Is Jesus coming back on May 21?

Just to let those who have been watching to much Royal Wedding coverage or the Mavs stomping the Lakers (Lackers), I wanted to let you know that Jesus isn't coming to Earth on May 21st. For one thing we have a church work day on that day and really need to get some things done. Another issue is that Harold Camping says that is the day. You may remember Harold Camping for his prediction that Jesus was coming in 1994.I guess Jesus broke down somewhere between here and Heaven and couldn't get a ride. Or maybe he just didn't want to come to earth during the Clinton Administration. Harold Camping preachers that all churches are wrong because the Holy Spirit has left the modern day church. I guess he and the Holy Spirit have coffee at Starbucks on Monday mornings or something. Maybe he gets secret messages via his Dish Satellite size ears, I dunno. All I know is what the book says Jesus Himself in Mark 13:32, look it up for yourself beloved. Jesus (you know the guy coming back) also says alot about dudes trying to say when he is coming in Mark 13:21-22. Of course that stuff is in the Bible and you have to believe the Bible to belive that stuff. Seems like we all want Ear itchers these days instead of the book itself. I heard one guy asking about all the money Harold is getting from those who follow him. The caller into Camping's radio show asked if he was going to give it all back. I guess he was on a cell phone in a tunnel cause they cut him off. Oh well, whenever Jesus does come back the Hale Hacienda is ready to go, this $5 gas is killing us. Smile Beloved God has great plans for you.

Katy Perry and the Decline of Western Christianity

So, the other day I am delving into Youth culture. I watch a video by Lady Ga Ga, kind of like Marylyn Manson meets Madonna – unique but strange. Then I view Katy Perry’s Firework video. She is a great singer, I like her energy in interviews, but I know that she has made some really bad choices. For one the guy she is married to is …. Well let me say unique. The song that propelled her to stardom was “I kissed a girl” which talks about a young lady’s exploration of lesbianism. Katy is still exploring her world and its complex realities. Then upon reading her bio I find that she is the daughter of not one minister but two ministers. I also discover that she had a Christian music career under her real name Katy Hudson. I listen to some of the cuts, same voice different message. Her music label went under and she became Katy Perry who kissed a girl and now has fireworks exploding out of her chest. So, Pb, where are you going with this? Let me ask a question. How does a girl who grew up in a Christian home and church now spend her young adult life promoting choices that are completely against everything she was brought up to believe? More importantly, why do we see this trend, although not as dramatically, repeat it in our churches today? I am not looking for someone to blame I am looking for some way to get around this trend.

It isn’t something new. Colonial and early America saw the same trends. One generation was Biblically sound and then the next fell out of church. Since the Church was the government they put rules on the populous making them attend church. This filled up the pews but did nothing for the hearts. People were willing to go through the ritual but had no relationship with Christ. Society’s morality plummeted as church became an empty exercise. How did they change it? They didn’t. God brought a revival called the “Great Awakening” that changed churches through changing people. So what do we who live in this century need to be doing with an increasing lost generation? Do we need to look for a great awakening to end the apathy of our churches and re-salt our society? What can we be doing?

It seems to me to be a waste of time, teaching and resources to spend so much time in our kids lives from the Nursery through High School, just to see them run away from the church when the reach college level. This is going to have to be a joint effort of God instructing and us doing. We have to evaluate not only the church but the home as well. If we say one thing and they see another in the home what good is it to teach them. Permissiveness and the desire of Christian parents to be “friends” instead of mentors is a large part of the problem. I don’t think this idea can be solved in one blog; I just want to put the question out there and see if it evokes any responses. Let me know what you think.

Happy Holidays Huff

OK, some people are not going to like this post. That said, let me dive in. I saw the other day that a local church has a website that “rats” on business that dare to say Happy Holidays and not “Merry Christmas”. The whole idea is to encourage Christians to boycott business and complain about governments who dare to be on their naughty list.

Frankly, I think this is sad. It portrays Christians to the world as nit picky people who make non issues big issues. Frankly, we don’t need any more bad press. The same church has taken funds away from the local homeless shelter it started under another group of leaders because it just can’t afford it anymore. I guess the website was costing them too much. “To bad baby Jesus, we don’t have a warm room for you because we are trying to make sure everyone warms you with birthday greetings, doesn’t that feel good?”

I remember a few years ago that people were all up in arms because some people dared to call it X-mas instead of Christmas. Did we realize that the X is an ancient church symbol for Christ? So called Christian Governments didn’t like Christmas Holidays for some stupid reason. Believers would say and write x-mas in times of persecution because they wanted to celebrate without being persecuted. Of course we don’t waist time trying to understand and instead of knowing our own history we just ignorantly attack those who would dare to challenge us.

Now before anyone starts to reply let me say something about our current situation, to me you can’t call it a Holiday tree any more than you can call it a Holiday Menorah or a Holiday Kwanza Candle. All those events including my own have their own definitive celebrations, styles and traditions. It is just that in the public sector I don’t care if a business which operates in that sector says “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”. Frankly I am more concerned with whether or not my Co-Co is hot or cold. Business leaders live in our DFW pluralistic society and have to act accordingly. Most are not trying to herd the Christians back to the Coliseum lions but are just trying to take care of all of their multicultural customers and not a select group of Christian legalistic Pharisees. Is it the spirit of Christ that leads us to demand special recognition or is it the spirit of self? In such a searching society can we present a better witness?

I think we can. We can act Christ-like to them. You know imitate the birthday boy who became a man and told us to let our light shine (Matthew 5). I don’t remember the early church having a government local or national that bent to their needs. That early church had great power because they made the main issue the evangelization and discipleship of their local and national world. They were interested in the Kingdom of God. We should follow their example. To do that we must rely on what we do conforming to what we say we believe. Maybe if we stopped worrying about greetings, buildings, and our kingdoms and returned to the expansion of God’s kingdom we would see the world demand to say “Merry Christmas” based on our testimony and not our cries of indignation. So guys shut down the website and give the money to the homeless. It’s a better way to celebrate that homeless family in the manger.

Shadow Warriors: The Faithful

Shadow Warriors

Life is filled with people who stand in the shadows and accomplish great deeds of courage. It has been my pleasure to benefit from so many of these people. These sons and daughters of encouragement who through their persistent acts of tear filled courage stand as examples to the rest of us about the need for commitment.

There is my secretary, Wanda. She is west Texas strong from the old pioneer stock. Her husband Jack struggles with reality as Alzheimer’s claims more and more of his memory. Through his fog he knows that Wanda will be there. She has stayed true to her commitment of “until death we do part” made many years ago. It cost her physically and emotionally and pushes her to lean on her spiritual strength to help her and Jack make it through this night. Through it all she stand firm in her faith, teaches it to her 3-5 grade Sunday school class, and gives her grandkids an example of faithfulness.

There is my good friend, Alecia. Although she uses a walker to get around I wouldn’t ask Walker Texas Ranger to mess with her. She is a prayer warrior, one who doesn’t just say she’ll pray about it, she writes it down and does it till you get an answer. In the middle of all this her son, Tony, has been in a struggle with his health for years. Many times we thought he was going to his true home in Heaven only to have God say “not yet, my boy”. He carries on the family tradition often to the detriment of his own health as he listens and prays for others. Alecia could have let go a long time ago but she has remained faithful to her calling as a mother and prayer warrior. Many barriers have been broken, many schemes have been stopped. Yet, her humility shine through as she gives glory to God for his goodness, mercy and grace.

Two unknowns, unseen, not touched by the world's spotlight, they give of themselves each day. Pray for them. Pray for the many that are like them. They don’t need our pity, they need our praise.

So I took my son to see the Rangers play on Sunday. There in lies the lesson.

After listening to the early week games in Tampa Bay we were both excited to see them play at home. Saturday’s game was less than spectacular. They could of won something in front of the home crowd but they chose to lay on the ground and loose, I guess it was all the Tropicana juice or maybe jet lag. Anyway, Saturday’s loss opened up to Sundays perceived day of Salvation, we could watch them go further than they had ever gone before along with 1 Billion other screaming slightly stinky fans sitting moist knee to moist knee above the clouds in the supposed “cheap seats”. We were going to see History we thought.

We knew it was going to be chaos because dad works for a boss that doesn’t let him off early on Lord’s Supper Sunday so Dad is tied up past the Star Spangled Banner. We get over there OK but there is no parking anywhere because some Evil imp from Hades has scheduled Jerry’s boys on the same day as the Ranger’s playoff game. For some unknown reason Arlington actually thought Jerry would live up to his word about funneling money for traffic issues. We had to dodge our way around soused up Yee Haw boys and girls who were stumbling down the roads to watch Deputy Dog and his boys try again to beat someone. Finally we get a parking place behind a warehouse that reminded me to lock my door and look out for Tony Soprano and his boys. We get to the game in the 5th inning, the 5th! I am Ok, Caleb is Ok. We think that the last part of the game will prove the Rangers want to win it for Nolan who spent everything to own them this year.

What we found from the 5th inning on is a team that just gave up. They should have been singing “Take me back to Tampa, I’m to messed up to win this thing”. Poor Ranger fans with our white swinging towels. Come on guys, Pop Fly’s in the majors…at a playoff game….I paid how much to watch this? Well we at least had a good nacho experience and Rangers Ball park had the good sense to stock Coke Zero.

Speaking of Zero, that is what their performance was like. My opinion is that they should have been outside the ball park crying on their knees asking us to forgive them. I know that some of you guys who color coordinate with the “jersey of the day” are going to think I am nuts and that is fine. It is for all of us I plead. The Ranger fan has waited eons for them to get to this point. We have endured seasons where all we had was Nolan’s style and a good Kenny Rogers brawl with a reporter. The fans have bought a bountiful supply of those t-shirts so that they can have a man’s fist in the middle of their chest and a deer on their back. Just a little clue guys, don’t go to SE Texas with those on unless you want to be stuffed and mounted. We have embraced them and can’t wait for them to win. I would settle for them just to wake up before they end up sitting home watching the Yankees win yet another world series….I dislike profusely the Yankees. Mom said we can only hate the Devil and since he owns the Cowboys and not the Yankees…we’ll you get the picture.

Then of course my preacher/pastor side kicks. I always know when that happens because organ music plays and I hear a choir slowly hum. A glow comes out of the sky and hits my face as I hear God’s voice tell me what I should take away from this experience. By the way, God sounds like Jimmy Stewart to me. God opened up something to me from this experience and since Ron Washington won’t be giving me a refund let me at least get some value for my bloggie. The Bible says….Heb 12:1 Therefore since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us,
I just wonder how many times that crowd of witnesses feels let down by the “game” I have played before them? How many times to they feel that I gave less than my all? How many times have I forgotten to hear their cheers and encouragement and dropped a ball or swung on a ball? Maybe I should think a little more about the home team, what they gave up for me, the hours they put into lessons that shaped my character. They taught me not to rely on myself and realize that to win this game I have to know that with his power I can do anything. I need to remember my “Fan Cloud” as they do a Holy Spirit wave and realize I have a better game in me and it’s time to give it my all for the home team.

Ok, so since I got that lesson to communicate to you I can now write off my game and snack cost as a business expense. Something tells me Ms. Wanda will say “NO!”

Is Facebook the Cause of Evil?

Is Face book the Devil? I read a brief headline about that the other day. It seems like Christians looking for notoriety and a fast buck are always looking to blame the evils of this would on something in it. Jazz, Back Seats, Rock-n-Roll, Dice, Video games, Disco, Television and many other things have all have been blamed for causing evil in the world. Let me just be plain in my line of thought. These things including Face book are not the cause of Evil. They are inanimate objects that can be used for good or evil based on the people who are involved with them. Evil is something we carry around with us. It is something we use to pervert that which is created good or at least without moral complexity into something we can use for our own evil purposes. It isn’t the Devil who forces us; it is our own evil desires that push us into sin. Face book can be used to create disunity, anger, fear, lust, and many other sins if the person posting wants it to be that way. We should approach Face book with the same questions we approach any “thing” with which we involve ourselves. We should ask “Is what I am about to say going to encourage and edify my friends and family or is it going to cause them shame, embarrassment, anger, or conflict?” I am convinced that if we applied that question to our post and pictures there would be a lot less post in Face book nation.

Fingerprints on the soul

This last week I attended the funeral of a friend. Kenny Hodgekiss was a man who affected many lives with his humor, friendship, and by just being the pleasant soul God created him to be. He will be missed by his family and our continued prayers go out to, Teri, Lori, Maw-Maw Elaine, and their families.

His passing from this life to the greater life beyond made me think. We Christians like to make big shot pastors, creative writers, and the newest song singers our “poster” children examples of what it means to be a Christian. We put them on magazine covers and read their blogs. Many of these people are legitimate good people. However, I think we miss the reality testimony of real Christian servants many times, and then we miss the chance to say how much their examples mean to us. Few if any magazine articles are about those souls like Kenny who sit in the background and just do what God created them to do. They don’t blow their own trumpets; they just get the job that other people plan, done. They drive us places without complaint, they hold our hands when we are afraid, they make us laugh, the hold us up in their prayers, they listen when we don’t understand. Like a modern day Barnabas they encourage us.

I remember how Kenny would come by the office when my dad, another quiet lay soul, was going through his recent heart issues. Kenny would let me know he was praying for my dad and give me some time just to have a listening ear. Such people are a wonder; a special God given treasure. I really think when it comes time for the master to honor us in heaven with his “Well done” we will find that he holds something special for those people who served others and put them first beyond themselves. What has been done in the darkness will come to full light. I am thankful that I have had so many people like this in my life who have been appointed to be there just when I needed them most. I will have a lot of “Thank You” time when I get to Heaven.

I hope will all take a moment this week and tell someone who does this kind of ministry “Thank you, for letting God work through you”. I hope we all will live in the legacy of those who encouraged us by being an encouragement this week.