A Funny Thing Happened One Sunday

This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian comes brewed with controversial observations on laughter.

Where There Is Fire…

Rules are not funny to me but rules can keep you out of a world of hurt. If there is a rule, it is probably because something happened that somebody else doesn’t ever want to happen again. For example, we have “No Smoking” signs at the entrance of our church because Open Door Ministries tends to attract the “Marlboro man” to our services. Rather than run him off, we just want to keep him from firing one up during the announcements. You might think you don’t have to ask people to refrain from smoking at church but we have discovered signs are required in Johnson County.

Jesus, Wont You Light His Fire?

There is a good reason why we have one person in charge of calling the prayer chain instead of just handing out the long list of phone numbers for our church’s prayer warriors. We used to provide those phone numbers until one lady called through the entire church and asked us to pray for her husband’s apparent erectile dysfunction and asked that “the spirit would move” at around 10:00 pm on Friday. When her poor husband found out, he called through the same list insisting that there was no physical problem and that he would probably be asleep by 10:00 on Friday anyway. We don’t give out those numbers anymore.

Fire In The Sky.

When I was young, I used to let people in the crowd give testimonies but I quit handing the microphone over when one woman shocked the congregation in 1998. Her testimony was that she was in her back pasture when the “Mother Ship” landed not far from where she was standing. She wasn’t sure if they were angles or “fire aliens” but something came out and ran her back into the house. I don’t hand over the microphone anymore.

If you have church long enough, especially if you are an outreach church, your going to see things that you never thought would happen in a million years. Things that make you want to bust out laughing and make others want to run off crying.

Gun Fire

The first time I preached in Matomoros Mexico, Pastor Gene Izaguira told me the Mafioso had just warned him not to be preaching anymore to their drug runners because too many had been converted to Christ. When he refused, the bad guys told gene they would assassinate him behind his pulpit on that very night. Mind you, this was the first night I showed up down there to preach.

“So if somebody walks in and shoots you bro,” he said with his hand on my shoulder, “its nothing against you personally.”

That night an armed gunman was stopped at the door by the 2 new converts who had not yet learned the doctrine of self-control. Forrest Griffin would have been proud of their “ground and pound” technique. In the midst of the brutal beating, that young man decided to give his life to the Lord and is a big part of Gene’s church to this day. That was my first time down there and I’ve been back more than 60 times since. How can you not love a church like that?

Fire From Heaven

Just a few months ago, my band was playing at a motorcycle church in Chico, Texas. At the end of the service, a worn out practitioner came forward in his leather and long hair asking for prayer about his hearing. “I’m real scared and I need a miracle”, he said to the Pastor.

We laid hands on him and the Man of God broke out some olive oil and put it on both his ears. They whole prayer team rebuked the devil, shouted at Heaven and proclaimed a miracle healing as our band played upbeat worship as backup. After a good ten minutes of lively scripture quoting and charismatic breakthrough, the team got quiet and the Pastor asked him how his hearing was? The man, with a confused look and oil dripping off both ears stated, “perfect, I can hear perfectly”.

Just as praise began to bust out in the church, the man interrupted, “my ears are not the problem! It’s tomorrow’s court hearing I’m worried about.” I laughed so hard I had to leave the room.

A big part of having real victory in your life is being led by God to know what you should and should not take too seriously. If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you’re a gift everybody else could do without. I double-dog-dare you to ask the Lord to give you a heart that loves to laugh. After all, that’s His heart too.

“He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”

Job 8:21

Triumphant Navigation

On July 17, 1938, pilot Douglas Corrigan took off from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field as family and friends watched. He only carried with him two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, a quart of water, and a U.S. map with the route from New York to California marked out. His goal was to fly non-stop.

Corrigan took off in his modified Curtiss Robin equipped with a big V8 engine. It was a foggy morning. He flew into the haze and disappeared.

Twenty-eight hours latter he successfully landed but not in California, in Dublin, Ireland three thousand miles the opposite direction. He instantly became a national hero because it was a feat thought impossible at the time, but from that day forward he was known as Wrong Way Corrigan.

Bead Crumbs and the North Star
Some people have a knack for direction and some people are just naturally lost as a burp in a hurricane. The Brewer is one of those people that you could blind fold, turn me a round and I probably would be able to point out north once I quit being dizzy. I’ve heard its an inner ear thing but there are those of us that just have a really good sense of bearing. I’ve always been like that. It reminds me of what Brian Keith said to Charlton Heston in the 1980 movie, The Mountain Men. “No, I never get lost. Fearsome confused for weeks at a time, but I never get lost.”

It’s very embarrassing for a guy like me to get lost. I don’t know why but I’m always convinced I’ll get to the right place and I tend to get mad at the road if it doesn’t cooperate with me. If I do get lost, it’s usually because I am talking on the cell phone. I miss exits and outright drive to wrong cities if I stay on the phone long enough. I have been known to hang up the phone look at where I’m driving and say, “How did I end up here?” That’s scary.

GPS and On Star
The same type thing happened to Commander George P. Ryanway before I ever drove to Dallas. On November 23, 1877 the last of the great steam naval ships, the USS Huron left port and headed south towards Cuba. The Captain represented the brightest of his day and he had actually taught navigation at West Point. Because of his education he ignored warning after warning of approaching storms confident that his compass and his knowledge could weather any storm. But what he didn’t know was that there was a tiny 1-degree error in the ships compass and the further they headed south, the closer his ship would edge towards the reefs of the east coast. In fact, with within 24 hours the Huron would be sank just 200 yards off the coast of Virginia and 98 men would loose their lives to the waves and the current.

When the warning bells rang, the Captain saw the rocks of the reef directly ahead and there was no way they could stop in time. He commanded his men to brace themselves and his last recorded words were, “MY GOD, HOW DID WE GET HERE?”

The Bright and Morning Star
Ryanway was lost because what he trusted wasn’t true. I was lost because I was distracted and not paying attention. “Wrong way Corrigan” was lost because he was blind in the fog. Whatever the reason, this is not a good year for you to be lost. As a Christian, my prayer for you is that God would lead you, guide you and direct you into better places. I hope that through the Holy Spirit you could find clear definition, forward progression and head into a hopeful place with confidence.

I believe that if you’ve never really got what “the Jesus thing” is to those of us that call ourselves saved, you can personally seek Him and find Him for yourself. I also believe if you once had a walk with God and somehow fell out, Jesus wants you back. Out of all the things I have to struggle with, being lost is not one of them. It’s the most precious gift anyone has ever given me because it was my greatest need. Man, am I ever a guy in desperate need of a Savior and how grateful I am to have Him!

Matthew 18:14
In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

Songs From the Road

Beating The Daily Grind

So when you take off, do you head for snow or sand? When you think “get-a-way,” are you thinking mountains or rivers? The Brewer doesn’t care just as long as I can get out of here from time to time. I grew up in Joshua back when we called it Joshuway and like that old Mac Davis song; I thought happiness was Joshua Texas in my rear view mirror.

Yet 30 odd years later, I’m still here and firmly planted. Glad to be here too. With all that said, about ever six weeks I get what the dictionary refers to as “stress from confinement or isolation: an emotional condition, marked by irritability, distress caused by prolonged isolation or confined living quarters.” You and I would just say cabin fever. Sometimes I call it “lets get-the-heck-out-of-dodgeotomy.” It’s the big cure all for the daily grind.

A Change of Scenery

The biggest perk for doing mission’s work throughout the world is actually going all over the world. The greatest thing to me about taking the show on the road is the actual road.

Yeah, we visit trash dumps, leprosy colonies and prisons but we are a long way from the normal boring routine of home responsibilities. It’s adventurous, fun and actually very therapeutic for the Brewer to hit the road as often as possible.

People have always sang songs about the road. There is something romantic about going somewhere else.

The Almond Brothers sang Midnight Rider and Ramblin man. Lynard Skynard sang They call me the Breeze. The Beach Boys sang I get around. Blackfoot did It’s a highway song. John Fogerty played The Old man down the Road. AC/DC said they were on the Highway to Hell and they can have that road, the Brewer aint going that way.

Truth be told, the road is something worth singing about.

Just recently I had a great talk with a non-Christian about what I feel like the difference between Christianity and religion is all about. When he told me he hated religion, I told him I did too. He said, “but you’re a Christian Pastor.” And I went into trying to define the difference between being a Kingdom of God kind of person and being religious.

As Ricky said to Lucy, “Let me splain.”

The Kingdom of Heaven as Jesus explained it is more about intimacy with God during the journey than the actual destination. The most important commandment in the Bible is not saving the world but actually loving God and loving the people around you.

Religion is all about going to Heaven. Christianity is supposed to be about loving God right now. Religion is about how you function. Christianity is supposed to be about relationship. Religion is all about escaping the earth. Christianity is supposed to be all about making a big impact and influencing the earth. Religion is all about trying to take the earth to heaven. Christianity is supposed to be all about bringing heaven to this earth.

I say “supposed to be” because we Christians have a very sorry history of being religious nuts that want to dominate and turn people into something more controllable. God doesn’t want religious nuts; He wants spiritual fruit.

The “Fruit of the Spirit” is all about letting God’s love come out of you right now. When it comes down to it, true Christianity (in my view) is about knowing God through Christ right now and seeing people the way God sees people, right now. This is something you progress in. So while it may be a road less traveled, it’s a faith more about the journey than the destination. The road really is something worth singing about.

I hope your journey through 2008 is one full of laughter and song. Keep the Lord ahead of you and sooner or later you will hear constant steps behind you. That’s just Goodness and Mercy following you, as you keep moving forward.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever!" Psalms 23:6

2008 - A Year of New Beginnings

On the 8^th day of the 8^th month in year of 88 I was listening to the radio while on my way to work. The announcer reported the high temperature of New York City at an uncanny 88 degrees. I don’t live in New York and the only reason it was reported in Texas was because of all the eights involved.

Now I’ve been a scriptural number thumper for sometime and I knew that God likes to preach sermons on new beginnings through the number eight. I wondered what new beginning was about to take place in the Big Apple.

At that same time a young go-getter and the third ranked man on the Department of Justice by the name of Rudolph Giuliani was getting ready to run for Mayor. He would later change Times Square from a sewer of porn and crime back to a tourist attraction

Things were about to change and that’s what new beginnings are all about.

A New Sheriff in Town.

When Jesus hit the scene 2000 years ago, He fulfilled and completed one covenant and opened a new one. To get an idea of how radical this new beginning is for us, you must first be able to wrap your head around the concept of how messed up we were under the old covenant. There was nothing wrong with the covenant; but under it we were a major malfunction.

You put people into any picture and it gets messed up quick. The book of Genesis sinks like a lead balloon from the first four words of the book into the last four words of the book. We go from “In the Beginning God”…to…”a coffin in Egypt.”

The book of Genesis takes a nose-dive from things “as good they can get” to things as bad as they can get. Now fill in the blank and guess who entered into that picture. You and I did! Mankind. Things were bad in Dodge City and we needed a new sheriff in town. Enter Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

When Jesus appeared as promised, He didn’t come with just with a new beginning but as the new beginning that all of us needed. With Jesus, everybody gets another chance.

Pieces of Eight

Because the number eight represents new beginnings, the Holy Spirit has had the writers of the Bible pen down eight new things the Lord gives us through His new covenant.

A new song (Ps 96:1 Rev 5:5:9) A new name (Isaiah 65:2 Rev 2:17) A new Heart (Ezekiel 18:31) A new Spirit (Ezekiel 11:19) A new tongue (Mark 16:17 Acts 2:4) A new commandment (John 13:34) A new heaven and a new Earth (Rev 21:1 and Isaiah 66:22)

Since the number 8 is all about new beginnings, it’s no wonder that there were 8 people in the Ark when it rested on Ararat. King David was the 8th son of Jesse. Aaron and sons began their ministry on the 8th day. The word “born” appears 8 times in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. Elijah performed 8 miracles. Elisha performed 16 miracles (2x8). Jesus rose up on the eighth day or the first day of the week.

I think it’s also cool to note the title of Jesus as “Redeemer” shows up eight times in scripture.

There are 8 women prophets in the bible. (Miriam; Deborah; Huldah; Anna; and the 4 virgin daughters of Philip in Acts 21:8)

There are also 8 things worthy to think on in Philippians 4:8. If you want a new beginning in your mind, these are things you have to think on. (Things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of a good report, virtue and praise.)

Even the word eight appears exactly 80 times in scripture.

Eight is Enough

So the Biblical point of the number eight is that in it, is the promise of brand new beginnings. A time when things that should of happened finally do happen. A fresh start and a second chance. A hopeful time of promise or “renaissance” if you will. That’s what I believe 2008 to be for all of us. I double-dog-dare you to be hopeful with me.

2007 - A Year in Review

Fast Times

Hindsight is twenty-twenty they say, so let’s take a rather clear look at a year that’s gone by in a blur. The Brewer must be getting old because it seems like it ought to be March or April. The calendar pages are turning faster than I can keep up with. I don’t think it’s my high doses of caffeine, I really think the days are accelerated somehow.

In the fury of our race around the sun, more than a million people a week spun off into infinity and are no longer with us in body. The seventh year of the new millennium saw the last of some people we all recognize and lots of people we never had the privledge of knowing.

A Year of Leaving

Dan Fogelberg and Ike Turner are two fairly famous musicians that passed away. I doubt if Tina will miss Ike but I will definitely miss Dan. Evel Knievel jumped into eternity and Don Ho sang “Tiny Bubbles” for the last time in Hawaii. Anna Nicole Smith took her reality show to the other side and we all said farewell to Jerry Falwell. 2007 was an interesting year.

A Year of Living

2007 didn’t kill everybody. Edna Parker lived to be 114 years old and holds the distinction of being the oldest living person in the world as of Aug. 13. Edna is a retired teacher who saw the world truly change during her extra-extended time. Her husband, Earl, died way back in 1938 and she never remarried. Edna is the oldest of the 74 known supercentenarians (people older than 110 years old) in the world and the Brewer tips his coffee cup to her. You go girl!

A Year of Craziness

Other notable events include that Wile Chavez lost his election in Venezuela, more than 1500 people lost their homes in California wild fires. Britney Lost her mind and “Lost” was in season three.

Gas prices hit the roof, Barry Bonds hit his 756^th homerun and Bishop Weeks hit his wife, Juanita Bynum in a hotel parking lot.

In 2007 The Cowboys rocked the house while the housing market hit the rocks.

Michael Vick was kicked out of the Doghouse and into the Big House for a sentence of 23 months for dog fighting.

A Year of Disgrace

It seems like there were several disgraced high profiles including Marion Jones loosing her Olympic medals, which I was really sad about. Ted Haggard fell out of the pulpit and onto the national “gaydar” after vehemently protesting all things homosexual. God help high profile preachers to remain vertical and with their wives!

Then there was Senator Larry Craig getting caught trying to pick up a fling in the men’s bathroom of an airport. Nothing says class like an adulterous, homosexual escapade in a public toilet. Thanks for being such a great leader and example, Senator.

A Year of Stepping, Passing and Heroes

Bob Barker Stepped down as the host of the price is right and handed Drew Carey a steady paycheck. OJ Simpson stepped into trouble one more time and celebrities stepped into a dance off.

Toys with lead were passed back to china while Marie Osmond passed out all together on national television. It’s worth noting that my son Benjamin passed his report cards for the first time ever. You Rock, Ben!

While heroes were avoiding bombs and tracking down terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, America was watching Heroes on NBC. Its amazing how big of a priority entertainment is when so much is on the line.

The Wind Up

For me personally it was another adventurous year and anything but boring. I married some friends and buried a few others. I got my food bank warehouse built and really feel like we made a difference this year. I spent several months on mission’s trips and recorded a live album with my band. I wrote another book, Numbers That Preach that should be out in January. My kids are happy and doing well. My wife is still the most amazing woman on the planet. 2007 was a really good year for me.

No matter where you are at or whatever you are doing, I pray that you know the love of God more than ever before. I pray that you grow in happiness, thankfulness and just flat out prosper in the New Year. Blessings on you, Texans and thanks for sipping with me.

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 3 John 1:2

Learning Happiness from "the Dumps."

About ten years ago I made my first trip to the border and across into the trash dumps of Matamoras. It was a lot like going to the moon for me. Anytime you get out of your box you are likely to hear God speak to your heart in a profound way. It tends to be dangerous territory because when you really hook up with the heart of God, you tend to get changed. I have discovered Jesus never leaves me the same way He finds me.

I had seen things on TV. I had an idea of what to expect, but I was completely unprepared for the effect it would have on me personally. I went to Mexico and came back completely different. The impact of those beautiful people in that terrible place was so strong that in some ways it defines me today. A lot of the ways I think and deal with life’s issues, the Lord taught me from a trash-dump pulpit. I still go back there four or five time a year. It’s something like another semester in Brewer’s theological seminary.

Planes and Trains

It’s not the traveling part that changed me. Yes I’m a gringo, but hardly a greenhorn. I’ve been to India twice, Uganda four times, all over Central America and even made an illegal missionary trip to Cuba. The trips we take tend to be rugged, raw and off the beaten path. Always on the bad part of town.

Still traveling has its perks. I’ve prayed at the wall in Jerusalem, suffered for Jesus from hammocks on the Caribbean and had the high honor of addressing the King in his actual palace at Kampala. I have had just as great an honor in hugging leprosy victims at a colony in Asia. It’s been awesome.

I’ve been so sick in Nicaragua that the locals put me in a 50-gallon oil drum full of water to cool my fever down. I’ve been so pampered I’ve eaten steak from first class on Singapore Airlines with a ticket I didn’t even pay for.

I’ve seen little kids in East Africa playing with a deadly black mamba snake and two men fight to the death with machetes for money in Cuba. I have actually witnessed Muslim rebels coming into Western Uganda from Congo and seen the village after they got through with it. I’ve also seen people have so much mercy and compassion it defies explanation.

My son and I were robbed in a taxi in Bombay. I have protested anti-American protestors in downtown London and dawned a kilt in Scotland. When my wife and I were offered marijuana in Jamaica, I said, “No thanks brother, we are Christians.” The drug dealer smiled, gave me a big hug and said, “Yo mon, I am too!” He promised me the “weed of wisdom” would help me receive a higher revelation.

That’s just scratching the surface so when I say the Matamoras dump had a profound effect on me its not because I don’t get out much. In fact, I have been back to the dumps nearly sixty times since then, taken hundreds of people with me and nearly half a million pounds of food. It affects me because I want it to. Matamoras makes my priorities rightly align. It makes me realize how privileged I really am.

A Higher Education

Last week, we took 2,200 backpacks and tote bags stuffed full of toys to the kids in Brownsville (TX), Matamoras (Mexico) and yes, even to the city dump. The advantage of loving on kids and giving things away is one of the greatest gifts God has personally given me. My wife and I not only take a bunch of crazy people from the church down there but we always take our kids with us too. The impact it has made on them has been just as incredible.

This Christmas we will be in our little house on our little spot in Johnson County, Texas. We will have just come back from another experience in the trash dump of a major Mexican city. We will know we are blessed. We will know life is special and we will know that God’s goodness is overwhelming.

We won’t have an exuberant amount of gifts to give each other because we spent it all on our trip. But what we will have is happiness and appreciation. Sometimes happiness is wanting what you already have. I learned that in the dump.

Merry Christmas friends and may you be blessed with a Christmas of wanting what you already have.

Psalms 63:5 (NLV)
"You satisfy me more than the richest feast.
I will praise you with songs of joy."

The Gift That Keeps On Giving!

I write this sip of flavored wisdom on my birthday. I know its later than December 6^th when you read this but its takes the Brewer a little more than a week to grind his column, but please feel free to send gifts.

December 6^th is not only known for the glorious day God blessed the world with my 3 pounds of splendor (my how I’ve grown since then) but it is also famous for being known as the day America got drunk. About 30 years before I was born, prohibition ended on December 5^th and most of America went to have a legal drink on the next day. I think God has a big sense of humor about a lot things and having me born on that day is somehow poetic. I have probably driven several people to drinking. Sorry, but still feel free to send gifts.

Kill the Grinch

The whole world is about to celebrate the birthday of the greatest troublemaker and peace giver ever seen. Christmas might have an X in the name of your holiday but you probably are still going to give or get a gift or two. The whole gift-giving thing goes back to the original scene. Wise men from the east of Israel came to Bethlehem with three kinds of gifts that would bank role Mary and Joseph on their exiled trip to Egypt.

If you look at those three gifts in the book of Matthew, we discover an important, yet often-overlooked, theological fact; in this account, there is no mention of wrapping paper.

If there had been wrapping paper, Matthew would have said, "And lo, the gifts were encompassed about with 7 square cubits of paper. The paper was covered within and without with pictures of Frosty, a man of snow.

Joseph purposed in his heart to cast the paper into the barrel of refuse, but Mary saith unto him, ‘Cease man. Thou shalt not. For Mary had purposed in heart that the paper should be set-aside for future generations, and Joseph didst roll his eyeballs at the wonder of his wife. It came to pass that the babe was more interested in the paper than the frankincense.”

…But these words do not appear in the Bible, which means that the very first Christmas gifts were NOT wrapped. This is because the people giving those gifts had two important characteristics: 1. They were wise. 2. They were men not women.

Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off. You can tell when I have wrapped a gift because it’s either in a hefty bag with a bow on it or it looks like a giant spitball.

For some reason, I can never completely wrap a gift. I can take a gift the size of a deck of cards and put it the exact center of a section of wrapping paper the size of a rodeo arena but when I am done folding and taping, you can still see a piece of the gift poking out.

On the other hand, if you give my wife a 12-inch square of wrapping paper, she can wrap a C-130 cargo plane. My stepmother, like many women, actually likes wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me is bordering on mental illness.

Roll Your Own

The editors of Woman's Day magazine recently ran an item on how to make your own wrapping paper by printing a design on it with an apple sliced in half horizontally and dipped in a mixture of food coloring and liquid starch. Those people are smoking crack and need to get a job!

Remember that the important thing is not what you give, or even how you wrap it. The important thing, during this very special time of year, is that you save the receipt. Because most of us knucklehead men don’t have since when it comes to buying gifts anyway.

I find that Jesus Christ, who the Bible calls the unspeakable gift, does tend to come gift-wrapped. Part of the journey of Christianity is about discovery and revelation. Jesus Christ is not the guy that lives in the building with a big steeple on it, take that wrapper off and you discover He’s the God that lives with you in your living room even when its messy. He loves it when we unwrap him from religion and our pain and see him for who he really is. Yes wise men and girls still seek him and yes, incredibly blessed people still receive Him for the gift He really is.

Unwrapping Jesus as a gift is not a one-time thing. God’s goodness towards us is ongoing and never ending. It’s a progressive journey into an inheritance that is so awesome it will take an eternity for us to unwrap it. Keep unwrapping guys, and see Him this season in a way you’ve seen him before.

"Thanks be unto God for his UNSPEAKABLE gift.''--II Cor. 9:15