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I just learned the other day that the music of Kate Smith is banned in some places. Kate Smith, beloved singer of God Bless America, who had a 50-year singing career, passing away in 1986 at the age of 79, recorded a song in 1931 when she was 24, that affirmed, essentially, that black people’s “destiny” was to do grunt work. Actually, she wrote the song.

I’m not here to castigate or exonerate Kate Smith. I’ve already written about our unseemly rush to condemn people for things they did decades ago. (Mark E’s comment is worth the read, also.) What’s worth thinking about is how much am I a product of my time just as Kate was a product of her time?

By contrast, the musical South Pacific was written in the same era, 1949, and it contains the song, “You’ve got to be carefully taught,” which makes a strong case against racial prejudice. The lyrics are worth the read. What’s fascinating is that I’ve heard (and played) music from South Pacific my whole life, but I don’t remember hearing this song until I saw the stage play in its entirety just a few years ago.

Why were Rodgers and Hammerstein sensitive to an issue to the point of irritating a lot of people and perhaps dooming the show when many others were oblivious to it? And again, what might I be missing?

The Pharisees were well-respected in their day and thought they were pleasing God. Then Jesus came along.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. (Matthew 23.1 – 7, ESV)

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3.4 – 7, ESV)

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It’s worth resuming the Unsung Heroes series to tell this story. 

From 2006 – 2008, I was privileged to teach a 2-week course in discipleship to pastors in training in a seminary in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, the second-largest city in Haiti, located on its northern coast. One of my students was Vilmer Paul, now pastor of Heavenly Brightness Church. 

Vilmer continues to implement my discipleship teaching summarized as:

• 2 Timothy 2.2 has Paul telling Timothy, a pastor, to invest in faithful men who will teach others also. I would ask them, “What part of 2 Timothy 2.2 does not apply to you?
• I know you’re busy. Can you meet with one guy for one hour, once/week?
• I hope your church is “successful” and that you preach to thousands on Sunday. However, on Monday, you should be investing in men.  
  

I’m still in touch with Vilmer, who has gone on to earn a master’s and doctorate from seminaries in the US. In addition to the church, he’s the administrator of the church’s Heavenly Brightness School since he is a firm believer that educating children is a key to Haiti’s future well-being.

I’m also spending telephone time with Josh Good, who lives in Pennsylvania and serves with the international ministry Christian Endeavor. Josh recently told me that he is going to Port au Prince, Haiti, later this summer, and he hoped to have the materials translated into Haitian Creole and French (but he had no plan for how to do that). So I wrote to Vilmer to see if he or someone he knew could handle that for Josh. To make a long story short, Vilmer connected with Josh, and in just a few days, Vilmer himself completed the translation! I was amazed that he took the time.

But here’s the good part of the story. I was concerned that Vilmer be paid for his work, and I even told him that if Josh didn’t pay him enough (because Josh is in ministry, too!), I would make up the difference. When Josh proposed an amount, here’s what Vilmer said:

Hello Josh, I praise the Lord that I could have helped in this.  I have no objection on what you said, whatever you think to do just do it. My interest was not, is not and will never be money, but the Kingdom. Even if you hadn’t anything I would have been proud to do it. Blessings, Vilmer Paul

In a day when some ministries are fee for service, where every good idea is available to you for a price, it’s refreshing to see Vilmer’s attitude. A man in a very poor country who could put to good use any money that comes his way. Yet he is content to serve someone else’s ministry, someone he doesn’t know who won’t even be coming to his area. May his tribe increase!

For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thessalonians 2.9, ESV)

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10.45, ESV)

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I’ve said before, I frequently get useful ministry ideas from marketer Seth Godin. Here’s a useful word from July 7 when he wrote:

When people compete on the same metrics (how many followers, how much income, how many points scored) the focus gets very tight. With a simple metric, there’s no confusion at all about how to earn more status. The irony is that the simpler the metric, the less useful the effort is. Big ideas, generous work, important breakthroughs–to pursue these goals is to abandon the metric of the moment in favor of a more useful sort of contribution.

Pastors use a single simple metric: Sunday attendance, with the result that comparisons are unavoidable. How can I become the biggest church in town? Or be among the largest churches in my denomination? Unfortunately, that’s not what Jesus asked them (and us!) to do: “Make disciples…” was his clear directive in Matthew 28. The word for church leaders is also clear:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up… (Ephesians 4.11, 12, NIV) 

Unfortunately, such work is harder to measure in the near term, and if there’s pressure just to be bigger (from the denomination, the church lay leadership, from other pastors), often the slower, under-the-radar disciple-making objective is relegated to an optional “program.”

Seth counsels us to “abandon the metric of the moment in favor of a more useful sort of contribution.” One pastor said, “We’re pretty good at measuring how many people come. Maybe we should count how many people go!” I couldn’t agree more.

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. (1 Thessalonians 1.5 – 8, NKJV, emphasis mine)

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Yesterday I shared the story of believers in their 70s whose focus in life seems to be travel and golf. The key word from their letter was “bored.”
By contrast, here’s something from another friend. Just snippets:

• Grateful for scripture buddies who read the New Testament together every morning this year….
• It also gives me a head start in preparing Sunday school lessons…
• The best days of my week are Mondays and Tuesdays when I get to share light and love with girls in jail…
• Actually, I love every day…

The word “boring” did not appear in this letter. The difference? Purpose!
My Navigator hero Skip Gray used to say that there are a bunch of happy folks “roaring around out there who seem to be doing just fine, except, they have no purpose.” 

We pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something. (2 Thessalonians 1.11, MSG)

We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me. (Colossians 1.28, 29, MSG)

One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way… (Philippians 3.13 – 15, ESV)

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We received a letter the other day from Christian friends in their 70s. Their lives are filled with travel and golf. What was intriguing was their explicit declaration that life was “boring” despite their describing each activity as “fun.” 

What’s wrong with this picture? It doesn’t sound as if they are experiencing the “abundant life” that Jesus promised:

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10.10, NKJV)

Some people may define the abundant life as living on a golf course and traveling to exotic places, but that strategy doesn’t seem to be working. (I’m not against golf or travel; remember, it is these people who describe their life as “boring.”)

Maybe no one has told these lovely people that God has important work for them to do no matter how old they are! That they can be generating Holy Moments that can impact the world. That if their antenna is up for people God wants them to help, they can be involved in the Great Adventure of the Great Commission. God wants to use them on their Frontlines.

But the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. (Mark 4.19, NIV)

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15.1, 2, NIV)

O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. (Psalm 71.17, 18, ESV)

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Persistence keeps coming up! Liana persisted in catching her fish. The Lord desires persistence in prayer. And here’s another story.

We spent last week at Spring Canyon, a conference center operated by Officers’ Christian Fellowship. When you’re at such a place, it looks like it’s always been there, but, of course, that is not the case. Spring Canyon resulted from the vision and persistence of one man: Cleo Buxton, an officer who was conducting discipling adventure tours in the 50s and 60s. He believed a permanent location in the mountains would facilitate “vacations with a purpose.” 

When he found the property, owned by people who wanted to sell to a Christian organization, he pitched the idea to the OCF Board. They replied something like, “Thanks but no thanks. We’re not in the conference business.” Undaunted, Buxton formed a non-profit organization, ROACT, raised the money from like-minded friends, and bought the property in 1962. OCF formally purchased it from ROACT for one dollar years later. And it’s been used to bless thousands of people through the decades.

One guy. And when told no, he persisted until he succeeded. (They’ve named part of the Spring Canyon conference center complex after him!)

God often raises up one person to initiate important actions to move his story along. The person is often outside the existing authority structures: Moses, a shepherd in the desert; Gideon, a fearful winemaker; Nehemiah, the king’s servant in a country 600 miles away. Jesus himself was outside existing structures, as were the first disciples.

The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote–Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” (John 1.43 – 46, NKJV, emphasis mine)

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4.13, NKJV)

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I wrote yesterday that persistence is a measure of faith. Here’s an example from the dark ages of military phone services.

When I was on active duty, 1970 – 1990, there were three kinds of telephone lines connected to many desk phones, which had a row of buttons to choose the line. 

One line dialed only numbers on local military installation. Another would get you to a local outside line, accessed by dialing “9” to get the outside line dial tone. Some phones were equipped with a line that would dial other military bases through the AUTOVON system, and we accessed that system by dialing “8.” The challenge was there weren’t enough lines for more than a certain number of people on the base to use AUTOVON at the same time, so “8” frequently got you a busy signal even if you were on an AUTOVON line. You also got a busy signal if you dialed “8” on a non-AUTOVON line.

Question: how many times would you dial “8” to get an AUTOVON line dial tone? Answer: it depends on how urgently you needed to make that call AND how sure you were that you were on an AUTOVON line. When I visited another base and needed to call my office, I would use someone else’s phone. And if there was no one around to ask which line was which, there was the uncertainty.

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. (Luke 18.1, NLT)

Our ability to “pray and never give up” is a function of our faith in God AND how sure we are that we are asking for is appropriate. Someone said, “You ought to pray before you pray,” meaning, discern the will of God before you ask for something. Then, like Liana and her fish, persist! I’m still working on this practice!

And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for. (1 John 5.14, 15, NLT)

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Last week we took our three granddaughters to Spring Canyon, near Buena Vista, Colorado, and one of the highlights for them is the time on the ponds. There are watercraft of many types they can paddle around in, and there is fishing! By Thursday afternoon Kesley and Shirah had each caught a fish. Liana, the youngest, age 10, hadn’t. So she worked at it for about an hour after the picnic Thursday. Nothing. I tried to explain that when you go fishing, sometimes you catch something, and sometimes you don’t. But that didn’t help her disappointment. 

At dinner she said, I want to go back to the ponds after dinner. I have to catch a fish. So she and Kesley got some bread from the kitchen went down to the ponds, found a cane pole (Kesley’s favorite kind—very superior to rods and reels because of its simplicity!), and…Liana caught her fish! We had no tools to clean it, so we just bagged it, froze it, took it home, and ate it there.

Persistence. It’s a trait that will serve her well. Moses led the Israelites through 10 plagues and 40 years to leave Egypt and reach the border of the promised land. Ezra and Haggai pushed through and rebuilt the temple after a long delay. Nehemiah finished the wall through opposition in 52 days. Jesus hung in with the 12 for three years.  

Persistence. Persistence is a measure of faith. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11.6, NLT)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. (Hebrews 12.1 – 3, NLT)

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When you read this, we will have returned from our week at Spring Canyon. Wednesday was a free day, and we took the granddaughters to the Mount Princeton Hot Springs, just a few miles away.

June and I first saw the facility more than 25 years ago, and, quite frankly, it was a bit of a dump. In recent years, someone has poured some money into it, and it’s quite nice, even though the 100-year-old bath house is still in use. As I looked at the attractive naturally heated pools, one for soaking and one for swimming, and the 400-foot water slide, recently added, I thought about accessibility. 

The hot springs have always been there, but in their natural state, they would be hard to use. It would be rocky. Those pools and the slide didn’t build themselves. Neither did the roads we used to drive to them. A number of people worked hard to make the hot springs accessible to the public and enjoyable. 

I wrote the other day that I stand on the shoulders of others. We all do. Someone has worked to make our following Jesus accessible. I’m always encouraging us to spend time in the Word, which we couldn’t do if someone hadn’t translated it and someone else hadn’t printed it or made it available on an app. 

I’ve devised a simple method to get you started with daily time with God, a method someone taught me. Lectio Divina is a similar system, but mine is more accessible since it’s in English (joke)! Following Jesus through the challenges of real life is hard, but preparing to follow Jesus needn’t be. 

Please remember that as you help others. Pass on to them the tools you’ve been given. Show them how you use them. Keep making following Jesus accessible to all.

Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few…These 12 Jesus sent out…” Matthew 9.37, 10.5 (Jesus made going out accessible!)

Freely you have received; freely give. (Matthew 10.8, NASB)

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I’m working on a book that I hope to finish by the end of the year: it will be called Everyone on the Wall, starting with Nehemiah 3, where, when they built the wall, nearly everyone was involved. It’s been on hold for a while, and part of the reason has been this blog! I’m getting the hang of producing a blog EVERY DAY(!), but in so doing, I haven’t quite figured out how to keep the book writing going.

That said, one of the problems may be that God stalled the book production until some ideas that need to be in the book came together. Among those are the 6Ms of Fruitfulness on the Frontline by Mark Greene and Holy Moments from The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity by Matthew Kelly, both of which I’ve written about in this blog. 

But just today, I’ve modified the 6Ms! Here they are, as Mark lists them, ways God can use me as I’m fruitful on the frontline:

• Model godly character
• Make good work
• Minister grace and love
• Mold culture
• be a Mouthpiece for truth and justice
• be a Messenger of the gospel

All good things, but we missed one! There are two ways to increase the amount of fruit in the world. I need to bear all the fruit I can:

Every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. (John 15.2, ESV)

The other way to increase the amount of fruit in the world is to help other bear fruit! So let’s add the 7th M: Make disciples! We increase fruit, for example, by making good work AND by helping others understand that making good work is the godly and fruitful thing to do. By creating all the Holy Moments we can and also by helping others understand how they can create Holy Moments.

By this is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit; so will you be my disciples…You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit… (John 15.8, 16, NKJV)