Cheryl and I recently got together with one of Graceway’s advanced medical students. She has just recently completed a month-long module of rural medicine working out of a hospital in a small Missouri city. She is a sophisticated and definitely urban young lady, and she had one of the very few ethnically diverse faces in the area where she was practicing and seeing patients. Listening to some of her stories of interaction with Missouri farmers and small town folk was hysterical!

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practicing in rural areas and small towns, our student discovered that some are seriously, and even dangerously, out-of-date or simply less than up-to-standard.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!

I miss Luke!!! Teaching through the Gospel of Luke has been a true labor of love. However, taking a couple of weeks off to set out some new directions is also very exciting.  For those of you who missed yesterday, here’s a quick review.

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.

Greetings from Costa Rica! I thought it about time that we give you a little update. We have had a very full week and wouldn’t have it any other way. Things have not been exactly like we might have imagined, but we are thankful to have been here.

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.

This is the week I was supposed to be in a pair of West African countries, one of which had military coup a couple of weeks ago. Not long before that our contacts on the ground made the call to call off our scheduled meetings. Good call! This is why I like to listen to our contacts on the ground instead of telling them what to do.

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!