A Cartoon for My Atheist Friends!

I love to read the comics every day. It seems to me that after a quiet time, a good beginning to each day should include some laughter. This one reminded me of the world view of ten of the fifteen men who participated in outreach groups with me during October – December.  Please ask God to work in their hearts.

Straw Men, Part 2 or …The Baptist Straw Man

One of the more conversation provoking aspects of being an evangelical, protestant missionary in a country where the vast majority of people claim allegiance to a traditional, non- protestant state church is that they also build straw men.

They have their own theologians, of course, who offer courses in apologetics and studies of other religious groups. Amazingly, just like our theologians conclude, they are almost always on God’s side and we aren’t!

I have learned a lot about Baptists, their beliefs and practices from people here. You will be amazed to know what us evil Baptists believe. Did you know…?

1. We are liberals who do not accept the Bible as God’s Word.
2. We do not care for our children. In fact, it has been taught that some Baptists eat their children at communion.
3. We are morally corrupt and sexually deviant.
4. We are a cult.
5. We follow other writings and emphasize human leaders above Jesus.
6. Our theology and practice is clearly contrary to generally accepted biblical belief and teaching.

This list is but a beginning. I think it is enough for you to get the idea, though I could share dozens of stories and add other items to the list. How does it feel to have people turn you into a straw man? To be falsely represented is painful. Interestingly, it is very difficult to address.

The items in the list are not opinions, in the minds of those who shared them, but absolute truth. In their mind, it is not surprising that a Baptist like me would refute them; however, this only shows the depths of my depravity as I attempt to mislead through deliberate misrepresentation.

The title of this web-site is “Walls and Gates.” It is based on Isaiah 60:18 – 19 and represents our hope for the great people of this land. The straw man built about believers like me is a significant “Wall” to our ministry. It is also a “Gate” for which I am thankful. Often the very people who will say things like you read above are the ones most interested in our response to them.

Pray we could be wise and honor the Lord through gentle, kind, loving and truthful dialogue with the people here. Ask the Lord to turn what seems like a barrier into a great opportunity.

Straw Men, part 1 or …

The Priest, Holy Water, the House Blessing and Mary’s Payment for Our Sin

Normally, we use “straw men” to mean falsely representing something or someone so that we can easily tear it or them down. Examples abound. In fact, it is almost hard to think of a conflict or simple disagreement when the building of straw men does not happen.

I promise you will be able to better pray for us after you have read this. I want you to see how I do this in my life and how it affects my view and practice of missions. You see, I am convinced that I often build strategy on false beliefs and assumptions. It can have great impact on how I relate to others.

Catholicism serves as an excellent example. I am honored to serve in a country where about 85% of the people would say they are Catholic. Like any good missionary, I have studied the religion of my people. I now know what a Catholic believes; at least, according to the books. Unfortunately, this has little relationship to reality! My straw man would be to assume that all believe as the book says they must.

While 85% report being Catholic in Croatia, 20% also report being atheist. For the mathematically less advanced, the priest has a problem. Conclusion: many Catholics don’t believe anything like the book said; some don’t even believe God exists. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The problems for my straw man (all Catholics believe what the book said) don’t stop there.

A local associate priest has become my friend. He is a great young man and I am as certain as could be is also my brother in Christ. He recently told me and I quote, “Salvation is not found in the sacraments but only through faith in Christ. We do not know Christ through the tradition of the church but only through the Bible. We missed the first reformation but are now working to a new one from within.”

My straw man told me he can’t say that! He says about 1% of the population is involved in a movement that believes much like he does. That is 40,000 people my straw man does not like. I responded by telling him I know of a great church he can join when this belief becomes problematic. He does not think it will. The problems for my straw man only grow in number when one looks deeper.

Every country has their own world-wide center of Mary-worship. We have ours as well. I am in conversation with a lot of people who are quite serious about their faith and it is found in a local Catholic church. I have had several discussions with one friend and his wife about whether Jesus or Mary paid the price for sin. Once again the straw man didn’t know about his. Nor did he know about the mixing of Eastern religions with Catholicism or those who like to pick aspects of many differing faith systems and combine them into their personal faith. The majority don’t believe like my straw man thought.

Josip (YO-seep) is very disappointed in me. Josip is the son of our neighbor. He is about 8 years old and is a great little guy. The other day he came running up to my car and asked if I wanted the priest to come and bless my home with a holy water and a prayer to the Holy Mother; the puzzled expression on my face told him that the Gentile neighbor did not know what he was talking about. He thought the stupid foreigner did not understand Croatian but he was wrong. I was trying to figure out how to say no without disappointing him too much.

I said no and tried to explain the reasons. It did not work. I am a barbarian! I was feeling kind of bad about it and wondering if I did the right thing, then another neighbor explained that I had to pay for the service. I don’t feel so bad now!

Straw men keep us from honoring people. While they can be helpful as a framework for beginning to understand, they are only a beginning. I have not even begun to relate with another. When I assume all “Catholics” must believe what my straw man says they do, I do not honor individuals. When I assume to know the motivations of another without “knowing” that person, I have no respect for them.

I think we are doing well in avoiding these pitfalls; however, this is only one example. Pray that we could honor and respect all people. Pray that we could be better at listening and understanding the hearts of others. Pray we would know how to best share the timeless love of an eternal God who gave His Son for us.

Please Pray For…

1. A woman coming to Elise’s house group for the first time. She is new in town, lonely, no friends, no family nearby, and no religious background. Ask for her salvation.
2. Darko, young man coming to my men’s group every Thursday evening. He is very open and teachable right now. Ask for his salvation and continued hunger to know God.
3. David (DA – veed), in our way of pronouncing it, is another man in my house group in need of your prayers. He is in his 30’s and has been a believer for many years. He would love to go to Africa on a short term (4 to 6 months) mission project but cannot find anyway to make it happen. He is currently without work. Pray for God’s will regarding the mission project and a good job for David.
4. Peter, our pastor needs your continued prayer for health concerns. His doctor ordered several tests. He completed most of them early this week. The results will not be back for two weeks. There is one test that he cannot easily get done. Pray for his health, a solution for getting this one test completed, and for wisdom for the doctors. Also, pray for the church to step into the gap for the pastor. He is not feeling well and needs to rest and take it easy.

O’Hare Lesson Three: Stuff is Just Stuff

United’s lost baggage policy is terrible. Losing all your stuff is no big deal. The point of this article is to encourage you to do something:

QUIT STORING STUFF

YOU DON’T USE

AND

GIVE IT AWAY

This lesson is more for you than me. Missionary life has taught it well. When life gets reduced to two suit cases per person, you tend not hoard.

I used to keep a closet full of clothes that would fit next year, the basement full of stuff that I might just need, the toolbox full of stuff I was not good at using, the side of the house full of parts and pieces that I might just need for all my excellent handyman work, and….the list could go for quite sometime.

Moving overseas, having limited storage (though our current house has great storage space), a smaller house, and needing to fit everything you might need in a couple of suitcases, has helped us discover the joy of giving stuff away.

It is so much fun that sometimes we give away stuff that we actually still use. Seldom do we keep things that aren’t used for a long period of time. Since space is at a premium, we regularly sort through everything and give away what we are not using. While that might be horrifying to some of you, it has been a great blessing in our life.

Simplicity is a thing of beauty. It will be much more of a blessing to you than your gifts will be to others. I won’t go into all the stories I could about the blessing of it but let me encourage you to discover it.

Our trip to America during the Christmas season provided the opportunity for a few days of simplicity. When we changed our destination airport, it was with the knowledge that luggage would follow. It did not follow closely.

We arrived in DFW airport before midnight on December 21^st. Our bags, all five of them, were tagged for Oklahoma City. Our plan was to pick them up at the OKC airport on December 22^nd. We would be there until late at night, so there should not have been any problem. You would have thought so anyway.

December 22^nd found the United baggage claims representative having a rather bad day! I was one of several hundred people in Oklahoma who had lost bags. I had one bag in OKC and four possibly still in Chicago. Those four finally arrived the morning after Christmas day. Five days without our luggage made fashion choices much easier. I won’t bore you with the details of their path to our house; it was an interesting one, however.

We always travel with some extra clothes in the carry-on, bought a few things and with the help of mom’s washing machine and dryer were able to make it just fine. The only things we really regretted not having were the Christmas presents for family that were carefully packed in three of the lost four bags.