Love Focus

During conversations this week it has occurred to me that how we do church is dependent upon the focus of our love.  It is possible to attend and participate in church because we love the Pastor.  E.g. ”He just preaches great sermons…” or “He just has a heart for the Lord.”  It is also possible to attend and participate in church because it meets our needs.  E.g. “The children’s program is wonderful!” or “I have so many great relationships there I just love being a part of that church.” or even “My participation in church is an important expression of my culture.”

But church is full of fallen people.  Non-believers are proud of noting that church is full of hypocrites.  Believers know that while some might be hypocrites, ALL are fallen people in need of grace.  Because people are fallen, even in church relationships people will get hurt.  It is a function of being human.  The problem is, when the focus of our love is the church itself, we take it personally and our framework is to retaliate by leaving or causing some kind of relational commotion in return (like badmouthing people or quitting a ministry).

This is not what God intended.  The church is a place where we work out the messy context of trying to represent Christ through lives which need healing and wholeness and have not achieved either yet.  We can maintain our proper perspective ONLY when our first love is Jesus Christ.  Then, and only then, can we have the proper relationship with the church that He loves.  When we are hurt, we thus interpret it in the context of a loving God and His Word, which pretty clearly informs us that such times will come and how to reconcile when they do. 

Too much of our perspective on church is man-focused first.  It can almost get to be like practical atheism, where we say we believe in God, but we live like we have to work it out for ourselves.  In reality, to be a Christian is not only to believe IN God, but to simply believe God, and what He has told us in His Word.  Scrutiny of the New Testament will reveal a series of letters to churches that needed intervention to get back on track.

We must fall in love, first and foremost with Jesus.  He must be our Love Focus.  Then our relationships with the church (as well as any and everyone else) will fall into its proper place.

Revelation 2:1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 2 `I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 `But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 `Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent. 6 `Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7`He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’

Productivity and Expectations

A couple of weeks ago, some people from our church attended a Saturday training session on volunteers.  The training was led by Thomas McKee and the book he wrote can be found here. One of the things that came up was that people who will volunteer are much more likely to respond because they are asked to volunteer directly, as opposed to responding to an email blast or pulpit announcement. My mind began to wander (as it is wont to do), and it occurred to me that much of ministry requires personal “touch”, knowing people, speaking to them and being in their lives. Not just for volunteers, but for just doing ministry. I asked Mr. McKee during a break whether it was possible that we have higher expectations for our ability to make disciples in the church than we should, based on the time and resources required.

I also say this in light of discussions about discipleship that I have been in, and the fact that there is simply no cut and dried formula for making a Christ-centered, disciplemaking Christian. It takes time and love and living life together. This MAY be why Jesus came physically and poured into 12 people. Therefore it seems somewhat interesting that churches with ostensibly the strategy of discipling people to become fully committed followers of Christ, seem to have mature-Christian to non-mature Christian ratios much smaller than 1 to 12.

I wonder if we in the American church have more of a microwave or fast food perspective on making disciples, instead of a more slow and deliberate (and much less efficient, or even less productive) expectation. I find this topic interesting in light of David Fitch’s blog entry entitled “I feel like I’m a project to you.” In this entry he mentions a pastor on his staff that is experiencing difficulty in pastoring younger people. David responds with the notion that the newer generation’s expectation of the pastor are different than the expectations of the older generation. The newer generation will be pastored not because of title, but because of relationship. Hard to do in large churches. He also speculates that the newer generation does not want a pastor at all, but they want a friend. Hard to disciple someone when their expectation is not one of and explicitly spiritual nature (I think). He says that there is a chance younger people view pastors with suspicion because they don’t have the credibility with this generation thaty they enjoy with the older generations.

I wonder if any of this is wrapped up in the fact that disciplemaking is more organic a process than we give it credit for being. And perhaps we are facing a culture that needs the organic, person-by-person, life-on-lfe discipleship that we read about in the first century church. As opposed to creating a set of well-executed programs using ogranizational prowess to set up a situation in which people may get what they need to grow in Christ. We cannot get away from the fact that the church does not have the cultural buy-in with the younger generation that it did with older and previous generations. So perhaps we need to recognize this and proceed accordingly…

The burden of discipling people lies on the church leadership as well as the Christians in the pews. The laypeople need to keep pressure on the church to ensure that it is a place that supports their ability to disciple people (through training, through the philosophy of ministry, through doing what “big church” does best) and they need to not “drop the ball” and expect that they can coast with feeling mature and not pouring into anyone. Church leadership perhaps needs to relax expectations of numerical growth and ensure that they are supporting depth in the people that they are charged with pastoring. Perhaps business metrics for success do not adequately capture success in the eyes of God…

Perhaps I am rambling. That’s okay. It’s my blog. There are millions of them out there. This is my place to ramble. You can ramble, too. If you are so moved by this topic…

BAD BLOOD: Forgiving the 3rd World

On Sunday, April 20 our sermon topic was forgiving the third world. Much of the service involved a video interview of Bono by Bill Hybels. It was a different format, one that I felt was effective given Bono’s celebrity and his sincere concern for showing the kingdom of God through helping the world’s severely poverty-stricken. But some questions came up as a result of the interview…

After being involved in Live Aid, Bono and his wife interacted with the Ethiopians during their food crisis, and he saw a different kind of poverty; people with great dignity reduced to begging for food. “I (Bono) asked, ‘How could this be in a world of plenty, people left starved to death? If that is the way of the world, we have to overthrow the way of the world!’”

But should the church be about the business of overthrowing the way of the world? Why or why not?
I wonder if we are called to overthrow the way of the world, or to be an organic influence on the way of the world, somewhat like the parable of the seed in Mark 4:26-29. It is written: “Jesus also said, “Here is another illustration of what the Kingdom of God is like: A farmer planted seeds in a field, and then he went on with his other activities. As the days went by, the seeds sprouted and grew without the farmer’s help, because the earth produces crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens.”" This is an organic thing, just growing on its own. The movement of the Spirit and the Word of God are like that as well, aren’t they? Not necessarily big institutional things, but people interacting with each other and growth occurring through God as He so nurtures…

But I don’t think that means that we ignore social justice. We just cannot fool ourselves with thinking that social justice is God’s chief end. His kingdom comes when people are saved and are growing. His kingdom is shown as people love others in His name (as in Matthew 25). But this is all done IN HIS NAME…

Notes on this sermon, given April 20, are available here…

BAD BLOOD: Forgiving George, Bill and Kwame

This past Sunday’s sermon dealt with politics. How Christians feel justified in holding bitter feelings toward those that endorse political views that differ from traditional Christian views. Bryan made clear the fact that Christians are NOT representing Christ when we (yes, we) maintain a bitter attitude toward our political adversaries. We can disagree with such people, but we are to have a gracious heart toward them. The sermon, with the SWEET message notes to accompany the sermon, can be found here (note the April 13 sermon entitled “Bill and George” - Kwame was added later for good reason).
The aroma of Christ should be detected by all who interact with Christians. Bluntly, we aren’t challenged often enough to reflect this aroma. I think it is in part because the Word does not dwell in us the way God intends it to. Also, I think, we are such a darn individualistic culture that we get offended when people think they even could rebuke us. We need to allow ourselves to be challenged by the Word and by our brothers and sisters who seek to help us ever more deeply reflect the glory of God in our lives - and our attitudes toward others. That’s my stand.

BAD BLOOD: Forgiving Jerks

The sermon on Sunday was about forgiving jerks.  Again the premise is that unforgiveness and bitterness, held onto, become like poison in our veins.  Unforgiveness can inhibit our ability to fellowship with Christ in a meaningful way, stunting our spiritual growth. The sermon can be heard here. I believe that this series is a critical one, and deals with a topic that is not often discussed. We who claim the cross of Christ HAVE NO OPTION but the way of forgiveness, in view of what God has done for us in Christ. I am praying for this series to immense spiritual impact for our congregation.

Getting Your (Redemption) Party On

Bro. Bradley in the article linked at the bottom of this post has a point.  Up to this point in history, evangelical Christians seem to have made an art out of being serious.  But if we embrace the notion of redemption, full and complete, why are we not more celebrative?  Clapping in sanctuaries and throwing up our hands to praise and worship should only be the start of it.  We are GUARANTEED to escape Hell and spend eternity with Christ in HEAVEN!  Surely a cause for celebration!  What do you think about the article here?

Leaning on the Trinity to Understand Community

There is an article at the RZIM website by L.T. Jeyachandran entitled The Trinity as a Paradigm for Spiritual Transformation, which I think is great. One truth that flows out of the article is the immense importance of the character of God to our faith. I have often felt that when it all boils down, all we have to lean on, all we can count on, is God’s character. His character is the reason we believe the Scriptures are His Word, and that we can trust them. And what is that character? It is holiness.

Jeyachandran correctly shows the importance of the Trinity to get a concept of holiness. Through the Trinity, God’s holiness can be described, not in terms of sin (as in the absence of sin, or the opposite of evil) but in terms of Himself. God’s holiness is seen in His perfect love, not only toward His creation, which began at a point in time, but in terms of the other two members of the Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with whom He has always existed. So Jeyachandran shows that holiness is seen in relationship - which brings us to the point that holiness is not merely a personal characteristic. It is expressed most Christianly in community. Hence the many admonitions by Paul to the churches to live in harmony, to express relational fruit of the Spirit. God is community and He has called us to community to best express His character to the world.

Therefore worship is not merely an individual response to God.  Jeyachandran writes

We need to depend on one another to help us comprehend the majesty and love of God and respond in true worship as a community (Ephesians 3:14-21).

We need to get this in the Western church because the people to whom we are seeking to show Christ are looking for true community, something to belong to and people to be valued by…

Take It to The Bridge?

I have just read two of the posts on David Fitch’s blog about the shortcomings of the Bridge illustration in sharing the Gospel. I feel that his comments make a lot of sense in telling the overall picture, but at the same time, every parable breaks down after time, and the Bridge is no exception.

Here is an example of the Bridge from Grace Community Church of Champaign, IL (no connection to the one in Detroit):

What he does bring up that is true from what I have seen however, is that I feel evangelicals have a tendency to oversimplify salvation along the lines of his criticisms of the Bridge. When he talks about the separation of justification from sanctification, the very process orientation of the Christian life, he is right that we can communicate a salvation that is static.

He is also right that we have a tendency in our communication of the Christian life to not talk about how desire is to be handled. What do we do with desire as believers now? It is my contention that the fact that sanctification is a process, and that we need to understand how to handle desire, brings the point that Christian community is paramount.

Salvation is individual, but walking with Christ isn’t. Just like salvation is free, but walking with Christ costs you your life…

All that being said, I wonder how critical the shortcomings of such a “tool” are, unless we are not living a life of authenticity.  Are we communicating in a vacuum or out of a life of service and faithfulness?  Which brings up the whole point of how we do evangelism in the first place.  The relational style of Just Walk Across the Room can provide so much more force when we get to the Bridge, than if we seek to share “cold” so to speak.

Bad Blood

Next up at Grace Community Church is a series called Bad Blood.

 

It is about broken relationships and the bitterness that we can have a tendency to hold onto as a result.  We really need to allow the light of Christ to warm and heal the cold parts of our lives.  I think this series is going to challenge and expand our thinking about how to be Christ-centered.  We desperately need to pursue relational change with Christ at the center if we are going to show the world a different way to live.

A World of Change

Some of us at Grace are currently reading a book called Who Stole My Church? by Gordon MacDonald.  It is about the changes in the culture that are leading to the need to change how we do church.  I am barely halfway through but the book has caused me to get pretty excited about the nature of change we are currently experiencing in the culture and world. 

MacDonald explains postmodernism in pretty good layperson’s terms:

“…postmodernism begins with the idea that there are no fixed, stand-alone truths…the postmodernist claims that truth is really only what we see or experience from our perspective (p. 63).”

I have been in email discussions about the value of The Secret, a New Agey spiritual phenomenon trumpeted by Oprah Winfrey (that in my opinion is highly dangerous).  I have read about people seeking “truth” in everything from Buddhism to Wicca.
It is an exciting time that we live in, that is fraught with change. When I was a consultant at Deloitte & Touche, I remember telling one of my managers that I could see myself leaving work one day with one understanding of how things were going, and come back in and everything be changed. I feel like the cultural and spiritual landscape of the world is like that right now.
Let’s take advantage of this by diving in to prayer, by deepening our study of God’s Word, and by interacting with the world in increasingly winsome and creative ways.  It really is, in America, more and more like the times of the Apostle Paul, when he was planting churches and breaking down the Gospel to cultures in which there were no fixed truths.