Light and Dark

(The following was written during my last weekend home while at my Dad's fishing cottage in Northern Wisconsin)

I am a firm believer in the fact that there is beauty in almost everything. I believe it's what God intended. At least I think that's what he meant by the whole "and it was good" thing in Genesis.

With that said, there are so many times while I am driving down the road, hitting a softball, or sitting silent in the yard that I see, experience, or hear things that strike me, sometimes odly, as beautiful. This weekend was no different. Or maybe it was.

There are many breathtaking scenes in this country. No one can deny the splendidness of a setting sun over the towering apendages known as the Rocky Mountains, or the complete awe that overtakes one while looking over the vast deep that is the Grand Canyon and the unexplainable belief that you could clear it in a single bound if you got a big enough running start. Even the deserts, with their millions of gallons of sand, poured out by God's dump truck and moved through the ages by the shovel of time, can inspire countless souls in ways than can never fully be explained. But there's a place even grander than the Grand canyon, more breathtaking than the Rocky Mountains, and more inspiring than the western deserts. It is an area located North of America's Heartland, East of the marshes of the Dakotas, and West of the Great Lakes. It lies nestled South of the boundry waters, dotted by hundreds of lakes and thousands of trees, giving shelter to some of God's most prescious creations. Heaven, you ask? Close. The Northwoods of Wisconsin.

I spent the past weekend in this area, and could not help but see the beauty. Although here, beauty isn't just seen. Here, beauty is so apparant it drips off your skin like hot wax rolls down a burning candle. You feel it hang heavy in the air as the smell of pine tar mixes with lake water for a natural calogne that would make some entrepeneur rich should he be able to harness the smell. Wherever you go, there it is. It's impossible to hide fromit. It seeks you out like an early morning fog on the prowl for every bit of open water on a secluded bay. The water, as clean as your conscience after a random act of kindness, beckons you disturb it's glass top while the treetops lead the loons in the tenor melody of nature's song. With every turn on the broken roads that desperately need refinishing, wild turkeys and new realizations greet you, proffessing that this is truly God's country. And whenever you stop dead in your tracks to take in yet another postcard panoramic, the wind whispers soft affirmations in your ears, confirming your belief that what you are seeing could not get any better.

It's times like these I wonder why I ever left. New York City is nothing like the picture I have just immortalized with words. But then something C.S. Lewis talks about pops into my head. Lewis notes that if we don't have the pain, we can never appreciate the happiness or joy life offers. If you think about it, it makes so much sense. We only know x because of its opposite, y. Or rather, we more fully understand x when y is present. Think about it this way, we can't fully know/understand light without dark, for if there were no darkness, light would just be that everpresent ora that never went away. But because we experience dark, we know how bright, beautiful, and necessary light is. New York City is my dark. If not for NYC, I would never know the light--the beauty--that is the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

So thank you NYC. Your concrete caves have helped me understand what true beauty is.

Think You're a Christian? Think Again

Once in awhile, I come across something that really upsets me.

Last night, it was the guy from the opposing team telling me, among other things*, to swing while I was at bat during my softball game. I did, and the ball flew right back up the middle for a base hit. While running to first, I turned and let the guy know what I thought of him. He was twice my size. He wasn't happy. It probably wasn't a good idea. But like I said, once in awhile I come across something that really upsets me.

This morning, it happened again.

I received an e-mail from an organization promoting its Christian Worldview Conference. While initially I thought it to be a great idea, and there are some interesting topics on the agenda, I was dissapointed by one of the main topic explanations. Actually, diasspointed may not be the right word. Aghast or angry might fit better. Let me reiterate that it is not the topic itself that upset me, but the explanation.

The subject for the second keynote presentation is titled, Mass Exodus: Why Young People are Leaving the Church and Who is to Blame. The topic is extremely relavent. I have spent many hours contemplating why so many of my peers have decided to blow off the beauty that is following Jesus. I have my own theories. Mainly that they haven't been taught how to discover that beauty on their own. Instead, they have been taught that life and death lie in the amount of tally marks they record for going to youth group and church (ironically, the one thing most Evangelicals accuse non-Evangelicals of promoting). But that's not Christianity. They need to learn that we follow Jesus because it is the best possible life (a life of gratitude for a savior, love for others (even the annoying baseball guy), a life where we see the good, and, among many other things, a life that gives us the opportunity to serve by bringing others to the knowledge of this life; of Jesus), not because it puts people in office or gives us lots of "things" that we have a right to. However, the author of the e-mail blurb and the conference speaker do not bother wrestling with tough answers as I have mentioned. Instead, they offer a simple, watered down explanation for why many young people are leaving the church: they accept Christ too young and are never true Christians. If only it were that easy.

I think it's something different. Something that requires us and the church to take some responsibility.

I will post the e-mail at the end, but for now you'll just have to trust me. The e-mail is a cop out. It's a sad explantion for a crisis situation. Instead of addressing the many issues that keep young people out of the church, this e-mail chooses to turn around and cowardly question the salvation of all those who have left the church. Can you see why I'm upset? Can you see why many are dissilussioned? Instead of talking with, questioning, and loving those who have left, this group simply rights them off as if Jesus never cared for them, dubbing their salvation as "false." Is it true that maybe some of those not returning to church after high school and college were never really serious about the lord? Yes. But it is not fair to mark those small number of occurences as the end all reason for the "mass exodus."

So why are the younger generations leaving the church in droves? I think there are many reasons, and not all of them can be cured by a cheap, over-the-counter explanation. I would like to offer something a little more substantial.

I disagree with the conference speaker. I feel that to accuse those who are leaving the church of being "false converts" is cheapening salvation. It is not that those who are leaving were never converted [Understand that I know there are exceptions, but generally I believe this is the case], I believe it is that they never learned what being converted fully means, something we all struggle with from time to time (think about it, if we really understood what it meant to follow Jesus, we wouldn't do half the stupid things we do). Follwing Christ is not about small figurines on felt boards or having lambchop-like sing a longs every Sunday. It's not about money, new buildings, or striking down all the evil people out there. It's about following after Christ, loving his teachings, and loving those who don't understand that. And I think the blame should be spread around evenly

Most of the young people leaving the church have parents, elders, or role models who have treated accepting Christ as an end instead of a beginning. I've talked with parents who breath a sigh of relieve once their children make a decision for Christ, as if their offspring have just been given some sort of Jesus chain metal that locks in their safety on the ride from here to Heaven. What those parents do not realize is that if they never teach their mini soldiers how to polish, clean, or maneavuer in that armor, it's as useless as it was sitting on the scrap pile. Accepting Christ isn't about geeing a one-way ticket to Heaven. When was the Great Commission replaced by some perverted idea that salvation is a type of safety object in a game of tag played against the devil? Christ is clear: salvation is tough and it includes going into all the world to preach the gospel. Why is gospel good news? I can tell you it's not JUST because we get to go to Heaven. It's because Jesus, through salvation, has given us the opportunity to live the best life now, serving him and bringing others into the realization that we do have the best life. It is that realization that parents need to be passing along to their children. When traditional churches, as the explanation calls them, start equiping parents to do so, we will see young people excited again about the things of God.

Read below and let me know what you think.

Second Keynote Presentation: Mass Exodus: Why Young People are Leaving the Church and Who is to Blame - (XXXX X. XXXX)

Why are 88% of young people from the Southern Baptist Churches denying their faith before they graduate from college? Why do denominational leaders across the board report that 69% to 96% are leaving the traditional church after they graduate from high school and not returning?
Could the answer be that these young people are leaving traditional churches and not returning because they are not Christians but false converts? What does this mass exodus say about what is being taught in today’s churches? What does the Bible have to say about false converts and true converts?

Several informal, public polls have revealed a large number of Christian adults revealed that they thought they were a Christian when in high school or college only to learn later that they were a false convert. What Biblical teaching did these adults encounter that revealed their false conversion and thus lead them to true repentance and salvation? What was going on within their churches and/or homes that fostered this false conversion? What can we learn from these former false converts that will help us stop this dangerous trend?

The book of First John was written “that you may know you have eternal life”. What are the 10 hallmarks of every Christian as revealed in the book of First John? How can youth pastors, senior pastors and parents and grandparents use this information in the church and in their homes so they might cultivate true followers of Christ?

Despite being raised in a Christian home, Bible teaching church and even a Christian school, Brannon was a false convert until he was an adult. How did Brannon’s praying of the “sinners prayer” at the age of five and being baptized at the age of seven set him up for a false conversion?

As a father of three young children, what are Brannon and his wife Melissa doing to prevent a false conversion in their children? What have Brannon and Melissa learned from God’s Word that has given them peace that they don’t need to rush their young children into saying the “sinner’s prayer”, walking the aisle and being baptized at an early age?

*The gentlemen playing catcher while I was batting felt it necessary to tell me when to swing, call the pitch before it left the pitcher's hand, make baby noises as I was getting ready to swing, and make other obnoxious sounds. It was annoying. I got a hit. I rubbed it in his face. It wasn't the best thing to do, I'll admit it.

Edwin McCain - I'll Be

This is one of my favorite songs of all time. I've been singing it all day, and I hope you become as addicted to it as I am.

What if we could know?

I know it's a cliche, but it's accurate. The reason it works well is because it's releavent to so many peopel in so many situations.

You never know what you've got 'till it's gone. That's what they say.

Summer is here and almost gone. Slightly depressing if you think about it. But that might just be a matter of perspective. We can lament over the fact that there will be no more trips to the lake, no more late night campfires, and no more early mornings spent staring at the stars, watching the big dipper take a giant scoop of the horizon and dump it into worlds beyond as the sun rises. Or, we can look forward to the leaves turning breathtaking shades of red and orange, our breath dancing across the crisp night air like a ribbon dancer, and the smell of corn and hay as it is set free from it's earthly bonds by the farmer harvesting his field down the road. For me, I choose to think about the former. I imagine it's because I have a love affair with summer.

Whatever the reason, it is true that you never know what you've got till it's gone.

In fact, I'm convinced that we are never more motivated to show those around us that we love them until we think we are going to lose them. But why? Why do we put ourselves through this? Doesn't it make the most sense to show those around us how we feel all the time, so that it never has to come to that awful point where we are frantically running around trying to think every little thing we can do in order to save that important relationship, friendship, or love interest? Of course it does. But for whatever reason we let the other things get between us.

You know what I'm talking about. Instead of going to your nephew's baseball game, you go "out with your friends." Instead of popping by Grandma and Grandpa's house, you rush home after work to inhale the rerun of "America's Got Talent." Instead of calling your girlfriend to tell her you love her, you go golfing with the guys. But why?

Selfishness, I'm sure. Lazyness, yes. Carelessness, absolutely.

Grandma, your nephew, your gilriend: they didn't seem too important at the time.

Now they do.

Now that you've had time to think about it, them. Now that you've pictured Jack hitting the ball 20 yards and the look on his face that says he knows he hit it at least 2 miles, or smelled your Grandma's slightly stale perfume as it mixes with the sweet aroma of fresh cookies and the ironically tantilizing odor of Granpa's gas can in the garage. Or now that you've heard your girlfriend's soft laugh as you tell a joke that only she would get, knowing that she's laughing at it only because you told it. Try running that corny line by anyone else and they will stare at you as if their eyes are glass and you are the new main attraction at the San Diego Zoo. Have a little more time, don't you?

You never know what you've got 'till it's gone.

I know because I've become selfish and sedintary. I'm sure those around me have noticed. I'm sure there are relationships that have suffered. Take my family. While I am physically with them, we're already miles apart. See, sometimes I'm more interested in how I feel than I am in how others feel or what they might be going through. You have to undertand that I don't like goodbyes or endings, especially those that close out great chapters. So I check out early. I draw back and pull away in an attempt to make the actual goodbye that much easier. It must be part of the preparation. The dealing. The coping. How backwards we think sometimes. How selfish we are.

But what if we could know?

What if every once in awhile we, something, or someone else were able to snap us out of ourselves and allow us a glimps into what we've got before it's gone?

W'ed go to the game.

We'd stop by the house.

We'd give her a call.

We'd save ourselves so much wishing. So much guessing. So much hoping.

We may never completely figure out why we slip into selfishness, but we can prevent ourselves from the other "why?" The why that says, "why didn't you do anything about it? You knew it, but why didn't you stop it, change it, take action?" That is the why that can be most dangerous.

I'm content with asking the first one, but not the second. I don't ever want to get there...again.