Category: faith

Thank you

Mike Huckabee in Plano Texas

From Mike Huckabee:

Dear Faithful Friends,

Last night was a tough one for all of us. While Janet and I stood on the stage, we felt as if we were surrounded by a much larger family than our immediate family. We have been surrounded throughout the process by a large and growing family of faithful friends whose efforts in the campaign have humbled and amazed us day after day. I regularly wept or choked back tears just reading comments on the blog when I realized the sacrifices that so many have made for the campaign.

We had held out hope that we would win enough delegates to keep the contest going, but had vowed that if Senator McCain actually got the 1191 delegates, we would accept the will of the voters. In the end, the relentless hammering of the media that we “couldn’t win” influenced enough voters and while we campaigned long and hard in the final states, it simply wasn’t enough. I congratulate Senator McCain and will do what I can to assist him and influence him to take strong stands for issues that we conservatives cherish.

I don’t see the long journey having reached its destination, but merely taking a detour. As my Marine friend Clebe McLary says, “I didn’t lose–it’s just that the game ended before I got finished playing.”

In the immediate days ahead, we will be transitioning from campaign mode. For 14 months, there have been a lot of things put on hold in our lives. We have to join the many incredible people on our staff to figure out “what’s next?” But this much I can tell you—we want to stay in touch and start now building a platform to continue addressing issues that brought us together in the first place.

Throughout my life, I’ve found that there are sometimes three possible answers to our prayers–“Yes,” “No,” or “Not Now.” I would like to think our prayers were answered with a “Not Now.”

We will keep our website up and as we transition, will want to create a way to keep in touch and continue the battle for our families, our freedom, and our future. We also want to make certain we are doing everything we can to assist key Senate and House races around the country, in places where we feel we can make a difference. You can expect us to be very active online as we do this.

In the immediate time, we have to make sure that we pay all the bills of the campaign and end in the black, help our staff find ways to earn a living, and make sure that we don’t lose the momentum of the past 14 months, but instead follow the plan:

REFLECT, REST, RENEW, and RE-BOOT!

I really welcome your input and thoughts during these coming days. Pray for us as we seek wisdom as to what steps we take now. Despite what some have thought, we really didn’t have a “Plan B’ in the wings–we always thought we’d be in this until the inauguration in January of 2009!

God has been so good to us! We can never fully express our gratitude for all you have done and how you have touched and blessed our lives. I truly hope I didn’t let you down. I promise to you that I gave it all I had to the last minute and left it “all on the field.” What is more amazing is how you were willing to be “poured out” to the point of empty in order to be with us all the way. I stand amazed by it all and overwhelmed with gratitude.

We will dust off, pick ourselves up off the canvas, and answer the bell for the next round, whatever that may be. We love you all, and trust that the journey has just begun!

With tired bodies and grateful hearts,

Mike and Janet Huckabee

—

bummed…

I’m more bummed today that I was last night. I think everyone in the office is pretty bummed. Folks were either voting for Huckabee (very few) or Obama. Obama’s campaign lives on – but I think everyone was sad to see him lose in Texas.
Don’t know what’s in store for Huckabee or the next 9 months, 4 years or 8 years. Wait – 9 months till the general election?….. goodness!

I was reading last night in Everything Must Change before heading to bed and I thought this summary of Jesus may be similar to the hope people feel in their candidates. Sure, no candidate has all the answers. No candidate can please everyone but I think those that jump in behind a candidate feel there’s a sense of hope that this person will be different. This person will bring about change. I’m not really trying to compare political candidates to Jesus – but I’m saying that people are looking for a savior and I think we often confuse that with political leaders or celebrities or friends or loved ones. And when it doesn’t work out – we really feel let down by the candidate themselves, or maybe the other voters.

Maybe I’m just feeling down because I’ve never really been on the losing side of an election. My first presidential election was in 2000 and I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 (the lesser of two evils by 2004).

Either way – I love this picture of Jesus that McLaren paints and the hope that Jesus brings with him.

I pictured Jesus, wandering through the villages of Galilee, walking among his own oppressed and dominated people, people who… had lost hope. Their hopelessness left them paralyzed and powerless between two primary schemes of despair – the violent despair of terrorist resistance or the resigned despair capitulation and collaboration with their powerful oppressors. He didn’t fix all their problems, even though many of them wanted him to and hated him when he didn’t. He didn’t organize any army or hatch a plot or design liberal democracy or create a new get-rich-quick business plan. He didn’t scapegoat anybody – if anything, he kept letting scapegoats off the hook, taking their side to the consternation of their hyperreligious critics.

Instead he simply let the people know he liked them – and so did God…

… And he did one other thing: he told the people something outrageous, something so familiar to us, so familiar to me that it is only in rare moments that I get a glimpse of how wild it really was. It wasn’t an if/then statement – if you do this and this and this, then you’ll get that result. That would have been more pressure, another chance to fall.

No, all he did was tell them that something was already true: the kingdom of God is here. Already.

Totally agree with Riveria here

From NPR:
Geraldo Rivera, whose never been afraid to voice a controversial opinion, believes that “The hostility by some anti-immigrant activists against Hispanics is no different from that directed against earlier generations of Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants.”

“It’s a hysterical whipping up of a mob frenzy on an issue that should be recognized that it is part of a process that makes this country unique,” Rivera (who has a Puerto Rican father and a Jewish mother) tells Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition. “And by exacerbating the differentness of the newcomers, what they do is a gross disservice.”

“Many of the most fervent anti-immigrant activists are themselves the children or grandchildren of immigrants,” he says. “The style changes, the accents change, the geographical antecedents change, but it’s the same. You can track headline for headline the response to the Irish wave of immigration in the mid-19th century to the reaction of the Minutemen and similar radical anti-immigration groups today.”

And he has little time for the argument that some people make about border security being the reason reason behind their opposition to immigration.

“Are you really concerned about ‘border security,’ or are you concerned about the changing demographic face of the United States? [For] example, if it is terrorism that you are concerned about and you want this fence built between the United States and Mexico, why don’t you want the same fence built between the United States and Canada? Why isn’t there this clamor … ?

“It’s not [fear of] crime, it’s not terror, it is demographics that is the true fear. If we wanted secure borders, what about the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts?”

An incredible, shrinking Gospel

I know – I promised I’d go back and talk more about the security system Brian McLaren talks about in “Everything Must Change.” I will – soon (I hope). But as I read on I have to share some of these thoughts….

“The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.” – John Wesley

Wesley was deeply sensitive to systemic justice. He was passionate about abolishing slavery yet McLaren suggests “the concept of holiness (in the modern era) did not retain the profoundly social dimension it had for Wesley, but over time shrank to a matter of personal rule keeping.”

No wonder legalism has taken such a strong hold of people.

Only a fraction of our sins are personal. By far the greater part are sins of neglect, sins of default, our social sin, our systemic sin, our economic sin. For these Christ died, and continues to die. For these sins Christ atoned, and continues to atone… As long as evangelism presents a gospel centered on the need for personal salvation, individuals will acquire a faith that focuses on maximum benefit with minimal obligations, and we will change the costly work of Christ’s atonement into the pragmatic transaction of a salvific contract… The sanctifying grace of God in Jesus Christ is not just for the sinner but also for a society beset by structural sin. – David Lowes Watson

My original thought is, “Is McLaren teaching universalism as some have suggested?” I don’t think so.

“Individualistic theology has not trained the spiritual intelligence of Christian men and women to recognize and observe spiritual entities beyond the individual” – Walter Rauschenbusch

In other words, many of our religious institutions have taught us to see no horizon for the message of Jesus beyond the soul of the individual.

“Our spirituality and the very gospel that we preach, needs to be as big and ubiquitous as sin and evil. We will falter in our spirituality and thus grieve the Spirit if ‘our struggle with evil’ does not ‘correspond to the geography of evil.'” – Eldwin Villafane

Because sin and evil are so “big and ubiquitous” and because the “geography of evil” extends far beyond the dimensions of our individual souls, we need a Gospel that is correspondingly expansive and mind blowing.

McLaren explains:

Sadly, in too many quarters we continue to reduce the scope of the Gospel to the individual soul and the nuclear family, framing it in a comfortable, personalized format – it’s all about personal devotions, personal holiness and a personal Savior. This domesticated Gospel will neither rock any boats nor step out of them into stormy waters. We have in many ways responded to the global crises of our day with an incredible, shrinking Gospel. The world has said, “No thanks.”

How big is your God and how big is your Gospel? Big enough to save your soul? Or big enough to save the world?

Starbucks is closing!

From 5:30-8:30 this evening, there’s going to be trouble. Feet will tap, heads will ache and sweat will trickle down restless foreheads. Starbucks is closing.

6 weeks ago, Howard Schultz took over the reins (again) as CEO of Starbucks. Since then, he’s been on a mission to return the company to its previous form. Today, every store throughout the nation will close for three hours for “remedial espresso training.” Or in Schultz’ terms, “to teach, educate and share our love of coffee, and the art of espresso.”

Wow. What an undertaking! 5:30 – 8:30 on Tuesday nights is a very likely time we’ll be stopping by one of our local Starbucks to grab a hot drink before our community group – as do several others in our group. Might make for restless (or sleepy) meeting time tonight.

Since this news came from CMS – what if our churches closed for one weekend service to focus on staff/leadership etc? What about your place of work – think your boss would close the doors for 3 hours one week to improve your appreciation for your job?

In Memory: Larry Norman

Larry Norman, a legend in the Christian music business passed away yesterday. Norman, a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, was part of the “Jesus Movement” of the 60’s and wrote countless Christian hits, including “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” The song was covered by dcTalk in the mid-90’s and our praise & worship band played that song several times for various events after that.

From Wikipedia:

Larry David Norman (April 8, 1947 – February 24, 2008) was an internationally recognized American musician, singer, songwriter and producer. Norman’s recordings are noted for their Christian and social subject matter and he is often described as the “father of Christian rock music”. Norman has also been described as having had a significant influence on many artists, secular and religious.

Norman has long been associated with what has been referred to as the Jesus People movement of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, although it has been reported that “he did not particularly identify himself with the youth–oriented ‘Jesus movement’ of the time”.

Norman began recording in 1966 and recorded numerous albums. Norman’s first album, I Love You , recorded when he was the lead singer for the group People!, was released in 1968. The bands cover version of The Zombies song of the same name reached number 7 on Billboard magazines top twenty list in June of that year as a single. Norman left People! prior to 1969 and has since performed as a solo artist, appearing both on mainstream and independent labels.

In 2001 Norman was inducted into the Gospel Music Association’s (GMA) Hall of Fame as a solo artist. In 2007 Norman was inducted into the San Jose Rocks Hall of Fame (San Jose, California), both as a member of People!, and as a solo artist. At that time Norman reunited for a concert with People!

Due to reasons of ill health, Norman performed on a very limited basis in recent years. A documentary outlining his career as a troubled troubadour will be out in 2008.

From the Monday Morning Insight:

Legendary Christian Rocker Larry Norman passed away over the weekend. A day before his death, Larry dictated one final letter. “I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God’s hand reaching down to pick me up,” Larry said. “I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home…”

Here’s a post from Larry’s brother, Charles:

Hello everybody.

Our friend and my wonderful brother Larry passed away at 2:45 Sunday morning. Kristin and I were with him, holding his hands and sitting in bed with him when his heart finally slowed to a stop. We spent this past week laughing, singing, and praying with him, and all the while he had us taking notes on new song ideas and instructions on how to continue his ministry and art …

Yesterday afternoon he knew he was going to go home to God very soon and he dictated the following message to you while his friend Allen Fleming typed these words into Larry’s computer:

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God’s hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.

My brother Charles is right, I wont be here much longer. I can’t do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.

My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.

I’d like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.

Goodbye, farewell, we’ll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.

Larry

Goodbye Farewell:

Sweet, Sweet Song of Salvation (Ontario – 1993)