We’re in that section of commandments now that first graders are usually safe with. Commandment 5 turns out to be the easiest commandment for them to remember (“Honor your father and mother”), and also one of the easiest to break. After 5, though, 6’s “Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty easy one to write off for a first grader. None of our kids are sitting on death row. (As is the case with most things in Christianity, things are not as simple as they seem. The whole point of those commandments, after all, is to point us to a savior without whom we’d otherwise have no chance of satisfying the law. If one of the laws was truly a write-off, you’d then have the 9 “real” commandments plus that easy one anyone can follow, with savior or no.)

Explaining number 7 to a first grader turns out to be a whole heck of a lot of fun. Number 7, for those of us who weren’t indoctrinated in the law growing up (like me, who’s learned a lot of things through trying to explain it to first graders) is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. Dangerous waters to be treading in, but you also don’t want to leave the kids completely mystified as to what this command is that we’ve just insisted that they memorize.

OK, I thought – kids understand marriage, two people, only married to each other. That’s how I’ll approach it. “Who here has thought about getting married when they grow up?” One hand, out of 20. Not going to get out it that easily. “We’re going to talk about the seventh commandment today, which is about adultery. We’ve worked very hard to figure out the best way to explain this, since kids your age generally aren’t as familiar with this command”. Connor raises his hand – “I know what the definition of adultery is!”. Instant teacher shutdown – ain’t no way this kid is going to give his definition to the class.

Needless to say, a very difficult lesson to teach. I THINK we made it through, being true to the lesson without being TOO enlightening. I still wish I could have heard the conversations in the kids’ families after church. “What did you learn about in Sunday school today?”

Our Sunday school class (19 or so 1st and second graders show up each Sunday) is examining the 10 commandments over the summer quarter. We’re up to #3 – not taking the Lord’s name in vain. The Israelites took this so seriously as to never say the Lord’s name…. today we typically count ourselves to be “in compliance” if we don’t pronounce any of a variety of curses including the term “God”.

I’m glad I have a lesson plan laid out by a curriculum publisher who’s thought through how to explain this to a group of 1st and 2nd graders, and gotten through the concept of honoring and revering the Lord’s name. Otherwise, my lesson would look something like this: “Here, if you or your parents use this particular term, either out loud or in your mind, you’ve broken the 3rd commandment. This other variation is pushing the limits. Now let’s all practice not saying “!@*!””

I’ve been a Christian for something like 8 years now. (Always interesting to hear how folks came to faith.) And not yet read all of the Bible, to my shame. There are some sections I’ve read and reread, and others I’ve just never made it to. I’ve tried the Bible in a year plans, and end up petering out somewhere in a long genealogy.

I think I’ve finally found my answer: there’s something called a chronological Bible. The readings in the Bible are reordered in the time in which they were written. So, the book of Job (wow!) comes in the middle of Genesis, ’cause Job was around pre Moses. And the genealogies in Chronicles are interleaved with the stories in which you’ve learned about the people in the genealogies. Gives you much greater respect for those long lists of names.

I’m trying to remember the furthest I’ve ever gotten in a year: I think sometime in March would be my record, in terms of consistently reading through the Bible daily. And there’s a lot more to this year. But it’s something new to try… “If at first you don’t succeed…”

Seen whilst skimming the Washington Post’s Style page in the “bite” for their bridge column –
“I’ve got to take the rest of the week off,” Unlucky Louie told me. “I’m as broke as the Ten Commandments.”

Passed a nativity set yet this Advent season? Take a look at the Real Live Preacher’s expanded Christmas narrative for a desanitized description of the Christmas narrative. The RLP is putting the story out in 8 parts, starting a few days ago and going until Christmas. Ever thought about what the Virgin Mary’s parents thought when their daughter came home pregnant??

If you like the RLP’s description of Christmas, check out Phillip Yancey’s book, The Jesus I Never Knew

I lurk on a yahoo mail group dedicated to clown ministry. I’ve felt that I’ve had this calling for years to do something with clowning, and just haven’t managed to do more than sketch out some ideas and do some research. But, that aside, a guy by the name of Bob Smith expressed an idea today that just seemed to be worth sharing and expounding upon.

He was giving his advice to a woman who was asked to teach public school kids about clowning. Given the concept of ‘separation of church and state’, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to use her Christian clowning in a public school setting, and yet she wanted to use her clowning gifts in a way that ministers to others.

Mr. Smith’s response differentiated between doing things with a CHURCH focus and doing things with a CHRISTIAN focus. He pointed out that by interacting with the kids, she’d be ministering to them, whether or not she was presenting the Christian gospel message directly. Spending time with the kids, treating them as folks with value, praying for them, and using the gifts God gave her to spread smiles, whether or not God is an explicitly mentioned player in the clown troupe, ministers to and potentially through the kids as they clown to others.

When we work to explicitly spread the Word, by quoting scripture or giving out Bibles, then we’re working with something of a church focus. Our aim is to show folks the truth about the Gospel so that they may accept it and join the body of believers, who are the church. When we work to show the Word’s effect in our lives, and use that effect to minister to others, then we’re working with a Christian focus. God may or may not use that particular instance of ministering to bring someone into His kingdom, but we are still showing some tiny sliver of the impact that the Gospel makes in our lives.

As we look at our lives, and how we use the gifts we are given to minister to others, we should be careful to not focus solely on a CHURCHianity focus to our efforts. New folks whose posteriors are plopped into pews are wonderful to see on Sunday mornings, but they’re not the sole evidence of the impact we’re called to make. We are called to spread the Word, ’tis true, and more explicitly to be able to give an answer for the hope that is within us. But the pop quizzes are few, and the practicums are many.

I think I was on the impacted end of an answer to a prayer that I didn’t make. You see, I’m about five and a half weeks away from our due date for our little girl. And in two weeks, I was supposed to be in a training class three hours away for a week. I knew it was horrible timing, pregnancy-wise, but figured that odds were good that I wouldn’t deliver while I was out there, and decided that even if I did deliver out there, I didn’t have any reason to worry about the birth itself. It would be quite inconvenient, but I didn’t see it as putting our baby or me at risk. Babies are born in hospitals all over the country every day. No reason to think that a doctor at a hospital in town X couldn’t do just as well at delivering a baby as a doctor in town Y.

This afternoon, I got an email saying that my class had been cancelled. That’s unfortunate, as this was really the only class session that I could even have attempted to attend, and the material is stuff I need to know in the very near future. Other sessions were either even later, or would have required me to fly. Airlines and doctors usually don’t like that whole flying thing in the last trimester. So, I went to tell my husband that the class had been cancelled and I wouldn’t be going away for a week after all. He smiled and said something to the effect of “Remember I told you I had been praying for a while last night??”. Well, he never said that he had been praying that the class had been cancelled; I think it more likely that he was praying that God would handle the situation and keep the baby and me safe. But, whatever he specifically prayed for, the answer to that prayer is that the class is cancelled and I will be safely here.

So now I’m thinking, …., if the way to keep our baby safe was to keep me local that week, guess we ought to get the nursery done in a hurry!

Occasionally, I look over my list of recent entries, and the categories to which they’re assigned. Basically, that gives me an idea of what I’ve been thinking/writing about of late, and usually highlights for me any imbalances on where I’m spending my cranial cycles. Looking down over the list, you’d get the impression that my ‘Christianity’ category thinking has been sorely lacking. Truth is, the thinking’s been there, just not the writing.

I’ve been reading a book called “Lifestyle Evangelism” that I checked out of our church’s resource center. Its basic premise is that the idea of evangelism being a spiel you give some stranger about the importance of Christ in their life is completely wrong. Not only is it the wrong approach, in terms of effectiveness (I’m not a big fan of folks cold-calling me for relatively minor decisions like swapping my mortgage – big life decisions like where to put your faith and trust just don’t belong in a cold-call kind of setting), it’s not really the truest form of evangelism. Dr. Aldrich’s position is that evangelism is really an outpouring of our lives as they reflect Christ’s impact on us. Our evangelistic outreach really comes as we reach to folks in their ordinary, world-weary situations, and come to know them and their concerns, and then are able to come alongside of them to show how Christ can impact them, in their day-to-day travails.

In other words, we’re to live with, interact with, and minister to folks in their specific situations – whether that be a homeless person seeking their next meal, or the guy who seems to have it all in the corner office. There’s not a blanket answer or cold-call patter. The cold-call patter approach is actually directly against the vein of “Love one another” – there’s little love for an individual expressed in a rehearsed script repeated ad infinitum to spiritual “targets”.

Examining our first case, our theoretical homeless person has physical needs that Christ has promised to meet; in the second case, our theoretical executive may have a need for meaning in their life, or a sense of peace and balance, or a need for a loving marriage, or… To help our theoretical executive, the answer isn’t as simple as going down to the soup kitchen to make a hot meal. His or her kinds of needs are typically hidden away, seen only by folks who’ve taken the time to form a relationship.

The book’s been very interesting, in showing the qualities necessary in a believer for lifestyle evangelism, and the qualities necessary in a church that’s interested in developing lifestyle evangelistic believers. Both encouraging and challenging, especially as I poke at it for myself personally, and try to figure out how it would apply to, say, kids – both my own and the kids I come into contact with via Sunday school or via Pioneer Girls.

Anyway, culling my thoughts here seems to clarify them a bit for me, although may cause me to muddle them for everyone else… if you have any comments or want to discuss this stuff, bounce me an email or drop something in the comments for this entry.

“Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.” – Teresa of Avila

From a site called Pew-Fellows, which I ran across via Nu Cardboard. Nu Cardboard connected me to Pew-Fellows via a discussion on when it’s too late to repent. Pew-Fellows caught me as soon as I started reading the various question and answers – they’re generally well-considered and gentle. No flaming, no vehement arguments (that I’ve seen so far, anyway). Interesting articles all written by young Christians (young in age, though not necessarily in their time in faith) who are younger than 21. Check out Ben’s article on the trouble with perfection for an example.

The quote from above just catches me today in the right vein – had to capture it here to remind me again and again. A great application of 1 Cor 12:27

Just in the mood to share. . .