Answer To All Our Problems

I have been reading through the book of Acts in my quiet time and seeing how the church grew from the very beginning. It is incredible to see the zeal that these new converts had and to see how God working despite the opposition trying to squelch the Good News from being preached. It is interesting to me to note what was preached by the early preachers. Christ was preached. Christ crucified and risen again. This was the message spread across the region. There was no “rockin” praise band or cool direct mailers to promote the service, but friends invited friends to hear the Good News. I have noticed a trend in many “contemporary” churches on sermon topics in the past few years. Parenting, sex, finances, singleness, addiction, and small group involvement appear to be the main topics of discussion. I want to call it the Dr. Phil theology where the church is setup to address and fix everyone’s problems. However, Jesus did not come to solve everyone’s problems, and the church was not founded to “fix” its membership’s issues. Jesus could have solved world hunger, but He didn’t. World hunger was not our greatest need. Jesus could have overthrown the Roman government and had an established Kingdom here on earth, but He did not do that because that was not His primary purpose in coming. Jesus is The Answer to our greatest need, but I do not believe that He came to solve all of our problems. My concern is that the church is “selling” success more than it is preaching the Word. Want a happy marriage; then follow these steps. The steps may or may not be loosely based on a Bible passage taken out of context. What do we tell people that still end up in broken marriages, bankrupt, and with children who make poor decisions after following these steps to success? The fact is that we can follow these steps taught in church and still end up in divorce. Why because we are all sinners and all human. Tithing does not guarantee financial success and following Christ does not mean that our lives will be perfect and all of our problems will be solved. Jesus is the answer to our greatest need, eternity with God. However, to sell Jesus as the answer to all of our problems is not right and will end up doing more harm than good in the long run. The Word of God is to be preached and proclaimed. The Good News still applies today and should still be taught.

Have Answers?

Have you ever been in a spot where you wanted to find out God's will? Where you wanted that answer from God? I was spending some time praying this morning on an item that is very heavy on my heart. I felt a different twist during the prayer time. Do I want the answer to my prayer more than my relationship with God? I think that many times in my life, I have wanted to answer more than God. My prayer today is that I will value and love God more than even having an answer to my prayer.

High School Reunion

My oldest daughter likes High School Musical, but my world has been rocked by talks of High School Reunion. The emails started a couple of weeks ago about planning the North Florida Christian School Class of 1989 reunion, and not just any reunion but a 20 year reunion! Has it really been 20 years? In some ways it only seems like yesterday that we graduated and in other ways it seems a whole lifetime ago. To put things in perspective, here is a list of top movies, songs and tv shows from 1989 (I feel old looking back at this list).

Top 10 Movies (according to Amazon.com):
Batman, Ghostbusters 2, Back to the Future 2, Steel Magnolias, Look Who's Talking, Christmas Vacation, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Dead Poets Society, Driving Miss Daisy, and Dead Poets Society

Billboard'sTop 10 Pop Songs:
Another Day in Paradise (Phil Collins), Miss You Much (Janet Jackson), Straight Up (Paula Abdul), Right Here Waiting (Richard Marx), Lost In Your Eyes (Debbie Gibson), Like A Prayers (Madonna), We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel), Two Hearts (Phil Collins), When I See You Smile (Bad English), Blame it on the Rain (Milli Vanilli)

Top 10 TV Shows:
Roseanna, The Cosby Show, Cheers, A Different World, American's Funniest Home Videos, The Golden Girls, 60 Minutes, The Wonder Years, Empty Nest, Monday Night Football

By Works of Righteousness

In my many years of being involved in the church, I have always heard a Pastor refer to “Spiritual” growth. Ironically, “Spiritual” growth is almost always measured by an individual’s works in the church. The church seems to believe that the more actions that an individual performs; the more that person grows "Spiritually". Usually the first measured action is attendance. A person begins by attending service and then begins to “grow” from there. The next “growth” step is then giving. After giving, the person progresses to small group attendance. From there, they may serve or even move into leadership. Most church circles refer to this as their “discipleship” model. Recently, I have begun to question this as a method for tracking “growth” or “discipleship”? Do actions always model what is occurring in the heart? It is worth noting that salvation is not based on works, but the trend by the church is to base a person’s spiritual growth entirely on their works. What is the best way to track this? Honestly, I don't know, but it would be interesting to find a different method to track "Spiritual" growth.

Life Experiences

Life experiences, both good and bad, have the potential to change us forever. For example, those who have been on airplanes that have made emergency landings tend to view air travel much differently than those who have never encountered any airline problems.

Last Saturday afternoon, we had our spiritual abuse/cult recovery support group meeting. As Angela and I began driving home from this meeting, I realized just how much my experience with spiritual abuse has forever changed me. The recovery process is long and hard, and I realize that much progress has been made on my journey. It was not that long ago that the idea of setting foot in a church was a daunting task to me because I never wanted to go back to church again. It was almost as if I was going back to the scene of a crime. Spiritual abuse is not something that I have encountered just once in my past, but I have experienced it in many of my previous church experiences. In addition, I have seen people close to me just destroyed in the name of ministry or minister. Angela and I discussed just how much we have progressed on this journey of recovery. We actually have started attending a church again, and this is a HUGE step for me. However, the idea of being involved in a small group is still intimidating. I don’t know if I am ready for that yet or not, but that is ok. Recovery takes time and healing will take place in my life there as well.

Whenever I spoke at churches in the Orlando area I always had an analogy that I used in regards to our Christian walk. This analogy is that in our Christian walk we never “arrive”. We never get to a point where we have made it and have totally figured everything out. This is true in recovery too. Recovery is a journey and I don’t think that I will ever “arrive”. Rather, I will journey on this road, for my experiences have forever changed me.

Travel Issues

I was scheduled to fly back to DFW from Nashville yesterday evening at 6:40 PM. However, I finished my work a little early and headed straight to the airport to catch the earlier 4:30 PM flight. I was put on the standby list for the earlier, and it looked very favorable. The earlier flight was then delayed to a 5:00 PM departure but I was able to depart sooner than my originally scheduled flight. Just as I was boarding the now 5:00 PM flight, I saw that my original 6:40 PM flight was delayed to 9:40 PM. Wow, I was glad to catch the earlier flight. Once I landed at DFW, I received the following email on my phone:

American Airlines Flight 1155

Date: March 30

Departing: Nashville, TN

Arriving: Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX

Status: Cancelled

To make alternate flight arrangements, call American Airlines at 1-800-433-7300.

Let's just say that I am incredibly grateful to have caught the earlier flight or I would probably still be in Nashville today.

Quote of the Day

I still continue to read The Pressure's Off: There's a New Way to Live by Dr. Larry Crabb. Here is part of a paragraph that I thought was interesting.

"We assume church growth and strong book sales are proof of God's blessing. They may be only the result of good marketing and fleshly appeal."