I'm not as clever as I think I am

It's been a hard couple weeks.

And I don't have a radical take on what it all means for us. I don't have a brilliant message to leave us all nodding our heads in silent affirmation. What I do have is the realization this week that we are so fortunate to have one another. We need each other. Sometimes we guys aren't good at admitting we "need" anything or anyone. But we're blessed to have each other here at Bammel. I'm understanding that more and more every day. 

So I don't have anything clever to say today. I just wanted to say that I am thankful for you, my brothers, and I'm praying for this group of guys God is molding here at Bammel. I'm blessed to be a part. 

That's all I got today, guys. And I think for today, that's enough. God bless you guys.

EP

(EDIT: I'd like to hear some of your favorite scriptures during times of trial. If you hit the comments, either here or on our FB page, let's share some of these passages with each other. Thanks, guys.)

Judging Covers

There are some idioms I've either heard or been using my whole life, and many of them I have grown to despise. "Never judge a book by its cover" is one of those idioms. I guess I loathe it because for me it kind of fits the same mold as "have your cake and eat it too." That makes no sense. Why would you have a cake if you weren't planning on eating it in the first place? Anyway, that's how I feel about judging books, but I'm not much of a reader anyway, so if the cover doesn't appeal to me, the book is probably going to stay on the shelf.

Now I know that there's a deeper meaning to this, and it's accurate. We do a lot of cover judging, practically every day. At least I know I do. But then something happens and you meet or get to know someone and they are nothing like what you judged them to be by their appearance or first impression. So this kind of changed for me a little bit last week.

Last Sunday (May 15), I got to ride around with Deputy Luke Ditta of the Harris County Sheriffs Department's Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). For those who may not know, Rachel Morgan came up with this idea to give homeless people free haircuts in our area. Leif Christiansen opened his hair studio and so many people from Bammel volunteered to make the day possible. 30 homeless people got their haircut and a hot meal, courtesy of donations from Freebird's and Chick Fil-A, as well as Ryan and Yvette from Grace Family Church. It was a great day. For me, it was an eye-opening experience, and one I desperately needed.

You see, riding around with Deputy Ditta did something for me that no amount of article or book reading could. We went around to different areas that outwardly looked vacant, but inside there were people just trying to survive. And Deputy Ditta had relationships with these folks. He treated them with respect, which is why they respected him. They don't get a lot of that on the streets. There was one situation where Deputy Ditta was standing over a couple guys sitting down in a parking lot and he was inviting them to come have some food and get a haircut. As I watched this, I realized that if I was just passing by, I would think he was threatening to arrest them if they didn't leave. After all, that's sort of what we're programmed to think. So there I was, guilty once again of cover judging.

Picking folks up and riding with them, I listened to them talk to Deputy Ditta and confess things to him, because they trusted him and knew he had their best interest at heart. I realized that all of us are a couple bad breaks from being homeless. I got to know some of these folks and hear their stories. Sure, some of them admitted that they drank or drugged themselves into their current situation. But some had just made poor choices financially or otherwise. Some had been broken by medical bills or family giving up on them or no one ever believing in them. Every "book" was different though the cover was much the same. The thing that I will take from that day the most is just having lunch with Chris or Terry or Clinton and talking about real life stuff, just normal conversation. I'll remember Christopher Nolan (yes, that's his real name) walking around after his haircut and hugging everyone in sight and weeping. And I realized that human beings everywhere have at least one chapter in common -- we all long to belong. We all want to be valued and be granted some dignity. At the end of the day, you look past the covers and that's who we are. We're all people struggling to be valued in a world that can often be cruel and callous.

So what this all comes down to is that I sometimes judge people without knowing a thing about their story. And most of the time when I judge people, I assume the worst. Jesus told us in Matthew 25 that whatever we do "for the least of my brothers and sisters" we do for him. Jesus was homeless. Jesus was perfect. I wonder if I would have gotten to know him or if I would have just filed him with all the other books. I will say this, I do way too much judging and not enough helping. John said, "God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:17 NLT). I pray that we have opportunity this week to grow and step out of our comfort zones and remember to look past the cover and see the person.

EP

Begin the Begin

Hello, friends.

I preached a sermon a couple weeks ago that highlighted my daily challenge. "Is what you're doing right now drawing you closer to God?" I saw that question in a tweet somewhere, I'm sure. I would attribute it to the person who started it, but I don't remember who it was. I only remember that this question haunted me as I went about my day. I started asking myself how much I truly honor God in my daily walk. Do I filter my actions through the lens of glorifying God, even in the most trivial of tasks?

In Colossians 3, Paul is writing to the church to encourage them to "put off the old self." We often use verse 17 to really drive home the point of glorifying God through every action. Paul says, "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Paul makes a list of the "sinful nature" that once controlled them, and acknowledges that there was a time when their thoughts and actions were controlled by their sinful, human tendencies. But now, things had changed. Now they are God's chosen and as such, their lives, and every aspect of life, should reflect a change in attitude. So if I'm truly aspiring to be a man of God, what in my behavior is reflecting that?

If I'm being honest with you guys, I can fake anything for a while. I grew up in church, so I know all the right things to say and do to convince people I'm living the straight and narrow. But there is nothing about that attitude that makes me closer to being the man God created me to be. Men are really good at hiding feelings and masking pain. After all, that's what we're taught from childhood. Men are tough, strong, composed. When the world around them is falling apart, men hold everything together. It's what we do. We don't just fix things, we keep them maintained. The problem with that is holding so tightly to that charge often comes at a great price.

In many ways, the hardest day of the week for our family is Sunday. There are a myriad of reasons for that, and surprisingly to me, we are far from the only family that has trouble getting it together on the first day of the week. One of the major "problems" we have on Sundays is deciding where we go eat lunch. We've cut way back on our eating out, but Sunday is the day we know we're going out. Sundays are most definitely not for doing dishes. The problem with trying to decide where to eat is that everyone has a favorite place to eat, which means there are four different ideas of what we should do for lunch each Sunday. Everyone comes in with an agenda, and everyone presents a case, often not in the most subtle or agreeable ways. The bottom line, though, is that I am driving. So basically, everyone presents a case, yet the final decision is mine. And this is not an easy decision. I have to weigh the pros and cons of the choices before me, or I might even go off the radar and pick what I want. However, that rarely happens. Most often, I try to go with what I know is going to be most pleasing to the girls, even if it means we end up going to Cheddar's. Now I'm sure the people at Cheddar's are fine people. I know they must be doing something right, because there is always a line out the door there. But I do not like Cheddar's. If I had the choice to either eat at Cheddar's or sit front row in a Mark Sanchez jersey while the Jets won the Super Bowl, I'll just tell you I wear an adult medium. But you know who does like Cheddar's? You guessed it, every one of my girls. So a couple weeks ago when we couldn't agree on where to eat, guess where we ended up? Right again! We went to Cheddar's. I didn't like it, but I made the decision for the majority to be happy, even at the cost of my own dining gratification.

Now that is a very shallow way to make a point, eh? As men we want to fix situations before they escalate, and we'll sacrifice our own wishes to make that happen. We value peace more than we want to get our way. I got a good piece of advice from a friend during his first year of marriage. He told me, "You can either win every argument, or you can watch the game." I've never forgotten that. It's funny. It resonates with every man in America who has ever missed an epic comeback because he kept forgetting to put the toilet seat down and just couldn't find it within himself to simply say, "I'm sorry, honey. I'm the worst. You're the best. You deserve better. I'll be better. You take a nap and I'll give the kids Benadryl take care of the kids."

We put band-aids on things because we don't want to deal with the deeper issue. Dealing with the deeper issue requires something of us, and honestly, we're just too tired or disinterested to do that right now. I mean, when you get home after working a ten hour day, do you really want to talk about where you're going to be five years from now, or do you just want to kick your shoes off and have a half hour to just turn the noise off? When it comes to my spiritual walk, it's easier to say and do all the right things publicly, even though we know we're not close to being what God created us to be. I think we want to have that life, but I think maybe we've been patching things so long, we don't even know if there's any material left to work with.

So what do we do? Do we keep putting on the face? Do we keep going with the flow, playing pretend so everyone will just give us peace, or do we do some real digging and decide that something has to give? What we're doing now is not beneficial, and not remotely sustainable. I think many men don't want to put in the hard work to create real change, and at some point you just don't have the energy to put on a front anymore. So rather than being a "hypocrite" (which men despise, but we'll get into that later), we just decide to quit God altogether. Better to be the person everyone sees than continue pretending to be the person everyone needs to see. But isn't there another option? Could we just decide to desire to be the man God wants us to be? Isn't there the option of actually putting some work into not just keeping peace or patching holes? That's where we have to start. We can't lead our families spiritually if we're not walking with God and thinking and acting like He's our priority. If we try, we're liars. And nobody wants to be a liar.

So let's start there. Ask yourself the question, "Is what I'm doing right now drawing me closer to God?" If not, be honest about what needs to change, and then be brave enough to begin that process. Use Colossians 3:17 as a filter, and devote yourself to making God your priority. And then let's see what happens. It's going to take work, but the great thing is, if you're reading this, there's still time.

EP

The "Gender Gap" ... are you making that up?

Hello, friends.

I was a youth minister for 17 years. I have been an associate minister for just a little over 6 months. A big part of the draw to my new role was the opportunity to help lead the men's ministry here at Bammel. One of the reasons I was so looking forward to serving in this area is because of something, perhaps we could overstate it and call it an epidemic, that I saw way too much of while I was in youth ministry. I call it being "spiritually single" and you are welcome to use that term. I'm sure I didn't coin the term, mainly because it's so obvious who we're talking about. Parents, most often women, who are married but have taken on the responsibility of the spiritual development of their children on their own. It's pretty rampant. Maybe it is an epidemic. I'm not sure about this, but I am almost 100% certain it's not an easy place to be. And the sad part about it is that I don't know what to do about it.

So I'm doing a little research. I'm doing a lotta soul searching. I've been reading this book Why Men Hate Going To Church by David Morrow, and what I'm finding is pretty interesting. In sports we use the term "numbers never lie" which is to say that if you look at the stats, they'll tell you the story of what's going on. Not sure that's completely accurate, because the eyes tell part of the story too. It's like when I used to tell my grandmother what the Great Depression was like because I was learning about it in school. I described the horror that some families experienced, the suicides and other "stats" I was gobbling up in my history class. My grandmother was a sweet woman, too sweet to tell me I had no idea what I was talking about. And I was too dumb to figure it out at the time, but my grandmother didn't have to read about the Depression in a  book. She lived it. She was there in the middle of the tragedy. She didn't need it explained to her, certainly not from a smug 14 year old.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that there are two truths, or at least a truth and then a truth behind that truth. There is a truth about "spiritual singleness" that we can quantify. We can look at numbers, such as the "gender gap" Murrow discusses and details through great research tools. A gender gap is defined as a church whose adult membership is at least 56% female. So according to the Barna Group, there's a gender gap in up to 85% of our American churches. Then there is the truth about why there's a gender gap. That is up for speculation, because there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer, and there certainly isn't a quick fix to the problem. The only thing we do know is that churches across the nation are experiencing a widening gender gap, in favor of more women in churches while men stay away. The fact is, there are likely multiple reasons and none of them are readily remedied.

So now let's talk about how this works with me. I see a problem and I want to fix it. That's my nature. I think we'd agree that this is a pretty common male trait. I think that's why we are generally poor communicators. We typically don't listen to problems. We're thinking of solutions. And we also can't understand why anyone wouldn't appreciate that, and don't care for your tone, now that we think about it. The book, which I wholeheartedly think every man should read, is not bible. I'm not saying everything in it is entirely accurate. I know data can be manipulated to make a point. I've been doing it with Dan Marino's career for three decades.

So we may not come up with all the answers, but I want us to wrestle with it. I want us, as men, to be honest with ourselves and at least take a look at why we're seemingly growing less interested in taking the lead in the spiritual development of our families and ourselves and taking leadership roles in our churches. There's a quote from the book that I want to leave you with and maybe we'll think about it this week and it will generate some healthy self-evalution and discussion. Murrow says, "A lot of men have assigned religion to their wives' basket of responsibilities." That quote has stuck with me and is currently haunting me for some reason. Is that true? If so, why? If so, does it bother us? Also, how do we fix it? Sorry, couldn't resist.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have many more questions than I have answers. But I'm hoping that as men, we'll at least begin to ask ourselves the questions instead of plopping down on the couch, clicking on the game and pretending these questions don't exist. I welcome feedback and look forward to seeing where all this "blog" nonsense goes. Thanks for tuning in.

EP