It’s not like it’s Auschwitz.

I remember thinking that as I embarked on my trip to Dachau Concentration Camp in late April 2023. I mean, yeah, the Nazis did horrible things here too, I’m sure (I didn’t actually know what had happened at Dachau), but still…it wasn’t Auschwitz.  

No one could have prepared me for what I saw, which was just a shadow of its previous brutal self, curated as a museum with its clean walls and pleasant smell. It must have been a far cry from what it had been by April 1945. Most of the buildings no longer exist, and the horror of those days has been long replaced by birds chirping in trees near the parade ground.

Yet the curators did a good job of showing the historical reality that made Dachau the dark blotch on Germany’s history that it is. Himmler had made it his prototype in 1933, shortly after the Nazi party came to power. Under his guidance, a level of brutality unmeasured by most civilizations in human history displaced any effort of real rehabilitation. Most of the early prisoners were political opponents. Seldom did they return to German society.

Then came the early victories in Poland and the annexation of Czechoslovakia. This only served to swell the ranks of Dachau’s prisoner population. In the peak of Dachau’s operations, some 60,000 persons were housed there at any given time. Many would not leave.

The ways they died are legion. Surely their blood calls out to God from the ground even now. As I toured the grounds, I was struck over and over again at how brutal humanity could be against those already made helpless. Whether dead from gunshot at a makeshift shooting range, cremated in ovens, shot attempting to escape, starvation, or from a disease, they all died without dignity under the oppressive rule of an evil authority.

I learned that several prisoners died from rushing the fence. They knew they would not escape. That was never the aim. They simply wanted to end their own suffering. I stood along part of the old fence, near a guard tower, and tried to wish they hadn’t done that. I couldn’t. I probably would have too. Or at least have considered it. Horror and brutality does something to a person. Who am I to judge someone in such agony?

I cried a little reading about the liberation, how US Soldiers liberated the camp and took out their anger on some SS men nearby. It was wrong, as far as rules of war went, but then again, I had a hard time judging them in my spirit. Then I read about how Soldiers literally killed some of the prisoners with kindness, feeding them more than they could handle. Their bodies, in shock, couldn’t process the food.

And I’d been blind to it, dreaming instead of my heroic grandfathers who flew in B-26 Marauders and B-24 Liberators into the air over France and Germany. They probably didn’t know much about Dachau either. In my childhood daydreams, I would pretend I was a pilot over Germany in 1944, never once thinking about Dachau. I only knew of Auschwitz because it was more famous for the murder of so many Jews. Even then, my knowledge went only so deep.

When I was a child, that was perhaps understandable. But as an adult, it is a travesty. I have no excuse to be in Dachau as clueless as I was in April. What else was I blind to? If I’d been in such denial about the horrors of Dachau, what else was I in denial about? Was I even fully cognizant about the gruesome history in my own country?

I wanted to be fair to myself. No one can know the width and depth of history. Even those who study it for their vocation focus on one general area (or even a specialized one). The scope of human history is too broad. But that doesn’t give me permission to be clueless about history either. Like always, there’s a balance, and I want to find it. I hope you do too.

Until next time…

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I am the last guy who wants to equate modern America with Old Testament Israel. People who quote Jeremiah 29:11 and II Chronicles 7:14 make me want to pull my hair out. Those promises were for Israel in some of her darkest days. We are not that people and that situation is not our modern America. But I digress.

After what was a horribly polarizing election cycle, which saw far more hate than love, more angst than peace, and more lashing out than making up, I noticed something disturbing. Christians, in large swaths, came to Trump in what can only be assumed was an attempt to stave off the hounds of liberalism.

I don’t care who people vote for. Most of the time I stay out of the argument altogether. I’d rather talk about Kansas City Royals baseball, naval warfare, writing, and theology, not necessarily in that order. People who voted for Trump did so for many decent reasons, just as people who voted for Clinton did. Even those who voted for Johnson or Stein did so for defensible reasons. Your politics is your politics.

But when you vote in a way that seeks to speak on God’s behalf, I get concerned. I’m particularly concerned when people want to side with a politician who will just as surely stab evangelicalism in the back as look at them.

Further, what I saw on Twitter and Facebook made me ill. Christians debating unbelievers with anger on their lips (or on their keyboards, as it were). How sad! What a divide we’ve caused this year! We spewed anger and evil out of one side of our lips to unbelievers while wishing each other a “good day” from the other side on Sunday morning. Despicable.

To echo the great prophet Isaiah: We are a nation of unclean lips.

Yes, there are some angry atheists. Many of them, especially in the hours immediately following the election results, did some very ugly things. Does that make what we do acceptable? Of course not! Our standards are so far above the standards of unbelievers. After all, our standards come from Christ himself! Yet Christians in America, especially the conservative, Bible-believing ones, have sold any moral authority we had in order to get a man in office who will probably (I stress probably) get someone on the Supreme Court who will nominally uphold our moral agenda. Not that it will lead to the overturn of Roe v Wade or Obergefell v Hodges (same-sex marriage) or any other moral issue.

Which is the point in the end. Instead of remaining true to God’s agenda of caring for the poor, feeding the homeless, providing shelter for the orphans, and most importantly, telling them about eternity and how to be a part of it, we convinced ourselves that our hope is in the American political machine.

The American Christian seems more concerned with having a moral America than a believing one. So we elect people who will legislate our moral code while we drive a wedge between us and unbelievers so that they will never want to hear about how to believe in Jesus.

Isaiah’s response to realizing that his nation had gone the wrong way was to claim woe and to ask God how it could be fixed. And God did fix it. As Isaiah watched, an angel delivered God’s redemption directly to him. We also have redemption, if we believe in Jesus Christ.

Now, here’s where it gets amazing. God, after purging the sin from the prophet, asked a pivotal question. It is a question as vital today in America as it was in Old Testament Israel.

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

God wants to know, from among the professing Christians…in the crowd of those hoping for a political solution to a spiritual problem, who will really speak for him?

The dust is still settling, even almost a year after the election results, but in a nation of truly unclean lips, it’s time for believers, who understand that they also have unclean lips, to realize just how bad the spiritual situation is and respond, first with repentance from our own sin, and then to the call to go to the crowds for God. We must retreat from filthy politics that just drive a wedge between us and the world and openly work to reconcile the unbelieving world to God.

And God is looking for people to go even today. His words shouted from the annals of Isaiah’s time still echo today. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Will you also be a laborer? Will you cling to the hope of the great American political machine or will you join the Holy Ghost in his effort to turn America (and the world) into a truly Christian nation?

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Let’s settle this now: THERE IS NO WIDESPREAD RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN THE MILITARY.

A lot of well-intentioned Christians say that we can’t share our faith in the military, or that the Obama administration took away our religious freedom, or that we are accommodating Muslims but not Christians.

It’s just not true.

I think some people genuinely misunderstand what’s really going on. But I also think that some people are preying on the fears of others. For those who are doing so, read this next sentence carefully: KNOCK IT OFF!

No one is taking away our Bibles! President Obama didn’t care if I talked about Jesus or not! And if the President did want me to stop talking about Jesus…and tried to stop me…could I stop? OF COURSE NOT! I have to share my faith in Jesus or I violate Christ’s command (Matthew 28:18-20)! And for those who believe that Trump is the modern American savior of religious freedom, I can’t wait to laugh at you when his term is over.

I admit freely that I have faced some ridicule from my peers in the military. One time I will say it was actual persecution. But I have not experienced, nor has anyone else I know, any widespread persecution in the military. Yet the story keeps getting told that we aren’t allowed to share openly about our faith in Jesus Christ. It’s time to fix this misunderstanding for good.

NO PERSECUTION

First, there is no noticeable persecution in the command structure of the military, certainly not the Navy. In the very few cases where I have been told that it is wrong to talk about my faith, it’s come from peers, never from a command level. In fact, at the command level, I’ve almost always been ENCOURAGED to talk about my faith in order to support the spiritual development of the crew. Of course this has to be at the right time and the right place…same as your work setting.

When I was a Petty Officer 3rd Class, I requested special liberty in a foreign port to paint a church. Not only did the command approve my request (and therefore get me out of duty), they awarded me the Junior Sailor of the Quarter honors for my work! That was in 1998.

Now I’m a Chief Warrant Officer. Knowing that I’m a Christian, my executive officer (XO) came to me and asked me to lead prayers on the loudspeaker each day and lead services on Sundays as we had no chaplain. If the command didn’t want me to talk about my faith, my XO could have just stayed quiet! But he sought me out!

It doesn’t matter if it’s 1998 and I’m a PO3 or 2017 and I’m a CWO3…THERE IS NO PERSECUTION!

RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE

Secondly, I share my faith intelligently at the right time and the right place. It’s more about respecting those I’m witnessing to than obeying some non-existent regulation. It is true that we are “always on” duty, and that someone could make the argument that I should never share my faith because we’re always “at work.” Again, no one has. Still, as a sign of respect for my fellow humans, I try to be mindful of work time.

In his excellent book on the subject of sharing Jesus, William Fay talks about sharing with coworkers “on the clock.” In his book, he says, “I do not believe you should take time to present the gospel at work.”* However, he does believe it’s perfectly acceptable to start a conversation that will later lead to a salvation testimony. I’ve done this several times and then, even though we are technically never off the clock, I find times when we’re “off watch” to talk about my savior.  It’s all about right time…right place. It’s no more difficult to be a Christian in the military than it is for you at your office.

BLESS THOSE WHO ARE PERSECUTED

Third, even if I was facing persecution, I could not stop. You know, there was one time when a guy told me I shouldn’t talk about the Bible in a work setting. I looked at a fellow believer, someone who should have stood with me, and said, “Even if I was wrong for talking about God, would it matter? What better way to lose my career than because I talked about Jesus Christ!”

Jesus said that we should be grateful when we are persecuted for our faith (Matthew 5:10-12). Yet I get the feeling that Christians in America want to avoid persecution at all costs! Why is it that we fear persecution? Why do we spend all of our time screaming about how we have the right to talk about Jesus or pray in his name? Why???

There are entire countries where people are ACTUALLY PERSECUTED for their faith. America is not one of them!

WHY THE LIE?

So, if reports of persecution are overblown, why do we keep hearing about it? Again, I think that many people hear something about persecution and assume it’s true. They don’t mean to misrepresent the facts, but they spread these untrue rumors anyway.

I propose three reasons for this.

First, this is about power. We want it, plain and simple. We don’t care if individual hearts are changed…we want our “Christian Nation” back. So we’d rather “vote our conscience” than share our faith.

If there is persecution in sharing our faith, we can scream about how our Christian Nation is against us and we need to vote more. Very seldom do I hear that we need to share the Gospel more…it’s always that we need to get out and vote and/or demand our rights. This frustrates me to no end, especially because the road to revival isn’t in the voting booth, but in the hearts of humans.

Second, the American form of Christianity is about being safe, not about restoring a fallen world to a right relationship with our Creator. We weaken men and women by telling them that their highest calling is to their families and the local church. That’s cute, but not in the Bible. Our claims of persecution keep the weak in faith where they are…in a pew in a musty sanctuary instead of boldly spreading the gospel.

Third, and most importantly, and with a much more damaging eternal consequence, I think we are quick to complain about persecution because we are afraid to talk about Jesus. We will scream about Jesus at the top of our lungs to people who don’t want to listen, but we refuse to talk about him with those who need him most.

I am scared to share Jesus too. I’m afraid of rejection just like you are. But I can’t refuse to share the Name of Jesus and then tell people that I’m being persecuted as an excuse. I have to earn persecution.

If I should ever be disciplined for this post, or for being upfront about my faith, then so be it. I will gladly exchange this wonderful career for my savior’s honor. You can scream “Told you so!” all you want if that happens.

Just imagine though, what Jesus might say to you if there is little to no persecution and I’m right. I doubt it will be, “I told you so.”

Just before going to press, my dad shared with me the story of an Air Force officer who is under investigation for having a Bible on his desk. At first I thought I was reading a Babylon Bee article, but after some research, it seems legit. Is he being persecuted for his faith? A form of it, yes. Notice, however, that he’s facing this persecution as a consequence of his actions, not as a threat before his action. It’s cause and effect. The cause is his Bible on his desk. The effect is the investigation.

Much as I like to discount the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, it appears to be a legitimate attack. I’m not sure how I get away with what I’m doing except to say that he seems to be focused on the USAF.

I’m rambling. Despite the fact that this is a form of persecution, I want to reiterate the point that there is no widespread persecution of Christians in the military. Like what I’ve experienced, these are one-off events.

The scriptures tell us not to be afraid. In his book, Underground Church, Reverend Robin Meyers says, “Our gospel teaches us not to fear death, which has lost it’s ‘sting’ as Paul puts it, but we do.”** We cannot use fear of persecution, no matter how minuscule or severe the threat, as a faith ejection button. Instead, we are to live the way of those who went before us…reckless in our faith and the cause of Christ.

Stop talking about persecution and start earning it, if you dare.

* Share Jesus without Fear, page 22.

** Underground Church, page 155

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I can hear some Christians, the ones who think that going to church on Sunday morning equals a solid effort at expressing their faith, suggest that Sunday morning is where they get their discipleship and where they spend time with Jesus.

Here’s the rub though…Sunday morning doesn’t count. At least not like you think it does. Now, before some of you say, “Well, smarty pants author, fine. I won’t go on Sunday mornings anymore,” let me say that Sunday is indeed important. We should never shun meeting together. In fact, we should do it way more often that you do (speaking to those who would say the previous quote).

But Sunday morning was never designed for you to check off the block marked: “Weekly Opportunity to Pursue One’s Relationship with Jesus Christ.” It was never meant to sign off the discipleship block either. In fact, I suspect you’d be hard pressed to prove that you’re being discipled much at all on Sunday morning.

Yes, the Bible tells us to gather corporately (Hebrews 10:25). We were meant for community. But counting for your week of pursuing Jesus? Hardly.

More like passive participation.

You can do better. So can I. Work to find real discipleship. Work to spend real time with Jesus Christ through personal Bible study and prayer.

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Our family vacationed in Oceanside, California this week. We stayed at a very nice hotel right on Oceanside harbor and went to sleep every night after a gorgeous sunset and woke the next morning with sounds of the surf.

While waiting for my family to wake up one morning, I walked around the marina. Boats…lots and lots of boats.

On this particular morning, I saw a beautiful sailing boat a few rows away from me and started walking in her direction. She drew me in with her varnished wood on her clean, white decks, her blue canvas covering her boom and sails, and her black hull.

When I got closer, I noticed that she looked good from far away, but closer inspection revealed a new truth. That truth was that the varnish was peeling away in many places, the blue that seemed so clear far away had fading where the sun drenched it, and the pristine deck was anything but.

It was then that I Samuel 16:7 struck me. “…For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

And I stopped walking. I’ve been a fool, trying to keep up appearances so people wouldn’t see how fragile I am, while God sees the stripped varnish and sun-drenched stains. His magnified eye can see all of me. All that I’m hoping you won’t see.

I’ve wondered, as someone trying to become a known author, if you’ll ever know the whole me…the one with the emotional scars, the horrible sins, the ruins of past relationships. I wonder if knowing that will make you not want to know me.

Seeing that sailboat, and seeing it again close up, made me realize that it’s not you I should be worried about. I’ve been hoping, all this time, that my far away appearance might just fool God. That maybe he won’t get close enough to me to see my heart, my past, my scars…all of it. And I’m humbled.

He has seen it for eternity, yet he has loved me and loves me still. God is good.

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Do you remember, in 2012, that all liberals were going to boycott Chick-fil-a? Remember how all of the conservatives went to their local restaurant in droves to support the chain? Fast forward six years and the shoe is on the other foot (see what I did there?). Now the conservatives hate Nike and the liberals can’t heap enough praise on them. Guess what? Nike isn’t going to go down either. Just like Chick-fil-a, supporters will march into those stores and buy Nike shoes like they’re going out of style.

News flash, white people don’t buy as many Air Jordans as minorities. Oh, and here’s another newsflash, conservative people love Chick-fil-a and Hobby Lobby. And by conservative people, I mean people like me.

Meanwhile, conservatives get riled up by Colin Kaepernick and liberals hate Trump. Here’s another newsflash…they both love the hate and the love. Both of them, and all of the other people stirring up controversy, get to keep hearing themselves talk.

If I may delve a little more into this current controversy…

Nike paid Kaepernick who knows how much money to be in their ad campaign. That ad campaign will spur shoe sales, undoubtedly buoyed by minorities (my son wears Nike running shoes for cross country, BTW). The ad suggests that Kaepernick gave up “everything” when he began taking a knee during the national anthem.

I actually walked away from football for a while. It was ugly (my brothers and father can tell stories of heated text exchanges). And Colin hasn’t had a football contract since. Now, I was mad at him since he took Alex Smith’s job away from him, so my disdain goes back a ways. Never mind that for now.

A lot of social media attention focuses on whether Nike should have gone with someone like Chris Kyle or Pat Tillman (the NFL connection). It is true that these men, and so many thousands like them, made the ultimate sacrifice. As a career Navy Chief Warrant Officer, I am the first to want to put one of our military folks above an athlete.

But could it be…just could it be…that Colin Kaepernick did actually sacrifice a lot when he started taking a knee? All of the extraneous issues aside, such as whether he started it for the purist of reasons or not, could it be that he did make a sacrifice?

And couldn’t it be that all of those who have given “the ultimate sacrifice” also…well…sacrificed?

I wouldn’t compare Colin Kaepernick to the likes of Rosa Parks and MLK, but I wouldn’t compare my “sacrifice” to that of anyone who passed in the line of duty, whether that was military, police, fire, etc.

And most of all, I hope that good-natured, intelligent folks on both sides of the arguments realize that we have to treat each other with more respect or this is all going to fall apart at some point. I do actually think that America’s future depends on this, though I am encouraged to know that the real America doesn’t exist like the America of Facebook.

I interact with people of many races each day. We have civil conversations and we keep things at a reasonable distance. Real life isn’t the anonymous firefight that Facebook is. I’m grateful for that.

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The summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator is off, as in, not going to happen. Well, maybe it will. Trump seemed to leave the door open in a recent news conference. North Korea’s official response seemed to leave the idea of a summit on the table as well. Unfortunately, no one knows for certain, except maybe some diplomats in SecState Pompeo’s department. Obviously, you and I are not privy to that information.

It’s easy to get discouraged as a Christian when it seems like everything is headed back to status quo. If you’re a regular reader of mine, you know I’m interested in this situation (I actually wrote about this as early as late 2010). I believe that a peace accord and normalization of relations between Washington and Pyongyang would produce fruit in the kingdom. In fact, I believe that a well-executed summit, and its subsequent deals, could mean a world-wide outpouring of the Spirit.

North Korea, in being one of the absolute worst places in the world to be a Christian, is a linchpin in future kingdom growth. I don’t mean kinda-Christians either. I mean actual believers in Jesus Christ who live for God through the Holy Spirit every day. I mean the kind of Christians that I could only hope to be. The kind we find in many persecuted countries around the world. Back to the point: If North Korea accepts terms, even some of them, and the United States accepts that we’ll have to give in on some measures, then we might just see the kind of real growth that would spur the next revival in the world.

I believe this like I believe that David killed Goliath with a small rock. I believe it like I believe that Noah built a big boat and outlasted a flood. I believe it like I believe Jesus Christ rose again on the third day.

My hope is that you believe it too. If you don’t, please think it over.

We cannot give up on the idea of peace between the Koreas, even if it never leads to reunification. I understand that it’s not all Trump’s fault that the summit was called off. I understand that it isn’t all Kim’s fault that it was called off. Both are to blame and neither are to blame. This is a game that has been played for over 60 years.

That shouldn’t stop us from praying for North Korea, or the freedom of her oppressed people. It shouldn’t stop us from having empathy for the downtrodden. We have to break through the idea that North Korea is the enemy and focus on the fact that North Korea has millions of people who have never heard the gospel.

Pray for North Korea and for peace between Pyongyang and Washington. And then pray that our mission agencies have a plan for getting more evangelistic efforts into the country and that they enact them.

Please read a little about efforts to reach those in North Korea with the gospel by going to this great article in the Atlantic.

I would love your thoughts…and as always, you can sign up to receive updates on my social commentary by going HERE.

People are dying for their faith around the world. Over 3000 of our brothers and sisters are dead now because of their bold faith in Jesus Christ and their unwillingness to balk at his obedience, according to the annual Open Doors Report. They are the expendables in the kingdom. Sadly, If you’re anything like most western Christians, you glossed right over that number.

So let me say it again:

Over 3000 Christians are dead because of persecution.

Something that has bothered me for a long time is the simple fact that people are dying for their faith around the world and I rarely face any trouble for my faith. More to the point: 3000 people died for their faith last year while I live in almost serene comfort.

We live a sheltered spiritual life in America. I don’t know of many people who don’t accept that fact, but it doesn’t matter. It’s fact: We live in spiritual comfort compared to those who face real persecution for their faith.

Jesus was clear in Matthew 5:10-12 when he said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

This is what it means to be an expendable. For the cause of the Kingdom, I accept being subjected to ridicule, pain, hardship, and persecution for God’s gain. And yet, because we are likewise blessed beyond measure in the Western world, we live in relative peace and comfort. Reconciling this is sometimes difficult for me.

I want to encourage everyone to go to Open Doors USA and download the annual report. Yes, you have to give them your email address to get it, but it’s worth it. And, if you can, donate a little bit of change to support the work of Open Doors. The organization took in over 20million dollars in 2016 (latest information I have) and only 4million was used for expenses, meaning over 16 million USD went to support the persecuted church.

I’m just bothered that I live in relative safety while 1 in 12 of my brothers and sisters are in danger.

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My visit to Bayview Baptist Church started on a whim. It came about after black football players began protesting the National Anthem in greater numbers, to include entire teams after President Trump issued his disruptive comments on September 22, 2017. My heart sank and I started thinking that maybe the American racial problem had no fix.

Furthermore, I had a sneaking suspicion that we were just as divided in the church as Americans were outside the walls of our sanctuaries. On Martin Luther King Jr day, I think it’s fitting to look at our continued racial problem from a spiritual context. I will begin with a statement: We are just as segregated in the church as we are in the rest of the country. MLK said as much in 1958: “it is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” Sadly, this is still the case for the majority of churches.

Now, let me be clear, no one is forcing our churches to be segregated (to my knowledge). There is no great conspiracy here, like there have been in many times in our history. Instead, we are struggling with the sin of comfort and a resolute desire not to rock the boat or have ours rocked.

I had another reason for wanting to visit a black church. I wanted to know what it would be like to stick out like a sore thumb. While Bayview Baptist Church in San Diego claimed to be a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic church, I had my suspicions that they were just like the churches in which I’ve held membership. I believed I would find myself one of the only white people in the church. I’m not saying that because I want to make them out to be liars. Like white churches, the goal is multi-ethnic makeup. I don’t think anyone is trying to keep white people out of that church any more than I think that my last church tried to keep black people out.

Another thing to keep in mind when considering what “multi-ethnic” means is that our racial categories contain many ethnicities. So, while the church might be mostly black, or even all black, it may include ethnicities such as Hispanic (from the Caribbean and South America), Africa (and the ethnicities contained therein), as well as ethnicities contained in America itself. The Root website lists 46 ethnic groups in Africa alone, from which American slaves took their original ethnicity. Modern advances in DNA research have shed a lot of light on this, but I digress.

Still Segregated

Simply put, my understanding that the American church was as segregated as ever was reinforced with my visit to Bayview. Please don’t read into this statement that Bayview is doing something wrong or should be trying harder to include other races. I cannot know that answer based on one visit. What I’m trying to say is this: All of our churches are still struggling with the issue of integration. We’ve separated ourselves along race and, to at least a slightly lesser degree, ethnic lines.

I don’t know that we can expect this to change wholesale. The fact is that, regarding worship styles, everyone has a style (or range of styles) that they are comfortable with. This is something that will be very difficult to overcome, even if it should be overcome.

However, a more problematic issue revolves around the birds of a feather concept. If I go to a predominantly white church because I like that style of worship, then maybe that’s ok (although I have some doubts). However, if I only go to white churches because that’s the TYPE OF PERSON I FEEL COMFORTABLE AROUND, then I’ve got a lot of changing to do. It is up to each person to seek the answer to their situation and deal with it, because God will deal with you when judgement comes. Part of visiting Bayview was to help answer that question for myself.

The short and long of it is that I learned that I have some work to do.

Parting Thoughts

It didn’t occur to me until after I was back on Interstate 15 North headed home that I may have caused the members of Bayview Baptist Church some consternation. Here was a large white man walking into church while all around the country, race issues were reaching cataclysmic stages. Did anyone wonder if I had a gun? Should I…could I…have been more sensitive to their situation? Am I completely overthinking the entire episode? Does anyone even remember that I existed?

As you might suspect, I’ve settled nicely into a mostly white church in my mostly white neighborhood in San Diego. I feel comfortable there because the preaching style is what I enjoy and the music is what I want to sing and hear. I will happily welcome any person of any race into our church and defend them should I discover any inappropriateness, but I doubt we’ll see many of them for the same two reasons I listed for my being there. My visit to Bayview and my membership at Legacy all point to the same simple fact: We’ve got some work to do in America’s church.

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