“Scientific Research Proves First Corinthians 14:14 is True!”

“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.”

OK, I made up the headline. But that seems to be the fascinating conclusion of recent research, as reported on ABC’s Nightline for Thursday, March 20th. 

Here’s an excerpt from the online edition…

At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Andrew Newberg has been conducting a scientific study of the phenomenon for a long time. According to an ABC report, Newberg found that brain scans show quite different results with Christians praying in tongues compared to Buddhist monks meditating and Franciscan nuns praying. The frontal lobes—the part of the brain right behind the forehead that’s considered the brain’s control center—went quiet in the brains of tongue-speakers.

 ”When they are actually engaged in this whole very intense spiritual practice…their frontal lobes tend to go down in activity. It is very consistent with the kind of experience they have, because they say that they’re not in charge. [They say] it’s the voice of God, it’s the Spirit of God that is moving through them,” said Newberg.

 ”Whatever is coming out of their mouth is not what they are purposefully or willfully trying to do. And that’s in fairly stark contrast to the people who are—like the Buddhist and Franciscan nuns—in prayer, because they are very intensely focused and in those individuals the frontal lobes actually increase activity.”

You can read the entire article and access video at:

ABC News Nightline Story

Doughballs, Plastic Worms and Spinners (or "Getting Over ‘Outreach Outrage’")

Right up front, let me be clear – I believe that the preaching of the Cross is the power of God unto salvation. I believe we need to lift up Christ, who said He would draw all men unto Him. I believe we must “preach Christ crucified” to see genuine life change in the people we minister to.

I don’t give ‘talks’ on how to have a better marriage, advance your career, or raise happy, shiny children. I preach expository messages from scripture – which, by the way, provides us with God’s principles and directions for doing all the aforementioned and much more…

If anything you read from here on causes you to think otherwise, please re-read the first two paragraphs.

I’m just getting really tired of Christians picking on other Christians because of how they do ‘outreach’.

It happens anytime a church does something different. Maybe it’s a very contemporary, or even edgy, advertisement… A sermon series on a controversial or provocative topic… An unusual method of appealing to unsaved and unchurched.

And the hounds of protest begin to howl…

It cheapens the Gospel…
The Gospel has held up pretty well the last 2000 years even though it’s been ridiculed, rejected, and ignored. I think it can endure church coffee shops.

What you win them with you win them to…
This could actually be true, but only in the absence of good teaching and preaching that lifts up Jesus. I’ve seen families get involved in church because they first came to a church-sponsored Easter egg hunt, and they don’t show up every Sunday with baskets in hand looking for jelly beans and hollow bunny handouts.

And the silver bullet, it’s worldly…
Yeah, there are some places in outreach that I’m not going to go. There are some current forms of “evangelism” that I find tacky, silly, and distasteful. My solution? I don’t do those things in my church, and I resist the urge to throw a brother or sister under the bus because they do.

So what if they’re doing it wrong? When Jesus’ disciples got upset that someone who wasn’t part of their circle was doing ministry, Jesus said, “He who is not against us is with us.” Paul said of those whose motives and methods were suspect, “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.”

Of course, part of the problem is that often the assumption is made that Christ isn’t being preached in a church that’s stooping to such unseemly methods. And if we’re going to make such assertions, we’d better be sure we have full knowledge of the content of sermons, Bible studies, and children’s ministry materials used in those churches.

Every fisherman has run into that guy who knows how to fish better than you do and isn’t shy about telling you. He’ll criticize your bait choice, your equipment, your location, and your casting style. He’s a nuisance, but at least he only treats you like you’re stupid, and not like you’re a sleazy, worldly sell-out.

(And yes, I know the arrogance and disdain is on both sides of this issue. Often, those in “cutting-edge” churches act like everybody who doesn’t do it like they do is hopelessly out of touch and outdated. That attitude stinks, too.)

Instead of critiquing the bait, let’s get excited that folks are fishing, and pray that the hook will always be the Gospel.

Expiration Date

The magazine section of Saturday’s paper included a fascinating article on life expectancy, and included a link to http://www.livingto100.com. On the website, I completed a “life expectancy calculator.” It asked questions about diet and exercise… home life and family… job related stress… personal hygiene (you can add up to fours years to your life by flossing your teeth everyday!)… family medical history – then used this information to calculate how long I could expect to live.

I was “okay” with my result, at first. It is older than the current ages of my parents, and longer than any of my grandparents lived. It did torque me a little that Vicki will apparently outlive me by six or seven years…

Then I started thinking… About how old my children will be at the “check out date” I was given… About things I want to see and do with my wife… About ministry and mission work I’d love to be involved in…

Suddenly, my expiration date seems to come way too soon.

So, a couple of thoughts…

Because we have no guarantees of how long will live, our focus should be on how we live. In the Scriptures there are a handful of verses from Exodus and Deuteronomy that promised long life to the Children of Israel if they kept the Law. Apart from that, the thrust of the Bible message on age and length of life is focused on quality, not quantity.

How would we live if we could know when our “number” was coming up? I suspect I would try to make each day count… My wife would never doubt how much I love her, need, her, and support her… My kids would be well prepared to face life with a foundation of faith… I would be serious about sharing the Gospel with the lost, befriending the lonely, offering hope to the hurting…

I guess I’ve had the sobering realization that I won’t live on this earth forever, and most encounters with other people are more significant than we know. I want to really live, and not just mark time on a calendar. I want to spend my remaining days on this planet – however many or few there might be – in such a way that eternal life will just be a change of venue.

I gotta go floss…

Unthinkable

My cousin’s son’s death in January… a couple who lost their son in the war… the death of high school students in the tornado in Alabama… the bus crash that killed the members of a college baseball team this morning. I sit with tears in my eyes as I recoil in horror at the thought of losing a child. No matter the reason or cause of death, the pain is unimaginable and unthinkable.

A ministry friend and I were talking with a man in our community who lost a son in an automobile accident twenty years ago. His voice still catches and his eyes still get moist when he speaks about his boy. “No one can know what it’s like,” he whispered to us.

My friend replied, “The Father knows.”

The Father knows. He lost a Son. Not in an accident or on a desert battleground, but purposefully on a cross. The One died for the many because His rebellious creation had sinned themselves into a corner they could not escape without bloodshed.

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NASB)

We have a great circle of friends. Some of them have walked with us through some very tough times, and we love them like brothers and sisters. But if we were told that one of our sons would have to die so that all of our friends could live… I’m sorry, but we couldn’t make such a sacrifice.

And yet, that is what the Father did, And He did it for enemies, not friends. God was willing to bear the searing pain of loss so that His enemies might live.

Amazing love, how can it be, that You my King would die for me?