It's Time to Grow Up!

He pulled up to the light next to me… inching forward… His engine revving… Without even looking I knew who was there… It was one of those young country boys with an ego bigger than his Wranglers… in his lifted Dodge pickup truck decked out with all the goods, wanting to race off the light through the intersection. How did I know? Because this is a rural, “good ‘ol boy” ranching community and 20 yards after the intersection two lanes will narrow to one.  The race for ego, pride, and ultimately respect in small town livin’ was on!

I gripped the wheel tight… tapped my gas petal, feeling for the response… and waited for the light to change! If I could just get a jump on the light, I could do this… 20 yards, I would be in front, he would be eating my dust and I could slow down before I passed the CHP office up ahead.

He revved his engine again as the crossing light turned yellow, knowing the time was close… I had to take a glance… What I saw made everything within me want to break out in laughter! The “lifted Dodge pickup truck decked out with all the goods” was actually an old, beat up, Chevy work truck… The “young country boy with an ego bigger than his Wranglers” was actually an old roughed up, over the hill, gray hair with a scruffy beard and a Taco Bell burrito in one hand… I did get a couple of things right though… He had an ego bigger than his Wranglers and he wanted to race!

I was caught off guard as the light changed and his engine roared! He got the jump and was halfway through the intersection before I hit the gas on my soccer-mom minivan… trying, unsuccessfully, to hold back the laughter! Had I really just engaged in that nonsense, allowing my mind to descend into the abyss of high school, new driver, stupidity?! I had! And I was so glad that time had long passed!  

But a quick word for the “old roughed up, over the hill, gray hair”… It’s time to grow up brother! You’ve been sitting in that seat too long! The steering wheel cover is showing wear and the dice on the mirror have long since been faded by the sun… It’s time to grow up!

And then conviction sets in… and I see the state of the Church… Sitting in the same seat too long… The wear beginning to show… The dice quickly fading… 

Hebrews 5:11-14 is paraphrased in The Message explaining, “I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.”

Church?! It’s time to grow up!

Keeping X in Christmas

Been wrestling again… This time with the whole Xmas versus Christmas and Happy Holidays versus Merry Christmas deal… I think once again we, as Christ followers, are fighting the wrong battle…

Walk with me here for a bit… "X" is the Greek letter "Chi" which is short for Cristos meaning Christ… So in reality Xmas is Christmas.

Happy Holidays tells me the person sending the greeting is possibly not a follower of Jesus, so it opens the door for me to bless them with a smile and a sincere "Merry Christmas".

The wrestling for me comes when Christ followers get all up in arms about these relatively insignificant issues while succumbing to the consumerist mentality that secular society has forced on this holy holiday and are so concerned with Black Friday and Cyber Monday that they forget about JESUS humble, awe inspiring, wondrous birth.  I mean GOD coming to this earth as one of us… one of His own creation… so that we can be saved from the mess we've made for ourselves!!  And we are so focused on the best deal or the fact that someone replaces the English spelling of Christ with the Greek abbreviation that we totally forget about the baby.

AND if someone is unknowingly or even intentionally wishing "happy holidays!" or writing "Merry Xmas!" in an anti-Christ manner, don't you think we should be should be more concerned about their souls than the way they are celebrating the holiday…. hmmm? Just something to think about… It's deeper than this surface issue… It's a matter of the heart.

I hope your holiday is happy and you are truly able to focus on X this Christmas… The baby born as a man for the salvation of the multitudes… the GREATEST gift of all!

APATHEISM, Father forgive us...

(Disclaimer... I am not apologizing here for what I am saying, but I see the following attitude not as an attitude attributed to my particular church only, but to the church in America as a whole with very few exceptions. Not making excuses, just making honest observations... If this attitude weren't present in today's church, things would be VERY different in this nation. If you are reading this as a part of the church community I am directly a part of and ministering in, please don't see this as judgement, but, if you are feeling upset, it could possibly be conviction... The Spirit of God calling you to something more... Join me in this, what Platt would call, "Holy discontent" and don't run away with your tail between your legs, but step up and say, "Father, what do you have for me today?" and do it!)

Last week I was introduced to a term I had never heard before... APATHEISM... I’m not sure where I heard it. I believe it was while reading a blog or scrolling through Facebook, but I can’t get it out of my head.  Apatheism... a combination of “apathy” and “theism” referring to an apathetic view of God.  The idea that “ya, I believe in God, but I just don’t really care” that is rampant in today’s society.  As I’ve been thinking about this word I have been wrestling with some things:

1. Where does this attitude come from?

-Is it because we have been raised in a “Christian society” where people were just expected to have morals and belong to a church? And, since that attitude is changing in today’s culture (seems like there are more people who don’t go to church these days than do... the question isn’t “where do you go to church?” anymore, but “DO you go to church?”), people have just decided that it’s easier to just not care. 

-Could it be because real relationship with Jesus leads to life change?

-Maybe it’s because following Christ closely involves risk? 

-Maybe it’s just because they just don’t see the urgency of it... They don’t realize how important it really is. (Could this be the church’s fault?!)

      2.Is this attitude of apatheism just present outside the church?

-NO! I think a big part of the problem is this attitude WITHIN the church! When there is a need in church for a volunteer and the response you get is “I’ve already done my time”... that shows apatheism. “I don’t really care if there is a need. I’ve already ‘earned my salvation’” so why should I give up my study... where i’ve been for 30 years... after all I have to learn what the Bible says so I can live it out! (Problem is... by the time we know the book well enough to live it out, we won’t have enough life left in us to make it happen!)

Recently our church took part in the My Hope Campaign with Billy Graham... a campaign designed to bring Graham’s evangelism rallies into the home by hosting small private parties where a video is shared and an invitation to salvation is given.  We provided our church with resources and training... Over 350 names were written down of people we were praying for, who we hoped would respond to the hope of Jesus through this event.  

When the time came... apart from church staff and the church parties, less than a handful of parties were hosted... and the number of people who attended the church parties who didn’t already attend the church could be counted on 2 hands.  Why?  Is this apatheism? Does the church just NOT CARE about their friends who are living outside a relationship with Jesus? Or are they too afraid (afraid of reputation or rejection) to invite them?  Or... do we think we have done our duty just because we prayed? Hmmmm? 

And now that the “parties” are over the attitude I sense is “whew! Glad that’s over!”  No need to feel convicted anymore because the campaign is over. Too bad I missed my chance, guess I can go on with my comfortable christianity now.

I think you can probably sense my sarcasm and frustration.... You see? God’s call to follow Him and His call to MAKE DISCIPLES isn’t a call to participate in a campaign or a program... It is a call to deny oneself daily, take up ones cross and follow!  It’s a call to sacrifice... to give of ones self for the sake of another... It’s a call that doesn’t end but remains 24/7/365 until the day you die.... “Well, I did my time! I taught Sunday School for 3 years without a break!”  Good for you... Jesus did His time too... all the way to the cross!

Maybe we, in the church, are too isolated from the world. We don’t have any “unsaved” friends.  Then we need to get out into the world and MAKE SOME NEW FRIENDS!

Maybe we, in the church, are too comfortable with our lives... we don’t want to have to give up our big screen tvs and blueray collections... and we let our neighbors (remember the good samaritan story!) go without food and heat.

Maybe our church community has finally made it to a place where there are no major scandals or issues... we can’t let anyone into the inner circle who might bring problems with them! I seem to have read somewhere that Jesus came for the sick not well... hmmm?

OUR HEARTS are SO FAR from where God and His Word call us to be. We want what Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace”... and as we seek after this grace without sacrifice we are dying inside and killing the church, the bride of Christ, in the process.

Apatheism?  Father forgive us... we know what we are doing, but sometimes it seems we just don’t care.