An Incredibly Humbling Experience

Rarely do I post on Sunday, but something happened today that I have to share.

Today our church did our annual patriotic salute service (many churches in America do similar services, ours was probably not that different). Several friends had asked me if I was going to be wearing my Air Force uniform, and convinced me that I should. So I showed up to church this morning wearing my Air Force Service Dress.

It was a good morning, I accepted several compliments from friends and church members on my uniform and my service. It always humbles me when people thank me for my service. Being a young chaplain and a reservist, I often feel like I haven’t done much yet. Still, I remember that when I wear that Air Force uniform, I represent not only myself, but many many other brave Airmen who have served and continue to serve our country. I accept thanks on behalf of them.

After the church services were over, and we had heard personal testimony from Lt Col Brian Birdwell, USA (Ret.), we were planning to go to lunch a few folks from the singles class I teach. It turned out that none of the folks we had invited were able to come to lunch with us, so Kelly and I made a new plan and went off to lunch.

While sitting at the restaurant, having just ordered, an older couple came by our table. They had finished their meal and this retired Lt Colonel and his wife stopped by to thank us and to let us know that our bill had been paid.

I didn’t know what to say, but I managed to say, “thank you.”

A few moments later the waiter came by (himself an air force vet, we learned) and told us that our bill had been paid, and (mistakenly) pointed out another couple. Incidentally we learned from this second couple that they had offered to buy our meal moments after the first couple (who had been sitting at the next table) had paid for us.

All this floored me. I couldn’t believe how generous these folks were, and to us. Again, I recognize that I have the privilege and responsibility whenever I wear that Air Force uniform of representing others who serve in far worse conditions that I do, and with greater valor than I may ever be called upon to show. Words cannot fully express the sense of humility that I feel at receiving the undeserved honor and favor of a few patriotic men and women.

When we gave thanks to God, I must admit that I thanked Him with a fresh conviction and a sense of thanksgiving which I have rarely had before. Times like these remind me of the undeserved favor that God shows each of us, and also of the sacrifices of the men and women who serve our country.

To those who serve, I salute you. I thank each of you for your service, great or small as it may be. I pray today that God would place His hand of protection upon those in harm’s way, that He would heal and comfort those who are hurting, and that He would bring those serving away from their families safely home. In the midst of all this I ask that God would make His presence manifest around those who serve, that they might recognize it and turn to Him.

Once Again, I must say “Thank You.”

NAMB unveils new church care plan for chaplains

This week at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Louisville, the North American Mission Board is revealing a new plan that seeks to minister to Church Staff members who are serving as military chaplains and their congregations. The plan involves some new resources for the Pastors and congregations to prepare for when Reserve or Guard chaplains deploy.

As a reserve chaplain and a member of a church staff, this seems like a really neat idea. Here’sthe story and here is the page with the new resources. I expect these can be some very helpful resources for churches and pastors as they deal with the difficulties that come from long absences, increased stress, and readjustment at the end of a deployment.

Book Review: Lone Survivor

While I was traveling, I picked up a paperback copy of Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell.
I had heard about this book by listening to Glenn Beck, who has had Marcus on his show several times before. As a fan of almost anything military, I thought this would make for a good read, and if I say so myself, I was right.

In Lone Survivor Marcus tells his story–this is a non-fiction book–and the story of SEAL team 10. The first half of the book involves Marcus’s account of his Navy SEAL training at BUD/S. Now, having watched a documentary on BUD/S on the Military Channel, I think I had a much better understanding of some of the things he talked about (and could certainly visualize things much better).

The second half of the book discusses his role in Operation Redwing, an operation where Marcus was the only survivor of the worst massacre in the history of the Navy SEALs. Marcus tells what happened, and how he survived and returned home to tell the tale.

Telling this story is something that Marcus had to do. He honors the men he served with by remembering them, and their incredible heroism in the worst of circumstances.

After reading this book, I feel like I know Marcus. The storytelling is fantastic, and the book reads like an action novel, but it is all too real. I laughed many times, and I cried like a baby a few times. I can now have some semblance of understanding as to why Marcus says he can no longer sleep at night. He hears his friends calling out to him in the quiet moments, but now he will never be alone in remembering them. He has told their story, and I am grateful.

I give this book the highest recommendation to those who love stories of our military (and can stomach or overlook the violence and langauge). What a great read!

Return from Europe

Kelly and I got back this week from an amazing trip to Europe with a group from Liberty University. It was great to see some old friends, make new ones, and to see some amazing new places.

I may get the chance to put a few pictures up, but for now I’ll just tell you how the trip went.
- we began the trip with a weekend in DC, where the airport for our group’s departure was. It was fantastic to visit our nation’s capital again, to see the monuments and museums, and to meet some friends who live around there.
- We made our overnight flight to Austria from DC, and it was challenging with unhappy babies on our 7 hour flight, but the service provided by the Luftansa crew was superb. After changing planes in Frankfurt, we continued on to Vienna and got to tour that amazing city.
- In Vienna we saw one of the palaces of the Hapsburgs, some spectacular churches, and we also sampled some great local cuisine.
- Our next stop was Budapest. This was truly a unique experience, being my first visit to eastern Europe. We saw some great sights in the city and cruised on the Danube. Budapest was one of the unique places we visited, with such a different language and currency (theirs was almost 200 to our 1, so it was like 450 for a coke). Still, I was amazed at the dominance of our American culture even in eastern Europe. They had American clothes, music, and food.
- From Budapest we stopped in Bratislava, Slovakia for the afternoon. This was one of my favorite stops because we got to see a great part of town, and talk to some fantastic people. After the brief stop there we continued on to Prague.
- Prague was a very historic city. We visited Prague castle, the St Charles Bridge, and toured much of the old city. Here we saw some very old churches, an historic clock in the city square, and even took a ghost tour in the evening to learn more about the city.
- From Prague we traveled to Berlin, stopping for lunch in Dresden. Dresden was an amazing city, and I would love to return again to see the palaces and museums. I was happy this time just to try a local brat and learning to order ice cream in German.
- Berlin was one of my favorite places on our trip. We saw checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall, visited some historic buildings including one bombed out church, the Reichstag (the home of the German parliament), the Brandenburg Gate, and several other places. We missed out on the Pergamon Museum and a few others (Berlin is known for their many museums). There was much to see and not enough time.
-From Berlin, we took a night train to Paris. It was great to wake up to the French countryside, and views of little villages with old churches at their center. I didn’t get pictures of these because it was one of those things cameras can’t capture (especially from a train traveling about 100 mph). In Paris we briefly visited the Louvre. We also saw Notre Dame Cathedral, we cruised on the river Seine at night after visiting the Eiffel Tower. Amazing. There were many new tastes, sights, and sounds there. Paris was another great place, though perhaps my favorite part was our visit to Montmartre (our guide pronounced it “Mamatra”) and seeing the Sacre Couer (the Basilica of the Sacred Heart).
- After Paris, we traveled to Calais, where we crossed the English channel into England. From there we went immediately to Canterbury.
- On our way from Canterbury to London, the bus broke down –not fun–but we managed to make it to our hotel in London in time to go to bed before midnight. The one day in London was not nearly enough, but we did get to see several sights, including touring the British Museum and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Sadly, after that it was time to return home.

We arrived back home and were able to recover from our vacation on sunday and monday.

The trip of a lifetime

Kelly and I have been planning for about a year now and, as of this weekend, we will be heading to Europe!

About a year ago a friend of ours who serves on faculty at Liberty University, our Alma Mater told us about a trip he was taking. We found out that this tour would take us to Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Paris, and London. Knowing, that this was too great an opportunity to pass up, we registered and began saving for this trip. Now, we’re on the verge of embarking on our journey across Europe!

We’re very excited, and look forward to putting up some pictures when we return. This will be my second trip with EF Tours, the company that has arranged our trip.

So I will be out of communication for the next couple of weeks (although I’ve been pretty scarce on the blog recently anyway). If you think of us keep us in your prayers as we travel. And let us know if you have any recommendations for things we should see/do on our trip.

Steve Harvey Introduces Jesus

It’s exciting to see a man like Mr Harvey using his influence to point to Jesus. Here Steve Harvey introduces Jesus:

HT:Ron Moore at HolyCoast.com

Who’d have guessed…

that this middle-aged British woman would have a voice like this? You should definitely check this out.

Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent
Uploaded by dwarthy

Thanks to Rick Moore over at Holy Coast for sharing this video.

Article asks: Can anyone win the Medal of Honor and live to tell the tale?

I read a piece in the Air Force Times this week about the Medal of Honor. If you know anything about the recent history of the Medal of Honor, you might know that only a handful of our servicemen have been awarded this medal in the Global War on Terror. You might also know that all of the recipients have recieved the medal posthumously (i.e., the action for which they won the medal also cost them their lives). So it makes more sense then that this article is entitled “Death before this honor.”

The article makes for an interesting read, and it does bring up a question that is valid. Since when does someone have to die in the midst of a heroic duty to receive America’s highest military honor? Also, if no living person will ever be awarded the Medal again, for practical purposes, does it really still exist? There is quite a list of benefits and privileges which are given to the winners of the award, and I would argue that this is a good thing; but what will happen once the 98 living recipients inevitably die?

Is the award unattainable? Should it be? Are there people who are now serving who have performed acts of heroism worthy of this award?

If You Really Want to Sell Your House…

I have several friends who have homes for sale. Some of them have had homes on the market for quite some time. My wife works in the real estate sector, so I hear lots and lots of stories about this. Let me say up front that I’m not going to offer some tactic that will sell your house. If you’re looking for key words for your listing or a magic bullet I don’t have it for you, but I hope you’ll stick around anyway.

In times of a depressed (and perhaps depressing) housing market, people turn to all kinds of remedies to sell houses. Today I want to highlight one that I’ve recently seen again. When I was in a local Christian store recently I saw someone purchasing a statue of St Joseph, not unlike this one:

This got me thinking, is it an acceptable practice for Christians to use St Joseph statues to try to sell houses? Stick with me for a second while I briefly digress. Several years ago, as a teenager I remember an incident that happened to me. I received one of those common email forwards promising that I would be granted a certain wish if I forwarded it to enough of my friends. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well I did forward it to my friends, because there was something that I desperately wanted — perhaps you can relate. I remember clearly a Christian friend who took me to task after receiving my forward. I still remember what he said to me: “If there is something that you really want, you should pray for it.”

I was ashamed, because as a Christian I had succumbed to the allure of superstition. I was trying to get something, essentially through a form of magic. Now let’s bring it back. The principle is the same, if you want something, you ought to ask God. The Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17).

If you bury a piece of plastic in your yard, that has absolutely no power to sell a house. Why would it? How could it? If God desires for you to sell your house, He can accomplish that with or without plastic in the yard. Let me encourage you to ask God for what you want. Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 7 that they should ask God for what they want, because God is a perfect father and wants to give good things to His children.

I know that if you’re trying to sell a house, and especially if it’s been a long time, that you can get desperate. I don’t have a good answer as to why your home hasn’t sold yet. Right now, I pray that you will seek God, and that He will give you wisdom and comfort, and also that He would lift this burden from you. I’ve got nothing against St Joseph, but when it comes to who has the real power, remember that it’s God who is in control, and He has a plan.

If you really want to sell your house, ask God for it to sell, hire the best realtor you can find, and trust God.

Program-Driven is Yesterday’s Paradigm

A friend just recently sent me a copy of a Lifeway survey entitled, “Our Ministry to Families.” It is a diagnostic tool for churches to see how well they are ministering to families. Here’s what’s on the diagnostic: On the one side are categories of plans and ministries (read programs) that churches might offer, and then there are some spaces for rating whether the church currently has this program, intends to have it, how they rate their program, and how well the congregation knows about it.

I appreciate Lifeway, and the many services that they provide us as Southern Baptists. However, it seems like the paradigm that this tool was built upon was clearly a program-based church ministry. Program-based ministry simply doesn’t work in the long run. (I imagine Dr Rainer — author of Simple Church — didn’t sign off on this one).

Program-driven ministry doesn’t work because it assumes that church activities are the same as spiritual health. The fact is that this simply is not so. While we have traditionally thought that those who were in the church “every time the doors were open,” were the most spiritually healthy, lately more and more churches are recognizing that spiritual maturity doesn’t (indeed can’t) get accomplished simply through programs at a church. Individuals must have personal growth as well, and this means far more than simply doing stuff at a church.

To learn more you can check out some of these resources:
Simple Church
Purpose Driven Church
Seven Practices of Effective Ministry

What do you think?