Category Archives: Worldview

How the world views things as opposed to how a Christian is to view them

The Present Future

Posted on by RJ

 
 I want to close out this outreach series with a review of a book by Reggie McNeal called “The Present Future – Six Tough Questions for the Church”. Actually, the book should be entitled “Six Realities that need to be overcome”. Mr. McNeal is the director of leadership development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. I want to up front admit that this is not a comfortable book to read if you are a North American practicing Christian. So I guess it is appropriate that my review of it comes out an uncomfortable day (Tax Day). I think Mr. McNeal’s purpose in writing the book is to try and shake to the core our being comfortable with how things are with the church. But if you are willing to sometimes see yourself in a not very Jesus like light you should read the book. While I do not agree with all the logic he uses to make his points, the book is worth reading because there are valid issues raised by his list. Here are the six realities that he presents:

  1. The Collapse of the Church Culture
  2. The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth
  3. The New Reformation: Releasing God’s People
  4. The Return to Spiritual Formation
  5. The Shift from Planning to Preparation
  6. The Rise of Apostolic Leadership

I will spend the next couple of post going through some of this list. Let’s do the first one now.

The Collapse of the Church Culture
This Chapter starts off with the following statement:

 “The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a pervious world order. The plug will be pulled either when the money runs out (80 percent of money given to congregations come from people aged fifty-five and older) or when the remaining three-fourths of a generation who are institutional loyalists die off or both.”
  These are indeed pretty blunt statements. But I think, if we really face it there is an agonizing ring to these words. He goes on to say that he is talking about the church culture, not the death of the church that Jesus founded. The church established by Jesus will indeed be there when he returns. What he is really talking about what he calls the unique culture in North America that has come to be called the “church”. He goes into quite a bit of statistics to show the above point. I will not cover those as some are the same as I have given in previous posts.

In solution to this diminishing attendance in church he goes on to say that the wrong question is: How do we do Church better? He basically makes the argument that when a church get larger the pastor, or pastors, have to spend so much time on non-spiritual matters that the true meaning of being a disciple of Jesus Christ is lost in the process. Many American congregations are more fixated on growing their “church”.

Here is another striking quote from the book. “Church leaders seem unable to grasp this simple implication of the new world — people outside of the church think church is for church people, not for them. We may have saturated the market of people who want to be part of the church culture, who want church the was we do it in North America.”

The basic point I think he is trying to make is that many churches in this country have lost the reason why they are supposed to exist. The missional fix as he calls it is as follows:

The appropriate response to the emerging world is rebooting of the mission, a radical obedience to an ancient command, a loss of self rather than self preoccupation, concern about service and sacrifice rather than about style.
 While I don’t agree with everything here I do believe that the “church” is too fixated on their traditions and current practices instead of the service and sacrifice that Jesus clearly show us. Jesus truly had the service mentality. We need to get back to some of the practices of the early church. That is taking stands that are not very comfortable to our current members and totally uncomfortable to the current cultural trends of  today’s world.

Jubilee

Posted on by RJ

With tomorrow being the beginning of yet another year I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little about the concept of Jubilee. Here is some info about Jubilee from Wikipedia.

a Jubilee year is mentioned to occur every fifty years, in which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.

Jubilee was an ancient Jewish tradition. It mainly mentioned in the Old Testament in Leviticus but Jesus referred to it as the year of the Lord’s favor in Luke 4

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jubilee is generally a very foreign concept in a capitalistic country such as ours but it was practiced often by the early Christians. Giving back is just not a part of capitalistic mentality. There are Christian organizations today that say we should celebrate Jubilee by cancelling the debt of poor nations. I tend to agree with them. It’s not always about money. Remember the old saying “it is better to give than to receive”; we all need to take that concept to heart.

Service Mentality

Posted on by RJ

 

jesus3

Matt 20:26-27

Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave

Jesus certainly had the service mentality. The ultimate service was for him to take human form and come to earth for us. He showed service mentality numerous times throughout the gospels. The apostles did not understand this. But, I think maybe when he insisted on washing their feet they finally “got it” or at least a little of it. Of course a central aspect of service is humility. We Christians should never think more highly of ourselves than others around us. We are all sinners and worthy of God’s wrath. It’s just a matter of degree. God is perfect and demands perfection of us. Of course none of us will ever get to that state but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try to do good while we are here.

I personally believe that a service mentality is at the very core of Christian belief. Another name for service is works. Here is what Martin Luther said about that in his preface to the book of Romans.

This it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from the fire.

The Pope’s Christmas Message

Posted on by RJ

On this blog and in my life I try to learn the Lord’s message wherever I can find it. I am just not one to cling to one particular denominational line of thought. I found some inspiring words from Pop Benedicts Christmas message yesterday.

He said “wherever an increasingly uncertain future is regarded with apprehension, even in affluent nations.”

“In each of these places may the light of Christmas shine forth and encourage all people to do their part in a spirit of authentic solidarity,” “If people look only to their own interests, our world will certainly fall apart.”

About the only thing we have been hearing lately, besides President-elect Obama, is how bad the US and world economies are becoming. There just doesn’t seem to be much hope for the immediate future. Because of that people are withdrawing into themselves. At a result things are getting dire in much of the less affluent nations and even among charitable organization in the United States. In his message the Pope tells us we cannot just look at our own selfish interests but we have to, especially in these times, constantly be aware of “the least of these”. Christ spent so much of his time with the less fortunate in the land. We need to remember to follow his example not only during the Christmas season but throughout the year.

Be Content

Posted on by RJ

Today I am going to divert from the red letters to talk a little about St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Being content this is something we Americans never seem to be able to do! Being content means not worrying whether our neighbor has a newer car than you, or …

These words were spoken by St Paul while he was imprisoned in Rome. This is kind of an unusual letter as Paul’s letter seem to go. He basically just wrote it to thank the Philippians for a gift. But it does show us some more about what he considers good Christian living.

Phil 4:12-13

I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

I have the ‘content’ thing down a little better than when I was younger but still have quite a ways to go to reach St. Paul’s definition. It seems that the more you have the more you want and that isn’t contentment. Paul goes on to tell the Philippians to do everything without complaining or arguing. We could certainly use that advice in today’s world. There just seems to be so much bitterness and discontent out there lately.

Do What I Say

Posted on by RJ

Matt 7:24-27

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

These are some among the verses I label “Do what I Say”. There are a lot of them spread out among the Gospel text. I will be covering many of them in future blogs. It seems pretty clear that Jesus is saying if you do not at least try to do what I say then you are a foolish person who has built your salvation on a very weak foundation. All of these words fly in the face of some Christians today who say that Jesus only requires us to say the words that he is Lord and Savior; nothing else. To me this is akin to buying a fire insurance policy that you put on the shelf and pull out only when you need it. I don’t think Jesus is going to redeem those policies on the last day but, of course, I could be wrong. Some say that even saying the words can only happen if God allows it? That is the Calvinist critique. I’ll save that for another day. To sum this up I think that Jesus really does mean for us to do what he says. If that is not the case then much of what he said is wasted.

Whose Got it Right ??

Posted on by RJ

subtitle: [33,000 Christian Demoninations]

Here are our red letters for today.
John 17:20-21
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

 Jesus told us that through unity, we would affect believers outside the faith by showing them the mission of Christ. He wanted us to stay in the faith as one group united together. Here we are 2000+ years later and have we listened to his words? Of course the answer is NO!! Christians are currently fractioned into about 33,000 different denominations! The primary cause of this division is doctrinal and Scripture disagreements. We just can’t seem to agree on what the Bible is supposed to be telling us. I’m sure each of the 33,000 groups is proclaiming to be the champion of the true words of the Bible. Most of us have an easy time agreeing on the authority of Scripture, but interpreting it has been a very different story.

Why not put scripture in context and study how the early church interpreted the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles? Who has a better understanding of the Gospel, the man in 2008 interpreting it for himself from a copy of a copy of a copy of the original text or the people who actually learned it at the feet of Jesus or the Apostles? By studying the history of the early Church, we can come to a better understanding of what those first generations of Christians actually believed. To me it seems almost ludicrous to think that our detached Sola Scriptura interpretation is more reliable than their theology and praxis. But, there are in fact many denominations who believe exactly that.

Eusebius was an early Christian historian. Many say he was the first. Eusebius’ historical account attests, as late as the 4th century that the Church was still arguing about which books constituted the New Testament. The New Testament was not the rule of Faith for the early Christians since a New Testament as such didn’t exist at that time and even if it did people were for the most part illiterate so they couldn’t read it even if they had gotten their hands on a very expensive copy. Instead, church teachings were passed down from generation to generation and kept pure by a clerical hierarchy. The undisputed historical record of what that early Church believed should be a more authoritative measure of the Faith than any modern interpretation based on Scripture alone? This is why traditional, historical Christianity has always wisely accounted Scripture and Tradition as two expressions (written and oral) of the same Gospel.

Many today agree that you must put all verses of the Bible in the context of which they were written. You can’t isolate a particular phrase or rule from the teachings around it. But, many of these same people then refuse to look at early church history to more thoroughly understand the words of Scripture but instead insist that the Bible alone is all they need. They do not take into account the church history or culture at the time to understand the underlying meanings of the New Testament text.

Unfortunately, it looks impossible for all of us Christians to ever be one as Christ instructed us. That is until the second coming. At that time I’m sure we will all be shown the errors of our ways. In the mean time let’s all try to be a little more tolerant of our fellow Christians understanding of scripture. Yes, there are absolute principles on which Christianity has to be based but most of our disagreements seem to do with the decoration of our Christian house not its foundation.

Jesus was Anti-Stuff

Posted on by RJ

 Ok this maybe anti-American but Jesus was definitely anti-stuff.  When Jesus sent out his disciples to spread the Word he told them to take nothing with them. They weren’t even allow to take and extra pair of sandals for their long walk and they did a lot of walking in those days! And then remember the rich man who approached Jesus to learn how to get to heaven. That ended up with Jesus telling him to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus and his ragtag team.  Of course the rich man, as most of us today, could not even conceive of doing that. He just went away rejected.

We, especially in the United States, are totally addicted to our “stuff”. Of course being a capitalist country  our whole economy depends on all of us buying more and more “stuff” each year. It’s not good enough to just buy the same amount as we bought last year; we have to always buy more ;) .  If we fill our house with “stuff” then there is always the garage.  If even the garage is full then how about off-site storage which is one of the few remaining growth industries. Or now we can even have our storage unit brought to us for filling up (PODS).  If we run out of money to buy our “stuff” there is always another credit card offer in the mail. Let’s face it buying “stuff” is a vicious cycle that is difficult to break

Getting back to the rich man as mentioned above, many Christians now rationalize that to be just a story and not what Jesus really intendeds for us to do.  From my studies of early Christianity that was definitely not the case with them. For at least the first few hundred years many, if not most, affluent people really did sell everything when they started following Jesus. I’m not sure exactly when this practice fell out of the favor but I expect it was around the time that Constantine made Christianity a State religion.  I think we need to give up some “stuff” and then revisit the practice of giving to the less fortunate than us? But of course we could never go all the way as Jesus mentioned. The apostle John made the following statement in 1John. ” This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence “. Let’s put these word in today’s lingo or at least what I perceive it to be. John says you have to back what you say with actions or the words are meaningless. To me John is flatly saying that if you have faith in Jesus then you WILL do these things. That gets us into a much deeper subject of “works vs. faith” which I will tackle in a future postings. For now, let’s buy less “stuff” and help our less fortunate brothers a little more.