IDC - the witnesses

This week at IDC (our Bible Study group we’ve started with some friends), we began studying the Book of Acts. Officially the book is called “The Acts of the Apostles,” but as I told the group, I’ve heard it said so many times that it could have been called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” This is because the book outlines how the Holy Spirit used this motley crew of believers in Jesus to turn the whole world “upside down” in a very few short years. Starting with 120 believers in an upper room, waiting for a promise to come, in what form they didn’t know, to apostles and prophets, elders and teachers over the entire known world. Amazing feat, for such humble beginnings, especially considering the persecution that they endured to spread their message. I believe that is another “proof,” if you need one, of the transforming power of grace in their lives, because they allowed nothing to slow them down. When they got beat up, they prayed and went back at it. It had to be the sustaining power of grace through the Holy Spirit’s activity in their lives that motivated them.

It reminds me that we cannot try to do, even good things for God, without his help. Those zealous ones of us that try so hard to move out and “win the world” on our own, quickly find it to be a lonely place in life without the energizing power of God.

Jesus reminded the disciples as he was leaving them, that they were to wait for the Holy Spirit who would make them to become witnesses of him to the world, starting in Jerusalem, then Judea, Samaria, and then to the “outermost parts of the earth.” It wasn’t that the Holy Spirit would make them “witness” to others, but that he would give them the ability to “become the witness” of what God had done in them through Christ. We are to become a witness, an expert witness on the stand of life, testifying to what God has done in and through us because of Jesus. It’s not in ourselves that we can do these things, but only through him who loves us.

As we talked about this I asked the group, so where is your Jerusalem? Where is your Judea and Samaria? What does it mean to go to the uttermost parts of the earth? When I think of Jerusalem, I think of my home, my family, they are my primary responsibility and my first ministry. I think of Judea as my work, my ministry, my influence that increases around outside of my family. Then Samaria being those place that might be in my community that God is calling me to be an influencer, to “be a witness” of his grace, and then the uttermost parts are wherever the wind will blow us…that place that will call in the night like Paul’s Macedonian call, which says “come and bring the message to us.”

What are your Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria? Is it geography or relational? Is it a place in time or space? Where is your expert testimony being called to court?

so many refugees...

Realizing tonight how "not alone" those who are refugees from "church" there are in the world. Just finished reading a heartbreaking, but true story of a refugee. Check it out.

"How to Ruin a Church"

the way i see it...long post

A friend of mine and I were talking via email and I just began to express my heart about where I feel I am on the journey, and it came out so concretely that I wanted to post it. Forgive the length. Hope it encourages you. It did me.

“I’ve been on a journey for the last five years and it has taken me to a different place in my walk with God and my understanding of “church.” I probably identify most with the “emerging church.” Mostly it means that I haven’t given up on the church yet, but don’t believe that the modern church that we have seen functioning up to this point from the last 100 years or so is a good representation for the world today of what Jesus meant when he said “I will build my church.”

I see the church as a people, as a community, as a group of believers/followers of Christ in life and in practice. It’s about bringing our faith and our lives into agreement, not just saying we believe one thing and living another. We were never meant to just “go to church” but to “be church.” In Paul’s writings, you see where he makes the mention of the “church who meets at so-and-so’s house.” I believe that’s because the church is who we are, and where we meet is secondary to what and who we are. If we are not followers of Christ, where we gather doesn’t matter. It becomes a “form of godliness,” without any power to affect change.

I believe that I am, in that context, called to help people along their journey of faith toward Christ, especially those who have struggled with the modern construct of church. There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people who love Jesus, but don’t like the church. But when I read the scripture, I see what the church is supposed to be, outside of the power structures, the buildings and high-pressure sales and program tactics that the modern era attached to it. I believe there is a returning to the mystery of the faith that the early church fathers wrote about and experienced. It is not supposed to be a place where it’s all figured out into a three-point alliterated message or four spiritual laws. Faith is supposed to take belief, a leap, not proof after proof something is true before you believe. Even Jesus said to Thomas that the truer blessing was for those who did not see, but still believed. It seems modern Christianity tried to wipe out all mystery and need for faith in their desire to prove that their faith was legitimate and trustworthy.

I do have a theory about it all though, and it’s only a theory, but I believe as we look at the whole of scripture and down through history, we see that God reveals himself to each culture and time in a way that they best can understand. I believe that this is why we see a progressive revelation of grace and faith through the scriptures, because ancient Israel couldn’t handle learning it all immediately. This is one reason why Jesus was said to have come in the “fullness of time,” when it was best for the message to come and be spread when it could best be done. I believe that in the same way, the modern world starting with the Enlightment era and the reign of rationalism needed a revelation of God in the way they best could understand him. So He came to them in propositional doctrines and systematic theologies so that they could define and understand God. It was a time where they needed to be able to “prove” to themselves that their faith was true. But now our culture has once again changed as we look at the philosophies of today’s culture and world, it does not trust the “authorities” to explain away all the questions, in fact questions sometimes are more welcome than the answers. I believe that in the midst of this change in our world, God is coming again and trying to speak to our culture from a new perspective, one of relationship, one of grace, one of simple returning to faith, to experiential worship and connection with a loving God.

This is where I’m called. This is who I am. The call to pastor or shepherd the people of God has nothing to do with a paycheck, title or building. It has nothing to do with even a ministry. If I was never called “pastor” again, even if I never went to church again, I would be a pastor, for that is who and what I am created to be. I even find myself pastoring whoever I am around and work with. I may not have a “full-time ministry position.” But I am in full-time ministry, it’s my life. It’s not about a check that proves I get reimbursement. In fact, even if I plant a church or pastor formally again, it very well may be that I will not receive a full-time salary from it or leave “secular employment,” not because it couldn’t grow to provide for me, for it may, but because I feel connected to the workplace and not being surrounded by a spiritual bubble, per se. I believe I can be a much better example to the people God brings me by being “in the world” with them. I no longer believe in a separation between sacred and secular. It is what we bring to a place or situation that makes it either one. I bring God with me to work and he makes my work sacred.

I believe that if we plant a church, it will be a community of believers/friends who desire to be disciples of Jesus and will walk the journey of faith together. And it will probably have a building sometime, but the only reason we’ll go to a building is because we so believe in experiential worship and helping people connect with God in all their five senses, not just singing, sitting and listening, that we’ll need space to be able to be creative in our expression. But the first core value of our church should be that church is not a place, it’s a people and if we veer off of that value we will cease to be who God has called us to be.”

titles of entitlement

A friend of mine was telling me not long ago that when a person is given a title they can begin to feel “entitled.” That stuck with me for a long time. There are a lot of people, unfortunately especially in Christianity, who strive so long and hard to have that title of “pastor” or whatever, and whenever they get it, everyone knows they’ve got it. It’s on their business cards, they introduce themselves as it, they become that title. They expect others to use that title and it also expect special treatment because of that title.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with titles themselves, because it helps people understand what their function is and their responsibilities. But titles themselves mean nothing without the influence or the character of the title in the person’s life. In my opinion.

From the time I was a teenager and growing up in church through my time in Bible College to the ministry I used to apart of, I’ve always been in a place where titles were important. Sometimes those titles have been appropriately used and other times, they were used to separate and differentiate who was “in” or “out.”

I now work for the 3^rd largest employer in the state I live in. It is in the medical field, a very corporate environment. But at the same time, as I work in and around the administration, I find everyone addresses each other by their first names. It doesn’t matter if you’re a vice-president, president, director or janitor, there is no separation by title. Oh, it’s clear who is who and what they do, their functions are well-defined, yet people are treated equally as human beings and their specific job categorization is respected.

Also I’m now in a church where while the pastor and leaders of the church are known and respected, the titles are not expressed or even used to much degree. Rarely is the name of the pastor preceded by his title, yet each one in the church would be quick to introduce him as “my pastor.”

All this makes me think, is it as important as church and the world, for that matter, used to believe that people be addressed in their position all the time, or is it more important that their function and responsibility be what “titles” them? Maybe that’s the true entitlement, when we function in the area of responsibility we are called to or employed into? What do you think?

Rob Bell - Rain

Great video, take a few moments and watch this.

soapbox time

Sorry for the lull in writing. It’s been busy around here, and there has been much on my mind to write, but not enough time to write it!

I guess it’s time to pull out the soapbox, so forgive me while I get up on it!

I remember when I was in my teens and we went to a local full-gospel church, it was one that considered itself better than all the other churches around. It was an atmosphere that didn’t breed unity or support for other ministries, unless they looked just like the church we attended. This attitude came from the “head down,” as it’s said, and it even affected those of us who were young in the Lord, impressionable. I even remember one time after a person had left our church, someone joking that they had “died and gone to” another church in the area considered less spiritual or less “anointed” than us.

As I got away from that church, moving to New England to attend Bible College, God used the experiences I had there to teach me about other expressions of Christianity, even in the “full-gospel” movement. There is much to learn from each other, and there is a need for us to respect and to honor those in other places in their journey with God, even if they may not agree with our expression of faith. Only God can judge where I am on my journey with him, and He doesn’t compare me to anyone else on any other journey…I am responsible for what I know and what I do and what another does, it does not change how I must live my faith.

After leaving Bible College and being in full-time ministry for the last 11 years, I have seen this type of pride again in churches and it concerns me. I believe it is one thing to be loyal to a group or a church, but it’s another to believe that you are the only and the best, comparing yourself to other churches or ministries and tearing down those in other places, simply because you don’t agree. Our journey of rediscovering where we are and who we are has seemed to bring this to the surface again lately. Maybe that is why it bothers me, and maybe I’ve not guarded myself against it like I should have before. But now I have to stand in what I know. I want so badly to promote unity and not division. I want to see the Body not be divided, but united in the purpose that God designed it for: to be the expression of Christ in the earth and to introduce Him to the world. But can we do that when we cut off those who don’t look like us theologically or who don’t practice the faith like we do?

And the prayer of Jesus, “let them be one as we are one,” goes on unanswered again…

IDC John 18-21

Tonight at IDC we will be exploring the last chapters of John, specifically the last days of Jesus’ earthly life.

Something that stood out to me in chapters 18-19 was how many times John was quick to remind the reader that certain events were direct fulfillment to Old Testament scripture. I have heard it said that the odds of Jesus, being one man, and fulfilling all the scriptures that he did, could be calculated to 1 in multi-millions. I believe that there is many proofs of Jesus’ life and resurrection, truth that he is the son of God, but I think this is a very important fact. He came to fulfill the word of God. He came to become the very word spoken from God. He was Word.

Another thing: there is a big news story about Jesus’ tomb supposedly found, and now there is “proof” that he married Mary Magdalene. Personally I agree with most scholars and archaeologists who are studying these artifacts that they could have been any person with the name Jesus, being that it was common, as well as Miriam. But as I was reading in John where Jesus is on the cross and he looks down and sees his mom, his aunt, and Mary Magdalene. Does Jesus address this “wife” of his? Does he make sure she is cared for and watched over? No, he simply addresses John and tells him to take care of his mother, that now she is his mother. Why would he not do the same for Mary? Would he not have words of comfort or love or even encouragement?

Ultimately, Jesus will not be known through scientific or archaeological proofs. I believe that is the reason for the some of the mysterious absence of articles from that times and gaps in the stories of his life, because Jesus is someone we meet by faith. He said that if we believe word, He and His father would come and live in us, and we would have fellowship with Him. This is how we know him, because we believe His word. He reveals himself in our faith.

servant vs. child

Today at church, our pastor shared a message on how to relax in God's grace. And since the recent theme of this blog has been on grace, I wanted to share a list that he shared with us. He compared the difference between our understanding of our relationship with God, whether as merely a servant or as a child of His and what each description derives it's approval or acceptance from. Take a look at it and see if you are experiencing the grace of God that comes in being a child of God...

A servant is accepted and appreciated because of:
1. what he does
2. anxious/worried that his work will be pleasing to his master
3. his workmanship
4. productivity and performance
5. his worth is proven by his work
6. when he fails, his position is at stake
7. conditional performance

But a child is accepted and appreciated because of:
1. who he is
2. secure in the love of his family
3. his relationship
4. his position in the family
5. his worth is secure knowing that tomorrow won't change his status
6. when a child fails, he's not afraid of being thrown out of the family
7. unconditional love

Again, how much of the grace of God we can experience is based on how we understand and receive that grace. God is always willing to give us and is constantly showering us with his grace, but only when we act upon it through faith can we experience it. Today, believe that God sees you as His child.