Church, Ramblings

Why Church?

I am at a place in my life where I wonder about the things in my life in which I have invested so much.  It is sort of a high-level second-guessing of all the decisions made in my life.  You know what I am saying here because you have been there yourself.  You feel regret that you could have spent more time with the more important things and less time watching others do the things you should have done.

This second-guessing reaches into every part of my history.  Everything from wearing a hat in the sun to prevent skin cancers, to my propensity to eat too much, to the time spent taking naps, and even to the time and effort to go to church.

It is this last question that has me in a quandary today.  Once I started to wonder about the efficacy of church, I went down a rat hole questioning about my current church role.  I must ask myself (not always a very intelligent conversation), “Is the institution which I have a membership and attend regularly, the place for me.”  In my current point in my life, is it worth the time, talent and treasure, I am pouring into an address?

I am fully aware this self-introspection sounds a little weird coming from someone that has already invested so much.  I have been the one crying, cajoling, begging, pleading, bribing and dragging others to the church most of my adult life. I have been the one who stood between heaven and hell for a number of people.  I have told countless souls of the necessity of being part of the Body of Christ.  I have quoted scripture after scripture, hoping to sway someone to come to church.

Never-the-less, here I am wondering if it was all worth it.  It was once said, “there is no perfect church as long as I am in it.”  I think it was Mark Twain that said, “I would not want to join any group that would want me.”  It really gets down to why do thoughtful, believing, serious people attend my local church in the first place.

I need some help.  I very seldom ask for assistance, I see myself as being very capable and able to handle most things.  Here is the task:  If you go to church, tell me why, if you don’t go to church, tell me why.  I am writing something for publication and outside of the normal everyday reasons and sometimes trite quotes, I want real feelings and real reasons why.  Please pass this on to all that would be willing to add their two cents.  Thank you.

Ministry, Psycolog

Giving it all away

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Let’s play a game.  The game is easy at first and it will help us with a definition.

  1. I have 100 one-dollar bills.
  2. There are five players of which I am one.
  3. Like monopoly, I pass out the money equally.
  4. How much money does each player receive?

It doesn’t take a math wizard to figure out the answer the question.  Each player now has 20 dollars. But now is where it gets a little harder.

  1. Each person in the game must give half of their money to the most deserving by whatever criteria you would like. Equality is no longer a criterion. There could be some possible outcomes:
    1. A person could think he is the most deserving and keep his 10 dollars.
    2. A person could think that friendship or popularity should make the decision.
    3. A person could see the other’s way of dispersion and try to make it fair and give to the person who did not receive anything. Trying to be fair to everyone.
    4. One player may give his 10 dollars back to me because I am the one who started giving away my money in the first place. A reward for giving.

In the first part of the game, I am expected to not cheat and give the dollars out evenly to each person.  It is expected that I am fair with my game.  It was an example of equality.  Each of the players expected the same amount of money at the beginning of the game. The requirement of equality is that everyone was treated the same.  The issue comes up when equality is no longer an absolute criterion for the next step. The second step included things like selfishness as in response (a), prejudice as in response (b), or as in response (c) where equality is attempted.

There is a food pantry at the church at which I attend.  The Pantry provides food to those who want to avail themselves of the pantry services.  The Pantry provides to everyone who comes; equality.  One of the services provided is USDA offerings.  To be a recipient of this food you must meet criteria set by the USDA.  The USDA sets a maximum income ceiling to receive this food.  They provide for low-income families only.  There is no equality in this requirement, it is a means to provide food to the most deserving.  The USDA is trying to provide a level playing field for the food insecure in our community.  This provision is not equal.  This provision is a service of equity.  The USDA is saying that families that do not have the ability or incentive or just plain bad luck there is a government program that will help them in their time of need.  This is an example of equity; that all should have a bottom line for food.

My moral center based upon God says to me I should care for the needed.  Jesus tells me in the word that I should give to the hungry.  I fully support the Pantry and what it is accomplishing. But sometimes I wonder about the difference between equality and equity.

I just read a study on the difference between equality and equity.  This study tells me that people frequently disagree about morality. There seems to be no standard morality in our society. The arguments are about which rules are valid and which are not.  There are disagreements about whether contraception is morally wrong.  There are disagreements over abortion.  There are even disagreements over the fairness of our taxation system.  Should I download music from the internet without paying for it?  So which side do I find my moral compass?  Should my decisions be made only on equality, “all the same no matter what”, or equity, “the one who needs the most”?

I would suppose that if I am the one running the game, I start out with equality, “all men are created equal” and make my decision about equity as I go along.

I need your input on this one, please leave a comment.

Ministry, Psycolog, Ramblings

I feel your pain.

I have come to know a person who told me he had little empathy.  It both shocked me and created a sense of doubt in his motives and his actions.  So, I did a little research on what empathy really means and what should be my reaction.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy as:

1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also :the capacity for this

Therefore, a person has empathy if that person can understand and share the feelings of another.  Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another person.  It goes beyond acknowledgement of pain and suffering of others to a personal co-ownership of that pain and suffering.

So from there I had to understand the difference between sympathy and empathy.  I have used them interchangeably.

Here is a chart:

Empathy Sympathy
Understanding what others are feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes. Acknowledging another person’s emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
Personal understanding from experience of like circumstance or proportion of pain Understanding the quantity and type of pain experience of others
The ability to sense the feeling of the other person by remembering or imagining themselves in the other’s situations. The ability to measure and understand
I know it’s not easy to lose weight because I have faced the same problems myself Trying to lose weight can often feel like an uphill battle
A doctor relating with a patient because he or she has been in a similar situation or experience Doctors comforting patients or their families
Experience of emotion like the emotion of another person.
Empathy shares Sympathy expresses
I feel your pain I am sorry for your pain
Empathy is a mindset based upon personality Sympathy is a mindset based upon learning
Empathy is a talent Sympathy is a learned behavior
Empathy is exhibited in sharing Sympathy is increased by repetition

Of the two, empathy is a deeper feeling, but sympathy can be just as honest and heartfelt. However, empathy can forge a deeper and more meaningful connection, thus serving as a bridge for greater communication between individuals or between a leader and his or her followers.  Empathy most often leads to sympathy.  But sympathy alone does not lead to empathy.  This study leads me to something else; the actions that come from both empathy and sympathy: compassion.

Compassion is the action that is motivated by either empathy or sympathy. Compassion recognizes the situation and does something with it. Both sympathy and empathy imply caring for another person, but with empathy, the caring is enhanced or expanded by being able to feel the other person’s emotions.

In my study, I found a remarkable statement: The capacity to sympathize and empathize are considered vital for a sense of humanity — i.e., the ability to understand one’s fellow humans and their problems. People who lack this capacity are often classified as narcissistic, sociopathic, or in extreme cases, psychopathic.  I don’t think the person spoken of earlier needs to find a psychiatrist. But I do believe that both empathy and sympathy are vitally important to our humanity. He should try and do all he can to develop a sense of sympathy through practice. A sense of sympathy that can be exhibited in compassion with a willingness to stop and listen carefully to other situations and pain.  Sympathy is a learned behavior and empathy is personal talent. You can’t learn empathy.  You can learn to be sympathetic.

What do you think, leave a comment?

Life, Personal

What I do is what I do.

Sometimes I am simply overwhelmed by those who would drag me into a mindset that is just not where God would have me be.  I hear a million voices all crying in my ear to dissuade me from what I should be and what I should do. Do this, do that, give here, drive this, eat this, and so on. These voices tell me I should be something I am not. And because I am not what they think I should be or do what they would have me do, they fully expect me to feel guilty.  Their guilt trips are saunters I refuse to take.

My actions need to be metered by a firm foundation.   I believe the foundation stone of my life is God.  “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.  I dare not trust the sweetest sound, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”  He is unchangeable and my rock.

The second layer in my life cake is my morals.  Morals are those beliefs lines of behavior that set boundaries for me to live.  They, while not as rock hard as my foundation, but are based upon my foundation.  This morality dictates my actions and things I allow in my life. My morals are things I will not do, and the things I will not allow in my life.  Conversely, my morals show me what I can do and what I need in my life. They are very limited in scope and set by my understanding of God.  God does not change and therefore my morals do not change without long study and a fresh revelation of God’s will for my life.

On top of my morals are my ethics.  Ethics are based on the society in which I find community.  Like Paul to the Corinthians said about eating meat sacrificed to idols: if your brother is offended by it don’t have that meat for dinner.  In polite society, we crop our words to not offend, though the words themselves do not breach our moral compass.  While serving at our local food pantry serving those who don’t have food to eat, I don’t wear my “Make America Great Again” hat or eat a candy bar, because it might cause hard feelings. Never-the-less I still bought the hat and I enjoy a good chocolate once in a while.

The last level of my behavior and actions is my preferences.  These are determined by me.  As long as they do not hurt others, as long as they don’t violate my moral understandings, and as long as they are not an affront to the God I serve, I can do what I prefer.  It is not a willful breaking of God’s will, or my moral compass, or my ethical forbearance. My preference is my want to do and when I do it, it is good.

At issue is that the aforementioned million voices want to dictate my actions which are in my preference area, and push them into the ethics area.  Furthermore, they would push my ethics down to the moral and my moral area away from my God the foundation.  What’s more, they would do it in the name of humanity, globalization, political correctness, awareness, and whatever is the current issue of the day.

The voices cry out, “If we could all just become one, if we could get rid of our borders and prideful nationalism—sit at one table and get along, we could put our heads together and solve the problems. We could end world hunger; we could put an end to all the bloodshed and warfare. We could make this world a better place.”

I can understand how many would think that way and wonder how anyone could question it. If I have a new awareness of the terrible in my world, I should change my preferences. They would dictate what car I drive because doing so will save the planet.  I should give to every cause because I have so much.  We need to open our borders to everyone because the U.S. has always been a nation of immigrants. We need to install a sense of globalization; there is no need for borders.

All good thoughts.  But my God tells me the earth will be done away with someday and that I cannot save it.  All my personal preferences will not stop the end of the world.  I have a charge to do what I can and I do work and provide for the poor around me.  I give to those affected by great disasters in my country.  I feel the pain of those who are hurt around the world.  I give where I can.  But in reality it does not make that much of a difference.  Yet the Bible tells us that in the last days a globalization movement will produce just the opposite of all that. It will produce wars and famine and terrible suffering throughout the world like never before. In the book of Revelations, we see a globalization movement in both the political and religious world and it cannot be stopped.

So all those who would like my time or talent or treasure, make your pitch, I will listen and feel your pain and passion, but  if I don’t do something about it, it does not mean that I don’t care, it is just my preference which is following my ethics, which is following my morals, based upon the revelation of God.

I Timothy 4:1-5

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will [a]fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer. (Italics added by me)

What do you think,  add a comment.

Life, Personal, Ramblings

Morality and Godliness

What has happened to our world in the last 75 years?  I am overwhelmed by the crowds of individuals all concerned about how we should live.  If I may I think it is a concern for morality without a concern for godliness.  They seem to say life is having a social conscience; it is doing the right thing, it is doing what is good for the country.  Evil is bad and therefore let us condemn it whenever we see it. We hear of those who do things to “raise awareness” about some injustice or inequity.  This world seems more concerned with how others live and not the reasons why they live that way.  All good and intelligent people should be alarmed by these revelations and awareness of the bad in life, but awareness is not enough.

One of the most foolish things which I see,  is standing at the sideline denouncing evil.  That is the easiest thing to do.  As we become aware of the dark side of life, we have a sense of disgust.  We turn away and say to ourselves, “how terrible!”  But awareness does not help anybody.  It is not enough to denounce bad.  That is simple morality.  It is not enough for me not to be cruel to animals and condemn those to do.  That is simple morality.  It is not enough to see a hungry person on the street corner, and feel badly.

All good, thinking, decent people must be alarmed at what is happening in this country… But here is the great and inevitable question: Why is this happening, and what can be done about it? What has happened is a divorcement godliness.  You cannot have morality without a base of godliness.  Without godliness, morality is simply brass trumpets and sweet violins.  It is a sweet and strong music signifying nothing.

The business of the gospel is not simply to denounce; it is not simply to restrain. The business of the gospel is to deal with the situation in the only way in which it can be dealt with radically. There must be a foundation of godliness behind our morality.  And the only way to do that is a regeneration of our morality with godliness.  It is the regeneration of God in our lives.  It is the gospel of regeneration, this power of God unto salvation, that can deal even with this seemingly hopeless situation and insoluble problem. That is the whole story of the New Testament… This is the only hope for society. And let men do what they will, let them multiply their educational and moral and social organizations, they will not touch the problem. You can have your awareness organizations, your morality crusades, and your moral councils, and a thousand other things, and you will not touch the situation. The evil involved is in the heart of men, and it is only a message that can deal with the heart of men that is adequate to meet the problem is the Gospel.  The Good news.

The whole gospel of evangelism is opening eyes; not that they should be entertained, or made to laugh and weep; but to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and to knowledge… We are only Christians because the Spirit of God has opened our blind eyes, and has taken away the darkness.

Personal, Ramblings

A cry for community

This world is simply out of its mind.  We rail against the minutia of “mini-aggressions” but seem not to worry at all about the millions of humans on the path to eternal damnation.  There are those who would tear down the historical symbols of the past because they were defending something that was perceived in the now to be wrong and yet we praise those who do not honor our country and its flag by not standing at a football game. I think the world is just losing it.

At issue is that life is not about the past, or symbols, or seeming inequity, or healthcare for all, or the rich getting richer.  Life must be more than that.  It is not about a lack of caring.  We care about it all. Never-the-less, we just care too much about the wrong things.

Listen carefully.  You may hear the muffled cry in the cacophony and din of all the things that would silence the call.  It is almost a whimpering in the night.  There is a call.  But that call is not for justice.  That call is not for the accumulation of things.  That call is not political, or religious, or which side to take.  The little voice within you that is being ignored in all the turmoil and judgmental actions, is simply a call for someone to care.  Someone to take a moment and listen to you.  It is a call for human intimacy.

There must be more than just being right.  There must be more than believing like all your friends believe.  All these things, all these wants are really tied up in simply wanting to be part.  A part of something more than self.  It is a call to community.  There is an inner need to be a part.  There is something within that cries out in the darkness of turmoil.

If a society wanted to change into anarchy how would you do it? First fragment family life.  Take our families and break them up with divorce, create single parent homes, find so many things to do that you don’t have time to do anything together.

Second, cut your roots.  Move to a place where you work in one place and live in another.  And make that commute so long that you don’t have time for your basic family unit.  They are probably not at home anyway; you know soccer, hanging out with friends, church, education.

Third, find something that takes your complete attention and requires no interaction.  The slavery of the screen.  Televisions with over 500  channels, phones that you can instantly know what your BFF had for lunch, computers that simply suck up every extra moment of the day to view the latest YouTube video of a horse with pink athletic shoes and a pink ribbon holding his ears singing the latest mindless, and meaningless song.

Let’s find a cause which gives us something to be against. Let us not be for anything just be against something else.  Become a Republicrat so I can condemn the Librsocialsts.  Let us not try to get anything done, just block everyone else.

It is no wonder that in the High Priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 that the reoccurring petition is for relationship, for one being touching another.

Life, Sermon Illustration, Theology

Trials and our response

No one likes being tested.  No one likes being on trial.  No one likes discipline. But they happen.  It happens.  There is no one immune to them.  They just happen.  We have no control over them.  But for a Christian they must be seen as a “woe is me moments.”   Our response makes all the difference.

First of all , one way of responding to these unwanted events in you life is to REBEL.  I will fight back.  I will put all my strength into a response that is characterized by anger, deceit, vengeance all filled with an attitude of pay back.

The second way to respond is to simply REJECT.  You can push back from the situation and cloister yourself way from it all.  Dig a hole in the sand and stick your head in. You can simply pretend it does not exist.  But it does not go away.

The next response can well be characterized as RESIGN.  You believe that nay response is futile.  You shout to God “I give up, I am powerless.”  You lay down in the gutter and let the garbage of live cover you and drive you to the sewer.  In a way, it is a move forward from the other previous two responses because you are acknowledging your inability to meet the challenge on your own. But in there is little hope.

In my opinion the best response to trials is REJOICE.  This may sound a little strange.  You might well thing that is simply impossible.  Quoting Jesus, “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things about you (Matthew 5).”  God is still God and he has a blessing for you.

This does not mean to slather your problems with a sugar coating.  It is looking intently at that situation with clarity and reality and say, “I choose to accept this situation as a situation which God can work.”

It turns a prison to a palace.

It turns an heartache into a heart throb.

It turns a trial into a triumph.

It is the best choice.

What do you think?  Leave a comment.

Church, Music

A fundamental concern

I am open to change, I may not like everything that change brings, but I am willing to give it a chance.  I know that I have written on this subject before but here I go again.  It is about the new music in the church.  To me they all sound the same.  And I really don’t get the seemingly lack of theology.  I am old school.  If it is in the hymnal then it is what we should be singing.  But it just isn’t so.

I would fully suppose that the great hymns of the church were considered as out of the main stream when they were first introduced. I can imagine a congregation of devout and staid parishioners singing “It is well with my soul” for the first time and wondering if was a little out there.  Today’s music may well be tomorrow’s hymns.  Never-the-less, that does not quench the fire I have for “I stand amazed in the presence of the Nazarene” or “Victory in Jesus”.

There are two reasons for including a good old anthem of the church once and while.

First is the desire of the people to sing things familiar and now evoke great memories of revivals and spiritual victories. It is what the staid and true folk has heard are used to. To disregard or discount that desire is saying to them we simply do not have any concern about you.  Your preferences are not the current paths that the worship team has chosen. While these foundational songs of the past may not be easy to sing and some may not readily fit into the music being used in a contemporary setting, there is still a place for them.  Love calls for an effort to include some of these “Hymns” into the even the most energetic contemporary music genre.

The second reason is these pieces have passed the test of time. They’ve been used in the church for hundreds of years, surviving because there is something special about them. Disregarding that group of hymns means throwing out gold. Twenty years from now, the contemporary music will go through the slow and imperceptible winnowing process. Some songs I sang as contemporary music twenty years ago were not good enough to stimulate worship.  They no longer met the requirement of catching people’s hearts. Not all the Gaither music back then will ever be song in a hundred years if the Lord does not come back first.

Whoever plans the music for your church needs to plan for the very best.  That plan needs to include all the people.  It is a constant art for finding the right note for the right moment. Some may well be a hundred years old or the newest praiseworthy song from Hillsong. We must try for what helps all the people in the congregation to worship. It’s not an easy task, but it’s fundamental concern; for the life of the church, the whole church.

Life, Ramblings

Needed Change

Sometimes we just don’t like what is happening around us.  Politics seems more and more accusatory and petty. While gas prices seem stable the price of watermelon is up. Our cars are being made more comfortable yet the streets we drive them on are full of pot holes and ruts. I am trying to reduce my weight, but lately the digital scale will not change.  We want worship in the church to be a glorious and splendiferous experience but it doesn’t quite reach the edge of heaven on earth.

So, what are we looking for?  Do our cultural standards dictate our perception of how we should then live?  In Mark 8:27 there is a question posed by Jesus.  “Who do the people say I am?”

In response, they reported back what the crowd was saying.  They wanted to provide the cultural answer.  There was no condemnation, they didn’t want to offend their Rabbi. “A prophet, Eliljah, John the Baptizer.”

“But Jesus then asked, “And you— what are you saying about me? Who am I?”

Tough question for anyone.  Primarily because the response shapes everything else you do, everything else you believe, and everything else you are.  There is little excuse for snap decisions.  There is great importance in your response.  The answer you give will change how you react to the external. The world will be seen differently, politics become less important, our day to day existence becomes more in focus.  No snap decisions, no snap answers allowed here.

Everything becomes God’s business not our own.  And despite all our travail, we can’t change God.  You can’t change God’s will.  You can’t change God’s plan.  But you can change God’s methodology by working in and through you, instead of around you. You can change you.

Life, Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

Before a man can do things, there must be things he will not do.

2 Comments

Everything attempted is always at the expense of something else.  All effort requires sacrifice of something.  If you would lose weight, you must give up eating a whole banana cream pie.  Life is about trading one thing for another.  It is in the comparison that we have trouble.  What one thing is worth compared to the other.  Is the newest phone worth giving up part of my vast wealth?  Is wearing shorts to church worth the strange looks I would receive?

On the other hand, there are things we would just like to eliminate.  These things have no worth at all but we hold on to them because it would be painful to let go.  The last time I went to the local dump, I was amazed by the sheer magnitude of things be thrown away.  Some of it was simply disgusting due to its odoriferous aroma. I saw furniture, bricks, toys, and books.  All were unceremoniously cast off.  If I had the gumption I could fill a large truck with my own cast offs.  So why do we hold on to things?  Things that have no worth.  Things that just take up space.

I think it must do with disgust.  We must reach a place where the worth of simplicity outweighs the pile of junk.  If we are willing to put up with the stench around us, there is no motivation to do something.  Before a man can do things, there must be things he will not do. (MENCIUS)  The problem arises when we think time will make a difference.  I don’t need to do it right now, I well might need this extra computer cable someday.

Our society is like that.  Always expecting things to change in time.  The next election will take care of Washington.  The next technological breakthrough will solve all my communication issues.  The next scientific breakthrough will solve all environmental issues.  The next pay raise will put us over the edge to financial security. If I just wait long enough it will all work out.

But it is just a big lie.  Time does not change anything.  Time often makes things worse. We must rid ourselves of the rubbish in our lives and go on to the great simplicity.

Let go and let God.

Comments?

The Study of God and Life