Introducing: Cross & Stethoscope

Exciting news:

I've started a new blog that actually has a direct purpose. Whereas TCM was built more for my odd ramblings and musings as they come, this new blog, Cross and Stethoscope, is going to be a life chronicle of where God is taking me though service, medicine, and missions.

It'll be a weekly blog, being published every Monday, with the odd extra bit thrown in mid-week. Monday is the guarantee, though.

Forest and Trees

Today, I want to speak to my fellow white people, particularly my fellow Christian white people.

Many of us are missing the point

Yesterday, an innocent man, Terence Crutcher, was shot. He was an innocent man inspecting his own car. He was tazed and shot because he did not immediately follow instructions. He was unarmed. He had his hands up and visible. Now, investigations are ongoing and this article has a fairly good summary of the due process that needs to be followed and the confounding legal questions, but the shooting is not what I want to highlight.

I want to highlight our response.

You see, Mr Crutcher is a black man and, unfortunately, he is now the newest name in a growing list of black men killed by police. He is now the next name on a list in the argument against police brutality and social injustice. You would think that, after such a tragedy, there would be mourning as a community in response. No, no. I only heard about the shooting via my wife. I saw nothing from any of my white friends except a post which showed how there are good relationships between black men and police.

Yesterday, in Langa, a peri-urban settlement (lit. a shack town) in Cape Town, South Africa, inhabited almost completely by poor black individuals, was in the midst of a protest against poor services delivery. The only word I heard from any of my SA friends was from one person who had to drive through the protest, recounting the shock of riot police, guns, and the smoke of burning tires, praising God and thanking the police that she made it through safely. My fellow white people, I am ashamed. You are focusing on the minutiae, the trees, when the problem is with the forest.

The protest of police vs black violence is not about shaming the police. It doesn't require you to defend the police or discredit the victim and find opposing evidence - there will always be evidence to oppose anything, provided the inclination is there. The issue is about respect and fair treatment under the law, something assumed by many of us white people, but still being fought for by many of our fellow black men and women.

Service delivery protests/riots, while terrifying, are happening because of a real problem. While we recount the horrors and fears experienced as an outsider passing through, let us remember that what many white people have and take for granted, our black brothers and sisters are fighting to obtain - and not because they cannot afford it, but because it has yet to be delivered.

Just because we, as white people, are not immediately impacted is not a sufficient excuse to dismiss the injustice surrounding us in society. When Christ gave the parable of the good Samaritan, he did not say that our neighbour extended only to those who looked/spoke/thought like us. No, the whole point of the parable is that loving our neighbour means seeing the hurt, the maligned, the needy, and doing what we can to help.

And that help? I'm not advocating at all for the White Messiah complex. For help to be actual help, it must be the right type of assistance/aid/support, given in the right manner, at the right time. To make a comparison, if someone drops on the floor, having a heart attack, you don't begin scolding the individual for any habit he/she might have that contributed to his heart attack; you administer CPR or find someone who can. When social injustice is shown, you don't tell the victims they're imagining things or that they've contributed to their own issues; you stop and listen, giving a willing ear and a heart willing to understand, and, should the opportunity present, take some measure of appropriate action.

Are we not called to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn? What would it hurt to take a moment to empathise - to place ourselves, our families in these repeated cycles of injustice? Would it hurt to turn to a black friend, relative, or colleague and simply say, "I heard about what happened. I'm so sorry."? Take the initiative. Put yourself out there in love, seeking to understand or support. Make that connection. If nothing else, it's a start.

That Note about Generous Reassurance

So, 2 Corinthians 9 is Paul's appeal to the Corinthian church to follow up on a previous promise for donation to his work and ministry. The topic of money and giving is always a touchy one for most congregants, especially for those aware of all the prosperity gospel preachers, who then become acutely worried their pastor may be turning into one such individual. (Or, maybe it's just me, because I know I've had moments like that, being the cynic and skeptic I am)

That being said, It's not unheard-of for those in ministry to live off the donations of worshippers, after all, that was one of the reasons for the tithe back in Old Testament times - without it, the Levites would have had nothing to live on. Similarly, today, most pastors live off of either tithes alone or tithes plus a side job. To take an even more extreme example, missionaries rely almost completely on donations so as to not overly burden those they are ministering to (following the example of Paul himself).

So, giving is important, but, as Paul writes here, it is not compulsory:

"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." 2 Cor 9:7

Yes, Paul writes the verse before that one reaps in proportion to what one sows, but it is the verses following that stand out to me:

"And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ... Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness." 2 Cor 9:8, 10

Paul is addressing what I often feel as someone looking to give, particularly outside of tithe. Basically, he's saying, "Don't be afraid to give; God will make sure you have what you need."

That's a pretty critical perspective. If we withhold charity out of fear of not being able to survive without what we'd give, the reassurance that God will give us what we need, in this case as a response to godly, charitable giving, is very, very freeing.

So, then, my question to you, the reader, is this:

What work or ministry are you missing out on because you are afraid to go without?

The Cost of Greatness

"But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.  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 10:43-45 ESV

Servanthood.

In Christianity, the one who is greatest made the least of himself.

Jesus forsook his lofty throne, took on the form of a man, and, in insult to his perfect, holy nature, took upon himself the penalty for the sin of every man who ever lived.

God took upon himself that which he must definitely did not deserve.

The greatest made himself the least for the sake of the lost and lowly.

Why, then, do so many Christians seek their own fame and recognition?

In the words above, Jesus explicitly rebuked his disciples who were seeking position amongst themselves.

Jesus corrected the pride of his disciples. Not only that, however, his words serve to correct the pride of all who claim to follow him, myself included.

As I read these words, I recognize my own unwillingness to humble myself in servanthood to others. Sure, it's easy to serve those who agree with me or act and think like me, but surely God doesn't want me to serve those who hate me or want to kill me.

No, no. Jesus came to serve those who were so deep in sin that they were against him. Jesus saved Paul, who before then was persecuting Christians, capturing and killing them. Jesus saved tax collectors and zealots, that is, thieving Roman sympathisers and murderous anti-Roman extremists. Paul writes in Romans 5:10 that we were enemies of Christ when he died for us.

If the example of Christ is self-sacrifice and servanthood towards others, then we need to get down on our knees and serve.

"That's all well and good," you say, "but where exactly and how am I to serve others?"

The bible talks about that in a number of places. Some that come to mind are Matthew 25:31-46 and James 1:27, feeding the hungry and thirsty, clothing the naked, giving respite to strangers in need, tending to widows and orphans. In fact, to paraphrase James in his second chapter, just do something. Even the devils do something about their belief in God - at least they shudder in fear.

I'm preaching to myself as well, but church, do something. Offer to pray with the cashier at the Taco Bell drive-thru. Go serve at a food pantry. Give some money, food, or a food voucher to a homeless person.

Church, now is the harvest. We were not called to be the overseers, watching the harvest being taken in and collecting our sites. No, as Jesus said after his stay in Samaria, "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."

Our role is to be the harvesters, toiling and sweating over the blades of grain, grassy stalls clinging to salty, perspiration-beaded, fly-bitten, sun-burnt skin.

Christianity was never intended to be pretty or comfortable - and I speak to myself. It's time to get dirty.

Prayer Request

Hey, this is just a prayer request. So, not a major blog post.

A couple years ago, I felt the father calling me to serve in certain nations less open to what I believe. In the last year, however, I've allowed myself to become okay with the idea of serving here in the US, in undeserved parts of the country.

Today, those same three countries came to the forefront of my mind in the context of service.

My request is twofold:

1. That the father's will would be revealed to me, whether at home or abroad.
2. That the father's will would be confirmed to my wife separately.

Tomorrowland, Society, and Christians

This past weekend, my wife and I had the opportunity to go on a date to a movie theatre that was closing (it was where we had our first date, so we absolutely had to have one more before it closed. We chose to watch Tomorrowland, which is an excellent film, though a little intense for younger viewers, but I digress.

The main theme of the movie was that it was discovered, in the 40s, when the earth was going to die, well, the probability was discovered. When Earth was warned, the probability began to escalate as society latched onto this idea. (Disney did their history - this correlates with dystopianism and a rise in a fear of science and its capabilities, and general Malthusianism). Spoiler alert, highlight to read: The plot twist and solution to the issue was optimism, refusal to accept the end, and a willingness to act and change it.

My wife and I sat and chatted over this for a while afterwards, talking about the general distrust of science and progressing towards the prevailing "Doom & Gloom" mentality that society has about the future, how the wealthy, with their ability to choose, limit the poor (see the GMO debate), and how there's plenty present today that would help contribute to a more optimistic outlook, from science, to sociology, to religion, should society actually take the time to educate itself.

You see, as far as the dystopian future goes, advances in agriculture and a realistic concept of the amount of space present on the earth actually detract from malthusian arguments. Of course, this means stepping outside of our immediate bubbles and allowing GMOs to continue. Added to that, we have the whole fear of science, which often isn't really a fear of science, but of what science could do in the hands of someone else, but the answer to both is a better persective of the various redundant safety checks and conventions present in may ground-breaking science technologies, think, for exmple, nuclear power - it's safer than ever before, yet we still only ever think of Chernobyl.

The answer for society, though, comes from deeper issues. You see, as I've said before, Western society is becoming increasingly more insular, with the very divisive belief prevailing that

1. Only you, as the individual, can determine what is right for you
2. You cannot know what others have determined in themselves to be right

These posits are detrimental to society, breeding fear and retaliation based upon fear into every aspect of  modern society.

So, we see all these ills in society, which feed into the continual dystopic outlook, but where does the church fit in?

The church fits in, truly, in three key areas:

1. Faith
2. Hope
3. Love

Faith:

We have the belief that truth is universal. We hold to the idea (in theory) of corporate worship, where the body of believers comes together in community, as one, in support of one another. The church is a powerful vector for a revolutionary social philosophy that works for the building of community - one body of believers, united under the headship of Christ.

Hope:

The church has long held to a twofold hope. The first aspect is that, despite what wrongs may assail us, that God will work all things ultimately for our betterment as a whole. That doesn't mean we will all be rich and well-fed eventually, but that we will have what we need and will be stronger in our faith compared to where we began. The second is the hope of the resurrection, that Christ himself overcame death when he took our punishment and was raised from death three days later. From Christ, we have the hope, based upon faith, that we, too, will take part in the resurrection, being united in fellowship with Christ in heaven.

So far, Faith and Hope have been largely individualised, which is great, for the individual believer, but that doesn't impact society. From just these two alone, we see no effect on the greater perspective of dystopia and ruin that is so prevalent in society today. Ironically, this is where many Christians stop, possibly because it's comfortable, it's easy. Faith and Hope by themselves demand very little of us to step outside of ourselves. Thankfully, we're not quite finished.

Love:

Love is difficult. Love is radical. To truly love another is uncomfortable, irrational, and unwise, but that is exactly what society needs. You see, to love the Lord with all of one's heart, soul, mind, and strength is already uncomfortable - it demands superseding God above oneself. It necessitates the surrender of one's life is every aspect - physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. The second half of Christ's summary of the law, though, is what has the capacity to drastically change the way society lives. 

To love one's neighbour as oneself sounds all nice and catchphrase-y, but, truly, it asks more of us than we imagine. How do we love ourselves? We make sure we have not just enough food to nourish us, but enough to satisfy and fortify us. We make sure we have enough not just for our needs, but our wants. We make sure we have shelter, and luxury shelter at that. We have excellent healthcare, well-paying jobs, top-quality education, and the list goes on. These are things we want for ourselves, things we give ourselves, because, frankly, we want them and we love ourselves in these manners. 

Would we want to live in a dirt-floored, scrap-walled shack, with unseasoned rice and beans whenever what little money we get comes in, no healthcare, no profitable job, and little, if any education? 

Of course not, but that is exactly how the majority of this world's population lives. If we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, then shouldn't we do something about this? A man even asked Jesus what he meant by our neighbours, because, you know, we tend to choose pretty well-off individuals to live near, if we can help it. Christ answered the man with the parable of the good samaritan. Our neighbour is our fellow man. What are we doing, then, sitting in our luxury, not looking after those in need? We should be, as verse 37 implies, doing likewise and helping those in need. Even earlier in Luke, in chapter 6, verses 20-38, we see Christ laying down even further how a Christian should be living. Do you see a common thread? Love is selfless. I was reading this passage this morning and verse 30 stood out to me:

"Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back."

I remember seeing beggars outside every shopping center and on almost every street corner. I nearly cried as I read that, recalling how many times I, with money in my pocket, lied and said I had nothing.

True Love is radical. It is self-sacrificial. We see in some of Christ's last words to his disciples what Love truly entails:

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:12-13

Christ considered as friends all who followed him, but the emphasis here is not on friends, but on the laying down of one's life. We see in Romans how Paul  talks about Christ having laid down his life for not just his friends, but his enemies, those who did not believe in him. If Christ loved us enough to lay down his life for us, friend or enemy, we, who are commanded to love as he did, should be doing the same, should we not?

Love is the answer to our issue today. Church, while we have Faith and Hope, if we do not have Love, how could we ever communicate the difference that Christ makes in us? How else could we even begin to combat the dystopianism and fear so prevalent in society today? We have the answer, but why do we not broadcast that? What do we try and assimilate ourselves into the very same culture from which we should stand apart? Has anyone ever changed the path of a river by flowing along with the current? No, we must stand up and live out what Christ commanded. We must come together and Love those around us - the early church had the right idea, pooling their resources and giving to those who were in need. If we want to make a change in the world today, we need to begin to love radically and lavishly. 

Who cares if the world mocks and derides us? We were already told that would be the case from the beginning. We have an opportunity to speak hope into this society, to avert the cycles of fear and fearmongering in society today, we just need to act now, to lean on God, and to Love.

New Opportunities

Hey all,
I've recently been taken on as a writer over at Church Planting & Missions. It's a missions blog site for Job 31, a men's ministry, which seeks to engage and equip men for day-to-day integrity and ministry.

Needless to say, go and check them both out!

Urgent Worship

Today, something strange happened at church.

Normally, we have a time of worshiping God through song, interspersed with announcements, offering, and prayer, followed by the sermon.

Today began in said manner, with the worship team leading. We made it through the announcements and offering and we just finished a song when the pastor came up and excused himself - one of the church members needed to be rushed to the hospital. The evening pastor had volunteered to cover the sermon with what he'd planned for tonight.

That little difference sparked a massive change. One of the worship team members stepped up to lead the congregation in prayer for their ailing member. There was a change of tone in the congregation that was shown in the following songs - Before the Throne of God Above, and Cornerstone, songs which praise God ad the eternal authority and power, for the ability to bring our burdens and pleas before Him. Standing up on that stage, bass in hand, I felt a renewed vigour in the congregation as they worshiped. As the evening pastor stepped up to the pulpit, he asked if anyone would mind taking his place in the prayer room during the service, to which 5 different individuals came to serve in that capacity.

What was the change? What sparked this renewed fervour and energy in our congregation?

Honestly, I think it was simply urgency. Rather than merely coming to praise God and worship Him for themselves, the church was gathered together as one body and one mind, praying, praising, and worshiping God, crying out to Him with full and heavy hearts. It was as though the service had gained gravitas, a sense of the awe, majesty, and magnitude of God, and the humility of spirit stemming therefrom.

That started me thinking. What if we, the global church, treated worship with that sense of urgency on a regular basis. What if the church had the same urgent spirit about the souls of unsaved individuals? What if the church had the same urgency for others in their congregations or their communities who were in need?

This sense of urgency, sometimes seen in third world or persecuted churches, I have yet to see outside of this instance in those American churches I've been privileged to visit. Not that I'm denigrating these churches - many have outstanding teaching, fellowship, and discipleship. I just don't see that same weight present. I don't see the realisation of pressing need, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual. I don't see that reverence and awe towards God, sparked by acknowledgement of God as sole Power and Benefactor. These are aspects of worship which are missing, aspects which defined the early church - moving in secrecy, under persecution, spreading a message of eternal life and hope for all people, and meeting the needs of the destitute, discarded, and helpless.

Brothers, sisters, I implore you to see the urgency of the Christian faith - possessing a message for the salvation of mankind and tasked with spreading said message for the duration of a time whose end we will not know. We are called not only to "make disciples of all nations", but to "serve the fatherless and the widows" as well and, for all we know, the deadline could be tomorrow!

So, let us not take lightly the burden of our calling. Let us not come to worship with cheap action and empty songs, but let us, as the body of the church, come together as one, moving, serving, and speaking as though tomorrow will never come.

Soli Deo gloria.

On "Children of the World" and Short-Term Missons

So, those of you who are facebook friends may ave seen me bemoaning the misunderstood nature of charities like the Children of the World choir and the role of youth group missions trips. So, in an attempt to clarify where I stand once and for all, I give you my explanation:

On missions trips, I feel that their main role is to help missionaries to meet a task they would otherwise be unable to, due either to a lack of necessary skills or manpower. Examples of this would be disaster relief, healthcare trips, church building, or surveying. Conversely, what I see happening often, especially with youth trips, is that there is not much of a need that is met. Yes, there is exposure and growth from the team's side as they see and experience the great commission and there is community built between the local church and the sending church, but there is often little true progress or achievement and it can end up draining for the receiving missionaries. 

A good example of a large team of students being put to good work is from about 6 years ago, when a professor from Southeastern, took some students to do evangelism work. As part of the trip, they did some surveying, some work with local churches, and they cleared a field. This field, you see, belonged to a school some of my parents' colleagues were trying to start a program with. Normally, it would have taken a month or more to clear the rocks from it and make it usable, but these students did it in a day. As a result, the school allowed the missionaries to run their after school program. 

So, as far as youth trips and other trips go, they have good use and purpose, but they need to be done well and not foster a poor first world - third world perception, which is my second point.

My beef with the Children of the World choir (and other projects like it) is that is exploits the third world and presents a false representation of these nations and cultures. Every time I see them perform, I am reminded of a song by Johnny Clegg, titled "Third World Child," in which the chorus goes:

"Learn to speak a little bit of English | Don't be scared of the suit and tie | Learn to walk in the dreams of the foreigners | I am a third world child."

I know that many of these charity projects do good work. CotW provides good education and quality of life for these kids and brings awareness of people in other countries. The negative is the way that awareness is presented and processed. To me, it looks like the image presented is that they've taken these kids from a poor environment, clothed them, taught them, and are now showing them off. There's no celebration of the individual cultures; it's all homogenised into the American Church experience. The image portrayed, then, is that we, the first world, need to go into the "dark," "lost" third world and give them what they need to be like us, that we need to intervene. What is needed isn't intervention, but investment. We need to send skilled, trained individuals from the first world to train those in the third world in necessary, marketable skills: digging well, building houses, farming, pastoring, etc. In doing so, we encourage self-reliance and foster growth of the local GDP, enabling it to develop, while not forcing an American perspective or ideal overtop the ideals, flavors and actual needs of the particular culture. 

A classic example is Haiti - when the disaster struck, we responded correctly, providing needs. However, we've stayed way too long. It's been a number of years since the earthquake and we're still going and giving supplies. Why? Well, we see that everyone's still poor and needy, but the issue is that they're still poor and needy because there's no incentive to change. After all, the US is always sending people with stuff they need.

So, in a nutshell, my biggest grievance is the objectification of the third world and the reaction thereunto. Second is the manner in which youth missions trips, while beneficial to the team members, often do not benefit long-term either the missionaries or locals.

A Systematic Exposition of Salvation

It has occurred to me that while I may speak of or reference different aspects of salvation, I have not actually put to writing a systematic discourse on my beliefs and reasonings relating to salvation. Therefore, this post has been written. Take from it what you will. If you are here to deride, scorn or belittle, I bid you good day. If you are here out of curiosity or a search for understanding, welcome!

At the beginning is God, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, who, merely with his speech, brought forth into existence time and space, giving everything form and functon for the express purpose of displaying His attributes, an action which, in any other being would be blasphemous and arrogant, but, as God is the supreme being, there is none higher for Him to give service to, making it, therefore, reasonable for God to act towards his glory, spurring the creation of time, space, the details, and man, the pinnacle of His creation, who was imbued with the ability to glorify God in the freest, fullest of manners: by free will, a gift which, at the moment of testing, was used to choose disobedience over obedience, marring the perfection of God's creation, separating mankind from God, because God, being infinitely perfect, righteous, and holy, cannot, by His nature, bear the presence of our then newfound imperfection, but instead, acting out of time, ended the scourge of disobedience at a set point in time foreknown to give Him the most glory, while, acting out of mercy, love, and grace for His creation, inside the flow of time, providing a temporary means of expiation of this disobedience, this imperfection, this sin, through the lifeblood sacrifice of a pure, unblemished animal, setting the stage for the future, permanent atonement for the fallenness of His creation, which occurred through the sending of Jesus, the son of God, who, being fully God, yet fully man was able to identify with and understand the burdens and cares of man, yet was able to live a life pure and without sin, providing a lifeblood sacrifice in accordance with the law set in time previously, the difference being that Jesus, being fully God, is not temporal, is not finite, but, rather, is infinite, able to atone for the sins of humanity past, present, and future and, after his death, was buried, but, three days later, He was returned to life, thereby breaking the necessary consequence of sin, that is, death, as the final part of His sacrifice such that whosoever accepts this sacrifice has his or her sins paid for by the sacrifice of Jesus such that under the eyes of God, it is as if he/she has never sinned, allowing him/her to be rejoined in communion and relationship with God.

Thus ends my expounding of the justifying action of salvation in one sentence.

Under Fire

It might come as no surprise to you that there exist countries in which the Gospel is banned. In some of these, an exposed missionary might get off with as little as deportation. In others, jail, torture, or death. Yet despite the opposition, Christian men and women answer God's call to put their lives on the line so that others might hear of the salvation of God.

To most of the world, this would seem mad and, to a degree, they'd be right. What people don't seem to understand is two things:

1. The Great Commission. The directive to go and make disciples worldwide (whether at home or away) was never a suggestion. It was never an option. It was and is a command and if one is living under and following after Christ, this is a non-negotiable, not from a legalistic standpoint, but from the desire to honor God.
2. Death is not the end. As Paul put it, "to live is Christ and to die is gain." If we live, we continue to serve Christ and to bring Him glory. If we die, we are present with Him in glory - something far better than this world can ever give.

We are called to stand up in the face of opposition and make disciples. We are told to grow in our faith and relationship with Christ so that, when asked, we may give a reasoned defense. We are told to seek God and His glory above all else and God will give us the strength to accomplish the tasks set before us.

We will face trials. We will face persecution. We were never promised the "Christian Dream" of a good job, beautiful wife, lovely family, no troubles, etc. Christ flat out tells his followers in the begging that we're going to have crap thrown our way because we follow Him.

“If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word,they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of My name, because they don’t know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin. The one who hates Me also hates My Father. If I had not done the works among them that no one else has done, they would not have sin. Now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this happened so that the statement written in their scripture might be fulfilled: They hated Me for no reason." - John 15:18-25

So, stand up. Pray for and support those on the front lines, whether they be in Syria, China, Indonesia, or Alabama. Step up to the plate and further the Gospel in your city.

Sometimes we have this perspective of missionaries as honourable radicals and the rest of us as wise men, assimilating into society, staying below the radar so we aren't persecuted, Kind of like these guys:

So, yes, you can run, hide, and you might live. You can step out into the fight and stand bold for Christ and you may die, but at the end of the day, at the final judgment, will you be separated into the sheep or the goats?