Handouts Welcome, Help … Not So Much

Man shows up at the church office saying he needs help with gas money so he can get the kids to school.  Says he used to attend the church “years ago”.  I invite him in and try to engage him in conversation but he’s not interested.  “Can I get help or not?” he asks, with breath that smells like tobacco and clothes to match.

He’s in his own car, so I ask him to follow me to a nearby gas station, where I put twenty dollars in his tank and invite him to come and worship with us on Sunday.  He says he’ll be there, with his kids, and smiles in a friendly way as he drives off.

Six months later, the same guy shows up with the same story.  I almost hate to belabor the point of the smell, but it’s going to come up again.  And, for the record, I help a lot of people and some of them have had distinctive odors and some have not.  My nose doesn’t make the call of whether to help or not, but with this person it’s a detail that’s worth some comment … in a moment.

I talked to the man a bit, got no further than his need for gas to get the kids to school because the ex still isn’t paying child support.  Eventually, I ask him to follow me to the gas station and I put twenty dollars into the tank and invite him to worship with us and get the same semi-appreciative wave.  Oh well.  As stated, I—and the church where I serve—help a lot of people in this way.

As a church and as an individual, we help several people.  The family that shows up one Sunday morning saying they need some food for the kids, I ask them if they could stick around through church and then I’ll take them to get some food.  They do and I do.  The guy who’s coming through town on his way to his mother’s funeral and needs gas, we help.  Man shows up with his gas bill in hand and asking if we can help pay it, I go over to the gas company with him and pay his bill.  A couple shows up asking if there is some job they could do around the church to earn some money—they’re adamant they don’t want a handout—seemed like a godsend because we had a whole stack of tile that needed laying in the new bathroom and they know how to lay tile.  An hour later they’ve done an excellent job and won’t let me pay them—it’s their idea to go to the gas station and let me fill up their tank.  I buy them food and drinks, too, which they try to turn down.

It’s only a month later than our last encounter when the same guy from earlier calls up.  I’ve learned his name from previous “visits”.  He says his ex isn’t paying child support and he needs some food.  I invited him to church but he tells me he’s going to another church in town.  I say that’s great and tell him what time I’ll be by with food.  Right on time, I and one of the deacons show up with some grocery sacks full of staples (milk, bread, PB&J, cereal, cheese, etc.).  He opens the door and a] doesn’t invite us in and 2] we are hit by a wall cloud of tobacco smoke.  He takes the bags of food and hastily darts back inside as we invite him to church.  We can hear the lock being thrown.

Between talking to him on the phone and showing up with the food, I made a phone call.  I know the minister at the church where the man says he has been going.  I talk to the minister and he does indeed know the man.  The man came to church a couple times and always hit them up for food or gas then stopped coming to church but kept hitting them up for food or gas.

The last few times he’s called and asked for food or gas, I tell him to come to church on Sunday and, after church, we’ll set him up with what he needs.  I was worried at first that he might just show up when we’re getting out of service, but he hasn’t.  In fact, I haven’t seen him in several months except for one time when I passed him going into another ministry in town—on a weekday—where he hit them up for food and gas.

I’m not sure how to help this guy.  This is a small town and I have come to learn this man has a decent income and his house is paid for.  However, he’s spending several hundred dollars a month of that income on tobacco, which leaves him little for his gas and food needs.  [Don’t misunderstand me: I am not saying that tobacco use is, in and of itself, sinful.  However, if your choice is between feeding your family and tobacco and you choose tobacco, it’s clear to me that tobacco is your god.]

I don’t deny that this man needs help, but the help he needs, he’s not willing to accept.  Do I continue to subsidize his tobacco habit in hopes he’ll finally listen to the gospel?

Religion or Relationship?

“No more religion for me, I want a relationship!”  I’ve seen a post to that effect on several occasions lately on Facebook, posted by different people.

I get it.  The poster (one who posts, not the thing on the wall) is tired of unfulfilling rules and regulations and wants a two-way street and conversation with their Creator.  I firmly believe that’s what God wants with us, too.

I just don’t like the saying because, of the two words, which one is advocated for all believers in Scripture?  I’ll give you a hint: it’s not “relationship”.*

When we think of “religion”, though, what do we think of?  Rules and regulation.  Forms that are more important than the function they were (supposedly) instituted to serve.  Pomp and circumstance signifying nothing (if I may mangle the Bard).

How does the Bible describe religion?  “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  (James 1:26-27 English Standard Version)

Two things strike me right off.  First, God doesn’t think any more highly of useless religions than we do.  People who tell themselves—and anyone else—that they are religious but still act and talk like the unsaved have a worthless religion.

Second, there is a religion God likes, and advocates: taking care of people who need taking care of and keeping ourselves pure.

Let me take that inside-out for a moment and stress “keeping ourselves pure.”  One of the bad connotations that comes to mind when thinking of “religion” in a negative light is the guy in the cowl (or Armani suit, clothing intended to indicate his authority and superiority) shouting out “Thou shalt not!!”  In other words, someone else telling us how to live.  James—writing, as I firmly believe, with the authority of the Holy Spirit—wants us to monitor ourselves.

Now, back to the first part of that directive: taking care of orphans and widows.  Most of our churches (another word I don’t like) are known, first of all, for size and worship style.  Sometimes for doctrine.  These all have their place and it’s stupid to claim we aren’t swayed by them, but wouldn’t it be great to be known first and foremost as an assembly or individual who takes care of the needy?  “2^nd Church?  Yeah, I’ve heard of them.  Aren’t they the one that has the clothes drive for kids?”

Unfortunately, we’ve let the world co-opt the word “religion”.  We’re visiting with someone and they say, “You’re pretty religious, aren’t you?”  We mumble and hem and haw because we’re pretty sure they just insulted us.  Or we’re thinking that what they’re thinking of is “religion” defined by rules and regulations and meaningless things.  Wouldn’t it be great if someone said, “You’re pretty religious” because they saw us building a handicapped ramp on a widow’s house or taking her to her doctor’s appointment?

I want a relationship with God.  I pursue one every day in prayer and in Bible study, but having read the Bible I realize that God, like us, telegraphs how he wants to be related to.  It took me a while to learn that as a husband but I eventually learned that the way my wife wanted to be loved was not always intuitive to me.  I had to finally ask her what she wanted, what I could do to show her that I loved her?

David realized this—to his own surprise—that God didn’t want sacrifices.  “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—but my ears you have opened—burnt offerings and sin offerings  you did not require. Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.’”  (Psalm 40:6-8 New International Version)

God seeks a relationship with us and one of the primary ways he wants us to show him love is by showing love to other people—especially those who are downtrodden.  It’s why he spends so much of his word in telling us how to treat other people.  In other words, he doesn’t want us to reject religion, he wants us to find it!  But not the world’s definition of religion, his!

The next time someone tells me they want a relationship instead of religion, I think I’ll tell them I want both.  I want a relationship built on the religion God is looking for and I want a religion that strengthens my relationship to my God.

One without the other is useless.

* OK, if you went and looked up “relationship” in your concordance, you found that it shows up 6 times in the NIV.  But look at those 6.  4 of them refer to relationships with other people.  One speaks of the relationship between Jesus and God and one indicates that Solomon’s life was such that it indicated a relationship existed between him and God.

Little Things?

The appeal goes out.  2^nd National Church is doing something they would like to have the other churches in town involved in.  Sounds good!

Somewhere in the appeal, though, is a statement like, “Let’s gather around what unites us rather than what divides us!”  That sounds like a good idea, but what does it mean?

In theory, it means that what unites us—one God, one Jesus who is our savior—is bigger than all the things we tend to squabble about.  It’s a wonderful thought and one we (speaking as Christian) ascribe to happily, whole-heartedly even.

Too often, though, what either the person saying it means or the person hearing it hears is, “Unite around what’s important to me rather than what’s important to you.  (Because what’s important to you isn’t very important and, really, is kinda stupid.)"  Of course, no one is crass enough to say that, but …

I was part of a ministerial alliance once wherein someone proposed that we—the churches of the town—get together and put on a “Christian parade.”  The route was going to be from 1^st Methodist to 1^st Baptist—which would wend throughout downtown—and the floats were to be presented by the churches of the town.  It was going to be a chance for Christians to show off that we can a] have fun and 2] come together.  At the church where the parade was to end, there would be a picnic and all the churches would get together and fellowship and maybe sing and it’d be a great thing.

The ministers were on board, until …

It started to unravel when someone suggested that, in the parking lot where the parade was to end, they were going to put up a horse trough and baptize anyone who wanted to be baptized.  Someone objected to this because they believed that no one should be baptized without extensive counseling.  Another person objected because the church he represented sprinkled rather than immersed.

The parade never happened.

To the person(s) who doesn’t see baptism as that big a deal, it probably seems like a silly thing to torpedo an idea over.  Maybe it was, but the people on both sides of the issue saw baptism as part of the larger picture of salvation.  Some said it was necessary for salvation, some said it wasn’t, but they all had a definite opinion on the matter.

Baptism.  Immersion.  Sprinkling.  Wine.  Grape juice.  Hymns.  Praise music.  Preaching.  Teaching.  Prophesying.  Gifts.  Tongues.  Healings.  Women.  Men.  Children.

I agree that the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the fact of his being the only begotten Son of God, is bigger than any of these issues.  But can we at least stop pretending that what someone else believes about these things isn’t a big deal?  Maybe it’s not as important as Jesus (I can guarantee it’s not as important as Jesus) but it’s important to whoever brought it up.  Instead of an elephant in the room, maybe we’re elephants and we need to deal with the mice in the room.

“Kiss” Begins with What?

“Every kiss begins with __________.”  If you filled in the blank with “slobber” or “tongue”, well, I’m not sure whether to congratulate you for having been unsullied by Madison Avenue or wonder just what you were thinking.  After all, who kisses with the tongue first?  It’s lips, right?  At least, that’s how it is where I come from!

[If you filled in the blank with “Gene Simmons” we’ll have to deduct points but still give you partial credit for trying.]

But anyway, if you’ve had a TV on at all in the last ten years, you know that the advertisers want you to fill in that blank with “K”, or, possibly, “Kay”, as in Kay’s Jewelers.  It’s a catchy little slogan, not the least because it’s really kind of obvious.  I mean, unless were talking the Cyrillic alphabet, in which case “kiss” begins with, well, some other letter.  Maybe that one that looks like a shovel or even the one that has a tail.

All that being said, their last commercial makes me think that the next time I want to start a jewelry-encrusted kiss, it’s going to start with Zales, or one of the local jewelers (check your local listings for times and availabilities).

Have you seen it?  It starts with a guy in a restaurant.  He’s looking around and everyone in the restaurant is either on a phone or a tablet, including the woman he’s with.  He’s trying to get her attention by making eye contact, but she’s too into her phone to notice.

Finally, he sends her a text message that says, “Honey, look up.”  When she does, she sees his back as he exits the restaurant, leaving her forever.

Just kidding.  That’s what a sane man would do.  This idiot is in a jewelry commercial.  What he does, once he has her brief attention, is give her a diamond necklace.

What a putz!  This woman doesn’t care about him!  All she cares about is her phone.  Considering he didn’t even take his phone out until he had exhausted all rational forms of communication, it’s a safe bet she wasn’t calling or texting him.  She was, in theory, “on a date” with him (it requires both quotation marks and a caveat), yet she didn’t care enough about him to pay him attention.

He should have left her right there like a hot rock.*  The momentary notice she gave him after the presentation of the necklace was just that: momentary.  As soon as the commercial’s over, she’s going to be taking a picture of the necklace with her phone and emailing it to all her friends, or maybe taking a selfie of him putting the necklace on her, but she WON’T do is give him any more attention than he was receiving before.  Why?  Because he has established that, no matter how much she ignores him, he’ll still give her valuable gifts.

What he should have done, after exiting the restaurant, is go right back to Kay Jewelers and get his money back.  He should then put the money in a savings account and then maybe buy a gift for a woman who is worthy of his attention.  Or hunting equipment.  Just about anything would be a better use of his money than giving that narcissistic wench a necklace or another moment of his time.

*We talk about dropping something “like a hot rock” but, really, why would someone pick up a hot rock, anyway?

New Novel "Medicine Park"

My normal blog being down like an elevator, I am left having to file my blog here.  Just wanted to let you know that my latest novel, "Medicine Park" is now available for your Kindle (& Kindle Fire, and iPad & Android and etc.) here!

What's it about?  T quote from the official descriptive text ... "Brad Reynolds' parents died in a car wreck the same day his divorce was final. Trying to put the pieces of his life back together, Brad moves back home to Medicine Park, OK, and takes over his father’s old business. The bait and hardware shop are doing good, Brad’s making some friends, has started going to church and is even trying to start dating again. The only hitch is that he is an addict. He’s kept his addiction well-hidden, for he’s sure that if it were ever to get out his friends would leave him, his business would crumble, and his whole life would collapse. Trying to quit cold-turkey isn’t working, so Brad tries to find one of these new-found friends in which to confide. Can he find someone before he destroys everything—one way or another?"

And just what is the addiction, you're probably asking.  Porn.  Like a lot of people these days, Brad doesn't really see it as a problem ... at first, anyway.  Sure, it may be a little gross--like picking one's nose--and so what if it destroyed his marriage?  Everyone's into it these days, right?

But then he starts meeting people who have some pretty old-fashioned standards.  Including a woman named Allie who he's very interested in but her standards are informed by her faith.  Her faith is one of the things he likes about her, and he's beginning to want to share it, but to do so he's going to have to change and give up something that has been driving his life for years.  Once he begins to try to give it up, he comes face-to-face with just what a horrendous hold it has on him.

Blog Tour

I'm on a blog tour!  What is that you may ask?  I have no idea.

Just kidding.

A blog tour is a chance for me--as an author--to write some guest blogs and do some interviews for bloggers all around the web who love books.  It was all put together by a woman named "Inspired Kathy" (that may or may not be her real name) and you can read about it--and catch up with the installments you may have missed--go to I'm A Reader Not a Writer!

Make sure you thank the people who are publicizing my books by hosting me on this tour.  Leave comments and, most importantly of all, buy my books!  (The best place to go for links to buying my books for Kindle, Nook or Smashwords is Garison Fitch.)

Election 2012

I am not looking forward to voting this year.  Usually, I enjoy voting.  I wish there were actual curtains and a lever to pull like in the old movies, but even though there aren't, I generally like voting.  Not this year.

And it's not the "down races" I am down on.  I've got my preferences on everyone from Senate down to County Commissioner and I will proudly cast those votes.

What I can't get enthused about is my vote for President of the United States.  I don't like either of our top 2 options.  I guess I could vote for one of the lesser known candidates from some obscure party, but I can't decide whether the possibility of casting a protest vote overrules the idea that I'd just be throwing my vote away.  (And then we get into the discussion of whether any vote matters and, well ... for the sake of this blog, let's pretend/assume all votes matter.)  So I'm left to choose between Obama and Romney.

Yuck.

Both men seem to be good husbands and fathers, so I'll give them that.  After that ...

I know we're not electing a Pastor-in-Chief, but we've got Romney coming from a cult and Obama coming from who knows where?  No, I don't think he's a Muslim.  I don't know the man, but my impression is that Obama's only god is Obama.  In a paragraph or two I'm going to describe Obama as a hardened leftist, because that's how he has always governed, but I'm convinced he'd sell out his leftist buddies in a heartbeat if he thought it would help him in some way.

Obama is ardently pro-abortion, voting to refuse protection for babies even after birth, so I hate that aspect of his policies.  Romney gives great speeches about being pro-life and has generally voted that way, but he picked some judges while governor of Massachusetts who were very liberal on this aspect, so I'm not enthused about him on this score, either.

Obama is a hardened leftist whose financial policies I can't stand and have proven themselves to be abject failures every time they've been tried (by him and every other Keynesian idiot of the last 3/4 century).  I like Mitt's stated financial policies, but I don't know that I trust him to carry any of them out.  He looks too much like he'll be of the "McCain School of Let's Give Away the Farm in the Guise of Being Amicable With the Other Side".  I hope he's not, but I'm not holding my breath.

Foreign policy?  Obama has shown himself to be pretty clueless in this area, seeming to think that the force of his personality will solve centuries of rancor.  I don't know that Romney has any foreign policy experience and other than George Schultz, I'm not sure who he's listening to.  So this one's a toss-up between "proven ineptitude" and "ambiguity".

Someone once said you're better off with the devil you know than the devil you don't know, but the devil I've gotten to know for the last 3 1/2 years is pretty awful so I can't bring myself to vote for him to continue his path of destruction.  On the other hand, I'm sure not enthused about Romney, either.  He's saying all the right things now--and if I thought that was the way he'd govern I'd be all over his bandwagon--but ...

I guess I'll walk into the voting booth in November (I don't like early voting just because I like do it on voting day--don't know why), hold my nose, and cast a vote for Romney.  Maybe he'll pick a VP that I can enthuse about (Obama's out on that score, too), but I think my main hope for not leaving the building with a horrible taste in my mouth are those down ballot races.

That's kind of like hoping the complimentary mint is enough to overcome a mediocre-to-bad meal, huh?