Alan Greenspan was head of the Federal Reserve for eighteen and a half years.  He has written an economic analysis of the new world that reflects on his life and careers and projects where we are going in a world economy. 

I am not an economist or a business brain, but every year I try to stretch myself by reading a business or economics book.  I worried about this book because I remember the media’s assessment of “Fed-speak” coming from Greenspan when he would meet the media or Congress.  This book is well written, clear in its analysis and explanations, and insightful in its suggestions.  My cabinet and I read it together, discussing it at each meeting (we’ll finish the discussions in August).  We recommend it to anyone involved in the business world of today.

The first half takes a historical look at the events of the last forty years and decisions that impacted our economic condition.  In the second half he provides more philosophical and economical discussions.  After all, he was at the center of many decisions and policies since Nixon in one way or another.  Topics include globalization (its here to stay), education (we’ve got to do better with elementary and secondary education), Europe, China, Russia, Japan, India, immigration, and many more.  His explanation of Sarbanes-Oxley is the clearest I have read.

Light summer reading?  Maybe not, but a whole lot more readable than you would think and its insights go far beyond what reviewers give it credit for.  He is positive about the future, but acknowledges the bumps he sees coming.  Enjoy.

I recently read Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens (2005).  He has written others, especially outlining a simple and repeatable way of discipleship called Life Transformation Groups (in fact, another one just came out), but this book describes his work in church planting.  

Cole led a church in southern California that is worth a book by itself.  From that ministry he was asked to take charge of his denomination’s church planting enterprise.  Many models of church planting exist, and some of them are more productive than others.  Baptists have perfected the church split, not the best model.  However, many churches have been spawned through this approach.

In Organic Church, Cole describes where his ministry led him.  Eventually he found success in small, reproducible churches that take the idea of the church being “organic,” a living organism, and reach into areas least reached in southern California and around the world.  In fact, he moved his ministry out of his denomination because they could not keep up and the restrictions of preconceived ideas limited the growth of the Kingdom of God.  His movement utilizes the house church idea and refines it by going back to scripture for guidance (now that’s a radical idea).

Don’t get hung up on the house church concept as the only way to church plant.  If you do, you will miss a gem.  In addition to lots of great illustrations from over 800 church plants (and that was in 2005), Cole provides some wonderful rethinking on what it means to make disciples from a biblical perspective.  The book is worth the read for his reflections on these principles; they are transferable to any kind of church ministry.  We need to listen to see revival in our day.

Let me illustrate with one principle.  Jesus went to the house of Israel.  They rejected him.  One point he made comes out when Jesus says he came to save sinners.  The “healthy” do not need it. The principle leads Cole to teach that when we go to a targeted area we make sure we go to “sinners.”  He will knock on a door in a neighborhood or an apartment complex and tell the resident that they are starting a church in the rec center or a house or wherever and would like to invite them.  Usually they are shut down.  Then they ask if the person could point out a neighbor they think most needs a church where their life could be changed.  Evidently, neighbors always point to someone.  When that person starts to change, the original “finger” pointers come to find out what happened.  Interesting!

Happy reading!

At 8:10 AM on May 23, my mother-in-law, Ruth, passed away quietly with my wife and her sister at her side.  She was 91, lived a full life, and the pain of bone cancer ended her days on this earth.

We had a memorial service on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 PM at her church in Covina.  Over a hundred people attended, pretty amazing since she outlived most of her peers, and we remembered her wonderful life and its service to others in the name of Jesus.

I don’t particularly like the expression “to pass away.”  Too often we use it to soften the idea of dying.  In Ruth’s case she slipped peacefully away; she passed.

On Friday evening a friend in California died on his way to his father’s birthday celebration.  A car came across the highway meridian and he died instantly when struck.  His greatest joy in recent days had been the conversion of his dad.  After many years of resistance, he accepted Jesus as savior.  His dad will join him soon.  Ken will be missed by the many friends he had around the country.  Pray for his wife as she grieves his passing.

Psalm 90 teaches us to “count our days.”  In the grand scheme of life we have only a few fleeting hours – some fifty years or some ninety, but still fleeting.  No matter how long we live, we should make every day count.  Let the lives of our family and friends who “pass” to the Lord’s presence remind us to live every moment to the fullest.

I know horrific stories about mother-in-laws that are told in jest or in truth, but none of them ring true with my mother-in-law, Ruth Austerman.
 

As I write she is laying on a hospital bed in her living room as a patient of in-house hospice care, dying of bone cancer.  Three weeks ago she was ambulatory, able to go out to eat breakfast with Aaron, our third son, and to see his new apartment in LA.  Now she is bed ridden, not able to eat, and barely able to receive water on a sponge.  The cancer is taking over and the morphine for the pain is the only possible treatment.  My wife, Barbie, remains at her side with the family and loved ones comforting her in these last days.  Stanley, her husband (my father-in-law), struggles with no solutions to help her condition.
 

Ruth grew up the eleventh child of twelve in the hills of  Kentucky.  She weighed over twelve pounds at birth, but as an adult barely weighed 100 at 4’11”.  Her parents were godly people.  Five of their boys went into the ministry.  Her mother was always partial to “men,” and as a female, Ruth felt underappreciated.  But her faith has walked with her in ways that superseded her brothers.

She always had people over for meals.  She always volunteered to house missionaries and visitors from foreign lands when they came to church.  Her correspondence still comes from around the globe from those she ministered to in her own quiet way.  She remained faithful to Bible studies, meals at church events, worship attendance, and the needs of others.  Many of her close friends have died before her and those who remain are ill or unable to care for themselves.
 

Until December Ruth walked 2-3 miles outside (you can do that in southern California).  Then her back began to hurt after Christmas.  The doctors treated her for unspecified back troubles, thinking it was a pinched nerve or slipped disk or something.

Soon she will slip off to see her Lord.  Her faith remains strong; she only regrets that her husband does not have the same faith and peace.  In her last days she has displayed how classy she is, even dying well and pointing others to Jesus.
 

Even though 36 years ago we started out on the wrong foot when I tried to demonstrate the proper way to vacuum, our relationship has been the best possible son-in-law/mother-in-law relationship.  I have always appreciated her support to my ministries, to Barbie, to our children and grandchildren.  I have thanked her many times for her prayers.
 

Ruth will be missed.  I miss her already.  “May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord shine his face upon you and be gracious to you . . .

Good bye, Ruth.  I love you, best mother-in-law.

Two weeks ago we had a groundbreaking ceremony for the new facility we will construct nine blocks away from our current location.  It was a great occasion.

First, the weather cooperated.  It had snowed a couple of days before, but on the Friday the sun came out and the ground was dry except on bulldozed ground.  Our maintenance people put down a tarp to keep the ground dry despite the snow.  Then they made two plank walkways for the shovelers so they could make it to the good dry soil.

Second, all of Shanda’s planning worked perfectly.  The trolley for guests from the current campus, the van for the cabinet, the cleared parking lot, the press present, the great crowd (perhaps 200 or so), the scripts for Pastor Ron Norman as chair, for Al Nies as board member and building committee member, and for the president, the shovels from the Sioux Falls Area Foundation – everything worked.

Third, some wonderful friends and neighbors showed up.  Staff, students, pastors, Augustana College people, alumni, community people, USF people, Sanford Health people – just lots of people.

Special recognition went to some of the dignitaries who attended and participated in actually turning the shovels.  Dr. Rob McClelland, executive director of the NAB Conference from Chicago, was present.  Rob Oliver, president from Augustana College, participated.  Evan Nolte from the Chamber of Commerce came and hoisted yet another shovel (he gets to do a lot of these kinds of activities).  Representatives from our architects, RSA, were out in force with Danielle Heider, the main design architect taking the shovel, and the construction company, Jans Corp, with Duane Rippentrop as project manager doing the honors.  Others involved included Jackie Howell from the NAB Heritage Commission, Dr. Doug Anderson from Sioux Falls Psychological Services, and Rebecca Hjelle, current student council president.

David Link from Sanford Health Systems joined the shovels.  Sanford Health, especially Kelby Krabbenhoft and David Link, have been the best neighbors, helping us along the way to viability.  Their presence was most appreciated.
 

Fourth, the event symbolized a new beginning.  As each shovel went down into the kind of gooey dirt and then turned it over, a small physical act started a year long process of building new on that property for the future of the seminary.  Perhaps the preceding year is reflected in the shovel entering the soil and the turning spoke to the year to come.

Any way you look at it, we have started.
 

My thoughts on the event lean toward analogy with a wedding.  Lots of preparation goes into just a few minutes of actual ceremony.  But, indeed, it is a beginning.  We have started.

Introduction
I am speaking on the Tuesday before Lent begins, called “Fat Tuesday.”  The theme in chapel over the whole year is focused on Jesus, this next period on Jesus and Lent.  But officially it is not Lent yet.  Still, I am choosing to speak on it so that we can prepare ourselves for the days ahead.

Lent covers 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday (the Saturday before Easter), not counting Sundays.  It is a time for penitence, prayer, fasting, and charitable acts.

The February issue of Christianity Today includes an article entitled “The Future Lies in the Past.”  It discusses the maturing evangelical “ancient-future movement,” led until recently by Robert Webber who died in the fall.  It is an attempt to admit that we in today’s world do not know all the ways to draw near to our Lord.  So we look to those who have gone before us for guidance, such as in the practice of Lent or Advent or lectio divina or fasting or meditation or silence, or all kinds of traditional and historical practices of the church.

Thus the scripture readings for the 1^st Sunday of Lent become our focus (you can read them yourselves if you are catching this on my Blog):

·        Exodus 24:12-18 (cf. Ex 34:29) – Moses on the mountain; cloud; glory (16); 6 days; Moses entered the cloud for 40 days/nights > Word revealed

·        Matt 17:1-9 (cf. Matt 16:19) – Jesus; Peter, James, brother John; Peter and 3 tents; cloud and voice as at baptism, “My Son, the Beloved One . . . Listen to Him!”

·        2 Peter 1:16-21 (keys) – eyewitnesses of his majesty; attentive to prophetic message.

I would love to take the time to speak on each of these passages in detail.  But for my purpose today I want to take a look at what they have in common.  What do we find in common in these lectionary readings?  What do they say to us when read together?

Here are some of the elements the three passages share.  Only two events occur with Peter reflecting on his experience in the gospels.

• Mountains: Mt. Sinai, deep in the Sinai peninsula, finds Moses coming up to meet with God.  In the gospel account of the Mount of Transfiguration we have difficulty identifying the mountain (actually the same could be said about Mt. Sinai).  Traditionally, Mt. Tabor has been identified.  More likely the mountain was north of the Sea of Galilee, perhaps on Mt. Hermon.  It was a place where the persons involved could be alone.  That is a difficult thing in our culture – real alone time.

• Cloud:  a cloud settles on the mountains, described as the “glory” or “majesty” of God.  It is a heavy presence that Moses needs to wait six days before entering on the seventh.  At the transfiguration, a bright cloud appears and God speaks from it.

• Fear:  the people below saw the cloud and fire and feared (cf. Ex 20).  Peter, James, and John feared the voice that interrupted Peter’s proposal to build three tents in honor of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.

• Revelation:  Peter says it is a light shining in a dark place.  Moses face was changed (Ex 34:29); Jesus was transfigured – perhaps the most magnificent glimpse of the Kingdom on earth in the Bible.  The instructions in the Torah were to lead Israel.  When they were not obedient to God’s revelation, God punished them.  Now Peter points again to the revelation of God’s Word.

What is all this saying to us?

Peter made a wrong perception in the midst of his life-changing experience on the mountain.  He equated the three transfigured before them.  God corrected him, not by putting Moses or Elijah down, but by correctly lifting up Jesus.  “Listen to him,” God the Father commands.

That is the phrase I wish to draw your attention to from these three passages.

• “Listen to him” – St. Benedict’s Rule begins with the word, “listen.”  It is a word we fail to remember.

• We get caught up in classes, assignments, theological knowledge, family issues, doing church, Lenten practices and services, chapels, kinds of music, biblical truth, ancient-future movement, emerging church movement, contextual movement, and the list for each of us could just go on and on.  We are too busy doing God’s work to “listen to him.”

• Don’t forget God’s words to Peter – listen to him.

Conclusion:

It is not by mistake that the Book of Common Prayer always includes a Gospel reading.  Dallas Willard has enjoined us to always be reading the gospels for understanding what Jesus said and did.

Lots of things jump out of the gospels.  For example, E. Stanley Jones, missionary to India and USA in the early decades of the 20^th century, says in his book Conversion that Jesus did three things by habit.  We should learn from his habits – (1) He stood up in the synagogue and read the word of God as was his custom; (2) He turned aside to pray as was his custom; and (3) He taught them again as was his custom.

During this Lenten season let me ask you to commit yourself to read the Gospel of Mark.  This is the reading suggested for this year and you will join a myriad of others reading Mark along with you.

While you are doing this, put aside all the trappings of whatever comes into your life and “listen to him.”  Your life will be changed.

Read the following scriptures slowly as you commit to what I have asked you to do.  May the Lord bless your Lent preparation by the power of his resurrection as you listen!

^RS Matthew 7:24 ¶ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵ The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

^NRS John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also.

^NRS Matthew 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

^NRS Ephesians 5:1 ¶ Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,

^NRS Romans 13:14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ . . .

Orientation began yesterday, January 31, for new students for the spring semester at Sioux Falls Seminary.  Fifteen or so students began the process of learning more how classes fit in to their program, what they can expect, how to do research, and so on.  Rather quiet in the beginning, their assurance becomes a tangible thing as the day advances.

Of course, next week they will experience “syllabus shock,” a very tangible weight of doubt whether they can complete all the work in the fifteen weeks.  They have access to all the course syllabi today in a room in the Education building, but it is not the same thing as sitting in class and going through what is expected.

One year, in Old Testament Literature, a student read the syllabus in class and fainted.  Dr. Gordon Harris was beside himself.  That had never happened!  Hopefully the confidence gained in orientation will carry over to the opening days of class and there won’t be a repeat of the faint.

The beginning of the semester corresponds with Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent.  Mardi Gras is that time when a person indulges in life before the forty days of Lent when the focus will be on fasting, prayer, and charitable acts in preparation for Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter.  Lent extends from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, the day before Easter.  The forty days do not include the Sundays because they are like little pre-Easter days.  The Eastern Church has a little different schedule.

What a great time to begin a stage of life’s journey like ministry preparation.  Moving into a time of focus on Jesus’ ultimate gift permits us to reflect on our sacrifice as his servants.

All of us can take the next forty plus days to recommit ourselves to a focus where our life is lived to the full to accomplish what God wants to do through us.  As Dwight Moody said, “The world is awaiting a person who will be totally committed to Jesus.  I wish to be that man.”

In the first week of January my wife and I attend the annual meeting of the Fellowship of Evangelical Seminary Presidents.  Over the last seven years we have been blessed to enlarge our world by engaging in conversation, refreshment, and growth with other leaders who self-identify as evangelicals.

This year again was a blessing in our calendar.  It is first and foremost a “fellowship” so agendas are kept out of sight.  Usually someone guides our growth time (Doug Birdsall from Lausanne Movement for world evangelization shared this year).  Dan Aleshire, ATS executive director, gives his perspective on theological education and its future directions.  Evangelical seminaries now make up 60% of the student make up of all 240 ATS accredited seminaries.  Although they are more conservative in theology, evangelical seminaries tend to push methodological boundaries more than mainline or Catholic schools.  They are more entrepreneurial.

By and large most evangelical seminaries remember that they are servants to the church.  There are times when a seminary needs to be prophetic and speak into the life of culture, including the church.  But our primary purpose is to meet the ministerial preparation needs of the church.

Most presidents at the meeting live similar lives.  As a result each one understands building relationships with people of wealth for partnering in ministry, knows how difficult some issues are with faculty or personnel or finances, realizes the balancing act of family, church, and seminary, and feels the weight of responsibility for their particular ministry.  Physical difficulties attack many.  A few years back one president died of a brain tumor.  His successor and his wife have suffered their own physical struggles.  Some have experienced marital troubles.  Some have been fired by their boards in ways that still haunts them.  Renewal by sitting on the sand in the sun in conversation with people who understand your journey better than many proves possible.

We learned that three couples in our gathering of sixty or so would not return next year.  Several patriarchs did not return this year because of retirement.  New attendees are embraced so that they will feel aided in their lonely journey.  Spouses share at deeper levels and get more personal than their president spouses.  Of course, they go back to the room and bring their spouse up-to-date.  Out of the eighty or so members, not all attend.  Their dues help pay for our time, a fact all are thankful for.  But they would be better served by attending and opening up their own journeys, the good and the bad, the easy and the tough, so that God could minister to them as he has done to Barbie and me.

Next year we go to San Antonio, a place we have not been.  Of course, it is a long way to the beach, but hopefully it will be warm enough to sit by the pool and share renewal with each other as needed.  A real blessing from God.  Thank you.

I have a friend in California who wrote the administration of NABS back in the early seventies to complain that he did not understand how we as an evangelical institution continued to identify with August Rauschenbusch.  His reasoning came from what he believed were Professor Rauschenbusch’s liberal viewpoints on the so-called “social gospel.”

I am currently in the process of reading August’s autobiography (he only finished half before his death; then it was finished by his son, Walter).  It is an intriguing work, translated by Don Madvig, former Old Testament professor at NABS, from the original German, and soon to be published by the NAB Heritage Commission.  Rauschenbusch was born in 1816 and died in 1899.

Rauschenbusch’s schooling and spiritual journey testifies to the best in German learning.  His father, a Lutheran pastor, started him at an early age on a classical education.  He learned Latin, Greek, French, Hebrew and English early on.  He wrote German poetry.  His university included the best in theology at Berlin and later at Bonn.  He studied with Hengstenberg (conservative) and Vatke (liberal) along the way, names revered or hated in Old Testament studies, among others. 

He journeyed from deepest skepticism to a conservative pietism (a brand of Lutheranism that believed in adult conversion), much to the chagrin of his parents.  With his conversion he prepared for the pastorate and took over his father’s church when he died.  His revivalism did not stand him in good stead with the presbytery.  After nine years pastoring and leading revivals in Westphalia region, he felt called to follow the two million or so immigrants from Germany to the USA.

In the US, he went to work for the American Tract Society and was a great help to immigrants.  He wrote hundreds of tracts in German and oversaw around 100 German speaking itinerant workers who went to German communities around the US with the gospel.  He became convicted that his revival speaking among what he called “non-converted” German Lutherans only met with moderate success because of infant baptism.  Most German scholars of his time believed that immersion was the biblical mode of baptism, but also believed that the church doctrine had moved beyond it.  Rauschenbusch became convicted that he needed to experience immersion as an adult.  When he was baptized in the Missouri River it caused a large stir among German-speaking peoples because he was so well known.

Without reviewing the whole book for you, let me encourage you to buy it yourself when it is published.  Let me also turn your attention to the 30 years in which he taught at the German department of Rochester Seminary.