Technical Fouls in Church

After service yesterday we went for lunch at a Middle Eastern themed restaurant. We - 3 of 4 daughters, wife, what appears to be future son-in-law and self. I like FSIL very much because he can do things - fix cars, handle tools, figure things out. Simultaneous use of hands and head , a disappearing art form novel enough to earn my appreciation is in my mind a very good thing. "It's required of an intruding new family member that a man be found useful."

The menu had an interesting and unfamiliar combination of vowels and consonants. I like that. They got me pita bread with yogurt and vegetables wrapped around a different tasting meat. It was very good and I was thinking "Little lamb, who ate thee?" but kept it to myself because it isn't that funny and I like crazy old William Blake.

The TV suspended above us was playing a pro basketball game. It was one of those nice sets with incredibly good clarity and depth of color that makes viewing enjoyable. I remember the old Philco with the fuzzy picture and the skipping. The coat hanger and aluminium foil never worked like Uncle Frank said it would. Anyway, LeBron James made it a rough game by ramming his shoulder into another guy and throwing the ball at his back. Great talent. Lousy sport.

Why wasn't he thrown out, sent to the locker room, banned for the season or life or something? Because he's basketball royalty. He's the hardwood equivalent of Simon Magus, the slick talking sorcerer who strutted Samaria working his magic and "claiming to be someone great." As a result, "they all, from the smallest to the greatest, were giving attention to him". Super talents get their way, even when it's behavior so thuggish it would earn a much deserved punch in the mouth anywhere else.

I'm a fight fan, not a basketball fan, which is probably why the ready punching reference. I really don't care what immoral millionaires do or how they play, but it made me re-visit a thought I've had before:

Why is it some people act within the church in ways they would never act anywhere else?

The pettiness, whininess, tinny complaining, lack of courtesy, manipulation, fit throwing, fakery, inattention to follow through, unwarranted posturing, disrespect, sense of entitlement, lousy participation, turf scrambling, vanity and plain old ugliness - all would never be attempted anywhere else, but cesspool just below the surface in church.

It's not everybody and it's not everywhere - I'm so fortunate to have found a genuine body of pock-marked believers that really love one another, recognize we have something rare and special and try everyday to make church a soft place for other fellow screw-ups to land.  This stuff called faith really does work. I see it all around me even if it doesn't always work in me. The best people I know are owned by Jesus Christ, but there are just enough bad actors in the Body to spoil the fun. So, (trumpet fanfare and plenty of reverb please):

"Out with you phonies and spoilers! Into the outer darkness where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing if teeth. No Body of Christ for you to thug your way through!"

Zero tolerance for the whole tribe. I don't care where they go, just stay away from me and mine.

Content to Live Without It

How many more wrecked lives will invite me in for a closer look - lives lived within reach of tried and true solutions that, if embraced, could have eliminated the wreckage causing chaos?

Since it's what I do, how many more church people, Christian people,  will come my way that live way below the promises guaranteed them by God? Some of them have made bigger messes of it than those with no faith.

Before I puff up too much and overstate my case, I recognize that some things are beyond a person's abilities to control. So let me confine my rant to those things controllable and those who exercise no control. Why so much point and shoot at the feet? Why so much mental anguish when there could be creativity, self inflicted wounds where there should be health, serially bad decision making instead of much needed and easily accessed clarity, living below God's blessings and, for the serious but stale Christian,  living without a fresh sense of God's presence?

Because we are content to live without it.

The only solution I can see is a massive dose of discontent. Discontent - unwilling to settle until things change, I change, my attitude changes, I let God change me and I change my mind. No easy road. No small task. Nothing else suggests itself.

Afraid of a Question?

• Why are American Christians more vocal about healthcare legislation, cap and trade and the price of foreign oil than they are about a lack of prayer?
• Why is there more discussion over music styles than holy living?
• Why is gay marriage a bigger topic among believers than the absence of the Holy Spirit in our services?
• Do more pastors golf than fast?
• Are church boards focused more on lawns and roof repairs than hungry children?
• Why are Christians alarmed over First amendment threats, but silent when the Word goes unread?

The church is hearing impaired. Weak and powerless, lacking a prophetic voice in these perilous times - an awful handicap. Is it time we stop obsessing over the nastiness outside the church and instead invite judgment to begin in the house of God? Survivability is at stake.

Organized Religion

I sat with a family helping them plan their father’s funeral. Pastor’s do that sort of thing. A good man and a believer, they mentioned he did not attend church because he had been disappointed by organized religion. As they recalled their father’s good life, they were gratefully conscious of many things he had passed on to them. From what I know, most of his family - believers all - are not part of any church body. Another trait he passed along.

Usually, I sit quietly when hearing the often repeated disappointment with organized religion story. It’s a tough point to argue because some churches have behaved horribly. Possible Socratic responses race through my mind though, like, “Boy, do I know about disappointment with religion! Want to see the rope burns?” Or, “Did you realize the gospel of God’s grace isn’t really about religion?” Sometimes I want to ask, “Why didn’t that awful experience drive you to search for a good church? Couldn’t find one? Then why not start a house church or prayer group with a few good friends?” The big unasked and unanswered question for me is, “If everyone felt that way about church, who would you have called for help?” You see why it’s best to sit quietly.

Surely there are big disappointments on the job, in the classroom, at the grocery or bank - even in the family. Total disengagement is usually not the recommended path. Most don’t see walking away as the best option. Lifelong finality and rejection like that are reserved for Sunday morning church attendance. Scripture endorses attachment to an admittedly fallible body of believers, reminding us that we forsake it to our great peril. Yet, corporate worship is abandoned by many and faithful attendance is treated as optional even by some who see value in sporadic attendance. Disappointments at work or in the home – even deep disappointments - are almost always trumped by necessity. On the job or in the family we keep at it because we must. Those chased out of the church by disappointment may be unaware of how vital is involvement in the sometimes disappointing church Christ loves, built and died for. Is it even possible to have a New Testament experience with Christ, the Head while ignoring the church which is His Body?

When I encounter people who genuinely love Christ who have taken themselves out of the life of the church I grieve to think how much richer their lives would be if they invested themselves in a good church family. How enriched and encouraged other struggling believers would be by their generous investment!

Maybe the presence and prayers, giving and serving of a few more followers of Christ would result in fewer disappointments with organized religion.

Location Location Location!

Anybody in trouble for this?

Certain statements leave little wiggle room. “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” appears to be in that category. “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” is another that leaves little work for the interpreters. These things are either completely true or completely false. So somber and final are they that believers would do well to assume they mean exactly what they say and that a day of reckoning before a righteous Judge is not optional.

Will church boards and pastors one day have to answer for their shabby treatment of the poor?

Another of those no wiggle room statements is from Jesus: “The poor you always have with you.” Examined closely, this is instruction about where to plant churches. If a body of believers looks around and sees no poor, they are in the wrong place. It’s not that neatly clipped lawns, raked, litter free flower beds, washed off driveways and sharp, attractive, well furnished buildings set on suburban lots aren’t attractive to the poor. It’s not even that a poor person wandering in would not be welcomed. In many cases good hearts would be open to them.

The problem is that many churches are planted far from the poor – maybe even with intention. Cities have suffered white flight and business flight but they have also suffered church flight as many by design have moved up and out and abandoned the poor and hurting for more upscale locations with visibility that draws a more upscale membership. Distance from the poor brings insulation and simple distance allows churches to ignore the layers of problems that are part of poverty and hurt that Jesus says is still out there – “always with you”.

Sending a skeleton crew ministry team to the rescue mission once a month or passing out peanut butter sandwiches downtown is no substitute for being surrounded by poor folks. Wonder why the Holy Spirit hasn’t told any prosperous churches in my city to relocate to a nastier area? Just a question. The poor you always have with you, but not if you can help it.

Publicity

How different is our opinion of publicity and Christ’s. In journalism classes I learned that advertising is what you pay for. Publicity is free and could be worth much more than paid advertising. You’ve heard people say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. If your name, cause, message or church is recognized in the marketplace that’s what really counts. To be known at any cost and by the greatest number of people is the goal. In our day, magazines and talk shows feature vacuous people famous for being well known. Their great achievement invites the world’s fawning admiration.

“Leave here” – the backwater of Galilee – and go to the big city of Jerusalem whose swollen festival population will give You the greatest possible exposure. Do it, they urge, “so that Your disciples may see Your works that You are doing.” That unsolicited advice of Jesus’ own brothers would be an air tight argument in most Christian circles. Contemporary church leaders would see the good sense of their logic: “No one does anything secretly when he himself seeks to be known publicly.” The largest possible platform and publicity you couldn’t pay for!

Jesus attends the overcrowded celebration, but without fanfare, entourage or announcement. He goes by Himself. “Not publicly”. He sneaks in almost and goes intentionally unnoticed. The path of publicity is not his method. His methods grow out of His nature.

Our methods spring from who we are too. Most Christian advertising sounds no different than advertising for any other product or service. Promising much it likely delivers little. It sounds the same because the people using it operate with the same assumptions about publicity that Jesus’ dopey brothers did.

The Savior seems strangely inattentive to the well connected and self assured. The observation that those who imagine they are well have no need of a physician is daily confirmed by the reality that most moderns give little time to Christ. But, He does have a preferred method for drawing the lost and broken to Himself. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” Such an all inclusive statement indicates that the drawing force will be almost irresistible. It will work every time it’s tried.

To lift Him up I have to remove myself from the place of prominence. Until that painful surgery is self performed, we will continue trusting in publicity to do the King’s work.