Audio Devotions

Our local radio station here in Flora, WNOI, has a lot of local programming during the morning hours. One of the unique things they do is have members of the local clergy record devotions that the station plays each morning at between 8:45 am and 9:00 am local time (Central). This week, September 22-26, it was my turn. You can listen to them live, if you wish, by clicking on the WNOI link (then click on "listen live click here").

A couple of people have told me that they have trouble using the live link, so I decided to post them here as well. You can try and click on the link below (it should open the file in your media player and soon you will hear the melodious sound of my voice), or you can download the file to your computer and listen to it. To do this, right-click on the link and select "save target as" and save the file to your computer desktop or somewhere where you can find it. Then open the file from your media player.

Now, as a word of disclaimer: the audio quality is NOT great. I recorde these on a personal digital recorder while in a hotel room on my recent trip to Chicago. I was holed up in my room while Cubs fans celebrated in the streets after their team had just clinched a place in the Nationa League playoffs. I guess not winning a World Series for a hundred years or so makes you happy to have a little success! Anyway, since even the Papa John's delivery man wouldn't venture out and bring me a pizza, I decided to record these devotions (if you listen closely I think you can hear the sound of my stomach growling).

Feel free to provide any feedback you wish, and I'll feel free to delete it if I don't like it!

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

WARNING!!

Those of you who know me know that I have a unique gift for offending people. Usually it's a combination of ignorance and lack of awareness of my own "space" that creates the offense. In other words- I say things that pop into my mind without being aware of where I am or who is around me. There is also an element of not really caring what other people think or whether they agree with me. So, that lethal combination of personality quirks (read: "flaws") occasionally leads me to making apologies for my rude or thoughtless comments.

That being said, however, sometimes other people do things that offend me. I am always amazed that when I offend someone, the common wisdom among others is that I should apologize and make things right. But, when someone does something that offends me, I should just "man up," get over it and quit being such a baby. Well, sometimes I get tired of being the one who has to patch things up. This time I'm not going to do it!

I don't want to give specifics here, because some who read this will know who and what I'm talking about if I do. And it wouldn't be right for me to "call people out" by means of an internet blog. No matter how many times people talk about me behind my back, write letters in newsletters or blog about me, I am not going to return the passive-agressive favor. So, here goes (the names and places have been changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty).

I serve on the board of a certain para-church organization. (A para-church organization is one that is Church oriented in nature, but is not a church in and of itself. Such groups include Bible colleges, christian camps, service organizations, food or clothings distribution outlets, etc.) We'll call this organization "Church Group A." I have served with Group A for about 4 years and currently serve as vice-chairman of the board for this group. We do several activities, mostly in the summer, and we have two full-time managers and a couple of other part-time employees. We also have hundreds of volunteers who run and staff our various activities.

This summer, one of our volunteer organizers decided to do something different and controversial in his activity. It got some elderly and legalistic, oops, sorry, I mean, "seasoned and conservative" supporters very upset with our Group. So upset, a few of them started organizing opposition to us. Threatening to withdraw financial support, going to churches in our area and leveling serious and unfounded charges against us, and generally being divisive. On more than one occasion, our board of directors was called out for allowing such sinful and hellish behavior to take place. We were called things like "liberal," "unBiblical," and "poor leaders who are more interested in pushing the limits of decency than teaching what is right." Now, I have to tell you, I was offended by that.

In the end (actually, I'm sure this is FAR from over), I had to attend a board meeting last night that lasted three hours, while we discussed our position and whether we were going to "deal with the situation." We decided that we should be very careful how we screen our volunteers. Then we should give them a job to do and get out of their way while they do it. And we will rely on our managers to manage the day-to-day operations of our Group. I like the decision we made-I just don't like the process we had to go through to get there.

During the course of the discussion, some of which was kind of heated, I was told that by not giving in to these people who made these charges against us, we were being divisive. Not the people who made these unfounded accusations, but the people who had been attacked. I said aloud that I don't like being bullied, and although I had no real position on the issue being discussed, I was against taking the action that the bullies were insisting that we take (in the end, more people agreed with me, and that is why we made the decision that we made). I was told by one man that I needed to get over my pride, humble myself, and do what is right. (I was getting more offended by the moment, by the way!) I tried to go and make "ammends" with this individual after our meeting, but because the decision didn't go the way he wanted it to go, he refused to shake my hand.

When are we going to finally figure out that there are issues of opinion, and there are issues of Biblical truth, and they are not necessarily the same thing? There are things that go on in the Church that I am very uncomfortable with. Because I lead worship most of the time (with a guitar!), I realize that a LOT of people in the Church are uncomfortable with what I do. But it's not about me-it's about God. And more specifically, it's about bringing others to God through His Son Jesus Christ. If the Bible gives us clear direction we should follow it. But if there are areas of opinion, then we should be very careful not to impose our own levels of morality on others. It's that simple.

Augustine, one of the early Church fathers, said, "In necessariis unitas, In dubiis libertas, In omnibus autem caritas." Roughly translated, this means, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, love." Our Church tradition has a motto that speaks to this idea: "Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent." I think we have forgotten our own advice!

I know that some of the people mentioned above (without being "named") will know exactly what and who I am writing about. No doubt, they will be offended by what I have written. To them, and to anyone else who is offended by this, I will say this: Please note the picture at the beginning of this post.