What is church anyway?

    It's a safe place.

It's full of folks; each arrives with baggage and none are perfect yet.

  It's where you go, knowing you'll be received lovingly.
It's a place to dump all the weight and get refreshed and refocused.
     It's a classroom for practical stuff.
  It's a library of accumulated wisdom.
 It's a connection point for good-hearted folks.
It's a good place to find folks who've been through what you're facing.
  It's a pep rally to pump us up when we need it.
It's a place of solace when we need it, and a refuge.



It's the launch point for our lives in a tumultuous world; maybe that, most of all.


It's not perfect, but it's learning and changing.

If it's not, it's not church.  It's something else.

If it's speaking an antique language, it's an antique.
If it's polarized and polarizing, it's political.
If it's rule based, it's a court for judgement.
If it's exclusive, it's a country club.
If it's ethnically narrow, it's just broken.
If it's the center of member's lives, it's a cloister of irrelevance.

The church is not the gospel, by the way.

The real purpose of church?  Making a place for all of us to know our Father and for equipping us all to be the light on every hill, in every office and marketplace, every neighborhood and classroom.  We are the light that the world sees every day; we are the message He sends.

~ there's more of course, but this stuff always comes up ~

You're nuts if ...

If you're off the main path that normal people take, you're nuts.

Obviously.

Most people, at least the normal ones, will make the same choices in the same circumstances.  That's why they call it 'normal'; it's the norm.  It's predictable, low risk,  expected.  It's the way things are, the normal process, the only option.  There's tremendous pressure to keep to the path.

The pressure to conform assaults us early on.  As teens labor to emerge into adulthood, peer pressure constricts and directs so much of the process.  Later as adults, the expectation of others weighs heavily on us, erodes our confidence, and clouds our thinking.

The normal pathway is fine for most folks most of the time, but it's predictable.  Little personal progress will be made; don't expect change or anything new along the way.

Same-o, same-o, nothing in the brain-o.

OK you've chosen, your bridges are in flames, and now you're officially off the path.  You're nuts, but you've picked your path.  How do you work through the questions?

I'm off the main track.  True?
I've chosen this way.  Do I know why?
    Is it logic?  Is it a passion?  Is it a dream I've had since ....?

Either I'm really nuts ...
  ... or I see this point of focus;  it's important to me because ...
    I want to understand.
      I think I can make a difference.  I think I can help.
        I think I can see a way through.
           I'd be willing to spend myself if it will make a difference.
    I'd like to try.  I'd honestly like to do more than just what's expected, and I can face not being like everyone else.

It's all high-risk, unpredictable, and everybody thinks you're out in left field.

People you may have heard of and who were also nuts.  Gates, Jobs, Mother Theresa, Edison, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, Martin Luther, Issac Newton, Lottie Moon.  All off the main pathway, each with a motivation, an opportunity, an impact.  How'd they do?

So, you change the context of your life.  Change your worldview until it includes humanity.  See behind the headlines.  Skip the mainstream answers, and ask harder questions.  Push hard at the boundaries, at the cultural norms, at the expectations of others.  Courage is non-conformity.

Scared?  You bet. But you'll have more fun than the normal folks.

UPDATE:  DEC '13.  My African pastor friend decided with his wife to take in a bunch of orphans and help them stay healthy and get through school and have a home and family.  Sixteen of them; it's a mob scene!  He's off the beaten path, of course, but he says the smiles on the children's faces makes it worth the effort.  Let me know if you'd like to lend a hand; I'll introduce you to the family.

Marketing Violence

Curious why children might become violent?

The media, whose influence can exceed that of parents, was the subject of an FTC study a few years ago.  The results are not comforting.  The report made the following key findings about the marketing of violent entertainment material by industry:

Movies: Of the 44 movies rated R for violence the Commission selected for its study, the Commission found that 35, or 80 percent, were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans for 28 of those 44, or 64 percent, contained express statements that the film's target audience included children under 17. Plans for the other seven movies were either extremely similar to the plans of the films that did identify an under-17 target audience, or they detailed plans indicating they were targeting that age group, such as promoting the film in high schools or publications with majority under-17 audiences.

Music: Of the 55 music recordings with explicit content labels the Commission selected for its review, the Commission found that all were targeted to children under 17. Marketing plans for 15, or 27 percent, expressly identified children under 17 as part of their target audience. The documents for the remaining 40 explicit-content labeled recordings did not expressly state the age of the target audience, but detailed plans indicating they were targeting that age group, including placing advertising in media that would reach a majority or substantial percentage of children under 17.

Games: Of the 118 electronic games with a Mature rating for violence, the Commission selected for its study, 83, or 70 percent, targeted children under 17. The marketing plans for 60 of these, or 51 percent, expressly included children under 17 in the target audience.

By themselves, these movies, music, and games would not guarantee a violent child.  Taken in the context of a harsh home environment or a tense school culture, the probability increases.

Now you can understand why so many consider homeschooling and managed exposure to the world, especially for the early years.  Children are educated and their character is shaped by what they experience, by their play, by what they see.

Update 2018:  investigation into school shooting incidents uncovered a number of the perpetrators had studied the Columbine event and planned similarly.  The two Columbine shooters were spectacularized in the media around the world, influencing an entire generation.

The hug-an-orphan approach to charity ...

Do I just want to make the kids happy, or do I want to change their world? Do I just enjoy the embrace, or do I think it through to what's going to make a difference?

Voluntourism, a setback for South Africa Aids Orphans

Studies suggest that spending a couple of weeks working in an orphanage overseas will make you feel better, but it may contribute to the sense of abandonment those precious children already suffer.  Wonderful intentions and a tender heart perhaps aren't enough by themselves to finish what's needed.

Generally volunteers will only stay at the orphanage [or school] for a few days, weeks, or at best months. While at the orphanage most volunteers seek to build emotional bonds with the children so they can feel they made a difference. Unfortunately, although well intended, this leads to a never ending round of abandonment for the orphans.

An open-door, unrestricted policy on filming, photography, and volunteering to anyone who shows up is often not in the best interest of children and is more about making the volunteer feel good about themselves.

Unless ...

The UN guidelines for the alternative care of children points out the need for reliable long-term relationships.  It suggests to me that if you want to love such a child, either adopt them and take them home, or establish a long-term relationship with them that has regular, dependable expressions of love and, most importantly, practical help.

The director of the NGO I work with in Africa sat me down rather insistently one day to talk about the 'save the children' approach to helping.  It's a great focus point, sponsoring a child, but taken too literally, it's nonsense.  Sponsoring just one child isn't what's needed.   

World Vision and others, fortunately, know better and use the child sponsorship focus to do family and community-based work that really does help.


So, then, here's the tough question of the week for us all:  do I respond so I'll feel better?  Or because I want to have a genuinely good heart toward my brothers and sisters.  Why am I so deeply stirred by the little faces? Why have I committed resources?  What am I hoping to make different?

What am I going to do with what I know?

The precious little girl is such an attention getter. Bright, cheerful, and in a difficult world. It's her family that could use the help, though. Dad lost his arm and his job. Friends in the US have helped out a bit, so for now, they don't go hungry.  They're getting help starting a family garden and some pigs. The kids are in school; they walk 2 miles to Guadalupe for class.

Every one of us would want to embrace this child.  Do better; embrace her family.  Want to lend a hand?  They could certainly use it.  I'll be glad to send your contribution along with ours to the NGO that we're working with there.  They're tax deductible, if that helps.

When I set up the sponsorship for our first two kids and their families, our teacher friends came and told us there were five more at the school, orphans in real hardship, that needed help too.  It hurt badly to say I couldn't afford more.  We have six families now; my daughter helped one of them buy their home.  

Update on the family mentioned above: with a little help, they've come a long way from when we first met.  Dad has recovered his health and is working again, and the kids are doing well in school.  It's encouraging to know the difference you can make.

Update 2015: With the help of friends, we now have eight families and their children plus another 90 kids or so on education assistance projects, single moms on developmental education projects, and point-of-need projects as they've occurred.  What a joy to be part of such things.  Oh, and two college grads, so far; pretty impressive considering few kids get to go beyond the sixth grade.

Update 2016:  ... and three of our girls are at the very top of their high school classes.  This is in a culture where girls don't usually go to high school.  More to come.

Waste of Time

If I speak eloquently, no matter how impressively, but if I don't do so from a loving heart, I'm just wasting time.

If I lecture with power, revealing amazing mysteries, and if I say to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm wasting everybody's time.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even pour out my last breath for them, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, without love I'm bankrupt.

Love is strong and never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
    Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
 Love doesn't strut, or have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always “me first,”
      Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of other's imperfections,
      Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in truth and clarity,
 Puts up with pretty much anything,
    Trusts God always, and looks for the best,
Never looks back, but keeps going to the end.

   Love lives on. Impressive speaking will be over some day; our understanding will struggle and reach its limits. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say is always incomplete. But clarity arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

 When I was a baby, I gurgled and mumbled like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways behind.

    Perhaps like an infant's understanding, we don't see things clearly yet. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, knowing just as we are known!

   But for now, until that clarity comes, we have three things to do to lead us toward that goal: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

      Anything less is just wasting time.

Gulf Oil Spill

Equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster fifty times over, the oil pollution in the Gulf is causing damage, some of which is irreversible and some that will be decades in correcting.  Millions have lost their livelihood, their communities, and their water.  Those still in the area are often hopelessly lost in poverty; some are rising up in revolt.  It's been going on, year after year, the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez, every year for FIFTY years.

Wonder where?  Nigeria, the Niger Delta, and the Gulf of Guinea.

The company at fault is not BP.  It's Royal Dutch Shell and the corrupt local government.  Folks have been jailed, beaten, tortured, and some just murdered, for protesting the destruction of the region.  No longer fit for farming or fishing, polluted beyond usability, the land and surrounding waters are their home and life, stolen from them by greed and big oil.  The warm Delta waters are a key spawning ground for tuna and other important species in the Gulf of Guinea.  The region's pollution exacerbates an already dramatic decline in those fish populations.

So here in the U.S., the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has caused extraordinary damage and expense.

Folks in the Niger Delta sympathize with our Gulf residents and the oil spill problems, but they shrug and wonder why the world-wide media attention.  The same thing has been happening to them for fifty years and no one cares, no one helps, no outcry, no global interest, nothing. 

From the The Guardian, "We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it – the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air."

"The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months."  See the LINK here to The Guardian's article.