DownshoreDrift

Here are a few photos of the kids over the last couple of weeks, enjoying a family outing, posing for Christmas cards, and spending time with family. I have lots of family and friends that read Downshoredrift, so I thought you might be interested in seeing how the kids are growing (Click on the photo to enlarge). We had a great Christmas and we hope you did too!

Have a Happy New Year!!!

Several years ago, I had the privilege of developing a relationship with Jay Lorenzen. He is the Associate National Director, Training and Development for Campus Crusade for Christ's Military Ministry.  He's also probably one of the sharpest missional minds in the Western Evangelical world. That is not hyperbole. He is a voracious reader with amazing ability to synthesize information into discernable applications and he is also an excellent teacher. I attended his Gettysburg Leadership Conference a few years ago where he takes a small group through the three days of the battle in real time, and with the Bible, applies leadership lessons for ministry. It's probably the best conference I've ever been to.

Jay also blogs at Onmovements.com, where he writes about what it takes to build a missional disciplemaking movement. Here is an excerpt (Update: This is actually a quote on Jay's blog that is taken from Eric Swanson, a friend of Jay's):

Lately I’ve been finding myself saying to others, “As difficult as it is to surf, it is far easier to catch a wave than to cause a wave.” My point is that we need to be aware of the big things God is doing in the world and get in on them.

God has a plan. Recently I was talking with Reggie McNeal (The Present Future). Reggie made this metaphoric observation.

“I doubt that God went to bed last night thinking about how many people you had in your church. Most likely he went to bed last night thinking about the two billion people that live on less than a dollar a day or the 30,000 people who died because they didn’t have clean water or about human traficking or the genocide in Africa.”

When God wants to act, if the church is not paying attention, he will raise up whom he will…who have his full attention to bring forth his agenda in the world. Sometimes it is a Cyrus or an Artexerses or Nebuchadnezzar. Sometimes it is a Bono, a Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet . . .

In the November 13, 2006 Newsweek, Michael Gerson writes “I’ve asked young evangelicals on campuses from Wheaton to Harvard, who they view as their model of Christian activism. Their answer is nearly unanimous: Bono.” (p. 40) A couple weeks ago I was with a bunch of Campus Crusade leaders who were working on establishing spiritual movements on every campus in the northeast region of the country (1/5 of all US college students).

Perhaps the wave that God is causing is what we should pay attention to. Instead of thinking how we can get Crusade staff to bring their students to a certain beach project we should be thinking how to mobilize all the student groups on one campus to go to Africa and sink 20 water wells. It’s not so much about wringing our hands, consuming ourselves about growing our campus groups from 60 to 80 (remember Reggie’s words) but how can catalyze the students on campus to change the world.

Last spring Crusade mobilized 15,000 students (believers and non-believers) to work on the gulf coast. These shoulder to shoulder relationships spawned a hundred thousand unlikely conversations about Jesus. This was our “proof of concept.” If Bono is universally admired by believers and unbelievers alike, why not show up on campus sporting (RED) gear, identifying like-minded people and planting (RED) groups or ONE groups or Bono groups or U2 groups on campus and mobilize students for a global agenda sponsored by local businesses?

Leaders can keep the spiritual agenda on the front burner and invite students to meet God through service to others (Matthew 25–”When you did it to the least you were doing it to me.”) It is then the job of believers to help their friends interpret what they are experiencing as they give themselves to people on the margin. There is a groundswell of students that want their lives to count for something. We can be a catalyst (like we did around Katrina) and give leadership to fulfill that desire for purpose. It is always better to be in the business of satisfying demand rather than trying to create demand. Students don’t want to be on the sidelines. They want a piece of the action.

Now, can you imagine movements everywhere on every campus where students are making a global, spiritual and material difference? Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?

Okay. Chew on that for a few minutes. Jay always challenges me to think differently about things, and after I listen to him for a few minutes expound on really complex concepts, what he is saying seems obvious to me and I wonder why I never thought of it myself. That is the mark of a great teacher. You should really begin reading him. Outstanding stuff.

Also, Alan Hirsch is fairly new to the blogosphere. Many have read his revolutionary book, The Shaping of Things to Come with Michael Frost. He now has a blog called, The Forgotten Ways. He has a book out by the same title. He is really insightful and asks some wonderful questions.

One recent post (A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Question) on comparisons between the growth of the early church and the underground church in China has really gotten me thinking.  He asks how both churches grew so rapidly in such miserable conditions. I personally think that persecution and God's sovereign work were the primary factors, obviously. Many groups have experience persecution and did not grow. Many groups have experienced a visitation of God that petered out over time. But, when you combine God's presence, with persecution, and a people who have nothing but Him, spiritual explosions tend to take place. I don't think we are going to see the awakening that we long for in America until we fall on our face, cry out to the Lord, and throw off all the other things we are so dependent upon. We are so prideful and arrogant, we shut off the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and ministries. Prayer is obviously a key, but we spend far more time focusing on other things.

Track with Alan as he helps us understand how God is working around the world and how He can work in our lives as well.

The last thinker/leader I encourage you to check out today is Bob Roberts, founder of Glocalnet (global and local transformation). I met Bob at the Intersection Conference last year in Seattle, WA, put on by Global Spectrum.  He is the founding pastor of a truly Glocal church that has helped plant churches all over the world and is now involved in the discipling of nations. He has been connected with Thom Wolf/Carol Davis for years, so his thoughts are very familiar to me. Bob is interested in helping believers interact with what God is doing around the world through globalization. He teaches that believers should be leading innovators in the connection of the world and that the gospel is the transformative force to bring the change that people really want. More than a thinker, Roberts is a doer. Keep up with his travels and thoughts, and you'll be the better for it.

Christmas has come and gone. At times it was an incredible blessing. We gathered with family and friends, ate (like crazy), exchanged gifts, and worshipped the Lord through prayer and gathering with the saints on Sunday morning and evening. At other times, it was difficult. Erika had to take Caelan to the hospital unexpectedly on Friday evening because of a fever, and she had to leave Saturday night and rush him there again because of high fever of over 102. She did not return until Sunday evening because they had to give him a blood transfusion and platelets. Sigh.

In the midst of all of this, with Erika and Caelan absent in Birmingham, the other kids and I delivered Christmas goodies to our neighbors (this was supposed to happen on Friday but was postponed). In the process, we found out that several houses on our street had recently been broken into. People are wanting to come together and get to know their neighbors so that we can take care of one another. The man across the street also said he was interested in helping me get folks together and we pledged to have a cook out in the Spring. So, God seems to have used our little gifts to the neighbors to begin a process of bringing people together and building much needed community in our neighborhood. We even had a couple that we had just met bring us a quiche on Christmas morning as a thanks for the gifts we had brought them!

Once things settled down, we ended up having a great time with my mom and her husband, and my sister and brother-in-law. I can truly say that, in spite of all the hospital visits this month, Christmas has been a blessing as we truly experienced Christ and His presence. He led us into a more missional Christmas this year, and I am thankful for that. Through focusing and living out the theme of the Incarnation, whether at peace or in crisis, we truly experienced the amazing redemptive presence of Emmanuel, God with us. I pray that your Christmas was a blessing as well!

Well, Christmas is almost here. This will be my last post until after Christmas. I've got family coming in tomorrow and LOTS needs to be done to get ready and to finish up all of our Christmas preparations. My wife would not be happy to see me sitting on the computer while she does everything, so, this is it until next week. I'm also looking forward to our service on Sunday and our Christmas Eve Candlelight Communion Service (I love that!).  SOOO,  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

We've been trying to make Christmas more spiritual and missional this year. Instead of just focusing on ourselves and receiving, we have tried to find ways to connect with neighbors and friends and serve them. Later this evening, my family and I are going into our neighborhood to deliver little goody packages with a scripture verse on them to all of our neighbors. We don't know the vast majority of them because everyone is so private. We thought this would be a great way to get to know them, pass on a blessing, and start to build some relationships. My wife and children spent the whole afternoon yesterday baking all types of cookies, brownies, fudge, etc., and they had a blast. Please pray for us as we do this. I am trying to teach my kids that Christmas is a great time to reach out to others and bless them, even if you don't know them. They're pretty excited about it.

Along those lines, a group from our church went Christmas Caroling on Wednesday night (see image on left - that was us! Yeah right!). This was the last event in our Time to Serve. We did not have our normal service, so around 40 of us went to the apartment complexes near our church and sang a few songs. Some folks came out to listen, but even though many people were home, people tended to not be very responsive, except for a few (including a Muslim family). I was kind of surprised. How often do you have Christmas Carolers show up near your house? I guess not often enough. We were walking back toward the church, and I was a little disappointed, honestly.

But, then I had a thought. We were walking on the street back toward the church and passed a restaurant/martini bar named Dabbo's. It occurred to me that they might let us come in and sing Christmas carols to their patrons (I'm thinking of an Irish Pub type of thing). I told the group to wait and I went and asked if they would have us. They said "sure!" and told us to come in. There was no one in the restaurant, but there were about 10 people in the bar area. It was a pretty nice place filled with an older crowd that was dressed nicely. We all crowded in (kids and all) and sang our Christmas carols and told them Merry Christmas. Many of the patrons sang along with us. We then gave out little flyers that had some of our church information on it with candy canes attached. In return, they gave us money! I rushed up and kept telling them "NO! Keep your money! We didn't come here for money! We're trying to bless you!" They insisted. They were so happy that we came in, they took up a collection for us and told us to use it for a good cause! It was spare cash they had in their pockets, but it ended up being $30! I went back to the church and assigned it to our benevolence fund. We regularly have people coming to the church and asking for food or gas, so those folks in the bar will help feed some folks in the coming weeks.

So, I thought that was pretty cool. It just shows me that God always has surprises for us when we step out in faith and incarnate the gospel. The Incarnation of Christ into a lost and hurting world has been my running theme this Christmas and I am so excited about what God has taught me. Our God is a missional God and He sent His Son cross culturally to our planet to bring us the Kingdom of God. We have so much to rejoice over and so much to tell people about.

Again, please pray for my family and I as we try and build relationships with our neighbors tonight. We're going to around 25 houses and are praying for friendships to develop with people that we only see in passing. We hope to follow this up with neighborhood get togethers as the year goes on, but everyone is so isolated and private, we thought Christmas would be a great time to break the ice.

I wish each of you a merry Christmas. So does my wife Erika, and my 4 children. Merry Christmas!!!

Of course, he denies the holocaust, wants to eradicate the Jews, is preparing his people for Armageddon, and is building a nuclear bomb to help him accomplish his goals, but otherwise, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, seems like a pretty nice guy (sarcasm - seriously, I had to say that because some would take me seriously. Sigh).  He has some questions and comments for Christians:

In a greeting to the world's Christians for the coming new year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he expects both Jesus and the Shiite messianic figure, Imam Mahdi, to return and "wipe away oppression."

"I wish all the Christians a very happy new year and I wish to ask them a question as well," said Ahmadinejad, according to an Iranian Student News Agency report cited by YnetNews.com 

"My one question from the Christians is: What would Jesus do if he were present in the world today? What would he do before some of the oppressive powers of the world who are in fact residing in Christian countries? Which powers would he revive and which of them would he destroy?" asked the Iranian leader.

"If Jesus were present today, who would be facing him and who would be following him?"

Ahmadinejad then made a connection between Jesus and the Imam Mahdi, believed by Shiites to have disappeared as a child in A.D. 941. When the Mahdi returns, they contend, he will reign on earth for seven years before bringing about a final judgment and the end of the world.

"All I want to say is that the age of hardship, threat and spite will come to an end someday and, God willing, Jesus would return to the world along with the emergence of the descendant of the Islam's holy prophet, Imam Mahdi, and wipe away every tinge of oppression, pain and agony from the face of the world," Ahmadinejad said.

Of course, I think he's a madman. But, I found it interesting that he is appealing to Christians in this way to try and win them over. What do you think?  Apart from the fact that we are being asked this by an Iranian dictator who is hoping that we will come to conclusions that would cause us to turn against the West (and the U.S. in particular), how would you answer these questions if a Muslim in your community posed them to you?

As a pastor, I get the amazing privilege of being able to minister to children and talk with them and their families about spiritual things. Before anyone is baptized in our church, I meet with them and go through the gospel and what baptism means. We have a lot of kids in our church, and it has been awesome to see many of them confess faith in Christ over the past year and obey God in baptism. God has truly been at work in the lives of our kids, and it has been awesome to see.

I have been really excited to see this in my own children. I know, you think it's a given, right? Well, it really isn't. Just because parents are in church, or their dad is a pastor, it doesn't necessarily mean that the kids are going to be hungry spiritually. But, God has been gracious. My oldest daughter got baptized this year, after she received God's gift of salvation almost two years ago. She has a sensitive heart for the Lord and for others as well. She is such a blessing.

Recently, my oldest son, who is 5, has really begun to talk with me about God. He was given a Bible for Christmas the other day, and he has been bringing it to me to read to him. He wants to read John 3:16 everyday, and everything that comes before it and after it. We started trying that, and he kept asking what came before. Finally, I decided to start reading the book of John to him. He keeps reminding me, listening, and asking questions. I had to take him to the doctor this morning, and he talked to me about God, salvation, and being baptized the whole way. He kept saying, "Daddy, let's talk about God. I want to be baptized." I told him that he needed to wait awhile until he was a bit older and understood things better. He answered, "Daddy, let's talk about God now. I want to understand. Help me understand." I was blown away.

He is asking questions, praying, and seeking God in a way that is far greater than just wanting to go to Heaven.  Almost everytime he says he loves me, he says he loves me more than anything, but not more than God. He makes that very clear. God is truly at work in the lives of my kids and He is drawing them to Him. I am grateful.

Now, my three year old son, on the other hand, was caught carrying part of his dinner to the trash can to make us think he had finished it all so he could have dessert. He was disillusioned to find that that did not go over very well. Ah, his depravity is beginning to show. Lord? :)

Warning: Blatant Baptist ramblings ahead. Proceed at your own risk. What you read may frighten you, cause you to run and hide, or make you wish you had never heard of denominations. Do not fear, I will not address this subject again until well into January, if then. I will write happy posts about Christmas, children, and jolly good times. But, for now, only if you are interested, you can engage with me on why I care about the goings on in the SBC and what difference it might make to anything that really matters in life. You might be surprised.

Over the past year, Southern Baptists have been engaged in a struggle over what defines the limits of our cooperation in missions (you can read my articles on the topic HERE).  Some have tried to say that if you believe that the gifts of the Spirit have continued to this day (a continualist position), including speaking in tongues privately in prayer to God, you should not be accepted as a missionary candidate with the International Mission Board (IMB).  There are other issues that are dividing us, including issues surrounding baptism and Christian liberty.

I am just going to say a few things about this and ask a few questions like the ones I have been posing to Dr. Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church, Farmersville, TX.  Dr. Barber is an a posteriori cessationist  , which basically means that, while he doesn't see Biblical evidence for the ceasing of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, he has looked around and not seen them in operation the way he thinks the Bible says. Therefore, he has come to the conclusion that God must have withdrawn them. Besides the fact that this view places all the weight of the evidence on what Dr. Barber himself has seen or not seen, it goes beyond the words of Scripture (or falls short) and places it's faith in experience, or lack thereof, rather than in what the Bible tells us to expect. Dr. Barber and I had a lively debate on this on one of my posts on the Holy Spirit, so you can see for yourself how he answered these questions. I do not want to put words in his mouth, so please, read his words for yourself.

Recently, Dr. Barber has been writing posts proclaiming that it is thoroughly natural for the SBC to divide, at least in our appointment of missionaries, and perhaps beyond, over the issue of private prayer language.  He is a fair and good man, and I have learned to appreciate his keen mind, gentle spirit, and heart for the Lord and others. I enjoy discussing these things with him, because I feel that he is fair in his treatment of the subject and he will keep you thinking. I hope I do the same for him. In short, he is EXACTLY the type of man that I would love to work with, despite my continualist views, and is a good example of everything that I love about the SBC.

However, I am obviously in disagreement with him and many others who are advocating that a form of cessationism be considered the de facto theological position on this matter in the SBC. I feel that there are many who would like to see this view codified in the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M), the Southern Baptist confession of faith. With recent events in our missions agency and at Southwestern Seminary, this possibility seems to be gaining steam. I take being involved in a denomination seriously, because we attach our name to theirs. We send 10% of our tithes and offerings to denominational entities and we do missions through the SBC. We participate with our sister churches in many things and we share a common theological heritage. I care about this because it is important. Let me list some ways the SBC will be affected, in my opinion, if this gathering storm against continualists keeps moving forward:

David Dockery, the president of Union University, a Baptist school in Tennessee, called for unity among Southern Baptists based on the essentials of the faith (HT: Wade Burleson). This is a really great article and I agree with his perspective wholeheartedly.  Here's a couple of excerpts:

“What I wanted to do was to call us back to a primary focus on the Gospel itself and understand those areas where we have strong agreement about the sinfulness of humanity and their lostness apart from Christ, that our salvation is found in Christ alone,” Dockery said.

“I invite us to move from controversy and confusion to a new consensus and take a step back, not just to commit ourselves afresh to missions and evangelism, as important as that is, but to commit ourselves first and foremost to the Gospel, the message of missions and evangelism, the message that is found only in Jesus Christ and His atoning death for sinners,” Dockery said. “I trust that we can hold hands together for the good of the Gospel beginning here at Union University, which can bring a fresh breath, a fresh wind of God’s Spirit across Tennessee Baptist life and across the Southern Baptist Convention.”

“It is possible to hold hands with brothers and sisters who disagree on secondary and tertiary matters of theology and work together toward a common good to advance the Kingdom of God,” Dockery said. “But we need to be of like mind on first-order issues, issues such as the authority and truthfulness of the Bible, the deity and humanity of Christ, the Holy Trinity and the exclusivity of the Gospel.”

Amen, brother! May your tribe increase! Again, read the article HERE.

And, if you haven't already, check out some of my thoughts on unity last week at my post, Our Real Basis of Unity.

In my continuing quest to embrace the true meaning of Christmas, my family and I went to see The Nativity Story tonight. It was a really beautiful movie. It was a simple retelling of the story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Christ. The power of the film, for me, involved the perspective of how small God became to take on flesh. He was born to a simple peasant girl in a backwater region of the Roman Empire. He was born amidst controversy and scandal. He was hunted by the King, and attended to by low born shepherds and Eastern Wise Men, who were basically astrologers. What an amazing story! Who could believe it? God took on flesh and made His dwelling among us - a Savior for all mankind!

Several times during the movie, tears came to my eyes as I mediated on the glory and humility of the Incarnation of Christ. What an amazing God. Jesus, our Lord and Savior!

O Come, O Come Emmanuel . . . and ransom captive Israel . . . who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to thee O Israel.

When I was younger, Christmas was ABSOLUTELY my favorite time of year. I loved the presents, family getting together, the Christmas TV specials (I became a big Burl Ives fan), the Christmas carols, decorations, the presents . . . sorry, I already mentioned that. As I got older and started having a family, Christmas became much more hectic, yet still satisfying. Instead of mostly receiving, I was in the position of giving. It was great to see my kids get excited and introduce them to all the Christmas traditions of my past and to make new ones of my own.  My wife and I were married on December 17, so our honeymoon was the week before Christmas and that makes this time of year doubly special.

However, somewhere along the way, I lost my Christmas spirit. I started to get jaded and frustrated. The bombardment of materialism and gift buying and giving started to get to me. My parents divorced almost 4 years ago, so I joined my wife in having a split family. That was painful. When we got together with family for gift exchanges and all the little family Christmases that you have, everyone just gave presents and didn't say much about it. It all began to seem odd, what with all the parties, gifts, shopping, food, and expectation of what? It all began to ring hollow to me.

Just a quick update on Caelan: After his infection last week, port removal (a port is what he receives his chemo through), and two nights in the hospital, he had a port replacement surgery yesterday. Everything went really well and he was able to come home. The infection did not make it into his body and he received the port just fine. He's back to playing with his cars and his siblings.

We stepped through a new phase though. When we gave him to the nurse to take him back into surgery, he reached for us and started crying. Up until now, he has always been happy to go back with whoever. He is 16 months old now and I think that he is really starting to pick up on what is going on. He remembered the surgery from last week. Seeing your son cry as strangers take him off to be put to sleep and have surgery was a little difficult. Everything worked out, but we haven't faced him really understanding what is happening to him yet. That has been the biggest blessing of him being so young. We praise God for the treatment, the hospital, and all the doctors and nurses, but we do look forward to this being over.  Thank you all for your prayers.

Each year during the Christmas season, as a church, we try and focus on what the season is really all about. It is so easy to get caught up in busyness, commercialism, and selfishness. Christmas is not about family, friends, presents, or fun!!! Christmas is about the Incarnation of Christ and how God became Immanuel, God with us. What does it mean for Christ to have come? He heralded the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God, where all things would be made new and we would live by a new ethic and system of living. We are aliens and strangers in this world and we are to live to God, and not the false gods of our culture.

This past weekend, we did that as a church.  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of each year, we engage in something called A Time to Serve. I heard about a church in Colorado who does this, and we ripped off the idea. Basically, we design 8-10 service projects for people in our church to engage in, from helping with a parent’s morning out, to buying things for a needy family, to working on houses, to volunteering at a mission.

This past Saturday, we had a team go out and volunteer at the Salvation Army to sort canned goods, and another team went to a local Wal Mart to wrap presents for people. Both projects got a really great response and it was a way for our folks to truly be Jesus in our community. We experienced the joy of teamwork and of giving ourselves away to bless others. When the group was wrapping presents, they kept encountering people that could not believe that there was no catch or cost. Nope, we were just doing it because we loved them and Jesus loved them. What a blessing. I am so proud of our church.

This is a good synopsis of the issue surrounding speaking in tongues in the SBC by Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News: Tongues Tied: The Lowdown on a Baptist Spat. I wanted to link to it for future reference. It summarizes the issues well. HT:  Ben Cole.

I got a call this week from a reporter at the Montgomery Advertiser, our local newspaper. After already being misquoted in the Dallas Morning News, I was a little hesitant to be interviewed. But, this was for an entirely different reason. Someone in our congregation thought that what is going to happen Sunday night is newsworthy, and I guess it is. We have invited Family Life Bible Fellowship, a predominately black church, to join us for our annual Christmas party, the Christmas Extravaganza. The reporter thought that this was interesting, because it is rare to see black and white churches working together this way. He asked me if I thought that was significant.

Well, I guess it is. But, it shouldn't be. And, Pastor Slater and I are not doing this because we are tying to prove some type of racial unity point. We're doing it because we're friends. We've come together before and it just seemed like it would be fun. Unity is much easier when you are actually in relationship with someone, instead of it being contrived.

When I think about the difficulties that we addressed at the Roundtable discussion in Arlington on Tuesday, and I think about this event coming on Sunday, I understand more and more that I am not unified with others just because we have Baptist on our name. As a matter of fact, if there is no relationship, it doesn't matter what your name is - we're probably not going to be real effective working together. Unity first comes from being a like minded believer in Christ. Secondly, it comes from love. Thirdly, it comes from being in relationship. You have to be friends to trust one another and work together. This has been one of the benefits of the blogs: it has been a forum for building relationships and friendships with other pastors that I never would have met otherwise.

Perhaps our racial problems in the U.S. have more to do with a lack of friendship and understanding, than anything else.

Perhaps our family problems have more to do with a lack of time spent together in mutually edifying relationships and friendships, than anything else. The same can be said for many of the problems in our churches.

Perhaps the problems in the SBC have far more to do with the fact that we don't have strong relationships, than it does with a lack of giving to the Cooperative Program.

Christ is the basis for our unity. Nothing else. If you are in Christ, you are my brother. You are my friend. And, because He lives in me, sacrificial love is there for even my enemies. During the Christmas season, lets try and share that love with family, neighbors, co-workers, friends, and even enemies. Maybe God will surprise all of us!

Quick update on Caelan: He came through the port surgery just fine today. They removed the port and it was infected. The good news is that the infection had not spread into his body, so they got it out in time. He does not have pnuemonia, and is basically healthy otherwise. So, praise God! They will replace the port next Wednesday with another surgery that is a bit more extensive. He and Erika are still in the hospital in Birmingham because he was running a fever. They wanted to watch him. I am pretty tired after the past couple of days and came back to Montgomery this afternoon for our Wednesday night service and to get the other three kids. What a couple of days!

Thank you all for praying for Caelan. He is doing great!

Okay. What a day. I just made it back to Birmingham and I'm at Children's Hospital. Erika is asleep down the hall with Caelan and I wandered down to the parent's lounge where there is a computer. Yesterday, I was in Montgomery, travelled to Dallas and Arlington, TX, came back to Birmingham tonight and I'll be sleeping in a chair in anticipation of a port surgery for Caelan tomorrow morning. It is 11:04 pm, and I'm getting pretty tired. I really don't know anything right now about what will happen tomorrow, but his first port surgery was not that bad. Hopefully, this will not be either.

So, I figure I'll ramble a bit and get a decent update in concerning the events of the Roundtable Discussion at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, TX. 

Before I get into my take on the proceedings, you can read the article in the Dallas Morning News. I am quoted at the bottom completely out of context, of course. Here's the quote:

But some of the participants said their allegiance might not last forever. If the denomination continues to ignore concerns, his church may eventually decide it "won't continue to participate," said the Rev. Alan Cross, pastor of Gateway Baptist in Montgomery, Ala.

In missions - with the IMB that is saying it doesn't want us. We really have no choice, do we? What I actually said was that SBC leaders need to understand that if continualists are permanently shut out of being involved in missions through our missions agencies because of restrictive, and unbiblical policies, we will eventually have to find another way to cooperate in missions and carry out our God assigned task. We won't just sit back and do nothing. I said this AFTER affirming the SBC, the Cooperative Program, and our place as Southern Baptists. I was not trying to imply that we were interested in leaving the SBC, joining another denomination, bringing division, etc. Just, if you can't work through our mission boards, eventually you will have to do missions some other way and this is a big enough issue to find that other way. I have no idea what that other way is, by the way, or at what point we would have to make that decision - I guess if we totally fail in trying to bring about change and the powers that be tell us to take a hike. But, that is for a later day. Ah, the media. But, I guess I should have known.

While I was at breakfast this morning with a bunch of bloggers that you might be familiar with, I got a call from my wife that she was bringing Caelan to the hospital in Birmingham. He was running a fever and had to be checked out. She called to tell me that they thought that his port was infected so they were going to have to remove it and replace it with another one.  They are staying over night at Children's and I am flying into Birmingham tonight to stay with them. The surgery is tomorrow morning. Please pray that they will effectively replace the port and that there will be no infection. They are also running tests to make sure that he doesn't have pneumonia.  Pray for strength for Erika and that everything go smoothly. Hopefully, we will be able to head home tomorrow.

At breakfast, I asked the men that I was eating with, which included Art Rogers, Paul Littleton, Wade Burleson, Bob Cleveland, Ben Cole, Micah Fries, Dr. Sam Storms, and a friend of mine from seminary named Joe, to please pray for my son. Dr. Storms led us in prayer, which I really appreciated. Then, at the Roundtable, Ben Cole asked for an update for Caelan. I told him what was going on, and within a few moments, Dr. Dwight McKissic was announcing it to the whole gathering and there was a prayer for healing for my boy. I was deeply moved, humbled, and grateful. After the Roundtable, Robin Foster and Wes Kenney prayed with me for Caelan.  Thank you guys. It has been incredible to be on the receiving end of the prayers of the Saints in such an incredible way. One thing that I can say: through this whole process, so many have been so faithful to pray for us and lift us up. I thank God for each one of you.

Writing from the DFW airport, so this will be brief. The Roundtable went really well, I thought. There were over 100 pastors present from all over the country. Many resolutions and letters were agreed upon to present at the convention and there were details given about the conference on the Holy Spirit in April.  All in all, it was very positive for like minded brothers to gather together. I think that I see a time line of action developing that will hopefully bring these issues to a head sooner rather than later. This has been a long road over the past year, but I think that we will soon see which direction the SBC as a whole will be headed. I'll write more about this later when I have a better computer and have more time. I am sure that some will attack pastors coming together to ask the SBC leadership to reverse course on the issue of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but that is ridiculous in my opinion. We should be gathering together more, in my opinion. Hopefully, we will soon be gathering to talk about how we can get back to the main issues of reaching the world for Christ and sending out all qualified missionaries.

More later when I have more time . . .

As I think about my attendance at the Pastor's Roundtable meeting at Dr. Dwight McKissic's church Monday and Tuesday, my heart harkens back to King Arthur and parodies, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail and funny stories of quests and journeys of long ago. So, I thought I'd engage in a bit of creative writing:

Year of our Lord, 2006.

As the last days of autumn draw to a close, and the days grow shorter and the nights colder, I have been beckoned to the Roundtable, where all good knights sit shoulder to shoulder in equality. I will travel on ground and through the air to a convocation of sorts, a gathering of Believers, to match our wits and wisdom, led by our Great Guide, regarding the plagues that trouble the Realm. For a year now, there have been shouts and whispers of a movement to draw tight the lines of brotherhood and leave those who have fought nobly for the Cause outside the castle walls. Many have arisen to ward off this constriction and reach out to our brothers who would seek to limit the fellowship so that we may open wide the gates to all Brothers of the Faith. The real Enemy of our Souls is lecherous and advancing at every turn. Brothers should not push away Brothers from the table of meeting and fraternity. We have a true battle to fight, and it is not against one another. It should definitely not be over small matters such as how one prays or is baptized.

So, with that in mind, we gird up our hearts and minds and, together, bow before our King. May He bring us together in true unity, uniting the Realm for the real battle that is brewing on every side - a battle without and not within - a battle for the souls of men. May we lock arms with all good soldiers and remember to what field we have been called. May we tear asunder every prohibition that does not align itself with the Holy Book and that would keep good men apart in a far off country. May we raise armies of soldiers who are singularly focused in their desire to advance the Realm of the King into dark places all over this wide earth.  May we be knights who put one another before ourselves. Christ before us, Christ behind us, Christ to our right, our left, above and below. Christ within.

What doth the Roundtable have in store? Surely, we shall soon see . . . .

I'll be back on Wednesday with a full report.