The Forgotten 93 Percent

    Today, Governor John Kasich added Ohio to the list of several other states that are refusing to accept even one refugee from the war torn areas of Syria and other nations.  This announcement is purely political and is entirely lacking in common sense and human compassion. 

    Judging by the Facebook posts I’ve been reading for two days, I’ve just offended many of my friends. 

I don’t care.

    Why? Because if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are completely ignoring nearly every instruction that Jesus ever gave.

Let me explain.

    It is obviously apparent that terrorists have infiltrated the flood of refugees landing in Europe and elsewhere.  But while estimates of how many terrorists might be among them range from a few to as many as 15 percent, most estimates go no higher than 7 percent.  Still, considering that there are hundreds of thousands of refugees, 7 percent is a lot.  Allowing 10,000 refugees into the United States could mean admitting 700 terrorists.

That is unacceptable.

So why do I think that Governor Kasich and a whole host of other politicians have it wrong?

    Because closing the doors on legal immigrants, even in the face of this enormous threat, conveniently ignores too much human pain and suffering.  Before I get around to Jesus, let’s first take a look at who these refugees are and why they are fleeing to other countries.

    The civil war in Syria isn’t just about one group of radicals who are fighting against the government.  We think that way because we think of the Confederate States fighting against the Union, but that example is just wrong.  In Syria, there are literally dozens of armed factions that are warring, not only with Syria’s government, but against one another.  And so thinking that this is like the Rebs against the Yankees doesn’t really do it justice.  Instead, imagine that every church that you passed this week represented the headquarters of a different armed group.  Imagine that, in your community, the Baptists are fighting the Lutherans, the Catholics are killing Pentecostals, and the Republicans are at war with Democrats.  Not only is your neighborhood a war zone, every week or two, another group tries to capture it from the group that captured it the last time.  Some towns have been blown up and shot up multiple times, churches have been burned, women raped, and entire towns lined up in the streets and murdered.

This is daily life in much of Syria.

    And so, not surprisingly, a lot of people, both Christian and Muslim, have left their homes, their families, and all that they own, to literally walk across several entire countries in hope of finding something better.

Are there “bad guys” mixed in with the “regular” refugees?  Yes.

But those of us who claim to follow Jesus are called to see the world in a different way.  Not through the lens of Democrat or Republican, but through the lens of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

    If we look at what Jesus taught, we won’t find words like revenge, retaliation, or retribution.  We won’t find instructions to hate our neighbor or to fear the foreigners.  Instead, what we find are instructions to be merciful, compassionate, loving, and helpful.  Our mission is to rescue the lost, heal the sick, clothe the naked, and help others find hope and a future so that they too might hear the message of the Prince of Peace.

    We have every right to be concerned about the possibility of allowing hundreds of jihadi terrorists into our country, but that fear cannot allow us to slam the door on the 93 percent who are only looking for a place to live that won’t get blown up next week.

    It is convenient and easy for politicians to preach from a pulpit of fear and xenophobia.  But as Christians, we are not called to follow the teachings of John Kasich or any other politician.  We are called to follow the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t expect us to be stupid or act foolishly.

We remember that Jesus teaches love, mercy, and compassion, but he also said, 

^“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16 NIV)

We are called to be merciful, but to be smart about how we do it.

Governor Kasich and other politicians are looking for easy, and popular, solutions but in doing so they sell Ohio, and the people of the United States short. 

We are smarter than they give us credit for.

We are more than capable of sorting through the refugees and discerning which ones can be allowed in safely.

It won’t be easy.

But we can do it.

And it’s the right thing to do.

Twelve Toxic Attitudes that Kill Churches

    I have witnessed ugliness in the church.  Both as a layperson and as a pastor, I have witnessed attitudes so unhealthy that they become toxic to the health of the church.  Most often these attitudes are limited to a handful of people, but occasionally these attitudes become a part of the church culture.  How much damage is done by these attitudes depends upon how many are present and how many people adopt them.   

Like any poison, the more there is, the sicker the patient is likely to become.

I want churches to be healthy. 

    My hope is that this list will spur a conversation within the church so that we can move toward health.

1)      We don’t want to be challenged – We don’t want to hear about how God is calling us to ministry, or to missions.  We don’t want to be told that we should pray more, or read the Bible, or study.  Challenging sermons tell us that we can do better, and that makes us feel like we aren’t good enough.

2)      We don’t want training – Whenever someone mentions training we know that they want us to do something new.  If we are trained, we will be expected to do more.  Asking us to get training means that you think we aren’t doing enough.  Honestly, we don’t want to do anything that we aren’t already doing.

3)      We don’t want to hear about “evangelism” or “outreach.”  - We’re all friends here, we’re comfortable with the way things are and we really don’t want to meet new people who might want to change things.  We don’t want to go door to door, or pass out tracts, or witness to our friends, family or coworkers.  We know what the Bible says we should do, but that would make us uncomfortable.

 

4)      We don’t want to change – Change makes us uncomfortable.  We don’t want to build anything, we don’t want to remodel the classrooms, or move to a bigger (or smaller) building.  We don’t even want to change the order of worship or try different music. 

5)      We don’t to be too “spiritual” - We don’t want to live differently, talk differently, act differently or memorize scripture.  We fit in the way we are and we don’t want our neighbors and friends to think that we’re “Jesus freaks” or zealots, or radicals or anything.

6)      We don’t want new technology – We don’t use the Internet so we don’t really care if the church uses a webpage, Facebook, Twitter, or any of that online stuff.  We don’t want flat screens or projectors in the sanctuary.  If it doesn’t benefit us, the pastor and staff don’t really need to waste their time on it.

 

7)      We don’t really want new members – We say that we want to grow because we know that we’re supposed to, but we don’t.  If new people come, they’ll have new ideas and want to do things differently.  We would love to have new people who are just like us, but we don’t really want anyone who is different because they might want to change things.

8)      We don’t really want to go deeper - We know that our pastor wants us to spend time in prayer, read the Bible and attend Sunday school or Bible study.  He calls this “going deeper” but we’re afraid that if we learn too much, God will ask us to change.

9)      We don’t want to feel bad about ourselves – We don’t want the pastor to talk about money, or giving (and certainly not tithing) because it sounds like we aren’t giving enough.  We don’t want to hear what the Bible says because we’re afraid that we won’t measure up.  We don’t want to hear about how rich we are, or how poor people live because we might be expected to do something to help.  In general, we don’t want to hear anything that might make us feel like we aren’t what God wants us to be, or that we could do better, because we don’t want to feel bad about ourselves.

 

10)   We expect the pastor and staff to do what we tell them – The pastor is not our leader, teacher or coach.  To us, the pastor is just another employee.  We don’t have to do what they ask, but we expect them to do exactly what we tell them to do, to preach what we tell them, and not to preach what we tell them. 

11)   Church growth is not our responsibility - We pay the pastor to do things like visitation, evangelism, and outreach so we don’t have to.  Growing the church is their job, not ours.

12)   We want a chaplain instead of a pastor - We want someone to tell us that we’re okay just the way we are.  We want someone who will tell us that we are good people.  We don’t want to take care of others; we want someone to take care of us.  We want someone who will be there when we’re sick, make us feel good on Sunday, pray over our covered dish dinners and, when the time comes, conduct our funerals and... close our church.

What do you think?

Have you seen these attitudes in your church?

Are there others that should be added to the list?

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Will You Help to Rescue a Generation?

I want to ask for your help.

    I have been thinking about an idea for ten years but, particularly with the death of my father, I just can’t put it off any more.

My parents grew up during the Great Depression.

    As I grew up, I heard a lot of stories from them, and from my grandparents, about how they survived.  Both Patti and I learned how to save for a rainy day, and how to get by when you don’t have much. Those lessons helped us to get through two years of unemployment and the first few years in ministry when our budget was stretched beyond the breaking point.

    Because many of you have learned those same lessons, during the Great Depression, during your own lives, or by surviving your own struggles, I would like to assemble your tips, advice, and stories into something that, together, we can share with our children, our grandchildren, our friends from Perry Helping Perry, and anybody else that could use some help and wisdom to get them through the lean times.

    To provide you with some ideas and provide a little organization, here are some basic categories of that you might think about: 

·         Saving for a rainy day

·         Kitchen tips (cheap meals, money saving tips, or whatever)

·         Cars (buying, selling, repairs, etc.)

·         In the Laundry Room

·         Clothes (children and adults)

·         Sewing and mending

·         Gardening/canning/freezing

·         Personal care (shampoo, shaving, haircuts, or whatever you think of)

·         In the Garage: Tools, Repairs, etc.

·         Vacation

·         Date nights or dinner out (how to save a buck)

·         Gift giving, Christmas, Birthdays, etc.

·         Needs/Wants/Necessities

·         Personal Stories

    I know that I am certainly missing a few things, but this is just to get you thinking.  I hope that you will write down some of the lessons that you learned from your parents, lessons that you learned from the “school of hard knocks,” and any tips, or pieces of wisdom, that you would like to pass along to your children or anyone else who is struggling to get by.

    Patti and I were able to get through that difficult period of our lives because of the lessons that our parents taught and modeled for us.  But many young people today did not have the advantage of having such good teachers.  

That wisdom lives in people like you.

    I hope that you will share your tips, tricks, tidbits of wisdom, and even your stories about how you survived those lean times and the times when there was more month than money. 

Your wisdom could make a huge difference in someone’s life.

Won’t you please help?

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Reprogramming My Head

    A week or so ago, I returned to my audiologist, John, who programs my cochlear implant.  It’s a little confusing when I describe it, because I still see Walt, the audiologist who takes care of the hearing aid in my other ear.  Anyway, we started out the way that the last couple sessions started.  John connected my implant to his computer and ran through a series of tones to see how my brain was adapting to the electrical impulses from my implant. 

    But before we got very far, he took me down the hall to the soundproof booths that are used for hearing tests.  There, he re-ran the test that was required to be approved for surgery.  In that test, a voice reads random sentences and you have to repeat back any words (or whole sentences) that you can understand.  This test is run one ear at a time, so I took off my hearing aid and listened only with my implant.  I thought I did well, but John seemed excited.  We laughed because one of the sentences said something about the gecko that is on television commercials.  For some reason, John was very pleased that I had understood the word “gecko.” 

    After he did the math and calculated the results of my test, I understood why he was so pleased.  In the same test, prior to my surgery, I had understood 7 percent of the words.  Now, four months post-implant, I understood 70 percent of the words.  No wonder people keep telling me that my hearing is noticeably better.

    After the testing, John tried some more programming.  Whatever he did was too much made everything sound like my head was inside a garbage can, so he tried some other things.  Along the way, we discovered that of the 12 electrodes that were inserted into my cochlea, two of them don’t seem to be doing much.  Ten of them I can “hear” but the last two, while I can “feel” them, I don’t really “hear” anything with them.  For each electrode, John turns up the volume until I say that it is “uncomfortably loud.”  But for those two electrodes, there really isn’t a “loud” and a “soft.”  I sort of hear something, but it doesn’t really get louder as he turns up the input.  What I notice, is that in one ear, instead of getting loud, I can feel the volume pounding in my head much like you can feel a loud bass thump from a big speaker at a rock concert.  I feel it more than hear it.  The other electrode is similar, I don’t hear it or feel it, but instead, at high “volumes” I can feel my head hurt.  It’s like I have a bad headache that pules with the beat, on, off, on, off, on, off. 

    In the end, John turned off those two electrodes.  His thinking is that if these electrodes aren’t working by now, they aren’t going to.  Most likely, they are in a part of the cochlea that has more nerve damage and isn’t really “talking” to my brain anymore.  In any case, my implant can function with only four electrodes, so I should be just fine with ten.  Before I left, John finished reprogramming everything using the ten working electrodes, as well as some additional changes and enhancements that I now have to get used to.  It wasn’t as much as he had hoped to do, but we’re still moving forward.  John said that for being only four months after my surgery, he felt I was doing very well.

And so the adventure continues.   Not with giant leaps forward, but with baby steps.

But forward is still forward.

Onward.

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Join the Adventure!  

Earlier posts about my hearing adventure can be found here: My Hearing Journey.
Read them all or just catch up on what you've missed!

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Surgery and Recovery

The deed is done. 

    A little over two weeks ago I received my new cochlear implant.  I had hoped to post sooner, but mine was not, apparently, a model recovery.  While it was expected that I would be off work for one week, it turned out to be a bit more than that, and while the dizziness and nausea was supposed to pass in two or three days, mine lasted considerably longer.  In any case, I am now back to work and gradually getting back up to speed. 

    As I recovered, I took a few notes in case others are interested in comparing their own recovery.  I don’t suppose that many people will be interested, but my purpose in writing is so that those facing implant surgery might be realistic and not envision their recovery with rose colored glasses.

    The surgery it self was easy.  I slept through it.  Afterward, I felt fine but was likely still under the influence of anesthetics and several pain killers as well as anti-nausea drugs.  Once home, I slept most of the day.  From my, now deaf left ear, I heard noises.  I had read that I might experience ringing in my ears so I was curious what might happen.  I did hear some ringing but also something like distant boat horns.  Overnight I slept, but with a gigantic pressure bandage over my ear, along with the pain, I only slept about an hour at a time.

    On day two I slept a little less.  I heard ringing, but also a sound like wind in the trees before a thunderstorm.  If I looked down (a bad idea) I heard a single tone like your audiologist uses in the soundproof testing room.  My head hurt, but much of the discomfort came from wearing the pressure bandage.  It was sort of like how your foot feels when your hiking boots don’t fit.  As the meds from the previous day wore off my headache got worse.

    On Day three the compression bandage had finally come off, which was great, but I stopped writing things down.  Why?  I felt like poo.  I had been wrestling with post surgical pain, headaches, dizziness and nausea as expected, but also had a runny nose.  Initially, I assumed that it had something to do with the implant surgery, but my wife (Patti) reminded me that two of our kids had been sick the week before and I might have picked up a bug on top of everything else.  Regardless of the cause, aches and pains turned into a full blown, flat on my back, sick to my stomach, head-pounding migraine.  During this time, Patti reminded me that my post surgical instructions were to keep moving and that the more I moved the quicker my nausea would clear up.  The problem was that I felt too awful to do anything.

    By Sunday (Day 6) I stayed home from church but was well enough to get up, shower, get dressed and go to my daughter’s high school graduation and then out to dinner with the family.  It was a great day but I paid for it on Monday.  I don’t know if I overdid it or if whatever bug I had rebounded, but I woke up with a headache again.  After doing a few things in the morning, I ended up back in bed sick the rest of the day (headache, nausea, dizziness, etc.) and was again sick all night. 

    The good news is that Tuesday was better and by Wednesday I was back to work.  At work I was still a little wobbly (not quite dizzy, but not really steady on my feet either) and by Sunday I was in the pulpit preaching.  With hearing in only one ear I sounded weird to myself, but everyone assured me that they could hear and understand me just fine. 

    The oddest thing was the new sound that I hear in my left ear.  Have you ever listened as you dragged a drinking straw in and out of a cup with a lid at a fast food restaurant?  In one direction it squeaks, and in the other it makes a weird kind of ‘hoot’ sound.  For days, whenever I walked, with each footstep, I heard that ‘hoot’ sound.  Hoot, hoot, hoot, everywhere I went.  Weird.  Today, this has mostly stopped but I still hear it occasionally and while I continue to improve, I am still fighting daily headaches and just a bit of occasional dizziness.

    Perhaps this isn’t exactly a textbook recovery, but that’s usually the kind of luck I seem to have.

    I went in for my post surgical follow-up a few days ago and the doctor said that everything looks really good.  He will see me again for my activation in three weeks. 

Stay tuned, I guess.

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Earlier posts about my hearing adventure:

T-minus Two Weeks and Counting                    May 5, 2014

Cyborg Adventure: Realistic Expectations         April 15, 2014
Managing Expectations                                     March 24, 2014
A New Cyborg Adventure                               March 12, 2014
Reflections on Going Deaf                                June 30, 2011