new pics of AG

Valentine's Day



She's a climber!



Easter Sunday on the island.

three rules

Have you ever heard the saying, "you gotta start somewhere"? Although I have heard this maxim many a time, I must confess that I am just now beginning to appreciate the inerrancy of such a sentiment. I recently agreed to work with a group of teens in east Asheboro, which is the location of our outreach ministry. So far we have been on two field trips with this group, each one preceded by a recitation of my three rules. The rules are as follows; no cussing, no fighting, and no making babies. Now to you, these rules may indicate my lack of faith in these young people, or an utter disregard for what most would consider good Christian behavior. But unfortunately, many of these kids have long been immersed in a violent society and have come to place a high value on the elocution of the less accepted members of the English vocabulary. Put simply, they drop the f-bomb like it was Pee Wees secret word. As far as the third rule is concerned, it's no secret that the black female has been reduced to nothing more than a sex object by our sin-sick society. What the white man started by raping his slave girls, the black man has perpetuated by forcing her to surrender her innocence to a video camera. The end result are young women with no sense of self-worth, and little willingness to say no. I say all that to say this.........I'm realizing that it's not my job as a minister to get everyone converted on day one. It's my job to nudge them closer to the Cross than they were when I found them. And for some of these bright, talented young people, keeping the three rules is a giant step toward the Cross. Some days, I'd say two outta three ain't bad.

Whitey McWhiterson

Last month, I had the unique opportunity of participating in a panel discussion as part of the Martin Luther King day festivities. I was the only white person sitting on the panel. I have never felt so white in all of my life. I wouldn't have felt any more white if I had been eating a mayonnaise sandwhich, while singing a duet with Barry Manilow.

All of that aside, it was a great opportunity to interact with the community. One of the questions that was posed to the panel was whether or not we as a society were any closer to the realization of Dr. King's dream. It wasn't until later that I thought of a really good answer to that question. Don't you hate when that happens? At first glance, the obvious answer to that question is yes. We've got more blacks in positions of power, and we've even got a brother in serious contention for the presidency. It's easier now for a black youth to get a college degree, and the days of seperate water fountains seem like ancient history. We seem to be closer to equality now than in days gone by. Yet in truth, King's dream wasn't about equality. It was about unity. When the people join together, equal rights is no longer an issue. Meanwhile history has consistently proven that seperate but equal is a myth. Unless both the population and the power is split 50/50, there will never be equality. And even if their was somehow equal power, the equality would be empty, because we would still be a people divided. King's dream wasn't about two parellel nations experiencing the same quality of life, it was about one nation sharing the same struggles and triumphs as a single, unbreakable entity. So, as long as there is a black side of town and a white side of town we are still an eternity away from realizing the beloved community that Dr. King envisioned. To say that we have arrived when we are clearly still separate is to make a mockery of his martyrdom.

whose fault is it anyway?

Allow me to paint the scene for you......I'm driving through the east side this afternoon, the community where our outreach ministry is focused, and I come upon a nasty two car collision. There's glass and smoke everywhere, most of which is coming from the front end of a Honda which is now smashed beyond repair. As I pull over to check things out, I notice that the second car has already fled the scene, and that two young black males, passengers in the Honda, are doing likewise. By the time the cops arrived, all that was left was the driver of the Honda; an intelligent young woman, dazed, bleeding , and abandoned. Call me jaded, but that scene would not have taken place in the suburbs. But in the mostly black east side neighborhood, not being around when the cops show up is nonnegotiable.

In my efforts to lay the groundwork for future ministry within this community, I've had to come to grips with an uncomfortable truth: There is an epidemic in black America. I realize that this may seem like a politically incorrect assessment coming from a non black, but this is no time to start being polite. I see the proof of the epidemic most every afternoon at the Boys and Girls Club, where the kids can't understand how my wife and I have the same last name. And where anger and hostility are always percolating just beneath the surface. The question is not whether there's a problem, because there clearly is. The question is, " who's to blame?"

Who's to blame for the rampant poverty, drug use, violence, and broken homes? Who's to blame for the pervasive sense of frustration, disillusionment, and lack of ambition? The answer, as far as I can tell is this: People. Black people, white people, all people. As resentful, fearful, and angry as the situation may make us, we must resist the temptation to label this a totally black problem. The projects didn't make themselves. It may infuriate you to drive through the projects and see a twenty year-old mom with more kids than she can handle, and nary-a-one of them fully clothed. But save a little anger for the white collar suburbanites who decided that it would be a good idea to provide monetary rewards for moms who stay single and procreate at break-neck speed. The ideals of welfare, affirmative action, and racial profiling were not birthed in the ghetto. They were birthed out of a corrupt, corporate system that would rather pacify than mobilize. Centuries of irresponsibility on the part of white America has left deep scars on the psyche of black and white alike. When one human views another as inferior, they are both gravely wounded.

I realize that whites are not alone in this. The black population has its share of the blame as well, and they gain nothing from our guilt-ridden pity. But the next time you're driving through the side of town your mama told you to stay away from, remember, you're not looking at the disease, you're looking at the symptom. Instead of cursing the symptom, why not focus more on curing the disease?

The Amazing Globetrotting Infant

From the car seat...

to Florida...

to dad's shoulders...

to Asbury...

and now we are back!

Enjoy!

An insufficient Gospel

The greatest plague on the earth today is a church that no longer believes in its message, and a mass of Christians who are unwilling to throw themselves fully into the hands of their so-called savior. And if the lights were to be thrown on, all would see an army of ministers leaning on everything but God. Do you ever wonder why psychologists are being added to pastoral teams at an ever-increasing rate? Do you ever wonder why your pastors bookshelves are full of self-help books, sold under the guise of Christian living? The answer, I fear, is that we have lost our faith in the Gospel's ability to address our deepest, most urgent needs.

Pastoral care classes have taught us to always have a specialist on speed-dial. We have specialists in every field, from eating disorders to alcoholism. Meanwhile, the only thing we pastors specialize in are referrals. We have become the quacks of the healing profession. Why? Because our medicine, the Gospel, has rarely been proven. It's rarely been proven because it's rarely been tried. Ministers now-a-days are trained as administrators and delagators, and we have largely forsaken our primary tasks of prayer and the proclamation of truth. As a result, we have come to believe more in the power of psychiatry than in the power of prayer. We seem unaware that most systems of psychology have little in common with the Gospel. Self-actualization and self-sufficiency have no resonance with the message of sanctification.

Our faith in Christ continues to weaken because we have given it little to stand on. We have become peddlers of secular humanism, urging our people to manage their sin rather than repent of it. When we do use scripture, we often treat it as a sort of inanimate object that we can grasp and manipulate to meet our own perceived needs. In this way and others, we have placed our religion at the mercy of science. As it stands, we have essentially said to our most hurting people, " Oh I'm sorry, you need real help, and all I have to offer is the Gospel."

Barnyard animals and at-risk youth

I've seen many a fine combination in my day, from Snoop and Dre, to Parton and Rogers. I've stood witness to the powerful one-two punch of Corchianni and Monroe, and can personally testify that the sum of cornbread and pintos is greater than its parts. But I must go on record as saying that nary a twosome has captured my fancy as that which is stated in the title of this post.

In our effort to lay the groundwork for the Bridge Project, it's our joy to work closely with the kids at the local Boys and Girls Club. A few weeks ago, I went along with them on their trip to Happy Hills farm. On that long dirt driveway, two totally opposite entities came in contact with one another; a fugitive bull, and a van full of kids with names like Elrahim, Tazmine, Drakeela, Precious, and Yadira. Up until this encounter, I "thought" I knew what funny was. I was wrong; horribly, horribly wrong. I have now learned that one has not truly known comedy until one has heard the musings of at-risk children on the vagaries of the bovine anatomy. Trust me.

A few days later, while in the gym at the Club, I was witness to another unusual encounter. While the kids were lined up on the wall, waiting for instructions, there appeared in the open doorway, the head of a full-grown horse. He sniffed a couple of the kids, and then hurried off. He was being ridden by a high school student that I recognized from the Club. Oddly, the group seemed utterly unmoved by this event. Apparently the kids had some prior experience with the horse. Enough so that they found his sudden appearance acceptable. One of them even informed me that it was "normal." Here I had to take exception. It may have been a common occurrence. It may have even been a daily happening. But there is simply nothing normal about a young black male, sporting a pair of Air Force 1's, riding a stallion bareback through the projects.

By the way, if you read my last post, you know of my obsession with spell check. You'll be amused to know that every name listed in the second paragraph got flagged. It's yet another indication that the little man who lives inside of my computer is a flaming racist.