The Gator Wrestler

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a music video this much since the 80’s (or at least that cool treadmill thing by the same band).

HT: Timmy Brister

When I was a kid, I devoured books. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia passed through my hands nearly a dozen times (favorite book in the series: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; favorite character: Puddlegum; biggest disappointment: the movies). I travelled with Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain over and over and over again. Encyclopedia Brown’s deductive ability blew my mind. The Hardy Boys’ bravery inspired me. I actually wouldn’t have minded a plane wreck in the Canadian wilderness after reading Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet.

I still love books. My wife and I get up at 5 AM so we can have 2 hours of uninterrupted reading time. I’m at heaven in Frugal Muse or Half Price Books in Madison. Amazon may be my most-visited website. We’re unashamed book nerds (okay, mostly it’s me).

I want my children to have this same love. So we’ve read countless books to them. I can quote The Little Engine that Could. It’s thrilling to see them now embark on journeys of their own into the pages of great books. Our 7-year old reads through chapter books as fast as they’re put in his hands. Our 5-year old spends an hours every day thumbing through books on reptiles and Star Wars or reading the adventures of Nate the Great. Our 4-year old daughter can “read” all the Fancy Nancy books to her 1-year old sister. I don’t write this to boast in my kids … too much. I write this because their passion for reading presents a unique problem. I want them to read good stuff and not junk. (Don’t get me wrong. Junk food’s okay once-in-a-while, but a steady diet leaves you sick and obese.)

In an effort to steer my kids toward good books, I’m embarking on a voyage back into the world of children’s literature. I’m not an elementary school teacher or a librarian, but I want to put good stuff in my kids’ hands. I also want to be able to discuss the stuff they’re reading with a deeper conversation than “How was the book?” followed by the obligatory “Fine.” Plus, I want an excuse to read stuff from the children’s section without shame.

So I’ll be reading books slightly ahead of my kids’ reading level in an effort to locate and pass on great material to my kids and catch up on some of what I’ve missed. Artemis Fowl, The Dark Is Rising Sequence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The 39 Clues, How to Train Your Dragon, The Ranger’s Apprentice, Inkheart, and Fablehaven have all made it onto my to-read list along with classics like Huckleberry Finn and Old Yeller. I’ll also be reading to and alongside my kids more often. The plan is to be putting up a few reviews here. I’m not a book reviewer, but here’s a couple of my initial goals.

1. I want my children to be inspired to bravery and sacrificial heroism, but realize that they don’t have to be the ultimate hero. Jesus fills that role. Children’s books are almost always about a young boy or girl discovering “who they really are.” Quite often, we’re left with a message of “You have to be the hero.” The Bible leads us to the conclusion that you can’t be the hero, but Jesus is. Does the literature we point our children to in turn point them to a greater hero like the Christ figures of Aslan and Gandalf? Or do we say to our children, “You can do anything you want because you’re perfect (and misunderstood).” At the same time, I want to inspire them with tales of bravery, nobility, and chivalry. Conversation with your children over what they’re reading and watching is critical in parenting.

2. There are a ton of good stories. Throw a dragon and a cool map together and you’ll come up with something. But does the work contain good writing and wordplay? Lewis was a master of this. How else can you come up with lines like “There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” or “…a Unicorn and a fat, full-grown donkey indoors always make a room feel rather crowded.” Brilliant. I want to introduce my children to that kind of writing. And to be honest, I could use a few good mentors in the wordplay and sentence structure department. Reading Lewis and A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh have reintroduced me to literary genius.

Since I have a hard time reading one book at a time, my first selections will be Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief and N. D. Wilson’s 100 Cupboards. I’ll come back here periodically and review the books and the conversations they inspire with my kids.

I’ve still got some work to do in defining what “good literature” is. Hopefully, immersing myself in it will aid in that discovery. I’m also not one of those pastors who thinks that the only quality reading material is what you can pull off your local Christian bookstore. Most of the fiction you’ll find there (children’s books in particular) is trash. But in the quest to parent wisely, I have a fun task ahead.

If you have books you think I should tackle, let me know. If you want to read along, go find 100 Cupboards or The Lightning Thief and let’s begin!

I have a number of friends who are in the initial stages of planting a new church in various communities around the world. Conversations with them have led me to remember our early days and how desperately we prayed this passage in the early years of our church.

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”
–Exodus 33:12-17

Here’s Moses’ prayer: “God, show me your ways!” Moses is leading a rebellious people toward the Promised Land and he’s unsure how it’s going to get done. (This scene takes place right after the golden calf incident of chapter 32.)

Churches pray that prayer over and over and over again. God, what should we do? This program? New building? Staff hiring? Show us your ways! God’s answer: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

What churches need more than programs, buildings, new staff, fancy flyers, and even dynamic leadership is the presence of God.

Moses gets that and ends up praying, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.” It is the presence of Almighty God that will distinguish the people of God.

So what’s your prayer? Is it, “God, tell me what to do. Clarify things. Show the way.” I don’t think that’s a bad prayer. Moses isn’t reprimanded for it. But do your prayers focus on “God, go with us.” That’s the prayer that understands our dependance on God’s sovereign hand more than our strategies and vision and leadership and ideas and abilities.

I read a lot of books in ‘09. I wish I could have read more, but I have yet to find that benefactor who will financially provide for me to sit back and read all day long. If you’re interested, please e-mail me.

I’m always in the middle of reading one book for pastoral development and another for personal enjoyment. Right now, I’m working on Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Clowney’s The Unfolding Mystery. Both are great. Since we just finished up 2009, I thought I’d throw together a little end-of-the-year list on the most memorable books I read during the last 350 days or so. These books are in no particular order and are books that I read in ‘09, not books that were published in ‘09.

In the FICTION category:

Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar. Theroux travelled from London to Istanbul, through the Middle East, India, and eventually through southeast Asia, Japan, and back along the Trans-Siberian Railway. All of this by train in 1975. I love traveling and Theroux’s book made me want to jump on a train somewhere.

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls. What does a man do when he believes the fight he’s in is just, but the chances of success are gone?

Joseph Heller, Catch-22. Somehow I missed this one in my high school and college literature classes. I probably enjoyed it more as a 35-year old than I would have as a 19-year old sophomore. Great characters, absurd situations, and this description of the chaplain: “He [the chaplain] was pinched perspiringly in the epistemological dilemma of the skeptic, unable to accept solutions to problems he was unwilling to dismiss as unsolvable. He was never without misery, and never without hope.” One of my all-time favorite quotes.

David Benioff, City of Thieves. An unlikely friendship in the middle of the starving city of Leningrad. An unforgettable book.

NON-FICTION

Chris Brauns, Unpacking Forgiveness. Common assumption: forgive and forget. Brauns challenges are easy escapist notions of forgiveness. Still thinking through a lot of the practical implications of this book and I’d like to revisit some of his thoughts, but I’m waiting for my sister to return the book.

Francis Chan, Forgotten God. Evangelicals love God, believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, but largely ignore the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Chan writes a great, straightforward challenge to those of us who easily forget that God is three-in-one, not two.

Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods. I’d likely rate this higher if I hadn’t heard Keller speak much of this book at the Gospel Coalition conference and read so much of his online articles that cover the same stuff. Along with The Reason for God, and The Prodigal God, Keller’s books may be the three that I’ll give out more than any other.

Paul Miller, A Praying Life. Revolutionary. Miller not only is blunt and refreshingly honest about our need for prayer, he offers very practical and highly “do-able” suggestions for the development (or re-development) of a personal prayer life. This book has been an answer to my prayers.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity. Pastors must be in prayer, must be listening to Scripture, and caring for people. Although written decades ago, Peterson’s book delivered a brutal combo on how I view my role as pastor.

For the past few years I’ve been reading through The Art of Manliness’ “100 Must-Read Books: The Man’s Essential Library.” There have been some great selections (I’ve really enjoyed reading Steinbeck for the first time) and some that just don’t work for me. Tom Robbins’ Another Roadside Attraction was one that I had a hard time enjoying. But in the midst of all the psychadelic oddities, I found these two quotes critiquing the American church of 1971. Unfortunately, they still apply today.

Prayer meetings have turned into existential group therapy sessions, liturgies into rock-and-roll shows.

I saw all around me a voracious spiritual hunger, but the Paleolithic mush served up by the church was neither nutritious nor appetizing.

I just returned from three nights alone in a cabin in the woods near Tomahawk, WI with no electricity and no running water. When people heard of this, I was compared to Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), who wrote the very excellent album For Emma, Forever Ago in a cabin in the northern Wisconsin woods. On the flip side, I was also compared to Ted Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber), who sent bombs to people in the mail from his cabin in the woods. If you get a package from me, please don’t freak out.

This was all made possible by the generosity of a couple from Minnesota I’ve never met. So while my wife was hunting white-tail deer in northern Michigan and the kids were with Grandpa and Grandma, here’s what I learned over the last four days.

1. Indoor plumbing is incredibly awesome and very handy.

2. Back pain and rain can be a blessing. I threw out my back last weekend. That combined with the rain meant I spent a great deal of time on the floor reading, writing, and praying in front of the fire.

3. Extended reading and prayer time, uninterrupted by kids or computer, is extremely valuable.

4. Nothing gets one’s thoughts ticking like a fire in the fireplace.

5. Bacon’s great taste is directly proportional to the primitive means in which it is cooked.

6. Eugene Peterson kicked my butt. Following a couple on-line recommendations from people I’ve never met, I dusted off my copy of Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity and gave it a read. Highly convicting stuff: Am I in prayer? Am I listening to Scripture? Am I a Spiritual Director? This is a book that I need to re-read every year in order to avoid becoming a manager rather than a pastor. (Incidentally, I have personally known two “Eugene’s” and neither of them have kicked my butt, nor could they if they tried.

7. Domesticated dogs ruin remoteness. You can be standing on the side of this wilderness lake and when a stupid canine a half mile away barks, the peace is shattered. I’m glad I’m not a dog-owner.

8. Heat is more valued if you split the wood yourself. Of course, I never realized this when I was in high school and my dad made me chop wood for our furnace. Sorry for the grumbling, Dad.

9. Sometimes you don’t hear the Spirit of God because you’re not in a place to listen.

10. I really, really love my wife and kids.

11. I love my church.

12. Introverted pastors (like myself) can’t function like constantly on-the-go like extroverted pastors can. My friend Tom Nebel always encouraged me to divert daily, withdraw weekly, maintain monthly, and avert annually. Spend at minimum an hour per day, a half-day per week, a full day per month, and a few days a year alone with God. This is a minimum for me.

13. I read more when it rains. Since I went to seminary in Portland, OR, I have this rain trigger, that causes me to study and read when I hear raindrops. Love the rain.

14. The internet, TV, and electronic entertainment are totally unnecessary.

15. Books are very necessary. The imprisoned Apostle Paul told Timothy this: “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.” (2 Timothy 4:13) Hey, it’s in the Bible.

16. Cell phones are very nice. I was able to talk to and text my wife and kids regularly. (And with as much flak as AT&T gets, be it noted that I had great coverage in the middle of nowhere. I’m not a hater. Now about that bill…)

16. One night doesn’t cut it for me. It needs to be multiples so there’s a full day of solitude and prayer in there.

17. I’ve got a lot of work to do as pastor of Living Hope, but I’m energized and geared up. Sunday’s message could be interesting.

18. Catch-22 is actually a good book. I had struggled through the first 150 pages and was ready to move to something easier (like Dostoevsky), but my friend Eric encouraged me to keep going and by the end I was laughing out loud. Crazy good, disturbing, and sad book.

19. The whole 4:30 sunset/darkness thing is nuts. Seriously, I’m not enjoying living on the eastern edge of a time zone. I’m ready to sleep by 7 PM.

20. Productivity is not always measured numerically.

For a boy growing up in central Michigan in the 70’s and 80’s, the voice of Ernie Harwell was more familiar to me than any of my elementary teachers. He was there every summer. When the Montague clan gathered at Sleepy Hollow State Park outside of St. Johns, MI, we always had food, fishing, and Ernie Harwell’s voice calling the Tigers game over the radio. He was part of our family. He was there in the magical summer of 1984 when the Bless You Boys (including my hero, Lou Whitaker), rolled to a World Series championship. My dad remembers Harwell calling the day games of the ‘68 Series through PA system of Owosso High School. He was there in that decade known as the 1990’s when the Tigers were very, very bad. For this kid who grew up a Tigers fan, Ernie Harwell and baseball are inseparable.

Ernie Harwell would start every spring training by quoting from the Song of Songs: “For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” (2:11-12) The spring of 2010 will likely be the first time in over forty years when the Tigers gather in Lakeland, Florida without Ernie Harwell. Last summer, Ernie Harwell was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. My dad, sister, brother-in-law, and best friend were there when he gave this farewell address at Comerica Park a few months ago:

After his diagnosis, Ernie Harwell has faced impending death like few others. In an interview with Bob Costas set to air next week, Harwell says this: “I’m not overwhelmed by the circumstances. One of the doctors said, ‘If you were my father, I’d say don’t do anything, just relax and wait for the inevitable.’ But I had great peace about that and closure to it, and I knew God was in charge, and whatever happens, happens for the best.”

As a pastor, I’ve walked with people through “the valley of the shadow of death.” Rarely do you see this sort of confidence in the sovereignty of God. And while Harwell will always call himself a baseball announcer rather than a theologian, his trust in God’s care is exemplary.

The Apostle Paul writes these words in 2 Timothy 4:6-8: “…the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Thanks, Ernie, for making baseball great with your great calls. And thanks for making God’s name great with your great faith and hope.

“In my almost 92 years on this earth, the Good Lord has blessed me with a great journey.” – from Harwell’s farewell speech on September 16, 2009

This fall, I’ve read – and now recommend – three books.

A Praying Life, Paul Miller

Paul Miller’s A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World was one of those books that winds up being simultaneously encouraging and challenging. I was encouraged because of its honesty. As an easily distracted person who often de-prioritizes prayer, I appreciated Miller’s honesty about the struggles of prayer. Miller’s book is also turning out to be very practical in terms of the strategy it lays out for a praying life. I read the book a month ago and my prayer life in the morning and throughout the day has been radically changed. Highly recommended for everyone, but especially those who struggle with guilt over the state of their prayer life.

Deep Church, Jim Belcher

Belcher’s Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional deals with current trends in (primarily American) churches. I grew up in a traditional Baptist church, but have always been intrigued by the questions raised from those in emerging church camps. Where’s authentic community? Are we ignoring social justice issues? However, I’m often uncomfortable with how far the pendulum swings away from traditional orthodoxy. Belcher attempts to find a third way, listening to the questions of emergents, while continuing to be rooted in orthodox Christianity.

Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller

And finally, a not-so-surprising pick for my favorite book of 2009. Tim Keller tackles modern idolatry in Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power and the Only Hope that Matters. If you read Keller’s stuff online or listen to his preaching, there’s not a lot of brand-new stuff in the book. However, the succinct delivery points right to how easily we replace the worship of Jesus with the worship of many good things and how desperately we need the gospel of Jesus. Keller’s three recent books – The Reason for God, The Prodigal God, and Counterfeit Gods – will be the books that I give out more than any other.

Every other Saturday morning, I get together with a group of 4-5 men and talk about the Gospel. It’s one of the highlights of my week. For the past month, we’ve been working through The Gospel-Centered Life, a fantastic curriculum from the pens of Bob Thune and Will Walker. Last Saturday, we hit this part of Lesson #2:

Now, to reveal your tendency toward performance, pause and answer this question: As God thinks of you right now, what is the look on his face? Do you picture God as disappointed? Angry? Indifferent? Does his face say “Get your act together!” or “If only you could do a little more for me!” If you imagined God as anything but overjoyed with you, you have fallen into a performance mindset.”

After reading that, we wrestled for 30+ minutes with whether God was truly “overjoyed” with us. Most of us pictured God as a father or coach who wasn’t entirely happen. “If you could just get this thing straightened out…”, “Nice work, but try to get do this differently…”

Is God overjoyed with his children? If God judged us on our own righteousness, we’d fall short in both deed and character. In other words, if God’s love for and joy toward his children is based on their behavior and obedience, he will never be overjoyed. Our sin-stained behavior keeps us far from perfection. We will never be “good enough” to earn God’s approval. In fact, all our deeds are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) and earn us God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:3). If everything was based on our performance, God would simply be the angry father who yells a lot and is never happy.

But here’s how Thune and Walker continue:

“Because the gospel truth is: In Christ, God is deeply satisfied with you. In fact, based on Jesus’ work, God has adopted you as his own son or daughter (Gal. 4:7)! But when we fail to root our identity in what Jesus has done for us, we slip into performance-driven Christianity.”

The Gospel changes everything. Through Christ’s substitutionary work, we are clothed in his righteousness and he took the punishment for our unrighteousness himself on the cross. Jesus took the guilt and gave us a new identity as God’s sons and daughters. Because Jesus’ work is sufficient and God is satisfied with it, he’s satisfied with those who put their trust in the work of his Son. We are no longer ultimately judged on our performance or righteousness, but on Jesus’ work.

I have four kids. My kids behave well at times and at other times they disobey. I correct their behavior, disciplining them when needed, and always praying their heart is continually shaped to love God. While I am by no means a perfect father, one thing that never changes is my heart toward my kids. I will always love them. I will always be glad that they are my sons and daughters. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with their behavior. It is because I am their father and they are my children. Since they are in my family, my love for and joy in them will be there. Always.

Last night after dinner, we read the story of the Lost Son in The Jesus Storybook Bible (go buy a copy now if you don’t have it). The story is familiar. The younger son asks for his inheritance before Dad is in the ground, takes off, blows it on wine, women, and song, and winds up eating “piggy food” (in the words of Sally Lloyd-Jones). Realizing the error of his ways he returns home to beg Dad for a job as a servant.

But Dad’s been sitting on the front porch, waiting for his boy to return. Yes, his behavior is as bad as it can get. Yes, the relationship is seemingly as good as over. Yes, he’s out a third of his net worth because of a greedy, dishonoring son. But he’s waiting because it’s his son.

And when Junior shows up down the driveway, Dad runs to him, smothers him with culturally-inappropriate affection and throws a party. He’s OVERJOYED! Why? Is it because of his son’s behavior? No. It’s because this is his son.

When we return to God the Father by repenting of our sin and trusting in the work of Jesus, the Father will always be overjoyed with us. We will continue to battle indwelling sin and our Father will call us to change, but the blood of Jesus covers us, the stain is removed, and we are forgiven. The Father loves his wayward children. Many have said it: “There is nothing you can do to make God love you less and there is nothing you can do to make God love you more.”

Our obedience then flows out of a love for God. We don’t obey to earn God’s approval; we obey because God has approved of us in Christ. Tim Keller points this out often, calling it the difference between religion and the gospel. Religion says, “I obey; therefore, I am accepted.” The Gospel says, “I am accepted; therefore, I obey.”

Why do we struggle to see a God overjoyed to have his lost children reconciled to himself through the work of Jesus? We think we must earn it. We don’t understand the depths of the Gospel.

In the closing scenes of “Saving Private Ryan,” Tom Hanks’ character, Captain John Miller, has been fatally wounded, giving his life to save Matt Damon’s character, Private James Ryan. Grasping Ryan’s hand, he says, “James … earn this. Earn it.” The scene then cuts to an elderly James Ryan who, filled with doubt, asks his wife if he’s led a good life and is a “good man.” His life has been lived wondering if he’s performed “good enough” to earn the sacrifice of Capt. Miller and others.

Even if it was possible, we wouldn’t be able to earn the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf. We live out of a gospel response, knowing that Jesus earned salvation for us. We don’t – and can’t – pay him back.

The Father is overjoyed with his children because his Son’s work is perfect, complete, sufficient, and eternal. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we’ve been brought into God’s family and he is overjoyed with that.

According to this article, Portland, OR is a “church planting graveyard.” I’ve heard the same thing in regards to Madison countless times during the last five years.

Caleb Crider lists five “church plant killers.”
1. Importing what “worked” back home.
2. Focusing on the surface level rather than dealing with the underlying theology.
3. Resorting to trite slogans and tired cliches.
4. Bringing money into the equation.
5. Going it alone.

Having been planting in Madison for nearly 6 years, I’ve seen a near steady stream of guys coming from Texas and Atlanta (why do most church planters come from Texas and Atlanta?) with a lot of vision, a lot of money, a proven track record, and some catchy slogan (“A Church That’s Different”).

They last 2-3 years and then are gone. What’s the lesson?
1. Don’t assume that because it worked in Texas or Atlanta, it will work in Madison. In fact, if it worked in Texas or Atlanta, it probably won’t work in Madison. We’re different here.
2. Don’t assume that money will equate to people. I know quite a few planters who have spent ridiculous amounts of money on flashy mailers and commercials. We’re too skeptical for that.
3. Don’t be a lone ranger. Develop a missional team as you’re in transition. And you’re wife better be 100% called to this as well.
4. Don’t make assumptions about “felt needs.” Go after idols rather than surface needs.
5. All of the “church plant slogans” have been used over and over and over again here. Don’t rely on a tired or cheesy slogan.