Why We Go

     Every summer churches across the country send summer missionaries to different places around the world to share Christ’s love.  These trips offer uncomfortable travel, simple accommodations, unappealing food and lots of hard work.  The other thing these trips offer is the opportunity to focus on doing God’s work – unencumbered by the distractions of daily life.  They provide a chance to see what can happen when we get out of our own way and allow God to work through us.  They let us see what can happen when we focus all of our attention on Christ.  For many, these trips are life-changing; they are watershed moments that permanently alter the course of their lives.  They are an indispensable part of church ministries across the county.

     This is not to say that these mission trips do not have their detractors.  Every church that sends out summer missionaries will have a handful of people who ask, “Why should we send missionaries somewhere else when we have so much work to be done here?”  Usually, the question is being asked by someone who isn’t involved in mission work at all.  It has been my experience that their concern is rarely for local mission needs; it is more often about resource allocation.  “If we spend money to send people somewhere else, what will be left to take care of me?”

     Unfortunately, this attitude is far too common in the church today.  What many seem to have forgotten is that Jesus does not belong to us – we are His.  We don’t have the authority to decide who should hear the gospel and who shouldn’t.   Can we say that people who look like us, who live where we live and who act like us are more worthy than others to hear about their Savior?  Christ does not segregate people by skin color, nationality, language or geography.  He died for all (2 Cor. 5:15).

     As Christians we are called to be witnesses for Christ “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  Notice Jesus said “and” not “or.”  It’s not a question of sharing the gospel at home or away from home; Christians are called to do both.  The truth is, a passion for one will feed a passion for the other.  I have never met anyone who had a genuine desire to share the gospel at home that didn’t have a genuine desire to share the gospel away from home as well.

     Admittedly, it is far easier to care for and have a heart for people that we come in contact with on a regular basis.  It is easier to connect with people who live around us; but this is exactly why we need to GO.  The more time we spend with others outside of our personal context, the more we begin to see the world as God sees the world.  The more we expand our view of the world, the more we see the need – and hopefully, the more we will be compelled to meet it.

In His Service,

Death by Desertion – The Marginalization of God’s Word

     In Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth the apostle admonishes the Corinthians for

their lack of spiritual growth.  He writes, “I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ.  I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were not yet able to receive it. In fact, you are still not able, because you are still fleshly” (1Cor. 3:1-3).  The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews noted that his readers had “become slow to understand.”  He also points out that although they should have been teachers they still needed someone to teach them the basic principles of God’s revelation – they needed “milk, not solid food.”  They were inexperienced with the message of righteousness because they were [spiritual] infants (Heb. 5:11-13).

     It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The modern church is marked by a serious lack of Biblical understanding and spiritual growth.  This lack of biblical knowledge should come as no surprise as surveys have shown that biblical knowledge is that area that most Christians consider themselves deficient.  However, what is surprising is that these same surveys show that few Christians aspire to increase their knowledge of God’s word as a means of improving their spiritual lives.  It would seem that even in the Christian life the Bible has become unnecessary.  

An article from the Barna Research Group reveals that,

“Bible reading has become the religious equivalent of sound-bite journalism. When people read from the Bible they typically open it, read a brief passage without much regard for the context, and consider the primary thought or feeling that the passage provided. If they are comfortable with it, they accept it; otherwise, they deem it interesting but irrelevant to their life, and move on. There is shockingly little growth evident in people’s understanding of the fundamental themes of the scriptures and amazingly little interest in deepening their knowledge and application of biblical principles.”

 “The problem facing the Christian Church is not that people lack a complete set of beliefs; the problem is that they have a full slate of beliefs in mind, which they think are consistent with biblical teachings, and they are neither open to being proven wrong nor to learning new insights. By the time most Americans reach the age of 13 or 14, they think they pretty much know everything of value the Bible has to teach and they are no longer interested in learning more scriptural content.”

     This dismissive attitude towards Scripture affects every aspect of the modern Christianity.  In increasing numbers American Christians are less likely to hold orthodox views even on critical issues such as the sovereignty of God or the exclusivity of the cross.  Without these central doctrines Christianity is reduced to little more than religious therapy designed to promote the esteem of its adherents. 

     It is not for lack of opportunity that modern Christians fail to grow beyond the most basic principles of God’s revelation, nor is it freedom.  We live in a time and place where God’s word is easily accessible and Christians are free to immerse themselves in Scripture without the fear of persecution.  The only thing that seems to be lacking is the desire to do so.  Once we have learned enough to involve ourselves in spiritual conversations and crated a Christian facade, we are satisfied.  We are content with milk and have no desire to move on to solid food.  There can be no wonder as to why the church has become more and more secularized.

     This world needs mature Christians.  It needs Christians who have been washed by the word and been transformed by it.  It needs workmen who aren’t ashamed, who are rightly able to handle the word of truth.   God revealed Himself to us through His word.  He intends for us to be changed by it and for us to communicate His message to the ends of the earth.  It won’t happen by accident, nor will it happen if our biblical exposure it limited to a predigested Sunday school quarterly. 

  

http://www.barna.org/barna-update

In His Service,

She May Not Be Pretty, But She's Still His Bride

     In recent years it seems that there has been a movement to try to separate the Christian faith from “the church,” as if they were two mutually exclusive concepts. More and more people in our country are seeking to follow Christ without being a part of what they see as the religious institution. I can’t say that I don’t understand the sentiment. There are certainly times when I would like to turn my back on the whole mess and retire to a cabin in the mountains. As a pastor I have a unique perspective and I don’t always like what I see, but there are some serious theological problems with the idea of the solitary Christian.

     Christ desired that we gather together as believers. He tells Peter, “on this rock I will build My church.” The word that we translate as “church” actually indicates an assembly or group. Scripture also tells us that Christ is the “head of the church,” (Col 1:18) and we are also told that he gave his life for the church (Eph 5:25). If the church is that important to Jesus, then it would seem to me that it should be that important to those of us who seek to follow Him.

     Are there problems with the church today? Absolutely. Is the church missing the mark? No doubt. In my opinion the most serious offense of which the church is guilty is baptizing lost people into the family of God. The church has become so “numbers conscious” that literally hundreds of thousands of people who have no relationship with Christ call themselves Christians (however, that is a rant for a different day). My point is that the church is flawed and is definitely guilty of many of the charges leveled against it. But we should expect nothing different. The body of Christ (that is the church) is made up of flawed, fallen people. We are all sinners, saved by grace. We all fall short of the glory of God – daily.

     Despite our failures the church endures. After 2000 years of abuse, heresy and infighting, Christ’s church still stands and sometimes manages to fulfill its mission. When things are at their worst, the church is often at its best. Over the years I have performed more funerals that I care to count. I have had the opportunity to minster to families during long protracted illnesses and after unforeseen tragedies – neither is easy. It is however, during these times that the church truly shines the love of Christ. All of those things that cause conflict and division disappear as God’s people seek to heal the hurting.

     I’ve seen this at the national and international levels as well. After the attacks of 9/11 Christians from across the country converged on New York. The church provided relief after the tsunami of 2004, Katrina in 2005 and after the earthquake in Haiti. Southern Baptists had assessment teams on the ground and immediately purchased over 80 tons of rice for Haitian relief. The Florida Baptist children’s home made arrangements to receive Haitian orphans and hundreds of relief workers left jobs and families to help. There is no doubt that other denominations did the same. While government leaders argued over authority and who would get credit, Christians just sought to meet the need. These were not the efforts of unconnected individuals, but of Christians organized for the purpose of ministering in the name of Christ – the church.

     Does the church have faults? Sure, but by the grace of God we still can manage to show the love of Christ to a lost and dying world. Christ called us and connected us as His followers. We need the fellowship of other believes, we need their encouragement to face the trials of this world and we need them to walk beside us as we all seek to serve our Savior. While it is certainly easy to cast dispersion on the church, just remember – it is still “the bride of Christ,” and Jesus does love His bride.

In His Service,