Not a Requiem, but Notice of a Transplant

Fellowship Bible Church has now closed. The work of God's kingdom continues, but our part as a body sharing together in that work has come to an end. We have chosen together to disperse our gifts, our talents and our service among other churches, believing that in this way we can best benefit God's
Kingdom.  But you might wonder, how did this come about?

Several years ago, our pastor, Kevin Rees, sensed God's call to serve in Uganda.  Since one of FBC's emphases was missions, how could we say no?  But the men who replaced Kevin as our pastoral team were also called away, one to New England, another to Texas.  Over time, others of the elders were likewise called away.  We had once served by discipling young adults and releasing them for ministry; now it was our leaders who were being moved.

As we sought the Lord for our future, we sought new leaders.  We attempted some steps to grow by. While these steps did not bear the fruit we'd hoped for, they brought us back to prayer.

It became clear over time that a choice needed to be made.  We prayed about it, talked about it and wrestled with it. Then, about the time that another elder was called overseas, a separate conversation led to Redeemer church making an offer on our building.  We believe these two events together were God's way of showing that we had fulfilled the purpose for our existence, that now we should use the assets He had entrusted to us to profit the kingdom, and then send ourselves out to other churches to strengthen them through our service.

We held our last service together on September 10th.  It was a time of praise and thanksgiving for God's work in our midst, of appreciation of times together, of celebrating those things God had done through us.  Perhaps more importantly, it was, in T.J.'s words, a commissioning service.  It wasn't that FBC was dying, it was more like the heart of FBC was being transplanted, as we are sent out to bless and serve others.  And so we are on the move.  Yet we thank God for the work He has accomplished through Fellowship Bible Church of Siloam Springs!

From a Bible study and a prayer meeting, to a house church, then a store front, Fellowship Bible Church was a part of the Body of Christ in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, for more than twenty-five years. We last met in an historic church building in downtown Siloam Springs, just a block south of Main Street on East Twin Springs.  This building is being transferred to Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a growing body of evangelical believers.  We are happy for that, for we know that God is working in and through them.

Some from FBC may continue to meet from time to time for prayer, for study and for fellowship. Others will quickly find a new church home.  We all want to move onward as God leads us.  But wherever the Lord happens to send us, here in Siloam Springs or across the ocean, we remain His children, called to believe, to praise and to serve.  May He plant us where He wants us, and give us the grace to serve Him and others to the praise of His glory through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Disconnected?

Disconnected.  Somehow it isn't the best of words, even if it is useful in its place.  Most of us would much rather be connected, connected to our family, our friends, our God.  

Disconnected.  This page has been silent for quite some time.  But we'd much rather connect with you again, to share some thoughts, a few insights, perhaps some words that will encourage you and help you connect with the Lord.   And we'd like to have your feedback, your thoughts and encouragements.  We all grow that way.

Connected.   Yes, that's a much better word, a much better thought.  And we'd like to keep it that way.  It might not be every day, and maybe not every week.  But we're starting again to share in this way, hoping to build our fellowship, yours and ours.   

Now, to help in that, for those of you that follow this blog, I noticed a message from "Blogger," our host for this page.  They are in the process of only connecting us with followers who have Gmail accounts.  Disconnected.  Grrrr, it's that word again.  It's not what we'd prefer, and it is something we'd like your feedback on.  Perhaps it's time for us to move so we can stay connected, because we appreciate your friendship.   Thanks for reading, and for staying in touch.

Oldies

When did Sting, Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Vince Gill become "oldies"?  It seems the last time I consciously pondered it, "oldies" stations on the radio featured The Platters, Roy Orbison and various girl-groups ending in "—ettes."  But now the only new songs I recognize are the re-made classics or the soundtracks from commercials during the playoffs. (Seriously, just an hour ago I heard Roberta Flack’s, “Killing Me Softly,” performed by some unknown-to-me teenager with a recording contract).  My father's collection of vinyls celebrated wanting to hold your hand and a bridge over troubled water.  Now my kids—not I—know who set fire to the rain and when to chant "ho – hey."  Where did the middle go?  It was here just a few minutes ago.  An age is passing.  

Getting older is puzzling. Who among us gets it right?  We, each of us, have never gotten older before.  Our one shot at it is our last shot at it.  I'm still getting over the realization that I'll never be signed to sing a duet with Josh Groban or harmonize with Zac Brown.  [Heck, gone are the days of just being able to cut my toenails without first sucking in my breath.]  This isn’t a tirade about wrinkles and gray hair—it is genuine question, “How does one age well?”

Ah, but therein is the golden center: Jesus alone knows how to grow old well.  He, in fact, skates figure-eights around our clumsy aging process.  We do it with ignorance, but Jesus ages with grace—“And He continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40).  The expected push-back is this: Jesus barely reached His thirties, how could He know anything about growing old?  And so it comes—the part that blows my mind.   

Jesus didn’t know how to grow old gracefully because of His thirty trips around the sun; Jesus knows how to grow old gracefully because of He put the earth in motion around the sun in the first place.  Jesus is “Father of Eternities” (Isaiah 9:6), the Lord of Time.  He alone knows how to grow old because He alone became young.  He who always was became.  Jesus grew up and grew old on top of being eternal.  His growing older is one way He became existentially like us.  But the fact that He is perpetually “The Beginning” and simultaneously “The End” is yet another way that Jesus is essentially unlike us, above us, categorically before us and is, therefore, alone worthy of our worship.  O Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ the Lord.

Of Fleeces and Faith

It used to seem easier to dismiss Gideon as a prime example of a man God used in spite of his weak faith; not because of his weak faith.  I can still hear my voice in my brain’s audio archive preaching Gideon as an example to avoid instead of an example to follow—as one who had been given such rare, direct revelation but who, regrettably, still had to ask twice(!) in the middle of marching for divine reassurance.  Add twenty years and some level of maturity to the mix and I’m not so sure anymore that Gideon is someone I should so easily discount.  Actually, quite the contrary—Gideon instead of being an embarrassment should be emulated in the faith department.  I mean, if we were in a foxhole together, I think I’d have Gideon on my “short list” of brothers I’d ask to watch my back when taking enemy fire.

Is faith large enough to include knocking knees?  I believe it is, if we separate faith from confidence.  Gideon’s object of faith—God—never vacillated.  Gideon’s confidence—his subjective application of faith to his own situation—vacillated regularly.  Did he personally understand God’s promise properly even while marching toward the enemy with his famously small company of soldiers?  This is amazingly similar to my internal conversation with God throughout any given day.  “Did you really mean that you would ‘deliver Israel THROUGH ME’ (Judges 6:36,37)?”  I don’t think Gideon had any problems with God being able to deliver Israel or any question that God would indeed deliver Israel—but the sticking point each time includes Gideon’s participation in God’s providence.  “Me?”  And yes, I suppose there is still quite a lot in the text to suggest that Gideon was on shaky ground asking God for an additional sign of confirmation (compare Deuteronomy 6:16; Matthew 12:38; 1 Corinthians 1:22-23)—and rightly so.  But that aside, in these last twenty years I have had to enlarge my understanding of faith to include, instead of categorically exclude, a trembling obedience; a faith that is sometimes mixed with fear. 

Gideon’s fleeces serve as the focal point of his confidence; the fleeces which he put out as a direct appeal for reassurance.  “God if I am still in the correct understanding of Your will, then tonight please cause this fleece to be wet and yet not the ground around it … and vice versa the next night … please cause this fleece to be dry and yet not the ground around it.”  Did Gideon’s “test” indicate a lack of faith or a lack of confidence?  Can the two really be dissected from each other?  And is his experience normative for all experiences of faith/confidence there after?  These are serious questions.

As I have been cooking on Gideon’s story for a while, I have to say that it is remarkable from where he asks for extra divine assurance.  He asks for reaffirmation in the middle of the act of believing; in the middle of the journey to get to the enemy lines.  He has already demonstrated an active, bold and unprecedented faith-step in even getting to this middle-point.  Yet, in the middle, he has a panicky moment where he calls upon the Lord for reassurance.  The Lord, of course, does not have to comply; but He does comply and gives the reassurance that Gideon requests … twice.

In my braver moments, I want to be like Gideon to leave without all the details; to launch without the guarantee.  I want those inevitable times when fear “catches up” with my obedience not to be spoiled by the presence of fear but to be propelled by the presence of fear into a deeper dependence upon the Lord.  Without demanding God’s answer my pleas, I like the fact that God is tenderhearted enough with me not to scold me for a vacillating confidence, but instead He condescends to my low level of fragility and gives the encouragement I need.  “Yes, you are on the path of obedience.  Keep going.”  I crave that kind of confidence.  Yet I know that faith can be and still is legitimate even in those pockets of time where the confidence that sparked the journey of faith has vanished.

One of my fleeces with Uganda was my kids’ response to the idea of living overseas again.  “Lord, if the kids are excited, or even just not repulsed, by the idea of cross-cultural missions again (having had a very hard experience with it last time), then I will know that this is from You.”  God did not have to respond to my “fleece” either way; but He did.  He condescended to my low level of understanding and weak confidence to encourage me that I was, in fact, “hearing” the voice of the Lord rightly and leading the family by faith in and toward obedience.  The children responded (direct quotes—some of which were spoken without our breathing a word to them about Uganda): “I’ve always wanted to go to Africa” … “I’d like to see Lake Victoria someday” … “How can the nations hear about Jesus unless we go and tell them” … “My friend may be going to sip tea in England but I get to go hear lions roar in the wild” … “When can we leave?”

Our youngest, who was our only “hold-out” being the least positive toward the possibility of moving to and serving in Uganda because of her tight friendships at school and church, wrote this note and slid it under our bedroom door one night—“I want to go to Africa.”  I attribute this sentence to God who will even communicate to a very unsure man who vacillates in his confidence frequently through the jumbo-sized pencil of a five-year-old.  In the end, whether it is toward battle or toward Uganda, these times of tested faith are more about God’s willingness to reassure His weakest people than the ability of His weakest people to somehow find a way on their own to continue in their faith when panic blocks the road.

Hairline Crack in the Ceiling

“Unless the LORD [sells] the house, they labor in vain who [fix every hairline crack in] it; unless the LORD guards the [real estate market], the [home-owner] keeps awake in vain.  It is vain for [Kevin] to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved [Kevin], even in [Kevin’s] sleep” (Psalm 127:1-2, personally applied to … Kevin).

By faith, I thank the Lord for this &*%$@# house.  It is teaching me so much.  Mostly, it is teaching me lessons about trust … or more specifically, distrust.  Once again, the Lord is using the base things of the world to teach the wonderful things of His kingdom. 

Every wall painted, inside and out.  Every floor replaced.  Every bathroom renovated.  Every window washed, even the tricky spaces between the storm panes.  Every dead tree cut down and removed.  Every screed of overflowed concrete from every project in the backyard hauled away.  And none of that work has the power to sell this *blessed* house.  None of it. 

Yet deep beneath my polished theology, I still believe that the difference between selling and not selling this house comes down to the minute details on my home improvement list either left undone or done with merely a mediocre quality.  That hairline crack in the living room ceiling at which I am presently staring; that crack I believe is the thing keeping us from selling this house and, ultimately, going to Africa as missionaries.  Absurd, I know.  I don’t want to believe it.  I don’t want to think that everything rides on my fixing a hairline crack.  I don’t want to believe that whether or not I re-mulch the flower beds around the patio is the difference-maker of my little corner of the universe.  But I am strangely compelled to caulk the crack and mulch the beds.  Why?

And so this modern-day parable unfolds before my eyes.  I would have thought that so much work would bring with it a satisfaction of a job well-done where I could sit back and enjoy the house in a better state (x10) than when we bought it, sipping my iced tea, and having to tell prospective buyers, “Sorry, we received our asking price the hour it went on the market.  Better luck next time.”  But no.  Not even close.  All this work and all it brings to me—in addition to exhaustion—is a better trained eye to see the spot where I touched blue wall paint on the white trim, the space along the built-in bookshelf that needs to be re-caulked, the veneer on the bi-fold closet door that needs to be re-glued.  But the pattern will hold, for sure, that if I do these next three jobs to push the house into sale-mode, then there will be three more jobs that emerge tomorrow.  All this work and I can see that I have been trusting in my work to advance my story.  Or in other words I have distrusted God.  I am not resting in the fact that God is the One who gives to His beloved ones even in their sleep (Psalm 127:2).

Cutting through the “personal responsibility” curtain, which is certainly not a problem with my particular version of flesh (if anything I am devilishly over-responsible instead of devilishly irresponsible), do I trust (1) that God is God, infinitely powerful and sovereign to govern the universe including the sale of a 2884 ft² split-level on Raines Rd., (2) that I am included among His beloved ones, (3) that He delights in generously giving gifts of grace, and (4) that He gives these grace-gifts even when I am asleep (e.g. unable to contribute)?  Whoa.  Frankly, I am not sure.  There is still a part of me that believes the (unbiblical) proverbs that God helps those who help themselves, and that I must believe as though it all depends upon God but behave as though it all depends upon me.  God is clearly the One who helps those who cannot help themselves, who cry out in their state of helplessness for deliverance.  And from this sneaky psalm, it is actually a vanity for me/us to work, work, work as though it all depended upon me/us.  Sigh.  I repent of my disbelief in God and my vain belief that I can advance my own story.

This *blessed* house is holy ground because it shows me the vanity of my idols and the love of my Savior. 

Now, does faith give me the nerve to leave that hairline crack in the ceiling?  Wow, that seems so much harder than just grabbing the caulk-gun.  But this is not about easier/harder in the moment; this is about belief/disbelief in the God is the One who gives to His beloved ones even in their sleep.

Man Looks at the Outward Appearance

The making of a king—what are the parameters, evaluation points, and guidelines that we use for developing and recognizing leadership?  Is leadership really about character, experience, policy-making, and poise under fire?  Or does leadership really just come down to money, beauty, and stature?

Journalist Kayla Webley posits a thought on the subject in her article coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the first televised presidential debate.  “On the morning of September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts.  He was young and Catholic—neither of which helped his image—and facing off against an incumbent.  But by the end of the evening, he was a star.  […]  Nixon, pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization, appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident.  As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won.  But those listeners were in the minority….  Those that watched the debate on TV thought that Kennedy was the clear winner.  Many say Kennedy won the election that night” (“How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World,” Time, September 23, 2010).

“It’s one of those unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very dramatically—in this case, in a single night” says Alan Schroeder, media historian and associate professor at Northwestern University, Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High Risk TV.

I agree with what Webley wrote in her Time magazine article, except her title … on a subtle level.  I don’t think the Nixon-Kennedy debate changed the world, really.  The world has always operated on the premise that the choicest, most handsome, and tallest specimens are the natural leaders.  True, television gave us a wider audience—exponentially wider with the Internet—but the truth is that humanity has always tended to pick its leaders this way; with its eyes, not with its brain, and certainly not with its soul.

As we step into the arena of the inner world, however, we can see that this is not the way God operates.  God does not select as man selects.  God does not evaluate as man evaluates.  God does not see as man sees.

Whether we are making a king, selecting a president, deciding upon a spouse, hiring a CEO, or valuing a friend how much “stock” do we place in the outside at the expense of the inside of a person?  “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  God gives primacy to the heart—Hebrew: lavav, the heart, the mind, the inner person—every time!  Do we?

Do we know this subcutaneous region?  Are we cultivating life in this internal acre of soil?  Are we connecting at this level with the people we meet, work with, marry, parent, and minister?  Do we know the anatomy of this far more important sphere of our personhood?

We don’t get a glimpse very often at the inner gears of someone’s heart—not to mention our own heart.  But nestled inside the narratives of Saul and David we are given a rare view of the anatomy of the inner person, especially in the process of selecting, recognizing, and following a leader.  It is telling that the only qualifications for leadership given to Saul at his anointing were that he was “choice,” “handsome,” and “head and shoulders taller than the rest” (1 Samuel 9:2).  The Nixon-Kennedy Debate didn’t change the world.  The Nixon-Kennedy Debate demonstrated that there is nothing new under the sun.

Uganda Mission 2012

So … how was Africa?  It is the inevitable and elusive question from friends and family in the States asked after any amount of time spent in any part of Africa.  But to give the easy and automatic answer—“it was okay”—somehow betrays the paradox this place holds.  Actually, the answer is quite a sophisticated one because Africa is surprisingly complicated; a simple existence, perhaps, but a layered, rugged, alluring, confusing and beautiful place.  

Uganda is a very “physical” place.  If one needs water, it has to be fetched and toted and conserved.  If one needs food, it has to be found, plucked, filleted, or butchered.  If one needs a building of any sort or size, it has to be planned, built, and maintained.  One may conclude, as I did at various points, that Uganda is inconvenient.  But when the day’s sweaty clothes are rinsed and dried on the line, there is a salty satisfaction of deliberately stepping away from the “convenient-at-all-costs” mentality that characterizes and fetters the West; a deliberate step toward the experience of the Majority World—physical, rugged, alluring, sometimes confusing, but beautiful and paradoxically simple/complicated.  A little inconvenience is a small cost for the rich life Uganda affords.

Three weeks spent “being the church to those who are building the church in Uganda” (our team’s purpose statement) took us down many roads—literally.  We tallied 142 hours in 20 days on every kind of road imaginable and unimaginable. But our primary destination was the New Hope Uganda retreat center called Musana Camps, which our friends and fellow church members—Nathan and Kendra Jackson—are actually, one square at a time, carving out of the African bush for the refreshment and spiritual renewal of the orphans and their care-givers at the other New Hope Uganda campuses scattered around Uganda. 

Musana is situated on the remote, north rim of Lake Victoria between Kampala and Jinja.  There Seth and I found our temporary home in a canvas tent with foam mattresses and a gorgeous view of the lake that stretched 180 miles across the equator at 4000-feet above sea-level.  We helped to roof a brand new health clinic built for the benefit of the local villages, inaugurated by a two-day community health event with an American physican.  While the doctor treated 250 children and adults with otherwise inaccessible health care, our Fellowship Bible Church team provided gospel-presentations and prayer for those who received this rare medical care.  We also helped around the camp by building wooden shelves, organizing storerooms, fighting flying bats and biting ants in an attic, hanging dry-wall, washing dishes, playing with children, and preaching/testifying at church of the Lord’s faithfulness.  But our main objective and principle ministry was to encourage the missionaries by reminding and demonstrating to them that “out of sight” is not “out of mind”; that they are loved and significant and remembered even when isolated and largely silenced by distance and lack of technology.

In between our bursts of work and encouragement at Musana we traveled seven hours north-east to another New Hope Uganda fixture called “Kobwin Children’s Centre” which was several more “clicks” removed from technology and accessibility and opportunity.  However, Kobwin provided—what I personally concluded as—the defining moment of the entire trip in Uganda. 

Everyone at Kobwin was directly or indirectly impacted by Joseph Kony’s infamous “Lord’s Resistance Army”—orphans, surrogate families who now care for orphans, teachers who instruct orphans, and a community just on the southern edge of territory that the LRA reached with their brutal gang-violence, incoherent ideology, and demonic terrorism.  The wake of such destruction devastated many lives, many families, and many communities there.  But we could detect none of that pain or oppression in the smiles of the Kobwin people as we worked together, worshipped together, and lived together for almost a week.  None of the acrimony that one might expect was present in their conversations.  What was undeniably present, instead, was singing.  Drums and voices, harmonies with an intermittent whistle, the collective thumping of jumping and dancing, the haunting Ateso language with the occasion ululation and English phrase dropped in: “God is good, God is good.”  It was almost dark when they started singing.  It was fully night when they finally finished.  As we lay in our tent eavesdropping on the impromptu worship service going on in the banda-hut just twenty feet away, I clearly formed a thought that froze me that hot evening.  “What do they have to sing about?”

They were not performing for the mzungu (foreign) visitors; not attempting to butter up the potential donors nearby.  They were just singing.  But by just singing, in that place under those circumstances with that history, they became my teachers and I their student.  God was already there.  We didn’t bring Him with us; we found Him there among the Ugandans.  True, I taught this same group of people the next morning at church, but they were already upperclassmen in the school of Christ in many ways.  “What do they have to sing about?”  They have Christ, and He is enough to stimulate genuine praise … singing deep into the night … when no one else is looking … even when tomorrow they will have to walk or ride a bike two miles for the water to make a simple breakfast. 

If poverty is primarily measured along relational lines instead of material goods (and it is), then who is really the impoverished one here?  I have more money in my pockets than they, but I have less song in my soul—far more aware of my insect bites and sunburn than Christ’s dear presence.  I spend an embarrassingly high percentage of daily energy on “getting a clue” and nursing a reputation as one who “has a clue.”  Africa strips all that away.  There is no clue.  There is only Christ, active in love and grace, redeeming and reclaiming that which was corrupted by sin. 

Simon, Julius, Charles, and the fifty other people whose names I never learned remind me from afar that Christ is enough.  Christ is more than enough … in every place, under every circumstance, with any history.  So, let the singing continue deep into the night … and let the glory of Christ among the nations swell.