Next weekend I’m leading a retreat for the high school students of Carlisle Brethren in Christ Church. We’re calling it “Curious” and the goal of the weekend is to get students to think about their faith.

Within a few short years, every single one of these students will be leaving high school to begin college or a new career. If they haven’t thought about their faith by then, they’ll certainly be forced to do so quickly. We want to give them the tools to question everything.

College almost wrecked my faith. I questioned God, Christianity, the problem of evil, faith vs. science, the eternal destiny of every person, etc. For a long time I wasn’t sure where I would land.

Did I mention I went to a Christian school?

If I hadn’t discovered the tools to think for myself I likely wouldn’t still be in the church today. We want to begin crafting that in these students.

So this is where I need your help: put yourself back in high school. What do you wish you would have known about doubt, questioning, your faith, the Bible, etc. that would have been helpful as you entered your college years? If you felt inadequately prepared to face the world with your version of Christianity, what would have aided you in thinking for yourself?

Please put your responses in the comments section. Feel free to post anonymously if you feel the need.

Much could be said about the biography, but I wanted to draw your attention to what might appear an insignificant event toward the beginning of the book. Isaacson is explaining Jobs’s faith background and shares this encounter between a young Steve and his pastor:

Even though they were not fervent about their faith, Jobs’s parents wanted him to have a religious upbringing, so they took him to the Lutheran church most Sundays. That came to an end when he was thirteen. In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church’s pastor. “If I raise my finger, will God know which one I’m going to raise even before I do it?”

The pastor answered, “Yes, God knows everything.”

Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, “Well, does God know about this and what’s going to happen to those children?”

“Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.”

Jobs announced that he didn’t want to have anything to do with worshipping such a God, and he never went back to church.

It’s likely that Steve’s pastor never gave a second thought to this encounter; that it appeared to him an insignificant question posed by a young teenager who was incapable of wrestling with a substantial answer. And yet decades later Steve Jobs thought enough of the event to recall it to his biographer.

As a pastor I want to be so very mindful of the “Steve Jobs moments” that may come my way: opportunities to pray with someone, answer someone, or take their concerns and questions seriously. We never know how thoughtless comments or underestimating a child might affect them for the rest of their lives.

In many respects we don’t have complete control over these encounters. I’m sure Jobs’s pastor didn’t intend to underestimate the intellect of the child who asked the difficult question. I’m sure there was much more behind Steve’s decision to leave Christianity than this one encounter. But I’m also sure we should make every effort to be mindful of the Kingdom moments that present themselves to us; moments we have the opportunity to enter into as we go about our days.

May you be awake and mindful of your next “Steve Jobs moment.”

After all, this is the same Jesus who just a few chapters beforehand had taken it upon himself to wash the feet of his disciples. Imagine — God in flesh; the very one who flung the stars into space, who formed our planet and breathed the breath of life into mankind living and walking among us. The same hands that healed the blind, calmed the storm, raised the dead . . . washing feet.

The Creator serving the creation.

And then this teaching in John 13:14-15 — “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Simply put: if the God of the universe is willing to wash the feet of his servants, shouldn’t we do the same?

Then we find Jesus in John 19, and this part of the story is really good. Jesus Christ, the suffering servant, has been beaten so severely that he is barely alive. He’s hanging on a cross naked and shamed with a sarcastic sign above his head calling him the “King of the Jews” and mocking his entire life’s work. His closest followers have abandoned him, his miracles have been forgotten, and many of the people who had been crying out “Hosanna” on Monday had changed their chant to “crucify him” by Friday. He is the epitome of a misunderstood, wrongfully accused, and isolated leader.

Pastor, youth minister, worship leader: I don’t know what ways you’ll be mistreated at some point in your ministries, but I feel pretty certain about this — you’ll never find yourself in a more hopeless situation than this.

Our human reaction to bumpy stretches of road in our life is fairly predictable. We feel sorry for ourselves, we begin to focus inwardly, and we stop looking out for others as we brace ourselves for the bumpy ride and hope it will end soon.

And this is why John 19 is incredible. While hanging on the cross, struggling for breath, Jesus sees his mother and the disciple John standing nearby. He turns to Mary and says, “Woman, here is your son.” To John he says, “Here is your mother.”

We’re told that John looked after Mary from that day forward.

Hanging on a cross, dying in agony, the weight of the world on his shoulders, Jesus looked out for someone else. Protected his mother. He served someone.

Christian leaders — there will be times over the course of your ministry when you are tempted to turn inward and feel sorry for yourself. I’ve been in ministry long enough to have experienced and even fallen to that urge on more than one occasion.

But here is the honest truth: it’s not about you. You don’t have to rise up in an angry fit of righteous indignation because it’s not about you. You don’t have to assert your leadership credentials in the fitful hope of forcing someone’s respect because it’s not about you.

What you must do is follow the Suffering Servant, give your life to your people, and love them regardless of circumstances. Sometimes this will mean that you can’t stay. Sometimes it will mean that you’ll lose “power”. Sometimes it will even be perceived as weak.

But when forced to choose between clinging to position / setting the record straight / feeling sorry for ourselves or loving others with the very heart of God, may we follow our Suffering Servant and count our earthly losses as Kingdom gains.

^{photo credit: Matthew Baker}

These bills would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA. The fallout of passing these bills would likely effect this website and others that you’ve come to rely on for information: Google, Wikipedia, Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, etc. That’s why I’m joining these and many other websites today who are trying to get the word out about how devastating this legislation could be for the internet as we know it.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

For more information, please watch this short video on what PIPA and SOPA will do:

King’s message on equality usually gets stressed but his more fundamental call to love indiscriminately and to refuse violence is forgotten.

Boyd’s tweet reminded me to post one of my favorite quotes from Dr. King’s essay, Where Do We Go from Here?:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

And as my friend David Calavan points out, if you’ve never read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, you really owe it to yourself to give it a read.

May the words of Dr. King find lodging in your heart this day.

The Bible verse above – quoted in the New International Edition, for ease of comprehension – says it all: Don’t make a show of your religion. There it is, unequivocal, clear as a daylight, and even – if you read the whole chapter – spelled out in great, almost excessive, detail. This is the same Bible that lies at the root of Tebow’s faith, supposedly; the book to which he makes frequent reference.

I’ve been following the Tebow story with a degree of fascination all season, as I’m sure many of you have. Frankly, if you’re a football fan, it’s been difficult to avoid it. Last week Time Magazine argued that Tim Tebow had a more prominent platform for speaking about Christ than any pastor or evangelist.

As one of the most influential believers in the United States, should Christians support Tebow?

Christians who are giving Tebow a hard time over Matthew 6:5-6 need to understand the passage in its proper context and historical situation. As Skye Jethani points out, Jesus doesn’t strictly prohibit public prayer. Rather, it is hypocritical prayer that Jesus is concerned with: those of us who would pretend to pray publicly with the motive of appearing more righteous than we are.

Jesus, after all, frequently prayed in public before meals and while listeners were gathered around. As a result his followers asked him to train them in prayer (Luke 11:1). If the motivation is coming from a true relationship with God that is simply overflowing into many facets of his life, Tebow seems to be standing on firm ground.

I don’t know Tim Tebow, but he seems like a good kid. He was mic’d up during a recent game and seemed genuinely kind and caring whether he was throwing a touchdown pass or getting ground into the turf by a 300-pound lineman. I’ve heard him thank God for the ability to play football, but I’ve never heard him say that God grants him victories (or losses). I believe it’s likely that his faith is genuine and I know for a fact that he has a huge platform to influence others.

So maybe instead of criticizing Tebow we should pray for him. He has the opportunity to talk about Jesus and have millions of people hear him. The temptation in his profession to walk away from God or to live immorally is astronomically high.

I hope he’s successful, but more importantly I pray that his fidelity to Christ remains strong regardless of how his career turns out.

But I’ll still be rooting for the Steelers.

A few things.

First of all, I’ll be linking to more things that I find interesting and making brief comments about them instead of every article being solely what I’m studying or what I’m thinking about. Those posts tend to be faster to write and hopefully they’re interesting reads for some of you.

Also, I’ve got a new podcast on iTunes. I was trying to figure out the best way to allow access to all the teaching I do and have done, and the simplest way was to create a feed that ties it all together. In a few months when we launch the new Carlisle Brethren in Christ Church website and podcast I’ll be sure and link to that as well. But I’ll probably keep this as it will also include teaching I do at retreats and other places, as well as occasional audio I may produce just for the podcast feed.

Finally, I’ve enabled a great way to subscribe to the blog. You can sign up for a weekly digest that will be delivered to your email inbox every Monday afternoon with the articles you may have missed from the week before. You can sign up for that in the sidebar or at this link.

I’m still working out the kinks in the new site, so if something doesn’t work for you please let me know. Also, if you’re using Internet Explorer 6 and something doesn’t work for you, please stop using that browser.

I’m looking forward to interacting with you guy.

Shalom,
Josh Crain
January 2012

The extremely short version of our story is that after serving our beloved Milestone Church in Springfield, Missouri for the past 3.5 years, Emily and I felt called to pastor a church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It was one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make and we have/will miss our friends in Springfield dearly.

Since November I’ve been pastoring Carlisle Brethren in Christ Church. What we’re doing here is a bit unconventional, so I’ll try and lay it out for you.

In the 1990s and beyond many churches were experiencing a shift in their worship styles. In an unfortunate number of churches, this shift led to infighting and bickering that literally tore the church apart.

At Carlisle BIC the decision was made to have multiple services occurring concurrently instead. One congregation would meet in the sanctuary with traditional music and another congregation would meet simultaneously in the auditorium with modern music. The preaching pastor would alternate weeks between the sanctuary and auditorium; while he was in one room he was simulcast live via video to the other room. For years this has worked well for them.

A while back the church’s senior pastor and leadership team decided it would be best going forward to bring on separate pastors for the two congregations: one for the modern/auditorium and another for the traditional/sanctuary. As these two groups have developed a different feel and ethos from one another, it was thought that each group having their own pastor would be better for teaching, discipleship, and pastoral care within the bodies.

I was asked to come on board as the lead pastor of the modern/auditorium congregation. Recently the decision was made to have the church’s senior pastor, Alan Robinson, remain as the lead pastor for the traditional/sanctuary congregation. For the next several months we’re sharing preaching duties as we prepare to end the simulcast and officially split the two congregations up this April on Easter Sunday.

So that’s where we are and what we’re doing. I’ll have a lot more to say about all of this in the coming weeks and months; for now I can tell you that we’ve been welcomed with open arms by our new church family and that we’re truly excited about what the coming years hold for us.

It just so happens that Emily is a wanted criminal in the state of Texas.

We were sure there must have been a mistake. After all, my wife put her criminal history behind her long ago. Plus she’s had multiple background checks, received a license in Missouri, etc. in the last several years.

They gave us a phone number to call, which was better than arresting her. After playing phone roulette for about an hour they were finally able to tell us what the deal was.

Did she remember receiving a speeding ticket seven years ago in Van Zandt County?

Yes, she did. That ticket was pretty memorable. She was speeding and got busted. The next day we were in the car together trying to figure out how to pay for it (we were broke college students) when she handed me the ticket to read some fine print. I was driving, and when I looked at the ticket for a moment I missed a speed limit sign.

Thirty seconds later I was pulled over by a police officer for speeding and ticketed. All of which I blame Emily for.

So within 24 hours we had each received a speeding ticket. And it was Emily’s fault.

Thankfully our good friend Anna Calavan had recently received a speeding ticket as well, so we all decided to take defensive driving together to get our tickets expunged. We chose one that was supposed to be led by a comedian who would make it fun.

You know when someone isn’t funny but they keep trying to be and it just becomes sad and depressing after awhile? And maybe a little repulsive? Yeah…that for 3 hours.

So we took care of our tickets in a vile and dehumanizing way.

Seven years later we find out that the comedian/defensive driver instructor didn’t handle her paperwork correctly and my wife is now wanted in Texas for failing to pay a speeding ticket.

After explaining this to the judge over the phone, he felt bad for us and decided to drop it.

But after being married to a hardened criminal for the past seven years I’m just worried that the next seven won’t quite measure up.

My parents are David and Betty Crain. My father is an evangelist, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to be away from home for several days of the month. The biggest problem with my father being gone was that it left my mother alone with me and all of my rebellion.

This many years removed I feel quite a bit of sympathy for her.

This is going to come as a surprise to many of you, but my mother was a stubborn child. She insisted on her own way, she didn’t have much respect for authority, and she was constantly testing the boundaries of what she could get away with. By the time I was old enough to argue, my mom had accumulated almost 30 years of experience being stubborn.

I never stood a chance.

For years my mom did the diligent, faithful work of a loving mother: she put me in my place. She persistently reminded me that I was not in charge. She struck that careful balance that so many parents struggle to maintain between letting your kids know that you love and adore them but refusing to let them walk all over you.

A few years ago my mom told me a secret she never would have told me when I was a teenager: “Josh, there were so many times when you were growing up and we were fighting that I just wanted to say, ‘Fine. Do whatever you want’. But I knew if I caved in just one time that you would take it as an opportunity to always try and win.”

A lot of moms wouldn’t have fought that kind of battle. A lot of moms would have given up and their children would have suffered for it.

My mom fought.

In November of 2011 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. As the weeks passed the news kept getting worse: they found 3 tumors, it’s the most aggressive type of breast cancer, she’ll have to take chemotherapy for at least a year. It’s not easy to keep your morale high when you never seem to get good news.

As I write this in January of 2012 the prognosis is still a good one. It’s going to be a long, hard road, but the doctors believe she’ll be fine as long as she’s willing to fight.

Thankfully, that’s what she does best.

You see, this is going to come as a surprise to many of you, but my mother is a stubborn adult.

Cancer doesn’t stand a chance.