RichinJesus.com

Do your kids have "shop" class at their school?

I'm afraid most Americans today would answer that question in the negative. There are still schools that offer something, but their importance has largely been neglected.

Unfortunately, even many home school families fail to provide training in the manual arts. Girls will do some cooking with their mothers or even fathers in some homes that still actually cook. Boys will still try to fix broken things around the home. And of course there are boys who cook and girls who fix things.

My point here has nothing to do with gender issues and everything to do with generations who have grown up thinking their hands were made primarily for the purpose of making gestures while speaking and operating keypads.

What has been forgotten in this madness is that work with ones hands reaches deep into the soul of a child and pulls out that inner creativity and uniqueness.

Not everyone will be a master chef, woodcarver, metalworker, fishing fly maker, luthier, mechanic, inventor, furnituremaker, or whatever. However, every child is uniquely created in the image of God.

Speaking of our Creator, perhaps the most universally accepted doctrine in the Christian faith among all denominations is that God created the world and everything in it.

While there is much debate about the particulars, Christians universally affirm that God designed, and created, and is responsible for all. Not only are we his creation, but we live, breath, ingest, touch, and simply cannot escape his creation. It is quite literally universal.

If we are made in the image of God, and his creative nature is such an integral part of our everything, why have we ourselves ceased to make, create, build, invent, and grow?

If you agree, don't just post this on social media or text a link, go make, create, build, invent, and grow.

Luke

Note: I originally wrote this in February of 2011, but didn't publish it until now. We are still working out some things, but are feeling much better. I plan to add more later.

Have you ever had something rock your world altering your life in the most profound way?

In my case, it has been the early onset of old age. Ok, you can stop laughing, I am (mostly) serious. In years, I might be just 35, but in energy levels, stamina and other measures of well-being, my 82 year old father pretty much has me beat.

My wife and I both are suffering from symptoms that are generally consistent with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. In our case, there was a gradual onset over a period of about 10 years until we could no longer ignore the symptoms. Although we looked fairly health and doctors couldn't find anything significant wrong, we were just too weak to even function on a basic level.

We were serving as missionaries in the Dominican Republic. I had to resign my position as pastor of the church in Santo Domingo. For me, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done, but I simply had no choice. I knew if I wanted a chance to be able to raise my family, it was absolutely necessary. Besides that, I wasn't doing the church any favors by trying to do a job I wasn't physically capable of. Moreover, I somehow felt God was leading us towards something else.

We continued working with the church as we were able and spent the next year preparing for furlough. It was made much more difficult because our energy levels were so low and we had so many loose ends that had been let go for so long due to our health.

Finally, last September, we returned to the US on medical furlough. It seems that we have been able to pretty much stabilize our condition in the sense that we are showing some improvement and the flare ups aren't as bad. Also, we are currently working through some treatments we are hopeful will yield some meaningful improvements.

So what does it all mean? In our case, we really just don't know what the future holds, but who among us does?

We know who holds the future. That is all.

—Luke Townsley

This week, I "harvested" a massive tree stump. It was buried under a pile of dirt and concrete with just a small section of its tangled roots visible.

Even after scraping and digging for hours, moving dirt and rubble, until we could finally see it. It was so heavy that when I tried to move it with a winch, it mistook the stump as the anchor pulling my truck towards the stump.

Being blessed with a strong mind and a good back, I decided the obvious solution was to split the stump into two pieces. We cut down the middle with a chainsaw, used several wedges, a lot of grunts, and still, it absolutely refused even to split.

A stump to stump all stumps, it was a seemingly worthless mass of roots specially designed to provoke misery in its custodian.

And yet I wanted it. I knew a stump can have grain patterns that go crazy in weird and wonderful ways holding a wondrous beauty and unusual strength.

I hoped I would be able to expose beauty and value no one else saw.

Undoubtedly, you have some people in your life like that. Perhaps you are that person who seemingly everyone sees as a hopelessly tangled mass of misery.

My stump? I think I can see a few tiger maple bowls or maybe some jewelry boxes in it, but I am going to take another look to see if I am missing something even better.

If God left such wondrous beauty in a lowly tree stump, of how much more value is each person?

Ecclesiastes 12:13,14 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

—Luke

There are numerous inventions that were seemingly obvious, and yet no one thought of them for years even after they were needed.

When we read the Scriptures, it can be like that. We easily miss significant things right before our eyes. It can be because of cultural biases, our frame of mind, failure to understand key frases, cultural context, context with other passages, and so on.

Likewise, have you ever been with an older couple who are very close having lived together in marriage for many years, and yet as you talk with them something comes up, and one of them looks at the other and says, "You never told me about that before."

It is a great irony of life that even our vision to comprehend the Great Book given by God to us in part to help us understand our own condition is clouded.

Paradoxically,even as we peer into the Scriptures through blurry eyes, we learn through our weakness of God's greatness and our need for Him.

Just today, I read the book of Ecclesiastes. I have long understood the phrase "under the sun" as having key importance in the book and have even preached sermons emphasizing that point.

As I read it today, I was struck with the obvious fact that the phrase "under the sun" was intended to represent life from man's viewpoint as I understood, but more than that, it was not written from man's point of view generically as I understood, but rather from the viewpoint of Solomon, The Preacher.

That simple observation changes the reading and understanding of the book in simple and subtle, yet profound ways.

What do you see in Ecclesiates? What else am I missing?

—Luke

Over the years, I have dealt with people who have reacted to my teaching and preaching in ways I found dissappointing. I felt they weren't listening, were apathetic, or perhaps were ignoring what I was saying.

I used to complain that it seemed like people listened to my preaching through a filter. I did my best to make my messages simple and concise, and yet it seemed like most people took what I said and just filtered it out.

I wanted to somehow take those filters out of people's ears.

Over the years, I made excuses, ignored the problem, dismissed people as being hard-hearted, and never came to a satisfactory understanding of what was really going on.

This all came to a head one Sunday morning when I called four young people into my office to talk to them before they were baptized. These were youngsters who had been coming to our church for quite some time. They were respectful and generally "good" kids. They professed a salvation experience several months before, but since I had broken my foot and was on crutches, several months had passed before I was able to baptize them.

This meeting was supposed to be a formality. I was supposed to ask them if they had been saved and understood baptism. They were supposed to just give a pat answer so we could go ahead with the baptism.

When I got to the part about baptism and asked them if they understood the nature of baptism, they began to explain to me in detail how the baptismal waters washed away sin.

I don't teach that. Their Sunday School teacher doesn't teach that. In spite of the discipleship course they had completed, not only were they giving me an answer that was totally wrong, but they thought it was the answer I was looking for.

I was floored. This experience rocked my world.

I couldn't find a way to explain this using any of the standard excuses. They just didn't fit. These kids weren't hard hearted. They weren't dumb. They weren't apathetic. They weren't even poor listeners. On the contrary.

I put everything I could on hold over the next few weeks. I had to figure something out.

I did a lot of introspective soul-searching, thinking, and research. And I started to find some surprising answers. Answers not only to the problem at hand, but also answers that helped me with some other seemingly unrelated things.

I came to realize the simple reality that a lot of the people I thought were rejecting my preaching weren't even understanding my preaching.

My never ending attempts at making things more simple were, in fact, doing exactly the opposite and making things even harder for them to understand.

Thankfully, I found a major key to getting through that filter I imagined. While it is as old as Adam's family, it is largely forgotten and misunderstood by today's academics, teachers, and preachers for reasons I plan to discuss in later posts.

More next week, but for now, I will leave you with one of the sites that helped enlighten me as to what was going on.

Back then, the site was called, www.chronologicalbiblestorying.com. Now it has been updated. Unfortunately, perhaps due to copyright concerns, it seems to be missing the pdf orality test, the part that helped me the most. You can find the updated site at www.oralitystrategies.org.

—Luke

This is the second article in this series. You can find the first one here.

I once had a student in an afternoon class who went to school all morning, went home, probably ate a quick lunch and then was off to my class.

The unfortunate thing is that he couldn't sit still. That is hard for a six year old boy who hasn't played all day.

I soon found out though, that his inability to sit didn't affect his ability to learn. On the contrary, he couldn't learn if I made him sit still. He was too distracted thinking about trying to sit still!

And so he would stand. He would dance. He would twirl. He would fiddle with his pencil. He would do anything but sit. For the sake of the other (also very active) students, I tried to get him to at least dance in one place and not go all over the room.

And he learned. He was very smart and had a natural gift for learning English, and so he excelled. The other students also did well, but when I asked a question, he would stop moving around (or not) and spit out the answer before anyone else. And the answer was right.

Nevermind that to all outward appearances he wasn't paying a bit of attention.

He learned the material and much more importantly, he wasn't learning to hate learning.

I just hope someone doesn't ruin it for him.

—Luke

We are seeing a grave "illness" (i.e. sin) affecting churches In America and many parts of the world.

I once thought it mostly affected the conservative churches like those I am a part of, but I have come to realize it isn't unique to any one denomination or church. It is widespread and pervasive

I'm calling it the "My church is about me" syndrome.

If I weren't looking for a cute name, I would probably just call it something boring like "selfishness" or "pride."

From hyper conservative churches to old denominational churches to new seeker friendly churches, to uniquely independently independent unafiliated non-denominational churches, most seem to be suffering from the same disease.

While the underlying disease may be the same across the churchscape, it is confusing because it manifests itself in different ways in different congregations.

In some churches, this syndrome is manifested through the "all truth, all the time, always right, never wrong" attitude. Nevermind that such churches almost always regularly preach things as basic doctrines that are clearly and demonstrably unscriptural or at the very least on very shaky ground.

They often revel in hard preaching they say is designed to reach the lost. Visitors say it is designed to confirm what the choir already believes. They have been afflicted with "My church is about me" syndrome.

At the other extreme, there are the "all love, all the time, always loving, never critical" churches. Nevermind that they may be nearly doctrine-free and don't share common views of the scriptures or much of anything else among the congregation except that they gather at the same location on Sundays.

They say their church is about worshipping God, but what really comes through is that their church is about how they feel. They have been afflicted with "My church is about me" syndrome.

Some churches are known for their elaborate worship services complete with upbeat music, drama team, advanced artistry, sound, and camera work. They say it is to aid in worshipping God.

Nevermind that God can be worshipped more adequately in a lonely forest or park for millions less. They may have caught the "My church is about me" syndrome.

Congregants stay only a few years at a church before moving on to another church in the community. They shop for a new church like they were shopping for new shoes. They may have caught the "My church is about me" syndrome.

Pastors may stay only a few years in a church or alternatively build their ministry around their own unique personhood. They may have caught the "My church is about me" syndrome.

Churches count their success by their growth, not their true vitality or their reproduction. They may have caught the "My church is about me" syndrome.

How do you relate to your church?

—Luke