Jason Locke's Blog

I just finished watching the championship match of the European Champions League. FC Barcelona dominated Manchester United on the way to a 3-1 victory in London. "Barca" reaffirmed their position as the best club in the world. Barcelona is basically an extension of the Spanish national team with the addition of a couple Brazilians and Lionel Messi from Argentina -- as if they weren't good enough already. Watching Barcelona is like watching the Spanish national team, and vice versa. They control the ball with amazing grace and accuracy. Against Man U, the ball was in Barca's possession for literally two-thirds of the match. That's an unbelievable statistic for a match of this caliber. Of course ball possession matters not if one can't score. But Barca dominated in scoring chances, too, with nearly 20 shots to Man U's feeble 6 or 7. Manchester United is no small or feeble team. It's an all-star team with internationals from all over the globe. But ag...

So the much ballyhooed rapture did not occur on Saturday. Surprise! You'd love to see a little remorse from the false prophet who predicted this thing. But no. He simply says that it is actually October 21. You know what they say: "Fool me once--shame on you. Fool me twice--shame on me." Of course, I didn't buy it from the very start. The only people I feel badly for are those gullible individuals who actually believed the false prophet, Harold Camping. There was the family from Maryland who cashed out everything, took the high school kids out of school, spent their money on advertising, and then traveled the country. Or there was the guy from Connecticut who spent a bunch of money to rig up his car with a giant billboard on it. He drove it back and forth to New York City every day so that he could promote the rapture. I do feel somewhat badly for those folks--even though they should have known better. I'm just sorry to admit that Harold Camping the false pr...

Hm, how to dress on the 21st?

Various explanations abound about why to go on a short-term mission trip. Some reasons are emotionally charged. Others stem from a basic desire to help people. I am a proponent of short-term missions, but I think churches need to carefully consider the purpose of these trips. Churches need to be good stewards, and the cost of some short-term work necessitates a thoughtful evaluation of goals, needs and resources. Also, poorly identified goals cause a church to miss opportunities for the deep transformation of lives both at home and abroad. For example, let's say that a church group wants wants to build a house in Mexico. The folks who help raise and administer missions funding need to ask what the #1 priority is. If the goal is only to build a house, then can we say that the best and most effective approach is to send a team of 25 teens with chaperones to build that house? My answer is "no." If house-building is the primary goal, then more houses could be built more e...