April 18, 2009

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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After playing my first 18 of 2009 with Del and Dan and really ____ing (scroll down for the preceding KD to fill in the blank), I played 9 with my favorite Special Olympics state, national, and world golf champion Billy.

Using another word for how I had ____ed so badly with Del and Dan, euphemisms soften the pain of really ____ing at something, I called Billy before we played and said, "I'm gonna have to figure out which clubs to put in the bag this year or I'm going to be really, uh, awful this year."

Billy said, "Just use the ones that give you good shots."

I hadn't thought of that.

So I went into the basement and pulled out my old Ping Zing lobber (61 degrees), Cleveland 588 SW (56 degrees), dumped the hybrids and restored my 2, 3, and 4 to the rest of my Mizuno MP-32 family, and picked up Billy.

Though I'm still regretting selling that Taylor Made GBD 12 degree stiff driver for my Nike SQ that looks like a Smart Car on steroids and that first generation pre-Anser Ping putter that looked hollow but was equally useful from both sides and made that distinctive, uh, ping sound that prompted Karsten to go with the name, uh, Ping for his company, I didn't ____ when I played with Billy.

Hmm.

I guess it's like I tell married couples: "The grass is greener where it's watered."

If that doesn't work, I say, "Your greener pasture was somebody else's brown field."

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And for all of you geezers like me who don't like to say you ____ when you really ____ like religion apart from Jesus, a soul sister wrote, "By the way, thanks for explaining why the word sucks is offensive. I could never understand why people from your generation don't like it. It never occurred to me it had that connotation. It just always meant something was really awful. Maybe I'm too naive. Or maybe you 60s dudes just have dirty minds!"

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Speaking of ____ing, what's up with PBHO's chick at Homeland Security?

Pro-lifers and vets are now terrorist threats?

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I think people who go around rejoicing more than reporting that the USA ain't a Christian nation any longer are bigger threats to our national security than people who care more about the unborn than sperm whales or women and men in uniform who risk everything so people who really ____ can spew their...

If this country goes to hell, it's because our leaders have stopped pointing people to heaven.

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Getting back to the two pastors (scroll down to the preceding KD) who don't ____ and make me realize how I ____ when I fail to realize our Lord's parable about the wineskins isn't just for, uh, them as in "all have sinned and fall short of God's glory" not "you all have sinned and fall short of God's glory," they remind me of the only Name Who matters.

They remind me that denominationalism belongs to the wastebasket of human history as much as Pope John XXIII said the same about any kind of jingoism.

They remind me that Jesus didn't come, die, rise, and reign to segregate people from each other by class, color, or culture.

They remind me that people who herald themselves more than Him are, to kinda quote Him, "making people twice as fit for hell as they are themselves."

So the next section may sound parochial; but it's not because you can change the names and they're still the same apart from the only Name Who matters.

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Presbyterian is a transliteration of the Greek for elder-oriented; having much more to do with polity or how a particular congregation governs itself rather than the profession of faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior as attested in Holy Scripture which is shared by Christians of all flavors and franchises.

Specifically, in our/my/maybe/not/your ecclesiastical culture, Presbyterian means confessional, constitutional, and connectional democracy in which authority is vested in ordered groups rather than individuals (e.g., session).

Ideally, a Presbyterian church is a family of faith, not unlike other families of faith except/mostly for polity, praying and laboring to love Jesus by loving like Jesus according to Holy Scripture.

Christians in Presbyterian churches differ from other family members in congregational churches like SBs where every decision is subject to a congregational vote (bottom up decision-making) or hierarchical churches like RCs where priests/bishops decide for their members (top down decision-making) by being connectional or somewhere in the middle (sideways decision-making as noted in the second sentence of this section).

I mention this because there is a common misunderstanding of Presbyterianism being a different religion from other family members who express their Christianity as Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and so on.

I am not suggesting that different franchises don't have their theological/spiritual/practical idiosyncrasies; but I am saying that those differences are more in polity and governance than the substance of their common faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior as attested in Holy Scripture.

That's why that young pastor keeps screaming, "Religion ____s! Jesus saves!"

Hyperbole or not, he's making an important point.

Christianity is infinitely/eternally more about Jesus than any particular polity or franchise.

It's about faith in Jesus rather than membership in a particular franchise.

Today, we have discovered words like Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist and the like mean very little to succeeding generations who need Jesus a heaven of a lot more than the idiosyncrasies of denominational distinctions of polity.

Indeed, heralding such words has become such a turn-off that succeeding generations who need Jesus turn away from churches sporting their polity distinctives and turn on to churches with more inviting names that aren't as confusing and, in some cases, discouraging.

I mention this because geezers like me who have cherished those old polity words have decisions to make.

Are we going to trumpet polity or Jesus?

Are we going to invite people to a polity or a family of faith?

Are we going to be more about Jesus or outdated/overused/insulting-to-Jesus polities (go back to the preceding section of this KD)?

Even "new church development" experts in the outdated and exploding/imploding wineskins/franchises/denominations have urged their church planters not to use those words in naming new churches because they distract rather than attract attention and inquiry from those who need Jesus so much.

Again, as those two pesky young pastors keep telling me, it's all about Jesus.

He is the only Name Who matters.

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Old clubs?

New clubs?

Billy is right!

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Blessings and Love!

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