Category: culture

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Year-Round School?

A few weeks ago Bob Edwards suggested that I write a post on some of the ins and outs of year-round school. I am not an expert on school and the pros and cons of having the students go year-round with more breaks rather than have a long summer break. But I am a blogger, and I can give my opinion on anything. Right? I have had a bit of experience in education, twenty four years as a student, and thirty three as a teacher and coach, so my opinion is not totally uninformed.

There are a number of arguments in favor of year-round school. These include having shorter breaks throughout the year that are supposed to help retention of information, keeping kids off the streets during the long hot summers, and providing a place for working parents to put their children. Given the current cultural situation in the country, those could be compelling reasons. School districts around the country have instituted year-round school, in the elementary schools at least, and the results seem to be positive. When the students get to the upper grades though, there are a number of factors that I believe will hinder a broader use of a longer school year.

In a lot of areas of the country, particularly those whose economy runs on tourism, the businesses depend on a supply of teenagers who are on summer break to fill their openings. Some states have pushed back the start of the school year in order to allow those students to work the entire tourist season. The economic benefits of a long summer break would be awfully hard for those areas to give up. When I was coaching, one of the big benefits of a summer break was the opportunity to go to summer camps at colleges. These colleges were also on their summer break, so they could concentrate on the camps, which are a great recruiting tool as well as allowing the teams to work on their skills. A shorter summer break might not affect that so much, but longer breaks during the school year would make scheduling athletic seasons very interesting. In some areas of the country, sports such as football or basketball are nearly a religion, and one tinkers with that at great risk.   

It seems that a large part of American culture is built around  a school year that begins in mid to late August or September and runs until the end of May or middle of June. I think it can work in the lower grades, and possibly in the upper grades as well, but I’m not sure the majority of the people in the country are ready for the adjustments it would cause.

Just my thoughts. What do you think?

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Wisdom From Don Henley

As you may know, I believe that all truth is God’s truth and that truth can come from many different places. In Don Henley’s song, “The Heart of the Matter,” there is a bit of truth about forgiveness. The song is about a lost love, but there is something there for all of us who have been hurt by other people.

Henley sings, “The more I know, the less I understand / All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again.” Those words speak volumes to me. It seems that the older I get the less I understand about some things, especially when it comes to people. Sometimes the more we know about someone, the less we understand what they do. That is one reason we need forgiveness, whether given or received.

 The song goes on:

These times are so uncertain/ There’s a yearning undefined/
…People filled with rage/ We all need a little tenderness/
How can love survive in such a graceless age/
The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness/
They’re the very things we kill, I guess
We live in uncertain times. Those of us who follow Jesus face an uncertain future that may include persecution and definitely will include a loss of the influence the church has enjoyed. Because we are family, we must be a family that forgives. The age is quickly becoming more and more graceless, and forgiveness is necessary for love to survive.
In some way, Henley gets it: 
“I’ve been trying to get down to the heart  of the matter
But my will gets weak/ And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Even if you don’t love me anymore
He recognizes the vital importance of forgiveness:
There are people in your life who’ve come and gone
They let you down and hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; life goes on
You keep carryin’ that anger, it’ll eat you inside
We have all been hurt by people, whether it’s an abusive parent or spouse, a tyrannical boss, or a friend who has betrayed us. Some of those hurts heal relatively quickly while some will never be totally healed until God wipes all tears from our eyes. Some folks we can reconcile with, while with others reconciliation is impossible. The one thing we can do is forgive. Like the Amish in Pennsylvania, the people in Rwanda, or the formerly oppressed majority in South Africa, we can forgive. We must forgive. If we don’t, it will eat away at us and cause issues for the rest of our life.
Forgiveness is more about us than the person we are forgiving. By forgiving, we release the other from any hold their act still has on us. We also release ourselves. We do incur a cost by giving up our “right” to extract a pound of flesh, but that pound of flesh can never pay for their act and forgiving frees us and enables us to move on with our lives. We are no longer bound to that act or that person. We also must forgive because our Father has forgiven us far worse trespasses than any of us have ever felt. Jesus command us to forgive and reminds us that forgiving is an indication of our own forgiveness. We must forgive. For the glory of God and the advance of his kingdom, for the good of others, and for our own wholeness. It’s not easy, but it must be a part of our lives.
There is another side to this coin. That is repentance. That’s a subject for another post.
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Echoes of Eden in Avengers: Age of Ultron

In Echoes of Eden, Jerram Barrs writes:
      In fact, we may propose as a principal that the themes of all great art-
      -whether produced by Christians or by non-Christians– are the world 
      and human life as they came from from the hand of God; the world
      and human life as they now are subject to sorrow, sin, and death; and
      the world and human life as we long for and look forward to their restoration.

In “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the last two themes are evident. The Avengers are in a battle with an individual who is bent on ruling and/or destroying the world. Upon invading the headquarters of their adversary, the heroes take a piece of Norse mythology that is extremely powerful. Iron Man, aka Tony Stark, sees this as the final piece in his dream of creating a peaceful world without fear. He attempts to join the program that was captured with his own program in an attempt to create an artificial intelligence that would be the ultimate peacekeeper.

Unfortunately, the attempt goes awry, as all human attempts do. History is littered with the wreckage of man’s efforts to bring about the ultimate peace. That longing still persists, as the movie ends with new recruits joining the Avengers in the ongoing attempt to protect the world and bring peace. We who follow Jesus see that longing played out in our attempts to be the peacemakers Jesus calls us to be. Sometimes we try to do this in our own strength and wisdom. The result often turns out the same as that of Tony Stark’s misguided effort.

Should we give up trying to be peacemakers and seeking reconciliation? Should governments abandon efforts to negotiate
peace? I believe the answer is no. We should seek and work for peace and reconciliation whenever we can. As we do so, we must remember that it is the Spirit of Christ who is the ultimate peace giver, whether between individuals or nations. We also need to realize that the peace we seek may not be realized in this life. Of course, the ultimate peace and restoration of this world and human life will only happen when Christ returns and fully establishes the Kingdom.

Until then we will continue to hear echoes of Eden in music, film, art, literature, and in our own hearts. We can be encouraged, because we know that some day we will hear more than just echoes.

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Increase or Decrease?

In the Gospel of John, chapter three, we have the account of John the Baptizer’s disciples coming to him and informing him that many of the people who John had baptized were now following Jesus. It seems from the passage that there was a bit of jealousy among John’s followers.

John’s response was that any position a person had was given to that person by God. He stated that he had already told them that he was not the Messiah,  but was sent to be a messenger for the Messiah. He went on to say that he was happy to see Jesus being made much of, just like the best man at a wedding receives his joy from the happiness of the bridegroom. John then made a statement that can be instructive for us as we seek to follow Jesus. He said, “He must increase. I must decrease.”

That statement goes against everything we have been taught by the culture around us. Even Christianity has succumbed to the thinking that it is all about us. The recent statement by a mega-church preacher is simply a clear admission of what is the basis for much of the teaching that goes out in evangelical churches and over the airwaves. Of course, those churches are full and those preachers have a huge following because we like to hear that we are at the center, that God’s purpose is to make us happy, that the most important thing is becoming a better person.  We make celebrities of those who tell us these things and put them on a pedestal.

When John was preaching at the Jordan River, his message was not one of happiness, prosperity, and becoming a better you. It was a message to the people to prepare them for the arrival of the King. John told the people that they needed to change their minds about the way to live and follow this Messiah. Everything was now to be oriented around the King. This message is still for us today.

The gospel is not accept Jesus as personal Savior so you can escape earth in a rapture and stay out of hell. It is not come to Jesus so he can give you all your desires. The message is that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised King, who has inaugurated his kingdom and who will one day restore all things. Follow this King. Give up your desires, your petty things of this world, and live a new life that puts the King up front. The King calls us to die, and in that death find the full life that he promises.

It is in the upside down nature of the Kingdom that the way to fulfillment and wholeness is in abandoning our lives and grasping onto the life of the one who is the Life. May John’s attitude be ours as well.

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Blast From the Past: The Screen in the Corner

This was first posted on November 11, 2010.

In What Good is God?, Philip Yancey tells the story of the brave young woman who helped spark the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. The opposition candidate, Victor Yushchenko, having already faced an attempt to poison him, had a 10 percent lead over the government candidate on election day. The government then tried to steal the election.

The state-run television reported the election results in favor of the state’s man. What the authorities forgot was the small inset in the lower right hand corner of the screen, where a young woman provided sign language interpretation for the hearing-impaired. While the announcer was trumpeting the defeat of Yushchenko, this courageous woman was signing, “I am addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine. Don’t believe what they are saying. They are lying and I am ashamed to translate those lies. Yushchenko is our President!” No one in the studio understood sign language. The message spread like wildfire and within days a million Ukrainians descended on Kiev and demanded new elections. The government was forced to give in, and Yushchenko became president.

Yancey makes the point that this is what the church should be, a small screen in the corner announcing that what the big screen is blaring is a lie. Those who control the big screen are telling us that our worth hinges on how we look, how much we make, what we wear, or what we do. As we look at the screen we see the bright and the beautiful, the rich and the famous, the powerful, those who are famous for simply being famous. The message is that we should strive to be just like them. That is the message we see on the big screen. Unfortunately, the message that is exported to the rest of the world is that everyone in “Christian” America is rich, spoiled, and decadent. And we wonder why so many hate Christianity throughout the world.

We have a perfect example of the small screen in the One we claim to follow. The big screen of first century Judaism told folks that the healthy, wealthy, and wise were the ones who could expect God’s favor. The kingdom of God was reserved for them. Along came Jesus, proclaiming that the kingdom was open to the downtrodden, the poor, the outcasts, the very ones that were seen as unworthy. His kingdom would not be built on military might, or on wealth, or on religious tradition. It would be built on love, and the ones on the bottom would enter before the movers and shakers of society. This message is even more revolutionary than the one which sparked the Orange Revolution.

The problem is that much of the church has either tried to control the big screen or has put up an imitation screen. We have our version of the rich and famous. Just watch Christian television. Take a look at the shelves in Christian bookstore, or the speaker lineup at any conference. Many of those people are fine folks with good ministries, but I don’t think you could argue that there is not a cult of personality out there. We just don’t do a very good job of broadcasting that subversive message that our Lord proclaimed.

Although there is still a great deal of “big screen Christianity,” there are those who are working in the corner, spreading the revolutionary message of a kingdom that doesn’t come with great fanfare, but arrives quietly and spreads like yeast, working its way through. It’s a kingdom that is built on sacrificial acts of love, not displays of might. Its subjects lay down their lives for each other, rather than using them to climb the ladder.

May their tribe increase.

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Blast From the Past: Who Is Your Pastor?

This was originally posted on February 28, 2012. With all the stuff happening with some very high profile preachers, it is still relevant.

Alan Knox points to a post over at More Than Cake, titled, Paparazzi Pastors Leading a Celebrity Church. There is an increasing trend among Christians today to follow what can best be described as “celebrity pastors,” whether those people be in a local church, another city in the same state, on the other side of the country, or halfway around the world. In the post there are listed a number of ways how these folks gain such a following.

It is dangerous when we try to “follow” someone who we don’t know, someone who is not a part of our daily lives. We know nothing about how they are living out what they are preaching, or if they even are living it out at all. The only thing we see is a carefully choreographed performance designed to make the speaker look good. Such performances can be inspiring, but there is very little instruction as to how it shakes out in the day-to-day. There are certainly no examples of how to follow Christ. Those must come from seeing each other in action.

As Alan states, “If you do not know someone – or are not growing to know someone – and if you never see them in a context other than speaking in front of a group of people, then that person is not shepherding (pastoring) you, regardless of what title the person may take for himself or be given by others.”

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Book Review: Undiluted by Benjamin L. Corey

This is my first attempt at a book review, so be gentle.

Benjamin Corey and I grew up in very similar environments. The difference between us is that he had his evangelical fundamentalist paradigm turned upside down while in seminary, while it didn’t happen to me until I was a few years older. Corey begins his book with this statement:

As Christians in America, we’re often lulled into the false belief somehow we have a monopoly
  on the pure and undiluted version of the message of Jesus. Unfortunately, we don’t. Christianity
     by nature has a tendency to blend in and become obscured by the cultural influences that surround      it —such has been the case for nearly 2,000 years of Christian history.
     Our experience is no different.
He then proceeds to tell how his world was turned upside by what he calls the undiluted message of Jesus. 
Corey’s premise is that Christianity as we know it is not what it was meant to be in the beginning. He makes the case that we have watered down the message of Jesus into something that fits our lifestyle, our economics, our politics and our personal comfort. In each chapter we find an area where our version of Christianity has lessened the original message and how going to back to what Corey calls the undiluted message of Jesus changed his life. 
This is not an easy book to read. As the author states, “In doing so (recovering the undiluted message of Jesus), you might experience a few deaths.” How many deaths will depend on how tied to cultural Christianity one may be. I found myself challenged to think about where I wasn’t simply following Jesus, and reaffirmed in ways I had already left diluted ways of thinking behind. 
I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to take a good hard look at what they believe and why. Some may not like what Corey has written. Some may even dismiss him as another one of those “liberals.” I have found through the years that it is best not to dismiss things out of hand, but rather to see what is there that is worth keeping and depending on the Spirit to guide me. You may not agree with everything in this book, but there is much there that is worth keeping. At the very least, Corey will make you think. And that’s good. 
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Blast From the Past: Gluttony

I went to an all you can eat pizza place today with the kids I work with today. It reminded me of this post from January 24, 2011. In the interests of full disclosure, I ate fair amount of pizza myself.

One night a couple of years ago we went to Ci-Ci’s for dinner and I realized that one of America’s biggest sins is gluttony. In the traditional sense of overeating yes (I admit I was rather stuffed when we left), but also in the larger sense of over consuming and wasting. As we were eating, Jan pointed out the amount of crusts and entire pieces of pizza that were left on plates. People go into a place like Ci-Ci’s and see the tremendous amount of food displayed before them. So they load up their plate and begin to eat. Since this is an all-you-can-eat buffet, they go back for a second plate. Then, if they don’t go back for a third plate of regular pizza, they have a few pieces of dessert pizza. The problem is many of those people find that they can’t eat all they have taken. So they leave it. They leave it to be thrown away and wasted.

Then I thought about our culture. Gas prices keep going up, and how many really change their driving habits. There are many examples of wastefulness in our society. Most of you could come up with a few.

My question is: What does this say about our culture? More importantly, what does this say about those of us who claim to belong to Jesus? Are we doing what we can to conserve and not waste the things God has given us? These things include gas, food, natural resources, time, talents, relationships. Christians should be the best environmentalists. Not in a worship Mother Earth, man is a virus type of way, but in a way that recognizes that this world was created by God for us to wisely and compassionately use for the Kingdom. God didn’t give man the right to abuse creation. We are stewards and are to take care of the gift we have.

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Sports? Yes, Sports

There was an on-line discussion a couple of weeks back about sports and the impact, positive and negative, that it has on people. I have been involved in sports, as an athlete or coach for fifty-two of my fifty-eight years. Currently, we are part of a church that has just a few folks interested in sports. It can make for some interesting conversations.

Our community’s mission is to show the truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus to our city so that it flourishes. One of the ways we do this is through the arts. We have a number of artists and musicians, and there are many different ways in which they seek to carry out this mission. Jan and I love being in this spiritual environment and we are learning a great deal. I’ve even had a few artistic stirrings my self. As I see my artist friends do what they do as a way of bringing the kingdom of God to bear, I am thinking more and more how that can be done through sports.

Sports is one of those things that can do a great deal of good, or a great deal of harm. I am well aware of the problems in the sports world. I have known my share of athletes who were sure they were going to make it in the pros, and didn’t bother to study. I have known coaches who have been fired from their jobs, not because they didn’t produce capable student-athletes who were good citizens, but because they didn’t get into post season tournaments every season. I have seen the athletes, and coaches, who believe that the rules somehow don’t apply to them as long as they win.

Unlike the arts, sports has not been neglected or shunned by the wider Christian church. In fact, it has been embraced by the church as something good. That is not a bad thing in and of itself. The problem comes when we begin to make idols out of athletes, teams, etc. Don’t tell me that we don’t follow the lead of the culture when it comes to putting athletes up on pedestals. We just have a different set of criteria for who we put up there. Unfortunately, when our idols fall off the pedestal, the fallout is usually worse.

Yes, there are problems in the sports world. At times it can seem like the bread and circuses of the Roman Empire. On the other hand, sports can be a beautiful thing. I would even go so far as to say that one can find art in sports. The arc of a shot from behind the three point line, a soccer team moving the ball up the pitch with short precise passes, the graceful lines of a high jumper clearing the bar, the power of a sprinter exploding out of the starting blocks. All of these things have a beauty to them. Sports can also teach lessons that are life-long. The ability to work with others to accomplish a common goal is a useful thing. The discipline of practicing and constantly trying to improve skills comes in handy in many situations. Persistence learned in the heat of competition goes a long way toward helping one to not give up when things get tough.

As a follower of Jesus, I try to see the good in all of the abilities that God gives to those made in his image. Whether it’s a painter, an illustrator, a writer, a musician, or an athlete, all of the abilities we have are gifts to us from a creative God. As a Christian, I believe we have a calling to show the glory of our Father to a watching world through through those gifts. I believe that we can show the truth, goodness, and beauty of Christ through sports. Hopefully, I’ll have opportunities to explore ways to do that in the near future.

What do you think?

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Blast From the Past: Twenty Centuries Later

This was first posted on April 1, 2009.

It seems that the twenty first century American culture we are living in is similar to the first century. In Palestine, the Jewish religious culture was very comfortable and settled in their ways, much like the church in America. The Romans let them run their religious system, and for the most part they didn’t make waves. While looking for the Messiah to come and rid their world of all the evildoers, they were content practicing their version of what had been passed down from Moses. The people at the top of the spiritual pecking order controlled who worshipped, how they worshipped, and where they worshipped. The Roman culture of the day was very religious. So religious in fact, that they were very accepting of the various gods being worshipped, as long as those who worshipped also accepted the idea that Caesar was lord. Pleasure and comfort was the ultimate, for those who could afford it.

Into this world stepped Jesus. During his time here on earth he proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was here, and that he was the King everyone had been waiting for. He was not recognized by the religious elite because he didn’t fit the mold of what they thought the Messiah would be. They were scandalized that he invited the poor, the downcast, the “sinners” to join the Kingdom. They thought they were the gatekeepers. When the religious leaders took Jesus to Pilate, the only charge they could bring that affected Pilate at all was the charge that Jesus was claiming to be a king other than Caesar. What may have been the tipping point for Pilate was when they told him that he was not loyal to Caesar if he let Jesus go. Their statement, “We have no king but Caesar,” indicates that they were willing to remain in bondage rather than accept God’s rule.

As the church began to spread and carry out the command to make disciples, they ran into a culture that quickly became hostile when it was evident that these disciples of Jesus didn’t fit into the mold. They didn’t just go along to get along. When asked, or told, to sacrifice to the gods or to Caesar, they 
refused. Their response was that Jesus is Lord, and Jesus only. There was no sense of taking the message of Jesus and the Kingdom and simply adding it to the “Roman Dream.” The message of the
early Christians was that the Kingdom of God had come and all the other kingdoms of this world were nothing. This message caused them to be ostracized, to be shut out from participating in the economic and political life of many towns. Eventually this message caused many of them to lose their lives. This message also turned the world upside down.

I look around at the cultural landscape in America and see many of the same things. I see a church that, in many ways, has become quite comfortable here. So much of what is proclaimed in churches across America is nothing more than a self-help gospel. Many, if not most of the titles in Christian bookstores deal with how to get what you want, how to be a better __________, how to have your best life now, or how to be a better you (what happened to being like Christ?). Much of the church has been co-opted by political parties on both sides, and we have come to equate Christianity with America. We have lost our ability to speak truth to power because we have lusted after power.

At the same time, those who follow Jesus face a wider culture that is increasingly hostile to the idea
that there is only one King, and one Kingdom over all. I have read commentators who write about the way America is becoming like Europe. I think that is true, but I also think that a culture where a clear line is drawn between those who are disciples of Jesus and those who aren’t is preferable to one where the message of the Gospel is hidden in all the layers of institutionalization that have been added over the centuries.

Maybe we can, once again, turn the world upside down.