Great Quote

“Indeed, for women and other oppressed people, Jesus turned upside down the accepted wisdom of the day. Pharisees believed that touching an unclean person polluted the one who touched. But when Jesus touched a person with leprosy, Jesus did not become soiled-the leprous became clean. When an immoral woman washed Jesus’ feet, she went away forgiven and transformed. When he defied custom to enter a pagan’s house, the pagan’s servant was healed. In word and in deed Jesus was proclaiming a radically new gospel of grace: to get clean a person did not have to journey to Jerusalem, offer sacrifices, and undergo purification rituals. All a person had to do was follow Jesus. As Walter Wink puts it, “the contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness.”

-Phillip Yancey "The Jesus I Never Knew"

It's from a Cady....so you know it's good

S. Cady has come through with another great post! Check it out, marvel at the link that he put in.

Seriously, the link is pretty stupid! His title is right, crying is my response.

Cady's Magic

Peace through fighting....I think not!

I understand the Christian pro-Israel position. I understand the Israelis need to protect themselves from terrorism. I understand that there are Muslim terrorists out there who want nothing more than to destroy the Jews. I guess I just miss how fighting and killing people is going to solve the problem.

The problem in the Middle East is that for literally thousands of years the people of Israel and their Arab neighbors have been fighting. Both sides have been practicing hate towards each other. They have stood dogmatically on their positions and when those positions have been threatened they have responded with force.

As a result of this constant fighting and hatred they have continued to fued for the entire time. It’s just like the feuds up in the hill country of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee in the 19th century. The Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s kept fighting until just a few years ago. Why because there was always another axe to grind. There was always another revenge that had to be carried out.

This is the problem with fighting for peace. Look at World War II. One of the biggest causes was World War I. The German people were disgraced and humiliated after they lost, and it probably didn’t take a orator like Hitler (even though it was) much effort to rally the people behind getting revenge and avenging this disgrace. The hurt was already there.

Simple and plain, war does not lead to peace.

I am not saying we should not fight nor am I saying that a country does not have the right to defend itself. Israel as a sovereign nation has the right to stop another country from launching missiles into its cities. But just because it does have that right does not mean that they should expect force to stop another jihad movement from attacking her another day.

The only way for peace to happen is for one (or both) of the parties to agree to give up their right to justice, give up their pride, and move on. What would that mean? It would mean ideologies to change drastically. It would probably mean that Israel would lose it’s nationhood because the Arabs would take it by force. But then there would be no fighting.

If we look at the prescient that the early Christians set for peacefully giving up their rights we see how to gain peace. The Roman Emperors had it out for these people. They killed, tortured, divided them, enslaved them, and tried to do everything possible to destroy their movement. The Christians could have fought back, but they would have been destroyed. The Jews fought back, and in 70 AD everything they stood for was destroyed.

Jesus constantly talked about giving up your rights, about loving your neighbor, about not making it about you and what you wanted. He even set the example by dying on a cross. Culturally, turning the other cheek and walking another mile were references to the Roman soldiers. They would hit people. Jesus said to not fight back, but instead to allow them to hit you again-to give up your rights. Soldiers could make people carry their gear for a mile; Jesus said to offer to carry their equipment an extra mile. To again give up your rights.

Did Christians get hurt? Yes. Did Christians die? Yes. Were people’s lives totally changed as they watched Christians give up everything? Yes. Did Romans become followers of Christ? Yes. Was the Empire eventually won for Christ? Yes! Jesus’ message of a non-violent approach to peace does work. Who would have known God would have the answer?

It seems impossible. Is it possible for Israel and their Muslim neighbors to ever co-exist in peace? I think yes. But I do not think it will ever happen if they fight and if they continue to kill each other. Nope! You cannot win peace with war. It just doesn’t work.

I deserve....?

just a quick question...

I things like this all the time - "That's not fair!" "That guy deserves what he's getting." "Let's be fair." "Justice demands (this or that)"

I think we all hear this. Humans are all out there demanding that there be some level of fairness. I think CS Lewis spends and entire chapter in Mere Christianity talking about just this issue. And there is a level of fairness that I think as humans we all cling to hoping that we can have a level of fairness towards ourselves.

But is this fairness really that important?

What did Jesus say about seeking Justice? What did he say to do when somebody slaps? What about when somebody wants to borrow something of yours? He definitely seems to be saying not to worry about getting Justice. You are right, it’s not fair that you were slapped; it’s not fair that somebody doesn’t have what they need so they have to get from you – but justice shouldn’t be your concern.

This is something that has been bugging me for a little while now, because I feel that there are tons of Christians (myself included) who are so concerned about life being fair, when Jesus so clearly talks about living above receiving justice.

just a thought…

how could I?!?!?!

I am reading Brennan Manning's book Ragamuffin Gospel for the first time. Even though I am only half way through the second chapter, I am thinking it may be the book that will have the biggest impact on my life yet.

The Second Chapter is dealing with God's largeness. The power and the vastness of who he is can only be described as stunning. The one comment that really struck me last night was the fact that if you hold up a dime a arms length away from your self you are blocking something like 15 million stars from your view. 15 MILLION!!! That's just crazy.

I guess the whole point is that God is huge, large, vast, uncontrollable, AND he yet still loves sinners like us. How amazing is that? I'm typing this and I don't even know if I get how crazy that fact is.

In my devotions I am reading through Genesis. I am just amazed at the book, it is so deep and so rich and compelling. I am getting into the part about Joseph, and as I book marked my page for tomorrow, I noticed a note at the top and the bottom of the page. The note on the bottom said, "If we really understood God's immensity we wouldn't sin!" That hurts.

In my last post, I talked a bit about the Law. I was trying to paint the Law of God in a positive light, because so often we look at it in a negative light. I talked about how breaking the Law would be somewhat like committing adultry against God.

So as I am reading Ragamuffin Gospel, that note in my Bible, and I my post about the Law, I guess I am a bit humbled.

God has stooped down from heaven to show me love. He has shown me how to live. He has given me the example of his people Israel to show me His faithfullness. He came to earth and died for my sins. All this and I still seem to find ample ways to sin against Him.

What's more is I do this against Him and he forgives me and loves me still!

I guess the whole point of this post is to say that the grace of God is amazing. I do not think that I could ever ask for more. I don't think that I can ever get away from this grace nor would I ever want to. And if you havn't read Ragamuffin Gospel, put everything else down and go get it and read it.

Thoughts on the Law

Whoops it has been a month since I last posted…my bad. I’ll try and make up for it in the future by post much more often. In the mean time I hope that your break from reading my rants and raves has been enjoyable.

Since I last posted I have been dealing with a few questions. One big question is ‘how are we supposed to understand the Law of God?’ Is it a big weight that we are to carry around our necks? Is it the magical formula to please God? Are we blessed for following the Law?

There seems to be this very negative stereotype surrounding the whole conversation. It seems to be a burden that nobody can master. It is a duty to follow God’s law, an unpleasant duty that Christians seem to cringe at following. This seems way of thinking seems to arise out of Paul’s letters where he is talking about how we all mess up and break the law.

People say following the Law is boring, and in fact the first five books of the Bible are often those that are ignored and read the least. I guess even I have portrayed this concept when I am helping somebody read the Bible I suggest them to steer away from Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy.

I have begun to rethink my view on the Law recently. The more I come back to this issue, it seems that it is the Law that God gives Moses that describes how we should live. It is the proper way that we should live. We are designed to live by the Law. Therefore when we break the Law, not only are we sinning against God, but we are harming ourselves.

Think about it, when a husband cheats on his wife, he has broken a sacred trust with her-thus hurting their relationship. Studies have shown that the relationships that are the happiest and most fulfilling are those where both partners are faithful to each other. Everything works best when it operates like it was designed to.

I think that Paul’s point was that we all mess up; its part of the make up of being human. It doesn’t make sense to just bail on following the Law just because you mess up. It is like saying that when playing basketball you quit playing because you’re going to break the rules. It would be preposterous to do that.

This whole thought process started for me as I heard a pastor in Indy preaching that when we follow God’s law, he sees us and blesses us. I guess my reaction was that if we are designed to follow the Law it would make sense that everything would work better that way. In the same way that it makes sense to put gasoline in a car when you want to drive it somewhere, it is how it is designed to work. It is not God blessing you; it is living like you were meant to live.

Think about it…

The Great Divide: Who I was and Who I am...(pt. 1)

So as of April 29, I am no longer an undergraduate student at IWU, and contrary to the fact that I haven't posted in like a month, I am still alive and ticking. Part of the problem is that I have been adjusting to the whole 40 hours per week deal, and I have 3 jobs. Excuses aside, I have tried to sit down and type this post up multiple times and I just haven't been able to type. Call it writers block, call it tired of typing, call it laziness, whatever you want to I have missed my blogging time. So apology placed-lets move on.

I guess for the next couple of weeks I want to look back at the 4 or 5 biggest catalysts to my personal growth and change over my undergraduate time. Around the end of March or the beginning of April (If I remember right) I started to think about what I was like when I first came to college, and how I think completely different than I did way back in the summer of '02.

I would like to start be explaining who I was when I arrived on campus the summer after my senior year of High School. I was a country boy who thought that Marion was a decent town (I still kind of do) that had enough to keep me occupied-I mean what more could you want than fast food, two bowling alleys, and a movie theater. Lets get serious, Marion is like 30 times bigger than Carson City. I was a well meaning nice guy who thought he had a bunch of stuff figured out and that I understood the world and my faith on as deep a level as I ever would.

What scares me today is that 4 years later I have seen things that have completely reshaped my view on issues, totally changed my view of Christianity, and totally changed where my calling has lead me.

The initial impact on my life started the second that I moved on campus, it was the fact that I am no longer living in Michigan. My good friend Jason says that I am doomed to forever live in Indiana (who knows it could happen), because I hate it so much. First of all that is not true but coming here, it was obvious to me that Michigan and Indiana were not completely alike. It was a good first lesson to learn.

I noticed the difference when I went into JC Pennies for the first time. I forget who I was with, but I went into the men's clothing section, and instead of finding the usual Michigan, Lions, Pistons, and Tigers gear, I found Colts, I-U, Notre Dame, and Purdue merchandise instead. It was a HUGE culture shock to me. I had never thought that places outside of Michigan would not include the major Michigan sports apparel.

Next was the people deal with the weather, Michigan weather is colder and has much more snow, so we're used to getting dumped on, Indiana is not the same. My first year it snowed every weekend, it was heaven on earth, but everybody around here complained that it was the hardest winter ever. Getting around was almost impossible, people did not plow the road, they left snow and the snow turned to ice, it was NUTS!

I guess my first year I learned that places are different, and that Michigan is not as normal as I thought, normal becomes where you grow up in. Hoosiers are normal when they are in their beloved flat state, Wolverines are at home when they are in the mitten, and Buckeyes are happy when they realize that they can spell Ohio.

I guess I learned that each place is different and that people while somewhat different, are pretty much all the same. So instead of looking for differences, it was up to me to look at people and try and find a common denominator. How was this person the same as the other people that I know back home. Or maybe better yet how can I make where I am home instead of always clinging to where I used to be.

(I still consider myself a Michigander, so don't ever confuse me for a Hoosier, but I guess I am ok with spending the rest of my life in Indiana. Everybody has to count the costs and sacrifice on some level....)

Does God hate sinners? (A response To godhatesfags.com

Just in case you don’t know, there are people there who proclaim that God hates sinners. They make harsh, rude, offensive statements portraying God as if he were filled with rage and making judgment the primary concern in God’s repertoire. People like Pat Robertson and the people of Westboro Baptist Church are great examples of preachers of this “Gospel.”

Pat Robertson is a classic example of a man who says things that flat out turn people away from Christ. He speaks out against homosexuals and against people who promote lifestyles different than his by using judgment language. An example of this type of action is last fall he told a community in Pennsylvania to watch their backs because God’s judgment and wrath coming in response to them voting down the schools wanting to teach creative design creation theories. What?!?! (I would just like to make a point here, creative design is not a Christian theory, it’s closer than evolution, but still it’s not Christian so Pat just needs to get his facts straight.)

The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas has a very similar reputation. Their church homepage is Godhatesfags.com-need I say more? These people are vicious anti-homosexuals, using language like “God hates you!” Their web site has features like the listing of their 6 daily pickets of the courthouse in Topeka, and the other nationwide events that they picket at showing how God hates fags…AND anybody else who does not join the ferocity of their attacks.

In case you don’t know me and are reading this, I do not agree with the homosexual lifestyle, but I do not believe that you can do anything to make God hate you. I do not believe that what you do changes anything about how God feels about you as a person. John 3:16 one of the most quoted verses in the Bible says. “For God so LOVED the World, that he gave his Son, that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life.

The word for world there in the Greek is kosmos. It literally means the world-everything It does not just mean the people on the earth, nor does it mean just the people who follow God, but everything! I do not know how much more broad you can get! God Loves this world! Jesus came to repair the broken relationship that man had with God. There is nothing more central to the heart of Christianity.

The word that is used for Love is John 3:16 is the word Agape. It means intense passionate pure hearted love. It is not the I love you like a brother or the physical love, but LOVE. God is not saying I like you, he is saying you’re so important to me, I am coming to save the day! You sin and disconnect from me, so I am coming to save you! Not you sin I am coming to judge you.

If you go to the next verse of John 3, verse 17, you read, “for God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” HOW CAN ANY PERSON SAY THAT GOD HATES ANYBODY!! Doesn’t the revelation of Jesus and the work of Jesus seem to shoot that thought do the ground Another way to read that verse is to say God didn’t send his Son to judge the world but to save it.

God loves you-he loves you enough to become a man and impose upon himself all the limitations that man has, and then die a death for you, that you might be free from the problems and the wounds and the hurts of this life-he did not come because he hates you. For God so loved the world….

This explains a ton!

One of my favorite sites is BBC.com. This is where I go look for the big world issues. Probably like 3-5 times a week I look to see what is going on in the world around me while I have my head buried in the sand.

I noticed an interesting interesting article today, it is talking about how men get more defensive around the time their women are fertile. Kind of an interesting research topic, how do you get this kind of information?!?!?! Anyways take a few minutes to check it out.


Does your guy ever act like this? Has a girl ever told you that you're too protective? or maybe have you ever noticed you want to rip some other guys head off? Maybe it's right....I don't know just wanted to see what you think.

Transformers

Today I went to Dave Smith's house for my final exam. The final consisted of "Chicken Surprise," a green bean casserole, and the works. It was great! Quite possibly the best final ever. After we ate we sat in his living room and Dave talked to my class about a sermon he had heard before.

The title of the sermon was there is a fly in my communion. The theme of the sermon was a question: "Does the fly pollute communion, or does communion sanctify the fly?"

I guess it made me think of what the implications are for my life. Do we live like we're being polluted by the things of the world, or are we purifying them by including them in our lives.

I guess it is nothing more than just a shift in thinking. I feel that so often as Christians we shy away from “the things of this world” because we are scared that sin is more powerful than the work of Christ in us. So we run and hide and we hide the transforming power of Christ that is in us, thus depriving the world of his work.

If we believe that the power of the work of Christ is more powerful than the powers of this world, why are we scared of coming in contact with the “flies” that hover around us? Do we miss the chance to do amazing things because we do not realize the power that is in us? Do we underestimate the power of Christ?

Just some thoughts, I have two days left of college life-and then I graduate! It’s exciting and scary. I do not know where I am going or what I am going to do in a few months. So the future is big and unknown for me now, but I have to trust that God is in control and I can believe in him.

Until next time-you stay classy…

He is the Living one-And he holds the keys of death in his hand

I recently had to do an exegesis paper on the Revelation Chapter 1. I learned a bunch and I really have fallen in love with the entire book of Revelation. So this is my paper. I had to ask a question as the basis for my research, so my question was what is the message to the churches and why do they need this message.

All the information that I found points to the fact that these churches were undergoing major persecution (if the book was written in the 90’s). Emperor worship and polytheism ruled the day, and Christians were at the least bad citizens and at the worst trying to tear about the moral fiber of their culture-thus it was ok to persecute these peoples.

The belief was that if the gods were appeased then the people would be blessed, and if the emperors were pleased they would look upon their region with favor, as he had in many occasions. By the end of the first century this was one of the most prosperous regions the empire, and they did not want to endanger that. For this reason the area was highly motivated to persecute the church.

We see that when Paul brought the message of the Gospel to Ephesus that because of the temples losing money, the people were stirred to rioting. These people were dedicated to their gods and did not appreciate one bit the Christian’s message. This is the atmosphere of the region.

The imagery of Revelation 1 is two folded. The first image is the image of Christ as a sufferer. He is described as having been pierced, and the firstborn of the dead. This image of Christ shows the example that the people should follow, as Christ is not only a sufferer but also he is the first born of all sufferers. To be persecuted for Christ is following his example.

The second image is the image of Christ as glorified. This is seen later in the Chapter as John is describing what Jesus looked like. Jesus is described in powerful ways-fire in his eyes, a sword coming from his mouth, feet like burnished bronze, the keys of death in his hands. This is not a Jesus who is powerful and glorious.

This Jesus is standing amongst the candlestands the represent the churches. This Jesus is not right in the middle of his people. They are suffering and Jesus is there, powerful and mighty. He is alive and the Living One, and he is standing in the middle of his people.

The message of this chapter is to be faithful. Follow Christ’s lead, as he is standing amongst your congregation. He is the Living One, he is the slain one, and he now holds the keys of death

and I'm spent

so today I finished my lat bit of homework for Dr Drury and i'm almost done with homeletics II. I have an exegesis paper and a couple of book reports left to do and i'll be done with my college career!! But as for tonight i am going to bed early! so in the mean time check out this link that is linked to my title...it's about Taco Bell!

that's all i have for now...'You stay classy San Diego'

"Behold I make all things new"...what does that mean?

In the Apocalyptic Literature class that I am taking, a quote from Revelation 21 has stuck out to me. In verse 5 'The One sitting on the throne' says, "Behold, I am making all things new." How does this apply to our everyday lives? Is this being said at the end or is this for us today? Can we say that God is making all things new through the death of Christ? how can we understand a passage that seems to be as broad as everything....

I guess this is my big struggle right now, because I definatley am not new. I struggle with the same sins I was dealing with 10 years ago. I am teaching students to do things that I myself am still not victorious over, and it sucks. But God is making all things new. So why am I not new yet?

I guess the part about Revelation that we miss so often in our understanding of the text is that it is not God makes all things new or God will make things new or even God has made all things new; but God is making all things new. That means that God is in the process of making me new. The end is not God's only goal, but getting there is what is important. It's about the persistence of doing what it takes that God is concerned with.

The root of the book of Revelation is faithfullness. I think taht Revelation deals more with the concept of being faithful than it does even with the idea of victory. From the first chapter to the last, the book is a call for God's people to be faithful to his commands and to his way. Then and only then when we are faithful will we find victory.

So I guess this is what I need to think about being made new, that I am going to stumble and regress at periods of time in my life, but I need to be faithful. God is in the process of making me (along with everything else) new. When I feel like I am getting no-where maybe I need to ask where I am going; or even better if I have stopped going where I need to be heading.

What about you? Do you find it tough to be in the middle of being made new. God is using situations in your life, maybe even leading you into situations that may be tough, but on the other side you will be closer to being new. I pray that you will follow on the path of being made new.

Good Night and Good Luck-Goodbye

I'm Back!!

So Lent is over and now life is back to normal. I am back to checking out blogs and I am back to eating at the fast food establishments that surround my life. I have dearly missed both-but it was good to give them up.

Over the past 40 some odd days I have had many thoughts running through my head, the biggest being of course graduation and finding a job. Because I participated in the Wesleyan Loan Grant program, I now much search for and settle with nothing less than a full time job in a Wesleyan church somewhere. My ideal job would be a student ministries position, so I have been hunting for job opportunities as they have come across my plate.

So what's next for me? Well I need to find a place to minister in, and I have to get all my coursework done. So in the next couple days and couple of weeks I have to find solutions for these situations.

That's what's up in my life, I'm glad to be back online! I'll cya around

What I am giving up for Lent

So last night in a question about Lent I asked what are you giving up? It has been weighing on my mind for a couple of days about what I should give up. I got up and went to an Ash Wednesday Service and had to get up bright and early at 6:35 to get over to the Chapel by 7:00, so I had like two and a half hours to before chapel afterward. After I did some homework, I realized it would be good for me to spend some reflective quiet time pondering what Lent was really about.

While I was pondering, I felt challenged about what I really would give up. We all say, I would give up everything for Jesus! The last couple of days while I was thinking about what to give up, and my mind kept coming back to posting and reading other people's thoughts, and I realized just how much time I spend doing just that. So I am going to give up my blog pages for the 40 days of Lent. My next post will be sometime in April (probably Easter afternoon), if you read this page often I apologize, maybe I will delegate Stephanie to helping fill in the dead time.

In the mean time-I will see you around and I always have a cell phone!

the Legend - out

A little Break-topic: Lent

So it's lent season! what are you giving up? i challenge you to give something up. It's not to be a better Christian, but it's to challenge your committment level. Also I believe that Christians should never be in a place where they are not willing to give something else up. So even if you read this and it's after Ash Wednesday I challenge you to consider removing something from your life until easter.

Why? because it really forces you to focus on what is important. You are forced to be out of your comfort zone. You who God that you will do anything to draw closer to him. These are just a few thoughts to consider!

If you feel that it is too Catholic for you to do--> then that's just silly. cause more than just Catholics will participate in this 40 period. I will be posting about Lent in the next couple weeks. so look foward to that!

in the mean time give something up! when you are the most frustrated remember Jesus dying on the cross for your sins! remember his victory over the grave! and give up something-->something like fast food!

in the mean time i'll talk to you later

dan

Lost the plot (The Church part 2)

The Church for years has been labeled irrelevant. Christians are seen as people who hold to an ancient and old-fashioned religion that really does nothing but hold people back from doing what they want to do. The culture around the church has in many places moved into a post-Christian era, a scary place for Christians to minister to people in.

How do you minister to a group of people who think that there are beyond you and what you believe? The problem is that the Church has not noticed this and in most situations is still trying to prove that it is right. So the culture around us sees us as even more irrelevant. It’s a huge downward spiraling cycle that continues to move the Church farther and farther away from being effective in the culture around it.

If the church wants to succeed it needs to get beyond the fact that Christianity is right. Being right and wrong is not something that matters as much in our world, and something that should not even be a concern in our lives. (Besides if we are always trying to prove we’re right, then the Church becomes a place of conflict instead of a place of healing and help.)

All the way back in the Old Testament, we see the Hebrew nation was commanded to look out for the poor, the fatherless and the widow.
• The Torah commands farmers to not harvest their fields completely so that those who do not have may gather for themselves.
• There are extensive areas in how to protect the rights of women.
• There are commands to make sure children have fatherly influences in their lives.

These commands are the primary moral obligations that the people of God were given. There is no doubt that there is an emphasis on righting the social injustices of the world. The problem with Israel is that they continued to forget this, and the prophets kept reminding them. Isaiah in the very first chapter of his book writes a very harsh condemnation to the people because they have neglected the poor, the fatherless, and the widow.

Jesus followed this line of thought with an emphasis on putting others first. He condemns the teachers in the temple (Mark 11) for just this. Jesus in verse 17 quotes two Old Testament passages, Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11. Many people think these comments were references to the entire passages, a sort of rabbinical style of conversation. These passages would then be comments about how the leaders of Israel have neglected the people that they were supposed to be taking care of and looking out for themselves.

Much of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke especially) have Jesus talking about what he calls the “Kingdom of God.” He describes this kingdom as a place where people focus on the needs of other first. A place where generosity is focused on and where coming in first is not the major concern, a place where our world is literally turned upside down.

Jesus as he ascended into heaven, gave the directive to his disciple to: “Go and make disciples of all the nations...teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.” What has Jesus commanded us to do? He has commanded us to teach people about this upside down Kingdom!

The problem with the Church is that so often it has mixed up teaching about the Kingdom of God with teaching the correctness of the Kingdom. We’re not called to prove its existence but to live it out. This is how we lose our relevancy to culture. We get into groups and we write out statements of our beliefs and then never let it leave our Church doors. We build amazing buildings where we can worship, but never improve the condition of the people’s lives around us. And all this is done thinking that it is what Jesus would have wanted us to do.

The book of James sums this conversation up. James 1 ends with this comment-“Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep ones self from being polluted by the world.”

Our mission if we should decide to accept it is to be concerned with the well-being of others around us!

The Church (part 1)

I am going to do a series of writings on the church. I hope that over the next four or five weeks that I will begin to understand what I believe more clearly, and just what the church is and is going to be. So thanks for reading along with my thoughts.

First I think we need to explain just what the church is. If you went to Sunday school you know that the answer is “We are the church!” The Church is the people that make up its congregations and then the combination of all those congregations. So the Church is the total of all the different Christians around the world combined.

Today in the Student Center at IWU, I heard a conversation going on about the Catholic Church. Apparently one of the guys did not appreciate being lumped into the same category as the Catholics. I know he is not alone, because I grew up in a very Separatists community, and people who are Catholics were (and still are) looked down upon. But this is not the way that it should be. The Catholic Church is still part of the “Big C” church community.

Christ is the Greek word that means, “Anointed one”, it is the counterpart for the Hebrew word Messiah. So to be a Christian means to be a follower of the anointed one. Not a very complicated idea, and I’m sure that this makes sense. So if the Church is the collection of the followers of the Anointed one, we should be following His lead.

Second, the more that you study the New Testament, the more that you see the earliest disciples of Jesus were very subversive to the Romans. The Greek word for church “ecclesia” was actually the word used to describe the community of the Roman Empire. This must have been a totally revolutionary concept for those who heard the Gospel for the first time. Here is this religion that is proclaiming the new message, and comparing themselves to the Roman government.

This group of people who gathered together also used many of the terms used to describe Caesar. They used the names that described glory and honor to Caesar and gave them to Jesus. The book of Revelation is full of them. Even the concept that Jesus ascended to Heaven and is sitting at the right hand of the Father is imagery from the Romans. There was a story that said, Julius Caesar ascended to the right hand of the Gods after he died. So we see that even the early Christian imagery has a very Roman slant to it.

So the name and many of the images of the church have a 1st century understanding. We have adopted them in our 21st century understanding to think that they are entirely “Christian” ideas, but they are not. I have said all this to try and say we have to understand the culture of the first followers of Jesus, to understand where what we are today.

The early Christians were countercultural! They were different than the people around them, which is why they were persecuted. In Church History Class we talk about the misconceptions that people had of the Christians. They were called cannibals, immoral, godless, and anti-government. They were killed and they were maimed they were persecuted everywhere they went. This was not because they were any of these things, but because they were different.

What does the body do?

First the body meets together to hear the word explained. This is the part where the preaching and teaching happens. This is essential to teach people what they believe.

Second the Church administers the sacraments and orders itself in a proper manner. I would like to consider the sacraments larger than just communion and baptism, I believe we should include more of a Catholic understanding of the sacraments.

Thirdly keeping our community rightly ordered. This is where Christians understand of right and wrong, and how life should. This has become the primary way that we know we are Christians, and we need to be careful, but it is still an important part of Christianity.

This is a basic idea of what I believe the church to be. Everything that the church does must come through this understanding of the Church in my opinion.

The World Ripped Open (part 2)

The world has been ripped open and the walls and the barriers that were once established are now non-existent. This is the thought that I threw out in my previous post. I made the point that now the Heavens and the earth and whatever separates the two from each other has permanently damaged. But what does that mean? It means that heaven is now trying to pour out onto earth-it is seeping out and trying to fill the earth up!

This is kind of a different thought because most people think of heaven as a future reality. There is the here and now-and then there is the future physical universe and that’s heaven. Rob Bell, a pastor in Grand Rapids describes Heaven and Earth in a different way: Heaven is a place where things happen, as God would have them, Earth is a place where they don’t.

Jesus taught in stories, many times he told stories like this; “The Kingdom of God (or Heaven) is like...(enter Parable). The Kingdom in these parables was a Kingdom where things were done quite differently than in the world around Jesus’ listeners. In these stories it was like the Kingdom Jesus was talking about was almost completely backwards from what they knew.

The weird thing about Jesus’ teachings is that they were talking about being selfless. To be a religious person was to deny ones self and follow Christ. Jesus wanted people to give up a pursuit of being #1 and to make others a higher priority.

Jesus seemed to be talking about Earth (the place where things don’t always happen the way God wants) becoming more like Heaven (the place where things do happen as God wants). He was talking about the total change the world, not just a religion. He didn’t want his disciples to just change how Judaism impacted their lives, but he wanted to change how they lived.

What has happened in the last few decades is that people have started to treat Christianity as only about getting people saved. We have become Gnostic* to some level and have only concerned ourselves with the spiritual, and this is wrong! We have forgotten what Jesus taught us to do! We have neglected the message of the Bible!

James 1:26-27 seems to cap the conversation of Jesus’ ministry. James was addressing the community of believers and was discussing some abuses in the church. Apparently there were Believers who were trying to gain the attention of the rich and popular. James wants nothing to do with this type of action, and says in these verses, “real religion is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

I guess this has been the point of these last two posts. I honestly believe that as Christians if we only focus on our Salvation, we are not being good Christians. We are being called to look after the orphans and the widows, the poor and sickly, those who cannot take care of themselves. God wants us to be not about ourselves and us getting to heaven, as much as he wants us to be helping other people and making sure that they are going to go to heaven. Or Better yet-help them see heaven here on earth.


*Gnostic belief is that the spirit is good and the physical is evil. So we only need to worry about dealing with the spirit. What is done by the physical is beside the point. Gnosticism has been condemned as a heresy and is not good at all.

Does God hate sinners?

Just in case you don’t know, there are people there who proclaim that God hates sinners. They make harsh, rude, offensive statements portraying God as if he were filled with rage and making judgment the primary concern in God’s repertoire. People like Pat Robertson and the people of Westboro Baptist Church are great examples of preachers of this “Gospel.”

Pat Robertson is a classic example of a man who says things that flat out turn people away from Christ. He speaks out against homosexuals and against people who promote lifestyles different than his by using judgment language. An example of this type of action is last fall he told a community in Pennsylvania to watch their backs because God’s judgment and wrath coming in response to them voting down the schools wanting to teach creative design creation theories. What?!?! (I would just like to make a point here, creative design is not a Christian theory, it’s closer than evolution, but still it’s not Christian so Pat just needs to get his facts straight.)

The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas has a very similar reputation. Their church homepage is Godhatesfags.com-need I say more? These people are vicious anti-homosexuals, using language like “God hates you!” Their web site has features like the listing of their 6 daily pickets of the courthouse in Topeka, and the other nationwide events that they picket at showing how God hates fags…AND anybody else who does not join the ferocity of their attacks.

In case you don’t know me and are reading this, I do not agree with the homosexual lifestyle, but I do not believe that you can do anything to make God hate you. I do not believe that what you do changes anything about how God feels about you as a person. John 3:16 one of the most quoted verses in the Bible says. “For God so LOVED the World, that he gave his Son, that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life.

The word for world there in the Greek is kosmos. It literally means the world-everything It does not just mean the people on the earth, nor does it mean just the people who follow God, but everything! I do not know how much more broad you can get! God Loves this world! Jesus came to repair the broken relationship that man had with God. There is nothing more central to the heart of Christianity.

The word that is used for Love is John 3:16 is the word Agape. It means intense passionate pure hearted love. It is not the I love you like a brother or the physical love, but LOVE. God is not saying I like you, he is saying you’re so important to me, I am coming to save the day! You sin and disconnect from me, so I am coming to save you! Not you sin I am coming to judge you.

If you go to the next verse of John 3, verse 17, you read, “for God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” HOW CAN ANY PERSON SAY THAT GOD HATES ANYBODY!! Doesn’t the revelation of Jesus and the work of Jesus seem to shoot that thought do the ground Another way to read that verse is to say God didn’t send his Son to judge the world but to save it.

God loves you-he loves you enough to become a man and impose upon himself all the limitations that man has, and then die a death for you, that you might be free from the problems and the wounds and the hurts of this life-he did not come because he hates you. For God so loved the world….