December 2005 Archives

From Caroline (via):

He is not tame but we have safely tamed Him
He is not safe but we've caged Him in a church
The commands He gave we've turned to wishful thinking
and the life He lived we've iced with sugared, almond paste.

He is not tame but we keep him at arm's distance.
He is not safe but we've made Him one of us.
The journey that he maps, is travelled by our SUV
and His way, diverted by leafy, suburb lanes.

He is not tame and we just have not even noticed.
He is not safe so we've simply turned our heads;
But His call still echoes in our stabled ears
and His way still lies, through a country not our own.

A great post on Jesus vs. the American dream:

What do we really know about this faith we embrace? When we make web sites and TV spots or ads, what are saying about the faith Jesus intrusted to us? Are we advertising for effect? Are we hanging up pictures of an ancient faith that grew from the blood of the martyrs next to pictures of the American delusion/dream, and then telling the world that you can have both? How can we do that.

You cannot have both. To take up the “dream” of Jesus, we lay down the “dream” of success in this American culture. When we take up Jesus’ kingdom, we must come to “interim” terms with this culture. We may live in it, look like it and contribute to it, but those who belong to the God and Father of Jesus Christ will frequently, clearly and uncompromisingly take a different path than those around them. Our life will be centered on Christ as the great end of all things, and not as a means to an end that will make us comfortable in this culture.

Tags: American Dream, faith, imonk

A lot of books critique the modern evangelical church. A critique can be helpful, but what is even more useful is some help on how to be the church more faithfully. It's even better if this help is given from someone who is thoughtful, not just pragmatic, and a practitioner, not just a theoretician.

We would do much better as leaders in the Church to learn at the feet of the farmer rather than study with the CEO of a corporation. It is time we see the Church starts in the fields, not in the barns (Prov. 24:27). We spend so much time building nice barns with padded pews, air-conditioned halls, and state-of-the-art sound systems, yet we have neglected the fields. We are as foolish as the farmer who builds a barn and then stands in the doorway calling the crops to come in and make themselves at home. It is time for the Church to get her hands dirty in the soil of lost people's lives. (Neil Cole, Organic Church)

When you look at the conventional church in America and all that it offers, you are left gazing down an old soggy street. It does not compel you to go further down that road. More vision statements, more Christian concerts, more sermons, and more blueprints for bigger auditoriums are not enough.

You will be amazed what people do for Jesus that they will not do for your vision statement. There is something better. There has to be. Jesus did not die and rise from the dead so that we can have better church bulletins and more comfortable pews.

If one-tenth of what you believe is true, you ought to be ten times as excited as you are.

The other day I posted a quote from Bono on my other blog:

We live in a ridiculous world where people pay far too much attention to celebrities. But that's the world we live in. Might as well do something with it. (Bono, U2)

I didn't say it at the time, but I think this quote has a lot to do with pastoring.

Two questions for pastors:

• What is ridiculous in the church that you serve? It could be a program or a way of doing things that just doesn't line up.
• How can you use that as a platform to do good?

An example is to use the Sunday morning service.

We have made church nothing more than a religious show that takes place on Sunday, and after it's done we all go home, until church starts again next week, same time, same place. Is this what the bride of Christ is? (Neil Cole, Organic Church)

Yet you can use that "show" to teach people that church is more than a show. You can use it to point to something better.

As Bono said, "Might as well do something with it."

The gospel says, "Go," but our church buildings say, "Stay." The gospel says, "Seek the lost," but our churches say, "Let the lost seek the church." (Howard Snyder, The Problem of Wineskins)

Sermon preached by the Archbishop of York at his Inauguration:

The scandal of the church is that the Christ-event is no longer life-changing, it has become life-enhancing. We’ve lost the power and joy that makes real disciples, and we’ve become consumers of religion and not disciples of Jesus Christ. You see, the call to corporate discipleship is a call to God’s promised glory. For Christ did for us that which we couldn’t do for ourselves....

Well, the late Canon David Watson, who was Vicar of St Michael-le-Belfry – the church next door to this Minster, said twenty-four years ago, “Christians in the West, have largely neglected what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. The vast majority of Western Christians are church-members, pew-fillers, hymn-singers, sermon-tasters, Bible-readers, even born-again believers or Spirit-filled Charismatics – and we have got some those here this morning - but aren’t true disciples of Jesus Christ.

If we were willing to learn the meaning of real discipleship and actually to become disciples, the Church in the West would be transformed, and the resultant impact on society would be staggering.”

(Via achievable ends)

By Dwight Friesen on why he likes the idea of incarnation more than mission:

Mission is inevitable when Christ is incarnated, but without incarnation mission looks a lot like busy religiosity.

...Don't waste your life living missionally and trying to get others to live missionally; live Christ and life in its fullness is yours, live Christ and the hope of purpose is yours, live Christ and mission… well it's simply inevitable.

(Via Jordon.)