Next Tuesday, November 9th, I'll be working in a polling location near our home. I "cut my teeth" earlier this year on the primary election. We only had a 20% turn out, so it wasn't very busy. Since Missouri is considered a swing state, our county election board is predicting a 90 to 95% turnout of registered voters. That means I better eat my lunch and go to the bathroom before I get there because there isn't going to be any time to do either one once the polls open. For this election I am a "Republican Assistant Supervisor". My primary duty will be to set up the paper ballot counting machine and set up the touch screen devices. During the day I, along with the Democrat Assistant Supervisor, will set up the touch screen devices for each voter and assist paper ballot voters in recording their votes by properly inserting their ballots into the reader. It's a long day. We have to arrive at the polling place by 5 AM and have one hour to set up and open the polls at 6 AM. At 7 PM we'll station one of the workers at the end of the line and no one can get in line after 7 PM. When the last person in line has voted, we begin the tear down of the equipment and insure that the paper tape records that will be used to count votes are properly secured and everything is properly transported to our drop off location. If we're lucky, we should be home by 8:30 PM. I'll probably collapse in a chair in our family room, eat some supper and watch the early returns. During our time in the polling location, we must be completely neutral. We cannot say anything about any candidate or ballot measure. In fact, if someone needs help voting, both a Republican and Democrat worker must give assistance as a team. This is to insure that no one is influenced one way or the other.
I can tell you one thing I'll be doing all day, and it's the same thing I've been doing for weeks. I will be praying for God's will and His intervention in this election. In 2000, George W. Bush was well behind Al Gore in the polls going into the election. Exit polling showed Gore winning by a large margin, and yet, when it was all said and done, "W" pulled it out. Again in 2004, John Kerry was the polls winner going into the election, but "W" won by a greater margin than in 2004. Many people are saying that this election is over, but I can't believe that God would allow our country to be exposed to the kind of moral changes that would further erode our values and standard of living. For weeks, every time I hear a political ad, or see a yard sign, or anything else that reminds me of this election, I breathe a prayer for God's will and His intervention. I believe that is exactly what happened in 2000 and 2004. On election day, at my polling location, I won't be saying anything political, but I'll be praying "up a storm" while I setup the touch screen machines for people to vote. Throughout the Old Testament, God setup leaders and He took them down, both for the Israelites as well as surrounding nations. The same God is still doing that today!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Transitions
The life of a career associate pastor can get real interesting when the senior pastor you are working for, and with, decides to do something else. It seems that this is a signal for the proverbial "chicken with it's head cut off" syndrome to begin. Suddenly, formally level headed leaders don't seem to know what to do, people in the congregation start wringing their hands in anticipation of the 'worst case scenario", and people begin to act like God didn't know that any of this was coming.
In the church I serve, we've just been through this process. It went amazingly well. Today we are officially installing our new senior pastor, 22 months after our former senior pastor announced his retirement. You can read his reflections on this day, http://www.jaredstoner.blogspot.com/. This is the fifth transition that I have made, and this is by far the best one. In the other situations, either we looked down the road and saw that it was not going where we wanted to go, or other people looked down the road and decided they didn't want us along for the ride. For now, my book boxes are still in storage and I'm planning for 2009.
One of my all time favorite Hillsong songs is Show Me Your Ways
Show me Your ways that I may walk with You,
Show me Your ways, I put my hope in You;
The cry of my heart is to love You more, to live with the touch of Your hand,
Stronger each day, show me Your ways.
In the church I serve, we've just been through this process. It went amazingly well. Today we are officially installing our new senior pastor, 22 months after our former senior pastor announced his retirement. You can read his reflections on this day, http://www.jaredstoner.blogspot.com/. This is the fifth transition that I have made, and this is by far the best one. In the other situations, either we looked down the road and saw that it was not going where we wanted to go, or other people looked down the road and decided they didn't want us along for the ride. For now, my book boxes are still in storage and I'm planning for 2009.
One of my all time favorite Hillsong songs is Show Me Your Ways
Show me Your ways that I may walk with You,
Show me Your ways, I put my hope in You;
The cry of my heart is to love You more, to live with the touch of Your hand,
Stronger each day, show me Your ways.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Do You Remember the Days After 9/11?
I still remember the first Sunday after the bombing of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11/01. I saw people in our congregation that I hadn't seen in months. There was also a group of people that I had never seen before. There was a sense of expectancy, a sense that people were there to connect with God. There was urgency and a little despair. I think as a country, we realized that the "war" had come to our shores and it was possible for it to touch us right here in the middle of the country.
While we didn't see a lot of new people in our church services immediately after the revelation of our national financial crisis, I'm getting some of the same feelings from people that were present after 9/11. I think this is another wonderful opportunity for God's church to demonstrate to a watching nation what real trust and security in Christ is all about. While we do not have an "inside track" to knowing the future, we know the One who knows the future. We can depend on His word that tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. His Word tells us that when we gather in His name, His presence will touch us, inspire us and help us worship Him.
Now, with an incredibly important national election just 3 weeks away, and our shaky economic outlook, we need to help people understand that God really does care. We need to share the fact that He is interested in our individual lives and He is simply waiting for us to call out to Him. Sadly, sometimes it takes a crisis for some people to draw near to God. Regardless of what it takes, let's do everything we can to help people find Him.
While we didn't see a lot of new people in our church services immediately after the revelation of our national financial crisis, I'm getting some of the same feelings from people that were present after 9/11. I think this is another wonderful opportunity for God's church to demonstrate to a watching nation what real trust and security in Christ is all about. While we do not have an "inside track" to knowing the future, we know the One who knows the future. We can depend on His word that tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. His Word tells us that when we gather in His name, His presence will touch us, inspire us and help us worship Him.
Now, with an incredibly important national election just 3 weeks away, and our shaky economic outlook, we need to help people understand that God really does care. We need to share the fact that He is interested in our individual lives and He is simply waiting for us to call out to Him. Sadly, sometimes it takes a crisis for some people to draw near to God. Regardless of what it takes, let's do everything we can to help people find Him.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Milestones
This past weekend my family and I traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to help celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother, her 80th. We also celebrated my dad's 89th birthday. 3 of my mom's sisters and some of their children we able to attend along with both of my sisters and my brother. 35 of us had a wonderful time sharing memories, catching up on each family and eating until we were stuffed. One of the high points was taking the time to have each of my parent's children and grandchildren who were in attendance, give their personal thoughts and thanks for the impact that my parents have had in their lives. There was the recounting of great memories and events, thanksgiving for wise counsel and guidance, and financial and other support through the years. One comment that came up repeatedly was about the giving nature of both my dad and mom. Both of them worked hard through the years to provide for us. We never really wanted for anything, but we never had much left over either. It was amazing, however, to hear about specific incidents where my dad and mom gave time, or money, or whatever they had to someone who needed it. I remember going with my father every Saturday morning, for several years, to an elderly lady's home and chopping wood for her wood burning stove. She cooked and heated her home with wood. She would have the wood delivered and my dad would come over and chop enough kindling and wood for her to use for the week. My job was to take the chopped kindling and wood up from the basement to a box where this lady would use it from. On the next Saturday we would go back and do it again. My dad didn't get paid for doing this, in fact, he would refuse any payment when it was occasionally offered. When the lady passed away, he didn't get a mention in her will, or even a thank you from the family. We just showed up one Saturday morning to chop wood and found out she had passed away.
Now that we are home, and this most recent celebration will be added to our memory book of great times, I'm thinking about my own personal giving. Would I be willing to give a couple of hours every Saturday morning to someone who really needed the help? Am I so busy with my own "important stuff", that I miss the real need around me? I hope not. Now that this memory is so fresh in my mind, I'm going to be looking a lot closer for people who could use my help.
Now that we are home, and this most recent celebration will be added to our memory book of great times, I'm thinking about my own personal giving. Would I be willing to give a couple of hours every Saturday morning to someone who really needed the help? Am I so busy with my own "important stuff", that I miss the real need around me? I hope not. Now that this memory is so fresh in my mind, I'm going to be looking a lot closer for people who could use my help.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Interesting article and observations
One of the blogs I read is written by Tim Stevens, the Executive Pastor of Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana. In a recent blog about our current financial mess, he cited an article by Steven A. Holmes written in September, 1999 and published in the New York Times.
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called sub prime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans. ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called sub prime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.'' (Continue reading here...)
It's possible Peter Wallison was a prophet. Or, perhaps, just a smart economist who knew that if you loan money to a bunch of people who can't afford to pay you back--it might just come back to bite you some day. It's okay, though, because there are no consequences. We, the taxpayers of these United States, will bail out the lenders and the borrowers. In fact, we'll bail out anyone. Even the Red Cross continues to spend money it doesn't have, and this week asked the government for a $150 million bail out.
I'm not smart enough to figure it all out. But I think I'm smart enough to only spend money that I have. And I'll save a little, because when the government raises my taxes to pay for this mess, I'll need to be ready.
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called sub prime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans. ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called sub prime market.''
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.'' (Continue reading here...)
It's possible Peter Wallison was a prophet. Or, perhaps, just a smart economist who knew that if you loan money to a bunch of people who can't afford to pay you back--it might just come back to bite you some day. It's okay, though, because there are no consequences. We, the taxpayers of these United States, will bail out the lenders and the borrowers. In fact, we'll bail out anyone. Even the Red Cross continues to spend money it doesn't have, and this week asked the government for a $150 million bail out.
I'm not smart enough to figure it all out. But I think I'm smart enough to only spend money that I have. And I'll save a little, because when the government raises my taxes to pay for this mess, I'll need to be ready.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Re-Connecting
One of the real phenomenons of the Internet age are the numerous social networking programs that have become so popular. In fact, many people say that connecting via programs like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and others, are replacing traditional emails. Did I say "traditional". Emailing is as common today as sitting down to an IBM Selectric typewriter was just a few years ago and sending out "snail mail" letters. Now, email can be so slow. Emails will probably be replaced by newer technology before we know it. Another amazing aspect of all this is that I get notifications and messages on my phone. I can add a friend or send a message via a text message. By the time I get to my computer, my Facebook communications are old news.
A few months ago I opened a Facebook account because I wanted to use some pictures of a building project in Mexico that had been posted in an album there. I assumed that would be about it... Now several months later I have well over 100 "friends" and I have re-connected with people that I haven't talked with or seen for many years. I have reminisced with old friends about wonderful memories, re-established a couple of relationships that had fallen off because we lost touch, and simply have "had a ball" seeing everyone out there. Since Kathy and I have lived in several parts of the country, I thought it would be fun to re-connect with at one person from every part of the country we lived in. It's been amazingly easy and I'm well on my way to achieving this goal. I have realized, however, that this can be an addictive pastime and I've got to be careful about good time management. Gotta go, I just got another notification...
A few months ago I opened a Facebook account because I wanted to use some pictures of a building project in Mexico that had been posted in an album there. I assumed that would be about it... Now several months later I have well over 100 "friends" and I have re-connected with people that I haven't talked with or seen for many years. I have reminisced with old friends about wonderful memories, re-established a couple of relationships that had fallen off because we lost touch, and simply have "had a ball" seeing everyone out there. Since Kathy and I have lived in several parts of the country, I thought it would be fun to re-connect with at one person from every part of the country we lived in. It's been amazingly easy and I'm well on my way to achieving this goal. I have realized, however, that this can be an addictive pastime and I've got to be careful about good time management. Gotta go, I just got another notification...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Who's Bailing Out Who?
If you've been following the Congress as they work through legislation to solve our current financial crisis, you know by now that the Senate passed a 450 page bill last night. Included in that bailout bill are new tax earmarks for:
Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
The bill also extended previous earmarks for:
Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
American Samoa (Sec. 309)
Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
Railroads (Sec. 316)
Auto Racing Tracks (317)
District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
Wool Research (Sec. 325)
Here we are, in one of the most difficult times in our country's history, and personal and pet projects get added to an already obscene amount of taxpayer money. These are examples, and there are many more, of the kind of government corruption and misuse of tax dollars that we have chafed at for many years. What it tells me is this, that even in the face of devastating circumstances, I'm still going to take care of myself first, period, end of debate. It saddens me to think that in the greatest country in the world, we can't work together to solve these problems and put each other first for a change. I am more convinced than ever that God must help us intervene in changing the direction that we are going in as a country. Greed and corruption must be uncovered and there should be a standard of righteousness held up that causes us to stop doing the same unethical things over and over. What am I going to do about this? Pray, call or email my representatives and ask them not to vote for the House of Representatives bill that will validate the Senate bill, and participate in conversations to help educate myself and others on what we are doing to our country if we don't begin to take some responsibility, and vote the rascals out of office in the next election.
Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
The bill also extended previous earmarks for:
Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
American Samoa (Sec. 309)
Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
Railroads (Sec. 316)
Auto Racing Tracks (317)
District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
Wool Research (Sec. 325)
Here we are, in one of the most difficult times in our country's history, and personal and pet projects get added to an already obscene amount of taxpayer money. These are examples, and there are many more, of the kind of government corruption and misuse of tax dollars that we have chafed at for many years. What it tells me is this, that even in the face of devastating circumstances, I'm still going to take care of myself first, period, end of debate. It saddens me to think that in the greatest country in the world, we can't work together to solve these problems and put each other first for a change. I am more convinced than ever that God must help us intervene in changing the direction that we are going in as a country. Greed and corruption must be uncovered and there should be a standard of righteousness held up that causes us to stop doing the same unethical things over and over. What am I going to do about this? Pray, call or email my representatives and ask them not to vote for the House of Representatives bill that will validate the Senate bill, and participate in conversations to help educate myself and others on what we are doing to our country if we don't begin to take some responsibility, and vote the rascals out of office in the next election.
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