Blue Eyed Soul…

A couple of years ago, a friend passed along a brief video of what is at first glance a bizarre religious practice from the middle east, in which men beat themselves with sharpened chains…

I said “at first glance” above, because as I reflected on it I realized that I know many Christians who practice “self-flagellation” in one form or another – whenever they attempt to purify themselves through good behavior or self denial. What the young men do in the video is different only by degree from our feeble human attempts to earn, or deserve, or perform, or be “good enough” to earn what God has freely provided for us in Christ Jesus.

What’s sad is that some Christians tend to wear their self-administered beat downs like a badge of honor – they put them on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and into children’s ministry curriculum to try to recruit more followers to their system of works.

It’s safe to say that almost every Christian I know would declare that they are saved by grace – that there was nothing they could do to save themselves, or to earn their salvation. Yet many of them will turn around and try to live by works – as if the thing that could never get them saved will actually keep them saved.

And that’s the Christian version of self-flagellation…

We are saved by grace, and we live through Jesus’ life in us. “Christ in us” is our hope of glory, not our ability to do good or be good.

In the past 10 days, I have been asked a similar question a couple of different times, “Why don’t you preach or teach on the end times?”  Here’s my answer:

There are sincere, good-willed, Bible believing, Jesus loving Christians who hold wildly divergent views on the end times…

Pre-mils, post-mils, a-mils…

Pre-tribs, mid-tribs, post tribs…

Preterists, full and partial, historists and futurists…

Dispensationalists and Covenantalists…

Darby-ists, Scofield-ians, Lindsey-nistas, Van Impe-ites, etc., etc.

And if none of that rings a bell with you – count yourself very fortunate…

I’ve even known people who said they held the same position who disagreed with each other on the finer points of the details of dozens, even hundreds of things in “their” end times view.

The moment I say, “This is my position” I will have basically written off and marginalized some number of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Suddenly, they think, “Pastor thinks I’m wrong…” and unity and fellowship is threatened. And strangely enough, I would very likely find myself in disagreement with people who claim to hold the same view as I do!

Because I choose to focus on the things that unite us rather than the things that divide us, my appeal to all believers is this: We all agree that “Jesus Christ will come in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.’ We further believe to one degree or another that we are living in the end times right now. Therefore, let us focus on living prepared lives, so that whenever he returns, we’ll be ready.

That is much more important than which eschatology is correct.

We had a gorgeous – and HOT – day @ New Hope on Sunday!  Worship was wonderful, had a new keyboard player – so cool to see some new talented people stepping up to share their gifts with all of us!

We beat our non-Easter record attendance by 1 person!  In the middle of Summer! The sanctuary was packed! It’s great to see new faces every week. Keep spreading those invite cards around! Give them to people in your family, your neighborhood, where you shop… Remember, New Hope exists to give the people of our community their best opportunity to become growing, maturing followers of Jesus!

I preached the second message in our “Meaningless?” series on Ecclesiastes – lot’s of comments on the very moving video at the end.  We had MAJOR tech problems with the recording – but we will do some heavy editing and have a condensed version posted on the website soon.

What a thrill it is to receive new members! We welcome Jerry, Ruth Ann, Brad, Malinda, Briley, and Brant!  Our next “Explore Membership” class will be Sunday, August 7. You can register online – click here: Explore Membership 

We are at the Carroll County Fair all this week – giving away cold bottles of water at the New Hope booth, and face painting and games in the NewHope4Kids booth. Come by for a cool drink and say hello!

Bible Beach Club begins Monday, July 18! We have a record number of pre-registrations, and have registered kids every night of the fair so far.  Will this be the year that Pastor Scott has to kiss a pig???  Register your kids or grandkids, get full info – click here: Bible Beach Club Registration 

Finally – make sure you are @ New Hope next Sunday, as we reveal the details about the worst kept secret in New Hope history!  Seriously, big changes are coming our way very soon – and we will begin sharing information about that this Sunday. See you there!

God bless you all – have a great week!

Occasionally when I’m flipping channels, I’ll come across one of those “When Good Pets Go Bad,” or “When Our Pets Attack Us,” type programs – and I always stop and watch. Most of the time, the stories are NOT about our cats, dogs, and goldfish lashing out at us. No, most of the stories are about people who have made the unfortunate choice to keep a wild or exotic animal as a pet…

• Remember that loveable chimpanzee named Travis who had starred in Old Navy commercials? No? Well he is also the chimp who went on a brutal rampage in 2009 and ripped a Connecticut woman’s face off.
• Las Vegas parents Melissa and Anthony Melendrez were arrested in 2009 on charges of felony child abuse and felony child neglect after their pet python Eve attacked their 3-year-old son. The 18-foot snake bit the boy and coiled around him, squeezing him until he was unconscious. At the moment when the mother saw what was happening, only the boy’s feet were visible.
• Michael Peterman, a firefighter from Dayton, Ohio, loved to collect snakes and lizards. In 2003 he was bitten by his PET poisonous African rhino viper. An anti-venom arrived at the Cincinnati airport just minutes before Peterman died at a nearby hospital.

My conclusion – and it is not well researched beyond watching Animal Planet – is that if you keep an unusual animal for a pet, it is only a matter of time before it rips you or someone you love to absolute shreds!

The vast majority of us stick to the garden variety cats and dogs. And yet, there is a sense in which every one of us lives with some “thing” that can rage out of control and cause unimaginable destruction…

Our hidden sin. Or sins. Those places on the web we don’t anyone to know we visit… That “extra” drink or two that leads to an empty bottle, drunkenness and regret… That text message “flirtation” with a co-worker…

And like the owners of those exotic pets, the thrill, the novelty of the sin blinds us to potential danger… We think we have it under control. We barely notice as the claws grow, or the coils tighten ever so slightly, or eyes narrow. And then it is too late.

We cannot tame it. We cannot teach it to behave. We cannot expect things to be different “this time”… We have to be rid of it.

Trying harder won’t fix it. We can “re-dedicate” until our re-dedicator’s broken. We cannot manage this animal on our own.  We have to be rid of it.

The Good News is that we can be free, and that only happens one way and in one place – by surrendering that dangerous animal to Jesus, recognizing that on the cross he has already forgiven that sin along with every other that has been or will be committed. And going forward in his strength, not our own,

Stop making excuses, stop rationalizing, stop defending your animal. Be free. Before it is too late.

Random thoughts on a fantastic day…

The worship team did their usual tremendous job. Song selection was spot on, and everything sounded great! The leaders of this team have some great vision and plans for the future – watch for exciting things in this area!

Our New Hope volunteers were AMAZING! Parking went smoothly, hospitality was abundant, the coffee area kept folks moving, KidMin was rockin’! I cannot say thank you enough for your hard work and commitment to helping us reach people for Jesus.

The number of people attending definitely blew my mind!  Some of you kept hearing me say we would have no problem reaching 300… The truth is, that was a “faith statement” – I was trying to convince myself!  Reality: we exceeded my “top number” by 25%!  Here are our Easter attendance numbers for the years we have full data: 2008 – 120; ’09 – 182; ’10 – 218; and 2011 – 375!  I wonder what 2012 will bring?

4 people indicated that they were trusting Christ for salvation, and Michelle reports that 2 children began their relationship with Jesus Sunday!  THAT’S why we do what we do!

We offered two services for the first time. We did it for a couple of reasons – we know we will need to move to two services soon (maybe sooner than we think!), and we wanted a chance to pull it off and see what needs tweaking.  I’ll be share “tweaks” at the Fuel meeting on May 7th.

I was surprised how many showed up for the 9:00 service, but I was not surprised that the 11:00 was a little better attended.  Also as expected, the majority of our guests came to the later service.

I also realized that I need to be in better shape before we go to two services all the time!

At the end of the day – we made a great impact in the lives of people for Jesus Christ!  I was the best kind of proud of our leaders, our people, and our church. Thanks again to all who took part in it.

The best is STILL yet to come!

“If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted.” – Sir Francis Bacon

There are some people who would tell you that I love change… That I change things just for the sake of change… That I like to change things just to prove they can be changed…

Don’t listen to them. They’re wrong.

I will admit that I am not afraid of change… That I’m not afraid to change… That I’m always analyzing, trying to determine if there are changes that will make the church more faithful and effective at carrying out its mission…

But I struggle with change as much as the next guy…

I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who “loved” change… Some people take it more in stride, adapt to it more easily than others – but nobody really enjoys it.

I remember hearing James Ryle speak several years ago – in the margin of my little spiral notebook I wrote down what he said:

“Healthy things grow. Growing things change. Change challenges us. Challenges cause us to trust God. Trust leads to obedience. Obedience makes us healthy. And healthy things grow.”

Healthy things grow – and growing things change… The basic sign of life in any living thing is change. If we are not changing – we are dying.  Perry Noble was the first person I ever heard say, “Change or die.”

Change may stink, but the last time I checked dying stinks more.

For reasons I have never understood – church people in church world seem to lose their ever loving minds when it comes to change. Some thing can be changed at church – and people who haven’t seen or thought about that thing in six months will suddenly wail and moan – all because of change.

The funny thing is, those people trade cars every few years… They buy new living room furniture or paint their kitchens a different color – for no reason other than they need a little change. But move an artificial plant at church and those same people want to fight.

The reality is that from its earliest days – the church has faced nearly constant change…

• In Acts, chapter 1 – there were only 120 people in the church, and it met in an upstairs room…
• By the End of Acts 2, 3000 people have been added – 3120 if you’re counting…
• At the beginning of Acts 4, 5000 more people are added, (8120, and btw – that’s just the men) and the church, having outgrown “upper room” size, begins to use part of the temple and meet in smaller groups in homes…
• The end of Acts 4 – financial difficulties prompts a benevolence system of sharing and meeting needs to the huge congregation…
• In Acts 6, volunteer led ministry means the leaders can focus on preaching and teaching instead of cooking and cleaning…
• By Acts 8, public criticism leads to the first multi-site church and ignites mission work all over the known world…

Sometimes I wonder if people then complained like people do now… “I miss the upper room, why did we have to leave there anyway?”  “I don’t like meeting in the temple – I prefer meeting in homes.”  “I don’t like meeting in homes – why can’t we just meet in the temple?” “Peter or John used to bring me my meal – now some guy I don’t even know is bringing it.” “The church is too big – we can’t get to know everybody. We need to slow down on evangelism for awhile…”

The church is a living thing – and if it is to be a healthy and growing thing, the church must change. The message does not change – but the methods used to share that message must change, or the church will die.

Change stinks.  But it brings new life.  It brings fresh blood flow.  And without change, death is certain.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing…” Isaiah 43:18-19b

Stories of redemption and rescue are all around us…

Maybe you’ve seen the video of Ted Williams, a 53 year old homeless man in Columbus, Ohio who is quickly becoming known as “the man with the golden voice.”

Williams got started in radio in his late teens and enjoyed a good career for a number of years.  He says alcohol had always been part of his life, but he began to drink more heavily, and to use cocaine and smoke crack.  In 1993, the bottom fell out – and a downward spiral eventually cost him his job and his family.  Williams became virtually unemployable, and lost his home.  For the last 10 years or so, he has lived in homeless shelters and on the streets.

2 years ago, Williams entered recovery and got clean.  He made a cardboard sign that said, in part, “I have a God given gift of voice…”  He began to acknowledge God and to thank him for guidance and the protection of his voice.  He prayed that someone would hear him and offer him a job.

A few days ago, a reporter from the local paper videotaped Williams and posted the video on YouTube – and the rest, as they say, is history… The video went viral, and then the offers to appear on radio programs begin to pour in.  He has appeared on the CBS Early Show and NBC’s Today – and he has been offered a job with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I watched him this morning on Today. Williams seems to be the real deal.  He’s genuinely astonished and grateful for what has happened – his humility almost makes you feel uncomfortable.  He even seems too humble to call himself a Christian.  Williams told Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira that he didn’t want to say that he was going around claiming to be born again, but he thanked the Lord everyday of his life for his recovery, and acknowledged God as the provider of all that has happened to him the last few days.

I wish Ted Williams well – and pray for the healing to continue in his life.

One more thing – Yes, Ted Williams has had a new door of opportunity open for him as a result of something that happened just days ago – but his is not a “Cinderella story” or an “overnight success.”  Williams has walked through the dark… He has struggled, and lost much along the way. But he has walked on, maintained faith in God – and while he still has a long way to go, he has a fresh start, a new perspective and an appreciation of life because of the struggle.

Rick Warren recently said, “The tide goes out, but it always comes back in. Don’t you dare let go.” Whatever your struggle – hang on, walk on, trust God to bring you through.  Resistance builds strength – and you are not alone.