Kingdom Road Ministries- Newsletter

I will never forget the scene. America was afraid. We did not want more war. Two wars, the great world war, then the Korean conflict (which killed soldiers even though we did not want to use the name war) were in the too near past. Our memories stung with the gross reality of nation against nation. But the next time would be the last. The two great super powers were building weapons upon weapons -- each with the title, "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Americnas were building and selling bomb shelters to give a few more days life after the destruction was reaped. And we had a visitor. Nikita Kruchev! He spoke at the U.N. and that became the scene of one of the most vivid memories of my youth. The Great Bear stood before the world with fists clenched shaking them at us, and shouting in the angriest tones, "we want peace." (The shoe incident came later.)

I tell you that story, because I need to make a point. What he said with the eyes and the tone of voice spoke far louder than the words from his mouth. And that is a point I saw again today -- not in the U.N., nor in Mother Russia. No the scene was played out in a small town church in America. The pastor was screaming at his people, red faced, growling voice, with anger in his eyes and degradation in his voice. Never before, in all my years in ministry, nor as a lay person have I witnessed such a show of anger, pride, and manipulation from a pastor. And at the end, I was repulsed by tears in his eyes and the soft gentle voice saying, "O the Holy Spirit was with me today! You heard the truth." Never mind that I counted 5 abuses of Scripture while I was listening. Never mind that the love of Jesus Christ was so profanely spoken. Never mind that the poor unsuspecting lay people, thought they had heard the gosple. Move over Nikita.

Sadly, in a world of televangelists and showmanship, this may be all too common. The show is more important than the word of faith. The focus on the pastor more important than the guilt he was heaping on his people. I was deeply saddened today. His people had no bomb shelters to retreat to. Only by coming to his alter could they hope to get some level of forgiveness for the wrath they had just had heaped upon them. I sat there in the pews (I refused to stand at the command of the pastor) and thought of the early church and remembered how there broke bread together with "glad and generous hearts." Oh how far that little congregation was this morning from glad and generous hearts.

Pastor, if you happen upon this web site and this article, I hope you see yourself in these words. And I do pray that the Holy Spirit will indeed come upon you, where you will find love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, paitience, and a wealth of self-control. For unless that happens, your people will continue to be abused and they will remain in bondage to your web of control.

I confess that sometimes I don't practice what I preach. Today that reality came jolting home. For years I have preached that how we behave is a reflection of what we believe about God. I truly believe that. But today, a pastor used that line in a sermon, and low and behold, he was preaching directly to me.

A couple of years ago, I was faces with a decision to go into mission work full time or take some time out from ministry and develop some land for recreation use. I struggled with the decision until the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program and Denver Seminary visited with me (that is a very mild way of saying he chewed me out). I laid out my two options and said, "I feel guilty about doing the development work." To which he responded, "Bud Surles, of all people, I would have never thought you would have said that. All work is ministry, and you have an opportunity to demonstrate how all the principles you have been teaching can apply to daily life." He said more, but you get the gist.

The problem is this. I have done what I was called to do from a human perspective, but I have found that I have been too demanding with contractors, too driving with my employees, and too quick to put my work ahead of my God. I found it surprising to learn that I am just like all the people I have been preaching to for the last many years. And I have to wonder, from looking at my behavior, do people think I believe in the holy character of my God? Do they believe that I seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness? Do they believe that loving one another is second only in my life to loving God? I sincerely doubt it. So you can imagine the pain I felt when I had my own sermon preached back at me. It hurt.

But I still believe today, regardless of my own behavior, that our behavior is a reflection of our belief about God. I just realized that even us preacher types can so easily put Him on the back burner. Join with me this week, as I try to put Him back where He belongs -- on the throne of my heart.

As I listen to the continuous tirade from politicians during what I refer to as "the silly season," I struggle at how easily we are swayed. Poll numbers rise and fall daily as if the candidates are combatants in a ring and we are the judges counting who is winning the current round. And in the end, the one in the ring is rewarded with the prize and the judges anonymously can only say, "I voted for him or her."

I struggle more because the ideas they throw at their opponent have no substance. They are merely the wordsmith's way of faking out the judges. And we sit gleefully ringside, content that this idea may be the one with the knockout blow, without ever understanding the idea at all.

I am not a political writer, nor am I a politician. I am a servant of my God, struggling like my fellow humans in a world guided or misguided by ideas that we scarcely understand. We are more interested in the personality and style of the politician than we are the substance of their ideas. And thus we allow ourselves to be "bossed by the ideas." (This is a Saul Bellow quote, which I gleaned from Eugene Peterson.)

We will be continued to be bossed by ideas until we stand upon some given standards from which we will not diviate. I am not a legalist, but I do believe that unless we are founded on the loving standards of Christ, we will be blown with the wind of illicit ideas, and we will receive what we scarcely understand. And secondly I believe we will be bossed by ideas unless we understand the details of the facts and sub-ideas that constitute the whole. Sadly we take time for neither. We do not take time to understand Christ, His Way, His Truth, His Life, or His mission. Nor to we take time to filter the ideas through the screen of substance. So we become bossed by the ideas of this generation and lose the substance of the last. Christians sit in pews every Sunday, be fed whatever dotrine or drivel the current pastor has to offer, taking no time understand the Lord to which he or she is referring. So we are swayed, or disswayed according to the style for which the idea, drivel, or doctrine is displayed. And we don't take the time to filter what we hear through the understanding of the details from which they spoke. And if we treat our spiritual life, which is our only real life, so casually, how could we ever expect to deal cogently with politicians and their scabbed over ideas.

At no time in my own history have I witnessed such a blast of ideas which have no substance but sound so pretty from the lips of the speakers. They take our fears, our inclinations, and our unhealthy desires and fold them into ideas they say will work for us. And we, like lambs led to slaughter, passionately embrace ideas "whose feet are planted firmly in thin air."

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where theives break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . ." (Mt. 6:19-20)

When your life is in the tank, maybe its because your have misplaced where you store your treasures. And now the thieves have got you down.

Don't you feel like you have been robbed every time you go to a gas station. Worse yet, can not afford to go to the gas station because someone in the food chain between the God given underground resource to the pump is getting rich off your pain. We are now experiencing a kind of pain and fear unlike anything since the 1970's when gas lines backed cars far into the streets. And whether you are a Christian or not, it doesn't matter -- you are hostage to the situation. We have developed a very energy dependent world.

We use energy to go to and from work, to heat and cool our homes, to cook our meals, and to give us light and entertainment far into the night. It drives our computers which have become our modern day communications system. And when energy demands are where they are today, the price for that demand will have to be paid. And of course whenever we become dependent, we become hostages. We are dependent on utility and petroleum companies, so they can do to us whatever they choose. They become bullies of the highest order with no compassion for the pain they inflict.

But there is a place where power is provided that is free. The Distributor is not a bully, nor does He take advantage of your weakness. In fact, His power is made perfect in your weakness. Of course I am talking about Jesus Christ and the time we spend with Him. Does He put gasoline in your tank or lower your electric bill? Not usually. But He does something far more important. He gives you the wisdom, patience, and power to endure times like these. He gives you peace in the midst of chaos, love in the midst of cultural anger, and charity to those who are caught in the web of helplessness.

We have all stood in wonder and awe when we see the courage and tranquility of martyrs who face death with dignity. We have admired men and women who have surrendered their lives to mission in the most foreign of places. And when we see pictures of the joy and smiles, the rugged determination, and the undaunting courage we wonder what they have that we don't. The answer is simple really, and it is the answer that will get you through this current energy crisis and economic meltdown with the same kind of joy, rugged determination, and courage. The answer is to surrender everything to Him, and live through Him. Trust Him that each day will be filled with His grace which will always be sufficient for you.

Few are the Christians, and I dare say Americans, that are not horrified by the killings of rage, derangement, and lust that have occurred in our land in the past few months. School shootings, workplace killings, murder in shopping centers, wives being left for dead by husbands, and saddest of all the violent murder of our children -- these are all items that fill our daily newspapers. And we are scrambling to find an answer to the problem, a fix that is generally aimed at adding more laws to our land. Make no mistake about it, from the beginning of time, laws have been added to contain the sinful nature of humanity, but they have never done anything to change the character within us which is the cause of these horrendous acts.

From the moment we are born, the spirit within us is being formed. It is shaped by what we experience, see, hear, and are taught. There can be no dispute about this. Genetics certainly play a part in our development, but all of our genes are merely programs (software if you will) which cause us to respond to stimuli in certain ways. The shaping of that response however is environmental. That process is on going from birth to death. What this has to do with the rage in America is so important. What are the experiences, the sights, the sounds, and the teachings which are shaping our spiritual formation.

As we examine these things we are able to see some of the root causes. More children are being raised in single family homes now than ever before. Over 40% of our young people do not have the influence of fathers in their upbringing. A loving mother and a loving father, raising the child they have brought into the world is now an American anomoly. This results in many care givers, most of whom cannot by their very nature be very concerned about the spiritual development of the child. And of course the media is what our children see -- a visual that is filled with violence, lust, and immorality. What they hear are words of conflict, harsh words, and ugly words -- words which radically shape the character. And by law, our formal education system cannot teach them the things of a loving and caring God. Cause and effect is the only education they can legally receive. Therefore, the spirits of our civilization are being shape in a void. Nowhere does the system allow for people to experience things of God and thus be shaped by His Kingdom. And if the parents of a child, do not place this teaching as a high priority in a childs life, it is not likely they will be transformed into God's loving and caring image. They cannot even think in Godlike terms, because their minds do not have the things of God in them.

That is, of course, unless they are born again. You see, according to the words of Jesus, we cannot even see things from God's perspective unless we are born again. And we cannot become born again without a life surrendered to Jesus Christ. As He stood over a warring Jerusalem, He wept and said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you only knew this day what it is that could bring you peace, . . " And what was true 2000 years ago is still true today. Only Christ can make a difference.