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.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
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!
Monday, January 23, 2012
Helpful people
It is interesting that when we were trying to start The Bridge we went to many traditional churches looking for help, but most I could not even get in to see the pastor. We even had a big article in the paper about us starting this new church, yet we had no one show up to encourage us or help us from other churches. Now that we have opened a tattoo shop in our building we get all kinds of people wanting to help us understand how wrong we are. Again I will say most of the comments we have received have been positive, but the negative ones I find humorous. It seems to me if the same amount of energy was put in to helping churches start we would have a revival sweeping the land - the only "help" I have gotten was to correct me rather than actually help.
We have hundreds of new christians growing in Christ that were won by us being all things to all people so we may win some. We have dozens of people that say they were Christian, but were not being discipled or growing that are now challenged regularly and are growing in Christ. We have people serving that are not even welcome in most churches - they don't look right, smell right, talk right for most churches. The people that make up The Bridge, "Bridgebuilders", know they are loved by Jesus because they have felt His love through His people and now they are loving others as Christ loved them.
Another interesting thing is about the "helpful people" that want to school us in proper churchiness. It is no wonder the church in America is in such a bad state. While I am accused of picking verses out to support what we do the naysayers literally pick one verse completely disregarding the immediately previous verse to "prove" their point. There are so many complaints about us using our building for "non-sacred" events and referring to the building as the church it is saddening. The most basic of sunday school classes teaches the church is comprised of the people which is called the body of Christ. We are sorely uneducated in the basics of biblical theology. I completely respect the people that disagree with what we are doing and how, but don't try to twist the bible to defend your emotions. One of the first questions I want to ask of those that want to criticize is what are you doing to expand the kingdom? A quote I have read is something like this "I prefer the way I am doing things to the way you are doing nothing."
I know the excitement about this most recent move at The Bridge will die down. There may be other things that happen to create excitement in the future, but we will not fall to the temptation to be sensational for publicity. I am thankful that God is moving in Genesee County, not just through The Bridge, but many churches are reaching the lost here. I am grateful to be used by Him. I am thankful for the responses of those that disagree with us and promised to pray for us. I am particularly grateful for all those that believe in what we are doing and are jumping in to make a difference.
We have hundreds of new christians growing in Christ that were won by us being all things to all people so we may win some. We have dozens of people that say they were Christian, but were not being discipled or growing that are now challenged regularly and are growing in Christ. We have people serving that are not even welcome in most churches - they don't look right, smell right, talk right for most churches. The people that make up The Bridge, "Bridgebuilders", know they are loved by Jesus because they have felt His love through His people and now they are loving others as Christ loved them.
Another interesting thing is about the "helpful people" that want to school us in proper churchiness. It is no wonder the church in America is in such a bad state. While I am accused of picking verses out to support what we do the naysayers literally pick one verse completely disregarding the immediately previous verse to "prove" their point. There are so many complaints about us using our building for "non-sacred" events and referring to the building as the church it is saddening. The most basic of sunday school classes teaches the church is comprised of the people which is called the body of Christ. We are sorely uneducated in the basics of biblical theology. I completely respect the people that disagree with what we are doing and how, but don't try to twist the bible to defend your emotions. One of the first questions I want to ask of those that want to criticize is what are you doing to expand the kingdom? A quote I have read is something like this "I prefer the way I am doing things to the way you are doing nothing."
I know the excitement about this most recent move at The Bridge will die down. There may be other things that happen to create excitement in the future, but we will not fall to the temptation to be sensational for publicity. I am thankful that God is moving in Genesee County, not just through The Bridge, but many churches are reaching the lost here. I am grateful to be used by Him. I am thankful for the responses of those that disagree with us and promised to pray for us. I am particularly grateful for all those that believe in what we are doing and are jumping in to make a difference.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Church
I have continued to be given interview offers this week. I am excited about the opportunity to share what we are doing and talk about the relevance of the church today! The majority of negative feedback we have received, which has not been nearly as much as the positive, has been based on the mistaken notion that the building used for meetings for discipleship and worship are special. I hope to challenge that thinking and the church in America to stop wasting the resources God has given us by letting millions of sq ft of prime space sit empty all week so it is clean and available for use on Sunday. Pray that we make a positive impact on the many people that will continue to hear about what we are doing and maybe start to see the church as relevant rather than hateful.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tattoos
Wow!!! Front page article about The Bridge having a Tattoo Parlor in our building has turned into quite the media frenzy. Few things about this - We did not open Serenity Tattoo for publicity, rather to change lives beginning with the artists, their clients and apprentices and spreading from there. Many positive posts from all walks of life - love to see some "getting it." Some negative posts that fall into 3 categories - 1 being Leviticus 19:28 which says not to cut yourselves or make permanent marks - 2 being Jesus clearing the temple in Matthew and 3 being the church is a place for worship not tattoos or other stuff.
The first one is really simple - Lev 19:27 also says to not cut the hair at your temples or trim your beards and that chapter contains many cultural/ceremonial prohibitions based on what the local idolaters were doing and trying to make sure the Israelites were distinguishing themselves from them. Anyone that wants to say that one verse is a prohibition on tattoos must also condemn ear piercing, shaving, and many other currently acceptable practices. Using that verse to condemn tattooing is pure ignorance of good bible study.
The second issue of the temple cleansing is a reference to Jesus running the money changers out. Again poor bible study leads to this thought. The money changing and market place going on was people telling the worshippers that they had to exchange their money for temple money at a markup and their animal sacrifices for better animals at a markup before they could worship. This turned the temple into marketplace of thieves. We are not telling people they must give money to worship - we actually tell first time attenders to not give. Second issue on that is we have no temple, Jesus changed the covenant from the old temple covenant to a new covenant of the Holy Spirit and direct communion with God through Jesus' sacrifice. The church is not a building or location it is the body of Christ comprised of his followers/disciples.
This also addresses the third issue of the building being a place of worship. For far too long the church building has been considered sacred when Jesus made it clear by tearing the veil from top to bottom at His death on the cross there is no physical sanctuary for us to meet with God in. We now come directly to the Father through the Son. The building is just a building that God has entrusted to us to be stewards of. The church has been very poor stewards of the property God gives it by leaving it empty and unused during the week. The building should be used 24 hours a day to serve the community and bring glory to God (which occurs by loving people as well as worshipping God).
The only other real issue raised is linked to the temple cleansing thing and that is that we are in this for money. All the staff and most of the bridgebuilders laugh at this! Our per capita giving is a third of most dying churches due to the financial position of most of our attenders. My low mileage car has 168,000 miles on it, the house I live in with 6 people is 900 sq ft., none of our staff get a regular salary, we barely pay our utilities bill each month and keep the heat low except during services, we paid half down on the building because an outside donor gave us the money to do that. We live at the edge of financial brokenness because we trust God will provide and he always does. Our only debt right now is on the building we just purchased and that will be paid off within 4 years.
Hope this clears some things up. Love the attention this is getting because it is already drawing some unreached people in to check it out. God will get the glory.
The first one is really simple - Lev 19:27 also says to not cut the hair at your temples or trim your beards and that chapter contains many cultural/ceremonial prohibitions based on what the local idolaters were doing and trying to make sure the Israelites were distinguishing themselves from them. Anyone that wants to say that one verse is a prohibition on tattoos must also condemn ear piercing, shaving, and many other currently acceptable practices. Using that verse to condemn tattooing is pure ignorance of good bible study.
The second issue of the temple cleansing is a reference to Jesus running the money changers out. Again poor bible study leads to this thought. The money changing and market place going on was people telling the worshippers that they had to exchange their money for temple money at a markup and their animal sacrifices for better animals at a markup before they could worship. This turned the temple into marketplace of thieves. We are not telling people they must give money to worship - we actually tell first time attenders to not give. Second issue on that is we have no temple, Jesus changed the covenant from the old temple covenant to a new covenant of the Holy Spirit and direct communion with God through Jesus' sacrifice. The church is not a building or location it is the body of Christ comprised of his followers/disciples.
This also addresses the third issue of the building being a place of worship. For far too long the church building has been considered sacred when Jesus made it clear by tearing the veil from top to bottom at His death on the cross there is no physical sanctuary for us to meet with God in. We now come directly to the Father through the Son. The building is just a building that God has entrusted to us to be stewards of. The church has been very poor stewards of the property God gives it by leaving it empty and unused during the week. The building should be used 24 hours a day to serve the community and bring glory to God (which occurs by loving people as well as worshipping God).
The only other real issue raised is linked to the temple cleansing thing and that is that we are in this for money. All the staff and most of the bridgebuilders laugh at this! Our per capita giving is a third of most dying churches due to the financial position of most of our attenders. My low mileage car has 168,000 miles on it, the house I live in with 6 people is 900 sq ft., none of our staff get a regular salary, we barely pay our utilities bill each month and keep the heat low except during services, we paid half down on the building because an outside donor gave us the money to do that. We live at the edge of financial brokenness because we trust God will provide and he always does. Our only debt right now is on the building we just purchased and that will be paid off within 4 years.
Hope this clears some things up. Love the attention this is getting because it is already drawing some unreached people in to check it out. God will get the glory.
Monday, December 12, 2011
lengthy messages
Read an article (http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/138205-three-things-your-people-hate-to-tell-you-about-your-preaching.html) talking about things people don't like about our preaching. The one point several commenters focused on was peoples attention span not being long enough to handle more than 30 minutes (current teaching says 20 mins). The following is what I posted in response to those comments.
The normal attention span is shrinking due to our culture today. Comparing a lecture to a movie or game is really missing the point - movies have a story line that weaves through many scene changes and games have constant changes and both are presented from many angles and different people. A lecture or sermon are one person attempting to engage and hold an audience. The greats can do this for hours, but the people do not leave with a single unifying point to grow and change on. This "sitting in God's presence" stuff is again really missing it - God's presence is only at that building on Sundays? (this is a very dangerous concept - we cant be in Gods presence during the week in our everday lives)? Is the Sunday service supposed to be where people get their discipleship? Are we to teach our people that all they need to know can be learned on Sunday and that is why we must talk so long? Recognizing the people we are trying to reach will not sit for a 45 minute message we take all of our messages and break them down into series. Same information spread over several different messages. Everyone leaves each message with one concrete challenge to work on. We also train our people to be in the Word during the week as well as joining discipleship groups. Rather than teaching the people Sunday's message is the one time to pack all of your learning in, we teach a way of life that includes constant learning. These comments seem to be reflective of a common trend in churches of railing against the way people are rather than meeting them where they are. Jesus should not have had to die for us, but it was needed and He did it. People should be able to tune into a message from Gods word for more than 20 minutes, but many can't so maybe we should meet them where they are. With training we could get them to focus longer, but that will only happen with those that are plugged in long enough - what about the new person? Are we focused on the already connected or on reaching those that are lost?
The normal attention span is shrinking due to our culture today. Comparing a lecture to a movie or game is really missing the point - movies have a story line that weaves through many scene changes and games have constant changes and both are presented from many angles and different people. A lecture or sermon are one person attempting to engage and hold an audience. The greats can do this for hours, but the people do not leave with a single unifying point to grow and change on. This "sitting in God's presence" stuff is again really missing it - God's presence is only at that building on Sundays? (this is a very dangerous concept - we cant be in Gods presence during the week in our everday lives)? Is the Sunday service supposed to be where people get their discipleship? Are we to teach our people that all they need to know can be learned on Sunday and that is why we must talk so long? Recognizing the people we are trying to reach will not sit for a 45 minute message we take all of our messages and break them down into series. Same information spread over several different messages. Everyone leaves each message with one concrete challenge to work on. We also train our people to be in the Word during the week as well as joining discipleship groups. Rather than teaching the people Sunday's message is the one time to pack all of your learning in, we teach a way of life that includes constant learning. These comments seem to be reflective of a common trend in churches of railing against the way people are rather than meeting them where they are. Jesus should not have had to die for us, but it was needed and He did it. People should be able to tune into a message from Gods word for more than 20 minutes, but many can't so maybe we should meet them where they are. With training we could get them to focus longer, but that will only happen with those that are plugged in long enough - what about the new person? Are we focused on the already connected or on reaching those that are lost?
Love God, Love Others, Disciple All
Love God, Love Others, Disciple All - this is our purpose statement at The Bridge. We have been working through a sermon series about this. Digging into the Love God portion the first week we discovered many times when a reference in the bible is made to loving God it is accompanied somehow with a statement about loving others as the indicator, evidence or activity of loving God. To love God we must apparently love His people. Love others is nearly always referenced as an activity of meeting the needs of someone, never as an emotion. Discipleship is a process of training we go through in the discipline of following Christ. We are called to disciple all in the great commission - that means all of us are to be about training others in the discipline of following Christ. The great commission was not to go be disciples, rather to go disciple all people. This was a final instruction from Jesus and applies to all His disciples.
Knowing these are the purposes for which we exist The Bridge is focused on applying these to all of our lives. Although we offer worship services to express our love for God our primary outlet for loving God is in the action of loving others. Loving others is an activity of meeting the needs of people - social, emotional, spiritual and physical needs. Discipleship is done through our small groups, peer guide program and a constant challenge to grow by reading, listening and questioning. I am excited about what God is doing in our lives and through us in Genesee county!
Knowing these are the purposes for which we exist The Bridge is focused on applying these to all of our lives. Although we offer worship services to express our love for God our primary outlet for loving God is in the action of loving others. Loving others is an activity of meeting the needs of people - social, emotional, spiritual and physical needs. Discipleship is done through our small groups, peer guide program and a constant challenge to grow by reading, listening and questioning. I am excited about what God is doing in our lives and through us in Genesee county!
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