Twittering Christianity

Last Sunday afternoon, Max Lucado, famous Christian writer and former preacher at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, sent out a Twitter tweet to the world that he was on his way to a river baptism service. As one of Max's followers on Twitter, I always enjoy his spiritual messages that are summed up in less that 140 characters, but I was especially fascinated by this tweet. A river baptism service? I didn't know we still did those. Immediately, my mind bounced to the scene in O, Brother, Where Art Thou? when George Clooney and his fellow escaped convicts are interrupted by hundreds of people dressed in white robes singing "As I Went down to the River to Pray."

When I think of baptisms, I typically think of those that happen only in the church. When I was baptized, my church was under construction, so we didn't have a "normal" baptistry. I was baptized in a glorified bathtub, but it counted. The thought of river baptisms sounds old school, but it also intrigues me.

Sunday night, Max sent out a follow-up tweet: "We spent 2 hours in the river. 257 baptisms! Glorious!" For those of you keeping score at home, 257 is a pretty spectacular number for two reasons. First, 257 people had their sins washed away in one day. That just shows the power of the Holy Spirit working in the lives of those people. Second, that is just a huge number. It might take some churches four years to have that many baptisms. While no one really "keeps score" based on the number of baptisms that they have, I am amazed that something like that happened.

Max also tweeted that Bruce Bowen, who plays for the San Antonio Spurs, was down at the river baptizing people. I have heard a lot of great thing about Bowen as a strong Christian leader, a philanthropist, and a role model to young kids, but I was quite impressed that he was a part of the action last Sunday. Typically, we assume that professional athletes are egocentric millionaires that act like children when things don't go their way, but Bowen took a break from the NBA play-off atmosphere to impact the lives of hundreds of people down at that river.

The popularity of Twitter over the past four months has been astounding, and it is also pretty cool to see celebrities like Shaq, Ashton Kutcher, Barry Zitto, Lance Armstrong, and Max Lucado using it as a way to connect with non-celebrities. While Max may not consider himself a celebrity, his tweet last week was read by thousands of people. Max does write about some random things he does during the day, and with posts like the ones regarding the river baptism, he is able to use Twitter as a way to connect Christianity and culture.

Breakfast on Beech Street

This morning, I joined 15 volunteers to serve breakfast to 40 people from the Abilene community. Waking up at 5:00 am was definitely a struggle, but three hours later, I know that it was worth it. I might need some coffee to make it through the day, though.

Breakfast of Beech Street (BOBS) is a ministry of 5 churches here in town that serves approximately 12,000 breakfasts each year. For five days a week, volunteers from these churches and the community prepare breakfast and sack lunches for anyone who is hungry and needs some food. I first assumed that this ministry was just for homeless people, but the majority of people that got breakfast this morning were not homeless. They were just hungry and were not able to make breakfast for themselves at home. There are not any applications to fill out to make sure that each person actually needs food. There are no strict guidelines saying that only certain people can eat or that each person only gets one omelet. We make breakfast, people come, and they eat until it is gone (today we had some leftovers, though).

I do find it fascinating that BOBS serves out 12,000 breakfasts each year to people here in Abilene, but I am especially pleased that this is done through the work of 5 churches...of different denominations...working together...for a greater purpose. Episcopal. Methodist. Disciples of Christ. Church of Christ. Presbyterian. For centuries Christians from different denominations have argued about whose doctrine is correct, and we have strayed from the massage of the Gospel.

Mark 10:45 says, "For even the Son of Man [Jesus] did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." This verse points out two important truths of the Gospel. First, the part about the ransom refers to our salvation that comes through Christ's death and resurrection (See Easter post below). Second, Christ came to serve others, not to be served. The Gospel of Christ is not about doctrine and denominations. It is about serving those in our communities. Churches do a great job of spiritually edifying believers on Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesdays, but people often forget that the role of the church is also to equip believers to go out and serve others and meet their needs - not our needs.

BOBS ministry is to spread the Gospel by feeding people, saying "Good morning," sharing conversations, and shaking hands. Yes, there was a prayer for the food at the beginning, and the meal was served in the kitchen of a church, but that was the only "churchy" thing about it. I worked in the kitchen and loaded plates with toast and omelets. I greeted people as they passed through the line, but I didn't say anything about becoming a Christian. I didn't hand out a tract of the five steps of conversion. I didn't share a testimonial of my faith. I just gave food to people that needed it. Jesus fed people, too. Lot's of them. Read this to learn more.

Happy Easter

Easter is only a few days away, and that means I will be hunting eggs filled with money and candy very soon. Truth: I am almost 22 years old and still hunt Easter eggs every year. Yes, I will go to Easter service at my church, and I will enjoy a nice Easter lunch with my family, but it seems like this "holiday" has lost its meaning somehow. Just like Christmas. The two major holidays out of the entire year that have been set apart for Christians to celebrate the Gospel have become secular.

For those of you not familiar with the story, Good Friday is the anniversary of Jesus' crucifixion for proclaiming to be the Savior/Messiah that was sent by God to the world. Three days later, Jesus was raised back to life. Easter is the celebration of his resurrection. In Spanish, Easter is called "Pascua" (PAH-skwah), which is literally translated to mean "Passover," not Easter. There's your fun fact for the day.

Going back to the Old Testament when God's chosen people, the Hebrews, were in Egyptian captivity, God sent plagues against the Egyptians so that they would let the Hebrews out of slavery. The last plague sent was that all of the firstborn children were to be killed in the night by the spirit of God unless the door to a family's house was marked with lamb's blood. At the sight of this blood, the spirit would PASSOVER the house, and those inside would be spared. Because of this, Passover is widely celebrated by Jews, but Christians tend to put the focus of the holy week on the resurrection day (Easter). [Thought: Why don't more Christians celebrate Passover, too? The first Christians were Jews.] Easter Sunday always follows Passover because Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection occurred while he was in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

I write this history lesson to give a better picture of what Easter is really for. It is great to take a break from work and school and spend time with the family, but I feel like at the dinner table on Sunday or at some point in the day, someone should mention the significance of this holiday. For Christians, the true purpose of this holiday is to represent Jesus' resurrection, which brings salvation to those who believe in him. But there is much more to this holiday.

I feel like the purpose of this holiday could also be to simply take a scheduled pause in our lives and spend time with our families. Honestly, we can celebrate the resurrection whenever we want. Easter is special because of what people do on it. This will be my 21st Easter, and I have only spent two Easters away from my family. Easter Sunday of my senior year of high school was spent in Hong Kong. Easter Sunday of my sophomore year of college was spent at a children's home in Montevideo, Uruguay. If I was in the US, I would have most definitely gone home for the weekend to spend Easter with my family. Sunday will be a special day because I will eat some great home cooking, and I will hunt eggs with my sister and cousin. But I will do it with my family. Celebrating the resurrection is important to me, but spending time with my family is important, too.

Faith Is a Highway

Over the past month, I have driven to and from Dallas, Austin, and Nashville, and in the coming weeks, I will be driving to and from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. I got an oil change less than a month ago, and I already need another one (every 3,000 miles). Throughout my college career, I have taken many road trips to and from the same locations, and I have become so familiar with the routes, that these three, four, or five hour car rides are no problem for me.

Of all the metaphors that I hear about faith, spirituality, and relationships with God, the most common relates all of these to a journey. Some believe the journey started when we entered Sunday School. Others believe that the journey commenced on the day of our baptism. We start out as children of faith, and through teaching and studying we begin to grow and mature. The journey gets boring sometimes.

Have you ever been on your way to work or school, zoned out for a little bit, and thought, "Did I run that stop sign back there?" When we take the same route, do the same thing over and over, it becomes routine, and we go about the task absentmindedly. It sounds dangerous, but it is something that most of us have done. We go through the motions, but our focus is not on the what we are actually doing. On my trips to and from the different destinations listed above, I know all of the towns that I will pass through in order, where the state troopers usually hide, where the good places to eat are, where the exits are, and how long I have remaining in my trip.

The journey through life as a Christian becomes like one of those trips. Christians usually find themselves getting locked into a lifestyle or routine that defines their identity, and it gets boring (common). As a product of a Christian middle school, high school, and university, I have been steeped in Christian living - how Christians are supposed to live - and frankly, some Christians live very boring lives. There seems to be nothing new to spice things up, because we are told that the spicy things are probably sinful. Christians need spontaneous revivals for the same reason that travelers love to take random road trips. It is something new, unique, and exciting.

After my Sophomore year of college, my roommate and I took a road trip from Houston, TX, to Tuscon, AZ, to Tijuana, Mexico (we craved Mexican food for lunch), to San Diego, CA, to Los Angeles, CA, to Phoenix, AZ, to Abilene, TX, and back to Houston. It was quite the drive, but it was exciting because it was something new. I had never driven through the southern portions of New Mexico and Arizona. Even though there was not much to look at, it was still exciting. I had never even been to Arizona or California at all for that matter. The road trip was not a part of my routine. Traffic was terrible in LA, but it was fun, because I had never been in traffic that bad.

For Christians to grow to reach their full potential, we need to do something that is out of the ordinary - take a spiritual road trip. According to Crocodile Dundee, Australians go on walk-abouts for mental and physical rejuvenation. They come back with a renewed outlook on life - a renewed spirit. Christians can do the same thing. Some fast by abstaining from eating, while others go off by themselves for some solitude. These are just two examples, but there are many other things Christians can do to strengthen their faith without getting into trouble.

I feel like we'll enjoy the journey a little bit more if we break away from our routines for a while.

The Crescent Moon and the Cross

I attended a forum last night to hear Dr. Dan McVey speak on the topic of Islam from a Christian perspective. I expected to hear insight as to why Christianity is God's religion and that all Muslims are extremists, but that is not at all what was said. The purpose of this forum, as displayed on the opening slide of the Powerpoint presentation, was to achieve a better understanding.

To learn.

Of the 60 minutes that Dr. McVey had to speak, 45 of it was informative. Islam is this. Islam is that. Mohammed did this. Muslims do that. It was amazing to hear how much Dr. McVey, a Christian, knew about Islam. How and why did he know so much about this, and why do I need to know this? I'm not a Muslim, so why do I need to know the Arabic translation of the word "submit?" For your information, Islam is translated to mean "submit." Now you know.

Why does it matter?

The heart of the issue is that approximately 90% of Muslims have never met a Christian, but they claim to know a lot about us. On the other hand, a huge number of Christians have never met a Muslim, yet we claim to know a lot about Islam. How well do you know a person if you have never met them? How do I know if what I hear about Muslims is true? Knowledge suppresses ignorance.

The reason Dr. McVey knows so much about Islam was because he served as a Christian missionary in areas of Africa and Asia where the majority of religious people were Muslims. When I first heard this, I thought that he would have met heavy resistance because of the way Muslims are protrayed on TV, but that was not the case. He said, "Whenever someone approached me and found out that I was a Christian, they said, 'Praise Allah.'" Wait, I thought we were "infidels," but they are excited to see us? He had to know their religion to be an effective communicator with them. Knowledge suppresses ignorance.

Prior to this forum, I understood that not every Muslim is a terrorist, despite what several card-carrying members of the NRA might say, and Dr. McVey explained that of all the Muslims, the extremists we hear about so often on the airwaves make up the smallest population in the Islamic faith. Knowledge suppresses ignorance.

"What does jihad mean?" asked Dr. McVey. After a quick pause, the audience began to whisper, and a general consensus was reached that jihad is Arabic for "holy war," because that's what we have been told. Much to our dismay, we were wrong. Jihad means struggle, and this war that we often refer to in terms of jihad is actually a struggle against oppression, a retaliation of sorts. Knowledge suppresses ignorance.

Ultimately, I write this post as a declaration that I do not know everything about Islam, and my presuppositions on this religion and its followers is mostly flawed. I feel like it is reasonable to say the same for the majority of non-Muslims in this world. As Christians, we must begin converasations to bridge gaps between people of different religious, social, and racial backgrounds. We need to learn who they are and stop making judgements based on what they are. If we expect the same from them, we should start the process.

I also learned that is it written in the Qur'an that Muslims are encouraged to have civil discussions with Jews and Christians, so that we may all come to an agreement about our beliefs. Sounds reasonable. We did all start from the same spot.

The Content of His Character

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

These words, first heard by the nation on August 28, 1963, have been forever ingrained in the hearts of millions who have fought in the civil rights movement. Before our country's birth, social caste systems were established to set certain races, genders, and nationalities above others, and Dr. King challenged the status quo with his heartfelt speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Today, it may seem that race is no longer an issue worth debating or marching over; however, discussions of race and color have seemed to perpetuate through several generations, and discrimination and prejudice still disenfranchises many.

So many subjects for discussion can be derived from the statement above - racism, equality, segregation, prejudice - but the last line seems applicable to the discussion of Christianity and culture. By believing King's statement to be true, then we are judged by our character, but what defines our character? What makes my character different from the person sitting next to me? I act like a good person, but so does that guy. I live my life the right way, but she does, too. Are we all of good character then?

Our character is defined not by how we act, but by how we react. According to Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, motion and energy is continued through the reacting forces. When a baseball bat connects with the ball traveling toward home plate, the ball reacts in the opposite direction of its path in the direction of the motion of the bat.

What does this physics lesson have to do with Christianity?

Getting stuck in traffic makes us react a certain way - frustration, anger, annoyance, impatience - and the way we react gives glimpse into the framework of our character. When we hear about culture wars in Madagascar, we react another way - ignorance, compassion, judgment. When a loved one dies of an incurable disease, our reaction brings out a new set of emotions that have been tapped before. In each case, reactions shed light on character.

When bad things happen, it is human nature to wonder, "WHY?" That is a reaction. The reaction makes us ask more questions, and sometimes we become even more confused. As a Christian, my reaction tends to be a little bit different because of an awareness of the big picture; there's more to this life than what we experience. A God-follower's character shows differently.

In the same way, Jesus acted as a model of God's character on this earth, but his character was not defined by his actions. The content of His character was defined by His reactions. While thousands of people mocked him, he did not waver. While dozens of Roman soldiers beat him before his execution, he did not recant his confession to be the Savior. When he hung on the cross as onlookers rolled dice for his clothes, he asked God to forgive them.

His reactions portray the content of His character.

Oh, Dear Christian College

Currently, the university that I attend is under the microscope for shady actions by its students and faculty in three different areas. First, a student, who was arrested for the murder of his parents in the fall of 2005, is now on trial for these charges. Second, the NCAA has addressed numerous violations in the track & field and football programs. Third, our student congress president was impeached Wednesday for several integrity violations. This third issue was written up in a local newspaper, and a person on this article online saying, "Why is this even in the paper? Anytime someone at ACU even sneezes, it makes the front page." The reason it makes the front page is because we are called to a higher standard, but we are failing to keep up with what we profess.

The frustrating thing about being associated with a Christian institute is that it seems like someone is always out to find your mistakes, and when these slip-ups are exposed, the whole world knows how we have failed. For years, my university has pledge to be a light to the world around us, but it feels as if that light is beginning to fade - at least the problems we are facing have made me feel this way - and it has made me realize how difficult is it to profess Christianity in a culture that looks for reasons to condemn us we when make the wrong choices.

I know that I will receive my degree from a business college that has excellent accreditation, and I also know that I have grown as a Christian over the four years that I have been here. But as I prepare to graduate from this institution, I am worried that when people hear that I am a graduate from the university that was involved in several scandals, they will hold it against me. Granted, most people are unaware of what has been going on in recent months here, but the fact that I am associated with it still makes me nervous.

Ultimately, the challenge that our university must face everyday is that same challenge that any person that is associated with any given religious, moral, political, or social doctrine must face: how will you remain unwavering in your beliefs despite persecution. I understand that persecution might be a strong word in the case, but its sting presents imagery that we can all associate with. No matter what I profess, there will always be someone who professes opposite ideals. Through this, as Christians and as a university, we must reset the course and conduct ourselves in a manner that is exemplary to others. Everyone fails and is judged for it. Growth and maturity comes by working to get it right again.