Give Tim Tebow Credit

Did you see the 80-yard pass by Tim Tebow against the Steelers to win the game 11 seconds into overtime? This Gator graduate who saw the boy play college football for four years in a row was stoked. After all the Tebow bashing, he just went out on the field and played the game... and won in a dramatic way.

Tebomania has struck the world of sports. The haters are all at work - "he has the wrong throwing motion," "he shouldn't be playing pro ball," "too much Jesus" - and they are harsh in their "speaking the truth." On the other hand, many fathers are looking at Tebow and saying, "finally, here is someone I really hope my son emulates in sports." No one seems to be arguing whether Tebow is sincere. He is the real deal. Of course, sports fans can't argue with the fact that he has led his team to the semi-finals of the AFC. Not too shabby for a guy many said would never get drafted, much less play.

He raises many questions. Is Tebow really able to pull out the wins because of his faith? Is God helping him win? Does God even care about who wins and who loses? I don't think God is heavily vested in the outcome of sporting events, but God does care about something in the world of sports. God cares about a person's character and heart. Christians are asked to "live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ" (Philippians 1:27), meaning to live honorable, sacrificial, loving, and generous lives. Christians are asked to love God and love people more than anything else in life. Christian ahletes, fans, commentators, staff, and yes, Tim Tebow, are all called to such standards. Does God care about that? Absolutely.

Give Tim Tebow credit. He is trying to actually live into that standard. He is trying to live into the prime reality of his life. More than a Heisman trophy winner with two college football national championships on his resume, and more than the starting quarterback for a professional football team, he is a follower of Jesus Christ. He is loved by God and he is trying to live accordingly.

I'd love to see him continue to win football games. I am unapologetically biased toward this particular former Gator because of the exciting years he gave us at the college level. More importantly, however, win or lose, I look forward to seeing him stay true to his calling to live worthy of Christ in public and private. In the end, that matters most for him, me, and you.

Top 10 Worst Church Moments

How many of these have you experienced? This is from a pastor named Maurilio Amorim and the link to his blog is below. It reminds me that the way of Jesus is the way that shows extreme welcome to the outsider.

Top 10 Worst Church Moments from a Church Secret Shopper

I have attended hundreds of church services as a church secret shopper. I’ve had thousands of conversations with volunteers, staff and visitors. Here’s my list of the top 10 worst things people said to me:

10. “Excuse me, but you’re sitting in my seat” It seems cliche but it happens more often than you think.

9. “ya’ not from around here, are ya?” Older man said to me after I asked directions to the restroom. I didn’t respond, but I was thinking: “What gave it away? having all my teeth?”

8. “Follow the blue line. It’s kinda of complicated. Good luck.” Said the two men sitting inside the information kiosk before turning to each other and finishing their conversation. They pointed to a board on the wall with multiple color lines leading to different locations on campus.

7. “Nazarenes are a lot like the Baptists, but holier,” middle aged man at a Nazarene church when I asked him the difference between a Nazarene and a Baptist church.

6. “You’re the prettiest thang I ever seen!” I’m not telling you who said it.

5. “We Lutherans are a homely bunch.” A greeter at a Lutheran church as I asked more information about her church. She was right.

4. “I don’t know anything. I can’t really help you. This is my first day at the information table and the person who was going to train me didn’t show up.”

3. “I’ve got dresses that are older than you!” I don’t really remember how I got into this one, but does it really matter?

2. “It must be a special day, I see a lot of strangers here today.” Misguided Music minister during a Sunday morning greeting time. No warm and fuzzies for this stranger.

1. “Hey, Mister, come back here! You’re not Catholic, are you? Give me the wafer back!” A Catholic Priest on the rightful suspicion I was impersonating a catholic worshiper during communion. I had to give it up.

Top 10 Worst Church Moments from a Church Secret Shopper

Being Like Christ in the Home

This hangs in the kitchen of our friends' home. There's good theology and counsel here.

Mission to Joplin 2011

The Joplin, Missouri post-tornado cleanup team has begun to arrive. I hope to send their updates as I get them. When I was in Tuscaloosa, internet service was sketchy and I only managed one update during the week. Keep checking back.

Day 1 - From Les and Mary Carroll

We were talking last night about how this will be life changing for us. We also talked about how much we take for granted and how very blessed we really are. You are someone in our lives who we dearly love. By sharing this experience, we feel in some way that you are here with us.

We arrived in Joplin Wednesday afternoon unsure of what we would encounter with no idea what to expect. Nothing in our experience prepared us for what was to come. As we came over the first hill and saw the devastation in front of us, we were speechless. See the slide show above, but know that these pictures do not capture even a hint of the horrific catastrophy before us.

The tornado of May 23rd at 5:42 pm on a Sunday evening cut a path 13 miles long and, in places, a half mile wide. The damage is extensive. A 12 story hospital was twisted four inches off of it's foundation. Window on almost every floor of that hospital imploded and much of the roof was lifted off. The building is now condemned. The high school was decimated, 18,000 cars were twisted beyond recognition, and the sparse landscape is punctuated by twisted bare trees and miles and miles of rubble. An iron cross of St. Mary's is all that remains of one particular church. Thirty churches were destroyed. Yesterday we stood in a cemetary where huge granite headstones were blown off the foundation.

It all leaves us asking just how fast can the wind really blow?

God Does Not Care About Your Happiness

There, I've said it.

So many people talk about not being happy, and here I am saying that God does not care about your happiness. Really. I look for places in Scripture that signal to me that God's driving interest in our life is to provide the things that fit our definition of what it means to be happy. It's not there. God's attention is on something else in our life.

Ask anyone what it means to be happy. Some describe happiness as the general feeling of euphoria. You are happy, some say, if you feel the rush of endorphins from any source - extreme sports, roller coasters, great parties, competitive card games, a great sale, etc. Others will say that drugs and alcohol will give them the feeling they describe as happy, even if only temporarily.

Psychologists describe happiness as a route of a person' s life. It begins with physiological needs for food water, sleep, and a general level of physical peace in life. Once those are met, more and more happiness is achieved by being safe, feeling loved, having a positive self image, and ultimately becoming all one is capable of becoming.

There is an attitude of entitlement when it comes to happiness as we define it. The message we give is that it is our God-given right to experience the endorphin rush, feel the euphoria frequently, and travel the route of happiness from physical needs to self-actualization.

The problem is, I don't see where God promises that our life focus is to be on that, nor that we are even guaranteed those things in life. Jesus made it clear that being his followers would be costly, not free and easy. He said he came to bring division, not peace, and that we must take up our cross daily and lose ourselves (Matthew 10:34-39). Suffering, not happiness as we define it, seems to be what is promised.

That is not something many, including many church leaders, want to hear. We want God to be a God who gives us what we want, how we want it, and when we want it. The problem is, of course, that when we get to demand what we want of God or when we get to tell God what God should do and how, the roles have been reversed. We then are the gods, and we are dictating to God. It doesn't work that way. God is sovereign and takes orders from no one.

We are not entitled to happiness on our own terms. God doesn't owe us that. In fact, I'll say it again, God does not care about your happiness. However, God does care about your holiness. Making God proud, bringing honor to God by striving to live a blameless life is what God cares about for you and me. The ironic twist is that when we strive to make God proud, when we pursue holiness, we find the very thing we say we're looking for in the first place. We find true and lasting joy. We will find happiness as we see how God favors us.

If you're not happy, my guess is you've tried everything else. Maybe you should try God's way to the best life possible. It comes from pursuing God's interests and ways, by seeking to live to a different standard, and seeking the sacred in daily life.

Pursue being a holy person. If you want real happiness, pursue holiness.

Mission to Honduras 2011

Tomorrow morning, I leave for the Central American country of Honduras. That country has been near and dear to me since the late 1990s when my wife, Cile, and others first took a trip to there to help with post-hurricane Mitch relief. Since then, churches I have served have sent somewhere near 20 mission teams.

I will be sending updates daily on my mission blog. Click here for Mission to Honduras 2011.

Faith in the Workplace

Be consistent in all of life. Be just as much of a Christian at work as you are in church. It sounds easy enough. It can't be that hard, right?

And then it happens. You are asked to sign-off on something that is not true or you feel pressured to join your co-workers in behavior that cuts against your spiritual convictions. Maybe you are suddenly troubled by your firm's policy toward social issues. Perhaps it is the larger issues of wealth creation in a world filled with abject poverty that bothers you. Whatever "it" is, you suddenly find yourself wondering how a person of deep faith can make it in today's work environment. Spiritual integrity and a market economy seem mutually excluding.

Contrary to ridiculous negative stereotypes of Christians, most I know are hard-working, compassionate, and generally decent human-beings. Most Christ-followers want to make a meaningful contribution to this world and to the organizations to which they belong, including their workplaces. However, most Christ-followers sometimes find themselves in compromising, unethical, or immoral circumstances on the job and are troubled by it. They want to remain faithful to God while working their careers, but find it increasingly difficult to do both.

This issue is compounded for many who feel that they must do whatever it takes to maintain their source of income. Times continue to be hard for many. Expenses are high, money is tight, options are limited, and fear of job loss leads to a mindset of self-preservation at any cost.

So unless you are Mother Theresa or Billy Graham and all of this is somehow intuitive and easy for you, I have some principles that may help you be a person of spiritual integrity at work.

1. Admit this is not simple. This is more than whether to go to the girly bar with the guys after work or to the male stripper club with the girls. This is about somehow bearing witness to Christ in every letter written, every contract signed, every project worked, and every work relationship, including that jerk in the office down the hall. This is about being a person of spiritual integrity as you manage an ideologically diverse staff, deal with people who expect certain "perks," determine the profit margin of a product, write the investment strategy for earnings, communicate with stakeholders, or create the benevolence policy of the company. If you struggle,that's to be expected.
2. Get to your knees. Pray. Ask God for help. If you work for Ebenezer Scrooge or Attila the Hun, you're going to need some help. If your co-workers have the ethical grounding of Larry Flint, Bernard Madoff, or Rod Blagojevich, you will need help. If your workplace makes it to any "most unethical" list, you will need help. If office politics involves pulling the knife from your back, you will need help.
3. Know you are not alone. I have had many conversations with people who are concerned about unethical practices at work. Most need to vent, but at a deeper level they want to know if they are weird for having concerns. Are they alone? No. Others at work want a work environment where they will not have to compromise their principles of faith for the bottom line. Look for them. They're probably the quiet ones. You are not alone. When you find them, become work friends. Pray together. Study the Bible together. Talk about the issues. Sticking together will help each of you get through difficult days.
4. Be exemplary. Work hard and with integrity. We are called to work with all of our hearts "as working for the Lord" (Col. 3:23) not for human masters. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing (1 Pet. 3:9). Unlike pastors, you have the opportunity to be "salt" and "light" to co-workers daily from within the workplace. The character of your life and quality of your work are part of your witness. If you are lazy and unethical, please keep quiet about being a Christian; you're more damage than good to the cause.
5. Communicate your principles. Know what crosses the line for you. What are your non-negotiables? I suggest you take a few minutes to write them down. It could be specific like, "I will not participate in gossip here," or more general like, "I will not do anything that takes advantage of a weak, poor, or struggling person." Write them down and then let others know as circumstances arise. One man told his boss, "I will not lie for you, but neither will I lie to you." His integrity didn't make the boss happy at first, but won his respect over time.
6. Stick to your guns. Unless you are high up, you may not have much control over price gouging, environmental impact, poor employee management, or other issues. You do have control over what you will do when a line gets crossed. Stick to your principles, especially on the little things. It is easy to give into the big things when you've compromised your principles on the little things.
7. Show respect. Most workplaces are microcosms of diversity. If the United States military can teach us anything, it is to show that people of different cultural backgrounds, races, genders, ages, and faith traditions can work toward a common mission. The whole system is built on mutual respect. You do not have to agree and you do not have to participate in what the other is doing, but you must show respect for the other person's perspective.
8. Do not judge. A friend of mine refused to be a part of the late night escapades of clients who wanted more than a discount on the products he was selling. He chose to be a designated driver and waited in the car for the several hours the rest were inside living the wild life. He simply said, "It's not my thing." He didn't judge, but neither did he join them. Search your heart. Make sure your attitude toward those who make different choices than you is not an attitude of superiority or condescension. Love them, don't judge them.
9. Keep your sense of humor. Diverse people coming together in one workplace to accomplish a single corporate mission is a recipe great comedy. Enjoy people. Laugh with them. Laughter is a universal language. Everyone around a person who is a jerk sees it and at some level can find humor in the behavior. Remember the Far Side cartoon with God as a chef making the world and sprinkling in "jerks" onto the earth "just to make it interesting." When life is "interesting," keep your sense of humor.
10. Remember that grace abounds. Finally, remember that if you fail at keeping your own principles for whatever reason, the grace of God is strong. You won't get this right every time. None of us could make it if we had to be perfect. God's grace is, in the words of a great hymn, amazing.