Real article from my homestate of Wisconsin

Keith Walendowski is charged with shooting a lawn mower.A 57-year-old south side man, who might have been struggling with a hangover, is charged today with shooting his lawn mower with a sawed-off shotgun."I'll tell you the truth," a criminal complaint quotes an apparently inebriated Keith Walendowski. "I got pissed because my lawn mower wouldn't start, so I got my shotgun and shot it."I can do that. It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want," Walendowski told police.Ignorance of the law, however, is not a legal defense.Walendowski is charged with a felony count of possessing a short-barreled shotgun and a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct while armed. If convicted of both charges, he faces up to six years and nine months in prison.The shooting occurred Wednesday at a home Walendowski shares with his mother in the 3500 block of S. Austin St.According to the complaint, Walendowski had been drinking all morning. Around 9:30 a.m., he attempted to start his 21-inch Lawn-Boy - unsuccessfully.After shooting the mower, he went in his basement, where he was arrested by police, the complaint says.Police recovered the shotgun, shells, a handgun, rounds for the handgun and a stun gun.Dick Wagner of Wagner's Garden Mart, 6075 N. Green Bay Ave., said shooting the mower didn't help Walendowski's odds of getting it repaired."Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," he said.

Thanks for reading and thanks for not passing judgment on Wisconsin because of this. I have been upset at my lawnmower before and so have you...admit it.

Everyone is getting old...

"Age is all mental" so says my 63 year old Dad. It's funny because he tends to complain about the fact he can't hit a golf ball as far as he used to. I tell him he needs to "mentally regress in age"--he usually only smirks at me.
We do, most of us, live at a comfortable distance from our age. I'm creeping on 30.

Last night, our softball team (no names mentioned; except Andrew) experienced something shocking. Pulled muscles. What? Why on earth would a muscle not work the way it did for the last 29 years? When did rounding third base prove to be such an immense task? I limped into the dugout. Andrew needed to be carried to his vehicle on the back of a fellow teammate. Carri Bauldree hurt her wrist and almost started crying. I offered her a tissue.(She did make a spectacular jumping catch...I could have slid a Visa Card under her cleats she was so high) A few games ago, her husband Jason pulled a muscle in his leg. Jim Boatner pulled his hammy(and got nailed last night by a line drive in the right cheek, not his face cheek...that will leave a mark).

Lindsey Walker pulled her quad (She did make a great catch, albeit her eyes were closed while she prayed). Bree got cleated, but had she been younger, no way that happens. Kara Copeland got thrown out at home, even six months ago, she scores on that play...below is a picture of her leaving the field last night, she just looks tired, you know?

What is happening to us!? I remember not having to even warm up to run the mile in gym class. Now I get winded during the warm up stretches.

At the game last night I actually saw two members of our team give eachother high five only to produce one jammed finger and lightly sprained wrist. When will this madness end?! Are we going to simply lay down and allow the ravages of age and atrophy of skeletal muscles be the end of us? Will injury and muscle soreness make us like wounded horses in the back pasture, never to race again while our tails turn gray and brittle?

Of course not. I have the solution. It took some research, however, I'm confident this is what our softball team needs in order to rediscover the fountain of youth. Ready? Here it is:

JACK LaLANE'S POWER JUICER

Here's the deal, this Jack LaLane guy is known as the "father of fitness" and his life is proof we can fight this terrible monster called "aging". The dude is about 137 years old yet has the energy of a hummingbird, the speed and agility of an African cheetah, and the strength of a dump truck. Do you think Jack LaLane has ever pulled muscle running around third base? Maybe, on his 113th birthday!!! I'm only 29. If Jack LaLane were our coach, he would be so embarrassed by reading our disabled list. There are actually two people listed as "day-to-day" because of hang nails. Jack LaLane would play with vigor and resiliency because he has conquered age in his mind and guess what? His body followed suit. That is why he is 137 and still runs and participates in martial arts competitions.

So, this post is just a way to motivate all of us who suffered injury to body and ego last night at Bethel Baptist field. We won the game, yes, but we lost our mental edge.

May the eery smile and oddly muscular physique of Jack LaLane fuel your passion to face the aging monster and grit your teeth. Just be careful not to pull a jaw muscle. Also, please bring and extra dollar to two to help me pay for this juicer machine, LaLane is making bank off these things...

With vigor, Shane

ps. I dare you to leave a comment.

Detroit Lake

Grizzly Adams, Jeremiah Johnson, and Davey Crockett are all city boys compared to Bill Secor. This man was born of the mountians and raised on a farm. He began logging trees at the age of 15. Soon after he joined the military and served in the US Army Special Forces. Upon leaving the service he became a commercial fisherman. Basically, Bill has done it all and done it well. He's learned the best fishing holes in the area over the past 40 years. I was impressed with his knowledge of the land, but more so by his obvious love for God.

We caught our limit in beautiful Rainbow trout in about 90 minutes. It would have been sooner had we not let the best ones get away. The sun was out along with bald eagles and shrieking ospreys. White, glistening snow still covered the mountain peaks towering over the green fir trees standing silently around Detroit Lake. The whole day was testimony to the glorious creative powers of God. Not least the intricate and artistic patterns and brilliant colors of the Rainbow Trout. Each one I held felt important...at least a little more important than each one Bill held.

We stopped at an old meat shop on the way home and bought summer sausage and old fashioned beef jerkey. I had a glorious day and I thought I'd share it with you.

AJ's Hideaway

My clothes and hair smell like smoke as I sit in my church office. I smell this way because I went to a bar over lunch today. Yes, I am a minister and I went to a bar.

The US Open Golf Playoff was on between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate. It’s dubbed: David vs. Goliath. Maybe because Rocco is ranked 158th in the world, Tiger is first.

I admit, it felt odd to exchange the fresh air, sunshine, and blue skies of this Monday noon hour for the dimly lit, loud sounding establishment, yet I desperately wanted to catch the end of this tournament and I had no idea where else to go.

Inside the bar room was lined with blinking slot machines. Several bored and slow moving old people puffed their cigs and pushed the lighted buttons on the glowing screen before them, staring hypnotically. Over the speakers, Jimmy Buffet sang about some island where worries don’t plague anybody anymore. The golf match was on overhead so I sat down and ordered the special with a glass of…water. (Admit it; you thought I ordered something else)

The waitress was nice enough but told me I couldn’t have my Dutch Bros. coffee in the bar. I guess they have a “no coffee only liquor policy” I didn’t read on the door.

Two middle aged woman sat at the mostly empty bar visiting over tall glasses of beer. I glanced at the Miller Lite clock-- 12:30pm. They were happily chattering away, each of them listening intently to the other; laughing sporadically. I watched golf on the TV directly above them from where I sat.

A commercial break began and I guess I started to eavesdrop. I listened to the ladies tell the bartending woman that they were new to town. The bartender told them with glowing eyes and warm tones that they definitely needed to become a part of AJ’s Hideaway because everyone here on the weeknights are “regulars” and they are all “so nice and know everybody’s first name”. The emotion in her voice surprised me. She meant what she was saying.

The women seemed to be interested in what the bartender was saying. They shared that they were devoting the entire day to finding their “home bar” in Keizer. I have never heard the phrase “home bar” before and I had no idea people spent days searching for one.

They extolled the virtues of the bar they left in their previous town. It was such a ‘tight knit bar with people who really made you feel like family’. The food was good and the music was live on Fridays. As these ladies reminisced of their late bar—serious tone and all—they sounded like they spoke of the closest family unit imaginable.

The bartender lady answered all their questions and even gave them the menu to examine the bar’s variety of food and drink selection—it was all very salesman(woman) like. Except the product she was pitching was community-- the fact that you could come to AJ’s Hideaway and be known by others--recognized as a part of the group, a place you belonged. I felt like I was watching two women select a new family. I felt a bit left out.

I realized the pair of ladies was a mother and daughter. The daughter asked the bartender if there were any single men that came to the bar as “regulars.”

“Hell yes!” the bartender said.

“Do they have jobs? Cause most of the guys at our last bar didn’t have jobs or a driver’s license.” Those type guys are the hardest to find.”

“Yeah, we got all kinds here.”

One lady looked over my way. I sensed her eyes and for a moment I felt a bit awkward because I do have a driver’s license.

The feeling passed quickly and the golf started again.

I don’t know how to put a bow on this story. I struggle to process why I felt a bit jealous of those ladies when I left-- just being honest.

Here’s my question to you: Why would the ladies in that bar choose a church over AJ's Hideaway as a place to find a new family?

If you want to leave a comment, I’d appreciate it.

A Gospel Sermon

Sunday Sermon
6/6/2008

What keeps people from Christ?

There are a thousand things I could say in response to this—their hearts are not hungry for him, their lives are too full of the things of the world, their minds are darkened with sin, or they simply feel no need of God.

All these answers make sense yet one thing they all have in common is that each of them squarely places the blame upon the sinner as if the church has nothing to do with the salvation of the lost.

Consider the possibility that the church has not revealed Christ is such a way that the world would want Him and as a result the world has stayed away.

I heard her voice outside my office door. I looked at my watch, it was 7:20am and I knew I was the only one in the building. Again she said, “Hello?”

It was impossible to get outside my office door unless you have a key because there are three other doors you must pass through to get to the foyer outside my office. Who was this?

I opened the door to see a young black lady. Her eyes were swollen from crying and her forehead was bleeding. Her left arm had a gash which I thought needed immediate medical attention.

Through tears she told me she had three small children the DHS was going to take away from her tomorrow if she didn’t get diapers and food for them today.

We pulled up to her apartment complex after going to Safe Way for bandages, triple antibiotic ointment, diapers, and whatever else she wanted. I began to step out of my car to help her carry the paper bags to her apartment when she told me to stop.

“I don’t want any trouble” she said. “I don’t either.” I said, “What do you mean by that?”

“My boyfriend is in there and he might get upset to see me with another man.”

“You can’t carry these bags alone, I’m coming with you.”

We walked into her dark apartment. It looked like it had been neglected for years. My nose cringed at the molded scent hanging thick in the air, black stains checkered the eggshell carpet. A flickering, half lit chandelier dangled from the ceiling of the main room shedding dim light against the surroundings.

A baby sat naked on the carpet to the left of a stain. I heard the sounds of her two other children in another room. Back against the wall in a shadowy hallway I saw her boyfriend leaned tight up against the wall watching us. To the left of where I stood, a hole in the wall with a smear of blood was evidence of where her boyfriend had smashed her head just an hour ago.

Her mother stood at the stove in the kitchen with no expression, just an empty stare at me. I walked in and set the bag on an empty table and shook the hand of her mother. No words were exchanged.

The young lady started to cry and I asked her to step outside onto the cement patio so I could talk to her.

“Why do you stay here?”

“I have no where to go. The DHS says I need to have a place big enough for my kids and this is the only place I can make it. Besides it’s close to 82nd avenue where I work.”

“You work? Where do you work?”

“I hook on 82nd.”

Through pouring tears, and I literally mean pouring tears, she told me how her mother used to let men rape her for money starting from the age of 12, thus beginning her career as a prostitute.

She kept saying, “I’m tired, I’m so tired of it all.”

“Don’t you want your children to have a chance at a better life, to learn a better way to live?” “My church is two blocks away and there are people there who will love you and your family—why don’t you let us pick you up on Sundays or Wednesdays and bring you to place where you can find support and help?”

Without a pause to consider the offer she said, “I could never walk in a church, I don’t belong at a church, look at me.”

I tell you this because I am convinced the church has lost sight of the glory of the gospel of good news. Most of us don’t share the gospel with the lost, and when we do, we tend to share a Jesus that is way too human.

At this you may be wondering what I am talking about. Doesn’t scripture go to great lengths to reveal Christ as a man, a human being who knows what its like to suffer and have pain and feel loneliness? Isn’t this a good thing?

There is a five dollar word to describe the process or tendency of attributing human like qualities to something that is not human. Have you seen Chronicles of Narnia? Well there are talking beavers and sword fighting mice.

The word is called anthropomorphism. It’s derived from the Greek “anthropos” meaning human and “morphe” meaning shape or form.

The prostitute feared entering the doors of a church because she believed in her heart she would not be accepted. Although this feeling is directed toward the people in the building, it’s also her perception of God.

The Bible has much to say to this person.

The great challenge of being a gospel preacher, or a Christian who is convinced it is God’s will to share the gospel, is to share the whole gospel, the full gospel. You see the gospel is literally the good news.

However, this message gets lost on a culture that refuses to reflect on what the God of love and mercy has revealed about those who reject his offer of love and grace.

Only when we hear and understand what God has said about our state and our destiny, will we ever begin to see the gospel as good news.

Romans 3:20
“Listen, no one can get right with God by obeying rules. Rules only show us our weaknesses and failures.”

We tend to think my righteousness = God’s Love

We believe the righteousness that I display will engender me to God. He will look at my work and smile and say “Well done Shane. I love how obedient and holy you have made yourself. Your life is in order, welcome to my family.”

The major and fundamental problem with our thinking lies in our misunderstanding of God’s plan of redemption. It’s either a misunderstanding or an unwillingness to believe the plan.

Scripture tells us God’s plan is to provide righteousness--to give us righteousness as a gift. This righteousness does not emanate from man. Man cannot produce this righteousness. This righteousness originates with God, it is from God. God is the source of our righteousness. God is the source of the righteousness he bestows on us. It has nothing to do with our performance, absolutely nothing to do with our purity or hard work.

It is: From God apart from Law.

These five words are the most precious to me. From God apart from Law.

The righteousness we enjoy, the righteousness we receive is from God.

If it is from God it cannot come from me or anything I ever, ever do. It is not possible to get or attain or create or produce the righteousness God desires us to have. Not by humility, not by tears, not by regret, not by performance, not by effort, not by hoping, not by wishing, not by passion, not by discipline, not by prayer, not by fasting, not by longing…because it is not by man or anything man does.

Therefore the bible tells us it is from God apart from law.

It is so highly important, crucial and essential that these truths permeate the very minds and hearts of all people in order to live the Christian life.

The words ‘apart from law’ are absolutely breathtaking. They are groundbreaking and earthshaking. They are the equivalent of the Hoover Dam cracking open and the millions upon millions of gallons or water bursting through the wall released after years and years of being trapped and inaccessible from those on the other side.

Apart from law can only mean apart from performance or apart from work. The law lays down a rule which can be likened to a hurdle. If a man jumps the hurdle, he remains right with God. If the man trips over the hurdle, he is immediately condemned and separated from God.

If Paul was describing a righteousness by Law or through the Law, we must picture an endless track with hurdles, some extremely tall, some short, but all must be jumped perfectly, none can be brushed or touched or moved or avoided in any way shape or form and if at any point even the smallest portion of your shoe string glances the lowest hurdle, then no matter how far you’ve gone down the track, you must start all over again. Condemned to fall and fail every time.

This is life under the law. This is a picture of righteousness by Law.

But the message of the gospel to the tired and dejected, scraped up and bruised runner is this—no more hurdles to jump. There is a way to win the race and win the crown another away. There is One who has completed the race on your behalf!

Raise your hand if you ever feel like a runner on a track that just can’t clear all the hurdles. You look back over your life and all you can see is endless falls and trips and mistakes. Each one making you tired and leaving you scraped and bruised and discouraged. And looking forward in your life isn’t much better either because all you see is the very same thing, accept truth be told, the hurdles get higher and higher. And you, you are so tired of failing.

“This righteousness from come through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”


“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

May we never share a human gospel. May we always share the good news of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the message a dying world is in need of.

Let’s not put our demands upon the sinner, but let the mercy of God pour forth to a wounded world through us.

It’s not fair. It’s the gospel. It’s the good news!

Outdoor School at Camp Yamhill

This past week I spent every waking minute in the woods with 6th graders. I returned to civilization physically tired, yet seriously refreshed spiritually. Jesus' words about "unless you change and become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven" have new and significant meaning in my life. Wonder, joy, curiousity, honesty, and vulnerability only begin to describe the young people I observed and interacted with. I couldn't stop smiling as we ate meals together and sang campfire songs around flickering flames. I watched their deeply pure eyes gaze at bugs, plants, and flowing rivers with all the innocence of Eden. These kids loved to jump and run whenever they get the chance. They love to dance for no reason and sing songs to themselves when waiting in line when they think no one can hear them. They shared stories, personal stories about family and friends with me that made me laugh and some that nearly made me feel like crying.

The picture of the squirrel above is one of many animals I drew for the children on a dry erase board in the main hall. Each class period I had free time to read and prepare for the devotionals, I would sneak into the hall and draw a picture of a new animal for the kids. Soon, the rumor of the "Phantom Artist" circulated around camp with all the campers asking the adults "Are you the Phantom?". I loved it.

One short story. I led three groups campers through the "Path to Calvary"-- a 12 stage path through the green forest with stations corresponding with Jesus' journey to Jersualem, his crucifixion, and his resurrection. Each station offers a verse from scripture and a reflective question to journey or pray over. I must admit, I felt much of the exercise was too "deep" for the kids, questions like "What sins are you still in bondage too?" drew odd looks from the 12 year olds as if they were thinking "What does bondage mean?". Anyway, the path included a life-size cross and nails to touch and handle to give the participant a chance to feel a bit of what Jesus experienced. Throughout the entire path, I emphasized how all this suffering revealed just how much God loves us. I hoped some seeds were being planted.

As we stood near the end of the path standing beneath the tall, dark cross I looked at the children to try to discern if anything was connecting for them.

Some of the boys were picking up sticks, a few girls were giggling. But one blond haired, blue eyed little girl stood still, staring up at the looming cross, silent.

I could see her eyes were slightly misty; she was deep in thought. I ambled toward her and quietly spoke "Are you feeling okay?"

Her eyes stayed on the cross and she said, "Yes, its just...it's just that this whole story is really...just really touching."

I don't write this stuff like this because it sounds like "Chicken Soup for the Soul"--all mushy and smarsmy. Its not supposed to be received that way. I write it because I knew for a moment that God is more loving and more giving and more tenacious in his pursuit of us than I give Him credit for. Keep it real. By the way, the mountian lion below was the work of yours truly.

Easter is near...

I have no idea who the people in this picture are, but I thought it was representative of the commercialization of Easter...even though I totally would wear that bunny outfit and, if I was the kid, I'd be pumped to meet a huge Easter Bunny---even though he had a mustache and looked like my dad.

Just a quick thought about resurrection. The resurrection has two sides to it. Good and not so good. For those for whom Jesus is Lord, the resurrection is the realization of long standing hope...being raised to eternal life! For others, who reject Jesus Christ and His free and loving offer of eternal life, the resurrection spells doom and condemnation...eternally.

I'm struck with the finality of resurrection. Truly, it makes a difference what Easter means to us. If it's the snapshot of the resurrection to eternal life--its as sweet as chocolate bunnies and cadbury eggs...if its solely about the search for gifts of sugar and chocolate, I invite you to search for greater things in Jesus Christ...for it is written "Seek and you will find."

Hope you and your family have a memorable Easter weekend.