A Greater Vision

Yesterday my "co-evangelist," Mike, and I delivered a joint sermon titled "A Call to a Greater Vision." I think we really challenged the church to be more Christ-like. So, here are the main points from that vision. Are these all NT principles, or did I pull this out of my head?

We want to be a church that:

• Promotes unity by focusing on Christ.
Jesus is the core of the gospel message. The whole human drama pivots on the life, and the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. He is the target around which everything else revolves. We need to be known as a church committed to holding up Christ, and preaching Christ, as we say with Paul, “for I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

• A diverse church, reflecting the racial and social demographics of our neighborhood.
I’m not talking about the kind of enforced diversity and inclusion that our culture champions. I’m talking about us living the truth of the gospel, because if we are clothed with Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

• A church committed to biblical authority, resisting the pressure to conform to cultural relativism or blind traditionalism.
We have always said that we take our stand on the Bible, but it is an ideal that has not always been lived up to – in our desire to be faithful to scripture there are two extremes we want to avoid: We do not force scripture to conform to our modern culture, and at the same time we need to avoid the opposite extreme – forcing scripture to say things in order to hold up long-held traditions, some of which need to be left in the past.

• A church whose worship pleases God, edifies visitors, and equips Christians to lead holy lives and be evangelistic.
Worship begins and ends with God. He is the center of our worship because He is present when we worship. Worship is not so much about checking off a list of activities as it is about God taking my life and shaking it up until my priorities are the same as His. Worship must bring to an end the idea that I am at the center of my own life. Worship has got to lead to changes in my life and behavior.

• A church that promotes spiritual growth among believers.
I’ve heard it said that the modern church is a mile wide but only an inch deep. We want to be known as a church where converts are taught and nurtured and where, together, we never stop growing, and we never stop becoming more and more like Christ.

• A church that meets physical and spiritual needs.
If we are going to be like Christ, then we have got to stop, like he did, and meet people’s needs with whatever means we have.

• A church that provides ministry opportunities for all members.
We want to be the kind of church where there are no pew-warmers, where everyone has something to do, where people feel like they are a part of something special and meaningful because we are not a club, we are the body of Christ on earth, and every one of us has a part to play in God’s redemption of the world.

• A church that promotes healthy families.
By God’s design the family is the building block of our society, and we want this community to know that this church welcomes all sorts of families, and that this is a place where fathers and respected, and mothers are honored and children are loved and nurtured.

• A church committed to more intimate fellowship with each other, and more effective witness to the world.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Whenever God calls someone into a relationship with Him, He always puts that person into a group of like-minded others. This is why the NT speaks of the “family of God.” We are bound together by faith and blood. We have been commanded to love each other, to live in harmony together, to forgive, and encourage, to serve, and lay down our lives for each other, to share our possessions. In a world that is characterized by loneliness, isolation, and self-centeredness, we are supposed to provide a striking contrast.

We followed by calling the church to engage in 40 days of prayer so that God will bless our vision and evangelistic effort.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict by the Numbers

Okay, I'm still having serious Africa withdrawals everyday, but let's shift gears for a minute. Since the recent London bombings (which are especially disturbing to me since our team travelled to London the day of the bombings) I've heard all the usual tripe about how support for Israel (and now also the Iraq war) have brought this on the British. So, naturally, in my compassionate-conservative attempt to understand the underpinnings of why young Islamo-fascist goons turn violent, I have pondered the "Arab-Israeli conflict." Thanks to the genius of Dennis Prager, who offers up the following succinct by the numbers analysis, it all makes sense to me:

Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old Testament: over 700
Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran: 0
Number of Arab leaders who visited Jerusalem when it was under Arab rule (1948 to 1967): 1

Number of Arab refugees who fled the land that became Israel: approximately 600,000
Number of Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries: approximately 600,000

Number of U.N. agencies that deal only with Palestinian refugees: 1
Number of U.N. agencies that deal with all the other refugees in the world: 1

Number of Jewish states that have existed on the land called Palestine: 3
Number of Arab or Muslim states that have existed on the land called Palestine: 0

Number of terrorist attacks by Israelis or Jews since 1967: 1
Number of terrorist attacks by Arabs or Muslims since 1967: thousands

Percentage of Jews who have praised the Jewish terrorist: approximately .1
Percentage of Palestinians who have praised Islamic terrorists: approximately 90

Number of Jewish countries: 1
Number of Jewish democracies: 1

Number of Arab countries: 19
Number of Arab democracies: 0

Number of Arab women killed annually by fathers and brothers in "honor killings": thousands
Number of Jewish women killed annually by fathers and brothers in "honor killings": 0

Number of Christian or Jewish prayer services allowed in Saudi Arabia: 0
Number of Muslim prayer services allowed in Israel: unlimited

Number of Arabs Israel allows to live and vote in Israel: 1,250,000
Number of Jews Palestinian Authority allows to live in Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory: 0

Percentage of U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolutions condemning an Arab country for human rights violations: 0
Percentage of U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolutions condemning Israel for human rights violations: 26

Number of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the Middle East between 1948 and 1991: 175
Number of these resolutions against Israel: 97
Number of these resolutions against an Arab state: 4
Number of Arab countries that have been members of the U.N. Security Council: 16
Number of times Israel has been a member of the U.N. Security Council: 0

Number of U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel: 322
Number of U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning an Arab country: 0

Percentage of U.N. votes in which Arab countries voted with the United States in 2002: 16.6
Percentage of U.N. votes in which Israel voted with the United States in 2002: 92.6

Percentage of Middle East Studies professors who defend Zionism and Israel: approximately 1.
Percentage of Middle East Studies professors who believe in diversity on college campuses: 100

Percentage of people who argue that the Jewish state has no right to exist who also believe some other country has no right to exist: 0
Percentage of people who argue that of all the countries in the world, only the Jewish state has no right to exist and yet deny they are anti-Jewish: approximately 100

Number of Muslims in the world: more than 1 billion
Number of Muslim demonstrations against Islamic terror: approximately 2

The Little Girl Who Made Me Cry

I'm finally home in good ole Abilene, Texas. The last four weeks have been a whirlwind. When I got into Dallas on Saturday afternoon I felt like I needed to wrap my head in duct tape to keep it from exploding. So many far away places, so many people, so many experiences and emotions, good food, bad food, no food, dust and dirt, at least one "near death" experience, a meeting with a traditional tribal chief, and almost every other experience you can fit into four short weeks. Sometimes I felt like an American visiting Africa, other times I felt like an African who lives in America. To recount all the experiences and emotions would take forever, so let me put the crux of the trip into this little nutshell.

Tuesday, June 28th: We drove to the Chadiza district on what may or may not have been a road to do 2 medical clinics - one in Chadiza, and one in a little village called Kabvuwa right on the Mozambique border. You cannot imagine a poorer or more remote place on earth. The crowd welcomed us with a song, and then we got to work. We dispensed pills, we cleaned sores and burns, and we pulled teeth. With my preaching duties done for the day I decided to help one of the nurses (Laurie Hanson) with wound care. A young girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old, wearing a bright blue shirt came to us with a severe infection in her eyes. They were swollen, and full of puss. With water and cotton swabs we cleaned out her eyes. The poor girl was clearly in severe pain. But when I looked her in the face, and we made eye contact she flashed me a beaming smile like I had never seen before. It was a look of relief and gratitude and true happiness. In the poorest, most remote spot I had ever been to a little girl showed me true happiness. The emotion of the moment flooded over me, and I couldn't hold back the tears. I had to sneak around the corner and sit in the vehicle for a few minutes so the rest of the team wouldn't see me not smiling.

I'll never know that little girl's name, but that's why we keep going back to Zambia. Despite the bad food and rough roads, that's why we go. God bless Africa.

"I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane"

Goodbye friends. Our plane (777) departs DFW at 4:35 pm today. I am so excited, I can't even eat breakfast. I have one whole case full of medicines. This trip is going to be so great. It's always good to be back home in Africa. We will arrive in Malawi on Thursday morning, and then drive over the border into Zambia. The Lectureship will be held Friday through Monday (I think I'll preach/teach twice a day), and then we hit the road with the medical team. We'll see some pretty remote villages. After criss-crossing the country I'll arrive in my hometown of Port Elizabeth, South Africa on July 7. I'll check in then. Goodbye and God Bless.

Africa is Calling

Well it's only 6 days before I leave for Zambia. I can't get any work done I am so excited! I really love to travel and to meet people. Two years ago John Hanson (team leader) and I kept a journal. Here's a short excerpt from one of the days we travelled up the Zambezi River to a little village. I felt like David Livingston! Anyway, enjoy the read. This is what I have to look forward to:

Day 14: Sunday, June 29, 2003.
"What a beautiful morning. After a good breakfast, we set off for the river and on to the next leg of our adventure. The boat ride down the Zambezi was magnificent. The river was fairly calm, but you could see how strong the current was, and we would not want to challenge that kind of power. The scenery was without equal, and it was neat to see all of the villages on the side of the river with their hand-dug wooden canoes. Along the way, we saw about 4 pods of hippos, a herd of water buck, and some impala, and then a large troop of baboons. Some of the hippos were out of the water, and it was neat to see such a huge animal running quickly to the safety of the water. After a fifty-minute boat ride we arrived at the Kavaramanja area. We tied the boat up to a tree on the bank, and scrambled like goats up the steep bank to continue on foot. The trail followed a dry sandy creek for about a mile to the village. Along the way we found several elephant tracks and a fish eagle came soaring close overhead. He looks very similar to our bald eagle. As we entered the village we were met by Daniel Mulenga, a principal of the school and a member of the church. He escorted us to his house where we waited for the congregation to assemble. The church met under the largest fig tree that any of us had ever seen. Moses Hall brought the lesson to about 30 people. After the service, the people asked lots of questions, primarily about baptism. One man, named Peter put on our Lord that day when we returned to the Zambezi River and then walked up stream about half a mile to a sandy beach. While Wellington performed the baptism, we kept watch on some nearby reeds to ensure a crocodile did not come our way. We also kept a sharp eye on the river itself in case one came from the deeper water. Africa still holds many surprises for us."

Aid to Africa

In response to the U.N., Tony Blair and George Bush discussed ending poverty in Africa this week. This is a stage-setting visit for the upcoming G8 summit in Scotland. Now Rick Warren and other evangelical leaders have drafted a letter to President Bush urging him to double the amount of U.S. aid to Africa.

Since this blog is dedicated to “hostility toward every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” let’s get our minds straight on this one because this guilt trip we’re all on is tyranny over the mind. But first, this disclaimer: Africa is not the "cause of the month" for me. I love Africa. Africa is my home. I was born in Africa. I lived in South Africa for the first 20 years of my life. The sounds, the smells, the tastes of Africa are real to me. And the people are wonderful. They are full of joy. They are welcoming and hospitable. I’ve been to Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. I’ve seen the Cape of Good Hope, climbed Table Mountain, smelled the pines of Tstsikamma, seen Victoria Falls, and stood at the convergence of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique in the Luangwa Valley. I’ve gone by boat up the mighty Zambezi to villages like Kavaramanja, Chadiza, Kalomo, Lundazi, and many others. In 12 days I’m going back to Zambia as part of a team to help train preachers and take medical care to remote villages.

So, with my credentials as a “compassionate conservative” in hand, I need to say that anyone who believes President Bush's Africa initiative will amount to more than a hill of beans is whistling Dixie. Most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people. Let's look at it.

According to the Hoover Institution, two-thirds of African countries have either stagnated or shrunk in real per capita terms since independence in the 1960s. Most African nations today are poorer than they were in 1980 - by very wide margins. Poverty is not a cause but a result of Africa's problems. According to the Netherlands-based Genocide Watch, since 1960, around the time of independence, about 9 million black Africans had been slaughtered through genocide and mass murder. The Democratic Republic of the Congo leads the way with 2,095,000, closely followed by the Sudan with 2 million, Nigeria and Mozambique with a million each, Ethiopia 855,000, Rwanda 823,000, Uganda 555,000 and hundreds of thousands more in other countries. There are a couple of especially sad observations one can make about this ongoing tragedy. The first is that if an equivalent number of rhinos, giraffes and lions had been similarly slaughtered, the world would be in an uproar. We'd see demonstrations at the U.N. and African embassies. The second is there was one African country that was the focal point of mass demonstrations, moral outcry and economic reprisals. It was South Africa – my childhood home. But was South Africa the worst in terms of black lives lost? It turns out that about 5,000 South African blacks lost their lives during apartheid. Do you see anything wrong with that picture? World silence in the wake of millions upon millions of black lives lost on the rest of the continent, but world outrage in the case of South African apartheid and 5,000 lives lost? Might it be that us white Africans are held to higher standards of civility, thus our mistreatment of blacks is unacceptable, while blacks and Arabs are held to a lower standard of civility and their mistreatment of blacks is less offensive? This is the bigotry of low expectations, an annoying trademark of the smarmy do-gooders.

But wait, there’s more. According to the World Bank it takes two days to incorporate a company in Canada. In Mozambique, it takes 153 days. And Mozambique's company law has been unchanged since 1888. In the midst of the unending demands that Bush do this, Blair do that, do more, do it now, would it be unreasonable to suggest that, after 117 years, the government of Mozambique might also be obligated to do something about its regulations? Meanwhile, next door in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe's government is being given hundreds of thousands of tons of emergency supplies from the UN's World Food Program. At the U.N. the head of the WFP emphasized that the famine was all due to drought and Aids, and nothing to do with Mugabe's stewardship of the economy. I guess no one remembers that during the 2002 G8 summit, also devoted to Africa, Zimbabwe's government ordered those commercial farmers whose land had not yet been confiscated to cease all operations. Until the do-gooders of the world get serious about the thugs in power, their efforts will remain a silly distraction.

President Bush is pledging to send more foreign aid to some African nations. But foreign aid goes to governments. So instead of helping the poor, foreign aid has enabled African tyrants, like that Stalinist Mugabe, to buy cronies and military equipment to stay in power, not to mention establishing multibillion dollar “retirement” accounts in Swiss banks. What African countries need, the West cannot give. What Africans need is personal liberty. That means a political system where there are guarantees of private property rights and the rule of law. If you’re living in some impoverished African village, would you want any “wealth” if there is the constant likelihood that the government, or some irate chief, or some marauding tribe will come through to rape the horses and ride off on the women (a line from the "Three Amigos" in case you’re wondering)? The Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Wall Street Journal, lists Botswana, South Africa and Namibia as “mostly free.” World Bank GDP rankings put Botswana 89th ($2,980), South Africa 94th ($2,600) and Namibia 111th ($1,700). Is there any mystery why they're well ahead of their northern neighbors, such as Mozambique 195th ($210), Liberia 201st ($150) or Ethiopia 206th ($100)?

The lack of liberty means something else: A nation loses its best and brightest people first. According to the 2000 census, there were 881,300 African-born U.S. residents, of whom I am one. Want to end poverty in Africa? The first step must be removing those petty dictators who rule throughout that continent - dictatorial mini-giants like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. Yes there's hunger and poverty in Zimbabwe; but the blame is to be placed squarely on Mugabe, not on a lack of help from the west. The G8 summit? Don't look for any discussion on getting rid of Africa's dictators and warlords. It will all be about wealth redistribution. Hide your wallets while I go to Africa in a few days and offer some real help!

What Wall of Separation?

I just read a very disturbing article in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. The governor is coming to church in the Metroplex on Sunday. He's coming to sign two bills into law. Rick Perry is going to the Calvary Cathedral to sign bills restricting abortion and setting a vote on a definition-of-marriage constitutional amendment. Even for a governor who says bluntly that he thinks the United States was founded “on Christian faith,” it's audacious to bring a public ceremony into a church. As a preacher I cannot begin to express how this infuriates me, and I’m rarely at a loss for words! This is precisely why I am a proponent of strict church/state separation – the higher the “wall” the better!

Perry called Calvary Cathedral a “great setting” for a bill signing and said he hopes for a “large and boisterous” crowd. Yeah, but why will the crowd be there? To worship God, or to promote the agenda of the Republican Party? The latter would be idolatry! The idea of taking bills passed in the Legislature into a church to sign them into law is so over the top, even for this Republican (and if you doubt my credentials, check out my blogs from during the election).

Note to government: STAY ON YOUR SIDE OF “THE WALL!”