Beyond Bumper Sticker Christianity

I live about thirty-five miles from work, so that means about forty minutes in the car each morning and afternoon. Fortunately, the traffic on the freeways I drive is usually pretty good. It is generally smooth sailing at about seventy miles per hour. There is maybe one or two days per school year when traffic is bad due to an accident or road closures. Like one afternoon this past year, when wildfires surrounded the San Fernando Valley, my car crawled toward home on various surface streets as I tried to avoid the 101 freeway, the only westbound route out of the Valley. Unfortunately, several thousand people had the same idea and my trip home lasted nearly four hours. These rare occasions aside, my drive to and from work is typically a pleasant one.

Having driven that route some five hundred times over the past three years, I just sort of go on autopilot once I get on the freeway. I pay little attention to the billboards and green freeway signs that announce upcoming exits. Every so often, someone will hang a “happy birthday” or “welcome home” banner from one of the overpasses. And every week and a half or so some new graffiti adorns the center divider (I never could figure out how the taggers can stand there and spray paint the cement divider without getting nailed by on-coming traffic). But other than that, the scenery is simply visual white noise (it’s not really all that attractive anyway).

So in order to keep myself from going completely comatose during the eighty minutes I spend in my car each day, I have taken up the activity of people watching. Now, with each car traveling at speeds ranging from fifty miles an hour to over ninety, I only get a split-second glance at my freeway neighbors. I mostly see what you would expect to see: coffee-sippers, cell-phone-talkers, make-up-appliers, and the occasional nose-picker. I have observed a few out-of-the-ordinary sights worth mentioning. Probably my favorite was a shirtless man in a topless BMW who was shaving with an electric razor as he drove down the street. Seeing something like that sort of sticks with you for awhile.

I think that what people do when alone in their cars says a lot about who they are (I’m sure a clinical psychologist would have a field day with shirtless-shaver man). What we do when we think no one is looking can speak volumes about our character. Equally interesting and equally telling is our choice in the car we drive. The kind of car we drive can be very representative of our character and values and self-image. Cars, especially in Southern California, are a status symbol; they show how we measure up to the rest of society. They also, in sometimes subtly ways (and in sometimes very obvious ways), convey to those around us how we see ourselves. I’m sure there are personality tests (if nowhere else than on Facebook) that associate the various personality types to various makes and models of automobiles.

Not only does our choice in car reflect their personality and self-image, but how we adorn our cars says probably even more. I can remember some former students of mine, very hard-working young men, who would save and save to buy the cheapest, yet somewhat socially acceptable car they could find. They would pull into the school parking lot in a coughing and sputtering 1984 Toyota Tercel. Then over the course of the rest of the school year, that car would go through a subtle transformation. First a new chrome-plated muffler. Then a spoiler. Then maybe some detail work on the hood or doors. By the end of the school year, it was a bona fide “Pimp My Ride” wannabe. The amazing thing is that all the add-ons were probably worth more than the car they were added on to.

Perhaps the most fascinating means of automotive self-expression, and the one I have taken most notice of during my morning and afternoon commutes, is the bumper sticker. It’s almost like an archaic form of Twitter; proclaim to the world who you are, what groups you belong to, your political affiliation, or your sense of humor. All in a small, rectangular, adhesive strip. Most of these fall into a few general categories: the activities and accomplishments of our children, sports team loyalties, political advertisements or endorsements, religious themes, and attempts at humor. Most bumper stickers, especially those in the last group mentioned, are trite and clichéd, but every once in awhile there is one that makes me laugh or pause to think. I remember one in particular that I just didn’t know what to make of it. It was all black with white letters that said “F*** Cancer.” I don’t even know where to begin trying to understand that one.

I think that my favorite bumper stickers are the ones that endorse a political candidate who ended up losing the election. Those old “Kerry / Edwards” or even the ever more rare “Gore / Lieberman” stickers make me chuckle every time. Either the adhesive on the back of the sticker is really, really strong, or the person in the car is having a really, really hard time accepting defeat. My guess is it’s a combination of the two.

While I haven’t done an actual count, my rough estimate would be that religious bumper stickers, and especially Christian ones, seem to make up the plurality of stickers I see on a daily basis (I say rough estimate because in the morning I am not awake enough to keep track of the ones I see, and in the afternoon I am usually too tired to care). Growing in popularity are the “Coexist” stickers in which the letters are made up of various religious symbols. Nothing inspires tolerance and understanding and acceptance like white letters on a navy blue background.

The current “in” stickers for the Christian cars appear to be the varied forms of the “NOTW” (Not Of This World) ones. They seem to be what the shiny plastic Jesus-fish were in the Seventies and Eighties, and what the “WWJD” stickers were in the Nineties. These “NOTW” stickers, in their assortment of sizes and aesthetically pleasing shapes, are the new cool way to share your faith with your fellow commuters.

These bumper stickers, along with the “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” and the “In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned” got me thinking a bit (what else is there to do during a forty-minute commute at 6:45 in the morning?). And I came to a conclusion: I don’t like Christian bumper stickers and I don’t plan on ever getting one. Let me tell you why:

First, I don’t see how I could ever be a good witness to my fellow drivers by the way I drive. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a good driver. I haven’t had a ticket in about ten years. I drive close to the speed limit, or at least with the “flow of traffic” (whatever that means). But the problem is that no one ever pays attention to the good drivers; it is only the bad ones we notice. The “God allows U-Turns” sticker on the back end of your car isn’t going to do much good when you cut off the guy in the lane next to you. In fact, seeing that Jesus-fish might even act as a turn-off to the driver left in your dust. Now I’m not saying that Christians are inherently bad drivers; in fact I would hope that the opposite is the case. But as I said earlier, no one remembers the good drivers they encounter on the road. No one comes home from work to tell their family, “You’ll never believe it, I needed to change lanes so I could make my exit, and the nicest woman in a dark blue Volvo slowed down and let me over. She had an ‘NOTW’ sticker on her window. I think it means she’s a Christian. Maybe I should become a Christian too.” Instead it’s more like, “You’ll never believe it. Some idiot in a blue Volvo raced up on me and wouldn’t let me over and I nearly crashed into someone else as I tried to make it to my exit. Oh, and to top it off, that Volvo had a nice, shiny Jesus-fish on the back. Those Christians are the worse drivers.” When I do make mistakes in my car, I know I probably deserve the evil glares and the mouthed swear words that I try to pretend not to notice, but Jesus doesn’t. So why should his name suffer for my bad driving?

Second, these visual expressions of faith don’t seem to be all that effective in actual evangelism. I’ve been a Christian all my life, and I have been to more than my share of outreach events and revival services and summer camps. In most of those types of events, especially those with an evangelistic bent, tend to feature a speaker giving his or her testimony of how they found Jesus (or some might say, how Jesus found them). Many of these speakers’ stories include drugs, sex, gangs, and all kinds of wild and licentious behavior. Then someone introduces the sinner to Jesus and they get saved and are a new person after that. In all of these stories I’ve heard, and like I said I’ve heard a lot of them, not one that I can remember involves a Jesus-fish on the back of a VW bus. I realize I am using the “Proof-by-Lack-of-Evidence” fallacy here, but the point is that most of the testimonies I have heard do involve people who are willing to take time and invest relationally in the lost soul’s life and personally guide them to the Savior. If that is what is most effective, perhaps the five dollars spent on a bumper sticker might be better spent buying that unsaved friend a cup of coffee. It has a much more personal touch.

Third, those stickers, be they “NOTW” or the old-school Jesus-fish, give us Christians a false sense of security. Before leaving earth, Jesus told his disciples to go make more disciples. Paul calls us ambassadors for Christ. We are his representatives given the task of telling others about how Jesus saved us and trying to convince them to put their faith in Jesus as well. But that is kind of scary. It means talking to people about very personal matters. And everyone knows it’s impolite to talk about religion. But what if there was an easier, less confrontational way to let people know you are a follower of Jesus? A way that didn’t necessitate actual human interaction? Enter the Jesus-fish, “NOTW” sticker, the “I (Heart) Jesus” t-shirt, et al. But these things are about as effective as Linus’s security blanket. They give us a sense of comfort, a sense that we are doing our job, but are really not much good for anything (plus bumper stickers of any kind tend to lower the resale value of the car).

This third reason reminds me of the point made in Steven Curtis Chapman’s song entitled “The Change.” In this song, SCC describes not only the bumper stickers and Jesus-fish, but all the other Christian-y paraphernalia that we spend our hard-earned on to tell the world that we are followers of Jesus. This may all be well and good, but he asks in the chorus, “What about the change? What about the difference? What about the life that’s showing I’m undergoing the change?” Sure our cars are a constant reminder that “Life is fragile, [so] handle with prayer” but are our lives a testimony to the truth behind that statement? Do our lives demonstrate that “God allows U-Turns”? Are we truly “Not Of This World” in terms of our words and actions and choices?

So while these outward, automotive displays of our faith may be well-intended, they are not very effective and, if anything, are often counter-productive. So how do we move beyond a mere bumper sticker faith? How do we get the word out about the saving power of Christ? How do we follow through on Christ’s Great Commission?

I’m glad you asked. To answer these questions, another song comes to mind, one I remember singing in my Christian elementary school chapel services. The chorus and the title, in fact, quote Jesus’ words in John 13:35 by saying “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Jesus (who I would say is the authority on attracting followers) said that it is our love for each other that would make us known to the world. Our identifying trait, and what would hopefully attract others to Christ, ought to be the love we show for each other.

I’ve seen this in action (unfortunately not as often as I should). About a year and a half ago, one of my colleagues came home one Sunday afternoon to find his home had completely burned to the ground. Everything was gone. All he and his family had was the clothes on their backs and whatever possessions that were in their car. The ASB at school decided to act; they wanted to help by raising money to provide for this teacher and his family as they tried to rebuild their lives. They put plastic cups in every teacher’s classroom to collect donations, and several teachers offered to shave their heads or dye their hair or perform embarrassing musical routines if they collected five hundred dollars in donations. A week or two later, the fundraiser was over and ASB was set to give this teacher the fruits of their labor. The teachers all paid up on their bets, and the ASB advisor handed the teacher an envelope not with five hundred dollars, but over three thousand dollars. Seeing that outpouring of generosity made all of us teachers very proud of our students. But when I changed hats for a moment and saw this as a parent, my thought was that this is exactly the type of school I want my kids to attend. These are the types of kids I hope my own kids become. This is the type of love that Jesus was talking about. The type that demonstrates we are his followers. The type that attracts others to the source of that love.

So bumper stickers, they provide a momentary break from the monotony of the commute. They give me something to chuckle at or stop and ponder for a moment as I make my way home at the end of the day. But witnessing tool that will help us reach the world for Christ… not so much.

Thoughts on Worship

I've been kicking around some ideas for essays on the topic of worship. In talking to my Writing Buddies, they suggested rather than writing individual essays and trying to market them to magazines or journals, that I compile the essays into a book. The basic premise is to look at and evaluate and make suggestions on our current state of worship. It would be geared more toward the lay participant sitting in the pew, rather than the worship leader or pastor (although they will be welcome to buy and read the book as well).

So before I begin writing, I want to kick around some ideas and questions. I don't want to do a lot of formal research for the book (I don't want it to be a really "academic" book), but I want to get some feedback and interaction on the ideas.Here are some of the issues and questions I hope to address:

1. First of all, what is worship? What would be your "twitter" definition of it (one sentence, 140 characters or less)? Is it simply singing? reading liturgy? corporate prayer? individual prayer?

2. Why do we worship? Some have said it is our purpose in life, why God created us, but is there more than that? If God created us simply to worship him, doesn't that make God sort of narcissistic? How does worship fit into a relationship with God?

3. If we look at the Pre-Fall Garden as God's "Plan A" (the way things are supposed to be), how did worship (or at least what we think of as worship) fit into that picture? What would worship have been like? How would that fit into

4. It would seem that the Old Testament idea of worship and relating to God contained a lot of ritual and sacrifice and formal procedure, and New Testament idea is much more personal and relational (God is our father, and Jesus is our "homeboy"). How do we reconcile these two very different approaches? Should we incorporate the formal ritual into our contemporary worship?

5. Jesus told the woman at the well that God desires those who worship him in "spirit and truth." What does it mean to worship in spirit? in truth?

6. Romans 12 tells us to "offer our bodies as living sacrifice, which is our spiritual act of worship." How do we offer our bodies to God? And how does that equate to worship?

7. Hebrews (I think it's Hebrews) talks about offering a "sacrifice of praise." What does that mean? How might this relate to the OT idea of offering to God our first and best? What is the contemporary equivalent of offering God the first fruits of our crops or the best from our flock of sheep? Do these things relate only to tithing or giving financially?

8. I have noticed a trend in a lot of contemporary worship songs that there are a lot more first-person pronouns than second- and third-person pronouns. The songs seem to be more about our experience of God and about what God does for us, than about simply praising God for who he is. Does this grammatical trend point to a trend in our worship? Is our worship becoming more self-centered, rather than God-centered? If so, how doe we fix that? Do we simply sing more God-centered songs?

9. Is there anything we can learn from other religions about worship? I don't mean to be heretical, but I believe that we have an innate desire to worship. Those who don't know the truth, worship what they see or know. But is there anything in how they approach their gods in worship that we can learn from? Example - the discipline of kneeling in prayer five times a day in Islam.

So, your assignment (should you choose to accept it) is to answer any or all of these questions. Also, please forward this to any friends who might have something to say about these topics. I don't have a lot of the answers myself, and I am hoping that through these discussions and through a lot of thought and prayer, that I can come to some answers (and hopefully turn that into a book so some sort).

thank you in advance for your input.

If I only knew then what I know now...

Today was the last official day of school. I still have finals to give, and meetings to attend, and a classroom to clean, but the year is basically over. I was talking with one of my colleagues this morning; she teaches Senior English. She had her students do a writing assignment about ten things they wish they knew as freshman that might have helped them along the way. She decided to do her own list of things she wished she had been told when she graduated high school. Feeling inspired - and not wanting to grade that last set of research papers - I decided to do the same thing for the seniors in my AP classes. I came up with my list of 11 things that I wish I had been told fifteen years ago (I can't believe it either) when I received my diploma. Here they are:



1. People in college will not be all that impressed with what you did in high school.



2. College professors don't always take attendance, but they do expect you to know and be able to repeat on a test every word that came out of their mouths.



3. Life is expensive.



4. Flipping burgers is not beneath you.



5. Your parents are a lot smarter than you may think they are right now.



6. You will be judged by your appearance, so think twice before you get that tattoo or piercing.



7. Your metabolism will one day come to a grinding halt.



8. The only time you will hear from many of your closest friends from high school is when they update their Facebook pages.



9. Remember you are in college to get an education and a degree. It's not worth $40K per year just to go to frat parties.



10. Sometimes you have to "sell out" or "play the game," whether it's at work or school, so choose your battles carefully. Some hills aren't worth dying on.



11. The best advice given to me: "Keep following Jesus. His ways, not yours."

The Boycott Bandwagon

Here's one I wrote a number of years ago. It was published - and then pulled - from an online magazine. Apparently it ruffled a few too many feathers... I'm rather proud of that.

Disney offers fringe benefits to same-sex partners of their employees, the same benefits they offer to the spouses of married employees. Also, many of their recent films propagate “New Age” and worldly ideas. Scholastic Books sells the Harry Potter series and promotes these books – and others that deal with magic and witchcraft – in the public school system. For a while, Yahoo was allowing adult films to be advertised on their web page, accessible to anyone. Many big chain and local bookstores and video stores sell adult magazines and videos. This list could go on and on. The evils of this world are all around us.

And how do we as Christians respond to this imminent threat? We boycott. That’s right, we boycott the products and stores. We stand on street corners holding picket signs. Then we send emails to all our friends telling them not to support these companies as well.

I remember the first time I heard about the “boycott bandwagon” rolling through town. In 1988, Universal Pictures released Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. While it received a lot of critical acclaim, most Christians “went to the mattresses” over the blasphemous nature of the film. Some even tried to purchase the negatives so that they could destroy them before the film’s release. Pastors everywhere were telling their congregations to boycott Universal. And many in those congregations did boycott Universal, for a while at least.

But in the grand scheme of things, what good has it done? Did we think that with our picket signs and chain emails that we could actually topple these multi-million dollar companies and rid the world of their corrupting influence? I cannot recall a single instance in which one of these companies decided to pull a product off the shelves as a result of protesting Christians. See, I think we’ve been going about this all wrong. Instead of threatening not to buy products or services, we need to completely remove ourselves from all this wickedness. We need to take drastic measures. I have a plan…

We, the Body of Christ, need to band together and have our own state (kind of like what Brigham Young and the Mormons did in Utah). We could become a completely autonomous entity and expel all evildoers from our borders. We would have to be totally self-sufficient, producing our own products to meet all our needs and desires. After all, we couldn’t import anything for fear of supporting some liberal or licentious corporation.

I can see it now. Every home elegantly decorated with Thomas Kinkade prints with strategically placed Bible verses. Every television broadcasting reruns of Leave It to Beaver and 7th Heaven. You could catch a double feature at the movie theater of Left Behind and the Jesus film. Children can be seen in living rooms watching Veggie Tales and playing with their “Little Jesus” action figures. Every car has a Jesus fish and bumper stickers that say, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” Oh what a wonderful world it would be.

Of course there are tons of practical issues to deal with here. But not to worry, I’ve worked out most of those details. We could raise the money by holding car washes and bake sales. Or, if we choose to be a bit more aggressive, we could pursue those user-owner laws (the ones that say if you use a piece of property for x number of years, you can go to court and claim it as your own). Just a few more years of protesting on the sidewalks outside one of these notorious stores, and the place is ours. So, finances wouldn’t really be an issue. And besides, God has a big bank account; He’ll certainly provide.

Taking into consideration the differences in opinion and doctrine amongst various denominations, we could give each one their own county. That way, we would not only be separated from the debauchery of the world, but also from each other.

We would also have to build huge walls around our state and only allow in those who have confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior. Soldiers armed with their swords of the Spirit would guard every possible means of entrance. Along with this wall would be a big bubble to keep out radio and television waves from the outside.

Think of it. Doesn’t this sound great? We would no longer have to worry about our money supporting companies and organizations that don’t line up with Biblical standards. We would no longer have the corruption of the world influencing our Christian lives (think of how great it would be for the children!). All ties and connections with the world would be severed. Certainly this is what Jesus would do, isn’t it?

Spiritual Obesity

Just a little something I wrote awhile back...





“Faith without works… makes overweight Christians.”

Several years ago, I remember reading an article about a lawsuit filed against McDonald’s. This was not your typical hot-coffee-spilled-in-the-lap lawsuit. This one alleged that those Big Macs and delicious golden brown fries made people fat. These people were actually blaming McDonald’s for their obesity. My first reaction was something like, “Well duh, of course eating at McDonald’s everyday is going to make you fat.” The ridiculousness of it all was rather humorous actually.

Then a few months later, a follow-up article appeared. The judge had apparently thrown out the case, restoring some of my faith in our legal system. It was good to know that at least one person involved had a few ounces of common sense.

This whole shenanigan being something that sticks with you for a while, I began to reflect on it in search of some deeper meaning or truth. (Yes, you’d be right in saying I had too much free time.) But something occurred to me. Perhaps I too could take advantage of the overly litigious society in which we live to make a statement. Except I wouldn’t bring a lawsuit against another fast food giant, but against the Church. Yes, I would file legal action against the Church for creating an obese Body of Christ. Now hear me out on this one. I am alleging that the Church today is spiritually overweight, and someone ought to be held accountable.

Ok, for those not catching on yet, I am being facetious. I’m not actually saying we should file a class-action suit against our pastors and elder boards. This condition that I am describing is no more their sole responsibility than the physical fitness of McDonald’s patrons is the responsibility of the chain’s management. But I do believe that we have a problem. Many who fill the pews on Sunday morning are facing a condition of spiritual obesity, which if left untreated, may cause harm to their spiritual well being.

James wrote, “Faith without works is dead.” Without sounding too heretical, I’d like to suggest a minor modification to that passage. I would suggest that faith without works leads to lethargy and apathy, which leads to obesity, which leads to death. Here’s what I mean:

Every one of us red-blooded, born again Christians fills our lives and schedules with spiritual intake. We have church on Sunday, mid-week Bible study, family devotions, personal devotions, and a plethora of Christian living books to read. If this amount of spiritual intake were transformed into actual meat and potatoes, we could end hunger in Africa.

We take in an inordinate amount of spiritual “calories,” but many of us do little to “burn them off,” so to speak. We have faith, but not the actions to accompany it. Sure we do our part by being nice to our neighbors and co-workers. We volunteer for the church rummage sale, or even spend a week as a camp counselor. But for the most part, these spiritual calories just sit, turn to fat, and turn us into overweight, lethargic Christians.

So what do we do? How do we get back in shape? Unfortunately, as with physical fitness, there are no quick and easy solutions. No pills or diet shakes. Dr. Phil and Dr. Atkins are left out of this one. Just like physical weight loss, spiritual weight loss requires a balanced diet and exercise, which unfortunately requires a lot of hard work and discipline.

The first thing we need to do is watch what we eat, or what we take in spiritually. Now, am I suggesting that we cut back on going to church or on personal devotions? Not exactly, but perhaps we do over-indulge ourselves with spiritual food. I think our spiritual metabolism works very similarly to our physical metabolism. Our intake needs to equal our output. If we’re taking in more than we are working out, then there is a problem. We become overweight. So we should either decrease our intake, or increase our output. But I’ll get to that in a second.

In addition to monitoring our amount of spiritual intake, we also need to be mindful of the quality of it. There is a lot of spiritual “junk food” out there vying for our attention and our appetites. This junk food is all the books is all the books and sermons and devotions that make us feel really good, but lack real substance. Our diet needs to have depth and weight to it; real meat and potatoes, not ice cream and Twinkies. What we hear and read should “spur us on toward love and good deeds.”

Along with a good, balanced diet, we need to exercise our faith. We need to regularly put our faith into action, real action that makes a difference. Just like with a physical workout, a spiritual workout should hurt a little. It should tire us out. It needs to involve real activity. We need to get up off our backsides and serve the needy, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless. We need to turn our knowledge of God’s love for us into an active display of that love to the dying world around us.

There is certainly no lack of needs to be met. Whether a world away in the jungles of Africa or right next door, our world is full of people in need. In need of food, in need of shelter, in need of love. It’s our job to get out there and help in any and every way we can.

But it’s not just a matter of meeting needs or helping the less fortunate. This is a matter of our own spiritual health. We need to be out there helping and serving just as much as those people need to be helped and served. It’s good for them, and it’s good for us.

Think about it, then do something about it.

A Class Act

I went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library today. As we approached the front door, I recalled my earliest memory of our 40th president: in fourth grade, my class wrote letters to President Reagan. Awhile later, we got a letter back, along with a picture of him on horseback for each of us. My teacher made copies of the letters for each of us. I still have the letter and the picture in my scrapbook.

As I toured the library and museum with my family, one thing stood out to me (and it wasn't the overabundance of jelly beans). What caught my attention was how classy Mr. Reagan was. From his early days all the way through his presidency, he had style and class and professionalism. One of the tour guides mentioned that he wore a suit and tie everyday in the Oval Office out of respect for the position. The man is the leader of the free world, he could go to work in a bath robe if he wanted to. But no, out of respect for the office, he wore a suit and tie.

Everything else in the museum, in one way or another, pointed to this aspect of Mr. Reagan. He was a consummate professional. I think he brought to the office of the president what the office needs and deserves, something I think it has lacked since he left office.

I was talking about this with my dad after our visit to the library. He brought the conversation around to our president-elect, Mr. Obama. Now, I try to avoid politics here at ThoughtbyWolf, but I do want to make this one comment. My hope is that he will rise to the occasion and be the president that the 53% of Americans who voted for him hope he will be. In addition, I hope he will be a classy president. I hope he will restore to the office the respect that it is due.

My visit to the library that is only a few miles from my house gave me a new respect for the president of my childhood years. It also deepened my respect for the office itself. My hope and prayer is that those who, in the future, sit behind the desk in the Oval Office live up to the position to which they are elected.

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

This last Friday at work, we had a dress-down day in order to encourage the Christmas spirit. Students and teachers were allowed to wear jeans (a sacred privilege) and "Christmas-themed" tops instead of the normal uniform shirts. While I will take any opportunity to wear jeans to work, one of my colleagues brought up an interesting point. He asked, What is the Christmas spirit? and how does wearing blue jeans celebrate it? Again, I was simply happy to have a day to wear jeans to work, but his questions have gotten me thinking. What is the Christmas spirit? What is it that we are celebrating? And can it be done by simply donning a pair of blue jeans?

As a Christian, my reflex response to questions of the Christmas holiday is that we celebrate the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. But those reflex responses rarely satisfy fully. What does it all mean?

John 1 tells us that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory." The Word, God Himself, became flesh and blood. He became one of us. God became a man. (I think it takes repeating a few times to fully sink in.)

We all know why He came, for the manger is placed squarely in the shadow of the cross. You can't look at Christmas without knowing that Good Friday and Easter are just around the corner. But what baffles me is the 33 years that separated the two events. Jesus could have come for a day or two, just long enough to die in our place and be raised from the dead. He could have made it as quick and easy for himself as that. But instead, he chose to be born to a poor, working-class family. He grew up. He was a man who taught the masses and healed the sick. He was one of us. As Hebrews says, he endured all the temptations and trials that we face. He became one of us so that he could be our great high priest. God became a man so that He would know first hand what it's like to be one of us. He spent 33 years with us as one of us. That, I think, is worth celebrating.

But how do all the presents and trees and blue jeans fit into this? I'm not sure that is all that easy of a question to answer. And in writing this, I guess I can only answer for myself. I give gifts because I love the people who are special to me. It is my way of showing that love, and not just at Christmas. I love to give gifts. I guess I could spiritualize it and say that I give gifts because of the gifts God has given me. And that is true to a point. But I give because I want to see those around me happy.

So, through this rambling soul-searching, I guess I would say the Christmas spirit is a celebration of the gift of love given to us. I celebrate it by giving gifts and spending time with those I love. I love those moments of recentering myself at Christmas Eve service at church. I love waking up early and seeing the huge smiles on my kids' faces as they see what Santa - and mom and dad - brought them. I love playing games and playing with the new toys we each received. I love the smiles and the laughter. I love singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus before we have cake after Christmas dinner. I love it all.

And I love being able to wear blue jeans to work.

Two Scoops of Vanilla

I am speaking to a group of about 500 high school students in a few weeks. I will be sharing my testimony. As always, it seems to go better when I write things out; it allows me to sort out my thoughts. So here is the dry run:




My sharing my testimony with this audience is about two years in the making. After hearing someone share a rather dramatic testimony with our students, I spoke to our spiritual life director about the need I saw for the kids to hear a very "vanilla" testimony. One without all the drugs and sex and violence. So many testimonies we hear go something like: "I really screwed up my life, but God fixed it, and now everything is great." I just thought that the kids should hear from someone who didn't screw up their life. Of course, whenever we get those thoughts, it usually means that God wants us to do something about it, not to wait for someone else to step up to the plate.

Back in July, Dale sent out an email to the teachers asking for recommendations for chapel speakers or guest musicians. That email haunted me and bugged me all summer long. I knew I needed to volunteer to share my "vanilla" testimony, I just didn't want to. But not wanting to end up in the belly of a fish the next time I go sailing, I caved in and replied that I thought God wanted me to share my story with the students. Dale was excited, and here I am.

Now my goal today, the reason I share my story, is to hopefully convince some of my listeners that they don't need to experience God's grace the hard way. We don't have to delve into the depths of depravity to know God's saving power. God saved me from all the sex and drugs and rock-n-roll by preventing me from ever experiencing it. He pulled a preemptive strike of sorts. And I am so glad he did.

I was born and raised in a Christian family that was always very active in church. Many of my earliest memories are of going to church with my family. I first accepted Jesus into my heart when I was about four years old. We were on our way to a church baptism/potluck. My brother was going to be baptized that day, and like any younger brother, I wanted to as well. I didn't know what baptism was, I just knew that Bobbie was doing it so I should do it to. From the back seat of our car, I asked my mom what a person has to do to be baptized. She said that they have to ask Jesus into their heart. So I did. In the back seat of the family car. We got to the baptism at the YMCA, and I realized that being baptized meant going into a very large, and very deep swimming pool. I couldn't swim, so I chickened out.

Later on, in about fifth grade, my family went to family camp with my church. It was at the same camp where the original Parent Trap film was shot. Every morning after the Bible study, the pastor offered an invitation for those who wanted to be baptized. While I was somewhat committed to my faith (about as much as your average ten-year-old), I didn't feel I was really ready to be baptized. Until my sister - my younger sister - went forward one morning. I suddenly felt like an outsider in my family. Everyone had been baptized but me. So I went forward to be baptized, but it wasn't for the right reasons.

Through the rest of my childhood, and as I grew into a teenager, my faith was always a part of my life, but not always an important part. It was just sort of something I did. I really knew no different. On several occasions, during a church service or while listening to a special speaker, I would feel convicted about my half-hearted faith. I would respond to the altar call and rededicate my life to Christ. There were probably several of these at Sunday School. I remember going forward at an altar call after a theater group presented a dramatic allegory of the gospel message. But none of these rededications really "stuck." I would read my Bible consistently for a few weeks, then just slip back into my normal ways.

As I got into middle school, I think God started working on me. I had this sense for quite some time that I needed to take my faith more seriously. I needed to either be totally on-fire for God, or just forget the whole thing. But I didn't ever take that step. I'm not sure I really knew how. I remember for quite some time having this feeling of, "I am a Christian, so now what do I do?" I went to a Christian school, I went to church every Sunday, but there seemed to be a piece of the puzzle missing. And someday, I would have to figure out what that was and do something about it.

At the beginning of my eighth grade year, I think God once again tried to get my attention. Four days into the school year, I stayed home from school with a bad cold. That bad cold turned into pneumonia with a whole host of other complications. I was out of school for four weeks, and it took several months to finally be back to full strength. I remember shortly after this ordeal thinking about the verse in Job that says, "The Lord gives and He takes away." I felt that God had taken almost everything away from me: my health, all my school and extra-curricular activities. He wanted my attention. He got my attention, but I didn't give Him my attention long enough to hear what He had to say. So I went back to old habits.

Well, finally the moment came for me to get serious about my faith. Apparently nearly dying of pneumonia wasn't enough. It was my sophomore year of high school. I was on the basketball team (notice I didn't say playing basketball. I wasn't very good, so I sat the bench most of the season.). We went undefeated in league, and had high hopes of a CIF championship. Well, at the same time, my youth group was also preparing to go to Winter Camp. My youth pastor kept bugging me about going, but I would always tell him that I couldn't go because we were going to be in playoffs. But he was persistent in asking, and I was persistent in giving him the same answer.

We made it easily through the first two rounds of playoffs, but faced a very tough opponent in the third round, which happened to be the Tuesday before my youth group was set to leave for winter camp. And we lost. Our playoff dreams were over, and my schedule was now suddenly very open. So when my youth pastor asked me again about going, I didn't have a good excuse anymore. I talked to my parents, and signed up to go.

That weekend, the speaker, who was an associate pastor at my church and also later on my dentist, talked about being a "spiritual champion." He challenged us to go all-out in our faith. Now I don't remember a real defining moment during that weekend; no altar call or anything like that. I just came home committed to my faith and committed to my Savior. Jesus had been my Savior for about ten years before this, but that weekend He became my Lord.

A few months later, during an impromptu hiking trip in Palm Springs on a Sunday afternoon, I was baptized again. A group from my church went hiking in Palm Canyon. We hiked along a dry river bed for quite awhile, then on the way back stopped at the pools formed by the large rocks in the creek. One of the guys in our group asked our youth pastor if he could be baptized, and the pastor obliged. I stood at a distance reflecting on the situation and on my own faith. Seeing me by myself, my youth pastor came up asked what I was thinking about. I told him I was thinking about baptism. He asked, not entirely seriously, if I wanted to be baptized. I said, "Yeah I do." So he walked with me back to the pool, and I was baptized. This time it wasn't because of a family member or anyone else. It was my making a statement as a follower of Christ.

Going to winter camp and being baptized a second time brought about quite a shift in my priorities. About that time I started hanging out with a new group of friends. Before all this I sort of hung out with the "cool kids" from basketball. They weren't really what I would consider friends, they just let me sit with them at lunch time. But one day, I decided to go have lunch with a new kid in my grade. A conversation about Christian rock music started a friendship with a guy named Shawn who is still one of my closest friends. Being friends with Shawn got me involved with doing sound. He played in the chapel band, and they needed a sound man. So even though I had no idea what I was doing, I volunteered. That got me doing sound for school, and for church and youth group.

I also took a year off from playing sports. My freshman and sophomore years I played three sports each year: volleyball, basketball, and baseball. But one night in youth group, I was kind of stressing out about some things. I had a tendency back then - and still do to an extent - to fill my plate too full. I was at a point where something had to give. And it seemed that sports was the thing to go. The thing is, I was actually really competitive when I was younger. Although I wasn't a good athlete, I still had a drive to win. I would lay awake at night after a game, going over play after play in my head. It drove me crazy; I was obsessing over how I played and how I could have done better. But I needed to take a step back from that. So I didn't play sports at all my junior year.

Then something really cool happened. I had a friend who went on a mission trip to Ukraine with a group called Christian Outreach International. They took sports teams and performing arts teams to different countries and used that as a way to connect with the people so that they can share the gospel. Hearing her stories really sparked my interest. So, after a long school year of fundraising, I was off to the Ukraine as part of the COI basketball team. We went to four cities, played some ball and shared Christ with the other teams and the spectators. In the process of all this, God took away that competitive drive. I was able to just enjoy the game for its own sake because we weren't there to win basketball games (and I don't think we won to many. Ukraine has some big basketball players). We were there to win souls. I decided to play basketball my senior year for our school team. We had a great season, but most importantly, my whole perspective on playing had changed.

The last significant change was that I got really involved in my church and youth group, and the spiritual life of my school. My entire junior year, some friends and I would get together at lunch and pray for our school. The school was not a very friendly environment for people who wanted to follow Jesus, even though it was a Christian school. So mostly for moral support, we got together to pray and encourage each other. And as a result, we saw God do mighty things the following year. Many students, even those with the hardest of hearts, turned around and started living for Christ. It was awesome to see. We saw similar things happen in the youth group. A group of us really devoted ourselves to prayer, and God did some amazing things.

Like I said at the beginning, my story is very different from most you hear in these situations because it's not full of the sex, drugs, drinking, and partying. I really didn't even date in high school, mostly because I was too afraid to ask a girl out. I almost dated a girl my senior year. We had the "I like you. Oh really, I like you too" talk, but hadn't officially started dating yet. Then I found out that she had recently gotten pregnant by some other guy before we started hanging out and miscarried very early in the pregnancy. That completely rocked my world. Needless to say, we never actually dated. The experience was sort of a wake up call in that I felt that God wanted me to take my relationships, especially dating ones, very seriously or there might be consequences that I wasn't ready to face.

The closest I ever came to drugs was a guy I hung out with in junior high showed me a joint once. I've never really cared for the taste of alcohol. In fact, I found recently that anything more than a Mike's Hard Lemonade will give me a migraine, so I tend to stay away from the stuff. And I wasn't cool enough in high school to get invited to the wild parties. My friends and I just hung out and watched X-Files. We were pretty lame, I guess.

I was just never exposed to much of this stuff. I mean I wasn't in a complete bubble, I just never got close to any of it. I went to a small Christian school, but that didn't mean I was sheltered from everything the world has to offer. I knew at least six or seven girls just from my high school who got pregnant. I remember some big scandal one time in high school where the principal made a bunch of kids take drug tests. I don't know what ever came of it, but he had to have reason for making them do it. I heard bits and pieces of stories of some of the things guys I played basketball with would do on the weekends. But I just never really had the opportunity to get involved in any of it. And I don't it's because I was some super Christian. In fact probably the opposite. The Bible says God won't let us be tempted beyond what we can handle. Maybe He knew that if I was tempted I would fall and really mess things up, perhaps beyond repair.

I did struggle with some things, however. I had a pretty bad relationhsip with my mom growing up. We just fought about everything, and had the same old fight over and over again. In my mind at the time, I thought it was pretty much hopeless. It just seemed like we would never reconcile things or move on. Fortunately, after I grew up a bit and as she saw that I had grown up, we were able to let go of the fights and we have a pretty decent relationship now. Of course being the first of her children to give her grandkids helped a lot, but that's another point.

I also really struggled with reading my Bible consistently. I still do. I have always been a veracious reader. I can sit down on a Saturday afternoon, bury my nose in a book, and not come up until 200-300 pages have gone by. But reading a page-and-a-half of the Bible takes so long and is so hard. I don't know what it is, it is just the hardest thing to do.

Looking back, though, I can see that there were things I did - and things God did - that prevented my story from becoming more dramatic. First, even though I didn't realize it at the time, my parents did a pretty good job with me. Like I said, I wasn't close to them and I fought all the time with my mom, but they gave me the right opportunities to grow spiritually. Even though it was a big sacrifice financially, they put me in Christian schools kindergarten through high school. They also greatly encouraged my involvement with youth group and with my friends from youth group. They drove me all over town to take me to events, and let me go to just about any youth group event I wanted to. I am very grateful for that support.

As you probably picked up on, I was very active in my youth group, which is a second key to success. I went to the weekly meetings every Tuesday. I went to summer and winter camps. I was involved in small-group discipleship. In addition, I really latched on to a couple of the youth leaders who were willing to invest a lot of time and effort into my life. I had several great Christian role models. They prayed with me and for me, and held me accountable in my faith. And they modeled good godly behavior for me.

Lastly, I had a small group of friends who were committed to each other's spiritual growth. We started hanging out in high school, and continued all through college. We got together weekly to study the Bible and pray for each other and encourage each other. We saw each other through break-ups, and were were all in each other's weddings. We were there for each other through thick and thin. We lived by Hebrews 10:25 that says, "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another all the more as we see the Day of Christ Jesus approaching."

So, why do I share all this? I share my story because there are some out there who want to live a godly life. They want to live for God, but find it really hard to do. Hopefully by hearing my story of how I got through high school pretty much unscathed, they will find some encouragement in that they can make it too. And hopefully by sharing some of my secrets for success, they will find ways to keep themselves from having a "hard" tesimony. We don't have to experience God's grace the hard way. Yes God's grace is infinite. There is no whole too deep that we dig for ourselves that He can't pull us out of. But, that same grace can also prevent us from even picking up the shovel in the first place.