Contacting Craig

To contact Craig for speaking or interview opportunities, email at craigd2599@gmail.com
Visit his website (Big Fat Grace) at www.craigdaliessio.com


Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas Ragamuffins! Free chapter of "The Ragamuffin's Christmas"

This is my "Christmas Present" to you all...to the world I suppose. It's the last chapter in "The Ragamuffin's Christmas" and by far the most important. Share it if you wish, especially with someone you know who has yet to meet the "Real reason for Christmas" 

Twenty Five
Epiphany…
What Brought You Here?

Jesus said, "Today is salvation day in this home! Here he is, Zacchaeus, son of Abraham! 
For the Son of Man came to find and restore the lost."

It is December 24th. Christmas Eve. If you have read all the way through this book since December first, then you know the mystery by now. 

Somehow, through some the plan of God alone, we have been witness -you and I- to 23 differing characters in a head-on collision with the infant baby son of God. Some of them were easy to watch, because they were people who had walked with this infant-King all their lives and were here to simply celebrate and worship and give Him their love and thanks.
Others were painful, like the wandering lost outside the cave who could not find their way to this child and who desperately needed to be led here before it is too late. Some were stubbornly holding on to their own beliefs that they had their lives figured out and they didn’t need to kneel in the muddy straw and let this baby touch them. 
For some it was too late, like those denied access outside the cave because they had failed to recognize this child in their time on earth and now they sought a second audience that they would never receive, but would pursue throughout eternity.
For some, like me and my friend Kelly, and others, this night represented something new and different. We are those who have known this baby but who had fallen victim to the failed teaching of strict legalists and we had grown fearful of this child’s Father. God knew this and allowed Himself to come to us in the form of His beautiful little son, Jesus, a baby we could touch and hold and coddle and comfort. A baby who would do in our hearts what all babies do…make us smile and tear down our walls.
For me and my friend Kelly he represented a bridge between the image we had of God our Father and the real Father that God is. Jesus called to me from my fear and self-loathing and self-punishment, and He said, “I love you so much, that I decided to come as a baby. Nobody is afraid of a baby. Come and touch me…come and hold me and let me touch you. I have missed you and I want you to come home. Let’s start the journey here in this cave…come and hold me, I love you.” 
His call went out as he walked this earth; “Come and be my friend, all you who are so very tired from working so hard and carrying such heavy burdens, because I will give you rest. The work I do is easy and the burden I bear is light. Put down the heavy suitcase that you keep shifting from one hand to the other...it's too heavy. Put it down and hold me instead...I'm just a baby...”
For others, like Andre Deputy, Jesus meant the final step of restoration and redemption, as he found the very people whose lives he had ended had come to worship this child with him. Andre and the Smiths, a murderer, his victims and Jesus all in the same frame of time. That can only happen through a God who chooses to forgive what others cannot even choose to stop whispering about. Only a baby could reduce a murderer to tears of repentance, change his life forever, impact an entire prison, and then reunite him with his victims in worship…only this baby could do that.
Only this child could so impact a Roman soldier that he would leave his post, drop his armor, and risk his own life just to say thank you and to worship the God who He watched give over his son to death on that terrible Friday afternoon. Only this baby could move that gruff and gritty man to tears of joy and redemption and only the innocence of that baby could remove bloodstains of guilt that no soap on earth could wash.
Jesus is the only person who could have filled the tremendous empty hole in the soul of my friend Kelly, and who could have offered her forgiveness and peace for one horrifying decision that was forced on her. Only Jesus could begin the journey of redemption and restoration and forgiveness. Only this child could convince her that His Father was not angry with her…but that He loved her so much that he took on a form she could never fear and could not resist.
Only Jesus can remove all the manmade falsehoods regarding God and anger, and judgment, and punishment. Only Jesus can teach us what God’s grace is really like, how far it would reach to rescue us, and how much God longs to touch us. Only Jesus can be touched by anyone without fear or regret. Babies have no memories. Babies don’t care anything at all about our failures or shortcomings. Babies just want to give and receive love. 
It is the final night of advent. Tomorrow we begin the celebration of Epiphany …Christ’s arrival. But tonight…tonight is the last night of His coming. And He has come here to this cave, this hovel of rock and straw and mud, for you. He chose this method, this place, these surroundings, and this moment…because of you.
Everything in the plan of redemption points to this moment in time, and to this place where nobody would ever think to look for a savior. That was His plan. He didn’t want you intimidated or frightened. He didn’t want you to come into a throne room, or a courtroom for your first encounter -or first encounter in a long time- with God in human form. He wanted to make this as easy as it could be. So easy you might not even realize at first that this was God himself.
He wanted you at ease, comfortable, free from all the things you thought you knew about Him, and free to just feel free to touch Him. Because babies are at their best when we touch and hold them…because then they can touch our souls in return. You already know He would die for you…everyone knows that, and if you are here at this manger tonight you have at least some working knowledge of why He came. 
But perhaps the only thing more amazing than Him dying for you, is that He would come for you in the first place. He traded a kingdom for this place. He left Heaven for this cave, this manger, this poverty. Why? Because this place…this is where you were. You, and I, and all of us have long ago lost our way to Him. Some of us have never experienced Him before and we don’t know how to get here…or what to do with Him once we realize can hold Him. 
Others of us -like me- grew up with His story on our lips. But somewhere over the years, we fell down, got dirty, worked up a whole history of our very own, became ashamed of what we’d done and who we became, and we forgot that this baby ever loved us. Somehow we thought that this tiny baby, this precious son of God, ever cared about the stupid things we do to ourselves as we stumble through this life. 
Somehow we decided that an infant can be harsh, that He can judge, that He can refuse our overtures of love, that he can reject us. It’s preposterous but we fall for it all the time. “Jesus could never forgive this…” we tell ourselves. “Jesus would never take me back after I did…” The truth is that perhaps the only thing that would make this child cry, is us staying away from Him because we think things like that.
David was an adulterer and a murderer…and God said he was “the apple of my eye” and referred to Him as “a man after my own heart.” I don’t know what sin you might be lugging into this cave tonight but this tiny baby has already loved a murdering adulterer so much that he used cute little terms of affection. I am sure I speak for Jesus when I tell you… “Come on, He doesn’t care what you’ve done.” 
Does He just ignore sin? Does sin not even matter? No of course not. Sin can’t remain in the presence of a Holy God. But sin doesn’t make God angry at us. Sin makes Him angry at sin. The way a mother hates polio after it has stricken her child. God understands that the real punishment for our sin is the distance it creates between Him and us. He has no desire to add anything to that. Like the father of the prodigal son, He stands ready each day, looking for the slightest sign of your silhouette on the horizon, ready to run and bring you home. Just like that father did, there are no words of anger, no mocking ridicule, no rubbing your nose in the theological garbage you have stepped in.
No, there are only tears of joy from a Father who has missed you so very much and who long ago forgot what it was you even did to drift away. He only noticed that you weren’t there, not why you weren’t there. What you did was laid on Jesus’ back at Calvary. Even what you did after you became His child. All He knows is that you’ve been gone a long time and He wants you home.
So now you are here, on Christmas Eve, face-to-face with the infant “Man of No Reputation,” and Jesus is reaching a tiny hand out to you and he is wanting to be held…in your arms!
Like Andre Deputy, maybe you have a gift fashioned from the remnants of your failed life. Like my friend Kelly, maybe you need to bring something intended for someone else and let this child comfort raw and aching wounds. Like the Roman soldier, maybe you need to finally be washed clean. Like me…maybe you need to see how the Father really feels about you, by feeling how the Son feels in your arms.
Whatever it is you need from this moment…you are here. This is your head-on-collision with God in the flesh. You are caught off-guard for a reason…because reasoning and intellect have no bearing to a baby just hours old. You don’t need to outwit Him, out-think Him, or out-maneuver Him. You just need to reach down into the little feed trough, touch the baby Jesus…and be touched. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you right now. You need a Savior, we all do. Jesus was born in this cave and in the Christmas Season it’s easiest to think of Him as a baby. But He also came to be the brutalized figure hanging on the cross. 
This little baby that we celebrate at Christmas grew into the man we see writhing on the cross on Good Friday. He did this for you. For your sin. For mine. Now is your moment. Now is your chance to accept the gift he offers you and give Him a gift this Christmas. 
Ask Him into your heart…
…and join the shipwrecked at the stable, and those who have been changed forever by a tiny baby, in a dirty cave, in the city of the King.

“…and redemption rips across the surface of time…in the cry of a tiny babe”
-Bruce Cockburn
“Life comes down to one thing…how will you answer He who knows how to ask the great questions?” 
--Brennan Manning

“Hear what God says: When the time came for me to show you favor, I heard you; 
when the day arrived for me to save you, I helped you.
--The Apostle Paul (II Cor 6:2)
The End

Monday, December 23, 2013

Giving Hope, Showing Love

West Franklin Baptist Church has become my new church home. I've been attending since late August. When I first started going there, I did not tell anyone about my situation being homeless. I didn't ask for anything. Slowly, over about a 6 week period, they figured it out. They have been the most caring. loving, Christlike congregation I have ever known. Yesterday, a lady came up to me and handed me a little gift bag for my daughter. It was simple, a stick pin, a Christmas ornament and some cookies. But it was especially for Morgan and she wanted her to know she was loved and cared for. This is particularly wonderful, because Morgan has never visited this church with me. The lady never met my daughter. She just saw a need and acted in love.
I was abandoned to my bewilderment and pain by the last church I was a member of. There were a few individuals who truly cared, and they know who they are. But the leadership in particular, chose to let me walk through the loneliest years of my life, through a desolate, wearisome, soul-crushing desert, alone. No little gift bags for my daughter, no phone calls of encouragement, no congratulations for completing my college degree while living in my car, or writing books, or choosing an excruciatingly hard path because my daughter needed me, and it was the only right thing to do. They chose to ignore me in the hopes I'd go away.
So I did.
But the hurt they caused did not. I choose not to expound on this. But I will say, West Franklin Baptist Church...you have been family to me. You earned the right to call me "brother." Long before you did anything tangible, I felt your love. You may have saved my life in the process.
Well done, good and faithful servants.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Thoughts on Christmas

Christmas can seem like a busy, chaotic, hurried, frantic, overwhelming time. Crowds at the Mall, bad parking spots, traffic jams, crazy shoppers. But believe me...you miss that stuff when you can't do it. You miss spending two hours looking for the perfect tree. You miss the cat and the dog getting into the decorations and making a mess. You miss making silly, roundish faces in the reflections of Christmas ornaments. You miss Linus saying "Lights Please." You miss the sound of little kids singing at their Christmas play...off-key and staccato and precious. You miss the wonder of your kid's "wish list" and another year's Santa Pictures. You miss the feeling of hearing your coins clank in the bottom of the Salvation Army kettle, or the sound of their band playing in the cold. The smell of pine and spices and hot chocolate. You miss knowing that underneath all of this, exists the truth of this holiday if you choose to remember it. The truth that this is still about Jesus, no matter how hard the intolerant try to remove that truth.
Treasure every second. Every hurried, frantic, crazy, second.
Because whether it's something extreme like homelessness...
...or just your kids growing up and losing touch with the wonder...
There are too few Christmas Season's in each lifetime. And you can't get them back when they go.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

The Night Before Christmas (Homeless Daddy Version)

      This just sort of "happened" this morning. Sometimes this road is harder than others. Today is one of the hardest so far.                                           



                                                             The Night Before Christmas
                                                             (Homeless Daddy Version)

‘Twas three weeks before Christmas
And I’m down on my luck
I’m a poor, homeless, Daddy
Who lives in his truck

My sleeping bags zippered
Against the night air
Determined to make it
And stay off Welfare

By day I went working
With my belt full of tools
At night I did study
And I finished school

I busted my butt
And got that degree
But there still are no jobs
At least none for me

I make money for gas
And for food now and then
And to shower at the gym
So I don’t offend

But I can’t find a job
That would pay me enough
To rent a place for me
And the daughter I love

She lives with her mom
So at least she’s alright
But I miss her and think of her
All day and all night

She misses her Daddy
And I miss my girl
And I’ve tried everything
I can try in this world


I have to keep trying
And build a life we can live
Maybe some presents
On Christmas to give

My daughter she needs me
To try yet again
And prove that her daddy
Still knows how to win

When this is all over
On that wonderful day
She’ll remember her daddy
Loved her enough to stay

He loved her enough
To stay in this place
So at least every day
She could see his face

And she saw in his life
In the things he did bear
That he loved her enough
To always be there

I love her too much
To give up now
But I have to admit
It is wearing me down

Sometimes I wonder
How much more can I take
Is this some grand plan
Or a cosmic mistake?

Am I cursed by the Heavens
Or just down on my luck
‘Cause it’s three weeks til Christmas

And I still live in this truck

Saturday, November 16, 2013

What Hopelessness Feels Like

     I am sitting, once again, in Panera. It’s where I go to disappear. This or the library. I can disappear in a booth in the back of the store, or behind a pile of books, and I can think, and put out a few dozen fruitless resumes.
     I want to write something brilliant. Something moving. Something inspiring or emotional or clever. But I can’t think of much of anything. My hands feel like they weigh a thousand pounds. I want to be invisible.
     I woke up at 4:30AM  today. I woke up in the back of a 1996 GMC Yukon. That’s why I woke up at 4:30. I’ve always been an early riser anyway, but I rise earlier still because I can only get about 5 hours of sleep before the pain in my back and hips wakes me up and it’s pointless to try to go back to sleep.
     I’m a morning person to begin with, so I don’t mind. I like being up early, going to the gym, getting things done, getting a jump on the day. But today I don’t feel like that. Today I can’t even marshal my thoughts into anything cogent. Not really. I want to dream. I should review my goals, but they have slipped from where they were five years ago, things like “Close 1 million dollars in loan volume this month”  has become: “Stay warm. Stay dry. Wash your clothes. Survive another day.”
     Yesterday, for the fourth time since July, I got turned down for a job. This time it wasn’t Obamacare. This time it wasn’t my age. It was something from 26 years ago. Something that never mattered before in the ten years I was a very successful mortgage banker. I spent the last ten weeks going back and forth with this company, answering their questions, providing documents, sending them reference letters.
     I sent them three reference letters that should have sealed my employment right then. One from a former bank examiner who was also a decorated Naval veteran and successful insurance company president and a bank president. One from a decorated marine who has preached the gospel for forty years. One from an Army veteran who was an assistant D.A. here, and who spoke eloquently about my honesty and character and integrity. In fact they all did. They all know me. This in addition to the four references from previous employers and managers who all said the same thing: “Craig is the most honest, forthright, hard working, character-driven man we have had working for us. He deserves this job.”
     But things happen, and in this economy, and in this society, sometimes you can’t overcome them.
     So now I am back at the drawing board, having wasted ten weeks where maybe I could have done something else. Maybe I could have made a plan B. At least I wouldn’t have been ten weeks into hopefulness, only to have the hope ripped out of my hands.
     I’m sitting here, trying to get the energy to start thinking about what to do next. Does that make sense? I’m trying to get the energy to think. I’m afraid to. I’m weary. It’s not going to work. It will only fail. It will get shot down again. What’s the use? The thoughts I refused to let in before, are in there now. Doubt. Fear. Shame. Loss. Hopelessness.
     I can’t start analyzing. I can’t take stock and see what I have to work with and figure out a way. A way to where? What do I have left? Intelligence? Grit? Determination? Character? Integrity? Talent? I have bucket loads of that stuff. And still, tonight I will sleep in a Yukon.
     I cannot express...not for all the words in the world...how this hurts. How much I miss my daughter. How badly I want to have a place where she can live with me like she wants to. How loudly the memories scream at me in the night. I see her when she was a baby. Then 2. Then 4 Then 10...the year I lost my house. Then 12. Now 15. What next? Will she graduate High School before I can rebuild this life of mine? Have I lost her trust for good this time? Is this the last disappointment...the one that makes her give up completely? I am trying to hide my tears as I wrote those words just now. Choking them down. Blinking them back. What if this time she gives up on believing in her daddy? Daddy. Her Daddy. What the hell kind of daddy am I?
     Sometimes I wish I had a drug problem, or an alcohol problem, or a gambling addiction. People seem to grasp that as a reason for homelessness more so than my story. “Really? You just lost your home and your career and you can’t find anything?”
  Yeah. Really.
     I have had people suggest jobs to me. Jobs I can’t even consider. Because of my commitment to helping take Morgan to and from school. And because my goal is to get a place of my own. And beds. And dishes. And furniture. And sheets and blankets, and pillows and pots and pans. After 5 years, I couldn’t keep paying rent on storage sheds full of things I wasn’t going to be using. I sold everything. Whatever I couldn’t sell I gave away. All I have left now...all I have from 6 years of home ownership...is a couple of boxes of keepsakes, mostly drawings from Morgan over the years, and my coffeemaker and a knife set. Everything else is gone.
     I need a career. I need a real job. Something that pays enough that after a month I could get a place. Not after four or five months of multiple part-time gigs at odd hours. I’m homeless. My access to showers and sleep are limited. It’s complicated in ways you haven’t thought of.
     I can’t even work up the energy to speak right now. I’m just crushed. I want to grab my daughter and wrap my arms around her and weep and beg her to forgive me for something I really didn’t do. “I didn’t sink this economy. I didn’t ruin the mortgage industry. I keep trying. I keep telling you to hold on, to believe just one more day, one more week, one more month. Please don’t give up. Please stop growing up. Please wait for me. Please don’t bear scars from this. I love you more than anything in this world. Please stop growing up. Please stop growing up. Please...I just want some time with you while you’re still young. Still my little girl. Still here.”
     Every day slips past. There is a five-year blank spot in my relationship with my daughter. A hole I will never fill. I hope she knows how much I love her. I hope she knows how much this hurts and how hard I’m trying.
     This is where I am this morning. It weighs a million pounds. It’s choking me. I need to find someplace where I can cry. Again.

     Then I need to come up with another plan. Something to put what remains of my hope in. I can’t quit. But sometimes it feels like I already have. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

A word about suffering

A few years ago I was blessed to make the acquaintance of a guy back home. I won't give his name here. It isn't necessary. But we became friends almost immediately and remain so to this day. 
His story touched me more deeply than almost any story I had ever heard. Basically, he was happily married with two daughters in middle school. He had a great job and a wife he adored and a nice life. He went to bed one night, just as happily married as all the other nights and woke up to find his wife had passed away in the night. No reason, no explanation. They did an autopsy and never did conclude anything as to a cause of death. He never had a hint of anything being wrong, never saw it coming and never got to say goodbye. 
In the years that have ensued, he raised both daughters to adulthood. He has faced a few more hardships along the way. His heart was shattered that morning and he comes across as angry and bitter sometimes. Sometimes that's exactly what he is. Who could blame him? 
I have had spats with him on Facebook and it's gotten heated. (We're both Italian) I've had friends say to me "Why do you tolerate that guy? He is so angry." Then I tell them his story. And I tell them that when they hear him spitting bile in anger...I hear his heart breaking. I hear his pain. I know his story. I cannot possibly imagine what he went through but I am sure it hurts more than anything I can possibly have experienced. So when my dear friend rants...I let him rant. I love him while he is ranting and I love him when he is done. We disagree a lot...we occupy opposite ends of the political sphere for the most part...but he is my friend and he is hurting still. And I love him dearly.  He has dealt with most of the pain over these many years, but I know that it still builds up sometimes and needs to vent. So I let it.
I am going through something that hurts me in ways some of you grasp but many of you do not. 
I miss my daughter. I have missed five years of bedtime prayers and Saturday morning pancakes. My daughter needs me right now more than she has in the past and I can't do what I need to do to help her. Those of you who know me, know how this hurts me. There is nothing worse in my mind than feeling like I am failing my daughter. I miss having a "place" in this world. A safe haven. I miss my dogs and my cat and my coffee maker and the way my kitchen smelled when I made spaghetti sauce. I miss what and who I was.
So if you see anger in my posts or disappointment, or a loss of faith sometimes...try to remember that I am bearing just about all the pain I can bear. I did not need to toss away ten weeks of my life chasing a job that looks now like it is not going to happen. I did not need to feel hopeful after so many years of hopelessness and then have that glimmer of light snuffed out. I do not need to be unable to keep another promise I made my daughter.If you can;t handle it...delete me. I will understand. But I will likely keep on bellowing when the pressure gets too high. Because I spend most of my life alone here and sometimes -as pathetic as this is- FB is the only place where I am heard. And sometimes being heard is the only way we remember we are alive.
I hope you understand this.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Rick Elias' "jōb" Re-posting my review

Tomorrow, Rick Elias' latest album drops. You simply MUST grab it. Here's why...

                                                           Album Review
Artist: Rick Elias
Title: “jōb”
Specifics: 7 Tracks- Running time: 28:05

Playlist: 1: Do Ya?
              2: jōb
              3: When it all Came Down
              4: A Kind of Brilliance
              5: When We Built This House
              6: Help Thou My Unbelief
              7: jōb, naked

     Some of us listen to music for distraction. Some listen to be entertained, or during a workout, or for inspiration before an athletic event. And some of us listen to music in a desperate search to find out if anyone has seen us. We listen to an artist, and once in a while –sometimes only once in a lifetime- we have an epiphany where we understand that we aren't invisible. For just a moment, we realize that this road we travel has been traveled before. Once in a while we find someone who chronicles their journey, and we discover that it was our journey too. I am one of those people.
     Music was always a definer for me. My life could easily be deciphered by simply rummaging through my record collection. When I was an angry 19 year-old man, trying to understand adulthood, and missing my friends who’d gone off to college, and grieving, my all-to-brief childhood and teen years, it was Springsteen’s “Darkness” record.  When I realized I was a hopeless romantic, it was Southside Johnny. The more I read classic authors and fell more deeply in love with great wordsmiths, it was Forbert, and Hiatt, and Earle.
     And when I had grown up, and my faith had taken a beating, and I was trying to remain faithful to Christ, and still be truthful about the hurt and pain the world could viciously inflict...it was Rich Mullins, and Rick Elias.
     I discovered Rick Elias quite by accident –although I am sure I would have found him sooner or later- when he opened for a CCM artist who shall remain nameless. (Mainly because he isn’t worth giving space to) Rick was an unannounced addition to the show, and touring to support his second record for Frontline: “Ten Stories.”
     He came out in a black leather jacket, powering through about a half dozen songs masterfully on a white Fender Strat. His band was impeccable and his musicianship was superior. But it was the words that grabbed me.
...those words.
     I had been, by that point in life, damaged deeply. I had made mistakes that marked my life, and I had discovered family secrets that scarred me, and I had my heart broken by love, and by the church. Yet I clung to the belief, albeit barely,  that Christ was not entirely like His Christians, and as I picked my way through the mess, I found ropes to hang onto. Rick Elias was such a lifeline.
     Sitting that night in the Trenton War Memorial, watching this man pouring out passionate, real, honest words in a soft growl that reminded me of my beloved Springsteen in every way, I was transfixed.  I had spent 22 years trying to understand why I was so different from the others of like faith. Why my faith wasn’t pretty and my life wasn't either. I wondered why I loved Jesus so deeply, and yet could not...I could not reveal that love in the standard, acceptable ways that others did.  
Rick Elias noticed me.
      He didn't know it. We’d not met at that point. But when he wrote his stories of pain, and hurt, with harrowing honesty, and the brazen chutzpah it takes to dare ask “Why?”...he’d noticed me.  I listened to him tell my story. And I wept because finally someone was telling it, and that meant maybe someone else was asking the same questions.
     When Rick’s show ended, I sat there in silence. I could not move for several minutes. when I got my wits about me I ran back to the merch table to buy anything of his I could get my hands on.
     In one of those great moments where God grants a prayer before it is even asked...I made a friend. Rick was manning his own table that night, and we talked for about 30 minutes. I missed the opening of the headliner and never noticed. I talked to Rick about songs, and lyrics, and why these things matter.  I am sure I gushed a little. It’s funny because 22 years later, Rick Elias and his wife Linda are amongst my dearest friends. The conversations I've had with this wonderful, quirky, gristly, loving, devoted, integritous man have kept me sane in a world, and in a place, where I often don’t fit. I say it freely...I love Rick Elias. He is my brother, and my friend.
     I had to give this background in order to be honest about my review of this record. I am a fan and I make no bones about that.
Now, to this record....
     It’s been about 12 years since Rick has recorded much of his own stuff.  His life has been a roller coaster. The same roller coaster we've all been riding. Somehow, though, when you are an artist, the dips and curves seem exaggerated. People expect your next great record, and they seldom grasp that you have the same obstacles everyone else has in pursuing your living, and making your art.  The answer is to either give up or sell out. Rick Elias will never sell out.  If I know him at all, he’ll quit writing anything before he’ll produce something formulaic and expected. I love him for that.
     Given the current landscape of what is called “Christian Music” I can understand his chagrin.  Where does a guy like Elias fit?  Who is listening?  For my money, the best two songwriters in the genre were Elias and Mullins.  We lost Rich 16 years ago, and Rick went silent not long after. He’s been teaching songwriting, and producing here and there, and raising his family, and figuring out the rest of his life.
Pretty much what we've all been doing.
     Rick figured that life had granted all the great stories and fodder for “Christian” hits it was going to provide. Who wants to hear about middle aged musicians, and their grown kids, and their grandchildren?  How passionate can we write about the aches and pains of being 50ish, or the demands of being a former musician?  Who’s story is that?
Turns out...a lot of us.
     “jōb” opens with “Do Ya”,  a paean for the broken and battered and luckless. When Elias sings “I am for, the mad ones. Laughing wild in the night, while praying for the light, hanging on for dear life” he is speaking for me. He is telling the story of all of us who have reached that point in life that the “mystical they” define as the middle, and who wonder what the heck happened.  How did we get here and what happens next?
That he likens the characters in this song to Job himself is no coincidence. In just the slightest artistic twist, he renders jōb’s trials not a specific permissive act of God to prove to Satan that his accusations about godly men were false, but rather an act of betrayal. Not ultimate betrayal –Rick Elias knows his scripture too well for that-  but betrayal in the way it feels when we face devastation.  Because, who hasn't felt like God has betrayed them when the house begins to crumble? It’s not a matter of whether we feel that, it’s whether we’ll admit to feeling it. That...is really what this record is about.
That is the voice of Rick Elias’ “jōb.”
     If I had a complaint, it is merely that “jōb” is too darned short. It’s seven tracks and just under 30 minutes. But that is, in itself, the beauty. When this record concludes, you wish there was more of this wonderful music...because make no mistake, Rick Elias is a masterful musician. You certainly long for more of the sound, but you understand that the story is told. It doesn't take 12 songs to explore truth. Not every time. And especially not when the best songwriter in Christian music is doing the talking.
     This record is real. It’s truthful. If your idea of great music about faith is something that makes your eyes glaze over, and your hands raise to the sky, and your body sway like a Dervish, this isn't your album.
It’s for everyone else...
     This record is for those who have made mistakes. It’s for those who have been the victim of someone else’s mistakes. It’s for those who have had to say they were sorry. It’s for those who have lived, and laughed, and loved, and hurt, and wounded, and been wounded, and dreamed, and watched those dreams crash, burn and then sink into the sea.
It’s for the ones who have had to figure out what happens next.
      We all grow older. We all struggle with demons. We all hurt someone we love and love someone who hurt us. We wake up one day, bruised and battered and aching from slaying so many dragons for so long a time. We wonder if any of this was worth it, and it’s then we realize that merely getting to this point is the real victory. The really wise ones among us realize that when Paul wrote “His grace is sufficient for me...” Paul meant that most times, sufficiency means “barely enough” not effusive overflow. Life is beauty and ruin, intermingled. Grace is the place where we learn to love both.
     That’s what this beautiful, emotional, unforgettable record is. It’s Grace. Written in a code that the honest grasp, and set to music that bandaged hearts hear better than those who have been untouched by pain.
     “jōb” is like finding a journal at a rest stop, on a trail whose destination I understand but whose terrain I fear, and stumble over. The words inside the weathered book don’t make the journey any less difficult...but they tell me that someone else is up ahead. He’s making his way slowly through the uncharted darkness. And his words serve as breadcrumbs for me to follow.
Until we both make it home.

“jōb” by Rick Elias Release date 11/12/2013 at


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

MUSIC REVIEW: My review of Rick Elias' "jOb"

  Rick Elias' new album, "jOb" drops one week from today. Rick gave me an advance listen. Here is my review...


                                                        
Artist: Rick Elias
Title: “j­Ob”
Specifics: 7 Tracks- Running time: 28:05

Playlist: 1: Do Ya?
              2: job
              3: When it all Came Down
              4: A Kind of Brilliance
              5: When We Built This House
              6: Help Thou My Unbelief
              7: job, naked

     Some of us listen to music for distraction. Some listen to be entertained, or to exercise to, or for inspiration before an athletic event. And some of us listen to music in a desperate search to find out if anyone has seen us. We listen to an artist and once in a while –sometimes only once in a lifetime- we have an epiphany where we understand that we aren’t invisible. For just a moment, we realize that this road we travel has been traveled before. Once in a while we find someone who chronicles their journey, and we discover that it was our journey too. I am one of those people.
     Music was always a definer for me. My life could easily be deciphered by simply rummaging through my record collection. When I was an angry 19 year-old man, trying to understand adulthood and missing my friends who’d gone off to college and grieving, too soon, my childhood and teen years, it was Springsteen’s “Darkness” record. When I discovered I was a hopeless romantic it was Southside Johnny. The more I read classic authors and fell deeper and deeper in love with great wordsmiths, it was Forbert, and Hiatt, and Earle.
     And when I had grown up, and my faith had taken a beating, and I was trying to remain faithful to Christ and still be truthful about the hurt and pain the world could viciously inflict, it was Rich Mullins and Rick Elias.
     I discovered Rick Elias quite by accident –although I am sure I would have found him sooner or later- when he opened for a CCM artist who shall remain nameless. (mainly because he isn’t worth giving space to) Rick was an unannounced addition to the show and touring to support his second record for Frontline: “Ten Stories.” He came out in a black leather jacket, powering through about a half dozen songs masterfully on a white Fender Strat. His band was impeccable and his musicianship was superior.
But it was those words...those words.
     I had been, by that point in life, damaged deeply. I had made mistakes that marked my life, and I had discovered family secrets that scarred me, and I had my heart broken by love, and by the church. Yet I clung to the belief –albeit barely- that Christ was not entirely like His Christians, and I picked my way through the mess, and found ropes to hang onto. Rick Elias was such a lifeline.
     Sitting that night in the Trenton War Memorial, watching this man pouring out passionate, real, honest words in a soft growl that reminded me of my beloved Springsteen in every way, I was transfixed. I had spent 22 years trying to understand why I was so different from the others of like faith. Why my faith wasn’t pretty and my life wasn’t either. I wondered why I loved Jesus so deeply and yet could not...I could not reveal that love in the standard, acceptable ways that others did. Rick Elias noticed me.
     He didn’t know it. We’d not met at that point. But when he wrote his stories of pain, and hurt, with harrowing honesty, and the brazen chutzpah it takes to dare ask “Why?”...he’d noticed me. I listened to him tell my story. And I wept because finally someone was telling it, and that meant maybe someone else was asking the same questions.
     When Rick’s show ended, I sat there in silence. I could not move for several minutes. when I got my wits about me I ran back to the merch table to buy anything of his I could get my hands on.
     In one of those great moments where God grants a prayer before it is asked...I made a friend. Rick was manning his own table that night and we talked for about 30 minutes. I missed the opening of the headliner and I never noticed. I talked to Rick about songs, and lyrics and why these things matter. I am sure I gushed a little. It’s funny because 22 years later, Rick Elias and his wife Linda are among my dearest friends. The conversations I've had with this wonderful, quirky, gristly, loving, devoted, integritous man have kept me sane in a world, and a place where I often don’t fit. I say it freely...I love Rick Elias. He is a brother and a friend.
     I had to give this background in order to be honest about my review of this record. I am a fan and I make no bones about that.
Now, to this record....
     It’s been about 12 years since Rick has recorded much of his own stuff. His life has been a roller coaster. The same roller coaster we’ve all been riding. Somehow, though, when you are an artist, the dips and curves seem exaggerated. People expect your next great record, and they seldom grasp that you have the same obstacles everyone else has in pursuing your living and making your art. The answer is to either give up or sell out. Rick Elias will never sell out. If I know him at all, he’ll quit writing anything before he’ll produce something formulaic and expected. I love him for that.
     Given the current landscape of what is called “Christian Music” I can understand his chagrin. Where does a guy like Elias fit? Who is listening? For my money, the best two songwriters in the genre were Elias and Mullins. We lost Rich 16 years ago and Rick went silent not long after. He’s been teaching songwriting, and producing here and there, and raising his family, and figuring out the rest of his life. Pretty much what we’ve all been doing.
     Rick figured that life had granted all the great stories and fodder for “Christian” hits it was going to provide. Who wants to hear about middle aged musicians, and their grown kids, and their grandchildren? How passionate can we write about the aches and pains of being 50ish or the demands of being a former musician? Who’s story is that?
Turns out...a lot of us.
“Job” opens with “Do Ya”,  a paean for the broken and battered and luckless. When Elias sings “I am for, the mad ones. Laughing wild in the night, while praying for the light, hanging on for dear life” he is speaking for me. He is telling the story of all of us who have reached that point in life that “they” call the middle, and who wonder what the heck happened. How did we get here and what happens next? That he likens the characters in this song to Job himself is no coincidence. In just the slightest artistic twist, he renders Job’s trials not a specific permissive act of God to prove to Satan that his accusations about godly men were false, but rather an act of betrayal. Not ultimate betrayal –Elias knows his scripture too well for that- but betrayal in the way it feels when we face devastation. Because, who hasn’t felt like God has betrayed them when the house begins to crumble? It’s not a matter of whether we feel that, it’s whether we’ll admit to feeling it. That...is really what this record is about. That is the voice of Rick Elias’ “job.”
The lineup continues with "When it all Came Down", a poignant, powerful rocker that tells the story of some of the "downs" in the old line: "Life has it's ups and downs." It's roar comes from it's honesty and it's undercurrent hopefulness that, even when we trip and stumble...we are still moving, and so we're still alive.
"A Kind of Brilliance." follows with lilting beauty that stands as a stark and lovely contrast to the song the precedes it. It's a gentle, somewhat sorrowful tale of love as it grows older and how hearts reshape themselves. It exposes the lies we tell each other -most often not intending to- as our humanity collides daily with those we love the most.
"When we Built This House" might be my personal favorite. It's a lovely, sometimes morose, open ended glimpse into an empty nest. It could be an unnerving insight, but for the feeling that underneath the boredom, monotony, and hesitance about the future...there exists love between the protagonists.
"Help Thou Mine Unbelief" is one of Elias' greatest works. It first appeared on his 2000 album "Prayers of a Ragamuffin" which was the final gathering of Rich Mullins' former band-mates. This is a reworking and it is as breathtaking as it's original incarnation. Given the connection to the rest of this album, it is even more beautiful here. It speaks of the desperate desire of a man who reaches the age when we all ask what, if anything, is left for us in this life. We wear a weathered Faith and we are desperate for God to "Give my heart wings, with visions and dreams, this world cannot steal away" this one line means more to me than almost anything else on this record. Because I say this to God every single day. ...and I wait for the reply.
"jOb, naked" finishes out this wonderful album with another full throttle take on the opening song. It's not exactly the same lyrics, but it's the same theme. It feels as if Rick needed two songs to address the processes he lived out in the development of 'jOb".
     If I had a complaint it is merely that “job” is too darned short. It’s seven tracks and just under 30 minutes. But that is, in itself, the beauty. When this record concludes, you wish there was more of this wonderful music...because make no mistake, Rick Elias is a masterful musician. You certainly long for more of the sound, but you understand that the story is told. It doesn't take 12 songs to explore truth. Not every time. And especially not when the best songwriter in Christian music is doing the talking.
     This record is real. It’s truthful. If your idea of great music about faith is something that makes your eyes glaze over and your hands raise to the sky and your body sway like a Dervish, this isn’t your album.
It’s for everyone else...
     This record is for those who have made mistakes. It’s for those who have been the victim of someone else’s mistakes. It’s for those who have had to say they were sorry. It’s for those who have lived and laughed and loved and hurt and wounded and been wounded and dreamed and watched those dreams crash, burn and then sink into the sea.
It’s for the ones who have had to figure out what happens next.
      We all grow older. We all struggle with demons. We all hurt someone we love and love someone who hurt us. We wake up one day, bruised and battered and aching from slaying so many dragons for so long a time. We wonder if any of this was worth it and it’s then we realize that merely getting to this point is the real victory. The really wise ones among us realize that when Paul wrote “His grace is sufficient for me...” Paul meant that most times sufficiency means “barely enough” not effusive overflow. Life is beauty and ruin, intermingled. Grace is the place where we learn to love both.
     That’s what this beautiful, emotional, unforgettable record is. It’s Grace. Written in a code that the honest grasp, and set to music that bandaged hearts hear better than those who have been untouched by pain.
     “Job” is like finding a journal at a rest stop on a trail whose destination I understand, but whose terrain I fear and stumble over. The words inside the weathered book don’t make the journey any less difficult...but they tell me someone else is up ahead. He’s making his way slowly through the uncharted darkness. And his words serve as breadcrumbs for me to follow.
Until we both make it home.

“Job” by Rick Elias Release date 11/12/2013 at

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Interview with Craig

Yesterday I did a very special live interview on "WebbWeaver books"
It includes an on-air reading of one chapter. Here is the link to the podcast Interview with WebbWeaver

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

How Did We Get Here? Part 2

                          
Yesterday I gave a brief definition of “Fundamentalism.” To give a better idea of what this looks like, here are a few well known Fundamentalists:

Dr. Jerry Falwell
Jerry Vines
Pat Robertson (yes, you can be weird and insensitive but still be a fundamentalist)
Dr. James Dobson
Dr. Charles Stanley
Chuck Swindoll
John McArthur
Jim Bakker
Chuck Smith

These are a few but they are recognizable. If you are familiar with these men, you are familiar with Fundamentalism.

Now...
You know who and what a Fundamentalist is. What is a “Fundie?”

A Fundie is the preacher in “Footloose.”
Fundies embrace a particularly legalistic and stifling version of the Gospel. Where Fundamentalists embrace Biblical principles, and not individual actions as “righteous,” Fundies do the opposite. For example, the Bible is crystal clear about being drunk. Drunkenness is absolutely a sin, no question. Fundamentalists will largely abstain from alcohol, but will admit that the Biblical mandate is against being drunk, not merely taking one sip of alcohol. (There is some disagreement about this, but it’s not something that divides) They will observe and practice the Biblical principle of modest dress, but will not define modesty as an absolute, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in the believers heart.
The will go to decent movies to show Hollywood that we support good in any art-form.
They believe in having unsaved friends, and living lives that witness to the power of Jesus Christ, but not being prudes and attacking the unsaved for being so darned...unsaved.
The Fundie does none of this.
Fundies believe that even letting a drop of alcohol touch your lips is the same sin as being a drunken lout, lying in your own puke in a gutter.
Fundies believe that almost all clothing is “worldly”. Worldly is a non-specific, undefined criterion that basically means the Pastor and his deacons don’t approve of it, but they can’t find a specific Biblical principle to support them.
Movies...they’re worldly. So they are all evil.
Women wearing pants? Worldly.
Bono? He’s no Christian...he’s too worldly, regardless of his amazing life of Christ- likeness.
They decide that a man’s hair must be a certain length. They dislike all contemporary forms of worship music and go one step further...they find things about contemporary worship that they dislike and call them sin.
They demand rigid adherence to an ever changing, ever increasing list of rules and regulations.
Under all of this...they are trapped on a performance treadmill. They never quite understood that Jesus was wildly in love with them and chose to die for them as they are. So they spend their lives making up for the horror of the cross by self-flagellating,  by placing themselves under the bondage of ever tightening rules and regulations and bylaws. They preach that you can’t earn your salvation. Then they spend their entire lives trying to earn it anyway.
They saw the target, but wound up shooting themselves, and each other, instead.
They hide their insecurities and –sadly- their personal demons and wickedness behind a thin veneer of self-defined righteousness. Most of them have been hiding evil in their hearts that is greater, by far, than the evil they preached against.
Some famous Fundies would be:
Jack Hyles. Hyles probably retired the crown. There was never a Fundie so Fundie as this clown. He shackled thousands of congregants while he was having an affair with his married secretary for decades. He ruled like a tyrant and made up extra-biblical rules like a despot.
Jack Schaap. Son in Law to the guy mentioned above. Doing 15 years for raping a minor he was “counseling”. He took her across state lines to do it, so it was a Federal offense.
Bob Jones. Separate sidewalks for men and women? No explanation needed
These are the  big three. There are a lot of lesser lights in Fundie-ism but these three guys lead the charge. All three are out of the pulpit now.

So...I gave you a brief explanation of Fundamentalism and Fundie-ism. You see the contrasts. Here’s what they have to do with each other. And how it got us to this sad state of affairs in modern Evangelical life.

I grew up in the grip of Fundie-ism. My then-church came to it late. The first several years I attended, it was a wonderful place. Friendly, loving, caring, very Fundamentalist, but not Fundie. Then 1979 came. An itinerant evangelist came along and began preaching a very harsh, burdensome, legalism. The worst part was he tied it all together with “if you love God...you’ll do...” and then he pronounced his list of do’s and don’ts that defined Christianity. They weren’t options. They were mandates. If you disagreed with his teachings (which were all the result of his personal convictions, matched to random Bible verses, taken drastically out of context) you were rebellious. And rebellion, he reminded us, was the same as the sin of witchcraft.
He divided a heretofore loving and familial church. After he left, rules dominated the scene. It became necessary to “prove” your love for God. It was a quantitative thing. If I loved God, I would read my Bible as much as I watched TV. Because I should never love TV more, and you show God your love for Him by the amount of time you spend in His word. Well that was good. But what was better was the people who decided that if they watched one hour of TV a night, they had to read TWO hours of the Bible. (An adult, reading at a ninth grade level, can read the entire Bible in 80 hours...just so you know)
Then it became the trend to simply throw your TV out the door. TV was evil. Not TV shows...TV. Rock records were evil too and so we burned them regularly. I myself burned the same ones many times.
Girls who loved Jesus wore skirts to their knee. But girls who REALLY loved Jesus wore them THREE inches below the knee. Girls who Really REALLY loved Jesus wore floor length dresses. It was a constant contest and the stakes were high. The last thing you wanted was to be labeled as someone who didn’t demonstrate your love for Jesus by the ever increasing strictness of your lifestyle.
What it really did was redefine God’s love for us. It turns out it wasn’t unconditional. It turns out it wasn’t the gift of God and not due to my performance. Sure they still preached that...but they demonstrated a very earned, works related, legalistic salvation. If you really were saved, you’d live your life like this...”
It damaged a generation to it’s core. I grew up waiting daily for God to drop his other shoe. I was a teenaged boy. I had lustful thoughts about a variety of girls from the checker in the grocery store, to Cheryl Tiegs on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I loved music...loved it. Not just Christian music. I cursed once in a while.
I spent my entire teen years in a perpetual state of repentance, because I just couldn’t out-live the endless rules and regulations. They never taught us how to think...they taught us what to think. I wrestled with a God who I felt could never love me, because I could never be good enough. But that never stopped me from trying. I worried that one day I’d be killed in a car crash or a lightening strike because I was so evil. In my heart I loved God deeply. But I was also in dread fear of Him. I literally would pause in fear before taking communion, because the thoughts of a random, stray sin that I’d somehow missed in my ritual of repentance, might render me unworthy and I might keel over dead during the service.
It wasn’t just my church. Fundie-ism was rampant. It was everywhere. It dominated the scene in the 70’s and 80’s. It ruined millions of lives. It ruined a generation.
The pendulum had swung so far to the right that it was threatening to jump off the rail.
The problem is, the pendulum always swings back. And it did in Evangelical circles. When it did...it did what it usually does: It overcorrected and swung too far.

We’ll pick it up there tomorrow. 

Monday, October 7, 2013

The Fundamentals. A Brief Series...

Hey gang,
I am beginning a brief series here. Maybe five or six articles in all. But it will explain a lot. A lot about where I am heading next in life. So I hope you'll keep up with this and in the end you'll know what the future holds for your's truly.

Today's installment is called "How did we get here?"

Last week I wrote an article about “Airbag Christianity.”  In it, I outlined several points of contention I have with modern evangelicals and what passes as sermons in mega churches in this country.
Today I want to dig a little deeper. Turn over some dirt and find some answers.
Like, where did we go wrong?
I am 50 years old. I was raised in an Independent Baptist Church. It was a community church to begin with. It was a great place to belong, attend, and grow up in. Until about 1979 when Fundie-ism took over.
What?
Fundie-ism.
Fundie-ism is Fundamentalism’s bastard cousin. It’s twisted, evil, alter-ego.
Okay...so what is Fundamentalism? There are a lot of definitions of this, but we’ll use mine.
*Fundamentalists believe that the Bible is inerrant. We believe that it’s inspired. That man wrote it, but only wrote what was dictated to them by the Holy Spirit. This was spiced a little by their personalities, but the content, context, and principles are straight from God. We believe this entirely. I believe this. The Bible is our basis for truth and the True North of our spiritual compass.
*Fundamentalists believe that men are all lost. All of them. Now some Fundamentalists are Reformed or Calvinists, and so they believe that “Total Depravity” is something more than I believe it is. They believe that man is entirely corrupt and nothing good exists within him at all. They believe this renders him entirely unable to ever choose salvation in Christ on his own. This is a big deal and a hot-button topic, but for here and now it doesn't matter. Both sides, reformed and not reformed can be Fundamentalists.
Personally...I don’t side with them on this. I believe that since each of us are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and a creation of God Himself, a tiny spark of Him remains in us. I see Total Depravity as something different in this way: I am totally depraved as compared to God Himself. I can be as good as I want to be but it will never be good enough. So my depravity...whether massive or minimal...is total when compared to the Holiness of God. And since He is the only standard of measure, that’s what counts. But I maintain that each of us has something of Him in us and that is why there are more “good” people on earth than bad. (Although that number seems to be tipping in the wrong direction) If we didn't have a smidgen of God in us, we would throw off all restraint. There would be chaos, we would break speed limits, pillage, rape, curse at old ladies, and cheat at cards. But we don’t for the most part, because we still are God’s creation. Something good lives in us. That’s why I believe that when faced with a choice to join in life with Christ and find that thing for which we long...we usually say yes.
Enough about that.
*Fundamentalists believe that Jesus is God. Jesus is the only begotten son of God, but He is also God himself. “Begotten” here doesn't mean “begotten” like you and I use it. Jesus wasn't the product of a sex act. Jesus existed for eternity. He existed before he became a man in the flesh. He always was. He always will be. Begotten is used to show He wasn't created. Jesus was not created. He is not the result of anything. He is not the result of any creative action of God.
*We believe in the Holy Spirit. He also always was. He always will be. Differences exist about what His role is on earth among believers. But we all agree He is our Comforter. He is our Guide into truth. He is here to convict people about their sin and the need for a savior. That much all Fundamentalists agree upon.
*We believe salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ and nothing more. No good works, no donations to the church poor box, no prayers to Saints. Just Jesus and nothing else.
*We believe that Jesus physically died, was buried and physically rose form the dead. Just like that.
*We believe that his death was the substitution for ours. That he died to pay for the sin of man. That his death was the one I deserved but He took it for me and if I believe in him, and accept what he did on my behalf, I am saved.
*We believe that He is physically coming to take his church away one day soon. Some call this “the Rapture”
*We believe that Jesus will one day destroy the earth and set up a new Kingdom on a new earth and this Kingdom will be eternal.
*We believe in a literal, physical, eternal Hell. We believe this fate awaits EVERY man and only those who accept Jesus death as substitutionary will avoid going there.
There is a lot more to Fundamentalism, but these are the...uuhh...fundamentals.
This matters because it sets the stage for the next article I will write, where I explain where we went off the rails and how that effected the pendulum swing of neo-evangelicals.

So study this tonight and get familiar with it. Tomorrow there’ll be more.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Airbag Christianity: Cushioning the Blow of a Head-on Collision with Jesus Christ

There comes a point in every Christian's life -if you are serious about your Faith- that you'll be faced with a decision that will cost you. Mine came today.
Last year, a friend of mine I've known since childhood took his stand. He is a pastor back home, and when Delaware was voting on same-sex marriage, George decided he could not stand by and watch the state legislate this law into existence without speaking up. He did. It was his crossroads moment. Whether you agree with him or not, he made a conscious decision on principle and he stood.
I became a Christian at a fairly young age. I was eight or nine years old. So I didn't get saved from much as far as a personal history of sinful behavior. Nor was I simply bull-rushed to the altar after Sunday School and told to repeat a prayer. My first Sunday School teacher was a sweet man named Bill Bell, and he carefully explained to me that I was a sinner, just like everyone else. One sin or a million sins was not the issue. The issue was my nature. I prayed with him that Sunday, and I got saved. Saved from my nature. Saved from the same condemnation that awaits all mankind. I was born again. Because the first time only resulted in a lost soul entering this world. You don't hear these terms much anymore. You hear "engage" "interaction" and the ever popular "relationship."  Listen...I have a relationship with the mailman, because I need my mail. But I don't know a thing about him. We don't hear clear-cut messages about salvation anymore. We hear about "manifestations of the Spirit" "Prosperity" "God wants you to be super duper awesome" "God is love" "Speak the Kingdom into your life!" and "Go claim your destiny in Jesus name."  Around Williamson County, where I live we hear about well-drilling in lower Bungaloor, we hear 10 weeks about the Holy Spirit and His work, we hear about the latest Duck-call maker and how he is our new buddy, but we don't hear "Don't be so surprised that I have told you, you must be born again!"  (John 3:7)  We announce on Social Media when the Governor visits our church, or the grand opening of a brand new satellite campus where no teaching pastor actually exists and instead the main pastor drops down on a viewing screen like the jumbo-tron at Cowboy Stadium. "Heeeeeeere's Pastor!"
We have prayer lines where believers stand and get prayed for. That's wonderful. But then we close the service and send the masses home with a gesture of the hand and pronouncement of a benediction, but without the opportunity to avail themselves of the altar, and do their business with God.
We'll occasionally applaud the story of how brother so-and-so came to church, loved it, and then a few weeks later he prayed with his neighbor and accepted Jesus. Meanwhile, we ignore the fact that every single week hundreds of brother so-and-so's are in the seats in our mega building and we preach an awesome sermon about the Christian life without ever asking them, directly and forcefully, if they actually have that life within.
The Cross of Calvary is the defining moment of world history. It was the head-on-collision moment between mankind and God. One does not come to the cross and leave unphased. One does not meet the Christ of God in his torment and suffering on Calvary, and it deliver only a glancing blow. Calvary is a face-first, head-on collision. Your metal gets twisted and your frame is bent. The window through which you viewed this world gets shattered and the paint that made it seem so beautiful gets scarred. And when the impact is over and you grind to a halt on the path that lead you to this hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem...you do not continue on the same path. You awake from the fog of the way you have been living, and you shake your head to clear the cobwebs, and you check to see what it was that you hit. And then you see the fearsome menace of the cross and you see it has not moved.  The Cross of Jesus Christ is the immovable object and the irresistible force.
It draws you to itself and then it breaks you on impact. It is not a sideswipe. It is not a glancing blow. It is most definitely not a hit and run...Jesus doesn't just drop in, make a few corrections, and then leave you with his insurance card in hand. You slam face-first into the cruelty of Calvary. There is blood. There is damage to your old frame. There is noise and violence as the nature you were born with is demolished and destroyed and the new life of Christ Himself is put in it's place. There are no airbags to cushion the impact.
But the church today has tried to become just that...an airbag to soften the impact of the most impacting moment in human history.
I can't play that game anymore.
When I was 14, I sat beside a campfire at Summit Lake Camp in Emmitsburg MD. My church didn't have a Youth Pastor at the time and so we didn't go to summer camp.  I went with another church because some friends invited me. That Friday night I sat by that fire, and listened to the preacher, and heard God calling me. I said yes. From that day forward, He has had a plan in place. I spent my entire high school years thinking about that plan and hoping to see it happen. One day I read in Ezekiel this verse, and it radically changed my life. It's Ezekiel 22:30  “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one."
I don't know why that verse would leap off the page at me at age 14. I don't know why in 1977 I was already so acutely aware of the path we were on as a nation and how big a role the Church was playing in where we were heading. In hindsight, this played a large part in my affinity with Liberty University, and with Dr. Falwell. I saw that verse as literal. And I saw "the land" as America. No, I do not believe this verse specifically applies to America. I believe this verse is typical of any nation that claims Christianity as it's base and it's founding doctrine. I believe this verse applies to any nation that is founded upon principles derived from Christian doctrine. I do not believe America was ever a "Christian Nation" in the classical sense. We are not a Theocracy. But when the founding Fathers decided to build this nation on principles, they chose the principles outlined in the Bible. They chose to build a nation based on Faith in God and they crafted laws that favored the practice of religion, particularly Christianity
I look at that verse today -36 years later- and it still feels as ominous and still moves my soul. There is a gap in the wall. The hedge has fallen down. God is seeking righteous men to stand in the gaps and make up the hedge so that He would not have to destroy the land, but He finds none.
He is not finding the voices of ones crying in the wilderness. He is not finding clarion calls to repentance and redemption in the Osteens, Paula White's and Rob Bell's of this world. He is not finding it in the mega churches of Williamson county where half the population starts their Sunday morning and leaves without a clear-cut presentation of the doctrine of salvation. How is it that Tennessee is the most churched state in America, and the most corrupt( list of corrupt states )
Because we have preached a grace that is a disgrace in the eyes of God.
I believe in grace. My life was changed by reading “The Ragamuffin Gospel” because I had become enslaved by legalism. But we have overreacted to the legalistic chains of the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s and bound ourselves with a chain just as insidious. The chain of deception that everything is permissable. We do not preach a Cross-of-Christ experience that bends our metal, and twists our frame, and scars our paint, and breaks the windows we see ourselves through. We've preached airbag theology. We've softened the impact of the very cross that Jesus died on. Jesus Himself made this bold self-pronouncement in Matthew 21: 40-44
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?  “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.  Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
That’s not a fender-bender. That’s not a cheap-grace, imitation gospel. And that’s not universalism. You have two choices and those choices become your destiny. When you come to the Cross of Christ you will either fall on it in surrender, and be broken and rebuilt...or the Cross of Jesus will fall on you in Judgment, and you will be shattered and destroyed. There is no middle ground. There is no cheap repair, and discount paint job. Where is this message today?
I can’t escape this anymore. I can’t sit back and watch this country slip into the grasp of evil and not speak up. The church is to be the salt and the light and she is neither.
36 years ago, God burned this into my heart. He apparently wasn't kidding.

More on that tomorrow...