We do a lot of entertaining of out-of-town and out-of-the-country guests. Graceway is in the people business. Today, several of us took a Salvadoran friend who works and ministers in India to lunch. He’s been here a few weeks working on his English. We wanted to take him somewhere a bit special and somewhere that smacks of Kansas City. I hate to take guests to chains. This is a great restaurant city and I much prefer to take guests to one-of-a-kind places that they will remember and associate with the best Kansas City has to offer.

So where did we end up taking him today? At the advice of my faithful assistant, who has more than her fair share of flare, we took him the Harvey’s in the heart of Union Station. Built in 1914, Union Station is a great American historical monument, a testament to a bygone era of trains, gangsters and what was America’s second grand train station after Grand Central in New York City. Harvey’s has very good, reasonably-priced luncheon fare and the view is priceless, soaking up tons of history and people-watching. If you get bored you can always tell your guest about the 1933 Kansas City Massacre attempting to free gangster Frank Nash and then search the outside of the building for the bullet holes that still exist.

I suppose it’s obligatory to take visitors for barbecue. I don’t even want to get started with what is the best BBQ in KC! I often end up taking guests to Jackstack in the Freight House in the Crossroads district because of the spectacular setting inside and out, that and the fact that Jackhouse is usually in everyone’s top five ‘que list. Lidia’s and Grunauer’s right there are also good options. Webster House in the shadow of the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is amazing. The Farm House in the River Market is one of several originals there. There’s no place in the world like Rozelle Court in the Nelson. Are you picking up on the pattern here?

Kansas City’s Italian heritage offers a host of Italian options such as the original Garozzo’s, Milano’s, Figlio’s and Accurso’s to name just a few. Apologies for not naming your favorite!

Let me summarize my criteria:

• Has to be uniquely Kansas City – NOT necessarily Kansas City cuisine, just a one-of-a-kind place. So ethnic food of all types welcome – think Frida’s Mexican, Axois for French, Little Egypt in Westport is good.
• Needs to be reasonably-price and preferably open for both lunch and dinner. Pierpoint’s at Union Station is also unique to Kansas City and great restaurant. However, the price point of Pierpoint’s is a bit beyond my budget point! That’s the point of why we went to Harvey’s in the same building.
• Ideally it should be a place conducive to conversation. Noise level below 110 decibels and generally pleasant. I not thinking where you order at the counter, eat at a wooden picnic table and they are trying to bus your table after 10 minutes. Got it?
• The best case is a restaurant that has synergy with the setting. This is why I would choose Jackstack over Oklahoma Joe’s in an Olathe strip mall (although I would make an exception for the original Okie Joe’s in the gasoline station on Mission Road under the right circumstances). Figlio’s may not be the absolute best Italian joint in town, but who has a better overview of the Nichols fountain on the Plaza? If I’m going to Garozzo’s, it’s to the original house in Columbus Park, not one of the strip center varieties. Got it?

I want to hear from you. What are your ideas of great Kansas City places to take our guests? Where do you, where would you take you guests to give them an indelible impression of our city? Speak up! Loud and proud!

What’s with these people who are always saying something like, “Well, bless God! Amen, Brother, just bless the Lord! Yes, Jesus, bless God! Is that not the most stupid thing you have ever heard? How in the world could any human bless God? God blesses us! There’s absolutely no way we can bless him! What on earth would we ever do to bless God???!!!

I just stood speechless and dumbfounded. I had not yet navigated culture shock enough to know how to, or even if I should respond, having arrived from Central America just recently. The other problem that left me suspended in indecision was that this guy was totally hysterical. Those remarks were made in the context of an entire running routine that flowed from his lips almost constantly. An incredibly gifted communicator, I truly think he may have missed his true calling as a stand-up comedian.

Bible study, however, was not part of his skill set at that time in his life. Listening to him I was thinking, “Have you not ever read the Bible? It’s pretty full of admonitions to bless the Lord, oh my soul and a host of other similar exclamations” (Psalm 103:1, for example).

I was actually reading one of those passages in the Bible this morning when I remembered those comments from many years ago. Here’s what I was reading:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. Psalm 63:1-4

This is a passage that specifically tells us HOW to bless the Lord. Yes we CAN bless God! Here are some salient thoughts about how we bless God.

• We bless God when we seek him early and not as the God of last resort.
• We bless God when our souls thirst and long for him in those times of spiritual dryness.
• We bless God when we witness his power and glory in our daily reality and not only in our moments of high praise in the assembly of believers.
• We bless God when his praise flows from our lips.
• We bless God when we totally submit ourselves to him (symbolized by the lifting up of our hands).

I know that God has blessed, is blessing and will bless us. The question is whether or not we are blessing him. But now you now HOW! What will you do about it?

Luke writing his Gospel, by Andrea Mantegna, 1431

It’s been a while since I gave you a literary update on our Luke study. We have been learning that Luke has a sophisticated and eloquent writing style that is also a huge help in discerning his main points. If you are just joining this discussion, you might want to review the information about parallelism that I have previously shared. You can that by clicking here, here and here.

In the second of the posts listed above I showed you an example of step parallelism comparing the birth announcements of John the Baptizer and Jesus from Luke 1:5-56. Here is another example of step parallelism to show Luke’s poetic order in laying out the birth, circumcision and public presentation of both John the Baptizer and Jesus.

Step parallelism is so-called because when laid out visually, as you will see below, it takes the form of steps. Another type of parallelism we have seen in Luke is called chiastic parallelism because its visual form resembles  the side of an X by indenting successively inward to the point of emphasis and then working back out with correspondingly parallel statements. The name chiastic comes from the Greek letter Chi that resembles our X.

Remember that some of the passages we have seen so far fall into BOTH step and chiastic parallel form, depending on how you look at them. In other words, this book has multiple layers and is far deeper than you might have imagined! What I offer in continuation is a slight modification of Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s work in his Gospel According to Luke I-XI, pp. 313-314. This example is a bit more complex that others we have seen due to the appearance of several refrains added to the mix. A refrain is like a chorus in a song that is repeated and can occasionally appear out of expected order.

Parallels in the Birth, Circumcision and Public Presentations of John the Baptizer and Jesus (Luke 1:57- 2:52)

The Birth of John (1:57-58)

A – The birth (1:57)

B – Joy over his birth (1:58)

The Birth of Jesus (2:1-20)

A’ – The birth (2:1-12)

Angelic song (2:12-14)

B’ – Joy over his birth (2:15-18)

Refrain B, Mary treasures this in her heart (2:19)

Refrain A, Shepherds return home (2:20)

Circumcision and Presentation of John (1:59-80)

A – John circumcised and named (1:59-64)

B – Reaction of neighbors (1:65-66)

C – Zacharias’ song (1:68-79)

D – Refrain C, the child grew (1:80)

Circumcision and Presentation of Jesus (2:21-40)

A’ – Jesus circumcised and named (2:21)

B’ – Reaction of Simeon and Anna (2:25-28)

C’ – Simeon’s song (2:29-32)

Refrain A, Joseph and Mary return (2:39)

D’ – Refrain C‘, the child grew (2:40)

Complimentary Story – Jesus visits Jerusalem (2:41-52)

Refrain A, Jesus and his parents return home to Nazareth (2:51)

Refrain B, Mary treasures (keeps) this in her heart (2:51)

Refrain C‘, Jesus grew (2:52)

I am continually amazed by the sophistication and beauty of Luke’s writing. Even more I am impressed by our great God who has given us his truth through  40 human authors writing over the course of approximately 1600 years in three languages on three continents and yet making it all fit together as though written by a single source.

Before you start throwing Bible verses at me and call me a heretic, give me a chance to explain. I know, of course, that the Bible is full of admonitions to wait upon the Lord. Geeze! You didn’t think I overlooked that, did you? OF COURSE there are plenty of times when we should wait on God!!

For example:

• You are confused, befuddled, frustrated and have no clue what you should do – good time to wait on the Lord for more specific instruction. And, it wouldn’t hurt to look in the Bible for guidance while you wait.
• You have claimed one of God’s promises from the Word and are waiting for him to perform it, like the promise that Jesus is coming again. You’re not going to make it happen, so just settle in and wait. You may be waiting a LONG time, like those saints in Hebrews 11:13 who waited their entire lives and still did not see all of God’s promises fulfilled – but they knew they could count on God to fulfill them at just the right time (Galatians 4:4).

But, there are plenty of times when we use “waiting on the Lord” as a cop out, an excuse or a cover for our lack of faith.

For example:

• Let’s say someone has offended or hurt you. They ask you to forgive them, but you’re not ready yet. You are waiting on God for just the right moment to forgive. The Bible, of course, says that we are commanded to forgive (Matthew 18:21-22; 2Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 4:23, for example). In this case waiting on the Lord is code for I’m still mad.
• There’s a wonderful case of waiting on God at the wrong time in the Exodus story. Moses and the people of Israel have their backs up against the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army is bearing down on them. Sensing the crisis of the moment, Moses, in his best Charlton Heston imitation , stands before Israel and tells them not to fear but to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (Exodus 14:13). In other words, all they had to do was to wait on the Lord and he would come through for them. He probably got that from a book on spiritual leadership. God’s response was immediate and graphic. Why are you crying to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward! I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but I think the more literal Hebrew translation is something like, You tell those Israelites to get their lazy carcasses off the ground ‘cause they’re fixin’ to have to haul butt!
• As leaders we also love to use the phrase, I’m waiting on God. It can cover a whole bunch of stuff. Sometimes I have asked leaders why they don’t give ministry responsibility to a certain individual. If the response is that the individual is not ready, I want a specific reason why not. They may NOT be ready, but YOU be ready to tell me why. Don’t just tell me that you are waiting on the Lord for them to step forward, or something lame like that. That can be translated a number of ways, and the possibilities are practically endless.
•  I don’t like that person.
• I’m too lazy to do my job of making disciples. If I give them a specific responsibility, I might have to mentor or supervise them, or something like that. I don’t want to do that.
• I’d just rather do it all myself.

I’m really glad the leaders in my life when I was young didn’t feel like that! They challenged me, stretched me and pushed me when I was the one who didn’t think I was ready. I’d probably still be waiting on God for something to happen had it not been for their loving pushes.

I was thinking about this issue just last Saturday as I was finishing teaching the Book of Ezra in Shepherds School. Revival is breaking out in Israel as Ezra has returned and called on the people to repent for their sins and unfaithfulness. Read the tenth chapter and see how Ezra deals with this spiritually sensitive situation. He sends out word to all that if they want to wait on the Lord, they have exactly three days to get their act together and show up or risk being cut off from the people. Nice, soft leadership style, don’t you think?

So, we conclude that there is a time to wait on God and a time to move forward in faith. Before you flood me with emails and FaceBook messages asking how to tell the difference, hear me out.

When you have specific biblical instruction, you hold to it, obey it. If you’ve done your part, God will do his part when it’s time and you might have to wait, maybe even a long time.

When you are uncertain what to do, wait. Search the scriptures; seek counsel, pray.

Be honest with yourself. Why I am saying that I’m waiting on the Lord? Am I really, or is it just that I think this sounds spiritual? Am I using this saying as an excuse or cover up?

Beyond that – you’re on your own! Ask God! He might just answer you immediately like he did Moses.

There are times, however, when it seems to me that we might be thinking a bit too much. Not that thinking is a bad thing. It’s just that sometimes too much of a good thing is no longer a  good thing. Like too much dark chocolate, or too much good coffee, or too much ice cream, ya know? … hmmm. Well, that may too extreme of an example, but hopefully you get the idea.  Too much … even of a good thing? OK?

Last week I was conversing with a dear friend, a young pastor whom I have known for many years. I respect him immensely. He is brilliant; he is consecrated;  he is spiritually sensitive and I’m sure I could add many more semicolons describing what I think of him.

As we talked, my friend shared that he is on the verge of making some very important decisions, the kind that change your life’s direction. He eloquently explained his situation, his thinking, his dreams and fears. The more he talked, the more it seemed that he already knew the best thing to do. He had prayed it through,  thought it through and talked it through with his wife and closest counselors.

He just couldn’t pull the trigger. He was pressing down on the accelerator, the engine was revving  up, but he just couldn’t get it in gear. He was staring at the screen and the little hourglass thingy was spinning and spinning furiously, but nothing was happening. Reboot?

Have you ever had that feeling? You know what you think is best. You are right on the edge and you want to step forward. You have weighed the options. You have tossed it around in your head and heart for what seems like an eternity. YET … well, my friend put it this way.

I just don’t want to make a mistake.

Alright. That’s what I think most of us would say. Of course we don’t want to make a mistake!

We were sitting at a meal together when we had this conversation. I was in Monterrey, Mexico for a mission conference. There’s a nest of leaders there with whom we have shared life for many years. I had not been to Monterrey for a while and was absolutely thrilled to see all God is doing among them and how they are growing and maturing. I could have had this same conversation with several of them. In fact, this same type of conversation occurs rather frequently. That’s why I thought I might share my answer with all of you.

So, what’s my answer? Here’s the gist of what I said.

When your heart is pure and sincere like yours, when your motives and desires have merged with God’s, you really can’t make a mistake. Really.

Even if you choose a path that might be “second best,” or “third best,” or whatever, God will gently nudge you until your built-in GPS is fully locked in to the whole network of Heavenly satellites and you are squarely on course.

I gave him the example of Paul in Acts 16. Paul and Silas had set off on a mission. After much prayer and thoughtful consideration, they planned to visit a group of churches previously planted to see how they were doing. This was not a bad or sinful thing to do. This was not a mistake, but the Holy Spirit shut the door. I’m not sure how he did that, because that’s all the information we have. Undeterred, Paul and Silas set off in a different direction. Once again the Holy Spirit shut the door, closed the road, put  up orange cones and plastic yellow tapes or however in the world that happened. It’s important to note, though, that there was no lightning, thunder or fire and brimstone falling from Heaven, no judgment, no shame or guilt. God just shut the door – however he did that. That’s it. That’s really just it.

So Paul said, let’s take a mini-sabbatical and just hang out in Troas for a while until God makes things clearer. I’m sure Paul had friends there to stay with and I’m also sure he knew all the good places to eat.

What happened next is that God made things clearer. Did He ever! Paul gets this vision of a Macedonian man calling for help and the world is changed forever.

Here’s the deal. You pray, consider the options, get good counsel and you think it through thoroughly. You make sure your motives are correct and your personal agenda is set aside in favor of God’s.

Then you act.

This is point where you don’t worry about making a mistake. If you head in a wrong direction, God will steer you on course. But it’s hard to steer a vehicle that is not moving. Just move.

If you ever find yourself in a firefight (and I hope you don’t) with bullets coming in fast and furious from who knows where, what will get you killed is not a bad decision. What will get you killed, hard, cold and stone dead before you know it is – indecision. Yes, I said indecision, as in no decision at all. When the rounds are coming in, you get the ____ out of there! Right, left, back, forward, up, down – makes no difference. You just move your butt! This is a situation where thinking too much can be fatal.

If you land in a bad spot, move again! Repeat as needed. That’s how you have the best shot at surviving when under heavy fire from an as yet undisclosed direction. Works pretty good in other life situations, too.

By the way, did you catch this in Paul’s Macedonian situation? Paul sees a Macedonian man in his vision. Yep, it says very specifically that this man is a male, a Macedonian man-type male. Yet when Paul gets to Macedonia (Philippi)  there is no man. What he finds is a small group of women meeting for prayer on the Sabbath down by the river. And among them the key person is a woman, a wealthy business woman with a big house named Lydia. She (female, feminine gender-type woman, non-male person) becomes the key to Paul’s world-changing ministry opportunity there against all stereotypical odds.

I know some people who are such anally analytically over-thinkers that  in a similar situation they would still be wandering around all these 2,000 years later looking for that Macedonian guy they saw in the vision thinking that they or God has surely make a mistake. I am very thankful that Paul just went with the flow and didn’t think about it too much.

Go thou and do likewise. You just might be thinking a bit too much.

www.savagechickens.com

At the same time there was a serous side to her experiences. Though 90% of the doctors in this country are board certified (meaning their competency is rigorously certified by peers), Missouri (and other states) does not require this of of licensed physicians. She discovered that some of the physicians she worked with were not board certified and left a lot of room for improvement. In small towns a physician is automatically at the top of the social system and can easily get comfortable, rest upon many accolades and be satisfied with “good enough.”

While there are many wonderful, excellent and sacrificial doctors practicing in rural areas and small towns, our student discovered that some are seriously, and even dangerously, out-of-date or simply less than up-to-standard. We told her that she probably learned more last month about what NOT to do. She was thankful for the experience and thankful she’s doing a different rotation this month!

The next morning I was reading 1 Samuel 1-3. Many of you know the story of how God blessed barren Hannah with the birth of Samuel. In return, Hannah dedicated Samuel to God and entrusted him to the mentor-ship of the High Priest Eli. Fresh from our conversation the previous evening, I saw many parallels between Eli and some of the small town docs we heard about.

Despite his elevated title and advanced years, Eli had settled down to being comfortable with “good enough” and stopped growing. Beyond stagnant, Eli was sliding backward. He was losing any spiritual capacity he might ever have had. As Hannah poured her heart out before the altar, Eli accused her of being drunk. His own sons were out-of-control and he had no clue how to confront them or deal with them. In Samuel, God had entrusted him with a gifted young charge, but Eli had no idea how to be a good mentor. When God was speaking to Samuel, Eli could not perceive that it was God who was speaking. Eli had become comfortable in his social position and stopped growing. Now, he was dangerously incompetent.

By contrast, 1Samuel 2:26 says that Samuel grew on and was in favor both with God and men. The same type of growth is mentioned in connection with John the Baptist and Jesus in Luke 1:80; 2:40 and 52. If we are not changing, growing and being transformed, we are becoming stagnant, and stagnation is merely the first step toward dangerous deterioration.

As I reflected on the contrast between Eli the High Priest and a few physicians, I arrived at several takeaway lessons:

• When we stop changing, growing and being transformed, we are being transformed into stagnant, brittle and even dangerous people.
• When we get caught up in enjoying the privileges of position without corresponding accountability, there is no motivation to grow.
• We need to embrace the critical reviews and analysis of our peers, not elude them or resent them. Accountability is a place of security, not a threat.
• Having the observation of “outside eyes” is a tremendous blessing.

Through this, I learned that I do not want to become like Eli. I don’t want to become brittle, stagnant and set in my ways. I want to continue to grow until my final day on this earth. How about you? Are you stagnant or changing?

New Chief Dontari Poe

Poe-tential - so screamed the headline of the Kansas City Star’s sports page this morning. In a move that took everyone by surprise, the Kansas City Chiefs used their first round NFL draft pick, the 11th choice overall, to choose Dontari Poe, a defensive lineman from Memphis. The Chiefs project him as a nose tackle.

I’m no football expert, but I’ll admit I was taken back by the immediate wave of violent criticisms and protests. Reports said that at the Chief’s-sponsored draft party at Arrowhead Stadium fans booed and many stomped out mad when the choice was made. The talk radio and sports guys on local television and radio threw up their arms in disbelief and decried that this is just about the worst choice in all of human history.

Cheryl and I were driving home from a grand kid’s play last night and I could’t believe the vehemence I was hearing from the radio sports experts. The bloggers (so I’m told) were downright vulgar and explicit in the commentaries. Geeze!!! I didn’t know they cared so much!

Why the mayhem? The rap on Poe is that he really didn’t do much in college. He was a defensive lineman on a bad team from a relatively small college. Obviously, he was not one of the “sexy,” can’t-miss picks of bigger names from bigger schools.

The only voice of half-reason I heard was that of Star columnist Sam Mellinger. Bad pick was also his initial reaction, but he correctly reminded us that the same people who are crying today are the same ones who 24 hours earlier were  beating up on general manager Scott Pioli for being consistently stubborn, predictable, boring and un-creative in his management style and draft picks. So, he does something totally creative, out-of-the-box and unpredictable and the piranhas are after his blood.

Not long after the pick, head coach Romeo Crennel was almost giddy in talking about the Poe’s potential. Here’s the deal. Poe is a man-mountain. He is 350 pounds and yet runs a 40-yard dash in 4.9 seconds. He can do 44 reps of a 225 pound bench press. He’s a beast who is fast, flexible and strong enough to be a ballet dancer. Crennel is convinced that with some decent coaching he can be an amazing nose tackle, which is sort of like the drain stopper in the floor of your shower.

Now, I have no idea if this is a great choice or a horrible choice, but I do get amused at the fickleness of public opinion and mob psychology. Reminds me of a day in Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago when a mob was out for blood.

Come, let us reason together – Romeo Crennel is a defensive specialist and one heck of a coach. If he sees potential in this guy, he ought to see a lot more than me or your average sports radio listener. I mean, for crying out loud, did Romeo go to be Wednesday night a defensive expert and wake up on Thursday morning with the Stupid Virus and 50 points missing from his IQ?

Poe is not noted for being very productive in his college career. That’s fair enough. But remember that most games are not won by nose tackles and most guys don’t take their morning coffee while checking out nose tackle stats in the sports section. You sure seem to notice, though, when the nose tackle is absent and the opposing team seems able to run straight ahead at will.

Poe didn’t just play nose tackle, however, because they kept moving him around the defensive line since he was about the only good thing on a bad team. Can he learn to be a good nose tackle? Well, at least being a nose tackle is not a position that requires great creativity and years of study – just 350 pounds of strong and determined athletic mass willing to stop 18-wheelers dead in their tracks. Crennel thinks Poe can learn to do this. He just might be right.

Time may prove this to be a bad choice, but I can remember a pretty good number of cant-miss draft picks that have bombed out completely. Anyone old enough to remember Todd Blackledge?

You might think I would see some type of application in this. Well, all the “experts” who think this is such a moronic pick do remind me of the “Bible experts” in churches whose self-appointed calling is to ensure that everything done in the church is biblical. Just as the stereotype of the sports-talk listener/expert is a beer-guzzling, Dorito-chomping, double cheesburger-munching guy in an over-stuffed recliner who has never scored a touchdown in his life, many of the sterotypical local church “Bible experts” can amaze the uninformed by quoting a long list of verses out of context, yet often have zero ability to apply biblical truth to their own disastrous personal lives and families. In all their wisdom, they are certain that every pastor and leader in the church wakes up every morning with the Heresy Virus determined to lead the church in un-biblical directions were it not for their watch-care over all things biblical.

There is a level of application of this NFL draft story that goes deeper. The Pioli/Crennel team picked Dontari Poe because they see something in him that few people see, even when the entire choir is singing, “Stupid choice!!” You may think that no one appreciates or understands you, but God sees something in you that no one else sees. He drafted you as a first round pick, created you in his image and thought so much of your potential he spared not the life of his own firstborn Son who died as your substitute to pay the penalty of your sin.

If we don’t live up to our potential, it won’t be because God made a bad pick. We’ll have to bear that responsibility alone. God took a lot of heat to choose you; now it’s up to you to learn to play your position.

Here’s a final thought. I wonder how often I fail to see what God sees in others. Each one of us as human beings is created in God’s image and recipients of his grand design, though flawed by sin. Even though our productivity may have been less than stellar to this point in life, God is willing to coach us to full success. Even those persons in whom we see no redeeming value have potential that God alone can see. I need to learn to respect that. Yes, even those radio talk show sports experts and self-appointed Bible experts have hidden but real poe-tential!

We’re talking about Take It Home. Not really a program, Take It Home is simply a focus in months ahead to address current societal challenges by a twofold focus:

• Applying biblical principles to life’s most intimate relationships.
• Viewing the home as the primary place where spiritual growth is nurtured.

What does this look like in a practical sense for Graceway?

• Instead of separating students from the church, we are converting our basement gym into a state of the art youth facility to bring our youth into the church with plans to make them a more integral part of the larger church body.
• Rather than rotating teachers in and out of children’s classes, we want a church where every child and family is known, and so we are praying for 150 people to step up and commit to working with children on a permanent basis and making their smaller spiritual community to be their fellow workers. In other words, commit to attending one of our three services on Sunday and commit to teach regularly during one of the other time slots.

Jeff Cox and I did a tag team presentation. At the end, Jeff said that he believed that of all the changes we have made in recent years this would be the most difficult because it is a change of our church culture (not doctrine, folks!).

When Jeff made this comment yesterday I thought back to a book I was reading last week about contextualizing the Gospel. The author pointed out that Acts 11 records TWO significant conversions. When we think of Acts 11 most of us have an immediate image of the conversion of the Roman centurion Cornelius. That certainly IS a significant conversion. But, the author went on to say that the other conversion is that of the Apostle Peter. This is not a conversion to faith in Christ, as in the case of Cornelius, but rather Peter’s theological and cultural conversion necessary to reach people like Cornelius.

Of the two conversions Peter’s was by far the most difficult. Cornelius was a piece of cake! He was ready. His heart was prepared. He was praying. He was so primed that he and his household interrupted Peter’s preaching by getting saved! Imagine!

Peter’s conversion was so hard because it involved deep-seated values and Jewish ethnocentrism. It was so difficult that it took three trances, interlocking visions with Peter and Cornelius, angels, hearing God’s distinct command three times and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit! Wow! Bringing people to faith is sometimes far easier than converting Christians to the mission!

Peter had to discover that God accepts people as they are. This is the end of the mission – reaching people for God’s kingdom and glory. Peter’s natural inclination was to expect others to become like him. He needed to understand that God takes people like they are to make them more like God, not Peter … or you … or me.

Culture is inescapable; we all have one, and it is constantly changing. As followers of Jesus we naturally form our own church cultures. There is nothing wrong with that – until it becomes an obstacle to reaching others. When we think about reaching others with the good news of Christ we often think in terms of how to penetrate THEIR culture so THEY can be like OUR culture. Maybe we should be thinking about how people who need God can penetrate OUR culture in order to lay hold on God’s amazing grace.

As we trust God to make necessary changes, our focus should not just be on how it affects us and our culture, but rather how it enables us to reach those who need to be reached with the Good News of Jesus Christ. There was nothing wrong with Peter’s culture. Large parts of it were formed by God’s very Word. Peter just had a hard time seeing beyond his immediate cultural reality to understand the rest of world through God’s eyes.

This is the context of Paul’s well-known words to the Corinthians.

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. 1Corinthians 9:19-23

If the people around us are to change, it is up to us to change first.

I told you in my last post that our primary purpose in Costa Rica was to encourage a remarkable young woman who has been through a very tough year. She has dealt with her father being in the hospital in very serious condition for a month, the death of her maternal grandmother, dealing with her elderly and ailing maternal grandfather and other assorted issues. But, the greatest struggle has been her mother’s battle with cancer. Having been through similar periods, Cheryl and I thought it would be good to check in and see what we could do.

Gina Polini is a well-known and respected photo-journalist, editor, writer, television personality and more. For a long time she was the editor of the weekend supplement for La Nación, one of Latin America’s most respected newspapers. She has edited magazines and so much more. Some years ago she came to faith in Christ through a Roman Catholic Bible study. The change in her life was so dramatic that her daughter Montserrat was soon checking in out to see what had happened. In the process she, too, came to faith. She is also a photo-journalist and together with her mom they have made for a formidable team. Following their transformations by faith in Christ, they both found their way into a solid evangelical church and also cooperate with various ministries.

A few years ago I was speaking in a seminary in Guatemala when I met Montserrat (Montse). The force of her personality and passion for Christ immediately swept me off my feet. Soon, she was visiting with us in Kansas City. Her passion for the Perspectives course was the primary motivating factor in Graceway funding its translation into Spanish. That work will be finished this Summer and I have the honor to teach the opening class here in San Jose this August. I taught opening class in the first ever complete Perspectives course here a year ago January. Even though I taught in Spanish, the reading material was in English. Monstserrat adopted us as her spiritual parents and she is the one we refer to as la hija tica.

Gina Polini and Montse (la hija tica)

Precisely three years ago her mother, Gina Polini, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (Steve Job’s cancer). You might be aware that the average time between diagnosis and death for pancreatic cancer is something like five months. Gina’s cancer had responded well to initial treatment and after an early May diagnosis she was rebounding very well by the end of the same year.

When I was here teaching a year ago January the doctors had detected some signs that concerned them and she had some tests scheduled right after I left. The result was that the cancer was back and active. That was early last year, 2011.

Here we are in April of 2012 and Gina is still with us. She is already in the very smallest percentage in the Bell curve of pancreatic cancer survivors, but the past couple of months particularly have been rough, very rough. She has been hospitalized for the past month waiting for proper blood counts to perform what otherwise would be a minimal laparoscoptic surgery. Infection had set in to her liver and the head surgeon felt strongly they needed an invasive surgery to deal with the infection, even though it would be high risk. This all came down while we have been here.

This afternoon they operated on Gina. At noon several of us prayed with her before she went in to the operating room. She was at peace. I am happy to report that she came through surgery fine. However, the battle still continues. Now, I ask your prayers for the recuperation period that is always filled with danger of infection and complications. Truly she is a fighter! Every day is a gift from God. We have been blessed to share life with this family. I’ll keep you informed.

Friday we will make our way home. Thanks for your prayers.

So, it turns out I had a few days open on the old calendar. That’s rare! I was so excited and told Cheryl that maybe we could get in a few days of real vacation. Quickly, I made arrangements to fly to Costa Rica Saturday and here we are. Most of you know there was a time when we actually lived here in this beautiful place, but that was a very long time ago. Cheryl has not been back for quite a few years and we were both excited to be able to just hang out here.

Our primary purpose, as though one were needed for a vacation, was to visit the one we proudly refer to as our hija tica (Costa Rican daughter). That does sound like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? A purpose for a vacation? But we did want to encourage her, our spiritual daughter, in some major health issues with her mother and others in her family that have eaten up most of the past year.  Everyone has held up as well as can be expected, but we felt some hugs were called for all around.

After church - better than pie and coffee at Denny's!

Today, we went with la hija tica and her boyfriend to a church plant they are assisting with on the beach. He is an architect by week and a surfer by weekend. The church is essentially a surfer church – Pura Vida Church. We were very impressed with the young pastor and his wife. Today he preached from Mark 2 on the nature of biblical friendship.

Just thought I would check in with you and let you know where we are and what we are doing. We come home Friday night and will see you Sunday!