Steve's Letter: "Afraid, guilty and tired!"

Do you know my favorite thing to do...right after jumping off buildings and getting a root canal?

It's grading papers.

Do you know what I'm doing right now?
Well, I'm writing to you, of course, but what I was doing before writing to you and what I'll do right after writing to you is...

...grading papers.

I remember once at Disney when I was with our grandchildren at one of those "character" lunches. Our daughter, our son-in-law and my wife deserted me and the granddaughters decided it was time to party. They had food fights, ran around the restaurant chasing after Mickey Mouse and ate cupcakes, getting icing on the walls, their clothes and me.

That was when the waitress came over to take our drink order. I ordered lemonade for the girls and an iced tea for me.

"Sir," the waitress said, smiling. "I don't want to be presumptuous, but are you sure you don't want something stronger? I think you could handle this better drunk."

That's how I feel about grading papers...and a variety of other things.

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Steve's Letter: "And something happened...!"

If I owned New York and hell, I would live in hell and rent out New York!

If you're reading this and live in and love New York, you're probably ticked at what I just said. I understand that and I also understand that what I said probably says more about me than it does about New York. I'm from the mountains of North Carolina. New York is just too big, too scary, too confusing and too impersonal for a guy from the mountains.

I'm somewhat familiar with New York. I have a bunch of friends who live there and think that when Christ comes back, he will come first to New York. I've spoken at Carnegie Hall after 9/11 for the Encourage America rally. I've ridden on the subway with friends who were delighted to share their love of the city with me. For a lot of months I was in New York on a regular basis taping a television show there. I read Neuhaus in First Things and his "over the top" comments about his love for New York. I know that it is the cultural and financial center of the entire universe and that the church there is making an impact far beyond the city...just because it's New York.

Okay?

I love Tim Keller (the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian) and Jim Cymbala (the pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle) and I listen when they praise New York and express their love for the city.

I just think they're crazy.

I still don't like New York.

You say, "Brown, where are you going with this?"

Let me tell you. Erase everything I wrote above in reference to New York...

...when it's Christmas.

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Steve's Letter: "What is revival?"

When you read this, you'll be preparing for Thanksgiving or getting over Thanksgiving with the promise to go on a diet. I do hope you have (or had) a great Thanksgiving and are properly thankful to your heavenly Father who is good all the time, even when it doesn't feel like it.

But I'm not there yet.

No, no. I'm thankful. I'm just not anywhere near Thanksgiving.

As I write this, it's late September and I'm getting ready to go to Northern Ireland. Some pastors in the Belfast area read Scandalous Freedom and wrote over a year ago, asking if I would come and teach their people.

So I'm going there to "kill a Catholic for Jesus."

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Steve's Letter: "What do you think about my proposal?"

As some of you know, I preach/teach fairly often at Perimeter Church in Atlanta. I love the people there and their pastor, Randy Pope, is one of my heroes.

It's as close as I'm ever going to get to being a pastor of a mega-church.

I've always asked God to make me the pastor of a mega-church and told him, if he really loved me, he would. Or, at any rate, that was my prayer until I started visiting Perimeter.

They have more staff people than I ever had as church members where I served as pastor and I've come to realize that God's decision to never make me the pastor of a mega-church was because he likes me. Frankly, if he had answered my prayer, I wouldn't have known what to do. It is far better to make a fool of oneself with a small group of people who love you, forgive you and make excuses for you than it is to do it in front of that many people.

Besides, I would be sort of like my German shepherd who chased motorcycles. It was fun for him to chase them, but he wouldn't know what to do if he ever caught one. German shepherds look silly trying to ride motorcycles.

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