Good morning church family,

Should future inhabitants of North America send a team of private investigators back in time to look into the collapse of Western civilization during the twenty-first century, one piece of evidence they’d be certain to catalogue would be the broad and shrugging use of the gift bag. Now, there may more compelling factors discovered when conducting in such an autopsy; things such as the breathtaking proliferation of recreational drugs, the use of subversive textbooks in the universities, and the efforts to make pornography as readily accessible as tap water. But, notwithstanding these and many other findings, perhaps nothing would better symbolize the apathy, ennui, and careless consumption of our present age than the gift bag.

When the citizens of a society are full of industry, vitality, and excellence; the soul of such a civilization will be found in its cultural expressions. Its music will be inspiring, its literature lofty, and its art ennobling. Its cinema will be edifying, its fashion uplifting, and the discourse on the subway platform as well as at the dining room table will betray a wonderful propriety and decorum. People will not walk about looking like a bunch of unmade beds but will instead take care to manage their appearance. The work they do with their hands, whether it’s the assembly of a Big Mac, the design of a downtown skyscraper, or the writing of a thank you note will all be done with a zealous and careful attention to detail. The people will respect both themselves and their neighbors. In short, the people will have pride.

Now, before I open the bomb bay doors on our use of the gift bag, I must confess to my own surrender to this popular convenience. I’ve been using gift bags in my gift giving for decades now. Many an oddly-shaped Christmas gift or a hastily purchased birthday present has gone into a gift bag that I either purchased at the card store or selected out of the stack kept in storage under the stairs at the house. I, of course, always try and gussy the gift bag up a little with some tissue paper poking out the top of the bag like a pocket square out of a tuxedo coat. And I usually try and tie a tag to the handle and throw in a card – but that’s about it. And I suppose it’s the sighing, sluggish, obligatory nature of it all that has me dishing on the sad convention. For we’re all aware – whether the comprehension is a conscious one or not – that whatever love and goodwill gets communicated by the giving of a gift is almost certainly diminished by the manner in which the gift is given. When we have someone over to the house for dinner, for instance; the object is not to merely provide our guests with enough calories to satisfy their hunger. Should we put an unwrapped protein bar on their plate, set out bottles water for them that were fetched from a case on the floor, and fan some Oreos out on a platter for dessert – that might be sufficient fuel to get our dinner guests through the evening but it would hardly communicate love and respect. Style, I understand, is not as important as substance. But it’s not far behind.

At a church I pastored some time ago, a parishioner of mine decided to give me a gift at Christmas. It was the last Sunday of Advent and the gift was left on my desk in my office. There it sat atop a stack of books – a glossy, golden foil gift bag with some red tissue paper flaring out the top. Opening it up, I first found a card. The holiday card issued from Hallmark and was one of those designed for the card maker’s “religious” clientele. The image was festive enough and the printed message inside was warm and harmless. The card’s message was signed by the giver with no personal post script of any kind. Digging through the tissue paper, I found a Visa gift card at the bottom of the bag with a bow stuck onto it. Now, I must say that I was very blessed by this gift and incredibly humbled to think that this wonderful soul would spend some of her very limited income so that I could be blessed at Christmas. It’s never made any sense to me how much people have sacrificed that I might be cared for. But as I pondered that gift, I could faintly hear in it the death rattle of a once great civilization. A commercial greeting card tucked into a commercial gift bag; giving attribution to the gift of a commercial gift card. I couldn’t help being a little saddened by what the whole display had to say about the decline of the West.

If you love, care for, and respect a person; when you give him or her a gift, you will labor to make sure it is thoughtful, personal, and valuable. And if you’ve worked hard to hunt down, build, buy, or acquire this treasure then you’ll be proud to present it to the honored recipient. And if you’re proud to give such a gift, then you’re going to take care in its presentation; buying just the right wrapping paper, just the right ribbon, and just the right bow. You’re going to wrap the gift neatly and take special care with the tag. You’ll want the gift to be as much a treasure wrapped as it is unwrapped. You certainly wouldn’t just peel off the price tag and dump it in a gift bag.

Were I to try, I’m sure I could come up with another twenty or so evidences similar to the gift bag that would illustrate the collapse of Western civilization; but I won’t print such a list as I’ve already stepped on enough toes here and gotten enough askance glances. I’ll just confine my opprobrium for the poor gift bag and leave it at that. But why do I share such a concern? I see the greatest threat to our beloved republic being the apathy of its people. A country that collectively says “whatever” when confronted with its sorry, sloppy approach to life is a country who need not fear the barbarians at the gate – for the far greater enemy to the good life is already inside the walls. Americans have no appetite for the wholesome, no patience for the logical, no eye for the beautiful, and no energy for the excellent. We are happy with what we have and can’t be bothered to strive for anything more. Let the beautiful bridges crumble into our rivers, the lovely works of literature be warehoused in library basements; let computers compose our anthems, and let chivalry, manners, and etiquette die at the deadbolted door to our man caves. In the truest sense of the word; it’s pathetic.

Let us heed the Apostle Paul’s summary admonition to the Philippian church: “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8) For if these are the things we’re thinking about and dwelling on then these will be the things we do and practice. And Paul, in the very next verse promises to those who make nobility their practice that, “…the God of peace will be with you.”

Church – let us so treasure the gift of the gospel – that we might present it to our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family members in the best possible wrapping. Let us care about our language, our manner, our person, and our address. Let us honor both the gift and the recipient by our pursuit of excellence in all things. May our Gospel testimony never be given in a gift bag.

We’re looking forward to gathering together in God’s living room tomorrow morning. There’ll be laughter, earnest dialogue, honest encouragement, and a lot of eye-contact with Heaven. There’ll be singing, praying, testifying, and understanding. It’s going to be a blessing! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

–        Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

Human beings are born with great capacity but little proficiency. Any toddler, for instance, is up and dancing the minute the DJ spins a tune. But that doesn’t mean you’d want to have that little kid take the lead. From the first second their born, babies are engaging their vocal cords and communicating; but they’ll make their parents wait for years before they hear a single, grammatically-correct sentence come out of any of their little mouths. As soon as an infant has enough core strength to roll over onto his stomach, he’s instantly on the move; but it will be many moons before all the baby gates in the house can come down. And if I observed anything during my time as a parent of newborns, it was that babies are extremely gifted at going to the bathroom; but it took the better part of forever for them to be able to relieve themselves at the proper time, in the proper place, and in the proper manner. Yes; humans are born with lots of ability but precious little competency.

While parents are quick to correct their children’s grammar, get them potty trained, and help them to their feet; I see little of the same urgency on the part of the Evangelical Church to encourage similar growth in the spiritual newborns living under its roof.

Any convert to Christianity, for instance, is instantly able to pray. In fact, prayer was probably something he was doing long before he even came to Christ. But simply being able to pray cannot be the goal. Instead, Jesus would see His followers be able to pray both powerfully and effectively.

Every new believer with an elementary school education should be able to read his Bible. But there’s an ocean of difference between someone who can successfully read a chapter a day in the Bible and someone who can read that chapter for comprehension; understanding and applying the insights to his life and situation.

Any Christian who makes it to church on time is able to participate in worship; standing, singing, and lifting holy hands. But there’s so much more to worship than learning melodies and following stage directions.

And, from the first moment they come into the fold, every Christian has a testimony. Everybody can say something about his faith. But the believer’s defense of his faith and the articulation of the hope he has in his heart is something that should get more and more compelling, convincing, and quickening as the years go by.

But isn’t it a shame that so many Christians are living off the same level of spiritual proficiency they had when they first accepted Christ decades before. Indeed, the Evangelical church in the West is the most babied bunch of Christians the Faith has ever seen. The modern American church is filled with many converts but precious few disciples.

When I was pastoring in Augusta, Georgia, there was a man in the church there named David. He was a quiet, soft-spoken, and hardworking man who loved his little church; never missing a Sunday. His wife had died not long before I started pastoring there and he was doing his best then to raise their kids without her. David painted houses for a living and the sunbaked hand that I shook every Sunday always had splatters of paint on it. David sat in the second row with his family and always listened intently to everything that was said and sung. He loved dirt track racing and was successful one Saturday night in getting me out to one of the local tracks. I remember sitting there drinking Mountain Dew, eating boiled peanuts, and grinning through the cloud of dust. But the most time I spent with David was at my house. David’s youngest son, Cody, was in the youth group that I led at the parsonage on Sunday nights and David started hanging out and helping me in whatever way he could during the meetings. I was glad to have him there and he was a kind and loving toward the other kids.

It was during these youth group meetings at my house that I started to pick up on something about David that saddened and surprised me. I began taking note of the fact that David never offered to read the Scripture we were studying and always shyly declined if asked to. We sang songs out of the hymnal during our meetings (very unorthodox for a youth group but the kids loved it) and I observed that David never looked at the words even though the selection wasn’t well-known and the book was open on his lap. Reflecting further, I realized that David didn’t text message or email, didn’t fill out any of the forms for ski trips or camps, and never took a bulletin on Sunday. It wasn’t that David didn’t read – I came to understand that David couldn’t read.

One night I ended up driving Cody home from some youth event we’d had and David happened to be sitting out on his front deck when I pulled into the yard. David and his family lived in a humble backwoods home that was situated quite a ways down a lonesome dirt road. David was enjoying a cold drink at the end of his day and his enthusiastic wave encouraged me to park the car for a minute and chat a while. I sat down on one of the plastic patio chairs on the deck and declined the offer of an in-kind cold drink. I don’t remember now how the conversation turned personal but I do remember seeing an opening for broaching the question of whether or not he could read.

“Say, David,” I said; speaking casually and wishing I had one of those cold drinks to sit back and sip on, “you don’t read very well, huh?”

“No, sir,” David said without hesitation while staring into his lap. Then looking up at me briefly, he continued, “I don’t suppose I rightly read at all. Never have.”

Even though I had suspected it, I was still surprised to hear it. But I tried not to betray my wonder at the confession. I was amazed that this man who owned a home, had a business, was raising a family, and serving in the church; wasn’t able to read a lick. I was instantly both humbled by David’s pluck and determination in life and burdened to help him finally learn. I asked him that night if he’d like some help in trying to read and he said that he would. We arranged to meet one evening a week at the church and I’d try and teach him his ABC’s.

Those first few meetings were pretty comical. I learned pretty quickly that teaching someone how to read is no easy task. I, of course, took being able to read for granted and believed anybody could just “pick it up”. Well, I was wrong about that. So, as David was learning how to read, I was learning how to teach reading. Like I said, it was pretty comical. But in fits and starts, we started making a little progress. David humbled himself and I, with homemade flashcards in hand, stopped trying to get this grown man to be able to read in a single day and began patiently working with him.

As David got better at being able to sound out words and fitting them into the orders of the sentences he was given, he suddenly seemed more comfortable in sharing about his efforts with others in the church. And as the open secret of David’s illiteracy became a rooting interest of everyone in the church – a better and more able teacher was found for David and I was relieved of my duties. As time went by, I was glad to see David begin picking his way through passages on Sunday morning and seeing his eyes crossing the page of the hymnal as he sang out the lyric. He never said much about it but I knew he was grateful for that front porch conversation we’d had years before.

I think about that episode often when I reflect on the lack of spiritual proficiency I see among the faithful folks I’m walking with. There are so many of us that ought to humble ourselves as David did and confess some of our incompetencies in the realm of Christian disciplines – myself included.

So, let this email be an invitation to a front porch – yours or mine – and a confession that I’d like to try and do a little more teaching if you’re up for trying to do a little more learning. Then maybe, just maybe, the Lord might let the American church out of the nursery!

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to spend some blessed time in the Lord’s house with God and His people. Praise the Lord for His Kingdom! These times together are so good for the soul. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate