I started my three new books with Roy Williams’ Hard Work, because (contrary to what the title might have me believe) I knew it would be the quickest read.  And nothing fuels reading like some good momentum.

Tim Crothers (Roy’s help writing the book) does an excellent job of hiding behind what sounds exactly like Roy Williams is speaking, and making it come off as both well written, and something Roy would say. I loved the behind-the-scenes look into coaching that it provided, and I think many people, especially vocational ministers, would profit from the lessons in how to effectively coach young people. If you are reading just for that, skip straight to the chapter called “philosophy.”

However, amidst the great retellings of some of the best moments of his coaching career runs a disturbing thread.  Here is a man literally on the top of his profession.  He’s among only 13 men to have ever won multiple national championships in men’s college basketball.  He has the highest winning percentage among active coaches.  At the time of the writing, he’s the current national champion. Yet it is clear that not even those pinnacles of achievement afford him any respite from the nagging pursuit of being the best.

As much as a fan as I am of UNC ball, it pains me that I get the sense Coach Williams is chasing wind.  (Ecclesiastes 2:11) What a shame to have worked so hard, done so well, and to have ended up with nothing of eternal significance.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that his pursuit of being the best is necessarily wrong  (I don’t know the man or his heart personally).  It is by no means wrong to pursue excellence.  But if that pursuit is done to validate me as a person, to make me “somebody,” I’ve missed it.  Only in Christ am I validated.  And only by my validation in Christ can I then rightly, actually, pursue excellence.

If a salesman has no assurance of where his next meal is coming from, it changes the motivation for selling. He’s selling that product to stay afloat!  If, on the other hand, he has a million dollars in the bank, he can sell for the love of the the product he is pushing. He’s been validated already.

My prayer is that Coach Williams (and I) would run to Christ, the only one who can validate us.  Christ is the one who has really done the “hard work.”

Then, run from there to Cameron Indoor Stadium and keep the streak alive against Dook.

I’ve heard some people say that they are worried about their kids, when they are told about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Jesus, that they might learn two of the three are a lie and assume the third is also.

That’s pretty silly, unless during family devotions you are praying to the Easter Bunny. Kids can tell the difference between something you devote your life to and something you talk about once a year.

If they believe Jesus is on the same level of relevance in your life as Santa Claus, it’s because you’ve lived like it.

We’re probably not going to do Santa with our kids.

When I say that, immediately there are those who jump up to tell us how it’s just innocent fun to tell the stories of Santa.  (Funny how it’s not OK for me to tell others not to do Santa but it’s perfectly acceptable for others to tell me to do the opposite…)

They also often say something to the effect of “we were raised believing in Santa, and we turned out all right!”  And, to a great extent that may be true.  But George Burns smoked until he was 100 years old, and that doesn’t make smoking healthy.  I don’t make my parenting decisions (or really any other decisions) based solely on anecdotal evidence.

Here is the main reason we are leaning the way we are:

On a foundational level the story of Santa and the story of Jesus are exact opposites.  Santa gives based on how good you are.  Jesus gives based on how much you admit your inability to be good.  And that might be confusing to my child.

We ruin the concept of gifts by making them meritorious. I don’t give him gifts based on “you better not cry, you better not pout” because if I did I’d never give him anything.  Pouting is an every other breath activity at some points in his day.

The Bible is pretty clear about the naughty-nice list.  There’s only one name on the nice list, and it’s Jesus.

All of that to say we are not anti-Santa.  We’ve still got him up as a decoration.  We’ll tell our kids the story of Santa.  But we won’t tell it likes it’s true.  As should be apparent from my rant about the Halloween protesters, I am not about Christians making a stink about holidays that are often our only common ground with our non-believing neighbors.

What am I running toward?  Why do I want to raise over $2000 in monthly support?  The Bible says that “for lack of vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18 King James Version) and I can definitely relate to that.

Unless there is a compelling picture in my mind of why the heck I am doing this—all the phone calls and appointments and initiating with strangers about their wallet and it’s contents—I’d surely stop.

Here’s the thing, though: God is concerned with the process of raising support just as much as he is concerned with the outcome of getting the support in and going on campus to impact students.  After all, he’s God, he could raise the support in 15 minutes.  So the fact that He isn’t tells me that there is something bigger out there than the dollars.  God isn’t just monetizing this thing with the support raising process.  He’s got some things he needs to tell us and work in us that require this angst-ridden (at worst) or uncomfortable (at best) context of “ministry partner development.”

God is a King, not a president.  His system is kingdom, not capitalism.  The end goal is no longer the dollars.  The compelling vision that keeps me on the phone (when I have enough contacts to call *cough*Prayer Request*cough*) is that He is sovereign, and has clearly, repeatedly, called me to this ministry.  I am more passionate than I have ever been about what God is doing on the college campus, and in and through students there.

As always, at the end of posts like this, I feel compelled to give you the opportunity to respond with your wallet.

This is another in my latest series (that started out as one ginormous post I decided to break into several) on verses that will never be read on Christian radio.

This one is a verse that, if you are reading out loud to your underage children, (a practice I wholeheartedly discourage with any of my writing) I’d stop.

(mouse over the verse to read it)

Ezekiel 23:20

We are not likely to see much at all from this section of Ezekiel make it to the air on Christian radio.  It’s really racy.  The translators make the wording a little softer, here, but let’s face it, Zeke was not afraid to shoot straight with the people of Israel.  He crosses well over the line of propriety and decency.  But we here in the Evangelical camp are committed to all of Scripture being God-breathed and profitable. Even the parts that make us blush.

I love (is that a weird word in this context?) this verse because in it I find a God who is not afraid to tell his prophets all the dirty stuff going on in the hearts of his people.  God doesn’t pretend like the junk isn’t there.  This is a prophecy that most commentators agree is about Israel and Judah, the chosen people of God.  And yet God doesn’t go through and clean up the storefront so that the nations won’t find out how bad things are.  No, things are pretty rough when this type of lusting is going on.  And God includes details in this verse that he could have left out.  But he didn’t. 

When Christ came and died, he was aware of what he was paying the penalty for.  All of the sin, evil and brokenness in the world.  He didn’t just pay generally for general sins.  He paid for that specific act of lust, for those specific acts of unfaithfulness.  What a Savior.

I started yesterday with Nahum 3:5-6

Today we’ll keep it in the Old Testament with another seemingly non-uplifting verse:

Exodus 22:22-24

There are tons of these types of verses in the books of the law that are never going to see time in a top ten list of encouraging verses.  But they should.  The encouraging thing about a provision in the law specifically calling for the protection of orphans and widows?  Those are the most marginalized segments of society.  Nobody can read that kind of provision and then turn around and say “God doesn’t care about me.”  In fact, God cares so deeply for his people that he will kill with the sword anyone who doesn’t care for even the least of them.

But the real encouragement in this verse is again that it points to Christ.  All of us, at some point in our lives, have failed to care for (and have thereby afflicted) widows and orphans.  This verse would be crushing, apart from Christ, because we find ourselves on the receiving end of God’s death penalty.  But God’s wrath was kindled against Christ, and he killed him.

And we get credited Christ’s righteousness.

One of the reasons I can’t get wholly behind Christian radio is that they often whitewash the troubling doctrines and the tough-to-swallow parts about Christianity, when they could be contextualizing those difficult doctrines and glorifying God for them.

By taking verses like Philippians 4:13 out of their horrific context (the reason you can do all things through Christ is because he was beaten half to death by religious people like me in the worst hate-crime ever perpetrated) they rob them of the gospel, and turn them into pithy truisms. And I’d argue that’s not very “safe for the whole family.”

With that in mind, periodically over the next few days and weeks I’ll be posting some verses I’ve found that will likely never be featured on your local “positive, upbeat, and encouraging” affiliate, along with reasons I think they should.

Today’s “upbeat verse” (mouse over to read the text)

Nahum 3:5-6

The fact that the Lord is against the Ninevites ought to give us great encouragement. In fact, anybody who doesn’t publicly speak out against a city like Nineveh, one “completely full of lies and pillage” ought not ever claim even partial righteousness, much less perfect holiness.

God, perfect in holiness, promises in this seemingly horrific verse to someday completely rid the world of places like Nineveh.

Then He does it in the most surprising way. God sets Christ up as a spectacle, and throws filth on him. God lifts Jesus’ “skirt” over his face, and shows to the nations his nakedness. Jesus pays the penalty for people as wicked as the Ninevites. People like me.

And by his stripes we are healed.

I was driving today, listening to conservative talk radio (because it’s as funny as Jon Stewart during the Bush years) and all the flailing and panicking and minor-key interludes that accompany advertisements for reseeding packets and buying gold.  Then, I turned off the radio, and looked over the tops of the brilliantly colored red and yellow leaves to notice a hawk flying high on a background of white, wispy clouds.

Despite what is clearly an attack on our way of life, and the worst economic meltdown of the century, and the rise of fascist dictatorships, and eminent inflation, and the end of life as we have known it, and the rolling over of the founding fathers in their graves (according to the show I had just turned off), it was strangely peaceful.

Almost as if God is not worried.

Almost as if the designer of the beautiful leaves and amazing blue sky didn’t stop painting and creating long enough to fret about his kids worrying and thinking he’d left the throne.

God is so worried that he started painting.  Maybe we should take that hint.  We Christians ought to be so vexed and perplexed that we start singing.  The tomb is empty.

John 21:15

“Do you love me more than these?  These what?  Oh, these 153 fish that I just caught?  I sure do, Jesus.  I’d gladly give up fishing—my very livelihood—if it meant being with you.”

How quickly Peter answered.

Jesus is asking me lately whether I love him more than financial security, or even providing for my family.  He’s not, I think, asking me to forgo money (just as he wasn’t telling Peter to never fish again).  He’s simply asking what I trust in more.  At the end of the day, when all seems lost and I want to crawl in a hole, what do I trust more?  Who do I love more?

This is a quote that rocked me to the core last week.  It’s something Tim Keller references in his study Gospel Christianity 101 (which you should immediately purchase, read, and use as the curriculum at your small group)  He quoted Richard Hays from his book The Moral Vision of The New Testament:

God’s… invasion of the world has wrought an inversion: God has reversed the positions of insiders and outsiders.  Those who are in positions of authority and privilege reject Jesus and the message.  However, people of low or despised position in the social world of first-century Jewish culture receive the gospel gladly, for their need is great… Those familiar with the story should not  under-estimate the shock of this inversion.

It’s a great quote.  It’s not something terribly new to me, but what rocked me this time as I was reading it is the harsh realization that in my church, in my ministry, and in my life I consistently become an insider.  In fact, at times it is my primary goal. I get a new teaching, or a new way of doing things, and I make and “inside” and an “outside.”  I’m always an insider, scratching and clawing my way to be recognized, applauded, and accepted by the other “insiders.”

The gospel alone forces me to admit being an outsider.  But once I am out in the cold, with no way of saving myself, that same gospel shows me (and in some mysterious way gives me) a righteousness that is unshakable.

May God continue to push us out into the cold, lest we believe the compelling lie that there’s something we did (or can do) to save ourselves.

I love it because you don’t have to wear a mask.  I mean, I still do… I just don’t have to.  I see the pastors every week taking off their masks and allowing us to glimpse how the gospel is changing them.  Someday, I’ll take mine off, too.

My church isn’t perfect.  But the one to whom she is betrothed is.  I’m so thankful it’s HIM that the pastors and worship leaders strive to take me to each week.

Ever watched your team win the championship when you are the only one in the room who cares?  I have.  It was 2005, and UNC was playing Illinois.  I lived in Middle Tennessee, and had to suffer through Kentucky basketball games anytime there was a Raycom conflict that season.

The day of the championship game I had two bible studies scheduled.  So I had the guys from both of them over to my place, we brought in a projector, and watched the game projected on a wall in my house.  Everyone in the room watched the game, but they were far more interested in watching me watch the game.

There was something about winning it all that was less satisfying than I had imagined.  Part of the joy of celebrating is celebrating with others.  I jumped up and down and even ran down my street waving a Tar Heel flag, but it still wasn’t the same.

That’s what the third and final word in our organizational DNA is all about.  “Send.”  We want to send students and faculty around the world to gather up more people to celebrate with them, not because it is some sinister plot to take over the world, but because we’ve found something we enjoy, and we want others to enjoy it alongside us.

Sending should be something that, if we’ve properly built into the students, happens naturally.  Once a student gets the taste in their mouth of God using them, it’s tough to get it out.  That’s what propelled me literally around the world to tell others about Christ.  I found something worth celebrating, namely that Jesus had paid for all of my sin, and wanted others to find the same reason to party.

The thing that differentiates this missions model from others is that it’s really messy.  We will send a junior in college, with no formal seminary education, to a remote city in Asia to share with others about Christ.  Does it always end well? Absolutely not.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post on building, we focus on one or two things, and do them well.  We would rather take steps of faith and have to go behind students and clean up the mess than to always play it safe.  And we believe in a sovereign God.

What I have seen in my 7 years of campus ministry is that students are far more effective at reaching students than I am, no matter how trained or untrained they are.  My job is to find Johnny Freshman and build into him in such a way as to give him the vision to reach his classmates.  That transition normally doesn’t take place until at least his fourth semester.  But once it does, I get to watch as a person with far more “street cred” than I reaches out to his peers.

My favorite thing in the world (after Jesus’ life and my wife’s smile) is seeing students catch on, and make the turn from being a consumer in their faith to being an active participant in the Great Commission.

Like having a Heel-by-marriage wife to celebrate another Carolina championship 4 years later, Jesus wants us to enjoy him, and call others into that enjoyment.

Utilizing my extensive training in the world of Lego blocks, I’d have to assume that a building is only as good as it’s foundation.  So, looking at the second word in our organizational DNA, “build,” ought to give us insight not only into the methods, but the underlying premises of what our organization truly is concerned with.  How exciting.

Most missions organizations, from my perspective, put the thrust of “every tribe, tongue, nation” type verses primarily on the “going” or the “reaching.”  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  But the job of the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20, which I would say is the banner verse under which Campus Crusade exists) is to “make disciples,” not just converts.  In fact, with thanks to my friend Donny and my Logos Bible software (which, by the way, I need to take a course to learn how to fully utilize), I took some time this morning to study the original language of the verses in question, and as best I can tell the act of “going” in assumed, not the main thrust of the verse.  The act of “disciple-making” seems to be the main verb.  That’s not readily apparent in our English translations of verse 19.

So the reaching (see my discussion of “Win” yesterday) is a necessary component of the greater goal of our ministry, and that’s the building (“…make disciples…”) and eventually sending (“…of all nations”).  We want for students and faculty to not only come to know Christ, but to become “disciples,” which is a truly rich word.  We want to teach them the things they need to know to grow and to really experience the gospel over and over.

Recently I have been very encouraged by the  division of CCC called Centerfield Productions, as they have been putting out some great resources that are helpful in not only effectively building students, but doing so in a way that is transferable.  We desire to give students content in such a way that they can turn around (without hours of training and studying) and give that content to another student.  This produces movements that are not leader-heavy, and leaders that don’t erroneously see themselves as integral to the movement, but as stewards of God’s movement.  For more study on how we think this idea of transferability is biblical, check out 2 Timothy 2:2 and note how many generations there are from Paul (the writer) to “others.”

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of Campus Crusade is that we oversimplify tough doctrines (Like the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, for example).  I’d like to offer a defense and explanation, again from my perspective as a staff member.  (This is by no means CCC’s official stance on anything.)  We have razor-sharp focus on one or two doctrines, namely the proclamation of the gospel and an intro into walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.  By focusing in on teaching folks that the Holy Spirit is the power source for the Christian life, we are able to agree with both sides of the potentially divisive charismatic issue and yet not, in my opinion, dishonor the Holy Spirit.  Is our doctrine exhaustive or complete in this area?  No, and it never was intended to be.  If we claimed it were all there is to know about the Holy Spirit, then there’d be a problem.

We are missionaries on the college campus.  I see one of my primary goals as plugging students into the visible body of Christ, namely the local church.  I give them the basics, and then train them to share those basics with others.  I am squarely concerned with training.  I want for students to learn how to share their faith in a way that is not street preaching with offensive, out-of-touch signs.  When I’ve effectively built students, that’s one of the primary markers for me.

But to simply build them involves (and finds it’s completion in) sending them to repeat the process.  More on that tomorrow.

The first of the three words in our organizational DNA?

Win.

Of the three, this is the word whose usage is the most antiquated.  But keep in mind that CCC started long before political correctness.

When we say we are trying to win students and faculty to Christ, we don’t mean it to sound like they are a game that we are playing, or that we want to do something to them without their consent.  We want to give individuals the opportunity to hear and respond to a message.  But we’re convinced that the message is so astounding (and so supernaturally backed) that the hearers can be (and are) changed on a fundamental level by hearing and responding.  We believe that because we’ve experienced it.

So, one of the distinctives of Campus Crusade (that is reflected in our name) since the very beginning has been the unashamed, unwavering, bold proclamation of the gospel.  At times that has given us a bad reputation as tract people who are more concerned with numbers than with actually connecting with folks.  In my 11 year experience (both as student and staff) within this organization, that has turned out to be a near-totally fabricated accusation.  We are concerned with numbers, sure, but so were the writers of Scripture.  ( ____ people were fed with ____ loaves and ____ fish in Matthew 6:41… ____ people came to Christ after Peter preached in Acts 2:41…)  We want to know the numbers so that we can celebrate what God is doing!  But we are far more concerned that people experience the gospel than we are with a number.

Are there (or have there ever been) any staff members who are more concerned with numbers or getting people through a booklet?  Sure.  At times our zeal has outpaced our discretion.  Do we always have great, crystal-clear theology of evangelism organizationally? Nope.  The “I found it” campaign in the 70s immediately comes to mind. There are two sides to err on, the side of over-enthusiasm and the side of smug theological arrogance and nit-picking (curiously also often leading to a lack of passion and action).  We’ve almost exclusively erred on the side of enthusiasm.  But that enthusiasm is under-girded and driven by a single, unshakably biblical conviction: God wants to use people to save other people.

I will firmly stand behind the current local, regional and national leadership and say that, to the best of my knowledge, their heart is to trust the Lord to change the hearts of students and faculty on the college campus.  And that’s something I want to be a part of as well, for the good and benefit of those faculty and students.

But as we read Matthew 28:18-20, we find Jesus commanding us to make more than converts.  He wants us to make “disciples.”  Tune in tomorrow for how we are seeing that take place, as we look at “build.”

When Dr. Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951, his vision was to “reach the campus today, reach the world tomorrow.”  That vision worked itself out through an organizational DNA we’ve come to refer to by the three words “Win, Build, Send.”  Over the next few days I am going to be sharing what I believe those words mean, and how God is in the midst of doing a great work in and through CCC.  It is my goal to “map out” the structure of that corporate DNA.

Tomorrow we’ll start with “Win.”  See you then!