I am going to be honest, sometimes I write things, or say things just to hear people say: “wow I never thought of that” “you are smart” “I love reading what you write”, and probably the most unfortunate concept is that it’s never enough. But on an even more honest level, sometimes I say things that I think people want to hear. I know that I am going to be better heard or acclaimed for what I have to say if it caresses their ears. Is everything that I write original? Yes, but the ideas aren’t, I mean I obviously had the thought triggered somewhere and somehow.
It’s like this is infused in our blood though. We feel this need to sell ourselves to everyone around us, we can’t be ourselves we are always working with all that is within us to be someone or something else. The irony of it is that this is not just an individual problem, any group, team, organization, business, and/or church that we are a part of does the same thing. Obviously my main pet peeve is with the church. I was just surfing the net and ran across an author who wrote a book. His name and book title will not be mentioned just in case anyone actually might know him. Essentially his ideas can be summed up by two words – church marketing. Anyone else have a problem with this?
So without absolutely landblasting this poor fellow I will try to be civil. We, as the church have two options. Relevance and creativity. In relevance we follow culture, like an awkward younger brother, mimicking it’s every move and trying to gain the attention of their elder. We see big lights, so we use big lights, we see catchy slogan phrases, so we use catchy slogan phrases (i.e. got milk, got Jesus), and in just about any other category we are always far to gauche to actually be intellectual enough, original enough, or even daring enough to make something up on our own. It is in relevance that we become completely enthralled with the world around us. We are driven by what they want to hear, see, feel and do. Our services are no longer theologically driven to the believer and the language is all of the sudden in need of being filtered by some kind of cultural acceptability forum made up of guys who spend more time on their hair then they have studying theology. Even more so, it reeks of insecurity, as if what we could offer to you is only going to be appealing if I use the things that you like. On top of all of that, it never has appeared to me that Jesus was concerned at all with selling his message. I mean where should we start? Anger in the temple, rebuking the religious system, surrounding himself with the vile sinners of his time, not exactly what his culture wanted to hear, right?
Our other option is creativity. Now, far be it from me to claim being any kind of a source on creativity. However, the church has neither been, and in many cases even tried to be creative. Many of us are stuck repeating styles, structures, and programs that were invented in the 80’s. Have we been creative…well we put drums on the stage…does that count? However, if we believe that within us lies the true Spirit of the Living God, if we are truly made in His image, and He, being the Great Creator, places within us this same desire and knack for creating, then how have we become so adhesive to our culture? There was a time when the church was the hotbed for all creativity, and they were leading the pack, as they should be. It is our theology, our belief that should be driving our creativity and not the other way around. And whether we like it or not, our popularity and our “sellability” will continue to decrease, and it’s not our job to change that. Because, unfortunately, there is very little that is culturally acceptable about the message of Jesus. It’s scandalous. Radical. Full of gaps. A stumbling block. But to those that have believed, it’s redemptive, colorful, and what we’ve devoted our lives to.
So if by marketing he meant: loving others like Jesus did instead of what we have actually lived out as following Jesus, then maybe he should change his title.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Pimp Pastors
I am reminded of the great failures and triumphs accumulated by the people of Israel and Judah after the reign of King Saul. Many were the failures, that God himself compared the people of Israel to the whore found in the book of Hosea. However the triumphs can, a majority of the time, be traced to the character and Godliness of the king in reign. Whether we like it or not, leadership not only fuels but many times establishes poor ideals, morals, and can create a ritualistic establishment that is far more challenging to change than it is to overturn.
The irony of the topic is this. We as the church have realized many of our failures. We have seen our lack of intimacy, and the authenticity that is as solid as chalk dust. However, we have chosen to neither change nor overturn. Instead our usual path of choice is to amend. We see that there is no intimacy, so we add small groups. We see deception and hypocrisy so we teach harder, pray harder, and firmly believe that if we only created the right environment for people to experience the grace of Jesus, the believers in our churches would be confessing their deepest sins in an instant. However, the intimacy, authenticity, and faith found in churches will always be proportional to how much the leadership of the given church values those concepts.
Therefore, I firmly believe that the challenge of stopping the whoring lies directly on the shoulders of those leading our churches. We know the scriptures, we know how it was supposed to be, but we have allowed ourselves to drown in the greatness of the tradition that we have only fueled.
1. Pastors should move away from Cherry St.
If we are honest with ourselves. we, as pastors, will see in our own lives, the very same trends that so filthily mark the believers in our congregations. Our small groups are as deep as our bathtubs, our messages are more creative and as theatrical as the blue man group, and the majority of us firmly believe that the rest of the world needs what we have to say.
In pastoring, there is very little time to listen to others, learn from others, because all of our time is spent trying to figure out the smoothest words to use in place of sin, judgment etc. We take very little time to experience our own intimacy because we are all laying in hospital beds from the stress that is brought from worrying about the lack of intimacy in “our” congregations. If we ever want our congregations to change, move, or get away from the prostitution corners, we can’t find ourselves there either. Our own lives must become our very first priority in this transformation. I am not questioning the integrity or spirituality of many pastors, but easy is the path from shepherding our spirituality to shepherding their spirituality.
2. Programmed Theology should stop feeling so good.
For some reason many believers have found comfort in the predictability of the program (what a terrible term for Sunday morning) that we offer (another bad term) on Sunday mornings. I personally believe it is about as comfortable as the pews that we sit in. We have completely lost our mission as the church. Exposition, topics, worship songs/style begin to matter much less when we as the church are urgent to share the message of Jesus the way the apostles were after the ascencion.
If intimacy and strengthening of faith is the purpose of the meeting of the church (agree?) then we must reevaluate why we do EVERYTHING. Why do we preach for so long, or sing so many songs, or have testimonies, allow time for prayer…because anything that is not filtered through our purposes for the church is merely part of another bad system that can continue to propel us away from biblical ecclesiology. And as long as Pastors continue to be solely responsible for what occurs at our meetings, there will be no ownership of the mission of the church. Once evaluated, we must change. It will be painful, there will be losses, and we may have to get second jobs, but there is no greater joy than purchasing back the whore from her previous owners. Hosea made it his mission, may we do the same.
What am I saying with all of this? Maybe the problem with the church isn’t the church, but those that are leading the church. Maybe what we need is less God-figures filling our pulpits and standing behind guitars masquerading as the prominent source of knowledge on God, and more spirit-led teams of believers understanding the roles in leading the church forward in it’s true purpose.
As per a request on my previous note, I have answered with my thoughts on how I believe that the church can stop whoring. My thoughts are not very clear or full today, so my apologies.
The irony of the topic is this. We as the church have realized many of our failures. We have seen our lack of intimacy, and the authenticity that is as solid as chalk dust. However, we have chosen to neither change nor overturn. Instead our usual path of choice is to amend. We see that there is no intimacy, so we add small groups. We see deception and hypocrisy so we teach harder, pray harder, and firmly believe that if we only created the right environment for people to experience the grace of Jesus, the believers in our churches would be confessing their deepest sins in an instant. However, the intimacy, authenticity, and faith found in churches will always be proportional to how much the leadership of the given church values those concepts.
Therefore, I firmly believe that the challenge of stopping the whoring lies directly on the shoulders of those leading our churches. We know the scriptures, we know how it was supposed to be, but we have allowed ourselves to drown in the greatness of the tradition that we have only fueled.
1. Pastors should move away from Cherry St.
If we are honest with ourselves. we, as pastors, will see in our own lives, the very same trends that so filthily mark the believers in our congregations. Our small groups are as deep as our bathtubs, our messages are more creative and as theatrical as the blue man group, and the majority of us firmly believe that the rest of the world needs what we have to say.
In pastoring, there is very little time to listen to others, learn from others, because all of our time is spent trying to figure out the smoothest words to use in place of sin, judgment etc. We take very little time to experience our own intimacy because we are all laying in hospital beds from the stress that is brought from worrying about the lack of intimacy in “our” congregations. If we ever want our congregations to change, move, or get away from the prostitution corners, we can’t find ourselves there either. Our own lives must become our very first priority in this transformation. I am not questioning the integrity or spirituality of many pastors, but easy is the path from shepherding our spirituality to shepherding their spirituality.
2. Programmed Theology should stop feeling so good.
For some reason many believers have found comfort in the predictability of the program (what a terrible term for Sunday morning) that we offer (another bad term) on Sunday mornings. I personally believe it is about as comfortable as the pews that we sit in. We have completely lost our mission as the church. Exposition, topics, worship songs/style begin to matter much less when we as the church are urgent to share the message of Jesus the way the apostles were after the ascencion.
If intimacy and strengthening of faith is the purpose of the meeting of the church (agree?) then we must reevaluate why we do EVERYTHING. Why do we preach for so long, or sing so many songs, or have testimonies, allow time for prayer…because anything that is not filtered through our purposes for the church is merely part of another bad system that can continue to propel us away from biblical ecclesiology. And as long as Pastors continue to be solely responsible for what occurs at our meetings, there will be no ownership of the mission of the church. Once evaluated, we must change. It will be painful, there will be losses, and we may have to get second jobs, but there is no greater joy than purchasing back the whore from her previous owners. Hosea made it his mission, may we do the same.
What am I saying with all of this? Maybe the problem with the church isn’t the church, but those that are leading the church. Maybe what we need is less God-figures filling our pulpits and standing behind guitars masquerading as the prominent source of knowledge on God, and more spirit-led teams of believers understanding the roles in leading the church forward in it’s true purpose.
As per a request on my previous note, I have answered with my thoughts on how I believe that the church can stop whoring. My thoughts are not very clear or full today, so my apologies.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Gangs for Evangelism
Understand the following comments may be stronger than the author's true feelings. We must explore all of these options so as to come to a balanced theology.
As I have previously mentioned, I lived in Mexico for 10 years. They were exciting days of tamales, invisible friends, and saving the world. However around the time that I was about 11 years old, I had been invited to join a gang. Now I didn’t really have any desire to join a gang, but the pressure from my friends was like a vice grip I couldn’t get out of. The name of the gang was “Los Vatos”, and they had offensively signed and vandalized just about every wall in our neighborhood. There were a few stipulations to joining this gang. You had to steal something from someone’s front yard (all of them were fenced in), and you had to fight a member of the gang. Now, understanding my disinterest in this gang, the whole fighting thing made it less appealing. I mean I had joined quite a few other things in my life, choirs, churches, swimming lessons, and never was I compelled to fight anyone for membership. Much less would I fight someone to join a group I had no desire joining. They ended up setting up a fight time for me, but I bailed, never joined the gang, and never heard from them again.
Sometimes I think this is what evangelism looks like to unbelievers. The church is presented as this prestigious group of people who have more than likely vandalized and isolated themselves from the community surrounding them. They have offensively signed just about every corner of their cities, yet they live under the assumption that people want what they offer. We invite people to services, we set up meetings for them, when in all reality before they get to know Jesus they probably have no desire to join a church. Our urgent desire to corral unbelievers into our churches comes with the assumption that only this church will offer what you need. And so we send out Christians, foaming at the mouth, in hopes of capturing and binding a weaker, lesser unbeliever and adding them to our Kingdom (yeah, capital K…it’s that important).
Now, I say all of this to talk about the church, and not evangelism. When we take an honest look at how the New Testament church gathered, there was very little in common with what we do. They had no building, no special services, more involvement, and genuine community. There are two assumptions that I am living under in regards to the NT church.
1. They understood intimate community.
Each of these believers recognized that because of the constant potential for persecution, it was necessary that they encourage, and spur one another on. There was no “free trial period” for Christianity, in or out, those were your options. And if you were in you knew that there was no one else that would support you in your faith pursuit.
2. Belief drove them.
There was nothing more important to the NT church than their belief in the teachings, message, and promises of Jesus. Because they believed this as truth, they saw the others that surrounded them as deceived, and took it upon themselves to present truth in whatever fashion necessary. There are few if any “messages/sermons/speeches” recorded in the scriptures given to a group of believers. The majority of the recorded messages or sermons are to groups of unbelievers. And because their belief in the reality of Jesus’ message drove them, they would go to any lengths to insure that all those around them heard and understood the hope of Jesus. Now I am not proposing that we begin to preach on the street corners, God knows we have tried that, however, the church activity must be re-evaluated.
We have substituted intimacy for the superficial, we have replaced teaching as encouragement for preaching at our congregations, and we have chosen program over prayer. Do I love the church? Most certainly, but our meetings have become dry lectures from mild-mannered pastors, and impeccable worship from phenomenal musicians. No lives are shared, there is no peer-to-peer encouragement, and the very idea of having to create small groups would be absurd to the New Testament believers. The primary message of the church has become “be spiritual” and we are more concerned with the theatrical elements than with any kind of constant transformation. We’ve been doing it wrong for centuries and there appears to be no urgency to change.
What am I saying with all of this? Maybe the church isn’t a place for unbelievers, even if we had it all together.
As I have previously mentioned, I lived in Mexico for 10 years. They were exciting days of tamales, invisible friends, and saving the world. However around the time that I was about 11 years old, I had been invited to join a gang. Now I didn’t really have any desire to join a gang, but the pressure from my friends was like a vice grip I couldn’t get out of. The name of the gang was “Los Vatos”, and they had offensively signed and vandalized just about every wall in our neighborhood. There were a few stipulations to joining this gang. You had to steal something from someone’s front yard (all of them were fenced in), and you had to fight a member of the gang. Now, understanding my disinterest in this gang, the whole fighting thing made it less appealing. I mean I had joined quite a few other things in my life, choirs, churches, swimming lessons, and never was I compelled to fight anyone for membership. Much less would I fight someone to join a group I had no desire joining. They ended up setting up a fight time for me, but I bailed, never joined the gang, and never heard from them again.
Sometimes I think this is what evangelism looks like to unbelievers. The church is presented as this prestigious group of people who have more than likely vandalized and isolated themselves from the community surrounding them. They have offensively signed just about every corner of their cities, yet they live under the assumption that people want what they offer. We invite people to services, we set up meetings for them, when in all reality before they get to know Jesus they probably have no desire to join a church. Our urgent desire to corral unbelievers into our churches comes with the assumption that only this church will offer what you need. And so we send out Christians, foaming at the mouth, in hopes of capturing and binding a weaker, lesser unbeliever and adding them to our Kingdom (yeah, capital K…it’s that important).
Now, I say all of this to talk about the church, and not evangelism. When we take an honest look at how the New Testament church gathered, there was very little in common with what we do. They had no building, no special services, more involvement, and genuine community. There are two assumptions that I am living under in regards to the NT church.
1. They understood intimate community.
Each of these believers recognized that because of the constant potential for persecution, it was necessary that they encourage, and spur one another on. There was no “free trial period” for Christianity, in or out, those were your options. And if you were in you knew that there was no one else that would support you in your faith pursuit.
2. Belief drove them.
There was nothing more important to the NT church than their belief in the teachings, message, and promises of Jesus. Because they believed this as truth, they saw the others that surrounded them as deceived, and took it upon themselves to present truth in whatever fashion necessary. There are few if any “messages/sermons/speeches” recorded in the scriptures given to a group of believers. The majority of the recorded messages or sermons are to groups of unbelievers. And because their belief in the reality of Jesus’ message drove them, they would go to any lengths to insure that all those around them heard and understood the hope of Jesus. Now I am not proposing that we begin to preach on the street corners, God knows we have tried that, however, the church activity must be re-evaluated.
We have substituted intimacy for the superficial, we have replaced teaching as encouragement for preaching at our congregations, and we have chosen program over prayer. Do I love the church? Most certainly, but our meetings have become dry lectures from mild-mannered pastors, and impeccable worship from phenomenal musicians. No lives are shared, there is no peer-to-peer encouragement, and the very idea of having to create small groups would be absurd to the New Testament believers. The primary message of the church has become “be spiritual” and we are more concerned with the theatrical elements than with any kind of constant transformation. We’ve been doing it wrong for centuries and there appears to be no urgency to change.
What am I saying with all of this? Maybe the church isn’t a place for unbelievers, even if we had it all together.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Dance-move Prayers
When I was in kindergarten, in a school in Mexico, the teacher asked if any of us had tucked away any dance moves in our repertoire of creative abilities. For what reason, I can’t seem to remember and really wish I could since it appears to be a ridiculous question for a group of K5-ers. Anyways, I had seen some “rock-stars” do this move where they would hold one arm out horizontally and the other one would swing round and round strumming the guitar. I was convinced that this was a well-respected dance move and since I was the American in the class I would have the best dance move to offer. Once I completed this intricate movement with all 5 years of me, I decided that I should show this to as many people as I could. I showed parents, friends, neighbors and anyone that would stop for a few seconds to be amused by me. I was convinced that what I was offering was the best of the best, and would not have offered it to anyone had I not have felt that way.
All of us have had these moments. Moments where we need to be accepted, validated, told “well-done” or “nice dance move”, because deep within all of us there is this driving need to be of importance. While this is an inseparable quality of humanity, it can truly become a mold in spirituality, festering until a perfect fusion of insecurity and arrogance has been achieved. I noticed it this morning at a prayer meeting. There were 14 of us sitting in a circle. We read a Psalm and decided to pray for an upcoming vision/planning weekend. I sat in my chair for 35 minutes while others delivered incredible orations of the unfailing grace and mercy of God. I just couldn’t seem to put the right words together, the ones that would really bring the “mmm’s” and “ah’s”, and if I was going to pray, I was going to bring the best of the best. Immediately I shrunk down to my 5 year old self again awkwardly flailing my best dance move in front of the pastoral staff at Grace Pointe.
The issue is this: there is a culture of insecure arrogance that is rotting the validation that we are given through our relationship with Jesus. We are insecure in that we are attempting to base all of our confidence in our actions, and we firmly believe that we aren’t going to be able to pray right, worship right, and love right. We are arrogant in that the very sacrifice that we have brought to Jesus has become deluded by the deceptive pestilence of self-security. And the very fact that the phrase “praying correctly” has raised merit enough for articles to be written, is one of the most heretical ideas in evangelicalism. In prayer, I come in organic relationship to Jesus. And in this relationship I feel secure, like he has what’s best. With Jesus I feel like a kid again. Holding Jesus’ hand frees me to disclose those things that I hold so closely to my heart. I can do my dance move, I can pray “incorrectly” and he doesn’t really care. Because the cornerstone of our faith is that we did not deserve to be loved, yet he loves us anyway.
So maybe prayer is less asking/receiving, maybe it is less about words, and more about the communion and love of Jesus flooding my heart and mind reminding me, though I bring nothing of worth, to Him, I am worth everything. For in prayer, I can’t help but to match the rhythm of grace in my own life. In the very act I have no choice but to proclaim my impotence and utter destruction apart from the love and grace found in Jesus. And each time his grace rushes over me like a refreshing breeze, I’m reminded that there is no sweeter dwelling. May I never pester anyone with my “dance-move prayers”, but strictly come with the purpose of attuning myself to Jesus.
All of us have had these moments. Moments where we need to be accepted, validated, told “well-done” or “nice dance move”, because deep within all of us there is this driving need to be of importance. While this is an inseparable quality of humanity, it can truly become a mold in spirituality, festering until a perfect fusion of insecurity and arrogance has been achieved. I noticed it this morning at a prayer meeting. There were 14 of us sitting in a circle. We read a Psalm and decided to pray for an upcoming vision/planning weekend. I sat in my chair for 35 minutes while others delivered incredible orations of the unfailing grace and mercy of God. I just couldn’t seem to put the right words together, the ones that would really bring the “mmm’s” and “ah’s”, and if I was going to pray, I was going to bring the best of the best. Immediately I shrunk down to my 5 year old self again awkwardly flailing my best dance move in front of the pastoral staff at Grace Pointe.
The issue is this: there is a culture of insecure arrogance that is rotting the validation that we are given through our relationship with Jesus. We are insecure in that we are attempting to base all of our confidence in our actions, and we firmly believe that we aren’t going to be able to pray right, worship right, and love right. We are arrogant in that the very sacrifice that we have brought to Jesus has become deluded by the deceptive pestilence of self-security. And the very fact that the phrase “praying correctly” has raised merit enough for articles to be written, is one of the most heretical ideas in evangelicalism. In prayer, I come in organic relationship to Jesus. And in this relationship I feel secure, like he has what’s best. With Jesus I feel like a kid again. Holding Jesus’ hand frees me to disclose those things that I hold so closely to my heart. I can do my dance move, I can pray “incorrectly” and he doesn’t really care. Because the cornerstone of our faith is that we did not deserve to be loved, yet he loves us anyway.
So maybe prayer is less asking/receiving, maybe it is less about words, and more about the communion and love of Jesus flooding my heart and mind reminding me, though I bring nothing of worth, to Him, I am worth everything. For in prayer, I can’t help but to match the rhythm of grace in my own life. In the very act I have no choice but to proclaim my impotence and utter destruction apart from the love and grace found in Jesus. And each time his grace rushes over me like a refreshing breeze, I’m reminded that there is no sweeter dwelling. May I never pester anyone with my “dance-move prayers”, but strictly come with the purpose of attuning myself to Jesus.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A Poem
Wordless faceless souls
Crying out from the very same ground that wrecked her life of pure satisfaction
Upholding virtue, truth and morality is a far cry
From the ditches in which she finds herself digging for pleasure.
Amidst the digging,
Treasures may lie hidden
In the heaps of rubble seared by hopeless tears.
Yet to uncover requires more digging.
A solid word can’t be found
Without trickery and deception following closely behind.
“They don’t love you” I try to explain
Nonetheless sex blinds rationale
Something that may release the guilty stains and chains
Linked and dirtied by money, gossip, and so-called friends.
Yet ecstasy and bliss are mere fairy-tales
Inspired by the bruised and broken relationships that promised forever
A path exists, littered by the remnants of the crushing blows
That set her up for failure at best.
It can’t be seen
If it could, she wouldn’t follow.
Crying out from the very same ground that wrecked her life of pure satisfaction
Upholding virtue, truth and morality is a far cry
From the ditches in which she finds herself digging for pleasure.
Amidst the digging,
Treasures may lie hidden
In the heaps of rubble seared by hopeless tears.
Yet to uncover requires more digging.
A solid word can’t be found
Without trickery and deception following closely behind.
“They don’t love you” I try to explain
Nonetheless sex blinds rationale
Something that may release the guilty stains and chains
Linked and dirtied by money, gossip, and so-called friends.
Yet ecstasy and bliss are mere fairy-tales
Inspired by the bruised and broken relationships that promised forever
A path exists, littered by the remnants of the crushing blows
That set her up for failure at best.
It can’t be seen
If it could, she wouldn’t follow.
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