My Friend Bill

Do you remember 1973? We were at war with Viet Nam, and gas was 39 cents a gallon. Minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. A new home cost 35 thousand dollars and the average family was earning about 10 thousand dollars a year. Richard Nixon was president, and Bill Erwin was my best friend in the whole world. 1973 was the last time I heard from him.

That was until last week. Thanks to the miracle of My Space, I received an email and then a phone call from a voice I had not heard from since a postage stamp cost 8 cents.

Bill and I were best the best of friends from fourth grade through High school, we walked to school together. He was over at my house or I was over at his. We’d camp out in my back yard during those California summers, laughing and joking until the neighbors would yell at us. (Which made us laugh all the more?) I’d go camping with his family. We caught a catfish (a couple of feet long) we kept it in his back yard in their wading pool until his mom made us throw it away. We were closer than brothers.

I had not heard his voice in thirty four years. We had simply lost track of each other. He went to war and I went to college. He’s now a retired Army Viet Nam vet and I’m a “not ready for retirement” preacher. As Bill and I chatted on the phone, we discovered was stationed at Ft. Lewis in Tacoma when I was at Bible College in Seattle, but in the pre-internet era, we had no way of tracking the other person down.

My oldest friend reminded me of a funny story. We were about 12, and were riding bikes in front of his house. His little brother Joey, about 6 at the time was riding with us. Using his index finger and thumb as a toy gun, Joey was “shooting” everything he could see. He then pointed his freckle loaded finger at my bike tire and said “bang.” My tire blew! His imaginary bullet had more punch that we thought.

I’m so glad I serve God who is more powerful than a finger bullet and who does not lose track of us.

Psalm 139:7-9, “Where can I go from your spirit? If I go to Seattle, Albany, Tennessee, Myrtle Point and Molalla, you are there. If I go to a Promise Keepers Rally you are there. If I bite the head off a high school student in anger, you are there as well.” (Okay, this is Laver’s Liberal Translation. Look at Psalm 139: 7-9 for the true version.)
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, £ you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

God keeps track of us when we follow Him and love Him. But God also keeps track of us when we stray away, and stay way from Him. At any moment, we can make an about face toward the Creator of the world and God runs at Olympic speed to scoop us up, dust us off and throw a party because we are back with Him. (Luke 15:11-32). The last words Jesus said to his disciples on earth are “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20). God has the hairs on our heads numbers and keeps track of falling birds. (Matthew 10:29-30).

Now that I have my friend Bill back, I vow not to loose track of him again. God has already made that promise to us.

That’s what Fathers and friends are for.

Coffee Chemistry

Welcome to Pastor Bob’s Office Coffee Café. When you visit your pastor’s office, you will treated to a delightful assortment of coffee beverage choices. Each day we offer…

Café Uno: A blend of day old coffee and water, micro waved to your specifications.
Café Chemistry: A frothy mixture of a half a cup of cold coffee still in the microwave and a half of cup of old coffee on Bob’s desk, micro waved to your specifications.
Radar Range Surprise: Simply open the microwave and choose between the three cups of old coffee sitting there.

The above special blends are served your choice of designer mugs. We offer…
Cups fresh from the dishwasher
Mugs washed in the bathroom sink
Older mugs wiped clean with your choice of paper towel or napkin

Try our special today: Fresh coffee, hot from the neat retro coffee maker. You have a choice of Folgers Cinnamon Swirl from Wal-Mart or whatever the pastors mood. Limited time offer. (Depends on how fast the pastor, his associates and office staff drink it)

God has a much better approach to coffee chemistry. 2 Corinthians 5:17 reminds us that “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Our old life, sins, guilt, and regrets are tossed out, poured down the sink, and in Christ, we are fresher than a Starbucks brew. Jesus gets rid of the stale, old and watered down parts of our life. Our relationship with Him is fresh and new each day.

Stop by the church. Try The Special. He won’t disappoint you.

And you’ll get you some good coffee too…

Tithe, It gets the red out

Actually, that “Tide” is the laundry soap that gets red and other stains out. Were you a little skeptical of the title? I’m a bit skeptical of preachers. I should know because I am one. A while back, I was hearing a sermon. The preacher made one of those types of remarks. You hear these kinds of comments on commercials, or news reports. It’s a comment that makes you ask intelligent, thoughtful questions like

“What?”

Let me back up a bit. Studies show that American people, on average give 3% of their income to charitable causes. This could be the Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, etc. Giving to churches get a slice out of that financial pie. So here is the comment that made me sit up and take notice.

“If the income of church members were cut in half, but if they started tithing (giving 10% of their income) most church budgets would almost double.”

Are you skeptical? I was too. But it works. Let me give you a math demonstration. Granted, I’m a preacher, not a math teacher, so my giving a math demonstration is like Donald Trump giving tips on hair care, but here it goes.

Church A: (good mathematical name for a church)

Membership: 100 families
Average income of each family: $30,000 a year
Giving: 3% (which is the National Average of what people give)
Total giving per family (3% of $30,000): $900 per year
Church budget, $900 per year per family x 100 families: $90,000 per year

Church B: (another good mathematical church name)
Membership: 100 families (same size as Church A)
Average income of each family: $15,000 per year (half of Church A)
Giving 10% (Biblical standard)
Total giving per family (10% of $15,000): $1,500 per year
Church budget, $1,500 per year per family x 100 families: $150,000

Isn’t that wild? It’s also Biblical. Here is Malachi 3:10 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

We don’t have to be skeptical because God keeps His promises. When we give, God blesses and God’s church has enough for doing His mission.

Even Donald Trump can’t do that!

Spaced Out On My Space

It’s official. I have 14 friends. And one of them isn’t Tom. If you don’t know anything about My Space, that last sentence didn’t make any sense. Let me explain.

Until recently, the only thing I had heard about My Space is that perverts and weirdoes use it to snatch our children on the internet. So I was a bit surprised when one of our youth leaders told me that My Space is a good place to talk to young people in our church. My motto is that I’ll try most anything once as long as it’s not illegal, immoral or fattening, and I’m flexible on that last one. Plus, even though I’m 186 days away from my 50th birthday, I like to think I can still function in this cyber world of ours. I can dial a cell phone. I’m the VCR expert in our house. So armed with this high tech knowledge, I took my trusty laptop and ventured into My Space. If you have a computer and your computer is internet friendly, (some are internet hostile) my address is

http://www.myspace.com/BobLaver

For the computer illiterate, here is a beginner’s guide to My space. My Space is like a huge, cyber bulletin board on steroids. It’s easy, kind of fun. It has about 10 million commercials, but it’s free. It has a place where you can put a picture of yourself.
You can state your name. You can put in a fake name, your dogs name. (Or your dog’s picture.) I’ve seen cartoons, baby pictures, pictures of cars, boats, or you name it. It’s there.

There is a spot where you can tell about yourself. On my page, it is called. “Bob’s Details.” Here are my details.

My status is married. (As opposed to single, or a nut case)
I’m here for friends (opposed to being a nut case)
My religion is Christian (Not Buddhist or something else)
Zodiac sign (hey I put in my birthday and it came up automatically)
Children: I’m a proud parent (they didn’t have spaced out parent)
Education: post grad. (It’s better than Dr. Bob in cyber space.)
Occupation: Preacher. (That ought to freak out some folks!)

There are charts where you can fill in your views on movies, music, current events and anything else you can think of. People fill in true answers, funny answers, made up answers. You can search the thousands of people on My Space to find a specific person if you know their email. Or you can browse and look at a couple of million strangers to learn what we already know. There are some weird and interesting people in this world.

The key to my space is friends. When you sign up, you automatically get one friend. His name is Tom. Rumor has it that Tom is the technical advisor to My Space. When you get a friend, you can send a message, email or picture to them, or delete them. I deleted Tom. (Most people do) I wanted to delete my third grade teacher, but I can’t find her yet. How do you find friends? I wanted to talk to people in our church, youth group, summer camp, etc. You have to go through another friend to find friends. Rob Cummings and Chuck Knight are my technical advisors, so I went to their pages, and their pages have pictures of their friends. I can click on the picture of a person and go to their page. Some pages have security features so that you can only be a friend to view the page (great thing for kids) you then ask the person if they want to be your friend. They can approve or deny. There are some weirdo’s out there. I’ve had a few try to contact me. You can approve or deny them.

Surfing through My Space is like walking through a cow pasture. It can be fun, helpful and relaxing, but if you don’t watch where you are going, you can step in something you really don’t want to be involved in. It’s a great tool to chat with people in the church, young people and camp people. I’ve been told my page is sort of dull and it is because I don’t spend a lot of time fixing it up. Some people have fantastic looking pages. You can learn a lot about someone by viewing their My Space page. It’s cool doing ministry in cyberspace.

In the era B.C. (Before Computers) Jesus Christ had a My Space page. It’s called the cross. He was posted up there for the entire world to see. Because of His death on the cross, God invites us to be His friend. (2 Cor 5:21)

If you are on My Space, click on my picture and be my friend. More importantly, you don’t need a computer to click on Jesus and be His Friend forever.

He’s better than Tom any day!

A Devil of A Financial Plan

(This first appeared in the Christian Standard, June 16, 2002.)

Clyde sat at his desk, working feverishly. Wilma, his wife of 30 years, watched him. Clyde would write something down, poke some numbers into a calculator, and write some more. Finally Wilma’s curiosity got the better of her. She went over to her excited husband.
“Honey, you’ve been there for two hours. What are you doing? Clyde put a finger up.
“Just a second Darling, let me add this last set of numbers. “Yeah, he said with a note of satisfaction. He jumped to his feet with a piece of paper in hand.
“Honey, I’ve done it! I figured out a way to finance that trip to Hawaii that we’ve been dreaming about.”
“Wilma sat down. This had been a dream of theirs for as long as they had been married. This ought to be good.
“The first thing we need to do is to skip our house payment for eight months. That will take care of our airfare. First class I might add.”
“Clyde” Wilma started, but Clyde kept on going.
“Honey, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. If we skip the electric company payment for a year, and the phone company and the water bill, that will take care of our lodging. A condo on the beach. I can finally work on my tan.”
“Uh, Clyde.”
“In a minute, sweetheart. I’ll bet you thought I forgot about food and entertainment. Well, honey, nothing but the best restaurants. I figure if we just skip our income tax and property tax payments, we will have more than enough for gourmet meals three times a day. And, if we skip our insurance payments on the car and the house, we can have enough money for those great tours in this brochure.” Clyde’s voice was getting excited with each statement.
“Sweetheart,” said Wilma weakly.
“Oh, honey, I knew you would be excited. You are as white as a sheet. Overcome with joy, that’s what you are.”
“Well, I’m overcome, that’s for sure.”
“It will be a vacation to remember. You’ll see.”

It sure will. If Clyde and Wilma take all their money from normal living and apply it to this vacation, as soon as they return home, they will be met by bill collectors, the police, the Internal Revenue Service, and who knows what other people. Is the plan silly? Of course it is.
Then why do people use this same plan with their giving to special projects to the church?
Most folks have an amount they give to the church. That money is put in the offering plate or mailed in. The church then carefully and prayerfully spends it on salaries, utilities, insurances, educational materials, and lots of other necessary things.
So what happens with a special project comes up? A project that needs money in addition to the other church needs? Simple. Most people will take a chunk out of their regular giving and give that portion to a building program, a traveling missionary, the latest youth group fund raiser, or some other good cause.
We are more like Clyde than we think. If we follow his plan, the regular programs of the church will suffer. Here is God’s plan: Malachi 3:8. “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings.”
In Bible times, people gave one tenth of their income to the temple/church. They gave offerings above and beyond that tithe to special projects.
I know. That seems like quite a bit. But consider a church in the New Testament. Paul marveled because of their giving. “Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.” 2 (Corinthians 8:2-4).
As we look at extra church, missionary, or building projects, which plan shall we use- God’s or Clyde’s?