Wednesday Nights and a Word from God

Yesterday wrote about our declining interest in Wednesday night Bible study (or Prayer Meeting or WOW or BBFP or whatever we call it these days). Bob commented (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) "I am glad you are thinking through all this, I eagerly await the
solutions you will discover long before I even fully understand the
problem." Yeah, right! I was not attempting to think through anything; that is too much work. I was complaining; that is much more therapeutic.

Roger reminded me that Mike Cope and his minions were discussing ideas for Wednesday nights over at his blog. Read through some of the ideas mentioned there (and in the comments).

So then I was doing my Bible reading this morning and found a word from God. Obviously, there is always a word from God when we read scripture; sometimes they just hit home harder, right? David is encouraging Solomon to be faithful in building the Temple (after David did all the heavy lifting of gathering materials and drawing up the plans). David says this in 1 Chronicles 28:20

David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.

God would always be there for Solomon; He never fails or forsakes. God calls us to is faithfulness; He will always be with us as long as we seek Him. We don't have to come up with solutions; we must continue to seek God and be faithful. God is with us, and that means that we don't have to be afraid or discouraged. even if we don't have the solutions to Wednesday nights.

Wednesday Night: BBFP and Beyond

Our Wednesday night service for the summer is going to be a very informal gathering Dan Hawley dubbed BBFP or "Breaking Bread, Fellowship and Prayer." This is our summer replacement for WOW ("Worship on Wednesday") which was a replacement for Wednesday Night Class... which was a replacement for Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting. I suspect that Prayer Meeting was a replacement for something, but I'm too young to know what that might have been.

What is BBFP? We eat, pray and hang-out together. OK, it's a little more formal than that; there is a short class in the Family Room. The kids will probably play together while we pray together. The whole thing may die a horrible death, but it kinda started out pretty positively last night. I'm looking forward to seeking how it ends up.

There are two truths that we more or less accept as true. First, our church leaders believe that we need a "peak of the week" meeting in the middle of the busy workweek to center our people back on God and to provide balance to the competing voices that seek our attention. Second, it is becoming more and more evident that our church members don't necessarily agree with that. We have well under half of our Sunday morning attendance here for Wednesdays; sometimes we have about one-third. At some point we let people think that they wouldn't go to hell because they miss Wednesday night... so they miss. What does out declining interest in Wednesday night services show?

• Our people don't have their priorities straight? (True if going to the building is the priority)
  
• Families are just too busy? (So they solve that by cutting back on church?)
  
• Families need more time together? (Which usally means watching more TV)
  
• What we do on Wednesday doesn't seem spiritually significant?

Maybe we need to move away from the attactional mode (doing neat stuff to get people here) to a more missional approach (go out into the community to do good deeds)? Maybe what is changed in not that "you gotta go every time the doors are open" mindset that I grew up with (and still have). Maybe what has changed is the idea that coming to church is essentially serving God. Maybe our people are way ahead of us and understand that serving God is done out there and the last thing we need is more time at the building.

This is one of many things that I don't know.

With All Your Might

The familiar words of Ecclesiastes 9:10 remind us to serve God with all our strength, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." I remember reading of a small boy who came home from school all excited. He told he mother that he had tried out for a part in his first grade play, and he had gotten a part. When she asked him what was his part, he said, "I get to sit in the audience and clap and cheer!" We can learn two things from that little boy:

• First, it is important to have people who clap and cheer. Those who encourage and support are just as important as those who may have "bigger" parts.
  
  
• Second, if your gift is to clap and cheer, then you must do that enthusiastically and with all your might!

The church is a family where everyone is valuable and everyone has a role. To whatever degree God has gifted you, to that degree you must serve Him and His church. But no one gift is any more important than any other gift. No work is more important than any other work. However there is another important message in the end of Ecclesiastes 9:10--

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Whatever our task is in building up the body of Christ, we had better get busy doing it for the time is coming when there will be no more work. Whatever it is that God is calling you to do or to be in His kingdom, stop putting it off! We need people who clap and cheer alright, but we need them to start doing so NOW!

Voting for Issues... With Our Lives

The Congressional battle for Oregon's 5th congressional district illustrates the something of the problem of making moral issues the planks in a political platform. Businessman Mile Erickson is the Republican candidate in Oregon's 5th Congressional District and is running on pro-life platform against Democratic state Sen. Kurt Schrader. But when his girlfriend became pregnant some years ago, he told her that he didn't want a baby, offered to pay for the abortion and then drove her to the abortion clinic. And then they went off on a trip to Mexico together. So abortion is wrong, but then when I or my significant other needs one, maybe its not so wrong. I remember seeing polls that suggest that 75% of Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong and that about the same 75% believe that it should be a choice.

My point is not about abortion. The example could just as easily be the many pro-family, traditional-values candidates who themselves have been divorced (an all too common fact). Christians should be for Biblical values. Because we live in a country where we have the right to participate in the selection of leaders, it makes sense that our values will go with us into the polls. But voting for values is never a simple thing to do. I could say "I won't vote for McCain because he is divorced and I won't vote for Obama because he's pro-choice." We should be concerned with values like caring for the poor, caring for the environment and caring about peace. And we'll all have different ideas about which of those values can be best addressed by which party or candidate.

Do we care about traditional values? Here's what we need to do-- live them! The reason the church has such a muted voice in speaking to the world about values is not because we aren't politically savvy or connected. It is because we have been so ineffective in living our values before the world. The divorce rate for evangelical Christians is the same as the general culture. The number of Christian women who have had abortions is shockingly high. The church is better known by many for raising money for its own buildings than spending money to help the poor. Until we are known as people who consistently (though not perfectly) live our values, we will have little success in interesting the non-Christian world in them.

Sunday Complaints

I got some complaints about our worship service yesterday morning. No, it was not the video highlight montage from our Upwards soccer and cheerleading camp. And it wasn't that we sang "Friends" with all the pictures of the Foster's, Mack's and McDonney's (families that are leaving us) which brought tears to many eyes and lumps in many throats. No, the "criticism" was that the service was short; we ended almost exactly at 11:30! For the record, the sermon was 25 minutes long, so at least I gave everyone their money's worth there. We sang mostly up-tempo songs, so I guess we plowed through them quicker than usual. So we ended exactly "on-time" and many thought that it was too short! I promise to do better next week (hee hee).

Will King did a long version of the Upward video that we showed Friday night (with a U-2 soundtrack) and we showed the short version in church during the announcements. So being a true conservative, I re-cycled will's unused footage and made a new Sunday night. The lesson was on the "Ripples" of influence that our words and actions have on others. When the church lives together in peace and love, we shine like stars in the heavens (Phil 2:14-15). Christians wives (1 Pet 3:1-2), Christian slaves (1 Tim 6:1), and Christians under stress (1 Pet 2:12) all impact those around them through the way they live their lives. Our influnce goes out like ripples on a pond, and we never know who is going to to pointed to the Father because of us. The Fosters, Mack's and McDonney's have touched us (and hopefully, we them) in many ways. The ripples will be felt for a long time.

Here's the video--

Nemesis: No Ad Required

The following article was orignally an ad on craigslist; I stumbled on it on wadehodges.com. For the record. I don't routinely sit around reading other people's blogs looking for stuff to steal for my own. Most of the stuff on my blog is both good and original. Unfortunately, the stuff that is good isn't original, and the stuff that is original isn't very good! (And no, that last observation isn't orginal). Anyway, here's the craigslist post--

I’ve been trying to think of ways to spice up my life. I’m 35 years old, happily married with two kids and I have a good job in insurance. But somethings missing. I feel like I’m old before my time. I need to inject some excitement into my daily routine before its too late. I need a challenge, something to get the adrenaline pumping again. In short, I need a nemesis. I’m willing to pay $350 up front for you services as an arch enemy over the next six months. Nothing crazy. Steal my parking space, knock my coffee over, trip me when Im running to catch the BART and occasionaly whisper in my ear, “Ahha, we meet again”. That kind of thing. Just keep me on my toes. Complacency will be the death of me. You need to have an evil streak and be blessed with innate guile and cunning. You should also be adept at inconsicuous pursuit. Evil laugh preferred. Send me a photo and a brief explanation why you would be a good nemesis.
British accent preferred.

So do we all need a Goldfinger or a Dr. Moriarity always lurking in the shadows, waiting to do us harm? That would keep us on our toes, wouldn't it? The truth is that we have the arches of all archvillian's who "prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). He is never deadlier that when we get complacent and think that he isn't really there. He is there and he is the master of inconspicuous pursuit. He is real to jump out atanytime time with an evil laugh, "Ahha, we meet again!" Peter's warning in 1 Peter 5 begins, "Be self-controlled and alert." If we aren't ready for him all the time, we won't be ready.

Looking Upward

We are in the middle (as of about 7:15 p.m. tonight it will be the middle) of our week-long Upward camp. If you aren't familiar with the concept of Upward, you can read more here. But the short explanation is that Upward is like VBS using sports (in our case, it's soccer and cheer-leading). Kids learn about playing soccer and cheering, but the coaches teach them about Jesus at the same time. Some of the kids come from families that aren't in church, and that is the point. I get to get up during our final assembly and invite their parents to visit our church.

What is a bit different for us is that we are working with people from Denbigh Christian Church. And Warwick Memorial Methodist Church. And Saint Jerome Catholic Church. And those folks don't look exactly like us; some may not look anything like us. I guess if we wanted to, we could find a thing or two to disagree and debate over. But what we are doing for this week is just trying to stay focused on Jesus and to point children (and their parents) closer to Him.

And when this week is over, we'll try to keep doing the same thing! Maybe the more we look UPWARD, the less likely we are to fight OUTWARD. OK, so maybe it's not always that simple. But maybe it should be.

A New Command

Sunday morning's sermon stressed the need for Christians to "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God" (Rom 15:7). We bring praise to God when we are able to live in unity and love despite our differences. Paul quotes a series of OT texts later in the chapter that talk about being a light to the nations (Gentiles). In Philippians 2:14, Paul tells us that we are to shine like stars in the universe. Jesus' prayer in John 17 for his disciples is that the wold will know through them that the Father had sent Jesus into the world. The means by which all of these are to happen is that disciples live together in love and unity. We proclaim the gospel to the world by the way that we love one another and live with one another. The most familiar statement of this is our NT reading for today-- John 13:34-35

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

But for some reason, the immediate context of this new command never really hit me before... or at least, I don't remember it hitting me. Jesus gives the apostles this new command right AFTER he predicts the coming betrayal of Judas and right BEFORE he predicts the coming denial of Peter. So this "new command" stressing the absolute importance of disciples loving one another is given between the bookends of the two greatest failures of Jesus' closest friends to love Him. It is almost as if Jesus wants to make sure that we don't betray each other the way that His closest friends betrayed Him!

So... what are we going to do about that? Historically the church hasn't been very successful in living out Jesus' desires here. Are we going to get better at this?

Sad Commentary

An Indiana Wal-Mart gas station made one of those mistakes that caused local drivers to stampede to the pumps... at midnight, no less. Some sort of computer error (which is usually shorthand for "computer user error") had gasoline selling at well below the expected price. In the middle of the night, drivers began rushing to the pumps to get this once in a lifetime price break. Sadly, the error was discovered quickly... and corrected even more quickly. What was the low, low price that started the stampede? $3.09 a gallon! What a sad commentary on the state of our economy. Sad unless you are an oil sheik or have a lot of stock in Exxon! Who would have believed that $3.09 per gallon would ever be a "too good to be true" price for gas?

Four or five years ago, I got it in my mind that what I really needed was a Ford Explorer; I even got to the point where I was even pricing them at used car lots. I am so thankful that grand plan didn't work out! Never mind the environment... who can afford to fill up one of those things now?

Who Do You Smell Like?

I had to go pick up gas yesterday before I could cut the grass. I have two plastic 2 gallon gas cans, and 2-3 or three times a year I have to go fill them up. And I hate it. No matter how fast I zip to the gas station and back, the car ends up smelling like gas for several gas afterward. No, none of the gas sloshes out of the cans. Yes, I put the sealed cans in the trunk. But no matter how careful I am, the smell of gas permeates the car. Some people like the smell of gas. It should smell great since it costs as much a gallon as Channel #5. But once the car starts smelling like gas, it won't go away.

Paul talks about his life as a smell that permeates and affects those around him-- "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." (2 Cor 2:15). The influence of the gospel permeated Paul's life and was unmistakable in everything he did. Not everyone liked the smell or appreciated the influence. So Paul says, "To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life" (2:16).

We are to be the aroma of Christ in the world today. He is to influence our lives to the point where we look like Him, sound like Him and smell like Him. And then we will impact the world like Him. The when people want to know more about Christ, they can just follow their nose!

Object Permanence and the Unseen God

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget coined the term “object permanence.” Newborn infants are incapable of believing in what they don’t see. Hide a favorite toy under a blanket, and for them it no longer exists. Piaget studies led him to conclude that says infants don’t outgrow this until about 7-8 months of age (now believed to be 3-4 months). It is part of the maturation process to be able to believe that things that you don’t see really do exist.

Many in our materialistic world lack the spiritual maturity to live out this object permanence. “Seeing is believing,” we say. Only those things which are verifiable by our senses are real, and while we may give lip-service to spiritual realities beyond, they have little to do with how we live our lives day to day. God is unseen, and therefore for many He remains unreal.

Tell that to Sennacherib. Sennacherib commanded an army that had never known defeat. The Assyrians were feared all over the world for their brutal conquests. They had developed the chariot as weapon of war and invented the chain-mail armor that would continue to be used for several thousand years. For Assyria, war was a science and slaughter was an art form. This was an army that had never known defeat, and in our Old Testament reading for today, that army was camped right outside the gates of Jerusalem.

In 2 Kings 18:19-25, the field commander of the Assyrian army issued a challenge to Hezekiah of Judah, spoken in the hearing of all of Jerusalem. In that challenge he chides Judah for depending on their alliance with Egypt to protect them; Pharaoh was but a “splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it” (18:21). He also chides Judah for depending on their God to protect them. Had not Hezekiah removed the high places and idols from Jerusalem? Every nation that had been ground up by the Assyrian war machine had their gods, but not god could protect them from the might of Assyria. How much less could this unseen God without idols and high places save them?

Hezekiah refused to answer the challenge. He took the transcript of the challenge of Sennacherib to the Temple. Hezekiah had no army and no options. Part of the Assyrian taunt had been “I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!” (18:23). Hezekiah had no options but faith. So he spread the transcript of Sennacherib’s challenge before the Lord and prayed—

"It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men’s hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.” (2 Kings 19:17-19)

The next morning, Sennacherib woke up to find 185,000 of his crack troops had died during the night. Sennacherib and his army fled in terror back to Nineveh where he was assassinated by his own sons. Sennacherib and his army that had never known defeat had been destroyed by an Unseen God.

It is easy for us to become so busy with the things of this world that we can see that we forget about the reality of what we cannot. Sennacherib would today trade the totality of his empire for one more moment of time to fall before that Unseen God.

Accept One Another

In the 1930's, the key issue that divided many churches was pre-millennialism, an understanding of end-time events that believes Jesus will return to earth to establish a literal thousand year reign over a literal earthly kingdom. Churches were split and relationships lost over this issue. I met a brother several years ago who, as a young man in the 1930's, was forced out of the church that brought him to the Lord because he held the "wrong view" on the end time. His eyes glistened with tears as he told me the story more than 50 years later.

In 1933, Foy E. Wallace and Charles Neal met to debate this issue. Neal began his first speech with an appeal for unity and mutual understanding among brothers who differed in how they approached the texts that taught about the end time. Wallace, who had led the charge to eradicate pre-millennialism among our churches, made it clear what would have to happen before there could be unity among us--

I would like to say, with all kindness and reverence, as I begin my part of the discussion, that if Mr. Neal and those who stand with him had always preached only as I have been preaching, and as those brethren that stand with me on these issues have preached, there would have been no alienation.”

Wallace basically says, “We can have unity when and only when you agree with me!” That does not sound much like either kindness nor reverence, does it? That rather smacks of the Pharisaic arrogance that is destined to perpetually divide and alienate! If unity and fellowship is only possibly when we can agree on everything, then we may as well turn our the light, cause the party is over!

Do we really want to make salvation depend on a correct understanding of the book of Revelation as it relates to the end-time? Do we really want to make fellowship and unity also depend on our understanding it alike? Unity will never come from our agreement on the issues or our similarity in church practice. Unity is the creation of God; only Christ makes us one. This unity is lived out in practical terms when we "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." (Rom 15:7). If Christ accepts us despite our flaws, then we must be willing to accept each other that way as well. We must fellowship our “erring brethren” because that's the only kind we have!

A Wing and a Prayer

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson were enjoying their hobby-- flying their Microlight Airplaine. Evidently, some people enjoy strapping an engine to a kite and taking it up a couple of thousand feet. Go figure! They were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound in New Zealand when their engine spluttered and shuttered and then died. It's pretty serious to be flying a single-engine airplane of any kind when the engine dies., so Stubbs and Wilson did what most of us would do in similar circumstances. THEY PRAYED! "My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God's help," Stubbs told The Associated Press.

Obviously, since Stubbs was being interviewed about the incident, things must have turned out well. They did. The men were able to make a dead-stick landing, and the plane lightly came to rest. As they say, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing." But what made this story a story is that they happened to land right beside to a sign that read, "Jesus is Lord." Cool! It would have been better if the sign said, "Jesus Saves" or "God is My Co-Pilot." But what a great reminder that prayer really does work.

Here's a little known, less often relied upon truth. Prayer works even when you are not in life-threatening situations!

Suspending Disbelief

I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie last night. Hey, small groups are over and I had to do something on Tuesday night! The best (and most accurate) summary of the movie I have heard was that it was like being in the middle of a video game. It was a non-stop run-jump-shoot action game from the opening scene, and I found myself reaching for a video-game controller. And the action was not exactly what one would call believable. I wonder how many people will come out of the movie thinking that all you need to do to survive a direct nuclear explosion is hide in a lead-lined refrigerator? And if I ever need to catch up to a speeding truck, I now know that you can do so by swinging through the trees on Tarzan vines! Well, you know that you are really going to exercise your "suspend disbelief" muscles when you come away thinking, "Boy, that wasn't nearly as believable as Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Is faith in God something akin to suspending disbelief? Do some of the stories in the Bible sound a bit like the plot from an Indiana Jones movie? A strong wind divides the Red Sea just in time for the Jews to make their escape? A chariot of fire swoops down to carry Elijah to heaven? An army walking around a walled city, blows their trumpets and the wall falls down? There are some pretty unbelievable stories in the Bible, aren't there? So must we suspend disbelief in order to embrace these stories? No, at the center of these stories is an All-Powerful, All-Just and All-Loving God who is acting in human history to accomplish His will. Once you believe in God, then these stories are much more than divine special effects. If God truly exists, then all things are possible.

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
......you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived,
......no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:3-4)

Divine Illumination

Just in case you are wondering where I get my sermon ideas, I thought I would share this picture of me at the moment of divine illumination. Kinda transcendent, isn't it?

Michele King took this at our church camp-out. The smoke from the campfire was drifting just right to picked up by the sun streaming through the trees. I wish sermons did come from above like this. Actually, they do come from above; they just take a lot more work than this. But then, if you look at the picture, most everyone else is ward at work getting camp ready and I'm just standing around with my arms crossed! Well, someone has to ponder the great questions of life... like "I wonder when they are going to get supper ready?"

You can see more pictures of our Memorial Day camp-out here.

The Kingdom of God and Man

My sermon yesterday was about the relationship of the Christian to the government from Romans 13. It isn't surprising that Paul has information dealing with the Christian and the civil authority; he is, after all, writing to Rome. Knowing the persecution that is brewing on the horizon for the Romans church, we are a bit surprised that Paul is so gracious when addressing Caesar's government. Paul sees the king as God's servant (Rom 13:4-6) to do good. The word "servant" in verse 4 is the word for "deacon" while the different word for "servant" in verse 6 is applied to the priest in Hebrews 8:2. Paul's general teaching is that the Christian is to obey the civil authorities, honor those who serve, and pay our taxes.

That is his general teaching. The question that has stumped believers since Paul's day is when we get more specific. How involved should Christians to be in governmental affairs? Are we to be so focus on the kingdom of God that we refuse to concern ourselves the kingdoms of men? Should we use political process and power to to make the world better? Do we stand outside humans systems of power, pointing to their flaws and inviting people into God's rule? Do we compromise something about the kingdom of God when we combine it too closely with the power-structure of men? I used the examples of David Lipscomb and James A. Garfield to illustrate how differently some in our movement read scripture here-- Lipscomb believed that Christians shouldn't even vote and Garfield was elected the 20th president of the United States.

An excellent discussion of some of the issues can be viewed in this video. Here Chuck Colson, Gregory Boyd and Shane Claiborne take very different approaches. Obviously, there are generational differences here. (One of these three guys really dresses funny... in a coat and tie!). All three men have written books on the topic of the Christian, politics and the government. They all have substantive differences in their approach, and you will disagree with each at one point or another. But Colson, Boyd and Claiborne are all focused on serving the Crucified One and reflecting His values and kingdom in the world today.

As the election (finally) gets closer, we must avoid the temptation to think that all Christians can or should vote the same way. We must all be focused on the kingdom of God, but how to be the best stewards of our political freedom will certainly vary from Christian to Christian.