daily java

Daily Java:

Peter said, “We’ve left our homes to follow you.” “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.” (Luke 18:28-30)

This passage follows the narrative of a man who came up to Jesus and asked him what else he needs to do. He had been faithful to God since he was a child. Is there anything else? Jesus told him to sell everything he had and follow Jesus. The scripture says that they man was sad because he was rich. Jesus then said that it was very difficult for rich men to get into heaven. Their wealth stood in the way. All of the other wealthy people asked who would be able to come in then?

In an interesting aside to Jesus, Peter wants encouragement that he has done the right thing. He also wants to hear Jesus say he has. When you have given up everything you have to follow Jesus, you want to know you did the right thing.

Jesus’ answer was yes, you did well.

Jesus didn’t usually compliment his disciples on things that we have recorded. But you know that they had to worry about it on occasion. Here they are, giving up good businesses and lives to follow an itinerant preacher around, a man who is always in trouble with the authorities. You know they wanted encouragement.

And Jesus gave it to them.

I read an article today by a man who was, I suppose, a speaker on church transformation and church growth in the more liberal arena. It was about young people not coming to church and the various reasons. One comment really struck me.

There's a question I ask nearly every congregation I get asked to come speak to. Before we get into any other real substance about congregational transformation, I ask them: "If you could realize your vision for the community today, right now, but it meant closing the doors of your church forever, would you do it?"
If the answer is "no," then the mission has taken a back seat to something more nefarious. If the answer is "yes," and if they are truly committed to doing WHATEVER it takes with their personal and material resources to live out the Gospel, then we have something to work with.
I'm not saying every church has to – and will – shut down forever in order to meet their new mission field's needs. But if we're not even willing to consider the possibility, it's we who have a distorted value system; and those young adults wary of our motives are actually right in their skepticism about us. (Christian Piatt, "Huffington Post," April 16, 2012)

What is important to us? Is the presence of our church building and actual physical facility so important that we will do anything to hold on to it? Most churches are not growing, and if anything are declining. Even the one I attend, even though it is a good church with a good pastor, is only moderately growing. It has taken 35 years of one man’s ministry and 75 years total for the church to grow to the less than 200 there are today.

So what is the point? What if the church here could do better by disbanding and doing something else? And what would that something else be? What would it look like? What form would it take?

When we say that we think of selling the church and wandering the streets, giving out tracts or sandwiches or something. It is almost a picture of people in robes wandering about.

But is that necessarily what it means? The whole thing boils down to one question: what is most important to us? Is our physical church so important that we will do anything whatsoever to keep it going? What if it is dying and there is no real way to resuscitate it? What if the neighborhood has changed and our church is no longer culturally relevant.

There are a lot of lone outposts of 1950’s style religion sitting in neighborhoods that have changed so dramatically. The outposts will not change and a few are paying the bills to keep the doors open. And for what

Would we give up everything for the kingdom if preaching the kingdom demanded it? Would we restructure our whole way of looking at things if the success of the kingdom required it? Would we sell all of our physical property, get rid of all our stuff, as such, if it would help in the preaching of the kingdom?

Would we close the doors of our church buildings if by so doing we would open the doors of the kingdom to others?

In my own life I have done some of that. I am not sure it was necessarily a conscious decision on my part, but it has ended up in that direction. What can I do in a world setting with no church building, no facilities, no money, to bring people to Jesus in a fulfilling way? Would such a person, a group be viable to young people?

Are we as churches just too tied to our stuff?

diffferent kinds of gifts

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  (1 Corinthians 12:4)

I have told my wife that the infinite diversity of women is fascinating. In fact the infinite diversity of people in general is something I love. That’s one reason I like sitting at the mall watching people.

It is almost a sociological parade. Every different variety you can imagine. It amazes me that a man can settle on one woman.

Yet I did and am happy. Out of all the world’s women I landed on one pretty early in life. And I have liked it.

But in some ways it is the same in church. You go into the average church and there are all kinds of people. Even in small churches, that is the case. You find everybody of every talent and ability.

The reason for that is that God made us to go together. Just like he made men and women to go together, he made all of the members of the church to go together. They complement each other.

God made each church with the right amount of people to make it grow. Even the smallest church has enough to make it grow.

The problem is most churches either don’t realize it or refuses to realize it. It is easier to deny it than it is to work. It is easier to wish of more people and wish that others would come in.

It is like the guy who says he cannot find a decent girl. My thought: are you a moron? I see nothing but great looking girls everywhere I look and you can’t get one?

I look at a church and I see a lot of great talented people sitting around, yet the church is not growing. They wonder why and you think, it is because you are not doing anything.

The Lord blessed each church with a multitude of talents. They all work differently, but the same God works all of them in all men. And it is all, as he says, is given for the common good.
He didn’t give those people accounting skills, musical talent, leadership ability, teacher training – just to help them make money. He gave those talents to them to cause them to help the church grow.

Just as he gave me my wife to fill my life.

an old dream

I had a dream last year and just came over the entry in my computer files. I got up at 3:50 that morning and wrote it down so I would remember it.

I believe in dreams and that they tell you a lot, sometimes what it is that God wants you to know. And then sometimes, they are just an overactive imagination. Hard to tell which sometimes. That is a common failing of Pentecostals. Every dream is not a revelation from God. Most are not.

But here the dream is:

I had decided to start a church. When I looked around, there were a lot of people with me to do so. I told them that the church we were to start would be a loud, obnoxious, edgy church.

I preached to them for quite a while about what our vision was. One thing I said was that I had been there and back again, that I had been the gamut of kinds of preacher – religious and otherwise. I had seen the elephant. (not sure if that phrase was in the dream or came afterwards when I had woken up)

During the sermon, there were interruptions, and I would deal with them. This including people talking to each other, and one person, in the middle of the sermon, asking another if there was any way he could seal his Bible shut. He did this quite loudly. I suppose he wanted to make some point. So I finally took him down a ladder from where we were (up on a highway of sorts with our stuff around us) and pointed to town and told him he could find someone to help him there. Then I left him there climbed back up and resumed. I sang, acappella, the song Send the Light.

As I preached, I walked along the group, which was spread out along the highway, yet in town somewhere.

The group I had with me was age wise and racially diverse. It surprised me that they were there with me. In fact, I told someone that I was surprised that someone had followed me in this venture. I don’t remember seeing Ella. But it was an exciting experience.

I know that I will never start a church again, but it sure looked fun.

I do not know what the dream meant. Maybe articulated wishful thinking.