Do All The Good You Can . . .

Quote by John Wesley. Photocredit: www.123rf.com

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Why Reality is Raining on Our Emerging Dreams of Relevance

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There are days when the emerging church movement just reaches into the marrow of my bones and and shakes me to the core.  On those days I find myself responding with . . . fatigue. Befuddlement.  Cynicism.  

It isn't that I don't find anything to like about churches and individuals who take up the banner. In fact, the emerging church's critique of the unhealthy evolution of inherited Christianity often sends me back to reread Kierkegaard's Attack Upon Christendom, Cox's The Secular City, Tillich's The Shaking of the Foundations and very occasionally, the book of Jeremiah.  

Then I get in my vehicle and ride over the levee that divides haves from have-nots. I merge onto the beltway that catches the rush hour traffic.  

As I make my way along the beltway I am treated to giant billboards emblazoned with messages from the future church. 

Cruising through this post-denominational landscape, bold, one-word promises shout out to me from signs along the freeway.  

HYPERVENTILATING ADJECTIVES

They invite me to join Courageous Seekers who want to Connect and to Endeavor to become communities of Restorers and Defenders who Pulse with the rhythm of the CityBeat as they Root themselves in the Source to Recreate (ReCreate?) and Replenish that FirstLove.  

And I get tired.  No, not tired, but TIED, as in Exhausted by the over stimulation of gospel (?) hype.

Maybe I am just old fashioned, rooted too much in the inheritance of a stodgy routine that has lost its ability to Relate to the Seekers.  

I don't feel that way.  What I feel at five-thirty a.m. on the phone with a grandmother who has lost one more night's sleep over her beautiful nieto who is running the streets blazing like there is no tomorrow--- what I feel at that moment is that the all-too eager Relevant Endeavor of the Citybeat movement is asleep.  

WHAT MUST NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE

But the Gospel is awake.  The Spirit is present and ablaze with its own healing, smokeless, crackless fire, fighting kush and blunts, cheese and ice, abuse and murder and every demon from hell and the Gospel is saying to that abuela that these monsters SHALL NOT PASS.  

That, my emerging friends, is a movement that is as powerful and practical as the meteoric tumble Christ and six dozen followers gave Lucifer when they took the gospel down dirt roads in sandals with just the clothes on their backs.

I am not against the emerging church. As I stated before there is much to admire about the movement.  My fervent prayer, however, is that what emerges is religion, pure and undefiled, timeless as wisdom lifting her voice at the crossroads of desperate circumstances and as powerful as the resurrected Christ breathing the Spirit upon his quaking disciples.

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My Greatest Embarrassment as a Christian

A CONFESSION

I am going to step out on a limb here and talk about one of my biggest embarrassments as a Christian.

It can be summed up in a word that militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennet use to slam Christians.

It is the term "Sheeple."

You know, as in "Sheep People."

Our haters take an image that is used throughout Christian and Hebrew holy scriptures to ridicule our characters. They see "Sheeple" as mindless, blind followers of a faith that is just a front for power hungry manipulators.

CAUGHT CHEWING THE CHRISTIAN CUD

"Sheeple" line up at the feeding trough and bleat helplessly until someone comes to feed them.

"Sheeple" wander around directionless, guided only by their most basic needs, depending on a nonexistent Deity to show them where to go and what to do.

"Sheeple" moan pitifully when the pastures are not green and the Shepherd didn't show up or the fodder was not to their liking.

"Sheeple" can't do anything on their own. Their lives are run by fear and superstition and ignorance. They need someone to tell them what to do , where to go, what to think.

"Sheeple" abandon their own, moving on to the next clump of green grass while their fellows who have been caught in danger and mired in muck bleat helplessly for someone to come extricate them from their circumstances.

WHEN THIS SHOE FITS . . . GO BAREFOOT

Why am I embarrassed? Not because some blowhards who make their living off of intellectual bullying call me names.

I become embarrassed because far too often, the shoe fits. 

In far too many cases that term "Sheeple" is a perfect description of the attitudes and actions of those of us who call ourselves "Christian."

When was the last time you picked up a Bible to learn something about the God you worship?

When was the last time you stepped up to actually do something that you know Christ wants you to do but that was inconvenient, or made you uncomfortable, or that you were afraid you might fail at?

On the other hand, when was the last time you complained because the worship service didn't "feed" you, or the church's ministry wasn't "dynamic" enough or God forbid, the people you worship with don't suit your taste?

Or the last time you shunned someone who doesn't believe what you believe or live the way that you live? Or because their choices made you uncomfortable?

When was the last time you passed up a fellow church member, let alone a child of God who was unknown to you, because you were too busy or afraid, didn't care for the circumstances, or didn't like the other Christians you would have to work with in order to HELP SOMEBODY??

I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL

Listen, I am not ashamed of the fact that I am God's lamb. I am a sheep of his pasture. Dawkins and Dennet will never understand how the term applies to me.

But they sure understand how, far too often, I don't live up to the Lamb's vision of me, of how often I live down to the Hater in Chief, the Devil's, estimation of me.

I want to be Christ's lamb, I want to be a member of his fold, to be protected and loved and nurtured by a gentle Shepherd who says to me, "come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Washing Feet of a Homeless Woman
Photo Credit: Mark Grace

I REFUSE TO BE SHOVED INTO SOMEONE ELSE'S STEREO-TYPE

But I also want to be a member of God's Chosen Generation, A Priest of the Lamb, a warrior fully clothed in the armor of God, a leading citizen in that Holy Nation, a one-percenter among the people of this world- not merely of the US of A- but a unique, fully called and completely actualized Child of the Christ who showed me what the abundant, royal life is all about.

I do NOT want to be counted among those whose sum and substance was to only ever graze contentedly in green pastures and lounge by still waters while somebody else did the work.  I don't want to be the one who constantly criticized the work of other Christians and bleated helplessly about how we should be doing better while doing NOTHING to live UP to God's calling on my own life.

When Christ comes back, I know that I will not be able to say that I lived a perfect life.

I just don't want the Alpha and the Omega to wrap his arms around me while I bleat helpless excuses about why I was not able to have done better. I want to hear my Savior say to me, "Well done thy good and faithful servant."

What about you? What embarrasses you about being a Christian?  And what is your personal vision of the kind of stereotype busting follower of Christ that you want to be?  Leave a comment!

Conspicuous Consumption and What We Owe Our Neighbors

 About twelve years ago I had the privilege to get acquainted with a Russian psychologist and professor at the university in Samara, Russia.  She was in the United States courtesy of Dr. Doug Dickens, who had been conducting clinical training with her students on the clinical pastoral education model (CPE).  

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Yes, you read that right.  Doug spent a significant amount of time in Samara educating Russian clinical psychologists on the model of education that we use here in the U.S. to train chaplains and other pastors.

His Russian colleague was so impressed with the CPE model that he succeeded in convincing her to take a trip to Dallas and work for one unit with Clinical Pastoral Education students in our CPE education center at Baylor University Medical Center.

For BHCS' faculty and students it was an unrepeatable experience.  

On the one hand, Doug's colleague fulfilled every cold war stereotype of Russians that I grew up with as a child of the sixties and seventies.  

She was a committed atheist and a Marxist. She was thoroughly versed in what is known as depth or analytical psychology, and she approached us from a rather brusque, no-nonsense point of view.  I had to regularly check my temptation to deal with her as a caricature rather than as a real person.  

On the other hand, my encounter with our visiting Russian professor taught me two profound lessons.  

The first lesson had to do with the experience of being taught what it means to be in serious dialogue with someone who came from directly opposing religious and political convictions.  Our Russian friend immersed herself in the spiritual, pastoral and thoroughly Western Christian atmosphere of CPE.  She managed to do so with sincerity, integrity and a commitment to avoid imposing her values on our students.  

The result was an unusual educational and spiritual opportunity for our faculty and students to learn how we might establish meaningful and healing relationships with people who have no religious frame of reference.

The second lesson occurred at a deeply emotional level.  It happened on the first occasion when we took her to lunch.  We sat down in the restaurant, and after some explanation of items on the menu, we ordered our meals.  

I noticed our friend openly staring at the plates of food that were being brought to other customers in the restaurant.  When our orders arrived, the storm cloud that seemed to be building on her face broke.

"This is obscene," she said angrily. "I cannot eat this."  We fairly tripped over one another inquiring as to her difficulty with the food.  She responded by saying, "There is too much here.  I could never eat all of this, not even if I made three meals of it.  How much of this food will be thrown out today?"

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Her outburst reminded me of a similar incident in which I was touring a visiting Kazakhstani businessman, also an atheist, taking him through a small shopping mall in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania.  That gentleman literally broke down and wept as he looked at aisle after aisle of goods.  

"If I took you to a store like this in my country, you would find most of the shelves empty," he told me through his tears.

I've never gotten beyond that second lesson.  While my life continues to be riddled with inconsistencies and failures, a great many of the decisions I have made since then have been influenced directly by those two conversations.

When you put it in plain language the personal challenge has been just this: as a follower of Jesus I feel compelled to waste less, consume less, share more and share more wisely.  

I don't want to face Jesus when he comes back and explain how I wasted so much of the abundance that was given to me while my neighbors did without.

Here are just a few facts to consider: 

• Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - that's roughly 200 billion more than needed - enough to feed 80 million people.
• Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily.
• The average American generates 52 tons of garbage by age 75.
• The average individual daily consumption of water is 159 gallons, while more than half the world's population lives on 25 gallons.

Here is one prophetic warning from Jesus to consider: 

"As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”  Mark 12:38-40

Now we have several choices about what we can do with the facts above. We can dismiss them as part of the grand socialist conspiracy. We can laugh uncomfortably and defiantly refuse to be "guilted" into better behavior.  We may even point indignantly to the left-over spoilage we share from our collective table even as we studiously ignore the tons of food and other goods that continue to pile up in our landfills. 

Whatever we may do to dismiss the issues, however, will not change the facts.  It will not change the facts that demonstrate the massive amount of finite resources that we in the U.S. take from the world and that we literally and shamelessly waste. 

Nor will it change the fact of what Jesus said to us about our personal and collective responsibilities as his followers.  It won't change what Jesus clearly said about the consequences that we will reap on account of our gluttonous over consumption and waste of the resources that have been given us by God.

You see, I don't think that the U.S. has become a weaker nation on account of the drop in church attendance or because of the godless behavior of people who have ceased to believe in the traditional church.  

In fact, I am convinced that church attendance is dropping almost exclusively due to the godless behavior of people who call themselves Christian and who refuse to follow Jesus' teachings- prominently among them, his teachings about loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Blessings,
Mark

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com

CHANGE

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Here we are huddled around 
tables ten by ten, dutifully 
inspired, gently scolded, vigorously exampled and relentlessly teleprompted toward a triumphant future,

needing to surface for air,
I rise and find the exit, 
squeeze through mammoth ballroom doors like
Dorothy tip toeing away from the wizard's presence,

stepping into bright lights, 
I stumble upon one hundred
tables set for lunch by a battalion of brown skinned, black pantsed and vested waiters, casually

hablando el uno con el otro talking easily, camarada con caballero, comadre con cuñado, La Raza right here mere feet outside the land of Oz; 

inside, we cluck our tongues over 
the uninsured and the under-served, 
whose numbers so awkwardly and 
insistently impinge upon 
net operating margins,

later we will lift food from the plates
carefully placed in front of us
by uninsured hands, efficiently
served by the under-served,

Occasionally someone will lift 
her gaze halfway, eye a 
vest button and murmur 
"Thank you."

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Hope is Not a Lullabye, It Is Built One Brick at a Time

A House that Hope Built, 5427 Fannie Street, 75212
Photo Credit: Mark Grace

With all due respect to Emily Dickinson, hope is not the thing with feathers.  And it doesn't "perch" in the soul.  

I've always been troubled by Dickinson's metaphor, never attracted to the idea of a feathery member of the aves class taking up space in my soul.

On the other hand, if I could do justice to hope on a poetic scale, I'd discard Dickinson's ethereal images and I would make of hope something built by the sweat of a human being's brow.  

It would be constructed by dedicated and persistent labor that involved uncommon commitment and empowering collaboration.

Hope might even have a champion like a Chief Executive Officer named Norman Henry, recently honored with the Congressional Recognition Award for his and his company's work. 

Hope would probably look something like the house that Deborah Rideau moved into not so long ago.  She had given up believing that the American dream could come true for her.  If you watch the video below, Rideau will show you as much as tell you why she has become a true believer in the value of hope.  

While you are at it, listen carefully to Francisco Guzman talk about Project Reach and its impact on his life.  It will change your day, maybe even your year.  

The stories come to you courtesy of Builders of Hope CDC whose mission is to be 

"a Christian Ministry transforming Dallas urban areas by building strong families and healthy, safe neighborhoods through discipleship, community pride, and development of quality affordable housing. This mission is driven by four main services we offer:

1. Affordable Housing (which includes building new homes, revitalization of existing homes, and demolition and rebuilding substandard homes)
2. Financial Fitness Education
3. Family Support Services
4. Community Mobilization"

While we did not qualify to participate in Builders of Hope's affordable housing program, Linda and I were blessed to have BoH build our home just on the edge of its Eagle Ford housing development in West Dallas.  Now I am a board member of BoH, and as I love to say, I am not just a board member, I am a satisfied customer of this remarkable community service agency.

Most of our neighbors have benefited from BoH's intensive first-time home buyer's financial fitness education.  They succeeded in developing their credit to the point that they were able to qualify for a home loan and now live in a community that is bound together by common histories and stories full of hope.  

And collectively, Builders of Hope graduates and home buyers have less than a 2% foreclosure rate.

I am humbled and grateful to call these families my neighbors.  They value their neighborhood, their homes and their community relationships far more than any suburb I've ever lived in.

And every day, as I drive down the street in my neighborhood, I get to see what hope looks like, one beautiful house at a time.

What does hope look like to you? I don't mean in the abstract, but in real human terms.  Leave a comment and share your story!

Blessings,
Mark

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com

What is Religion "Pure and Undefiled?" Watch and Learn

I've written before about the incredible privilege I have to work with Don Sewell, director of Baylor Health Care System's (BHCS) Faith In Action Initiatives.  I've come to regard Don with a depth of respect and affection that is hard to understate.  

He and the Faith In Action core team, made up of Clark Mays, Chick Deegan, Sofia Aluri, and Dina Benson are tireless in their efforts to see that medical missions, medical supplies and second life medical resources get to people in need. I've only begun to write about these incredible people, because the work that such a small corps of leaders do will astound you.  

And the free will, volunteer response on the part of employees across the Baylor Health Care System will re-ignite your belief that God is doing great things in this broken down old world.

Among many things, BHCS, through its Faith In Action Initiatives program has been aggressive in its support for victims of the Haiti earthquake, the Joplin tornadoes, the tsunami in Japan, floods in the Philippines and many, many other circumstances in which the needs are dire.

Many of the people BHCS helps through Faith In Action Initiatives live in the greater Dallas - Fort Worth metropolitan area.  

A whole lot of them also live in places that are very far from here.

One of many programs that Don's team sponsors is the Fred Roach International Medical Missions Scholarship.  Employees of BHCS can apply for and receive money to help defray the costs of their volunteer time spent in providing medical and spiritual services in growing number of places around the world.

Take a look at the video above. Scholarship recipients Tam Le and Minnie Chau wrote the following:

“We can't even begin to explain how God's love was so abundant in all the places we visited & all the people we met. We were definitely able to use the equipment & supplies that Faith In Action donated. The people on the trip were amazed that Baylor has such a generous ministry organization. All of this done for the glory of God and love for his people!” 

Be sure to watch the video all the way to the end.  You won't want to miss the explanations that come in the closing credits.  They will help you to understand how crucial this particular project is and how needed your prayers are.

Blessings, 
Mark

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com

Why I Believe Class Warfare Is Real

She is seventeen years old.  She and her older sister, who is going college, both work nearly full time jobs in addition to their school work.  Their mother has been unable to find work since she separated from a their father on account of his drinking and violence.  

In between updates on her father's efforts to stop drinking and her efforts to hang onto a job with a boss from hell, she stops to ask us to recommend a good restaurant where she might take her mom for her birthday.  "She's been really down lately because she can't find work and because of the problems my dad gives her.  I want to take her someplace nice, to give her a good time."

A LACK OF WILLINGNESS TO TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

I winced as I heard her question.  It reminded me of one of the more recent Facebook rants I'd read about how "those people," meaning poor people, should exercise more personal responsibility.  "They've got to have their cell phones and eat out all the time," was the criticism.  

I tremble with rage when I read such lazy, irresponsible, baseless accusations of people like the young woman I just described.  I want to fight somebody when I hear poor people being blamed as the cause of our problems in this country.

The  thing about that 17 year old who is keeping a roof over her jobless mother's head, feeding and caring for her 14 year-old brother and 5 year old sister is not that she is so exceptional.  

Look at the collage at above.  Do you think I am attempting to tug at your heart strings?  You bet.  Because I can tell you a story about every single person in the collage above that would make you envious of them, of their courage and discipline and self-sacrifice for their fellow human beings.  

I want your heart to be stirred because it is the only sure antidote I know to the callous, unthinking labels that are heaped upon human beings every time someone talks about poor people as though they were all irresponsible, undisciplined and unprincipled freeloaders on society.

If you come to my church, if you dare to walk around my neighborhood, I can show you dozens if not hundreds of people who are living exemplars of personal responsibility.  You and I could never hope to measure up to the discipline and determination that most of the poor people I know demonstrate in their daily lives.

Credit card debt in this country averages $15,965 per credit card holder.  609 million credit cards are owned and used by Americans.  The total revolving debt as of December of 2011 was $801 billion and the total U.S. consumer debt was $2.5 trillion.

Yeah. Our country's problems are caused by poor people. Illegal immigrants.  People who can't speak English.  Those are the people who've racked up $2.5 trillion in consumer debt.

IS IT REALLY US OR THEM?

Look, I am a Caucasian U.S. citizen who qualifies to be in the top 3% of people in this country in terms of my household income.  I grew up around other Southern and Southwestern whites and I have navigated all of my adult wage earning life in affluent economic circles.

And I can tell you that what I have heard come out of the mouths of untold numbers of affluent white Southern and Southwestern Caucasian U.S. citizens over my adult life would convince anyone that there is a real class warfare in this country.  That there really is a war between "us" and "them."

I've heard affluent people who are drowning in debt because of their own personal irresponsibility go on a ten minute rant about "those people" who are costing us jobs, who have "fancy cars parked in front of their shacks," "can't stay out of jail," "don't need to be leaching off the government," "do nothing but lay around all day."

And I see the same people try to hide their bigotry when face to face with the people they just got through condemning. Or worse still, be completely unaware that the person they are dealing with fits into the class of people they have just been condemning.


And if you are bristling right about now because you think I am being unfair to a class of people, then you have a tiny inkling of what it feels like to be labeled because of your class.  The difference  is that there is no real consequence for your identification with affluent white people.  We all get to keep our jobs and our privileges and our phony righteous indignation.  When poor people are labeled as undeserving of help the consequences are real and the impact can cripple a person's future.

TAKE TWO WEEKS TO LISTEN

Believe me when I tell you that I don't want class warfare. I'm not running on any political platform.  There is no money in this for me.  

I'm not trying to convince you to vote for an economic or political liberal. I completely agree with the idea that reducing the deficit should be a top priority for our government.

I sure don't want you to accept what I am saying at face value when I recount my personal experience to you.

I do want to encourage you to do one thing.  Take two weeks and listen.  Bring up the question of what responsibility if any we might have to poor people in difficult economic times.  Don't prompt people or argue when they start going on about the sins of "those people."  Just listen.  

Then I want to begin a conversation here about who or what we really need to be at war with in this country.

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com

Sorrow & Suffering, Determination & Faith- Joanne's Story

You may know by now that Linda and I are copastors of Iglesia Bill Harrod. If you have been following the stories here on Corridos you have to know that the sheer grit and determination of the people that we serve at that church has produced some pretty big changes in my life.  Enough to motivate Linda and me to move to West Dallas to be in the neighborhood that our church serves.

We aren't suffering for the Lord in West Dallas.  Thank God we have two great jobs.  And thanks to some pretty phenomenal people and organizations like our church, like our marvelous neighbors on Fannie Street, like Builders of Hope, Randy and Tammy Skinner, Norman Henry and too many other people to name, Linda and I live lives that are blessed in more ways than we can count..