1 Corinthians 13 for Parents

I'm not the prophet or the son of a prophet, but I would like to hazzard a guess regarding the future this morning. I predict that the future will look back in great fondness at the launch of the FriendSpeak Ministry at the Woodward Park Church of Christ.

Since launching the ministry three weeks ago, we have found reason to break the 400-barrier on Wednesday nights! Last night, 30 students were actively participating in one of two classes. The first class is an ESL class for people without any English-speaking background. The second class is for limited English-speakers and uses the Bible to enhance their English.

Last night, we had natives of Iran, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Egypt, Laos, and Cambodia in the classes.

--------------

This little diddy arrived in my inbox this week. It's from an unknown source, so I don't know who to credit, but is entitled "1 Corinthians 13 for Parents."

I can read bedtime stories till the cow jumps over the moon and sing 'Ten Little Monkeys' until I want to call the doctor -- but if I don't have love, I'm as annoying as a ringing phone.

I can chase a naked toddler through the house while cooking dinner and listening to voice mail, I can fix the best Kool-Aid and cookies in the neighborhood, and I can tell a sick child's temperature with one touch of my finger, but if I don't have love, I am nothing.

Love is patient while watching and praying by the front window when it's 30 minutes past curfew.

Love is kind when my teen says, 'I hate you!'

It does not envy the neighbor's swimming pool or their brand-new minivan, but trusts the Lord to provide every need.

Love does not brag when other parents share their disappointments and insecurities, and love rejoices when other families succeed.

It doesn't boast, even when I've multi-tasked all day long and my husband can't do more than one thing at a time.

Love is not rude when my spouse innocently asks, 'What have you done today?'

It does not immediately seek after glory when we see talent in our children, but encourages them to get training and make wise choices.

It is not easily angered, even when my 15-year old acts like the world revolves around her.

It does not delight in evil and is not self-righteous when I remind my 17-year old that he's going 83-MPH in a 55-MPH zone, but rejoices in the truth.

Love does not give up hope.

It always protects our children's self-esteem and spirit, even while doling out discipline.

It always trusts God to protect our children when we cannot.

It always perseveres through blue nail polish, burps and other bodily functions, rolled eyes and crossed arms, messy rooms and sleepovers.

Love never fails.

But where there are memories of thousands of diaper changes and painful labor(s), they will fade away.

Where there is talking back, it will (eventually) cease. (Please, Lord?)

Where there is a teenager who thinks she knows everything, there will one day be an adult who knows you did your best.

For we know we fail our children, and we pray they don't end up in therapy, but when we get to heaven, our imperfect parenting will disappear.

When we were children, we needed a parent to love and protect us. Now that we're parents ourselves, we have a Heavenly Father who adores, shelters us and holds us when we need to cry.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Bulldog Hoops

One of the real delights for the girls and I since moving to Fresno has been the fun at Fresno State athletic events. The girls have become Bulldog fans to the core.

On Monday night, we were blessed to take in the Fresno State/Boise State game at the SMC. And just like last year, it was a nail biter. Kevin Bell hit a last second shot to give the Dogs the win in '07; in '08, his runner in the lane rimmed out.

Nevertheless, as always for the girls, the highlight of the game was the 12:00 minute media timeout in the second half. It is then that they get to hit the hardwood with the cheerleaders. Thanks to the generosity of Rod and Mike Avedikian and their second row seats, my girls have memories that'll last a lifetime.

And I just had to toss in this picture of Tori for her Grammy and Papa. This picture was taken in Sausalito on the day we took Rick and Gail to the airport to fly back to Cambodia.

The Future of Justification

The week-long sojourn through the Bible belt and six different flights allowed me to finish off two books. I shared with you last week about Chris Erdman's strategy for preaching. On Saturday between Lubbock and Las Vegas, I finished off book number two: The Future of Justification by John Piper.

For the sake of balance, if you have read Wright, Piper's book is a significant rejoinder. Much of Wright's work and the "New Perspective on Paul" have proliferated recent Biblical scholarship. Piper's book is a response to Wright's theses on Paul and the argument centers on whether justification is "imparted" (Wright's claim) or "imputed" (Piper's claim).

If you've read Wright and been intrigued by his insight on Paul, then Piper's book is a must-read. But do yourself a favor, read it when you are alert, not drowsy. It's not a book you'll want to read before bedtime. It's tough sledding but worth the effort.

Countdown to Sunday, Part Two

It's been a whirlwind. Monday and Tuesday in Arkansas with my parents and Jimmy Mitchell. Wednesday in the Metroplex at the Legacy church with Allan Stanglin and crew. Yesterday and today in Lubbock with Dale and Lauri Mannon and the Sunset Lectures.

But my countdown is toward Saturday and the return home to Mandy and the girls.

--------------

More from Chris Erdman:

“I realize that it (taking time to be still in the course of sermon preparation) runs counter to the way many of us work our weeks, but doing so is more consistent with the nature of our work…a spiritual and contemplative experience of the Word that no preacher can neglect. Unfortunately, we in our day have become so enamored with so-called communication excellence and its corollary, the terribly seductive siren called ‘relevance,’ that many of us strain right through till the time we preach, trying to find just the right words or joke or story or video clip. We enter worship breathless and sometimes so proud of ourselves and what we’ve come up with that we’re not much good to God and the people God wants to form according to the Word.

Great communicators are a dime a dozen. And we don’t need more of them. It’s not terribly difficult to please the masses, to entertain, to fill time with what amounts to little more than religious ‘spam.’ It’s not hard to run off half-cocked having spent very little time really listening to God…On Fridays my most important task is to simply plop down before the Lord and listen.

In listening, the real sermon is born. In listening, the preacher is changed from being a mere reporter of things observed to being a messenger. A sermon is not a poetry reading or a lecture or an exhibition of great oratory skills – it is a living word. And if I am to utter this word, I must be sent from the Word. I must have dwelt long enough in the presence of the Word to yield up my own will and fears and imaginations. Like dirt held in the hands of the Creator, I am raw material; everything I’ve done has fertile potential but is not yet what it might be when the Breath comes and gives life (Genesis 2.7)” (134-5).

Countdown to Sunday

The best part of cross-country flights for a voracious reader, like myself, is one can read a book cover-to-cover during the travel span.

Take Monday, for instance. I left out of San Jose at 6:30 a.m. and landed in Little Rock at 3:00 p.m. The book of choice for this cross-country trip was one given me as a gift by Steve Thurman. Steve's neighbor is Chris Erdman, a preacher and professor who's written about preaching in Countdown to Sunday: A Daily Guide For Those Who Dare To Preach. Erdman's thesis calls preachers to raise up congregations of preachers -- to think of preaching in terms of mobilizing the congregation to be a preaching people.

I was especially impacted by his chapter devoted to illustrations. Anyone who's ever preached knows sermon illustrations -- tracking them down, cataloging them and utilizing them at just the right time -- are one of the most difficult aspects of skilled preaching.

Yet because of his central thesis, Erdman turns traditional concepts of sermon illustrating on their ear.

"We preachers want to illustrate our sermons, but I'd rather we didn't -- not with what passes for sermon illustration today. Not unless we can move the practice of illustration away from the hackneyed art it's become. Not unless we can talk about sermon illustration in terms that don't mimic the tactics used to sell everything (tangible in our consumer-driven culture)...By the way we engage this business of sermon illustration you'd think we don't believe that the Bible's very interesting" (110-11).

And then there's this, that nails together Erdman's concept of a good illustration with his thesis of the church as a preaching people: "Sermon illustration isn't about 'setting up your message in a way that pulls your congregation in' and delivering an inspiring speech. It's about fashioning a congregation that is itself an illustration of the sermon...the church is the kind of illustration the God of the Bible is interested in" (114, 116).

What a revolutionary thought: the church as the illustration. The church among the world as the illustration of the Word. It seems to fit with the incarnation, doesn't it? The reality that God sent the Word into the world to illustrate in living color who God is (John 1.1-14; Colossians 1.15-19; Hebrews 1.1-3).

Here's hoping today finds your life to be a gripping, inspiring illustration to the world of what life with God is truly like!

The King of Kings Dream

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3.26-28).

From our earliest days in Sunday school, we learned that Jesus loves us, whether "red or yellow, black or white, they are precious in his sight." Each year, I am especially reminded of that reality on the holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last year, I wrote the following as a personal reminisce of Dr. King's legacy and how it mirrors the dream of the King of the Kings.

I grew up in a segregated town. Benton, Arkansas during my youth was a city with a clear line of demarcation: the "coloreds" lived across the railroad tracks in the Southside community.

The movie theater in my hometown was a clever two-level, two-screened cinema. I say "clever" because the two-level, two-screen setup of my youth masked the fact that when my parents were young, the building housed two distinct theatres: the bottom level for the white folk and the upper level for the black folk.

The Civil Rights Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. helped to rectify some of the sad heritage of racial discrimination and civil inequity. Still, though, some of that heritage remains, even if unspoken in the way the races still remain relatively segregated like in my hometown.

When I was a teenager, I joined up with a couple of other guys in the youth group and we determined to build a bridge with the youth group in the Southside community of Benton. What began as an effort to build bridges between kids turned into a larger project. We made friends, not only with the teens, but with every member in the Johnson Street Church of Christ. To this day, I give much credit for my ministry to my friends at Johnson Street who loved me, encouraged me and gave me an open invitation to preach.

Ironically, Johnson Street was founded in the 60's as a "mission point" for my home church. A building was built across the tracks where the African-American Christians in my hometown could worship.

Why? Why did disciples of Jesus allow the segregation of the city to become the model for church?

If I could hop in a time machine and go back and change one decision, it would be the decision the church of my youth made in planting the Johnson Street church across town. Why? Because in a city that needed a shining light for the equality of all men, the church stood positioned to make that statement...and decided instead to punt.

Many through the years have echoed words originally attributed to Dr. King: "it is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning."

Thankfully, that isn't true at Woodward Park.

My personal history doesn't mirror our right-now challenge in ministry in Fresno. In the South, the issue remains skin color, black-and-white. In Fresno, California, the issue doesn't seem to be color because every hue of skin on earth can be found here. People in Fresno have long since gotten used to living in neighborhoods where every family isn't a pigmented mirror image. Parents have long since gotten used to the fact that their children's class at school will have descendants from every continent.

Our right-now challenge in Fresno isn't the color of skin because God has brought the nations to our doorstep. Our right now challenge is to affirm the King of Kings Dream: that all men are created equal and all men and women have the same access to salvation in Jesus Christ.

Glad Times...Sad Times

Wow! Is 2008 off to a banner beginning at Woodward Park! We've been within twenty-five both Sundays of an all-time attendance record (883 and 889) and last Sunday saw the new birth in baptism of two new brothers.

Our Wednesday night crowd cracked the 400 barrier (our Cambodian and Hmong language assemblies do not meet on Wednesdays), thanks in large part to the influence of the new FriendSpeak ministry that seeks to reach out to the non-English speaking community in Fresno.

Our winter Youth retreat at Yosemite begins this evening with over 100 signed up to attend.

These are good, good times.

----------------

And as Solomon once noted, "There is a time for everything." These are sad times, too.

Please pray for the Dorsey family. Boyd and his wife, Norma, were tragically killed on Wednesday evening while crossing a street in downtown Little Rock to attend Wednesday evening Bible class at the Central Church of Christ.

I cannot even begin to imagine the heartache of losing my parents in this way. The Dorseys were residents of my hometown, Benton, and longtime members of the Northside Church of Christ in Benton and frequently attended at Johnson Street Church of Christ in the Southside community of Benton when I preached.

You can read about the tragedy via the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Northwest Arkansas edition here or via KTHV in Little Rock here.

Funny Business

The running funny in our home is Tori's love-hate relationship with mascots. There are some she loves and others she could live without. For example, ask Tori, "Which mascot is your favorite?" and you'll get a reply something like this: "I love the gray Timeout (the old FSU Bulldog mascot) and Chuck E. Cheese but I'm scared of Red Robin (the restaurant bird, the brown Timeout (the new FSU Bulldog mascot) and Parker (Fresno Grizzlies baseball)."

Monday during dinner, we were talking about fears and I asked the girls about their greatest fear. Trae, without hesitation replied, "I am most afraid of clowns."

Clowns? Apparently, she's not the only one.

One of the enduring lessons from the book by Dr.'s Les and Leslie Parrott was the reminder to envision life through the skin of your children. While a clown is supposed to be funny business, it's an altogether different story, not of fun but of fear for my girls

As an engaged father, I must be aware of that, honor that, and respect that.

Hanging out the Help Wanted sign

I am fortunate and blessed to minister and preach for the finest church around. The Woodward Park church in Fresno is an eclectic, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic band of believers striving to live out the ways of Jesus in the central valley.

But we need help, specifically, in the person of a gifted person to come and serve as our Youth and Family Minister.

The following ad was placed on most of the Christian college websites on Monday as well as a couple of brotherhood publications. In addition to the ad, you can find some helpful links here. If you or someone you know might be suited to join our ministry team at Woodward Park, please don't hesitate to contact me.

The Woodward Park Church of Christ in Fresno, California is seeking a Youth and Family Minister to work with an active youth group of 75 teenagers. Woodward Park is a growing congregation with an average attendance of 800.

Fresno is located in the central San Joaquin Valley of California within driving distance of the coast, the mountains, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The greater Fresno area has a population of about 600,000 with limitless growth opportunity in a multi-cultural setting.

If Youth and Family ministry is your passion and you would like to work with a dynamic, growing church, please send your resume to Jim Gardner at 7886 North Millbrook Avenue, Fresno, California 93720 or at jim@wpcoc.com. For additional information or questions, please call Jim Gardner at 559-446-2550.

The Ties that Bind

A very unexpected, unplanned, quick trip to Arkansas the end of last week reaped immeasurable blessings for me.

Thanks to the flight time, I was able to finish off two excellent books that I want to highly recommend. Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator is a wonderful exchange between Strobel and experts in various fields of science that argue for the account of creation in Scripture. Anyone looking to arm their faith with scientific data that backs up the claims of Scripture will be encouraged by Strobel's work.

Strobel sums up his writing this way: “Unlike Darwinism, where my faith would have to swim upstream against the strong current of evidence flowing the other way, putting my trust in the God of the Bible was nothing less than the most rational and natural decision I could make. I was merely permitting the torrent of facts to carry me along to their most logical conclusions” (285).

The second book was one I picked up on Friday at the Lifeway Book Store in Rogers and finished somewhere over Utah. Dr.'s Les and Leslie Parrott, experts in the field of marriage, have written their first book on parenting entitled The Parent You Want To Be: Who You Are Matters More Than What You Do. They close their book by quoting family therapist Jean Brautigam Mills:

"The good-enough parent is all that is really needed to raise children who become normal adjusted adults. Let's start by giving up this 'perfection' business. No one is perfect -- not you, and not your child. Mistakes in parenting are opportunities to teach our children that when mistakes happen, there is a process whereby we can admit it, know what must be done, and move on to recovery and forgiveness.

What is to be gained by this 'good-enough' perspective? Well, parents who accept good enough on occassion are bound to be far happier than those seeking perfection. And so are their kids" (184).

The real blessing of my trip, though, came in the form of renewal through relationships. I was able to spend some really quality time with my dad, my mom, my grandfather and grandmother, my sister and brother-in-law and their twins (pictured above).

In a powerful way, as only God can do, I was reminded that the truest joy in life is not about perfection or the appearance of perfection, but about relationships and the joy that comes from shared lives.

Friends

Monday was just a great, if not bittersweet, day! I say bittersweet because it ended at the San Francisco International Airport when Mandy, Tori and I left Rick and Gail for their journey back to Cambodia. Apparently, the connection left from their keeping Tori when Mandy and I were away for our 10th anniversary cruise is still strong because Tori cried for them as we left the airport.

We enjoyed the sights around the Bay Area and had an excellent meal at Scoma's in Sausalito.

The highlight for me, though, was hanging around Pier 39, ultimately landing at Bubba Gump's where we sipped on coffee and just talked.

Friends like Rick and Gail are a rare find. Having soulmates with whom life can be an open book, where the counsel and advice are not what you always want to hear but what you need to hear, where the mutual respect is unquestioned. Friends who have your best interest at heart. Friends with whom you can laugh and love and with whom chats over coffee can last hours that seem like mere minutes. As I introduced Rick and Gail to Woodward Park Sunday morning, I said it was rare when a person's hero happens to be their closest friend.

Somehow, Mandy and I have been blessed to be so fortunate!

They'll furlough again this summer. Rick and I have planned the ultimate baseball trip to the East Coast where we're going to hit Cooperstown, NY and the Hall of Fame, a Rangers/Yankees game in New York, a Mets/Phillies game in Philly, and two more Rangers/Orioles games in Baltimore.

I can't wait!!

A Taste of Cambodia

What an awesome weekend we've just experienced. Our dearest of friends, Rick and Gail Northen, who have mentored us and loved us have been here on their way back to Cambodia. Yesterday, Rick and Gail worshipped with our Cambodian friends that meet at Woodward Park. You can read about their experience here.

Today, we take Rick and Gail to San Francisco International to return to their mission in Cambodia. After some sightseeing and seafood, we'll bid them Godspeed until summer.

Through their ministry, Rick and Gail epitomize how to use God's blessings as a stewardship means to bless the lives of others.

----------------

The teaching ministry at Woodward Park is not reaching far. One foreign country, three western states, and several churches up and down the central valley of California are receiving at no charge DVD's of the teaching ministry at Woodward Park.

If you or your congregation could use DVD's of the Woodward Park teaching ministry as a resource for classes, or especially in the smallest of congregations that might be void of a preacher, send me an email at jim@wpcoc.com and we will have a series on Philippians to you right away.

-----------------

I'll have to catch the BCS Championship game tonight in transit from San Francisco via the radio.

The BCS games have been anything but predictable. Given that trend, LSU should win, is the better team, is quicker and more talented, but...

Ohio State - 30
LSU - 24

A New Year...A New Beginning

To begin this New Year, I am committing to restudying and sharing my discoveries with Woodward Park from the "Book of Beginnings." Genesis forms for all Christians the fundamental foundation on which to build a life of faith. As Henry Morris points out in his excellent commentary The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings, "if the Bible were somehow expurgated of the Book of Genesis, the rest of the Bible would be incomprehensible" (17). Morris goes on to show there are at least 165 passages in Genesis either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament, with over 200 quotations or illusions to Genesis in the New Testament and over 100 of those quotations or direct references coming directly from Genesis 1-11 (21).

John Walton, in his commentary on Genesis in the New International Commentary series succinctly establishes the ground on which the Christian is obligated to stand and the inherent responsibility that accompanies that stand:

"With no apologies or embarrassment I accept the Bible as God's revelation of himself. It is a supernatural book, and its affirmations of God's involvement in the world are unassailable. He is the source from which Scripture flows, enabling it to emerge as true and authoritative. As a result, I am committed to accepting without question whatever God has revealed. If I am convinced, for instance, that the Bible teaches a global flood, my worldview of faith dictates that whatever scientific or logical problems may exist must be set aside in deference to the text.

Yet while this firm commitment is not subject to compromise or equivocation, it cannot afford to be naive. The last thing that we want to do is to bring the text into disrepute and subject it and ourselves to ridicule by making claims for the Bible that it never makes for itself. Examples of such misplaced faith litter the landscape of history...We must therefore bring an informed discernment to the table when we address these questions. Without being simple, we must remain without guile" (43-4).

My hope is that our time in the book of Genesis to begin 2008 will solidify our faith while answering questions on the basics of life that often stump our confused culture.