unbelief part 1

One of my favorite preachers is a lady by the name of Beth Moore. You've probably heard of her. She is, in my estimation, an anointed messenger of God, and hard proof that God calls women to proclaim his Truth. I was listening to her recently when she said something peculiar. She stated that she had received an almost audible message from the Lord. I turned up the volume and inched closer to the speakers. I'm no seasoned veteran, but I've been around the block long enough to know that, as a preacher, you only get to play the "message from God" card once. I inexplicably used mine up to secure the last piece of chicken at a church potluck. But the message that Beth received was different. It went something like this......"My bride is paralyzed by unbelief."

I was stunned. The more I think about it, the more stunned I become. I had heard that the church was lazy, self-centered, irrelevant, and even ineffective. This message however, painted a much more perilous picture. You see, you can choose to be lazy, and you can choose to be self-centered, but you can't choose to be paralyzed. Lazy people don't move because they don't want to. Paralyzed people don't move because they can't. That means, that unless Mrs. Moore got her lines crossed, the church is in a predicament that she cannot remedy. Her disease runs too deep to answer to will-power.

And what is it that has robbed us of our freedom to act? Unbelief. The very thing that kept the Israelites out of the promised land, has us flat on our back on a gurney of works-righteousness. In the span of history, humans have had no greater problem than unbelief. In many ways, we have had no other problem. Every temptation that we have yielded to has been nothing more than the fruit of an unbelieving heart. Of course we believe in God on some level. We've read much of the Bible, and we can comprehend most of what we hear in sermons. The problem, is that we believe other things more deeply.

-Well that's enough ranting for now. I plan to have more on this subject next week. Hopefully I'll get a word from the Lord between now and then.

Inside-out

Poverty affords depravity no hiding place. No two-car garage to mask the depths of your discontent. No picket fence to fancy up your hatred. No garden to soften the edge of your existential anger. Poverty is stingy with her standards, and unflinching in her demands. She forces you to come clean about your dirt. She stirs you up to speak the truth without the trappings of political correctness. And so, poverty's people walk around inside-out, their broken souls on public display. Fallenness and corruption would never play hide-and-seek in the projects.

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!