Body Parts
News and views on the work of Christ's Body
RSS
Paul
Asay

Easy Come, Easy Go

November 16th, 2009

10 dollarsThe economy’s been hard on everyone. But what to do about it? Stick what’s left of our money in our mattresses? Buy Dodges and Chevys in the hopes that GM and Chrysler will be able to pay back their government loans? Ask the fed for an individualized bailout plan?

Robinwood Church in Surf City, Calif., had a different thought. The church — with a little help from an anonymous donor — decided to give $10 to the first 100 people through its doors yesterday, along with orders to spend it.

Now, $10 isn’t enough to send  anyone to college or pay their mortgage. But it is enough to help stimulate the local economy a bit, and that’s exactly what the money was intended to do, according to The Orange County Register. And, while some folks who walked through Robinwood’s doors tried to turn the gift down, Robinwood was having none of it. 

“We made them take it,” said Executive Business Pastor Robert Black.

Most of the congregants spent the money in local eateries after the service. And, with Robinwood contemplating turning the giveaway into a monthly event, you can bet restaurant owners around Surf City are feeling a bit more blessed these days.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in church news | 1 Comment »

Do You Want Grace With That?

November 13th, 2009

There are Christians out there who pray without ceasing — quite literally. They pray in the back of their mind when they’re preaching, when they’re eating, when they’re talking with their friends, when they’re telling their kids to do their homework. Prayer, for them, is as natural and as beneficial as breathing.

I, alas, am not one of those people. And I doubt I’m alone. Real prayer, for some of us, falls in the area of going to the gym: We know we should, we know it’s good for us, and we know we’d feel better if we did. But it takes time and energy, and it’s sometimes just easier to fall on the couch and watch The Office. 

Matthew Cordell of Queen Creek, Ariz., understands the power of prayer. Moreover, he knows that most folks probably don’t pray enough. And so he set up a prayer station, right on the highway: “Prayer Stand, Drive-Thru,” his sign reads.

ABC News posted a story about Cordell and his prayer stand on its Web site. A disabled veteran, he mans the stand himself, aided only by his Chihuahua, Skye. He prays with people when they’re hurting and happy. In fact, he’ll pray with them for any reason at all.

“One day, I drove by an orange stand on the road and I felt God telling me to open up a prayer stand,” Cordell told ABC. “I thought it was a crazy idea, but it’s God’s idea, so I decided to try it.”

He has no idea how many folks have stopped by the stand since he started it this August, but he acknowledges that sometimes he’s received enough business to slow down traffic on the two-lane highway it sits beside. Isabella Crowe is one of those who’s stopped by for a quick bit of prayer. 

“The metaphor of a prayer drive-through really symbolizes how fast-paced our world is and that sometimes we just don’t stop,” she told ABC. “It’s convenient and it’s nice. By setting up a drive-through, you’re saying, ‘Two seconds — give God that much time.”

It’s a sad commentary that some of us need a drive-through prayer stand to remember to pray. But I’m glad Cordell sacrifices his time and energy on the side of that Arizona road. Those who stop don’t just appreciate him: They need him.

Tags: , ,
Posted in North America, O.J. Award | No Comments »

Of Heads and Hearts

November 12th, 2009

 

photo by Sami Keinanen

photo by Sami Keinanen

I’m not much of a beer drinker — I haven’t been since a still infamous 21st birthday celebration in college that we shall not mention any more. But if I decided to hoist a pint again, I think my mug might be filled with Guinness. Mind you, they’re not paying me to say this. And Guinness might taste like Kentucky Blue Grass, for all I know. But still, I like their style.

 

I had the pleasure of hearing Os Guinness, a member of the famed brewing family and now a popular Christian author and speaker, and I found him to be quite intelligent and witty — enough so that I walked out of the lecture thinking, “you know, Christianity needs more ambassadors like this guy.” 

Turns out, Os is just the latest of a long line of Christian ambassadors from the family Guinness — at least according to this column in USA Today written by Stephen Mansfield. Guinness, an Irish brewery founded 250 years ago by Arthur Guinness, was a brewery built — perhaps paradoxically for some — on Christian values.

“The values Arthur Guinness envisioned for his company were first honed in a life of devotion to God,” Mansfield writes. “He was beloved throughout Ireland for his defense of Roman Catholic rights, for example, an astonishing stand for a Protestant in his day. He criticized the material excesses of the upper class and sat on the board of a hospital for the poor. He was also the founder of the first Sunday schools in Ireland. When he died in 1803, the Dublin Evening Post declared that Arthur Guinness’s life was ‘useful and benevolent and virtuous.’ It was true.” And Mansfield goes on:

There are many tales that could be told: Of the Guinness heir who received millions of dollars as a wedding gift but then moved his new bride into the slums to draw attention to the plight of the poor. Or of how the Guinness company promised all of its employees who fought in World War I that their jobs would be waiting for them when they returned, and then paid their families half wages until they did.

The lesson is clear: Guinness strove to improve the lives of its employees with the same intensity as it strove to sell its beer.

I don’t know if Guinness is still such a great place to work or still serves as such a strong example of corporate charity. But it seems to me that, if more corporations held firm to the same spirit Guinness has, the world would be  much improved.

Tags: ,
Posted in Europe | No Comments »

Visitors and the Vatican

November 11th, 2009

v-abcI’m a child of the ’80s, and as such I have fond memories of the classic, cheesy, 1983 NBC miniseries “V.” So naturally, I tuned into ABC’s reboot featuring those fantastic forked-tongued, lizard-skinned visitors. And what do you know? During the Nov. 3 premiere, I heard one of the primary characters — a Catholic priest named Father Jack Landry — tell his superior that the existence of extraterrestrials challenged his concept of God. For him, the idea of God and aliens occupying the same space was deeply disturbing.

Well, just minutes after I finished watching V’s second episode, I ran across this story from the Associated Press: 

E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Maybe Father Jack had a word with someone?

Tags: , , ,
Posted in pop culture | No Comments »

Why the Wall Came Down

November 10th, 2009

 

A section of the Berlin Wall, circa 1990.

A section of the Berlin Wall, circa 1990.

Yesterday the world celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. Historians tell us there were many factors, and many people, responsible for the collapse of the wall — and, by extent, the Soviet Empire: the impracticality of communism, rampant defense spending, Reagan, Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II … but I had not known, until Monday morning, that Protestant Christian leaders in East Germany played a significant role, too.

 

Reuters posted a pretty fascinating article on their religion blog, talking about that very point: In the 1980s, some Lutheran leaders were working heavily to reform the East German government — instrumental movement toward the peaceful revolution that happened later. And many former West Germans don’t quite realize what a role their faithful country mates made toward reunification.

“The peaceful revolution was, at its core, also a Protestant revolution,” said German politician Werner Schulz. “Its pioneering motto ‘no violence’ was the essence of the Sermon on the Mount, the most revolutionary passage in the Gospel…  Protestant churches were base camps of this revolution… People went from peace prayers to street protests with a serious Protestant manner, disarming reasonableness and discipline.”

Tags:
Posted in Europe, social issues | No Comments »

Working Through Tragedy

November 9th, 2009

Days after a gunman killed 13 people in Fort Hood, the army base’s chaplains are  scrambling to help the hurt and the hurting make sense of it all — or, barring that, at least move past the tragedy.

“I was told that the chaplains at Fort Hood — about a dozen of whom are Southern Baptist — were involved on the ground yesterday, and started ministering during and right after the incident,” Keith Travis, team leader of the chaplaincy evangelism team at the North American Mission Board, told the Baptist Press Nov. 6. ”The Army is a big family, and the chaplains are a very prominent part of that family. And they are there right now providing pastoral care to the Fort Hood community. …”

Fort Hood, base for 30,000 military personnel and their families employs scores of chaplains, and all have been quite busy. Many are deployed in Iraq right now — the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), for instance, didn’t have any of its chaplains on base at the time of the shooting — but the pain and need for ministry goes around the globe.

Nearby churches have also tried to minister to the hurting. First United Methodist Church in Killeen, Texas — many of whose members are military — opened its doors all day Thursday and Friday and held special services during the weekend.

“When a tragedy like this occurs, the whole family comes together. By that, I mean the entire military community,” said the Rev. E.F. “Skip” Blancett, church pastor. “A lot of conversation is going on in expression of grief and sympathy.”

I really respect military chaplains. The folks they’re called to minister to do incredibly dangerous, stressful work — work, you’d think, would either draw them closer to God or push them away. Soldiers, sailors, marines and pilots often turn to chaplains to help make sense of their work, their lives and the sense of it all. And these chaplains are particularly needed in the wake of this particularly senseless act. 

Much has been made of  the shooter own Islamic faith, and what role Maj. Nidal Hasan’s growing adherence to that faith played in the murders. But it’s good to remember that if religious zealotry might’ve played a role in tearing this base apart, it’s faith — quiet, honest faith — that may prove to be instrumental in picking up the pieces.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in North America | 1 Comment »