All posts by ljmonson

Ramblings, Uncategorized

Who Am I?

I am sitting at my desk attempting to discover what I am. To determine in reality, what should be my chief concern. I need to come to some understanding of the why of my being. Is the chief concern of a man to see that his own soul is right in the sight of God. Is it “to thy own self be true”? It was the wise Solomon said, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” I see the thong of the world about me and their portrayal of those masses in all communication mediums and it seems its all about the right medicines, the right toilet paper, the right cell phone, the right crowd, the right breakfast, the right car, the right everything. You can add your own list of right things. But, in reality are these right things my chief concern? How many shirts can a guy wear, how many cars can I drive?

The common conciseness is not to think but take the hints of everyone else to dictate reality. But if every one is following, who is leading? We all seem to think a great deal about the covering of the body, but do not think anything about the ornaments of inside. The feeding of the physical frame engrosses much care, but the supply of internal intrinsic food is often neglected. I am more than what I wear, eat, drive, wipe, listen. I am more than this vessel. As long as I am overwhelmed with the outside the inside will starve. My outside is sucking up all the resources of my being and my soul is malnourished. Deep thoughts, but it is a step to meaningfulness.

Bible Study, Theology

Quit trying to please everyone!

“It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you” (Proverbs 29:25 GN)

*When we worry about what other people think, we let them control us. We waste a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what other people want us to be. Then, we waste a lot of time and energy trying to become like that rather than just being what God made us to be. You’re manipulated and controlled by somebody else.

Worrying about what other people think is dangerous because we’re more likely to cave in to criticism. It means we don’t always do the right thing; instead, we do the thing that everybody wants us to do.

And we’re in danger of missing God’s best because we’re so worried about what other people want us to do that we can’t stop to think about what God wants us to do.

Fact #1: You cannot please everybody. Even God can’t please everybody. One person prays for it to rain; another prays for it to be sunny. In the Super Bowl, both teams are praying that they will win. Who is God going to answer? God can’t please everybody. Only a fool would try to do what even God can’t do. You can’t please everybody.

Fact #2: It’s not necessary to please everybody. There is a myth that says you must be loved and approved by everybody in order to be happy. That’s just not true. You don’t have to please everybody in order to be happy in life.

Fact #3: Rejection will not ruin your life. It hurts, sure. It’s not fun. It’s uncomfortable. But rejection will not ruin your life unless you let it.

Quit trying to please everybody! Remember that nobody can make you feel inferior unless you give them permission.

The Apostle Paul says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31 TEV) This means we can think like this: ‘God likes me, and I like me; if you don’t like me, then you’ve got a problem. If God likes me, who cares that everybody doesn’t approve of everything I do.’

Remember, nothing you ever do will make God love you less. Nothing you ever do will make God love you more. He loves you completely right now.

Church, Church History, Music

Church Music and the evolution of worship

First let me say I am a senior citizen. I was just thrust into Medicare and signed up for Social Security. I have not always been in the church. It started for me back when someone from the Nazarene Church came calling on a newlywed couple. Not long after we became a part of the church. It had a formula of service: Prayer, announcements, a song from the Hymnal, an offering, two more songs from the Hymnal, a special song from one of the parishioners, preaching and an invitation. Oh they mixed up once and a while by having the announcements after the offering but nothing really changed. The same ingredients just mixed a little differently. We had an organ on one side of the platform and a piano on the other. Opal played the piano. We had to be careful not to pick songs that she could not play. She was dedicated and was a blessing to all for her stewardship of time and talent. The organ was reserved for the preacher’s wife. Lofty tones of ethereal music that could thrill the soul.

The biggest change in music was in inclusion of songs from singer songwriters such as the Gaithers. We occasionally sang songs such as “The Longer I Serve Him”, “Because He Lives”, “Something Beautiful”, “He Touched Me” and “There’s Something About That Name”. They were predominantly songs of testimony. They were songs that would tell what God has done in people’s lives. They trilled the soul, sent penitent sinners to the altar, it was exciting.

Song books started to show up next to the hymnal in the pew. There seemed to be a craving for an experiential, testimonial, heart pulling type of music. In retrospect these songs were not that different from songs in the hymnal such as “Victory in Jesus”, “It Is Well With My Soul”, “Amazing Grace”, “Christ Arose”, and “He Loves Me”. But these new spiritual songs were written in modern styles and seemed to bolster the music ministry of the church.

Let us fast forward through Bible College, three different churches as a pastor, and now retirement and we now come to the new church experience. The evolution of church music has changed the church. And I am not so certain that it is a change that is good. I am afraid instead of the church changing the world the world has changed the church.

We live in an ever-present culture of consumerism and materialism. We often quote the latest commercial on television more often than scripture. This culture seems to have seduced the church to be driven by marketing rather than mission. And the music I hear is driven more by entertainment than the God centeredness of true worship.

It was A. W. Tozer who said, “The church that can’t worship must be entertained. And men who can’t lead a church to worship must provide the entertainment.” It is so sad to think that contemporary music and worship has become worship dumbed down and has become a cross between “American Idol” and “Sesame Street”. Worship in song is to lift the veil of the Holy of Holies and peek into the throne room of God. It is not the vain repetition that Jesus warned us about by singing the same words over and over and over again.

I am distressed that the church today is trying so hard to be modern and contemporary in an effort to attract new members, they succumb to things that are nothing more than marketing ploy. Instead of worship in song we substitute a variety show for entertainment.

So here is my take on what music in my church should be:

1. Truthful: Rather than trying to get dumber than a fifth grader, offer truth that grows my understanding of God. As we glorify Him in our music, as we worship Him in our spiritual songs, don’t be afraid to convey some deep spiritual truth that may change my life. After all, He is truth, it shouldn’t be that hard. The reason most of the hymns of the old timers were so good was they were filled with theology and truth.

2. Written for adults: The Church is a blood washed throng. We are intelligent, cognizant, seekers of truth. The children in the church sing little songs once and while in the church and we think that cute. But we are no longer children; I need meat in my worship. Go ahead, give us songs with deep doctrine that excite our souls. Give us something we can hold onto on a daily basis. Give us something to hum under our breath in the times you would rather scream.

3. Timeless: Let’s sing songs that reach back into the archives of songs proven to have been used of God to edify His people. Why change something that has touched people’s lives for decades if not centuries. The newest and most popular is not always the best.

4. Quality: We need to play music well. There are those who have gifts and talents to play music and to sing. And if the best you have is giving the best they can give, I am fine with that. Remember enthusiasm is no substitute for practice.

5. Worshipful: When we sing, point us to God, not toward your talents. This is not Holy Karaoke. It is not being relevant to society; it is simply conforming to the world. We need serious worship. Worship that is pointed toward God and not to the platform or the overhead screen.

6. Piety: I hear the mantra of “come as you are, God doesn’t care what you wear, it is what is in your heart that matters.” If you showed up to your child’s wedding in jeans and a pair of sandals would you say, “My child doesn’t care what I wear?” The concept of Sunday best is being lost. I know full well that we live in a more relaxed culture, but dress as if worship is nothing more than one more day is not giving God his best. Whether conscious or unconscious what we wear is a characteristic our perceived worth of the occasion. Worship calls for the best, not what is comfortable.

My Father is rich in houses and lands,
He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands!
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,
His coffers are full, He has riches untold.

My Father’s own Son, the Savior of men,
Once wandered on earth as the poorest of them;
But now He is pleading our pardon on high,
That we may be His when He comes by and by.

I once was an outcast stranger on earth,
A sinner by choice, an alien by birth,
But I’ve been adopted, my name’s written down,
An heir to a mansion, a robe and a crown.
A tent or a cottage, why should I care?
They’re building a palace for me over there;
Though exiled from home, yet still may I sing:
All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.

I’m a child of the King, A child of the King:
With Jesus my Savior, I’m a child of the King

Church, Preaching

Requirements for Preaching

14 Comments

Whitefield wrote about the need for a special type of preacher: “Yea…that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more . . . raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ‘signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.”

My most earnest desire is for the church, my church, might find a Bible infused preacher of the Word.  A preacher that is so overpowered with the holiness of God, so broken by the purity of God, so full of wonder of the majesty of God, and so overwhelmed by the God’s greatness that the church not just be revived but set ablaze in a holy zeal that cannot be quenched.

We need preaching that will lead us to the seriousness of God.  It is more than a heavenly, back slapping, fellowship.  I hear from all sides and church growth specialists that preachers need to “lighten up”, “be more relevant to today’s issues”, and “we have to become more modern.” In these admonitions to the preachers of the day I do not hear the Spirit of Jesus.

Listen instead to the words of God;

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25).

  • “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29).
  • “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).
  • “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
  • “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22).
  • “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44).
  • “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
  • “Some of you they will put to death . . . But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:16-19).

To the church I would ask what kind of preacher do we need:

  • One that would teach us to hold on until Jesus comes, or a fire brand that will hold our feet to the fire?
  • One that is good with audio visuals or someone that imparts the seriousness of God.
  • One that is so up to date with the latest news and current events or someone that has the mind and heart of God so close that he imparts the timelessness of the Holy?

Preaching, Uncategorized

Seed that would not grow.

One of my earliest memories of Marina Del Mar Elementary School was the day a little seven year old me witnessed a miracle.  Kindergarten was not what it is today.  Most of the time was spent normalizing wild children into a homogeneous group.  We played together and the teacher was there to mitigate and bring justice when there was a disagreement.

Oh back to the miracle.

It was time in the late morning for a science experiment.  Each little one was given a paper cup.  We were to go out into the play yard made up of dirt interspersed with hard metal rings and slides and instructed to fill our cup half full with dirt.  We were reminded that the quality of the soil would determine the outcome of the experiment.

Each child went out to find their dirt.  I went to the farthest corner under a large hedge row of Cyprus and dutifully dug a little hole and filled my cup half full with dirt.

Upon returning to the class room we poured out our diggings on individual paper plates and were given some dark soil to mix in.  I did not smell very good.

We refilled our cups with this mixture almost to the top.  George next to me spilled his and had to start over.

Each of us was given a little seed, about the size of a freckle we put on top and covered with the last of the ill smelling stuff.

We watered those little gardens every other day and left them in the window.

That’s no miracle you would say.  But my paper cup garden was different.  You see mine did not sprout out of the ground like the others.  Mine did not come up when everyone else’s did.

We planted them on Thursday. Friday we added water but no indication in any of them. On Monday three of the other kid’s cups had a little sprout of green. Tues the majority of the other kid’s had their sprout. Wednesday everyone had a sprout but me.

I was told that I must have had a bad seed. For a kindergartner that is not a very good answer for the sense of disappointment.

The teacher didn’t want me to start over because I would behind all the rest.  She suggested that I should look on with someone else.

But I would not give up.  I left my cup in the sun. I gave my cup water. Thursday and still no green sprout. Friday and no harvest.

Monday as I arrived at school, fully expecting to be disappointed again, I went to the window sill and there it was the miracle.

GREEN!

Not out of the middle of the cup where the seed had been planted, but close to the edge. In all its green glory my little plant had pushed its little sprout out of the dirt.  It was small but it was there.
The miracle was that in my hurry to plant the seed I had not been very careful with the dirt I had used.  I had placed my seed under a small stone.  The seed had in its effort to rise to the sun had come up against the stone and had taken four extra days to move something probably twenty thousand times as big as itself out of the way.

Never underestimate the power of a seed.

Theology

Stink

2 Comments

Christian graciousness is often misused by many to allow the presence of sin around us to become more tolerable. “We are not of the world” so we must allow the sin of others to continue and we become mere spectators. We allow others, even those we love and closest to us, to continue in their behaviors in the name of Christian love.  The result is allowance of the stink around us.  Christian graciousness is not trying to make someone else’s sin less odoriferous.  It is, in part, always remembering that mine stinks every bit as bad.

Church, Preaching

Who is leading the flock

Real shepherds know the sheep, live with the sheep, and even eat the same sheep food. The shepherds  life demands both public engagement with real people and meaningful private moments alone with piles of books.

In churches we have code language that goes something like this. If the guy is warm and friendly but can’t preach to save his life, it is said of him that “he has a pastor’s heart.” Conversely, many wonderfully skilled expositors are nothing more than full-time conference speakers who drop into their congregations most Sundays and deliver a conference-like message. In short, if the shepherds vocation hovers anywhere near the end of Ephesians 4:11 (So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers) we need to embrace the full weight of what it means to be a pastor and the commitment involved for those who are called to teach the Word. What does a church need: a pastor or a teacher? The answer should be “both.”

Church, Preaching

What is preaching?

I have been impressed lately on the necessity of preaching in the church.  I have read much on why preaching should be the pinnacle of the gatherings of the Body of Christ.  The words of Jack Hyles have refreshed my concept of preaching more than all the others. I humbly take his ideas and thoughts and share them with you.

Preaching is taking a risk in explaining the mind of God.  Preaching is teaching with a tear in the eye.  Preaching is explaining the unexplainable.  Preaching is facts on fire.  Preaching is the very thoughts of God in the hand, the fire of God in the heart and the zeal of God in the soul.  It is, in the words of Pastor Jack Hyles, “Preaching is the gift of God wrapped in an excited voice.” Preaching has to be more than a 30 minute speech.  It has to be the moral conscience of the church, the nation and the world.  Preaching is the soul of the body of Christ.

All the major colleges in the east were built because of preaching. It was preaching that originally built our public school system. It was preaching that originally established our law system. In the early days of our country, a degree in theology was a prerequisite to a law degree. Every great denomination was founded on preaching. It was John Wesley who said, “I just set myself on fire and folks come to watch me as I burn.”

John Newton said, “Preaching is breaking the hard heart and healing the broken one.

Abraham Lincoln said, ‘When I hear a man preaching, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”

Preaching is the answer to what troubles the church. We cannot allow any substitute for preaching. The church should never settle for something less. Sacred music is admirable, but it is no substitute of preaching. An inspired cantata may be uplifting but is not substitute for preaching.  A poignant dramatic presentation of drama is not a substitute for preaching. Preaching is the highest of professions and the greatest of pure art.

Again as Pastor Jack Hyles in his book “Teaching on Preaching,” emphatically stated:
Preaching is truth set on fire. Preaching is demolition of error. Preaching is doubt’s healing balm. Preaching is the Holy Spirit’s amplifier. Preaching is the Savior’s projector. Preaching is fact on fire and truth aflame. Preaching is worship’s entrée. Preaching is the adornment of the Bible. Preaching is the power of God unto salvation. Preaching is revival’s forerunner. Preaching is the church’s heart. Preaching is doctrine clothed in excitement. Preaching is love’s smile. Preaching is sin’s greatest adversary. Preaching is frustration’s funeral.  Preaching is doubt’s demise.  Preaching is fear’s failure. Preaching is depression’s death. Preaching is disappointment’s decline.  Preaching is faith’s food.  Preaching is profundity delivered in simplicity. Preaching was the first thing done by the Mayflower pilgrims.  Preaching is the mender of broken relationships.  Preaching is the healer of broken hearts. Preaching is the revival of broken dreams. Preaching is Hell’s greatest enemy Preaching is the sinner’s best friend.  Preaching is the saint’s dinner.  Preaching is genius with a halo.  Preaching is fire in the pulpit that melts the ice in the pew.

When the preacher approaches the pulpit, all must stop.  Angels must cease their wings, let holy awe inspired hush come upon heaven itself. This folly of preaching is the most important task of the hour, the day, even of the week. Let Heaven give voice and unction, let the gates of hell shake in fear, let the church wait in a holy expectation.  Quiet the children, let the ushers sit down, let all the past pass away, let the stew boil in the pot, the future can wait, let Satan and his angles be overcome with fear.

Bible Study, Church

Teachable men willing to change

In Sunday School we had a challenging discussion on the calling of Peter.  We asked why was the call extended to Peter over some more learned and sophisticated individuals on the other side of the lake.  What was the criteria for calling Peter or for that matter any of the twelve? What is the criteria for a calling today?

By consensus it was written upon the white board, “Teachable men willing to change.” OK, I can go along with that but what about the one that got away?  What about Judas that allowed him to elude the net by the Greatest Fisher of Men?  Jesus during this three year teaching and preaching period cast a wide net, but not all were wrestled into the boat.

Only the twelve men in all history have had the intimate, personal relationship to Jesus the incarnate Son of God.  Judas along with the other eleven has ever been more exposed to God’s perfect truth.  No other has had the crash course in experiential love.  They all were exposed in an intimate first hand washing of God’s love, compassion, power, kindness, forgiveness and grace. No group of followers could come close to the very essence of God.  Yet through it all Judas escaped the net.  In the most indescribably precious, and blessed years the heart of Judas was not softened.

Judas defies comprehension.  Judas constantly and with persistence of mind rejected the very truth of God in the flesh.  And he hid it from everyone around him with skill.  The only one to see into the heart of this chosen fisher of men and see the wicked rebellion was Jesus.  And He called him a devil.

Judas did not escape from guilt. Just like the pain we feel as we accidentally burn ourselves. So guilt is an intrinsic and automatic warning of spiritual danger.  It was guilt that drove Judas to remorse which in turn led to his death.  Do not confuse guilt and remorse with the requisite answer to both. The answer to both is repentance.  Repentance is an act of the will. Judas was teachable but he was not willing to change.  And in the last moment of his life his willingness not to change condemned him.

 

Bible Study

The Dog that would not swim

Charles Swindoll, in his book “Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back,” tells the story of a farmer who wanted to impress his hunting buddies. So, he bought the smartest, most expensive hunting dog he could find and he trained this dog to do things no other dog on earth could do—impossible things that would surely amaze anyone. Then he invited his buddies to go duck hunting with him. After a while a group of ducks flew over and the hunters were able to make a few hits. Several ducks fell in the water and the proud owner shouted to his magnificent dog, “Go get ‘em!” The dog leapt out of the boat, walked on the water, picked up a bird and returned to the boat. As soon as he dropped the duck in the boat he trotted off across the water again and grabbed another duck and brought it back to the boat.

The owner beamed with pride as his wonderful dog walked across the water and retrieved each of the birds one by one. Unable to resist the opportunity to brag a little he asked his buddies, “Do you notice anything unusual about my dog?”

One of them rubbed his chin and said, “Yes. Come to think of it, I do! That silly dog doesn’t know how to swim does he??”

When Peter in Mathew 14 stepped out of the boat in the middle of a storm to walk on the water to Jesus, many people have the same reaction. Instead of recognizing that he was the only disciple to have the faith to even step out of the boat, he is criticized for his lack of faith when he sank in the waves. But in reality, he was the only one with enough faith to go to Christ. The other disciples sat in the boat and they almost always get overlooked in this story.
But they were there, still in the boat.