Church

Posted on | December 12, 2011 | No Comments

It’s been a while since I had anything to say or anytime to say it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m not even sure I have anything to say now. A lot of things have changed since I last posted here or there or anywhere (0ther than Facebook) for that matter. I’m not even sure I remember how to do this blogging thing.

Many things have changed since I last posted here or there or anywhere. I have had a lot of time to think about a lot of things and I hope to explore some of it as I slowly begin to work my way back into writing about things like church and people like Jesus and books like the Bible. In some ways many of my thoughts on such matters haven’t changed a bit, but in other ways my thoughts, and perhaps more importantly, my actions, have changed drastically. There might be time to share thoughts on such matters later.

One thing that I hope to write about is how the Episcopal Church confiscated the building and property of the congregation we have worshiped with for the last nearly 3 years. They did so after a rather lengthy court battle which saw a judge scarcely even hear the argument before deciding against us and for them. (I hate using ‘us’ and ‘them’. It sounds so archaic and anti-everything Jesus came for.) They did so because we decided that the Episcopal Church is theologically wrong on certain issues. (They believe we are wrong too; a judge agreed with them.) Unfortunately, ‘they’ have more money than we do.

Another thing I hope to write about is my evolving relationship with Jesus–yes, that Jesus, the one who has been particularly and conspicuously quiet in my life for a while now. And yet, too, periodically, he has made such loud statements in the life of my family that I have had to run for cover for fear that it might be an archangel blasting his trumpet announcing the end of days. I still love Jesus, but it’s a different kind of love we have now. I’m not even sure I have words for whatever it has become.

Still further, I might tell you about my former church which has, for all intents and purposes, lost its identity. I amazed that so many of those who were confident the Lord had told them to remove me from the pulpit have, now, themselves, left the church. It’s a very strange irony and one that perplexes me greatly. There are a lot of things that perplex me these days not least of which is what it really means to be a christian and what it really means to belong to the church.

Church is a strange thing, a strange creature. It has been a funny thing doing church from the other side of the pulpit. If my relationship with Jesus has evolved, my relationship with the church has gone through two or three evolutionary cycles as my wife and I have tried to come to grips with the fact that we are, for all intents and purposes, orphans. (We love the Anglican church we worship with, but we also know that we are passing through there for a little while and that we really miss ‘our’ church.)

One thing I do know is this: when I start writing again on a more regular basis, I will be writing as someone who has embraced a career outside of the church. I will also be writing as someone who has been crushed by the church, hurt in ways that I wish I couldn’t describe, abandoned by a denomination that had little use for me and my family. My relationship with the church has changed drastically. This might be a good thing; it might be a bad thing. I’m not sure what sort of thing it is. All I know, at this point in my life, is that I’d like to think I am a gracious enough person to forgive the church and embrace the church, but I realize, truthfully, that the bottom line is that I am more blessed that the church continues to forgive and embrace me.

It seems to me that is what makes a church church.

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Category: grace
Tags: church > forgiveness

On Hiatus

Posted on | October 8, 2011 | No Comments

Friends,

I apologize for the lack of posts these past couple of months. I am currently fully engaged in my student teaching experience, comprehensive exam preparation, and other duties at home and with family. I hope to be back to full time blogging sometime in November or December. In the meantime, enjoy some of the posts I have written in the past. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

jerry

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Category: grace

August 22 Mind Dump: My Boring Faith

Posted on | August 22, 2011 | No Comments

I’ve been struggling through George Barna’s latest book Futurecast (review forthcoming). You know how Barna writes: a bunch of research, a bunch of analysis, and a little bit of ‘here’s what we need to get doing as the church’ or, as in the case with this current book, ‘what are you gonna do in your own life?’ That is probably not fair.

Earlier this year I was required to take a class on Educational research. I hated it. It cost me my 4.0 GPA (I got an A- by 2 points). Barna’s book is not making much of an impression on me either.That could be, however, because I simply hate reading about trends, statistics, and such stuff.

Frankly, I don’t think what he writes changes much from book to book. Culture shifts; opinions vary. We have to learn how to adapt. Barna places a great deal of emphasis upon the individual at the end of the book. Maybe he’s right. Or, maybe, he should think more about how these changes occur when we are a body.

All that said, even Barna is worth the read. See, when I read books I mine them. That is, I look for stuff I can use, thoughts that provoke me, ideas that challenge me, and insights that move me. I may not like the particular style or genre of a book but it is a very rare occasion when I will start a book and not finish it: every book has at least one thought I need to read and it is my job to mine the book until I find it.

I didn’t find it until the end of Futurecast where Barna wrote: “A vital connection with God cannot happen in an hour a week in a religious environment; it must be a 24-7 engagement in which you are surrendered to Him. It is a relationship you cannot control and should not want to control; why not let your all-powerful, omniscient, loving Father guide your ways? What better alternative could there possible be?” (221)

I’m not entirely sure I understand the full import of what he means here, but what I will say is that he is correct about at least one thing: the vital connection with God is not something we can do once per week for a mere hour or so. And it shouldn’t be. He also wrote this:

“Having recently completed six years of research on the question of how God transforms us, I can tell you that genuine transformation is about love God and people with everything you have. To reach that state, you must be permanently changed. First, you have to be broken by God–broken over your sins against Him, over your focus on self, and over your reliance on society for your cues and marching orders. And it gets tougher once you are shattered by what you’ve done and who you’ve become. At that point, you have to surrender the fullness of your life to God and submit yourself to His will. That’s a searing process: being humbled by your bad choices, getting over yourself, recognizing the holiness of your creator Father, accepting His forgiveness and love, and returning that love by throwing out your own plans and expectations and completely adopting His. Only then can you truly love God and others. Without this kind of inner transformation, you’ll choose to love yourself more than Him. When push comes to shove and difficult choices have to be made, you’ll opt for those things that advance you rather than God. Brokenness, surrender, submission, and deep love–those are the ‘big four’ that most of us ignore in our lives to our own detriment and that of the people we’ve been placed on earth to love and serve”–George Barna, Futurecast, 222-223

_______________

My faith is boring. I spent the last several months struggling with thoughts of what my faith even was anymore now I am in a place where my faith is just boring. I’m not doing anything of use for the kingdom. I’m a lump. I’m like a rock in the shoe of Jesus or a broken strap on his sandal. I can’t figure out why he tolerates such an annoyance.

________________

I really enjoyed the book by Christopher Morse called The Difference Heaven Makes. At first I thought the ending of the book was sort of anti-climactic. Then I reread it and was stimulated to joy: “…a Sabbath is being prepared for us where a healing of our own withered hands, unable to grasp the glory of heaven’s reality, signals the one thing coming that makes all the difference in the world” (122). My hands hurt, but dare I believe there is some healing taking place that I’m not fully cognizant of just now?

I think heaven does make a difference now and then. What about that Sabbath being prepared for us?

________________

“And it all comes down to you.”–Stevie Nicks.

It’s amazing that the more I read the lyrics to songs written by the members of Fleetwood Mac the more I hear echoes of Scripture….

________________

I should have pursued my childhood dream of being a writer. I sort of think that the longer I live the more I will be convinced of an utterly wasted life because I gave up on that dream too soon, too quickly, too often.

I miss the church. I miss being a part of a church family. We have a church we worship with on Sundays, but sometimes I wish for more closeness. I’ve been thinking about the church a lot lately too…maybe I’ve been too hard on the church. Maybe the church of reality is the church Christ loves and not the church of my dreams–or even his own.

I thought for a while it was preaching that I missed. I do miss it, yes. But I have also realized that what I miss even more than preaching is family. The church I served for nearly ten years was my family, my safety, my life. What I realize is that I have trouble relating to the the Christianity of the pew. Christianity of the pulpit is, as I have said elsewhere, different.

I’m starting to feel like Jesus is a stranger and I have no one to to break the ice and introduce us all over again for the first time. How is that problem solved?

_________________

That’s all for now. This journey, this strange trek I have been forced to take is at yet another strange crossroads. I have to press on even though there is a significant part of me that threatens to rebel and bail out of the experiment. I have to press on even though there is fear and trepidation. I have to press on so that I can see what happens next. I have to press on because “Jesus holds the words of eternal life.”

And as yet I cannot think of, nor has anyone shown me, a better alternative.

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Vacation Haiku

Posted on | August 19, 2011 | No Comments

I think I need a vacation from vacation. I am so tired.

I haven’t been writing much, but I have a couple of Haiku that I jotted down.

Driving down the road

At night, rain and fog close in;

Clearly time for rest.

At the point where I wrote this, we were about to leave Virginia and enter North Carolina. It was dark, the fog was as thick as butter, and it was starting to rain. It was also about 2 in the morning. We drove for another hour and a half.

Waves pull sand from the

Beach like sheets on my bed pull

Me into darkness.

Sleep comes easily on vacation and the days roll by quickly as waves storming the beach and quickly retreating. I wrote this one (above) after a long day of swimming. One more.

North Carolina

Wal-Mart greets us like the sun.

Our day has begun.

Nothing like ruining a good vacation by having to stop at Wal-Mart first thing in the morning after driving all night and sleeping a mere 5 hours. We were in Mount Airy, North Carolina, home of Andy Griffith (or something like that) and all we got to see was the inside of a Microtel (where a woman berated the desk clerk that morning) and Wal-Mart (where we bought some shoes and a new hat).

Is there any place in the United States where we can go and not have to see a Wal-Mart?

Thank God for vacations. I haven’t been inside a Wal-Mart for 6 days.

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Category: poetry
Tags: beach > Haiku > poetry > vacation > Wal-Mart > waves

Book Review: Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley

Posted on | August 19, 2011 | No Comments

“Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart”(Psalm 37)

If you do a quick search of the word ‘heart’ at Biblegateway.com you will see that in the NIV the word heart appears well over 700 times. I don’t know that this has anything in particular to do with this book by Andy Stanley, but it is a fun bit of trivia you can astound your friends with at dinner parties. I also thought I would begin this review with an illustration that is only tangentially related to the review–kind of the way the book began with an illustration only tangentially related to the book.

We live in a culture suffused with debt so Andy Stanley, being the wise pastor that he is, speaks to his readers in a language that we can perfectly understand: the greatest enemy of our hearts is debt: “Guilt, anger, greed, jealous–each results in a debt-to-debtor dynamic that always causes an imbalance in any relationship. If you owe someone money, or vice versa, you know this to be the case. No matter what else is going on at the moment, the debt is always in the room with you” (48).

So these four ‘foes’ (as Stanley calls them) are ‘fueled by [this] single dynamic’: debt. This is a powerful metaphor that I am certain most humans in the United States can relate to. It is unfortunate that this is so, but it is true nonetheless.

I want to recommend this book. It’s not a deep book, so you shouldn’t go into the reading expecting a mountaintop theological exposition of the 700+ references to the heart. You should expect the kind of mid-level depth expected from the publishing industry in the United States. I imagine at one point or another this was a sermon series that Stanley buffed up, polished, edited and wrapped into a package we call a book. Not a bad idea, but that is the sort of depth you will get.

I’m not saying that is a bad idea either although when I read books like this I am reminded of the admonishing statement from Hebrews: “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!” (Hebrews 5:12) Again, this is not a criticism, but the truth. Several times while reading the book I was confronted with hard truths about myself. My least favorite chapter was the chapter on jealousy because I have realized for a long time my own propensity towards envy and jealousy. I have realized what Stanley puts into clear, easy to digest English: “As long as jealousy rages unchecked, no relationship you have is safe” (81). There’s no need to submit this for peer review: it is true.

The first section of the book was kind of slow. As you might expect, there were the to be expected illustrations and metaphors about the physical heart, heart disease, broken hearts and all such tired thoughts. There were also the triumph tales of people who got fixed after having some Jesus-experience (or North Point experience, whichever you choose). I think the best part of the book is found between pages 45 and 181. I didn’t care for the short four chapter introduction and I found the short 2 chapter conclusion and epilogue to be extraneous. I didn’t bother with the study guide although I am sure it will be helpful to some.

It also appears that this book is a re-release of Stanley’s previously written It Came from Within which I have not read and thus have no means of comparison.

A couple of final points. First, I very much like Stanley’s idea of habit forming. This meshes nicely with some of the thoughts NT Wright put down in his book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. Habit forming is important especially if it is new habits we need to form. He write: “…the solution is a habit…a habit that has the power to free our greed-ridden hearts” (146). He expands later: “When discussing guilt, we said the antidote was to exercise confession. The habit that overcomes anger is forgiveness. Greed is overcome by generous giving. That habit that will enable you to strengthen your heart against jealousy is celebration” (176, his emphasis). It is important to recognize how deeply ingrained are the ‘foes’ and how important it is, and time consuming, to forge new habits that will eradicate those things which sabotage and destroy relationships in our lives and in his church.

Second, I am a little uncertain about Stanley’s idea that we do not necessarily have to tell a person we have forgiven that we have forgiven them: “Often I’m asked if it’s necessary to tell the person you’ve forgiven that you have, in fact, forgiven them. In my opinion, no” (134). I think there needs to be more discussion here. Stanley is not the first person I have heard (read) say this, but I’m not sure how we can do such thing unless we do speak to a person face to face. Again, I think more discussion here is required. Yet I am drawn into his thought: “But in a world where neglect, insensitivity, and injustice are the norm rather than the exception, forgiveness must become a habit in our lives” (137)

Forgiveness is no small thing we have to learn to do in the church and as Christians. Stanley appropriately gives us room to think on this subject before putting all his cards on the table: “You simply make up your mind to cancel the debt” (138). This is the most terrifyingly simple and complex and devastating and freeing advice ever: You don’t owe me. In a nation, in a world, submerged and drowning in debt as we are, this is revolutionary advice. And, to be sure, it is the theological lesson we are to learn from the piles of debt, financial and emotional, that deluge our lives.

It took me about 3 total hours to read this book, but it can probably be read in a shorter amount of time. I give this book 4.5/5 stars. Good read.

North Point Community Church

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* To comply with new regulations introduced by the Federal Trade Commission, please mention as part of every review that Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers has provided you with a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes. For example, “I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”.

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Category: Book Review, discipleship
Tags: Andy Stanley > anger > Book Review > canceling debt > celebration > debt > Enemies of the Heart > forgiveness > greed > guilt > jealousy

What Does Jesus Think of Us? (Mark 1-6)

Posted on | August 6, 2011 | 2 Comments

The following is the sermon text for the sermon I will preach on Sunday, August 7, 2011 at the East Palestine First Church of Christ. As with all of my sermons, this is what I think I will say. What actually happens when I get to the pulpit is another story altogether. The sermon idea is from Mark 1-6. The lead text is sort of the middle of Mark 3 and the three main ideas are: 1) Jesus is the King who came to bind the strongman and plunder his house, 2) there were varying degrees of response by disciples and others to the work Jesus did binding the strongman and there were will be varying degrees of response to us who continue his binding work, and 3) Jesus also has a response to us and his response is directly linked to our faith.

What Jesus Thinks of Us

“In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach.” (Acts 1:1)

I have been unemployed since April 14. Before that, I worked in a video store for nearly a year and a half. Since April 14, I have had a lot of time on my hands to do things like write sermons, blog, finish school, and watch movies. I have seen more movies in the last two years than probably the last ten combined. I used to not like going to the theater so much, but lately I have begun to enjoy going and seeing a movie on the big screen.

So this summer I have seen Super 8 and Transformers at the theater among others. The other day I watched Battle: Los Angeles and the newer version of The Day the Earth Stood Still. What I want to know is this: why is it every time an alien comes to our planet in the movies we humans feel like the first thing we have to do is destroy it? Why is it that the first thing mobilized in such movies is the military and the politicians?

We don’t like when aliens come into our world and disrupt our way of doing and being—when they challenge the status quo or offer us their thoughts on whether or not we should continue living or being or doing things the way we do them…

So Jesus comes to earth. The ultimate alien. And see what was done….we’ll get there in a moment or two…

______________________

The challenge we have as the people of God who live under the peculiar reign of the Risen Lord Jesus is to find a way to live faithfully within the tension of an idea that a) we have a king, ascended to the right hand of God who has been given all authority in heaven and earth—even one who has triumphed over death through resurrection and has established an alternate empire right here on earth, right now that stands in direct and stark opposition to the things of this planet that are passing away and, b) the rampant hubris of the rulers of this place who have been, in Paul’s words, disarmed and made a public spectacle of in the cross of Jesus, whose final weapon, death, has been undone and obliterated.

I heard a preacher say that the tyrants of this world hate resurrection because they do not want Jesus to rule over them.

How many of you believe Jesus is Lord and confess it so? Jesus calls into question all other lordships and empires. If Jesus is King, then Caesar is not. If Jesus is Lord, then no one else is. We live in that tension every day. At least I hope there is tension in your life and that your loyalties are constantly challenged.

Well, I should say this is one of the challenges, but it is a major challenge we face day in and day out in this world. Perhaps a greater challenge is believing what we have been taught: that we are kingdom people; that we, Paul wrote in Ephesians, have been raised up with Christ Jesus and seated us with him in the heavenlies—did you know that eternal life has already begun in Jesus?; that we are called to be a kingdom and priesthood—and that God has not called anyone else to be his priests; that we are a peculiar people who follow a peculiar prophet who is also King; that heaven—no matter how impressive in our imaginations—is not our ultimate goal or reward, but Jesus is. And so on and so forth.

But back to my point, perhaps we Christian folk are not too quick to recognize that, again as Paul wrote in Corinthians, the form of this world is passing away. Jesus has been crowned King. He sat down at the Father’s right hand—signifying the completion of his work. All authority belongs to Jesus. Jesus is Lord. And when the church we read about in the book of Acts went out, they did so in the power of the Spirit proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus—and kings quivered in their boots, and Herod died on the spot, and the apostles suffered for their faith, and the church did radical things because they believed in the resurrected Jesus. They believed the future had come forward to kiss the present—they believed they were already alive! And so they went forth in the power of the Spirit, in Jesus’ Name, proclaiming in him the Resurrection of the dead.

Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. Consider the ramifications of praying such a thing.

So, Mark’s Gospel. Let’s read a section in from chapter 3, then work backward to chapter 1 and 2 and finish up in chapters 4, 5, and 6.

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his familyheard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.” So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.” Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

This short story is indicative of two motifs that are prevalent in Mark’s Gospel. On the one hand, we hear about the mission of Jesus: “No one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.” Jesus came to tie up the strong man, to bind him, to render him powerless, to set free those who live in fear of death, to set free those captives who walk in the way of the prince of the air, to heal the sick, the open the ears of the deaf, to raise the dead!

And are we not evidence that Jesus raises the dead?

Jesus announced this in chapter 1: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” With the coming of this new kingdom, Jesus was announcing a reclamation project, he was giving advance notice to the landlord that his time was up, he was announcing that the kingdom run by the devil and his angels was being undone and that a new kingdom was breaking in. Christopher Morse wrote a wonderful book he called The Difference Heaven Makes. In that book he speaks to this very issue:

Most especially is this overarching by heaven heard to be the case with respect to the lack of parity in the Gospel message between heaven and hell. While Scriptural references to heaven and earth tell of a creation in which earth is under heaven, even more so they tell of a redemption in which hell is rendered powerless before the keys of the coming kingdom of heaven. (36)

Oh, I love that idea. It’s what Jesus said:

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will bebound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will beloosed in heaven.”

Do you know, Church, that when you go on the offensive, when you stand up to the gates of hell, when you carry light into dark places, when you go forth in the name of Jesus and carry Justice, righteousness, healing, and the Word of Good News—when you do the devils shake, the rulers of this earth flee, and the enemies of God will cower—and the Kingdom of God will slowly, gradually, without you even seeing it happen begin to cover the earth. And one writer reminded us, “Jesus wants to save our church from thinking that the priests are somebody else.” (178)

The enemy has nothing with which to combat the church that goes forth in the name of Jesus.

__________________

There is a second very important thing happening in these verses too—well, to be sure, this second thing happening is found all throughout Mark’s Gospel, but we are limiting ourselves to the first six chapters or so. And, sadly, we are not able to expand on this nearly as much as I would like.

But let’s take a quick trip through Mark because what I want you to see is that there are all sorts of things Jesus is doing in the process of binding up the strongman and preparing to plunder his house. We won’t have time to see them all, but a few. So,

Mark 1:27: What is this? A new teaching, and with authority? He gives orders and evil spirits obey him!
1:33: The whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had various diseases…and drove out demons…
Mark 2:7: Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?
Mark 2:16: Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?
3:6: Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
4:41: They were terrified and asked one another, “Who is this? Even the wind and waves obey him!”
5:40: But they all laughed at him.
6:3: And they took offense at him.

Jesus couldn’t step to the left or the right without someone laughing or getting offended or being afraid or criticizing. I suppose that is the way it is too. We saw that even Jesus’ family thought he was losing his mind and they needed to take charge of him.

If you read through the book of Acts you see the same phenomenon. Everything the church did was brought under scrutiny: Oh, they’ve had too much to drink; this group isn’t getting a fair share of food; your great learning has caused you to lose your mind; you cannot preach in the name of Jesus; threats of violence; mocking; ridicule. It’s all there.

The church is often treated just the same as Jesus. Peter wrote,

“Don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4).

But this wasn’t all that happened. Yes, the people for the most part missed what was happening, missed what was going on…but Jesus also paid attention. And here we begin to bring our lesson to its conclusion.

______________________

Mark 6. Jesus had been doing this and doing that. Driving out demons. Plundering the strong man’s house. Healing the sick. Raising the dead. Driving out legions of demons. Calming storms. Preaching about the Kingdom of God:

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

This is kingdom talk. Jesus then goes to his hometown to preach, to heal. Mark says they were ‘amazed.’ But then he says, ‘they took offense at him.’ Jesus had some thoughts too and Mark says, “He could not do any miracles there, except to lay his hands on a few people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

He was amazed.

It appears that Jesus cannot, will not, do anything when there is no faith. If Jesus continues to do and teach on this earth, through the church, then what can he do with a faithless church: “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10-11).

But how can the church, devoid of faith–handing over all priestly responsibility to the very powers and authorities Jesus conquered at the cross–proclaim anything? Are we not already defeated? Is the Church triumphant already laid low?

I’m not being negative. I’m merely pointing out that the church has trouble loving one another so how can we possibly love those who are not of us? How can the church proclaim the mystery (“this mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 3:6) when we ourselves are fractured into a million different varieties each claiming theological dominance and orthodoxy? How can the church be the body of Christ in this world when we are too often conceding the work of Christ to others?

We think lots of things about Jesus…too quiet, not miraculous enough, strange in his ways…what does he think of us? Does he look at us and wonder in amazement at our lack of faith?

When Jesus looks at us, the church, what does he see? What does he think? Is he amazed at our lack of faith? Will he find faith on the earth when he returns? What is the future of the fractured church? Is it too late for Jesus to heal us and make us one?

I will close with a thought from NT Wright who has written and said much about this idea that Jesus is the Lord and that the church is sort of an advance sign of Jesus’ rule, an advance sign of the Kingdom Jesus inaugurated. In his book After You Believe he wrote,

Royal priests are, in short, to work at revealing the glory of God to the world. That is the task of the renewed Temple. But if, as in John’s gospel, the glory of God is revealed when Jesus of Nazareth goes to the cross as the supreme act of Love, then we should expect that God’s glory will be reflected out into the world when Jesus’ followers learn the habits of mind, heart, and life that imitate the generous love of Jesus and thus bring new order, beauty, and freedom to the world.

We are given…the promise that the earth shall be full of the knowledge and glory of God, as the waters cover the sea; we are given the resurrection of Jesus to be the start of that project; and we are given the Holy Spirit to enable us to anticipate the former by implementing the latter. To begin on those tasks does not mean we know it all and can see exactly what needs doing. It means that we are committed to taking the difficult first steps towards acquiring the corporate habits that will be justice-generating, beauty-producing, and freedom-enhancing, and to continuing the many-sided debates as to what exactly those phrases will mean. And, once again, every follower of Jesus will have his or her own unique and interestingly different vocation within this complex overall project.

The task of being God’s royal priesthood in the present, then, is all about worship and mission—

It is about churches, themselves poor and living among the poor, working out from day to day what it means to call Jesus Lord and to make that Lordship a living reality in our wider communities. (234-235)

So, First Church of Christ, East Palestine, when Jesus looks at you, what does he see?

Does he see a people of faith committed to his lordship in all the world?

Or is he amazed at your lack of faith?

This is the question every church must answer, every day.

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Category: church, discipleship, Jesus, Kingdom of God, sermon
Tags: After You Believe > binding the strongman > faith > Jesus > Jesus is Lord > Kingdom of God > Mark 1 > Mark 2 > Mark 3 > Mark 4 > Mark 5 > Mark 6 > Mark's Gospel > NT Wright > sermon text

Are we Waiting on Jesus or is He Waiting on us?

Posted on | August 5, 2011 | No Comments

“Jesus wants to save our church from thinking that the priests are somebody else.” (Jesus Wants to Save Christians, 178)

So what stops us? Why do we fail? What are we waiting for? Are we waiting on Jesus or is he waiting on us? The church has given back too much ground that was won in previous generations. When will the church step out of itself and into Jesus? When will we become what we were born to be?

“He was amazed at their lack of faith.”–Mark 6:6

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Category: church
Tags: church > church failure > faith > future of the church > Gospel > Jesus > mystery of the gospel > proclamation

Eugene Peterson on Predestination

Posted on | August 4, 2011 | No Comments

“The blueprint version of predestination wreaks havoc in too many lives. It is not a satisfactory formula for growing up in Christ.”-Eugene Peterson

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Category: quote
Tags: Ephesians > Eugene Peterson > predestination

NT Wright on Church

Posted on | August 3, 2011 | No Comments

Once again, I am overwhelmed by something I heard NT Wright say:

We need to think through the cultural and sociological roots of what we are doing lest we suppose ourselves to be advancing the Gospel and instead merely turn the church into a sub-branch of a different part of the world.”

Yes, because all too often we are doing exactly that without any real consideration as to who Jesus is and what he has done.

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Category: church, NT Wright, quote
Tags: church > NT Wright

Things to do During Ramadan

Posted on | August 2, 2011 | 2 Comments

I found an interesting article at Biblegateway.com this evening that had some helpful (or, as the case may be, not helpful) suggestions for things Christians can do during the Islamic period of Ramadan. (Read: Desperately trying to make a Christian connection to my Muslim neighbors during Ramadan.)

The article suggests four things: Praying, reading about fasting, learning about Islam, and meeting Muslims in your community. The article concludes:

Ramadan is an excellent opportunity both to learn more about Islam and to show, through our prayers, words, and actions, that we love our Muslim neighbors and want them to know the peace of Jesus Christ.

This is a nice article. I’d like to suggest some other things Christians can do as well:

Get up each day and go to work.

Go to church on Sunday.

Live in celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus.

Live in the victory of Jesus over sin, death, and violence.

Pray for peace.

Love your wife or husband and children.

Watch a really good movie.

Read a really good book.

I’m not trying to be funny. I lost my sense of humor about two years ago. What I am trying to say is that Christians for the most part should not feel compelled to do anything particularly different or special with their lives during this period of time. If they (Christians) are only doing such things during Ramadan, then it will be ultimately hypocritical to start (only) doing such things during Ramadan.

While we are at it, why don’t we also spend time learning what it is like for women to live in Islamic cultures? Why don’t we spend time learning what it is like to for a Muslim to convert to Christianity? Why don’t we learn about the Haj?

I’m not criticizing Muslims. Celebrate away, my friends. But I am laughing at the notion that the best thing we (Christians) can do during Ramadan is learn about Islam, read about fasting, and meet with our Muslim neighbors. It just struck me as odd at the way some people write articles just because they can. Let’s think of the vaguest, most generic ideas we can, slap them together, publish them online and get as many likes as we can on Facebook. Seriously. Is the best we have to offer, as Christians, that we read about fasting while the Muslims actually practice it for 40 days? Seriously?

That’s just my opinion, which matters very little in this world.

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Category: opinion
Tags: Christianity > christians > Islam > Muslim > Ramadan

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Futurecast: What Today’s Trends Mean for Tomorrow’s World by George Barna
In Too Deep (The 39 Clues, Book 6) by Jude Watson

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The Sword Thief (The 39 Clues, No. 3) by Peter Lerangis
Beyond the Grave (The 39 Clues, Book 4) by Jude Watson
Difference Heaven Makes: Rehearing the Gospel As News by Christopher Morse
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Prophets, Priests and Poets

Human Trafficking & Slavery January 18, 2012
Slavery is nothing new. Check out this blog post by Michael Bird on the early church and slavery. Slavery is also not just something that happened in the past…. or something from third world countries. Yes, that’s Richmond, IN with a report. As well as Cincinnati, Dayton, and Indianapolis. Think of all the occurrences that haven’t been reported on […]
Christian P
refusing to lay in the bed one has made December 29, 2011
Some time ago, I noted some problems with Why We’re Not Emergent by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. One of the more ludicrous issues was the ex cathedra declaration that it was fair game to lump all emergent leaders together: when people endorse one another’s book and speak at the same conferences and write on the […]
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Per Crucem ad Lucem

Donald MacKinnon on the very stuff of human existence
In the midst of some fruitful discussion generated by the recent posts on Rowan Williams by Chris Green and Joel …Continue reading » […]
Being has a memory
‘Toward the end of To the Castle and Back, [Václav Havel's] unconventional presidential memoir, in a section datelined “Hrádeček, December 5, 2005,” …Continue reading » […]
Christ and Controversy
The good folk over at Wipf and Stock have informed me that they have just released Alan Sell’s fascinating book Christ …Continue reading » […]

Pilgrim at Lakeview Avenue

Day by Day with Jesus

Church

On Hiatus

August 22 Mind Dump: My Boring Faith

Vacation Haiku

Book Review: Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley

What Does Jesus Think of Us? (Mark 1-6)

Are we Waiting on Jesus or is He Waiting on us?

Eugene Peterson on Predestination

NT Wright on Church

Things to do During Ramadan

Where I’m Going

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