What Would They Say?

Wednesday, I was sitting on the platform of St. Andrews Baptist Church, leading my fourteenth funeral of the year.  As I sat in my chair behind the pulpit, I witnessed something truly touching and, for me, soul-searching.

We had come to the part of the service designated in the program as a "Family Tribute."  I sat and listened as, one at a time, each of the deceased man's three sons came to the pulpit and shared grateful memories of their dad.  Each one saw his dad in a unique way, but they were in perfect unison in their admiration of their father's character, awareness of how much he had shaped their lives for good, and appreciation for how blessed they were to be raised by such a remarkable Christian man.

As I sat and listened to the thankful remembrances of these three sons, questions began to flood my mind.  "What if this were my funeral and my own three children had risen to speak?  What would they say?  What would they remember of the life we've shared?  Has my example led them toward the fullness of life or away from it?  Would they see their dad as a success in the things that matter most, or a failure?  Would they be able to say honestly, 'I'm glad you were my dad?'"  

Father's Day was two months ago, so I know I'm not writing this to lobby for a bigger gift.  The gift I received during that funeral service was a greater awareness of how the reality of death awakens us to the realities of life.

What would those close to you say at your funeral?  You may not want to think about it, but it's not a bad way to take inventory of your life.

Your Verse in the Song

Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.   

                                                                                   Psalm 98:1

Imagine that I asked you to write a new verse to a great hymn of faith like Amazing Grace or How Great Thou Art.  This is exactly what the scriptures call us to do—to add a new verse to the old old song of God’s saving love.  

Along with singing the old verses that tell what God has done in ages past, you and I are to sing our new verse, telling those around us what God is doing in our lives and our world today.  It’s not enough for us to talk about what the Apostle Paul said, or great scholars have said, or our parents have said, or even what our church has said.  We must sing a new song, sharing with others that God is alive and at work in us. 

What is your verse of the song?  Can you put it in words?  It may be your most effective witness you can share with those who need to know Christ.

Are We Poisoning Our Children?

This is one of my favorite family stories that got me thinking about one of the great issues of parenting.  I hope you enjoy.  This story is included in my book, The Stories of My Life. 

Are We Poisoning Our Children?

As I pulled into the driveway of the Vaughan house, all seemed to be well. I was home for lunch as was looking forward to some time with my family.  I entered the house and said hello to Linda, then asked my usual question, "How was your morning?"  She got right to the point. 

          "I just got off the phone." 

          "Really, who did you call?" 

          "Poison Control."  

          At this point I stopped looking at Linda and started looking for Joshua. "Is he all right?" I asked urgently.  "What did he take?"  

          "Your son," she answered (he is always my son when he does things like this) “ate a raw pork chop.  I called Poison Control to see if he was in danger.  Dee, they don't have a category for poisoning by raw pork chop, that is, until today. Your son has made history."  

          The anxiety of that moment along with the thought of raw pork in Joshua's stomach took away our appetites.  But we were truly thankful that he was all right because we knew that poisoning can take away much more. 

          Our experience with the raw pork chop is funny, but anything which threatens to poison our children is no laughing matter.  I remember the families of Love Canal who realized too late that contaminated soil and water were poisoning themselves and their children.  Many became ill.  Some died.  We can only imagine their heartache.

          I know that you care for your children.  I care for children too, yours and mine.  That is why I need to tell you some disturbing news.  Many of our children are being poisoned.  What makes this news even more alarming is that they are being poisoned by us.  Many of us, without even knowing it, are poisoning our children.  Our unhealed pain poisons them. 

          Parents who suffer from addiction to drugs or alcohol poison the future for their children.  Children of alcoholics often spend their lives in emotional numbness, afraid to relate to others, distrustful of their own reactions, living by the lie that if they had been good enough mom or dad would not drink.  They often become perfectionists who never see themselves as quite good enough for anyone to love. 

Parents who have suffered physical or emotional abuse and never come to terms with their problem pass this poison on to their children.  If their parents whipped them with words and told them that they were useless, then they will, in turn, whip their children.  If they saw that their parents dealt with frustration by beating the kids, then they often do the same.  Parents who were sexually abused often see themselves as dirty and vile and treat their children like tramps.  The abuse of the past, if not owned and overcome, often poisons the future for the children.  They do suffer, to the third and fourth generation.

Some of us grew up hard and poor.  We came to believe that life was found in the possessions we did not have.  So we committed our lives to gaining things in hopes of finding happiness.  Our endless battle with materialism can, if we do not end it, poison the lives of our children.  We try to give them the happiness we never had by giving them the clothes, the home, the car, the money which we never had.  And in the process of trying to make peace with the poverty of the past, we make irresponsible, irreverent, monsters of our children. 

Some of us feel a sense of guilt over a lack of achievement.  We were not the star athlete, the star pupil or the beauty queen, so we felt that we were nobody.  If we bring those feelings into our relationship with our children, then we will make them slaves to our unfulfilled dreams.  We set standards which are so high that they cannot achieve them--nothing but A's, nothing but championships, nothing but the best from you will do.  And when we poison our children with our need to achieve through them, they grow up believing that they will never be good enough for anyone to love them. 

          Apathy is a spiritual poison, the poison of just not caring about spiritual things.  Some of us who are parents are not faithful to God and his work through the church.  Some are unfaithful because they were beaten by guilt and condemnation in church as a child.  Others may have felt embarrassed or rejected by the church.  Others feel guilty because they know that their lives do not live up to the call of Christ.  But whatever the reason, whatever unresolved pain we carry from the past, it will poison our children.  They will look at us and come to believe that God and his kingdom simply do not matter.  They will pass through this church and never make a saving commitment to Jesus Christ.  If we, as parents, fail to answer the call to discipleship, then we poison our children and hinder them from answering the call to salvation. 

          This is troubling news, almost too hard to bear.  What can we do?  When your child takes some pills or even eats a raw pork chop, you call poison control for help.  What can we do when we know that our children are being poisoned by our pasts? 

          I believe that God wants to do an awesome work in you and me.  He wants to get the poison of the past out of your heart.  I believe that he wants to get it out of your home.  I believe that he wants to get it out of your child's future.

          How will he do it?  I cannot answer that for you.  If you are not a Christian, he wants to begin by entering your life through your faith in him. If you are marginal in your relationship to the church, he wants you to find the healing of faith and fellowship which the church can offer.  You may need the help of a counselor or a support group.  But all of these steps in the right direction begin with a commitment: 

          With God as my Savior, the sin of my past stops here.

          With God as my healer, the pain of my past stops here.

          By the power of the forgiving God, the guilt of my past stops here. 

          By the grace of God, I will break the cycle of sin and pain and punishment.

          With God as my helper, I will never again poison my child.  

Write Living Letters

2 Corinthians 3:1-4

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.

My dear friend, Harriet, and I, working in two different places, were each trying to get things organized. 

Harriet had set aside the day to tackle the job of cleaning up and cleaning out a small building that sat behind her home.  This wasn’t a storage building or a workshop, as most of us think about a workshop.  This small building was the place where her now deceased husband would go to study the scriptures and write his sermons.  Doug was truly a masterful preacher.  A tall strikingly handsome man, his voice had a unique melody that few could trace to his Canadian roots.  Week after week for thirty years, he had filled the pulpit of the church I had come to serve.  Doug was a great pastor to follow.  He was my friend.  He was my encourager.  He was my helper every time I asked.  When I didn’t ask for help, he never once intruded.  He, like our own Fred Miller, could’ve written the book on how to support your successor. 

Now Doug was gone and the time had come for Harriet, his wife, to sort through the things in his backyard study.  She looked at the rows of books shelved along the walls.  She thumbed through stacks of notes on the desk, sermons in progress, ideas for future messages, verses and quotations that struck a tone in Doug’s heart.  As Harriet took inventory of all that surrounded her and all that it meant, she noticed a cardboard packing box pushed back under the desk.  What could this be?  What would she do with what she discovered? 

When Harriet opened that hidden away box, she found it stuffed full of awards and recognitions, the kind of things you might find displayed in an office or a living room.  She pulled them out, one by one, and read and remembered each one. 

·        Here was a plaque given to Doug to thank him for serving as the President of the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1988-89. 

·        Crammed in next to it was an award from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary congratulating Doug on being chosen their Alumnus of the Year.  

·        The Medical University of South Carolina had given him a framed certificate for serving on their Board of Visitors. 

·        Baptist College at Charleston, as it was then known, offered him a gift of gratitude for serving as a trustee, and as the chair of the trustees during days of challenging change. 

·        Anderson College, too, gave him a thank-you gift for serving as trustee. 

·        In the box were two honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees, one from Charleston Southern University and the other from Furman University. 

This box was stuffed with plaques and certificates, engraved gifts and awards, the kind of recognition that marks a great career and celebrates a life invested in the church and community.  Then why, you might wonder, were all these symbols of accomplishment packed into a box and pushed back under the desk in Doug’s backyard sermon factory? 

To answer that question, you need to remember that Harriet was not the only one working to get things organized.  A few miles away, I sat in my study at the church, reading through a sweet and sacred stack of stories.  A few weeks after Doug’s death, I had invited people in the church and community to send me stories about Dr. Baker; their fondest memories of his life and their personal testimonies of the scope and depth of his ministry.  I had the idea that we would take a few excerpts from these written tributes and publish a special edition of the church’s newsletter to share the stories.  I frankly wasn’t prepared for the response I received.  Well over one hundred people responded to my request, some writing a sentence or two and others writing pages of heartfelt gratitude for Doug and his ministry.  This overwhelming response promoted me from the writer of a newsletter story to the editor of a book. 

Picture this: a box full of the symbols of success and accomplishment were hidden away in Doug’s backyard study while my desk was covered with grateful memories from more than a hundred people.  What does that say about my friend’s life?  And what does it teach us about how to live? 

Spend Your Life Writing Living Letters

In Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, he told them and us the goal of his life.  He didn’t want or need the praise or approval of those in positions of influence or power.  He wasn’t seeking any kind of credential for his position in the church or any evidence of the value of his ministry except for one; the difference he was making in the lives of people.  His mission was to make a mark of truth and love and grace on the hearts of those he served.  And, in return, the changed lives of the people Paul served made a mark upon his heart, giving him the assurance that his life’s work mattered to God and to others. 

The awards Paul cherished were lives changed by his ministry.  The people he touched and changed in the name of Jesus were the living letters that gave joy and meaning to his work. 

Today, we have honored two of the wonderful people with whom you and I have the joy of serving.  We gave Fred and Sharon new titles today.  When I say that, I almost imagine them kneeling before the Queen of England, being touched on the shoulders with a sword, and being told to rise as Sir Fred and Lady Sharon. 

But that’s not what we’ve done at all.  What we’ve said, in this small way, is that you have written the words of life and love upon our hearts.  We, and many others in many other places, are your living letters.  And we hope that knowing that will do for you what it did for Paul—give you the sense of fulfillment and joy that comes from investing in the lives of people, in knowing you have made a beautiful faithful enduring mark on each of us. 

To be a minister, I’ve learned, is to have a front row seat from which to witness the many scenes of the drama of life.  I’ve held babies on their first day in this world and held them up thank God for a new miracle.  I’ve sat with children as they “talked to the preacher” about giving their lives to Jesus.  I’ve shaken hands with hundreds of graduates to congratulate them on their accomplishments and express the church’s blessing as they move forward into adult life.  I’ve stood with couples as they pledged their love to one another for a lifetime.  I’ve sat with families in principal’s offices, courtrooms, and hospitals in moments of crisis.  And, more times than I can count, I’ve stood by the bed of a saint as they finished their earthly race and have gone home. 

As I’ve witnessed the final hours of life, I’ve seen what truly matters to those who know they will soon go home. 

·        I’ve never heard someone ask to see their college transcript or their university diploma. 

·        No one has cried out to hold a trophy one more time. 

·        Not a person has spent life’s final hours admiring an investment portfolio. 

·        I can’t remember anyone asking to be rolled to the window so they can look out and see their favorite car with the boat on a trailer behind it.  

·        Never has a dying person asked me to comfort them by reading their resume.

What do they want?  What do they need?  What do they now see so clearly as the crowning achievement, the enduring impact of their lives? 

Surround me, they say, with the people I have loved; the people who have loved me. 

As my mentor Doug and the Apostle Paul and Fred and Sharon can teach us today,

The words of praise that truly endure and inspire are engraved upon human hearts. 

May we learn that lesson and live it.  May we spend our lives writing living letters. 

Giving Thanks for My Home Church

Giving Thanks for My Home Church

 Home church. 

That’s where I traveled this past weekend.  When you read those words, I bet you made a mental journey to somewhere special, too.  What is it that makes that church where you grew up, or where you first came to know Christ, such a happy holy place to return to in person or in memory? Let me tell you a few of the reasons why my home church is so precious to me. 

My home church, the East Park Baptist Church, is the only church my family attended together.  That white stucco building on the little side street of Ebaugh Avenue is the place where my father and mother, sister, brother and I shared the same Sundays, enjoyed or endured the same sermons, were touched by the same solo, and laughed at the same funny things that inevitably happen when a group of people work hard to be reverent.  Sometimes all five of us were involved in the same church event; a Lenten drama, a Christmas musical, a mission project.  When I moved my church membership to the first place I served on staff, the five of us were never at the same church again.  But we did, in our home church, create a treasury of memories we enjoy to this day. 

My home church is where I learned, through flesh and blood examples, what loving Jesus and living for Jesus means. I think of A.G. Vaughn, who wasn’t related to us (he spelled his last name with only one “a”), but who sat with me on the ride side front pew every Sunday for months so my parents could sing in the choir.   I remember the sisters, Sarah and Annie Beth, who never had children of their own, but taught three generations of our family in Sunday School.  I think of Lowell Sweat whose willingness to invest in the lives of rowdy boys to shape them into Christian young men led him to work with us in Bible study, Training Union, and Royal Ambassadors at the same time.  Jack Fulmer, our bivocational music minister, never had a part-time devotion to his ministry and taught me more music theory than I learned in any private lesson or band or orchestra in which I played.  Among the great pastors who served that church while I was there, I best remember Harry Floyd who called me down for running in the church building, counseled me when I professed my faith, baptized me as a believer, prayed for me in the hospital, served on my ordination council, and gave me part of his pastoral library when I was called to my first church.  Even today, my first pastoral reflex is to do what Harry Floyd did. 

Perhaps the greatest gift my home church has given me is encouragement.  East Park believed that young people could become Christian leaders.  On youth Sunday, practically every lesson was taught by a youth.  Every leadership role in worship was filled by a student who had been coached by a member of the staff.  Before I left my home church, I had led prayer in worship, taken up the offering, led congregational singing, shared a solo, and made my first clumsy attempts at preaching.  I wasn’t Billy Graham, but they couldn’t have praised my efforts any more if I had been.  My home church invited me to explore, discover and develop my ministry gifts.  What wonderful Christian people!

Due to some overwhelming building needs, my home church will close the doors of its present location at the end of June to merge with another Baptist church.  The work will go on and so will the influence of that holy place and those loving people upon my life and the lives of countless others.  I'm so thankful to call East Park my home church.  

By His Authority, You Are Free

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman sent to the German concentration camp of Ravensbruck because her family harbored Jews in a secret room of their home which they called The Hiding Place. There, in that concentration camp where more than ninety-six thousand women lost their lives, Corrie lived for more than a year, suffering unspeakable abuse at the hands of her oppressors.  Her greatest pain, the death of beloved sister, Betsie. One morning, soon after Betsie’s death, Corrie stood outside in the freezing cold for yet another roll call. Her Nazi captors were very careful to make sure that no one had escaped that place of death during the night.  As she stood in the ranks of the condemned, a voice rang out over the loudspeaker, Ten Boom, Cornelia!  She had been known as a number for so long that she almost didn’t recognize her name. After a moment of shock, she stepped forward.  The guard ordered her to follow. As she walked behind the guard, she wondered why she was being singled out. She wondered if someone had reported the Bible she had smuggled into the camp. When she arrived in the administration barracks, she lined up behind several other women in front of an officer behind a large desk.  As she waited, she saw the officer stamp a piece of paper and hand it to the prisoner saying, Entlassen!  Released.  Corrie could hardly believe her ears. But when her time came to stand before the officer, he again filled out papers, stamped it with the seal of his authority and said, Entlassen!  You are released. 

Release was not easy.  Corrie had to spend several days in the camp infirmary to heal wounds she had received.  Outside the camp food was scarce and transportation was difficult.  But, in the end, clinging to that paper sealed by the authority of the one who could release her from her prison, she made it home--alive and free. 

Why was Corrie ten Boom released?  She later learned that a clerical error put her on the list of those to be set free, only a week before every woman her age at Ravensbruck was put to death.  But in another sense, she was set free because she heard someone call her name, she stepped out and followed, and believed the authority of the one who declared her Entlassen, released.  

Today, you may find yourself in the death camp of sin and separation from God.  You may be imprisoned by the lie that your sins are too terrible for God to forgive, chained to a life sentence of paying off your guilt, or haunted by the question of whether God really loves you. 

Listen. 

Someone is calling your name. 

He wants you to step out of the ranks of the dying, the condemned, and follow Him. 

He wants you to follow in faith to the foot of a cross where He, by the authority God has given Him, wants to make a mark upon your life, to place His seal upon your heart, to declare---It is finished. 

Release, though real, will not be easy.  Some wounds must heal.   Some days you will hunger.  Sometimes you will not know how you will go a step further.  But the promise of Jesus Christ, the One who died that you might live, is this: in the end, clinging to the seal of His saving love upon your life, you will make it home--forever alive, forever free.  

God Does His Greatest Work in Frightening Costly Places

Ken was one of my closest high school friends.  We played ball together, played brass music together and generally enjoyed life’s journey together.  Ken grew up in the Salvation Army Church.  Soon after high school graduation, Ken entered training to become a Salvation Army Officer, a minister in that church.  He served for about fifteen years before a sudden illness struck him and ended his life at a young age.  When I spoke to Ken’s family, I learned what he had been doing with his life.  Ken served in the inner city, where gangs ruled the streets, drugs were rampant, and many young men were gunned down or went to prison before having a chance to live their lives.  Ken made it his ministry to save some of these young men.  He knocked on doors, went to meetings and asked people of means in that city to give money to get young men in decent schools and give them a chance to succeed.  Ken marched into the offices of Ross Perot, boldly asked for support and got it. 

          When Ken died, most of his pall bearers were young men he had rescued from the streets.  Two of them were playing in the NFL; one, Kenyon Martin, in the NBA.  Martin told Ken’s family, “I feel as though I’ve lost my own father.” Margot Perot, Ross’s wife, attended the service to honor this very stubborn beggar.  Ken spent his brief but beautiful life doing what Jesus did-- in his Jerusalem.  The journey was frightening.  The work was costly.  But there, my friend saw God do amazing things.

Jesus is still leading His people to Jerusalem, the places where service is frightening and costly, but where God does His greatest work.