Who sets the agenda for what the church does?

I read an article recently in a Christian publication about an informal survey - done in Canada, I think. Several (I don't remember how many) college students were sent to churches in a large metropolitan area and asked to report their impressions of the effectiveness of the Sunday morning worship of these churches in reaching their community. That's a fair enough question, I suppose.

Their report went something like this. The large congregations had a variety of programs for all ages, with mostly structured services which would appeal to some people, but seemed too professional. Then there were smaller fellowships who were more friendly and sometimes less formal and they, too, reached a certain number of people, but there were a lot of things missing. Finally they attended one small inner city church which had a service followed by a community meal at which homeless and other down-and-out people came to eat. The students felt that this last church was the best example of what the church is.

I have no argument with their appraisal of such an inner city church, nor of what that church was doing to minister to its neighborhood. I do have a question, however.

Who sets the agenda for the life and mission of the church? Is it our community? Our neighborhood? The needs of society?

Do these in turn determine for us what music we use, how we worship, what we preach and teach, whether we are formal or informal, how we dress, etc? We are told to be seeker friendly. That seems to make perfect sense.

So then I ask, what did Jesus do and what did the first century church do? And does it matter that they didn't have all the conveniences and technology of the 21st century? How much difference does 2 millenia make?

If we become so carried away with being relevant to our age, will we lose the distinctiveness which was so characteristic of both Jesus and the early church? Their lives - individually and corporately - reflected the nature, character, and purpose of God and the gospel. Is that who and how we are?

If I seek to be relevant like you are, am I being honest with myself and how God made me? If my church seeks to be seeker firendly like your church, will we lose our identity and the unique purpose for which God has called us together? Maybe we are so quick to "evaluate" others based on who we are that we can't let them be the way God made them. My life is unique to me. Your life is unique to you. My church has gifts and skills and a personality all its own. Why do we want to be like you?

Maybe if we all listened to God more, and honestly, we would find that He will sovereignly set our agenda. We may end up being like others, we may end up being totally different. But in the end, it's what God wants that is important.

Oh, and a footnote to all this. God asks us to be faithful, not successful. If we are faithful, I believe He will bring fruit - even if we can't see it for ourselves.

What do you think?

Charlie

What happens when idealism meets reality?

When I was a young college student I felt God calling me to enter the full time ministry, then as a Lutheran Pastor. I had always been religious, went to church faithfully, read the Bible, prayed, did all the stuff you were supposed to do. So when I felt the ministry beckoning, it wasn't a far step to shift college courses toward the Seminary.

One of the reason I wanted to enter the ministry was to make a difference in the church, to help the church become serious about its faith and life, to motivate the "dead and lifeless old folks" into dynamic and vigorous Christians. I wanted to wake the church up and become an exciting place. At 20 years of age I had so much to offer and was so sure that I could change the church and the world.

So entering the minstry and serving churches in California and Albuquerque brought me to reality. The church people were just like me. They had faith. They wanted the church to grow and be strong. The loved the Lord. But like me, as I was starting out in my profession and in my marriage, a lot of things took time and energy.

I soon discovered the reality of Christian life. I worked hard for my church but I also worked hard at home on our house, sought to improve our life by buying a TV, a newer car, better furniture. Soon, energy was needed to make sure we had enough money for the mortgage and the payments we had incurred. Then children came along.

More distractions. Oh, the boys were gifts of God to us, but children take time and emotional energy. I could only leave my wife at home with the kids a couple of nights a week. My conscience knew I should be there to help her.

Priorities shift. Now my mind was filled with the day to day operation of a church, the normal routines and crises of home and family, and the need to have some free time to stay fresh.

Where did my ideals go? Where went the zeal to accomplish great things? Was I a captive to the "stuff" of life? And when your life is so tied up with these things and people - none of which is bad - it becomes easy to seek relief from the stress and strain by waiting for vacation, days, off, time to relax. Suddenly these holiday times and fun activities become more and more important to sort of counter-balance the rest of life.

Again, the ideals became lost.

As I am older, I realize that the ideals are still there, but tempered now with reality. Luckily, I can see where I went wrong. I allowed myself to become so caught up in "urgent" things that the important people and ideals went uncared for. Someone has called it the tyranny of the urgent. And it is a tyranny. It is the urgency of maintaining a life style, of having the acceptable clothes, the better car, the bigger house, the higher income. So now Mom works to bring in enough income because we don't want our kids to want for anything. (Why not, by the way? Who said kids were better with the latest stuff?) As a result, both parents are tired and the kids don't get enough attention and the church calls wanting help for something and you're occupied to help and you feel bad but life seems to be so demanding.

Trapped by reality!

To the older folks, did you have ideals as a young person? What happened? Do you still have them?

If you are a young person, do you have ideals? How will you maintain them in the midst of the pressure to get ahead, to conform, to not rock the boat, to be accepted?

Ideals and reality don't have to be mutually exclusive. Jesus managed to help a lot of people (the urgent) on His way to Jerusalem (the important). Even heading for the cross He was able to spend the time it takes to meet the needs of people, but was never burdened by what we might call overcommitment. In a way, His ideals never go lost in the press of people or other responsibilities.

How about you? What do you think?

Charlie

THE ONE TRUE CHURCH...

is the Roman Catholic Church, says the new Pope, Benedict XVI, and causes confusion, consternation, and even condemnation among other "church bodies."

So, what else is new, I ask? Has there ever been a time, including Vatican II, when the RCC
didn't believe that? It is one of the many teachings and practices which for so long has kept the RCC and other Christian denominations apart and suspicious of each other. Present and former Catholics will tell you of days when the church leadership forbid any member from even setting foot inside another "church" building.

"Isn't that awful," I say, "for a church group to say that? Who do they think they are, anyway?"

Well friends, before we crucify our catholic brethren - yes I consider faithful Roman Catholics brothers and sisters - let us be sure the log is out of our own eye.

Is there ANY church group or denomination out there that doesn't feel at some point deep within that they are "doing and being the Church of Jesus Christ" correctly? I know that I am! I admit to thinking that my expression of the Christian faith is directly in keeping with what Jesus would approve of. And this is especially true for Churches of Christ.

In many circles even today one can hear the expression "a member of the church" and know it means "a member of a Church of Christ." Because, some believe, outside the "Church of Christ" there are no TRUE Christians. That is NOT what I or most other Church of Christ members believe.

My point is not to castigate either the RCC or the CoC. The point is that we who believe in Jesus Christ, have an obligation NOT to divide over such things but to approach one another humbly and with an attitude of openness.

That doesn't mean we discard the clear gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection, but that in the words of Thomas Campbell (forgive me if I misquote slightly), "In essentials unity, in non-essentials, diversity."

I also see where some evangelicals are disputing the nature of the atonement. Most would believe that Jesus' essential act was as our substitute, taking upon himself the punishment for sin due to us - substitutionary atonement. The minority would say that that makes God a "child abuser" and is not a worthy description of our God. They would emphasize the Jesus who was the "Christus Victor" of Gustaf Aulen, that He came to defeat the powers of sin, Satan, and death, thereby giving us the fruit of that victory, reconciliation to God and eternal life. (Please note that these brief descriptions are woefully inadequate to the full understanding of these positions.)

However, as in everything, it seems to me both positions have merit. Indeed, to fully grasp the fullness of what Jesus Christ did takes more understanding than either of these two. Biblical terminology is too rich to single out one explanation. We have to use (and explain and preach)words like ransom, redemption, sacrifice, reconciliation, atonement, justification, etc. I believe a classic mistake is made when we limit our understanding of the gospel to one aspect. Paul was correct to pray that we might know the "length, breadth, height, and depth" of Jesus. (Some folks say Paul is being redundant; I think he is trying to give a multi-dimensional aspect to Jesus in a three-dimensional world.)

To return to our original theme. It is also clear to me that for ANY single group of people within the Christian fold to profess to have the complete and true understanding of Jesus and the church is the height of arrogance. It's similar to saying "I know all there is know about God." Or, "I know all there is to know about the universe." Or "I know exactly how the human body functions and what causes illness and other health problems."

I suggest if you know such people, run away as fast as you can! I want doctors to tell me what they know and what they don't. Be honest with me. I want astro-physicists to acknowledge that the universe is too vast for us to fully comprehend. And I want Christian teachers to admit they don't know it all.

As I become older I discover aspects of Jesus, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, the gospel, and the Bible itself which I hadn't known before. I realize how much I don't know and how much fun it is to seek and find new insights into the unknowable God and His relationship to His earth.

What do you think?

Charlie

Love and Freedom!

The more I thought about freedom, the more I have begun to ask myself what it means to be free.

So I was reading one of my favorite authors, Ravi Zacharias ("Can Man Live Without God"), who quoted one of his favorite authors, G.K. Chesterton, who said: "They have invented a new phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words - "free love." As if a lover had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself (to its object)."

Or there is the blatantly obscene song lyric, "Love means you never have to say your sorry." How awful and how totally untrue! The reality of love is that one ALWAYS says he/she is sorry to the loved one - because any thing, no matter how small, which comes between loved ones (I avoid the term "lovers" because it has too much of a sexual/romantic connotation.) can cause a disconnection which is painful, destructive, and to be avoided at all costs - the relationship is too precious to allow such interruptions.

Anyway, when I thought about the binding nature of love, it occurred to me that the more we love, the more we are bound to the object of our love and commitment. When we love our spouse, we lose some freedom to be able to give ourselves to him/her. When we have children, we lose a great deal of freedom because they demand and require so much of us to grow into adulthood. When we love friends, we also lose some freedom because we are committed to the friendship with time and energy. And so it goes.

For the Christian, to love God means we totally relinquish our freedom to become His servants - which in turn makes us more free than we could ever be without Him.

Let's go back. When I love my wife, I do not feel "enslaved" to her, but my love willingly and gladly serves her because I want what is best for her. The same with my children and my friends. Pope John Paul II was right when he said: "Freedom is the power to do what is right!" When I love I am more free than when I am seeking to service my selfish wants. Self love is the ultimate slavery. It is a bondage that only the love of God can free us from.

(And consider that God loves us so much that He bound Himself to us and gave up His power over us, enabling us to be free to reject Him. WOW!)

In love, then, we find freedom and without love there is no freedom, because without love there is no relationship to which we can give ourselves to be set free. Because love casts out fear. (I John 4) And freedom is living without fear.

Maybe that is a better definition of freedom than being without boundaries. The more I love the less fear I have, and the more I love God, the less bound I am to the world, sin, and what people can do to me. The more I love, the more free I am to be me - to be the person God created me to be.

To live without fear, that is what true freedom is. And that is no illusion!

What do you think?

Charlie

Freedom is an illusion.

I found this quote from a Russian writer, at least his name is Russian, Leonid Sukhorukov, while looking for material for a message on freedom vs. slavery. When I shared the quote with a group of college age adults, they didn't agree, mainly because they wanted a definition of "freedom." Silly kids, they wanted to put the statement in some context, not just a generalization. Here I was being philosophical and profound and they wanted to challenge my idea.

(This younger generation can give us old folks fits, especially when they act and talk like we did when we were younger.)

Anyway, this got me to thinking - the very thing I was trying to accomplish with my class. How do I understand what it means to be free? Are there different answers at different times in history or in different contexts? Who is free and who isn't and how do I distinguish between, say, freedom and slavery?

Then I thought about the 4th of July, the celebration of our nation's independence from England and the "birth of freedom." We honor those who have gone before us and especially those who wrote our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. We believe that all nations and peoples would benefit from what we have and so we promote and defend freedom, or at least our expression and experience of it, around the world. But again I ask, "Who is free?"

Are black people (and others of color) free because the laws say so?
Was Galileo free? Was Alexander Solshenitsyn free? Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer free? Am I free?
What about you?

From a novel by Lisa Gardner comes the following quote: "People who think they are in control of their lives, just aren't paying attention."

Actually, I do agree with the first statement I made at the beginning; freedom is an illusion.

When I married, I gave up some freedom and became a slave to my wife. No, I don't mean what you think I mean. Read on! When I became a father, I gave up some freedom and became a slave to my children. When I became an employee, I gave up some freedom and became a slave to my job. When I live in a society, I give up some freedom and becoame a slave of my culture. etc. etc. etc.

If you are wealthy, you are still enslaved to your wealth. If you are poor, you are enslaved either to your poverty or to your drive to obtain wealth. And, of course, the Bible says that all people, everywhere and of every age are enslaved to sin and to the fear of death.

So are we free or are we slaves? I suggest that all of us are slaves until we meet the Father and Jesus Christ who gives the Holy Spirit to us. (I hope you expected that!)

Only in Jesus Christ can we be "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I am free at last!" I think, Martin Luther King Jr., knew exactly what it means to be free and his freedom wasn't social or economic or political. He was free because Jesus had made him free. A person who is and knows he or she is free is a powerful force. You and I can be free in this same way.

Because when Jesus Christ sets you free, you are free indeed. (John 8) When we have been delivered from the the slavery to sin and from the fear of death, what can enslave us? Paul did some of his best work from a Roman prison! Christians have died gladly in each century since Jesus time because they are free from earthly concerns.

Now, I know that most people in the world - outside of the church - think they are free. I think they are living in the illusion of freedom all the while they are enslaved to their wants and desires.

Maybe you haven't taken Jesus and the gospel seriously enough to see yourself as truly free. Maybe you should think about it?

What do you think? Are you free? Do you want to be?

Charlie