“…and her husband also, he praises her…”

This post is a tribute to my wife, with whom I’m celebrating 4 years of marriage with today.  I love my wife, Sarah.  She has been my helper in so many ways I can’t even count them.  There are numerous reasons why I praise her…here are a few:

1.  She loves God.  Sarah knows the grace of God and how it can change people.

2. She lives a missional life.  Sarah is a missionary in disguise as a teacher.  She works as if she is working for God.  Loving all of her students and her co-workers because she truly cares for them and wants to show the love of Christ to them.

3.  She is hot.

4.  She prays for me.

5.  She is a great cook!  Sarah (she won’t admit it) makes great food for my tummy.

6.  She is a wonderful, godly mother.  Sarah cares so much for our daughter and makes sacrifices for her daily.  She cares about her spiritual well-being even more and I love that.

7.  She is wise.  There is not a time that I don’t ask my wife what we should do in situations.  She has a lot wisdom and discernment about people and situations…and she is usually right.

8.  She loves me.  Even though I am not worthy of her love, she loves me.  She has chosen to continue to love me in spite of all of my short comings and shows me in a very real way the love that God has for us.

9.  She corrects me.  She is not afraid to show me where I am messing up or acting wrong.  I really appreciate that she pushes me to strive to become better in all things.

10.  The little things:  She watches movies she hates but knows I love; she let me sleep in this morning (thank you!); she got me to appreciate and love Dr. Pepper over Coca Cola again; she likes mexican food; she is more of a theologian than she thinks; she listens to me rant about nerdy  theological stuff; she plays practical jokes;

I could go on, but this post would get very long.

Sarah:  I love you very much.  Thank you for loving me.

Thinking About Santa

I just read a great post over at the Desiring God Blog entitled “Thinking About Santa”.  It raises the issue of Santa Claus and the implications of holding this tradition in raising children.  Noel Piper holds a pretty good argument for not talking about Santa Claus to young children.

Read it and let me know your thoughts…what do you think?  How do you balance the idea of Santa Claus and the real meaning of Christmas?  Have you ever really thought about it?

Christmas Time

Okay, so I’m a big fan of Christmas “stuff.”  I love the music (I’ve been playing Christmas music on Pandora since before Thanksgiving) and the movies!  We have brought out the Christmas movies at our house and have been watching them pretty regularly there.  I think we’ve watched Home Alone 4-5 times already.  Two weeks ago, I added a good classic to the collection: Christmas Vacation.  Sarah had never seen it so I figured that was a good reason to pick it up.  My all time favorite Christmas movie has to be “Scrooged” though; Bill Murray and Christmas together?!  How much better can you get?!

Earlier this week, I was reading The Resurgence blog and one of the things on there was Daddy Tips for Christmas Time.  I tweeted it a couple of days ago because I thought there were some great ideas.  One of those was making memories during this time for my children and family.  I am trying intentionally to make this a special time for Hayden to remember. Another couple of ideas were taking time to sing Christmas songs, watch holiday movies, and help decorate kids’ rooms.

So I’m wondering…what are some of your favorite Christmas movies and/or traditions that get you into the spirit?  What are some things that you and your family have done for years?  Or maybe its a new tradition?  I’d love to hear some thoughts…after I hear some of yours, I’ll share some of what I have done/am planning to do.

Behold the Lamb of God

A few years ago I was introduced to a Christmas album called, “Behold the Lamb of God” by Andrew Peterson.  It has become one of my favorite albums of all time and I listen to it throughout the year.  The tagline for the album states, “The True Tall Tale of the coming of Christ.”  The album in one big story telling of the birth of Christ.  It’s broken up into two parts.  The first songs are meant to foreshadow the coming of Christ and show that this story didn’t just start in Bethlehem, but it has always been.  The second part will be the more familiar aspects of the Christmas story.  The album really works best when listened to from beginning to end.

From the first track, “Gather Round Ye Children, Come” it gives you the sense of someone sitting around a fireplace telling this ancient story of redemption; an intro telling the listener what they are about to hear.   The second track, “Passover Us” is about Moses and the Hebrew people.  It speaks of their time in Egypt and about the first Passover.  It also talks about the people wandering in the wilderness and the priests having to sacrifice a lamb to atone for the sins of the people.  Next comes, “So Long, Moses” a song that speaks of Israel wanting a king.  It tells about David and then describes the King who is going to come as prophesied in Isaiah 53.

The album then takes a more somber tone with the song, “Deliver Us.” It’s a cry out from the Israelites to God to deliver them from their desperate state.  Derek Webb makes an appearance on the album leading this song with his very distinct vocals.  It tells of how the Israelites are not bound by literal chains anymore, as they were in Egypt.  Instead, Webb sings, “our ankles bear no callouses from chains, yet Lord we’re bound; our shackles, they were made from our own hands” a description of their slavery to sin that they have come to realize.  Right after this song, there is a great instrumental rendition of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” almost blue-grass in feel, right there with the mandolin and the fiddle taking center stage.

The next track is “Matthew’s Begat’s,” the most humorous of the album, and a favorite.  It’s upbeat and fun, making it quite a juxtaposition from the previous two songs.   It is, quite literally, a telling of Jesus’ genealogy from Matthew 1.  From the beginning of this song, you start to think, “there’s no way this is the entire song;”  and it turns out to be just that, without even a hint of boredom.  Next is “It Came to Pass” that tells of Mary and Joseph finding out about the Virgin Birth and then making their way to Bethlehem.

“Labour of Love” is the next track, and another favorite of the album.  Sung by Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn, this track tells of the actual birth of Christ.  It begins with the lyrics, “It was not a silent night, there was blood on the ground” showing the humanity and ordinary (or extraordinary) circumstances of the night.  It gives a realness to the event with lyrics like, “you could hear a woman cry in the alleyway that night,” and “there were no midwives to be found on the streets of David’s town in the middle of the night.”  Mary gave birth like every woman in the history of mankind has, and sometimes we forget that fact.

Next is another instrumental track, “The Holly and the Ivy” done again in a bluegrass fashion.  It’s a great intro into the following track, “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.” With the traditional lyrics, but the melody and arrangement redone by Peterson, it’s very epic in nature and leads into the second to last track, the title song, “Behold the Lamb of God.”  This song is piano driven and dramatic, showing the purpose for the whole story: for Jesus to be the Lamb provided by God to take away the sin of the world.

At last, we come to the final track, “The Theme of My Song/Reprise”  which takes elements and lyrics from each song and incorporates them into one, culminating the entire album.  If you didn’t know the story of the Bible after listening to this album, you do now.  Peterson brings it all together beautifully with this last song that ends with a reprise of the beginning track.

There have been many times, more often than not, that I have been brought to tears by this album.  It is the best Christmas album I’ve ever heard.  Buy this album now, you will not regret it.  It will very likely become your “go-to” album for the Advent season.  Andrew Peterson also does a yearly tour where he plays through the entire album from start to finish.  If it’s in your area, you should make an effort to see it.  Andrew Peterson’s site is here and you can buy Behold the Lamb of God and preview it here.

So who else is with me?  Has anyone seen it live or had different experiences with it?   What are some other albums or songs that are great for this season that we should know about?  I’d love to hear some of your recommendations as well.

Intentionally Multi-Cultural

After my last post, I realized that some of you may be thinking, “what do you mean my intentionally multi-cultural?”  Some of you may know what I mean but be wondering why.  Let me try to explain…

People like to be around people that are like them.  This is just our human nature.  Whether that is in religious belief, personality, social status, or race, we are more comfortable with people that are the same as us, in general.  This presents a problem in the church, relating to racial relations.  In Christ, there is no more Jew or Gentile (Gal. 3:28), we are one in Him.  This text in Galatians is addressing the Jewish believers of that day, some who believed that they were justified by keeping the Law rather than just having faith in Christ.  They would argue that faith in Christ was good, but you needed to be a good “Jew” by keeping the Law in order to be justified by God.  They would say that the Gentiles (non-Jews) weren’t as good because they weren’t true descendants of Abraham.  Paul argued that if you belonged to Christ, you were considered a descendent of Abraham, whether you were an ethnic Jew or not (there is more on this in Romans 2:17-29 if you are interested).  There were factions among the Jews and the Gentiles because of this and Paul would not have it.  The early Church struggled with this in the book of Acts.  There were Jews who did not think the Gentiles should have been included with them.  There was racial tension even in the early Church.  Paul, Peter, and many others tried to reconcile the Jews and the Gentiles over and over again.  They believed that it was important that they integrate the Jews and Gentiles together.  They were not satisfied with there being a “Jewish church” and a “Gentile church” down the road.  They believed that they had in common something that transcended race, social status, and ethnicity: namely Christ.  Christ should bring them together and overcome their tendencies to stay segregated.

Fast forward 2000 years, and we have the American Church.  And while no one would say that one race or ethnicity thinks they are better than the other, there is still racial tension that exists.  Martin Luther King Jr. once said that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning was the “most segregated hour in America.”  That was true when he said it, and is still true today.  We have black churches, mostly-Anglo churches, Asian Churches, Hispanic Churches, and others.  While a language barrier is one of the main reasons that different races tend to meet separately (a legitimate reason) this is beginning to not be a sufficient excuse.  With more people learning english and technology advancing where there can be instant translations through in-ear transmitters, we are beginning to see that meeting separately isn’t mostly a matter of necessity as it is a matter of choice.  None of these reasons even hold true for black churches and mostly-Anglo churches, since they both speak english.

Now I am not saying that if you go to a church that is mostly one race, than you are doing it wrong.  What I am proposing, though, is that we should strive to make our congregations look more like the neighborhoods they are in.  A beautiful example of this is Wilcrest Baptist Church .  You can read more about them on their website, but they have over 30 nations represented in their church in a community that is just as racially diverse.

Now, if you live in Africa or Mexico, then it is natural that your congregation would look like one race, only because there is only one race to get members from!  In 2009 Houston, TX, we have no excuse.  Just go into your local Starbucks, gym, or grocery store and you will find people of every race and color.  Now go to the church next door and you will probably find one color of people.  Does this seem right?  Should it be this way?  I believe that one of the ways churches need to redeem the community is to become ministers of racial reconciliation.  We can do that by becoming racially diverse in our congregations.

Now for the intentionality part of it.  As I said before, we naturally want to be around people that are like us.  If we do not intentionally set out to be diverse, it probably won’t happen.  There are very few exceptions to this, but for the most part it is true.  For Tim and I, this is our calling.  We want our church to look like heaven will look…people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation (Rev. 7:9).

One last thing…this is NOT easy.  I’m sure every pastor would say, “sure, this sounds great, but it’s easier said than done.”  They are absolutely right.  This will be hard.  It is not pragmatic, and people will resist this, naturally.  But just because it is not easy does not make it wrong…in the same way that being racially homogeneous is easy, does not make it right.  We are going to be involved in something new and unique in the Katy area, and we will struggle with how to accomplish a multi-cultural congregation.

So what do you think?  Am I totally off base here?  Or do you agree? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Time to start anew

Well, I’m blogging again.  This time, for real (I know, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again).  God has really taken me for a ride this year and its been a great one.  New things are taking place as we speak.  Today was my last day of “real” work as they say.  I left my job at Northwestern Mutual and have teamed up with my friend, and now Pastor, Tim Douglas, to plant an intentional multi-cultural church in the Katy/Fulshear area west of Houston.  Big step for us as a family, as this will be my first full time ministry position.  Sarah has been nothing short of supportive of this, knowing that this is God’s will for us right now.  Although we will miss our family and ministry at New Life Baptist Church, we are excited and thrilled to be a part of God’s plan for the west Houston area.  Look for more updates to come, thoughts, devotions, happenings, and musings.  Some will be serious, some will be silly, but I hope that all will be interesting and/or entertaining.  Talk with you soon…