Touch and Feel (Friday Devotional)

And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

- Luke 6:19

At age one, my daughter has started taking more of an interest in books, and she’s already found her favorite kind. Not fantasy or science fiction, not mystery or romance—her favorite books are touch-and-feel board books. Books with rubbery surfaces she can run her fingers over, books with braille-like bumps she can feel, and—of course—books that can handle being put in her mouth without getting ruined. We like to say that for Katherine, reading isn’t just something she does with her eyes—it’s a full body experience.

When you look back on the ministry of Jesus, you see that a relationship with him was the same way. People didn’t just listen to the Lord’s words from long distance or read them in a book, they got up close and personal. Tax collectors and Pharisees alike broke bread with Jesus. His disciples slept just a few feet from the Savior. People desperate for healing reached out and touched Jesus.

When the time came for God to usher in His kingdom, Scripture assures us that He did not do so in an impersonal, distant manner. Rather, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Jesus lived a physical life, died a literal death, and rose to life in a body people could see and touch. The gospel was not just something people saw or heard, it was a full body experience.

Today we know that Christ has ascended into heaven and that we await his glorious return, but that doesn’t mean the gospel has moved from the physical to the conceptual—while the gospel is something to be believed, it is also something to be lived. People need to read about the sacrificial love of Jesus, but they also need to see Christians getting their hands dirty serving. People need to learn about the fellowship Jesus offers to sinners, but they also need Christians to break bread with them. If the church is the body of Christ, we must not just preach the gospel, but also demonstrate it.

Just as during Jesus’s ministry, the crowds today are reaching out to touch Jesus. They need a gospel that is not just intellectual, a love that is not just spiritual—they need a ministry they can see and hear and feel. When people touched Jesus, they found power—what will they find when they reach out to his followers today?

Nobody's Home (Friday Devotional)

 

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

- Hebrews 11:13-16

This year’s World Series, which began Tuesday night, is unlike any that has ever preceded it. Sure, some things remain constant: it’s still the American League champion versus the National League champion, it’s still a best-of-seven series, and it’s still wrapping up before the end of October. But because of the pandemic, the setting of this year’s World Series is different from normal.

In the 115 previous iterations of the Fall Classic, the games were played in the ballparks of the two competing teams. Each game, the home team could count on playing in a comfortable environment in front of cheering fans and the visiting team knew they’d be walking into unfamiliar and even hostile territory. The World Series was not just a competition between two teams, it was a moment in the spotlight for their cities, stadiums, and fans.

So it’s been strange to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays, teams from the West and East Coasts, settle in for a best-of-seven series in Arlington, Texas. In an unprecedented move prompted by COVID-related safety concerns, this year’s World Series is being played at the neutral site of the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Field. While each game has designated home and away teams, the reality is that both clubs are playing on unfamiliar ground in front of more empty seats than cheering fans. This year nobody’s playing at home.

The Bible speaks of Christians being in a similar situation spiritually—while we are residents of this world, we are citizens of heaven. As the verses above put it, believers are bound for “a better country” and a city which God is preparing for us, even as we live for now as “strangers and foreigners on the earth.” Like the song says, this world is not our home.

Yet just like the Dodgers and Rays, we have work to do while we’re at this “neutral site.” God has given His people a mission to proclaim the good news of His kingdom, to tell the world about salvation through Jesus Christ. We are not yet spiritually home because we have been sent out to work in the mission field Jesus prepared for us.

Just like the World Series, our time on this earth will one day come to an end, whether through death or Christ’s return. So as we joyfully anticipate that triumphant homecoming, may we remember where we are and why God has put us here—and with renewed purpose, may we strive toward victory in Jesus.

A Single Exposure (Friday Devotional)

 

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

- Ephesians 5:15-16

Thomas Joshua Cooper is one of the most celebrated landscape photographers in the world, renowned for the meditative beauty he captures in some of the world’s most remote places. But as well-known as his photographs are in the art world, his process is perhaps even more famous.

First, Cooper spends months meticulously researching a location, seeking out parts of the world that few have ever tracked down. Then he loads up his 1898 Agfa field camera—that’s not a model number, it’s the year the camera was made—travels to the far-flung spot, waits for the lighting to get just right, and takes a single exposure of what he sees. There is no backup camera taking rapid-fire digital shots just in case, nor are there any do-overs if he misses the desired photograph on the first try. With one shot, his work is done—after all the preparation, he gives himself one chance to do something beautiful.

As unusual an approach as that is for photography, it offers a valuable insight to life: each of us is given one life to live. Your time on this earth is finite. There is a limit to what you can accomplish in the span of years God gives you.

But in that time, you have the opportunity to do something beautiful. Rather than wasting your days on the trivialities that the world focuses on, Jesus offers you abundant life, a life lived for the glory of God and the good of others. Instead of pursuing earthly power, fame, and wealth, the Lord invites you to become a participant in the kingdom of God. In a world where so many people are defined by their own dreams and desires, you can bear witness to the grace of God.

You can do something special, something beautiful, something of eternal significance with the life God has given you if you will commit to following His way in a world that follows its own paths. God has given you the grace of a single exposure to this world—may you do something beautiful with your shot.

Handling Spiritual Splinters (Friday Devotional)

 

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

- James 2:14-17

“Ow!” I exclaimed.

My brothers and I had just finished moving my parents’ wooden picnic table to the backyard, and when I brushed my hands on my pants, I felt a stinging sensation in the palm of my right hand. Looking closer, I immediately saw the culprit: a splinter, smack dab in the middle of my palm.

I made a nominal effort to pick it out with my finger to no avail. Then I went inside and washed my hands, hoping the soap and water would nudge it out, but I had no luck there either. So I made a choice: I did nothing. The discomfort was tolerable, and I thought there was a reasonable chance the splinter would work its way out on its own. I would just wait and hope for the best.

But when I woke up the next morning, it was still there. When I gripped the steering wheel of my car, I could feel it digging into my skin. By the afternoon, I started noticing the area around it getting red, a warning from my body to deal with the problem now, before it became infected. So reluctantly, I got a pair of tweezers and asked Lindsey to do what had to be done. A few uncomfortable seconds later, it was gone.

It’s tempting to have a faith in God that functions like my hope that my splinter would go away on its own—a faith that waits idly for problems to be resolved and prayers to be answered without any effort on your part. Faith, some say, is simply about trusting the sovereign God to work in the world.

But as the verses above remind us, God has called us to be participants in His work, not just bystanders. Christlike faith pairs orthodoxy with orthopraxy, belief with works. It sees inaction in the face of need as sinful; it demands we not just believe what Jesus said but also imitate what he did.

Living, vibrant faith doesn’t just wait for the world’s splinters to disappear, it uses the tools God has given us to make things better. So when you see pain in the world, may you not be content to sit idly by—may faith compel you to pull out your spiritual tweezers and get to work.

September Reading Log

It was a month where variety was the name of the game...here's a look at what I read this September!

4 Articles I Like This Month

"The Governor, Unmasked" by Christopher Hooks, Texas Monthly. 12 minutes.

An analysis of Greg Abbott's lawyerly leadership style, a change of pace for a state used to more convivial, backslapping governors, and how it has affected the state during the pandemic.

"The New Reconstruction" by Adam Serwer, The Atlantic. 33 minutes.

In the midst of a national awakening regarding race, some have compared our current moment to 1968. In this essay, Adam Serwer argues that it bears more resemblance to 1868, a brief moment in time when America actively sought to right the racial wrongs of its past, only to bow to the demands of expedience and white supremacy. Perhaps this time will be different.

"America Is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral" by Ed Yong, The Atlantic. 21 minutes.

Nobody is doing better pandemic journalism than The Atlantic's Ed Yong, who hear explains 9 scientific, sociological, and political reasons why the United States has failed to effectively combat COVID-19 and why, unfortunately, there is no sign things will improve any time soon. Not a fun article, but certainly an informative one.

"How Luka Doncic Saved My Life" by Collin Cable, Fansided. 13 minutes.

Sometimes sports are bigger than just games. In this moving account, the author tells about how, in the midst of a period of drug withdrawal and grief, watching Luke Doncic helped him get through each day.

RETHINK COMMUNICATION: A PLAYBOOK TO CLARIFY AND COMMUNICATE EVERYTHING IN YOUR CHURCH by Phil Bowdle

Churches are in the communication business—so it’s kind of remarkable how bad we tend to be at it! Some churches overload their members with information, drowning them in a sea of dates and times and activities. Others go the opposite direction and rely almost exclusively on word of mouth to get important information out there. And (especially pre-pandemic) few small-to-mid-sized churches were putting much thought into their social media presence.

Rethink Communication is a breezy, helpful primer on fixing churches' communication problems, developing a plan for getting information out there effectively, and offering advice on how to implement such a plan. Written by a creative arts pastor, the book does a good job of poking holes in common church communication issues (10 minutes of announcements at the end of the service) and showing the way to a more streamlined, efficient, and effective plan.

And plan is the key word, because Bowdle's overarching point is that communication isn't something churches can or should do on the fly, but something which should be as organized as other areas of the church. Indeed, the most helpful parts of the entire book for me were 1) a chart showing his church's communication plan for major programs and initiatives and 2) a sample social media calendar. Bowdle's argument that communication shouldn't be made up as you go along was a compelling and convicting one for me.

If the book has a weakness, it's that it was pretty clearly written by a megachurch staff member with other megachurch staff members in mind. While many of the things discussed in the book would apply to a church of any size, some of the corporate language and attitude may be a turn-off for pastors of smaller churches. Nevertheless, pastors wanting to communicate better will find something to appreciate in Rethink Communication.

ALWAYS ON: PRACTICING FAITH IN A NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE by Angela Williams Gorrell

Anyone who's been on social media for a while will tell you that social media platforms are places of both remarkable opportunity and remarkable depravity, places where people can both come together and tear one another apart. But for better and for worse, social media is here to stay, and Always On is Angela Gorrell's take on how believers can bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in and through such platforms.

Gorrell's most insightful point is that, as I have described it above, social media (or "new media," which also encompasses things like eBay, YouTube, etc.) is not a tool, but a world, an ecosystem with its own rules, language, and ways of being. Churches and pastors that want to simply use social media as an online bulletin board are doing themselves and their members a disservice, she says, because they are vastly underestimating how invested people are in their online lives. Churches should not regard new media so as a way to share the gospel so much as a mission field in and of itself.

In Gorrell's tellling, the world of social media is fundamentally the same as the "real" world: it is broken, yet God can be found there. As such, it is the responsibility of believers to find ways to redeem the broken parts of social media and shine a light in the darkness. In her telling, the best way to do this is by creating what spiritual directors call a "rule of life" (an intentional plan for practicing spiritual disciplines) specifically for social media.

While heavier on theology than application, Always On is a good conversation starter for believers concerned about social media (which, given the pandemic, should be everyone!) I recommend pairing it with Netflix's The Social Dilemma and seeing what ideas the Spirit gives for how we can carry out the gospel in and through new media.

THE RAP YEAR BOOK by Shea Serrano

One of the big debates every year in sports is who should win the Most Valuable Player award. While sometimes the answer is obvious, more often the question becomes a chance to appreciate several players side-by-side, compare and contrast their strengths and weaknesses, and finally crown a winner. The existence of the award is the opportunity to tell the sport's story and the story of it's greatest athletes.

Hip-hop doesn't have an MVP award, so Shea Serrano wrote The Rap Year Book to retroactively do the work such an award would have, declaring the best rap song for every year from 1979-2014. Each chapter, which includes illustrations by Arturo Torres, serves partly as a biography of the artist, partly as an analysis of the song, and partly as an opportunity for Serrano to chase rabbits (which is always fun.) By the end, you've been given an amateur history course in what has become the most popular genre of music in America.

Having first been exposed to Serrano at the dearly departed Grantland.com, this was my second of his books (following the excellent Basketball (and Other Things)). While this one isn't quite as polished as Basketball and the humor is more hit-and-miss, it's still a rollicking ride through the history of rap music, and was a ton of fun to read. It also produced quite a shopping list for me the next time iTunes runs a sale on classic hip-hop albums.

If you like music writing, this isn't your traditional Rolling Stone article...it's way more fun than that. If you like hip-hop but don't know much about its history, this is an easy place to start. And if you don't care about rap music at all, then you're in the same place I was roughly 3 years ago...but you're missing out. The Rap Year Book may be just what it takes to change your mind.

WALDEN AND OTHER WRITINGS by Henry David Thoreau

Often considered the quintessential "back-to-nature" book, Walden is Henry David Thoreau's account of a year spent in the solitude of the New England woods, living primarily off the land. By immersing himself in nature and removing himself from society, Thoreau's philosophy of self-reliance and independence is shaped.

Walden is renowned for Thoreau's detailed descriptions of nature, from Walden Pond to its animal inhabitants. Unfortunately, I found it to be a chore to read. Maybe it was just my frame of mind, but I found the loooong paragraphs describing water and grass to be interminable, less a feat of descriptive imagery than a slog. I appreciated some of Thoreau's more philosophical points, but having to wade through the nature writing to get to them was not a trade-off I enjoyed.

More enjoyable were the essays in the back of the book, especially Civil Disobedience and A Plea for Captain John Brown. In both of these essays, Thoreau makes the argument that morality is more important than law, and that people have the duty to disobey unjust laws no matter what the consequences. Thoreau's thoughts here would go on to positively influence movement leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and his philosophy holds up remarkably well given the antebellum time period in which they were written.

Having also read Thoreau's poetry previously, I can now say with confidence that I respect him as a thinker, but his writing isn't my cup of tea. If you want to know what he's all about, start with Civil Disobedience and work from there.

ESSENTIAL X-MEN VOL. 3-4 by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith, John Romita, Jr., et al.

In the 1980s, no comic was bigger than Uncanny X-Men. Propelled by soap operatic melodrama, cool costumes and powers, and Chris Claremont's world-building, mutants carved out their own corner of the Marvel Universe, one that readers swarmed to in droves. Essential X-Men Vol. 3-4 lays the foundation for that popularity, building upon stories like The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past even as it moves boldly into the future.

The highlight of this period is the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, printed in its entirety in vol. 4. The story tells of a televangelist who uses his platform to advocate for the elimination of all mutants .While X-Men titles had flirted with social commentary dating back to the 1960s, this is the story that most clearly establishes the mutants-as-oppressed-minorities metaphor that has come to define the book. And, while dated in some respects, the story holds up pretty well.

These books also see the introduction of Rogue, the power-stealing mutant who makes her debut as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants only to eventually switch sides and join the X-Men; the Morlocks, a society of mutant outcasts living underground; and Madelynn Pryor, a mysterious Jean Grey lookalike whom Cyclops impulsively marries (with consequences in future issues.) Other story developments include Storm's metamorphosis from pure fish out of water to battle-hardened killer, Magneto's shift from villain to antihero, and the maturation of Kitty Pryde from novice to full-fledged X-Man.

These stories are not as definitive as the ones told by Claremont and John Byrne in Essential X-Men Vol. 2, but they're still plenty of fun, and more imaginative than much of what was coming out in the same time period. For X-Men fans wanting to see the expansion of the mutant world before that mythology became so convoluted and overwhelming, these are key issues.

Prove It (Friday Devotional)

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

- John 13:35

A few years ago, when I was pastoring a small, rural congregation in Crawford, my quiet morning at the church office was interrupted by a loud knock on the front door. The sound made me jump, because I didn’t get many unannounced visitors; I almost always had the building to myself all day. But when I went to see who it was, I was even more startled—standing at the front door was a stone-faced sheriff’s deputy.

When I opened the door, the deputy explained that there had been several acts of vandalism at nearby churches and he was stopping by to make sure everything was ok here. I told him we hadn’t yet had any problems, but I appreciated the courtesy since I was the pastor of the church. With suspicion written all over his face, the deputy asked if I—a 20-something in gym shorts who was at the building all by myself—had any way to verify that.

My mind raced for some way to prove my identity. I didn’t have a business card to show him. I hadn’t yet built a church website where I could show him my picture on the staff page. There wasn’t anybody else there who could vouch for me.

Then it dawned on me—my name was printed on the church bulletin every week. Grabbing one from a pew in the sanctuary, I offered it to the deputy along with my driver’s license so that he could compare the names. Looking these things over, suspicion gave way to satisfaction. He returned my ID and left.

It had taken me a minute to figure out how to prove to him that I was a pastor. But according to Jesus, it would have been much harder to prove I was a Christian. That’s because there is no identification you can offer, no documentation you can point to, that proves your faithfulness to the world. If you want the world to know you are a disciple of Jesus, there’s one way to show them.

It’s not with doctrine—though right belief is certainly important, it means little if not matched by action. It’s not with church membership—as vital as it is to be tied to a community of faith, there must be more to your testimony than having your name on the church roll. It’s not with the books you buy or the songs you listen to or the famous names you support—while ‘consumer Christianity’ would have you believe otherwise, you can belong to Christ without buying cross-shaped trinkets.

Jesus says that the proof of your faith is how you treat others: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If you want to be identified as a follower of Jesus, you must first identify with the love of Jesus; if you want people to know you are a Christian, you must first show them the love of Christ.

It is by looking at your actions that people will determine whether you are Christlike or Pharisaic, a disciple of Jesus or just part of the crowd. So may love for others be your Christian ID, and may your life be the proof of your faith.