The Stand-up Philosopher

Book Review: Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

This book took me a long time to read. That’s partly because I was busy, and mostly because I didn’t like it. But, I felt duty-bound to finish it and post a review, although way too late for the book’s launch.

I got an email from somebody inside Thomas Nelson. This person got my name from somewhere else, and asked if I’d like an advanced copy of the book. I emailed back to say that I would, and I’d be glad to read the book and post a review. This book didn’t come from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program. I thought I was finally becoming important enough to have books come to me. Some bloggers get books unsolicited. I was hoping that some day, that would be me.

The authors of the book are Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola. I don’t think I’ve read anything from either author before. I’m not familiar with them, but I think I’ve heard good things about them.

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The subtitle of the book is “Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ”.

I’m not sure who the audience for this book is. Obviously, there is one. Thomas Nelson wouldn’t publish and distribute and promote a book that isn’t going to sell. So obviously, they expect it to sell.

The premise of the book seems to be “The church almost as a whole has drifted away from the simplicity of the Gospel, and we need to restore everything the church does to just that: just Jesus.” If you’ve read many of my blog posts, you know what I think about that line of reasoning. If we’re going to say “the church has drifted”, that means there was a point in time when the church hadn’t drifted. Read the Book of Acts! The church struggled with these same issues right out of the gate! It’s always battled with this kind of thing. I’m not sure why so many authors think “I’m just the man God needs to right this ship! I can write a book that’ll fix everything”. Sure, Paul and Peter and James and John couldn’t do it. But a 21st century author can do it.

Lest you think I’m putting words in the author’s mouths, let’s look at a few things. On page xx of the introduction is the following:

The Lord Jesus Christ is far beyond what most of us could ever dream or imagine. His greatness, His beauty, and His splendor are unknown to many Christians today (My note: does this imply they were known to Christians at some point in the past, since we’re “getting worse all the time”?)This is why a fresh look at him –a fresh Christology- is so vital. To put it in a sentence: To faithfully represent Jesus in our time requires re-presenting Him. And that’s why we are attempting to write this book.

In the margin, I wrote “But is this new?” I think Solomon would disagree with the authors:

[Ec 1:1] The words of *the Preacher,* the son of David, *king in Jerusalem.

[2] *Vanity* of vanities, says *the Preacher,
*vanity of vanities! *All is vanity.

[3] *What *does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?

[4] A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but *the earth remains forever.

[5] *The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens* to the place where it rises.

[6] *The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.

[7] All *streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.

[8] All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
*the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

[9] *What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun. (ESV)

On page xxii, the authors write: “we believe that the major disease of today’s church is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder.” And “But increasingly, the church likes the church, yet they don’t like Jesus.”

On page 14 in chapter 1 is the following:

Both of us have developed the habit of counting the number of times the preachers we hear mention the Lord Jesus. Sadly, in many cases, contemporary preachers and teachers who spend an hour speaking on a subject, mention the Lord just once or twice. Sometimes the number of mentions is zero. Compare that with how many times Paul referred to Christ in the opening chapters of some of his letters:

My wife and another woman were joking about a habit the children have picked up. Ask any child in Sunday school at our church what they learned about, and they’ll reply “Jesus”. It doesn’t matter what the lesson is. In any case, I wrote in the margin around this paragraph that I’d like to know what churches and preachers the authors listen to. I’d like to invite them to listen to a few of Pastor Bill’s sermons and tell me he doesn’t preach the name of Jesus regularly.

I could keep going. Once the introduction is out of the way, the authors spend 8 more chapters breast feeding their audience what the writer of Hebrews called “milk”.

I’m sure both writers are great people. But this book made me angry. The only reason I bothered to finish it is because I told Thomas Nelson’s representative I’d post a review of the book. Books like this seem to have an “Elijah Complex”.

1 KI 19:[14] He said, *“I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, *thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” [15] And the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. [16] *And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and *Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. [17] And the one who escapes from *the sword of Hazael *shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu *shall Elisha put to death. [18] *Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not *kissed him.”

In other words, “Oh, woe is me! The entire church has strayed away into Purpose Driven and Best Life stuff. We’re the only two left! How can we hope to restore the church?

Almost 2 years ago, I wrote a post called “Christian Heuristics”. In it, I asked why we comment that Jesus Christ is written on every page of the Bible, yet we restrict ourselves to so few pages of the Bible, especially when visitors are present. I wrote the post about the time we started taking the kids to AWANA at the church we’re now with. I sat through the adult class. The elder teaching, who is a good friend of mine now, seemed to make the assumption that as a visitor, I wasn’t saved and spent the entire class reviewing some very basic material.

How can anybody expect to learn and grow (i.e.. discipleship) when our books and sermons are little more than an exposition of “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”?

My verdict: read Jesus Manifesto if you have no idea who Jesus Christ is. Or read it if you’re one of those people who is well studied, but still gets off reading about how stupid and far behind everybody else is. Some people really enjoy that for some reason.

Otherwise, get out there and meet a few people. Stop assuming that the entire church is apostate. Find a place to serve. Find needs to meet. Find a class to teach, or another way to use your God-given gifts. I’m tired of books that do little more than assume everybody but the authors and their little circle has drifted away from the truth of Jesus, and is either stupid or apostate.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Quick Review of What Is The Gospel by Greg Gilbert

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003DQK77E/ref=mp_s_a_4?qid=1281892241&sr=8-4

Please forgive any formatting errors. I am trying out Wordpress for iPhone. I'll fix formatting problems later.

I like to read. Occasionally, I'll go on Amazon to see what Kindle books are available for free. Then I download far more than I could hope to read in one lifetime.

Recently, I discovered a book for free in Kindle format for a limited time called "What Is the Gospel" by Greg Gilbert. I downloaded it, and got around to reading it. It's part of a 9 Marks series.

First, the positives. The book was well written. It was written very lovingly and should be of use to it's target market. I hope it is. I have no qualms about the book in that regard.

Now for my thoughts. Take a drive around your neighborhood. Notice all of the churches? There are a lot of churches around. Considering all of the churches around, isn't it a little embarrassing how many "What Is the Gospel" books have to be written? What is really embarrassing is the number of self-proclaimed Christians who apparently need these books.

At this point, I'm thinking of Paul's words in Philippians:
Philippians 2:12 (ESV)
[12] Therefore, my beloved, *as you have always *obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

What I'm thinking of is that we need to take some responsibility for our own growth. We're not supposed to wait to e spoon fed, or for God to miraculously change us. Yes, I believe that He can, but I'm not so sure that in most cases, He will.

I know many churches are full of well meaning people who simply don't grow. It can be very frustrating, especially in a smaller church, when a few people are burning out doing all the serving while many just show up to get their tickets punched. At one point in our last church, Christina taught the 2-3 year old class for four consecutive quarters because nobody else would step up to teach. She had more than 10 children in that class, so there were many other parents, but nobody was interested in teaching that class. She got a one quarter break after a solid year, then was right back to it. The church we're at now had to shut down some children's activities because of a lack of volunteers.

I must admit, it scares me how many people identify as Christians, compared to the need for books explaining to them the very basic points of what they claim to believe. This is what the writer of Hebrews called milk. Baby food.

A couple of years ago, I worked out a scale for Christian books. I rate them as beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Maybe I should change that to breast milk, mush, and hearty steak. I would rate "What Is the Gospel" as beginner/breast milk. I don't mean that as a slam against the author. The author is a pastor, and I'm glad he has a heart for God's flock. I am very thankful for good pastors. I wouldn't be whatever I am today without a few.

Verdict: read it if you have no idea what the Christian Gospel is, or have no idea how to explain it. Alternately, read it if you want to. Don't let my cynical opinions talk you out of buying a book. But really, if you're a Christian you should know this already. You should be looking to grow and get off the milk.

Book Review: Mystically Wired by Ken Wilson

I haven't read many books on Prayer. It's one of the spiritual disciplines that I believe I'm weakest in. Most of the books on Prayer I've read are expositions of the "Lord's Prayer".

I remember a comment Bob Bly made on the difference between a "what to do" book and a "how to do" book.  For instance, a book that tells you that you should pray, and lists the benefits of prayer, and maybe even tells you stories about other people's prayers, would fall under a "what to do book".

I think Mystically Wired is a "how to do" book. It's different from other books I've read on the subject of prayer.

The point to the book is our brains are wired for prayer. Even if we don't think we're good at it, we can learn the discipline of prayer by forming new habits. We can rewire the synapses in our brains by forming new habits around the discipline of prayer.

I'll admit, I was very skeptical in the first chapter. Looking at my notes in the early chapters of the book, you can tell that I was gearing up for a disagreement with the author. He convinced me of his point of view though by the 3rd chapter.

The author discusses current studies about the brain to make his case that we're Mystically Wired to pray. Much of the information he cites agrees with what I read in This Is Your Brain on Joy by Dr. Earl Henslin. The author shares his own experiences in prayer over the course of his life, as well as several methods he's used in his prayers. He then includes many practical tips for forming new habits in your prayer life. I will probably incorporate most into mine.

If you're looking for a practical book on prayer, get this one.

The Ugly Side of Acts 6

It’s been a while since I’ve written a Bible or church related post. I don’t count my spiritual work post because it was about general spirituality.

The church we’d been going to the last 8 years appointed deacons two or three times in that period. As the church identified the need for new deacons and ramped up into eventual nomination, topical sermons were preached. Acts 6 always came up in those sermon series. I imagine it’s the same in most churches that have to appoint new servants.

The sermons usually centered around the need to appoint deacons so that the apostles can attend to higher priorities. It’s kind of like how Moses let himself get bogged down in judging every Israelite case of “He stole my chicken!” rather than leading them through the desert like he was supposed to.

Buying One Song...

Sometimes I wish I had musical talents. Or I wish I had a Mac and Garage Band. Or I wish somebody would come out with a Garage Band like product for the PC. Don't tell me Audacity. It's not the same.

I found out about this $3 of free music promotion by Amazon today. When I got home, I decided to get some songs. I had a song that I'd been wanting for a while, so I bought it. It was $1.29. Fine, it was free. Then I went looking for another song. For some reason, lately I've been wanting "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." I don't know why. My church never sings it. I'm curious if any of our song leaders have heard of it. In any case, a podcast I listen to occasionally leads in with it. I figured "how hard could it be to find a version of 'A Mighty Fortress" that I'd like?"

A lot harder than I thought. Amazon returned hundreds of songs under my search. I started sampling them. I quickly realized that I didn't want a version of the song with pipe organs or a congregation singing in a very-bad-for-sound auditorium/sanctuary/whatever they call it. I also quickly decided that I don't want an instrumental version. I just want one good singer with a good instrumental mix, that doesn't include pipe organs or a single guitar. Turns out, my want was impossible. I did find a couple of versions of the song that made me with Trans Siberian Orchestra would tackle it. 

I hate some Christian paradigms. "A Mighty Fortress" is a great song. It's a powerful anthem. Why can't anybody put together a good version of it? Just  because it's 500 years old doesn't mean it has to be sung with pipe organs and sound like a death march. I'm sure Luther never intended it that way.

Albert Mohler: Seperation of Church and Sport?

Contemporary theologian and seminary president Albert Mohler is a man I enjoy reading. I follow his blog and listen to his podcast regularly. I like him because he is a thinker. Rather than regurgitate a “party line”, Dr. Mohler thinks through issues. His work has been a real benefit (blessing?) to me in my own intellectual journey.

Dr. Mohler posted an entry on his blog recently about a sports journalist’s call for “separation of church and sport”. The column deals with complaints about athletes who are Christian and the exclusivity of the Gospel.

I’m not opposed to my own version of separation of church and sports: specifically, let’s reduce the number of sports-themed sermons. Nothing makes me want to leave the church, sit in my car, and watch somebody else’s sermon on YouTube on my iPhone like a sermon that starts out with a baseball illustration.

But then again, I also realize that it’s not about me. I’m not sure what to tell the sports journalists. I sit through the sports-sermons. They may have to live with the Christian players.

Patience: Can You Pray For It, Or Just Do It?

I was having a talk with some friends from church recently, and the subject of patience came up. The subject came up along with the old line “I’ve been praying for patience.” I’ve done that plenty of times myself.

I started to change my perspective on patience recently though. I was studying the Proverbs. I started reading one chapter each day, the chapter that corresponds to the calendar date (for instance, today would be Proverbs 20 because it’s September 20th). I stopped recently though, and have to get back to it.

I’m sure anybody who has studied Proverbs has also heard some of the Proverbs taught legalistically. For instance, Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” I have heard of people being counseled by pastors or other church members that when one of their children runs astray, it’s their fault for not training up the child.

Tim Challies- Don't Take Your iPod to Church

Last Friday, Tim Challies posted "Don't Take Your iPod to Church" to his blog. (UPDATE: Today he posted a 1.5 update as he continues to develop his argument.) I normally enjoy Tim's posts, and I read through this one. I didn't agree with it, and since nobody else had commented, I left the first comment. I did my best to be reasonable, and I hope my comment came off that way. I then spent the weekend far too busy to get back to read other comments. I also spend some time thinking about the issue. The last thing I would want is for my own pride to get in the way. I've been reading the Bible on electronic devices for years. I find it much easier to carry and study the Scriptures from a handheld and from a laptop. When I teach classes in church, I've taken to bringing my laptop to church and teaching from my notes.

As I processed my thoughts on Tim's post over the weekend, I came to a realization that his arguments against reading the Bible on a mobile device, especially in church, seem to come from the same reasoning that old people might use in their "any hymn written after 1850 is from the Devil!" arguments. Simply because something is new does not make it bad, and simply because something is old does not make it good or right. Speaking of hymns, I'm about burned out on the 19th century hymns my church sings.

Sometimes, in an effort to be pious or to urge other believers to holiness, Christians make some really weird arguments. Two weeks ago, a lot of Christian blogs were repeating a post about why you shouldn't Twitter in church. I couldn't resist: I sat down in church that Sunday and Twittered that I was Twittering in church in response to a blog post I read. OK, the service hadn't started yet, but I felt like I had to. (My wife was furious with me when she saw that tweet on Facebook later). 

To this point, I'm not convinced that the possibility of misuing technology or being sidetracked by technology equals an admonition to not use technology in Bible study or corporate worship. I'm also not convinced that just because Twitter can be distracting means I shouldn't use it in church either. I know at least one person who attends our church's second service reads my first service Tweets.

Will Evangelicalism Collapse? If So, Should We Care?

A lot of the Christian and theological blogs I read have been talking lately about some kind of coming collapse of evangelicalism. Stand To Reason’s blog is the latest I’ve read, but also the most reasonable assessment.

I figure that there are two kinds of people in this world:

1)Those who are easily lumped into convenient, pre-defined categories

and

2) Those who aren’t.

I guess among all the convenient, pre-defined labels within Christianity, I would probably be lumped in among the evangelicals. That really doesn’t matter to me. At the end of the age, the only identification that matters is me that of Christian, follower of Christ, or follower of The Way, which is what we were originally called all those years ago. I really don’t care what other labels I fall under, but for convenience I probably fall under that of evangelical.

Nehemiah As an Example of Male Leadership

My church is going to start a new men’s group. It’s proven to be a real challenge as we are a “freeway church”, that is, our membership is pretty well spread out. We’re not a community church where our membership generally lives nearby. My house is currently about 10 miles from the church, and if we sell and move into my in-laws’, I’ll be 20 miles out. Some people come from even farther. We’re also incredibly busy. Trying to find a date and time for a men’s group to meet has been difficult. I can’t do breakfast meetings because I get to work at 6:30 AM. We finally settled on Thursday afternoon, with our first meeting being today. We’ll see how it goes.

In preparation for our first meeting, I read the book of Nehemiah from the perspective of male leadership. For the past several weeks our pastors have been preaching from Nehemiah. Several things stood out to me during this read. For one thing, Nehemiah considered Jerusalem as a reproach with the walls down. Putting the walls back up would make the city no longer a reproach. I have to wonder if there is anything I can draw from that. Is a person, a family, a church, a group, a society, etc. a reproach with a broken wall, a lack of boundaries, or no form of defensive security and self-containment? Is there a broader application? I don’t like to over-spiritualize or allegorize parts of the Bible for which neither was intended, but in many cases there is a deeper message. I don’t have the answer now, but I do plan to study this.

More Mystery Church Shoppers: Church Check

Perhaps I have somewhat of an emotional stake in this as my family struggles with a problem related to this issue, but I still don’t see why “mystery church shopper” services have to be considered as heretical from every possible angle. I’m hardly an expert among the “church growth” community, but I am the Stand-up Philosopher, so I’ll tackle the subject again and you are free to count my opinion for whatever you think it’s worth. Believe it or not, I have done some reading on church growth, and one of my pastors is considered an expert in small groups and is often brought into other churches to give a presentation and/or provide troubleshooting into problems that they might have. Having attended his small group leader training several times, I’ve picked up a few things, not enough to open my own ministry, but at least enough to feel like I can discuss the subject intelligently. Actually, I have no plans to start a ministry. The only person that I beg for money is my wife. On the subject of begging, I’m not talking about a church taking up a weekly collection. I mean that whole “We’ll send you this free book in exchange for your gift of $25 or more”. I fail to see how the book is free. Why not just sell the book?

 

I hardly know where to begin in this writing. I came across a Christianity Today article, which can be found here, that just about blew my top. The article was posted on December 18, 2008. Yeah, it’s taken me a long time to get this post together. I almost had it done, then thought of something else, and had to come back and rework it. The article speaks about a service called Church Check, which sounds like another mystery church shopper program like I wrote about here.

Communication: Getting to the Point

I've always been taught that in communication, getting the the point is always best. Different mediums do have slightly different requirements, but for the most part, effectively communicating to the reader or listener the point that you'd like to get across quickly is always best. Nobody likes a preacher or politician or salesman that rambles on and on and gets nowhere.

I've always wondered if certain industries have different standards. Like many people, I have joined a few organizations that represent causes that I believe in and feel strongly enough about to support, even if just by my membership dues. I've also ended up on the mailing lists of several ministries and organizations over the years for a variety of reasons. Some I believe bought my contact information, but others I deliberately signed up for because I was interested in information or a freebie.

Are You Ready To Quit Church?

Church is a part of my life, and therefore I write about it occasionally. There is a book out called “Quitting Church- Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to do About it” by Julia Duin, Religion Editor at the Washington Times. I haven’t read the book, but the reviews I’ve read about the book seem uniform. The most recent I’ve read is by Maurilio Amorim.

One reason I haven’t read the book is because I doubt it deals with the situation I find myself in. I confess: my wife and I are not very far from quitting church, at least, from quitting the church we’ve gone to for the last 6 1/2 years. To be honest, if my wife hadn’t been teaching children’s classes for the last quarter, we probably would have left 3 months ago, or at least drastically scaled back our attendance.

Some Thanksgiving Career Counseling

I got this from Michael Hyatt's Twitter feed. I thought it was hilarious.

WSJ- Secret Shopper Services for Churches

This is an interesting concept: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122358815744820497.html . Secret shoppers visiting churches and grading them on certain criteria. My first evangelical reaction is to be horrified. Surely the church hasn't stooped to this level of consumerism! How terrible! Then I started thinking about the practical aspects of this type of service. What if there were principles in this kind of service running deeper than simply drawing people into the church as an entertainment venue?

I'm going through what seems to be a strange phase. I became a Christian, I was baptized into Christ, or whatever modern buzzphrase you wish to use to describe this type of conversion, in 2002. I clearly remember it, as I was baptized in my swimming pool after 11 PM on a Friday night, May 31, during a break in a line of thunderstorms. You have to appreciate a minister and his wife who will get out of bed and drive 45 minutes during foul weather for such a thing, but our pastor did. Since that point, we've attended the same church, the Pitman church of Christ. I've done a lot of study on my own and developed my favorite set of blogs and podcasts and Bible teachers that I like to read and listen to. In any case, I'm going through a phase right now where I find myself asking questions. Not so much questions about the existence of God or this historicity of Jesus and His resurrection or the claims of the apostles, but questions about how we interpret and apply the Bible to what we today call church, or why Christians do the things we do. This article came at a decent time in my current phase.

This is why I could see a use for this type of service. For some reason, when we form churches, we also tend to form groups, communities, and cliques. My wife and I are facing a situation like this in our own church. I don't want to go into too many details, but it doesn't seem like we fit in well, my wife in particular. A clique has formed within the very group that you think she would fit in best, and she can't penetrate it. The other women in that particular clique either ignore my wife or treat her with disdain. Seriously, I've seen some roll their eyes when she talks. It's not cool, and it makes me a little angry wondering what exactly she could have done to them and why they won't tell us so we can apologize. The 6th grade was many, many years in the past yet it feels like I'm watching my wife repeat the worst social aspects of middle and high school within our church. It's getting very difficult for us and we've told our pastor and dropped a hint or two that perhaps it's time to move on. Because of this, we can't really join a small group because members of that particular clique are members of all of the small groups within range of us. That leaves us with our Sundays free, although I've co-lead a small group for the last two years and I do really miss it. We do have quite a few friends at the church, but it's one of those situations where everybody lives too far away and is too busy for much more than exchanging chit-chat while at church on Sunday.

It's even reached the point where if my wife weren't teaching this quarter, we probably would not be attending on Sunday anymore. As it is, I've had excuses (work related) not to go the last two Sundays. We've been taking the kids to an AWANA program at a Baptist church on Wednesday nights.

With that in mind, I can see a use for these mystery church shoppers that is other than "promoting a consumerist atmosphere within the church". As I said, as humans, we have a tendency to form groups and pretty much live the same routine. That isn't always conducive to a church, unless of course you're part of that central group and happy with the routine. A pastor I love to listen to, Patrick Mead, has told churches "You should put a big sign out front next to your marquee that says 'Keeping the Smith family happy for the last 30 years'". Our church does have a core group of people (outside the "clique" that is causing my wife grief) that has been involved in the church for a long time. As a congregation, some songs are preferred to others. We often sing a lot of the somber, 19th century church of Christ hymns. The problem is, that style of hymn really doesn't inspire me that much. I can only take so much of them, but we often don't vary our worship style because the style we have is so comfortable to the majority of church members. I'm not saying that there's something wrong with that, but the answer to the question "Why are there so many different churches" isn't always "because there are so many apostates who don't believe the real Gospel!" Sometimes the answer to the question is "Because there are so many people with different preferences for the order and style of worship in matters that really aren't that relevant to salvation."

Some people would prefer to spend most of the church service singing. Some people would rather have a church service that's heavier on prayer. Given the choice, I'd rather have a service with one prayer, two or three uplifting songs, and a 50 minute John MacArthur style in-depth expositional sermon that I could take notes on and learn something new every week. Granted, my wife would not agree that is the best format for worship, so it's true that you can't please everybody.

I can see a point to these mystery worshippers. Some churches could stand to have somebody come in and issue an honest critique. Some churches are happy staying as they are, but for the churches that want to grow, perhaps it's not a bad idea to have an anonymous person come in and issue a report. "Your greeters aren't friendly enough". "You place too much emphasis on shirt and tie." "Your classes are all fluff. You need some decent intellectually challenging material." "You are friendly to visitors, but you have some impenetrable cliques. Once visitors join your church, they can't find anywhere to fit in."

These are honest and I believe perfectly Scriptural things a church might need to be evaluated on by a mystery shopper type of service. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: Church,worship,mystery shoppers,church consultants,church growth

Christian Heuristics

When I took my first Systems Analysis class, I was introduced to the word "heuristic". Wikipedia defines heuristic as a rule of thumb used to solve a problem among other things that you can read on your own.

I've been wanting to write this post for a while, but I partly haven't had time, nor have I known exactly what I wanted to say. I also realize that what I want to say could violate some principles that I'm supposed to hold to, or at the minimum could hurt some feelings.

Christians in 21st century America (at least, this is where I live, possibly it's the same in other western countries) have developed some strange heuristics, or rules of thumb. Some of them are starting to drive me nuts. I have no idea where they come from, I have no idea where the idea that they have any effectiveness came from, and I have no idea why they persist despite no evidence of any fruit whatsoever being produced by and through them. All I really want to accomplish with this post is to share some thoughts, and maybe get a productive discussion going about them. That's all I want. I don't want to hurt any feelings, attract any flames, or cause any problems.

Gadgets, Children, and Church

As “The Gadget Geek Dad,” I do occasionally experience the need to use my gadgets in raising my children. Sunday was one of those times. I was sitting in church with Joshua. My wife was organizing the pantry and had Caleb with her downstairs. Yes, she sometimes sits out the church service in other areas of service to the church. I don’t think she missed much, but that’s for another blog entry.

Joshua is now 4, and if you’ve ever tried to keep a 4 year old quiet in church, you know where I’m coming from. Some churches have things for the children to do during the entire service. Ours doesn’t. We have a “Kids for Christ” program that picks up during the sermon, but for about half the service the kids have to sit in the auditorium. That has led to some interesting moments.

Joshua, understandably, didn’t have his attention kept. I found out later that we now have children’s bulletins, which they can draw on, but I didn’t know that when service started. Joshua got bored and unhappy. To be honest, and I might explore this in another post, I was doing they best I could myself.

I finally got the idea to use my iPod Touch. I installed a free “Jawbreaker” clone, and I know Caleb enjoys “popping balls,” so I figured Joshua might as well. Sure enough, it did help, although he kept needing help and when he popped a lot of balls he had to let me know as loudly and excitedly as he could.

Of course, I had to spend a few moments thinking that a $500 gadget has been used at the level of keeping a 4 year old quiet in church.

 

Technorati Tags: Church,children,iPod Touch,gadgets,keeping children's attention

STR: Are Sermons Enough?

http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2008/08/are-sermons-eno.html

Stand to Reason has a blog post this morning asking the question: Are Sermons enough? An excerpt from the post:

 

I came across this Chinese proverb recently:

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand."

For any of us who want to help Christians grow in knowledge, wisdom, and character, I have a question:

Can we continue to rely on sermons as the primary educational vehicle in our churches?

Lecture-type presentations are an essential piece to the puzzle, to be sure, but let's be honest about how much the average listener remembers from a typical sermon. Even more importantly, let's be honest about how much of the material we present the average listener actually uses after we are long gone.

I have to admit, many sermons, even good ones, don’t do much for me after I walk out. Some sermons leave me wondering how much time preachers ended up with for preparation at the end of the week. Our preachers are normally good, but some weeks I wonder if they didn’t just dust off an old sermon or borrow one from online. That is no joke; I’ve seen it happen. One year for Easter, our minister Dan used one of Rick Warren’s sermons. I know this for a fact because I run the computer and sound system and I had the sermon transcript and Rick Warren’s name was crossed off and replaced with Dan’s. Being Easter Sunday, the message was hardly relevant. It was along the lines of “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” I had it figured out before I saw Rick Warren’s name. I’m not complaining; I’m just saying.

I personally prefer the expositional sermon. I’m not too fond of topical sermons. I seem to get more out of a sermon that focuses on teaching the Bible. The Holy Spirit can give me the meaning and application. I’d love to sit in a church under a preacher like John MacArthur.

It’s not that I sit in the pew looking to critique, but I have caught a few gaffes. I remember one sermon not too long ago where Paul’s first and second imprisonments were confused.

In any case, back to the point of my link to STR, I think they are right. I have a bad habit of wanting to sit around studying the Bible, but I know I fall short on taking the Word out to the world. We’re in a small group this year that plans to focus on one service project a month, so we'll see where that leads. I could use some leading into real world ministry.

Technorati Tags: church,sermons,application

My Review of The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield

Thomas Nelson recently published “The Faith of Barack Obama” by Stephen Mansfield. The CEO, Michael Hyatt, made a very interesting offer to bloggers: Thomas Nelson would provide a free copy to the first 100 bloggers willing to write a minimum 200 word review of the book. Michael Hyatt had been linking to promotional videos by the author in his Twitter feed, and those videos got me very interested in the book. Though I am hardly a supporter of Obama, the promotional videos piqued my interest. A comment by the author stating that “Even if he loses this election, Barack Obama can run for President every four years for the next 24, and he will still be younger than John McCain is now. He’s going to be around for a long time” really gave me a desire to understand the man.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first opened the book. Thomas Nelson emailed me the introduction and the first two chapters to get started, and they only made me want to finish the book, which arrived about a week later. This is not a very long book, but I found it to be packed with interesting information. I can’t say I’ve ever gone out of my way to read a book about a candidate in an election year, but I find that most fall into one of two categories: the puff-piece and the hatchet job. This book was neither. I found it to be an honest attempt to understand a prominent man in our politics who will likely be a fixture on the public scene for many years.

“The Faith of Barack Obama” contains 144 pages of content, plus acknowledgements, references, and a bibliography and index in the back. It totals 164 pages with the “back matter.” Keep in mind that the definition of “content” in this review is my own, and I do count the endnotes and bibliography as valuable. The book is organized into an introduction and 6 chapters.

Chapter 1, “To Walk Between Worlds,” is about the man: his background and upbringing. It traces the formation of Barack Obama’s background through his grandparents, his mother, his father, and stepfather. It deals with the “urban legend” that Obama was raised as a Muslim. I do personally know Christians who believe that because Obama has a school document from Indonesia declaring his religion as “Muslim,” then obviously he must be part of some Islamic plot to take over America from the inside. I’m all for a good conspiracy theory, and I do believe several that are very well documented, but this one is easily handled by Mansfield in this chapter. Barack Obama also attended a Catholic school, but does that make him part of a plot to take over America for the pope? His mom was an Atheist, does that mean Christopher Hitchens will be Secretary of State? Anyway, I’m getting off base here. This chapter also traces Obama’s growing up and going to college, trying to find his way between worlds of black and white. What was his identity? The chapter ends with Obama sitting in Trinity United Church of Christ listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Chapter 2, “My House Too,” speaks about Obama’s longtime church, his pastor’s background, and black liberation theology. The concept of Black Liberation Theology is not new to me. I have heard and read of it in the past. This is a key to understanding Barack Obama.

Chapter 3, “Faith Fit for the Age,” speaks about Obama’s conversion and his beliefs and politics. Obama clearly does claim that he believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his words to me as an “Evangelical” clearly do indicate an honest belief and conversion. Obama also seems to subscribe to a postmodern philosophy, and claims to believe that there are other paths to God. This chapter examines these issues, as well as the issue of why Obama remained at Trinity when some of his former pastor’s statements made it out into the media. I must admit, Stephen Mansfield’s explanation of this made my ears pick up. I came to realize that I could not make the same claims currently about my church. Stephen Mansfield says that Obama stayed at Trinity because the church met his needs. The church was his family, and it fed him intellectually and in other areas. My wife and I are struggling with an issue at our church with whether it is meeting our needs or making us feel like we truly belong to the group, and when I read those paragraphs to my wife, we were about ready to just not go back to our church. I even wrote a note in the book “If only our church met our needs like that.” That has no bearing on the review; I just can’t help but adding TMI (Too Much Information) every time I open my mouth or start pounding on a keyboard. Our personal reasons for our reaction go very deep and I have no idea if I will blog about it or not, ever.

Between Chapters 3 and 4 are a series of pictures from Obama’s life, from childhood to present.

Chapter 4, “The Altars of State,” explores the formation of Obama’s political career and how he had to reconcile his Christian faith with his politics in the Democratic party, which has been secular for a long time. Even men such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, with claims of being “born again,” have tried to push faith and politics far apart. This chapter explores Obama’s race against Alan Keys, a man I have supported in the past, for the Senate seat from Illinois. Obama did win, but the race against Keys, a very eloquent and well spoken man, left him shaken. This chapter examines that.

Chapter 5, “The Four Faces of Faith,” contrasts the faith of Obama against John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush. I found this chapter particularly fascinating, though I think I’d rather open another discussion on them rather than sidetracking this review.

The final Chapter, 6, “A Time To Heal,” speaks of the issue of healing and Obama’s desire to help with some of that healing in our culture and our politics.

All told, I thought this was a very good book. It did not inflate Obama, nor did it skewer him. I took it as an honest attempt to understand the man and the issues surrounding him, and to pass that understanding to others. To me, this is what journalism should be. This book did help me to better understand Barack Obama. It challenges the seeming notion that Christianity in American politics belongs to the “Religious Right,” and that Democrats can’t be Christian and Christians can’t be Democrats. (I dropped my normal facetious “Demoncrats” for this review.)

This book did not in any way give me a desire to support or vote for Obama, but I believe it gave me something much better: it gave me the idea that I could like him. It even gave me the thought that perhaps I could like Hillary Clinton. Yikes! Our two party political system (I currently support neither, though I once considered myself part of one of them, you guess) seems to encourage demonization of the “other side.” I can’t say I haven’t fallen prey to that idea in the past myself. I’m finding it to be liberating that I can disagree with somebody and still like them, that disagreement does not need to mean lack of association. This is something I have been thinking through on my own prior to this book.

My final comment about the book itself is the price. During one of my discussions with my wife about my use of time during the evenings, as in, should I be reading a book or doing something she prefers, I said “Look, Thomas Nelson GAVE me this book on the promise to write a review. This book would have cost me…” I looked at the back and saw the price listed as $19.99. This is the MSRP, but my eyes must have popped out of my head and I had to restrain my urge to make a comment about some variation of “sacred fecal matter” in front of the kids. I’ll be honest; I have absolutely no idea what goes in to the pricing of a book, but I have bought thousands of books in my life so I can only go on the relative cost of them. $20 for a 6 chapter, total of 164 page book does sound kind of high. It is listed for $13.59 on Amazon with “39 new and used from $9.25.” Maybe some fellow Michael Hyatt readers can join me to ask him for a primer on how books get priced one of these days. I find him to be a very open CEO and I believe he would respond if we asked him. His blog has been a tremendous source of inspiration and advice to me over the years.

I would like to make one final comment on our political system. I’m not sure why, but so many people seem to treat the Presidential election as if we’re choosing our Messiah (already got one, thanks.) It’s as if we put the right man in and he’ll save us all, and the wrong man will destroy our country, ruin our lives, and make George Orwell’s 1984 sound like the recounting of a stay at a vacation resort. Please, people, read our Constitution and keep this all in perspective. Don’t look to the President to save you. He’s only the head of one branch of government. You still have one Representative and two Senators that you can call or write or email about any issue you wish.

If you’d like to read The Faith of Barack Obama, I highly recommend it. You can buy it from the Amazon affiliate link in my sidebar on the left under “Books I’m currently reading.” I’ll probably move it to the “Books I’ve recently read” sidebar at some point. I know, that’s a shameless plug, but if you buy enough of them from my affiliation, maybe you can help feed my gadget habit.

Technorati Tags: The Faith of Barack Obama,Faith of Obama,Obama's Faith,Democrats and Religion

Drive Through Church

This is hilarious!

Bait and Switch Evangelism

This morning during my church’s Bible class hour, we had an interesting discussion. The class opened with the talk about “How many of you found that your life became more difficult after you became a Christian?” That was followed by the question of how many of us were told that “coming to Christ” would make our lives easier? I was able to answer the first question in the affirmative, but I’m not so sure about the second. I’d heard many “pitches” for the Gospel over the years. I guess it was at the right time that some friends came into our lives that I was receptive.

The question got me thinking though, and I put up my hand to talk about how sometimes, evangelism sounds like a bait and switch scam. “Oh, if you come to Jesus, everything will be easier. You won’t be sick anymore, you’ll have lots of money and friends.”

“OK, I came to Jesus, and my life is falling apart. You told me everything would get better!”

“Oh, did I say that? Well, I meant everything would get better in the next life.”

To be honest, I hate when Biblical discussions degenerate into that “well, those promises are for after this life.” I realize where people are going with that, but the entire Bible takes place over 2000 and several nations so there are some promises that are specific for Israel at specific times, others for Israel in the future, others for the church now, others for the church in the future, and yet there are others for God’s people throughout time. It is very sloppy to just slap a spiritualized interpretation on everything. There is some allegory in the Bible, but it always seemed to me that the Bible will tell you what those are during careful study.

I guess I have little room to talk though. Whether I present the Gospel like I’m on commission or not, it’s been years since I’ve tried to talk to anybody outside of the church about Jesus. My non-Christian readers should have no fear about me showing up preaching on street corners anytime soon.

Fellowship, Family, Parties, and Time

My wife's cousin had a graduation party yesterday. Nobody told me about it until we got home from church. Our church is having VBS (Vacation Bible School) this week and as part of VBS, we always bring in an adult speaker. Teens from another church come to run the children's classes and nursery so that our adults and teens can sit through the sessions, then our teens will travel to another church to do the same later this summer. We have one of our favorite speakers this year, Dr. Patrick Mead. He's doing a series this year on "Re-imagining the church", and it's very enlightening. Somehow we interpreted the command "Go into all the world...." to mean "Put up buildings and invite people to them, then wonder why they rarely show up." Granted, we need buildings for various reasons. They are highly useful, but the building is not the church; the body of believers is. Patrick Mead made a comment I may adopt: "I believe in air conditioning; it's one of the tenents of my faith." Anyway, if you're interested, keep watching our website. You should be able to listen to the lessons once they're posted.
That aside, we got back to my in-laws' house after 11 AM from church. We've been staying there on weekends, and we had an open house yesterday, so not being in our house was a good idea. We had to be back at church by 6 PM for the evening session. I found out upon return to my in-laws' house that we had a graduation party to go to at 2 PM, from which we would leave to go to church. There went my afternoon.
I got to thinking about it though. We had a busy day. Going to this party would make it even busier. We did go, of course. However, the family throwing the party hasn't had time to come to one of our parties. We've invited them to several, but they always have something else to do no matter how much advance notice we send out. While we were at the party, I noticed that many other members of the family weren't there, and most of those members never show up for parties. I thought of all the people from church that we've invited to parties, and most always have something else to do.
I'm honestly not sure what to make of it. I've studied time management for years. Hyrum Smith says that telling somebody "I don't have time for this" is lying. When you say "I don't have time" what you really mean is "I value another event during that time more." Time management is a value judgement, and I can respect that, but it can be hard not to take it personally when the same people always value another event more during the same time period as an event that you have invited them to share the time with you.
At one point, I was tempted to start refusing (or kindly ask my wife, who runs the social calendar) if we could stop going to events from people who never find ours important enough to come to. I haven't though. There are worse things in the world to be known as than "the family who values spending time with other family when invited."

Why Do We Sing In Church?

Almost as if on cue after my blog post earlier about my church’s event yesterday, when I got home and we sat down for dinner, Joshua asked “Why do we sing in church?” Fully remembering my attitude yesterday morning, my wife told him “ask your daddy.”

Now I really felt on the spot. I immediately thought of something Chuck Missler said, about “The LORD inhabits the praises of His people.” I went looking through my Bible programs, and found that verse in the King James in Psalm 22:3. I also told Joshua, and I probably lost him by this point, that any glimpse the Bible gives us into Heaven shows people singing and praising God. This includes angels. Joshua asked me why, and I replied “Because God is so great.” At this point we degenerated into a “why?” train the likes of which would cause the most trained and educated apologist would to lose his sanity.

Other bloggers would leave a long chain of Bible references. I’m just summarizing, and relaying an apparent slap in the face concerning my attitude of late toward singing in church, or at least the apparent repertoire of hymns my church seems to limit itself to. I don’t see any account in Revelation or Isaiah of people singing “Jesus is my Flashlight”, but they’re still singing away.

I guess because I’m such a geek, when I don’t like something, for whatever reason, I just really don’t like it. I often can’t fake that I like something to be polite. I guess we can all be joyful that I didn’t go into professional ministry. I wanted to at one point, but I think the world will be a much happier place with me working as an engineer. Maybe I’ll tell the story of how I dropped out of Bible college later.

Bad Moods And Church

I’m starting to hope I get a chance to apologize for yesterday. Have you ever had one of those days when you were just in a bad mood, and then thrust into a situation which you would have been neutral toward on a normal day, but because of the mood, it was amplified? That was me yesterday.

My church had a “halftime” celebration for our expansion project. Our 1950’s building is bursting at the seams and is several hundred amps short on electricity needed for our modern requirements, so we launched upon a journey “of faith” to expand. We found a 7 acre plot of orchard property and bought it. Then we paid it off in a year. Once that was completed, we set upon the harder road: building on it. The church hired a consultant to help along this road. We had a three month ramp up to the time when the actual campaign would begin. That three months were full of meetings. I remember my wife and I being on the communications committee. We held meetings with the four generations that make up our membership. It’s interesting how each generation sees things. My generation is more interested in how our children will be raised in the church. The teens and young adults, obviously, don’t care about children's programs. The baby boomers and seasoned generations all have a unique perspective, so the meetings were tailored to them. We had prayer meetings and celebrations. This all culminated in a church service at the golf course across the street from our new property.

Yesterday was the halftime celebration. My teeth had been hurting on Saturday, and that made it hard to sleep. I didn’t want to tell my wife because I didn’t want to have the conversation about calling the dentist. Turns out, I should have. In order to save us money and prevent possible harm from processed products, she makes a lot of her own household items, including toothpaste. It turns out that the clove oil in her current recipe is a natural antiseptic, and if I’d only brought up the issue on Saturday, I would have known about the toothpaste and I could have slept Saturday night rather than laying awake in pain. Talk about a “Doh!” moment.

Anyway, when we arrived at the golf course on Sunday morning, I wasn’t in the best of moods, and my teeth were still hurting. The golf course has a tent set up which we use for the celebrations. It was already a hot day. I don’t like heat. I want February back. There was a bar set up with cups of ice but no water in them, and my wife wanted water. Another guy from our church was behind the bar getting water, so I followed suit, only to have some kind of manager show up and start yelling at me for being behind the bar, then claiming that some non-existent employee behind the bar could help me. My friend who was still getting water seemed to have gone unnoticed. I held my tongue, especially considering this was a church event, but that didn’t help and only served to destabilize my mood further.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about songs in my church. We opened with a song I’m not entirely fond of, but it seems we sing it far too often. I was already cranky. We did sing a couple of songs during the service that I liked, but many others that I think we sing too much and I don’t like enough. The service was divided into four quarters. Both of our ministers, several of our elders, and a few other people spoke on various sports metaphored themes related to our expansion. Readers of my blog know that I’m not a sports fan, and being in a bad mood only made the sports metaphors that much more painful for me to bear. One deacon led people in cheerleader styled chants. Ugh. On top of this, both of my kids suddenly needed bathroom runs at least once every ten minutes for the duration of the event, which required a long walk down a tent hallway into the golf course building. I felt like I lost 10 pounds in walks to the bathroom alone.

Anyway, for the duration of the event, I alternated between having a pained look on my face, posting to Twitter, and reading a John MacArthur book on my Windows Mobile phone. It was hardly the best example I could have set for my children and for others in the church. I’m not sure what was exactly wrong with me. Were I in a good mood, I still would have struggled with some of the songs, and a sermon that listed baseball achievements, but I should have been better behaved. I’d hate to think I was part of some kind of spiritual attack. We’ve already been through plenty the last couple of years as a church. I want to apologize to anyone from church who may read my blog. I did accept that if the church were to gear a service or celebration to my tastes, they would probably lose everybody else, especially my wife.

I do wish, especially when it came to church, I could live an “everything is wonderful and blessed” kind of life, or at least show that kind of demeanor. I can’t. Life is messy whether in church or not in church.

Interesting Sermon: The Mind of Christ

In regards to my post about church last week, I just want to say that this blog is about me. I am not a professional writer, pastor, theologian, or any such thing. I consider myself somewhat of an amateur Bible scholar, emphasis on the word "amateur." As I said, this blog is about me. I'm 34, and though I've picked up a few things along the way, I still (hopefully) have a long way to go and a lot more to learn. I don't believe I would be ashamed if anybody from my church did read that entry last week, but I want to clarify that I'm not attempting to use this blog to put a sugar coat on anything. The book of Proverbs discusses wisdom. The Hebrew word for wisdom is kohkmah (unsure of exact spelling), which means among other things "skill." Wisdom is about learning and acquiring the skill of living well; of living a dynamic life. I am along on that journey myself. As I learn these skills, I'm sure my blogs will all tell some form of story. I go through the entire gamut here: I get confused, frustrated, exuberant, joyful, and just plain ticked off. One thing I will promise to do as a blogger is to not break any bounds of ethics or confidentiality. I will not mention anything that could be confidential to my employer, family, church, friends, contacts, etc. I will also do my best to avoid gossip and hearsay. I will attempt to verify my facts or state that I haven't.

In any case, I said that last week's sermon (and song selection) didn't do very much for me, but this week is another story, at least in regards to the sermon. Our other pastor, Steve, preached this week. Dan has been with the church for about 30 years. Steve just joined the church last year. We used to have a youth minister, so at the time I would refer to Dan as the "senior pastor," but Dan and Steve are very well matched in experience and maturity, and they don't seem to be differentiating whether one is senior or not, so I'll try not to.

Today's sermon was about the Mind of Christ. I forget the exact title, but it was centered around I Cor 2:

[16]  For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” * But we have the mind of Christ.

There was also a healthy dose of Philipians thrown in for good measure. Steve discussed as one of his points Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy. Cognitive Therapy, as we may know, goes like this:

Thoughts->Feelings->Actions (or Behaviors)

Behavioral Therapy goes like this:

Behavior (actions)->Feelings->Thoughts

The point was that feelings are in the middle. Our thoughts and actions do not change by changing our feelings. This would be a good post for some kind of self-help topic, but this isn't about self-help; it's about obeying Scripture. I'm sure if Steve came across this post, he'd think I'm ruining the entire point, but that's not my intent. I'm just discussing one aspect of it. I'm also not saying that I learned anything "new" today, but this was a great summary and refresher on things I'd heard before.

I can't speak for everybody else, but far too many details in my life have gotten lost because I didn't "feel" like it. That is entirely the wrong way to go about life. Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a man I really love to listen to, covered this point in one of his many materials that have crossed my monitor or iPod lately. He said something to the effect of "if you don't feel like doing something, just get up and start doing it. Your feelings will come inline with your actions later." Since hearing that, I have tried to take it to heart. In both of the models listed about, feelings are in the middle. You can change your thoughts, and you can change your actions, but it's apparently hard to change your feelings. When my wife asks me to go grocery shopping with her (which means taking both kids to a crowded Acme), I NEVER, EVER, under ANY circumstances, FEEL like doing it, but occasionally I will load the kids in the car and do it for her.

Steve also pointed out that nowhere in the Bible are we commanded (or even suggested) to feel anything. We are told to think on some things, and do other things. Some people come back with "Well, we're told to love" but the Greek agape implies a choice more than a feeling. True love is a choice. I was once infatuated with my wife, when my hormones and other assorted body chemicals gave me great feelings around her trying to trick me into getting married, but several years and two kids later, love is not a feeling, it is a choice.

This was a great sermon that engaged my mind and gave me something to think about, and write about, later on.

Technorati Tags: Sermons,church,feelings,actions

Interesting Post: How To Waste Your Seminary Education

http://fromthestudy.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/how-to-waste-your-theological-education/

I came across that link yesterday in my Google Reader feeds.

What Is the Point of Going to Church?

I co-lead a small group on Sunday nights for my church. Our church has bought into the small group "craze", and heartily endorses small groups. Every year, Dan, one of our ministers, likes to have a small group leader training class. It's usually on Wednesday nights in the summer quarter but this year to try something different it was moved to Sunday morning in the Spring quarter. It worked out better, I think. A lot of people aren't around on Wednesdays in the summer because of vacations and travel. Sunday morning also presents a longer time period for classes.

As I go to a church of Christ, we call our small groups "LIFE Groups", which stands for Love, Involvement, Friendship, and Evangelism. Some churches call them "cell groups." I wouldn't want to explain that to a cop if I got pulled over on the way during a heightened state of Homeland Security. The last two years, Dan has used a video series put together by a pastor named Buddy Bell at the Landmark Church of Christ. The video series is good, but I thought Dan did a decent job when he put together his own class. One comment that really cracked us all up has to do with what happens when a group gets large. Buddy said "we multiply, not divide at this church." That small comment is funny, but at the same time is sobering coming from a pastor at a church that came out of the so called "unity" movement in the 19th century. I've heard of some churches splitting for some really silly reasons, like whether the table used for the Lord's supper should have a table cloth or not. Seriously, Dan mentioned in a sermon that a church of Christ split over that issue. I've read the entire Bible four or five times, and I really can't see a case for one side or the other.

That's the case I'm laying out, if for nothing else than to put the rest of this post into perspective. Yesterday's service was one that really didn't appeal to me. I can't say much of it did any good for me at all, but I also have to be very, very careful not to project my preferences onto whether something is right or not. I obviously do not mean that in a postmodern, or relative sense. The first song we sang was a very basic song, probably one fit for a young Sunday school class. I was raised in a Christian Science church, and so I'm not familiar with some of the songs that children sing in Evangelical churches. My wife is, but I'm not. This one goes, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus in the morning, Jesus at the noon time..." I don't see anything wrong with the song, I just don't like it. The next song was "Holy, Holy, Holy." Now that, I can get into. I like that song.

We changed up the order of service a bit. We sang three songs, then took up the collection. I had been asked to help with the table, so I was one passing the collection baskets. Then we dismissed the children to Children's Church. Then we had the sermon, and followed up at the end with communion. The sermon was like a really, really basic one. Being the day before Memorial Day, Dan did a sermon on remembering Jesus. The problem I tend to have is that I do like to study, so when we get to a basic sermon like that, I tend to think "Yeah, yeah, I know. Jesus died on a cross for our sins. I get it. I confessed it six years ago when you baptized me in my pool, Dan. I get it. I know it. This is like making me take a computer class and explaining a floppy drive to me, a person with an IT degree. I know. It's so basic. With all the areas of theology, Christ centered philosophy, epistemology, history, etc, why can't we just leave the milk alone and get to the meat? I've seen The Passion, I've seen some of the other movies played at Easter, I know all this."

I suddenly don't know that I have a point to this post. Just like my Mother's Day post, putting my thoughts here is helping me to understand them. I'm not saying that I am in any way thinking anything against my own church or it's leadership, men I deeply love and respect. Dan came to my house after 11 PM on a Friday night to baptize me in my pool in the middle of a thunderstorm. How can you NOT love and respect that kind of minister?

As we pulled away from church yesterday, I told my wife what I believe should be the point to this post: I should be very careful not to subject my own preferences onto the rest of the church. I am, well, me. I often say that I'm not representative of any other demographic but me. I, get this, like Windows Vista. I really like it. I think I'm the only one. I've taught Bible classes from a Pocket PC. The last time I taught a Bible class, I just started taking my laptop to church to teach from my E-sword notes. That's me; it's who I am. There are some people who prefer a style of worship with lots of singing and prayer. I'd be happy if we sang two songs, had a quick prayer, then communion (though that's optional), and a 40 minute sermon that ran so deep I had to take notes. That's the service I'd like, but I can't subject that onto the rest of the congregation.

I've long since come to the conclusion that if I ever found the perfect church, I'd also find that I don't belong there. We've been going to Pitman since 2002. It's the church I came to believe in, and was baptized in (well, in my pool, as the baptistery was broken that summer.) This church is a wonderful supportive and loving family. We've been helped by others, and have done what we can in return. People pray for us, and we pray for them. I've taught some classes, and led a small group, and been taught by other men at the church.

As I've pondered all of this, I thought back to Hebrews 10, which reads in part:

[23]  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. [24]  And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, [25]  not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. (NKJV)

I find that to be very helpful in remembering why I get out of bed on Sunday mornings. I've had some Sunday morning worship services that really did a lot for me, and I've had others, like yesterday, that didn't. I think that's the point; it's not about me. Sure, I'm there, which is part of the point. I'm capable of studying for myself, often on a deeper level that our sermons and classes will go. But Sunday is where I can connect with other members of the congregation. I can share need with them. I can share joys and tribulations with them. We can serve according to our unique gifts (I Cor 12-14.) We can, as Paul (or whoever wrote Hebrews but I think it was Paul) says, we should provoke each other to love and good works. I've found over the years that forsaking the assembling of "ourselves together" causes me much more harm that sitting through a few songs I don't like or a sermon that doesn't challenge me. If I miss church for a week or two, I can really see a difference in my life and outlook. Going to church is not about having my needs met, it's about serving.

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Palm Sunday Remarks

I have the head table in church today, and this is what I plan to say. I need to prepare my remarks somewhere. By "head table", I am officiating the Lord's Supper. In my church, we take the Lord's Supper every Sunday. One layperson takes the podium (pulpit) and shares some thoughts to prepare the congregation's hearts and minds for the Lord's Supper. Four men take the bread (Matzo crackers) then fruit of the vine (Welch's Grape Juice) and serve them to the congregation. Then out of convenience the collection is taken up. Then the ministers get up to do the sermon. It's simply the way the church I attend handles things. I believe most Churches of Christ do it the same way. Though many churches have traditions and other ways of taking the Lord's Supper, I can't find any specific chapter on how often or or exactly how to go about it. We simply try to "this do in remembrance of me" as best we can. A thought did occur to me as I was processing my thoughts for my remarks that Jesus possibly meant this to be done as part of the Passover celebration, which the church normally doesn't observe. I was thinking of the anti-Semitism that developed in the early church and how the church parted ways with the Judaism it was born of. There is a lot of interesting reading on that subject; more than I have time to go into here.

As a side note, although many Christians believe that the wine is to be non-alcoholic and as such serve grape juice instead, I do personally believe that it was alcoholic wine served at the Last Supper based on a simple fact of agriculture. The grape harvest was in October in ancient Israel. Until I see a special on the History Channel showing some ancient refrigeration system used to keep grape juice fresh all year, I'll have to assume that the only way to keep grapes until March or April is to ferment them. It would have to have been wine that was used in the cup at the Last Supper based on that. However, I am aware that many Christians prefer the non-alcoholic grape juice. I have better things to do than fight about it. I'm also sure that Jesus passed more than a little plastic thimble-cup around, but again, we do the best we can with what we have on a Sunday morning in between the opening songs and the sermon.

Remarks:

Good morning. Many of you know that I love history, and so I love to get up here and officiate the Lord's Supper on a day that has some historical or prophetic significance. It's much easier for me to come up with something to say on days like this. I was talking with my wife yesterday asking for her input on what I'm going to say today, and I brought up that we're approaching the holiest day of the year for Christians. She said "No, it's the holiest week." I honestly never thought of it that way. We all know that next Sunday is Easter, the day that we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. The Jews were given a set of days to observe in the Torah, the Law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. They had seventy days in all, counting the Sabbaths and all of the holy days such as Passover, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Under ancient Judaism, only on Yom Kippur could the High Priest enter the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and later the temple after an extensive ritual of cleansing, sacrifice, and preparation. The High Priest entered with a rope tied to him in case he did something wrong and God struck him dead. With the rope, the other priests could drag him out. I have no idea what was done for the rest of Yom Kippur in those cases, which I'm sure were rare.

Our faith was born out of Judaism. Our Lord is a Jew. The first Christians were Jews. Somewhere along the early path, however, the two split. We can see from the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's early writings that many Jews were hostile to the early Christians. The first persecutions came from Jews, including the very writer of some of our favorite books in the Bible, Saul of Tarsus. The church, for a variety of reasons, parted ways with Judaism. For Jews, the holiest day of the year is still Yom Kippur, for us, it's Easter, which I call Resurrection Day at times.

I've heard somewhere that you can tell what is most important to someone by how much time, money, or energy he or she devotes to it. How much of the Bible is devoted to the Creation? A couple of chapters in Genesis, some spattering of verses in the Psalms, a little bit in Isaiah... How much of the Bible is devoted to the redemption? Pretty much the rest of it. What did the creation cost God? Seven days. How much did the redemption cost Him? His son.

Before I continue, I thought it would be interesting to see how much each of the Gospel writers devoted just to this week.

Out of 28 Chapters, 8 of Matthew's are about this very week we're celebrating. That is 28%. Mark spent 6 of 16 chapters, or 38%. Luke wrote about this week for 5 1/2 out of 24 chapters, or 23%. John must have really wanted to make a point because 8 1/2 of his 21 chapters or roughly 40% were devoted just to this week. I don't even count Chapter 21 as it talks about events that happened AFTER the resurrection. Perhaps whoever is up here next week, if you haven't thought of anything else yet, could figure out the percentage of text devoted just to the resurrection.

Now for the point. Many of you know that I like rabbit trails and it can take me a while to make a point.  Today is the day on our Christian calendar known as Palm Sunday. This is the day we celebrate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as He came knowing that He would be put to death and raised three days later. Jesus did not enter Jerusalem in a vacuum. Though we know and believe that He will return, we know not the day nor the hour. Many waste a lot of time and credibility speculating when Jesus will come back. Many have done foolish things expecting the return of Jesus. In about 1847 or 1848, one movement believed that Jesus would return that year. I am probably oversimplifying when I say that most of them sold their houses and sat on a hill waiting for Jesus' return. I'm not sure what part of "occupy till I return" that they missed. His return may be a mystery for very good reasons, but his entry into Jerusalem on a donkey on a specific day was not, and He held them accountable to know that. Many of the people seemed to know, and the religious leaders seemed to understand but rather than joy they acted angrily. Let's read this account:

Please turn to Luke 19. You can also find accounts of the triumphal entry in Matt 21, Mark 11, and John 12, but I think Luke captures the Pharisees' reaction the best. Dan and Steve, I know you're both working very hard on a sermon series from Luke about the road to Jerusalem, and I pray that I don't take anything you had planned to say this morning.

[28] When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.[29] And it came to pass, when He drew near to Bethphage* and Bethany, at the mountain called Olivet, that He sent two of His disciples,[30] saying, “Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here.[31] “And if anyone asks you, ‘Why are you loosing it?’ thus you shall say to him, ‘Because the Lord has need of it.’”[32] So those who were sent went their way and found it just as He had said to them.[33] But as they were loosing the colt, the owners of it said to them, “Why are you loosing the colt?”[34] And they said, “The Lord has need of him.”[35] Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him.[36] And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road.[37] Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen,[38] saying:

“‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’*

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

[39] And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”[40] But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

I think the other Gospel writers capture the quote from Psalm 118 better, but Luke's account is worth the read for verses 39 and 40. We sing Psalm 118 verse 24 often enough. "This is the day that the Lord has made." The people were singing from verse 26. I think the triumphal entry was the day that the Lord has made, which is the point Jesus is making in verse 40. This day has been so appointed on God's calendar that the stones would have sung Jesus in if the people didn't. The Pharisees understood this, but rather than welcome Jesus as Messiah, they saw Him as a blasphemer.

This is what we're observing today as we prepare to follow Jesus' instruction to "this do in remembrance of me." As Matthew quotes the people in Matt 21:9 "

[9] Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’*

Hosanna in the highest!”

Hosanna to the Son of David. Let us pray.

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