Grief & Anger

For the past few days I have struggled with writing this post. It did not seem enough to express my emotions about the massacre in Orlando; I needed to say more, to say things that are on my heart and that need to be said. The shootings hit very close to home for me. Living in Tampa, and having lived in Kissimmee for 6 years, I know the area. Will was born in the hospital where many victims were taken, and one of his co-workers at the Olive Garden near UCF was there and survived, but lost three friends that night. I have friends who live only blocks from Pulse. The friend of a dear friend lost a niece that night. One of my former youth, a gay man now living in Arizona, had spent many nights in the club and did not know for many hours if he had lost friends. Pain is everywhere. And it is from that pain that I write today. You may not like or agree with the things I say here, and normally I am the first to tell you that "it is entirely possible that I may be wrong." I also freely admit that many of my statements are generalizations, and that there are many wonderful people and sincere churches out there who do get what it means to love like Christ. But today, I seek to write uncomfortable truths. Do with them (and me) as you will. If anything I say rings true, then you will understand that we can disagree and still be friends. We just can't hate. So here are 7 things that are on my heart this week...

• This was a Hate Crime- to call it anything else is an attempt to make the crime more political and less personal. The shooter had terrorists ties, and his warped philosophy may have come from ISIS (not Islam- ISIS!). But he targeted this specific club because he wanted to see gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people die. This story is being spun by people who believe that USAmerica belongs to them, and who, like the Lt. Governor of Texas, believe that these helpless victims "reaped what they sowed." The sooner we (especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus) confess that the shooter was not the only one with hate in his heart, the sooner we can begin to deal with the root of our problem.
• The framers of the constitution meant for the 2nd Amendment to protect your rights to own an assault rifle just as much as they wanted to protect the rights of the local fireworks tent to sell nuclear bombs. In colonial times guns were tools in the hands of the public and weapons in the hands of the militia. You needed guns to put food on the table and to protect your livestock from wild animals. No one- not one living person on planet earth- needs an assault rifle for anything but killing people. Ban them now!
• Most of you know that I am a Christian, and spent 28 years of my life working in churches. So this is hard for me. But the #PrayForOrlando memes have made me a little sick to my stomach. We are telling a community of people- the LGBT community- for whom we have done little (except to marginalize and dehumanize) for many years that suddenly we feel their pain. We are telling people that our institution has told over and over again will "burn in Hell" that we now love them. Churches are now saying that LGBT lives matter- just so long as they don't wish to get married, be clergy, adopt children, chaperone youth group trips or do anything else that matters inside of our walls. We have taught people to hate the sin- and so those who see the LGBT community as sinners have hated who they are while claiming not to hate the sinner. It doesn't work that way. If you hate the fact that I am a glutton, and I am indeed a glutton, then you hate who I am- and therefore hate me. The Orlando shootings, just like the bombings of abortion clinics, are what hating the sin looks like when taken to a extreme conclusion. Jesus taught that everyone is our neighbor. Too many of our churches teach that everyone like ME is my neighbor. And then say, "But I'm praying for you..."  I have seen the church chew up and spit out pastors and members who came out of the closet. I myself was questioned about my sexual orientation because I had a gay youth pastor friend- and I would have been immediately fired if my answer to the question "Are you gay?" had been yes.The gospels say to love all, judge none and reach out to those we don't understand. Many USAmerican Christians have become far more likely to judge all, love some and hang out with with the people who are just like us. There are many exceptions- but they are still the minority. It is time for the Church Universal to assume its role as a catalyst for positive social change. Christianity is not some moral improvement plan through which we can fix people, it's about building loving relationships and allowing the Holy Spirit to work through them. Too many of us have forgotten that.
• I am not sure I can live in a nation where a man can say things as vile and abhorrent as the pure sewage that Donald Trump has been spewing since Sunday morning and actually become more popular. No doubt, radical Islam can be a terrible thing. So can radical Christianity when it leads to groups like the KKK and events like the Crusades. The Church propped up slavery and ignored women for many years. The LGBT community has been our most recent victim. Every religion has failings and skeletons in the closet. God have mercy on us. Ignorance is a dangerous thing, and Trump is counting on the ignorance of voters and the fear it can create to get himself elected. That is not a partisan statement- if he were running as a Democrat he would still be the worst possible candidate I can imagine. And oh by the way- the oncologist who over the past year has done so much to save the life of someone I love? A Muslim immigrant...
• There was something interesting on Twitter earlier in the week. A bisexual man wrote that one of the reasons that clubs like Pulse came into being in the first place was that many times LGBT people did not feel safe in public places, so they created their own space. The tweet ended with this: "Now we don't feel safe anywhere." How horrific is that? Our African-American friends have known that fear for many yeas, as have many women and other ethnic groups. So why...WHY?????...is the Church of Jesus Christ not a place where all feel safe?
• Hundreds of people posted memes on Facebook this week that said guns aren't the problem, people are. "After all, Cain killed Abel with a rock." True- but Cain couldn't have killed 49 people with that rock. People's hearts are indeed the problem, but giving such troubled people such weapons is begging for the culture we now live in- one where guns are taking out groups of people nearly everyday. Led by the NRA, people are forever saying gun control will never work. In 1996, there was a mass shooting in Australia where 35 people were killed. The politicians sucked it up and said never again. They enacted tough gun control laws, bought back hundreds of thousands of guns and set about changing the culture. In the past 20 years there have been exactly ZERO mass shootings (more than 4 dead) in that country. In the USA we have had 7 in the past 10 days. Canada has had 8 in 20 years. We have had 7 in the past 10 days. Something must change. And it must change now.
• For Christians, the stakes have never been higher than they are right now. Who do we trust- the powerful, corrupt and greedy who seek to lead us or the One who died so that we may truly live? Will we put our hope in Jesus or in the right to own an AK-15? Will we follow the Prince of Peace and actively work to change a culture of violence? Will we follow the Giver of Grace and lovingly reach out to those who may appear to be different from us, understanding that in God we are one family? Will we listen to the voice that throughout scripture, whenever things get scary, reminds us to "FEAR NOT?" Or will we listen to a culture that proclaims violence as the answer, judgment as the rule and fear as our only option? My friend Eric wrote in a comment on Facebook the other day the following challenge, aimed at Christians like me who have been too silent for too long: "Jesus would be upending tables and screaming about this. It's time for you guys to suit up and do the same." I could not agree more.

So please continue to pray for the victims of this tragedy and their families. Pray for the politicians who proceed so blindly with the status quo. And pray for our churches, which are filled with people who can make a difference if they choose to do so. And then we (starting with ME!) need to get off of our knees and DO SOMETHING! We can help put a stop to the madness, to prejudice and gun violence and so much more. Jesus taught that if we want to follow him we must put ourselves aside and love others as he loves us. It's not safety first, or theology first or politics first- it's love first, last and always. Let us find a better way...

Because of Jesus,

Just As I Am

Thanks so much for all the kind thoughts expressed and prayers lifted after yesterday's post. Because of people like you, I experience real grace and forgiveness every day.

I have come to the realization that anyone who thinks that USAmerica is a Christian society is fooling themselves. I am not the first to say this; others have long held that we are a non-Christian country. They point to things like illegal wars, legalized abortion, R-rated movies and sexual immorality as signs that we have abandoned God. I am not going to discuss or even consider any of those points today. You see, I think we are beyond being non-Christian. I think we are Anti-Christian at the core of our culture, and here's why- we don't really believe in grace.

Grace is at the heart of Christianity. Every other religion in the world is based on people trying to "earn" their way into the presence of their god. It's all about what you can do, about living your life by the religious law. Christianity is based on what Jesus has already done for us. If we confess, repent, and bow to Jesus as Lord and Savior, then our sins are forever forgiven. And this is true everyday of our lives. With Jesus, whatever we have done in our past, be it good or evil, is irrelevant to God today. It in only NOW that we are in the presence of God. And it is now, because of grace, that we are forgiven- yet again.

The culture we live in, however, has very little concept of grace. People who fail, people who sin, and people who make mistakes that have tragic consequences are people to be condemned and reminded of what they have done for the rest of their lives. They may confess and repent, but there will be no grace. They may even receive a second chance, but there will be no grace- because we will always remember. We love to remind people how they have failed and how we have "forgiven" them. In our society, you are never free of your transgressions. With Jesus, we are free everyday- "and he who the Son sets free is free indeed!" 

Stop me if you have heard this before, but I am a sinner, and unless Jesus is reading this today, so are you! As the brilliant theologian and musician Michael Card wrote, "I belong to Jesus, and I realize that He loves me- a ragamuffin like me!- just as I am and not as I should be." Confess your sins to your neighbors and see how many of them would love you "just as you are." We, as a culture, are all about people getting what they deserve. And Jesus, as a Savior, is all about people NEVER getting what they deserve! No matter what our sin may be. Brennan Manning wrote in The Ragamuffin Gospel "The sinners to whom Jesus directed his messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves up to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace." Grace defines my relationship with Christ, but I cannot find it many places in our culture. Even our churches often reject those who are considered to be "notorious sinners"- when that is EXACTLY the group Jesus hung out with. If we find grace, the "tent pole" of our faith, to be a foreign concept, how can we be anything but Anti-Christian? Not the kind where we are persecuted- the kind where we just don't get it!

I have come to grips with the fact that the world I live in will continue to punish and seek revenge against me when I fail and when I fall. Society will continue to remind me of my sins long after I confess and repent of them. And you know what? WHO CARES!!! Because I walk everyday with a Savior who loves me just as I am...and what could be better than that?

Because of Jesus,

The Ragman

For the past couple of weeks I have been discussing with a friend from my Tuesday night class a point of theology that we think many Christians miss out on. We have all been told that "God is love." This is true. But if God is love, then Jesus the Christ is GRACE! In the world we live in, grace is so much harder to come by than love. Sounds radical I know, but I believe it to be true. To find people willing to care, forgive and take on the burdens and sorrows of those around them is rare indeed. So for today, I will shut up and let Walter Wangerin tell you a parable about what it really means to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. It is a bit long, but so worth it. Enjoy- but beware! You may just wind up not only wanting to love your neighbor, but to become the grace that is Jesus and invade their lives...

I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange like nothing my life,my street sense, my sly tongue had even prepared me for. Hush, child. Hush now and I will tell it to you.
Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our city. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new,and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: "Rags!" Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music."Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!" "Now, this is a wonder," I thought to myself,for the man stood six- feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular,and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city? So I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn't disappointed.
Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking. The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys and Pampers. "Give me your rag," he said so gently,"and I'll give you another." He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver. Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear. "This is a wonder," I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away a mystery.
"Rag! Rag! New rags for old!"In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage. Her eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek. Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity,and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart. "Give me your rag," he said,tracing his own line on her cheek, "and I'll give you mine." The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood-his own!
"Rag! Rags! I take old rags!" cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman. The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry. "Are you going to work?" he asked a man leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: "Do you have a job?" "Are you crazy?" sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket - flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm. "So," said the Ragman. "Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine." Such quiet authority in his voice! The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman - and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs: but the Ragman had only one. "Go to work," he said.
After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.
And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.
I wept to see the changes in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so. The little old Ragman - he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labour he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died. Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope -because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep. I did not know - how could I know? -- that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night, too.
But then, on Sunday morning,I was awakened by a violence. Light - pure, hard, demanding light -slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, beside that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.
Well, then I lowered my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place,and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: "Dress me.." He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him.
The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ! (from Walter Wangerin's book The Ragman & Other Cries of Faith, 2004, Harper & Collins)

We are called to be a Resurrection people. Thank you, Jesus, for saving me. Amen.

OTJ Training

I spent one year working at Centre Friends Meeting before my second summer at Quaker Lake. In the fall of 1979 I was working at Cedar Square Friends AND New Garden Friends, my home meeting. I eventually had to give up Cedar Square and settled in at New Garden, serving from '79 until 1984. I continued to work summers at QLC through 1983. I say I "worked" at these churches because in the early days I has NO idea that this was a ministry. It was fun, it made me a little (very little!) money and it was something I seemed to be good at, but it was a job. I had no training- in those days there just wasn't much training, and only huge churches has full-time youth pastors. I was not a youth pastor- I was a youth leader. The only things I knew to do were to follow the examples of my youth leaders from high school; work with I had learned being part of Young Life; and learn from Neal Thomas and Wally Sills, our amazing Camp Directors at Quaker Lake. Fortunately, these resources had much to offer. And even better, there was nothing that could have prepared me more for what was to come in my life than my years as a cabin counselor at QLC!


One of the first things I participated in as part of the staff was a staff canoe trip on the New River with the group you see pictured above. I learned a great deal about group building and what it means to share common experiences. I also learned quickly that with nearly every trip you take comes a story that is embarrassing to someone! This canoe trip had such stories.


We made camp along the river after our first day of canoeing, and after dinner and after dark people began grabbing the rolls toilet tissue and heading up the hillside into the woods to take care of "business." I was preparing to take the trek when one of the other counselors, Susan "Boom Boom" McBane, returned and handed me her roll to another counselor (Mark Farlow, maybe?). She took her flashlight and shined it up the hill to an empty area with large trees, telling me that is where he should go. She then shined the light in another direction, telling us "don't go over there- Jan is over there." And she was right. We knew she was right because her flashlight beam was shining brightly on Jan Osborne, who was now squatting for all to see! Well, not for all to see, because Susan still had no idea what she had done, and continued to hold the light steady on Jan. We were howling with laughter, Jan was trying to move out of the light, and we all had an unplanned memory that would connect us forever. The following day Susan would again make us laugh when she dove out of our canoe (she still blames it on me!) because we took on some water in the middle of a class 3 rapid called either Buzzard's Roost (because the buzzard's wait for swimmers there) or Molly Brown (because a young woman named Molly Brown once drowned there)! In the midst of all the danger of water and huge rocks, Susan was screaming- afraid that the snakes were going to get her! She survived unharmed, and we tortured her about snakes for the next several years.


People remember stories. Jesus taught in parables because He wanted people to think and to remember. Quaker Lake and New Garden Friends Meeting filled my memory with amazing stories that gave me some excellent "on-the-job" training in youth ministry- and I'll be sharing some of those stories over the next few days. You know, somehow it is not much of a stretch to picture the disciples in the woods, and Peter with a flashlight...

Because of Jesus,