What in the World is Going On?!

The devastation from the recent events in Japan is overwhelming.  Bad news seems to ride on the wave of bad news.  The 9.0 earthquake was horrific enough.  Then the tsunami hit.  Now the trifecta looms with the threat of a growing nuclear disaster not seen since Chernobyl and, well, Japan.  

The extreme cold and snow in Japan is almost forgotten by the world in light of the battle against nuclear fallout, but it is not lost on the freezing survivors.

The death toll continues to climb (as of this moment, predictions are that it will end up over 10,000 caused by the earthquake and tsunami).  Displaced, confused, frightened, cold, hungry and thirsty describe the sudden and unwanted current existence for many people from all walks of life.  Over 400,000 are homeless.  Others in more “secure” locations are understandably on edge.  Reports are that as many as 1.6 million homes are now without running water. 

Imagine if everyone who now lives in Yorba Linda, Placentia, Brea, Fullerton, and Orange was suddenly homeless.  That is what is going on in Japan today. 

As you might hope, a few encouraging stories have emerged from the rubble.  An infant found miraculously alive several days after being washed away from its parents.  A grandmother found alive in her home.  A man found alive miles out at sea floating on the roof of his former house.  These stories bring intermittent hope to rescue workers and others.  But the weight of ongoing devastation and fear continues.

Japan is a country in crisis.  We are a world in crisis... in more than one location and more than one pressing topic.  I have heard several people refer to the Last Days and the signs of the end times.  Yes, supposedly the Mayans thought it would come in 2012 (I saw the movie).  We do know that Jesus is coming again and said there would be times like this before His return.  It is on people’s minds.

And yet here I sit overlooking a beautiful, sunny Southern California day.  I’m looking forward to lunch with my wife, a basketball awards banquet tonight, Missions Conference this weekend, and March Madness is in full swing.  What could be better?  To say it’s easy to forget about what is going on in other places is an understatement.

How does all of this fit together?!  Talk about a compartmentalized life!

God wants us to see the big picture.  Did you know that in Japan, estimates are that only 1% of the people are Christians?  There is a physical crisis going on... absolutely.  But as followers of Christ we need to also see that thousands of people are likely to have gone to an eternity in hell without Christ! 

We need to proclaim God’s love to a world that needs it – “until the whole world hears” – in places like Japan, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Yorba Linda.  People need the Lord, and one of the bridges we can build is to help meet physical needs in the name of Christ. 

This weekend in our worship services, we will make commitments to give to missions for the coming year.  Please pray about that with me.  I’m praying for more participants than a year ago.  In addition, we will make available a special “Japan Relief” fund – which we will give to support two solid Christian organizations working there  (you can give directly to them online: World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse). 

God is at work in the world, even when it doesn’t look like it.  He wants us to SHARE Him!  Let’s pray, give, go, and trust Him! 

Cowardly or Courageous?

What does it take to put first things first on a regular basis?  To put your beliefs into practice when it’s easy to do so and everyone else is doing it is… well… easy.  But what about when it’s tough to Worship, Connect, Grow, Serve or Share?  Especially that last one?  As I’ve talked with many people over the last several weeks, it seems that “SHARE” is often the hardest and most convicting of the priorities. 

It takes consistent intentionality, but also courage.

What does it mean to be courageous?   Last week, I heard some speakers and had some experiences which have converged for me in an interesting way.

 At the Catalyst West conference last week (a 2-day gathering of pastors and church leaders, especially focusing on the next generation of leaders), the overall theme was “Take Courage .”  The enduring John Perkins (who looked and sounded as strong and insightful as when I last heard him speak in 1984), gave a message of hope, forgiveness, and said that “courage is doing one’s convictions in the face of fear.”  Christine Cain (my pick for the most fiery preacher of the group) urged that “if you operate out of fear, you will say no when God says go.” 

The consensus favorite message was the keynote one delivered by Andy Stanley.  In a personal and direct way, he focused on three “simple acts of courage that could be tipping points for something extraordinary.”  He said that they are: “1) the courage to stay when it would be easier to go; 2) the courage to go when it would be easier to stay; and 3) the courage to ask for help when it would be easier to pretend that everything is OK.” 

Here is the point of convergence for me.

Last weekend we also began our missions conference at Rose Drive.  We support many missionaries around the world who are doing incredible work.  These men and women have said “YES” to God and were willing to GO when it would have been easier to stay.  Courageous.  In addition, we commissioned and sent out pastors Mark and Stacey Kim and Jesus Friends Community Church – our newest daughter church – who will now begin meeting in Brea at the ECCU building (where we started Friends Community Church 8½  years ago).  Courageous.  They are reaching the Korean-immigrant and Korean-American community around us that we could never reach, but they have left (and are again leaving) a place of relative comfort to do so.  Consistent intentionality and courage combined.  Wow!

How about you and me?

It takes courage to step out and invest in a relationship with a neighbor or co-worker.  It takes courage to begin to pray for them and then to invite them to church or to tell them your story of your relationship with Christ.  But God can help you and me to do it.  It takes courage to pray and take a step of faith to give financially, above and beyond your tithe, to support missionaries and church planters who are similarly taking steps of faith to go.  God can help you and me to do that, too.

When it comes to sharing Christ (and the other priorities), bottom line, courage is saying “yes” to God whatever He asks you to do – to go or stay, give, invite or pray – it’s putting your faith in Him.  Let’s do that this week! 

What do Brett Favre, M.A.S.H. and this Blog Have in Common?

The final episode of M.A.S.H. (airing on February 28, 1983) remains the most-watched program in television history.  It was a big finale, sort of. Turns out, viewership was so high, CBS couldn’t quite call it quits, so they quickly created a new series, AfterMASH.  It continued for two more seasons.  If you follow football, you probably know about Favre’s famous retirements.

Well, this is the last “official installment” to the First Things First blog... I thought.  You may have noticed that a few people have been checking out this site since we started it a few weeks ago (not M.A.S.H standards, but a lot more hits than I think my mom or dad would have been able to make on their own in such a short time). 

I hope that it has been a source of inspiration and encouragement to you – and at least sparked some new thoughts or questions in you about how you could apply the five core values of Worship, Connect, Grow, Serve and Share into your life.  As our pastoral staff was discussing it this week, it occurred to us that maybe there are some people who have sort of started a habit of checking into this blog (and that some might miss it if I quit). 

My plan at this point, depending on the interest and ongoing response, is to continue to make a post to this site on about a weekly basis. 

What I know is that putting First Things First is not something that I only want to do at the start of the year or during a special emphasis.  It’s a year-round, 24/7 kind of thing.  But I also know I haven’t arrived.  I’m still on the journey.  I want to become a more faithful follower of Jesus Christ and learn to make more faithful followers of Him on an ongoing basis.  I hope you feel the same way.

Please let me know what you think, especially if you have any ideas or suggestions!

For example, one observation about this blog by our staff was that some of my posts may have been too long and needed to be cut (one pastor essentially confessed to clicking on the site and not reading everything), so I decided

A Human Doing or a Human Being?

Socrates

Here are some famous quotes on doing and being.  At least some should be familiar.

To do is to be. (Socrates)

To be is to do. (Jean-Paul Sartre, Plato)

Do-be-do-be-do. (Frank Sinatra)

To be or not to be. (William Shakespeare's Hamlet)

Scooby Dooby Doo. (Scooby Doo)

I am what I do. (Martin Buber)

Yabba Dabba Doo. (Fred Flinstone)

I think, therefore I am. (Rene Descartes)

I yam what I yam. (Popeye)

Being and doing. Doing and being.  I have heard some really interesting and creative devotional messages on the concept of “being.”  The idea is that sometimes we get so busy doing things (sometimes even really good things), that we need to take some time to simply “be.”   It’s often an encouragement to rest, to take a break, to experience God’s peace, to meditate on God’s Word, or to spend some time in quiet – much like we have our time of “meditation, communion, and prayer” each week in our worship services at Rose Drive.  The conclusion has often gone something like this: “after all, God made us to be human beings, not human doings.” 

I don’t know about you, but I need those times of rest.  Time to be quite, to listen to the Lord, to pray, to relax... to be.  For me, I get those times in a variety of ways and places: in the evening when I read my Bible before I go to bed; in the morning when I am praying, reading, or writing in my journal; when I’m on vacation sitting and looking out over a beautiful lake; when I’m at the church studying to prepare a message; sometimes when I’m playing golf (I can’t honestly say I experience peaceful “being” every time I’m playing golf, but sometimes... you know what I mean if you’ve ever played.); and I really do experience it often in our worship services.  Again, not always in all of those places, but often.  However, that really isn’t all there is to it. 

God doesn’t only want us to be humans who “are” – He wants us also to be people who do things for His glory and the good of others!

Last weekend I shared a verse in our worship services that has been convicting to me. It’s from John 13:17, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”  Jesus said this to His disciples right after He washed their feet in the Upper Room.  As He performed this menial task, serving them with a towel around His waist, some of them didn’t get it.  They didn’t understand why Jesus would do such a thing.  He didn’t make His point clear until after He had finished doing this act of love and humility.  That is when He said, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you and example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:14-15).  Jesus wanted them to be His disciples... but among other things that meant doing acts of service and sacrificing for one another. 

Bottom line, it wasn’t enough that the disciples knew the right thing... they needed to do it.  So do you and I. 

What does that mean for you today?  What is it that God has been talking about to you in terms of the First Things First emphasis?  Here is what I’ve been thinking about: It’s not enough to simply know that God wants us to Worship, Connect, Grow, Serve and Share.  I need to be doing it.  Actively.  As a part of my daily life.  As a part of who I am. 

I am thankful that many people have shared with me their testimonies of how the Lord has spoken to them during this series.  Many have taken steps of faith to join groups, to serve, to worship, to share Christ, to worship God with greater focus, and to read their Bibles more to grow in their faith.  That is fantastic.  Perhaps I’ll share some of those in a later post.

Let’s BE people who DO what is right.  Let’s aim to BE faithful followers of Jesus Christ, putting His Word into practice in our daily lives more and more and more!

Application of What We Know

The last two weekends of the First Things First emphasis focus on application of what we have been learning about Worship, Connect, Grow, Serve and Share.  Below are the two videos of the final drama presentation and the message.

Cracker Jack and Good News

This year’s Super Bowl showcased some great commercials.  Personally, I liked the Doritos ads (“Grandpa?!”).  I was reminded of other commercials in the past that have had a line in it that has stuck with me. 

One of those is a Cracker-Jack commercial from the early 1970s that received an award from the Cannes Film Festival.  It opens with a man (the dad?) sitting in a chair at home, reading the paper and eating the candy-coated popcorn with peanuts (and a prize).  Then a little boy comes in the back door and announces “I’m home” – as the man hides the Cracker-Jack box in his folded newspaper.  The child walks to the man and stares... knowingly.    The man asks, “What did you learn in school today?” The boy replies, “sharing.”  It’s a simple line that I’ve never forgotten (maybe because I had three sisters and I empathized with the  man’s plight). 

In the end, the man reluctantly hands over the box of tasty morsels to the boy who then ends up “sharing” back some of it with him.  The message I remember taking away from the ad was this: that box of sweet and crunchy goodness is really too good to give away (I think what I was supposed to learn is that “it’s good to share something that is good”).

Sharing. It is something that even the youngest preschoolers begin to learn.  Yet it remains a struggle for many of us to practice no matter our age, especially if what we possess is something we like a lot.  But what about when it comes to “sharing” our faith?  We like our faith, right?

It makes me wonder, are there times when I am reluctant to share my “box of spiritual goodness” with others (the “good news of Jesus Christ”), because it seems too good to share (or I know that they might accept the invitation)?  I know that doesn’t make any sense (the good news was meant to be shared)... or does it, at least a little bit?! 

Could it be that there are times when you or I think that things are pretty well set the way that they are?  What if someone did accept your invitation?  What impact might that really have long term?  Do you know what I mean?  You have your circle of friends, your accustomed place to sit in the Sanctuary, the style of music that you prefer, the place that you normally park, your familiar small group that you’ve been with for a while... and frankly, even though you don’t want to admit it, someone new coming into the mix or having to change any of those things would really not be your first choice.  Of course, you’d never want to keep someone from going to heaven, and if you knew for sure that sharing your faith in Christ would lead directly to someone’s salvation, you would do it (even if it meant changing in one of those areas above)... but you don’t really know that would be the result, right?  Ah-h... but this can be just the beginning of your own version of the folded newspaper.

There are a plethora of other hindrances to sharing your faith.

I’ll admit that it’s easy for me to simply become too busy doing a variety of other good things.  Again, it’s not that I don’t want others to make it into the Kingdom, but it is tough keeping that priority high when other things seem to demand my time and attention.  Occasionally, I’m just plain tired.  By nature I’m not an extrovert.  I’ve learned to become more that way over the years but I really enjoy private time, too.  My tendency in a crowd is not to go around and strike up conversations with people, even though I know that I have the ability to do that.  I suppose when I get honest, there are times when I just flat out don’t make the effort.  (I don’t even like reading what I’ve just written, but can you relate?)  Other times, I do have sort of a fear of failure.  I don’t like being rejected any more than the next person.  I know... “they aren’t rejecting me” and I’m “just the messenger,” but it can hurt a little (and at least be very disappointing) when someone hears my presentation of the gospel and still says, “no.”  Frankly, that has happened many times over the years.  I have had the privilege of sharing Christ with lots of people, and I know that many have said “yes,” but certainly not everyone.

I guess sometimes the question is, how much do I really care?  Do I care enough to get past the spiritual hindrances to go ahead and share my faith?  Do I really care and remember that Jesus loves and died for every person?  Do I look for opportunities to share and take them as God presents them?

Maybe other times the issue is one of definition.

What does it really mean to “share” when it comes to our faith?  For some people it means living a godly life and letting your actions demonstrate your beliefs.  St. Francis of Assisi (Founder of the Franciscan order, 1181-1226) is credited with saying, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” I know it’s a catchy saying and all, but it strikes me that at some point in everyone’s life, they need to actually hear the words of the good news (Romans 10:14) – otherwise the good deeds you perform will come across with an unclear message.  But there is a relationship between those two concepts.   

Doing good can serve as a great bridge for the gospel and communicate that you love and care for someone.  This is INVESTING your life in a relationship... and it has to be genuine.  It has to be the “no strings attached” kind of commitment and care.  However, for them to understand that not only you, but that God loves them, sooner or later someone needs to tell them about Him.  Someone needs to connect the dots between your ministry and your message.  This can happen by INVITING someone: to meet Jesus, to meet other followers of Christ (like at church) where they will hear the gospel message, and/or to hear your personal story of your relationship with Christ.  It’s important to PRAY for someone regularly to come to know Christ and to pray for open doors of opportunity to share with them, too.  Our memory verse for this week reminds us that Paul saw the importance of prayer: “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith.” (Philemon 6a). 

I don’t believe that I have the gift of evangelism, and maybe you don’t either, but this is one of those “Big Rock” priorities that I know must be present in the life of every follower of Christ.  I want to grow in this area of my life.  Let’s not keep the message in a folded up newspaper of activities and hindrances.  News this good was meant to be shared.

Sharing the Drama and Message

Here are the Marionette family and the message about the Rock #5!  Beware, there is a cliffhanger!