Why Church Is Indispensable

Posted on October 27, 2018 by salooper57

When people came to our church building this past Sunday, I sent them away. In fact, I sent them to other churches. I told them, “Go and bless another church with your presence.”

We didn’t meet for worship this week because a Saturday storm had taken down a tree which, in turn, took down a trunk line, and the power company was not able to finish repairs until Monday afternoon. Because our fire suppression system was off-line, local building codes prevented us from meeting.

Most people got the word, but there were some who didn’t. So, I greeted them in the parking lot, told them services were cancelled, and sent them to join with other Christ-followers. As the sun rose, I paced back and forth in the parking lot, singing hymns of praise to God. It was a lovely worship time.

Still, I really missed my church family. I don’t “go to church” because it is required or even because the church employs me. I go because I want to be with people who share my commitment to God and to each other. Over the years, God has used the church to help me know him better and become more like the person he intends me to be.

I feel sorry for people who go to church grudgingly, wishing they could stay home and catch up on work or sleep. The story is told of a wife who woke her husband up for church, but he only groaned and rolled over in bed. She coaxed him, urged him, and finally ordered him to get out of bed and go to church. But he said, “I don’t want to.”

She asked why and he answered, “Because it’s boring. And because they don’t need me there. And because they don’t want me there – nobody likes me.”

That’s when she got forceful: “That’s not true: One, they do need you; two, it is not boring and, three, people do like you. And besides that, you have to go: you’re the pastor.”

Some people of faith choose not to go to church because they have been hurt by fellow-believers. Others do not go because they do not understand the important role the church plays in their life and spiritual health. The church is critically important to individual Christians.

When the church gathers, we hear God’s word and learn his ways. One of the most difficult things for twenty-first century Western Christians to understand is that entering into an ongoing relationship with God will change a person. Christians are not like everyone else. They believe things other people don’t believe and acts in ways other people find odd.

Christians live in relationship with a God who has his own ways of doing things. The word “ways,” referring to God’s ways, appears in the Bible about five dozen times. God’s ways are not naturally our ways, so we must learn them. The church helps us with this important task. Each time we gather, it is with the kind of prayer Moses prayed: “Teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.”

The church also provides us with the opportunity to do the two most important things any human can do: love God and love neighbor. The church is made up of neighbors, each of whom has come to express love to God.

When Christians gather, they are often aware of the need for assistance to live lovingly. Indeed, they require assistance from both God and neighbor. One of the principal reasons they gather is to corporately ask for and receive such assistance, from God in heaven and from the neighbor on down the pew.

We also gather for encouragement. We keep each other going. As Charles Spurgeon pointed out, “It’s hard to build a fire with just one log.” When we gather, we do what the author of Hebrews instructed: we “stir one another up to love and good deeds.” It’s like stirring up a fire.

When one person follows God’s ways (the way of love), people say: “She’s a great person.” But when a group – the church – follows the way of love, people say: “God must be real.” Partnership with the church is an indispensable component of being Christian.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter,

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What Is the Secret of Contentment?

Posted on October 20, 2018 by salooper57

Frank Sinatra planned to retire when he was at the top of his game. He used to say, “You gotta get out before you hit the mat.” And yet he kept performing until he was almost eighty and his performances became increasingly unsatisfactory. At one show he forgot the lyrics to one of his signature songs, and the audience had to finish it for him. Once, at a concert in Las Vegas, he was so sick that he collapsed into a chair and was administered oxygen. His handlers began keeping oxygen tanks on hand.

His performances were becoming an embarrassment. People were talking. The whole thing was painful. His daughter Tina finally said to him, ‘Pop, you can stop now; you don’t have to stay on the road.’”

Frank looked at her as if she had slapped him. He said firmly, “No, I’ve got to earn more money. I have to make sure everyone is taken care of.” When he died, the fortune he worked so hard to build tore his family to pieces. They fought legal battles over the inheritance for years.

“The Chairman of the Board” could have learned something from St. Paul, who said he had “learned the secret of being content.” Sinatra didn’t. Neither do most of us. According to USA Today, when 1,733 executives were asked, “If you could start your career over in a completely different field, would you?” more than two to one said that they would. A quarter of the rest answered maybe.

Isn’t it odd that people in contemporary America have more stuff than their parents and grandparents – perhaps more than any people group in the history of the world – and yet as a nation are deeply discontented?

Some of it is our own fault. A U.S. News & World Report study found that more than one out of four children under the age of two have a TV in their room. Advertisers spend $15 billion a year on the children and youth market alone. The average American child sees tens of thousands of commercial messages a year.

Parents frequently make the situation worse. The average American kid gets 70 new toys a year. In 1984, children between the ages of four and twelve spent $4.2 billion of their own pocket money. That seems astonishing, and yet, twenty years later, children in that age range were expected to spend four times that amount.

Clearly some of it is our own fault, but discontentment is also bred in our bones. It is part of human nature. That is why the apostle Paul wrote that he “learned the secret of being content.” It didn’t come naturally. It had to be learned.

Imagine contentment could be purchased. For $100, a person could be content with spouse, with job, with health, income, and possessions – no strings attached.  Would people purchase it?  My guess is that most wouldn’t, even if they believed it would work. Discontentment is part of their lives, and they cannot imagine themselves without it.

But if asked why they work two jobs, sacrifice time with their families, suffer enormous stress, and eat unhealthy meals on the run, they would say something like: “I don’t do it because I want to. I do it because I have to.” If pressed, “But why do you have to?” They would answer something like, “So my family and I can be happy.” In other words, because they want to be content.

It is a kind of mental illness that has affected the whole world, but America is ground zero for the epidemic. “Ol’ Blue Eyes” had it bad, but so do some of us. We honestly believe that if we just have enough money, we will be content. We’ve been duped. Jesus referred to it as “the deceitfulness of riches.”

It is sometimes said the secret of contentment is not acquiring more but wanting less. This is a fallacy. The secret of contentment is not wanting less but wanting what is available in limitless supply. St. Paul found that in God. The more he came to know God by experience, the more he wanted to know God, which led to even richer experiences, and so on. This happy cycle was, and is, the secret of contentment.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 10/20/2018

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The Heart’s Creed Is What Really Matters

Posted on October 13, 2018 by salooper57

The two best-known creeds of the Western Church are the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed. The Nicene Creed dates from 325 and represents the Church’s unified response to an ongoing controversy about the divine nature of Christ.  The Apostles’ Creed is harder to date. The earliest extant text dates from the late 700s, but at that time the Church claimed it had been in use for centuries. Phrases from the creed had already appeared in the writings of certain Church Fathers centuries earlier.

The creeds were an attempt to clarify what the church believed about God, in a way that helped ordinary believers understand and articulate their faith. Recitation of the creeds allowed uneducated men and women a chance to participate in the church’s worship. It gave a voice to ordinary believers.

The word “creed” comes from the Latin, “credo,” which means, “I believe.” The Nicene Creed begins with the words, “We believe,” and the Apostles’ Creed with, “I believe.”  Whether the people who recited the creeds actually believed them is unclear. Some probably did. For others, the creeds were likely only a string of words put into their mouths by theologian priests.

The creeds are still repeated weekly in churches around the world. Some people understand and firmly believe the truths they recite, but for others the creeds remain enigmatic strings of words put into their mouths by priests and pastors.

The value of the creeds lies in their capacity to educate ordinary believers about the nature of the ongoing story in which they have a part. The creeds also remind believers that they share a faith with people from around the world and across the expanse of time. Additionally, the recitation of creeds provides people with an opportunity to participate in worship rather than merely spectate.

There is, however, a possible downside to the recitation of a creed: people might confess a faith they don’t really share and have never seriously considered. Such solemn confession of what one neither believes nor fully understands happens all the time – for some political appointees, it’s practically a part of the job description. That it also happens in the church is not surprising.

According to the ancient prophets and biblical writers, God knows what is going on inside a person. He is the “heart monitor,” constantly hearing people’s hearts, not just their words. It would be disconcerting – and perhaps frightening – to hear what God hears when the gathered church sings her favorite songs and recites her historic creeds.

The first lines of the Apostles’ Creed run: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord…” If, as people recite those lines, God hears their hearts rather than their voices, what exactly might he hear?

The variations would be endless. Some hearts would surely communicate genuine wonder and praise. The true expression of other hearts might, however, sound like this: “I believe in myself, and in the Dollar almighty, creator of pleasure and satisfaction. And I believe in Convenience, my Lord.”

As the recitation of the creed continued, the assembled worshipers would say: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.”

As these words were coming from their mouths, God might hear other beliefs coming from their hearts: “I believe in Technology, the American Dream, the Republican (or Democratic) Party, the toleration of sins, retirement with ample income, and a future without hassles. Amen.”

Long ago, A. W. Tozer wrote: “Compared with our actual thoughts about [God], our credal statements are of little consequence.” This is undoubtedly true. Our actual beliefs determine the trajectory of our lives in a way that formal confessions never do. When what we actually believe diverges from what we say we believe, we will follow our actual beliefs every time.

Can the beliefs of the heart be ascertained? Broadly speaking, yes. According to Jesus, “where your treasure is, there will you heart be also.” That means we will find our heart and its beliefs where our treasure – our money, energy and thought – is invested.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 10/13/2018

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Is There a Christian Way to Think About Kavanaugh?

Posted on October 6, 2018 by salooper57

The country is like a volcano that is ready to erupt. Smoke is billowing. If the eruption comes, it won’t matter if one is a man or a woman, a Democrat or a Republican, a Conservative or a Progressive, everyone will suffer.

The Senate confirmation hearings on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have exposed deep fault lines that run through our nation. In the past decade, the uneven ground between races has caused Americans to stumble. With the Me Too movement, the tectonic plates of gender have collided, and everyone has been shaken.

It is clear that Democrats have one take on the confirmation hearings and Republicans have another. Is it possible for Christians to think about Judge Kavanaugh, his accuser Dr. Ford, and the broader issues of justice and peace in today’s society in a way that transcends political party affiliation and even gender? And, if it is possible, what would characterize such thinking?

Such thinking would place a higher priority on truth than on potential outcomes. Right now, the people who want a conservative justice on the Supreme Court believe that Brett Kavanaugh did not assault Dr. Ford or they believe that it doesn’t matter – that if he did it he was young and inebriated and has, in all likelihood, matured. The people who do not want a conservative justice on the court believe Kavanaugh is guilty of assault and is unfit for service.

It is more that suspicious that opinions should coincide so exactly with potential desired outcomes. It indicates that the mind is serving an agenda rather than the truth. Christians must never elevate desired outcomes above truth. We are not responsible for outcomes, we are responsible to be true. I would very much like to see a conservative jurist on the Supreme Court, but what I want does not change what happened.

The FBI investigation is a good thing, as long as it is not biased. If the facts can be uncovered, they should be. Christians should never be afraid of truth.

But we must remember that truth involves people’s lives. Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford are real people, with families, friends, and careers. Demeaning either of them is strictly unacceptable for Christians, who are instructed “to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.”

Christians must not stir up hatred. They must not say things like the university professor who hatefully stated that white Republican senators “deserve miserable deaths.” Such a comment can only issue from a well of hatred, which is the opposite of the love and justice God desires from people.

Not that it is hard to understand how that well of hatred overflowed. Thousands of years of the sexual mistreatment of women has raised the level of hostility and mistrust to flood level. Women have been treated as sexual objects for ages and never more so than now, in the Hollywood era.

I have officiated at many weddings over the years, and it is my preference to use the traditional ceremony of the church, with its strong and beautiful vows. But before the vows comes “The Declaration of Consent.” In medieval Europe, the soldiers of one city-state would raid the villages of another. They would carry off young women as plunder, take them to a priest, and force them to marry them. The church, recognizing the illegitimacy of the practice, instituted the “Declaration of Consent” for the protection of women.

After thousands of years of the sexual mistreatment of women, it is not odd that the professor would say what she did. It is not odd, but it is not right either. “Othering” people, whether white GOP senators or female college professors, treating them as a class and not as persons, dehumanizes them. It is not the way Christ taught us to think about others.

How should Christians approach the Senate confirmation hearings? They should be both truth-seekers and peacemakers. Anything less is less than Christian. They scrupulously should avoid adding to the hatred. Only so, can they be a light in our world, and only if their primary allegiance is to God, not to political power.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 10/6/2018

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How to Face Suffering

Posted on October 3, 2018 by salooper57

How should we think about suffering? How can we endure it when we’re the ones suffering? Click the link below to hear a 27-minute sermon titled, “Trial by Fire,” informed by 1 Peter 4:12-19.

How to Face Suffering

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How to Talk with a Child about Death

Posted on September 29, 2018 by salooper57

Every time a celebrity dies unexpectedly, the news and entertainment industry nearly overwhelms us with coverage. If the celebrity dies by his or her own hand, the news-storm stalls out and rains reports and rumors on us for weeks. Among the people caught in the flood are children.

How do we talk to children about death? It is bad enough when the deceased are celebrities or victims of some nationally publicized tragedy, but it is even harder when the deceased is a member of the family. Even talking about the death of a family pet presents significant challenges.

As a dad, I have talked to my own children about death and, as a pastor, I’ve talked to other people’s children. Some children withdraw and isolate themselves, others get angry and act out, still others seek reassurance and the security of being near a loving adult.

Before I ever talked to a child about death, I was the child being talked to. I was in sixth grade. My older brother had been ill for a long time and my parents had been staying with him at the hospital while I stayed with my grandparents. I still remember my dad and mom as they stepped through my grandparents’ doorway. I knew immediately something was wrong: for one thing, they had returned in the middle of the afternoon; for another, they looked different – not like themselves.

It was my dad who told me. I do not think my mother could. I listened, tried not to cry (as I had been taught), but couldn’t help myself. I fell into a chair and sobbed. My poor dad, tough Marine that he’d been, had no idea how to comfort me.

My grandmother said something to me about heaven and, while that was comforting, it was cold comfort. Over the next days – probably over the next months and years – I did all the things I needed to do, but retreated further and further into myself. Looking back, I wish my parents had been better equipped to talk with me about my brother’s death, but they, living through their own nightmare, had no idea how to do so.

Sometimes grieving children will laugh and play and parents will say, “Children are remarkably resilient,” and assume they are “doing okay.” That may be the case, but it does not mean the child isn’t grieving. Children grieve in all kinds of ways. Play can be a child’s way of escaping reality and the pain that goes along with it.

Parents can use this to advantage by allowing a child to express himself through play. Small children can take part in needed conversations using favorite stuffed animals. They may be able to express feelings through Teddy Bear that they cannot state directly.

Avoid using code words with children. As hard as it is, they need to hear their loved one “died” rather than “passed on” or “crossed over.” We often use euphemisms to soften the blow – for ourselves as well as for them – but in the long run, it is unhelpful to be vague.

Therapists recommend telling children about the physical nature of death before talking about its underlying spiritual realities. Young children need to know their loved one will not speak or eat or talk. When that has been understood, it is time to talk about the spiritual side of death.

When it comes to talking to children about death, the biggest difficulty some parents face is not knowing what they think about it themselves. I’m sure this was the case with my parents. They had, quite understandably, avoided thinking about death as long as they could. As a result, they were completely unprepared to talk about it.

We cannot explain to children what we don’t understand. When it comes to understanding death, there is no richer resource than the Bible. Christian thinkers also offer real help. The metaphysical poet John Donne’s last sermon, Death’s Duel, is beautiful and inspiring. The philosopher Peter Kreeft’s book, Love Is Stronger than Death, is brilliant and helpful. Jerry Sittser’s, A Grace Disguised, is full of hope. For children, What Happens When We Die? by Carolyn Nystrom, articulates in simple language questions children ponder but will probably not ask.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 9/29/2018

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Are You a Person of Peace?

Posted on September 22, 2018 by salooper57

What criteria are used in selecting people for leadership positions in our workplaces, government offices, and churches?

Leaders must be smart people who operate from a wide-ranging knowledge base and who reason well. They must also be tough people who will fight for what is right – for what we think is right, that is. Michigan’s current governor won office by promoting himself as both smart and tough. His campaign’s tagline was, “One tough nerd.”

We also want leaders who share our ideology. For decades, this has been the most significant criteria for the appointment of Supreme Court justices. The same is increasingly true in politics. I can remember a time when voters complained that the two-party system offered no meaningful alternatives: it made no difference who won. Now the parties themselves are fragmented by ideological divides.

It is not wrong to want leaders who are tough, smart, and aligned ideologically with us – it is right. But there is another important criterion that receives too little attention: our leaders should be people of peace. We need people of peace leading our police force, teaching our children, and setting legal precedent. We need people of peace speaking out on issues of justice and race and gender. Unfortunately, it is not their voices that are most often heard.

One needn’t be a pacifist to be a person of peace, but one cannot be a person of peace without faith and fortitude. People of peace know where they stand and will not back down. But neither will they attack.

Just because someone talks about peace does not mean he or she is a person of peace. The sixties proved that. In the name of peace, people burned down buildings, damaged property, and despised those with whom they disagreed. People of peace are not like that. They are not looking for a fight.

People of peace do not make a practice of using inflammatory language. They don’t call their adversaries names. They don’t try to shock people by their rhetoric. People of peace are not prone to using profanity, which betrays a lack of inner peace. People who are not at peace with themselves will not be at peace with others.

Since this is true, it might seem like the way to become a person of peace is to work on developing inner peace. Inner peace is important, and knowing how to nurture it is necessary, but it is not the first step. Meditation and mindfulness may help. Working with a therapist to understand the causes of anxiety and to take practical steps to deal with it can be very enriching. But inner peace will remain elusive until we have spiritual peace.

Because we as a nation do not understand this, we spend billions of dollars looking for inner peace without finding it. We install security systems at home, vacation on idyllic beaches abroad, take pills, drink too much, start relationships, and end relationships, all in an attempt to gain peace. Yet we will not gain it in a lasting way until we realize that peace with God precedes peace with oneself which, in turn, precedes peace with others.

This is so because of the way we are made and for whom we are made. Our primal relationship is not with mother, as important as that is, but with maker; with our heavenly parent, not our earthly ones. Historic Christianity claims this most important relationship has been broken. Because we are not at one with God, we are at odds with ourselves and with each other.

Christians believe that a state of peace is prior to, and necessary for, feelings of peace. We enter a state of peace with God through a faith-commitment to Jesus Christ. He not only made peace, he “is our peace,” as St. Paul put it. The person who is at peace with God is able to make peace with self and with others.

More than ever, we need to place people of peace in positions of leadership. Yet it is not enough to look for people of peace; we must become them. Peacemakers are not waiting, like diamonds in a mine, to be found. They are made – made by the Peacemaking God.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 9/22/2018

 

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Why a Dose of Awe May Be All the Medicine You Need

Posted on September 15, 2018 by salooper57

There is a not-so-new but surprisingly effective aid for treating many social, personal, and spiritual problems: awe. If you’re stressed out, worried about money, or breathlessly short of time, you need to get your mind blown.

Recent science suggests that experiences of awe have a profound effect on human wellbeing. The person who stands in the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias or surveys the vast ocean from Big Sur just might be happier and more hopeful.

Awe, according to Professors Dacher Keltner of UC Berkley and Jonathan Haidt, formerly of University of Virginia, is comprised of two principal factors: a profound sense of vastness and a perceived need to accommodate oneself to it. When we are in the presence of something much bigger than ourselves – a mountain, the sky, a thundering waterfall – our perception of ourselves and of the world changes.

That perceptual change, according to a study published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, can lead to a greater sense of humility which is fundamentally important to spiritual understanding and growth. Matthew Hutson, reporting on the effects of awe for The Atlantic, suggests that experiences of awe make people more spiritual, generous, and content.

Hutson cites evidence that experiences of awe lead some people to firmer faith in God, while instilling in others a sense of greater connection to people. A study of NASA astronauts suggested that awe led them to feel more intimately connected with the rest of humanity – a feeling that is in perilously short supply just now.

According to a study led by Melanie Rudd of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, people who experience awe feel as if they have more time available. Experiences of awe leave people less materialistic, more willing to volunteer their time, and more satisfied with life. Other studies have suggested that people who are “awe-able” are more generous and more likely to give to charities.

Further, awe has been linked to greater patience and better over-all health. Some researchers have found that the experience of awe leads to a more efficient immune system and a lower level of cytokines, a protein linked to heart disease and Type-2 diabetes.

Awe-treatment can lessen stinginess, stress, and dissatisfaction. It can give people a more balanced view of their own strengths and weaknesses and lead them to be more deeply concerned for others. There have been numerous studies that link awe to great satisfaction with life.

Why is this so? Some social scientists, approaching awe from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective, speculate that the positive benefits of awe are a conditioned response. This is surely an incomplete explanation. Would not a likelier result of awe be fear and isolation? Indeed, some research suggests that awe can have this effect.

I would argue that we experience these positive results because we are “awe-able” by design. If, as St. Augustine said, we have been made for God, we would expect to be made in such a way that awe could have beneficial effects on us, which is just what we find.

If, as current research suggests, awe leads to better social, physical, and spiritual health, could it be that we are not very healthy because we are too seldom awed? And in a world like ours, habituated to small screens and jaded by big promises, how are people going to be awed?

We cannot create awe, but we can put ourselves in situations where it is more likely to happen. This will require us to plan for times of solitude. Constant distraction and perpetual busyness effectively insulate us from the experience of awe. Get alone.

Visit beautiful places. Wander through a museum. Listen to Bach. Sit on the porch and await a thunderstorm’s approach. If you can’t do any of these, watch an episode of Planet Earth. Studies suggest watching it or similar programs can evoke awe and produce beneficial results.

Get alone in nature’s cathedral or a quiet church and ask God to reveal himself to you. Pray and meditate deeply on Scripture until you begin to perceive the vastness and power of God. This can be the prelude to big and beneficial changes in your life.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 9/15/2018

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Course Correction Required

Posted on September 8, 2018 by salooper57

When Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon, it was sometimes necessary to fire the engines of either the Lunar Module or the Service Module to alter direction. These “burns” included, on both the outbound and inbound journeys, significant midcourse corrections. Even before launch, which went off without a hitch, mission control knew that at least one major course correction, and possibly as many as four, would be necessary for each leg of the journey.

It turned out that only one major correction was needed. Had Apollo 11 not made that correction, the outbound flight would have missed the moon entirely and been lost in space, and the inbound flight would have missed the earth and suffered the same fate. Smaller corrections were also needed to achieve orbit around the moon and to land the Eagle on its surface.

Course corrections are not only needed on the nearly half-million-mile trip to the moon and back, they are also necessary in the 79-year trip through life that the average person in the United States takes. Course corrections are not an “Oops!” They are not a sign of failure. They are part of the plan from the very beginning. Without them, people end up somewhere they never intended – and do not wish – to be.

Course corrections are not about choosing new destinations. The Apollo mission could not, for example, have decided mid-course to go to Mars. Likewise, a mid-course correction in life is not so much a reinvention as it is a reorientation. We are not changing our values but reaffirming our commitment to them and making the necessary course alterations to remain in line with them.

Sometimes the major course corrections are not as tricky as the minor ones that require greater attention to detail. In my six decades or so on the planet, I have kept a pretty straight course: I fell in love with a girl, got married, and had three sons. There were plenty of minor corrections in orientation that were needed but only one major one.

Both my wife and I intended to serve God overseas, where the need was great and Christian influence was minimal. We went through college with this intention and were in agreement about it when we were engaged and, later, married. The various decisions we made in our early years together were meant to keep us on this course.

The organization with which we hoped to serve gave us some preliminary direction, which we pursued to the best of our ability. From my perspective, we were on course and moving slowly and steadily in the right direction. Then we met with a representative of the organization and he told us plainly, “You’re not who we’re looking for.” It was time for a course correction.

At the recommendation of the mission organization, I was already serving a small church as pastor. It was a role we’d never imagined nor desired but for which, as it turned out, I had some ability. Since this way of serving God and people fit our core values and our giftedness, and since we concluded God was guiding us to it, we made the necessary course correction.

It’s obvious to us when big course corrections are needed. It’s the smaller ones, which are equally important to our success, that are trickiest. For example, I have been a music-lover since childhood, but there’s not a lot of contemporary Christian music I appreciate. Yet we sing such songs in worship because they represent the best medium for many of our church members to worship. Minor course correction required.

I have sometimes become aware that I have been off-course as a father. One such time was when I realized I rarely praised my sons or told them I was proud of them, though I was. Course correction required.

As a husband, I have sometimes been obtuse and insensitive. Course correction required. Such alterations may seem less important than the major course correction that led to a different career but they are not. If anything, they are more important because they involve relationships, which are at the heart of our service to God and are key to the contribution we make to the world.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 9/8/2018

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Boy, Was the President Ever Wrong About That!

Posted on September 4, 2018 by salooper57

President Trump recently told Evangelical leaders from the U.S. that Evangelicals stand to lose everything in the upcoming midterm elections. Don’t believe it!

I’ve linked a CT article by Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California. It’s worth a read!

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/august-web-only/evangelicals-trump-elections-losing-everything.html?share=9BK8Rsg2xPN10S1trdtwsyRgpvsDh7Dc

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