rob and merritt

one of the great things about our time in nw iowa was the chance to reconnect with some old friends. when i say old, i mean when reagan was president, and brittany I (aka madonna) ruled the radio old. back in the days when peg-leg jeans were cool, and i still had hair i met rob and merritt.

merritt and i grew up together in the same town in nebraska. we even went to the same church. his older sister was my younger sister's best friend and maid of honor at her wedding. he went on to play football for the huskers and gain two national championship rings for his trouble. he is now a teacher and coach in an even smaller town than fremont in ne nebraska. the day he wed his lovely bride was the first wedding i ever did. i still haven't had the heart to tell them i'm not a real reverend - that may have negative implications for their four kids. merritt is younger than i am, so much so that we never played football together, but we did play softball in the summer. our team was made up of guys who were, for the most part, good guys. however, once we went on the road for a tournament, they suddenly thought of themselves as players (properly pronounced "plaay-uz"). merritt was never that way. we would remind each other in the on-deck circle (he hit 4th, i hit 5th), "hey, who you playing for?" it was always a helpful reminder that you were trying to crush a softball to the glory of God. i miss my friend - i miss the encouragement to be a godly husband, father and man.

rob is entirely a different story. our extended families' paths have crossed many times over the years. it was his great-grandfather's preaching at the old omaha gospel tabernacle that got my grandparents out of a liberal, dead lutheran church and into the c&ma. my dad played against his uncle in high school, the list goes on. rob and i met at okoboji, and with a couple of holiday exceptions, our relationship has been focused around the conference. rob is one of the few really smart guys i know. he graduated cum laude from harvard law. he now teaches law at a catholic university in the twin cities. as we got caught up this summer, we talked about how a kid from a good c&ma church ends up enmeshed in popery. two things stood out to me: first, my friend rob is a committed follower of Jesus; second, i guess i'm not a very good southern baptist if i count an evangelical catholic among my friends. (i guess i'll have to specify that i'm a timothy george/david dockery kind of southern baptist). rob is a great encouragement to me as well, though differently from merritt. my friendship with him reminds me that ideas matter greatly - that the christian intellectual tradition will stand up to all comers. i also reminds me that as a pastor i need to be preparing our folks to engage this world of ideas. to keep before them the utter necessity of being transformed by the renewing of their minds. it challenges me to ask, "why do so many evangelical pulpits reject the world of ideas for a world of pragmatism?"

God willing, my friends and i will continue our conversation face-to-face next year.