Pray for me

3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison-

4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. - Colossians 4:3-4

The Gospel is a mystery, a thing that does not make sense untill it is proclaimed.  But for the gospel to make sense it must be spoken clearly.

I have the opportunity in the next week or so to try to speak the Gospel clearly to a young couple who woul like to join our church.  The problem I that they are not believers, but they think they are.  

The Bible is clear that the gospel is the power, not just contains the power, to transform lives. A person genuinely re-born through the power of the Gospel, will be irrevocably changed. Those changes produce real and lasting evidence, which Jesus and the Apostles described as fruit.

And this couple has no fruit. Their world is, by their own account not a place of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness or gentleness. They do not love the things of God, but they live the things of the world.

These things are no surprise, the problem is that both of them have been in churches that were not faithfull to proper proclamation of mystery of the Gospel. And the wife was actually baptized at a very young age, by a former pastor of our church. 

And they want to be members. Less than a year ago it was clear they were politely uninterested, but months of prayer and investment have built a relationship, and a friendship. Leading to the conversation we need to have in the next week or so.

And so I ask that you would lift all of us up in prayer, that God would open up the door for that Gospel conversation, and that I would proclaim the mystery of Christ as I ought. 

Good ministry, really bad evangelism!

I had the opportunity to speak with an individual in my community who grew up attending church, as an active member in their youth group, camping events and ministry outreaches.

In Jr-High and High School he was part of a touring vocal ensemble, that sang gospel music in churches.  He knows and loves the old hymns. 

He also played a leading role in Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat. He thought it was special that "it had something to do with the Bible."

He attended a church with a friend and when they asked him if he believed in Jesus he said "yes" and was immediately baptized.

All of that was 15 or 20 years ago, and he put his faith in Christ, last summer for the first time in his life.

When I asked him, if his youth leaders choir directors and pastors ever explained the Gospel to him, he said that he couldn't remember anyone ever sitting down with him and sharing how he could be saved.

Read that again, let it soak in.  

Like he said, there were probably several times when a speaker or preacher shared the gospel, but he was too busy singing it to be able to hear it.

20 years latter life is full of regrets, and only now does he have a personal faith struggling to mature.

Folks, if there is room for "ministry" surely there is time to share the messages of God's grace! Be sure you are sharing the gospel, personally purposefully, and often. 

Raging without a story.

I am no expert on culture, but I do listen and read a bit on the subject. And one thing that has been curious to me is the anger and rage that is becoming a theme in the way people are angry.  

I know anger and rage is at least as old as Cain and Able. And I am not under the illusion that somehow my generation has an extra share, what does intrigue me is that the anger is now directed not at injustice but at people we think are the problem.

Let me explain. It used to be we had categories for our hate that fit into the general notion of "right and wrong" which in turn came from a world view that believed in some way shape or form in redemptive value even in suffering.

Whether it was illness,disaster or injustice  even the most secular person had a semi-biblical understanding that good can  come from evil.  And in connection with that the belief that good triumphs over evil in the end. 

Additionally there was the understanding that there is to some degree or another a constant war against the evil inclinations in individuals and societies, and that it is inherently noble to fight figuratively and litteraly against evil.

These ideas: redemption, and fitting against evil only make sense from a biblical world view. And once we loose the story of redemption we also lose the capacity to suffer in a redemptive and noble way.

This was brought home to me in a recent viewing of the movie, Second Hand Lions. In the film, one of the characters is a bitter old man, his life has been full of adventure, but due to the death of a loved one and old age he has given up hope and now is just passing the time in vain attempts at reliving the glory days while waiting to die.  What struck me about it was that the character makes the statement that whether is it true or not we must believe that "good always triumphs over evil."  

He doesn't believe it is true. He is an angry old man, bitterly wishing that life was not so hard, he is not looking for redemption, he is not expecting any good to come if his situation. He has no hope, he doesn't have the story of redemption to anchor his ideals.

And yet he knows the truth, and the film proceeds to weave a story of redemption.  But our culture is caught. You see it used to be that you could battle injustice and still have hope. You could fight against slavery or oppression and still be content, because there was a certainty of redemption.  You could endure evil and still do what was right because there was always hope.  

But our culture does not embrace the story of redemption. They embrace the story of personal victory against the odds to be true to yourself at all costs. Not going to battle against lust because fighting evil is noble, but fighting any restrictions on lust because there is no concept of redemption. Not battling injustice while believing that people can change, but battling people because we feel that injustice is their fault, and since there is no redemption, we can't even see that there might be value in suffering

And so people are angry in a self and others destructive way. Because there is no redemption, and no real hope that good will win I  the end. So people are angry, and afraid, and without hope.

These angry people need to hear and understand a story of redemption, or their world will never make any sense. 

Pondering the role of tradition

Tradition is a word most Protestants despise. It smaks of human invention, and threatens to change the gospel from the simple truth of Christ to something, any thing, else.

Often though we are blind to our own tradition, like worshiping on Sunday, and referring to it as the Sabbath. Worship any day of the week, and Sunday in memory of the resurrection, but it is not the Sabbath, that would contradict the clear and plain meaning of the simple truths of Scripture. And yet there are thousands who do. 

Calling our churches, "The Lord's House" that would equate the building where your church gathers with the Temple in Jerusalem. Which is contradictory to Scripture and at the same time totally obscure the fact that according to the plain teaching of Scripture at this point in history it is the believer him-self who is the dwelling place of God.

These are traditions, so are all of our hymns. So are the style of clothes we consider acceptable. And the doctrinal statements we hold dear. Not all traditions are bad. Many have a very important role in our lives, they give structure and reality to Biblical injunctions, such as do not forsake gathering together. But they are still traditions.

The question of tradition has been particularly pressing on my mind as I realize more and more each day that for many who call themselves Christian, they rely more on the human traditions: songs, events, devotionals, and measures of orthodoxy, than they do on the Gospel. Talk about getting rid of Vacation Bible school, or changing Sundayschool, and people get leary.  They are afraid we will not do evangelism. When in reality the biblical definition of the Gospel, is a passing reference in our VBS, amid the traditions of crafts and games, and fun songs written last year.  Actually proclaiming the 2000 year old message of Christ Crucified, is a minuscule portion of the expense and effort of a VBS.

There are several other areas where I am thinking hard, why do we have one preacher on Sunday? Why do we do communion on the first Sunday of the month? Why is church so academic? All of these are traditions. Wine skins, perhaps?  And only worth defending, to the degree that lead us to THE tradition, Christ, crucified for our sins according to the scriptures, buried and raised the third day.

Reaching the people around us

One of my church members has a brother in the hospital with life threatening  complications of drinking far too much alcohol. He was release last week, from the hospital, and promptly went back to drinking and is now back in the hospital. His son was arrested yesterday after a four hour stand off with police, on methamphetamine related charges, and the girl who lives in the trailer where he was arrested was a childhood classmate of the mother of my son's first grade classmate.  Got that? 

3 degrees of separation means that in a small town, a friend of mine ran for mayor on an anti corruption platform, against the uncle of my other friend with whom I am trying to share the gospel.

It means that the kids I teach in school, go home to the house on the corner, a house where they sort of grunt at my greeting when I walk by- I still don't belong.  It means that the third great I taught music Friday spend the day with grandma who is my next door neighbor, while their mom and dad try to sort out a messy third divorce.

It means that the meth-head is my neighbor. That my small town is not a safe place, and that the world is ripe for the gospel.

The question is how to present the gospel in a town, where the vast majority will only set foot in a church if they are picking up a check to help pay their back rent, because they are facing eviction since they had to bail their husband out  of jail for domestic violence, and spend $60 a week on cheep cigarets. 

How do we love the down and out, and their kids? When the majority of the congregation isn't sure how to talk to them? How do we actually share the life changing power of the gospel with people who are not interested in comming to church?

Good questions.  Please pray for wisdom.

Thanks for the call

I don't call people. Not without some realy good reason.  I have a few friends who call me once in a while and I am always glad to hear from them.  But for some reason I don't like calling people. 

So thanks Mrs Becky for the message on my answering machine. 

I am reluctantly on Facebook, and though I will post occasionally, for the church or for our soapberryproject, the idea of sharing all the details of my life with people seems very strange indeed.

Part of it is that my life is a series of mundane things, to me at least the fact that one if my boys is finally hiding when he poops is not news, it is just another day in the life of a small family. 

We took prayer requests tonight and I didn't mention that we have one who is poping six teeth, with a small ear infection, and a bottomless pit for a stomach. Not surprising, nothing unusual, so I mentioned it in passing later.

We also have a loose tooth in the house, our first. It has caused great discomfort at meal times, and some comments from the younger brothers that they have decided not to have loose teeth.

The reality is that I have a lot of small things going on. And nothing that rates a phone call. But someone might be interested.

Holiday Blues

As most of you know, I grew up in a different culture than where I currently reside. One unintended side effect of such an upbringing is that I often found myself observing holidays or celebrating holidays that were not mutual. 

People there have several holidays that we don't and we have a few they don't. We don't have a while month full of different independance days and flag day, while they don't have Thanksgiving.

We celebrate birthdays differently, we celebrate Christmas differently.  And I can remember the first year we had a Halloween contingent, when a crowd of kids showed up at our door one night chanting "triky, triky, Haloeen" we didn't plant for it but we learned to have popcorn on hand October 31st, so we could make a quick treat if people came by to celebrate one of "our" holidays.

Now I live in rural Ohio, in a majority Catholic community. Here Christmas is literally sacred for many, and Haloween is questionable, but the biggest festival of the year, the unquestioned event on every calendar is The Great Darke County Fair. Businesses close their doors, and school is delayed till after the fair.  We start school here almost three weeks later than the rest of the state, because of the fair.

Holidays are now a war zone in our culture.  Should I say "Merry Christmas" I would be in trouble at school for trying to force my religion down someone's throat.  Question the premise of Haloween, and you are liable to hear people call you a kill joy. 

I find myself asking questions of our understanding and practice of holidays in general. I grew up that way. Why do we do this? What does it mean? Is it contrary to the Gospel? Can it be used as a bridge to the Gospel? Where does it come from.

We just got through Haloween, or in modern English The day before All Saints Day. The holiday is in my opinion a classic syncretism of pagan, ancestor and spirit worship with Catholic tradition. All saints day is when they remember all the saints who have died. There is a special mass and lots of visiting of graves. And interestingly it is in the same season as many pagan religions celebrations of the spirits and the dead. That is true all around the world, the dates vary, but the day of the dead, or the day when spirits wander loose looking for the living, is a fairly common theme. In the fall of the year. Whether it is candles, candy sculls, disguises, or carved turnips or pumpkins the spirits are loose, and people must take precautions.

And such practices do not point to the gospel. I would say it might present an opportunity to present the gospel, but I am not sure most people have any idea what it means.  Candy? Greed and gluttony?

This is followed by the very American celebration of Thanksgiving, which while it sounds like a Biblical concept, has degenerated into Glutony, violent games in the coliseum, and a day of intemperate expenditures.  Whatever we may be thankfull for, and to whom is secondary what actually happens is overheating football, and Black Friday.

We might be able to bring this one back to the Gospel, but we would have to awaken from our turkey coma, and step away from the screen. And I'm not sure how likely that is.

And then there is Christmass, the mythical most wonderful day of the year. Named for the Catholic mass that is celebrated that day, it also coincides with several ancient "birth of the gods" celebrations. And ironically most serious Bible scholars would scoff as anyone who actually beloved it is even remotely related to the day Christ was born. And while the giving if gifts is supposed to emulate God's gift of his son, right now public displays of mangers and babies are virtually illegal in some places and the main face on the holiday is the patron saint of hypocracy, Nicolas of the North Pole who comforts thousands of children and adults in the lie that they were actually good enough this year, because no one ever deserves an empty tree at Christmas.

Ironically many Protestants are trying to keep the Christ in Christmas having never been to a mass in their lives, and having no clue that it has no historic or biblical connection to the birth if Christ.

I'll skip over to the one that strikes me as the most odd, Easter.  Named for the pagan goddess of fertility Ishtar, or more familiar to our ears Ashtoreth. It's main sybolism is eggs and Bunny rabbits, even though it is supposedly based in the celebration of Christ's resurrection, which  although it happened on a Sunday was conected to a set of Jewish holidays, which we conviniently ignore, instead fixing the date arbitrarily, also according to Catholic tradition.

Easter may seem like the quintessential Christian holiday, but even it's name is pagan, one we are not supposed it even mention: 

"Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips. - Exodus 23:13

Where do these questions lead to? I am not sure. I think we need to learn to question everything and retain the good. We need to be on a constant lookout for ways to share the gospel, and we need to be very carefull to distinguish between tradition, and biblical truth.

How much of our theology, is based in passed traditions, inherited through syncretism of pagan and Catholic traditions, which may or may not have a useful way to get to the Gospel? 

And how much time do we spend defending traditions and holidays that are not in the Bible, and are shaped more by various cultural histories than sound theology?