I have been thinking a lot over the last two days about my message topic for Sunday: "What's Good about Fear?"
Fear can be a terrible emotion to deal with. I have moments and events in my life that I don't care to live over. I remember well my first experience of fear (my first memory of it). I was only six years old. Everyday when I walked home from school an older boy on a bike chased me. This lasted until my parents addressed it with the parents of the boy. Even today I can still feel the sense of fear that would overcome me at such a young age.
Fear is a part of our emotional makeup. I would guess that if you can't feel some level of fear then that would be abnormal. Since we are created by God, fear must be a part of the plan of our creation. Therefore we might say that fear itself is an emotion that God has given us for His holy purpose.
This leads me to believe that fear is a good thing and shouldn't be avoided. As God's children we need to develop a healthy approach to the emotion of fear. What message from God is fear trying to give us? The Bible tells us that "The fear of God is the beginning of [both] knowledge and wisdom." Knowledge is to know and wisdom is to practice what you know. It is one thing to know fear, but another to respond in an appropriate and positive way to its dictates. I know that the stove is hot, but it would be wise for me not to touch it.
It is therefore quite normal to have a healthy fear of God. Why? Isn't God all about love and doesn't the Bible say that "perfect love cast out fear." This is true, but one must ask what is the motivator that turns one toward God's love in the first place. Is it not a healthy fear of Him? Our sinful nature does not allow us to desire God's love as long as we live according to its dictates. If I live for the pleasures of myself then I am not aware of the magnitude of God's love for me; therefore I am not aware of its power to relieve me of all my fears. It is fear itself that initiates the power of God's love; and once released into our lives it overpowers every fear.
In Sunday's message I will talk further to this topic. I will discuss the impending judgment to come and how fear wants to play a part in reconciling the world unto God. Judgment cannot be avoided. It is better to experience a little bit of fear on this side of judgment then to stand before God condemned to hell. Then real fear will set in.
Sobering thoughts!
Blessings,
-Leo
Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
What does it Take to be the Church
An interesting discussion came out of last night's Bible Study about the church. I shared with my group some of my cynicism acquired from 30 years of experience as a pastor. I stated that the church is in a mess and we have it all screwed up.
I love my Bible Study group. I think that they have grown accustom to my rants (I hope). Some very kindly disagreed with my opinion about the church last night, while others simply kept quite, and maybe some even agreed just a little bit.
What I meant by my cynical statements has to do with understanding the church from God's point of view. We have lots of good reasons for doing the things we do. We can come up with great reasons why to leave one work in order to attend somewhere else. I shared the reason for my rant on this topic: 7 kids from our youth group decided to attend another youth group because they are offering an awesome mission trip.
Although it was pointed out to me that there were other reasons these kids started attending another church youth group - one being that it was the church where parents of one of the youth attended and wanted their daughter to start going there (and I understand this reason completely) - I still maintain that we have it all messed up in terms of how we do church.
Church is big business in North America. Many churches operate on the principle of growth. It becomes the main mission of the church. The larger a church grows the more money they have to grow; and the more money they have to grow, the more attractive they can make themselves to other Christians; and the more they grow.
They may attribute this growth to the fact that God is blessing their work. My question however is: Does God curse the little church in order to bless the larger, richer churches with more growth? Does God say to the small rural church, "It's time to close your doors because I no longer place any value in you?" The little church cannot compete with the organizational growth machine of the larger, richer churches. At least some of the growth of these churches are a direct result of people leaving the smaller struggling churches - and they can't afford to lose even one member.
It is sad to say that many Christians drive by the doors of my church every Sunday morning to attend a larger church. These churches have multiple programs to stuff people full of self-help, spiritual growth ministries unto spiritual obesity. Spiritual growth is great as long as it has a "Great Commission" result. If your just taking it all in and not giving it out then your becoming spiritual fat.
In my opinion some of the leadership and pastors of these growth-machine movements really don't care about the small, struggling rural church. They would never say to a person when leaving a church to come to theirs, "Why don't you return to the work of the church in your community? They really need you there." Instead, they may send a group of their converted breed into a small rural community to plant a church like themselves. As I said in last week's blog: probably very few people have a "Great Commission" reason for leaving their church to go to another. I have asked people why they have left the church where I was serving and more than once the response was, "We just want to go to a place where we can sit back and not have to do something."
Any church will only survive when people have faith in its values. God strategically plants churches in large communities and small communities for his good work and purpose of the Great Commission. You see church is all about Christians gathering together to become relational in the name of Jesus with their neighbors and friends where they live their daily lives - in their community. Where does it say in scripture that the Christians of Philippi slipped over to Ephesus to pursuade the Christians of Ephesus to come to the church of Philippi? In the old days we called that sheep steeling, and it was thought of as a grave sin among pastors.
I think maybe we have reduced the value of church down to our own values in church. The mindset now exits that church is there to serve us, instead of us being there to serve Christ through the church. We need to get back to the Great Commission value of the church. If the church that we now attend has lost site of the Great Commission value, only then should it be time to look for another.
Some more of my ranting, cynical thoughts. These feelings come out of many years of many frustrations in trying to be a Great Commission pastor leading Great Commission churches in small communities where a local, relational witness of Christ is greatly needed.
Blessings,
-Leo
I love my Bible Study group. I think that they have grown accustom to my rants (I hope). Some very kindly disagreed with my opinion about the church last night, while others simply kept quite, and maybe some even agreed just a little bit.
What I meant by my cynical statements has to do with understanding the church from God's point of view. We have lots of good reasons for doing the things we do. We can come up with great reasons why to leave one work in order to attend somewhere else. I shared the reason for my rant on this topic: 7 kids from our youth group decided to attend another youth group because they are offering an awesome mission trip.
Although it was pointed out to me that there were other reasons these kids started attending another church youth group - one being that it was the church where parents of one of the youth attended and wanted their daughter to start going there (and I understand this reason completely) - I still maintain that we have it all messed up in terms of how we do church.
Church is big business in North America. Many churches operate on the principle of growth. It becomes the main mission of the church. The larger a church grows the more money they have to grow; and the more money they have to grow, the more attractive they can make themselves to other Christians; and the more they grow.
They may attribute this growth to the fact that God is blessing their work. My question however is: Does God curse the little church in order to bless the larger, richer churches with more growth? Does God say to the small rural church, "It's time to close your doors because I no longer place any value in you?" The little church cannot compete with the organizational growth machine of the larger, richer churches. At least some of the growth of these churches are a direct result of people leaving the smaller struggling churches - and they can't afford to lose even one member.
It is sad to say that many Christians drive by the doors of my church every Sunday morning to attend a larger church. These churches have multiple programs to stuff people full of self-help, spiritual growth ministries unto spiritual obesity. Spiritual growth is great as long as it has a "Great Commission" result. If your just taking it all in and not giving it out then your becoming spiritual fat.
In my opinion some of the leadership and pastors of these growth-machine movements really don't care about the small, struggling rural church. They would never say to a person when leaving a church to come to theirs, "Why don't you return to the work of the church in your community? They really need you there." Instead, they may send a group of their converted breed into a small rural community to plant a church like themselves. As I said in last week's blog: probably very few people have a "Great Commission" reason for leaving their church to go to another. I have asked people why they have left the church where I was serving and more than once the response was, "We just want to go to a place where we can sit back and not have to do something."
Any church will only survive when people have faith in its values. God strategically plants churches in large communities and small communities for his good work and purpose of the Great Commission. You see church is all about Christians gathering together to become relational in the name of Jesus with their neighbors and friends where they live their daily lives - in their community. Where does it say in scripture that the Christians of Philippi slipped over to Ephesus to pursuade the Christians of Ephesus to come to the church of Philippi? In the old days we called that sheep steeling, and it was thought of as a grave sin among pastors.
I think maybe we have reduced the value of church down to our own values in church. The mindset now exits that church is there to serve us, instead of us being there to serve Christ through the church. We need to get back to the Great Commission value of the church. If the church that we now attend has lost site of the Great Commission value, only then should it be time to look for another.
Some more of my ranting, cynical thoughts. These feelings come out of many years of many frustrations in trying to be a Great Commission pastor leading Great Commission churches in small communities where a local, relational witness of Christ is greatly needed.
Blessings,
-Leo
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