September 11 Video

A friend forwarded this video to me. If you've got an extra 15 minutes, it's well worth the watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLj4akmncsA&feature=youtu.be

Jumping Joey's

Took the children recently to Jumping Joey's. It's so hot these days that we have to figure out a way to entertain/wear them out while not giving us all heat strokes. Jumping Joey's has several inflatables: slides, moon bounces, obstacle courses, etc. One of our two children had a whole lot of fun. One did not. I'll let you guess which was which!

A Great Way to Start the Day

Well, it finally happened with our son, Ryan (a.k.a., "Bubba"). Early this morning I heard our 1 year old son crying in his crib. Instead of simply shoving an elbow into his mama (my normal reaction to hearing one of our children cry), I decided to be the good dad and to go check on my little Bubba. Surely he just needed to eat, or to be changed, or maybe he'd lost his pacifier, right?

I walk into his room, turn on the light, and discover that Ryan had somehow managed to remove his diaper from his body.

Before I go any further, there are two things you need to know. Number one: I did not put him to bed last night. Some other adult who lives in our household put him to bed in only his diaper, without pj's. I'm not assigning any blame here, because we are a team and we are in this together and so we support and do not blame each other, right? But baby, what were you thinking?!?

Secondly, this same scenario happened with our daughter when she was about the same age as Ryan. In her case, she had removed her diaper, but was so mortified by the contents within that she just cried without attempting a full internal investigation.

Not my son.

The boy decided that what was in his diaper was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. This substance was so intriguing, in fact, that it needed to be fully explored. Evidently, he discovered that it was the best product he'd ever encountered. Have you ever seen the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? Remember how the dad was obsessed with Windex, and believed that it would cure anything. That was my son with his diaper surprise:

"What would it feel like on my head? Oohh, that's nice. Probably good for my hair. This will give it a nice shine. Maybe this stuff is good for my complexion. This baby acne is driving me crazy. Hmmm, this feels good. Little bit of this will help me keep my youthful look. Maybe this stuff will be good for my sheets. I bet it will keep them soft and comfy. Wow, that looks good. This stuff is like a miracle product. Maybe my teddy bear could use some, too. Here, Teddy. This will change your life..."

Fortunately, I was able to intervene in the situation before he decided that it would make good paint for the walls as well.

I know the stock market has been rough lately, but here is a tip: buy stock in a company that sells bleach. We bought enough that their next quarter's earnings are going to be tremendous.

Conspicuous Consumption

The headlines in the news this week all proclaim that the debt crises has been "averted." Unfortunately, the deal struck did not do much to solve the real problem of this country: that we are spending far more (to the tune of $1.5 trillion annually) than we have. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or a Don't-Care, you would not last long if you ran your household in the same fashion that the United States government runs this country. To spend nearly 70% more than your income each month is foolish, and yet... seemingly... the American way.

According to latest statistics, the United States government is not the only one in debt. Americans owe on credit cards alone a whopping $975 billion. The average household has nearly $10,000 in credit card (unsecured, high interest rate) debt. It seems that our government is not the only one who is in love with debt. As Americans, we want what we want NOW and not later.

Sure, a certain amount of debt is almost unavoidable. My wife and I never would have been able to get a home of our own without a bank lending us the money. Most small businesses would never get off the ground without taking on debt. Debt itself is not evil, and yet too much and the wrong kind of debt can destroy lives (and maybe even destroy a nation!)

The root cause of this debt crises is what many people call "conspicuous consumption." This term was first introduced by a man named Thorstein Veblen in his work The Theory of the Leisure Class, written in 1899. He describes conspicuous consumption as a symptom observed in a society where over-consumption becomes the social norm. He used this term to denote the consumption of goods for the purpose of displaying social status and wealth.

Veblan certainly was not viewing this from a Biblical perspective. He was a devout atheist who also believed that churches were simply a waste of building space and described pastors as a group of people paid to do nothing useful at all (please hold all snide comments). But, his observation about the dangers of over-consumption were on target. We have become so obsessed with instant gratification that we will sacrifice anything, including our future, in order to obtain what we want now.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 reads: "Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income." We could add to that, "Whoever loves stuff never has enough." While there is nothing wrong with buying, purchasing, and having, we must be careful that our material wants do not rule over us.

I'll close with a great line from the movie, "Forrest Gump." Played by Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump at one point receives a pile of money. Not much in his lifestyle changes. In fact, he gives most of it away. His reason? “Mama always said a man only needs so much money, the rest is just for showing off.”

What Should We Worship In Church?

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend - the traditional beginning of summer (pools open, schools are out, I can finally start wearing white.) I'm a big fan of Memorial Day, Veterans Day, July 4th... all the weekends that celebrate our freedom and remembers those who fought so bravely for us to have this freedom. Both my grandfathers fought in WWII. I'm thankful for their service and the millions of other Americans who fought against Fascism. We have men in our church who are currently serving in the United States military and are fighting the war on terror, either at home or overseas. I recently sat next to a young man on a plane who'd just graduated from Naval boot camp. My first words to him were "thank you for serving our great country." I'm thankful both for our freedoms and all those who fight to protect those freedoms.

Whenever I go to a Memorial Day parade, or a July 4th fireworks show, a service honoring our Vets, or hear Lee Greenwood sing his most famous song, that patriotic pride swells within me and I'm truly proud to be an American.

And yet, when I'm in a Sunday morning church service, and the Star Spangled Banner is played, or someone sings God Bless America, I do not feel that same sense of pride. There is something within me that is uneasy. I still have the same love for my country. I still have the same gratitude for those who've served in the military. But something just doesn't feel right when we wave the red, white, and blue in church. Why am I fine with this celebration at a parade on Main Street, but not on Sunday morning in a church service?

I read an article recently that helped put some theological framework around why I feel this way. To see this article by Kevin DeYoung, go to the following link: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/05/26/thinking-theologically-about-memorial-day/

Bottom line of his article is this: patriotism is a good thing, but a worship service of God is not the best place to exalt our country. Our focus in worship should be, well, God, and not ourselves or our country.

Having said all of that, I hope that you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and God Bless America!

Just a dad

Tomorrow is the big day - Kevin Ryan Mills, Jr (a.k.a, "Bubba" by his older sister Elizabeth, but "Ryan" to the rest of us), is getting dedicated in church. There are 20 babies being dedicated, and I've told my church and my family that on this day, I'm just a dad. On a normal Sunday morning, I'm up at 5:00 and out the door before anyone else in the house (including the dog) is even stirring. Most Sundays I do not get to see my family until 12:30 or so as we gather back at the house for lunch. But on this day, I'm just a dad. I'm not preaching. I'm coming to church with my family. I'm participating in the dedication, and then I'm riding home in the same car with my wife and children. Here is the way I envision our morning:

I will wake up at 7 and have breakfast with my wife. We'll drink coffee and talk about what a great day we are looking forward to having together. I'll then feed the dog, who will come over and put her head against my leg, saying "good morning" to me. I will then head up the stairs to wake up our daughter, Elizabeth, as my wife gets Ryan. We will feed them both breakfast as they sit quietly and eat. My wife and I will then take shifts getting ourselves ready, and getting the children bathed and ready. We will leave the house and be at the church at least 15 minutes before we are supposed to be in place. The four of us will walk onto the stage, along with the other families dedicating their children, and our son Ryan will behave superbly and our daughter Elizabeth will smile a perfect smile. We will then head home for a wonderful Mother's Day lunch together.

Have you ever watched any of the old "Vacation" movies with Chevy Chase? He always dreams of the "perfect" vacation with his family, only to be disappointed as nothing goes his way. I'm probably pulling a Clark Griswold here. The morning will probably go something like this:

Ryan wakes up at 5AM, screaming his head off. Since it's Mother's Day, I tell my wife to stay in bed, and that I will feed him. I stumble into his room, trying to find the light switch, and to keep from waking up his sister across the hall. I get Ryan out of bed only to discover that he has, on this Mother's Day, the "mother" of all dirty diapers. In the middle of the changing process, he decides he's ready to go, and his squirming causes the "problem" to escape the containment area. I then run out of baby wipes, forcing me to grab baby, clothes, diaper, and all affected areas and race to the bathtub. I attempt to detox the situation, causing Ryan to scream bloody murder. His screaming wakes his sister at 5:15AM, forcing mama out of bed for a man-to-man defense to try and handle the situation. Both children are taken downstairs and there is an attempted feeding. The dog starts barking, incessantly, out the window at a squirrel or cat or butterfly or some other creature that has invaded her territory, causing Ryan to cry all the more. We struggle through feeding the children, then take turns watching them in the playroom while we each attempt to eat some breakfast ourselves. At 7AM, we try and put both of them back down for a nap, hoping they will sleep some before going to church. Doesn't work. They both just cry. We again take turns guarding, I mean watching, the children while the other gets showered and dressed. Finally, just before we need to leave the house to be on time to church, they both fall asleep. We put them in the car, thankful for a little peace and quiet as we drive to church. We wake them as we arrive 10 minutes late to church. We get out of the car, frazzled, but put on our best church smile as a parking lot greeter comes over to help us. Ryan spits up on my shirt. I look at my wife and say, "Oh well." We finally make it to our assigned place to walk into the service for baby dedication, only to have our daughter screaming that she wants to go on the playground. We bribe her with a promise of ice cream, or a sucker, or a bar of gold from Fort Knox - anything to hush her up before going into big church. We finally walk in with the other families and...

both children are perfect during the entire dedication.

Please walk up to us afterwards and say, "Aren't your children just the most well behaved?" We smile and give our nod of approval to this myth.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between these two scenarios. Either way, I'm looking forward to being, "Just a Dad," and promising, along with the other dads, that I will raise my child in a Godly household, regardless of which scene becomes my reality.

Top Ten Ways You Can Know You Are Baptist

The church I pastor is an amazing family of people who are trying their best to follow Christ and believe that we can do it better together than alone. We are not perfect (not even close, really), and do not pretend to be so. But we sincerely believe that the biggest need of the human heart can be found in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We unabashedly invite others to be a part of our faith family, not because we want to be a bigger church, but because we truly believe that we can help them find answers to the big questions of life.

Because of this desire to connect others with God, we made the decision to break down any barriers which might prevent someone from taking that first step of visiting our church. We discovered that one of those barriers can be denominational structure. There is a generation today that has, with good reason, become quite cynical toward religious organizations. They've seen the news and they've read about the scandals, and so many of them have completely written off organized religion. With that in mind, we intentionally made the decision to not emphasize our particular denomination. This was not a "right" or "wrong" decision; just one that we strongly believed was right for our family of faith.

Having said that, our church is Baptist, both in our teaching and in our practice. We have many in our church who come from a variety of denominations - Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist - and are quite proud of their heritage, but now have found this to be a place where they are able to grow closer to God. In the same way, many in our church grew up Baptist and are proud of their heritage. While I personally was not raised in a Baptist church, it was in a Baptist church that my faith in and understanding of God really began to grow.

All that is just background for you to know that I'm Baptist and I have the great privilege of serving as the pastor of a Baptist church. So the following is not meant to offend anyone, just something that I came up with one day while I was running on a treadmill and my mind began to wander. If this list offends you in any way, then please accept in advance my apologies.

Top Ten Ways You Know You Are A Baptist

10. Your church has 400 members, but the FBI and Post Office together cannot find 100 of them.

9. If hearing the joke, "How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?" makes you respond, "Change?!? My grandmother gave that light bulb to this church 50 years ago! You'd better not change anything!"

8. Your version of the Bible says that instead of locust and honey, John the Baptist “ate fried chicken and drank sweet tea.”

7. At your last business meeting, there were 25 people and 30 opinions.

6. Gossip is not a sin as long as it is preceded with the phrase, "This is a prayer request" or "bless his heart." (i.e., "Pray for Sam, bless his heart, I saw him at... I mean, I heard that he was at a bar last night.")

5. Your church has a smoking porch for the deacons.

4. You have reserved seats in your worship service.

3. You have ever wondered when your church will finally pay off those loans to Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon.

2. You have ever sung all 74 verses of "Just As I Am."

1. You believe that Baptists will have their own section in Heaven!