I'm not normally one for making New Year's Resolutions. I think they're cliche, and most of them are forgotten about by the time the Super Bowl rolls around. If you become convicted that you need to change something in your life, don't wait until New Year's Day to get it right. Imitate the disciples who immediately left their nets and followed Him.
Having said that, some resolutions are best timed in correspondence with the starting of a new year. The missus and I have talked, and we're both tired of *knowing* that we need to be reading God's Word on a daily basis while *living* as if that weren't true. We are, just like most Americans, "too busy" to find 15-30 minutes a day to spend in the Bible, but can watch 2 episodes of season 3 of The Office before we go to bed. We also both have our fair share of biblical/theological training in our pasts. It's just enough to make us both sound like we know what we're talking about on Sunday mornings, but we both realize the dangers of living off of meals from years ago.
I come from a background in college that hyper-emphasized spiritual disciplines. If you were having seven "quiet times" a week, coupled with regular progress through the Topical Memory System, you could be pretty sure you "meant it" when you got saved. OK, so it wasn't quite like that but a person could get the feeling that failing to keep pace on the spiritual disciplines treadmill was a sign that his "walk" wasn't what it ought to be. The up side of this attack was that I left college with a wealth of biblical knowledge. The down side was that when the pendulum swung the other way, I had enough biblical knowledge to keep me ahead of most other Christians around me, making it easy to find excuses to not crack open my Bible.
Hopefully I've come to a point that I can find a balance somewhere in the middle. I know that if I don't have a system in place, I won't do it. I also know that keeping up with the system isn't the goal, but rather a means to an end. Just like a financial budget (I'm not so great with those, either), having a daily reading plan in place will help me to allocate time to something that I have already decided should be a priority. I also expect that each day of building this routine will make the next day a little bit easier.
We decided that the best plan would be to get through the whole Bible in a year. We both realize that there are going to be days where we fall behind, so Sundays will be our catch up day. Also, it doesn't hurt that it's a leap year so we'll actually be reading through the Bible in 366 days instead of the customary 365. If ever there was a time to go for it, this is it!
Once my mind was made up, the only thing left to do was to find a plan that would get us through the Scriptures in a year. I don't really like the cover-to-cover variety. If a guy can make it through Leviticus, he shouldn't have to face Numbers and then Deuteronomy. Yes, these books are equally inspired. No, they are not as easy to read as Genesis or Acts. Through the magic of Google, I finally found a couple of plans I thought might work. I was originally leaning toward M'Cheyne's Daily Bread. I really liked that it had two passages for reading as a family at meal times, and two to be read privately. The only thing I didn't like about it was that reading one chapter each from four different books seemed like it would be tough to follow, like watching clips from four different movies each day and trying to keep them all straight.
So, I finally settled on a "blended" plan from Back to the Bible. I like that it has just two different readings each day, with about a chapter or so from the New Testament and two or three chapters from the Old Testament. It doesn't jump around as much as some of the "thematic" plans out there since each book is read with the first through last chapters in order. It does, however, jump around in terms of the order of the books (eg. Gen. - Isa. - Ex. - Job…) so you don't get bogged down in any one section or type of literature.
I took some time and put together a PDF with all of the months neatly laid out on three pages. If you're interested, you can download the PDF here. I think it would be kind of fun to have two or three others "out there" keeping the same pace. If you're in, leave a comment to let me know.
Although my favorite passage from the Bible is definitely Footprints, the story of the Little Drummer Boy is a close second. I think Jesus realy identified with the little drummer who was "a poor boy, too" considering that he smiled at the boy while he played. I also like to think of the ox and ass swaying back and forth, keeping time, while the percussive worshipper honored the newborn Savior. I think it's a shame that churches always magnify the role of the magi bringing gifts to Jesus but somehow always overlook the drummer boy. Shouldn't we all be a little more like the drummer boy, anyway? Sure, we can give expensive gifts to Jesus but what he really wants is heartfelt worship… even on a drum. I know if a pastor would preach their Christmas Eve sermon from this passage I would probably go to that service instead of driving around looking at Christmas lights.
Let me preface this by saying that I trust, respect, and deeply appreciate the leadership at our church. That's not just an obligatory disclaimer as I wind up to let 'em have it. Amanda and I really are grateful for the men that lead our church. In the period following the fire, they have been exceptionally steady and their leadership is commendable.
We got a letter in the mail from church the other day with several items worth noting. The first one was related to the upcoming church plant. The church plant needs our prayers and, though it wasn't stated in the letter, they will also need funding.
The second item was about our good friends, Bryan and Jamie O'Donnell. They O'Donnels are moving away in the very near future to serve Christ by raising up worshipers in Japan. They are $28,000 away from having their one-time expenses (i.e. everything it takes to move a family to Japan) covered.
The third item was about the drive to raise money to buy a pipe organ for our new building. I don't know how much you know about pipe organs, but if you're in the market for a pipe organ of even mediocre quality expect to shell out $200,000 or more.
I can't remember where I heard it, but it's a quote worth remembering. "When your at war, you don't buy new tires." That quote came to mind as I read through the letter.
The back story here is that our new building, which we moved into a couple of weeks ago, doesn't have a pipe organ. We're used to having a pipe organ. We are, after all, a Reformed church. We like our hymns, and we prefer anything that came during or before the 19th century to everything that has come along since. We like bricks. We like hymnals. We like dead white guys. We like pipe organs the same way emerging church preachers like cuss words.
Still, it seems almost embarrassing that we would shell out $200,000 to support our Isaac Watts addiction when there are obviously much more pressing needs in front of us. As a result of the O'Donnells work in Japan there will be Japanese worshipers in heaven for all eternity. As a result of the church plant the heart of Lincoln will be transformed and redeemed for Christ as the needs of the people in and around the 9th and D area are met. As a result of a new organ, a bunch of upper-middle-class Christians will get to rock out to their favorite 200 year old songs. Which of these things seems like a priority that might need to slide down the list a few notches?
I should also mention that we already have an electric organ in the building that has worked just fine. As I understand it, we're renting it right now. I'm not sure what *that* organ would cost to buy, but I have it on good authority that a guy can pick up a sweet, portable electric organ for under $3 grand. Let's see… that would only leave $197,000 for the O'Donnells and the church plant to use to go into all the world and proclaim the good news to all creation.
While I think the word idolatry gets thrown around a little too easily in evangelical circles (food is an idol, cigarettes are an idol, your new Wii is an idol), I don't really know what else to call it when someone spends an exorbitant amount of money in order to honor a particular century instead of honoring the King and the advancement of his Kingdom. The building God gave us didn't come with an organ. As a guy who thinks hymns, dead white guys, and organs are pretty great, I think we need to accept that and move on. When you're at war, you don't buy new pipe organs.
Good news: UPS is using software to eliminate left turns, saving the company roughly 3 million gallons of gas since the routing change was made.
Bad news: If you're thinking about shipping something valuable and/or fragile, I would probably wait until Dec. 26th or so. Trust me.
Random reactions and observations on the Omaha mall massacre:
- One of the guys that was killed, 65 yr. old John McDonald, was shopping with his wife when he was killed. Can you imagine seeing your spouse of several decades bleeding and dying right in front of you?
- I spent all morning today thinking that one of the men that was killed was the father of one of my high school classmates. I went to school with a guy named Ryan Scharf who had red hair. Gary Scharf, one of the customers that was killed, was 48 years old, was from Lincoln, and had red hair. I finally found out this afternoon that it wasn't Ryan's dad, but not before spending the entire morning wondering how one copes with losing his father when he is in his late 20's. My grandpa died the week that my dad graduated from high school. Here I am pushing 30, and I can't even imagine how I would handle losing my dad. How does anyone handle something like that?
Gary Scharf did have a son, a 19 year old student at UNL. Unbelievable.
- I'm not normally an emotional guy. I find myself sorting through emotions of sorrow, disbelief, and anger when I think about what some teenage jerk did to those people and their families. He could not possibly know or understand how much he was taking from the victims and their families.
Speaking of victims, Robert Hawkins isn't one. Stay tuned for reports about how he was a good kid, how everyone is completely surprised that he would do this, and that he was a victim of a broken system that didn't give him the help that he needed for his depression and his *gasp* ADHD. I call BS.
This kid was a cold-blooded murderer. He was a coward who killed women while they worked at and shopped at a store in the mall. He raised his rifle up to his shoulder, looked down the barrel, aimed it at these women, and then pulled the trigger. He didn't just go in Rambo style and start shooting at random (as if that would be much more admirable). If you listen to the 911 calls, you hear the shots are spread out over more than a minute. The shots come in bursts, with delays between them. He was picking his targets. He was a coward.
- The answer to stopping crimes like this isn't to take away everyone's guns. I'm not saying that every man on the street needs a sidearm, but think how things would have been different if someone like Joe Horn had been in Von Maur that day. Hawkins pulls his rifle and squeezes out the first three shots, maybe not even hitting anyone. Seconds later he's on the floor and eight or nine people are still alive.
- The more time I spend on this earth the more I realize that we'd have a lot fewer problems if men would be Men. I'm not asking for the moon, but there are some pretty simple suggestions that would make things run a whole lot smoother around here.
1) Only have sex with the woman you are married to.
2) Don't walk out on the woman you are married to.
3) If you and said woman end up with children, don't walk out on them, either.
4) Teach said children right from wrong. Teach them to work hard and be responsible.
That's it. Four little things.
Instead, our society says we should have sex with anyone we want to. We should walk out of our marriage (if we even bother getting married in the first place) if it gets hard or if the puppy-love feeling wears off. Our society says that paying child support is involvement enough in a child's life. Our society says there is no right from wrong, and parents who try to "force" a belief system on their children are dangerous.
I say a kid without a dad and without a sense of morality is dangerous.
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