Today's entry is dedicated entirely to my son, Luke. This is his 4th birthday. Last year, he did not want to have a birthday. For some reason, he was refusing to turn 3. We tried making a big deal out of it and encouraging him, but he just wasn't interested in being any older than 2. It wasn't just that though - he would not allow us to celebrate in any way. He did not want presents. He did not want cake. He did not want to go anywhere or do anything. He was not turning 3. He was 2! Finally, at about 3 o'clock, he decided that he would let me take him to the zoo (one of his favorite places). Then, on the way home, I talked him into letting us give him presents and we began discussing a cake. In our family, the kids don't pick what flavor cake they want, but what characters will go on the cake. For instance, Ben has had a Batman cake. I think we had a Cookie Monster cake at Luke's 1st birthday... So when I asked Luke what kind of cake he wanted, he said, "I want a Corpse Bride cake."

Luke is a hilarious kid. My wife has posted some of our family videos and almost all of them feature some performance by Lukie. This year, he is actually excited about his birthday. He can't wait to tear into his presents and we have a "Madagasscar" cake on order (he DID NOT get the Corpse Bride cake, by the way). Since we live in Florida now, so close to some amazing parks, we have been asking Lukie where he wanted to go for his birthday. "Do you want to go meet Buzz Lightyear? Or do you want to go on a safari (heck yeah, Disney has a safari now!) Or we could take you to see Spiderman..." Guess where Luke said he wanted to go for his birthday... "I only want to go to Grandma and Grandad's house." I know that was heartfelt and all, but don't kid yourself, Luke knows which side the bread get buttered on. He also once claimed that his favorite "restaurant" was eating chicken and rice and Grandma's house. He makes sure he stays on Grandma and Grandad's good side. Well, we can't go there, but as a surprise to Luke Grandma and Grandad are coming down here for the weekend. He's going to be stoked!

Luke's name means, "The one who brings light." I didn't know that when I named him, but God sure did. Luke is such an absolute joy. He really does bring light. It is almost impossible to discipline him because he can always get me laughing. This is way sappier than I've ever written, I know but I don't want to ignore the way I'm feeling right now. I will never forget what he said to me this morning. "Lukie, can you believe that you are going to be 4 tomorrow?" "I know, but Dad... I hope I stay small when I'm 4." "Why, Luke?" "Because then you could still hold me." The one who brings light! 

Thank you, Lord for our Luke! 

Totally frustrated, I threw the book down and stalked away from it to reinforce my disgust, as if the author would know he had angered me and that I could somehow hurt his feelings by refusing to read any further. I won't give you the title of the book, because I've come a long way in my thinking since this little episode and you might want to read it some day. You'll be better off if you don't get skewed by my take on it. But here are a few alternate titles this book could have used to help me understand what I was really getting into:

1) Jesus Was A Democrat - Don't get me wrong, it's not that I think he was a Republican. As far as I can tell, Jesus was not even an American... Or,

2)  I Need Something To Complain About Everywhere I Go - I know a lot of people like that, they might be thrilled to realize that this book is actually just for them. Or,

3) If Your Church Is More Than 150 People, You're Certainly Not Doing What Jesus Would Want You To Do, And If It Is More Than 500 People... Well Then, You Are The Most Money-hungry, Slime-ball, Phoney, False Prophet Ever To Persecute The 'True' Church - I know, that's way too long and no publisher would ever allow it, but it really would have prepared me for the read ahead.

Obviously I'm making a bit of light out of how much I disliked a Christian book I recently read. But here is the most important part (as I'm discovering) I actually did read it - all of it! I originally threw it down in disgust after reading a section in which the author rails against a pastor who had an army tank driven on stage to help illustrate some point about the power of God. Our author of this book I 'loved' so much was deeply offended on so many levels. "How big must this church be that it could accommodate a tank on stage!?" And, "Jesus would never use a symbol of military power to illustrate spiritual truth! Jesus cared for the poor and for the widows. Jesus looked after the needs of the downtrodden. What does this tank have to do with them!?"

Well, if you are reading words from this website, you already know what got my goat. Of course I disagree about whether a tank is an appropriate illustration for spiritual realities or not. But the most important question for me to ask myself is, Why do I disagree? That question eventually forced me to pick the book back up and finish what I started.

Can we all own up to being very opinionated and one-dimensional in our view of Jesus and Scripture and Church? We know what we know and not much else - there is really nothing wrong with that. What becomes a problem is when we begin to cling to that one corner of the big picture as if we have the entire universe all figured out already. I still disagree with the author on all the same issues, just as I did before reading his book, but I found that I agree with him on many, many others. He has a revelation of Jesus that I did not have, one that I desperately needed. He's not wrong about Jesus and neither am I. He's not wrong about what size a church should be and neither am I. We both only know a part. And when you put our two parts together, you still don't have anything close to the whole picture. I am discovering how much we need each other, how much we need our perspectives challenged. We need people who think differently than we do. We need to be pushed and offended and hurt so we can go back to Jesus with the whole mess and let him straighten it out for us.

That process teaches us that we don't know everything yet, we are not in control (like we think we are), and most importantly, we come away loving people instead of judging them. We find out that Jesus does not take one side or the other. His perspective is not about who is right and who is wrong. Jesus sees the beginning from the end - He is Alpha and Omega, First and Last, Author and Finisher - with so many hints and warnings, how has it taken me this long to stop running from people who are different than me?

We had quite a scare today. A girl from our "church" (not bigger than a home-group right now) was in a pretty serious car accident this morning. It was very scary at first. Her car was completely smashed (the impact was directly on her door) and she was actually air lifted, by helicopter to the main, downtown hospital. Miraculously, it is turning out that she is okay - a fractured pelvis, a lot of pain, but the way she was hit... a miracle for sure. It is so very hard to watch someone you care about in such pain and know that you cannot do anything to physically relieve her suffering.

When she mas moved from the ER to her "real" room, the pilot who flew her life-flight chopper came up to visit her. This was such a kind thing to do, I thought and as he talked with her something even deeper began to settle in. "Thank you for flying me here," she whispered. "Your welcome. That's what we do. You call, we haul." 

One of the names Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit is "Standby." I looked that up one time and discovered that it means "a reliable source of help that is always ready, in case of an emergency." Isn't that an interesting definition? I mean, the very nature of an "emergency" is that you are NOT ready. It is overwelming to me that there are peole, like this helicopter pilot, that will swoop from the sky to help you if you get into serious trouble. People who are ready, just in case there is an emergency. We call, they haul - to rescue us and bring us to safety. It has been a long time since I've been in so much trouble that I needed the Holy Spirit as my Standby. I'm so glad He is there and I do not want to take a single second of this fragile life for granted. As test results have been coming in, it is clear that the Holy Spirit was ready for this accident. I do not minimize the pain she is in, but this is the kind of accident that many people do not survive. Not only did Shelly survive, but she is going to be just fine.

Recently, I had the opportunity to write for an ezine that I read and truly love. Next Wave has been such an ongoing challenge and encouragement to me. I encourage you to click the link above and subscribe to the ezine. Anyway, my friend is the publisher and I think he let me submit an article out of the goodness of his heart, but it is up there now nonetheless. I have been thinking about what I wrote there quite a bit. I am not sure that I articulated it very well, but it was my best attempt at the time to express what I sense "brewing" in the Spirit. Here is a little excerpt from it, but I do hope you'll read it in context at Next Wave.

I can imagine a church community that thrives on the vision of the people in the community at large. A church that looks at these as opportunities to be equippers, always asking the questions, “How can we help?” and “What can we give you to get that started?” God is after a Coalition of the Willing, to steal a phrase from President Bush. Right now youth pastors, children’s pastors, executive pastors and others are being separated from the organizations that never took the time to get to know them and see their unique perspective. These men and women are being driven from the church culture that has been their home for the whole of life thus far. I know so many people, and their religion and their church failed them. When that happens to you, it is easy to think that God failed you. These are the people called to join the Coalition. People willing to look at the current church situation and say, “What else can we do?” God has a role for people that are willing to do church differently and it is not just to sit around a living room with other refugees, licking each other wounds. “You think you had it bad, wait till you hear what they did to me at my last church…” We are done with that. We are ready for an authentic move of God.

The US military has gone through some extreme changes in the past 6 years. For quite a while, people would get into the military because it taught skills, engendered self-confidence, broadened experience and best of all, provided money for a college education. To make a drastic understatement, those days are over! In today's military, there is scarcely a "safe" position to be filled. Terrorism (or at least the fact that we've finally awoken to it) has changed it all. I recall a story of a special ops soldier turning to the small group of "conventional" soldiers around him as they prepared to take part in a dangerous, but crucial mission against terrorists. The fresh-faced young soldiers were understandably nervous and completely transfixed by this burly SOF commando who seemed to be eager to get his "hands dirty." He urged them, "If you think about it, the universe has been conspiring to put you right here, right now. Did you sign on because you wanted to get out of the house? Or do you want to come with me and kick down the door? Let's go!"

In terms of "church," I am sick of spinning the wheels. I cannot survive on what has passed for church, over the past several decades. Sing, preach, pray... If that's it, I can't do it anymore. I want to kick down the door! There are many, many people feeling this way, and they have started doing something "different," having church, but with an emphasis on social justice, community action, stuff like that. Maybe I'm just extremely hard to please because I don't see myself fitting into "that" either. I can't describe this any other way than to say that I sense God's interest in launching a completely new and different movement. Not just a new model, like "seeker" or "purpose-driven" or "emerging." And not an edgy new venue like "house church" or "bar church" or "mall church." Move it wherever you want, until we hear the Holy Spirit say, "This is what I'm up to," it will be the same, tired, old church. Several years ago I was in a meeting with 10 other pastors, talking about the community in which we serve and the needs of the people around us. One pastor said, "I think this community has looked at the church scene and has come away asking, 'Where is the God of power? Where is the God of Elijah?' And God is saying, 'Where is my Elijah?' " I have such respect for this pastor, and I believe he is exactly right! Is the Lord looking around the room at our bewildered and spellbound faces asking, "Did you sign on because you wanted to get out of the house? Or do you want to come with me and kick down the door?"

I hope I'm not shocking anyone too badly. I'm not mad. I didn't have a bad day or a bad experience. I am nothing but thankful for every single person and every single church that shaped my faith and character. But I am not going to get over this. God is up to something totally different. The US Special Operations Command is known as "the tip of spear" because they are on the very edge, the first point of contact against the enemy. I sense God's desire to have a Tip Of The Spear-type force (or maybe church) that can be put into the most "dangerous" places - places where sing... preach... pray has been driven out like the sons of Sceva, naked and beaten.