Archive for January, 2006

The Counterculture of Sleep

Published
by
Mike
on January 7, 2006
in General and movies
. 4 Comments

“How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good?” That’s the question that Books and Culture, Christianity Today, and Leadership Journal are joining together to ask this year.

They’re inviting six creative Christian thinkers to answer the question. The first is Lauren Winner, the 29-year-old author of Girl Meets God and Real Sex.

Her answer to this significant question is about sleep. That’s right. We, as followers of Jesus Christ, can take sleep more seriously. You can find her essay here.

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Check out this review of King Kong by Deana Nall.

Happy 100th, ACU!

Published
by
Mike
on January 6, 2006
in General
. 26 Comments

I’m so thankful for the amazing things I know are going on at several Christian colleges. Pepperdine continues to reclaim its Christian heritage. Rochester College is on its way to becoming a top-flight school in the north. Harding continues to train and equip students for vocational missions. And with the hiring of Randy Lowry, this may well be the Year of Lipscomb.

But today I want to say a word about Abilene Christian University.

ACU was founded 100 years ago, and there will be centennial celebrations all year long.

I’m so thankful to be involved with ACU as a teacher and also as the preacher for a church that is intimately connected with it. (More students attend ACU from Highland than any other church. Plus lots of administrators, faculty, staff, and students find their church home here.)

I can’t believe the strength of the department Jack Reese, Dean of the College of Biblical Studies, has put together. I would love to be a student going to ACU now to prepare for ministry.

Take, for example, this one area: homiletics. You can study preaching with Randy Harris, Stephen Johnson, James Thompson, Jack Reese, Mark Love, and Tim Sensing. That’s called hoarding the wealth!

In a couple weeks, Randy and I will get to teach about 80 freshmen Bible majors Acts through Revelation. And I envy what they’re going to be getting in the coming years. I’d like to sit in those classes they’re going to have with Jeff Childers and Mark Hamilton and Larry Henderson and David Wray and Jerry Taylor and . . . Well, I shouldn’t start. (Check out the undergrad faculty and the grad faculty online.)

I didn’t attend ACU as a student. But I am very thankful for all the women and men who have made it what it is. The university has been a blessing in my life and to churches all over the world.

Happy 100th!

Hook Em Horns!

Published
by
Mike
on January 5, 2006
in memories and sports
. 23 Comments

I was a campus baby while my parents attended the University of Texas. Whoever didn’t have a class was my babysitter. And apparently one of my first phrases to speak was HOOK EM HORNS.

I was introduced to the biblical concept of “alien and stranger” by being a UT fan while growing up just an hour from the University of Arkansas campus. Every fourth year when the UT/UA game was played in Fayetteville (the Arkansas home games alternated between Fayetteville and Little Rock), our family dressed up in orange and attended, finding our place in the sea of red. We were there for the game of the century in 1969–despite the fact that President Nixon took our tickets.

(The full story is that when the President decided to attend, they had to take some tickets from around the stadium for security and ours were chosen. Hmmmm. Did they know we’d be wearing orange? But my dad snagged some last-minute tickets from another source.)

So . . . this was a big night. The first national title for the Longhorns since 1970. And does anyone doubt what I’ve been writing about Vince Young? He was 30-for-40 in passing for over 250 yards. That’s a good night for a QB. But what sets him apart is that he rushed for 200 yards. That was the difference.

Hook em horns!!

For a Better New Year . . .

Published
by
Mike
on January 4, 2006
in General and food
. 26 Comments

Did someone move Abilene to the Southern Hemisphere while we were gone to Missouri? Yesterday, January 3, it was 87 degrees! I don’t like hot in the summer–much less in the winter. I live for winter–when it’s supposed to be cold, snowy, and depressive.

When I came home from work, three middle school boys were playing hoops in our driveway. Guess what? I got invited to join! They were that desperate for a game of two-on-two. We had a blast, I didn’t embarrass my son too badly, and today I only have one sprained wrist as a result.

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Tonight, Texas gets to claim their first national title since 1970. There is that small problem of USC, but hope springs eternal. Hook-em-horns!

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For a better 2006 . . .

STOP SPENDING MONEY YOU DON’T HAVE

The gap between what you really need and what our consumer society shouts out that you really need is growing rapidly.

But that gap wouldn’t matter if people couldn’t pay to stretch themselves too far. And that’s where credit cards come in. Enjoy now. Pay later. Slide the card. Take out the loan. Borrow just a bit more.

And we ministers see the broken results all around us. People are in debt up to their eyeballs. They aren’t free to do the things they want to do like respond generously when they see others in need because they have no financial margin.

So here’s the difficult truth: your children don’t need cell phones; you probably don’t need a cell phone; you don’t need a health club membership; you don’t need an expensive vacation; you don’t need an SUV; your kids don’t need the latest fashions; your family can survive without high-speed internet and cable.

I’m not saying these are wrong. If you can afford them while living with generous hearts, then great. But they are not worth living without financial margin.

STOP DIETING

Whacky diets continue to come and go. Stop the starve-and-balloon diet process.

Eat right. Don’t overeat. Cut back — WAY back — on fast food. (If this is hard for you, check out “Supersize Me” and watch it every couple months. That should help.)

Vegies. No secret there. Vegies, fruit, beans, nuts, lean meat (most of the time). But enjoy a steak. Slap on the butter when you want it.

Just eat reasonably most of the time. Party on Friday.

STOP OBSESSING ON THE LAST TEN POUNDS

When anorexic models are plastered all over the covers of magazines, it’s easy to obsess on getting rid of those last ten pounds.

To be honest, that isn’t very reasonable for people who are over 30 and can’t hire a personal chef and don’t have four hours a day to work out with a personal trainer.

For health reasons, keeping weight down is usually good. But it’s a huge leap from that to our obsession with being perfectly fit and trim. Part of what happens in a health club is, well, healthy; but much of it isn’t.

Find a work-out routine that works for you. Something to get the heart rate up a bit: jogging, climbing stairs, biking, walking, etc. Get into a regular routine.

The goal here isn’t to ditch those last few pounds (though if it happens, you won’t be offended!) but to get your heart pumping a little harder. That releases energy that tends to spill over into other areas of your life.

Chris Anderson’s Photos

Published
by
Mike
on January 3, 2006
in General
. 1 Comment

I hope many of you have been able to follow the photojournalism career of former Highland member Chris Anderson (Carolyn and Lynn’s youngest child). He has become a “voice” for the poor and oppressed of the world through his camera lens.

Recently Chris has been in Bolivia. Check out some of his work here. (Go down to “Bolivian Elections” by Christopher Anderson. It is a series of short essays on Venezuela and Bolivia. Amazing photos and commentary.)

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I continue to be moved by the words of faith, hope, and love (along with anxiety and concern) coming from Joe and Laura as little Ira continues battling for his life.

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Sure enough, Casen’s picture was in yesterday’s Abilene Reporter-News as the first baby of year — after he decided he did NOT want to be a sermon illustration while in his mother’s womb.

The Baby Who Proved Scripture Is Right

Published
by
Mike
on January 1, 2006
in Highland and preaching
. 20 Comments

My preaching year hasn’t begun very well.

This morning we’re having everyone come to the front for communion. We do this about four times a year, and most people love the experience. So often when we take communion, we never interact with one another. It’s as if we were in cubicles. It’s more of an altar rather than a table (to borrow from the wonderful insights of John Mark Hicks in Come to the Table).

On these Sundays, we’re able to sing more, we actually see each other, pray for each other, greet each other, and bless each other. That’s hard to pull off in such a large church, but I think most are deeply blessed.

Anyway, to bring us to the table, I’m speaking on the image of pregnancy and childbirth. To get a glimpse of where this might go, read John 16:22, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, and Romans 8:22.

A couple weeks ago I asked my assistant to find me a “really pregnant woman.” “How pregnant?” Gina wanted to know. “REAL pregnant.” So Gina talked to WK, who is due the second week of January with her first child.

Then I crafted a sermon around an interaction on Sunday morning with WK. She came in Friday and we went through the Q & A part. As she left, I jokingly said, “You’ll still be around Sunday, won’t you?” She laughed and said, “Oh, yes. I just saw the doctor and he said there’s no way I’ll go into labor for another week.”

Then I went back to preparing my sermon on the suddenness and unpredictability of childbirth.

You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you? Last night, just before a houseful of people came over, I got a call to tell me that WK was in labor and that she and her husband had gone to the hospital.

So this morning I get to encourage people to receive the body and blood of Jesus in a spirit of watchful anticipation, knowing that the Lord could appear at any time. My sermon is in a bit of disarray, however, since I didn’t pay enough attention to what the text had been saying all along! You don’t know!

I hope my attentiveness to scripture improves this year.

Blessings on you in 2006.

And for now, we welcome Highland’s newest member: Casen Matthew K., who was born at 12:25 this morning.