Rants on Issues that MATTER!!!
(to me)Archive for January, 2008
.new message.
Does the church need a new message?
A new way of saying it?
Both?
Neither?
It seems like there are two main camps in this discussion. There are some churches that are in the emerging/emergent movement that think that we need a new message and a new way of saying it. Why do we need a new message? Why do we need to get rid of the cross? Why do we need to get rid of the message of sin? How can the message of grace be as potent as it should be when we water it down?
On the other hand there are churches that have a message that follows the Bible however they don’t want to present it in a way that people understand. What is the point of that? How does that benefit the kingdom of God?
May I suggest that we keep the timeless message and try to find new ways of presenting it to people. A few churches have done this well. By presenting I don’t just preaching or teaching, rather more of a conveying. Now preaching and teaching are a very important part in this conveyance, however so is shepherding. May we in trying to find new packages to convey the truth not change the message. It seems that the ones who have changed the message were reacting to the methods and in fact overreacted and in that changed the message. My hope is that we as Christians and leaders do not change the message of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Hopefully the church will reclaim the Gospel and let that be the only stumbling block and not the way we convey it to people. May Jesus give us the strength and wisdom to do that. Remember Jesus is Lord and Savior of all.
.human will?.
“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:15-16)
How often have we tried to be better people?
How often have we failed at being better people?
How often have we heard a sermon about being a better person?
How often have we as teachers of the Bible taught people how to be a better person?
How often is the answer Jesus?
I ask these questions because in my life I have tried to become a “better” person. I have tried to be a person that is more like what I read about in the Bible. I have heard so many sermons, it doesn’t matter from what kind of church, about being a better person. Not often was Jesus the answer from conservative churches to emergent churches the answer was the same, human will and strength.
When I look back on some of the lessons I taught, they were about doing things. Doing things under our own effort. Some were about relying on Jesus for the power and guidance to change and be transformed. However not as much as I would like. I only hope that the ones about relying totally on Christ Jesus sunk in. So I hope when I am in a teaching position again the message that the students hear is Jesus, Jesus and Jesus. I want to be a one song band.
So have you found a place where Jesus is the hero?
Have you found a place where you are taught to seek Jesus?
Have you found a place where you are taught to rely on Jesus?
Have you found a place where Jesus is the answer?
I have and I plan on someday soon being that place for students. A place where they can come and fall more in love with Jesus and learn to humbly follow and rely on Him. I hope that we all learn and live out that Jesus is Lord and Savior.
.merciful?.
9. Q. Does not God, then, wrong man by requiring of him in his law that which he cannot perform?
A. Not at all; for God made man capable of performing it; but man, through the instigation of the devil, by his own willful disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of these gifts.
10. Q. Will God suffer such disobedience and apostasy to go unpunished?
A. By no means; but he is terribly displeased with our original as well as actual sins; and will punish them by a just judgment temporally and eternally, as he has declared, Cursed is every one who continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.
11. Q. Is, then, God not also merciful?
A. God is indeed merciful, but he is also just; therefore his justice requires that sin which is committed against the most high majesty of God, be also punished with extreme, that is, with everlasting punishment of body and soul.
.Jesus the gracious giver.
Jesus is amazing and provides in ways that are way beyond anything that I could ever dream of. He works in peoples lives, including mine. Jesus is Lord and Savior of everything!!
.all about Jesus.
It is all about Jesus. We as the church need to be proclaiming this all of the time. It is so easy to forget sometimes. Sometimes the message of the church can become moral-ism. Not that the things that are taught are wrong, the things taught are good things. However people are told to just try harder to do good. That however has not worked, has it? The church in America hasn’t grown, we just have moved people around. We haven’t changed America, on the other hand America has changed Christianity in America. We need to proclaim Jesus as the answer to everything. Not just for our salvation but also for our sanctification. We need to humble ourselves and rely on Jesus. When the church in America starts preaching Jesus and teaching people to rely on Jesus and his grace I believe that we will see lives changed for the glory of Jesus. May we make him the hero of everything and in everything proclaim that Jesus is Lord and Savior.
.love and grace.
6. Q. Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse?
A. By no means; but God created man good, and after his own image; that is, in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him, and live with him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify him.
7. Q. From what source, then, comes this depraved nature of man?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise, whereby our nature became so corrupt that we all are conceived and born in sin.
8. Q. But are we so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all evil?
A. Yes, indeed; unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.
Isn’t it amazing that when we receive the grace of God by faith in the person and works of Jesus that God sees us as righteous and we can again be in right relationship with God again? That we can worship Jesus and in that be living life to the fullest. See because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we have life everlasting. Life here and now and life for all eternity. That is grace. When we see what we would be without God and then realize what we have in Jesus how can we not help but be joyful and humble before Jesus who is Lord and Savior of all? May you and I realize that Jesus is Lord and Savior.
.my generation.
Its seems as though my generation has made a lot of the Bible a relative thing. While I was listening to past sermons of the pastor where I go to church he had a good point that this is nothing new. My grand parents generation really started doing this and it has affected those of us who grew up in conservative churches where things that we a cultural thing were said to be Biblical. So it is no surprise that my generation people in their 20’s and 30’s are relativistic. However it saddens me that the pastors and other Christian leaders have come up with some absurd claims that are supposedly Biblical.
One recent development has been with Young Life. This is an organization that I was a part of and was in a position of leadership in and where I realized that I was called to be a youth pastor. So this is a organization that is near and dear to my heart. If you go to Christianity Today you can read about it more. However I will try to boil it down into a summary that is true. Basically Young Life is making its leaders sign a set of beliefs that are the non-negotiables of what they teach. This is an important thing because of the nature of the organization. It is a group that is multi-denominational, there are not requirements really of secondary theology. Their goal is to earn the right to be heard and then proclaim the Gospel of Jesus to students, even to the farthest out student. Just to give you an idea of what is being argued here is the non-negotiables that Young Life has put out:
2) We proclaim the reality of sin and its consequences — that apart from divine
grace, we are estranged from God by our disobedience and incapable of a right
relationship with God.
3) We proclaim the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the ultimate proof of God’s love
and the only solution to our problem of sin.
4) We proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
5) We proclaim the risen Christ’s offer of salvation by inviting our middle school,
high school and college friends to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.
6) We proclaim God’s call to discipleship by encouraging all who respond to grow
in their faith.
The problem that has arose from this is number two, leadership in North Carolina did not agree with the fact that they should have to preach sin. They claimed that students did not need to hear the sin message and that Young Life was just trying to guilt students into believing and be legalistic in their ways. They have decided that the message of sin is no longer relevant to this generation so why teach it. It would be nice if this was an idea that only existed in Young Life, however this is an idea that has started to permeate the church from all over. It seems as though the church in the mega church movement to the emergent movement has decided that we do not need to preach the idea that we as humans are sinful and apart from the grace of God we have no chance of having Life. Some have decided that we aren’t that bad and that Jesus is just a good way to live. Some have decided to preach this idea of humanism. However this is not the true gospel. The gospel is that I am a sinner and am separated from God and that the only way that I can have life is the grace of God which allows me to have faith in the person and works of Jesus. In my life and in others we need to realize our sin and need for a savior before we can accept the grace of God. We need to come to grips that we can’t have life on our own. So may we not stop preaching about sin, we do not need people to wallow in it. We don’t need to bash people over the head with it but we do need people to realize that sin separates them from God and life and that Jesus is the hero of the story and that He alone can give life everlasting.
.Christianity.
Here is a question to think about.
Has Christianity changed America or has America changed Christianity?
