Category: Church

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Encouragement

This year, as we are in the middle of Holy Week, I see some very encouraging signs in the Church. During Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, he gave them the commandment that would define his followers, the command to love each other as he loved them. He washed their feet, giving them an example of the self-sacrifice that this love would require.

What is encouraging to me is the number in the Church who are realizing that we are to be about showing God’s love and grace to those around us, and that spreading the Gospel and making disciples goes beyond a ticket to heaven, that it affects our day to day lives. The Church is beginning to break out of the small box it has been in for the past century or so, and is recognizing that our Father is so much bigger and more powerful than anything we can imagine. There is a movement of the Spirit going on. I would liken it to a new Reformation. Yes, it is messy at times, but I have hope that God will form his Church into something that will again “turn the world upside down”.

Check out the sites I have listed to get a sense of what I’m talking about

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Hummingbirds

I’m been a bit beat down by the flu the past couple of days, so the thinking process is going even slower than normal. So, I’m posting something I wrote a few months ago.

We have a hummingbird feeder outside our back porch and it’s fun to watch them hover and drink the sugar water. It’s interesting that they have to come back often to drink because of the amount of energy they expend flapping their wings at such a fast rate.

Another thing I’ve noticed about hummingbirds is that they are very territorial. An aggressive hummingbird will chase others away from the feeder and will actually sit in a nearby tree watching for an interloper. In fact, a beautiful ruby throated hummingbird that was the first to come to the feeder was driven away completely by a brown one. It seems to me that an amazing amount of energy is wasted defending something that never belonged to them. The feeder is there because of the good graces of my wife and me. So instead of sharing the bounty with the other birds, one bird wastes his energy to defend something that is a gift and not his to keep.

How often are we, the Church, like that. We take the grace that has been freely given us and jealously guard it from those who don’t agree with us in everything. We think that God’s grace, like the sugar water, was given to us alone. We put God in a little box and try to interpret everything by the limits of that box. We waste an awful lot of energy defending things that either are indefensible, or are not vital. Then, we don’t have the time or energy to spend on the real work that Jesus gave us to do – making disciples who follow the Christ.

I’m not saying that Biblical truth doesn’t matter or that we should adopt an “I’m okay, you’re okay” philosophy. I am saying that we need to take a hard look at what we believe and make sure that we believe it because it matches up with what God says rather than because “it’s the way we’ve always been taught”. Is our Christianity Biblical or cultural? Did the faith we hold begin in the 1st century or in the 19th and 20th centuries?

Are we disciples of Jesus? Or, are we hummingbirds?

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Thoughts on the culture war

There’s a great article on the culture war here . It’s the article by S. Michael Craven on Feb. 14.

I agree with his assesment. The splintering of the “Religous Right” and the willingness of younger Christians to consider voting for more liberal candidates shows that the war is over.

Now maybe we can stop fighting and get back to doing what we are called to do in the first place – make disciples.

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The End?

Internet monk has an interesting post concerning evangelicalism here

What do you think? Is the end of evangelicalism as we know it near?

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Commitment

In The New Christians: Dispatches From the Emergent Frontier, Tony Jones writes:

“Just ten percent of Americans are not affiliated with a church or synagogue, and another five percent hold a faith other than Judaism or Christianity. That leaves eighty-five percent of Americans who can write down the name and address of the congregation with which they are affiliated. Yes, that bears repeating: eighty-five percent. There are about 255 million church-affiliated Americans.What can be questioned is the level of commitment that Americans have to their churches. They may know the address, but do they know the doctrinal statement? Or the denominational affiliation? Do they care? The answer to the last question is most decidedly no. American Christians care less and less about the denominational divides that are so important to their seminary-trained pastors.”

He is answering the notion that America is becoming more and more secularized by stating that the majority of Americans are spiritual, but without the concern with denominational teachings that divide. I think to some degree that is true, especially with those who consider themselves emerging. The emerging conversation definitely cuts across denominational lines.
The statement, “What can be questioned is the level of commitment that Americans have to their churches”, raises a different issue. Looking at the fact that eighty-five percent of Americans are associated with a church (or synagogue), I question the level of commitment that American Christians have to Jesus.
We are called to be salt and light. Salt flavors and preserves, and light allows us to see. When a great deal of what passes as the “Christian” arts is nothing more than cheap knock-offs of what is already out there, and when much of the preaching is really self-help philosophy wrapped in Scripture – where is the flavoring? When we are more concerned with beginning more programs and building bigger buildings than we are with the homeless, the poor, and the hurting in the neighborhoods surrounding those buildings – where is the preservation?
We say we have the light, but instead of going and shining that light into the darkness, we want people to somehow stumble out of the darkness into the light inside the walls we have put up to protect the light.
We have become so afraid that somehow the corruption in society will overcome the salt, or that the darkness will overcome the light that we have put ourselves in a ghetto where we are safe within its walls and from which we lob scud missiles at those outside – with the same effect.
We say we believe that God has called us out of darkness into the light, that he has saved us by his grace, that grace gives us the power to follow Jesus and that God is forming us into Christ’s likeness. We say that Jesus told us to go and make disciples. We claim to follow the King of Kings. Yet we live in fear. Fear of the culture capturing and corrupting us, fear of screwing up, fear of somehow not quite measuring up.
We are loved by the Creator of the universe! His word tells us that this love is perfect and that perfect love drives fear out! If we belong to Jesus, our day-to-day life, not just our salvation, is by God’s grace and not our feeble effort! Our Father loves us and accepts us just as we are, and will change us and make us grow. He will not leave us in our current state. Yes, there are commands in Scripture for us to follow. We are not absolved of all responsibility. But the power is from the Holy Spirit.
As we focus on Jesus Christ and the amazing grace that God has given us, we will desire to follow Jesus closer and closer. We will, as the Jewish rabbis used to say, be “covered in the dust” of our Rabbi. As we become more like Christ we will truly be salt and light. We will mess up from time to time. We will fall. When we do, we just pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, agree with God that we screwed up, and turn away from it and move on. I believe it was Martin Luther who said, “Sin boldly, trust God more boldly still.” Walk with Jesus and trust him to guide your steps.
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VBS and Church

My sister-in-law’s church held Vacation Bible School last June and she was in charge of refreshments. In the past, people brought brownies and stuff, and the adults stood around in the kitchen, talking and drinking coffee. When it was time, someone took the food to the classrooms.

This time, the kids came down to the kitchen to make their own snacks. The snacks corresponded to the lesson, so they were a teachable moment. The adults, however, were upset because they didn’t get to continue their tradition of being together and drinking coffee in the kitchen. They had forgotten that VBS is supposed to be about ministering to the kids, not the desires of the adults.

I thought that is a perfect picture of many churches today. They continue in the same ways of “doing church” that they had in the middle of the last century. As the culture around them has changed, they have remained stuck in the past and either been unable or unwilling to change.

It’s so easy for us to stick with what is comfortable, what has worked in the past. I have heard many times, “Why can’t we just go back to what we did when the church was growing back in the 1980s?” The problem is that what worked in the past does not work today. Yes, there are pockets around the country where some of the old things work, but for the most part, it is a new world. What worked in a culture that had at least a memory of Christianity will not work in a culture that has no idea.

We need to fulfill Jesus’ command to go out and make disciples in the twenty first century. To do this, we need ways that fit today, not yesterday. As missionaries study the culture they are going into, we need to study this culture and give the gospel in a way that is relevant.

Like the VBS adults, we need to remember that we are to be about ministering to others, not ensuring our comfort and benefit.