incarnation

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature[ God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” (Philippians 2:5-6)

The only proper response to the gospel of Christ is service. The trajectory of Christianity is incarnational- “God came down…” In Christ we see that God has become a humble servant as He emptied Himself of His glorious splendor in order to lay down His life for many. This is a reality that changes the direction of our passions from self to sacrifice, from selfishness to compassion. It was His glory to serve us and therefore we find His glory as we empty ourselves, as He has given His life for us.

Consider the story from the book of John in which Jesus, shortly before His execution, gathered the disciples around Him in order to teach them how to live and to serve others:

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him. (John 13:3-5)

At first glance this passage looks like a non-sequitur attaching two disconnected thoughts into the same sentence. Jesus knew He was from God, so what was His response? He washed the Disciples’ feet. One of the mysteries of the spiritual life is that the more you give your life away, the more you gain.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matt. 16:25)

Every follower of Christ will be drawn naturally into service as his or her life reflects the nature of Christ and is drawn by His Spirit. If you are not giving your life away, you are losing it. The more we give, the more we receive, and the more health and life we have. The most unhappy people in the world are those who are living only for themselves. The dichotomous effect of the gospel is that the more I drain my life of self, the more energized I become with life. The more I grasp at life, the less of life I will receive, but the more I give my life away, the more life I attain.

In his book “The Jesus I Never Knew”, Phillip Yancey contrasts the worlds “stars” with the world’s “servants”. He reflects on his life as a journalist in which he has interviewed and met some of the world’s biggest celebrities - the idols of American popular culture:

I have also spent time with people I call “servants”. Doctors and nurses who work among the ultimate outcast, leprosy patients in rural India. A Princeton graduate who runs a hotel for the homeless in Chicago. Health workers who have left high paying jobs to work in backwater towns in rural Mississippi. Relief workers in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and other repositories of human suffering. The PHDs I met in Arizona, who are now scattered throughout the jungles in South America translating Bibles into native languages. I was prepared to honor and admire these servants. I was not prepared to envy them. Yet as I now reflect on the two groups side by side, the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. Without question I would rather spend time among the servants than among the stars: they possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere. Servants works for low pay, long hours and no applause, “wasting” their talents and skills among the worlds poor and uneducated. Somehow, though, in the process of losing their lives, they find them.

Thus the essence of Christianity is the incarnation event- and the essence of who we are in Christ is in the same direction. To find life, we must be willing to give it away.

the first joseph

I normally don't do this, but this Sunday's sermon is totally last minute. We plan our teaching out about a year in advance around here- so it's somewhat unusual for me to do something different from the prescribed plan.

But that is what happened this week.

The old plan has been thrown out and a new one has emerged. Stop the presses and don't tell Norman- we're changin the plan.

And it happened as a result of a conversation I had with one of our church members last Sunday.

She said, "Pastor, I have enjoyed our study of Jacob- but I'm a little disappointed that we aren't getting to Joseph. I really like Joseph."

I was a little dumbfounded by that statement. It struck me as odd because I didn't remember saying that I wasn't covering Joseph. She must have deduced it because I have said that I was planning to talk about Jacob to the end of the book of Genesis. But certainly, Joseph is tied very closely to Jacob. I had in fact planned on dealing with Joseph for at least one lesson before finishing Genesis. But not this next Sunday.

This next Sunday I had put just one word in the slot for our teaching calendar- "Christmas".

My plan was to cover the Christmas story in the way I have every other year- from the angle of the gospel text covering the doctrine of incarnation. It's pretty cut and dry. Most pastors can cover the Christmas story with their Bible's tied behind their backs.

It's a no brainer.

So on Monday as I began to pray about and meditate on the text I would use for my usual Christmas sermon- will it be Matthew or Luke this year? Or maybe John 1?- I just couldn't get Barbara's words to me out of my head. "I really like Joseph," she said.

"I'm disappointed that we aren't covering Joseph".

I kinda smiled to myself- how on earth do you get through Christmas without covering Joseph? I mean, the story of Christmas has a Joseph too.

Hmmmm- I thought, a connection maybe?

Well, as it turns out- yes.

As my mind began to move in the direction of the Genesis account of the first Joseph, it all started pouring out of the text like a flood. I sat up straight and leaned into the Bible as the realization hit me. Of course! How on earth could I have missed it.

Joseph...

the man born of a barren woman under miraculous circumstances,
the favored son,
the coat of splendor bestowed upon him,
the jealous older brothers
cast into a pit
struck down
sold for pieces of silver
losing his status as favored son
his coat removed
becomes a slave
falsely accused
betrayed
rejected
forgotten
by a miracle brought out
responsible for the salvation of many from famine and death
forgiving his brothers and bringing them in
redeems God's chosen
restored to his father.

THAT Joseph. The one who, you know, points to incarnation!

So, anyway, when I use Genesis 37 as my text for this Sunday's Christmas sermon- just pretend that I planned it that way all along.

choice

For a reminder of how impactful our choices can be, read the following story that recently came out in a Florida newspaper about one of our former Southern Baptist IMB missionaries to the Philippines:

Just before her pregnancy, Pam fell into a coma after contracting amoebic dysentery, a bacteria transmitted through contaminated drinking water. During her recovery, she received a series of strong medications. And even though she discontinued the regimen when she discovered the pregnancy, doctors told Pam the fetus had been damaged. Doctors later told Pam that her placenta had detached from the uterine wall, a condition known as placental abruption, which can deprive the fetus of oxygen and nutrients. Doctors expected a stillbirth, Pam said, and they encouraged her to terminate the pregnancy "They thought I should have an abortion to save my life from the beginning all the way through the seventh month," she recalled. Pam said her decision to sustain the pregnancy was a simple one - because of her faith. "We were grieved," she said. "And so my husband just prayed that if the Lord would give us a son, that he would let us raise him." In her seventh month of pregnancy, Pam traveled to the country´s capital, Manila, where she received around-the-clock care from an American-trained physician. For the next two months, Pam - steadfastly praying for a healthy child - remained on bed rest. And on her due date - Aug. 14, 1987 - Pam gave birth to a son , who she described as "skinny, but rather long." "We were concerned at first because he was so malnourished, but he definitely made up for it," she said, between laughs. Today her son, now 20, stands at a solid 6´3" and 235 pounds....

His name is Timothy Richard Tebow, the new Heisman trophy winner who Lee Corso from ESPN has described as the best spread offense quarterback who has ever played the game.

But even more important that his football prowess, though substantial, is his walk with Christ. Read below from Tim's own words:

…learning humility: “When I was very young and in T-ball, my parents would never let me tell anyone how many home runs I’d hit. At that age, I wanted to be like, ‘I just hit three home runs!’ But I wasn’t allowed to say that until the other person asked me. Then, when I was older, I learned that God blessed me with athletic ability and that He can take it away in an instant. I’m thankful for it. Just because I play football doesn’t make me more special than anyone else.”

…football as a ministry: “I think anything can be a ministry, especially football when you have a platform. You have 100 guys in the locker room with you every day. But more importantly than that, you have 1,000 kids looking up to you and even more people all across the country. You have the opportunity and the platform, and to not take advantage of that would be a big mistake.”

…what he wants others to take away from watching you on the field: “First, that I am not out there playing for myself. I love the game but I am playing for the Lord Jesus Christ. I am going out there, loving the game and giving everything I’ve got, and hopefully they can see through me the love of Christ.”

…how Christ’s example plays a role in how he leads his team: “Christ was the best leader; so you can learn everything about leadership from Him, seeing how He died on the cross and applying it to your life in every aspect. Also, not just in leadership, but how you interact with people. Teammates don’t just see you as someone who is getting on them, but as someone who loves and cares about them on and off the field.”

loving the church, warts and all

I really enjoyed our Sunday night worship.

I thought it was great on a number of levels- I especially enjoyed the testimonies and baptisms- the clusters of people gathered in prayer before the Lord's Supper- I thought the videos and preparation were all great. I enjoyed our children's singing. I particularly enjoyed not hearing me preach. How great to see one of our key leaders, Benny Becht0l, baptize a couple he has known for years. It doesn't get much better than that.

I enjoyed the visual demonstrations of Christ at work in our fellowship.

One of my favorite moments was when Ray Sanders asked everyone who had been on a mission trip to come on to the stage and stand in front of the particular station that represented their mission partnership.

It was very meaningful to see so many standing on the stage.

The whole night was a great visual picture of how effectively our missional strategy is taking hold in people's hearts. But as great as the picture was for us, the reality of what the pictures demonstrated is so much greater than what we could possibly visualize.

One cannot walk away from an experience like last night without a sense that God's work in the local church is dynamic and effective. Despite the diagnosis of some that the church is on life support, barely breathing and close to it's last breath, what we experienced together yesterday says to us that the local church still works, and that younger generations are embracing it.

I'm not saying that we are not flawed. At times the church (not ours of course, wink wink, but the church in general- all those other churches) is ugly- short-sighted, self-infatuated and sinfully inflicted. Scripture is replete with examples of how God uses flawed people. Over and over again, we learn about soiled saints and pitiful prophets and patriarchs whose irredeemable qualities make us blush. They don't ask for His grace, look for it, deserve it of seem appreciative when they receive it. For the person who is looking for the Bible to be a book of virtues with heroes to emulate-it will fall way short and only be disappointing.

The Bride of Christ is not always Rachel, sometimes she is homely Leah.

Some will correctly point to the mistakes of the church. Some will see that the church has been an embarrassment- judgmental and narrow, listless and petty.

To all of those complaints we say "guilty as charged."

But we must also remember the important point that God uses the ugly and unattractive. He uses the poor and foolish to confound the wealthy and wise. He chose the unimpressive Able instead of Cain., Isaac and not first born Ishmael. He used the lying stealing, cheating mamma's boy Jacob and not the man's man Esau. The outcast cripple Mephibosheth was brought in and blessed, the other more impressive sons of Saul were torn to pieces.

Don't forget that it was through Leah and not radiant Rachel that the Lord brought the tribe of Judah. He used the spoiled Joseph and not Rueban- the younger and weaker are often used effectively and not the strong and well-connected. Isaiah tells us that there was nothing attractive about the crucified Christ. All of this simply to drive home the important point that it is because of His grace that we stand. It is not about how great or beautiful or attractive the church is, but how incredible His grace. The church is not the hero. Jesus is the hero.

It's not about how great and wonderful and attractive we are. It is about how deep His grace is.

"Nothing in my hands I bring...
"Simply to the cross I cling."

If scripture teaches us anything, it teaches us that God uses the broken vessels, the dispossessed and second born. I love the story by Brennan Manning about the valley girl who reads the New Testament for the first time:

"Wow, Jesus is like really into ragamuffins!"

Some say they don't like church. Others have just walked away, given up. "The church is ugly and irrelevant," they say.

Yes- but that's the whole point.

This way we can't get the glory.

pray for our missionaries, and pray for our board that oversees them

If it's close to December it must be time for us to talk about our global missions offering. Over the past few years our church has ramped up our missions emphasis considerably- resulting in new partnerships in places like Showback Jordan and Montipur India and Vancouver Canada. Council Road is truly a global church- ending each calendar year with a crescendoing of missions giving that vaults us into the next years missions opportunities and providing our missions boards with much needed resources to push back darkness in some of the most remote, unevangelized places on the planet.

This is not just a time for us to support missions causes but to also pray for our missionaries and I would add to that, pray for our IMB mission board. Having served on this board for the past four years, I have had a front row seat not just to the incredible work in harvest fields around the globe, but also to the spiritual battle that often takes place in the board itself. When one considers that this is the largest missions sending organization BY FAR in the world, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the kind of spiritual fireworks that inevitably results. (Be warned- mixed metaphors ahead).

Without getting too far into the sordid details of the inner workings of the board, I would simply say that I believe the enemy would like nothing more to tie us up into knots over senseless issues that are not worthy of even one planck of our time. Like the ancient mythology of the Iliad, the enemy would like to throw the apple of discord into our missional activity.

In my opinion it is extremely important that our board maintain the proper perspective in our relationship to the local church. For those who need a quick Baptist primer, the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) is not a "denomination" per se, we are instead a convention made up of cooperating churches around our missions emphasis and primary doctrinal statement, the 2000 Baptist Faith and Mission, believing that together we can do much more effectively what we might try to do separately. The International Mission Board (IMB) is effective precisely because of this kind of cooperation. In this model, the board is a servant to the church, it is not the missions arm of some hierarchical diocese reigning from above, telling the local church how to believe.

As long as that balance is maintained, the channeled force of that cooperation is extremely effective- resulting in the unleashing of church movements and strategic Kingdom growth around the world.

When that balance tilts one way or another, it puts a lot of stress on the organization at just about every level- and threatens the ground that has been gained and hard work that is being done.

As of late the board has been dealing with a clash of philosophies that has caused if not a tilt, at least a strong sway. On the one hand you have the philosophy that says, "We have to keep all these missionaries and administrators and missiologists doctrinally pure". Of course, the issue then becomes, "Exactly which version of 'doctrinal purity' do you mean?"

Believe me, we Baptists have a lot of versions- we are not called "dissenters" for nothin!

The other philosophy says, "The very meaning of cooperation is that you have a wide tent of doctrinal standards staked around our strong belief in the integrity and infallibility of scripture as expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message, therefore we may not always agree on the non-essentials, but we have cooperation around the essentials." Of course, the problem here becomes all of those non-essential doctrinal beliefs that are not mentioned in BFM 2000 but which some large numbers of Baptists don't have a stomach for. "What about private prayer language for instance?" "What about people who are baptized by the "wrong" church as another example?" they will say.

So what you have here is the classic battle between the SBC equivalent of Spartans on one hand who want to further solidify the parameters of cooperation versus the equivalent of Trojans on the other who want to aggressively advance the gospel under the banner of the Great Commission and who resent any attempt to chip away at the cooperating fringe. The extremities on each side of this conundrum are so far from the cooperating center that they cannot exist in the same circle. They are not just two competing philosophies, they are two irreconcilable world-views. The two groups have no way of speaking the same language because they are working off of two completely different operating systems.

What is needed is leadership with the gift of tongues. And I don't mean the kind the IMB has banned. I mean the kind of leadership that allows for an understanding and appreciation of both languages and philosophies. I mean the statesmanship that can speak from the perspective of both Troy and Sparta. I mean the kind of wisdom that allows people to disagree without constantly tangling up in public floggings and pronouncements and censures. I mean the kind of wisdom that understands the difference between a local church and the organization that serves the church.

That is what I am praying for this Christmas season and I ask you to pray for as well. Pray that in this tenuous season of philosophical dissent, that real statesmen of the SBC would step into the middle of the fray and articulate the strong solid center and remind all of us that the Great Commission of our Lord is much more important than the silly political maneuvering of the idealistic fringe. The missionaries we all know and have grown to love and the young men and women from our church family who are being called out of our church and into the white harvest field are too important and their calling too important for us as a convention to fall prey to the enemies ploy.

Truly the enemy is on the defense- as progress for the gospel is being made in unprecedented ways around the world. I truly see what we are going through as a spiritual battle, and therefore call on all of us to cinch up our spiritual armor and pray.

ed stetzer quotes from this weekend:

“70% of Southern Baptist churches are plateaued or declining, but that statistic is deceiving, because another 19% are gaining members from transfers from other churches. 89% of our churches are not impacting the world's lostness in any way.”

“Most of our churches are facing a crisis of facing reality.”

“The peak of growth for Southern Baptists was 1954. When population growth is factored in, we have been in decline ever since. If the 1950’s ever come back, Southern Baptists are ready to go.”

“Churches that were most successful in the past era of church growth, will be the least effective and most difficult to change in the next.”

"Comeback churches are not parasitic, but are an invaluable blessing to their community. The measure of a missional church is how the community would miss it if it were gone."

“The 'norma'l in missional churches is every member obedient to the life and mission of Christ.”

“Given the choice, most churches will choose their traditions over their children every time. The result is that over time children leave the church, creating a crisis later of how to get the younger generation back.”

"I don’t think God is honored by multiple generations all worshipping in separate churches. Imagine how impactful it would be if a church would dare to believe God for what He wants to do in the community so that they set aside their agendas and selfish preferences and instead asked, 'it doesn’t matter what I want, what methods will most effectively engage this community with the gospel?'”

“Something major has shifted in the past 20 years, and yet the church tends to be change averse. Successful churches will naturally change over time but what must never change is the need to proclaim the gospel.”

“Change only takes place when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change.”

“Demographics are not the answer. We need to decipher the individual communities to which God has sent us. The Church should be defined by the mission field, not by programs or tradition.”

"John Knox said, 'Give me Scotland or I will die!' Are we willing to say, “Give me Oklahoma City or I will die?'”

“The church of the future must move from attractional to incarnational”

"In the past, the church focused on only one conversion. In the future, unbelievers you are leading to Christianity will need to go through three different conversions in sequence:

Conversion to you,
Conversion to community,
Conversion to Christ."

“The church of the future that is incarnational is interested more in the harvest than in the barn.”

“We are a harvest denomination in an unseeded field.”

“Today, people are realizing that God is using many different kinds of methods and models to reach different kinds of people.”

“The answer is not for all of our churches to look alike, but the answer is everyone seeking the same thing: to glorify God by being incarnational in the community they are in.”

“The modern church is moving from professional to passionate. In the past, ministry was the realm of the seminary- trained. Not so any more- ministry is not the realm of the professional, it is in the realm of the passionate.”

“There must be a transition from seating to sending. The impact of kingdom growth is more important as a measure. Missional churches give themselves away rather than serve their own needs.”

stetzer

The first time I met Ed Stetzer was at a conference in Seattle Washington where he was speaking at Mars Hill Community Church. I had heard the name before, and had seen some of his books- but had never read anything by him. Fifteen minutes into his talk I knew that I wanted him to come to our church. Ed is one of those rare personalities who is able to process huge chunks of data and distill it down so that the rest of us can make sense of it. He reads the books and does the research the rest of us don't have time for or don't have the tenacity to absorb.

He is also a guy who understands the church as we know it- he is a Southern Baptist working with Lifeway Research- and yet he spends enough time outside the SBC culture dish that he brings a fresh perspective to help us pry open our minds to new and changing realities we might now be able to see otherwise.

Besides all of that- he is a dynamic speaker. He is a guy you can sit and listen to for more than 20 minutes and never look at your watch. If you've not read his latest book- I highly recommend you do. If you have and have been challenged by what you have read in "Missional Code", I can promise you that hearing him and seeing him and interacting with him this weekend will be especially invigorating.

Ed will be with us in both worship services this Sunday at 9:15 and 10:45 and Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. in the CUBE and then again Monday for lunch at noon and again Monday evening at 6:30 p.m. at the CUBE.

the gift of ignoring

The last place I want to be tonight is Springfield Illinois. It seems like these IMB meetings never come at convenient times. I am not really in the mood for long meetings and plenary sessions. The contrast of the bureaucratic minutia to our experience in India seems very stark at this late hour- especially after two very good worship services this morning.

I really wanted to sleep in my own bed tonight. I really wanted to go to work at my own office tomorrow.

Those of you who know me well know that I am not big on meetings- I incline away from the details and toward the action. I want to get to know our new missionaries. I want to hear how God has called them and what their hopes and dreams for the future will be. I want to know how to pray for them, to get involved with them. I'm a "get your hands dirty" kind of guy- I prefer a backpack to a briefcase.

I could skip the meetings details- just get me to where the action is.

So, my attitude is not really all that great coming into this meeting at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel. We learn on the drive to the hotel from the airport that Springfield has a population of 110,000. Not much action here at 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday night, the shuttle driver tells us.

I will be in meetings here until Wednesday, so I do appreciate your prayers.

One of our problems on the board, it seems to me, is that we meet too much. The other problem is that we have too many board members. Someone is always creating a crisis- with so many board members the possibility of clashing agendas goes up exponentially. I have been around long enough now to observe how this works in any body of fallen men and women. Increase their numbers, you increase opportunity for dealing with the crisis the members create instead of dealing with the important matters of the mission.

It is the "straining at gnats to swallow the camel" phenomenon.

I read the latest example of this phenomenon sent out via email by one of our trustees while sitting in a hotel room in Orissa India, where millions of Hindu were chanting prayers to their idol gods outside my window. I had just flown from Lucknow where millions of people live on the street and untold numbers die from hunger every day. I had just observed some incredible Christian schools and ministries in which active rescue effort is taking place on a daily basis- but their ministries are like fingers in the dike. The sheer millions of people who are suffering in places like India and Africa can be terribly overwhelming. I guess you could say I was not exactly in the proper frame of mind to read what we in our particular brand of American Christianity think of as a crisis.

It would be good for all of us to spend a couple of weeks in the slums of Delhi or Manilla or Kibera. We should all get a great big dose of the hungry, the naked and the imprisoned that Jesus talked about when he said, "when you did this to the least of my children, you did it unto me..."

Our perspective of a crisis would certainly change. Our sense of urgency about the Lord's command would gain a blaring certainty in our consciousness and those things we thought were so important and urgent and necessary would begin to pale against the blazing sun of the world's harsh reality.

Pray for good leadership this week. We need logical good sense steady handed leadership- the kind that says, "millions of people are going to bed hungry tonight; children are homeless in the streets of Calcutta and Darfur and San Paulo; millions will go into a Christless eternity in the three days that our board will meet- I think we should pour our energy into the weightier matters of our global mission and not get hung up on every little crisis someone wants to create.

Effective leadership and wisdom is knowing what to ignore, and discerning what needs attention and focus. Good leaders know the difference between camels and gnats. After all, we only have so much energy- and our time is finite.

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." (Ephesians 5:15-17)

Wisdom is making the most of every opportunity. It is choosing the VERY BEST in each situation. This means that there are many less important things in life that must be ignored in favor of what is most important.

The ability to ignore is at times a wonderful gift.

There is an interesting story in Mark 5 where Jairus's daughter has just died and some men come to him and tell him the terrible news. They were obviously not the gentle comforting tpyes- they said to this man who is in the throws of horrible tragedy, "Don't bother the teacher anymore, you daughter is dead."

Hows that for subtle?

The Bible says that Jesus, "ignoring what they said", turned to Jairus and said to him, "Do not be afraid, only believe!"

I love that passage. I love this passage not just for what it says of the words of Jesus but for what it says of Jesus. I think that one of the important things we learn from our Lord in this chapter is that sometimes the very best thing we can do is IGNORE.

I am trying to convince my wife that this is a spiritual gift- the gift of ignoring.

There are times in our lives that we must ignore what is being said and hear the words of Jesus, "do not be afraid, only believe."

That is what all of us need, it seems to me, a little LESS fear and a lot MORE belief.

On a brighter note- I am very much looking forward to meeting our new missionaries who we will commission for the field this week. I know of at least one couple that has a connection to our church (the Minnicks). Another couple we are commissioning this week, Mike and Jennifer Beck, used to serve in the church I pastored in Wichita Falls. Mike and Jennifer are heading to Lisbon, Portugal. I am also hooking up with some good friends from Tulsa who are being commissioned to a very remote, volatile part of the world.

It will be great to see them again and celebrate this new chapter in their life.

I ran into John Brady, the regional leader from North Africa Middle East at the Chicago airport. It was good to see him. John is one of those guys on the board who gives you great hope and optimism for the future of missions. He is a very effective, creative leader. He doesn't get to come to many of these meetings because he is constantly moving around the middle east, tending to his "flock". I will enjoy spending time with him.

I asked the Abe Lincoln hotel shuttle driver at the airport if it is true that Lincoln used this hotel when he was traveling through Springfield?

He tells me the hotel is only 20 years old.

It is obviously too late for weak humor. My body wants to go to sleep but my brain still thinks it's India.

The gift of ignoring will come in handy this week.

seeing christianity for the first time

I have been trying to put my finger on what it is that impacted me so profoundly in my visit to India. I would not describe my experience as particularly overwhelming or devastating, but I would say that there came a time in this experience that I knew that somehow from that moment on life would seem different to me. I would see things differently.

I think it is because I feel as if I have seen true Christianity for the first time.

It seems odd for the me to say this- in fact I know that I have made this observation several times since coming back, and have followed up that statement with a kind of tepid explanation for what I meant to say. Surely someone like me who has been a Christian my entire life and a pastor for most of my adult life is exaggerating with a statement like that. It sounds crazy even to me. I have surely been around true Christianity before- I have known many great Christians. I have seen the love of Christ demonstrated in very profound and self sacrificing ways not only in our culture but in places around the world. I know men and women who are giving the best of their years and the best of their talent in places where angels dare not trod (so to speak).

But I have never seen this before.

I have never seen people who are willing to live in a garbage dump in order to show the love of Christ to the desperately poor. I have never seen people who are willing to sacrifice so much for people who have absolutely nothing to give back. I have never before in my experience seen people who have taken so literally and so seriously the command of Christ to give up your life in order to find it.

At the conference in Orissa on Monday of last week, our team of Indians, Americans and Kroatians handed out over 10,000 Bibles to young men and women so that they could give them away to their friends. Before distributing them, our team made it clear that if they chose to pass them out, they could expect persecution.

In the state of Orissa, it is against the law to talk to someone about Christianity.

Before our plane even touched ground in America, we got word that six young people were arrested in Orissa for distributing Bibles. Radical Hindus ganged up on them, beat them, dragged them to a temple and doused them with cow urine (to "purify" them) and then handed them over to the police, who arrested them for disturbing the peace.

I suppose the reason that I am saying that I have seen Christianity for the first time, is because I have had nothing within my limited context to identify with this kind of witness. I have not until now had opportunities to see first hand how the movement of Christ actually works in most of the rest of the world.

In fact, this is the way the movement of genuine Christianity has always worked.

I recently watched a debate between Indian Christian apologist Dinesh D'souza and renowned atheist Richard Hitchins (I recommend that everyone youtube this in it's entirety). In one of the most compelling moments in the debate, D'souza told the story of Mother Teresa on the streets of Calcutta one day, putting her arms around a man whose body was racked with horrible leprosy. A man walking by said to her, "I would not do that for all the money in the world!". Teresa responded, "Neither would I. But I will do it for the love of Christ".

Hitchins scoffed from the other microphone, "Oh please... gag me with a spoon...such saccharine".

D'souza went on to explain that Christianity moves a person beyond reason and logic and up to a place beyond themselves. It is not something that can be explained- it is transcendent and spiritual in nature.

What I have seen and experienced defies all logic and explanation- aside from the movement and work of the Holy Spirit and the recalibration that takes place in the human heart as a result of the work of God's grace. Truthfully, most of what I have seen up to this point in my Christian experience has been at times powerfully exceptional, but very seldom have I experienced something that so absolutely defies human imagination and reason.

How I want us to know this kind of Christianity. When one tastes it and sees it, nothing else can satisfy.

Perhaps this is why Christianity is growing so rapidly in places like India and China and Indonesia- and has always grown through the centuries whenever it is persecuted. History has taught us that when world powers attempt to stamp the flame of true Christianity, they only help spread it.

Perhaps this is why Christians by the thousands drive 20 hours to gather with other Christians and cram into uncomfortable spaces and eagerly accept Bibles to hand to their friends, all in the face of persecution.

But we who have so much, who have been so blessed and spoiled, we who have two or three Bibles at home we seldom read and who only come to Christian gatherings when it is most convenient and self serving-have become somehow immune from the affects of true Christianity, it seems to me. This is why trips like this are worth whatever you have to sacrifice to make them.

I asked my friend Sergay how he liked his visit to America. He told me, "it is a great country, the people are wonderful and the land is beautiful, but the whole time I was there I was thinking to myself, 'I could be in India'".

I really like Sergay. Such honesty. Such pure faith and Christian joy.

I watched Sergay pass out those Bibles to the young people of Orissa. He immediatly jumped to the front of the line with a huge bundle of Bibles in his arms. He didn't just hand out Bibles, he handed out hugs and prayers. He wanted to touch every single one of them. He wasn't just involved in it, he was indulged in it. He was going to be the first in line to pass out these Bibles. He was so eager to hand them out, to look each person in the eye- to embrace them and encourage them. Sergay was very enthusiastic at this- he was doing it with greater purpose than the rest of us.

And then it occurred to me what I was seeing.

My Ukranian friend had also endured years of persecution for his faith. He too knew what it meant to be arrested for living your faith- for passing out Bibles. As that knowledge sunk in, I positioned myself so that I could begin passing Bibles to Sergay so that Sergay could pass Bibles to the front of the line. My purpose from that point was to keep feeding Sergay those Bibles so that he could keep handing them out.

It took us a full hour to distribute all of those Bibles. The line extended and curled hundreds of meters out into the hot India sun outside the tent. But Sergay stood there in the front of the line the entire time. Every single person who walked on that stage received not just a Bible, but the encouragement of a Ukranian believer who understood perhaps better than most people on earth EXACTLY what he was handing them.

When the service is over, Sergay is beaming, ecstatic. This is why he is in India.

Perhaps this is why I was in India. So that I could see Christianity for the first time.

out of india

Most international flights out of India occur in the middle of the night. So Michael and I stood in line at the Delhi Airport for about an hour after midnight waiting for our turn through security and then on to our flight home. The lady standing behind us works for one of the top accounting firms in the U.S. She is returning home after 6 weeks at their India office. She tells us how her company has shuffled a lot of their work to the relatively cheap, yet hungry and educated India talent pool.

She tells us that she has enjoyed India- though she admits she has not seen much of it. Her India hosts partnering with her U.S. company are careful to not expose their American partners to too much of India they may find distasteful. "To tell you the truth, we have really only seen what they what us to see," she tells us. "We only go to the nice restaurants and hotels- they drive us everywhere in nice limos, it is all very staged."

She hasn't seen much of the poverty of India. She is fascinated by our experiences and after hearing about the orphanage in Monipur she hands me her card and asks if I will give her more information saying she would love to contribute to this cause.

"My experience in India is all business and career, I'm afraid, nothing like what you guys have been doing. I would like to do something positive here."

It seemed very odd to me that her company would want to insulate American workers from the harsh reality of poverty in India. How can someone spend six weeks here and not see the horrible poverty?

But then again how can a person spend his whole life in America and not see her poverty?

I think we would all be shocked by the hunger and poverty and deep needs that exists all around us every day. It is there, but like the woman in the limo in India, we are conditioned to not see it.

You don't have to go to India to see poverty.

But in my case, God has used India to help me see Oklahoma City.

1. Christ at work

For a good picture of Jesus at work I will think of the families I have met in Delhi and Luknow and Calcutta who have moved into the slum in order to pull children off the street and into a shelter where they can find food, clothing, protection and the love of Christ. But before these families moved toward the needs, they had to be willing to open their understanding and see it with the eyes of Christ.

2. Hunger and thirst.

"Hunger" has moved into a new category in my consciousness. It will be more difficult to use this word loosely. I have seen not just physical hunger, but genuine spiritual hunger as well. While standing in the registration area at the conference in Bhubeneswar, a young man walked up to me and with great intensity said, "I want to know what you know about prayer."

I asked him to explain further and he said, "I have so many questions for you- like how do you worship?- how do you hear God talking to you? I am a new Christian and I have so much to learn."

He looks tired to me and so I ask how he got to the conference "My friends and I traveled 20 hours on a train" he says.

I hesitate to answer him. I cannot think of a time in my life in which I was so eager to experience a Christian gathering that I was willing to endure 20 hours in confined space and discomfort. I realize in that moment that there is nothing in my context that can identify with this kind of passion. How odd the American church would seem to this young man, I think.

3. Incredible grace.

I have a better idea today of what Jesus meant when he said, "blessed are you when you are poor". Jesus said that our righteousness is like filthy rags. In seeing the worlds unbelievable and desperate needs, I am reminded when I see this poverty that this is what I look like if it were not for the incredible grace of God. There are families in Calcutta who have lived for generations on the same little corner of the street. They eat garbage on the street, they beg on the street, they sleep, take baths and exist on that little piece of real estate their entire lives just as their parents and grandparents before them have lived. It is only by his grace that my life is any different. "Nothing in my hands I bring, only to the cross I cling", has new meaning to me today.

4. Eternal Perspective

I have a new appreciation today for the work of William Carey and Adoniram Judson. Here are two Baptist missionaries who gave their entire lives to spread the gospel in India. There are parts of India today that are almost 100% Christian because of their work. The foundation for the Evangelical Christian church in India that is now beginning to emerge and gather momentum was established over 200 years ago by these incredible men. I learned on this trip that it was Carey who started the first bank in India, the first printing press and the first translations of the Bible into the three top languages of India were all accomplished by a man who had almost no support from his home country. Carey was a brilliant botanist and linguist, but he used his skills and talent for the glory of God to reach the lost at great personal sacrifice. And yet, in his lifetime, Carey saw none of these fruits from his labor. He never served a big church. He did not gain wealth or fame. His wife lost her mind in India. He left the culture and lifestyle of London and endured incredible hardship in a foreign land in order to cultivate the hard soil of a pagan world view for the cause of Christ.

Truly, life that matters is life that is given away.

5. Opportunity

I can see how our church can have a real impact on many lives by supporting the orphanage in Monipur. Very few dollars can pay huge dividends in the Hope Center. I would like to see our church make a longtime commitment to this very important and impactful work. I would like to send future groups to this orphanage to help build and support their mission.

I am somewhat embarrassed to say it, but India has opened my eyes to our own community. I see now with better clarity how important our strategy of LP2C is at home. I have grown even more passiona te toward our initiatives in affecting real change through our community strategy. I will work with more intentionality and purpose now toward what we are emphasizing in these ministries.

When Lars Dunsberg first asked me to come to India, I did not see how I could make it happen. I already had a three week mission trip planned in Jordan, and am committed to several weeks of trustee meetings with the IMB . I couldn't see it happen, and yet, somehow I felt like I needed to go. Now that I am home and reflecting on the experience and lessons learned, I realize that there are some very important reasons I needed to go. I believe God has something for us he wants to accomplish- but he needs our eyes to be open to the needs. Perhaps he needed me to travel half way around the world to shake me out of my insulated comfort to open my eyes to what is so easy to miss and what we are so inclined to ignore.

Jesus power, awesome power- satan power, powerless power

When Pranay Mookerji first told Lars Dunberg that he thought they should think about having a young leaders conference in Bhubaneswar, Lars told him he was crazy.

Bhubaneswar is the capital of the state of Orrisa on the coast of Western India. It has more Hindu idols than all the other states in India combined. In a city of nearly 500,000. Only about .04 percent of the population claim to be Christian. It is home of a very radical Hindu element that at times persecutes the Christian minority. It was here in Orissa that some Evangelical missionaries from Australia were burned alive in their car while traveling on vactation. They were here in India working with AIDS victims.

“Now the ground of Orissa is blessed with the blood of martyrs”, one of the committed Christians of this state told me at dinner one night. Many of the Christians here talk about this event in a kind of reverent voice that changes as they describe the details. It is very meaningful to them that this family gave their lives for the cause of Christ in their country.

It strikes me how our Americanized perspective on an event like this is so different. When we hear about someone being burned alive in a car, our reaction is usually to be horrified and disgusted by the lack of justice. We think in disgust about the instigator of this kind of violence. We want to know how to get even. Our American sensitivities do not immediately go to the eternal perspective. Christian Indians living in Orissa have a much different grasp on the meaning of it. They think of it in very solemn, even sacred terms.

I suppose that when you live in a country where it is against the law to convert someone to Christianity, you are conditioned to believe a certain amount of persecution is a reality that is not too far away. After all, Christ gave only one command at His ascension- and that was to tell others about Christ. There are families here who have been set up by the radical Hindu to look as if they have committed a crime, they are framed, beaten in their own homes, and then when the police come, they put the Christian family in jail for inciting trouble on their town.

So Lars had good reason to believe that Praney was nuts. “You never know till you try” was Praney’s response.

So, they raised the money for the conference, and tried it. They reserved a room in a local hotel, thinking that they may be able to attract about 600. Then a Monsoon destroyed the hotel they had rented, so they moved it to an Anglican school.

It wasn’t long before they had over 600 registrants. And then 1000. And then 1500. The large room in the middle of the school was not big enough. So the Global Action team in place here in Bhubaneswar went to work erecting a huge tent on the grounds of the school. When Praney came in and observed the tent at 11:00 P.M. on Friday, he announces to the team that it is not big enough.

We now have 2100 registrants. The team worked all night extending the tent out another 30%.

When we arrived last Friday morning at the school grounds, there were already 1800 “delegates” at the conference and more flooding in. The conference did not begin until Friday evening, but the place was already packed.. By the time we started the number had swelled to 2300 registered and 200 more standing outside the tent who had no place.

They begin turning people away from the event- to the great disappointment to some who have traveled over 20 hours to Bhubaneswar to be a part of the gathering.

For several months now I have been told that there is a movement of the Spirit in the church in India. Missionaries have told me that there is an opening to the gospel in this part of the world that they have never seen before. I can tell you first hand now that all of the amazing reports we hear of people coming to Christ is certainly confirmed by the incredible young people I met in Bhubaneswar. In the face of persecution, I met literally hundreds of young men and women who told me about their work in their towns and villages. They showed no signs of fear or apprehension. They are young, courageous, and determined. Some of them endured 15, 20, 25 hour train rides to come for the four day conference.

I have no idea how they heard about it. Nor does Global Action.

“Pray for me sir, I am starting my own church in my village” was something that I heard over and over again. There were so many who told me that they had come to Christ and as a result were starting their own churches and Bible Studies I began to think that India is country of pastors with no congregants.

The conferences were amazing. The young people did not want to stop. They arrived in the tent early and left late. They love to worship. They love to dance. They want to sing and sing and sing. “Jesus Power, Awesome Power!” they sing in broken Indian English” “Satan power, powerless power!!” They sing it over and over again with great enthusiasm as if to lay those words at the feet at the endless pantheon of Hindu gods.

“Pray for me, I am going to present the gospel tonight and invite people to come to Christ” Lars tells me as he walks toward the tent the first day. I tell him that I will pray for him, remembering his words of a few days before, “I don’t have enough time to be nice anymore…”

At the end of a very straight forward in your face kind of gospel message, Lars passes out forms with specific details on what kinds of commitment that he wants them to register on that first night. This is not your ordinary commitment card- it is more like a college application process. The registrant is asked to share their testimony and their story, and the exact nature of their commitment.

Over 450 indicate they are making a first time commitment to Christ. It is obvious to all of us that many of these young Christian leaders have brought entire groups of lost people with them to the conference.

The next morning Michael stands to sing one of our familiar worship songs, and it isn’t long before the band comes up and starts to join him, even though they have just heard the song. The crowd begins to sing with him, without his prompting, and then they begin to stand, and then hands of worship start going up. They may not understand a word of the song, but somehow they know what he means when he sings,

O God let us be,
The generation that seeks,
Seeks your face,
O God of Jacob

Michael is very popular here. “You are the Michael W. Smith of India” Sadar Singh Moses teases him.

When I stand to teach I ask the sea of young dark faces staring back at me if they are ready for Bible Study?

Twenty Five hundred hands shoot up instantly as if to say “anytime, anywhere!” I have the impression that a teacher could sit here for hours on end and they would not grow weary of it.

On the last day we ask if anyone wants to stand and tell what the conference has meant to them- the line is so long it curls around the tent. We have to break up their sharing after just a few, as we cannot possibly hear any more stories.

There were stories of former Hindu, who have given their lives to Christ and who have been forsaken by their families and their village, and yet they have boldly made the commitment to carry on the work and to spread the gospel. There is the story of the group that is leading worship for us, who are all new Christians and who because of their new found faith have formed a community in their city in which they volunteer several days a week at an AIDS clinic. What amazing joy and love for worship we see from this group of young people.

The camp is a kind of gated embassy of Christianity in the midst of swarming paganism.


On the outside of the camp is the madness of Hindu Bhubaneswar. Our conference coincides with the Hindu holiday of Diwali, which is a main holiday here in which they honor the goddess Lakshima who they call the “mother god”. Lakshima is supposed to bring them wealth and good fortune. They make their Lakshima idols with their own hands and put her in a temple that they build themselves on the sidewalks and streets around town. On the third day of the celebration they light a huge statue of Ravada Podi, the evil god of darkness who is the alter ego of Lakshima. They shoot off fireworks and beat drums and sacrifice animals in order to scare the dark powers of Ravada Podi away. When we arrive back to our hotel after the second night, which is unfortunately positioned right next to one of the largest makeshift temples in the city, a huge explosion of fireworks erupts at about 11:00 P.M. It sounds like what you might imagine a car bomb might sound like.

The explosions continue until 1:00 A.M. Hindu chants are blasted out on giant loud speakers until late in the night. When do these people sleep?

On the last day they take their mother goddess out of the temple and parade her down the street and throw her into the river, where they believe she (the idol they have made with their own hands) will float upstream to the top of the Himalayas, the revered home of the gods, where she will stay until next year. This is a day of great sadness for Hindus- their mother god has gone away for another year. It is required that everyone be sad tonight. There are signs in our hotel that say, “Because of the immersion of the mother idol, the bar will not be open tonight.”

Michael and I take a stroll down the street in front of our hotel to get a feel for the parade outside. The people look miserable. There is a darkness about this city that I have not felt anywhere in my life- a spiritual bondage and oppression that is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

The newspaper here has stories about terrible pollution in the rivers and the streets. Trash is everywhere. Because of their Hindu beliefs they lift no finger against the filth and stink of cows and pigs and mangy dogs and diseased monkeys. They dump their trash everywhere and pour their plastic idols into the streams. The country is suffering from such desperate poverty and filth- and yet because of their Hinduism they cannot interrupt the karma of the oppressed, therefore it is left to mostly Christian and non-Hindu ministries to care for the poor, the diseased, the orphans and the AIDS victims.

But somehow they don’t connect the dots. They do not draw straight lines form their deprivation on the one hand, and their philosophical and religious beliefs on the other. A minister in their government was killed today at his home in Delhi. He was attacked by Rhesis monkeys on his balcony and fell several stories to his death. The monkeys are a real problem in Delhi, but revered by the Hindu because of their monkey god. So people continue living on the streets, and people continue to fall out of balconies and endure the stench, the trash and dung and disease. But the monkeys stay. We would not want to displease the monkey god.

I told Michael I don’t think I have ever been to a place as lost as this.

Every night we have been here we have endured the sounds of Puja. Screaming and chanting and fireworks and drums and giant megaphones attached to vehicles in which the Hindu priests use to scream out their chants. What a stark contrast this is to what we experience on the inside of the Christian school where 2500 young people are crowded into a camp to hear the word of God and to sing worship songs like “Jesus power, Awesome power, Satan power, powerless power!”

When I stand up to talk on the last day, I tell them that I would love to bring people from my own church here so that they could see for themselves what amazing faith and love for the Lord and enthusiasm for worship and for learning scripture these people have. The crowd erupts into thunderous applause.

We have seen so much of India. We came not really knowing what to expect. We came hoping that some how we might be a blessing to these people. We are leaving now knowing that we are the ones who have received the blessing.

We came to teach and yet we have received lessons that will last a lifetime.

Tonight, our last night, I am thinking about how incredibly spoiled I am. We have seen people who live on the streets of Calcutta who never leave the sidewalk their entire life. I have seen people who have gone their whole life living on dirt floors not knowing where the next meal would come from. I have seen children living in garbage dumps in a country that values the dog on the street or the cow on the road more than they value human life. I have lived almost 47 years now and yet I feel as if I am just now seeing a glimpse of the incredible capacity of God's love for the nations. We are not the center of the universe after all. I have experienced love and compassion that has moved me to tears. I have seen human suffering on a scale I could not imagine. I have seen a new generation of young people who are determined to bring the gospel to India. I have seen darkness. I have seen light.

I have seen Jesus power- and I have seen powerless power.

this is 'global action' not 'global sit on your butt'

The first child you want to adopt when you walk into the Hope Center Home in Monipur, India is Rasheesh. Rahseesh has taken it upon himself to be the official greeter- he runs to stand in front of the other children as the team arrives and with a killer smile bordered by deep dimples he shoots out his hand and says firmly, “Hello!”

“Hello,” I say, “How are you?”

“Very good sir, thank you, how are you!”

I learn later that this is a greeting the children of the Hope Center practice every single morning as a part of their drill. Global Action intends not just to rescue orphans from the street, but to give them every opportunity to be successful in life. In India, that means you learn English. In a country of over a billion people only the strong survive, and the strongest are the ones who can communicate with Americans and Europeans.

“You speak good English” I say.

“Thank you sir.” He says.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Rasheesh, sir, what is your name?”

“My name is Rick, and it is very nice to meet you!

“Very nice to meet you Uncle Reek”.

Before I left Teri told me to bring one home. I told her that was impossible (Global Action does not even want us to talk this way in India, they don’t want to leave the impression that they are an adoption agency for Americans), but here I am after 90 seconds in the orphanage and I am wondering how we can get the paperwork done.

And Rasheesh was just the first one we met.

There were many more children to meet and many more stories to hear. Like the brother and sister of about 5 and 7 who Daniel (The Indian pastor who runs the Orphanage) found on the garbage dump in Delhi. Their mother and father had died and there was no other family to care for them.

They were totally on their own in the slum. Both of them were in the final stages of starvation, with swollen bellies and hollow eyes when by God’s incredible mercy and grace, Daniel found them.

There they stood in front of us. Lars is in shock. In just a few short months they have been restored to full health and are standing in front of him with broad bright smiles and their chest sticking out in pride.
“Hello Sir” They say.

I feel something deep within me begin to well up and move toward the surface. I have to turn away for a couple of minutes to gain my composure. The sight of 100 children, all of them pulled out of the slums and given a new life in this beautiful community of faith where they are loved unconditionally and educated in a Christian environment creates an unexpected emotion in me.

Right here, at the edge of the jungle on the border of Napal, surrounded by millions of Hindus and Muslims is one of the most incredible Christian communities I have ever experienced.
I understand now why Lars wanted so badly for me to see this place, and why he wants us involved. The Hope Center of Monipur has many needs: Land, laborers, Christians from around the world to learn about them and to support them.

They desperately need land. Mostly they need prayer. Pray for God to work in the heart of the one villager who stands in their way. Pray for more land so that new homes can be built and fields can be dug and barns for the 10 oxen that have already been donated can be pastured.

Pray for the four couples who act as house parents and who faithfully work 24-7 to care for these precious children. Pray that God keeps Lars Dunberg healthy to pursue his passion.

At breakfast I ask Lars what is driving him? He works like a man possessed. At 70 he has the energy of someone half his age. “How do you do it?” I asked.

He puts down the fork and says to me, “At fifty I had a heart attack. At the time I was president of the International Bible Society and had many contacts and had worked to distribute Bibles around the world. And now the doctors were telling me I had only about 4 years to live. I thought to myself, ‘Okay, this is it, I don’t have any more time to be nice’. That was when I went to work to utilize all of my contacts with Evangelical churches around the world to do what I could to bring the message and hope of Christ to the most desperately poor parts of the world. But I only work with people of action, I don’t have time to sit around.”

The results over the past 9 years are orphanages or “hope centers”, human trafficking rescue centers, a phenomenal pastor training program that trains thousands of pastors in 7 countries, and youth camps like the one we are attending in Beneshwabber. He has 70 different ministries around the world all under the umbrella of “Global Action.” Truly, Lars Dunberg is a man of action.

Jim Kilgore, former American pastor of the International Church in Islamabad Pakistan (until it was bombed by the Taliban) now Executive Vice President of Global Action looked at me with a smile and said, “That is why this is ‘Global Action’, not ‘Global Sit on Your Butt’”.

rain for the mind

"In India, nothing is as it appears to be" Lars explains to us at orientation.

There is a saying among Westerners here that is so well known it is an abbreviation- T-i-I- “This is India.” It is the brief answer to every mystery that defies what you have always taken for granted and for what you have always understood to be the base line of reason and logic.

Everything in India is an allusion to the Western mind.

As an example- we in the West are trained to think on a linear plane. I will prove it to you by having you finish the following sentence:

“The quickest way from A to B is a ___________ _____________. “

If you are thinking “straight line” right now, it is only because you are not from India.

In India you would fill in those blanks, “circle B”.

The first thing you have to get over here is your linear thinking. Circular thinking affects the very way the nationals go about conversation and philosophy and the way people drive. Streets are lined out in circles, driver’s drive in circles, people think in circles. Even art, poetry, literature and religious expressions are laid out in circular equations.

Lars explains a typical conversation with his Indian staff:

Lars: “How are things going?”
Staff member: “It is very bad.”
Lars: “What does ‘very bad’ mean”
Staff: “Well, it is maybe not so good.”
Lars: “What does ‘not so good’ mean?”

Staff: “It’s not so good… but, it is all good.”
Lars: “So you are saying it is good?”
Staff: “No it is very bad”.

It is a circle. The real answer is found somewhere within it. It all makes perfect sense if you get over your linear thinking and understand that even reason is an allusion here.
I am finding that my mind is succumbing to dizzying circles already complicated by my 72 hours without a decent nights sleep. One learns that you cannot trust your natural instincts and biases. You learn that everything is up for change and recalculation.

One is not always sure here that what you think you are seeing is what you are really seeing.

Did that motorcycle that just came within inches of our side mirror really have a family of four with a baby on the handle bar? Did we just pass a cow? Was that a monkey? Was that a bicycle cart carrying a huge wok with the bread frying in the middle of it as he is dodging traffic? Tell me I didn’t just see our driver avoid a traffic jam by merging into the opposite lanes on a major interstate.

It’s not so good. But it’s good.

Our first full day of travel within India provided amazing examples of circular reasoning. We show up at the airport terminal only to find out that the departure gate had been changed and that we now had to drive another 30 minutes to another terminal (There are three- all set out in a kind of semi-circle a few miles away from one another).

This important information was not relayed to passengers until they arrived at the wrong terminal. So we drive to the other terminal, which of course is like driving in a big circle.

We learn after going through the very strenuous Indian security check and waiting on the plane for 40 minutes that the airline has now decided to change planes. We don’t really know why- but the nationals on board seem perfectly fine with this. So they take us off that airplane, make us go back into the terminal and circle back through security check (Did I mention that every ticketed passenger in India receives a ticket that has fine print, “all passengers subject to frisking”?)

Before going into the check-point again, we are told that we have to have another paper stapled to our already checked boarding passes and to follow an agent to get a new one. The agent walks up to a desk- you know the kind that most ticket agents stand BEHIND, - and instead stands IN FRONT of the desk with his back to us forcing everyone to gather around him in front of the desk so that he can hand out tickets not as he is facing us but instead handing our newly stapled tickets behind his back and to his side. Mind you it is not a line forming behind him, it is a CIRCLE- more like a clump of outstretched hands and bodies pushing and shoving toward the newly formed human apex reaching over his shoulder.

Now that we have our newly stapled tickets we are free to move toward the security checkpoint again. But wait- our bags all have stamps saying they have been checked already by security (Which of course is what we had done just about an hour before when we first started this circle)- this will not due, all of our bags need to have tags without stamps (I’m not making this up). So we have to circle back to get tags we have already filled out and have already been stamped so that they can stamp fresh tags on our already checked and examined bags.
From there back to security, onto a bus that takes us back to the very same plane.

You guessed it – we just did a great big circle in the middle of the Delhi International Airport terminal.

Why? There is a simple explanation- T-i-I. Apparently in India, they don’t just want to catch would be terrorists trying to get through security check points, they want to completely spin their heads around and exasperate them.

Sure enough, it was all just an allusion. We just THOUGHT we were in the right terminal, on the right plane and really had our bags checked and through security. We just THOUGHT that the closest way from point A to B was a straight line. What our Western minds could not embrace was the bliss of circular reasoning.

The India way is a kind of parallel universe. You learn that there is no need to go in a straight line when you can go in a circle. Why would we want to take up more space when we can share the same space? Why have only one air terminal on a scheduled flight when you can make people drive thirty minutes to another? Why would we want to form lines when we can form circles? Why only put two cars in two lanes when you can fit cars and cows and trucks and busses and tuk-tuks and ox carts and dogs all going different directions into those two lanes?

The first few times our driver plays chicken with oncoming busses, Michael and I look at each other in dazed shock. But now after three days of this kind of thing happening over and over again with amazing regularity, we have become numb to it- it seems strangely normal. We have decided that the term “near miss” is relative. In the states, “near misses” are measured in feet and yards. In India they are measured in millemeters.

It’s all good. But maybe not so good. T-i-I.

Sergai, who is himself from a third world country struggled for English as he tried to describe India. He held his hands on either side of his brow as if holding his brain in his hands and said,
“It is like rain for the mind”.

Update: I have just come back from an amazing experience in the village. I can only tell you at this late hour that Sergai was right. My mind has been sufficiently blown by an incredible orphanage at the edge of the jungle.

The mayor of this Muslim village just threw a party for us to celebrate the end of Ramadan. They lavished us with food and sweets and Dezee Chai tea; they sang to us and played instruments and served us and stared at us through bright smiles.

In the end, our Christian brothers from India stood and invited everyone there to join us in prayer. We prayed boldly in the name of the Lord for the peace of the village and the prosperity of a new Christian school and orphanage and medical clinic. The prayer was translated into Hindi and English and Russian.

I thought to myself as we were sitting around the arbor made of bamboo and wire, that here we are, gathered together in a circle of Christians from around the globe encircled again by hundreds of Muslim villagers all gathered around us in fascination as we prayed to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

I would write more tonight, but my linear Western mind is in a downpour.

the smell of india

After a brutal 24 hour journey from OKC to Delhi, we met up with our international team and got a quick nights rest (I use the word “rest” loosely) in our hotel. We arrived in the middle of the night Delhi time, and yet the city was not asleep. The airport was like a beehive of taxi divers, baggage carriers and peddalers crawling around the conglamaration of flight weary travelers. As we rode through the Delhi streets on our way to the hotel, I couldn’t help but wonder why people were out so late. They are just standing around looking out into the dark night. I am learning that this is just India. People everywhere. So many many people.
The smell of smoke is thick. Sergai, one of our Ukranian brothers wants to know “what is that smell? I smelt it as the plane was landing.”

Lars, the founder and leader of Global Action responds, ‘It’s the smell of India. It smells like home.”

In Delhi there is always smoke. I learn today as we drive through the streets that fires are always burning. Fire from cookouts on the street. Fire from car engines and motorcycles and tuk tuks. I see a guy on the side of the road burning car tires. It is the smell of India.
In the 14th century Tamerlame defeated Delhi and their army of Elephants by tethering thousands of camels together and setting them on fire and charging them toward the Indian lines. The elephants, obviously spooked by the sight of stampeding flaming camels turned toward the Indian front and trampled the hapless Indian line. This was how Temur defeated the impenetrable city and subsequently burned it to the ground. How appropriate that the Muslim hoards brought fire to this city 600 years ago. The fires have not gone out.

Sergai is a Ukranian pastor who came to India last year. He looks like a linebacker. When he speaks his jaw juts out and finishes every sentence with a smile and glowing eyes. You can see his passion- even when you can’t understand what he is saying. Lars told me that when Sergai went to the slum for the first time, he stood off to the side of the group and wept. Lars went to him and asked if he was OK. Sergai responded, “I thought that we in the Ukrain were the poor ones. I wasn’t expecting this.”

This year he has brought 6 people from his Ukranian church with him. How cool it is to see Ukranian believers reach out to the lost of India. The gobal church is alive and well.

We have just finished our time in the slum. I have no words to describe what we have seen. On this Sunday morning we have worshipped with the children of the Sangamvihar
Slum. There were over a hundred children packed into a small room. Indian children are very beautiful. The smallest girls paint their rosy cheeks for affect. They danced for us and sang the songs they have learned. It is obvious that this program was prepared for us for weeks. They sang about Zacheaus and about the disciples in the boat and about the Good Shepherd. They quoted scripture and sang many praise songs. Parents, most of them hindu, huddled in the back listening to the children sing and the teachers teach their lesson. The conditions here are very harsh. People are literally living in garbage here. They share the dirty street with cows and dogs and other scavengers. But in this little room the children get a taste of the heavenly city.

blessed are you when you are poor

On October 12 Michael Butler and I will will board a plane in Oklahoma City and embark on a 12 day mission trip to India with a terrific ministry called "Global Action".     Our journey will take us to some of the most desperate slums and most horrific poverty on the planet.  It is here that the excellent teams from Global Action do their work.    They are in the business of reaching into the most desperate regions of the world with the touch of Christ.  We will be visiting the orphanage and school in Lucknow India that our church heard about earlier this year when Lars Dunberg and Sheeba Suhban shared their stories with us.  We will get a first hand look at the relief work that has been done through our various missions efforts.  

We will visit the slum projects in Kolkata and Motipur and visit with the Global Action staff in those places and pray with them and discern how our church can be more directly involved in these efforts in the future.  

We will spend three days in Bhubaneswar where I will help lead a conference for young Christian leaders.  The organizers who were originally hoping for 1,000 registrants emailed me today and said the number has swelled to 1800 and they are trying to think through the logistics of that many people crammed into the facility they have rented.  

I am still a week away from boarding that plane and yet already I can feel a growing conflict developing in my soul.  It is the cognizant dissonance I experience whenever I see the world's poverty on the one hand while living in the abundant material blessing we have in our own country on the other.   It is the disconnect I feel from one reality into another.  It is the disconnect I experience when I worship with believers in other countries who are persecuted for their faith and yet they gather for worship with incredible joy and eagerness to learn and soak up His word and yet they never look at their clock or complain about the music or the color of the carpet.  It is the anxiety I feel when I think about believers who worry about how they will find the next morsel of bread for their children while the average person in America consumes SIXTY POUNDS of bread in one year.  

It is what I see in myself when I think about how many millions of people in the world live with the anxiety of humiliating poverty while my biggest concern this week has been how the Sooners are going to get back on track after getting it handed to them on Saturday.  

If I go to deep into that conflict I will enter into an even graver sense of conviction.  It is the undeniable knowledge that Jesus talked about our responsibility to the poor more than he talked about our responsibility for worship or teaching or evangelism or fellowship.  

In fact, He began His earthly ministry with this very striking pronouncement: 

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because He has anointed Me 

to proclaim the good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom 

for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.  

This was just the first of many examples of how Jesus continually calls us to identify with those who are on the fringe of culture.  He even went as far as to say that our very judgment will be tied to how we clothe, feed and care for the poor.  He says "if you have not done it to the least of my children you have not done it to me."  (Matthew 25:35-36)

James, the half brother of Jesus and first pastor of the Jerusalem church stated plainly that if you SAY you believe in Him and yet you don't clothe the hungry or take care of the poor then what you have is not belief in Jesus but dead defiled ugly religion.  (James 2)  

As evangelicals, we have tended to push back against what we call "social" ministries because they remind us of the liberal theology of the early 20th century.  But by doing so I believe we have allowed the enemy to blind us to the very heart of God.   Jesus loved the poor, walked with the poor, healed the poor, welcomed the poor and told us we had to be like the poor.   It was America's most famous and noted Evangelical theologian Jonathan Edward's who said that there is "nothing more clear in God's Holy Writ than the call of the Christian to the poor".  

Do you see what I mean?  I am still 8 days away from my trip and already I can see that there is a growing discontent welling up in me.  I haven't even left yet and already I am devastated by what I see.  

out of sight, out of mind

I have noticed lately that I drive across bridges differently. I look under bridges more than I used to. I find myself wondering about the infrastructure of these massive spans of roadway upon which I have grown accustomed and until now have never questioned. After the August 1st collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, my sense of awareness has changed.

It may be months or even years before the full story of why the actual mechanics of the bridge failed on that terrible day, but one thing is clear- there was not enough attention paid to infrastructure. Of course, it sounds like an understatement- but a bridge is only as good as it's underlying structure.

Yesterday the Memphis airport was shut down because of outdated communications equipment, stranding air travellers all over the country. The news report I heard blamed the federal aviation infrastructure as being way behind the curve, and went on to say that these kinds of events will only get worse until the problem is dealt with.

Popular Mechanics magazine recently made this observation:

The fact is that Americans have been squandering the infrastructure legacy bequeathed to us by earlier generations. Like the spoiled offspring of well-off parents, we behave as though we have no idea what is required to sustain the quality of our daily lives. Our electricity comes to us via a decades-old system of power generators, transformers and transmission lines—a system that has utility executives holding their collective breath on every hot day in July and August. We once had a transportation system that was the envy of the world. Now we are better known for our congested highways, second-rate ports, third-rate passenger trains and a primitive air traffic control system. Many of the great public works projects of the 20th century—dams and canal locks, bridges and tunnels, aquifers and aqueducts, and even the Eisenhower interstate highway system—are at or beyond their designed life span. ...

...According to a report card released in 2005 by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 160,570 bridges, or just over one-quarter of the nation’s 590,750-bridge inventory, were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The nation’s bridges are being called upon to serve a population that has grown from 200 million to over 300 million since the time the first vehicles rolled across the I-35W bridge. Predictably that has translated into lots more cars. American commuters now spend 3.5 billion hours a year stuck in traffic, at a cost to the economy of $63.2 billion a year.

By now you have likely anticipated my obvious spiritual parallels to all of this. Jesus once asked, "What good does it do for you to gain the entire world and lose your own soul?" (Mark 8:36).

I often find in my own life that I have become like the whited sepulchre about which Jesus impugned the pharisee. My life can become like dry bone, if I am not intent on looking into it. My life, like a bridge, is only as good as it's underlying structure.

Truly, the spiritual life is a call to discipline. We honor God by how we take care of it. My spiritual life has an infrastructure that is rarely seen but needs careful attention nonetheless. If I am not engaged in it with determined regularity, the bolts and joints and hinges begin to creak and the bridge begins to sway.

Most of the issues we deal with internally can be summed up in one word- neglect. Out of sight and out of mind is a dangerous attitude not just for physical infrastructure.

All of this to say that I would love for you to go with me through the spiritual exercise and discipline of a 42 day discipleship program we are introducing to our church on Wednesday night, October 17 called "Join the Journey". You can register here.