Category: Biblical Worldview

That makes no sense

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

In the April 18, 2015 issue of WORLD Magazine Andree Seu Peterson had a column entitled “A class about nothing” which was subtitled “Psychology professor offers intensive case studies of the imaginary.” The premise of her column was the absurdity of a Rutgers University professor “teach[ing] psychology to medical students through reruns of Seinfeld. They analyze Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine for greater insight into narcissism, obsessive-compulsion, and inability to forge meaningful relationships.” Later, Peterson writes, “The Rutgers professor is not merely adducing illustrations; he is studying the episodes like Rommel studying a map of North Africa. He has created a database of every Seinfeld episode and its teaching points, and he assigns two episodes a week.” This may seem silly to some people, and the merits of studying a 1990s sitcom that poked fun at itself for being a show about nothing could surely be debated. Given some of the other college and university course offerings I have heard of, though, this would not, in and of itself, be sufficient fodder for an entire column (or blog post) in my opinion. Peterson apparently did not think so either, because she extrapolated on her shock at the course content to include an attack on the possibilities of learning anything from fiction.

That probably sounds extreme, and I think so too–so I will let Peterson speak for herself. “Does anybody besides me have a problem with this?” she writes. “Is it gauche to point out that Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine are sitcom characters? These are not real people. They are made up. They have no true existence. They have no deep-seated motivations, no real histories, no actual upbringings, no formative years.” This is all true, of course. However, the implication that because these four sitcom characters are not real people we cannot learn anything from the show is ludicrous. Peterson has admitted in other columns that she does not watch television–which is certainly fine–so perhaps she has a grudge toward the medium itself that is tainting her position on the teaching power of fiction–in whatever form it may appear. After all, if the fact that Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine “are not real people” means that we cannot learn anything from watching them it would necessarily be true that we cannot learn anything from reading Robinson Crusoe, The Scarlet Letter or any other literary work of fiction. Nor could we learn anything from watching movies that are not based on fact. Theatrical productions resulting a writer’s creative mind would be out, too.

In fact, if Peterson’s point is carried to its extreme, we could learn nothing from the parables of Jesus. There are myriad lessons to be gleaned from the story of the prodigal son or the parable of the sower or the parable of the ten virgins, but guess what? The prodigal son, the sower and the ten virgins were not real people. They had no more true existence, deep-seated motivations, histories or upbringings than Jerry and his pals do. Stories, however, communicate powerfully. My favorite professor in college stressed that history is a narrative. I agree, and I enjoy history because I know it is a story, not just names and dates and places. Racial prejudice comes alive far more in fictional accounts than in reading newspaper accounts of the actions of Klan members and good ol’ boys down south who did everything they could to prevent integration and equal rights for African Americans. I could elaborate at length on the merits of literature and the teachable moments that are created by good fiction, but I think you probably already recognize that.

Peterson elaborates, saying that the closest thing she can think of in the Bible to a professor teaching psychology through the use of Seinfeld episodes is the “dim-witted idol-maker: ‘He cuts down cedars. … He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. … And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”‘ (Isaiah 44:14-17). In a bizarre demonstration of self-delusion, he makes a like–then believes it.” Sadly, Peterson is so far off-base here that it is not even funny. The “dim-witted idol-maker” is taking an inanimate object and ascribing to it knowledge, wisdom and power that it certainly does not have because he just created it out of the same material that he is using for fire wood. To suggest that believing that a god-made-from-logs is the same thing as believing that it is possible to learn life lessons from works of fiction boggles my mind. It may well be one of the most foolish things I have heard in a very long time.

“The Bible is different,” Peterson writes. “Cain, Lot, and Absolom are real people, with real childhoods and real thought processes.” True, those examples are. As already mentioned above, however, the Bible also teaches us with fictional people. “It makes no sense to try to find motives in cardboard facsimiles,” Peterson concludes. This is simply not true. The creative arts–whether literature, sitcoms, feature-length films, plays, visual art such as painting and sculpture–can and do teach us. In fact, the danger is not in suggesting that there are lessons to be learned therein but rather in suggesting that they are harmless and void of influence. It is when we stop realizing that the television shows we watch, the books we read and the movies we view have the power to teach and to influence that we are walking straight into a trap. Such a position grows out of a deep lack of understanding that has potentially life-changing consequences. That is what makes no sense.

Honestly

~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

The Bible talks a great deal about joy–including instructing us to count it all joy when we encounter trials, because trials strengthen our faith and our patience and serve to shape us into who God wants us to be. I know all of that, and you no doubt do, too. Knowing that, and believing it, does not mean though that it will be easy or enjoyable. Nor does it mean that we will always feel joyful. If we are honest with ourselves (and others) there are times when we’ve just about had it. We do not really feel like pressing on or persevering or fighting the good fight. Truth be told, sometimes we would rather just lock ourselves in our house or our room, when we would like to retreat to an undisclosed location–preferably one with lovely weather and environmental surroundings to our liking–or even when we feel like we would be perfectly fine abandoning the ministry God has given us, whether that be full time Christian ministry or the call to be light and salt to those we interact with in the secular workplace, and just punch a clock and check electric meters or something mundane and seemingly free of contention and strong opinions. Acknowledging that does not make me special, because it is certainly nothing we have not all felt from time to time. Acknowledging it publicly may be more transparent than some of us are comfortable with, but the reality is that we all feel this way at times.

In my own life it seems as if there has been one thing after another for the past four months or so, and it does get exhausting. It can be tempting to question whether it’s worth it or whether any good is really coming out of the trials. As I was reflecting on this I was reminded of a song that I had not heard in quite some time, but I knew where to find it. The title is the same as the title of this post, and it was co-written by Southern Gospel songwriters Kirk Talley and Rodney Griffin. Tally and Griffin are both singers, as well, and the song is about as transparent as a song could be for someone whose life is devoted to full time Christian ministry in the form of songwriting and singing. The message, though, is relevant far beyond singing. The words speak adequately for themselves, so I will just share the lyrics with you and trust that you will be encouraged by them, too.

Honestly

Weary with nothing left to give
Tired from this hectic life I live
But yet I stand before you
Ready to sing on
Though I know the Savior
I don’t always feel the song

Chorus One
Honestly, I don’t always feel like singing
When the struggles of this life pull me down
Quite honestly, I don’t always feel like smiling
When it’s hard to find something to smile about
But I will keep singing, I will go on
For if I give my praise to Him
He will give the song

Little ears listen to what you say
So teach that Sunday lesson anyway
The task that God has given
Is something only you can do
You must go on and sing your song
His grace will help you through

Chorus Two
‘Cause honestly, you won’t always feel like singing
When the struggles of this life pull you down
Quite honestly, you won’t always feel like smiling
When it’s hard to find something to smile about
But you must keep singing, you will go on
For if you give your praise to Him
He will give the song

Bridge
I sing because I’m happy
And I sing because I’m free
I will keep singing, I will go on
If I give my praise to Him
He will give the song
He will give the song

A fly in my mouth

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Confession: I drink a lot of tea. Not hot tea–I seldom drink that. I drink a lot of what some people call iced tea, though I rarely have ice cubes in it. Oh, and I cannot stand unsweetened tea; it has to be sweet tea. Don’t even think about offering me unsweetened tea with sugar packets either, because it is not even close to the same thing. I drink tea at home, I drink tea at work and sometimes–if they can get it right–I drink tea at restaurants. Nowadays I actually drink quite a bit of green tea, which is supposedly healthier, but it’s still sweet.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in a chair in my living room reading a book. I had a glass of tea on a coaster next to me. I stood up to go do something and when I did I also picked up my glass of tea and took a drink. When I did, though, I became immediately aware that something had just entered my mouth besides tea. I did not get a real great feel for it but it was rather solid and certainly should not have been in my tea–and the first thing I wanted to do was spit it out. As I was standing in the middle of the living room I knew this would not be wise, so I managed to not spew the tea across the room. I did however spit it into my hand as a beat feet toward the kitchen sink. When I did so I looked into my cupped hand to see, floating in the little pool of brown tea, a fly.

Now, I hate flies…and I mean that literally. I truly, genuinely, deeply hate them. Unlike many other unlikable creatures (such as snakes or spiders) I cannot think of a single good reason for the existence of flies. I think they may well be part of the curse. I know one thing, had I been Pharaoh when Moses wanted to lead the Israelites out of Egypt there would have been no need for ten plagues. After the flies, I would have given Moses anything he wanted. In fact, I probably would have surrendered Egypt and I would have left!

And now I had just had a fly in my mouth. The very thought of it was disgusting. I dumped my tea and fly into the sink, dumped out the rest of the glass and seriously considered scouring my tongue with a Brillo pad. I was disgusted by the fact that I had had a fly in my mouth. For the next half hour I could hardly get it out of my mind.

Then my thoughts shifted and I was reminded of Revelation 3:16. In that verse God says of the church at Laodicea that because of their lukewarmness He would spit them out of His mouth–literally vomit them! As disgusted as I was by having a fly in mouth, God is even more disgusted than that when I am lukewarm–or when you are–about spiritual things. When we go to church and present the right image but then do our own thing for the rest of the week, He wants to throw up. When we talk a good talk but walk an entirely different walk, He wants to spit us out of His mouth. The level of detestation I have for flies is minute compared to God’s revulsion for lukewarm believers.

In other words, He takes it quite seriously.

No expiration date on truth

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Earlier this month there was a bit of an uproar within the National Baptist Convention in general and around American Baptist College in particular. American Baptist College was founded in 1924 for the purpose of training African-American ministers. Located in Nashville, the school has a rich connection to civil rights issues. It is a historically black college and has an all-black faculty. But none of that really has anything to do with the uproar mentioned above.

The problem arose when the college invited a married, lesbian bishop to speak at the school. Some conservative black preachers called on the school to withdraw the invitation because the Bible makes it clear that homosexuality is a sin. The bishop in question, Yvette Flunder, was not scheduled to address anything associated with homosexuality. Instead, she was to speak at the school’s annual Garnett Nabrit Lecture Series “about her work advocating for the rights and needs of people suffering from HIV and AIDS,” according to The Tennessean.

The Tennessean went on to report that the National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors stated the following in a news release calling for the invitation to be rescinded: “For a Baptist college president to invite a lesbian bishop legally married to a woman, to be a guest speaker and worship leader on a Baptist college campus is irresponsible, scandalous, non-biblical, and certainly displeasing to God.”

In response, American Baptist College President Forrest Harris said, “I think they have misappropriated the theology of the National Baptist Convention which says that churches and individuals can hold their own theological beliefs about what they think is right and wrong. It’s tragic these conservative pastors are in opposition to what education ought to be about, to expose students to critical moral thinkers and a broad education.” Harris may have been able to make a legitimate claim for the second part of the statement, because students do need to be exposed to critical moral thinkers. Still, there are plenty of critical moral thinkers who are not practicing homosexuals, and the invitation clearly implies an acceptance of Flunder’s lifestyle choice. Far more troubling is the assertion that the National Baptist Convention says that churches and individuals can “hold their own theological beliefs about what they think is right and wrong.” I do not know if the NBC teaches that or not, but if it does, it is a heretical organization. no where does the Bible allow churches or individuals to decide what they believe is right or wrong. Are there areas on which the Bible is not explicitly clear and about which individuals and even churches can decide they hold certain convictions? Absolutely. But the Bible is explicitly clear about what is right and wrong in many areas, and when the Bible is explicitly clear there is no other alternative.

That Harris is not much concerned about what the Bible has to say about the matter is clear in another statement he made, which has been reported in a variety of news outlets. “It’s sad that people use religion and idolatry of the Bible to demoralize same-gender-loving people,” Harris said. He then said “idolatry of the Bible” occurs “when people say (the Bible) is synonymous with God and the truth.” He continued, “We can’t be guided and dictated by a first-century world view.”

I beg your pardon, Mr. Harris, but saying that the Bible is synonymous with God and with truth is not idolatry; it is exactly what the Bible says it is. I am certainly not advocating a first-century worldview. Rather, I am advocating a biblical worldview. That the New Testament was written in the first century does not at all mean that it delivers a first-century worldview. All that means is that the first century is when God chose, in His sovereignty, to reveal His Word.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” I am not sure how Mr. Harris could miss it, but I believe it would be an accurate paraphrase to say that John 1:1 says the Bible is synonymous with God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is breathed out by God. I am not sure how Mr. Harris could miss it, but I believe it would be an accurate paraphrase to say that the Bible is synonymous with God and truth. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” I am not sure Mr. Harris could miss it, but I believe it would be an accurate paraphrase to say that if it was true in the first century it is still true today; there is no expiration date on biblical truth. Romans 8:14 says that all those who are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God. That same Spirit of God inspired the authors of Scripture way back in the first century. I am not sure how Mr. Harris could miss it, but I believe it would be an accurate paraphrase to say that we must be guided by that worldview.

May we never be ashamed of holding fast to the Word of God!

Not a Math Problem

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Though I have not been able to find definitive evidence that she did so, I have seen this statement attributed to Hillary Rodham Clinton in a number of places: “In the bible it says you have to forgive seventy times seven. I want you all to know, I’m keeping a chart.” And while I have not found that definitive evidence, it does strike me, if you don’t mind me saying so, as something Clinton would say.

If she did say it, she was referring, of course, to Matthew 18, where Peter asked Jesus how many times he needed to forgive someone who sinned against him. Verse 21 says Peter asked, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Peter thought he was being quite magnanimous, of course, and, if understood in context, he was. The Pharisees, after all, taught that one need only forgive three times. So Peter doubled it and, for good measure, added one more. Knowing Peter as we do, we can easily imagine him asking the question with an air of confidence, thinking that he would be commended for his generosity. Jesus, however, had something else in mind. “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven,” Jesus told him.

Seventy times seven is a lot of forgiveness. Who could keep track of forgiving someone 490 times? That, of course, was Jesus’ point. He was teaching Peter that there is not to be an end to forgiveness. Even if you go with one of the translations that presents Matthew 18:22 as “seventy-seven times” the point is that we are to keep on forgiving. We are not to keep a list. If someone kept track of forgiveness, whether seventy-seven times or 490 times, the implication of that would be that once that magic number had been reached, all bets were off, and revenge was coming. That, of course, was what Hillary Clinton was implying in the quote above. She was suggesting that there would come an end to her forgiveness, and when that point was reached, watch out!

God, however, never stops forgiving us. If he did, I would have long ago exhausted by 490 chances, as would everyone else on the face of the earth. Jesus went on, after answering Peter, to deliver the parable of the master who forgave a servant an insurmountable debt that he could never have paid on his own. That is the forgiveness that God offers. There is only one unpardonable, or unforgivable, sin, and that is refusing to accept that Christ died on the cross as the only possible perfect sacrifice that would satisfy a holy God. Beyond that, there is nothing you can do, I can do, or anyone else can do, that God will not forgive.

As incredibly comforting as that should be, the inverse is just as incredible. Just a few chapters earlier, Jesus said that if we do not forgive others their sins, God will not forgive our sins. Followers of Christ are called to demonstrate God-like forgiveness when others offend or wrong them. We need not keep a list, because it isn’t a math problem anyway, it is a heart condition. And the heart that is surrendered to Christ and yielded to the Holy Spirit will forgive the offending brother–every time.

Denominational Membership

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Somehow an entire month has passed since my last post. I assure you it has not been an uneventful month! However, I never wrote the final post in my series on the importance of church membership. I have alluded to some of these final concerns in other posts, but the importance of church membership is relevant beyond the local church when that local church is part of a denominational body. As has been seen in many recent denominational decisions, the people who are permitted to officially make up the local church then also officially make up the denomination and then also officially decide what the denomination believes and allows.

How does it ever happen that a denomination can decide to allow something that the Bible prohibits–like homosexual marriage? It all starts with church membership. The members of the churches within that denominational body are elected to leadership positions and/or as delegates to the denomination’s national (or even global) assemblies where there are votes taken on what the denomination believes, sanctions, practices, etc.

This is also, of course, one of the dangers of a church being a part of a denominational body. I know there are some advantages, and I will let you figure those out for yourself if you do not already know them (because, frankly, there are various opinions on such benefits). The dangers, however, are that the local church that has remained faithful to Scripture in its teachings, beliefs, practices and membership requirements is a part of the larger denominational body. This means that money from the local church may be going to support ministries and institutions that the local church does not support (and may even oppose) and it means that the local church is officially expected to believe and practice as the denomination as a whole decides. When the local church that has remained true to Scripture wants out of the denomination after it begins to stray from Scripture, the local church finds itself in a legal quagmire, since the courts have usually ruled that in such instances the church buildings belong to the denomination, not the local body. Accordingly, some of these churches have been forced to forfeit their local church buildings, and in some cases these have been hundreds of years old and/or worth millions of dollars.

I have been a member of one church in my adulthood that was a part of a larger international denomination. I joined it because it was the strongest and most biblically-based church in my community. At the same time, there were a lot of things I did not like about the church’s denominational membership, including where some of its dues to the denomination went and the denominations program for international missions. In that case, the international denomination had (remarkably) turned back toward biblically-accurate positions, but the state chapter of the denomination had not. The result was that there were then two competing state chapters. The church I was a member of had always been a member of the one chapter, because for a long time it was the only one. When it strayed, though, older members rejected efforts to leave it because of the church’s long affiliation and connection. So, this local church was dually aligned. Between you and me, I find that to be even worse. It’s like straddling the fence. It’s being lukewarm. It’s a church’s refusal to take a stand for truth because an elderly member might get miffed. For me, when the choice is between a miffed senior citizen and the Bible, I’ll choose the Bible every time.

This will likely sound like I am opposed to denominational membership and favor an independent local church. That would be accurate. However, that is not the purpose of this post. Rather, my hope is that those who are members of larger denominational bodies will recognize that the serious responsibility of defining, filtering and enforcing church membership will have an impact far beyond their local body.

Discernment and caution

~ jbwatson ~ 2 Comments

In the last post, I described why it so important for churches to exercise discernment and caution when deciding who will become a member. Though not referenced explicitly in that post, it is just as crucial for individual believers to exercise discernment and caution when selecting a church to join, or when weighing a decision to stay in a church.

The extreme dangers of both are exemplified in an article in the January 26 issue of TIME entitled “A Change of Heart.” The article provides an overview of the varying positions on homosexual marriage within evangelicalism. The church that is spotlighted in the story is Seattle-area EastLake Community Church. The article’s lead paragraph describes all of the ways that the church “looks like a lot of other evangelical megachurches,” but is really praising the trendiness of the church. And before I address that church’s stance on homosexual marriage let me address this trendiness issue. The TIME article says that EastLake “boasts 13 weekly services at six locations…; the head pastor is a bearded hipster; and the main campus is a warehouse turned sanctuary where greeters serve coffee, a tattooed band rocks out beneath colored lights and attendance swells whenever the Seahawks are not playing.”

That these are the characteristics considered common among evangelical megachurches does not speak well for evangelical megachurches! None of those descriptors amount to a thing when it comes to faithfulness to Scripture. God is far more concerned that a pastor is a Bible-proclaimer than a bearded hipster. His desire is that church members actually serve each other and their communities; I suspect He could not care less whether or not the greeters serve coffee. (Actually, if the coffee becomes a focal point or a distraction, I suspect He does care, and He is not in favor). I feel equally confident that God is far more concerned with the lyrics of the songs and the hearts of the singers than He is with the bodily adornment or the colored lights. And if the church’s attendance fluctuates considerably (which “swells” would imply) based on whether or not the local NFL team is playing, I think God would have a question or two about the level of commitment to Him that would be found in the members/attendees of the church. See, I may be wrong, but the notion of church attendance swelling when the Seahawks are not playing makes me think that going to church is the next-best thing to do on a Sunday morning in Seattle for those whose presence “swells” the attendance at EastLake. If the church is a trendy, fun or “hip” place to hang out when there’s no football, there is a problem. (See also: my many previous references to the need for church to be uncomfortable).

All of that aside, the real point of the introductory paragraph of the TIME article is this conclusion: “It [all of the happenings of the church described above] is almost enough to make you miss what is really going on at EastLake this winter: the congregation is quietly coming out as one of the first openly LGBT-affirming evangelical churches in the U.S.”

I will go ahead and say it, and the fact that many will disagree with me or call me intolerant, biased, opinionated or discriminatory matters to me not one bit: “LGBT-affirming evangelical church” is a contradiction. It is something that cannot be. Once a church becomes “LGBT-affirming” it ceases to be evangelical. If “evangelical” means affirming the teachings of the gospels and the authority of Scripture, as I believe most definitions suggest, then affirming homosexuality is simultaneously ceasing to be evangelical, since the Bible is quite clear on the fact that homosexuality is a sin. In other words, one cannot both affirm homosexuality and affirm Scripture. One cannot be both LGBT-affirming and evangelical. That is, of course, unless and until one embraces the relativism of our age, when there is no real meaning to anything and one can pick and choose any combination of things and put them together, ignoring the fact that they are mutually exclusive. We are not talking about toe-may-toe versus toe-mah-toe here; these are not matters of preference or opinion.

TIME goes on to explain that the transition to being “LGBT-affirming” happened slowly for EastLake. “For the past six months, the church has played a short welcome video at the start of every service that includes the line “Gay or straight here, there’s no hate here.” Ignoring the fact that the line is incredibly cheesy, I would agree that there should not be any hate found within the church toward people. The sinful choices of people, however, should be of concern. No church can be faithfully teaching Scripture and be making homosexuals feel welcome at the same time. Beyond the saccharine tag line, the church’s other efforts at welcoming and affirming homosexuals include the facts that the church’s first gay wedding took place in December, and that “one of the pastors now sends a wedding gift on behalf of the church every time she hears that gay congregants are getting married.” (Therein, too, the TIME author unwittingly provided further evidence of the fact that the church is not really evangelical; just as clear as the Scripture’s teaching that homosexuality is a sin and marriage is between a man and a woman is the teaching that women are not to be pastors).

Ryan Meeks, the pastor of EastLake, says that a “turning-point” for him came when he learned that “one of his staffers had been afraid to tell him she was dating a woman.” Says Meeks, “I refuse to go to a church where my friends who are gay are excluded from Communion or a marriage covenant or the beauty of Christian community. It is a move of integrity for me–the message of Jesus was a message of wide inclusivity.” Sadly, there is no integrity in the “move” at all, since it denies the authority and teaching of the very Scripture it purports to support and uphold. The message of Jesus was widely inclusive in one way–that salvation is a free gift for anyone who believes. At the same time it is incredibly narrow and intolerant in all other ways. After all, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” There are five resounding statements of intolerance there; Jesus said He is the only way.

I could say plenty more about the contents of the TIME article, and at some point I may. (I have, after all, addressed only the article’s first two paragraphs!). I believe, however, that I have made my point: churches need to be careful about who can become a member, because the members determine the direction of the church. Believers need to be careful about the churches they join, too, so that they do not unknowingly join themselves with a body that does not affirm and teach the Bible. (Encouragingly, the TIME article does point out that EastLake has lost 22% of its income and 800 attendees in the last year and a half, signaling that at least some of its members were unwilling to remain part of a church that no longer taught the Bible). Discernment and caution are imperative.

Membership Matters

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In an interview printed in the February issue of Tabletalk, Russell Moore said, “Our vote for president of the United States is critically important, but our vote to receive members into our local churches is more important.” At first glance, that may seem a bit extreme, but Moore is absolutely right and is making a crucial point. Yes, our vote for president is “critically important,” and each and every one of us should (1) care who the president is, and (2) be sure to exercise our right to vote when it comes time to select a president. Who we allow to become members of our churches, though, will potentially impact lives for eternity. Everyone who has accepted Christ as Savior is a member of the Church–the body of Christ. Membership in a local church, however, is what Moore has in mind, and is what I am going to discuss here.

Churches are made up of believers. Strong churches are built on the foundation of Scripture, but the functioning of the church, the teaching that takes place in the church, the church itself, depends on and is the people who are its members. As important as it is for a church to welcome anyone who walks through its doors–unless and until there is reason not to welcome someone–it is exponentially more important that the church not allow just anyone who walks through its doors to become a member.

“Membership has its privileges” is an old advertising slogan from a credit card, I believe, but it is an idea that holds true for the church, as well. In a healthy church, only members can hold leadership positions, vote, teach Sunday school or VBS, etc. Anyone is welcome to attend, but not just anyone is welcome to assume positions of leadership and influence. That is because these roles are so incredibly important that we must make sure that they are filled by individuals who are equipped and qualified to fill them. I am the administrator of a K-12 school. No matter how much I may sometime be tempted to do so, someone’s willingness to teach a class will never be enough in and of itself for me to hire that person to teach.Willingness and ability are not the same thing, and while someone may have an abundance of the former, the latter is also necessary.

I can give you, from personal experience, two examples of ineffective (and dangerous) church membership/leadership models. the first is something that happened to me in 2001. I had recently moved to a new area to assume a new position in a Christian ministry. The ministry was allowing a local church to use its property/facilities for a Sunday school picnic. I was in attendance, primarily as a way to meet people in my new community. I met the pastor of the church at that picnic. When he learned who I was and why I was there, he asked me if I would like to teach Sunday school at his church. I understand that he was desperate for good teachers. However, this question was a huge red flag in my mind. If he would ask me, within minutes of meeting me, to teach Sunday school, there were likely some other major issues at the church. (There were, too!).

A few years later I was still in the same ministry position and had joined another area church. My wife and I had attended for a while, I had read the church’s constitution and statement of faith and I had discussed a few things with the pastor. It was, we were sure, the most solid church in the area. Yet, its membership procedures were terrible–and dangerous. When someone wanted to join the church, the person would go forward during the invitation time at the end of the service and express to the pastor the desire to join. Following the singing of the closing hymn, the pastor would then present the individual to the church and ask the congregation to vote, on the spot, on that individual’s desire to join. To make matters worse, the pastor would ask for a vote of “aye” from those in favor and then from those opposed. He would say, “All opposed, same sign. And of course, there are none.” Really? I suppose there may well have been times in the early goings when there were no votes in opposition, but eventually this became a self-fulfilling prediction. After all, who is going to vote no when the pastor regularly says “of course there are none”? I often abstained from these membership votes because I often felt I did not know the individual well enough to know whether or not membership was a good idea. Sometimes I did not know the individual at all! I am pleased to say that I eventually became an elder in that church and while I was in that position was part of the church’s decision to change the membership process to include a membership class and a meeting with elders before going to the church for a vote.

I am not advocating careful procedures for church membership because someone might somehow be unworthy of joining the church. None of us are worthy, expect through the blood of Christ. I am not concerned that someone might not be “good enough” to join, either. I believe it was Adrian Rogers who said, “There is no such thing as a perfect church, and if there was none of us could join.” My concern–and Russell’s I believe–is that those who become members of a church are those who shape, influence and drive the future of the church. They vote on budgets, determine how leadership positions will be filled and by whom, have a say in curriculum and programming decisions, and more. Most importantly, those members decide whether or not the church will stay true to God’s Word. As we will see in the next post, that is the most important concern of all, and protecting the church’s adherence to Scripture is why membership votes are so critically important.

Be churchy

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

At the beginning of this year a fellow WordPress blogger named Samuel Kee wrote a post entitled “The Church Is Called To Be Churchy, So Deal With It.” He clearly and cleverly explained how ridiculous it is for anyone to complain about a church being “too churchy.” Sam began his post, “I’m sitting in a donut shop. I’ve been here many times and nobody has ever complained about this place, saying, ‘This donut shop is too donutty.’ It’s a donut shop; so you expect it to be donutty. No one ever said that a sporting event was too sporty, a library too booky, a concert too musicy, an airport too planey, a home too homey, a college too schooly, or a hospital too hospitally. Yet, I hear all the time, ‘That church was too churchy.'”

Sam has a point there. After all, with just about any other situation in life, we expect something to be exactly what it purports to be, and if it were anything less we would be concerned, possibly enough to even stop going there. Yet, like Sam, I have heard complaints about churches being too churchy, too. What does that even mean? Presumably it means that churches staying true to their calling tend to make people uncomfortable. “Why do we condemn the church for being about Jesus, your soul, God, spirituality, conviction of sin, heaven, hell, salvation, righteousness, and judgment?” Sam asks. Why indeed. That, after all, is exactly what the church is supposed to be.

God instituted the church to teach His Truth to His people. Church is supposed to be a place where believers gather to learn more about God, the Bible, and the application of biblical principles to everyday life. Church is supposed to be a place where unbelievers go to learn more about God and, hopefully, to meet Him personally. Church is supposed to be a place where those who are hurting can find healing, where those who are searching can find answers, where those who have sinned can find forgiveness and where those who are sinning can find conviction. None of that can truly happen if the church strays from its God-intended purpose. By that, I mean that none of that can happen if the church tries to be a social hub, a community playground, a philosophical society or a self-esteem seminar. All four of those things may become aspects of the church when the church is fulfilling its purpose, but if any of those things become the purpose then all hope is lost.

Frankly, no one should be able to attend church for very long without feeling uncomfortable. I am not talking about the seating, the lighting or the decor; I mean the “you’re stepping on my toes and getting a little too personal now” kind of uncomfortable. That is because the Bible is to be a mirror, and the church is to faithfully preach and teach the Bible. If I can look into a mirror everyday and think I look (physically) just fine, either the mirror is broken, my eyes need to be examined or I’m a little sick in the head. The same goes for the church, spiritually. I have blogged before about why the church should be “uncomfortable.”

“Since some churches actually believe that they should not be churchy, they try to hide their spiritual donuts, if you know what I mean,” Sam writes. “Participants can attend, be fairly comfortable and entertained, without being confronted with too many spiritual matters. Then, right at the end, a little ‘Jesus’ is slipped in.” There are no shortage of churches like that in America, and probably around the world. One of the side effects of living in a country with religious freedom is that we do not have to take our faith seriously in order to dabble in it. If attending church or naming the name of Christ was an offense that could result in persecution, imprisonment or even death, none of us would do it lightly or casually. I am not asking for persecution, because I surely do not want it. But persecution does serve as a purifying fire, separating those who are playing around from those who are serious.

“The church does nobody any favors when it refuses to be churchy. The church needs to be churchy and it must stop apologizing for doing so,” says Sam. “Amen,” says me. If you are attending a church that is not doing what it is supposed to do (see above if you forgot what that is) then you need to have a serious talk with your church leadership and find out why not. If the church leadership is intentionally not doing church the way it needs to be done, and has no intention of changing that, you need to leave and go to a real church. Expect your church to be churchy. Demand it, in fact.

If “churchy” means doing what God called the church to be and do, and not doing whatever seems most likely to attract people and make them feel comfortable, “churchy” is exactly what the church is supposed to be.

Belonging

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

It seems I have been reading a lot recently–and not even because of any intention on my part–about the Church. Some of what I have read is good, some of it not so good. All of it has served to generate at least five blog posts-worth of thoughts, ideas and comments in my head. I have scribbled myself a 24-word note outlining what I hope to address in those five posts, so hopefully I will be able to stick with it and crank out all five by the end of next week at the latest.

This first one will on the topic of belonging to a church. Everyone who has accepted Christ belongs to the Church–the universal body of Christ. But what is it about belonging to a local body of believers? Why does that matter–or does it matter?

On January 29, christianitytoday.com posted an interview between Laura Turner and Erin Lane. Lane is a divinity school graduate, pastor’s wife and a program director at the Center for Courage & Renewal. She is also the author of Lessons in Belonging from a Church-Going Commitment Phobe (IVP, 2014).

When asked why the concept of belonging is so important to the church, Lane said, “We have so many options for connecting with one another and all this pressure to make the most of them. But it’s often the case that the institutions that used to broker these connections—institutions like the church—are losing their influence.” While the church struggles sometimes in handling it, Lane says that one of the major premises of her book (which I have not read), is that “we need to recover some basic practices that remind us of our interdependence.”

That is a crucial point right there–that we are interdependent. That certainly is not what our culture likes to portray, and the idea of needing each other–of needing anyone–is not an overly popular idea. The reality, though, is that God created us for relationships. (Even a relative introvert like myself, who can be perfectly content spending a day alone or driving a thousand miles with someone else in the car without saying a word needs other people!) Try as some of us might, there is simply no denying that need. We may be able to exist without other people, and we may even do it happily for a while, but the long run we would not thrive.

Commenting on this search for belonging, Lane says, “There’s a huge desire to experience belonging in an embodied way. We search for shared interests, like exercise groups—Crossfit, yoga, and Pure Barre. A great deal of belonging is created over food culture and being connoisseurs of things like coffee or beer—for me, it’s cupcakes.” There is nothing wrong with any of that, of course. Lane continues, though: “I worry, though, about whether we’re doing enough to interact with people who don’t inhabit our particular lifestyle enclaves. I don’t see many examples of rich involvement in public spaces that are open to strangers and friends alike. … I think we’re losing some of those rich public spaces where anyone can show up, regardless of fitness or food preferences or economic status and ability to work.” This is what, in Lane’s opinion, makes the church unique. People from all walks of life, all racial and ethnic backgrounds, with diverse hobbies and interests, can come together at church because of their love for God, His Truth and His Church. Nancy Ortberg, in her book Looking for God, describes sitting between two individuals in a church service whose paths would otherwise never cross. One was a high powered attorney and the other a lowly grocery store bagger. If their paths did cross it would have been brief and inconsequential. At church, however, they were on the same playing field; the ground, after all, is level at the foot of the cross.

Lane explains that there are very little things that can be done to encourage and promote a sense of belonging–even as simple as wearing name tags. At a relatively small church where most people know each other than may not be necessary, but it does provide some leveling and it does invite personal interaction. I can remember watching sermons by Michael Youssef at Church of the Apostles in Atlanta and seeing everyone in the (large) congregation wearing name tags. That actually never appealed to me, but that may be because (1) I don’t really like sticking things on my clothes anyway, and (2) sometimes I kinda like being anonymous. As Lane says, though, “There’s something powerful about hearing your name and seeing other people’s names….” I have to agree. I actually make a point to use people’s names often, whether simply saying hello in the hallway or when sending an e-mail. I don’t always do it, but I think I do more often than not. I notice when someone uses my name–and when they don’t. In fact, I remember once being asked, about a church I began attending when I moved to a new town, “what did you like about our church?” I do not know if I had really thought about it before I was asked, but the greeter at the door introduced himself on that first visit and also asked my name. When I went back the next week, he remembered my name–and used it. That struck me.

Lane offers other insights about the importance of church and belonging, including the need to let people be themselves, let people speak freely and a lack of earnestness. Her insights are good. I want to read her book. The bottom line, though, is that we need each other. When we are together with other believers at church we are encouraged. We are challenged. We are sharpened. We may even be convicted. The Bible tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. In other words, we are supposed to go to church! Not because it’s a rule, and not because we will get any bonus points or extra rewards, but because we need each other.

I do not remember where I read or heard this illustration, but it has stuck with me and may be one of the best illustrations of the importance of belonging: charcoal. Yes, charcoal. As in the squarish-looking hunks of black stuff that we bar-b-que enthusiasts squirt with lighter fluid and then set aflame. When they are together, pieces of charcoal generate considerable heat–enough to cook hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs, chicken, fish, whatever. (They look pretty too, with their orange-y glow). Next time you’re around a pile of burning charcoal, though, see what happens if you remove one piece and set it off somewhere by itself. Actually, I suspect you know exactly what will happen. That’s what is likely to happen to us, too, if we stay away from church.