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?

... because for some people, this is what it's all about.

North Point's iBand

Happy Chanukah (with a song from The Maccabeats)

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."

"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. 

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)

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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.