At the Journey Gathering on Sunday night we never got around to our planned interactive guided Bible study. In fact, I don’t think we even read a single verse of scripture. That’s because we were busy talking. Yep, just talking. To be honest, it wasn’t just “shooting the breeze” kind of talking (well, at least not all the time). Most of the time we were on subject, but we didn’t follow the plan.

Here’s what we planned:

• 15-20 min. music (while we meet, greet, and eat)
• 10 min. semi-guided conversation in small groups
• 40-45 min. interactive guided Bible study in large group
• 15-20 min. music (while we share Communion and disperse)

Here’s what we actually did:

• 15-20 min. music (while we meet, greet, and eat) . . . Good start, right?
• 70 min. semi-(un)-guided conversation in small groups . . . oops!
• 10 min. quickly share Communion before everybody leaves . . . oops, again!

Oh, well . . . Hey, I’m glad we didn’t follow the plan. Had we followed the plan we could never have had the significant dialogue that we did. Our conversations were real! They were lively, animated, intense (at times), and honest. Not everybody agreed, nor did they politely try to agree. But nobody was disagreeable, either. That’s pretty significant in itself. And isn’t that enough?

At a time when everyone seems to have an agenda, it’s nice to lay the agenda aside. Nearly all of the words aimed at us have a target. We are bombarded with a relentless assortment of words (and images) specially crafted to elicit a response from us. They are designed to make us want to buy something, do something, or feel good about something. I’m not just talking about advertising either.

Most of the people I interact with have an agenda, too. I can’t tell you how many times a conversation has turned on the phrase, “Let me tell you why I called/dropped by.”  I just did it myself, not half an hour ago. I called a friend, exchanged a few pleasantries about their recent trip to Morocco (like I cared . . . well actually I did). But then I heard myself say those words . . . “Let me tell you why I called.”  Conversation over!

I don’t mean that my friend hung up on me . . . but we quit talking for sake of talking and the agenda took over, so the conversation ended. I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, checked it off my list, but we never got back around to their trip, their family, nor anything else that’s important to them. I ought to call them back and start the conversation all over again with the same words, “Let me tell you why I called.”  Only this time I could add, . . . “I called just to talk.”  Wouldn’t that be something?

I posted a few days ago that my father-in-law (Allen) had passed away. It has been a very hard time for my family. It has also been very interesting to me. Allen was a unique man. He was one of the very few people I ever met who was completely devoted to his church, yet his life was not centered around it.

Allen battled cancer for 10 years. In that time he took every available opportunity to let God use the cancer in him as a witness to others. His devotion to his church meant we didn’t always see eye to eye. He thought he was the person he was because of his church and I thought he was the man he was in spite of his church. Either way I respected him a great deal.

It is the opposing ideas that Allen and I had of what made him the man he was that I found to be so interesting during his visitation. Allen was very well known and loved by people both in his church and outside it. For that reason there were lots and lots of visitors. I watched them. I listened to them. I can’t say that I was amazed by the things that I heard, but I was disappointed.

Look first at some of the quotes from the people he went to church with:

He was at church every Sunday.
He never missed Sunday School.
He was always at the Men’s Prayer Breakfast.
He sure loved his church.
He always gave his tithes.

Now look at some of the quotes I heard from those who don’t go to church:

I have never met a more loving person.
I became a Christian because of Allen.
Allen always loved me no matter what.

There were many more on both sides. That gives you an idea though.

Let’s try to look at these statements as dispassionately as we possibly can. Maybe it would help to get the mindset that you are an alien with no knowledge of the human race, Christianity, or anything. What would the statements you heard say to you about Christians and non Christians?

Looking at that way is actually very scary. It says that Christians care only about their special little club with all it’s rules, rituals and activities centered around a building. It says that nothing is more important than supporting your club with your time and money. In other words, everything is all about the building and the things that happen inside it and very little about about anything outside it.

On the flip side what does this say about non Christians? It seems they are more concerned with the type of life you live. They are concerned with the example you set in front of others.

Is this really the image that Christians want others to see? It seems this is just the mindset and religious junk that caused Jesus to so despise the religious leaders of his day. Yet it permeates today’s Christianity.

I hope someday the culture of Christianity will wake-up and realize what arrogant narcissists we look like to the rest of the world. I hope that someday Christians will realize that we should be the ones leading the charge on issues involving love, compassion, and social justice instead of hiding in our churches away from the big, bad, scary world. If that day ever comes I pray Christians also find the courage and desire to make real changes.

This world could use many more Christians like Allen. Whether because of or in spite of church he was one of the finest examples of Jesus a person could ever meet.

Imagine you are one of the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness hungry. God has promised to provide food for all of you. One morning you wake up to find that Josephus has lots and lots of manna. He tells everyone that God is providing manna to him for everyone.
Josephus sells manna to each family every day for whatever they can pay. He takes food, jewelry, animals, or anything of value.

Before long Josephus starts telling everyone that God has spoken to him and gave him a new set of laws and commandments. He says God has instructed him to only give manna to those that are following the rules he has set before them. Guess what everyone does? They follow Josephus new laws and commandments. After all Josephus is the one that God chose to be the food supplier to all the people of Israel.

Josephus quickly becomes the most wealthy and powerful man of all the Jews. He has replaced Moses as leader.

One night you wake up in the middle of the night to use the nearest tree. As you walk out you notice the ground all around you is covered with manna. You decide to check this out just as soon as you finish doing what brought you out of your tent in the first place. While taking care of business you hear voices and notice that Josephus and his whole family are walking around and picking up all the manna.

The next night you stay up to see what is going on. You notice that manna falls from the sky over the whole encampment and again Josephus and his family are collecting it. You suddenly realize that manna has been free for everyone all along. However, Josephus has led you to believe that the way to get manna is through him. Josephus is a middleman where one is not needed.

How would this make you feel? Would you feel misled? Would you think you had been deceived? Would you be angry? What about resentment?

Allow me to ask one last question. When you read this story do you see an analogy to the modern church? Here’s a hint. Josephus equals the church. The manna equals access to God.

At the end of my last post I said I would be talking about the problems I have come across in this new walk with Jesus. However, I’m struggling to get the things I want to say to come out sounding right. So, if you came looking for that I apologize. I will get to it soon. I hope. Instead I want to go into more detail about something related to the depression I talked about in my previous post.

Alan Knox from “The Assembling of the Church” blog left a comment on my last post about the the terrible reaction of today’s Christian culture to depression in it’s ranks. It got me thinking. Let me tell you some of the reactions I received from Christians concerning my depression:

• It was because of a lack of faith on my part (the same reason Alan mentioned)
• It was because I had unresolved sin in my life
• It was because I didn’t attend Church enough
• It was merely an attack of Satan and if I would just bind him in the name of Jesus he would have to flee and my depression would be gone

There were others, but you get the idea. Eventually I found out my depression did have a cause. An incompetent doctor induced it with faulty treatment for a legitimate medical issue I had. Please understand medically induced depression is just as real as any other. The incredible pain and loneliness simply cannot be described or understood by someone who has never experienced it. The bottom line is my depression was due to something totally beyond my control. Yet every Christian I ran across had a reason for it, and a cure for it. All the reasons blamed me. All the cures involved a church.

I didn’t receive love, grace, and compassion. I received love along with condemnation. I received grace with a side of accusations. I received compassion with a healthy helping of disgust. I received all of them with the need for stronger commitment to church. People told me more than once that they were simply showing me tough love. The result of all the tough love along with the downright ridiculous attitudes displayed by Christians was that I gave up on God at that time. God had been my only hope. I had been clinging to the idea that God was the only thing that was going to pull me out of my depression.

When I couldn’t find God in those whom should have been displaying him I lost hope. I lost the desire to fight. I nearly ended my own life.

Why am I writing this? I merely ask that you think about what I have written here. Not because I want your pity. Not because I want you make apologies or excuses for the actions of people who should have known better. It is because there is a good chance that you are going to run into a person or even more than one person in your life that is depressed to some extent great or small.

When that happens they don’t need your snap judgments, Christian psycho-babble, condemnations, accusations or quick fixes. They need to see love, compassion, and grace. Truck loads of them. In other words they need to see Jesus, and they need to see him in you. If not it may be the last time you see them alive. I know, because several years ago when I couldn’t find Jesus in those around me I was mere moments from that person being me.

It seems a very nice young couple recently reserved the local church they attend for their wedding rehearsal. They made this arrangement several months in advance. It turns out their “reservation” was withdrawn at the last minute so a local community college could rent out the church for some type of ceremony they were holding.

Would you care to guess the reason, or should I say lame excuse they were given as to why the promise made to them to was rescinded without so much as a notice, much less without getting their approval?

“We hadn’t heard anything from you the last few weeks so we just assumed you didn’t want it anymore.” How’s that for an excuse? It sounds like a cop out to me.

My first thought was to question why someone from the church did not call them to make sure of their plans before just pulling the rug out from under them. Is this the only church in North America without a phone? Somehow, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was their first thought also. They chose to be gracious and not make an issue of it when they would have been justified if they had.

My concern is what kind of example this sits for these young people about to start their life together. I can’t speak for them. I don’t know what they are thinking. However, I can tell you what I would be thinking in their shoes.

I would wonder why the commitment my church and those running it made to me suddenly couldn’t be honored when money got involved in the situation. I would be giving serious consideration to finding a church that cared a little more about me.

Am I being too critical? Or does this whole situation turn your stomach too?

Let me start by apologizing to anyone who may be offended by reading this post.

In the church I used to attend there is a lady that I have spent more time than I should have spent trying to figure out her ’style of worship’. That is the nice way of putting it.

Let me describe her worship in the most blunt way I can. She wails. I don’t mean one of those quiet cryers either. The best analogy I can think of is to imagine what it would sound like if the siren on an emergency vehicle got stuck. Yes, it is one long monotonous shrill moan that only stops long enough for her to draw a breath and start again. Although the length of times she can go in between breaths in staggering. Her lungs must be HUGE.

The volume of her wail would put any siren to shame. I knew a rocker type guy that had one of those shirts that said “If it’s too loud, you’re too old”. After sitting in front of her one Sunday morning he went home and burned it. True story. OK, not it’s not, but it makes the point about how loud she wails.

I can attest from personal experience that sitting near this woman is a guarantee that you will leave church with a headache. Many people have simply moved, usually across the church from her. Some people have actually got up and walked out. Once or twice people have even asked her to tone it down. Nearly every time a baby is anywhere close they too begin to wail. I’m pretty sure they hear her and believe she is issuing them a personal challenge.

It also helps to understand when she wails. During the whole song service . . . she wails. While the rest of the congregation is singing words to all the songs she on the other hand is wailing her megadecibel monotone shrill noise. During times of prayer . . . she wails. If it is corporate prayer the wailing is at full volume. If the pastor is leading a prayer while everyone else is silently praying she wails at a volume only slightly louder than that of the pastor. During the altar call . . . she wails.

I hope you can imagine this. If you find yourself thinking it can’t be as bad as you are imagining it I can tell you that it really is. This has all led to some questions that I would love to get some opinions on from anyone who reads this.

1) Is this a legitimate form of worship?

2) Can anything which is a distraction to everyone else around you really even be considered worship?

3)Should the leadership of the church put a stop to this? (they seem to be hesitant to do so)

4) Couldn’t something that causes this much confusion, discomfort, and even pain actually be classified as the opposite of worship?

Over on the Free Believers Network there is a blog post entitled Freedom From The Tree.  This is one of the best pieces I have read about the real freedom that we have in Christ.  It is a little lengthy, but I guarantee it is worth your time.   Click the post title above and read it now.

Sinners - those people that should be avoided at all cost so that our church friends won’t think we hang out with the wrong crowd, besides Jesus would never hang out with sinners, right?

Witnessing. Three verses in the Bible that say a lot to me on the topic are listed below. The first one everyone uses to witness. It is the most well known verse in the whole Bible. I believe the two verses that follow should mold and shape the way we witness to others.

“ 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
- John 3: 16-18 New King James Version

Thank God for the grace to allows us to have eternal life. Did you catch the other parts though? The part about God making salvation possible because of his love for each of us. What about the part about salvation coming from belief in Jesus? It isn’t through condemnation of our sins or imperfections. It is through belief in Jesus brought about by God’s love.

What does this say about the way we should witness? If Jesus came to bring salvation through love and not condemnation shouldn’t our witness follow that example? Yet, how often do we use condemnation of someone’s sins as a starting point for our witness? Every time you start pointing out what you perceive as someone’s sins you are taking part in condemnation. Verse 18 tells us that not believing in Jesus is condemnation all by itself. In other words we could be sinless and still be condemned if we don’t believe in Jesus. So it is pointless to tell a non-Christian about all the sins they are committing. Allow the Holy Spirit to bring about conviction. That’s his job. Your job as a witness is to show them the way to salvation so they can understand God’s love. The Holy Spirit can convict and condemn much more loving than you ever could anyway. If you really feel the need to point out to someone that they are a sinner just show them that in Romans 5:8 it says Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. At least then you put a positive spin on things.

Why do you think it is important that John 3:17 pointed out that salvation does not come through condemnation? Think about it. I’ll use a over the top example as illustration. Imagine you are introduced to two people. One of them immediately starts pointing out everything they perceive to be your faults and wrongdoings. The other accepts you and loves you despite your shortcomings. You then find out they are both part of differing clubs. They are each representative of the people in their particular club. Both have asked you to join. Which one would you join? We would all join the club with the person that loves and respects us no matter what. You wouldn’t want to be like the obnoxious people in the first group that expect you to make multiple changes before they accept you, right? The same thing applies to your witness. If your witness makes Christianity look like a stuck-up country club I can promise that you are pushing people away.

In my experience the most important part of witnessing is timing. Are you one of those Christians that anytime you are around a non-Christian you think you must be witnessing to them? There are times people simply are not going to be receptive to any witness. Maybe they have so much on their mind at that moment that not only do they not want something else to think, but they simply couldn’t process it at that time anyway. Maybe they are just in a bad mood. The best witness in these situations might simply be to show them God’s love instead of telling them about it. Your actions can be much stronger than your words. God made every person different. That means you can’t use a cookie-cutter approach to witnessing. What works for one person may not work for everyone. So you have to let the Holy Spirit lead you. There are times when you will be prompted to speak about Jesus and salvation. There will be times when you are prompted to simply take action to help or love someone. There will even be times when your witness would be best served to set back, shut your mouth and give someone the time and space they need at that moment.

If you never give a spoken witness shame on you. God has not called any of us to silence when it comes to telling others about him. There is a flip side of this coin though. If you always give a spoken witness to everyone there is a good chance you have pushed people in the wrong direction. Because a word spoken at the wrong time no matter how well intended can have disastrous results. So, yes timing is important.

When the chance to tell someone about Jesus and the salvation he offers presents itself don’t overdo it. It’s a fairly simple message. Adding extra to it doesn’t help get the message across. You may even find you have added something that causes a problem for the person you are witnessing to. You should make it seem simple, because it is. This is definitely a situation where less is more. As you go about your witnessing from now on remember one thing. By witnessing to someone you are presenting yourself as an example of Jesus to that person. If you are going to be someone’s example of Jesus it better be loving.