…and it’s breaking my heart. Remember the story in Matthew 25. Jesus is talking and he shares that story of the good guys (sheep) and the bad guys (goats). The good guys are the once who give Jesus water when he is thirsty and food when he is hungry. The good guys are the ones who give Jesus clothes when he is naked and a home when he is homeless. The bag guys ignore Jesus in need. The good guys and the bad guys both say, Jesus when did we see you in need. Jesus responds, Whenever you care for the least of these my brothers, you do it to me.

In Myanmar, a country that is over 80% Buddhist, a country where 90% of the people live on less than a dollar a day, everywhere I go I see Jesus… and it’s breaking my heart.

Last Sunday, after church, Lynn and I prayed for a woman who runs an orphanage in a very remote area of Myanmar, the Chin State. She has an orphanage in the mountains – forty one children. Because they are so remote, they have no sponsors, so they come to Agape Orphanage when they need help. It is the poor helping the very poor. The Nargis Cyclone hit them hard, so they have gone into debt buying food. Nobody will give them anymore credit. So she has not been able to buy food for a few months. Her children walk the fields looking for corn and rice that has been dropped behind in the harvest. For the last month, her children have been eating one time every three days. Joseph – the Agape Orphanage Director – asked Lynn and I to pray for her and her children. We prayed and the tears streamed down her face.

As we were praying, the thoughts going through my head were – I’m praying to Jesus who is eating once every three days in the mountains of the Chin State.

We gave her $700 — the $500 we saved from not paying extra for our baggage and $200 we took for personal expenses.  It will help for a couple of months.

After that prayer, as we drove to another mission, all I could think about was 41 hungry children and I kept asking Jesus, “Did I do enough?” Tears in my eyes — I can honestly say that I have never had such a strong desire to be rich. If Jesus really is to be found in the “least of these,” if you ever go to Myanmar you will see Jesus everywhere you go…and it might break your heart.

I didn’t take pictures.  It just seemed wrong.  On Christmas Day — not only did I preach to 1500 villagers, counting men, women and children — but you (Calvary) helped to feed them.  From dollars that you gave we we were able to give a meal and the rice for two more meals to everyone who attended.  (In fact that was probably the main reason they came, since my preaching is not really a huge draw in Myanmar!)

They received a box of cooked rice with 2-3 small pieces of meat — the meat was a luxury — and a small piece of bread.  They also received a bag — maybe a pound — of rice for future meals.

I watched them stand in line waiting for their free food.  (Those were the pictures I didn’t take.)

Actually I watched them push and shove and knock elderly people and small children to the ground as they were waiting for free food.

At first it disappointed me, then I remembered that they were hungry and I realized that they were afraid that the food would run out.

At first it disappointed me, then I remembered our Walmart Black Friday story.  One thousand plus people standing in line to get a good deal on a high definition flat screen tv, stampeding through the doors, trampeling and killing a temporary employee.

We push and shove and stampede for a $200 discount on a hd tv.  They push and shove and stamped for food.  I’m still disappointed…that those people are so hungry and so worried that the food will run out.  But I am so thankful that Calvary gave and continues to give.  I didn’t take pictures, it just seemed wrong, but the picture is stark in my mind.  I pray that the day will come when Americans won’t stampede for tv’s and Burmese won’t have to stampede for food.

So there we were Christmas Day, walking up at the Seasons Hotel in Yangon — 10,000 miles from home.  We got a “Merry Christmas” greeting from two elderly ladies in the breakfast room — the only non-Burmese we would see on Christmas Day — Australians visiting another orphanage.  By the way if you google the hotel — don’t trust the description or the pictures, false advertising at it’s best!

Driving to Agape Orphanage, it hit me that Calvary’s last Christmas Eve service was just beginning. I love Christmas Eve at Calvary, it is always one of the highpoints of my Christmas season.  It’s one of the best parts of being home for Christmas!

But God had other plans for us this Christmas – Myanmar plans.

We drove through the gate at Agape and all the children were lined up to greet us, yelling like we were some kind of celebrities — or long lost family members returning after a long absence.

In Myanmar, while it is not against the law to have a church, it is against the law to proselytize. But at Christmas, a bit more freedom is given. So the orphanages use Christmas as a time to reach out to the neighboring villages. In December the orphanages we support hosted Christmas celebrations for close to 10,000 people – at each one the Good News was shared.

Former Muslim

I had the privilege of sharing at the Christmas Day gathering at Agape orphanage – over 1200 Buddhist Read more…

Do you realize that Christmas started as a conspiracy?  Read the story.  It was a subversive underground movement to change the world and establish a new Kingdom. So the question is… what happened?  The story of Christ’s birth is a story of wonder, courage, relational giving and revolutionary love.  How could the celebration of this story turn into a season of shopping lists, stress, traffic jams and bad office parties?  Then when it’s over we are left with Christmas debt and the heart-whisper that somehow we missed something of great significance.  The first Christmas changed the world.  What if Christmas became a world-changing, heart-shaping event once again?

How do we join the conspiracy?  Seek Jesus.  Risk More.  Give Presence.  Love All.  Those four calls will form the foundation of our conspiracy.

How do we join the conspiracy?  Join together in our Operation Christmas Connect 1% Offering to serve kids all around the world.  This weekend at Calvary we’ll hear about how we can serve the children at the Rose of Sharon orphanage in the Dominican Republic.  Think about what a difference we could make in the lives of a few hundred children if we were to give 1% of our annual income to serve them?  It would be like Christmas all year around — for them and us.

How do we join the conspiracy?  Ponder the information you can find at the following websites.

Empty Tombs — Let your heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.  29,000 children a day under the age of 5…die from preventable poverty conditions.  We can make a difference.

Global Rich List — Don’t think you’re rich?  Find your place amongst the world’s rich elite and thank God for blessing us so that we can be a blessing.

I Am Second — A very cool website which shares dozens of stories about how people have made Jesus first in their lives.  Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?  Seek Jesus.

Advent Conspiracy — Churches joining together in the conspiracy.  Lots of good information.

Rethinking Christmas — A great website for those who want to buy less and give more meaningful gifts.  Good ideas for the non-crafty or creative.  Like me!  :)

I hesitate to even blog about this.  Because he’s not an illustration of what’s wrong with Christmas.  He’s a person.  He’s a person who had joys and disappointments, family and friends, perhaps even hopes and dreams.  He died the morning of Black Friday.  He was a  Walmart employee in Long Island NY, who had an early morning job to do — open the doors so that the crowd of people could come in and get their bargains.  Problem was everyone was in such a hurry to get to the big screen high definition tv’s that they knocked him down and trampled him.  Hundreds of people stepped on him.  He was pronounced dead a couple of hours later.

Fast forward across the country to a Toys-R-Us store in California.  Two women get into a fist fight, the two men pull out a gun and shoot each other dead.  Store employees assure us that the fight was not over toys. Then back to a different Walmart, where a man and a woman are fighting over a large screen tv.  He’s taking the last one — at least I hope it was the last one — and she jumps up on his back and starts beating her fists against his head, face and back.  She’s yelling something like, “It’s my tv!  You aren’t going to take my tv.”

Then stop and think about the fact that last year the American people spent 450 billion dollars on Christmas.  Check out the website Empty Tomb and you will find that 29,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable poverty conditions…like no water, food or basic medical care.  Empty Tomb estimates that 5 billion dollars a year would end most of those deaths.  Skip Christmas shopping one year and save ~29,000 kids every day for about 90 years.  I know it’s just numbers and you are probably right in thinking that the needs of the world cannot be so simplified as to say, let’s just skip Christmas shopping one year. But I guess the question I’m left asking myself is…  If it could, would we?

Okay…so I’m sitting here thinking:  a) guilt is a poor long-term motivator, b) this is a really down-er blog post after having a really great day with my family, and c) I have no desire to bah humbug Christmas, in fact I think Christmas is a wonder-filled time.

But when I think about Christmas — the moments that have connected with me, enriched my soul, and filled me with wonder.  They have little to do with what Christmas can so easily become.  They are moments from my youth, like sharing Christmas with all my cousins from California.  We stuffed over 30 people in a 900 square foot house and got snowed in to boot.  It was a glorious Christmas!  I think of my first Christmas with Lynn and the first Christmas with each of our kids.  I think of gifts that I put myself into and I remember enjoying giving them as much as I enjoyed getting anything.  I remember sitting with a friend who was dying of cancer and listening to Christmas carolers outside the hospital window.  It was the day before Christmas Eve and He was home — with Father God — for Christmas.   I think of helping Lynn bake hundreds of cinnamon rolls and helping her give them out on Christmas Eve.  I think of our Operation Christmas Connect offering last year.  I think of being in Myanmar this Christmas with my family.

I think those types of moments are what the birth of Christ was all about.  I look at the world around me and the thought that comes to mind is this…  We have an urgent need for an ancient Christmas. What would that look like?  The kind of Christmas season that like the birth of Jesus has the potential to change the world?  Let me leave you with four two word descriptions of the kind of ancient Christmas we need.  Seek Jesus.  Risk More.  Give Presence.  Love All.

Take a moment and pray for the family and friends of that Walmart employee.  It’s going to be a hard Christmas for them.  Then ponder what our Christmas might look like if we seek Jesus, risk more, give presence and love all.

Experts Still Predict Dismal Holiday Season — I just read that headline in our Centre Daily Times — black Friday issue — and before I read the article, the first thought in my mind was…which experts?  Was it the Kindness Experts and were they predicting that this Christmas season fewer people will do something nice this Christmas season?  Was it the Generosity Experts and the prediction is an increase of the Scrooge-like mentality?  Was it the Family Experts predicting that fewer families would gather on Christmas day to spend time together?  Or perhaps it was the Worship Experts predicting that fewer people would be moved by Silent Night, Holy NIght, that fewer people will ponder the incredible wonder of God-in-the-flesh born in a manger, that for some reason Christmas Eve worship gatherings would lack a sense of awe?

Local Kohls 4am rush

No of course not, it was the Economic Experts.  Black Friday ushers in the holiday shopping season —  This is NOT a black friday rant.  Many people whom I love, celebrate the day in many diverse and unusual ways, have fun mom :)  — and the concern is that the dismal economic outlook threatens to keep shoppers credit cards securely in their pocket.  All I want to say is that as counter-intuitive as it might seem, keeping our credit cards in our wallets might ultimately lead to great Christmas and a much less dismal new year.

If our Christmas is to go deeper than the economy, we probably need to start with some true Christmas experts, like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  That’s right, go back to the beginning the ancient, authentic stories of Christmas.  Then check out a couple of websites like Rethinking Christmas or Advent Conspiracy.  Then take a moment or two…or three or four and dream about the kind of Christmas season you would like to experience this year.  Finally make a plan, don’t overdo it… this isn’t meant to be an added stress-list.  Start with just two or three things that you want to do differently this year.

Let me know what you come up with… and let’s confound the experts.

There is this really cool story in the Bible, 2 Kings 7:1-9.  It reminds me a little bit of Thanksgiving dinner.  I would title the story:  Four Lepers at Lunch.  It’s about four lepers who found themselves outside the locked gates of a city filled with famine and surrounded by a great enemy army.  Think about that for a minute, this has the makings of a really bad day!  You have leprosy.  You are not allowed in the city, but that’s okay because everyone in the city is starving.  But that also means there is nothing between you and a horde of enemy soldiers who are intent upon killing everyone in the city.  Out of desperation, the four lepers decide to go surrender to the enemy army — “If they don’t kill us, we’ll eat.  If they do kill us, we were going to die anyway.”

When they get to the enemy camp they find out that the enemy has fled — on this side of the story we find out that God scared them all away — and left all their silver, gold, clothes and food behind.  So frame the story…we have four lepers at lunch, and it’s a feast.  Everything they always wanted they now have.  It all belongs to them.  So while they are feasting on lunch, they start stockpiling everything of value.  Digging holes and hiding it.

But something happened, good news turned to gratitude and gratitude led to sharing their stockpile.  In fact the four lunching lepers said, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us.  Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.” 2 Kings 7:9

I love how God stockpiles good things for hungry lepers locked outside the city.  So I’m thinking about my stockpiles.  For example money, check out global richlist to see how big your stockpile compares to the rest of the world.  But it’s not just money or stuff.   If you are a Christian, you have an even better stockpile. We have God.  We sing these songs about an amazing God, the creator of the universe, a universe filled with billions of galaxies filled with millions of stars, a God who not only created the milky-
way, but knit u together in your mother’s womb.  I’ve got a stockpile.  God loves me.  Jesus died on the Cross for me, so that I can be forgiven.  He gives me a million second chances.  I am not defeated by my own stupidity or failures.  Not only that, I have people that I love hanging out with… I get to laugh and cry and dance (but only if it embarrasses my daughters) and I get to worship & be stretched and grow…  What a stockpile…huh?

And there is more, wow I have the Holy Spirit with me and in me, if I can learn to be quiet, God is even willing to speak to me, when I don’t know how to pray He translates my groans into the language of God.  He empowers and guides me and encourages me when I’m down.  I have gifts and abilities and  opportunities that I’ve been given through no merit of my own, and I get to use them to make a difference in the world.  I get to enjoy experiences like hikes on Mt. Nittany, sunsets across the pond at Harvest Fields, and a light snow the day before Thanksgiving. And as I’m enjoying them I get to say thank you to the one who made them.  What a stockpile huh?

I have a body that moves (somewhat) & a mind that thinks (sometimes).  And, if all that isn’t enough, I don’t have to be afraid to die, because I’ve been promised that death is not it… I go beyond death.  I get to hang out with God and Moses and Peter and Esther and Jesus for a great forever with no tears or pain or loneliness or depression.  That’s not just four lepers at lunch, that’s GOOD NEWS.

So here’s my challenge.

1)  Make a list of your stockpile.  Or in traditional language, make a gratitude list, for what are you thankful?

2)  Figure out how to share your stockpile — especially on black friday — what a great day to share rather than stockpile more.

Hope your thanksgiving is God-awe-full!

It’s Saturday night and I’m home after finishing preaching at my first of five weekend worship gatherings. Penn State beat Michigan for the first in about 10 years.  It was a bit rough in the first half but Penn State roared to life in the second half while Michigan just seemed to lose gas.  Now at 11:01pm, I’m doing some web-surfing (regardless of my hair, the web is as close to surfing as I get).  Ran across a msn site which gave me the cheapest gas in the region — $2.87 in Lamar, $2.83 in Milroy.  Then looked at a blog that was talking about spiritual energy…and so I couldn’t help but ask the question, “Where do you get your energy?”

I’m talking about personal energy.  Why are some people more energized than others?  What is it that drains us of energy?  What fills us up?  How much does it cost to get filled up?  What does the Bible say about being energized?

There is the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17-19.  He fought the prophets of Baal, called fire down from heaven, and then ran in fear from Queen Jezebel.  He ended up somewhere in the wilderness with a deep case of depression.  He had lost all his energy.  So what did God do, he led him to a sacred place and then spoke to Elijah in a still, small voice…and the word of God brought fresh energy.

Then there is Ezekiel’s vision, “The Valley of Dry Bones.” Check out Ezekiel 37.  The valley was filled with dry bones.  The dry bones of the people of God.  So God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones.  What did Ezekiel say?  “Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.” And the bones came together…but the draining had been so complete that it required something more than the word of God…so God breathed upon them and the bones went from dry to a living army.

How about the disciples after Jesus’ betrayal and death.  Read the gospel accounts.  Peter denies Jesus three times.  Then their eyes lock across the courtyard.  The rooster crows.  Jesus dies.  Peter is barricaded in his room for fear of the authorities.  Friday and Saturday are draining days.  Then Sunday comes two disciples are on the Emmaus road and they have no energy…their dreams have been drained until they meet Jesus.  What did they say to each other after that experience?  Our hearts burned within us. Being in the presence of Jesus brought new energy.

So where do you get your energy?  I get energized by a great PSU win, but it doesn’t last.  I get energized by a good night’s sleep, but about 16 hours later, I need it again.  I get energized by spending time with my family.  I get energized by being a pastor.  I get energized by interacting with a good idea.  But the energy I gain from even the best of those activities is of far less power than what I get when I plug into the Word of God, and soak in the Spirit of God and warm myself by the presence of God.

Where do you get your energy?

I haven’t written for a few days, got back home and found my time was better spent connecting with my family…now I’m preparing for my last sabbatical trip.  But the lack of writing does not equate to a lack of thinking and I’ve been thinking alot about the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is a reign not a realm, it’s a person not a place.  The Kingdom of God was Jesus’ main teaching topic.  Lately as I’ve been thinking about the Kingdom of God, two subjects have come to my mind, politics and transformation.

So I’m still crystallizing some of my thoughts on both topics, so meanwhile let me give you two blog posts that give an interesting take on politics.  One is from my friend Paul Grabill and the other is from a BGC pastor in Minnesota, Greg Boyd.

Here is Paul’s:  Patriotism

Here is Greg’s: True Believers

Enjoy… or not.   :)

We started our second conference with Estonian pastors last night — another great group.  In this group is Leho who leads a church in Tartu and is excited about a missionary couple from our network, coming to help them with youth work.  I’m also getting a chance to know Meego, who is the president of the Baptist Union in Estonian — about 80 congregations throughout the nation.  Thomas is a quite man with 10 children and a strong heart for prayer — I think the one leads to the other!  Tovio is the director of the Estonian seminary, and a leader in Crossroads church in Tartu.  Crossroads average age is 23.  Then there is Pater and Urmas, they have a great heart for young people…tonight as we prayed at the prayer house, revival amongst the youth of Estonia was something that was very much in our hearts.

I spoke on the church without walls today…what an incredible privilege!  Well we got home from the prayer time at about midnight…so I’m off to bed.