Playing Church

I've been thinking a lot lately about about how we do church. As a pastor I feel a lot of pressure to do things the way that they've always been done. I often get the questions about Wednesday night services and Sunday school and so forth. "Do you guys have anything for me?" I want to say, "I don't have anything for you, but maybe you have something for God." I don't mean to say that those things are bad in and of themselves, and we do have things for people, but we have become so consumeristic in the way that we "church shop" that the purpose of church becomes quite murky. When you come to a place like Crossroads Fellowship where we have very few "programs" and we're basically a pretty small church, then you don't have much choice but to get involved. But as the church grows how do we keep that same kind of commitment?

The discussion is often there about who is church for. In other words, should we focus our energy for the church service to direct it at Christians or at making non-Christians feel comfortable? I recently heard someone say that church is not for Christians nor non-Christians, but rather it is for God. Maybe you're reading this right now and you're not a Christian. Let me ask you, Would you rather go to a church to focus on something a lot bigger than you or would you prefer that it be all about you? If it's all about you then what's the point in worshipping God? And if it's not about worshipping God, then why are we there at all?

Let's all try to think outside of ourselves and start to think about bigger things. Let's all try to ask the same question, "How can I be used for something really big?" Let's all try to forget ourselves for just a little bit.

Old White Guys

This past week my denomination (PCA - Presbyterian Church in America) held its annual General Assembly. As has been the case for a few years I was unable to make it, but I was fortunate enough to be able to watch it live at times on a webcast that the denomination has put together. There were no great decisions and no great fights that will go down in the annals of the history of the PCA so I had the opportunity to watch the proceedings from a more relaxed perspective. One of the things that I couldn't help but notice is that the PCA is filled with a bunch of old white guys. Now I've got nothing against old white guys, I hope to be one myself someday, but it would sure be nice to see a little more variety there. I will say this, the PCA has aggressively tried to recruit and develop men of various ethnicities, but we just have a long way to go before we have a real mix.

What do you think? Does it matter if there is diversity or not? And what exactly is diversity? Are people diverse when their skin color is different? Or are they diverse when their tax bracket is different? I believe that it does matter and I also think that a lot goes into who we are and what makes us unique. It matters because God makes us special and different and we all have something to offer. I believe that when we get to heaven we're going to realize how much we have missed out on because we were so wrapped up in our own little world. I also think that we should aggressively pursue relationships with people that are in different worlds societally speaking. It helps us to understand the other side and see how wonderful people are that previously we had so many prejudices against. And that road runs both ways.

So do me a favor. Find someone that is nothing like you and have a conversation with them. You just might be surprised how you much you like them and how much they have to offer; even in your bizarre little world!

The Da Vinci Dilemma

Ahh yes, it's the Da Vinci time again. The Christian world was in an uproar about the book The Da Vinci Code and now the movie has come out meaning the uproar is back with it. In case you've been stuck on the space station for the last three years the book is about a symbologist, Robert Langdon, that is trying to decipher a code left by the curator of the Louvre after the curator was murdered. The premise is that Jesus was never considered divine by his earliest followers and in fact he married Mary Magdalene and had a child with her. The descendants of Jesus and Mary continue to this day and the Catholic church has covered the whole thing up. That's the nutshell version.

The response from many Christians of both Catholic and Protestant persuasions, has been to protest the movie. Is this response appropriate? I would say that it is true that the historical "facts" that Dan Brown, author of the book, uses are at best highly questionable. Even individuals that are often not fans of conservative Christianity have debunked much of what is said in the book and many of the documents have been shown to be a big joke. Just turn on the History Channel or Discovery or something like that to learn more about these things. Much has been written about this that I don't feel the need to expand on them.

If what the book is saying were true it would definitely strike at the core of Christianity and would mean that my life is a big waste of time since I do this Christianity thing for a living. But we have no reason to believe that it's true so shouldn't we try to stop people from seeing it? I don't think so. Whenever someone gets the great idea to protest something all that happens is that it brings attention to the very thing that you don't want people to see. It causes people that might not have otherwise cared to suddenly long to see it. The truth is that a lot of people are going to see this movie whether or not it gets protested or boycotted.

So if we don't protest or boycott then what should we do? One of the great things about The Da Vinci Code is that it has brought attention to the question of who Jesus really was. It allows us the opportunity for dialogue with those who may have never otherwise considered these issues of Jesus' divinity. Let us take the time to broadcast the fact that there has never been someone like Jesus and that his life and death did in fact change the world. Not because of anything that Constantine did, but because of what Jesus did.

Resurgence Conference in Seattle

I recently went to a conference in Seattle at Mars Hill Church. It was a bunch of guys with cool shirts and crazy hair that came together to talk about doing church in a time of changing philosophies of thought. Other than the speakers needing more direction in their topics it was a good conference. But the obvious highlight was Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.

God has given this man an ability to communicate ideas that have been floating around in my head without clarity for some time. The main idea that I came away with was that we all are working towards is the return of shalom. Shalom is the way that it is supposed to be. As a result of the fall of man in sin there are aspects to this world that are not the way it's supposed to be. There is not supposed to be sickness. There is not supposed to be natural disasters. There is not supposed to be depression. There is not supposed to be death. Shalom is when all of those are taken away and we return to the way it was always meant to be.

I appreciated it when he said that when Jesus performed miracles it was not supernatural, but rather the absolute natural. In other words, it is not natural (the way it is supposed to be) to be blind, so when Jesus takes away the blindness he is returning it to the natural (shalom). This opens up so many ideas of what mercy ministry to the poor is all about. Or our responsibility to care for the environment. It is not "natural" for their to be people in need. It is not "natural" for the earth to be polluted. Caring for people in need and caring for the environment is being a part of a return of shalom.

How exciting it could be to be part of the earth's return to shalom, even if it is in a small way.