Our days are limited. This is no secret. But I can’t help but wonder what messages the modern church is sending the rest of the world with some of the windmills we choose to chase. We don’t seem concerned about working for a Kingdom that is “not of this world.” In fact, most of us seem to spend our 80 or so years with our eyes focused on the matters and concerns of an earthly kingdom.
What is the ultimate point of your faith?
Is it your conservative values? Is it gay marriage? Abortion? Is it your morning “quiet time” ritual? Does your faith become weaker or stronger depending on which politician wins the next election? Is the right to bear arms a cornerstone of your faith? Is the construction of a mosque at ground zero an important factor in how you worship at your church?
Where does loving your neighbor factor into your faith? What about feeding the hungry and clothing the poor? How much time do you spend forgiving others and approaching situations with a forgiving spirit? At the end of your life, when others look at the faith you professed, what will the point have been?
“God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” –Jesus
I have read through the Sermon on The Mount more times than any other part of the Bible. The teaching and the thinking are so rich and revolutionary, it beckons me when I need a good lesson on thinking more about God’s Kingdom than my own. This particular time, I was using “The Message” translation, which brought to life a familiar verse. Here is Matthew 5:34 according to “The Message.”
“You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.”
I know this verse is usually applied to swearing and making oaths, but it did get me thinking about some of the frivolous religious phrases we use in the Church. It seems so often we cloak our feelings in spiritual platitudes and wonder why the world views us as inauthentic. In the spirit of truth and authenticity, here are a few such phrases we should cut from our conversations.
“Quiet Time:” If you were praying, say you were praying. If you were reading the Bible, say so. If you were singing at the top of your lungs and it wasn’t so quiet, let others know about it in those words. Why have we turned our time with God into a ritual with an obscure and silly name. In Heaven, we’re going to be raising hands and voices to God and it will be everything but quiet, why make it that way on Earth?
“The Holy Spirit has laid something on my heart:” Sounds painful. You might want to go the hospital immediately and make sure that’s not a tumor. First of all, before you make a statement like that, you need to make sure you’re not blaming your personal anxiety on God. Second, just be clear. Say you think God wants you to do it, or that God is showing you the importance of something. Why all this weirdness with laying a heavy burden on your heart of hearts?
“My walk with The Lord:” Where did we get this one? If you have a relationship with Christ, call it a relationship. If you’re struggling, instead of saying your walk is bad, say you don’t feel close to God anymore. If you’re getting better, say you’re praying more and getting to know Christ more. Don’t say, “My walk is improving.” Your walk should only be improving if you recently broke your leg and are recovering.
“Ask Jesus into your heart:” Again with the hearts. Aside from the fact that this oft-repeated phrase is found nowhere in the Bible, it’s kind of confusing to an outside observer. Why cloak it? If you want Jesus to take control of your life, then say that. If you realize that you are completely deficient and that you need the life-changing love of God in your life then say it. Instead of saying “I asked Jesus into my heart when I was a teenager” tell your story. You’re missing an opportunity to be real with someone just so you can sound like you know the right words.
“Prayer Life:” You have your real life, and then you have a prayer life? Is that kind of like Second Life? How about being honest. “I’m having a hard time praying lately” or, “I’ve started getting better about praying and it is really helping me.” Pray throughout your life, in good times and bad. Don’t make some loony separation like prayer isn’t real.
“I’ve been so blessed:” I’m sure you have. But let’s not use this to talk about your new car, or your $400,000 house. Jesus says the meek, mournful and spiritually poor are blessed. If you’re thinking that new yacht of yours is a blessing, you wouldn’t want to be truly blessed by God, because His blessings tend to have eternal benefit, not monetary or material benefit.
“Love Offering:” As opposed to a hate offering? Or did you want a giant group hug instead of money?
“Spiritual Journey:” Again, we’re compartmentalizing. Christ did not come to change one aspect of our lives, but our whole lives. There is no such thing as a spiritual journey, the phrase you’re looking for is, “my life.”
Small Group: Is it a Bible study? Call it that. is it a Sunday school class? Call it that. Are you hanging out with a group of friends discussing your shared faith? Call it that. “Small Group” is vague and connotes shame.
Being Fed: Someone once asked my wife and I how we were being fed. Knowing my wife was not familiar with the term, I quickly answered the question and talked about the church we were attending and the role it was playing in improving our relationship with God. I wanted to say, “Well, we’re still in college, so the food is pretty cheap. If we eat at all, it is of prison quality.”
Intentional: To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember what we mean by “being intentional” anymore. I suspect it has something to do with making every move and comment relate somehow to “witnessing.”
They say common sense ain’t so common these days and it seems this adage couldn’t be any more true than in the church. Fear not though, in response to the overwhelming lack of understanding that has led the misguided among us to take their right to bear arms to mean they have a right to play God and commit other less serious but equally embarrassing acts, I have decided to offer an eight-week seminar this summer called “Common Sense for Christians.” Here is our course outline:
Week 1: Being Pro Life- Believing that life is precious and has value means all life is precious and has value. You cannot bolster your shiny new gun and go out killing people you disagree with. You also shouldn’t blow up their places of business. Also, if you believe in protecting the second amendment, that’s great—but you might want to consider why a person who is pro-life would want to own a device that can take life. Oh, and if you are pro-life, you may want to really look into the annoying contradiction of calling yourself pro-life while supporting the death penalty.
Week 2:Marriage- You can’t go around telling homosexuals that marriage is a sacred spiritual bond between a man and a woman until you start treating it as sacred. Fix your own marriages and bring your own divorce rate down, have fewer broken families than the rest of the world and maybe the rest of the world will be more apt to listen to you. Change always comes from within.
Week 3: Poverty- Politically, you may have a point about it not being the government’s job to meet everyone else’s needs. However, as a Christian, Christ has commanded you to give your money to the poor. So, whether you give in the form of taxes or donations, you’re giving. Hoarding is not an option that is available to you.
Week 4: Stewardship- All you have belongs to God. All you have is going to burn one day to make way for a new Heavens and a new Earth. When Jesus says don’t store up treasures on earth, there is a very good chance He means that if you have two houses, one of which you only use for a few weeks out of the year and there are people in your community who don’t have any houses, you may have a bit of a stewardship problem.
Week 5: Politics- Jesus did not come to set up an Earthly kingdom and He didn’t send you into the world to set one up either. We serve an eternal Heavenly Kingdom. Political involvement is important, but it is always secondary to the Kingdom of Heaven, which operates under completely opposite and paradoxical rules than the Kingdom of this world.
Week 6: Judging- If God had appointed you as the judge of the world, you’d have been born with a black robe, an tacky wig and perfect. If you didn’t pop out of your momma’s womb with these three attributes, then you are a worker in Christ’s field, which means you must sow the fruits of the spirit. In case you forgot, those are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Week 7: Sin- It does exist, and you do it too. If everything in life is a psychological problem we have no control over, or if everything we do wrong is just something society needs to learn to accept, then there is no need for a Savior. If there is no sin and there is no Savior, then we really don’t need to read the Bible or go to church anymore. We could instead devote our lives to debauchery, which is much more fun.
Week 8: Unity- We don’t have to agree, but we should get along. Somewhere in the New Testament we’re told that we are all parts of one body. A body doesn’t function well if the hand is continually punching the nose or the right foot won’t stop kicking the left behind.
Here are the rules: The movies listed below are produced by Christian filmmakers and studios. They are listed in no particular order and the selection of the five movies were limited by movies I have personally seen. They are also the five that popped immediately into my head. This does list does not seek to deny or change the fact that at least 95 percent of all Christian movies are cheesy. These however, are worthy of mention.
THE JUDAS PROJECT: This movie isn’t actually that bad. It is little-known though and suffers from horrible special effects, long musical interludes and poor acting. It is the gospel told in a modern (early 80’s) setting, with a man named Joshua as Jesus. Despite all the negatives, it has two strong points. The first is that the Jesus character is one of the most likable I’ve seen. The movie does a good job of showing what Jesus would have been like to the people of his time by giving a contemporary equivalent. The second positive, is the totally cool Grey’s Anatomy-esque crucifixion scene. The camera doesn’t cut away and the screams are horrific.
LEFT BEHIND: This is almost too easy to pick on, because it wandered unrecognizably far from the book. I don’t remember the special effects for this one being as bad as they could have been, but the strangest part was the lack of special effects for the rapture scene, which was a rather big part of a movie called “Left Behind.” It also suffers from a common ailment among Christian movies, called “Hey! We’ve Got Kirk Cameron Syndrome.” If you’re a Christian filmmaker and you get Kirk Cameron, nothing else matters. Forget about music, special effects, camera work and even plot.
LEFT BEHIND II TRIBULATION FORCE: Same as above, only the “Hey! We’ve Got Kirk Cameron Syndrome” has gotten worse. In this one, they actually go a little further with the special effects, which results in some over-the-top attempts at making the Antichrist look like something out of a horror film. If you thought Christian filmmakers should stay away from special effects altogether, you’ll agree that the last thing they should do is attempt to pull off horror effects.
THE CHAMPION:Carman should have left boxing well enough alone after his song, also titled “The Champion.” If Christian filmmakers should stay away from special effects, Christian musicians should stay away from Christian films, especially those Christian musicians who don’t actually sing. I don’t remember the plot of this one. All I remember is there was boxing, a wedding and it was bad.
THE RIOT MOVIE: Not to pick on everyone’s favorite non-singing songwriter too much, but this novel idea fell flat on its face before it even went out the door. Carman had the “unique” idea of packaging the music videos for his popular RIOT album inside a 2 part movie. This allowed him to a.) test the waters for a feature film, b.) star in his own movie and c.) make $40 off of his music videos instead of $20. The latter one seems to have been the most important aspect here. Aside from these issues, the dialogue is forced, the acting is worse than most infomercials and the music videos between each scene break whatever momentum the film may have had going for it.
Politics, politics, politics, oh how we love what you have done to the Church. Instead of a long divisive rant, I’ll keep this short and even-handed. I have a couple of questions to ask:
Conservative Christians: If Jesus came back today and held a press conference and announced He was in favor of open borders, universal healthcare and embryonic stem-cell research, would you find it hard to love Him? Would you try to persuade Him to your way of thinking?
Liberal Christians: If Jesus came back today and held a press conference and announced He was in favor of traditional marriage, denied global warming and was pro-life, would you find it hard to love Him? Would you try to persuade Him to your way of thinking?
Both sides: What is really the most important aspect of your belief system? Are those hills you are willing to die on as important to Christ as they are to you? Are they more important to you than He is?
Admittedly, I spend quite a bit of time on this blog motivating Christians to serve. (read: complaining about folks not serving.) I realize there are a number of people who would like to do more and who are willing to exercise their faith, but maybe they don’t know how, or aren’t aware of all the opportunities to serve in their area.
So, in the spirit of putting my money where my mouth is, of actually helping instead of just kvetching, I’d like to take a moment to introduce a unique website I discovered recently. The site is ChristianVolunteering.org, by TechMission. Simply go to their website, choose a type of service and your geographic location and you will be presented with a list of opportunities in your area.
The website connects your gifts and talents with organizations looking for volunteers. So, if you have a heart for mentoring, you can connect with a ministry looking for mentors with just a few clicks.
Steven Curtis Chapman, who has at least 10 more Dove Awards than days and nights during the Great Flood, released a song titled “For Who He Really Is” in 1988. The song contains this lyric:
He slips into church and he puts up his guard; They look so happy but his life’s been so hard. He keeps his distance so they won’t see the scars; It’s just a religion that’s all dressed up in white, And God is love as long as you’re living right. But does he know that Jesus also has scars, And His love can reach Him no matter how far.
The song then asks if others can see God for who He really is when they look at us. Fast forward about two decades to the present, and we have Casting Crowns. Here are some lyrics from “Stained Glass Masquerade”
Are we happy plastic people Under shiny plastic steeples With walls around our weakness And smiles to hide our pain But if the invitation’s open To every heart that has been broken Maybe then we close the curtain On our stained glass masquerade
That’s not all. Take a look at “Does Anybody Hear Her” also by Casting Crowns.
Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see? Or does anybody even knows she’s going down today Under the shadow of our steeple With all the lost and lonely people Searching for the hope that’s tucked away in you and me Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?
And one more from Casting Crowns called “If We Are The Body”
It’s crowded in worship today As she slips in trying to fade into the faces The girls teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know Farther than they know
Each song addresses issues of isolation in the church as well as the inauthentic aura that covers the vast majority of church attendees. What kills me, is that these songs are 20 years apart, and these are not unknown artists— or songs for that matter. Every self-respecting Christian in the 80’s and 90’s owned at least one Steven Curtis Chapman CD, and Casting Crowns has been the top of the Christian charts since they debuted a few years ago. These artists are among the most influential in the church.
It’s been two decades and our top Christian song writers are still writing about the same unresolved issues in the church. This is heartbreaking. It means that not only are we aware of the situation, not only have we been told about it, but we’re not dealing with it. We continue to be fake, we continue to build walls, we continue to pretend we have it all together, we continue to exclude others, we continue to put on a self-righteous front and we continue to ignore this problem.
Where did we lose our ability to relate to other people? What does it take turn this around? Will another 20 years pass only to see a world of changing values and technology but the same issues plaguing the church? We need to love and serve one another and the outside community better, I know that much. I’m not sure exactly how to do that, but I’d definitely be willing to try.
A 2005 survey shows 75 percent of Christians in the United States believe the Bible teaches “God helps those who help themselves.” That’s three-quarters of American Christians who believe this phrase is found in Scripture, a phrase that practically discounts the entire message of the Bible.
Anyone want to guess where the phrase actually comes from? Benjamin Franklin. The idea that God helps those who help themselves is an American one, but it isn’t a Biblical one. Yet, we’ve allowed this incorrect commentary on the nature of God to creep into our theology. It has gripped our belief system so much that it overtakes actual Scripture.
We would rather believe God helps the independent and the self-sufficient than to believe that Christ loves the helpless and calls us to feed the hungry. I’m not sure about your church, but I know at mine there are people who actually believe that the poor are poor by choice and that if they wanted to be rich, they would simply make money.
This philosophy is greed, not God. The God of the Bible is the savior of the helpless. He brought a group of helpless slaves out of captivity, rescued a prophet from a den of Lions, and gave His life for a world too lost in sin to find its way out. Jesus healed lepers and forgave prostitutes. These are not stories of the self-sufficient being aided by the Almighty.
But we’d rather help ourselves. We prefer to confuse our financial shrewdness with a blessing, and we call what we have earned through greed “God’s favor.” We’ve been helping ourselves for so long in this country, we don’t even remember that Jesus told us to look out for “the least of these.” Here’s a brief list of some of the things that have been going on while we’ve been helping ourselves.
39.5 percent of Americans now live below the poverty line, and this is according to the Census Bureau, statistics that were calculated before the recession.
In 2004, 20 percent of requests for emergency food assistance went unmet. These are real people who were allowed to go hungry. How much food did we let spoil in 2004?
9.6 million people in the U.S. experience hunger. 3 million of these are children.
In 2001, over 23 million Americans turned to food banks. 40 percent of these were working families.
The majority of those below the poverty line are working families. Two out of three impoverished families include one or more workers.
Almost half of all Americans will have experienced poverty at some point in their lives by the time they reach age 60.
Poverty is a real problem. There are no excuses. Jesus commands His followers to have compassion for those who are in need. They are not deadbeats. They are not lazy. They are people in need of Christ-like love. These are people who cannot help themselves, but whom God has called His people to help.
This is not a political issue. It is not a debate about whether or not government should provide aid. That is irrelevant if we call ourselves Christians. Regardless of what you believe about the role of government in fighting poverty, as a follower of Christ, you are commanded by the One who’s name you claim to do something about this problem.
