Homosexuality and Junior High Civics

My oldest son is a student at one of the junior highs here in Fort Smith. A week ago he came home and told me that his civics teacher shared her views on homosexuality in class. The gist of her comments were that it's okay for people to be gay and that there is nothing wrong with it. She also made another comment that later in the year they would be discussing this more in class. My son took it that it would be a part of the class material in the future. Apparently the comments of my son's teacher not only caught his attention but also the attention of others as it was a topic of discussion among my son's peers over lunch that same day. A very good friend of my son's (who is also a member of our church) commented over lunch, "Doesn't the Bible say that homosexuality is wrong?"

My son came home telling me all this and several thoughts went through my mind and have been running through my mind over the course of the last week.

First, I am thrilled that my son feels free to come home and share all these kinds of details with me. It could very easily not be this way.

Second, I was struck that, even though he is only in junior high, he has officially joined the "big leagues" of the adult world. It doesn't get more cutting edge, culturally, than a discussion on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality.

Third, I was reminded of the tremendous influence teachers have over students. I have no problem at all with teachers, through the course of a school year, letting students see who they are as people. Even if they do not represent the values we teach in my home. This is all a part of life and I know that I can't keep my children in a bubble. At some point they need to learn how to interact with the world and I would rather them learn this while under my roof and under my guidance than later in life when they go to college.

Fourth, I am very concerned that there would be an extended discussion on homosexuality in the future as part of any class unit. This is a civics course. My brother who teaches civics in an adjacent town served on the task force that wrote the course standards for civics for the State of Arkansas. I checked with him and he assured me there is NO unit on homosexuality as part of the civics curriculum. They will not be tested on it at year end and it is not a bench mark. I am further concerned because any discussion or education on homosexuality in a civics class would prohibit including the Bible and its teachings on the basis of church/state separation, thus it would be an incomplete discussion or education.

Fifth, I was struck by a desire that my son expressed that he really wants to see his teacher bring the topic up again because he wants to debate her from his biblical worldview. This makes me very proud as a father. This whole thing has caused my son and I to talk a lot about homosexuality, why some people think the behavior is okay and why we as Christians do not based on the clear teaching of God's Word. We've talked about how people become gay, are they created that way or is it learned. We've talked about why God prohibits the behavior. And we've talked about God's best for all people, even people who are oriented toward same sex attraction. It's not necessarily the kind of thing I was looking forward to him bringing home from civics, but overall it's been a healthy experience…for my child. Obviously this may not be the case for others in the class.

Sixth, I am reminded that I have to watch very carefully to see what is really going on in my children's classroom(s). I am their parent and I am charged to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

My son's civics teacher is a wonderful woman. My son just loves her as a teacher (he had her last year as well), and he says that she claims to be a Christian. All the interaction I have had with her these last couple of years through conferences and open houses has been positive and professional. In no way is this blog post an attack on a very good teacher.

But, I also want my son's civics teacher to, first and foremost, teach him CIVICS. I have no doubt she is, and the personal social commentary, while appropriate at certain times in the course of a school year, should not make its way into the curriculum of the course.

My wife and I pray for all our children's teachers.

And we will continue to do so…and watch as well.

Blessings,

Jeff

The Angry Leader

There is a curious scene in the life of Moses as it involved the infamous incident with the Golden Calf. You remember, I'm sure, that while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, the people of God were in the valley building an idol. Moses actually tells God to calm down, but when Moses lays eyes upon the scene himself, he explodes with his own vent of anger. He takes the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them and throws them to the ground, breaking them.

Why would Moses do this? These were the Ten Commandments after all. The Bible describes the tablets this way,

Exodus 32:16 (ESV)
The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

Moses took something that God had actually made with His own hand, engraved with His own hand, and destroyed it. Did Moses deserve to be angry because of the actions of God's people? You bet. But as a leader, he should have acted better than to throw a tantrum and destroy these Ten Commandments that were meant for God's people.

I have a friend who pastors a church in a rural part of Arkansas. He is a man of God, has a godly wife and kids, and is an excellent pastor. Recently a deacon in his church attempted to lead a movement to get rid of him. This same deacon was actually on the search committee that called my friend, but he was the one person on the committee that voted "no." This deacon's wife has been known to single out the children of my friend, and to scold and discipline them publically in front of others. It's a bad situation for sure. Things escalated when this deacon, on a Sunday morning, called for a vote of confidence on my friend. I wonder how I would have handled this situation. Did my pastor friend deserve to be angry? You bet. Did he decide to throw his Bible down or kick over the pulpit? No. He handled the situation with grace. He stood in front of his congregation, next to the man calling for this ridiculous vote of confidence, and held himself with great composure. While he may have been steaming inside, he was cool and collected on the outside. What happened next? The people in the congregation overwhelmingly rejected to even hold the vote of confidence. In doing so they rejected the viewpoint of this deacon. Good for this church, and good for my friend.

Moses blew it when he threw down and broke that which God had made. He lost his cool. But Moses is a work in progress as a leader. Did God do away with him? No, BUT God did not ignore Moses' actions either.

Passage for Reflection: Exodus 34:1-4

Exodus 34:1 (ESV)
The Lord said to Moses, "Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

Don't you love it? God wants His people to see these Ten Commandments but this time, God makes Moses cut the tablets out of stone himself. AND he gives him a deadline that requires him to work all night long. Can't you just see Moses chipping away on some giant piece of granite, working to fashion two tablets of stone for God to write on? Each blow of the hammer reminded him that it is always better to exercise control in the face of anger…even if that anger is justified.

So the point of all this? God never gives up on us…but neither does he let us stray from his corrective hand.

"Lord, teach me control. Amen."

Blessings,

Jeff

2.56%

What could we do with an extra $161 billion dollars?

By "we" I mean the Church… Christians.

Every church has only two earthly resources: people and money. And both of these resources are limited. And the second resource, money, comes via the first resource, people.

As a pastor it is my job to get the most out of the people and the money that God gives us. I can tell you that on a daily basis I feel like we bump into barriers due to a lack of both.

According to a recent study by an Illinois research firm, Empty Tomb, inc., it was found that the average church goer gives just 2.56% of their income to their church. Let me put it a different way. For every $1000 someone makes, they give only $25.60 to God. I gotta tell you that's pretty pathetic. Some people spend more than that at Starbucks every week.

It was also estimated by the study that if everyone who attended church would tithe, that "we" would have an extra…you guessed it, $161 billion dollars a year with which to work!

What could your church do if everyone in your church actually tithed?

I'm not talking about giving. Lots of people give. 2.56% is giving. 10% is tithing. And there's a big difference, not only in money with which to see vision become reality , but in blessing.

You see, as a pastor, one of my chief desires is to see all the people of my church blessed to overflowing by God. And the area of finances is the one and only area where God gives us permission to "test" him (Malachi 3) and just see if He won't open the blessings of heaven upon us.

I am broken, not over lost dollars, but over the lost blessing that my brothers and sisters in Christ are missing out on because of lack of obedience and faith.

And yes, extra dollars would be nice too!

Jeff

The Freeing of a Leader

Every leader has followers who gripe and complain. That is because it is in the nature of Man to gripe and complain. We are a species of grumblers. But this can be very difficult for a leader. Leaders, by our nature, want to make people happy and see them growing and moving forward. The truth is that at any given time, there may only be a few people who grumble about this or that, BUT to the leader, those few people can feel like a mob.

Here's the key for dealing with grumblers and complainers. As a leader you must be sold out to God's will; not only for your own life but for the lives of those who follow you. A leader must never make the mistake of seeing him or herself as the top of the food change. No matter what level of leader you may be, even if it is President of the United States, there is always One who is higher than you. God. He is the ultimate Leader of everything and everyone. When you can sell out to this truth and put the will of God for yourself and others as your highest goal, you will find yourself free from the grumbler.

Consider these words of Moses who dealt with an entire nation of grumblers:

Passage for Reflection:

Exodus 16:6-8 (ESV)
⁶ So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, "At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
⁷ and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us?"
⁸ And Moses said, "When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him— what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord."

You see, when God is first, the grumbler is not really grumbling against you, but against God. I think this realization had to be freeing for Moses. He was able to take the criticism and complaints and let them roll off because he understood that the problem with these people was not a Moses problem, but a God problem.

Listen, my friend, as long as you are in the center of God's will for your life and leadership, you are free from the grumbler!

"Lord, thank you that the buck stops with you. Thank you for freedom. Amen."

Blessings,

Jeff

The Leader’s Tent

"Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend."

Moses had a special place where he would meet with God. The Bible refers to it as the Tent of Meeting. We are told that it was just a tent, set up "far off" from the rest of the camp. This is how it worked. Whenever Moses needed to talk to God, he would go into the Tent of Meeting. The presence of God in the form of a cloud would descend and rest at the doorway of the Tent of Meeting. What happened next was both ordinary and extra-ordinary at the same time. God and Moses would talk. That's it, just talk. The human and the Divine in conversation.

What did they talk about? I don't know. It doesn't say. But the Bible does say that their conversation was that like one friend talking to another. I wonder if you or I could ever be that comfortable talking to God. I imagine that their conversation involved the two million plus people that Moses was leading. Talk about a BIG job. Moses was, in essence, the leader of a nation, much like a president or a prime minister. No doubt he felt in-over-his-head on a daily basis. So what did this greatest of all human leaders do when frustrated, or confused, or stuck? He went and talked to God.

I think there is something else interesting about the Tent of Meeting. The Bible says these meetings that Moses had with God were not secret. In fact, it says that whenever Moses would leave the camp for the Tent of Meeting, word would spread throughout the camp and everybody would stand in the doorway of their own tent and watch as Moses would enter and the cloud would descend. The people knew how often and how long Moses would spend with God.

It is said that people will mimic the habits of their leaders. This seems to be the case with Moses and the Tent of Meeting, for while Moses was in his tent talking to God, the people would bow at their own tents and worship God themselves.

It's all a very powerful and vivid picture.

Passage for Reflection: Exodus 33:7-11

How often do you talk to God? Where do you go to speak with Him? Do you have your own "tent" of meeting? Do your family, your friends, your co-workers know that you and God talk? Can you say that you and God are friends?

"Lord, speak to me and I will obey. Amen."

Blessings,

Jeff

The Kind of Person God Uses

I'm in a season right now where I have about 35 plates spinning all at one time. I am spending my days making sure none of them fall and break. It's ALL great stuff and I am having the time of my life.

In the midst of my plate spinning activities, I was handed an old classic book by one of my pastors, Walter Henrichsen's, Disciples Are Made Not Born. I first read this book in seminary and somewhere along the way I gave my copy to someone who never returned it. It was a breath of fresh air to revisit the timeless truth regarding disciple-making. One of my plates is a sermon I am working on for October 18^th. This will be a special day at GABC that we are calling Vision Sunday. We just completed a six month strategic consultation with Lifeway Church services (that's another plate I've been spinning), and the results have given us a roadmap for our future. This little book by Henrichsen and the principal of disciple-making is something the folks at Grand will hear more about on the 18^th.

The first chapter is titled The Kind of Person God Uses. In it, Henrichsen submits 9 characteristics of a potential disciple. And so today, I give these to you to consider and measure you own life against.

1. He has adopted as his objective in life the same objective God sets forth in life.

2. He is willing to pay any price to have the will of God fulfilled in his life.

3. He has a love for the Word of God.

4. He has a servant heart.

5. He puts no confidence in the flesh.

6. He does not have an independent spirit.

7. He has a love for people.

8. He does not allow himself to become trapped in bitterness.

9. He has learned to discipline his life.

Blessings,

Jeff

Never Forget...

This is a haunting video...also graphic in nature.

Given the times in which we live with the maniac, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, serving as Iran's president, this message is even more poignant.