Tribute to Whiz-Bang

The horrors of war can sometimes produce oddly funny things that influence the culture. Things like “Kilroy was here” from WWII or the phrase “It don’t mean nothin’” from Vietnam. There of course is also the nickname Whiz-Bang from WWI. Now since you and I are not old enough to remember World War One, you might not know what a Whiz-Bang was.

The Doughboys who made it back, knew a Whiz -Bang was a type of German artillery shell you tried to avoid. It whizzed through the air and went bang when it hit. That’s not the one I want to give tribute to.

Incoming!

There is also the Readers Digest sized magazine, which was found everywhere in Texas throughout the 1920’s and 30’s known famously as Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang.

While oil patches went up everywhere, young Texas men read through the pages of Whiz-Bang with black stained hands. The publisher in 1921 posted a poem called “Shoo Fly, Oil Man” that was clearly targeted towards its oil field readers.

A horse-fly lit on the old cow’s skin,

Hung his tools and spudded in.

Bowed his back and jiggered his pole

And all the time he was making a hole.

The cow browsed on, in her usual way,

Till the horse-fly’s bit struck regular “pay.”

Then she swung her tail with a vicious dig

And deftly skidded the horse-fly’s rig.

Texas Tales writer Mike Cox says the same publisher went on to start True West Magazine and ended up making a mint. A far cry from Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang.

Nicknames

Most everybody in my family has nicknames. Even the Brewer was not called by the common name of the ancient city duped by a wooden horse. Troy is my first name. I was simply called the horse or Hoss as my grandfather referred to me.

My poor little sister will never be called by her dignified name of Christen Appelgate. She will forever be known as Gertie Mae Soap Jack. That’s what we called her when she was little. Now approaching 40, even her husband calls her “Gert”. We tend to take nicknames seriously in our family.

So the Whiz-Bang I want to give tribute to is not an artillery shell or a folkish periodical.

Whiz-bang is the nickname of my oldest daughter Maegan.

Meagan Brewer is the tall, 22 year old beautiful blond you might see hanging out with me sometimes. I don’t get to see her near as a much as I would like to because she works full time and goes to school full time in pursuit of becoming a registered nurse.

The point of this week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian is to honor a little girl who has grown up faster than I can imagine. I can’t imagine how less rich my life would have been without my Whiz-Bang in it. Just yesterday she was a funny little girl who really loved her daddy. Somehow today she woke up to become a hard working, self-motivated, stunningly beautiful and brilliant Godly woman.

I think God for you Maegan and appreciate you not being mad for publicly calling you Whiz-bang. Thank you for loving the Lord and for loving me so much. Thank you for being the kind of person who can be blessed and for making it look easy to be such a blessing to so many others.

Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.

Proverbs 31: 29-30

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Changing Your Tune

Before Marco Polo was a game kids played in the swimming pool, he was a man who explored the world by developing new trade routes for European interests. He brought back amazing things from Asia…things that changed everything.

One of those things was a sand flea and in it was a sickness scientist would later name Yersinia pestis. The world would call it Black Death, the Bubonic Plague. Within one hundred years of Marco Polo’s trip, over 75 million Europeans would be dead reducing the population by nearly 50%. As they piled dead bodies to burn in places like Black Heath near London, flower holding and wreath bearing funeral attendees would sometimes faint from the terrible grief of such a sight. Street children began singing the anthem of that awful time of change and we still hear it today.

Ring around the Rosies
Pocket full of Posies
ashes, ashes we all fall down.

And the Band Played On
In our own history there have many times where everything changed. Not just the slow, gradual, non-stopping change of advancement and decline. I am referring more to the difference between September 10th & September 12th 2001. You know how to fill in that terrible blank and you know how everything quickly altered.

A paradigm shift and a pendulum swing. It happens and when it does it can’t be ignored or denied. The difference between the 50’s and 60’s was a lot like that. Some kind of a radical shift in culture, economy, communication and entertainment drastically swept through our country a lot like how the plague swept through Europe. It was something you could see the effects of everywhere but couldn’t figure out what was causing it.

Songwriter Charlie Daniels once wrote, “The fifties left town on a crowded dance floor and the sixties came in with a bang and a roar.” By the end of 1959, Elvis had been drafted, Carl Perkins had broken his neck in a car crash, Jerry Lee Lewis had married his 13-year-old cousin and Buddy Holly’s broken glasses lay in field near Clear Lake Iowa.

Within five years of ’59, JFK would be dead, the Vietnam War would be underway, prayer would be taken out of schools and the Ku Klux Klan would be burning crosses on national TV.

The mess and the heartache of the sixties inspired a song writer named Don Mclean to write an anthem for those changing times. The folk-rock song “American Pie” first hit the airwaves in 1971. Eight minutes and thirty three seconds later, it was a number one hit making Mclean a millionaire over night. We have all sang the song of that generation.

So bye-bye, Miss American pie.
drove my Chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey
and rye singin’, "this’ll be the day that I die."

One Hit Wonder
We live in such a day of dramatic change. Like a dream where you try to run but cant because your feet get bogged down, a lot of us fear being able to move forward in such shifting times. The economy, housing market and general stability of all things money related, change as fast as the gas prices do at the pump these days. People wonder what will happen. People wonder how to hope.

It is my privilege to bring you the Good News. I think you are perfect for this day. God could have had you born anywhere at anytime yet He has trusted you with this time. What an Honor!

I refuse to sing, “That’ll be the day” as they did in the fifties. I wont be singing “This’ll be the day” as they did in seventies. I want to have a different song then the world around me does. You and I are not called to live powerless lives and I refuse to. I think Jesus Christ himself gives me the ability and the mandate to live in an opposite spirit than my generation lives. Call me crazy but my spirit-filled prayer for you comes brewing with anticipation for God’s goodness.

Changing Your Tune
If you’re an employer, I pray that you will be hiring while everybody is laying people off. If you’re an employee, I pray you get promoted while everybody else is looking for work.
If you have already been axed, I pray that you get noticed and the favor of the Lord causes you to have choices in where you want to work at. I think this is a year of fruit bearing. I think God has called you to joyous success in a day of miserable failure.

Don’t line up with the naysayers. Don’t partner with the enemy in what you say or how you think. This is a great day to be alive. Change your tune and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and have courage, have courage, Have courage!

He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the LORD.

Psalms 40:3 NLT

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Get ‘er Done

In the day that Moses lived, the world was a completely different place. Egypt was just learning how to make transparent glass and a city called Troy was being fooled by a wooden horse. Right here in Texas a bunch of Caddo Indians formed a confederacy to establish an agricultural based civilization in the big thicket. Meanwhile, corn farmers settled near Presidio, in the desert of Big Bend, establishing what would be the oldest continuously cultivated farmland in Texas. Some 3500 years of plowing, planting and picking goes on today.

That feller Moses left his mark on the world. He’s been a hero to many people for many centuries and I want to tell you why he’s my mine. I love how he talked with God face to face. I love how he confronted Pharaoh and demanded an end to four hundred years of slavery. I love how he parted the waters and cross the red sea on dry land but none of those things put him on the Brewer’s top ten list of amazing Biblical people.

There is one thing about Moses which makes him stand out and makes me want to stand up and applaud; but it is easily overlooked. While it seems less spectacular, it’s just as supernatural. The Bible says in lots of places (Heb. 8:5; Acts 7:44; Ex. 25:9 Ex. 26:30; Num. 8:4.) this amazing statement….Moses built the tabernacle according to the plan that was shown him on the mountain.

This might not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to me. The brother could carry out the plan. Even though he was surrounded by knuckleheads and had very limited resources, he accomplished his God-given vision. What a man!

I think God tells most of us great things to do all the time but there are very few who actually carry out those plans. Accomplishing vision is a big deal these days.

The King James boys translated 1 PETER 1:13 to say we should “gird up the loins of your mind”. The authorized Brewer version of this verse would say we should “Prepare your mind for action”

I think it’s about time a lot of us decided to actually do something. God isn’t asking us to take charge over things. He’s asking us to take action and take responsibility. Accomplishing vision is all about fulfilling Gods heart and if we had more action and fewer committees, opinions and politics, the world would be a better place.

So let the Brewer encourage you to get off your blessed assurance and put action to what’s in your heart to do. I think it’s a year of accelerated advancement and rapid response. What didn’t work before is likely to work now if you’ll just be willing to carry out the plan.

Commit your works (actions) to the LORD, And your thoughts (plans) will be established. (succeed) Proverbs 16:3 (NKJV)

The Miracle on the Hudson

On Thursday afternoon, January 15^th I had a chance to meet with my daughter Maegan for a short get-together. We try and do that a couple of times a week. It’s like a dad date. Maegan is a stunningly beautiful, blond-headed, twenty two year old, nursing student who works at Plaza Medical. Among her many talents and qualities, her greatest flair is her God given ability to wrap her Daddy around her little finger.

She asked me what I thought about the day’s news and said, “Isn’t it wonderful?”Now usually the words news and wonderful don’t belong in the same sentence. That was the first I heard about flight 1549 and the crash landing everyone is calling Miracle on the Hudson.

If you are a regular reader of my column, you know by now I am a self-proclaimed Jesus Freak. You probably have also picked up that while I prefer the term cutting edge most would aptly call me off the wall. This week’s confession of a highly caffeinated Christian blatantly states I am in all probability even worse than you thought.

I’m the kind of Christian the devil warned you about. I believe in miracles. I believe God isn’t a symbol but an actual person and He speaks to all of us. I believe that while we live in a ruined world full of innumerable mess-ups, This God I’m talking about is prevailing His goodness while being blamed for the bad. He’s a really nice guy and I just love to hope in Him and look to Him.

I saw Him again last week. I think anybody with an eye to see, meaning people who wanted to see, saw God’s goodness and heard a powerful message through our nations headlines on January 15^th.

The themes being preached through this incredible event came power-packed with a word for you and yours. Lets take a look at some of them.

(1) This story is not about what went wrong but what went right. Let me tell you I think this sentence belongs to you in 2009. Your story this year is not going to be about all the things going wrong but rather about the amazing things going right. It’s like Isaiah 58:10 where is says your darkness will be like noonday. It’s not about the darkness but about the brightness that’s in it.

(2) What hasn’t worked before worked perfectly this time. We have all seen what happens when a jumbo jet tries to land in the water and typically it’s a terrible disaster. I think what has hasn’t worked before works for God’s people this year. I am going after things again this year where I have failed before and believing this time it all works perfectly.

(3) Quick response is needed and cooler heads prevail.

Pilot "Sully" Sullenberger made quick and radical decisions that saved the lives of 155 people. This also should be our story this year. We should refuse to panic and make quicker decisions than ever before. Rapid response and appropriate actions will qualify us to get upgraded from a nobody to a hero in so many people’s eyes.

(4) Sometimes you have to ditch the plane

It’s not about everything going perfectly, it’s about a perfect outcome. There are certain victories you have to have this year and sometimes we get rid of things precious to us in order to achieve those amazing outcomes.

(5) Playbooks are being rewritten.

When they re-write the textbooks and the training manuals on what to do in that same scenario, they will follow the way pilot Sullenberger did it. I think there are new ways of doing things that are better than how we have done things before. Don’t be surprised if God has you blazing a few trails for others this year.

(6) Pay attention to the preflight safety announcements.

The instructions on how to safely exit a downed plane are being paid much more attention to after January 15^th. The directions are not courtesy but specific instructions we had better take seriously if we want to be safe. (See Psalm 119:117,Proverbs 18:10, and Proverbs 29:25)

(7) The pilot and crew refuse attention and credit.

I think when God does miraculous things through us (we could all learn something from the pilot and crew of flight 1539) it’s important for us to get out of the way, remain humble and not make it all about us. The idea is not to make Ministries famous but the good Lord all of us serve.

Contact The Brewer @ www.OpenDoorMinistries.org

THE TWINS

When I was kid I was fascinated with twins. I had several close friends who were twins and an uncle who had an identical twin brother. It might interest you to know that my uncle’s identical twin was not my uncle. Can you figure that one out?

My life-long curiosity with sibling doubles greatly multiplied sixteen years ago when my wife called from her doctor’s office. Yes she was pregnant, no it wasn’t a pony and yes it was twins. That same year we had taken in two teenage girls as our own and that’s how we went from 2 kids to six kids in 1993. That’s also the year this preacher struggled with drinking –just kidding.

Now Leanna and I were in our mid-twenties when we took in those amazing teenage girls. They greatly helped us with the newborn twins -and our three year old -and our six year old. This should explain how I got to be a Grandfather when I was only 30. Don’t worry; I’ll still explain how my uncle’s identical twin wasn’t also my uncle. The point is, twins get my attention.

Double the trouble
Did you hear about the twins that were born in Rochester Michigan a few weeks ago? Tariq Griffin entered the world at 12:17 a.m. on New Year's Day and his twin brother, Tarrance, was born 26 minutes earlier. This means the boys have the unique distinction of being identical twins born on different days, months and years. That’s cool in the Brewer’s book.

Their dad, Tarrance Sr., is also a twin but oddly enough actually has the same birthday as his twin brother. Go figure.

Two steps forward
What about the twins of different races born in London last week? Dean Durrant's newborn daughter Miya has dark skin and brown eyes like him. Her twin sister Leah has fair skin like her blue-eyed, red-haired mother. Their older siblings Lauren and Hayleigh, born in 2001, also have strikingly different skin tones and eye colors. I love it!

The phenomenon is so uncommon that there are no statistics to illustrate its probability but its somewhere in the gazillion jillions*, I imagine. Yes, I know it’s not a number. No need to write.

A Tale of two kingdoms
In Genesis 25, the Bible records a story of twins. Rebecca was pregnant and after sometime she began to suspect something was wrong. Every first time pregnancy comes packed with anxieties but this was past hormonal imbalance and drastic body change.

Rebecca can’t go to her mama for reassurance or explanation. Her mama lives in Syria and she is in what will be called Israel. She can’t go to Isaac’s mama, because Sarah had died four years ago at the age of 127. Remember, this is not last week. This is four thousand years ago in the ancient Middle East.

So Rebecca goes to the greatest specialist of all. Verse 22 says, “And the children struggled together within her; and she said, if it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said unto her, two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people…”

The struggle within
All of us deal with internal struggle and at some point wonder, “Why am I like that?”

When you love your kids and plan on a peaceful evening then because of some little thing, or for no apparent reason at all, you loose your cool. You may have wondered afterward “WHY AM I THUS?”

If you’ve ever ruined your marriage, failed a business, hurt somebody you loved or did what you promised you would never do, you might have asked that 4000-year-old question, “Why is there this struggle within me? Why is it so hard for me to be the person I want to be?”

I think God would say to both you and me the same thing he said to our friend Rebecca. There are two separate nations within you. There are two different kinds of people and make no mistake about it, they are at war. Then I think He would give you the cure.
We are at war and the worst enemy you and I actually have is in-a-me.

Christianity has so much life to offer but on the top ten lists for me, is an answer to the struggle within. Being saved is from the inside out. Since I now have Christ living in me I paraphrase the saying, Greater is he within me than (me) within the world. Just one more reason the Brewer highly recommends you check out this Jesus so many of us are crazy about.

By the way, my uncle isn’t blood kin. He married my aunt Sandy. That’s why his twin brother isn’t related to me, silly.

Contact the Brewer @ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Kingdom Mechanics

I love new beginnings. I’m all about progression, advancement and better and better. There’s just such hope in it. Welcome to 2009 everybody.

This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian comes perking with a shameless plug for my conference this January called Kingdom Mechanics. It’s all about how to make 2009 your best year ever. I know most of you wont be able to attend so I have included some highlights of what I think can get you where you need to be faster and better than ever this year. Let’s get to it.

(1) God wants you to advance in every way in 2009
"Blessed are those...who have set their hearts on pilgrimage" (Psalm 84:5). In other words, blessed are those who have settled in their hearts that they will keep going in their journey with God. Blessed are those that, while enjoying and appreciating what He is showing them and doing in their lives, know that He is drawing them into "much more."

(2) Permission granted to have a vision and dream big.
You never feel more alive than when you are accomplishing vision. The Bible says in Proverbs 13:12. Hope deferred makes the heart sick: but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. We have been taught too long to only dream within the confines of church. Don’t you dare do it this year? God wants in on every part of your life so dream big and go for the bleachers.

(3) Recover what was stolen from you in 2008
God has recovery for you this year but we have to partner with him to make it happen. The strategy David used in 1st Samuel 30 is fail proof. First you see what's missing then you strengthen yourself in the Lord. That’s all about understanding His nature and attitude about your situation, which is always better than ours. After that, seek a word from God and look for clear definition. The last four steps look like this rise up, pursue the enemy, overtake it and recover all. Go get it! It still belongs to you.

(4) Ask the right questions this year and get the right answers
God loves seekers and seekers ask questions, but there’s a right way and wrong way to seek. A very illegitimate mindset and question we ask is WHY? We don’t get to know the whys of life. Why is attached to pain and loss. Why is never attached to destiny but always attached to history. Holding onto the wrong questions will always keep us into the wrong places. The right answers come from asking the right questions. Those right questions are defined in the book of Acts, chapter 2 as “What does it mean?” and “What’s should I do?” These are questions God loves to answer.

Let’s determine right now to stop asking why. 2009 will not be full of whys but it will be about getting the big picture and knowing how to go to the next better place. That puts us on the offensive and not on the defensive.

(5) Destroy the enemy of self-pity
The biggest enemy I face tends to be in-a-me. I have found that self-pity must be surrendered if I am going to get better and better in life. One of the most effective ways to destroy the habit of feeling sorry for myself is to first focus on God’s goodness towards me. It’s hard to be really miserable over what’s wrong when I am incredibly thankful for what is right in my life.

(6) Refuse to fear change
Constant change is here to stay. Transition is now a staple for all of us. We live in a different day than any generation before us. Stability is no longer defined as continuance without change but as remaining rock solid in constantly changing environments and methods. Be willing to embrace transition in 2009 and accept closure as a part of victorious Kingdom Living.

(7) Rage against the machine

There are actually twelve strategies I will be going over in the conference but I want to finish this column by saying there is more for you than there is against you. Everything against you is big and like a machine. It’s blind, mechanical, and impartial. Just like the Terminator it is relentless in coming after you. It can't be bargained or reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. It absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

The machine says if you’re poor you can’t live life like other people. The machine says if you’re a minority you can’t have opportunity. The machine says if you have been incarcerated you will always be a convict. The machine says if your father was an alcoholic then you will be. It says if you were molested then you will become a pedophile and if you are above the age of 40 nobody will hire you. It says all kinds of terrible things while reducing people’s lives to misery before it finally kills them.

Rage against the machine this year. Rise up against everything that says you cant and arm yourself with this wisdom. Relationship with God always trumps the machine.

For more information or to register for this year’s Kingdom Mechanics Conference go to www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Contact the Brewer @ FreshFromTheBrewer.com

The Last Word

In this week’s confession of a highly caffeinated Christian, I bring you the last sip from Fresh from the Brewer. It’s the last column for 2008. Being the self-professed weirdo I am, I tend to pay attention to otherwise strange things. About ten years ago I started collecting the last words of famous fictional characters and paying attention to the very end of my favorite movies and books. I like to break those out at this time of year.

Here are some examples of a few you might recognize: A River Runs Through It, "I am haunted by waters." Tombstone, “Tom Mix wept.” John Wayne in True Grit, “Come and visit a fat old man sometime." Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, "Thus, I give up the spear!" Captain James Tiberius Kirk of Star Trek Generations, "Well it was fun, oh my."

Then there are famous last words of real people. Despite the basic graveness, pardon the pun, of the situation individuals face at that moment, there have been those that sprang a joke and some of them really good ones.

King Louis the 14th told his wife he regretted leaving her but at her age he expected to see her shortly. He died before she could slap him. William Palmer, a man convicted in 1920 of poisoning his friend, was silent when they put the noose around his neck. The hangman instructed him to step up onto the trap door and Palmer asked, "Are you sure it’s safe?"

James Rodgers, a convicted murderer executed in 1960 in Nevada, was asked by the rifle squad commander if he had any last request? Rodgers replied, "Why yes...a bullet proof vest, please!”

Oscar Wilde the famous writer, died November 30, 1900 saying, “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” W.C. Fields, after falling to the floor and in terrible pain, calmed down, looked at the person trying to help him and said, "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." Douglas Fairbanks died in 1939. When he fell down someone asked him if he was Ok. "I never felt better," he said with his last breath.

Georges Jacques Danton was a French radical became the leader of the 1789 revolution. Eventually out-radicaled by someone else, he was sentenced to death. As he placed his neck in the guillotine, he gave his final instructions to the executioner. "Show my head to the people. It really is worth seeing.”

One of my all time favorites are the last words of Wilson Mizner who died in 1933. Wilson Mizner was a U.S. writer, gambler and someone who put his trust in Jesus Christ towards the end of his life. On his deathbed, he briefly regained consciousness before dying and found a priest standing over him. Mizner waved the priest away saying, "Why should I talk to you? I've just been talking to your boss."

So here’s the last cup of Jehovah Java for 2008. It’s been a big year of change for all of us. From gas prices to the new president, we are all seeing things transition much more rapidly. It’s the year Michael Crichton, one of my favorite writers passed away. Two of my favorite guitarists, Bo Diddley and Jerry Reed also died as did three of my favorite voices, Don Lafontain, Tim Russert & Jim Mckay from Wide World of Sports. Oh the agony of defeat.

Four of my favorite actors met their maker this year. We lost Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Bernie Mac and Heath Ledger. I’m going to miss them all.

I have personally seen several friends go this year I won’t see again until the great day. But I have also made friends that I think are lifetime hook-ups. I feel like I’ve progressed and was generally a good steward of this crazy life God is trusted me with.

We really are a blessed bunch aren’t we? I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these columns and meeting so many of you here and there that take the time to read it. Let’s do it again next year.

Let me close the same way the Bible does. There are 31,171 verses in the old King James and the very last verse is a great word and the Brewer’s prayer for you and yours,

“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Revelation 22:21