Why Not Gather at the River?

August 30 was the date of our second baptism at Agape Church of Christ. It has been almost a year since the first one, but with the launch of this new church 3 months ago, we are seeing many more studying to put on Jesus. We met at a state park along the Columbia River in Washington. It is interesting that this has been a popular place to hang out since Lewis and Clark made this their last stop along the river.
A popular hangout? In my many years of baptizing people, and watching others baptize, I realized that most of the baptisms were in a baptistery. How private! I don’t just mean a few people gathering to see a baptism, I mean a private “Christians only party.” God forbid anyone who doesn't believe see this sacred event. Besides--they wouldn't appreciate this anyway.

The folks ahead of us picked a spot way down the river. I was wondering why we weren’t by the place where everyone gathered. I started talking to a young couple about their 2 week old baby and the conversation turned to why I was there. It was obvious that God had placed us there because the father was talking about religious things—you know, how he smokes pot, loves Jesus, and can’t find a church. The more we talked the more he wanted to know about God’s love, why we came there to baptize, and why a minister would give a pot smoker the time of day. “Can I come watch her get baptized?” he said?



I made the long trek to the baptism site which was somewhat isolated. In spite of this, God was good and the couple, their baby, and 3 family members came to see the baptism. As usual a conversation happened with our group, the woman about to be baptized, and the visitors. It was beautiful. How often does someone share their faith and their reception of God’s love immediately before they are baptized? Our visitors cheered, joined us for cake and ice cream, and became teary eyed when I told them how God’s love was shown in Jesus. Even better, three other young people, after witnessing the baptism, came over to ask who we were. As they carried their beer cans one told us about her church home as a teenager.

Why not gather at the river? What an opportunity to teach, witness, and show the power of God. I always feel great at a baptism, but this time I saw firsthand that people still seek God. Too often we are busy avoiding people, celebrating the private Christians Only party, or thinking that beer drinkers and pot smokers don’t have a soul. Yet it is in the quiet places on the river where people ask questions about God. It is in the quiet places on the river we find where people rejoice in the simple act of baptism. It is in the quiet places on the river where the kingdom is revealed.

Should we avoid the public display of rebirth? Only if we wish to avoid conversations about Jesus.

Isn’t baptism a private event? Only if you let it be!

We Think We Know Jesus ....

... but do we?

I blogged about Jesus for a month. Visitors to my site dwindled. Comments shrank and grew fewer.

We think we know the Son of God, Lord and Savior, Master and Friend, Teacher and Rabbi.

But the more we look at Him, the more blurred and muddled our stereotypical picture of Him becomes.

He defies our analyses. He explodes our myths. He refuses to fit our boxes. He will not remain in our tombs.

He says things that provoke us. Things we cannot, try as we might, fully comprehend.

He speaks an eternal language, and though He simplifies with story, the complete meaning simply eludes us.

Even when He asks His closest friends who they think He is, most of them struggle.

One of them has help with the answer.

Can we ever be so confident that we know Him and what He would want us to do/not do/say/not say/live/not live that we no longer seek; no longer ask; no longer knock?

There has never been a time in my life when I felt like I knew all the answers about Jesus. I knew people who thought they did. I was flat-out jealous of them (and a little bit guilty for that envy). I honestly thought they might.

But I don't anymore.

If they had, they could have made billions writing books that would have outsold even Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew - and I'm pretty sure he's got a better grasp of the character, in many ways, than I do.

What are some things you were sure you knew about Jesus ... concepts that time has capsized and sunk?

LIFE ON THE FARM: Our Puppies Can See

Now, I have nothing against other dog breeds, but I’m certain that our Golden Retrievers, besides being man’s best friend, are categorically the best dogs on the earth. First, they’re beautiful. Second, they’re intelligent. Third, they are compliant (Labrador and Poodle owners eat your hearts out!). Fourth, they’re profitable.

A good portion of my oldest son’s college education has been paid through the sales of ‘golden’ retriever puppies. Harding University Faculty owes a portion (probably a very small portion) of their income to our Goldens, and the marble staircase in the new addition to the old Heritage Center was likely funded (in large part) through our golden pups. But, there is more. Our Goldens have also provided us with a treasure more valuable than dollars. They’ve given us insight into a truth….The Truth.

The farm teaches many lessons which find counterpart in the unseen. Our puppies’ eye-opening experience is an example. The third day of their lives is monumental….it’s the day their eyes open. From then on, our puppies can see.

Before this time, they live in darkness. Other senses serve in place of sight. Mom is known through the smell of her breath, the feel of her tongue, the taste of her milk, the sound of her bark. Straw bedding has no color, no shape, nothing to which it can be compared other than Mom and darkness. For three days these cute little bundles scoot and crawl along on their tummies in total sightlessness…then comes day three.

Sudanese soldiers rape young Darfurian women, and then bite them to leave a scar. The scar will last, so these young girls will never be married. In Appalachia, nine year old boys fill summer nights with raunchy pornographic videos and erase their innocence. Teens pop pills for fun, girls exchange purity for popularity, men cheat and retreat, politicians spin. People, like blind puppies, scoot, crawl, and grope their way through life. Wouldn’t we pity puppies were their eyes not to open? What then of people?

Encouraging news. Light may still come. People navigating the dark in their lives often feel that life holds more than has yet become clear. It comes as a hunger that is not satisfied by what is first believed will fill it; or as a thirst for a sweeter existence. It isn't easily explained, or even clearly pictured, though it's strongly and deeply felt. Something senses that "it" is a reality.

The smell of milk wafts about a liter of puppies and they know she is near. Intangibles encircling us too: like a never forgotten kindness that portends the reality of something that isn’t hate filled or self-seeking; like the the hollow in a heart; like the failure to find true satisfaction, the an inexplicable (maybe even unwanted) attraction to spiritual things. Confusion, guilt, love, emptiness, grief, longing, peace, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, brokenness….they are blurry images….but of what? What are we not seeing?

On the third day, Jesus rose. The women and His disciples saw him. Their hearts had burned, but then their eyes were opened and everything was different from that day forward. Purpose, position, power, loss and gain, sacrifice, weakness, popularity, poverty, suffering, ridicule, death…everything made sense. Despair turned to joy; hardship to blessing. What had been meaningless became profoundly significant. Their eyes were open, at last, and life took on a form that wasn’t at all what they’d imagined.


“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” --Ephesians 1:18-19


Lord, bring day three. Open the eyes of our heart that we may see, really see, what we have felt was there, what we have longed for, what has been our companion since the start, what we sense is willing to be seen…if our eyes are open. Let us see Man’s True Best Friend. Amen.