Tram and Sweet Lou

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H0-M0aES5E

This season the Tigers double play combo will feature Jose Iglesias and Ian Kinsler. They will be wearing the numbers 1 and 3, respectively. For someone like me, this means that images of Tram and Sweet Lou flood my mind. As a kid, there was nothing more beautiful than seeing Tram and Sweet Lou turn the double play.  My grandparents took my brother and I to see the Tigers play every spring, and they anchored the infield every game we attended.

May 15th, 1987, I (Allen, Dan's editor) was ten, and it was 3-3 in the bottom of the 9th against the Indians.  Lou was the first batter up, as Tiger Stadium reverberated from the "Looouuu!" chant that greeted him at every at bat.  He took the 0-0 pitch and drilled a walk-off home run.  The stadium erupted!  To this day, is the most electric moment I have experienced at a ball game.

Tram and Lou were the Dynamic Duo of the Motor City; they are arguably the greatest SS-2B combo in the history of baseball. Not to mention the fact they made a guest appearance on Magnum P.I.  (Pop culture put Tom Selleck on the map as a Ferrari driving Hawaiian P.I. who always wore the English D ball cap.)

Yes, you read that right. They were the best in the 80s, and a case can be made for their ranking among the best of the best. They were amazing to watch together. The center of the Tigers infield was locked down. If a man was on first, he was going to be doubled up. This is a huge reason why in 1984 the Tigers started 35-5 and walked to a World Series Championship over Steve Garvey and the San Diego Padres.

And yet, Iglesias and Kinsler will wear 1 and 3.

These guys are good players. But they shouldn't be wearing 1 and 3, like no other pitcher for the Tigers ought to wear 47 (don't even get me started on the travesty that is Jack Morris being skipped over for the Hall of Fame.)  It's time for these numbers to be hung on the wall in the outfield. It's time for a bronze statue of Sweet Lou and Tram to be placed alongside Cobb, Kaline and other legends from the D.

Mr. Illitch, it's time.

Don't wait until they're dead like you did with Sparky.  Follow the Piston's lead and honor your '80's icons.  Let's pay tribute and 'Bless Those Boys.'

I really hope this season with it being the 30th anniversary of the Bless You Boys Championship, that we see 1, 3, and 47 celebrated with their numbers retired as they should have been many years ago.

Read More

We Are Family

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMVe_HcyP9Y

Over the last year or so I have been a part of launching the Antioch Movement, a church planting movement in Ypsilanti, MI. It has been an amazing experience. One that I can't really put into words. It's been full of joy, pain, excitement, and anguish. I keep learning everyday about the depth of my own sin and the boundlessness of God's overwhelming grace.

There is one thing that I seem to be more acutely aware of than ever before and that is the reality that the people of God are family. In the institutional church we experienced tastes of this through small groups or through relationships with certain people with whom we had an affinity. It's different now.

The life of my natural family is completely and utterly intertwined with the life of my spiritual family. Our worlds are coming closer and closer together. We babysit for one another, we go out of our way to help one another, the rhythms of our lives are more naturally in tune because we are living together in community. Our kids have similar schedules. We frequent the same places. Our outside of the family friends crossover.

There have been many times in the last number of months that I have looked at people who used to be my friends with a new realization that we are now family. We are brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, we are a family that God is knitting together for his glory.

The realization that we are family changes everything about how we interact. It allows us to fight and have disagreements because we're not worried whether someone will leave. We know that we're committed to one another as family. There is a bond that is more than a commitment to an institution. It's a bond that comes from our commitment to mission together. We are family.

 

Read More

Relationships Kept

Relationships are funny things. They come and they go. They are filled with joy and pain. Relationships can be acquaintances, friends, or lovers. We have family that we would rather not talk about and we have friends we wish were family.

When someone becomes a follower of Jesus they become part of a family. In a previous post we explored the importance of covenant theology in our emerging generations. This covenantal experience is not purely an abstract reality of God keeping his promises, it is also the very real experience of us keeping our promises. We do this primarily through relationships.

Throughout the Scriptures we see the twin ideas of covenant and kingdom which play out as relationship and authority [1. I am indebted to the work of Mike Breen and 3DM for their help in developing my thoughts here. Check out his book, Covenant and Kingdom.]. God interacts with us in relationship through his covenant. His promises are kept and they hold true. Through his covenant we are drawn into relationship with him.

We model this as followers of Jesus. We are in relationship with one another and covenantally so. What does this mean? This means that when we commit ourselves to being a follower of Jesus we are also committing ourselves to being a part of his body. Whether we like it or not we are now in a family relationship with people who also call themselves Christian.

To be in community with people we need to realize that conflict is inherent in relationship. If there is no conflict then we cannot move deeper into relationship with one another. Conflict forces us to make a decision: "Do I withdraw and stay where I am?" or "Do I engage and go deeper?" Covenantal relationships require the latter. To be the church demands that we enter in covenantally with our family, the Church, and go deeper. We can be confident in doing this because we are bound through the promise of covenant.

Does this mean that we might get hurt? Yes. Because none of us live this out perfectly. However, if we are following Jesus, then we must follow him into relationship with those he calls his own and who are our brothers and sisters.

Relationships are indeed funny things.

Read More

Values - Multiplication

When I was a kid my dad liked to teach me lessons about business. One of those lessons was about multiplication. He asked me one day, "Would you rather have $2,000 per day or would you rather be paid $.01 and the amount doubles everyday?" Being an impetuous young man I of course stated immediately that I would take the $2,000. Then he informed me that I made the wrong decision.

$.01, $.02, $.04, $.08, $.16, $.32, $.64, $1.28...you do the math. I will spoil it for you, that number is going to get really big, really fast.

This is the exponential curve. When multiplication happens it explodes. It starts slow, but then begins a meteoric rise to infinity.

This is how Jesus began the movement of the church. When you read the gospels you see how he moves from masses to disciples. As his ministry went on the masses received less and less of his attention and his disciples more and more. He spent most of his time with 12 men and a group of women. They lived together and traveled together. He modeled life for them and taught them. Jesus gave to them all of himself. They in turn did the same for the next generation.

The church in the West has lost our sense of discipleship. We have become much more interested in addition. We are satisfied with $2,000 per day. We don't want to wait for that $.01 to become millions. Why? Because we despise the day of small things. When we'r pouring out our lives in 4 or 5 people it doesn't look successful. When we have 300 people at a worship gathering we do look successful.

The thing is, if we would follow the path of Jesus we would see explosive growth. The visible Church in the developing world is multiplying. They don't have the resources to put on the show and market to the masses. They have to begin with their neighbors. They have to pour out their lives into just a handful of people and help those folks do the same. Is it really any surprise that the center of the "Christian World" has shifted? The Church is growing the fastest in the places where they must follow the model of Jesus.

This is the model of multiplication, also known as discipleship.

Read More

Love Your Enemies

On Sunday nights our community is working its way through the Gospel of Luke. The last few weeks we have been wrestling with Luke 6, the second half of the chapter, the red letter part. It contains the beatitudes and woes. It also contains this,

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

Today we quote two few verses down, "Judge not, and you will not be judged..." However, we skip the verse above. We don't like it. Not even a little bit.

Thankfully, my friends comprise people who make up all aspects of the spectrum in our culture. I have gay friends and straight friends. I have conservative friends and liberal friends. I have Christian friends and non-Christian friends. My friends cross every color barrier.

As you can imagine my Facebook and Twitter feeds can be a little interesting. The views that are expressed by my friends are about as divergent as you can get. One post will declare the President is a Muslim Anti-Christ and the next will declare the Republican party as Nazis.

One thing I notice is the anger and hatred that both have for the other, yet espousing how people ought love one another and be nice. The caveat by both: As long as you agree with me. 

I am amazed by the hatred and lack of respect spewed out. There are so many half-truths or lies that roll through my social media feeds. Yet, when I sit down with these people they are not hateful or mean. But the words that are posted on their social media site are.

We have lost this sense of loving our enemies. In so doing we are losing our humanity. We are unable to separate our ideas from our person-hood. Our person-hood is lost in our ideas and therefore when our ideas are challenged it is a challenge to our very being.

Sadly, we don't love though. We don't extend love to those who are different from us, at least not in the public spectrum. We return hate with hate and evil with evil. When we do, we lose ourselves a little bit in the process.

I challenge you to look at your Facebook or Twitter stream and ask yourself: If my opponent wrote this about me, would I be angry? Before you post that pejorative and incendiary article or comment, ask yourself: If my opponent did this, how would I respond?

Let us move away from snark, anger, meanness, and hate. Maybe, just maybe, we could love our enemies for a bit and the world just might change.

Read More

Redemption from Exile

There is beauty in broken things that are redeemed. They are transformed and renewed into something beautiful. I love seeing how people take things like old forgotten fields and transform them into life giving gardens. In Isaiah 59 we see how God redeems an exiled people by his own power and his own hand through a beautiful poem.

Take Moment...

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
2 but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood
and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies;
your tongue mutters wickedness.
4 No one enters suit justly;
no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
5 They hatch adders' eggs;
they weave the spider's web;
he who eats their eggs dies,
and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched.
6 Their webs will not serve as clothing;
men will not cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
and deeds of violence are in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil,
and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
desolation and destruction are in their highways.
8 The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice in their paths;
they have made their roads crooked;
no one who treads on them knows peace.

9 Therefore justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not overtake us;
we hope for light, and behold, darkness,
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind;
we grope like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
among those in full vigor we are like dead men.
11 We all growl like bears;
we moan and moan like doves;
we hope for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
13 transgressing, and denying the Lord,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
14 Justice is turned back,
and righteousness stands far away;
for truth has stumbled in the public squares,
and uprightness cannot enter.
15 Truth is lacking,
and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him.
17 He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
18 According to their deeds, so will he repay,
wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies;
to the coastlands he will render repayment.
19 So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west,
and his glory from the rising of the sun;
for he will come like a rushing stream,
which the wind of the Lord drives.

20 And a Redeemer will come to Zion,
to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares the Lord.

21 And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-VbUQdJy0Y

Read More

The Voice of the Turtle

This week Spring Training began. In Detroit there is only one way by which we celebrate this moment. Ernie Harwell, arguably the greatest baseball announcer in history (Jack Buck and Vin Scully are the other two) would begin every Spring Training with this poem. Its simple beauty points to the simple beauty of the game itself. Enjoy the voice of spring, the very voice of baseball itself.

http://youtu.be/gr0wonW9u1A

 

Read More