"Dispatches from Bitter America" - You MUST Read This Book

We interrupt this blog to bring you a commercial. Todd Starnes has done more than knock one out of the park. The award-winning journalist and "son-of-a-Baptist" has accomplished a transfusion for the heart of America. His most recent contribution, "Dispatches from Bitter America" is a homily to much that is still good in our country and well worth saving, certainly well worth fighting for. But the book is more than that, much more. Todd captures the outrage and frustration we feel when we see the country we love disappearing before our eyes.

"Dispatches" is well researched, outrageously funny, poignant, and - to use Todd's favorite word - snarky. Each chapter is cleverly long enough to hold your interest and short enough to keep you reading through the next chapter. Todd has also managed in his own unique way to weave the gospel clearly throughout the book. He is a stand-up guy with an out-front testimony for Christ. Maybe outside of Tim Tebow, who knew you could still do that so publicly in America and live to tell about it?

Buy this book. Read it carefully. You will laugh, cry, be outraged and emboldened to take a stand for America - but you will not be bitter. Better, yes, but not bitter. Todd Starnes is not only an excellent writer and story teller. He is a courageous brother in the Lord and I am grateful for his contribution. I rate "Dispatches from Bitter America" five out of five Nutter Butters. Ya'll might not understand, but Todd knows what I mean.

The Coming Election: Now What Do I Do?

It's January, the primaries have just begun, and already the more conservative candidates are all but knocked out of the race. Now, what do I do? I've been forced to come to some rather uncomfortable realizations ("realisations" for my British friends). None of the remaining candidates are entirely satisfactory to me. None of them are as conservative, as evangelical, or as consistent as I would like. They are all flawed. They are flawed and they spend way too much time focusing on one another's flaws rather than talking about the far more serious danger posed by the prospect of four more years of radical un-Americanism.

So what do I do? How do I decide among so many flawed choices? And let's face it: staying home and not voting - or voting for someone who has no chance - is not really a choice unless I want to re-elect the current President.

I have to come to terms with reality, and reality is this. The most likely nominee, at least currently speaking, is at least light-years more conservative than the current White House occupants and more conservative than the last Republican who ran for the job. Strange how Mitt Romney didn't look all that liberal the last time, but then our comparison was John McCain, not Rick Perry.

Mr. Romney is a Mormon. That bothers me and I'm not in favor of a cult follower as President. But Sen. Orrin Hatch, also a Mormon, ran for President once upon a time, and I don't recall anyone being upset about that. Maybe it's because he had no real chance of being elected. Sen. Harry Reid is also a Mormon. When is the last time you heard about that? He's so liberal, no one notices his Mormonism. And keep this in mind, Mormonism is an American cult. It has a pro-American point of view (Mormons believe the New Jerusalem will be built in America), and a pro-Israel attitude. This presents an interesting choice between philosophies.

Which would I rather have: a Mormon, pro-American, pro-Israel moderately conservative, free -enterprise businessman politician? Or a liberation theology, pro-European, anti-Israel radically liberal devotee of socialist - Marxist economic philosophy?

Duh.

Gone

This is the column I most dreaded, the one I knew would come. On November 19, 2011, my dad went home to be with the Lord. Weeks before in this blog I noted that I could not hold on to my father. Watching him dissolve into the man he became, watching him shrivel to a hollow shell of the man he was, I realized that holding him in that condition, if somehow possible, would have been worse than cruel.

Dad is gone, but he is not lost. I understand Vance Havner's reply when his wife died and someone said to him, "I'm sorry to hear you lost your wife." Havner answered, "She's not lost. I know exactly where she is."

A friend wrote after Dad's passing and reflected upon her own loss, saying "I still can't believe I've lost Dad forever." My heart goes out to her. As I read her thoughts, I said to my self, "You are more right than you know. But my dad is not lost. I will see him again."

This is the heart and soul of all that is Christian doctrine. It is the hope that sets God's people apart from all else - this sincere and absolute conviction of the reality of heaven, the reality of hope, the assurance of eternal life.

I love my dad and I miss him. His passing is still too fresh to fully comprehend. I don't know how I will do without him, but I know one thing for certain: he is not really dead. "He who lives and believes in me shall never die," Jesus said. "Do you believe this?"

Indeed I do. I have a new reason to go to heaven now. A new reason to live for Christ (not that the first reason isn't enough), a new anticipation for what lies ahead. Jesus lives, Dad lives, and so shall I. Far beyond the next few years, we shall be reunited never to be separated again. "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun," we will have "no less days to sing God's praise" than when we first begun.

Old Dog, New Tricks

As the next birthday begins to appear on the horizon, I'm glad to say new ministry opportunities continue to open for me. This is very good news because the last thing I want to do is run out of things to do. Admittedly, the subject of retirement has passed the lips of the wife and my self, but the Lord has ways of saying "You've got to be kidding" to us.

To start, I've been appointed Chaplain of the Perry Township Police Department in Montgomery County, Ohio. Who would have thought such a privilege would come my way at this point in life? (For that matter, I will always wonder why the Lord didn't allow it much earlier but then His timing is always better.) My wife has declared the chaplain ministry my "new toy." I don't know about that, but the police department definitely has lots of "toys" - uh, another column. Anyway, here I am fascinated with the golden opportunity to spread the gospel to an entirely new "congregation." So much for retirement.

Then there was the state conference we attended recently. One of the speakers was at or above eighty years of age and still going strong. I nudged my wife and said, "If I'm doing that well at that age, there's no reason to think about retirement." Suddenly, sixty-one looks awfully young, barely past puberty.

Fresh opportunities and new challenges always give me a charge. Before my latest foray into new ministry, and before I listened to the spunky veteran, I had actually begun to think I might have only a few more good years left. Now I'm thinking decades, at least a couple. After that, we'll just have to wait and see.

Fading, Fading, Fading...

A World War II general is reputed to have said, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." My dad is fading. The old soldier, long forgotten of his medals and citations, is fading like the melting early morning fog. He is but a dim shadow of his former self, and yet the essential life force within him seems bound, restricted by the frail body he inhabits. The soul that is my father is still there, still evident, and yet one cannot help but feel he yearns to be free.

It's hard for me to grasp the enormity of this time or the loss that is about to overtake me. Soon enough, perhaps far sooner than we suspect, there will be another post to say that Dad has passed. Not died, mind you, but passed. "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die," Jesus promised. Indeed, we do not die. We change location. We exchange one life for another.

It was Jim Elliot who said it best, as I recall: "That man is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

I cannot keep my Dad. I cannot keep him any more than I can keep forever any other loved one. But at the same time, I cannot lose him either. I am willing to surrender him for a time, if I must, in order to gain him for an eternity. And so it is with all those whom we love, and that is why we yearn so much that they - like our selves - will come to know Christ as Savior; that we may lose them for a season to gain them for an eternity.

What Have We Learned?

After all the time, money and effort to put on a really good Vacation Bible School - and with really promising attendance to boot - our attendance in church and Sunday School has not been improved in the least. So what did we learn from all our hard work and experience? Here are a few lessons:

1. Our church must have a consistent means of outreach. Otherwise, we are quickly forgotten because a single effort for a brief time is too little to establish regular attendance habits.

2. We must relentlessly go after people. Anything less fails to generate prospects. We must relentlessly witness. Anything less fails to generate disciples.

3. Whether we have an afternoon or evening service doesn't really matter. Whether we have a high quality Sunday morning worship service really matters a lot.

4. Youth ministry will help youth, but it will never by itself grow the church. Witnessing and relationships are the tools that grow the church.

5. After all is said and done, we still have to figure out the most effective and consistent means to reach the public on a daily basis.

So we are not back to square one. In truth, we've never left.

The Dream Fulfilled - They Came!

"if you build it, they will come" - so goes the line from the movie "Field of Dreams." It's a great line for a movie, but it doesn't work in real life. The world is full of projects built and ignored by the general public. So what were we thinking when our church (with a grand total of four kids in Sunday School) began planning the great-granddaddy blowout of all Vacation Bible Schools?

Suppose we build it and no one comes?

Given that our church had never even tried Vacation Bible School in our history - With four kids what did you expect? - we had no idea what kind of response we would gain.

Enter the highly energized youth group from Alaska Baptist Church. This would be the Alaska Baptist Church that's not in Alaska - not that Alaska. They came down from Caledonia, Michigan (yes, that Michigan, land of "the school from up north" for all Buckeye fans.) to undertake a missions project and we were it. In four days time, they blitzed our town, a city of about 1200 homes and 6000 residents. The result? We had more kids attending Vacation Bible School than we've ever had, up to 18 on two days. They came!

But they didn't come back on Sunday.

Whoa! What do you make of that? Simply that unsaved people well practiced in not attending church are not going to suddenly see the light and change their behavior simply because the children attended four days of Bible school. We are going to have to go after them again. And again. And again. And again.

But if we go, they will come. So we have to keep going until they are finally established securely in our church. "If you build it, they will come" - if you go after them.