Life Is Precious

Two weeks ago, on a Monday, I discovered my alma mater was closing. This last Monday night, a coworker and fellow teacher lost his battle to cancer and passed away. He was a retired engineer who decided to teach in South Central Los Angeles at a STEM school. He lived each day to its fullest. He taught physics and astronomy. He was a scientist and a Christian, which for some, is a walking oxymoron. He was a gentle man. He is a reminder that we must realize that every life is precious and stop fighting with each other and begin living each day to make a difference in the world. Retired, to our beloved teacher, Brian Woods, didn’t mean sitting down and doing nothing. It meant living life and doing for others until life is over. He never stopped until he took his last breath.

As I look at our world today, I wish more of us could be like him. I wish more people would stop talking and begin working. The petty arguments of which generation is better, reminds me that we have not learned or grown from our past. We must move forward. We must begin to work to make a difference in the world. When a retired teacher takes time on his weekends to take small groups of students to clean a natural preserve in the middle of an urban community, we can stop complaining of not having time or being too tired. We must live each day to its fullest because life is precious.

Life is too precious to argue which generation is better. Life is too precious to debate politics on social media in which no one is listening. Life is precious, so we need to take the time to encourage and empower others and not discourage others. It’s time that we begin to serve others and work together to make the world a better place. we cannot rely on government officials, or any other leaders. It all depends on us as individuals.

People will fail. People will let us down, but it is people that can build us up. It’s people that can guide us to succeed. We must lean on each other in order to make the world a better place. As I shared last week, it’s the memories of people from my alma mater that makes that place special. It is people that teaches students. It’s people that cleans our neighborhoods. It’s ordinary people doing extraordinary things because when we do anything that is extra from our agenda, it is beyond ordinary.

We all must begin to live extraordinary lives. Life is short. Life is precious. May we take the time to make the most of each and every day. May we serve others, as we see that each and every life is precious. It’s how Brian Woods saw the world. He saw each and every life as precious and as a potential to make a difference in this world.

Memories of Cincinnati Christian University

Cincinnati Christian University has had a huge impact on my life.  I was a poor kid from the trailer park with Bible Bowl scholarships and a Pell Grant, I was able to obtain a higher education that gave me knowledge beyond the books. The friends that I made in college became my family. My professors were my first mentors for ministry and life. As I look back on my time in college, I do remember the knowledge that I attained from the classes, but my school was more than that. It is why I want my current students to attend college, but I know now that my time at CCU was special because of the Christian friends and professors that impacted my life. 

It was at my college that my love for college basketball began, as the experience in the stands was one to only experience with the “Bleacher Creatures” cheering our team on to three back to back to back championships within my four years there. “Sneak Day” is a day designed to give students a break from classes one day in the fall. It was full of fun, food, and craziness at a park. Late night talks with friends in the dorms, gathering of friends in the cafeteria (or the weekly run to Skyline when the café did not satisfy), the various activities we discovered on the weekends, ensembles, camp teams, Family worship on Wednesday nights, chapel services, the Science class field trip to caves that involved camping (which I hate camping, but loved that trip.), and all the other events will always hold a special place in my memories and heart, even if the buildings are gone.

This last week, Cincinnati Christian University announced it will close its doors at the end of the semester. Many are mourning, not because the buildings will be gone, but because the experiences we had will no longer be passed down to future generations of students who go to school. It as a reminder for all of us that we needed to be a light for the city on top of a hill. It reminds us that we need to teach future generations that we encounter in our lives.

The school will close, but there are somethings that no one can close. Nothing can close my friendships. Nothing can close my memories. Nothing can close my knowledge and wisdom that the professors dispensed upon my life. Nothing can close the fact that one of the most conservative colleges supported me as a youth pastor and helped me get every internship that I had. They can close and tear down a building, but they cannot close and tear down the church. The church, which is the body of Christ, is not a building. It’s living and breathing.

My hope and prayers are that Central College of the Bible can purchase the property, but if they cannot, the light from Cincinnati Christian University will burn bright in the hearts of its alumni who will continue to teach the values of the school to future generations in all of our places of ministry all around the world. We don’t need a building in one place to do that. We need our hearts aligned with Jesus.

Many years have passed since I was a student at that school. I have spent time in youth ministry and in the classroom as a teacher of both a Christian school and a public school. When the hard times in life have hit, I have had to rely on the love, grace, and comfort of Jesus. It is in those times that it has been the people of God who have shown me the love of Jesus. The church needs to rise up and begin to show the world the love of Jesus, and then they will listen to our knowledge about Him. My memories of CCU are built around the love and grace that both the students and professors showed me during my time there. I made so many mistakes, but when friendships are deep, they don’t close and shun you because you make a mistake or commit a sin, but they embrace you and encourage you to keep in the faith. 

This incident has caused many of the alumni to reflect on the good times at school, and at the dire situation that became the demise of the school. It reminds us that we need to be faithful stewards of our time and money. It reminds us that we need to take risks and attempt new endeavors, but to also recognize that we may need to go in a new direction when those new endeavors are failing. (If any of the board members had been youth pastors, they would have made better decisions in the department of failing!)

May all our Christian schools have love, grace, and wisdom with how they conduct their business. May all our churches have love, grace, and wisdom with how they conduct their business. May we all have love, grace, and wisdom with how they conduct their business. May we all gather again in heaven with a new campus and many more who went there before and after us. 

Are you an alumnus of Cincinnati Bible College, Cincinnati Bible Seminary, or Cincinnati Christian University? Post a memory in the comments on this blog!  I would love to read all the other beautiful memories!!

Mind Control

My illustration may be silly and not of much importance, but it is beyond a silly sports story because it is exactly what the media has been doing since the beginning. What we believe and how we see a story is all based on what information we receive. Who gives us the information and the information that they give us is in a perspective that can actually give us a very skewed perspective that narrows our mind.

In the World Series, Justin Verlander, a pitcher for the Houston Astros, has never won a game. In 2017, his team won, but not because of him. In fact, the other team in that World Series was the Los Angeles Dodgers. They have a pitcher, Clayton Kershaw. He won Game 1 of that series. Verlander was winning Game 6, but fell in the 5^th inning and the Dodgers forced a Game 7. The media has only described one of the pitchers as a curse, as a horrible playoff pitcher, and that is Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers.

The media has everyone believing that no one in any era has done what Kershaw has done. The media makes fun of Kershaw, which leads the fans in making fun of him. The media gets the faithful Dodger Blue fans to turn on one of their own, but they never get the Astros to turn on Verlander. They are gentle with Verlander. They make excuses for him, but not for Kershaw. What is it?

Both pitchers have amazing records in the regular season and both fall apart in the playoffs. Verlander has a beautiful model, Kate Upton, as a partner. Kershaw married his high school sweetheart. Verlander has had run-ins with reporters. Along with going on mission trips to help a small village in Africa, Kershaw gives to the urban community of Los Angeles. He’s not rude to the press, so the press creates a story.

As silly as sports can be, I began to wonder what else and who else has the media done this to? Do we really get the full story? Or do we get a version interpreted by someone who wants to create an audience to sell, as they say in the play, Newsies, “more papes.”

Here’s the scary part. People believe the stories that are generated to create an audience more than they believe the truth. People retell the stories. People refuse to listen to the truth or to anyone who begins to speak truth, which is frightening. If we refuse to listen or be open to the truth, then we will allow those who tell their version of the story to control our minds.

If we allow the media to control our minds, then they will be able to control our actions. If they can control our actions, we will no longer think independently, but will be forced to think like those who desire to control us. I’ve observed this happen with politics, stories in the news, educational institutions, religion, etc. It leads to division and wars.

So, what do we do? We are careful to what we read and hear, and we begin to search for the truth before we mindlessly take the word of someone who wants to make money. We begin to think critically for ourselves. We look for facts to back-up a story like the Kershaw vs. Verlander one to discover why one is great and the other is not, even though they have similar statistics.

May we stop blindly following journalists and bloggers. Oops. I’m a blogger. Search for yourselves. Read literary works that are truth along with journalists and bloggers. You may find life to be more informative and enjoyable. Anger may subside and real answers to problems in our communities may come to fruition. May we seek those answers and not let the media control how we think or what we think. May we just begin to think.

Alone

The photo is haunting. It is from the last game the Dodgers played this season and were eliminated from the playoffs. Not only does it create a miserable feeling for every Dodger player and fan of not getting a World Series win, but it reveals how most of us are left when we fail or mess up in life. Recently, our church has been going through a series on friendship, and when I saw Kershaw sitting there alone, it bothered me. I know that the players ignore the pitcher when that happens, but why is that a tradition? Why do we want to be alone in times when we need people the most? Can we begin to change traditions that need changing in order to be better human beings to others?

We need to come together as a society and begin to be human and to connect with one another, especially when someone is down. It is our purpose in life to lift people up to be their best. Young people are being encouraged that if they see a young person sitting alone at lunch to go sit with them, yet in our adult world, we leave them alone, and many times we gossip and make jokes. Social media has been a medium in which people can create memes to insult and tear people down because if we are busy tearing someone else down, no one will notice that we are suffering sitting alone and by ourselves.

People abandon us when we sin. I know because it’s happened to me. If you’ve ever offended someone, and unless you live alone in a cave, you have, then you know that people stay away from you, even after you’ve apologized a thousand times. We are abandoned when we sin because most people, even Christians, struggle to forgive. Many people believe that forgiveness is for the weak. They have no idea how powerful forgiveness is. It’s so powerful that those of us who have sinned against someone don’t feel the freedom or the relief of forgiveness as much as the person who does the forgiving. It frees the forgiver more than the person needing forgiveness. It breathes new life, which everyone on this planet needs.

Like Kershaw, people abandon us when we fail and support us when we succeed. We need the most support when we fail. We need to be encouraged to continue to pursue our endeavors in life. People who were rude to Kershaw online must have never failed because it’s the worst feeling. You sit alone and wonder if God created you with any purpose. Trust me. God has created you with a purpose, and it is the task of all of us to encourage you to guide you to find and pursue that purpose.

We are left alone and abandoned when we need people the most. Jesus taught us that when he returns that those who clothed the naked, visited the sick and visited those in prison were His people. Look at our society today. We don’t have to look far to see many people, like Clayton Kershaw, sitting by themselves when they need people the most. In Los Angeles, we can just walk down the street.

In Los Angeles County, there are 60,000 homeless people. Although they connect with other homeless people, many of them are alone and abandoned by a society striving to be rich and famous. I’ll admit it. I’ve walked in a different direction to avoid them. I’ve complained. I have helped in shelters, but we need to do so much more. It is no longer a political thing. It is a human being thing. We are either for or against human beings.

In Los Angeles County, our prisons are full. They are not full of visitors visiting the prisoners. They are full of people who have committed crimes. Many of those people have committed unspeakable crimes. Others have offenses that do not require being locked into a prison. No matter what the crime is, they sit in cells alone. Many of them leave alone and have nowhere to go, so they resume their life of crime. People believe that they are worthless. They are worthy of our time and respect. We need to discover a path of healing for those in our prisons.

In no way do I have all the answers. All that I know is that I can reach out to those who I know may struggle with loneliness. I can reach out to someone I know who has failed or sinned and speak life back into them. In no way am I condoning justifying sin or a crime, but the more I allow bitterness to fester inside of me, the sooner I will be left alone and have no one to take care of me, especially after I have sinned.

When I was in high school, I could not figure out how to become the popular girl. I did everything the teen magazines said to do, but I had no success. As an adult, I have discovered that the people who encourage and build others up are the ones with the most friends. They are the ones with the most successful relationships. It is my hope that as a society we can do better.

May we break tradition and begin to sit on the bench with the person who just failed and feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. Maybe, just maybe, if we can lift one weight off at a time, we will begin to see the love of Jesus that we so desperately need in our society.