“I don’t think you’re going to have SWAT teams out there looking for somebody with dark skin, or can’t speak the language.”

That was the comment of a Tennessee lawmaker who plans to fly to Arizona on July 29 to commemorate that state’s immigration enforcement legislation become law.

Her statement was in response to fears that the law would result in racial profiling – targeting people based solely on physical appearance.

Already, one of her state House colleagues has charged that workers at the Nashville Music City Center construction site are illegal immigrants.  How did he know?  He saw them and he could tell by looking at them.

Ten Tennessee lawmakers taking a junket to Arizona plan to craft similar legislation.  “The majority of the Americans have spoken, they support this legislation,” the Tennessee lawmaker said.  Really?  And what plebiscite did she review to come up with that statement.  Perhaps she’s simply reading tealeaves.

Arizona’s law gives uniformed police officers the right to demand identification papers during lawful stops, detentions or arrests.  Arizona residents will have the ability to report folks whom they suspect to be in the country illegally.

If I decide to go to Arizona, or if such legislation is enacted in Tennessee, I have a question no one has ever answered.  If on the remote chance that I might possibly be stopped for speeding, what are these identification papers I will need to prove I am a U.S. citizen?  Will I need to carry my passport around like when I leave the United States?  Is there some other official document I will need?  Or, will the well-discerning police officer have the good sense to see that I am a red-neck (excuse me, red blooded) American and obviously am not an illegal immigrant.  I mean, I’m as Anglo as they come.  How could I possibly be an illegal immigrant?

I’m giving up on Sunday school after deciding it is not worth the effort.

Because I have the opportunity to choose, I am deciding to put my efforts into building a community group instead.

Actually, I’m not totally abandoning Sunday school.  I will continue attending a traditional early hour Sunday school class but I won’t teach a class at the second hour.

I’m not advocating a mass abandonment of Sunday school.   If it works for you, that’s great.

After six years of teaching a young adult class, I foresee better potential investing in another format.  Sunday school can work.  And, my class could have been more effective with more investment from me.

But, it isn’t working.  And, just because it is the way Southern Baptists have done Bible study for the past 70 years or so doesn’t mean it is the way we have to do it.  And, it doesn’t mean it is the best way to do it.  It is possible that the model doesn’t work for this generation.

Semester breaks and military deployments create major attendance shifts in my class.  At best, there is little commitment from class members.  If there is something else happening for the weekend, they are gone.  Also, there is no expectation for attendance or participation.  They come, they listen, and they go on without apparent significant life change.

I believe that engaging God’s word and meaningful Christ-centered relationships will result in life change.

My prayer is that a group facilitator and I can connect with a community group from a wide age and social spectrum to develop interlocking relationships.  In the context of those relationships, we seek to bring about life change, encourage evangelism and create a global approach to missions.

There is a lot that can happen.  There is a lot that needs to happen.  I’m ready to explore a different approach.  Life’s too short to spend on investments that aren’t producing life-changing returns.

Exactly what does an illegal immigrant look like?

Is he a Hispanic who doesn’t speak English, as most people seem to think?  Or, is he Oriental?  Maybe he is of apparent Mid-Eastern origin and without a doubt would be Muslim terrorist out to kill us all.  Or, maybe she is an Anglo with perfect English and apparent middle-class values who is in the United States as a Russian spy with fabricated papers.

Whoever these illegal immigrants are, where ever they came from, and whatever it is they are doing here, every politician who comes screaming into my living room insists that we have got to send them back where they came from.

This whole question of how to identify these miscreants is the focus this week as a Tennessee lawmaker claims he had been on the Nashville Music City Center construction site and had seen workers he suspects are illegal.  Really?  Dude, what made them so obviously illegal?  How does one look at an individual working his butt off in the sweltering Nashville heat and humidity and immediately determine he is illegal and should be loaded on the next boat and shipped back to wherever he came from?

How does an illegal immigrant differ from a legal immigrant?  Does one speak English and the other doesn’t?  Is one dressed better than the other?  I wonder — do they smell different?

This issue is so complex and deep that I can’t even begin to unwrap it.  I’m disturbed by the American mentality of I got mine and I’m keeping it.

Let’s step back from the emotion just a bit.  There is this imposing statue in the New York harbor with a torch lifted high in the air.  I’m pretty sure the inscription on that statue says something about giving me “your tired, your poor, your hungry.”  Until about 1810, we were all about that idea.  But, then we started limiting and establishing quotas for who could get off the boat.  The limitations are consistently based on fear.  Quotas have shifted with the fears.

Apparently, it is time to extinguish the torch, get the lady out of the harbor and close the door.  We’ve reached the point where we are content to be just us and no more.  The land of opportunity is now closed.  The American dream is no longer available. It’s just you and me, buddy.  And, by the way, I need to see your papers.

For about as many generations as Anglos have been settled in the hills of East Tennessee, primary products from the area have been black coal and white lightning.

I suppose it is appropriate that the boot boy has dealt with both products during the recent session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

As speaker of the Senate, boot boy was involved in legislation that sort of, kind of, well…almost legalized production of white lightening.  And, he engineered political maneuvers to block legislation that would limit mountain top removal coal mining practices.

During the governor candidates’ debate on Monday night, boot boy had an intriguing response to a question about promoting green power sources.  As he rambled through a response, the boot boy concluded by saying the state has 200 years worth of coal remaining in the ground.

That may be true.  I can’t imagine what research he is drawing on to get that kind of number for such a non-renewable energy source.  Even if we go with that number, how does he plan to get that coal out of the ground?  Some coal veins are just not accessible.  And, many may be accessible but the cost to the environment is not worth it.

If there is anything to be learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, it is that we must carefully weigh the consequences of pursuing our next energy fix.  Boot boy, apparently, would be willing to level every hill in East Tennessee and fill every valley and stream with rock and sludge grubbing for that last nugget of coal.

Even if Tennessee Republicans do not nominate boot boy for governor, he still has two more years in his current Senate term.  And, no doubt, his Republican loyalty club will keep him as Senate speaker.  We can only hope that the good folks of Sullivan County will see fit in 2012 to bring him home rather than return him to Nashville.  By the time he gets home the hills of East Tennessee will be flattened so badly that he will think he is in the Memphis flat lands.

Being on campus from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. may seem like an interesting way to earn a living, but David Fischer sees that as his job.

And, he is more interested in developing relationships that lead to presenting the gospel and developing disciples than in making living.

David is a missionary to the campus of Austin Peay State University.  He is connected with Bethel Community Church but he is responsible for raising his own support.

Spending just an hour listening to David talk about his passion for the outreach to the campus makes me wonder why I’m not doing more.

During the school year, David has a Sunday evening worship service on campus that draws at least 100 students each week.  Students at the Sunday night service break off into small groups that meet after the worship service or at other times during the week.

It is in those small groups that students develop relationships that lead to discipleship.  That is important because without the relationships, discipleship is nothing more than harassment, David observes.

David has a key leader and two apprentice leaders assigned to each small group.  Those are the primary ones David is pouring his life into.  He is constantly in contact with those leaders meeting with them regularly, but not micromanaging them.

David says the relationships he develops and those his leaders develop are key to their ability to draw students and spread the gospel on campus.

David believes that the world can be changed by reaching college students.  And, he is convinced that reaching Generation Next will happen by going to them, not by asking them to come to you.

And, David says, it’s all about relationships.   It is working for David.  Have you tried it?

There are no pews in the church; or, there is no church in the pews.  The church is not in the pews or in a building or in a location.  If church is the church, it is scattered.

For the past month, I have been forceful in comments about challenging the status quo, changing to meet the challenge of this generation and having the courage to make a difference.

I have been called to move from generalities to specifics.  This is my manifesto.

I speak of my own local church but the truths apply to the larger church in general.

I love my church.  I am committed to my church.  I am passionate about my church.  Consequently, I am ready and willing to fight for my church.

The enemy with the potential of bringing the church down is not outside the church.  The enemy is within.  The enemy is present from the pew to the pulpit.  We must identify, challenge and fight complacency, apathy and mediocrity wherever they occur.

Identifying and achieving the objective will require rocking the boat.  It will require speaking out.  It will require taking a stand.  Humility is essential.  Timidity is unacceptable.

Making the church what it needs to be will require getting out of the pews because church doesn’t have cushions.  Remember the First Century church — the one we say we are modeling? Do we see them sitting in pews?  We occasionally find them gathered, but we most often find them scattered, on the move and in action.  When we find the New Testament church arguing – and we do find them arguing – it is generally about practice and never about worship style, budgets, building plans or staff assignments.

Changing the church is not about changing the pastor or the staff.  Changing the church is about changing me.  My church will never be missional, relevant, radical, primal, engaging, piercing or exciting until I am.  So, change is about me.

I am a man of unclean lips.  I live among a people of unclean lips.  But, I believe.  God, help my unbelief.

I can’t determine what programs work for you or don’t work for you.  But, I can for me.

I’ve taught Sunday school for the last 500 years (give or take about 465 years) with the past six being a young adult class.  When my commitment ends in a few weeks for this Sunday school year, I am shifting my energies to a community group.  That decision was carefully weighed.  I’ll explain later.

I have mentored and counseled young men for a least the past 15 years.  Beginning in January, I will make that more intentional, purposeful and directed.  I have found a model I want to put in place.

Being the church requires being flexible.  It requires being open to change.  It isn’t regimented, scheduled or programmed.  It is frustrating, time consuming, exhausting and draining.  It requires lots of grace, acceptance and relationships.  It is short on legalism.

But, we won’t realize that as long as we sit in pews daydreaming through another sermon.   We discover that out there where there are no pews, no stained glass windows, and no schedules and where sermons are lived out.  And, it doesn’t depend on professional ministers.  It depends on professing ministers.  When you look carefully at the New Testament church, the ministers are those who profess to follow Christ.

Last week, I was asked when this new ship would show up.  My response was, “when we build it.”  It doesn’t involve a committee.  It doesn’t require a vote. It is not covered in the by laws.  It doesn’t need a budget allocation.  It requires passion. It’s time to get started.  Are you ready?

This week, ABC News picked up on blog comments by Southern Baptist Seminary’s Russell Moore about the moral implications of the Gulf oil crisis.

ABC quoted Moore as saying, “We simply can’t be at the place where some evangelicals were prior to this of simply dismissing the whole idea of environmental protection as … Al Gore’s cause and the cause of hippies on their food co-op.”

A few years ago, I observed a new movement among conservative evangelicals to embrace environmental issues.

Perhaps Moore’s comments signal a breakthrough in conservative consciousness as he has a broad following among evangelical conservatives.

For 30 years now, religious conservatives have rallied with political conservatives which has encamped them with economic conservatives.  In the black-and-white world of politics, this has pitted them against environmental conservationists who for some reason tend to be painted as liberals.

Environmental issues are not exclusively liberal concerns.  Moore gives it a great perspective: “We’ve had an inadequate view of human sin.  Because we believe in free markets, we’ve acted as though this means we should trust corporations to protect the natural resources and habitats.”

Moore observes that the Gulf oil leak will perhaps awaken evangelicals to environmental concerns.  He points to the need to extend healthy skepticism to corporations.

Corporations are not our friends.  They are not looking out for our interests.  They are not looking out for the good of future generations.  They are not concerned about the environment.

But why should conservative evangelicals care?    Taking the Bible literally and wholly requires attention to the Old Testament.   It is there that God commanded us to be stewards of the earth he gave us.  Moore said that caring for God means caring for God’s creation.

God gave us a pretty good earth with lots of neat stuff to enjoy – not to mention the essentials elements for survival the earth provides.  We’re obligated to take care of it.  Moore says we need to hold the government, corporations and individuals accountable as part of our responsibility in caring for the earth.  Well said.

Math is not one of my mad skills.  The closest I got to math in high school geometry was taking census of the cows on the hillside across the football field while staring out the window daydreaming.

Even so, I think I can make sense of the numbers that show coal mining doesn’t add up in Tennessee.

A 51-page report from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy indicates coal mining in Tennessee actually costs state taxpayers.

Apparently, the only people benefitting from coal mining in Tennessee are the boot boy and his buddies.  The report found that the coal industry contributed about $1.1 million to the state budget in taxes and fees but the industry costs taxpayers $1.6 million in subsidies and expenses for mining regulation, reclamation and road repairs.

The coal industry contributed more than $300,000 to political campaigns in the past year.  The boot boy who would be governor was one of the major recipients of that plum pie. Perhaps that would explain why he and 15 of his senate buddies blocked a vote to halt mountaintop removal mining in Tennessee in the final hours of General Assembly session a few weeks ago.

Coal mining creates jobs in Tennessee? The report shows that no county in Tennessee depends on the coal industry for more than two percent of its total employment.  And, coal mining is not a positive economic engine for the state.  Factoring the costs of coal mining along with direct and indirect income from employment in coal mining, the revenue is $5.75 million while the expenditures total $8.74 million.  Wow, that’s a $2.9 million deficit expense for coal mining.

This is the totally crazy part of this whole thing: coal mining costs the state in revenue and at the same time is totally destroying the God-crafted hills of east Tennessee.

Boot boy, are you stupid?  No, you’re just taking care of someone other than the voters who put you in office.

June Cleaver is dead.  So is Ward.  And Wally.  And, the Beaver, too.

Actually, the Cleavers only existed on television from 1957 through 1963.  But, they were the real American family.

In some ways, we still believe the Cleavers of Mayfield actually existed.  We programmed church to cater to the Cleavers who were consistent, dedicated, followed Dr. Spock, and predictable.

But, that family doesn’t exist.  Actually, it never did.

What does exist is a radically different family in the 21^st Century.  And, church needs to be different in order to have an impact.

I keep coming back to this question with haunting regularity – are we willing to change to meet the challenge of a new generation?

Meeting the challenge of a new generation requires us to be radically different.  That may mean different programs.  That may mean different schedules.  That may mean church looks radically different than it did 40 years ago.

It means that we have to challenge the status quo.  It means we must look at the objective.  It means the way we always did things needs to be evaluated.

I’m perplexed by the mentality of protecting the program to the point of going down with the ship.  The goal is not to save the ship.  The goal is to get to a destination.  The ship is only a means to get there.  If the current ship is sinking, then find another ship.

If the Beaver did something like staying on a sinking ship, Wally would say, “Beav, that was pretty dumb.”

I’m ready to try out a new boat.  Is anybody else interested in staying afloat?

A great furor is rumbling in Rutherford County concerning a plan to build an Islamic mosque there.  While there are legitimate concerns about zoning, much of the opposition is based in fear.  Fear is never a good basis for sound judgment.

Much of the vocal opposition focuses on concern about Islamic intentions of doing us harm.

Years ago, I had an Army buddy, Hal Kataoka, who relayed stories of his father being stripped of his California farmland and placed in an internment camp just because he was first generation Japanese.  The impact of fear-based actions is incredible.

There are legitimate concerns about Islamic extremists in the United States who want to do harm.  But, there also are Christian fanatics who seek to do harm to others and have done so.  Fear of extremists and fanaticism should not be broadened into a stereotype.

The debate in Rutherford County also has danced on the issue of religious freedom with some even saying that religious freedom doesn’t apply to Islam.  What?  When freedom of religion was established in the First Amendment there wasn’t a list of religions that would be afforded freedom.

When we talk about Islamic intentions to do us harm, we forget the Crusades.  Yeah, they were 800 to 1,000 years ago, but animosity about that much bloodshed lasts a long time.  The specific objective of the crusades was to wipe the infidels of Islam out of the Holy Land.  Does that language sound familiar?

Assuming that peace is actually an objective or even an obtainable objective, the road to peace will never be a paved on a foundation of fear and hatred.

We need to examine our motives when we try to balance grace and hatred together.  One will always outweigh the other.