Persecution or not?

So I get out of a lecture in one of my classes about early church persecution and I'm thinking to myself, blessed? How in the world is this a blessing? So I started trying to mentally put myself in the shoes of the persecuted. What would I do if everytime I tried to talk I suddenly remembered that my tongue had been cut out of my mouth. What if I had to live the rest of my life knowing that my eyes had been burned from thier sockets? Would I have what it takes? Do I have what it takes? I fully believe that God loves us and I don't think He wants us to suffer, but how do I explain, "Blessed are you when men revile and persecute you..." Blessed? How? Would I praise God or curse men? Would it remind me that God loves me, or that some other perrson controls me. I know all the "churchy" answers, but they seem hollow if you try to put this into perspective.
If you think about all the men and women who have come back from wars with post traumatic stress sindrome, and think of how that has effected the rest of their lives you might begin to see. What if there was a wave of strong persecution where I live. Would I show signs of pts? most of all how would that effect my love for Christ? In some ways I pray that I never have to face the answer to this, but in other ways I feel as if I may never know unless I am faced with it. Do I NEED to be persecuted or not?

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by Unknown ~ Tuesday, September 27, 2005 0 comments

Postmodernism

Why does the term postmodernism scare most Christians to death? I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of it myself, but I also don't think that we should run from it. I'm not sure I agree with everything the "Emergant Church" has to offer, but at least they're trying to do something about it. I had a proffesor tell me that he's glad that he's older and is done leading a church, because he's not sure how to handle the question of postmodernism in the church.

The church should not and cannot become postmodern. If we conform to postmodernism we will crumble soon after. But in the same way we can't avoid the situation all together or else the church will die out. We have to somehow change in a way that we can reach those who have a postmodern worldview. We cn't sit inside the church and do nothing and say that God will do all of the work to bring people into the church, and open they're minds to think the way that we do while their in the pews so that we can reach them. No! Jesus told us to go out and reach the world. We must face it. For the present time our culture, at least here in America, is shifting. What are we as the body of Christ going to do about it? What can we do about it? I have some thoughts to answer these questions, but for now, I'm just posting the main thought and point. I'll come to some more concrete solutions later. I really just need to experience more of this and think more of it out.

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by Unknown ~ Thursday, September 22, 2005 0 comments

Bad Sunday School

Growing up in a protestant Christian church I learned many things that I later found out to be heretical. I’m not convinced that those who taught me intentionally lied to me about the Truth found in the word of God. I’m not even convinced that they are completely at fault for their actions. I do believe that it is their fault to the extent that they should have been good students of the Word and found out the Truth for themselves. I do have to say that they probably assumed that those who taught them were trustworthy enough and knew what they were talking about. I’m sure this has been happening for more years than we realize, but my goal here is not to trace this problem to its roots, just simply to state and discuss the problem that we know exists. Also I’m not here to state this as a problem with the protestant church, but I do believe this problem is more concentrated in the protestant church.

My biggest example of this is the idea of Jesus’ divinity. I was raised knowing that Jesus was God, and the Son of God. This is Truth. I was also taught that Jesus was fully man and fully human. This is also Truth. My problem came when nobody explained that to me, and the ideas that were conveyed to me about Jesus’ divinity were that they canceled out His humanity. That may or may not make much sense, but the rest of this is for another time. My point is just to show that we can be misled because our leaders in the church are uneducated.

Why are the reasons for this? A big one I’ve already mentioned I’ll call generational stupidity. This is one uneducated person teaching something that’s wrong to someone else, who in turn teaches it to someone else. This is probably the second most common reason. Another reason is lazy stupidity. This is someone not taking the time to prepare and actually study the word and what it is really saying, not just what they might think it says. I’m not convinced that this is extremely prevalent, but it does exist. These are two problems that are with the teacher, but neither one of them is biggest reason for all of this.

The number one reason is something that I call administrative stupidity. This comes from a pastor or youth pastor, or whoever puts the teacher in their position. Unfortunately the church as a whole faces this problem. Why does this happen? It happens for a few reasons. One is that there aren’t enough Sunday school teachers out there in the church to fill all of the slots that we need. Not enough people volunteer to teach and so the pastor (used loosely, this could be whoever is in charge of Christian Education in the church) feels as if he has no choice. Another reason is that a Sunday school program is unguided and unmotivated. The Christian Education program has been written off in a lot of churches so a lot of pastors pay no attention and put whoever in charge to fill a slot. The last reason is that the pastor gets excited about certain people being in the church and feels he must plug them in somewhere, and the Christian Education department takes the hit.

Some people may sympathize with some of these excuses, but I do not at all. If volunteers are low, do you sacrifice the Truth to fill a slot? If ambition is low, do you not make a mission for Christian Education because the congregation just doesn’t seem interested? Or do you plug people who need to learn into teaching positions, just so they’ll feel important and continue to come? Absolutely not! These are all excuses of laziness on the pastors’ end. Our churches need to take the Spiritual Education of its congregants very seriously. I was once asked what is worse, a moral sin or a doctrinal sin? If make a moral sin, you suffer, but others may not. If you propagate bad doctrine and bad theology, you cause many to stumble. Our churches are responsible for handing out bad theology in candy wrappers in Sunday school. This needs to be fixed.

I do have some ideas on what to do about this problem but it’ll have to be continued at another time…

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by Unknown ~ Wednesday, September 14, 2005 0 comments

Sufficient Savior

Many times, most of us ask God for something that if we were honest with ourselves we'd admit we don't really need. Alot of times that's for money. Sometimes it's for a new car. Sometimes it might even be to finally meet that dream date, or have the courage to talk to them. Whatever it may be, we've asked for it. What makes us think that we're worthy of all of this stuff? That may seem like a rough or stupid question, but it's an honest one. Who are we that God should give us our hearts desire? I've been thinking about that question alot lately.

I started off my college "career" at ONU (Olivet Nazarene University) and had planned everything out. I knew what I was going to do, how I was going to do it, and where I was going to end up when I was finished. I was a Youth Ministry major and a Communications minor. I was going to graduate in four years and then try to get a job in the heart of the great city of Chicago. When I graduated High School i had graduated with a superiority complex. I didn't exactly think that I was better than everyone else, just more spiritual (which resulted in thinking I was better). For some reason, i felt like I was more in tune with God than anyone else I knew. There were several reasons why I believed this, but none of that matters in this discussion. The point is I "knew" where God was leading me and how I was going to get there. At this point if I could buzz I would, because I was totally wrong.

After my Freshman year of college I found out that my parents hadn't been paying my bill as I had been lead to believe. I couldn't register for classes until I paid off my $4,600 bill. So I worked in an iron foundry over the summer and then attended class at Ivy Tech State College in Anderson Indiana for the next school year. I had finally paid off the debt, but still didn't have enough money or financial aid to go to Olivet or any other school that would teach me how to be a minister (sarcasim). So I joined the Air Force Reserves.

I figured I could go into the Air Force Reserves and get more money for school. I was right about that, but wrong about a few other items. I wanted to be a CA (Chaplains Assistant), but that was out of the question. The waiting list for that was too long. I had to pick a job that had a short Tech School after Basic Training so that I could get back to school on time after summer. I ended up going with fuels. I singed up, got my physicals and was waiting for the official date i was going to get shipped off. I heard back from my recruiter a few days after. He told me that I had ben given the Army color vision test and had to come in and retake it. I did that and failed, so I went with the only job left that had a bonus... Medic.

The problem with this job is that it had a 14.5 week Tech Scool, then a 6.5 week clinical phase, then a 90 day OJT (On the job training). After it was all done with I had been in traingin for almost 11 months. Needless to say, I didn't get back to school in the fall, or in the spring. I finally had to get back to school the following year. Now I've told you that history to get to a very simple point. Don't shoot me if you don't think it's worth your time, you're the one who chose to read this far.

I finally got back to school. While I was in trainging and the following summer God blessed me with stuff. I had enough money to get a new car, a new laptop, a new desktop, a new cell phone, etc. I had alot of gizmos and gadgets. If you don't know me, I'm a really big geek so all of this made me really happy. I got used to this lifestyle of having money and believe me, it was nice. Before I go any further you must understand something. I didn't totally blow everything I had. I told a friend at one point in time, that I was never letting my checking account go below $1,000 but I had more than that when I told him. I was keeping plenty in the bank. I was giving my tithe, plus I was giving to extra things like missionary needs. I was helping friends out here and there if they needed it. I wasn't using the money to forget about God, the church, or other people. You have to understand this before I continue.

Right before school started I had alot of my big bills hit all at once, when I started school in the fall I only had $1,500 in the bank. that wasn't as much as I was used to. I knew that GOd would provide, and I didn't have to have much faith to know that this would hold me over untill I could find a job. Then everything got turned upside down. I found out that the state had made an error and i wasn't elligable for $4,000 that they thought I would be. So my bill for school grew by $4,000 overnight, by the end of that week I had to pay $1,400 just to make my first monthly payment. My dad had retired and couldn't help me out, and my mother constatly thinks she's on the brink of bankruptcy, although she's far from it, and made it know that she couldn't possibly help me out.

I soon found out why Marion, Indiana is not considerd a good town to live in. The unempoyment rate is huge. There were no jobes available for me on or off campus. by the begining of the next month I was already in debt and had no idea of how I was going to cover my bills. Slowly but surely God started providing. After about another month I got a low paying job, but a job none the less. I was getting enough money to cover things. I wasn't paying everthing on time or in full, but I was getting them enough money that they weren't sending me nastly leters and things of that nature. Every month I was getting deeper in debt, but I was not in danger of suffering immediate consequences (other than a bad credit report). Countless times I have asked God for other jobs to open up, or for my parents to be able to help, or for an old relative I never knew to misteriously leave me a million dollars. Nothing ever happens, other than me getting just enough to get by.

This may seem sad, or bad, but if you think about it, this is utterly amazing. I asked who are we that we should ask for outlandish things that we don't need. The answer is that we are the beloved. We can ask God for things like that as long as our faith in him doesn't spend on it. God will give us exactly what we need, when we need it. He never gives more and He never gives less. It may seem like it sometimes, but that's not the case. If God hadn't given me all that money, I wouldn't have been able to write a $700 check to a missionary who needed it. I wouldn't have been able to help ou talot of people. I also wouldn't have ever thought about getting a new car, but my other car died for good shortly after. God knew what I needed and what others needed and He did what He did to fulfill His plan.

Now I don't have as much money, but i'm still getting by and can help other people in other ways with the talents God has given me. The point of me writing this is simple. Sometimes we want God to be giving, and give us thigs abundantly, but if He did that for everone, we could never know that He cares for us. God could never pay attention to our needs and just shower us with gifts, but that's not how He works. He loves us as indaviduals, and he takes care of our indavidual needs. I would much rather have a sufficient God, because He knows me intamatley and I can see that in how He blesses me.

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by Unknown ~ Monday, January 10, 2005 0 comments