I find myself in the beautiful Malibu, California at Pepperdine University for the Pepperdine lectures.  I speak on Friday on one of my favorite axioms or Spencerisms, “the Church is the Hospital for soul sick people”…at least it should be.  Church isn’t, nor was it ever supposed to be a country club or place we come to pretend we have it all together.  “Church” was always intended to be the place for messed up folk who need Jesus to change them from the inside out.

For me personally, I am not here to listen to other lectures.  I am excited to present, but I am far more interested in what God has to say…to me.  Psalm 46:10 says to Be still, and know that I (He) is God.  I am practicing being still.  That may seem strange to some of you, but “stillness” is not something I am good at; and probably some of you as well.  As a new friend from Australia so aptly pointed out yesterday, we Americans are so busy…so interested in accomplishing the next thing…making something happen.  I think he’s right…Guilty as charged…we are so busy I think some of us (being nice in not making an over-generalization) are so busy, we just miss God coming and going.  So, I am here to listen.  To be still.  To read, and pray, and seek, and wait on God.  More later.

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In my own personal reading and study time today, I read part of Ephesians.  I stopped at Ephesians 3:6 which says  that “the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body…”.  It made me think, if you were an heir of some rich or famous person that you knew had left you an inheritance, wouldn’t you want to know what it was?  If you got the call from the attorney who said, “you are the heir of so and so…and we want you to come to a reading of the will”, would you go?  Would you make time for it?  Would you ignore it?  Would you put it off?  Most of us would be on our way two hours early, excitedly waiting to hear what so and so had given us.  Here’s the real question:  If the Bible is true, and we actually are heirs as it says in Ephesians, don’t you want to know what you have inherited?  Don’t you want to see what is coming to you?  Would you make time for it?  Would you ignore it?  Would you put it off?

Spend some time today reading the Word…seeing what God has left you as an inheritance.

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It is interesting to spend a day on a labor and delivery wing. Very few places allow you to observe both extreme joy and extreme sorrow at the same moment in time, and in virtually the same place. In one room, someone was delivering a healthy baby girl surrounded by happy and smiling family members. In the next room, a mother and baby struggled through the birth process with complications, surrounded by fearful and tearful family members. As I stood at the end of the hall as people passed by, I asked one gentleman, whose face told nothing but a story of pain, if I could pray for whatever was going on. He explained that his daughter-in-law and grandbaby were going to be fine, but the doctors were about to perform a C-section. He went on to say, that he was the one in need of prayer. His wife, who was only 40 years old died in her sleep last month, he has M.S. which has exacerbated since his wife’s death, and because of his health he is unable to do his job and is consequently unemployed. We stepped to the side of the hall and prayed together. We talked about his challenges and his need for God. A stranger who was in the hall heard us praying and joined us…awesome. I have no doubt God placed that stranger and I there that day to lift up Rob. God worked through me using the gifts he has given me to fulfill his purposes that day. We all have different gifts, and God can use each of us differently for Ministry. How can you use your God-given gifts this week to join God in what he is doing? Your opportunity may just be around the corner.

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Leaving a legacy is a topic I have been thinking about, studying about, preaching about, and now writing about lately.  Leaving a legacy behind when we are gone, of course, includes our children, but it goes far beyond that. Leaving a legacy touches those who watch us, and learn from us, and look up to us in some way.

This week, this topic of Leaving a Legacy has taken on new shape for me in “real life” examples. I have looked at my beautiful wife who, as you know, has been facing some real and scary health concerns. She has handled them with such grace and beauty and peace. As I have watched her, I think of the legacy that kind of attitude, in the face of a storm, will leave behind to my children and others watching. That doesn’t mean there won’t be hard days full of fear, doubt, and tears…all of that is normal in a crisis, but watching her I see a Christlike Spirit that will influence generations to come…some of which may never know her directly, but will know others who influence them, who were influenced by her. Connected to Jennifer, but separate from her example, Jennifer’s neurologist, after examining her, laid his hands on her and prayed in Jesus’ name for wisdom to know how to treat her, and for healing for Jen. Praying for the healing of your patients is not good fiscally, but what a legacy that kind of attitude and spirit will leave behind to people who in many cases are seeing him at their worst moment in life.

On the other hand, I have seen Christians do and say things this week that will leave the opposite legacy behind. Face book, as an example, is an amazing tool that I have learned to enjoy on many levels, especially for ministry purposes. But, as with any tool that can be used for good, tools can be used for evil as well. I have read comments and messages from Christians who shared examples of filthy, sexually explicit language and examples of overt worldliness that has made my heart hurt. I wonder how those (hopefully) momentary lapses in judgment will affect the lives of those who are impressionable and watching. I pray against those bad examples.

Now this isn’t a soap-box of good Jennifer, bad everyone else. It’s just an example of what has been so obvious as I have lived through this week and been aware of those around me in the context of leaving a legacy. We all will leave a legacy behind. I just can’t stress that enough. At our funerals, people will always say good things – that’s our cultural norm. But what will the real story be in the lives of those we influence? Will they learn more about how Jesus loved, and touched, and interacted or will they learn something else? I am more aware than ever, that how I live among my family and others who are watching means something. I am also more aware than ever that even a momentary indiscretion can have a lasting and dramatic impact. On the other hand, even in our greatest indiscretions, God offers forgiveness when we humbly come before him with a broken heart and desire to change. What a legacy it would leave behind if a Christian, who has said and done terrible things, sought forgiveness from God and owned up to the failure with those it could have impacted. Leaving a legacy of acceptance, not excuses, for failure and then seeking forgiveness would be amazing, and so out of character for our culture.

What legacy are you leaving behind? Is there something you can work on, change, or fix that will ensure a legacy of God’s love will be passed on?

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You will often hear me talk about unchurched (no or little church background) or dechurched (formerly churched, now not affiliated) people as we talk about getting out and engaging with the world. Unless you have lived in one of those worlds or are close to people living in those worlds, you may not realize how much unchurched and dechurched people often look like us…Christian Churchgoers. That statement might be hard to hear…even appalling to some of you since Christians are supposed to be “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth”. After all, we are supposed to be significantly different from the lost and unchurched world.
Before you give up on reading this blog, let me explain. In our everyday lives, churched people and unchurched or dechurched people walk similar paths. Most all of us are concerned about our families. Certain moral values such as cheating or adultery are usually not dissimilar. They work alongside us and their children play with our children. Some of these unchurched and dechurched people are our children’s teachers and doctors. The unchurched and dechurched live in our neighborhoods and carry on pleasant conversations with us. They often have the same financial burdens or concerns we do, they are just as patriotic, and most of them react with the same sadness when they see a sick child or person in pain.
The problem is, many churches often speak of unchurched and dechurched people as pagans; as if they are fire-breathing aliens from another planet. Many see the unchurched and dechurched as angry or hostile at Christians, doubtful of the existence of God, and bitter toward the church; however, the reality is, that based upon research and personal experience, about 95% of unchurched and dechurched people don’t fit this description.
It is true that there are a fair number of people that hate God and everything we stand for, but the vast majority of people we meet everyday are not actually anti-church or anti-Christian. Many of them need a friend to see that not all Christians are crazy if they have had this experience. Many of them have had bad experiences with church and simply need a loving guide to show them that Brussels sprouts are a terrible way to judge vegetables (talk to me if you don’t understand my analogy). Many of them don’t realize how much of a support system a loving church can be. Many just don’t think church attendance is important or at least they think sleeping in or mowing the grass is more important. Many of them are simply waiting for an invitation to church.
Rather than looking at the unchurched or dechurched as diseased or better yet, fire-breathing pagans, let’s consider getting to know them. Find out what makes them tick. Invest time and energy in them. And then show them, by your own life and words, what a Christian looks like…an image that accurately reflects the one we serve…Jesus!

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Think about how powerful the simple act of forgiveness is and what impact offering it can have on the people around us. Most of us are wronged daily; the wrong meal at lunch, no wave from the guy you let in or who cut you off in traffic, some other guy takes credit for what you did at work. How do we respond? On the one hand, we can act like everyone else in the world – selfishly: We are the victim wronged yet again. We elevate ourselves and our needs above everyone else. Anything not done quite to our expectation and liking is a tragedy. It’s pretty hard to make a case for being a light in this world when we carry that kind of chip around on our shoulder; not exactly conducive to planting seeds with people for Christ. When we’re wronged, how else can we respond? We can give lip service forgiveness. How many times have you responded to a waitress’ apology for an incorrect meal with, *sigh* “I guess it’s ok” or “it’s fine”. We might even pat ourselves on the back for that one while we tell ourselves or those with us that you could have “let her have it, but you decided to show some mercy”. Oh really? Did that sigh show mercy? Did you forgive from your heart (Matt 18:35)? What did she think about you when she saw your head bow to pray immediately following your lip service? Is this behavior conducive to planting seeds with people for Christ? I’ve committed this lip service forgiveness more times than I care to admit. Lastly, when we’re wronged, we could, just possibly truly forgive. People in our society are so unaccustomed to being truly forgiven for indiscretions that it must seem completely foreign when it does happen. But this is why truly forgiving people around us, especially people we don’t know, is an excellent witnessing tool. Because forgiveness is so foreign, when people experience it, they’ll be confused by it and want to know where it came from. True forgiveness is what we learn from the cross. As with our children, disobedience cannot go unpunished. We correct them because we love them…God does the same for us. But the only correction to satisfy our sins is death (Romans 6:23); yet, our Father, sent His son to die in our place even though the death deserved is our own. His innocent blood was shed as an offering to pay for our sins. From this sacrifice we are forgiven when we believe, and if God can forgive us, we can and should forgive others. You can plant a seed this week by showing someone what forgiveness looks like by truly forgiving. But remember, if someone tries to give credit for the forgiveness you offer, don’t take the credit…all glory belongs to God who taught us what true forgiveness looked like in the shadow of the cross…be sure they know that. It is a wonderful tool for outreach.

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I received a question through email just a few minutes ago from someone asking for some help in answering a question from a friend who emailed her about God’s help versus our common sense.  Here was the original email with a few modifications for space and privacy.  My answer follows.

The 3 year old boy that I watch came today with a splinter in his hand.  Although it was tender, he said that God will make it better.  I agree that God will help, but don’t you think God gave us brains so we could take care of ourselves and our children?  Just wondering what a Christian thinks of this.

Friend,
So often, God does directly intervene in our lives…when and how and why He chooses this direct intervention, only He knows.  He often works in subtle ways that I wholeheartedly believe we often miss.  For instance, this splinter will most likely heal and have no long lasting problem; however, perhaps God has already intervened and kept a MRSA infection at bay, or kept the splinter close to the surface so it didn’t get into deeper tissue and cause a bigger problem.  Perhaps the splinter made them just late enough to keep them from getting into a terrible accident on the way to your house.  Perhaps the splinter occurred so you would ask this question…who knows.  At the end of the day, it is fair to assume that God knows and probably only He knows.  His ways and thoughts are higher than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.).  God does work in mysterious ways that we do not often see, or perhaps I should say, He works in ways we often miss.  But God, for whatever reason, often uses people to be His hands and feet.  He works through those who believe in Him, as we strive to see like He sees and love like He loves.  He uses believers to reach out with a kind word, or a kind act to let people know that God has not forgotten about them.  He asks Christians to come alongside a hurting world to be His ambassadors.  Unfortunately, many Christians miss these opportunities when we forget that we are to love God first, and everyone else second.  When we love our “neighbors” with the kind of love God wants us to love with, we become the ones who remove the splinters in people’s lives on behalf of a loving God who cares about splinters…for He even knows how many hairs we have on our heads.
So it is fair to have confident expectations (hope based on faith) that God is moving and working in our lives; however, He may work so subtly, we think He is absent when He is in fact working diligently for those who love Him, often with those and through those who love Him.  We may be stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and pray that God helps us.  If someone stops and changes the tire, is that an answer to a prayer, an example of God working behind the scenes that we can give thanks for, or are we mad Jesus didn’t show up and change the tire for us?
God definitely gave us brains to think and act and make decisions about life here…but He also gives us that ability to make decisions about Him as well.  God gives us freedom to choose Him or not choose Him…to love Him or not love Him.  If He showed up like a genie every time we said Jesus three times, we could no more deny Him than we can deny the reality of gravity or air – that’s not freedom.  But God wants us to choose Him freely without forcing Himself on us…chosen love is the only kind of authentic love.  If He forced Himself on us, any love we have for Him would be out of obligation, and it wouldn’t be real…He wants real love from us for who He is – God…not a magic genie.  When we choose to love Him for who He is (which He has revealed to us through the Bible), our faith grows.  Faith is choosing to believe even when things look out of control or don’t make sense or aren’t clear.  As we grow in our faith, we begin to have confidence or hope, which often leads to trust, which eventually and miraculously leads to peace even amidst the greatest storms of life.
Yes, make decisions, but don’t leave God out of it…even the smallest of things.  And remember that God is crazy about you and loves you like a doting parent loves His child.  And lastly, remember that He promises to never leave you or forsake you if  you are one of His…the catch is knowing that God might just use another person to show you that is true.

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I love unusual words; however, I hate it when people use them and don’t explain them.  We do this in church all the time…we use “Christianese” that most churchgoers are familiar with (although I would guess many don’t fully understand some words us preachers like to use) but CEO’s (Christmas and Easter Only) and pre-Christan attenders most likely don’t understand what we’re talking about half the time.

So, in the explanation of this blog, I used the word, “Sciolistics”.  A sociolistic is someone who shows a very superficial demonstration of learning or it is someone who never even thinks about matters of faith.  This is different than a skeptic, cynic, or critic.  How would you define skeptic, cynic or critic?

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The Stem Cell Debate

By Spencer Dunlap, BS Biology, MS Ministry

What’s A Stem Cell?
As you no doubt know, our bodies are made up of cells. These are little machines that carry out complex activities throughout our lives. Each of these cells, all one hundred trillion of them in your body, have the exact same genetic makeup or thumbprint (technically known as DNA). And just like your thumbprint, your genetic makeup is unique only to you. Whether it is a cell in your ear, your liver, or your big toe, it has the exact same genetic makeup. But how does that cell become an ear cell, liver cell, or big toe cell? When you were just a few cells big inside of mom, your cells began to specialize. The genetics didn’t change, but parts of the genes were “turned on”. Depending on what part was “turned on” determined what part of the body that cell became. Even if a cell became a liver cell, it still had the whole genetic package that could have turned that cell into any other part of your body…but those other parts were just “turned off”. A stem cell is a cell that never specialized. Stem cells have the whole genetic package just like every other cell, only when it came time to specialize, it didn’t.
You can find stem cells in many different places in your body including, but not limited to your nasal passages, your bone marrow, and even your fat. What is amazing about these stem cells is that they are very flexible and can take on the attributes of other tissues when placed around other tissues. For example, a nasal stem cell can actually become new liver cells when placed in a damaged liver! Bone marrow stem cells can turn into nerve cells! And virtually ever other tissue can be regenerated through stem cells. BUT, we must be careful here. There are two types of Stem Cells: Embryonic and Adult.
Adult Stem Cells are the non-specialized cells found throughout the body (and even in the umbilical cord blood of babies) of animals after birth. There are NO bioethical issues regarding research on Adult Stem Cells since you don’t harm the person you are taking them from. These Adult Stem Cells can be taken out, helped to grow, and put back in a person with an injury or disease or even placed in someone else. We have had GREAT success with this technique, and although the statistics are different from one place to another we have seen cures and treatments for over seventy different disorders or diseases from this technique…and again, no bioethics dilemmas. We’re not talking little things here, but major advances for Cerebral Palsy, Heart Damage, Parkinson’s, Epilepsy, Blindness, and many many more. Adult stem cells have been used for cures for decades; however, it has only been in the last few years that we realized it was adult stem cells that were giving us the cures. As an example, what we all used to know as bone marrow transplants for various diseases and disorders were in fact Adult Stem Cell transplants.
Embryonic Stem Cells are cells found in embryos shortly after the embryo begins to develop. The embryo is “dissected” and the stem cells are removed thus destroying the embryo. These Embryonic Stem Cells have been used in research as well to try and cure disease. Only a few major problems exist. First and foremost, Embryonic Stem Cell research is a bioethics nightmare. It is the destruction of life in order to harvest stem cells. This is not just my opinion. No scientist would disagree with me that an embryo is biologically alive. Pick up any biology or life sciences text book and flip to the chapter on “Life”. You will find that an embryo most certainly fits the definition of being alive. Many in favor of research with Embryonic Stem Cells like to bring up the idea that we have 400,000 “left over” embryos in fertilization clinics that will get thrown away anyway. Please know that nearly 90% of these are spoken for and the parents of these embryos intend to “use” them. Even if these weren’t spoken for, the number is not nearly large enough to actually use in clinical tests and cures. This is why you see commercials about the damage done to women during stem cell ballot initiatives. They will have to get the cells from somewhere and that somewhere is women. The process is very dangerous and has great potential for exploitation (especially for poor women who are willing to subject their bodies to high dose hormone injections to produce more eggs for research). Beyond that, Embryonic Stem Cells have caused tumors to grow over and over again in clinical trials. This is a great dilemma to scientists. Lastly, there have been NO CURES from Embryonic Stem Cell research. In the few cases that report positive results, it was in cases where both Embryonic and Adult Stem Cells were being used. Embryonic Stem Cells DO NOT and WILL NOT be the answer to disease in our life time. They have been doing embryonic stem cell research for around 25 years…that’s plenty of time to find positive results if there were any to be found. And let’s not forget that this research destroys life in an effort to help another life.
The other very real dilemma that comes up when we discuss Embryonic Stem Cells is the topic of cloning. One way that scientists may be able to get their hands on Embryonic Stem Cells is by cloning cells and then extracting the stem cells from these. We could certainly take many pages to describe this process, but I will as gently as possible explain this process and then help you understand why this is so dangerous.
Cloning is most often done through a process called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (or SCNT for short). Cloning is not something that happens in a Star Trek movie where an adult walks into a chamber, and a minute later a fully developed adult “clone” walks out behind them. Cloning is simply creating what I refer to as a “time-delayed identical twin”.
Another quick biology lesson:
All of the cells in our body have the same genetic makeup as we discussed in the beginning of this document; however, all of your body cells (called somatic cells) have two identical copies of it. This is where you get your 46 chromosomes from (two sets of 23) if you remember high school biology class. All of your sex cells (eggs and sperm) have only one copy of this genetic makeup. These cells therefore have only 23 chromosomes. This is important because in sexual reproduction, a sperm with 23 chromosomes joins with an egg with 23 chromosomes, and we get one fertilized egg, or zygote with 46 chromosomes. This fertilized egg begins to divide which become two cells; the two cells become four, four becomes eight and so on. Shortly thereafter, this group of living cells begins to specialize and form tissues. This is basically how all organisms grow (a process called Mitosis). In Embryonic Stem Cell research, after the cells divide for a few days, the cell is dissected if you’ll remember, and the dividing embryo is destroyed to obtain its stem cells.
In Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (cloning), an egg from a female “donor” is removed from the ovary. This egg has its nucleus removed and discarded, because remember, it only has 23 chromosomes…not very useful to create a dividing human cell by itself. Then the nucleus of a somatic cell, or body cell from a human is “harvested” from a donor, and the nucleus (with 46 chromosomes) is removed and placed inside the egg cell where its nucleus had been. This egg cell with its new 46 chromosomes is basically jump started and it begins to divide just like a cell would divide had it been created through sexual reproduction. At this point you have created a living clone…a time delayed identical twin.
All kinds of bioethics issues surround this process. One issue is that you have created life (look at the text books). Who then has control over that life? If it is my clone, can I destroy it? Can I grow it to harvest a new liver for myself? Do I have that control over a naturally occurring twin? Many scientists like to water down the topic by saying that Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer is only going to be used for “Therapeutic Cloning” which means it won’t be implanted into a uterus and allowed to grow…this would be “Reproductive Cloning”. Therapeutic Cloning would be only for research…like Embryonic Stem Cell research. What you need to know is that the process for creating a clone is the same whether you intend to destroy it for research or implant it to grow. The difference is really just a semantics issue. It is also a huge ethics question as we have already discussed.
Here’s the bottom line, Cloning and Embryonic Stem Cell Research destroys life. We do not have that right. If we open that door, how can we shut it? By creating life knowing that we will destroy it puts that life in a separate category of less worth. When we begin to look at life in terms of worth, it isn’t long before we transfer the concept of worth on others lives. Are the elderly, or sick, or mentally disabled worth the same as each of us? The answer is yes. We don’t have the right to make those distinctions. And for those that believe in “doing what is necessary to cure disease”, please ask yourself if it is right to destroy one life to save another. Embryonic Stem Cell research gives only false hopes, ethical dilemmas, and detracts attention, research, and money from the research that has had proven effects…that of Adult Stem Cell Research.

For other resources, please visit:
www.nocloning.org

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I am thrilled to begin this blogging adventure with you. I will be working at getting this site up and running exciting and relevant content that is challenging and thought provoking for skeptics, cynics, sciolistics, and Christians. I look forward to blogging with you soon.

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