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A La Carte (11/2)
- 11/02/10
- 24
I’ve crossed from Canada into the United States a couple of times in the past three weeks. And I tell you, it’s getting tougher and tougher to get across. Last time I got the intense search—full-body pat-down, suitcases searched, bags sniffed for explosives. The funny thing was, this all happened in the Toronto airport but in the part reserved for flights to the US. The people doing all the searching were typically Canadian: “Sorry we have to do this,” they said. “America makes us.”
Pastors’ Wives - Brian Croft has a really useful article on how pastors can collectively care for their wives. “Ironic, isn't it? The pastors/elders of the church labor so hard to care for the body as a whole that we often neglect those who are arguably most valuable to us and the people of the church...the pastors' wives. Even though each pastor/elder should be found diligent in caring for his own wife (assumed - 1 Tim. 3), how can the pastors care for the other pastors' wives in their congregation?”
Don’t Waste Your Life - John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life is this month’s free download from ChristianAudio. You know you want to get it…
Free Wallpaper - You may also want to take a look at this free wallpaper for November.
The New Taylor Swift Album - Michael Krahn points to an interesting review of Taylor Swift’s new album. “This is what Taylor Swift specializes in. The honest communication of the teenage landscape. When she tries to be an adult, she gets confused.”
Supporting a Party that Supports Abortion - Scott Klusendorf answers this question: “Should pastors lovingly challenge church members who actively support a political party that supports elective abortion?”
Learning to Grieve - Drew Buell is working on a series that looks like it will offer lots of good content. It’s called “Learning to Grieve” and is just two articles in so far. “For me the dream / expectation was that of a normal childhood and normal development for my oldest son Micah. Just the other day Amy and I had a meeting with the school to discuss Micah's needs and after an hour and a half of discussion, evaluations, a little bit of wrangling one thing is absolutely certain in my mind, we have both suffered the loss of a dream / expectation for Micah. Micah's IEP lists him as having severe difficulties in speech, and several other areas so much so that we are still trying to figure out how we can best help him.”
Be extravagent for God or the devil, but for God’s sake don’t be tepid. —C.T. Studd
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (24)
Tim: I’ve never made a comment here on your blog, and I am generally a supporter of your writing. However, since today is Election Day here in the States, I feel somewhat compelled to respond to your opening paragraph.
With all due respect to your Canadian brothers/sisters who said to you, “Sorry we have to do this … America makes us,” they are wrong, to a point.
Technically, they are correct. Since September 11, 2001, the American government has stepped-up its efforts to stop individuals who might harm this country and the people who are in this country—both, citizens and non-citizens. To that point, “yes,” American authorities do “make” border patrol agents and agencies from other countries partner in the due diligence required to protect this country, her citizens, and visitors from other counties—including visitors from countries like Canada.
By simply saying, “America makes us,” however, I think your fellow Canadians are glossing over the cause of your inconvenience. And, friend, I think you are doing the same by sharing your experience, without placing it in its proper context.
Let’s make no mistake about it: in effect, American officials are “making” your border patrol agents pat you down a little more aggressively than they might have had to in the past; but the cause of your inconvenience is terrorists—those who attacked freedom on September 11, 2001, and those who are still at work, even as you read this, seeking to kill Americans and her allies.
I’m sure you meant no disrespect by your comments. Nor do I. I do think, however, it’s important to remember—and to never forget—the cause of why it is getting tougher and tougher to cross the border between our countries, even while hating it’s effect.
Blessings,Tony
It’s all just for you, Mr. Tim. It’s all just for you. ; )
Seriously, though, all of us on this side of Niagara Falls are NOT taking chances. One terrorist attack is enough, don’t you think? : D
I’m not sure why you included the profane remark by CT Studd - to be smart, to be controversial, to wake people up or whatever. I was tained up that this was a profane expression and it shocks me that you use it here as a quote. Sorry but this is quite out of place.
“America makes us?”I’ll be sleeping with one eye open tonight!
LOVE the Klusendorf piece. I’ve found it hard to say what he said with such “tact”.
Gabriel
KMS:
The Studd quote is not profane. Take it in context, and note the sentence structure. That makes all the difference. To illustrate, what would you say if I admonished you to be content for Christ’s sake”? (more examples)
How ironic. I read the C.T. Studd quote and wanted to let you know how much I liked it.
Then, while scrolling down, I read a commenter who noted how inappropriate that quote was.
Funny, a certain noted Reformer said something much along the same lines as Studd, yet that Reformer is lauded.
I really wish we could all take ourselves less seriously. Nothing drives sinners away from the Lord more than Christians who are cheesed off about everything.
:-(
I'm sure you meant no disrespect by your comments. Nor do I. I do think, however, it's important to remember--and to never forget--the cause of why it is getting tougher and tougher to cross the border between our countries, even while hating it's effect.
I wasn’t making a statement about America as much as a statement about Canadians. We are a generally apologetic people, so apologizing comes naturally, as was the case with these security people.
As for the quote I shared, I don’t consider it at all profane. He is using an expression that some use in a profane way, but he really means it. For the sake of God, for the sake of his glory, don’t be tepid.
The Buell piece is good. What we have to keep in mind, though, is that each one of us is “disabled” in some way for no other reason than we all live in a fallen world.
We’re like jigsaw puzzles with pieces missing or pieces tossed in from some other puzzle. Working through our lives, trying to arrange the picture into something that makes sense, becomes hard because of what has been lost or added. For most of us, even us Christians, it takes a lifetime for the pieces to come together to form anything coherent.
The question of a broken Imago Dei then becomes one of degree and obviousness. In reality, it is often easier for the person whose damage is obvious. Those with less visible damage often suffer in silence
Dads, husbands, moms, wives, sons, daughters—grief may be present for all of us because of what has been broken, what fails to live up to expectations, what arrives unexpectedly. One of the greatest truths I have learned as a Christian is that most people are just trying to get by through whatever means that works. When seen that way, it is far easier to humble oneself and reach out to hurting people, who are all around us.
I’d like to see an article entitled “Supporting a party that supports preemptive war and torture.” Somehow that one never seems to get written.
I came to write the same thing as Larry. We seem to forget that both parties have major moral failings, yet we often forget about the moral failings of one because we agree economically with one, and because they claim Christianity.
How about “Supporting a party that supports greed”?
Well said, Tad and Larry. I’m technically a registered Republican, but I think it’s ridiculous that so many Christians think the Republican party is squeaky clean.
“America makes us.” Please. Terrorists didn’t take down a Toronto or Vancouver skyscraper.
I noticed last night that the new NIV 2010 translation is live on BibleGateway.com but I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere … is this old news (ie I missed it)? I would think this would be a pretty big deal yet I haven’t seen anything about it on any of the usual blogs I read?
Page on BibleGateway about the new translation:http://www.biblegateway.com/niv/executive-summary/
After a bit of searching I found a post about it here: http://www.crosstalkblog.com/2010/11/new-updated-niv-unveiled/
Pastors have no authority to address what political party a church member supports. The Church has been given the authority to address that which Scripture teaches, no more and no less. Christians can and do disagree over how to handle matters in the civil realm. When the text demands it, pastors must, of course, preach on moral issues - but how these moral issues are best worked out civilly is not addressed.
A good corrective to these notions (and those found in Grudem’s latest book) can be found in David VanDrunen’s “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms” (http://www.crossway.org/books/living-in-gods-two-kingdoms-tpb/).
The Taylor Swift review is dead on. It got me to think, as a twenty two year old man even with out success like Taylor I too struggle in the confusion of adult and teen. Its more going away now as I age. I want to make note, our culture does not help us to grow up, our churches well there not helping much either.When your culture downplays Christ, when your Church’s are rock concerts with Coffey bars attached, with the focus on emotion instead of discipleship, its no wonder Taylor and many others are confused with the adult life.
Taylor’s Music in general is awful, the recordings are too noisy and she has a voice but needs a voice coach.(I want to like her, and was hoping speak now would be the album I would like, but don’t) So from that I agree with the music side of the review.
The wall papers are great Tim, thanks.
Folks I have pride for my country, but calm down. Tim was posting his experience not knocking the USA.
This is turning into the testy Election Day edition of A La Carte!
Yeah, I take issue with the Klusendorf piece. He’s essentially saying that supporting Democrats is a sign of spiritual immaturity.
As far as legally restricting abortion in the U.S., realistically the only thing that matters is the guy appointing federal judges and supreme court justices, and setting the terms of aid given to NGOs (see: Mexico City policy). That guy is the president. Other than him, the rest don’t so much matter, unless you suppose that the Senate might become so pro-choice that a pro-life president would be unable to get his or her judicial nominations confirmed. (But that’s not likely).
That said, as Larry points out, the president also makes other big decisions like staring (or ending) wars, etc. These must be taken into account as well, especially given a particular president’s impact on the legality of abortion is likely to be fairly small. (If he’s lucky he might get to appoint a supreme court justice or two, but even that might not tip the balance far enough to have a significant effect.)
JPH, what you say is true in the short term, but in the long term, if we start acting as though abortion is a non-issue in congressional elections, eventually we’ll be at the point where, regardless of judicial stances, abortion would be enshrined as a federally protected benefit even if by some miracle it were overturned as a constitutional right. We saw the first inklings of that with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, as well as the attempts to prosecute pro-life protests under RICO. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that a solidly pro-choice congress could enact laws to make such protests a crime as such. (It’s not like constitutional protections matter to them much as it is.) I don’t think we want to sit back and shrug as we go farther down that road, even if we don’t have much short term hope of making a radical change in policy.
IOW, it is possible for the situation to be worse than it is now, WRT to the legality of abortion, and that needs to be resisted.
Bottom line: many pastors don’t care for their wives and families like they should because MANY churches — either implicitly or explicitly — teach that ministry and pastoral duties come before family. We, the membership, bear a huge part of that responsibility when we demand of them way beyond what we should. I’d retire if I had a dime for every time the receptionist got a call demanding, “But I NEED to talk to the pastor NOW!”. And God help him if he doesn’t talk the call, page or whatever. Churches tolerate way too much bad-mouthing of pastors who put first things first.
Another note of interest Chris… the reviewer I linked to is most likely the subject of Taylor Swift’s song “Mean” from the new album.
He criticized her flat vocal performance earlier this year and Swift actually responded to him at length defending herself.
Personally, I like the production on the new album, but I probably wouldn’t be a fan if I didn’t have daughters that are 4,6,and 8.
Pentamom: Well, sure, congress isn’t entirely meaningless. But relative to presidential impact I’d say it’s almost there. I’m not suggesting we treat abortion as a non-issue. Not at all. I’m just suggesting we not treat it as the only issue, which is what Klusendorf seems to suggest. More than that, he’s saying that to do anything other than treating abortion as the only issue is a sign of spiritual immaturity. That’s mostly what I disagree with. I consider that a “spiritually mature” (whatever that means- it’s rather vague) person may sincerely believe that abortion is the only important issue and vote accordingly. I also consider that a “spiritually mature” person may consider it to be one of several different important issues and vote according to that belief.
I might agree with Klusendorf that for someone to consider abortion a total “non-issue” indicates a flawed understanding of the nature of God. But there are plenty of people who consider abortion to be an extremely pressing and important issue who nevertheless don’t vote as if it were the only issue.
That article by Brian Croft is incredibly stupid. Being a pastor’s wife doesn’t make a woman less human - she still wants to choose her own friends - being married to a pastor doesn’t make all women alike! And what woman wants to be discussed at an elder’s meeting?!?
As to meeting with another pastor regularly for marriage counseling - most of the lay people in the church don’t meet with someone regularly for counseling, unless there’s an issue.
Beyond that, the entire article smacks of the Catholic clergy/laity divide…the arrogant attitude of “my” friends must all be from among the clergy.
Edyth, there’s not a word in that whole article suggesting that the pastor’s wife cannot have her own friends and that all her friends must be other pastors and their wives. I believe the idea is that other pastors’ wives can understand some things about the role she is in, that others cannot, so it is helpful to cultivate those relationships in addition to any others she might have. Having been an elder’s wife for a while, I can tell you there are aspects to that role that are best understood by others who are filling or have filled it — I can only assume it is even more so for a pastor’s wife. If the objection is that she shouldn’t have to be friends with the other pastors and their wives if she doesn’t want to, that’s a whole different ball of wax. Any church where the pastors’ families can’t enjoy close relationships with one another is in trouble, and any pastor’s wife who places a barrier between herself and friendship with others who share her role within the same church has problems of her own.
I am a little less sanguine about the suggestion that pastors discuss with the other church leaders what is going on with their wives, but I’m going to chalk it up to Brian Croft giving only a brief summary of what he has in mind. If he has in mind the non-public concerns of the pastor’s wife being freely shared with other pastors as though her role robs her of the ability to determine who she will share things with, I have a problem with that. But he may only have meant that pastors should jointly pray for the obvious or known needs of one another’s families, and particularly their wives.