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Saw this great cartoon yesterday refering to the bad call during the Broncos-Chargers game on Sunday.  The ref blew the call, but took responsibility.  Politics is, more often than not, placing blame on your opponent for a variety of issues.  Yesterday, as news of economic woes hit, both the Democrats and Republicans quickly pointed fingers at the other.  George Bush, in particular, has been blamed for a lot of things these past 8 years.  The bad economy is his fault, high gas prices are his fault, catastrophic hurricanes and the govt. response to them are his fault, the Iraq War is his fault, etc.  Lots of time spent placing blame.  Little time spent finding solutions.  That’s what I love about Jesus.  The cross was His way of saying “Oops, my bad” on behalf of all us to a God who needed a scapegoat to take our place.  He says,” Don’t waste your time pointing fingers.  I’m right here. I’ll take the blame.”  It leaves plenty of room for personal responsibility though.  Wouldn’t it have been cool to hear Chargers coach Norv Turner say, “It’s our fault we couldn’t mentally recover from the ref’s mistake and stop the Broncos on any play after that.”  Or to hear a presidential candidate say, “You know, every day I’ve spent on the campaing trail talking about what’s wrong in our country is a day I haven’t spent in Washington trying to solve our nation’s problems.”  Can a person run for president without failing to fulfill their elected duties as a Senator, Governor, etc?  It’s also easy to place blame in the church.  We Wesleyans tend to hurl our blame upward toward district and denominational figures.  Other times we spend hours at board meetings asking who cancelled the homecoming dinner and planned the service that went way too long instead of talking about issues that matter.  And don’t even get me started on the music.  Blame is always about the past.  Blame doesn’t change the future.  Bravery does.  Bravery to move past the impulse to pass blame and instead discuss solutions to our shared problems.  You can put lipstick and glasses on a ref, but….ahhh, never mind.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Fantasy Football, it can be a bit frustrating sometimes.  This weekend I cut my tight end Tony Scheiffler of the Broncos because he is sharing time with two other guys and I signed Anthony Fasano a tight end from Miami who is becoming one of Chad Pennington’s favorite targets.  Apologies for the misspelling of their names.  So, Fasano gets 0 points and Tony got 18.  This would have given me the win.  Instead I lost by two points.  It’s also maddening that every article I read said to make the same move.  Oh well, better follow my gut next time.

I got this disappointing news on Saturday and needless to say I was shocked.  There is not a Baptist church in the South where his songs haven’t been sung way too many times.  I think “Thank You” was the song for people who found out they were doing special music when they got to church.  It was the old standby.  They could just wing it.  Check out his site and statement here.  How do we minister to people in this situation?  How do we show love to them?

I also found out the Hootie and the Blowfish are taking a break.  It is not supposed to be a break up, but I really regret missing their SC concert in July.  The good news is they will continue to do their 4 charity concerts every year, and I’m pretty sure at least one of them is in SC.  I won’t make the same mistake twice.  Hootie got me through college.  We had Hootie week when Fairweather Johnson was released.  I had Hootie on the back of my church basketball jersey and 2 guys would yell “hootie hoo” whenever I made a three pointer(so I only got hear it a couple of times that season).  I have all their CD’s and I’m looking to download some concerts from this past tour.

Clemson won Saturday.  It means nothing.  They should’ve crushed NC State.

The Gamecocks are now 1-2, but gave Georgia a scare.

If not for a brutally bad pass interference call against Miami to win the BCS championship several years ago, Ohio State would be ofer big games.  They got dismantled by Southern Cal(USC is in Columbia, SC).  They have gotten blown out in two straight BCS title games and I’m hoping people realize now that the Big Ten(though better than the ACC) is utter garbage compared to the rest of the country.  Of course, I never mind seeing OSU getting blown out.

I didn’t see the blown call in the San Diego-Denver game live, but did hear Norv Turner call it “unacceptable”.  Well, Norv, many people feel that your being a head coach is unacceptable as you somehow take one of the most talented teams in the NFL down the tank.

I only have one political thought for the day.  People in Hollywood need to realize that every time they say something political, it turns off most of America.  It’s like the elite on the coasts are completely out of touch with regular Americans.  Of course, the same can be said of some well-known conservatives(many times ministers) who can’t seem to get enough of the taste of their foot.  It makes me wonder if I’m looking down my nose at anybody or putting my foot in my mouth.

Have a great Monday.

I got to the office late on the morning of September 11, 2001.  It was around 10 am when I saw Pete Wood at the main office computer(the only one with internet).  He asked me, “Did you here?  It’s like World War 3.  Bombs going off at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.”  We were without a secretary that day so I manned the phones as people called with all sorts of questions.  The internet was down so I rolled a TV into the office to watch the coverage and try to figure out what was going on.  Pete, Fred Andrews, and I were all in a state of shock.  When the first tower collapsed my only response was to yell, “Holy Crap!”  I remember our youth meeting the next night and Austin Rampey praying earnestly for the salvation of those responsible.  At that point, Osama Bin Laden was a name new to most of us.  The congress sang God Bless America on the steps of the capitol.  Churches were open everywhere for people to pray.  Many people turned to God for answers, guidance, and peace.  For a brief time the partisan bickering in Washington stopped.  I wrote song about that day.  I wish the chorus hadn’t been so prophetic:

Will this be different, will it be the same

When this is over will we all forget Your name

We will seek You and we will find

But when this is over will we all change our minds.

Here we are, 7 years later, and the feeling of unity brought on by the tragedy of 9-11 is long gone.  I find that the divisions in Washington aren’t representative of most American communities.  Most of us are struggling to make ends meet, build a life for our familes, and get along with our neighbors no matter our differences.  You would never know that from watching any of the nightly news shows.  From them, you would think we are rioting and fighting everyone around us.  None of us appears to be overly happy with either of our presidential choices or with the performance of our elected representatives.  But, none of us has the will, money, or connections to declare our candidacy to replace those who are fighting, but have forgotten who and what they’re fighting for.  And therein lies the problem.  The system is broken.  We are promised Universal Health Care so that we would over look this.  We are offered tax cuts, lower gas prices, green jobs, a secure border, and a thousand other things we will never see all to make us forget how angry we were at the system when we woke up this morning.  Let me let you in on a little secret.  The system isn’t the problem.  The system is broken because we are broken.  We are bent to preserving our self-interests.  The anger we feel is really anger towards ourselves because we haven’t allowed our lives to be transformed by the power of God.  The system doesn’t need to be changed, it needs to be transformed by people who are tapped into the transforming power of God.  It all starts with me and you.  What am I going to do today to help bring hope from the ashes of disaster?  How will I allow God to transform me, my church, my community, my nation, and my world?  Personally, I’d like to see the church put the government out of business.  What I mean is for the church to take the lead in feeding, educating, training, and transforming people’s lives so the government can fix our roads, protect our nation, and make sure the mail, trains, and planes arrive on time.  Now, that’s putting country first and change we can believe in.

Do you remember what you were doing on September 10, 2001?  It was a Monday.  Did I watch Monday night football?  Did I take my wife out to dinner?  Did we rent a movie that night?  Did I have a meeting that night?  George Bush was preparing for a visit with Florida school children and thinking about his first year as president.  He was thinking about his domestic agenda, tax cuts, and Education reform.  None of us had a clue that night when we fell asleep that everything was about to change.  Americans went to bed in a world we thought was safe and awoke the next day to a new reality.  What things did we take for granted?  What relationships did we take for granted?  If we could go back to that day what would we do differently?  Has the church provided answers and direction in a world that stopped making sense?  There are kids in my youth group who don’t remember life before 9-11.  How do I work through the rubble and make disciples of this generation?  So, hugs your kids a little tighter, hold your spouse a little closer, talk to your parents on the phone a little longer,  take life a little slower, and love a little stronger.  Everything may change tomorrow.

1.  Well, it’s true.  Let the West Virginia jokes roll.

2.  There’s been a lot of talk about Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer.  To find out more check this out.

3.  Here’s a good article on teen pregnancies.

4.  By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the remarks made by the host of MTV’s VMA’s.  Three questions-does anyone watch this awards show anymore?  Does anyone even care about MTV anymore?  Does Britney Spears have 9 showbiz lives or what?

5.  With the average Wesleyan church size being between 60 and 80, most churches can’t afford multiple(if any) full-time staff.  This is a harsh reality for young students who graduate expecting to find a full-time staff position.  Older students with familes(27+) tend to plug in with churches either as senior pastors or volunteer staff.  They go to school, work a “secular” job, and minister in a local church while raising a family.  The churches they take aren’t the easiest ones to work at.  Giving is low, growth is slow, and the people are old.  I think the younger students look at their situations and think, “Not for me dude!”  What’s happening is the younger people are looking outside the denomination for work while the older graduates are serving at churches that are in decline.  Our denomination’s problem isn’t a lack of gifted ministers, but how to best utilize the talented ministers we have.  I don’t have THE solution but here are four things I think would get us started:  1.  Close churches that are having no impact in their community.  2.  Better prepare ministerial students for the reality of bi-vocational ministry. 3.  Pair younger and older students as church planting teams to replace the closed churches.  4.  Every minister committing themselves to excellence and integrity because the Lord has to work in us before he can work through us.  Your thoughts?

1.  Political conventions used to be for electing a presidential nominee.  Now, someone usually heads into the conventions with enough primary votes to clinch the nomination.  So, the conventions today are about laying out the parties’ vision for the country.  There are promises made that can’t be kept, won’t be kept, and some shouldn’t be kept.  There are attempts to contrast one nominee’s views with anothers, sometimes without distortions.  Close to 80 million people watch the two nominees speeches combined.  That’s pretty amazing.  Now, if we could just get everybody to vote.  It would be really nice if none of us voted with the mindset, “What’s in this for me?” but rather “What’s best for us?”

2.  The NFL season kicked off yesterday and millions of fans are anxiously awaiting the results of Tom Brady’s MRI.  I’ll be honest.  My goal was to draft him in all my fantasy leagues, but I never got the chance.  I saw him go as high as first in one league.  I guess one person’s luck is another person’s misfortune.  Looks like I’ll go 2-1 this week because Donavon McNabb forgot who he was and Willie Parker remembered who he was.  Smitty having two players have career days helped him double me up.

3.  Most of you know how I feel about Superman Returns.  Thankfully, it appears the return was short-lived and the Man of Steel will get a chance to start from scratch a la Batman.  Check it out here.

4.  I was watching a special on Abraham Lincoln the other night and it made me wonder if my family ever owned slaves.  So, I’m hoping to research this, but it also made me wonder what side of the slavery issue I would’ve been on.  Of course, from my 2008 view, I quickly say that I would have stood beside my Wesleyan Abolitionists brothers and sisters.  But what if my family had depended on slaves for our livelihood?  The personal question for me is if family and cultural influence would’ve kept me from speaking out on the issue.

5.  Dear friends, I would ask you for your prayers.  There is a situation I have to deal with and need God to strenghten and guide me through this process.  It’s one of those deals where once you say the first word then there’s no going back.  Pray for my words to be bold and convincing.