A New Year's Reflection and a One Day Reminder

The dawn of a New Year makes me realize how quickly the old ones have gone by.

I grew up with the great tradition of New Year’s Day living in California (this was in the '50's, not during the Great Depression as some of my students think). We got up early to watch the Rose Bowl Parade on our black and white television (hard to see the beautiful flowers when everything is gray), and of course college football all day long. Those were the days when there was only the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl. In-between games my brother and I and the neighborhood kids would go on the front lawn and have our own make-believe bowl game.

My first preaching gig was on New Year’s Eve, 1967, I think. Our church always had a “Watch-Night Service” (the churches lame attempt to have an alternative program to counter the decadent parties of the world). Church members would meet about 7 p.m. and it would go on until the final prayer soon after mid-night. It was 5 hours of pure boredom as we sang, listened to sermons, from just about anyone who wanted to speak, eat finger food and pray. I think I preached the entire book of Revelation that night, in 30 minutes! (You never know when you will get another chance, so unload all you’ve got when you can).

New Year’s use to be a time when I would sit down and make goals for the year ahead, dream about where I want to be five years from now. I don’t do that anymore, but probably should. Part of the reason is because I am planning ahead all the time. I pretty much know where I will be and what I will be doing in 2009, that is, as far as I have anything to do with it.


My wife calculated that her dad, who passed away a week and half ago and one day after his 84th birthday, lived 30,661 days -- that’s the exact days God allotted to my father-in-law. As 2008 ticks away and gives way to 2009 I’m mindful that it’s not the year or the decade that defines who we are, but the days we are given. The accumulation of days and the decisions we made in those days are what’s important. I can make plans for tomorrow, but since this might be my last post, it’s more important that I make this day count. God help me to live it for Him and not myself.

LEADING Cross-Culturally

This past week I finished reading Sherwood Lingenfelter’s new book, LEADING Cross-Culturally. In all of Shewood’s works there are two common threads, which are (1) anthropological, and what he defines as (2) kingdom principles. I have known Sherwood for 20 years and he was the chair for my doctoral studies at Biola, so I’m familiar with his style and intent.

In this book the two major concepts I gleaned was the discussion of default culture and his definition of the differences between managing and leading. In the mission world, one of the weaknesses in ministry is that, using power and authority, missionaries tend to manage rather than lead. Sherwood ‘s concept of responsible-for versus responsible-to is an important distinction that every missionary would do well to learn.

The book is primarily for those of us who work with multicultural teams; how people from culture A interacts with people from culture B, C and D. Most leadership books are slanted to principles and practices from the West, essentially ignoring leadership styles of non-Western cultures. Missionaries are dismayed when their foreign colleagues fall back to their default cultural way of doing things. Sherwood is more generous with case studies in this book and through illustrations helps solve the problem, not just stating the obvious. Ironically, my article "How Cultures Work: A Roadmap for Intercultural Understanding in the Workplace" was published in the latest issue of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly this week. Sherwood’s book confirmed some of my own understanding on how to solve problems working with multicultural teams. Get a copy of Lingelter’s book as I think it has some keen insights for those who serve cross-culturally.

Annual Scrooge Blog

It’s time for my annual Scrooge Letter. I hate Christmas…bah humbug. I hate the commercialism, the hypocrisy of gift giving and the expectations from people I care little about (I have an irritating nephew who I see maybe twice a year, who acts offended when we don’t buy him something). Okay, that’s a bit harsh, but needless to say (I know if it’s needless, why say it), December 25th is not my favorite day of the year.

The only redeeming part of Christmas is being with family (but not all of our family will be together and if you've been reading previous posts you know it will not be a festive time for the extended family). Of course the food is a definite Yule Tide plus and we’re talking quantity as well as quality. This year it will be chicken, ham and brisket…a meat-lovers version of heaven along with the side order of sweet potatoes, broccoli salad, green salad, my mom’s homemade hot rolls, walnut and chocolate pie. I’m sure Mary and Joseph had a similar spread in the cow stalls of Bethlehem.

I use to be fascinated with the Christmas story, but as I get older I see it from such a different perspective. You really do have to be a believer in Christ to believe the Christmas narrative, because on face value, it’s just a very weird story (only post moderns will confess this openly). The virgin conceiving, angels appearing to shepherds in the fields to announce His birth, wise men traveling with gifts for a king, all sound pretty far-fetched. The only thing in the story I get is taxation by Governor Herod (representing all politicians) as death and taxes are historical/universal constants; Mary and Joseph having to sleep in a barn, which may have been just as comfortable as a first century inn. The Son of God as a baby, the one who created all things being fed and changed? Sorry, my mind doesn’t even want to go there.

If you are a believer you accept anything that is far-fetched. Ganesh riding on a rat; Mohammed, the illiterate writing the Koran or the angel Moroni appearing to another illiterate by the name of Joseph Smith who founded the Mormon church. And how about the secularist who place their far-fetched beliefs in the scientist who do their best to manipulate data to convince the unenlightened that the whole universe is the result of a cosmic accident and who now tell us that only the insane would not believe in man-made global warming.

Here’s the deal, we choose to believe what we want to believe. The Christmas story is not logical, but unless you have no use for the metaphysical, it is supernaturally plausible. Theologically I can’t accept a divine birth that was the product of human union. I’m not going to pick the story apart just to make it more acceptable to my finite understanding. God isn’t interested in my theological engineering to make all the pieces fit. Faith is that thing we don’t understand but we accept it anyway. The Master of the universe doesn’t read the polls, and is not concerned whether man comprehends everything about Himself. With finiteness comes mystery. The Christmas story is one of those great mysteries of God. So, as a follower of the Christ I accept that He was born that He might die for my salvation. I acknowledge it on the basis of total blind faith. It may not make sense to me and perhaps that fact alone may be the best argument for why the Bethlehem scene is true. While I may hate the season for what modern man has made of it, now a global holiday for even the infidels, I still like the fact that God loved me so much that He would send Immanuel (God with us) to this earth to live and die for my salvation. So, in spite of distaste for the day, MERRY CHRISTMAS…but I’m still not buying my nephew a present.

The Great Transition

As I drove home last night I thought about knowing and being known in heaven. The scripture seems to suggest that the saints of God, those who die in Christ, while absent from the body are present with the Lord. So when a person who is a follower of Christ dies, as my father-in-law did yesterday, they slip from consciousness of the physical to a different realm of awareness in the metaphysical. My father-in-law fell asleep in his chair and his heart just stopped. I wonder in the transition between time (which ceased for him when the heart quit and eternity began), and space (when he no longer was in his recliner in Bethel Heights, Arkansas, into the presence of God), when did Fred realize he was no longer dreaming?

When it comes to talking about the state of the soul of man after death most of it is conjecture. I’m sure that St. Peter didn’t meet Fred at the proverbial pearly gates, but I do wonder how the changeover took place. As he was trying to figure out this weird dream in a different environment, was there a band of relatives around him welcoming him to this strange place in his dream? Perhaps. But if we know and are known, then anyone would be recognizable to him.

“Well, hello, Elijah,” Fred might have said as he saw the Old Testament legend walk by, “I was reading about you just last night.”

“Hi Fred,” Moses might have called out.” Glad to see you here. We’ve been expecting you.”

In Fred’s initial state of eternity he might have thought to himself, “Wow, this dream feels so real!”

Perhaps (pure conjecture you understand), everyone knew Fred when he arrived as they recognized him in his overalls. My father-in-law seldom wore anything but overalls and I only saw him wear a suit one time, at Sandy’s and my wedding. I can’t imagine Fred in a white robe so I am assuming, if we know and are known, there are overalls in heaven. (For those not from the rural south, there is a difference between overalls and coveralls).


As I continued to drive home last night I imagined Christ was the first one to appear in Fred’s dream. I know that’s the first person I want to see as I transfer from mortality to immortality. Perhaps (merely conjecture you understand), the Lord might be dressed in the common attire of a first century Mediterranean carpenter and, as Jesus embraced my father-in-law he said something like, “I’ve been preparing a place for you Fred, let me show you around.”

Conjecture indeed. But I do wonder how long it took for Fred to realize he wasn’t dreaming?

As the family left behind, still trapped in time, grieves and prepares to place his human shell in the grave, Fred is coming to grips in knowing. And, as he is getting use to his new surroundings, he is known as the redeemed recognize him. For those in Christ death is not something to fear, it’s merely a passage between that which we have known to a place where we will know, where time is no more.

Killing Lizards

One of the truly great things about the U.S. is their public library system. Last week I traveled to North Carolina, a journey of 32 hours driving up and back. Before leaving my home I visited my local library and checked out some books on CD. Listening to books is a heck of a lot more entertaining than listening to talk radio or music – and they keep me awake as I look down the long corridor of Interstate 40.

One of the books I listened to was The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. The plot is that of ghosts who have taken a bus from purgatory to heaven (or at least it will be heaven if they choose to stay). They are there to see if they really want to enter into heaven, or catch the bus back to purgatory. If they choose to stay, there are conditions. The people in this drama range from a woman who insists she see her son who she loved on earth (though her love was more for self and her needs than for her son), a theologian who didn’t appreciate the entrance requirements for heaven (in his case humility) because he was not recognized for his scholarship, a wife who didn’t want to meet her dead husband unless she could tell him how to live his life (as she did on earth).

In one scene there is a man walking about with a ugly little creature on his shoulder, a red lizard. He kept talking to the creature, “Get away from me. Shut up!” A fiery angel approaches the man and asks in a stern voice, “Do you want me to kill it?” The man is stunned and argues for sometime with the angel, insisting he doesn’t really want the creature killed, he merely wants it silenced. With each argument the angel repeats the question, “Do you want me to kill it?” The ghost is afraid; if the angel kills the creature he, too, will be hurt, even die.

I take it the creature represents those “besetting sins” (Hebrews 12:1), that all men and women must deal with in life, those habits that keep us from running the good race toward the reward of our salvation. Our creature may be pride, selfishness, lust, insecurities, doubt, an addiction, laziness or perhaps misplaced affection. Our little creature, though annoying, has become a fixture in our lives and, though we loathe the little reptile, we can’t seem to muster the courage to just kill the damn thing.

In Lewis’ story, the ghost FINALLY consents to the elimination of the little read creature and the lizard writhes in ghastly pain in its demise. Remarkably the creature becomes transformed into a magnificent stallion.

As I continued my journey down the highway, I thought of all the little red lizards in my life and prayed that God will give me courage to kill that which keeps me from being transformed into the image of the One who loves me and wants the best for me. “Do you want me to kill it?” He says to me. “Yes, Lord. Even though I am afraid, kill the little beast.”

Indian 12 Days of Christmas

Sent to me by one of my Indian friends in Delhi.

Consultants and the Non-Resident Missionary

Talking with my brother the other day he was telling me about the world of business consultants. He said that people often are shocked by consulting fees, as some consultants make between $500 to $20,00 a day. He then told me about a survey that revealed that only about 20% of the employees in any one company are truly engaged in the business. The other 80% are employed, get a weekly paycheck but a lot of their days are having coffee with other employees, reading email, surfing the net and only spend a few hours a day actually doing work. “When a consultant comes into work he is 100% there and often putting in 12 hour days. While a consultant fee may seem pricy, you can be sure that what they do will be full-on and focused.”

As a non-resident missionary, who now travels four or five times a year to the field and is away from home 3 to 8 weeks at a time, I see a parallel between people living on the field 24/7 and my role as one who works under contract. Since I’ve been in the mission business for 30 years, both field as well as non-resident, I have observed that 80% of the career missionaries who live in a foreign land, many do less work than I do with my frequent visits. There are indeed some truly committed field missionaries who serve with a sense of responsibility. There are others who spend most of their time just living and with occasional focus on the task. When I pack my bags and head overseas it’s not a part-time activity. On my most recent trip I taught for six weeks straight, at least 4 hours a day. If you know anything about teaching you know the out of class activity is visiting with students and preparing for the next days. As one who has visited over 40 countries and lived in two countries, unlike short-term visitors who spend less than two weeks, I am not a tourist fascinated by the culture or trying to adjust to the food. When I am not on the field, like most consultants, my “off time” is spent in reading, doing research and preparing for the next assignment.

When it comes to my consulting fees, well, that’s when this analogy with business consultants breaks down. Most of the places I serve I pay my own way. In partnership with donors, this ministry is a service. My clients are really those who invest in what I do for the church worldwide. They expect, and rightly so, that I serve, not part-time, but full-on and focused.