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If someone does not know how to manage....
-- 1 Timothy 3:5

My son and I just joined Indian Guides. Sponsored by the YMCA, it encourages dads and sons to be "Pals Forever" by providing opportunities and activities that build character and deepen family relationships.

We really like it!

One of the first big events is announcing your Indian name. Daniel picked "Golden Eagle" for himself and "Bald Eagle" for me.

At least he didn't name me "Water Buffalo Waistline."

Of course, that's not as bad as those school teachers and thirty-something moms who say to Daniel in my presence, "Isn't it nice that your grandpap could come with you?"

Then there's the oil change guy on Route 19 who keeps saying, "Your daughter brought in the van yesterday." I never confess being the father only of sons.

But the most recent greatest indignity occurred at a local restaurant when the waitress said I look like a clergyman. As someone who recalls the chap who said he would have become a pastor except for so many of them looking like undertakers, I was neither flattered nor amused.

And yet there's a line from Paul to Timothy that really tears at my soul: "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?" (1 Timothy 3:5 NIV).

Ouch!

Over two decades in this business have taught me the strength of my ministry is inextricably dependent upon the strength of my family. While I've seen inept and ineffective pastors who have healthy families, I've never seen a pastor who wasn't strained, scarred, or stymied by a dysfunctional home.

The truth is healthy families foster healthy ministries. It's axiomatic. Show me a messed-up ministry and my guess is the etiology begins at the manse.

Obviously, the same goes for everybody else. Show me a messed-up world and my guess is fractured families are a very big part of the cause.

Healthy families breed healthy people. So if we're really interested in transforming church and society, there's no place like home to start.

Getting back to the church, a healthy church is the product of healthy church families and healthy church families are the product of healthy people.

Certainly, as a Christian pastor, I'm convinced personal health begins after Jesus is invited into the heart as saving Lord.

Lots of great things happen after conversion like invitational, inclusive, and unconditional love. That's authentic conversion. Anything less than praying and working for the highest good for others regardless of who, what, where, or when without the expectation of getting something in return isn't religion born of Christocentric conversion.

That's why the Imperials suggest as they sing, "There will never be any peace until God is seated at the conference table."

That's why I tell my non-Christian friends who are always calling my attention to conflicted churches, ill-tempered pastors, and irregular people, "Don't blame Jesus for some Christians!"

To put it another way, some Christians need some Jesus!

Or to borrow a few lines from G. K. Chesterton: "We have asked all the questions which can be asked. It is time we stopped looking for questions and started looking for answers ... The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."

Anyway, there are lots of problems in church and society. My guess -- belief -- is most of those problems could be solved by spending more time at home and fixing families. And every family could benefit from spending more time with somebody like Jesus who knows a lot about saving.

When I was preparing for ordination, The Reverend Harold F. Mante, my home pastor forever, gave lots of advice to me. He told me to love people regardless. He told me never to check the church's financial records because I'd start to look at people differently. He told me never to learn how to use office machinery. And he told me to play golf.

He was my pastor, wanted the best for me, and I've followed his advice throughout my ministry.

He advocated golf because he believed everybody needs something to get her or his mind off the problems of life and vocation. He could have said bowling, tennis, bridge, or something else because it is the intention not the vehicle that matters. Reverend Mante was counseling me to incorporate a therapeutic distraction or mental bath into my schedule in order to survive all of the above.

He played golf. He played golf with my dad. So he thought it was a good game for me. And he always said I would be able to leave my problems on the course.

God knows life can be tough.

I've got two close friends in ministry who are going through hell. I'm the pastor of a church that comes nowhere near its membership and mission potential. Every day isn't a hot fudge sundae for me. My son's football team can't seal the deal in big games. And sometimes I feel like taking down all of the smiley faces in my study before I throw up.

You know how I feel.

You know how I feel because you live in the same world.

Sometimes we completely relate to one of Dr. Addison Leitch's favorite comments: "You get all set to meet what life brings you, but it keeps coming at you left-handed."

Life can be so confusing and conflicted. That's why everybody needs a therapeutic distraction or mental bath.

We need to leave it on the course.

While the problems may not go away, we can always get back to them with a little more energy and a lot more perspective after recreation.

I think of a story from Martha Albertson:

Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious. So one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right! It's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes, it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: it's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business. He left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After eighteen hours of surgery and weeks on intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I was lying on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for the reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.' "

Jerry lived thanks to the skills of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

And that's why I keep all of those smiley faces in my study.

That's why I play golf.

That's why I tell folks to find a therapeutic distraction and become addicted to it.

That's why I tell folks and often remind myself, "Leave it on the course!"

The problems don't go away. But when we're rested and renewed by our positive addictions, the problems don't put us away.

So leave it on the course!

Let me put it another way: Go home! Go home to God! Go home to your family! Take care of yourself!

You'll be glad you did!

And you just may find the smile on your face infecting the world around you!