Apology Series

Kicking off an Apology Series - I'm a Christian and I'm Sorry...  This will be to apologize for the way the church has treated people, twisted the Gospel and been hypocritical.  Hope you can join us for these messages and bring someone that has been hurt by the church.  

Conformity Rant

Romans 12:2

New Living Translation (NLT)

² Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Romans 12:2

New International Version (NIV)

² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I hear this verse used so often to slam what some person or church is doing.  There is an accusation with it that is saying if we follow the patterns of the world in outward appearance then we are conforming to the world.  Early on in my christian journey I noticed a trend in the church - we were about 50 years out of phase with the world in many key areas.  We would claim it was because we were not conforming to the world.  What I noticed was we were staying out of sync just enough to think we were not conforming.  What was ok to do in the world but bad to do in the church 50 years ago was now ok to do in the church.  We would look back and think how we, the church, just were missing it back in the day, but I had to wonder what we would think in the future about what we were teaching today.  Were we teaching based on good biblical theology or just reacting to current trends?  Looking back 100 years to what the church was condemning it really looked like under the guise of not conforming to the world we were condemning many trends solely on the basis that they were new with no real biblical reasoning - much biblical pretext and twisting, but no solid biblical basis.  

My thoughts on conforming to the world:  I think the scripture passage here in Romans makes it clear that the conforming had much more to do with the way we think than what we do.  The same actions or similar actions with different thinking become very different things.  I like to use extreme examples so here is one - a person seeing someone they hate pulls a gun and shoots them not realizing that person was about to murder another person and accidentally saves that victim vs. someone seeing a person about to murder someone and therefore pulls a gun and shoots the attempted murderer to save the victim.  Same actions and same results, but due to the thinking seriously different situations.  The apostle Paul demonstrated this often in how he looked at things. Referring to idols he made it clear that the theology taught was not we are to serve only one god, rather that there is only one God and therefore idols are not real.  With that in mind he said meat sacrificed to idols was not unclean for us to eat because idols are not real, but out of consideration for some other people's thinking there would be times it would better to not eat that meat and there would be times it would be better to eat it.  

When we have a transformation by the renewing of our minds or changing the way we think, there will be many areas of our lives that do not look different, but are different.  From holding a door for you so I look good to holding a door for you because I care about you.  We always want to focus on the outward appearance because it is so easy to judge.  Jesus kept correcting that thinking with the pharisees.  Many missionary movements have been forced to get to the core of what they believe because of a focus on the outward appearance.  To be effective they found they needed to stop telling the natives they needed to dress a certain way and teach them about Jesus' love and offer of salvation within the native's context.  Maybe even change the way they (the missionary) dressed to fit in and reach the natives better.  

Applying this to some things I have heard lately:  Using rock music for worship is wrong because it is conforming to the world and has a rebellious beat - wow, the style of music is wrong and the beat, which changes from song to song, is rebellious?  What if God transformed our way of thinking that we could to take any art form and use it to glorify Him?  What if God was more concerned with why we did things than what we did?  Is there a difference between Eve eating the fruit and being force fed the fruit?  If it is only the action of eating the fruit that matters then there is no difference, but if it was about what the thinking was then absolutely there is a difference.  The opposite holds true as well, what if Adam had manned up and slapped that fruit out of her hand?  Would she be innocent of disobeying God?  Not according to Jesus' teachings - He said to choose it mentally was to be guilty of it.  

Another one is how we dress for meetings of the church.  Dressing casually has been called conforming to the world.  Although there is no recording in the bible of Jesus or any disciples changing into fancy clothes for their meetings some want to say we are to change into our finest for these meetings.  What if God changed the way we thought and we started putting on our finest attitudes when we went out into the world - not keeping the best to ourselves but giving it away as the body of Christ just as Jesus did while walking His ministry here on earth?  What if because of a change in our thinking we bought nice clothes for others that needed them to interview for a job instead of for showing off to our friends at church meetings?  

What I have witnessed in the church today is we tend toward being reactionary to the world.  This enslaves us to the world.  If we are always looking to be different than the world to prove our non conformity we are still tied to the world.  Why don't we be salt in the world and let it react to us?!?  Why don't we stop being lazy and really understand what we believe ("then you will learn to know God's will for you") so we can live as we should independently of what the world is doing?  They may wear those styles to fit in, avoid criticism, make a statement and we may wear the same clothes because we like them, we want to be relatable or it was given to us as a gift.  Right is right and sometimes the world gets things right because they see it works - that is why good business principles should be incorporated into running local bodies of worshippers.  Not to copy the world or conform, but because those principles are right and only work because God created them.  God sent Jesus in the fullness of time according to the bible - the first time in history the world was so interconnected that the teachings of Jesus could be spread so far so quickly.  Was it conformity when Paul used the Roman roads to plant churches?  

I have seen this particular passage used so many times to criticize what a church or Christ follower is doing it saddens me.  Every time something is done differently there are those that want to tear it down rather than examining it to see if it is ok biblically.  The critic wants to go to scripture to prove a presupposition rather than to learn the truth.  There is a story attributed to Lincoln something like this: when a cabinet member said to pray that God was on their side Lincoln corrected him and said they needed to pray they were on God's side.  That is how we need to approach criticism of others - look to see where God is on the issue to the best of our understanding not look at where we are on the issue and prove God is on our side.  Important to remember also is that the bible does not address every issue.  Is nose picking wrong?  There are some that will try to prove the bible says it is and some that will try to prove the bible says it is ok and both would be wrong.  The bible does not address every thing we can conceive of nor was it meant to.  It does address every principle we need to be concerned with.  Ask if picking your nose at the table with others present is ok - Jesus said Love God and Love others as yourself so if you are grossing others out by doing that then you should not pick your nose at the table.  Not because it is wrong rather because of the principle of loving others.  

I guess that is all I have for this late night rant.  

Relationship vs. Rules

Reading some critiques of the spoken word poem by Jefferson Bethke -http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1IAhDGYlpqY - and they are bringing up some issues regarding the movement in some areas of churches focusing on the relationship with Christ not the rules to live by.  I have often talked about the focus of Jesus' message is a relationship with our Creator through His Son.  It seems in the New Testament we see the story of the church unfolding as a group of people connecting with God despite their weaknesses and failures.  A story that continues to reveal failures even of some of the leadership as the church develops (Peter rejecting gentiles, corrections by Paul of church leaders messing up, Paul admonishing Peter for pushing the gentiles to follow ceremonial laws, Paul and Barnabas separating over disagreement, abuse of the communion time together, etc.).  It is also a story of a people that after connecting to God through Jesus start to find significant life change and begin a journey of following more and more of the standards laid out for Christian living - not because those standards or rules provide salvation, rather because they work to bring fulfillment and peace!  Following Christ is a growing trust in our God that reveals to each of us that the rules and standards we feared and ran from really are patterns of living that provide real health - spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, relational and social health.

In the NT there were some that wanted to discard works and rules completely and they were corrected as well as the ones that wanted to discard grace.  My point in saying relationship vs. rules is based on the many churches I have been involved in preaching and teaching a self righteousness based on their rule following.  It seems Jesus' point in explaining we are guilty of violating the law just by our thoughts is that we can not do this - it is only in Christ we can be proclaimed righteous and be in a process of transformation into God's original intention for us.  A second reason I focus on the relationship aspect is that the predominant view of the non-believer is that following Christ is all about following rules.  Since scripture teaches we can not follow the rules without Christ (Romans 7) it seems very reasonable to begin with the lifesaving relationship first as our focus and watch as a person's trust in their Savior increases over time.  So when I say Relationship vs. Rules I am referring to what we begin with in this journey.  Did Jesus tell us to follow His commands? Absolutely!  But it is also taught that we can only follow His commands by faith and we are saved by faith through grace alone.

There are groups that are moving toward a Universalist theology that all will enter heaven and be saved regardless of faith or works.  Those of us that are focusing on the Relationship aspect as primary are not automatically saying our actions do not matter.  At The Bridge our 3 fold mission is based on Jesus' 3 primary commandments - Love God, Love others, Disciple all.  Since He said all of the Law and Prophets hang on the two greatest commandments to love God and our neighbor we should be pretty safe pursuing those two commandments. His final words to us before ascending into heaven were to disciple all nations so that would be our primary purpose of being left behind.  Hopefully this clears some things up. If you find this clear as mud please respond with clarifying questions.  Thank you.

update

Excited about what God is doing!  We are seeing peoples lives and relationships healed, families restored, new relationships with God through Jesus and many becoming disciples and disciplers!  We have another Baptism on Feb. 12th at both services.  We had our first meeting of people interested in the new church plant, Chain Reaction, last Sunday.  In meetings with people I hear regularly about how The Bridge has helped them connect to God in a way that has brought real life change and spiritual growth.  One person at a time we are helping change Genesee county for the better!