On The Road Again

I usually don't schedule my travel this close together but tomorrow I head to Uganda, Africa. In the 70's Uganda had a dictator named Idi Amin. Idi Amin killed 300,000 Ugandans over a 7 year period. It was a brutal regime. One of his generals was a young man named Joseph Kona. After Amin was exiled Joseph Kona became very active as a rebel. His specialty was to kidnap little boys around the age of 7 or 8 years old. Kona would force them to murder someone with a machete within 48 hours of their capture. He has amassed a small army of teenagers who kill without hesitation and without remorse. I am going to Uganda to visit an orphanage that rescues little boys and girls from Joseph Kona. There is something wildly wonderful about being a part of a faith that is built on this movement of incarnation and redemption. The 3-part movement of incarnation is to give up, go to, and be with. It is the movement of Jesus our Lord. There is no greater movement of love the world has ever seen. It is still true as a group of us will leave the comfort and relative safety of America to go to Uganda to be with children who are caught in an evil greater than they. Redemption is the act of saving someone at a cost to yourself for the sake of love. It is the movement of all who want to imitate Jesus. So, a little less than a week after returning from Indonesia, I will pack up and leave home again. That is not exactly true. Jesus said,"Whoever gives up houses or farms or family for my sake will receive a hundred times as much in return both in this life and the life to come". The people running the orphanage are part of the family of God. That means I go to visit some brothers and sisters I have never met. That is always exciting. The best thing is that by the time I leave Uganda I will have a home there. I have yet to go anywhere in the world to visit fellow followers of Christ and not been welcomed as a family member and told that if I ever return I will always have a place. I have more homes than you can shake a stick at. If you remember please pray for us. Pray we will be an encouragement to the ones doing the real work. And pray for the precious children who are in the process of being healed by the love of a Savior who calls people from halfway around the world to care for them in His name.

Coming Home

After being away for 10 days or so I am finally home. There is something immensely good about being home. Whenever I go anywhere I am reminded that I don't really fit. I mean everywhere but home I have to figure out how to fit. Even if I am at someone's house for the evening. I use the little half bath that people have off the kitchen and I have to wonder if I should use the little dinky towel they have hanging there or if it is for decoration like ours at home. I usually wash my hands and wipe them on my pants. I will be spending the night at a friend's house later this week and in the morning I will open three or four cabinets before I find the coffee cups. But home is different. Home fits me. Everything is where I put it or know where it is. I am comfortable in my home not only with the stuff I have but of course with the people who are there. I think it is interesting that we all have a built in desire for a home. A place where we know how to be just us. I think that is a deep instinct we have all had since we left the Garden of Eden. We keep trying to create a home like the one we have missed since the beginning of time. The good news is that Jesus is making us one right now. When Jesus says to Thomas in John 14 that he is going to prepare a place for us he doesn't stop there. The most important part of that whole conversation is when Jesus says," So that where I am you may be too". That is what we miss the most. Just like when I walked into my house Thursday morning after being gone for 10 days, the experience wasn't complete until my wife came to hug me and that is when I knew I was really home. Some day I will close my eyes for the last time and when I open them it will be Jesus' face I see and I will finally know I am home.

Balikpapan and the Fellowship of the Ring

In J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings there are 9 characters who are joined together for one purpose. It was the greatest of all tasks , to destroy the ring of power. They pledged themselves to the task and to each other. They called themselves, the Fellowship of the Ring. I am writing this from a hotel room in Balikpapan, Indonesia. I am here doing a conference for a group of missionary pilots and their families. It is a very cool group. They fly in and out of the jungle. They are all here for the same reason. They feel like they have been called by God for the great purpose and task. It is a task they cannot do alone. They need each other and so they have bound themselves together in a very special way. I have watched them. They eat together, work together, their kids play with each other, their wives shop together. They are a Fellowship. Since they are all pilots I have dubbed them the Fellowship of the Wings. Catchy! The thing that has struck me is that they have been forced together because they have been called to this place from all over. They did not get to choose their small group or their neighborhood or each other. They came and because of the God who loved them and called them by name they have learned to love each other. There is something immensely good and powerful in that. I want some of that, don't you? It is not without great growth and humility. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has rough edges. But for these families they have allowed God to use each other to rub off the edges. They have accepted each other and loved each other warts and all. This is what Jesus intended when he formed the church. I want to be a part of a group of people who have been called to participate in some great endeavor. What could be bigger than taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth? Let's all find a group of people with a passion to bring the love of Christ to our neighborhood or work place or country club and form a Fellowship. Let this Fellowship of the Wings be our inspiration. If they can do it at the edge of the world here in Balikpapan, surely we can do it in the middle of suburban America.

Flying with My Main Man Stan

Today I am in Tarakan, Indonesia. John Coleman, Jim Bossler, Brian Marshall, and I have all come to provide a conference for a group of missionaries here in Indonesia that call themselves HCC Cafe Indonesia. They are mostly Missionary Aviation Pilots.That means they fly to most remote areas in the world. Missionary pilots are considered to be some of the best pilots in the world. Yesterday we all had a chance to find out why. The four of us were divided up and each went with a pilot on his runs for the day. It was wild. Indonesia has one of the largest rain forests in the world. All day we were swooping in and out of the rain forest landing on grass air strips. It had rained the night before so there was some flooding and the grass air strips were slick like glass. One run Stan (my pilot who was also in my youth group when I was a youth pastor in Charlotte)and I took was to a very short air strip in the middle of the jungle next to a pretty fast flowing river. If we overshot the runway we would end in the river. As we approached Stan said matter of factly,"Wow, I have never seen the river that high. The strip looks pretty dry, I think we'll give it a shot". I think it was the "give it a shot" that made me pay attention. Stan had also told me earlier we would be slowing enough to have the emergency alarm go off but not to pay attention since we needed to be going very slowly in order to not end in the river. We swooped in over the river, blind to the airstrip as we cut power and got lower and lower. Just over the last tree that I swear I could have touched if my window would have been open, we came into the clearing and the strip. Stan set the plane down on the wet grass and slid us to an expert stop. Very cool. When I got into the ministry 25 years ago or so I expected that God would lead me to do some interesting things but I way underestimated the adventure God had planned. I hope as you follow God you are experiencing the adventure he has for you. There is nothing quite like it.

Whine No More- HCC Cafe Indonesia

More than a year ago I received an e-mail from a group of missionaries in Indonesia who had been listening to our services on Sunday nights as a group. They are each a part of an Indonesian congregation but also hunger for a church service in their language and culture and found it with our broadcast. When they e-mailed me they referred to themselves as HCC Cafe Indonesia. Very cool. I leave today with 3 other staff members to head over to Indonesia to minister to this group. I will be teaching the adults along with John Coleman, Jim Bossler will lead worship, and Brian Marshall will conduct a Vacation Bible School for their children. I found out that one leg of our trip is the longest commercial flight in the world. Newark to Singapore is 18 hours and 40 minutes of flight time. I have been telling people ever since I found out just to get sympathy. Two days ago I read that 150 years ago when missionaries were heading from England to Africa fully 30% would die within the first year of ministry. At one point mission agencies recommended missionaries take their own coffins with them when they left. What is fascinating is the mission agencies had no shortage of volunteers. The spiritual awakening in England had done its job well. So, two days ago I quit whining about how long my trip was and began to focus on the opportunity to minister to HCC Cafe Indonesia. The really great news is that I am traveling with about 30 lbs of dark chocolate for the ladies over there instead of carrying my own coffin. I hope to be able to blog while over there but if not I will catch up with you all when I return. Pray for us as God brings us to mind. It is a wonderful thing to serve such a great Savior. I wouldn't want to do anything else.

Pride,the Gospel ,and Going Decaf

I like espressos. I usually get a double espresso with about an equal amount of hot water. To be really honest I like the taste but I usually drink one of those when I need a pick up. It is best in the afternoon when I am dragging a little. The effect is pretty immediate and amazing. I feel more alert and I'm no longer fuzzy around the edges if you know what I mean. Some people talk about a caffeine crash when the coffee wears off but I really don't feel that. I haven't found any really bad side effects so far. If you know of some...keep them to yourself. I think I have found the spiritual equivalent to espresso shots. There have been times lately when I really feel like I am dragging. The thing in my life that acts like a double shot of espresso in picking me up is...pride. Don't you wish I had found something better? This is a real kicker for me because I have been learning so much about the Gospel. As the Gospel goes deep it really messes up patterns especially when those patterns have any pride in them at all. When I pull up to the church in the morning and my car is the first one in the parking lot it always gives me a little lift. I kind of hurry inside cause if people pull up and I am already inside they don't know how long I have been in there working my little fingers to the bone. When I am tired and have an appointment in the evening the thing that can get me through is thinking of what a great pastor I must be to be the first one in the parking lot and come back at night. I like the taste of pride...a lot. It is strong and I really don't need a huge amount to get me through. But the Gospel is changing me. The Gospel is the good news that I am not judged on my performance but that Jesus has done everything for me. Eventually that is going to make me more alive than ever and more like a man in love than I am right now. But for now, the Gospel means that I have switched to decaf. It's hard for me to get the old pride to work like it did. So, this afternoon, I raise my mug to the One who died for me and thank Him for all that He has done including taking off the juice.

The Choirs of Spring

Today is my day off. I am spending it sitting on my deck with my bride and listening to the choirs of Spring. I heard someone say once that the most common expression in heaven will be "of course". God builds into the seasons the message of the Gospel. Winter is darkness and death. The days grow short, sunshine even shorter, and everything seems to die. But then there is Spring. Right now the trees are still bare but the birds are out in force. They are the choir today. I sit here and the birds are singing. It is constant and it is joyful. They are reminding me of the certainty of Spring. Life is coming, winter did not win, death is vanquished and the sun will shine again. I think when we get to heaven we will find out that everything shouted the Gospel. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just the greatest event in history, it is THE event. It is the stone thrown in the pond and everything that happens is just one of the rings that flows out of that central event when God threw the Cornerstone into the lake of life. So, every year the birds begin to sing at this time to remind us of the Gospel. The trees are beginning to stir and life is rumbling right beneath the surface of the earth. And everyone already in heaven watches and says,"Of course".

Moment of Truth 2

I watched the season finale of Moment of Truth. It is a game show where someone is asked personal questions and a lie detector determines whether they are being honest or not. It is a brutal show. If you have ever doubted that people are all sinners you need to watch a show. The idea is the more questions you answer the more money you can win but if you ever lie then you lose everything. I watched a woman admit first that she had stolen money. The her ex-boyfriend showed up to ask her if she would be willing to leave her husband if he wanted her back. She hesitated long enough for everyone to know the answer but then her sister used the one and only escape bell. That meant she could skip that question and move to the next. The next question was asked by her ex-boyfriend again. "Do you think you really should be married to me"? She answered "yes". After each answer there is a long pause and then a computer generated voice says,"That answer is...true (or false as the case may be). Each question is designed to cause greater discomfort and greater damage to everyone. The next question was,"Have you ever had sex with someone other than your husband since you have been married"? The answer was "yes". "That answer is...true". The final question for 200k (and remember every question is all or nothing) seemed pretty easy comparatively. "Are you a good person"? This woman has already said she was a thief and an adulterer. She has thrown her marriage away on national television. She says,"yes". "That answer is...FALSE". She lost everything. The audience got to see what is true for all of us. We can admit all kinds of things but the hardest thing to really be honest about is ourselves. It was impossible to admit to herself that she was not a good person. It reminded me how desperate I am for the gospel to go deep. I want to always know that if I sat in that chair and the questioners really couldn't figure out where my deepest dirt was and all they could find was that I was a preacher, happily married, and loved reading the Bible and then they asked the question,"Are you a good person"? My answer should be immediate...absolutely not. In my Moment of Truth there are two things I know, I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great Savior.

Fatigue

"Fatigue makes cowards of us all". That is a Vince Lombardi quote. It was part of his motivation for his players to be in such good condition that they would not experience the same level of fatigue as their opponents. My connecting flight was delayed a couple of hours last night. Not only was the flight delayed but it was also overbooked. I don't know if fatigue makes everyone a coward but it certainly makes a lot of people grumpy. Every once in a while someone who was very tired would respond with such grace and dignity it was like a light in the midst of darkness. A man and his young son were flying stand-by. They had been given seats and were actually inside the plane seated apart from each other when the flight attendant called their names to let them know they had to disembark and try for the next flight in the morning. The father walked back to his son, his shirt wrinkled from an already long day and said," Come on little buddy" and he smiled. And there it was...the light. Since it is so close to Easter it made me think of Jesus and how tired he must have been in the Garden. One of the most amazing things about Jesus is he never blamed his behavior on anything outside of himself. He never snapped at someone and then said,"Oh, I've been trying to get home for 10 hours. I am really tired". It makes me wonder how many times I blame my behavior on things outside. One of the things I need to remember is that I am not the person I used to be. I have the Holy Spirit inside of me now. That means that I don't have to respond the way I am used to responding. Today, I am tired, that is true. But that doesn't mean I have to be a coward or a grump. I can be a light and respond to the situations today with a grace and a dignity that can be stunning.