Getting it Right

Subconsciously I tend to assume that I have it “right” and therefore can clearly identify who has it wrong. As if I have been set up as the truth police! I can only see actions and not the heart, so I stand at a great disadvantage.

God can, and does see the heart and I must leave judging to him, trusting that Jesus’ blood covers a multitude of sins. Don’t we all have some little (or big) deviation from what is correct? I know I do, including this tendency to judge others. I need God’s mercy and grace every day.

Is it not true that the Almighty God remains bigger than what I say I know about him? True, I need to study what he has revealed about himself, but because he is Almighty and I am not it is safe to say I cannot bear the glory of a complete revelation of God any more than Moses could look at God’s face. He is knowable through Jesus, the very image of the Godhead.

But if that is not the case, if we finite human beings say that we have him figured out, then he no longer remains God. He becomes god, and we place him on a shelf in our home to be worshiped and dusted.

The error, at least for me in my past and to some degree my present, is to think that those who have been misled, or those who do not have a clear understanding of God in their minds are somehow not as enlightened as I. From study and good teaching I may very well know more ABOUT God and his revelation of himself. But that does not guarantee that I know HIM all that well. A misled person, a child holding a hate sign, is misguided for sure. But they may still have a heart for God. They may actually know him better than I. Unfortunately we can’t discern that.

I must leave that up to God who gave all judgement to Jesus.

Birthday Musings

I turned 52 today and I am not sure how I feel about it.

There is a very real part of me that has never been afraid to grow old embracing aging with the same gusto I embraced my youth. But there is also a very real part of me that, after watching my Father die, realizes I am the next generation to pass. That is sobering.

I suppose it is healthy and normal to ask one’s self, how am I doing? How have I done? Then again, maybe its not healthy or normal. Do we really know what’s normal anyway?

At this time of year I am susceptible to being down, something not generally part of my optimistic self. And I do tend to over analyze my own thoughts and actions even on good days. The combination can be a real downer.

But this year I feel quite different, and I am not sure why. I can feel the tug to slip into the bluer side of life, but I have yet to succumb. And it’s not because things are rosy. Last week Leslie decided to drop out of the dental hygiene program she had worked so hard to get into and stay on top of. Something is wrong in her brain that robs her of stereoscopic vision, critical to dental work. The news, and the realization that nothing short of a miracle could change her brain, was a blow, for both of us and everyone at her school. Now that we cannot depend on her earning the kind of income a registered dental hygienist would, the burden falls back on me to earn more income. Yet, we are not submitting to despair.

Don’t get me wrong, we sill ask God what is going on and did we miss something along the way? We don’t question his love for us, but rather our discernment of his will. It is all beyond us, so we must turn to the one thing we do know – God’s heart. He loves us and has our best intentions in mind. I don’t really believe that he led Leslie to join the Hygiene program only to yank it way from her when the finish line was in sight. That is a cruel and thoughtless interpretation of the Sovereignty of God. But he wasn’t caught by surprise. He has promised to turn everything, eventually, to good. I don’t want to sound trite or shallow, but I really believe that. Grief and pain can co-exist with hope and faith.

Perhaps this birthday will be remembered for the corner we turned, the beginning of something new we can’t see until we travel down the road a bit. It doesn’t matter. I was surrounded by the ones who love me and it was enough. That is the best birthday present I could ever get.

The Great Ommission

I wonder if evangelicals are getting it right, I mean, about evangelism. Several things I have read recently sadden me and make me wonder what we are doing wrong. Perhaps I am succumbing to the Autumn blues that strike me the time of year.  I dunno. But I am worried.

According to the Barna group (www.barna.org) in 2009-2010 28% of the adult population, roughly 65 million people, did not attend any church function in the last 6 months. Although this number is down from its high point in the last quarter century of 32% it seems like we should be making more progress. More disturbing is that it seems that many of these “un-churched” folks are self-proclaimed Christians. 61% of the un-churched say they are Christians. 37% say they avoid church because they have been hurt deeply by Christians or the church in the past.

Traditionally women seem to man the pews in greater numbers than men, something evangelicals have lamented over for years. And men do lead in the number of un-churched people in America. But women lead in the number of un-churched people who say they are Christians. Protestants outnumber Catholics. It might be time to ask ourselves, what is going on?

A great deal of effort has been spent by Churches to make services more “relevant” sermons more practical, the music more hip. I’m not saying that doing so is a bad thing. I firmly believe that each generation needs to recast eternal truth in modern day expressions. And it just might be, basedon the numbers, that it has helped. The numbers of un-churched are down. Or so it would seem.

Other research shows that the number of people “outside” the church grows with each new generation. Young people are becoming less and less churched. Only 40% of people in the 16-29 age group are outside the church compared to 27% in the 42-50 age group.

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was “Christianity is changed from what it used to be” and “Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus.” These comments were the most frequent unprompted images that young people called to mind, mentioned by one-quarter of both young non-Christians (23%) and born again Christians (22%). This is where the term “un-Christian” came from – both those inside the church and outside of it who said that something was broken in the present-day expression of Christianity.

So what’s wrong? What is broken? Aren’t the hip services working?

I know from my experience that is not Biblical teaching that will bring people back to church. They have to come back to God first. The Great Commission to take the gospel to the world has become the Great Omission. We are falling down on the task.

Some other data may help us find our way.

1. We aren’t reaching men. Women typically outnumber men in church (53%), bible studies (60%), Sunday school (59%), and volunteer work (57%). But men out number women in home churches (56%).

2. We aren’t reaching singles. 69% of church volunteers are married. Non married church attenders are the least reached, 1/5 of church attenders and volunteers are single.

3. We aren’t reaching the youth. Churches are filled with old people, most of them over the age of 45.  56% of the spiritually active in a church are 45+. Nationally, 52% of the population is 45+.

Other data provides hope.

Small groups encourage personal bible reading and study. Two-thirds of church attenders (67%) said they had read the Bible outside of church in the last week – whether their church was a conventional or house church. Small group attenders were more likely to read the Bible personally (84%) higher even than Sunday school attenders and volunteers (77%).

Maybe instead of making our churches more attractive we need to make a change altogether. Maybe our churches should be a spring board for neighborhood (and even global) ministries done by, suprise!, the people and not the clergy or paid staff. Maybe we are just training stations and an encouragement stop for those busy in the community.

You might be thinking to yourself, Isn’t that what bible believing, evangelical, solid Christian churches are already doing? We aren’t failing in our mission, people are just more secular and sinful. I don’t disagree that it”s not a new idea I am proposing. But so often in church we are kept way too busy to connect with our neighbors and friends.

Although there will be millions of people who abandon the entire faith community for the usual reasons -hurtful experiences in churches, lack of interest in spiritual matters, prioritizing other dimensions of their life – a growing percentage of church dropouts will be those who leave a local church in order to intentionally increase their focus on faith and to relate to God through different means. I don’t think that is a bad thing.