A couple of months ago there was a large amount of shock and surprise, especially among Church of Christ people, regarding the brutal murder of Matthew Winkler, a minister in Selma, Tennessee, by his wife Mary Winkler. Naturally, the biggest question out of this situation is "How could this happen?" It seems reasonable to believe that this situation is unthinkable among a couple who serve together in ministry, are well-liked, live in a small town, and come from long line of ministry. Matthew Winkler was a third generation preacher. They served an unassuming little church and lived comfortably with their children in a nice parsonage.

But details are emerging that are revealing a dark side to their lives together, and it largely has to do with the hidden persona of Matthew Winkler. Neighbors are starting to tell stories of angry outbursts and threats to kill pets that wander onto their property. Mary is now speaking of the intense control he was maintaining over her life and his constant criticism of her every move and action.

"He had really been on me lately criticizing me for things — the way I walk, I eat, everything. It was just building up to a point. I was tired of it. I guess I got to a point and snapped."

All of these things are haunting to me because I was, at one time, close to a situation very similar to this. A well-known and well-liked minister who, behind the scenes, let his rage go uncontrolled and exerted a crippling and abusive domination over his wife and family. I sat under a streetlight with a woman who had managed to escape him for a night and heard her desperate cry for help that deftly avoided directly implicating him because of fear. There is a helplessness that grows in these situations. A fear that can, at any point, suddenly turn to anger. I experienced it and I didn't even live with him. The fear grows because confronting it with such a person runs a great risk of only deeping the threat to yourself and alienating yourself from the community because of his manipulative power with so many. So, you stay silent. You buckle under the intimidation. You stare at the floor as he verbally and mentally reduces you to nothing and reminds you of his power to crush you. He reminds you that he is the only reason you are anything. And you have no way out.

That is, until the pump action shotgun is in your hands.

Is she justified in her actions? Never. But the years and years of setup to this situation make it one that, when seen in a perspective of time, leaves little surpise in the mind of anyone who has faced such abuse. My situation was not even in a marriage context and I felt the overwhelming need to find a way to escape. Thankfully the weapon that I found that allowed me to get out from under him without being destroyed first was non-violent. But in many ways it was like a shotgun.

For the last two weeks I have taught a class at church examining what happened to Peter when his feet were washed by Jesus (John 13). I've been using Powerpoint so I've been looking for images of this event on the internet. So far, this one seems to be the best:


Why? Because it seems to be the only one that shows Jesus as he was actually described in the story: "...so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist." (John 13:4). Almost every single one of the images that portray this event have Jesus in a fancy getup and still poised in some kind of power position. They all still give Jesus a remarkable amount of dignity and religiosity. I'm thinking that if that were the case, what happened to Peter would never have taken place.

As I read through this story a couple of years ago, it suddenly occurred to me that this was a pivotal moment in the life of Peter. And I don't mean important, I mean pivotal. This was an "ah ha" moment for Peter when suddenly everything he ever thought and knew was turned on its head. Peter looked down at a nearly naked, self-humiliated man and still wanted to see his vision of the Son of God. So in a fit of total cognitive dissonance, Peter somehow tried to rectify the situation by placing himself above God and giving orders to Jesus, telling him what not to do. Then Jesus, striking the verbal blow that finally put Peter's head on straight, told him that "unless I wash you, you have no part with me." Unless I get below you, you will never be with me. Until you let me become less than you are, you will never know something greater. I see a moment of hesitation in Peter's eyes as it all comes together. The realization of what is happening rolls over him like a wave and he suddenly pitches forward to Jesus, almost beathlessly gasping the words - "Then, Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"

I'm pretty sure that all the visions Peter had of Jesus at that point were cast in a completely new light. The picture that he had developed in his head of this man was turned upside down and he saw a whole new image, one with miles and miles of new depth. An image that burst through all of the religiosity and granduer and stopped at a single point of light shining timidly upon a man with the power to blot out the sun but instead was kneeling on the floor, with almost no clothes, holding the calloused feet of a human.

That's my God.

I'm pretty sure Christians have been more interested in The Da Vinci Code than the world at large has been or ever will be.

One challenge of living in Abilene is the tremendous amount of religious showmanship. And a lot of it is not done with bad intentions, it is simply a lot of people, especially among the crowd I am around in the GST, who are working very hard to stand out among a lot of others trying to be noticed in a sea of religious things and people. This is why, when someone is simply authentic and straightforward, I really appreciate it. At High Impact Praise tonight, for example, there were a lot of words that were said because they sound really good and religious. But then there were some genuinely authentic words shared. That was refreshing. I felt like those gems of spiritual transparency that came from this person were what opened the door in the service that really let the Spirit do some work.

I hope that I am real in everything that I do. Sometimes I'm not sure that I am. I'm in a place where it is very tempting to try to build the image of the guy who knows what to say or has the right statement or insight at any certain point. But what that usually amounts to in the end is a lot of fakery and spiritual deception. I've found that many of the wisest and most knowledgable people in my world are the ones who stay quiet or have the least to say. And most of the most spiritually "in tune" people I've ever known are some of the least interested in theological pandering. They just want to live it.

There is a little independent movie that has just opened in theaters called A Prairie Home Companion.

I will be seeing it very soon, perhaps even tonight. Why? Because the man behind the movie, Garrison Keillor, has had a influential role in my life. This movie is based upon his long-running radio show of the same name that broadcasts live to NPR radio stations every Saturday night from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. Garrison Keillor is a writer, humorist, author, radio host, but most of all a storyteller. A masterful storyteller. The NPR station in Tulsa would rebroadcast A Prairie Home Companion every Sunday afternoon from 1:00 to 3:00. Usually at this time as a kid and a teenager I would lay on my bed in my room and listen to all the skits, parody commercials, variety folk music acts, and jokes that are the staples of the show. But the bread and butter of PHC is Keillor's closing monologue, the News from Lake Wobegon. Even though his creativity and wit had been driving the show for almost two hours, it was the twenty minutes of stepping into this small fictitious small town out "on the edge of the prairie" that gave the show its cornerstone of brilliance. Every week I saw in my mind Keillor's imposing 6 foot 4 inch frame sit gently on the wooden stool on the front of the stage, his pant legs lifting just enough to show his trademark red socks, put the microphone to his mouth, and, without so much as a script or notes, spin a web of a story that would send you deep into the simple/complicated world of the unassuming townsfolk of Lake Wobegon. You laugh out loud. You think hard. Sometimes you (and by you I mean me) actually cry. His stories usually create launching pads of huge tangential story arcs that always, somehow, wind their way back into a greater point. His slow, breathy intonations draw you into the world like a hynotic genius. Then, twenty minutes later, he abruptly sends you back out into your world, usually with an odd new confidence in the simple goodness of life.

One of my dreams for years has been to travel to St. Paul for a broadcast of the show from the Fitzgerald Theater. I don't know yet when I will do this, but it should probably be sooner rather than later because there is no telling how much longer the show will run. It has been on the air since 1974 (with a couple of short breaks). It seems to have gathered a tremendous amount of new steam, especially with the movie.

My dream was partially realized a few years ago when I opened up the OU Daily newspaper and saw an announcement for Garrison Keillor's appearance on campus. I quickly dumped the class I had at that time and found my seat at Catlett Music Center. I sat about halfway up the theater, but when Keillor walked out on stage, he was still larger than life. Sure enough, he walked over to the center of the stage with his long stride, sat on the wooden stool with his red socks, and proceeded to tell the story, which lasted about 45 minutes, of how he has not had much experience with Oklahoma, but he has been compelled to sing the state song in the shower. Only Garrison Keillor could tell such a story in such a way as to change your life. But he did. The story launched from that point and circled the earth, eventually landing back into the life of a girl he knew as a young boy. Then it all wrapped up back in the shower, with him singing Oklahoma. Then he walked off the stage. Every hair on my body stood up as I knew that I was in the presence of a genius.

So, here's to you, Garrison Keillor. Here's hoping your new movie captures the essence of what you do in the lives of people with your work.

This past weekend my brother's wedding took place in the church that I grew up in. I loved this church. This church laid a significant portion of my personal foundation. I worked for this church at one point. I still value so much of what this church did and still does in the lives of many people. I don't have much of an association with this church anymore, for many reasons, one being the evolution of my faith and my closer association with those who have a different worlview than this church proclaims. Nevertheless, I still love and value the people as much as I ever did.

I was with my brother and the other groomsman last Saturday while we all changed clothes in the library of this church. As I usually do, I dug around in the books and materials lying around because I love to looking through things out of curiosity. One thing I found was a big notebook that was used in an Ambassadors for Christ evangelism training course. When I was a kid this was the huge thing that this church and many others like it were into. The basic principle of this course was approaching people who were not members of the Church of Christ (I mean, church of Christ) and creating conversations that forced people to answer a set of questions that you would propose to them. Based on these answers you would then attempt to get them into a series of Bible studies that stepped them through several hundred yes or no questions until they reached the logical conclusion that they must be baptized and then place membership in your church of Christ. Completing the course was contingent on earning a total of "points" every week. For every person with whom you had such a conversation, you earned a certain amount of points, for every contact you made and the answer to the opening question you knew their answer to, a certain amount of points, and so on. You could not "graduate" until you had some grand total of points, which were really an indicator of how many people you managed to ask a certain question to in the grocery check out line. Tons of points were awarded if you managed to steer them into an Ambassadors for Christ Bible study. 100,000 points if they were Baptist. Just kidding. I think.

I have no intentions on bad-mouthing or belittling such a program. For many it did much perceived good. I know some strong Christians today who were reached through such a system. But as I thumb through the pages of the notebook, I see over and over again "AN EXAMPLE CONVERSATION" with a typical duo of characters who meet each other on the street, one armed with the truth and the other "lost." The one fortunate enough to be in a church of Christ quickly dispenses with the how-do-you-dos and jumps quickly to that opening question that, if worked right, will ultimately get them through the studies, into the baptistry and onto heaven (as long as they do church right, of course). For this interaction, the participant will earn something like 500 points.

I really don't want to judge these things, but I can't help but feel my heart sinking as I look through these kinds of things and then wonder if this was actually meant to be serious. My heart hurts even more when I realize - oh yes, yes it was. People as objects. People as targets for your simple system of yes and no. People as a homework assignment in which to score points. People whose names are slapped on a list of "non church of Christ" members, each one getting you closer to your certificate of completion as a trained "evangelist." People who are obviously wandering around in darkness and ignorance because you have not stepped them through the right statements in your New American Standard Bible. You, who are so lucky - blessed? - to have seen the light of pure truth and must heed the call to a proclaim it systematically from some tri-fold brochures to a starving populace. If you are truly an Ambassador for Christ, everyone in your eyesight is a target for this mission that has been given to you. No one will get to the gates of heaven and say that they were not warned by you!

Donald Miller, who is now a popular author, grew up in the conservative evangelical world of southern Texas and now lives in the near-godless region of Portland, Oregon, having wound his way through America and through the foundations of his faith inbetween. In the midst of this process he has developed what he calls his "13 Paradigm Shifts." I want to share these with you.

1. Other People Exist: Simply coming to the understanding that the world does not revolve around “me” but that everybody is having an experience, created by God, loved by God, and that we needed to repent of showing partiality…


2. Nobody will listen to you unless they know you like them: We began to understand that people, subconsciously, merit a religious or philosophical idea not on logical conclusions, but on whether or not the idea creates a “good person”…the definition of a good person being whether or not a person is kind to them, tolerant and understanding, able to listen without arguing and so on.


3. Nobody will listen to God unless they know God loves them: We came to believe there was usually a hidden pain behind hostility, that many people have been hurt by the church, or people or perspectives they believed to represent God. Many times its as simple as an interview they saw on CNN, but an apology and kindness went a long way in helping people understand God was loving.


4. Other people have morality and values: We came to understand that Christians do not own morality, that everybody lives by a moral code, not always informed by an ancient text, and yet it is there. Calling people or even thinking of them as immoral was, then, inappropriate. In fact, we often found that people who did not know Christ lived a morality close to his heart in many areas we had ignored, ie; community, tolerance, social justice, fairness and equality, freedom, beauty and so on and so on.


5. Find common ground: Often the morality of others overlapped Christian morality, and we came to understand that in these cases, we would focus on the overlapping issues. We came to see this as kindness, just as though we were on a date or making friends, we did not focus on what we didn’t have in common, but rather on mutual feelings about life. We would not say or do anything to combat people unless they knew we loved them, and this takes a great deal of time.


6. Define terms in their language: We were careful about Christian sayings and phrases that might be offensive: Crusade, sin, immorality….we came to understand that concepts were more sacred than terms…


7. Telling somebody about the gospel is about them, not us: We were careful not to try to “build our organization” and respected peoples freedom and space. Sharing the gospel became an exercise in friendship, rather than an attempt to grow a machine. Often, people feel used if they feel they are being recruited. The gospel, we learned, is really about them, their feelings about God and truth, about sin, about life.


8. Don’t let spreading the gospel feel any different than telling somebody about a love in your life, about your children or a great memory: We realized that in telling somebody about Jesus, we were telling them about somebody we have come to love and need, and about something that had happened to us, an encounter. This keeps us from sounding preachy, and allows us to share part of ourselves in a friendship.


9. Include lost People in Your Community: Our organization was not exclusive. We invited non-believers into the community if they wanted to be invited. We were careful not to not be ourselves with them, but they were certainly invited and enjoyed being a part of the group. We explained terms that we used, what we believed, but other than that, continued as normal.


10. Apologize for what you represent: We discovered that many people have been offended or hurt by what they perceive Christianity to be. We allowed ourselves to stand in the place of “Christianity” and apologize whenever necessary.


11. Be authentic: We discovered the need to be as honest about our lives as possible. We did not feel the need to sale Jesus, as much as share what He has done in our broken lives. We had no problem sharing our doubts and fears about faith, along with our commitment and appreciation for what God had done.


12. Pray for the Salvation of others: We discovered the need to pray for others. This would insure God was working in peoples lives, as we asked Him to. We discovered the work of evangelism is something God lets us watch, but very little of it is what we manipulate. We repented of not believing evangelism was a spiritual exchange between a lost person and God, rather than believing it was a series of ideas we were supposed to convince others of.


13. Ask people if they would like to know Christ: We decided to initiate, whenever the relationship called for it. We were not afraid to ask people if they would like to know God.

Please note the extra bold on #12.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was reading Blue Like Jazz and that Donald Miller reminded me of Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. Tonight I was reading the last chapter of BLJ and he happened to make mention of a book he has a powerful emotional connection to... Catcher in the Rye. Who knew.

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So my soujurn to Tulsa is slowly drawing to a close. It will probably be another long while before I am back here. Excitement and relaxation has defined this little pilgrimmage. Making an emergency run to Oklahoma City so that my brother would be at his own wedding, tying balloons together for hours, waiting to receive tuxedos, seeing tons of old friends, going to a church that seems to really know the Spirit of God, hanging with the parents at a coffee shop, dumpster diving for old newspapers, sitting in with guys studying the Bible, encouraging an old friend, and eating free chips and queso with the Wednesday night regulars at El Chico are just a few of the cool things that make coming home a good thing. Tulsa will always be home, I suppose, even if I end up in some strange land like California.

Last night I popped the hood on this website and replaced the engine that drives the blog. I machined all the parts to look and act pretty much like things did before, so you shouldn't notice much of a difference. The only bad thing is that I lose all the comments that were left on the old system. There are still little bugs and minor details to fix, but if you run into any problems let me know. Eventually this whole site will be powered by the new system so keep your eyes peeled for the eventual rollout of Discount Bananas 3.0. (Didn't see version 1.0? It was cool too.) Have a good Monday.

As of about 2:30pm today my little brother is hitched for life. To his first girlfriend! How many of you are going to claim that one?


Not only that, but they have known each other practically their whole lives. We have pictures of them together as little kids. How many of you are going to claim that one??

So they are off to the exotic getaway of Savannah to start a new life. It's cool. They've dated for four years and have been engaged for two. There has definitely been no rushing of this one.



I think this was my 512th wedding of the last several years. But it was certainly a good one, even though nothing went wrong and they rented a limo to drive off in which left me and the other groomsman with a trunk full of newspaper, window chalk, and pop cans and nothing to do. BORING!! But I know where his car is parked in Oklahoma City and I'll be heading back through there in a few days. So, Jason, even if you read this, THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!!! Hope you enjoyed that limo ride!!

So now two of the three brothers are tied permanently to someone they love. Now all eyes are on me. I know there are a lot of well-intentioned whispers. "Does he have a girlfriend? Hasn't he stopped dating? He's getting older and older." By this point in my life my older brother already had a wife and three children. My grandmother, on the way to the wedding, added to the quips about not being able to be a minister if I am single. I know that somehow last summer the story got spread among my Tulsa friends that I had never kissed a girl. (That's a funny one, if you know my real story). None of this bothers me much, but it is a small hurdle to face every now and then for a guy who exists among groups of people all over the country who have the culture of marriage engrained in their souls - especially church people. It is especially prevalent among these people, particularly the ones who are concerned for my future welfare as a minister. In a Bible-based movement we seem to have forgotten the marital status of Jesus, Paul, Barnabus, Timothy, John the Baptist... and nevermind the hundreds of ministers all around us every year who seem to have no regard for the marriages that God has blessed them with. It's becoming obvious to me that marriage itself in a minister's life indicates nothing. I figure if marriage is to be Godly, it must be set in motion by God. He opens doors and he closes doors. He has opened some doors in my life, and has shut some of them as well. And that's okay. Will I be married someday? My guess is probably. But I subscribe wholeheartedly to this truth: I will never be in a marriage that truly pleases God unless I am okay with living the rest of my life single. If I am fulfilled in my relationship with God enough to not need anything else, then marriage will occupy the proper place for me if God puts it into my life. Are there girls in my life right now that I daydream about the possibility of being married to? Of course, people! But as I know from a large and growing amount of personal experience, God always sets the right thing in motion at the right time - God gives the cues and I act on them.

So, what would I like to do with all this rambling? I want to be able to look back at these satements as a 40 year old single man and say "right on!" I also want to look back at these statements as a 40 year old married man and say - "right on!" I believe God is able to give me a completely fulfilling life either way.

Happy marriage, Jason and Heather!

So it has emerged once again in my life... Pride and Prejudice. I've never read the book, and I've only seen about 20 minutes of the 12 hour long movie version. But what I'm learning is that there is something about this story that cuts to the soul of what the female mind is all about. It seems that most of the females in my life - which are quite a diverse lot, all have at least some level of affinity for Pride and Prejudice.

What is it about this story/book/movie(s) that makes it so dear to women? This is a serious question. I'm seriously interested in knowing. Pass this along to anyone you know because I'd really like some comments on this.