Look just like your dad

"Tell your dad you have an excellent GPA."
I was at a transfer day at one of the colleges I've applied to, and the woman checking over my previous credits looked up and said that.

It threw me for a second because she'd never met my dad, and I always think I'm being very clear that I'm the only member of my family who lives in, or has any reason to go to, St. Louis.

But then I realized what had happened. She'd spotted a large, bearded guy next to me in the lobby when she came to find me. He was there for the same thing I was; applying to school, but since we were sitting and talking together, and looked a little similar, she assumed we were related.

While I was pet-sitting a week or so later, I was out for the dog's morning walk and ran into another dog-walker. She looked at the dog, and looked at me, and said, "Doesn't your dad usually walk him?" I explained that no, I was a friend of the family, not a relative. But with both of those stories, I apparently "looked just like my dad."

Jesus told us that anyone who has seen Him has seen God the Father. And St. Paul writes that "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Taking those together, since people are supposed to see and know the Father through Christ, and see Christ through His followers, we as Christians are supposed to "look just like our Heavenly Father."

So how do we do that?

What does God do? And how can we do those same things?

We know that God is a creator. I tell everyone who will listen that one way to experience a connection with God is to create something-- bread, lamps, artwork, antique cars-- I think one of the reasons we're seeing people with such fragile faith lately is that not enough people know how to make things themselves. So we miss the experience of knowing how much a creator cares for what he's created.

And we know that God is a storyteller, and that God's people are keepers and sharers of that story. The theologian Martin Buber wrote that "it is possible to listen someone into existence." Today when Christians end up in the news, they tend to be denouncing something. I think we need to spend more time listening to the stories of the people we want to reach with the Gospel, so that we will be able to identify with their lives and figure out how God's story will reach them most powerfully.

Most importantly, we know that God is mysterious. And that He is bigger than us, and our understanding, and our way of worshiping. One of the most important qualities I look for in volunteers is an ability to say, "I don't know." People want to wonder; that's why school classrooms are using more debate and conversation, letting teachers and students discover things together instead of having an expert download information into students. And God's church needs to make a bigger deal out of showing people that we all wonder together about God.

It's vital for us to "look just like our Dad." Not "just like our denomination." Not "just like our senior pastor." Not "just like our youth group." And those are my thoughts about a few of the ways we can start.

Ten things that would make field hockey better

I thoroughly enjoyed the game this morning. My kids are solid players and they put up a good fight, but ultimately lost 2-0.

I also had some time to think, while I was watching, of a list of suggestions for the powers that be who decide how field hockey is played, that would improve the game. As a disclaimer, I mentioned a few of them to one of my students who plays, and she immediately said, "Oh, that would make the game much more fun!"

1. Water hazards and sand traps. Since field hockey is what regular hockey would look like if it was played on a golf course, let's include the traditional golf obstacles.
2. Tackling. So many times the other team stole the ball; if my student had been able to knock the other player down and run away with the ball, that problem could have been solved.
3. Hills on the field. Bear with me on this one. A level playing field means everyone can see all the other players all the time; how much fun is that, really? Let's get some high ground that a team can hide behind and ambush the other team when they run by. We are talking, after all, about a game that used to be played with the heads of one's enemies.
4. The "You Hassle, You Hustle" rule. (In fact, let's get this in all sports.) Under this rule, if a parent shouts out advice to the team, the referees insert that parent into the game to show everyone how it's done right. Guarantee the stands stay quieter after the freshman girls' team schools some middle-aged dad who shouts, "You gotta catch up with them!"
5. Let the players actually stand up while they play; no more of this bent-over running thing- that cannot be good for the spine.
6. An official airline.
7. Crossover games-- like the series crossover novels that featured both Nancy Drew AND the Hardy Boys; let's play the field hockey team vs. the tennis team, or something like that. Maybe the bowling team.

8. There might be only seven things-- any other suggestions?

It's a great time to be in ministry

...as this article from the Christian Science Monitor points out.

"The rising interest in spirituality has led many more students to enroll in religion courses or to major in religion, reports The New York Times. Many students choose to live in dorms that allow a focus on matters of faith. Often, these students were raised by baby-boomer parents who did not impose a religion on them, but when faced with difficulties on campus, the students search for answers to tough questions of life."

How big is your box?

Talking with a student the other day, we started on the subject of who should go to Hell. Let's just say we had very different opinions.

Actually, let's say a little more than that. My student believes that, even should someone reach him with the Gospel of Christ, Osama bin Laden categorically deserves damnation.

The dangers I pointed out in his thinking (thank you to the Spirit for these, since I'm positive I hadn't thought about this myself) are twofold:

All deeds aside, (not to excuse them but because the argument goes a different direction) Osama is more a symbol today than an actual man, and beginning to think a certain way about him will subtly begin, in our fallen and sinful human minds, to stamp everyone else associated with the symbol of the leader the same way, and thus begin to call for all the leader's followers to wind up in Hell as well.

This leads to the second problem: we cannot decide that any person deserves Hell with no chance of redemption. For one thing, it's not our decision; it's God's. For another, if we've already decided, we've drawn a box around who can be reached with the power of the Gospel, and who can't. That limits our evangelism, our prayer life, and the challenges from God we're able to hear for our lives. And that does not advance God's plan for us.

What makes radical Christianity different from radical anything else is that we truly believe there is no one outside the reach of Christ's grace. This isn't to say that everyone will believe in that grace or respond to our invitations to experience it, but neither is that objection an excuse for us not to earnestly reach out to everyone and try to share the story we have. If it turns out some surprising people are in Heaven because of the outreach of radical Christians, so much the better.

We may not ever stop believing that repentance and redemption is a possibility for anyone.

As we're getting ready for Lent to begin, I think a worthwhile exercise is to ask God to expand the boxes we work in so that we can believe and act as if no one is outside them, no one is not worth prayer and outreach.

Interesting website

Found this today: Challenge The Blasphemy. They did a YouTube video where they found a bunch of folks who are posting videos specifically saying they deny the existence of God/Christ/the Holy Spirit, then recruiting believers to commit to praying for those people.

As they remark on the website, "the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." --James 5:16.

It's an interesting site. A lot of the responses from the people being prayed for aren't real positive; an obvious concern is that it'll drive people away from faith by seeming to force prayer on them, but God has worked in much more mysterious ways. It's an interesting project.

The Brand-Name Giving Plan

I've been having a running discussion with one of my students about what he should put on his Christmas list. He has all the basics covered-- the ipod, the video game chair with built-in speakers, a new belt, but mostly, he says, "I just want people to give me money."

By now he should have figured out that I'm not going to help in the way he thinks I should. I keep giving him alternative ideas. "Why do you have to have more than three things on the list?" I asked.

"Well, I have a lot of people to send it to," he told me.

"So tell them to surprise you."

"That wouldn't work out very well." (in my mind, I replaced this with "Then I'd never get what I really wanted.")

"So tell them to give the money they would have spent on your gift to give medical care to orphans in the Third World."

"I don't think that's a very good idea." (He'd debated against it at a tournament, he told me, and won.) "Besides, how much are you giving to the orphans?"

He had me there, actually. My Christmas list at that point did not include medical care for Third World orphans. But I wanted to see if there was a way to make that kind of a gift. For me, it would be simple enough to budget the roughly $20 it costs for that kind of care through World Vision, but I had another goal in mind. I wanted to develop a way to challenge my students to raise that support as well.

This is the basic outline. Make a list of all the things you buy every month that are brand-name or designer-made. Search diligently, with Magi-like intensity, for a generic brand of the same product you can live with, and figure out the difference between the two. Each time you make a purchase, substituting the non-brand item, put the money you save in an envelope and at the end of the month, or whenever it adds up to the right amount, send it in.

Can anyone see refinements that need making to this idea or similar plans that might catch students' attention?

Good Read: Workplace Chaplaincy

Talking to my mom the other day, she suggested that airports during the holidays would be excellent places to minister, providing care packages and other practical services to travelers who might be stuck, worried or otherwise in need.

With that in mind, this article caught my eye this morning, in the New York Times. Workplace chaplains are apparently becoming more popular, turning out to be less expensive than traditional employee-assistance and counseling programs, and creating "faith-friendly" workplaces. Paralleling the military model, these chaplains are not expected to evangelize, but to serve employees of all faiths and help meet their needs.

"Companies tailor the chaplaincy program to their culture. Cardone Industries, a Philadelphia company that refurbishes auto parts for resale, draws its chaplains, almost all lay people, from its employees. Other corporations, like American LubeFast and Herr Foods, contract with an outside company like Marketplace Chaplains to provide chaplains. Some, like Tyson Foods, which started its program in 1999, have their own chaplains, 127 of them at about 250 of the company’s more than 300 plants in North America, said Allen Tyson, the company’s head chaplain, who is not related to the founders of the company."

Purpose-Driven Beard

I grew my goatee so my face wouldn't look embryonically young, but these guys have a cause-- men's health!

"Movember (the month formally known as November) is a charity event held during November each year.At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants known as Mo Bros then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache and along the way raise as much money and awareness about male health issues as possible. Movember culminates at the end of the month at the gala parties. "

Because it matters when you do

In a previous parish, one of my students was trying to convince me to give blood, when her high school was sponsoring a blood drive.

"They don't need my blood," I said. "It's only one pint anyway."

"Do you vote?" Alexis asked.

"Of course."

"Why? It's just one vote." She had me.

In honor of election day, when we proudly celebrate (with stickers, even) how we can each be part of the political process, I offer this list of other things we should all do, because it matters if one person does.

Pray. Jesus promised God is listening, even to one prayer at a time.
Tithe. Preventing your stewardship chair from worrying is a ministry all its own.
Give blood. Yes, they need a lot. But you can always make more.
Recycle. It's easy. No excuses.
Vote. Or quit complaining.
Volunteer with the youth group. Shameless plug there.
Write a letter to the editor. Someone will read it. Something will change.
Ask "How are you?" and make time for the whole story.
Start an honest conversation with someone from another faith.
Open your eyes in the morning and say "Thank you, God." Do it first, before you get distracted.