Dumbing down the church?

I guess I must be old school. I was raised with an understanding that God could not exist in the same room as evil. His holiness had some implicit demands upon what it meant as believers to respect that holiness. Not that holiness needs to be quantified, but I am wondering these days as to what people are allowing to modify the equation. I am perplexed as to the activities of the people around me at this particular historical point in time, and I most certainly am left shaking my head.

This past week I have been watching all of the dealings with the infamous trial case in Florida against Casey Anthony. She is given due process, acquitted on serious charges, convicted on four counts of lying to the police, and then completes her 3 year high profile sentence and gets released. The media covering the events ranged from being totally supportive of her, to totally suspicious of her, to totally anywhere in between the two points. People have left homes and jobs to stand in vigil against what they perceive are her “lies” and her “obvious” guilt in neglecting to report her child’s loss for 31 days. The parade of witnesses on the stand all seemed to have their own issues as they bantered back and forth. The truth was about as clear as Texas dirt and yet we all go on our separate ways as if nothing happens. I’m not trying to sit in a place of judgment; I am merely drawing attention to the moment. This is strange, indeed!

This past week I was reading blog traffic about another two mainline church denominations that have altered their denominational documents to allow for the ordination of gay clergy. One blogster made a passionate case for the missional process of bringing folks in the sub-Sahara parts of Africa to faith who had to be convinced by the church to walk away from bigamy culturally practiced within that part of the land. One man married to one woman had to culturally replace the options, and now, of course, after all these years, the denominations seek to redefine even their own definitions. Years of redefinition of other people’s behavior expects to be shelved when our behavior changes. There just seems to be a problem here somewhere. Is it a question of the church saying “Do as I do until I change my mind?”

I’m going to get a little out on the proverbial limb when I say that our world continues to redefine living as everything we want it to be, regardless of what it might once have been, as if to say we are on some sort of evolutionary trip through the land of sin. It seems we just don’t take things openly and honestly any more. It seems our world is more about lying, deceiving, and getting our own way no matter what others (read God) might have to say about it. And if we can get everyone to agree with us it is no longer a problem, then it will be okay.

Our country at this moment, as it has in past years, stands in the throes of economic confusion. If our elected leadership does not step up to lead, there may be disastrous results. To hear “it won’t be that bad” from the leaders involved is simply deafening in its ignorance. Perhaps this is the same stuff that the emperors of Rome dealt with many centuries back. Anything is right if we all say so, we can lie our way through anything, anything goes, and anything we do is okay because it really isn’t our fault and the consequences of our actions “won’t be that bad”.

My guess- we’re missing something big time! I was always taught there are some “eternal” consequences attached to our actions. For centuries it has been called sin. Scripture reminds us the wages of sin are death. I’m afraid we’ve lost the power of the law and that anything goes. We may have had a list of common sense things that led to mutual respect and a mutual relationship with others, but that list is now shrinking and if our culture has anything to say about it we’ll dumb things down so badly our Lord himself won’t recognize His bride.

The Deception of Sin

After a robust discussion about the problems of the world with a fellow pastor, I could not leave this thought alone. If in fact we are called to new life, which Jesus purchased with His blood on the cross, does that give us liberty to do absolutely everything the way we choose? At some logical point in the discussion can we begin to think we need to answer the call of discipleship (Follow me) which Jesus has offered in the Scriptures? Might that mean denial of self and surrender to His will and His way?

One example that was offered in the discussion was Jesus’ handling of the prostitute. He questions about her accusers, and offers affirmation rather than condemnation-“Neither do I condemn you” the NKJV says, and then Jesus’s most interesting words- “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11) There’s no record anywhere if she did. If she’s like the rest of us, perhaps she ignored Jesus’s words as well.

The deception of sin is the notion that our actions really don’t matter. They are neutral. There seems to be no pushback in the world these days, because it has become apparent in our country that just about any and every thing is permissible. The herd mentality suggests that if we are all doing it, who would notice just me? The church of today finds itself struggling because it attempts to hold onto what now appears to be a lost cause-that the Ten Commandments really might be a curb, mirror, and rule for us all. And by holding on to this measuring tool, who can stand? Society has decreed we get rid of the measuring stick. Make everything equal, let us all be similar, no matter what manifestation the world might be working on our heads and in our hearts. We don’t judge others and we ourselves get a free pass. I think this offers us with a thought process that is wrong. Dead wrong!

What part of Scripture do we keep or allow to be normative if we consistently neutralize it with our consistent ignoring of what is written there? Who are we to accept or reject? I wonder if there is still any “fear” of God left out there.

Just sayin!

Radical Trust

Some thoughts that have been kicking around the back of my mind lately relate to how much I do or do not trust in God’s provisions in my life.  When I trust, it is faithful following.  When I do not trust, it is fearful and difficult and things almost always seem to fall apart.  It is not so much an issue of me trying to figure out how I am going to handle a particular problem or issue, as much as it seems to be one of simply leaning into God’s loving arms.

If one’s goal is true radical living, apart from the way of the world, the issue of trusting/not trusting will come across your path sooner or later.  While big life-crisis situations are usually the place we encounter our personal moments of faith or lack of faith, I think it also happens in the simple almost lack-luster moments of our life.  It’s not so much when I might be facing a raging medical situation or a threatening business situation, but what I am and what I do when there is no major pressure going on.  Another way to say it might be if we cannot see God doing the big things in our lives like parting of the Red Sea, we’ll not be listening for the still, small voice of God.

I guess for the believer, it would seem if you master the simple steps of trusting God when things are not all that energized, you might do better when they are!  It needs to be second nature, a way of life, going to the core of our DNA, where we begin to take everything to the Lord in prayer, thanking Him for everything in our lives.  Seeking His will first, always aware of the steps we need to take to put that trust in action.  It really ought to be our starting line.  It really might be the place where all our blessings start.

Total, radical, reliance on the King of Kings.  An amazing concept if you can wrap your mind around it!

Digital Nativity!

What if the birth of Jesus took place today in the world of social networking, google, etc.  Take a look and enjoy!

Encouragement For Today « Treasure Hunt by Gail Hyatt

Praying for a real sense of God’s abiding presence in you today—filling you, and leading you each step of the way.

via gailbhyatt.wordpress.com

Thanks Gail for this post! Praying that it will touch someone-it did me!

A Perimeter of Defense

For hundreds of years good tactical warfare plans have included setting up appropriate "perimeters of defense" which must be tended to to keep the combatants away from each other.  This is not something which is set up and then gets ignored.  It is a perimeter that must be paid attention to by constant vigilance.  In our world in America, these perimeters are soft and we rarely experience the kinds of incursions that would breach our security, but lately we realize that there are those who constantly scan our collective horizon to see where we are weak, and thus have a way to breach that "defensive perimeter".

What about the affairs of our soul?  Have we established a perimeter of defense that will enable us to see clearly what is good or bad for the vitality of our souls?  Are we vigilant in watching the things that will bring us down, "breaks" as it were in our battle lines?  Do we spend time actually guarding ourselves against things that will tear us down?  In a great little book Jungle Warfare, Christopher Cunningham lays out a plan to resist the attacks from within-letting the Holy Spirit bridle our thoughts and our tongues.  We are invited to weigh the thought-"Is what I am about to say true, above reproach, kind, building someone up, and/full of integrity?"  If not, we need to ask the Spirit to provide us with alternative speech to keep from allowing the wrong things to take over our hearts. 

We would replace good words with vindictive approaches to living, and as such, we would begin to resemble the worldly way of handling things rather than carrying out a grace-filled existence.  Every time we abandon the gifts and/or fruits of the Spirit in our daily life activity, we stop patrolling our perimeters and truly allow anything else to set our agendas.  We are vulnerable. 

No one is advocating a mindless following of the Holy Spirit, but perhaps more of a honest to goodness wrestling match to make sure we do only things which build up, and not tear down, destroy, or kill.  Somehow in it all, we must, and I emphasize MUST, protect our hearts made so vulnerable by the ways of this world.  We must not become complacent, but rather work to be diligent with those things within our control, so we can withstand the power of evil, which seeks for us to forget what God has claimed in us already.

Take 1 Peter 5 as your guide:

    "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.  Stay Alert!  Watch out for your great enemy the devil.  He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith."  vs. 7-9 NLT

Do people just not believe anymore?

A quick read of John chapter 8 finds Jesus in a verbal wrestling match with those who gathered around him, the Jewish leadership as well as his disciples.  He goes in length to debate and almost pick a fight about who knows what when it comes to the tradition of the faith.  It gets ugly- Jesus calls out those gathered in v. 46-47 NIV  “And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me?  Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.”  Wow!
 
Let me visit this again- Jesus is calling out the commandment-followers and the boys who believe in rules because they don’t see the forest for the trees.  The same scripture that pointed to Messiah coming should clearly indicate what that Messiah would look like.  It appears they reject those signs.
 
So I do a gut-check- what about me?  What obstacles stand in my way?  I look around at others and see that they simply reject the ways of God and substitute the ways of the world.  People seem to stop believing, set down the standards and ways of God, in favor of what others might be telling them for the moment.  It seems to be the way we have done it for as long as I have been on the earth, and if I check Scripture, I find it is not just the way we don it now, it is the way we have always done it.
 
It may be just my take on things, but I wonder-it’s like dealing with children when you tell them the fun activity they are involved in is over.  You say, “Junior, we have to go” and expect the activity to stop, and Junior gets his or her ducks in a row and becomes totally compliant and packs up and comes with you.  NOT!  More often than not, they resist in a small way, or a big way.
 
The ramifications for the church of today is answering the question who are we going to listen to!  The voices of others who gently but still firmly draw us away from God, our own hearts which reject what God offers, or will we catch the nuance in what Jesus is sharing with us in the text?  Maybe it’s all about “gladly listening” to the words of God.  And in the listening, there is believing!

Dancin’ with the Spirit

One of the best if not the best show in the ratings is ABC's Dancing with the Stars which takes celebrities and pairs them with a professional dancer and throughout the season they learn all of what I assume are the major ballroom dances.  It is quite painful at times to watch, as those early in the season who need to be eliminated give painful examples of dance.  Now trust me, I am not in a position to judge, as I am not the one out there learning the steps and putting in the time.  It just strikes me what a wonderful process it all is, and we look forward to see who this season's winner is.

In quiet time I realized the essence of our issues with God might best be described in terms of dance, and I am sure that I am not the first person to think of this.  Yet can it be all about who leads? Can the over-all success of our spiritual life be about who has the lead, and who needs to follow?  Lucifer himself was in on the divine dance but was all about that position.  It appears he was not interested in working for a better heaven, but rather, he wanted a better position.  A position it appears had enough authority in his mind that rose above God's authority.  His seat would somehow be higher than God's throne.  A great place to sit if you can get the seat!

Now it's interesting to me that this was the same line peddled to Eve and Adam. You can be "like" God!  By positioning them in the inferior, Satan plays on the human desire to get a better position out of the day.  C'mon-at the end of the day, isn't that what we all wish?  So I'm not blaming Adam and Eve for something I probably would do better and faster even than they did.  So if I could do something to improve my position, well, the rest is history.

Let me put it into another framework. This coming week we celebrate Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the church.  The great gift God chooses to give to us all is that an Advocate would be sent to us.  Forgive me if this is a stretch, but it might be seen best in terms of the Holy Spirit being the professional dancer from Dancing with the Stars.  Now our role is to embrace what the Spirit brings to us, to learn how to do the "divine dance."  One little issue-more often than not, we don't let the Spirit lead.

In Scripture Jesus assures us that He is leaving but the Father will send the Spirit- and the Spirit will fill the role of advocate, sanctifier, well the list can go on and on.  I am struck on how this won't work if I persist in having to lead in that dance.

Think about it-learn more about what the Spirit brings to the equation.  Think of it as a dance-enjoy it, flow through it, and above all-follow the Spirit's lead!

Are There Problems in Churches Today?

George Barna in a recent survey newsletter suggests that millions of unchurched adults are Christians hurt by Churches but can be healed of the pain.  Wow, what a mouthful.  It appears that most of the folks in this particular survey indicate that they are “believers” according to the definitions laid out in the report, but something had happened that now keeps them away.  It appears that whatever trauma which leads them to avoid church wins the day as far as the discussion goes.

It leads me to some questions that might serve as some food for thought.  Is it a case of people not being interested to “shop” at the church for help in their spiritual life?  According to the Barna stats, it would appear that because of the trauma in bad service, or deeper issues, people make a choice to no longer attend church.  That leads me to a question which digs deeper to the core of the issue- are people not “buying” what the church is “selling?”

My first assumption is that church is a community where believers can come and to find a place where they can be affirmed in their own broken walk of faith.  I guess the church stumbles and falls when they work contrary to that “community” since it flies directly into what we have been called to become.  IF we have been called to carry out the Great Commission, it probably ought not to be a place to stab others in the back socially or politically. 

Maybe it is my medieval understanding of church as sanctuary that is jamming up my radar.  Broken sinners coming to experience forgiveness and protection actually receive condemnation according to the Barna research.  So, rather than finding peace for the woes of living, as sanctuary might suggest, they are taking direct hits which are judgmental actions by the organized church-be it official acts by clergy, councils, or committees.  It might even be unofficial actions at the hands of the person sitting next to a person on their last visit to that church.  Far from being a happy place!  Far from being that community we were called to be.

This post might turn into a project if I’m not careful.  From where I sit, the church today cares more for the bottom line than it does for the life of faith.  Somehow we have taken the call to commitment and turned it into an economic venture.  This issue crosses denominations throughout churches of all sizes.  You have to have people coming to church and contributing (sounds like customers, eh?) in order to keep the lights on and the organ playing.  Yet the church by its practice spends more time with the economics than with the heart and soul of the community.  It almost encourages the kind of traumatic experiences that people feel!  When a broken person is trying to scrape themselves up off of the pavement of life, trying to make things work, and then tries to become part of a community that parades itself as a “sanctuary” but allows people to attack others, it becomes more of a case of kicking someone while they are down.  There is no grace in this transaction. 

For those who are experiencing the pain of the separation from real community, they need to be clear- they can find their forgiveness from the Risen Lord apart from the vestiges of pain that these traumatic experiences might provide.  Sometimes a small group of fellow broken and rejected travelers that join together might be all you need, as you begin to get closer to the power of what Acts 2 is all about- a power that doesn’t seem to respect economics.  It relies solely on the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

IF the “big-box” churches of today don’t begin to realize that their “customers” need them to be more responsive to their situation, Barna’s research will only provide bigger numbers.  Yet it does not have to be that way.  Acts 2 still works, if only we would listen.

Waiting on the Will of the Lord

In this season of Lent, I can only begin to wonder what the real-time moments of the Jesus journey must have been all about.  Picture in your minds eye all of the things the disciples had been put through!  In the course of about 40 months, they were called away from friends, family, jobs, and everything they held near and dear to now follow their new master.  Each day must have been an amazing journey.  Each moment, I cannot help but think they must have asked the following- “Good Lord!  What is next?”

You and I have a hard time processing the signs and words that the Lord sends to us through Scripture, the proclaimed Word, and the message we know in our hearts that is being sent to our unwilling ears.  We don’t like the change it might be suggesting, and we certainly can’t find our way to easily follow a path which is new to us and not been proven to us.  We almost chafe at the thought of yet another claim on our time, yet another shift in direction Jesus invites us to consider.

This year, more than ever, Lent is a season of waiting on the Lord.   Waiting to see what is in store.  Waiting to claim the promise that God offers to the faithful, but I’ll have to admit I probably fall into the path with the rest of the disciples.  There is something in my inner core which drives me to ask “Lord, what were you thinking?” 

Mark Batterson shares a great point.  At the Right Now conference this past year, he shared the thought– that God wants you to get to where God wants you to get faster than you want to get where God wants you to get.  If the Almighty wills that our paths take turns to the right and then a sharp hairpin left, so be it.  I know this side of heaven it makes little sense to me.  Yet I am going to chose to wait upon the Lord.

This much I know.  The closer I come to spending time praying into God’s Word and letting it become my guide, the closer I come to recognizing what God is doing in my life.  The closer I come to Him, the closer I come to grasping the grace which allows me to make the trip in the first place. I think that means that I am going to have to shed some of my personal quirks and favorite sinful patterns, simply because if I am truthful to myself and the Word of God, I know I fall far short of where I need to be.  Yet I am blessed to be able to wait on the will of the Lord.  It makes Lent a great season of preparation and covenant-keeping.  And that’s what being a Fool is all about.