David Whiting Live

Thinking Biblically about Haiti

I would guess that I've received an average of five emails every day about Haiti since the earthquake. The primary request is concerning missionaries or pastors who are in Haiti, asking for their safety. The second common request is for the rescue/safety of the Haitian people.

And both of those requests are appropriate, I'm sure. But I keep finding myself bothered by many of the email requests... not that they are bad... but that they aren't enough.

I wish I were seeing requests like this:

• "PRAISE God that Haiti has one of the highest rates of missionaries per capita in the world!" I just read an article that said that it seems there are missionaries on almost every plane that lands in Haiti. One author said, "It seems that half of every plane is missionaries headed to Haiti." Maybe this earthquake is the very reason there are SO many missionaries in Haiti!
• PRAISE God that 1) as creation is "groaning as in the pains of childbirth" and 2) as creation is longing to be "liberated from its bondage to decay" (Romans 1:29-22) - YET God is still in control!
• Here was a prayer request I received this morning that made my heart rejoice:
  

  "Many of you have likely heard that the US Navy is sending some ships down to Haiti to help in the rescue and relief efforts.  My nephew Tim is on the USS Bataan and they were sent down this week as well.  Their ship is a smaller version of an aircraft carrier.
  

  Please pray that they will be able to help in whatever ways they can as the people of Haiti who survived move beyond this tragedy.  I would also ask you to pray for my nephew that God who enlarge his heart for the broken and hurting in our world and that God's compassion would fill him."

So - let's keep praying for the safety of missionaries, pastors and people. But let's start by praising God that He is in control of creation, and let's praise him that SO MANY pastors and missionaries are there! This may be the VERY REASON that Haiti has so many pastors, missionaries, and ministries! God sent them there!

So let's pray (biblically), let's give (sacrificially), and let's think (theologically)!

Tiger Woods - Comments by Brit Hume

You really need to see this video. On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume, the Fox News Senior Political Analyst, makes some comments about Tiger Woods and how he can "recover" from his recent troubles.

Brit's answer has caused A LOT of stir in news people.  You REALLY need to watch this video!!  I LOVE it when committed Christians speak what they REALLY believe.  How awesome!  Take a look!

If you receive this by email - make sure you click on the title above to see the video.

Why No Cantata on Sunday?

In the last week, I've been asked a couple of times why we don't do Christmas cantatas (although I'm not really sure what that word means - it 'feels' Spanish).

I've talked about this before, but thought it may be a good reminder.  The bottom line reason is that we want holiday Sundays to feel as much like a "normal" Sunday as possible. Here are some of the specific reasons we don't do cantatas at Northridge:

• We don't want someone to get invited to a special Sunday, be impressed, then come the next week and have it be TOTALLY different. It would feel like a "bait and switch."
• We think however a church "wins" people is how we best "keep" people.  If someone is attracted to God and His Gospel through our "normal" preaching and singing - then they will most likely stay around when the holiday is over.  But if someone is attracted to God and His Gospel through church softball, large outreach events, or cantatas - they rarely "stick" when it comes to long-term discipleship. We want to "win" people in the same way that we "keep" people. 
• Most church cantatas I've seen only impress "insiders." Especially on Sundays where more visitors will likely attend, we want to be sure that we are thinking about how "outsiders" may hear and see something (1 Corinthians 14:23 seems to indicate we should at least consider this). Our culture has Hollywood expectations, and often "insiders" can be as easily pleased as parents attending their elementary child's piano recital. It's only parents that love piano recitals. And it is only insiders who love cantatas.
• The amount of man-hours to pull of a quality cantata is huge... for a one-hour program. Just do the math. Imagine a choir of 50 with 15 practices that last 90 minutes each. That is a total of 1125 ministry hours to prepare for a program that is typical "insider" friendly and "outsider" unfriendly (unless the outsider grew up in church attending Christmas cantatas). Imagine what could be done with over a thousand extra ministry man-hours!

So - that is why Christmas Sunday felt like most every other Sunday. On holiday Sundays - the goal is the same. The target is the same. I have nothing against Easter or Christmas plays or cantatas. We just don't think they best serve our purposes at this point in our church's ministry.

"Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays" - part 2

Just one more thought on this topic... (see yesterday's post HERE)

I DO think that Christmas needs to be reclaimed. But I don't think it needs to be reclaimed from retailers who say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." I think Christmas needs to be reclaimed from the entire rat-race nature of the Christmas season.

We tell our children that Christmas is about peace, joy and love being found in Christ, but then we spend the month of December doing nothing but running from one commitment to another - spending too much money - being impatient and irritable - and not very happy or forgiving.

So - I'm not sure we need to fight the "Happy Holidays" debate... Instead, let's fight allowing ourselves to be distracted from finding our joy, peace, and hope in Christ! And if it is a busy time of year - it ought to be busy in the way that it is one special celebration after another that we enjoy, love, and helps us better remember Emmanuel ("God with us.").

There is nothing wrong with the gifts, trees, lights, cookies, parties, music, stockings, shopping, food, etc... if it ENHANCES our enjoyment of this time of year and points out the specialness of celebrating the coming of Christ. But if, in the process, we grow in impatience, irritability, and intolerance - then maybe we are missing the point.+

I hope we see you on Christmas Eve at 5:00 or 6:30 at Northridge for a final focus-adjustment before Christmas!

"Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays"

As I mentioned on Sunday, the "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays" debate is one I'm not very interested in pursuing. There are Christian organizations that push "letter writing" campaigns to various companies or even to boycott companies that won't say "Merry Christmas." I hadn't planned on saying anything about that on Sunday - so my thoughts weren't organized very well. So I thought I'd organize my thoughts a bit better here:

Here are four main reasons that I don't think this is a fight worth having:

• If companies use "Merry Christmas" to get my business - I'm not interested. I don't want to be manipulated.
• If unbelievers are using "Merry Christmas" to get Christians to shop at their store, aren't we helping them use our Lord's name in vain? Using God's name in vain simply means using God's name in a meaningless way.
• When anyone says, "Happy Holidays" to me - it hints to me that perhaps (not certainly) they don't know the hope that can be found in Christ. So when someone says "Happy Holidays" - it gives me a reason to pray for them not be annoyed with them or their employer.
• I'm tired of Christians being known for what we are against, what we are opposed to and what makes us "mad." What happened to "they will know us by our love?" Instead, it seems, they know us by our anger at "them" (whoever "them" is). Don't get me wrong - I know there are times to be against something and we have to use strong words spoken in love. But I'm not sure this debate rises to that level.

All that doesn't mean that it isn't sad that this is an issue. It IS sad that our culture has moved far enough away from Christian values that saying, "Merry Christmas" is a debate in our country. That is sad, but the solution is NOT to fight to make the phrase used by everyone - believers and non-believers alike.

So - no matter if someone says to me, "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" - I will respond the same way, "Merry Christmas." And I will do it with a smile and with great meaning. I pray they come to know the joy I have found in Christ.

Getting Spanked for Paying My Bills

Have you heard? Bank of America is going to charge "a small number of customers an annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99."  It seems that the ones that will get charged are the people that pay their bills in full every month. 

Citigroup is now charging annual fees - if you don't charge at least $2400 annually.  Other banks are charging inactivity fees if customers don't use their credit cards during a specific period of time.  One article estimated that if you pay your bill every month in full - you won't be able to find a credit card with no annual fee within one year.  That will REALLY frustrate me.

In other words - if they don't make enough money off of you (through interest payments or through percentages made off of your purchases) - they will find another way to make money off of you. My dad always taught me to pay off my credit card bill every month.  I've never carried a credit card balance - ever. And because I've used credit cards responsibly, I'm going to get penalized. There is something very frustrating about that.

A majority of my purchases are with a debit card, but I still use a credit card regularly.  I earn miles and there is no annual fee. If that changes - I will be bummed.

This really does have a point... I'll make it tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of thinking about debit cards and credit cards and our culture's addiction to stuff which causes them to live beyond their means.

How Honest Are You?

Do you remember the plane that landed in the Hudson River in January?  US Airways Flight 1549 crash landed safely in the middle of the Hudson thanks for Pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.  In the wreckage was a book Sullenberger checked out of his local library near Danville, California.  He contacted library officials to ask for an extension and a waiver on overdue fees so he could replace it. The librarians were struck by his strong sense of responsibility considering the circumstances in which the book was lost.

I was happy to hear - the library waived all fess, bought a replacement, and dedicated the replacement book to Captain Sullenberger. It's more than coincidental that the books' subject matter was professional ethics.

Angels and Demons

The movie Angels and Demons has just recently been released.  It is based on the book by Dan Brown (who also wrote The DaVinci Code). While The DaVinci Code was a direct attack on the Person of Christ, Angels and Demons is more of an attack on The Roman Catholic Church.  Yet, throughout the book, there are attacks on many things pertaining to Christianity.

Throughout the novel, Dan Brown brings up many issues that very important to us as Christ-followers.  And although "only a novel", Dan Brown clearly attempts to teach the following:

• Science answers ultimate questions.
• The future of "religion"
• The "myth" of God's Creation of the world
• Religion's fear of science
• The "myth" of the Bible being God's Word

Reading Angels and Demons - you will clearly see his attack on Roman Catholicism.  But ultimately, he also assaults things that are very important to us.

I ran across a website that may be of interest to you if you hear people talking about the book or movie.  It may be worth checking out.  You can find it HERE.

New York Times had an interesting Op-ed piece about the movie.  You can read that HERE.  I really like the last paragraph of the article, "For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both."

I like animals, I really do, but COME ON...

Most of you have heard the story of Michael Vick. He just completed a two-year prison term because of a dogfighting conspiracy. For the next two months he will be on home confinement - except for church attendance and work.  He will be holding a construction job. He desires to get back into NFL, but many are saying that he should have a lifetime ban from the NFL. It seems, from what I read, that a majority of people feel he shouldn't be allowed to play football again.

And what bothers me about that is the story of Leonard Little.

Little is a NFL player for the St. Louis Rams.  He got drunk after a birthday party, got behind the wheel of a car and ended up killing another woman. He pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, served 90 days in jail and went right back to the NFL. He was arrested again later for drunk driving, but he still plays for the Rams.

I just don't quite understand why Leonard Little takes a life because of a conscious decision to drink and drive and he still plays in the NFL. Michael Vick is guilty of cruelty to animals and many feel he should receive a lifetime ban from the game. What Vick has done is horrible and if being a felon automatically results in a lifetime ban from the sport, I'd be okay with that. But it is the inconsistency in people's judgments that bothers me. 

Am I looking too deeply into this to say that it is a result of our culture no longer believing that human beings are made in the image of God?  Am I reading too much into it to say that this is the result of a belief in atheistic evolution?  If atheistic evolution is true - why are human beings more valuable than dogs? They aren't because we are all here by chance - not by the special design and creation of The Creator.

In fact, it almost seems - based on these two stories - that perhaps the dogs are more valuable than people.

Christian Homophobes - part 4

Final post on this topic (at least for now)... You can click on the following to read PART 1, PART 2, or PART 3.

Here are three things I wish every Christ-follower would think about before responding to an issue of homosexuality:

• Don't expect those far from God to live as if they are Christ-followers.  We do NOT live in a Christian nation any longer.  Let's not pretend we do.  You can see THIS post where I talk about that a little bit. What eternal good happens if people who are headed for eternal judgment live morally? If anything, it only gives them more confidence that their "good deeds" will merit them eternal life. I think we expect lost people to live like lost people. It doesn't mean we rejoice in it, but we expect it.
• Ask yourself this question, "Would I feel or respond differently if this were a man and a woman instead of two men or two women?" I think that would help Christ-followers be more consistent in their responses. 
• Finally, the goal MUST be to live out being like Jesus - full of grace AND Truth (John 1:14). Most Christ-followers will naturally emphasize one of the two.  Either they will emphasize grace at the expense of truth, or truth without grace.  Either one is wrong and a misrepresentation of Jesus and His Way.

When and if our family member ever comes to Christ - my hope is that they would look back and say, "I knew without a doubt that David did not agree with my lifestyle according to his belief in God and the Bible, but I also knew that he loved me very much. "I think this is a really hard balance to actually live out.  But if my family member ever says that one day, it would be one of the greatest compliments of my life.

May we TRULY be Christ-followers and walk in His ways.