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Walking With God, January 15, 2010
In Genesis 5 we are introduced to a man named Enoch. He is known as the man who walked with God. Twice the scripture says "he walked with God." He is unique because Enoch didn't die. The scripture tells us that Enoch walked with God and then he was not, because God took him. A recent study of Enoch with our men's Bible study breakfast got me to thinking about "walking with God." Exactly what does that mean? Here is a condensed version of this thought process. It comes from three types of walking in my life.
About four mornings a week I schedule to get up and walk on the treadmill for at least a half hour. It is boring. Like one man told me, "Walking on a treadmill will never get you anywhere." I do it because I know it is good for me. I need the exercise. But I don't like it. It is boring. I try to watch TV. I can't read and walk. There are times when I actually get a pretty good workout. But I don't like it.
For some folks this is what their spiritual life is like. They go to church because they know it is good for them. They don't enjoy it. They are bored. While church is part of their regular schedule, it doesn't take much to get them to skip it. And they aren't going anywhere spiritually. This certainly isn't what Enoch was doing when he walked with God.
Another type of walking I do is when the weather permits. I walk around my neighborhood. I have a half hour course and an hour course. This too is good for me. I actually enjoy this type of walking to a degree. I love to see the sun come up. My walk includes a conversation with the Lord. This is much superior to the treadmill, but still has a flaw.
Neighborhood walking reminds me of a great portion of church members. There spiritual life is much like it. They are gaining benefit spiritually from it. They are in communication with the Lord during it. But it is extremely limited comfort zone. I have a course I walk. I hardly ever deviate from it. It is mapped out and timed out. It is comfortable. It's not bad. Most of us get into a routine. Going to church, reading our Bible, and other Christian activities are not bad routines. But eventually, they limit us. There is something a bit artificial about it. Going in circles. Repeating the same thing over and over. Too comfortable. This is not what was going on when Enoch walked with God.
The third type of walking is what I used to do in junior high. A lot of time I would walk home from school after sports practice. It was a little over two miles. I would walk by friend's houses. I walked past my church. The little grocery store was on the way home. The last half mile was up a long hill. I was never bored while walking home. I was not just going in circles. I had a destination. I had a reason for walking. I wanted to get home. That is where supper was. That is where my family would be. It wasn’t something that was tacked on to my day if I had time or felt like it. It was part of my life experience. And what made it different from all the other types of walking in my life is that walking home had a destination. I was going somewhere.
This is the type of walking Enoch did with God. He was going through his life with God. Not artificial or contrived, but Enoch lived his life with God at his side. And God will always take us to the place we call home. It is sobering to think about, but this life is a journey home with God. That journey is best enjoyed with God close to us.
Happy Holidays, December 17, 2009
Words have meaning. There is a world out there that for whatever reason does not want to say "Merry Christmas." So to be "politically correct" they say "Happy Holidays." They fool themselves into believing that this is less religious or spiritual than "Merry Christmas." Not so fast. Words have meaning. "Happy Holidays" is shortened version of "Happy Holy Days." You know the holy days of our dear Savior's birth. That is exactly what Christmas is all about. It is about celebrating the Holy day of Christ dwelling among us. He is full of grace and true. And indeed it was a Holy day when the incarnation of God became human flesh.
So here are some suggestions for those who don't want to say "Merry Christmas." When they say "Happy Holidays" to you, reply back "Happy Holy Days to you too." Or asked them to share with you why this time of the year is considered holy. You might take a moment and explain that holy means set aside for God's use and purpose. Perhaps you can share why these are days that are especially set aside to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why they are holy.
Words have meaning. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and I hope these days are holy unto the Lord.
The Truth, October 13, 2009
We live in a world where everyone wants to believe everything, except the truths of God. There are people who are dedicating their lives to finding big foot, communicating with space aliens, and magical potions. It also appears that we are becoming less and less educated in the Holy Scriptures. We are in the information age, yet people know very little about God’s book. Watch Jeopardy sometime. They will have a category of questions about the Bible. They are amazingly simple, yet folks who know about nuclear fusion can’t name the king who followed David. To add to all of this is the most unfortunate development of religious pluralism. That just means that there are a lot of religions and eventually, they all just get mixed up.
So I want to point you to a terrific sight. It has answers to science. There are discussions about other religions. And it is a great place to learn to defend our faith. It is www.4truth.net. It is sponsored by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Skipping Winter, July 21, 2009
I really don’t like to think about winter. Here we are in the middle of August and the temperatures are hot. But I have been doing some planning. And I have an interesting coping device to use when I plan my calendar. I just skip winter. It seems like to me the year breaks down into three sections anyway. So let’s just skip winter.
I like fall because of football and the holidays. I love spring because cold weather is over and it is track season. (Baseball is played in the spring as well, but it is a minor sport.) And then there is summer. Heat and all, I love summer. Camps, long hours of day light. And it is not winter. If you think about it for a minute, our lives are more geared to dividing the year up into thirds anyway. There are two semesters of school and summer break. That’s three not four. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that is three not four. I have three daughters and I am the third of three boys. See how it is all coming together?
So when we are planning for Christmas in August, that just means we are planning the end of fall and looking forward to the beginning of spring. Have I mentioned I don’t care for cold weather, ice and snow, and short hours of day light? Anyway, if we must, I hope we all have a mild and brief winter. It does seem to happen every year, even though I don’t plan for it.
Gravel Roads, May 15, 2009
I remember when the streets were gravel; a dusty gravel. Every time a car or bus went by there would be a kick up of dust. From time to time we would be outside eating and dust would cover our plates. I really think the biggest improvement at Falls Creek was when we paved every road. Changed everything. No more dust. Or should I say not as much dust. Some might remember when they slept without air conditioning. I never did that. We were fortunate to have an air conditioned cabin.
A lot has changed since my first Falls Creek in the summer of 1969. Since then I have been at camp as a student, sponsor, youth director, and pastor to an unbelievable 72 weeks of camp. This will be my 40th year of camp. There were years when we went two weeks and even some years when we went three because of children’s camp. That is not counting all the pastor’s Bible conferences and retreats. It is just amazing to me that the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity of seeing so many kids come to know the Lord. It was at Falls Creek that I was called to ministry. It has been my privilege to see others called into full time ministry. Pray for Village as we prepare for a Falls Creek in 2009. The streets are paved. The air conditioning is working. And by the way, there is a new air conditioned Tabernacle. It is just a few steps down from our cabin on a paved street. Can you see I was traumatized as a youngster about dust in my plate?
Orange Pop, Tuesday, April 8, 2009
It is amazing how things come back around on you. I have rediscovered the joys of Orange soda. This is a little weird because I haven’t drank orange pop in years. Here is how it all got started. I probably was drinking too many diet cokes. Lots of caffeine and more sodium than you would think are included. I am trying to watch my sodium. Any way I started drinking orange pop to wean myself off of diet coke. And yes I am drinking diet orange. Got to watch my figure, you know. But to my amazement, I looked at the ingredients on the can of diet Orange pop. It has twice as much sodium in it as diet coke. What is that about? Tell me, why do they put sodium in pop? Does it make it taste better? Does it make you thirsty like potato chips? Why the sodium?
Is there a point to this exploration into the world of soda pop? Why yes, yes there is. It is not uncommon for us to replace something in our live for something else. The problem is when we don’t really make an improvement. I am getting away from drinking diet coke to drinking orange pop primarily for the sodium issue. However, I replace a 2% sodium for 5% in this particular brand of orange pop. That’s not what I wanted at all to accomplish. So here is a great spiritual lesson for each of us. Let us make sure that whatever choice we make about the things we bring into our lives is beneficial for us. And for heaven’s sake we don’t want to take something and replace it with something worse. Let’s make good choices. Read the labels. We have two directions we can go. We can either make progress in our lives, or we can make decisions that do us more harm than good.
KOMA vs. WKY, Tuesday, February 3, 2009
It is amazing how things can change. To me the best rock and roll music was during the late sixties and early seventies. (Before that awful disco stuff). Rock and roll was the entire fad. Oklahoma City had great rock stations back then. There were probably more, but the two I remember were 930 WKY and 1520 KOMA. The big debate for my crowd was which station to listen to at home and in our cars. Hardly anyone had an FM receiver, so the AM were the choices. We went back and forth about which one was best. They really did play a different selection of songs. The DJs were different. Serious stuff back then.
I was a KOMA guy. One of my best friends was strictly a WKY guy. We had royal battles over where we tuned the radio dial. I couldn’t understand why anyone would like listening to WKY. KOMA was better.
As time goes on, the market in radio changed. As a matter of fact the reason I am writing this article is because the market has changed. I remember moving back from Missouri and finding out KOMA was now country. Are you kidding me? Then for many years, KOMA was the AM oldies station. (Now the oldie station we listen to is KOMA at 92.5 FM!) KOMA is a talk station. WKY has gone many changes. It was sports for a while. But this morning I discovered it was a Spanish station. KOMA has become a talk radio station.
Here is a great and valuable lesson. Some of you remember that KOMA was a powerful station that people could pick up at night in New Mexico and Nebraska. It was big time. But markets change. Most of the music went to FM and now iPods. There is not much music at all on AM radio. Times change. This is such a different world than when I was in high school. The pop music has gone through many changes. The worst was disco. Popular DJ’s of yesteryear are unknown to this generation. I would give you some examples, but I can’t remember their names either. People change. Cultures change. Taste change. And the change is changing. Change is happening faster and faster. So what is the lesson? When I tuned to WKY this morning and discovered the latest change, I thought of this verse.
1 Peter 1:24 For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord stands forever." And this is the word that was preached to you.
We know that no matter what changes in our world, the word of the Lord stands forever. God’s word doesn’t go out of style. His word doesn’t get replaced by the next big thing. Scripture doesn’t suffer from market variations. So it matters how we value influences on our lives. I hope and pray the most important influence is the word of the Lord which stands forever.
The College Years, Monday, January 5, 2009
During my college years, I worked on staff at my home church of First Baptist Church in Nicoma Park, Ok. My good friend Paul Koonce was youth director at the neighboring church of FBC Choctaw. We commuted to Oklahoma Baptist University together. One reoccurring problem that we had to endure during our commutes was the crummy cars I drove. One morning my car broke down on I-40.
So for the first and last time in my life I hitched hiked with someone I didn’t know. We got into a car with some really rough looking guys. As soon as we shut the doors and started driving both Paul and I were concerned about our safety with such rough looking fellows. But as the grace of God would have, they took us to school and let us out. We expressed our appreciated and breathed a deep sigh of relief. I don’t remember all about this story as time has separated a lot from my memory.
Paul, now Dr. Koonce, and I still laugh about it from time to time. But what I remember most was sitting in the back seat and exchanging worried looks back and forth with Paul. During the ride Paul nudges me and points back to the deck of the rear window. (For those of you who don’t know there use to be a wide area between the rear seat and the rear window. Just trust me on this one. Larger cars still have them today.) Paul points back and draws my attention to a Bible.
While we were talking about our good fortune of getting to school on time and surviving a ride with post office poster models, Paul said, “I felt a lot better after I saw the Bible in the back seat.” My response was two fold. One, I said, “Did you see the dust on that Bible?” The second thing I said was, “The Bible was in there when they stole the car.”
Okay here is the point of all of this. Bibles shouldn’t be dusty. Bibles are intended to be used. God’s word gives direction to our lives. But many times we toss them into the back seat of our lives. (That is an analogy) I am constantly amazed at what God teaches me from His word. For me I am learning a lot from studying Proverbs and Philippians. I teach Proverbs to men each Tuesday at FAST BREAK. The neat thing about it is that all we really do is look at what God would teach us from this great book. No hurry, no pressure, and no wonder God is blessing this time. I am also learning a lot from Philippians. I have preached through Philippians twice before in my former churches. But this time seems different. There seems to be much more depth in what God is showing me. So the point is that God’s Word, the Holy Bible, Scared Scripture or the Sword of the Lord is for us to receive, use and apply to our lives.
Not overlooking the Important. Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The following is a great story. I have read it in various places and I suppose that it is true. I found it looking for some new Christmas illustrations. Remember we are going to have a great Christmas eve service, Wednesday, December 24th at 6:00. Anyway I wanted to share this little story with you. And you and I need to make good application about the month of December. It is extremely important that we don't overlook the important.
According to “Our Daily Bread, 12-23-91,” in December 1903, after many attempts, the Wright brothers were successful in getting their “flying machine” off the ground. Thrilled, they telegraphed this message to their sister Katherine: “We have actually flown 120 feet. Will be home for Christmas.” Katherine hurried to the editor of the local newspaper and showed him the message. He glanced at it and said, “How nice. The boys will be home for Christmas.” He totally missed the big news—man had flown!
In another place where I read this story it talked about how the Wright brothers, who ran a bicycles repair shop, where featured in the local paper. Nothing was said about the historic flight over Kitty Hawk. Instead people were interested in getting their bikes fixed. That seem so out of balanced to our modern ears. But you know it is not far from how a lot of people think. They fail to see the magnificent over the mediocre. So plan your month to honor the birth and incarnation of our Lord. Take special interest in what is really important and have a blessed month of December.
You can email your thoughts about this article at dhooper@vbcokc.org
"What Happened in the 80’s?" Thursday, November 6, 2008
As we continue our little look at how haircuts and churches have some interesting parallels, let’s go to the 1980’s. The revolutionary spirit that motivated the 1960’s and 1970’s waned away. I have to be honest about this. I don’t remember much about the 80’s. They were good years for us. Our girls were all born in the 80’s. We pastored two wonderful congregations. But as far as culture goes, it is a little fuzzy to me. It seemed that the 1980’s went in a lot of directions.
And hair styles, well some of them were kind of reflective of the decade. Remember that women had big hair in the 80’s. Really big hair. I guess we shouldn’t forget the mullet. But you know what happened with men? The hair got shorter for many. As a matter of fact there was a lot of really short hair. Here is the point; it seems to me that a lot of people sort of went in different directions in the 80’s. There didn’t seem to be a clear style, like in the 50,’s and late 60’s through the 70’s. My hair got shorter, some shaved their heads, and others had long hair and poof it up.. I don’t know what kind of hair that was, but men and women both had them. But for the best of my understanding what happened with hair styles in the 80’s was carried a little further in the 90’s.
I hope that I communicated that the 80’s and to a large part the 90’s were times that sought for an identity. It is hard, at least for me, to explain those two decades in stereo-typical form. The 50’s had “Rock Around the Clock” and the 60’s had “Born to be Wild.” Okay, I know that I am getting old, but seriously I googled top songs of the 80’s. I just didn’t recognize many of them. If haircuts and music were all over the spectrum, then we can carry our analogy about the church. It was in the 1980’s that the church began to go a lot of different directions. There were seeker churches, contemporary churches, house churches, breakout churches, and a lot of new churches. They were new in a chronological sense, but they were new in the lack of denominational alliance sense. Lots and Lots of churches began dropping their denominational reference in their name. By the time the 1990’s got here, names were creative and non descriptive. Names sound more like housing additions or ski lodges.
It just seems to me the church struggled with identity through the 1980’s. The effects of this carried over to the 1990’s. Suddenly instead of Baptist, Methodist, or Pentecostal, there were churches known for worship styles, teaching styles, administrative styles, or even architectural styles. Formal or informal, contemporary or traditional, casual or high tech and more were ways people described churches. These things became more important that Bible teaching, doctrine and discipleship. That my dear friend is an identity crisis. Just like anything goes for hair styles, anything goes for church styles. We continue in church life to be in an identity crisis.
Hair cuts: "Oh those Beatles" Wednesday September, 30 2008
Along came the singing group from England and lots of things began changing. Church was one of them. I mentioned in my previous entry how my personal haircut experience and church life have a lot in common. At least they do in my worldview. In my early years, most of the haircuts look basically alike. There was a little variation, but not much. But oh those 1960’s and oh what a change was about to happen.
Long hair on boys, became a battle cry and test of faith for many churches. I remember hearing about a church that had a barber shop in the basement. When a boy with long hair made a decision, usually from their extensive bus ministry, the church immediately took him downstairs for a haircut before baptism.
Seem a like a different world now, but schools were in a dress code crisis mode. I remember that our dress code required that a boy’s hair could not touch his ears, shirt collars or eyebrows. Since my high school, was one of the last schools with a 1950’s style dress code, there were lots of debates, detentions and distractions. Eventually, my junior year, the dress code was changed for everyone except the varsity athletes. Once I had to get three, that’s right three, haircuts before I could get on the track bus. Luckily, we had a cosmetology class on campus. Well, you get the picture. Things were changing haircut wise and so was the church.
Suddenly there was not the comfortable and predictable 1950’s model. There was experimentation and change everywhere. I remember we glued, “There’s a Sweet, Sweet, Spirit” into the front of our hymn books. Some of the folks didn’t like that. We changed how we did Sunday School. We changed the name of the 6:00 discipleship hour from Training Union, to Church Training, to Discipleship Training. We changed some times when we met. Our curriculum changed. One huge issue I remember in the late sixties and early seventies was this clapping in church controversy. I shared with the church family on occasion that clapping in church was entirely Biblical. See Psalms 47:1. And you could shout too!
Here is the deal. Hair was such a big topic in the late sixties and early seventies. There was even a musical name “Hair.” Every rock and roll band had long hair. Hippies had long hair. Most of my friends had long hair. And it wasn’t that it looked good. It was a symbol of change. It was the logo for discontent. The years following 1968 were some of the most difficult times for our American culture. And the church was asking questions too. And the church was going through transaction. And there were debates; arguments really. The styles were changing and so was the church.
But there was a bit of the problem. The styles of hair, clothes, music and everything else were changing all the time. I don’t know if there was even a pattern to the change. I don’t know if there was a direction. And neither did the church. The church was changing. It wasn’t sure how or even why, but there was change going on. Some demanded change; some did all they could to keep it from changing.
You might be asking about theology, Biblical interpretation, and morals. Yes, they were changing too. I’ll talk about that next time.
Haircuts: "The Early Years" Wednesday August 20, 2008
I got a much-needed haircut the other day and it got me thinking about the nature of church life in these United States. Remember we are calling this “Detours.” It is a time and space for us to take a look at things from a little different perspective. For the next few entries I will be talking about my life journey through various stages of haircuts and how the nature of the church and church attendance has followed along.
When I was a little boy, my parents made me get a haircut. I didn’t want one; I hated it. But they made me and I went. Lots of times, like almost everyone else, I got a burr haircut when I was little. Sometimes, I would get a flattop or crew cut. Still I hated going to the barber shop. And what made matters worse, my barber was Mr. Wilson. Being a “Dennis” and having a “Mr. Wilson” was tough on a little tow-headed boy with a major double cowlick in the back of his head.
Here is my first observation about the way things used to be. When I was a little boy, early grade school, very little boy got a haircut and it was short. Really short! If you didn’t cut your hair like you were entering Marine boot camp, there was something wrong with the moral fiber of your family. If you would look at my 1st or 2nd grade school annual, you would see almost every little boy had a similar short haircut. And by the way, those annuals are packed away and I don’t think they can be found. Things were very simple, as I remember them, in those days. You got a haircut and you went to church. While this is a total oversimplification, there is just enough reality in it to make a good point. Good families got haircuts and went to church, even if the little boys in the family didn’t want to do either. It was simple. I came along during the time we call the Sunday School movement. Everyone, it seemed, was attending Sunday School. We did too. There were lots and lots of people that did what my family often did. They would drop their kids off for Sunday School and then pick them up when it was over. Let me make this simple point one more time. The cultural expectations were every little boys had very little hair and you were expected to go to Sunday School and church. The key word in that sentence is “expected.” That is just the way things were back then. Expectations were clear and simple, but the expectations were also strong and for the most part followed.
We will continue this later. You can send me a comment at dhooper@vbcokc.org.
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