Saturday, December 18, 2010

Trafficking and Slavery (via Cat)

Cat is a friend of mine in San Francisco and she posted a couple of articles today about trafficking in her own back yard. The first post is more personal. The second gives some good suggestions on what we can do to help combat trafficking and slavery in the world today. I recommend them both.

heavy heart

What we can do about Human Trafficking

Keeping Christ's Mass in Christmas

I've seen a lot of billboards around town that say,"Keep Christ in Christmas." They all seem to be sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, so I assume this is a nationwide campaign.

I think it's fine to want to celebrate a Christmas that is Christ-focused. But what grabs my attention on these billboards is not what they say, but what they don't say.

Christmas is short for Christ's Mass. The Mass is a Roman Catholic liturgical celebration. So is the implication in these bulletin boards that the Catholic mass should also be kept? I'm sure the Knights of Columbus would reply to that with a resounding "Yes!" as they're one of the largest Catholic fraternal service organizations in the world. But what about all the people who echo the "Keep Christ in Christmas" phrase?

Back in 2005, Christmas fell on a Sunday. What a perfect time for Christ and Mass to collide. And yet the New York Times reported that many megachurches (which tend to be Protestant, so we're really talking about "services" rather than "masses") canceled their Sunday morning events. (Here's the NY Times article or if you can't view that, try this repost.)

What's my point? I think it's just that this is a band-wagon and people love to jump on it without thinking through what it means. Shall we celebrate the Christmas holiday (Christ's Mass Holy Day) as Catholics - with a midnight mass which we attend in reverence and probably also a sense of obligation? Or is this rather a phrase to be used as a weapon of the culture wars, more for bludgeoning others than anything else?

I'm not a big fan of religious bandwagoning. I'm all for jumping on the Doctor's bandwagon ("Bow ties are cool.") or a viral bandwagon (Chanukah with the Maccabeats) or perhaps even a technological bandwagon (Kindle vs. iPad). But God is not a bandwagon, and I don't believe the birthday of Jesus is a divinely sanctioned time to bludgeon others with words. If a non-Christian celebrates a time of Santa and evergreens and lights, what is that to me? They're not making a religious claim by that, so why should I respond with a religious polemic? On the other hand, it seems like a far more interesting and meaningful discussion to approach "Christ in Christmas" Christians and discuss the intersection of the birth of Christ with pagan rituals involving trees and garland or corporations' co-opted version of Saint Nicholas. If you're going to push the Christ back into Christ's Mass, then why celebrate with the non-religious trappings of the holiday rather than with... well, a Mass?

Monday, November 15, 2010

A Little Church of Miracles... on Wheels




This "Little Church of Miracles on Wheels" is for sale in Stanley, Idaho. It would make a really neat little chapel. The video highlights all the detailed wood work as well as several items brought in from churches around the world that were being dismantled. What a great place for "quiet times."

Sunday, November 14, 2010

"How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan

My sister sent me the link to this video. I thought I'd share it with you all. 


Saturday, November 13, 2010

Homogeneity in the Church, A Bad Thing

The following is an extensive quote from James M. Harrison's article, Church Complex: on the Value of Being Uncomfortable with Others. (From Touchstone Magazine, July/August 2007)


But what makes the gospel unique is the way in which Jesus is not like us. I don’t need someone who is just like me. I’m sinful. I need someone holy. I’m human. I need someone divine. I cannot stand under the wrath of God. I need someone who has stood there in my place. I cannot raise myself from death to life. I need someone who can raise me up because he himself has been raised.

The Incarnation is not a reason to associate only with those who are like us. It is actually a reason to associate with all those who share the life he came to bring us, because he made no such distinctions. The Paul who became all things to all people constantly spoke of the unity of the churches he founded and fought any kind of division.

A Bad Thing

From the very beginning, the gurus of the Church Growth Movement have contended that to grow a church we need to focus upon a specific demographic, and seek to make our churches reflect it.

The idea is that people will be more receptive to the gospel when it is presented to them in their own environment, within their own comfort zone. This has affected the way in which we “do church.” Church must be made to be a comfortable place, and since people are most comfortable around their own kind, their own kind should be encouraged to come (which means that other kinds will be effectively discouraged from coming).

The result has been a church-planting strategy focused upon specific groups: Baby-boomer churches, Baby-buster churches, Gen-X churches, GenNext churches, and on and on and on. And they are successful, defining success by church-growth standards.

Some would ask, “Isn’t that a good thing?” And I would answer, “No. It is not.”

I have no doubt that individuals have come to know Christ through these ministries. But that is not evidence of a correct, and by “correct” I mean a biblical, church-planting or church-growth strategy. It is evidence of the extreme graciousness of God in accomplishing his purposes even in the face of our errors. Moses was not only in error, but positively disobedient, when he struck the rock. In spite of this, God graciously provided water for his people.

Nonetheless, it must be said that this emphasis on similarity is not a good thing for the church. It runs counter to the biblical ideal of what the church is to be, and also counter to the biblical example of what the church is to accomplish before a watching world.

In the New Testament, whenever a problem of cultural or racial division arose within the church, the solution to the problem was not separation into compatible social or racial groups. The solution was to foster ever-increasing union around the gospel and its implications.

The church of Christ is to be a witness to the power of the gospel to change lives and minds and hearts, as Peter’s was changed when he saw the sheet descend from heaven. The church is to be a witness to the power of the gospel to break down walls of division between races and ages and cultures, between generations and social classes.

The church is to be an earthly representative, imperfect though it is, of the heavenly glory, in which men from every tongue and tribe and nation are gathered together, worshipping the One who sits on the throne, and the Lamb.

Let there be a Big Bang...

This is a bit of a riff off of what Meirav said in the post about the beginning of life. She wrote a short blip about "how creation would have been described in the Bible if evolution theory was true" (except that she really meant "if the Big Bang theory were true"). So here's my own blip on that.

What science says:
The Large Hadron Collider has succeeded in recreating a miniature version of the Big Bang by smashing stripped-down lead atoms together.

The reaction created temperatures a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun, which have not been reached since the first billionths of a second following the Big Bang.

This was expected to cause atomic particles such as protons and neutrons to melt, producing a “soup” of matter in a state previously unseen on Earth

What the Bible would say:
In the beginning, there was light.

You could follow that up with, "... hotter and brighter than the sun." But the Bible (especially in the first 10 chapters of Genesis) often kept it short and sweet.

By the way, everything after that point is post Big Bang, technically. But it's often lumped into the whole shebang because it all only follows if the premise of a big bang is accepted. 

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

What if life began with a single cell

What if life began with a single cell. 

And what if life multiplied when that cell divided into two cells (mitosis). 

And what if you were around six or seven thousand years ago and you knew that life started with a single cell that divided into two cells, but you were trying to explain that to someone that didn't even know that cells existed (and who probably still wouldn't get it even if you explained it since the microscope hadn't been invented yet to show them what you meant). So how would you explain it to them? What would you say to get that idea across while still being comprehensible? 

In other words, how would you describe mitosis to an ancient Sumerian or Akkadian in a way that they might still get the main idea of what you're saying? 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

1 in 4 Americans can't think of recent positive contribution by Christians

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_16432579
One in four Americans said they couldn't think of a single positive societal contribution made by Christians in recent years, according to a nationwide survey released Monday. -- The Denver Post
Can you? (You don't have to be an American to play along.)

Planting bulbs is kinda like believing in something unseen.

Monday, October 25, 2010

God is not a white man

This was just shared among my FB friends and I thought I'd post it here. What do you think? 

Ironically, considering that he's singing about how "God is love," which is certainly Biblical, I can still imagine folks being offended by the song. Were you? If so, why? If not, why not?

I'm going to come down on the not offended side. I think his point that God is not at all like we imagine him to be is important. And the fact that Christians are just as likely to mis-imagine him is also important. Even when we've got a lot of the "right" info straight out of the Bible, it's still easy to get caught up in stuff that's not in there. I know I do this with people -- imagine them to be something they're not -- so it makes sense that I'd mess it up with God as well. It's good to be reminded of that. 


Saturday, October 23, 2010

And so, from nothing, our universe begins.

I'm currently reading (and listening to on CD -- I go back and forth) Bill Bryson's book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. I love his description of the beginning of the universe. Not only did it strike me that he holds to the idea of ex nihilo, but he also captures so well the grandeur and beauty of "Let there be light...."

It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no "around" around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can't even ask how long it has been there -- whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn't exist. There is no past for it to emerge from. 

And so, from nothing, our universe begins.

In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception. In the first lively second (a second that many cosmologists will devote careers to shaving into ever-finer wafers) is produced gravity and the other forces that govern physics. In less than a minute the universe is a million billion miles across and growing fast. There is a lot of heat now, ten billion degrees of it, enough to begin the nuclear reactions that create the lighter elements -- principally hydrogen and helium, with a dash (about one atom in a hundred million) of lithium. In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced.  We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich. 

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Denominations and Accountability

When we attended the Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco, the church that John Alexander pastored at the time, one of Rob's largest complaints was that they had no oversight or accountability from anyone besides themselves. They were a house church that wasn't, at the time, affiliated with any other house churches, nor any denomination. They did have ties to other house churches, most notably Church of the Servant King, but there was no formal accountability structure. 

This, and several other issues that Rob was dealing with, eventually led us to join City Church instead, which was just starting up in a little chapel in the Presidio. But the questions that Rob put to John Alexander seem to have gotten John thinking about the idea of accountability between churches. He even mentions, in his Stop Going to Church and Be the Church book that I've referenced several times in recent posts, the decision making process that he and the other church leaders went through as they considered the issue and tried to determine what might work best for their congregation. 

They eventually developed a consortium of churches in which members of one congregation would (on a yearly basis, I think it was) travel to one of the other house churches and live among the members for a week. They would meet with each of the leaders one-on-one as well as in a group and they spent time (also one-on-one and in larger groups) with the rest of the members of the congregation as well, asking questions about their own spiritual growth, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the church congregation and so on. In the end, after having spent a fair amount of time immersed in the matters of the church (both spiritual and worldly) they would give an evaluation of how the church was doing, areas where they could improve, where their strengths lie, etc. And when they gave their report, it wasn't in a business fashion in which ultimatums were handed down or numbers had been crunched. Instead it was a thoughtfully prepared evaluation written by a group of people who had built relationships with those they were evaluating. I'm sure it's not a perfect system, but what I love about it is that the people get to know each other. They talk over a period of time and everyone gets a say. And the conclusions are hopefully drawn up in love for the betterment of the congregation. 

Compare that to the system that we found at City Church, a member of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). There the pastor attended Presbytery meetings 3 or 4 times a year where he'd meet only with other pastors or elders from the other PCA churches in the region. They often have specific issues to discuss and make rulings on. Then they'd travel back home having never met with other members of any other congregations and therefore only hearing the news from other churches through the lens of the other leaders (if they spent any time talking about their congregations at all). Though City Church was a member of a denomination with a body of leadership that was ostensibly in charge of holding each church accountable to the directives in the Bible, that leadership generally only dealt with issues once they'd grown so large that they had to be dealt with. There was no system whereby help was brought in before an issue grew too large. And when decisions were dealt out, they were from a stand point of leaders ruling over either other leaders or other church members. They were not done in a context of relationship and the problems were rarely, if ever, dealt with when they were still small and manageable. If it wasn't explosive, it wasn't worth dealing with yet. 

The difference between the Sojourners model and the City Church model speaks volumes to me. I've been in many Bible Studies or Sunday School classes in which we've discussed the verses in Scripture that speak about holding each other accountable and almost always someone jumps in and quotes from Ephesians that you have to "speak the truth in love" and that means you have to know the person and have some sort of relationship with them before you can expect to be allowed into their life enough to also help them deal with their issues and struggles. (We only give paid counselors the right to tell us what to do without them first becoming our friends.) 

But when you talk about accountability on a congregational level, that relational stuff often seems to fly right out the window. Within our denomination, the leaders of the other congregations can step in and make judgement calls without having had built any sort of relationship with the members of the congregation before hand. In fact, in our current presbytery, getting together across congregations outside of official presbytery meetings seems to almost be taboo. At least, every attempt I've seen made to get this to happen is akin to pulling teeth and still getting minimal or no results. 

In the end I'm left wondering what the positives are after all to being in a church that's a member of a larger denomination. Sure, they'll whip us in to shape if we get out of line. But they're more than likely do it with harshness and lack of love because they don't have a clue who we are and why we've come to the place we're in. So if there's value in having a stick over our heads, then sure, there's value to being in the denomination. But if we're looking for outsiders who will come in and get to know us, and let us in to get to know them, and who will assent to holding us accountable to our goals and we to them, then we're certainly not going to find it in the PCA. From the presbyteries I've been in, this not only isn't a priority. It's not even on the radar. 

I wonder how many denominations have split into even more denominations because, rather than building relationships so as to have a context in which to discuss their differences, they have formed sides, fought battles, and eventually resorted to a denominational split rather than come to an agreement on whatever issue they're struggling with. What a shame! Jesus said that the world would know we are his disciples because we love one another and instead we lord it over one another, not only at a personal level but at a congregational level. 

Shame on us. 

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Worship in a Pentecostal Church

This is an "instructional film" for those that don't know how to worship appropriately in a Pentecostal Church. lol! Pretty funny. 

Monday, September 20, 2010

Praise vs. Despair

This is from Isaiah 61. The part I want to ramble on about is in bold, but I'm putting a few verses here in case you're looking for context. 

 1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, 
       because the LORD has anointed me 
       to preach good news to the poor. 
       He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, 
       to proclaim freedom for the captives 
       and release from darkness for the prisoners, 

 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor 
       and the day of vengeance of our God, 
       to comfort all who mourn,

 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— 
       to bestow on them a crown of beauty 
       instead of ashes, 
       the oil of gladness 
       instead of mourning, 
       and
a garment of praise 
       instead of a spirit of despair.
 
       They will be called oaks of righteousness, 
       a planting of the LORD 
       for the display of his splendor.

I am often amazed at the number of Christians who dwell in the land of despair and doom and gloom (especially when it comes to politics, but definitely in other areas as well). You know what, the president or prime minister is not going to be the president or prime minister forever. The war in Afghanistan will not last forever. Gay marriage and abortion, believe it or not, will not be the critical points of concern forever. Presidents come and go. Wars come and go. Issues come and go. 

But we are an eternal people, who should have an eternal perspective, and should stop whining and moaning and griping about things in this world that we already know is "groaning as in the pains of childbirth" because of us and our sin! Duh! The world is a screwed up place. We should know that already. Griping about it is pointless. In fact, it's worse than pointless. It's a "spirit of despair" that shows we really don't get it. We are the people who should see that there is life that encompasses far more than our little sanctimonious selves. We are the ones who should be able to step outside of ourselves and see people as they are. We should be able to love and encourage them where they're at, not because we're good at that sort of thing, but because the one who is good at that sort of thing works through us. We should be the ones who find that which is praiseworthy and praise it!

Can you imagine how the world would be different if Christians were people who were known for being so full of praise for that which is praiseworthy that it was as if that were the very clothes we wore?! 

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Ex Nihilo

What was there before there was there... or here, or anywhere for that matter? Speaking of matter, where did it come from? Or has it always just been? Since the dawn of recorded history humanity has believed that before the beginning of anything, there was stuff. Some believed the stuff was "chaos." Some believed it was 

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Does the Old Testament apply?

Over on Facebook I retweeted a post that Meirav had made here on Multiply (from Paul's discourse on love). Through a round-about set of circumstances, the conversation wove all over the darn place until it finally ended up with the following comment from Michael. I thought I'd move the conversation here both because I don't like having conversations on FB (It just doesn't work well.) and because the point of the thread was something else entirely so I figured this conversation really deserved it's own space.

Here's Michael's words that started the latest part of the discussion:

The Old Testament ... doesn't apply to non-Jewish Christians. That comment is going to trip a lot of breakers, and almost all Christians would disagree with it, but it's true. Read Acts 10, then the first bit of Acts 11, then Acts 15. The latter issue has nothing to do with Circumcision, but the demand by the Pharisee Christians that the Goyim be Commanded To Keep The Law, ie become Jews after being Saved By Grace.

It was an issue then, and it's still an issue today when Non-Jewish Christians do NOT understand their Liberty in Christ.

It's 0dd that we got that bit so messed up.

We're on our way out the door soon, so feel free to talk amongst yourselves till I get back.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

The basic doctrine of the Bible

The following is an excerpt from John Alexander's book, Stop Going to Church and Become the Church:

"A few years ago I was teaching at the Church of the Sojourners on love. I said that although Jesus taught that loving God is the first commandment, the New Testament in fact talks more about loving each other. Someone suggested I was injecting modern, secular humanism into the Bible.

"I denied it, but I promised to study the question. So the next week I used my handy Online Bible computer program to call up all the uses of the various Greek words related to love. Then for the next month I neurotically classified each verse. Was it a commend to love God or a command to love fellow human beings? My research took many, many hours, but I learned I was right--hands down.

"I also learned that I had missed the point. And had been missing it for fifty years.

"The point isn't that I'm supposed to love God. Nor is it that I'm supposed to love others. The point is that God loves me. That's the basic doctrine of the New Testament. And of the Old Testament.

"Which is a whole different story than I was telling. A much better one. A story of grace."

Moving towards being a family

"If Scripture is authoritative in our lives and not just a rabbit's foot we carry around, we must be moving more and more towards being a family, towards relatively small groups who know each other deeply enough and broadly enough to speak the truth in love. Otherwise the gifts of the spirit will be much less powerful than they're meant to be. Then we'll all be spiritual midgets, and the world won't have a way of seeing the light set on a hill." -- John Alexander

Accountable to the Gospel

In John Alexander's book (Stop Going to Church and Become the Church), he addressed the need for churches to be accountable to one another. He made a statement that I found curious (not because the statement itself is curious so much as I suspect it could be read a few different ways). He said, "Perhaps we need to find other local churches, learn to love each other, and then mutually hold each other accountable to the Gospel."

I suspect I know what John meant by holding each other "accountable to the Gospel" but I'd be interested in hearing what you think when you hear that phrase.

I'm also intrigued by the fact that he prefaced the "hold each other accountable" part with "learn to love each other." How often do we presume that we have no obligation to love another congregation solely because they're different than we are?

Rob ran into an example of that last Sunday after the worship service. He spoke with a man who looks down on an entire denomination of churches simply because they don't agree with him theologically. But he's never even taken the time to attend an event in one of these churches (which, I would think, is one of the first steps to learning to love another congregation). Even within the denomination that our congregation is affiliated with, I see very little love between the varying churches in our presbytery. If anything there's antipathy and sometimes even acrimony. Shame on us! When we can't even love one another within our own denomination, what hope do we have of showing God's love to the rest of the world?!!!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Narinay - The Places of Jesus

A friend of ours is putting together a video series about the places where Jesus lived and walked. Our family has watched the entire first episode and it was really neat. (OK, so it's fun watching Narinay because we know her. But the show itself was pretty cool, too.)  ;-)

Narinay lives in the Holy Land. The idea of the series is that a young girl (She's about the twins' age.) who lives in the Holy Land today introduces you to places where Jesus walked 2000 years ago. She sees it both as it is now and tries to imagine it as it was then. So you get a sense of the reality of place -- Jesus actually walked here. You also see a lot of holy sites that are, by tradition, the site of an event in Jesus life on earth. So you end up getting a sense of the time and tradition between then and now as well. 

What I particularly like about it is that this is Narinay's home. She's not coming in from America and telling kids about this place. She's walking out her back door and introducing us to places that are in some sense "in her back yard." I especially got that feeling with one man that she interviewed that she explained was a friend of the family. Wow! Suddenly you realize that this isn't all just stuff for scholars and textbooks. There are actual people who have learned about this stuff and they're so real that you could have them over to your house for dinner if you wanted. It just seemed to make it more real and down to earth. 

So here's the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GG8zMwzbN0
It looks like they made it so that you can't embed it. This is just a quick promotional shot (like a commercial) so you can get a sense of what the show is all about. I think the entire first series is done and Brian is currently looking for funding for the next series.

Here's a link to another promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG71xueBalg

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Taking the Name of the Lord in Vain

"The irony for these legalists (of which I’ve labeled myself a recovering one), is that to live contrary to Christ’s teachings, indeed to live contrary to the empowered life of God’s Spirit, is to violate God’s Law in the third commandment:  “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” How is that?  Briefly, to take God’s name in vain is not merely to misuse the name in crude speech.  The Scripture teaches that the application of that commandment is broader than that (see the explanation given in the Westminster Larger Catechism). To wear Christ’s name, yet to deny him by living legalistically, hypocritically or by rejecting his clear teachings, is to take his name in vain." -- Pastor Don

War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles

Rating:
Category:Books
Genre: Religion & Spirituality
Author:Paul David Tripp
This past summer, the gals in our church decided to read and discuss a book together. We chose War of Words, by Paul David Tripp. The book is divided into 3 main sections, so we met three times throughout the summer break to discuss a section each time. I’ve already written about my thoughts on the first part of the book, which bothered me both because of how he supported his point, but also because of how he overstated his position. However, I thought the rest of his book was not only better written (although he continued to persist in aiming in one direction while continually pointing to another), but he also had a lot of really good things to say. (In other words, it's a good thing I was reading this book in a group because if I was reading it on my own, I probably would have chucked it a few chapters in. But having to meet with other folks to discuss the rest of the book kept me plugging on through.)

Let me first address my biggest pet peeve with this book before I get on to acknowledging several of the excellent things he said. The book is titled the War of Words because the goal is to teach Christians, in particular, how to speak in a way that reflects the loving, forgiving, gracious character of God. So obviously, Tripp's focus was on what people say to one another. But he repeatedly said things such as:
"...it is important to recognize that the war of words is actually the fruit of a greater, more fundamental war. This is the war of wars; it is what life is about." (p. 37)

"Like all wars, this war is for control. It is a war for our hearts." (p. 39)

"...a life of godly communication is rooted in a personal recognition of the sovereignty of God." (p. 69)

"The war of words is, at bottom, a war for sovereignty." - page 69

In other words, the heart of the matter isn't our words at all, but the heart (or attitude) that our words spring up out of. I feel like Tripp is pointing me in one direction ("focus on the conversation" - "the words are the issue") and then he keeps redirecting me toward the "heart of the matter" which is our attitudes and beliefs. I suppose an analogy would be if a doctor wrote a book on the "War of the Cough" and then repeatedly said throughout the book that the cough wasn't the essential core of the problem but the cold that caused it. If that's the case, then why not focus on the cold throughout the book and address the cough as needed within that discussion? Why title the book and spend the entire first section of the book focusing on the symptom only to undermine both of those by focusing on the underlying heart of the matter for the entire rest of the book? Why not get the focus straight from the get-go and deal with the symptoms throughout as well... as symptoms, not as the central, but not primary, problem? I found this continued bifurcation of focus to be distracting as I read.

And yet, I think Tripp has some excellent things to say as well. I do agree that the root of relational problems often has far more to do with our attitudes, our need to be right, and the sense that we are in control of our lives than what words we use or how we couch them. In disagreements we often approach the other person as the enemy, rather than seeing the disunity or anger as the enemy and both our self and our supposed opponent as the victims. Christians in particular are keen to use the Bible as a weapon against our own spiritual family rather than applying it as a balm to heal the wounds that divide.

Right relationships come about when we also have a right understanding of ourselves. If we think that we know more, know better, and act better than those around us, it's quite likely that we'll have a fair bit of disunity (within our family, our workplace, our congregation, etc.). But if we are willing to take an honest look at ourselves, acknowledge our own faults, accept the help others are willing to give to change our attitudes or our behaviors, then we can grow, and change, and heal. It boils down to recognizing that we are not divine. We are not God. We don't know it all. And even when we're right about an issue, lording that rightness over another does more harm than good. It's not just our knowledge or beliefs that must be accurate, but our attitudes as well. If we cannot speak the truth in love, then we'd best just shut up until we can.

Tripp says that "our words should bring God the glory he deserves. And second, our words should bring redemptive good into the lives of the people God has placed around us." In other words, we should love the Lord our God with all our heart and love our neighbor as our self. As Christians, we should be ambassadors for God who help to bring about God's redemptive purposes, rather than ambassadors who act as agents of wrath - wrath that wells up our of our own selfishness. God is not a tool in our lives that we can wield to get our own way. In fact, entirely the opposite is true. Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." We're not known to be Jesus' disciples because we're right, or our opinions are shown to be better, or we act more godly than other people. We're known to be disciples because we are people who, even in difficult relationships -- like with our enemies -- operate with an attitude of love.

So in the end I think I'd recommend this book. But if you're going to skim at any point, I'd suggest skimming the first three chapters. This book challenges some of the standards attitudes and opinions within the church (at least the church in America) and in that regard I think it makes a good book for discussion. The evangelical American church is rather known for being arrogant, self-righteous, and unforgiving. As Tripp says, "It is never okay to communicate in ways that contradict [God's] message, methods, and character." (Which sounds very much like what Os Guiness said as well.) And yet Christians frequently do exactly that. Until we get to the heart of the matter, I think Christians will continue to be arrogant and bitter ambassadors for a God who is neither.




Quotes from the book


"Winning the war of words means living with eyes open, aware not only of our own struggle, but of other pilgrims struggling on the journey with us."

"Paul says, 'Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently....' Let's be sure we understand these words. Notice first that Paul does not say, 'If you catch someone in a sin...' He is not talking about sneaking up on someone to catch him in the act! Rather, he is talking about how we as sinners get 'caught' -- that is, entrapped and ensnared in sin."

"Self-indulgent, sin-indulgent talk contradicts our identity as the children of grace."

"Gentleness doesn't mean compromising the truth. Rather, it means keeping the truth from being compromised by harshness and insensitivity."

"When we are wronged, the thing of highest importance is not that we feel satisfied or avenged, but that we respond according to God's plan and for his glory."

"We seem to forget that, really, there is only one enemy -- and it is not the person being confronted! The purpose of confrontation is not to stand against the person, but to stand alongside him, pointing out the things God wants him to see, confess, and forsake."

"The lack of forgiveness causes us to fight God rather than submit to him and causes us to stand against rather than with one another."

"Truth is the casualty when I love myself more than I love you."

Unwholesome Talk

"When Paul says, 'Forbid any unwholesome talk from entering your conversation,' [Ephesians 4] he is not just talking about cursing, swearing, or vulgar, four-letter words. In fact, to think of the passage in this way grossly minimizes its intent. Paul has something much more redemptively revolutionary in mind. For Paul, unwholesome talk is me-centered talk that has no higher purpose than my own wants, desires, dreams, and demands. Unwholesome words flow from a heart that is controlled by present, personal, earthly desire. They are spoken because they please me and accomplish my goals. They are an attempt to get me what I want, without reference to the lordship of Christ or my call to speak as his ambassador." -- Paul David Tripp, in his book War of Words

I like the phrase he uses here, "grossly minimizes its intent." I think Christians often grossly minimize the intent of a Scripture passage or Biblical directive. And they frequently proceed to take the grossly minimized understanding and magnify it in such a way that minor offenses become major offenses while major offenses are ignored. 

God's Computer

Friday, August 27, 2010

Oil in Israel, Idiots in the U.S.

I got an email today that consisted of this and "subscription info." I am not making this up. I don't have Photoshop any more and I'm not very good at mash-ups like this anyway. 


So I clicked through. You know me. I'm not afraid to click. All I ended up with was this page: 


Thursday, August 12, 2010

Introverted Church: A Matter of Motivation Redux

http://www.introvertedchurch.com/2010/08/matter-of-motivation-redux.html
Adam McHugh (author of Introverts in the Church) just reposted this. Here's a quick quote:
It's not that we [introverts] don't like people or are anti-social or standoffish, it's that it actually feels better for us to be alone sometimes.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Would You Like Fries With That Theory? Part Three | The BioLogos Forum

http://biologos.org/blog/would-you-like-fries-with-that-theory-part-three/
I discovered the BioLogos Forum this morning as I read through an article that my mom had sent me: Bruce Waltke headed to Knox Theological Seminary? (His move from the Reformed Theological Seminary to Knox was precipitated by some statements he apparently made in a BioLogos video (which I still need to dig up and watch).)

I particularly liked one statement in this article. Not only do I agree with it wholeheartedly, but I think a similar statement can also be made.

"Science is about finding out how the world is whether we like it or not." -- Karl Giberson

Theology is about finding out who God is whether we like it or not.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Culture Shock - Life in the Christian Ghetto

Even though I've been attending "Evangelical" churches for the past 28 years, there are still times when I almost feel like I'm walking in a foreign country. I think this tends to happen more when I'm with a group of people who have grown up in the evangelical church and very likely their parents grew up in the evangelical/protestant church and so on. So there's a "church culture" there that these people have been raised in that's tied very closely with their understanding of Christianity (whether or not it actually is a part of Christianity as described by the Bible). 

I was raised as a Catholic through a long line of Catholics (both Roman and Byzantine) and I suppose that's why these things sometimes come as a culture shock. Despite having been immersed in the Evangelical culture on and off for 28 years, my roots are different enough, and my study of the Bible has been compared to an alternate set of cultural understandings, that it's a bit jarring when I run into something from another culture that's called "Christian" but that's rather different than my own understanding of what the Bible says.

It feels like running into a wall. When I try to point out the difference between the Biblical statements regarding the topic and the cultural ones, that pretty much feels like backing up and running into the wall again and again. That's when it finally dawns on me that we're not talking about the Bible or what God has said, we're talking about the way people were raised and what they were told to believe growing up. It may very well have next to nothing to do with what the Bible says, but because it's a part of what they've always thought of as Christianity, it therefore is in their minds intimately related to Christianity. It's not really up for debate. 

My head hurts. 

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Talking honestly about a full range of issues

The church is the people of God. As such, within the church there should be open and honest dialogue about tough issues. And the dialogue, though it might still be hard, should still be safe because there's an underlying sense that we are family, forgiven in God's sight, and though still fallible, we're still working toward a common goal of glorifying God -- in part by being able to have really hard discussions and still loving each other through it.

That's the ideal, at least. Instead the discussions within the church are often either surface-level or hit only upon the hard issues with the understood undertone that everyone should agree about the issue and we know it's the heathen who are against us on this. (Any suspicion that someone within our own membership stands with the heathen on a particular issue is so unsettling that the conversation is often quickly changed.) 

On the one hand, it's very hard to have tough conversations together. Very few people look forward to something like that. But on the other hand, having a tough discussion and having it turn out well, where you learn something that you didn't know, or come away with more understanding for a fellow member of the church, is a wonderful thing. If we knew that every hard discussion would come out with such a positive ending, perhaps we'd jump into them much more readily.

John Alexander said that he believes that eating together is a sign of a healthy church. (By the way, I should add that within the church that John was a part of, the entire congregation eats together every Sunday evening. They also eat together in smaller groups several times during the week.) Along the same lines of eating together was being together in general. Not only do many congregations not do much together throughout the week, but within some congregations there is so much turn-over that it's very hard to form a cohesive sense of community within the group. 

Rob and I were members of a church in San Francisco that had about 400 members. Some friends of ours moved away to Kansas but came back for a short visit a few months after they had moved. We saw them after the service and they spoke briefly to us but then excused themselves to go say hi to several other friends. They returned awhile later saying that they were unable to find anyone else they knew! They had only been gone a few months and already the turnover was so great that though they had been in the church for at least a year before leaving, they were unable to find people they had known from when they lived in the area. That astounded me. (I knew there was a high turnover rate, and that I was having a very hard time feeling connected to anyone, but this brought it all home with a very specific example of the problem.) 

John Alexander points out that in a church with such a high turn-over rate, especially if we only see each other once a week on Sunday mornings, it is very unlikely that folks will get to the meaty issues of life. We may hear the pastor preach on something that's a tough issue, but then do we get a chance to talk to others in the body about our own thoughts on that issue or how we're dealing with that problem in our own lives? John asks, Do we, as a church, "talk honestly about a full range of tough issues?" That line particularly got me to thinking. I know that high turn-over rates are a problem. That's one thing that I like about our church is that there are people who have been in the congregation for twenty years, and even many of the "newcomers" have been around for upwards of 3 or 4 years or longer. (We've been members of the church for almost 9 years.) But has that familiarity led to a better ability to work through hard issues together? 

Sometimes I feel like in Sunday School or the gals Bible study we'll hit on a tough issue. And sometimes we really do have good, solid discussions on them. But there are other issues that we seem to skirt around as a congregation. So, while our congregation has the non-transient thing down pretty well, I think we still struggle with the "full range of tough issues" area. Our pastor has brought up some forums in which we might be able to tackle some of the harder discussions, but I can't say that there's been a stampede to dive in. 

And it's certainly not just our congregation. I'm sure this is a problem throughout the world. Which is a shame. God's people, of all folks, should be able to address each other in love and compassion and a thoughtfulness that enables really heavy and deep and hard conversations to take place in such a way that healing and growth and unity can occur. 

Philippians 2:1-4 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

My interests may not be the same as someone else's. In fact, it's quite possible that my interests conflict with someone else's. But if we are to be a body, to work together as individual bits formed and shaped into one entity, the body of Christ, then shouldn't we take time out to consider the interests of others? To discuss those interests with them and gain a better understanding of where each other is coming from? ... well, of course. And I'm sure we all would even agree on that, though the thought of sitting down and actually doing as much can be a bit daunting. 

Which really gets to the heart of the question, I suppose. What can we do to get more of this "talking honestly about a full range of issues" happening? How can we foster this sort of thing both in the local church as well as the church national or the church global? Have you seen hard discussions talked out in a loving way among believers? What helped to foster that? 

Monday, July 12, 2010

Emailing Together

I wrote two days ago about John Alexander's idea that a healthy family, and possibly also a healthy church, eats together. I suspect they also do other things together. In the book, The Blessing, one of their suggestions near the end of the book is that families that go camping together seem to be closer than those that don't. I think the essential idea here is that healthy communities spend time together. It could involve eating, or camping, or serving the poor together, or singing together, or ____ together.

But what struck me today as I wrote out a lengthy email to one of the congregation's recent college graduates who's currently overseas and who hasn't been physically present with the congregation in the four years she's been to school (excepting holiday times), is that in today's day and age, a congregation can talk together, or share photos together, or what have you, via the internet. Granted, that's still pretty different than sitting down at a table next to someone and showing them the photos of a recent trip. But it enables a congregation to continue "togethering" even when a part of that congregation is thousands of miles away. That's kinda cool.

If, as John has suggested, the health of a congregation can in part be determined by how frequently the members eat together, then perhaps another touchstone of health could be in how frequently members keep in contact with each other online, even when they might be in another state or country.

What do you think? How often do you interact with the members of your congregation online?

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Eating Together

In John Alexander's book, Stop Going to Church and Become the Church (I'm not sure if that's still the title of the book, but that's what it was a dozen years ago when I first got a manuscript copy.), John lists some touch points for determining if the church you're a part of is one with a predominantly entertainment model (the congregation attends Sunday morning services and mostly just sits and watches while paid staff perform for the bulk of the event) or closer to a body model (in which members are actively involved regularly (and not just on Sundays) in each other's lives). One such touch stone that he lists is the amount that the church eats together. He says:

"How much do folks eat together in your church? I suspect that frequency of eating together is one of the best indicators of the health of a biological family. And I wonder if that's not equally true of church families."

Our church has monthly potlucks in which we all stay after the Sunday morning service and eat together. We often have at least one BBQ a month in the summer. And the pastor's family often invites people over to their house for a meal. I suspect that if we tried to get together any more than that, it wouldn't work. People in our little congregation tend to be too busy for much more than that. (We do have meetings that don't involve food. So it's not like we only see each other on Sundays. I'm just saying that adding in yet another gathering time probably isn't realistic at this point.)

John spends a fair bit of time in his book talking about where people spend their time -- how much of it is spent being a church vs. other activities. I think time spent together is a problem that our church is struggling with these days. When we first joined the congregation almost 9 years ago, it seemed that people traveled less and gathered together more. I don't think anyone in the congregation would be opposed to the idea of getting together more often. But practically speaking, I'm not sure how it could come about right now without it being forced.

I think that taking a specific, eating together, and using that as a measuring stick of sorts regarding the health of a church is an interesting idea. What do you think? How often does your church eat together (either in small groups or as an entire body)? Do you feel that the time spent together helps to grow and build the church?

It strikes me that some churches measure how well they're doing based on how many people attend the Sunday morning services. I wonder how well those same churches would fare if the criteria was how often they eat together rather than how many people are sitting in the pews?

Unity

"Most of us are in unity with no one but ourselves." -- John Alexander

Friday, July 2, 2010

How being a church is like playing baseball

More quotes from John Alexander's book:

"Church is a full-time occupation, not the weekly attendance of a performance. Church isn't the sort of thing you can go to. You can be the church, you can become the church, you can even do church, but you can't go to church. ... One way of saying it is that church is the sort of thing that you become part of. You're the church whenever you're with other Christians in such a way that you depend on each other, love each other, serve each other, and speak the truth to each other in love for the sake of Jesus." 

"Our task is to find ways to become the church together. I suggest that becoming the church is rather like becoming a baseball team. Players have to practice together enough to learn each others strengths and weaknesses. Then they can use each others strengths and play around each others weaknesses.  They sort out who can pitch, who can field, who can bat, who can coach. In the process, they learn to rely on each other, team sprit 'arises,' and somewhere along the way, rather mysteriously, they cease being just a collection of individuals and a group identity appears. They become a team. They become the Cubs." (lol! Sounds like John is channeling Bob Appleby here, except that I suspect he was already doing the sports metaphors before he met Bob. Those two were like two peas in a pod.)

He then goes on to explain that he's not talking about just making Sunday morning services more participatory. He says, " Services are important, but church is mostly crying with your brother in Christ when he learns that his son is disabled. Or helping your sister paint her house while talking together about the way, the truth, and the life."

John makes three points about what he calls "reinventing church":
1) Church is something you do or become or be, not something you go to.
2) It's crucial to identify people's strengths and weaknesses within the body and then each person should play their position -- do what they're good at. 
3) "God intends us to be part of team, part of a body." 
4) "In neither baseball nor church is a building crucial.

To sum up, "In both [baseball and being a church], it's more of a process than an event. In both, it's a matter of spirit. In both, the way it happens is rather mysterious. In both, coaching is crucial. In both, not recognizing your need for others is disastrous. In both, there's a place for observing, but it's for people not on the team, for nonChristians, for outsiders."

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Convenience

"What is truly convenient? And who is it convenient for? And let’s remember that for all our conveniences there is someone or some place on the other end that may not find it convenient at all." -- Tracy Bianchi, from an article entitled Convenience and its Consequences


Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Damage You Do

While reading John Alexander's book, I came across a note that I had written in the margin that said to "see notebook". So I pulled out my old notebook from that time period ('97-'98) and flipped through it looking for any comments I might have written. I'm not sure that I've found what I'm looking for yet, but in the meantime I came across a poem that reminded me of Meirav's recent ramblings on ketchup-removal.

The context of the poem was that someone I was rather close to was furiously, horribly, intensely upset with someone else. 


The Damage You Do

I'm not saying that I don't have blind spots, too.
I just want to express
 (to cry out before it devours you)
 that I see one of yours.
And I wouldn't bring it up,
  I wouldn't mention it
 except I see what it does to you
  and what it's doing to others.
And it makes me so incredibly sad
  so mortified that this has come to pass
that I want to come at you
  screaming
  and railing
  and pounding you
  ...until you see.
But screaming, railing & pounding
  only make the turtle
  disappear behind his armor.
So I know I must become gentle
  and patient, 
  an apt teacher. 
I need to mirror you to yourself
  in such a way
  that you will see with your own eyes
  the damage you do.
And I need to plead before God
  that he will unshutter your eyes
  and melt your heart
  and teach you once again
   of the depth and form of his forgiveness,
enabling you to forgive.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Truth or Lies - Where do our words come from?

I just started a book called War of Words, by Paul David Tripp. The gals in our church agreed to read it this summer and get together now and again to discuss it. Our first meeting is tomorrow morning, so I figured it was time to get reading.  

To be honest, I'm struggling with it, so far. (I'm only in the second chapter.) I'm not struggling with what he's saying so much as how he's saying it. He's making claims and failing explain or back most of them up. (His entire first chapter is devoted to how wonderful words and communication were in Genesis chapter 1, yet he doesn't refer in detail to any part of the chapter, nor does he quote from it. He does, on the other hand, include a long (3 page) quote from the book of Isaiah. In other words, he's saying things that he could pretty easily and quickly make a decent argument for, and he doesn't. I find that ridiculously distracting as I read.) 

But I finally hit an idea (as opposed to a writing style) that made me wonder. He claims that, "Every word we speak is rooted either in the truth or in a lie." (p. 23) What do you think of that? If I say that dinner's ready, and it's not actually on the table, nor even out of the oven, but I know that by the time everyone reaches the table it will be, does that mean my speech is rooted in a lie? Is it even helpful to think of statements like that in that light? Or what about my statements in the second paragraph of this post? Are they rooted either in a truth or a lie? Is it helpful to look at them in that light? 

It seems to me like this guy likes to make grand statements. He over emphasizes things in one direction or another in order to make his point. And yet, in talking about lying, does the fact that he over states himself mean that he's speaking from a position of lies rather than truth? Can you truthfully overstate truth? 

"Every word we speak is rooted either in the truth or in a lie." I don't think words are that simple. I don't think people, or most other things in our universe, are so clear cut. What do you think? 

(For those of you going, "Bu..bu..but what about absolutes? you might want to read this post.)

Monday, June 14, 2010

Achieving the Full Stature of Christ

In my last post I mentioned that the church should be, "a growing body of united believers achieving the full stature of Christ." This was in part taken from Ephesians 4:13 in the NRSV. 

In the NIV, and backing up to include verses 11 and 12, the passage reads:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Other translations read:

"...unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" -- KJV (... and several other translations read pretty much the same as this.)
"...measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ." -- The New Living Translation
"We will receive everything that Christ has for us." -- New International Readers Version (Wow! This version reads quite differently than the rest.)

All of that simply to ask, what do you think that the "full stature of Christ" bit is all about? If we are to grow up into it, what are we growing up into? What does this look like? How do we know when it's happening? What do you think?

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Are we playing the wrong game?

I came across John Alexander's last book when I was unpacking and I set it aside to read again. I started it ages ago and never finished it (partly because the urge to edit it was so strong that I had a hard time letting go of that and just focusing on the ideas. But now that Rob Bell has inured me to this writing style, I'm hoping I'll be able to focus a little better. Besides, now it reminds me of John and brings back pleasant memories more than it stirs up the editor within me.) 

John starts right smack in with the good stuff and just a few pages in I've hit stuff I already want to write about. John compares the church to a baseball team and explains that we don't expect our favorite team to always be perfect, but we do expect them to be playing baseball when they're on the field. In the same way, we shouldn't expect our church to be perfect (it is, after all, made up of imperfect people), but we should at least expect it to be a church, a growing body of united believers achieving the full stature of Christ.

This is something that I've often tried to explain to people, but I feel like I've never explained it very well. John's analogy is quite good, though, and I'd like to share it, as he wrote it, here:

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not so much disturbed by the poor performance of us Christians as about whether we know what we're up to. Fans of the Chicago Cubs don't seem to mind too much that their team plays badly and drops the ball from time to time. But what if in the middle of a close game, the Cubs sat down in the infield and started playing tiddlywinks? Or eating lunch?

No doubt the illustration will prompt all kinds of supposedly entertaining remarks about the Cubs, but when the people of God forget what they're about, it's not at all entertaining. Dropping the ball is one thing. We all do that. I certainly do. And the most casual reading of 1 Corinthians or of Revelation 2-3 prepares us for churches to drop the ball. Often and badly. But it does not prepare us for churches playing the wrong game. Playing the wrong game is very odd. And very troubling.

In fact, it may be the most troubling thing I know--this gap between today's churches and the NT. But what's troubling isn't that churches fail. That's very NT. I don't expect Christians to leap tall buildings at a single bound. To catch every ball. To die rather than let Jews be taken to concentration camps. That is great when it happens, but the NT gives us little reason to expect heroics of ourselves or other Christians. Peter seems to have failed with some regularity. Besides I'm a pastor myself and have learned not to be too stunned by the sin and failure of the folks I pastor: after all, my own record isn't so great. It's God's grace that is great.

So, for example, I don't expect us to live up to the ethics of the kingdom as found in the Sermon on the Mount, but I do expect us to fail in such a way that those watching will know what we were reaching for, what we're failing at. I don't expect us to love each other as we love ourselves, but I do expect us to live in such a way that outsiders will be able to tell that loving each other is what we're about. 

So the problem isn't that we fail. Nor that we do church badly. It's that we're doing something else. We seem to be playing the wrong game against the wrong team at the wrong time. Not always, but pretty often. Maybe especially on Sunday mornings. 

 -- taken from John Alexander's manuscript version of the book that was, at the time, entitled Stop Going to Church and Become the Church (I think John talked about changing the title, but I don't remember what he wanted to change it to except that the focus was Love.)
 
What I've often wondered about is how we can expect the church to be playing the right game if we're not really talking about what game we're playing? It does come up in our congregation once in awhile, during Sunday School (which is poorly attended) or in a sermon. But there's not really any specific time set aside to talk about whether we're still playing the game or if we've gotten sidetracked with doing the wave around the stadium or dancing to the organ music. (OK, so I'm mixing a bit of hockey in here. But I suppose that's the point if hockey's not the game you're supposed to be playing.) I would expect discussions like this at congregational meetings but instead we often get sidetracked with what we spend on watering the grass or hearing reports on stuff that we pretty much already know. 

Of course, this brings up a favorite Christian catch phrase: intentional. But it fits here. How intentional are we as a church? I don't just mean are we, as individuals, thinking about what we're doing, but do we as a congregation communicate with each other on what we're all about and how we're doing in terms of going about it? I'd say that the congregation we're a part of glances across the topic now and then in a rather haphazard manner. How about yours? 

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Memorial Day - What's the point?

Memorial Day has come and gone, but I wanted to reflect on a couple of posts that showed up in my Facebook feed over that weekend. My goal isn't to point fingers at specific people but to explore a connection that other people seem to see but that I'm at a loss over. Here are the two status updates that I am particularly referring to:

Thanks to those who courageously sacrificed their lives for us, pointing to the ultimate sacrifice given for us, Christ on the cross."
"What a Blessing to live in the USA- May everyone have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and remember those men and women in uniform who fought to keep the Blessings coming from the Lord Jesus Christ!!!!!"

Memorial Day, as I understand it, is an American holiday, made official in 1868 by General John Logan, in which we remember those who have died in the nation's service. When I look at the Department of Veterans Affairs page on the day, I see no mention of Christ, the cross, or even Christianity. In fact, from looking at that page, one might even get the impression that this is a day to honor and remember the death of any soldier who died in the service of the United States of America, no matter what their religious affiliation and no matter what their purpose was in fighting. 

So why is it, then, that someone might think the death of an American soldier, of unknown religious affiliation (if any), in some way points "to the ultimate sacrifice given for us, Christ on the cross"? If that is the case, then isn't any death, of any sort, by any person anywhere, also pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ? Or is there something about Memorial Day that makes the death more pointedly Christian that it would be otherwise?

And why is it assumed that soldiers are fighting with the united purpose of keeping "the Blessings coming from the Lord Jesus Christ!!!!!" Didn't some soldiers fight because they were drafted, or because they wanted to end slavery, or to protect their economic situation, or because they wanted to go out and "prove themselves"? Or perhaps the poster on Facebook is trying to focus on the blessings the United States enjoys with the assumption that all of those blessings are directly from Jesus. If that's the case, did Jesus need these soldiers to fight and kill other people in order to maintain a divine system of giving blessings to the nation? Couldn't he have blessed the nation without the bloodshed? 

I do want to honor those who have died in the service of this nation of which I am a part. Whether I agree with the war in which they died or not, that in no way diminishes the extent of their sacrifice. But I want to honor their death because it was the moment at which something honorable, something lovely, something marvelous ended. Every life is valuable and the end of life should always be treated with respect and honor in recognition of that which is lost. But to intimately connect death in battle with the sacrifice of Christ, or the continued blessings bestowed on a nation, seems to only diminish the death of a soldier rather than to honor it. Is a person's death only to be honored if it can point to a spiritual sacrifice? Is a person's death only to be honored if it can mean more good things for me as a citizen? I believe the answer is "no" to both of those questions. 

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer

Bwa ha ha! This is a great find by Scott (whose FB account I would link to, but that would reveal his last name, which points to yet another of the "Privacy? What's that?" policies of Facebook). 

If you don't think it's funny, then I'm guessing you've either never been to a church that's like this, or you're currently a happy attender of a church like this. ;-)


"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

First plant the sapling

"If you should have a sapling in your hand when they tell you that the Messiah has arrived, first plant the sapling and then go to greet the Messiah." 
-- Yochanan ben Zakkai (as quoted by Rabbi Nathan, Abot, 31b)

I came across this quote while reading Stuart Sacks' book, Hebrews Through a Hebrew's Eyes, and found it intriguing. Stuart used the quote to show that "the idea of Messiah's priestliness has not been part of Jewish thought." (page 54) I looked the quote up online and came across various other interpretations including the idea that the quote was indicative of a cynical attitude regarding the number of pretenders claiming to be the Messiah. 

I've never heard of Yochanan ben Zakkai before and I really have no idea where he was really coming from when he made this statement, nor do I have any sense of the context. But I really like the quote itself. 

In my mind, making a statement such as this points toward an understanding that the Christ is not coming to take us "away from it all," but he's coming to restore not only us but the world in which we live. 2 Peter 3:13 pops to mind in which the "new heaven and new earth" are mentioned. I would still plant the sapling not because I want to delay in seeing the Messiah face to face, but because I understand that the new Earth is a part of the plan. God is bringing about a restoration of not only our souls, but of our bodies, of the earth, of all of creation as well. 

I suppose I also like the quote because between Mary and Martha, I've always seen myself as a Martha. Martha would plant the sapling. Mary would throw it aside and run on to see Jesus. Perhaps Mary was the one that did right when she sat at Jesus' feet while Martha worked in the kitchen. But it was Martha who understood that Jesus could raise her brother, Lazarus, from the dead. Mary had already forgotten the bigger picture of who Jesus was. Planting the sapling seems to me to be an action based upon seeing the bigger picture. 

How about you? Would you plant the sapling or toss it aside at the news?

Introverts in the Church: Finding our place in an extroverted culture


http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/reviews/item/39
I debated about which site to put this review on. Since my cache of reviews is on the barefootmeg site, I decided to place it there and just throw a link up here for anyone that doesn't visit both sites.

Click on the link above to get to the review.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Why can't we all just get along?

I hear Rodney King's sentiment, "Why can't we all just get along?" echoed now and again among various groups of people that I hang out with. But I wonder what they mean by that. More often than not, the impression I'm left with is closer to "Why can't everyone who disagrees with me just stop being stupid and agree with me?" It seems that people would like to have unity, but at the same time I don't see them doing anything that involves them crossing those invisible barriers that divides groups of people from one another. They're not building bridges. They're not listening to opposing view points. They're not walking in other people's shoes. 

I came across two quotes recently that I found interesting in that they seem to encourage a culture of discovery, discussion, respect and scholarship. I'm sure I could find all sorts of quotes that encourage such a culture, but what struck me about these quotes is that they actually are already rooted in a culture: Judaism. 

Pertaining to Biblical studies, the saying shiv'im panim la-Torah, "The Law has seventy faces," is a reminder that Torah can be interpreted many ways.

In other words, just because it's plain as day to me that such and such means THIS, that doesn't mean that everyone else is seeing with the same eyes. And just because their perspective is different doesn't mean they're wrong. We should explore our difference of opinion. Maybe there's information that colors our understanding that would be helpful to share. Perhaps there's experiences or details that, while not changing our mind, might help us to graciously accept and understand why the other person thinks differently. Perhaps we can stop thinking that we are always right.  

For those who undertake the study of more than five centuries of rabbinical thought--the Talmud--another maxim applies: elu va-elu divrey Elohim khayim ("both are the words of the living God"). This means that interpretations which are contrary to one another may both be acceptable.

The endless debates regarding free will vs. predestination immediately jump to mind. (As do several political debates that seem to polarize the church as well as the nation.) If all things are predestined, then how can we be responsible for anything we do, whether good or bad? But if all relies upon free will, then aren't we negating God's sovereignty and his will? But why does it have to be only one way or the other? Can't we be fully culpable for our actions and can't God also be fully in control? Isn't is possible that both are accurate interpretations of the scriptures? (The example of Pharaoh comes to mind.)

If we are ever to see unity within the church, we need to start by listening to one another. And we need to realize that *I* am not the final arbiter of what is right or wrong. God is. And he has placed us in a community, not for us to antagonize each other, but for us to learn from each other and encourage and exhort one another. 

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The quotes were taken from the book Hebrews through a Hebrews Eyes by one of my former pastors, Stuart Sacks.

Friday, April 2, 2010

More Guinness: The Case for Civility

"At one level, in resisting what they see as wrong forces, Christian arguments have become sub-Christian, even anti-Christian." -- Os Guinness


Os Guinness Part 1 from CPX on Vimeo.

Thanks to Jason (WiselyWoven) for the link.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Death by Chocolate

I found this on the What Christians Like website today. The chocolate cake is iced with the words, "The wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23" and the vanilla cake is iced with the words, "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

They ran a caption contest along with the photo. My favorite so far was, "Sean got his wish for a chocolate groom's cake, but couldn't escape the foreboding feeling that his bride would always have the upper hand in this relationship."