There is no more denying it. The new school semester has started.

Katrina and I were watching 20/20 last Friday as they did a segment called “Stupid in America”. What an interesting title, don’t you think? The entire hour was dedicated to how students in the United States are not even close to measuring up to students of other countries. They focused on one child who was in the 7th grade at his local public high school, just getting by with passing grades…and didn’t even have a first grade reading level! That’s preposterous! Not necessarily for the child himself, but mainly that our school system is so laissez faire in demanding excellence from its students!

I’ve always known there were teacher’s unions; they always seemed pretty neutral to me - making sure teachers got paid enough (they don’t). However, this program was pushing for the unions to be abolished, calling them “monopolies in our children’s education”. Most kids are not legally able to choose where they go to school. They must be “zoned” to go where they live closest, keeping the poor kids in poor neighborhood schools, with older textbooks, older equipment…a second-hand education all around. When a monopoly is in force, everyone looses. Those within the monopoly feel no pressure to improve, since they already own the entire populous, and those outside the monopoly structure can’t choose any other options, inviting competition. Isn’t this what America was founded on? Isn’t it my right to choose what hamburger joint I pay for my dinner at? Isn’t it my right to choose what cell phone to buy? Just think of how competition has bettered the car industry! We’d still be driving Model-T’s if Henry Ford owned the market.

Anyone with all the cards in their hand won’t be internally motivated to improve their cards - and they’ll win the hand every time! Why not give kids the choice of where to go to school? That’s what happens in college, and look at how universities are fighting each other for your attendance: study abroad programs, cutting-edge technology, best professors in the world… Why not give kids a school voucher, allowing them to attend the school of their choice? What sorts of amazing “products of education” might they become?

Ever wonder what Christ thinks of his fiancee? In the Bible, the church is referred to in many images and metaphors, but one I like the best is when the church is equalled to Christ’s bride. At the end of time as we know it, there will be a huge “wedding feast” where spirits and angels and God himself will be present. Christ will be there too, dressed in a tux (maybe!) waiting to meet his beautiful bride. When the bride enters the room, she will be completely perfect, reflecting the glory of her groom in every way. She will be purified with his sacrificial gift, and as it says in Revelation, she will be composed of people called out from every people group, culture and nation.

Read these lyrics from a song by Stephen Speaks called “What’ll She Look Like?” As I listend to this song this morning, I couldn’t help but think that this might be something like what goes through Christ’s mind as he prepares to meet his beautiful bride, the church:

“What’ll She Look Like”
what’ll she look like when she opens her eyes
and sees what she wnats to see
instead of this cold mirror’s lies
and all the pieces complete
she says with a sign
“I think I’m ready…”
what’ll she sound like when she opens her mouth
and all the phrases sound right
as they fall out
and she says “yes” and she’s not
scared of the sound
she says she’s ready
will she be soft will she be strong
will she be ready to be wrong
will she move too fast or wait too long
will she look me in the eyes
what’ll it feel like when she opens her heart
and finds that there just might be a small missing part
and whether with or without me
she has to start getting ready
what’ll she look like when she opens here eyes
will she see just what I seewill it be a surprise
to see that she hasn’t changed,
her eyes are just a little wider now
and she’s getting ready

Phew! In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been steeped in joint compound and wall paint the past few days. This week is the week before classes. We aren’t traveling anywhere, and I don’t have any homework pressing down on me. So Katrina and I have been spending hours on end remodeling our kitchen. It’s been exhausting, but important I’m learning to keeping an artist-wife happy!

Rearranging furniture and remodeling kitchens has got to be good for the neurons. You know, I’m no brainiac, but I’d guess that people who regularly renovate and reorganize their house interior have a MUCH lower chance of suffering from alzheimer’s disease. Hrm. Strange connection I know. But think about it - when you have to constantly be retraining your brain to find answers to the simplest of questions (where is the new spot for the remote? how do I rotate this couch so everything fits?) your brain goes into higher activity for awhile; working all four cylinders. Its like when you first learned to drive a car - you had to think about what every part of your body was supposed to be doing to keep the car going the direction and speed you wanted it to. Over time, you become more relaxed with the situation, and you can even zone out for hours on the highway without really paying attention to what you’re doing.

To be a faithful Christian in this changing age, we’ve got to learn to live with our faith going on all four cylinders. Things can’t be assumed anymore. All the comfortable colloquialisms and cliches Christians have used for centuries now mean nothing to virtually everyone else. Christian faith is no longer assumed as the backbone for our nation’s government, whether that is a good thing or not. It is a great time to be a Christian. Many are asking more questions about church, about reliance on God, and about life as God’s follower in this world. Once again the simplest of questions are being asked, and our neuron’s are firing.

Lord, keep us from the answers. Faith finds itself in the questions.

Millions of Christians all across America and millions more outside the United States are experiencing God and community outside the traditional church walls. For many, they do not have time to go to church, because they are too busy being the church.

Many meet in livingrooms, coffeeshops, play parks, or just under a tree - although meetings are not the point. Tony Dale, coordinator of House2House Ministries in Austin, TX says, “You know, Jesus didn’t say he was coming to give us meetings, and meetings more abundantly…”

A Christian life, lived 24/7 - now that’s a revolutionary thought.

In the week or so I have before school starts, I am doing what any graduate student would be doing with his free time…READING!!! (sigh)

I’m going through a very intriguing book right now that takes a fresh look on a Christian heritage of which I am very much a part. The Restoration Movement has been deemed by some as the “accountants and lawyers” of the Christian faith. This is true only because certain voices of the past play a dominant role in what we hear our heritage saying to us today. While the dominant voice in our heritage spoke of correctness and division, other voices pleaded for Christian unity through the Spirit. It has been a healing experience to read through this book. A sort of “heritage therapy” that has helped me to understand a healthier, fuller understanding of my Christian influences who lived before me.

One such influence has a lot to say about the poor and the church’s engagement with them. David Lipscomb, a man who lived during and after the American Civil War was living in Nashville when a deadly plague of choleric broke out in the city. Many of the well-off and rich (Christians and otherwise) fled the city for fear of their lives, but not Lipscomb. He made a commitment to stay, and fed and clothed those who could not help themselves. He worked side by side with many nuns, whom he developed a deep respect for during that very dangerous time.

After the choleric crisis had died down, Lipscomb began writing to the rich Christians, denouncing their cold-hearted decision to abandon their poorer brothers and sisters. Pointing out that Jesus lived as a homeless wanderer and identified with the poor in his ministry, he proclaimed that it was the church’s inheritance as Christ’s body to especially favor the circumstances of the poor. Lipscomb boldly proclaimed that wealth generally corrupted a church. “When I hear of a church setting out to build a fine house, I give that church up. It’s usefulness as a church of Christ is at an end.” Powerful words. (To read a related article on the financial efficiency of not building a church building at all, see this article.)

Lipscomb did not stop there. He described how paying high salaries to preachers made them unfit to mingle with the poor, and put a gag in the preacher’s mouth. Becoming too dependent on the salaries of the wealthy’s contributions, a preacher is only able to denouce the sins of the poor while the sins of the rich are “glossed over and apologized for”. He maintained that a preacher should remain somewhat independent from those who he preaches to, and should have a “calling or craft” to fall back on.

Yesterday my post on this blog was spent brewing over my options financially as a organic church planter. I hear Paul calling me to be a tent maker, now today David Lipscomb joins him. My desire is to never move beyond the reach of those I am ministering to. I agree with the words of David Lipscomb. Money and ministry get tangled up, and the mission ends up falling flat on its face. What can we get by with NOT buying? How can we better identify with the poor, those who, as Lipscomb admits, are the ones “best fitted to maintain and spread the religion”?

I am fully convinced that it is the poor that will lead the church, under Christ. This is not something my heritage taught me growing up, nor my professors teach me today. But there is enough in God’s Holy Word for me to bet my ministry on it. Now, how to empower them?