I have a long list of topics that I want to write about, but some weeks are just filled with events that require comment. This is one such week, but before I discuss the events, there is one bit of topical addendum I would like to mention.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I complained about what I called the "cycle of professionalism." There is one other comment that I forgot to mention. You recall that I pointed out several reasons why people are not volunteering as much as in the past. But the fact that people are not volunteering also tells me that the church is not doing as well as it used to at making disciples. It seems to me that people who are in an active, living relationship with Jesus should be champing at the bit to serve Him physically somehow. Therefore, if people are not so eager to serve, then maybe we are not doing what is necessary to help them have that kind of living relationship. I just keep coming back to the basics -- I don’t think we need to figure out new things to do, I think we need to figure out better ways to do the old ones.

Early this week some good friends of my wife and I lost their son. He was an adult, just barely, but their child nonetheless. There are a couple of observations that come to mind in light of this event.

The young man's father is retired after 20 years active duty in the U.S. Navy. He was an aviator. He flew missions in Vietnam. Such men are not normal -- they have nerves of steel. They are not subject to stress the way you and I are. They do the most difficult thing man has ever conceived, landing many tons of steel, rocketing forward at very high velocity onto small surfaces bobbing on the ocean, and oh yeah, they do it in the DARK! They are trained to deal death and they are trained to ignore it. I watched such a man succumb to grief this week. I watched a man trained to ignore his fears and emotions become incoherent with grief. They say losing a child is the greatest grief a human can know -- after this week I know that for fact.

I learned only one thing in observing such grief. Only God can provide the comfort this situation demanded. There is no finite number of peer counseling visits, there are no 12 steps to grief recovery, there is no program, no words, no anything but the arms of the Savior that can deal with this. If anyone tries to squeeze our friends into some program to help with their grief I may just find that someone and strangle them. Only a God who crucified His own Son can begin to relate to and comfort this grief. Please join me in praying for them, and pray that those of us who know them can find some meaningful way to be God's comforting arms.

I was reminded by this death of another death that I experienced some years ago. Some friends of mine lost a foster child to leukemia. The child was about 10 or 12 at the time. Because he was a foster child, the grief was not quite as painful. Also because he was a foster child, he came with a bunch of baggage. His natural mother was alcoholic, he had been sexual abused by some of her "boyfriends." Because of these factors and many others, I was convinced then, and remain convinced today that God took that boy home when he did because the pain of his death as a child was far less than the pain his life as an adult would have been.

Sometimes mercy lies in pain. I know that was true when my Grandfather died. He did not know who anybody was, and only wanted to return to his childhood home. In his death, he returned to his ultimate home. For some reason it is easy for us to see the mercy in the death of an older person, but not so in a young person. Yet I can think of no reason for the death of a younger person not to be merciful as well.

Remember when I said that maybe we needed to let the mainline denominations go? As harsh as that statement sounds, it may be merciful. It is very possible that from the "death" of those churches something wonderful may come. From the death of Jesus, came the salvation of mankind. From the death of the church may come the birth of the Kingdom of God. Am I really so harsh?

California held its primary elections this week. In a major surprise the "arch" conservative candidate for the Republican governor slot, beat the pants off of the far more moderate (to the point of being indistinguishable from a Democrat in many areas) and well-known candidate. Needless to say, this has been an event causing much comment in political commentary circles. But I don’t really want to comment on politics.

I think these election results tell us about what people want. This election result says that there is a significant portion of the population that wants something radically different from the status quo. Of course here in California, the status quo means left-leaning politics, with the major difference between Democrats and Republicans being how fast they move to the left. I think this election says people don’t just want to slow down moving to the left, but maybe go back to the right some.

This election result says a lot about the church. As I have said, churches seems to be moving in directions that conform to society's desires. That means that if society says worship is too liturgical, the church drops the liturgy. That means that if society says the church is too judgmental, the church lowers its standards. And yet, given the election results there is a large portion of society that is looking for that kind of structure.

The decline of the mainline churches, and hence their continual shifting to more and more societal conformity, began in the 60's. During this time, the rhetoric about "hypocrites" and "creative oppression" and all that kind of stuff began to be heard. Certainly the church was denounced as being too restrictive. There was some truth in this criticism. The church had become in many ways about the rules and not about the Lord. The "tyranny of the Law" so often discussed in the New Testament seemed to be alive and well in the 20^th century.

But we seemed to have moved too far in the other direction. Scripture is plain. Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Yet in this century we have been trying very hard to abolish it. People are now beginning to see that there is much wisdom in the old rules and old ways of doing things. They are beginning to say it with the way they vote, and soon they will begin to look for it in the way they worship.

You see, the problem with the Law prior to Christ's coming was that man had to rely on his own means to abide by it. Now that Christ's death and resurrection have changed us permanently, the Holy Spirit can fill us and empower our obedience. The problem was not the Law or obedience to it, but the Spirit in which that obedience occurred. The answer to the criticisms of the church in the 60's lay not in abolishing the rules, but in finding the right Spirit in which to proclaim them.

That's the challenge for the church today. We need to rediscover our obedient roots, but do so in the Spirit of a forgiving Christ. We don’t need to become more "relevant," we just need to learn how to do what we do better. And that better way lies only in reliance on the Holy Spirit. Back to basics one more time.