Faithful Servants, Foolish Message, Fearful World

There are some matters that must wait.

The recognition of Charles last week as England’s king, complete with pomp, tradition, and glamour, provided a vivid contrast to the failure of the people to recognize King Jesus who came to his own but his own did not receive him (John 1:11). Those observations will have to wait.

Last week Deputy Katie Leising, 29, died in the line of duty in an exchange of gunfire as she attempted to enforce the law against a drunk driver. The 34-year-old man drew a handgun and killed Deputy Leising. This is the second female LEO murdered in the last month on a roadside encounter. Officer Emily Breidenbach, 32, died April 8 at the hands of the male she encountered in the line of duty. I ask again, “Why do we require women to subdue violently opposed men?” More discussion on that question also must wait.

Pastor Chris Pitts and I are at Parkside Church for a few days this week, attending the Basics Conference, hosted by Alistair Begg and the church where he serves. The church began the conference in the early 2000s, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to attend.

When we moved to Minnesota nearly 23 years ago, I stumbled across Truth For Life on the AM dial and heard Begg preach. Though we’ve never met, he’s been a faithful friend to me. Pastors need preaching to.

Pastor Chris and I are here because our church thinks it’s important for us to be challenged, encouraged, and taught by the Word of God. From your pastors, thank you for making our trip possible both by your giving and your encouragement to spend the time away from our families and ministry responsibilities.

The conference’s theme provides a prompt for how you might pray for us. 

Faithful servants - O Lord, by your word, encourage our pastors to remain steadfast to our Lord and their callings. Remind them to put a watch over their lives so as never to dishonor you.

Foolish message - O Lord, by your word, affirm to our pastors the wisdom of God in the foolishness of the gospel. Grant that they will always preach to us only and fully the whole counsel of God even when those who hear them call them fools. 

Fearful world - O Lord, by your word, burden our pastors to equip us to hold out the person and work of Jesus as the only hope for all that troubles every man, woman, and child.

You can follow along at basicsconference.org

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

10 Suggestions for Training and Managing Smartphone Use in our Families

Her mom knew something was wrong. “I wonder what happened at school today?” the mother of three thought as she watched her 11-year-old trudge up the driveway toward the front door. Her little girl’s head hung low, and the usual smile after waving to her friends on the bus was nowhere to be found.

“Hi, honey! You’re just in time to help me make some cookies.”

“It’s not fair! Everybody else has their own phone except me. Today, Miley came to school with a phone. She showed it to everyone. The whole class was happy for her. Now I’m the only one without one. Why can’t I have a phone like everybody else?”

It is only a matter of time before the little girl gets a phone. I don’t have a problem with the inevitable. Smartphones are as much a part of our culture in 2023 as is indoor plumbing. And like indoor plumbing, both contain foul odors. When managed correctly, no one notices. Left unchecked the whole house stinks like you know what.

In a previous Musing I asked, “What training do children receive before their hands grasp their first phone?” Here is an incomplete directory of ideas and suggestions for training and managing smartphone use in our families.

1. Put off handing a smartphone to your child for as long as possible. Brenda and I ditched a landline long before it was common practice. No phone on the wall created a problem when we were away from home. What do the kids at home do if they need to make a call when both mom and dad are away or what do we do if we need to make contact with them when they are home alone? Our answer was to have a dedicated pay-as-you go phone available at home. They are mostly inexpensive and easy to manage but not always easy to find around the house if you know what I mean.

2. Parents must train and expect children to accept direction and correction in other areas of life before a smartphone becomes part of a child’s identity. If a child shows humility and a willingness to accept guidelines and improvement in other areas, he may be ready for a smartphone; however, if a child offers resistance to parental leadership, the child is not ready for the responsibility of a smartphone. To hand her one is to ask for problems. “Give me my phone!” will be your harsh reality.

3. Any member of our family has veto power over any social media friend or follow on another family member’s account. When our sons and daughters lived at home, each was accountable to the rest. For example, if one of the boys knew one of his sisters followed a boy on Instagram he thought was a problem, he could veto that friend, and the friend goes away on the app. The same holds for Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. TikTok wasn’t a thing, and boy am I glad it wasn’t. Just don’t with that app.

4. Do not allow any private passwords on any phone. All the family members in our home know the password to my phone, and each family member freely offers the password on his or her phone to the rest of the family.

5. Texts, DMs, and other forms of digital communication both received sent are open for mom and dad to read at any time. This is non-negotiable. As our children grew older, our reading of their texts decreased to the point that it was now virtually non-existent. However, when they first received their phones, we read their text communication daily and, often, repeatedly in the same day. And both we and they are glad that we did.

6. Smartphones need a bedtime. When a child goes to bed, the phone goes to bed too on the counter in the kitchen. It stays there until the next morning when the child may retrieve it after the morning routine is complete. We don’t want the last thing our children experience at night to be their phones, nor do we want the first thing they experience in the morning to be their phones. We want the last and first to be God and family. The importance of this guideline cannot be exaggerated.

7. Browser history cannot be deleted by the phone’s user. The history can only be deleted by another family member.

8. There are better options for worship than a Bible on a smartphone. In truth I’d suggest this be the practice for all of us. Our phones do not need to come into the church building with us. It is nearly impossible not to be distracted by a smartphone’s other uses when the phone is used during worship. Unless the phone is put in airplane mode so no push notifications can come through, it will be a distraction. Even then, how many of us are disciplined enough to not momentarily check a social media app, not send or read a text, or not go for a two-minute surf on the web? Frankly, from my perch at the pulpit, I witness this every Sunday. Do you really think your child is mature enough to worship with a smartphone at the ready? Do you really think your child can keep his phone in his pocket and engage in fellowship with other believers before and after worship? I see no reason for smartphones when we gather to worship. If you have one, I am willing to be corrected.

9. Make use of an app like Bark. These apps monitor usage and allow parents to set limits on children’s phones. We learn to ride a bike with training wheels. Learning to use a smartphone with restraints on time and content is a wise move.

10. Before giving your child a smartphone or if you’ve already given your child a smartphone, read together 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You or The Tech-Wise Family. Knowledge is a valuable tool and a necessary ally when entering uncharted waters. That you have had a smartphone in your possession for years is not sufficient expertise in the guiding of your children in the responsibility and dangers in possessing a smartphone. One last resource is Irreversible Damage. The author is not a Christian, and the book is not exclusively about smartphones, but the research provides the inescapable connection between smartphone use and the transgender craze seducing young girls. If you hand your child a smartphone, you must know the risks.

BONUS: If your children already have a phone of their own, consider sitting down with them and going over the suggestions I've offered. Teach them the responsibility that comes with owning a smartphone and how best to avoid the inevitable dangers.

Others will have additional ideas that help control an amazing and wonderful device that God has made possible for us to enjoy. If we are to do all to the glory of God, including using a smartphone, then our phones must be our servants and never our masters. Guidelines help maintain a God honoring relationship between a user and his phone.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

More Than Two Decades with a Smartphone

“I can’t wait to get my driver’s license and then my own car!” has been replaced by “I can’t wait to get my own phone!”

Back in the day it was the dream of nearly every 15 and 16-year-old. A driver’s license meant you were somebody. The piece of plastic meant you had passed driver’s education classes, the written exam at the local department of motor vehicles, and the dreaded behind the wheel test. The card was so much more than an ID. The card provided opportunities for freedom and privacy.

Never again would you have to bum a ride. With you behind the wheel, the music on the radio was your decision alone. The mall, your friend’s pool, your girlfriend’s house, hanging out in the park and more were all a turn of the key away. Your car was your world. At the top of the list of things your parents could take away from you was to ground you from your car. Stuck at home. No friends. No liberty. No privacy.

But this is 2023 and getting a driver’s license is still a big deal, but I suspect if you were to ask a teen to make a choice between losing driving privileges and losing his cell phone, he’d sooner walk uphill both ways than lose the privacy and freedom that comes with having his own phone. With his phone he has the solitude and autonomy previous generations had with their cars. On his phone he can go to the mall, hang out with friends, text his girlfriend, and spend hours doing what he wants with whomever he wants. And because he’s good with tech, no one has to know any of the details. All the privacy and all the liberty with minimal hassles.

It used to be parents and older teens battled over the car. They still may, but any parent who’s crossed swords with her teen over the use of a cell phone will tell you about a battle described as Armageddon.

Before children secure their driver’s licenses, we require them to sit in a classroom weeks on end, practice a predetermined number of hours in a moving vehicle, wait for many months after getting a learner’s permit before driving solo, and then pass both a written and driving test before we give them the privilege to drive a car. Once a kid gets his license, he’s met with all kinds of restrictions. The law limits the number of people he can transport as a new driver, and the law limits the time of day he can drive. Parents may put additional restrictions on a young driver. All these moves make sense. It is a huge responsibility to drive a car.

And it’s a huge responsibility to give a child a smart phone. But what training do children receive before their hands grasp their first phone? What preventions do the mature put in place to protect the immature from dangers they cannot imagine? How do those who supply the phone and the data usage ensure that they are not bringing a handheld idol into their children’s bedrooms, a god their children will defend with their last breath?

Smartphones have been around for more than twenty years. Before the iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel, there was Ericsson’s R380 which hit the market in 2000. Today’s children, teens, and most college students have lived only in a world of smartphones. Smartphones are a part of who we are as humans. For most of us, rarely does a day go by where we are not served by an app and in some cases under the tyranny of another app. Like everything else that is not the Trinity, a smartphone is a great servant but a brutal master.

Now, with more than twenty years of evidence, what have we learned about the benefits and dangers of smartphone technology? Are we better for them? Are we the worse? I’ll pick it up here next week, attempt to answer the questions, and offer some suggestions for training and managing smartphone use in our families.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Law Enforcement - a Noble Profession for Christian Men

In the last few years, law enforcement officers have taken a serious public relations hit. Then again, there has been disdain for cops and constables much farther back than the summer of 2020. In the present, technological advancements make every smart phone owner a photojournalist, and bad actions by bad actors who wear a uniform and badge spread across social media platforms faster than you can say “speed trap.” Compounding the problem is our inherent mistrust of authority, our inclination to rebel against all authority, and attention seeking politicians pushing defund the police policy. Most people get nervous around police officers, and others just don’t like cops. Despite the image distortion, wearing the badge is a noble profession for Christian men.

Law enforcement is a tough career path. Those who walk a beat or patrol neighborhoods where bad actors run experience far more interactions with the law breaking than they do with the law abiding. The job is dangerous. In the last ten days our local news has covered the deaths of three officers in the region who died in the line of duty. Each was confronting a bad guy who gained the upper hand and killed the good guy. The job has a mental toll, pushing the demographic to higher levels of substance abuse and suicide beyond other careers. The job is hard on relationships. Divorce rates are consistently higher among law enforcement than the general population.

Why would anyone want the job? It appears less and less want to wear a badge, patrol the streets, protect the innocent, and promote peace.

No one is surprised then that departments across the nation are having great difficulty reaching a full staff. For example, in 2010 the New Orleans Police Department employed 1,500 police. Today, that number is 944. Closer to home, the Minneapolis Police Department currently employs about 550 officers. The number should be over 900. In 2014 the city of St. Paul received 794 applications for officer positions in the police department. In December 2022 they received 54 applications.

For all the negatives, law enforcement is a noble profession, and one Christian men should consider.

Fundamentally, law enforcement officers exist to prevent the spread of violence, a behavior consistent with the character of God. In our church’s recent study of the book of Joshua, we considered God’s establishment of the cities of refuge in the newly inherited land. In the new land, God directed the strategic placement of centers whose existence was to provide a safe place for any who took the life of another without intent, without malice, or by accident.

Once inside the city’s gates, the killer was safe from the “avenger of blood,” a close family member charged with the responsibility to right the wrong that occurred in the death. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and in this case, life for life. But the death was not murder, and no further violence need occur. To stall the violence and slow the spread of the same, God directs the construction and procedures for the cities of refuge. God’s character is to slow the spread of violence. Christian law enforcement officers do the same. Law enforcement is a noble profession for Christian men to pursue.

Therefore, We…

• Promote the profession among our young men, and, yes, the emphasis on men only for this profession is intentional.

• Support Christian law enforcement officers in their efforts to slow the spread by caring for their marriages, watching out for their lives, promoting their character development as they live in a world of wickedness, and praying for their physical and spiritual wellbeing.

• We commit not to spread violence and thereby contribute to their hardship.

May God bless and care for Christians in law enforcement who promote peace and slow the spread of violence.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.

Why Should the Disciples Wait Three Days for Jesus to Rise Again?

In the flow of church life, events come and go. When our church building was in a neighborhood in South St. Paul, the church held an annual Thanksgiving meal for the residents living near the church property. When the church moved to our Robert Street location, we left the neighborhood. Hosting a Thanksgiving meal for commuters on 494 did not have the same appeal.

I grew up in the Baptist church and have served as a pastor in three Baptist churches. Before moving to Minnesota, I had never attended a Good Friday service. I never attended because Baptist churches didn’t hold Good Friday services. That’s what the Catholics and Lutherans did.

The New Testament gives the church only a limited admonition for when it meets. The first is implied. The church is to meet regularly on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2), that is, the Lord’s Day, so called because Sunday is the day Jesus rose from the grave. The second is direct. When the church gathers, the members of that local church are to make every effort to participate in the gathering (Hebrews 10:25). Beyond that, there seems to be a good deal of freedom for when the church meets. For reasons unique to churches, some local assemblies may meet more than their Sunday gatherings, but none should meet less.

No Good Friday Services for Baptists

In my Baptist heritage, we met more. In addition to our Sunday morning gathering, we came back every Sunday night. We never took a week off. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, you name it, we held a church service. In the middle of the week, we met again on Wednesday nights. On the yearly calendar, we convened for a weeklong evangelistic meeting in the spring and another weeklong revival meeting in the fall. A missions conference filled one more week of our annual church calendar. Baptists liked those week of meetings. They were good for the church and good for our efforts at reaching our family and friends with the gospel of Jesus. What we didn’t do was meet on Good Friday.

Our resistance to a Good Friday meeting was born from our reticence to resemble anything Catholic. And there’s good reason for reticence. The Roman Catholic Church does not teach the gospel of grace. It is not the protestant churches that left “the holy catholic Church” but the church at Rome that left, but let’s save that for another time.

One of the Good Friday practices of the Roman church is retracing the Stations of the Cross. Historians suggest the ritual has its roots in the 15th century when pilgrims walked the Via Dolorosa, the path some believe Jesus took over the course of the day of his death. Since most will not make their way to Jerusalem, local Catholic churches make the exercise possible by creating stations around a church sanctuary. At a particular station, a congregant might make religious signs, offer prayers, and engage in other acts of worship. Baptists and other evangelicals reject the practice for a myriad of reasons including the breaking of the second commandment.

In error, more than a few later Baptists rejected the premise that Jesus died on Friday. I remember this from my youth. Instead of reading the Bible plainly like we all should do, these Baptists needed to concoct a timeline that had Jesus in the tomb for three, 24-hour days. To accomplish the feat, these wrongly contended Jesus died on Thursday, and some fools even preached he died on Wednesday. For them, the concept of a Good Friday service conflicts with the New Testament because in their thinking, he didn’t die on Friday. B may not only stand for Baptist but also for Bizarre.

Our Good Friday Worship

Two decades ago, our pastors thought we were missing out on an opportunity to gather the church for a unique kind of worship service, a Good Friday service. As all worship services should be, the Good Friday service focuses on the Scriptures, specifically the passion narratives of the gospels. Each Spring we turn to a different gospel. Church members read aloud as we follow our Lord’s steps from the Upper Room to his burial. It is a moving experience for the church to read the Holy Spirit’s record of our Lord’s death. Interspersed between the readings, we sing hymns old and new that express our response to what we read. I preach a sermon from the passion text we read, and then we leave the building, somewhat somber as we reflect on our Lord’s sacrifice.

An important aspect of our Good Friday worship is the tension we feel as we wait for Sunday.

Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior, 
waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

When we gather on Easter Sunday, the tension releases. So, we sing…

Up from the grave he arose; 
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes; 
he arose a victor from the dark domain, 
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign. 
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

But our tension is not fully released because we are waiting for our Lord’s return. We long for Jesus to come to us and right all the wrongs instituted by our fall. In addition to all a Good Friday service does for us as we reflect on our Lord’s passion, in my opinion, Good Friday services help us as we “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). With confidence that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, we live with the same confidence that he will return.

Why should the disciples wait three days for Jesus to rise again? Why not three hours or overnight? I suspect part of the reason is to teach all disciples to wait for Jesus’s second coming.

So, like those first disciples, we wait for him. By his grace we commit to live faithfully to him until the day.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.