In the meantime

Another Heartbreak for Bell Shoals

For the second time in just over three months, the congregation of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Tampa is dealing with the loss of a beloved pastoral staff member. Simeon Nix, Bell Shoal's worship pastor for the last thirteen years, suffered a heart attack late Saturday night and passed away early Sunday morning at Brandon Regional Hospital. 

Simeon Nix was a big man physically and spiritually.  Over the last three months, he guided the heartbroken church through the grieving process following the death of Senior Pastor Forrest Pollock and his son in a plane crash.  Both in his public ministry from the platform and in countless formal and informal counseling sessions, Nix helped the hurting church realize that God was still in control and that He still had a plan.

It was a familiar role for Simeon.  Earlier in his ministry at Bell Shoals he had to comfort and guide the church through the loss of Pollock's predecessor, Ken Alford, who resigned in 2002 because of a moral failure.

Gary Payne, a friend and staff colleague of Simeon's was quoted as saying, "He was never afraid to give you a big hug and tell you that he loved you."

Last Tuesday, Nix was hospitalized after experiencing significant chest pain.  Doctors cleared the blockage by inserting a stent.  His prognosis was good for a full recovery.  He was released from the hospital Friday and told friends and fellow staff members how good he felt. He even took a short walk around the neighborhood Saturday night with his wife and some friends.

Late Saturday night, Nix suffered another heart attack and passed away a few hours later.  He was 47 years old.

Simeon leaves his wife, Beth, and the two children they adopted as toddlers from Russia: Bre'Ana, 7, and Sterling, 7. His extended family was the Bell Shoals congregation, which numbers about 7,000.

Funeral arrangements are pending as of this writing.

Related:
Dr. Forrest Pollock Dies In A Plane Crash 
Heaven Only Knows

The Joy of the Lord is My Strength

Sometimes we in the church are accused of glossing over the fact that life can be hard.  We sometimes tend to give the impression that all you need to do is give your heart to Jesus and all of your problems will be solved, all your bills will be paid, you will have success and prosperity and everything you touch will turn to gold.  If you are a Christian, you will have a continual smile on your face and always be happy.  We make all our baskets, we sink all our putts, we close all our deals.

Does that sound like your testimony?  I know it doesn't sound like mine! 

The problem is that we've confused joy with happiness.  Happiness is dependent on happenings.  Circumstances in your life dictate whether or not you are happy.  Joy, on the other hand, is a gift from God - a fruit of the Spirit that transcends whatever is happening in your life.  Joy allows you to rise —even to soar— above difficult circumstances, challenges, and heartaches.  Joy comes from knowing Who is in control and that He has a plan to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)  We do not draw our strength from the great feeling we get when things go right; if we did, we would be powerless when hard times and adversity hit, and we would all be easy pickings for the devil.  No, it is the joy of the Lord that is our strength! 

Jesus wasn't happy about going to the cross.  He prayed the night before "If there is any other way, let this cup pass from me..."  But He did have joy in obedience.  The writer to the Hebrews put it this way: "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross..."  There was joy for the Lord Jesus even in the pain and the agony of the cross because He knew the end result of His obedience and sacrifice would be the offer of salvation for you and me.  Jesus chose to go through hell for us rather than to go to heaven without us.

In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul talks about joy over and over again.  Yet he wrote that letter to the church at Philippi while he was imprisoned in horrible conditions.  How could he write about joy while imprisoned in a dark, cold, rat-infested Roman cell?  It's because joy is not dependent on circumstances!

When you and I face tough times, we can draw on great reserves of joy that are rooted in our knowledge of the faithfulness of God.  That's how Job was able to say in the midst of tragedy, heartache and great loss, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15, KJV) He knew God and He trusted God.  That is how he could have "joy in unrelenting pain" (Job 6:10, NIV)

Job's friends made the mistake of misjudging Job. But what was worse, they misrepresented God.  They presumed to speak for God in telling Job he needed to repent.  Job's friends naturally assumed that since things weren't going great for Job, he wasn't living right, and God was punishing him for his sins.  I'm afraid the spirit of Job's friends is still very much with us.  We see and hear it just about every Sunday.

Now, don't get me wrong here— I've spent most of my life in church.  Since I was a teenager I have either worked for a church or worked with organizations that worked with churches.  I love the church.  I love church people.  But let's be honest—sometimes we have a problem keeping it real.  We look at each other and smile real big and say, "I'm fine!  We're all fine! How about you?  Are you fine?" while inside we're hurting.  The problem is if I admit to you that I am hurting or struggling, you might assume that I'm not spiritual enough.  To avoid that I just pretend that  everything is fine, when it really isn't.

If there is any place on earth that you should be able to keep it real, it ought to be the church.  God's Word tells us to confess our faults to each other so we may be healed. (James 5:16) But you can't confess your faults if you are afraid to let me know that you have any!  In the church we, like Job's friends, have bought into the notion that "spiritual" Christians don't have any problems.

But if you think about it for a minute I believe you will agree with me that the most spiritual people I have ever known were those who had walked through deep dark valleys of sorrow and heartache yet through it all their faith and trust never wavered.  It wasn't the smiley-faced folks pretending to be perfect who touched my heart, it was those who I saw pressed on every side but not crushed, cast down but not destroyed.  It was in those people that I saw that indeed the joy of the Lord is our strength.  I want to be one of those people!

Lord, help me to draw my strength from your gift of joy and not from my feelings or from my present circumstances!

Coming Home

In general, I shy away from posting things of a personal nature here, but I know that you will forgive and indulge me sharing this bit of exciting news in our family.  About two hours ago, a plane took of from Johannesburg, South Africa, heading to Paris, starting the first leg of my daughter Faith's trip home.  She left Swaziland Friday and then had a chance to attend the Passion Conference's World Tour in Joburg.

Now at last, she's on her way home.  The last twelve weeks have flown by for all of us, but it still has been a long time.  We've all missed her terribly, although Chris admits to kind of enjoying being an "only child" for the summer, not to mention having the car all to himself.

Her plane arrives in ATL tomorrow afternoon at 1:40 after stops in Paris and Amsterdam.  I'm sure she'll be exhausted, but I know she will have a bunch of stories to tell us about her amazing summer in Swazi.

Tomorrow will be a very momentous day for the Riley family.  Faith arrives home, Chris heads back to work as an ASP worker at an area elementary school, and Fonda has her first day of classes as the Music Specialist at another area elementary school.

I have the best job tomorrow.  I get to be the chauffeur who collects Faith from the airport and brings her home!

Check out Faith's blog from Swaziland here.

Muscular Christians

Just moments ago, we finished watching Steven Curtis Chapman and his family on CNN's Larry King Live.  It was an incredible interview where God was honored, the Gospel was shared and the eternal question of why bad things happen to good people - what C.S. Lewis called "The Problem of Pain" - was addressed as well as I've seen it addressed in a long time.

For those of you who do not know, Steven Curtis Chapman's adopted daughter Maria Sue was killed this past May in a tragic accident in the driveway of their home.  She was run over by an SUV driven by her brother Will.  Such a tragic circumstance could rip even a solid family apart.  Guilt, anger, blame, remorse, and grief could so easily have caused the Chapmans to doubt their faith, to blame each other, or to blame God.

Instead, tonight on Larry King Live America and the world saw a family whose faith is the real deal.  A family who has been tested in the worst kind of way and emerged to say that God is good and that His grace is sufficient.  We got a glimpse into the heart and soul of a high-profile Christian personality and saw clearly that he truly believes - and lives - every word that he has written, sung about and proclaimed for the last 21 years.

It was especially touching to hear how immediately after the accident their focus was not on their dead daughter but on their devastated son, Will.  They told of Steven physically wrapping his arms around his son and assuring him of his love, and assuring him that they did not blame him for what happened.

One story in particular broke my heart, yet warmed it at the same time.  At the hospital after they learned that their daughter had indeed passed away, the family prayed together and asked God to show them something to assure them that Maria was OK, that she was safe in His arms.  When they got back home, they found a picture that Maria had colored the morning of the accident.  It was a flower with six petals.  One of the petals was shaded in blue.  Beside the flower, Maria had written in huge letters S-E-E.  They said Maria had never written that word before.  As far as they knew, the five year-old Maria only knew how to spell her first name.  The message of the picture was clear to the Chapmans.  They had six children.  One of them was now in heaven.  "See," she was telling them, "I'm OK."

There is a great scene in the movie Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddel, the "Flying Scotsman," the great 1924 Olympic Champion and the Pride of Scotland felt that he needed to retire from running and spend his life in more serious and important pursuits like preaching and sharing his faith.  Eric's pastor and another clergyman come to see him, seeking to persuade him to keep running for the glory of God.  They wanted Eric to see that his notoriety, his fame, and the legions of young people who idolized him were opportunities to influence lives for the gospel that a simple preacher would not have. 

The pastor looked at Eric earnestly and said, "What the world needs to see today, Eric, is muscular Christians."

What all of America saw tonight on CNN was muscular Christians.  Champions. 

Overcomers.

A Death in the Family

Skip Caray died in his sleep in his Atlanta home Sunday afternoon.  The bulletin on the news wire a couple hours ago was not unexpected, but it still stung.  It was like hearing a member of the family had passed, because in a sense, that is exactly what happened. For more than 30 years, we've been listening to Skip call Braves games, telling us the hometown of fans who come up with foul balls and announcing that once again the wave has broken out in the ballpark "for no apparent reason." 

We loved his nasally voice, his blunt assessments of people and events, and his Yoda-like syntax ("Safely reached in each of the last five games, has Yunel Escobar...")  We loved his feigned indignation with fans who would call up during his pregame show with yet another question about the Infield Fly Rule.

Skip has been in poor health for the last several years.  He almost died this past Spring.  His doctors called the family in and told them to say their goodbyes.  But Skip rallied and even returned to the broadcast booth.  He sounded weak but he still had his trademark sense of humor and sarcasm.

There were some baseball fans who didn't care for Skip, but he was always one of my favorites.  He and Pete Van Wieren, "The Professor" made an incredible team.  They helped us get through the dark days of the 1970s and 80s, when it was mighty tough to be a Braves fan.  Skip even famously participated (along with Ted Turner) in pre-game shenanigans like Ostrich races to try to bring fans to the ballpark, since they weren't coming for the baseball.  Then, Skip and Pete were the voice of the seemingly invincible Braves as they brought post season play to Atlanta for fourteen autumns in a row. 

None of us will ever forget Skip's call of Game 7 of the '92 NLCS.  The Braves trailed by one in the bottom of the ninth. Third-string catcher Francisco Cabrera was at the plate, David Justice was on third and the notoriously slow Sid Bream was on second.  Skip calmly noted the huge gap in the outfield.  "If he hits one out there, we'll be dancing in the streets," Skip said prophetically.

Cabrera did just that.  Justice scored easily from third, tying the game. Bream lumbered around the bases as Bonds - not known for his great arm - loaded up and threw to the plate.  Bond's throw was up the first base line, pulling Pirates catcher Mike LaValliere off the plate.  LaValliere lunged back attempting to apply the tag to the sliding Bream.  Skip's call was a classic:

Swung, line drive left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream! Here's the throw to the plate! He is...SAFE! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!...Braves win!

Skip Caray was a part of an iconic baseball broadcasting dynasty that included his late father Harry Caray, his son Chip, also a Braves announcer, and son Josh, an announcer for the Rome Braves. 

The Caray family was known for their colorful announcing, not for their family values.  Harry was, by all accounts, a pretty sorry excuse for a father.  Skip learned about his parent's divorce from a Chicago newspaper as he walked to school.  Sadly, Skip followed in his father's footsteps not just behind the mic but in his parenting skills as well.  Later in life, it broke Skip's heart to realize that he had inflicted on his children the same pain that Harry had inflicted on him.  He cleaned up his act and did his best to make peace with his kids and with his father.

As far as Skip was concerned, the highlight of his career wasn't the exciting calls he made during the Braves amazing 14-year run.  The biggest thrill for him was the 1991 game that he got to call with Harry and Chip not long before Harry passed away.  It was the only time in baseball history that three generations of baseball announcers shared a booth together.

After Chip joined the Braves announcing team, there was something very special about hearing the banter in the booth between him and Skip, especially when they would dispense with the broadcast formalities and refer to each other as "Dad" or "Son."  This past Father's Day, Skip urged the audience to call their Dads that day if they were still blessed to be able to do so.  "Once they're gone, you would give anything in the world to be able to talk to them, but you can't," he said.

Skip suffered from the same medical dilemma that my took my father's life - the deadly combination of kidney and heart failure. Treating the heart failure is bad for the kidneys, treating the kidneys is bad for the heart.  About all you can do is try to maintain a balance of treatments while the patient gets weaker and weaker.  Just a few weeks ago, Skip said he had no regrets. "I've had a great life... it's been a great run."

That great run ended today, and for us it is the end of an era.  It is so hard to imagine Braves baseball without Skip Caray.  It is so sad to realize we will never hear him call a game again, never hear the banter between Skip and Pete.  We'll never again hear him explain the Infield Fly Rule... again.  We'll never hear him declare that a fan from Monroe, Georgia came up with the baseball hit into the stands.  We'll never again hear him declare that it's "free baseball in Atlanta" as a game goes to extra innings.

Farewell, old friend.  You will be greatly missed.