are you in or are you out?

There’s just something about being in a group or club that cost you something.  When I was in college, I belonged to a fraternity and it felt good to belong to a group that not everyone was a part of.  Anyone that knows anything about fraternities of sororities knows that you have to be sponsored be someone already in the group that vouches for you and they say that you would be an excellent addition to our group.  However, this does not guarantee a spot in the group. First, you must rush, in my case for a week, where your fellow brothers, as they are known, can get you to do pretty much whatever they want.  Then they drill you with questions in an interview and if they like you, you’re in!  You are now part of the brotherhood!  You’re a big dog on campus now.  You’re part of an exclusive group that many want to be a part of and yet only a few ever get to opportunity to join. 

Not much has really changed since my days as a member of the Phi Simga Cia fraternity.  Yes, I am no longer a college student who likes to hang with my brethren, but I am part of another exclusive group, the church.  In many ways, the church feels a lot like my fraternity, for we have the tendency to be exclusive as well. 

Many members of the church world will call themselves the insiders and they want to separate themselves from the outsiders.  We don’t dare say we’re exclusive, but it’s how we act that gives that perception.  We have set in place external practices that separate us from the outsiders – our vocabulary or dress, who we associate with, and so on. 

We have become proud and judgmental toward the outsiders.  We often pride ourselves on how righteous we are, so much so that we can just look at someone and tell right away whether they are an insider or outsider.  However, with Jesus, the leader of the church, this wasn’t the case at all.  His messages and mission was to have everyone be an insider.  Not just to belong to an elite group of people that are super spiritual, but to belong to a group of people that wanted to be transformed into “new creatures”.  Jesus didn’t focus on what someone looked like or how they acted, rather he looked at the persons heart.

I have been a part of some wonderful churches in my life and every one of them has added to my spiritual walk with Christ.  Nevertheless, each one of them, some more than others, had their own bench markers.  Some of them could have had a pastor consumed with pride and was a glutton, but as he was growing or at least maintaining the church, he need not worry about his job.  But if by chance a church member saw him on the golf course smoking a cigar with a friend, you wouldn’t see him next Sunday at church.  Why is that?  Well probably no one would ever say that smoking a cigar on the golf course would be a worse sin than a life consumed with pride or a glutton.  Although for many in the church world smoking has become a bench marker for many.  It is one of the churches ways to tell if you are a wolf or a sheep. 

We all know that smoking is not the unpardonable sin, but it breaks many churchgoers unspoken bench marker.  Something like this could upset a church’s sense of identity.  It doesn’t matter really if you are Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or Greek Orthodox I bet you can come up with your own set of bench markers.  This type of spirituality puts most of the focus on your position.  Are you in or are you out? 

However, Jesus is more concerned with people’s hearts.  He wants to know that they moving forward in their spiritual life, do they have the love of God and their fellow man in their life.  That is way many people were shocked in his day when He said that many of the religious leaders were outside of God’s kingdom, because they were more concerned with the bench markers than peoples heart.  John Ortberg in his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted,” said it well.  He said “The ‘righteous’ were more damaged by their righteousness than the sinners were by their sin.”

is the church keeping us from fulfilling the great commission

Question, “Is the church keeping us from fulfilling the great commission that’s found in Matthew 28:18-20 18Jesus came to them and said I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! 19Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. (CEV) Look at the first few words of verse nineteen carefully, “go to the people…”  Now this does not say wait for the people to come to you, while you sit inside your pretty church – but rather it says to go to them.  Meaning we are to get off the padded chairs/pews that we sit on and go to them. 

I love to read church signs, for the simple fact that they make me laugh most of the time and for no other reason.  I have been a Christian now for twenty seven years and I have never once visited a church because of what a church sign has said, whether it talked about a revival or whatever.  And I bet for the most part not many others have either. 

So what makes us think someone who is not a Christian is going to step inside our church because of a sign or because our church has a pretty curb appeal?  I have been around and part of a church my whole life and walking up inside of a new church I visit for the first time scares me to death.   In addition, let’s be truthful, most of us are pretty bad ambassadors for Christ, once we are inside the confines of the church building.  We fail miserably at really making someone feel welcomed.  We rather see the same person, asking them the same questions that we asked them the last time we saw them in church – instead of talking to someone new.   But you say that’s the reason why we have greeters in the parking lots and at the doors for, to welcome the visitors.  Come on who are we fooling that doesn’t really make someone feel like your church is a church they could feel a part of.  Everyone expects to see a greeter at the door, they say hi and shake your hand, but that doesn’t make you feel like you belong. 

No the great commission states that we go to where the people are at, in your towns and communities.  I know that’s a bit weird for most Christians, to be with or hang with sinners, but think about it we have the Holy Spirit with us to empower us for such a task and yet we still get nervous.  So you know a non-believer has got to be scared to walk up in a church building.  I believe that is why many churches are dieing.  We can’t understand why in the world people are not attracted to our theatrical performances and our grand light show.  Our churches our intimidating to many first time visitors no matter how people friendly we may think our church is. 

That is why we have to go to them.  Missional is a word that has been around for a while and within the past few years has caught favor with many Christ followers.  To be missional means we must see ourselves as a missionary wherever we are currently at.  It doesn’t have to be overseas; you are a missionary right in your hometown.  It is realizing that the lost are not going to come to us, but rather we have to go to the lost. 

Most of the churches that are growing in America today have a missional mindset.  These churches are biblically sound and don’t mind getting out there in the culture.  They are the types of churches that don’t see today’s culture as something to run from, but rather they engage today’s culture – wanting to put Christ in the center of today’s culture as much as possible.  The reason so many churches are falling at this is that they see culture and church on opposite ends of the spectrum that these two worlds are polarizing to each other. That is simply not true.  Take a look all through out the New Testament and where do you find Jesus? Not in the synagogues, but in the towns and villages with the people.  Jesus engaged his culture.  He went to the people.  So the question that has to be asked is are we going to the people or do we expect the people to come to us?   

Many churches see this word missional as offensive, because they have seen what they have done in the past work, but what they fail to realize is what worked ten or twenty years ago will not work for today’s culture.  Many have allowed the traditions of the church to blind them in their thinking that there is only one way to do church and that is the way they are currently doing it.  Why is it that we allow change in just about every area in our life, but the church?  Twenty years ago, hardly anybody had a cell phone, now everyone has got them even grandma’s.  The way we communicate has changed and we adapted.  So why can’t the church adapt the times as well, as long as we don’t change the content of scripture.  Does it really matter how we deliver it? 

As I said early being missional is not new, Jesus was missional.  I think what scares most people is the fact that we have to change the whole way we have been approaching church for most of our lives.  It is getting out of our comfort zones and it’s exploring unknown territory.  Being the creatures of habit that we are we don’t like this.  Being missional makes us rely more on the Holy Spirit and it forces us to form new relationships, something many of us have forgotten how to do. 

Also being missional is a lifestyle change, because you are trying to look at the world through the eyes of Christ.  Missional living is making your life about establishing relationships that are meaningful, always looking for new ways to engage culture so that you might have a opportunity to share Christ with someone.  Living a missional lifestyle is about being part of a community that cares for the needs of others before your own.  This lifestyle is very contrary to the world’s lifestyle; because of this very few will take this style of living.  When you live the missional lifestyle people begin to look at you differently and you realize what it is like to truly be just a strange of this world only passing through for a short time. 

Starting to live like this myself, I see things differently now.  , because I have realized there is much more to life than what just makes me happy.  With each day that passes, I feel like it is lost forever, that I will never get that day back to make a difference in someone else’s life.  Making a difference for Christ!  I feel like God has given me a new zeal for life like my life now has a purpose and that for me is very fulfilling!

Being Culturally Relevant

Love him or hate him, Mark Driscoll is reaching people for Christ.  Although many think he is too harsh with is language and controversial preaching.  I say, “No he’s right on track.”  I myself listen to his podcast quite regularly.  He is speaking out on topics that most pastors do not want to talk about whether out of fear of making people mad, losing members, or they are just plane cowards.

Pastors find themselves in a very strange place now days in the church world.  In that nobody wants to hear about God getting angry at the sin in their lives.  Rather what ten things can we do in our lives to have “our best life now.” What pastors have to realize (and I am one of them) is that preaching the gospel is not easy or pretty at times.  We are supposed to tell the congregation what the consequences of sin are.  We are to tell the people what God likes and dislikes in their lives and most importantly it is to be Christ centered.  Since when did preaching the gospel ever become about succeeding in life, making everyone like you, gaining wealth, and so on?

I think what stumps most evangelicals concerning Mark Driscoll and others like him is we find it hard to believe that someone can be relevant in today’s culture and at the same time be biblically conservative.  I think why this stumps so many is because we ourselves want to be just like that: being relevant to the ever changing world to reach them, while still holding on to our conservative biblical truths.

Instead of letting these two topics stump us we need to be asking ourselves, is there anything here that I can learn from?  I don’t think Mark Driscoll is being culturally relevant just to be cool, but rather he is trying to answer the tuff questions that the cultural is asking – that other pastors don’t want to touch.  Like sex & sexuality, alcohol, what it means to be a real godly man or godly woman and so on.

A lot of what Mark Driscoll is preaching is nothing new. Just a few generations before us we see men preaching hard against sin.  Sadly, many pastor have gotten scared to look at someone in the eyes and tell them what they are doing is wrong and that it will send them to hell.  They would rather tell their people what God could do for them.  Over the next month, see how many times your pastor preaches a salvation message, it just might shock you.  Shouldn’t we hear the salvation message preached every time a sermon is delivered, I say yes we should! For what other reason do we do church if it is not to bring in other lost people into God’s flock and to constantly remind the righteous what Christ did for us on the cross.

Sadly many churches need to wake up and listen to a culture that is crying out in search of truth. We need to realize that many of our programs and fuzzy warm sermons are not answering the questions that the culture is asking.  The church would be better off if it could just let go of some of it’s “sacred cows” and get back to giving biblical truths to tough questions.

Next the church needs to move outside of its comfort zone if it has any hope in reaching today’s culture.   We have become to “churchy” for our own sake.  We have hidden in the four walls of the church for so long that we have disconnected from culture so much that we forgotten to go out and actually be the church.  So we have become an elitist club that gets embarrassed when the culture asks us questions dealing with sex and the like.

This may or may not come as a shock to many of you, but the Bible has plenty to say on hard topics like sex.  It also answers the hardest question of them all, what must a person do to be saved.  So question to the church is, it willing to do what it takes to answer the culture in a way that is culturally relevant but also biblically conservative?

getting centered again

 

From time to time I need something to really grab my attention, to get me back on track. I was lucky enough this past weekend to experience one of those great Ahhh moments, when I went to an Acts 29 conference.  An Acts 29 conference is where a couple thousand pastors and others that have an interest in rebuilding the church for God’s kingdom – come together to here some terrific speakers talk about theology and the church.  Neither of which is what made me experience the Ahhh moment.  Instead, it was the underlining theme to make preaching once again Christ centered, instead of this self-help crap we hear some much in our pulpits. 

 

This got me to thinking whether or not I’ve really been centering my life on Christ, or have I been trying to make Christ fit around my life?  If I’m honest with myself it has been the later for some while now.  But to be a Christian, a Christ follower, I need to make my life revolve around the teaching and life of Christ.  I am a fool, because I now when I have done this in the past, my life seems to go a lot better.  I don’t seem so overwhelmed with life in general, but it is easy to get off track, isn’t it?  I’m sure I will veer off course sometime in the near future.  Although for now I have a new fervor for my Savior and I am taking steps to help keep it around a bit longer than usual. 

·      Reading my Bible 1^st thing in the morning

·      Praying right after my Bible reading

·      Doing an in depth study on 1 Timothy

·      Trying to look at people & things with the eyes of Christ

 

I know this is like a schedule.  But we’ve got to start somewhere, until the heart desires more than anything to follow after – no viciously pressure Christ and His teachings.  Then once we have the heart felt desire we do it out of love, we do it because we truly want to be more like Christ!  I thank God that in my older years I have experienced more up times in my relationship with Him than the down times.  I believe it is partly to do with all those years of following Him and with each attempt to follow Christ more closely – it seems to become more natural.