Tag: moral issues today

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Journal Meditations Wisdom

A 10 point strategy for dealing with the many charitable requests we receive?

Question:   One of my parishioners recently wrote me about a dilemma that is certainly common to all of us today.

“I received email from 6 organizations wanting donations from me today. This is pretty much a daily happening and it’s causing me mixed feeling. The question is how do I handle this situation? I have my pet charities; but I don’t feel I should support them all.   Some of them do grab at my heart when it comes to children and animals, and even disabled or blind vets.  The list is getting longer and I feel guilty when I discard them. This is not counting the many calls I get via phone – please give me some advice.”

Answer  from the Pastor’s Desk:

It is unfortunately part of the modern world that we are able to receive so many calls for donations. As you mentioned, some come by phone and some by email, not to mention TV.   Many come from automated mailing systems.   I’m sure before long they will figure out how to send them in other ways as well.   Even at church we have plenty of fund appeals. There are twin spiritual and emotional dangers. On the one hand, we can become overwhelmed by them and laden with guilt so that we hardly know what to do.   On the other hand, and this may be even worse, we can become immunized by the barrage of them to the point that our compassion atrophies and we can no longer respond when we should.

Here is a strategy that I recommend that I believe will allow us to respond in compassion appropriately while protecting ourselves from overload.

1. Pray about where God is calling you to help.

2. Then choose a few charities that are very reputable and that deal with issues that are dear to your heart.   Use your passion for issues and world needs as a guide.  For example, if you feel strongly that you would like to eradicate cancer, then you might choose the American Cancer Society as one of your charities.

3. The number of charities you choose may depend on your means but for most people, I think it will probably be from 3-6. Keep the list small enough so that you can respond occasionally to all of them every year.   Don’t worry if you don’t respond to every call. I don’t think anyone does that. Most of us can’t.  Married couples may decide to each add some favorite ones to a joint list or they may each have their own.

4. Your local church will likely be your number one charity.

5.  I recommend that all Christians in developed countries like ours include at least one charity that ministers to needs in the third world in their list.   It might be UMCOR or World Hope (the one JoAnne and I have chosen), or Samaritan’s Purse or World Vision, for examples (Gal. 2:10).

6.  Consign all other email solicitations ruthlessly to the junk email box. For most of the repeated ones, you can get your browser to do this for you before you even see them. Trash both email and snail mail from other charities without even opening it.

7. For phone calls, tell the person up front if their charity is not on your list and if they won’t take “no” for an answer, they deserve a hang-up.

8. The fact that you are obeying God in generosity to the charities you have chosen helps you to not feel guilty in disregarding the others.  Seek to be at peace with your level of giving.   God does not want you to feel burdened with guilt about it but to be a joyful giver (2 Cor. 9:7).

9  Follow faithfully the charities that you have chosen, allowing God to use you to help them.  Read their materials and become knowledgeable about them.

10. Annually evaluate your overall participation in your chosen charities.   If you do taxes, that is a natural time to evaluate.  Your ultimate goal as a Christian steward is God’s well-done for your handling of the wealth he has entrusted to you.   A term that I have found helpful in measuring my response is to ask whether or not I have been generous.   God loves generosity and his economy rewards it.   As the Proverb says, “The generous will themselves be blessed” (Pr 22:9 NIV 2011).

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Moral issues in GM advertising

 

I am very disturbed by the alarming trend in the moral tone of some GM advertising.  I do not usually watch much television, but I do enjoy the winter Olympics and GM has been advertising heavily on NBC during the Sochi games.   I am saddened and disappointed at the low moral level reflected in some of the ads.   In addition, as a person who has driven more GM cars by far than any other brand, and currently drives a Chevy Equinox, I even feel a little betrayed. 

Let’s begin with the lowest one.  You know the one I mean.  “I can’t believe you got a tattoo on your…”   The viewer is left to imagine some kind of outrageous drunken night before which the male driver may not even fully remember and which his wife or girlfriend riding with him seems to take in stride as semi-normal.   Is this coarse humor the best they could do to advertise connectivity?  This follows the disturbing habit of much media to proffer that which gets noticed without taking any responsibility for its ethical content or probable influence.   I prefer following St. Paul’s advice, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29 NIV).

Then there is the ad by Cadillac that would turn off any morally mature person.  It is the epitome of hated American arrogance that gives us a bad reputation around the world.   The man talks about how we left the keys in a car on the moon because we’re the only ones going back.   We left because we got bored.  The further implication is that we can drive Cadillac because we only take two weeks off in August rather than four like the Europeans.   What snobbish nonsense! The writers of that ad were obviously not schooled in history or Christian ethics either.   “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18) and “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6) have not been part of their reading.

Finally, take the case of the young babysitter who, after noticing the Tahoe’s fine and expensive leather interior raises her price $20 on the spot.   Raising the price based on presumed ability to pay is the stuff of tourist trap street vendors, not normal business dealings.   It is hardly an example of honesty or wise interpersonal relationships.  It is also a counter-productive ad because the person driving the Tahoe will feel cheated.   (Also note that the baby sitter will be unlikely to be rehired.)   So the implicit ad message is, if you buy a Tahoe you get to be taken advantage of.   People would much rather be respected by honest dealing than by looking rich enough to be taken advantage of!

These ads do not reflect good moral thinking at GM.  I pray for better from a blue chip American company.   

 

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

College should build character

Houghton Logo I have been reflecting today on two completely independent items that I read.  The first was an article about the problem of officers being ejected from the Army in alarming numbers for character issues of various kinds. Here is the quote. 

“The number of U.S. soldiers forced out of the Army because of crimes or misconduct has soared in the past several years as the military emerges from a decade of war that put a greater focus on battle competence than on character.  Data obtained by The Associated Press shows that the number of officers who left the Army due to misconduct more than tripled in the past three years.”   http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-misconduct-forces-more-soldiers-145434065.html

Having been in the military myself for a few years, I am aware that young officers are college graduates.  I reflected that this is not the only place where college educated people seem to be showing disappointing levels of moral character.   The halls of Congress and the governors’ offices of several eastern states in recent years have provided too many high profile examples of moral failures.  One would hope that higher levels of education would lead to higher maturity of character too. 

The other item that I read was in a letter from Dr. Shirley Mullen of Houghton College.   It alluded to one of the fundamental causes of this observed counterintuitive and disturbing decline in character.

“Earlier this month, New York Times Columnist David Brooks addressed more than 300 presidents of America’s private universities and colleges at the Presidents’ Institute of the Council of Independent Colleges.   At a time when much of the dialogue about higher education in America is about cost, graduation rates, job training, and student loans, Brooks pleaded with the presidents not to forget what society needs most from college graduates: character and wisdom. He then proceeded to assert that the only sector of American higher education that has an explicit strategy for the development of character and wisdom is the Christian college. It is not often that Christian colleges are called out for praise within the larger world of American higher education!”  

It does not take a genius to see the relationship between these two quotes. Christian colleges represent only a very small slice of American higher education. That means most of American college graduates spend their college years in institutions where character and wisdom are not part of the agenda.  When these are not part of the agenda, students often use their formative years as something of an unholy “moral holiday,” a time when they throw off restraint.   With no one even attempting to guide this time of experimentation, the results are frequently predictably disastrous.

As a longtime advocate of Christian colleges in general and of Houghton College in particular, I have said for years that parents need to invest their college dollars in colleges were character matters and where good character is formed, not destroyed; colleges like Houghton.   For this reason, when our daughter was choosing a college my wife and I said to her, “We are going to be investing a lot of money in this; you pick the college, but it has to be a Christian college.”   We knew she liked new places, so it was a surprise when she picked her mother’s alma mater, Houghton College.  Houghton did not disappoint!     

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Journal News Commentary

Pleading for a solution to our government impasse

I have prayed publicly for two weeks that our government leaders would have the wisdom to solve the current political impasse and get our government functioning again.  Tonight I read an excellent article from United Methodist Women that tells about how vulnerable poor people are in the current situation.  It gives more moral impetus to the need for our political leaders to get their act together.

http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umw/news/articles/item/index.cfm?id=1246

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Immigrants make an area more prosperous

A new study has found that immigrants help the prosperity of areas where they live.  I have seen this first hand in the boost immigration has given to some neighborhoods in Syracuse NY and Utica NY.   But they would not be surprised at the results of the study if they had read the words of the wise man recorded in Proverbs.  “A large population is a king’s glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined” (Proverbs 14:28 NIV 2011).

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505143_162-57602552/can-immigration-speed-the-economic-recovery/

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Blood and guts films morally offensive

I cannot believe that after the massacre at Sandy Hook, this chainsaw massacre movie can be number one.    

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/01/06/chainsaw-3-d-carves-out-no-1-debut-with-23m-at-box-office/

Just from the article’s description, people of good moral intelligence should find fare like this disturbing at least and after Sandy Hook, downright disgusting.   It should have hardly a cult following and only among the unthinking and uncaring.  The fact that it is number one is a terrible indictment of our society.   God has warned us that those who fail to hate bloodshed will find it pursuing them (Ezekiel 35:6).  

In my view those who make these kinds of movies are on the same moral level as pimps, drug dealers, gambling house owners and others who make money at the expense of the vices of others.    Jesus himself warned that offenses (things that cause others to stumble) will come but that at the judgment it will not go well for those who bring them.

 “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! (Mt 18:7  NIV 2011)

 

   

 

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Yes, We Need to Change

 

http://www.christianpost.com/news/we-must-change-obama-says-about-school-shooting-86754/

I think President Obama is right.  Our society as a whole must change if carnage like we have experienced four times in his four year presidency is to be stopped.   The key question is:  How must our country change?  As a pastor, writing from my perspective, I suggest the following three practical ways to change as a transforming start.

Believe in Hell

1.  We must get back to the genuine fear of God that acknowledges that we are responsible to God after we die for what we do while we are alive.   The Bible is clear that there is a hell and Jesus said plainly that those who do evil will be condemned (John 5:29).  Sad to say, the suffering of murderers like Adam Lanza has only begun.  The Apostle John wrote simply, “You know that no murderer has eternal life in him” (1 Jn 3:15 NIV)   Think about the ethical company of a murderer in the Bible and what happens to them after death.  For example, “We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers — and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine  that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me” (1 Ti 1:9-11 NIV)  In the Bible’s final book, murderers are included with others in such company  in the list of those condemned.   “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars — their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death” (Rev. 21:8 NIV).   The longer we indulge in practical atheism with a corresponding lack of after-life responsibility, the more people will believe the devil’s lie that they can commit suicide after murder and escape consequences.   It is not so.

Corollary A.  This also means preachers like me need to say more about hell.   One of the reasons people don’t believe in it much is that preachers don’t talk about it much.   In my grandparent’s time and before, preaching `hell-fire and brimstone’ was popular.  The pendulum has swung too far the other way and now it is seldom mentioned.   That needs some correction.    Jesus taught, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28 NIV).

 

Fewer Divorces

2.   We must acknowledge and act upon the truth that divorce makes children, including older adolescents like Adam Lanza more vulnerable to maladjustment.   As Christians, we acknowledge that sometimes divorce is going to happen, but it is happening way too much and without recognition of the consequences to children.  We have deceived ourselves as a society into thinking that we can divorce without consequences to our children’s development.  This assumption is not Biblical.   In Malachi, God says about the heterosexual couple, “Has not [the Lord] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.    “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty”  (Mal 2:15-16).   Why does God picture divorce as opposed to the goal of godly progeny?   Because it is the truth as any single Mom can attest and many sociological studies have confirmed that children have a much harder time doing well in life when the parents are not both present and on the job together.    We will not successfully address the problem of off-the-wall violent young adults until we address the broken homes that contribute to their pain.  We need to acknowledge that our selfishness in having it our way and refusing to seek counsel for reconciliation or refusing to bend, our hardness of heart as Jesus put it, is part of the problem.   

 

Bloodshed in Media is Not Entertaining

3.  As a society, we must stop enjoying violence in entertainment.  A society that makes heroes on film and in video games of people who spatter blood everywhere will sooner or later be afflicted by real violence of the kind we have seen.  Since God hates bloodshed, it cannot be our better side that calls bloodshed in media entertainment.    Morally undeveloped individuals tend to follow unreal fantasy heroes, including violent ones from film and video.   The more plentiful and highly acclaimed this kind of ‘hero’ is, the more likely to attract a low moral intelligence look-alike for real.  We can all honor the victims of Sandy Hook by returning all violent video games and not attending any movies with predominant shoot-em-up, blood-letting themes.   If we did that, soon we would have better fare at the box office and among the gaming apps.   When ancient Israel became a violent nation, God said to them, “Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you” (Eze 35:6).   If we truly hate what we saw in Connecticut and Virginia Tech, etc., then we have a clear consumer choice to make.     

 

Just these 3 changes would make a difference

Certainly these are not the only issues that need to be discussed after what has happened.  How we handle mental health issues in the family, access of the mentally unstable to guns in their family circle,  security at schools, jobs and job training for marginally employable young men, these also need further discussion.  But they are not my focus.  I believe that the three changes I have suggested would make a huge difference.  The change will not come overnight.  But these three modifications in our beliefs and behaviors would transform our culture in ways that would drastically reduce the incidence of horrendous violence. 

 

 

Categories
Church Leadership Journal

October and November Messages Planned

 

Harvest time is for Thanksgiving

I haven’t blogged in a couple weeks because I have been traveling part of each week.   But now that the schedule has returned a little more to normal, I will try to catch up a little.  As you can see, the plan below is already in progress.    Our October series was planned to go with election  season when our country is talking about values and issues.   The church needs to be relevant and enter the conversation.  But my take is a little different ffom some.  Here is a quote from the introduction to the series on Christian Values for Today.

      “I believe that Christians are called to tell the truth about the chaos of values today.  Our task is to call our country back to the values of the Bible.   As we undertake this task, we cannot help but seem political at times. But that is not our first intention.  As one person has put it, ‘God is not a Democrat or Republican.’    God’s values apply equally to Democrats and Republicans.  He calls both parties to forsake their sins and walk in his paths.   It is up to us as followers of Christ to use our discernment and our influence to encourage all parties to take stands on contemporary issues that reflect the teaching of the Word of God.  Using our vote as best we can is part of our responsibility to use our influence.  At times in this series, I expect that the Republicans will feel somewhat smug.  But at other times I expect that the Democrats will feel the same way.  But that is not my issue. My responsibility is to preach the word of God wherever the chips fall.  My responsibility is to pick issues that I feel are of extreme importance in the Bible, our lives, and in our country and preach on them.   And God helping us that is what we will do in this series called Christian Values for Today.”  

The November series  will focus on the close relationship between the Thanksgiving season and the Christian value and practice of generosity and stewardship.   It will also be a great lead-in to the Christmas season with its emphasis upon giving. 

 

October Series:  Christian Values for Today

Date

Topic

Speaker

 Scripture

Suggested Hymn

October 7

Human Life is Precious

Kelvin Jones

Psalm 139:13-16

We Praise Thee, O God

October 14

God has Blessed Traditional Marriage

Kelvin Jones

Gen. 1:26-32 Eph. 5:28-33

A Christian Home (147)

October 21

Pastor Appreciation

Larry Nemitz

1 Tim. 2:1-7

My Faith has Found (277)

October 28

Remembering the Poor

Kelvin Jones

Gal. 2:6-10 Acts 10:1-6

Show a Little Bit of Love (511)

November 4

Righteousness Exalts a Nation

Eric Paashaus

Prov. 14:34

Where Cross the Crowded Ways (490)

Thanksgiving Series:   Thanksgiving and Giving

November 11

Giving is a Good Thing

Kelvin Jones

1 Tim. 6:3-19

Now Thank We All Our God (36)

November 18

Thanksgiving and the Offering of Firstfruits

Kelvin Jones

Deut. 26:1-11

Count Your Blessings (430)

November 25

 Giving to the Work of God

Eric Paashaus

 2 Cor. 9:6-15

Thanks to God (110)

 

Categories
Journal News Commentary Wisdom

An excellent essay opposed to gay marriage

From the pen of Pastor Jim Garlow, a Wesleyan pastor from California, and now a national leader in the battle to preserve Biblical values in our country, comes a tremendous essay explaining the consequences of the state’s adoption of gay marriage.  I highly recommend it.  It is one of the clearest statements I have read concerning the reasons why states should not allow gay marriage.  I agree whole-heartedly with Dr. Garlow.   I have heard him speak several  times and read some of his writings.  He is an absolutely brilliant historian as well as a great pastor. 

http://torenewamerica.com/index.php/garlow-on-the-prop-8-ruling

Categories
Church Leadership Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Best pro-life article I have read in some time

People who are pro-life are always asked by pro-choice people,  “What about cases of rape and incest?”   Here is a compelling, factual, insightful and thoroughly convincing pro-life answer.   I highly recommend it.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/how-do-we-respond-to-the-question-what-about-rape-and-incest-80584/