Winning Ways: The Power of Your Expectations

We all know about the placebo effect, but now researchers are discovering that the "nocebo effect" exists, too. And there's a lesson here about the impact of expectations on our reality.

When testing the effectiveness of a medication, some subjects will be given the real deal while some will be given a placebo, a fake pill. Patients are only told they're in a drug study and none of them are told whether they're on the trial drug or a placebo. What's interesting is that sometimes the intended outcome of the real medication shows up in those taking the placebo. The simple expectation that the medication will get them better seems to get some patients better. That's what's called the placebo effect.

But now researchers are looking into what has been dubbed the "nocebo effect." When a patient is warned about a medication's potential side effects, sometimes those unwelcome things show up even among the control patients on the placebo. Medically, patients on a fake pill shouldn't suffer any sort of reaction, but the belief that they are on the real medication causes some control patients to suffer the side effects of the real medication. They've reported the nausea, dizziness, impotence, blood pressure changes, or gastrointestinal pains that they were warned may happen.

Ah, the power of our expectations. And, ah, the power others have over our expectations. Because, you see, researchers of the nocebo effect now caution doctors to be careful in how they communicate the possible effects of their recommended actions. "Words are the most powerful tool a doctor possesses," the renowned cardiologist Bernard Lown once said, "but words, like a two-edged sword, can maim as well as heal."

Now, I don't partake of any poison fruit from the "prosperity theology" tree. But let's acknowledge that our attitudes are powerful things. Either hope or cynicism can have a real impact on whether we make forward progress in life. It can have a real impact on the lives of others, too.

When Jesus stood at the grave of Lazarus (John 11), he told the man's grieving sister, "He who believes in me will live even though he dies." Then he asked an important question: "Do you believe this?"

How you answer that question makes all the difference in how you handle whatever deadness is in your discipleship, your marriage, your grown children, your dreams.

I'm holding out for resurrection.

Do you believe this?

 

 

 

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Links to Your World, Tuesday August 28

Famed treasure hunter Forrest Fenn wants you to find his treasure. He's filled an antique lockbox with more than a million dollars’ worth of "ancient figurines, a 17th-century Spanish ring, and turquoise beads excavated from a cliff dwelling near Mesa Verde, American eagle gold coins, gold nuggets, a vial of gold dust, two gold discs, and 'a lot of jewelry,' including rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. Among these wonders he included a copy of his own autobiography, rolled and stuffed into an ancient olive jar. Then he went “into the mountains north of Santa Fe,” Fenn says, and hid the lockbox, to be found by anyone who can decipher the clues embedded in a 24-line poem that ends: 'So hear me all and listen good,/Your effort will be worth the cold./If you are brave and in the wood/I give you title to the gold.'" He hopes you'll have as much fun looking for the stuff as he's had hiding it.

 

Here's an interesting study on what a sudden infusion of cash will do to someone. The guy seems to be losing his integrity as fast as he's losing the $100 million he won in a lottery. Closing paragraph: "Maybe he felt he didn't deserve it. Maybe the money made him feel invincible, like the badass he always suspected he was – or wasn't. Maybe he was trying to simultaneously redeem and punish himself. Maybe he broke beneath the burden of divine good luck. But here's the thing. Even though he has been arrested, sued, banned from bars, robbed, and ridiculed…and stands to lose thousands more in legal fees, Jack Whitaker has another 100 million or so to lose."

 

This family decided to live on Martian Time.

 

States with the least religious residents are also the stingiest about giving money to charity.

 

Stunning shots: Winners of the National Geographic Travelers 2012 Photo Contest

 

7 Essentials of a Healthy Hospital Visit

 

"We’ve all felt like throwing our phones one point — because of badly designed interfaces, lousy reception, shatter-prone screens or the rage-inducingly awful person we were just talking to. But what if you could hurl your phone as hard as you can and actually be rewarded for it? Welcome to the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships, held each year in Finland." (story)

 

Here are some "modesty glasses" designed to keep men from gazing at women.

 

Timothy Dalrymple says it's true: Christians are haters--and here's what we hate.

 

Darryl Dash: "It's no wonder that church revitalization is rare. In each case, the turnaround took years, and the pain was significant. Both church planting and church revitalization are necessary, and both are costly and risky. But churches can be revitalized, and the cost, though significant, is more than worth it." Read the rest.

 

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Glorifying God Through Mental Disorder

It seems the only time the public pays attention to mental disorders is after a sensational tragedy. James Holmes is the most recent example. (Officially the word "alleged" still belongs in reports about his actions in the Aurora movie theater.)

Because of this imperfect way of learning about our world, the general public has a very skewered understanding of a heartbreaking struggle.


That's why this post from Matt Rendulic is so helpful. While a Princeton student, he was diagnosed with severe bipolar affective psychosis. (Though mental disorders are incipient from prenatal life, they seem to manifest in very young adulthood.) Rendulic was given intervention, accepted help, and depended on God. He now serves as a worship arts pastor in Pennsylvania. He's decided to be open about his struggle:

I’ve grown tired in the past few years of acting as if nothing is wrong with me; so 2012 is the year I will be “glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9, 10).

How has God used his manic depression?

The fruit of God’s work in my life is apparent in that God has taken my melancholy and made it a deep concern for those who suffer with loneliness and their own mental darkness. He’s allowed me to foster concern for the personal welfare and spiritual welfare of the marginalized. When I am manic, he allows the creativity he has gifted me with to shine through.

Each church I've served had at least one person who struggled with some degree of mental disorder. Including Hillcrest. Here's hoping you'll think of Rendulic instead of Holmes when you discover this.

(The Rendulic post is from a helpful website on Christian resources for dealing with mental illness, so explore it if you click through to the Rendulic post. If you or someone you love struggles with some sort of mental disorder, let me know. I'll add your concern to my prayer list and I'll suggest some resources that can help.)


 

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"We’re tempted to view the routines and ruts of everyday life with derision"

Amen to Courtney Reissig's comments:

We are tempted to feel like we aren't doing enough for Jesus unless we are saving African villages, writing inspirational books, leading a church with a massive membership roll, or adopting children from Haiti. We tend to measure success in the currency of adventurous mission trips, large ministry followings, and educational accolades. And we can feel like our life is fairly insignificant if much of our time is spent changing dirty diapers, teaching the same students every day, or working a fairly boring job. In a time when many, including well-known evangelicals, build a platform around living a “life with impact,” “changing the world,” and “making a difference”—which they announce through blogging and Twitter feeds—we’re tempted to view the routines and ruts of everyday life with derision.

Maybe somebody should invite her to the next conference for college students to provide a useful counterweight to the constant calls for students to go out and do something amazing and world-changing for God. Let's see if we can build a successful conference for young adults around this verse: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you" (1 Thessalonians 4:11).

In other words, Paul calls us to be plodding visionaries.

"That might sound boring," as Russell said in the movie Up, but in the end we may draw the same conclusion as Russell: "But I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most."

It's certainly the so-called boring stuff that God will remember most. "God has always been a God who loves to display his glory in the seemingly insignificant people or the moments that the world deems unworthy and useless" writes Reissig, citing 1 Cor. 1:27.

Read Reissig's post here.

 

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Winning Ways: Devotionals are for the Brave

If we're not faithful in daily prayer and meditation, maybe it's not so much a lack of time as it is a lack of courage.

Courage? Does it really take bravery to spend some time in quiet reflection?

I think The Onion was on to something back in March of this year with their newspaper headline, "Sweating, Shaking Man Never Going to Spend A Little Time With His Thoughts Again."

Of course, if you know The Onion, you know it's a satirical publication. But there's often a kernel of truth to the silliness. There was certainly a core of brutal honesty to their fictional report of "badly shaken 39-year-old senior account manager Daniel Tillison" who had made the mistake of taking a moment alone for quiet reflection.

"The worst part is, I actually did this to myself," Tillison admitted. "I actually said, 'I think I'd like a little time alone to think about some things.' Then, for a few brief, horrible moments, I looked deep within myself and saw who I really was. It was honestly the scariest, most nauseating experience of my life."

Would he ever do it again? The Onion reported, "Tillison said that if he ever again found himself alone and without the distractions of music, the Internet, television, or video games, he would repeatedly hit himself in the head with the handiest large blunt object to prevent any sort of return to his own innermost thoughts."

I suppose it can be dangerous to get so quiet that we start questioning the worth of our assumptions and behaviors and priorities.

And maybe that's why even those of us who are Christians prefer to start our day with the distraction of our Facebook or email accounts instead of our Bible.

Don't be afraid to start your day with a little prayer and Bible study! In my daily reading, I reflect on a text until I can answer three questions:

What do I need to praise God for?

What do I need to confess?

What do I need to ask God for?

It's a simple routine to practice, but over time the results can be profound. Through this practice across the years I've uncovered assumptions I needed to change, or rebellions I needed to surrender, or new roads I needed to take.

Be courageous enough to start your mornings in quiet reflection!

 

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Links to Your World, Tuesday August 21

James Steyer, the author of Talking Back to Facebook, is on a mission to educate parents on how important it is to show our children how to manage, filter and limit media and technology.

 

"Religious zealots hardly have a monopoly on apocalyptic thinking....The classic apocalypse has four horsemen, and our modern version follows that pattern, with the four riders being chemicals (DDT, CFCs, acid rain), diseases (bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, Ebola, mad cow disease), people (population, famine), and resources (oil, metals). Let’s visit them each in turn." Take a look at Wired's cover story over secular apocalyptic thinking.

 

NYT: SMOCK MUST PAY HIS PEW RENT.

 

"Until recently, stay-at-home fathers made up a tiny sliver of the American family spectrum. Few in number, and lacking voice, they tended to keep to themselves, trying to avoid the inevitable raised eyebrows. In the last decade, though, the number of men who have left the work force entirely to raise children has more than doubled, to 176,000, according to recent United States census data. Expanding that to include men who maintain freelance or part-time jobs but serve as the primary caretaker of children under 15 while their wife works, the number is around 626,000" (NYT).

 

"A significant number of social and personality psychologists have told researchers they would discriminate against conservatives in decisions about publishing, grant applications and hiring" (Perspectives on Psychological Science).

 

 

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"What they came together for"

Wendell Berry's fictional barber, Jayber Crow, isn't exactly a religious character, but he still had an appreciation for the church and its place in the lives of the community he loved. Here's hoping you find this appreciation for church as well:

What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to live one another and to forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another's help and company and divine gifts, their hope (and experience) of love surpassing death, their gratitude.

From Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

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Winning Ways: W-A-R-M-T-H

How do we protect the emotional and spiritual warmth of our church? Six actions, beginning with the letters "W-A-R-M-T-H," can help.

W: Work. Scripture tells us that, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.” (1 Corinthians 12:7, NLT) Discover how you can contribute to the work our church is trying to accomplish.

A: Attach. Paul wrote, “And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.” (Romans 12:5, NLT) We are not to be spectators who slip in for the church’s “show” on Sundays and then slip out. Get connected to others through Sunday School or Common Ground.

R: Respect. It’s mutual respect that gets us through. James wrote, “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.” (James 3:18, Msg)

M: Motivate. As family members, we need to encourage, or motivate, each other to make the right choices. “Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out,” the Bible says, “not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25, Msg).

T: Testify. Help people share with each other what they’re experiencing with God. I love how Paul put it: “I want us to help each other with the faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you.” (Romans 1:12, NCV) When Paul wrote that he had been a believer for perhaps thirty years and a church leader for twenty-five, yet he acknowledged how he needed to hear about the experiences others were having with God. We never get too old or too experienced in following Jesus that we outgrow the need to learn from others.

H: Heal. Mend the hurts of other believers through prayer and caring actions. “My children,” John tenderly wrote, “Our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.” (1 John 3:18, TEV).

Through your involvement at Hillcrest, aim for this kind of W-A-R-M-T-H.

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Links to Your World, Tuesday August 14

10 simple life hacks in 2 minutes. Pretty cool.

 

Do you suffer from Daily Hallucinating Delusional Syndrome? Chances are 100% you do.

 

"A Chinese friend once insisted that of course 20-something Americans all get news boyfriends and girlfriends every single week: she'd seen it on Friends, and Seinfeld, and Sex and the City, and a half dozen other TV shows. They couldn't all be lying." From an Atlantic article about the surprises foreigners experience upon arriving in the U.S. My youngest sister, who works with refugees in Austin, alerted me to this article.

 

Have you heard that Chic-fil-a gives to "anti-gay" organizations? Want to know what gay rights advocates regard as "anti-gay" organizations?

 

"[Paul] Ryan understands that the longer we ignore the debt crisis and postpone serious budget cuts—the liberal equivalent of denying global warming—the more painful the reckoning will be. There’s nothing compassionate about that kind of irresponsibility. Maybe, like me, you were raised in a liberal household. You don’t agree with conservative ideas on social or foreign policy. But this is why God made Republicans: to force a reality check when Democrats overpromise and overspend" (William Saleten).

 

"There would often be [steamboat] passengers too, getting or getting off, accompanied sometimes by valises or trunks. I could never get enough of watching them. They had, to me, the enchantment of distance about them" (Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry). Don't you love that? The enchantment of distance about them.

 

Could the mere selection of a font influence us to believe one thing rather than another? To be taken seriously Errol Morris of the NYT discovers that you should use Baskerville and avoid "the loser font," Comic Sans.

 

Danny Akin answers the question, "Is it true Jesus never addressed same-sex marriage?"

 

Every year, the Oxford Dictionary online adds a few new words to their dictionary. Here are ten new words for you to master and work into your conversation today.

 

Amen, Marty Duren: "To All Media Outlets, Reporters, Writers and Editors: It is abundantly clear to most Americans that the 'Westboro Baptist Church' is neither 'Baptist' nor a 'church' according to any commonly accepted meaning of either word. As a Christ follower, and a long time church attender, I enter this plea to stop using the phrase 'Westboro Baptist Church' in favor of the more accurate 'the Westboro cult.'"

 

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Considering Data from a "Bisexual Conservative"

"I cherish my mother’s memory, but I don’t mince words when talking about how hard it was to grow up in a gay household."

Robert Lopez, a bisexual Latino intellectual, raised by a lesbian, defending the maligned study of gay parenting by UT sociologist Mark Regnerus. Read the entire Lopez article. It's a fascinating look at what made a bisexual a conservative. It will be interesting to see whether Regnerus's study, which failed to follow the current cultural script, will survive the contemporary academy's preference for advocacy over inquiry.



 

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"You have to get to the beauty of it, and then go back to the reasons for it"

Tim Keller:

There is a way of telling the gospel that makes people say, “I don’t believe it’s true, but I wish it were.” You have to get to the beauty of it, and then go back to the reasons for it. Only then, when you show that it takes more faith to doubt it than to believe it; when the things you see out there in the world are better explained by the Christian account of things than the secular account of things; and when they experience a community in which they actually do see Christianity embodied, in healthy Christian lives and solid Christian community, that many will believe.

 

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"The real enemy is the conviction that we can live without limits on our appetites"

Rod Dreher wonders why conservatives are so resistant to any guidance on changing unhealthy diets:

For conservatives, it may be revealing to compare the defensiveness with which many of us discuss what we do in the dining room to the defensiveness liberals approach discussion of what they do in the bedroom. Liberals, to overgeneralize, believe that what consenting adults do in bed with their bodies is immune from moral judgment. Social conservatives recognize the falsity of this view, understanding that immoderation in sexual matters corrupts individual character and can have deleterious social consequences.

Yet for some reason, this insight fails us when it comes to what we do with our bodies at the table, and we react to criticism, however thoughtful, as hysterically as any Left Coast libertine denied a guilt-free canoodle. The real enemy in this matter is neither the priggish organic obsessive nor the nanny-state nabob nor the farmer’s-market fussbudget. No, the real enemy is the conviction that we can live without limits on our appetites and that anybody who says otherwise is an enemy of the people.

Read his article here.

 

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Winning Ways: We Can Be Heroes

I caught myself glancing at the exits while watching The Dark Knight Rises last weekend. I know I'm not the only one to watch that film now and wonder what it was like to have a gunman burst in on the midnight opening in Aurora back on July 20.


And I know I'm not the only male to wonder if I would have responded competently and courageously for the sake of others.

The New York Post reported on 3 men who died while protecting their girlfriends. Matt McQuinn was killed shielding Samantha Yowler. Alex Teves used his body to cover girlfriend Amanda Lindgren. Jonathan Blunk drew on his military experience when he threw his date, Jansen Young, to the floor, shouting, "Stay down!" as he pushed her under the seat. "I guess I didn’t really know he had passed until I started shaking him and saying, ‘Jon, we have to go,'" she said. "He took a bullet for me."

Hanna Rosen for Slate said that such an instinct to be the protector is fundamental to a man. She writes that though this long American recession has taken its toll on men, that guardian impulse still remains:

Throwing your body in front of your girlfriend when people all around you are getting shot is an instinct that's basic....It’s the same reason these Batman and Spider-Man franchises endure: Because whatever else is fading away, women still seem to want their superhero, and men still seem to want to be him.

I think that instinct is what Paul was tapping into when he wrote, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). As we daily sacrifice self-interest in service to our families, it's simply a small imitation of Christ who "gave himself up" on a cross to meet our greatest need of salvation. Like him, then, from housekeeping to budgeting to childcare to decision-making to romance, a husband has to keep in mind the interests of his family and not just himself.

Such mundane things seem far removed from the heroic actions in Aurora--or Christ's heroic action on a cross. But Paul says the instinct behind them all is the same: There's honor in serving others at cost to yourself.

So, guys, how will you lay down your life for your bride today?

 



 

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Guide Your Community to Explore Christianity This Fall

Twice a year I lead a 9-week study for believers and their seeking friends to explore Christianity together. Now's the time to make plans to run a Fall study in your own church.

My study is called "The Anchor Course: Exploring Christianity Together," and you can get the materials for 20% off until August 10 by clicking this link. Just use the code "ASTOUND." The was set by the publisher, and it's case-sensitive.

To learn more about the Course, this webpage will give you a chance to “test drive” one of the weeks yourself.


As you'll see on the "test drive" webpage, a DVD of all the lessons is available. I also have a booklet in PDF form called "How to Run the Course." The DVD is $25 (U.S. destinations only), and the PDF is free when you request it.

 




 

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"None of these things mean I've been paying attention"

What a beautiful reminder. Russ Ramsey on moments that you can't capture on your smartphone's camera app:

So many things in life fall into this category—events you simply cannot bottle for later—like the birth of a child, the funeral of a loved one, a sunset, the presentation and enjoyment of a great meal, a surprise party, a concert, climbing out of a cold tent in the mountains and restoking the campfire as you watch the sun come up, sifting through the rubble of a flood or a fire, kissing your daughter’s forehead as the nurses wheel her off to surgery, asking your girlfriend to marry you, or watching a thunderstorm roll in.

In our amazing era of digital immediacy, I can tell the world where I am and what I’m doing while I’m doing it. I can present myself as a busy man living a rich and full life. I can take pictures of my meals, log my locations, snap photos of the people I’m with, and weigh in on what’s happening around the globe 140 characters at a time. But none of these things mean I’ve been paying attention.

Read the whole thing.

 

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Winning Ways: A Heartless Crime

An Irish church had its heart stolen. Let's make sure it doesn't happen to us.

For 900 years Christ Church Cathedral has housed the heart of Dublin's patron saint, Lorcán Ua Tuathail, better known today as Laurence O'Toole. Yes, his literal heart was contained in a wooden box bolted to the wall. But in March this year the iron bars surrounding the wooden box were wrenched open and the relic was snatched. Nothing else in the building was taken and police still don't have a suspect.

Cathedral staff said they were "devastated" at the loss of their heart. As I said, let's make sure it doesn't happen to us.

We can lose our church's heart, you know. It happened to the ancient Ephesian church. The book of Revelation opens with the risen Christ issuing messages for seven churches. To the Ephesian church Christ gave this warning: "You have abandoned the love you had at first" (Revelation 2:4, HCSB).

Oh, they were dutiful enough. Jesus began his message to the Ephesians with praise, acknowledging "your works, your labor, and your endurance." What's more, he congratulated them for guarding Christian truth.

But apparently we can be dutiful and doctrinal--and dry. When it comes to our actions, we can proceed through the Christian disciplines of prayer and Bible study and tithing as if on autopilot. When it comes to our beliefs, we can protect our Christian convictions more out of unreflective habit than faithfulness.

In other words, we can lose our heart. "I have this against you," Jesus warned the Ephesian believers. "You have abandoned the love you had at first."

If you asked our congregation what ought to be our church's top priority, some would say, "missions," while others would say, "biblical study." Some would suggest "outreach" or "caring fellowship."

I think Jesus would praise us for these passions, and yet none of these things qualify as the "heart" of our church.

The heart of our church is our love for Jesus. We succeed or fail by the degree of our gratitude for his sacrifice, our obedience to his commands, our prayers for his power, our worship of his worth, and our anticipation of his return.

All of our church's many activities issue from that love, but must never substitute for that love. Ask God to keep you, or return you, to your first love!

 

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