Friends for Life!

Welcome to the LIGHT!

We’re about “loving God and loving others!” (Matt 22:36-40)  You won’t find us engaging in too much debate around  the many different areas that have many different interpretations (and fights!) amongst all the various tribes in the Kingdom of God.  So, we welcome people from all denominations and faith backgrounds.  Even if you don’t have any faith background but are just curious, as long as you fundamentally ascribe at a bare minimum to a “do no harm” philosophy (and hopefully have a desire to “show the greatest love to the greatest number in the greatest fashion”) you are always welcome!

Here at the LIGHT! we just want everyone to have a simple faith (of a child (Matt 19:14) or of the criminal on the cross (Luke 23:43)) that leads to salvation and eternal life.  From there we would like you to be discipled (mentored or coached in today’s parlance) into Christian maturity (see any of the staff if you are interested in this opportunity to grow in your faith!) so that you may join us as a “spiritual adult” to help further Jesus’ mission.

The truth is, in our country and especially in the Evangelical Christian Community, there are many opportunities to focus on the eternal perspective of saving souls over “here,” giving to missions to save souls “over there” and or increasing your spiritual knowledge.  However, we’ve noticed that there is much less focus on serving those outside the Body in an earthly perspective or of “speaking up for those who cannot speak up for themselves” against institutions that are systemically holding them back. (Prov 31:8)

We’re trying to bridge that gap between the eternal and the earthly.  So, while we definitely support missions (we give over 98% of our offerings to supporting front-line field workers) and don’t see anything wrong with learning about terms like eschatology, soteriology, ontology, episteomology or initiation, propitiation, justification, sanctification, etc. (is your head spinning yet?  Don’t worry!  We are happy to help explain these to you, too, even though these terms are not our primary focus areas and we don’t believe you need to know them to experience the salvation offered by Jesus =)  our main desire is to follow Jesus’ example of ministering to people’s earthly needs even as he touched them eternally with discerning questions about their relationship with God. 

Take a look at all of Jesus’ miracles below and observe how often He served physically even as He spoke spiritually (Hint:  He actually did more serving than speaking!)

37 Miracles of Jesus
#	Miracle	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John
1	Jesus Turns Water into Wine at the Wedding in Cana				2:1-11
2	Jesus Heals an Official’s Son at Capernaum in Galilee				4:43-54
3	Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit From a Man in Capernaum		1:21-27	4:31-36
4	Jesus Heals Peter’s Mother-in-Law Sick With Fever	8:14-15	1:29-31	4:38-39
5	Jesus Heals Many Sick and Oppressed at Evening	8:16-17	1:32-34	4:40-41
6	First Miraculous Catch of Fish on the Lake of Gennesaret			5:1-11
7	Jesus Cleanses a Man With Leprosy	8:1-4	1:40-45	5:12-14
8	Jesus Heals a Centurion‘s Paralyzed Servant in Capernaum	8:5-13		7:1-10
9	Jesus Heals a Paralytic Who Was Let Down From the Roof	9:1-8	2:1-12	5:17-26
10	Jesus Heals a Man’s Withered Hand on the Sabbath	12:9-14	3:1-6	6:6-11
11	Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son From the Dead in Nain			7:11-17
12	Jesus Calms a Storm on the Sea	8:23-27	4:35-41	8:22-25
13	Jesus Casts Demons into a Herd of Pigs	8:28-33	5:1-20	8:26-39
14	Jesus Heals a Woman in the Crowd With an Issue of Blood	9:20-22	5:25-34	8:42-48
15	Jesus Raises Jairus’ Daughter Back to Life	9:18, 23-26	5:21-24, 35-43	8:40-42, 49-56
16	Jesus Heals Two Blind Men	9:27-31
17	Jesus Heals a Man Who Was Unable to Speak	9:32-34
18	Jesus Heals an Invalid at Bethesda				5:1-15
19	Jesus Feeds 5,000 Plus Women and Children	14:13-21	6:30-44	9:10-17	6:1-15
20	Jesus Walks on Water	14:22-33	6:45-52		6:16-21
21	Jesus Heals Many Sick in Gennesaret as They Touch His Garment	14:34-36	6:53-56
22	Jesus Heals a Gentile Woman’s Demon-Possessed Daughter	15:21-28	7:24-30
23	Jesus Heals a Deaf and Dumb Man		7:31-37
24	Jesus Feeds 4,000 Plus Women and Children	15:32-39	8:1-13
25	Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida		8:22-26
26	Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind by Spitting in His Eyes				9:1-12
27	Jesus Heals a Boy With an Unclean Spirit	17:14-20	9:14-29	9:37-43
28	Miraculous Temple Tax in a Fish’s Mouth	17:24-27
29	Jesus Heals a Blind, Mute Demoniac	12:22-23		11:14-23
30	Jesus Heals a Woman Who Had Been Crippled for 18 Years			13:10-17
31	Jesus Heals a Man With Dropsy on the Sabbath			14:1-6
32	Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers on the Way to Jerusalem			17:11-19
33	Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead in Bethany				11:1-45
34	Jesus Restores Sight to Bartimaeus in Jericho	20:29-34	10:46-52	18:35-43
35	Jesus Withers the Fig Tree on the Road From Bethany	21:18:22	11:12-14
36	Jesus Heals a Servant’s Severed Ear While He Is Being Arrested			22:50-51
37	The Second Miraculous Catch of Fish at the Sea of Tiberias				21:4-11

So, in accordance with Jesus’ ministry above, here at the LIGHT!, you’ll find us mostly interested in discussing, deciding (and ultimately, “doing!”) the best actions that can help others in their earthly lives even as we use that as a potential platform to share about their eternal lives.

You won’t find us engaging in endless debate about the multitude of beliefs that differ across the spectrum of Christianity around the world.  There are (according to World Chris­t­ian Ency­clo­pe­dia (Bar­rett, Kurian, and John­son; Oxford Uni­ver­sity Press, Volume I, page 16)) approximately 33,000 different belief systems (“denominations”) that self-identify as “Christian.”  We will strongly defend the very few beliefs necessary for salvation that are common to most Christian denominations but, in everything else that doesn’t matter for salvation, we’ll simply share with you the major positions that exist today and then let God convict you on which one you want to take.

Back to the actions that can help others…what is it that most people need help with today in our country?  Here are some questions to ponder that might lead you to the answer:

• Think about how many people you know who live paycheck to paycheck.
• How many of your friends (or you!) struggle with making ends meet?
• Why is it that the Millenials don’t think that they will be better off than their parents?
• How come you work so hard and after many years of faithful service you aren’t a millionaire yet or haven’t moved up another rung on the social mobility ladder?

Here is the answer in case you haven’t guessed it.  The great injustice that is correlated with almost every earthly ill today is, economic inequality.   Our current state of inequality is a key factor behind all these questions.  (You can watch the videos below to see how the research and the reasoning leads us to this conclusion.)  While we believe mankind is inherently sinful, the sad thing about inequality in the US is that, even if you took all morality out of it, the system itself leads to too much variation in inequality – it’s a systemic issue, not merely a sin issue, which makes this even more insidious!

Note that inequality is NOT the same as poverty (although Jesus said the poor would always be amongst us AND we need to open wide our hand to help them (John 8:12 and Deut 15:11.)  It would still be an issue if the bottom 20% averaged earning $50K/yr while the top 20% averaged earning $5000K/yr.  It is the expansive variation which is the issue, which creates mistrust and separation in societies (see the video below).

Check out these two videos which capture the essence of why we believe inequality is one of the single biggest earthly social issues facing our country today:

 

 

 

Based on the premise of the videos above showing such a strong correlation between so many social ills and inequality, if we can make great strides to shrink the gap between the bottom 20% and the top 20% then we may also see a big drop in many of the bad things we as Christians care about:

• abortions will be reduced
• crime and recidivism goes down
• drug use decreases
• educational drop outs are greatly diminished
• less family breakdown (the family is the fundamental unit of government in our country!)
• poverty and homeless drop

Addressing inequality is a HUGE lever to tackle problems we are concerned with…imagine what a platform that would give for the transformative power of the Gospel?

To address inequality, though, will require significant initiatives at both a personal level and a political level.  (We’ve looked at this 6 ways to Sunday and can’t see any way around the need for both paths.  If you can show us a way to do this at a personal level only that would be faster and better we are all ears!)

Just to be clear – we don’t like to politicize things into simplistic dichotomies of “Left” and “Right.”  However, in looking at the problem of inequality, it does seem that, in addition to praying for a spiritual solution, there doesn’t seem to be many other options forward beyond exploring a political solution in tandem.  We certainly don’t bless either party given how polarized they’ve become these days and how our preference is to be a “bridge” across our countries warring “tribes” (even as Jesus set the example for us by being the “Bridge” between a Holy God and abject sinners.).

So, indulge us for a moment as we share some of our thoughts on American political matters (see if you can guess which documents we primarily draw from as our reference!):

• We fight for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people” (call it “social justice,” or “caring community” if you want – without labeling us as “liberals!”)
• We believe in “conscious capitalism” (that concerns itself with ALL stakeholders (customers, employees, society, governments, environment, communities, bondholders, etc.) and NOT JUST shareholders, (without labeling us as “conservatives!”)
• We are good citizens as God commands us to be (Rom 13) and support strong families, individual freedoms (but to the extent that they benefit society overall) in accordance with a government that is:
• • “for the people, by the people and of the people”
  • where “one person, one vote” takes precedence over “one dollar, one vote” and that
  • the responsibility of our government per our Constitution includes spending our tax dollars to:
    1. form a more perfect Union
    2. establish Justice
    3. insure domestic Tranquility
    4. provide for the common Defence
    5. promote the general Welfare
    6. secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves AND for our descendants
• Some of the general political principles we would like our government to follow include:
  • Fiscal responsibility
    • Don’t go crazy with debt BUT debt for appreciating assets can be useful
  • Social tolerance
    • We accept pretty much all people
    • BUT acceptance doesn’t equal approval
    • AND non-approval doesn’t mean hatred!
  • Environmental responsibility
    • Hey, the first job God gave to Adam & Eve was to tend and care for the Garden!
  • Economic opportunity
    • Wouldn’t it be great if everyone, by the age of 18-21, regardless of how:
      • wealthy / poor,
      • good / bad,
      • engaged / non-engaged
    • their parents were, all had been equipped with the necessary skills, motivation and character traits to be good, successful citizens?
• Some of the personal traits we believe good, successful citizens show (complementing the Fruit of the Spirit if they happen to be followers of Jesus (Gal 5:22-23) include:
  • Charity (Love and do no harm…especially to our most vulnerable!)
  • Equity (Fairness)
  • Responsibility (you reap what you sow)
  • Loyalty (People before party!)
  • Authority (Respect)
  • Purity (OK, that might sound a little weird in this day and age but the idea here is that it’s hard not to like a person who exudes “wholesomeness”)
• AND
• We affirm “personal responsibility” where to “those who have been given much, much will be required” (Luke 12:48) – we definitely believe that many suburban and urban Evangelicals in the USA have been given much!).
• With equal force we affirm that, “if a man is unwilling to work he shall not eat” (2 Thess 3:10) and say that we all have a personal responsibility to “pull our weight” so that we are not an undue burden to our brothers and sisters who are lovingly ready to look out for those who truly do need support.

We would really prefer to look at the world through the lens of Jesus and follow His example (Eph 5:1) by simply asking, “what would Jesus do” (WWJD) as a guiding filter to our initial paragraph which stated we were about “loving God and loving others.”

This last video captures our approach in that regard:

Hugh Halter – Being a Friend of Sinners from Q Place on Vimeo.

If you stuck with us throughout this long-winded explanation of our ministry then kudos to you!  You are probably someone who can make a difference on this earthly plane in addition to the eternal plane and we look forward to meeting and ministering with you!

Ever since we started back in 1991, the vision of the LIGHT! has been about RELATIONSHIPS, specifically promoting:

• lifelong relationships with God
• meaningful relationships with each other
• “salt and light” relationships with those outside the LIGHT!

We humbly acknowledge that, while we have done (and will continue to do!) a reasonably good job in the first two areas, we are going to sharpen our mission to emphasize the third relationship with our fellow citizens.  We will cultivate the environment and allocate the resources to prosper these key relationships even as we shed “light” on the problem of inequality in our country while being “salt” to our community.

In closing let us leave you with two thoughts regarding God and country:

From Saint Augustine we have:

In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas
“In that which is necessary (salvation issues), UNITY; in that which is doubtful (non-necessary, non-salvation issues), LIBERTY; in all things, CHARITY”

Printed on US Currency we have:

In God we trust and
E Pluribus unum
“Out of many, one”

Yours for bringing our Church and our Country together to make disciples even as we solve our time’s biggest social problem of inequality!),

R&L and the Staff of the LIGHT! =)