I started this post last night with the original title of "Tradition and Discontentment". I was trying to capture the quotes below.
(From Red Letter Revolution - Claiborne and Campolo)
"...rather than trying to throw out our traditions, we need to bring them back to life. Instead of complaining about the church we've experienced, we are working on becoming the church that we dream of."
"The church needs discontent. It is a gift to the kingdom, but we have to use our discontentment to engage rather than to disengage."
"Just as we critique the worst of the church, we should also celebrate her at her best."
This morning I changed the title as I think really what is key here is the reconciliation of Christ's church and of people in their relationship with God. This extends into the whole issue of witnessing and sharing our faith. Yes, it is important to share the gift of Christ, grace, and love; but we must do so without condemnation in an effort to reconcile humanity back to the relationship God originally intended. Through this lens (and not the hell lens) it seems to make more sense to me and motivate me more to talk to people about my faith and Christ. I still think I should be more concerned about people's eternity, but the relationship seems important as well. Both my relationship with those I am sharing with and their relationship with the creator, a father, and a savior who wants to reconcile the world back to the way it was intended to be. I don't want to approach people in condemnation (either mine or God's), but with a story of reconciliation (both mine and theirs).
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Feast and Fast
From Jen Hatmaker's "7". Funny how God hits me from every direction when he is trying to get His point across.
What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Web sites, talked to an average attender? Would they be so confused? Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans? Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock? Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1? Would they be stunned most of us don’t feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick, or protect the widow? Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while twenty-five thousand people die every day from starvation?
I think they’d barely recognize us as brothers and sisters. If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing. I believe we’d receive dumbfounded stares if we discussed “church shopping” because enough people don’t say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week. If they found out one-sixth of the earth’s population claimed to be Christians, I’m not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we’re living in excess. They’d wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time.
But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks. We have choir practice every Wednesday. We organize retreats with door prizes. We’re raising three million dollars for an outdoor amphitheater. We have catchy T-shirts. We don’t smoke or say the F word. We go to Bible study every semester. (“ And then what, American Church?”) Well, we go to another one. We’re learning so much.
I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus’ beautiful church vision. We’ve taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved. If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society. We wouldn’t have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they’d be running to us. The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our staunchest critics.
Instead, the American church is dying. We are losing ground in epic proportions. Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches. We made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn’t holding. Last year, 94 percent of evangelical churches reported loss or no growth in their communities. Almost four thousand churches are closing each year. We are losing three million people annually, flooding out the back door and never returning. The next generation downright refuses to come.
Ironically, this is the result of a church that only feasts.
When the fast, the death, the sacrifice of the gospel is omitted from the Christian life, then it isn’t Christian at all. Not only that, it’s boring. If I just want to feel good or get self-help, I’ll buy a $ 12 book from Borders and join a gym. The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came. It was good news to the poor and stumped its enemies. The church was patterned after a Savior who had no place to lay his head and voluntarily died a brutal death, even knowing we would reduce the gospel to a self-serving personal improvement program where people were encouraged to make a truce with their Maker and stop sinning and join the church, when in fact the gospel does not call for a truce but a complete surrender.
Jesus said the kingdom was like a treasure hidden in a field, and once someone truly finds it, he will happily sell everything he owns to possess that field, a perfect description of the fasting and the feast. It will cost everything, but it is a treasure and an unfathomable joy. This is the balance of the kingdom; to live we must die, to be lifted we bow, to gain we must lose. There is no alternative definition, no path of least resistance, no treasure in the field without the sacrifice of everything else. Oh Lord, may we be focused on the least; a people balancing the fasting and the feast.
And from "The Poor Will Be Glad" by Greer and Smith.
If an integrated approach to making disciples is a scriptural imperative, followers of Christ are not at liberty to choose between proclaiming Christ or serving the needs of the world. While this fact may cause discomfort for Christians for a variety of reasons, we should ultimately rejoice in the many advantages of integrated ministry.
.....
God's body on earth - the church - is uniquely able to provide a special feast for people around the world by simultaneously meeting spiritual and physical needs.
What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Web sites, talked to an average attender? Would they be so confused? Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans? Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock? Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1? Would they be stunned most of us don’t feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick, or protect the widow? Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while twenty-five thousand people die every day from starvation?
I think they’d barely recognize us as brothers and sisters. If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing. I believe we’d receive dumbfounded stares if we discussed “church shopping” because enough people don’t say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week. If they found out one-sixth of the earth’s population claimed to be Christians, I’m not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we’re living in excess. They’d wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time.
But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks. We have choir practice every Wednesday. We organize retreats with door prizes. We’re raising three million dollars for an outdoor amphitheater. We have catchy T-shirts. We don’t smoke or say the F word. We go to Bible study every semester. (“ And then what, American Church?”) Well, we go to another one. We’re learning so much.
I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus’ beautiful church vision. We’ve taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved. If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society. We wouldn’t have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they’d be running to us. The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our staunchest critics.
Instead, the American church is dying. We are losing ground in epic proportions. Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches. We made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn’t holding. Last year, 94 percent of evangelical churches reported loss or no growth in their communities. Almost four thousand churches are closing each year. We are losing three million people annually, flooding out the back door and never returning. The next generation downright refuses to come.
Ironically, this is the result of a church that only feasts.
When the fast, the death, the sacrifice of the gospel is omitted from the Christian life, then it isn’t Christian at all. Not only that, it’s boring. If I just want to feel good or get self-help, I’ll buy a $ 12 book from Borders and join a gym. The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came. It was good news to the poor and stumped its enemies. The church was patterned after a Savior who had no place to lay his head and voluntarily died a brutal death, even knowing we would reduce the gospel to a self-serving personal improvement program where people were encouraged to make a truce with their Maker and stop sinning and join the church, when in fact the gospel does not call for a truce but a complete surrender.
Jesus said the kingdom was like a treasure hidden in a field, and once someone truly finds it, he will happily sell everything he owns to possess that field, a perfect description of the fasting and the feast. It will cost everything, but it is a treasure and an unfathomable joy. This is the balance of the kingdom; to live we must die, to be lifted we bow, to gain we must lose. There is no alternative definition, no path of least resistance, no treasure in the field without the sacrifice of everything else. Oh Lord, may we be focused on the least; a people balancing the fasting and the feast.
And from "The Poor Will Be Glad" by Greer and Smith.
If an integrated approach to making disciples is a scriptural imperative, followers of Christ are not at liberty to choose between proclaiming Christ or serving the needs of the world. While this fact may cause discomfort for Christians for a variety of reasons, we should ultimately rejoice in the many advantages of integrated ministry.
.....
God's body on earth - the church - is uniquely able to provide a special feast for people around the world by simultaneously meeting spiritual and physical needs.
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