Jesus Died for Myspace in Heaven

Nathan and I heard this advertised on the radio this morning.  I laughed so hard I nearly choked.

Is adoration worship?

True fellowship with God

Our pastor handed out a survey a couple of weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to working on it.  For the most part it's measuring stuff that I think our church is already doing pretty good at (caring for one another, understanding that holiness is something to strive for but not something we'll achieve in this life nor can self-righteously demand in others, etc.), but I just hit one question that has me stumped:

When measuring a church, we must look at the degree to which believers in the local church are regularly experiencing fellowship with God and one another.  Question: To what extent are the people in our church experiencing true fellowship with God and with one another in an integrated way? -- from the book The Measure of a Healthy Church

What is "true fellowship with God" and how in the world would I know if our church is experiencing it?  I can imagine coming up with an answer for myself (which would probably be something along the lines of, "is that even possible when you share a pew with kids?") but to answer that for the church? How should I know?

And what's the bit about "in an integrated way"?  Does that mean fellowship with God and one another at the same time? Or in the same setting?

Sounds like a bunch of Christianese to me.  Perhaps it's explained in the book but all I have is a photocopy of the survey. So, what do you think it means?

Tree Hugging for Jesus

This is a short interview of Tri Robinson. (I reviewed his book, Saving God's Green Earth, awhile back.)

"[Christians] need to understand that God does care about his creation
and has commissioned us to care about it."

Tree Hugging for Jesus from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.

Can you love someone that you hold in contempt?

This is a video of Bart Campolo. He lives in Cincinatti, Ohio, which sounds a lot like Detroit as far as I can tell. Although I don't think he finished so strong, he begins with a great question, "Is it possible to love somebody and have contempt for them at the same time?"  What do you think?

A Loving Contempt from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.

If you click through, the video is larger on the original website.

When I hear of Christians who describe themselves as "radical", I find that "arrogant" is another word that often comes to my mind.

Church Leaders

Between Steve's post on leadership in AA, his follow up post on authority, and the fact that the pastor and one of the elders is coming over to our house this afternoon for a chat, I've been thinking a fair bit about leadership in the church. I think we often have expectations of those in leadership and we don't always think out clearly what those expectations are and whether or not they're even reasonable expectations to have.  (Our leaders are, after all, only human.)

As I've already alluded to (here and here), I've been struggling with the leadership at our church. It's been an ongoing problem for several years now and I think I've grown re-discouraged about it lately because I thought things would change with the entrance of a new pastor, and they haven't. But as I prepare for our meeting, I keep asking myself, what is reasonable to expect? Where do I have expectations that I either haven't expressed to them, or that I'm out of line to expect? And the real problem, of course, is that I have a lot of energy behind this, so the ultimate question is, "How can I go into this meeting in a way that addresses the issues without going overboard, without showing bitterness, and without causing more hurt than already exists in the problem?"

So what should I expect from our church leaders? What is reasonable? What should they be doing? Our pastor actually posted some answers to that question, quoting extensively both from John Piper and the Bible. Here's the passage Piper preached on:

Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. -- 1 Peter 1:1-3

So they should be shepherds, voluntarily, not for gain but with eagerness, not lording it over the flock but as examples. But my idea of "shepherd" might be very different than someone else's idea of "shepherd." Piper describes being as shepherd in this way -  "God holds them accountable for seeing the big picture and acting for the good of the whole flock." I have no idea if the elders of our church see any picture, let alone see the big one. And I'm not really sure what they're doing to "act for the good of the whole flock." If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If the elders meet and see things and act on things but no one ever knows they've seen or acted, does it make any difference?

Like I said last week, I still think our church is a good thing over all.  It's a great bunch of people who truly do want to follow through on their decision to follow the Christ. But just because something is good doesn't mean it's easy. I'd love to hear your thoughts on church leaders and what is reasonable to expect from them.