Brian_Baker's Xanga

Friday, July 27, 2007

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:43:45 GMT

HANNIBAL-- Happy Thursday, friends!

It's been a really busy week in Pastor Brian-land. We're planning for our big outreach event/carnival designed to reunite all our Vacation Bible School kids in the city park in town Saturday, and I have a friend of our church in the hospital in Columbia after major surgery. Needless to say, I've been all over the place. But God is so good. I've been really blessed this week-- but a part of me, honestly, will be glad when we get to Sunday.

This morning I did some pre-marital counseling with a couple (not my own!) and listened to a Junior Hill sermon online. I need to hear a real rip-roaring old-fashioned Southern Baptist evangelist like Hill about once a month or so. It tends to refocus my sense of seriousness about evangelism. Then I ate a delicious Tall Paul's lunch while waiting for an oil change, went to Columbia, then came to Hannibal for the evening.

Hannibal has had a marvelous concert series on the Hill Street mall this summer called "Music Under the Stars." It's really great to have those kinds of events in town, and tonight we heard from Columbia's solid, solid Tom Andes Quartet (jazz). I'll confess, it was the first jazz concert I've been to since the last one I played in: Jazz Lab I and Combos, December 2005 at Truman, and that was just too long ago. Of course I miss playing jazz all the time, I really, really do. My problem is that I have nobody, really, to play with. There are no gigs, and nobody who likes playing the same stuff I do. I can only play Glenn Miller dance-band stuff so long, and the same goes for weird '70s-and-later stuff. I would just love to get on as a sub in a big band somewhere, and play some places with small combos. But circumstances don't really warrant it right now. The Andes Quartet played so many of my favorites tonight: "There Will Never Be Another You," "All The Things That You Are," and the old Frank 'n Brian theme song, "All Blues." It made me nostalgic. Maybe somebody will come out of the woodwork.

The Cardinals salvaged one game from the Cubs series tonight. I repeat: I still haven't given up on this team-- not yet. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot going on.

Tomorrow's plans? Plan for the Fun Day Saturday. Enjoy my family.

Until tomorrow night...

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:34:45 GMT

HANNIBAL-- Welcome to Friday night.

Not much going on over here in Marion County; a quiet day with family. The Cardinals won tonight, which was good. I'm still convinced that they can turn this thing around. I enjoyed Mexican with my mother today, and an afternoon visit to my grandmother that concluded with the determination that we would eat lunch tomorrow (ah, but where).

My brother also told me today that he noticed that my front passenger tire was low, and that I probably needed to have that checked out. My brother usually knows what he's talking about in things like this, so I called the nearest tire store to get an appointment late this morning. They told me they could get me in at 6:30 this evening. After waiting in their waiting room for about fifteen minutes, my 2001 Ford Taurus completely under their control, a middle-aged mechanic told me that I needed a new tire and that steel was coming out of my old rubber (I never saw that, but I'll give them a bye there). Fifteen more minutes and $100 later, I drove away. At least all this happened while I was in Hannibal, and not ten miles away from the nearest mechanic like I would have been in Bucklin.

I also decided today, in a spare moment, to endorse Mike Huckabee, former two-term Governor of Arkansas, for President. It is simply the right thing to do. In my opinion, he is the most balanced, likable, and principled conservative in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He also was a former two-term President of the Arkansas State Baptist Convention and pastored a number of Southern Baptist churches in the Opportunity State before his election as Lieutenant Governor of that great state of my forefathers in 1994. He certainly is committed to life, and to destroying terrorism in all forms, and to securing this country's safety and economic well-being. But Gov. Huckabee is also a supremely conversant character, ready to discuss and work with Democrats and liberals on all issues, from environmental policy to welfare issues. I honestly think that given a shot, Huckabee could be the most persuasive conservative in this race, and a man who could beat any Democrat if allowed a fair stage to compete. More on Huckabee later. But he's my man.

I've also been reading a lot lately on the issue of church growth and planting, and what makes churches grow, etc. To be honest, I'm getting tired of the whole thing, and wondering if the whole solution to successful, healthy church growth is predicated on two very simple, yet profound things: a commitment to God and His Word, and a commitment to just love people. What has really bothered me recently is the self-righteous moralistic ramblings of mostly Christians from my generation about what they perceive as self-righteous moralism in the traditional church. So many postmodern evangelicals snub the traditional Southern Baptist church because we bother to have organ music (or even 19th-century hymns for that matter; quality Christian music, for that matter, seems to have taken a roughly 190-year vacation after about 1800, a faulty proposition at best), or dress up on Sundays, or have evening worship, or fellowship dinners, or Sunday-school classes.

In response to all that, let me just ramble at this late hour myself a little bit. I really, really sense that Pleasant Grove is growing and about to grow some more (how much more, I don't know, and I really leave that up to the Lord). We have services at 10:30 and 7:00 every Sunday, and 7:00 every Wednesday. We have old-fashioned, age-divided Sunday-school classes (but are definitely open to non-age-graded classes and weekly small groups as well), even including the "Primary" and "Juniors"! Our organ still works, and we have a very competent organist! We sing old hymns and a lot of '80s-era choruses. I preach in a coat and tie on Sunday mornings (and only Sunday mornings, may I add). And we're growing. But I didn't mention one thing: If I can brag a little bit, I think people are really loved at Pleasant Grove. It's the friendliest church I've ever been in, and the most praying church I've ever been a part of as well. Our welcome time, after a rousing rendition of an opening hymn (hallelujah, it's "He Lives" this week), will often last five solid minutes of hugging and conversation. I really think everybody in church gets hugged at least twice before they leave on a Sunday morning. We are simply ourselves, and consumed with God's love. And we're growing; no fancy programs, no candles, no guitar music, no Taize, no extra, advertised attempts for "relevance." We're growing. If a church feels led of the Lord to do those things, I'm more than okay with that, and think that my Baptist family has more than enough room for that methodology. So what are we doing wrong? I'll leave it to the Lord, and His infallible Word, to let me know on that one.

Tomorrow? Lunch with Grandma, maybe go to Quincy, watch the Cardinals and Braves in the evening, a later trip back to Bucklin.

Until tomorrow night...

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:37:09 GMT

A quick aside, friends: I am working on a new blog. This will not replace this Xanga, but will supplement it with a more Pleasant Grove and Baptist-focused content. It can be found at http://pleasantgrove.wordpress.com .

Thanks! BB

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:35:27 GMT

HANNIBAL-- Welcome to Friday evening of this long Independence Day weekend.

And welcome back to my blog. It's been far too long, I think, in battling a week without an Internet connection at all, to other assorted pitfalls that come with moving, and especially moving to a very small town. I now live in Bucklin, Missouri, population of roughly 500, about eleven miles east of Brookfield, and pastor Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. Actually, I live about ten miles north of Bucklin. It's dark at night, beautiful actually... you can hear the coyotes howling and even occasional bobcats, a predatory cat that's making an enormous comeback in north Missouri. All my neighbors are cattle farmers. I wondered how I'd like it, and after a month, I actually love it.

But tonight, I'm in Hannibal. I didn't wake up this morning completely expecting to be here, but I'm glad to be here nonetheless. At noon today, I took my grandmother out to Pizza Hut for lunch, and that's always an experience. Right before I left, I checked my voicemail to find out from our chairman of deacons that the Pee Wee League doubleheader back in Bucklin that I was supposed to umpire tonight had been cancelled, and I didn't get a reason for that. So I just decided to take another day in Hannibal; Sunday is ready to go and nobody's in the hospital.

And friends, those are the two enormous governing factors to the daily life of a pastor. A good Campus Crusade friend of mine, actually a subscriber to this blog (you know who you are), mused when I told him that I was entering full-time pastoral ministry, "Wow... all day in the Word." Nothing could be further from the truth about ministry life, and to be honest, I'm glad about that. Otherwise, pastors would be monks, and that's not a healthy thing. What's been on my mind this week? Oh, definitely II John. I finish that short series up Sunday morning with a message that the Lord has just been remarkably clear about with me: how to effectively communicate with God's people. Always a timely topic. But also we have a guest speaker Sunday night, Lyle Witcher, Youth Evangelism Specialist with the Missouri Baptist Convention. Special guests require special thinking. So that's been on my mind. And other things too, like where do we want to put a chair lift in the church? Will we continue the same mowing arrangement next year with the church lawn? Do any members currently request special visits? How will we ever follow up all those Vacation Bible School decisions, not to mention track these kids down in the first place? How can we put an effective couple of outreach events together this summer? And so this is what we do as pastors. It's an extremely involved calling, a simply exhilarating one actually. And the nice thing personally is that you can relax and escape for a weekend whenever you want, provided two things: Sunday's done and nobody's in the hospital. If either of those stipulations aren't met, you're on call. And I'm fine with that as well. Because I love writing and delivering sermons, and I actually love hospital visits. Hospitals are healing centers in my book, and it's just great to be on the spiritual end of the healing business.

So anyway, Grandma and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch today. It was packed (of course, they have the buffet and most people were off today). I rather enjoyed my chicken taco-ish pizza, although it just ain't what it used to be there. I don't know. There were three kids, obviously siblings, eating in front of the buffet with their grandparents, all wearing matching T-shirts that said, "Camp Grandma" on the back. It was amusing, and they looked like they were just having a great time. It reminded me of those times in the summers when I was a kid, spending time with my paternal grandparents in Rolla for a week or two at a time, driving down to Arkansas with them for family reunions and driving all over Missouri with Grandpop in sometimes-exotic cars as he arranged dealer trades for the local Chrysler dealer in Rolla. They're some of the happiest memories of my life. It was a little poignant for me as well; Grandpop is now probably in the sunset of his life, bravely but waningly battling cancer that has spread to his bones. I'll be down there in Rolla to see him and Grandma very soon.

It was a nice time reading Scripture on the patio this afternoon with the dog (until the neighbor kid started shooting firecrackers). I've been in Revelation recently, and the more I read Revelation, the more of the character of God I see that I can apply to my everyday life. Revelation is looking less and less like the Bible's prototype of science fiction to me and more like an applicable book, albeit one that speaks of literal future events in large part. God is just, but so patient, and especially so protective of His people. I do so appreciate knowing that God is concerned about me when the world is crashing in all around His church, in this turbulent time. Indeed, God is good.

I picked up a sandwich, then ate dinner at the overlook at Riverview Park. What a stunningly beautiful scene. Then, I met family for the Bethel Association's patriotic concert at HLG's soccer field. A nice evening, truly. A perfect one for sitting outside, and good to hear good and heartfelt (if slightly overdone) music that exalts our Creator and hearkens us back to what made America great in the first place: His grace, goodness, and providence. And even the fireworks after were great! I can safely say now that I saw a fireworks show this year!

Oh, life is good. Tomorrow's plans? I don't know. Go to my aunt and uncle's house out in the country to go swimming in what is supposed to be a hot (but seasonably so) afternoon. A nice dinner out? And probably drive back to Bucklin to close this fine weekend with time in the Lord's house Sunday.

Until tomorrow night...

Monday, May 28, 2007

Mon, 28 May 2007 05:50:00 GMT

Welcome to Sunday night, Memorial Day weekend.

It was my last Sunday on the pulpit supply, at least for this go-around. I preached at Elm Grove Baptist Church near Curryville this morning, and it was a pleasant experience. To be quite honest, I wondered if my last Sunday as a supply guy would be kind of poignant, being as I loved short-term ministry so much. But it wasn't. The Lord really showed me today that Elm Grove is a really good church, a church which deserves a really good pastor, and that I really had no role in the matter. And I'm very okay with that. A nice service this morning with a decent holiday-weekend crowd of about sixty, with good music. There was something of a pall over the day, however, as the church had lost two deacons in the course of the last week; I know I'm called to be a pastor because I couldn't help but grieve somewhat today for them.

I drove back, uneventfully, and ate a nice lunch. I've decided I really like the Light Miracle Whip better than the original. Maybe it's because I feel like a fundamentally more moral person for eating low-fat salad dressing, I don't know. I've also decided to make myself stop napping in the afternoons. This should help stop my recurrent cycles of poor sleep (like the last two weeks); I sleep for fifteen minutes only, then wake up. A fifteen-minute nap, studies (and experience) show, has a refreshing, rejuvenating effect, while a two-hour nap just screws up the rest of the day. So after my fifteen-minute catnap, I got up, worked on my never-ending task of finishing grades at the school, then came back home and wrote the evening sermon. On the drive back to Curryville this evening, I ran into one of those old-fashioned summer gully-washer thunderstorms, and it was raining so hard on 61 that I had to pull over to the side of the road for about five minutes. The congregation was amazingly expressive tonight during their testimony time, really pouring their hearts out about many different things and taking several occasions to pray for specific people and situations as a church. I've been struggling as a pastor with how to appropriately integrate testimonies as a regular part of weekly worship, and I think I learned a lot about how tonight. We're going to open up evening worship at Pleasant Grove to testimonies in a much broader way, and I'm interested to see what happens, to be honest. I preached from Leviticus tonight (the theme today was the cost of sanctification, and I was in II Peter this morning), and I have to admit that I always feel just a little ornery preaching from Leviticus. It's like nobody expects it. Leviticus is like the annoying old uncle of the Bible in some people's minds; it's there, it kind of looks ugly and maybe even smells bad, but boy, it's good to know once you give it some effort.

So back to the parents' house and relaxation now (and a wonderful late dinner here) in advance of Memorial Day. It goes without saying that I can freely blog, and enjoy my convoluted, but fulfilling life, only because some brave, supremely dedicated men and women gave their all for this country. Memorial Day has to be more than a great barbecue, but rather a time to reflect on the joy of American freedom as a terribly precious thing, a reflection that takes the form of enjoying the families we have the freedom to enjoy, as well as quiet reflection in certain moments.

Tomorrow's plans? Rest, and food, and preparations for the big move to Bucklin Friday. And great family time.

Until tomorrow night...

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 05:50:33 GMT

Welcome to the weekend.

Wow, what a week. This morning, it was officially published in the Hannibal Courier-Post that I had/have resigned my teaching position. I was a little wistful early this morning about this news, considering that I had such high hopes for this year, and have been so happy to be around my family. Then I got to school, saw a literally exhausting array of discipline problems literally upon entering the door this morning, and any wistfulness was gone. My mother reminded me when we spoke this morning that "you are languishing, Brian," and she's right. Teaching middle school, I intellectually and emotionally languish. Teaching high school in Hannibal, I'm not sure how much different I would be. Pastoring, I think I can thrive... because it's the Lord's will that I do so.

Of course, I have heard about forty different rumors as to why I'm leaving Hannibal. A common one is that I have been fired. The Internet spreads news fast, so let me just kill that rumor right now. Nobody ever fired me from Hannibal schools. In fact, I was offered a contract for next year. I declined it. I am also not leaving because the discipline problems I've had this year have affected me; they have, but not enough to throw in the towel on public education. The Lord put two simultaneous and somewhat disconnected decisions on my heart: Leave Hannibal, and pastor Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. I wanted to do neither only a few weeks ago.

And I'm getting in many ways somewhat apprehensive as the big first Sunday of June 3 approaches. I mean, I'm leaving Hannibal, and I sense that this time, it might be for good. But I know that Bucklin is just under two hours' drive from home, and I also can't help but think I'm with a great, great group of people at Pleasant Grove.

And Pleasant Grove has had a tremendous week. Several years ago, the church became quite alarmed at their declining Vacation Bible School enrollments; by about 2002, they had declined to about twenty in their traditional, summer-morning setup. So in a flash of outside-the-box thinking, they decided to take their own vehicles and round up the kids from school for a week every day and hold VBS after school in April from 3:30 till 7:00. Attendance this year, conversely, was steady at seventy each day. I got a call last night with joy exclaiming that two older students had given their lives to Christ in VBS yesterday, then got an even more enthusiastic call tonight about sixteen more doing the same today. That's right, eighteen kids receiving Christ as Savior this week. Naturally, I was suspicious about this, as I usually am about large Vacation Bible School numbers. But our VBS director was clear with me that students were coming up to workers individually, at all different times of the VBS period today; some during the opening assembly, some during snacks, some even during game time, others during music. One fourth-grade girl came up to our director this afternoon as soon as she walked in the church door and said, "Patty, I woke up this morning and the first thing I thought was that I knew I wanted Jesus in my heart." She prayed to receive Christ right there.

So unbelievable things are happening at Pleasant Grove, and for some reason in God's infinite wisdom and providence, He chose to put a washed-up middle-school teacher in the thick of it. Our attendance is climbing, several new families have joined, and over fifty members have covenanted to pray in small groups of three at least twice a week. We're not concerned with growth as a church so much as we're concerned with being faithful to God's call. If we're faithful with His message, He will take care of any subsequent results. If He wills us to be a church of 100, or even 300, we're ready, and we'll preach the same message we always have. If we're supposed to be a church of twenty, the same applies.

I keep thinking about Jesus' words about "anyone who leaves father or mother for My sake." They just comfort me more than anyone knows.

This evening, it was my turn to supervise the middle-school sock hop. It was largely uneventful; no discipline problems, just a lot of standing around and jabbering from my end. I couldn't believe, however, that "My Humps" from the Black-Eyed Peas would be included in acceptable musical repertoire for students as young as eleven years old. The way some of them were dancing, the students knew the meaning of the words exactly. This morning in our team meeting, some of the teachers were talking about how much more interesting pop music was when sexual topics were expressed as innuendo, not openly. I would tend to agree. But we are living in a thoroughly sexualized culture, a sexualized culture that includes our children. There's not a whole lot one person can do about this.

Tomorrow morning, I plan to cook breakfast. I am greatly anticipating frying eggs in sausage grease (yeah baby). Afterwards, I'll watch the Bulls dispense of the Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals and the Cards beat the Cubs. Then I'll drive to Kirksville for the College Republican cookout, and also because I told Erin Marrs I'd be in Kirksville tomorrow, and I've missed too many promised trips to Kirksville recently.

Until tomorrow night...

Friday, April 06, 2007

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 05:20:15 GMT

A blessed Maundy Thursday from America's Hometown.

Why is it that most people pronounce it "Maunday"? I mean, does it even look like "Maunday"? Come on, people! Anyway, it was a really nice day today. I used to feel really ashamed (as I did about so many things spiritually) about having nice days on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, since by my standards, Jesus didn't have "nice" days then, either. But recently, as I've read a lot of good discussion and articles online and thought about it, I've decided that Holy Week is a perfect time to just be really happy. After all, "it was for freedom that Christ has set us free," Paul would write, and I'm not going to be a prisoner of my emotions. Because of the Cross, we're free from emotional dictation, free from our past, free from the world's expectations, and free from ourselves-- all because we're free from sin, and Jesus conquered the world's sin problem on the Cross. Isn't that great? I just think that's beyond wonderful.

We had a good day at school today. My sixth-block students got into a really interesting discussion on immigration this morning. We were talking about the Alien Act of 1798 and how Federalists attempted to restrict immigration as an effort to suppress the growing ranks of Democratic-Republican voters of the time. Like their political descendants, today's Democrats, the old Democratic-Republicans drew a great deal of support from immigrant communities, especially the Scotch and Germans. I was surprised at the deeply anti-immigration sentiment most students in the class held, considering how completely most of them professed to hold convictions that all but canonize the major figures of the Sixties-era civil-rights movement. It's just more proof that you don't hold a coherent political outlook when you're thirteen, nor should you be expected to. That time will come. But this is why I enjoy teaching history; you get to discuss in history class at a level other disciplines just don't ever reach. The nice thing about the whole education business and the personalities that are attracted to it is that most math teachers, for example, don't really care about long discussions on historical American immigration policy. I don't care about figuring out at what angle I'm going to have to place the ladder if my ample 300-pound frame isn't going to flip the whole thing over, killing me and not getting the gutter cleaned out in the process.

After a major crash and a more-than-tasty dinner of Filet-O-Fish (my current favorite fast-food fare by a country mile) at McDonald's, I sang in the Immanuel choir's Maundy Thursday musical tonight. The whole thing made me think very strongly of my former roommate, partner in crime, and general hero Alexandrus Magnus Rex, who was notorious (and brilliant) for sightreading entire cantatas in the Kirksville First Baptist Church choir (as did our old friend Jon "Dr. Know" Beary)-- first because they were that easy, and second because he was that good. And I sightread the musical tonight, I will confess. I have always really, really enjoyed sightreading in music. It's like a challenge to me to see exactly how much I can integrate my musical abilities into usable, real-life musical situations. What they never really tell you in school is how important sightreading really is; if you actually want to continue as a serious amateur or barely professional (as I think I would be categorized) musician, you have to understand that perhaps seventy to eighty percent of your musical experience is sightreading. I've learned this in a major way this past year.

So yes, overall, quiet today. We are happy to hear, however, that the Iranians released their British hostages whom they had held for the last two weeks. This averts war with Iran-- for now. Victor Davis Hansen, a classicist at Stanford who usually has a very firm grasp on the dynamics of Middle East war, has written an excellent article today on why a war with Iran may not be in the best interests of the U.S. at this time for a number of rather unconventional reasons (go to realclearpolitics.com to find it). The thrust of this article is that the wacko fundamentalist Islamic regime in Iran wants war precisely, and thinks that the Western attack on Iran would be sustainable to keep their weaker-than-you-think government in power. Further, the international political climate always tends to sympathize with countries that have Third World histories, so Iran would win the U.N. sympathy vote over the United States any day (although that's not very original as an idea, I would say; they do anyway, most of the time-- remember when Iran held the vice-presidency of the Human Rights Commission a few years ago?). Whatever happens, I think some sort of policy of regime change in Iran will have to be pursued, if for no other reason than because their involvement against our soldiers in Iraq keeps ratcheting up, and I cannot emphasize enough: We can't afford to lose (or quit, and thereby lose) in Iraq. We just can't. Whatever you think about the justification for war in Iraq, we can't get out now.

The Hymn of the Day today is #197, "Rejoice, the Lord is King." Superbly written, and stirring lyrics by Charles Wesley. How many great hymns, exactly, did Charles Wesley write? I don't think I could count them. Every verse emphasizes the glory Christ reveals in Himself through His willingness to sacrifice Himself for us on the Cross, and be raised from the dead three days later. And the hymn ends so well, with Christ returning to take all His faithful ones to their eternal home with Him. It's enough to get me excited. And I just love the C-major scale to lead to the final three chords, the last of which is among the best final tonic chords in Christian hymnody. The sad thing about it is that I haven't heard the hymn played on a pipe organ in years now, which means that you miss that throbbing pedal-C that you can feel in the floor when it's played right. Easter at its best, friends.

Tomorrow? Thinking of full atonement on Good Friday. Lots of errands; then to Bucklin for more errands (we're in full transition mode here to Pleasant Grove life). Dinner with my friend and colleague, Andrew Coon from the Methodist Church in Bucklin; then the Bucklin Community Good Friday Service, hosted at our very own Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. A note: Bucklin is one of those towns where community-sponsored ministerial-alliance services still are extremely well-attended, and I really like that; the Palm Sunday service at the Methodist church Sunday night had over eighty in attendance.

Until tomorrow night...

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 04:18:48 GMT

A happy spring Friday evening to you all.

I'm recovering from a cold, one that has apparently sunk into my chest. As a result, I can barely talk. This, combined with the usual nonsense of most of my "B"-day classes, made this a challenging day at school. I didn't get through nearly as much of the planned review exercise as I intended for my seventh block. Eighth block was just a joke. I spent twenty minutes just staring at the class waiting for them to get quiet enough to pass a test out for them to take (and kicking a total of five kids out of the room in the process).

It was in eighth block that I had a brush with the ongoing Balkanization of America, brought about by the relentless multiculturalist mentality that totally permeates American public education now, that I so despise. I was introducing the next chapter in our text, which covers what is usually tagged the "Federalist Era," being that time of Federalist-party and philosophical dominance in national politics during the administrations of George Washington and John Adams (1789-1801). A hand went up from a young black girl toward the back of the room, one who tends to be quite vocal about her opinions in class. "When are we going to do Martin Luther King?" she asked. I explained to her that we wouldn't be, as my course ends at 1850 and besides, he was discussed in their reading class and seems to find his way into the curricula of nearly every course, regardless of discipline, every year of a child's public education. Of course, the complaint then arose from every black student in the room (about a quarter of the class) that he wasn't being studied enough, and that I wasn't teaching "their" history. My response to that was that they were no more or less Americans than I am, and that the ideals embodied in the character of George Washington, the coherent political intellect of John Adams, and the brilliantly-crafted republican government spelled out in the Constitution ensured that they, as blacks (and more accurately, as Americans), are citizens of a nation that today offers a better shake than they would receive in any other country on earth. Of course, the cries of "racist" then emerged (I honestly don't think they really knew what they were talking about there). Oh brother. They then all said that they really didn't care, and one said, "I'm not an American. I'm an African-American," to the cheers of all in the room who held his race in common.

This just saddens me. Actually, it makes me feel like I'm wasting my time. We are raising an entire generation of multicultural-numbed robots in our public schools who think that any discussion of cultural assimilation, commonalty, or the old "great American melting pot" is racist. Friends, there's still racism in America today; the neo-Nazi rally in Columbia last weekend proves that crystal-clear. But to argue, as many of my students persistently do, that we live in a country that is as stridently prejudicial and even segregationist as the Jim Crow South of fifty years ago is pure folly. We ought to celebrate, as Americans, those things we all hold in common, knowing that there truly is a central, uniquely American culture, and that it's inherently worth celebrating. We're living in a time, it seems, where many Americans (especially younger Americans) are ashamed of their national identity, and view the United States as the font of all evil in the world. Now it's true that a great deal of evil on Earth does have American origins, I think-- especially our tendency toward the embrace of a throwaway, material culture that focuses on superficial and temporary benefits. But to argue moral equivalence with some of the world's less savory societies, past or present, is laughable. I'll never forget a time when I was a guest on BackTalk on KTRM, before I was an anchor and when it was a strident, hard-Left shout show on Sunday afternoons that nobody listened to. Two guests attempted to explain to me that the Bush administration (which had recently ordered the Iraq invasion) was morally equivalent to the Taliban in Afghanistan. I just didn't know how to respond.

American evangelicals from younger generations are increasingly falling into this multicultural trap as well. Just ask some kid at a campus worship service about the AIDS crisis in Africa, and they'll probably explain to you that this can only go away if Americans sign the One campaign petition and/or raise taxes to throw money at a corrupt basket-case government somewhere in central Africa. Younger American evangelicals tend to look at world problems wrongly in two ways: First, we are far too simplistic (and in the process, propose wildly simplistic answers), focusing on trendy left-wing reasoning (that tends to involve seemingly limitless cash payments) to issues such as AIDS in Africa, the war in Iraq, or relations with Israel. Second, however, we're forgetting that all grief, all pain, all suffering, all want in the world stems from man's separation from God through sin, a separation that is irreparable apart from the blood of Jesus Christ at Calvary. This is why I'm seeing far too many younger Christians getting wildly excited about mission trips that focus on "service projects"-- certainly not that there's a thing wrong with these projects-- often to the exclusion of a central purpose in missions of sharing the love, hope, and glory of Jesus Christ to desperately lost people who are totally lost, darkened, and hopeless apart from His grace. Friends, I can't emphasize this enough: This is a problem for our generation that MUST be handled... and soon.

Oh my, I feel better.

A move from Hannibal is just over the horizon. Where or what for, I don't want to announce to the world first over my blog without telling my own family or work. But God has perfect and gracious plans for me, and I know He's concerned more than anything about His glory and my good, in that very complementary order. I can tell you that the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Bucklin voted Wednesday night to call me as Pastor by a 49-1 vote, and I'm just so thankful for that. Their confidence in me seems limitless, and they are ready to move forward and even more ready to be obedient to the Spirit's leadership among them. They're just a real neat church, and I regret the fact that I won't be there to preach till Palm Sunday again. Hopefully soon I'll be there every week.

Tomorrow? The Hannibal High School Taiwan Project Pancake Breakfast in the morning; a trip to Kirksville to see the old history-major friends later on. Writing a message for New Hope Baptist Church in Thompson somewhere in there.

Until tomorrow night...

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:11:44 GMT

Good evening from Hannibal.

Not a lot of stuff per se is happening here, but a tremendous torrent rages in my mind. The decision I'm facing just feels monumental to me, and to a great extent, I don't entirely know what to do.

It was a largely uneventful day at school today. I was actually able to execute my lesson plans, and I'm thankful for that. We're getting into the Constitution right now, and that's a fun topic for me. Soon, we'll be in the Federalist era, and George Washington, and the election of 1800, and lots of political fun. Seventh-graders don't get political history, though. But I do-- and I love it. I'm just trying to figure out how to convey the fun, and more importantly the relevance, of American political history to early teenagers; maybe that's an impossible task. I don't know.

I had a good conversation with one of our band directors after school today (I have one with usually one of the three daily), then went home and fell asleep. I usually crash after school and I can't help it. I wish I could stay awake to watch the news for more than five minutes after school, and sleep through Katie Couric almost every night (of course, I might not be the only one, considering the rather advanced age demographic of that broadcast). But oh well. The family went out to Mexican tonight, and it was reassuring to see the coming of a weekend near-ritual a little after 7:00. My parents like to pick me up for dinner out on Friday nights, even though we could probably meet for dinner more easily. They just do that. And you just know that the weekend's here the moment they pull up; it's fun. And after that, I spent the evening up here at the house, relaxing.

But in the background, there's that torrent again. I suppose I can let the cat out of the bag now about a couple of things. First of all, I am scheduled to preach in view of a call as Pastor at the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Bucklin (east of Brookfield about twenty miles) next Sunday, the 11th of March. If the church votes me in to this job, and I choose to accept the call, I would move to Bucklin in June and begin again there.

There are tremendous advantages to this move. First of all, Pleasant Grove is a wonderful and very historic church (its founding precedes the existence of the Southern Baptist Convention) with a long history of stability in the pulpit and strong relationships between the pastor and the congregation; their previous pastor, Don Kabel, was there fourteen years until he accepted a call to FBC Crocker last year, and Steve Long, formerly with the Missouri Baptist Convention during the Jim Hill era and currently Pastor at FBC Winigan, was there the nine years before Kabel. They average about seventy or so in Sunday-morning worship and have a healthy crowd on Sunday nights for a church that size; they have strong connections with mission efforts both inside and outside SBC life (Voice of the Martyrs and Mission to the Americas come to mind). Further, the church has a very strong participation and emphasis in Bible-study and prayer ministries, and its deacon body seems to be a group of very deliberate, prayerful men who are careful to lead the church in a godly direction.

However, I cannot shake off a couple of deep-seated concerns I have about this potential move. The first is that I would be leaving my family behind, which would be hard for me because I worked so hard to get back to Hannibal in the first place; however, I think it would be even harder for them, and conversations with family members recently have led me to that conclusion. But there's another issue as well.

I've been on paid staff now at two churches. The first was an unmitigated disaster for me; as many of you know, I was Pastor at FBC Clarence at one time. I was fired after nine months; I was barely twenty years old at the time and was completely devastated. I was a full-time underclassman at Truman at the time and was putting in a lot of time there studying as well as about forty to fifty hours a week working on church things; I preached three times a week in a town forty-five miles from either Kirksville or Hannibal, developed an intestinal sickness by the seventh month and emotionally collapsed at the end. The second was my time at Fellowship in Kirksville. It was undoubtedly God's will that I serve as Associate Pastor there, but I never really felt like I fit in. Part of this was because of the horrible final year I had as a graduate student at Truman, being falsely accused by a trusted professor of academic dishonesty and partly because of my extremely stressful student-teaching experience. But I really was a mismatch demographically at Fellowship in more than one area; I was a mild mismatch theologically as well, being a mild Calvinist in a revivalist-type church with a heavy emphasis on altar decisions and also being a traditional conservative among open fundamentalists. These differences often led to quiet frustration and a general disillusionment with church life in general by the time I was done there, a disillusionment that was a part of a deep depression I endured for nearly a year.

And with that in mind, I fear leaving Hannibal again. Pleasant Grove has offered me a very competitive salary package with a number of very attractive benefits for a pastor of my experience and age (seminary being included). But a big part of me just doesn't know if I'm ready for this again.

Tomorrow's plans? Upward basketball in the morning; sports in the afternoon.

Until tomorrow night...

Monday, February 19, 2007

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 05:07:47 GMT

Sunday-night greetings from quiet Hannibal.

Oh, what peace I find in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His boundless gifts to me. I don't have Internet access, by choice, at my house, so all my postings are from my parents' house about three blocks south. In the background, my brother is playing an mp3 of a touching singer from Mozambique. My parents are in bed. I had the rare privilege tonight of preaching God's Word to my home church in front of my family. All is right with the world.

Really, almost nothing happened today; I am so thankful. We had a real nice Sunday-school class; I had to kind of fill in at the last minute. With my usual partner gone, we decided to combine the middle-school boys class with my high schoolers, so my old teacher and good friend Jeff Heibel and I team-taught. In his usual style, he wanted me to kind of take the lead, and I really wasn't prepared for the lesson (not knowing I'd actually be present till last night). We discussed I John 5:11-17, you know, that icky passage that gets into the whole sin-not-leading-to-death stuff. The Spirit just led me there. It was wonderful. I didn't know what I was talking about, but the Teacher did. Then we enjoyed a nice, quiet morning worship service focused on God's presence and the promise of heaven, led by our humble, service-oriented worship leader Daron Caswell and preached by Bro. Dale Norfolk. Dale uses the old-school style of Baptist preaching (being 74 years of age) that was often taught in our colleges and seminaries before about 1955, and opportunities to hear a sermon like that are disappearing. It's not what many in our generation are used to: a storytelling feel and topical exposition that brings in a number of Scriptures to support it. When done well, it's beautiful; it's honestly a more agrarian, communicative form of preaching that appeals to a culture that is, sadly, in decline. I am a strict, exegetical expositor of the Word, focused on detailed analyses of passages of Scripture in individual sermons and books of the Bible through series; it's the best way to get people to learn their Bibles, I think, and it presents the Bible as it was written, keeping the focus off my topical interests. But I'm coming to realize that cultural context can never be completely overstated as important in considering how we communicate the Word.

Which brings me back to the old-school Baptist preaching. Quite possibly the most perfect sermon I've ever heard was from that methodology. Back in May, I was attending the Macon Baptist Association's semi-annual meeting as Fellowship's lone messenger, held at the Baptist church in Elmer. I was the youngest person in the service by a margin of at least thirty years, but that's not the point. After a long and spirited hymn sing led by our associational director of missions Bill Smathers, Bro. Russ Pulis, then-pastor at Friendship Baptist Church near Macon, preached an old-fashioned message called "Roses or Dandelions," with no central text, but plenty of Scriptural reference, on how Christians really need to be more like dandelions than roses, since dandelions don't worry so much about appearance, but they're unmistakably efficient in their multiplication. At least that was the thesis; it was really a much more complicated message than that-- the pity was that nobody recorded it. Its effect on me was simultaneously devastating and profoundly encouraging-- so much so that I needed to spend time outside in the car just to compose myself before re-entering the building for the proverbial "fellowship" downstairs (which was billed as a "light snack"-- it was literally four tables of sandwiches and soups and pies, no joke). My homiletics class on Monday nights repeatedly talks about how Jesus Himself was a strict expositor. Doubtless, He preached the Word; just look at all the Old Testament references He used in His preaching. But oh, his sermons that were simple illustrations that confounded the Pharisees and drew countless masses to His presence. The more experienced I get in ministry, truly, the less I feel I know about preaching.

I enjoyed an afternoon of rest and relaxation before preaching the evening message at Immanuel, from Genesis 2, on the need to stop and enjoy the presence of God, as God enjoyed Himself on that first Sabbath day. It wasn't great; the only time I ever get nervous preaching is at Immanuel, because I don't want to disappoint a single person in the congregation. (I know I won't, and that I should just worry about God's glory, but I've not quite reached that point yet in my walk with Christ.) But I think it was adequate. My mother was very honest with me, as she usually is about such things, and thought I tried to do maybe too much in the exegesis, but got the thesis across nicely. I was glad I preached, if anything. I was glad God's been good today.

In fact, I don't know when God hasn't been good... because He always has been. I was thankful for the potato pancakes I enjoyed here at the house after church tonight; I was thankful for movies in Brett's room. I'm thankful for God's inerrant Word; I'm thankful for salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. I'll be thankful for everything He sends me, because it's always for His glory and my good... easier said than done. Soon, I'll be thankful for sleep, knowing, "what a fellowship, what a joy divine, what a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms."

Tomorrow's plans... lunch at Mexican, to Moberly later to watch the Pirates in the district quarterfinal game against the Mexico Bulldogs.

Until tomorrow night...