Committed to the Body

Something that has been on my mind recently is our commitment to the local church.

As a pastor this is something that concerns me a great deal. The church, a local community of Jesus followers, is a gift from God. 

In the church we have people who are there to support us, encourage us, grieve with us, and help us. It is a community where we find acceptance and belonging. At its best a local church provides the environment needed for discipleship to happen.

Granted, local churches are rarely at their best. The realities of poor leadership, personal agendas, and inconsistent attendance make it difficult for the church to feel like home. 

I agree, being part of a local church can be a lot of work and it can be messy. There are many reasons that making a commitment to a local church is difficult.

This morning on Twitter I saw this:

I think many of the problems we have with the various expressions of the local church come back to consumerism. 

We have these expectations of what the church should be like and when it doesn’t live up to our expectations we are willing to leave. It doesn’t matter that we are handicapping that church as they seek to take the Gospel into the world, because our needs aren’t being met.

All are different expectations are not what makes a church a church.

The reality is that there is not much a group of believers need in order to form a church. One thing that is essential for a church to exist is commitment.

We were created to bear God’s image in this world. The full expression of that image comes when we are working together as we love one another and serve the world. 

That is when we truly become the body of Christ.

This is why leaving a local church family handicaps them. It is like removing a hand, leg, or eye from a person. Sure, he still can function, but his ability to do work is limited.

Leaving a church may not kill the church, but you make it more difficult for them to do ministry.

I am not saying you can never leave a church.

I am saying that by making the church something you attend or a service that you receive, you make it easy to hop from church to church when your expectations are not met. 

In this way you handicap the mission of the church.

Being committed to a local church is a responsibility that we have as followers of Jesus. 

I want to encourage you to commit to a local church, even if the sermons are boring, the music off key, and the people are a mess, because you will be a blessing to them, and through them God will bless you.

More than a Personal Relationship

God deals with people through the use of covenants. 

Carl Ketcherside in his book The Death of the Custodian wrote:

The fact is that God has chosen to relate to man on the basis of covenants. He is a covenant-making God. No one who ignores this fact will ever grasp God’s plan and purpose in any age. (p. 15)

I want to throw this idea out to you: We have a covenant relationship with God and not just a personal relationship with God. 

 

Yes, I understand that marriage is a covenant relationship, and you can't get a more personal relationship than marriage. 

Just like marriage, the covenant God established with us through Jesus creates a personal relationship. At the same time it sets apart a covenant people for Him. 

 

1 Peter 2:9 reminds us:

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a kingdom of priests, God’s holy nation, his own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light (NLT).

Christians are a chosen people, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. 

We have a personal relationship with God, but that personal relationship is lived out in the context of community. We are in this together. Which means we have a responsibility to and for each other. None of us should try to walk the journey of faith alone. It is crucial that we help each other as much as possible because our lives are linked through Jesus.

I bring this up because I think our focus on a “personal” relationship with God sidetracks us from what God has really called us to be—a covenant people. 

Leon Morris in The Atonement wrote:

It mattered intensely to Old Testament Israel that the nation was in covenant relationship with the one and only God. All its thinking and living revolved around this fact. (p. 22)

Israel is not a great example of covenant faithfulness, but I still wonder what the church would be like if our thinking and living revolved around the reality that we are in a covenant relationship with God. 

Knowing that we are in a covenant relationship with God, that extends beyond our personal relationship with Him, leads us to consider other people. We become responsible for helping, encouraging, forgiving, and teaching one another, because that is God expectation for His people.

Galatians 6:1-3 (NLT):

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

Let this be the description of our lives as we live in a covenant relationship with God that is both personal and communal. 

Thoughts about the Future Post 2020

 I shared this earlier on Facebook and thought I might expand on it here.

Just a few thoughts I have had about the future as we approach the end of 2020:

1.  Historians will use 2020 to make the beginning of the end for the United States. I think in the next 15 years we will see at least one successful secession movement, which will change the make up of the country. The United States will continue to be a major player in the world, but things like debt and division will cause things to start to fall apart.

2. A viable 3rd party will emerge. Not from the place you expect. The Republican Party will become more conservative as it looses the Neocon wing of the party. The Neocons will join the Democrat party which will be viewed on the centrist party (and dominate elections). The progressive wing of the Democrat party (Bernie Sanders, AOC, and company) will break away and form a truly progressive/socialist party.

3. The average church size will continue to decline. There will be a time of transition for many local churches as they try to discover how to do ministry in a post-COVID reality. This isn’t a negative, because it will force churches become more creative in how to make disciples, but it will be difficult to say good bye to programs and ministries that we have come to believe are essential for church.

4. Denominational lines for churches will become increasingly irrelevant. There will be a greater emphasis and on “what the Bible says” and “Mere Christianity” with a diminishing emphasis on systematic theologies, Calvinism, etc.

5. Bivocational pastors will become the norm. Because of smaller church sizes most pastors will have to look for multiple streams of income to sustain their ministry. This can be a benefit as pastors get creative in how they leverage their “day job” for ministry.

6. The Church will have to be prepared to deal with ever evolving questions concerning sexuality, gender, race, and even things like transhumanism.

We are going to look back on 2020 as the year that everything changed. Some of those changes were already happening, they were accelerated because of what happened. Other things will change as a direct result of what happened this year. 

Whatever the case, it is time to accept whatever change the future has for us and remain faithful to the calling God has given to us.

It Matters that Morality is Declining – Paul's Ponderings

It is vital to remember that Jesus’ mission was not to make people moral, but to make people alive.

Throughout church history one of the ways the Church has been distracted from her mission of making disciples has been to focus on morality. Especially in countries where the Church has had significant influence, Christians have viewed themselves as the gatekeepers of morality. I think this has been to the determent of the Church’s mission.

Alexander Campbell (September 12, 1788 – March 4, 1866), one of the founders of the Restoration Movement wrote:

“To compel men destitute of faith to observe any Christian institution…is commanding duty to be performed without faith in God’ and therefore ‘anti-evangelical’ or contrary to the Gospel” (The Political Ethics of Alexander Campbell; p. 46)

Finish reading at It Matters that Morality is Declining – Paul's Ponderings:

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“We're looking for a church that meets our needs.” It seems like I've heard this one a thousand times. The phenomenon of church shoppers has profoundly shaped the contemporary church. The entire conversation is not about relevance but convenience. The focus is not in serving the world; the church itself became the focal point. Our motto degenerated from “We are the church, here to serve the lost a broken world” to “What does the church have to offer me?” This move has made the pastor the only minister, while making the members the only recipients of ministry. What is lost in this process is an army of healers touching the planet.

Erwin McManus, An Unstoppable Force, pp. 29-30

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From the Archives: Disciples Need Discipleship

From the archives at Paul's Ponderings.

During my fourth year at Nebraska Christian College I had a roommate from China. David worked for a well known company in China and had a good job, but he wanted an American education. Even though he was not a Christian David ended up at NCC because it was one of the few colleges that would admit him.

 One day during second semester David asked me a question that haunts me to this day. He asked, “Are you a Christian?” David explained his question by saying, “All I ever see you do is play games and watch movies with your friends.”

 A quick survey of the Church in the United States would show us that that question could be asked of most people who claim the name Christian. They might be faithful in church attendance, in saying daily prays, and in reading Bible, but the love, hope, peace, and joy that is to characterize their lives is absent. Why is that?

 I think part of the reason is found in the way the Gospel is presented to people. We have emphasized belief and have not talked about the necessity of true Biblical repentance. This has resulted in people who intellectually believe in Jesus, but who have not given their loyalty to Jesus.

 A second reason is because many church families have been content to make members rather than disciples. Members are happy to attend a worship service one day a week, but they are not prepared to have Jesus disrupt their lives. What is missing from many church families is true discipleship. We don't know how to help people mature in their faith.

Continue reading Disciples Need Discipleship » Paul's Ponderings.

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What is Fellowship?

In Search of Fellowship: Part 1

During my time as a senior pastor I started a prayer group on Monday evening to focus on praying for the needs of our church family.  One Monday evening as we were discussing what God’s will is for our small church family one of the women made the observation that God’s will would include real fellowship.  The consensus of the group was that while we were a friendly church true fellowship was absent.
   
I believe that many church families are searching for fellowship.  They have programs in place to promote fellowship, but fellowship seems to elude them.  Potlucks and small groups aren’t connecting people to one another, let alone connecting people to God.  The reality is that fellowship can’t be programed or planned.  Fellowship is the result of people getting involved in one another’s lives.  Until we enter into the lives of other people fellowship will continue to be an elusive desire for our lives.

Fellowship is a great church word, but it isn’t one that we use outside of the context of church.  Unless your friends are Christian you don’t invite people to your home for a time of fellowship.  For most of us fellowship is about spending time with other Christians.  Yet, the biblical idea of fellowship is so much more than just being together.
   
The Greek word that is translated fellowship is the word koinonia and according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary it means partnership and participation.  In other words it is an action word and it requires us being involved in other person’s life.  The idea of fellowship isn’t that we make time for “hanging out” but that we do life together.  We are actively involved in the lives of other Christians, and we allow them to be involved in our lives.
   
We miss out on fellowship because we have made fellowship about spending time together, when it really is about being involved with each other.  There is a huge difference.  When we spend time together we can fake it by being friendly and polite.  Being involved in the lives of other people means entering into their lives, accepting them for who they are, loving them, serving them, and encouraging them.  It will require us to be vulnerable as we open our lives up to other people.  Fellowship is risky business.  Not only do we open ourselves up to being hurt, but we are also invited into the problems of other people.  True fellowship is not for the weak of heart.

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Carrying on Jesus' Work

Team Chemistry: Part 1

When I was playing basketball for Nebraska Christian College we had a goal of winning championships: the conference and national championship. We also had goals for each game that we wanted to achieve. 


 These goals: such as shooting percentage, free throw percentage, rebounds, turnovers; reminded us of what needed to be done game in and game out in order to be successful. Coach Lahm told us if we did these things winning would take care of itself. 

Success, in any area of life begins with goals, and that is true with the Church as well. We need to know why we exist and what we hope to accomplish. The main goal we have, given to us by Jesus, is making disciples of all nations.

The Kingdom of God is bigger than a single nation, a single ethnic group, a single denomination, or a single church family. The Kingdom of God is to each into all the earth and touch all people. We have been called to bring God’s love to the nations. There is one more fundamental goal we need to keep in mind as we try to achieve the goal of making disciples of all nations.

 God has placed us in the world, in this community, to reach out to a hurt and dying world. We are to carry on the work Jesus began.  How can we do this?

 When John the Baptizer was in prison he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to question him if he was the messiah they had been waiting for. Jesus responded; "Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor" (Luke 7:22; NLT).

 Jesus told John’s disciples that he is the Messiah because he was doing what the Messiah was expected to do: help the helpless. Not only did Jesus come to help our spiritual needs, but also to help our physical ones.

 What does that mean for us who follow Jesus today? It means if we are going to carry on the work of Jesus, be His servants and ambassadors in this world we have to be concerned about people. We need to be concerned with people’s physical needs as well as their spiritual needs. We need to care about people in our Church families as well as people in the world.

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Daily Thought: The Church Needs Prayer

Without prayer, a church is like a body without spirit; it is a dead, inanimate thing. A church with prayer in it, has God in it. When prayer is set aside, God is outlawed. When prayer becomes an unfamiliar exercise, then God Himself is a stranger there.

E. M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer, Logos Bible Software Edition

Daily Thought: A Single Family

"Because the gospel is the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord of the world.  And if he is Lord of the whole world, then those who believe in him, who give allegiance to him, must form a single family.  There cannot be divisions based on nationhood or race." ~ N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, p. 16

Daily Thought: Implementing the Victory

"The battle between the true God and the powers of evil that enslave and deface humankind came to its height on the cross.  But the church is charged with implementing the victory that was won there, and the powers don't like it." ~ N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, p. 102

Daily Thought: Remain with the Church

"There is a message here for those who belong to what is sometimes termed 'a dead church', and who are tempted to leave it and go elsewhere. Of course we do have to leave a church which denies the fundamentals of the faith, for then it is apostate and no longer a church. But what about a church which is orthodox but dead? Christ's will in the case is for the living remnant to strengthen what remains, perhaps by coming together and waiting upon God. A dynamic minority of awakened and responsible Christians is able by prayer, love, and witness both to preserve a dying church from extinction and to fan its flame into a fire." ~ John Stott; What Christ Thinks of the Church, 89

Linkage: The Holy Spirit in the Church

For many Christians the Holy Spirit is overlooked because we just don't know what to make of Him.  Part of the reason is the way some Christians treat the Holy Spirit seems silly and unreal.  Another part of the reason is because we tend to view Jesus' death and resurrection as the climax of God's plan of redemption.

This link is to a transcript of a talk N. T. Wright gave on the Holy Spirit and His work in and through the church.  I hope that it will help you understand the role of the Spirit in our lives a little bit better.

I am delighted to be speaking at this first Fulcrum conference, and am very grateful to Francis Bridger and his colleagues for inviting me, and to Graham Kings and the staff here at St Mary's for their hospitality. It is twenty-five years since I last spoke here, at one of the old Islington Conferences, and I trust I shall look back on this day with as much pleasure as I now look back on that one. 

I want you to imagine for a moment that you have just thrown open the window on a glorious spring morning. A fresh breeze is stirring around the garden. In the distance there is a crackle of bonfire as a farmer clears away some winter rubbish. Out in the field, a skylark is hovering over its nest. All around, there is a sense of creation throwing off its wintry coverings and getting ready for an outburst of new life. 

All these are images the early Christians used to describe something strange but real and central to their lives. They spoke of a powerful wind rushing through the house and entering them. They spoke of tongues of fire resting on them and transforming them. They picked up, from the ancient creation story, the image of a bird brooding over the waters of chaos to bring order and life to birth. 

How else do you explain the inexplicable, except in a rush of images from the world we already know?

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Daily Thought: We Need Spiritual Friends

"Instead, we need spiritual friends, broken people who will provide safety for us to be broken, caring people who want us to live and believe we can well, giving people who pour the life they have received from God into us, people of vision who see the Spirit shaping us into the image of Christ." ~ Larry Crabb, The Safest Place on Earth, p. 41

Daily Thought: We Need God's Heart

"The church cannot live when the heart of God is not beating within her. God's heartbeat is to seek and to save that which is lost. The church exists to serve as the body of Christ, and it is through this commitment to serve that we are forced to engage our culture...When the church refuses to serve the world, she begins to waste away. She finds herself deteriorating, withering, and losing her strength." ~ Erwin McManus, An Unstoppable Force, p. 23

Galatians Questions #3

3. What does it mean to be “true children of Abraham”? (3:29)
I think there are two reasons why we can say that Christians are the “true children of Abraham”. First would the the traditional way of interpreting this thought and that would be connected to our faith. Since Abraham was declared righteous because of faith, those people who demonstrate that same faith would be his true descendants rather than those who are physically descended from Abraham but do not have faith.

The second reason is because Jesus is the promised seed of Abraham and as Christians we are in Christ, and thus we are part of God’s promised descendants to Abraham. Ben Witherington wrote:

“Paul returns to the them that they have in Christ the heritage of Abraham, indeed they are in Chr-ist the ‘seed’ of Abraham. Christ had previously been called the seed of Abraham (3.16) but since Paul views Christ as an incorporative personality, and since they are in Christ, they are also that seed promised to Abraham, having become in Christ the legal heirs of Abraham and the promises given to him. This verse reminds us, especially when coupled with vs. 26, that Paul is once more transferring the language applied formerly only to Jews to Gentiles, and claiming they already have the benefits that accrue from being brought into the family of Abraham” (p. 281; Grace in Galatia)

So we are Abraham’s true children because of our faith in Christ Jesus, the promised descendant of Abra-ham, who will bless the entire world.

Introduction to the Restoration Ideal #4

The Church is Jesus’ Church. He loved her and gave Himself for her. We always need to remember the place the Church has in God’s plan. To diminish the Church is to miss what God is doing in the world.

Yet, we also know that what Saint Augustine wrote rings true: “The Church is a whore and she is my moth-er.” The Church has not always been faithful to her first love, and yet without her we would not be part of God’s Kingdom today. It is through the Church that people experience the love and forgiveness of God.

Most of Chapter 2 of Introduction to the Restoration Ideal is a short Church history lesson. In this lesson author Marshall Leggett stresses just how far away the Church has gone from the ideal found in Scripture. Leggett writes:

“More and more, as time passed, Christians became secularized. One historian says, ‘the doors of the church were thrown open so wide, that the distinction between Christianity and the world was obliterated.’ Many Christians protested, but they could not stem the tide of secularism” (p. 19).

Secularism has destroyed the witness of the church because it prevents Christians from being salt and light in the world. It is hard to influence culture when Christians live no different from the rest of culture. The result of this reality is that the Church stopped looking to Christ Jesus as the Head of the Body and began doing things based on what seemed right by the standards of culture.

One of the consequences of secularism in the Church is the creation of numerous sects and denominations among the body of Christ. Our current Christian landscape reveals thousands of different groups that claim the name Christian, yet some are radically different from one another. In fact some groups are openly hos-tile to other groups.

It was to combat this disunity that brought about the Restoration Movement. Leggett writes:

“It is...a movement that began in the early part of the nineteenth century to seek Christian unit on a Biblical basis...It is called the restoration movement because it embodies the ideal to restore the essential marks of the New Testament Church to it pristine purity. It is founded on the premise that the true basis for unity is to return to the church as it was given to, and guided by, the apostles. Its adherents seek to be Christians and to follow the Bible only as they strive to be both Biblical and undenominational in faith ordinance, and live” (p. 24).

I agree with that sentiment except for the belief that there was a pristine New Testament church. The book of Galatians shows us that even among the apostles there was a struggle when it came to making disciples of all nations. In other words, and I think this is part of the beauty of the Church, is that the Church is constantly growing in her knowledge and application of Scripture.

The Restoration Movement is a response to the disunity in the Church and seeks to call people to be united in holiness and mission as we are guided by the Holy Spirit through the pages of Scripture. I think that is a very worthy calling, and I am glad to be a part of it.

Introduction to the Restoration Ideal #3

Any true church is first and foremost Christ's church.  The apostle Paul wrote:

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:15-23; ESV)

Jesus is the head and we who make up the Church are His body.  This is the point that Marshall Leggett makes in chapter two of Introduction to the Restoration Ideal. Leggett writes:

One cannot have an understanding of the New Testament and not be impressed with the importance of the church to Christ.  He loved it, gave himself for it, and purchased it with His own blood.  It was to be His body, the agency of salvation whereby peole would be reached with His gospel.

Christianity cannot be separated from the church.  This is seen in Acts 2:47, which says, "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." One who accepts Christ is given no option to membership in His church.  He cannot become a Christian and then decide whether he wants to become a church member.  To the contrary, he is automatically added to that body of believers, that fellowship that seeks to serve Christ as its Lord.  It is his responsibility to become a supportive member of the priesthood of believers in the local congregation of the church (p. 17).

Why is Jesus the Lord, or the Head, of the Church?

The first reason Jesus is the Head of the Church is because it is upon faith in Him that the Church is built.  We don't believe that Jesus was simply a good man or an insightful teacher of spiritual truths, instead we believe that Jesus is the unique Son of God sent into this world to save us from Satan, sin, and death.  This belief manifests itself in obedience and action as we surrender to His authority.  Jesus is the Head of the Church on the basis of who He is.

The second reason Jeus is the Lord of the Church is because of His love for the Church.  The apostle Paul wrote; Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25; ESV). Jesus, by His sacrificial death demonstrated to us that He is willing to do whatever it takes to have a relationship with us.  Jeus loves the Church and wants what is best for us, and therefore we can trust Him to lead us with wisdom and with love.

This is important to remember because it reminds us that if we will surrender our agendas and expectations then Jesus will guide us to where He wants us to be.  Will we trust Jesus to guide our church families?  Unfortunately all too often individual Christians, and even whole church families, have responded with a no, and their agendas and their plans have torn Christ's Church apart.  May we  pray daily for unity to be restored to the Church, as we surrender to the Lordship of Christ Jesus.

Social Justice and the Church

One of the realities of life is that life is unfair.  When I think about that inequality of life and the oppression many people around the world have to endure breaks my heart.  So many of us have it so good that the biggest thing we can complain about is that American Idol stunk last night.  We are so disconnected to the tremendous suffering millions of people actually experience each and every day.

It is extremely unfair and unjust that thousands of children go to bed every night hungry and thirsty because they lack a proper food and water source.  It is unjust for girls and women to be in forced prostitution so that men can go and abuse these precious ladies for their selfish pleasure.  It is unfair that families cannot afford basic health care and thus have to suffer through sickness and injuries that could be easily helped.  The list could go on and on, but you get the point, life is unfair.  We in the United States have done our best to ignore it, but that is the reality, and as Christians it should break our hearts.

I would like to suggest that we are not really following Christ if we are not doing something to end oppression and injustice in this world.  The reason I say that is because the Bible clearly teaches that God’s desire for His people is for them to fight against injustice.  Passages like Matthew 25:31-46, James 1:26-2:17, and 1 John 3:16-19 teach that our faith and love should be seen in how we help the basic needs of those who are in need of help.  This is not optional for the follower of Christ, it is what is expected.

So when it comes to the question of “social justice” the question isn’t whether or not the Church should be involved, but how we should be involved.  It is our duty as followers of Christ to bring help, healing, and love to a world that desperately needs it.

As a Libertarian and a Christian I find it very difficult to believe that the best way to fight the injustice we find in this world is through government.  It is my observation that many of the Christian Liberals who throw around the term “social justice” do so in order to convince us that the Church should partner with Government to bring about equality and fairness. Here is my basic problem with that notion: Government is often the cause of the injustice.

I am going to quote at length from Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism:

While the civil rights acts were obviously great successes, liberals hardly stopped at equality before the law.  The Great Society’s racial meddling—often under various other guises—yielded one setback  after another.  Crime soared because of the Great Society and the attitudes of which it partook.  In 1960 the total number of murders was lower than it had been in 1930, 1940, and 1950 despite a population explosion.  In the decade after the Great Society, the murder rate effectively doubled.  Black-on-black crime soared in particular.  Riots exploded on LBJ’s watch, often with the subtle encouragement of Great Society liberals who rewarded such behavior. Out-of-wedlock births among blacks skyrocketed.  Economically, as Thomas Sowell has cataloged, the biggest drop in black poverty took place during the two decades before the Great Society.  In the 1970s, when the impact of the Great Society programs was fully realized, the trend of black economic improvement stopped almost entirely (pp. 269-70).

Was the racial bigotry that held much of this country in its grip a great injustice?  It most certainly was, but the Government didn’t stop it from being a problem, rather they stopped the true progress that was being made.  Too many African-Americans are still in a cycle of economic oppression because of government intervention.

The United States is filled with examples of how Government has caused injustice and oppression.  Take for example the current economic crisis we are experiencing.  It was not only brought on by greedy bankers, but also by greedy politicians who made policies which allowed the bankers the opportunity to act on their greed.  There is also the evil of Government stealing from Social Security, something many older people expect to be there for their future, and thus putting a heavy tax burden on the younger generation to make sure those Social Security commitments are met.  Then there are the human rights violations that our Government commits as it seeks to question “terrorists,” all under the guise of national security. 

Government is unable to bring about true social justice because it brings about so much of the social injustice in this world.  Instead of asking, “How can Government fix this problem?”, we need to ask, “In what ways has Government contributed to this injustice?”  It is my contention that many of the injustices that we find in the United States are the result of too much government rather than not enough government.

When it comes to how the Church should respond to the injustice we find in the world I think the first place we need to look to is to history.  It is my belief that the early Church grew in a world filled with injustice, not because it partnered with an immoral government, but because she actually lived out what she believed.

In his wonderful book The Rise of Christianity Rodney Stark catalogs the reason for Christianity rise from an obscure movement in Palestine to the religious force in the Roman Empire.  He talks about how the Church made life better for women, how the Church cared for the sick and the dying, and how the Church met the needs of a growing urban world.  In his conclusion Stark writes:

Let me state my thesis: Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations.

I believe that it was the religion’s particular doctrines that permitted Christianity to be among the most sweeping and successful revitalization movements in history.  And it was the way these doctrines took on actual flesh, the way they directed organizational actions and individual behavior, that lead to the rise of Christianity.

Do you see the key of it all?  It wasn’t just that the Church had superior doctrines, which we certainly do, but because those doctrines “took on actual flesh.”   To fight the injustice of this world we have to live out what we say we believe.  As John wrote in 1 John 3:16-18:

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth (ESV).

Listen, it is to the Church’s shame that we have done so little to bring justice into this world.  You know what is crazy about that statement?  The reason that statement is crazy is because there hasn’t been anyone who has done more to bring justice into this world.  Yet, there is so much more that we can do.  What could we do with the money that we are forced to use to pay off our consumer debts?  What could we do with the hours spent watching movies, football games, television, and concerts? 

My point today is a very simple one: Social justice begins with my choice to love my neighbor.  Yet, there is only so much that I can do on my own, and so I need to come together with other people who have made that decision to love their neighbor so we can do even more good.  Social justice happens then as the Church of Jesus Christ moves into this world loving as we go.  It happens when Christian politicians, who are more committed to the way of Jesus than a political party, influence the policies of government.  It happens when Christian businesspeople, who are more concerned with following Jesus than making a profit, create businesses that benefit both their employees and their costumers.  It happens when American Christians give time and money so African Christians can have a source of clean water.  It happens when we decide that it is better to sacrifice our lifestyles than it is to hoard God’s blessings.  Church, we have been called to be lights in a very dark world, it is time that we start to burn brightly.

In this life we will always have the poor, the sick, the orphan, the widow, and the oppressed.  Their constant presence is not an excuse for apathy, but it is reminder to fight for what is right.  Will we join in the fight?  Will we dare to become the Church God wants us to be?

Time To Face Reality

Circumstances in my life have lead me to ask some tough questions about myself. Questions that I would rather not deal with, but important questions if I am serious about be a good steward of the life God had given me.

Too often people fail to examine their lives and ask the tough questions. They try to keep the status quo and not rock the boat, and the result is that they remain stunted in their maturity. Some of our most profound times of growth occur when we take stock of our lives and begin the hard work of making the appropriate changes.

What is true on a personal level is also true on a group level. Churches stagnate and die because the members didn't want to take the time and face reality. In our country we are facing the church is facing a crisis because we have ignored reality and have not made the necessary changes to remain relevant to the culture.

This is also true in the nation as a whole. We can talk about a health care crisis or a financial crisis, but we never ask the tough questions that need to be asked to truly get to the bottom of the problem. We don't want to hear that the problem is greed or a lack of responsibility, we just want the government to fix the problem. We don't want to address the crisis of the family that has swept this nation and how that is going to negatively effect the success of the nation.

My point in all of this is to remind us that as long as we are dealing with superficial issues we will continue to miss the core problem. Whether it is in our personal lives, in our churches, or in our nation, let look beyond the superficial and take a look at what really matters. While this might be harder in the short term it will pay huge benefits, because we will have found answers rather than to continue to chip away at all the side issues that come up.

If we never face reality we will never be able to be the people, the church, or the country God created us to be.

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