Encountered while checking out “Canadian Secrets” on the Postsecret Facebook Page:

“I’d rather be spiritual than actually pick a religion.”

That’s like saying, “I’d rather be hungry than pick what I want to eat.”

And it is about as healthy.

Here’s to making decisions!

Cheers!

Long post title.  Heh.

So, a few days ago, you read here that I was convicted about begging God for money all the time.  Yesterday on my morning prayer/dog walk I prayed that God would use me that day at work.  Lo and behold, a conversation about the Al-Qaeda issuing a statement likening President-elect Obama to a “House Negro” twisted into a brief discussion about racism in Arabic cultures, and from thence to a discussion about whether or not all religions are based on punishment avoidance.

This gave us a fantastic jumping off point to talk about the difference between a a capricious god who demands “submission”, and a loving God who sacrificed his Son to restore us to our proper relationship with him as his children.  It gave me a chance to teach about a heavenly father who loves us and gave us the freedom to choose to love or not love him, knowing the pain that it would cause him when we do not choose him.  But more than that, loving even those who hate him so much that he will ultimately give them what they want, even though he knows that they will not like it.  Like the Israelites crying out to God for a king, even after God explained that they would not like the choice, many in this world scream at God, “Go away”, not understanding what that really means.  I explained that hell is a place where God is not - that’s what makes it hell.  And when you die, God isn’t “punishing you” by sending you to hell, he is, in love, allowing you to choose eternal separation from him.  He loves you so much he will not force you to be with him if you spent your life wanting to be away from him.

They (my two atheist friends) still at the end did not grasp this difference - they still viewed separation from God as a punishment inflicted on them for not choosing God.  But I can’t change their hearts - only God can.  They can think about that and I can pray that they realize how childish that view is - though it is systemic of our political systems these days - that you can make a poor choice, but not suffer the consequences because a “loving” government would protect you from your own stuidity and obstinacy.  Apparently, they apply that same understanding to God - that he should allow us to indulge and then when we face the consequences, protect us from them.  He does do this, but he only gives us one life to come to him, and choose to repent.

But what I got out of the conversation was when one of them challenged me with the question, “what happens if you’re wrong?  You will have missed out on all the fun you could have had in this life.”  I said to him, “What will I have missed?”  The things that I have given up for Christ are sin - and I challenged him to find one sin in the Bible that does not either hurt myself or others around me.  He tried to some up with something but the best he could do was suggest that sins that only affect yourself are ok.  And I just said, “Why would it be fun to hurt myself?  I don’t feel I am missing that at all.”  Perhaps that part of the conversation was the most important part.  I really feel blessed to serve Jesus today because of that conversation.  I have given up nothing to serve Jesus.  What fun is it to hurt myself or others?

If, at the end of my life, I find out this is all a fallacy (I know it isn’t, but hey, we’ll pretend there is an outside chance), I will not feel like I missed a thing, because I know that I will have spent my life doing good for people and myself.  There will not be a moment of regret that I didn’t cause someone else pain for my own momentary pleasure.  And it is sad that my friends are so lost that they still see someone else’s pain as their gain.

So I decided to move off Mark Driscoll today and see if I could find some other sermons online. I googled John Piper, I’ve heard he’s a pretty good preacher. I found this:

As I watched it, I began to thank God that I didn’t teach that or believe that. But then God brought to my mind my prayers lately, and how much I’ve been begging of him for myself, my family, my needs, me me me. I don’t believe that I have earned blessing from God because of my faith in him, but I sure do act like it to a degree. I repent of that right now: of not begging God for others’ sake more than myself. For not thinking of others more than myself. Of thinking even subconciously that God is here to make my life easier.

I need him. And as the Mercy Me song says, “If that’s what it takes to praise you, then Jesus, bring the rain.”

So, yeah, Mark Driscoll.

As I was watching a couple of his newer sermons, what I really enjoyed and admired is there are elements of theology that are very important for people to grasp, like how salvation works, that he has so systematized that he can just work it into his message at will.   I am thinking that if I hope to develop my preaching/teaching style, I need to get a lot better grasp on things than I currently have.  I fly by the seat of my pants, when I start talking theology generally.  I grasp and concepts and verses as they float into my head, but that doesn’t communicate well.  I need to lock some concepts down into concise packages, that are accessible as the situation arises.  I have already done this with some subjects I know well.  For example, I can talk this way about just about any era of church history, denominations, and cults.  That is a result of most of my training being in those areas.  However, despite having taken a number of theology courses, I have never systematized my theology to the point of ready access.  That is definitely something I need to work on.

The cool side effect of having done this is that I don’t see as much sermon preparation being necessary.  I watched him speak and he had a page, maybe two, of notes.  He almost never referred to them.  I don’t think he has a photographic memory.  I think he just notes down the stuff he wants to talk about specific to the message, and then just shorthands different places where he has “prepackaged” material already in his head.  This allows him to do less sermon prep but still have a full message.  The rest is just practicing pacing and awareness of time and organization.  Skills that can be learned.

Of note: no curse-words or vulgar language was used in either of his sermons I watched.

Also note: no expression of agreement or disagreement with his theology.  I was primarily watching to learn style.

Some mornings, events conspire against you to bring you to God.

Every morning, at 4:45am I walk my dog.  I actually appreciate this time because it gives me a chance to pray and talk with God.  Usually it’s a one-way thanks and praise session and I wonder sometimes that I don’t have a chance to listen to what he has to say.  But maybe he is enjoying what I have to say.

Anyways, today, I was rushed so I didn’t do a full walk with the dog.  Late night with my lady, enjoying some tickets that were given to us to the Vancouver Theatresports League.  I determined to listent to a little Praise 106.5 and pray while driving.  (Useful tip: if you pray while driving, DON’T close your eyes!)

Well, on the local Christian radio station in between songs they start saying, “Well, It’s Hallowe’en today, but it’s Reformation Day to me because today is the anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenburg chapel and starting the Reformation.  Today we’re going to be talking about alternatives to Hallowe’en - Harvest Festivals, or whatever terms you use.”

I listened to this, and I started trying to pray.  I would get to “O God” and then my mind would get twisted back to Hallowe’en, and the fact that this Sunday night is our first “Bring a Friend” night.  Then God starts pointing things out to me.

“Hey, you’ve never really reached out to your neighbourhood here.”

“But God, I live so far away from church!  Nobody around here will want to come that far.”

“How do you know?  You do.”

“Well yeah, but…”

“Why don’t you hand out Awana invitation cards to all the kids tonight when they come to your door?”

“I guess I could, but they won’t come.  The cards will just get thrown away.”

“How do you know that?  Why don’t you try it?”

“But God…”

“Look.  Last year you had more than 200 kids come to your door.  At least a few of them, their parents may be looking for something more wholesome to send their kids to for an activity.  You don’t know.  This is the one night a year when you can walk up to people’s doors and knock and ask them for stuff and people don’t think you’re crazy.  It’s one night a year that children take candy (and anything else) from strangers.  Why are you wasting it?  You want to hear from me, here I am talking to you.  Now get to it.”

So I get to work and I mention this to a Christian friend of mine at work.  I tell him that it seems like a colossal waste that Christians withdraw from our culture on Hallowe’en because of its roots as a pagan holiday.  He agrees.  He says, “You should give them some candy for coming too!”  I was like, “Well, we were going to for the bring a friend kids anyway, but you’re right!  I should stick an Avery label on each card saying, more candy for new kids who attend!”

So now I have a plan of action for tonight.  And this weekend.  200 invitations, directly distributed only to families with kids in the ages we serve.  How easy is this?  And to think, Christians don’t like Hallowe’en.  I wonder how many of them consider the lengths the early church went to, to “take over” pagan holidays?  I mean, look at Christmas, Easter.  They are both in origin pagan holidays, co-opted by the early Christians.  I am not saying we need to do the same for Hallowe’en, but there are elements of Hallowe’en that provide fantastic openings for us as Christians who wish to share our faith.  Why not take advantage of them, instead of shaking our collective fingers at secular society, “tsk, tsk”ing the whole time about witches and dead things?

Today I preached my second ever sermon.  It was entitled, “Faith That Saved A King” and it focused on the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den.  It is actually part of a series of messages focusing on the book of Daniel.  I got to do this one while Philip was away in Mississauga, participating in the 10th anniversary of Grace Brethren Canada (and Grace Community Church).

The second time was definitely the best.  I made some goofs in the first one and managed to straighten them up in the second time through.  I enjoyed giving the message because I feel like it accomplished two objectives - first it stayed on target, driving home the theme “God is King”, and relied primarily on the text of Daniel.  But second, I was able to draw out a message about missional living.  I talked a lot about what faith is, how it is built, and what effect it can have on the people around you when it is lived publicly, “in the open”.  It was a message seeded by my own tendency to keep my faith to myself, and also in dealing with some of my Christian co-workers, who felt the same.  I wanted to encourage people to live openly as Christians, so that God may be glorified even amongst those who do not know him.  I really feel strongly that you can’t argue someone into faith in God, but when God works in your life and people find out about it, they are faced with a choice - either try to explain away Gods’ work as coincidence, or reckon with the God that loves them, that they have ignored, shunned, or hated.  It is a choice that you cannot set up for them.  It must come to them.  And it comes when you live out your faith in front of them.

If you would like to give the message a listen please feel free.  I have made it available as a podcast below.  Please feel free to offer constructive criticism in the comments - I am still very much aware I have lots to learn in terms of presenting a message.

Here’s a link to the sermon, in mp3 format.  It’s 40 minutes long, so the dl is about 46 megs.

A little slap to the face of my own self-absorption:

The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2006 that people drive 79 percent more miles than they did in 1982 while roadways have only increased 3 percent, creating a frustrated commuter society living in permanent gridlock.1 People get home late in the evening, open their garage, and go right inside. Getting to know your neighbors has almost become a hassle.

Despite my own frustration in this area, I believe my wife is correct (of course). We should know our neighbors. We may have to schedule time with them, take the initiative, or simply make an effort to say hello. Christ calls us to be good neighbors. And this call extends beyond our own subdivisions, condos, and apartments. It is a call to the world. Our neighbors will never see
Christ exemplified in our lives unless we show them.

Read Essential Church.  It’s that good.  I’m only on page 50.

Again, while reading Essential Church, I have experienced a gelling of ideas from several other places about mission and vision statements for a church.  This passage jumped out at me, speaking about why young adults leave the church in droves between the ages of 16-20:

Their parents assumed that the teachings of the church would be well received via religious osmosis. But the Great Commission explicitly commands us to teach and disciple. Neglecting this element of the gospel imperative creates an atmosphere of spiritual and doctrinal atrophy resulting in a nonessential church.

The passage about the assumption made by parents and leaders that their kids would “just get it” by coming to church stuck out at me.  I was struck that training people to follow Jesus needs to be central to the purpose of any church.  This made me think of Matthew 28:18-20.  I am seeing a framework for a vision coming out of that verse.

“(18b) All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (19) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20) and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I see in this passage bookends of worship: looking to God for our authority “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” and his promise to be present with us “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”.  Worshipping God for who he is and seeking his presence is the first and last thing a church stands for.

Then we have the mission of the church - to make disciples and baptize “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”.  We are here to bring lost souls to Jesus.

Then we have a mandate to train up the disciples we have been entrusted with.  “…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,”.

So a suggested mission statement of our future church plant could be, “To worship God, first and last, and guide his followers to him.”

A suggested vision:

Using Matthew 28 as our guide, we desire to pursue the mission that Jesus entrusts us with:

• To acknowledge our Lord Jesus as King, and worship him together;
• To guide our neighbours to be baptized as followers of Jesus;
• To teach and encourage each other in the love that Jesus has for us and the world;
• To raise up new leaders to pursue this mission everywhere;

What excites me about this is that it is short and sweet. It is not overly complicated with layers of process and form. It feels clean and simple, and that is what church should be, it seems to me. You look at any great movement, and it had a distilled message that was simple to grasp and follow. Like our faith. All God really asks of us is to love God and love our neighbour. That’s it. And the structure we are to use to accomplish this is the church.

Boundless has a good discussion about the predicament of singles in churches today.  We have some singles in our church and I have definitely had, at different times, opportunity to speak into their lives.  When I read this quote from a single guy having trouble with the reaction of his church to his situation, I started looking at it from the other side.

One single man, quoted in Julia Duin’s Quitting Church, talked about his experience of telling his small group that he wanted to get married,

I was rebuked by the elders because, according to them, the Bible says it is better to be single to serve God better. They, obviously, were married, and I didn’t understand, if they felt so strongly about being single, why they themselves weren’t single. When I would ask for prayer, I would get a lecture about being content, and was told I needed to stop focusing on self and serve God better.

From his perspective, he felt rebuked, or given pat answers.  Things like, “be content” and “focus on God” are hard for people to hear who have tugs on their heart, or have their biological clocks ticking loudly in their ears.  Yet, from my perspective, as a guy who had that tug on his heart pretty early (I started seriously looking for a wife at about 22), I have been there.  At the same time, I am now on the other side.  I have given that advice and had it rebuffed.  One gentleman got downright angry because what he heard from me and others was (again not actually what we said, but it was what he heard) to stop wanting a wife, and focus on God.

The thing is, I say such things not to be dismissive, but because that is exactly what had to happen for me to be blessed by a wife.  I recall vividly where my heart was at in the year before I met my wife.  I was dealing with a breakup, and was trying to figure out how to do things differently to avoid such events in the future.  However, it was not until I finally quieted my heart and made a decision, overriding my emotions, that I would strive to be content with God and build my relationship with him, that God opened up a door to meet my wife.  In fact, it wasn’t two weeks after I had a conversation with God, telling him how happy I was that it was just him and me right then, that I met her.  There was something that God wanted my heart ready for I guess.  That was my experience, which is why I dispense that advice.  Not as a put-off, but in hopes that God prepares them the way He prepared me.

So singles, give us all a break, eh?  We actually do mean well.  And sometimes advice isn’t what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.  Itching ears and all that.

I should say one last thing though.  I am not advising people who desire marriage to stop looking.  I believe there is a posture both physically, mentally, and spiritually that a person can be in, still looking for marriage, while being content in your heart with regards to pursuing God.  I think that is the place I was in.  I was still making efforts to meet people and expand my social circle.  I was still intent that any relationship I pursued with a woman could, potentially be one culminating in marriage.  But somehow it wasn’t at the forefront, and I was no longer letting it dictate everything.  There’s a difference there somewhere.  Maybe someone smarter than I can discern it.

No, not mine.

But another blogger friend, she put up a post considering whether it’s a bit too harsh to say divorce is wrong, or sin.  She has noticed that a lot of people take very harsh views of divorce, and wonders if things aren’t quite as black and white.

They never are.

However, I don’t think divorce is as grey as she does.  I replied with a discussion about the real problem when we consider “exceptional” divorce circumstances.  I’ll summarize for you here.

We all know that God hates divorce.  Why?   (more…)