Wallis v. Beck. (Yawn.)

Two weeks ago, had you told me that a nationally known religious figure was about to lock horns with a nationally known conservative political commentator, I would have guess that I would have cared.  And I would have missed it by a mile.

It’s not because I don’t care about the issues.  I care about religion, how it’s perceived in America, and the effect it has on our policies and politics…it’s just that the two who have thrust it into the forefront are two that make it hard for me to pick a favorite.

I’m talking, of course, about the verbal bombing going on between Glenn Beck and Jim Wallis.

On a recent TV show, Beck challenged people:

“I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! …”

He went on to say that ’social justice’ and ‘economic justice’ were code words for communism and Nazi philosophy.

Enter Jim Wallis of Sojourners.   Wallis immediately challenged Beck to a debate about the issue.  Sojourners also put an email generator up on their website that would automatically send an email to Beck and his producers…and sign you up for the Sojourner’s database.

Here is my ethical dilemma.  I’m not sure who to side with, because I cringe at both of these guys.

Beck often appears to be the loony uncle of conservatism.   He’s entertaining and at times endearing.  He’s welcome at the 4th of July picnic, but you’re petrified at what he might say at a really important event.   He never met a controversy he didn’t like or an overstatement he wouldn’t make.  Before being a conservative or a commentator, he is an entertainer.  He is a good one.  Like him or not, he’s funny…but he’s not a spokesman for mainstream conservative Christians, because he’s not one himself.  He is a mid-life convert to Mormonism.

Beck’s own church is out of step with most of mainstream conservative Christianity – in it’s practices, it’s beliefs, and it’s history.  This weakness of perspective probably caused him to say ’social justice’ when he meant ’social gospel’, in which case, I might be siding with him….but given every chance to straighten that misunderstanding out, he’s only dug himself deeper.  He meant what he said, even if he didn’t know what he was talking about.

In the other corner, Wallis appears to be a picture of decorum.  From all reports, he’s a hard guy not to like.   He sounds reasonable and understanding.  So reasonable and understanding, in fact, that he won’t press for legal protection for the unborn in the form of repealing Roe v. Wade or a constitutional amendment about abortion.

Wallis likes to lean into the mantle of William Wilberforce, who ironically fought hard for a British prohibition of slavery, even though Wallis, by his perspective on abortion, may have urged a slavery compromise.  Apply his theory of abortion to slavery, and you have Wilberforce saying “We’ll never stop it, so let’s just slow it down and make it rare….”.   I’m sure the rare slave would have taken some solace in knowing they were the exception to the rule.

For years Wallis has eeked out a growing audience in the middle by playing defense for both sides – refusing to press for hard law against abortion (lean to the left!) while insisting he is hard core pro-life (lean to the right!).   Lean to the left, lean to the right, stand up, sit down, just don’t fight.

Until now….Wallis is taking on the loony uncle on a point over which Beck cannot possibly win.  Beck clearly overplayed his hand, got caught up in the emotion and the TV lights, and said something rather dumb.  Of course Christianity has an element of justice intrinsic in it’s function.  We may not all agree on what it looks like, but it’s not as if injustice is a Christian value.

Here at IHOP-KC, we’re engaging a major initiative to accompany our 24/7 prayer and worship with 24/7 acts of justice, feeding the poor, caring for widows and orphans, and ministering to the needs – spiritual and physical – of those who found themselves at the poker game of life with a pair of twos.  I care about this stuff and I take the debate seriously.

So here we are, watching Jim Wallis and Glenn Beck bicker between themselves on their websites, radio interviews, and blogs….the sage, middle of the road reverend and the wild eyed, John the Baptistish follower of Joseph Smith.

The  peaks of Christianity and Conservationism are both being staked out by guys who don’t represent me.    I just want to stick my head under a pillow and hope they both stick a sock in it by the next news cycle…but I doubt they will, because behind the posturing, there are viewers to attract and email lists to build.

What Not To Say

Once in a while, fervently believing that children are an inheritance from the Lord gets me in trouble.

A few weeks ago, a stranger glanced at our tribe and raised an eyebrow.  This only happens when we leave the house.  In this case, though, I was in a conversation with the stranger, which opened the door to the question.

“Are these all yours?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “They’re all ours…”.  Knowing what he really meant, I went on.  “Some of them were adopted.”

A look of relief rested on his face for a minute, then he began to reminisce.  “After our two were grown, my wife talked about adoption for a while.   My wife said ‘we have the room and the time – why not?’….so I bought her a dog and she quit asking.”   He was obviously relieved that he was able to replace her desire to adopt with a boutique pooch that could be put in a kennel and had a shorter life expectancy than a human being.

It was at this point that I was reminded that Kelsey is essentially a much nicer person than I am….because she would have said nothing.  She may have thought something, but she wouldn’t have acted on it.  Again, we are not the same person.

“A dog?” I said with a smile, “That’s awesome!”

“Yeah, she really likes it.”

“That’s great!   And the best part, is when you’re old and in a nursing home, that dog will come visit you!”

Dead silence ensued.

I have a pretty high toleration for awkward, especially in the cases when I’m causing it.  I can let it hang there for all eternity, and in this case, the awkwardness was palpable.

Eventually, he responded with “Uh….yeah.  I see your point.”

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have said it…the guy didn’t realize that to me, it felt like he was drawing a correlation between my children and his flea-bitten ankle biter.  Likewise, he probably didn’t know that his words were reflective of our culture, where children are a hobby or accessory rather than an extension of ourselves.

In a world that hard wires peoples’ happiness index to a bank account and a lot of free time, children are a drain of resources.   They are costly at the beginning, and then get more expensive as it goes on.   They don’t contribute much to the Gross Family Product, unless the family is interested in producing more than goods and services…like character or the future.

For this guy, the ache of his wife’s heart was satiated by the addition of Bowser, and so maybe good was done.  Perhaps people who ache at that level should have their needs satisfied the easiest way possible…but for those of you who cannot be satisfied by a Bichon Frise, who dream bigger than the second home or the Mercedes Benz, consider investing in children – yours or the children of others.

I’m not of the opinion that every family should adopt multiple children – or adopt at all, for that matter.  That’s a heavy yoke to put on people…and I don’t think you need to take children in to your home to make a difference.  Our lives are made doable by a host of people who come alongside to help out when we need it.  Our children are their inheritance too.

Weight it out, friends.   Invest heavily in what will outlive you.  In the end, you will live out your days with no regrets.

Pouring Dirt Down A Money Hole

I am blogging this with the firm believe that all of us know more than any of us, hoping to tap into the collective mind of blog readers for a few ideas – or better than that, leads – on how to fix a gnarly project I have.

Those of you who have lurked for more than a year know that The Compound has a swimming pool.  I’ve always eyed it a little warily, like some bald Jed Clampett looking at his Cement Pond.

The whole thing has been like being given a pregnant cat.  Didn’t want it, not sure what to do with it, wish it would go away.  It’s expensive to maintain, and an eyesore if not maintained.   Add to that, the fact that I have four very little girls and the pool freaks us out considerably.   Yes, it’s separately fenced from the house but gates get left open and I can’t bear the thought of what might happen, so after a year of soul searching, the pool must go.

Unfortunately, you can’t just vanquish a hole.  You must fill it.

What I’d like to do is fill it with dirt and build a play center for the girls in the fenced area.  What I need is a lot of dirt, delivered to The Compound, and dumped into our pool.

Does anyone know anyone in KCMO who’s got a lot of dirt they want to get rid of? I’d like to do this in one fell swoop as opposed to taking down the fence and putting a small truckload in every other week all summer.   Cheap is good, free is better.

Any ideas, people?

Oh, and spare me the “don’t do it!” comments – unless you’re willing to spring for the chemicals and play life guard for the next….decade.  The strongest encouragement I’ve gotten to fill it with dirt has come from people who own pools!

Deep Waters

I’ve been watching a documentary entitled Deep Waters on Netflix.  I say “I’ve been watching…” because watching anything is a luxury that I rarely have time for.  It’s taken me about a week to watch this 90 minute piece.  It’s just that season of life.  By my calculations, it’ll only be this way another 20 years.

Deep Waters is the story of Donald Crowhurst, a second rate weekend sailor who in 1968, decided to enter the Sunday Times Golden Globe Yacht Race.  The rules were simple – one man, one boat, must circumnavigate the world non-stop.  No support, no cache of food somewhere in the Pacific.  There would be two prizes – one for the first man to finish the challenge and another for the fastest time (the yachts left at varied times).

Crowhurst should never have entered the race.  He was outclassed by the other sailors.  His boat was inferior.  He had painfully little experience.  None of this stopped him from talking bravely about not only finishing the race but actually winning the whole thing.    He talked big and planned bigger…but once he launched from England and headed south, reality broke over the bow and smacked him in the face.

Rather than sail around the southern cape of Africa and east, he drifted west off the coast of Brazil, all the while faking reports of his progress.  He  waited months until the pack of boats rounded Cape Horn to to the south of him, then joined the race heading back for Britain.   I won’t spoil the story for you – you really need to watch the documentary – but suffice it to say it ends tragically for Crowhurst.

The film underscored something for me – that I’ve always learned more from the failures of history than I have the success stories.

For some reason, we turn success stories into teaching moments…yet success is as often as not a result of dumb luck.  I’ve been around a lot of successful people – many of them are very smart and skilled…but the smartest among them will tell you there was an element of their success that came to be completely out of their control.  As often as “I did it my way”, you’ll hear “I was in the right place at the right time…”.

In my own history, the dark places when things went wrong have always been the most memorable classrooms. Failure makes a far bigger impression than success does – and offers a better perspective for correction.  Fail and you do better next time.  Succeed and you often quit.

I believe that if you choose to learn in those places of failure, you emerge broken but smarter, which beats just plain broken hands down.  When I read or watch the stories of heroes who got every break in the world, I enjoy the ride but I don’t find things to apply.

Give me a Shackleton or a Crowhurst or some guy who’s been hammering it out in the same pulpit for 30 years without every launching his big building program or writing his book.

Those are the people with real stories.

Catch the Deep Waters trailer here. And watch the whole film to discover how this unbelievable true story walks out.  (Warning, his story is pretty dismal.  Definitely not the feel good hit of the summer.)

A Few Words About Sewage

A little over a week ago, we begin to notice that the house smelled suspiciously like a diaper.  This is not an entirely unheard of experience with so many little ones, so we double checked everywhere and found nothing….until one night when we popped a circuit breaker about 11pm.

I went down to the basement to reset it and as I stepped off the landing at the bottom of the stairs, I realized that I hadn’t replaced the burned out light bulbs in the mechanical room.  A few minutes later, flashlight in hand, I stepped gingerly in my socks across the concrete floor until….squish.  I stepped in….something.

It astounds me how quickly the human mind can process an event.  Within .0235 seconds, I was aware of several things.

My biggest problem was not electrical.

I needed a plumber.

I had a sock full of poop on my left foot.

Thus began the journey that continued today.  A plumber snaked the line to 100 feet.  It worked 24 hrs.  He snaked it 120 feet.  It worked another 24 hrs.  Then he began to explain that he really needed a cleanout closer to the street.  His suggestion was to dig a very, very deep, very, very expensive hole just outside the picture window of the living room and add an access tap to the sewer drain so he could snake a little further.

I asked him “how much further?”  He figured 30 feet.  I did the math, and it was going to cost me $83 per foot to snake those extra 30 feet.

I asked “Why not put it further from the house?”

“We always put it right by the house…..”.

I called another guy.  His initial quote was about 1/5 of the first guy and suggested we put it about halfway to the street so we could clean out both ways from the center.  Didn’t need to pray about that one.

Yesterday, Plumber II and his helper, hereto referred to as UnLucky, tore the snot out of the yard and a corner of the drive way to install a tap.  Once tapped, another guy with a snake and a camera investigated.  They were astounded at what they found….

In addition to my sewer pipe reducing from 6 to 4 inches at the point they tapped it, on the side that runs to the street, it is intact (I suspected it was crushed).   It was horribly clogged – no shocker there.  No tree roots tough – the culprit was baby wipes.  This is especially interesting because there is not a soul in my house who will admit to flushing wipes down the toilet.  From this, I assume that strangers are coming in to my house at night and flushing wipes.  Who knew?

The real surprise was this – forty feet from the manhole where my sewage becomes Kansas City’s sewage, the line is 3 1/2 feet from the surface.   Thirty feet from the manhole, the line is 2 feet from the surface…where it continues to within a few feet of the manhole and cascades ten feet nearly straight down like some septic Niagara Falls.

Yes, folks, welcome to The Compound, where poop flows up hill, but not very well.  It seems that because we have 200 feet of pipe upstream, the pressure will force most things downhill and over the hump into the sewer, assuming nothing goes wrong….except, stuff goes wrong.   Objects larger than should go down the sewer find themselves there (enough said).  Wipies get flushed by intruders.  Stuff happens, and the sewer backs up like the beltway in DC.  And that can be applied in multiple ways.

All that to say, we are operating right now, although tentatively.  Each flush is paired with a hail mary for good measure, knowing that each time we ask the sewer to do the impossible.

This too shall pass, but it might not flush.

Randomonium – Peep Edition

Hi.

It always feels a little awkward to blog after having not written anything in a while, sort of like the sensation you get after not having talked to your neighbor in three months and then one day BAM! You take out the trash and there they stand in their yard, curlers in their hair, socks drooping about their ankles and a look on their face that says “Where’ve you been?…not that it matters.”

And so we meet again.  Nice curlers, by the way.

This edition of Randomonium is dedicated to Peeps.  Not the run of the mill peeps that you see daily, but those special, Limited Edition Peeps that you rarely actually see in the wild but know they exist because of the digital chaff they leave in their wake.  It’s more than a facebook friend, yet someone who, if they showed up at your door, you’d be like “What the heck?” and then welcome them with open arms and laugh well into the night.  So, with that, shoutouts to two of my favorite peeps, Vicky and Steve.

Vicky Beeching is a worship leader with a heart connect to IHOP in the way of many friends and a similar affinity for the things of God.  We’d moved in the same small circles but never really been introduced until 2008, when we were both scheduled at the same conference in Cincinnati.  I was so impressed that she immediately asked what I wanted to do for ministry time when I finished speaking.  I appreciated that she actually cared how this gig landed after she was done with ‘her portion’.  She understood that her greater portion was in serving the whole.  As a speaker, it meant a lot to me.  More than once on the road I’ve asked for the worship band to join me at the close only to find they were already eating somewhere off campus. She’s clearly more than Girl Guitar Player Extraordinaire.  She gets it.

Since then we’ve stayed in contact from time to time – this being made so much easier with the Twitters and all.  She’s got a great sense of humor and is quick to poke fun at herself.  She also cannot pronounce the words “Chord Charts” to save her life, but it’s fun to listen to her try.

Vicky has a new EP out – 3 songs for a measly $2.99.  I mashed BUY on it the day after it was released last week and have put the songs into my regular rotation of Good Stuff to Hear. In particular, the anthem “Salvation Day” rings loudly in my heart long after I pull out the earbuds.  Double thumbs and one large toe in the air for her willingness to write songs singable in most congregations rather than the one-off songs that sound great on CD but are painful to watch a local guy reproduce.  That kind of thinking is what makes her a worship leader rather than a dime a dozen rock star.

My recommendation – Buy the EP, check out her website and follow her on twitter: @vickybeeching.

The second Peep of the Week is one that gets a fair amount of mention here from time to time, so I won’t give him as long as intro as Vicky.

My long time mentor, personal cheerleader, and conspirator Steve Sjogren was in town for a few days.   We were able to hang out a little while and enjoy a great dinner at a local restaurant – in a private dining room behind these mysterious heavy velvet curtains, no less.

There are people in your life who encourage you…and there are others who even transcend encouragement.  Around them, you feel smarter, you hear God a little clearer, you get a little braver.  Steve has always been that to me.

Steve is beyond generous. He always has been.  When I left the Vineyard, on a whim, he gave me the coolest little Sony Viao ever made (it was back in the day before we both went Mac and never looked back.).  The other night, again, on the spur of the moment, he again blessed me with a gift.  As usual, it was intrinsically cool, and the value of the object is multiplied by a factor of 10 because of the spontaneous, pure nature of the giver.

My recommendation – visit SteveSjogren.com and get to know this guy.  Read Conspiracy of Kindness.  If you read it years ago, read it again.  And of course, follow him on the twitters at @stevesjogren for your daily Steve-ism.

Winning Bronze, Buying Gold

I got a call this morning from a friend who saw something on the replay of the Olympics that I just had to see.   With about three clicks of a mouse, I found myself staring at video highlights of last night’s Women’s Snowboarding Half Pipe competition.

There, for all the world to see and hear, was US Olympic snow boarder Kelly Clark, ready to drop into the pipe.  She had a smile on her face, white earbuds in her ears, and a song on her lips.  With that loud voice that we all reserve for the times we’re singing with earbuds in, she was singing “You shall love me….You shall love me…”.

Interesting.  Doubly interesting because the lyrics and melody matched the song written by IHOP-KC’s Misty Edwards.

She was still singing as she started her run. Once into the first trick you couldn’t tell if she was singing or not, but her performance music kicked in – Kim Walker’s “Heaven is Here.” (video link at right)

For the uninitiated, this is not your basic CCM plastic special from the Nashville Sound Factory.  This music is  little obscure by chart standards (although Misty did break huge on iTunes’ top 100/all genres for a while after a recent release).  My point is not about sales, it’s about the fact that you can’t interpret these songs as a whole as about anything other than Jesus.  They’re not about generic love or something you might feel for your soul mate – they are in your face lyrics about the cross and life in Christ.

Later I watched Kelly’s profile on NBC.  There she was, talking openly – not weirdly, but openly – about coming to God, she held her snowboard up, prominently displaying the message airbrushed on the bottom that said “JESUS -I CANNOT HIDE MY LOVE”.  (video link at left)

And so I lost it for a little bit.  Yeah, I cried.  Then I cried when I told my wife.  And then I cried again as I drove to a meeting.  I cried because someone’s life has been so touched.  And I cried because that someone has melded their faith into their every day life in such a way as to present it as normal.  This boarder is not weird, she’s not condemning…she’s provoking.

There is within me a prophetic/evangelistic chip that does not play well with much of what we consider evangelism and yearns to explore another way.  One that says to those who meet us “This is who I am…” and who we are draws people to Love.

Kelly, you won the bronze last night, but you are buying gold refined in the fire.

Coming Out Religious

I was tooling down the road the other day,  listening to Public Radio, when I heard the National Public Radio reporter smugly refer to some politician as ‘overtly religious….’.

It wasn’t a compliment.  It was condescending.   In context, it was a pseudo-intellectual chiding, as if to say “Poor simpleton.   Probably grew up that way, raised by the kind who cling to their guns and religion.”

“Overtly religious” was meant as a negative…but I got to thinking…. If a politician is religious, would you prefer they be “overtly religious” or “covertly religious”?   It’s been played both ways over the years.

The left has long been accustom to separating their religion and their politics.  JFK worried Protestant America until he assured them in a speech to The Greater Houston Ministerial Alliance that his faith as a Catholic would not direct his judgment as a president.

Oddly, he closed that speech this way:

“…without reservation, I can “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.”  (Find the entire speech here)

It would appear that God can be called upon at certain times, such as the beginning of a term, but must be avoided like the plague in between inaugurations.

Perhaps we rewrite that to say “So help me God, until the next time.”

Republicans have only recently gotten on the bandwagon of Covert Religion.  In the 2008 election, Mitt Romney’s Mormonism raised red flags.  He famously commented:

“If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.

There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers — I will be true to them and to my beliefs.” (Find his comments here).

So there you have it – covert religion on both sides of the aisle. Kennedy remained Catholic on the inside.  Romney vows to be true to his Mormon beliefs, but not in a way that we might actually notice.

Both of them seeming to channel the political character from hipster Steve Taylor’s song “It’s a Personal Thing”, which contained the lyric…

“I’m devout, I’m sincere, and I’m proud to say
that it’s had exactly no effect on who I am today”

(listen to entire song here.)

Is that ‘personal thing’ the goal? A ‘total separation between church and mind’? Is that the covert religion we demand from our public figures?

It seems like we’ve asked for – and received – some sort of religio-bipolar disorder.   We want our leaders to have a strong faith, but we’d prefer that they’re not guided by it.   We demand a heartfelt commitment, but only if it never affects one’s behavior.   I’m not so sure I could trust a politician that professes a belief system in one breath while denying it’s influence over their life in another.  Somebody is lying to someone, be it God or voters.

Call me simple minded, but I’m almost certain that covert religion is creepier than overt religion any day of the week.

The Wish For a God We Can Fathom

While speaking at IWU earlier this week, one of the things I made a point of was telling them that A)  God is in control, B) Hard things happen, and C) A & B do not contradict one another.  I’m pretty sure that most people disagree with me.  And I’m just as sure Jesus is on my side.

I was referencing Matthew 11:6, where Jesus, after reminding John’s disciples about all the good things that were going on, tacked on a very ominous warning.  It was strange, actually, and they probably wondered about it for a while.

“Go and tell John what you hear and see.  The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.  And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

How could they be offended? After all, the Kingdom was being displayed in power all around them.  Why the downer by Jesus?

Jesus knew what they did not – that not many days hence, John’s head would be presented on a platter.  There were a lot of great things happening, but John was about to be killed…and Jesus knew the disciples were going to struggle reconciling those two things: widespread revival and an unexplainable death.

I’ve watched Pat Robertson’s recent trails in the media with a real interest.  I’m not getting into whether or not he was right or wrong by referring to Haitian history in light of the earthquake (although interestingly, I met Haitians who thought he was right).    My real point is that most Christians were offended that he even raised the question.   Again, I’m not ready to say that it was God, the devil, or a geological inevitability.    I’m just observing how many people felt compelled to write God a hall pass so that no one thought it was His responsibility.  They needed to re-frame the debate because they couldn’t fathom or accept a God who might do such a thing.

Let us remember that there is, in heaven, an unfathomable God. In the Old Testament, Job said “God is great, and we do not know Him….”.

When all is going well, when our church is growing, when our services are exciting, when our building payment is being made and there is much joy in the camp, it might be a good time to gauge our heart with the question of how we would respond if something difficult happened.  Could it possibly be God?  And if it is, would we be so offended with Him that we would walk away in disgust?

At the culmination of all time, there will be a song sung by the world wide church.  It is not sung by a fringe group or a nutty patriarch.  It is sung in a loud voice, by a huge multitude.  The singers agree with deafening enthusiasm.  The lyrics go like this….”Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for His judgments are true and just….”.

It would appear that few of us are willing to sing the song quite yet, because any time someone suggests that it might be appropriate, we drum them out of the choir.

Randomonium – John Wesley Edition

I am finally home after spending a few days at Indiana Wesleyan University, speaking to their student body.  I did two (identical) chapel services Monday morning, a late night event Tuesday, and another two chapel services on Wednesday in their very cool new chapel.

Unfortunately, you can’t see my favorite feature of the chapel in this photo – a gorgeous hard wood stage.   I’m of the opinion that a stage should never be carpeted.  I know most places do it but I don’t like it.  This stage was the perfect height when compared with the rake of the floor.   I am in stage-love.

I was totally impressed with the little band of students who had invited me – they were in charge of the Missions Week and somehow convinced the school authorities that I would not ony be harmless but perhaps even helpful.   I was a little concerned when the school sent me a multi-page agreement to sign that included the a line about “removing any excessive piercings before appearing on stage…” but I couldn’t ever ascertain exactly what ‘excessive’ meant, so I just left mine in.  Apparently 2 is within the allowable number because no one said anything.

Monday morning I enjoyed breakfast with the student committee and Dr. Lo, the Dean of Chapel.  He was so warm and welcoming that I forgot about my piercing worries and just went for it.  I spoke Monday on loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.  Wednesday’s chapel was on our good friend, John the Baptist.

I’m grateful for my new friends at IWU and all that God is doing there.  A group of students meet daily 3:30-5:30pm for prayer and weekly with another group of students from Taylor University 40 miles away.  Charles Wesley would be proud.  The fire that he carried is alive and well in these students.

Here’s one last shot from the Tuesday night event in the Student Center.  IWU has a gorgeous campus – it seemed every building couldn’t have been more than a few years old and beautifully maintained.   And the food was excellent!  College cafeteria food has come a long, long way since my Bible College days!