DownshoreDrift

Michael Spencer (Internet Monk) writes a very provacative post on the seductive nature of entertainment in the church and in American culture entitled American Idolatry: What's Entertainment?   This post should be required reading for any discussion on ministry, parenting, or life in America in the 21st century. It is that insightful. Here is an excerpt:

Getting our bearings on the idolatry of entertainment is difficult. There is no doubt that American culture is addicted to entertainment, and that this addiction is now in a stage of consuming almost all aspects of our culture. For evangelicalism to exist in American culture, it will breath the air of this entertainment addiction. It is language, thought, the content of vast tracts of our cultural, family and individual lives.

This addiction is so deeply and completely part of our culture, that we are largely unable to talk about anything without judging it by its entertainment value or to conceive of improving it without causing whatever is being improved to become more and more “entertaining.” Our lives are empty, and entertainment promises to provide something- some feeling, some stimulation- that makes us real and alive. The promises of the Gospel to give us living bread and thirst-quenching water are covered over by bells, songs, lights and big screens.

Work must be entertaining. Education must be entertaining. Marriage must be entertaining. Family life must be entertaining. Children must be entertained. Our lives must be full of more and more entertainment. Entertainment will save our economy. Entertainment is the ultimate judge of talent, worth and value. We are entertained from cradle to grave. Leaders provide it, and the mob insists upon it. Of course, religion, church and God must all be entertaining, or we will have nothing to do with them.

Wow. I think he's right. As a pastor, I definitely see that in so many of the people who come and visit our church. In the discussion on whether our church is right for them, so often, what is meant is, "Is it entertaining for us and our children?"  God help us.

What do you think about this? Have you noticed this tendency or addiction in your own life? In your children's lives? How can we change this?

Just a few random thoughts on a Saturday night:

Tomorrow, we start a summer sermon series on the book of Philippians. We will preach through it until around Labor Day, I think. I'll start tomorrow with Philippians 1:1-2 on the grace and peace of God. To open many of Paul's letters, he says, "Grace and Peace to you." How much we need to receive grace and peace from the Lord and give it to one another. I'll have my notes up from the message in a couple of days, maybe.  A neat thing about this is that our elders and student minister will be preaching on 5 Sundays in June and July on different sections of Philipppians. It'll give me a break and will allow our church to hear from their other pastors. I'm excited about it and pray that we grow this summer.

I also, along with a couple of other guys start a class on varying views of Jesus that will go for 10 weeks during our morning Bible study time. I'm going to start with questions raised from The Da Vinci Code (by the way, I saw the movie last night, and what a dog! It was awful, in my opinion, and not just because it was so untrue - the acting and especially the directing was atrocious. Probably no need to boycott it - it fades from memory before you walk out of the theatre).  We'll move on to talk about how we are moving into a spiritual age that is not necessarily friendly to Christianity and we will spend the last few weeks talking about what other religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam think of Jesus. It will be kind of a Christology class in reverse, by looking at Jesus and the Bible through the eyes of their critics and then showing what the Bible says and answering questions raised. It should be interesting.

Tomorrow afternoon, we will have a forum at our church on the emerging SBC Issues that will be coming up at the convention in Greensboro, NC June 13-14. I am going to the convention, and I wanted to give an opportunity to educate my church before I went.  I have not mentioned these things to our church as a whole, but I wanted to provide an opportunity for folks to learn about what is happening. I'll save you the commentary right now. I'll post some of the general response to the issues from rank and file church member this week. It should be interesting.

We will also have a farewell dinner for all of our military folks who will be leaving us this summer. It will be so sad to see them go.  They have contributed a great deal to our church this year and it has been awesome to get to know them. They will be transferred to other bases around the country. I pray that God will bless them and use them mightily in His Kingdom.

Caelan is still doing great and is playing at my feet right now. We had birthdays this weekend for two of my children (they are only 3 days apart - 4 years and 3 days, actually!), so it has been a pretty busy weekend. Right now, I am relaxing, perusing the blogs (mostly SBC stuff in preparation for the convention in June), and am enjoying a HOT, lazy Sunday afternoon.

Today, after worship, we had a dinner for a couple in our church who just got married named Rob and Sherry. After we ate, we were encouraging them and sharing things that we were praying for in their lives. Rob said something that really had me thinking. He said that one of the main things that God has taught him over the past couple of years is to look fully to Christ for all of His needs and then take what he has received from Christ and spread it around to others, because there are a lot of hurting, needy people out there.  Well, that pretty much summed up about 2000 years of practical Christian theology.  Rob has walked through a lot of pretty terrible stuff the past couple of years, and it is awesome to hear that kind of simple, yet powerful testimony from a brother who has experienced God in the midst of trials, has seen Him restore, and is praising the Lord! Way to go, Rob - may your marriage and home be blessed with the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ!

This week I went down to Waveland/Bay St. Louis, MS to check on a couple from our church, Charlie and Martie Elgin, who have left everything of their life here, sold their house, and are living in a trailer to help people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.  It was a quick trip to work through some ministry plan stuff, see the camp/mission we are now starting called Pathfinder Mission, and have some meetings with the local baptist association, and a really great pastor, Kevin Clifton, of Bay Vista Baptist Church in Biloxi, MS.  God is doing some incredible things down there in opening people's hearts and through continuing to call volunteers to give of their time and resources to help put people's lives back together.  Our church is sponsoring Pathfinder, and we are praying that we will be able to start a church out of it as we reach into people's lives with practical and spiritual help.  Charlie and Martie spent 6 months at Shoreline Park Baptist Church in Waveland running their camp and felt led to stay down there and serve the people.  We are doing everything we can to help them.  Please pray for us and pray about any help that God might be leading you to provide for these people who are still in great need.

When you are faced with the strong possibility of a child with cancer (or your own weaknesses and sickness, for that matter), you are forced to see life differently. We're still waiting for test results, by the way, so no new news to report. I provided a link in my last post to John Piper's article, Don't Waste Your Cancer.   The basic premise of his perspective (which comes, by the way, from his own prostate cancer), is that this tragedy SHOULD serve to drive us closer to Christ, to cherish Him, and to step away from the pitiful pleasures that consume us as we live life in this world.

This affection for pleasure is so pervasive in America, and especially in the South, where I live, that it is difficult for us to see how it grips our lives. We (includes me) are driven by a desire for comfort, security, and pleasure, to the point that we begin to expect these things as though they were rights.  We fail to understand that the majority of the human condition is one of desperate need, fear, and suffering.  We are so blessed, that we do not even see it, and our blessing has become our curse.  Like the fish who does not recognize that it is wet, or even know what water is, we are so surrounded by affluence and prosperity, that we do not even see our situation or realize that we are prosperous.  Things like cancer, death, natural disasters, awake us from our malaise and remind us (if we are fortunate), what life is really all about.

We are still waiting to hear back from the various pathology labs concerning the results of Caelan's tumor. He is healing nicely from his surgery, so God is answering all of your prayers. He is not sleeping well at night, and (yawn!), that is having it's affect on the rest of the family. He also had an ear infection with a fever of 102, but the doctors have seen him and say that he is doing well over all.  Thank you so much for your prayers and your concern. I'll post an update when we know our futher course of action. As it stands right now, we are waiting until Thursday, when we go back to meet with the doctors.

I have not blogged lately because I have been very busy, we have not had anything new to report on Caelan, and because I also know that of the hundreds of visits a day that this site has been getting, 90% of them are primarily to get an update on Caelan. Thank you so much for visiting and your prayers!  I want to let everyone know that I will return to posting on other things of interest to me that chronicle how God is present in the little things of life to bring us closer and closer to Him (something that I have called Downshoredrift).   If you want to skip all of that and just read about what is happening with our precious son, you can go to Caelan Updates on my sidebar under CATEGORIES or hit the link here.  I just wanted to give a disclaimer before I started writing about other things to let you know that our family is going to return to some sense of normalcy, and part of that will be shown in my blogging on other issues, including Caelan. I hope you will track along with me through my other observations as well, but if not, hit the Caelan link and keep up that way.

Your comments are always appreciated and have been so encouraging to me and my family. I plan to print out these posts, put them in a book, and let Caelan read all of the prayers for him during this time when he gets older. Can you imagine how it will affect his life, when he is 16 and he reads about how during this time that he cannot remember, so many people prayed for him? I pray that God uses this in his life and the lives of others to draw many people to Himself. More later . . . God bless each of you!!!!

By the way, here is a great link from John Piper concerning his cancer. I thought you might find it interesting:  Don't Waste Your Cancer.  What do you think? Some of it is really good and I am still working through other parts.

I saw this on Liquidthinking and I thought, "Wow, that's definitely how I've felt some days." Life seems to be going really well, you are enjoying God's beauty and creation, all the while, danger is lurking right behind you. This picture is kind of funny, but it also reminds us to be on guard and aware at all times.  You could actually draw a bunch of different lessons from this.  What are yours?

The guys at Liquidthinking also have some great thoughts on the Kingdom and the Gospel that are worth checking out.  I especially like what they are saying about God having a course marked out for us ahead of time as they tackle the concept of predestination in Ephesians 1.  I think that we misinterpret the predestination verses and give too much weight to eternal decrees dictating the future, rather than looking at it more from the perspective of God's will for His creation, including us. This is not to take away from His soveriegnty or to allow for an open universe, but to recognize that He is working and involved in the redemption of the world through us and His own activity. 

Here's another interesting picture that I ripped off from the same site.  It illustrates the same point as before. Just when you think you're having a great day . . . 

(Picture of Point Reyes, CA, near SF where we lived in the late 90's - it illustrates Downshoredrift, which I'll talk about later in the post)

It's late and I can't sleep.  I have a lot on my mind. Sure, I went to bed a few hours ago, excited about turning in early, but I keep spinning, thinking about all types of things. So, I prayed and prayed, and still my mind raced. I've got a lot going on, I think, and I keep trying to get a handle on life.  Sometimes, I find it hard to settle down.

I haven't blogged much lately, and obviously have not gotten my message notes up from the last couple of weeks like I wanted to. I've been really busy and distracted, it seems, living in the tyranny of the urgent, so to speak. Blogging is a good practice, I feel, because it disciplines me to think through stuff, get my thoughts together, and hopefully, it provides an opportunity for feedback from my church on things we have been talking about.  So, hopefully the message notes will be up this week, but I've had life going on quite a bit.  Here are some things that have been going on the past week that has me up late tonight thinking:

Well, I'm a bit behind in getting my message notes up for the past two weeks, they should be up by tomorrow.

Things have been really busy lately as I've been getting to meet with a lot of folks and and have seen God move mightily in people's lives.  The biggest problem that we have, at times, is the we lose faith in the Lord and we look to our circumstances more than Him. We need each other so that we will continue to remind each other that all things hold together in Christ (Col.1:17). If my life is falling apart, that means that I am not living in Christ, because in Him, all things hold together. That has become a really good test for me as I go through my day. Am I living my life in Christ (The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God - Gal. 2:20), or am I living in my own strength according to my own thoughts?  If I am falling apart and life is overwhelming me, then perhaps I need to repent of trusting in myself and my own resources to control my life, instead of trusting in Christ, because in Him, all things hold together.  We often do not counsel someone who is really struggling with stress or depression to repent, but repentance just means that we turn from what we have placed our hope in to Christ. He is our hope. He is our strength. He is our life (When Christ, who is your life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory - Col. 3:1-4).

Anyway, those are some things that I am thinking about right now. Pray for us as we have the big community wide Easter Egg hunt this coming weekend. We had over a hundred folks from the neighborhoods around our church come out last year, and it was a great time to interact with those God sent our way. I pray that this year we have the same experience!

We arrived in Florida yesterday to spend a couple of days resting during Spring Break. Yes, as a 31 year old with four children, I get to enjoy Spring Break again!  The reason is that my daughter is in 1st grade, and spring break is the only time to get away during the school year. We'll be here the next couple of days and are so grateful for the chance to get away, rest, refocus, and spend some time with the family. God is so good and it is wonderful to reflect on His blessings like this.  We also get to spend time with another family that we love, and celebrate their daughter's 9 year birthday. Happy Birthday, Ashton!!!!

I got to return to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans on Friday. I went with a friend of mine who has been working with the Katrina restoration from the beginning. A major reason why we went was to help and introduce our folks in Waveland-Bay St. Louis (Charlie & Martie Elgin) to Kevin Clifton, the pastor of Bay Vista Baptist Church in Biloxi, MS to see if we could partner together.  They are doing incredible things on the coast and are really reaching into the community. Our folks are moving from Shoreline Park Baptist Church to establish another mission to continue the redevelopment work and to bring an evangelistic focus. Our thinking is that if we can develop affinity relationships with others who are doing amazing things, we can pray, share resources, support, and gain spiritual strength from what God is doing all along the coast. I am really excited to see what God is doing through Bay Vista, while I am so grieved as to what is going on on  the Coast. Joe McKeever has a good article on the situation in New Orleans here.

This a great article on repentance by Tim Keller, the pastor of  Redeemer Presbyterian   in New York City. I placed a link to his articles and resources on my sidebar.  Here is a great quote:

It is important to consider how the gospel affects and transforms the act of repentance.  In 'religion' the purpose of repentance is basically to keep God happy so He will continue to bless you and answer your prayers.  This means that 'religious repentance' is a) selfish, b) self-righteous, and c) bitter all the way to the bottom.  But, in the Gospel the purpose of repentance is to repeatedly tap into the joy of our union with Christ in order to weaken our need to do anything contrary to God's heart.

This is a short (page and a half) paper, but I think you will enjoy it.  Read the rest of the article here.  Thanks Steve McCoy!

For those of you who know me, you know that I have been pretty vocal about the situation in New Orleans and the MS Gulf Coast. Being from down there, I admit that I have been an advocate of the people, and at times have been critical of the Federal government and the Bush Administration's handling of the response and recovery. It's not because I have a political ax to grind, because I am really conservative politically. It's just that I think that things could have been done WAY better.

Here's a case in point. In Hope, Arkansas, right now, there are 11,000 mobile homes that were bought by FEMA at a cost between 350 and 800 million dollars. No one knows the exact price. They cannot be sent to the Gulf Coast, because Federal law states that they cannot be placed in a flood plain!  Apparently, no one checked the law before they spent upwards of a BILLION dollars (I can hear Dr. Evil now) on mobile homes that no one can use. Meanwhile, thousands upon thousands of people cannot return to the area, because there is nowhere to live. People are still living in tents down there, as our folks in Waveland-Bay St. Louis, MS will tell you (Charlie and Martie Elgin). Yet, 11,000 mobile homes sit in Arkansas.  Read the article here.

One interesting thing to note:  The Federal Government has been slow to give money to the state and local officials of Louisiana and Mississippi because there is concern about waste and mismanagement.  Can you imagine the national outcry if Louisiana or Mississippi misappropriated a half BILLION (again, Dr. Evil) dollars?  We'd never hear the end of it. Yet, this gets barely noticed. Oh well.  All the folks living in tents can feel better because the weather is at least getting warmer!

Ben Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, TX wrote a response to the position papers of the International Mission Board's Board of Trustees on the issues of private prayer language and baptism.  This response is devastating and it completely dismantles the argumentation of the trustees, in my opinion.  Admittedly, I am not crazy about his sarcastic tone as he addresses the issues, but it is obvious that he is passionate. When I am fired up about something, I come across REALLY STRONG in my writing, so I will give him some grace on that. Read it for the content and for the argumentation. Compare it to Dr. Hatley's views in his papers and decide for yourself. Here is the link to Rev. Cole's argument.  Also, read the comments if you can.

I am expressing my opinions guardedly on these issues on this blog. If you know me at all, you'll know where I stand - I am against these new policies. But, this is still the time for the making up of minds, so my main concern is to get the information out to establish a record. I am going to the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Greensboro, NC in June. Sometime before that, I will present a position paper on these issues to our church for discussion so that you can know the issues before the event. In that paper, I hope to present both sides fairly, although I will be honest about where I stand. I have no desire to withhold information that tilts the argument in my favor. Let truth be truth. We will have discussion and an opportunity for questions and answers.

I am holding off on documenting a firm position until all the information that is going to come out has come out so that I do not spend a lot of time reacting to rumors and presumption.  These previous few posts were meant to introduce you, the good reader, to the events surrounding these new policies.  Sometime soon, I'll post what I feel the result is of these policies will be and how they affect our involvement in missions, but for now, on this blog, let's return to the task at hand - where and how is God working in our lives?

Wade Burleson has a stirring post on The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse today.  Do you live and minister by grace or by fear and control? Have you ever been under someone who was more interested in getting their own way and asserting their "vision" than in truly helping others be all that God wanted them to be? The Bible calls for Servant Leadership - Luke 22:24-30, but often our lives and ministry exactly mirrors the rest of the world.

When we are truly serving one another instead of Lording it over others to get our way or push our agenda, we see things WAY differently.  As a pastor, I have had to step back many times and ask myself the question, "Am I taking this action because I really believe that this is best for this person and for their growth, or am I working in a way that benefits me and advances my agenda?"  If I ever do the latter, I am forsaking my call of being a shepherd. A shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, he does not use the sheep for his own enhancement and benefit. May God deal with me ever so strongly if I begin to do that and may my church hold me accountable.

In reality, we are all fallible in this and it is so imporant to stay focused on Christ and remember that He is the head of the Church and that He is in control and our Source of life. We start grasping when we think that it is all up to us to get our needs met and to gain significance. This attitude destroys our relationships, our marriages, and our ministries. May God protect us and keep us dependent on Him.

Well, the IMB (International Mission Board) has finally given their position on the two policies concerning private prayer language and baptism that I mentioned in my previous post. You can check them out by starting at sbcoutpost.blogspot.com and following the links to the position papers.   Another EXCELLENT critique with some pertinent links can be found at Wade Burleson's blog.

You can read it for yourself, and this is probably of more interest to theologians and pastor types, but let me just express my opinion: the positions espoused from the IMB's Board of Trustees espouse a strict cessationist (all of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit have ceased) and a landmarkist theology. This is VERY dangerous and is a really bad interpretation of Scripture. I am very concerned for the Southern Baptist Convention and feel that we have severely gotten off track. Read the papers and let me know what you think. I really am interested!

WARNING: This post contains insider Christian/Religious/Denominational stuff that might be harmful to your health, and or spiritual well being. Proceed at your own risk. I take no responsibility for heart burn or any other gastrointestinal maladies that might accompany the reading of this post.

I have in the past tried to stay out of denominational issues because it is a never ending sink hole of time and energy. But, there is something brewing within my denomination (the Southern Baptist Convention - SBC) that I have been watching carefully over the past few months. I don't want to go into all the details here, but it is basically over the International Mission Board's  (IMB) Board of Trustees (the IMB is the missionary agency for the SBC) deciding to adopt two new policies as it relates to missionary candidates. They are:

1. No candidate can have, or ever have participated in a private prayer language,  &

2. Each candidate must have been baptized in a Southern Baptist church by a qualified administrator (i.e. an ordained minister), or must have been baptized in a church from another denomination with basically the exact same theology as Southern Baptists.

Now, I know that you might be thinking, why is this a big deal?  Who cares what policies some board of trustees adopts? Well, as a Southern Baptists, our whole purpose in being together is for the sake of missions. We work together, pool our money in the Cooperative Program, and give to missions offerings because we believe that we can do more together than we can working separately. These two policies, however, go beyond our confession of faith (the Baptist Faith & Message) and seek to narrow the definition of cooperation. In my opinion, they seek to add to Scripture and develop policies that are not consistent with the Bible's teachings on these subjects. In short, I believe that they are unbiblical.  The difficulty is, if you are a missional Southern Baptist Church, as we are, we now have limited ability to work with our own missions organization because of narrow rules that they have defined.

In our church, probably 60% of our folks DO NOT come from a Southern Baptist background. We have folks from Reformed traditions to Charismatic traditions. We have Methodists and even folks who have no church background!:)  For those who never experienced believer's baptism or where baptized as an infant or through sprinkling, we have asked them to be rebaptized in a Biblical manner. But, for those who were Baptized Biblically in the Assembly of God or some other denomination whose theology is not exactly like ours, but who has a correct view of baptism, we would receive them.

We also have quite a few folks with Charismatic backgrounds. This has never been an issue in our church because we consistently hold up the cross of Jesus Christ as our rallying point. As long as we look to Jesus, we will get along, and we have, beautifully.

There are quite a few people who are talking about this. An IMB trustee named Wade Burleson spoke out against the new policies and has been blogging here about it for the past several months.   Unfortunately, the IMB Board of Trustees was so upset with his opposition, that they voted to have him removed as a trustee!  Bloggers from all over began to protest vehemently, led by Georgia pastor Marty Duren.  Marty has a great synopsis of the controversy, if you are interested.   Other SBC pastors and leaders that are blogging/discussing this are Kevin Bussey and Art Rogers.  Look around their blogs some and you'll find the information.

There have also been articles in Christianity Today and in the Baptist Press.  So, this is fairly interesting and could be of vital importance to our churches as we seek to continue to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. 

I would submit to each of you that what the Bible teaches DOES matter. It is more imporant that we follow God's Word and really seek to understand what He is saying, than just be carried along by every motion from every group that claims to have authority. What do you think?

With the emergence of the video
from the Associated Press concerning Bush's warning before Katrina I wanted to share this interview from Brian Williams of NBC with former FEMA head, Michael Brown. You could say that this is coming from a disgruntled former employee who got the ax for administrative bungling and lack of leadership, but I think that it is more than that. The days following Katrina were some of the worst in our country in the past 30 years. Although I voted for Bush twice and am a life-long Republican, I am terribly disappointed with the Federal response to the disaster and do not have a lot of patience with the "blame the local politicians for everything" attitude that conservatives have used. If this had happened under Clinton, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would have been screaming to high heaven as this being another example of liberal imcompetence. I am really interested in right being right and wrong being wrong, despite your political party. Let's admit mistakes and work together to fix them. But, let's not blame everyone else and then make false promises to rebuild and then move on. Read the interview for yourself and draw your own conclusions:

Michael Brown: I was ‘left on the battlefield’
Ex-FEMA head says he either fell or was pushed on his sword after Katrina

• Michael Brown: Fall guy?
Feb. 27: Former FEMA director Michael Brown talks to NBC's Brian Williams about losing his job in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

NBC News
Updated: 7:52 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2006
Former FEMA director Michael Brown sat down with Brian Williams on Feb. 24 for his first network television interview since resigning in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "NBC Nightly News" aired a brief portion of the interview on that day. You can read it by clicking here. The broadcast will feature more from the exclusive interview on Tues., Feb. 28.

Brian Williams: When did you realize that there was a complete disconnect between what you were saying and the situation on the ground?

Michael Brown: On Tuesday, August 30th, sometime in the morning, there was a secure conference call, and the president takes control of that call and pretty much shuts everybody up and says, "I need to hear from Brown right now what's going on." And I remember my first words to him were, "Mr. President, my estimate is that 90 percent — 90 percent — of the population of New Orleans has now been displaced." And there was just that split second of silence. And [then], "90 percent?" "Yes sir, I believe it is that bad. That's how bad it is." I really thought that would get just the whole mechanism of the federal government to come charging in. There are e-mail traffics of my conversations about my fear about this being the "Big One." Everyone should've known what we were facing.

Williams: Why aren't you shouting from the mountaintops?

Brown: I did. And I want to show you an e-mail where I am screaming at my staff in this e-mail: "Where is the Army?" I've talked to them about the Army; I want the Army now. "Where the hell are they? Why haven't they shown up yet?"

Williams: Millions of Americans kept asking, "Are they not watching the same pictures we're watching?"

Brown: One of the mistakes that I've owned up to was this whole mentality that exists in Washington, D.C. — that you get your talking points. And, by God, you stick to your talking points. And what I should have done was gone to the American people — instead of putting my arm around Governor Blanco and talking about how wonderfully things are working — we should have told them: "This is a disaster of the magnitude that this country has never seen. We are struggling. We're gonna do everything we can to help make this thing better. We're gonna call in all the resources. We need your patience and understanding" — and paint them a realistic picture. You see, I believe that people in D.C. don't believe that the American people can handle the truth.

Williams: You are, like it or not, part of the American lexicon because of a phrase uttered by the president of the United States. Take me back to that day — that moment — he's standing next to you, you heard him say it. Did you still think you could win this?

Brown: I did. I really thought I could still win it, because all I needed was for DOD to come in and help me with logistics — establish a new supply chain for materials. And I knew that we could do that, because that's what FEMA does. And when the president turned, he said, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." I really thought to myself he's being typically presidential; that's what he tends to do. But I also thought that it was going to irritate some people.

Williams: Why?

Brown: Because, suddenly, I was part of the inner circle. Do you know how many people in the country — how many people in the world — call me "Brownie?" One.

Williams: Why was yours the only head to roll after Katrina?

Brown: Part of being a presidential appointee is that you have to be willing to fall on the sword for the president of the United States. And, clearly, I either fell on the sword or was pushed on the sword. I'll leave that for others to make that judgment. And so, I think that I was made a scapegoat, in that regard. Most always, though, really, they never leave their wounded or their dead on the battlefield. And, in this case, I'm willing to take the fall for the president, but I wish I hadn't been left on the battlefield.

Brian Williams: People down in the Gulf Region feel that a lot of you have blood on your hands. People were left in that Superdome for a week. It was an awful situation. Who bears the responsibility for this?

Michael Brown: Well, I think that we all do.

Williams: Where is the aid? It's the question people are asking us today on camera.

Brown: Brian, it's an absolutely fair question - and I gotta tell you from the bottom of my heart how sad I feel for those people the federal government just learned about those people today.

Williams: I couldn't believe my ears, when you answered me that this was the first that you were hearing of it. Why weren't you people watching the television coverage that was on around the clock of the biggest natural disaster in American history?

Brown: We were. And we knew about it. And I had literally been up for about 24 hours. But, when I said to you-- "Yes, we just learned about it"-- what I meant was I had just learned about it 24 hours ago. It was still the same day to me. They didn't see that, at the same time that we were seeing bodies in the water, there were many men of the urban search and rescue teams, members of the United States army, and members of the United States Coast Guard rescuing people.

Williams: Were you truly qualified to run FEMA?

Brown: Yes.

Williams: Why?

Brown: From the time that I served on the transition team, up until Hurricane Katrina, I successfully handled over 160 presidential-declared disasters.

Williams: How did your years as the head of an Arabian Horse Association prepare you to deal with 80 percent of the city of New Orleans underwater?

Brown: Because that whole tenure period I acted, in essence, as an attorney. It was not running horse shows. It was not judging horses. I was, in essence, the counsel that did the investigations and the prosecution of wrongdoing. Making sure that systems worked.

Williams: If I were Michael Chertoff sitting here across from you, what would you say to me, honestly?

Brown: I'm exceptionally angry. I think you made a horrible mistake by telling me that I had to stay in Baton Rouge. That showed a little bit of naivete about how disasters need to be run and operated and managed. And I hope now that you will go back and reread the memos, the plans, the ideas that I set forth about how we can make this system work for the American people and that you'll implement those. And if you don't and you're not willing to do that then perhaps you need to move on too.

Williams: It's unbelievable. It's hard to believe that six months ago that was us.

Brown: How do you think-- how do you think I felt Brian? How do you think I felt sitting there, one leg strapped to a chair in Baton Rouge not able to get out and crack the whip, and-- and scream and holler.

Williams: But do you pick up the phone and say, "Get me some airlift pallets of food and water to these people"?

Brown: Yeah. You do. And I think if you interviewed my staff you they would tell you about my screaming phone calls.

If we don't learn from this, and go back to the things that I was saying over the past three or four years about doing serious catastrophic disaster planning, and making certain that the emergency management system in this country works, then those people will have suffered in vain.

I will have been scapegoated for nothing. If we don't learn from this, then shame on us.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

This thing with the cartoon and the Muslims is getting out of control.   MSNBC posts here that Muslims in Indonesia have now stormed the U.S. Embassy:

Updated: 2:47 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2006

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.

Pakistani security forces, meanwhile, sealed off the capital of Islamabad to block a planned mass demonstration and fired tear gas and gunshots to chase off protesters. In Turkey, tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul chanting slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States.

I don't want to waste time bashing Muslims or saying how wrong they are. I firmly believe that they are blinded to the truth by the prince of darkness and are acting as unregenerate people would. But, I am praying that as the Church of Jesus Christ, we are seeing what is going on and are interceding for the souls of the millions and billions that are caught in this web. O, that the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would break through and set people free. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. In case there was any question about that, the article goes on:

Christians are targets
Christians also have become targets. Pakistani Muslims protesting in the southern city of Sukkur ransacked and burned a church Sunday after hearing accusations that a Christian man had burned pages of the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

That incident came a day after Muslims protesting in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri attacked Christians and burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage that killed at least 15 people. Some 30 other people have died during protests over the cartoons that erupted about three weeks ago.

In Jakarta, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. mission in the center of the city, behind a banner reading “We are ready to attack the enemies of the Prophet.”

We should not be surprised. If they persecuted Christ, they will persecute his followers as well. It reminds me of Nero blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome. Christians had nothing to do with the Danish cartoon, but Satan misses no opportunity to "make war against the rest of her offspring - those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." - Rev. 12:17.

Let's take time today to pray for peace in the Arab world. That every Muslim would know the true meaning of submission to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. When I was in Jerusalem last year and saw the hatred between Jew and Palestinian, I knew in my heart that there would never be peace here, absent the Return of Christ or an explosion of His Gospel. And, please do not think that my interest in this has anything to do with end-time prophecy - ugh. It is just that God wants all of the people that we are seeing on our televisions who are so angry and full of rage find peace with Him. He wants them all to be reconciled to Him through His Son. Jesus died for each and every person we see so full of anger and rage. Let's remember that this is a spiritual battle and we should be interceding for our brothers and sisters in these lands. I know of two personally who are in Pakistan right now that are serving Jesus and need our prayers.

This is an amazing picture. It is taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and it is of the X-Structure at the center of the Whirlpool Galaxy 31 million light years from earth.  Isn't this incredible? Yeah, this could be anything, but the Hinge of History is Jesus' death on the Cross. The one who called the starry hosts by name and called the heavens into being leaves reminders of His work all through the cosmos.

I saw this tonight at the Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman/Louie Giglio Indescrible Tour at Auburn University. It was an incredible time of worship and teaching concerning the greatness and majesty of God. He is great and huge and we are not - yet He loves us enough to come for us and die for us. What an amazing God. I'm just kind of filled with wonder right now and I wanted to make sure I got this image posted. It is truly incredible.

How we should be praying for Bono from U2. I ran across someone today who has had similar thoughts about Bono as I have, namely, that he claims to be Christian, but is very worldly has has used bad language. While I definitely do not condone that, it seems that God is using this man in extraordinary ways as I posted yesterday. Kevin Bussey has a quote from Bono himself that I found here:

"Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: 'I'm the Messiah.' I'm saying: 'I am God incarnate.' . . . So what you're left with is either Christ was who He said He was--the Messiah--or a complete nutcase. . . . The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's farfetched."

"That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge," says Bono. "It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity."

O.K. So, this guy is really trying to walk with the Lord, as imperfect as he might be. I really want to recommend that you read the transcript from the Presidential Prayer Breakfast the other day where Bono spoke to the attendees. This is an ecumenical event, so he speaks to Jews and Muslims as well to find common ground, but his words and his actions are astounding. It is printed here in USA Today.  An excerpt concerning his own pilgrimage:

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here—Muslims, Jews, Christians—all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.

I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.

Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here—but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was… well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical… not about God, but about God's politics. (There you are, Jim.)

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick—my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the Millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call—and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

'Jubilee'—why 'Jubilee'?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lords favor?

I'd always read the Scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)…

'If your brother becomes poor,' the Scriptures say, 'and cannot maintain himself… you shall maintain him… You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much… yet. He hasn't spoken in public before…

When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee. (Luke 4:18)

What he was really talking about was an era of grace—and we're still in it.

I think we might be with Bono in heaven, and I think that quite a few more people might be there because of his witness - what do you think?

For all that are holding candle light vigils and engaging in hunger strikes, don't worry:  I'll get my  sermon notes and Wednesday night teaching notes from this past week up really soon. I've been pretty busy and also fairly slothful with the blog thing this week. But, I'm injecting some new life into it by writing about other things besides just reprinting my teaching notes (which I will continue to do.  My biggest issue is always taking the time to put my thoughts into print.

By the way, I went to an incredible presentation by a lady named Darcy Gill from Voice of the Martyrs. My heart was touched as I heard about the persecuted church and what so many Christians go through each day in this world. Did you know that every three minutes on this planet, a Christian is killed for their faith - approximately 180,000 per year!  What a tragedy. We all need to be in prayer. 

Liberty University as a Division 1-A football powerhouse? That is the plan of Jerry Falwell the Chancellor of Libery University according to Dennis Dodd writing for cbs.sportsline.com.  Dodd tells Falwell to get ready to compromise the stated mission of the university, however, because making the jump from a 1-10 1-AA team to a Division 1-A powerhouse might be harder than he thinks.  Falwell, 72, has decreed that this must happen before he dies to make the university complete.  I'll keep my thoughts on this basically to myself and let you be the judge, but does this not smack of kingdom building, and not of the Biblically correct kind? How about athletic competition for the sake of competition? Statements of greatness for the glory of God ring hollow to me and to the world as well. It seems to be more for the glory of Jerry Falwell.

Well, it's been a week since I posted. My rule here is to try and get something up several times a week. As with all things, sometimes the rule is not followed. I went down to Mississippi and New Orleans this past week and that kind of threw me out of the loop. I was gone for only two days to work on some stuff with Charlie and Martie Elgin at the camp down there, but when you go out of town mid-week, it seems to throw off your timing. On top of that, I've had a cold for about two weeks now that morphed into something akin to a stomach virus - ugh! - and found myself incapacitated for the weekend. Enough complaining. Overall, I really think that I needed the rest. I find that when I am going and going and going, I tend to get sick, get a lot of sleep, and then kind of recharge. Maybe it's God's way of making me slow down.

Unfortunately, my wife got sick too, and today was her birthday. No fun at all. We'll probably celebrate it this weekend though.

My message notes will be up tomorrow for all of you who are waiting with great anticipation. I know you have come here throughout the day, eagerly waiting for the notes, and have been terribly disappointed (this is all tongue in cheek). They'll be up tomorrow. The message was on the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God through the ministry of Christ and how God wants us to consistently pray and act so that His Kingdom comes into all of life here on this planet. My friend Andrew Jones has some interesting thoughts along these lines if you want to get a head start. He talks about the Missio Dei (mission of God) and how God's desire is to redeem "whatever" needs redeeming.

Joe McKeever, the Director of Missions, is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. If you have not read his blog, you HAVE TO - RIGHT NOW!!!  Sorry, I didn't mean to yell, it's just that this guy really loves the Lord and has amazing insights.  Check out his latest article called Love Indeed. Yes Indeed.   Here is an excerpt concerning a meeting he was at where the future of small, struggling local churches in New Orleans was discussed:

I told the group that in a recent article on this website, I said, "We do not want a lot of tiny, struggling churches." One reader took issue with that, saying "That is precisely what God wants." I never responded to him, but what I thought was he does not have a clue what he's talking about. These small struggling churches spent their time and resources on themselves, their money trying to pay their light bill and insurance, their work and energy on keeping the ship afloat. Drive around this city and you'll see New Orleans did not need any more churches; it had hundreds and hundreds. You'll see several on a block, often side by side. So why was the city so crime-ridden, such a haven for drug-dealers, a dangerous place to raise one's children? The churches were isolated from one anonwardly focused. They did not reach out to one another, joining hands with other believers in that neighborhood, building a unified witness. It was every man, every church, on his own. We don't need any more of that. God has put so many of our struggling churches out of business, giving us a chance to start over and get it right this time.

He also writes about hoping that the St. Bernard Housing Project is not rebuilt and that it's residents find good lives elsewhere. His reasoning is sound and very compassionate, although the relational toll on displaced people must be incredible. I am heading to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans on Tuesday and Wedesday to try and meet with pastors and coordinate some things.  Keep me in your prayers, if you would.  These people are continuing to endure and persevere and we must come alongside of them.

On this blog, I will probably have a lot of information over time on what is happening in my home area of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast concerning the rebuilding after Katrina. I really believe that this is such a critical time for the church to live out the commands and opportunities that God gives us to transform this world (Isaiah 58:12; Isaiah 61:1-4; Matthew 24:14; Matthew 28:18-20).  If you are wanting to keep up with what is going on, two great resources are available.  One is the website of Joe McKeever, the Director of Missions for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans.  I met Joe on a trip down there in December and he is doing a great job.  Check out his site and hear about what God is doing through the Baptist churches there.  It is really amazing to see how they are coming together.  The other resource is Nola.com.  It hosts the Times-Picayune newspaper and each day there are articles about the recovery.  It really gives me something to pray for as I think and pray about what is going on there.

I believe with all my heart that God has called the church to help with the rebuilding of cities. In many ways, Christians were the first on the ground to proclaim the gospel in word as well as deed. What if we stayed in this for the long haul and helped provide strength, support, and the muscle that it takes to rebuild homes, businesses, and lives?  Could it be that God has placed us here for such a time as this? Joe McKeever thinks so and  paints a beautiful picture of a "New" New Orleans.  If we really do possess eternal life and the blessings of God, what if we blessed others with what we have received (Matthew 10:8)?  I believe that in 20 years we will look back and see this as a divine window that God opened to change the future of a region and to create a witness for the truth and love of Jesus Christ that will affect the world as we love people in need - one person at a time. 

If you are growing tired of hearing about this, know that the situation is still grim and people still need your prayers and support.  Check out Charlie and Martie Elgin's website concerning their work on the Gulf Coast to see what I mean. They are trying to gather resources  and volunteers to help construct storage pods for people who live in FEMA trailers and have had over 500 people request help.  The work goes on and on, but God is being glorified, people are being helped, and lives are being changed.  It is amazing what happens when you step out in faith and follow the Lord.  The "Pods for God" effort is a $150,000 project, but God is providing and people are receiving the help that they need.  A spiritually dark region is being changed one life at a time and seeds are being planted that will bear eternal fruit.  The Bible says in Galatians 6:9-10, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."  I pray that this will be the legacy of our church and all of the others that God has called to help in a desperate time.

Here is an example of a community of faith in Italy that really spoke to me.  It is a group of Catholics, which of course, I am not - but, it shows what can happen when people take the gospel seriously.  I found this on the onmovements.com site.  I hope that this inspires you as much as it did me.

Sant’Egidio — The Weak Strength of the Gospel

December 9th, 2005

In his book, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, The World Before and After Jesus, historian Thomas Cahill tells the story of The Community of Sant’Egidio. For Cahill, the worldwide movement of Sant’Egidio provided a living capstone to his book on the legacy of Jesus.