Book Review: "Trolls and Truth"

I had heard the name Jimmy Dorrell for years. The founder and leader of Mission Waco and Church Under the Bridge pastor was well-known as a friend of the marginalized in Central Texas. But recently I got the chance to spend some time with him, and now we're working together on a project. When we met the first time, he gave me a copy of his book "Trolls and Truth: 14 Realities About Today's Church That We Don't Want to See." The book was written in 2006, but remains as timely now as it was then.

Jimmy tells the story of several of the people he's met in ministry over the years, people that "regular" society might see as trolls. And in telling the story of these men and women, Jimmy prophetically exposes the truths that most of us in the US Church don't like to think about: our churches are not made for down-and-outers. They don't try to attract the marginalized. And in so doing, we're missing out on the kingdom, or at least a big part of it.

The chapters deal with practical topics, like looks, giving, blessing, worship and more, and cut to the quick of our idealized churches made up of people who only want the proverbial "$2 worth of God," not the whole enchilada. But Jimmy's friends are people who desperately need God, and nothing else will do.

My favorite chapter--the one that convicts me the most too--is on friendship. Society's "trolls" ultimately don't need just our help, they need our friendship. All too often, even for someone like me who tries to identify with (whatever that means) and work among under-resourced people and communities, our "service" to those in poverty is "in and out." We serve turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving. We deliver some gifts at Christmas. We go on a 5 day mission trip to south Dallas, or to Mexico. All of these can be effective, if a part of a greater strategy. And that strategy is to be genuine, authentic friends with people, regardless of their race, their socio-economic status, their mental capacity, whatever. This whole idea that Jesus ate with sinners is amazing, and life changing. He ate with them. He didn't just serve them food (although he did that) and he didn't just preach them a sermon (although he did that too), he ate with them. He walked with them. He lived life with them.

He was one of them.

May I be one of them too.

Great book for a devotional read, shortish chapters that you could read one a day in 15 or 20 minutes. I'm giving it 4 out of 5 bellybuttons.

Follow the rules

Those closest to me have noticed a dark and disturbing trend over the past few years. I don't know how it happened, how it snuck up on me and captured my soul. But it has happened.

I have become a rule follower.

I wasn't always. Freedom rang through my life as if William Wallace himself was screaming in my head. I was a notorious rebel, determined to break the rules placed on me.

But no longer. I finally came to grips with it this morning when, for the umpteenth time, I saw another parent dropping their child off at school without following the school's well-posted rules for safety. It's as if we think that the rules don't apply to us if we're in a hurry. And as I glared steely eyes at the other dad who was, it looked to me, dressed for a tee time (while tee times are extremely important, probably not worth endangering elementary children for), it hit me.

I have become a rule follower.

So in the few minute drive back to the house, I pondered what had changed me so deeply. And as I did, I began to realize I've not changed so much as I think I have. The problem is not that I'm any less rebellious than 15 or 20 years ago. The problem is that I think fewer rules are stupid than I did 15 or 20 years ago. You see, even in my highest rebellious phase, I was rebelling against what I perceived to be the idiocy of certain regulations. Many people in authority make rules to govern the least common denominator. Anyone who tries to control a group of people (coaches, teachers, pastors, etc.) makes a rule because a handful of people in the group need those rules. It keeps the group in line. It defines truth as black and white, alleviating (albeit temporarily) the mystery. But, having usually seen myself as more enlightened than the rest of the group, I pretty much always thought those rules weren't very smart for me.

Educational math was like this for me. Teachers always wanted me to "show my work." Made me list out my postulates and theories in geometry. Show my line by line work in long division. When I could do it all in my head and save me the time and energy of writing it out, why?

Most of my strongest rebellion was (and still is) pointed at religious regulations. And more specifically, the religious regulations that allow American Christians to look good on the outside, but be dead bones on the inside, and still be seen as "good" evangelicals. But the truth is, we as individuals and we the collect system of society have been tainted by sin, and against that sin we need to struggle. We need to fight. We need to declare our freedom. Often for USAmerican evangelicals, the pattern of sin in us in not the desire to do evil. It is the belief that in doing a little good we become good people. As Screwtape attested, that may be the greatest victory of our enemy.

In these, may we all be rebels.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Life is a Journey

After jury duty yesterday, I watched a little of "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" while scarfing some lunch. The trilogy is my favorite movie--I love the sense of journey that provides.

Over the past few years my boys have gotten into a series on the web called "How it should have ended." They take movies and tell a new ending, a new story. And it's much shorter. For instance, how "The Lord of the Rings" should have ended involves the 9 members of the "fellowship" leaving Rivendell on the eagles, flying into Mordor to the Mount of Doom, and dropping the ring in. Takes all of a few minutes, instead of the ordeal that the book and movie draw out.

Funny, maybe. But not reflective of reality.

Life is a journey. Full of ups and downs. Successes and failures. Good and evil. And lots of things in between all those extremes that can feel mundane. Why didn't God want them to just climb on the eagles and drop it in? Why doesn't life have those kinds of shortcuts?

I think it's because we become better people only by walking in the journey. Frodo and Sam learned about life beyond the Shire, and became better hobbits for it. Aragorn remembered he was the heir to a king. Gandalf died but was resurrected to something better, something more.

The journey of life can crush us. But it can also be redemptive for us. It can be used by God to shape us and mold us and make us more like our brother Jesus.

I am a hypocrite, but...

Last week I tweeted about hating when you make a judgment about someone else's behavior then the Holy Spirit gently but firmly smacks you upside your head and says, "You do that too!" It's frustrating to be a hypocrite.

The truth is I can be a monster. I have anger issues, pride issues, and downright prejudice issues.

I am, after all, a recovering sinner.

Since then I've been wondering if online confession is as good for the soul as is confession in person. I come from a tradition that, quite frankly, does not openly value public confession. I have however as an adult come to see the value of communal confession. Both James and Peter speak of confession, not just in the context of a private relationship with God, but in communal fellowship with other believers. But that's still not necessarily the same as blogging your confession, or tweeting it, or sharing on some other social media outlet. (Hmm, a Facebook confession page, anyone?)

Even as I write these words, I'm not sure if it would be healthy or perverse to add a list of my sins, to confess the thoughts, words and deeds of my life that miss the mark of holiness. A part of me wants to do it, another part of me wants to resist the titillation that already stenches up the internet. And another part of me wants to just point to the grace that is offered to all of us in Jesus, the marvelous, matchless, infinite grace that is greater than all our sins, as the hymn put it.

So where do I land this plane?

It's very freudian to say that whatever sin I judge the most in others is likely the sin I struggle with the most. I see in someone what I hate about myself and pass judgment on it.

But Freud wasn't God.

I think every believer in our honest moments admits that we have met the enemy, and he is me. The line between good and evil does run through the middle of the human heart. My heart. Until redemption fully arrives, my flesh keeps crawling off the sacrificial altar to wreak havoc on me, to slap me. Or worse, to subtly retake a piece of my life where I don't see it coming. This makes it all the more challenging for God's clay-footed people to speak prophetically. I will fail to follow what I profess.

Should I stop professing it?

No. My shortcomings do not negate the truth. My failings do not validate evil.

My gluttony does not mean we can ignore the hungry.

My greed does not give us license to ignore the poor.

My silence does not allow us to ignore those who need to hear good news.

My laziness does not mean we can give up on changing the world.

My sin points only to my own need for a savior. My hypocrisy does not justify others' evil, but certainly demands my humility. And while I hope and strive and pray to overcome my own sin, it is "not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own." Every day I am "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Php 3.12-14 ESV

Book Review: "God Took His Coffee Black"

Happy New Year, to the 3.5 of you who read my blog. I would say I've resolved to blog more in 2011, but I don't make resolutions. I do make goals, but I have a hard time following them. Maybe I'll share them with you for some accountability this year.

Or maybe I'll just adopt the theology of G. W. Drum's book "God Took His Coffee Black." Because since it's just your basic new age drivel, it's okay that I don't reach my goals, because God is not judgmental. We only judge ourselves too harshly. When bad people die, they go to a part of heaven where they are "schooled" in how their "sin" affected others, then sent back to the "earth-plane" to see if they can get it better the next time around.

Uh huh.

I was asked to review this book by the publisher, so I'm reviewing it. It gets zero bellybuttons, something I've never done before. It's terrible theology, and not much better writing, to be honest. The author admits early in the book to one of his many visitors (which include God, played by George Burns, Elvis, Karen Carpenter, Adam & Eve, Marilyn Monroe, and several others) that he wouldn't be good at writing a book, then just so you know he's serious he proves it.

I'm sure the author will feel like I'm being too harsh and judgmental, but I'm just exercising my free will, and if he's correct I'll learn later what I did wrong.

But with all the free will I can muster, I cannot recommend anything about this book.

I agree with Chuck Colson. Again!

This was good stuff. I especially like the quote "Look, I don't want to pay higher taxes any more than anybody else does. But I would certainly rather pay higher taxes than betray my kids and grandkids." That is exactly how I feel. But people in DC work on winning their next election, not on doing what's right.


Capitol Hill Follies
An Expensive Deal
Chuck Colson

The day after the November elections, on this very program, I said the following:

"If you are hoping that yesterday's election results will make that much of a difference, you hope in vain. The Republicans certainly don't have the votes to enact any massive government spending cuts. . . And, besides, neither they nor the Democrats are leveling with the American people about what is needed to get our fiscal house in order."

Well, today, six weeks later, I won't say "I told you so." And I do not claim to be a prophet. But last week, the Congressional Republicans sure made me look like one. They arranged a deal with President Obama to extend Bush-era tax cuts in exchange for another stimulus program.

In all, the deal could add more than a trillion dollars to the federal deficit. As Charles Krauthammer wrote in his scathing Washington Post column, "Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies."

Folks, this is a national Christmas tree with expensive gifts hanging on every branch for everybody. Madness! Washington follies in the extreme.

It's crystal clear now, as Ezra Klein wrote in the Washington Post, nobody in Washington really cares about the deficit. The Democrats got their stimulus, and the Republicans got some tax cuts. And the rest of us get it in the neck.

I've been saying, friends, for two years that this country cannot continue this reckless, grossly immoral course of deeper and deeper deficits. We will go bankrupt. And then watch it all break loose in the markets, in the banks, and eventually in the streets. We will, indeed, become Greece.

Look, I don't want to pay higher taxes any more than anybody else does. But I would certainly rather pay higher taxes than betray my kids and grandkids.

I can't help but think of a New York Times column written several years ago by David Brooks. The point of the column was the importance of self-control and deferred gratification-classic Christian virtues. Brooks described a famous experiment conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel. Mischel left a bunch of four-year-olds in a room with a bell and a marshmallow. If a kid rang the bell, Mischel would come back and the child could eat the marshmallow. But if they waited for him to come back on his own, those kids could have two marshmallows.

Well, some of the children couldn't wait one minute and rang the bell. Some held out a little longer. They each got one marshmallow. But those who waited for the professor's return got two.

Brooks then pointed out that according to independent studies, the kids who deferred gratification did better later in life, scoring higher on tests, having a much better life outcome as adults.

I suppose the others who couldn't wait must have been the ones elected to Congress.

Because Congress, despite the overwhelming message sent just a month ago at the polls, is ringing the bell again and again: More spending, more debt.

What can you do? Call your congressman and Senators. Tell them, "Stop acting like four-year olds. Instead, hold the line, shrink the deficit. Kill this bill. Enough is enough."

A tribute to a friend

This is a risky blog. Maybe more risky than any controversial theological or political statement I've ever made.

Today I want to write about a friend. A humble friend, and humble people are uncomfortable when people say good things about them. They know themselves, know their goodness is only by the grace of God, so accolades can be kinda scary.

But for the past few hours, I have not been able to get this friend out of my mind, and hopefully he'll forgive my intrusion on his life.

I got a treat today, I was home sick. Okay, so that's not normally a treat, but today my friend Paul Stankowski finished 9th at Q-school today, the most gruelling event in golf. And I got to watch it on TV. Okay, so I didn't see much of Paul's golf (I may have to fire off a cranky letter to the Golf Channel, doggoneit), but I did get to see the interview with Paul after he finished, after his 2011 Tour card was secured.

And it was priceless for me.

I first met Paul about 20 years ago, when he and my brother Daron were hanging out at UTEP. Daron was one of the FCA leaders, and Paul had gotten involved too. They were great together, it seemed. Daron even caddied for him some out on the Cali mini tours, amazing considering Daron's bad knee. The fact that he would subject himself to carrying a guy's golf clubs around on that knee says something about their relationship, and something about Paul.

Later, when Daron was leaving El Paso, Paul and I started hanging around. I was pastoring, Paul had just gone through Q-school for the first time. It was around that time that I beat him by a stroke in a round of golf at Cielo Vista Golf Course in EP. Yes, you read that right. Of course he had given me a stroke a hole; I shot 81 and he shot 65. He once tried to get me to switch to playing golf left-handed because he said my swing was more natural. I just think he thought I might beat him again...

When I was working for FCA, Paul came back to El Paso every year for the FCA Paul Stankowski Golf Events. We did scrambles, skills competitions, skins events, and one year a full-blown pro am where Paul got 17 professional golfers to come to El Paso for the benefit of FCA. He gave generously, and it sent many kids to camp and helped us start huddles.

I still remember his first Tour win. He outdueled Brandel Chamblee coming down the stretch to win in Atlanta on Easter Sunday. And proceeded to solicit an "amen" from the crowd during his post-win interview on national television.

Now I live around the corner from Paul and his family, and get to see them, but not enough. As virtually anyone who knows him will most likely attest, he's a blast to be around. Maybe the greatest thing about Paul, other than his faith, is his authenticity. I've never known the guy in 20 years to be anything other than what you see, whether it's on tv, in church, or on the golf course. He is exactly himself, all the time. He's seen success, struggled through injury, accomplished many things. If his career had ended this season, and he'd gone on to the next thing God had for him, it would have been a good career.

But it was what he said today that I can't get out of my mind. The interviewer had called him a "veteran" (hard to believe it's been 17 years Pablo) and noted that Paul still had passion for the game, passion to succeed. Paul said something to the effect of "my kids were both born after my last win. I want to see them running out onto the 18th green one of these days."

I know that I will cry when that day comes. Shoot, I cried when he said it today. It still gives me goosebumps just typing it.

Paul Stankowski. Husband, dad, golfer, friend. Passionate follower of Jesus Christ. Don't be too mad at me for writing about you. I just wanted you know that your example means a lot.

Promise.

These were the best of times, these were the worst of times.

The Christmas season is chock full of feelings: peace, want, greed, rest, love, desire, passion, joy, celebration, excitement, disappointment...hope. As Irene Cara is singing right now on Music Choice, "What a feeling!"

But what's it really all about? Growing up in a non-liturgical tradition, I never knew much about the Christian calendar in general, and Advent in particular. But as an adult the rhythm of the Christian calendar has become an invaluable tool to pull me into more intentional relationship with God.

Advent means "coming". The One who "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" emptied himself into human flesh, baby human flesh at that. He grew up, lived, died, and came back to life, all to redeem you and me, all to display the love and glory of God.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent, the week of promise. I've always been amazed at Gabriel's inability to keep a secret. It was Gabriel who came to Daniel and announced a coming messiah. As a kid I wondered if he got in trouble for letting the cat out of the bag 400 years too early. Then there were whispers in the ears of the prophets, especially Isaiah (see chapters 7 and 9).

And then it was Gabe who got to meet Zechariah and Elizabeth, and tell them about their soon to be born son John. The forerunner of the messiah. The archangel then headed to the little town of Nazareth, to a young unmarried girl named Mary, and spilled out the whole story. And I'm sure Gabriel was included in the millions of angels who showed the shepherds where to find this newborn child.

What does the word "promise" mean to you? We live in a day where people don't always keep their word. Vows don't mean anything anymore. Contracts can be broken. Our word is no longer our bond. Promises have to be enforced by the courts. Then many church-going people "claim the promises of God" for their lives (while there are some great promises from God, most of the people who use this phrase claim some stuff that IMHO God never promised, but it's what they want so they claim it...but that's another post for another time). Promises--real ones, ones we believe in--change our lives. They change our feelings and our behaviors (just think of when you promise your kids something that they really want). They help put hope in our souls.

Ultimately Advent is about 2 promises, one fulfilled, one yet to come. The messiah did come (1st promise) and he will come again (2nd promise). He interjected redemption once, he will come again and set the whole thing right. He is coming.

He promised.

Maranatha.

Conservatisms view of government

I really like this interview. I have not read the book, but the interview makes me want to. The author and I might disagree on a point or two, but I like the view of government that he's taking, and the recognition that the extreme elements within the tea party movement are going down the wrong track.

But he does use the "social justice" phrase, so he needs to watch out for Glenn Beck attacks.

Read the article on CT here.

Vote for Jesus

Here's a great post by my good friend Keith Giles on our hopes for election results we like.