What about the good news?
What about the good news?
I have had this blog title in my head for roughly two weeks now and this is the first time that I'm actually able to find time to sit down and write. Of course over a period of two weeks my mind has shifted from different topics of concern, and life itself has changed from 14 days ago... so this entry has changed multiple times before it ever hit the keyboard!
A part of me wants to write off of the expression "what about the good news," and another part really wants to tackle the expression of what it means to be a "Christian" and what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In a way these things correlate and bounce off of one another. It's always a good thing when I sit down to write and both wrists feel healthy and strong, my thoughts are clear and imaginative and I'm aware that I have quite a bit of time on my hands today before I seriously have to encounter anything of importance. Along with the thoughts about the good news and about being a disciple I have also been concerned over a couple other issues such as the position of a Christian in the workplace and about the possibility of women as elders. So as you can tell I have been pretty busy in my head, and in life itself I have been working, preparing the way for Judah to come into this world fairly soon and attempting to be the best husband, father and follower of Christ that I can be!
While on the topic about work, I've realized that a lot of the weight I have been carrying, a lot of the concerns I have had can be or rather should be put somewhere for others to read and possibly even learn from. For the sake of time I will only mention that I have been considering for a while doing a day to day writing that would be collected in bound form and would be called "Workplace theology: Living out the Way in the 9 to 5" I believe that there is a need in the world for someone to express interest in how we must attempt to live out the way of Christ in what is becoming an increasingly secular society. For me the challenge can be found in the smallest of situations and the largest as well. From having to work on a Sunday morning and missing church to realizing that a portion of what you do for work isn't necessarily illegal but is border-line unethical. These are the sort of things that I seek to find answers to and hopefully can help my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ through.
The overall goal of a book like this would be not to "sell" individuals on their "best life now" or getting the 6 digit a year job that they've always wanted... but for the working class, the individual who may have to do a job that at times (let's be honest) they hate but they must do in order to provide for their family, and how they as Christians can change the very fiber of their work situation, not in order to cope or just get by but in order to succeed and eventually move on to their God given occupation. Which again doesn't have to be a 6-digit a year job (actually most of the time it won't be!) but just a job that allows an individual to exercise their gifts, both physical and spiritual.
Enough about that...moving on.
So SQM youth has been going since July, work has a way of making things difficult with attempting to balance both school and my duties with the church. Yet I get by (Tina and I get by) we have grown from a group that does things in a very rigid fashion to a more organic, conversation driven curriculum. We ask questions of one another, we propose answers and we have (or at least I believe we have) a good time. I look forward to seeing things change further over the course of time as the Spirit continues to engage us and grow us as a community. I'm of course still frustrated at being able to get together only once a month, it just doesn't feel adequate enough and yet it's what I have right now to work with. So here's hoping that things continue to move, grow and intrigue.
So what is this blog all about today?
Like I mentioned previously...
Two things.
What about the good news? + what does it mean to be a disciple?
If you don't already know this by now... I'm a big fan of education, I believe that it's essential for any Christian, young, old, etc. I believe that we can go too far with believing that the Christian way is a way of intellectual assent and that by itself is a dead end street. Yet I don't believe it to be the opposite, you know just this "simplistic" kind of faith. I believe in "Simple Faith," while believing in enduring faith and complicated theology. Let me explain if I can... there are a lot of people who might shrug their shoulders at me and go... "Lance, you seek the Bible like you do because of your dreams of being a Pastor, a teacher etc.. " "I don't do that because I'm just a Christian and I have simple faith... you know I just love Jesus." A variety of other expressions can be used to dictate this form of simplistic faith such as "God is good," "just have faith," "I just know" etc.. these terms have a way of wearing us down in our faith because they are not concrete enough or sustaining enough. The realities of expressions such as "blind faith," "just have... hope" and "my faith is simplistic" are in and of themselves wolves dressed up as sheep. No Christian can simply subscribed to a blind faith, no the Christian faith is anything but blind, in fact faith as an expression of the outpouring of Christ into an individual can be seen as the greatest indicator of the truth of scripture! Hope when expressed by the world is that of a hope that sounds like "I hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow" this kind of hope is not the hope of Christians, no the hope of Christians can be summed up with 2 words "Trust and Certainity" a knowing that everything will turn out as God intended. This is power and belief, this is the Gospel.
So when someone says I have simplistic faith and they hold onto it as if it's something to be cherished I wonder just how things will turn out when they are confronted with real issues that no doubt happen in life regardless of your religious orientation. Without study of the word, without being on your knees in prayer, without truly reaching for a better understanding of God's will... when tough times occur, simple faith... "God is good" faith does not do well under the pressure and ultimately leads to the complication of faith extinction in the individual. Faith extinction itself is not a simple thing so how can the means to how we get there be simple? The irony.
I believe that a sound education is something to strive for, I believe that we must engage the word... I think that it's a great thing that we go out and evangelize and like how we do at soulquest we go out and do "treasure hunts" These are great tools for spreading the Kingdom message and letting others know that God loves them... and yet we still must not forget the need for teaching. Treasure hunts and similar events are great tools, in fact they're so effective because they do not require a masters degree to work, they are tools of the spirit and it's built off of the inclusion of the entire body. So success is a given with these outings, and yet we still must compliment these sort of engagements with practices such as world view classes, Bible history classes, studies having to do with connecting Christ to the culture and vice versa. We must be able to better understand the water that we're swimming in before it's too late and we come to realize as we swim further into polluted reservoirs that of which we should have known all along.
Now I'm just trailing... stick with me please.
Education is important, seeking God's will, seeking his face happens in community, happens while engaged in the word, while praying, meditating and witnessing God's creation. Education forms endurance in a persons faith, it allows for people to have a greater understanding of God, of purpose, of what it means to live, breathe and essentially die to their old selves. Again this is not a matter of getting a masters degree, you can have a head full of knowledge about God and be the most God-less man to walk the earth. I firmly believe this... it's a matter of intellectual, emotional reflection and thriving in community, these are the steps to cultivating a greater faith endurance.
Let's be honest here... many of us allow a 3 minute news sound byte, a work of fiction like the da vinci code or a 60 minute discovery channel presentation on the Bible to shape our Biblical World-view. Doesn't this bother you? It should.
So what about the good news?
This is something that has perplexed me for some time. We live in a world that is constantly pushing us around and asking of us to borrow foreign concepts of God and of his creation into our own Biblical world-view. Look at today, we live in a world where the occult is larger than ever before, kids and parents alike are enthralled with vampire stories as we hear of little girls on the playground asking their imaginary Edward to bite them so that they can be beautiful like him. Zombies, ghosts, aliens and other movements within the occult culture have been booming without looking like they'll slow down or stop any day soon. Couple this with the strong observance of gnostic-like beliefs in our culture, and in pop-culture especially and we have a culture in 2009 that propels us to ask the question.. "what about the good news?"
I mean have we loss our interest? And yes I know what most will say about me in regards to this... "Lance, your being quite legalistic about this aren't you?" And I would suggest... no... no I'm not. If that's the typical cop-out that most Christians are utilizing in order to do whatever they want whenever they want then they must go back and reread all 4 Gospels and take a trip through the book of Acts. You see this entry is for Christians, Christians who are just as enamored with the culture as they are with Christ. You see I have no issue with enjoying fiction, I mean by all means I enjoy comic books, Spider-man, Iron Man, Batman, etc. My favorite little book is called Invincible and it's my guilty pleasure as it has blood, guts... violence, etc. Yet the stories are solid and I like to think that they aid me in my Christian growth (yet of course this is lie, but hey what about you who watch college football all Saturday and try to pass that off as "spiritual growth"?) So I enjoy fiction from time to time, and yet I wonder where are those Christians who are still excited about the Gospel? I mean the son of God died for humanities sin! This doesn't come cheap or easy, this isn't meant to be something that we confuse with as a quick exchange, no this is the only son of God who died a sinners death for you and I and Mo and Shirley and yet we rarely talk about it, we rarely get excited about it, we rarely spend an afternoon reading about it. How about those of us who don't even take a moment with the word? I mean the word is the opportunity to get to know God, it's the avenue of relationship and yet we don't want to know Him better!? What's going on?
Are we excited at all about what God can do, has done and will do in the future? Where's the Gospel? Where's the good news? Can we go into our everyday living and point to the movement of God? Can we be like Paul in Athens and point to the Gospel playing out in a area where it seems like all but God is taking place?
This is the time for teachers to take note of the oral culture that we come out of, we have to become better story tellers, we have to become more engaged with the text... dare I say we have to look as if we too also love life. For how can we explain to someone that Jesus is the good news if we're saying it through a down turn mouth with a rusty crucifix around our necks? How can we say praise God if outside our 10-12pm Sunday church experience we're living out a life that curses him?
We must get back to the basics, we must get excited about the gift. We must get back to reading the word, praying on our knees as if our prayers can shake buildings and we must believe that the way of Jesus is not just the best possible way but "the way." Which moves me briefly into my final proclamation here...
The concept of living in the world and yet not being of the world is difficult. In fact it's seemingly impossible. How do we interact as Christians in a world that is anti-Christ or even a nation for that matter? Many theories have been laid out for us, some will back out of the culture... these individuals will seek to withdraw and in doing so will have no effect on the culture at all. Some seek to join hands with the culture, this way finds Christians combining the flag and the cross together while singing church hymns with machine guns rattling off in war-zones. Others still we seek to transform the culture, and in doing so they will become turned upside down and possibly face depression or the loss of their Christian distinction. I believe at this point that we're called to join with Christ, join up with the Holy Spirit in transforming the culture and yet we are always to place Christ above the culture. This is counter-cultural and because of that I believe it's entirely Jesus. Here's my take on what most people do today... they become Christians as if being Christian is a part of who they are akin to liking soccer, being in a band and working at Ford. Christianity is literally an off-shoot of who they are, not of a new identification. They give over their hearts to Christ but keep their lives in the world. They give over their minds to Christ but their bodies over to their work, to their worldly desires. You see Christ did not ask us to seek membership with him on the weekends. He didn't suggest that we should say yes to him while not following him. Christ asks us to follow him, and this isn't to be seen as most see it today as a mutually exclusive act of "spiritual" following. No Christ asks us to follow him, to be a part of the way. Yet when we suggest that our Christianity is a religious belief, we designate Christ to a form, to a practice, to a particular set of events we take part in. We must be disciples of Christ, we must follow him and in doing so we will not be taking part in God-less religion but in following the way. The way that utilizes every bit of who we are right here and right now... the way that commands us to pay attention to a story within history that constitutes as the good news amongst a broken creation.
Peace be With You,
Lance
I have had this blog title in my head for roughly two weeks now and this is the first time that I'm actually able to find time to sit down and write. Of course over a period of two weeks my mind has shifted from different topics of concern, and life itself has changed from 14 days ago... so this entry has changed multiple times before it ever hit the keyboard!
A part of me wants to write off of the expression "what about the good news," and another part really wants to tackle the expression of what it means to be a "Christian" and what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In a way these things correlate and bounce off of one another. It's always a good thing when I sit down to write and both wrists feel healthy and strong, my thoughts are clear and imaginative and I'm aware that I have quite a bit of time on my hands today before I seriously have to encounter anything of importance. Along with the thoughts about the good news and about being a disciple I have also been concerned over a couple other issues such as the position of a Christian in the workplace and about the possibility of women as elders. So as you can tell I have been pretty busy in my head, and in life itself I have been working, preparing the way for Judah to come into this world fairly soon and attempting to be the best husband, father and follower of Christ that I can be!
While on the topic about work, I've realized that a lot of the weight I have been carrying, a lot of the concerns I have had can be or rather should be put somewhere for others to read and possibly even learn from. For the sake of time I will only mention that I have been considering for a while doing a day to day writing that would be collected in bound form and would be called "Workplace theology: Living out the Way in the 9 to 5" I believe that there is a need in the world for someone to express interest in how we must attempt to live out the way of Christ in what is becoming an increasingly secular society. For me the challenge can be found in the smallest of situations and the largest as well. From having to work on a Sunday morning and missing church to realizing that a portion of what you do for work isn't necessarily illegal but is border-line unethical. These are the sort of things that I seek to find answers to and hopefully can help my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ through.
The overall goal of a book like this would be not to "sell" individuals on their "best life now" or getting the 6 digit a year job that they've always wanted... but for the working class, the individual who may have to do a job that at times (let's be honest) they hate but they must do in order to provide for their family, and how they as Christians can change the very fiber of their work situation, not in order to cope or just get by but in order to succeed and eventually move on to their God given occupation. Which again doesn't have to be a 6-digit a year job (actually most of the time it won't be!) but just a job that allows an individual to exercise their gifts, both physical and spiritual.
Enough about that...moving on.
So SQM youth has been going since July, work has a way of making things difficult with attempting to balance both school and my duties with the church. Yet I get by (Tina and I get by) we have grown from a group that does things in a very rigid fashion to a more organic, conversation driven curriculum. We ask questions of one another, we propose answers and we have (or at least I believe we have) a good time. I look forward to seeing things change further over the course of time as the Spirit continues to engage us and grow us as a community. I'm of course still frustrated at being able to get together only once a month, it just doesn't feel adequate enough and yet it's what I have right now to work with. So here's hoping that things continue to move, grow and intrigue.
So what is this blog all about today?
Like I mentioned previously...
Two things.
What about the good news? + what does it mean to be a disciple?
If you don't already know this by now... I'm a big fan of education, I believe that it's essential for any Christian, young, old, etc. I believe that we can go too far with believing that the Christian way is a way of intellectual assent and that by itself is a dead end street. Yet I don't believe it to be the opposite, you know just this "simplistic" kind of faith. I believe in "Simple Faith," while believing in enduring faith and complicated theology. Let me explain if I can... there are a lot of people who might shrug their shoulders at me and go... "Lance, you seek the Bible like you do because of your dreams of being a Pastor, a teacher etc.. " "I don't do that because I'm just a Christian and I have simple faith... you know I just love Jesus." A variety of other expressions can be used to dictate this form of simplistic faith such as "God is good," "just have faith," "I just know" etc.. these terms have a way of wearing us down in our faith because they are not concrete enough or sustaining enough. The realities of expressions such as "blind faith," "just have... hope" and "my faith is simplistic" are in and of themselves wolves dressed up as sheep. No Christian can simply subscribed to a blind faith, no the Christian faith is anything but blind, in fact faith as an expression of the outpouring of Christ into an individual can be seen as the greatest indicator of the truth of scripture! Hope when expressed by the world is that of a hope that sounds like "I hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow" this kind of hope is not the hope of Christians, no the hope of Christians can be summed up with 2 words "Trust and Certainity" a knowing that everything will turn out as God intended. This is power and belief, this is the Gospel.
So when someone says I have simplistic faith and they hold onto it as if it's something to be cherished I wonder just how things will turn out when they are confronted with real issues that no doubt happen in life regardless of your religious orientation. Without study of the word, without being on your knees in prayer, without truly reaching for a better understanding of God's will... when tough times occur, simple faith... "God is good" faith does not do well under the pressure and ultimately leads to the complication of faith extinction in the individual. Faith extinction itself is not a simple thing so how can the means to how we get there be simple? The irony.
I believe that a sound education is something to strive for, I believe that we must engage the word... I think that it's a great thing that we go out and evangelize and like how we do at soulquest we go out and do "treasure hunts" These are great tools for spreading the Kingdom message and letting others know that God loves them... and yet we still must not forget the need for teaching. Treasure hunts and similar events are great tools, in fact they're so effective because they do not require a masters degree to work, they are tools of the spirit and it's built off of the inclusion of the entire body. So success is a given with these outings, and yet we still must compliment these sort of engagements with practices such as world view classes, Bible history classes, studies having to do with connecting Christ to the culture and vice versa. We must be able to better understand the water that we're swimming in before it's too late and we come to realize as we swim further into polluted reservoirs that of which we should have known all along.
Now I'm just trailing... stick with me please.
Education is important, seeking God's will, seeking his face happens in community, happens while engaged in the word, while praying, meditating and witnessing God's creation. Education forms endurance in a persons faith, it allows for people to have a greater understanding of God, of purpose, of what it means to live, breathe and essentially die to their old selves. Again this is not a matter of getting a masters degree, you can have a head full of knowledge about God and be the most God-less man to walk the earth. I firmly believe this... it's a matter of intellectual, emotional reflection and thriving in community, these are the steps to cultivating a greater faith endurance.
Let's be honest here... many of us allow a 3 minute news sound byte, a work of fiction like the da vinci code or a 60 minute discovery channel presentation on the Bible to shape our Biblical World-view. Doesn't this bother you? It should.
So what about the good news?
This is something that has perplexed me for some time. We live in a world that is constantly pushing us around and asking of us to borrow foreign concepts of God and of his creation into our own Biblical world-view. Look at today, we live in a world where the occult is larger than ever before, kids and parents alike are enthralled with vampire stories as we hear of little girls on the playground asking their imaginary Edward to bite them so that they can be beautiful like him. Zombies, ghosts, aliens and other movements within the occult culture have been booming without looking like they'll slow down or stop any day soon. Couple this with the strong observance of gnostic-like beliefs in our culture, and in pop-culture especially and we have a culture in 2009 that propels us to ask the question.. "what about the good news?"
I mean have we loss our interest? And yes I know what most will say about me in regards to this... "Lance, your being quite legalistic about this aren't you?" And I would suggest... no... no I'm not. If that's the typical cop-out that most Christians are utilizing in order to do whatever they want whenever they want then they must go back and reread all 4 Gospels and take a trip through the book of Acts. You see this entry is for Christians, Christians who are just as enamored with the culture as they are with Christ. You see I have no issue with enjoying fiction, I mean by all means I enjoy comic books, Spider-man, Iron Man, Batman, etc. My favorite little book is called Invincible and it's my guilty pleasure as it has blood, guts... violence, etc. Yet the stories are solid and I like to think that they aid me in my Christian growth (yet of course this is lie, but hey what about you who watch college football all Saturday and try to pass that off as "spiritual growth"?) So I enjoy fiction from time to time, and yet I wonder where are those Christians who are still excited about the Gospel? I mean the son of God died for humanities sin! This doesn't come cheap or easy, this isn't meant to be something that we confuse with as a quick exchange, no this is the only son of God who died a sinners death for you and I and Mo and Shirley and yet we rarely talk about it, we rarely get excited about it, we rarely spend an afternoon reading about it. How about those of us who don't even take a moment with the word? I mean the word is the opportunity to get to know God, it's the avenue of relationship and yet we don't want to know Him better!? What's going on?
Are we excited at all about what God can do, has done and will do in the future? Where's the Gospel? Where's the good news? Can we go into our everyday living and point to the movement of God? Can we be like Paul in Athens and point to the Gospel playing out in a area where it seems like all but God is taking place?
This is the time for teachers to take note of the oral culture that we come out of, we have to become better story tellers, we have to become more engaged with the text... dare I say we have to look as if we too also love life. For how can we explain to someone that Jesus is the good news if we're saying it through a down turn mouth with a rusty crucifix around our necks? How can we say praise God if outside our 10-12pm Sunday church experience we're living out a life that curses him?
We must get back to the basics, we must get excited about the gift. We must get back to reading the word, praying on our knees as if our prayers can shake buildings and we must believe that the way of Jesus is not just the best possible way but "the way." Which moves me briefly into my final proclamation here...
The concept of living in the world and yet not being of the world is difficult. In fact it's seemingly impossible. How do we interact as Christians in a world that is anti-Christ or even a nation for that matter? Many theories have been laid out for us, some will back out of the culture... these individuals will seek to withdraw and in doing so will have no effect on the culture at all. Some seek to join hands with the culture, this way finds Christians combining the flag and the cross together while singing church hymns with machine guns rattling off in war-zones. Others still we seek to transform the culture, and in doing so they will become turned upside down and possibly face depression or the loss of their Christian distinction. I believe at this point that we're called to join with Christ, join up with the Holy Spirit in transforming the culture and yet we are always to place Christ above the culture. This is counter-cultural and because of that I believe it's entirely Jesus. Here's my take on what most people do today... they become Christians as if being Christian is a part of who they are akin to liking soccer, being in a band and working at Ford. Christianity is literally an off-shoot of who they are, not of a new identification. They give over their hearts to Christ but keep their lives in the world. They give over their minds to Christ but their bodies over to their work, to their worldly desires. You see Christ did not ask us to seek membership with him on the weekends. He didn't suggest that we should say yes to him while not following him. Christ asks us to follow him, and this isn't to be seen as most see it today as a mutually exclusive act of "spiritual" following. No Christ asks us to follow him, to be a part of the way. Yet when we suggest that our Christianity is a religious belief, we designate Christ to a form, to a practice, to a particular set of events we take part in. We must be disciples of Christ, we must follow him and in doing so we will not be taking part in God-less religion but in following the way. The way that utilizes every bit of who we are right here and right now... the way that commands us to pay attention to a story within history that constitutes as the good news amongst a broken creation.
Peace be With You,
Lance
posted by Lance Pearce | 12:21 PM
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