external in my life would change.
One moment I am touching my home. The next moment I am not. The next moment I have no home – and would never touch that home again. (That was 1962. I crossed paths with someone last summer who told me the house was torn down a few years ago.)
Death in both of the cases I witnessed was very subtle. There was only an almost imperceptible apparent change. Yet what a great change it was. Something internal/invisible/spiritual changed and that changed everything.
The moment of death is the mirror image of Genesis 2:7. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Friday, October 21, 2005
FAMILY vs. WORK
Thursday, October 20, 2005
BROKENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY - 3
(These comments are a follow-up to the sermon preached Oct. 16 in which I shared my experience of learning brokenness. You can access the sermon through the My Sermons Online link or directly at http://www.campbellchurch.org/church/assemblies/sermons.html I especially recommend married couples listen.)
1. The change in our marriage through the encounter in which Kathy “gave up” and I learned the meaning of brokenness occurred two decades into our marriage. Fundamental changes take time. It took a lot of time to figure out the problem and for me to see it. But people can learn and change if they want to.
Starting point: pray for God to give you the want-to.
The fact that such change takes time is one reason for the Christian iron-clad commitment to marriage. It doesn’t all resolve in 2 years, or 5 or sometimes 20. Make it your goal to marry someone who will stick it out and try to make it better, even though it takes time to figure out how to do it.
The fact it took two decades did not mean that our life together was bad. It was good. We raised a happy family. It just means that true compatibility in marriage that is completely comfortable and mutually fulfilling takes time.
2. In a sense, Kathy learned brokenness, too. When she gave up on my ability to meet all her emotional needs, she learned to turn to God even moreso. She was forced to find her ultimate fulfillment with him and in him, in spite of my failings. For spiritual health, that is what God intends.
He also intends our relationship to be mutually fulfilling which means he intended for me to be a relational and emotional blessing. But the point is that she realized that she could trust God to care for her, whether I ever changed or not.
3. It is also often true that when person “A” quits trying to change person “B” then person “B” is free to change. There is a maddening Catch 22 about human beings that makes us less likely to change the more we are being pressured to do so.
However, giving up on trying to change another person does not guarantee that they will change. There is no magic formula. This is where basic character is vitally important. A selfish person will simply declare victory and stay the same and the resulting relationship pain is not eliminated by trusting God. A child of God will keep being pricked by the goads of the Spirit and may very well change because he/she truly desires to be better.
4. A lot of the groundwork for change in both of us was our ability (again, learned over time) to honestly discuss our families of origin without defensiveness. It was important to come to see the forces that shaped us and be able to see why each of us was where we were. Those conversations must take place in a spirit of mutual exploration and objectivity. Neither one is trying to “win.” We are both simply analyzing what makes both of us tick. It is important to get to this point in a marriage relationship. This is transparency. This is oneness.
Have faith in God's love and provision for you. Have faith in God's plan. Have faith in each other, in spite of hurts and failings. Honor your relationship commitments by striving to become more a reflection of Christ, rather than taking for granted the commitment of a Christian mate or even insisting on change.
Note by Kathy: Continuing to tell my mate what I need, without insisting on seeing change, is part of my faithfulness to the relationship. "Giving up" for Christians cannot equal relationship withdrawal. It has to be characterized by letting go and leaning on God, but not a curtailing of communication. That's faithfulness to your God, your vows, and your mate. Taking our relationship needs to our mate (rather than expressing them outside the marriage) is the definition of fidelity. May we be moved to express our needs in that spirit and, in turn, respond as if we are receiving a gift, not an attack.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
BROKENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY - 2
"Early in life I learned a basic truth that I have spent most of my adult years trying to understand more fully. This twofold truth says that keeping threatening personal information concealed from others can be damaging to your health and that confiding these secrets to people who care about you can have a healing effect."
"Based on my research, my clinical experiences, and my personal life, I have come to the simple conclusion that we all need to have at least one significant other we can confide all our troubling thoughts and feelings to. I also believe that we need to disclose all these distressing thoughts to at least this one confidant. If we don't, our self-concealing behavior tends to influence our attitudes toward ourselves, and we conclude tht there is some part of ourselves that is in fact unlovable, or else we would reveal it. The only way out of this vicious cycle is through disclosure to a caring and empathic confidant."
The goal and intent of the biblical principle of confession is not punishment, but healing! The application of the advice above also shows the importance of the "priesthood of all believers" - that is, we are priests to one another.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
DEATH - 2
On the first occasion I was, I hope understandably, quite immature about it. I was a first year grad student. An announcement was made at church concerning an elderly man who was dying in the hospital. His only blood family was a sister and an aunt.
Volunteers were being asked to sit with him around the clock as death was very close. I volunteered for the midnight to three shift.
But I started worrying and telling my wife, “I just know he’s going to die on my shift.” It was rather silly – except that is exactly what happened. When I arrived his breathing was very shallow with long pauses between breaths. Each time I wondered if he would take another breath. Finally he didn’t.
I arrived back home knocking on the door about 1:30 am. Kathy said, “What are you doing here?” I replied, “What do you think! I told you he would die on my shift.” Yes, I was more wrapped up in what this meant to me than to the one who was undergoing the great transition.
But I had chosen to be there for a reason. The end of a life is a momentous occasion even though his passing was very quiet. As I sat there I wondered at what all he had experienced. I wondered at the fact that he had been a baby welcomed into a family, played as a kid, worked at jobs, had people depend on him, loved people and was loved.
And now, at the end, at the climax and conclusion of an entire life, I was the only one present. I saw it end. I prayed for the physical transition from earthly life to eternity.
The family of God is a marvelous creation and blessing. A man did not have to die alone because the church was there – even if it was in the person of a somewhat freaked out college student.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
DEATH
I am intrigued by death.
It is the ending of a life that had such impact. Life ends and yet doesn't fully end. Lives live on.
Sometimes when I watch I Love Lucy it seems so odd to realize I am caused to laugh by a cast of characters who are all dead. They are dead and yet I am watching them as if they are alive – somewhat of an existential time warp.
We experience a similar phenomenon in the case of our grandparents and parents. Even without technology, they live in our heads and hearts. We hear them. We feel things. We may even sound like them in saying a certain phrase.
Lives have IMPACT.
Yet, when I am gone and when my generation is gone—or maybe it’s after two or three more generations are gone—all the above impact of the lives mentioned will also be gone. There are very, very, very few exceptions.
What intrigues me about death is the wonder it is that a complex, multi-faceted being could exist, have impact, live on in the lives of others a while, and then cease. Totally cease. For it to finally become as if they had never existed. That will be true eventually even of Hitler and Lincoln.
Jesus lived and died and continues to live. After 2000 years. There is something about him that will not cease, but is eternal. This truth is a corollary to the fact he is divine. That “something” is God. It is indestructible. His impact is eternal and infinite.
When he impacts my life and my life joins his and becomes part of his body/community/people/ultimate reality, I become part of something eternal. I become eternal. I have eternal life in Christ - with God.
My life comes to mean more than calling bowling tournaments, making people laugh, freeing people or even unleashing a Reich that will be vilified for a thousand years. And my impact on the lives of other can be eternal! Let that one sink in.
There is something about the impact lives have that points to transcendent possibility. But that possibility is only realized by connecting with God himself.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
THOSE CRAZY...
1. Palestinian security forces staged a protest outside the Palestinian Parliament. The issue was a lack of ammunition. The protest consisted of firing their weapons into the air.
2. A new Palestinian faction kidnapped some Hamas leaders because they were fed up with Hamas considering itself above the law.
My honest first response was, “Those crazy Palestinians.” But they (or others) can look at my life and say the same thing. These news items only illustrate the universal need expressed by Robert Burns: “O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.”
Take a look at yourself – as an American, as a Christian, as a male/female/husband/wife/parent, etc. What is it in your actions that an objective third party would see and say “That’s crazy! Why do you do that? Can’t you see that is counter-productive or illogical or goes against what you say you want to achieve?”
Other people’s inconsistencies are clear as a bell. My own are shrouded in familiarity, cultural habit, blindness, or denial.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
PREACHING DEMEANOR
I trust I do not manifest affectation nor defective breeding!
Randy
BROKENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY
There is a character of God’s people that is manifested moreso in this church than in some you will find. We are calling you to be a part of that.
You might term it genuineness or authenticity. (Some mistakenly call it friendly – Wal Mart is friendly, but this is different). It is really brokenness and transparency.
We are calling you to more than church attendance or even involvement in a ministry. These are very important. They are baseline.
But we are calling you to spiritual growth.
2 Cor. 13:5
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.
This is not to be done only in isolation.
Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. [25] Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
This church is meant to be both a safe place and a very risky place. There is an old hymn titled “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.” We are safe in Jesus, but church is also risky in the sense that growth only comes through vulnerability and transparency. The risk is not external, but within yourself.
We do not program this and force you to do it. Some churches try that. We call you to it, try to model it, and yes, we will work on stretching you beyond your comfort zone. But those are actually very mild ways of describing what Jesus came to do. He came to turn your world upside down, break it apart, and put it back together again in a wholly new way.
That is why the NT uses language like death of the old man, buried with Christ, died with Christ, raised to walk a new life.
Are there spiritually fringe people here? Of course. But don’t settle for that. It is not fulfilling. And it is very dangerous. Take Jesus by the hand and walk the walk of a disciple. And join hands with other disciples on the road here at Campbell church.
