meChurch video

I know when Josh created this blog he intended it for multiple contributors, so I thought I'd throw a couple of cents in... and why not start out on the lighter side.

Here's a humorous clip I came across recently that I feel like is in the vain of this blog, as far as Christian consumerism and the individualistic church.  Check it out:



I know this video is more specific to a church service/gathering, but I see it applying to peoples' mindsets about the Church in general.  Do you think that we as the Church have given in to this mindset, or even further, that we've helped create this mindset?  Or is it just broken people being broken people?

it's been a while

I use to blog everyday, but became addicted to my own words. (the common sin of most bloggers) So I took some time off. I went over a year without blogging and then started this blog up. But then I only blogged on this blog a few times and invited a few others to post as well. All of that to say, I feel like blogging again, but no promises on how often or if it will even be worth reading.

I had a chance to "go to church" yesterday. By that I mean I didn't preach. I don't really believe that any of us ever go to church because we are the church. However, this "go to church" language is used by many people. Anyway, It was real refreshing not to preach, not to think about it all week and to be able to sit with my wife. But how quick my heart wonders to making it about me, my comfort, my passions, my convenience. Now don't get me wrong, it's good that I don't preach every week, good for them and for me... but this week I found myself wondering what it must be like to decide if I wanted to "go to church". I found myself sitting there asking things like, "do I agree with that", or "maybe he could have said that differently"... and then the Holy Spirit hit me upside the head and said, "stop". "Stop making this about you, your thoughts, your ideas...It's about me and My Glory. It's about your need for Me and the beautiful picture of how the Gospel meets your need..." Now as all of this was going on in my head I was also being convicted of sin in my life and places that I didn't believe the Gospel... God was using Alan (a terrific communicator and pastor) to translate the Word into my heart. But I guess what I am saying is wow, how fast I can slip into making this all about me. The title of this blog is "me church" and it's intent is to post reminders that this is not about me, but about Jesus. So maybe God allowed me to have a week off and just be so he could remind me that my heart is prone to make it about me. Maybe he called me to preach in part to deliver me from thinking I could do it better than some other pastor. Maybe, each week when I faced with the hard reality of communicating God's word...God is all the while purifying me and saving me from myself.
But the exciting part of yesterday was feeling a part of something! I felt a part of a body of Believers, on the Mission of Jesus in Boise and around the world. It was incredible to partake, and a joy to join. I pray that each week I will be reminded of the beauty of the church and the honor it is to gather in public for the sake of our King! May God continue to refine me and redeem me and show me the honor it is to be called HIS church.

occupied

Today I preached on being occupied by the Sprit. While preaching I talked about how most Americans are so occupied with other stuff that we can't hear the Spirit. In Gal 5:16 it says to be occupied by the Spirit. Maybe we must must stop being occupied first.
Most of America is occupied by our own “culture”, that is no really no culture at all. In this "culture" we pay an outrageous price for burnt coffee and call it good. We like wine that taste like wood instead of grapes. We feel it is our right to drive slow in the fast lane because it’s a free country. We think that a good restaurant is a place that serves food from a different country because we can’t make any good food here. We think that our cities should be replaced with malls and movie theaters, as if the American dream can only live in the suburbs. We have redefined the word “friend” to someone that wants to read our worthless status updates on facebook. We escape reality by watching someone else’s life on TV and calling it entertainment. We vote for who we want to be the next American idol but forget to vote for our local representatives who make the laws by which we live. We send our kids to public school to be educated but are afraid to fire bad teachers because it might hurt our economy. We listen to our ipod while we ski, ride or study and wonder why no one cares about the world around us. We think that the internet ought to be warp speed fast on our phone so we can watch a video of a cat using the toilet on youtube. We have become the most worthless occupied culture on earth!

freedom

For far too long we have told people that they have freedom in Christ but we have forgot to tell them the backstory. Paul spent 4 chapters in Galatians explaining the backstory...but we jump oh so quick to chapter 5. We are free, and we ought not subject ourself again to the yoke of slavery. The yoke of the law, the yoke of others opinion, the yoke of our traditions ...
So what does this look like in our churches, our gatherings, our gospel communities?

When we follow the story we see that Abraham was declared righteous because of his faith, then he was told to walk blameless before God in his faith and that circumcision was a sign of the covenant. God blessed him to be a blessing. Abraham and his family were to show the world what it is like to love God and live in His ways.

But we are sons of the promise, sons of the a new covenant that Jesus fulfills. In Jesus we have the blessing of the covenant and the freedom of the covenant. Jesus has fulfilled our side of the covenant and it can't be undone. That is our freedom. We have been declared righteous because of our faith in Jesus, we have been told to walk blameless before God and the Spirit is the sign of our covenant. But it's not up to us to keep it! Jesus has kept it for us! We are free! So all that we have (our time, money, stuff...) are HIS not ours. We are blessed in Jesus to be a blessing!

So our blessings are not about us. We didn't earn them and we can't keep them. What if the church lived like this in our communities? Living freely with all that we had, living freely with our time and our money? Living freely with our talents and gifts?
It would be an unstoppable force! A force where "circumcision or uncircumcision meant nothing, but faith working through love."

Oh how we sell the people of God short and try to make it about them, their comfort, their wants, their desires...
Maybe we ought to tell the backstory to our freedom and call the family of God to live in that Freedom... to show the world what it is like to love God and live in His ways!

Thinking about the fact I spend far more time fighting against the Spirit than against Satan. I would be surprised if you looked hard and found that wasn't the case as well. I'm not completely convinced that we do much of anything else. I have a gut feeling that we can't do much w/o Him against any schemes of that roaring lion. If that is true, my lack of trust takes/ruins/holds back the one weapon that I ever had. Being made new is my only means of taking any ground in this multi-front war. Giving myself over to the power of the Holy Spirit is my only means of standing against the wiles of the devil.

more on discipleship

I have been convicted that somehow in my "church planter-ness" I have forgotten the mission. It's to make disciples right? Not to build big or small christian communities that suck the life out of the pastors and the leadership always wanting to be entertained....not to convince people that our church or "rebrand" of christianity is good...

Remember, Jesus says to baptize (because we can't be His people unless we are born again. Baptism is a sign of our rebirth, a sign of conversion.) We must remember that just doing "good things" in the world does not equal His kingdom. There is a part of discipleship that happens before belief, a big part. This can be played out as we walk with not yet believers and show them what it looks like to love God and live in His ways in the tangible task of life. But it can't stop there. Someone who is baptized is someone that wants to proclaim their conversion. Our culture is trying to convert us to everything. Why are we afraid of converting people to Jesus? I think it's because we are worried more about our own name, our own identity more that the name and power of the trinity. We want to rebrand Christianity and try and make it good again but we have failed to realized that God has already rebranded humanity and made us good again in the person of Jesus.

Jesus then says to teach them to do all that I taught you to do. This is not a system, its a life style. It doesn't happen in a classroom it happens in life. So when we think like this we see that we can disciple someone to love their wife because we have learned and are learning to love our wives. We can disciple someone to rest, because we have learned and are learning to rest. This is not bullet points, its life. We can disciple someone to read and pray, because we are reading and praying. We can disciple someone to love their neighborhood because we are loving our neighborhood. You see, we can't disciple someone in something that we are not already doing.

But the biggest part of discipleship that I believe is too often overlooked is that Jesus is with us always, no matter where we go or what job we have. He lives in us. We are His carriers into this world bringing His kingdom wherever we go.Why do we teach people how to "be" like Jesus and then send them out to "be" Jesus? We have just created a new law, a new system of morality. We are not to go and "be" Jesus...we are carriers of Jesus. He is in us, He is alive, He is bringing His power and righteousness through us into our communities, families and workplaces. If the discipleship process makes us feel pressure to go and "do" then it's probably not true discipleship.

Think about these words... "All power has been given unto ME" (Jesus)... "so as you are in the rhythm of life, as you go"... "make disciples" (reminds me of be fruitful and multiply).... "of all peoples" (not just the ones you like)..."Baptizing them in the name of the trinity" (not just Jesus only, but teaching people about the whole character of God)..."teaching them to do" (we can't teach someone to do something we don't do. This is not ideas, this is life. Our true theology is what we live that we believe about God, not just what we say we believe about God)... "all that I have taught you" (not just the parts that feel good. not just go out and try and live like me.)... "for I AM with you always" (Jesus in us)...

Maybe we ought to rethink what we are asking people to do? Maybe we ought to be disciples that make disciples. Maybe our diagrams and charts ought to help communicate discipleship not replace it. Learning this as I go but I think that's what Jesus said right..."as you are going...Make disciples".

just maybe

maybe we have complicated things too much. It's funny how we as pastors can get so caught up in our own terms, our methods, our vision... that we miss the point. It is hard to find the balance of having vision and being intoxicated with your own vision. I do believe that God give specific missions and specific visions for each body of Christ. However we must not miss the goal... to make Disciples. The easiest way to work this out is to see how transferable it is. I've found that if I can't explain the "vision" to someone in 5 min then it's probably too complex. This is not to say that we need to dumb things down, however maybe we ought to take some clues from our culture. Google- people use it because it's google stupid. They use it because you can write an email, upload a doc or chat or search for a flight to Africa all from the same place. It's integrated into life and it flows.

Remember that Jesus entrusted His mission with regular men, hard working, untrained men. They didn't need a masters in theology to follow his train of thought. In fact, they might of missed a lot of what He was saying in the moment but the Jesus trusted His Spirit to work out His mission in their life in the normality of life. He sent them out to do it. He told them to that He was sending them out in His power (not his fancy diagrams), to be HIs people (not a sexier version of him), to bring His teachings (not cool little rebottled catch phrases) to where they lived and where they were sent to (Jesus said, as you are going... make disciples). The end goal was that we would carry His Kingdom (not our take on what it looks like) into the world. And the proof of our discipleship was if people were being discipled. Imagine that!

Maybe, just maybe, we need to be refreshed by our call to make disciples. What if we took all of our "church life" (BTW I think that is bad theology, all of life is God's life, all our money is God's money, all our time is God's time)... but what if we looked at what we call "church" and asked the question, "is this making disciples of Jesus?"

Maybe we would understand that our "ME Church" mentality was the farthest thing from the mission of Jesus?

me church.part 2

I'm not sure how many parts I will post before I think of another name for a post...but for now it's part two. The irony is that as I blog my family is watching my most hated show, american idol. This show stands for everything I stand against, well not all I stand against but a lot of it. But what worries me more is that our churches are taking clues from shows like this and allowing them to give us the theology of our services. We want to be like them, we think success is how many butts are in our seats watching our "God show". It's a "me" church culture where we come and consume. Most churches don't text for the pastor they like but we do choose our church "family" based on how it fits us, our liking, or feelings. Week after week americans "go to church" and cast their vote for the best.

Now I don't think we ought to boycott technology or not use the arts in our service... but do we ever stop and ask why? We are all about the "what". This even rolls into our lives as we long for the "better" and just think we need a new "what" to help us. What book can I read to help me with sin, what pastor can I podcast to fix my marriage, what verses can I read to help me with my anger...But do we ever ask the why? Pastors, we have to realize that what we do in our services is being lived out in our church family in the details of life. If we are performing for them each week so they can consume our jesus product then why are we amazed that they live their christian life looking for the next fix, the next product, the next "what" to fix them.

So I am learning to ask these questions. The question is not about the "Me Church" but about the King Jesus and His bride. Why does God want worship from His people and why don't we worship. Why do we do what we do each week at our gatherings and how are the elements of the service being played out in the church in our communities each week? Maybe we should give people more than 30 seconds to "greet a visitor" if we want them to spend more than 30 seconds each week to meet a new neighbor or friend. Maybe we should preach first, declare the truth of God and that life ought to be worship...before we ask them to worship in song. BTW- I'm learning all this as I go and I'm not suggesting a hippy fest each week where we sit around and chat about God and stuff. But what if I as a pastor realized that every week I was a part of a "teachable moment" and that I might be teaching more from the "why" of what we do, then just what I "preach" in my sermon.

This is why we take communion each week. By doing it weekly, we put Jesus at the center of the service each week. We tell the family before we start to preach or sing that we are going to take communion. We tell them that if the preaching, music or decorations are not up to their standard... it's ok because we came here to remember Jesus. His life, death, resurrection and His spirit that is alive in us today. We remind them that we are going to confess our sin and our need for Jesus. And that as we take communion we are being reminded of this mystical picture... that Jesus is in us being sent back out to our community, culture and families. It amazes me that no mater what the text is that we preach out of, or what story of God we tell, or if we have a family business meeting for an hour on Sunday... by taking communion every week the Gospel is proclaimed, we repent of sin and we are sent back out on the kingdom mission. We are reminded that we don't have to go and "be" jesus because the reality is that we are Jesus carriers.

me church. part one

It's funny how I have returned to blogging after all these years. I remember me as a young lad blogging out of anger, wanting to be heard. Or maybe it was out of injustice that I saw or a fallen world that crewed into the "real" of life.

However, I hope that this blog doesn't become just a place to vent but that it allows me and others to process our thoughts and reflect on how we need to submit ourself to the kingdom of Jesus in the "real" of life.

I have titled this blog "Me Church" because this is at the heart of my present pain. I feel a disgust in me for how me, myself and other pastors have wrongly presented and promoted the bride of Christ... His Church. So let my confession be the first... I have not seen the Church as Jesus' bride and have made it about me. I have encouraged others and served others in a way that tells them that it is about them and not Jesus.

Today as I preached, I stopped to ask the church... "what is the church"? It's funny how it became silent. If I was at a Baseball game and asked the fans, "what is Baseball" I think that the answers would roll off their lips. Now to the churches credit, it might of caught them off guard or they may have been afraid of saying the wrong thing. But don't we think it's time we stop and ask that question? Not out of Rebellion but our of allegiance to our King and to His bride.

Could it be that we have so made "church" about me, about us... that we don't even know the answer to a simple question? I am not a smart guy and I am not going to try and over think this. However, Jesus left His bride, the church, in the hands or a bunch of uneducated, untrained (by worldly standards) men. Yet I never get the feeling that they sat around asking the question, "what is Church"? or, "How do we get people to come to our church"?

Maybe this blog is only for me to unleash these thoughts of my own pain and sin that makes me think church is about me. Or maybe this blog will serve as a launching pad for disciples of Jesus to start making disciples of Jesus instead of making them groupies of "our church".