Author Archives: nickloyd

Gay Bath-House

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I spent last Thursday night in gay bath-house.

Well, not the whole night. Just for three hours or so. Actually, i was back in time to watch “The Office” and the new episode of “Lost,” but it would take a whole lot to wrestle me away from both of those. Anyone with me on that?

Anyway, I was invited by my new friend, Rick. Rick is a man i recently met who has been teaching me a lot about what it means to love, follow Jesus, and live my life with purpose and intention (see my last blog). But, maybe the most intriguing part of the man is where you’ll find him most Thursday nights–in any one of three gay bath houses in downtown Seattle.

Now, i didn’t even know that there were bath houses in Seattle. I suppose it shouldn’t really surprise me; i guess i just hadn’t really thought about it. But since he had explained his presence there i felt compelled to go and discover what would draw a man back there week after week to serve people that many have written off.

Getting there, i thought, would be easy. I had an address. I had a GPS device. I had a car. Pretty much i can get anywhere. But, as i turned down the block and approached the spot where the GPS said i had arrived, i didn’t see anything. So, i drove around the block, still looking. Then again. In fact, i drove around five times looking for a business i was assured existed. Finally, in exasperation, I called Rick and asked him where to go. He told me it wasn’t marked, that there was no signage at all, but that i should simply look for a red door and go inside.

I was definitely nervous to go inside. Mostly because i just wasn’t sure what to expect. But, as i walked through the door, i met an employee at the counter and he ushered me through to the lobby, where Rick was already seated waiting.

Rick explained to me that we would sit here for our whole shift offering “safer sex” kits to anyone that would come by us. Inside each kit was a condom, lubrication, and a pamphlet on HIV/AIDS with educational information and a hotline to call.

As things weren’t too busy initially, however, he offered to give me a tour of the club. Not really knowing what a bath house was–i was still picturing a giant pool with people lounging around in pool chairs sipping ice-tea and others sitting on the edge of the pool dangling there legs in the warm water–i said, “why not?”

Now, i’m not sure i have the courage to explain to you everything i saw that night inside the bath house. But, there were some things i saw that were pretty normal: a internet cafe with people checking their email, a tv lounge with “My Name is Earl” on, and a normal looking shower area with lockers. What i didn’t see was any sort of “bath” or large pool.

But, without exposing you to everything i saw, let me explain the general purpose of the club. The basic idea is it is a place for gay men to gather and either purposely–or more often it appeared randomly–meet other gay men and engage in sexual behavior together.

And let me tell you, i was relieved to get back to the lobby! While too much for this blog to convey, there was much to see that made me quite uncomfortable. In fact, I felt like i was holding my breath during the entire tour.

However, as we got back to the lobby, i understood much more fully why we were there. We weren’t there to hand out kits that could possibly be used. We were there because the kits we handed out that night were SURE to be used. The job was no longer optional, it was necessary.

That night we sat there handing out kits to everyone who came in. And roughly half of the people coming in accepted our gift. We even got three guys to agree to be tested for HIV by the King County Health Department doctor that was there with us (In just 20 minutes, each of them knew their status).

But, it was the drive home that i had to process everything that i had experienced. And for those of you who have asked, here is what i learned…

1) Stereotypes are dead. If there were any stereotypes of what it means to be gay, or beyond that gay and in a club like that, they are gone now. Guys from every walk of life came in the club that night. Old. Young. White. Black. Asian. Wealthy. Poor. None of it mattered. There were no guys in drag. It was people you walk among and live around all day long. Any attempt to label people or stereotype them never seemed more wrong.

2) Homosexuality wasn’t the biggest problem. If you really pressed me, i would have to admit that i believe that homosexuality is not God’s ideal. In one way, i hate to make that claim. Not because i don’t authentically believe it, but because so many are saying it without love. I say it this way because i believe it is a difficult issue and a deeply sensitive one. Not involving theories or abstracts, but involving real people with real loves, desires, dreams and ambitions.

However, that wasn’t the biggest issue in a club like this. It was, to be sure, a very dark place, but not because gay men gathered there. The darkness came from the intent of the club. The club exists in order for people to meet (randomly?) and have their pornography and sexual addictions fed. The bathhouse operates to encourage people to engage in highly promiscuous and dangerous sexual activity. Activities that destroy relationships, encourage isolationism, damage families and promote disease.

Had this been a heterosexual club, it would have been no less dark. And in this way, homosexuality wasn’t even the major issue.

And i suppose that leads to the most important thing i learned:

3) God calls me to love people that others (especially many Christians) consider worthless.

I suppose at one point, just before i walked in the door that night, i may have considered them worthless as well. I was afraid of them. I was judgmental of them. I had already labeled and categorized them.

But, something happened as i watched guy after guy enter the club that night. In a glance, I started to look into their eyes. Although really, very few were willing to actually look anyone directly in the eye for long. And what i saw was not sub-human. They were not worthless garbage to be discarded. The were not “lost causes” to given up on and condemned.

They were Imago Dei. They were the image of God. They were and are created in the very same image of God that i am created in. And beyond their oppression to a sexual addiction, they are still valuable and beautiful.

So, I asked Rick, “How many churches help out with this?” He said he couldn’t think of any. So i asked, “How many Christians do you know that help out here? And again he couldn’t think of any.

Hundreds of people, like slaves oppressed by evil, flock to the bathhouses each day. And not a single Christian, other than Rick is anywhere in sight? That just doesn’t sound like the Jesus i know. And let me be clear, i’m not primarily picking on other Christians here, i’m shocked most at my own un-Christlike absence.

Would Jesus go to the bath house? I don’t know. But, i know he went to the places that no one else thought a respected religious leader should go. He showed up to parties at tax collector’s houses. Hung out with notorious sinners and prostitutes. He even invited a hated tax collector to be among his elite few, 12 disciples (Matthew 9:9-13).

And so, i arrived that night thinking that the people in the club weren’t worth the piece of latex we were handing out. But, I discovered instead that Jesus lives there. He lives there in the form of my friend, Rick, who sees beyond their addiction to the divine imprint and beauty in each of them.

If you ask Rick why he’s there, he might simply tell you, “I’m a doctor. And there are sick people here.”

Ironically, Jesus said the same thing when questioned about why he hung around the condemned of his day, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor-sick people do. For i have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (Matt. 9:12-13)

In that way, Jesus might more often be with Rick at the gay bath house, than with me in my house.

When Christians get HIV

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HIV positive.

Imagine what hearing that news would sound like . . . “We’re sorry, sir, but the test came back positive for the antibodies against HIV. You are HIV positive.”

I’ve never heard those words, but my friend, Rick, has. Rick is a medical doctor. Well, he WAS a medical doctor. In fact, he was a bit of a hero among doctors. He was an emergency medical responder; one of the first people on the scene of a disaster or emergency. The kind of people that put themselves at risk in order to save those in desperate need.

And it was one of those risks in 1989 that changed his life forever.

In the middle of a medical emergency, Rick was withdrawing blood from a man that was confused and combative. As he pulled the needle out, the man jerked, and Rick was stuck in the arm with it.

What Rick didn’t know that day, but feared most of all, was that this man had received the HIV virus through a blood transfusion back in 1982. Being a diligent doctor, Rick tested himself for the next several months. Nine months later, the test came back . . . positive.

In 1989, there wasn’t much to be done for HIV/AIDS. The drugs available today hadn’t been invented yet, and so for two years he did nothing while his HIV levels climbed off the charts.

A year after contracting the disease, his employer fired him for being HIV positive. The very job that had GIVEN him the disease was now firing him for HAVING the disease.

After five years of living with the disease, Rick’s wife decided she couldn’t handle it anymore and took his son, moved out and divorced him. Rick said he understood and supported her in the decision, but that it was one of the darkest days in his life.

So, Rick and I sat for coffee a few weeks ago inside a small Starbucks up in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. For hours, we talked about life, sports, family and eventually the disease.

Rick lives in Seattle now. He doesn’t have a job. His time is so consumed with organizing and taking the many anti-retroviral drugs (ARV’s) that he must take at specific times each day (38 different drugs each day) to keep him alive, that he has no time to work. He lives in a small apartment. Has no transportation. No family around him to support him. By all human standards, Rick should be a miserable, bitter and angry man.

But strangely, Rick is full of LIFE . . .

I think what most surprised me about my friend Rick is the purpose with which he now lives his life. He volunteers his small “free time” speaking at public schools about the dangers of HIV/AIDS. He works with a group called LifeLong in Seattle that case manages AIDS patients. He packages condoms into “safer sex” kits to be handout around Seattle. And on Thursday nights, you’ll find my friend, Rick, sitting inside a non-marked gay bath-house in Seattle, surrounded by a lifestyle he doesn’t condone, handing out these kits to any guys that will take them on the way in.

At a time when life would seem to be over, Rick thinks it has just begun. Not that there haven’t been real hurdles. Not that he hasn’t tried to give up. Not that he hasn’t called into question a God that would allow what has happened to him in the first place. But, on the other side and through a lot of struggle, he has found a purpose and a passion to his life that few others (especially the healthy) ever find.

HIV positive.

If you ask Rick, it was the worst news he ever received. It completely devastated his life. But, the funny thing about Rick is, if you listen long enough, he’ll tell you that now he knows it was the best news for everyone else.

Because his life took this unexpected turn, he has learned to trust God and get involved in what God is doing to help others. In Rick’s own words, “If I never had gotten sick, I would still be a doctor, making money, but not trying to do my part to save these people.”

Rick is teaching me a lot about what it means to love. And he is teaching me a lot more about what it means to really LIVE life on this earth.

As another of my friends has often said, “I don’t care about adding days to my life anymore, I’m more interested in pursuing life for my days.”

Or as another friend of both Rick and I once said: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” – Jesus.

In fact, Jesus not only said this once, he is quoted as saying it in all four gospels (twice in Luke, actually). It is one of the few sayings of Jesus that was apparently equally memorable and important to all four individuals who documented Jesus’ life in the gospels.

But, maybe it wasn’t just memorable. Maybe it was reality.

Rick would agree. And so would I. And so many more people in our churches and communities could experience “life to the full” if they believed it too.

Welcome Back, Nick.

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Wow, it is has been a long time since i have written something here.  I was just looking back and seeing that i have been strangely absent for the last few weeks.  Sometimes, life just seems to take over, leaving little time for the things i enjoy most.

However, I’m re-committing to getting back to this blogging thing.  I’ve been learning lots over the past few weeks and it is time I start recording them here again.

I came across this quote from Bono (U2) the other day and thought it was insightful.

“I’m a believer, but sometimes I think religion is when
God, like Elvis, has left the building. When God has left the building
you get religion. But when God is in the house, you get something else.”

Living Imitation

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I honestly don’t like imitations. Every morning for breakfast, i have two eggo waffles and a cup of coffee. Pretty healthy, right? Well, i did recently switch to low-fat nutri-grain waffles. But, as much as i love this breakfast, just try and switch out my eggos for some cheap store brand version and i’ll flip out. They just don’t taste the same.

lucky_charmsI didn’t always eat that for breakfast, though. I remember being a little kid and only wanting to eat Lucky Charms! Remember those? I’d still buy them today if i didn’t look like such a kid when the cashier rings them up. Although, i am having a baby soon…maybe i can sneak them in that way! The problem was my mom was cheap. She didn’t like paying the price of Lucky Charms. So instead she would come home with some Malt-o-meal version of them like “Treasure Marshmellows.” But, you know as well as me that they weren’t quite the same.

I guess that is why when i came across Ephesians 5:1 the other day it kinda bothered me. I’ve read it a hundred times before, but only this time did i realize that i didn’t really like it. It says, “Therefore, be imitators of God…” And if there is anything that i don’t want to be it is a cheap imitation!

I suppose i feel like there is a lot of that out there already, you know? People pretending to be one thing. Imposters. Phonies. Knock-offs. Especially Christians. Doesn’t it seem like every time you turn around you meet someone that is only a cheap imposter of who Jesus was and is? In fact, i am embarrassed to identify myself as a christian most of the time because of all the “imitators” out there.

And yet, Ephesians 5:1 is clearly calling us to be “imitators of God.”

So, i looked in the mirror several weeks ago. And instead of seeing my amazingly handsome, young face looking back, for the briefest of moments, i saw my dad peering back at me. It was strange. It was only for a second, but i could have sworn i saw his face in the mirror i was looking into. And it occurred to me, i am becoming like my dad. In fact, i’ve been a little worried about this before. My hair is turning grey in spots. My abs are reverting from their chiseled beauty to the famous Loyd belly. But, it isn’t just physical. I was talking the other day and i caught myself saying something that my dad always used to say to me growing up. I was sitting in my office when it dawned on me that i have the same profession (if you wanna call it that) as my dad. I took a look around my office and realized my collection of books is catching up to his. But, it isn’t just that either. I was explaining some theology the other day and realized that i approach a lot of my critical thinking the way my dad does. I was counseling someone and noticed i was offering advice my dad has offered to me. In short, i am starting to look, think, act, and enjoy things that are the same as my dad.

Wow! I have tried many times to not be like my dad. Not that he is a bad guy (he is actually a phenomenal man), but because i have wanted to be my own. And yet, whether i want it or not, i have spent so much time with him and have been so influenced by his guidance in my life that i am starting to look like him. In fact, the other day, somebody came up to me and said. “i see a lot of your dad in you.”

I wonder if this is what Paul meant in Ephesians 5:1. What if he didn’t mean a cheap imitation at all? What if he meant that we are to be so absorbed in the relationship with our Creator that we would find ourselves simply thinking and loving and feeling and acting like Him? As if our DNA was being rewritten with His. What if He wasn’t calling for imposters, but for children who grow up with the imprint of their dad.

And so, i now want to be an “imitator.” I want my life to be shadowed by the Divine. I want my life to slowly start to mirror the image of God. I want people at the end of my days to say, “I saw a lot of his God in him.”

Living Imitation.

The God Who Cries…

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“Tears are a liquid process of lacrimation to clean and lubricate the eyes. The word lacrimation may also be used in a medical or literary sense to refer to crying. Strong emotions, such as sorrow or elation, may lead to crying.”
— Webster Dictionary

Until last week, my daughter, Paytyn, didn’t have the ability to make tears. She would cry and scream, but all without tears. In fact, apparently it takes about a month after birth for a baby’s tear ducts to form completely so that they can shed actual tears.

Before now, I don’t think I had ever thought about life without tears. I just assumed that we were born with that ability right from the beginning. But, when I picked Paytyn up from her crib the other day (she had woken up suddenly and was crying) I noticed what had been absent. Her eyes were wet. I was shocked and asked Tania what was wrong with her. It was then that I learned she was simply learning to make tears.

baby cryingI had heard her cry many times already. But, now for the first time I was seeing her cry. As I held her in my arms that day, I found myself sad. Sad that life eventually had to know tears. Sad that life, which started without even the ability to truly cry, would eventually know so much.

As I held Paytyn, I realized that she would cry many tears in her life. Over parents that just don’t understand. Over skinned knees and pinched fingers. Over cruel comments. Over broken promises. Over relationships with boys and friends and even God.

And how sad that one day she went to sleep without the ability to cry, and woke up (maybe from a nightmare) crying never to stop.

Did you know we cry for several reasons. Basal tears keep our eyes lubricated and functioning properly. Reflex tears are the ones we shed to clear our eyes of a sudden burst of dust or onion vapors. And then there are crying or weeping tears (the kind I saw on Paytyn) that are born of emotional stress, sadness or even gladness.

In fact, crying, emotional tears are so different from the other two that their chemical makeup is not even the same as the other two. There is an entirely different recipe for these tears that we know as crying.

I have cried many tears so far in life. And as I think back on those moments, it make me sad to think that Paytyn will also grow up and know this particular recipe of tears and sadness. No one it seems is immune from tears. Not even God.

John 11:35 says that when Jesus came and found that his close friend had died, he knew the tears of sadness.

In Matthew 23, Jesus goes to a hill and looks and laments over Jerusalem, the city he loves. And it is difficult to read his words written there without seeing the tears of the God who looks on.

In Luke 22, on the night before Jesus is killed, it is recorded that he prayed so hard his sweat fell to the ground like blood. One has wonder what other moisture fell from his eyes in those darkest moments.

In fact, many stories in the Bible are easily read with the perspective of a God who weeps over the dilemma and plight of mankind.

baby crying 2 And so, Jesus was born like Paytyn. And somewhere at about month one, he succumbed to the same humanity as she. And he cried. Maybe nothing is more human. Maybe nothing identifies with the human condition more than a God that would enter a world of tears and shed his own.

So, as I held Paytyn that day, I softly brushed her tears away from her face, knowing that I would do this many times in her life. Knowing, I suppose, that she may do the same for me. But as I did I was reminded of this simple verse that is a promise for a day when finally the tears will cease.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
(Revelation 21:4)

I suppose Paytyn will cry many tears in this life to come. And I will wipe away as many as I see. But, eventually, when time is done, One who is greater than I will come and he will pick her up and hold her and wipe away her tears forever.

The tears will be many. But they are numbered.

What if Christians were on the same team?

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So, I wrote a few weeks ago about when Christians occasionally rise up and surprise you with their devotion to the mission of Christ rather than the construction of their own private enterprises.

Well, sadly, this week I was reminded about how often many Christians do otherwise.

Just north of Seattle, a small church (400-500 people) owns two properties due to their merger with another church in their city of the same non-denominational brotherhood. The merger, several years ago, was broadcast at the time as a unique story in the quest of “unity” among believers. In fact, I remember being very impressed at the decision of two leadership groups coming together (setting aside small differences) to be one body in their community.

The strange thing is that in the middle of all this a smaller ethnic (Filipino) church of about 110 people was renting the now vacant building of the church that had merged with the other. This Filipino church, though, was of the same non-denominational brotherhood as the other two, but somehow strangely left out of the “unity movement.”

Several years later, this conglomerate church has experienced tremendous upheaval in leadership and membership attendance and is now strongly pursuing a land sale of the building being rented by the Filipino church. Though the property is totally paid for and bringing in money monthly due to a cell tower and renters fees, this conglomerate church is approaching a multi-million dollar payout in a sale. Faced with this prospect of large sums of capital, the church is proceeding with the sale.

Now, the sad part is that this unique Filipino church, of their same brotherhood, has absolutely no place to go if this sale goes through. They have investigated other rental partnerships with churches in their city, but to no avail. They have looked into land purchase, but they don’t have enough capital.

And though the leaders of the conglomerate church are aware of their situation and have made small attempts to convince future buyers to consider a continued rental relationship with the Filipino church, the overall sense is that this little ethnic church is not their problem.

As I thought about this situation this week, I wondered what kind of leader I would be in the same dilemma. Millions of dollars, but small church dies? Or modest monthly income, but church continues?

Sell-out or status-quo?

My question is: Isn’t this more than a financial decision? Isn’t it at a deeper level a very spiritual one as well?
I guess my problem is that the whole situation gives me the same feeling as when I read about a large grocery chain taking over a small mom-and-pop store. It is the same feeling I get when an apartment complex is sold to a developer who changes them into condominiums and gives the un-expectant tenants 60 days to move.

The only difference: it’s the body of Christ evicting another part of the body.

1 Corinthians 12 says that we are all members of one body. Do we really believe that? Do we think it only applies to the individuals in our own pews? Does it only apply to people of our ethnicity or in churches we would label as financially legitimate?

Somehow I think that Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that “we would all be one as He and the Father are one” (my paraphrase) meant more than this. Maybe it is time that we embrace one another. All of us. Not just our own local church members, but the members of the local church down the street. Maybe it is time we see beyond our walls, beyond our pews, beyond our race, beyond our definition of success, beyond our own small empires and realize that we are all on the same team.

What is good for Christ’s name in this world is good for us all.
We are all on the same team.

“May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” — Jesus’ prayer.

Maybe us realizing we are on the same team is what the world is waiting on.

Ladybug Phobia

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I hope our daughter doesn’t develop a neurotic fear of ladybugs and dragonflies. If so, it will be my fault. Or, more appropriately, her mother’s fault.

I spent most of this past week getting Paytyn’s room ready for her. Not that i don’t enjoy hearing her turn over and grunt all night long right next to our bed while i’m trying to sleep, but i know that eventually (by age 9 or so) she’ll probably want to move out of mom and dad’s bedroom.

If you’ve been reading along, you know that I had actually planned on being ready with the room before she was born. But even though I had very carefully planned (with the help of the cool calendar the doctor has) the exact day of her birth, she decided to come about three weeks early. So, she is here, and i’m still fixing up the room.

We have a crib, dresser, changing table, diaper pail, laundry basket, bookshelf, lamps, toy box, rocking chair and stool, and any number of other baby things that go in a nursery. The problem is, prior to a baby, we had a lot of other stuff in there too. So, i spent the week pulling stuff out, throwing stuff away, moving stuff in my garage and then organizing the stuff that had to go in.

My big task this weekend was to put up stickers of ladybugs and purple dragonflies all over the room. I didn’t even know they made such a thing until i met them at BabysRUS. But, they fit the theme of the room–which includes a whole hive of ladybugs (do they live in hives?) and purple dragonflies. And so, i carefully pulled them off their backing and placed them in aesthetically strategic places all over the room.

It’s funny when i think that with painting, organizing, and decorating the room (to my wife’s exact specifications), i have probably spent more time on the ambiance of that room than any other in my house. Painting alone took quite a bit of time. But it was really the rest of the detail work that has taken most of the time. What style crib should we get her? What color wood should it be? Should we get the dresser that matches and a matching changing table? Or should we just get a matching dresser/changing table combo? What style rocker-glider chair should we get? Is it wide enough? Does the wood color match? Is the ladybug lamp a little overkill on bug deco? What color curtains will look nice? On and on and on and on . . .

And after hours and hours, i realized this weekend, we still aren’t done. There is still a few little touches to add to make the room perfect.

Now, at first i thought my wife had completely lost her mind. I mean, after all, it’s not like the baby can even see more than shadows of light and dark right now anyway. But, the more i helped prepare the room, the more i began to catch the fever as well. My eye for decoration has never been this “on fire.” Makes me wanna watch the home and garden channel or something.

And as i sat around drinking my coffee this morning (a good late monday start is perfect for any youth pastor’s week) thinking about these final touches i could add after work tonight, I realized why I am so caught up in it all. I don’t really love decorating and preparing a room. I really love my daughter.

I love my daughter. There is something so exciting about knowing she is gonna grow and change and move into this room and look around and (hopefully) love ladybugs. The idea that she is a part of our family is mind-blowing. The idea that her vision of home will be this room that I am preparing is exhilarating. And in the end, i’m not doing it because i enjoy it on its own, but because of my excitement in creating a small part of her place in our home. I’m excited about her.

It reminds me of Jesus’ words one time. He said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would i have told you that i go to prepare a place for you? And if i go and prepare a place for you, i will come again and will take you to myself, that where i am you may be also.”

What if heaven isn’t so much about our excitement to be there, but of God’s long-suffering excitement to be with us? What if God is preparing to come and live with us with the same intensity and joy that a new father takes in carefully planning each detail of his daughter’s new room? What if God is using every ounce of his unlimited creativity to prepare our part of his house?

You know, in that case, it might not really be about the room itself? Maybe the streets of gold and diamond goblets and all that God can create aren’t really the payoff. Maybe the beauty of heaven isn’t any of the stuff God actually dreams up as decoration, but in the desiring, preparing, anticipating love of a Father for his child to come home.

How crazy?! I always thought that it was us that would be the most excited to be in heaven. But, what if the person most excited about heaven is God? What if the greatest joy is His?

That i would spend solid xbox time placing ladybug stickers on a wall is to non-fathers out there, a little crazy. But, crazier still, that an Infinite Creator God would spend even half a second thinking about my eternal home is just plain unfathomable. And if that’s the case, then i don’t care what the decorations are, i only know i wanna be loved by someone like that. I most desperately want to be a part of that family.

I hope Paytyn grows up and feels that way too. And i hope she doesn’t develop a severe phobia of all things bugs.

Occasionally Christians Make You Proud…

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Christians are embarrassing.

Pretty much everyday i find something that proclaimed Christians do that makes me embarrassed to be one. They vote republican blindly. They proliferate bigotry. They worship their church buildings. They talk in ways that no one else understands. They defend things they don’t need to and abandon people that do. They are more about material emperialism than God’s Kingdom. And, they look and act, well . . . goofy.

Ok, so not all Christians. There certainly are people that are trying to live their lives in the grace and love that Jesus taught and gave freely. But it does seem like there is a lot of disappointment among Christians in our generation, doesn’t there? In fact, most the time i don’t even identify myself by that title anymore. I prefer, “Follower of Jesus” or about anything else that identifies myself with God, but not the stereotypical “Christian.”

However, occasionally, a Christian might just pop up and surprise you. In this case, even a whole church body.

Several months ago a large storm hit the Oregon coast where my family lives. We are talking 85 mph winds, sustained, and gusts up to 120 mph for about 16 hours. And when the storm hit, it basically devastated the entire region. It was declared a federal disaster area, people were being helicoptered out of their homes, and every highway in or out was completely blocked by hundreds and hundreds of downed trees.

My dad is a preacher in a small rural church there on the Oregon coast. And after the storm, they found that their church roof was old, leaking, missing shingles and needing repair. However the cost of replacing an entire roof of the building was a huge cost for a church of 50-60 people.

So, one member went home and called her sister on the east coast to tell her to pray that the church would be able to finance it. This sister then went to her weekly small prayer group of women from her church. She shared the prayer request, they prayed, and at the end one woman said she felt called to help in the situation. So they took an offering among just a few women and collected $500.00

But the story didn’t end there. This sister then went to her church leaders. She told the story of this small church that was reaching the disenfranchised on the Oregon coast and the obstacle they faced with their roof. And these remarkable leaders looked at their church budget and saw that they had brought in more monetary gifts that year than they created a budget for. And so they had already sent 2/3 of this overrun to other ministries and had kept 1/3 for their own ministry. But, after hearing this story, these CHRISTIANS decided to send their third of the overrun to a little church in Astoria, Oregon that they had never been to so they could fix their roof.

Crazy thing. They didn’t just ask to pay for the re-roofing bill. Instead, last week, this small church in Oregon received a check from brothers and sisters on the east coast that they will probably never meet this side of heaven for $15,600.00.

Will the roof even cost that much? I doubt it. Maybe only 2/3 of it. But the church told them to keep whatever was leftover and use it to bless the community of Astoria by extending their ministry in it to the disenfranchised.

Wow. I don’t even know what to say. Most churches i know are so concerned about building their own little empires they don’t even consider the needs of other churches. How can we build a bigger building? What would a new HD projector cost? Would more kids be attracted to our youth ministry if we paid for a climbing wall? I mean, this church wasn’t even in their own denomination! And who would have cared whether a tiny church in rural Oregon that no one has ever heard of would have gotten a new roof?

Christians.

I gotta say, when i see people acting in sacrifice and love, in the way of Jesus . . . it makes me proud to be a Christian. You can say a lot about the people just giving themselves the label of Christian but when you encounter people branded with the life of Christ and caring more about His cause than their own agendas, it feels different and their lives leave behind a trail of impact.

So, for today, I’m a Christian. I just hope I’m one that other people are proud of too.

Near-sighted Committee

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Roger Clemens is guilty.

Why am i even writing about this? I guess it is because since i was home helping with the baby for the past few weeks that i was available to watch the entire 5-hour debacle that was Clemens before Congress. And as a huge sports fan and a proud american, i’m not sure which i am most disappointed with: Clemens or Congress.

Now, i know all the evidence isn’t out and there hasn’t exactly been a “real” trial, but i find it very difficult at this point to believe the 7-time Cy-Young winner. His trainer admits to giving him shots of steroids and HGH. His best friend and work out partner admits that Clemens’ trainer gave him HGH. That same friend, under extreme guilt and confession, admits that Clemens told him that he had been using HGH. Chuck Knoblauch, Clemens’ teammate admits that Clemens’ trainer gave him steriods and HGH. Mike Stanton, another teammate, says he saw Clemens bleeding through his pants and confronted him on steriod use. MRI’s from an abscess on Clemens’ butt cheek has been identified by specialists as consistent with injections of Winstroll, a strong horse steroid. And to top it all off, Clemens’ own wife admits that the trainer injected her with HGH in the Clemens’ own master bedroom.

With all of the people Clemens was closest to admitting they used steroids and HGH from McNamee, and many confessing that Roger did too, how do you believe the only voice opposed? Particularly when that voice is the voice of the accused, and the only one with so much to lose.

I doubt this will ever be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court somewhere, but the evidence is increasingly strong. And as a sports fan during this era, i am completely robbed. The best hitter (Barry Bonds) and the best pitcher (Roger Clemens) of my era are total frauds. Almost makes your time and money spent watching supposed history be made feel like an identity-theft scheme.

But, despite my major disappointment in sports, i think i am most disturbed by the people we have somehow elected into Congress! What i saw on tv was the single most embarrassing thing i have seen our government take part in. I mean there were congressman there that didn’t even know how to pronounce the names of the main defendant in the hearing! Rather than seeking the truth of the matter, one congressman even asked what jersey Clemens would be wearing into the hall of fame!

Maybe most sad was the partisanship. To a person, the republicans in the room came in backing Clemens and firing at McNamee. On the other side, each Democrat came in backing McNamee and attacking Clemens. As you watched the hearing, it was blatantly obvious that many had come into the hearing with their minds already made up and some sort of agenda to push. In fact, since each congressman had only 15 minutes to ask questions, most of them either didn’t ask questions and used their time to orate a sermon loaded with their agenda, or they asked questions and never listened to the answer!

There is so much more to be disgusted in that i could be writing this blog forever. However, bottom line, i was embarrassed. If this is how Congress acts investigating baseball (which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t really matter–why are they involved anyway?), how scary is it that they are investigating things that really do matter? If republicans and democrats can’t come together to find truth in a simple game, how can we expect them to ever come together to run a country?

Oversight committee? More like Near-sighted committee.

So, here we are in election season. Makes you wonder whether anyone you vote for can ever effect positive change in a system that is so obviously broken.

Wow. i’m cynical today.