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. 

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?! 

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 

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.

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?!!!

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