What to get the kids for Christmas

Educational toys have been trending for Christmas for many years.  My youngest son has weekly occupational therapy.  A note came home saying he worked on "visual motor perception."  My oldest son asked what that was.  "That's what gives you the ability to play video games and sports."  Oh, I got that, was his reply.  I think many of their toys...nerf guns and nerf balls...handheld games, kinect games...work on visual motor perception.  Is that enough "education" for the holidays?  And the point of educational toys, at some level, must be be to assuage the guilt we feel over spending too much money on kids who already have too much stuff.  What are teaching our kids at Christmas?

So I don't want to get on my high horse here.  I really want to have a conversation with the parents of the world who want their children to learn to believe that the world is...

The World is God's, not mine.  I believe that the world was created by God for God's glory.  We humans are a part of that creation.  Because God created the world, the world belongs to God.  God gave humans a special role in world stewardship.  Stewardship is different than consumption.  Imagine a friend leaving a plate of cookies on the table.  The friend asks you to watch the cookies, they are for his niece.  He offers to share with you, with the clear understanding that there must enough left to share with his niece.  He leaves to get her.  You devour all the cookies, break the plate, dust the crumbs to the floor, and then mock the little girl for her tears when she finds her cookies gone.  The friend asks what you were thinking, and you offer some rigmarole about "early bird gets the worm."  Of course, now your friend thinks you are a worm and his niece is ready to feed you worms.  Too simplistic?  Probably.  But I want my children to understand that the world is not theirs to consume and waste.  It is only theirs for a season.  I fear my generation may have not learned our lesson.

The World is a beautiful, fearful, wonderful, strange place.  Because the world is God's, God has left his fingerprints in all of creations.  I love the little idiosyncrasies of creation: like your forearm is the same length as your foot; a widow's peak is genetic, just like rolling your tongue. I believe that God has given free will to humanity.  And we have devoured the cookies.  "Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die.  Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?" Isaac Watts wrote that line in the 1700's.  God has allowed us to do unthinkable things to His creations (especially to one another).  He in turn has created a plan of redemption for the whole world.  I want my children to take their own adventures in the world, but I want them to trust the God of Creation, not the tainted creation.  Learn to trust, but learn to trust what is true, strong, and good.  Then they will be prepared to accept the world's strange and fearful ways with grace while appreciating and loving the world's beautiful and wonderful ways.

The World is loved by God.  And I want my children to know that this includes them.  For God loved the world so much (that world that devoured his cookies) that he sent his only son (closer than a niece) so that whomever believed (trusted, acted upon faith) that Jesus is the Son of God, would not die (become worm trash), but would have eternal life (zoe...life found only in God).  And I want my children to know this includes their perceived enemies, just as Jesus said.  I want the reservoir from which they love to be deep.  My wish, my blessing for them is that deep waters of grace and love will flow in their souls.  May they have the capacity to love all because they are loved by the Author of Love so completely.

The World is a better place because of Jesus. Jesus has transformed the world.  Jesus will redeem the world.   I want my children to believe that they have the power to transform the world for good through the love of Jesus.  

So what gift teaches that?

Mile-Marker: Sweet 16

Next week Cliff and I will celebrate 16 years of marriage.
A hard won 16 years in some respects.  A sweet victory to be sure.


We met 18 years ago while attending William Carey College (now University).  I was a sophomore.  He was a transferring Junior.  I was giving a talk at the Baptist Student Union the first weekend of school.  He was listening.  He came to me at the end and said, "Can I give you a hug?  I love you!"  I should have thought he was weird.  I thought he was cute.


A couple of months later he called to ask me out on a date.  Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's what it was: a date.  December 11, 1994.  If he wants to contest the date, he can write his own blog!  A year later we were engaged.  A year after that we were married.  November 23, 1996.  He won't contest that.  Our first kiss was our wedding kiss.  Yes, our first kiss.

Saints Superbowl Season

Your Kiss

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Song of Solomon 1:2

The first one was gentle and timid,

pregnant with promise--

Promises kept and promises to come.

The veil was lifted

And two hearts were joined to one future.

The second one was quick and stolen;

Charged with exhileration--

We were sustained by the electricity around us.

Wrapped in lace and pearls,

It was a gift between new lovers.

The third one was long and sensuous;

Teeming with new life,

It gave birth to our new passion.

Like waters drenching the earth,

This kiss brought forth all that is now familiar.

The next one will be sure and sweet,

Abundant with memories and possibilities.

Whether speaking hello or goodbye,

It will say one thing:

I love you.

If marriage is meant more for our holiness than our happiness, then I am doubly blessed.  I have the privilege of doing life with a man who cares about my holiness and my happiness.  Cliff is my best friend, my theology buddy, my sweet date, the guy in my dreams.  Cliff isn't perfect, but that just means he doesn't expect me to be perfect either.  He is on my team, he is for me, my biggest fan.  He lets me shine and never relishes outshining me.  He receives my fears, my dreams, my frustrations, my hopes, my weaknesses, and my strengths with grace. I trust that I come into his presence forgiven; I promise that he comes into my presence forgiven.   He is the most loving, thoughtful, playful, affectionate, strong, protective, directing, smart, funny, kind, forgiving Daddy any little boy or girl could want.  He sings songs of love over us.  We, our children and I, know that we can venture into the world in the direction of God's voice with the confidence that this man is on our team. He is our hero. Of course, we share him with people who love him too. He is fiercely faithful to his family...loving his grandmother, praying for his cousins, being a son his parents are proud of.  It is the joy of my life to minister beside him.  His compassion, sense of justice, passion for Jesus, and love for God's True Word inspires me constantly.  I love to hear the words of praise people offer as they encounter Jesus in Cliff.  Cliff, I love you.  I like you.  I choose you.  I am completely yours.  Happy Anniversary.

Easter 2012

Jonah and the Unmistakable Truth

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “ Get up, go to Ninevah, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”  […] But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.  He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord!  Is not that what I said while I was still in my own country?  That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and ready to relent from punishing.” (Jonah 3:1-2; 4:1-2)

Last week I started preaching on the story of Jonah by examining the God of Jonah.  What we see through Jonah’s eyes is that God is absolutely unmanageable (I borrow this word from Priscilla Shirer in her study Jonah: A Life Interrupted).  Jonah learned the hard way that he can’t control God: God is the Unmanageable God.

But I don’t want to pick on Jonah too much.  After all, his story has been told to generations because it contains this unmistakable truth: there is a Jonah inside each of us.  And just like that whale swallowed Jonah whole, so have I swallowed whole the cultural myth that I am in total control.  This myth leads to human arrogance.

Human arrogance is the attitude that I can control my world, your world, and their world because I am the center of the world.  Everything proceeds from me, everything was created for me, and what doesn’t serve me or meet my approval is worthless to me.  Arrogance is defined as “an attitude of superiority, an overbearing manner, presumptuous claims or assumption.”  When the prophet Samuel explained to Saul (1 Samuel 15) why God was removing him from the throne, Samuel said that arrogance is the same sin as idolatry: a stubbornness to hear and obey the Word of the Lord.  That was Jonah’s sin too.  He heard the Word of the Lord, he just didn’t obey.  He put himself on the throne and worshiped his own need to be in control.  That’s idolatry.  Anything can be an idol if it becomes more important than God.  Anyone can be an idolater. 

If I know what God expects of me; if I know what God’s word says about a subject; if I know what God wants me to do with my time, my money, my relationships, my life; and I refuse to obey God, then I have an attitude of superiority.  I am being rebelliously stubborn in my relationship with God.  I am being arrogant about the free-will that God has given me.  I have put myself on the throne of my life…and I have attempted to de-throne God.  But God, the unmanageable God, won’t be de-throned. 

The unmistakable truth is this: God has made a way for every person to be saved.  God sent first the law, then the prophets, and finally the Son to point to and make open the narrow road that leads to life.  You and I are NOT the gatekeepers of the road of salvation.  Jesus is!  Somehow we have the notion that God has knighted us Heavenly Hall Monitors.  Our duty is to dispense grace and mercy as we see fit.  If that is our attitude, we are confused.  God has given us grace and mercy with the command to also show grace and mercy to anyone who has need for grace and mercy (that’s everyone).  Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be measure you get (Mt 7).”

This is not a verse encouraging us to excuse other people’s sin.  It is often used that way: don’t judge me!  Rather, this is a verse reminding us to tell other sinners what do with their sin: trade it in for God’s mercy and grace.  Keep listening: “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”  Jesus doesn’t want us to be heavenly hall monitors or gatekeepers of the narrow road.  Jesus wants us to be signposts to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  My life is to point to the Way, not be a stumbling block on the way!

The world doesn’t need to be convinced of it’s sin.  The headlines do that.  The media does that.  Our mama’s do that.  I got guilt!  The world needs to be convinced there is a Savior!  It is presumptuous for us to believe that God wants us to point fingers of shame at sinners.  Which is what makes this sermon tricky.  How do I preach against spiritual arrogance without exposing my own?  Maybe that’s why Jonah went to Tarshish.  Going to Tarshish is easier than confronting your own sin.

Am I sinner?  A saved one, but yeah.  Am I a hypocrite?  More times than my hypocrisy will allow me to confess.  Am I arrogant and prideful?  Let me just say, it takes one to know one.  Am I perfect?  Not today, but thanks to Jesus, I’m on my way.  If any person would be convinced by my words about their need for a Savior, it won’t be because of my greatness.  It will be because I have become convinced of my own sin and I have humbled myself at the foot of the cross.  And in that posture I point my life toward the One who gives Life…I lower my head so that others have a view of his Sacred Head.  The unmistakable truth for my life and your life and their life is that I don’t have to decide who gets mercy and who deserves grace.  I just get the honor of extending the invitation.

Milemarker: Preacher Gal

I recently was asked about "women in ministry." Specifically, where I as a woman found biblical authority to preach before the whole assembly. I grew up Southern Baptist and I was raised to believe that women had a very limited, specific role they were scripturally allowed to play in ministry: namely, a supportive role only. Imagine my consternation as a teenager upon hearing the call of God in my life and wondering how God would use me, a girl. I assumed I must have to go to a foreign country since God couldn't use women in the church in the US (please understand, this was my interpretation of the church’s teaching at a younger age). This assumption was met with a love God had put in my heart for the nations. I have since learned a love for the nations isn't the tell-tale sign of a missionary (although it works that way too); rather it is a tell-tale sign of an apostle/evangelist. “Ask and I’ll give you the nations,” (Psalm 2:8) became my heart’s cry before I ever heard the song.
      Finally, during my senior year at William Carey, as I struggled to decide what seminary to attend to further my education and prepare for ministry (still assuming I would somehow find acceptance overseas), the Dean of Biblical Studies said, “Leanne, you have a gift to preach. No one can deny that. You can stay in the SB church and be turned away from every pulpit, or you can find a church that will embrace your gift. If you choose to stay, you may make a difference for girls coming after you…maybe. If you choose to leave, you will make a difference for the Kingdom as God uses your gift of exhortation.” At that point, we prayerfully made the decision to withdraw my membership from the Southern Baptist Church and join the United Methodist Church (Cliff belonged to this denomination).
      I share all of that just to say that I had a lot of years and teaching and advice (not to mention prayerful study of the Bible) that went into honing the position I hold now regarding women in ministry. The position I hold most simply stated is: When Jesus rose on the first day of the week, New Creation was begun. The curse had been lifted. What God established in Genesis 1-2, what the Prophet promised in Joel 2, and what the Apostles witnessed in Acts 2 is Truth for my life: I (a woman) am created in the image of God, in equal likeness to man. I (a woman) am a recipient of the saving, justifying, sanctifying grace of God. I (a woman) have the Holy Spirit living in me and I am the bearer of His good gifts for ministry. I am a daughter of God who has received the pouring out of God’s Spirit in order to prophesy…I am included in “all flesh.”
      My unique gifting is the gift of exhortation as it is described in Romans or the gifts of pastor-teacher and apostle in Ephesians . In these lists, Paul does not designate that some are for men and some are for women. We have not withheld the gifts of service, helps, giving, and, in many cases, teaching from women. Why do we presume to withhold the gifts of leadership, exhortation, or prophecy from women? The Bible makes no indication (in the passages about Spiritual gifts) that some gifts are gender specific. Rather, Paul tells every believer not to “grieve the Spirit” (Ephesians 4) in the same chapter that he begins by talking about the “one body” that each is a member of, and that “each member” was given gifts; he then creates another overlapping list of Spiritual gifts: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastors, and teachers. It grieves the Spirit when I refuse to use the gifts He has graciously given me because of the traditions of man. Again, in yet another “listing”: “To each believer is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good…. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation (1 Corinthians 12: 7,11) I really believe that if Paul wanted the churches to understand that women could not receive certain gifts because of gender and God’s plan for women, any one of these passages would have been an appropriate place to explain that. But instead, he uses language like “each believer”. So, unless we believe that women aren't included in the group called “believers”, then we have to assume that the gifts are “equal opportunity.”
      Many people ask for Scripture passages that reference women in leadership positions in the church. I am listing women God used throughout the ages to lead God’s people by the gifting of God’s Spirit. (That is my definition of a pastor).
 1. Miriam as prophet in Exodus 15:20 and Micah 6:4
2. Deborah as a judge/prophet in Judges 4:4-5 and a mother in 5:7
3. Isaiah’s wife as a prophet in Isaiah 8:3
 4. Huldah as a prophet in 2 Kings 22:14
5. Daughters of Israel as worship leaders (mourners) in 2 Samuel 1:24
 6. Female Levites in Exodus 38:8 (they guarded the door of the Tabernacle)
 7. Paul’s greeting to the Roman churches include greetings to female leadership in 1 of every 3 specific references. Here are some examples:
 8. Romans 16:7 (the Apostle Junia),
9. Acts 21:9 (Philip’s Daughters the Prophets),
 10. 1 Corinthians 11:5 (Paul gives instructions to the women who will pray and prophesy in the Corinthian assembly),
 11. Philippians 4:2-3 (Euodia and Synthyche as co-laborers with Paul),
 12. Romans 16:1-2(Phoebe as Deacon),
 13. Romans 16:4 (Mary and Persis who serve in the church),
 14. Romans 16:3 & Acts 18:24-26 (Prisca and Aquila receive high regard from Paul as co-pastors), 
15. Titus 2:3-5 (male and female leadership is addressed equally),
 16. 1 Timothy 3:11(this is a passage about Deacons. When I was in the SBC, it was the primary passage used to defend the church against female leadership. Interesting to note that Paul write specifically in the middle of the instructional paragraph “women also”. In other words, women are included in the instructions about deacons.)
 17. Acts 12:12 (House of Mary where the Christians gathered)
 18. Acts 16: 14-15 (House of Lydia where Christians gathered)
 19. Colossians 4:15 (House Church of Nympha)
      The most telling thing for me however, is Jesus’ behavior toward women. As a gender, we were chosen to bear the Son of God in order to reverse the curse (Mary). Jesus is welcomed into the Temple for the first time by the Prophet Anna, probably in the lineage of the Levites mentioned in Exodus 38:8. Jesus had female disciples (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus gave some of our most profound theological truths first to women (John 4, John 20). It is a cultural fact in the time of the New Testament that relatively few women were teachers in public. That is because, for the most part, education was withheld from them. Within Judiaism especially, women teachers (and learners) were a rarity—which makes Jesus’ instruction and inclusion of women within the circle of disciples particularly noteworthy. Jesus did not exclude women from following him for theological reasons. If there is any “smoking gun” in the New Testament that solidly affirms my calling to preach and teach the word of God, it is my Lord’s inclusion of women right next to Peter, John, and the rest.
      I guess we all wish we could find a single passage to counter the passage from Corinthians and Timothy that says “women are not allowed to speak or teach in the assembly”…a real smoking gun passage like, “I permit any woman properly trained in the Lord to exercise her gifts according the grace given her by the Spirit for the building up of the Church of Jesus Christ our Savior.” Rather, that type of verse (really verses…so many times we are exhorted this way) is addressed to all believers, whether male or female. With the host of evidence that Paul absolutely allowed and blessed female leadership in multiple church settings, it becomes self-evident that men and women are expected to serve/lead the church. Paul had to call out a few situations of improper worship, and that resulted in some “problem passages.” But I believe we do a disservice to the whole of Christian tradition when we ignore the bulk of Christian teaching and build a theology on 2 unrelated verses of Scripture.
      The following website has a wealth of information, articles, and videos that offer a biblically sound interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12 “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” And 1 Corinthians 14:33 “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the church. For they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” The least I can say is, Paul doesn't really seem to tell women not to preach. He seems to tell them not to utter a single word. Do we really believe Paul meant for women to be mute in the church in all seasons, at all times, for all generations? Or do we see this through the lens of cultural interpretation? See more here: http://seedbed.com/feed/resource-post-women-in-ministry