Or not.

Churches of Christ (as a group) have lived with the status quo too long. You may be thinking, “Yeah! You’re absolutely right!”, if so – I’m not talking to you, you already know what I’m about to say. Or you may be thinking “What are you? Some kind of progressive troublemaker?”, if that’s the case – please, for all of our sakes, read on.

Allow me to explain myself – the status quo I’m referring to is the seeming inability to entertain new ideas or concepts. I’m talking about the absence of evolution of ideology. According to most Churches of Christ, understanding and explication of the Holy Word of God reached its epitome in the person of Alexander Campbell. He got it completely right, job is done, let’s get this show over with and get to Heaven! … hmm … If you detect a little sarcasm, it’s because it’s there. Alexander Campbell was a great man, an incredible man of God. And we want to give him the status of Prophet! At least in our minds, anyway.

Times change, people change, perceptions change – Truth is absolute, understanding of Truth … is not. Largely as a movement, the Churches of Christ have been unwilling or unable to entertain the notion that the “way we do things” is because that’s the way we’ve always done it! We have the same discussions over and over, and we use the same circular logic to come to the same unfounded notions about things that have nothing to do with the Gospel!! You all know what I’m talking about – clapping in worship, musical instruments, women’s roles, widows and orphans … the list could go on and on.

When will we wake up and realize that people are leaving the church more often than not for what we don’t do. We don’t preach the Gospel like we should, we don’t focus on getting each other to Heaven, we don’t build up our families, we don’t love people the way Christ did. Love is kind, love is patient, love is forgiving. Brotherhood gossip columns, rampant disfellowshipping – these are not loving actions.

We have slogans like “Meeting you where you are” , “Come and join our family” , “The door is always open” … do we actually live those words that adorn our bulletins and letterheads? Do we meet a man who is homeless and living on the streets, where he is? Do we even look out the door to see who is there? I firmly believe that if the kind of people that Christ accepted were to walk into a Church of Christ worship service today, 9 out of 10 congregations would either ignore them or ask them to leave. I hope to God that I’m wrong!

Do we accept the adulteresses? The drunks? The thieves? The prostitutes? The mentally ill?

Or do we sit quietly while Satan claims another for his keeping?

The enemy is close on our heels. Going into the all the world shouldn’t just be a nice thought.

Peace.

Mine tends to take an up-and-down ride about this time every week. The cause? My lovable, heart-pounding-in-the-ears, laughable, make-you-clench-your-teeth-until-your-jaw-pops, delightful, “I-had-better-not-hear-ANOTHER-WORD!” teens that I teach at church on Wednesday nights.

Let me make this excruciatingly clear: I absolutely love those kids. That being said – sometimes I wanna just kill ‘em! (Every time I tell that joke I want to clarify that I’m only joking.)

Here is my task: convince these kids that Jesus loves them, wants them and wants to use them. And I’m afraid that I’m failing miserably at it. I’m fighting an uphill battle against the world at trying to engage their minds to focus on spiritual matters. They are being attacked every day, and I think that most of them don’t even know it. How do I refocus their wandering adolescent minds onto the things that really matter?

The quarrel lately has been over the format of the class. Last summer we tried a video series. The unanimous verdict was: “BORING!” Okay. Let’s do a discussion class? “BORING!” Alright…<the vein in my head pops out right about here> How about a book that we can fill out together? Yeah, you guessed it. “BORING!” The urge to throw my hands up and walk away is almost overwhelming.

But that is what Satan wants me to do, isn’t it? He thinks if he can take me out, he can pick off the kids one-by-one. And he probably could. What’s stopping him? Just the greatest General of all time (literally!) The Commander of the Angel Armies, the Alpha and the Omega, the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace … the Son of Man … Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So what’s up now, Satan?! Not so big and bad now are you?! This is a battle that exceeds the bounds of Friendship Church of Christ in Olive Branch, MS. But it is part of the battleground. We have one thing Satan can never have, though. Read the book of Revelation and you’ll find it: we win. We know how the battle ends and we win.

Even the winning side takes heavy losses, though. That’s where I hope to be a battlefield medic. Running through flying shrapnel and hails of bullets trying to reach the wounded before its too late. Staunch the flow, tie it off and get them out of there to someone who can finish the job completely. The battlefield medic isn’t the guy who does the best job, or even does it completely right. He’s the guy who looks like the soldiers; who can get there first, while the battle is still hot.

So maybe I don’t always get the same amount of “respect” from my teens that the older guys get. But that’s okay. I can get closer to them. When Satan is breathing down their necks, I’ll be right behind – breathing down his. Count on it.

Peace.

Great. Just great.

“But we think it may be <insert ailment here>.”

Oh?

“Or it could be <insert nastier ailment here>.”

Oh…

For those of you who don’t know, I’m sick. Maybe…sort of. Does that make sense? Here’s the short version: last year I took a trip, and when I came back I was having problems feeling the lower half of my body (weird, right?) So a friend tells me to go to the doctor. I go to the doctor and in two days I’m in the hospital! The treatment makes me sicker than the symptoms did, I get drugged up for awhile and then lo and behold! … the symptoms go away! Yay! I’m cured! Now, fast forward 7 months…

The symptoms are back – worse. I have trouble walking, I have pain all the time. The drugs help – some days. Some days they might as well be sugar pills (and maybe they are!) My friends are concerned. My family is frantic. My doctors seem to be clueless. And I’m caught in the middle, reeling from the whirlwind.

The most current diagnosis is a chronic B12 deficiency. My doctors tell me that a chronic B12 deficiency causes neurological symptoms. Okay, at least that is a direction to pursue. But the real question is why … I eat right, I take vitamins – I do the things that are considered “good for me”, but still they can’t figure out what is wrong.

My most recent doctor says that restoring the B12 deficiency can stop the progress of the symptoms, possibly. Or they may have to shut down my immune system because the antibodies in my blood are attacking my nerves … apples to apples, right?

One thing remains, though – faith. Every time I think back to when things were bad – God provided an out. We were out of money? I got a check for some work I had done and forgotten about. We thought we were about to be a month behind on the house payment? Turns out we were a month ahead! We seem to forget that WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF THE GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO US – the only thing we are in control of is how we react to them!

When Job’s faith was tested, he never turned his back on God. I hope that I can remain a small fraction of the man that Job was. Peace.

I would hear those words high school journalism class and stare for a full minute before something would come. It never came easy for me, just ‘picking a topic’. I would need some fire, some passion before I could fully attack a piece of paper with real gusto. And paper … I hate paper. Really. Handwriting isn’t one of my strong suits, and handwriting for FOUR PAGES was like bamboo shoots underneath my fingernails. Hand cramps would come first, followed by arm cramps, followed by blurred vision, and finally I would just pass out! I’m exaggerating of course, but to this day I can’t look at a sheet of college ruled without shuddering.

I find that writing comes very naturally to me. It didn’t always. I can remember a point in junior high where I was complaining to my English teacher about having to write an essay. She told me “Just talk to the paper.” An intriguing notion, I must admit. I tried it and fell in love. Never again would I agonize over what words to say. Whatever popped into my head was what ended up on the paper. In the beginning it was a reader’s nightmare, my idea of sentence variation was starting each one with different word. After a time, though, things began to improve. I began to actually enjoy writing!

In college, I hated writing research papers. All of the style rules, and bibliographical hoops to jump through didn’t really sit too well with me. Creative writing was more my forte. I haven’t written any pieces for several years now, but as this blog illustrates, there is a new beginning for almost anything.

As a new dawn approaches on my writing, I hope to fulfill some unseen need that compels me. Like a panther stalking prey unawares I hope to pounce on any inspiration and wrestle it to the jungle floor and rip it wide open, spouting glorious effervescence and gorging myself until no more could possibly fit.

My junior high teacher also said to leave all your pieces on a high note, even better if you could squeeze in a metaphor that reeks of imagery. And a personal anecdote was tops.

Hey … three out three. I’m out. Peace.

Wait. Let me finish that thought.

My wife thinks I’m crazy because.

…Urgh, that’s not right either!

My wife thinks I’m crazy because I like Quiet. Yes, quiet with a Capital ‘Q’. I like to be home, alone, no sounds, no lights – nothing. Is that normal?

I don’t know and I don’t really care. It allows me to decompress, detach and dissolve just a little bit of my stress and frustrations into the darkness and quiet. I think that it is important for each one of us to get some of that quiet time. It allows us to feel things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to experience with all of the noise and distractions that we encounter for the other 23.5 hours a day. And maybe…just maybe we can spend a bit of time talking to God.

Do you ever just talk to God? Most people that I run into think that a prayer has to be some formal, ‘Dear God…’ type of invocation. But it doesn’t have to be. Someone once told me that writing is just talking on paper. I take the same approach to silent prayer. It’s just talking to God like he was sitting right next to you. And the great thing is … he actually listens! Unlike the other 94% of people you encounter everyday, God will hang on your every word as if it were the most moving poetry ever crafted.

And to Him – it is.

Peace.

Fantasy: Off.

Now back in the real world, I’m beginning to wonder when people will stop even pushing buttons to open a door. My gripe? People who are not handicapped using the handicapped button on those automatic doors. HELLO! How lazy have we become when we won’t even open our doors anymore?

I could understand, even probably agree with it, if you had your arms full of groceries, or small children … or 70 lbs of prosciutto ham – anything! But walking down the hall and pushing the button and then waiting, while people pile up behind you, for the door to open. And me – standing agape in sheer astonishment.

Okay, the door I was waiting for is open now … guess I’ll close this one out. Peace.

Are you ready?

I don’t think you are.

Okay! Okay…If you didn’t already gather from the title of this post, I jumped in with both feet and went back to school. I’m currently a student of American Sentinel University in the Masters’ of Science in Computer Science (MSCS).

I told you that you would be shocked. “Daniel, studying computers? Can what you are saying possibly be true?” Yeah, it is.

This is actually a bit of an academic stretch for me, historically speaking. My first degree was a BA in Advertising from Harding University. We were more concerned with how to sell computers than how to operate one. Of course, I have been “in to” computers my whole life. I’ve been doing websites, programming, video editing and digital graphics “for fun” for quite awhile. Yeah. I’m a big nerd, I’ll wait for you to catch your breath … … all right now? Good. But the direction my career has taken is one that I would never have predicted.

Straight out of school (May 2005) I went to work for Fox Television in Memphis, TN. While I was there I did everything from sweeping the floor to operating million-dollar microwave transceivers. While I was still working for Fox, I also gained employment for Apple Computer, Inc., working at their Germantown, TN retail store. I began as what they like to call a “Mac Specialist”…a moniker that is misapplied more often than cheap makeup. Not in my case of course, but upon returning to the store in my post-Apple days, I cringe at the, what I like to call, “burger-joint-caliber” fresh-faced teenagers that mill about in black shirts asking, “Hi! Welcome to the Apple Store! How can we help you today! *smile*” and then just stare blankly when you ask a question that any 10 year-old with an iMac could answer. *sigh* I digress. I did that for about 6 months when a new position opened up called “Creative”. What do you think a creative might do? “Oh, Daniel, I don’t know … CREATE ????” Yeah, that’s what I thought. Actually, what we did was help other people create. Not quite as glamorous, but still pretty cool. Basically, a customer comes in with a project, let’s say some video footage that they want to turn into a DVD, and we direct them in accomplishing said task. 90% of the time it was a whole lot of fun, the other 10% was excruciating … I’ll let you figure out why :-)

During my “Creative” days, someone (I won’t name any names … Ken Finzer :-) clued me in as to what a real job pays and I sought a position and gained one with FedEx (thanks again to the unnamed one!) At this point in my professional exploits is where the computer science aspect really comes into focus. My title at FedEx is “Customer Integration Consultant” (sounds impressive, I know!) My function is to integrate customers’ systems with our Automated Shipping Devices. For instance, enabling a customer to eliminate redundant data entry by allowing them to pull in address/package information from their database … boring stuff like that. All of this “automating” requires special programming. I happen to like this programming and I want to pursue it further, hence … MSCS at American Sentinel University.

I’ve only been attending “classes” (everything is online) for a few days now, and the prerequisite class I’m taking right now I could do in my sleep, but I think I will be able to stick with it and in a couple of years be able to add some letters to the end of my name. Of course I won’t stop there, I want to continue and get (at least) an MBA and possibly a doctorate in something.

Dr. Mullins … yeah, I’ll take that. :-)

Who cares?

Me. :-)