Winning Ways: If Not Us, Then Who's Going To Do It?

The animated classic A Charlie Brown Christmas airs on one of the major television networks every holiday season. This year, there's even a critically-acclaimed app for your mobile device that's built on the beloved Christmas special.

But the show almost failed to see any air time when it was first proposed back in 1965.

Two producers working closely with Charlie Brown creator Charles Schulz remember their desperate efforts to first convince a network to show the special. All the major networks were hesitant. Finally, one agreed, and the great cartoonist got to work.

A memorable part of the animated tale occurs when Linus answers Charlie Brown's plaintive cry, "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?" Linus walks to center stage, requests a spot light, then recites from Luke 2 the biblical account of Jesus' birth. "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown," he concludes.

While the program was in development, the producers cautioned Schulz about putting the scene in the special. They were convinced the religious message wouldn't go over well with the network. 

Undeterred, Schulz faced both producers and said, "If not us, then who's going to do it?"

So true. And there's a lesson there for you and me.

We have co-workers, friends, and relatives who still need to understand the Christmas message. Someone once told us, and now we need to pass it along.

As Schultz would say, "If not us, then who's going to do it?"

It could start with a simple invitation to a Christmas program at church:

A holiday fellowship hosted by your Bible study group.

This Sunday's choir performance, Hope Is Born, Emmanuel, at 10 a.m. 

The Christmas Eve Candlelight service at 6:00 p.m. on the 24th or the Christmas Day Celebration service at 11:00 a.m. on the 25th.

Our hope is that activities like this will give you an opening to explain why Christ's coming has become important to you. 

Our friends may not be as explicit as Charlie Brown, but they're still wanting an answer to the question: "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?" Be Linus to someone this season!

Tom

Links to Your World, Tuesday December 13

Awesome Gingerbread Houses. Awe. Some.

A frugal Noël: Follow these tips to fill your Santa bag without emptying your wallet

Men's Health ranks America's saddest towns. Austin gets a happiness grade of "B."

Russell Moore: Women, Stop Submitting to Men

From the Department of the Really Obvious: Studies show that generosity is as important to a successful marriage as commitment and sexual intimacy. Successful couples say or do at least five positive things for each negative interaction with their partner.

"A test for the show MythBusters went awry and sent a cannonball out of a bomb range and into a nearby residential neighborhood in Dublin, California. The cannonball, which took an unexpected bounce off a safety berm during the test, traveled 700 yards outside of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department bomb range where it was fired, hit a sidewalk, crashed through the front door of a home, traveled upstairs and went through the bedroom of a sleeping couple....The cannonball didn’t stop in the sleeping couple’s bedroom. After leaving a 10-inch hole in their wall, it crossed four lanes of traffic and bounced off the roof of Ming Jiang, whose mother was watching his 10-month-old son inside his house....The projectile finally crashed through the window of a minivan and landed in the vehicle. Surprisingly, no one was injured in the incident" (Wired).

"According to a recent Codex Group survey, 39% of those who purchased a book on Amazon looked at said title in a bricks-and-mortar store first before heading online" (story).

Tips on "Staying Hitched"

Tourè for Time suggests "five completely anecdotal and unscientific tips on staying hitched." Believers can come alongside suggestions like this and reinforce them.

1. Know that the grass ain’t greener. 

Love the one you’re with, and work through the problems you know.

2. Fight fair!

Are you using those heavy conversations to work on resolving problems or dumping negative emotion and resentment onto your partner?

3. Be good, giving and game

What each member of a  couple owes the other in the bedroom.

4. Never stop flirting

Chase and court as you did when you could count the number of dates you’d had on your fingers.

5. Find mentors

It’s extremely valuable having an older couple to talk to about the problems you’re having which they’ve probably already had.

Winning Ways: King David’s King

You can change lives with questions.

Well, not just any question. In The Holy Wild, Mark Buchanan highlighted some really awkward questions from real-life courtroom cross-examinations. My favorite exchange has to be the following:

Q: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?” A: “No.” Q: “Did you check for blood pressure?” A: “No.” Q: “Did you check for breathing?” A: “No.” Q: “So then, is it possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?” A: “No.” Q: “How can you be so sure, doctor?” A: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.” Q: “But could the patient have still be alive nevertheless?” A: “It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.”

I guess that’s proof that not all questions will change your life—or even win a court case. But Jesus asked some questions that were meant to re-orient a person’s entire worldview. In Matthew 22:41-46, he asked his opponents four: What do you think about the Messiah? Whose Son is He? How is it that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls Him ‘Lord’? If David calls Him ‘Lord,’ how then can the Messiah be his Son?

He was referring to the universal Jewish expectation that the long-awaited Messiah would come from the line of King David. He wanted them to see that expectation as a correct but incomplete explanation of the Messiah. So he took them to Psalm 110, in which King David said, “The Lord God said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” And Jesus asked, “How can the Messiah be both David’s son and his Lord?

Jesus left the question unanswered in hopes that the riddle would wriggle into their souls and re-orient their whole worldview. He wanted them to understand that he was the root as well as the fruit of David’s line.

It’s actually what the story of Christmas is all about. As we sing in Hark, the Herald Angels Sing—

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see

Hail the incarnate Deity

Pleased as man with man to dwell

Jesus, our Emmanuel.

Join us this Sunday @ 10 as we wrap up our 9-week study on King David. We’ll look at King David’s King, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

_____________________________________

Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to 1200 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday December 6

How A Charlie Brown Christmas almost didn’t happen

"Christmas [songs] are, if anything, the visiting relatives of the musical world: They show up at the same time every year, stick around a little longer than one might prefer, and set the tone of virtually all family entertainment while they are in town. A December without them would be strange and slightly lonely, yet the prospect of their absence tends to be, by one week in, a reason in itself to look forward to the new year" (Nathan Heller for Slate).

As lake levels drop in Texas, objects long submerged are being revealed, attracting the attention of historians, anthropologists, criminal investigators and, in one case, NASA. Read the NYT story here.

12 Days of Christmas: The Partridge, Rings, Drummers Will Cost You $101,119

The Talmud says a name is a child's first gift. Bonnie Rochman for Time says it can also impact the child's future. Choose wisely, parents.

Related: 2011's Most Popular Baby Names

Are edible newspapers in our future?

Here's how people look at your Facebook page: profile pics matter, and content on top is next, followed by who your friends are. 

"Praybook is a simple and systematic way to organize your Facebook friends into a daily prayer list. You may choose a monthly, quarterly, or yearly rotation, selecting a manageable number of friends you will pray for each day."

Mind-blowing art made on coffee.

"The best approach to Facebook privacy is to assume that there isn’t any. If you’ve got photos, affiliations or peccadilloes that you prefer to hide from the world, the worst possible place for them is Facebook, no matter what your settings. But for stuff you want to share–hey, there’s no better place" (Time).

The 40 Most Shared Links On Facebook

“Listen well. There is nothing more that he needed to say.”

"What more can he say than to you he has said?"

Let that rattle around a minute. I don't know how you read Scripture. But there is a way to read Scripture that leaves you wishing God had said a whole lot more. How did Satan become evil? Why does Chronicles add zeros to the numbers in Samuel and Kings? How did Jonah avoid asphyxiation? Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

And those aren't even the questions that most often divide and perplex the church. Wouldn't it have been great if the Lord had slipped in one killer verse that pinned down the eschatological timetable; that resolved once and for all every question about baptism; that specifically told us how to organize church leadership and government; that told us exactly what sort of music to use in worship; that explained how God's absolute sovereignty neatly dovetails with full human responsibility? Only one more verse! And think what he could have told us with an extra paragraph or chapter! If only the Lord had shortened the genealogies, omitted mention of a few villages in the land distribution, and condensed the spec sheet for the temple's dimensions, dishware, decor, and duties. Our Bible would be exactly the same length-even shorter-but a hundred of our questions could have been anticipated and definitively answered. Somehow, God in his providence didn't choose to do that.

It comes down to what you are looking for as you read and listen. When you get to what most matters, to life-and-death issues, what more can he say than to you he has said? Betrayal by someone you trusted? Aggressive, incurable cancer? Your most persistent sin? A disfiguring disability? The meaning and purpose of your life? Good and evil? Love and hate? Truth and lie? Hope in the face of death? Mercy in the face of sin? Justice in the face of unfairness? The character of God? The dynamics of the human heart? What more can he say than to you he has said? Listen well. There is nothing more that he needed to say.

--From Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, John Piper and Justin Taylor, ed.

Beauty for Ashes

This designer turns AK-47s into jewelry. There's a sermon illustration in there....

Free Bible App

If you haven't downloaded the free YouVersion Bible app for your mobile device, now's the time. Here's one minute on YouVersion worldwide:

LeaderLines: Partnerships For Reaching Texas

You’ll see a new line item in the proposed 2012 annual budget. The line item will expand our partnerships for reaching Texas with the gospel.

In addition to our participation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), the proposed 2012 budget gives us a chance to partner with fellow Baptists through the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC).

Here are answers to some questions you may have.

Why should Hillcrest participate in two Baptist state conventions?

Plain and simple: The decision enables us to partner with more Baptists to reach Texas with the gospel.

The Christians who most closely share our faith convictions in our state are in two conventions: the BGCT and the SBTC. Think about leadership training, youth rallies, church planting, river ministry, disaster relief, and many other important services. If you want to find people doing these things who most closely share our faith convictions, you’re going to find them in both the BGCT and the SBTC.

So, this decision isn’t about deciding which convention got it “right” in debates from 30 years ago. This decision is about the 21^st century realities of partnering with other Texas Baptist churches. You may strongly prefer the policies and personalities of just one of the two conventions, but participating in both the BGCT and the SBTC allows Hillcrest to engage with all other Texas believers who most closely share our faith convictions. We want to be involved in Super Summer (BGCT) and the Student Evangelism Conference (SBTC). We want to support river ministry (BGCT) and the Ezekiel Project (SBTC).

Will this mean a reduction in support to our historic ties to the BGCT?

No.

Historically, our support of the BGCT has been a percentage of our undesignated receipts. The 2011 budget committed 2.7 percent of our undesignated receipts to the BGCT, and the 2012 budget will commit 2.7 percent, also.

That should result in $27,000 to the BGCT in 2012. By contrast, we propose we send $1,200 to the SBTC.

(By the way, the $100 a month we propose to the SBTC will not come out of our support of the local Austin Baptist Association or our support of the national Southern Baptist Convention. Like the BGCT, we support the work of these partnerships through a percentage of our undesignated receipts. Those percentages will not change from 2011 to 2012.)

What process did our church follow in making this decision?

The Missions Committee has the responsibility of submitting the missions budget to the congregation, but it seemed best to include the deacons in on this decision, also. So, in the summer, members of the Missions Committee and the deacon body met together with representatives from the BGCT and the SBTC. After a week to pray, the members of the Missions Committee and the deacon body met again and decided to include the SBTC with the BGCT in our 2012 budget.

This joint decision is reflected in your copy of the proposed budget. The church will have a chance to discuss and vote on the 2012 budget in December. This Sunday, December 4, you can come to a “Q&A” from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in O-107. This is an informal time for people to ask any questions they have about our budget and budget process. Then, on Wednesday, December 7, join us in A-161 for our special called business meeting to discuss and vote in the 2012 budget.

If you have any questions, drop me a line or give me a call! God bless our church as we look for ways to partner with other believers to reach Texas with the gospel!

________________________

Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 350 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

"You set the standard with your actions. The words can come after"

"There's almost a faith cliche, where (athletes) come out and say, 'I want to thank my Lord and savior.' As soon as you say that, the guard goes up, the walls go up, and I came to realize you have to be more strategic. The greatest impact you can have on people is never what you say, but how you live. When you speak and represent the person of Jesus Christ in all actions of your life, people are drawn to that. You set the standard with your actions. The words can come after."

Kurt Warner, on advice he would give to Tim Tebow from his own experience as an outspoken Christian.

A good caution--as long as you get around to that last part: The words.

“I knew about the Council of Nicea, but no one had ever told me how to lead my own council meeting”

This is the complaint so many of us have of our seminary training, despite the fact that most of us deeply loved our time in the academia’s longest master’s program. From James Emery White:

Toward the end of my seminary degree, just before I started my doctoral work, I received a call from a church near the school asking me to consider coming as their interim pastor. It was an established denominational church in a county seat town near the seminary. The interim turned into a full-fledged invitation to serve as their senior pastor.

Yet when I, as a new pastor, was asked to officiate my first wedding, my first funeral, my first baptism, and my first communion, I was totally clueless. So why did they ask me to be a pastor? It was assumed that since I was nearing my graduation from seminary, I knew what I was doing.

I didn’t.

It didn’t get any better.

I needed to raise money to meet the church’s budget, and there had never been a class on that.

I wanted to try and grow the church numerically by reaching out to the unchurched, and my coursework had never touched on it.

I had a problem with a combative and disagreeable deacon, and I searched through my seminary notes and found nothing.

I found I needed to be in the office for administration, in my study to prepare my talks, in people’s lives to stay connected to the community, and in my home to raise my family – and there hadn’t been any instruction on how to manage that.

It was becoming painfully clear how little my seminary education was actually preparing me for the day-in, day-out responsibilities of leading a church.

I knew about the Council of Nicea, but no one had ever told me how to lead my own council meeting.

I knew about the Barth-Brunner debate, but not how to handle the breakdown between two Sunday school teachers when one was asked to start a new class, for the same age-group, from the existing class.

I knew the significance of the aorist verb, but not how to parse the culture to know how best to communicate.

I could tell you the leading theologians of the 16th century, but not about leading and managing a staff.

This is why so many people look back on their seminary education with a critical eye.

It’s why pastors will go to a two-day leadership conference headlined by seasoned leaders passing on their insights for effective ministry, and feel like they gained more in those two days than they had in their entire three years of seminary education.

It’s why quickly after graduation, Melanchthon gets dropped for Maxwell, Luther for Lucado, and the seminary’s continuing education program for the latest Catalyst event.

We need seminary. We don’t want to lose the necessary academic side of things. But we also need seminaries to realize they do not exist to serve the academy, but to serve the church.

The rest.

Winning Ways: What Are You ‘Counting’ On?

When you come to your census, I hope you will come to your senses.

Everyone comes to his census eventually. King David did, literally. In 2 Samuel 24, David ordered a count of the fighting men at his disposal. Even Joab thought the plan detestable. Joab was always willing to do the dirty work to keep David in power, but even he said, “David, you don’t want to do this.” If even Joab objected, you know this isn’t going to end well. But David had his way, and enrolled every man eligible to fight.

What motivated this count? Arrogance, or ambition, or anxiety. That is, David wanted to boast in his strength (arrogance), or he was plotting a military campaign without direction from God (ambition), or he felt his nation was threatened and wanted reassurance (anxiety). Whatever the motivation, though, it betrayed a loss of faith in God.

Like David, you come to your census when you look to something other than God for your self-worth and security. In his remarkable book, Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller calls this idolatry. “An idol,” he writes, “is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I'll feel my life has meaning, then I'll know I have value, than I'll feel significant and secure.’”

But when you come to your census, I hope you come to your senses!

David is our guide here. The moment that Joab reported the number—that number David hoped would feed his self-worth or relieve his anxiety—it was upon hearing the report that David was conscience-stricken. “I have sinned greatly,” he said. The consequences were costly: The very thing David had depended on for his worth and security—the number of his fighters—was reduced by 70,000 through plague. But David’s repentance and God’s mercy brought an end to the crisis.

Like David, we come to our senses when we return to full trust in God. In Jeremiah 9:23-24, God says, “The wise must not boast in his wisdom; the mighty must not boast in his might; the rich must not boast in his riches. But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows Me.”

We all need help in coming to our senses. So, join us this Sunday @ 10 as we let this important story develop us.

_______________________________

Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to 1200 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday November 29

25 most-used passwords including, yes, "password."

How to save $10,000 by next Thanksgiving

Feeling like a flaba-flaba? Learn to trash talk across the centuries with Jonathon Green’s new book, Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a 6,200-page lexicon.

6 types of college class hand-raisers.

"The science of learning is demonstrating that the ability to make accurate estimates is closely tied to the ability to understand and solve problems" (Time).

Ignorance may actually be bliss. By remaining unengaged with the details of an important issue, individuals feel they can maintain dependence on another party to take care of it.

Voters Prefer Deep-Voiced Politicians

Poll shows that 100% of grandsons are talented.

"High school and college students may be “digital natives,” but they’re wretched at [web] searching. In a recent experiment at Northwestern, when 102 undergraduates were asked to do some research online, none went to the trouble of checking the authors’ credentials. In 1955, we wondered why Johnny can’t read. Today the question is, why can’t Johnny search?... Good education is the true key to effective search." (Time)

When people view a virtual version of themselves digitally aged by several decades, contributions to retirement accounts go up by 30 percent (story). I wonder if that would also drive us to develop our character, too.

"Willpower can indeed be quite limited — but only if you believe it is. When people believe that willpower is fixed and limited, their willpower is easily depleted. But when people believe that willpower is self-renewing — that when you work hard, you’re energized to work more; that when you’ve resisted one temptation, you can better resist the next one — then people successfully exert more willpower. It turns out that willpower is in your head" (NYT).

Listen to Chard deNiord read "Augustine's Pears" here.

Winning Ways: Riding with the King

We're hard-wired to glorify the solo hero. Whether it's Zorro single-handedly rescuing his down-trodden community or Bruce Willis' Die Hard John McClane terrorizing the terrorists by himself, we seem to be drawn to the Lone Ranger figures.

In the real world, though, it takes a team of heroes to accomplish anything of lasting value.

At first, you might think that the King David Story is another Lone Ranger story. David so dominates the Old Testament landscape that you might not immediately notice all the human help he received. That's why 2 Samuel 23 is so important. As the writer of 2 Samuel ended his story, he celebrated the "Mighty Men" who made David's success possible. 

What do you think it took to be in David's posse? That's a vital question, because the biblical writer had a point for including this list of "Mighty Men" in the David Story. It wasn't just to have thrilling stories to tell to boys around campfires. The writer wanted to illustrate some qualities worth copying.

The German philosopher Gotthold Lessing thought of ancient Greek sculpture when he said, "Beautiful men made beautiful statues, and the city had beautiful statues in part to thank for beautiful citizens." 

In other words, we become what we celebrate. 

So, what are we honoring in our churches, our families, and our society? I read through the brief stories of David's Mighty Men and I find some characteristics to honor in others--and develop in myself. These guys were brave when others ran away, they stood their ground no matter how exhausting the conflict, they were willing to sacrifice for the good of the community. Such characteristics qualified them to ride in David's posse.

This Sunday @ 10, we'll look at six qualities of David's Mighty Men worth copying. It's part of our continuing series, "Full-Throttle Faith: Life Lessons From King David." You can review or catch up with the series at our website, HillcrestAustin.org. If you've got guests in for Thanksgiving this weekend, bring them with you!

 

New York says, “The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion”

Intelligence Squared is among the podcasts that automatically update on my iTunes. Given that the “winners” of the Oxford-style debates are determined by New York City audiences, I’ve often been surprised at how conservative the vote turns out to be on many social issues (e.g., Obamacare).

The results of the most recent debate, however, did not surprise me. The motion: “The world would be better off without religion.” The audience was heavily populated with those already inclined to agree with the motion.

Thus, it took little more than clever bloviation to win the day.

Listen or watch here.

"What if you're not the grateful sort?"

John Tierney:

"Cultivating an 'attitude of gratitude' has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners....But what if you’re not the grateful sort? I sought guidance from the psychologists who have made gratitude a hot research topic. Here’s their advice for getting into the holiday spirit — or at least getting through dinner Thursday.

Start with “gratitude lite.” Keep a journal listing five things for which you feel grateful, like a friend’s generosity, something you've learned, a sunset you've enjoyed.

Don’t confuse gratitude with indebtedness.

Try it on your family. "Do one small and unobtrusive thoughtful or generous thing for each member of your family on Thanksgiving. Say thank you for every thoughtful or kind gesture. Express your admiration for someone’s skills or talents."

Don’t counterattack.

Share the feeling.

Try a gratitude visit. Write a 300-word letter to someone who changed your life for the better. Be specific about what the person did and how it affected you. Deliver it in person, preferably without telling the person in advance what the visit is about. When you get there, read the whole thing slowly to your benefactor.

Contemplate a higher power.

Go for deep gratitude.

Life Before Facebook

Life before Facebook:

Evangelical Faith and the Texas Frontier

One great change in post Civil War Texas was the emergence of the churches. All historians seem to agree that they were the single most important cultural and social force behind the Texas frontier.... Baptists and Methodists carried over the old Anglo-Celtic Puritan ethic almost intact. Baptists recognized only the authority of the local congregation in matters of religion; they supported no other; and they could organize a church without authority or ordination. They were slow to erect church buildings, but by 1860 they already had 500 congregations in Texas. The Methodists were still a majority in 1870, but losing ground fast. These, and other evangelical bodies, enjoyed a rapid growth in Texas. By 1870, there were 843 churches, with some 200,000 members.

These fundamentalist congregations were evolved by the frontier; they met its conditions most perfectly; and they were saturated with the American frontier ethos. All were puritanical, sectarian, and enormously democratic; they were brotherhoods rather than institutionalized organizations. They bore very little resemblance to the urban Presbyterian, Anglican, or other churches. They filled a much larger void in rural life. The evangelical assemblies provided the frontier with its social cohesion; they were the only cultural and socializing agencies Anglo-Texas had.

...

Church meetings were as much social as ideological. They were held in open groves or brush arbors. Here families came from miles around, dressed in Sunday best. They included suppers, bazaars, and basket parties; they lasted all day, with religious services in the morning and at night. There were two-hour sermons, delivered by circuit riders or local laymen; men and women listened from separate benches. Here women and girls, starved for companionship of their own kind, could grasp at news and gossip, and men discussed crops, common problems, and politics. This meeting was the only place large numbers of people ever assembled regularly on the harsh frontier. The enormous, socializing, tribal effect on thought and custom is easily understood. What was discussed, and thundered from the crude pulpits, set the moral standards and much of the thinking of farming Texans across the whole frontier.

Some of the preachers were cultivated men . The great majority were men of God called from the people, well-meaning but unlettered, who understood their people and the essential evils to which all flesh was heir. This was a cruel, hard, atomistic place, where great wrongs were done and received. The preachers tried to battle the world and the devil; they thundered against sins of every kind. They did not regularly prevail; nor was it possible for any clergy, in this or any other time or place, to alter the facts of human nature or be substantially different from their own people in thought and deed. The preachers were sometimes harsh, stubborn, intemperate, intolerant, like their flocks; but they made the pulpit the center of their world, and they probably left the world a bit better than they found it.

The frontiersman were Old Testament-oriented. The land they lived in had many parallels with the land of Canaan, and they themselves with the children of Israel. They were beset with dangerous heathen enemies. The land was scourged by ravaging insects and burning drought; the imagery of the Israelite deserts struck home in the Texan heat. The farmer endured plagues of grasshoppers; he lost sheep and cows to cats and wolves; he saw green crops die and wells run dry. The Old Testament had a relevance it would have for no later American generations.

The lives of the farmers hung on acts of God, who made rain fall from the heavens and the rivers swell. Their best-loved hymns, with which they made the arbors shake, sang of cool and beautiful rivers they would someday cross, and of glorious showers of blessing upon the land. These people, especially near the 98th meridian, were locked in gigantic battle against Nature's God and their own weaknesses; like Israelites, They chose this soil; like Israelites they had to fight for it, with faith. They developed an Israelite chauvinism and intolerance, which sometimes gave them callous cruelty, but with it, a Hebrew strength.

Lone Star: a History of Texas and the Texans by TR Fehrenbach, pp599-601

Links to Your World, Tuesday November 22

How Calvinists Spread Thanksgiving Cheer


BU Kendall Wright's amazing catch of a deflected pass has earned a place in the history of deflected passes.


How Many Presidents Have Been Accused of Being the Antichrist?


Gary Chapman and his "Five Love Languages" gets some NY Times exposure.


"Altogether, a third of the planet is experiencing more extreme and erratic variations in day-to-day weather. The weather—not just big storms, but the daily stuff of the evening newscast—really is getting weirder" (Time).


Report: Majority Of Americans Experience Profound Sense Of Dread When Asked To Name Favorite Music


Financial Doers vs. Financial Dreamers


3 Proven Strategies To Keep The Internet From Killing Your Productivity


Related: This blogger explains why a Nook is better than an iPad for reading, and advises you use the  program "Freedom" to discipline yourself for some Internet-free work.


Facebook Tracks People Without Accounts


What to do with all those Thanksgiving leftovers.


Which carrier should you use with an iPhone? Wired says "if you value downloading material quickly, you should go with AT&T. If call reliability is paramount, stick with Verizon, and if you want to use a lot of data but don’t care about speed, go with Sprint."

Financial Doers vs. Financial Dreamers

Dan Kadlec for Time Moneyland:

TD Ameritrade separated financial doers from financial dreamers by identifying eight sound money practices. Doers engage in at least five of these behaviors; dreamers engage in just four or fewer. Where do you fit in? The behaviors:

• Act more like a saver than a spender
• Live within your means
• Automatically deposit money into savings each month
• Stick to a budget
• Track household expenses
• Pay off credit card debt in a timely way
• Regularly contribute to a 401(k)
• Have contributed to an IRA

Read more.

This Could Be Your Kit!

Some of you helped us pack 85 in-home health care kits a year ago for southern Africa. (I’ve temporarily re-activated the page on that past project--click here). I found this image at the Baptist Mission of Zambia’s website of a missionary nurse in Uganda delivering a BGR In-Home Care Kit. This could be one of the very kits you packed. Thanks!

Book Review: Going Deep

In his new book, Going Deep: Becoming a Person of Influence Gordon MacDonald proposes that churches train the next generation of Christian young adults through an intentional and relational process. Returning to the fictional congregation he introduced us to in Who Stole My Church? MacDonald uses the imaginary interactions between himself as pastor and various fictional church members to get his points across. The reader follows the process as the amorphous burden for developing the next generation of adults turns into a specific plan and the plan settles into a weekly group meeting where the fictional characters evolve into the hoped-for “deepening people” as the weeks go along. Because the fictional account is meant to be an imaginary way to introduce readers to specific practices designed to cultivate deeper people, the scenarios can feel a little contrived at times. But I concluded the book with a desire to involve young adults at my church in more intentional spiritual development. One side-note: MacDonald falls firmly on the “egalitarian” side of the women-in-ministry debate, so church leaders who are of the “complementarian” persuasion will need to be prepared to address this issue if they use the book in their churches.

Winning Ways: When God’s In Charge, You Can Take Charge

Are you yielding to circumstances or yielding to God? There’s a difference.

Life can overwhelm us, leaving us passive when we know we need to take action. Parents can “tune out” instead of intervening in their teenager’s destructive choices. Business leaders can hide in the safety of familiar routines instead of adapting to the rapid changes of their industry. Marriage partners can find escapes to avoid dealing with what is unraveling their relationship.

Instead of yielding to circumstances, we need to learn how to yield to God.

King David went through a season where he passively yielded to the tragic circumstances swirling around him: a family rape, a family murder, and ultimately a family revolt. These all took place right under David’s nose during a season of morose passivity.

Maybe he didn’t feel he had the moral authority to confront these sins. Following his adultery with Bathsheba and his panicked de facto murder of Uriah (2 Samuel 11-12), David was compromised as a leader and a father. He was sidelined by depression, self-loathing, and uncertainty about his standing in the eyes of others. And so he resigned himself to the heartbreak going on around him.

But then something happened. As he and his loyal followers abandoned Jerusalem ahead of the invasion of his rebel son, Absalom, the Levites showed up with the ark.

And seeing that holy object, something stirred again in our flawed hero.

After all, this is the ark David retrieved, with dancing, as his first order of kingly business (2 Samuel 6). And now, seeing that symbol of God’s reign, David said, “Take the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again. But if he says, ‘I am not pleased with you,’ then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him” (15:25-26).

Here’s the interesting thing: After yielding to God, David began to once again take charge of his circumstances! He began to act like the king we remember, and Absalom’s chaos was brought to an end.

It seems that when God’s in charge, we can take charge.

Take some time with 2 Samuel 13-19 this week and reflect on where you’ve started to yield to circumstances with resignation. Then join us this Sunday @ 10 to recommit to David’s way of yielding to God.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to 1200 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday, November 15

Physics of the Yellow Angry Bird

 

Genetically-modified mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands. Here's hoping.

 

"You can say this about Rick Perry: He has forgotten more about cutting government than Barack Obama will ever know" (James Taranto, on Perry's infamous debate flub).

 

The science behind a 'brain freeze.'   

 

"For the past two years, we've been collecting the life stories of women behind bars for our new book, Inside this Place, Not of It: Narratives From Women's Prisons. The stories are chilling." Read the rest.

 

15 turning points in life where we tend to pack on the pounds

 

I've had only brief encounters with "the dark night of the soul," described here. God, may I be ready should it be in your plan for me.

 

Andrew Weil says "data smog" may contribute to depression. Agree?  

 

Study: Religious Folks Have a Sunnier Outlook. And apparently we’re fatter too.

LeaderLines: On the Good Ship Hillcrest

You are a Crew Member, a Passenger, a Stowaway, or a Pirate. Every member of Hillcrest falls under one of these labels.

That’s an image Will Mancini provides in his book, Church Unique. What label a person wears depends on his or her answer to two questions:

Do I embrace the church’s vision?

Do I want to be a contributor to the church?

The church’s “vision” is the hoped-for future that a church’s leadership is steering the church toward. To “contribute” to the church means more than financial support—though it includes that. It involves one’s investment of time, skills, energy and input in the work of the church.

A “yes” or “no” answer to these two questions results in four types of people in every church. Think of the church like a ship:

The Crew is made up of people who buy the vision and want to contribute.

Passengers are people who buy the vision and don’t want to contribute.

Stowaways are people who don’t buy the vision and don’t want to contribute.

Pirates are people who don’t buy the vision and do want to contribute.

As to the last category -- Pirates -- Mancini acknowledges that not everyone has ill intent simply because they don’t buy the vision but still want to influence the organization. Nevertheless, he says, “to want to contribute and to not agree with the vision is an act of piracy, whether the person has harmful intentions or not.”

I think this is a helpful way to identify the people in any organization, including a church. In my experience, the majority of every church is made up of Passengers and Crew. Though the Pirates can cause a lot of trouble -- intended or not -- a leader’s focus should be on how to turn Passengers into Crew.

I’m grateful for Passengers who can at least articulate our church’s vision, but we want an ever-growing Crew who lend a hand to actually accomplish that vision. As a partner in leadership, look for ways to build our Crew!

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Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 350 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Winning Ways: When a Hero Falls

There are other options than repenting of our sin. It's just that none of them work.

We learn this from watching King David repent of adultery and murder.

Adultery? Murder?

David?

As we've walked through the story of King David on Sunday mornings, would you have ever thought it would have come to this? Up to 2 Samuel 11, his story has been exemplary. Heroic David. Patient David. Worshipping David. Merciful David.

And now adulterous David, scheming David. He pulled Bathsheba into infidelity and then, upon finding her pregnant, he conspired to have her husband killed in battle to cover his adultery.

The tragic story recounted in 2 Samuel 11-12 is, as Walter Brueggemann put it, "more than we want to know about David and more than we can bear to understand about ourselves."

One thing the story tells us is that this is not the king we were looking for, after all. In "Head Full of Doubt," the Avett Brothers sing about the disillusionment that comes when you find that "your life doesn't change by the one that's elected." It seems we all pin our hopes on people only to be disappointed. If any of us were hoping to find the ideal man and leader in the David Story, these two chapters make us realize we have to keep looking. The King we really want and need isn't David but the Son of David, who will be born in the city of David a thousand years later.

But David is exemplary in this story in one way: His full-throttle repentance.

To relieve the guilt of our sin there are other things we could try. We could shift the blame to someone else, we could rationalize our failure to the point that we find it perfectly understandable, or we could live in denial.

David took none of these options. When the prophet Nathan confronted him, David crumpled. "I have sinned against the Lord," he said, full stop. It's a thin sliver of the old David we once admired, but it's on that confession that a ruined life gets rebuilt.

You can read this heartbreaking story in 2 Samuel 11-12, and you can study it with us this Sunday. Its part of our continuing series, “Full-Throttle Faith: Life Lessons from King David.” Catch up with the series at www.HillcrestAustin.org, and join us this Sunday @ 10.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to 1200 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday November 8

Amazing baby strollers. How come they didn't have the Star Wars one when my kids were little?

 

This guy got a tattoo of next February's Super Bowl champs: The Houston Texans.  Um, yeah. Guess he wanted to get it done before a line formed for it at the tattoo shop….

 

We Lost $38 Billion Last Year Just Waiting Around for the Cable Guy

 

A Last Bastion of Civility, the South, Sees Manners Decline

 

This is a headline from the satire journal, The Onion, but it could be a sermon title in some churches I know of: "Ten Prayers That Will Get God To Sit Up and Take Notice." Ah, me.

 

Stream select songs from the new worship CD from Austin City Life. Good job, guys.

LeaderLines: Practice What You Teach

Did you hear about the driving instructor whom police discovered had never obtained a driver's license?  It's a parable about leadership.

The instructor in Berlin, Germany, had failed his first and only driving test 43 years earlier and was too nervous to retake it, despite the fact that he has prepared more than 1,000 students to pass it.  He said, "I was too afraid to try again."  In Germany, those who can't drive, apparently, teach.

As I said, it's a parable about leadership.  Too often staff and lay leaders can competently prepare people to live the kind of Christian life we aren't willing to live ourselves.  So, we teach on tithing but we don't tithe, or we teach on living by faith but we live in fear, or we teach about forgiveness but we live in bitterness, or we teach about self-discipline but we neglect our own self-control.

Let's make sure that we leaders aren't like this driving instructor.  To that end, it's important that we remember what I call the four "staff infections."  You've probably heard of a "staph" infection.  It often enters the body through a minor cut, but ends up causing serious complications.  A leadership team can develop some "infections" that result in serious complications, too. 

Each year in the churches I've served, the staff members have heard me bring my annual "Staff Infections" talk. They heard it in Tuesday’s meeting this week. These "infections" can affect all of us as leaders, not just the paid members of the team.  Review your life for signs of the following infections:

Immorality:  Our personal failures aren't as "personal" as we'd wish.  Our failures have a major impact on the rest of the leadership team.  Let's be sure we deal ruthlessly with our moral weaknesses instead of privately entertaining them.  Of course, this includes sexual immorality, but it also includes misuse of funds and church property, gossip, abuse of alcohol, and crossing any other line God has drawn in his Word.

Incompetence:  Leadership teams are plagued by this infection when team members have no interest in improving their performance.  Symptoms include inattention to standards, constant excuses for failure to perform, and resistance to things that would help them improve.

In 1 Timothy 4:14, what Paul urged the young pastor of Ephesus remains good advice for ministers today:  "Do not neglect your gift."  When ministers leave unopened the gift God has given them, laziness replaces vigor, routine ruts replace creativity, and the safety of sameness replaces the venture of faith.  Instead, we need to develop ourselves into highly competent servants of the Lord.

Insubordination:  We call our leadership group a "team," but have you noticed that the teams we love to watch in sports have captains, coaches, and managers?  To call a group of leaders a "team" doesn't mean that lines of authority don't exist.  Teams don't work well when members ignore these lines of authority.

To be honest, none of us always agrees with those who lead us.  But when this devolves into disrespect and open resistance, a staff infection has invaded the Body.

But insubordination can happen in our relationship with team members, not just in our relationship with team leaders.  Remember, the Bible calls us to mutual submission.  Ephesians 5:21 says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."  Ministry teams suffer when members allow personal differences to remain unresolved.  Ministry teams suffer when colleagues do not support each other in conversations with other church members.

Ingratitude:  This is the worst of all staff infections, and source of the other three.  Think about it.  When I lose my grateful wonder that God has called me to serve his people, I can fall into sloppy habits (Incompetence).  When I lose my thankfulness for the gifts of those I work with, I can quit being a team player (Insubordination).  When I'm no longer grateful for what God chooses to give me, I can turn to embezzlement or adultery (Immorality).

David Livingstone had the right antibiotic for the infection of ingratitude.  He said, "Forbid that we should ever consider the holding of a commission from the King of Kings as a sacrifice, so long as other men esteem the service of an earthly government as an honor."  In Philippians 4:12, Paul said, "I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation."

Staff infections, like staph infections, can create a lot of harm to the Body.  Make sure that you're not giving any opening for these infections to invade your life.  I'm so grateful for the team of leaders we have at Hillcrest!

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Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 350 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.

Winning Ways: A Cripple at The King’s Table

You can find “me” in “Mephibosheth.” In the name, of course, but also in the story.

Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan, the closest friend of our beloved Old Testament character, David. Jonathan loved David as deeply as his father, King Saul, hated David. Jonathan loved David despite the fact that David would be king instead of him. David indeed became king upon Saul’s death in battle—in a battle that took Jonathan’s life, too.

It was a few years into his reign that David found Jonathan’s last remaining son, Mephibosheth. The young man was crippled in both feet from an accident in infancy. In fact, he probably received his name on the same day he received his injury: on the day his father fell in battle and his household ran for their lives. You see, his nickname means, “He who scatters shame.” When David found him, “Shame-spreader” was living in Lo Debar which roughly translates as “Nowhere.”

He was a real nowhere man, living in a nowhere land.

It was common for new kings to rid themselves of anyone connected to a former monarchy. But David called Mephibosheth into his presence and extended remarkable love to him for the sake of Jonathan. He ordered Jonathan’s family estate to be returned to the crippled exile. He assigned servants to work the land so Mephibosheth would have a livable income. And—here’s the most beautiful part—David said, “You will always eat at my table.”

As I said, you can find “me” in “Mephibosheth,” because his story is my story. God searched me out and found me. And though I was handicapped by sin and living in Nowhere-land, yet he loved me for the sake of someone else. For the sake of Jesus, he promised me, “You will always eat at my table.” And so here I am, blessed beyond all expectation, a cripple at the King’s Table.

You can read this beautiful story 2 Samuel 9, and you can study it with us this Sunday. Its part of our continuing series, “Full-Throttle Faith: Life Lessons from King David.” We’ll also gather around the King’s Table to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Don’t forget to “Fall Back” this weekend: Daylight Savings Time ends, so set your clocks back 1 hour on Saturday night so you can join us @ 10.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to 1200 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.

Links to Your World, Tuesday November 1

"Oh Wow! Oh Wow! Oh Wow!" Steve Jobs' final words, according to his sister.

 

"In a piece written for Rolling Stone 20 years ago this month, producer Brian Eno identified why the rock band U2 is singularly enduring and enervating. “Cool,” he wrote, “sums up just about everything U2 isn’t. The band is positive where cool is cynical, involved where it is detached, open where it is evasive.” For 35 years, rock journalists, culture’s self-appointed guardians of cool, have monitored U2’s ups and downs, smash hits and embarrassments. The relationship between critics and the band was fraught from the start, with their anthemic, highly emotive music winning them millions of fans but just as many skeptics. The rock of rebellion and decadence seemed allergic to a band this earnest, emotive, inclusive, politically engaged, and, worst of all, openly Christian. You couldn’t invent a more mock-worthy outfit" (The U2 Paradox).

 

London's Daily Mail: "Religious apartheid and social segregation is being taught to a growing number of Muslim youngsters in our towns and cities; an agenda, it seems, increasingly being reinforced by beatings and brutality." Yikes.

 

What Did Jerusalem Look Like in Bible Times?

 

"How can you make people better at sports? Tell them they’re using equipment that previously belonged to a professional athlete. No, really. A new study finds that golfers significantly improved their putting ability when they believed the putter they were using belonged to a celebrity golfer" (story).

 

Indiana twins give birth on same day in same hospital

 

Some Dares Need Turning Down: Friends of a 21-year-old dare him to try and fit in a baby swing. He takes the dare, gets stuck, and has to be brought to the ER to be cut out of it. He can be grateful the EMS who took him in didn't release his name. No such promises that he won't show up on social media, though. 

Wherever You Are, You Can Join the “First Wednesday” Prayer Meeting

At Hillcrest, the first Wednesday of every month in the 2011-2012 year will be dedicated to praying for those who need to come to Christ or return to him.  This Wednesday, November 2, join me in my office at noon for the First Wednesday prayer meeting.

IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND, JOIN THE PRAYER MEETING FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE! Just dial 1-712-432-3100 and enter conference code 867756.

You can also submit the names of those you want us to pray for. Send an email to jami@hbcaustin.org.