Growth—or No Growth? What Do You Say?

As district superintendent, along with our Ohio North American Missions director and other pastors who are deeply invested into church planting, we continue to wrestle with growing the Kingdom.  Lots of things come out of these wrestling sessions; some of them are productive, some not so much, but all of them pique our interest.  I hope you are not offended by these questions and statements, but we have to get them out there to chew on.  Here goes:

Our General Superintendent continues to press us to establish a culture of growth.  As I look around the country, I see entire districts that are consumed with planting churches, starting daughter works and establishing preaching points.  Where is the Ohio district in this mix?  Ohio is an old, established district.  The problem with this profile is that we tend to be maintenance minded, custodians of the status quo, and, perhaps, too comfortable with the plateaus we’ve reached.  WARNING:  This cannot be sustained!

Envision a large conveyor belt that continues to move forward.  Whatever is on the belt eventually falls off.  That’s what it is designed to do.  Without new items placed on the belt, it will eventually be empty.  Translation?  We have aging congregations that have been marvelous in the past, but are losing their stamina because they are getting older.  If we are not reloading the conveyor on the front end at the same rate that souls converted many years ago are completing their journey at the end of the line, it ought to be evident what is going to happen.  Mainline denominations are experiencing this at an alarming rate even as we write.

Do you REALLY want to grow?  For some, it is just a wish; for others, it is a passion; for those who can chart real growth, it is ingrained in their leadership.  Can you name four or five actual, concrete steps you’ve taken in the last twelve months to make that happen?  Have you allocated any money to fund your efforts? Will 2015 be any different from 2014?

Do you preach about your vision for souls?  Do you teach about it?  Do you train your people to catch your vision and put it into action?  Pardon me for putting it like this, but is it more saying than doing?  Some preachers say things just because it sounds good to the audience.  It is much more important to articulate your vision in a believable and impactful way.  Please forgive me, but if I were to sit on your church pew for six months and listen to your messages would I be convinced of your vision for growth?  I know this is crude, but sometimes we have to get down to brass tacks.

If you are a pastor, do you agree with the following statements?

• I need to cast a vision for outreach to my people.
• I need to understand more about church growth.
• I need to address any fears I have of church growth.
• I need to concentrate much more on winning the lost.
• My vision for the reaching the lost needs to expand.
• I need to rethink my philosophy about church growth.
• I need to bring in someone who can help us to grow.

Many pastors actually harbor fears about growth.  Have you addressed your fears?  Are you worried that if you get too aggressive in outreach, you will redirect the loyalty and vision of your people away from the mother church?  Are you afraid that you will lose people?  Are you afraid that outreach will cost too much and will siphon money off of your church budget?  Are you worried that you cannot sustain an outreach program, so you would rather not start one and have it fail?

What is your take on the “Great Commission?”  Is it a priority?  Is it a part of your vision statement?  Do you feel any personal or local church responsibility to evangelize the world?  Do you tell yourself that you are doing all you can just to survive as a local congregation?  Do you believe that outreach is a corporate responsibility of the UPCI or Ohio District, or does that responsibility belong to the local church?

• What about neighboring communities? 
• Have you organized an outreach into those areas? 
• Have you considered a preaching point? 
• Have you at least thought about a daughter work?
• Have you ever seriously established an outreach department?
• Have you set up training programs to develop soul winners?
• Have you addressed your goal to reach ethnic communities? 
• Are you giving to ONAM so that we can help home missionaries around the district?

How do you feel about other churches that are growing?  Do you admire them, support them, emulate them or dismiss them?  Would you like to grow, but believe that you do not have the right people to make much of an impact?  Are you too busy doing other important things in the kingdom of God to put a lot of energy into church growth?  Do you point to growing churches that have failed or have run into huge problems because of their growth?  Have their problems discouraged you from growth in your local church?

Do you feel like there is an “ideal” size for a local congregation, and any growth beyond that is counter-productive?  Have you reached that size?  What calculus have you used to determine that number?  Do you feel like the book of Acts is a proper role model for the church today?  Should we measure our efforts by the same numbers and initiatives in which the early church evidently engaged? 

The following statistics were compiled several years ago.  I believe they are as valid today as they were when they were gathered—probably more so. 

Interesting Statistics about Americans, Church and God.

1- In America, 3500 — 4000 churches close their doors each year. (from the Barna Study — www.barna.org)
2- Usual Sunday church attendance has dropped from 1,606,00 in 1968 to 881,000 in 2005.(www.churchsociety.org)
3- Only 21% of Americans attend religious services every week.  (www.religioustolerence.org)
4- The proportion of the population that can be classified as Christian declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001.(American Religion Identification Survey)

How does this relate to Church Growth? (From www.churchleadership.org)

Statistics tell us that 42% to 50% of all churches in America have a congregation of between 100 and 300 members, and 20% of American churches have fewer than 100 members. This is factoring in the mega church trend. There are many reasons why some churches grow while others remain small. One of the main reasons a church does not grow is that the church does not want to. The church has little desire for change; they are complacent and many tend not to take their pastors seriously. If a church does not like change, then calls a pastor into their fold who wants to change, the results will be one of two avenues. The first avenue is that prayer will become the focus and that church will capture a vision, surrendering themselves to the Lordship of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, they will grow and will be blessed. But, what typically happens is avenue two where prayer is ignored or superficial and eventually the church gangs up against the pastor and forces him out, as our data supports. Usually, this process is not overt or overnight-that is, they are not in his front yard burning down a cross or carrying torches. What a congregation tends to do is belittle the pastor, not respecting him or her; therefore, they do not have to hear what the pastor has to say, because it is irrelevant. After all, you do not have to listen to someone you do not respect. If you do not like the person, then obviously God is not going to use them to communicate the truth to you. Of course, this is unbiblical and pure nonsense, but most people believe it in their hearts, which because of our actions, undermines God’s work in changing hearts and using people.

It is imperative we understand that growth statistics are just one aspect of an indicator of a healthy church. True success is being obedient to what God has called us to do and realizing that although we are responsible to serve, we are not responsible for the results. Our surrender to the will of God over our will and desires equals success; we are called to have the focus that God has and the passion and prayer to follow through. These are the marks of a successful church leader.

Church growth statistics say that visitors in a church will decide in the first few minutes whether or not they will come back. So, the inference is that the visitor will be most impacted by how they are greeted, which will determine how they respond and connect to the rest of the church. Even if you have the best teaching and worship in the world, people will not stay where they are not welcomed. First impressions are critical. If the church does not have a friendly atmosphere, then it will slowly die from its unkindness. Kindness is a very important Fruit of the Spirit that must manifest itself from the parking lot to the restrooms, or you will be sitting in a pew or theater chair by yourself. When the church is infighting and the pastor is dazed and confused from the warfare, it is the visitors and potential members who become the collateral damage!

The bottom line is this: do not be shortsighted concerning your faith and the opportunities Christ has and will still bring for you. If we do not have a desire to pursue the will of God, we have to ask ourselves why and what is in the way. Mostly, if not all of the time, it is the desire of the sin of pride that blocks us. Sometimes, we may not recognize sin and will perhaps rationalize it away. This happens especially when solid biblical theology or teaching is “dumbed down” and shown as OK in the media and entertainment which are at our disposal. Our election is proven by our obedience, fruit, and growth in Christ!

We have to be on guard against the erosion of biblical values and damage to our beliefs and biblical mindset (Psalm 123:3; Mark 4:19)!

“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Ephesians 4:14-16

Remember, churches fail because we place our needs and desires over the Lord’s. It is His Church and we are His people. Let our focus be on the right target-that is, His and not ours! We are called to a higher purpose. We are not called to ourselves. Ministry is a dangerous thing because we are before a Holy God. Yes we have grace, but we have responsibility too!

Go with the power of the Holy Spirit and lead the church in your care into what you have been called to do there!

© 2007 (research from 1998 to 2006) R. J. Krejcir Ph.D. Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development www.churchleadership.org

Growth Expectations

“Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18

Jesus is still building his church.  That means this very moment, God’s church is growing somewhere in this world. It is not an exclusive club; it is not an elitist’s association; it is neither formal nor contemporary.  It does not belong to any one race, color, nationality, region, culture or era of time.  It is love sought, blood bought, Spirit-filled, truth-preaching and sinner-reaching.  It was conceived in the mind of God; paid for by the blood of Jesus, built by the Holy Spirit and cherished by the holy saints.  It is a “whosoever will” church. 

The church remains under construction.  In fact, it has been said that if one word could be selected that would characterize Christianity, it would be the word GROW!

• Acts 6:7 And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
• Acts 9:31 Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.
• Acts 12:24 But the word of God grew and multiplied.

Church growth is not a sales gimmick.  It is not hype.  It is not a human invention.  It is commissioned. It is promised.  It is predestined.  It is predetermined.  It is expected.  I cannot imagine any scenario where it would be advantageous or desirable for the church to stop growing or experience negative growth. 

Growth is the province of the living; there is no growth in deadness.  If you were to analyze the properties of any organism to test its viability, it could be summed up in this question, “Is it growing?”  We understand that growth traits are different from one family to another.  Human growth from the newborn to adulthood brings about great changes in size and appearance. The growth continuum is not the same for everyone.  For some, the process occurs rapidly, for others, it happens slowly.  Heredity and environment exert definite influences on growth patterns.  We know that children tend to look and act like their forebears.  Many factors, like living conditions, nutrition and hygiene greatly influence the growth process as well.  Regardless of these factors, and despite these differences, healthy babies are going to grow.

If a baby does not grow, something is wrong.   Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Failure to Thrive, Growth Hormone Deficiency, Turner Syndrome, Blount Disease, and a host of other reasons exist that prevent babies from growing as they should.  In the church, lack of growth should not be accepted as normal.  If the church is not growing in some dimension, it calls for an extensive diagnosis.  A radical treatment program may be in order.  But, take heart!  If Jesus is still building His church, then the prognosis is always good!

Some children fail to grow because of genetic reasons.  Their parents had problems that they passed down to their offspring.  But, Christ’s church doesn’t have any genetic deficiencies predisposing the generation of 2015 to smallness.  We come from good stock!  We know who our Father is.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  1 Peter 1:3.  We know who our mother is.  “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”  Galatians 4:26.   The Apostle John called the church “the Elect Lady” and her children.  If God is our Father and the church is our Mother, then there is a dynamic, a predisposition, an irrepressible force built into our spiritual nature to grow, to thrive, to flourish!

The only thing that can stop the church from growing is a self-imposed restraint.  Ancient Chinese women were subjected to a horrifying tradition of foot binding.  They believed that small feet on women were beautiful and big feet were ugly.  And so, someone came up with the brilliant idea to wrap the feet of small girls in order to restrict growth.  The binding was so tight and inflexible that it crushed or deformed the bones in the feet, making too painful for them to walk.  Consequently, these women were generally useless and could not take care of themselves.  All they could do was sit around and look pretty (in the eyes of the beholder!)  The practice was outlawed over a hundred years ago.  I wish it was outlawed in the church!

Any practice, belief or attitude in the church that restricts growth is not only contrary to the will of God, it is damaging and debilitating to the health of the body.  Death is contagious.  When someone dies in the nursing home, fear spreads throughout the facility.  When a gang member is killed in the hood, everybody gets nervous and starts to ask, “Who’s next?”  When someone dies a spiritual death in the church, we all get a bad feeling that someone else may follow suit.  But the God we serve is not a God of the dead.  He is a God of the living!  This is why growth needs to be an attitude!  Think life!  Think growth!

The church was born with the potential to grow.  It is our nature, our DNA.  “And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.  Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.” Acts 2:5-6.  Noised abroad!  That is the mission of the church!  And what happened when this was noised abroad?  “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” Acts 2:41.

Sociologists must not define the role of the church for us.  The church was not built to be a minority, a sub-culture, a counter-culture or an alternative belief system.  It was not made to just be found under the letter “C” in the dictionary, or a bullet point in some philosophy professor’s lecture on the world’s religion.  A plane is built to fly, not sit in a hangar; a ship is meant to sail, not float tied to a pier; a car is meant to drive, not sit idle in a garage. Neither is the church meant to benignly fill a faith niche in the social fabric.   

Even the enemies of the church expected it to grow.  “Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow.”  Acts 5:24.  I’m tired of people talking about the devil threatening the church.  The truth is that Satan considers the alive and growing church to be his greatest threat!  He does not have a weapon, a strategy, a method or the power to stop the church from growing.  It will grow in the desert, as Philip demonstrated in Acts 8:26.  It will grow in a hostile environment.  “The church that is at Babylon saluteth you.” 1 Peter 5:13.  It will grow surrounded by evil.  “But where sin abounded, the grace of God doth much more abound.”  Romans 5:20.

Saint of God, pastor, evangelist, missionary, teacher, church leader, never assume a docile or defensive attitude about the church.  Seek, plan, pray, train and believe for the church to grow!  Growth expectations can become great expectations!

Underexposed

I just read in the Smithsonian Magazine about the game of Monopoly being exposed as a cheap copyright infringement.  The guy who got rich off of the game pretty much stole it.  It was not his original idea.  The actual inventor was a woman whom—I am led to believe—died penniless.  Wow.  One more American institution is rotten to the core—or so the liberal establishment would have us believe. 

Rotten, rotten, rotten.  Wall Street.  The banking system.  The insurance companies.  The auto industry.  The military.  The Central Intelligence Agency.  Pharmaceuticals.  The tea party.  Police departments everywhere.  The Catholic Church.  Major League Baseball.  The National Football League. 

Isn’t it strange, isn’t it absolutely the weirdest thing that the big, social movements or organizations, or their friends, NEVER come under scrutiny?  Planned Parenthood manages to escape the media’s searchlight.  Teachers’ Unions, public service unions and other unions come and go as they please without arousing the slightest curiosity.  Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and even the good old IRS seem to stay largely in the background. 

And, when such egregious crimes take place that cannot be ignored, the media launches a very controlled, almost surgical strike that targets the most obvious offenders.  One or two fall guys are identified to take the hit, and then—poof!—it’s all over!  (Think Jonathan Gruber.)  The driving strategy with the liberal media is to circle the wagons and provide cover for those organizations with whom they identify or, at least, have their sympathy.  If that doesn’t work, then it is the hard work of deflection, that is, calling attention to other venues around the world that are plagued with scandal.  For example, try googling “political scandals.”  The first hits are foreign nations, like France and New Zealand.  When the USA is mentioned, guess what comes up?  Watergate, of course! 

In the old days of photography, when insufficient light existed for a picture, we called it underexposure.  Now, in these days of technical sophistication, most of these factors are handled automatically, so the lay photographer doesn’t have to worry about film speed, shutter speed or f-stops (apertures).  What a great idea!  Wouldn’t it also be great if every irregularity in an organization’s operations would automatically trigger an impartial investigation?  Wouldn’t it be great if what one did was a more important factor than who he or she was who did it? 

Changin’ Times Fallout

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin.’

The last stanza from Bob Dylan’s hit piece of the sixties predicts sweeping societal change, but, strangely enough, the writer doesn’t commit himself to the direction of the change, whether good or bad, positive or negative, progressive or regressive.  The connotation is that the change will be good.  That conclusion is up for debate.

Let’s start right out with the biggest social issue of the new millennium, same-sex marriage.  The conventional wisdom is that two people who love each other should be able to get married.  End of story.  Unfortunately for the proponents, once the dominoes begin to fall, things happen that were not necessarily foreseen.  If a man marries a man, for example, who is the wife and who is the husband?  I suppose some will say it doesn’t matter, that it’s not a relevant question.  Well, the relevance is the impact the new arrangement has on our language, our concept of marriage and our traditions of life that have been in place for thousands of years.

If one partner decides he will be the husband, and the other will be the wife, is that an arbitrary decision between the two or is there some calculus by which the role is ascertained?  If a same sex union has this flexibility in terminology, will that new flexibility also be extended to an opposite sex union?  That would seem to be a fair and logical conclusion.  Or are the terms “husband” and “wife” no longer useful in family constructs?  If that’s the case, then if a married person adopts the term “husband,” we cannot automatically assume that the person is male.  The same principle would apply to the use of the term “wife.”  If a husband can be a male or a female, or a wife can be either male or female, then the language begins to break down.  Gender distinctions then will have less significance than ever.

One of the personal impacts of breast or ovarian cancer is that a traditional male husband is in danger of losing his female wife.  If the wife is male, then that impact is no longer material.  How much trauma would either party in a male/male same-sex marriage experience from the breast or female reproductive organ cancer epidemic?  Any impact may be vicariously felt, but in would not be a direct hit on either partner.  Indeed, the only ones who may truly care about gender-specific maladies would be persons of that gender.  That’s not what happens in a traditional heterosexual marriage.  If my wife would have a problem that only females would have, for example, I would be personally impacted.  Likewise, she would be greatly impacted if I suffered from a typically male health issue.  One could argue the opposite position in theory, but I think the statistics would come down heavily in favor of my position.

Taking this a step further, does not same-sex marriage have huge implications for the terms “mother” and “father?”  A same-sex marriage arrangement, whether male/male or female/female, would not view those terms within the traditional context.  Neither union would be able to reproduce.  Children from a previous heterosexual marriage, or children by adoption are always a possibility, but, clearly, the homosexual union, in and of itself, would incapable of bringing new life into the world.  What would the fallout be from this arrangement?  It means that the terms “mother” or “father” would mainly have biological significance.  Who, for example, would be honored on “Mother’s Day” or “Father’s Day?”  Again, society may retire the old meanings of those terms.  A mother is not necessarily a female; a father is not necessarily a male.  Will it make any difference? 

The foregoing argument applies to other changes than same-sex marriage.  I would urge the reader to begin to flesh out the long term results of changes that we have either adopted or are likely to adopt in the near future.

What about abortion?  Our population is missing about fifty-six million persons because of abortions.  Do we have any studies of the negative impact of abortion, both anecdotal and demographically?  What has this lower birth rate done to our work force?  What has it done to our economy?  Have any of the studies been skewed because of politics?  Has there been a suppression of studies, or have research teams been denied grants who may have exposed the negative results of abortion?  I’m sure all of these questions have been addressed by a number of groups, but they have not been given “air time” because of philosophical differences held by those in power.

What about legalized marijuana?  Do we really know the impact marijuana has on operation motor vehicles?  Do we know whether it is a stepping stone to harder drugs?  How addictive is marijuana?  Do we know the extent of behavioral change consistent use will have?  How much have politics shaped the news reporting that has been released to the public? 

The times, they are a changin.’  No doubt about that.  I just wish we really knew the coefficient of the changes.  Before we celebrate change, we should make sure we are not premature with our praise.

Morgan County Midnight

Chapter One

(This is the first chapter of the sequel to Morgan County Morning.  It will be released late winter or early spring of 2015.)

GOD DIDN’T CREATE MAN TO DRIVE EAST EARLY in the morning into a blinding sun. Every bend in the empty, snakelike State Route 78 forced Connor Morgan to adjust and re-adjust the visor in his mini-Cooper; the deadly bright orb deliberately kept sneaking around the edges, to annoy him of course, when he was already stressed out beyond words. He had to hit I-77 North and then I-70 east to Pittsburgh to check on an oil and gas lease that he was positive was chasing a wily rabbit down a hole, dead-set not to be caught. Just because the Marcellus Shale geologic formation stretched from New York to West Virginia on the western side of the Appalachian Mountain range didn’t mean that it extended west to Ohio, especially as far as Morgan County. But, what did he know? This is what novices like Connor were for: to run down dubious leads as busy work, conjured up by the powers that be. Each of the 125 miles he drove—or was going to drive—wrenched his stomach into a tighter knot, distracting him from the business of driving with the more frustrating business of thinking. And, then, there was the wedding. He fought desperately to not think about the wedding.

On any other day, Connor would have been intense, focused on the job at hand. His dark eyes would have been riveted to the road ahead, his angular, clean-shaven face and strong jaw that was usually brightened by an easy smile (although not at the moment), all business. He had shoved his car seat back to the limit to give his long legs ample room, but today he still felt cramped. Frustrated would better describe his present mental state. He pounded his steering wheel. Why? What is wrong with me? Why am I such an idiot? I loved her—no, NO, I can’t think about it. She is his now, and I’m history.

But, images of the wedding bulldozed their way through his mind. Madison Markham was all about tradition. The Hammond 3C belted out The Wedding March, the 1842 music piece by Felix Mendelssohn, signalling the well-dressed crowd to rise. Connor joined them in fixing his eyes on the center door at the rear of the sanctuary where she entered on her father’s left side. Her 1970’s-influenced organza gown, modest, embellished with miniscule beads and a flowing, brocaded train, framed her natural beauty, evoking a perceptible intake of breath across the room. Her dark hair curled around the right side of her face and accented her delicate lips and nose, the features that captivated Connor from the moment he saw her in the first grade. He had never remembered her to be more beautiful. He had closed his eyes and thought “Why isn’t she walking down the aisle into my arms instead of Jeff Townsend’s?” The thought tortured his mind. It would not relent.

Had he not been so distracted, Connor might have noticed the black GMC Yukon Denali with tinted windows gaining on him, then swerving out into the passing lane inching into his blind spot. This stretch of Route 78 bends north and then east, with an embankment on the north side and tapers off into a wide drainage ditch on the south, with little room to wiggle in case of a close call. When the SUV pulled even with Connor, it began to ride close to the center line, and then crowded Connor’s vehicle to the right. Just then, as if on signal, a twin SUV barreled out of a driveway, into the path of the vehicle now driving parallel to Connor’s mini-Cooper. The oncoming Denali then cranked the wheel sharply into the lane Connor occupied. Hemmed in by the SUV beside him and blocked by the one in front, Connor slammed on his brakes. The velocity was too great for his brakes to hold. He had no choice but to take his chances in the ditch on the south side of the road. It was a preferable strategy to a head-on collision with an SUV three times its size, but still only the lesser of two evils. At sixty miles per hour, Connor’s Cooper flew down the slope, bouncing and fishtailing its way into the ditch, flipping upside down and coming to rest on its top. The two SUV’s roared away.

The sun disappeared and the bright blue sky went dark. Aside from a few angry killdeers circling in low flight and making their normal racket whenever they get disturbed, everything was quiet. Several minutes later, Connor slowly floated up from unconsciousness. A discharged airbag was pressing into his face and his ribs were on fire with acute pain. Sunlight blinded him, but in his dazed state, he wondered why the sun didn’t seem to be moving. Have I just been in an accident? He rocked his head side to side to see if his neck was broken and tried hard to recall what just happened. The picture started to develop, like negatives in a pre-digital darkroom. Two black SUV’s, one beside me, the second one in front of me. This had to be more than a coincidence. They ran me off the road! Why? He managed to thrust the thoughts about why he was in this ditch out of his mind and concentrated instead on getting himself out of the ditch. He maneuvered his arm out of the confines of the seat belt and forced it down into his pocket for his phone. When his hand touched his phone, he couldn’t understand why it was so slippery. Is there water in this ditch? He pulled his hand up and looked. It was dripping with blood. The sky went dark again.

The next face Connor saw was an Ohio State trooper who only came because a farmer drove by and dialed 911 after he saw the car in the ditch. “You’re lucky, son,” he said. Immediately, Connor offered a mental rebuttal, although he said nothing. No, sir. I have a praying mother!

Carted out on a stretcher, the EMTs took him to the closest emergency clinic in Caldwell, where nurses bandaged his ribs and stitched the cut in his side. Connor phoned his boss; the Pittsburgh trip would have to wait. Pops drove to get him. He called a tow truck to retrieve the mini, then took Connor back home. Struggling with pain, and determined not take pain-killers, he fought the pillow and mattress all night. He had a job to do. The future of forty-eight kids was at stake.

Jonathan Gruber: “The Lady Doth Protest Too Much.”

This gem from Wikipedia says it all:  “’The lady doth protest too much, methinks’ is a quotation from the 1602 play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It has been used as a figure of speech, in various phrasings, to indicate that a person’s overly frequent or vehement attempts to convince others of something have ironically helped to convince others that the opposite is true, by making the person look insincere and defensive.”  Hamlet’s only mistake was that Jonathan Gruber is a man.

While I don’t usually launch personal attacks in this blog, I do believe it is fair game to comment on someone who has thrust himself into the public arena, especially one who has profited with public funds for doing so.  On Tuesday, December 9, 2014, Jonathan Gruber pawned himself off before a congressional hearing as in intelligent man who made some incredible gaffes.  I have heard most of the testimony, and feel like I need to throw in my two cents. 

First, Jonathan Gruber is an extremely intelligent man.  He is also an extremely egotistical and arrogant man (by his own admission) who further underscored his pride by his testimony.  The fact that he appeared before this committee in an attempt to disavow his recorded comments of several months ago only exacerbated the hubris he said he now despises.  He quickly ran out of ways to equivocate his position, and ended up repeating himself over and over.  Each question thrown at him by his interrogators was a shovel by which he kept digging a deeper and deeper hole. 

Rudy Giuliani, in his commentary on the Gruber performance, said exactly what needed to be said.  “He is a liar who was either lying when he made the recorded statements or was lying in his testimony before congress.”  I thought about that.  My question is this: which scenario was more likely the one in which he was compelled to lie?  The first one?  No.  Why would he have lied to his colleagues?  They were all on the same page.  They all understood what he was saying.  An athlete doesn’t brag before his fellow athletes about a feat they all know is impossible to achieve!  A scientist doesn’t boast before his fellow scientists about something they all know is bunk.  Gruber had little or nothing to gain by spouting exaggerations and stupid statements to them.  On the other hand, he had much to gain by lying to congress.  He had a reputation to preserve; a re-characterization of his recorded performance to manage; and a seminal piece of legislation to defend.  In my opinion, he was eating way too much humble pie for it to be an honest attempt.  We were hearing a cover-up in the making.

Every once in a while, you hear a story about a crook who blabbed about his exploits to the wrong people.  That’s what really happened here.  Jonathan Gruber didn’t lie the first time around.  He just told the truth to the wrong people.  Well, he told them to the cozy little group whom he thought was a safe audience for his insider admissions, but he didn’t count on someone videotaping his remarks and broadcasting them to the world.  He’s like a bank robber who bragged about his heist to some undercover cops. 

Here’s the truth, as I see it: 

Gruber does believe that the American public is stupid.  His testimony didn’t negate that—it proved it.

Gruber does believe that deception was the only way the ACA could pass.

Gruber does believe that the ACA was a tax.

Gruber does believe that he was a major player in the architecture of the ACA.

He was caught red-handed.  He would have been better off defending his original statements.

The Benjamin Watson Post

The comments written by Benjamin Watson on Ferguson have a calming effect on the racially charged disaster in Ferguson for the rest of the country, but not on what’s happening there.  Watson walks a tightrope of neutrality, trying to appeal to both sides of the controversy.  The deeper questions, however, go unanswered.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-new-orleans-saints-player-benjamin-watsons-comments-on-ferguson-goes-viral-says-sin-not-skin-is-the-problem-130412/

It reminds me of the Tevye conversation in Fiddler when he listens to one man and says, “You’re right!” 

The then listens to another man who expresses the opposite opinion and says, “You’re right!”

A third man pipes up and says, “Wait a minute.  They can’t both be right.”

Tevye’s brilliant response?  “You’re right!”

The gargantuan elephant in the room is THE PAST.     There are three shameful and haunting elements to the past in black history. One is called slavery.  The second is called discrimination.  The third is called racism.  The three are inextricably linked, but, as they play out in the culture, they need to be addressed differently.  Slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, but open discrimination started.  Open discrimination ended with the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but racism took over and continues in varying degrees into the present. 

I am a white male of an appreciable age.  I am personally not responsible for slavery.  (Let’s not go to the culture-wide arguments right now—I’m talking about me, personally.)  Neither am I—personally—responsible for open discrimination.  Whether I am responsible for racism is up to members of other races.  I don’t think I am racist, but others might.  I need to own up to any culpability I may have.

I do know this:  If elements in society want to make me responsible for the entirety of aggrieved black history, then they will not be satisfied with anything less than revenge.  Revenge is spelled punishment and payback … for starters.  Until they get that, there is only one emotion that works: anger.  The anger is alive and well in Ferguson, but it is much more than anger over Michael Brown.  It stems from years and years of feeling wronged and victimized by racism.  Michael Brown’s shooting only symbolizes the larger issue.

Here’s the thing:  I can do nothing to change the past.  Unless we start with the present, we remain stalemated and entrenched in anger.  There was Detroit.  There was Watts.  Now there is Ferguson.  There will likely be another hotspot, and another, and another, ad infinitum. 

I do say to Benjamin Watson, “Thanks!”  Thank you for starting the dialogue.  Leadership cannot come from whites.  It has to come from you and those who share your history.  Either we come to the table of peace to talk or we continue to clash on the streets of rioting and destruction.  I desperately wanted it to be resolved in my generation.  Those prospects look bleak.  Benjamin Watson represents the next generation.  I hope they get it done.

The Grand Jury

With all the uproar surrounding the grand jury decision in Ferguson, it seems to me that our greatest need is an understanding of what a grand jury is instructed to do and the process by which it arrives at a decision.

I have served on a grand jury. It doesn’t make me an expert, but it does give me some credibility to speak on how a grand jury operates.

A grand jury is a group of citizens convened to decide whether or not there is enough evidence to indict a defendant.  The grand jury does not hear the defense side of the case.  It only hears the prosecution’s case against the defendant.

Think about that.  The prosecutor’s job is to build a case AGAINST a person accused of a crime.  They are there to present evidence AGAINST an individual.  Their goal is to convince the grand jury to indict.  It should be very clear that this is what they want to do.  There is no other purpose for the grand jury to exist other than to hear the prosecutor’s case against someone and decide if it is strong enough to give him or her the desired outcome.  No prosecutor is going to present evidence why a person should not be indicted.  That would be absurd.

Pursuant to this goal, the prosecutor defines the charge(s) in legal terms.  There are very specific demands that must be met in accordance with municipal, county, state and federal statutes.  He or she then brings in detectives, arresting officers, other persons who have some material involvement in the case and witnesses who must all testify, under oath, before the grand jury.  The jurors can ask questions of the prosecutor or of anyone presenting sworn testimony to them. 

The grand jury is also considered an investigative body.  In other words, it can request to hear other witnesses, consider evidence or ask questions about evidence that is presented, and pursue any line of questioning that is thought to be relevant to the case.  The reason for this is that the grand jury must vote to indict or to deny an indictment sought by the prosecutor.  If the jurors feel that evidence was withheld or manipulated, or that a witness was not sincere, then they cannot vote in good faith.  They must be satisfied that their vote is in accordance with their true belief.

The grand jury DOES NOT DECIDE THE GUILT OR INNOCENCE of a defendant.  It only votes to determine PROBABLE CAUSE.  In most cases, the bar is set very low to meet this standard.  In other words, the prosecutor has a fairly minimal job to do.  He or she only has to present enough evidence to suggest that the defendant may have committed the crime.  The actual trial will ferret out all of the relevant evidence for and against the indictment.  That is not the job of the grand jury.

What if the grand jury votes to indict a person when the evidence is not sufficient to warrant the indictment?  The prosecutor is then charged with the burden of bringing a case to the court that may be thrown out, that may be judged frivolous, or that may appear extremely prejudicial to the public.  Every prosecutor wants to avoid these embarrassments, regardless of the pressure brought to bear on the office by those who have a stake in the matter.  Moreover, it would represent a gross exploitation of a public agency. 

Simply put, the grand jury did not hear or see enough evidence to indict Officer Darrin Wilson.  If further proceedings against him are desired, it will not be in accordance with the legal system.