A Pastor's Thoughts

What on earth is maction?  It is a new term for “massive action.”  I was recently talking to a friend and he said that he had set aside the month of June for maction.  He has a second child coming in August so pretty much whatever he hopes to accomplish in the next few months needs to be done now.

I’ve been absolutely wore out lately with church stuff.  Hospital visits always take a toll on me and I’ve had someone in the hospital for the last three weeks.  It all started with three people in the hospital which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary expect my church isn’t that big.  But I’ve also noticed before that hospital visits come in bunches.  I can go months without anyone in the hospital and suddenly I’ll have a group of them. 

All of this has left me worn out and feeling like I haven’t gotten much done lately.  It’s also a foolish time to take on any more projects.  Yesterday I decided to take on a new project on a whim however.  My whims have been some of the greatest ideas I’ve ever had and have been the cause of some of my greatest online successes.  Despite the fact that I had decided to focus all of my online work on Christian websites from now on, I took on an entertainment project.  Hoping to be ahead of the curve, I’m setting up a network of sites devoted to 3D technology.  If it doesn’t catch on I’m not too concerned because I don’t have too much invested in it.

Just having a change of pace has felt really good though.  I love the work I do as a pastor and I love what I do online.  If I had the option of doing them for free I would.  But it is nice to take on a new project that has no religious significance.  That way there is no real pressure to even complete the project if I don’t feel like it.  If the project fails, I won’t lose any sleep over it either because there is no significance to it other than an opportunity to supplement my income online.

While I’m energized I hope to get the bulk of the work done for the new sites.  Unlike the other projects that I’ve taken on recently, this one is meant to be short term.  This means that right now is time for maction.  Even though there’s not religious significance I’ll post the links here when the sites are completed just in case anyone is curious.  (And it helps my search engine ranking when there are more links too. )

Just about everyone that I’ve talked to has been under a great deal of stress this week.  I don’t know if it is the start of summer that has done it or if it is the end of school for most students or what it is.  It has been a very odd week.

I usually handle stress very well.  I am not wired like most pastors who have a very ordered type A personality.  I’m much more laid back and take things as they come.  But even I have been feeling a lot of stress for the last few weeks.  Ironically, I was even on vacation last week but couldn’t escape a lot of the problems that I was supposed to vacate.  This week I saw the effects of my built up stress when I went to the doctor – my blood pressure was much higher than normal.  Usually my blood pressure is the only good thing I have going for me.

When we’re feeling stressed – and I have to preach to myself right now as well – we need to remember that God is in control no matter what.  He has promised to provide for our needs.  Beyond that, we’ll survive and He will give us the strength to handle whatever comes our way.  We are promised to never have more than we can handle.  This is an easy promise to believe in because when God is with us, we can handle anything.

CNN has an interesting article http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/personal/06/03/spiritual.but.not.religious/index.html?hpt=C2  I’ve been mentioning this in my sermons for probably at least five years.  More and more people are defining themselves as spiritual but not religious.  They believe in god but it is a god of their own making and he is born out of a frustration with organized religion.

Organized religion has its faults whether Catholic or Protestant or any of non Christian faith.  There are plenty of hypocrits and corruption at every level of religion.  The truth is that Christians are sinful like everyone else and while Christianity offers a better way to live life and true Christians have the Holy Spirit to guide them, Christians are still far from perfect.

The biggest problem with the spiritual but not religious idea is that it is a new age idolatry.  The god you believe in is one of your own making.  Don’t like the idea of sinners going to hell?  Then you simply choose not to believe in it.  You accept the things about god that you like and dismiss what you don’t.  It has a new name but it has really been going on since the beginning of time.

If you take this idea a bit further than these spiritualists are willing to take it, then you’ll see the absurdity of the notion.  “I believe that when I die, god will turn me into my favorite animal and heaven will be spent frolicing in the woods/field/stream.”  Of course this sounds absurd because there is no basis for believing this.  But that is the problem with the spiritual but not religious concept.  There is no basis for the belief.  You can’t pick and choose ideas from Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism and decide that this is what you believe.  The religions are incompatible.  I really don’t know how to put it in any other way than that. 

The other problem with spiritual but not religious is that every person believe that they are going to their version of heaven.  It seems pretty obvious that a person is not going to choose to believe that they are hellbound if they decide what the standards for heaven are.  If there are no absolute rules, then a person will always set the bar below where they currently are.  They will point to people who are far worse than them – thieves, murderers, child molesters – and claim that those are the people who are hellbound.  But people like themselves who are relatively good and who try to live a good life will certainly go to heaven.  Without absolute standards for right and wrong, how does anyone know what is wrong?  It comes down to conscience which is a poor indicator because it can be ignored and twisted.

Organized religion is far from perfect because it doesn’t always operate the way that God intended for it.  But it is better than the alternative.  Spirituality that is chosen based on what feels right will only lead to trouble.  Without standards of right and wrong, we’ll choose the lowest common denominator and stop aspiring to be better people.

I amd very please to announce that I am officially launching a long time project, Four Gospels Together.  www.fourgospelstogether.com  This is actually only partial launch as I only have about half of the commentaries finished.  Nevertheless, I have the largest section, the life of Christ, complete and I wanted to get the site going live and start to attract traffic.

If you’ve followed the blog, I’ve been talking about this project for a number of months.  It has been very time consuming and I’ve faced my share of distractions in completing it.  I now have commentary on over 100 gospel stories, covering the entire life of Christ.  I still have miracles, parables, and teachings of Jesus to complete.  I plan on saving the teachings for last because they will be the most in depth theologically.  In retrospect the life of Christ is probably the hardest section to do however, not only because it is the largest but because of the details that need to be looked at.

My goal in this site is to compare and contrast the stories in the gospel.  Because each gospel gives a slightly different account of what happened, I often find myself looking for a story, only to discover that it doesn’t contain the particular detail that I was looking for so I am forced to look for the story again in another gospel.  The site provides all of the gospel accounts of one story on one page so that anyone can read all versions at one time. 

In the commentary section I point out key differences between the accounts and try to put things in chronological order when there are a lot of things happening in one story.

I found myself using the research that I already did for this site as I completed my sermon series on the gospel of John.  I believe that this site will be equally valuable for anyone who is studying or teaching anything from the gospels.  I encourage everyone to check out the site and recommend it to friends if you like it.  I’ll continue to provide updates as I get more of the site up.

In April, a blogger for CBS wrote that Supreme Court nominee might be a lesbian.  After pressure from the White House, the post was taken down two days later.  The truth is that this is an issue which the mainstream media can’t discuss without causing itself a lot of trouble.  Regardless of the truth, the discussion of the topic appears to be taboo.

Quietly, conservative Republicans have been upset about the prospect of a potentially gay Supreme Court judge.  However, they have little recourse concerning this for a number of reasons.  First of all, there is no way to know if the rumors are true short of Kagan coming right out and saying that she is gay.  This would appear very unlikely because this would hurt her chance of approval whether fair or not.

Even if Kagan would come right out and declare that she is gay, officially there would be nothing that anyone could do about it.  The Senate is to confirm her based on her qualifications.  If thye would reject her solely on the basis of being gay (or even they would be perceived to reject her for it) there will be serious accusations of discrimination. 

If in fact Kagan were gay, this would be a win-win situation for the gay community and a power move by Obama.  If she is confirmed, she would be the first homosexual on the Supreme Court.  If she is rejected, it will bring up all sorts of gay rights issues and spark public outcry about blatant discrimination.  Legislation will likely be enacted along with lawsuits by every liberal and civil rights organization.

Personally, not that my opinion is really worth anything, I don’t believe that she is gay.  For the position she has been nominated for, it would almost be impossible to hide this from everyone.  A leak would spring from somewhere.  Frankly I don’t believe that Obama would make such a bold move as he seeks to take the middle of the road.

This does not mean that homosexuality is a non-issue with the nominee.  When dean of Harvard Law School, she protested having military recruiters on campus because she disagreed with it’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.  This is cause for concern, more than for just the issue of gay rights.  Whether she agreed with the policy or not, it was and still is for the moment the law of the land.  Ironically, this rule was instituted by a Democrat, Bill Clinton, and not a Republican.  If she will not support the law of the land, it is scaryto think what she may do once she has the power to reinterpret it.

Republicans have the right to fear that Kagan will support a liberal agenda and will attempt to undermine marriage between a man and a woman.  On the other hand, this will be the case of every person that Obama could possibly nominate for the position as he’s going to place a liberal on the court.  On the bright side, Kagan, if confirmed, will be replacing someone who is considered the most liberal judge on the court today, so ultimately we’ll be trading one liberal for another.

In the end, the issue of whether Kagan is gay is a concern but also a non-starter of an issue.  Republicans have no option in pursuing the question because of the legal and political fallout.  In the end, it likely won’t stop the confirmation from going forward.  This is a fight that Republicans would like sitting out but it is in their best interests to let it be.

Now comes the hard part, making the unpopular spending cuts.  The hundreds of billions of dollars that was shipped out to states to keep them afloat last year is drying up and as budget makers plan for 2011 they are falling short, way short.  It’s impossible to truly measure the effect of the stimulus package but it appears that in many areas it became nothing more than a stopgap solution.  Instead of stopping the bleeding to allow for recovery to begin it appears that it just prolonged the inevitable.

Without federal stimulus money, states are scrambling to pay for big budget items such as education and medicaid.  This means that many jobs are likely to be lost unless something drastic is done and done quickly.  It is estimated that the stimulus package saved 300,000 jobs in the field of education.  Once the federal government is no longer picking up the tab almost all of those jobs, 275,000 of them could be cut.

I’m of two minds on this issue.  I don’t think that cuts in education are a good thing but if states believe that they can achieve the same results by trimming fat, then these are jobs that should have been shed previously to save money.  While the last thing we needed last year was for more people to lose their jobs, this year isn’t exactly any better.  Without stimulus money, states would have been forced to make unpopular decisions and work on balancing their budgets last year. 

I’m not about to suggest what should be cut and what should be saved – that’s why we pay our lawmakers big salaries, we expect them to make the hard decisions.  Every American has had to learn the hard way that we can’t spend more money than we make.  That’s why so many people have had houses foreclosed and bill collectors calling.  The government needs to make the same decision that we can’t borrow our way out of trouble until the next economic boom. 

Of course we haven’t learned our lesson.  There is already talk about sending more money to states so that they don’t have to make the necessary cuts.  This will only teach states that they don’t need to make unpopular decisions and that the federal government will bail them out. 

I’ll be interested to see how this plays out in the coming months.  State budgets have different deadlines but Congress is not going to want to touch this issue until after the November elections.  Any kind of second stimulus is going to give Republicans ammunition to use against what they will categorize as wasteful spending by democrats.

I recently made a post about fixing health care.  Part of that included the radical idea that employers don’t pay insurance companies directly any longer but instead insurance is paid for by the government.  It appears that just may happen, not on a universal scale but it occur on a wide scale basis if employers drop employees’ health insurance. 

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/news/companies/dropping_benefits.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=C2  There’s a ton of interesting information in this article including an amusing anecdote about democrats accidentally running across this information and immediately trying to bury it because it shows that the health care bill has the potential to cost massively more than was just estimated. 

Essentially, big companies started doing the math after the health care bill passed.  While the bill requires employers to provide insurance or pay a fine, it turns out that paying the fine amounts to a massive savings.  Employees who are not covered by their companies would be allowed to purchase through exchanges.  Families making $88,000 or less will have their health insurance subsidized by the government. 

The uninsured will still likely have to pay some money out of pocket but most people already pay some amount of their insurance.  It is assumed – and we all know the danger of assuming – that employers can’t just drop health insurance without increasing employees pay.  A relatively modest increase will cover the cost of employees paying for their own insurance.  Employees will still save a bundle of money and there’s a chance that employees will come out ahead as well with the insurance subsidies.

Of course we know that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Employers save billions of dollars while hopefully employees at least break even if not come out ahead.  The government picks up the tab to the tune of billions of dollars.  There’s no telling how much it could cost but the article above how some pretty interesting numbers.

By Fortune’s reckoning, each person who’s dropped would cost the government an average of around $2,100 after deducting the extra taxes collected on their additional pay. So if 50% of people covered by company plans get dumped, federal health care costs will rise by $160 billion a year in 2016, in addition to the $93 billion in subsidies already forecast by the CBO.

Only time will tell how this all pans out.  It depends quite greatly on if employers decide to actually opt out of paying for insurance.  It could be good for employees but the tax payer will end up paying for it in the end.  We’ll just have to wait and see if the cost of all of this comes in the form of increased taxes or decreased benefits somewhere down the government chain.

As a pastor I strongly advocate resting on the sabbath.  It’s more than just the idea that people need to stop doing what they are doing and get to church although there is definitely importance in being at church.  I don’t think that the sabbath should be something should be followed legalistically but I believe it should be followed religiously.  The Pharisees followed the sabbath legalistically, and made up extra rules about it, even concerning how far they could walk before it was considered work.  They then made up rules to get around the original rules, like a person could walk further than the allowed distance if they stopped and ate a mean before going further.

To follow the sabbath religiously is to recognize the value and importance of it and not just follow it because it’s a rule.  There is value in resting on the sabbath, not just showing up in church.  Some people have to work on Sundays.  We need hospital workers and policemen just as much on Sunday as any other day.  Then there are a ton of other places that don’t need to be open.  The world will keep on spinning if shoes aren’t purchased on Sunday and anyone who really needs a new pair has to go on Saturday or Monday.

But many people are in jobs that they can’t get off on Sundays.  This is unfortunate but also reality.  I would never tell someone to quit their job because Sunday work was required but I would strongly recommend that when looking for a job to find one that doesn’t require work on Sundays.  But what about the people who do have to work on Sundays?

For everyone who can’t take Sunday off, I recommend doing what I do.  As a pastor, my Sundays are far from relaxing.  They are usually my most stress filled day of the week.  While some people think that I only work one day a week, this isn’t nearly true.  Even when I’m not officially working, I’m on call 24/7.  My church is very respectful of my time but many pastors aren’t as lucky and have people call them or show up on their doorstep in the middle of the night.  Getting back to my point however, because my Sundays are not off, I must take another day off.

I honestly believe that the body will break down without rest.  I believe that the sabbath was meant to be more than just a time for worship (we’re meant to worship everyday).  I believe that the sabbath was to allow the body to recover from the wear and tear of the rest of the week.  So I try to take one day a week and do nothing.  No studying, no manual labor, nothing physically or mentally tiring.  I watch tv, read, or play a game. 

Lately I’ve tried to make Mondays my day off but it doesn’t always work.  This week I had a viewing to attend and a funeral to prepare for the following day.  Yesterday I was wore out from the funeral and planned on taking some extra time off when my wife woke me in the morning with bad sinus trouble so I had to take her to the doctor.  We got back home in time for lunch, my morning completely shot.  I was so tired I laid down for a nap.  Now we’re approaching the end of the week and I have a sermon to write, a lot of stuff going on tomorrow, and someone from church coming to see me Saturday, so it appears as though I won’t get a full day off this week. 

Even though I haven’t had an uninterrupted 24 hours this week, I have still made it a point to rest when I can.  I did as little as I could on Monday and took a few hours off yesterday.  It is important for all of us to rest.  God made it that way and so we have every reason to follow the command.

I have a funeral to perform today.  As a pastor I have done enough funerals that I’m used to them and have a fairly standard approach to them.  Nevertheless, it is still a very exhausting day.  Usually I don’t get anything else done after the service.  Today the service is in the afternoon so I don’t know if that works to my advantage that I at least get the morning to work or if that extra work will end up hurting me by the end of the day.

A wise pastor gave me some good advice on funerals – present the gospel.  It doesn’t matter if the person went to church all of their life or if they never set foot inside, there is comfort in the life and resurrection of Jesus.  Of course I also don’t preach fluff.  I won’t pretend that someone who had no relationship with God is looking down from heaven waiting for everyone else to join them.  In such situations I don’t say anything about their destiny other than the choice I know they would make at that moment if they had it to do over again.

I’ve dealt with the death of a 22 year old killed in a car wreck, a 50 year old who drank himself to death, and a 80 something year old who died of old age.  The first was a Christian, the second definitely wasn’t, and the third only God knows for sure.  I’ve approached them all the same however.  God is in control and we never know when our end may come.  So we must be prepared at any moment.  There is no eleventh hour when we have no clue when midnight is.  Today is the day to repent because we have no clue what tomorrow holds.

When you deal with death so often in ministry there is a chance to grow callous to it.  In some ways you have to however because if you become emotionally distraught over every illness and death you won’t be able to function and do all of the other necessary work.  But some sicknesses and death definitely hit you harder than others.  There are people who you become close to and things are more personal than just church related.  Still, funerals are meant for the living, not for the dead.  They are meant to give but also should aim to make sense out of life in a time when life might not make much sense.  In times that life doesn’t make much sense, Christ makes a lot of sense and I aim to focus on Him.

As I mentioned recently, I haven’t been feeling well.  This led to an ultrasound a month ago, just a precaution to make sure I wasn’t having trouble with my gallbladder despite the fact that I had no symptoms aside from a dull general pain.  Not a big deal because I have insurance.  I know that it won’t cover all of it but it will handle the bulk of the cost and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I got my bills – yes plural – from the hospital.  The insurance didn’t pay a dime!  I got a discount because I have insurance but the company that my church pays thousand of dollars a year to insure me did not have to pay a cent.  My $400 ultrasound cost me $183 out of pocket.  To have someone read the ultrasound results was an additional $90, of which I had to pay $43. 

Although I find the fact that my insurance doesn’t pay anything toward my medical bills offensive, this isn’t actually the point.  The point is that despite a year of fighting in Washington, this problem hasn’t been fixed.  It’s great that approximately 30 million uninsured people are going to be able to get insurance now.  I have serious questions about the logistics of how it’s going to work and the cost, but I’m okay with the principle of it at least.  The problem is that there are about 250 million of us who have insurance and almost every person will say that they pay too much and there is too much waste involved in the system.

On top of this, having insurance is not a cureall.  I have insurance and have avoided going to the doctor simply because I know that there is a copay of $30.  Now certainly if I thought I really needed to go, I’d go but for some people $30 is more than they can afford.  And that’s just the start.  Any time tests are needed the costs will quickly add up.  Certainly having insurance is going to help some people but there are still going to be plenty of people who can’t afford copays, coinsurance, and deductibles.  Some people who really are having a problem with their gallbladder are still going to stay home until it gets worse because they can’t afford the cost even with insurance.

Unfortunately there aren’t any easy fixes.  To truly fix the system we’d basically have to blow it up and start over again and that’s not going to happen.  But just for the sake of argument, here’s my thought on how to at least bring the system under control. 

The idea of the government running the insurance industry will never fly.  Free market, socialism, blah blah blah.  But what about the medical industry?  Although I’m sure there’s a thousand holes in my idea, it’s basically pretty simple.  Currently, you go to the doctor and they run some tests.  You get billed by the doctor, the person who runs the test, and the doctor who interprets the results.  Each person gets paid a certain amount for their role and the amount varies depending on who is paying the bill.  Medicare will pay a certain amount which the doctor accepts as payment in full, Anthem pays a certain amount, Aetna pays a certain amount, and so on.  Quantity is emphasized over quality because the more people pushed through, the more money a doctor takes home to pay his malpractice insurance and pay off his hefty student loans.

What if doctors weren’t paid by the patient however?  Instead, a pediatrician was guaranteed $125,000 a year assuming he or she worked a full year, surgeons were gauranteed a certain amount depending on their specialties, and so on.  They work for the government and they don’t bill anyone because they’re paid directly.  Millions (maybe hundreds of millions?) would be saved each year just on billing and eliminating the bill for service.  Perhaps more importantly, doctors don’t rush to push as many patients through in a day don’t miss some important details from patients that will prevent misdiagnoses as well as catching some problems before they grow larger and cost more to treat.  A couple more minutes with each patient can save millions if not billions in later treatment.

To encourage more people to get into the medical profession, pay for their schooling like is done for some school teachers.  Some teachers’ loans are forgiven if they agree to serve in certain school districts for a set number of years.  The same could be done to encourage doctors to enter certain fields that are in high demand and/or don’t pay as much as other fields.

Of course the other thing that must be done to bring costs in line is to fix malpractice insurance.  The bottom line is that doctors make a lot of money and pay an absurd amount of it back to insurance out of fear of being sued.  Many doctors pay $100k a year just in malpractice insurance.  These rates are so high because lawsuits have become absurd along with the payouts associated with these lawsuits.  Doctors are not perfect and mistakes will be made.  It’s tragic when these things happen but telltale signs of diseases will be missed and tests won’t be run that could have caught a problem.  The truth of the matter is that without a doctor’s help people will get sick and suffer from the diseases a lot more than with help.  People need to acknowledge this and if they seek out help from a doctor, they should give up their right to sue except in the case of gross negligence.  In short, a doctor misses a sign of illness and the illness gets worse, the person is entitled to seek another opinion but not sue after the fact.  A doctor fails to remove a pair of scissors and sews a patient up with the scissors still inside, this would be considered negligent.  Needless to say, the former is sued over routinely and has driven the cost of malpractice insurance sky high.  The latter doesn’t happen too often.

Now, this doesn’t begin to fix all of the problems in a system so vast and complicated none of us truly understand it, including those who work in the industry.  There is still a question of how equipment is paid for and if there is even a role for insurance.  I say scrap the whole system.  Take what employers pay to private insurance companies and send it directly to the government.  This is upwards of $1 trillion a year (2004′s numbers, likely well over that now.)  Combine that with the $800 billion a year that the goverment is already paying (once again, 2004′s numbers) and there’s a lot of money for equipment.  http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/3150/Cost-Health-Care-GOVERNMENT-HEALTH-CARE-PROGRAMS.html In case you’re curious. 

So all of this is a start.  Just some things to think about the next time you get a doctor bill or hand out your money to pay for health insurance.