Are People Basically Good?

One of the core beliefs taught in the Bible is that humanity is fallen, evil, and in need of a savior.

This is not an idea that is easily accepted.

We prefer to think of ourselves as self-sufficient creatures that can to fix our faults on our own.  Many religions teach about improvement through some sort of personally actualized system.  Many Christians also embrace a philosophy of self-salvation.  The concept of an evil humanity is largely rejected in America today.

No one really wants to confront the depravity that is in the hearts of all people, because if we do we have to confront the evil that is in us.  This makes us uncomfortable.

And besides, it is easy to look past the evil of humanity when you live in America.  Things are actually pretty good here.  Just last week I heard a major concern about whether or not the new iPhone had a strong enough case to keep it from bending while carried in skinny jeans.  It is easy to think the world is a pretty good place full of good people when our biggest problems are the strength of the aluminum cases on our phones.

To better understand just how evil humanity is we need to take a look at some of the worries that people of other countries suffer.  When we look at the larger world, our need for a personal savior becomes clear.

For example . . .

In Bulgaria, people worry that Russia will turn off their gas this winter.

In Ukraine, people worry about whether their country will still exist tomorrow or be taken over by a power hungry man.

In Syria people worry about being killed because they are part of the wrong faction.

In Iraq people worry about being beheaded for their beliefs or nationality.

In Israel people worry about attacks from neighboring anti-Semites who want to wipe them off the face of the earth.

And in America we worry that our new iPhone will bend in our back pocket.

And we think it's a big deal when it does.

Do you still think we are basically good?

Do you still think we don't need a savior?

Reflections From Hundreds of Churches

One of the great parts of my job is that I have had the privilege of visiting hundreds of churches in several countries over the years.  I have had the chance to see all kinds of worship styles.  It is fun to see the creativity of God’s people.  Though not every style fits with my personal taste, I am hard pressed to find a style of worship that is wrong or unbiblical.

Another thing I get to see is different pastoral styles.  Like worship styles, different pastors have different ways of leading.  In some cases the differences are merely stylistic.  Yet in others, the pastors are leading their congregation in ways that are harmful to the Church.

I used the capital letter on the word Church on purpose.  I’m talking about harm done to the universal Church, not just to the local church.

A while back, I was talking to an elder from a church whose pastor will soon be stepping down.  The elder shared with me how they are making preparations for the pastor’s successor.  This got me thinking about what qualities I would look for when hiring a pastor.  Again, my perspective of having seen hundreds of churches came into play.  I thought of the good pastoral leadership I have seen, and I thought about some of the bad examples.  To a large extent, it seems there is one major discerning factor between a godly pastor and a worldly pastor.

Godly pastors love the Bride of Christ more than anything.  They would lay everything aside for the universal Church, even if it means a decreased ministry in their local churches.

I think of a pastor I knew back in Poland who sent the top twenty percent of his church across town to start a new church in a new neighborhood.  From a worldly perspective he made a big mistake.  His church shrunk 20% overnight.  Most of his best people were gone.  Yet over time both his local church and the one that his former parishioners planted grew, and as a result the body of Christ grew bigger and stronger.

I think of another pastor in Bulgaria who decided to make small groups the center of the church ministry.  The Sunday service would become a worship time, and a time to share stories from the weekly small groups.  He would only give a sermon if there were not enough testimonials from the week to fill the hour.  He met with lots of criticism.  People left his church in droves.  Yet when I visited his church last spring there was hardly enough room to sit.  Nearly everyone had a story about how lives were being changed through their personal ministries.  The Body was strong.  The Kingdom was expanding.  Yet the pastor seemed unimportant from a worldly perspective.

Worldly pastors, on the other hand, often place something else before the Bride.  They place their careers, their political authority, or the number of people coming to their church every Sunday above the universal Church.  They are easy to spot if you know the signs.  They are more concerned about building their empire than they are about building the kingdom.

If they are in a smaller church, they often talk about getting more people to come to their church.  Attendance numbers are a big deal to them.  They need a following.  Their biggest fear is that the church will close on their watch, because that would make them look like a bad leader.

If they are in a bigger church, they are careful to keep control centralized.  They are offended when they are not in the driver’s seat, and they expect you to be offended for them.

Worldly pastors will use gossip, slander, and lies to hold onto power.  They do not release people to start new ministries.  They do not risk.  They do not plant churches.

When a church selects a pastor, there will be great temptation to hire a worldly pastor.  He will come with promises of growth.  He will go to no ends to make his church great.  In the end he will have successfully built his church, not God’s Church.  He will leave a legacy that the world will respect, but that is spiritually a heap of garbage.

A godly pastor will give of himself for the Kingdom.  He will develop ministry workers and pass on leadership to others.  He will send his best people out to start new ministries.  He will empower believers even if it means he has less power.  He will risk closing the doors of his church if it means that the universal Church grows.  He will place the Bride of Christ before his own personal brand.  His legacy may go unnoticed by the world, but he will make an impact that lasts forever.

First Day of School

Today is the first day of School for most kids in Minnesota.  All three of ours started today.  It is a day we are bathing in prayer.

For most kids, back to school day is no big deal.  They know the school.  They know the system.  They have friends to hang out with and exchange stories about the summer.  For our kids, everything is new.

Our oldest two have spent the last few years in the Bulgarian public school system which is vastly different than the Minnesota system.  None of our girls had ever been on a school bus before today.  They are not only the new kids at the school, they are new kids in the country.

In Bulgaria, the school days go from 8:15 to 12:30.  Here they go from 8:40 to 3:10.  They days are much longer.  Our girls have never eaten lunch at school before.  They have never had a recess before.  In Bulgaria, school is something they do during the day.  Here it is their whole day.

There is also the language issue.  Our girls have studied Bulgarian for the past two years.  Though they can read in English, they have never spent the day in all English learning.

Then there are the cultural issues.  Interaction between teachers and students is different in Bulgaria.  Interactions among students are different.  The way people talk to each other and sit next to each other and stand next to each other is different.

Sasha and I have spent much of the day in prayer.  This is new territory for the whole family, and something that our American counterparts probably can't understand.

Please pray for our kids this year.

The Most Boring Book of the Bible.

Sasha and I have been reading through the Bible together.  We are going slowly.  We read five chapters a week and then share our thoughts with each other.  We recently began reading Leviticus.

For those of you not familiar with the Bible, Leviticus is the third book of the Old Testament.  The vast majority of the book is made up of rules for various rituals and sacrifices that were supposed to be practiced by Israel.  It reads much like a law book, and it is widely considered one of the most boring and irrelevant books of the Bible.

If you are not Jewish, Leviticus appears to be a book of rituals that you are not required to follow (much like how the laws of Canada have little significance to citizens of Mexico).  If you are Jewish, then you cannot follow the rules of Leviticus anyway because the temple where these rituals are supposed to take place was destroyed nearly 2000 years ago, and the temple location is currently occupied by a mosque.  Either way, this book seems to have little to do with our lives today.

Yet you can learn a lot by reading this book.  There are certain aspects of God that we like to overlook or ignore.  We pretend that God is who we want Him to be.  We pretend that He doesn't see sin as a big deal because we are afraid to be confronted with our own sin.  We pretend that worship is about us and is intended to make us feel good.

Leviticus teaches us that God has a very strict view of sin.  It teaches us that sin is very costly.  It also teaches us that worship is not about us, but about our relationship with Him.

The worship seen in this book demonstrate that rituals and symbolism are a very important aspect of worship.  How worship was done has meaning.  This book shows us that worship is about our relationship with God, and not just about making us feel good.  This book shows us that sin has a cost, but that God is willing to go to great lengths to forgive sin.

This book is also next to impossible to follow completely.  The sacrifices and offerings are so overwhelming that I seriously doubt that anyone in ancient Israel managed to follow them all perfectly.

Years ago, I gave my old car to my sister.  Along with it I gave her a notebook with instructions as to when to perform specific maintenance tasks.  She confessed to me later that she ignored my maintenance schedule because it was impossible to follow it.  My little notebook was much simpler than the Old Testament law, yet even it was to difficult to follow.

The overwhelming impossibility of the levitical sacrifices point forward to the one perfect sacrifice that atoned for all our sin.  That sacrifice was the perfect lamb of God who died not just for the sins of one man or one nation, but for the whole world.

Jesus is the fulfillment of all the law.  He paid the cost of or sin.  He allows us to enter into true worship.  He restored our relationship with God.

Let us not take our forgiveness lightly.  The cost was great.

Let us not take worship lightly either.  Symbolism and rituals have their place in worship.  They enrich the worship service.  I'm not an artist, but I'm a big believer in the role of art in worship.  This is something we tend to overlook.  We do not need to get caught up in ritual and symbolism.  We are free from the law, and not required to follow regulations for worship.  Yet we should not ignore their value either.  To do so would be like a man who graduates from a university and never reads a book again because he does not have to.  He could chose to stop reading, but he would be missing out on something.

Finally, let us be thankful.  Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, we are forgiven and the law has been fulfilled.  We can now worship as we were meant to, in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24).  Leviticus has been fulfilled.  It is finished.  This is why we can worship God.  This is why we desire to worship God.

Letter Jacket

A few weeks ago I came across my old high school letter jacket while looking through some items in storage.  It was fun to find.  I don't think I have worn that thing since my senior year of high school.

For those of you who don't know, letter jackets are a common practice in many high schools where I grew up.  They are a jacket in the colors of the school with a big letter often sewn over left breast.  The letter is usually the first letter or letters of your school.  In my case, it's a big black S for Stillwater Area High School.

The letters on the letter jackets are not just given out or sold.  They have to be earned.  Through achievement in some extra curricular activity or activities you can get a letter and various patches to show what you did well that earned you the letter.  Some people, like me, had simple letters with just a few patches.  Others had ornate coats with dozens of patches and awards.  Many in our school never earned a letter.  Yet all of us have one thing in common.

Regardless of how many patches and awards we got, none of us wear our letter jackets today.  If we went to our jobs, or the store, or on a date with our spouse wearing our old high school awards, we would be seen as foolish and be snickered at.  No one in the adult world boasts about meaningless awards and prizes they got in high school.  Yet when we were in high school we all worked hard to earn them.

I wonder how much we will look back on our lives someday and think the same about all the awards, prizes, and gains we worked to earn throughout our lives.  We strive for status because we believe it gives us value.  We strive for promotions or awards.  We strive for accomplishments that will make others think we are important because we crave the praise of people.

Yet, I suspect that the day will come when we realize that all we have struggled for is foolishness.  At the end of our lives, when we look back on all we have accomplished, will it amount to a jacket full of awards that we will never wear again, or will our life have real value?

Centuries ago, a great and wise king who had accomplished much pondered a similar thought.  He came to the conclusion that everything he had done was meaningless.  He gave great reflection on his life in search of true value and meaning and came to this conclusion:

"The end of the matter; all has been heard.  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgement with every secret thing, weather good or evil."

Some of us are real estate agents, some of us sell tools, some of us are professors, some of us are musicians, some of us are in ministry.  We all have something that we do for a living.

Many of us earn rewards along the way.  Some of us get trophies.  Some of us get raises.  Some of us get PhD's.  Some of us get respect.

We find our value in our accomplishments.  We sell more than our coworkers.  We write more books than our peers.  We pastor a church with 500 members.

None of these things are bad.  The problem comes when we fool ourselves into thinking these meaningless matters really matter.  At the end of our lives when we enter into our eternal home, I suspect we will look back and view these accomplishments that seem so amazing and important now in the same way we view school awards.  We think it means something now, but in the long run, it means nothing.

When you work toward a goal, ask yourself why you are doing it.

Are you trying to gain respect?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Are you doing it for your pleasure?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Are you doing it because you want others to like you?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Are you doing it because you want to be in control?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Are you doing it because you want power?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Are you doing it to gain God's favor?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Are you doing it for yourself?  Then in the long run it will mean nothing.

Everything you do to put another patch on your life's letter jacket is ultimately meaningless.  Anything you do in obedience to God has real meaning.

Cute Little Beggar Kids

Recently I read the US State Department's TiP report for 2014 on Bulgaria.  TiP stands for "Trafficking in Persons."  The report gives information on human trafficking in Bulgaria, so naturally I wanted to read it.

One of the things I found interesting was that begging is considered human trafficking.  At first this does not seem to make sense, but when you think about it, who could possibly pass up a little kid asking for money?  Especially if that kid looks dirty, poorly clothed, and starved.

In our neighborhood in Sofia, there is a constant flow of young children wandering around with an adult nearby but not too close.  The adult may be the child's parent, or may not be.  Either way, the adult is the one who takes home the proceeds from the little beggar children.  The children do not get much out of the deal.  These kids are essentially enslaved to their adult caretakers and exist to get them money.

When you give money to beggar children, you are insuring that their life will not improve.  They will not go to school because they are too busy begging for their so called guardian.  They will remain a cute little beggars until they are no longer cute.  Then they will most likely move onto something else.  It may be prostitution.  It may be crime.  It may be that the exploited will become the exploiters.  As long as people keep giving beggar children money, the cycle will continue.  What seems an act of compassion is actually depriving these kids of an education and ultimately of liberty.

What can be done?  I would not presume to give advice on every situation in every context, but I will tell you what I do when little kids come to me begging in Sofia.

1)  Treat all beggars like people, especially the children

Listen to them.  It may be they are not asking for money at all.  One day a cute dirty little boy in ragged clothes saw that I was throwing out some old toys.  I was actually hoping these toys would be found by one of our local dumpster divers, so I had no problem giving them to him.  In exchange, he offered to take my trash to the dumpster for me.  I tried to take it myself and showed him that there was nothing of value in the trash bag, but he wanted to take it anyway.  I was glad I listened to what he wanted.  He wanted toys and he was willing to work for them.  This is not begging.

Another time a little girl about 7 years old was out with her mother.  I was entering a grocery store, and she asked me to buy her alcohol.  I did not give her what she wanted.

Often times they ask for money.  For this, I have one response.

2)  Ask to see their mom or dad

Sometimes they claim that their mom or dad is not around.  This is usually a lie.  The guardian is almost always nearby.  They do not want to lose track of their money maker.  When I track down the dad or mom or sometimes the "brother," I give them a stern talking to.  I also make sure the kids know that they need an education to improve their lives.  I do not give the kids money.  This only makes them valuable to their owners, and continues the cycle of slavery.

And that is exactly what it is.  It is slavery.  These children are stuck as slaves to the adults who use them for their money making skills.  This will not stop when they grow up.

I do not give them money.  No money makes them valueless to their owners.  If they have no value they will no longer be used in such an abusive way.

It is a complex problem, and one that I do not have a full solution to.  It is a problem of society as a whole.  We need to find a full solution.

This is one of the many reasons the ReachGlobal Sofia team needs more teammates.  Perhaps you can help us find the solution.  Perhaps you can really make a difference in the lives of these children.

Why Bulgaria?

A lot of people ask me why I live in Bulgaria.  Why not somewhere else?  Naturally, I have several spiritual and strategic reasons for living in Sofia, but today, I want to give you my top 10 reasons why anyone would love Bulgaria.

10)  Bulgarian Produce:  Peppers, grapes, plumbs, and peaches; Bulgarian produce is fresh, healthy, and delicious.

9)  Diversity in Vehicles: On the same street on the same day in Sofia you can see a Ferrari, Honda, and horse drawn cart.

The Ancient Plovdiv Amphitheater

8)  History:  You can find remnants of 5 major empires around the country.

7)  More History: In downtown Sofia alone you can see structures from three millennia.

Ancient Thessaloniki

6)  Even More History:  You are just a few hours from many well know Biblical sites.

My old running path.

5)  Green Spaces:  In a city of 1.2 million people, you are never far from a forested area.  I can walk to one from my home in one of Sofia's biggest neighborhoods.

4)  The Black Sea:  By far, the best body of water I have ever vacationed on.  (Sorry Lake of the Ozarks.)

3)  Linguistic Advantages:  If you learn Bulgarian you almost automatically learn Macedonian which means you learned two new languages for the price of one.  (And you can tell your friends you are trilingual which for an American is very cool.)

Yes, this is actually what it looks like in Sofia

2)  Every morning you wake up in Europe surrounded by mountains:  This one almost took first place, but the beauty of Bulgaria's mountains can only be passed up by the beauty of #1

1)  Bulgarians:  They are a warm friendly beautiful people.  Also they tend to like Americans which is nice for people like me.  It is great to just sit down and spend a few hours talking to my Bulgarian friends and neighbors over a cup of coffee (or boza if you have the stomach for it).

Did I peak your interest?  Is Bulgaria calling to you?  Do you want to learn how you can serve God in this beautiful country?  Write to us at sofia@efca.org to learn more.