Fractured Saints - never beyond mending - a christian blog for the broken ones

Dr. Martin Luther King once said ,“the most segregated hour in America is 11:00 on Sunday morning.” While segregation has been long since abolished (thanks be to God), most evangelical churches I’ve attended don’t have a lot of people of color in their pews. That’s NOT to say that the modern evangelical church is racist. I just think that we, as human beings, tend to naturally gravitate what we are familiar with. The result is our communities, churches, and lives end up being homogeneous.

Last week, however, my church decided to try a little experiment.

We have a Hispanic church worship at our church every Sunday evening. Sometimes we pass each other and say, “Hola,” but for the most part the two congregations never really interacted. That is, until this past Sunday when we had a joint worship service for both the Hispanic congregation and the regular congregation. We would worship God together in both English and Spanish, and then share a meal together after the service.

The service began with the Hispanic praise band singing two worship songs in Spanish. Then the regular praise band led everyone to worship. Our sermon was in both English and Spanish; our pastor said a few sentences in English, then an interpreter would repeat it in Spanish. As the service ended, we said the Lord’s Prayer in both English and Spanish, and closed with a hymn sung in both languages.

After the worship service the two congregations shared a meal together. And boy was it a meal! We had Hispanic dishes like tamales and tacos mixed alongside macaroni and cheese and fried chicken. As we ate we all chatted with each other about our churches, our jobs, and our lives. Everyone went home that day with full bellies and a new appreciation for people.

Throughout the day, I kept thinking about in Revelation where John sees people of every tribe, tongue, and nation praising God. God is so much bigger than language barriers, cultural differences, and national boundaries, and I think we all need to remind ourselves this from time to time. Hopefully my church will do this again some day.

So many times I see Churches trying to “reinvent the wheel” so to speak.  There’s a new program, a new series, a new song, a new building, a new (fill in the blank) that is going to attract attention, regain interest, see souls saved, build momentum, and secure growth to better spread the Gospel.

I understand it.  There are things in life I get bored with, and even church can get boring at times.  (Yes, heathen that I am, I admit I also get bored with church once in a while!)  How often have we heard of teenagers who grow up into young adults that leave church, sometimes for a time only to return, and sometimes never to return except on special days, and all because church is boring, or they have heard it all before.  How often have new families joined only to disappear into the background a few years later while we scratch our heads wondering where “so-and-so family” went?

I see and hear all this, and I see and understand the perspective – “I guess they got bored, ’cause I heard they’re going somewhere else now.  We need a new ___________!”  Yet in my heart I have always felt that while the programs, and other things have their place, this is NOT what is going to make a lasting difference.  “Church is people, not programs!” I would hear myself say, and then find myself trying to find some new twist to add to my Sunday School lessons to make the lesson more interesting, or some activity that would basically do on a small scale what I thought was unnecessary on a larger scale.

Then I read this quote from a book: “We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel.
This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization.
God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him, than anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. … This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget.
The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness and confusion, and death would ensue.
What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use – men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men – men of prayer.”

From E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer [Baker Book House, n.d.], pp. 5-7

2Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

God’s method has always been and will always be using His people – not a new program, not a new series, not a new song, not a new (fill in the blank) – but His people.  We are the method of God, and while we may use the new programs, and new series’, and new songs, we must never forget that the responsibility is a personal one, the directive specific to every saved individual “Go ye . . . ”

I must admit that a certain degree of delegation of my responsibility has been unfairly, and even unwisely placed in other things, other people, and this simply will result in the failure of realizing my own purpose in life – to be the witness God wants ME to be.

What are some ways you have delegated your responsibility, or trusted in other things to do your work of witnessing for you?  How can you make a difference to change it?

For father’s day, my wife bought me the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  I am not though with it yet, but wow is it a convicting book.  He is in essence critiquing the American church and our “American” approach to Christianity.  I just got through reading the chapter entitled “Profile of the Lukewarm.”  He begins the chapter by retelling the parable of the sower (in which the seed lands on path, the rocks, the thorns or the good soil.)   When I hear that passage, I of course know that I am the good soil.  Don’t we all?  Chan points out that we shouldn’t assume that we are the good soil.  He writes:

“I think that most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns.  Thorns are anything that distracts us from God.  When we want God and a bunch of other stuff, then that means we have thorns in our soil.  A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions or commitments are piled on top of it. … I will say it again: Do not assume you are good soil.”

He then goes on to list a lot of ways in which lukewarm people live.  What I like best is that in the book, he follows each with a passage of scripture, not just a citation, but an actual passage.  I found a place that has a .pdf of the full list (with just the citations)  here: http://www.dublinvcc.org/Portals/0/Crazy%20Love.pdf

Probably the most convicting one of the list was this:

“Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to.  They don’t have to trust God if something unexpected happens—they have their savings account.  They don’t need God to help them—they have their retirement plan in place.  They don’t genuinely seek out what life God would have them live—they have life figured and mapped out.  They don’t depend on God on a daily basis—their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are in good health.  The truth is, their lives wouldn’t look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God.”

This is followed by Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the man who tore down his barns to store more of his goods, only to have his life demanded of him that very night.

When we look at this list, read the scripture and really examine ourselves, which of us can say that we burn for Christ?  Who of us is salt and light for our Lord?  Are we truly answering the call to love the Lord our God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind?  I measure myself against what I am called to do by Christ and I find myself falling short.  Not because of a lack of trying but a lack of love and obedience.  Personally, I know that I hold too much back.  Like so many other lukewarm people I want to make Jesus a part of my life instead giving Him all of my life.  I have heard more than one preacher say that it is ok to have nice things.  I think we need to reevaluate and learn that it is ok to have enough and no more.  We need to accept the love of our Father and give all of our lives to Him and not just part.  If we hold back from Him, then we are told that any of our righteousness is as filthy rags.  I pray that I can be transformed by the love of Christ into the kind of servant that He desires.

Mark Driscoll address a pressing issue in the Church. And has a response for those waiting to be served by the Church.

What is the role of God’s church when confronted with the real suffering of a fellow Christian?

Relieve that suffering?  Don’t answer too quickly…

What if that suffering is for a reason?  Let’s suppose God is teaching and growing that Christian through the suffering.  But how are we to judge that and keep from interfering with His plan?  Should we even attempt to?

But I don’t recall the Lord saying anything about withholding aid from others in the church.  Am I missing something?

This is a very real and troubling question in my mind, right now, dealing with a very real and troubling situation… RIGHT NOW.

This Christian is in a destructive housing situation and has no way out on their own.  It appears to be heavily interfering with their growth as a Christian.  Add some mental illness in for good measure, and that is one sticky wicket.

One of our pastors is working with this person in a weekly counseling session; this seems way too circumspect an approach to me.

My instinct is to rush in and fix things, whatever I can, right now.  Get the church elders together and figure out how we’re going to help!  Can we not solve this?  But I realize this urge is not always the wisest move.

Is our church too timid?  Are we afraid to be bold in coming alongside this suffering, creating solutions instead of sympathy?

Or, are we going to hurt by helping?  Is the circumspect approach appropriate?  I’m not sold on it.

Where is the rest of my church?  Why is no one else befriending this person in a tangible way during the week?  Why aren’t we confronting our people, assigning people to get to know this person?!?  Surely that doesn’t cost anything, and can only help.

This person is crying out for help to me – I can’t solve this alone – what can I say?

For now I guess I’ll trust the pastor’s take on it.  But what if he’s WRONG?

Confused, befuddled and frustrated,

Dick Ness

To Rod Dreher, in response to his recent blog post about American Evangelical culture:

As a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, I guess I would be considered an Evangelical. I’m not really sure what that word means anymore, since it’s been tossed around so many times. But your latest blog entry made me think about where the American Evangelical culture is going. Since I’m no theological expert, I don’t know how exactly to address the issues you present in your post. But perhaps my own story can shed a little light on the matter. Now I must warn you that I’m not an expert on either the Lutheran Church or Evangelical culture. These are just my observations as a regular guy trying to find his place within the Body of Christ.

Before I became a Christian at age 17, I didn’t know anything about church. My family practiced what I like to consider “wedding and funeral Christianity;” the only time we went to church was when some one either died or got married. So all I knew about church was you sing some songs, the preacher yells about Heaven and Hell, they sometimes give you crackers, and they often ask for your money.

Shortly after I gave my life to Christ I started going to my then-girlfriend’s church. The church considered itself to be non-denominational, but was closer to Pentecostal. So picture a young Christian, very new to the faith, surrounded by people waving their arms around, speaking in weird languages, and having sudden “prophetic visions.” It was . . . interesting. Even though I never felt fully comfortable, I liked what they preached—being saved through faith alone—so I stuck around for about a year.

Then I discovered the magic that was the Megachurch. A girl that I had a crush on at the time (I should point out that my girlfriend and I had broken up by this time) went to a Saturday night service for college-age kids called “Oasis.” (Hip, ain’t it?) They had an acoustic praise band that did all the current worship hits (“Open the Eyes of my Heart,” “Breathe,” etc.), and they often played clips from movies that somehow illustrated the night’s sermon. This is different, I thought. But I felt more at home at this church than I did with the other one. For starters, everyone praised God in English only. But more importantly there were a lot more people there my age, and they had a lot in common with me. So I left the tongue-talkers and joined the megachurch.

I have to be honest; I had some great times at that megachurch. I got baptized there, I saw Building 429 perform there a couple of times, and I made some really good friends. There were a couple of things, however, that put me off a little bit. For starters, since the congregation was so large—over 2,000 if I’m not mistaken—everybody had their own little cliques instead of everyone being a part of a big family. Second, the praise band would often drag a worship song out for about six or seven minutes. One can only sing “I’m desperate for You” for so long until one becomes desperate for the song to end. And third, some of the sermons weren’t as deep. One time—I think it was the Sunday before Memorial Day—the preacher used burgers to illustrate how pleasing the things of God were compared to the things of this world. I’m not making this up! According to this guy, worldly things are cheap and unsatisfactory like bad fast food burgers, while the things of God were real and pleasing like the burgers you make in your own back yard. Instead of feeling spiritually renewed, I just felt hungry.

Then one day my family and I packed our things and moved to Maryland’s Eastern Shore region. Now that my beloved megachurch was over a hundred miles away, I needed to find a new church. Our new house was literally across the street from a small Lutheran church, so one Sunday I decided to give it a try. It was definitely different from what I was used to. Instead of movie theater seats, this church actually had wooden pews. Also, the service was outlined in a bulletin, and the praise band (I went to their 11 o’clock “contemporary service,” which basically means they play acoustic instruments instead of an organ) was much, much smaller. But overall I enjoyed the service, and decided to come back next week.

The more I went to the Lutheran church, the more I fell in love with its sense of tradition and structure. I think part of it is because since our world is so full of distractions, it’s nice to have some sort of structure to keep one focused (of course the point of the Lutheran liturgy is not the structure of the liturgy itself, but to focus on Christ). But mostly it’s because this felt more like a real church, rather than a weekly multi-media Christian conference.

Also, my church is a lot tighter-knit than the megachurch. We even have nametags so everyone will know everyone’s name. The congregation feels more like a family. There aren’t a lot of people there my age, though, but that’s not a big deal to me. I feel like I finally have a home church where I feel connected.

Now with all this talk about “feeling,” I don’t want you to think that I’m dabbling in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Trust me when I say that I, too, think that modern religion has been watered down by this whole idea that “God just wants me to be happy and be a good person.” I see that especially in the “prosperity gospel,” where supposedly God gives presents to good little girls and boys like Santa Claus. God is a giver, of course, but from what I’ve read in the Bible and experienced in my own life, God gives us what we need but not always what we want.

There’s also what I like to call “the Self-Help Gospel.” It’s sort of like the Prosperity Gospel, only it’s more focused on the individual’s happiness than bank account. The Self-Help Gospel makes it sound as if Christianity is all about thinking positive thoughts. While positive thinking is not a bad thing in and of itself—it’s a legit technique used in cognitive therapy, and I’ve definitely benefited from it in my own struggle with depression and anxiety—that’s not what the Gospel is about. It’s about how Jesus’ death atones for our sins, and gives us new lives. That’s where ultimate joy comes from.

So now we’re back to the original question, “How to effectively address this crisis, which affects all American churches today?” I’m not sure, to be honest. That’s a tough question. I think you said it best in the comment section when you said it’s all about balance. We need to be able to communicate the Gospel to our modern culture, but not get so wrapped up in being “relevant” that we forgot what the Gospel is. There also needs to be a balance between emotion and intellect. Too much emotion makes church mushy, while too much intellect makes church cold.

Well, that’s my story. Sorry that this is so long and rambling. Take care, my Birkenstocked brother!

In light of the recent and ongoing sufferings my family is enduring, Pastor Alan asked me to give a testimony about our Lord’s faithfulness during this time at the Sunday evening meeting. Here is something of a revised version.

A man’s steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?
P R O V E R B S 20:24

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.
P R O V E R B S 19:21

They say hindsight is 20/20; apparently I need LASIK surgery! While things are certainly clearer looking back upon them rather than in the midst of them, none of us can fully discern the Lord’s providential outworking of his purposes for us. The Lord has, however, given to us “all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Pt. 1:3,4). One of these precious promises is that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Though we may not be able to figure out just exactly how our circumstances work together for our good and unto God’s glory, we most certainly can be assured that they do.

Keeping in mind these principles, as I look back over my life some things now resolve into crystal clarity as to how (at least in some ways) the Lord orchestrates these things for good. I’ll hit the highlights which pertain to current situations. I believe the Lord called me to himself and granted me a new heart when I was about 10 years old. Shortly thereafter my parents were divorced. They both subsequently remarried. My father married a nurse (the significance of which…well, just keep reading!). About 15 years ago Dad had to have by-pass surgery on his heart, during the course of which a physician obviously damaged his lungs. He has also been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension (a fatal lung disease), because of which, along with his collapsed lungs, he must be on oxygen 24/7. Currently, he is in stoppage time (as they say in soccer), living past the expected time he was given. Due to breast cancer my mother has had a double mastectomy. Recently, this cancer has metastasized into bone cancer and has assaulted her spine and some surrounding areas with multiple lesions. She also has multiple stress fractures in her spine which, combined with the lesions, is causing her to suffer excruciating pain. I was laid off from my job at Thanksgiving time last year and remain unemployed. The following month my step-mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and then received radiation treatment. (Is anyone else dizzy?!) Because of my unemployment I have been able to serve my parents by taking them to appointments, doing chores, being present, and even saving my father’s life (if you haven’t heard this story, feel free to ask me about it)! These certainly weren’t things we planned on! Nevertheless, the Lord accomplishes his good purposes throughout all these twists and turns.

In a recent sermon, Pastor Alan referred us to Ps. 68:18. I just “happened” to keep reading and, much to my delight and encouragement, here is what I read in verses 19 and 20:

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

How apropos! It was like getting an IM from the Lord! Indeed, the Lord and his word are living and active. How sweet and gracious of the Lord to direct me to this manna.

Also of great comfort to me has been Ps. 139. There David marvels at the Lord’s exhaustive knowledge of him, his intimate involvement in his life and his omnipresence. I particularly appreciate the truth of verse 5: “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me”. How comforting to know that my Father lovingly provides, protects and strengthens me. Frankly, there are times when I want to flee God’s presence and wallow in self pity and self indulgence; yet even there he meets me and brings me to my senses by bringing me to himself.

Finally, thank you so much for praying for our family and being an encouragement to me during this time. The Lord surrounds us with his steadfast love and one of the ways he manifests that love is through our fellowship with one another.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Cor. 13:14)

Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you.

Proverbs 9:8

So parenting again has laid a golden egg. The most ironic thing that I have found in life is that while I am trying to teach my kids things, I am finding that I really need to learn them myself. There have been several really good personal things, but the biggest thing right now is getting him to listen to correction.

The hilarious thing about teaching my son this is that I need to learn this FAR more than he does. The typical reaction that I have to a well placed rebuke or correction whether it comes from my wife, a friend or a direct stranger is to be defensive and often point out the flaws in their character. Conversations like this, especially among Christian men, usually boils down to “You suck”, “No you suck.” Or put more Biblically, “You have a log in your eye.” “Oh yeah, well you have a speck”.

This keeps us from being wise. I was actually really humbled by how many times Proverbs harps on this and yet my willingness to listen to correction and rebuke humbly and earnestly is weak at best. How much stronger would the church be if we put this into action. How much more sin could we be made aware of if we would only listen.

My son needs to learn this, but good grief, we could all use a dose of it as well, I being the foremost.

Cool Find from here and in an email I received.
How Communities of Performance Impede Mission
Tim Chester

It’s amazing to me how much Christians get muddled down in the gray areas of faith. How you should read your Bible everyday but it should never be a chore or out of obligation. How if you are short on faith or having a hard time struggling with your beliefs, you should read your Bible and pray more.

It just seems like we say that our salvation comes from God and not from anything that we do and then we put all these stipulations on it. Not that the things that we add are bad, but I just don’t like that we add the connotations that they are required to be a christian. I just hate to see a struggling brother hold up this man made list of things that he has to do be a christian and grow further from God and more into a stooper because he doesn’t measure up.

Am I off base here? Does any of the shit we do make God love us any less or more? Thanks be to God, who’s love never fails.