Jack’s Buzz

Some of you might remember the story of my student–we’ll call her Kim–who was involved in a car wreck. In the New-Orleans-post-Katrina-longer-than-usual wait for the cops to show up, Kim told her new “let’s trade paint like we drive in Nascar” friends about Christ. I labeled the her tactic Car Wreck Evangelism (read it here).

While at a local mall, my friend Ashley decided she’d give it a go. Ashley is the wife of one of our Pastors at Valence Church. Here is her husband Page’s account:

Ashley and I have been praying for us to meet people to share the Gospel and invite to the church plant.
Ashley had an accident this afternoon in the parking lot of Lakeside Mall. A girl hit the front end of our Camry. There was no major damage, except for the hood.
Nevertheless, she started talking with the girl and found out that she is a graduate student at UNO and from Indiana. Ashley asked her some spiritual questions and found out that she is a Christian but has been looking for a church in town. Turns out she lives and works in Uptown. Both she and her roommate are looking for a church.
Pray for them as they may be visiting with us next Wednesday.

You have to laugh, unless of course you’re the one in the car wreck. While it makes for a very cool story, I kind of want to encourage everyone to try other methods first ;^)

When I was a kid I was able to go to a very cool summer camp. One of our activities involved riding horses and generally messing around in the woods, which is a fine activity for a kid. On returning to our cabin, the counselors made us strip down and check each other for ticks. Ticks are small and relatively insignificant creatures until they get under one’s skin. Once locked in, they suck blood, create a nasty welt that itches like mad at the very least. At worst, ticks carry Lyme Disease and assorted other feverish nasties.

We were sternly warned that to miss a tick or leave one behind (no pun intended) was a grave error that would not go unpunished. A cabin-mate could get deathly ill from a tick bite. So we checked the body with diligence.

Being all males under 10, this led an assortment of loud and ridiculous pranks that I will leave mostly to your imagination. Suffice to say that a couple of us learn to time a certain bodily function to cause our brothers to be deeply grieved and suffer great alarm. No doubt you will agree that “tick-picking” was a necessary evil that followed the fun of horseback riding.

A recent, and ongoing, task at a church with which I am involved reminds me how often the leader’s job is to find and remove ticks from the body. A tick is a blood-sucker. His or her sole activity is to suck the life out of us. When one picks a tick, great care is necessarily exercised. Pull too hard, off comes the head and infection will follow. Me and the boys were taught to remove ticks by first lighting a match, then blowing it out, and touching the hot end to the tick’s behind (now you can imagine our other favorite prank, can’t you?). It works every time–the tick gets hot and backs out. Essentially, you get rid of a tick by lighting a fire under his … uhhh .. rear. (Here’s the medically approved method, by the way.)

No one likes to pick ticks off his or anyone else’s body. At least no one normal likes it. Ironically, however, when circumstances force a leader to excise a tick from the body, some people will accuse him of being a dictator or of gaining pleasure from the work. Those accusations are lies and should not be tolerated. When leaders do not remove the ticks, the body will suffer disease, and it can be fatal.

Leaders pick ticks.

I’m preaching in the NOBTS chapel tomorrow. If you’re around, I’ll be glad to see you there. The NOBTS media types tell me that the thing will be broadcast over the Internet at 11:00am CST, http://www.nobts.edu/Chapel/. That’s my second shameless plug in a week.

If you’re not around, or you have better things to do, I will appreciate your prayer that God says something through the hip music leaders and me. Students need to hear from God, so do professors. I’m not much of a prophet, but I do think I can get out of the way enough that the Holy Spirit will offer food for a hungry soul between 11:00 and 12:00. That’s the prayer request.

Here’s value added to your day.

First, for students: We have new, original, and very cool t-shirts to make you laugh (preview on Friday’s blog entry). You can have one with my compliments if you’ll also take one to give away to another student before chapel Tuesday. Come by the office and Brooke will help you find your size. We’re in Dodd 203. They’ll be gone by lunch Tuesday, so get off your couch.

Next, for everyone: David was called a man after God’s own heart. How do you suppose he got that title when he stole a guy’s wife, then killed the guy? Hard to get your mind around is it not?

You’ll find the story of David’s misdeeds in 2 Samuel, chapter 11. First David was not doing what he supposed to be doing. The text says that kings got to war during the spring; evidently adulterers do not. David was in the wrong place. As if adultery were not enough, he went ahead and murdered the poor girl’s husband Uriah. David sinned twice, and his mess was not your garden variety stuff like you commit—he was deep in the weeds.

God was not absent while all this was going on. He put an anvil on David’s heart, and anguish so deep that David had to get out from under it. Scholars tell us that David wrote Psalm 51 while he was under God’s pressure. He wrote Psalm 32 after he found God’s forgiveness.

If you’re like me, you have sinned better than you’ve sainted. You may even realize as I do that God would have been justified to take you out. Yet, I have this wonderful reality that God’s pressure and his forgiveness are sure signs that He cares about me and you just like He cared about David.

Tomorrow, I will preach on Psalm 32:1-2 and explain how we, the people of God, need to turn away from our current wickedness against the Lord so that the blessing and prosperity of forgiveness can come to us. I will relate the sins of today’s North American church to those of David, and I think we’ll see how God wants to bring us back into His favor.

Here’s the text:

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

I hope you get blessed today and tomorrow.

I’m preaching in the NOBTS chapel Tuesday, 11/6. Thought I’d give away a few shirts to celebrate (albeit late) the 490th Anniversary of Martin Luther’s church plant. You know of it as the Protestant Reformation, but it was really just another angry church planter trying to make his point–or 95 points in this case. just look at this guy’s picture and tell me he’s not a cynic. Happy Day Marty!

Pastor Marty planted a church Oct. 31, 1517 with a 95 point sermon nailed to a door. Some trick.

Let’s get together.

Jack will buy the coffee.

jacksbuzz.com

How’d you like to be Ezekiel? To him God said,

You, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions; neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence, for they are a rebellious house. But you shall speak My words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious. Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you. (Ezekiel 2:6-8 NASB)

The day you got your first Bible, God said the same thing to you.

Enjoy :^)