The Gospel and Racism – A Video documentary by John Piper

In commemoration of Martin Luther King’s life I would like to post this video.  It’s awesome!  It’s a documentary featuring Pastor John Piper as he walks through his personal story of growing up with segregation in the South. His personal story boldly champions the transforming power of the gospel and the beauty of racial diversity and harmony in Christ.

Celebrating Christmas in a Season of Economic Crisis

I don’t know if you have noticed (of course you have), but our country continues to be in a pretty serious economic recession. This financial crisis has affected every area of American society and culture. Over the past several months, I have talked with a number of families and individuals who are feeling the impact – retired couples who have lost more than half of their retirement nest egg, craftsmen who have nothing left to build, real estate agents who have no buyers or sellers, and small business owners who have gone belly up. There are a good number who are facing the reality of losing their home, losing their automobiles, and to be sure, some are even having a difficult time putting food on the table.

In the midst of these challenges, we approach Christmas – the season of buying and selling and giving gifts. I think it is safe to assume that this is not good news for most of us. In fact, instead of a time of celebration and cheer, the Christmas Season may feel like a swift kick to the head of a guy who is already down.  If you identify with what I’m saying, allow me to offer a word of spiritual encouragement.

“Typography” by Taylor Mali

This morning Danny Stiling, a friend of mine, posted this video on Facebook.  I am grateful to him for introducing me to Taylor Mali – a wonderfully, powerful poet.  You can check out more of his stuff at www.taylormali.com.  In this particular poem, Mali urges us to believe and to speak with a conviction that affirms that belief.  I firmly, like, agree with him, I think…you know?

Of Facebook and Barney Fife – part 2

A Few More Thoughts on “Facebook and Barney Fife”

If you are a Christian and you ever feel the idol of “Facebook Righteousness” rising up in your heart, and you start loading your pistol and looking for “law breakers”, I offer these thoughts…

a. Cultural/Personal Variation - It might be considered that Christians come in many shapes and sizes. Some Christians feel comfortable using strong language. Some do not. Some feel comfortable drinking a beer. Some do not. This may or may not be a matter of sin. What defines a swear word for you or I, may not be defined as a swear word by others. Paul spoke of this plainly in 1 Corinthians 10 when he talked about the issue of meat sacrificed to idols. We must realize that areas of cultural variation in certain areas of ethical and moral behavior exists among gospel believing Christians. We simply have to live with that.

Of Facebook and Barney Fife

Recently I read a post on Facebook from a friend (yes, I have those) who was bemoaning the fact that many of her Christian friends do not meet her expectation of how to behave on the social network.  She said that she was “saddened to see so much vulgarity come out of the mouths of people on Facebook who call themselves believers.”  As my friend was shocked at the Vulgarity among Christians, I must admit that I am often disheartened by something else: the Self-righteousness among Christians.  Sometimes the self-righteousness and anger that is displayed on Facebook in the name of Christ can be very discouraging indeed.  It seems to me that the judgmentalism and self-goodness that is expressed on FB does the gospel far more harm than the vulgarity ever could.  It can also be a bit disconcerting to see the resistance to self analysis that exists in believers whose most empirically, self-evidential claim is the fact of our depravity.  Doesn’t most every Christian who asserts the Gospel of Christ begin with the fact that we are big, fat, sinners?  Yet, on that theological truth, how forgetful we are.  I include myself in this.

Preach the Gospel…and hey, don’t forget to buckle your seat belt

The Sussex Safer Roads Partnership in the UK found an original way to encourage seat belt safety.  Instead of simply displaying the potential horror of failing to wear our seat belt in the event of an accident, Safer Roads chose to communicate a deeper message.

Daniel Cox, the director of “Embrace Life”, said that the inspiration of the short film came from wanting to offer a more positive message about road safety. “A lot of the campaigns focus on the more graphic and horrific outcomes of accidents whereas I really wanted to bring people into the conversation.”

As I watched the video, I was drawn in to the beauty of the message.  So many things are communicated: an automobile accident is not an individual tragedy, it is a communal tragedy; not only is the father impacted, so is the wife and their daughter; seat belts are arms of love wrapped around our loved ones.  The video really is a remarkable little piece of film-making.

In regard to the gospel, Christians could certainly take a lesson on how the gospel should be communicated.  More often that not we preach the gospel in a very truncated fashion.  We eliminate the nuance.  We place all the emphasis on only one element – often the horrific.  We preach the gospel like someone running through town, ringing a warning bell, while no one seems to know what it is they should be afraid of.  As Christian leaders and pastors, many of us often emphasize preaching “the whole counsel of God”, while neglecting to portray the kindness, the beauty, the tragedy, the love, the compassion, and the depth of the gospel narrative.  We forget to “bring people into the conversation”.  Certainly I am guilty of this error.

I’m grateful to Daniel Cox and the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership for reminding me that it is important to wear my seat belt and it is crucial to preach the gospel in a way that honors the fullness of the gospel and brings a greater glory to God.

The video can viewed by clicking below.

I Have A Gospel Dream – Revisiting Dr. King’s Famous Address

I am a child of the civil rights movement. I grew up as a minority white kid in inner city Atlanta, Georgia during the volatile season of the late 1960s and early 70s. The desegregation movement sent me, along with a hand full of white kids, to the previously all black Elementary School known as C.D. Hubert. My sixth grade year, on the first day of class, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s wife, spoke at C.D. Hubert to encourage us to embrace one another and to remember the reason her husband died. We ended that meeting as we did every all-school meeting, with students and teachers, black and white, raising their hands together and singing in on voice – “We shall overcome”

However, as a ‘minority’ white kid, I sometimes became the face of the enemy. In 1977 I attended a brand new school named Martin Luther King Middle. The week that the miniseries “Roots” was aired on television, I was attacked five times by angry black kids who blamed me for American slavery. I also suffered at the hands of a few racist teachers in the days when it was legal to spank children who forgot to finish their homework. My spankings tended to be much worse. In fact, one beating was so severe that it left me with deep bruises on my legs and backside. My mother saw to it that the teacher resigned. Yet, somehow, in the midst of all of that drama, I avoided becoming a racist. I didn’t hate black people. Somehow I was able to see that the major differences in people were not determined by the color of their skin, as Dr. King so eloquently puts it in his “I Have a Dream” speech, but by the content of their character. In the world that I grew up in, there were mean and evil and broken black people, and there were mean and evil and broken white people.

Halloween: A beautiful picture of Grace

Well Halloween has come and gone and I am grateful that this year I heard far less “alarmist” Christian Halloween talk than I have in years previous. Maybe it was the distraction of the coming presidential election that kept most evangelicals from thinking about the ‘horrors’ of Halloween, but this year I didn’t hear anyone talking about burning Harry Potter books, or praying against Satan, or dressing their children up as Bible characters.

This year, instead of absenting ourselves from a so-called “pagan” holiday, our church had a community festival. That’s right. On October 31st, All Hallows Eve, Surfside Presbyterian Church had blow-up games and dunking booths. We gave out candy and had a box maze and a pie eating contest and all kinds of kids and parents came and dressed up like princesses and superheroes and some even dressed up like monsters. It was a great time for all and a blessing to our community here in south Myrtle Beach. I thought it was great.

The Awesomeness of the Dark Knight

So, on Thursday night at 12 midnight, my family and I, along with about 20 other friends, went to go see “The Dark Knight”. It was so awesome that my head exploded, right there in the theater. I would give a review here but a video is worth a thousand words.

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Thanks to Bill Kinnon, “Achievable Ends”.

Maybe the Flobots can Preach?

One evening while enjoying a beer with my good friend and fellow pastor Justin Woodall, I heard a song come over the sound system at Beef O’ Brady’s. It was “Handlebars” by the Flobots. At the time I’d never heard of them, but I immediately liked the hard driving rap and, as I caught bits and pieces of the lyrical content, I felt that the song was saying something important. Later, Justin and I downloaded the song and “wow”. What a powerful message. We were blown away.

Just to be clear, Justin and I are pastors, on staff at Surfside Presbyterian Church. Not only do we love Surfside Pres, but more broadly, we love the Church of Jesus Christ. That is why we are in the ministry. That is why I personally have been in the ministry for 20 years and why Justin works as a Pastor of Student Ministry. We LOVE the church. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!! In fact, we love the church so much that we want her to be what Christ has called her to be – His body made manifest upon the earth. We long to see the Church operate, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as the hands and feet and mouth of Christ.

The Gospel is not a Gun – Part 2

The following video clip is from the movie, “Saved”…

Hilary Faye: Mary, turn away from Satan. Jesus, he loves you.
Mary: You don’t know the first thing about love.
Hilary Faye: [ throws a Bible at Mary] I am FILLED with Christ’s love! You are just jealous of my success in the Lord.
Mary: [ Mary holds up the Bible] This is not a weapon! You idiot

Like I’ve said before…The Gospel is not a Gun.

Click here or on pic to see video

The Gospel is not a Gun – Part 1

I profess that I tend to be an adolescent minded Christian . It’s true. By and large, I live my Christian life like a middle school kid playing Cowboys and Indians. Cops and Robbers. Good Guys v. Bad Guys.

I study theology. But not so I can attain intimacy with Christ. I study so that I can feel right about myself. It’s a way of loading my gun. I pride myself on knowing the right things about God, on being Orthodox. I want to be Orthodox so that I can hide myself inside an iron clad fortress of Theology, the way a Sheriff might barricade himself inside the jail when the bad guys come to town. I surround my Orthodoxy with a plethora of hired guns – Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Spurgeon, Piper, and Keller. I recruit all the deputies I can, just in case a fight breaks out. I pin the tin star of my pastoral position right above my heart as proof of my Legitimacy. The star sparkles and shines and says “Sheriff” in bold letters and it gleams bright in the high noon sun.

We Need God

Douglas Coupland is a writer from Vancouver, Canada who became fairly famous in 1991 for his fictional novel,“Generation X: Tales of an Accelerated Culture”, in which he coined the phrase, you guessed it, “Generation X”. Coupland is eccentric to say the least. He’s written several odd and provocative novels on post modern culture. With titles like, “Shampoo Planet”, “Microserfs” and “Girlfriend in a Coma”, Coupland has become a semi sub-cultural pop icon. Besides writing, Coupland has also gained recognition as a film maker and as a visual artist. He once sculpted a series of works in which he chewed up copies of his own books and wove them into hornets nests. Weird dude, huh? Coupland does not claim to be a Christian, and is in fact openly gay. But here’s the thing…

Douglas Coupland is very different from me. He is a non-southern, gay, liberal, public TV watching, sports hating, non-Presbyterian. Yet, he wrote one of the coolest paragraphs I’ve ever read about the human need for a relationship with God.