Loving Summer

Yes--I'm a week late, but summer is officially here, and it's my favorite season of the year. When everyone else is complaining about heat and humidity, I'm smiling inside (and sometimes outside, too, depending on who is complaining), thinking about how lovely it is to not be shivering, scraping snow off my car, and wearing heavy sweaters, bulky coats, and scrambling for gloves.

So I'll limit myself, but these are the ten best things about summer:

1. Going outside, and never stopping to think about whether I need a coat.
2. Eating outside at lunchtime with my favorite coworkers (M., K., J.--you know who you are :)).
3. Going for walks after a Friday night dinner date with my favorite person that I go on Friday night dinner dates with (and you know who you are :)).
4. Sitting on my patio on a summer evening with my favorite person that I go on Friday night dinner dates with, listening to birds, looking at the sky, and talking.
5. Summer clothes--I love wearing sandals, skirts, and short-sleeved shirts and blouses. Winter sweaters feel so bulky, and winter shoes just aren't nearly as fun.
6. Going to the beach and Lake Michigan resort towns, especially Saugatuck--although I haven't made it this year yet, and I know that Saugatuck is the West Michigan hangout for people of strange sexual persuasions, but I just like it there...
7. Vacations, of course.
8. Fixing food on the grill. Everything tastes better prepared on a grill, and I could eat hamburgers several times a week (wait--I do!).
9. Butterflies perched on flowers (I saw that today).
10. And it's not here yet but coming soon--corn on the cob.
11. I know--I said ten, but I couldn't resist posting this picture of one of my cousin's twin boys (don't ask me which one) enjoying summer at our annual family reunion with all that anyone needs--a sippy cup and a bear chair and no shoes. What could be better?

What irony that this summer person makes her home in West Michigan, where summer is the shortest season of them all!

*photo by Kathleen Selden

Adopt a Single Parent Family

Single parenting has been (and continues to be) one of the greatest challenges I could have imagined. Even though I'm a veteran, with eleven years' experience to my credit, some weeks I feel a little more "single parenty" than others--with this week being one of those weeks. There are no prep courses for single parenting, no boot camps, and yet the rigors of the experience are demanding and relentless. I'm no sissy--I've survived a graduate program, teaching junior high English, working the tomato line at Campbell Soup Company (that's another blog posting), and doing data entry for six months at an insurance company in Chicago--but nothing could have prepared me for being a single parent.

Through the years, a handful of genuinely amazing people have given support and shown understanding (my parents are at the top of that list), but overall, I would give most of the people in our lives--family, friends, and fellow church members--fairly low scores when it comes to being supportive. Always assume that there is some way you can help a single-parent family; we always need something.

And so for those of you who read this who are looking for some sort of service project or opportunity to serve, look no further than the single-parent family in your own family, church, or neighborhood. I'll be making some suggestions occasionally for ways that you can help. Here are some summer-related ideas.

*While financial difficulties have not been a big problem for our family (there have been a few tough stretches), they often are an issue in single-parent families. Summer is a time when many families like to be outdoors or take part in special summer activities. Rather than just writing a check or handing over some cash, buy a gift card to a gas station, restaurant, or hotel franchise or a pass to an amusement park, swimming pool, sporting activity, or even a season pass to a beach or area park that charges entrance fees. Pass it on to a single-parent family so they can have some summer fun and make some memories.

*Invite a single-parent family to go on vacation with you. I know that while our family has had the financial means to take vacations, there have been other issues that make vacationing difficult. When the children were younger, I was reluctant to travel distances because of the potential problems that might occur if something should happen on the road. I'm still the only driver in the family, so again, that limits the distances I'm willing to travel by car. It can also be difficult to take children to busy places like amusement parks when you're the only adult to keep an eye on things. There are three of us, so it's difficult to go on rides, and it can be hard to watch two kids when there's only one adult (and that's especially scary at places like the beach where there is the potential for danger). And there is simply the companionship issue--you travel somewhere with two children, but there is no other adult to share the experience with. A vacation can be a lonely experience for a single parent and often not very restful.

*The easiest one of all--offer to watch the children so the single parent can get a break to do something summery fun for him or herself--play golf, go to the beach, go to a flea market, see a movie. While the kids are at your house, go through your summer hand-me-downs and see which ones will fit the visiting kids. It's also good for kids of single parent families to just be a part of a "normal family" setting. Meals, fun times, playing at the park--it's an entirely different dynamic, and a healthy one, to see how a family with two parents functions.

If you are looking to serve, you can provide a tremendous service to the single-parent family that you know. Be creative--there are probably even "smaller" ways than these suggestions that would be a huge blessing to a single parent.

Straightening Our Paths

This past weekend, our local paper's religion editor featured a column that reflected on the now-concluded CRC Synod. He noted the use of humor, at times, to lighten things up when discussions over paedocommunion grew intense. He also noted the historic decision to remove the word "male" from the qualifications for minister. Next year, for the first time in 150 years, "women will be voting on the floor alongside their brothers in faith."

So now the women of the CRC should be feeling affirmed, validated, contemporary, and relevant--all of the things those of us living in the twenty-first century want to feel--because a group of men have decided to include them in their all-boys' club. I find the wording interesting: the delegates have removed the word "male" from the qualifications for minister. Which leads me to the question of who determined the qualifications in the first place? Shouldn't He be the one to make revisions, if they are necessary?

There are so many things wrong with the CRC decision that I'm not sure where to begin. I guess I would start with the delegates who believe that it is their prerogative to remove words from the qualifications for office bearers. The same God who has ordained the sun to rule the day and the moon by night, the same God who has defined morality succinctly in His Ten Commandments, and the same God who created all things has quite cogently laid down the qualifications for office bearers in two passages of Scripture: 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.

To argue that these passages are culturally irrelevant is to suggest that Scripture is subjective and potentially in error. And to argue that women should serve in these offices because they have great "preaching" skills or because there just aren't enough men willing to serve or simply because they just want to is to again make something other than God's Word (sola scriptura, right?)the basis for all that we think and do.

And so women who are now congratulating themselves for this great progress made for all womenkind at Synod 2007 have simply made the same mistake as their sister Eve so many years ago: they have believed the lie. "Has God indeed said . . . if a man desires the position of bishop, he desires a good work"? And in fact, He has.

There are many opinions about what makes a woman a godly woman, and there are many opinions about the roles women should and should not fill in the Church. And for those desiring a refreshing, intelligent, biblical treatment of this subject, I would recommend When Life and Beliefs Collide by Carolyn Custis James. But we ought not be congratulating ourselves on our progress when our definitions, our understandings, are different from God's. We are to "lean not on our own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5), and when we do, how meaningful and significant can our conclusions be?

And so the CRC's removing the word "male" from the qualifications for the offices is not progress. In fact, it's an age-old strategy that began in the Garden with Eve and the Serpent, and it is to replace God as the source of all truth with humans as the source of truth. As a woman, I find meaning and significance in being what God has called me to be, filling the roles that He has called me to fill. To cross those lines is to seek another source of meaning and significance, and the results of that, as we see from Eve's experience, are disastrous. Culture, pragmatics, and human desire become our gods when we allow them to determine what we believe is true and when they become the basis for our actions.

When we acknowledge Him in all our ways, then He will make our paths straight.

A Day in the Life of an Editor

Most days, my work is not the stuff of movies, TV shows, or documentaries. Young people are not knocking down my door begging to job shadow as I appraise manuscript proposals, copyedit manucripts, write jacket copy, and fill out applications for CIP data. While my responsibilities are exciting to me, most people think that I basically read all day, and while that sounds like great fun, it would be a tortuous task for most people.

Today, however, I got to do some of my favorite "editorial" things. The day began with a publishing committee meeting, one of the most fascinating, intriguing events in a publishing house. In publishing committee meetings, which at our house occur perhaps two to three times a year, the editorial staff presents book proposals that have been submitted, and the publisher, editors, marketing people, and various others in leadership positions decide whether we should, in fact, publish these books. The proposals come from various sources: from authors whose books we have already published; from manuscripts I have acquired from manuscript services; from contacts the publisher and managing editor have; and--very rarely--from unsolicited manuscripts that people submit to us "out of the blue."

Today's agenda had four titles for consideration: two from our already published authors; one who had contacted us through our managing editor; and one that I had acquired from ECPA's Christian Manuscript Submissions. We also considered two already published books from outside vendors to include in our direct mail catalog and a "surprise" proposal that had not made it onto the agenda.

It's always interesting to see what manuscripts will appeal to which people and why and what reasons committee members have for objecting to a manuscript or finding it compelling. Today's meeting was no disappointment: one title was accepted with very little conversation; one author was asked to expand on the topic and resubmit; and the final two were overwhelmingly accepted. There were some interesting conversations about the proposals, and it was interesting to find out that one title in particular appealed far more to the men on the committee than the women (interesting).

We worked through the various proposals, and then it was time for the surprise, which was no surprise to me because I was presenting the surprise--I was submitting the proposal and assuming the role of author and editor all at once. Our music team is producing a CD to be released later this fall that has songs that tell the stories of people in other parts of the world who have been persecuted for their faith. We call it the IDOP (International Day of Prayer) project, and the music team is very excited about it. It will be well publicized with a seven-city tour. My marketing friend, K., and I were working together Tuesday morning and the conversation turned to the IDOP project, and I blurted out, "We should have a book that tells these stories to go with the CD." K. quickly picked up on the idea, and the ideas kept coming furiously.

To make a long story short, this idea quickly took on a life of its own. The next thing I knew, K. and I were in the music producer's office finding out if there were written sources for these stories, and within seconds we had a conference call with Greg Yoder of Mission Network News, who is working with our music team on the CD. The past two days have been a flurry of phone calls and emails with Greg and brainstorming and bouncing ideas around with different team members to determine if, in fact, we can "make" a book to be released on October 18, the same day the CD releases. We knew that we had to be able to present the proposal to the committee today in order to get a book done in time to release with the CD, so we had to move quickly. (On average, we spend about six months taking a book from manuscript to print, so even though that sounds like a long time, in book production time, it isn't.)

It would be an understatement to say that those of us involved are excited about this project, and our publisher asked us to be prepared to give a presentation at today's publishing committee meeting. The proposal was approved, and now I'm off! The next few months for me will be an intense exercise in taking radio newscripts and turning them into warm, passionate stories about people suffering for the name of Christ in other countries around the world.

And as if that weren't exciting enough, if a proposal I've acquired is approved, I get to call the author and let him or her know that a contract will be coming. And I got to do that twice today! Two authors were very happy people after my conversations with them.

It was definitely a great day to be an editor . . .

Not So Great Hymns/Hymn Writers of the Faith: Blessed Assurance

Recent work responsibilities have given me an opportunity to learn about America's most beloved hymn writer of the nineteenth century, Fanny Crosby. I didn't know much about her, and we rarely sing her hymns in church, so it was quite a revelation to find out some of the interesting facts about this much revered hero of the faith. And after reading about Ms. Crosby and learning more of the beliefs that shaped her hymn writing, it now comes as no surprise that only one of her nearly nine thousand hymns have made it into the Psalter Hymnal.

Fanny's life spanned nearly a century--she died in her nineties. She was blind as a result of medical treatments she received as an infant, but she did attend an institute for the blind and was able to memorize remarkably well. As an adult, she began writing hymns, and her fame brought her into association with such prominent nineteenth-century religious figures as D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey. She began writing hymns as a reaction to her strict, Calvinist upbringing, which I'm assuming included Psalm singing and a liturgy.

I learned that Fanny believed that hymns should relate to the worshiper's experience, and so that would certainly stand in contrast to a Calvinistic understanding of worship--that the focus should be on God and praising Him. Her "I-centered" hymns are reflected in her lyrics: "Now there is pardon for you"; "Pass me not";and "I come to Thee." In fact, the source I was reading explained that Fanny worked hard to write her hymns in the first person so the people could sing them as a personal prayer or testimony. Not much of a sense of corporate worship there, either.

Some interesting Fanny trivia: She experienced a life-changing moment when she responded to an altar call. Those who were there to assist her prayed for several hours with her until she had her "experience." And though Fanny was married, she spent very few years actually living with her husband. By the end of her life, she and her husband moved in different social circles and rarely saw each other. She didn't actually join a church for the first time until she was in her sixties, and she frequently "preached" at church services. Definitely an interesting Christian "hero of the faith."

And so I also hold forth as an example of a not-so-great hymn of the faith one of her most popular: "Blessed Assurance." And I have to admit that I have actually enjoyed that one at times in the past. Yet a closer look at the lyrics demonstrates that this probably is not a hymn that ought to be sung in Reformed worship. Here it is:

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Refrain

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

Refrain

I definitely enjoy the melody of this hymn, particularly when it reaches its emotional highpoint in the refrain. And yet we ought to be aware of what we're confessing when we sing this song. First, we know that Fanny liked to write in the first person, and that is evident here. This is certainly counter to the Christ-centered worship that we strive for in Reformed churches.

Another interesting idea occurs in the first line: "Jesus is mine." I'm not prepared to say that this is a theological error, but the focus is definitely different from our catechism, in which we confess that we are not our own but belong both body and soul, in life and in death, to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ." So what we confess is that we are Jesus'. The second verse, especially, takes a mystical turn with its mention of angels descending from above with their echoes of mercy and whispers of love. And as much as I'd like to say I have achieved perfect submission, I haven't, and I doubt that many sinful human beings have.

So this hymn has all the earmarks of a not-so-great hymn with its first-person focus, suggestions of mystical experiences, and just plain faulty claims. And having learned something about the life and times of Fanny Crosby, it becomes clear why her hymns are not included in the Psalter Hymnal.

Our Victory over Deception: 1 John 4:1-6

In 1 John 4, John assures believers that they can have victory over deception, and he provides yet another test--this time a test for whether the message we are hearing is true or false.

In the first verse of chapter 4, believers are instructed to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God." John isn't describing some sort of mystical experience; believers are being instructed to test the spirit of a teaching in order to determine what the teacher is saying. This is a general command to all believers--not just to ministers and elders.

The reason believers need to test the spirits is because there are many false prophets knocking on the door of the church of Jesus Christ(v. 1b). Satan has an interest in challenging the truth of the church. In Matthew 24:23ff., Jesus explains that those claiming to be Him, claiming to have received a special word from Him, or who will claim to have seen Him in a special revelation are false. But the deceivers John is referring to are more subtle than the ones Jesus is talking about. It is important that we understand that there are two spirits: God and Satan (antichrist).

Verse 2 tells us that "every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God." It would seem that this is a simple test, but there is much here in this verse. In fact, the Greek verb for "has come" is difficult to translate, and different Bible translations have translated it in different tenses. This one verb conveys the idea that at one time Jesus had not come in the flesh, but now He has come in the flesh, and He will remain in the flesh in the future. This test for truth raises a huge difference between Christianity and Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and historic liberal churches who would claim that Jesus is less than God; in fact, liberal churches would say that He was simply a good example for us to follow.

The true hearers in vv. 4-6 have overcome the false teachers by God's grace: "for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." And what of the false hearers? Because they are of the world, it is not surprising that they find the false teachings attractive. The true hearers will hear the true heralds who are "of God." God is at work in them, and they believe that Jesus is God incarnate. This is foundational to our beliefs, and we embrace this truth wholeheartedly.

Ministers (and Old Testament Characters) Are People Too

I find it interesting that certain themes seem to impress themselves on me during a given week. Sometimes I think that maybe I'm starting to editorialize my life, organizing thoughts and concepts long after I've left the workplace, and that's a little scary. But the phenomenon has occurred yet again, and it's only Wednesday.

The theme for this week seems to be how great God is, how weak we are, and how He uses us in spite of ourselves. (I'm not claiming that the theme for the week is necessarily a new thought that has never occurred to anyone else, but usually I'm struck by the fact that even though I've heard these ideas tossed about many times, I'm suddenly aware of their profundity.)

The theme first emerged Sunday morning during the sermon, when my pastor was preaching from the Canons of Dort, Head 1, Articles 9-10 and 2 Timothy 1:1-12. The subject of these articles is unconditional election, in which we confess that there have been no conditions met by us in our salvation; our salvation is fully a result of God's activity, based on the work and merits of Christ, determined before the foundation of the world. God has purposed to display His grace and unconditional love to us in our salvation.

Our pastor made the point that all of us, regardless of what we may have done or who we are, stand equally in need of God's grace, and he pointed to the example of Paul and Timothy. Paul, of course, before becoming a Christian, had persecuted the church and purposed to destroy those who confessed the name of Christ. Not such a great past. Timothy had been raised in a Christian home by his mother and grandmother, had obviously confessed his faith as a young man, and was the kind of son we all would like to have. And yet Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:9, "[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace." Interestingly, despite the huge differences in their pasts, Paul places himself and Timothy in the same category, because even though Timothy had no real wretched life experiences worthy of a modern-day testimony (and Paul had), they were both sinners who, without God's saving grace, were without hope. I had never thought of the two of them that way, but it was an interesting way to understand them.

The theme recurred Monday morning during team devotions, where we are reading and discussing the book 12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (like me) by John Fischer. It has been an interesting read, and it has forced all of us to look at ourselves, recognize that we tend to be self-righteous and judgmental when we hold others up to an extrabiblical standard, and acknowledge that we must rest in God's love and grace rather than in our own hypocrisy. Monday we were discussing the eighth step: "We are looking closely at the lives of famous men and women of the Bible who turned out to be ordinary sinners like us."

Fischer's childhood church sounds much like mine. Sunday school training involved flannelgraphs and stories about the heroes of the Bible, which emphasized moral virtue and imitation. As Fischer became an adult, he began to realize that David was an adulterer, Jacob was a liar, and Samson was a womanizer. He felt that he had been taught half-truths as the reality of it all crushed the idealism of his youth. Our own discussion veered off course as the question was raised: Which of these flawed characters did we admire?

My response was that we were not to admire these people. Sinful people were what they were, and we couldn't expect any more from them than weakness. We were to be looking to and admiring the God who could use these weak, flawed people to accomplish His redemptive purposes. In spite of all of their failures, He used them to carry out His eternal purposes. We aren't to look at them and think about how great (or not) they were, but rather how great our God is. One person admitted that as the child of a pastor, he had sometimes almost envied those who had stories of being redeemed from a reckless past; he had no such tales of horror and redemption. And that's where I shared the example of Paul and Timothy that I had heard the day before (and at the same time put in a plug for catechetical preaching and confessions like the Canons), reminding us all that we are hopelessly lost without God's mercy and grace.

And so today I came to see a touch of pharisaism in myself during a lighthearted conversation with one of my favorite minister friends. We had been lightheartedly discussing the social habits and characteristics of young ministers, in particular, when he reminded me of an important truth. I know that ministers are sinful people, like me, and yet I'd like to think that when they get a paper cut, they don't say naughty words (like I do). I'd like to think that they don't struggle with vanity and competitiveness (like I do). And I'd really like to think that ministers don't get impatient and yell at their kids (like I do). And probably most of them have a better handle on these problems than I do. But I saw a kind of reverse pharisaism in myself, where I want to hold certain people in certain positions to higher standards than I hold myself, and this certainly is nothing new. People have been doing this to ministers, Christian school teachers, and leaders in the church as long as there has been church. And the obvious is that this is unfair, especially when we hold others to extrabiblical standards. But the most compelling truth of all that this friend shared with me is that (I'm paraphrasing here) ministers, like all of us, are simply weak vessels that God uses to declare His glorious truth.

So the theme of the week is how our almighty, powerful God can and does take the rawest of raw materials--people like us--to display His grace, mercy, and truth. And that, as my friend said, is truly amazing.

The Test of Love: 1 John 3:11-24

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another (1 John 3:11).

This passage is concerned with the theme of the nature of love and the assurance of salvation. There are different kinds of love that Christians are to show to others, but this passage is talking specifically about the love that we are to have for one another in the church, for our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not the same kind of love that we are to have for our neighbors or for our enemies.

John begins with a negative example of what we are not to be one to another. The example he gives in verse 12 is Cain, "who was of the evil one and murdered his brother." Cain, of course, killed Abel, his brother. More than simply telling us the fact that Cain murdered Abel, this passage ascribes motivation to Cain, talking about the nature of Cain's heart. Cain was one who "[hated] his brother . . . a murderer" (v. 15). We are told that the world hates us, and this is what motivated Cain: he killed his brother because "his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous" (v. 112). Hatred is the opposite of love, and no true Christian can say, "I hate you."

John also provides a positive example of One who loves His brothers: Jesus Christ. Unlike Cain, who took life, Jesus "laid down his life for us" (v. 16). He died so that we might live. Like Him, we should have a love in our hearts for the brothers, laying down our lives for one another. In verse 18, love is connected with truth: we are to love "in deed and in truth."

As we live in love for the brethren, we have assurance: "By this [our love] we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him" (v. 19). The phrase "reassure our heart before him" could be better translated "set our hearts at rest." This is that firm confidence of our salvation. Our love will also result in confidence in prayer (vv. 21-22), where we are assured that what we will ask of Him we will receive because we are obeying His commandments. Those who are living in obedience will receive what they ask for, because they will be praying for those things that are within bounds; their prayers will be rooted in love for God and the brethren.

To pass the test of love, we must ask ourself this question: Do I love the brethren in word, deed, and truth?