Greater Love Has No Man...

John 15:13 says “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” On Wednesday our whole family went on a nine hour D-Day Normandy tour and it was, quite honestly, one of the most memorable and moving experiences I’ve ever had. Our group was small, only eight people plus the guide. We began our tour in the little village of Ste. Marie Eglise. It was a landing site for some paratroopers from the 101st Airborne division and it waws featured in the movie The Longest Day. Our guide, Julian, was from the south of England and was a wealth of knowledge about WWII and especially D-Day and the tactics that led up to it. We left the first site having a greater respect for paratroopers and how difficult their job was.
Our tour continued at a tiny village called Angoville-Au-Plain. In this town of only 43 people, two medics set up an aid station in the little church and even thought one had received a week of training and the other only one day of training, together they saved the lives of 80 wounded men and one child. In this church was the first place I saw a stained glass window with John 15:13.
Our tour then took us to Utah Beach where part of the invasion force landed on June 6, 1944. As the invasion unfolded, the troops landed in the wrong spot but that proved providential as they encountered the weakest opposition and less than 20 men were killed. At Utah Beach, the memorial also had John 15:13 inscribed.
At a site called Pointe du Hoc, we saw the remains of Nazi bunkers and machine gun nests and craters from the shells and bombs of 64 years ago. It was somewhat surreal. At Pointe du Hoc, the soldiers had to climb up sheer cliffs in 30 seconds or less while being shot at.
From Pointe du Hoc it was a short drive to Omaha Beach. It was at Omaha Beach that John 15:13the American invasion force paid the highest price in terms of lives lost. Out of a landing force of 34,000 at Omaha Beach, 1,700 were killed on the beach itself and another 2,500 lost their lives scaling the cliffs or taking the stronghold. Standing on that beach where so many lives were lost was quite an emotional experience for me but that was mild compared to when we arrived at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.
Even thought I do not personally know anyone buried there, a wave of emotion of gratitude and sorrow flooded over me. That peaked when we were able to meet 90-year-old Mike Fitch from South Carolina who was there to visit the graves of friends who died right beside him on June 6, 1944. He was a survivor of Omaha Beach and graciously spoke with us for a few minutes. It is hard to describe in words the feeling of seeing so many graves of people, over 9,000 in all, who died in such a short period of time—in a sense for me, to preserve the freedom I enjoy every day.
This experience has changed forever the way I see those who serve in the armed forces. I have always been appreciate and grateful, but after coming to Normandy, I will always see these events and people in a totally different light.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” What then is to be said of love that gives it’s life for someone it never even met? Incredible! The only thing greater is the love of Christ Himself.

Great Birthday, Great Father's Day

The posts to the blog are getting fewer and far between! As the last post said, I spent the week of June 9-13 attending the “Toolbox” conference at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. This organization was founded 25 years ago by John R.W. Stott as a way to help Christians understand and engage with the cure around them. Stott believed that all Christians should be in the Word and also in the world, seeking to transform the world through the Word. The conference was incredibly enlightening and I enjoyed making friends with people from England, Scotland, Ireland, America and even Sri Lanka.
Friday was my birthday and the conference group sang Happy Birthday and gave me a cake—they were all really nice and devoutly committed disciples. Many work in an environment where they are one of only a handful of Christians or they serve churches in a country where only 7-8% of the population attend church more than once a month. After the conference ended we celebrated my birthday at a great fish and chips restaurant and went to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. It is a 700 year old tradition of locking the castle that now houses the crown jewels.
Saturday was a travel day—taking the train to Paris. We arrived in the afternoon and explored the area around Notre Dame. Sunday was Father’s Day and it was one of the best ever for me because I got to spend time with each of my sons separately. Jonathan and I went out mid-morning and did some exploring and picture taking. We climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe for some cool pictures. We all had lunch at a Chinese restaurant together and since it was Father’s Day they brought a couple of special things for me and since they mainly spoke French, they kept pointing at me and saying “for you, for you.”
After lunch I got to spend time with David walking around and taking pictures. We went to the Place de Concorde (where Marie Antoinette lost her head), the Arc and the Eiffel Tower. We had a great time and joked around laughed a lot. Later in the day, I also got to spend some time with Matt watching one of the many soccer games on TV (in French of course). It was a great Father’s Day.
Yesterday we finally got to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We saved time and money by walking up the first two levels (680 steps) and all agreed that it would have been worth the money to ride the elevator all the way. Before we left this morning we walked in one more huge, old church. I noticed something that I’d seen several times before, but this time it struck me as odd. They want you to pay to light a candle signifying a prayer (in Europe you pay for almost everything, even to use the bathroom). It occurred to me, I don’t need to pay to pray. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, I can talk to God anytime—for free. Thank God for the freedom to pray 24/7.

Farewell to London

Steve has been in a conference all week at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity and has enjoyed learning a lot about how we are Christians need to engage our culture and bring the light of Christ to a dark world. It has been very practical and he is excited about bringing back new ideas and applications to FBC Siloam. He gets through at 3 pm today and since it is his birthday, we will go wherever he wants and eat a special dinner. Then at 10 pm tonight we have tickets to something called the "Ceremony of the Keys" at the Tower of London. This has been going on every night for 700 years and it involves the "Beefeater" guards from the tower locking up the Crown Jewels and the Tower for the night in a special ceremony.
I think the three boys have had a great week in London together. We've done some things together and a few apart: Kensington Palace (Jeannie), the London Aquarium, Tower of London, London Movie Museum, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Big Ben, Westminster, Houses of Parliament, and then lots of pictures of all that and exploring bookstores and their favorite sports stores (looking for soccer "football" jerseys) and other cool London clothes.
One of the highlights of this week was the Sunday service at Hillsong London (see picture). This is a contemporary church that meets on Sundays in the Dominion Theatre (which during the rest of the week has the show "Queen"). The boys have loved Hillsong United and Hillsong music for a long time and it was great to be in this church and worship together. Matt was down front with all the kids jumping up and down. Steve and I were back a few rows with some of the older swaying, clapping, hand-raising folks. The music was awesome and the preacher was good (not as good as someone I know) and it was great to worship together. Another great experience happened on Thursday when I came out of St. Martins-in-the-Field church by Trafalgar Square. I heard Christian music and walked across the street to the square and found a group of Asian Christians singing praise songs together. What a joy to join with a group of strangers and sing "How Great is our God" in the very heart of London.
Tomorrow we head to Paris for three days and then to the Normandy area for two days in order to explore World War II sites. Then it is back to London for a couple of days and we fly home on June 22. We are having a great time but Steve and I in particular are ready to get back to the USA and specifically, back to Siloam Springs and the best church in the world!

What's a Minster?

Before we left Scotland, Matt and I decided we had to try a native Scottish dish called “haggis.” It is a sausage of sorts that contains several things you really don’t want to think about when you are eating it. So the morning we were leaving Edinburgh, Matt and I went out for breakfast and had some haggis. Here’s a little travel advisory: if you come to Scotland, skip the haggis! Oh well, it was fun to try it.
When we left Scotland we travelled to the town of York. York has been around since a Roman settlement in 300 AD and then the Vikings were there a few hundred years later. Ultimately, it became a northern capital of England in their battles against Scotland. It has great architecture, old walls you can walk on around the city, and an area called the “Shambles” with buildings right out of a Dickens tale. The centerpiece of York is the HUGE church called the York Minster. You may wonder, “what’s a minster?” According to the people at the church, minster means a “missionary sending center.” The York Minster was for many years the center of the Protestant Reformation in England under Henry VIII. Henry acted for the wrong reasons, but God used those circumstances to spread the gospel in England and Scotland and ultimately to America.
When I learned what a “minster” was, I thought: isn’t that what every church needs to be—a missionary sending center with a red-hot passion for seeing lost people come to know Jesus.
Starting Monday, I will be attending the Toolbox Conference at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity and FBC will be starting the week of Mission Siloam. As we pray for God to use Mission Siloam to enlarge His kingdom, please pray that God will use this conference to help me enlarge my heart for a lost world.
On a lighter note, we toured Hampton Court Palace outside of London which was the home of Henry VIII. This is an enormous palace with “drawing rooms” and “withdrawing rooms!” and even closets that were twice as big as our hotel room. Henry had way too much money to spend and apparently was a legend in his own mind!

Following Great Examples

A lot has happened since my last posting. Jeannie and I finished out our anniversary trip to Austria by going to Salzburg. Salzburg is a beautiful city with over 70 churches – most of them Roman Catholic because the city was ruled by archbishops for hundreds of years. But the main attraction to us was seeing the scenes from the movie The Sound of Music (see pictures). We went on a Sound of Music tour that allowed us to see many of the places that were used in the movie and then when we got back to Oxford we rented the movie and watched it again. We had a great time in Salzburg and seeing the churches and artifacts prompted more questions about the difference between form and function in Christianity. All of these beautiful but empty churches are proof that what a church does is infinitely more important than how they do it and if we get stuck thinking there is only one way to worship and do church, we will end up being a museum not a church.

When we returned to Oxford, we were excited that David and Matt were coming soon. Jeannie and I always enjoy time to ourselves, but both of us found ourselves really missing the boys after this long! I spent a couple of days doing some research at the world famous Bodleian library and we prepared to say good-bye to Oxford. We very much enjoyed our time in Oxford. We enjoyed participating in the life of the college and we enjoyed the relaxed pace of our days that allowed us time to read and listen to the Lord.

On Saturday May 31, we took a train to Edinburgh, Scotland and began a time of exploring new places with David and Matt. We are staying in an apartment right next to Edinburgh Castle – you can actually see the castle out of our window! There are a lot of castles in Scotland and we have visited three so far. The most elaborate was Edinburgh Castle that is rich in history of Scotland and all of Great Britain. We also visited a place called Stirling Castle. It is located in a small community near Edinburgh and is most well known for being the place where William Wallace defeated the English in 1297. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Braveheart” you know the story of William Wallace. We watched the movie Sunday evening and then the next day went to the very place where William Wallace lived and fought. It was pretty cool!

The other castle we visited is in a place called Doune. It is a remote little village and the only reason we knew about this castle was it was the one used in the movie, “Monte Python and the Holy Grail.” We had a great time laughing about scenes from the movie and the people at the castle even loaned us coconuts and a helmet like the black knight so we could do some fun movies and pictures.

As much fun as it was to visit sites of history and movie significance, I was impressed by the example of integrity and courage in two men of Scotland: William Wallace and John Knox. Both were men of great integrity and courage. It was said of John Knox after he died, “there lies a man who had no fear of any man.” Of course, William Wallace’s nickname was “Braveheart.” But the thing that clinched these impressions for me was finding out the name Abbott comes from the Scottish clan of McNab whose motto was “let all fear be absent.” May that be true of all of us as we follow God’s will.

Anniversary trip

Jeannie and I began our 30th anniversary trip in the small Austrian village of Hallstatt. Hallstatt is amazing and can hardly be described in words (so I’m adding a couple of pictures). Only 1200 people live here and they built the town on the side of the mountain right next to the lake. The buildings are literally built into the mountain and you can’t go anywhere very far without climbing steps! The town itself is really old, going back thousands of years because of the salt mines. Most of the people are Catholic and, in fact, it wasn’t until the 18th century that they even allowed a Protestant church in the town. Of course, we took tons of pictures and enjoyed the quiet, slow pace. Because of our travel schedule, we didn’t plan to eat until late and the most fun part of the dinner was sitting across from a group of young men from Thailand who were filming a travel commercial/movie! They ordered this huge feast of grilled fish, steak, ham and more and then proceeded to film all of it while two of the guys talked about what they were eating in Thai. It took forever for them to arrange the shots and close-ups to get the right angles and to show the guys eating the food in the right order, etc. By the time they actually started to eat, everything was cold! But they explained that this is what they always do and the restaurant people took the stuff and heated it up again. It was a fun bonus “floor show” to our dinner!

In Hallsatt, we decided to forego any big tours of stuff like the salt mines in favor of quieter days of relaxing and walking and taking pictures. We went to the “Charnel House” located behind the Catholic church. This Charnel House contains about 600 painted skulls! This is a cultural tradition of the eastern part of Austria where people are buried for 10 years and then they dig up the bones and bleach them in the sun and then paint them and put the bones in this Charnel House. They would then re-use the grave space. Most of the skulls in this house were from the 18th century, but one was as late as 1983 and you can still see the lady’s gold tooth in the skull! This is just one example of some very unusual religious traditions that we have observed in Europe, but definitely one of the most strange! The people connected this tradition with the passage in Ezekiel 37 where Ezekiel was in the valley of dry bones and God brought life to them again.

The sad thing is that what really needs the breath of God’s life are the religious practices we have observed. What is it that turns a church that was once the center of life in a community into a museum of the past? One of the things that I am praying that God will impress on me during this time is how to lead our church to avoid becoming only admired for our architecture or valued only for historical interest. My desire is for First Baptist to continue to be a vital force for God long after I have passed off the scene and that requires giving much thought to the future, not just the past!

A Lesson in Waiting

It has been a while since I posted anything. May 20th was mine and Jeannie’s 30th anniversary! We got up that day and took the train to Moreton-in- Marsh in the Cotswolds. They were having a huge outdoor market so we went exploring. Some of the salespeople were clever like the guys who looked like a middle eastern with a long beard and said, “Bin Laden is with the Taliban but I am the “towel man” – he was selling bath towels! When we got hungry we saw a lot of people coming out of a little fish & chips shop so Jeannie went in to investigate. They were frying fish and chips as fast as they could and then they wrap it up in several sheets of manila paper with lots of salt and malt vinegar. We got two and two drinks and went to sit down at the bus stop.
Riding a bus in the Cotswolds is an opportunity to increase your prayer life. The roads are narrow (think of Helen St. by our house and take off 2-3 feet). So when one bus meets another bus or a large truck, they really have to maneuver to get by. We went to another village called Chipping Campden. We walked around and explored the shops, a large church and saw the quintessential Cotswold scenes of old church, stone walls, ancient gravestones, and lots of sheep grazing on the hills. Lots of beautiful flowers and old buildings with the Cotswolds honey colored stone. We found out where the thatched roof homes were and walked to see them. There were many that were quite large with lovely gardens. We walked along a street called “Sheep Street” that had one very nice house for sale that we later saw was £1.25 million or about $2.5 million. I decided that those sheep farmers weren’t “pulling the wool over our eyes,” they must have “fleeced” a lot of people to be able to afford a home like that! (Sorry, a little sheep pun humor for ewe).
Our day ended with a lesson in trust and patience. As we waited for the bus to return from Chipping Campden to Moreton-in-Marsh we realized that we had looked at the schedule wrong and we either had to take a taxi back ($40) or wait for a later bus that would put us back only 10 minutes before our train was to leave. We decided to trust that God would allow us to make it back on the bus in time or He would work things out for a later train. Of course, God already knew that, 1) we would have Speed Racer as a bus driver, and 2) the train would be a few minutes late, which gave us plenty of time. We made it back to Oxford in time to eat dinner and get ready to leave the next day to go to Salzburg, Austria (this was the real 30th anniversary trip).Because we had to wait an extra two hours in a little town that we had already seen, we also learned a little about the value of waiting. Waiting allowed us to have some quality time together on our 30th anniversary to just talk and share. It reminded us both of the importance of learning to wait on God. Sometimes we read God’s schedule wrong (or more often try to put Him on our schedule) and so we end up waiting on God’s perfect timing. We can either wait patiently or impatiently. When we wait patiently, we can discover the value of using that time to deepen our relationship with God, to have extended conversations with Him so that, at the end, we value the waiting time instead of regretting it.