Beware the Donuts

New commercial from Career Builders:  Donuts are just a way to trap people into pointless meetings.

Don’t forget. It’s not about the donuts. It’s about the pointless meetings. From now on I’ll never look at the refreshment table at the church the same way again.

Today’s Quote 2/10/07

Homer Simpson:  Donuts. Is there anything they can’t do?

“There are no successful churches in Scripture”

This is a comment by Eugene Peterson at the National Pastors Conference. It is quoted by Greg Koskela, Wendy Martin’s pastor in Newberg, Oregon. I like Gregg’s stuff – honest, thoughtful, willing to take risks and in touch with human weakness.

Peterson has put his finger on something we need to hear. If you look at the New Testament, you begin to wonder if any church is getting it right. Yes, there are highs and there are lows in churches. There are some things to emulate and some things to extricate. But by and large they are filled with ordinary people who are constantly in touch with their weaknesses, the need for the grace of God and who are being reminded on a regular basis to live out forgiveness and acceptance. We don’t see successful church seminars or the obsession with doing it the way some other church is doing it. Churches are doing the ordinary things – spending lots of time together as the family of God, being devoted to the Apostles’ teaching, prayer, works of charity and love. God takes over from there.

Another Peterson quote from Gregg. “The goal is… ‘a congregation of embarrassingly normal people in whom God is visible.’”  Can I get a witness?

He’s Fully Heterosexual – Yea!!!!!!

This is one of the first pronouncements coming out of Ted Haggard’s short stint in counseling after leaving New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Are we supposed to be relieved, as in, “the cancer is not terminal”? Is this a first shot at Haggard’s return to get another chance at recovering a career, as in a fallen heterosexual will get a pass but a fallen homosexual will not?  Was it really homosexuality that got Haggard into trouble? No.

The issue for me was not, and is not, whether or not Ted Haggard is inclined toward same-sex relationships. The issue for me is how he handled his sexuality and responsibilities as a leader and guide – and how I handle that, too. Yes, I believe that acting out same-sex inclinations is sin. I believe this is an issue to be faced and will mean some heavy lifting for Haggard if he is homosexual. (He has been in counseling for such a short time for such pronouncements to be made about his true condition – does anybody really know where they are in such a short stint of self-reflection?) But I am not really relieved that he is not homosexual, anymore than I am relieved that a heterosexual pastor is at least not a homosexual when he/she is caught in an indiscretion with the other sex.

The issue for Haggard, and for us all, is a life of hiding, of lying, of playing to a position rather than a fuller honesty, of feeding to his church a theology stripped of the complications of being real sinners who generally don’t get it right, etc. I am much more interested in, not my drives and desires, but in how I manage the wild horses within. That, I think, reveals more of who I am. I will always have a dark side until the corruptible is put off for the incorruptible. Facing it, identifying it, grieving over it, building a team to help me manage it, etc., is the real work I have to do.

Whom would you rather have for President?

Ben Witherington asks this question in a way that should make us evangelicals think. I agree with the way this question is framed by Ben. (Ben was a student in the IVCF chapter I served at UNC-Chapel Hill and is now a leading biblical scholar).

The question this raises for me is this— Whom would you rather have for President? An apparently devout but inept Evangelical President who keeps making bad political decisions that get us in hot water in both foreign and domestic affairs operating in an adversarial way, or a President who does not meet the conservative Christian scratch and sniff test but nonetheless is excellent at making good political decisions and works in conciliatory fashion as a team player? No fair asking for a third choice. This is a two horse race– so which do you pick from these two?
For me the answer is clear— you will know the tree by the fruit that it bears, not by professions of faith, however Christian, or bold rhetoric meant to stir our patriotic or conservative juices. I want somebody of personal and ethical integrity who knows how to govern. If he is also a devout Christian, this is a huge plus, but if that is all he is, he ought not to be President just for that reason.

Do we want an effective leader with whom we will disagree on certain issues or do we want a person in the White House who will toe our theological line? For some reason I had expected a person who was one of “us” to be, ipso facto, the best leader. I have been wrong.