Some thoughts on Church Unity

The New Testament speaks of the need for church unity, but; how has this been translated into action of the church. As I have observed, unity today means following leadership and conforming unquestioningly to the established traditions and habits of the establishment. The establishment does not have to be the pastor it can also be deacons or other factions within the church that have the largest or at least the loudest say. Those who do raise questions or concerns are treated as if they are spiritually lesser, unchristian, miss guided, and at times even demonized. To appreciate this type of response, one must also understand that the issues typically have little if anything to do with doctrine. To question the continuation or change to a ministry, even a failed ministry, can evoke the wrath of the establishment, which always sees itself as being right and the most spiritual. Other things such as the spending of money, order of worship, the type of worship can also create factions bent on having their way. None of these having anything to do with doctrine and all should be openly and honestly discussed without creating a break in the fellowship.

There are some problems with this type of blind and mindless unity. One, it forces the masses to quit thinking and applying Scripture to their daily lives because you now have "church rules", which lose their relevancy once you leave church. Blindly following prevents them from seeing the differences between traditions, cultural influences, and real doctrinal issues. The second problem of this form of unity is that it creates an unquestionable ecclesiastical order. This can lead to corruption once leadership is incapable of making mistakes even if those mistakes are immoral and/or illegal.

Some of the root cause of this problem may be that the leadership over emphasizes or even miss use Scripture concerning unity such as, Romans 16:17-18. While the New Testament writers were concerned about unity of the church, as Wayne Grudem points out in is his Systematic Theology, “there are no direct New Testament commands to separate from Christians”. The Apostles had disagreements amongst themselves and still had unity in the mission and cause for Christ. It is absurd to believe that everyone must agree on everything to have unity within the church.

Another potential cause to the problem is the modern version of the “Pharisees syndrome”, more concerned about legal or doctrinal issues than the souls of men. This leads to the looking down on people as some how lesser than themselves. The affect is not limited to how they treat follow Christians at various maturity levels but society as a whole. Even to the audacity to tell visitors that they are not fit to come to church. This changes the song “Just as I am” to “Only as we want you”, which may be the biggest sin of the modern church since it could lead to the lose of souls and goes against Christ's commandment to reach ALL men.

So, what is the solution? First, pastors, clergy, priest, and lay leaders they must define the purpose of the church so that the member clearly understand its role in the Kingdom work. This means going beyond the standard theologically filled babble or saying something like “we are reaching the world for Christ”. This is a bit vague for the person sitting in the pew and it must be a bit more relevant and closer to home. Unity of purpose can be achieved through the use of a mission statement for the church or basically stating what ministries the church is going to engage in. This will provide a gage that can be used to evaluate the spending of money, starting and stopping of ministries, and many other activities. It will also start providing clear places for the membership to insert themselves into and make the Christian life an active life with a Kingdom focus (surly it is more than going on Sunday).

Another area is to understand change. I have been in deacon's meeting where someone wants to do something new and the first thing stated is “we are not changing any doctrine”. I have always wanted to ask if they knew the doctrine and could really identify a change if a statement like that is required. It needs to be understood that the church is in a constant state of change. If not, it is dieing. Change here is the cultural and technological change that goes on in the world as well as the transition to the next generation. We must understand that the culture will enter the church. Two key examples here are music and dress. Surly, we can see that we do not dress like they did two or three hundred years ago nor is the music the same. So, during the last two thousand years which dress is proper or which music is correct? How someone answers will depend on their age, back ground, social and economic status.

One last thought. We should not see disagreement as necessarily bad. Honest and open discussion, which also requires listening, allows everyone to have a voice in the direction that church takes in its ministry work. This satisfies a need that people have to be heard, to contribute, and to be needed. It also helps ensure that the best decision in made. The church is full of ideas, back grounds and insights it would be a shame to not hear from them. Once a direction has been decided, then the church should rally around the task or mission and move forward.

One Dollar Coin missing "In God We Trust"

The US Mint in 2008 began releasing new presidential one dollar coins. This is another attempt to get the America public to adopt the coins over the paper dollar. One of the reasons as I understand it is to reduce cost of printing money. Coins last longer than paper.

Yet, that is not why I mention it. I received another email (actually several) that could not believe that we have removed the nations motto “In God We Trust” from the coin. The email went as far as to suggest a boycott and prove that we are a Christian nation and that they cannot change it.

Now, this makes me ask a whole bunch of questions again. One, did the author of the email even verify with the US Mint that the phrase “In God We Trust” was removed? A quick jump to the US Mint’s web site and few mouse clicks you can see the new coins. They do in fact have the phrase “In God We Trust” on it. The strange thing is that they put it on the edge along with the date and the phrase “E Plurisbus Unum”. Why they put on the edge, I don’t know. The point is that the premise of the email is false.

The second item concerning the email is the boycott of US currency. How do you boycott the use of money? Do you refuse change in one dollar increments? Instead of four ones, request it in quarters.

My third point is really a series of questions with the purpose of causing some thought. Does the motto “In God We Trust” make us a Christian nation? The nation's motto was approved July 30, 1956. Were we a Christian nation before it was added? If the motto is removed from our currency what does that really mean? Leaving it on in some attempt to fool God is a bit foolish and it is self deceiving. If we have ceased being a Christian nation, I don’t think that a motto is going to offer any protection from God’s wrath. However, the Scriptures does say that if HIS PEOPLE will humble themselves, He would heal the nation. To me, it seems that we could do more good for this nation by being the people he wants.

Yet, let us consider removing the motto, if for no other reason than a thought experiment. We claim to trust in the Lord or God but so does the nation. We claim to be heaven bound. So does the “nation” by means of its trust in God. We have two different life styles being represented. If we remove the motto, then only one life style will represent trust in God, which should be those committed to living a Godly life style. Maybe we need some contrast. Again, it is just a thought experiment.

Finally, the biggest problem with the email is its fear factor. The email manages to whip the Christian community into a frenzy. We believe that we are some how protecting something sacred (I have forwarded my fair share of this stuff, so forgive me). But why is there fear? God has not given us the spirit of fear but the spirit of truth. We have nothing to fear even if most of the nation became Wiccans or Devil worshipers. These are the little things used to distract us from the church’s call.

As agents of truth and the living God, we should not forward lies and fear but hope and peace.

Once again, on the evening news the other day the extremist were at it, they had a priest who was denying communion to those who voted for Obama. What makes this interesting to me is that they needed to confess their sin and they would be reinstated into the church. I wonder if we could just add extra to the offering each week if that we be acceptable? Oh, but wait, I think that someone address that problem by nailing his 95 Thesis to the church doors in Germany (Martin Luther). It seems that history may need to be repeated.

In another article a South Carolina Roman Catholic priest characterized those who voted for Obama as "material cooperation with intrinsic evil." Well, if the priest wants to get down to it, the Bible claims that the heart of man is evil, which makes us all evil. And as the Bible states "we all fall short of the glory of God".

I must question the priest motives. If it is concern for the people, then he and his fellow priest need to do a spiritual inventory and clean their house first. The harboring of sexual predators and allowing them to exists for generations seems to be intrinsically evil on its own. Then consider the years of treatment of the victims, who is the evil one now?

If his motive is political, then he is abusing his power by holding someone's eternal destiny at stake if you don't agree with him.

I go back to my mantra, they have failed to reach the hearts of men so they want to make their will law. The rule of law will not make people righteous before God. It must come from the heart, which has been their charge. Plus, they just love the taste of power and wealth that politics gives them.

It's time people took their churches back and care for each other and really show the love of Christ.

Now What: Obama has been Elected

Obama has been elected the next president of the United States. So, now what…?

Do we sit back and wait on the fall of the Republic as the hate mongers have predicted? Or, do we dig our heel in and continue the political partisan and oppose Obama at every turn? To me both are unacceptable. The first is apathy and a retreat from life’s challenges simply because we did not get our way. The second is unproductive, divisive, and it keeps the country in a perpetual state of political civil war. How is the Republic supposed to survive? If we cannot come together to resolve the many issues facing the nation, it will not survive.

My fear is that most Americans will disengage from the political process in the coming months. They will go back to being self absorbed and more worried about some ball game or some other pop-culture icon of the time, which leaves Washington to its own devices. What I would like to do is challenge everyone to stay engaged in the political process and not just in your own pet project but in the broader process. As I have already stated, the country faces many problems and if we come together and provide input, we can work on providing solutions that we all can live with.

As Americans I feel that we have a responsibility to be engaged in the running of our country. However, what about the activities of the “Christian Right” and even our own Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)? Eric Gorski, an AP Religion writer, in is article “Christian Right Regroups After Obama Victory” posted on abcnews.com makes this comment about the leaders of the Christian Right: “These leaders have no intention of shifting focus from their big three issues: abortion, gay marriage and judges.” Many of these articles are featuring prominent leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention.

I have got to ask, are these really the only issues that this country faces? What about human trafficking within the boarders of the United States, which is part of the sex trade industry. What about stewardship of the environment (and I am no tree hugger), money, and energy. What about national security issues such as, secured boarders, which after seven years we still don’t have. What about free trade verses protection? What about health care? What about the family? What are we doing to strengthen the family?

What are we doing about our churches? Using the Southern Baptist Convention as an example, baptism have dropped to 1987 levels and the membership is dropping and has been estimated that half of all SBC churches will close by 2030. This makes me question our priorities. Also, consider this. I attended an associational meeting and they attempted to put a positive spin on the increase of 10 baptisms for the whole association, which had stopped a three year decline. But, do the math. It took four churches to bring one additional person into the kingdom. I have a hard time calling this success.

This begs the question what is the problem and what is the solution? First, my mantra, the leadership has chosen the halls of power over the homes of men or to put it another way they have left the flock to sit with kings. However, with all of my ranting on this issue it is only part of the problem. To explain this it may be best to use examples. I worked in a bus ministry with another guy. Most of the buses did not run and when they did it was by divine appointment only. How else can you get junk to work? The ministry really needed help. So, a couple of us decided to do some repair work and volunteered and got grief for helping and were accused of running people off. Nice way to start, can you see were this is going? I couldn’t begin to count the number of hours working till midnight to get buses ready for Sunday but, it paid off. The buses started running and kids were being brought in. Then the other side of the problem reared its head. Old ladies complained about the kids being dirty and noisy. Those crabby old ladies missed a great opportunity to be grandparents to these kids and show them that they were loved and to share the love of Christ.

As the saying goes “no good deed goes unpunished”, the deacons got involved in the ministry. Oh, people were very supportive until the cost to run buses hit home. They wanted to buy the parts and the oil, making every activity at least a two week job. The restriction finally became unreasonable and the maintenance crew left.

Do you see, everyone lost sight of the mission. The parents of the kids we were bring barely had any money and most really didn’t care what the kids did. Some parents would send toddlers in nothing but a diaper. The church missed a big opportunity to touch lives. It really would not have hurt to get a little dirt on things to hear the laughter of children within the church. (suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Mark 10:14 KJV)

We also had a poor family join. This family would bring ten to twenty guests a week, fill two pews. Then we had some old ladies (don’t mean to pick on just old ladies) that could not keep their mouth shut. They just had to say something to the mother about wearing the same dress every week. The family quit coming shortly after that and so did the guests.

The church must start to see people as God sees them. He certainly did not consider it a problem to die for us. Remember “not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of Hosts." Zec 4:6 (ESV)

Now what are the priorities?

The Christian Right Loses Power

An ABC News article “Religious Conservatives Brace for Future Under Obama”(1) by Dan Harris that discuses the lose of political power. It seems that Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is concerned about the lose of political power in Washington. This may be a good thing. Maybe this will help the Southern Baptist refocus on the mission of the church which is reaching men and not gaining power. If they would consider that baptism have been dropped to the 1987 levels and that the denomination is losing members, they would realize that the church is failing at its mandate. This would seem to indicate that the shepherds have taken poor care of the flock and have preferred power over their mission.

I would also like to ask a question. If the 2004 was a moral mandate with the election of Bush, how do you classify this election? As Christians, we claim that God is in control and guides the activities men. I wonder if the 2004 election was more man made then divine considering the mess that we are in now.

The church has created a false ministry and it is political activism. It is a way to get the membership involved and yet it adds little to no value to the Kingdom. I call this false ministry salve for the soul. I find it interesting that you can get crowds together to rally against something but, your lucky to get a couple people to show up to share the good news. Don’t you see a problem with this? What’s happening is that the church is failing to reach the hearts and minds of men. So, the tactic is to make church dogma law but this also requires that they tread on the rights of the non-believers of the nation. All done under the premise that the will of the people is being done. However, once the rights start being trampled, where will it end?

One more comment. I think that it is poor stewardship to base my decisions on one political plank within a party. Some how ignoring cooperate greed and abuses does not seem right. Am I to allow the person to ruin the country and risk our freedoms on this one issue? I think somebody needs to see the light.

(1) "http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=6199251&page=1"

A Night to Remember

To say that November 4, 2008 was a night to remember is a bit of an understatement. Not only did we cross a racial boundary that need to be crossed, we crossed many other dividing lines as well to make the election of Obama extra special. Based on some of the exit polls that I heard; those making over $100,000 voted for him, 61% of those who voted for him were white, and a large percentage of white women voted for him. People need hope and they want a country that is united, which is a central theme to Obama's message.

I also think that the voters sent a very strong statement to those in government "we want the problems solved" and along with that was to "put an end to the political fighting and help us". The country is in need of someone that can energize people to make the necessary bold moves, very similar to that of Kennedy's speech on why to go to the moon "not because it is easy but because it is difficult", which took a nation to the moon. We will have to make some tough choices and we need to do it together to have a future that looks brighter than ever.

The church should also take few pages from Obama's play book and become their brothers keeper. Obama's political campaign really used the model that Martin Luther King Jr used, grass roots movement by the people, which caused change in the political landscape.

The Church needs to take these two lessons and learn. If we, the church, intends to change the world for Christ, it will not be done in the halls of government as the Moral Majority attempted to do during the Regan era but in the hearts and minds of men. This will mean that we talk and listen to people and not stand on a street corner and scream at them. How can we convince our brother that we care about his soul when we don't care about him in the here and now (I will follow this thought later).

Obama is the anti-Christ?

Like most of you, I receive political email from friends, family, and both of the political parties. The the other day I received another one of those political email and like many of them they attempt to explain how evil the other party is. However, this one email really miss used the Scriptures so badly I have to say something, especially with so many Christians claiming its truth and pleading to have it forwarded.

The email, reportedly from a Dr. John Tisdale, attempts to use the book of Revelation to show how bad or evil Obama is, which implies that Obama is the anti-Christ. If I follow this line of thinking, I guess Biden is the false prophet and then on the other side we must have Satan and the whore of Babylon. Do we really believe this? I certainly hope not.

The email first ask if you remember your Sunday school teaching on the book of "Revelations" and how long the beast will be given to rule. The first thing that came to my mind was that this guy must of failed Sunday School. The book is “Revelation” and not “Revelations”. This told me that Dr. John Tisdale must not be a serious student of the Bible. He does have the Chapter reference correct and it would appear that he is referencing verse 5 of chapter 13:

Rev 13:5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. (ESV)

We need to really evaluate a few of things here. One, he has just made the Presidency of the United States the seat of power for the anti-Christ. Every commentary that I have ever read and my own study has the seat of power in Rome as part of the last great empire of Daniel's visions (Dan 2:31-33; cp Dan 7:1-8). Another problem here is the 42 and 48 months. Is the Scripture in error? Also, if I am not mistaken, the 42 months in Chapter 13 is part of the Great Tribulation or the last half of the seven years of tribulation. This would then mean that Christ's return is set for 2012. I am glad I now have a date to work with and my 401k doesn't seem so bad.

Next, in the second half of the email he claims that the book of Revelation describes the beast as "will be a man, in his 40's of Muslim descent". First problem to deal with is that Islam does not become a religion for about another 400 years after the writing of Revelation, which means that John, the writer of the book, could not have known about Muslims. Second, no where in Scripture can you find this type of reference for a 40 year old man being the anti-Christ. I have read some who have tried to profile the anti-Christ and most seem to have him coming from Eastern Europe or is the Pope. These profile are nothing more than speculation.

This makes me ask a lot questions. Why should I believe this guy? Obama has repeatedly stated that he is a Christian and his children have been baptized. Why should I forward this email? Let me make use of Scripture as well and provide Dr. Tisdale a warning:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation of John 22:18-19, ESV)

What about the things God hates? A lying tongue and one who sows discord among brothers, Proverbs 6:18 and 19. Obama claims to be Christian and I can only by reference assume the writer is but, the writer meets two of the seven things God hates. Do those who forward the email meet them as well?

These kind of emails also cast a bad light on the Church and the work it is suppose to be doing. When Christians are generating lies, what is the rest of the world suppose to think about its mission and purpose?

I think that the problem, at least in part, is that much of the Church and its leadership has substituted Spiritual power for political power and wealth. So, now the game is to stay in control at all cost and keep the gravy train rolling. That's why in the past I have seen church leadership making political views part of someones salvation – these are the real heretics.

I wonder if we just need to get back to the WHOLE counsel of God and reduce the picking and choosing of Scripture. We need to keep in mind that we have brothers and sisters on all sides of the political spectrum. What about such things as:

How we conduct business and economics:

• false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight. (Proverbs 11:1, ESV)
  

• Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights? (Micah 6:11, ESV)
  

• The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender. (Proverbs 22:7, ESV)

How we treat People:

• .. I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. (Matthew 25:40, ESV)

• ... Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. (I Peter 5:5, ESV)

• Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed. (Proverbs 19:17, ESV)

Maybe we need to look at some more issues instead of the top three hot buttons when it comes to managing a country and our own lives. Maybe God is a little more complex than a few planks on a party platform.

I don't care who you vote for. We should not be in the business of spreading lies and fear. It does hurt the Kingdom's work in the end. We should be in the business of spreading hope.