An Offer I Can't Refuse

I spent the last week working with some missionaries from around the world.  There is a missions organization whose goal is to see the heart of Jesus in the skin of every culture. Ok. I am on board with that. The way they accomplish this is really a great idea. Instead of sending Americans everywhere to be the only missionaries, they recruit from other countries to visit neighboring countries. For example, they train people in Kenya, Africa to visit people in Uganda, Africa. There goes my summer vacation (I mean missions trip) to Africa.  At one event this past week the Asian director stood before the people to tell what he does. This is a kind man from Korea who probably thought he would honor our culture by giving credit to missionaries of the past. He started by showing a picture of a British missionary that came to Korea many years ago, then he showed his grave site in Korea to tell us he is buried there. Yes, honored by the Koreans. Then he showed us a young woman in her early twenties who lived only 9 months in Korea before being killed, and showed us her grave site as well.
Oh yes, there is a trend. Next we saw the graves of many missionary children that died in Korea, and pictures of their private cemetery.  He followed all this with a request. "We need more missionaries from America to come to Korea."
The funny part is that everyone I talked to actually caught his intent of honoring past missionaries. I guess I was the only one who thought "What the heck happened to all those other guys that we sent to you? They didn't fare so well did they? Why would I want my tombstone to be in your next slide show?" I thought his presentation would have been better if he had said, "come to Asia, we have good food" and showed pictures of cuddly panda bears instead.

Rules We Never Live By

Well it's football season again. I really do like football and have season tickets to UCF. I feel I have a pretty good understanding of the game and the rules. We even have a bunch of guys running around enforcing these rules. Guys we can clearly identify by their uniform, and they even have a card issued by the league that says they met all the qualifications to enforce the rules. Now in these modern times we have instant replay to ensure the ruling is accurate. As I watched another game, I wondered, who enforces our rules, the rules of Christians? It seems we have a rule book, but just like in football there are many leagues. Canada has a league, but when we host the NFL Superbowl, the winner is called the "world champion", even though it's just teams from the U.S. And within each league there are different teams. The teams wear different uniforms and from watching college football, I can tell you they are funded differently as well.  When the University of Texas came to UCF, they had state-of-the-art wireless radios in the helmets, a fancy cooling system that plugged into the pads of the players, and really nice looking benches for their players to sit. Last week when the University of South Dakota came, they had a couple students handing cups of water to players on folding chairs as the coaches yelled from the sidelines. I think the Catholic church is a lot like Texas, and the Anglican Mission is like South Dakota, but we want to be like Texas, we just don't have the money.
So who enforces our rule book? The Anglican church has additional rules outside the Bible, particular to the Anglican church. These 39 articles are helpful to explain the rules we already have. I am curious about some of the rules. What about women wearing hats in church? Who said it was okay not to? Don't get mad at me for asking, it's in the Bible. I am just wondering who decided that particular rule doesn't count.
Its no different than that stupid rule in football...you know the one. If the quarterback is about to get tackled and he throws the ball away to avoid losing yards, he is subject to the penalty of "Intentional grounding". Just the name of the penalty says it all right? The intention of putting the football to the ground to avoid a less favorable outcome. However, if the quarterback is running out of time he can immediately throw the ball intentionally to the ground without a penalty because some clever person has called this "spiking the ball". Way different than intentional grounding. And spiking the ball has no penalty.
I have heard the rules or laws of the Bible explained in all sorts of clever ways I am not educated enough in to argue, but have my doubts. I keep looking for the refs to come in and throw the flag. It seems now-a-days it is too easy to call yourself a referee in Christianity. There are too many under-funded leagues with new rules and crazy players who wanted to play a certain way... so they made their own team.  Youtube has become life's instant replay but it seems all we can do is watch them spike our ball and then we say to our friends... "look at that."  My new closer....good thing God has grace for the human race.

United We Stand

I bet you thought this was a patriotic message. Nope. Sorry to disappoint you if you wanted that. In church I observed two Pastors talking. Two guys with different ministries from different walks of life uncomfortably making small talk. Normally when people talk, they face each other, but not these two. It was like they were on a TV show. They stood side by side facing an imaginary congregation to make pleasantries. It reminded me of how many people on sunday mornings at church talk to one another. One of my favorite people to observe is the close talker. I have encountered many close talkers on sunday morning and have developed a system to keep my personal space sacred. One of the tactics is the aforementioned side-stance. I try to put a shoulder between their face and mine, ensuring at least 8-10 inches of space. My other favorite is the obstacle insertion method. This is where you walk around a table pretending to need a place to lean, placing a large object between you and the close talker. Now a good close talker will do their best to counter your strategy, usually unknowingly. They can't help it, but because of their casual nature to close the gap, my deliberate attempt to escape will usually win out.
I also try to avoid the huggers on sunday. This is usually accomplished by extending the left-arm-greeting-block combined with the right-hand shake-my-hand move. This combination thwarts the efforts of most huggers, but is sometimes countered with the pull-the-hand-in-close-to-lean-in-for-the-light-hug move.
Ah yes, the dynamics of how people greet one another that they don't really know but because they know someone that knows them, they are obligated to the customs of the people the ones we know happen to know. This is why I like blogs. No such thing as a close blogger...yet.

9/11

On this day of remembering one of our nation's greatest tragedies, I am also reminded of the complexity of our times, the international media we did not have almost 70 years ago on Dec 7, Pearl Harbor Day.  I wonder what that event would have looked like with the media coverage of today. Would some cult leader in Gainesville Florida with 50 members be ready to burn a bunch of fortune cookies unless they move the sushi restaurant away from the harbor? Ok I know fortune cookies are Chinese and not Japanese but it really was to show the stupidity of the current situation.
Anyway, I tuned in this morning to catch a bit of the memorial service in New York. As I watched, I wondered if the guys who planned this event had worked with me to plan church events in the past. Some of my favorite moments came in the opening remarks by the mayor.  "We are gathered here today on this day we have come to call 9/11..." Really? What did we call it before?  Next he listed the numerous times we would be observing moments of silence. I pictured a meeting where people all sat together in discussion and it started with an idea for a moment of silence at the time of the first plane crash. Then came the suggestion... well what about when the second plane hit? And then when the buildings fell? And how about the Pentagon? And the plane crash in the field of Pennsylvania? Then begins the priority setting. Well we can do the time when the buildings fell but not sure about the Pennsylvania crash or Pentagon because we are in New York. And so it goes until they settle on the 4 or so times for the moment of silence. I listened as the mayor asked the people to observe the first moment of silence. And then a bell rings. Great idea! During the moment of silence we should ring a bell. Hey wait, if we ring a bell is it still a moment of silence? Yep, this brings back great memories of planning special events.  Good thing God has lots of grace for the human race.