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Yesterday, I was in a cab on my way to my hotel from the Noi Bai airport near Hanoi. The cabbie tried to converse with me, but it wasn’t easy. His English was bad.  My Vietnamese non-existent. The World Cup is just huge here. If you sit outside, you hear all the people on the streets cheering when things go good or bad—it’s wild. In trying to identify with him, I actually made things worse! I know nothing about soccer, the teams or any of that stuff. Here’s a recount of a fascinating conversation!

Cabbie: Mr. — you World Cup?
Bob: Yes — good
Cabbie: Urrca r Spam?
Bob: What?
Cabbie: Urrrrca r Spamee?
Bob: No understand
Cabbie — Very persistent: Urcan or Span
Bob: Ukrane Spain?
Cabbie: Yes!
Bob: Good
Cabbie: U Urcan or Spam?
Bob: (What the heck do I know, what the heck do I care!) Urcan
Cabbie: Urcan?!!
Bob: (Here we go again) Urcan — I mean Ukrane.
Cabbie: Spain?
Bob: Spain good — Ukrane will surprise.
Cabbie: No!
Bob: Oh yes — for sure! (I don’t know a thing I’m talking about.)
Cabbie: Me Urcan then.
Bob: OK
Cabbie: Yesterday loose $300—today make it up. (he gets on his cell, he’s placing a bet based on what I said).
Bob: Mr., don’t do that—I know nothing about this.
Cabbie: You know, I know you know.
Bob: Spain good (poor guys’ going to loose again!)
Cabbie: No Urcan win—thank you Mr.

Prayer for the Day:
Father, there’s a desperate Vietnamese cabbie wasting his money. I pray he did OK though I don’t believe in gambling. But if he didn’t, keep me safe from a guy looking for some white guy from Texas!

God is on the move in powerful ways in Vietnam. Government officials and our delegation got up early yesterday and left Dal Lak province after some incredible meetings there and then headed to Pleiku. I wasn’t ready for all I was going to experience.

We stopped and visited a newly built church. I had previously met the young pastor in DC. His church has close to 2000 and he’s doing an incredible job. His deacons and leadership were there to greet us and it was a powerful time together. We then had some official meetings and afterwards visited a Catholic church that was pretty awesome. It was built as one of the traditional long houses in Vietnam of one of the minorities. They have 2000 a week in their worship. The Priest was very impressive. They met us in traditional dress with drums and symbols and played as we walked in. Later, we ate, some drank rice-wine—I didn’t, was told it was the fastest way to hepatitis! They circled around us while they played. Then, they began to invite us to play with them. There was a young 32-year-old guy I had visited with a lot with the government about God, religion, and his views on faith—a kind man. He told me he had none. But as we began to eat and laugh and dance, I noticed he was walking in the circle beating the drum having fun. He came over when he was finished and sat down beside me. I told him, “Oh, I thought you weren’t religious—you looked pretty religious to me!” He said, “I don’t know or understand much about this. All I know is that when I stood and began to walk with them and laugh with them, I became one of them. This is something deep, deep in the heart.”

As I watched everything taking place and knowing the context of the country and the tribe, I thought, “This is faith.” It’s bigger than any of us, can’t be stopped—and it’s when we stand together. When we stand together, we are all equal before God and one another—we are part of the family.

Today, I had, perhaps, one of the top days of my entire ministry. For the first time since working in Vietnam, I met with a group of pastors with the government to discuss what is going on here. There really has been progress.

Last year, there were only 3 recognized churches. There are now 29—with 300 meeting and 4 in the process of building buildings. It was incredibly moving to listen to their stories and hear how God has worked. I had to fight back the tears and finally excused myself—just listening to their stories and sitting in their presence was too much. I came back and then we talked for over an hour. I’ll write more on all this later. Visited one church with over 2000 in attendance. They just built a tin barn to hold them 2 years ago—about to build another—it will cost $70,000 for 2000 seats. Things ARE changing here. Will write more later.

Since October 2004, laws have passed to provide for more religious freedom in Vietnam. I have been meeting with their government leaders, as well as with pastors, and things are moving in the right direction. To get to one pastor we had to 4-wheel for four hours, cross a raging river in canoes, and then trek in a beautiful tropical sauna for 2 hours to a village where we met the pastor. His story of faith was very powerful. The same was true of another pastor who was barely 20, yet, had a church in his house and knew of 6 other chapters associated with his church. One village had 1000 people and 17 churches that the government allows to meet in the house. I could have paid on the spot to build a chapel—but why? The church was decentralized, healthy, and impacting.

I’m glad it’s opening up, but I want it to keep its purity and innocence. There are many complicated issues here. When a Hmong follows Christ, other family members often try to take their land because they are no longer worshipping their ancestors and it is a sign of disrespect to them. These things can all be fixed, but it will take a lot of effort on everyone’s part to make it work. Very sleepy—but on a train all night and leave for the central highlands in a few hours.

Will try to write more later.

For religious freedom to mean something there must be some form of separation of church and state. I was in seminary in the 80’s when faith and politics merged pretty dramatically. Why shouldn’t they? Morals and ethics should be legislated when you see things happening that are obviously wrong and against God. I had to make some shifts and find my way through all the views.

First, I had to understand that separation of church and state did not mean faith did not play a role and thereby could not and should not speak to society at large. Not only was that contrary to the writings of the founding fathers of the United States, it was not practiced that way.

Second, separation of church and state allowed for freedom of all religions. Since there was no state church, each person was motivated by what Roger Williams wrote about as “freedom of conscience.” As Christians, we believe men should not be forced to obey God. They should be challenged, and each person left to his/her decision. Christ never forced anyone. Religious freedom was there—you just lived with the consequences of your choice! I was thinking this morning, while running here in Hanoi, there was no religious freedom in the Old Testament—something to think about.

Third, separation of church and state is critical if we do not want more religious wars. Islam has its own issues with some of its extremist at this point. Historically, we have all had to deal with this. I remember being in Westminster Abbey in London and seeing many kings in their tombs and Sarcophagus—some with a sword in one hand and the cross or Bible in the other. Today, I fear, there is much speculative theology from evangelical ranks that is driving foreign policy. To me, that’s scary. If Christians can wield their influence over our government and her leaders to start wars based on “opinions” on the second coming of Christ, what makes us different than jihad extremist?

For all its faults, when I look at the world struggling with these issues, I’m grateful we have the things in place that we do in the US. I want to accept what I believe the truth of God’s Word teaches—not necessarily what the fickle majority believe at various times through multiple fads.

I’m sometimes involved on issues of human rights, as well as development. One of the things that I’m fascinated with right now is all of the writing that’s taking place on the role of religion in America. My tribe is definitely into power politics—not saying that as bad—just reality. The entire evangelical church has many issues that we should be addressing. How do we address them? What is appropriate challenge, and when do we cross the line?

Been reading a lot on this area. Jim Wallis, God’s Politics; Jon Meachum, American Gospel; Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy, and am now in the middle of Madeleine Allbright’s, The Mighty & The Almighty. These are must-reads by people engaging culture.

I hate it when people try to make Washington, Jefferson, and Adams out as evangelical evangelists. It just wasn’t so. No doubt they were awesome men—men I admire and have read many of their biographies. But, men who were way shy of evangelical. If they were, I need to come up with a new plan of salvation! I hate it when other people try to make separation of church and state a method of discrediting or sidelining any issues of faith. EVERYONE is realizing faith isn’t going away and that it has been, and will be, a key factor of international diplomacy for the next few decades.

As a result of all this, new lines are being drawn and new rules drawn up for a new world. Many, from the older evangelical ranks, love the political power and play the game as a voting block or special interest. They should be very cautious how they speak and how they are perceived—they’re messing with the political capital of a new emerging group of evangelicals and it shouldn’t be squandered or wasted needlessly.

I’m praying the emerging church will engage society thereby changing legislation versus engaging politics to fight for legislation that pits us against the very people we want most to find Jesus.

Everybody is talking “missional, ” but I don’t believe they know what they mean by it. It has lost its meaning from what David Bosch started. He quoted Mahler saying, “The mother of all theology is missions. ” The point is missions isn’t something you do—it is an expression of who you are. Who you are is how you live the Kingdom. I don’t like the world “missional ”—I used to. When it first came around, it communicated “missions is who I am and who we are as a people. ” However, today it has been redefined. To call things “missional”—that may be good—but Bosch, I doubt, would have called it such.

A better word for missional today would be relevance. Most people using this are saying we are living incarnationally in our community. A lost man does that. He lives in his community and it’s part of him so he does social service and practices good citizenship because we are all into “community. ” As preachers, we’ve learned to preach in relevant ways to our culture. That is fantastic, but it’s not missional. Many postmoderns would consider themselves missional. I wouldn’t. They’ve relevant—just like Schuller was to his generation, Warren to his, and now postmoderns to theirs. Are you still reading?

To live relevant in your own culture is survival. It’s smart. It’s good business. It’s good education. It’s good health. It’s just good living that makes sense. Non-relevant people in their community that are religious are simply sectarian. The goal isn’t to make them “missional. ” They first have to be relevant. No one will be missional who isn’t relevant. How can you speak to another culture if you can’t even speak to yours?

So what is “missional? ” It’s living incarnationally beyond your own culture to the end of the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Your own culture—that’s a given. One step removed—that’s someone of your race but of a different tribe or homogenous unit. Two steps removed—that’s a different ethic in your nation. Three steps removed—that’s a western culture or nation—though different—still has western under-pinning. No doubt, these take a certain amount of stretch to happen. Four steps removed—it’s the least, the farthest, the most different, the other side of the world. This requires loving like God—Jesus coming to the “sick ” who were nothing like Him, but He made the connection. This requires the …

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NorthWood has never been a tight church with a model to which we strictly adhered. When I was in my twenties, I discovered Rick Warren and the not so developed ideas back then of the Purpose Driven Church. As a young guy, I grabbed on to them after wrestling with them—implemented them and our church grew. However, it didn’t totally fit me or our church—not that it was bad—but I was learning you have to be yourself, not someone else. I felt the coming surge from post-modern and emerging churches and many of the elements of our church reflected that without me understanding or, for a long time, realizing what was happening. As I learned and read and experimented, I could get in the flow of what was going on and continue to see our church develop. Gradually I began to discover the impact of glocalization on society and how that has had a huge impact on our church. It has been the most redeeming factor of our church, and probably the number one issue to position our church and engage society. It ultimately led to my understanding of spheres, domains, infrastructures and how societies are developed and what God expects of us. I’m having so much fun as I’ve woven 3 movements together. But, I know as I walk in this vein, there will be at least 2 other movements I will see emerge—but what they are I haven’t a clue, yet. They will emerge out of what I’m currently involved in and I’ll have to be alert to detect them.

I was with Loren Cunningham when I put all this together. We were visiting a couple of weeks ago. I asked him how he had impacted the world so much. Obviously, there’s no one answer to that, but here’s what he said. First, God spoke to him about mobilizing the youth to engage the emerging generation. Second, he began to work with nationals—probably before anyone else—mobilizing them as missionaries. Third, he realized that 60% of the missionaries in the world are women, so he unabashedly worked hard to see women raised up in the ministry. He and Cho fed off one another on that. Fourth, he said, as a man now 70, that he had discovered sphere’s, domains, infrastructures, like me. That is what he is moving to drive now. BUT, he discovered it 30 years ago. It …

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When Nikki and I first got married, we bought a sturdy oak table and chairs. It isn’t formal.  It’s a kitchen table—and ruddy. It’s very thick, country looking, strong, and 25 years old. The finish is peeling everywhere, but I don’t want to refinish it. There’s a spot on it where Jill marked it up. Another spot is where a friend, Dennis Jeffares, came over and I microwaved some stuff and put a hot dish on the finish and stained it. Every stain and nick on that table has a story of a life decision. At that table, a young Vietnamese girl discovered who God was. At that table, a young prince wept upon hearing about the murder of his uncle. At that table, my kids studied—until 2 days ago. At that table, we ate supper every night and talked to our kids about what was going on. At that table, my son told me when he was developing his own thoughts that he wasn’t sure he believed in God, as I did. His faith wound up stronger as a result of his doubts. When I look around that table, I see family, friends, and musicians—even world leaders—who have sat there as we made conversation. More life has happened around that table than any piece of furniture we have. That table is a picture album to my mind of stories, phases, decisions.  Nope—we’re not going to refinish that table any more than I’d draw a beard on my Mom!

Wednesday night, our daughter Jill came home and told us, “Well, this is the last supper I’ll be home as a high school student.” She was grinning ear to ear—excited to get out on her own. My heart ached inside knowing my life would never again be the same. My daughter is graduating and will be leaving home. She’s a class act! I don’t feel old enough to have an empty nest, but I do.

The next morning as I’m watering the plants outside she walks out. She has to go take a final and will be back in an hour. I realize this is the last morning she goes to school. I walk over to her, put my arms around her and pray for her. She left—and I wept. I have loved being a Father. I’m going to have to learn to be a different kind of Father.

I went back in the house, did my stuff and then headed outside to run. As I ran, I thought about Jill, my life, and everything going on. As I got near the house, about an hour later, a car passed me and honked and then pulled in our driveway. It was Jill. It was like God was saying to me, “She’s not gone. She’ll always be a part.” I sure hope so.

Father, you’ve given me 3 awesome winners. May they find an awesome Father in me as they progress in life. Help me define “fatherhood” at this stage.

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