Rappin’ With Rick

After telling Matt about an experience I had with someone from Netflix, he said he knew where my next article would be coming from, and I thought he was right. But my envisioned article just became nothing more than an introduction to Carter’s experiences.

Several weeks ago Marilyn discovered we no longer had access to Netflix. I really don’t like dealing with computers, so I called. We learned they shut us off because someone in Indonesia was using our account. It took three attempts to straighten things out, but finally got it done by switching to my church email address. After making sure everything was working, the lady I had been talking with wanted to know if she could ask me something. She presumed that I was a preacher and wanted to know what I did when things weren’t going well. I shared with her the confidence I have in Christ’s love for me, and she thanked me with tears in her eyes. Now on to Carter.

It had been his practice to listen to a daily Bible reading while in the shower at home, and he was doing the same in what he thought was an empty bathroom at his new dorm. When he finished, and paused the recording, a voice came from a stall that said there was no need to turn it off, he was listening. Carter decided to seize the moment, invited him to join him at Encounter that night, and he did.

A few days later, as Marilyn and I were going for a walk, she got a message from Carter. It was a picture of a gash above his eyebrow, with blood flowing down his face and all over his shirt. A panicky call discovered that teeth from a collision with another basketball player had caused his wound. A quick call to his sister, a run to Urgent Care, and three stitches later, and he was ready to play softball that night. But not before he had shared his faith a couple of times. A girl in the elevator had noticed his bloody Fellowship of Christian Athletes shirt, and he had bonded with his nurse, so he encouraged them to also get involved in the ISU campus ministry.

As Peter told us, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have.”

God Bless, Rick

I grew up in church. Mom had me in church before I was a week old, and by six I knew I wanted to be a preacher. When I was twelve a great aunt died and left a trust fund to cover the cost of my education, if I were to pursue becoming one. At fifteen I won a preaching contest, and was told I’d be preaching before 6,000 people the next day. By seventeen I was a student at Lincoln Christian College, and by eighteen a week-end youth minister at Bunn Park. All I lacked was golf clubs.
I had always heard that preachers played golf, so I figured I had to buy a set of clubs. I hit the links with a fellow youth minister a couple of times, but soon decided I’d rather settle for Putt-Putt with my youth group.
I didn’t visit a golf course again until Grace and Anna played in high school. But before long, Grandma and I were following all the grandkids around in a golf cart. That was all I ever planned to do, until Carter handed me a club and said we were going to play together.
I was really surprised I could even hit the ball, and we actually used my ball a few times in the scramble. My forearm ached the next day, but I decided it was well worth it. It wasn’t long, however, until I was feeling a little left out when the family played without me. They didn’t want to scramble all the time, so I knew I’d have to get better, and did something no one saw coming. Sixty years after giving away my clubs, I bought a second set. Who knows, maybe I’ll become a real golf-playing preacher before long.
Even more surprising, I just became a Mercedes-driving TV preacher. (I guess YouTube counts:) Anyway, after trading in my ten year old Spark for what I thought would be the last car I’d ever buy, a neighbor put a for-sale sign on his 23 year old two-seat convertible. It was far less than my “clown car” had been, so after convincing Marilyn that her Honda could be left outside, and that a roadster could replace the motorcycle I sold last year, it found a place in the garage.
Who knew life in the 70s could be so much fun for a preacher.
God Bless, Rick

The actual corner stone of our church is Christ. The decorative corner stone on our building was engraved with the words “UNLESS THE LORD BUILDS THE HOUSE THEY LABOR IN VAIN WHO BUILD IT” when is was constructed in 1976. We believed it then, and we believe it now.

I doubt the psalmist was talking about the carpenter from Nazareth when he wrote it. He was stressing the fact that unless the Lord is the driving force behind anything built in His name, no matter how magnificent or modest, it will mean nothing to Him. I trust what we build truly honors Him.

The home our crew in Mexico built for a young family was not intended to bring glory to Chatham Christian Church, but to Christ. It was financed by the material wealth God has blessed us with, undergirded with prayer, and built by loving hands He created. I’m confident He was honored by their labor.

Before the end of July, you should see the ground being prepared for another building we trust will honor Him. The funds for the building came from a couple who kept their eye on the prize, and made sure what God had blessed them with in life would continue honoring Him after they received their eternal reward. It’s our prayer that the gymnasium we’re building will begin being used for His glory sometime this fall.

Their faithfulness in life and death is also making it possible for a church in Jamaica to get a new roof. I spent quite a bit of time on the old roof, patching and painting, with several mission teams that went there to work with Theo and Rose. The old roof had been built by volunteers from the states after the original roof blew off in a hurricane. Even if the roof now being built gets blown off some day, it will not have been built in vain.

There is one more house, actually a home, that will be built here this month. On July 12th I’ll have the pleasure of bringing Anna and Luke together to build a home that will honor Him, as I also did last July with Grace and Zack.

God bless, Rick

Whether it’s a car crashing through a building, or a tornado knocking one down, we can’t help but wonder why such things happen. Sometimes we can discern a reason, sometimes we can’t.

When bad things do happen, we should first look within to see if God might be disciplining us for something we’re doing. He could be, but He may be simply reminding us how sin has effected the world. If we thought everything was fine the way it is, we’d long for nothing better, and never see the need for a Savior.

When a tragedy is obviously caused by man’s activity, we seldom blame God. But when a tragedy is pegged as an act of God, we struggle to understand why. An article by Hugh Ross, however, gives some understanding to the tragic events that happen in nature.

He noted that scientists are continually learning just how fragile life is in our world. Everything had to be fine-tuned within narrow parameters for life to be possible, and that balance must be carefully maintained. Catastrophic events that are kept under control help do just that. Tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, floods, ice ages, droughts, diseases, parasites, etc. are all set at the optimal frequency and intensity to benefit humanity’s well-being, while minimizing the devastation caused by such things.

After detailing the vital life-dependent benefits that come from such events, Hugh reminds us that the Bible reveals a creator who is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing. And while it might seem as if God is standing idly by while many suffer and die, He sees what’s going on, and has promised to bring good from it.

While we must never minimize the tragedies that befall us, nor fail to show compassion to those who suffer from them, we must not forget that the author of life knows the optimal time for every human life to begin, and to end. And He will always do what’s ultimately best for each person—from His eternal perspective.

God Bless, Rick

Eggs have certainly been in the news lately. Prices have flown the coop due to the bird flu and the euthanizing of some fifty million chickens, but the good news for egg connoisseurs is that the free-range brown eggs, with richer yolks, now cost less than the regular supermarket white eggs.

The price increase may have kept some from making it to breakfast tables, but it didn’t keep 30,000 hard-boiled eggs from making it to the White House lawn for the Easter Egg Roll. Those who won the lottery, and were invited to attend, were given the opportunity to decorate 4,500 of the eggs before the roll began, but no religious symbols were allowed. Maybe they should just call it an egg roll.

So how did the egg come to be associated with Easter anyway? In many ancient cultures eggs were seen as symbols of new life, fertility, and the arrival of spring, and the church saw in eggs a picture of the resurrection. The shell could be seen as a tomb, and a chick coming out of an egg could represent Jesus emerging from the tomb.

That may answer how the egg came to be connected with Easter, but there’s an even bigger question about the egg that needs to be answered. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

This is not a new question, but a philosophical conundrum that Aristotle first wrestled with in the 4th century BC. The Australian Academy of Science, however, claims to have finally solved it.

“It’s that old riddle that’s sparked many arguments through the ages: was it the chicken or the egg that came first? It’s such a tricky question because you need a chicken to lay an egg, but chickens come from eggs, leaving us with an intractable circle of clucky, feathery life that apparently has no clear starting point.”

Their answer is found in the supposed evolution of eggs. But as is coming more clear in scientific circles every day, evolution simply raises more questions than it answers.

The correct answer is that neither came first. God did.

God Bless, Rick