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afeature, Christian Athletes, Culture

The perils of being a Christian athlete

In an electrifying game the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers to become Super Bowl champions of 2013. As Baltimore holds celebrations for their winning sons, reporters will look to uncover any tantalizing details into strategy that won the big game.

Case in point, The Washington Post covered a rumor concerning Ray Lewis‘ use of deer velvet antler spray to win. What!?! This takes performance enhancing drugs to a whole new level. Lewis’ response?

Don’t let people from the outside ever try to disturb what’s inside.’ That’s the trick of the devil. The trick of the devil is to kill, steal and destroy. That’s what he comes to do. He comes to distract you from everything you’re trying to do.

Lewis’ faith in God has been well covered. One particular article on his faith in the The New York Times caught my attention with the tile, “A Sinner Holds Tight to Faith And Second Chance.” The article comes right out and jams the two extremes of Lewis’ life: his faith in God and his run ins with the law. During a 2000 Super Bowl party, Lewis was implicated in the murders of two people. The charges were dropped on the condition he pleaded to obstruction of justice and testify at the murder trial. The reporter very clearly had a grasp of Lewis’ conflicted life:

During an interview last year at about this time, I asked Lewis which biblical figure he most closely identified with. Without hesitation, Lewis cited David, who is often depicted as a flawed but righteous king, warrior, musician and poet.

To many, Lewis is seen as hypocrite. He talks about God publicly but his actions do not speak well of his character or faithfulness. Ray Lewis describes himself as David. Perhaps this is a fitting image. A king of the football world, but is flawed by his temptations and behavior. However, this is the peril of being a famous Christian athlete. You struggle with doing the right thing but your mistakes are broadcasted around the world. More than the average person.

There are other more “clean faced” Christian athletes. That is, their failures are smaller, just well hidden, or minimized. Tim Tebow, Kurt Warner, Jeremy Lin (remember Linsanity?), and Robert Griffin III just to name a few. If any of those guys ever did something wrong, the criticism would be great because the public knows of their Christianity and would be judge more harshly. Why? Because they wear their faith on their sleeve. Their fall from glory is greater because they are viewed as being more virtuous and religious. Those players have told the world they answer to a higher power and our culture sets the piety bar higher.

Ray Lewis, for example, is a guy – a Christian – who tries to follow God. He sins. He fails.  He repents. He is forgiven. He wins football games. He is no better or worse Christian than you or I.  He admits his journey on the road of faith is not an example of piety:

“Trust me, don’t ever take my path… Don’t ever do it the way I did it, because everyone won’t make it. You got to be willing to walk in a storm. That’s what I tell people all the time. If there’s something in your life that you know needs changing, make sure you change it before God’s got to change it. Because if God’s got to change it, you ain’t going to like it.”

The perils of being a Christian professional athlete abound. Let’s not judge them with a higher standard just because they are famous a Christian.   Abraham, Issac, Moses, David, Paul, and Peter all made sinful mistakes. They were called by God to lead God’s people. We tend to remember their successes but not their failures. Just because a professional athlete is a Christian it doesn’t automatically called to role model leaders for Christianity.

afeature, Church Leadership

Should a dying church be repurposed?

It seems that I’m stuck on thinking about dying or dead churches. Why so grim, Alan? That is a good question. It seems that folks are interested in talking about this topic. For some odd reason, I’ve been thinking about struggling churches lately. Perhaps it is because I’m writing a second book on a related topic. I’m blessed with a growing and fruitful congregation to lead, but other pastors find themselves in a different situation.

Here in Albany, there are a number of congregations (mostly Catholic) who are closing their doors or selling property. According to the Albany diocese, 20% of churches will be closed. One church in particular, St. Patrick’s, is facing a flight from a group to stop the razing of the church. Some want to turn the church into a brewery or consider another purpose instead of a site for a supermarket.

Overit Media in Albany is housed in a former church.

Churches that closed are often bought as private homes, turned into a business, or sometimes bought by another church. I’m sure the members of a closed or closing church don’t want their structure turned into a pub or demolished to make way for a parking lot. Overit Media in Albany is one example of a church building turned business building.

Instead of closing or tearing down a church completely, is there another way?

A recent article from the Economist brought forward an idea that is growing. Since 1980, the Church of England has closed over 1,000 churches. That’s a lot of congregations and people. What can be done to reverse the trend? The idea goes something like this: keep the church building operating and functional, but repurposed the building so that services can be held while housing. The article sites some successful examples:

But there is a new mood in the Church of England… The plan is to turn the church into a community centre that will continue to hold religious services. This has worked elsewhere: Michaelhouse café in Cambridge… serves cappuccinos during the week but the building reverts to its original use as St Michael’s church on Sundays. In Hereford, Bath and York, working churches double as coffee shops, crèches and stores.

Could repurposing a church revive a church and help spawn new life through becoming a center for religious and cultural life? Doubling as a coffee shop and a church? Doubling as a library and a church? Doubling as a cultural center and a church? It is an exciting idea, but it is not a new one. Early church monastic communities featured gardens, centers of learning, and made money by selling goods that monks made.

But, how far could this concept go? Is it making a marketplace out of God’s house of worship or it is following where God is calling us to “be” the presence of Christ?

Read. Respond. Render.

afeature, Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong and confession

After years of doping allegations, Lance Armstrong finally came clean… or mostly.

After denying that he cheated, the famed cyclist admitted to using blood transfusions and a cocktail of drugs to cheat. Armstrong admitted to lying as millions tuned in to watch Oprah asked all the questions we wanted to ask. For months, shock and anger have been the reaction of choice to the man who founded an organization to “Live Strong” but cheated.  In the end, Armstrong paid a price by losing endorsement deals, stepping down from his charity, and facing humiliation.

Coming clean with a confession is no easy task. Especially when you are a celebrity and you do it on national television. Or, is it?

Armstrong told Oprah things like:

I didn’t invent the culture, but I didn’t try to stop the culture.

I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust and apologize to people.

I lied.

With critics saying that this interview was not enough, how does one really confess wrong doing? With news media asking if Armstrong is the “biggest liar”, how does one go about sharing the truth?

In a world where CEOs who wrongly milked millions out of companies only to retire comfortable while workers lose their 401k’s, the public’s strong reaction against people like Armstrong is reasonable. Celebrities, politicians, and the wealthy seem to get a break that most of us don’t receive.

When most people confess, it is hard and ugly. They have to face the people who they have wronged. When Lance Armstrong wants to confess, he goes on Oprah. He doesn’t face his fans, teammates, or those who he lied to. Instead, he gets a mega celebrity who wants to ride on the notoriety.

Is that a real confession?

I serve in a Christian tradition where there isn’t a standard of private confession to a priest. However, wrong doers must face the people that they have wronged and there must be an effort for reconciliation by both parties (James 5:16). If we want to be forgiven of any wrong we have done, then we must forgive others (John 20:23). Forgiveness is a two way street.

Confession of wrong doing isn’t only about coming clean. It is about restoration. It looks something like this:

Wrong doing -> Confessing of wrong doing -> Forgiveness -> Restoration of relationship -> Healing

Let’s be real about this. This process doesn’t happen in an instant. It may take days, weeks, months, and maybe years. God forgives easily but humans take longer.

For most of us, we can’t go on television and confess. We can’t have a one sided conversation of confession. We face the ugly and messy task of owning up to our mistakes and facing those who we have wrong. That’s not easy but it is the right thing to do.

afeature, marriage

Does God Promise You a Spouse?

Does God promise you a spouse in the Bible?

...that was the question that Rob Eagar over at thelife.com proposed recently.  His post tried to answer this question in the affirmative.   Many evangelicals through the years have often painted a picture that God promises a spouse to all believers.  Except there is one problem, no where in scripture does God make this promise.

Eagar said:

Does God promise us a spouse? The Bible says “yes” by describing Christians as the spiritual bride of Christ. Our true spouse is Jesus. Yet, many of us say, “I’m glad to be spiritually married to Christ, but I can’t feel Him. Wouldn’t it be better if I could enjoy God’s love with someone else? I want Jesus with skin on.” So, we pray for God to bring us an earthly mate.

This type of theology has created a generation of frustrated Christian singles.  No where in scripture does God promise a wife or husband to a believer on the sole basis that they are a Christian.   Christians are not the spiritual bride of Christ.  The spiritual bride of Christ is the Church (ecclesia).  Some would say Christians make up the church, thus Christ is our bride.  Maybe (that is pretty loose theology), but not in the erotic sense.  However, scripture is clear where we get this “bridal theology” from, such as  Ephesians 5:25:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Here, Paul speaks about the love that exists between a husband and wife and mirrors that love in non-erotic language (Paul uses agapate to describe this love) to describe the relationship between the Church and Jesus.  Agnieszka Tennant, writing for CT, posted this article about the over use of love language with Christ.   Her most telling quote reveals the trouble with the over use of the love language of God:

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