Obligatory Bible in 90 Days Plug

According to a recent poll, 75 million Americans have a lifelong goal of reading the entire Bible. Its a worthy goal for anyone - not just people to go to churches that teach the Bible. After all, its the best selling book of all time, its the most researched document there is, and it is the foundation of western thought.

Did you know that in less than an hour a day, you can read the entire Bible, cover to cover in 90 Days? 12 pages a day. That's it. The whole thing. 3 months and you are done.

I've asked our church to do this with me. Starting yesterday, June 7, by the Labor Day weekend, people who keep up will have read the entire Bible (you can start anytime you want of course.) Not a bad answer to the question "What did you read this summer?"

Too many Christians never bother to read it, which is why they misuse it and fall for the tricks of the TV preachers... and worse. Every person who claims to be a Christian needs to read this book, which shouldn't have to be said, but it has to be said. Christians who do read through the Bible experience amazing life change, sometimes dramatically.

The troubles and errors of the Church in history do not come from the Bible; they come from a misreading and misapplication of the Bible, usually caused by a fruit salad approach to it - pulling verses you like out of context to make a point or defend a bad position. This is also the source of most people's trouble with the Bible who don't believe it. They take a verse here or there out of the greater context and make a falsely informed decision about God. Sometimes they believe a Christian's interpretation that is wrong in the first place. The book is meant to be taken as a whole, not as a collection of glib religious suggestion and gobbledygook.

And for my agnostic friends out there - you can't be a good agnostic and not read the Bible. Don't be a hypocrite agnostic! Read it.

Atheists? Well, a recent Pew Research poll suggests 21% of atheists believe in God. No joke. Guess you better read it too and then decide whether you are an atheist who believes in God or not.

A few years ago, someone gave me a Three Year Bible. I was instantly amused... and somewhat disturbed. The advantage of the 90 day approach is that you can enjoy the story that is told all the way through the Bible, rather than a disconnected bits and pieces you would get in a 3 year approach. When read straight through, its an epic drama, with heroes and villains, sex and violence, fall and redemption, struggle and victory. And in the end, good defeats evil - love wins!

The Bible is a scholarly book, but it isn't written for scholars. Its a collection of stories and history and poems and songs written most often by the worst of sinners. So, while some of it is hard to understand, most of it is easy to understand. Reading quickly, you can just keep moving - the story has its slow moments, but there is a great payoff for each difficult passage.

As well as a good story, this is a book that also makes bold and certain claims about God and our relationship to him, purpose and meaning of life, and eternal destiny. At minimum, its worth an open read, wouldn't you say?

So, this is not intended to start a debate or even to push buttons. Its just to say that this is a great way to read through the Bible, a goal everyone has a good reason to accomplish.

Here are some helps:

A daily reading plan bookmark

My own 3 minute daily podcast with my reading reflections (cheesy music included!) (iTunes required)

You can use any Bible translation you want, however, lots of Bibles have study notes and small fonts and other things that make the task seem much bigger. Additionally, a modern translation will help so you don't feel like you are reading Shakespeare for 90 Days. Please note that "The Message Bible" is not a Bible, its a commentary, so it doesn't count. I recommend the New International Version. (If you are using a Catholic Bible, the "apocrypha" is not included in the 90 Day plan, so you could tack on another month if you really want to.)

There is a Bible published that is specifically designed for the 90 Day plan, reading plan included, as well as some other supplementary material (audio versions, group study materials, etc.) I am setting up a link for these items through our church that will pay a commission that we will donate 100% to a San Diego charity, likely the Rescue Mission. You can find these items here for the time being.

Enjoy your summer reading... let me know if you have any questions.

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The Chinese Oikos and the Garage Door

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak at the Chinese Bible Church here in San Diego. I took French in high school and college, which, once again, was not valuable. But who takes Chinese anyway? Fortunately, I had an interpreter.

Whenever I am asked to speak somewhere, whether it be a church or other kind of community organization, it tends to be on one of just a couple of topics. Most often, I introduce audiences to the idea of their "oikos." I plan on writing more extensively about oikos in the next week or two. Most people reading this probably have some idea of the concept and how it works. But, in short, it goes like this:

Oikos is the Greek word meaning "household." In terms of ancient Greek society and in modern sociology, this "household" is not simply your spouse and 2.5 kids that live with you in your domicile. It refers to the people who surround you in your relational world, your circle of influence. One sociologist says your oikos is the group of people you spend an hour or more with or around every day. So for most people, their oikos consists of the people who do live in thier domicile, and also their family or roommates or strangers who move in to your house when you are away for Christmas (subject of another experience I should blog about.) It also consists of coworkers you were most closely with, classmates you see every day, the people who live next door to you. The average person has between 8-15 people in their oikos. For me, about 8 of them are Starbuck's baristas.

Oikos is vital to any society's survival. When people pay attention to their oikos, and work to meet each others needs, society works very well. When people ignore the needs of the people around them, society begins to crumble. Its all about the oikos.

So, to any audience, the concept is received well. Its basically a practical and tangible way to love your neighbor. I have now taught the concept in 3 languages and to people of all ages and backgrounds. It is a great equalizer. You don't get to choose your oikos (maybe your spouse, but that's it.) Therefore, everyone has an oikos and everyone is in someone else's oikos. Its unavoidable.

One person from the Chinese congregation shared with me afterward that he thought the oikos idea would work well in the Chinese community here. He said they basically practice this as a culture anyway and that to actually list our your 8-15 people will just make it even more practical. He was very appreciative.

But then he said something interesting. He asked me how the oikos philosophy is working in my church, since "westerners don't tend to do this very well." It is indeed harder for westerners in many respects because we love our walls.

How many of us really know the people who live next door or across the street or in the neighboring apartment? You may remember that in the terrorist manuals that were found after 9/11, the terrorists were advised to not be too concerned about their American neighbors since typically the neighbors aren't paying any attention and will hardly take the time to get to know you. They should expect to make their plans and build their bombs without much interference from the neighbors. It was a sad commentary.

I read one study that blamed automatic garage door openers for this phenomenon in American culture. It suggested that many years ago, people got to know their neighbors because they were often outside watering the grass with a hose and sitting on the porch to cool off becuase there was no air conditioning in the house. And when people got home from work, they had to get out of their car, and actually go open the garage door by hand. All of that out door time presented opportunity to say hello to neighbors, strike up conversations, invite them over for a bar-b-que etc.

Today, for most Americans, we get to our house, while staying in the car, we click the clicker, drive in the garage, then click the clicker again and get out of the car in our private garage with the door down and go into the house. Our built in sprinklers water the grass automatically, and the air is cleaner and more comfortable in our house. Safe. Away from pesky neighbors that we are suspicious of because they never talk to us.

Kristy and I have been making an effort to actually get to know our neighbors. They are in our oikos and we are committed to getting to know those people. Interestingly, the two families we are actually getting to know are the only two families who spend time outside their home.

Across the street, they water their yard with a hose and they sit in lawn chairs to get out of their hot house since they don't have A/C. The other family has a game room and bar in their garage and are often out there. For the most part, we have been unable to get to know our other neighbors simply because we never ever see them. We are planning to invite them over for dinner. They may call the cops on us, but we'll see.

More on oikos later. But its an interesting experience that has me thinking much more today about how important it is that we are concerned about our own oikos. As a Christ Follower, I think its not an option.

I encourage you this way - do you know who your oikos is?

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Lose 10 Pounds in 7 Days - Ask Me How!

Well, plans for regular posting from El Salvador did not come to fruition. But there is much to post about and much to process.

The team came home on Saturday March 1st healthy. However, by Sunday evening March 2nd, that all changed. Each of us were carrying a microscopic stow-away.

In the past 7 days I've lost 10lbs. I lost 8 lbs during a 16 hour period Sunday - Monday last week.

Forget Aktins.

I call it the E-Coli diet. I'm thinking that this week I'll post some signs on telephone poles with my phone number. "Lose 10 lbs in 7 days - ASK ME HOW!" Perhaps I'll get some buttons made up. When people call, I'll invite them to El Salvador. It will change their life.

Joking aside, the trip was life changing. Its difficult to even begin to process or type all that God is doing in my life. I simply didn't have a chance to post while in El Salvador, and today is the first day I've had the energy to do anything.

THE MONEY SHOT

Standing in the house our team built in the town of San Jose El Naranjo.

More about El Salvador soon. Fortunately I can say, I need to eat something right now.

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Something to Post About

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to have the time to write. Like the typical new years resolution, it petered out well before the calendar turned to February. However, I am determined to keep working toward the goal of becoming a regular blogger.

There has been much to write about since my last post, including 2 interesting holidays, but those will come around again next year so I’ll save it. I’ve sprained my ankle pretty seriously too in the past couple of weeks. But ankle pain can’t be blamed for a lack of typing. And Lost is so fantastic! Matthew Abaddon deserves his own post. I’ll get to that eventually.

But now, there is something great to write about today. As I type this, I am somewhere over Central America, in heavy turbulence, hoping my relatively decent airplane coffee doesn’t bounce out onto my friends next to me. In a couple of hours, we’ll be landing in El Salvador.

I am travelling with 12 other people on a mission to the small village of San Jose El Naranjo. In the coming week, I plan to write and post more about this village and what we see there. More importantly, I’ll write about what God is teaching me this amazing and fun team of people who are in for a currently unrevealed spiritual life change. I don’t know what God will reveal to me during this trip, but I have to say I haven’t been as excited about what cannot be known of his providence for a long time.

On Saturday, February 22 (or “22 February” as they keep making me write it), we will begin by touring a water project that is bringing safe water to our village. This project is key to the overall mission with this village for the simple reason that without safe water, people die and can never escape poverty. Our church and others have contributed financially to this project through a ministry called Enlace. I’ll write more about this later, hopefully with some pictures.

Our team is carrying nearly a ton of baggage. Literally, almost a ton. The tonnage mostly consists of 400+ new school backpacks full of new, much needed school supplies. We’ll be giving those away later in the week. Because mosquitoes love me, malaria medicine also adds weight to the scales.

The day started out a bit rough and a long time ago in a different country. I went to sleep around midnight, enjoyed the sound of car alarms for a couple of hours and got up at 4 am to finish packing and some other work. Because it was raining in San Diego, it took us nearly an hour to get to the airport, normally about 20 minutes away. Drivers in San Diego put their vehicles into park on the freeways when we get just a little drizzle. Apparently, so do airline pilots in San Diego because we sat parked on the tarmac for two hours in the rain waiting to take off.

That delay created some anxiety for us because it became clear that we would likely miss our connecting flight in Houston. I was getting ready to call my Houston friend Robert and announce a surprise overnight visit. Oh and by the way, I’ll be bringing 12 of my friends and a ton of luggage. Really, almost a whole ton! Did I mention that?

But as the whole country seemed to be delayed today, our connecting flight was also delayed. Oh, as feared, our connecting flight was at the farthest possible gate from our arrival gate. We all had to run several miles through the massive stale popcorn smelling Bush airport and we barely made the connection – out of breath and sans a much desired Starbuck’s pickup.

I’ve completely messed up my customs form. With my contact lenses, I can’t read very small print.

I believe the hotel we stay at the first couple of nights in San Salvador has wireless Internet, so I anticipate being to post a couple of things. I would be more certain about that, but I took 8 years of French instead of Spanish and that makes it hard to read the hotel website. French – yeah, I have lived in Southern California my whole life, what language should I learn? French (see last sentence, two paragraphs up.) I’ve never known anyone personally who speaks French for a legitimate reason.

Anyway, if you are reading this by 22 February, or 23 February, it means I and my team have arrived safely, we have not been jailed for trafficking school supplies, and our hotel indeed has Internet service.

I look forward to telling you how things are going.

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Some Business in Ghana

Death - not what I figured I would post about on just the second day.

In the US, most people don’t spend a whole lot of time contemplating our common fate, unless we have good reason to believe it is coming soon or unless we have an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. Other than life insurance, most people don’t really plan for it.

One business that will always be in business is the death business. One out of every one person dies. Wars and disease do not increase death, they only affect the time and circumstance of it. Everyone is a customer. You can even buy your coffin at Costco; however, you may have to buy the 2-pack.

A friend of mine is a missionary in Ghana. In every economy, some businesses thrive more than others. In Ghana, the funeral and casket making business is quite visible sadly, as the circumstances in this impoverished nation keep death and dying in the greater conscious of the typical person. He has recently been posting some local advertising for caskets. These photos struck me as a profound statement about our blessings and the opportunities we have to bless others.

Coffins as common as coffee tables.

"Time Will Tell" - a salesman with a sense of humor.

Wherever you go, some American has a business going.

If you can't read it, the ad on the right is for an undertaker, just in case you might need one while you are visiting this town.

For some with a little extra money, fancy caskets are all the rage.

Ghana is one of those poor countries that has one of the best chances to grow economically. It has relatively little violence compared to many of its neighbors, abundant natural resources, great people and a great location (coastal Africa) for business and trade. They even speak English. But the poverty level, especially in rural areas, is overwhelming. And people don't live very long.

Government corruption is one of the major problems, making it difficult for world governments to help and international aid is often squandered.

Who can help? I believe that ultimately, only the Church is free to help, without hindrance of bureaucracy or corrupt governments. People like my friend Stacey, who go and demonstrate and announce the message of Christ.

Praying for Ghana today.

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