|
 Deacon
Speakin'
- Tom Lane
...Community
Saturday morning finds me in Southern
California attending a wood-working show. This
week has been hectic; a perpetual journey via
automobile and aircraft. Because I have
traveled so extensively in my life, (at one time
accumulating over a million United Airlines miles -
25,000 miles=one free round-trip), getting on a
plane holds no great attraction or appeal.
I have visited 43 of our 50 states,
and at least ten foreign countries. Now I'm
sitting here humming Johnny Cash's, "I've Been
Everywhere." It's not quite that bad (or good,
depending on your outlook), but if I never left home
again, it would be okay.
Oooops, I just remembered that I have
a summer trip planned to visit some historic Civil
War sites, and that I will probably be traveling
back to Hawaii later in the year.
Please
disregard the first two paragraphs!
They say that home is "where the
heart is." Very true. Today, though 400
miles from my house, my heart is very much at home.
Back home I'm dealing with a lot of
heartache. Seems like a number of people
around me are going through some pretty difficult
situations; true heart-breaking circumstances.
Yet, it causes me to want to be back there all the more.
That is what community is about: the
gathering of ourselves. Community is important
in part because we are more and do more collectively than
individually. I'm not quite ready to say that
it takes a village to raise a child, but last week I
held someone else's hurting child in my arms and it
sure seemed like it made a difference - for both of
us!
In "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand
Places," author Eugene Peterson reminds us that
community is vital to our healthy existence.
Yet, we have within us the desire to isolate.
Oh, maybe we will take a few with us, but we all too
frequently spend our time and expend our energies in
attempts to reduce community - to a size we are more
capable of controlling. I'm that way.
The fact is, I prefer manageable situations and
environments. I'm sure that helps explain why
I own a business rather than working for someone
else. But it also means that I need to be
careful. Careful that I do not, even
unintentionally, do or say things that would
diminish or lessen community.
Mr. Peterson prompts the reader to
approach sectarianism, (breaking off into smaller
groups, or sects), cautiously. He says that
"sectarianism is to the community what heresy is to
theology, a willful removal of a part from
the whole.
He gives the examples of our outrage
at someone marketing a Bible that only included
their five favorite books, or an art dealer cutting
up a large Rembrandt canvas into two-inch squares.
Yet, too easily, we allow, and even
delight, in the dividing up of the Jesus community
into contentious and competitive groups.
I think Paul's question, should be
our question (whenever we see a tendency toward
sectarianism): "Has Christ been divided?" (1
Corinthians 1:13)
For all it's
difficulties, turmoil, worries and frets, I still
prefer being an integral part of community. As
such, I want to be a good friend, and to have good
friends; to participate not only in the eating of
meals together, but in the cleaning of the dishes
after we've had our fill.
I'm glad to report that my
body and heart will be reunited around 6:00 p.m.
I can hardly wait for the grand reunion!
Editor's Update: With good whether conditions
and strong favorable tail winds, Deacon Tom's body
and heart were reunited at precisely 5:47 p.m.
...Tribute
As a professional
salesman, I sometimes refer to myself as a "word
merchant." In sales, words are the most
valuable tools in our arsenal. That said, I
often research words; determining their origin and
correct use. Today's word ...tribute.
While Webster's has
many definitions (mostly dealing with money and
bribery) the definition that seems most appropriate
is: "something given, done, or said, as a gift;
testimonial to show gratitude, respect, honor or
praise."
Yesterday at
the
Epicenter we paid tribute (a very
small bribe ...j/k) to a man I greatly admire.
Jim Fugate
celebrated his 75th birthday. As a surprise,
all his children and several grandchildren flew in
from all over the country and conducted our entire
worship service, including all of the music and
preaching. Of course, there is never tribute
in Baptist circles without a potluck, and yesterday
was no exception. If you missed it, and your
last name begins with the letter A-L, your salad was
sorely missed!
It was a wonderful
day, in tribute to a wonderful man. I'm so
thankful for the Godly men that have influenced my
life. Jim is a great mentor with a
tender-hearted compassion that I have not seen in
many men. We have prayed together most every
Saturday for the past five years, and it is through
prayer that I have really seen Jim's heart.
The following
pictures are my tribute to this man who has touched
and impacted so many lives.
(Click on pictures for larger view)
Jim and Doris Fugate
The Fugate Family
Music by The Fugate Five?
M-Z Bring a Main Dish
"Happy Birthday Jim"
We Love You Man!
...The Concept of Sacrifice
If you
read this column regularly you know that being a
Sunday school teacher is one of the most important
roles in my life. Each week we gather and
consider God's Word. I take this
responsibility very seriously because I know that,
in part, people's very lives depend on me handling
God's Word well.
This
past Sunday, barely one hour after finishing our
study from the book of Romans, I received an e-mail
from one of the students in our class. This
student is new and eager to learn; a teacher's dream
student!
This
special person asked me to explain more about the
concept of sacrifice. How would you answer
this? Please
e-mail me
with your thoughts. I've spent a few hours
answering the question, but I'd love to hear from
you.
I do
not believe anyone can truly understand salvation
without understanding sacrifice. Sacrifice is
what differentiates Christianity from all other
religions and schisms. The sacrifice that
gains us relationship with God is not our own, it is
God's - sending His Son as a sacrificial offering.
"We can't
round up enough containers to hold everything God
generously pours into our lives through the Holy
Spirit. Christ arrives right on time to make this
happen. He didn't and doesn't wait for us to get
ready. He presented
Himself for the sacrificial death
when we were far too weak and rebellious to do
anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we
hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to
do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a
person worth dying for ...but God put His love on
the line for us by
offering His Son (Jesus) in sacrificial death
while we were of no use whatever to him." (Romans
5:6-8)
We
gain salvation when we accept, believe and confess
that God
has done
for us what
we could never do
for ourselves. God's part in sacrifice is
done!
But
sacrifice is still an active part of the Christian's
life. Romans 12:1 says that we are to present
ourselves to God as "a living sacrifice."
Noted Christian author, Chuck Swindol points out
that the difference between an Old Testament
sacrifice (a goat, a bull, or a lamb) and a New
Testament "living sacrifice," (you and I), is that
living things keep
 crawling off the altar. So true.
In
presenting ourselves as sacrifices -as offerings to
God, Eugene Peterson reminds us that,
"These
offerings are to be the best that we have, the best
that we can do. But this best is not given to
God to show Him how good we are; it is not an
attempt to gain His approval.
These
offerings are our best but they are also an
acknowledgment that our best is not good enough.
We place our best on the altar to see what God can
do with it."
So I
begin this day, once more, lifting myself back up
onto the altar, having crawled off sometime during
the afternoon yesterday.
The
priest just showed up with an arm full of firewood.
He flashed me a nice smile. Maybe, just maybe,
he believes I'm going to stay put this time. I
hope he's right.
...Someone Has to
Say It!
Well,
I guess I'm going to show my age today. I have
something to say that simply cannot be put off.
It would be easier, I suppose, not to comment, but
I think
it's time somebody spoke up
...about these teenagers.
Oh, I
know what some of you are thinking; that it's been a
long time since I was a teen, but I don't think that
should disqualify me from speaking out. I do
not see how I can sit idly by.
The things I am seeing and
reading about this generation demand a response.
Someone has to say it.
I've decided that I have an obligation to tell it
like it is, even if no one else is willing to take
the risk. So here goes...
I
want to talk about two teens in particular, Shauna
Fleming and Daniel Patterson.
Shauna Fleming, a high school student in Los
Angeles, was 15 years old when she decided that she
would like to start a national program called "A
Million Thanks." The purpose of the
program is to collect and
distribute a million letters of thanks to U.S.
military personnel around the globe.
Shauna, who is now 16
and a sophomore, has far surpassed the million mark,
and has increased her goal to 1.4 million, the
equivalent of one letter for every man and woman in
uniform.
Actor Gary Sinise of
CSI fame, recently met the teen and said, "I
was so impressed for a person her age
to take on such a huge project and make such a
difference in the lives of the men and women serving
our country.”
I heard Shauna
interviewed on the radio this morning and I could
not believe how mature she is. She will appear
on CNN, CBS and Fox News this week as she closes in
on her new goal. If you would like to know
more about Shauna and "A Million Thanks" I encourage
you to
click here.
When you are done click the "back" button on your
browser so you can return here and read about Daniel
Patterson.
I know Daniel
personally. He is also a sophomore in high
school. He is an avid wrestler. Indeed,
he has serious "wrestling skills." But he also
has "hacking skills." Well, okay, maybe not
actual hacking (as least as far as I know ...lol),
but he does have technology skills.
Our website, as you
may have read elsewhere, has been growing
tremendously. In the first 100 days of this
year (y2k5) we had 20,679 visitors. In fact,
since re-launching the site in mid-October of 2004,
we have had over 34,200 visitors ...from at least 58
countries.
Until recently, the
most popular pages on the site have been our various
blogs (pastorob,
Warren Peace,
Joe's
Journals,
WhatEva, and
Deacon Speakin') ...that is until
Daniel came along and produced a
video skit;
a parody of the popular movie, "Napoleon
Dynamite." This short video was shown to a
live audience at the Epicenter and received rave
reviews. It is now being regularly downloaded
from our website by people from all over the world!
Watch it now.
After you finish watching the video, read
a critical review
review of the skit written by a student in
Singapore!
Our youth page
was designed by Daniel and it is now the most
popular page on our site! We know of a church
in Florida that intends to use the material to do
their own Napoleon Dynamite program to reach youth
in their community.
These teenagers
...sure make me proud!
I'm glad I can see the value of our teens.
Watching TV and reading the paper I notice there's never a shortage of bad
news about our teens, but I am actually very hopeful
with what I see and read. I guess what you
think probably depends a lot on where you get your
information.
...A Call to Worship
One of
my church responsibilities each week is to
put together the "visuals" for our worship service.
The visuals are the words to the songs we sing
together with a background picture. They are put on
a large screen behind our worship team to help
people sing along.
One
day I hope to incorporate the Mitch Miller bouncing
ball, but I digress...
What
is worship? I still haven't found an easy
answer to that question. Oh, I have many
answers, just nothing succinct. The closest
I've come so far is that worship is "declaring God's
worthiness," or "worth-ship." But I know it's
far more than that.
While
not exclusive, to me worship nearly always involves
song. Eugene Peterson, in "Christ Plays in Ten
Thousand Places," says that song is "heightened
speech." I like that. He goes on to say
that song "does not explain, it expresses: it gives
witness."
"Because God, and therefore the worship of God,
cannot be reduced to the rational, song has always
been basic to the act of worship. Music is not
added to the words to make them more pleasing; it is
integral to the way the words are being used as
...windows
to the mystery, as joining in the dance of the
Trinity,"
Mr. Peterson adds.
Another way we could define worship is that it is
our acknowledgement of God's salvation; God doing
for us what we could not do for ourselves.
There is a wonderful example of this in
Exodus
15:1-18, sometimes referred to as "The Song of
Moses." The song is a recounting of God
miraculously saving the Israelites from the Egyptian
army, put to music.
Do we
miss the essence of worship?
Sometimes.
In the novel, "The
Sparrow," author Mary Doria Russell observes how few ever notice the
actual ways of God:
God
was at Sinai and within weeks, people were dancing
in front of a golden calf. God walked in
Jerusalem and days later, folks nailed Him up and
went back to work. Faced with the Divine,
people took refuge in the banal, as though answering
a cosmic multiple-choice question. If you saw
a burning bush, would you:
(a)
call 911
(b) get the hot dogs
(c) recognize God
Eugene Peterson
reminds us that... "salvation is God
doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
We are head-over-heels in on this.
But we don't manage it. We don't direct it.
What we do is worship. We sing to the Lord the
Song of Salvation. The song doesn't explain,
the song witnesses. As Moses and the
Israelites sing the song they witness. In that
worshiping witness they participate in the mystery.
And so do we."
...The
Crisis of Belief
"God
will never give us a vision without providing the
resources." I've been saying this a lot of
late. Now I wonder aloud, do I really believe
this, or is it just a trite phrase so oft repeated
that I have accepted it as one of the many axioms of
my life?
 I
begin by trying to recall when I first heard this
precept and began the process of adopting it as my
own. As near as I can tell, it began several
years ago with a challenge from Henry Blackaby's
study, "Experiencing God."
Here's
an overview of
"Experiencing God."
The 7 Steps to Experiencing God
In the section on
"The Crisis of Belief" (#5 in
the picture), Pastor Blackaby
tells the following:
One year the people on our finance committee said,
"Pastor, you have taught us to walk by faith in
every area of the life of our church except in the
budget." I asked them to explain. They
said, "Well, when we set the budget, we set it on
the basis of what we believe we can do. It
does not reflect that we expect God to do anything."
"Hummmmm," I said. "Then how do you feel we
ought to set the budget?"
(The finance committee thought this through and came
up with a formula that factor in what they felt God
wanted them to do.)
As a church we prayed and decided God wanted us to
use this approach to budgeting (which included not
only their tithes and pledges, but "what we must
depend on God to do."). We did not try to
dream our own dreams for God. We had to be
absolutely sure God was leading us to do the things
we put in the budget. The difference
between what we could reasonably expect to receive
and the total was what we would ask God to provide.
...by faith we adopted the grand total as our
operating budget. At this point we reached
a crisis of belief. Did we really believe
that led us to do these things would also provide
the resources to bring them to pass? Anytime
God leads you to do something that has God-sized
dimensions, you will face a crisis of belief. When
you face a crisis of belief, what you do next
reveals what you really believe about God.
The budget of our church normally would have been
$74,000. The budget we set was $164,000.
We pledged to pray daily that God would meet our
needs. Any money that came in that we did not
anticipate we credited to God. At the end
of the year we had received $172,000.
I know that we cannot
expect God to do exactly the same thing that He has
done in another place, at another time, but I
believe that Henry Blackaby's experience with the
"Crisis of Belief" will be repeated every time we
reach beyond our abilities and our resources.
I am praying for
God's vision for fbcgalt in Y2K5 and beyond.
As we VisionCast™, it is my hope and prayer that we
will not "play it safe" and limit our thinking to
what we can accomplish ourselves.
pastorob.com has been
an exciting adventure over the past 6-1/2 months.
What began as a vision for reaching hundreds became
a vision (and then a reality) for reaching
thousands, - 20,679
visitors served in the past 100 days! -
we now dare to believe we can reach hundreds of
thousands.
The website is only
one of the fbcgalt ministries. I'm praying for
God's vision for every aspect of our church.
I believe vision casting is a vital role of
the deacon. And yes, I have experienced my own
"crisis of belief" whenever I dare to think beyond
our current situation.
But, buoyed by Henry
Blackaby's experience and teaching, I believe (not
just think or agree with someone else), that God
will never give a vision without providing the
resources to see it through.
Why do I believe
this, you ask?
Because "providing"
is one of the very names of God.
So Abraham
called that place, "The Lord Will Provide."
And to this day it is said, On the mountain of the
Lord it will be provided."
-Genesis 22:14
...Bratty Kids
In church last Sunday,
there was a couple in front of us with two bratty
kids. Two pews behind us there was another
couple with their two bratty kids making a lot of
noise. Ours is mostly an older congregation,
and these elderly people are set in their ways since
their kids
have been gone a long time. And so it wasn't a
very nice service; it was just not very good
worship. But afterwards I saw half a dozen of
these elderly people come up and put their arms
around the mother, touch the kids, sympathize with
her. They could have been irritated...
Now anybody who has
read this far and was in our service this past week
is probably in a bit of a panic, trying frantically to remember
where my wife were sitting and which young families
were sitting in front of, and behind us.
 Actually,
this isn't my story at all. The "bratty kid"
story is from an interview with
Eugene Peterson by Mark Galli. If you have
been reading along in this column for the past few
weeks, you know that I am currently reading, "Christ
Plays in Ten Thousand Places," by Dr. Peterson.
It is proving to be one of the most
thought-provoking books I have read in the past
decade.
To help you
understand why I believe spiritual theology in
general, and this book in particular, are so
important,
I have included
Mark Galli's interview with
Eugene Peterson from the March issue
of Christianity Today. Please take a few
minutes to read it ...but be prepared to have some
of your long-held church mores rocked a bit.
...It
can be really hard to not care what other people
think
Sound
familiar? It does if you've been reading
Whateva.
Eva said this in her April 3rd blog.
Funny, what made her think of this
was a story I told during our Sunday school class...
more
...Passion
Funny how we get
certain reputations along the way. I am known
in some circles as a very passionate person.
Passion can be a compliment, (it's my contention
that people almost always respond favorably to
passion...
more
...Pop Quiz
Today, I begin with
something a little different ...a pop quiz.
Now some of you are very excited because you think I
am going to ask you who's going to be voted off the
island, or who will be this year's American Idol.
Well, to be honest, I'm not that hip to the pop
culture of the day. About as close as I get to
being in on the pop culture is my daily visit to
Starbucks...
more
...God is on
Our Side
Yesterday, I had the
opportunity to answer a question, "Why did Jesus
have to die?" How would you answer this
question?...
more
...The Wonder
of the Resurrection
I've been given the
privilege of preaching our
Easter
Sunrise Service this Sunday.
Inspired by my current reading of "Christ Plays in
Ten Thousand Places," by Eugene Peterson, I have
chosen...
more
...Writing from
the Right Side
Those who know me as a
hard to nail-down, outside-the-box
ESTJ, know that I
almost always think and write from the left side on
my brain. Unfortunately that side seems to
have some sort of writer's block tonight, so I've
yielded to the right side of my brain for a "guest
column." ...
more
...The Terri
Schiavo Story
If you did not already
do so, I would ask that you read my previous column
(...Followed
by a Cross) before reading this
column. It will help lay the foundation for
what I want to share...
more
...Followed
by a Cross
At our early morning
prayer meeting today, one of my friends told a story that I think is worth passing
along.
It seems my friend
Bill (not his real name) has a friend named Joe (not
his real name) and they are both recovering
alcoholics who regularly attend AA (Alcoholics
Anonymous) meetings.
My friend says that
at AA, people are known by their first name and last
initial, for example...
more
...I Believe,
Therefore I Am
Sound familiar?
Well, actually the quote is, "I think,
therefore I am." This famous quotation was from the
17th century French philosopher, René Descartes.
He is best known for his attempt to put philosophy...
more
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