He's A Dandy!

My incredible grandfather used to have a saying about people he liked. In his Texan accent he would smile and say, “I like him. He’s a dandy.”

Sometimes I find myself repeating my Papa but didn’t know what I was actually saying until recently. A dandy, the dictionary says, is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and the cultivation of leisurely hobbies.
“Woop-T-Do” is another thing Papa would say. A dandy is an old school term for people living aristocratic lifestyles. When people refined themselves and hung out with the upper class they were known as a Dandy.

In our work to feed and reach out to the poor all over the world, I can’t say that I could call most people I am in contact with, a dandy. My travels have however landed me in places where I could at least breath the same air as super affluent people.

Several years ago my wife and I stayed on the club level at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco. A couple of friends had gotten together and purchased a get-a-way for the two of us for our tenth anniversary. It was fantabulous!

I wore out every amenity possible. I took 3-hour baths in the giant tub. I made friends with the whole staff. I choked down caviar and pretended I liked it. I even pretended like I was rich and walked amongst the privileged in the exclusive lounge on our floor. There I was, a yahoo from Johnson County, Texas in an ecliptic mix of hipsters, surgeons, jetsetters, lawyers and swanksters. I had finally arrived.

Now I couldn’t let people know I was a preacher. If you let people know that you are a Pastor while having a good time or among luxurious facilities they assume you stole the price of your room from a blue haired retirement fund. So the first time I was asked what I did for a living I perked, “I’m a writer.” But then they had to probe. “I’m a Christian writer of books and a newspaper column.”

“You’re a Christian writer and you stay at the Ritz?” He asked while emphasizing the word “Christian.” He had sniffed me out by his dandy detector. With impugning disdain he loaded his self-righteousness accusation of hypocrisy with a raised left eyebrow and waited for my timid response.

The Brewer is the wrong person to do that to. In a flash I fought back starting off my answer with, “Just out of curiosity, are your parents siblings?”

Instead I gained my composure and said “I wonder how many times Stephen King gets asked the same question? You are a Horror writer and you stay at the Ritz? I wonder if anybody has ever asked Larry McMurtry. You’re a Western writer and you stay at the Ritz.”
Trying to crawfish from my response, He retorted, “Well I guess it’s not about being a Christian, it’s about how you make your money.”
“That’s not what you said.” I corrected.

“You were implying I couldn’t be a writer that wrote about Christ and keep my Christianity while staying at the Ritz.”
He denied it and then tried to change the subject.
“I can see I’ve offended you.” He smirked, still accusing me of hypocrisy.
“No sir, you just expected me to be quiet while you talked long enough in hopes of saying something intelligent. It just didn’t work out for you.” I took a sip of my sparkling Perrier and said “Awkward”. With that he got up and left.

I was a lot bigger than him and so was my mouth. So the next day when someone different asked me how I made my living, I told them I was a mule for the Columbian drug cartel. They were fine with that.

I didn’t have a lot of money then, nor do I now but I would be lying if I said I don’t have hopes and dreams that require a lot of money.
So excuse me for being a Christian while hoping one of my books will sell or a song will hit or my column will be syndicated and bring in revenue streams. As sure as shooting, when I do have money, there will be critics. The Brewer is prepared to take the advice of the late Liberace and cry all the way to the bank.

I think some people are rich, others are blessed and some are richly blessed. The financial motto of every Christian ought to be “Blessed to be blessing.” If that had been the case with other rich Christians, we wouldn’t be raising so many eyebrows when we are not dirt poor.

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

The Favor Zone

In the early 1900s, a 16-year-old girl from Alabama gave birth to a baby girl and named her Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner. As if all those names weren’t enough, she went by the nickname “Judy.”

Judy’s Daddy, John Turner, was a hard working and hard living miner from Tennessee that had a knack for gambling. Hard times eventually forced the family to relocate to San Francisco, but things weren’t any better on the West Coast. John and Mildred soon separated.

John’s lack of work didn’t keep him from playing cards, and on December 14, 1930, he won a bit of money from some traveling gamblers. “I’m gonna go buy my little girl a bicycle,” he said, holding up his wad of cash before stuffing it down into his left sock. As he left the table and hit the streets, the other gamblers took note of where he had stashed it

Several hours later, John Turner was found dead on the edge of the Mission District in San Francisco. His left sock was missing. The robbery and murder were never solved. Nine-year-old Judy was devastated. Mildred got sick and was advised by her doctor to move to a drier climate. So, one year later they moved to Los Angeles. That was 1931.

Do me a favor
Six years later, Judy was a 16-year-old sophomore at Hollywood High. She decided to skip a typing class and headed to a drug store, where she sat at the counter drinking a Coke. She didn’t know it, but her life was about to change drastically. She had just entered “the favor zone.”

A few minutes later she caught the eye of the publisher for the Hollywood Reporter who leaned over, introduced himself and said those famous words, “How’d you like to be in pictures?”

Several weeks latter she was connected with famous movie director Mervyn LeRoy, and he cast her in the first of many great films. It prophetically was titled A Star is Born. Melvyn changed Judy’s name to Lana Turner and …well; Paul Harvey says it better than I can.

Party favors
That ability to get noticed and promoted into really cool places is something we Christians call “favor.” Brother Webster, not the little guy that hangs out with Michael Jackson, but the dictionary, defines favor as “approving consideration or attention.” Another understanding of favor could be “good will, acceptance, and the benefits flowing from these.” The Brewer would define favor as the process of getting noticed and getting promoted.

This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian comes flavored with favor.

You need favor. I need favor and more than ever before. Did you know at the time of Christ there were only two hundred million people on the entire planet? Today there are more than three hundred million in the United States alone. Over six billion people are walking around right now, and scientist’s say that’s more people than have ever lived in history before us.

It’s hard to get noticed and promoted when every day is like the busiest day at Disney World. Sip on this and savor the thought…God sees you.

A little bit of favor goes a long way and contrary to the gospel according to Brooks and Dunn, God is not too busy. Not only do I believe God sees you, but I also believe He would love to call you his favorite.

God’s favorite

We live in a very messed up world, but somehow God is perfectly right there in the midst. God’s presence is everywhere but his manifest presence is not. When you need Him to show up on your behalf, there’s a certain protocol for the King to arrive. It’s not about traditional religious ritual; it’s about the condition of your heart and how you position yourself.

You may have heard it said that God is no respecter of persons, but I promise you, He will favor certain people and things more than others. All you have to do to be God’s favorite is to walk in what God favors. May we find those places of favor in 2008 and go further than ever before. May we continually live in “the favor zone.”

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22 & 23

Seeing Things

When I was a kid, my parents bought a nice house with all the amenities that 1973 had to offer. Besides being in a pleasant neighborhood, it came complete with a real river stone fireplace. All the rocks that made this fireplace were round, smooth and beautiful except for one. Right in the very center, about six feet high, was a stone that had the spitting image of a sinister face on it.

My little brother and I referred to the face as “The Fireplace Man.” There was no doubt in our adolescent minds that it was evil and watched us as we ran past to get to the kitchen. I’m sure that the builder thought it would make for an interesting conversational piece, but it totally freaked all of us out.

Even my mom was not immune to the terror of the Fireplace Man. one night as she slept in blissful peace, a foreboding vision overtook her slumber. She dreamed the face began to move, and out of the fireplace came the terrible creature her children feared. When she awoke screaming, she also woke up my step dad, and that did it: he had had enough!

Within moments he trotted in from the garage, still clad in only his underwear but with a bucket of ready mix cement in his hands. Like Biblical David and the giant, John Jackson single handedly defeated the demonic creature, and to this day there is cement on the one rock in the center of that fireplace.

Face Off

You've seen a face in a rock here or there. You might have been the only person that thourhg it looked like a face, but you've seen it more than once.

The most famous rock face of all is New Hampshire’s state symbol, The Old Man of the Mountain popularized by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his short story, “The Great Stone Face.” It’s been reproduced on quarters, license plates, stamps, decorative china, and hundreds of postcards. Tragically, it collapsed on May 3, 2005 and is gone forever.

To me the most famous, life-like, stone face

belongs to Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.

Almost human – it’s uncanny.

Face for sale

Right here in J-town two enterprising men have recently made national news. A rock with a really cool face on it was discovered in a local field, and these guys refer to it as “The Miracle Rock.” To me, the real miracle would be if anybody paid the asking price they have requested on E-Bay. Forty nine thousand dollars!!!!

As David Stewart tells the story, he and his buddies were working when it fell off of a trailer. "A piece of the rock sheared off and there was that face, it just stood out,” he said.

The sandstone is big, and Stewart thinks it might weigh about 200 pounds. For the most part, the stone is dark brown; however, the place where the rock sheared off left a lighter color, and now there appears to be the profile of a person’s face. The remaining dark part even looks like locks of hair.

It’s not crazy to see a face in it. I’ve seen it myself on the Internet and to me, it kind of looks like a female Bob Hope. It’s also not crazy to try and make a buck off of it. I mean these are the days where we pay ten dollars for a movie ticket and three bucks for a gallon of gas. There might just be somebody out there wanting this rock for forty nine thousand dollars.

You see what you want

In this week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian, I suggest to you that beauty, and ugly for that matter, really are in the eyes of the beholder. I think we see what we want to see. By the Spirit of God, I believe I see the Creator through the creation around me. By the same Spirit, I can find the author when reading the Bible.

I want to see hope and life and goodness and mercy and grace. I want to see love without any strings attached. I have a drive in me to want to know God and experience Him in great big things and even in little bitty things. That’s why I want to see Jesus. The more I want to see him, the more I do. The more I look for Him, the more He shows up.

Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

You can reach the brewer at www.freshfromthebrewer.com

The King’s Heart Towards a Wookiee

When the phone rings at my house it can be anything. We have friends all over the world, orphanages we support on three different continents, a thriving congregation in Johnson County and four kids of which three are still teenagers. So when I say every phone call is a grab bag of feast, famine and the extraordinary, I know it’s going to be anything other than boring.

A few years ago, I got a call from the wife of Chewbacca The Wookiee. No really, I did. The performer that brought the famous Star Wars character to life is named Peter Mayhew. He’s the seven foot, three inch actor behind the mask, and he happens to be married to my cousin, Angelique. Both of them are wonderful people.

Now the phone call was for a specific prayer. I mean, doesn’t every pastor get phone calls from the planet Kashyyyk? Actually, Peter and Angelique live in Granbury when he’s not on the road, and even gentle hearted Wookiees need Jesus.

The situation was that George Lucas was filming the prequels to the original Star Wars trilogy. The problem being that up until then, Lucas had not written any parts for Chewbacca to reappear. It was important to Peter’s career, and to the devoted fans of Chewy, that he would have some part in the new generation trilogy.

Now, filming of Attack of the Clones had just been scheduled and huge disappointment set in. Peter had been left out once again. We only had one more chance, and nobody had any idea what Episode Three would bring. So we started praying.

Another cousin of mine and sister in law to Peter Mayhew, Melanie Guinn, suggested we unify in prayer proclaiming Proverbs 21:1. It’s one of those amazing vertical versus in the very horizontal book of Proverbs.

The King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water He turns it withersoever He will. Some translations say, The Lord controls the mind of a king as easily as He controls the course of a stream.

The idea being that just as the farmer might direct an irrigation ditch to bring water where he wants it, so God directs kings and other rulers to do what He wants done. The Brewer likes that.

So that’s what we did. We prayed that God would change the heart of George Lucas and direct him towards a favorable script on Peter’s behalf. It wasn’t long after, the phone rang with an invitation and a ticket to New Zealand. The Lord is faithful!

Not only was the script rewritten with Chewbacca in it, but Peter also shared the same frames with none other than Yoda himself! In a climactic memorable scene, Chewbacca was shown as second in command in a terrible war in defense of his home planet. Chewy was back on the silver screen and a bigger hero than ever!

Since that time, Peter has been extra busy touring the world and making a living. I tell you, God cares about stuff like that and is willing to get involved for people that are willing to ask Him. God loves Peter Mayhew and his well-being was important to Him. Same as you.

If somebody is holding you back from going into better things, I encourage you to not be intimidated by the decision of a king. Go above their head and seek the Lord. What you just might find, in a very tangible way, is that Jesus is the Savior of peasants and the King of kings.

The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. Proverbs 21:1 NIV

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