No Need for A Costume (Friday Devotional)

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

- James 5:16

Like a lot of people, we spent last night passing out candy to trick-or-treaters, smiling at all the different costumes the kids were wearing. From Avengers to cowboys, Stormtroopers to ladybugs, a steady stream of children came to our front porch hoping that ours would be a house that passed out “good candy” (based on their faces, it was.)

Halloween is a fun night because it gives everybody a chance to dress up for the night, to put on a mask or a cape and pretend to be somebody else. For one night, you’re not a benchwarmer on your flag football team, you’re Iron Man. For one night, you’re not gap-toothed or chubby, you’re Princess Elsa. On Halloween, everybody gets to pretend to be who they wish they were instead of who they actually are.

Unfortunately, many of us think we have to approach church as though every day is Halloween—we put on a mask of cheerful righteousness and show our brothers and sisters in Christ only the person we wish we were. Whether because we’re worried about others’ judgment or because all we see are Christians who seem to have it all together, there’s a reluctance to come through the church doors without some degree of pretending.

Yet Scripture encourages us to lay aside our masks and come to one another honestly in confession and prayer. When you are willing to show fellow believers who you really are—your struggles and your highlights—you can rightfully call them your brothers and sisters in faith instead of just likeminded acquaintances.

Christ established the church knowing that we are capable of far more for the kingdom together than separately—but if we’re going to walk the journey of faith together, we must really do it together, not with performative righteousness but with sincerity. So may we put the costumes away and love one another well, offering one another truth instead of a show.

Changing the Scenery (Friday Devotional)

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

- Acts 1:8

Something I learned about myself early in adulthood—something which continues to be true today—is that I can’t be cooped up in an office all day long. The custodian at our church has already gotten used to finding me doing laps around the building when the weather is nice in the afternoon, just as our ministry assistant has grown accustomed to me doing my sermon writing on Fridays at a nearby coffee shop. And rarely does a day go by that I eat lunch at my desk—whether at home or a restaurant, I’m out of the building midday.

My office is a comfortable place, ideal in many ways for getting work done: my books are there, my laptop charger is already plugged in, and the Wifi is (usually) reliable. But sometimes you just need a change of scenery.

When Jesus gave his final instructions to the disciples before ascending into heaven, he urged them to spread the gospel far and wide. While they were called to first be his witnesses in Jerusalem, they were then to move to the larger community of Judea, then to the hostile territory of Samaria, and ultimately to the very ends of the earth. Jesus did not intend for the gospel to be a localized message reserved exclusively for the disciples’ friends and family—if the kingdom was to flourish, Jesus’s followers would have to go beyond the familiar.

That command extends to us today—for us to be obedient to the commission Jesus has given us, we have to be willing to change the scenery every once in a while. The circle of people to whom we show the love of Christ cannot be so tight that there’s no room for more; our routines cannot be so regimented that we’re unwilling to go places the gospel has not yet reached.

Sharing the gospel is not something reserved for a certain day of the week, a particular building, or a special group of people. So may you be willing to step out of your comfort zone in the name of obediently sharing your faith—in the name of evangelism, may you be willing to change the scenery.

What Ministry Looks Like (Friday Devotional)

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

- 1 Corinthians 12:4-6

If you’d dropped by my office sometime this week, there are any number of things you might have found me doing: studying Scripture, talking with a prospective member about faith in Christ, and praying for our church and surrounding community, just to name a few things. Those, after all, are some of the duties of a pastor. That’s what ministry looks like.

If you’d gone just a few blocks down the road to my house, you’d have found my wife engaged in a totally different world of tasks. You might have found her calling to check on me while she changed our daughter’s diaper. You might have seen her reading to our son while our daughter slept, making sure he got some one-on-one time with Mommy. No matter when you dropped by, you’d have seen tired eyes but busy hands, the marks of a person trying to take care of others. Because that’s also what ministry looks like.

I’d hazard a guess that, if you looked hard enough, you’d find acts of ministry happening all over our city—at the dentist and the police station, in cubicles and hospital rooms, on the DART train and the school bus. Wherever the lonely are comforted, the hungry are fed, and the hurting are healed, the Lord is at work. Wherever you see the love of Christ being modeled, you are witnessing ministry.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking ministry is reserved for the professionals, that it takes a seminary degree or the approval of an ordination council to make you fit for “real ministry.” But Scripture is clear that we are all called to proclaim the gospel, to bear witness to the grace of Jesus Christ. So as you go about your daily work, whatever it may be, do so not just with dedication but with holy purpose, ready to live for Christ in everything you do—because that’s what ministry looks like.

Most Valuable (Friday Devotional)

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

- 1 Corinthians 13:7

My mornings start the same way every day. At 4:30, my alarm goes off and I stumble into the living room to pour my first cup of coffee. I spend the next hour curled up in a comfortable chair reading, then at 5:30 I lace up my tennis shoes and run 2 miles. By the time I’ve showered and gotten dressed, the rest of my family is awake and I spend some time with them before heading to the office. From beginning to end, it’s a routine that borders on ritual, beloved and unchanging. Whatever else the day brings, it always starts with my routine.

…except this week. And next week. And probably the one after that.

With a newborn baby at home, my morning routine is suddenly a thing of the past. Sometimes that’s because 4:30 is feeding time, and I’m too busy burping Katherine or changing her diaper to read. Sometimes it’s because Katherine woke us up so many times in the night that I’m loath to get up any sooner than I have to. And in the case of one morning this week, it’s because when I try to read, I’m too tired and stressed to focus on what I’m reading.

I’ve missed my routine, no doubt, and I look forward to the day when we’re all on roughly the same sleep schedule. But I realized something the other morning—and when I say morning, I mean 1:30 in the morning—when I was giving Katherine a bottle: even the things we value most pale in comparison to the people we value most.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Scripture’s famous “love chapter,” Paul tells us much of what it means to love—how love is patient and kind, how it keeps no records of wrongs, how it rejoices in the truth. And again and again, Paul makes clear that love is, at its core, unselfish. When you love someone, getting your way is less important than their well-being. When you love someone, your hopes and ideas can give way to theirs. Love, as Scripture says, “bears all things.”

On the cross, Christ showed us the ultimate example of love by giving himself for us, sacrificing his very life for our sakes. Those who would seek to follow him must understand that love is built upon that foundation: not affection or commonalities, but a willingness to sacrifice. For when we love, we are able to see what—and who—is truly valuable.

The Smallest Teachers (Friday Devotional)

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

- Matthew 18:1-6

For the past three days, I’ve been getting to know my daughter, Katherine Joye Camp, who we welcomed into the world on Tuesday morning. The days and nights have been filled with diaper changes, feedings, photos, visits by family and friends, and not nearly enough sleep. And as you probably guessed, I love our little girl more than I ever could have imagined.

In the quiet moments in our hospital room, when the nurses have been busy elsewhere and Katherine’s been contentedly sleeping, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the responsibilities Jesus gave us with regards to children in Matthew 18. The Lord not only cared about children, but wanted us to learn from them—and in six simple verses, gave us three separate instructions.

The first is to become like children—to humble ourselves by recognizing and even embracing our own vulnerabilities so that we might rely on our Father instead of ourselves. Since her birth, Katherine has been totally reliant on the adults in her life, especially her mother and me. For her to flourish, she is counting on us to be with her and give her what she needs. Jesus says that as adults, the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one who adopts exactly that posture, who abandons any pretense of self-sufficiency and instead recognizes that it is God who sustains us. In a world that calls for strength, Jesus calls us to be as vulnerable as children.

The second instruction Jesus gives us is to welcome children—not just to tolerate them, but welcome them as though they were Christ himself. For the past three days, I’ve been reminded not only of the joys of caring for infants, but of the inconveniences as well: they can’t follow instructions yet, they can’t control their own bodies yet, and generally speaking they don’t give you much of a break. And yet Jesus says were are to respond to these most demanding of humans not with cold shoulders or begrudging help, but open arms. The weakest among us are also the neediest, but as far as Christ is concerned that is more reason to love them, not less.

Jesus’s final instruction is to make the world safe for children, to keep them safe from “stumbling blocks” which might cause them to fall away from the Lord. Our approach to life is often self-centered—we’re thinking about what we need to get through the day, what we need to stay happy and healthy. Jesus reminds us to broaden our focus and think about how our actions are affecting the least among us. For three days now, I’ve had to be more concerned with Katherine’s needs than my own, and while the world says that kind of attitude is the exception, Jesus says it should be the norm. Life doesn’t happen in a vacuum—we each have a responsibility to think about how we’re affecting the weak and the vulnerable among us.

In three days, Katherine Joye has already reminded me of something Andrew Kenneth has been showing me for nearly three years, something Christ himself told us: that children are not only learners, but teachers. If we will give them our attention, our respect, and our love, who knows what spiritual lessons they will teach us.

September Reading Log

Just 5 books this month...and with a new baby coming tomorrow, I'd expect that to hold true for October too. Here's a look at what I was reading the past month.

3 Articles I Like This Month

"All-American Despair" by Stephen Rodrick, Rolling Stone. 38 minutes.

A heavy, personal piece about the disturbing suicide rate among middle-aged white men in the United States.

"Who Speaks for Crazy Horse?" by Brooke Jarvis, The New Yorker. 23 minutes.

In the Black Hills of South Dakota there exists an enormous stone monument depicting the Lakota chief Crazy Horse that dwarfs Mount Rushmore. This article tells the story of how that unfinished monument came to be and what it says about America's relationship with its indigenous people. 

"Very Serious Journalism: I Raced Tim Dillard in the Rangers' Dot Race" by Levi Weaver, The Athletic. 7 minutes.

I think the title says it all, don't you?

A BASIC CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY by A.J. Conyers

As both a Christian and a pastor, there are times where I want a simple, concise explanation of one of the doctrines of our faith—not a long list of Bible verses or a theological tome from the 3rd century, just a simple, non-ideological primer on what Christians believe. To my delight, the late A.J. "Chip" Conyers left just such a text for the church, a cross between a systematic theology and a textbook that clocks in at under 250 pages and is accessible to laypeople and academics alike.

This was a book Truett Seminary was giving away by the stack a few months ago, and I couldn't be happier I picked up a copy. The church is in desperate need of voices willing to speak knowledgeably about the value of theology, and this book is a worthy tool for that effort. In search of good theology primers, too often we are forced to choose between resources which are too dumbed down (tracts, Wikipedia, popular but unworthy books by big names), too impenetrable (90% of books put out by publishers whose names end in "Academic Press"), or too lost in minutia, to say nothing of those which are ideologically driven or downright heretical. So A Basic Christian Theology is a breath of fresh air, a scholarly but readable book by a trusted author who isn't trying to win an argument, write a bestseller, or start a movement, but just teach the basics of what we believe.

Conyers divides the book into three sections: the first deals with God and His creation, the second with God and His redemptive purpose, and the third with God and His kingdom. Roughly speaking, this means he starts with Genesis and ends with Revelation, and the book progresses in a logical, understandable way. Conyers does a good job of explaining various famous heresies before laying out orthodox belief, and when it comes to beliefs where there is still no broad consensus (eschatology in particular) he does a good job laying out what different factions believe in an unbiased way before explaining where he personally falls.

All in all, this is a professional, orthodox, accessible book that I'd highly recommend to any believer wanting to brush up on their theology or learn a little more about how the doctrines of our faith have been revealed, debated, and confirmed over the centuries. For pastors and laypeople alike, I can't recommend it highly enough for your reference shelf.

THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt

This book, which set the literary world afire in 2013 and has since been adapted into a film that's currently bombing at the box office, is big. I mean that first in a literal sense—at 771 pages, this is the longest novel I've read in a while. I mean that secondly in terms of its scope—the story crosses continents and decades, and covers everything from fine furniture dealing to heroin overdoses. Finally, this book is big in its ambition, telling a story about grief, beauty, truth, and hope.

The protagonist of the story is Theodore Decker, whose life is changed forever when he survives a terrorist attack at an art museum, an attack that kills his mother. In the ensuing chaos, he takes a painting that the explosion had dislodged, a painting that travels with him for the rest of the book as a symbol of hope even as his world crumbles around him. The rest of the book follows his life as he moves from the Upper East Side to Las Vegas back to New York City. Along the way he befriends a Ukrainian ne'er-do-well, falls in love, and engages in the fraudulent sales of high-end furniture, all before his theft of the painting finally comes to a head in a climactic series of events in Amsterdam.

It's a story that moves remarkably quickly given its length, with an author who seems just as comfortable describing the lives of the rich and famous as drug-addled nights in Vegas. The characters are compelling—sympathetic even when they're not likable—and the dialogue feels authentic. Even in the slower sections of the book, I was never bored.

And, as you'd expect from a novel with this kind of scope and reputation (it won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among numerous other awards), it all means something in the end. While it borders on being self-indulgent, the novel's ending does a good job telling you what the point of the whole thing was, offering Tartt's thesis on the value of art. If you like novels that make you think but are also entertaining (which, for some reason, can be hard to find!), I recommend reading The Goldfinch.

DARK KNIGHTS: METAL by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, and Jonathan Glapion

The nature of popular culture is that it's cyclical—styles that you never expected to see again make their return 20 years later with only slight tweaks. It's the reason why Friends is one of the most popular shows on Netflix and why all Hollywood seems to make anymore is reboots (and superhero movies). But even knowing that, I never thought comics would decide to go back to the 1990s.

For those who follow these things less closely than I do (i.e. 99% of you), the 1990s were an age of maximum profits and minimum creativity, a time when comics embraced every x-treme, sensationalistic tool in the toolbox in pursuit of a buck. It was a time of holographic variant covers, heroines with anatomies that even Barbie found unrealistic, and heroes strapped with guns as big as cars. And then it all came crashing down. The speculator bubble, which depended on readers buying special issues in the hopes they'd be worth something some day (think Beanie Babies) burst, and the industry took nearly a decade to recover, both creatively and financially.

Well, in Dark Knights: Metal, the '90s are back for some reason, and I can't say I enjoyed it any more this time around. As the title indicates, this is a story that takes the DC Universe and goes full throttle with it, embracing the metal spirit in a way that makes the characters nearly unrecognizable and makes the story a complicated, over-the-top mess.

Plot-wise, it's the story of a dark multiverse invading the DC universe, led by the evil Barbatos, and the Justice League's attempts to ward off dark mirror images of themselves. Sounds simple enough, but it's definitely not. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, whose run on Batman in the last decade was one of the most beloved in the long history of the character, can't help but weave some of the mythology from their Batman run into this story while also trying to alter the already-convoluted continuity of the DC universe. By the end, I was hanging onto the plot by my fingernails, if I was hanging on at all.

Stylistically, this wasn't my cup of tea. It was just too much. Plot-wise, same thing: too much. Character-wise, the gripe remains the same: nobody gets to stand out because everybody needs a moment. Too much, too much, too much. But hey, that's what the '90s were all about. if you liked that era, maybe you'll like this. I'll just be sitting over here waiting for the next pop culture cycle.

THE SHERIFF OF BABYLON by Tom King and Mitch Gerards

Without question, Tom King is one of the biggest names in comics right now, and The Sheriff of Babylon is arguably what put him on the map (though it was unquestionably 2016's The Vision and 2017's Mister Miracle which made his popularity explode.) It combines both King's fascinating background—he joined the CIA on September 12, 2001—and his auteur sensibilities to craft a complex, multilayered story as murky as the war it portrays.

The story that King and artist Mitch Gerards—who would later collaborate with him on Mister Miracle—are telling is that of an Iraqi police trainee who is murdered in 2004 in the Green Zone and how his American trainer (a military contractor), a former Iraqi policeman, and an influential, enigmatic Iraqi woman work to solve the case. While in many ways the story is a straightforward crime thriller, its setting keeps things off balance throughout the investigation, all the way until the ending, which is appropriately nebulous.

Many of King's now-trademark tics—especially 9 panel grids—are present in this volume, to mostly great effect. And while The Vision and Mister Miracle show King putting it all out there creatively, The Sheriff of Babylon is understandably more restrained, letting both the story and Gerards' fabulous art do the heavy lifting. Nevertheless, it's fun to see the King-Gerards team flex their muscles in a way that would pay off when Mister Miracle, my favorite comic of the decade, rolled around.

If I had one complaint about The Sheriff of Babylon, it is that you spend large stretches of the book unsure exactly what's going on. But that complaint is mitigated by 1) the mood that King and Gerards set 2) the compelling characters and 3) the knowledge that the story's lack of clarity is intentional, a commentary on the story's setting. If you want to read an excellent graphic novel without a cape in sight, I recommend The Sheriff of Babylon.

THE OMEGA MEN by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda

The Omega Men concludes my run through Tom King's oeuvre, and after a rough start, it mostly sticks the landing. In this 12-issue maxiseries, King tells the story of two groups: the Citadel, an interplanetary conglomerate who have virtually enslaved the planets in their solar system, and the Omega Men, a small group of revolutionaries seeking to overthrow the Citadel. Thrown into the mix is Kyle Rayner, the White Lantern, who seeks a third way that will spare the system a bloody war.

Let's start with the big weakness of the series: there's not a lot of character work going on in this story, which is strange given the incredible work King would later do with The Vision and Mister Miracle in that regard. While King tells us the motivations of the various Omega Men, I didn't really come to identify or empathize with any of them. Only Kyle Rayner, the lone character readers would have recognized going in, is particularly easy to relate to, and that has more to do with prior familiarity than anything in this story.

As for the book's big strength: like any good sci-fi/fantasy novel, King uses the far-flung setting to ask a big, relevant question: what's the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? His final answer to the question is necessarily ambiguous and, especially after reading The Sheriff of Babylon, feels tied to King's own experiences serving overseas.

The Omega Men is definitely a rougher work than what Tom King would deliver later with The Vision and Mister Miracle, both of which are masterpieces in their own rights. In fact, I almost gave up on this story after the first two issues, having found them virtually impenetrable. But for readers willing to persevere through some initial confusion, the result is a nuanced story about war and peace. Not a game changer, but a solid sci-fi story worth your time.

Cleaning the Mess (Friday Devotional)

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

- Romans 12:21

The other day, Andrew knocked over a cup of milk by accident. No big deal, of course. When you have a small child, messes happen. So my response was simple: I got a towel and soaked up the spilled milk until the mess was cleaned up.

What I didn’t do—what would have been completely ridiculous—was go get the milk carton out of the fridge and start pouring even more milk on the floor. Why would I? After all, that would just make things worse!

When the mess is spilled milk on the floor, we understand the need for cleansing instead of making things worse—but when the mess is a moral one, we often lose sight of that need. When we are wronged, our flesh compels us to retaliate in kind.  When we suffer, we want to see our enemy suffer too.

But Scripture reminds us that responding to evil with evil doesn’t make things better, it just makes the mess bigger. Christ calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, to respond to indignity with grace and darkness with light. When from the cross he asked his Father to forgive those cheering his crucifixion, the Lord gave us the ultimate example of how to respond to pain: with healing.

Life is messy, there’s no doubt about it. The challenge of discipleship is to find ways both big and small to bring cleansing when others would rather make things worse. The world is crying over messes far worse than spilled milk—how will you respond?