It Takes A Church...

Sin's Crushing Blow: An MK USMC Perspective

In the midst of an discussion about how much scholarship money we'd need to provide for people in our church who want to take short-term mission trips to places like Malawi, one of the more thoughtful members of our church sent me this letter.  Jon Moran is a US Marine and grew up as a missionary kid in Zambia.  His wife Sheryl went with me to Malawi and serves as our church representative on the Y-Malawi Steering Committee. I asked for permission to reprint his post here as food for thought on "sin's crushing blow" both at home and in places like Africa.

I’ve come to believe that God created the world to be a bountiful provider of all of our needs; that material and social inequalities exist (class structures, monstrous differences in salaries, opportunities, and options, etc.) as a result of sin; and that God directed occasional redistribution of material and real estate that would be seen as good news to the poor—and be a source of restoring dignity and relationships within the community.

The Team’s report from Malawi indicated that sin’s crushing blow to that country was in the form of poverty and disease. Over generations, Malawian communities you visited have sought God’s grace through worship in spirit and in truth.

God has given them a joy that seemed to be the defining observation of every team member. God’s grace has given them the freedom to live beyond the crushing power of poverty and disease so that materials and sickness no longer control their lives—reliance on God’s grace does. God has now given us the opportunity to be a part of His hand of continued grace to Malawi—and the Malawians have given us a glimpse of their joy in Christ, and we have an opportunity to partake in that joy through relationship and involvement.

Additionally, we have a need to address one of sin’s crushing blows to US—too many options, overwhelming abundance, and a wealth that all to often blinds us to the difference between needs and wants. We are only just beginning to seek God’s grace through worship in spirit and in truth in the face of this abundance. We are only just beginning to experience the joy that freedom from the oppression of having more than we need can bring...

Potentially, I suppose, more people may consider participation on a short term mission trip if healthy "scholarships" are provided—but perhaps we also risk minimizing the potential for members of our congregation to grapple with the crippling effect of sin in our country and of its impact on our choices, attitudes, perceptions and actions.

I believe that God desires to fill us with the type of joy that the Y-Malawi team reported as being evident in the lives of the Malawi communities they visited. I don’t know the path to that joy, there may be more than one, but it seems to me that it would involve seeking God’s direction to undo the power of sin in our lives—and that usually means some hard choices. Choices that might actually involve me giving up one of the things I "need" in life to "afford" to take a trip so that God can show me something I really do need in order to be a healthy part of His Body.

Maybe facing the fact that I can’t go it alone, pay for it out of my own pocket, but need to seek the support and prayers of others—maybe this will also be part of realizing that God wants me to go, or maybe does not want me to go but wants me to support or pray for someone else this time. If making a sacrificial excursion to another country is no more costly than an extended senior trip (which no one really considers NOT going on), but we can’t see a trip to Malawi as a crucial part of the Sojourn that God has called each of us to make (or we simply see a few representatives making the trip for us)—perhaps this highlights the extent of sin’s oppressive hold on us.

Just as you could discern the difference between communities in Malawi that had turned to God to allow Him to deal with the crushing blow of sin in their lives and those communities that had not (Sheryl has related some experiences with people in the cities and marketplaces that were in opposition to your experiences in the rural communities), so I’m sure that visitors to our country can discern whether or not we as individuals and as a community have turned to God to allow Him to deal with the pervading effects of sin in our lives. I’d like to be a part of the community that is a witness to God’s power in our midst--if for no other reason than it will help me deal with the brokenness in my own life.

Semper Fi, Jon G. Moran

Africa and Jennifer Aniston

While I was in Africa, the baseball season opened.  By the time I got home, the Angels were hovering around .500 and locked in a tight AL West race.  I had missed the whole first week of the season.  And yet I hadn’t missed it. 

I also “missed” the brouhaha over judges that is filling the airwaves and blogosphere, Charles and Camilla’s wedding and Pope John Paul II's funeral.  (I did hear of his passing, that was quite big news in Africa where there was a glimmer of hopeful speculation that the next Pope might be African.)  And a few episodes of The Apprentice. 

It doesn’t take traveling to the third world to get out of step with what is big news in the first world.  A camping trip will do.  But part of what happens to me whenever I break out of the “news cycle” is I have to readjust to what we consider worthy of our attention, consideration and investment of time.

So, imagine the sense of culture shock when I return from a land where a good number of people don’t have electricity, clean water or the medications they need, only to turn on my screen and see a young woman who decides that the way to recover from a divorce and the physical effects of giving birth to two babies is to have a $24,000 plastic surgery so that she can “look like Jennifer Aniston.”  The MTV2 show is called, “I want a famous face.”  I am embarrassed to say that I sat for almost the whole episode locked in a depressed and morbid curiosity listening to a young single mom tell about how if she can only look like the Friends star, she’ll regain her self-confidence and won’t feel jealous of young, hard-bodied friends when she goes line dancing or to the lake. 

T. S. Eliot was right, “…the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”  It’s just that sometimes a clear perspective can be hard to take in. 

True Love Waits…But Not For Long

Ron Sider again, this time on Christians and Sexual ethics...(HT: Brad Hightower who is in the middle of a thoughtful look at hypocrisy and the issues resulting from non-discipleship):

"True Love Waits, a program sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention, is one of the most famous evangelical efforts to reduce premarital sexual activity among our youth. Since 1993, about 2.4 million young people have signed a pledge to wait until marriage to engage in sexual intercourse. Are these young evangelicals keeping their pledges? In March 2004, researchers from Columbia University and Yale University reported on their findings. For seven years they studied 12 thousand teenagers who took the pledge. Sadly, they found that 88 percent of these pledgers reported having sexual intercourse before marriage; just 12 percent kept their promise. The researchers also found that the rates for having sexually transmitted diseases "were almost identical for the teenagers who took pledges and those who did not."

It is because of statistics like this, (and those about tithing, lying, divorce, domestic violence and so on) and the cynicism that they inspire about Christians that I wrote Showtime:Living Down Hypocrisy by Living Out the Faith. I really want to encourage more small groups of Christians to consider how desperately we need to live out the faith we confess.

Aw shucks..

I came back from Africa to this nice note from a pastor in Scotland. 

Tod,
    I have just read "It takes a church" and wanted to take a few moments to say thank you for it. It informed and inspired me. It is so rare to find a book that deals with theology seriously but also practically. We are planning to plant a new church here in Scotland when we return from studying in the States for a year and one of areas I have been trying to clarify in mind is the nature of the church and its implications for how we "do church", your book has really stirred my thinking. So a big thanks for your time, effort and insight in writing it

Yours In Christ,
Pastor James Petticrew,
St Matthews Church of the Nazarene,
Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.

Spraying to all fields…

One of the sportswriters I read uses this little phrase whenever he is going to cover a variety of topics in one column.  This is my chance to catch up with links from friends who wrote some good stuff while I was focused on Africa. 

Enjoy.  Be enlightened.  Be enraged, if need be.

Mark Daniels wrote on ultimate truth.  Will he now be considered the Cardinal Ratzinger of the blog world?  Speaking of the new Pope Benedict XVI, Mark D. Roberts takes on fellow a Harvardian and the LA Times when they accuse the new Pope of believing—gasp—that Christianity is the truth. 

A View From the Pew discusses the way that a “more inclusive Catholicism” has led to a less Christian Europe.  Steve Norris swears he’s not turning Catholic but is getting more concerned about some things evangelical.

Jeff McCrory uses his OT Ph.D. to help us pray with David…

Bill Rice gives a bio about the new Joint Chief of Staff Marine Corps General Peter Pace.  (The first Marine to have the post.  Congratulations to all Marines.  Which gives me a moment to personally congratulate my Marine Major Training Partner who is heading to the Pentagon for the next tour of duty en route to a promotion.  Hurry back, we have some hills to climb.) 

Rob Asghar shared his syndicated column about the way rudeness is now so trendy that it might even be cool to be caring…kinda.

Richard Radcliffe offers a book review of the auto-bio of Ultra-Marathon Man, Dean Karnazes. In my little world of being a Clysdale Tri-guy, this dude is something.

The Witts at Wittingshire tell of meeting some unusual honeymooners at their church.

And Craig Williams writes about, C.S. Lewis, understanding evil and unconscious racism.  Which is where I want to pick up with some church musings soon.

Africa Malaria Day

I just found out from reading "Under the Acacia" blog, that today is Africa Malaria Day.  It's hard to overstate how devastating this disease has become in Africa, and how frustrating it is that the main reason that this is so, is simple, painful poverty. Most African people cannot afford $2 for a malaria net, let alone the cost of anti-malarial medications. (Please go to Keith's site for a brief overview and for some possible solutions and the obstacles that hinder good efforts.)

As someone who has just finished one course of anti-malarial medicine and is starting another for a trip to the rainforest in Belize, I am grateful that I can afford it. Without the drugs, I wouldn't be able to visit such places, let alone take my family.  But I am now more and more keenly aware of all those who don't have the means or options. 

No call to action from me here. (I don't feel qualified to offer such opinions just yet) just a desire to be more aware of how many ways poverty kills.

Everybody Should Do This Once in Life

“You know, Tod, Brooks is going to talk about this at your funeral.”

That was my best friend talking to me before we left for Africa.  He and I had talked about how important it was for me that my 11-year-old son, Brooks, was going with me on this trip.  Beth and I had been planning this trip for years. We home-schooled Brooks for his 6th grade year so that we could have the chance to bond with him more during the crucial pre-teen years.  We each took a trip with him; Beth to the east coast to see American historical sites, me to Africa for a mission trip. 

We spent the year preparing Brooks.  He and I prayed together every night for a year about where God was leading us.  We looked up Africa and Malawi and Zambia and World Vision and AIDS and poverty on the internet and learned together.  He attended all of our team meetings, even one at La Jolla Presbyterian Church where Steve Haas, Vice-President of World Vision, took a lot of time to help him understand holistic ministry.  (Steve: I am betting that someday Brooks will be coming to apply for a job.  Last night he told me he wants “to do what Steve Haas does”.)

And then we took off.  Not a day went by when I didn’t get choked up at the privilege of being in Africa with my son.  When I see pictures of him shaking hands with African children, when I think of him clapping along in a worship service in a language that he doesn’t understand, when I remember him jumping in my arms with excitement because we were going out on a game drive, when I remember the first time we saw lions together, when I think of him lying next to me in bed and saying, “Dad, I am going to remember this the rest of my life”…well, I am getting choked up now. 

On our trip was also a great guy named Brad.  He spent his 50th birthday (here with his roommate Bernie when they "dressed up" for Brad's impromptu party) visiting a brave woman and her daughter who has AIDS, meeting a young man named William who went from being a child sponsored by World Vision to graduating with a college degree in Environmental Science.  For his “birthday present”, Brad received a copy of William’s diploma.  I know he missed being with his old friends and family, but he did have his new African friends bring him a birthday cake. 

I want everyone to have a birthday like Brad’s.  Just one time,  I want everyone to stand with their son or daughter in a church in a third world country and then go find wild animals together.

Brooks and I didn’t take this trip together because I am a pastor, but because we are Christians.  (My friend Phil Jemmet took his 17 year old son Tyler, too. Here's Phil, in the blue shirt, getting up close and personal with an elephant.  Tyler's behind him on the left.) 

I want everyone to have this experience.  And I really think that with some commitment and rethinking priorities they can. 

So, in our church we are going to start challenging people to “Tithe Your Vacations”.  Just one year out of ten—one time while the kids are in school, one time in the empty nest years, one time with grandkids—skip the trip to Maui and go to Malawi.  Pass on Disney’s Magic Kingdom and do something for God’s Kingdom.  Just plan for it, pay for it, and pause and think about it the rest of your life.  For those of you who attend my funeral someday, let Brooks have a few extra minutes, he has some great stories to tell.

I am going to bring my series of reflections on my trip to Malawi, Africa to a close….for now.  I really can’t help myself.  I just think about what I learned and saw so much that I will inevitably revisit it over and over again.  You see, a once-in-a-lifetime experience lingers for a lifetime.

The Many Faces of AIDS

When a lot of us think of AIDs, our first image is of Tom Hanks in the movie, Philadelphia.  When we were back in Hollywood, my wife, Beth and a friend named Ron ran a support group for men with HIV.  Today they are all dead.  As a chaplain intern I sat with a 26 year old man when he died of AIDS.  I have performed funerals for others, and recently, one member of my family died of lung cancer after a long struggle with HIV/AIDs. 

Sometimes the images are a bit more encouraging, Magic Johnson comes to mind. Another friend of mine was diagnosed nearly twenty years ago and he is still living a meaningful life.  When most of us picture the face of AIDS, we think of it as a male face.  And in most cases it is. 

As we traveled around Malawi, the lack of young men was evident. In Malawi, AIDS is so widespread amongst teenagers that it has brought the life-expectancy down to 38 years old.  A haunting and burgeoning industry is “24 Hour” coffin shops.

But, in Africa, the face of AIDS is more and more female.  (Worldwide about half the people with AIDS are female.) And even more devastating, it’s the face of a child.  For years there has been a rampant myth in Africa that the way a man gets cured is to have sex with a virgin. 

While in Malawi, we met a woman named Olipa who discovered that she has HIV when she went to give blood to her then anemic newborn.  The baby was diagnosed with HIV also.  While the story of Olipa and her baby Miriam is heart-rending (Miriam is only expected to live another year), it is also inspiring. 

Olipa has become the face of women who are making a difference in waking the world to the widespread effect of AIDS.  Using only a diet of fruits and vegetables that she grows, her health is actually improving.  Ignoring the social stigma that often sends people with AIDS to die alone, often from starvation, outcast from their communities, Olipa started support groups for others.  She now speaks to young people about the disease and how to avoid it.  Her World Vision sponsors even sent her to the World AIDS Awareness day in Australia to speak out to gain support for those who are struggling with AIDS. 

Olipa spoke to our group with eyes filled with both pride and sadness, with a soft, strong voice and with a the flash of a smile.  She said that she thanked God for AIDS because it gave her a chance to help others.  A World Vision newsletter article about her had this to say, “Olipa doesn't know how long she, or her small daughter, will live, and she is sad for her son's uncertain future without her. But she says that visiting the sick gives her strength to go on as long as she can. (Olipa adds,) ‘There are so many people suffering alone out there. By assisting them I am doing better work than if I had remained a farmer. I wouldn't have reached where I am if I didn't have HIV."

As our group prepared to leave, we flooded Olipa and Mirian with hugs, and gathered around her in prayer.  From now on for me, the faces of AIDS includes a fragile little girl and a very strong mother. 

From Bigger to Better

Bill Gates is deemed by Time Magazine to be one of the 100 most influential in the world today and not because of Microsoft.  Rick Warren is also mentioned, but not because his Saddleback Community Church has 82,000 people who are on their mailing list. 

Gates and Warren two titans of influence are being lauded and looked to not because of how much money Gates is banking or how many people Warren is attracting to read his books and attend his church.  (They have both certainly received plenty of attention for those things.)  In the worlds of finance and faith, these two guys are biggees.  They are veritable giants.  But big isn’t the issue this time.

No, what is notable here is what they are doing with their “bigness.” 

Gates makes the list this year because of what he is giving away, not keeping.  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a $27 billion endowment.  So far, according to Time, they have spent 750 million toward global vaccinations (“with plans to double that”), and 1.2 billion on educational causes. 

Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life is mentioned both because it’s the number one selling nonfiction book ever, but also because Ashley Smith read passages from it to escaped murderer Brian Nichols, leading Nichols to turn himself in to police.  But he make the Time list for trying to move his church and readers from “my” purpose to the greater purposes of God in the world. 

Under Warren’s leadership, Saddleback has decided to take on poverty, disease and illiteracy, starting with the entire country of Rwanda.  (The president of Rwanda and their national boys’ choir appeared at their capital campaign fundraiser at Angels’ Stadium last weekend.) 

In many ways, Gates and Warren are the kinds of “heroes and icons” that we Americans most admire.  They represent the ultimate fulfillment of another biggee book, Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez.  Most of us dream of doing “big things” for God and the world, but we think we have to wait until we “get big” ourselves.  Now that Gate is worth $46 Billion he can start giving it away.  Warren told his congregation that now they had fulfilled their vision of having a church of 20,000 members they could start looking to the world. 

Both are admirable sentiments, worthy of praise, recognition and affirmation. But do we all have to wait until we are “big” to do “better”? 

As a young minister, after I gave a talk to a group of teenagers about caring for the poor, one of the teenage groups’ adult leaders said to me, “You know, after I make enough money and get my family the security we need, I would love to do the kinds of things you are talking about.”  That was twenty years ago.  I wonder if he did.  Or does his bank book still need to be a bit bigger?

In my own church, we are trying to take seriously both the need to be a strong, healthy community (we have only recently felt recovered from a painful church split ten years ago) and the need to mobilize our people and resources to make a difference in our community and the world.  The temptation for us, both collectively and individually is to think that we have to be big before we can do something significant in the world. 

Maybe we don’t have to wait until we are big enough to tackle global vaccination or helping an entire third-world country.  Jesus seemed to think that something as small as a mustard seed could eventually make a pretty big difference (Mark 4:31-32).

A Leader with a Vision

I am in the middle of a series of posts reflecting on a ten day trip to Malawi, Africa to establish a ten-church partnership with World Vision, Opportunity International, the Presbyterian Church in Central Africa and two local Malawian ministries. 

As you can tell from these stories, the people of Malawi are as inspiring as they are in need.  They are people of genuine faith, of a deep sense of family and community who are facing a daunting challenge of poverty, disease and now the scourge of AIDS. 

Let me tell you one more story.  On Tuesday, we visited Nkhoma, the site of the World Vision Area Development Project where we could be partners.  It is a beautiful valley.  We drove up and parked our cramped Land rovers in front of a single mud hut building. 

After greeting us in typical warm fashion, they told us that this building was the only school in the area, for 240 children.  The littlest ones sit all day on stones for seats, in the hot sun trying to learn. 

Seven years ago, they had been promised by the government enough cement to build a school if they’d make the bricks.  So they worked for weeks, burned up all their firewood and made hundreds and hundreds of bricks.  The cement never came, the brick piled in decaying heaps and they have no more firewood. 

When the World Vision workers asked them what their first priority was for improving their community, the leader of the village said that it was education for their children.  When the worker pointed out that they also had a bad cholera problem and needed clean water, the head man replied, “If you help us educate our children, one of them will grow up and solve our water problem.”

Steve Haas, vice-president of World Vision USA, said, “That was a leader with a vision.  He wasn’t looking just to the immediate need, but to the long-term good of his people.” 

At the end of the tour they took us to a site in the middle of the field.  Because they heard we were coming, they had spent two days clearing the grass in a large rectangular area.  This was the place where they wanted to build the new school for the children.  And these people, led by their visionary leader, wanted to give us a vision for what could happen here if we partnered with them.

My 11 year old son, Brooks was standing with me and I said, “Someday, son, I want you to come back here and stand in this spot and see the school that we are going to help build.  You come back here and remember this day when you stood here with your Dad and we prayed that God would let us partner with these people.”

(Later I learned that while the school is the community leader’s first priority, World Vision will work with the leadership of the village to take steps to make their water safer at the same time.  They also discovered that in the area there are two previously built wells that are not working.  They’ll be able to get those wells going at the same time.  So when the ADP is up and running, this community will have water for today and schools for their future.)

Yesterday at church we announced the partnership and already a huge stack of interest forms for sponsoring children through World Vision are coming into our church office.  Over the next three weeks we will be pulling together the details, but from Mother’s Day to Father’s Day we will be having a child sponsorship drive for the children of the Nkhoma ADP.  If you’d like to receive information on how you can be part of this project, just email me.  We’d welcome your partnership with us.