-from John Donne, Meditation XVII.

(via Monoscope)

“‘You have no right to make me do things against my will!’

‘when you have a will, you will find that no one can.’”

“The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye.”

“I began to learn that it was impossible to live for oneself even, save in the presence of others–then, alas, fearfuly possible!  Evil was only through good!  Selfishness but a parasite on the tree of life.”

“I saw now that a man alone is but a being that may become a man–that he is but a need, and therefore a possibility.  To be enough for himself, a being must be an eternal, self-existent worm.”

- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (via Alan Jacob’s Tumblr)

“The ways by which the truth of the gospel comes  home to the heart and conscience of this or that person are always mysterious.   They cannot be programs and they cannot be calculated. But  where a community is living in alert faithfulness, they happen.”

From The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin.

I can just hear Billy’s voice as I read this, urging us to hold the line.  It appears sometimes that there is no one being saved, that we must do something, start some program, trick a few people in.  But there is hope and encouragement in this: “where a community is living in alert faithfulness, they happen.”

From The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, by Lesslie Newbigin.

Interstate Romance

Perhaps the bumper fish,

is an indication of the character within.

Passing by, I catch her eye,

and flash my bible to the window

to demonstrate my hope of commonality.

Again another pass-

bare foot extended

drops flung from the windshield

by the speeding-ahead wind

sting the toes.

A smile,

an awkward glance,

and finally a distant chuckle,

is all I receive in return.

119 miles farther down interstate 65

with Chicago still ahead.

The best I can accomplish

to confess my love

is a fog drawn heart

framing my nervous grin.

exit 84–

a momentary waved farewell–

The last I’ll see of her

is not her face but her tail-lights

The typical person leaving a church for the wrong reasons either has a problem with themselves or a problem with someone else. In the first case, they have been challenged or pressed on an issue in their life that they don’t want to give up or face; so they just leave. This is becoming increasingly rare as most churches in America are shying away from preaching any material that would actually confront an individual in an effort to make their congregation more comfortable.

Because of this lack of life altering, challenging message, the second case is becoming all too frequent. As church becomes another place for sinners to develop a social network, it is no surprise that deep and lasting conflicts are often developed between individuals within the church. Instead of working these relational difficulties out in a biblically sound way, people usually just give up. We need more churches who will refuse new members if they still have a conflict with someone at an old church.

If the problem of church shopping in America was limited to disgruntled individuals, I would not be writing this post. The fact is, however, that most Churches today actually cater to this kind of behavior. Because it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually bring new people to Christianity without the Spirit of God moving, most churches rely on grabbing members who are already ‘christians’ from other churches in order to keep up their farce of success. They depend upon numbers for dollars and will make you feel comfortable if you will sit in their pews.

If you have changed churches recently I’m not attacking you in this post. There are a ton of really good reasons to change churches. I myself went to a different church back in DC before I came to college and found a church in Lexington. I truly believe that God called me here and put me with the group of people I am with now. The thing I am trying to attack most in this post is the behavior of churches and church leadership that encourages non-committal church relationships.

America has lost sight of the fact that intimacy requires commitment. This is most obvious in the marriage realm. Somehow, the church thinks it is fine to marry an individual for the sixth time. Something is wrong with this picture. We teach our children that it is fine to go out and date around, testing the waters of the romance scene without really giving any commitment. This lack of understanding about commitment in relationships is also devastating in our understanding of church. We think that we can take one church out for a few dates, kiss them goodbye then pick the next church up at 8 o’clock the next night. What about the string of broken hearts and broken relationships left behind? Where is the commitment to be faithful to individuals for the long term? I feel like most people are simply ‘playing church’ like most kids ‘play house’. They like to act like they are married without really doing any of the work or knowing what it is about.

I would like to see more church leadership in this area. I would like to see more people step up and structure their churches in such a way that they hold people to a higher standard. I would like to see it clearly stated in church meetings and church literature that part of the vision of the church is to build lasting committed relationships that demonstrate the nature of the kingdom of God. For this to happen there must be a total shift in the way people view church. Most people that I see view church as a place where they can go and get their needs met. This is in total opposition to the life of Jesus Christ. The church is the place where one can go, die to themselves, and provide for others.

If you consider the madness of the Corinthian church, Paul’s priority in addressing her problems is really quite surprising. Most of us would have busted out of the Greeting with all guns blazing at incest and ecclesiastic intoxication (1 Cor. 5 and 11), but Paul recognized a more central, more dangerous problem.

Much like today, believers in Corinth were mixing their faith in Christ with faith in the personality of a ministry. This wasn’t a different religion or a cultish spin-off that Paul was addressing, but men who considered it worth the cost of division to identify with a non-Jesus characteristic.

Does this not happen today? In Corinth it was “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos”; in Contemporary Christian America it’s “I follow R.C. Sproul” or “I follow Rick Warren”. Believers inundate themselves with ministry “materials” and migrate from one conference to the next, never actually drinking divine motivation from the secret place with Christ.

For the record, I love the ministries of Charles Finney, John Wesley, Dallas Willard, Leonard Ravenhill and Billy Henderson, to name a few (not necessarily in that order). They encourage and challenge me to dig deeper into God, but my relationship with God is not contingent on their ministries or their personalities.

There’s a story about a man who confronted Smith Wigglesworth about the behavior of one of his disciples. Essentially, the man cried out, “One of your disciples is bumbling about in the middle of the street drunk.” Wigglesworth responded, “He must be one of my disciples. If he were one of Christ’s, this would not be so.”

Paul also understood that the success of ministry is measured by a believer’s dependence on God alone. He exhorted them not to draw from the peripherals of an individual ministry, but to recognize that “He is the source of our life in Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor. 1:30)

The error of following Paul or Apollos is not uncommon or difficult to fall into. I admit that it’s much easier to read a book about the Bible than to read the Bible itself. And it’s even easier to listen to a sermon on Prayer than it is to spend exclusive, intentional time alone with God.

The materials and persons through which ministry comes are tangible, measurable, and often inspiring. But we lose reality and much more when these are substituted for the rawness of receiving from God himself. Let’s examine the motivators of our lives, and let’s be certain our faith is not mixed with the “wisdom of men,” but rests solely in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5)