holy crap

Recently I’ve had four different, difficult conversations that involved setting boundaries, or saying something that was honest but really hard to say, or confronting totally inappropriate behavior, etc.


I hated it. I’m good at it, but I hated it.


No one enjoys conflict—or should, anyway—because it’s complicated and messy and makes our guts twist into little ribbons. It’s also something to approach carefully because the line between “confronting in love” and just being a jerk can be a fine one. (Boundaries are like PMS—real, but used as an excuse for lots of bad behavior.)

Yet the Bible is full of examples of God doing this—saying hard things, demonstrating both truth and grace, setting limits, allowing people to experience the consequences of their actions.

Unfortunately, the difficult-ness often wins out over the biblical-ness and we are all guilty of avoiding the conflict and hoping it will go away. Of course, it rarely does and often surfaces to cause much bigger problems later.


I’ve written about this before, but I think it needs more attention, especially in the church world.

As Stephen Simpson writes in a recent Rethink Monthly article,

“In my fifteen years as a psychotherapist, I have encountered few human systems so consistently dysfunctional as church staffs. I’ve heard of pastors doing things that would make the most ambitious CEOs blush. Though most of us only hear about this when a high-profile church leader’s grandiosity leads to recklessness, most of the time acrimony and dysfunction continue behind the scenes for years.”

So I’ll be blogging more frequently about these topics. It won’t be every week, but it will be a new recurring feature—starting next week with the humbling example of a friend confronting me.

In the meantime, tell me what you think. Is this a problem for you, your church, your workplace? Why do we struggle in these areas? What topics should we discuss here?

new to you friday–rough cuts

This week the temperatures topped 70 degrees, the sun came out…..and suddenly my lawn was six feet high. Spring is here and once again I’m preparing to plant armfuls of flowers and vegetables—it will be even more fun this year as I till up the earth for my first “real” garden.

This post resonates with me as much as it did when I originally wrote it a few springs ago. God continues to prune the areas of my life that don’t bear fruit. Sometimes he even takes away good things to encourage more growth. And it’s still painful at times. How is he doing this in your life?

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Before moving to California, land of the eternal growing season, I associated Mother’s Day with planting the summer garden. Although I could have planted the flowers and herbs on my porch anytime this spring, some of the east-coast mentality remains and I used Mother’s Day weekend to beautify my backyard with impatiens, begonias, and fuschia (40% of which have already been eaten by slugs. But I’ll save that for the blog post about Genesis 3:17.) In addition to filling my little clay pots with flowers, I browsed Martha Stewart Living magazine for inspiration. I was struck by this excerpt from an article about pruning fruit trees:

Left to themselves, trees will produce fruit, but most will be of poor quality. And it will come in spurts, with a heavy crop one year, and likely nothing for several years afterward…..Sunlight provides fuel for fruit production. That’s why a congested, neglected tree bears fruit only on the periphery of its canopy, with the bulk of the fruit commonly borne toward the top. By thinning growth with pruning shears and saw, however, [you] open avenues for light to penetrate and encourage fruit development deep inside the canopy, as well. By stimulating the growth of some branches and slowing that of others, [the gardener] ensures that upper branches don’t overshadow lower ones and leave them barren….On a mature tree, annual pruning is mostly limited to reducing congestion and eliminating unfruitful wood—branches that do not bear fruit and divert energy from those that do…

John 15 reminds us that God is the master gardener, who “cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” The God who created fruit trees surely understood the ramifications of this analogy—the process of growing usually includes pain.

Left to my own devices, the fruit I produce will also be inconsistent and of poor quality. Like the tree, I need a skilled gardener to cut away the “unfruitful wood”— the relationships, habits, and activities—diverting energy from real growth. I’m grateful God wants his light to touch the deepest parts of me. Although the process often hurts, I can see God’s purposes as he cuts away the overgrowth in my life.

begging the question

I’m taking a big (for me) risk.

Recently I’ve noticed several bloggers occasionally devoting a post to answering questions from their readers, and it sounded like a lot of fun as well as a great way to interact more with all of you, maybe even some who don’t usually comment.

However, it’s a risk because I don’t know if anyone will actually ask anything, which means this could leave me looking rather lame. But I think my ego can handle it. (If not, you’ll next be treated to a long, self-absorbed post questioning my calling as a writer and quoting liberally from Michael W. Smith’s “Place in this World.” So there‘s motivation to leave a question.)

I guess it’s also risky since I don’t know what you’ll ask, but I don’t want to limit things with too many ground rules. Let’s just say that if it’s really, really, really personal (and you’d probably be too embarrassed to ask if you were sitting across from me at Starbucks) you probably shouldn’t ask here, either. At least not without first buying me a coffee.

So, let’s try it: ask me anything you want and I’ll respond. If you ask my weight I may fudge it by five pounds, though.

into africa: one question after a week in kenya

My dad just got back from his trip to Nairobi with Christian Missionary Fellowship, and writes one last blog post about his journey and the insights he’s still processing. Click here and here to read more about his trip.


Maybe Dick Alexander will ask Mary Kamau the question I posed to her in Nairobi about a week ago.

They’ll share the platform at this summer’s North American Christian Convention when the evening’s theme will be “Beyond Words: Global Impact.”

Dick preaches at LifeSpring Christian Church in Cincinnati, a congregation sponsoring work in one village in the sprawling Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi.

Mary is executive director of Missions of Hope International, an agency working to share Christ’s love among ten such communities jamming 800,000 shanty-dwellers in a 1.5 square mile labyrinth of oppression. Under her leadership an army of schoolteachers, social workers, and community development workers has been unleashed to share the gospel and combat the forces of darkness among people thirsty for hope.

Christian Missionary Fellowship has joined with the multifaceted mission Mary began to create a collaboration called Hope Partnership. This is one of CMF’s works I’ve just returned from visiting in Kenya.

Mary is a native Kenyan who came to the United States for her college education, which led me to my question.

“Many from the Majority World who study in the U.S. end up staying there,” I said to her. “Why did you return to Africa?”

She looked away and seemed to sigh before answering. “I believe I can be more useful here in Nairobi than there in America,” she said.


And even though I’ve flown away from the squalor and the sickness in the slum where she serves, I can’t get away from her answer.

It is something of a cliché, when comfortable Americans encounter abject poverty on the other side of the world, to speak of being overwhelmed by it.

It is also common, however, (perhaps subconsciously) for such mission-trippers to celebrate the “sacrifice” in their visit and then soon settle back, unchanged, into the luxuries of their middle class routines.


Mary’s testimony suggests a better response. Her answer to my question begs the question I must ask myself: “Where can I be used best?”

<> Am I convinced God is getting the greatest good from the opportunities he’s given me?

<> Am I working where I can have the greatest influence for him?

<> Am I spending my money where it will bring the greatest return for his kingdom?

<> How do my hobbies, my leisure time, or my entertainment contribute to my usability by him for others?


Considering such questions need not make us feel guilty. Not everyone can or should serve in Africa—or Haiti, or India, or Eastern Europe. There are many battles for God to be fought in the cities and suburbs—and yes, the slums—of America.

But after seeing some Christians doggedly bringing hope in a place like Kenya I’m convicted to listen for his answer to the question Mary Kamau dealt with many years ago.


“Where can I be used best?”

new to you friday–take nine

This online conference occurred last September and was followed by the “Aha! Experience” earlier this month. This remains one of my favorite from all the videos. We all have to fight the temptation to compare our “success” with what other people are doing, and to define that success numerically.

“We’ve equated large with legitimate, and it’s eating our souls.” You need to watch this.

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Two weeks ago today, I and 20,000 of my closest friends spent hours watching segments of “The Nines,” 9+ hours—beginning at 9:09 am on 09/09/09—of videos from some of the evangelical world’s most influential voices. Each “speaker” had just nine minutes to answer the question, “If you could say one thing to Christian leaders, what would it be?”

Of course, some went over nine minutes, and there was a lot of alliteration and three-part outlines. But my favorite was this simple but powerful one by Skye Jethani, the managing editor of Leadership Journal. If someone asked me the question, I’d probably just reply, “What Skye said.” He has three points, but they’re good ones—and only eight minutes, too!

vegging out

It was inevitable, I suppose, that I would become a vegetarian.

For one thing, I don’t like meat all that much–except for In-N-Out burgers.

And in the back of my mind I knew some of the (literally) sickening truths about our modern food industry.

I also knew that if I read Kurlanksy’s book (about regional food traditions before megamarkets and mass production), read Schlosser’s book (about the huge impact the fast food industry has had on our landscape, our socioeconomics, and our health) and watched the movie Food, Inc., that would be it.


So I procrastinated.

Because I like cheeseburgers, even if they are full of fillers washed with ammonia to remove E. coli. I like chicken tacos, even if the slaughter process includes scalding the animals in de-feathering tanks while they’re still alive and aware.


But I finally took the plunge, for a few reasons:

(unless otherwise noted, my sources are the above mentioned books/movies or goveg.com).

Health: My stomach has been jacked up by genetics and stress for years, and I feel much better when I eat a plant-based diet. Not eating meat also makes it easier to control fat and cholesterol and get more vitamins from my calories.

The planet: Although raising grass-fed beef can actually help the environment, 99% of the cows in this country are crammed full of corn and crammed into feedlots instead. This means grassland and forests are being transformed into industrial sprawl, we’re using tons of gasoline and pesticides to guarantee enough corn in enough places, and the process is creating more greenhouse-gas emissions than cars, boats, planes and trains combined. (Check my facts here.) The problem includes poultry and pig farming, as well; According to the Environmental Defense Fund, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads (more here).

The animals: According to Food, Inc., in some states farmers want to make it illegal to publish photos of the feedlots. That’s probably not because the areas are humane and clean.

Sometimes the cows are still conscious while they are skinned and torn apart. Both chickens and cows are fed too much and given growth hormones until their legs collapse under their weight or their hearts give out. Pigs receive no painkillers before their tails are chopped off. Chickens spend their entire lives in dark, windowless sheds, sometimes packed so closely they can’t move or lie down. Turkeys’ beaks and toes are burned off with hot blades.

These animals are neglected, kicked, maimed, hung upside down, deprived of sunlight, transported long distances in freezing temperatures and given third-degree burns with branding irons. Treating a dog or cat this way would be illegal.

The grossness: Even if you don’t care about the animals’ quality of life, consider how factory farming affects yours.

“A government health official, who prefers not to be named, compared the sanitary conditions in a modern feedlot to those in a crowded European city during the Middle Ages,” writes Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, “when people dumped their chamber pots out the window, raw sewage ran in the streets, and epidemics raged.” Not only do we leave cattle standing in their own waste, it’s caked to their hides when they go to the slaughterhouses…..and it doesn’t all fall to the floor or get washed off before the meat is ground into burgers.

The FDA currently allows farmers to feed dead chickens and chicken manure to the cows. And to feed dead cows to the chickens.

And according to the USDA, 98% of chicken carcasses are contaminated with E. coli when they reach the grocery store because of the filthy conditions in the sheds where they were raised.

There’s even an argument for vegetarianism in the Bible; although we are certainly told to be fruitful and rule over the earth, including its animals, I find it interesting that there is no mention of Adam and Eve eating meat. God allowed them to eat from any tree in the garden, but only after the flood did he permit eating animals.


So those are my reasons. Now, here are my other decisions:

I won’t be obnoxious about it, compelled to tell everyone disgusting facts about their food. Beyond this blog post, I won’t be one of those people who draws attention to her decision or pontificates on the subject unless invited to share my opinion.

I won’t be unkind. Unless directly asked, I won’t mention it to any hostess who serves meat. (I may even eat it if I decide graciousness trumps conviction in that occasion.) Human feelings are more important than an animal’s.

I will not become a vegan, although that’s the truly intellectually honest thing to do; if I really cared about animal suffering I would give up milk, cheese, and eggs, too—but I like ice cream and cheese pizza and omelets too much. Besides, have you ever tasted seitan? I have, and it makes me gag.

I won’t be judgmental. Some people truly don’t care what’s in their food or how it got there. Others—many, I suspect—know the details are potentially disturbing and choose not to explore further because they like meat and it’s inconvenient to stop eating it. And a few believe it’s liberal and un-Christian to care about animal welfare. (You can have this cheeseburger when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

Other than that last snarky comment, I won’t judge those who haven’t made this choice.


Obviously it’s not an issue of salvation. But some of these animals are smarter than dogs and even small children. God (eventually) gave them to us for food, but does that give us license to treat them inhumanely before they’re killed? Mama cows cry for their babies for days after the calves are taken from them and sent to veal farms—does God care, and should we? Yes, humans are to rule over the animals, but does it matter how? And what about stewardship of our bodies?  What do you think?

into africa: day two

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!
Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!
I love, love, love you . . .
Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!


About 30 young grade schoolers sang the words with gusto and hand motions as we stood in their crowded, hot classroom and took it in.

I had never expected that such a place would offer me such a moment of profound worship.

I had been forewarned that visiting Nairobi slums would be difficult and emotional. But no one had predicted I’d be so struck with what our Lord is doing in one of the world’s unlikeliest of places.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are to inspire dozens of educated, competent leaders to work in a place like this.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are to fill hearts with enough love to share with whole communities trapped in squalor and oppression.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are to inspire creative entrepreneurship that not only helps these people, but empowers them to help themselves.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are that you can redeem life on earth as well as save souls for eternity—and use the church to do both.

The church has made possible Hope Partnership, Christian Missionary Fellowship’s enterprise in the Nairobi slums of the Mathare Valley. The work serves Jesus with a three-pronged approach, each of which needs at least a 1,200-word essay to fully explain. But maybe my little summary will help you worship too.

Schools educate orphans and other children of families in desperate situations.

Community Health Evangelism (CHE) trains volunteers to offer a future to those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and recruit neighbors to address all kinds of basic health and sanitation issues.

Business Development Services provides small loans and skills training to those who will improve their situation by creating a business that can give them an income. (Read more about CMF’s microloan program here.)

As a result, children are being educated; in 10 years the school program has grown from 50 preschoolers in one rented two-bedroom home to an enrollment of 3,750 in 10 schools.

Meanwhile, 350 CHE volunteers have improved health and offered hope in ways too numerous to mention. Six support groups for those testing HIV-positive meet regularly.

And 457 clients are operating their own businesses in the slum, financed by microenterprise loans that now total about $100,000.

This holistic approach is demonstrating the love of Christ, not just talking about it. But preaching and teaching the gospel is also central to the strategy.

School children learn Bible stories and memorize Bible verses.

Adults seek a relationship with God when they are helped by relationships with his servants.

“Sharing Christ is the bottom line,” said Paul, a Business Development Services director.

And today there are five new churches in this slum, where there were none before the work began. And four of them started in the last two years alone!

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!

(This is the second post from my dad during a “vision trip” to Nairobi with Christian Missionary Fellowship. Scroll down a bit to read part one.)

into africa: day one

On Tuesday of this week, my dad flew to Nairobi as part of a team invited by Christian Missionary Fellowship. I’ve heard from others who’ve participated in these trips how emotionally and spiritually exhausting (and fulfilling) they can be, and suggested that dad process the experience by writing his thoughts—and letting me post them on my blog. Here’s the first one.

“It is a hard trip,” Roy Lawson wrote me after spending a week in Kenya.

And, although I love to travel, my acquaintance with work sponsored by Christian Missionary Fellowship in the slums of Nairobi inspired some trepidation as I anticipated this trip.

I’m one of six in Kenya through March 17 led by Doug Priest, CMF’s executive director. He calls it a vision trip and told me how interest in Nairobi’s urban poor has multiplied in U.S. Christian churches and churches of Christ since he began bringing ministers here.


I realize now why the firsthand visit is so valuable. Even though Christian Standard has published more than one article from visitors to this work, words tell only part of the story. I couldn’t begin to grasp the desperate need faced here everyday until I encountered it myself.

CMF prepped us with facts about the slum where they work. It is packed into 1.5 square miles along the Mathare River Valley in the country’s capital city, Nairobi; 800,000 people live there. Their average income is $1.00 per day, and 40% suffer with HIV/AIDS.

And this is only one slum in this city. Keith Ham, serving with CMF here, told us 70% of Nairobi’s 5 million people live in slums like the one we visited today.

“This is the nicest slum home I’ve ever seen,” Doug Priest said of the tin-walled shanty where we sat for a few minutes this morning.

Maybe 12 x 14 feet, it is entered through a low door off a 14-inch alley bordered by similar huts jammed together as far as we could see. Jane, a single mother, lives here with her mother and two children.

A naked electric light bulb hangs from the ceiling. Sometimes power comes to it; sometimes not. A square-foot fiberglass panel on one side of the corrugated metal roof allows daylight to penetrate the dark hole. At nighttime, a government-provided light tower rising several stories above the slum banishes darkness, reduces crime, and sends a welcome shaft into this closet-home where Jane lives.

We sat on throws covering benches and some cast-off chairs. The walls were covered with an assortment of paper and cloth. A panel of see-through curtains, something like might have hung at my grandmother’s window, dangled behind Jane as she spoke to us.

“Welcome to our home,” she said. And the CMF-employed social worker who led our tour through the slum helped Jane explain her business. She cooks a stew and sells it on the street to earn her income.

I listened to her story and smiled at her and tickled the belly of her babbling toddler whose runny nose Jane wiped on the child’s shirt. And I sighed with relief as we finally stood to leave and escape back into the noontime sunshine that penetrated the narrow aisle between Jane’s shanty and those beside it.

This is our privilege, we wealthy visitors whose vision is broadened while our eyesight is blurred by the tears that flow when we try to grasp what we have seen and smelled in the slums.

I sit in the comfortable surroundings of Gracia Gardens, the guest house where we’re staying, and reflect on my opportunity to come and see—and walk out of—the oppressive poverty of these people.

Surely we who are blessed with the means to walk away cannot ignore what we have experienced, as if we could ever forget it.

And there is hope. Christ’s love IS making a difference here. I will try to describe how in my next post.

girl scout badges for today’s women

The Upper Hand: Awarded for juggling three bags of groceries, a large purse, a cell phone and mail while successfully unlocking the front door without dropping anything. Bonus points if the grocery bag contains eggs or you are also holding a baby.

The Slim Chance: Awarded to any woman who can wear a size eight after age 40.

The This Too Shall Pass: For handing the communion tray to the person sitting next to you without bitterness that you’re not allowed to stand at the end of the row and receive it.

The Sick and Tired: For keeping one’s mouth shut when, after you’ve spent years of your life pregnant and endured the subsequent excruciating deliveries, your husband a) whimpers like a toddler from a splinter; b) takes to his bed for three days during his annual cold and demands 24 hour bedside service; c) refuses to consider a vasectomy because of his fear of medical procedures.

The Don’t Cramp My Style: For attending two business meetings, accomplishing four things off the to-do list, swinging by the grocery store, and attending a ballet recital/T-ball game/soccer practice while wearing heels instead of curling up under the covers with cramps like you want to.

The Clothes Call: One badge awarded for each shopping trip with a daughter age 8-18 in which you successfully prevent purchases of halter tops, low-rise pants, short-shorts, and anything designed to show one’s navel. Award is not invalidated by daughter’s tears or public outbursts proclaiming her hatred of you.

The Grace Note: For smiling and nodding when, after the meeting you helped lead, one of the male participants asks you to Xerox his notes.

The Big Event: Automatically awarded upon completion of your 20^th ladies banquet, tea or retreat involving hats, finger sandwiches, scrapbooking, and/or “spa” manicures.

The Shear Magic: For blowdrying your hair into a style remotely resembling anything you left the salon with after your last cut.

The Wonder Woman: For somehow summoning the superhuman strength not to say, “No, PMS isn’t the problem. You’re just especially annoying today.”

new to you friday–best.video.ever

Originally posted in 2007, this may still be my favorite video on this blog. Well, this or John Daker.

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Just in time for Monday morning, here’s a video to help you start a new and exciting ministry at your church.

You’re welcome.