Should I or shouldn’t I?

This past weekend I conducted a Workshop on how to live like Christ Monday through Saturday.  The whole idea behind the program was to help Christians to understand what the Bible teaches on this topic in a practical and applicable way.  It was a nice success, and I have gotten very good feedback from the attendees.

It occurred to me in setting up the curriculum that this is a subject that is best understood in light of two things: spiritual warfare, and the terms and promises of the New Covenant.  Putting things in a covenant context is something I do all of the time in teaching, for without an understanding of covenant, most people have grave difficulty understanding Scripture.  In fact, when you come right down to cases, most great doctrinal disagreements come back to understanding or misunderstanding Biblical covenant and their application.  (See Mom, I really did pay attention in school!)

On the other hand, the spiritual warfare background of day-to-day Christian life is more difficult to present in a simple, clear way that doesn’t result in people getting carried away with shadows in the dark…

To make things simple and clear, I opened the Workshop by telling a story from the point of view of an angel in heaven; I assumed the character myself.  The story began with Creation and ran through until the present time.  Obviously I tried to give some idea of what goes on in spiritual warfare, but I had to explain things in earthly language and references, since none of us has been to heaven, and English most likely lacks words for all of the wonders none of us has seen, and arguably this is the sort of thing that the Bible authors themselves had to do, after all, how many times do they say something like “it was like a… ?”  It was “like” something because who can describe it any other way?

In addition, I also filled in some areas that we don’t have texts for, as many theorists have done oer the centuries, so you could say that I took a few liberties with the narrative, something I disclosed to the Workshop.    The bottom line is that the story achieved its purpose of communicating what spiritual warfare is all about and what it ‘looks like’ in real life while avoiding some of the more “far out” speculations that have been found in Christian literature over the years… The “reviews” from the session attendees were positive.

Now here’s my dilemma: I have been thinking of writing down this little narrative in a short series of posts here.  I fully realize that people of various doctrinal backgrounds may read it, and their backgrounds may well differ from mine.  I would not consider this a topic to argue about, not because it isn’t important, but because the argument accomplishes nothing.  I also recognize that the way I did the story, spread out over multiple posts could be confusing, particularly if a person picked up only one “episode.”  Yet, there’s no way it could be shortened to fit in one huge post.

It could be fun; it could help many to have a better understanding… Or it could confuse and frustrate…

Should I or shouldn’t I?

I  wonder…

A quiet moment

 

 

Life can be hectic and loud, but all of us need some peace and quiet some times.  It helps us to recharge, to relax and to calm our thoughts.  Yes, we all need a little peace and quiet, a little break you might say…

We need a little peace and quiet to talk things over with our Lord; to pray, to give thanks.

Today, if you hear his voice, 
  do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, 
   as you did that day at Massah  in the desert, 
 where your fathers tested and tried me, 
   though they had seen what I did. 

(Psalm 95: 7b-9)

We’ll never hear His voice in our hectic and loud world, we all need a little peace and quiet…

And so what do we see?

When we gaze up into the clear night sky, what do we see?  When we are far away from the city lights and we look upward, what can we learn?

Can we learn as much looking around the natural beauty of the earth? What about looking into a microscope and seeing the amazing complexity of a single living cell?

Yes, we can, for these all proclaim the glory of God!

We can hardly gaze upon Creation without coming to see the very handiwork of the Creator Himself… and yet millions see nothing. How very pathetic.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
 Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
 They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Psalm 19:1-4

How hard it must be to see the handiwork of God and still deny it; how miserable the life that seeks to be without purpose.  How great the burden must be to carry the obligation of denial.

 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:20

How can we take any pleasure in observing the folly of men who seek to deny the obvious?  How can we simply see such people as debating opponents?

The poor souls who would deny God’s glory need to hear the truth; and if we will not be inspired by God’s glory that is all around us to share His Truth… then who will be?

Music, Traditions and Change

Yesterday I opened a discussion of traditions and music and told you about the changes we made in this area and why.  I told you how we approached the difficulty of resistance when we did so, and today I’d like to wrap up the discussion…

Please understand that we didn’t make our changes over night or in a vacuum.  It all began with a concerted effort to grow our church spiritually not numerically.  I would imagine that if we just tried flipping a switch and went from totally traditional one week, and then totally contemporary the next, there wouldn’t have been anything but chaos as a result.  In addition, our music evolved slowly for a number of reasons such as a lack of people willing to participate; a general lack of talent available in a small congregation, but as time passed, these things changed  With each new success, more people wanted to be part of a winning team, you might say.

Music was not the only tradition that was either done away with or modified, but of course it was the most obvious.  I must mention here once again that when I speak of our traditions, I am referring only to the way we did things, not to the message of Scripture or to any Scriptural imperative. As time went on, something else started to change…

It used to be that baptisms were so infrequent that when there was one, nobody had any idea of what to do, and each time the wheel had to be reinvented… or so it seemed.  People might actually complain that church got out late that day! Baptisms became much more frequent, and pretty soon, everyone involved in the worship service knew exactly what to do:  Oh, there’s a baptism today, great!  Things go almost like clockwork because the results of the things that had been done, beginning with spiritual growth began to pay off in souls won for Jesus Christ.  To be sure, I’m not suggesting that improvements can’t still be made, that process never should stop, but a dramatic shift had taken place.

The time came when we had, instead of an empty auditorium, a need to go to two services, and the day may well come soon when we need either a third service or a new place to meet: God’s will be done!

The funny thing that comes to me in looking back is that I really don’t hear complaints much any more.  I can understand somebody being skeptical about changes at first, but when the harvest starts to come in, the skeptics are gone.  Oh, I’m sure that some day something else will change and it will take a time for a buy-in from certain quarters, but when you are in a place where God is working in your midst, TWWADI doesn’t seem to count for very much.

Looking at Your Traditions

I must begin by saying that it has been some time since my last post on Church growth.  I had not intended to be so long away (sorry about that) but I’m back at home and it’s time to move forward… so here goes.

Last time, I was talking about TWWADI (The Way We’ve Always Done It) and proposed to continue with a look at some traditions that we adjusted so as to move forward both spiritually within our congregation and as a result to bring more people to Christ.  The biggest and most visible tradition that we took a look at was our music.

Now I fully realize that this is a controversial subject in many places and it has had fallout in churches for quite some time.  For whatever reason the style of music in a church is often a polarizing subject that breaks a group into two parts:  The first part is often the older group that likes their music the way it’s always been and doesn’t want to hear about doing it differently, and the other group is often the younger ones who want more modern music. We had the same dynamic.

It is tempting to want to try “blended” music as many churches do.  Blended music is a little of each so that nobody is overly irritated… and so that nobody is overly satisfied. I must admit that we did some of the blended music for a time, but not because it was our desire to compromise, but because we lacked the people who could sing the more contemporary tunes.  This is not a good thing!

The thing that I hope you will understand here is not the “what” but instead the “why.”    There are two very important things to consider when music in the worship service is being discussed.  First we need to remember what the purpose of the church is from a Biblical point of view.  Is it to please its members and give them their favorite music… or is it to seek and save the lost?

If the purpose of the church is to please its membership, then take a vote and follow the majority.  If it is to seek and save the lost, then we must take into consideration what will make a visitor, a seeking person who is willing to consider becoming a Christian and give his or her life to the Lord, comfortable enough to let down their guard and take in the message of Salvation.

Before I go any further, I must confess that I prefer the old music, the songs that come from the old Hymnal, you know the ones, they are all a hundred years old or more… some are closer to 500 years old.  When I come home, I also listen to classical music; I am really fond of Baroque music (1600-1750).  Am I representative of those we are supposed to be taking the gospel to?  No, not really.

Most people who are not already church members aren’t familiar with old hymns, but they usually do listen to music, and mostly they listen to music that is more contemporary than not.  If they are visiting a church, it stands to reason that the more that they come into contact with that is familiar and comfortable, the more at home and relaxed they are likely to be, and the more relaxed, the more likely they are to receive the message of the gospel than if they feel utterly out-of-place.  Thus, since there is plenty of very fine Christian music in a contemporary style, why shouldn’t we use it instead of insisting upon our own preferences and losing the opportunity to win a soul for Christ? I have heard it said that if the music isn’t traditional then it also isn’t worship… but consider this:  What is traditional music?  It is nothing more than contemporary music from a different time!  What is style?  It isn’t something from the Bible, it’s something from the culture of man.  If the music faithfully conveys a Christian message than the style is meaningless!

The other thing we should consider is why some of us insist on making no change in music.  A spiritually mature believer will have his or her top priority on the lost, not on their own preferences or habits, thus when people strongly object to any change, they are not telling us that we shouldn’t adjust our music, they are telling us that we need to do a better job of discipleship, that we haven’t taught them enough for them to grow spiritually.  To put it another way, their objection is a teachable moment.  When we patiently and lovingly teach them where our priorities need to be as Christians, we are able to bring them along into greater spiritual maturity and enable our churches to reach people that we haven’t reached before.

I’ll continue this discussion in the next post…

One Week Later

I would imagine that most of us have various impressions of the last week’s news relating to the events in Boston.  Violence, terror, confusion, outrage, sadness, mourning all fit the bill, but of course there are other things as well.

Praise for the first responders, the bravery of so many of those who put their lives on the line to protect the good citizens of the Boston area, and of course heavy concern for those who were killed or injured and their families.  There were many saddening tales of injuries, loss and grief…

There have been a great number of tributes paid, tales told, news reported and images of all kinds that I wouldn’t even attempt to add to those.  For me, there are certainly many questions that still need an answer: How could this happen?  How did these guys expect to get away with their crimes?  Are there more involved?  All of these are on my mind after a week that shocked us all.

I was struck late last week by the many comments from friends and acquaintances of the perpetrators saying that, particularly the younger of the two was such a nice guy, how nobody could have imagined him capable of such acts.   I heard an “expert” who pointed out that whenever there is a horrible crime of violence, the people who knew the murderer or attacker always say these things, and the expert said that they are simply speaking from emotion and didn’t understand the signs involved in such things.  Maybe the gentleman is correct, but this thought stuck with me:

Suppose those people are right; suppose that this guy was the last one that any reasonable person would have suspected to carry out such an outrageous act of violence upon innocent people… what happened?

Looking at this question from a Christian Biblical point of view, I’m struck by something that a “profession” in security might not take into consideration, and that is the fact that there is a difference between “evil” and “Evil.”  The former is a word that we might use to describe a very bad action: “That was an evil thing to do.”  The latter, however is an active, searching and driving force that is seeking to turn otherwise decent people into monsters.  It is in fact the spiritual enemy of the Christian.  It seeks to corrupt, destroy and foul anybody who lets it into their lives, and it is something that we must take very seriously.

I am normally one of the last people to over-spiritualize things, please understand that.  However, the Bible teaches us that we are on the front lines of a spiritual war, and we must take that seriously.

 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12

It is incumbent upon us to protect our young from opening themselves to Evil; to take up the sword that is God’s Word to oppose it, and to be fervent prayer warriors for Jesus Christ, to boldly pray not just for safety from evil, which is the approach that our civil authorities must take, but rather to pray boldly for the utter destruction of that Evil which has plagued this world for so many centuries, and to pray boldly that the cross of will triumph over sin and death in the hearts of the people.

Looking Outward

As a Christian begins to mature in his or her faith, he or she begins to realize that the Christian life is about more than just what we want, what we like and meeting our needs, for the Christian life is about serving God by serving others in a way that advances God’s purpose.  Clearly, this is what Jesus mode;ed to us in everything that he did on this earth.  This is what the Apostles did, and this is what we are called to do; there is no greater satisfaction in the life of any mature believer than in seeing someone give their life to Christ, and we along with the hosts of heaven rejoice every time this happens. When a large enough percentage of a congregation reaches the point where their focus is on serving rather than upon being served, a local church can begin to shift its focus to the lost and away from serving its existing members.  Of course this is not to suggest that we ignore them; not by a long shot.  In fact, when you reach this point, there will be more done to help one another than ever before, but it won’t be the focus.

I mentioned when telling you about our “phase 2″ that we were trying to train up people to lead our small group ministry, and this we did.  Small groups meet in the homes of members to study the Bible in a relational way.  The people in the small groups get to know one another well; they become friends while learning to apply the Bible in their lives.  When one of them is hurting, the group finds out and answers the need; the group leader becomes in essence a pastor of a manageable number of people and sees to their needs.  Often, needs are met without the larger church body even knowing about them, and it isn’t just the ministerial staff that serves these needs, it is now the people who hadn’t ever done so before… they have become disciples in the truest sense.  As a by-product, something else happens on Sunday morning; after the worship service, people hang around and visit.  When a new person comes to church, there really isn’t any great need for “greeters” because everyone has become aware of who is new, and since they have become aware of the need to reach out, they greet new people as though they were family… and nobody ever told them to do it. Why is this?  It’s simple, they’ve grown up in their faith and are looking, entirely on their own, for people to serve.

Here is a key factor in church growth that is often overlooked:  When enough members of a local church become more spiritually mature, Jesus will use them to grow the church by either bringing guests or forming relationships with the guests brought by others.  It is not the Senior Pastor’s job alone, nor is it the job of a “hired gun” or of “professionals,” it will happen when the people become disciples of Christ in fact as well as in name.

This brings us to the other side of the coin, so to speak, and that is how the worship service will be “targeted.” This is a point at which we made a critical mistake that slowed our progress down, for we targeted the wrong group.

The thought process went something like this:  Our congregation is aging, which will sound familiar to many.  We were on a course where the day would come when we would all die off and that would be that, so we need to bring in younger people, who of course would not be comfortable in such an old group…  We made 2 decisions, one was a good one and the other was not.  The good one was that we decided to target males rather than females.  The bad decision was that we would target a young demographic; 18-34 thinking that 1) this is an age group that most churches miss entirely, and 2) that we would gain  young families which are vital to long-range growth.  Before you go crazy on me, these two things were our main focus, but not to the exclusion of anyone else.

Why men?

This seems to run counter to the current culture, but then so is the Bible.  It isn’t that we didn’t want women; nothing like that! It was simply a matter of observation over a long period of time.  When a woman decides to follow Christ and her husband does not, she comes to church by herself, or with very young children.  When the children reach the age of 12 or 13, they most often stay home on Sunday with Dad.  The fact that the wife attends church and the husband does not also create problems in the home, and eventually, most of the wives quit coming… or the couple splits up.  On the other hand, when Dad decides to attend church, you get the entire family, including teenagers, and there isn’t a divide between husband and wife; everyone is better off.

The real question should be: Why don’t so many men like church?  We got some ideas about this just walking around and actually looking at the place.  Most men don’t put floral arrangements everywhere in their homes. Most men don’t choose color schemes that are light pastels.  Most men don’t look forward to a Father’s Day sermon about how worthless they are as fathers and husbands.  Most men don’t really think that every single conversation needs to be about love, feelings and warm fuzzies, but since the 1970′s churches have gone in that direction to appeal to the feminism in the culture. In the process, men began to drift away from the church in vast numbers…

When we fixed up our facilities in phase 1, we used a decidedly masculine color scheme and decor; the flowers are gone.  Activities and events shifted from nice social things to purposeful ministries that either built a culture of service or reached out to the lost directly.  We started to balance our preaching, away from 90% love and warm fuzzies, 10% everything else, to a Scriptural balance.  God’s unfailing love is mentioned frequently, but not just as an abstract concept.  Now it is direct application in context and is discussed in relevant passages that show God’s love as it really is, not just as in “let’s all feel good today.” We no longer dance on eggshells when teaching passages that relate the actual Scriptural role of men in the family. It is amazing how God will bless the church when His Word is taught with accuracy!  Our numbers of women grew.  Our numbers of whole families grew.  Our numbers of men grew. All began to serve the Lord.

Our demographic assumptions turned out to be wrong, and after 2 years or so, we had to adjust to suit the realities of the community.  After the 2010 Census we came to understand that our community was overwhelmingly older and more affluent that we had thought so we changed ou focus to 35-55. A few months later, things began to click.

In our next post, we’ll take another look at TWWADI and go through some of the adjustments made in that area.