Here is another article I wrote for Chill Magazine...It's called Extreme Good for Nothing...

Have you ever seen the TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition? This reality saga has become one of my favorite all time TV shows. Typically I cannot stand reality TV. I admit, I may be one of the only souls on earth who has not watched American Idol...sorry...but Extreme Makeover Home Edition is different. Every week the Disney network chooses a family to be on the show. These families each come from a variety of backgrounds, life experiences, and situations but they do have one thing in common...extreme hardship. These families have often had to deal with a myriad of troubles that tend to be rather grave. These range from sickness, a death to a loved one, or handicapped loved ones requiring special care. Life for these folks has become extraordinarily difficult. As a result of the various difficulties, the chosen families are living under severe financial hardships that have often crippled the home.

Once a family has been chosen, the show begins with a description of the hardship that the family has come under. Then, it is on! A herd of folks gather early in the morning in the family’s front lawn. Ty Pennington (the show’s host) gets out of a massive trailer that just pulled up and starts yelling through his now trademark megaphone, “Good Morning ____family...” Now that’s a wake up call!

As the family piles out of the house to see what the racket is, they realize pretty quickly what is happening. The series of emotions, complete utter shock, relief, and then humility shows on their faces. This is so incredibly heartwarming to watch. After Pennington explains to them that they have been chosen for a home makeover (and tissues are handed out to each) the family is sent on a fantastic vacation, like Disney World for a week, or some other destination that they would never be able to afford.
While they are away, it’s go time on the home front!

Now here’s what so cool. Tearing down a house and rebuilding one takes a lot of time, a lot of people, and a lot of money. Local crews each week volunteer all the manpower and materials. Then these people will work twenty four hours a day for the next seven days! Remember, this is 100% volunteer labor.

The show builds (yes I like cheesy puns) to a climatic point that is “the great reveal” in reality TV. The family certainly knows that they are about to receive a fantastic gift upon their return from the vacation. What must that be like? Remember being a seven year old on Christmas eve, unable to fall asleep the night before in expectation of the next morning? Knowing you’re receiving a new home would be like Christmas morning n steroids. What is it going to look like? What am I going to say? This is the moment when I prefer to be watching this show alone. It is really kind of an ego thing as I tear up every time. I can’t help it. Can you imagine receiving a gift so huge? A life giving, desperately needed, gift. A gift that has expiration date. A gift that, let’s face it, cannot be compared to any other gift ever given or received.

The family is set behind a huge bus so that they cannot see the house. The hosts says a few words and then he, the family, the crew, and all the onlookers shout “Hey bus driver! MOVE THAT BUS!” And then it happens. They see the gift. They cry. The crew cries. The host cries. My wife giggles as I cry. How can I not? Watching someone receive such a fantastic gift is awesome!

But here’s the real deal...

This gift I’m referring to...it’s not the house. I know I know, the house is the gift but truly the gift that the families receive is the gift of free unconditional love. They have received a good, or house, for nothing. These families feel so overwhelmed with free love that all they are capable of doing is simply crying. The house is great no doubt, no one would argue that! However, houses and material items cannot effect the heart and the soul for the long term. Only love given with nothing expected in return is capable of that. It is the kind of love that costs nothing that is felt and it is this very love that brings about tears of joy...theirs as well as mine and others who witness the power of this love.

Which brings me to my point...

We should all do this. No, I don’t mean buy houses for each other! I had a great friend who was fond of saying that when he was growing up, he was often told that he was good for nothing. Just a no good kid. A nobody. And so what happened? He grew up and believed that to be his truth. He became good for nothing. He ran the streets. He broke laws. He went to prison. He was truly good for nothing.

Years later he learned a secret that helped him turn his life around. He started to go throughout his day doing good...for nothing. He would simply do good things for people and expected nothing in return. That’s when the miracle happened. When he started to do good for nothing, he found out that he no longer felt good for nothing.

Let’s try this. Go about your day. BUT, when the time comes, and it will if you look for it, do someone some...good for nothing. I’ll bet that at the end of the day, if we all do just one good thing for nothing every day, there’s a chance that many will go home no longer feeling that they are...good for nothing.

Now this is interesting. I saw this morning that the Pope has made an update to the list of the deadly sins. He decided that Catholic church should have a more modern spin on the age old sins. What was added was the sin of pollution, the sin of using drugs, and the sin of genetic experiments. To best understand what the Pope has done here, I think it is important to go back to the first list of sins that were revealed to us (the church) by Moses.
When the Israelites were making their trek from Egypt to the promised land, God revealed the 10 Commandments to Moses. These "do's and don'ts" were to be the first set of rules if you will. What is interesting in all this to me is that these "rules" were not made out to keep individuals in line per se. The whole point of these rules was to keep the new community of God or church in order and safe. Let's face it, not killing each other and running off with each other's spouses is probably a good thing when it comes to cohesion in a group setting!
Fast forward to today. It sure seems like we as the community of Jesus followers have taken this idea of sin and "rules" and made them personal guidelines for living. We have a personal relationship with Jesus and our personal walk with the Lord. Everything at some point in time has turned very personal away from communal when it comes to how we relate to God. Why is this? I think much of it has to do with the individualistic nature of people who live in the US for one. We don't like being told what and what not to do, especially from the church. Life is easier when we simply narrow down the relationship between the Holy God and ourselves to a personal relationship instead of a corporate one.
Maybe this is what the Pope is trying to slowly bring back into our conscienceness. The sins he listed, pollution to the environment, drug usage, and gene experimentation all effect the community as a whole. Lets focus on the environment. We all live here, so to take pollution in all it's forms and make it a sin brings about a communal sense to the equation. For me to harm something that you breathe, live in, and utilize is sinful, whether or not I believe this set of scientists, that set, liberal or conservative. Drug usage is effecting the entire community. We cannot turn our backs on people who simply choose to to recreationally use as they certainly DO effect us all. I don't have to be a rocket scienctest to connect these dots do I? Genetic experiments are also very communal in their very nature of effecting individuals who become part of the whole.
While this is all very controversial in parts, does it not make sense as a whole? I think that the most important lesson to take from here is not the new list of sins. I think the most important lesson to take is that sin is communal. My personal relationship with Jesus is irrelevant when it comes to the community relationship. When taking this attitude, all of sudden much of the Bible and God;s actions in and throughout history begin to be read more clearly. Now when I see God acting in a way that seems mean or spiteful (like hitting the smite button) I can see where He is acting for the good of the whole. Yes, we as individual should are loved and important, but the community of souls, His church, is far greater than I ever will be.

Hey Gang,

Sitting here being stupid before I head off to Juarez with the fella's. On the name thin we discussed I still vote for Jesus Cheese. Don't bother to ask me why...my mind just is weird and Jesus Cheese is one of the funniest freaking things I have thought of in a while, at least in my mind.

Jenny and I were goofing around on one of my favorite websites, www.larknews.com and found some other fun sayings we could have for the group:

You suck: That's why you need Jesus or Jesus Loves You...of course Jesus loves everybody.

When it comes to the name, I vote for anything that doesn't sound ANYTHING like a Sunday school group, life group, small group, or anything like that...

Mark suggested I throw up some of the articles I am writing for Chill...being that Chill is not a Christian magazine, the challenge or art of writing these is to disguise Scripture in it. Feel like Bono writing for U2! Anyway here is the first one...

My legs were so sore and tired. They felt as if they each had a small upright piano tied
to my ankle. The aching in my feet had spread to the rest of my body as sharp pangs
would run through me like electric shock with each footfall. I was deliriously thirsty but
was afraid to drink anything as that tinfoil taste in the back of my mouth which always
precipitates vomiting was ever present. Am I nuts? Why would anyone in their right
mind put their bodies through this? You want to know the real crazy part? I could have
ended the voluntary torture at any minute. But I don’t. Not yet. Not right now.
The marathon is one of the world’s oldest and most storied contests. Every year,
people from all walks of life voluntarily line up on a starting line to challenge themselves,
their bodies, and their minds to one of life’s most grueling treks. I want you to take
moment and consider how long 26.2 miles is. Take your mind’s eye to Memorial Park.
Start running on the track. Once you have completed a lap head towards I-10 and don’t
stop until you have reached Katy Mills Mall. That’s a marathon.

What drives people to do this? People have many reasons for participating. Some run
to lose weight. Others to honor friends battling cancer (often wearing a shirt that reads
“if you think 26.2 is tough try chemo”) I had the honor of running the New York City
marathon just after 9/11. To see the streets lined with signs and people running for
friends and family lost kept me and most runners in tears for the entire race.
Though there are a myriad of reasons to run a marathon, all runners will tell you that
there exists one single element that helps us all to finish the race. I have run races on
the east coast and the west coast and many in between. Each one of them had this
one common denominator. Encouragement.

It is estimated that over 200,000 people lined the Houston streets to watch the runners.
In New York, over 2 million showed up. People I have never met will took time from their
life to cheer me on, encouraging me to keep going when I truly did not want to. If you
have never experienced this, let me share with you what you hear as a runner:
You look great! Keep Going! You can do this! You’re awesome!
and then ten more You look greats!

Encouragement makes a difference. This is no mystery.

The question that all of this brings me to is this? What if we went out of our way every
day to shout encouragement to people we come in contact with throughout our regular
day?
What if we told the bank teller we liked her necklace?
What if we told the Starbucks barista we thought his drinks were always the best?
What if we told our neighbor his yard looked fantastic?
Hmmm. Makes me wonder if simple kindness and encouragement flagrantly tossed
around Houston could help all of us finish the daily race in life.

Hey Gang,

I hope all is well with everyone. Has anyone finished reading Romans? What are your thoughts? Anything stand out?

If you have not finished, I would encourage you to do so this week. We read up through chapter 8 for the last class. Take a real strong look at chapters 9-11. Paul has an extremely important lesson for us in this mini sermon of 9-11 on the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. I have spent literally hundreds of hours on these three and amazingly come up with differing answers as to what Paul is saying.

Question: What does Paul say happen to Jews in chapter 11 (focus on verses 25-17)?

Finally, take a close read of chapter 14 and 15. This is truly some beautiful thoughts on how we as the church (or the body of Christ) are to get along. How often have we seen churches and church people fight like cats and dogs over silly little things that happen on Sunday or whatever? A lot!!!!! Paul is addressing this in 14 and 15. To put Paul's languag in the common vernacular I think he would simply say CHILL OUT PEOPLE.

What Paul says and does so well is that he freely expresses himself as a Christ follower without making other people feel uncomfortable. I need to heed this one! I love what he says in 14! Let people worship and be who they are. They do not need to be changed! If someone desires to wear a three piece suit, only read the King James, and attend every Republican function on God;s green earth then by all means respect that! If someone wants to wear shorts and a tank top on Sunday, listen to only secular music, get tatted up, and march in every peace rally in the nation ten let him!

Take a second and read chapter 14 again. Go on DO IT!!!!! Do it now you lazy beast!

Question: What kind of Christian do you judge the most harshly? Be honest. The blog is the great nest of cyberspace. You are safe in here!

Post your comments. I look forward to reading them and seeing you Sunday. We will discuss the church itself (what Paul sets up) and the Holy Spirit. Tongue talking optional.

This article in the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition sheds some light on church politics of the past. Remember, much of what we have today is from the writings of Paul as far as church leadership is concerned...take a read.

Banned From Church
Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and shunning those who won't repent.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
January 18, 2008; Page W1
On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. "And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P."


Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly 50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff's officer. One held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs. (Listen to the 911 call)

The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey's real offense, in her pastor's view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had questioned his authority, he'd charged her with spreading "a spirit of cancer and discord" and expelled her from the congregation. "I've been shunned," she says.

Her story reflects a growing movement among some conservative Protestant pastors to bring back church discipline, an ancient practice in which suspected sinners are privately confronted and then publicly castigated and excommunicated if they refuse to repent. While many Christians find such practices outdated, pastors in large and small churches across the country are expelling members for offenses ranging from adultery and theft to gossiping, skipping service and criticizing church leaders.


Dave Krieger/Getty Images
PODCASTS

• Hear an interview with Doug Laycock, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan, about the legal implications of church discipline.
• Hear the 911 call made by Pastor Burrick.
* * *

CAST OFF

• Timeline: View a brief history of shunning and excommunication.
The revival is part of a broader movement to restore churches to their traditional role as moral enforcers, Christian leaders say. Some say that contemporary churches have grown soft on sinners, citing the rise of suburban megachurches where pastors preach self-affirming messages rather than focusing on sin and redemption. Others point to a passage in the gospel of Matthew that says unrepentant sinners must be shunned.

Causing Disharmony

Watermark Community Church, a nondenominational church in Dallas that draws 4,000 people to services, requires members to sign a form stating they will submit to the "care and correction" of church elders. Last week, the pastor of a 6,000-member megachurch in Nashville, Tenn., threatened to expel 74 members for gossiping and causing disharmony unless they repented. The congregants had sued the pastor for access to the church's financial records.

First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Ala., a 1,000-member congregation, expels five to seven members a year for "blatant, undeniable patterns of willful sin," which have included adultery, drunkenness and refusal to honor church elders. About 400 people have left the church over the years for what they view as an overly harsh persecution of sinners, Pastor Jeff Noblit says.

The process can be messy, says Al Jackson, pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala., which began disciplining members in the 1990s. Once, when the congregation voted out an adulterer who refused to repent, an older woman was confused and thought the church had voted to send the man to hell.


Karolyn Caskey was expelled from Allen Baptist Church after clashing with the pastor.
Amy Hitt, 43, a mortgage officer in Amissville, Va., was voted out of her Baptist congregation in 2004 for gossiping about her pastor's plans to buy a bigger house. Her ouster was especially hard on her twin sons, now 12 years old, who had made friends in the church, she says. "Some people have looked past it, but then there are others who haven't," says Ms. Hitt, who believes the episode cost her a seat on the school board last year; she lost by 42 votes.

Scholars estimate that 10% to 15% of Protestant evangelical churches practice church discipline -- about 14,000 to 21,000 U.S. congregations in total. Increasingly, clashes within churches are spilling into communities, splitting congregations and occasionally landing church leaders in court after congregants, who believed they were confessing in private, were publicly shamed.

In the past decade, more than two dozen lawsuits related to church discipline have been filed as congregants sue pastors for defamation, negligent counseling and emotional injury, according to the Religion Case Reporter, a legal-research database. Peggy Penley, a Fort Worth, Texas, woman whose pastor revealed her extramarital affair to the congregation after she confessed it in confidence, waged a six-year battle against the pastor, charging him with negligence. Last summer, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her suit, ruling that the pastor was exercising his religious beliefs by publicizing the affair.


Allen Baptist Church
Courts have often refused to hear such cases on the grounds that churches are protected by the constitutional right to free religious exercise, but some have sided with alleged sinners. In 2003, a woman and her husband won a defamation suit against the Iowa Methodist conference and its superintendent after he publicly accused her of "spreading the spirit of Satan" because she gossiped about her pastor. A district court rejected the case, but the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the woman's appeal on the grounds that the letter labeling her a sinner was circulated beyond the church.

Advocates of shunning say it rarely leads to the public disclosure of a member's sin. "We're not the FBI; we're not sniffing around people's homes trying to find out some secret sin," says Don Singleton, pastor of Ridgeview Baptist Church in Talladega, Ala., who says the 50-member church has disciplined six members in his 2½ years as pastor. "Ninety-nine percent of these cases never go that far."

When they do, it can be humiliating. A devout Christian and grandmother of three, Mrs. Caskey moves with a halting gait, due to two artificial knees and a double hip replacement. Friends and family describe her as a generous woman who helped pay the electricity bill for Allen Baptist, in Allen, Mich., when funds were low, gave the church $1,200 after she sold her van, and even cut the church's lawn on occasion. She has requested an engraved image of the church on her tombstone.

Gossip and Slander

Her expulsion came as a shock to some church members when, in August 2006, the pastor sent a letter to the congregation stating Mrs. Caskey and an older married couple, Patsy and Emmit Church, had been removed for taking "action against the church and your preacher." The pastor, Mr. Burrick, told congregants the three were guilty of gossip, slander and idolatry and should be shunned, according to several former church members.

"People couldn't believe it," says Janet Biggs, 53, a former church member who quit the congregation in protest.

The conflict had been brewing for months. Shortly after the church hired Mr. Burrick in 2005 to help revive the congregation, which had dwindled to 12 members, Mrs. Caskey asked him to appoint a board of deacons to help govern the church, a tradition outlined in the church's charter. Mr. Burrick said the congregation was too small to warrant deacons. Mrs. Caskey pressed the issue at the church's quarterly business meetings and began complaining that Mr. Burrick was not following the church's bylaws. "She's one of the nicest, kindest people I know," says friend and neighbor Robert Johnston, 69, a retired cabinet maker. "But she won't be pushed around."


Karolyn Caskey reads her Bible.
In April 2006, Mrs. Caskey received a stern letter from Mr. Burrick. "This church will not tolerate this spirit of cancer and discord that you would like to spread," it said. Mrs. Caskey, along with Mr. and Mrs. Church, continued to insist that the pastor follow the church's constitution. In August, she received a letter from Mr. Burrick that said her failure to repent had led to her removal. It also said he would not write her a transfer letter enabling her to join another church, a requirement in many Baptist congregations, until she had "made things right here at Allen Baptist."

She went to Florida for the winter, and when she returned to Michigan last June, she drove the two miles to Allen Baptist as usual. A church member asked her to leave, saying she was not welcome, but Mrs. Caskey told him she had come to worship and asked if they could speak after the service. Twenty minutes into the service, a sheriff's officer was at her side, and an hour later, she was in jail.

"It was very humiliating," says Mrs. Caskey, who worked for the state of Michigan for 25 years before retiring from the Department of Corrections in 1992. "The other prisoners were surprised to see a little old lady in her church clothes. One of them said, 'You robbed a church?' and I said, 'No, I just attended church.' "

Word quickly spread throughout Allen, a close-knit town of about 200 residents. Once a thriving community of farmers and factory workers, Allen consists of little more than a strip of dusty antiques stores. Mr. and Mrs. Church, both in their 70s, eventually joined another Baptist congregation nearby.

About 25 people stopped attending Allen Baptist Church after Mrs. Caskey was shunned, according to several former church members.

Current members say they support the pastor's actions, and they note that the congregation has grown under his leadership. The simple, white-washed building now draws around 70 people on Sunday mornings, many of them young families. "He's a very good leader; he has total respect for the people," says Stephen Johnson, 66, an auto parts inspector, who added that Mr. Burrick was right to remove Mrs. Caskey because "the Bible says causing discord in the church is an abomination."

Mrs. Caskey went back to the church about a month after her arrest, shortly after the county prosecutor threw out the trespassing charge. More than a dozen supporters gathered outside, some with signs that read "What Would Jesus Do?" She sat in the front row as Mr. Burrick preached about "infidels in the pews," according to reports from those present.

Once again, Mrs. Caskey was escorted out by a state trooper and taken to jail, where she posted the $62 bail and was released. After that, the county prosecutor dismissed the charge and told county law enforcement not to arrest her again unless she was creating a disturbance.

In the following weeks, Mrs. Caskey continued to worship at Allen Baptist. Some congregants no longer spoke to her or passed the offering plate, and some changed seats if she sat next to them, she says.

Mr. Burrick repeatedly declined to comment on Mrs. Caskey's case, calling it a "private ecclesiastical matter." He did say that while the church does not "blacklist" anyone, a strict reading of the Bible requires pastors to punish disobedient members. "A lot of times, flocks aren't willing to submit or be obedient to God," he said in an interview before a Sunday evening service. "If somebody is not willing to be helped, they forfeit their membership."

In Christianity's early centuries, church discipline led sinners to cover themselves with ashes or spend time in the stocks. In later centuries, expulsion was more common. Until the late 19th century, shunning was widely practiced by American evangelicals, including Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. Today, excommunication rarely occurs in the U.S. Catholic Church, and shunning is largely unheard of among mainline Protestants.

Little Consensus

Among churches that practice discipline, there is little consensus on how sinners should be dealt with, says Gregory Wills, a theologian at Southern Baptist Theological seminary. Some pastors remove members on their own, while other churches require agreement among deacons or a majority vote from the congregation.

Since Mrs. Caskey's second arrest last July, the turmoil at Allen Baptist has fizzled into an awkward stalemate. Allen Baptist is an independent congregation, unaffiliated with a church hierarchy that might review the ouster. Supporters have urged Mrs. Caskey to sue to have her membership restored, but she says the matter should be settled in the church. Mr. Burrick no longer calls the police when Mrs. Caskey shows up for Sunday services.

Since November, Mrs. Caskey has been attending a Baptist church near her winter home in Tavares, Fla. She plans to go back to Allen Baptist when she returns to Michigan this spring.

"I don't intend to abandon that church," Mrs. Caskey says. "I feel like I have every right to be there."

The Letter to the Romans by Paul may be the most significant letter or writing in the history of Christianity. Now that’s saying something! From this letter alone, doctrines, disputations, and reformations have stemmed. When Augustine (a name the Breakfast Club is fond of bringing forth) became a Christian, it happened when he was reading this letter (specifically 13:13-14). Martin Luther claimed that the letter to the Romans was the most important document in the entire New Testament. For you dyed in the wool Methodists, John Wesley became a Christian after hearing Luther’s Preface to Romans. Heavy stuff indeed.

The letter was most likely penned from Corinth sometime between 55 and 58. Rome very well may have been the hub between all the churches in the Diaspora (the Jewish areas outside Israel). Paul knew many of the people in the churches in Rome (see 16:3-4) but he had never been there himself.

When Paul is writing this letter, all is not well in the Roman churches. Remember in class how I pointed out that the Jews had been expelled from Rome? Guess who was left? Right, the Gentile Christians. Now picture this, they had been on their own for five years before the Jews were allowed back in. Now the Jews come back and needless to say, there is a little bit of friction! Think of it like this: Godfry, Linda, and Ray leave the Foundry for five years because the Governor of Texas expelled them. Mike Gammill is now running Foundry for the next five years. Godfry and crew come back and say, “OK Mike, good job, we got it from here.” Frightening isn’t it! Well that’s exactly what is happening in Rome (chapters 14 and 15).

Other than that, what we have in this letter can be broken down in two: chapters 1-8 and 9-15 (with 9-11 and 12-15 being really two subgroups). So what say we the class start there…chapters 1-8. Sound good?

Remember to keep Paul in his culture and not ours. It is so easy to place what they are writing to our culture, day, and time. Trust me, I have to fight that urge constantly when studying scripture. Also remember that the Bible events did not happen in a vacuum. There was a whole world happening out there!

So let’s get to it. Read chapters 1-9 a few times this week, take a moment or two an post a blog about what you think, questions you have, and what the Spirit may be showing you. Remember this if you feel something while studying this you owe it to the group to share it because it may not be you but the Holy Spirit working through you!!!!!!!!!

Shalom

Hey Guys,

Welcome to the Breakfast Club blog!  I look forward to having fun with this throughout the week.  This is a great place to post your questions, no mater how silly you may think they are.  The great thing about blogs is you can't get too embarrassed for asking questions that you feel like you should have the answer to for some reason.  Whatever it may be, throw then up there.

shalom!