Walter's Blog

(The following is an excerpt for an article I wrote for Generous Giving Initiative.)

The British enterprise known as the East India Company was founded in the year 1600. From that time onward England carried on a brisk trade with India, and as the power and profitability of the company grew, so did the British influence. Settlements were established as considerable numbers of Englishmen were sent to India to facilitate trade. This kind of cultural penetrations for the sake of commerce continued on for quite a long time. The sad part of the story is that from the establishment of the East India Company to the time of William Carey, a period of almost 200 years, England sent not one single medical, educational, or religious missionary to India.

In 1787 William Carey was ordained as a minister, 187 years after the est. of the East India Co. He made quite an impression at his first Ministers' Fraternal meeting of the Northampton Association. The president of the association, Dr. John Ryland, asked the two new members to suggest a theme for the group's discussion. Perhaps the invitation was to impress upon the two junior members how deep was the well of wisdom and knowledge among the established membership. Without hesitation Carey spoke up:

"Whether the command given to the apostles to preach the gospel to all nations is not binding on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent."

It is not clear exactly what happened between junior Carey's proposal and the next recorded response. Whether he went on too long, spoke with "inappropriate passion," or simply struck a raw nerve, the suggestion of the topic was not well received. The frowning president sprang to his feet and thundered, "Young man, sit down, sit down. You're an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He'll do it without consulting you or me. Besides, sir, can you preach in Arabic, in Persian, in Hindustani, in Bengali? There must first be another Pentecostal gift tongues" (strange that Dr. Ryland should put it that way).

Carey sat down, at least outwardly, but the inner vision would not. Five years later a group of five men, including Carey and that same ministerial association president, Dr. John Ryland, formed the Baptist Missionary Society. Each put in some money, pledged monthly support, and determined to solicit support from other interested parties. It was the first foreign missionary organization created by the English Awakening.

In a subsequent meeting one of the society members commented, "There is a gold mine in India, but is seems almost as deep as the center of the earth." After a time of discussion, another member, Reynold Hogg asked, "Who will venture down to explore it?" William Carey replied, "I will venture to go down, but remember that you – Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland must hold the ropes!" And people have been holding the ropes and sending down missionaries ever since.

To hear a review of the extraordinary accomplishment of Carey in India, go to www.BWOC.com for Pastor Rice Broocks' 6-29-08 sermon entitles, Expect Great Things From God, Attempt Great Things For God.

Walt Walker

Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

Our son, John, is in Bangkok for the summer. As you can see, he is using his martial arts skills to reach out to the Thai students. 

The most efficient and effective gift is one that creates or contributes to sustainable momentum in an organization, i.e. "Mo" (momentum) money. To understand the relationship between efficiency and organizational momentum, it helps to look at it from a physical science perspective. Consider how much energy it would require to drive a 3,000-pound car from a standing start one-quarter mile in five seconds.

Compare that to the energy required for that same car traveling the same distance in the same time but with a 5 mph rolling start. The 5 mph rolling start cuts the energy requirement by 35%. In short, momentum greatly increases efficiency.

Applying that principle to business, imagine how inefficient it would be to operate a business or an organization with zero annual momentum. Each year you would have to start from scratch with new staff and leadership, facilities and equipment, licensing and accreditation, etc. You would also have to start all over accumulating intangible assets such as intellectual capital (knowledge and experience) and social capital (reputation and relationships).

Without momentum it would be hard to imagine accomplishing very much, let alone consistent annual growth. This is, of course, and extreme example, but it illustrates the point. Momentum is a huge factor in an organization's ability to operate and grow efficiently.

The strategic significance of our giving is not only a matter choosing the right organization or the right program within the organization to fund, it is also a matter of creating and/or sustaining momentum. Endowments are by their very nature momentum generators. Beginning the year with a number of staff positions or other fixed expenses funded by an endowment is like the 5 mph rolling start.

But let's just suppose you don't have a few million to invest in an endowment. There are other ways to create momentum-generating gifts. A monthly gift of $400 has about the same immediate impact as a $100,000 gift to the endowment fund (that is, as long as you continue that monthly giving). Many people think in terms a single gift, other in terms of an annual gift. However, approaching a financial commitment in terms of 2-4 years generates organizational stability and momentum. Another way to generate momentum is by making the lead gift on a capital campaign because it is lot harder to raise the first dollars in a campaign than the last dollars.

Positive momentum affects an organization in many ways including long-term planning, purchasing, and fund-raising cost. Like an 18-wheeler building up speed to make it over the next hill, momentum also enable an organization to get through lean times without having to go into crisis mode of fund-raising or budget cutting.

Remember that while generosity is a measure of how much or how sacrificially we give; stewardship is a measure of how well or how wisely we give.

Walt Walker

Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

[from and e-letter to donors and stakeholders of Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee]

One of the greatest assets of any organization or institution is its raving fans. Not only do they give generously of their time and money, they are also willing and anxious to contribute their influence. And what is the value of influence? It is often greater than the some of their monetary contributions. Not that you should replace one with the other, but you should realize the impact of using both.

Every fundraising initiative begins with a list of names organized by involvement, capacity, and giving history. Normally they begin with the inner circle (the raving fans) followed by the less raving, and so on.

Usually there is only a small overlap between your circle of contacts and the people in the organizational circle. In other words, only a small number of those in your broader friendship network have been exposed to the organization. You can help expand the organization’s spear of influence through referrals or by introducing your friends and associates to the organization and its leadership. There are many ways to do this if you only keep your eyes open for them.

The days are numbered for any organization that does not have an ongoing and successful program of attracting new donors. A typical non-profit needs to replace between 10 and 20 percent of its donor base every year. This is a demanding challenge of any organization and one that never lets up. It can also be expensive.

THE BARNABAS EFFECT is a networking process in which one person introduces another into his or her circle of strategic relationships. Barnabas was a raving fan and a key donor in the early Christian church. Since Paul of Tarsus was the chief persecutor of the church before his dramatic conversion, the leaders were naturally suspicious about Paul’s desire to meet with the church leadership. It was Barnabas who arranged the introduction of Paul of Tarsus to the apostles in Jerusalem. A Barnabas to any organization is one who lends his influence and enables them to establish new strategic relationships. Barnabas’s referral was a contribution to the early church that far exceeds all the money he could have ever given.

Over time people accumulate a wealth of social capital. The amazing thing is that when you spend some of that influence for the right reasons, your account just gets bigger.

Walt Walker

Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

Thanksgiving is not just a holiday, it is also attitude and effort. My proposition is simply this: First of all , it is easier to remember the difficult, the painful, and the disappointing than it is the blessings, the grace, and the miracles that come and go. That is especially true when we are face to face with those difficulties.

Secondly, remembering how God has blessed us in the past provides a foundation to face future challenges. Yes, I know, we can just stand on promises without any appeal to our personal history. However, the life of David as well as the Psalms of David showed how important it was to have good recollection of how God had helped him in the past. It helps out a lot in times of trouble.

When the Children of Israel finally entered the Promised Land, there was a second miraculous river crossing. It is less known, perhaps because no movie has been made about it. As they were carrying the Ark of the Covenant across the dry Jordan River bed, Joshua was instructed to build a monument to the event. God told him to have men pick large rocks from the river bed and build a memorial beside the river where they emerged (Joshua 4:1-7). The purpose was to commemorate the event so that when their children and children's children asked about those rocks, they would tell them the story.

The Children of Israel in the wilderness were rather quick to forget their miraculous deliverance from Egypt and the Red Sea crossing. Losing that perspective, they complained about their circumstances, build a golden calf to worship, and longed to go back to Egypt.

Last weekend Linda and I watched an old movie we had first seen many years ago. "With Honors" is about a bum (Joe Pesi) living in the basement of Winder Library who befriends four Harvard students (Branden Frazier, Patrick Dempsey, et al - a great movie a few objectionable parts make it not entirely appropriate for kids.) The bum, who had had a pretty hard life, had no possessions except a pouch containing about five little rocks. Each rock represent a happy memory. The story ends with the four graduates leaving Harvard, picking up their own little rock.

I wish we had collect more mementoes through the years, but we do have a few things lying around that always bring up great memories. Like the home-make award from the students at the summer leadership institute I led; the porcelain duck from our trip to Boulder to see Mark & Denise; my dad's fly rod and favorite boat paddle etc.

Some of us have more happy memories than we will ever remember. Others like the bum in the movie have by comparison very few. But whether many or few, each of us at some point in our lives will have fall back on our own thanksgiving rocks to get through what is ahead of us.

I have over the years I have tried to keep up the practice of scribbling in a journal. Blogging is just an extension of that habit. Those of you in my extended family know that walking around in the cemetery, telling old stories, and writing in a diary all seem to be inherited traits. How those things come to be so deeply imbedded in our DNA would take way too long to explain. I will just say that for many of my ancestors were careful to record and recount their blessings. That was particularly true of my great, great grandfather, John A. Taylor, who ended each year by recording his blessings, the major events of his life, and his gratitude to God.

I began writing things down many years ago as an exercise of faith. As often as I could, I would simply list blessings large and small. Some time afterwards, I went through some very discouraging times. By chance I began to skim through the "Thankful Book" as it was then called. I was astounded about how many great things had happen and how consistently God's grace had been manifested in our lives. The most amazing part was how many things were so far removed from my memory that I would have certainly never again thought of them. Reading the Thankful Book had and continues to have a great effect on my outlook and perspective -- greater than the best sermons and most inspirational stories.

Though I've been keeping notes throughout the year, sometime between now and Dec 31, Linda and I will make a concerted attempt to follow the tradition of old John A. We will sit down to record in my journal how God has blessed us in 2007. Maybe some day our own grandkids will also read about how God had been faithful to us from generation to generation.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

In the social setting in which we live, a champion is almost always thought of as an athlete who has beaten all the contenders, won the prize, and gained the glory. Most guys (girls too) have at some point imagined themselves hitting the winning shot, making the critical play, or saving the day with some great feat of athleticism. And those who have finished first at some point in their lives often have a difficult time getting over it. Ever been in a group of guys reminiscing about a game they won 20 years ago?

I’ve certainly done my share of praying for victory, more so for my kids than myself. Every stroke of my daughter’s crew team, every shot from my second daughter on the tennis court, and every takedown by my son on the wrestling mat, I was interceding with God of heaven like it was an epic battle between good and evil. In those situations, as a parent I was in no mood to consider the theological appropriateness of praying for my kid to beat the other guy’s kid.

But now that my children are finished with high school athletics I have had the chance to regain my senses and to realize that God probably doesn’t care who wins the district championship or who is eliminated in the first round. Yes, I know God cares about all things in our lives, so let me put it like this: He does indeed care that we become champions, but not like we care and not the kind of champion this world celebrates.

I think God is much more concerned about each of us becoming a champion as defined in an older and more traditional sense. That is, one who stands in the gap for those separated from God, who takes up the cause poor, the orphans, and disenfranchised, who in fact becomes their champion.

It’s fine to compete and win in sports, but the likeness of Christ is best revealed as we champion the cause of others in need. There are a couple pieces of good news here: 1) you don’t have be a great athlete to win the greatest prize and 2) no matter how old you are, it is not too late to become a champion.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

There's nothing spiritual about this blog. This is about baseball.

It’s October again and the baseball playoffs are underway. Of course the Chicago Cubs were swept in the National League Divisional playoffs. That’s 99 years in a row without winning a championship. So having extended the longest losing streak in professional sports history one more year, something oughta be said…

G.H. Flemming in his book The Unforgettable Season chronicled one of the wildest most intense pennant races of all time. It was the Summer 1908 and the Giants, Cubs, and Pirates had been neck and neck competing for the National League title. Those were the days when baseball was the only sport that meant anything. It was as if three city-states were at war with one another, every inning and every pitch producing either elation or agony riveting throughout the entire populations.

The craziest baseball story I ever heard of took place on September 24, 1908. The Cubs were playing the NY Giants at Polo Ground, home field of the Giants before they moved to San Francisco. The great Christy Mathewson had been pitching another masterful game for the Giants. The game was tied one to one with two outs in the bottom of the 9th, runners on first and third.

The Giants short stop, Al Birdwell, was at the plate and hit line drive into center field. The runner on third raced home, scoring what everyone thought was the winning run. The New York crowd went wild and began to storm the field. From that point on, there are varying accounts of what actually happened. One version goes like this:

Fred Merkle, the Giant runner at first, broke from first toward second base when ball is hit but turned and headed for the locker room before touching second base.

Seeing his mistake, the Cubs center fielder threw to second base for the force out, retiring the side and discounting the run. But the throw was off target.

McGinnity, the Giant’s third base coach, seeing the mistake, ran onto the field among the fans and retrieved the ball, preventing the force out at second.

Frank Chance, the Cubs manager, now on the field, grabbed McGinnity and held him until several other players could assist in trying to wrestle the ball from him. But McGinnity was able to throw the ball into the stands.

Cubs players retrieved the ball from the stand and made the throw to their teammate on second base.

O’Day, the home plate umpire, seeing Merkle’s mistake, ran from home toward second base to make the call. When ball finally reached the Cub player on second, O’Day called him out and discounted what the Giants and their fans thought was the winning run.

An argument ensued which eventually, with all the fans on the field, turned into a riot. After receiving many blows, O’Day and the other umpires were finally evacuated to the locker room.

The game was initially declared a tie, a decision which was appealed to National League Commissioner Harry Pulliam.

In meantime there numerous and conflicting stories emerged with sworn testimonies from people claiming that Merkle had touched second before heading to the dugout and that an umpire had declared it so before leaving the field.

Under enormous pressure Pulliam upheld the decision.

Because the teams had no open dates, the game was never replayed.

After the 1908 season, Commissioner Pulliam took a leave of absence due to severe depression, which doctors said had been brought on by the turmoil following the September 24th game at the Polo Grounds. On July 19, 1909 he committed suicide.

Of course, everyone in New York believed that the Cubs stole the game and pennant. Christy Mathewson, who had sworn to never play baseball again if the Cubs were awarded the victory, was back the next season.

Days after the game at the Polo Grounds, the Cubs won the NL pennant by one game over the Giants.

They went onto defeated Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers, becoming the 1908 World Series champions. As Harry Cary would have said, “Cubs Win! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!” But they have never won again, and 99 years later they have the longest losing steak in the history of professional sports.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

I wrote in the previous blog post that Christianity is the Ultimate Zero-Sum Game. There is no such thing as hedging your bets with faith in Christ just in case the Gospel is true. No, to believe in Christ and to worship him as divine Son of God makes you either the inheritor of eternal life or a prolific idolater. There is no middle ground. So then if we are to bet our eternal souls on this idea, then you would expect that there is a good foundation for the faith. And indeed there is.

As 21st century readers we typically view scripture passages looking for ways in which to apply them to our lives in our day. In doing so, however, we can lose touch with what it meant to them in their day. For instance, Jesus said to his disciples in several ways and on several occasions, “You shall be my witnesses.” In a modern application to be a “witness for Christ” has come to be synonymous with sharing the Good News or some impressive demonstration of Christian character.

To the 12 disciples (later to be called apostles) the interpretation was literal and straightforward. It simply meant that they would validate the mighty words and might deed of Jesus by their collective eyewitness testimony.

When it came to their understanding of what it meant to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, the role of an eyewitness was the central and foremost idea. Not sure about that? In Act chapter one the 11 remaining apostles took up the issue of replacing the betrayer, Judas Iscariot. And in doing so they stipulate the essential qualifications of an apostle by saying, "Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us--one of these must become A WITNESS WITH US OF HIS RESURRECTION (Acts 1:21-22)"

In other words, the chief qualification for being one of twelve had nothing to with charisma, preaching, or leadership ability. It wasn’t even a matter of anointing, gifts of the spirit, visions, or miracles. It was simply one thing — being able to personally validate everything that Jesus said and did, including the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

Still not sure this was their central focus?

The concluding remarks of Peter’s first sermon at the Day of Pentecost were, 
"This Jesus God raised up again, to which WE ARE ALL WITNESSES (Acts 2:32).

After raising up a lame man in the Portico of Solomon, Peter preached his second sermon concluding with the words, "(You) put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which WE ARE WITNESSES” (Acts 3:15).
Acts chapter 4 Peter and John are arrested and in opposition to the High Priest command said, “We cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). Upon their release Peter and John went right back to what they had been doing as described in 4:33, “And with great power the apostles were GIVING WITNESS to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus…”

In the next narrative recorded in Acts the apostles were thrown in jail and eventually brought again before the religious court. The apostles proclaimed to them, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you put to death by hanging on a cross… and WE ARE WITNESSES of these things” (Act 5:30-32).

In Peter address at the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, he gives an account of Christ and says, “WE ARE WITNESSES of all the things he did…” (10:39). Peter pressed the point about the call to be eyewitnesses even farther saying, “God raised Him up on the third day, and granted that He should become visible, not to all people, but to WITNESSES WHO WERE CHOSEN beforehand by God, that is, to us, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead… Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (10:40-43).

The apostle’s claim to be first and foremost eyewitnesses is a continuing theme throughout Act (see Acts 13:31, 14:3, 14:17).

As frequently as the apostles appealed to their own eyewitness account, they likewise appealed to Old Testament prophecies. Those two propositions were always paired together as being the case for Christ and therefore the foundation of the faith. The apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians stating that the faith is “build upon the foundation of the apostle and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone (2:20). Though apostolic and prophetic ministry continues on today, the reference here is almost certainly to something unique. The Christian faith is firmly based upon the Old Testament prophets and the witness of twelve apostles.

ONE MORE THING — THE DaVINCI CODE
The premise of the fictional novel, “The DaVinci Code,” is in part based on some obscure (and BTW mistranslated) passages from what writing about Christ that had been rejected by the church. And so it has become fashionable of late to challenge Christians with the fact that there were other accounts of the life of Christ other than the four which made the final cut. Actually, this only strengthens the case for Christ because of the reasons these spurious gospels were rejected. The church accepted the gospel accounts when authorship could be verified and from authors known to been with Jesus. Other accounts were rejected because they were written much later and the source, particularly for Gnostic gospels, was personal revelation, not actual first hand accounts. In other words, they lacked the character and credentials of WITNESS DOCUMENTS.

The apostle Paul (who BTW cites his encounter with the actual risen Christ as an argument for his own apostleship) sums it up in a letter to the Corinthian church, “If Christ is not raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith is also vain. Moreover, we are even found to be FALSE WITNESSES of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised” (1 Cor 15:14-15).

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of TN

On occasion, we don’t know exactly how often, Jesus would deliver a saying so hard that it would seem as if he was trying to drive people away. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part of me.” Unless you sell all your possession, you cannot follow me.” "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days." “Unless you believe that ‘I AM’…

You can interpret his intention in several ways. Maybe he was trying to weed out the casual followers from among the true believers. Or perhaps he was trying to help those who followed him realize the cost of discipleship. In either case or both cases, when faith and following came too easy or too superficial, he would shake things up with one those hard sayings.

An unchallenged or unexamined faith is often superficial. For instance, When Christians who have grown up in a Christian home or Christian society are asked about the incarnation, they often respond, “Oh yeah, of course I believe Jesus was God come in the flesh.”

Whoa!!!! Hold on their partner. What do you mean “of course.” Do you realize the difficulty or implications of what you just said?

Dr. Gordon Fee, a leading New Testament scholar, put it something like this: Anyone who has not struggle mightily with the imponderable idea of the incarnation, how God could put on flesh, how a man could be divine… doesn’t realized the significance of that belief even though they have believed for their whole life without ever doubting. With the hard sayings; Jesus challenged their faith in order to highlight what an amazing thing they were being asked to believe.

THE GAMBLE
I am reminded of the old song by the Charlie Daniels Band, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in which the devil wagers a golden fiddle against a Georgia boy’s soul on who is the best fiddler. Faith in Christ is likewise an all or nothing bet.

A little story from history illustrates the point. Sir Isaac Newton was famous for working out the details of gravitational theory, for inventing calculus, and for his belief in God. However, belief for Newton (according to the story I read) was not a trinitarian belief. In other words, he did not believe in the incarnation or the deity of Christ and therefore would not join the church, which was a requirement for his teaching position.

Newton’s defense was that to believe and acknowledge a man to be god was the highest form of offense against the one true God. Newton asserted that such a belief would be doing the very thing that the apostle Paul condemned, “worshipping and serving the creation rather than the creator.” According to Paul’s reasoning (Romans chapter one) even people who are ignorant of divine revelation will be judged for worshipping a man as God because they would have reject intuitive and self-evident truth.

There are certainly people who casually believe and worship Christ as a means of hedging their bets – just in case it is true. In their minds, if Christ is not who he claimed to be, well then, things will certainly work out because they were at least sincere.

Not so. The nature of the Christian faith is this: If Christ is raised, if He is Lord, if He is Judge, if He is divine, then to believe in him and to follow him gains you eternal life. If he is not, then you have committed the greatest of all sins – worshipping a man as god or, simply put, idolatry in the first-degree.

If you think you live in a place where there is no personal risk to believe in Christ (Nashville Tennessee, for example), you are terribly, terribly wrong. Faith in Christ is the ultimate gamble, meaning that the winner takes all and the loser loses everything. In this case, gaining eternal life or losing your soul.

So, how much are you or I willing to bet on your faith? If I believe in Christ and I am correct, I gain eternal life. If I am wrong, I am without excuse and bear the punishment of a conscious, intentional, and informed idolater.

CONFESSION
I believe that Jesus was the incarnate son of God, that he died for my sins, that he rose from the dead, that he ascended to the right hand of the father, that the world will be judged through him, that he offer forgiveness and eternal life to those who believe.

Faith in Christ as the ultimate gamble is like one of those hard sayings. And it has the same effect. Understanding what it is that I must put on the line to believe, not only awakens me to the fact that I cannot do this casually or superficially, it deepen my appreciation of its value.

So, what do you believe? Are you willing to bet your eternal soul upon it? The fact is that our souls are already on the line, like it or not, and we all have to choose upon what we place our faith.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

The following is a brief summary of a workshop I helped lead in Washington DC at the Darrell Green Youth Life Foundation training. I was supposed to speak about developing a clear, concise, and compelling case statement. I wound up devoting half of my time to a discussion about the essence of orgs, not necessarily organisms as pictured, but organizational systems though there are some parallels.

One of the few things I found worth remember from grad school was how to look and organizations, families, business, industries and even packs of wild animals in terms of cybernetic systems; how they form, grow, govern themselves, defend themselves against innovation, decline, and spin off new systems. Jesus commented on the religious system that had emerged into his day by referring to the problem of containing new wine in old wineskins.

There are several seminars I do that begin with an exercise of imagining yourself on an airplane that is going down. You have a tape recorder in briefcase and 3 minutes to impart to your young children everything they will every get from you to live by for the rest of their lives. What do you say?

I used to get asked every now and then what I did to raise my kids, as if there was some great secret to be learned from my answer. For years my standard answer was that it was simply grace and they turned out pretty good despite our efforts. One day one of my daughters said, “Dad, that’s not true,” and went on to point out several thing that had made a difference to her. It got me to thinking, and after considerable contemplation I wound up creating a funny little video for my two sons-in-law on the top ten keys to being a great dad. Probably should get permission to post.

On several other occasions I have spent considerable time in an exercise of redaction, that is, an effort to reduce a complex system or idea to its essential ingredients. Mathematically, it’s like factoring out prime numbers. Chemically, it is boiling a substance down until all that is left is the essence.

Spiritually, it was express in a conversation between Jesus and a teacher of the law who asked, “Which is the greatest commandment?” There was certainly a lot of debate about that. Jesus asked, “What do you think,” he replied, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. In this are contained all the law and the prophets.” Jesus noted that the guy who had seen through all the complex system of rules and regulation was not far from the kingdom of God.

The four points I discussed at the DC workshop were as follow:

1. Every great organization (church, family, company) has become great for a reason; it is not accident.

2, For the most part, member, leaders, staff, and stakeholders do not know exactly why it is great. Many can tell you the history and procedures. They can cite the program manual, the vision, and the mission statement. But do not know exactly what it is that creates the magic (or if you prefer, the anointing). And of those who do know, many do not know how to communicate it to those they lead.

How do I know that? Because all organization and systems tend to decline and only a few of them are able to keep the magic/anointing alive through multiple generations.

3. The essence of the org (things that create the magic) are not obvious but often obscure. If they were that easily discerned then leaders would more often discern them. They would perhaps do a better job of protecting and nurturing those factors as well. Many times people point to something as the reason for greatness, but the true reason was something that laid still deeper. Deep doesn’t mean complicated. Often the keys to an org are very simple, so simple they are eventually overlooked.

4. Organizations are not static but constantly changing. Constant change, momentum, and reshaping will eventually move the org away from some of the thing that make it great. If we don’t know the fundamental elements that make us great, how can we protect them? If we are not on guard, eventually, external pressures move us away from the source of the magic without us even knowing it.

Leaders, members, customers, or employees may wake up one day and realize their companies or their organizations are not as effective, not as productive, not as passionate, not as fun as they used to be. “What happened?” they wonder. In response they react by trying to reinstitute practices from the good ole days, but it only makes things worse because those practices may have been results but not the real reasons for the magic. It is a lot like Univ. of Alabama alumni continually replacing football coaches with the requirement that each new coach have some connection to the legendary Bear Bryant -- trying to rekindle the magic.


5. The Highest priority for org leaders is to identify and protect things that really matter. Distilling out the essence of the org doesn’t happen automatically, but it’s not rocket science either. Take prayer, meditation, and reflection. It is also an ongoing learning process

For the purpose of the workshop at which I was speaking, I related everything to an organization. But it could apply to a business, a family, a church, relationship, or devotional life.

At breakfast last week I asked Steve Murrell what he consider the key elements of the Every Nation churches in SE Asia. I don’t think we ever got around to discussing the key elements but he did talk about communicating them. One day he and his son, William, were disagreeing over who performed a particular song they heard on the radio. Wm. was sure it was a Matchbox 20 song and Steve was sure the song was by Eric Clapton. Both were right. It was originally performed by Clapton and remixed by Matchbox 20. One of secrets to success, according to Steve, has been singing the same song for over 20 years. It just gets remixed continually.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

Sitting out on our front porch after dinner with some friends and family our discussion turned to various religious groups and their fundamental understanding of the nature and character of God. Among the various perspectives are mono-theistism of Judeo-Christian-Islam in which God is personal and infinite. Then there is God as the Force, God as universal mind, and a variety of godish ideas that are more difficult to get a handle on.

One of the benefits of talking with people who are looking at things from a different perspective is that it forces me to think about what I believe and why. Concerning Genesis chapters 1 &2, I believe the creation account though I have never really geared up to debate it. In mixed company I would rather talk about intelligent design. In other words, general revelation before special revelation. There are a lot of great books about intelligent and intentional design. The most reader friendly is “The Case for Creation” by Lee Stroble.

Atheism was in vogue throughout the modern era though it never caught on as many expected or feared that it would. Since we seem to be stuck with the god idea, post-moderns typically adopt an eastern view of God and the universe. It is without doubt more politically correct, though in my mind there are some baffling inconsistencies. I am tempted to jump into some of those ideas, but that is not the point I would like to make.

All churches want to grow, and most evangelical churches will say they want to do so by winning people to Christ, rather than collecting disgruntled members from other churches. The problem is that most evangelical preaching and discipleship training is geared to listeners who have already fully bought into the Christian framework. So then, are we really trying to win the people who have never known?

Lest you think I am over-estimating the situation, last year Baylor University socialogists published the result of national survey which is by far the most comprehensive national religion survey to date. They found that even though 91% of Americans’ surveyed believed in god, what kind of God they believed in (nature and character of God) varied greatly. The responses were divided into four categories:

31.4% of Americans believed in an AUTHORITARIAN GOD, angry at humanity's sins and engaged in every creature's life and world affairs.

23% believed in a BENEVOLENT GOD who still sets absolute standards for mankind in the Bible. He's grieved by the sin of the world, by any created person who doesn't follow him. But he is a God ... who loves us, who sees us for who we really are, and give the second, third, fourth, fifth… chance.

21% believe in a THE CRITICAL GOD who has his judgmental eye on the world, but he's not going to intervene, either to punish or to comfort.

24% believe in the DISTANT GOD who launched the world, then left it spinning on its own.

Compound these ideas with dimensions of personal vs. impersonal god, and you realize there is a lot of variety in that 91% Americans who believe.

My suggestion is as follows.

1) If the church in American wants to win the lost, we have to have a message and conversation that is relevant to people not on the same page philosophically.

2) We cannot naively assume that everyone who raises a hand to become a Christian or everyone who shows up for the new members class is on the same page with regard to their understanding of God.

3) If believers in our churches are not exposed some kind of defense of the faith at the most fundamental levels, they will less confident to share their faith and more like shaken when they confronted with radically different ideas [one day I am going to write a blog on Inoculation Theory and how it applies to disciping young Christians].

The good news is that the gospel provides a view of god that incorporates all those dimensions -- the justice, love, purpose, and sovereignty of God being demonstrated at the cross. We need to boldly proclaim it because it is indeed the greatest story every told.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

The last time I went through a ten-week Crown Financial Ministries small group study, the one thing that was really impressed upon me wasn’t even part of the study. I kept mentally wandering off from the conversation, wondering how this concept might be applied to the principles or scriptures that were being discussed.

Put simply it is this: WHEN you give is as important than HOW MUCH you give --perhaps even more important. To be more precise, honoring the Lord by giving before you do anything else, rather than giving to God from what is left over.

I won’t try to list or even pretend to know all the examples from scripture in which the order of giving is emphasized over the amount of giving. But just to name a few firsts…

“You shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of FIRST FRUITS of your labors from what you sow in the field…” Exodus 23:16.

“Seek ye FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you…” (Matthew 6:33).

There seem to be numerous examples of giving first in the scriptures (Abram and Melchezedek, David, etc.) as well as a few of people making offerings from something less than their best (i.e. sacrifices of lame animals). I would love to hear from you about examples that come to mind.

It seems to me that there is significant difference between giving first and giving from what is left over. That is even truer when there is a good chance that nothing will be left over. The former is obviously an act of faith. Much said about the blessings that comes back to us when we give in faith. Even though I feel that some of is boldly proclaimed in some circles goes beyond the context and intent of scripture, the principle of reciprocity is definitely a promise of scripture. Could it be that the promise of return is to some degree contingent not just on how much we give, but when we give it. That is, we should give in faith by giving first.

ONLINE BANKING
The practical application for me is this: I am pretty committed to online banking. I rarely write paper checks but pay bills, balance my accounts, and transfer funds sitting at my computer. The very moment my direct-deposit paycheck show up in my downloaded transactions, I push the buttons to give. If I do not do it at that very moment… well you know what can happen.

The last several months have been pretty chaotic for us. We have moved, had mail forwarded to two different addresses, packed records in boxes, stored mail in the back seat of my car, and until recently been without a secured internet connection at home. Consequently, my little give-first habit has been hard to maintain. Where am I in my giving? Unfortunately, I have to say that I am not sure.

So, I am renewing my commitment to giving first. I would like to invite you to join me in this little experiment. I am not suggesting that you change the amount you give, but simply to be very diligent to give first as an act of faith and worship. Then let me know how it goes with you.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

The theme of the movie, StarGate, as well as the subsequent television series is that people from earth are able to enter the StarGate, travel through a wormhole, and exit through a similar gate into another world hundreds of thousands of light years away. The distance is so far away that the trip was only possible through the StarGate, which was in effect a shortcut to the other side of the universe. I never watched the TV show, and I have only a vague recollection of the move. So there are some unanswered questions in my mind. One thing I never could understand is if they needed a gate at both ends of the wormhole, how did they get over to our side of the universe to set one up? Maybe some of you sci-fi guys can explain this to me.

StarGate is actually (and probably unintentionally) a metaphor of the kingdom of God.

In the middle ages many Christian thinkers, and more importantly Christian painters, conceptualized God and his heaven to be a far away place. And if one could only go far enough out into space (perhaps the other side of the universe), one would eventually begin to see angels, cherubim, heavenly mansions, streets of gold, a throne room… and God.

I think they were wrong about that idea on several counts.

First of all, the seeing part. Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian of the First Great Awakening in America, commenting on the invisible God wrote that all we will see of God with our natural eyes is seen in the person of the glorified Christ for as the scriptures say, “He is the image of the invisible God…” Edwards went on to point out that God has at time made himself know by some visible manifestations but that the essence God is spiritual not natural (i.e. visible). That is kinda hard to imagine because our imagination usually employs pictures. Of course, who knows for sure about such things. I do however have strong suspicion that the realm of God’s world, the spiritual world, is indeed unseeable with the natural eye. Think about it, before matter, light, or anything of the natural universe existed, there was nothing to see — yet God was there.

The medieval idea was wrong on the second count because the separation between the natural world and the realm of the spiritual world is not a matter of time, space, or distance but of dimension. That sounds like something Rod Serling used to say on the old TV show, The Twilight Zone. Rev. Paul Yonggi Cho many years ago called it, The Fourth Dimension. In other words, it is not a matter of traveling far enough within our dimension to arrive at the kingdom of heaven. It is a matter of crossing over to another dimension, the spiritual world.

Theoretical physicists talk about 11 dimensions of reality predicted by string theory, the latest of a long list of attempts to explain the creation. I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to sync Biblical ideas with such a speculative theory. It may be discarded in a few years. But it is an interesting bridge to share the gospel with those kinds of people.

The most important question for me is the same one mankind has been asking from the very beginning: What happens when we die? Is there life after death? If there is another dimension, how can we get there? That’s where the StarGate comes in.

It’s not like we can just send someone over to check it out. Billions have gone, but no one has ever come back to tell us about it. The impact of the incarnation is that someone came from the other dimension to tell us that it was real, what is was all about. and how we could get there. But then how would people know that person was not simply making it all up? Now if that person from the other dimension went back through the gate (death) and came back yet again… Well that would be quite extraordinary!

The resurrection of Christ is for me is “the evidence of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1-2). Or put another way, someone going through the gate and coming back to assure me that I too can follow him through it into that fourth dimension.

Linda and I moved to Nashville a few months ago, began attending Bethel, and are now in the membership class. Consequently, I am working my way through the Purple Book. Question 12, page 17 is what got me thinking about the Stargate. “What is the significance of Jesus’ resurrection?” it asks. The answer in 1 Cor 15:16, 20: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised… But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

A few of you might notice that the heading on my blog page has changed from “The Stewardship of Wealth and the Ministry of Giving” to “Stewardship, Discipleship, and Worship.” Several friends have suggested that I blog off topic more frequently. Since I am not interested in keeping up with multiple blogs, those three “ships” pretty much cover my previous on- and off-topic ideas.

A few words about worship or better said, “worth-ship.” In my mind it is not only the singing before the sermon but, in a broader context, thinking big thoughts about God.

I met up with a friend once who asked me what I had been doing. Jokingly I said, “Oh, I’m just sitting here contemplating the nature of God.” It was a joke because it refers to something that is foreign to modern Christianity. That is however more sad than funny because a shallow concept or imagination of God is boring.

Sitting out on our upstairs porch thinking about this, I just watched a 1965 Corvette rumbled down the street. What a beautiful sight and sound! it is possible, you know, to alter a car’s exhaust system to make it sound bigger and badder than it really is. But there is nothing like the sound of a 396 cubic inch V8 producing over 400 horsepower. A trained ear can easily tell the difference between real horsepower and mere noise.

The same is true with worship. Worship has become very sophisticated these days with bands, background singers, and even coordinated video productions. The technical standard for worship leaders is today pretty high. And I for one love it. It also seems that the intent of worship services I attend is experience, that is to experience the presence of God. I am indeed all for that. My suggestion is that we need to grow in personal devotion and adoration (worship) in two ways: experience and in revelation; in the awareness of God’s presence and in the amazement of God’s “person” (probably not the best word to use here).

Big time worship and the rumbling of a hot rod beg the same question. What’s really under the hood? Is there substance to the sound? Put another way you could ask, is it that our depth of wonder, awe, and fascination over the nature, character, and acts of God has so greatly increased — evidenced by our worship? The answer is: probably not. We are perhaps more shallow in our collective understand of God’s word and his nature than in days gone by. Who has time to sit around and contemplate the nature of God anyway? But we do indeed put those old timers to shame when it comes to producing an awesome worship service.

Note to all you worship leaders, I’m not knocking what you do or how you do it. I really love it! Perhaps the greater need is for those of us in the seats need to catch up.

All of this is part of my argument for some individual theological digging into the nature and character of God — myself being the primary person I am speaking to. I’m not, however, talking about prepping of for the next debate with unbelievers or for the next round of infighting with other Christians. No, it is deepening our knowledge of God for purely devotional reasons. It is thinking big thoughts about God, about creation, spiritual realities, eternity, and better yet — unimaginable, irresistible, immutable love; the wisdom of God in ordering the events of this world toward his purpose, the reality and nature of the eternal life, God who exists above time and space entering into time as space in the form of a man; the righteousness of God in the final judging of all events of this life, and on and on and on - things that stagger the imagination and leave one in awe. One thing those ideas have in common is that they have no practical application except for worship and personal adoration.

One more thought: people eventually grow tired and bored with little bitty concepts of God. Most who have discarded their faith and considered it only myth have done so not because their understanding of God was too big but because it was too small.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

Blogging off topic again, this time on prayer. For the last several weeks I have found myself frequently praying, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I am not one of those inclined to think that particularly worded prayers have some kind of special power. That seems too much like and reciting incantations. Effective prayer is certainly not about conguring up a magical phrase because God is more concerned with the attitude of heart than the words out of my mouth. Nevertheless that phrase from the Lord’s Prayer has taken on a renewed meaning for me.

It started about a month as I was watching a program on the Discovery Channel about the Bible Code. The theme behind the book and this television program is that encrypted into the Hebrew text are secret messages that foretell the great events of history. Words deciphered from these pages refer to events like World Wars, national calamities, and the rise and fall of nations.

When it comes to the events that turn the course of history, as Christians we are already onboard with those ideas. Events foretold in the straightforward reading of Scripture are amazing enough, such as the Exodus from Egypt, the rise of King Cyrus, the remnant of the Jews to Jerusalem, and the birth of the Christ.

It’s easy to believe that the big events are foretold, even preordained. But what I kept thinking about was how that on my drive to the office that morning; it seemed that I hit every red light possible. What about the very, very little things?

Note: I know I’m going to disappoint the reformed wing of my friendship network with this idea. It is, however, difficult to have a meaningful conversation about prayer without some kind of inclusion of undetermined causality or at least the appearance of it. If not, then why pray at all? Yes, I know prayer changes us more than it changes God and that we probably spend too much time trying the change God’s will than trying to find God’s will. But, still, I have never been satisfied with the idea that prayer is only an exercise in bracing ourselves for the inevitable. I do indeed have a few ideas about how sovereignty and prayer that changes things all works out, but that’s for now off point.

Suppose for a moment that really big things were set and ordained, while things like stoplights and paint pealing were simply the cause-and-effect laws of nature just rolling along. Hey, that doesn’t mean God cannot and does not intervene and supercede the natural course of things in order to accomplish his purposes. To whatever extent things proceed in their natural course, those events can be thought of as being played out on a flatbed trailer. Whatever happens on that bed, God is driving the tractor and pulling the trailer always toward his purpose.

Whether right or wrong about the cosmic hayride, praying for God kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven mean this to me: That God would (figuratively speaking) bend down to impose his divine ordering of thing in the smallest elements of my life and the lives of those for whom I pray just as he does in those history changing events; that his kingdom come and will be done on earth (my little stuff) as it is the heaven (the big events that turn the course of history).

That is why whenever I think of people I love and those in need, I find myself regularly praying, “Thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.”

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

Christian givers could learn some valuable lessons about stewardship from professional grant makers. The paragraphs below take a look at the funding of church plants by the standards of sustainability and capacity building.

Among corporations, governmental agencies, and private foundations, there is a group of career professionals who are responsible of making the decisions that award hundreds of millions of dollars each year to non-profit organizations. Over the years I have met a number of these career grant-makers, first as a writer helping them tell their own stories and later as a grant applicant.

Though grant-makers are characteristically spiritual and compassionate individuals, they are almost never people who operate on fuzzy feelings. Whether they are grant-makers serving as stewards over their own family’s wealth or employees working for foundations, their approach to giving is very measured and professional. They commonly know much more about the grant seekers’ organizational cause and mission than the grant seekers do themselves. They often specialize in a particular area, and they value bring to the table is knowing how to apply money in a way that produces the greatest long-term results.

Two standard that professional grant-makers commonly use to sort through thousands of requests are 1) SUSTAINABILITY and 2) CAPACITY.

The importance of THE SUSTAINABILITY QUESTION was illustrated by Yolanda Shields, Executive Director of Youth Life Foundation, in a seminar we recently conducted. At the beginning she asked attendees to write a 300-word sustainability paragraph for a funding request and gave no further explanation. The exercise drove home the point that dealing with the sustainability issue (i.e. how are you going to fund the organization after the initial gifts or the term of monthly support ends) is the single greatest weakness of most funding appeals. And by the way, simply saying that you’ll find more donors is an easy but not very compelling answer.

The importance of a good argument for sustainability was made clear to me than in a conversation last month with a program director for a community foundation. This young lady, who was as knowledgeable and experienced as they come, put it to me very bluntly: “It doesn’t really matter how great your organization is. We have funding request from hundreds of great organizations. The strength of your grant request is all about one thing; your ability to demonstrate long-term sustainability and as well as sustainable growth.”

The sustainability question put simply is this: “If we help you get going, how do we know you can you make on your own next year without us?” A good sustainability plan is important to a donor because 1) they don’t want you overly dependent on them and 2) if they invest $20,000 in an initiative that folds in the third year, the investment is lost.

CAPACITY-BUILDING grants are those that increase the organization’s productivity. In agricultural terms, a direct gift would be giving food to the hungry. Giving seed to sew is could be considered direct gift as well. I know one organization that received a large capacity building grant, but they did not expand. In other words, they ate the seed. A capacity building gift would be money to purchase more land, upgrade machinery, attend seminars on high-yield farming, or in some way increase the organization ability to bear more fruit.

Capacity building gifts are usually made by people who have thought very carefully about their giving because you often don’t see immediate results from these type of gifts. But for those with a focused giving strategy base on long-term sustainable results, capacity-building gifts make a lot of sense.

So what does all this have to do with CHURCH PLANTING? Ironically, grant-making entities, even Christian foundations, rarely fund church-planting initiatives and commonly say so in their guidelines. But it’s not because of the capacity or sustainability issues. In fact, church planting is one of most efficient and effective ways to be a good steward of God’s money.

CHURCH-PLANTING SUSTAINABILITY: Many organizations are successful in their program but fail in the area of fund raising. But think about this; how often do you hear of a funding proposal in which the object of the program (unreached people) is also the means of sustainability (tithes and offerings). I asked Steve Murrell and Burt Thompson about the sustainability of Every Nation Ministries church plants. Though the time required for cultural training and startup costs vary greatly – from $1,000 for a church plant in a village to $100,000 in a major city – with great regularity Every Nation church plants are self-sustaining within two years. If they continue to grow, as most of them do, they are not only self-sufficient, but become a new source of leadership and funding for other church plants.

If you totaled all the cost for airfare for a large team of short-term missionaries, equipment, facilities, and staff for the first year in Manila, it might hit that $100,000 mark. That sounds like a lot of money. However, I could not even begin to calculate how many times over that investment has multiplied itself in Christians, new church plants, leaders, and funding.

Don’t have $100,000 to invest? It took about $1,000 to send Bruce Olsen to Venezuela about 40 years ago (see the book, Bruchko). Today the Motilone Indian nation went from being one the fieriest pagan tribe to a nation almost entirely Christian. They have also planted church among tribal groups in all over the mountains of Columbia.

CHURCH-PLANTING & CAPACITY: Planting new churches (when it is done right) increases the church’s capacity to bear fruit and does it with a built-in sustainability plan.

Making a gift that plants a church, that becomes self-sustaining, that continually wins people to Christ, who become leaders, who are supported by that church, to go out and plant other churches, that have the same model of reproduction… How efficient is that initial gift, and how good of a steward is the one who gave it?


Walt Walker
Youth LIfe Foundation of Tennessee

Here are a few facts about the status of the church in America.

1. As a percentage of the total U.S. population, Christian church attendance (evangelical, mainline, and Catholic) declined from 20.4% in 1990 to 17.5% in 2005.

2. At the present rate of decline the percentage of the U.S. population attending Christian churches will diminish to 16.2% in 2010 to 14.4% in 2020 and to 10.5% in 2050.

3. In a study of 90,000 Christian churches, almost all the 2004-2005 growth in attendance came from churches planted in the last 15 years and particularly in the last five years. The pretty amazing graph below shows that the newer the church the more likely it was to grow.

4. With the exception of the decade following World War II, the number of new churches started per million residents has steadily declined throughout this century. The net growth (churches opened minus churches closed) of Christian churches in America from 2000 to 2005 was 3,162. That is one-fifth the 15,975 required to simply keep pace with population growth. See the other pretty amazing graph below.

The stats above come from researcher Dave Olson (theamericanchurch.org).

I have my own opinions about church planting, leadership development, and the churches ability to adapt to cultural changes that seem to be proceeding at a breathtaking pace.

1. The reason most church growth (according to stats above) comes from newly established churches is that planting new churches is THE PRIMARY WAY the church adapts itself to an ever-changing culture. Though some churches can make the repeated transitions to remain relevant to emerging cultures, for many the process changing the old structures is just too difficult. A church founded by the greatest generation can adapt to boomer, but to continue transforming itself to appeal to GenX-ers, GenYs, and post-moderns is pretty tough. Even when long-established churches do retool themselves culturally, it is because they are trying to emulate the success of church they or their denomination has planted.

Historically, distinct generations emerged every 40 to 100 years depending on scientific advancements, culturally transforming events, and contact with the world outside their community. Given those factors it is easy to see why distinct generations are identified every few years.

The critical thing is not just that the number of new churches keeps up with population growth, it is that emerging generations of churches (church plants that plant other churches) are occurring as quickly as new cultural generations emerge. If not, the church will lose the battle for people’s minds because they are becoming more and more culturally irrelevant.

2. Church plants force church members to become leaders. I have been involved with several church plants, each of which could be a case study in everything not to do. In fact, we were so bad at it, by any standard of church grow you could employ, these endeavors were failures. They were tiny little groups that never really grew beyond a few dozen people and were never able to completely sustain themselves financially. Nevertheless, I am flat out astounded at what people from those struggling little churches have gone on to do.

Some of the people from those little groups are well known. What is most amazing is what has happened with those who were less well know and even with those who were on fringe. Every now and then you hear of someone like Zoo. I have no idea what his real name was, but I remember that Zoo was the king of intramural basketball. He was saved right before he graduated, and no one ever heard of him again. Then about 14 years later he gets back in touch… He is the pastor of church in Harlem.

There was another guy named Randy who one of our Guatemalan students nicknamed “Dot.” The only thing anyone ever heard about Dot was bad. Then we lost touch with him for few years. The next thing we hear he’s the worship leader in church and passionate for Jesus. Often some old friend say, “Do you remember… You wouldn’t believe what they are doing now.” Frequently, I don’t remember them and it is hard to believe what God has done.

This is not just my experience. It is common for almost everyone who has been involved with some kind of church planting endeavor.

As you go to plant a church, go as a part of the support team, as you invest financially to support the initiative, you never know what God will do and you never know who he use. Your experience, abilities, and dynamic personality don’t matter as much as you might think. As a business leader once said, “Eighty percent of success is simply showing up.”

I never got around to the giving part. I will post something on that another day.

Pageman wrote in response to the last blog on “Margin and the Meaning of Wealth.”

Pageman: Hi Walter, I scanned this book, Margin when I was in Kabul and Dubai and I think it shares the same principles although Richard Swensen, the author sometimes overstates the case ...

Walter: Pageman, haven't seen that book, but the table of contents seems to follow the same theme. I agree with you that it is easy to overstate the case. As you know, there are also many bibilical examples of reckless abandon in the pursuit of God's calling. Christ called men to follow and to follow path that provided them little or no margin. The underlying principle is Lordship, not margin. The thing I was poking at in the last blog was a self-imposed margin-less lifestyle in pursuit of our own career, fame, or fortune... to the extent we are unable to hear God's call. Or if we do hear his call, we are so bound by our schedule and our bills that we are not free to respond. – WLW

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So, having just written a blog about the importance of creating margin in our lives, am I about to suggest that there is a balance? Absolutely not. Balance is often over-rated.

Whenever I have expounded on one idea, then the converse, and ended up appealing to balance, I feel that I am neither clear nor passionate about either idea. In such cases, there is usually a greater truth underlying both ideas that needed to be grasped – kind of like the illusive unified field theory that would tie together the laws of gravity and electro-magnetism. My appeal to balance might be because I was not diligent to seek it out the deeper truth.

It seems to me that the principle underlying my approach to margin is simply this: whether it relates to time or money, it all about separating myself FOR something, not merely FROM something. For instance, if financial margin is merely separating myself from debt, I can still spend every discretionary dollar on wild living like the prodigal son or conspicuous consumption like other characters in the parables. I just pay cash rather than using a credit card. The point is not to merely separate myself FROM DEBT but separate myself TO CONTENTMENT, TO PEACE, AND TO GENEROSITY — kind of a purpose-driven margin.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

Here is a simple little idea about how managing our time and money impacts our ability to recognize God calling and purpose. I’ll try to be deductive by defining terms, offering a few observations and a proposition.

DEFINITION: Margin is distance to the edge — the edge of the page, the edge the cliff, or the limits of your discretionary time and/or income.

OBSERVATION 1: Our list of things-to-do expands to fill our available time. Increase our discretionary time, and the demands upon our time tend to increase with it. Creating margin is not as easy as it seems.

OBSERVATION 2: The same thing is true with money. The number of things we “need” seems to grow with the increase of our disposable income. Amazing how that happens.

OBSERVATION 3: If every moment of our day is filled with activities, responsibilities, and lists of urgent things-to-do, not only will we fail to recognize great opportunities when as they arise; opportunities to serve God, serve others, or enjoy relationships. Those opportunities will pass like ships in the night. They will come and go without us realizing it.

OBSERVATION 4: In the same way, if we live on the edge financially with little or no margin, we will probably miss opportunities to invest, save, or give. We will miss those the opportunities as well without realizing it.

PROPOSITION: We tend perceived our opportunities in particular and our purpose in general within the context of the margin we create for ourselves. In other words, with no spare time for anything, people are unlikely to think too deeply about new ways to serve. With no financial margin, they are unlikely to devote themselves to contemplating the meaning and purpose of their wealth.

The question arises about whether this is a biblical idea or just old-school conservatism. Several examples from Scripture quickly come to mind: the man so busy with his crops and cattle that he declined the invitation to the great banquet, failing to perceive the importance or the uniqueness of the invitation. No margin in his schedule. Then there were the 10 bridesmaids, five wise ones who carried extra oil, and the five foolish ones who missed the coming of the groom because they too had no margin.

Creating margin in our lives is not as easy saying that we should. Some realities in life are unavoidable. Yet, many of our trials and tribulations are self-inflicted. Case in point, the prodigal son with his compulsive spending or Martha with her compulsive busyness in the kitchen while Jesus himself was sitting in the living room. I live with far less margin than I would prefer and yet still feel the tempting pull to move a little closer to the edge. And therein lies the larger problem -- that many of us live on the edge with regard to both time and money, not by necessity but by our own choice.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee

I’m blogging off topic here, but this thought has persisted in my mind of late. I need to purge my thinking on this so I can get back to stewardship issues.

Though I never felt sufficiently hurt or offended to read that deeply on the subject of offenses, I have nonetheless, (based on no real research, exegesis of texts, or literature review) concluded the following: That people (especially Christian people) get offended WAY too easily.

Don’t get me wrong; I am not minimizing the importance of how we treat others. But that particular transgression is well understood, and we clearly single out those who offend others as the bad guys. Yet, to be offended is considered merely human, totally understandable, simply a natural response to others who act badly.

The ethics of the Kingdom of God are often contrary to our natural inclinations. It has recently occurred to me that it is far more “unchristlike” to be one who is offended than to offend others.

Jesus denounced people as hypocrites, got angry, turned over tables, and drove people out of the temple with a bull whip. He called people snakes, white-washed tombs, and sons of the devil. He even had a couple of nicknames -- “Stone of Stumbling” and “Rock of Offense.” Apparently there were quite a few who got their feelings hurt. Jesus said to them, “Blessed in He who is not offended with me.”

But was there not a point at which Jesus was himself offended? Was it when they rejected his teaching and refused to believe his words? Maybe it was when people lied about him and spread terrible rumors? What about when his cousin John was murdered? How about when one within his own circle betrayed him or when the others disserted him? Surely when they beat him, ripped his flesh with a scourge, or drove a crown of thorns into his head he was personally offended. But no, he seems to take no personal offense. Even when he was being crucified, Jesus said, “Forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” On a personal level, Jesus was completely un-offendable.

My point is that our perceptions about the ethics of the kingdom are in this case (as in many cases) turned upon their heads. Our common expectation is that as we grow closer to Christ, more mature in the faith, more filled and control by God’s Spirit, we are less and less likely to offend others. And though we would not care to admit this part, as we grow more and more in knowledge and experience, the list of issues over which we can be offended grows as well.

However, the truth of spiritual grow as exemplified by the person of Christ seems to be the opposite. As we become more and more like Christ, we will be more likely to offend while at the same time becoming all but unoffendable. We would certainly not offend others from self-centeredness, but would certainly offend more from pure love. I’ve just finished reading again C.S. Lewis’ little book, The Great Divorce. In this tale, people repeatedly turn back from the entrance to heaven because they were for various reason offended by those who spoke to them from pure love.

Not long ago I told a friend who has a long track record of kindnesses to Linda and me that I intended never to forget it. I continued on saying that were he to do me wrong every day for a very long time, I would still be on the debtor’s side of our relationship. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was reminded of Peter claiming how ready he was to die for Jesus but who denyed him thrice before the cock crowed. Without the grace of God who can tell what they would do before the sun went down.

I don’t want to give the impression that I sit on some high horse. There have been times (far too many times) that I have been offend by the most trivial and insignificant inconvenience and have as a result acted like an ungrateful idiot; like a person without the slightest awareness of his own need for grace or forgiveness. Someone should have asked me at that point how much blood I had shed, how many lashes I had endure, or the years I has spent in prison to have caused me to be so offended. My petty response would have been, “He cut into my lane, they didn’t invite me to their party, I don’t like the way he runs things, or he took my money (err... I mean God's money).” We (myself included) get offended way too easily.

My humble proposal is simply this: One of the first steps toward victory and maturity in Christ is ridding ourselves of the thinking that gives place to that same defeat and immaturity. If we consider the right to be offended as common, natural, and innocent, then we are very likely to grant it entrance when it comes knocking upon our door. And if we have an open-door policy toward offenses, we are more likely to entertain one as our guest. Pretty soon we begin to harbor the offence, then adopt it, then defend it, and finally become its champion. But if I consider that to be like Christ is to be unoffendable, then I am at least pointed in the right direction, in the position to receive God’s grace.

Walt Walker
Youth Life Foundation of Tennessee