Merry Christmas! And Here is Luke's Account

...
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.


So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

===

Hoarding Life

...
Heard a great sermon on Sunday. My pastor, Pete Alwinson, is talking about Peace this Advent season. One of the points he has made is that the Christian faith often causes one to lose peace - the peace that is found in complacency in particular. He used this great quote from Wm. Barclay:
I can see how I "hoard life" sometimes. I want it to be comfortable. I want my family to be comfortable, and my job to be comfortable and my church to be comfortable... Working in ministry makes it even easier to be like this, because I've always got a convenient comeback to those feelings that maybe I'm not really living my life in a way that builds the Kingdom as effectively as it could. I can always hark back to some ministry experience that blunts the barb of Christian conscience.

There is no place for a policy of safety first in the Christian life. The man who seeks first ease and comfort and security and the fulfillment of personal ambition may well get all these things, but he will not be a happy man; for he was sent into this world to serve god and to serve His fellow man. A man can hoard life, if he wishes to do so. But that way he will lose all that makes life valuable to others and worth living for himself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on myself. I just want to be honest with myself about the ramifications of my faith.  Patrick Morley quotes Dr. Schaeffer in his book, The Man in the Mirror, and points out the two "impoverished values" of personal peace  and affluence.

Personal peace means just to be let alone, not to be troubled by the troubles of other people, whether across the world or across the city -- to live one's life with minimal possibilities of being disturbed...Affluence means an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity -- a life made of things, things and more things -- a success judged by an ever-higher level of material abundance. (from Frances Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live, 1976)

I want to be sure that I am not committed to ease, comfort, ambition, personal peace and affluence - that I am not "hoarding my life" - so that I miss out on what I could be doing to make a difference in the world.


===

Broken-Hearted at Christmas

...

Seems like Christmas is a rough time for a lot of people emotionally. I suspect it's the contrast between the joy that is expected to permeate the season and the reality of unmet expectations, broken relationships or just that general feeling of, "is this really as good as it's going to get?"  

Got this Weekly Briefing from Pat Morley at work today. A great message for the Christmas season.

My heart has been broken many times -- left out, made fun of, rejected, feeling alone, feeling unloved, depressed, broken promises, shattered dreams, betrayal, falsely accused. And then there are my sins of which I am ashamed and over which I grieve.

What is breaking your heart today? Maybe an injustice -- by you or against you. Maybe you're grieving, or need to grieve, what could've been -- a son on drugs, a daughter who has wandered from the path, a spouse who seems distant, or parents who got divorced. The closer the person, the deeper the hurt. (excerpted from To Anyone With a Broken Heart, Weekly Briefing Volume 351, December 14, 2009. Read the rest of the article.)

I'm praying that we would all feel the real presence of God this season -- His peace, love and comfort in the midst of a trying and difficult world. If you know Him, don't forget to talk to Him. If you don't, just talk to Him, He'll hear you. If you want to talk to Him and don't know how, email me (baclemmer@maninthemirror.org). I know Him and I'd be happy to introduce you.

 
===

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cckaiser/ / CC BY 2.0

Great Times Climbing in Ch-ch-chattanooga

...

That's the sound of my teeth chattering. Took my son Jake to Tennessee last weekend to camp and climb. We had a great time (mostly). The highlight was probably waking up Saturday morning to snow on the ground! We went with friends from the gym, including my buddy Ike who is the camping and climbing uber-guide.

The climbing crowd is really interesting. Kind of like surfers in the laid-back mentality and the relational style. I heard the phrase, "Awesome dude!" about a million times. A fair amount of drinking too, so not super kid-friendly, although I doubt most of the adults saw it that way.

Jake had a tough day at the comp on Sunday. We had climbed outdoors two days already and we were both pretty tired. He still ended up finishing 4th in his age group!

Here was the most interesting part of the weekend to me: surrounded by young, energetic people, all of them really love the outdoors and the challenge of climbing, yet no realization of where all of this must have come from. An appreciation for beauty and creation, but no affinity or interest (it seemed) in the Creator. I loved what we were doing and even who we were doing it with, but I still felt pretty out of place.

Stop Taking the Bible So Seriously

...

Can't believe I'm posting something this irreverent-sounding, but this guy makes a great point. (David Hopwood on the church.wrecked.org site.) The Bible is a living, breathing work of art and truth, not a list of rules combined with a history textbook.

"The more I've got to know it the more I have discovered it's jokes, shocks, puns, wisecracks, pathos, horror, riddles, idiosyncrasies and subtleties."

OK, how about, stop being so serious about the Bible? Still not quite there...

I like to point this out to people who read stories like the woman at the well so sterile-ly. Come on! A single woman was hitting on a rabbi. Trying to make him uncomfortable. It was like a goth teen getting in a businessman's space just to see if she could rattle him. Of course, it ended up changing the woman's life. That's not "serious", that's miraculous! That's the power of Christ - power we actually have at our disposal. (Eph. 1) Much more interesting than a history textbook.

The Bible is full of real stuff like this. That's one of the reasons I love it so much.

Now, of course we should take the Bible seriously. But maybe we just shouldn't be so serious - flat, emotionless, legalistic, angry, you get the picture - about it. It really misrepresents it. It's the living word of God. It's the greatest story ever told! And it's all true... Amazing.

===

Pomona Highlights

...

I had a great weekend in Pomona last week. Highlights:

• My new BFF Lynn Guerin acted as host for the weekend. A great servant's heart. He is a pretty amazing guy. One of his accomplishments is helping put together the John Wooden Course. Hanging out with John Wooden has got to be so cool!
• Meeting with 27 leaders from 15 churches to talk about men's discipleship. My favorite part was hearing the guys share their struggles and then hear them encourage each other with ideas.
• Went to the Influencers Bible Study on Friday morning with 150 guys. Maybe the first men's Bible Study I've seen singing work really well in a long time. Amazing talk too. "Quiet brilliance", I would call it.
• A breakfast with my friend Angelo Ismirnglou-one of those awesome high-energy, visionary guys. He's going to do great things in the Brotherhood of St. Andrew!
• Then 100+ guys at Pomona First Baptist Church doing a Rewired Seminar. Had a weird experience when I pulled up realizing I had been there before 3 years before. They knew. That's why they brought us back.
• A couple of hours jammin' with Mat Kyser and the men's leaders from The Village Church in Irvine. What a great group of guys. I went to their church on Sunday as well. An amazing service on the topic of adoption. Matt was channeling Mark Driscoll style-wise.

The weekend was fun, and a huge encouragement to me. OK, so I didn't surf. But hey, it's California!

Sunflower Seed Christianity

...

Have you ever eaten sunflower seeds? You chuck a bunch in your mouth and crunch on them. You extract the meat part of the seed, and then you spit out the husk. It's trash. A little salty, perhaps, but not edible.

In Revelation 3, God tells the church at Laodicea:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Francis Chan imagines presenting the people of his church to God at the end, and having God go, pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft!-pfft! Spitting them out because they are lukewarm. As I watched this great video, I had to ask myself:

Would you be willing to give away as much as you kept?
Would you be willing to sit on the grass every week for church, so the money it would take to build a comfortable building could be used to help others instead?

Are you willing to really teach what Jesus taught? Live like Jesus lived?

This is such a challenge to me personally. 

===

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/akumaru/1157598310/

Intolerance in the name of tolerance is hypocrisy

...

Not that I am a big fan of pageants, but how in the world

did we get to the place where a culturally way-out-of-the-mainstream paparazzi blogger would help decide who would represent our country in any kind of international contest? More than that, why are we asking 20-something year old young women to opine on gay marriage and government bailouts? I think that fact that these women had actually thought about these things puts them miles ahead of most people, regardless of age.

Kudos to Carrie Prejean, Miss California, for speaking truth instead of lying to win a contest. I believe your willingness to stand for what you believe will reap you great benefit.

And to the judge who personally attacked Miss Prejean in his blog the next day: intolerance in the name of tolerance is hypocrisy.

===  

Transformed from darkness to light...but a dim light at first

...
Great quote from Pat Morley today in his Weekly Briefing on the nature of discipleship:

"We do not become disciples through a single life-changing event—transformed from darkness to light, yes. But it is dim light. Instead, we become disciples by steady plodding, by the regular intake of God’s word, by a consistent diet of preaching, by constantly rubbing shoulders with fellow pilgrims."

http://www.maninthemirror.org/weeklybriefing/wb319.htm
===

Send My Friend Josh to Thailand for a Missions Trip, please!

...

My friend, Josh Wayt, is a college-aged guy with a heart for Christ. (He's the one on the right in this picture.) He has only been a Christian for a few years, but he is totally invested in becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. He's been involved with Campus Outreach - a college ministry - for awhile, and he is now preparing to go to Thailand for 2 months of intensive mission work and training.

Would you help Josh out? This is probably one of the toughest times there could be to raise funds for mission work. I am writing Josh a check. Honestly, it's not in our family budget, but we'll make some different decisions so we can help Josh out. Please prayerfully consider doing the same. If just 50 people write Josh a $100 check, he'll have enough, plus be able to help some of his teammates out as well with money from his own connections.

Make checks out to Campus Outreach Florida. And they can be sent to him at 45 South Lake Jessup Avenue. Oviedo, FL. 32765. Here is Josh's support letter:

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope this letter finds you and your family well. In the past two years I have become increasingly involved with a ministry at my university called Campus Outreach. The Lord has been so faithful in using this ministry and its leadership to teach me more of Himself and His will for my life. I am truly excited about His call to labor and build laborers for His kingdom. God has blessed me with the opportunity to go to Thailand this summer for further training and experience in this call.

On May 29th, myself, and seven other students will be departing for our two months of training and service in Khon Kaen, Thailand. Khon Kaen University has been staffed for over twenty years by Campus Outreach. Our group will be teaming up with the staff and students from Campus Outreach Thailand, and assisting them with their service and ministry to the surrounding community. Every morning our group will receive training in the word and evangelism. The latter half of our days will be spent ministering on the local campuses for several hours. This ministry will include
building relationships with students, evangelism, and hopefully, the opportunity to lead bible studies.

The trip is being funded entirely through donations. The total cost will be five thousand dollars. This will include housing, food, and any other expenses. I am very excited about the opportunity to serve and to minister, and ask that you would join me in ministry. I am asking for your support and prayers for this trip. If you are able to assist, please forward any donation to me with the check or money order payable to “Campus Outreach Florida.”

I thank you in advance for your prayers and support. God bless.

In Christ,

Josh Wayt

So please join me in supporting Josh. Send him to Thailand with me!

===