I’ve been reading a great book.

It’s a Christian book.  It’s by a pastor named Philip Gulley.  It’s called If the Church Were Christian.  It’s really good.

And I totally disagree with everything the book says.

I mean I can still read the book.  It’s probably a good thing to read books that you disagree with.  It’s given me lots of time to evaluate what I do believe.

But I wouldn’t go to the guy’s church or anything and listen to his sermons.

That got me thinking.  I disagree with tons of people.  I disagree with the thoughts, religions, politics, and personal decisions of most Hollywood actors.  But I still enjoy their movies.  I disagree with a lot of blogs I read.  But I still respect them and read them regularly.  But my church?  I generally want it to be a safe haven of my own brand of hive-minded Christianity.  I want people to agree with what I say.  I want my opinions to be validated and my ego stroked by not having any nay-sayers.  I like a church full of the “same kind” of Christians as me.  We believe the same things.  We worship the same way.  And all the things we believe are the “best” form of Christianity, obviously.

I know that’s dangerous.  I couldn’t stand it at my Baptist college.  Some people there were obsessed with agreeing on everything.  There were even students who wanted to “cleanse” the library of books that were contrary to Christianity.  Believe me, I wasn’t the only one who vocally disagreed.  I thought I went to college to learn, and not just the Bible.  I made it my mission to remind everyone we were at an academic institution, not church camp.

In fact, just about every place in life, we expect to disagree with people.  It’s even good to disagree with people.  Take these five examples:

Where It’s Better to Disagree
Continue Reading…

Know what I’ve been thinking about lately?

Sex.

And by “lately,” I mean “approximately the last sixteen years.  Give or take.

I started thinking this, and then I went looking around the internet to see if anyone had thought of what I had.  It took approximately 19 seconds to realize that my idea wasn’t original.  But that’s okay.  About 32% of this blog’s content is ideas I thought I was clever enough to have thought of on my own, only to find out there are a lot of other geniuses out there plagarizing my brain. 

Anyway, back to sex not making any sense.  True, if you break it down, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous.  But what’s on my mind is just how weird it is in the evolutionary scheme of things.  Back when my eighth grade science teacher was teaching us evolution, she never explained how sex evolved.

The Next Time You Get the Chance to Argue with Your Eighth Grade Science Teacher…
I actually was that kid that argued with my eighth grade science teacher over evolution.  Unfortunately, my family was not fundamentalist enough for me to come well stocked with much pro-Creation ammo.  I made my point, but I was pretty sweaty.  It was about the most rebellious thing I had done to that point. 

All of us who weren’t nurtured in the caring bosom of a Christian school were told by our all-knowing eighth grade science teachers that living organisms evolved from simpler life forms.  They adapted to their environments and gained new traits through natural selection.  They did all of this to make one thing easier: reproduction.  Part of the reason Christian schools don’t teach evolution is that it’s all about S-E-X.

This cute little cuddlebug to the left is E Coli.  E Coli is pretty small and pretty simple.  When E Coli becomes a teenager and moves down to his parents’ basement and gets terrible acne, he doesn’t start thinking about sex.  He starts sneaking magazines into his basement hideout so he can fantasize about dividing millions of times.  One of his classmates told him in the locker room he actually divided once for real, and it was awesome.  Sometimes, he practices dividing when he’s home by himself, but he’s afraid he’ll get caught, because some people say it’s wrong.

E Coli has it pretty easy when it comes to starting a family.  He doesn’t have to listen to someone nagging him to pick up his socks before he gets some, he just divides!  Wham, bam, thank you…me. 

It makes you wonder why evolution didn’t just stop right there, doesn’t it?  Because all the careless, casual animal sex resulting in single-mother animal households can’t possibly keep up with all the hot, sweaty, asexual reproduction happening all the time. 

Then, if that weren’t enough, evolution kept happening!  Animals evolved into humans.  Humans take a really long time to not be helpless ninnies.  Hence, public schools.  Average people only reproduce a handful of times, despite living longer than most animals.  Women invented things like “romance” to cut down on the amount of reproducing men would try to do…or something like that.

And, humans can even choose not to have kids!  We’ve evolved so much, we use sex for everything except making babies!  We use sex to sell beer and cars.  (Which I suppose can inadvertanly lead to babies, so maybe it evens out…)

Talk about an evolutionary mistake.  When it comes to evolutionary achievement, humans seem to be dead last.  There is no reason for us to have evolved this much.

If you could go back and challenge your high school science teacher, what would you say?  I’d definately ask why we were forced to see that awful video in sex ed with the PE coaches while the tiny sea plankton are just going at it like a bunch of asexual addicts.  To you, what’s the biggest problem with evolutionary theory?  If you wouldn’t argue with your science teacher, which teacher would you argue with?

What makes church “church?”

What is the one thing a church has to have in order for that hour on Sunday to be “church?”

Honestly, as a pastor, I don’t think I really know anymore.

What Makes It “Church?”

Is it Communion?
Most of our churches follow the same format on Sundays.  They are, despite some bells and whistles, the same basic formula.  There’s some singing, a sermon, some announcements, and an offering taken up.  And if we’re feeling really holy, we squeeze in Communion.  Some churches make a big production out of Communion.  Some churches seem like it’s just the one day they allow snacks in the sanctuary. 

Is it the sermon?
My Baptist preaching professor loved to wax poetic about the “supremacy” of preaching.  Meaning: if you don’t have anything but a sermon (and mandatory altar call), that’s okay, because that’s all that really matters in church anyway.  That seems a tad bit self-important and narcissistic to me, and I’m a preacher.  And how did we land on forty minutes as the “ideal” sermon length?  Was someone pining for the days when they daydreamed through their college lectures?  Because without singing, that’s kind of what you have in church.  There are days when our worship leader is gone, so we don’t sing.  And I know that my sermon feels more like a lecture than it should.

Is it the singing?
Though I don’t really know how we mandated singing as an integral part of worship.  If you think about it, saying rhyming words in unison with other people is a pretty weird thing to do.  It’s not like I just pop into song on Monday morning with my quartet of coworkers like a hot Broadway musical.  Believe me, I’ve tried, and it does not come off at all well.  It was as if no one even looked at the songsheets I distributed on Friday, much less memorized them.  Julie Andrews would’ve projectile vomited if she had seen us.  But in church, I feel it is good, nay necessary that I break into song, and it always flows without a hitch.

Is it the building?
Lots of people are sentimental about the building they go to church in.  Which is kind of a barrier for me when I tell them about my house church.  They can’t imagine what it must be like for a church to not have a building.  For that matter, they seem confused about how it can actually be a church without a building.  They also seem to not comprehend the steps it takes to get a building, including having a lot of people, and a lot of money.  Guess what?  No one can serve two masters.  You can’t worship a building and money, people.  You have to pick one. 

Is it just showing up?
So what can you throw away and still have church?  A priest in Ireland is trying to throw almost everything away and see if he can still have church.  His morning mass now has no sermon, minimal singing, a speedy Communion, and lasts 15 minutes. (Sunday mass, I’m guessing is still long and boring.) 

Fifteen minutes?  That’s half the time I spend watching a hilarious episode of The Office.

And guess what…it’s working.  People are showing up.  They like it because they go to church and then get on their way to work.

Sure, it’s a weekday mass and not Sunday morning.  But it makes me ask: what is really necessary in church?  If we had 15 minutes on Sunday morning, would that do?  Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered…” He didn’t say what they had to do while they were gathered, or how long they should gather.

Still, I don’t know.  Is the point of church to just worship God, or do you need to gain new knowledge or grow spiritually?  Is it church if you “fill your tank” and improve your marriage and finances in three convenient sermon points?  What if the sermon is garbage anyway?  Is it still church, or would it have been more “church” with no sermon at all?  What if you just passively listen and don’t really absorb the sermon?  Maybe after all the sermonizing and offerings, your church only spends about 15 minutes “worshipping” anyway!

So, is the “quickie” mass innovative, or pointless?

The more I think about it, the more conflicted I really am.  What do you think?  What is the lowest common denominator of “church?”  How much can you do without, and what do you have to have?  Do we have an idol in our preaching?  Or is this Irish church setting the bar way too low?

Hey everyone. I’ve got an interview I’m really excited to share with you today. Long before most of us ever thought about blogging, Anne Jackson was practically inventing the blog. Today, she’s a speaker, author (Mad Church Disease and upcoming Permission to Speak Freely), and writer of uber-blog, Flower Dust.

As a blogger who I’ve admired for a long time for her honest and personal writing, I was excited, and a bit nervous, to ask her to answer a few questions. Luckily, thanks to the magic of email, I don’t have to actually ask for personal favors face to face anymore, and she’s super-cool and took the time to do an interview with me. I asked about being a writer, beauty secrets, and the perks of being a preacher’s kid. Here’s Anne.

You’ve been writing, blogging, and speaking for a long time. How did it all start? Technically I’ve been blogging since before blogging was a word. I kept an online journal (in addition to many hard copies) since 1996, when I fell in love with writing. I still have no idea what to do with my life, but I’ve learned to live the day in front of me. Sometimes that day meant having an office job I liked. Sometimes it meant having a job I couldn’t wait to leave.

I knew from the time I was in the fifth grade that I loved to write, but never planned on writing a book. Over the course of a few years, I saw things that broke my heart and how we are daily being rescued, and decided maybe I should write books about them. The speaking didn’t come so easily. I gave a speech in the 8th grade and vowed never to speak publicly again. When I was 24, I felt strongly that I needed to surrender that fear, even though I still had no plans or no doors open to speak. The doors began to open a year later, and haven’t slowed down since.

Will I be writing books and speaking forever? I hope to, but I’ve learned that life is not predictable. That’s the reason I take it one day at a time, simply focusing on the people and the things in front of me that day. Who knows what tomorrow can bring?

Perhaps you should credit yourself with inventing the blog. That would look good on a resume. Personally, I could never keep a journal. But blogging has been very rewarding.
If you weren’t writing or in the ministry, what would you be doing?
My “career” before ministry was in corporate communications, where I wrote. So, if I wasn’t writing, I’d be dead.

In the time you’ve been writing, you’ve covered a myriad of quite personal topics including (everyone’s favorites) sex and mental health. What’s been your favorite thing to write about?
I love sharing stories of other people — especially those who may have problems getting their voice heard in all of the mess of the American Dreams and technology and everyone else’s pursuit of happiness. I don’t regret writing anything, and there’s probably not anything I wouldn’t write about, given the time and circumstances were right and I felt God leading me to share.

What has blogging accomplished for the in your life and in the church – besides the legions of fans and piles of cash? Are we better off than we were 10 years ago – the pre-blogging age?
I love to write, so when I write, that’s when I feel my purpose being lived out. There isn’t much cash, or any legions of fans. It’s a fairly reclusive life (that I’ve chosen anyway) and I kind of like it. It will become what you make it to be, and I can only hope to walk in obedience. I do love the way technology has allowed us opportunities to respond to crisis and poverty in a much faster and informed way. The world is a better place for that.

It is good to see that for all the talking we do now, we actually accomplish something.
Outside of writing, what are you passionate about? Outside of writing, what are you passionate about?  If you were going to open “The Anne Jackson Institute” and put a life-size bronze statue of yourself in the lobby, what would the institute do? Just as importantly, how would the statue be posed? Arms outstretched? Raising an American flag? Would it have light up eyes and a button to push that would activate a recording of you singing?
Ha!  I love good film, good music, and good food. So, cook me up some gourmet mac-and-cheese, pop in a french documentary (preferably historical) and call me happy.

This is a very important question. You get your photo taken a lot. The photo on your blog’s banner changes rather frequently. How long does it take to choose your clothing, jewelry and makeup to achieve the “Anne Jackson look” for the photos?
My hair color changes frequently (an addiction I’ve lost to for sixteen years) so depending on how accurate the pictures are (or aren’t) I’ll have them changed. Nashville is a great town with great talent. But quite honestly, I typically throw something in the dryer right before I leave to make sure it smells okay and do my make up in the car. I’m not exactly the epitome of class.

I never look like Anne when I do my makeup in the car.

By this time, you have lots of people who care about what you say, but writing probably absorbs a good deal of your time. You scaled back a bit by giving up Facebook. Does Flower Dust itself have a lifespan? Is there anything you can forsee that would cause you to give it up, difficult as that would be?
I would absolutely give it up if I felt I needed to. At this point, I don’t see what event would cause that to happen but life is unpredictable. I didn’t plan on giving up Facebook and that happened, so…nothing is out of the question.

I believe you’ve mentioned you enjoy coffee a little bit. Well, something’s been on my mind about that, and I have to ask a female coffee drinker about it. When you recieve a delicious cup of hot coffee from Starbucks, do you hold the cup in both hands, raising it to your face, not to drink it but to smell it, and give your shoulders a little shrug while closing your eyes? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coffee, tea, or TheraFlu commercial where the actress does not do that.
Um, I actually only drink tea. But I usually do it with two hands.

Now I feel like the lamest Anne Jackson fan ever…how could I think you like coffee?!
Preacher’s kids like to complain about what a hard life it was and how having Dad in the pulpit ruined our childhoods and that’s why we acted stupid as teenagers. From one preacher’s kid to another, what was one thing that was actually totally awesome about it?
Free, left over grape juice after communion. And knowing where the good spots in the church were to hide and make out with boys.

I turned twelve before I realized grape juice also came in boxes, and I didn’t have to chug it one tiny cup at a time.

If you haven’t commented on Flower Dust recently, say hi to Anne today.  Or buy her book.  Whose beauty secrets should I ask for next?

I’ve been a professional student for pretty much my whole life.

I loved school…mostly.  As my college and seminary courses wore on over seven years, there was a lot more “tolerating” school than “loving” school.

I’ve had a ton of teachers by now.  So many, now, that I can no longer remember all of them.  Some of them had a profound influence on me.  Others are a faint memory of attempted state college political brainwashing.

A few years ago, I felt the urge to write to all of my primary teachers, to thank them for the job they did and to tell them what I had done with my life.  I felt like a really good person for doing that, and I actually heard back from a couple of them.

We’ve all had teachers that we loved and hated.  But as I’ve been trying to get myself to the front of a classroom, I’ve been thinking a lot about what made my teachers and professors great (or lousy.)

My Best Days of School Ever
Mrs. Z
Mrs. Z was my first teacher.  Back then, we didn’t have any of this half-day kindergarten nonsense that my brother had.  We had full day kindergarten, complete with three recesses, lunch, snacktime, and naps (plus music, art and PE), courtesy of your tax dollars.  I’ve grown to learn that kindergarten teachers teach as many life skills as they do academic stuff.  Thanks to Mrs. Z, I knew how to blow my nose, walk in a line, and keep my shoes tied, which was more than other kindergarteners could say.

Mrs. L
Mrs. L was the fourth grade teacher every kid hated.  She was four foot, three inches of mean.  Third graders cried on the last day of school when they opened their report cards to find her name as their next teacher.  I lucked out and didn’t get her.  But that didn’t stop her from making me stand against the wall at recess that year. 

Mr. D
In fifth grade, I had my first male teacher, and he was awesome.  The most memorable day was learning about pendulums in Science class.  Mr. D and Mr. N, the counselor, set up a twenty pound medicine ball hanging from the ceiling on a jump rope.  Then a kid volunteered to sit in a chair and have the ball placed against his face.  Then, Mr D let go and the ball went swinging away from the kid, and if the kid didn’t move, the ball would lose a tenth of an inch on the swing back and not knock his teeth out.  The classic touch though was offering the first volunteer a bib which had been “bloodied” from last year’s volunteer, so as to not make a mess on his shirt.

Eighth Grade
All of my teachers got pregnant that year, which was kind of weird.  Except Mrs. P, because she was 87 years old and kind of evil.  Mrs. P enjoyed making dolls with dried apples for heads, but I’m pretty sure the “apples” were really the heads of children she lured into her house made of candy.

Dr. M
One session of philosophy class consisted of the professor telling us about dating his boss’s daughter as a nineteen year old.  He would write her erotic love notes.  He also happened to be living with his girlfriend’s family because he was homeless.  It happened that his boss / girlfriend’s dad was gone one week from work, but happened to leave one of his suit jackets in the office.  So Dr. M, being a smart kid, spent the week at work wearing the boss’s jacket and smoking the boss’s cigars.  He also happened to absentmindedly leave one of the notes intended for his girlfriend in the jacket’s pocket.  He became homeless again, and nearly shot to death, shortly after the boss’s return.  Being philosophy class, I’m sure there was a moral to the story.

Dr. C
I don’t remember much about Dr. C’s college biology class because I spent most of my time passing notes to friends, which we wrote on bananas from the cafeteria.  Bananas make remarkably good notepads.  I also mistakenly dissected a massive cow’s heart instead of a sheep’s heart one day in the lab, probably due to banana-related distractions.

Dr. T
Dr. T was my design professor I had classes with for two years.  He lacked certain social graces.  I sarcastically clapped for him whenever he’d show the class his personal design work or tell us of his own accomplishments.

Dr. G
Dr. G was my logic professor.  He knew that he was teaching us a general ed. class, and most of us thought it was worthless.  So he began class on the first day telling us that of all the classes we will take in college, this will be the one we will actually use in our life.  And when we do find that we have used what we learned from him, we owe him a beer.  Dr. G was right, and I’m still trying to track him down to tell him so.

Dr. D
Dr. D’s theology class was pretty lousy.  Except for the day he explained the Trinity to us.  Brilliant.  Ah, I’ll have to save that for another time.  It’s simple, yet elegant.  It’s not at all like that egg analogy.

Dr. R
Dr. R was my Greek teacher.  He told us he hoped we wouldn’t remember a thing he ever said in class.  He only hoped what he taught us would make us better pastors someday.  It’s ironic that’s the one thing I do remember him saying.  But his class did make me a better pastor.

There were lots of other amazing teachers.  Who were your best teachers?  Who were the teachers who wasted your time?  What was the most memorable day of school you ever had?

I’m a bit softspoken.

Which is kind of weird for a pastor and a teacher.  Those are two jobs that require talking.  Plus, I pretty much say what I want to on this blog.  But I don’t do it in real life.

I admire men who speak their mind and don’t take “no” for an answer.  I wish I were Gregory Peck.  Look at that picture.  Go ahead, admire it.  It’s glorious.  No one had to wonder what he was thinking.  He was probably telling the photographer to quit being such a pasty-faced shirtwaisted cad when this photo was snapped.

We all have lots of chances to speak up every day.  Let’s see how soft-spoken or bold you are.  Where do you draw the line and finally speak your mind?

The kid asks you if plastic is okay.
This should be a pretty simple one.  A customer should have no problem saying “No. Paper.”  But when I bagged groceries, every customer who asked for paper felt the need to give me their life story, justifying their need for paper.

“Oh, I’m afraid I have some extra recycling, and I have a new puppy and my kids need some cheap textbook covers, and I use the bags in the garden, and my husband needs something to catch the oil drips from the car, so I will be needing paper today.”

Like anyone cares.  But you know what?  I now have a slightly hard time saying “No.  Paper.”  Because I know that minimum wage worker would rather carelessly toss my bread and canned goods together in a plastic bag instead of carefully “Tetris-ing” my items together in a paper bag.

Your food order is slightly wrong.
Either I’m a pansy, or I just don’t care.  But I’ll usually let this one slide.  I know people who send things back if their order happens to not be to their delicate liking.  I say you made that choice, and you have to live with it.  Or risk getting your food spit on.

You get cut off in traffic.
This is where I shine as a man who gives others a piece of his mind.  It’s just unfortunate no one can hear me give them a piece of my mind.  But it’s probably a good thing I don’t have any small children with me in the car.

Someone calls you by the wrong name.
Back to wuss-ville for me.  We’ve all probably been there.  Someone makes a mistake.  They call us the wrong name.  I can usually correct someone I just met.  But if I’ve known them more than 24 hours, it’s just awful to embarass someone by correcting them on my name.  That shouldn’t be.  It’s my name!  And you should remember it!

Your kid is being bullied.
This is where most parents start sharpening their claws.  Who wouldn’t want to put your child’s bully in their place?  Who wouldn’t want to go to the bully’s house and confront his parents?  I had a bully who lived a block away from me.  I was pretty pleased when my Dad went over there and gave his dad the old “one-two,” as a matter of speaking.  But it didn’t solve anything.  I still had to confront the bully myself to get rid of him.

There is a belligerant drunk man on the bus.
It is really hard to confront strangers in public.  People can do almost anything and passers-by will do nothing.  If you doubt me, watch Dateline.  They catch people watching all kinds of crazy stuff going down.  I could walk out to the town square, strip down to my underwear and steal an old woman’s purse, and no one would say “boo.”

Your pastor asks if anyone has prayer requests.
This sounds really bad coming from a guy who asks for prayer requests from people at church.  But I lock up when I’m in a less familiar group and someone asks for prayer requests.  I’m petrified when people get up and start praying over people.  I keep my eyes on my feet when people start looking for people they can pray for.  I slink under the chairs when people start laying hands on one another.  When I ask for prayer requests, it’s more of a group prayer, not a “having a stranger put his hands on me” kind of prayer time.  I can’t be the only one who has a hard time with this, can I?

Your hotel room neighbors are a bit noisy.
This is another weakness.  I went camping last year with some friends.  About 100 feet away were some drunk guys playing their truck’s radio all night.  It took us way too long to realize they were not going to shut up, and even longer to realize no one else was going to get the job done. 

Your hotel room neighbors are a bit noisy…if you know what I mean.
Maybe it’s best to just wait this one out…or try to drown them out…if you know what I mean…wink, wink.  Like…turn the TV up really loud while watching Spongebob.

Do you speak your mind, or are you a pushover?  Where do you draw the line, and where do you let it slide?