Category Archives: Church

Church, Culture, Preaching

Shock and Awe

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For thirty-three years, Jesus never tried to shock people.  Never-the-less, He was never afraid of shocking people.  As I sit back and examine the world in which I live, which includes what is called news and the prevalent excuse for entertainment, there seems to be a juvenile kind of thrill being exampled of just trying to shock people.  Every item tries to stretch the point to a point that would draw attention to itself.

Sometimes this effort to shock people simply comes from a desire to draw disinterested people to attention.  “I don’t have much breaking news, so I will just proclaim something shocking.”  At other times it is just a part of habit.  One person always must have the last word and if it is not extraordinary and shocking no one will pay any attention to me.  I think it is simply ego.

The sad thing is that this shock malady is dripping over into the church.  The title of the sermon must catch ones interest if it is to be effective.

But Jesus was not this way.  In his teaching and preaching, He did not purposely try to shock people into understanding. But when He did it was always with truth and not hyperbole.  I can imagine how a cautious adviser might have spoken to Jesus. “Now, Master, of course, your ideas are important, but please don’t say them so bluntly.”  “You can’t go around calling the religious elite a brood of vipers.”

Jesus was never deterred from His witness to God by asking, “What will people think about this?” or “How will it affect my safety or popularity.”

I believe the church is trying so hard to shock with a title they forget the awe of the message.

Just my opinion.

Church, Culture, Personal

I may be me…

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Church, I want you to step up and make this “love of Jesus” thing real and real to me.  I am here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned personhood, ready for the full-on Jesus stuff.  Step up and show me the supposedly relentless and all loving Jesus; make it real.

Church, the word for today’s world is tolerance.  Tolerance for everything that can be accepted by the broad and wide way.  Right now, I need you to tolerate me.  For that matter, you need to tolerate those of us who, for hundreds of reasons, you may characterize as un-Christian.  I am so weary of feeling the only thing that goes on around here is a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point to make, a cause to defend, a soul to save.  You can’t promote your cause without accepting me as who I am.

I want to be more than a number on a tally sheet.  I want more than to be counted with those who “like” a Facebook site.  I want to be more than a prop in a baptism ceremony. I want more than applause and high fives when I show up and am soon forgotten when the music ends.

I am waiting for the time when you stop doing your thing and listen to my thing.  Stop evangelizing us, preaching at us, fighting us, judging us long enough to simply hear my pain, my garbage. I am fully aware of my own foibles. It is not your place to put up a mirror, that is God’s job.

Listen carefully church.  Even if we are all sinners like the woman with adultery, or the doubting follower, or the rebellious prodigal or even the demon filled man, there is little we can do about it.  It is all that we are.  Don’t value us because of what we could become but love us because we need simply to be loved.  I need, we need, the world needs, a church big enough, tough enough, and loving enough to look us in the eye and love us unconditionally. Not for what we may become but what we are now.

I am well assured you think you are what God wants.  You go about your ministries and try to be inclusionary to all.  You make every attempt to love and care.  In the shoes, I walk in, in the world in which I live, strive, struggle, question, feel rejection and try to just be me, it does not feel as though you care and love.  It feels more like space and silence.

If I am hurting, telling me it will get better does not help. It only adds to the distance and space between us.

If I share that my very soul is wanting.  If I voice my conviction that I don’t feel included, don’t ignore me. It is so frustrating for you to say it is not right to be hurt.  It is a conversation ender.

If I tell you I am starving for compassion, relationship, authenticity, the last thing I want to hear is that I need to be corrected for my hunger.

Oh, you may be doing your thing and it may be good enough for you.  But for me, it is just one more excuse to stay away.  By the way, if the problem is me, it’s me who you are supposed to be reaching.

Church, Church History, Life, Ministry

Insipid Salt

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I’m no chemist, but one of the most stable substances in the world is salt.  The chemical bond is very tight. You see, sodium and chlorine are happy to become one and share their one electron. The life of the salt is very tight.  Mr. Sodium and Mrs. Chlorine are happily married.  They are like the happily married couple that just loves to be married, no matter what hits the fan. Little can separate them.

So what was Jesus talking about in Matthew 5:13?

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage”. (The Message)

 “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes insipid, what can make it salt again? After that, it is fit for nothing, fit only to be thrown outside and trodden by the feet of men.” (Moffatt)

Jesus was talking believing followers which He calls blessed in the previous verses often called the Beatitudes.

The greatest danger which the body of believers called the church faces then and now, is to lose its tang, its zest, its cutting edge.  The Church will never die.  It is in no danger of falling on its face to a worship of the devil.  Ultimately good and God will prevail.  Never-the-less, there is an ever-present danger which lurks to snatch us unaware to become insipid. Merriam Webster defines the word insipid as: 1) lacking taste or savor, 2) lacking in qualities that interest, stimulate, or challenge; being dull, flat, ignored.

Jesus was warning to the church never to lose its bitingly Christian flavor. I just had a quantity of California Sushi rolls for lunch.  In the package was a large glop of oddly textured green material.  Some would say right away it is wasabi.  It is there to add zest and to add a juxtaposition to the mild sushi.  By the way, don’t take that whole thing and put it into your mouth.  But I digress.

What Jesus was looking for was a people with a zest, a tang, a flavor.  Jesus’ way of life was a stark contrast to the world around Him.  Jesus’ task was to add that zest that makes a difference.  A specific tang that anyone tasting it would immediately recognize it.  The only way to make salt insipid or worthless is to dilute it, to mix it with something that it is not meant to be mixed.   If we lose our tang, our zest, our taste of Godliness, if we become insipid, what good are we?

It is just too easy to sidestep the tough questions.  It is less risky to voice simple platitudes in the face of opposition. We can, and often do, straddle controversial issues and flee to a safety zone of non-committal.  It is salt that has lost its saltiness; insipid.

The Church started in this world with a cutting edge of the truth of Christ. It faced Roman culture and politics so peculiarly that it turned the world upside down.  Consequently, as it grew it became more reasonable, more sane, more strategic, more flat, less tangy, no distinctiveness. I don’t think that Jesus is happy with the adulterated salt of what goes by the name of Church.

I like that word, insipid.  A good word to ponder and concentrate upon.  Even better to think if it describes ourselves.

Comments.

Church, Church History

Danger of being institutionalized

There is a grand difference between being part of an institution and be institutionalized. But they seem to have been blurred in modern culture.  One definition for institution is provided by Dictionary dot com:

An organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program, especially one of a public, educational, or charitable character.

By that definition there should be no shame in calling a church, any church an institution.  It is a place where people are loved, nurtured, protected, heard and sustained.  The church has a responsibility to continue in these things.  An institution is a social mechanism for making a desirable experience easily repeatable and sustainable.

Football is an institution, Thanksgiving is an institution, so why the blurring of the lines between institution and be institutionalized?

Institutions, as we have seen are not a problem. The issue at hand is the corruption of the good of continuation and viability with the idea of a corrupt idea of institutionalization. An institution can enrich life.  But when the institution itself sees itself as only the mechanism and the goal is not the good but the continuation of the machine, it becomes institutionalized.  The method becomes more important than the product.  The system overshadows the purpose.  So how does this subtle change happen?  How does the church change from a vehicle for liberation and love to an engine of unchangeability and rigor?

The Pharisees of Jesus’s day were masters of this metamorphosis. They took the institution of the Sabbath, a weekly pause intended to renew the human spirit and turn in so imperceptibly into a life quenching list of prohibitions.  They took the idea of a coming Messiah and pointed it toward a mantra of things that had to be done to earn the coming presence of the Great King. The faith of Isaiah and Jerimiah degenerated into an engine of oppression. An engine with all the trappings the faithful.  A form of godliness without the power.

The church is an institution.  That is nothing to be coy about. It is your and my responsibility to keep our churches on an upward path.  A path of life-giving renewal. Remember that task is not as important as the people.

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Church, Culture, Politics

Bias, intoloerance, judgement

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For some this is old news, never-the-less, there seems to be a bias in what I see on TV.  Every show seems to want to out due the other in violence, sexual content, and even anti-Christian rhetoric. A couple of weeks ago one person on ABC stated, “It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you… that’s called mental illness.”  There seems to be a tidal wave of prejudice and outright distain for conservative Christian belief.  But I contend that faith remains as the foundation to our civilization.

Prayer and listening to the urgings of God is a very large part of what makes the America which I love.  As it was for George Washington and through to our Vice President whom the “mental illness” jab was pointed. These prayers and listeners were the kind of people wo built our civilization, founded our democracies, developed our modern ideas of rights and justice, ended slavery, established universal education and now are in the forefront of the fight against poverty, prejudice and ignorance. And they are Christians.

To call yourself a Christian in our contemporary culture is to be showered by pity and a wry smile. Those who have a spiritual life are characterized as someone who needs to be re-educated or reprogramed. There is a soft-spoken, yoga posed, tolerance that looks to the next generation that will be taught the right way to think. And all the while they put bumper stickers on their Volvo with “Coexist.”

And that’s just for starters. If you are a Roman Catholic we’re accessories to child abuse, if we’re Presbyterian or Lutheran you are seen as intolerant to change and the world is predestined to be the way it is, if you are evangelicals we’re creepy obsessives who are uncomfortable with anyone enjoying anything more than decaffeinated coffee with your scone.

In a culture that prizes sophistication, non-judgmentalism, irony and detachment, it declares spiritually motivated lives as intolerant, naive, superstitious and backward.

The real story of today’s churches is a saga of millions of quiet kindnesses. They provide warmth, food, friendship and support for those who have the least to hope for.  The homeless, often in the grip of alcoholism, drugs, undiagnosed mental health problems, those whose lives have been torn apart and overwhelmed by multiple crushing blows are being helped and being helped by Christians.

Church, Personal, Psycolog, Ramblings

Love as a gift.

Knit booties

In a small town in which I first Pastored, there is little that was not known by the population.  A good reputation can be lost a lot faster than a bad reputation can be repaired.  I needed the Church to be known as a place of caring. Faced with a need to tell the community that the church  cared and wanting the congregation to both buy into the idea and wanting to involve the congregation in the solution, I thought long and hard as to a methodology. There was only one hospital in town. Every baby born in the county took its first breath in The Clearwater County Hospital.

I asked the some of the ladies of the church to create something I could give to each newborn.  The solution was a pair of homemade knit booties.  We added a card from the church with good wishes and an invitation.

Before I knew it I was inundated with the most adorable knit booties you could ever want.  The ladies of the church bought into the idea that their wares which would be the first gift a new child would use.  I pumped up the knitting crew with ideas like “Booties from Jesus” and “Gifts from the Maji.”

We were going to do something out of the ordinary.  To give without any expectation. There seems to be an insidious thought pattern in the church.  A thought that there is a reciprocity timeline.  That is to say, if I do something nice for someone that person becomes obligated to respond in an appropriate manner and in an assumed appropriate time period. If I do good things I should be rewarded because now I deserve it.  One definition of karma is: moral law of cause and effect governing the future.   If I give you a compliment, you are expected to respond with either a self-deprecating comment or an equally gracious compliment in return.  If you receive a Christmas card the week before Christmas you have to make a mad dash to the Hallmark store and send one back immediately.  If I offer you half of my cookie you have to offer me some of your Cheetos. It is just common politeness. We make sure everyone gets equitable gifts for their birthdays, so when it is your turn you will get gifts in return.  The problem with this reciprocity mindset is it always seems to be accompanied by disappointment if the giver does not get gifted in return.

When you give someone a gracious compliment like, “you are a great speaker,” and they return with “I know that,” you are hurt.  We find ourselves wallowing in disappointment when our ample generosity is not met with the expected results.  The problem is not with the complement being not received, but it is our return expectation.  The issue was that we gave with a motive of reciprocity. The motive behind telling someone you like their new shoes is partly dictated by the reasonable expectation for them to tell you that you look good in your terrible shirt.  This mindset no matter how subtle ruins the true meaning of gift giving.  Though our intention is likely pure, we can unintentionally mar the beautiful experience of giving by focusing on what we will eventually receive in return.

When we let go of the notion that we deserve to receive gifts or actions or behaviors based on our giving, then and only then can be the kind of giving displayed by God.

When gifts are given laden down with expectations, they cease to be gifts and become units of exchange that is offered up for some future reward.

As those ladies gathered around together to do ministry they may have had grand expectations.  But the gift itself was love.

If you have trouble divesting yourself of your expectations, you may need to reflect upon the root of your inability to act in the true spirit of giving. Each time you make a gift ask yourself if there is something you hope to receive in return. You may be surprised to discover that you expect to be repaid with an easy life, financial windfalls, or opportunities.  We have to go beyond this.  The Church had to become a place of selfless generosity. And we did that by letting go of our expectations.

To integrate this most selfless form of generosity into the life of the church and even in the lives of individuals, you will have to let go of your need to be in control. Giving without expectation is letting go of the timetable, it is releasing the control of the outcome. Giving selflessly and without expectation eventually becomes a profound joy that stands alone, separate from any and all conditions.

We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation. Expectations are often characterized by unfulfilled desires. Expectation is about calculation. Expectation is manipulation of the response.  Expectation may not always be realistic.  Expectation has no surprise.  Expectation is often disappointed. Expectation is typically fixed and frozen.  It is inflexible and rigid.  It is unable to give or bend or to change. The worst part of expectations is what happens when we just don’t give them up.  We hold on to them as if they were gold. They infect and overwhelm us, like viral flu that simply will not go away. It consumes us like the plague.  We are unable to give them up.  We are not able to let them go.  Expectations change us.  They affect how we see the world around us.  Expectations start to rule our responses to everything in our lives.  Expectation is so rigid, we always respond negatively.  We become angry.  Sometimes unmet expectations cause us to even more force our expectations.

When little results were seen from our booty ministry, someone said, “If the booties were better constructed, or if the invitation was worded more eloquently we would get a better response.” Expectation was pushing out the hope and with it the joy.

Hope is much different.  Expectation is the assumption of success, false or not, hope is the wish for something to happen. Hope is about imagination. Hope is alive.  Hope responds.  Hope allows others to grow.  Hope is not limited by our experiences because it does not die when unmet. Hope is not directing the responses or the lack of response.  Hope is always realistic and can happen. Hope always comes with a surprise. Hope never results in disappointment. Hope admits uncertainty.  We may have to adjust our hopes but we can always keep hoping. Hope helps us to keep moving forward.  Hope fills with life.

When someone does not live up to our hopes, we can keep hoping for them because hope is flexible. We may adjust our hopes based on what we learned. We may lower our hopes realizing they were too unrealistic. What I learned from the God of Idaho and dozens of pretty bootees is, “There is no such thing as a false hope.”

I don’t know if a single booty ever changed the mind of a new mother and father to come to the church.  I don’t know if the plan was a good one.  I don’t know if sometime, in some place, the future a parent or even the child will pick up that first gift from the ladies at the Church of the Nazarene and have their life changed.  But I do choose to believe that no work, no effort given selflessly and in the name of Jesus is for naught. I choose to believe these special ladies, sometimes with sore hands and failing eyesight, did ministry.  They made an effort outside of themselves.  They felt part of the church.  They felt an inner joy in giving in the name of God.  They gave in hope.  And it is in these moments of joy that these lady saints enjoyed the very presence of God.  Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.

Love is part of the human condition.

Church

The Great Going

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If you have been in the church for any length of time you have heard the admonition to “go out and get them.”  They are all based on Jesus saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”  Preachers through the church age have been pushing us out the door to “GO”.   We must be prepared with good shoes and running shorts to encounter the world and capture them.  The great commission becomes a message of coercion.

We are told to compel, capture, lasso, coerce, pressure, force others to come to church is the basis of their plea. Preachers for centuries have spent most of their time challenging and motivating the flock in the giant going. It reached a point that the action of movement was more important than the making of the commission. “You have to go before you can make,” it has been said.  So, with visions of a great posse of cowboys astride galloping horses, we go.  All without rhyme or reason to the direction, as long as we were moving.

At issue is the going has been the emphasis. Our calling is not a random movement.  The going proclaimed in the words of Jesus is not an order to go.  It is a plan of action for those individuals who are already going.  Going is an internal unction that comes with salvation. The Great Commission is for the followers already empowered.  The mandate is predicated on conversion.  Not great preaching, not great training, not motivational books; if you live within the grace of God you will already be going.

It is with this natural and spontaneously inspired unction we have a plan: make disciples.

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Church, Personal, Psycolog

Family, family, family

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I have a grand-daughter that started a performance ritual a few years back.  Whenever an occasion arose to have all the relatives in one place, she would have all of us gather together in a big circle and hold hands. She would then start the swinging of hands repeating, “Family, Family, Family.” This little act of coming together as a family was from an inner desire to touch and feel a part of something more than herself.  I believe there is a need deep down within every human to want to be included in a family.  For adults, there is a need to create a family and within that an intrinsic feeling of love, of creation or a desire to leave something behind.

It would be easy for a secular family to put the family in a priority level from first to a much lower position.  Some people can’t have a bunch of kids.  Others simply don’t want children.  The social climate we live in seems to encourage family: deductions on our income tax, public support of schools for children, there is even special medical coverage for children that is not available for adults.

In the sphere of Christianity, where does this intersect with the family of God? Many Christians rightly say that God loves family. All throughout Scripture, families are given the task of rearing children in the Lord. Husbands and wives are commanded to be faithful to one another, and children to their parents. Paul writes that “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).  Conversely, Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Following Jesus means belonging to two families, a natural family, and a faith family. Unlike His surrounding culture, what is most important to Jesus is the faith family: “Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matt. 12:46–50).

Jesus’ call to join a new family generates an unavoidable loyalty conflict. Which family do I now owe my ultimate loyalty?  It is a dilemma which is not easily overcome.  We go through life as a Christian hoping that the test of our ultimate loyalty will not have to be faced.

So where does the Christian put the personal family and God’s family into the hierarchy of priorities?  Does the ranking and rating system of our beliefs require us to make a choice?  It is easy to put God first on our list: the issue arises when we must decide who to put in number two place: God’s family or my family.

While our natural families are still the most significant earthly relationships we have, we must learn to situate our natural families under an umbrella of the family of God—not as distinct social entities competing for time and attention but as members of the same family.

As Barna president David Kinnaman said,

Cultivating intergenerational relationships is one of the most important ways in which effective faith communities are developing flourishing faith in both young and old. In many churches, this means changing the metaphor from simply passing the baton to the next generation to a more functional, biblical picture of a body—that is, the entire community of faith, across the entire lifespan, working together to fulfill God’s purposes.

For those who don’t have a natural family, for those who choose not to have a natural family, for those who have lost their natural family, I have an invitation.  That invitation is to find a better family, a more important family, the family of God.

When we all gather together as a body of believers we need to grab and hand a repeat after my little grand-daughter and proclaim “Family, Family, Family.”  We should do it because there is no real separation between God and his family.

Church

Welcome

Welcome home.  We are glad you are here, and it doesn’t matter why.

Please stop a moment and look around to those around you.  You will notice we don’t all look the same.  Some will be dressed as if they were going to the office and others like they are going on vacation.  It really doesn’t matter that much how we dress.  For that matter, we don’t sound the same.  We don’t smile the same.  You see that we are all uniquely designed.  But most of all, what is most important is that we are all uniquely loved. God loves all that is here, including you. God loves you in your specialness.

Here is a place for your individuality and specialness. This place is more like a hospital than a cathedral. It is a place where broken hearts are healed.  Broken relationships are mended. Broken minds are provided a place to recover. A place where broken dreams can be realized.

There is a place for you here.

Join us as we worship.  Join us as we are admonished.  Join us as we sing.  Join us as we enjoy community without judgment.

There is a place for you here.  We want to get to know you.  Don’t worry, you will fit right in. You uniqueness fills a gap in our own.

Church, Preaching, Worship

Preaching or Worship?

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And how will they hear without a preacher?
Romans 10:14

There seems to be an open debate now being waged over the character and centrality of preaching in the church. There is a perception of two competing events: preaching and worship.  The church today seems to be moving the line between the two towards the experiential worship side. Sermons are no longer something to be excited about and yearned for by the congregant but seen as taking second place to worship.

How did this happen? Given the central place of preaching in the New Testament church, you would think there would be no debate. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation.  The very act of proclamation or preaching is an integral part of Christian worship.

Yet, numerous influential voices within evangelicalism suggest that the age of the expository sermon is over. In its place, some contemporary preachers now substitute messages intentionally designed to reach secular or superficial congregations–messages which avoid preaching a biblical text and thus avoid a potentially embarrassing confrontation with biblical truth.

The shift from expository preaching to more topical and human-centered approaches has grown into a debate over the place of Scripture in preaching, and the nature of preaching itself.

Two statements about preaching illustrate this growing divide. Richard Baxter once remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” With vivid expression and a sense of gospel gravity, Baxter understood that preaching is literally a life or death affair. Eternity hangs in the balance as the preacher proclaims the Word.  The other is by Harry Emerson Fosdick pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, “Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.”

The current debate over preaching is most commonly explained as an argument about the focus and shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the “felt needs” and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Clearly, many evangelicals now favor the second approach. Urged on by devotees of “needs-based preaching,” many evangelicals have abandoned the text without recognizing that they have done so. These preachers may eventually get to the text somewhere in the course of the sermon, but the text does not set the agenda or establish the shape of the message. It becomes a conclusion in search of a text.

Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has become the therapist’s couch. Psychological and practical concerns have displaced theological exegesis and the preacher directs his sermon to the congregation’s perceived needs.

This mode of preaching denigrates its place to less than the Word of God and, consequently the need of something else for the church to find God.  And this other something easily becomes more and more emphasis on experiential worship.

The current debate over preaching may well shake congregations, denominations, and the evangelical movement. But know this: The recovery and renewal of the church in this generation will come only when from pulpit to pulpit the herald preaches as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.

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