Some thoughts on church government

Apparently, a mega-church pastor has gotten into some trouble--apparently including losing at least one affiliate--partially as a result of claiming that "Congregationalism is from Satan."  Now apart from obvious objections--like how does the "church" separate unrepentant sinners per Matthew 18:17 separately from the counsel of the elders apart from the consent of the congregation, or exclude or welcome back the sexual sinner (1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 2) without the consent of the congregation, or test and approve elders like Mr. MacDonald without, ahem, the guidance and consent of the congregation--it strikes me that every church in the history of mankind has had, in effect, congregational polity. 

Now this does not mean that the Bishop of Rome, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or other church bodies are necessarily putting things up to a vote, when a pastor--or bishop, or Pope--loses the trust of congregants, they vote by refusing to take part in ministries, by refusing their tithes and offerings, and finally by refusing to come at all.  It is the same vote that buyers of shoddy goods cast when the deficiencies are known, no?

It is interesting to note that as MacDonald has come up with this un-Biblical idea and failed to support it Biblically (or even acknowledge the counter-arguments), this is exactly what happened.  Attendance at Harvest Bible Chapel has plunged, and the church (which is deeply in debt) has undergone an austerity program. 

Why has this happened?   It is a simple thing; if one refuses to acknowledge (1 Cor. 12) the evident gifting of the congregation to handle the matters the Scripture does hand to church members, one signals a spiritual and emotional distance from that same congregation.  It is no accident that many pastors of mega-churches fall into the trap of assuming "my way or the highway" leadership, as they have the best "opportunity" to become distant from ordinary church members.  They simply no longer have the relationship needed to exhort and rebuke effectively, and therefore they grab for power because they no longer have that relational authority.

As for us, let us pray for the repentance of "my way or the highway" pastors, and remember for ourselves that leadership manifests itself not in "dominant" behavior in the church, but rather in service and love.

Time to change Vacation Bible School?

Ever since I came to Christ, I've been associated with churches which do a few days to a week of Vacation Bible School each summer.  Often, the youth pastor will speak a Sunday or two before VBS, reminding the congregation of the need to reach people while they are young, encouraging them to take part in VBS, and the like.  During VBS, there will be crafts, games, high energy music, and quite frankly a fair amount of "encouragement" to "pray the prayer" and become a Christian.

Afterwards, there will typically be exultation over the number of children who have "come to Christ", praise for the VBS team, and......

....afterwards, the VBS team and youth pastor go into a weeks-long decompression and coma from all of the activity.  At this point, it's a good thing that few if any of those kids who decided to pray the prayer actually follows through and goes to church, because the youth workers are too tired to shepherd them.

Oops, wait a minute.  That's not a good thing, is it?   Let's go to Matthew 13 and see what Christ says about this.....OK, we have the possibility that we've actually done evangelism for other churches.....OK, they're not seeing a huge increase in attendance, either.....or what we have is either seed on stony soil, seed choked out by weeds, or seed not planted at all, as far as I can take the Parable of the Sower.

More or less, I've been involved in children's ministry in seven churches since I came to Christ, and out of the thousands of "decisions" that these churches would claim from VBS, I can't think of anyone I've met who actually followed through and followed Christ who wasn't in church already.  There are presumably exceptions, but all in all, the overall effect is as if you'd sent the sower out into Death Valley.  Food for the birds and nothing more, really.

So what is wrong?  Well, allowing for people moving, changing churches, and the ordinary difficulty of following up with new believers, I'd have to argue that what is going on is that the "pressure tactics" (loud music, pressure to "pray the prayer", etc..) does not regenerate people.  Rather, they "go along to get along" and then....."snap back" the day after VBS ends to their former state.  They'll tell you they had a great time (and they enjoyed games, snacktime, and such, to be sure), but you will not see them in church.

What's to be done?  I'm not sure what all needs to be done, but it strikes me that if we want to see real decisions for Christ, churches might do well to sit down with the VBS team and say something like this.

Folks, as far as I can tell, we spent $3000 and 2000 man-hours preparing for VBS this year.  We had 35 apparent decisions for Christ, but I hate to tell you this, but none of them are in church with us.  We have done a great job making false fruit. 

What we're going to do is this. We're going to reduce the time spent preparing for VBS by half, reduce the decorations by half, and let's spend the time and money we save studying some books on evangelism that do not use pressure tactics.  In the meantime, the deacons and pastor are going to look carefully through the VBS programs we've been using, and we're going to make sure we're actually presenting the Gospel to these kids in a coherent way.

La Leche Levity

A friend of my wife's gave her a few samples of a shake that will, theoretically, help her "gain back what she's lost while nursing."  Since the most obvious thing she's lost during nursing is about 20 pounds of pregnancy weight for each of our six children, we're not quite sure this would be a good thing.

Thoughts on the NBA snafu

Now that Donald Sterling is crying all the way to the bank, his soon to be ex-wife having negotiated a deal to sell the team for about twice what people thought it was worth, it's probably time for a thought;


Yes, it's time for the NBA to get rid of every NBA employee owner or employee who has been unfaithful to his wife, or has used racial slurs in adulthood.


Not gonna happen, but it would be fun to watch as the inmates realized the consequences of "sauce for the goose" being put on the gander, too.

Thoughts on the IRS and VA scandals

Well, beyond the exorbitant amount of money we're spending on both agencies, of course.  But regarding the difficulties we've had, if we had leadership that was interested in solving problems, it's actually a pretty simple task--certainly one that after years of delay ought to be done.   More or less, it's called a "process audit", and every ISO certified organization--and yes, this would include hospitals like those run by the VA, and yes, it would also include service (or malservice as it were) organizations like the IRS.


How is it done?  Well, you either select a customer at random, or use the case file when you have complaints, and you walk through the process and see how well the records match what's supposed to happen.  If you find that something is wrong, that is a "finding".  "Findings" are divided into "minor" and "major" findings, and falsifying records is always a major finding that calls for clear corrective action.  If a major finding is uncorrected after a year, that is grounds for the accrediting agency to revoke accreditation--and that, in turn, is grounds for firing managers.


Now since there are auditing agencies that work with the IRA and VA, and they did note the problems for the VA as far back as 2009.  What do we conclude?


Well, either the Obama administration has nobody on staff that understands basic process audits, or they have intentionally prevented major findings from being corrected.  Given that these issues (and many others are dragging on with significant noncompliance in terms of providing requested information to Congress, you know what my guess is. 

The perfect ambassador for pro sports?

Yes, I'm talking about Donald Sterling, of course.  How so?

Well, we have a man who, like a large portion of professional athletes--like the one he didn't want photographed with his ex-girlfriend--is not faithful to his wife.  As a former divorce lawyer and slumlord, he has numerous ethical lapses in his business career--just like the "pay to play" and "get richer quick" schemes that have impoverished so many retired athletes.   Like all too many athletes, he's flashy in his personal style, spends enormous amounts of money on entertainment, and his thinking leaves something to be desired.  To wit, he apparently objected to his girlfriend's taking pictures with Magic Johnson, but apparently he would have had no problem if she'd slept with the HIV-positive basketball legend.  Like many professional athletes, he (move to LA from San Diego) seems to be something of a financial mercenary.

And, like all too many professional athletes, he's got some repugnant personal views that are ignored in the name of the game until those views get too obvious to ignore, and he even had (like many pro athletes) organizations like the NAACP conned in this regard--again, at least until his views became too obvious to ignore.

In other words, he's the perfect representative of the game, at least until the NBA decides to get serious about the moral and ethical lapses of its owners, players, and office staff.

It boggles the mind

Apparently, the owner of an NBA franchise has been caught yelling at his partially black girlfriend because he didn't want people close to him being photographed with African-Americans.

In related news, the owners of the Edmonton Oilers and the Maple Leafs told their families they didn't want them seen with Canadians, seven NASCAR owners told their teams not to give high fives to rednecks, and half of Congress and the chief resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue told their families they didn't want them photographed with lying thieves.

That last one's got promise, doesn't it? 

A thought for November

....is that the GOP could do little better than to take populism back.  President "Aragula is so expensive at Whole Foods" Obama talks it well, at least with TOTUS' help, but let's be serious.  He's a man of the people in far less degree than are Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.  Can't the GOP make these arguments:

Please tell me why the poor and middle class should be subsidizing hybrid and electric cars for the rich--especially when they're not environmentally sound at all?

Please tell me why the poor and middle class should be subsidizing entertainment--PBS, NPR, the NEA, and the NEH--for the rich?

Please tell me why the poor and middle class should be subsidizing windmills owned by the rich, solar companies owned by the rich, and the like?  Again, especially when one considers that the environmental "benefits" of these are far exaggerated to nonexistent?

Please tell me why the poor and middle class ought to subsidize corn farmers who own tens of millions of dollars worth of land, and ethanol refiners whose use of water requires them to drill new wells for many of their neighbors?  (real example from Janesville, Minnesota, by the way)

Please tell me why the poor and middle class ought to be subsidizing college professors through the 50% of Pell Grants and student loans granted to students with no serious chance of graduating?  We're victimizing the poor twice this way--first by taxing them to pay for this, second by saddling their children with student loans.

One can go on and on, but you get the picture.  Many of the most egregious offenses in the federal budget fall, directly or indirectly, under the banner of "programs which tax the poor and middle class to benefit the rich."  If we can't get some of these programs killed, we more or less are giving up the republic.

A thought on the Ukraine

As far as I can tell, the battle to save the Crimea was lost a long time ago--when President Obama removed anti-ballistic missile systems from eastern Europe in 2009, really, and was made a lot worse as he telegraphed his decisions, more or less telling the world "you just sit back a while, you'll get what you want if you wait until after the U.S. withdraws."  And then there's that "we'll have more freedom once I get reelected" bit.  Afghanistan and Iraq are even now paying a bitter price for this, and now it's Kiev's turn.

But that said, the controversy of the Crimea is about a former Muslim Khanate--the Tatars that tormented the Czars--absorbed into Russia, filled mostly (but not fully) with Russians and Ukrainians (58% and 24% respectively), then granted to the Ukraine in an effort to make it difficult for Kiev to operate independently of "Mother Russia."  It's a controversy that is more or less designed to be a pain in the rear for everyone involved.

So the solution?  Well, if I'm understanding things correctly, shedding the Crimea and a couple of other majority-Russian counties could be a huge blessing to the Ukraine.  Immediately the number of votes for the Pro-Russian party drops by about two million votes, and if the remaining Tatars want to be a pain like Chechnya, that would belong to Russia.  It might even reduce the fuel bill--though that's unsure, as Crimea does produce some natural gas.

In other words, you use the Russian tendency towards empire to make Ukraine a viable nation while ensuring that Russia has yet another headache to deal with.  You might even get Russia to pay for the Ukrainian bases and infrastructure they're taking.

OK, probably a moot point now--"leading from behind" is no way to run a superpower--but if we had someone in the White House who actually understood Russia and Eastern Europe (hint; they're all paranoid about being invaded, since it's happened so often), we might have had a much better result.

Where everybody knows your name

Back when we lived in a small town, but with its own emergency room, we were a little bit chagrined when our fourth daughter got on a first name basis with all of the doctors in town--but then remembered that there were only four of them, so it wasn't that bad.  Fast forward to this week, when our son was greeted at St. Mary's in Rochester by a nurse saying "weren't you just here last week?".    Since St. Mary's (the hospital used by the Mayo brothers and the Clinic today) is THE "go-to" emergency room for most of southern Minnesota, northeast Iowa, and western Wisconsin, it takes serendipity or some seriously bad luck to be recognized there.

Thankfully it was serendipity, and he's going to be OK, and he's going to get a whittling lesson from Dad before he tries again.  And the arrows he was whittling look great.

The little guy hard at work watching Cars while waiting for 5 stitches!

And it pays to patronize small business around here, too.  On one day, the gracious proprietress of "Ginny's Fine Fabrics" gave us some patterns for Civil War era dresses, and we got an invitation to the Wasioja Civil War Days ball from friends.  Just might have some sewing to do, and somehow I'm reminded of Famous Dave's.

Humor in fatherhood

I had a situation last night in a kids' program where I had to tell a child that I'd have to tell his mother about what he'd just done, and he begged me to give him the spanking instead of telling his mother.

When I mentioned this to my wife, her first response was that if any of our kids had been in the room, they'd have quickly told the poor soul that what he'd just said was a very, very bad idea.  None of them disagreed with Mrs. Bubba for some odd reason.

Worship Shul

I did a bit of Hebrew and Greek study of the words for "worship"--Hebrew "Schachah" (Strong's 7812) and Greek proskyneo and sebomai, and I learned a few things that might make a very strong point in the "worship wars" of whether hymns, meeting and revival songs, or modern praise music ought to be used in worship.

The verdict I come to--and failed to arrive at in these earlier posts about worship and music--is that none of these forms ought to be used in worship, properly speaking.  No, I'm not urging Bach's cantatas and toccatas, Gregorian chants or the Orthodox equivalent, or even the singing of the metric Psalms--though I would be quite happy with these in church services, assuming the lyrics are orthodox.

Rather, the point is that worship, strictly speaking, does not refer to music.   It refers to bowing down before one who is acknowledged as superior, more or less utter submission in its implications.  Sometimes--as when Abraham talks about going to Mt. Moriah to worship--it can quietly refer to sacrifice, but it does not refer to music in the Temple, in the synagogue, or at church. 

It is not always used with reference to the God of Abraham, but can be used with reference to pagan "deities."  About 3/4 of the time that "schachah" is used in reference to false gods, however, it is used this way--"to serve, and to worship"  It seems to imply that while one can simply fall down prostrate before God Almighty, some service must be rendered to the demons before one can submit to them.  One might suggest that it's a parallel of the Protestant doctrines of sola fide, sola gratia, and Solus Christus.  God did it all for us, therefore we can simply bow down before Him and worship. 

Moreover, I wonder if there is a great treasure to be gained if Bible believers would only regain the proper doctrine of worship.  We seem to "mess around" a lot with music, prayer, skits, preaching, dance, offerings....but none of these are, strictly speaking, worship.  What would God do in our times of singing, prayer, preaching, offerings, and the like if only....we got out of the way at the beginning of each church meeting for a time when we could bow down and worship? 

What if Protestant churches provided a way--yes, I'm thinking something akin to Catholic "kneelers" or the Pilgrim times of solemn humiliation--for the congregation to kneel and assume a posture of utter submission, a posture of worship?  What if we learned to walk into the auditorium with a hushed silence--yes those great old tall churches are wonderful for this--and assume an attitude of worship?

What would happen to the evangelical heresies of today--I am thinking specifically of evangelical feminism, among other heresies--if we understood worship as it truly is, as the pure and utter submission of the Church to Her Savior, of the Son to the Father.....and thus of a wife to her husband, a child to his father, and the like?  After all, Christ does not bow down to the Church, no?

So if you're asked about your position about the "worship wars", just let them know; worship isn't about music.  It's about our solemn humiliation and submission before God.  And once we get this down, then we might be able to think more clearly about lesser matters like music. 

The death of project management?

Let's take a look at some recent debacles:

1.  The failure of the Lockheed-Martin designed speed skating suits at the Sochi Olympics.

2.  The debacle of the "Health Insurance Deform Act" portal at the federal level.

3.  The implosion, apparently, of up to 35 state exchanges for the Health Insurance Deform Act.

What do all of these have in common?  All admitted that they did not do significant testing prior to release, and as a result, all self-destructed.  In similar news, I've noted before that many of the "compact fluorescent" light bulbs I've bought--really anything but those producing about 500 to 800 lumens with the "corkscrew" configuration--are great candidates for getting a full refund because they simply don't last anywhere near the warranty period.  In other words, they didn't do reliability testing prior to release--and it would seem that the Department of Energy never called them on it, either.

(no surprise, really; the DOE has never, ever helped to develop an energy source that can compete in markets without subsidies.  It's not like they're interested in affordable energy or anything, after all)

Now it's particularly telling that these omissions were made, because the standard tools for risk management--FMEA, accelerated reliability testing, and the like--were by and large invented and promoted by none less than....the government.  And yet government officials allowed these programs to go live.

In other words, in government circles, the basics of program management are being ignored because the political realities loom greater for government officials than the impact on citizens.  Yes, be very, very afraid of the consequences, which shall be dire.

Well, there goes that theory

I've been of the view that the collapse of the American family is in great part due to the disaster called the Great Society and LBJ's "War on the Poor", sometimes mis-labeled the "War on Poverty."  While this may be true, it interestingly does not fit some of the data, specifically the proportion of American adults living in wedlock.  Take a look:

H/T Sunshine Mary

Now take a look; all ethnic groups show a decline starting not in 1964, when LBJ started the War on the Poor, but rather around 1950, when he was a junior Senator.  Particularly interesting is the plunge in black marriage rates at this time.  It doesn't correspond to the Great Society or even the Civil Rights movement--those were still in the future--but it does correspond well to both the second Great Migration and the graduation of the first soldiers studying under the G.I. Bill--soldiers who had served with all races in Italy and elsewhere with the 92nd Infantry and other units, and who had been welcomed as liberators there.

Of course, getting away from "Jim Crow" is a good thing, even if northerners were not altogether hospitable at all times(to put it mildly), but one thing that is likely here is that as blacks became a distinct minority in their new homes, they didn't have the clear support of institutions like family and church (those they'd left back in the South), and they also had to wait to establish themselves in homes before marrying and starting families.  And, of course, being lonely and far from home, I'm guessing some did what lonely people of all races do....with or without a marriage license, and their families and churches weren't there to give them a nudge towards marriage.

And so perhaps, just as the great migrations of whites to the West resulted in a culture (excepting the Mormons of course) with less regard for traditional mores, marriage, and the like, perhaps the migrations of blacks to the north and west did the same thing....and the question, then, is how to fix the problem after decades of hurt.

A parallel note; the rise in crime rates in the inner city started soon after this....again, exactly what you'd expect from lonely people of any race, and it is worth noting as well that the race riots of the sixties all occurred in the north and west.  Now granted, fear of "Bull Connor and company" may have suppressed things in the South, but Richard Daley was no slouch during the Democratic Convention of 1968, either.

The moral of the story, I think, is to welcome your new neighbors.  It'll do them, and you, a lot of good, and it's in the Bible, too.

Book Review: "Overdressed"

My wife and I recently read "Overdressed; the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion," by Elizabeth Cline, and we can recommend it with some reservations.  First the excellent; with what seems to be pretty keen instincts for reporters these days, Ms. Cline details the collapse of the U.S. clothing industry and some fairly shocking conditions and realities at clothing manufacturers and clothing retailers.  Those who wonder how "fashion" houses with little to add like Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, and Old Navy manage to survive will marvel at the marketing acumen used by these stores.

The book also details a process I commend; Ms. Cline's transformation from an addict of cheap fashions to a careful selector of better quality clothing--often vintage clothing.  This is something I can heartily commend, as I am wearing a 25 year old sweater right now.  (gift from my mom, Irish lambs-wool)  Apparently, she want from over 350 garments (pants, skirts, shorts, shirts, jackets, everything but undergarments) to a bit less than 100, and I can only say "well done."

While Ms. Cline has demonstrated quite well how to reform her own life, however, it's my opinion that she short-changes the reader in terms of the real costs suffered by those who are in a way "addicted" to the latest thing from their favorite store. 

Specifically, my 100 or so garments (not doing as well as Ms. Cline in this, sad to say) fill the top three drawers in a dresser and about four feet of closet space--including about two feet of shelves partially shared with blanket storage--take approximately 20 square feet of storage space.  Now if I triple that, my clothes would require about 60-80 square feet of storage space.  With a "cost to build or buy" of about $100/square foot, a "primo" A&F or Old Navy wardrobe for myself would cost me somewhere between $4000 and $6000--enough to buy a custom suit from a bespoke tailor, my wife reminds me.  Multiply that cost by my family size of eight, and it's enough to buy a brand new SUV.   Which, by the way, we recently did--one could argue our family's thrift in clothing has a very real benefit to us.

(we heartily recommend the GMC Acadia, by the way....solid all the way through)

Along the same lines, there is a cost in comfort.  Our family's mostly "natural fiber" wardrobe simply performs better in cold weather and hot, allowing us to keep the house a bit cool (65) in winter and a bit warm (78) in summer, saving us a good chunk of money on utilities--and my employer on space heaters that I do not use.  (there is that gift from my mom again)  The linen shirt my wife made me is cooler than a bare chest in the sun. 

This leads to a third major savings with good clothing; while other families are gathered around the TV in winter and summer to take advantage of climate control while they wear their poly-cotton blends and polyester stretch knits, my family is out skating, skiing, bicycling, and the like.  So just as a $10,000 bicycle has a pretty decent ROI (return on investment) when you consider the medical benefits of physical activity, so does decent clothing.  Just take a look at Lileks' pictures of men waiting for the trolley fifty years ago; think about doing that in poly blends and shiver.  Consider where people are at the church picnic in the summer--think that some people in the shelter might do well to consider real cotton?  I think so.

Two other places where I disagreed with the author were about her position on unions, and her position on natural fibers.  With regards to unions, her consistent refrain assumes that if only the workers in Bangladesh were unionized, things would be better--but the reality is that when the Maersk Line is ordering ten ships that dwarf the Emma Maersk, a union in Bangladesh will only result in production moving to Pakistan, India, or other developing countries.  Unions work well with capital-bound industries, but not so well with industries that can move as easily as clothing production.

Regarding fiber, is often claimed that there are not enough natural fibers to clothe the world, and just for kicks, I looked it up.  Between cotton, wool, linen, and hemp, there are about 27 million tons of natural fibers produced worldwide each year--about 8-9 lbs. per person, or about (assuming average of 6 oz. fabric) about 23 yards per person.  It takes about two yards of fabric to make a shirt or pair of pants for a large adult--so if you're keeping your wool shirts for 20 years, cotton shirts for 3-5 years, and your slacks for a decade (as I do), you're going to have little problem getting most of your clothing in natural fibers.  This is especially the case when you consider leather for clothing as well.

Plus, you'll be more likely to be able to afford that nice new SUV and the high end bicycle to ride when  you're not in the SUV.  Your doctor will be happy to wait for the business, I hope, and maybe it'll help prevent further debacles like the collapse in a clothing factory in Bangladesh last year that took over 1000 lives.

Well done, Ms. Cline, and may your reporting grow to understand the nuts and bolts of corporate governance, and may your wardrobe grow ever more delightful.