Where do you go for help when you need advice? When you need help knowing how to handle something, or help in thinking through a thing, where do you go to get that help?

Where do your peers go? Where does the average American go?

I suspect the primary sources of advice and counsel in America today are the icons of pop culture: Oprah, Dr. Phil, Brad and Angelina.

When I was a kid growing up, we had Ann Landers. She was a syndicated newspaper columnist who dispensed counsel on a wide variety of issues including in-law difficulties, straying husbands, bedroom boredom, the headaches of women bumping into the glass ceiling, and nosy neighbors. The column still exists, written by another person, but I think its a relic from a by-gone generation. Today, Oprah is our Ann Landers. And Oprah is about to be gone, too. Her final television show is this week.

It occurs to me that contemporary America gets its advice mostly from people born after World War II. While it’s certainly appropriate for them to participate in the discussion, I just don’t think 50 years of life or millions of dollars in income from selling pop culture sizzle is an adequate foundation upon which to dispense life altering advice. My instincts tell me there’s a need for something more, deeper, truer, more tried and tested.

When I travel to Europe I marvel at the architecture of structures that have stood, in some cases, for millennia. I remember standing in a barn in the Swiss Alps and seeing the year it was built carved in an overhead wooden beam. That barn—still in use and looking good as new—was older than our country. Of recent pop culture note the future King of England was married in a building dating back roughly 1000 years. Yet in my America, particularly the midwest and west, most of our structures are post 1950, and hardly anything predates 1900.

We’re a land where our entire ethos is a mere babe in the context of human civilization. So it makes sense to me that when we need solidly rooted counsel we should look to sources that extend beyond our contemporaries. For wisdom we should look to cultures and civilizations that pre-date our own. A midwestern Baby-Boomer like me can learn much from 1700’s Jamestown, Virginia, but even more from Reformation-Era Europe.

The idea of giving greater credence to older things—teachings, principles, and ways—is consistent with a critical, academic approach to history in which older texts are considered more reliable; that which was recorded in closest chronological proximity to the event is generally considered more reliable because as time passes the story morphs on the tongues of its tellers. Its an academic version of that old gossip game where you whisper something into the ear of the person next to you, and she passes it on until it circles through the entire room and in the end, the message whispered into the first ear is nothing like the message received in the final ear. The first (“oldest”) ear received the accurate message. Likewise, the oldest culture, and the oldest text, is the most reliable in terms of its content.

When it comes to wisdom for living, principles for problem solving, and guidance for a better life. I think it’s important to look to the oldest information we have available. Generally, that is literature that comes from the region referred to as Mesopotamia or the Fertile Crescent. It extends from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and is often also called “The Cradle of Civilization.” Here the history of man goes back at least 5000 years. When compared to the 200 years of American history, or the time since the end of WWII, that seems a far more significant and reliable place to hunt for wisdom and counsel than an issue of PEOPLE Magazine written and edited by somebody born while Bill Clinton was president.

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Coming Next: Specific lessons you can learn from ancient wisdom.

Have you ever been in a high place? Have you ever physically sat in a seat of power, or stood in a room where the big decisions that affect millions or billions of people are made? Have you ever been in the Oval Office of the President of the United States?

High places are cool. There’s a sense of majesty, awe, almost reverence when you go into a high place. Don’t misunderstand. I haven’t been in many of them. But I have been in the one that counts most.

The chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States are inspiring, and surprisingly far more accessible and in some ways pedestrian than you might expect.

The halls of congress are interesting for the history they bear, yet in another way its just another stuff old government office building.

The Abbey at Westminster is cool. During Kate and Will’s wedding ceremony we were able to see on television the exact seats we’d sat in during our moment in the kwire during the Evensong service at the Abbey and my wife recognized one of the men in the kwire at the wedding as having been the same guy who stood beside her on that evening when we were there.

St. Paul’s Cathederal.

Tiananmen Square.

I remember thinking how cool it was to listen to debate in Britain’s House of Lords as I sat just a few dozen feet from the gilded throne of the British Sovereign.

High places.

This morning I was in a high place; a very high place. I actually go there quite often. Daily.

I was in the throne room of the King of the Universe; the one who was, long before anything else.

As I prayed this morning I talked with God about how awesome it was to be so welcome in the presence and the high place of the One who spoke and the world came into existence. That’s a high place. And I belong there because Ephesians 2 says that God made me alive with Christ and raised me up and seated me with Him in the heavenly realms. That’s a high place!

Oh. By the way. There’s a chair for you, too. Why don’t you sit down for a spell?

If you are concerned about the America you are leaving for the next generation, you’re not alone. I join you in concern not only for the next generation, but for you and me. I don’t pretend to know what to do about all the challenges we face in America, but I do offer these ideas:

#1. Quit borrowing. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is STOP DIGGING. I know that many say that some sort of economic cataclysm will occur if the U.S. doesn’t again raise its debt ceiling. They may be right. But in response I’d ask, what kind of cataclysm will our continued borrowing produce? I don’t understand the math at a national level, so let’s just think about it in terms of your family. If you are in financial trouble, and you’ve been borrowing more and more for years and years without paying down your debt, does it make sense that the solution to your problem is borrowing yet more? Or, is a money diet in order?

#2. Quit giving money away. According to the 2011 Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Foreign and Military Aid to other countries tops $50 billion. Why, pray tell me, are we giving away $5o billion per year? I think the answer is “to buy friends.” Let’s think about that a minute. If your kid’s keeps giving her lunch money to another kid in school “so they’ll be my friend,” you explain to her that you don’t buy friendship with lunch money. Essentially, your kid is mobbed up! She’s being extorted. You wouldn’t tolerate that. Yet that’s the logic our government uses.

I’m all for helping the poor. I just returned from a leadership development trip to a third world country myself. The needs there are enormous. But our money doesn’t make a very big difference in the lives of very many people (though it does continue to enrich despots and dictators). So…….let’s quit, and focus that $50 billion on our needs at home.

Here at home, we’ve got to quit doing stupid stuff. For example, the government paid me a few thousand dollars to do some work on my farm that I would have done whether they paid for it or not. Of course I took the money! It was going to be spent, it might as well have come to me. But really, that’s simply goofy. Our country shouldn’t be spending money that way.

#3. Quit muzzling the ox while it is treading. There is a move in the U.S. to increase income taxes on people who make over $250,000 per year. (Fair disclosure: that affects me.) Let’s think about that for a moment. I’m a business builder. I have a proven track record of employing people—nearer 100 than 10. I’d employ more if I could. When the government decides to take more of my money away in the form of income taxes, that’s less money that I have to invest in growing my company larger and employing even more people. It financially restricts me from employing more people, and it psychologically discourages me from trying to grow and achieve. Increasing taxes on producers punishes productivity. Is that really the philosophy we want to promote in America? The harder your work and the more you achieve, the more we’ll take from you? Dis-incentivizing achievement will never make the country strong. On our farm, when the mother animals produce babies that are nursing heavily, we increase their feed and nutrient intake so they can raise the healthiest, largest babies possible. At our colleges, our athletes have special dorms where they get more and better food than the average student, because they are producing so much more physically. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Yet, when it comes to entrepreneurs, we ask them to produce more, and to voluntarily be punished for doing so.

My ideas may not make a big difference. I don’t know. But they are a start, and that is the point. We’ve got to get started

My three ideas, added to yours, and to the next guys…..pretty soon those of us who make America great can produce ideas that will put America back on the road to prosperity.

What’s your best idea?

Do you need a little boost to remember to do something a few days (or even years) from now? I often do. Things as simple as checking back with somebody on something—following up—-is all made easier with NudgeMail. If you tell me that “we should hear back from Bob by the end of the week” I’ll send a quick email to Friday@nudgemail.com and say “Did I hear back from Bob” in the subject line. If I did, good. Just punch delete. If not, I’ve been reminded to check the status of the project. If I don’t get a response, I can just forward the email back to Monday@nudgemail.com and it’ll come to me the next working day.

This is a helpful tool. I just wanted to share it with you in hopes that it’s helpful to you, as well.

I hope you have a great day!!!

Simultaneous worship events were held in downtown Springfield on Saturday night. The first was at Hammons Field where some 5,000 cheered for a Cardinal victory. Much has been written about sport being religion in America; a place where people can exhaust their emotions and worship gladiator-like heros doing battle in a modern colosseum complete with beer on tap and pizza by the slice.

The other larger service of worship was held in the JQH Arena, where thousands gathered for a service presided over by the Right Reverend Sir Elton John. It was this service I attended along with my wife.

You might ask why I call it a worship event. Understand I mean nothing pejorative toward Elton John. He’s a consummate showman and pounds the heck out of every one of those 88 keys on a Steinway. I call it worship, because that’s what I saw. People were definitely engaged. Arms were lifted high. Eyes were closed as they sang along. There was dancing in the aisles. I even saw people with their hands clasped together in front of their chests, eyes closed as they engaged. It looked a lot like prayer.

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck………….

I really wasn’t engaged in the concert. Frankly, it was too loud for my ears and I couldn’t understand most of the words. So for me, it was about watching people, and there was much to see! Over and over I kept coming back to the notion that what I was seeing was indeed worship. And of course, it didn’t take long for me to ponder why ten thousand would gather, pay $100 a seat (on average), and give their all emotionally to worship Elton John, but not Jesus Christ…….you know the one……this Friday we’ll commemorate his voluntary death on the cross to pay for your sins and mine. Anyway, what is it about an Elton John concert that engenders worship in such a larger degree than a regularly scheduled service of worship for Jesus Christ?

I’ve come to this conclusion: the difference is LIFE. Elton John is offering people life. We can debate the merits of the kind of life he offers, but just accept at face value for a moment that—-for those worshippers—-Elton John is serving up a form of life. It’s fun. It stirs the emotions, and we are emotional beings. It’s celebrative and we are wired with a need to celebrate. It’s reflective……he sings of love dreamed of, found, and lost. Who can’t relate to that? It’s promising; though I couldn’t understand the lyrics, inside all of us have some form of dream of being Rocket Man! An Elton John concert is an event that is full of a form of life that is very attractive to human beings.

Contrast that with what we do at church. I won’t bother to take you through the experience, but just go there in your own mind. Whatever church means to you, ask this question: does it give life?

I was afraid you’d say that.

Until you and I wrap our minds and hearts around the fact that Jesus primary purpose wasn’t to save people from sin (that’s just a step in the process), but was “…that they might have life and have it more abundantly” and until we start following Him, learning Him, and doing church in a way that unpacks that abundant life thing…….well, people will continue to choose Elton John. And honestly, can we blame them?

I think the #1 question—-at least one of the top questions if not #1—-that church leaders need to ask themselves repeatedly is: does it give life? The kind of life that you know to be abundant? Life from Jesus?

If the answer is “no.” Then……….I think that’s a big clue that we’re headed in the wrong direction. Don’t give me alot of double talk about all the things that we “have” to do. That’s mostly baloney, but legalism and the traditions of men will cause you to think it’s vital.

We who are the Church, have got to get into the life delivery business. That’s really our only purpose for being. Unless we’re doing that, we’re just having church——puhleeze……..can’t I just have a root canal instead?

“The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy. But I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” –Jesus