The coca-cola God

Darija was my student for one day. I saw her again last night at the church service here at the Synagog where I was preaching last night. She was my student only one day, because she can’t sleep, literally. She averages 2-3 hours per night . . . for the last seven years. But she did her assignment for the one day she was in class and she remarked that most of us have a coca-cola god. Or more accurately we treat God as a coca-cola machine.

“We put in our coin, get our preferred drink and go our merry ways. That is very easy to do. And because God is merciful and doesn’t punish us immediately, we just go ahead and repeat the process. Until one fine day, when we realize that we didn’t actually betray God, or damage Him, we damage ourselves. Although nobody was forcing us, we deprive ourselves of peace, joy and His presence.”

I admit that Darija got alot closer to the truth of the matter than I like to admit. But Darija mentions only the side of Christianity that is about what I receive. This week in class we are going way beyond that . . . into the enemies camp. Either we follow Christ or we are not Christian at all. And He is calling us to: “Love your enemies”, “Bless them that persecute you.”, Do good to them that hate you.“, ”Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.“ Is there a single one among us who does this? Here in Croatia where war raged not long ago . . . where land mines are still around in abundance, these are not meaningless words on paper . . . these are fighting words.

Me? I haven’t experienced war and I have no enemies I think. So what does this mean for me? It seems that God is calling us to something so radical, that putting a coin in and selecting our favorite beverage is way too tame and lame. Do we even know what faith and trust in God that enables us to love our enemies looks like? Bonhoeffer did . . . they hung him. Me? I like the coca-cola version of God. Let’s face it, I am a soft Westerner who has never gone without, ever, of anything. Can I possibly be farther from the Christ of the cross?

Human knots

Today’s tasks was to untangle the human knots I had them form in class. I will include a couple of photos for you. The change in the group in the last three days has been amazing. The first day there was high frustration and yelling and hurt feelings. Contrast that with today where there was negotiation, cohesiveness and listening. It seems that these team building skills are working.





Unfortunately the knots in me and relationships around me don’t work out as easily. In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers.” We usually think of this as people who are peaceFUL. They have peace and in that is the virtue we think. But we are to make peace. To be at peace with all men. This even sounds passive, but in reality, I can think of no more vigorous work than making peace. To be a peace-child or a child of peace is sacrificial work and effort.

But if I am to unknot my soul and my relationships, how can I not make peace? God’s Kingdom is one of peace. Read James again if you disbelieve me . . . chapter one and four are brutal on those who would wage war.

It is hard to suffer for other people, let alone die for them . . . yet that is what God calls us to. Why am I so resistant to that? Am I Christ's disciple or not? Life can be filled with human knots, real one's, not the kind that I created in class to make a point. There is clearly no option here . . . we have to work through it, no matter the personal costs.

knotting ropes and lowering rods of helium

As you can see from the photos below, my class is indeed tied up knots and trying to force helium rods to the floor. These were intentionally exercises in frustration in order to build teams and team-work.

I knew why we were doing these exercises, but life is rarely this clear. I find that I do not often practice honesty with myself or with God. If we do not do what God is calling us to do, or more simply put, if we don’t obey, then we aren’t believing. Yet we resist that judgement strongly. I often find a way to convince myself that actually I am obeying, when in reality I am not. Jesus says “leave all behind and follow me.” But we don’t. We rationalize it away and decide that Jesus is talking to someone else. He could not possibly be talking to me we think. Yet He is . . . and does. Hundreds of callings and commands and we pick and choose . . . or classify them as important and the unimportant. At least I do. You probably obey Jesus perfectly.

I am evading literal obedience at every turn. I have perfected the kind of double-speak that turns the commands and instructions of the Living God into whatever I want them to mean. It often sounds suspiciously like this . . . “What Jesus was really saying here is . . . .” Or something along those lines of sophisticated foolishness. When I try to avoid simple clean obedience, I find myself falling into ever deeper waters of ropes and rods, where things are much more complicated than they were ever intended to be.

hand to hand combat

I grew up in this world. The world of cheap grace. Where the idea and concept had been emptied of all significant meaning . . . grace means less than nothing when all you have to do is walk to the front f the church and acknowledge the obvious . . . that I am a sinner. Can this grace provide the forgiveness of sin? Really? Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that this was the ruin of most Christians, or wanna be Christians.

It’s the fatal conception of the double standard - the maximum or minimum obedience required . . . it is the idea of absolute obedience to Christ versus minimal obedience . . . it is the question of how far can I go away from the Faith and still be saved from eternal punishment? In other words are you and I using Grace in order to follow our own wishes but still be “Christian” or are we being used by Grace because we are giving all for Christ? As Bonhoeffer stated, “The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.” Bonhoeffer’s suggestion was that most of us use grace to as a means to not follow Christ . . . yet be forgiven in the end. Hmmmm.

In the end it seems that grace which is cheap is religious myth. Lets face it, most of us want to follow Jesus, but on our terms. I even heard a missionary I work with say, “If I had to do such and such, I would just go home.” And I have heard many “Christians” in the USA, say “I will do what Jesus says, but He knows how limited I am.” These are not the statements of disciples . . . these are the statements of people sitting in a grill ordering lunch! Its like they are saying, “I can “do” christianity, but only with limitations and only on these terms.“

Our German guide toward discipleship summed it up completely when he said, “only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.” Ouch . . . and ouch again. This is hand to hand combat christianity. I am not sure I am winning. It seems that in my day to day walk, my bondage to myself wins more often than not. Cheap grace again.

Unthanksgiving Day

These are the rantings of a mad missionary. Mad as in crazy, luny, unstable, barmy or nuts. I find myself in a completely and totally anti-thanksgiving day mood. It’s not that I will not be able to pig out and commit the sin of gluttony . . . I can do that as easily here as I could in the States. It’s that I am separated from those I love the most. Thus I plan to petition the US government for a new holiday - Unthanksgiving Day. It should precede Thanksgiving day by a day or two for the best effect.

Some might petition the CMA to release me into early retirement after reading this, but at least I can maintain my “up frank” (another endearing misspeak by my English teacher sweet wife), e.g. transparency into my scarred soul to the blogging world (which is quite a bit of posturing BS for the most part).

Thanksgiving is a big holiday in my family. Christmas is OK and b-days are even less, but Thanksgiving has always been a big one for us. When I was a kid, Thanksgiving day was honestly alot of work, but it was fun family work. Thanksgiving day was always hog killing day at my grandparents farm.

While Granny was in the kitchen making a meal that would feed at least a 1000 people, the men and the boys would see to the demise of our humongous hog. I could easily burn the entire allotment of words for the remainder of this blog on stories from assisting disagreeable hogs into the next reality, but I will resist this strong urge.

So after dispatching the animal to Hog heaven, we would take a tractor and use the rear hydraulics to lift the immense lard-bucket off the ground. Then we would take pots of boiling water and pour over the animal to assist us in scraping the hair off. By this time the extended family had usually gathered and several tables were set up; one for making sausage and one for slicing fat. Obviously the meat parts headed for the sausage table and the thick (usually 6 inches or so) outer fat portions were on the other table.

The sausage table had a grinder or two attached and the goal was basically to cut the meat into small enough portions, in order that they could be fed into the meat grinder. Once ground, mixed and seasoned with tons of black pepper to Papa’s taste, then the sausage was formed into balls and cooked. When finished cooking, the sausage balls were put into Mason jars along with some of the hot grease and hot food caused the jars to seal as they cooled and this is how we preserved the sausage.

At the Fat table, each person received a long strip of fat and skin about 2-3 feet long and about 5-6 inches wide, and as I said earlier, they were often 6 inches thick. The goal here was to slice the fat into thin slices which were then gathered up and placed in 2-4 giant cast-iron pots that were sitting on open fires. We would literally boil the fat out of these thin strips and eventually the strips would become crispy and crunch . . . which we called cracklins. The oil was poured off and preserved and used as lard and cooking oil for the coming year.

The combinations of all these smells of sausage cooking, cracklins popping, wood smoke, etc on a cold Fall morning, with all my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents in attendance . . . finally concluding in an incredible meal together after the hog was finally worked up completely . . . constituted Thanksgiving day in my childhood.

As I put our Short Term Team on the plane this morning heading back to the States for their thanksgiving (I had to restrain myself from climbing into the check baggage!), and as I contemplate that my three children are in Germany and the States, and as I realize that Thanksgiving day is going to be just another long work day for Brenda and I, . . . . . . . . was birthed the idea of an Unthanksgiving Day. While there is much that I am genuinely thankful for, like most days, there is also much that I feel acute loss for and that results in today . . . an Unthanksgiving Day.

escape or engage?

I confess . . . most days I want to escape rather than engage. I find it much more comfortable to sit back and pee and moan about all that is wrong about evangelicalism and the emerging post-evangelical movements, than it is to engage either of them. I want to see change, but cynicism and weariness crowd out my energy to be creative and helpful in the change process.

Birthing something new and dynamic is hard hard work. I wonder often if I have the reserves and sustainability at 44 years of age to affect real change any longer. Change for change’s sake doesn’t interest me in the least, but necessary life-giving change still peaks my interest. But I find myself expending so much de-constructive energy that I have little left to engage at key intervals that might prove more positive in terms of results.

I have been asking myself why this is today. The conclusion that I reached wearied me more. Terminal disappointment in leadership, coupled with a complete unwillingness to step into those leadership roles myself, creates a impenetrable forcefield that holds me locked in this unbearable emotional malaise that frustrates and negates real progress.

I need a new paradigm of perspective. I need some of my wife’s optimism. I need some of that PollyAnna in my attitude and heart. I need a vacation.

crowding God out

Do we crowd God out? Do we have such powerful skills and words and strategies that we crowd God out? Have we educated God out of our hearts? Whatever happened to signs and wonders? Where is God? Do we converse people into Faith? IF we talk people into being saved, into receiving Christ, don’t we then have to keep convincing them? Do we have a theology for the supernatural? Is there room for God to show up all?

Guy Phanz was asking questions like these to our missionaries. That first question is just a killer for me. With all my skills, education, experience, polish, practice, gifts and such . . . it is more than easy to crowd God out. In fact, it would be quite easy to not need God at all! What a horrifying thought! But the more I think about it the more certain I am that it can happen. There are many out there with far more of everything than I have . . . far more gifts, skills, education, experience, and if I can crowd God out, their temptation to do the same must be all the more difficult.

So how can I be certain that I am not crowding God out . . . at any step along the way? Should I pray more and prepare less? Should I turn my degrees back into the schools that issued them to me and read the KJV from now on? Should I return to the roots of my childhood and stand before the congregation in two days with nothing prepared and just say what comes to my mind and call it holy? I think not . . . no, no and no.

I think preparation is good . . . at the very very least it is a way that God consistently changes me. I think planning has a place too . . . chaos never helped anyone see God. Yet, I want more . . . of God . . . in all that happens. Lord Jesus help me find the way! I way to see Him work and intervene and be with His people, His children and I never want to crowd Him out. But frankly our whole structure of church thingy might be more of a roadblock than a help? You gotta believe God wants this even more than we do . . . or our theology is nothing more than quicksand.

Who are you?

Do you have the backing from Heaven to do the tough stuff? I think this is a powerful question and one I have been mulling over for days. You will never be what God is calling you to, until you come to an understanding of what and who you are. If you don’t know what you are called to do, then you will not have the authority to do what needs to be done. This is the logic behind the question.

So once again, do you have the backing of Heaven to do the tough stuff? Do you have the Truth and Power of God backing you in your work and walk? Do you live in the Power of His Spirit? Well I can’t answer for you obviously, but I can answer for me, and many times the answer is no. I crowd God out completely some days with my frenetic pace and busyness. The hours seem to drain away faster and faster and my panic grows and expands. Peace flees as fast as the hours do and in the end, it’s all for nothing, because without the backing of heaven, by the Power of the Spirit, we are wasting our time. “But God still sends me every blessing Dave“ you say.

Stop christianizing the American dream! This is not about you. You are called out and separated to do the will of God! Not your will, God’s will. I hear testimonies all the time and they are almost invariably about how God gave them some part of the American dream. It is all too often about their wants and their desires . . . all to seldom about God’s wishes and desires. This is about the King, the Kingdom, the wants of Heaven, the Pleasures of the King, and my small role in the whole affair.

Who am I? An American consumer? Or a child . . . and citizen of the King and Kingdom? Some days I don’t know.

The glass pecking bird

This little animal was tenacious. Trying so hard to get inside. It would peck on the glass outside our meeting room, trying to find a way inside. It was more than a little distraction and irritation. Now this bird was not a woodpecker, it was a glasspecker. Tap tap tap tap, fly a few feet over, tap tap tap tap fly a few feet up tap tap tap tap fly a few feet down and tap tap tap tap.

During our two days of meetings here, this happened during each of our meetings. While Guy was teaching, this glasspecking bird was trying to get inside! Now it was not trying to get it because of all the interesting people and noise going on in the the room there. It was trying to get in because it was convinced that it’s home was in that room. There was a nest in the heating duct there and the bird was just trying to get home.

I thought that very fitting and a great illustration of the world today. They (the world) are not going to want to come in (the church) because of the noise we make or the interesting people that are inside. They will want to come in, when they believe that their home is inside. That is why cafe’s are much more like a church than church is in today’s world. Cafe’s and coffee houses are places of conversation in today’s world . . . places where real relationships can flourish. That is what church is supposed to be like. A place were conversations happen, real communication occurs and listening and sharing happen in equal measure. Those are the places where people are tapping on the windows trying to get in, instead of our churches.

Our churches too many times are places were we talk and then we expect people to listen. Where we make rules and codes of behavior that separate the good guys from the bad (when in reality we are all bad guys). I am tired of church and the church. I think I am going to make cafe’s a part of my daily routine to meet real people and have real conversations. I want to find a home. Tap tap tap.

God wants it more than you!

Guy Phanz is here with us in Slovenia and he had a rocking thought that he shared with us . . . if you think you want it more than God, then you are driving it, not God. What he meant by this is scary dangerous way out there kind of thinking. If you want your church to grow more than God does, or if you want to accomplish your mission more than God wants to accomplish it, then you drive it, you run it, you plan it, you live it and you take the credit for it. What an utterly powerful insight into how we do church, with our five year plans and how tight we want everything to run and the demographic studies we do, and the materials and conferences we bought last year, all with the idea of making this thing succeed. But what does God want? Really want? I don’t think most of us have a single clue.

Guy suggested last night, that when you get to the end of yourself, then you are ready to give your plans, you stop driving your own plans, then God can speak. When you know what God has to say, then obey at any cost! Let go of your plans . . . God wants it more than you want it. “It” being what He wants, not what you want. This is so not American/Western thinking. it was pretty revolutionary conceptually for me too, the anti-western dude.

Could we be driving the church so much so, that Jesus isn’t even in the church? Guy suggested that often we are . . . he gave Rev. 3 the church in Laodicea as an example of Jesus outside the church knocking hoping to get in . . . this was the rich church that had it all. Guy asked this question, “Do you think the world deserves to see a church that is grass-roots, Jesus driven instead of top-down driven?” This would be the church that Jesus was driving, not me or you.

In the end Phanz suggested that the way to know if we were doing this successfully or not was this; can you truthfully say this: “I don’t want to leave my fingerprints on this church, I want a church that only God could have done it.” Man that is a revolutionary idea in an age when personal accomplishment, bigger is better, numbers are important, performance mentality rules the world that we live in today. Even our organization measures us by this standard, but let’s face it, we measure us by this same standard. This idea represents an emancipation from the slavery of doing it ourselves, and riskiness of letting God do it . . . does He really want it more than us?

the fishyness of Italy

I get a bit weary because everyone tells me how lucky I am to get to go Europe. Someone just said to me, “Oh I have always wanted to go to Italy, I am so jealous!” Well I have spent the last two days driving through Italy, and you can have it. Brenda and I speak 1.5 words between the two of us in Italian, and last night’s dinner proves it.

It was an exhausting day, stuck in Milano for over 2 hours in stand-still traffic, and I was sick with weariness. Finally we got outside of Milano and at last found a hotel to stay in for the night . . . and I was starving for a REAL Italian pizza! They are always super thin and yummy. So Brenda and I walked to the pizzeria near the hotel and sat down and ordered (e.g. point and smile) pizza’s.

In about 8 minutes they were ready and we started scarfing them down right away, we were so hungry, not having eaten any lunch and now it is almost 9:00 pm! I hit it about the third bite, Brenda hit hers on the fourth bite . . . anchovies!! Uuuurgh. We both, unintentionally, ordered pizzas with anchovies on them. Ye gads!

You can have Italy, or any other country where I can’t speak the local language and can’t figure out what I am ordering.

Pub reflections part 2

The cleanest place on earth - outside. The emptiest place - inside. I am pub researching again. It was a productive day for mission work, I got lots accomplished, even without my usual office tools to assist me. Not a bad day of work for being on the road. Now it's people watching time again.

It's a Monday evening and about half the pubs in town are closed. And the one's that are open are about half full. The one I am currently sitting in has exactly eight people in it at the moment including me. 50% men, 50% women, 7 out of 8 are smoking and one is getting his daily fix of second-hand smoke. Europe has not yet experienced North America's phobia about cigarette smoke. Europeans are more reasonable, plus they know that everyone is going to die, and few on their own terms.

Today as I was riding my bike on the pristine bike paths here, enjoying the amazingly clean air, I was trying to reconcile that with the behaviors that I see here in the pubs. Germany is considered one of the most aggressively Green countries in the world. They produce far less garbage per person than any other Country that I have ever visited (30+). You need an engineering degree here just to figure out the complex requirements for garbage separation. The ground is so clean, you could eat off of it. There is no trash, everything works perfect, runs on-time, is done with excellence.

This morning I went into a local eyeglass shop, because I had bent my sunglasses somehow and they were driving me crazy. The guy fixed my glasses for free, and then scolded me because the lens weren't clean! This obsession with clean, Green, and details makes Germany one of the most desirable locations in the world to live. But at a personal level, a spiritual level, you will not find a more bankrupt place.

This great country which has produced the most amazing musicians, and the premiere theologians of the last 500 years, and some of the greatest horrors of history, has no soul any longer. German is like the description Jesus gave the Pharisees in the New Testament, clean on the outside, but full of death on the inside.

But what about me? What is my soul like? Everyone is fretting about the political fallout of one Evangelical leader who sinned. My friends, all our Evangelical leaders sin every day, and that would include me. The pain I feel for this pastor is heart-crushing . . . I cannot imagine what he is going through. But I could go through the same gauntlet were my heart turned inside out for all to see. My family could experience censure and dismissal were my heart and thoughts made public. Frankly I think the same would happen to most of us were we honest, . . . and the rest are lying . . . to us and themselves.

So what is the difference in me and the great country of Germany? Not as much as I would like to think. If I do not keep and maintain a steady focus on God and His holiness, and a firm hand on my sinfulness and uselessness without Christ, then I would only need a day or two to become just like Deutschland.

Politics

This is a blog about politics. A blog about the Church and her obsession with politics. A blog about the Church that spends far more emotional energy, money and effort on politics than on world evangelization or church planting or the lost.

The reality is that we Evangelicals far more want to shape society with more laws and with political influence, rather than rub shoulders with old fashioned pagans and be Christ to them. As one good friend said to me today “Do you think we will ever learn in America that politics is not the answer and that we are not going to change the world by making more laws?” Alan said it all right there.

We want to legislate holiness and morality, both inside the church and outside. We are insolationists and isolationists. Culture and the world are tainted . . . well yes they are, and that is why they desperately need a little Salt. What they do not need are more laws nor political-religiosity.

I can’t recall a single verse in Scripture that encourages the slightest political ambition in the Body of Christ. No verses about legislating holiness via Federal laws nor verses about supporting one party over another. But there is that verse that calls us to prayer. “Pray for those in authority over you” (Dr.D’s loosey goosey translation). We have been given a mandate to pray, not stump for our political party. We are a spiritual party not a political one.

As I recall, the First Century Palestine Jews were expecting a Messiah to come and be their political answer for the challenges of their world. Jesus didn’t and does play that game. He wants me to BE salt and light, not VOTE for salt and light. The politic method of spirituality is a cop-out and a short cut to what we are called to be. The parallels between our society and first century Palestine are scary.

Am I against politics? Do I think it wrong to vote and be involved in the political process? Do I think my vote is nearly as powerful as the God I pray to? No, no and no.

"the polluting effect of contemporary culture"

The church is afraid . . . very afraid. It’s why church folks get involved in politics and home school their children to influence and protect from culture/society. But what is culture really? I have been studying this subject for years and it is a really difficult thing to get a handle on.

In a nutshell, culture is the absorption and reconstituting of experiences. de Certou describes it the “act of reusing and recombining . . . materials. Meaning is tied to the significance that comes from this new use.” The external influences of life are reworked in the heart, soul and mind, and then meaning comes from the new expressions of that recombining. These new expressions appear in the worlds we live in and they often are shocking and can be scary. We react and withdraw because we have not ingested and then reconstructed in the same manner. We do not understand why that boy has a purple mohawk, or why that girl has two metal bobs in her lip and four more in her eyebrows. We are confused by the anger in modern music, and the randomness of violence. And on and on it goes. It is a re-mix of meaning and values.

What a great opportunity for the church! An opportunity to express a Christian re-mix! What parts of the cultural reconstruction currently underway can be means and methods of being Christ to the world, and expressing Christ to the world? This is where we are called to LEAD! Unfortunately as one DS recently told me, he is trying to get his District out of the 1950’s and into the 1980’s. In his world that would be a success.

I, on the other hand, want to make a strategic jump to 2010 at the very least, and even further if I can. But I am finding that there are few I can even talk with about this endeavor because it’s just too scary, risky, threatening, hard, costly, etc, etc just to name a couple of the adjectives I hear. In a word we are afraid. Afraid of losing something, afraid of the present and the future, afraid that what we believe will be irrelevant in this new re-mix. (Maybe what we really are afraid of is that we will upset our giver base?)

On the contrary, what we believe is the only hope of stability and eternity that the exponentially rapidly changing present and future has . . . the ancient text holds up quite nicely in the modern world. We need to be on the lunatic fringe to be the fresh wind that the Gospel represents for our world. Who wants to visit the edge with me (and maybe set up camp for a while)?

"the edges are the seedbeds of the future"

As I said yesterday, I want to visit the edge, the 2010 of the church and mission. The “edges are the seedbeds of the future.” Not the far distance future, the near future. How do we experience Faith at the edges, and not lose it? How do we live it out and express it, and not get lost in the 1000’s of reconstructions?

There is little more threatening than change for those in the church. But without change, rigor mortis sets in and then they soon bury you. I was talking with the director of Black Forest Academy today about churches that should be closed. Rigor Mortis has set in; their ability (not to mention desire) to change is gone, has evaporated.

But those who oppose change generally seem to confuse content with expression. The Ancient text, the Ancient Story of Redemption, does not change. In fact the Holy Scriptures take a clear executionary view toward those who change the story (Rev 22:18-19). But the context of the modern world demands we find a way to exegete our world and communicate (expression) successfully within that modern world.

Taylor suggests that God is always found at the edges. He is the one who makes all the bridges between experience and Truth. Our systematical deconstruction of the Scriptures (commonly known as Systematic Theology) replaces the flow and story of the Ancient Text with an outline of bullet-point facts about God and His world. While not wrong in and of itself, it seems to reduce God to a science project. We lose all the passion, risks, drama, romance, mystery, discovery and hope of the Story while learning lots of facts. We gain content and lose the Spirit.

The edges are looking riskier and better everyday. Lets explore the future of tomorrow today at the edge.

for whom the bells toll

I am sitting in Frau Stolz dining room on a Sunday morning and the bells begin to peal. It’s 9:00 am, and the bells are ringing calling the masses, the people of Germany to worship. Few come.

Oh they have beautiful churches, and paid staffs (by the State) and a presence in each and every town in Germany. But the churches are largely empty. Few are interested in worship. Few seek God. Few search for meaning beyond the moment. Most are agnostics at best, atheists at worst. An incredibly beautiful land at the surface, spiritually bankrupt underneath.

Contrast that to late last night. Brenda was tired and went to sleep early. I was wide awake and showed no signs of sleep. So about 10:45 pm I head out the door to explore small sleepy German town nightlife on a Saturday evening.

It was a gloriously beautiful night . . . crisp and cool with a full moon reflecting so brightly that you could see shadows. The air was amazingly clean and bracing. At initial glance, everyone is tucked into their little beds. There are no sounds in the village. I can hear no cars, see no walkers nor smell any grills or cooking. I decide to prowl.

As I began to walk the streets, I realized that there was nightlife, and that it was in the pubs. What do Germans do in sleepy little towns . . . they go to pubs. In the name of research, so did I. I went into the Sonne and sat down at the very last free table in the entire place. It was FULL of people and it was rocking . . . loud laughter, hysterical giggles, shouts across the room and scurrying barmaids . . . and smoky - everyone smokes here.

I ordered a beverage and took notes for about an hour. The room was filled with about 60% men and 40% women. They were in social groups - no one sat alone. A few people were eating, but most were not. Everyone was intently involved in social discourse, laughing and talking passionately about something (what I know not, since I speak about 25 German words total).

They seemed fulfilled and content. They appeared to have abundant life. They were clearly having fun, and were enjoying this moment in their lives. They easily ignored the foreigner sitting alone at a corner table watching them all.

I cannot draw any significant conclusions about the meaning of life in this pub on a Saturday evening. I can only contrast it with the somber, quiet, largely empty churches the next morning. But I do know this, Christians should have been here in the pub, rubbing shoulders with the masses - the mainstream, being salt and light in such places. For the most part around the world, we hide from such places . . . places where we are most desperately needed, to frame life in these lively places as a spiritual journey, a walk toward (or away from) God. We should be in these places gently showing people the God of all creation. ‘Cause none of them are going to church right now.

halloween tales - bad missionaries

This is a mean and terrible tale. Missionaries who lie, steal and cheat their missions and the people they supposedly serve. Now I think I better understand the immense foreigner fatigue our partners had here in the early days we first arrived. No wonder it has taken so long for us to build trust. We have and that by the grace of God, but I would love to shoot a few of these people.

If you follow this blog, you know that Brenda and I are currently at Evangelical Theological Seminary, coaching, mentoring and encouraging students. So last night as we were sitting at a large table in a local pizzeria, we heard these young people tell us their worst experiences with missionaries, and foreigners in general.

We heard reports of missionaries submitting false receipts for reimbursements, inflated prices being submitted, pictures being sent of things not even actually purchased, opening orphanages and then forcing those children to go out on the streets and do evangelism! We heard stories of workers (these actual young people we were sitting with) being fired, not paid, stolen from, threatened with physical harm, and finally being kicked out onto the street with nothing in hand.
This made me cry at first, but then I wanted to rampage. I wanted to hurt these Westerner "Missionaries" . . . in the name of Jesus of course, but I really wanted to hurt them. And then I remember that precious verse that it is better for a millstone to be wrapped around the scrawny neck of the person who hurts a child, and that they then been thrown into the sea, than they fall into the hands of the living God (highly dynamic David Translation). I was relieved to realize that these "missionaries" are in the hands of the living God.

What was so humbling was that these kids had survived these experiences without massive scarring and damaged Faith. It was even more humbling to see how they can interact with Brenda and I even after all they have been through. We have restored trust in them, but look how many years it has taken! I am more determined than ever to not be like these other "missionaries."