John's Lament

My buddy John Rinehart, whom I co-lead a Grace Group with, wrote a contemporary lament for today. It was read in last Sunday's worship service at our church. I wrote a lament when the Lakers lost in the 2008 Finals to the Celtics but I think John's lament over the state of our soul is slightly more elegant. I felt that it would be good to post it here and share it with all of you. So I share with you John's Lament:

Oh Lord, have mercy on us,
Not according to our righteousness, but your steadfast love
For we have sinned,
And all our evil ways are before you.

We are a people who love violence:
We entertain ourselves like men of old,
We’re amused by fighters, who act more like animals than like men.
We too would have rushed to the Coliseum in Rome to support the bloodshed,
Praising the strong for their victories and dismissing the weak without a second thought.
We don’t hate violence, in fact, in doesn’t even faze us anymore.
We watch movies filled with murder and bloodshed,
Our men think manhood is physical strength or sexual conquest, not holiness.
We find more men in the gym working on their bodies,
Than in church working on their souls,
Or in their homes working on their families.

Your wrath, O Lord is due on us, for we reject you at every turn.
You hate divorce and yet our hearts are so hard that over half of marriages end this way.
We treat it as normal and have whole professions and industries that accommodate it,
Some of us even get divorced again and again.
We twist your word when we don’t like it, excusing our sin and disregarding your truth.

“Not even a hint of sexual immorality” your Word says,
And yet it seems that there is not even a hint of sexual purity left.
It seems that everything that can be done, will be done,
And we are lost and blind without you.
Our promiscuity and sensuality is hatred toward our neighbors, not love.

We use and manipulate others for our gain, rather than serve and protect others for their pleasure.
We do not guard our hearts, but instead turn our ways to the right and the left,
Straying from your path,
Wandering from your way,
Going our own way,
Never giving thought to our end,
Never thinking that we’re sheep headed for the slaughter.
We distort your image, thinking it impossible that you might be a God of wrath,
Denying that we deserve judgment and that you, Lord, are sure to bring it.

O Lord, how we need repentance, reformation and revival.
Your people are dragged away by the currents of this world,
And the further we stray, the less we can hear or even remember your voice,
For you once called to us,
You once spoke to us,
You once convicted us,
And now our silence is full of noise, not full of your voice.

O Lord, your people flee from the cities of influence,
We run to the suburbs where land and homes entice us,
We want freedom and space, not truth and grace.
Your mission becomes our occasional hobby,
Instead of a lamp to our feet and a light to our path,
The light of your word is like a candle almost gone out.
We run after other counselors, not you, the Wonderful Counselor,
We take the advice of magazine editors, newspaper columnists and TV personalities,
While your Word collects dust.

We read little and think even less.
We avoid your calling and delegate ministry to professionals,
As if the priesthood of all believers was a bad theological idea.
We, like the Israelites, would ask you for a King of a Pastor who is omni-competent,
Or at least funny and mildly passionate about something.
We ignore our omnipotent King of Kings,
Not because we couldn’t correctly identify this title for Jesus on a Bible exam,
But because we fail to submit to you as you demand.
We resist the truth that you are King and we are not.
We lie in saying that we are Christians, when we won’t let Christ be King,
We won’t bend the knee to anyone, and so this ugly pride is everyone,
Which leads to our abundance of anger, complaining and strife.
We are a broken people wandering around in the dark,
Like sheep without a shepherd,
Made in the image of God,
And yet so repetitively scratching the itch in our souls with anything but truth,
The splinter cannot be removed without our Master Surgeon,
But instead we think our idols can heal,
Only to be left by them more wounded.

O God, have mercy on us, according to your steadfast love,
For the sake of your name, forgive our transgressions,

Forgive us for playing at our worship, worshipping our work, and working at our play,
We don’t keep your Sabbath,
We treat it like it was a good idea for people who didn’t have the internet,
But for us, we need to keep going.
We don’t trust you.
We don’t believe you.
We don’t know you.
We think your yoke is heavy, not light,
To follow you is a list of rules to keep, not a new life to lead.
The promise of your Holy Spirit was also for days gone by,
Not for our strength in the fight,
Nor for water when we’ve run dry.

We love to drink,
And are impressed to think,
Of what we carry in our hands
With no concern for the drunkenness of our land.
We love mirrors,
Because in them we see our gods,
The love of self,
Self-image and Self-help
Not self-discipline or self-control,
Self-esteem, not Christ esteem,
On whom do we lean?

For the one who walked the dusty streets,
And saw what had become of what was made,
Was not received, but instead was beat,
For speaking the truth and calling out spades.
So Lord, come quickly and save us from,
Your judgment and wrath which are to come.

Lord, without you we will be,
Punished for all eternity,
So please have mercy on our offense,
And lead our land to repentance.

Iron Sharpens Iron – Review

I started teaching public school before I received my teaching credential. When my district told me to go back and get my credential so they could rehire me, I complied and enrolled at National University. Most of the classes were/are completely useless but there were a couple of classes in which I said, “This would’ve been useful a couple of years ago.” After getting thrown into the fire of teaching, you learn as you go. Most young teachers I’ve met said they actually learned the useful things while on the job.

To some degree, that’s how I felt reading Iron Sharpens Iron: Leading Bible-Oriented Small Groups that Thrive by Orlando Saer. In no way is the book useless like my credential classes at National, but after co-leading a small group for a couple of years I had the same, “This would’ve been useful a couple of years ago.” But for those of you who never have lead a small group Bible study, this book will be extremely useful to you. I’ll just point out some key points that I found helpful.

Why have a small group?

At Grace EV Free La Mirada, we encourage our members to join a “Grace Group” (small home Bible study). The reasons are (also stated in Saer’s book):

• We are built for community and smaller groups help nurture and foster that community.
• Accountability: We all play a role in each other’s sanctification.
• Small groups give an opportunity to care for one another (i.e., prayer, accountability, personal needs, etc.).
• A good place from which to reach the lost: members can work together to advance the gospel.

Being a leader of a small group Bible study is big responsibility far beyond simply leading a discussion of Sunday morning’s sermon. It takes work to avoid the group becoming stagnant. There was a time in our small group when the group grew stagnant and sluggish. I couldn’t tell you what was the cause at the time because of my lack of experience leading a small group but in retrospect I can see several factors that could’ve caused it. Saer gives categories to these pitfalls and tells you how to avoid them.

Having good social events beyond your regular meeting time in order to cultivate friendship and community is a helpful part of maintaining a healthy group. This makes accountability and sanctification become more natural. Saer also gives ideas for group outings and fun events but he also warns of the group simply becoming a “social club.”

Managing the Group

There are issues to consider when starting a new group.

1. Focus: What kind of group will it be? - Is its primary purpose to help enquirers, to train believers, or to study the Bible together and support each other?

2. Life Expectancy: Is it open-ended or fixed-life? – To stop groups getting stodgy, many small group ministries build in a ‘shelf life’ of maybe 1 or 2 years, after which groups are mixed up.

3. Study Programme: Who is responsible for setting it? - Usually the church leaders set this up but it’s important to keep a balance of “sticking with the program” and meeting the needs of the group.

4. Personnel: Who is involved in organizing the group? Who is the leader or co-leaders and what are their roles? Clear roles are important in that the members of the group clearly need to know who to look to for leadership.

5. Time and Place: Where and when do we meet? I prefer any time when the Lakers are not on but that hasn't worked out well. Praise the Lord for DVR.

6. Size: How big should the group be? - This could depend on the size of the room/house you meet at. This could also depend on how well connected everyone is to each other. Are you meeting the needs of your current members? If not, then add more people might not be a good idea for the time being. But if you guys are rock solid, then meeting another person's needs might just be what your group needs to continue to grow.

7. Make-up: How diverse is the group going to be? Do you want a good mix to avoid it simply being another sub-group (e.g., college group)? I say yes. It's important to be diverse not simply for diversity sake but to truly represent the body of Christ well.

These are all valid questions that Saer has pointed out. Wrestling through much of these issues myself has actually been enriching instead of burdensome. I can confidently say that co-leading a small group with my friends John Rinehart and Mark Joseph has been one of the must enriching experiences in my Christian life. I didn’t really want the responsibility of co-leading anything because of the work involved. What I didn’t anticipate was the transformation it would cause in my life. I find myself more caring towards the members of the group, and I have a deep seeded desire to see the group continue to grow as it has been through these couple of years.

In short, Saer has some great points. Remember to always keep God at the center of everything and that this time is to honor and glorify Him. Saer goes on and gives several practical steps in leading a discussion, preparing for leadership, and managing a group but the overall theme of the purpose of small groups is what I wanted to point out here. No doubt the Lord has used Grace Groups at our church to help people connect better with other members of the church. They act as the “frontlines” of ministry. When there is a crisis regarding a member of the church the first question asked is, “Is this person in a Grace Group?” If so, then it is followed by a second question, “Who are the leaders?” It’s been an amazing an honor to serve others in this capacity.

Champs and Chumps

Gery Woelfel of the Journal Times tells the story of Kim Hughes, former Clippers assistant and interim head coach who was diagnosed with prostate cancer while he worked for the Clippers.

Hughes' new doctor, Stuart Holden, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, was receptive to doing the surgery the following week.

But then Hughes encountered yet another major obstacle.

"I contacted the Clippers about medical coverage and they said the surgery wouldn't be covered," Hughes said. "I said, ‘Are you kidding me?' And they said if they did it for one person, they'd have to do for everybody else."

When Dunleavy learned the Clippers wouldn't cover the cost of Hughes' surgery, he mentioned it to his players.

Several of them, including now Milwaukee Bucks forward Corey Maggette, Chris Kaman, Elton Brand and Marko Jaric, were taken aback by the news and decided to offer their assistance.

"Kim was one of our coaches and he's a really good friend of mine, too," Maggette said. "He was in a situation where the Clippers' medical coverage wouldn't cover his surgery. I thought it was a great opportunity to help someone in need, to do something that Christ would do.

"It shows your humanity, that you care for other people and not just yourself. Kim was in a life-and-death situation."

It was indeed a dicey time for Hughes. After a biopsy was taken, he learned his prostate cancer was much worse than he believed.

The cancer had quickly spread and was on the brink of moving to other areas of his body.

There are a lot of different reactions one might have to that.

One of the most obvious is to add yet another well deserved log to the bonfire of owner Donald Sterling's reputation.

Henry Abbott posted this story on ESPN.com early today. But I wanted to point out two things here. First, it was noble for the players to step up and help their assistant coach when they had the means to do so. And secondly, the contrast between how the Clipper organization handled this situation and how the Lakers handled the Ronny Turiaf situation back in 2005.

Recently, Ronny Turiaf shared his experience when asked about Wes Leonard, the basketball player from Fennville (Mich.) High School who died last week.

On July 16, 2005, with no prior symptoms or related family medical history, Turiaf was diagnosed with an enlarged aortic root. The discovery came during a routine checkup while he was playing on the Los Angeles Lakers' summer league team. Alongside Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak and assistant GM Ronnie Lester, Turiaf met with doctors, who gave him two options.
"They said, 'Ronny, you are lucky to be here today; you could have died at any point,'" Turiaf recalled. "[They said,] 'We have two choices for you: Choice A, either you stop playing basketball and can't do any contact sports, and you have to take medicine for the rest of your life. Or you have the surgery done.'

Turiaf choose to go with the surgery. Even though the Lakers voided his newly signed contract for health issues, they paid for the heart surgery and the treatment to get him back on the court. If you follow the Lakers for any amount of time you know that Turiaf returned to the court and was able to play basketball again. He played well enough that in the summer of 2008, the Golden State Warriors signed him to a four-year, $17 million contract.

Is it a wonder why one organization is Champs and the other Chumps? The Clippers are not cursed, they just have a cheap owner who lacks compassion. I hope Blake Griffin remembers this when he’s a free agent in the summer of 2014.

Tsunami, Sovereignty, and Mercy

In light of the tragedy in Japan, I thought it would be good to reflect the Sovereignty and Mercy of the Lord. John Piper wrote an article titled: Tsunami, Sovereignty, and Mercy back in December 29, 2004 touching on the topic of natural disasters.

“The waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction assailed me. . . This God—his way is perfect” (2 Samuel 22:5, 31).

After the loss of his ten children owing to a “natural disaster” (Job 1:19), Job said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). At the end of the book, the inspired writer confirms Job’s understanding of what happened. He says Job’s brothers and sisters “comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). This has several crucial implications for us as we think about the calamity in the Indian Ocean.

1) Satan is not ultimate, God is.

Satan had a hand in Job’s misery, but not the decisive hand. God gave Satan permission to afflict Job (Job 1:12; 2:10). But Job and the writer of this book treat God as the ultimate and decisive cause. When Satan afflicts Job with sores, Job says to his wife, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10), and the writer calls these satanic sores “the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). So Satan is real. Satan brings misery. But Satan is not ultimate or decisive. He is on a leash. He goes no farther than God decisively permits.

Click here for the entire article: Tsunami, Sovereignty, and Mercy