Twelve Steps

There are those who make fun of twelve-step programs. My guess is that they haven't tried one, or haven't felt they needed to try one.

Some decry them because so many of them express an unabashed faith in God.

Others would say that their biblical five-step program should be good enough for anyone - you know: hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized and the occasional vocal proponent of remain faithful.

The original twelve-step program, as nearly as I can tell, is that of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I think you'd find by clicking the link that it's pretty biblical, too. I wouldn't be the first person to suggest substituting "sin" for "alcohol" and "fellow-sinner" for "alcoholic" in its wording and having a pretty reliable set of guidelines for living a more Christ-like life.

But I did suggest it at a meeting that began at 7:00 this morning of ministry staffers and elders who meet to cast a vision for our church. We're pretty adept at painting the challenge: creating a more accessible environment for those who are new to our church and new to faith in Christ.

We're in a wealthy part of town. We're mostly white. We don't look like sinners. But looks can be deceiving, and they are in this case. We sin like everybody else.

What's difficult is meeting the challenge: finding ways to be transparent, and encourage transparency. Being willing to admit we're all messups - just messups who have been willing for Jesus to let our guilt be nailed to His cross with Him.

And be willing to make amends where we can. It's not a tough concept, and each of us has a story about how it is happening in our lives.

Since our fellowship is a little edgy about the concept of "testimony," I suggested calling it what it really is: the ongoing Story of Christ. It's not really our story, but His; about Him working in our lives. It's not like His Story begins or ends between the covers of our Bibles; that's just as much of it as He chooses to reveal in a biblical way.

And who can resist taking in a good Story?

Every person who comes to an A.A. meeting - C.E.O. or gutter-dwelling wino - eventually shares his or hers. They share a personal truth about who they are and why and how long or short they've been dry. They depend on each other for support. They are accountable to each other. They care ... sometimes to extraordinary extremes.

Because each one of them has experienced the hell-on-earth of alcoholism, wants to be free of it, and to help others be free of it.

At my preaching minister's request, I'm going to provide to all of us Tuesday-morning visionaries a copy of the twelve steps of AA as a starting place for discussion of methodology.

It's not a complete answer - but it's a good start.

Fancy, Schmancy

I don't know why I ever changed my template.

I've always liked this one, and the newer one made people work too hard to get to the links that are perfectly visible at the sidebar in this one.

Sometimes a design that works fine for your personal site just doesn't work nearly as well for your blog, and that was true of the newer one.

Besides, it was bombing some folks' browsers, and that's not very hospitable.

So it's back to the old.

The old skin was better.

God Cracks Me Up

This morning the Bible class I'm in had a whirlwind tour of several Old Testament prophets, brilliantly led by teacher/elder Steve Stevens.

One of them was Jonah, and in hitting the highlights of the book, it struck me funny that the penitent Ninevites not only repented in sackcloth and ashes, but dressed up their animals and cattle that way as well. So when God closes His explanation for saving them to Jonah, He says: "Shouldn't I be concerned about Ninevah? I have 120,000 people there who don't know their left hand from their right ... not to mention all those cows!"

That, on the heels of (previous post) recalling the words of Jesus in Matthew 23 for those who tithed their herbs but neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness: "You blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"

Now there's a couple of mental pictures.

Then there's that small camel joke Jesus makes after the rich young man walks away, even after seeing such love in His eyes: "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." That's the kind of joke that just goes right through your heart, though. It must have been told through tears as the young man walked away ... an attempt to lift the mood and communicate truth at the same time. Not a knee-slapper.

But some of God's one-liners are truly a hoot.

Have any favorite ones?

Written Out of the Book of Life

The church I attend gets "written up" rather frequently in the bulletin of a neighboring church which - though its name includes "Church of Christ" - might not necessarily include us in that fellowship.

We don't do everything right, you see. We have a brand new Family Life Center which cost a lot of money, money that could have been spent feeding the hungry and caring for the poor. We collect food and clothing and necessities and sometimes distribute them through organizations that are not churches, even though they are connected with Churches of Christ. We open our church building to seminars and meetings not necessarily conducted by church members, such as a recent one to help those grieving the loss of family members.

In the article of our neighboring church's bulletin (I'd point you to it online, but their site is down half the time and when it's up it's usually several months out-of-date) upbraiding us for this last sin, a peculiar statement was made: that the Bible alone should be enough comfort and strength and guidance for the grieving.

Really?

Does the Bible take the place of God's own Spirit mourning with us in our prayers with utterances that words alone cannot express?

Does the Bible take the place of a loving community of church family, enwrapping our grief in its arms and weeping with us and bringing food and flowers and other tokens of shared woe and encouragement when the will to go on is gone?

Does the Bible take the place of God Himself, wiping away our tears in heaven?

Do the Bible's words of comfort and guidance reach those who are not familiar with them; who don't know their context or the stories behind them; who do not believe them when they hear them - perhaps because someone has vociferously insisted that the Bible has all the answers when in fact they have encountered many valuable answers outside of the Bible in their lives?

Is the Bible intended to be the one and only panacea for peril, a magical incantation for the relief of suffering and pain and grief, a liturgy of lament that miraculously heals all wounds?

Does God deny the power of helping to psychologists and psychiatrists who have studied medicine, anatomy, chemistry, biology and human behavior? Does He withhold intelligence, caring, skill and capability from those who are unfamiliar with His word?

Will it simply do - as a friend of mine pointed out - to comfort a nine-year-old girl who has lost her mother in a terrible accident by telling her, "Go read your Bible, honey; that'll make you feel better"?

Certainly there is a place like no other in the believer's heart for the Bible. But it's just wrong to try to make it more than it is, or was ever intended to be. It's the story of God and us. It was never meant to be the book that answers all our questions. It was never meant to be the book that gives us all the rules we must perfectly follow or be written forever out of the Book of Life.

It reveals the Word, but it is not the Word.

That's a title and role reserved for God's Son.

So to try to make it the last word on everything is just plain goofy.

Thank You for Creativity

Creativity is the most sincere flattery of our Creator - Who, of course, gave it to us like everything else. But our choice to use it to His glory must surely be satisfying to Him.

Last night while my kids were good-naturedly roughhousing and while Angi was reading a draft of UALR's Strategic Plan, I worked on a logo design for my church's brand-spanking new Family Life Center. It was fun. I haven't done that kind of work in years, and it's satisfying.

Maybe not as satisfying, though, as reading something creative your child has written in school.

So, in honor of the holiday, I present (unedited) a story crafted by my 9-year-old daughter, Laura:

Just as ever one sat down to the Thanks giving tabble, the turkey came a live and it started to eat all the other food unfortunately we did knot have any food left and all the stores where closed so we went to are frieds hous they didnot have any eather and it kept going on and on then the turkey baked something wird but it was very good. The End

Well, there you have it: a modern-day classic with a twist at the end worthy of Rod Serling; a story of sacrifice, resurrection, surprise, gluttony, desperation, hunger, community, social frustration - and redemption.

The penitent turkey baked something weird, but it was very good.

I don't know what your plans for the holiday are, but chances are they will not include anything like what this epic describes.

We're not planning to spend a fortune on groceries, cook to excess, travel long distances, gorge ourselves with leftovers, or spend too much time cleaning up. There won't be quite the same opportunity at our own table at home to wonder if the turkey will come alive and gobble down our feast, leaving us to wander with our neighbors from door to door and at closed, dark grocery stores. Even though we're blessed to have two world-class chefs in the immediate family, we're giving Angi and Gran the day off and pursuing a more creative holiday.

We're going to Cracker Barrel.

Then, after returning home for a tryptophan-inspired doze through the Cowboys game, we just might do something creative together.

Like starting to decorate the house for Christmas.

Thank you, God, for investing and entrusting some of your creativity with us, Your children. May we use it always and only to Your glory.

(And thank you, God, for Cracker Barrel!)

Thank You for My Blogging Community

The lurkers, the commenters, the readers, the browsers, the click-pasters and e-pastors; the church members, church seekers, church-sick; elders, deacons, ministers, leaders, followers; friends, acquaintances, and completely-unknown-to-me folks who drop by here for a visit once in a while.

We're an unusual group, aren't we?

Every kind of background, gender, color, race, creed or lack thereof. All sorts of points of view on all sorts of matters. But we meet each other here and at other blogs and we interact, commune, agree, disagree, bicker, discuss, praise, decry, consent, assent, and dissent - for the most part, amicably.

We don't have to agree all the time, or on everything. Most of us agree that Jesus of Nazareth is the living Christ, Lord and Person of the Triune God, and most of the rest of the truly important things we believe are simply details of that core faith. And we'd do whatever we had to do if we could persuade the rest of that one central, foundational, incontrovertible fact.

I'm grateful beyond description for each and every one of you ... for the staggered time we've spent "together," for the way you've stretched and challenged me, for the kindness and forgiveness you've offered.

Thank you, God, for my blogging buddies - and for changing my life for the better through them.

Thank You for the Mission Field That Came to Us

When Hurricane Katrina threatened the Gulf Coast, hundreds of evacuees made their way to Little Rock. The city and FEMA found a residence for many of them at Parris Towers, formerly a retirement home where a limited fire last summer revealed the ineptitude of its management. Shut down by the state, repaired and refurbished - but not refurnished - it was a temporary solution.

Calls for help went out. The people of my church committed to furnishing 40 of the apartments. But the generosity did not stop there. New and good used furniture and appliances and consumable necessities flowed in to take care of more than 80 apartments. Still the giving did not stop.

As of last week, 135 apartments and homes had been furnished and supplied by the family of Christ at my home church. And last Sunday night, many of the folks who have taken up residence at Parris Towers were invited to church and attended, brought in cars from downtown by our members.

Midway through this week, one of them asked our involvement minister if they could come back. Within an hour, we sent 200 flyers to Parris Towers promising an available church van to bring them to 10:30 services and back home.

The people of Parris Towers are the mission field that came to us. The local media took note of our response. No one prayed aloud on a street corner to attract attention to it; no one sent out a press release about it. (Given the humility of my church family, I don't think they'd have let me if I had suggested it.)

They just opened their hearts and arms and wallets.

Thank you, God, for the openness; the generosity of my city and my church to the people displaced by ravages of nature. Thank you for the opportunity You sent and the empowerment to serve those good people - and You - through it. Now, as we're called upon to help again with the needs of people moving from hotels to apartments, open our eyes and hearts even wider to the opportunities You provide to live sacrificial lives like our Savior, Your Son.

Thanks for a Better Self-Image

The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." - Luke 18:11-12

Thank you, God, that even though I am far too often just like this Pharisee You are transforming me into the likeness of the One who told the story about him - the One who takes away my veil of boast and pride and self.

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." - II Corinthians 3:18

Thank You for the Rain

Not since I lived in Abilene at the midpoint of a seven-year drought have I been so thankful for rain.

In our parched part of the world it came down in drips, sheets and buckets late last night. It came down pretty much all night, with as much lightning and thunder as the sky could take. It shook the window-casings and rattled the rafters. It frightened my daughter just short of midnight, who found me in the hallway gazing out the window at the wonder of it.

I reassured her I would be there for a while and she could go back to bed.

Sure, there are twice as many leaves on my yard this morning - along with twigs, branches, pine cones and needles - but the earth was so thirsty for rain you can almost feel it sigh with contentment this morning.

In Abilene, the ground had become so dry at one point that we had to have pier installed under the corner of our house to prevent it from falling off. We got off easy. A neighbor had to have twenty-some piers placed to shore up his house at a cost of several thousand dollars.

Yet good came of it. People from all kinds of churches, faiths and opinions gathered in a public park one evening to pray for rain.

One fellow prayed, "God, You send your rain on the just and the unjust - surely we must be one or the other!"

The prayers were answered in a couple of weeks - there was even flooding; Abilene's downtown area was once deemed by the Army Corps of Engineers to be the most advantageous place in the region to create a man-made reservoir/lake.

Like so many things in this life, you don't miss rain until you don't have it anymore. So you don't always miss it right away.

I wonder what other things I should be grateful for before they go missing?

Thank you, God, for refreshing the earth with the water over which your Spirit brooded at creation ... which flooded to save Noah and concealed to save Moses and parted to save the Israelites ... which immersed Your Son and all of Your adopted ones, washing us clean of the earthiness which separates us from your heavenliness.

Thank You for My Kids

I'm grateful my kids' toys aren't neat
and their shoes litter the floor.
It testifies - no less, no more -
that they have hands and feet.

I'm thankful that they don't come home
the moment playtime ends.
It tells me they have good friends
within a few yards' roam.

I'm even glad for muddy floors
and grubby, smiling faces
and dug-up garden places
for they love to be outdoors.

As costly as they seem,
I pay for jerseys and the Y
- and gladly, too. Need you ask why?
It means they're on a team.

For practices that run too long
and games in cold and heat,
I'm thankful even when they're beat,
for they're healthy and they're strong.

I'm thankful though my children view
a bit too much TV.
It says to me they hear and see,
and want to know what's new.

I'm thankful for the homework check
I must conduct each night.
Though answers are not always right,
I learn when I inspect.

I'm grateful when my children's grades
are not quite up to snuff.
It shows me they try hard enough;
like mine, their memory fades.

I'm glad to see a teacher's note
with praise or warning there.
It proves their teachers care
and my kids' learning isn't rote.

I'm grateful for each curious rule,
and each fund-raising drive.
Though wits and wallet won't survive,
it means they have a school.

I'm thankful though I am accused
of never being fair.
My role as judge is always there;
I've never been recused.

I'm thankful when "Let's go to the park!"
they goad - though other matters task.
I go - and hope they'll still ask
four decades down the road.

I'm thankful that they think of me
as worth much of their time.
(Though "Hi, Mom!" is what they would mime
on national TV.)

I'm glad to see their reams of art.
Stick-figured Mom and Dad
in colors wild - the fun they've had
while drawing from the heart.

I'm grateful though the lyric's wrong
and when they sing off-key.
For it means all the world to see
their hearts are full of song.

I'm thankful though my children fuss
and fight with one another.
It means they're sis and brother,
and I know they're part of "us."

I'm thankful when they flip their lids,
as well as when they sing.
Because, as much as anything,
I'm thankful for my kids.

(first published in the Abilene Reporter-News)

Thank You for My Elders

Fifteen men gifted with an unlimited passion for Christ and His body.

I met with four of them as a staff member for the first time this morning at 7:00 a.m. for their weekly "visioning" meeting with the ministry and office staff. In spite of the fact that I early on made a comment that I didn't mean to be disparaging - that trying to capture a vision is a lot like trying to grab fog - they were welcoming and affirming.

The previous meetings, I gathered, had established some solid, foundational principles to guide further discussion. Before long, though, the conversation took a different turn altogether ... about a long-time problem we have had in our church in helping people feel welcomed and at home there, especially among the singles.

I've long felt that the singles group is the incubator of our church; the place from whence its current leaders have arisen since the time I was single and started attending at my home church 20+ years ago.

We spoke freely of the challenges, the attempts both failed and successful, to bridge the gap between the "insiders" and the "outsiders" and concluded that the matter was too urgent and too deep to remain a simple matter of visioning.

What impressed me most about the elders - and staff - I met with this morning is that they were not always willing to agree, but they were always willing to listen and seek a consensus.

No one pulled rank. No one was defensive. No one was impatient or unkind or insisted on his own way ... well, you know where I'm going with this.

And we all had to agree that, as pretty much the ultimate "insiders," we needed to listen to the problem and possible solutions as articulated by the folks who feel like they're "outsiders."

The four men I met with this morning may not be typical of the remaining eleven, but I believe they all share the same Spirit, the same passion, the same vision - even if articulated in fifteen different ways.

My prayer of examen this evening can't be articulated in pretty words and compliments. The closest I can come is:

Thank you, God, for working in different ways through each of these different shepherds, and testifying to the unity You create through Your common Spirit in the bond of peace through them.

Thank You for My Wife

Inspired for the nth time by a re-reading of my friend Jackie Halstead's article about Examen in the New Wineskins archive (and prompted to read it again this week by Greg Taylor), I've resolved to blog between now and Thanksgiving about nothing but the things I'm thankful for - in no particular order; just as they occur to me when I ask myself "What am I thankful for?"

Angi is the first thing that comes to my mind. I met her at church in the singles class. She was wearing a brown suit and had the bluest eyes I have ever seen. She was enduring a trying divorce; mine was seven years behind me. I don't know what she saw in me, and I only perceived a fraction of how extraordinary she is!

I didn't see how joyful she could be until her mom, Harriette, visited. When I saw them together, a few pews ahead of me, I had an experience I still find difficult to believe. Inside my head, a silent voice said to me: "You could be very happy married to this woman for the rest of your life." It wasn't the same as having a conversation with yourself. It was someone else's silent voice. I can't say it was a guarantee or a prophecy; I think of it more as a nudge.

We group-dated. We double-dated. We dated. Angi immediately set to work editing my closet while I was out of town and replaced some of my cheap outdated duds with some nice, quality gear.

Together with some friends from church - and Angi's mom! - we dressed like crooks from the 1890s and robbed a tourist train operated by the dad of a good friend, Bob McClanahan.

So when it came time to propose, it was on the luncheon train at Eureka Springs. Angi looked just like this.
I handed her a poster that I had designed on my computer at work that featured a picture of her from the "robbery" and it said:

WANTED

FOR MATRIMONY
Angela Laird Pfeiffer
Charged with:
Consortin' With A Convicted Fella,
Stealin' His Heart,
Givin' Away His Clothes,
An' Robbin' Him Of Any Hopes
Of Bein' Happy Without Her

PLEASE TURN THIS SUSPECT OVER TO THE CUSTODY OF W. KEITH BRENTON SO'S HE CAN DELIVER TWO LIFE SENTENCES (TO BE SERVED IN SUCCESSION): "I LOVE YOU" AND "WILL YOU MARRY ME?"

She said yes to becoming my wife. We married that winter and I don't think I've bought myself a stitch of clothing since; she keeps me in fashion. She's now mom to our two adopted children, baker of world-class sugar cookies, and in October conducted a women's retreat at church that ladies are still raving about. She's the Dean of the College of Professional Studies at UALR; teaches at the Clinton School of Public Service, Pepperdine University, and elsewhere as requested; and has been a consultant to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in her field of specialty, conflict management and resolution. I married way over my head, but just right for my heart.

We've moved a few times as her career has progressed, and I'd follow her to the ends of the earth.

I am convinced that there is no one else even remotely like her on the face of the earth and no others need apply.

So today, my prayer of examen is simple:

Thank you, God, for my unique and beautiful wife.

I Feel A Tap on My Virtual Shoulder

I've been tagged by Brian Burkett over at This Road That We Travel, where I don't think I have ever actually posted anything though I have been invited.

The meme challenge is to pick out your twenty-third post, find the fifth sentence and ponder any deep hidden psychological meanings that may be found therein, and post your ponderings.

Well, the fifth sentence of my twenty-third post was:

"You can read more about it at http://www.ualr.edu/cpsdept/bridgingthedivide/."

It was a post about the Bridging the Divide panel that my wife Angi put together as an event associated with the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library here in Little Rock last fall.

Deep hidden psychological meanings?

I'm a positive person, for the most part, and I believe in an individual's innate power to achieve, especially when augmented by the Holy Spirit ... so perhaps "You can" sums up my position on that.

I hold a B.A. in journalism from Harding University, so I guess "read more about it" might be a transliteration of the streetcorner paperboy's slogan of a hundred years ago: "Extry! Extry! Read all about it!"

"At" is a preposition which is only one letter off from "proposition" which is what I made when I asked Angi to marry me and that was the best decision I've ever made even if it may not have been hers. And we were "at" one of my favorite places in the world when I proposed - on the luncheon train at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

The link goes to the UALR site. Angi works there. I used to work there. I managed the Chancellor's Web pages. Linking is something I do. I do Web. I link. I link related and unrelated things. Lance Link was a secret chimp. I don't know what was secret about it. It was obvous he was a chimp. I find absurdities like these in the links between unrelated items which amuse me. I'm just peculiar that way.

Good grief! Are you still with me? I put in as many links as I could so you could have an excuse to escape this insufferable drivel politely!

Now I'm supposed to tag five other unfortunates to do the same thing with this meme.

For crying out loud, why would I saddle anyone with the nonsense I just went through?

Sorry. Not in my nature.

But if it sounds fun to you and the fifth of your twenty-third has a lot more potential than mine, please consider yourself tagged and be sure to leave me a comment so I won't miss it, will you?

Can an XML Feed Your Spiritual Need?

New Wineskins now has two XML feeds - specialized snippets of code which you can use to keep track of the latest updates to our articles and blog, respectively.

"That's nice," you might think, "but when I click on them I see nothing but codelby-gook."

Quite true. To make them work for you, you right-click on each (click-and-hold, if you're a Mac user), and drag to something like "Copy Link Location" and release. Then you paste them - when prompted - into an application for your desktop (such as FeedReader or others found at RSS Info) which can read them, or into a Web site / aggregator (such as BlogLines or My Yahoo) which can read them.

The New Wineskins Blog feed is in Atom format; the article feed is in RSS format. Both use XML. Now that tells you a whole lot, doesn't it? The fact is, neither format has gained an advantage over the other, and since the blog's feed is automatically generated in Atom, I just thought it might satisfy the RSS stalwarts to offer the article feed in their format. Many reader and aggregator applications can track both kinds of feeds for you (and most of the earlier versions of them).

If you're interested, Blogdigger hosts a growing Church of Christ Blog Aggregator group, where you will also find the New Wineskins Blog listed.

Oh, yes, there's also a JavaScript feed for both New Wineskins articles and blog posts that you'll see on a few blogs and sites. I'm hoping to move that to the new site's host server soon and will contact as many of that feed's hosts as I can before it happens, so they can carry the current one on their blogs and sites.

I hope all the feeds help satisfy your spiritual needs.

(The new one for articles is linked to the headline above.)