Having been only recently turned on to the hilarious antics of the hit NBC show, 'The Office,' much of my dialogue over the past month or so has been comprised of quoting the show.  As luck would have it, early last week, Mr. David and I had watched an episode called, 'Fun Run,' where Michael Scott (the boss) hits one of his employees with his car, prompting him to hold a charity 5K for rabies (it's a long story).  As it turns out, as we were quoting this show (and paying my water bill at the Ashland city building), we noticed something amazing: Ashland was hosting a 5K Fun Run in just a few days!

So, despite a previously unsuccessful foray into running, Mr. David made the event sound like one massive joke, and I decided to go for it.  'What's the worst that could happen?' I thought, and, if nothing else, I would have something mildly entertaining to blog about. 

Without further ado, here is a blow by blow account of last Saturday morning as I raced for no cure at all (it was just for fun)! [note: all times are approximate.  I had no watch, after all.]

8:36 a.m. - I finally wrangled myself out of bed.  My goal was to be at the Ashland Optimist building at 8:15 to register.  I awoke to the smiling faces of Griffey and Sophia (my dog and the DeOrnellas' dog we were dogsitting), and thought, 'if you had to go do what I'm going to do, you wouldn't be smiling.'

8:54 - Stephanie, Mr. David, and I arrive, register, and give credit to Mrs. Foster as our sponsoring teacher.  I have no idea what this means, but note that I am number 93.  Mr. David and I quote 'The Office' for the first of hundreds of times over the next couple of hours.

9:00 - The coordinator of the event presents an oversized check for $360, made out to 'Science,' to a nurse you pay by the hour. [note: this didn't really happen, but we said it did, because that's what happens in 'The Office'  I promise, I won't just quote the show the whole time.]

9:03 - After being told that 'it doesn't matter where you finish, just that you do,' the race begins, curiously beginning up a hill.  Halfway up the hill, I'm already tired of running.

9:05 - Having left Stephanie in the dust, I was running in the thick of several other people who seemed to know what they were doing.  'This isn't so bad,' I thought to myself.

9:07 - On second thought, it's pretty bad.

9:07:30 - On third thought, this is awful.

9:08 - My ankles hurt.  My feet hurt.  My side hurts.  My lungs hurt.  I'm slowing down considerably, and breathing like a seventy eight year old man with Emphyzema. 

9:09 - I've stopped running.  Rabies wins. [note: Ok, seriously, I'm done.]

9:15 - Stephanie catches up to me, mocking me for running out so fast.  I would make a smart remark back, if I could think of anything other than the searing pain in my feet.

9:23 - After several minutes of walking, we realize that we're only slightly ahead of a middle aged woman pushing two pre-schoolers in a stroller.  I'm not sure if I should tip my cap to the Mrs. Stroller, or simply light myself on fire in shame.

9:31 - We encounter entrant #62, a small blond haired boy who looks lost.  As we cross paths with him, he is, at the very least, three quarters of a mile behind us.  We smile and say hello to him, and he shoots a look that says, 'one more word, and I'm screaming 'stranger danger!''

9:36 - Mr. David is finished with the race.  I've never hated him more than at this moment.

9:43 - Strangly, we notice that #62 is now in front of us in the race.  Unless he's actually Usain Bolt in disguise (now THAT would be impressive), we suspect he has cheated.  This will be a running theme throughout the duration of the race.

9:50 - Speaking of cheating, Mrs. Stroller is just about to finish the race, while we still have a little under a mile to go... EVEN THOUGH SHE NEVER PASSED US!  The final mile was the 'Cyclone of Death,' which means that it was simply a field with a bullseye in it.  To finish the 5K, you had to follow the path around and around until you hit the center.  This is, without a doubt, the most single easiest 5K in the world to cheat on, as you can simply 'forget' not to cross the lines.  Out of the 13 lines we counted, Mrs. Stroller crossed at least eight of them... and Stephanie is LIVID.

9:55 - With just a few laps to go, Mr. David catches up to us and asks for the keys to the car so he can take a picture of us finishing.  I have never hated him more than THIS moment...

9:58 - We finally finish the race, in 80th and 81st place overall (out of around 100), in just over 55 minutes.  I'm fairly sure that had I simply walked the whole way instead of stupidly running the first few minutes, our time would have been better.  Of course, we actually went the whole distance, which hurt our time more than anything...

10:28 - Door prizes!  Mr. David gets a Boone County National Bank visor, while Stephanie wins a water bottle from Peak Performance.  My prize is a limp that I will have until Monday, as well as a severe allergy attack that has made my eyes nearly swell shut.  Awesome.

10:38 - During the awards ceremony, at least four people get medals for their division who we know, for a fact, cheated.  #62 gets second place in the '10 and Under Running' division. We leave, deciding it's better that we don't see what medal Mrs. Stroller recieves. 

11:39 - Back at home, I chase double the recommended dose of allergy medicine with a Red Bull.  I can only assume my heart will still be beating in the afternoon.

Sunday, 7:35 a.m. - After the best night of sleep of my entire life, I wake up hurting worse than at any point Saturday.  Stephanie reminds me that if I had listened to her and stretched afterwards instead of laying on the couch, I would feel fine right now.  I have never hated her more than at this moment.


Well, that's that.  The lesson?  I'm not sure there is one, except that running turns me into a whiny, spiteful human being.  I guess cheaters DO prosper, and I guess doing something physically demanding for the sole purpose of a joke is not a great idea.  At any rate, as I sit here writing this a few days later, I can only think of one more thing to say:

When's the next one?

Two quick notes late on this Friday night:

- As promised after Wednesday night, here's an awesome site with an in-depth look at how mankind was dispersed following the even at Babel from Genesis 11.  Like I said before, I can't really vouch for the authenticity or scholarship of this, but to be quite honest, the dude sounds really, really smart.  And, he agrees with me on the issue of race, so I'll go with it!

- Also, if you'll recall from a few weeks ago in a sermon, I described my short-lived foray into the world of track and field (in case you missed it, here's the short version: it did not end well).  Well, tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., my career will resume! Stephanie, Mr. David and I will be running in a 5k here in Ashland.  If nothing else, there should be a hilarious blow by blow account on the blog next week.

See you Sunday!

In 1995, Barry Larkin, my favorite baseball player of all time and Cincinnati Reds’ shortstop for nineteen years, hit .319 with 15 home runs, 66 runs batted in, 51 stolen bases, and won the National League Most Valuable Player award.  That season, the Reds won the NL Central and swept the LA Dodgers in the playoffs before being eliminated after four straight losses to the Atlanta Braves.  Reggie Sanders, the Reds’ right fielder, struck out 11 times in the four games. 

When I was a senior in high school, I went to see my favorite band, Weezer, play with Dashboard Confessional and Sparta with my friends Alex, Brad and Sarah.  They opened with ‘Say it Ain’t So,’ and Rivers, their front man, wore a ridiculous three piece suit and sunglasses, even though they began playing after 9:00 p.m. 

I had a G.P.A. in college of 3.6, even though on my first college test in a class over the book of Job, I only got a 74. 

I could go on and on and on with random facts and figures from my life and other things around me, because, well, I have a freakishly random memory.  I can remember some of the stupidest things, and I’m afraid that some of this ridiculous information is stuck in my head forever.  There are times that I worry that we only have a certain amount of room in our brains, and I’m using way more of it than I should on information that I will never need for anything. 

Obviously, this type of memory has served me well in my life at times (especially when recounting ridiculous stories for sermons), but my memory can get in the way of my spiritual well being more times than I’d like to admit.  I, like most people, have this funny way of remembering every time someone has wronged me.  I can recall hurtful words, disrespectful actions and personal affronts like I’m reciting Larkin’s stats from his final season (.289-8-44… and he was an All-Star).  There’s a weird part of our brain that just seems to remember every bad thing that occurs in our lives, and it affects how we see, treat and feel towards one another. 

Now, it’s a pretty basic tenant of Christianity that we’re supposed to forgive one another.  Jesus taught it (Matthew 6:13-15), Paul taught it (2 Corinthians 2:5-11), and we’re told to do so because we’ve been forgiven by God (1 John 2:12).  And forgiveness is not a feeling, but a choice - when we forgive a person, we give up the right to enact revenge for the wrong that was committed to us.  However, for us to truly be spiritually free from the burdens of our past hurts, it might do us well to emulate a further action of God: forgetfulness. 

It might sound strange to say that the all-knowing, all-powerful being of all existence is a forgetful fellow, but facts are facts, and we’re told explicitly that God doesn’t just forgive us of our sins, but He also forgets them (don’t believe me?  Check out Hebrews 8:12).  As we read about the New Covenant through Jesus, we read that God completely eradicates our sins from our hearts and souls, and to do that, He simply stops remembering them.  Clearly, this is by no accident - God makes a purposeful, concerted decision to limit His knowledge of us and our sins so that we can have a right relationship with Him.  And He does so by employing a pretty nifty tactic that we can follow as well: when He looks at us, instead of seeing our mistakes and failures, He sees the perfection and victories of Jesus.  When we accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, we don’t just become Christians - we clothe ourselves with Christ, completely covering our past with His future (Galatians 3:26-27).  So, when God looks at us, He sees Jesus, and He completely forgets our sins! 

For you and me, when we don’t forget, we have the hardest time forgiving.  I don’t know about you, but I want to follow Jesus as closely as I can, so I think it’s high time we start seeing with God’s perspective - when we see people who have hurt us, instead of dwelling on their mistakes, we should picture what Jesus did for them.  And when we realize that the very people who have hurt us are people that Jesus died for on the cross and rose from the dead (1 John 2:2), it will become a whole lot easier to let go of our sense of entitlement that tells us that we can, and should get even with them.   Maybe you and I will never truly forget the sins that people have committed against us, but when we focus on what Jesus did for them instead of what they did to us, we can honestly and reasonably do what God has do for us. 

After all, I’m fairly certain that God’s memory is a little better than mine.

Full disclosure: I HATE onions.  Despise them.  Loathe them.  I dislike every part of them - their taste, texture, smell - I even think that if they had a voice it would be grating, like nails on a chalk board.  I always have held this animosity for God’s worst creation; as a child, I would do everything I could to get out of eating at McDonald’s, because they have onions on their burgers (clearly, I hadn’t learned to read the rest of their menu).  In my mind, there never has been and never will be a good use for onions. 

All that changed recently, however.  It was a snowy night, and Stephanie and I had seen a commercial for Outback’s $9.99 Steak Dinner (steak?  Outback?  Ten bucks?  Count us in!), and we decided that no one would be out and we could eat in peace.  Since it was so blustery cold out, I decided I needed soup as one of my two sides, and I when I asked our waiter what they had, my world fell apart: their two options were French Onion and Cream of Onion.  Two onion soups?!  No other options?!  What a world.  After much debate, my craving for soup outweighed my disdain for onions, and so I chose the Cream of Onion… and much to my surprise, I loved it!  It tasted nothing like the onions of my yesteryear, and it very well might have been the best soup I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant.  My whole world was changed - if I could enjoy an onion based soup, the possibilities were endless.  What’s next - Peace in the Middle East?  Flying cars?  The Cincinnati Reds winning the World Series?! 

My experience got me thinking: the soup was phenomenal, not IN SPITE of the onions, but BECAUSE of them.  They had reached their full potential; whatever else was in that amazing broth allowed the positive attributes of the onions to take center stage, while the terrible qualities were non-existent.  In other words, the soup was greater than the sum of its parts. 

The church is a lot like that onion soup.  In every congregation, there are going to be people, ministries and events that rub you the wrong way.  Ashland Christian Church is no different - there are going to be times when you want to vent as passionately as I do about my least favorite vegetable.  And that’s ok - so long as your views are not lacking the perspective to see the big picture.  We are more than just the sum of our individual parts; we are a family, bound together by our shared faith in Jesus.  All of us - young or old, new or not-so-new, immature or seasoned - are valuable parts of what God has called us to do.  We are all to Connect, Call and Cultivate, and the church will be at its best when every individual does his and her part. 

Therefore, as the apostle Paul put it, “since God chose you to be holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you… Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony,” (Colossians 2:12-14).

Alright, we’ve established I have a slight problem with arguing over everything, from the stupidly mundane to the eternally significant.  You don’t just know this because you’ve heard me; I’ve admitted as much, and am working really hard to get better about this every day.  So, with that being said, the following is NOT to incite an argument or debate - this is a subject I’ve argued about more times than I can count.  And I wouldn’t even bring this up, except our Wednesday night subject matter has it on my mind, and unless I blog about it, it won’t go away.   

SO 

Whenever we read about the book of Genesis, there’s often a ‘so what?’ attitude that accompanies our learning.  I mean, after all, these are events that happened thousands of years ago (at least) to people who have little to nothing to do with our every day lives.  And since there’s no Jesus involved, the covenant we currently live in is entirely different when it comes to morality and all that.  So, what do we do?  We try to look at the big picture, we attack modern science, and we wax poetic about how things might have been. 

Thankfully, the New Testament writers often made connections between Old Testament history and our personal spiritual lives, and in the case of the account of Noah and the Ark, there’s an incredible lesson to learn, a kind of beautifully poetic symmetry in how God saves His people.  Here’s what we learn from the Apostle Peter: out of everyone who was alive when God flooded the world, only eight people were saved.  And God chose to save them through water, by preserving them on the Ark. 

In the same way, today, God chooses to save people through water - at baptism.  Baptism, Peter writes, in not a physical act cleansing our bodies; instead, it is an appeal to God, from us, asking for a clean conscience.  Baptism’s power to save us derives specifically from the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, who is right now in heaven, ruling.  So, whenever we read about Noah and the Ark, we should be able to say, ‘hey - that’s a lot like the way God saved me!’  Thousands of years ago, God saved eight people through water, and today, God saves people through water as well! 

Now, this is a bold claim (though it’s not mine - if you’ve got a problem, take it up with Peter), and it’s a controversial one.  The natural question that comes up is pretty simple - ‘Do we HAVE to be immersed to be saved?’  Or there’s my personal favorite - ‘Are you saying I’m going to hell if I don’t get baptized?!’  The protests are understandable, as we know that we are saved by grace, through faith, and baptism seems (to many people, at least) to be an addition to that.  And in today’s Christianity, there are traditional ways to accept Jesus’ sacrifice that are different than Biblical baptism - infant sprinkling/confirmation, the Sinner’s Prayer, etc.  So, I understand the questions that are brought up by what Peter has to say. 

With that being said, though, to try to answer these questions takes the arrogance to presume to speak for God, not to mention an ignorance that God has saved people through a variety of circumstances, even in the New Covenant.  The point is not to argue, but instead, to have an appreciation for how God has chosen to save each one of us.  After all, He could have saved Noah in all sorts of ways - He could have beamed them to space, or put them to sleep, or killed them and brought them back to life, or any other way God could think of.  But the way He DID choose to save Noah and his family was through water. 

Today, I think we can say the same thing about us - God COULD save us in all sorts of ways, but HIS choice is through water baptism. Because of that, at Ashland Christian Church (and anywhere else that I will ever do ministry), we’re going to get on the ark.  Noah’s obedience was evidenced by responding to God in the strangest way (building a boat to live in for a year), and he surely didn’t understand the full ramifications of that choice.  The Biblical response to God, in this day and age, is for a believing, repentant person to choose to be immersed in Jesus’ name in water.  And when that happens, we are saved - God forgives our sins and blesses us with the gift of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:36-38). 

That is what we will do - but what we will NOT do is pass judgment on people who don’t see everything the same way we do.  Just as Noah had a choice whether or not he wanted to get on board with God, we do as well; and just as it was not Noah’s place to decide for other people, it is not ours to bully others into falling in line with us. No matter what, the power of what we celebrated yesterday is what we all, at the end of the day, are hoping and trusting in - Jesus of Nazareth was God in the flesh, and he died in our place two thousand years ago.  And when he rose from the dead, he made it possible for everyone to spend eternity where God always intended us to be: with Him. 

That is something there should be no argument about!

I I think we all have a little Cain in us. 

Quick review for those of you who weren’t at Wednesday Night Bible Study last week: in Genesis 4, we read the account of two brothers and their worship to God.  One brother, Abel, was a sheepherder, and his sacrifice was honored by God; the other one, Cain, was a farmer, and his was not.  What we’re not told, exactly, is why God gladly accepted Abel’s sacrifice while He rejected Cain’s.  We were able to look at two New Testament passages to shed some light on the difference between the two brothers: Abel’s offering was offered in faith (Hebrews 11:4), and Cain’s unrighteous actions pre-dated his sacrifice and murder of his brother (1 John 3:12).  Our conclusion was simple: since Cain was not actively following God in his life, his sacrifice meant nothing, while Abel’s sacrifice was consistent with his faith, and God accepted it. 

Fast forward to today: think about a church service.  At Ashland Christian Church, it goes a little something like this: 

*Music, presumably sung to or about God.
*Communion, presumably to remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
*Offering, presumably given to help advance the work of the Gospel at ACC.
*A sermon, presumably to inspire and instruct anyone who will listen to live a life for Jesus.
*Donuts, which taste good. 

I add ‘presumably’ to each of the four basic tenets of a Sunday service for a reason - while the purpose of each aspect of the service is to do something which honors God and/or helps you live a life following Jesus, whether or not our music is sung to God or the offering is given with the right attitude is entirely up to you.  Our worship service is only truly ‘worship,’ when YOU decide it is; if your motivation is not what it ought to be, then ‘worship’ is actually simply ‘going through the Jesus-y motions,’ (and believe me, I’ve gone through the Jesus-y motions so many times, I consider myself an expert on these things). 

More to the point, your Sunday morning worship experience will be determined almost exclusively by your life the other six days, 22 hours of the week.  Church is always going to mean different things to different people - some people are just checking this Jesus thing out, some people genuinely want to grow up in their faith, some people are considering giving their lives to God, etc. - but if you’re consistently coming to church and claiming to be all about Jesus, then it would be a good idea to live that claim out when you’re not here.  God is not interested in songs or money or juice and bread; He’s interested in YOU.  And Christianity is not simply coming to church, learning some lessons, having some fun and going home - Christianity is living a life of faith and hope that the Creator of the universe loves you.  The fact that God loves you should change your heart, and as we grow as believers, we should love others in the same way.  This is Christianity: to live out a heartfelt relationship with God through Jesus in your own way.  The church (at large, not restricted to ACC), therefore, is simply a tool to help you do that. 

This is especially poignant this week.  See, Sunday is Easter, which means all over the world, people will go to church out of a sense of obligation, because after all, it’s Easter, and that’s what people do.  And these folk will either enjoy the service or be bored to tears, and then go home for a nice dinner, and then forget everything they heard at church… until next year.  And this is called ‘worship.’  This is not to cast stones at people who come to church once a year, but instead, to look at the mirror at ourselves.  Some of us go to church every week out of a sense of obligation, because after all, that’s what we do.  And we either enjoy the service or are bored to tears, and we forget everything we heard at church… until next week. 

The bottom line is this: our outward worship of God should be consistent with our inward heart condition.  We’ll never be perfect, but every day is a new opportunity to give our lives to Jesus all over again.  THAT is faith: trusting God even though we act a whole lot like Cain a lot of the time.  And you know what?  When we do that, we have a lot in common with another person: 

Abel.

“Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.”

– 2 Timothy 2:23


The toughest temptations are the ones you don't recognize.  It's hard enough to resist doing the wrong thing when you know it's wrong, but when it's a part of your personality, it seems nearly impossible to say 'no.'  We're all wired differently, and so these things are different for all of us, but for me, the above verse describes a temptation that has plagued me for as long as I can remember:

I love to argue.

And by 'I love to argue,' I mean, 'I love to argue even when there's no good reason to argue.'  It doesn't really matter what it's about - sports, music, TV, movies, wildlife in my backyard, food - it's all fair game.  It can be about something I know well, or something I know nothing about.  It can be about something of the utmost importance, or it can be about something that not only doesn't, but has never or will never matter.  As horribly and annoyingly taxing as it might be on the people around us (especially my wife!), I have the hardest time not arguing. 

One of my proudest moments (or, perhaps most shameful) happened in college.  I had a roommate who, if you can believe it, was even more insufferable than I was.  He constantly badgered people about what they believed about baptism, and if you committed the heinous crime of disagreeing with his particular point of view (which was, I might add, the most limited view I've ever heard), you were 'going to hell,' because you weren't 'saved.'  He was awesome, let me tell you.  Well, one day I decided that his reign of terror needed to end.  Armed with the knowledge of every one of his arguments, I decided to defeat him in the ultimate argument battle... and I did.  Even though I didn't even believe what I was saying.

That day taught me a valuable lesson: winning an argument is not the same thing as teaching the truth.  That's why it's so important for us to heed Paul's advice to Timothy - stay clear of foolish and stupid arguments.  As Christians, we all represent our Lord and Savior, and when we make it our personal mission to convert everyone to our specific way of thinking, we give off the impression that Jesus wants everyone to be the same, as if God has this giant cookie-cutter that he makes Christians out of.  This, of course, is ridiculous - the kingdom of God always has been and always will be diverse!

Of course there are things that we all need to be united on, but that's where the trouble lies: people have different opinions on what those things are.  The fact is that while there are countless unanswerable questions about God, Jesus, and the Bible, we can all unite around the simple truth of the gospel: that through Jesus, we can know our Creator.  And we are saved through the death (on our behalf) and resurrection (to conquer death) of Jesus that occurred two thousand years ago.  This simple truth is the heart and soul of Christianity, and it's this that we can all agree on.

Because there are so many different views, at ACC, we do our best to stick to what the Bible teaches.  But you know what?  There are a lot of other views, and as hard as it might be for someone like me, the right response to those views is NOT to argue.  Listen?  Understand?  Love unconditionally?  Absolutely. 

Consider this my confession, and please extend to me grace when I fall short in this area.  There are times when I will argue about the dumbest things, and there are times when I will take shots at the viewpoints of other people.  Every day I have to remind myself that no one was ever argued into the kingdom of God, but instead, led by someone who cares enough to patiently discuss the truth about Jesus. 

It's a good thing we don't have to be perfect - after all, that's why we need Jesus in the first place!