Author: Jon Gauger

I think I saw Jesus today!

At…McDonald's, no less.

As I write this, I'm seated at a booth in a Detroit airport McDonald's. 

Frustrated by the gouging prices at other food stands, I settled for some Chicken McNuggets and a fruit and walnut salad.   

I hardly had time to dip the first nugget when a voice from across the way breaks into a solo rendition of O Holy Night.  It was clear from her face and gestures she preferred a choir to a solo, so I joined in.  Heartily.  The two of us finished the song,  high-fived each other and I downed another Nugget.  But I couldn't help notice, a man off  to the right waved his hand in the air—as if to whisk the music away.   

Next thing I know, Choir girl breaks into “Joy to the World.”  A handicapped lady in a wheelchair sitting at a nearby booth joins in—and others seem to quietly follow along.  Not exactly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but it's a fascinating moment. 

At this point, a United Airlines crew member parks himself in the booth next to mine.  The black and gold epaulets on his crisp white shirt seem to shrug in confusion at the impromptu caroling.  But the handicapped girl is now launching into “He rules the world with truth and grace.”  So we must finish the verse.

When the would-be choir director broke into Silent Night, it was all I could do to chase away a lump in my throat.  Silent Night….Holy Night….All is calm, all is bright.

Right then and there…at that McDonald's in the Detroit airport on a foggy December afternoon, the thought struck me like thunder: There's Jesus!  Doing what Jesus has always done: confounding, confronting…compelling.

Some were confused by the music.

Some were offended.

Some smiled in faint interest.

But a few…a happy few—they joined the chorus. 

The environmental movement—it's riddled with holes: inconsistencies that nobody seems to care about. 

Don't get me wrong.  I believe Christ followers SHOULD be good stewards of the earth—as long as we don't worship it.  That means we SHOULD care about clean air and clean water. 

Genesis 1:26…God gave man dominion over creation.  The idea is that we are to care for creation,  not abuse it.

That said, I'm fascinated by all the inconsistencies.  For example,  when I bought some expensive music software, it came in a rather large cardboard box.  Inside? Three paper-sleeved DVDs.  That's it! Not even a manual! What a waste.

Think of the landfill waste associated with buying something as tiny as an ink jet cartridge .  There's all kinds of cardboard, plastic tins, shrink wrap and more.

Then there are all those SUV's I see on the road.  Hundreds of thousands of gas guzzlers—despite what their owners may claim.

 With the advent of the flat panel, hundreds of thousands of TVs that are perfectly good now sit out at the curb waiting for the trash collector.  Consider the enormous landfill occupied by discarded televisions.   Mind you—there owners are the same people talking about respecting the environment. 

Clearly tablet devices are in….and Palm Pilots are out—have been out for years.  But that's more gizmos in the garbage—despite the fact that they still work!

At some point, we must concede that we like green policies as long as they don't mess too much with our choices in driving, viewing, entertaining, eating, etc.

In other words, we like the sense of personal piety and the public notariety that comes from being perceived as green. But we're only green…skin deep, if you will.

At heart, we still love 8 cylinder engines, big cars, and a certain disposability to our entertainment and technology choices.

If it's true that some people worship the environment, it's almost refreshing to see that their religion is plenty full of its own hypocrisy.

Is it just me or is America’s fascination with food—or at least food that’s prepared by chefs on TV—at an all-time high?

I suppose it began back with Julia Childs.  But her legacy is an army of Food Network television chefs: Emeril, Bobby Flay…Paula Dean.

More stars than Hollywood.

More shows than you could possibly stomach. 

Cooking is definitely on America’s front burner.

Yet I watch it all with a…tasteful mixture of intrigue and cynicism. 

On the one hand, the Food Network seems to thrive.  On the other hand, there’s an explosion in things like “lunchables” and other pre-packaged meals.

While cookbook sales seem to soar, grocery stores at unprecedented rates are:

1. Selling less ingredients for real cooking.
2. Selling more and more frozen and prepared foods

Never before have we been more content to watch someone else slice and dice—but been less inclined to do it ourselves.

Sure there are some who genuinely enjoy whipping up recipes for braised pork cutlets with pumpkin cherry sauce.  But frankly—the majority of us are much more satisfied to watch—or pay—for someone else to do our cooking.

Yet allow me for a moment to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire when I suggest Christians today face a similar dichotomy when it comes to worship. 

We love to talk about it, write about it, read about it—and above all—sing about it.  And just like the Food Network, our self-styled “Worship” network has its own stars: Jeremy Camp, Matt Redman, Darlene Zschech. Yet if you distill worship down to its most practical core component—obedience…well there most of us all fall quite short.

Just like cooking is work, there’s a work side to worship.  A lifestyle of consistent obedience knows little of whipped cream.  It is, in fact, sometimes tough.  And sometimes bitter.  But always required.

By now the shocking numbers are almost numbing.  Depending on whose statistics you believe, anywhere between 60 and 90% of young people currently attending an evangelical church will leave once they hit college.  Leave…and never come back. But why?

Some people say it's our secular environment—now almost hostile to Christianity.  Some say it's the lack of programs for kids at church…or the quality of the preaching. It is my contention that there are a whole lot fewer reasons than are currently being looked at.  In fact, I think the biggest factor is a whole lot closer to home.  It's parents.   Us.  

In too many homes church is a Sunday thing, but not a Monday thing. Like Maybelline make-up, you put it on Sunday morning but wash it off by nightfall.  Come Monday, parents who on Sunday were raising their hands in worship, are often clicking their mouses to porn sites.  Or watching garbage on TV.  Or playing fast and loose with the IRS. 

Though they claim to be just like Christ, too many moms and dads are just like the world—an observation not lost on our kids.  Rather than a spiritual legacy, we pass on a spiritual fallacy.  So they've simply decided to skip the pretense. 

Now the truth is, there are boat loads of parents who are really doing things right. God-fearing Moms and Dads who practice what they preach, pray on their knees, and are truly seeking the God of Israel.  But if there are boatloads of these, we must also acknowledge there are fleets full of Titanics captained by parents charting courses of self-fulfillment and ruderless Christianity.   

There's no need to wonder at the numbers. But we SHOULD wonder what will it take for followers of Jesus…to follow Jesus. 

Every heart is built differently.  I’m convinced of it.

God seems to have placed within me something of His own passion and compassion for lost people.  Wish I could say I’ve always been a good steward of that heart.  I haven’t.

But it happens once in awhile I’ll be in a big crowd and the thought suddenly sweeps over me, “Wonder how many of these people really know Jesus?  How many of them are headed for heaven?  How many marching toward Hell?”

I’ve thought that thought staring at SuperBowl crowds.

A month ago we were in Bethlehem…visiting the Church of the Holy Nativity—built over the cave where Jesus may well have been born.

I’d been there before when tourism had shriveled to nothing.  Not this time.  The place was mobbed.  There were lines snaking up and around and over.  Scads of tourists snapping pictures and standing…and waiting to visit the place where Messiah is said to have been born.

But the thought occurs to me…how many were there merely for a photo…or a passport stamp…rather than to worship the Savior of the World?  To my earlier point, how many of these travelers would someday travel to heaven?

It’s sad, in a way.  People who would spend so much money, exert so much effort, stand in such long lines…and maybe only know Jesus as a souvenir, not a Savior. 

Regardless of whether or not your heart is built like mine, we are all called to share Christ—with our lives and with our words. 

Going and telling the Good News is as close to the heart of  Christmas as anything on your to-do list. 

So who are you going to tell this Christmas?  About Jesus!

A sister?  A friend?  A mom or dad?   The neighbor next door and the one two doors down?  I remind you…apart from Christ, they are at this moment marching directly for Hell.  Do you care?  Enough to speak up?

The summer of the drought. That’s where we’ve been. Hot.  Dry.  Hostile to life.

Yet a curious thing caught my eye the other day as I wheeled the mower down our driveway to cut the front lawn.

Right there in the middle of the asphalt…pushing up through tar and stone…a weed.  Sturdy, green.  If not alone.

How did it get there?  What force gave it the guts to push through a gravel base and up through a layer of asphalt?  How could it thrive when my lawn is patchy and thin?

Life is not supposed to thrive in drought conditions.  Yet there it was, defying the odds, defying the circumstances and doing its thing. (:45)

It struck me then as a living metaphor of Christ followers at this season of our lives.

Spiritually speaking, there’s no question that America is in something of a drought. 

Most churches are losing members.

Christians are no longer merely marginalized—they’re being dehumanized.

A superheated blast of angry atheism is swirling across the nation. 

Thoughts of revival are whispered today on only a few parched lips.

But as surely as that weed I observed pushed through unlikely odds, followers of Jesus must now do the same.  Right now.  In the middle of our spiritual drought.

It’s time to push on through at prayer meeting.

It’s time to push on through sharing Jesus with—quote, unquote—unlikely friends.

It’s time to push on through with the love of Jesus in the face of hatred.

Droughts, you see, don’t last forever. But God’s Kingdom does.

“Growing like a weed.”  It’s an old expression.  Never gave it much thought.  Until now. Until this drought.

So let me ask you: How’s it growing?

Your faith…

Your prayers…

Your witness…

How’s it growing?

The weed got through.  So must you and I. 

They're trying to cool off the flames of hell.  Have you noticed?

I have no scientific proof–just my own observations.  But it feels to me like whatever Christian circle I visit, the concept of Hell is increasingly described WITHOUT fire.   It's being replaced by the phrase "eternal separation from God." 

The trade out bothers me.  It bothers me because the Bible makes no such allowance. 

Hell is a literal place.  The lake of fire is a biblical destination. Revelation 20:15 says "Whoever's name was not written in the Lamb's book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

Mark 9:43 speaks of the 'lake of fire which shall never be quenched."

So what's behind the move away from Hell?   I have three hunches.

First, avoiding the language of Hell is consistent for a culture that way overemphasizes God's love, while neglecting His role as judge.

Second, avoiding the language of Hell makes Christianity a whole lot more tolerable for a religiously intolerant society.  Besides–the lake of fire is so extreme as to conjure up images of Crusaders of old–or more modern Ku Klux Clansmen.

My final hunch is that the enemy of our souls–himself destined for the lake of fire–has a vested interest in blinding us to the horrors of hell.

But I'm not buying it.  And neither should you.

When Jude 1:23 urges us to "snatch others from the fire” the verse isn't talking about a campfire or a house fire.  It's Hell.  

So the next time you hear somebody trying to edit out–or redefine–Hell, give 'em the Book.  The B-I-B-L-E…which speaks ever so plainly and ever so sadly about Hell: the lake of fire which burns forever.

Recently, I returned from a ten day trip to the Balkans area of Central Europe.  This is a region that was firmly in the iron grip of Communism for decades.  Walking the streets of Bulgaria and Romania, I was hit hard with a sad reality.  

We Americans continue to underestimate the lingering effects of Stalinism and overestimate the success of post-Communist Europe.   We view Communism like a physical house of brick and mortar that was toppled by the wrecking ball of geopolitical change.  We assume the whole nasty mess was scooped into a dumpster and hauled away. The truth is, Communism is much more like a poisonous thorny weed whose tendons have quietly grown back after the main plant was whacked off in the late 80s.  Those remnant thorns continue to scratch and draw blood.  

Take a walk down the streets of Bucharest or Sofia or Kiev, and the lifeless gray Soviet style concrete apartment buildings are everywhere. While you're out walking, note all the faces of the people you pass by: an expression that falls somewhere between stern and scowl.

Then there's the work ethic—or lack thereof.   A shopkeeper at a tiny stationary shop was visibly irritated when I politely asked to take a closer look at a notepad.  Under communism, she was paid her fixed wages whether she worked or not.  So why be bothered with customer service?

Indeed, the scars of Communism are deep and depressing.  Call them wounds not yet healed—like a suspicious cancer.

Lessons for followers of Christ?  Let me suggest two.

Let's preserve the remnants of godly culture that still remain in America.  Remember—Christ called us to be salt and light.  Preserving is at the top of our job description.

But as we go out and minister in “post-communist countries, let's not be naive about the real state of affairs.  The scars of Communism are still visible.  And its thorns are still drawing blood.

“Excuse me,” she said.  “Do you have a couple minutes to talk about human rights?”

She was standing there on the sidewalk in downtown Chicago, and I walked by at my brisk heart-healthy pace expressing a “no thank you.”

Then I looked at my watch and noticed I really DID have the time.  So I walked back and talked to her. 

The girl was in her early twenties and cradled a clipboard in her arms.  Unseasonably chilly wind blew our hair as she attempted to gain my sympathy for a bill in support of human rights.  Turns out, it was about extending legal rights for homosexuals. 

She was polite…reasonable…not edgy.  And I was determined I was NOT going to be a fist-clenching angry evangelical.  Yet clearly we stood on opposite shores, an ocean of moral truth churning between us. 

I gently unfolded my opposition to the expansion of any rights for people who choose to engage in homosexual activity.  As I did so, I was conscious of a desire to be kind to her.  Admittedly, I also struggled to succinctly define my position. 

We continued to talk.  Continued to disagree.  But continued to be civil. 

When the conversation kind of paused…and I knew I really did need to move on in order to make my train, I said to the girl, “You know what—you've been very gracious.  I want you to know you're an excellent representative of your organization.  Really.”  She beamed and said something kind in return.

Two Scripture passages come to mind.

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech at all times be gracious (pleasant and winsome), seasoned [as it were] with salt, [so that you may never be at a loss] to know how you ought to answer anyone [who puts a question to you].

Proverbs 25:15 By long forbearance and calmness of spirit a judge or ruler is persuaded, and soft speech breaks down the most bone-like resistance.

On that windy June day, there were probably no ideological battles won. No hearts convinced.  But I trust Jesus was honored by my feeble attempts.  And gently hope that on an unseasonably chilly afternoon…an uncommon warmth marked the conversation of two who agreed to disagree.

You've heard of “Where's Waldo?”  It's the kids book series featuring oversized pages crammed with hundreds of tiny people.  Hidden somewhere among them is the red and white striped image of Waldo.  Your job, of course, is to find him.

But today, I'm not asking “Where's Waldo?”  Instead, I'm wondering “Where's Jesus?”

Let me explain.

Increasingly, as I look at church outreach events and ministries, I wonder what they're reaching out with.  The gospel–the simple saving message of Jesus–sometimes appears to be so far beneath the surface, it would take a deep sea diver to retrieve it. 

We're big on reaching out with social programs (which a previous generation of Christians rather overlooked).  Yet I suspect we've swung the pendulum too hard to the other extreme. 

Have we unwittingly disconnected our goodness from our God…our meals, from our message?  Are we so busy handing out food, we've forgotten that an appetite for God is the appetite that matters most?

I fear that in many cases, we have convinced ourselves that–quote–doing good things for God is good enough.  But making disciples—as Jesus commanded us to do—inevitably involves words.  Jesus never healed for the sake of healing—but always for the sake of a soul.  There was almost always a conversation.

No doubt there are countless churches doing a wonderful job of balance here, and I don't wish to paint with too broad a brush. And- please understand–I am not saying we should STOP doing soup kitchens and food pantries and Celebrate Recovery.  Let me repeat myself in the vain hope of avoiding a flood of hostile email.  I believe that followers of Jesus SHOULD be engaged in feeding the hungry and digging wells and a host of other social programs. 

Yet there must be balance.  Eventually there must be gospel words…not just gospel activity. When we reach out in this way we will be loving in word AND deed.  Then…the “Where's Waldo” problem will disappear—and Jesus will be clearly seen.