A Confession of Liberal Intolerance.

This editorial from The New York Times came up in my Facebook timeline this morning, and I just loved it. To summarize, the editorial is a call to those liberals in academia to be more ideologically inclusive, and the piece finally admits that liberals maintain a mildly vindictive oligopoly in our colleges and universities:

Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We’re fine with people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us.

I have two more things to say about this article before you read it:

1.) I studied journalism at Ferris State University and felt some of what this guy talks about, that my conservative ideas were not welcome. While it was known I was a Christian and a conservative (and I never faced outright discrimination), I often felt I couldn’t add much to discussions because my convictions weren’t up to snuff.

Continue reading “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance.”

A Case for Busyness

One of my first mentor-friends, Mike, gave me some great advice about work ethic. He said, “Keep hitting the side of the truck to keep the chickens in the air.”

That’s a humorous metaphor for how he lived his own life—he always had something cooking, kept an iron or two (or three, or four) in the fire. He was never complacent, never hung his hat on his life to grow old and fat. What I liked about my friend Mike is that he was always busy, but rarely rushed.

I think Jesus was that way too, and the Gospels show us that if we’re doing anything for the Lord, we will find ourselves busy.

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The Scarlet Letter of Leadership

 

hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Remember in high school English, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter? If you never had the pleasure of reading it, here’s the cliffs notes. The gist of the story is that a preacher in a tiny puritan New England town has an affair with a young lady. He is not punished; she is, and as punishment she must brandish a scarlet letter “A” upon the breast of her clothes. The “A” is for adulterer, of course.

There’s more to the novel, but for our purposes, that’s all you need to know. The woman was forced to wear her shame upon her chest for all to see.

I think that we as leaders sometimes do the same thing. Not the doling of punishment so much as the wearing of the scarlet letter. We do it when we make mistakes.Continue reading “The Scarlet Letter of Leadership”

Why Do We Need to Sing?

 

“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God”  — Col. 3:16

 

Can we be honest about something right now, just you, the congregant, and me, the worship leader? Can we finally admit what we’ve all been thinking, basically every Sunday morning ever? Can we just talk as friends and not dance around this thing that we’ve both been wanting to say for quite some time?

Ok. Here it goes:

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Your Worship Pastor Wants You to Change Christian Music

Merle Haggard died a few days ago, and oddly enough, that makes me thankful for my father.

I say that because my family, albeit unknowingly, was part of the separatist evangelical movement in the 80’s and 90’s. I say “unknowingly” because I don’t think my parents were hateful towards society, I think they just wanted to raise me right. But I was homeschooled. I made a vow when I was thirteen to abandon secular (think, non-christian) music. We didn’t watch R-rated movies at my house. Cussing wasn’t a thing. Drinking wasn’t even in the question. My parents knew that holiness meant we needed to be set apart. They took that very seriously.

And I’m thankful for that. I have moral backbone and a strong faith because of it. However, my dad fudged the rules a bit. He let me listen to outlaw country music. In fact, that’s how I learned to play guitar — strumming along to a Waylon Jennings album. Now I’m a worship pastor. Go figure.

While I missed basically every pop song in the 90’s and early 2000’s, listening to the old outlaws gave me a taste for genuine music. If you didn’t know, the outlaws got their name because they were kicked out of Nashville. They didn’t jive with the bible-belt moralism that dressed country music in a false righteousness. So, they went to Austin, Texas and recorded songs that, while a tad amoral, were original. They sold millions of albums and smoked a lot of weed.

I think my dad thought I was far enough removed from the outlaw’s time to not actually do the things they were singing about. He also taught me to filter the music, to enjoy the good and throw out the evil.

And now my daughter is getting to that age when music is going to become a big part of her life, and I’m a little concerned.

Continue reading “Your Worship Pastor Wants You to Change Christian Music”

On Counseling

lucyMy first semester of college overwhelmed me. A potent cocktail of 17 credit hours, 800 miles from home, and 15 freshman pounds had me on my butt by October. I broke out in hives. I didn’t get a lot of sleep.

My freshman mentor, a pleasant older professor with white hair and a quick smile we’ll call “Dr. Smith” saw the cracks in my glass and approached me after class one afternoon.

“I’m the student counselor here at LeTourneau University. Come to my office tomorrow. Let’s talk,” he said.

I’d never been to a counselor before, but I went anyway, albeit unsure.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. He helped me work through some serious issues I never knew I had. He guided me into God’s grace and truth.

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It’s Not Your Fault: A Response to Matt Walsh

If you’ve not read Matt Walsh’s take on Robin Williams’ suicide, you can do so here.

When I was about 9, my mom’s battle with depression really started heating up. I remember a lot of gray days and mean words; for a while there, she wasn’t a nice person. After almost a year of weight loss, sadness, anger, and frustration, she finally went for help, which came in the form of counseling and meds. And life turned around.

I do not hold my mother responsible for any of the mean things she said, any of the cuss words she thew at me, any of the times she slammed the door and hid in her room for hours. She was sick.

Continue reading “It’s Not Your Fault: A Response to Matt Walsh”