weeping may tarry for the night

A lot of you have probably already knew or had read about how my wife was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure and told that she would never, ever, ever get pregnant.

She did get pregnant.  We have spent the last 8 weeks really excited about something that we thought we would never get to be excited about.  We praised God for a miracle.  We really couldn’t believe that we had created a baby.

Well, there have been some complications for the past two weeks or so, but we’ve been hopeful.  We had an ultrasound the other day, and the doctor said that there was no heartbeat.  But we were still hopeful.  Quite a few people told us that they had similar things happen and gone on to have a healthy baby, so we still had hope.

But we lost the baby this morning.

I know that most of you may not understand this, but we lost a child.  We lost a child that we loved as much as any parents would ever love a child.  We had already picked out names for him or her.  We had already started planning for cribs and strollers and all that stuff.  We lost our baby.

Its hard to breath right now.  We’re not going to be able to get through this without God.  We’re not going to be able to get through this without our friends and our family.  But we’re 2000 miles away from our families.  But we still need you.  Leah needs you.

We need you to pray.  We don’t need you to tell us you are praying for us if you’re not.  We really need you to pray.

We don’t need a nice hallmark message as you go on with your life, we need empathy.  But we don’t need you to just read this and not say anything.

We’ve got eachother, and we’ve got God, but we feel lonely.  We feel really lonely.

We’re trusting that God will be with us, but that doesn’t make it much easier.

In the midst of grief, in the midst of the toughest trials, God is still good.  God is still enough.  He is enough, but this is still hard.

Some people may think that we should not have shared about our pregnancy as early as we did in case something like this were to happen.  But we don’t regret it.  We wanted you guys to share in the miracle.  And now we want you guys to be there for us in the grieving.  In reality, I don’t know how we would make it if we hid this all away and didn’t tell anyone about it.  Or how we would explain that things are just different right now.

It may take us some time to get back to normal.  Or to find a new normal.  Things feel really dark right now.  So we need your love.  We need you to mourn with us and for us.  We need you to be there for us if we want to cry.  We need you to be there for us if we want to laugh.  We need you to be there for us if we don’t want to say anything at all.

Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!”

Right now we are in the night.  We are mourning.  I don’t know how long this night will last, but we both trust that God will bring the morning and turn our grief into dancing.

Keep praying for us.

We love all of you.

-Brandon

drops like bells

I’ve only read two of the blog posts about Rob Bell’s recent interview in the Boston Globe.  Jared Wilson’s and Scot McKnight‘s.

Much of the response has been extremely negative towards Bell and his failure to clearly articulate the gospel at every single waking moment.

I figured I would offer my thoughts as well.  If anyone cares.

I think that, like any piece of literature, genre and context are of key importance. And most of the people who have criticized Rob Bell’s statements here are ignoring both.

1. This is a transcription of a journalistic interview. Many people have treated it as if it were an all-inclusive systematic treatise of Bell’s theology. It isn’t; interviews are conversational, and, as in any conversation, things get left out. You have to realize that.

2. We cannot take this quote from Bell and determine things about Bell’s nature without considering the context in which it was said. First, he was doing an interview with the media. Who wouldn’t see this as a chance to change some people’s views about Evangelical Christianity? The first thing that he says is that evangelicalism isn’t what most people assume it is: right-wing, anti-intellectual fundamentalism. Naturally, he would follow that up with something that is strikingly dissimilar with what most people assume when they hear “evangelical.” And those things that he mentioned should probably be some of the natural responses to those who believe in the “evangelical Jesus,” if you will: helping the poor, caring for the environment, and extending hope to the world.

If Bell had said, “evangelicalism is all about telling people about Jesus.” The interview, in most of the readers’ minds, would have been over because they would have turned the page. They would have assumed that this guy is another religious nut job and would have ignored him.

Finally, you cannot remove this quote from the totality of Bell’s body of work and say that it somehow gives us a more clear picture of where his heart is at than anything else does.

Seriously… God is Good…

My wife posted this over at her blog… and I can’t say it any better, so I’ll just quote her:

<Please read all the way through and don’t skip ahead or skim>
When I was 17 my heart broke for the first time. I was a senior in high school I was a Jesus Freak, babysitter, guitar playing, songwriting girl. I loved church, youth group, music and was quite the music snob, coffee houses…especially with open mic nights, and I wanted to be just like my big brother Adam who was in college. The thing I remember most is that I loved life, people, having fun and laughing. But then there was a day when a few words changed my life. I was told that I have Premature Ovarian Failure. Basically it’s similar to early menopause. I went through some pretty strenuous tests and saw a reproductive sciences specialist for the last 6-7 years. Through all of this, the statistics never changed, I would never conceive and there was a less than 1 % chance that I would ever get pregnant even with medicine. My heart broke and even though I feel like God has used this to make me stronger in my faith and has really healed a lot of the pain, I was never the same. I have been living in the loss of this. Can you imagine going through that? I met a wonderful guy who dated me knowing this, who fell in love with me knowing this, and married me knowing this. But we still have to mourn. You go through such ups and downs with mourning and the hardest part with this is that I never had something tangible TO mourn. Some people might not ever feel that way about infertility, some people feel worse, if you haven’t ever been there you really can’t know, and I can’t explain it, but I can tell you that most of the time I felt empty, incomplete and worthless. Without the love of Christ and the promise of Him having a plan, I couldn’t have made it. Brandon and I have finally gotten to the place where even though it hurt, even though it is hard to breath sometimes, we are okay. We know that we will be great parents and that adoption is an amazing option. But honestly we have had no hope of ever having one of our own. It’s been three years in October that we have been married and “trying”.

I’m telling you all this to say that in spite of giving up, in spite of a 99.9% chance that it will never happen, the Lord has done a miracle in my body. We are having a baby. I don’t if you believe in God, if you are Christian or if you used to be or whatever please hear me out. I would like you to keep reading. There is no way medically or otherwise that I should be pregnant. The doctors CAN NOT explain it other than a miracle. You see God sent His Son Jesus to die for you and for me, and even though we don’t deserve it, Jesus took on our sin to give us LIFE. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Whether or not you believe that statement you cannot argue that this is a miracle and it is only from God that miracles happen. Period. The Lord is faithful. The thing about a miracle is that we DON”T DESERVE IT!!! Just like we don’t deserve the grace and mercy that God has shown us by sending His Son to die to take our sin, and become an atoning sacrifice for us, and yet He has done it anyway. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

Presidential Fearmongering

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past week or two, you’ve no doubt heard about Obama’s upcoming speech.  There is an endless amount of debate about it going around so I thought I should add my two cents.  Now I love healthy debate.  I think it can be a great thing, but I don’t think that most of whats happening here is healthy debate… its fearmongering… There are a couple of things I want to say.

First, I think we are expecting a little more out of the nation’s school children than we should.  The thought seems to be that children are actually going to remember this speech and cling on to Obama and his policies because of it.  The funny thing is that many of the people who are making such a huge deal about it were exposed to a president’s speech when they were in school in the eighties.  How many of them remember it?  Not many.  How many of them became indoctrinated with conservative propaganda?  Well, it seems that maybe a couple did.  But that’s because Reagan actually presented policy not related to education in his speech, which is more than Obama is going to do.  The point is that older students are old enough to make up their mind and younger students don’t really care either way.  A few 5th or 6th graders will come out of this thinking, “Obama is so cool!” But it won’t last.  Which brings me to my next point.

Second, I doubt this freaking out is going to last long.  I told Leah that I was going to write a post about it, and she said something to the effect of “thats a little late, I thought that was a big deal LAST week.”  Of course I corrected her and said that people are STILL freaking out about it.  But she has a point.   I expect this to be all the rage in the news for a couple more days, but then they’ll go back to talking about Michael Jackson or Jon and Kate, and people will stop freaking out and FORGET ABOUT IT.  Why? Because its really not a big deal.  Not a big deal at all.  People will forget about it and start fearmongering about something else.

I’ve got more to say, but I’m tired of typing.

Too Much Emphasis on Christ? 1

When I was in high school, I got into theology.  Not necessarily into actually knowing God but into knowing about God.  Thankfully, in spite of my stubborness, God got to know me and I him.  But my point is that I would constantly talk with people about Christianity, religion, theology, doctrine, etc… even if those people had no interest in talking about it.

Oftentimes the discussion would go in the direction of the charismatic gifts.  One of the things that I constantly heard at that time, and on into college, and even now, was, “Pentecostals and other charismatics overemphasize the Holy Spirit, true.  But some denominations overemphasize God the Father, and Baptists, especially, overemphasize Jesus.”  Or some other form of that argument.  (That the typical SBC church emphasizes on any member of the trinity is debatable).

But, the more I am becoming familiar with God’s word and with who Jesus is–his depth as the very fulness of God–I’m not sure if it is even possible to “overemphasize” on Jesus at all.

The whole of Scripture was about him (Luke 24:27).  The fullness of God dwells within him (Colossians 1:19).  God placed

Review: Your Jesus is Too Safe

So this was supposed to be up on Friday.  But my mom is in town and Leah and I hung out with her.  All day I knew there was something that I was forgetting.  About an hour ago, I realized what it was.  So I finished writing my review.  Then I tried to publish it and wordpress deleted half of it.  So I’ve had a couple of setbacks but here goes

I’m participating in the blog tour for Jared Wilson’s new book Your Jesus is Too Safe.

I’m a blog nerd.  Like most of the people in this generation, I spend way too much time reading blogs, writing blogs, and thinking about blogs.  But if any of my time spent in the blogosphere is NOT wasted, its the time I spend reading Jared Wilson’s blog, Gospel Driven Church.  If any of you are not familiar with Jared Wilson, you really should get familiar.

Jared is a pastor of Element in Nashville, TN and a writer of articles, short stories, and, now, a book.  If there is anything that I can tell you about him, it is that he is passionate about individuals, churches, pastors, leaders, etc. being utterly Gospel-driven and Jesus-centered.  I don’t actually know Jared, although I am friends with him on Facebook, (in case you were wondering, being friends on Facebook means little to nothing, more often nothing than little), but I can see Jared’s heart through his writing on his blog, in various articles, and in Your Jesus is Too Safe.

Your Jesus is Too Safe is a book about Jesus.  You’re probably thinking, “Thanks Captain Obvious.”  But I’m serious.  Its a book about who Jesus is, what Jesus did, does and will do, and how the implications those things have for our lives as people who believe in and follow Jesus.

He takes twelve different aspects of who Jesus is and what Jesus does and, with each one, he reveals all the more a clear picture of who Jesus is.  His own analogy is that of an art restorer who is removing layers of dirt and grime one at a time, seeing the picture more clearly with each layer.  Now, I know that that can seem like he is a bit presumptious to consider himself the great art restorer who is cleaning the layers of the dirt and grime of culture and religion off of the real Jesus, but he lets Scripture do most of the work.  The picture of Jesus that he gets down to is one that is refreshing, beautiful, encouraging, convicting, demanding, glorious, offensive at times, and, in case you were wondering, unsafe.  But its the Jesus of Scripture.

Jared writes as someone who knows Jesus.  He knows the Bible and that all of it is about Jesus, not just the Gospels.  He knows the current historical and theological debates/discoveries/opinions about Jesus.  He clearly knows and has experienced the love of God through the work and person of Jesus.

He writes not simply for scholars and theology nerds, but for everyone, educated and uneducated, young and old.  This book should become a staple for youth pastors to give to their teenagers, because it presents a deep, deep picture of Jesus but in a way that anyone can comprehend.  Scholars and others of the nerdy variety, myself included, will appreciate the fact that Jared is well-read and is up-to-date on the current historical and theological scholarship on Jesus.  Teenagers will appreciate the fact that he references Homestarruner.

He does all of it without assuming that the reader knows anything at all.  Well, he doesn’t assume that you are stupid, simply that you are uninformed of some of even the very basic facts of Jesus’ life.  Whenever he mentions a debate or an issue that isn’t common knowledge, he offers a summary.  Unlike most authors, his explanations are not cumbersome, longwinded and boring, but rather, they are interesting, and oftentimes very funny.

If anything other than Jared’s knowledge of and about Jesus is great, it would have to be his sense of humor.  In all honesty, he’s hilarious.  His jokes and tone bring a light-heartedness to the book.  It doesn’t bring a light-heartedness to the content, however.  It simply reminds us that although Jared takes Jesus very seriously, he doesn’t take himself nearly as seriously as some authors do.  You’ll laugh out loud, and if you are in public, such as in the Winnipeg Airport, you’ll probably get some funny looks.  If you don’t think its funny, its probably because of the severe emotional problems you suffer from.

So what’s the bottom line?  This book is about Jesus.  If you already know about Jesus, you’ll appreciate this book.  If you need to know about Jesus, you need to read this book.  And, in case you were wondering, most of the American Church needs to know about Jesus.  Buy a few copies of it.  I have a serious feeling that you’ll want to give one to someone else.  A friend, a child, a Sunday School teacher, a non-Christian, a life-long Christian.  This is a great, enlightening, challenging book.

And if you’re not convinced yet, anyone who can reference N.T. Wright, John Piper, and Strongbad all in a positive light has to be a gifted writer.

The American Patriot’s Bible

Father Ernesto, over at Orthocuban, pointed out the new American Patriot’s Bible and offered some thoughts on it.

The blurb from the Thomas-Nelson site reads:

THE ONE BIBLE THAT SHOWS HOW ‘A LIGHT FROM ABOVE’ SHAPED OUR NATION. Never has a version of the Bible targeted the spiritual needs of those who love our country more than The American Patriot’s Bible. This extremely unique Bible shows how the history of the United States connects the people and events of the Bible to our lives in a modern world. The story of the United States is wonderfully woven into the teachings of the Bible and includes a beautiful full-color family record section, memorable images from our nation’s history and hundreds of enlightening articles which complement the New King James Version Bible text.

Its true that different parts of the bible speak to people in different ways.  We can relate to different parts in different ways, oftentimes depending on our situation, personality, or even our occupation.

HOWEVER, the overriding theme is always Jesus Christ and his gospel (Luke 24:27).

When the publishing companies publish specialty bibles geared towards women or men or teenagers or fishermen or black female jewish ninjas they’re doing so to make money.  Study bibles that offer helpful commentary and background on the text of God’s word is helpful.  But I find that specialty bibles do little more than encourage people to place their identity in the fact that they are women, men, teenagers, pirates, ninjas, whatever, RATHER THAN FINDING THEIR IDENTITY IN CHRIST, their creator and savior.

God’s word speaks to men, teenagers, woman, lumberjacks, farmers, professional wrestlers in their situations, and the Christian publishing industry doesn’t need to help it out as much as they think they do.

With all of that being said, a Bible that is marketed towards the American Patriot presupposes the idea that America and its loyal citizens have a special place in God’s word and plan more than other nations.  That idea kinda makes me want to throw up.

Work, Work, Work…

Okay, so I’ve not lived up to my plan to post three times a week… but I have an excuse…  July 13-18 I was at SERVE 2009 in Swift Current, Saskatchewan.  Serve is the yearly summer missions camp for the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada.  It is similar to World Changers that the NAMB does, but there is only one per summer, because we are a much smaller denomination.  Anyway, it was a good trip, other than the flat tire on the way back.

Wednesday of last week I got to see my beautiful wife Leah for the first time in 3 and half weeks.  We will have been married for 3 years on October 6, 2009.  Marriage has been fun, hard, blissful, frustrating, rewarding, fulfilling, wonderful, difficult, but always good.  I love Leah more than any person in this world, but sometimes I don’t show her that.  I’ve made the mistake of not showing her how much I care about her.

Genesis 3:6 says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

So Eve had this big conversation with the serpent, in which the serpent was convincing her to do exactly what God said not to do.  Adam knew what was going on, he was watching it, but he didn’t say anything.  He just watched while his wife was being deceived, and then he sinned right along side of her.

I think this is the precursor to what husbands do all the time–we have a tendency to sit by silently with little concern about what is happening to our wives.  We’re more focused on football, video games, being a blog nerd, whatever.  Meanwhile, we ignore our wives’ spiritual, physical and emotional states.

That started creeping in.  Thankfully, my wife hasn’t been one to sit idly by while I sit idly by.  She encourages me and rebukes me and loves as much as I need it.

Denying all the Dying of the Remedy

So quite a bit of hype and discussion has been flying about the internet in the past few days concerning Derek Webb’s new album–primarily about the song that I mentioned in a previous post.  At internetmonk.com, thethinklings.org, and dennyburk.com, in order of severity.  Quite a few people have problems with Derek, the new album, and/or this specific song.  I think I’ll try to sum up what people are saying and attempt to respond.  I’ll probably end up doing quite a bit of what Derek warns against though (“You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak”).

1. A few people have an issue with his use of language.
A lot of people, though they may agree with his point, have issues with his use of language.  They say it is offensive and unnecessary.  I don’t want to say that Derek Webb is just like Jesus, (no doubt some people will read this in that way), but I imagine that some of the people looking on at Jesus clearing the temple were offended by him turning over the tables and cracking the whip… I mean, why did he have to sound so mad? He could have simply asked them nicely.

2. Some have expressed an issue with his clearly indignant tone.
A commenter on the post at thinklings.org pointed out that others have made similar points without the use of anger, with the implication that if Derek had done this, it would have been better.  Once again, I think we should look to Jesus’ example.  Jesus called those people whom society had labeled as “sinners” out in their sin in a very gentle way.  To the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus offered living water.  To the woman caught in adultery, he said, “Go and sin no more.”  There is no indication that Jesus had to point out Zacheus’ sins at all.  On the other hand, Jesus showed indignation, anger, and what certainly would have appeared as arrogance to the religious types.

3. Some have pointed out that he is simply degrading into another one of these emergent/new monastic types who is telling us all to champion liberal social causes, and they’re tired of being told that they don’t give enough to the poor or do enough to help those less fortunate.
First, I think those people are missing the point: both Derek’s point and the point of many (not all) of the other voices telling us those same things.  I’m not accusing any specific person in any of the above links of this.  I cannot help but wonder if many of the people suggesting this simply don’t want to hear it because they don’t want to hear the truth. Sure, there are some great churches that are doing some great things.  Evangelicals give a lot of money to hunger relief, etc.  But if you don’t think that the majority of American Christians focus on the culture war infinitely more than on helping the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and healing the sick both physically and spiritually, then I’m not sure that you are paying much attention.

So before you write Derek Webb off, consider the fact that this may be exactly what we need to hear.  And maybe, just maybe, the reason why it makes you so mad or annoyed or frustrated is because you’re the one who needs to hear it most.  And don’t forget that simply giving a hearty amen if you agree isn’t quite enough either.

4.  One more thing is that he is focusing on law and not gospel.
This may be true to an extent, but I don’t think he’s forgotten the gospel.  Two things.  First, you have to consider this album in the context of his other music.  Second, though the gospel is not mentioned explicitly, it is implied in this song.

The following line:
“denying all the dying of the remedy”

He’s clearly referring to those who have been hated for their sin (he’s referring specifically to homosexuals). He’s calling them “the dying.” So whats the remedy? I’m pretty sure that Derek would say that the gospel is the remedy.

Now, I know its not explicit, but the Gospel is there.

But, this song is clearly directed toward those who already know and believe the Gospel:
“Cause if you really believed what you say you believe; you wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak”
If they really believe the Gospel and the love of Jesus towards sinners, then they wouldn’t be so quick to condemn sinners and, in turn, deny them the remedy, aka, the gospel…

Maybe I’m stretching it, but I don’t think so…

Derek Webb’s New Album…

So, lyrically, this album is amazing.  Musically, this album is amazing.  In other words, I like it.  A lot.

If you’ve followed Derek Webb at all, you’ll know that there was quite a bit of controversy about this new album… supposedly INO records refused to release it as it was, and Derek Webb refused to change it.  From everything that I can tell, Derek Webb and his people were, amazingly enough, able to turn the delay into an incredibly interesting scavenger hunt type thing, and those who followed all of the clues to the full extent were surprised with the chance to listen to the album for the first time in Derek’s studio at his home in Nashville, after the unveiling of the album the other night.

For people like me, it just served to make me anxious to know what the controversy was about, not to mention to get to listen to the new music.

Anyway, its out now, and you can download it at derekwebb.com for 8 bucks.  You should do it.

Once you listen to the CD, its not hard to figure out what the controversy is about.  The following song, of which I posted the lyrics, is clearly the source of the controversy.  I’ll post the lyrics and post a youtube video in which you can listen to the song, and then I’ll say a couple of things about it.

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak

‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn’t silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin’ all the dyin’ of the remedy

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings

‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

Clearly, the song is about homosexuality.  Certainly many people will be upset that he isn’t more clear about his actual stance on whether homosexual actions are sins or not.  But thats not the point.  The point is that American Christians spend much of their time combatting homosexuality, yet there are a lot of people lost, there are a lot of people dying.  And we apparently don’t give a shit, as he puts it.  No more commentary for now.