On the drive down we listened to “Oldies but Goodies” on the radio, singing along to just about every song. Guess that makes us one of the “oldies!” A song came along that I hadn’t heard in ages sung by Barry McGuire – Eve of Destruction. The song was written in 1965 and recorded in just one take on a Tuesday morning with McGuire reading lyrics scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper.

   I thought as we drove that there’s just something a bit bizarre about listening to a song about our world blowing up at any moment but here we are – almost 60 years later – attending a wedding with grandchildren and great’s – like…we’re still here!! But the song was extremely popular and reached number one on the US singles chart, even as it sparked plenty of political commentary with its provocative lyrics! Why?

   Mainly because so many people believed it – and – people revel in being scared. It’s strange! Fear!! It catches peoples’ attention quite like nothing else. Think about it – our society traffics in fear. Amusement parks try their hardest to scare the puddin’ out of people with monster rides while our culture laces itself with health fears, political fears, and fears from war & violence.

   People intentionally read fear-based novels and watch movies that frighten the daylights out of them. Our internet lists over 550 different types of phobias (extreme fear) with dogs, heights, spiders, water, flying, bees, bats, darkness & dust topping the list. Fear seems to permeate our entire culture today!

   But thankfully, the Bible takes a different view of fear. The two-word phrase “fear not” appears 61 times in the Bible and phrases like “fear ye not” appear another 31 times. The Bible tells us that one day “men’s hearts will fail them for fear.” Things are going to get dicey, but God will prevail — so, fear not!

   Isaiah 43 clinches it all with this: “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end – because I am God, your personal God, your Savior.” God has promised to meet you just where you are and at whatever fear level you’re experiencing at any given time! That is amazing!

   This is completely opposite of what the world feeds us. In 1947, the “Doomsday Clock” was adopted by atomic scientists to show how close we are to global annihilation. Back then the clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight. The clock is now set at just 90 seconds. Definitely not moving in the right direction, but here’s THE question: who’s your 911? Who’s your “go-to” when fear attempts to overtake you? A ‘shrink?’ Food? A friend? Or God? As usual, we all have a choice. 

   Trying to wrap this up on a positive note, I’m sure all you parents know it’s scary 

being a parent. We can fear for our children and for good reason – kids are unpredictable, schools are challenging, and our culture can capture our children at younger & younger ages. But here are some whacky things parens have learned while maneuvering their way through the ‘scary’ maze of childhood ~

   ~ A king-sized waterbed holds enough water to fill the entire bedroom 3 inches deep. ~ If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite. ~ A 3 year-olds voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant. ~ Super glue is forever. ~ Garbage bags do not make good parachutes. ~ Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving. ~The fire department in Austin, TX has as 5-minute response time. OMG to all of the above.

   But – here’s the bottom line: Life is a grand adventure. Life is good. Life is challenging. Life takes courage to navigate. So, why not let God be your 911?!

Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychurch.org

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It reminds me of a story I heard about the Russian czar back in 1903, who came across a sentry posted for no apparent reason on Kremlin grounds. Upon inquiry, he discovered that back in 1776, Catherine the Great found the first flower of spring on that very spot “Post a sentry here,” she commanded, “so that no one tramples that flower underfoot!” And that was that. Well, over a hundred years later, a sentry was still posted. Some traditions die hard and changing the mood in church has been one of them. But I, for one, love the change and love the passion in our churches today.

Most people are passionate about something – be it God, football, family, food, or their work. Someone once noted that the world admires every passionate enthusiasm except one: Love for God! I have found that to be true. Our word “fan” comes from the word “fanatic.” We hear of sports fans, celebrity fans, and music fans – but where are all the God fans?! People will fight for a front-row seat at a sporting event or a music concert, but how about church? Not so much. To bad ~

I once heard that the famous Hungarian-born American conductor, Eugene Ormandy, dislocated his shoulder while directing the Philadelphia Orchestra – so passionate! So fanatic about his music! I don’t know what they were playing, but he was giving it his all. It may be hard to imagine that, but as T.S. Eliot said, “It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind.” It makes you feel sad for those poor souls who have no passion.

Romans 12:11 has handed us this great verse on passion: “Be enthusiastic to serve the Lord, keeping your passion toward Him boiling hot!” To keep your passion towards God “boiling hot” one must keep the fire burning, stoked with His word and singing His praises! Without that, we often find ourselves warbling out songs like, “Make the World Go Away” – “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” – “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” or, “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”

I recently read an article about the man responsible for the development of the Polaris Submarine – Rear Admiral William Reborn, Jr. He was always careful to keep an eye on his top management personnel and when first coming on the job, he would give them a patriotic pep talk on the importance of their work. If it ever appeared that someone was not doing their best, he would call them into his office for what he termed, “rededication.” One officer, recalling one of those emotional sessions said, “When I walked out, I knew I was ready to die for someone. I didn’t know whether it was for the admiral, the president, or the head of the Boy Scouts, but brother, I was ready to die if necessary!”

That’s what I call passion! Passion captures the attention of others. Why? Because it glows. It flashes. It illuminates. It’s daring. It’s contagious! Passionate people are just so “out there!”

I’ve always loved this writing by Steve Jobs, and invariably think of a zealous, passionate person – it’s a great little read. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things, they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

That’s real passion, and honestly, I think Jesus would have loved that read too!

Bob and Susan Beckett pastor the Dwelling Place City church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you can contact them at DPCitychurch.org

Susan Beckett | Dwelling Place City

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The King James Bible was eventually given by Mary Lincoln to Noyes W. Miner, a beloved Springfield neighbor and a Baptist minister whose descendants donated it to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which unveiled it to the public on Thursday.

The 18-pound (8-kilogram) volume has a cover of hand-tooled leather and gilt lettering, and is inscribed to the president from “the Ladies of the Citizens Volunteer Hospital of Philadelphia.” Historians believe Lincoln received it on June 16, 1864, the day he visited the city for a fundraiser for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a private agency that raised money and recruited volunteers to care for the Civil War’s sick and wounded. Lincoln had donated dozens of autographed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation to the cause.

The gift is a boon for the library and museum, which has been beset in recent years by a political battle for control of the institution and its fundraising foundation’s struggle to pay off a debt of $9 million that had gone toward the purchase of Lincoln memorabilia, including a stovepipe hat of dubious authenticity.

State historian Samuel Wheeler said the Bible binds Lincoln’s developing spiritual outlook and reliance on scripture to answer the ghastly questions posed by war with his widow’s efforts after his April 1865 assassination to have him remembered as spiritual rather than as the religious skeptic he had been earlier in life.

“During the Civil War, there is an evolution that takes place in Mr. Lincoln’s religious thoughts. He is searching for God’s purpose. He’s redefining his relationship with his maker, and he’s trying to figure out what is God’s purpose in this war,” Wheeler said. “He believed that God was using him to end American slavery.”

It’s unlikely that Lincoln, who is known to have carried a New Testament and kept handy a daily devotional, used the “presentation” Bible for regular meditation, Wheeler said. But multicolored ribbon markers are distributed throughout the book, which Mary Lincoln told Miner her husband had placed when she gave Miner the book in 1872.

That it ended up in Miner’s hands was likely a strategic, as well as neighborly, move, Wheeler said. Mary Lincoln was outraged when her husband’s former law partner, William Herndon, started noting in essays, lectures and finally a biography that the martyred president was an atheist. Miner was among close friends who expended considerable energy refuting that notion, writing at one point, “I never heard a word fall from his lips that gave me the remotest idea that his mind was ever tinctured with infidel sentiments.”

The Bible was last inherited in 1994 by Miner’s great-great-great-grandson, William Prescott Wolcott of San Francisco. Its power as a tangible link to history was evident in the way an airline employee became teary-eyed while viewing it as it went through a private security screening while en route to Illinois, said Ian Hunt, the institution’s acquisitions chief.

Landing such an intimate Lincoln artifact can help soften the edges of some of the facility’s public-relations struggles, particularly one that technically involves not the library and museum, but its fundraising foundation. The foundation announced last year it must pay off by this fall a $9 million debt from a 2007 loan to buy artifacts or face selling some of the collection. The cause has been hampered by evidence that secret efforts to authenticate a stovepipe hat purportedly belonging to Lincoln failed.

Fallout over that revelation prompted executive director Alan Lowe to sever a consulting contract he had with the foundation. “I hope that people know throughout the nation and the world that we are very dedicated to what we do in terms of preserving the legacy and presenting the legacy of Abraham Lincoln — that we are good custodians of the materials that we oversee, that we take care of them, that we utilize them in the proper ways to teach and to inspire,” Lowe said.

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As a kid growing up in a traditional church, we sang from a hymnal each and every Sunday morning. I remember standing and singing one – maybe two hymns. We usually sang verses one, two, three and five. I never knew exactly why we skipped verse four. Who knows? But we did.

Then a time came about in the early 70’s when there was a distinct move of the Holy Spirit and churches across the country began to feel a shifting that came with a new sound for those who were listening for it. New songs were stirring in the hearts and minds of musicians and the result was that congregations were awakening to music that inspired them in a way like never before.

People were up and on their feet, clapping and lifting their hands, shouting to the Lord with new voice of triumph and even dancing. It was an amazing time for sure!

But not all was well in the land of “all things new.” Many sincere believers did not like this new sound and new freedom, and many others were confused. Is it okay to shout and clap and even — dare we mention it — dance in church?

The Bible has plenty to say about praise and worship and for the most part this is all covered in the Book of Psalms. There are actually seven Hebrew words that define our single English word for “praise,” which clearly shows there can indeed be multiple dimensions of worshiping God. For example the Hebrew word “halal” gives us our hallelujah. It means “to boast, celebrate, to be clamorously foolish.” “Yadah” is the Hebrew
word for worshiping with lifted hands. And the list goes on.

But there’s an interesting verse found in John 4:23 that says in part, “…true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” Nothing about how loud the music should or shouldn’t be, whether or not we can have lights (can they be colored lights or only white?) Can we worship only with a piano and organ or can we have thunderous drums and congas, loud guitars and really noisy horns? Please keep in mind all this worship is to Almighty God who created magnificent vibrant sunsets, cascading waterfalls and animals of such diversity there’s not enough room in this newspaper to rightly describe them all.

Over and over the Bible constantly encourages us to ”sing a new song unto the Lord” but many will only be content to sing songs that are no doubt awesome and moving but are, let’s be honest – really, really old. “A Mighty Fortress” by Martin Luther is one of my personal favorites but it’s almost 500 years old. By all means sing it, but how about adding a new song like “I Am Free” because – hallelujah – you are free!!!

I personally love our church services! We have colored lights up on our platform, drums inside a big drum box, congas, guitars and synthesizers. I truly believe if Jesus were walking around in Hemet today, He would be wearing a watch, driving a car, have his
face on Facebook and I’m pretty sure He would love’ our church services too!

As one pastor puts it: “Worship is the most powerful, joy producing, hope sustaining, life altering thing a person can do!” So, this Sunday, why don’t you put on brave and like they say — “Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching and live like it’s heaven on earth.”

Pastors Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet. For more information visit them at DPCityChurch.com

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