 As a boy, Dr. Bruce Larson attended church at a big Gothic Presbyterian church in Chicago, he writes in his book, There’s a Lot More to Health Than Not Being Sick. The preaching was powerful, the music stirring, but the most awesome moment for him was when 12 solemn,
frock–coated ushers took up the offering. Many of the ushers were business and professional leaders in Chicago.
One of the men especially impressed the lad. Frank Loesch wasn’t imposing to look at, but in Chicago he was a living legend. He was the man, more than any other individual, who stood up to Alphonse Capone during his years as the Windy City’s Mafioso crime boss. In the prohibition years everyone in town was afraid of “Scarface”Capone. Even the FBI was intimidated. But in 1919 Christian layman and lawyer Frank Loesch, without an ounce of government support, single–handedly organized the Chicago Crime Commission, a group of citizens determined to take Capone to court and put him behind bars.
Frank Loesch’s life was in constant danger. His family and friends were also threatened. But he never wavered. With an indictment for income tax evasion, Al Capone was convicted in 1931 and ultimately packed off to Alcatraz
Federal Prison.
Frank Loesch risked life and limb to live out his Christian faith in a practical, courageous way, standing up for what was right in the face of huge risks and sacrifices.
Larson says that each Sunday, when the ushers were collecting the offering, his father, a Chicago businessman himself, would poke his young son in the ribs and silently point out Frank Loesch with pride. Occasionally Larson would see a tear of gratitude and respect in his father’s eye.
The Christian“Hall of Faith” (Hebrews chapter 11) is full of people like Frank Loesch who were willing to risk everything that mattered to them in the name of Christ. People like these wield influence far beyond their
wealth or fame or power.
And we can be like that too. We can live an authentic faith that addresses the injustice and corruption around us. Jesus pointed us toward Truth (remember, “I am the . . . Truth . . . ” He said) as a great liberator. He also said, “The truth shall set you free.” As Frank Loesch stood up for what was true and right, we too can be the real thing, the genuine article, purveyors of truth in a relativistic world.
 One evening a woman was driving home from work when she noticed a large truck behind her; it was driving uncomfortably close, right on her bumper. The truck towered above her car, and she could hardly see the driver, who was peering almost straight down into her backseat.
She stepped on the gas to gain some distance from the truck, but when she sped up, the truck did too. The faster she drove, the faster her pursuer drove.
Now scared out of her wits, she exited the freeway. But the truck stayed right on her bumper. The woman turned up a main street, hoping to lose her pursuer in traffic. But the truck actually ran a red light and continued to chase the now–terrified commuter.
Reaching the point of panic, she whipped her car into a service station and bolted out of her auto, screaming for someone to save her from the dangerous trucker. The driver sprang from his rig and ran toward her car. Yanking open her rear door, the driver pulled out a man hiding in the backseat.
The woman was running from the wrong person. From his high vantage point, the truck driver had spotted a would–be attacker, lurking in the woman’s car. The chilling chase was not his effort to harm the woman but rather to save her, even at the risk of his own safety.
In the same way, many of us run from God, fearing what He might do to us or what He might call us to do, not trusting Him to safeguard our wellbeing. But God’s plans are always for good, not evil—He always plans to save us from destruction, not to harm us (“For I know the plans I have for you,” an inspired Jeremiah wrote in 29:11, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”). God pursues us to rescue us from the hidden danger that threatens our eternal welfare.
God wants to prosper us, not to harm us. Of course it goes without saying, His idea of prospering isn’t always ours. We want a Cadillac in every garage; He wants to bring lost, desperate people to the safety of eternal life. We want money, fame, pleasure; He wants us to find eternal joy from a life lived for others and for Him, not for ourselves and our selfish desires.
It is so important for each of us to learn how to recognize the true enemy. Figure out how to distinguish the evil one from the one trying to save us from painful violation at the hands of a hidden, malevolent threat. God is in the process of rescuing us from a wicked danger, and we misconstrue His pursuit, think He’s out to get us.
Look at your life. Is there something you’re running from, when all the while it is God’s best attempt to save you from a very real danger? Wouldn’t it be sad to come to the end of life and discover that we were running from the wrong thing all that time?
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©.
They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 The Romans were not the most brutal, as world empires go. But they had a pattern of conquest. First they would subdue a people, then they would assimilate them into their amalgamated culture, bending the conquered people to Rome’s will and ways, taking the subdued people’s cultural ways into the Roman blend (Rome was actually more of a melting pot than we might think).
The Romans often felt it necessary to execute the leaders of a conquered people, to exterminate the military hierarchy, to do away with leaders of potential rebellions. And the Romans had many creative ways to kill these people, with maximum effect and horror.
For example, one method of killing an enemy, slowly and repulsively, utilized a dead and decaying body. The Romans tied the corpse face–to–face with the person they wanted to execute. Day by day the putrid flesh of the corpse poisoned the unfortunate victim, slowly but surely corrupting the living flesh until they were two corpses, not just one. This guaranteed the greatest amount of suffering and sent a powerful message to the subdued people—“There is no escaping the overwhelming authority of your conquerors.”
Roman poet, Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC), described the utter horror:
“The living and the dead at his command,
Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand;
Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.”
Being tied to a rotting corpse until we succumb is a little like hugging our hatreds, fears and grudges. We may think that by refusing to forgive, for example, we can punish someone else. And all the while, the rotten flesh of our emotional pain continues to eat away at our own mental, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing. If we persist, a kind of death can put us in a kind of grave.
Cut the ropes. Break the chains. Shatter the handcuffs. Throw away the fetters. Give up the hatred, fear and guilt and embrace the freedom God wants to give.
Accept His offer of deliverance and fly far and free to the promising horizon.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 Traditional is the new trend. When Ray Croc opened his first franchised McDonald’s in April 1955, he didn’t know what he had started. It was the newest thing—fast food. But by the 1990s, McDonald’s were so common, they decided to build some “retro” stores playing up their traditions. There are too many retro McDonald’s to name them all here, but Minneapolis has one, as do Chicago and Tampa. Even Duluth, Minnesota has one.
The Chicago retro McDonald’s was built on Ontario Street with a 1950s décor, including a classic 1954 white Corvette convertible inside. Ads, posters, records and juke boxes from the ’50s filled the interior. Customers formed long lines to step back in time. The appeal was to the traditional, reflecting a simpler and more stable time.
But the ‘old’ McDonald’s had some very modern features: a drive–through window; home delivery service, using a bright red 1955 Chevy Nomad station wagon; the menu featured many items that other McDonald’s restaurants didn’t have; and don’t forget the ATM for cash withdrawals to pay for all those Big Macs (they kept the Big Macs—after all, they’re traditional).
The Chicago retro McDonald’s was a model for the traditional church in the twenty–first century—doing yesterday better than they did it yesterday. To the surprise of many, traditional churches will be a major growing segment of the future American church.
There are many non–traditional churches with new music, contemporary “seeker” worshipstyles, iconoclastic attitudes; but we might have ignored America’s growing interest in the traditional. Marketing analysts are keenly aware of what’s happening—people are reacting (over–reacting?) to change, frightened of losing control, holding onto the familiar, worried about the future. “The way it used to be” generates lots of interest (just feast your eyes on those great retro pony cars: Camaro, Challenger and Mustang).
Church consultant Leith Anderson says that to be successful, any church leaning toward the traditional will have to incorporate contemporary elements, like that ’50s–style McDonald’s with its ATM and Facebook page. And, he says, if a church is traditional, it’ll have to do traditional things with great excellence.
I don’t think it matters so much if churches are traditional, contemporary or blended in worship style, but they have to be committed to meeting people’s spiritual needs and holding onto the best tradition of all: “The Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel, so help us God!”
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to rpresent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 A mountain village council hired a young mountaineer to clear away the debris from the icy spring high above that fed the stream flowing through their picturesque town.
With faithful, anonymous regularity he did his job, removing leaves, branches and silt that would otherwise choke and contaminate the fresh flow of water. Eventually the village became a popular vacation attraction. Graceful swans swam the crystal–clear river, the mill’s grinding wheels turned day and night, and the view from village hotels and restaurants was idyllic. Years passed.
One evening, as the village council reviewed the budget, someone questioned the salary being paid the obscure keeper of the spring, a now–elderly man some of them had never actually seen. Said the councilman, “Who is this man? Why do we keep paying him year after year? The stranger in the hills is doing us no good. He isn’t necessary. And he’s costing us good money.” By unanimous vote they dispensed with the mountaineer’s services. The shrewd politician was congratulated for his financial insight.
 By autumn the trees began dropping their leaves. Small branches snapped off in the wind and fell into the spring, choking the flow of spark-ling water. Then someone noticed a yellowish tinge to the stream; soon it was much darker. Then a slimy film covered sections of the banks and a foul odor drove people from the water’s edge. The mill wheels moved slower, finally grinding to a halt. The swans left, followed by the tourists.
The embarrassed council members realized their gross error in judgment and, posthaste, hired back the keeper of the spring. He quietly returned to his work, and in time the cloudy river cleared, the water wheels turned once more, tourists enjoyed the hotels and restaurants again, and life resumed its charming, gentle pulse.
People too need to take care of their own environmental maintenance. More than vacuuming the rug or washing the sheets, we need to carefully ingest the Word, clean up our thought lives, spend daily time conversing with God, and focus more on others and less on ourselves. If we don’t keep the spring of life clean and fresh, our spiritual being will cloud, and
relationships will grow murky and polluted, with more bad odor than sweet aroma in our everyday activities.
With environmental maintenance, our river of life will stay forever fresh.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship®.
They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
|
RSS Feed