pray for the bedouin

For the next couple of weeks, my family and four others from our church will be traveling to the Middle East for a short term mission trip. We will be hooking up with some of our very good missionary friends there who have focused their life passion on the Bedouin people of North Africa and Middle East.

The Bedouin are desert dwelling Arabic speaking pastoral nomads. They live in tents made of goat hair and live off the land in much the same way as nomadic tribes have lived for thousands of years. The Bedouin are known for their ability to survive the most harsh conditions of the African and near Eastern deserts. In the drier regions, they herd camels, while in the more vegetative areas they tend goats and sheep. From a distance they seem backward and unsophisticated, but they are the only people in the world who know the deserts secrets- how to survive the intense heat and find the water and sustenance to raise animals and to thrive in conditions most people would never survive. Some groups of Bedouin will travel up to 600 miles by foot in a year just to find water sources.

Traditional Bedouin society is organized by a series of overlapping kin groups, making it very difficult to break through with the gospel. The Bedouin people are nearly 100% Muslim, although there is at least one known tribe in the Middle East that is Christian.

In Bedouin culture, the women do a tremendous amount of work in tending animals and raising children, weaving tents and nurturing the elderly. The men manage the farms and socialize with other men and make plans. Bedouin children stay on the woman's side of the tent until about age 7. Older children often tend to the animals and help in the welcoming of guests. It is not unusual for a Bedouin man to have several wives with several children from each one. The typical Bedouin tent is bursting with the lively sounds and activity of lots of children. At the first signs of a visitor, the small children will run quickly to their mother's side of the tent.

Hospitality is a very important feature of this ancient Middle Eastern society. You can not approach a Bedouin tent without quickly being invited to participate in the family meal and drink tea and coffee. In this culture, it is to your great honor to welcome guests. We all have a thing or two to learn from these marvelous people about the importance of hospitality and community.

We will be hiking about 10 miles a day as we seek out new Bedouin friends. Please pray that we will make lots of great connections into a variety of tribes, and that our missionaries there in this part of the world will deepen their influence and relationships among this mostly unreached people group.

As I will not be near a computer or any other communication device for the next 2 1/2 weeks, this will be my last blog for awhile. I am temporarily shutting down the comment section in order to keep spammers and slammers away.

sbc convention 2007

Teri and I just arrived back home after a long day of traveling back from the convention in San Antonio. It is always good to gather with fellow Baptists in such large numbers at these annual events. The sheer numbers of messengers and the number of states represented is in and of itself an inspiration.

Briefly, here are my observations:

1. Kudos to Frank Page for conducting business with grace, wit and even-handedness. I counted at least three occasions that the convention spontaneously applauded the chair for his fairness at the end of a business session. I have been to many conventions in which the chair ruled with an iron fist. Frank moderated with open arms. Great job!

2. I was disappointed that David Rogers was not elected as First Vice President. The other guy had home field advantage.

3. I was glad to see the Executive Committee report on the Baptist Faith and Message adopted with a clear majority. The convention has now spoken with clarity that our agencies should not overstep their bounds when it comes to doctrinal matters. We are a confessional people who do not appreciate our agencies meddling with the autonomy of the local church (at least that's how I interpret it). It was a nice moment when Dwight McKissic stood in favor of the motion and gave his "In the Mckissic home, the children do not tell Daddy Mckissic how to run the house!" speech. Anyone who knows his background understood the profundity of that passionate speech.

Updated: I have read many of the reports and blogs since the convention that in affect argue that this decision of the convention should be ignored because after all "messengers didn't know what they were voting on." I find this line of arguing INCREDIBLE and disgusting for at least two reasons.

One, if one argues that the messengers of the convention are nothing but stupid, uniformed sheep who can't think for themselves, then he must consider that we have problems that go way beyond this mere motion from the floor. I know of at least one person who is claiming that if some (I am assuming he is talking about himself) would have only had the opportunity to speak against, the thing would have been defeated. My personal opinion is that it would not have mattered one wit how long the point was argued, the logical good sense of the wording of the report would have carried the day. Our BFM is a sufficient document for cooperation in our convention. Period. If in fact the convention is made up of weak minded robots as some are suggesting, we have problems that must be fixed at the very core of who we are as a people.

Two, what will be the state of the convention if it's stated and clearly articulated will is completely ignored and even scorned by her entities? The ramifications of this kind of arguing are way beyond the immediate affects of this one motion. If some of our leaders do not step up and soundly refute this kind of thinking, our convention may soon become a den of thieves.

4. I am seeing more youth and more color at our conventions- I like that!

5. I had a conversation with Carla Hinton, the religion editor of the Daily Oklahoman as I was preparing to board the plane on the way home. She asked me my overall impression. I told her overall I felt like we had a very good convention. I did not sense anger or hostility or division (Although Paige Patterson came pretty darn close in his Seminary rant!). There was honest debate, brotherly disagreement, but all in all I was very pleased that our convention seems to enjoy the vibrant healthy glow of a bright future. The IMB report is always the highlight for me. It is our missions initiatives as Southern Baptists that are so mind blowing! This year we had a record offering to missions! To those who say denominationalism is dead, we only have to point to conventions like these to see that there's still a lot of beats left in the SBC heart!

why i will vote for david rogers

Next week when the Southern Baptist Convention convenes in San Antonio, I will cast my vote for David Rogers for First Vice President.

I do not know David personally, although he and I have emailed each other occasionally. There are many reasons why I believe David, the son of the late Adrian Rogers and missionary to Spain, is the right choice for our convention. But perhaps the best reason I can think of is because he is a man who can write blog articles like this.

the church of golden arches

There has been a lot of print lately about the state of the Western church. The enthusiasm of the 80s and 90s over church renewal and change have given way to new realities. The most disturbing reality is that people are leaving the church in massive numbers.

The UK's "Christianity" magazine explores the reason for the mass exodus. Studies have shown that people have not given up their Christian identity as such, they have just given up on going to church. In England alone, over a million people left the church the 1990s. George Barna and others have written about the same phenomenon here in the States. Increasingly, people are putting less of an emphasis on church attendance- they just don't see it as a necessary component of faith.

Anyone who has heard me teach for more than ten minutes knows about my passion for Christian community. The Bible simply does not envision Christian experience without meaningful relationships that challenge and grow us and keep us accountable. The Bible assumes that if you are a Christian, that you are a part of a local body of believers. Jesus spent His time before and after the resurrection building community.

Anyway... I digress- back to Christianity Magazine and their observation that one of the main issues at work among evangelicals is the "McDonalidization" of the church:

It was the American sociologist George Ritzer who first made the comparison between modern western society and a McDonald’s restaurant. His work, which examines how the McDonald’s traits of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control affect the way society functions, has received widespread recognition. More recently, the label ‘McDonaldized’ has also been applied to the church (see John Drane, The McDonaldization of the Church).

The key principle of ‘McDonaldization’ is the achievement of the optimum means to a given end. The church has an ‘end’ of converting people to Christianity, but in seeking to do so effectively we can all too easily adopt a one-size-fits-all formula. As Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Seminary observes, we give a “one shot, close the deal, presentation”. Esther’s recollection of her conversion experience troubled me: “There was nothing that made me feel awkward,” she said, “and I kind of identified with what the speaker had to say…so I thought ‘why not?’” Is it really surprising that before too long, Esther found herself slipping out through her church’s back door, just as easily as she had walked in the front?

So how is it that pre-packaged, no commitment gospel messages have come to represent the accepted norm in so many of our churches? Part of the reason could be the emphasis given to ‘mass-evangelism’ over the last 50 years.


Billy Graham, for example – the most successful mass-evangelist in history – always stressed the need for each individual to be ‘born again’, as a oneoff event. Not wanting to discredit Dr. Graham’s ministry in any way, the effect has been that most evangelicals now tend to see the ‘Damascus Road experience’ as a benchmark for how conversion always happens. Consequently, Christians who have not had a dramatic experience but have simply started a gradual journey of faith can feel somewhat excluded. “I’ve never had a sudden conversion experience” explained Wayne, “and it’s always bothered me because everyone’s had one and I haven’t”. This sense of not fitting into the accepted mould certainly contributed to Wayne’s initial disillusionment, which eventually led him to ‘jump ship’.


We can so often give the impression that a heart-felt ‘sinner’s prayer’ is all that is required for a life-long commitment to Christ. This message naturally leads to the belief that church-going is not necessary for the Christian; hence ‘a churchless faith’. But like the seeds in Jesus’ parable which fell on the shallow soil, ‘in the time of testing they fall away’ (Luke 8:13).

The overemphasis on an individual, one-off, salvation experience can easily undermine the fact that we are the Church, and that it is through the Church that God will bring about his plans for the world. If the word ‘Christian’ is merely a label, acquired cheaply from an evangelical vending machine, then people will feel free to leave their churches and still call themselves ‘Christians’, in much the same way that after a cookery class one will still continue cooking, at home!

These are interesting observations for us to think about. I have written extensively on this blog about the dangers of consumerism in the church, so I won't go into it again.

But as I see it, the problem is not just that we have given in to pragmatism in the same way that McDonald's seeks out customers, the problem is that we have adopted so much of the cultural text that there is very little distinction between sacred and secular. I fear that in our attempt to be attractive to the unredeemed, we have lost the "peculiarity" that gives us our moral voice to speak into the need for redemption.

We may not yet know the definitive answer as to why so many in our younger generation are bailing on the church, but could it be that by adopting cultural texts instead of sticking to our own, we have lost our uniqueness? Perhaps in our attempt to give people what we think they want, we have distorted the very thing they need the most?

To paraphrase Jesus' admonishment to the Church, perhaps the salt has lost it's "saltiness".

Evangelical theologian Kevin Vanhoozer has recently made this observation:

Contemporary culture is actually made up of a vast array of "texts" – that is, humanly produced works that have meaning and significance. The implicit message of cultural texts is "This is what it means or looks like to be human"; "This is what the good life looks like". In other words, culture programs our imaginations to think in certain ways just as it programs us to live in certain ways. Think of culture as the software that runs the social hardware – the various institutions (e.g., schools, government, family) that comprise our life together.

On this model, I think we can safely say that the main programming in contemporary culture is not particularly Christian. The values that drive our culture are not distinctly Christian; indeed, many are inimical to Christian values. For example, George Ritzer speaks in his book The McDonaldization of Society of the way in which fast food values – efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control through technology – have taken hold of many other institutions, including, to some extent, the church! Similarly, James Twitchell speaks of the "branding" of America: everything, even Jesus, is fair game for marketing. But should the gospel be "marketed"?


I think that the last forty years have taught us that the answer to that question is a resounding "no". At least, not in the same way that one markets MacDonalds.