Church: - Wrecked for the Ordinary

Church Shopping 101: A Guide for Consumer Christians

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For the ecclesiastically challenged out there, this guide's for you. If you're fed up with the color of the carpet, boring sermons, generic donuts, or the terrible lead guitar player at your current church, maybe it's time to consider looking for another house of worship.

Today's church market is more competitive than ever, and this translates into low levels of commitment for you, the consumer.

Smithian free-market economics has created a dream situation for church shoppers -- decreased demand in religious seekers has current churches scrambling to keep their doors open, which leads to great deals for consumers.

The oversaturation of the religious market that occurred in the last few decades has proven deadly for pastors, and many churches that rode the rising tide of the prosperity gospel movement have found themselves struggling to stay afloat as that tide receded. An overabundance of supply coupled with a massive decrease in demand has created an inevitable perfect storm for church shoppers -- purchasing power is greater now than ever before.

While still far behind our neighbors across the Pond, the American church has seen a steady decline in market share in the last few years. Other Sunday activities, mainly sleep, have cut into weekend time slots traditionally reserved for church. To combat this, churches have diversified their product line into an impressive array of low-commitment appetizers, such as online sermon podcasts and short-term small groups.

Many churches now feature happy hours designed for "seekers," which feature programming designed for especially frugal religious shoppers. These free-trial experiences have translated into frequent return customers --a good sign for pastors who find themselves in a struggling religious marketplace.

Sick of overwhelming commitments and stressful sacrifices? Today's houses of worship offer many experiences and solutions... with no down payments! While our parents were expected to attend church programming at least twice a week to retain their membership status, today's churches require little or no risk on your part. If you don't like what you see, nobody is making you stay.

Tired on Sunday mornings? Try the evening service. Sick of smelly old people and their outdated hymns? Try the young adult Saturday evening service. Weirded out by the candles and tight jeans? Join an "online community," a church experience specifically designed for those of us who prefer cyber-interaction to the real thing.

Whatever your style or preference, today's ekklesia has a solution just for you!

It's easier now than it has ever been to get plugged in at a local church -- in most cases, you don't even need to leave the comfort of your bed, assuming you have a laptop with wireless internet capabilities. Still scared off by unrealistic expectations and spiritual conviction? No worries, today's sermons are diet versions of the traditional two-hour discourse of our parents' age, and rarely (if ever) intimidate us into making lifestyle changes we aren't ready for.

There has never been a better time to invest in a local congregation. What are you waiting for?

Tim is a writer hoping that somehow, someway, his work will influence the world in a positive way. He is currently an undergraduate student at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Hope for the Church in a Post-Postmodern World

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Ben and Jerry's is one of the biggest ice cream conglomerates in the world. Most know Ben and Jerry's for their
plethora of flavors and creative interactive buffet of items to add to their ice cream. It's like Disneyland for the
taste buds. This corner shop enterprise is a great metaphor for the global shift from postmodernism
to pseudo-modernism that is happening today.

A lot of people have been talking about the death of many things lately. The death of culture, the death of church, the death of the emerging conversation and even the death of postmodernism. But, what will take its place and how will that affect how we see the world and react to our faith-traditions? And how can we use this information to transform things like debt down to zero?

Some anthropologists are using the term pseudo-modernism to explain the new incoming cultural shift. Others refer to this as post-postmodernism. Postmodernism tends to be a knee-jerk reaction against modernism. In its origin, it was a reaction against modern architecture. Postmoderns believed that the way things were constructed weren't indicative of the nature of the shift of culture. And so out of postmodernism came the necessary question "What is reality?" and "Who gets to define reality?"

Pseudo-modernism takes that question a step further and actually gives reality a definition. It says that anything that can't be interacted with isn't real. Just because a book is written doesn't make it a book, but when you interact with it that interaction makes it a book.

A church service isn't a church service unless we can interact with it.

Where postmodernism reality was always hanging by a thin thread, pseudo-modernism says that reality can only only be defined as an experience of the senses. This new cultural shift means we can no longer solely depend upon things like logic or debate to defend what we believe. In fact, there is no room for debate or defense in pseudo-modernism. The generations that live through this awkward transition along with those who are born during its reign will come to see the world as one big cinematic experience.

The world, religion, discussion, the Bible, Jesus and others in the milieu will not get to "argue" their case unless they can be interacted with. Interaction is the new reality. The name of the new game is a surrender to a sensory overload. For those who decide to stay modern or even postmodern will be shunned by these new virtual realists because those would choose to stay where they are don't want to interact.

The gospel in Aramaic doesn't mean "four steps to peace with God"; it means only "hope" has to become even more fluid. More engaging and less supported but structure and even theology. It is hope unfettered by the Jesus' of our theology. It is hope that can be seen and felt. Hope that can be tasted and seen.

Churches can no longer survive on the assumption that only one person can share their thoughts on the divine. If this model continues, the Church will continue to decay as it has been. In terms of pseudo-modernism, the Church would have to completely alter their way of doing things and re-frame their whole ethos and worldview to allow for more interactive opportunities driven by eye-candy.

Theology as an educational pursuit might just cease to exist. In the world of pseudo-modernism the new education answers the question, "How can I experience things like God, truth, peace, love and grace in an explosion of sensory overload?"

This might seem like an unsettling worldview to even agree with or let alone validate for most people. But this might be what we need to move us out of our pews and into the world like we were first invited to be. The more time we spend being the movement that the Church should always have been the closer we come to meeting people at the point of their need and bring hope.

But, in the world of the pseudo-modernists, it isn't about bringing hope. It's about being hope. Incarnating hope in such a way that people will see, believe, touch, smell and taste the divine reconciliation that has already happened and is offered to them.

George loves the outdoors, singing in the shower and doing underwater, synchronized pilates. He is currently working on a book entitled Jesus Bootlegged: Recapturing the Stolen Message of Jesus for The World. You can read more about him at his blog.

Let's Talk About Sex

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery. -Mark 7: 21

I looked up the word sex in the New International Version of the Bible, and it appears at least fifty-six times. Most of the references are found in Leviticus about abstaining from weird sexual practices (like having sex with animals). However, Colossians 3:5 caught my attention. "Put to death... sexual immorality." Really?

I thought the New Testament was a loving, warm and fuzzy kind of testament. How did the "doom and gloom," "hell, fire, and brimstone" of the Old Testament make it into the New Testament? I know pastors preach a lot about loving others, but I found it particularly interesting to pair ...love with death.

Proverbs also warns us of how quickly sexual immorality ruins a person's life - even to the point of death. "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave" (Proverbs 5:3-5).

When I was surveying over 300+ twenty-somethings for my devotional book I was writing, I was shocked. More than half of people, ages 18-35, who took my survey asked about sex and how one stays sexually pure in their relationships.

For instance, Aaron, 27, said, "I think abstinence before marriage is the most important thing. We all fail at that on many levels, and shouldn't beat ourselves up, but we should strive for purity in this area."

Many people who say they are Christians engage in premarital sex, and here are a few common reasons why:

Test drive first. Buy later.

How do you know if the person you're going to live with for the rest will satisfy your sexual appetite?

But we love each other...

Many couples are on their way to true love, but let me ask you this: How many couples who say they love each other end in marriage?

More and more Christian marriages end in divorce. So what's the point? You're an adult. You can make your own choices. When the words "death", "dead", or "dying" show up in the Bible consistently regarding adultery, premarital sex, sexual immorality and the like maybe we should listen.

Dear Put-to-Death Jesus,
Abstinence in today's world is a four-letter word. Staying the path of life instead of death can be quite scary. Protect the purity of our minds, hearts, and actions as we follow after you today. Amen.  

Renee is a spirited speaker and writer to the 20-somethings and her first book releases in March of 2010. You can buy a copy of Faithbook of Jesus, read her blog, and follow her on Twitter.

Ninety Minutes in a Ugandan Prison

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I have officially experienced the greatest church service of my entire life. And it happened in a men's prison in Soroti, Uganda.

On Sunday, after church, we climbed on a batch of bodas and rode off to the outskirts of town. A brief downhill ride later, we coasted into the Soroti government prison.

I have to be honest. I was terrified. I mean, the only interaction I've had with the word "prison" usually involves really intense movies or some kind of over-dramatized depiction of life in the slammer.

This was definitely not a prison film.

Julia went with Mike and Denise to the women's side of the prison, while the rest of us went with Pastor Jane to the men's side. One of the inmates, Alex, met us at the gate and shook our hands, saying, "Praise the Lord." He took Grant's guitar case and took us through the compound, which was open and sunny, where prisoners were walking around freely. Some were in the prison's yellow uniforms; some were in street clothes. Alex led us under the shade of a mango tree, where a few benches and a lectern were set up for us to hold a service. More church services should take place under fruit trees.

The first ten minutes of the service were the best ten minutes of my life. There were about 150 inmates around us, under the tree and seated outside nearby buildings. A group of about ten had instruments in hand. There were thumb pianos, drums, small harps, hand shakers, the works. And the men who had no instruments had their hands, and when the music started up, those hands clapped with more fervor than any congregation I'd seen yet. Their voices called out loud and strong, and they danced in time to the music, keeping the beat with their hands.

These men had lost their earthly freedom, but they had the understanding of their spiritual freedom: the freedom that is found in Jesus. It's a humbling experience when a group of African inmates can "out-praise" the largest megachurch in the States. It's also the purest form of praise. When you have nothing, not even your freedom, you have nothing to lose or gain. There's nothing holding you back from yelling at the top of your lungs. So they did. They jumped, they danced, they sang, they shouted, they expressed their joy to their Lord above. All this from the confines of prison.

Joe delivered a message to the men, after which, we asked them if they could play again. Again, the thumb pianos started up, and the voices rose. We weren't allowed to bring cameras into the facility, but even though none of us were able to get video footage, the songs that were lifted in praise will stay with me for quite some time.

I wonder why prisons in America aren't as joyful as the ones in Uganda.

Liz is a missionary on the World Race, an 11-month mission trip around the world.

Worship without Walls

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In October I was living out my dream. I had taken my first trip to Africa and was living with 20 other missionaries in a village in central Ghana. We were planting a church. One night after we had hosted a party for the local children at our house, myself and one of the guys from the team got the task of walking the children back along the road which connected the village to the main road, dropping them off at their homes as we passed.

It was well past dark, but the sky was clear and revealed an orchestra of stars. The dirt road was windy and pot-hole ridden, with the occasional puddle. And marching along was an odd medley of a Nigerian, a Canadian and 38 Ghanaian school children. The children were clamoring to hold our hands. So we each had one, if not two children on either side.

As we wandered along someone suggested we sing. I started them on the songs I had taught them in Sunday school, but it was not long until they wanted to sing the song "Hosanna" by Hillsong. Our team had sung the song at a school ministration earlier in the week and had since heard the melody echoed by the school-aged children throughout the village.

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest.

We lifted our voices together to sing as we walked along this dark, dirt road, surrounded by fields and the dark impressions of houses without electricity. I'm sure the stars must have been shining bright with their agreement as we sang, but my eyes were fixed on the scene around me.

A few of the boys took off in front of us and started turning cartwheels.

It was worship. Right there, on the road, outside the walls of any church. Outside the conventions we place around worship. Just outside. We worshipped the living God. And it was beautiful.

We had no worship leader. We were neither told when to start nor when to finish. We did not have to worry about taking up too much space with our movements, nor lifting our voices too high. We turned cartwheels. We held hands. We laughed. We skipped. We ran. Limitless worship.

So often we, the Church, set boundaries and place limits around worship. Singing, check. Clapping, check. Lifting hands, check. Dancing, in moderation. Falling facedown, only at an alter call. Turning cartwheels ... We restrict worship to make it 'acceptable'. As though it were something dangerous. As though it needs a cage. Are we afraid of what will happen if we let worship loose?

What would happen if we let worship out? If we stripped off the limits we have clothed it in? If we ripped down our walls built to hold it back and pulled apart the bars that cage it? I think we would discover that worship is absolutely dangerous. Beautifully dangerous.

Because it is dangerous to lose ourselves in the pursuit of something else.

Dangerous to lift the name of the Lord.
Dangerous to lay everything down.
Dangerous to confess that there is one who is far above us in power and might.
Dangerous to admit his sovereignty.
Because it is dangerous to love.

It is dangerous, because it just might change your life. It just might change your church. It just might change our communities and our cities and our nations. When we restrict our worship, we restrict the effects of our worship and belittle the God of our worship.

Worship can cause a revolution. When we lose ourselves in expressions of love for God, who knows what could spring forth. Perhaps as we learn to express our love towards God and practice that freedom; as we step outside of the boundaries that we as a church have placed around ourselves; we will discover something. I believe we will be more able to reach into the world and step over walls, over society's rules about how we love our neighbour. I think the outflow of love will become natural for us.

Can we let worship free and watch this expression of love? Can we let ourselves overflow?

I believe worship is dangerous. Beautifully dangerous.

Claire is somewhere between being a student and not being a student. She just finished five months in Ghana and is now in Edinburgh, trying to set up life again. She wants to live out God's calling for her life and is excited to see exactly what that means.

The Scheme of God: How Sinners and Saints Need Grace

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I used to envy the religious elite. The spiritual pedigree of children who grew up to become Christian adults and preachers under the wings of cookie-baking Sunday School teachers and shiny-toed pastors. They had the glory of the church life crowning their heads from the moment of conception. They were bred to be believers. They held the corners of religion up on their generational shoulders. I wanted their childhood; I wanted their life.

I grew up on the streets as an outsider to the church culture. A vagrant surviving on the defiant spit of the stubborn will to live.

When I became a Christian at 19, I was still an outsider in a world of insiders. They were all being groomed at Christian universities, and I was a single mom running from myself and raising a baby on grace. When my Self caught up to me and my moral sheen got scratched beyond recognition in the hellish tumble of sin, I was booted out of the meeting places.

When I was out on my own with grit in my teeth and dried blood in my hair, I watched them all walk out on the Truth. They formed picket lines and petitioned for my death. Whispers of gossip and rocks of condemnation were hurled at my head, and I searched for a place to find a shield of safety. When they walked out on the Truth, they left the door wide open, and I crawled back in to find sanctuary, salvation and healing.

Like me, people all over the world are meeting together in the house of Truth and Grace. Those of us who thought we were alone, are worshiping together under the very light we were told was nowhere near us.

A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God! -Romans 10:15

We're sobbing and singing, "I praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead!"

But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act.

-Romans 10:16

They murmur among themselves. The judgmental outsiders to the Truth. The rejecters of Grace. We're dancing in our salvation, but does anyone care?

Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?

-Romans 10:16

The grace that we cling to, the truth that sets us free has been preached across every sea. Preached by the very mouths who want to keep it from us.

So the big question is, Why...?

-Romans 10:18

Moses had it right when he predicted, "When you see God reach out to those you consider your inferiors-outsiders!-you'll become insanely jealous. When you see God reach out to people you think are religiously stupid, you'll throw temper tantrums."

-Romans 10:19

God knows what is happening, and He sees His oldest children giving His plan of redemption the cold shoulder. Isaiah knew it (Isaiah 65:2), Elijah agonized over it (1 Kings 19:10). God's children, the one's He's had in His pews since birth are out seeking their own interests. They're trying to maintain their standing in Heaven on their own. This is the Christian sub-culture today. This is what the world sees and wants no part of. This current dilemma has been played over and over like a broken record of scriptures throughout history. Moses, Elijah and Isaiah all predicted it and it is happening. The religious insiders, the Christian elite, continue to become thick-skinned toward God.

Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways, God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears. Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors, and they're there to this day.

-Romans 11:8; (Isaiah 29:10)

David was upset about the same thing: I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals, break a leg walking their self-serving ways. I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors, get ulcers from playing at god.

-Romans 11:9; (Psalm 69:22)

It is all part of the Great Scheme of God. The "pruning" and "grafting" of branches. This is God's plan. The walking out, the blinded eyes. Yet, you may ask, "What good could possibly come from Christians tyrannizing their fallen?"

I want to lay all this out on the table as clearly as I can, friends. This is complicated. It would be easy to misinterpret what's going on and arrogantly assume that you're royalty and they're just rabble, out on their ears for good. But that's not it at all. This hardness on the part of insider... toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house.

-Romans 11:25

In our finite minds, we can only see that we are embracing God's message of the Gospel of Grace and the others, those who are hurting and doubting us, are God's enemies. Enemies to Grace.

But looked at it from the long-range perspective of God's overall purpose, they remain God's oldest friends. God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty-never canceled, never rescinded.

-Romans 11:28

They'll be back! They walked out because that's what humans do, but God will bring them back. What's more, when they walked out on the Truth and rejected Grace to the fallen, they left the door wide open! Because the door is wide open for you, for me, it's open for them, too. He is using their hard hearts to let you in!

In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in.

-Romans 11:32

We know that we all have sinned and are all "falling short" (Rom. 3:23), we also know that God is sovereign, but to put the two together is not something I've heard taught. Over seven different translations of Romans 11:32 read that God "consigned", "penned up", "bound", "shut up", "imprisoned", "concluded", "committed" all to sin, and the reason is the same in every translation. It's so that He can have mercy on us. He levels us, he makes us all equals. All sinners in need of His mercy and grace. An entire human race in need of His Son. This is how He gets a full house! This was His plan all along.

Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out.

-Romans 11:33

Soon enough, we'll all be back together and worshipping God and praising Jesus, the One who raised us all from the dead.

Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes.

-Romans 11:36

Read Romans (the last half of) 10 and 11, (I used The Message when I wrote this). The entire first part of this article is a direct parallel to Romans 10, but I didn't list the scriptures. There is Earth shattering truth to be found here. God is sovereign (the decision maker, the one in control) and until we get that, we get nothing. Find hope in the Truth. Find the kind of hope that gives you patience and empathy to those who belittle God's grace in you and condemn you. They're part of the Great Scheme of God, and they'll be worshipping beside you one day with the thankful heart of a sinner saved by grace.

Serena lives in Springfield, Missouri. She is a wife to Justin, a mom to to Natalie, Kinsey, Livia and Stella and a Small Group Leader at New Life Church in Springfield. She wrote a book titled Grace is For Sinners and keeps a blog at www.graceisforsinners.com.

Anne Jackson: Permission to Speak Freely

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I had the opportunity to sit with blogger/author Anne Jackson last week at Merridee's Breadbasket in Franklin, TN (an excellent place to get a cup of coffee and breakfast, if you're ever in the area), and we spent a couple hours talking about writing, missions, church, social media, and building a tribe.

I asked her what the number one secret to building a tribe was -- that is, how she assembled such a large audience around her blog Flowerdust.net.

Her response was simple: "Honesty."

She further explained, "I wish I could give some great answer, and I'm sure that there is one, but I can't think of it. All I can say is to be honest."

That's exactly what Anne has sought to do on her blog (which really started taking off when she wrote an article for RELEVANT Magazine about female porn addiction) and it's what her new book Permission to Speak Freely focuses on.

Permission to Speak Freely began when Anne posed a question on her blog: "What's something you feel you can't say in church?" After 337 responses (484 to date), Anne realized that maybe she was onto something. Maybe some people felt like they couldn't be honest in church. Maybe a new form of confession was in order. Since then, Anne has been accepting creative confessions from anyone who has felt ostracized or judged by the church, as well as testimonies of brokenness and healing that people have found through the power of confession.

Not one to skirt around delicate issues, Jackson seems to embrace controversy, but not for the sake of contention. Rather, she does so out of compassion, with a desire to see God redeem painful situations. Her new project closely follows the theme of burnout and brokenness in ministry (and her subsequent journey of healing) that Anne first broached in her debut book Mad Church Disease (Zondervan).

Permission to Speak Freely: Essays & Art on Fear, Confession, & Grace (Thomas Nelson) comes out in the Summer of 2010. In the mean time, you can read some of the confessions submitted, add your own submission about what you feel that you can't say in church, follow PTSF on Twitter, and twiddle your thumbs.

While twiddling, feel free to watch this short video from Anne about Permission to Speak Freely (don't mind the lady shouting in the background; Merridee's is a busy place):

Jeff graduated from Illinois College, a small liberal arts school, with a degree in Spanish and Religion. He lives in Nashville, TN. He works for Adventures In Missions, edits this silly little magazine, and loves to do new things. He just got married in January. Check out his blog: Pilgrimage of the Heart.

Are We Too Smart for Love?

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Has the Church in the West abandoned the love of Christ for recreational theology?

Last weekend I got to attend a conference with the students from [redefined]. It was a great time, as always, but one session in particular pierced my heart. The theme of the weekend was love. God's love. Brotherly love. Romantic love. They covered love. It was sacrificial love on Saturday afternoon, though, that wounded me.

The speaker started by painting a very detailed, rather graphic, picture of the society into which Jesus was born. Some of the prevailing ideas from the culture:

Infanticide was common.
Children would roam the streets in groups - like packs of wild dogs - after having been abandoned by their families.
"Sick people should be left to die." -Plato
Emperor Tiberius once remarked that he loved to see tortured humans thrown into the sea.
Emperor Caligula commented that he loved seeing human beings dragged through the streets with their bowels hanging out.

 Christians, of course, became great game. Tens of thousands died in the Coliseum - as bait for wild dogs or lions, or as human torches along the perimeter - but the gladiators had been featured "entertainment" for 300 years before Jesus ever showed up.

It was into that world, where human life amounted to about nothing, that Jesus came, commanding His followers to love their neighbors as themselves. He healed the sick instead of letting them die. He held wild children instead of ignoring them. He taught that we're nothing without love, and His disciples got it.

Early believers were known to adopt those infants that had been left to die. They set up the first orphanages. When plague ravaged a town, people fled, but the first Christians quickly earned a reputation for entering those cities in order to care for the sick and dying - many times giving their lives to the same plague in the process.

Benignus of Dijon, for example, nursed and protected a number of deformed and crippled children that had been saved from death after failed abortions and exposures. His act of love was so contrary to the culture that he was put to death for it.

A soldier in Constantine's army, Pachomius, reported giving his life to Christ after watching local Christians come and care for his soldiers who were wounded and/or hungry - the same soldiers who had been persecuting those believers.

The result was a complete change of the known world in less than 70 years.

In 311 AD, Christianity was illegal. By 325 there was some sort of hospice service in every city with a church. In 374, abortion and abandoning a baby were outlawed, and in 378 the gladiator games were stopped.

The world turned over. The "impossible" cases met the Lord. The Church grew. Jesus was glorified, and it wasn't because they could answer all the hard questions. It wasn't because one particularly smart Christian wrote a good book in response to an antagonistic atheist. It wasn't because of their Bible studies, or weekend experiences, or small groups, or potlucks. It was because of their love.

The world turned over because they went out and loved people - practically, effectively, and sacrificially.

We don't love people sacrificially any more. Collectively, I wonder sometimes if we even love people conveniently. We strive to earn Christian Points by attending a mid-week service or small group in addition to Sunday mornings, by volunteering on a Sunday morning, or by reading an extra "Christian" book every month, but we're commanded to love people. How can we even show up to an extra-credit meeting if we haven't loved our neighbor? In 1 John, the disciple who really got "love," tells us that if we don't love our brothers we don't really love God!

Theology is great. It's fun. I enjoy it. (But why, really? Do I enjoy it because it deepens my love of God and people, or because I enjoy a good discussion/debate and like to be right?) We do need to assemble ourselves together. It is good and necessary to study scripture.

But not in place of love. "Be not a hearer of the Word only, but a ..." Because love without deep theology will turn nations.

Deep theology without love will eventually cave in on itself.

I know we're all terribly busy. And we're all re-evaluating our financial situations. And we've all been raised with this predominantly Western/Athenian mindset that values philosophies and ideas and knowledge, left to right, over-analyze, reason over emotion, wisdom over feeling.

And I know most of us have grown up in, or been introduced to, local churches that don't ask much, or expect much, or really hope for much. And we're used to showing up 15 minutes late on Sunday, nodding our heads, sharing a cup of coffee, and going home to sleep it off.

But what if we practiced loving people again? What if we decided to love people in ways that made us uncomfortable, or took up some of our time, or cost us money? What if we got back to adopting the ones that other people abandon, and hugging the ones that other people forget, and feeding the ones that other people ignore, and running to the ones that other people run away from?

We'd probably never get that flat screen TV, or that iPhone. Probably never have the nicest yard on the block. We may never win a theological debate ever again, and the cerebral atheists would probably continue to call us simple, stupid, and superstitious people.

But maybe we'd turn the world up-side-down in the process.

Lex is a wife and student ministry leader in the northwest Chicago 'burbs who is trying to understand and translate Love. She'd also like to learn to knit.

The "Wellness" of Church

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In the world of psychiatry, students study not just the manifestations and causes of mental dysfunction, but the idea of wellness', of what helps the well part of a patient become more well'. In the worlds of education, and business, rather than focus on people's weaknesses, there is the move to explore and develop people's strengths. In looking at developing countries, debt relief agencies, look for positive attributes for assessment, instead of previous models that just measured the bad ones.

This doesn't mean you ignore glaring weaknesses and problems inherent to the system you are involved with. What it does mean is your focus stops being what is wrong?', and becomes what is right?'. Back to a medical example, doctors have had to learn that referring to a pathologist, doesn't lead to good health.

And with that in mind, I often wonder if we have made the mistake in our assessments of church, in becoming almost pathological. We look at current forms of church, and church in the past, with an eye to the ill health', the deformations, the things we dislike etc. Then we construct idealisations of church in reaction to this sickness' diagnosis. Church becomes about not being', and we measure who we are by what we don't do, and what we are not. Are we left with any understanding of wellness' of the church at all?

In Europe where the church has been almost eradicated (for instance where I live around 1-2% of the population are connected to a local church community), does this focus on what is wrong help, or just exacerbate the problem? Does it give us more reasons to avoid the notion of the people of God in any missional sense, with our pessimism about church seemingly insurmountable, and our confidence shattered beyond restoration? Indeed church within the pathological vision might become so bad that we might see ourselves as post-church to escape the sickness that is church.

How do we avoid the slide into a pathological ecclesiology, whilst attending to the very real problems of church? How do we speak prophetically, idealistically and passionately to the need for church reformation, whilst being practical and pragmatic, without losing the confidence towards action? How do we find the best of church through history, to take us forward into the future, without a blind naive sentimentalism to the past, whilst on the other hand avoiding the fostering of a negative and bilious cynicism that invalidates everything that has gone before us?

How do we navigate these dilemmas and arrive at a positive and enabling vision of church, that leads us to wellness'?

For some of us in the UK, the notion of Deep Church', a phrase coined by C.S. Lewis, is providing a mood to direct our reflections and actions to that end. It finds it conjunctive resonance, outside the UK in the Deep Ecclessiology' articulated and lived by Brian Mclaren, and the Emergent movement/network/tribe/mode/phenomenon.

Deep Church values and affirms the many streams of what the Spirit is doing with the church in our times. Maybe this includes amongst many others, the fluid, and emerging forms of church, outside the existing church structures. Then perhaps the fresh expressions' of the inherited church as it seeks to experiment with new forms of church outside of itself, but in relationship with it. Then, there is the inherited church and existing church that is seeking to renew itself, whilst we then find the streams of church that are trying to preserve traditions and practices in the face of cultural change.

And in all these forms/streams, the Deep Church focus becomes, not about what is wrong and invalid or that which is authorized by existing or new groups, but about the challenge of the shared context we find ourselves in. There is within Deep Church, a desire to recover a confidence in the gospel and Scripture, along with the accessing of the spiritual resources of the historical church in non superficial ways, so that we might align ourselves with the work of the Holy Spirit in forming communities, that are living faithfully in discipleship to Jesus, in our contemporary context.

We are not wanting to re-package the past, or be fashion victims of the emerging culture, but rather aspire to an understanding of church embedded in the past, whilst fully engaged in the present. So that within that we might discover and build on what is well' with the Church catholic.

Jason is a pastor, teacher and mentor with a BA honors degree in Theology and a DMin in Leadership and Theology in the Emerging Culture. He is currently working on his PhD.

Lessons from EPCOT: What Christians Were Supposed to Be

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

When Walt Disney passed away in 1966, the ethos of adventure and magic that had defined the Disney corporation died with him. The next twenty years saw a series of lackluster movies and poor business growth. Lack of financial capital was not the issue.

Lack of courage was.

Walt himself remarked,

"When I was about 21, I went broke for the first time. I slept on chair cushions in my 'studio' in Kansas City and ate cold beans out of a can. But I took another look at my dream and set out for Hollywood. Foolish? Not to a youngster. An older person might have had too much 'common sense' to do it. Sometimes I wonder if common sense isn't another way of saying fear. And fear too often spells failure."

Walt Disney was a courageous dreamer, and it is a tragedy that his greatest dream never became a reality.

The Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, was never meant to be a theme park. Not even close. Disney's original vision for the property was to create a fully functional self-contained city that would push the limits of American and global civilization. He dreamed of a community that was always looking into the future, always dreaming, always innovating. Everything about the city of EPCOT would be futuristic and cutting-edge. Walt had plans to erect skyscrapers, build sports arenas, construct schools, hospitals, parks, churches, residential neighborhoods, even build the world's first advanced public transportation system. Walt had it all planned out, down to the smallest details, such as the sophisticated AVAC garbage disposal system now used at Disney World today.

Referring to EPCOT, Walt declared that it would "always be in a state of becoming. It will never cease to be a living blueprint of the future where people actually live a life they can't find anywhere else in the world."

With everything that was going wrong in the 1960's-the Cold War, gang violence, neighborhood crime, nationwide adolescent rebellion-Walt wanted to build a city that would serve as a reminder to the rest of us, "This is what could be." EPCOT was designed to be a living and breathing infusion of the future into the present, a utopian metropolis, the perfect community.

Unfortunately, upon Walt's death, the remaining Disney executives didn't have the balls to pull the trigger on such an expensive and visionary undertaking. They did what most of us would do and built another theme park. With Anaheim's Disney Land such a financial success, the stockholders and upper executives decided to merely replicate it on a larger scale in Florida. It is perhaps a blessing that Disney died when he did, for if he were to have seen what his beautiful dream became-just another theme park-he would have surely lost his mind.

Shortly before his death, he pleaded with his management team to build EPCOT. He finally compromised that the DisneyWorld theme park could be built as a strategic "draw" to get people to visit EPCOT. Your eyes do not deceive you, DisneyWorld was originally meant as a marketing ploy to get guests to visit the REAL attraction-the thriving city of EPCOT.

As tragic as this true story is, I find it even more horrifying what the Church has done with Jesus's original vision for humanity. Just as EPCOT was designed as a progressive view into the future, the movement that Jesus created was essentially the same thing.

Christians were SUPPOSED to be a living, breathing example of the reality of the kingdom of God.

Christians were SUPPOSED to be known for their love, not their arrogant judgment.

Christians were SUPPOSED to be known for their giving, not their prosperity gospel.

Christians were SUPPOSED to be known for their actions, not their Bible studies.

Unfortunately, we have polluted Jesus's original intent on a much grander scale than Disney's executives polluted his. "The Way," as the early Christian movement was called by the rest of the world, was known for its love and sacrifice. Early historians commented that the apostles' preaching and evangelistic techniques were often unnecessary, because their actions were enough to cause people to join their community.

If Christians can somehow, in some way, recover the original dream of our leader, maybe we won't be known by what we aren't, but what we are. According to Walt, "All of our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."

Perhaps we should take a hint from the "happiest place on Earth," and get to work.

Tim is a writer hoping that somehow, someway, his work will influence the world in a positive way. He is currently an undergraduate student at North Central University in downtown Minneapolis.

Book Review: Secrets Behind Closed Doors

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Secrets Behind Closed Doors is a book dedicated to dealing with some of the most common, and most serious, problems facing Christians today. Written by David Ray, a man with years and years of experience counseling those who struggle with these issues, Ray dives in providing hope and help to others.

But, he falls short.

The book is poorly written and even more poorly organized. Each chapter is dedicated to an issue (Homosexuality, Pornography, Co-Habitation, etc.) with a short story of someone who found themselves dealing with that particular issue. From there, Ray leads into 6 or 7 "Guidebook Answers" - insights from his experience.

The problem is that Ray's insights are overly-simplistic. It is difficult to imagine these "Guidebook Answers" (the very name of which seem to betray their actual helpfulness from the get-go) being put into practice and creating long-term genuine healing. Life is simply too messy, too complex to be able to be adequately addressed through six or seven nuggets of self-help advice. If anything, they are the most entry-level steps for someone to take as they very first begin their path to recovery. But don't expect to gain much if you've been at your recovery process for very long.

After "Guidebook Answers" there is often (but not always) additional thoughts/insights not covered in that section before getting to the "A.P.S." (Author's Post Script). Each A.P.S contains a "Discussion Room" which is really a series of statements that the reader is asked to rate either true or false...but no guide or discussion or even an idea of whether the reader is right or not - before ending with a prayer from the author for the reader/those struggling with the issue-at-hand; a fact which necessarily alienates the troubled reader from the expert author.

While the overall content of the book may be helpful for some (I suspect it will only be so for those who are in the very beginning stages of addressing their issues; otherwise Ray is saying nothing new or noteworthy), readers may get lost in the jumble of content. This book has serious content organizations problems.

I don't mean to diminish the potential helpfulness of the book and if you struggle with one or more of the issues addressed in the book, you may benefit from it, but if you do end up reading it, be prepared to slosh through content that may or may not apply and to deal with poor organization, mediocre writing and unfinished stories.

Jesse is an old soul who loves to read, write, and talk theology and believes most things are better while smoking a cigar. You can read more of his thoughts at his blog, Now But Not Yet.

Author Interview: Susan Isaacs and Angry Conversations with God

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky But Authentic Spiritual Memoir, is written by actor/comedienne Susan E. Isaacs. Jobless, loveless, and living over a garage, Susan knew only one thing to do when she hit rock bottom at age forty: She took God to marriage counseling. Casting herself as the neglected spouse, Susan soon confronts her inner nag and the unrealistic expectations she put on God and herself.

Wrecked recently had the chance to interview Isaacs about the book.

Wrecked: How did you get the idea to write Angry Conversations with God? What set into the motion the writing of this book?

Isaacs: I'd read that book, The Sacred Romance, whose premise is: our relationship with God is like a marriage. I was in a comedy group, and I thought it would be fun to write a sketch about taking God to marriage counseling - imagining the squabbles we'd have, me complaining he was seeing other people, God claming I never gave him any quality time. The sketch was a huge hit with our audience.

A couple years later my life fell apart: father died, mother had a stroke. My acting career tanked just as my comedy friends got their big breaks; plus, they all got married that summer just as my 3-year relationship fell apart. It had a snowball effect: my spiritual life fell apart. I wondered if God was good, if he cared, if he'd ever been involved in my life or I just made it all up.

I went to see a Christian therapist to put myself back together. Eventually I realized that my image of God was a patchwork of truth and fiction. A mix of good teaching, bad cultural ideas and personal expectations. I had to tear down and rebuild my image of God -- and let the real God show up. It was terrifying.

Right before my life fell apart I joined a writer's group to develop a solo show. When the excrement hit the ventilation system, all I could do was rant about God. It was a totally secular group, but they supported me 100%. I work-shopped that show for about a year and a half, kept writing and adding material. And my life came back together. I credit the writer's group and my therapist.

When an editor contacted me about my writing, I pitched the solo show as a book, and it was approved. The story evolved as I wrote the book. And God healed me as I wrote the book. I gained perspective on where God had been throughout my life. He even allowed me to speak and he would answer. God showed up for the whole process. Art is an amazing healer.

Wrecked: When you speak in front of audiences, you're painfully honest about your own shortcomings and frustrations with spirituality/religion. How important do you think honesty/authenticity (oops, there goes that
buzzword!) is in a person's relationship with God?

Isaacs: Actors are courageous when it comes to being vulnerable and honest. But we are cowards at other things: Like working 9 to 5 jobs and just being normal and anonymous. And honesty is relative: "the heart is deceitful above all else, who can know it?" I was quick to expose the church and blame it for my problems. But I credit my writing teacher and my group -- they forced me expose my own crap.

Honesty is crucial to our relationship with God. Some people wondered how I dare be angry at God? Well, read the Psalms or Lamentations. They lob some hefty complaints at the Almighty. And yet they were God's spokespeople. Anger and disappointment are normal reactions to living in a fallen world. Why hide it? God already knows what's in our hearts. When I finally lobbed all those accusations at God in counseling or writing, I imagine He breathed a sigh of relief. "At last! Now I can actually respond to you because you're willing to admit how you REALLY feel." Of course I had to sit still and listen to a real response from the True God; not imagine a "sorry" from a wimpy Jesus; or a contemptuous dismissal from a drill sergeant God the Father. Those were my idols: the drill sergeant Father and the Wimpy Jesus.

I had to be wiling to listen to the Real God.

Wrecked: What was it like to travel around the country with Don Miller? Is he cool? Does he snore? Do you have any dirt on him?

Isaacs: Don is colorblind and cannot smell out of one nostril. So tragic; I blame his cross-country bike ride. No seriously... Sorry, there is no dirt to report. He's just a smart and funny guy. And very generous: he let me get up there every night and do my thing. He let my husband Larry tag along as much as he could get free from work. But if I get one more email from a single woman saying she's really Don's soul mate and can I introduce her, I'm gonna go nuts.

Wrecked: Do you have any other books in the works currently? What's next for you?

Isaacs: I'm reworking the full-length version of my solo show based on the book. I'm also writing the proposal for my next book: Racy Conversations With God About Sex, Purity, and Intimacy. The whole clusterfuzzle of Christian singleness. I think my third book will be about returning to The Church with a new sense of hope and commitment.

Wrecked: We're always interested in hearing what writers are reading. What's on your list? Anything good that you've picked up lately?

Isaacs: My husband and I facilitate a church small group. We went through Luke and now we are on Acts, using N.T. Wright's terrific study guides. I was used to proof-texting and pulling scriptures out to apply them to myself alone I am learning the cultural and biblical context of the books: reading them from Luke's POV and culture, rather than some self-centered American POV.

I'm reading a few advance-copies of forthcoming books: Michael Sares' Pure Scum about his church in Denver: Scum of the Earth. Jesus Freak by Sara Miles and I just finished Matthew Paul Turner's upcoming Hear No Evil. They're all terrific.

On my To-Read list are: Wendell Berry's The Memory of Old Jack and This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper.

Wrecked: How has you relationship with God changed since writing the book and the events that led up to it?

Isaacs: I don't question his goodness or love. I know he won't guarantee my safety, comfort or happiness, but he guarantees he will be with me through anything. I haven't completely eradicated the Blame Game. But when a crisis arises, after my initial knee-jerk reaction I try to pray, "OK God, what do you want me to learn from this? What is my responsibility in this situation? Thank you for this chance to grow." My 12 Step group calls it an AFGO: Another F--ing Growth Opportunity.

Wrecked: Random question: Do you have any regrets in life? In Angry Conversations, you talk about some pretty tough things you've gone through personally. Would you take any of it back, or did the pain help you become the person you are today? Or is that just a cliche?

Isaacs: I have tons of regrets. I wish I hadn't spent years sitting in church, waiting on God to make my life happen, professionally and relationally. I am quite sure God would rather I hadn't made those mistakes, that I had taken advantage of every opportunity and blessing he had for me. But I made mistakes, willfully disobeyed, and got confused by poor teaching and well-meaning people.

But there's a difference between regret and mourning. Lauren Winner had a great chapter about mourning in her book, Mudhouse Sabbath. Jews sit shiva to mourn the loss of a loved one: taking a year to mourn someone actually honors them, and heals you. I wish the Protestant Church hadn't dismantled the office of confession. There's something very cleansing about getting things off your chest in the presence of another person.

Regret, on the other hand, doesn't honor anything or give relief to anyone. Regret paralyzes you. And regret is usually tinged with envy (of those who have what you lost) and self-incrimination that will not forgive you for your own mistakes. Regret is a taskmaster; mourning is a healer.

That being said, we are never going to avoid mistakes, because we live in a fallen world and we are fallen. God is the ultimate conservationist. He can recycle our failures, heal us and bless others. I am so thankful he redeemed life and gave me a chance to encourage others who've made similar mistakes. Your life is not over. Bring what you have to God, and he'll say, "Good. I can work with this."

If you haven't already done so, check out the book review of Angry Conversations with God and if you're ready to buy the book, click here. To find out more about Susan Isaacs and her writing, visit the site: Angry Conversations with God.

God's Best Bit of Multi-Media

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

All attempts to define Christianity ultimately fail. They're bound to. God is bigger than our words, pictures, books, names, stories, WWJD wristbands, festivals, revivals, speakers and lists of things. (By the way, did you know that DJWW stands for Does Jesus Wear Wristbands)

All we have at the end of the day to define God is our messy lives and God at work in them. I can describe to you my journey so far and you can tell me yours and of course that will help, but ultimately mine won't be yours and yours won't be mine. God is bigger than both of us. We just show each other a glimpse. Different camera angles.

This maybe why God won't give any name to Moses, a name would put him a corner, suggest so many things he is not. All he'll say to Moses is I exist, I am, I'm present, I'm in the present, I am the present. I'm there, I'm here, I'm with you.

Many Christians love the phrase Born Again - it defines whether or not you're in the club; but Jesus only used it in the one conversation with a man for whom it already had significance. And even then he described God like the wind - something you can't taste, smell, see, pin down, capture in a box, put in an image, or song, or one line description.

My 7 year old daughter is called Amy and has God in her life. Some people might say that one day she will need to be born again and make a commitment. But surely that misses the point. At the moment she shows the rest of us what it is to be 7 years old, have God in your life and be called Amy.

In many ways her faith is much purer than mine - it's not caught up with her ego, or her desire to impress her vision of God on others, in the way perhaps that those of us who are more mature are heavily driven by our egos and agendas. I want to impress upon you my amazing journey, my unique faith, and the brilliance of my thinking when it comes to God. That's why I've written this article and am desperate for you to like it.

Amy is not that bothered.

She's free to make profound statements like - Will we be able to see Jesus in heaven? Yes? Oh good, cause then we won't have to pretend.' And having done this she's then free and happy to move onto other pressing subjects like Scooby Doo, hair bands, swimming or chocolate spread. It's seamless for her. No pretense, no bothering about looking good or impressing God. She's just being Amy.

So what's God like? Well he's like the God who lives in you and inhabits your messy day to day existence. And he's like the God who lives in me and inhabits my messy day to day existence. That's all he will do to show himself and we can argue many things and write our many books, and give our many sermons. But they're all too small, God is bigger than all of them and any attempt to even name God only diminishes him. Perhaps that's why the Bible is so dense and mysterious. Because it brings God to us through so many different life stories, personalities, experiences, triumphs, failures, strengths, weaknesses and comedy moments.

In fact, when you think about it, it's probably the best way for God to show himself - in millions of different lives in millions of different ways. That makes him bigger not smaller, you could argue. 're always in danger of containing God in a single description, a single theology, a single experience, and thus making him smaller.

At the end of the day we are God's multi-media and he'll go on whispering and shouting and singing and laughing and crying through us. His living letters.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why God forbade people to turn him into an idol or a single created image - because that would make him into something he has never been - small, confined, lifeless. That's why God can't just live in churches and temples. A million galaxies can't contain him, his thoughts, his ideas, his passion, zest, enthusiasm, wonder, compassion, attention to detail... and neither can any of these words.

This article is a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse of a tiny glimpse...

Dave likes loud music, good comedy, great films and Tony Parson's novels. He finds the Bible hard to read so is dedicating much of his time to retelling it using all kinds of inappropriate things. That's not his natural hair color.

Heirs of Heresy: How Heretics Change the World... for the Better

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We are, each of us, the inheritors of heresy.

Every child, woman and man is the beneficiary of a prize won through countless demonstrations of heretical heroics and the daring exploits of truth-loving rebels who broke away and ventured out from the flock of accepted ideas, who willingly endured shame, punishment and death for the sake of a truth others held to be false. Our forbears, our Great Ones have always been those who struck out, alone (for a time) to lead us in that great desert-parade into the Unknown, the Other-Than.

The better part of our present understanding, knowledge and wisdom is hand-me-down heresy. It is a robe of many colors, custom-made by generations of heretic-tailors, each adding some new color, some new hue, some new pattern which was not only considered unfashionable at the time, but the damnable ruination of the entire garment.

Those things we hold to be true, which we consider to be self-evident, are accepted as orthodox because that is how they are presented to us. They are seldom appreciated for the acts and words of defiance once required to purchase them. Taking them for granted, we handle lightly many ideas and understandings that were bought with blood and refined in the flames.

We all like to think we are the standard-bearers of a timeless, unchanging Truth. But we aren't. We are the heirs of heresy. No one who says the Earth is round can deny it. No Protestant; no Catholic; no Christian; no Muslim; no Jew; no child of Abraham- who left all that he knew, including the gods of his own family, the god of his limited understanding, to venture out into the Great Beyond of Life with God- no descendant of his could say otherwise. It would be very difficult to give a full estimation of just how much you and I benefit from what once was considered wrong, erroneous, false, misleading or in any other ways heretical.

So, here we are. And here is the question: have we reached the end of understanding? The limit of knowledge? Can we define God? Or is there more to be revealed? If so, is there any way for us to break out of the accepted norms of our limited understanding without the aid of heresy? I don't think so. Do you hate me for saying so? Will you burn me at the stake for suggesting it?

I have ideas of a God Who transcends all of my previous notions. I have a suspicion that if I revealed what I know in my heart to be true, my dear friends would make quick work of readying the furnace. There is something at work in the world, a hunger and a thirst that will tease the truth from your lips and then lovingly drive nails through your hands and your feet.

But I am unafraid. I am happy with my heresy, though slow to speak on it. It needs to ripen on the vine before it is crushed and the seed falls into the ground to die. And you have your truth, too, you heretic.

Will you be faithful to it? Will you be a witness? Will I?

David lives and serves at New Jerusalem Now, a spiritual recovery community in Philadelphia, where he cultivates friendship, garden vegetables, and the occasional heresy.

The Church's Reputation

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Not long ago, CNN aired a story about a church in North Carolina that was organizing an event where the congregation would build a bonfire and burn things they feel were associated with the Devil. Primarily, they targeted the Harry Potter series of books as specifically stated by the church's pastor on television.

So what message are they sending? What could they possibly be accomplishing by burning Harry Potter books? Why is this even newsworthy? I believe the only thing they managed to accomplish was to bring more scorn upon the Christian church. All such actions do is send a message to the world that it is going to Hell because of all the people that read Harry Potter books. It says, "We think we're better than you and you are all sinners and going to Hell to burn for all eternity!"

Frankly it comes across as arrogant. All that particular church has accomplished is to make the world view them as ignorant book burners. They also gave CNN a chance to make the Christian church as a whole look bad which they will gleefully do without hesitation.

I wish I could get the pastor of that church to tell me what he thinks his congregation is accomplishing by burning Harry Potter books. I would love to hear his rationalization about what kind of 'victory' they have by doing so. Since this is the "What would Jesus do" generation, I'd like him, or someone, to tell me when it was documented ANYWHERE in history, not just the Bible, that Jesus engaged in such acts. When did Jesus get into the face of a tax collector or prostitute and scream, "Yer all sinners and goin' ta Hayull!" (You'll have use your imagination and supply your own southern preacher accent to that statement)

I recently read that Daniel Radcliffe, the young actor who portrays Harry Potter in the films, is an atheist. He apparently is a fan of Richard Dawkins, who is the current Atheist guru leading the charge for their cause to sell-out crowds. So once again the church has a reason to hate Harry Potter because Daniel Radcliffe is an atheist and will lead all our children to Hell. But I have to ask the question, "Why is Radcliffe an atheist to begin with?"

Could it be because of the church constantly harping on the evils of the character he plays in the movies? Could it be that all he's heard for most of his young life, from so-called loving Christians, that he is leading the current generation to Hell? Could it be that the constant condemnation that the Harry Potter series has received from church congregations all over the world has driven the young man to seek to prove to himself that there is no God and thus no consequences to his actions in life?

Is the church then responsible for his destruction in the end? What would Jesus do if He met Daniel Radcliffe? What would Jesus say if He met Daniel Radcliffe? What would Jesus say if He observed the church condemning sinners instead of reaching out to them like he did in the Bible? "Cast the first stone?"

The world is growing increasingly hostile toward the church and I say that it is no wonder. The church condemns everything and everyone around it for not falling into line with it's beliefs. We look down our noses at "sinners" and convey the message that we are better because we are going to Heaven and the rest of the world will go to Hell! Some Christians declare it with such an obvious sense of self-righteous satisfaction that it is no wonder we are no longer wanted.

What would the world be like if the church actually reached out to the communities around it? At one point in history, the church was the very center of communities in America but no more. What happened? I dare say that somewhere along the line, church congregations cloistered themselves behind the closed doors of their church buildings and began condemning everything beyond those doors.

Not too many years ago there was a fight about having the Ten Commandments posted outside a courthouse. Suddenly the church made itself heard by crying out against having the monument bearing the Ten Commandments removed. The fact never dawned on anyone that the Ten Commandments were on display at that courthouse for several decades and STILL corruption prospered. Maybe the people of the church were expecting the Ten Commandments to do the job of community outreach for them.

Sadly, I feel its too little to late for the church to turn things around for the current generation. We have established our reputation and now have to deal with the consequences of it. Harry Potter books are being burned and CNN has it's story and more damage is done to the cause of Christ. To change things, we must reach out to the communities around us rather than condemn them.

If you want a small taste of what the world thinks of the Church's condemnation of everything, check this out and scroll down to the readers' comments. Warning: Foul language!

Roy is 39 years old and originally from West Virginia. He is in the military having served in both the Air Force and now the Army. He was raised Baptist but is pretty much non-denominational now.

End Time Army

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The small market town I live in among the Devon, England countryside, is surrounded by hills. Today the hills stand out clear and bright and I know the sun which is currently shining on the September hues, will still be shinning at the end of the day. Another day I look out and see them shrouded in cloud. Okay, I'll probably watch the clouds to see which way the wind is blowing, but I know it's almost certainly going to rain pretty soon.

We can tell the signs for the weather, but what about the spiritual temperature? Where are we in the long-awaited move towards the return of Jesus? Yes, I do think there will be a physical return of the actual Jesus. There are always skeptics ready to suggest it'll never happen, but I'm encouraged by the fact that Peter told folks to expect this in the end times. That there will be loads of people saying, "Everything's going on just the way it has for ages. You're mistaken if you think Jesus will come back!" (2 Peter 3.4)

If momentous things happen in the world, which seem to be outside of our control, maybe God's involved? Even the bit of Jesus' teaching we usually call, "The Lord's Prayer," has the phrase, "...on earth, as it is in heaven". So, having seen the almost complete collapse of the world's financial systems towards the end of last year, what can we discern from this? Did something happen in heaven last year, the effect of which was the banking collapse? I know that man's mistakes were central to the problem, but was there anything behind it?

When I was talking to Father in about April/May last year, I got the distinct sense that He said, "I am raising up my end time army." Being someone who likes to look through The Book to verify what I think Father's saying, I tried to find such a phrase. No luck yet! However, looking at the various passages about the end times, it definitely seems as if there is going to be a polarization as the last days, or the end times, get near.

Now, before I get loads of responses saying that we will not know the day and the hour, I'm very well aware of that. I've no idea when Jesus will come back again, and from my readings in The Book, there are still some things that need to happen before the Jesus cloud arrives. From reading the gospels, I also note a difference between the end times and the end of the end times. The first - we have wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, disasters. The second - we have men's hearts failing them for fear of the things that are happening in the stars. We're not there yet!

The challenge is, am I prepared to be involved in the end time army, even if there are still several decades to go? Those who are sold out for Jesus. Who are more interested in building that army than building an empire. Those who can live within God's economy, rather than man's economy.

I think something has changed in the heavenlies. Time will tell if I'm right, but I think we have come in to a new season. Somebody described it earlier this year as a moving on from the feast of Pentecost to the feast of tabernacles. That the revival in Lakeland was the last under the previous season, and that Father is doing something new. Under the feast of tabernacles, the strangers were welcomed in. Is this a herald of the last harvest, even if that harvest takes several decades to complete?

Because I get the impression Father's doing something different, I've no idea yet what it's going to look like. I know we have to somehow get this message of Jesus out to those who don't yet understand it, but I'm also aware that I have to let God take the lead. If I'm right, and God has changed something, I have to be prepared to let Him be in charge. It's a bit frustrating for someone who likes to plan and organize, but on this one, all I can do is get myself ready.

So is God saying anything in addition to heralding a new season? Not sure really. It certainly shows that the world's financial systems are a bit fragile. But the thing that strikes me is the realization that it is perfectly possible for the world economy to collapse in such a way as to lead to the anti-Christ being able to take over the banking systems of the world.

The world as described in Revelation, really could become a reality in your lifetime!

Mac is in what people call the third age of life. He's planted churches, been an evangelist, been involved in church leadership at different levels for 40 years. He still has a sense of destiny for the next move of God, writes worship songs, preaches and teaches and senses the raising up of the end time army. Above all he is an encourager. For information, check out his website.

Book Review: So Beautiful by Len Sweet

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

So Beautiful was my introduction to Len Sweet. I had heard of him, read about him, and even bought a copy of The Gospel According to Starbucks as a gift for a friend, but this was my first time reading the words of Leonard Sweet.

The basic idea of So Beautiful (a nonfiction book about church life) is that just as the building block of all biological life is DNA, the building block of all spiritual life is what Sweet calls "MRI." The church is a beautiful double helix of Mission, Relationships, and Incarnation.

The book is broken up into three main parts, aptly entitled "Missional," "Relational," and "Incarnational." There aren't really chapters, but rather one- or two-page tidbits (sort of like mini-chapters, each signified by an icthus at the beginning) for each section. Each subsection starts with an eclectic quotation -- anything from a pop culture reference to a Scripture verse to an excerpt from classical literature, a range that adequately represents Sweet's worldview and style of writing.

Sweet credits Alan Hirsch with the majority of credit for the ideas presented in So Beautiful, especially in regard to missiology. If the content of this book appeals to you, you might consider reading Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways, but I'll admit that Sweet's writing is a little bit more accessible than Hirsch's (in my opinion). Of course, Sweet draws a plethora of analogies from pop culture, adding his own voice and angle to the writing.

Len Sweet clearly isn't interested in pleasing anyone. With So Beautiful, he may easily offend conservatives with his appeal for organic church life and multicultural sensitivity. He appeals to those who have grown up in the postmodern world, relating more to pop culture than to the Bible.

At the same time, he does justice to Christian orthodoxy with strong statements about Jesus' uniqueness among other world religions (obviously, not interested in entertaining theological relativism). In other words, he doesn't fit into the typical Christian camps into which theologians often get pigeonholed. He is in a class all by himself.

As an academic, Sweet seems to have written So Beautiful as he might teach a class of grad students. The challenging thoughts on the mission of the church he raises are compelling, but I was disappointed in the lack of practical examples Sweet could have used to illustrate his theories. Where are the stories of all the believers who are living the MRI life? (Sweet could have taken a page from Shane Claiborne in providing everyday examples of "ordinary radicals.")

Nonetheless, So Beautiful is a treasure to be cherished by pastors, lay leaders, and spiritual pilgrims longing to find deeper meaning in church and the world in which they leave.

For more reviews of So Beautiful, click here to read them.

Jeff graduated from Illinois College, a small liberal arts school, with a degree in Spanish and Religion. He lives in Nashville, TN. He works for Adventures in Missions, edits this silly little magazine, and loves to do new things. He just got married in January. Check out his blog: Pilgrimage of the Heart.

Giving is the New Receiving

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

There was this girl down the street from us who used to live in a cardboard box. A real verifiable cardboard box. She moved out when she was 16, she and her mom couldn't get along after her dad left the family for another woman. Her world was wrecked. Her idea of love became a series of rejections, one after the other. As she would walk down the street, there was this voice that would whisper loudly, "You're not good enough. Who would want you?" This is the message she carried with her.

If you were to go back to the street where the girl used to be, you would notice only one one thing that has changed: her age. This poor, little, defenseless girl has now turned into an old bitter bag lady. She listened to the voices. She not only listened to them, she believed them. She agreed with them.

I wonder what our voices are? I wonder how many silent screams we agree with in our lifetime?

I wonder if some of the words we hear as we sit in our church pews are the one's we were never meant to hear? We hear inflammatory statements about this place called 'hell' and this other place called "heaven." And that our existence hangs in the balance based upon whether we say a certain kind of prayer or not.

Now, I am not minimizing a need for salvation or even saying that salvation is wrong or bad. I am challenging whether the way we have heard it over the years is what it was intended to be? I don't think we can afford to be a people who just accept messages from a person behind the pulpit. Truth is too costly for us to cheapen it because we have become comfortable with the message.

Take for example the idea that sin is epidemic. That it somehow courses through our veins like a cancer. A Rabbi over at Aish.com says this about sin: "One of the most commonly mistranslated Hebrew words is chait, which we usually see translated as 'sin.'" In reality, it is translated into the English as "not reaching a destination", it has to do with our potential; not being who we were meant to be. There is a tendency to use the phrase "sinners" out of context. Which when stripped of its context it makes all of humanity seem hopeless. And that makes it much easier to point the finger and say, "The devil made me do it."v

For example, if you interview a thief who has been stealing most of his life, he might tell you it was because, as a child, he never had anything and so he is trying to fill that void. He is blaming his past for who he has become, but ultimately we all are responsible for our decisions. When we blame something else rather than accept our own bad choices, we are essentially saying, "The devil made me do it."

Sin, in the Hebrew mind, is something that is singular. It is not coursing through our veins like we are sometimes told. It is one act, not a series of acts over time. It is something we chose to be a part of willingly.

Our society, along with television commercials that parade across our screens compel us to get more; that what we have now is not enough. Yet, there are those who are born into the world of "not enough" and we still think it right to desire more and more and more. This desire to want more while others have less is sin. It is something that can be reversed. It is about changing our minds, the same idea behind "repentance." When Jesus defends the woman caught in adultery and challenges her to "go and (do this) sin no more", he is essentially saying, "you are above that, you are better than this." Jesus is encouraging her to live to her full potential.

Life is about grasping the divine commerce that giving is the new receiving. It is in the giving of ourselves that we find who we are meant to be. Jesus said it this way, "If anyone follows me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me". Jesus said the way to find ourselves is by giving it all up. And if we follow him, then it becomes about everyone else around us. This focus on us as sinners doesn't allow much room for others, especially if we are focusing on the part of the story that was never meant to be. It's a distraction, it's a roadblock to creating peace with God and each other.

When Paul uses the word "sinner," he isn't saying we are low-grade worms. He is saying that there is a way of life, a series of choices that are set before us on a daily basis and that we get a chance to make right choices or choices that destroy our potential and the potential of others. This is good news. This is the peace that passes all understanding. This is the grace that covers all things. And we all get to be a part of it. We all get to share this new way of living.

This new found freedom that finds us in awe of a God who is madly in love with all of his creation.

George loves the outdoors, singing in the shower and doing underwater, synchronized Pilates. He is currently working on a book entitled "Jesus Bootlegged: Recapturing the Stolen Message of Jesus for The World". You can read more about him at his blog.

Why?: Part 2 - The Problem of Pain

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Read Why?: Part 1 - God is the Ultimate Chess Master

The 1st couple chapters of the book of Job are a graphic example of the horrible things that can happen to someone. It would seem bad enough for those things to happen to the average human, but they happened to a "good" man who served God with all his heart. Sometimes we expect preferential treatment because we are God's children but the Bible tells us that it rains on the good and the bad (Matthew 5:45). Behind the scenes we find out that God was demonstrating to the devil that Job did not just follow God because He had blessed him or done good things for him. C.S. Lewis once wrote that when the storms of life hit us, that is when we truly find out if our "house" is built on a deck of playing cards or the solid unshakable faith of God. Lewis didn't exactly say it like that, but you get the idea - read his book The Problem of Pain.

Job did not curse God like some suggested he do but rather said, "I came into this world with nothing, I'll leave it with nothing ..... blessed be the name of the Lord!" (Job 1:21). He also realized all the trials would make him stronger and in the end he would come out like purified gold (Job 23:10). That's why James 1: 2-4 says we should rejoice in those trials. In the end, Job not only came out stronger spiritually but God blessed him greater physically as well. To me, the interesting part of the whole book is that it never says that Job realized what was going on behind the scenes with the heavenly confrontation between God and the devil. He asked God why, but God's only reply were questions like, "Where were you when I formed the oceans and created the mountains and the stars? Do you think you know better than me?" (Job 37-41) Though Job never knew "Why?" he still followed God!

Of course, the ultimate example of cruel things happening to a good person is the way Jesus was treated on earth ...and the way we still treat Him at times. God could have destroyed those crucifying and torturing His only Son, yet He knew a much greater good would come out of it if He did not interfere. Jesus felt deserted on the cross as He quoted from Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why..." (emphasis mine) yet in the end He was not abandoned, as I'm sure He knew the end to that Psalm as well.

We sometimes forget that there is a spiritual battle going on behind the scenes. Hebrews 2:14 was a comforting verse to me after my father died, much too early, many years ago. The Bible says that death is an enemy, not good, and Jesus came to earth to destroy the one who holds the power of death, which is the devil. I realized it was not accurate to blame God or shake my fist at Him and ask, "why?" The devil is the one using death to try and destroy faith in God, relationships with other people, etc. God was not reaching down and killing my Dad to teach me some lesson but he was there hurting with me amidst the pain.

I don't know all the whys. Sometimes pain and trials may be God's megaphone to get our attention, as C.S. Lewis said. Sometimes the adversary is trying to shake our faith in God. And sometimes when our car won't start at that very important time, it may not have anything to do with God or the devil. Maybe the battery is dead! I do know it is a lot easier to write intellectual answers to the why questions when you're not going through it than to stay strong and endure in the midst of the tough times. We often know the right things in our head but it is tougher to actually live it out day to day. I think that the more we read about the trials of God's people in the Bible and in other Christian books, and read of their faith in the midst of those tough times, the stronger we will be in our faith.

And sometimes we just need to fasten our seatbelts, grit our teeth and pray for God's grace to hold onto us during those dark times when we can't see any light at the end of our tunnel.

I hope and pray that this has been some help and encouragement and maybe even a little enlightenment on such a complex and deep issue.

Stay tuned for part three of this article when we'll discuss the Eschatology of the book of Esther!

Larry is a homiletical humorist/musician who has traveled full-time for over 20 years sharing God's awesome love. He formed the non-profit corporation Larry Bubb Ministries to help let this hurting world know there is hope in Jesus. You can find out more about this ministry & his most recent album of 18 songs called "The Best of Larry Bubb...Plus 17 Bonus Tracks" at his website.

Why? Part 1: God Is The Ultimate Chess Master

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Why is it that every single line I get in, whether at the store or in traffic, ends up taking longer than all the other lines even though mine looks shorter? Why don't guys ever ask for directions? Not many people realize the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years because Moses wouldn't ask for directions! Okay, it doesn't actually say that in the Bible. Why do girls go to the bathroom in groups? I've never heard a guy come up to a table and ask, "Who wants to go to the bathroom with me?"

Why is it that I graduated top of the class in my high school (no, I wasn't home schooled!) and university, have a Masters Degree and over 25 years of full-time ministry experience yet some years my combined housing, insurance and salary income have been around poverty level? Why has God been so faithful to take care of all my needs and bless me beyond anything I deserve (Philippians 4:19)? Why do parents argue and get a divorce? Why do good people have bad things happen to them? Why do dynamic men of God like my friend Rich Mullins die at an early age? Why ask why?

"People say its not fair that people should die when they're 18, I say its unfair that we should be [privileged] to live until we're that old!" Rich Mullins

Sometimes, it all seems like some cosmic injustice! There are so many questions that I'm sure we'll never have the answer to on this planet. I think my favorite C.S. Lewis quote is what he thought his first words would be when he got to heaven: "Of course!" I Corinthians 13:12 says that we only know in part now, but then we will know fully. Isaiah 55:8-9 says that as far as the heavens are above the earth, that is how far God's thoughts are above ours. I have always been an analytical person who wants to know answers to everything.

In the next two articles, I want to share some of the things God has shown me about the why's but ultimately we have to remember that we will never understand it all this side of heaven.

God is the Ultimate Chess Master.

When the enemy makes a move, God is infinitely able to counter that evil move with an even greater move that brings good for all eternity (Romans 8:28). I have heard Joni Erickson Tada share how she is now glad that she had the accident that paralyzed her. She said that as a result of this temporary, physical limitation she is now so much stronger spiritually than she ever would have been had it not happened. She tells people that the eternal benefits which will last forever are much more important than the physical things which we see and are only temporary anyway.

Fanny Crosby, the great hymn writer, was once asked if she had the choice would she rather not have been born blind. She said that she would not change a thing because when she gets to heaven the very first thing her eyes will ever see will be the beautiful face of her Savior Jesus!

Genesis 50:20 also illustrates this principle explaining why all the bad things happened to Joseph...his own family sold him into slavery! The verse says that the things they meant for evil toward him, God used for good to ultimately end up saving him and his whole family. I have a friend in a similar situation who wrote me from prison:

But I'm here, in spite of all of our prayers. Now this could be a colossal mistake in God's plan, which means He is careless, distracted, inefficient and weak? Or alternatively, the enemy hijacked the plan and Jehovah can't turn it all to good? Or, He is the Master of All Existence, the Lord of Hosts, and even if we don't understand it all, everything is going to be all right.

Why am I HERE? And perhaps, more than the why, is, does the "why" even matter? We spend SO much time on the "why" of things, and is knowing the why really our job? If we're walking uprightly in conformity with God's laws, how active do we get when our circumstances take a huge turn for the worse? I mean, Abraham didn't try to take an alternate sacrifice, right? Job didn't call State Farm to put in a claim and rebuild the flattened houses, or buy a bunch of replacement livestock or immediately start chasing Mrs. Job around to replace the kids. He sat in the ashes. And Joseph ..... didn't he at some point, accrue the wealth, power, and status, to either claim his freedom, buy it, or effect an escape, and fly to freedom to go home? But, he didn't ..... [We need] to care less about getting OUT of prison, and more about being like Jesus.

To be continued...

Larry is a homiletical humorist/musician who has traveled full-time for over 20 years sharing God's awesome love. He formed the non-profit corporation Larry Bubb Ministries to help let this hurting world know there is hope in Jesus. You can find out more about this ministry and his most recent album of 18 songs called "The Best of Larry Bubb...Plus 17 Bonus Tracks" at his website.

A New Neighborhood: Structure and the Church

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Imagine a road that features a whole assortment of houses. There's a regular two-story family house and next to it sits a puzzlingly large mansion, replete in splendor with manicured lawns and wrought iron gates. Over the road, a humble bungalow sits quietly, looking cozy and charming.   There's a high-rise of flats, a camper van and even an underground bunker. This is surely a strange neighborhood, but also quite inviting in a Tim Burton-esque fashion.   

You decide to move your family onto this bizarre road and, after conversations with various realtors, pick the regular family house. Having toured the properties, you're convinced that this is structurally sound and will be the perfect environment for raising children, and pursuing your dreams.   At first things are almost perfect. Actually, you tell yourself they are perfect, but deep down that squeaky door bugs you, and you can't understand for the life of you why they put the power outlets where they did. Still, it's an interesting road to live on and the newness of it all makes you feel content, satisfied that life is proceeding as it was intended.  

Over the next couple of years another baby or two join the existing children and slowly the pleasant house has started to look a little frayed around the edges. The door is piercingly loud when it squeaks, but there's never time to do anything about it because of the kids, and work, and that book you've been meaning to read for ages now. One day the frustration mounts so high that you slam the squeaking door and suddenly a crack appears across the plaster between the doorframe and the ceiling.   

The crack stares at you accusingly. You stare back. The crack wins.  

You've noticed by now that the mansion down the road has become more affordable to you (that raise sure helped!). After making inquiries you move the expanded family into its luscious environment. Three months of joy ensue, then the proverbial meteor strikes - the company in which you've been cheerfully working your way up goes belly-up and you're left high and dry. There are some savings to get you through but you know there isn't going to be enough to last through the rough economy. So, you and your spouse decide that, with such a large residence, you can rent out some rooms to people and probably not even notice their presence. Ads are placed, showings provided, rates discussed and finally a college student and a retired couple move into separate wings of the house.

  Now the bills are being made, even though the job you took pays significantly less than you previously made. With this new dependency on people comes something you hadn't reckoned on: the evidence of their existence. Though you hardly see your co-habiters, they leave an unmistakable mark on the mansion in a myriad little ways, and, to top it all, things are breaking down again.   

With the market not picking up, and with the mansion being too much to handle, you look around at the options. You've gotten quite attached to this road by now, and don't want to leave, but you want a more simple living arrangement. You move into the bunker, and feel the peaceful silence settle around you. That becomes too much eventually and the kids are grown up now, so you move to the bungalow: small, intimate, cozy.   Yet everywhere you go, disappointment and longing for better follows you. None of these structures is up to par; all of them are a let down.   

Does this ring a bell?

Let me get this straight -- I love the church. I love her deeply. She is the bride of Christ, and He "gave Himself...to purify for Himself a people for His own possession" (Titus 2:14 ESV). We are called to unity and peace (Eph. 4:1-3), yet most of what I see happening is Christian sub-culture turf wars. The Simples against the Legacies, the Organic vs. the Denominational Hierarchy, the Home Church in one corner and the Multi-Campus-Media-Bonanza in the other. How does that look to the world? The unity of Christ that is to be such a witness is being run over by the Church herself and it's infuriating!  

Here's where we got things backwards: we assumed that the structure was the problem and that we needed to get a new one. Just as our proverbial family above moved from property to property in search of the elusive contentment they so deeply wanted, we find ourselves moving from church model to church model. The church is the people who belong to Jesus. This church also has to function practically and we see glimpses of that functionality from our New Testament scriptures (most notably in Acts and the Epistles). Sometimes we see direct commands, sometimes we get to see hints or suggestions of practice. But regardless of whether or not you like the structure of local church bodies, we cannot escape the fact that there must be some kind of structure. Even a "non-structural model" has by its very existence a structure.   

Structure is not the problem.

Once more, and with feeling: structure is not the problem! Sure, there are some structural elements that are off-limits, such as the spiritual equivalent of an S&M dungeon, but most basic structures are not inherently good or bad, they're just structures.  

Do you want to know what the problem really is? The Church. Yep, that's you and me. We are the problem. We are the ones who don't forgive, who get disgruntled because of one thing or another, and then head off to check out that nice little bungalow, or that sweet pad on the top floor of the high-rise. We sometimes get the sense that Jesus has left the building, but instead of sticking around to figure out why and to ask Him to come back, we walk out and leave a monument to disrepair, brokenness and sorrow.

Why would the rest of the world be interested in that? Why would anyone move into a neighborhood where people are leaning out their window taking potshots at the neighbors?

  If you've slammed the door and cracked the wall, stick around and patch things up! And please, for the sake of the unity of the body, stop taking stabs at each other. We all desperately need Jesus, we all desperately need Him to oversee and govern whichever structure we happen to operate within, be that a simple church network, traditional denomination or anything else that constitutes the gathering together of saints.

If you liked this article check out Convenient Amnesia: Has the Church Lost Her Way?

Jonathan is an English exile learning to follow Jesus each day as an assistant pastor in Nampa, Idaho. He is married to Sarah Grace and has two sons named David and Charlie. He blogs at Project Reclamation when the mood strikes and reviews at Reflective Musings for various organizations.

There's No God-Shaped Hole In All of Us

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

"You are the best bit of multi-media God has." A good mate of mine once coined that phrase and it's stuck with me.

"Don't you dare go making an idol -- a small, lifeless, inanimate representation of me," God once said. You see, he'd already made an image and placed it all over the planet. Living breathing sweating, smiling, arguing, questioning pieces of flesh. Everywhere. Chips off the divine block. People are the best sermons there are. Watch friends together, parents and grandparents, workers, tourists, the homeless, the rich, the poor, the broken, the unemployed. Their living speaks volumes about the God who wired them up.

This also of course explains why people see God's image doing something harmful or destructive and go on to profess that there therefore cannot be a good God up there somewhere. Subconsciously, sub-spiritually they make the connection, if God's representative can do that sort of terrible thing, then God himself cannot be helpful or benign, or even, existent.

From Adam through Abraham through Moses and the Kings and the Prophets, this was the plan. God would choose people who would accurately represent the Boss to the rest of the planet and thereby keep them well informed about the compassionate, passionate creator who put it all together. And time again these God-shaped people lost the plot.

So you know the saying -- if you want something doing properly, do it yourself. So God did. The ultimate image -- the perfect Israelite. Spending a lot of his time doing what? Well, for much of his life, growing up, sweating over a work bench, eating and drinking and doing a million ordinary things so normal they didn't make it into the good book. I do wonder whether Mary and Joe grounded Jesus after that temple incident at the tender age of twelve.

"You're not going out again till you're thirty!" says Joe, and that's why we have no other record of Jesus's adventures while growing up. But I digress.

When he did get out again Jesus spent a lot of his time with the people on the fringes, the overlooked and downtrodden, sitting down in the back streets and dark alleys of the Holy Land. He ate a lot of food, told countless funny stories, made people feel better about life and generally hacked off the religious authorities. He showed the rest of us what being the image of God is really all about. And of course it's a hard act to follow. But come the day of Pentecost God wouldn't be deterred. "You lot can be my hands and feet to the world now. Off you go."

When Jesus was about to depart the planet his friends, who still hadn't really got the point by then asked him when he was going to deliver God's kingdom to their world. And Jesus effectively replied, "I'm not. You are."

When a Samaritan woman asked Jesus for water he cited Ezekiel 47 and told her she was more than welcome to the water he was bringing, but it came with a responsibility; living water was hers so she could pass it on and bless the land. Which, affirmed and inspired, she promptly did, dragging her whole village to the living well. That's a little intimidating for losers like me " I'm no good at dragging whole villages along; so I take heart from Shane Claiborne who once said: "Get ready, God is preparing you for something very, very... small. Because it's small things that change the world."

Old Testament prophecies spoke of the coming branch of Jesse who would deliver the people. Then Jesus laid out his manifesto and turned it all upside down. "You're the branches," he said, "not me, I'm the vine, you can change the planet a little bit."

Tom Shadyac, director of Bruce Almighty, tells the story of the nun who goes to see God and says, "Look at all this mess down here. Why don't do you do something?" To which God replies, "I have done something -- I made you."

Er, I wouldn't do it that way if I were you, God. What's your "Plan B"?

"No plan B," says God, "you can have my blessing and ability and compassion. Some of you will misuse it and abuse it, all of you will only get a glimpse of it, but I'm not a control freak. I want to see what you do with it and how you use these rich talents. Now off you go. Stop looking at the skies and get on with it."

There isn't a God shaped hole in all of us -- we're God-shaped people.

Stop Taking the Bible So Seriously!

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I'm fed up with people taking the Bible so seriously. Don't get me wrong - it's the most important book in the world to me - but that's why I'm frustrated. The more you get to know someone and something the more you love them/it and the more relaxed you are in their company. That's how I feel about the Bible.

The more I've got to know it the more I have discovered it's jokes, shocks, puns, wisecracks, pathos, horror, riddles, idiosyncrasies and subtleties.

It seems massively ironic to me that a book about full life is often read out as if it's a shopping list or a takeaway menu, and that the account of God doing every last thing possible so he can to reach people is delivered in such a form that it alienates most of the population. I'm serious.

The Bible was originally delivered mouth to mouth - back in ye olden days people preferred the oral tradition, they wanted these stories to be living and breathing, they were in no rush to write them down. Probably because people would start reading them out in overly serious and dull voices, looking as if they were three-days constipated. We may say, "This is the word of the Lord," but we don't sound as if we much mean it.

When the prophets buried their underpants, handled human crap, built models, ranted about sex, demolished bits of buildings and went round butt-naked it was all to provoke a reaction in people who's lives were dull and self-satisfied. When Jesus told tales of justice, compassion, humour, suspense and violence people joined in. They argued, bantered and colluded with the jokes. They gasped when he told tales of anti-heroes, and went off in a huff when he delivered killer punch lines that made them sorely offended.

When did you last get up and storm out of church because the Bible upset you? When did you last burst out laughing at one of the prophet's parables?

Of course one of the main problems of our day is that we just don't understand the stories, we put our 21st century understanding onto these tales (and I'm sure this is one of the ways we are supposed to read them, too) but if would only dig a little deeper we could re-discover the ancient jokes, stories, traditions and scandals surrounding the surface text and would then find the Bible to be a very different book.

Jesus's story of Lazarus and the rich man is a retelling, so is the wise and foolish man, these were stories already told and retold. Jesus shocked people and made them laugh with his retellings. The prodigal son is a retelling of the history of Israel, the old story of Jacob and Esau remixed. There were at least three shockers in it - the prodigal came back poor not rich, the father wasn't dead, the brother wasn't forgiving. These were aberrations on the original story that would have set his audience reeling. I'm sorry but a dignified and mumbled, "This is the word of the Lord," just won't cut it. We need some new genuine responses such as "You're kidding!" or "What?!?!" or "Respect!" or "You're having a laugh."

When Ehud slashes open evil king Eglon's gut in Judges 3, we are supposed to squirm and gag at the lurid details. You can smell the excrement and the undigested food in the passage (no pun intended here). It's the original Godfather coup. It's gripping and disturbing as Ehud sets up the assassination, slaughters the cruel despot, then escapes like Andy Dufrane in the Shawshank Redemption - through a stinking sewer.
The writers of the Bible retold, re-quoted and reapplied the Biblical texts themselves, as they struggled to find reference points for what was happening to them. They were not afraid to retell the text so it passed on the truths in a new way.

And that's the point.

A tale like the Good Samaritan is too important to keep telling as the Good Samaritan. The truths in it remain the same: Love your enemy; no one is a neighbour to you until you are a neighbour to them. But if we are to help people understand and remember this then we need to re-invent it and tell new versions of the story so that it is funny and disturbing and shocking in the way the first version was.

I recently came across a surprising retelling of the parable of the unforgiving servant in Sex and The City: The Movie (Yes, I admit it, I've watched some of it. It wasn't bad, actually.). Now, I'm not naive, the writers may not have deliberately been retelling Jesus' parable. But the story and the truth were there, no doubt.

I wonder how many people went to see it and were different because Jesus' parable had sneaked into the story through a back door. Many more people have probably discovered Jesus' parable in that movie than have heard it in church.

That's what I'm talking about; we need to get the Bible out there and stop hiding it in reverential voices, old language and Sunday services.

Where Would Jesus Park?

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This morning I went jogging around the neighborhood during the Sunday morning service hour. (Before you write me off as a heathen, let me just say that my family had our special Sunday time later in the day. More of that later...)

During my grueling jaunt in the Arizona sun I passed by three small churches. Being an engineer who has an eccentric knack for noticing peculiar details about things, I made some passing observations of the parking lots of these churches. This is my report.

I must first give a huge caveat. The following observations and commentary should in no way be taken as a definitive scientific implication about actual reality, statistically speaking. Here, I must leave my scientific tendencies behind. For this is a matter of the heart.

As I noticed certain things about the parking patterns at these churches, I realized that it serves as a metaphor for what could be happening inside our hearts. Above all, God used this to speak to me about my own heart. And to my chagrin but delight that seems to me to be what God speaks about the most.

OK, to make a parking pattern you need some cars but not too many; a full lot is not an interesting pattern. These three churches had spaces for maybe 20 to 50 cars, but only 5 to 10 cars in attendance. Perfect. (The reason for low attendance was not part of my running analysis.)

The most obvious aspect of the parking art is proximity to the building. In Arizona in the summer this is at the top of the priority list. In fact, on particularly hot days this can make a person flatly forget about all of the other factors that I will mention. It's a good thing that we are forced by the government to save some close spaces for the handicapped. (You will notice my sarcastic tone, but I assure you that this is self-targeted.)

However, this morning it was still only in the 90's, and as we say, "It's a dry heat." So another factor came into play, parking in every other parking spot. Why is this? Well from my own experience that's obvious. More room to get in and out, less risk of getting your doors dinged. That's the common sense thing to do. I do it all the time when parking at the store. Well, less often nowadays as the city gets more crowded. Dang those Californians moving over here!

So, what's the problem if we want to do a little defensive parking at church too? It's very pragmatic: keep everyone at arm's length so nobody gets hurt. If some visitor comes after I've already parked, well then that's their fault for coming late. They may end up having to park right next to somebody, but that's fine as long as it's not me. Actually that's an advantage of parking a little away from the building, just in case a visitor comes they will park next to someone else. And I end up looking spiritual at the same time. But in general, the way I see it, parking in every other spot also makes sense for another reason. There probably won't be any visitors anyway.

What's particularly advantageous about thinking through things like this beforehand is that many of the same lines of thinking can be beneficial in multiple settings. For instance, these parking insights come in handy when choosing a seat in church. The parallels are surprising. There is a delicate balance between keeping a sufficient distance to respect people's boundaries but at the same time keeping the larger accessible vacant areas, which are more likely to be taken by inexperienced visitors, away from you. Sitting on the aisle helps with this, as people have to step over you to get the vacant seats. Actually, if you want to keep your wit sharp at keeping the upper hand in these important territorial matters, I recommend playing strategy board games. The game Blokus is particularly helpful here. As they say: "Location, location, location."

Sorry, I said God revealed some things in my heart. Maybe other people have their spiritual battles in different arenas, but for me things like parking can rank right up there with the Normandies of the spiritual world. And maybe that's part of the reason why I am no longer attending church as we usually think of it. You have to pick your battles wisely. For me, with the way God has equipped me, and after a journey of many years in "normal" church, I have decided God has called me elsewhere, to reach out to those people who only drive or jog by those parking lots.

That's why this afternoon, after several months of discovering new things about God and worship with just my family, we had our first Sunday get-together with another family at our house. The parking was superb!

Tom is an adult missionary kid who answers "Where are you from?" with "the dust of the earth and the heart of God". He lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife and three kids.

What Killed the Charismatic Movement?

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I can summarize what killed the charismatic movement today in two words:

"Contain" and "It"

The words need to be considered separately, and the it needs to be considered first because it is far and away the most important problem, and the contain often springs from the it.

What is clear and most heart-rending is that we have looked at God as an it. We've called Him "the anointing" or "the glory", and we've said it is on certain leaders, and we've clamored all around the world to get more of it from them. God wants intimacy with us, but we're still going the indirect route, looking for "more of Him" (notice that makes Him an it again) instead of being intimate with Him and growing together from there.

it also proves that we have been looking for results. We've been enraptured by miracles, by signs and by anything apparently supernatural. It doesn't take a psychologist to realize that we seriously feel that our faith is invalid without miraculous signs and wonders. God really does do signs and wonders, but our faith isn't to be anchored on them. Signs and wonders didn't keep ancient Israel grounded in faith at all - they went up and down like the waves.

It's natural and human for us to feel something's wrong when we look at events in the book of Acts and compare them to our current situation. But I think what we need to do is surrender that feeling, that need, to God. More often than not we still look for an external proof to validate our internal faith. But by chasing signs and wonders, we've avoided facing that brokenness that God meant us to face - that part of us that feels like something is wrong, and then surrendering it to Him and accepting His answer in brokenness.

We're subconsciously afraid that if we surrender that need to Him, He still may not produce signs and wonders. He might say "no" or have us wait. So we generally leave Him out of the picture. We construct teaching principles (that is, theology) which say that it is always His will to heal, to do signs and wonders, etc. We cut Him out and reduce things to an equation.

Your Faith + This Principle = Miraculous Results

The bottom line is that we don't want God sometimes. We often want what God can do, and if the results don't show up, we calculate that it means we didn't have enough faith in the principles.

The other word, contain is easier recognized and more obvious. But that containing action springs out of the it. As many have noted, we try to contain and keep whatever God is doing. But the last 20 years or so should tell us a lot about this. Since Toronto and Brownsville, a pattern has emerged and we've come to expect it (expect God to do the same stuff)... manifestations, large meetings, revival, outpourings, and conferences we fly across the country or world to see (again, in the hopes of catching it and taking it back with us!).

In haunting parallel, we're seeing a re-enactment of the medieval rush for relics. Wherever God seems to have been, we rush there. And whatever He did or seems to do there is contained and preserved - a holy relic for others to visit and come receive an impartation from.

Just like Catholic statues or Orthodox icons, we've made "images" in the charismatic church. We've longed for them, chased them, gazed at them, praised them, prized them, advertised them, evangelized them and merchandized them. We've mistaken the shadows of God for God.

There is always a danger, of course, when we try to contain anything God does, we don't allow God to be Himself. He may want to withdraw. He may want to do something different. We've got to ask Him. And when we shut off part of Him, we open the door to other things. If you pray to a Mary statue long enough, her eyes may start to bleed for you. If you look to an it too long, it may answer back. If you seek to keep it (i.e., "revival") prolonged and maintain it, whatever the signs of it you wanted may stick around. So you'll get your it, but it may not be God.

The only way for the movement to continue is to admit to itself that it has died, and to repent for not allowing God to kill it a lot sooner!

Time to come back into the Light.

Ramone is an artist, teacher, pilgrim and worshiper living in Osaka, Japan with his wife and children. He has been painting prophetic art for Jesus since 2005, which can be seen on his blog Art For Jesus - in Japan and on Facebook. He is currently starting a healing-art ministry in Japan and has felt God call him to pray for people in darker, neglected areas of his city.

Are There Non-Negotiable Beliefs for Christians?

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

With the advent of postmodernism and its wide embrace in our culture, there was a backlash against it by Christians. Postmodernism brought the ultimate death in the notion of any concept of absolute truth and, therefore, God. As is often the case, when the culture swings one way, the Church swings hard to the opposite.

One of the results of this is the conversation about whether there is such a thing as black or white when it comes to things like theology, morality, and sin. I was recently involved in such a conversation myself. Inevitably the conversation came down to these questions question: is there such a thing as black and white? Is there such a thing as absolute truth?

Perhaps you have struggled with these questions yourself. In fact, if you haven't the question should then be, "What rock have you been hiding under?!?!" Now, whenever you involve Christians in these conversations, you're sure to get an answer and it is predictable 9 times out of 10.

"Yes."

I agree. I won't go into all the reasons of why I agree since that's not my point with this post, but I agree. Chances are if you are Christian then you probably agree too; at least, that's my experience. But the problem is not in the belief in an absolute, but in one's confidence that their particular system of beliefs is absolutely true.

Do you see why that's a problem yet? If not, you soon will.

We Christians have this interest in partnering with God in what he is doing; namely, bringing heaven to earth. This happens both personally, as individuals come into a saving relationship with Christ, and somewhat impersonally, as systems and practices are reformed to be more just, more true, and altogether more Christ-like - and thus good. The two are intimately connected, but it is important to note that in order for the latter to be accomplished, the former must first be in place. All of that to say, Christians have a vested interest in helping others into this saving relationship with Christ. Sometimes we call this "getting saved."

Among other things, getting saved often involves teaching potential saved folk about God - theology, doctrine, etc. In short, we tell them the right things to believe. In fact, most Christians put so much weight on this matter that disagreement on a given doctrine or belief is typically enough to be deemed heresy or have your faith called into question.

This, I submit to you, is endlessly troubling. And it is built on the assumption that everything is either black or white.

Now, for our purposes, I want to submit that most of us actually will acknowledge that there are some gray areas. For example, Paul talks about how what may be convicting for you is not convicting for everyone else. Paul was speaking about specific cultural things, but the same applies to us today. For a former alcoholic, having a beer with dinner may be sin. But for many others, it is simply another drink, even given its alcoholic content (the Bible is clear that drunkenness is sin, but that is a slightly separate issue). As such, we call this gray area, it is open to interpretation and individual conviction. Such is the case for many other activities as well: certain forms of media, music, movies; modern medicine; political stances; etc.

But eventually we all come down to a set of foundations. There are some issues, we believe, that are black and white and some doctrines that must be believed by every Christian; otherwise, they are not a Christian. These, we would say, are absolute truths.

I want to affirm this notion, it would certainly make most things easier, but it is problematic for several reasons.

First, even if we agree that there are non-negotiables, there is not consensus on what these foundational beliefs should be. One person or group of people will say that in order to be a Christian, you need to affirm a, b, and c. However, another group of people would add on top of that x, y, and z. Still others include l, m, and n. In other words, depending on who you ask, you will get a different combination of non-negotiables. So where does that land us? Square one. We know that some are in and some are out, but we are not any closer to figuring out who falls where except to measure everyone according to our own foundational beliefs and if they disagree...well, they're out.

Second, the matter is further complicated by one oft-overlooked fact: even if we agree that there such a thing as absolute truth (in my mind, there must be), none of us have absolute knowledge to know this absolute truth. For all we know, we are right on some things, close on others, and way off on others. This should not cause us to throw our hands in the air and acknowledge our defeat, but it should cause us to believe and judge with humility. You and I are not God. And that's good news, indeed.

Third, for better or worse, we are human our knowledge is limited and circumstantial. By that I mean we are each only able to understand what our background, education, experiences, etc. allow us to understand. We often make the mistake of assuming that everyone thinks, and is able to understand, like us. But this ignores a great number of issues, not least of which are mental illnesses, physical deformities, tragic experiences, psychological disorders, etc. But even without those issues in place, we can only be accountable for our best. That is to say, all that we can expect from ourselves (and all God can expect from us) is to make the best possible decision given the information we have. And this is highly subjective as it is a matter of conscience. I assume you would be uncomfortable being told to believe that Jesus had a wife named Maria and they had two kids together, Quantavius and Lucy, when, given an examination of the evidence, you find this conclusion to be unconvincing. You have to make that decision. And so do I. But we need to acknowledge that our differences as human beings means that we will come to different conclusions on what is true and what is not.

I'm sure at this point, you think I have degraded into the depths of postmodernism and believe that there is no truth (or at least no knowledge of the truth) and thus every idea, every person, is as good and equal as the next. That is not the case. I do believe in Truth and I think that my beliefs are the closest to that Truth - otherwise, I would change my beliefs.

To some, this may actually seem like bad news, but its not. Its good news and it always has been because it means that our salvation is accomplished by Christ alone by the grace of God and not by our doctrines. All we need is to surrender and accept that grace. Sometimes, that will mean changing a belief when he tells us to (this, by the way, is one of the roles of the Holy Spirit - interesting that we've assumed this role ourselves). Sometimes, it means that we need to recognize our own ability to believe what is most convenient despite the fact that we are actually convinced otherwise. And, at times, it means we live without knowing what to believe on a particular issue.

Most of all, it means that we can stop playing God and rest in the realization that we need his grace as much as the next person, good theology or not, and that at the end of the day, we can trust Him to be just - both to us and to others.

Jesse is a twenty-something married guy living in Colorado who is trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ in the twenty-first century. He is finding that there is no one way to be Christian, no single belief system, no single Bible interpretive method. Faith is too messy for that. You can read more of his thoughts at his blog, Balancing Tension.

Is Mental Illness the Church's Dirty Little Secret?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What is the nature of the soul, and how is it related to the mind and the brain? Why do bad things happen to good people, how do these trials shape them, and what can be said of God when there seems to be no relief? What does it mean to be born again and made new in Christ? How should the truths of scriptures be understood in our modern world, which is so often viewed through a scientific lens?

How we answer these questions shapes the very most basic parts of our faith. And all four of these questions are just the very beginnings of how we view mental illness. Mental illness. Is it going too far to call mental illness the dirty little secret of the church?

I'm not sure that this would be an exaggeration at all. I think we'd all be hard pressed to name a single issue which has affected so many but which is so rarely discussed. It would almost be a good thing if we could, in fairness, say that the topic was controversial. I almost wish that we could say that the church is divided on the issue. Because this would imply that we're at least trying to deal with it. This would imply that we've at least recognized that it's an issue. It's not altogether surprising. The secular world doesn't do much better in this regard. And a person could spend his whole life on any one of the questions mentioned in the beginning of this article. Yet, to formulate a cohesive and Christian response to the fact of mental illness almost demands an answer to all of those questions at once.

Consider the question of the relationship between soul, mind, and brain: The use, and sometimes success, of medications imply that there is at least some physical aspect to mental illness. The very use of the term, "mental illness" draws a comparisons with physical ailments.

Or begin with the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Mental illnesses are not brought on by any doings of the person who suffers from them. "How do trials shape us?" Even a casual survey of the research leaves one understanding that traumatic events impact the brain itself. "What can be said when there seems to be no relief?" One of the most heart-breaking aspects of mental illness is that it is so very unpredictable. It can go on for years and decades, being mostly the same. And then? Then it gets better. Or it gets much, much worse.

What does it mean to be born again, or made new in Christ? People accept Jesus as their Savior, and their mental illnesses linger. Others, who are life long Christians develop mental illnesses. It is a real and legitimate question: where is Jesus' healing for them?

The question of where Jesus' healing is for the mentally ill leads to that last fundamental question: "How should the truths of scriptures be understood in our modern world, which is so often viewed through a scientific lens?" In the entirety of the Bible, the events that seem like the nearest descriptions to mental illnesses are in fact examples of demonic possession. Yet modern science has no room for this explanation. And modern science has sometimes been successful in explaining and even managing mental illness. How do we handle this tension?

This is not a series of abstractions. This is not an interesting quandary. If you are fortunate enough to not have grappled with this yet, you will. If you spend long enough in ministry, you will wrestle with how best to hold someone accountable for actions they may well have no control over. If you spend long enough trying to bring Jesus' love to everyone, you will find people so thoroughly depressed that they can not feel His love or hear the truth of your words.

If you spend long enough in small groups, you will become authentic enough in your community that someone will share these troubles, that can be so very hard to understand or change... unless of course you suffer from mental illness yourself. And if you do, you may find that there are no lonelier places that a person might be.

I am not suggesting that there is no answer to these questions. In fact, I believe there is a desperate need for better answers to these questions. But I am clear that we do not have these answers. Not fully, completely, or consistently. And I have seen the damage, the terrible damage inflicted by people who believe that they did have the answers.

I think one of the lessons that God wants us to learn from mental illness is that He will not be placed in a box and He will not work on our time tables or according to our plans. I do not believe that mental illnesses occur so that God can teach us these things. But I do believe that He uses mental illnesses to teach us these things.

I believe that when we don't see healing the way we think it should occur, when the same issues and challenges wear and tear on us year after year, I believe we are all confronted with a decision. Will we take the path of Christ? Into the pain and doubt and suffering? Or will we take the path of Judas, into the safe and comfortable?

In small ways and big ways I have shunned the suffering. The suffering are reminders that I am not God, and I can not heal whoever I choose. The suffering are reminders that God is not a genie, he is not a cosmic ATM. I repent, right here and now, of all the times I have taken the path of Judas.

The mentally ill are not the only people who are suffering. But there are a few cruelties we save for them alone. There are limits to the comparisons between mental illness and physical illness. But there are ways it is a useful comparison. Yet most of us don't encourage people with high blood pressure to stop taking their medications. Most of us do not think that the people who wear glasses among us lack the faith for healed eyes. Most of us don't cast doubt on the ideas that a secular doctor might have some good insight about our flat feet.

There is a part of me that wishes so desperately that I had more. And yet, over and over, in the scriptures, we are told that love and humility is enough, they are more than enough. So may all our actions be saturated in love and humility. Whatever specific things we do, I think they will be the right things if they begin in love and humility.

Our own human attempts at love and humility are so small but I know that there is an infinite storehouse of love and humility in Christ. And I know that we can access this storehouse in Him and through Him... That is not the end but the only worthy beginning.

Jeff's life was Wrecked for the Ordinary when Christ entered his life about 6 years ago, through the unfailing witness of an amazing wife and a great church. He serves and learns from students with emotional disturbance as a Special Education Teacher and is involved with Small Groups Ministry. He also has deep thoughts.

Pledge of Allegiance in Church = Idolatry?

Tue, 7 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For many of us, whether we would express it this way or not, America is (or close to) a Christian nation. It is true that many of our foundational values as a nation, as expressed in the Constitution and elsewhere, appealed to Christian principles.

Ideas like inherent value, equal rights, freedom of religion (whether for or against Christianity), etc. - these are ideas that we hear about in church in varying degrees. There are also campaigns, of sorts, being led by some Christians who genuinely believe and/or want America to be a Christian nation because they are convinced that if we could convince others of this, then many of the problems plaguing our nation (divorce, abortion, homosexual agendas, etc) would be fixed.

This belief in a Christian nation is further sealed in our hearts by the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation, under God, indivisible
With liberty and justice for all

Liberty, justice, indivisibility... all under God? While many of us would agree that to be a patriot does not necessarily cause one to be a Christian, it is almost considered blasphemous to consider that a Christian living in America may not be very patriotic. Many of our churches, in fact, are led by former military men and women whether as clergy or lay people.

The American qualities present within Christianity are particularly emphasized on the Fourth of July weekend. For example, at my church over the past weekend, there was a man dressed in full military garb who gave a short speech about why he serves his country, how he loves his country, how he is thankful not just to enjoy his freedoms, but to fight so that others might do the same -- it was an inspiring speech. To conclude his speech, he led the congregation in the pledge of allegiance, him saluting the flags onstage and the congregation holding their hands over their hearts, hats removed (it was an outside service), pledging their allegiance to a flag, a country. Pledging allegiance to a country... in the middle of a service designed to honor God.

I know it may not be popular to do so, and I know that there are many who would disagree with me, but saying the pledge of allegiance in a church service is idolatry - worshiping someone, or something else, when we should be worshiping God.

Its not that I am against the pledge of allegiance altogether; in fact, I think it to be a great and valuable resource to the American people. I say it now and again myself, depending on the circumstances. But we need to take a serious, reverent pause before we consider saying the pledge of allegiance during our worship services. Such an act, while it may not seem like a big deal, is a huge deal. Perhaps, even, the fact that it seems so small is what makes it a big deal - when we treat God and his presence as something trite, normal, or trivial, we are putting ourselves into a very dangerous position with Him as we are prone to abuse the very one we are meeting to experience and glorify.

I want us to imagine how Jesus might have responded if the Jews of his day had been pledging their allegiance to Rome in the midst of their sacrificing in the temple. I can't imagine he would have allowed them to compartmentalize the two; even had Rome had an "under God" clause in it (by the way, in case you were unaware, the words "under God" were not added to the pledge of allegiance until the 1950's -- see more here). Or perhaps we should consider how God might feel if we replaced "flag" and "nation" with "currency" and "wealth" - no that's too stark a difference in our minds. How about we replace "flag" and "nation" with "denomination" and "beliefs"? Now we're getting a little uncomfortable, aren't we?

I want to make something clear: I'm not advocating for an anarchist mindset or one where we become disrespectful of our history, our nation, or those who sacrifice so much to protect our freedoms. We should vow to our nation, promising to sacrifice for her. We should be thankful for those who have sacrificed on our behalf. We should even, dare I say, celebrate our nation's birthday - but when it comes to pledging allegiance in a church service, that should be reserved for God.

The reason is simple: pledging allegiance to the State in the same breath that we are worshiping God leads to a conflict of interest. What happens, for example, when keeping our allegiance to the State results in being in opposition to God? What happens when our commitment to Christ necessitates a forsaking of our nation? It is all too easy to assume that we would be willing to make the hard decision, but more likely we'll attempt to walk the middle line and thus compromise both our allegiance to our nation, and our commitment to God resulting in a lukewarm patriotism and a lukewarm faith.

Further, when any symbol is compared to, set aside as equal to, or pledged allegiance to when a cross - the very instrument that was used crucify the god-man who died a brutal death so that we might not suffer the punishment for our sins -is in the room, we have problems.

Church leaders: leave the pledge of allegiance out of your services. Everyone else: next time your church starts the pledge, exercise your freedom, and remain silent. If you are going to err, err on the side of devotion to God.

What do you think: Is there a line between patriotism and idolatry? Should we be reciting the pledge of allegiance in church?

Convenient Amnesia: Has the Church Lost Her Way?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

You slowly make your way through the ex-warehouse to find a place in the movie-style seating area while the band is playing the number one praise song of the week. A week before, you handed over a couple of tickets and you casually strolled through the masses, into the standing room only gig and the band came out and everybody screamed.

One is a church, the other is rock show, is there a difference? Should there be?

Churches today look more like a Fortune 500 company and less like communities who look outward. One Sunday might highlight the newest book by the biggest flavor of the week, then the next we'll talk about how tithing is more important than forgiveness, but we'll throw in a few verses for posterities sake. (Just a side note, tithing was under the old religious system that pervaded the life of an everyday Jew before Jesus arrived on the scene. In fact, there are no verses in the time of Jesus that talk about a compulsory rule for tithing.) Interestingly enough, Jesus challenged everyone to look outward with what they had. But the Church as-is is more like the rich man in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You see, the rich man wasn't just rich, he might have been influential if he was just rich. His affluence got him whatever he needed when he needed it. With wealth came reputation, with reputation came preservation and with preservation comes oppression at any cost to protect what is mine! You see, Jesus was using the rich man as analogy of the religious system of his day. It would be like Him saying to us now, "You have lost the plot. You now use all your resources to make yourself look good. You are more worried about yourself and not the person in need outside your door."

What's even more tragic is that the rich guy (remember, he represents us) ends up in "Hell". He is having his wounds licked his all the while being separated from God. Lazarus ends up being the nearest he could be to His Creator. Jesus is doing a reversal here, he is saying all this religious mumbo-jumbo will get you nowhere fast. Ah, but he is also saying that it is the outsider who gets to have the cake and to eat it, too.

The Church should look less like the world and more like a community that lives out heaven on earth. The Church should divorce itself from embracing old pagan models of doing church and embrace the original organic movement of counter-cultural prophets who lived by the rule of love and grace. I believe Jesus would have been labeled a hippy if He was around in the 60's, I believe He would have been hanging out with Ghandi in the desert and sipping a coke with Billy Graham. But, I also believe He would have held hands with AIDS victims, hung out in the not-so-safe parts of town, he may have even spent time with drug-dealers.

It seems the Church is more concerned about making a name for itself rather than embracing the outsider. I think its because if we did, we might have to come to the realization that we were once not that far from where they are. Maybe for some, it is too uncomfortable to accept grace and so the easier thing to do is point the finger and look on those who are easy to judge. One of the biggest phrases that shows up throughout the ancient scriptures is "Remember when..." Why? Because, we forget. When we forget, others tend to pay for our convenient amnesia. We need to remember that God is the one who got us out of our mess and that His rescue doesn't stop with our rescue alone, but that he empowers us to keep moving. We must be a community of people who embrace forward motion.

The question is, are you?

If you liked this article, check out What About the Food: Restaurants and Churches

Stop Leaving the Church

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Leaving the church is nothing new; Christians have been doing it since its inception. In the early days, it was usually due to heresy, an out-casting of sorts. Or sometimes, perhaps, it was the result of dissension: one person or group of people felt that their leaders or fellow Christians were off-base theologically so they split.

Today, so far as I can tell, it is due to one of two reasons: being hurt by the church and disagreeing with something about the church. For those of you who have been hurt - I'm so sorry. You have every right to be angry. When Christians betray their faith, for whatever reason, hearts get broken and backs get stabbed - it shouldn't happen but it does. Nevertheless God never allows us to harbor bitterness. He always expects us to forgive - not, primarily for the others' benefit, but for our own. Often times, disagreement and being hurt go hand in hand when it comes to the church. But I hope to convince you that leaving the church is not the answer to either scenario.

Now, before I begin I first need to clarify what, precisely, I want to talk about. Most Christians make a distinction between the little "c" church (the local church down the street) and the big "C" Church (the Body of Christ universal, regardless of which local church they attend). For many, participation in one automatically results in participation in the other. However, there is a growing number of people for whom you can participate in one without the other. That is, you can be a part of the Church without any participation whatsoever in the church.

It has become commonplace, perhaps even trendy, to leave the local church while remaining a part of the Church universal. And by leaving the church, I don't just mean going from one local church to a better one, but of ceasing to attend any sort of organized gathering at all. Even the concept of "organized religion" has all but become a curse word.

For many, local church gatherings have become outdated and irrelevant - therapeutic practices that are helpful for the spiritually immature. To their credit, their critique is often true. Much of the church, sadly, as resorted to self-help techniques with the goal of teaching their congregations about how to lead successful and happy lives. This is not to say, of course, that genuine discipleship doesn't lead to a satisfying life, but when such things become the end goal, our faith has gone astray. Even more troubling is the "seeker-friendly" movement that many churches have adopted which, among other things, essentially believes that the (typically) Sunday morning service is not addressed to Christians, but non-Christians. And so the teaching is generally very surface-y, very non-offensive, and altogether watered-down.

So, many - and I'm just going to say this because it is true is most cases - take the easy way out...and leave. They leave the local church because of its hypocrisy, because of its watered-down teaching, and because they are not benefiting from it. And instead they typically find security in books written by great thinkers in the present as well as the past - people who have immersed themselves in Christ's teaching, his disciplines, and found a unique and altogether transcendent relationship with Christ that they've never experienced. It's a good thing, this relationship. Intimacy with Christ among today's believers is sorely lacking and that is a comment on my life as much as anyone else's. The unfortunate part about these folks leaving is that they are, quite simply, opting for the easiest way out, the path oft taken. Worst of all, they have fooled themselves into thinking that it is better.

If you're reading this article and just became upset - it was written to you and for you because there is something you need to know: You were not meant to do this alone. None of us were.

My guess is that you know that part already. Most of us say a hearty "amen" to that and go on about our lives as normal. Many of us (not all perhaps), will respond by saying something about finding community via information or vicariously living through the authors you read, perhaps even experiencing the same fullness of life they did by repeating their experiences. Sometimes, we even relate to God and others through podcasts and online communities. It is not that any of these things are bad, I often enjoy them myself, but Christ's body was...and is...made of flesh and blood. Community universal is not good enough. If you are not sharing your life and experience with other people, in real life, you are not experiencing the kind of community you were designed for.

Messy and burdensome as it may be, getting involved in someone else's life adds to our own life in some mysterious way. Rubbing shoulders with people in a local setting is how we reflect God, the Trinity, back to himself. Learning to forgive, to look past the flaws of others, to bear with those who are weaker or more spiritually immature, to remove the logs from our own eyes before noticing the specks of sawdust in others - this is all glorifying to God and it inevitably forms us into the people we are meant to be. This is what he expects from us. This is what we were designed for.

And... it... is... hard.

Leaving the church is easy, but it is certainly not best. When you walk out on God's people you are walking out on yourself. You may even be walking out on those who might need your beliefs and practices.

So, please, stop leaving the church. If you're thinking about it, stop. It won't solve anything. And if you already have - go back. Even if you can't go back to the one you left, find one to go back to. We need each other.

If you liked this article, check out: Confessions of a Church Hater

Jesse recently got some awesome 3-D shades after seeing Up. He is an amateur author learning what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Cassie whom he was lucky enough to convince to marry him. You can read more of his thoughts at his blog, Balancing Tension.