The View from the West Mesa

Congratulations on your baptism! Below are some thoughts about baptism and the Christian life that would be worth your reading and maybe even keeping in your Bible. This letter is a little long, but I just didn’t know how to make it any shorter. Your baptism marks your decision to follow our God, to yield yourself to Him, to let Him make you like Him no matter the cost. It is a milestone along your journey back to God. It is not the culmination or end of that journey, but comes near the beginning of a life-long adventure. The Christian journey is one of transformation, of being completely re-formed. We change from selfishness and fear toward other-centeredness and confident submission. Just as our God loves you, let Him change you into someone who loves others. While that idea seems easy and desirable, in practice it can be hard and frightening as you attempt to make the idea concrete in your every day life. It is eternally imperative that you see your decision to follow God as absolut...

Explanation: At last night’s meeting of the Sacrament Review Committee, I made a comment, well several I suppose, that apparently revealed myself to be a heretic and ignorant. I make that conclusion based on the number of gasps, choking noises, and the number of people leaping away from anticipated lightening bolts. My comment was that God’s story isn’t about God, but creation. This post is intended to illustrate my comments and to place them in perspective. God’s Story In one aspect it is patently obvious that God’s story is about God. After all, who else would God’s story be about? Isn’t that why we would call it God’s story? Well of course. God is the actor, He does great and mighty things, it is He who moves in history to craft and to cause what He wants. Similarly, it is clear that any biography is the story of the person whose name is on the front of the book. It is a story about what they did, a description of their life. But a person’s story, if read only to get the details of ...

Scripture, as we have received it, has a particular nature and particular purposes. It is in fact a tool given to us to eventuate in some anticipated end. Regardless of our positions on textual criticism, on whether the Canon is the canon, the actual authorship of any particular writing, or the historicity of Scripture and its record as such, Scripture demands that it be taken seriously. To that end, I offer the following observations. The nature of Scripture is what makes it much more than just another set of writings. Our belief that at least some aspect of its writing, development, and collation lies in the very person of God, requires that we consider what it says with considerably more weight than the writings of our favorite philosopher or devotional writer. If God has decided to speak to us, we need to listen. However, Scripture also has a purpose. Perhaps the most famous self-explanatory passages is 2 Timothy 3.16. Or again, Paul’s statement that the purpose of various minister...

Just got back from South Carolina....3400 miles round trip in six days - with two dedicated to family stuff and sightseeing. I feel like standing up all day! Got to drive through the Smokey Mountains, along I-40. On the way it stormed up a storm! Couldn't see past the end of the car's hood! Neat man! Neat! The Smokeys are beautiful and the fog just adds to the ambiance. Time with family is of most importance, and we got two days to visit and enjoy each other. Met one son's girlfriend and got to harrass her for a while. She's a sport so she passed. As good as the trip was, there were some issues that developed, and I'd like the states involved to fix these before my next road trip: The interstate system was made to get lots of traffic from point A to point B quickly. The idea of a maximum speed of only 70 is pointless. My cars will easily do more than a hundred, and so let's look at boosting that speed limit some. Is there really any difference between the inters...

Christians, among other things, are told to tell others about our God. Having told them, we are to train them in the way of our God. Individual Christians, through mentoring and friendship, as well as the church through its ministries of grace and teaching, contribute to the maturing and growth of disciples. Paul’s admonition that we should allow God to transform us into His likeness indicates the individual disciple’s part in becoming Christlike. Spiritual formation is an on-going, life-long pursuit and service for ourselves and others. The demand of spiritual formation affect every aspect of our lives – personal, marital, familial, vocational. If the Christian life, if our submission to God, if our transformation, is worth anything, it must include our very being. Spiritual formation then is not something else Christians do. We don’t go to church, engage in ministry, worship God, and then do some spiritual formation work. Rather, like all these others, spiritual formation is what we ...

Met Claudia today. Nice lady. Seems she is a resident at a residential care facility here. She’s been here only a week or two, the result of moving here with her daughters. They had moved here for work and asked if she wanted to move with them. She did. One of Claudia’s daughters had called the church office, wanting someone to visit her mother. I happened to be there harassing our Youth Intern as he worked on the new webpage and our office administrator gave me the message. I’m glad she did. Claudia is a talkative and relatively energetic lady. She’s in a wheel chair because apparently she tends to black out without warning. She sees the wisdom in using the chair, although I get the impression that given the chance, she’d just as soon take a relaxing stroll outside. After assuring Claudia that we’d have folks come and talk, bring her communion, and a congregational bulletin, I asked if she’d like to attend services at the church. She was concerned about not having a dress to wear. You...

On one of the listserves that I read, someone asked "Why Did You Change? Over time or was it sort of an epiphany?" I thought that was a pretty good question and so I responded with the following: In my case, epiphany is closer to the answer. But it didn't happen over night. I used to be a rather callous react-er. No more. By now, you all should know that I read and read about, and reflect on Scripture. That certainly has something to do with the change. There have also been EO classes and acceptance training. In addition, I've seen little kids, to whom I had given chocolate the day before, now dead on the street and sidewalks, having died from mortar or sniper fire. I've had grown women and men ask - plead - for help. I have seen the panic and anxiety in their eyes. And I have not been able to help in the immediate moment. I would not want to be where they were. I have seen men shot by snipers as they walk down their streets. I have learned that my value, your val...