Mitch Lewis

U.S. military forces stationed overseas watch American TV shows on the Armed Forces Network. AFN isn’t quite like regular American TV. We don’t see most shows at the same time folks do in the US; we sometimes see a season of a show a year after it airs in the states. We also don’t have American networks like NBC or CBS; we have a sports channel, a news channel and a couple of general entertainment channels. Still, it beats the state of affairs during my first overseas tour in 1994; back then, there was only one channel of AFN content.

There are no reruns on AFN, so if you don’t catch a show the first time, you’re out of luck.

And there are no commercials, which is not as great as you think. We get “command messages” instead. Remember to eat a good breakfast. Make sure you keep your will in a fireproof box. A general-power-of-attorney grants broad powers; a special-power-of-attorney is usually the better choice. Feeling down? See your chaplain or behavioral health provider.

Anyway, I recently installed a Hauppage 1850 video tuner card in my 64-bit Windows 7 system so that I could record shows when I’m away. The card itself and its recording capabilities seem to work reasonably well, both under Windows Media Center and Hauppage’s Win7 TV application. Caveats: 1) my monitor’s high resolution reveals the limitations of standard analog NTSC signals and 2) the recordings are huge. I’ve got a good bit of spare hard drive space, so recording size isn’t a big issue. I don’t want to build a library; I just want to be able to watch the shows I miss when I’m traveling or busy in the evening.

I was also hoping to use Media Center’s channel guide to help me automate the process of recording the shows I want to see. Unfortunately, the Armed Forces Network and and overseas military cable providers create some obstacles to using the channel guide under Windows Media Center. It took quite a bit of experimentation to get the channel guide to correspond to the actual cable channels used on my system.

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There are not enough military chapels or chaplains to provide separate, distinctive worship opportunities for every member of every Protestant denomination in existence. By one count, there are over 8000 Protestant denominations.

In general, most military installations offer a number of non-denominational Christian services - sometimes called General Protestant or Collective Protestant - in a variety of worship styles.  By non-denominational, I don't mean "independent non-denominational," which itself describes one particular stream within Christianity. Ecumenical or multi-denominational might be a better way of describing them. Baptists, Pentecostals, independents and so-called "Mainline" Christians worship side-by-side. Individual Protestant congregations usually get tagged with labels like "traditional," "gospel," "contemporary," "multicultural"  or "liturgical." The distinctions are more stylistic than strictly theological, although there is some correlation between the participants' theology and the services they choose to attend. Some smaller installations might only be able to offer one or two styles of Protestant services; larger installations can offer more choices. Larger installations may also have a Lutheran congregation (mabye LCMS, maybe ELCA), an Episcopalian congregation and a lay-led LDS group. In general, all the other non-Catholic and non-Orthodox Christians attend one of the "Protestant" congregations (if, that is, they attend worship on post).

Anyway, that's all background for sharing with you the mission statement of one Protestant congregation that I served as senior pastor:

The mission of the Soldier Memorial Chapel Protestant Congregation is to be the church of Jesus Christ. Our congregation serves as the temporary spiritual home for a wide variety of Christians brought together in this place by military service. We welcome the diverse gifts that our constituents bring to our congregation from their various Christian traditions.

We proclaim the good news of Christ crucified and risen for the salvation of the world. We expect to experience the grace and power of God in our common life. We challenge each other to live lives of deeply committed discipleship. We humbly covenant together to hear God’s word in Holy Scripture. We seek to grow in faith - and in Christian love for each other and for the community in which we live.

United Methodist Bishop Mike Lowery has asked the 320 churches of the Central Texas Conference to join in this prayer for Fort Hood this Sunday:

Lord God, we come to you in grief and shock over the shootings at Fort Hood. We pray this day for the families who have lost loved ones, for those who are wounded and for all who suffer from this horrible violence. Pour your grace-filled love and comfort over them that they may be strengthened by your presence and upheld by your love. Receive, O Lord, our prayers of gratitude for all those who courageously responded to stop the violence and for all who have labored in treating those harmed. Enfold Fort Hood and the entire area in your care. Bless and guide this nation and all who serve. In your goodness and by your mercy Lord God, may we be instruments of healing and hope. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.

Central Texas Methodists issued this statement on its website:

The loss of lives and injuries at Fort Hood is a tragic situation that is touching the lives of many people. Our thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones who are struggling with this loss and to those who have been injured.

We have five United Methodist churches in the immediate Killeen area that are opening their hearts and doors to these families and all military personnel and others in the community who seek solace and love. Many of the military personnel and their families are members of the congregations at First, St. Andrews and St. Luke churches, all in Killeen, Grace in Copperas Cove and Harker Heights. District Superintendent Rankin Koch has been in touch with the pastors at each of the churches, and the conference Disaster Response Team is standing by to offer assistance and spiritual care if needed.

Rev. Dr. E.F. “Skip” Blancett, senior pastor at First UMC, Killeen, is all too familiar with battle scenes and grief as a former military chaplain deployed during Desert Storm and later serving at Fort Hood. “This community is grieving,” he said. Anyone connected with or living in the vicinity of a military base like Fort Hood becomes part of the family, he added, and “an attack on any member of the family is an attack on all of us. We are all grieving.”

Like other churches in the area, First Killeen opened its prayer chapel the afternoon of the shootings and again today. “Prayer is important at times this,” Blancett said. “But just as important is the people’s need to share their pain and grief with others.” The congregation is assembling “care baskets” for the families of the victims with notes saying “Someone at First United Methodist Church cares for you,” and reaching out to the working press with trays of snack foods. As for long-term care and spiritual needs, Blancett said, “I don’t know how much will be needed yet, but I call tell you from past experience there will be a need.”

This post is a "Great Thanksgiving" or Eucharistic prayer for use on Palm Sunday. We're focusing on the Liturgy of the Palms this Sunday, without the readings from the passion narrative. I wanted a Eucharistic prayer that borrowed heavily from the Palm Sunday narrative, with its "Triumphal Entry" themes of praise and salvation, dominion and victory. I also wanted echoes of other Holy Week elements as well.

I never claim copyright on liturgical material, much of which is adapted from other sources anyway. How can we keep our words of praise as a private possession? Use or adapt as you like.

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Here's an index to my Christmas-related posts:

The Christmas Season
A Flight of Geese
Christmas Eve 1968

In the Beginning ...
The God who Wants to be Known

By Prophets Foretold
Tear Open the Heavens
Lighting of the Advent Candles

Mary the Mother of Jesus
Let it Be

Joseph the Husband of Mary
Joseph?s Family Honor

The Place of Jesus' Birth
The Inn of Jesus? Birth

The Shepherds of Bethlehem
Eliezer the Unreliable

The Angels of the Heavenly Host
Glory to God in the Highest

The Wise Men (Magi)
Looking to the Skies

The First Christmas Gifts
On Gold and Frankincense

The Infant Jesus in the Temple
Belonging to God

The Adolescent Jesus in the Temple
The Boy Jesus in the Temple

Christmas Prayers for the Community
Prayer for a Community Holiday Tree Lighting
Community Tree Lighting

A Winter Hymn
Wenceslaus, The Ideal Christian Prince

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:19-20

How to Pray as a Christian

How can I learn to pray? Like many other evangelicals, I've given this advice: just pray whatever is on your mind. There is no right or wrong in prayer. We don't please God or earn his favor by saying the right formula (or feeling the right emotion or having the right spiritual experience) and God is certainly tough enough to handle our honesty in prayer. That's all true enough, but by itself this advice is somewhat misleading and unlikely to help one grow much in Christian prayer.

Christians pray with words. They may pray in other ways as well, but Christian prayer is basically verbal. For the most part, prayer in the Bible has to do with words and ideas. While there are instances of non-verbal prayer in the scriptures (e.g., glossolalia in 1 Corinthians 14:14-15), the passages which might refer to non-verbal practices in prayer are few and far between.

So when it comes time to pray, what do you say? The problem is not that we have too much wrong stuff to say to God; it's that we don't have much to say at all. In extemporaneous prayer, one can become lost in one's own emptiness and crushed by one's own shallowness.

Praying the scriptures is one antidote to the lack of direction in prayer. And within the scriptures, one section is stands out as the "prayer book of the Bible" - the book of Psalms. The Psalms are prayers. The proper response to the word of God in the Psalms is not just "what should I believe" but "what should I pray?"

What should I say, then, when I pray? The words of the Psalms are one answer to that question. Yet, when most Christians begin to pray the Psalms, they quickly come to Psalms that they know they cannot pray. It's easy to pray Psalm 23. It's much harder to pray the Psalms that claim innocence before God, that ask for the destruction of one's enemies, that cry out to God from a place of unparalleled suffering and so forth.

The secret to praying the Psalms is that you do not pray them alone. Only one man in all of history has been worthy to pray the Psalms. He lives and reigns at God's right hand and dwells in his people by the power of the Holy Spirit. When we pray the Psalms, we pray them with Jesus Christ.

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