Scared of the Bible

"Normally we read the psalm in its entirety...There is no explanation of the psalm, it is simply read. In some ways this is an interaction wiht the poetry of our faith. As with many of our interactions with the Bible we are careful to not overlay too much of our interpretation or explanation on the text. The experience of having the psalm wash over us is plenty powerful; it doesn't really need our help."

That was taken from Reimagining Spiritual Formation by Doug Pagitt.

I read the book Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic four years ago. I was completely amazed by a section within it. Amazed enough that I remembered it four years later when reading the above quote from Doug Pagitt. I've included the whole section here. I debated on clipping out just a few lines, but didn't think that did it justice. If you just want to read my thoughts, then hop on down to the bottom. However, without David Currie's story my thoughts have a little less meaning.

"One of the aspects of Catholic worship that surprised me initially was the central role of the Bible in the worship service. Every Catholic church is on a three-year cycle of Scripture reading. A Catholic who attend Mass faithfully will hear almost all of God's word over a period of three years (with the exception of some genealogies, etc.). That is a schedule most Evangelical churches would do well to emulate."

"I tried to come up with some objective method of measuring the feelings of different churches for the Bible and what it says. I decided to time the percentage of Sunday morning worship spent in Scripture reading in three different types of churches. It seems plausible that the amount of time spent in the Bible would indicate regard for what it said. If a church spent no time in Scripture at all, it would be hard-pressed to demonsrate that it cared about what the Bible taught. I timed the services when the regular pastor was present, avoiding any special holidays that might distort the results. I did not count the time spent in talking about the Bible, just the time spent actually reading, singing, or reciting the inspired word itself."

"I think Evangelicals will find the results surprising. I chose two large churches, one Evangelical and one fundamentalist, both with an average Sunday attendance reaching well into the thousands. The Evangelical church, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, spent less than 6 percent of its Sunday service in Scripture. The fundamentalist church, in northwest Indiana, which considers itself to be biblically based, spent 2 percent of its morning in Scripture."

"My own Catholic church would be very similar to any Catholic church in this country, because the missal is standardized. When I travel I can attend any parish church and know right where we are reading. Catholics at Mass spend more than 26 percent of the time in Scripture. Although exact percentages will vary from week to week, time in the Bible during Mass approximately quadruples the amount of time spent in the Bible during morning worship in the other two churches."

I think the church I attend would fall into the same category as the 2% church. The only time that Scripture is read is briefly in a sermon before a preacher tells us what that small section really means. It baffles me that we don't read more of the Scripture and just let its words stand on their own. It is almost as if we are afraid of what people might start believing if the Scripture isn't filtered through the protectors of theology in our churches. We take the verses that call us to a radical discipleship and sanitize them so that we are able to follow them in our culture without being looked down upon. We enshrine Scripture with our own words, so that we can be certain that Scripture will never shake our manufactured faith. It's time to let Scripture stand up and become a central element in our gatherings and not just a necessary springboard to say what we want to say. If we do that, we would see an increase in radical discipleship among us.

***

Thanks for your prayers if you prayed for my meeting yesterday. It went as good as can be expected. It mainly centered around me being given more responsibility in my father's business. The problem was that the responsiblities were being taken from other people as we reorganize the structure of Clem's Collectibles. I think it is good for all of us involved, and I think they saw that too.

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Watch out for the potholes.

The Love of My Child

Writing a daily blog is a chore sometimes. I constantly spend all day thinking about what I am going to write next. Today was no different. On my way home from work I turned off the radio and prayed about what to write about. Nothing came. I continued to pray, sing, create silly poems, and all of the other insane stuff I do when I am alone in the car. Still nothing. I gave up and decided that I would pray and think about it as I was going to bed. Usually if I don't have a post by the time I go to bed, I have it by the time I wake up.

Then I came home. I was running about an hour late tonight because I had an order due today that I was still working on. Isaac was already done eating when I arrived, so I took my plate to the table to eat while Lindsay finished up her meal. Isaac asked me if I wanted him to sit with me. I told him he could play. Then, Lindsay and I were talking. She asked me how I was feeling today. If you don't know me and my health, some evenings I am completely exhausted and have to go to bed at seven while other evenings I am completely fine and feel normal. I told Lindsay that I was feeling good. Isaac was playing on the other side of the room when I said that. We tell Isaac that I'm on a strange diet because I'm not feeling good. When he heard me say that I'm feeling good, he ran across the room to his jelly beans (something I'm not allowed to have on my diet). He then asked me, "Would you like a jelly bean?"

Isaac loves jelly beans, and he knows that I can't have them because of my diet. However, when he heard that I was feeling good, the first thing he thought of was giving me a jelly bean that he loves. I was deeply touched. I explained to him that just because I am feeling good tonight doesn't mean that I can have sugar. I told him that I appreciated that he wanted to give me a jelly bean.

Matthew wrote in Matthew 18:2-4: "He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'"

I hope that I am as quick to love God as Isaac was in loving me. I think I need to work on that.

***

I have an important meeting today around 2:00. If you could pray about it, I would appreciate it. More details to come later.

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I want to only hear the Gospel

In church we should only preach about one thing, the Gospel. If we were to sit down and examine the Gospel, we would see that it contains two major themes. First is Christ and his example. Second, that there are two kind of good works. One is is completely done, that of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. Through it we are saved through faith. But good works don't just stop with Jesus on the cross. They are to continue through us. The second good work described in the gospel is us bringing our neighor the help they need.

If we are teaching anything different from the Gospel, we are leading people astray. But the most dangerous person isn't the one who just teaches things outside of the Gospel. The most dangerous person is the one who only partially teaches the Gospel. He is the one who teaches only the example of Christ without the death of Jesus on the cross. He is the one who teaches Jesus on the cross without the call for us to follow Christ's example. This person is worse than one who teaches without the Gospel because he abuses and corrupts God's word. Paul wrote, "For we are not peddlers of God's word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence" (2 Corinthians 2:17)

The one thing we can be sure of is that this Gospel couldn't be revealed to those who just contemplated nature, nor could all the ingenuity, reason and wisdom of this world have thought it out. The Gospel is supernatural. Who would be able to discover by means of his own efforts that faith in Christ makes us one with Christ and gives us for our own all that is Christ's? Who would be able to discover that no works are of any value except those intended to benefit our neighbor? Nature teaches no more than that which is worked out in the law. Nature will always fall back upon its own work. Then, naturally, a person will think that he fulfills the commandment by founding some institution or organization. Another person will think he fulfills the commandment by fasting. Another by the kind of clothes he wears. Another by going on pilgrimages. People will try to fulfill the commandment with all sorts of methods. Yet all their methods are useless, for nobody is helped by them. That is the way the world is today. The whole world is blinded and veering off course due to the doctrines and works of men. Faith and love, along with the Gospel, have perished.

The Gospel if preached properly, is a supernatural sermon and light that will focus on making only Christ known. It will awaken this blinded world. The Gospel is a heavenly light that teaches nothing more than Christ. In Christ we completely receive God's grace and of our human achievements are completely cast aside. The Gospel exalts only God making it foolish for man to boast of his own strength. The preaching of the Gospel should give God all the glory, for it is through his love and goodness alone that we are saved through Christ.

The Gospel can tolerate nothing but the truth. The teachings of men are just earthly light and human glory. The teachings exalt being of good reputation and receiving fame. It makes souls be prideful in their own works. The Gospel glories in Christ, in God's grace and goodness, and teaches us to boast and live in Christ.

The human teachings of men will try to satisfy, but they cannot. They will leave a barren land and deadly hunger. The only complete satisfaction our heart will ever find is when it hears Christ rightly proclaimed in the Gospel. The angel said to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11).

Just in this little verse we can see what the Gospel is, a joyful sermon concerning Christ our savior. Whoever preaches rightly will preach a Gospel of pure joy. How is it possible for anyone to hear of greater joy than that Christ is given to us as our own? The angel does not only say that Christ is born, but he makes the savior personal by saying "to you is born..a Savior."

The Gospel is not just a history of the life of Christ. It is a powerful story that enables all who believe it to receive it as their own. It wouldn't be any benefit to us if Christ had been born a thousand times, and people would daily sing and preach the story of him to me in a most beautiful and eloquent manner. What would any of it if I never heard that Christ was born for me and was to be my very own? If any voice tells me that Christ was born for me and he is to be my very own, even if they do it in a poor untrained manner, my heart listens with joy for it is always a lovely sound which penetrates my soul. There is nothing else to be preached.

Taken and modified from Martin Luther's Christmas Day Sermon:34-44

Watch out for the potholes.

Balance between individual and corporate love - Historical church quotes on birth control

When you reply to an old post (or to any post for that matter), I receive a little email telling me what the reply was. However, it doesn't tell me what post it was to.

I received the following reply from a friend to a post that I don't know which one it was.

"Maybe a Church being fiscally loving is the easy thing to do. It doesn't envolve having to actually interact as individuals with people in need. Most people would rather give money to help someone than to actually sit and share and encourage them that there lives will get better."

I would agree. But I don't think the situation is an either/or. It is a both/and. The church needs to be fiscally loving and the members in the church need to be individually loving. If either is off balance, the church will not be as healthy as it can be.

If the church is fiscally loving, then it can be used as a training tool to teach individuals to be fiscally loving. There are examples in Scripture of the church being fiscally loving, and there are commands in Scripture for individuals to meet the needs of those around them. I think both are necessary. Our church, like most churches, is off kilter on this by mainly being just individually loving. However, the Catholic church usually goes the other way and are just corporately loving. A healthy balance of the two is needed.

***

This is more from the thread on GLCCalumni.com. I will quit thinking and talking about birth control soon, I hope.

This one scared me. I went to my Calvin commentaries to see what Calvin wrote about the story of Onan. I haven't seen a line like this anywhere else in the commentaries. Why are people scared of what Calvin said?

Anyway, here is the line on Genesis 38:8: "A line or two is here omitted, as well as the comment on the tenth verse." I wanted to read what Calvin wrote about on the tenth verse. It seems very weird to me that the editors chose to remove it.

But I did find the info.

Here is what Calvin wrote:

"The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is a doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring. This impiety is especially condemned, now by the Spirit through Moses' youth, that Onan, as it where, by a violent abortion, no less cruelly than filthily cast upon the ground the offspring of his brother, torn from the maternal womb. Besides, in this way he tried, as far as he was able, to wipe out part of the human race. If any woman ejects a fetus from the womb with drugs, it is reckoned a crime incapable of expiation and deservedly Onan incurred upon himself the same kind of punishment, infecting the earth by his semen, in order that Tamar might not conceive a future human being as an inhabitant of the earth."

Here is also Luther's thoughts:

"The rest of the populace is more wicked than even the heathen themselves. For most married people do not desire offspring. Indeed, they turn away from it and consider it better to live without children, because they are poor and do not have the means with which to support a household. . . . But the purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. . . . Those who have no love for children are swine, stocks, and logs unworthy of being called men and women; for they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage." from Luther's Works, vol. 5, Pg. 325-328, vol. 28, Pg. 279

More Luther:

"You will find many to whom a large number of children is unwelcome, as though marriage had been instituted only for bestial pleasures and not also for the very valuable work by which we serve God and men when we train and educate the children whom God has given us. They do not appreciate the most pleasant feature of marriage. For what exceeds the love of children?" from In Plass, II, #2834

This is just to show that the tradition, which some editors appear to be trying to wipe out, isn't just a Catholic tradition. It also is a Protestant tradition.

But it doesn't just stop with the founders of Protestants.

C.S. Lewis wrote.

"As regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point of view, what we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument." from the Abolition of Man

G.K. Chesterton wrote:

" "I despise Birth-Control because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly thing....my contempt boils over into bad behavior when I hear the common suggestion that a birth is avoided because people want to be 'free' to go to the cinema or buy a gramophone or loud-speaker. What makes me want to walk over such people like doormats is that they use the word 'free.' By every act of that sort they chain themselves to the most servile and mechanical system yet tolerated by men....Now a child is the very sign and sacrament of personal freedom. He is a fresh free will added to the wills of the world; he is something that his parents have freely chosen to produce and which they freely agree to protect....He is also a much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines. When men no longer feel that he is so, they have lost the appreciation of primary things, and therefore all sense of proportion about the world. People who prefer the mechanical pleasures to such a miracle, are jaded and enslaved. They are preferring the very dregs of life to the first fountains of life. They are preferring the last, crooked, indirect, borrowed, repeated, and exhausted things of our dying Capitalist civilisation to the reality which is the only rejuvenation of all civilisation. It is they who are hugging the chains of their old slavery; it is the child who is ready for the new world." from The Well and the Shallows, "Babies and Distributism"

The history of the tradition of the church does place the burden of proof on those who believe birth control is within our freedom rather than those of use who believe it is a sin.

Here's the site that I found most of these quotes on.

They also have a challenge at the top that I found interesting:
"E-Mail me a verifiable quotation from an orthodox Christian theologian who wrote prior to 1900 A. D. in support of contraception. I do not believe that one can be found!"

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Trophy Cabinets for Millionaires and Outposts to the World

I was completely entertained and enthralled yesterday as I was driving home from work. NPR had a story about a guy who hangs his paintings up in art galleries. The curators would have nothing to do with his art because he is a street artist, but he feels that his art is gallery worthy. So he goes and hangs them up himself when the gallery is open. It's crazy. It's illegal, but how illegal is it to hang up a painting? It's ingenious.

Here's a quote from him:

"These Galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The
public never has any real say in what art they see. Its good to screw with
the selection process sometimes. 'Comfort the disturbed, and disturb the
comfortable' as Eleanor Roosevelt once said."

Sometimes I think the church has become to Christ and his life what the art galleries have become to art. We have become a sterile place that is more for the heirarchy of leadership than it is for the public. It needs to be infiltrated and the glory of God needs to be shown whether or not those in charge want it to be shown. People come looking for God. Oftentimes, they leave finding programs, an entertaining sermon, and exciting music.

But the church shouldn't just be a place where the people come looking for God. We should be a place that takes on the attitude of God and go looking for the people. We need to bring God to the masses.

I'm struggling with how to effectively bring the love of God to people and a church without being in the leadership. I've been in church leadership almost my whole Christian life until my recent church experience, never never having to taste what it is like to be a layman. Now I wonder, how is a layman supposed to act. I would say it would be in a similar way as to this artist. We need to be part of the church and show people God's love whether or not it is approved by the leadership. God's love is greater than any earthly leadership.

Just like the art musuems were designed to be more than a trophy cabinet for the artist of millionaires, the church is designed to be much more than it currently is. Love on.

****

Good links for the artist mentioned above:

The Yahoo new story on it.

The NPR story on it.

Wooster Collective - a site that has a lot of various news stories on it.

A post on Wooster Collective that shows him hanging up the paintings and the actual paintings.


The artists' own website.

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An amazing article on birth contol

Here is a great article on birth control that Muddy showed me in reply to my previous post on birth control. I think it is crazy how much I am talking about birth control this week. Crazy. Crazy.

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Writing way too much on birth control

I had plans to write other things this morning, but my time has been taken out by writing on birth control at the GLCC alumni forums. If you want to read more of the discussion, then you can go here. Personally, these discussions get to a point where I wish they would just end, but in some sick and twisted desire to be sadomasochistic I continue writing on them.

Here are my current thoughts after a discussion on the internet with friends on it:

Here are the various arguments against birth control and my brief thoughts on them still:

The sperm probably isn't sacred. I'm not totally convinced either way. It was the stance throughout history that the seed was sacred, but it was argued earlier in this discussion that their belief came from a misunderstanding of the science of it all. I still believe they based their belief on Scripture, but I do wonder if they misinterpreted things. To me, this belief wouldn't be a leg to stand on. Though, I'm not convinced to believe either way. I haven't heard an argument against it, just jesting that every sperm does not fertilize an egg.

I still believe not using birth control is wisely trusting in God. I would say it is unwise to use birth control and rob yourself of the family God intends for you to be blessed with.

I still believe that it is unhealthy for a woman to use pills as birth control. I assume there are healthy and natural ways to treat a messed up cycle besides birth control, but I'm an alternative medicine type of guy and would probably never take a pill a medical doctor ever gave me. In the past, they have only caused me more trouble. Alternative medicine made my liver better; something the medical establishment said that they couldn't do. Alternative medicine has removed some of my allergies and we're working on the rest; something the medical establishment said that they couldn't do. However, this stance does not eliminate contraception. It just eliminates pills, injections, and tying up one's body organs.

I still believe that the purpose of sex is procreation and fun, not procreation or fun. The Bible never argues that it isn't for procreation. In some places it does seem to stress that it is a release for lust, but that does not mean it eliminates procreation; it only means that it added fun to the reasons for sex. We have to make an extra-biblical stance and eliminate verses as cultural in order to say one of the reasons for sex is not procreation. I am not totally convinced that God doesn't want his people to produce a lot of offspring. It seems to be good for the kingdom.

I am not completely convinced about the reasoning on why it is okay to change the stance the church had for 1900 years, but the statements out there could sway me if the logic on why we have changed the stance was ever laid out. If a good argument was made for birth control rather than making arguments against the stances that are anti-birth control, then it would be irrelevant what the churches stance was for 1900 years. However, if there isn't a good argument for birth control, then we are left with wondering why in the world has the church been so gung-ho taking birth control without making a cohesive argument.

Some things to consider for myself and other people who believe it is God's will to not use birth control to consider:
Is it wiser to not have a large family? Why is it wiser?
Is it healthier to take birth control?

Some things for birth controllers to consider:
Is birth control unhealthy and does it sometimes accidentally cause abortions?
Is it wiser to have a large family? What makes me think it is unwise?

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Another quick thought on the Sermon on the Mount

Talking with Lindsay about it this morning, I found it very interesting that Jesus started the Sermon on the Mount with talk abou the kingdom of God. Saying the kingdom belonged to the poor in spirit rather than the wealthy in this world, he flipped the kingdom upside down. For some reason the concept really stirs my spirit. Enough that I had to hop back online and write this. I guess I'm just crazy.

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For Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

On Monday I dealt with the first half of Matthew 5:3 - "Blessed are the poor in spirt." Today we will deal with their blessing - "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

We all are spiritually poor. None of us have spiritual capital to buy our way into the kingdom of heaven. None of us are good enough, nor can we do enough good deeds. None of us have enough sound doctrines, nor can we develop such a sound intellectual standing. None of us are qualified, nor can we ever be. The blessing comes to those who live in that reality. It comes to those who recognize their spiritual poverty and live with humility, repentance, and remain in the grasp of grace.

This is opposite of what the world teaches us. The world stresses self-reliance. "We need to be independent. We need to be spiritual on our own. We need to take control of our spiritual destiny." Jesus turns our world's and every generation's self-reliance on its head when he said that the poor in spirit are blessed, for it's not the self-reliant but the dependent that receive the blessing. The blessing isn't given to the person we would vote most likely to suceed, but it is given to the humble, the repentant, the individual full of grace.

The exciting thing about this promise is that it is in the present tense. If you read through the beatitudes, you will see that all of the promise come with a "will be" except for this one and verse 10 (also a promise about the kingdom) which comes with an "is." The kingdom of heaven is not a blessing that we need only hope for in the future. It can start being a reality here in the present.

Just right before the beatitudes in Matthew 4:23 it states: "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." His actions were healing people, but his teaching was about the good news of the kingdom. I have heard people say that Jesus' death on the cross and subsequent forgiveness of sins was the good news of the kingdom. But that understanding doesn't seem to make sense with Matthew 4:23. You would have to believe that right after calling his first disciples, Jesus began teaching people about the sacrifice he would make for them to be forgiven of their sins. The problem with that is that the disciples didn't even understand that teaching when it was happening. If that was the teaching he taught throughout his ministry, then nobody understood it. The good news of the kingdom is that the kingdom was becoming a reality in those who began to live out the teachings of Jesus. The long-awaited kingdom was breaking through to this world. That was the good news.

Throughout his whole ministry, even through his death and resurrection, Jesus was in the process of changing the kingdom of God from the nation of Israel to those who believe and live as he lived, to the poor in Spirit. The messiah of the long-anticipated kingdom has come. That is great news for the audience of the time, and it is still great news for us today. But it isn't great news for everyone. It isn't good news for the unrepentant haughty, the unrepentant proud, the unrepentant stubborn, and the unrepentant self-reliant. Jesus says that only those who are poor in Spirit will receive it. That would seem like crazy talk to those expecting a physical kingdom that would overpower the rest of the world and be the return of the nation of Israel. But in giving the kingdom of Israel to the poor in Spirit, Jesus is saying two things.

First, Jesus' kingdom is not a physical kingdom in the traditional sense; it is a spiritual one. Access to the kingdom is given to those who recognize their spiritual poverty. The kingdom will begin breaking through in our physical reality by those who live in the spiritual reality and live out the teachings of the kingdom, but the kingdom isn't going to be a nation like the nations of this world.

Second, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven, which can be theirs, isn't the same as all the other physical kingdoms of the world. It's something for the spiritually poor. A physical kingdom is ran by the wealthy and powerful. Jesus' kingdom is given to the poor.

This leads me back to the things I talked about on Monday - humility, repentance, and total dependence upon grace. These are essential elements of spiritual poverty. Humility allows us to submit to God; repentance brings us back to submitting when we stray; and grace allows us to have the strength to continue carrying on despite our weaknesses and failings. Not only are the "poor in Spirit" blessed with being able to immediately be part of the kingdom of heaven and live in that better reality, but the kingdom of heaven manifesting itself right here and right now on earth is dependent upon people being "poor in Spirit."

"Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Watch out for the potholes.

Birth Control and my family

Well, I got sidetracked. The blessing from the first beatitude will come tomorrow.

***

I did hear why we were evacuated from our house that one night last week. Someone had broken into a chemical plant near here to steal some chemicals. When leaving he just allowed the chemicals loose. We had to leave our home in the middle of the night because a thief didn't take time to reseal the tanks. What a jerk.

***

We struggled with the issue of contraception and birth control a lot early in our marriage. I can't remember all of our thinking because I didn't write anything down at the time when we were going through it, so I'm trying to go on memory from the struggle we had with it 5 years ago. We started out our marriage on birth control pills, but then we were convicted to stop. To us, it seemed like using birth control was a lack of faith in God. Now people might say that it is unwise to not control the amount of children you have. I can understand that, but I would have to disagree. It appears unwise to do many of the radical things that Jesus calls us to. I would actually argue that it is a wise financial move because of the blessings we will receive from having a large family at retirement.

Another key point to us was the unhealthiness of birth control. It doesn't appear to be good on a woman's body. For me to have my wife take something that might be damaging her body, so that I can control my family size seems to be ridiculous.

This sort of strays from the Bible, but here are two links that deal with the Cahtolic church's stance against contraception and any form of birth control. This site lists all sorts of birth control and their side effects.

Also, we have heard many people wish they had more children. We've never heard a family complain that they have had too many children. God seems to bless families that have given him control of their family planning.

So we decided to not use birth control. I will never teach out of the blue, which I guess I sort of did here, on the subject because I am not 100% convinced. But I will answer people's questions about my beliefs on it if they ask. Anyone that I have encountered that has sought God's will on this subject have always ended up stopping using birth control and contraception. That to me is another convincing argument for it.

Here is a little more info:

Lots of quotes from church fathers in this one:

This one seems to abuse the Scriptures:

An information page against birth control
:

A good Catholic article on the subject
:

I don't know if I buy the direct Scriptural arguments against birth control, but here is a site that makes them.

That's all for today.

Watch out for the potholes.

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

The poor.

As a nation, we usually take care of the poor. The poverty level for a family of four is set at $18,850. That means that anyone below that level is eligible for economic assistance is such areas as Head Start, Low-income houme engergy assistance, state children's health insurance programs, and much more. For a complete list, if you really want one, you can go here. Our government generally recognizes that when the poor can't sustain themselves financially, the rest of the nation that is better off helps out.

Some of us have probably seen people that are much poorer than others. When I went on a mission trip to Mexico, I saw people living tar-papered shacks. It was insanely depressing. The poverty of those people make the poor in America look rich in comparison. But when you don't have enough money to pay for housing and food, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are in comparision. There is a point where the poor must realize they can't make ends meet on their own and receive assistance or perish.

We all have a pretty good grasp on what it means to be physically poor, but, oftentimes, I think we don't have a concrete grasp on what it means to be spiritually poor because we can't see spiritual poverty as easily as we can see financial poverty.

Matthew 5:3 states, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Being poor in spirit means at least three things.

First, we are humble. We must completely surrender our will to God because we know that our will is tainted compared to his. We surrender all of our pride for the good things of the past because we know that our good works amount to nothing in trying to be spiritual.

Second, we need to be repentant. The poor in spirit will quickly turn away from the wrong paths they find themselves on because they should lack the pride and stubborness that force people to continue on their wrong way. Pride brings stubborness, but spiritual poverty brings genuine repentance.

Third, we need to be completely dependent upon grace. We, as the spiritual poor, should acknowledge that we are failures and can't sustain ourselves. Our nation values self-reliance, but this is another area where Jesus' teachings go contrary to those of our nation. Being poor in spirit is an affirmation that we aren't able to be spiritually self-reliant. All of our spiritual success is completely dependent upon the grace of God.

Tomorrow, excluding any major events between now and then, we will talk about the blessing that the spiritual poor receives.

Watch out for potholes.

Music in Revival

Doug Pagitt wrote about music at his church in his book Reimagining Spirtual Formation:

"The music we use in our gatherings is a homegrown expression of our faith. We have a disproportionate number of talented musicians who write and perform our music...In our community the role of music extends beyond mere praise and worship. Our songs serve to instruct, to teach, to call, to plead, and to express; music is narrative, it's prayer, it's a physical discipline."

"One of the roles of the church through the centuries has been to put faith into stories and songs that fit their day. This is what we're doing. Because we're committed to being a community that not only benefits from the Church that has gone before it, but contributes to the Church that will follow us, we want to do all we can to implore our in-house poets and musicians to create."

"For us music is not understood as preparation for learning, it is learning. It is not a precursor to worship, it is worship. It is more than a cognitive slide show of hopeful escapism. It's one way that we physically express our faith. For us worship is not fantasizing about somewhere else but an attemp to create a place of physical participation in the life of God with our bodies, in a place, with a certain group of people and a very real God."

One of the things I have discovered in studying church history is that revival is always linked with new music. This is is one of the areas that I feel I didn't encourage enough when we were at the church plant in Lansing. We only had one "express yourself" day for church. I remember being really encouraged by it. I was touched deeply by what Erin Long wrote. Maybe our church never reached the point of where we were so passionate about Jesus that our musicians felt the need to express themselves to God with new words and songs. But I want to be part of a church someday that has people who are called to write new expressions of our faith to God.

Another thought altogether. Too often we become dogmatic about worship. Unfortunately, most church splits that I hear about usually happen because of worship style. It is sad how we have turned something that should be a unifying time for a church into something we divide over. I remember being dogmatic during a spell in my college years about how songs we sing in church be only songs that are directed to God. How stupid I was. If we read through the Psalms, we see that some of the songs are that way; however, many of the songs are purely educational. Some songs we sing in church shouldn't be for God, but should be for the building up of the body to live out their Christian lives. In the end, I would say God is more glorified by a life lived out the way he planned rather than a person just singing songs in worship. If the music we sing doesn't create in us a desire to follow Christ in our daily lives, then we are just wasting our breath.

Watch out for the potholes.

Keeping the Passion of our Youth

I like the way we play blog pinball sometimes. I had a blog last week. Then Sam followed with a blog that grew from that. Now, I think I have more to say on the subject.

I struggle, not with keeping my passion, but with being a person who wants to have a passion. Somedays I dream about being the type of person who can just go to church, sit in the pew, and leave when it is done. How nice it would be to be a person that didn't care about church. The only way I can come up with to not become frustrated with church is to be a person that just doesn't care all that much.

I've jokingly said in the past that in order to be a minister in a ailing church, you have to be the type of person who doesn't have that much of a passion. Now, I know that isn't always true. There are some people in ailing churches that are patient and loving who are trying to bring the church back to health. But oftentimes, I think we confuse apathy with patience, ignorance with faith, and tolerance with love. We fail to be passionate because passion oftentimes causes conflict.

Maybe I'm being too cynical today, but the church doesn't seem to want to be vibrant and alive. It likes being mediocre and comfortable. The sacrifices that it would take for churches to genuinely love the members of their body, the community they live in, and those in need abroad is just too big of a sacrifice for most churches to make. It isn't something that happens by accident or that we can be casual about. We have to sacrifice some things financially in order to have a loving impact in all of those areas.

Our words of encouragement aren't enough to give our brother in Christ a car when his has broken down and he is without the money to buy a new one. Our desire for the lost to know Christ isn't enough when we fail to show them Christ's love when they have needs. Our love for helping the poor isn't enough when we don't have any money to back it up and send abroad or into our inner cities. Living out the life of Christ in our culture takes sacrifice, a sacrifice that is too often sugarcoated or gelcapped in order to make it more palatable.

I've been told many times that I will grow out of my passion. That I won't have this burning desire to strive for the ideal kingdom when I grow up. I dread succumbing to the norm and becoming a person whose Christianity doesn't mean any sacrifice. I dread becoming complacent with the radical teachings of Christ.

What God has intended for our lives and his church is so much more than what we're currently experiencing. I wish I could just reach up and grasp what I see and make it a reality. I hope that I never lose the passion.

Watch out for potholes.

A Call at 3:00 a.m.

I hate to receive calls during the middle of the night. You hear the phone ring, and you think to yourself, "Who died?" That is what happened around 3:00 a.m. last night. I heard the phone ring. I wake up, walk over to the phone with trepidation, and pick it up.

"This is a reverse-911 call. We are calling to inform you that everyone within two miles of the intersection of such and such roads are to evacuate. There has been a hydrous oxide spill." Then it hangs up. I wish they would repeat themselves so I could get the details for my blog in the morning, but they didn't. I then proceed wake Lindsay up, and say that we need to evacuate the house because there has been a chemical leak. She doesn't handle it all that well because she thinks the leak is in our house. After I explain things, she understands. We get the kids out of bed, put their coats on, and head out to the car. I grab clothes to wear to work today, and our dog follows along.

The thing is that I don't even know if my house needed to be evacuated, but we figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Now, with a night of half-sleep behind me, I realize I should've called the police and heard the details again before waking up my family. I have to call them this morning and find out if it is okay to go back to our house if our house was never okay to be at.

What a night. Reggie and Brandi also joined us at my parent's house. It was a big sleeping party.

***

An update on my stupidity in Sunday School this week and the meeting with one of the parents. It went very well, and I left the meeting encouraged about things. It was great.

Watch out for the potholes.

A Revolution in Church Planting

I've been thinking a lot about church planting lately.

I found the following on the following on the NCEA's (Northern California Evangelistic Association) website:

"For the last 12 years NCEA has specialized in starting "shoestring budget" churches. The average cost has been $52,000, ranging from a low of $6,000 for our second largest church, to approximately $100,000 for others."

Those numbers were written in 1997. In the 8 years since then, I would assume that the prices of planting a church have gone even higher. Those numbers aren't feasible to have the drastic church planting that our nation needs. Here is my proposed solution.

We need to stop two misconceptions in church planting.

The first one has pretty much been done away with, but in the 1950s and 60s it was the norm. Church planting organizations or denominations would come into town and plant a church by building a building. The theory was that if you came into town, had a clergyman, and built a house of worship, then the people would come and you would have a church. It seemed to work for that time period, but it's time has gone the way of the hula hoop. Imagine the cost of planting a church if we still kept that model.

Despite the fact that we have done away with the most expensive item in that church planting model, we have still clung onto one high cost, the paid pastor or minister. It is the second misconception that we need a paid pastor in order to plant a church. Living out this misconception just isn't feasible if we are going to see a rapid springing up of new churches. It is to our generation of church planters what the building was to the generation before us. It is an albatross that needs to be thrown out.

I propose an alternative. We plant churches without buildings or paid pastors. We start training up teams of laymen to go and plant churches rather than an individual paid pastor. The job of a church planting organization or denomination would change to a training headquarters for lay church planting rather than a money funneling agency for a few church plants. Teams across the state would rise up and receive the training necessary to plant a church in their neighboring communities or wherever they feel called.

The problem with church planting agencies being an organization whose main purpose is to funnel money to church plants is that many church plants fail to really take root and grow. If you've funnelled a lot of money into that church, then you have, for all intents and purposes, wasted a lot of God's resources on something that will never bear fruit. Despite the good intentions of such organizations and the people that head them, they have failed too many times. It really isn't their fault; it is the system they are working in.

With lay-led church planting, you can have failures and the financial cost would not be all that burdensome to the kingdom. I would presume that percentage of failures would also go down if this new model was adopted because the church is already there from the beginning. A building doesn't make a church. A paid pastor doesn't make a church. But a group of people does. They can't fail if they handle their conflicts appropriately and don't take on too many expenditures because they already are a healthy church from the initial training sessions.

Then after the plant has taken root and their finances are stable, the church can then proceed to hire a paid pastor and build a building if they are called to such. They could become a network of house churches. The key is to be sensitive to what God is calling them to.

One of the key things this model would change in the life of a church plant is that from the beginning they would not be too financially strapped to be a loving light in the community they live in and to the needy around the world. Too often we create churches that are too financially strapped to do the main work of the church, love God and love our neighbors. From the beginning, a church plant would be working with the offerings of the church planting team without any regular expenditures. They would have all of their money to be loving with, which I think should be the priority of a church's finances anyway.

All I'm proposing is flipping the order of importance in church planting around a little bit. The important thing in a church is not a paid minister or a building; it is the people of the church. This church planting model recognizes this and puts the emphasis on it. I firmly believe that we would see a church revolution in America if this model would be implemented. It wouldn't take long to spread the word of God across this land like what happened on the frontier when people started planting churches in their houses. Sometimes the kingdom is limited by our misconceptions and traditions.

Watch out for potholes.

I'm Just a Hearer

If you read nothing else today on my blog, please skip to the bottom and read the story about what happened to me yesterday. I wouldn't mind some advice if you have any.

***

What would we do if we were stranded on an island and had to survive on our own? I propose that we would just sit around and talk about the necessities of living. We would nominate a person to give us a great speech on the necessity of fresh water and how we can't live without it. We would have another teach us a lesson on the most effective ways to hunt. Others would develop a committee to make an outline for housing construction. Another would be appointed to be in charge of us singing songs about water, food, shelter, and other enjoyed elements of civilized society.

I know it sounds ludicrous. The sad thing is that church should sound just as ludicrous. In most realities we mimic the pathetic description I just gave of people on an island in our churches. We educate, educate, and educate, but we fail to love. The only reason what we do in church doesn't seem as ludicrous as the above island story is twofold.

First, I do not think that most churchgoers realize that their spiritual life is more important than their physical life. We might give lip service to the fact and be able to explain, but we don't live our lives as if that fact is a reality. We need to nourish ourselves spiritually even moreso than we nourish ourselves physically. We do that most effectively by joining Christ in his acts of love. It might seem radical, but the Scriptures are even more radical. We are given many examples that teach us we should be willing to give up our phsyical lives for spiritual truths.

Second, the sad state of unhealthiness in our churches is the norm. It would be a lot different if our communities were filled with healthy churches with just a few bad ones scattered here and there. However, the unhealthy church is the norm. We are filled with churches that can explain their pet theologies and doctrines, but they fail to live out their faith in loving their community. We are the Pharisees when our world needs Jesus.

We need to stop being mere hearers and start being doers. The world needs people who are willing to live out their faith together rather than just sit around and educate themselves about the facts of faith. The question we have to ask ourselves is, "How do we make our intellectual knowledge of our pet theologies and doctrines a spiritual reality to the world?"

***

Verses that relate to my thoughts:

James 1:@2-25

22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act
they will be blessed in their doing.

Luke 6:46-49

46 "Why do you call me "Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house."

***

Yesterday at church, while I was teaching the above lesson and we were dealing with how to apply it to our lives, I might've stirred up some trouble. I had a call on my answering machine from a parent of a few of the teens when I came home last night. I called back, but she was already in bed. I'm expecting her to call back today.

If I was to guess what the call was about, I would say the following.

As I said earlier, it was occured during the part of the lesson where we were trying to apply this teaching in a practical way to our lives. I asked, "How can we be a group of people that actually live out our faith together instead of just continuing the process of education?" We were brainstorming when I asked if anyone had planned on helping the new pastor move in. Lindsay and I had missed church two out of the last three weeks because of illness, so I was wondering if there was an announcement on the matter I had missed. Well, there wasn't, and it was intentional. I was informed by the teens that some of their parents had decided to help the new family move in, but they weren't informing anyone of it because they didn't want too many people involved. I was flabbergasted. And my initial reaction was to say the following, which was probably one of the main things that got me in trouble, "That is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard. It is individual Christianity taken to the max. When the whole church could be helping, just a few are because they think it is more convenient. We aren't given many opportunities to love as a church, but when we are given them, we need to make sure that we take them." I still believe what I said. I just shouldn't have aired it to the teens. I listened attentively to the announcements yeseterday hoping that I was misinformed. I wasn't. There was no announcement about helping the new pastor move in. I debated on announcing it myself and then saying I didn't have the details, but I figured that was inappropriate.

Then the conversation proceeded because of what I had said to the teens venting about how their parents are burnt out by having to do all the work in the church (mainly centering around the work of building the new building). I shared how I'm frustrated because I haven't been given opportunities to do work. No responsibility has ever been given to me except for teaching this class and preaching once in a while. They explained how I could be helping out at the church; however, the time slots for helping never worked out for me still being able to be a good father and still help out. They were usually scheduled to be done before the time that I had tucked Isaac to bed. They also do their work days on Saturday, which happens to be another day for me at work. Maybe I'm just making excuses, but that is why I haven't made my way out to the building.

For instance, today they are doing a project that I could easily help out on - applying wax to the floor. However, I have to go to Michigan for an allergy treatment, and after them I am exhausted. Also, it gives us an opportunity to see Lindsay's parents, so we usually stay the day up there. This made it so that I didn't volunteer to help out once again.

Now back to the story. I wasn't finished putting my foot in my mouth. I might've done it a little more. I believe what I said was true. I just wish I hadn't said it. They continued to share about their parent's frustrations with the building. I then shared, "The reason they might be frustrated with the building is that the building was never God's will. They are fighting an uphill battle. I've asked around about who had the vision for the building laid on their hearts, and nobody has ever said that they did. Nobody has ever said who did. But that is water under the bridge. We have the building now, and we need to make sure that we use it for the glory of God. It no longer matters whether the building was God's will or not. The question is now 'How do we glorify God with the building?'"

That is what I said yesterday. I probably should've never said it in the environment that I was in, but I do believe what I said is the truth. I just don't know how to deal with that and not break fences. Any ideas on how to mend the situation?

Watch out for the potholes.

God Needs to take a Leadership Course

If God would take a leadership course or a course on setting goals, he would know better. What does he think he is doing? He sets a goal for our personal lives that is unattainable, perfection. He then proceeds to set a goal for our corporate lives (or church lives if you prefer) that is the same, perfection. He's like a broken record. Doesn't he know to set attainable goals? The insanity of it all. Would someone who teaches a modern leadership course take some time out and teach God a few things about leadership?

Wait. I have it figured out. We can just ignore the goal. That's it. We'll just ignore such an insane demand on our lives since it isn't attainable anyway. I'm logical. That seems logical. We'll just wallow in his grace, cover ourselves with grace so much that we won't be able to tell the difference between costly grace that redeems us and cheap grace that looks an awful lot like mud. That's what we'll do. At least until we can find someone to teach God a few lessons in leadership. Maybe we can nominate one of those big-time televangelists to do it.

Or maybe he'll just get the point if we ignore him. That's the way we deal with our disobedient children. We just ignore them when they act inappropriately. Then we give them postive reinforcement when they act well. That's such a good method for our children; maybe we should just do it when it comes to God too. It might make him the God he should be. We'll just ignore him when we don't like his demands or what he is doing, and we will praise him when we feel good about what he is doing.

I've got it all figured out. So join in, and we can have a God that we want.

Watch out for the potholes.

Christ and our dining room tables

For most of us, we turn our eating together as a family into a Christian experience by having a prayer before the meal, trying to keep our conversations encouraging and God-centered, and, in my family's case, by trying to eat healthy in order to treat our bodies like the temple they are. Sadly, that is where Jesus is stopped. "No more" we proclaim. He can enter our familiy's life when it means building up my family. If you will notice, the list is sort of all selfish things And the most sad thing is that we still haven't really done the major thing that Jesus would want us to do. We have, like we do all too often, majored in the minors and forgot about the major.

This is ironic because is a sort of twisted way, I see that I have become a Pharisee. When was the last time I had an "unseemly" person over to my house to eat dinner? It's been too long. I've become too civilized, or should I say Pharisized.

Scot McKnight, in the Jesus Creed, writes:

"Tables can create societies; they can also divide societies. Jesus used the table to create an incluisve society, but some of his contemporaries understood his table to create a dangerous society. Jesus used the table to declare the Jesus Creed, while some of his critics wanted the table to speak tradition. He wanted to include people, while his opponents wanted to uphold purity customs."

He also writes:

"Jesus uses a physical object, a table, to embody his vision for a kingdom society, those who are living out the Jesus Creed. The table of Jesus talks by envisioning a new society, a society of grace, of inclusion, of restoration, and of transformation. We need to ask what, at the physical level, our churches are saying."

What does your dining room table say? If it was the embodiment of Christ and could utter a message to you, what would it utter? Mine would say it is time to repent. It is time to use me, not just for the upbuilding of my family, but also for the upbuilding of His family. It is time to start to start being hospitable to those who haven't ever received hospitality. It is time to start showing Christ's love by changing the list of those I invite over to eat and play games with.

Watch out for the potholes.

The Frigid Cold of Northwest Ohio

With Mt. St. Helens, so goes my heater. Okay, it didn't exactly blow, but I woke up this morning and it isn't working. Arrrgh! Anyway, I won't be posting besides this because I have a heating dilemna to take care of around here at the house.

The good news, as a result of my going out to check the natural gas tank to see where we were standing on the dial is that we are on pace to make this tank last the rest of the season.

Watch out for potholes.

The Contender - A review

I'm a boxing fan. How am I non-violent and a boxing fan? I miraculously reconcile the two. Maybe I'm off-base, but on the sport's morality scale that I have, boxing is more moral than football. But more on that if anyone wants to discuss it.

The thing I love most about boxing is the discipline a boxer must have. I would actually have my children be boxers if Lindsay would let me because of the characteristics it develops. Boxing, unlike baseball and football, can't be played by someone faking that they are in good shape. A boxer must be in good shape, or he will be done with quickly.

The traits I love about a boxer, besides Mike Tyson, is being able to persevere with pain, controlling your emotions and not lashing out when being beaten, and developing alertness at all times for a weakness in your opponent. I love boxing as an art of discipline and long for it to become popular again. It would be much better to watch on Sunday or Saturday afternoon rather than golf or some human test of endurance.

This led me to watching the reality show, The Contender, last night. It was a great show, and it flipped the rules of reality television on its head. These people had integrity. The way the game works is that they divided the boxers into east coast and west coast boxers. Then they have them compete in a competition. The winner gets to choose who boxes whom, with the loser being eliminated. Sounds pretty normal. Except it isn't normal with what the west side did when they won. They didn't want to send one of their experienced fighters to poach off one of the inexperienced east coast fighters. They didn't feel it was right. Instead, they sent a rather inexperienced boxer of their own against the best boxer the east coast had to offer. It was crazy. Most reality television participants manipulate and trick in order to get an easy win. Not so here. The west coast winners took the hard way. And in the end, they were victorious.

The Contender. Bringing some morality back to reality television.

***

I do know the tragedy that fell The Contender. One of the boxers killed himself a few weeks ago. The story is here. It appears that he had trouble adjusting back to his normal lifestyle after being on the Contender. It's sad, sad stuff.

Watch out for the potholes.

Benny Hinn, A fraud?

I just finished watching the new Dateline special on whether Benny Hinn is a fraud. The evidence seemed pretty convincing.

The saddest story is the story of a boy named William who has a degenerative eye condition. Benny Hinn, supposedly, healed him three years ago. At the healing Benny Hinn also promised to pay for William's way to college. The healing did not happen, and the money has not manifested itself. The thing that makes this story even more sad is that Benny Hinn has been using the story of William in fundraising for years.

In trying to confirm some of the miracles that Benny Hinn performed, it was found out that the people had died within a few months of receiving their supposed miracle.

Here are some websites that investigate the matter more throuroughly than I care to.

A very thorough examination of Benny Hinn.

Benny Hinn: Modern day prophet or wolf in sheep's clothing.

Watch out for the potholes and false teachers.

A God of Second Chances - The Completed Sermon

Here is my completed sermon for tomorrow morning. If you read this, please pray that I am healthy enough to preach. I am feeling terrible right now. I have bolded the new parts from the other versions for those of you who might want to just read what is new to this one.

***

If you’re somewhat like us and turn your television on to be entertained during the evening you are bound to run across dysfunctional relationships. We used to watch the reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond frequently. That was until Isaac became addicted to Wheel of Fortune. In Raymond, you see a dysfunctional family at work. You see everyone looking to be more exalted than the other. Everyone wants to be the apple in everyone else's eye. Instead of being a loving family, they are a jealous family. Although it makes for some good laughs, it shows how how commonplace dysfuncionality has become in our culture.

Take a newer show for instance. According to Jim is, I hope, an extreme case of dysfunctionality. In it we have everyone constantly lying and deceiving one another in order to get their way. I remember in one episode Jim created a fictitional college friend in order to have nights away from the family and do whatever he wants. Although it might be funny on television, it is tragic when people deceive one another in order to get their own selfish way.

Although these stories might be fictitious, we don’t have to look far to find real life dysfunctional relationships. We live in a society where dysfunctionality has become the norm. Our friendships, our families, our own lives, and the lives of our churches all seem to be failing to live up to the standard intended for them.

Take the story of Jose Canseco for instance. First, Jose Canseco turned tail on all of his former friends in the clubhouse and ratted on them about their steroid use. Not only did he betray the code of the clubhouse, in which players aren't supposed to tell what goes on, but more importantly, he betrayed the more important code of friendship. We shouldn't air our friend’s dirty laundry in public in order to make a buck. There might be reasons for us to air our friend’s problems in public in order to help them, but never should we do it for our own selfish gain.

But Jose Canseco's story isn't the only story of betrayed friendship. Sadly stories of betrayed friendship are commonplace. The same week that the media focused on the Jose Canseco story, they focused on another story that at its root was friendship betrayed. This one dealt with our President, George Bush. Little did, at the time, Governor Bush know that his phone calls with his friend Doug Wead were being recorded by him. Another friend betrayed for personal profit.

And the weird thing is that both people tried to justify their selfishness and call it something else. To Jose Canseco, it was standing up for the integrity of the game. For Doug Wead, it was for the sake of history. If it was for some reason other than selfish gain, then why didn't they betray their friendships for free. Sadly, they both used their friendships in the past for personal gain in the present. For them, it seems that friendships have become nothing more than a rung in the ladder on the way to success.

If you would like to turn in your Bibles, we will be reading from Galatians 6 today. Paul is writing to the Galatians about how they can be a healthy church. A church is a collection of interconnected individuals. For a church to be healthy, the relationships between the members must be healthy. What is the answer to dysfunctional relationships in the church? Paul addresses that in Galatians 6:1-10:

Galatians 6:1-10

1 My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. 2 Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. 4 All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause for pride. 5 For all must carry their own loads. 6 Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. 7 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8 If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. 10 So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

The sad thing is that the dysfunctionality of our relationships isn't something that we only observe in the news or on the television during the evenings. It is something we experience day in and day out. We live in a society of failing relationships. We see people lie, cheat, or manipulate in order to get their own way. Sometimes we might even do it ourselves.

It would be sort of comforting if the dysfunctional relationships stopped at the churches across this land, but they don't. The church has succumbed to the pull of people's selfishness time and time again. We also do things selfishly. We have failed to do the things which the verse we read today states we should. We usually don't restore our brother's or sister's when we see them in a transgression; we just allow them to wallow in their sin and proclaim that it is their right of privacy. We disguise our selfishness with a much grander label just like Jose Canseco and Doug Wead did, respecting their privacy. But we ignore the fact that the most respectful thing to do is to help a brother or sister out of their struggle rather than to allow them to wallow in their sin. It says that "all must carry their own loads" but that doesn't give us a reason to ignore the statement just before that where Paul wrote that we are to carry one another’s burdens and help restore those we notice caught in a transgression.

Another thing the church fails at is acknowledging and living as if we are truly a "family of faith". “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” Too often we compare our church to failing churches. It would be like judging whether Lindsay, Isaac, Eli, and I have a healthy family based upon a comparison between my family and those on the television in the evening. We need to always compare ourselves and our church to the ideal. Paul wrote, "All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause for pride." Each man should examine his own conduct for himself. Don't compare yourself to others who are failing. Compare yourself to the ideal. Then you can measure yourself. Then your work, which should be the work of God, is something you can be proud of and boast about because you will not be boasting about yourself, but you will be boasting about the work of God. Paul wrote about boasting more than a few times. For example in Romans 15:17-18 Paul wrote: "In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed." And in 1 Corinthians 1:31 he wrote: "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." When we’re a healthy church, we will see God at work and have much more to boast about in the Lord.

When we compare ourselves with other fallen humans rather than the ideal, we will always fail to reach that which God intended for us. What we need to do is stop comparing ourselves to those around us and start comparing ourselves to the ideal. In so doing, we will see that we are really no less selfish than the Jose Canseco's and Doug Wead's of this world. We will see that our church is just as dysfunctional of a family as that of Raymond's and Jim's. When we compare ourselves, not to one another, not to people or churches that are failing, but to the ideals that God has planned for us, we are all failures. It would be depressing if we were to stop there, but that isn’t where God stops.

Thankfully, we serve a God of second chances.

There is a common myth in the church that whatever happens is God's will. And, let me reiterate, it's just a myth. The Bible never says that everything that happens is God's will. God never wills evil to happen. However, he does give us the promise in Romans that whatever happens, He will work those happenings for the good of those who love him. He is guiding history for the benefit of those who love him.

However, we have an arch-nemesis that keeps us from experience the complete life that God has planned for us, sin. When we sin, it is an act of stepping out of God's will. Sin is a proclamation to God that we think our way is better than His way. When we do that, we don't deserve to be taken back. We've betrayed Him, but God is forever gracious and takes us back time and time again. He is a God of second chances.

He was with Moses. In Exodus 2:11-15, we see Moses step out of God's will and kill an Egyptian. It appears that Moses was trying to force God's hand into liberating the Hebrews. Moses failed by taking God's will into his own hands and not waiting for God's timing. However, we see throughout the rest of the first five books of the Bible that God continued to use Moses to help bring about His will on earth.

He was also the God of second chances with David. In 2 Samuel 11, we are told the story of David committing an affair with Bathsheba. Not only did he commit an affair, but he didn't come clean right way. He then proceeded to try and cover up the act. When the cover-up failed, he proceeded to have the husband murdered. But we see that God was gracious once again and didn't stop using David to bring about His will.

And He was the God of second chances with Jonah. In Jonah 1:1-3, we see Jonah running away from the call God placed on his life because Jonah had no desire to love the people God wanted him to love. But by the end of Jonah, we see that God had used Jonah to bring about His will.

Despite all of their failings, God continued to use those who turned back from their sin and began to follow Him again. God is a gracious God of second chances, and he does the same thing for us.

A few weeks ago, there was an episode of Lost that perfectly illustrates the concept of second chances. If you haven't watched Lost at all, it is the story of the survivors of a plane wreck who find themselves stranded on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean. It's like Gilligan's Island with a lot more drama and not as much comedy. By this point in their life on the island, they have pretty much given up all hope of being found. Because of that, they have to begin life anew on the island. During the episode two weeks ago it was constantly brought up that they have all been given a second chance to be whoever they want to be. Their pasts matter no longer. They can be new people. The tragedy that struck them can be the greatest thing to ever happen to them, a tangible second chance.

Sometimes it takes tragedy for us to reach the point of surrender and accept our second chances from God. Sometimes we have to feel like we are stranded and alone to return to the way God has planned for our lives. I hope none of us have to reach that point. I hope that no matter what happens we are always willing to do God's will when we make mistakes. I hope that we don’t continue to walk away from God and hit rock bottom, but even if we do, God will pick us up as soon as we want him to.

But I would be mistaken to not mention other cases from Scripture. There is a drawback to our sinning and stepping out of God's will. If I were to just paint a rosy picture, I would be doing a disservice to the word of God. Although he will always graciously accept us back, there are time when our turning away from Him causes us to miss the window of opportunity to be a part of His will. There are times when our actions prevent us from receiving the blessing that God had intended for us. A few stories come to mind.

In Numbers 20:1-13, we see Moses, who was told that he would be the man to take the Hebrews to the Promised Land, be removed from that role because, in anger, he took credit for an act of God.

In Numbers 14:20-25, we see the Hebrews remove themselves from the plan God had of them being the people to live in a land flowing with milk and honey. God is patient and will bring about His will with another Hebrew generation rather than use those who have constantly been in rebellion to Him.

And we also see it with the story of Adam & Eve. God planned perfection for them in the garden. However, their sin removed them from the perfection that was planned.

God doesn't break his promises. Humans do. And sometimes when we do, we remove ourselves from the blessing that God has intended for us. We serve a God of second chances, but sometimes, our actions prevent us from being the people that God wants to bring about His will.

It’s expressed clearly in the parable of the talents. Those who are given and use it for God’s benefit, receive more. Those who are given and refuse to use it for God’s benefit have it taken away. The key is to be sensitive to the Spirit and obedient to what God wants us to do.

And that leads us to the big question, "What does God want out us?" "What is God's will for our lives?" "How do we live in such a way that we can be a part of God's actions here on earth?"

I can't help you figure out the personal stuff of where God wants you to work and live - or if you're younger where he wants you to go to college and whether he wants you to marry - and if so, to whom. But I can share with you some things that I definitely know God wants out of you.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied in Matthew 22:37-39:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

He wants us to love Him, and He wants us to love those around us. Loving God and loving others isn't only an emotional thing of the heart. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." I John 2:3 says, "Now by this we may be sure that we know Him, if we obey His commandments."

And concerning loving our neighbors John wrote in I John 3: 17-18: "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

Love is not some abstract concept. It's action. It's tangible. When we live out the greatest commandments and love God and our neighbors, it is something that transforms the world into what God intends for it to be.

We will continue to find ourselves in the center of God's will if we focus on doing those two things. And when we find ourselves in the center of God's will, we will find ourselves being the solution to society's ills. God's will is brought to earth through the lives of those committed to Him, and he want us to be completely committed to following Him no matter what the cost. We can't expect to be used by God to bring about His will if we aren't completely dedicated to following Him.

I’m reading a book right now titled Generation Kill. The language is a little harsh at times because it is the true story of Recon Marines, the Marines equivalent of Navy Seals, sent in to head up the invasion of Iraq. But in it there is a great story about how Major General Matthis chose the Recon Marines to head up a mission they weren’t even trained for:

“What made Mattis’s selection of First Recon for this daring role in the campaign even more surprising is that he had other units available to him-specifically, Light Armored Reconnaissance battalions-which are trained and equipped to fight through enemy ambushes in specialized armored vehicles. When I later ask Mattis why he put First Recon into this unorthodox role, he falls back on what sounds like romantic palaver: ‘What I look for in the people I want on the battlefield,’ he says, ‘are not specific job titles but courage and initiative.”

God is similar to Major General Mattis in the way he chooses to do His will. God’s criteria might not be courage and initiative, but it is faithfulness and obedience, especially when it comes to loving God and loving our neighbor.


God has a plan for Antwerp, but he’s not going to force it. He’s waiting for a group of oeple who are completely dedicated to loving him and loving others. The question is, “Are we going to be that group?” I might’ve used this quote in a sermon here before, but it is my favorite quote outside of the Bible in church history. John Wesley, the man who started the churches that are presently the Methodists, the Wesleyans, and us, the Nazarenes wrote, “Give me one hundred men who hate nothing but sin and love nothing but God and we will change the world.”

God also wants us to be not just individual Christians but a family of believers filled with love for one another and the lost around us. Jesus didn’t just teach one disciple and leave him to train the world. He created a group because he knows that Christianity cannot be lived out in isolation. We are a witness to the world, not as a lone ranger Christians, but as a loving body of Christ. He wants us to be of one mind, one heart, and one spirit. If we truly and genuinely live out a life of love, we will be brought together with others on the same path. That is what the church should be, a group of believers united together under the headship of Christ to continue living out His life here on earth. A body like that is what will change Antwerp.

As I mentioned at the beginning, our society has relationship problems. Friendships betrayed. Dysfunctional families. Children growing up unloved. Marriages crumbling. The church needs to be the answer. Sadly, I don't think we have been. The church in America has failed to be different than the world when it comes to healthy relationships. George Barna did a study that showed born-again Christians are just as likely as non-Christians to get a divorce. Pedophilia runs rampant throughout all denominations of the church. People run to the government for help rather than the church. For many, the church is the last place they would go to have their needs met. This has to change.

Thankfully, we serve a God of second chances, a God who is willing to help us be the people to bring about His will. All we have to do is repent and come back to Him, dedicate our hearts fully to him, not just as individuals but as a group of believers. God wants the church in America to be a church that loves the world like he does. And that is what he wants us to be in Antwerp.

The lost people throughout our town will see the light that shines among us and be guided to the Lord if we completely devote ourselves to, not just being another church with a more modern worship style, but to being a church that is completely devoted to following God in our finances, in our worship, in our Bible study, in our lives together outside of this building, in whatever way possible.

If the extent of our relationships is only what happens inside this building on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, and in our small groups, then our relationships are a joke. People in the business world have relationships with one another at business functions. The step we have to take in order to be a light shining throughout Antwerp is to make our friendships authentic and more than just mirror images of the business relationships people in the world have. We will never be an effective light if all we offer is belief statements rather than lives that are transformed by the grace of God.

God has a plan for us as individuals, for our church, and for this town. But we have the option of stepping out of that will, not being part of God's work, and not receiving the blessing he intends for us. He isn't going to force His will on us. But he is longing for a group of people that will step up and place themselves in a position to allow God's will to come about. We always have a choice. We can either choose to be like the world, not completely love God and our neighbors, which will result in the continuing downward spiral of dysfunctional relationships around us, or we can make our second chances count and step into a transformed life that will change us, our church, and our town. No matter what we have done or what we will do in the future, that option is always there. God is always the God of second chances.

Service on Sundays

I am sick again, so I thought I would have a guest blogger today. Let me introduce to you Mr. Doug Pagitt (for some reason my link building is down, but I wrote about the book early on February 15). What he says here is something I long to experience in church again. It reminds me so much of the church in Lansing.

"In the early days as we shared our desires for the feel, intentions, and ways of Solomon's Porch, we often asked a key question of one another: 'What in your past that was lifegiving could we incorporate into our lives together?' We didn't have a predetermined picture of how we wanted this experiment to unfold; we were seeking something new, together. We didn't look at handbooks or guides to starting a church. We had no interest in doing a 'cover' version of someone else's church model. We knew there were aspects of our pasts that were useful, beautiful, and could benefit others, and we knew there were still other aspects of faith we had little or no exposure to. From these discussions came the basic elements of our community, and we have sought to continue this invitational creative process over the last for years. We often say that we want the dreams of Solomon's Porch to reflect the dreams of the people in our community. We want that list to keep growing and changing with us. It was never meant to be stagnant."

"This idea of bringing our dreams to the church is quite different from the model of the 'program' church many of us had experienced where the community becomes a collection of services meant to meet the felt needs of the congregants. We never wanted Solomon's Porch to be a place where people were 'serviced.' A few years before the start of Solomon's Porch, my wife, Shelley, and I were visiting a church that met in a school cafeteria. We sat in the back, and there was a couple sitting in front of us. While we never actually met them we did feel a strange connection with them after staring at the back of their heads for an hour. As the service ended the husband turned to his wife and in the midst of a yawning stretch said, 'Well, that wasn't so bad.'"

"That's the kind of thing I say when I get up from the chiropractor's table or when I get my oil changed in less than 30 minutes. At that moment I knew if Solomon's Porch - just an idea at the time - ever happened, I didn't want it to become a provider of religious goods and services, no matter how hip they were. I believed the church could be more, that it was reasonable to hope for a deeper response than, 'That wasn't bad.' From the beginning of Solomon's Porch we have referred to our time together on Sundays as gatherings and not services. It's a little thing, but it reminds us that we are here to live life together, not simply have our individual needs serviced.

***

Here are some brief thoughts from a sick and plugged up head. I miss the days of where church was whatever we felt God wanted us to be. That might be possible in our current church, but it is more of a "whatever I feel God wants it to be" rather than "whatever we feel God wants it to be." It isn't as healthy of a situation as it was in Lansing. In Lansing we would share what we wanted to do as a church, and then if the group wanted to do it, we would do it. I remember times when things that I wanted to do were shot down, but that is fine. We were of one mind. There was consensus building. In my current situation, I can do whatever I want, but nothing is a group thing. It is just me as an individual doing whatever I want. We aren't growing and changing together. We're whatever way we feel like growing by ourselves. We're many minds. We're many bodies.

Watch out for the potholes.

The God of Second Chances

There is a common myth in the church that whatever happens is God's will. And, let me reiterate, it's just a myth. The Bible never says that everything that happens is God's will. God never wills evil to happen. However, he does give us the promise in Romans that whatever happens, He will work those happenings for the good of those who love him. He is guiding history for the benefit of those who love him.

However, we have an arch-nemesis that keeps us from experience the complete life that God has planned for us, sin. When we sin, it is an act of stepping out of God's will. Sin is a proclamation to God that we think our way is better than His way. When we do that, we don't deserve to be taken back. We've betrayed Him, but God is forever gracious and takes us back time and time again. He is a God of second chances.

He was with Moses. In Exodus 2:11-15, we see Moses step out of God's will and kill an Egyptian. It appears that Moses was trying to force God's hand into liberating the Hebrews. Moses failed by taking God's will into his own hands and not waiting for God's timing. However, we see throughout the rest of the first five books of the Bible that God continued to use Moses to help bring about His will on earth.

He was the God of second chances with David. In 2 Samuel 11, we are told the story of David committing an affair with Bathsheba. Not only did he commit an affair, but he didn't come clean right way. He then proceeded to try and cover up the act. When the cover-up failed, he proceeded to have the husband murdered. But we see that God was gracious once again and didn't stop using David to bring about His will.

And He was the God of second chances with Jonah. In Jonah 1:1-3, we see Jonah running away from the call God placed on his life because Jonah had no desire to love the people God wanted him to love. But by the end of Jonah, we see that God had used Jonah to bring about His will.

Despite all of their failings, God continued to use those who turned back from their sin and began to follow Him again. God is a gracious God of second chances.

A few weeks ago, there was an episode of Lost that perfectly illustrates the concept of second chances. If you haven't watched Lost at all, it is the story of the survivors of a plane wreck who find themselves stranded on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean. It's like Gilligan's Island with a lot more drama and not as much comedy. By this point in their life on the island, they have given up all hope of being found. Because of that, they have to begin life anew on the island. It was constantly brought up that they have all been given a second chance to be whoever they want to be. Their pasts matter no longer. They can be new people. The tragedy that struck them can be the greatest thing to ever happen to them, a tangible second chance.

Sometimes it takes tragedy for us to reach the point of surrender and accept our second chances from God. Sometimes we have to feel like we are stranded and alone to return to the way God has planned for our lives. I hope we don't have to reach that point. I hope that no matter what happens we are always willing to do God's will when we make mistakes. I hope that we don’t continue to walk away from God and hit rock bottom, but even if we do, God will pick us up as soon as we want him to.

But I would be mistaken to not mention other cases from Scripture. There is a drawback to our sinning and stepping out of God's will. If I were to just paint a rosy picture, I would be doing a disservice to the word of God. Although he will always graciously accept us back, there are time when our turning away from Him causes us to miss the window of opportunity to be a part of His will. There are times when our actions prevent us from receiving the blessing that God had intended for us. A few stories come to mind.

In Numbers 20:1-13, we see Moses, who was told that he would be the man to take the Hebrews to the Promised Land, be removed from that role because, in anger, he took credit for an act of God.

In Numbers 14:20-25, we see the Hebrews remove themselves from the plan God had of them being the people to live in a land flowing with milk and honey. God is patient and will bring about His will with another Hebrew generation rather than use those who have constantly been in rebellion to Him.

And we also see it with the story of Adam & Eve. God planned perfection for them in the garden. However, their sin removed them from the perfection that was planned.

God doesn't break his promises. Humans do. And sometimes when we do, we remove ourselves from the blessing that God has intended for us. We serve a God of second chances, but sometimes, our actions prevent us from being the people that God wants to bring about His will.

And that leads us to the big question, "What does God want out us?" "What is God's will for our lives?" "How do we live in such a way that we can be a part of God's actions here on earth?"

I can't help you figure out the personal stuff of where God wants you to work and live - or if you're younger where he wants you to go to college and whether he wants you to marry - and if so, to whom. But I can share with you some things that I definitely know God wants out of you.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied in Matthew 22:37-39:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

He wants you to love Him, and He wants you to love those around you. Loving God and loving others isn't only an emotional thing of the heart. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." I John 2:3 says, "Now by this we may be sure that we know Him, if we obey His commandments."

And concerning loving our neighbors John wrote in I John 3: 17-18: "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

Love is not some abstract concept. It's action. It's tangible. When we live out the greatest commandments and love God and our neighbors, it is something that transforms the world into what God intends for it to be.

We will continue to find ourselves in God's will if we focus on doing those two things. And when we find ourselves in the center of God's will, we will find ourselves being the solution to society's ills. God's will is brought to earth through the lives of those committed to Him, and he want us to be completely committed to following Him no matter what the cost. We can't expect to be used by God to bring about His will if we aren't completely dedicated to following Him.

God also wants us to be not just individual Christians but a family of believers filled with love for one another and the lost around us. If we truly and genuinely live out a life of love, we will be brought together with others on the same path. That is what the church should be, a group of believers united together under the headship of Christ to continue living out His life here on earth.

As I mentioned at the beginning, our society has relationship problems. Friendships betrayed. Dysfunctional families. Children growing up unloved. Marriages crumbling. The church needs to be the answer. Sadly, I don't think we have been. The church in America has failed to be different than the world when it comes to healthy relationships. George Barna did a study that showed born-again Christians are just as likely as non-Christians to get a divorce. Pedophilia runs rampant throughout all denomenations of the church.

But we do serve a God of second chances, a God who is willing to help us be the people to bring about His will. All we have to do is repent and come back to Him. God wants the church in America to be a church that loves the world like he does. And that is what he wants us to be in Antwerp.

The lost people throughout Antwerp will see the light that shines among us and be guided to the Lord if we completely devote ourselves to, not just being another church with a more modern worship style, but to being a church that is completely devoted to following God in our finances, in our worship, in our Bible study, and in our lives together outside of this building. If the extent of our relationships is only what happens inside this building on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, and in our small groups, then our relationships are a joke. People in the business world have relationships with one another at business functions. The step we have to take in order to be a light shining throughout Antwerp is to make our friendships real and more than just business relationships that we have when the whole group gathers together. We will never be an effective light if all we offer is belief statements and not lives that are transformed by the grace of God.

God has a plan for us as individuals, for our church, and for this town. But we have the option of stepping out of that will, not being part of God's work, and not receiving the blessing he intends for us. He isn't going to force His will on us. But he is longing for a group of people that will step up and place themselves in a position to allow God's will to come about. We always have a choice. We can either choose to be like the world, not completely love God and our neighbors, which will result in the continuing downward spiral of dysfunctional relationships, or we can make our second chances count and step into a transformed life that will change us, our church, and our town. No matter what we have done or what we will do in the future, that option is always there. God is the God of second chances.

Watch out for the potholes.