Links to Your World, Tuesday September 30

Hillcresters Fletcher Roberts, Lily Roberts, Tyler Marett and Gayla Raulie appear in the online video “Trading Up.”


“Flyleaf . . . occupies that strange zone between alternative rock and metal. You might not have heard of them — or you might be a huge fan. But in one of those weird quirks of the 21st-century music industry, Flyleaf has managed to sell more than 1 million albums without really gaining the notice of anyone other than the folks who bought the album. . . . They identify as Christians, but are loath to call themselves a ‘Christian rock band.’” (Read the Statesman article about the central Texas band here.)


“A man's greatest suffering, Stosny says, comes from the shame he feels when he doesn’t measure up -- which is why discussing relationship problems (i.e., what he’s doing wrong) offers about as much comfort as sleeping on a bed of nails.” (CNN: To Improve Your Marriage—Be Quiet)


“All we wanted to do was make a movie that honored marriage, and how faith can restore it. It has struck a chord I don't think anyone expected.” Alex Kendrick of the new film, Fireproof. The film finished fourth at the box office this weekend, pulling in $6.5 million despite opening in just 839 theaters. I’ve seen it, and they’ve made huge strides since their first, the cheesy Facing the Giants. Go see it, especially if you’re married.


Fireproof also has created a best seller. In the movie, Kirk Cameron's character tries to save his marriage by following advice in a book. After early church screenings, Alex Kendrick and his brother were inundated for requests for the title, which didn't exist. So they wrote it. The Love Dare has shipped more than 300,000 copies so far.


From the editor at Kiplinger’s, read “15 Things You Need to Know About the Panic of 2008.” He describes it as “a crash course in why it happened, how it's strangling the nation's finances and how it might work itself out.”


The Newsboys’ version of MTV’s “Behind the Music”: The meltdown and restoration of John James. (HT: Think Christian)


It’s always good to read some good news about SBC Disaster Relief efforts. This one is from the Galveston paper regarding recovery post-Ike. I didn’t know until reading this article that SBC Disaster Relief teams are still in New Orleans 3 years after Katrina.


“The 10 Worst Fatherhood Role Models.”


At a time when the gulf between religion and science is growing ever greater, an artist has erected a temple for scientific worship. (Wired)


Woo-hoo, Joe Carter’s “33 Things” is back on his new website, Culture11. The latest.


Texans must register by October 6 to vote. Here’s how.


In Newsweek, strident atheist Sam Harris says Governor Palin is disqualified for high public office because of her Christian faith. (No word on whether he believes Senator Obama’s Christian faith disqualifies him.) This atheist says Sam Harris doesn’t speak for him: “ ‘Palin very likely believes,...’ and ‘Palin may even imagine,...’ and ‘Palin seems as though,...’ Honestly, this is just a collection of guesses that say more about what Harris believes than Palin. Which is just plain weird. I mean, Harris went to college, didn't he?”


Mollie at GetReligion lets the LA Times have it for calling Governor Palin a fundamentalist.


Why missionaries go (HT: SBCOutpost):

LeaderLines: Win-Win, Part 4

As a leader, sometimes you’ll see conflict between those you lead, and sometimes you will face conflict with those you lead. When people disagree, the collision is almost always uncomfortable, distressing, and frustrating. It’s your job to make sure that something beautiful can come from it.

And something beautiful can come from conflict. As I mentioned when I began this series in LeaderLines a few weeks ago, Mount Everest is the result of conflict. The Indian and Eurasian continents press into each other at the rate of about four inches a year. All that earth and rock have to go somewhere, so it goes upward. As India keeps moving inward, compressing and lifting southern Eurasia, a spectacular natural treasure continues to be created.

Without conflict, there would be no Everest. It’s up to your leadership to make sure that the same majesty and wonder is created from the collisions between people you lead.God wants us to enter into every conflict determined to find a win-win solution. Philippians 2:4 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Not only . . . but also. Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. To find this kind of win-win solution, I’m using LeaderLines to introduce you to four concepts from a book by Roger Fisher and William Ury called Getting to Yes:

Relationships: Separate the people from the problem.

Interests: Focus on the interests, not the positions.

Creativity: Brainstorm creative options for solving the problem.

Standards: Agree on the standards you will use to solve the problem.

We’ve already looked at the importance of relationships and interests. Now let’s look at the third concept: creativity. We should brainstorm creative options for solving the problem.

In last week’s LeaderLines, I mentioned that there’s a difference between my position and my interests. I used the imaginary scenario of a neighbor with a yapping dog. My position may be that he should get rid of his dog so I can meet my interest of a good night’s sleep. And his position may be to turn the dog loose in the back yard to meet his interest to secure his home from intruders or keep his dog from tearing up the house when the family is gone.

But once get the focus on each other’s interests instead of each other’s positions, it frees you up to find ways to address those interests. Any number of solutions would meet the interests that my imaginary neighbor and I would have in the situation.

Conflict resolution involves offering lots of solutions and inviting others to offer their solutions until something can meet the interests of both parties. Sometimes this will even involve a little brainstorming.

Brainstorming is the process of thinking up as many ideas as you can to solve a problem without any evaluation or judgment over the suggestions. I’ve led strategy sessions where we’ll spend 10 minutes just writing on the board as many ideas as we can come up with, and we have one rule. For those 10 minutes, the only thing you can say is, “Thanks.” No evaluation, no judgment until the brainstorming ends. Then we begin sifting out the substantive ideas from the flaky ideas.

This can work in resolving issues in relationships, too. If my imaginary neighbor and I were to visit regarding his dog, we might talk security systems to meet his need of security, or some way to train the dog, or those little machines that emit “white noise” near my bed to drown out noises from the outside, and so on. Some of those proposals just wouldn’t be practical, but looking for creative solutions to a problem requires you to start with brainstorming every option you can think of and only then begin to evaluate which ones have the best chance of making both sides happy.

As you can see, it’s at this level of the four steps that we have the chance of seeing a Mount Everest rising up from the pressure of the issue. Eventually a solution can be found to meet the needs of all concerned, and often the solution is something better than either party originally imagined.

Do you recall in Acts 6 when conflict arose between those who spoke Greek and those who spoke Hebrew? This happened very shortly after the very first church began. Within the church, those who spoke Greek complained that their widows were being overlooked in the care-giving. The Apostles offered this solution: choose 7 men and we will appoint to them the work of taking care of the widows. Now, the Bible doesn’t tell us how the church came up with the names of the 7 men, but I’m sure it involved some discussion until agreement was reached on the 7 names. And I bet you’ve never noticed this before, but all 7 names were Greek names, not Hebrew names. This is significant if you remember that the complaint about neglected widows came from the Greek-speaking part of the church.

When given the freedom to solve this issue, the church came up with a way to solve the problem that met the interests of all concerned. They were living out the principle that Paul would later put into words in Ephesians 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

There’s one more step toward thinking “win-win.” Next week we’ll look at standards. We need to agree on the standards we will use to solve the problem.
__________________________________________
Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by over 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

A Boy and His Dog

My youngest son was 8 or 9, and he was deep in thought as just the two of us were driving. It was one of those moments when a parent knows a deep conversation is about to start.

"Dad?" he began. Here it comes.

"Did you know Mom was allergic to dogs when you married her?"

I think he wanted to make sure that he had the whole allergy thing clarified before he settled on a girl himself. How do you tell an 8-year-old that pet allergies, among other considerations, sort of go out the window when you fall in love.

So, Diane and I knew the boy would get a dog pretty soon after leaving home. We didn't figure it would only be a month.

Here's Stephen's new dog, which he got from David Crowder (yes, that David Crowder). He is negotiating mightily with the landlord regarding the "no pets" part of the apartment lease:

Winning Ways: Revved Up!

Things at Hillcrest have revved up as we enter into the Fall. Don’t miss out on the excitement!

This Sunday, we’ll continue our study, “The Church You’ve Always Longed For.” Join us at 9:30am or 10:45am. Also, stay for our “Discover Hillcrest” lunch after the second service if you are ready to join Hillcrest or if you just want to learn more about it. Meet us in the gym at noon.

In a few weeks, we’ll be “Together @ 10.” For six weeks starting October 19, our two services will combine together at 10am. I’ll tell you more about it in the weeks ahead, but one reason to combine the services is because of the new sermon series we’ll be in during those six weeks. It’s called “Pulling Together When You’re Pulled Apart.” The study series is designed to strengthen marriages, but I think our congregation should “pull together” during the series, too! All of our Sunday School classes and Common Ground groups will meet after the combined service, and many of them will use a discussion guide to discuss the sermon topics in-depth.

You can get your friends ready for the upcoming sermon series by taking them to the film, “Fireproof” (watch the trailer here). It opens this weekend, and it will get people thinking about renewing their marriage commitments. So, get couples to this film, and then get them to our church’s marriage focus on October 19! In fact, on the same days that I will teach some marriage principles in the morning services, in the evening Diane and I will teach a marriage enrichment class using clips and points from the film. You can pre-register for “Fireproof Your Marriage” here.

All of this begins October 19, which is “Connection Sunday” in our church. For three weeks leading up to Connection Sunday, we’ll be calling 10,000 households in our area. We still have a need of a few callers, so if you want to help contact Karen right away (345-3771 or email).

I believe God has led us to schedule all of these important projects, but we need to depend on him to carry them out. So, please join me for a Prayer Walk this Saturday, September 20, at 10am. You’ll hear from Sheila Evaslage about her prayer walking experience on the Vermont mission trip. Then I’ll give you some instructions and we’ll simply walk and pray through the neighborhoods around our church building.
____________________________________________
Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday September 23

Take this quiz to find out if you’re a geek or a nerd. I found out I am a neek: “That is the rarest of breeds that lives comfortably in two worlds.”


“Why does the school system require classes like math, English and science but not basic personal finance?” (In the Statesman. Amen--except that painful last line: “Nobody will ever look out for your financial well being as good as you!” Personal Finance: A-minus. Basic English: C-plus. "As well as you" would have been a gooder way to say it.).


Anti-Theft Lunch Bags. They aren't serious are they?


“Abused as a child, Tyler Perry has overcome his troubled past to become one of Hollywood's hottest names--all while remaining bold about his Christian faith.” (Christianity Today interviews the star)


The Houston Chronicle published photos of believers at worship post-Ike. Several of the worshippers pictured lost everything.


“Listen to the words of Pastor Paul. 'Be alert. Be watchful. Be ready. Be about your Father's business, because you do not know the day that your Lord will come for you.'" (from the final sermon of Paul Long, who died in the Metrolink train crash last week. The manuscript was found after his death and delivered by friend and fellow minister, Tony Amatangelo. The LA Times story is here.)


The Metrorail disaster may have been caused when the engineer was distracted by his text messaging, and more disasters from text messaging are in the making, according to this NY Times article: “Even as industry calculations show that Americans are now using mobile phones to send or receive more text messages than phone calls, those messages are coming under increasing fire because of the danger they can pose by distracting users. Though there are no official casualty statistics, there is much anecdotal evidence that the number of fatal accidents stemming from texting while driving, crossing the street or engaging in other activities is on the rise.”


“I’m starting to reconsider my view of fashion. I still dread becoming a slave to it, but I realize I’ve been lazy about my appearance.” (Debbie Ostendorff wrote about her time on the TV show, What Not to Wear--and learned something about her Christian faith, too. Read her account here.)


“On Oct. 7, HarperCollins is releasing The Green Bible, a Scripture for the Prius age that calls attention to more than 1,000 verses related to nature by printing them in a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus. The new version's message, states an introduction by Evangelical eco-activist J. Matthew Sleeth, is that ‘creation care’--the Christian catchphrase for nature conservancy--‘is at the very core of our Christian walk.’” (“The Bible Goes Green for the Prius Age” in Time magazine. While creation care is part of our stewardship, no amount of green font in a Bible printing can convince me that it is “at the very core of our Christian walk.”)


In last week’s “Links” I mentioned that best-selling Christian vocalist Ray Boltz “came out” as a homosexual. Albert Mohler did an excellent one-hour radio show on the subject. Mohler expressed frustration at both the church and Boltz: the church, for failing to be a place where people can admit any struggle, including homosexual attraction; Boltz, for insisting that his homosexual attractions were okay because that was the way God made him. Take an hour with this recording of his radio broadcast.


The loss of Christian faith and the rise of superstition correlate according to this WSJ piece.


“Our response will answer the question, ‘Who is Jesus on Wall Street?’” This Christianity Today piece reports on how people in the financial world are turning to prayer during the latest market crisis.


“You may be a parent who needs a grandparent figure for your child. Your parents may no longer be living, or they may just simply reside a long distance away. Look around you, chances are your church is full of grandparents who are detached from their own grandkids because of distance or other reasons” (article). You don't have to wait for a "program" to adopt a Grandparent at Hillcrest.


“According to a fresh survey from Northern Trust, which polled 1,000 households with investible assets of at least $1 million, Generation X millionaire households (those ages 28 to 42) gave away more money than Baby Boomers (43 to 61) or Silent Generationers (62 to 77). GenXers gave an average of $20,000 in 2006, compared with $10,000 for the older millionaire households. The GenXers also are more charitable in their plans for the afterlife. They expect to leave 22% of their estates to charity, compared with 16% for Boomers and 14% for Silent Generation millionaires.” (WSJ; HT: 33 Things at Culture11. The article didn't get the age-ranges right on Gen-X and Boomers--ain't no one under 48 gonna consider themselves a Boomer--but the findings were intriguing anyway.)


“Innovation has piled on innovation, making modern pornography a more immediate, visceral, and personalized experience. . . . As we try to make sense of the brave new world that VHS and streaming video have built, we might start by asking a radical question: Is pornography use a form of adultery? The most stringent take on this matter comes, of course, from Jesus of Nazareth: ‘I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ But even among Christians, this teaching tends to be grouped with the Gospel injunctions about turning the other cheek and giving would-be robbers your possessions--as a guideline for saintliness, useful to Francis of Assisi and the Desert Fathers but less helpful to ordinary sinners trying to figure out what counts as a breach of marital trust” (Ross Douthat in The Atlantic). Really? It’s convicting to ask if we Christians really do minimize Christ’s commands against lust as something only for those special disciples pursuing saintliness. (In addition, it’s convicting to ask if we pastors teach his commands regarding nonresistance with the same seriousness that we teach his commands regarding sexual sin.)


In light of the last article, as I’ve mentioned before, everyone should have x3watch on their computers.


“According to surveys by Ellison Research of Phoenix, 36 percent of Americans polled indicate that they have no idea "what an evangelical Christian is" in the first place. Only 35 percent of all Americans believe they know ‘someone very well who is an evangelical,’ while a stunning 51 percent are convinced they don't know any evangelicals at all.” But that doesn’t slow their willingness to describe the mysterious creature. “One of the surprises of a new Ellison study is ‘how much abuse is aimed at evangelicals,’ noted company president Ron Sellers. ‘Evangelicals were called illiterate, greedy, psychos, racist, stupid, narrow-minded, bigots, idiots, fanatics, nut cases, screaming loons, delusional, simpletons, pompous, morons, cruel, nitwits, and freaks, and that's just a partial list. . . . Some people don't have any idea what evangelicals actually are or what they believe -- they just know they can't stand evangelicals.’” (Terry Mattingly, in a must-read piece, “‘Define Evangelical’—Again.”)


Election Updates:

“We just feel so wary, weary, tired and disheartened by a wing of influential Christians who have made Christianity into a fight against abortion and homosexual marriage, with no thought given to just about anything else. We want desperately to know that the church we are about to join wants to fight this hijack.” (From a letter to Josh Harris, Pastor at Covenant Life Church, from prospective members. Read the letter and his response here.)

The Economist says that the McCain campaign has decided “to play this election, like that of 2004, as a fresh installment of the culture wars.” I’m noticing this angle is creeping into more and more coverage of the election--at least among critics of social conservatives.

"Palin's personal connection to IACC, and her efforts to bring its agenda to Wasilla as mayor, sheds new light on her connections to the Christian far right, as well as her willingness to infuse government with its ideals rooted in religion.” That’s from Sarah Posner writing in Salon, who tries valiantly to tie Governor Palin to controversial Bible teacher Bill Gothard and his Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLF) by pointing out that while mayor, Wasilla became a “City of Character” through the IBLP-affiliated International Association of Character Cities (IACC). It’s in the bottom third of the article, however, that Posner concedes, “The desired implementation of a City of Character's mission is somewhat murky. [IACC Director, Steven Menzel] could not point to a policy initiative Palin undertook as mayor to advance the character initiative, and he expressed disappointment that Wasilla, Alaska's only City of Character, had not done more to advance the cause.” Oh. Never mind, then.


Peggy Noonan wonders if this presidential election is really as important as we want to think it is. Bill at The Thinklings wonders the same thing.

A Heartbreaking Use of Heartbreak in South Dakota

The Washington Post introduced us to Tiffany Campbell in Sunday’s paper. The story opens:

Bad things don't happen to her, Tiffany Campbell used to think. She was a mother of two, enthusiastically pregnant with twins, a churchgoing Republican living a good middle-class life. Why should she care about a political battle over abortion?

Then Campbell discovered that the twins were relying on one beating heart. Doctors told her that neither would survive if she carried them to term, and that the strong one was fading fast. If one were aborted, they said, the other would probably make it.

"I was not going to bury two of my babies," Campbell remembers thinking. "If I can intervene and save one of my babies, I'm going to do it."

Campbell had the abortion at 17 weeks. The survivor, whom she named Brady, is now healthy and 19 months old. When she learned that an antiabortion referendum on South Dakota's Nov. 4 ballot would prevent other women from having the same choice, she threw herself into the fight.

Now, really, would the prolife referendum prevent other women from having “the same choice” that she had to make?

If I (and WaPo) understand her story, little Brady would not have survived had his unviable twin remained in the womb. There’s no prolife bill I’ve ever seen that would prevent doctors from saving Brady’s life by aborting his unviable twin.

In fact, prolife leaders in South Dakota insist their referendum would have had no impact on Campbell’s situation. But you have to read to the last paragraph to find that out, and reporter Peter Slevin doesn’t bother to quote any legal experts on the matter.

However, if prolife leaders are wrong and the wording of the South Dakota referendum denies medically-necessary abortions, then prolife state legislators should simply amend the referendum and try again.

And that’s where WaPo could have helped us readers understand Tiffany Campbell’s motives for making her 19-month-old the poster child for opposition to the referendum. What I want to know is: if the referendum is worded—or can be worded—in such a way so that it covers her unique heartbreaking decision, would she support it?

Abortion advocates are using her unique situation to press for the legality of any and all pregnancy terminations. And that's a heartbreaking use of heartbreak.

Song of the Week: Bruce Springsteen's "Land of Hope and Dreams"

Diane and I were watching a DVD recording of Bruce Springsteen's 2001 concert in Madison Square Garden in NYC (before 9/11). I saw it on HBO in '01, but seeing it again reminded me how much I liked the Springsteen song I'm featuring this week. The only version of the song he's released is this live version. Powerful stuff. Listen to "Land of Hope and Dreams"--


"Thoughts of redemption, moral choices and invocations of God have been part of Springsteen songs throughout his career," the NY Times wrote, "but they have grown stronger and more explicitly Christian on his 21st-century albums. " He told the Times, "It was something I pushed off for a long time, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately."

Here's hoping:

Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder's rolling down the tracks
You don't know where you're goin'
But you know you won't be back
Darlin' if you're weary
Lay your head upon my chest
We'll take what we can carry
And we'll leave the rest

Big Wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

I will provide for you
And I'll stand by your side
You'll need a good companion for
This part of the ride
Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past

Big wheels roll through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This Train
Carries whores and gamblers
This Train
Carries lost souls
This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'
This Train
Carries broken-hearted
This Train
Thieves and sweet souls departed
This Train
Carries fools and kings
This Train
All aboard

This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'

LeaderLines: Win-Win, Part 3

Last-minute reminder to sign up for the Connection Campaign!
We still need callers on the following nights:
1 on Monday, 3 on Tuesday, 4 on Wednesday, and 2 on Thursday.
Calls begin the week of September 28 and continue for 3 weeks.
Help us reach Austin for Christ!
Contact Karen (345-3771 or email)
_____________________________________
As a church leader, sometimes you’ll see conflict between those you lead, and sometimes you will face conflict with those you lead. God wants us to enter into every conflict determined to find a win-win solution. Philippians 2:4 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Not only . . . but also. Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

To find this kind of win-win solution, I’m using LeaderLines to introduce you to four concepts from a book by Roger Fisher and William Ury called Getting to Yes:

Relationships: Separate the people from the problem.

Interests: Focus on the interests, not the positions.

Creativity: Brainstorm creative options for solving the problem.

Standards: Agree on the standards you will use to solve the problem.

We’ve already looked at the importance of relationships (click here to review). Now let’s look at the second concept: focus on the interests, not the positions.

Philippians 2:4 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Now, there’s a difference between my position in a conflict and my interest in the conflict. For example, if I have a neighbor whose dog is keeping me up at night, my position may be that my neighbor should simply get rid of his dog. But as long as I stay stubbornly fixed on my position, hostility rises and creative solutions are stifled. Behind my position, however, is my interest: I want a good night’s sleep. There are a lot of options my neighbor and I have to meeting that interest.

I don’t have a neighbor with a yapping dog. But if I did, resolving that conflict would involve identifying not just my interests but his interests. His interests may include a sentimental attachment to raising a dog that came from a breeding line the family has maintained for several generations. Or his interests may include the security of having a dog that will warn of intruders on his property. Or he may have his dog outside on nights he’s gone because he knows the dog tends to tear up things in the house if left alone.

The point is that he has interests and I have interests and if we’re going to follow God’s word, each of us will have to look not only to our own interests but to the interests of the other as well.

In driving, our greatest risk of collision is at the intersections. It’s true in life, too: conflict can happen where our lives intersect with other lives. That’s why I think Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of James 1:19 is so interesting: “Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue.”

That’s his paraphrase of a verse we know better as “everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak.” As we listen and try to identify the interests of the other person behind their positions, we’ll be better prepared to come up with solutions that everyone finds satisfactory.

Notice that Philippians 2:4 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Notice the phrase “not only.” Our own concerns need to be identified and expressed; it’s just that the interests of others must form a part of our attention as well.

As you work through conflict as a leader, keep these considerations in mind. We need to focus on relationships instead of the problem, and we need to focus on interests and not the personal position. Next up: Creativity. We need to learn how to brainstorm creative options for solving the problem.
_____________________________________

Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by over 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Hockey Moms for Truth

Saw this on WorldMagBlog. Something light for midweek:

Winning Ways: Are You Mayor of the Center of the World?

Jacques Istel thinks he lives at the center of the world.

He is the mayor of Felicity, California. Twenty people live in the town in an empty corner of California near Yuma, Arizona. But a tiny population and remote isolation hasn’t diminished Mayor Istel’s estimation of the place. In the mid-1980s, Mayor Istel showed up at the meeting of the supervisors of Imperial County and asked them to officially declare that the Center of the World was located at his town. They did so.

To mark the Center of the World, Mayor Istel built a 21-foot-tall pink marble pyramid. For $1, tourists can enter the pyramid, stand on the official Center of the World marker, and get their picture taken with the mayor of the Center of the World. We’ve all run for office as the mayor of the center of the world, haven’t we? We’ve all had points in our lives where everything has to revolve around us.

That’s why Matthew 18 makes us so uncomfortable. In that chapter, Jesus tells us that we have to humbly take responsibility for each other if we’re going to be a church that pleases him.

What is our responsibility to each other as believers?

For some of us, that may seem like a strange question. The consumer mentality of our culture has completely infected us to the point that we even see church involvement like picking a restaurant or a health club. For some of us our only question is, “What can this organization do for me? Do they have the goods and services I want, at the time I want, in the style I want? What can this place do for me?”

But the Bible tells us over and over again that we have responsibility for each other. The phrase ‘one another’ or ‘each other’ is used over fifty times in the New Testament. We are commanded to love each other, pray for each other, encourage each other, admonish each other, greet each other, serve each other, teach each other, accept each other, honor each other, bear each other’s burdens, forgive each other, sing to each other, submit to each other, and be devoted to each other.

This Sunday, come and learn how to do this from Matthew 18. It’s Week Six of our study, “The Church You’ve Always Longed For.” Join us at 9:30am or 10:45am!
______________________________________
Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday September 16

“If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live. It’s not like God made me this way and he’ll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself.” (Ray Boltz, explaining why he left his wife last year and has now announced that he is gay. Boltz is the Christian musician known for songs like “Thank You,” “Watch the Lamb,” and “I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb.”


“Babita Nayak was cooking lunch for her pregnant sister when a mob of Hindu extremists wielding swords, hammers and long sticks rampaged through their village, chanting ‘India is for Hindus! Convert or leave!’” (From the chilling Washington Post article on Hindu persecution of Christ-followers)


Read Andy Crouch’s critique of the four ways Christians react to culture: condemning, critiquing, copying, and consuming. “The problem is not with any of these gestures,” he says. “All of them can be appropriate responses to particular cultural goods. Indeed, each of them may be the only appropriate response to a particular cultural good. But the problem comes when these gestures become too familiar, become the only way we know how to respond to culture, become etched into our unconscious stance toward the world, and become postures.” We need to be known, he says, as cultivators and creators. This is an excerpt from his new book, Culture Making, which I’m reading right now.


“A 33-year-old woman stole her daughter's identity to attend high school and join the cheerleading squad, according to a criminal complaint filed against the woman.” (Yahoo News)


"Promoting a campaign to convert Jews away from their faith is a serious affront to the Jewish people and disrespectful to Judaism's own teachings," ADL national director Abraham H. Foxman and ADL director of interfaith policy Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg said in a statement. "To issue this declaration from Berlin, where the Nazis directed their Final Solution to exterminate the Jewish people, is the height of insensitivity." (Story here, about a formal declaration from the World Evangelical Alliance promoting Jewish evangelization.) How insecure do you have to be about your beliefs that you have to call for bans on people talking to you about them? And how much more insensitive can you get to victims of the Final Solution than to compare conversation about Jesus to what people endured in the Holocaust? Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League need to go after some real defamation.


“I've successfully taught awesomely bold leaders for years: When under pressure, under stress, you must breathe. You must inhale, then exhale, repeatedly. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady employs this "in-and-out" breathing method, as does NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson and the last five U.S. Presidents, except Ronald Reagan, who no longer employs this breathing method. What do they know that you don't?” (Rule #401 in The 417 Rules of Awesomely Bold Leadership: One for Each Day of the Year, Plus a Bunch of Days that Would Be in the Next Year After That)


“Medication is already been subtly used to improve ethical behaviour and we should prepare for a revolution in ‘moral pharmacology.’” (Vaughan at Mind Hacks. HT: Michael)


“In general, liberal political and media elites demonstrate a religious diversity that runs the spectrum from secularism to liberal Episcopalianism -- all the varied shades from violet to blue.” (Michael Gerson)


Election Updates:

Upon hearing ABC’s Charles Gibson ask Governor Palin her opinion of “the Bush Doctrine,” Timothy Noah of Slate (no fan of President Bush) admitted, “I searched my memory in vain to remember which of the various rigid nostrums articulated by President Bush over the past eight years had become enshrined as the defining principle of his foreign policy.” Noah even googled the phrase but couldn’t nail it down.


A good one for politics junkies: New York magazine has a lengthy article about the chief strategists behind the campaigns of McCain and Obama. Read about Steve Schmidt and David Axelrod in “The Sixty-Day War.”


“Can Mr McCain ride an energised evangelical base into the White House? He is certainly much better off now than he was a month ago, before the evangelical surge. But he nevertheless confronts two big problems. The first is that evangelical issues have less resonance with the general public than they did in 2004. There has been a decline in support for traditional morality, an uptick in hostility to the involvement of the church in politics, and an increase in support for social welfare. Catholics in particular are shifting back into the Democratic camp. The second is that Mrs Palin and her supporters may energise America’s secularists while also putting off swing voters (who are likely to be troubled by Mrs Palin’s hostility to abortion even in cases of rape and incest). The big problems now facing Mr McCain may not be too little enthusiasm among evangelicals, but too much.” (The Economist)


As you can see from the article above, a standard storyline has formed in the media that McCain has had to bring disaffected evangelicals to his side, and that's one reason he chose Governor Palin. But Frank Newport, USA Today’s “Gallup Guru,” says that McCain’s uptick in support is coming from voters who do not identify as evangelical. The “data do not allow us to support a hypothesis that McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate caused a significant shift of highly religious white voters to his support. We just don’t see it in the data. It looks like McCain managed to pick up support by drawing in voters from across the religious spectrum. ‘Secular gains’ we might call them.” (“No evidence that Sarah Palin converted religious whites to GOP ticket support”)

How to Have Civil Conversations about Civic Issues:

Joe Carter, managing editor of the new Culture 11, writes “An Open Letter to the ‘Religious Right.’” Excellent: Take 5 minutes with it, whether you’re a religious conservative or you tend to make shallow caricatures of them.


“Our founding fathers believed spirited public discourse was the crucible of democratic decision-making. [Yet] we have evidence that dialogue has all but ceased. The result is a public whose opinions are rarely tested and challenged.” Joseph Grenny, who suggested four ways to have political conversations that are both candid and respectful.


Anne Lamott shows us how to have the disrespectful kind in this Slate article. Lamott claims she left church Sunday because the sermon wasn't on how to deal with the depression brought on by the McCain-Palin ticket and then she said she called "my Jesuit friend, who I know hates these people, too." Lovely.


“Non-Christians are among the most repelled by the political activation of Christians. This should not discourage us from voting, but it should change how we talk about our voting. One of the most profound lessons I have learned is just how powerful careless words and ugly attitudes are in pushing people away from faith in Christ. I am not referring to the speech-making of professionals. Instead, I am thinking about the conversations that Christians--normal people like you and I--have with our friends, colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances. My advice is do whatever possible to cultivate soft hearts among your church's attendees so that they will be 'wise as serpents and harmless as doves' over the next sixty days.” (From a Catalyst article by David Kinnaman, who gives “five research-based election realities you should grapple with as a church leader.”)

Song of the Week: Robert Earl Keen's "Feeling Good Again" Live

This is one of my favorites from Robert Earl Keen. Listen to this live recording of "Feeling Good Again"--

War and “God’s Will”

In his interview with Sarah Palin, did ABC’s Charles Gibson throw softballs or engage in “gotcha” journalism? My guess is it all depends on whether you loved or loathed Palin going in to the interview.

Gibson had a tall order: his was the first (and, so far, only) interview the McCain campaign has granted for Palin, and the nation watched closely for how he’d handle it.

There’s a lot that interested me in the interview, but as an evangelical pastor, I’ll just comment on Gibson’s tin ear for Palin’s request that “God’s will” be done in the Iraq war.

Much has been made of Palin’s request in an Alaska church that people pray for the troops in Iraq.

Gibson, at least before ABC edited his misunderstanding, followed a typical mischaracterization of the story.

Here’s the prayer: “We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”

Oops, no, that’s not from Governor Palin’s prayer about the Iraq War. That’s President Franklin Roosevelt’s prayer on D-Day, expressing far more confidence in God’s approval of Americans going to war than Palin did. Here’s what Palin said (the one “going to be deployed” is her 19-year-old son, Track):

“Pray for our military. He's going to be deployed in September to Iraq. Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do also what is right for this country--that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.”

It must be noted,” Peggy Noonan wrote, “that Mrs. Palin never told a church that the Iraq war was God's will; she asked them to pray that it was God's will. It wasn't the sound of Republican hubris, it was the sound of Christian humility: We can't know the mind of God, we can only pray we are in accord with it.”

Dead on. Has any media personality other than Noonan actually listened to Palin’s prayer request?

As James Taranto said in relation to the “God on our side” stuff, the Gibson interview with Palin revealed “someone embarrassingly unprepared”--and it wasn’t Palin.

So You Think You Can Dance

This clip's popping up everywhere. What do you think for next Sunday's service:

Yes We Can . . . Have More Cowbell

Apparently every explanation of why Obama could possibly lose the presidential campaign must include the dark hint of racism. The most recent I've read is from Joe Klein who tries to explain why we're fascinated with Palin.

“Obviously, something beyond politics is happening here," he writes. "We don't really know Palin as a politician yet, whether she is wise or foolhardy, substantive or empty. Our fascination with her--and it is a nonpartisan phenomenon--is driven by something more primal. The Palin surge illuminates the mythic power of the Republican Party's message since the advent of Ronald Reagan.”

What is that primal "something more"? “Barack Obama could not exist in the small-town America that Reagan fantasized,” Klein writes--a fantasy Klein says Palin has resurrected. “He's the product of what used to be called miscegenation, a scenario that may still be more terrifying than a teen daughter's pregnancy in many American households.” (That means he’s--shhh!--the product of a mixed-race union.)

Klein isn't the only one to raise the spectre of racism as the only possible explanation why America wouldn't go for Obama. And today I finally figured out what the incendiary argument reminds me of: You remember the Saturday Night Live sketch Christopher Walken calling for "more cowbell" on the recording of "Don't Fear the Reaper"? You can see it here. Hilarious.

Klein and company are taking this beautiful thing--the first black presidential candidacy--and they're trying to "enhance it" in the clumsiest, ugliest way, like Ferrell's cowbell "enhances" the Blue Oyster Cult classic.

Klein and company need to know how we're hearing their claims of racism. So, think of will.i.am's wonderful, soaring song, "Yes We Can." Now here's how it sounds after adding the charge that opposition to Obama is racist:

	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

G-a-a-ah!

LeaderLines: Your 9-11

This isn’t a typical edition of LeaderLines. But then again, this isn’t a typical Thursday. This is the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attack we’ve come to know simply as “9-11.”

The anniversary should give us all a chance to pause and think about whether we’re ready to handle our own crisis times when they come.

“Sometimes he calms the storm,” the saying goes, “And sometimes he calms his child.”

That modern proverb is meant to remind us that God is always with us in a crisis: sometimes he provides rescue from the crisis, sometimes he provides the ability to endure the crisis.

Two stories out of the September 11 terrorist attacks illustrate this. One is the story of a woman named Josephine. Josephine is a 69-year-old woman who was on the 73rd floor of one of the World Trade Center towers when it was struck. Seven firemen from Ladder 6, a company of the New York City Fire Department, helped her down the 73 flights of stairs. At times, she was ready to give up, but they helped, encouraged, inspired, and assured her she would make it.

“They were like angels to me,” she said. She would stop to catch her breath and they would stop with her. She started to shiver with fear and one gave her his jacket. One floor at a time they got her down until, finally, she could walk no more and just sat down on one of the steps of the fourth floor. They waited with her, coaxing her to stand up and resume walking because they were almost to the ground floor. But she could not move, and they refused to leave her.

Suddenly, they heard and felt the floors beneath them give way under the tremendous weight of the collapsing building, and they were hurtled down with terrific force and enveloped in a suffocating cloud of pitch-black smoke. But as the noise lessened and the smoke began to clear, they found that they had settled over the rubble of the caved-in floors below them.

Miraculously, Josephine had refused to go any farther at the one point that remained intact as the building fell.

All seven firemen plus Josephine were eventually brought into the daylight of safety. “Had we continued descending, when we were pleading with her to keep moving,” they said, “we would have been killed by the crush of the floors above us.”

But we know that not all the stories from 9-11 had happy endings. Another woman, Lisa Beamer, lost her husband, Todd, who was on one of the hijacked flights which crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside.

Todd and Lisa Beamer were Christians, both active in their church--Todd could have been any one of us: he taught Sunday School and was reading a Max Lucado book when his airplane was hijacked.

While many passengers around him were using cell phones and airfones to call loved ones, Todd Beamer for some reason was unable to get through to his wife, Lisa. He reached a GTE airfone operator, though, and reported that his plane had been hijacked but he and several other passengers planned to take it over.

He recited the Lord’s Prayer with her, and then the operator heard him drop the phone and say the now-famous line to the other passengers, “Are you ready? Let’s roll.”

Minutes later the jet crashed in Pennsylvania instead of into its intended target, which many believe would have been the White House. No miraculous rescue was provided for her husband, no divine intervention, and yet Lisa Beamer has become a very public illustration of strong faith.

Josephine credits God with rescue when 110 stories above her collapsed around her. Lisa Beamer credits God with comfort and strength in the midst of her loss. Sometimes he calms the storm; sometimes he calms his child.

That’s what will sustain you when it’s not the collapse of buildings that you watch on TV but the collapse of your own little world around you.

In response to the events of Sept 11, Ravi Zacharias released a book called Light in the Shadow of Jihad. The story of Josephine was told in that wonderful little book. Ravi wrote:

The supernatural is possible. It happens, but it does not lead to the greatest miracle in a life. For you see, anyone can take a miraculous story and explain it a dozen different ways. At best it just proves that there is a power beyond our own. So where does that leave us? What God seeks in every individual is not just companionship based on His intervention, but communion with Him based on His indwelling. That is what makes the difference when a building is collapsing. It is not whether a hand grabs your hand and rescues you from the carnage; it is that no matter what happens, His strength empowers you to rise beyond the devastation.

_______________________________________
Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by over 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Winning Ways: What Got Jesus Frustrated

Jesus once looked at his disciples and said, “How long shall I put up with you?”

Yikes. Do you think he sometimes says that of his disciples today?

According to Matthew 17, what provoked his frustration was his disciples’ inability to meet a father’s desperate need. “I brought my troubled boy to your disciples,” the father complained to Jesus, “But they could not heal him.” And Jesus looked at his men, shook his head, and said, “How long shall I put up with you?”

There are only two times in scripture where Jesus came anywhere close to discouragement:

It wasn’t when he faced his great temptations. Nowhere in that passage (Matthew 4) do we hear him say, “How much longer do I have to put up with this?”

It wasn’t when he faced the crowds with their pressing needs. As a boy I remember watching the film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Jesus Christ Superstar. In one scene the crowds with their constant needs are pressing in on Jesus and Webber’s Jesus is backing away saying, “Get away from me!” Even as a boy, I knew enough from Sunday School to know Jesus never looked at the crowds with their needs and said, “How much longer do I have to put up with this?”

Even in the agony of the cross, Jesus never said, “How much longer do I have to put up with this?”

There are only 2 times in the Gospels were Jesus speaks with this kind of, well, annoyance. In both instances it is when he sees how little faith his followers have.

Think of that. What frustrates you about your church? Some of us get frustrated when the time of service changes. Some of us get frustrated when the length of service changes! Some of us get frustrated when the style of music doesn’t suit us. Some of us get frustrated when the way we’ve always done things gets changed.

Let me clue you in: none of that frustrates Jesus. But when he sees a church with a feeble faith, according to this text we can be sure he is throwing up his hands and saying, “How much longer do I have to put up with this?”

This Sunday, we’ll look at Christ’s promise that faith as small as a mustard seed can accomplish great things for God’s glory! Join us in this challenging study at 9:30am or 10:45am.
________________________________________
Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday September 9

“Today's guys are perhaps the first downwardly mobile—and endlessly adolescent—generation of men in U.S. history.” (Newsweek’s “Why I am Leaving Guyland”)


I love my iPod; I hate the iTunes updates. This guy at Wired tells Apple 5 reasons why.


Musical taste reveals your personality.


Everyone remembers winners: Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Tiger Woods. But in her new book, Second Place: Faces of Defeat, photographer Sandy Nicholson captures the emotions of those who came in second. See some photos here.


“Try Our Healing Service: You Won’t Get Better!”
“None of Our Hymns Are Tested on Live Animals.”
And other quirky church signs.


Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds summarizes John Mark Reynolds’ helpful column offering 10 tips for college students.


On Sarah Palin and Working Moms:

Albert Mohler expresses support but ambivalence over Palin taking the VP candidacy with her duties as a mom.


The NY Times piece that Mohler quotes is worth reading, too: “With five children, including an infant with Down syndrome and, as the country learned Monday, a pregnant 17-year-old, Ms. Palin has set off a fierce argument among women about whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try.” (“A New Twist in the Debate on Mothers” in the NY Times)


“It's important to understand why, then, Mrs. Palin has hit a nerve. It's not because she's a woman with children trying to do a man's job. It's because she's actually pushing the combination of professional and personal ambitions beyond the sensibilities of this generation of working moms. As women, we may be awed by her, but she's not necessarily a role model for so many professional women who now say they want to do it differently, that they don't want to do 150% of everything all of the time. So what you are hearing is less condemnation than a collective gasp of amazement -- and exhaustion -- at the thought of juggling five children, one of them an infant, and the most extreme example of a job with little or no flexibility. It would make supermom feel feeble.” (BBC anchor Katty Kay and ABC News reporter Claire Shipman)


“Jonah Goldberg at National Review exulted that Sarah Palin was put on earth for two reasons -- to kill caribou and kick butt. And she's ‘all out of caribou.’ Allowing for how much fun such exuberant hyperbole is, social conservatives might still wonder if she presents something of a challenge to their ideals of social order. And she might. She might not. Let's talk about that. But in the meantime, we must not overlook the fact that she presents an absolutely devastating challenge to the feminist narrative for women.” (Douglas Wilson. HT: Between Two Worlds)

Are Evangelicals Up for Grabs this Election Season?

Amy Sullivan has a piece at Time magazine called “Are Evangelicals Sold on Palin?” The standard storyline of this election season has been that evangelicals, particularly the younger, are up for grabs. I don’t know if the storyline is true or, if true, whether Palin has skewered it. Neither does Sullivan, but it didn’t stop her from writing about it.


“[Obama] does not have to win large segments of the evangelical votes. All he has to do is carve off some of votes in certain places. The cosmopolitan vote is the one most up for grabs. A cosmopolitan evangelical is someone who is less interested in converting the country or taking the country back for Christ; they are interested in seeing their faith as attractive. They’re less prone to see the evangelical subculture as their primary point of reference.” (Rice sociologist Michael Lindsay)


But Steven Waldman of Beliefnet says, “The moderate evangelical vote is slipping away from Barack Obama.” He explains why here. This is an excellent assessment.

Maybe the Media Freakshow on Palin is settling down.

Exhibit #1: Check out an even-handed piece in Time called "How Sarah Palin Mastered Politics," about what one supporter calls political "Sarah-dipity."

Exhibit #2: The NY Times piece, “In Palin’s Life and Politics, Goal to Follow God’s Will,” doesn't have the condescending odor of the John Fea opinion piece I referred to on Saturday. However, Mollie at GetReligion doesn’t like it: “That a Christian believes that God has a role to play in her life, in the efficacy of prayer, that the Bible is the word of God isn’t noteworthy, per se. By making it seem so, it says more about the New York Times than it does about Palin.” John Podhoretz at Commentary magazine doesn’t like the piece, either. He says, “The article has about it the wide-eyed wonder that anyone might actually be crazy enough to believe in a Creator Who still plays a role in human affairs.”

(By the way, religion reporter for the Statesman, Eileen Flynn, linked to my blog post on John Fea's Palin comments here. Thanks for the traffic Eileen.)

Right for the Wrong Reason

The LA Times ran an opinion piece (Statesman online Sunday) from a professor who calls himself a “pro-choice atheist” who supports President Bush’s proposal to cut federal funding from hospitals and other entities if they force an employee to provide certain types of care — including abortion services — against conscience and personal belief.

I’m grateful for the professor’s defense of the important regulation, but his line of reasoning is faulty. He says, “If we respect the right of women to control their bodies, we ought to respect the rights of doctors to control their own actions. And if we respect the decision to perform abortions, we ought to respect the refusal to do so.”

But the analogy doesn’t quite hold up. If he wants to follow this line of reasoning, he should say, “If we respect the right of women to sell their bodies as prostitutes, we ought to respect the rights of doctors . . . .” Or, “If we respect the rights of women to take bids for their spare kidney on EBay, we ought to respect the rights of doctors . . . .”

Neither of these options is (at present) allowable, which shows the limits of argument that women (or men) should have the right to “control their bodies.” Contrary to the “Keep Your Laws Off My Body” posters at prochoice rallies, the government already has a number of laws on the bodies of men and women.

Laws against selling one’s body sexually, or selling parts of one’s body to the highest bidder, may eventually go away. But laws against what I can do with someone else’s body should be established and upheld. And when we’re talking about abortion of a healthy, developing fetus, we’re talking about the end to someone else’s body.

So, Crispen Sartwell is right to defend the federal regulation currently being considered, but he’s right for the wrong reason.

Song of the Week: Eric Johnson's "Are You Experienced?"

Since it's the big question in this presidential election, it seemed to be the obvious pick for this week's "Song of the Week." Listen to Austin uber-guitarist Eric Johnson live at Austin City Limits cover the Jimi Hendrix song, "Are You Experienced?" (Remember: those of you reading this post through Facebook or a reader will need to go to the website to play the song.)


As for my thoughts on the experience question re: Palin and Obama, see this post from yesterday.

More Palin

In a refreshing surprise, the NY Times defended the choice of a female mayor and governor for VP pick: “Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? Where is it written that governors and mayors . . . are too local, too provincial? . . . Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. . . . What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. . . . Why shouldn't a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?”


No, that was not an endorsement of Sarah Palin. That was from 1984, commending the selection of Geraldine Ferraro as Walter Mondale’s running mate. (HT: WSJ)


“We know she is an Alaskan reformer. We know she is pro-life. We know she was a beauty queen and a basketball star. We know she eats moose burgers. But does Sarah Palin speak in tongues?” (John Fea, in the Statesman online Friday). Why did the Statesman feel this was newsworthy? Geez, the next thing you know, we’ll find out that the VP candidate on the Democratic side believes he’s actually eating the body of Christ during Communion.


Not every conservative feels good about the VP pick: “Obama was sagging because of missteps that reflected the fundamental weakness of his candidacy. Which suggested McCain's strategy: Make this a referendum on Obama, surely the least experienced, least qualified, least prepared presidential nominee in living memory. Palin fatally undermines this entire line of attack. This is through no fault of her own. It is simply a function of her rookie status. . . . McCain was giving up his home turf of readiness to challenge Obama on his home turf of change. . . . Palin's selection negates the theme of readiness.” (Charles Krauthammer, who says she needs to pull an Obama who “showed that star power can trump the gravest of biographical liabilities.” Krauthammer wonders if she can do in 9 weeks what took 19 months for Obama to pull off, though.)


Krauthammer isn’t the only conservative concerned about Palin’s inexperience, but it’s annoying to hear progressives do any more with this than simply insist the attacks on Obama’s inexperience are off the table. But they go further, leaving us with the odd spectacle of those sympathetic to the experience of a first-term Democratic Senator rejecting the experience of a first-term Republican Governor.


Speaking of Experience: “Alaska is harder to govern than a smaller, more settled realm in the Lower 48. With vast distances, large numbers of indigenous peoples and a narrowly based extraction economy — with a handful of giant multinational oil corporations dominating the game — some economists say a country like Nigeria might be an apter comparison.” (“The Unusual Challenges Palin Faced in Alaska” in the NY Times.)



Thus a new applause line: “Being president of Nigeria is sort of like being a community organizer . . . .”



By the way, the Obama campaign was obviously stung by the “community organizer” comments, charging that Palin was mocking civic service. But if you actually listen to her speech, she was reacting to negative media portrayals of her term as mayor (and their initial reluctance to identify her as a present-day Governor instead of simply as a former mayor). People who want to tout one person’s stint as a community organizer as qualification for national office can’t turn around and deny another person’s mayoral experience as qualification for that same national office.


“Politicizing Bristol Palin's pregnancy, though predictable, is nonetheless repugnant and has often been absurd. It may be darkly ironic that a governor-mother who opposes explicit sex ed has a pregnant daughter, but experienced parents know that what one instructs isn't always practiced by one's little darlings.” (Kathleen Parker, reprinted in the Statesman.)


“It's being said that in choosing Governor Palin, Mr. McCain was making a play for disaffected Hillary Clinton voters. . . . Our sense is that the Governor's real political potential lies in her appeal to Reagan Democrats and Truman Republicans, voters Mr. McCain will need in November.” (“Sarah Palin’s Surge”). I agree: I never saw her selection as an appeal to Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, though that was the way many media commentators played it (Gloria Steinem, for a famous example).


Peggy Noonan said Palin’s acceptance speech “left me wondering if this campaign is about to take on a new shape, with the old time conservatism on one side, and a smoother, evolved form of the old style liberalism on the other.” Good summary of the campaign, and the choice it’s coming down to. It’s interesting that McCain in his acceptance speech practically offered an apology for how conservatives had lost their way in the last few years and, if we’ll give McCain-Palin a chance, they’ll turn things around again. Noonan fears, though, that America’s not in the mood for the Reagan-style conservatism any more than what has recently passed for conservatism.



Noonan also warned: “This campaign, this beautiful golden thing with two admirable men at the top and two admirable vice presidential candidates, is going to turn dark.” I agree with the assessment of both presidential contenders and both VP candidates. Sadly, I also fear these next 60 days will turn dark. Believers need to pray not only for the outcome but the process.

DNC Prayers: Sweet and Sour

Joel Hunter, pastor of the Northland megachurch near Orlando, identifies as an evangelical but he closed his prayer at the Democratic National Convention like an interfaith chaplain: “I want to personalize this. I want this to be a participatory prayer. And so therefore, because we are in a country that is still welcoming all faiths, I would like all of us to close this prayer in the way your faith tradition would close your prayer. So on the count of three, I want all of you to end this prayer, your prayer, the way you usually end prayer. You ready? One, two, three.” Hunter, on his own behalf, spoke into the microphone, “In Jesus’ name, Amen,” while 80,000 or so other people were free to name their own God or gods. (YouTube)

So much better was the prayer of Donald Miller earlier in the DNC. Miller is author of books like Blue Like Jazz. I don't agree with everything Miller writes or says, unlike my college minister (grin). But I'm glad Miller's always unapologetic in his evangelical identity. The whole prayer is worth hearing, and he closed it with: “Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans. I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice. Let Him be our example. Amen." (YouTube)

As a pastor who has been asked to lead prayers at civic events, legislative sessions, and business dinners, I know how sensitive people have become to a prayer's ending. Hunter's solution, however, is unacceptable. Miller's is the approach I take: I won't be divisive, but I assume I've been invited to pray my own prayer over the assembly instead of trying to give voice to something everyone can agree on.

LeaderLines: Win-Win, Part 2

As a church leader, sometimes you’ll see conflict between those you lead, and sometimes you will face conflict with those you lead.

God wants us to enter into every conflict determined to find a win-win solution. Philippians 2:4 says, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Not only . . . but also. Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

To find this kind of win-win solution, last week I introduced you to four concepts from a book by Roger Fisher and William Ury called Getting to Yes:

Relationships: Separate the people from the problem.

Interests: Focus on the interests, not the positions.

Creativity: Brainstorm creative options for solving the problem.

Standards: Agree on the standards you will use to solve the problem.

Let’s begin this week with relationships. It’s no surprise that we tend to get personally involved in issues we care about. So much so that when disagreements arise, we tend to take the conflict personally. We feel that our wisdom and worth is being challenged. If you’ve ever been surprised at the emotional reaction you’ve gotten when you’ve disagreed with someone, that’s likely what’s behind the reaction. It takes some work to separate our own ego from an issue, and we have to know that the other side has their own sense of worth and wisdom entangled in their viewpoint, too.

So, we have to pay attention to three things: perception, emotion, and communication.

Perception: We have to try and understand the viewpoint of the other person or the other side. Now, understand what “understand” means! Understanding someone’s viewpoint doesn’t mean agreeing with it. But you have to get to a point where you can accurately explain why someone sees the issue in a different way. As long as your description of the other person’s viewpoint is a shallow caricature that the other person wouldn’t recognize as his own viewpoint--if that’s happening, you haven’t met the first principle of conflict resolution.

Emotion: A second thing we have to do in order to keep the focus on the people and not the problem: we have to take seriously the emotions involved. There’s a pattern I’ve seen in leader’s lives--my own life as a leader included. You pray and study and shape an idea that you’re convinced will benefit the group, and when you propose it, someone reacts against it with an intensity you never expected. And you wonder, “Where in the world did that come from?”

We’re at our best as leaders if that’s more than just a rhetorical question!

In other words, we shouldn’t just state that question as an expression of shock and surprise, we should ask that question with a plan to find the answer. We need to take that emotion seriously and try to find out what’s fueling it.

Communication: A third way we focus on the people and not the problem is through the way we communicate. We need to give our full attention to others when they’re speaking, and when we’re speaking we need to find the best way to help the other person understand our point of view. There’s a difference between getting something off our chest and getting something into the other person’s heart.

Now, when you’re in conflict, focusing on the person and not the problem is clearly biblical. Romans 15:5-7 says, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”

The word we translate “accept” means “receive into fellowship; take to yourself; bring into your embrace.” Paying attention to perception, emotion, and communication is one way we put that verse into practice.

I’ve just described a lot of hard work, and I’ve succeeded and failed at this principle myself over the years. And, sadly, there will be those times when your effort at focusing on the relationship will simply be one-sided. But most of our conflicts would be resolved--and many conflicts would not even start--if we kept the attention on the people instead of the problem.

Next week: “Focus on the interests, not the positions.”
_______________________________________
Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by over 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Sarah Palin!

“[Sarah Palin] was put on this earth to do two things: kill caribou and kick butt. She's all out of caribou.” Jonah Goldberg.


Yep, she killed in last night’s speech. And the only photo from the speech Time magazine could think of posting is her blowing a kiss? Are you freakin’ kidding me? Do they have Joe Biden in charge of the photo selections now? Daniel Henninger at the WSJ is right: “The impulse in acceptable political society to condescend to lovely, ebullient Sarah is palpable.” (Update: 2 hours after Time accompanied their story with a photo of Palin blowing a kiss from the podium, the photo was changed to her waving at the crowd. Maybe someone at Time reads GetAnchored? <grin>)


Cracked. Me. Up. “Bill” at The Thinklings links to Sarah Palin Facts. A good reflection of what the Palin pick has done for the McCain campaign. A few:

* Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North

* Sarah Palin is what Willis was talkin bout

* When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered.

* Sarah Palin’s enemies are automatically added to the Endangered Species List

* Sarah Palin will give birth to the man who will lead humanity’s war against the machines.

Of course, not everyone's thrilled. Palin “is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy," wrote Peggy Noonan. "She could become a transformative political presence. So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick. And it's going to be brutal. It's already getting there.”

Winning Ways: An Anchor For the Soul

I’m starting a small-group study where spiritual seekers can discover the meaning of Christianity and believers can develop their understanding of the faith. If one of those descriptions fits you, come join us!

The study is an 8-week book study through my book, The Anchor Course. Here’s what a participant in a previous class wrote me:

“Coming from another faith, I wanted to explore what Christianity means. The Anchor Course was a wonderful, intelligent, and safe place to explore, learn, and understand.”

And a believer wrote:

“I think the reason I was attracted to this course was just the sheer pleasure of exploring and discussing faith. I was attracted also to the idea that this course might make it easier to believe the things that I already do believe but that I find so difficult to believe. Thank you for the course, for the opportunity to study it at church, and for the very good discussions. Already my faith is strengthened.”

At the Anchor Course, you’ll build friendships around a weekly meal, and you’ll build faith around a weekly discussion. The Anchor Course is ideal if...

* you’re a spiritual seeker who wants to learn more about the life and teaching of Jesus but you don’t know where to start, or

*you’ve become curious about the Christian convictions of your friends, or

* you’re married to a believer and you want to learn more about your partner’s Christian faith, or

* you’re a parent who’s wondered how to explain Christianity to your kids, or

* you’re a believer who wants a better grasp of the main points of your faith.

Want to learn more about the Course before you commit? Come to my “Get Anchored” Dinner on Wednesday, September 17, 6:30-8:00pm. You’ll enjoy a good meal and learn more about the Course. Should you decide to register for the Course, we’ll meet eight weeks for dinner and discussion starting Wednesday, September 24, 6:30-8:00pm. Your children can join you for the meal and then go to childcare and youth activities, which take place at the same time.

To sign up for the “Get Anchored” Dinner, contact my assistant, Jami (345-3771 or jami@hbcaustin.org). To learn more, go to the Anchor Course website (here) or read a book excerpt (here).

If you’d like to have friends join you for the “Get Anchored” Dinner, the easiest way to invite them is to just forward this email to them!
___________________________________
Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday September 2

“Ms. Wisteria, who holds a degree in early Christian fabric and drapery design from Emory University's Candler School of Theology, worked as a model during her student days, and she came to a conclusion: Christian women needed a lingerie line that would let them look sexy but still retain that sense of modesty required for bedtime prayers and morning quiet time. The result was her first popular cutting-edge design-- the breakaway flannel granny gown.” (“Victorious Secret: Lingerie for Overcomers”)


“Next month, a Christian take on the Guitar Hero game, called Guitar Praise, is set to hit shelves in the US.” (From the UK’s The Guardian)


More anti-Christian violence in India, inspired by Hindu nationalism . . .


. . . but the New York Times gets it all horribly, horribly wrong.


Photos that Changed the World. Amazing.


“ ‘We're pumped,’ said the Rev. Andy McQuitty, senior pastor and one of the elders who invited Mrs. Roese (pronounced ‘Reese’) to take a turn in the pulpit. "She's an eminently qualified and gifted preacher." (from the Dallas Morning News story about Irving Bible Church’s decision to have one of their female staff members bring the morning message this Sunday)


"Many people will come to see a woman get cut in half that would never set foot in a church building otherwise." (A quirky Mother Jones story about a quirky organization, The Fellowship of Christian Magicians)


How do you answer the argument that all religions are more or less true and that it’s arrogant to claim that Jesus is the only way? This lengthy article will give you a good introduction. I tend toward what he calls the “hard” exclusivist position, but he still makes excellent points, including his “five bedrock truths” that biblical Christians must affirm, and his critique of “theological pluralism” while affirming “cultural pluralism.” Take 10 minutes to read this.


“I always liked evangelical. It seemed to me different from fundamentalism and mainline. It seemed more substantial than born-again, which often was used in ways that were intentionally divisive. To me it meant people who loved Jesus and took the Bible seriously, but were not afraid to read all kinds of books and discuss all kinds of ideas, and who cared about culture and statecraft and the arts. But it may not mean that to other people. Maybe the subculture I grew up in will eventually give in to confusion and competition and irrelevance. God is always getting people to sing new songs.” (John Ortberg, “What is an Evangelical?”


“Scientists have transformed one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a variety of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires associated with embryonic stem cell research.” (Washington Post)


“The Art of Manliness” has begun a three-part series called “Man Killers.” First up: Money.


“[Baylor Coach Art Briles’] Baylor debut seemed to generate more of a wait-and-see attitude than much of a buzz. Only about 30,000 came to 50,000-seat Floyd Casey Stadium to watch it and many started leaving when Wake Forest took a 34-6 lead late in the third quarter.” (Rivals.com) Yep, while Baylor holds its own in most of the other Big 12 sports, we get kinda quiet in the Fall. We all hope Coach Briles will give us a reason to return to the stadium, though.


“Blogs seem to magnify an existing problem in the body of Christ: We don't do a very good job listening to and learning from one another. It seems large numbers of the Theologically Preoccupied scowl across the pages of their study Bibles at the Evangelistically Fixated and accuse them of being culturally adrift--in some cases rightfully so. Many of the Evangelistically Fixated chuckle when they see books on evangelism written by many of the Theologically Preoccupied who sometimes consider the smallness of their churches a sign of their faithfulness. Let me propose a different way: Learn from one another and take the best from one another's approaches. Theologically deep believers with a passion for those far from Christ--I want both.” (Ed Stetzer)


“Standing 6 feet 5 inches in his jailhouse blues, with a square jaw and grey stubble, Mark Curran is the inmate in cell No. 2. He is also the sheriff. He hasn't been charged with any crimes. But Curran, the sheriff of Lake County, Ill., wanted to know the feeling of being caged. So he sentenced himself to a week in lock-up, in Waukegan.” (Newsweek story here. If you can’t find a sermon illustration in this story, go back to seminary.)