The Greatest of These Is... Guilt?

  It's been said that guilt is not a good motivator.  But that hasn't stopped the church from dishing out unhealthy doses of it every week.  In the most common setting, I think it is usually an unfortunate by-product of the noble efforts of every well-meaning spiritual cheerleader, from pastors to Sunday School teachers to summer youth camp speakers.  But in the worst case scenario it is piled on intentionally to elicit desired behaviors, from tithing to daily devotions to regular church attendance - to taking a turn in the church nursery.

  A young friend stopped over a couple of days ago for a visit and he got talking about the previous twelve years of spiritual defeat that he had experienced starting at age 14 when a youth leader challenged everyone to sign on to a 30-day Adventure that would include a daily quiet time of Bible reading, prayer, and journalling.  He never got past day 4, and if you missed a day you had to start over, so he dreaded each Sunday's meeting when the successful few would be awarded a pop tart or a music CD while he received a challenge to start over and do better.  He never did better, and he's had trouble motivating himself to read the Bible ever since.

  Obviously, his mentor didn't mean to cause him a lifetime of defeat; it was just a nasty consequence of an under-developed and adolescent spiritual appetite found wanting in a zealous spiritual environment.  He lately reviewed one of his journals from those days and found several entries that ended with a sleepy scribble off the edge of the page where he had fallen asleep while journalling.  Defeat after defeat.  Guilt.

  I think this guilt that so widely pervades the realm of Christian experience is a result of a works-based gospel.  Salvation is supposed to bring freedom, but then it is followed by this burden of holiness.  Though intended to be an encouragement toward a closer relationship with God, the Sunday sermon ends up being a challenge for us to pull ourselves up by our own boot straps - in five easy steps that spell an acronym.

  I think the church needs a reboot to a grace-based gospel.  An author and online pastor, John Fischer, says that "When you get close to God you don't become more spiritual, you become more loving."  Love is the outgrowth of our own gracious redemption.

  The true test of spirituality is not in your quiet time or your devotional life, it is in your loving behavior.  Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord, and He never mentioned it without connecting the second greatest commandment, to love your neighbor.  The apostle Paul even consolidated them, skipping the first and going directly to the second when he said, "The ENTIRE law is summed up in ONE command, love your neighbor as yourself."(Gal. 5:14)  He somehow left out daily devotions and a whole bunch of other stuff.

  I've often asserted that the first commandment is fulfilled through the second.  In other words, we demonstrate our love for God by loving our fellowman.  We may develop a closer relationship with the Lord through Bible reading and prayer, but we carry it out by expressing the love of Christ to others.

  The fruit of a dedicated life may not be in how many Bible verses we can quote, but in how many of our friends and neighbors are having a better life because of us.

  So being spiritual can be as simple as carrying the groceries in for the neighbor lady.  But if you miss that opportunity, don't feel guilty about it; you might get to help another time; there are a million ways to express the love of God in the world.  

  Don't let me or any preacher guilt you into anything - not even about being more loving.  If you are more loving next week, that will be good.  And if you are not, your salvation is not in danger.  God still loves you.  You can't be bad enough for God to stop loving you, so relax.  And if you want to read the Bible, do it.  And if not, don't.  You're not any farther away from heaven when there is dust on your Bible.  Not only that, but you would probably be much more spiritual if you'd spend your tithe on new tires for your poor neighbor's car than to give it to the church.

  "For we are saved by grace through faith... it is the gift of God, not of works (behavior) lest anyone should boast."(Eph.2:8-9)  Augustine once said, "Love God... then do as you please."  I would adjust that to say, "Demonstrate your love for God by loving your neighbor... and then do as you please."  So there's no long list of things you must do to be more holy, only the law of love.

  The next time your spiritual coach makes you feel defeated or guilty, go out and buy your own pop tarts.  You will always deserve it.  And then if you want to be spiritual, share them with some other undeserving soul.

  "Now these three remain: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love." (I Cor. 13:13)  According to this, our love is even greater than our faith in God.  Wow.

  What makes you feel guilty or defeated in your spiritual walk?  Where does this guilt come from, and how can you stop it?

  

Born Losers

  Being born again means being born to lose.  If you want to be like Jesus.  Because Jesus was a loser.  Much to the disappointment of his followers, He did not come to set up an earthly kingdom.  American Christians seem to be generally unaware of this.  Being born and raised in a free country, we have become accustomed to having rights.  But followers of Christ have no rights.  Jesus gave up his rights to save the souls of mankind.  Should we do otherwise?

  Yesterday I viewed an online video that showed a bunch of Christian teenagers who are being rallied to "take back America" by pushing back on the anti-bullying campaign* that was launched by gay activists who were alarmed at the number of young gays lately committing suicide as a result of being bullied.  I think these young Christians are doing exactly what Jesus would NOT do.  Jesus clearly stated that his Kingdom would not be an earthly kingdom but a kingdom that resides in the hearts of men (Acts 17:24).

  The essential message of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is capsulized in the Golden Rule: "Treat others the way you would like to be treated.... Don't resist an evil person.... Love your enemies".  Now which of our rights was he defending?

  Jesus was executed after a mock trial in the middle of the night followed by a beating, a whipping, ridicule and being spat upon.  Then the crucifixion.  And he didn't say anything to defend himself.  Not a bit of push back.  Do you want to be like Christ?  Then why are you fighting back against the evil in our world except by prayer and love?  "Overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21)

  "But this is supposed to be a Christian nation."  Wrong.  This is not supposed to be a Christian nation, but a nation that provides freedom of religion - for people of all faiths, not just Christians.  What gives us the idea that non-Christians should abide by our rules or that we should win our nation for Christ?  We are to make disciples, yes, but not make a Christian nation.  Jesus never gave us that commandment.

  I have often said that if every believer in America would simply love his neighbor like Jesus said to, we would win the world in a short time.  But my wife disagrees.  She reminded me that, just like 2000 years ago, Jesus is not about an earthly kingdom - not in Israel then, and not in America now.  He is about his followers really following him.  Yes, we should love as Jesus loved, but no, we should not expect to "take back America" for God by this means or any other.

  Read me clearly: Jesus does not care whether or not America is a Christian nation.  He cares whether you and I, as his followers, are loving our neighbors - and our enemies. - as he showed us in his teachings, in his life, and on the cross.

  American Christianity is a long way from what Jesus intended.  If we would all spend as much time on actually living and loving as Christ followers as we do promoting our favorite Christian political agenda, we could really make a difference in our neighborhood and all across the nation.

  Love everybody, not just your Christian friends. Be the Good Samaritan - without first checking to see if the person is gay or lesbian.  Love, especially if the victim is gay or lesbian.  True followers of Christ should be the first ones to sign anti-bullying legislation, and they should be the last ones to bully gays or others who don't live up to their holy standards.  That's what Jesus would do -  If he was into political activism at all, which of course, he is not.

  Look how far away from Christ's teachings we have gotten:

• Jesus was a friend of sinners and hung out with them.  We go out of our way to avoid them and condemn them.
• Jesus befriended outcasts, adulterers and other sexually immoral folks and treated them with respect.  We avoid them and call them names.
• Jesus taught submission to the government.  We speak all manner of evil about our president and politicians, even those who have given testimony as Christians but who do not have the same political stance as we.
• Jesus had a liberal (generous) approach to the poor.  We are conservative and resist helping the underprivileged and under-skilled, saying they should "just get a job".  New Testament believers shared their wealth with their needy friends so that "There were no needy persons among them."(Acts 4:14)  We demonize any program that advocates sharing the wealth.
• Jesus was persecuted.  We push back when criticized and stand up for our "rights".
• Jesus taught peaceful non-resistance, saying "Turn the other cheek."  We support war and violence.
• Jesus was "salt and light" out in the community every day.  We huddle in our sanctuaries, worshipping the Lord - and our freedom - while criticizing the ungodly and the unlovely and taking great care to keep separate from the world.

We know how to be real followers of Christ if we can just make ourselves do it.  Many are doing it, but it takes rethinking our way of life in small ways every day:

• Under-the-radar generosity:  Going through the drive-through at McDonald's, my pastor friend pays for his meal  - and for the folks in the car behind him.  He does it often.
• Going into a cafe, my friend pays for his coffee and donut with a twenty, then refuses the change, asking that it be applied to the next several customers.
• Realizing that gays do not choose to be gay any more than heterosexuals choose their orientation, my friend treats them the same as anybody else - but sometimes goes out of his way to support their businesses since they've been boycotted by others.
• Generous tipping, especially on Sundays.  My brother used to be a waiter at Red Lobster.  He hated the Sunday shift because the after-church crowd were the worst tippers, sometimes leaving only a gospel tract with some stupid "tip" on it for him (I guess there isn't much left after giving a tithe to the church).  Upon learning this, everyone in my family became generous tippers.  Especially on Sundays.
• Whenever he goes jogging, my friend picks up the empty beer cans that his neighbors have thrown out of their car windows the night before. He calls himself the neighborhood environmentalist.  He knows at least one of the neighbors who discards the empties but never confronts him about it insisting it's important to be on good terms with the neighbors.
• The economic downturn has caused a corresponding upturn in the number of thrift stores and food panties which are popping up everywhere, evidence that generous people are responding to the need in practical and compassionate ways.
• And a thousand more Christ-like actions and attitudes that happen every day by those who really seek to follow Jesus.

  Notice I didn't list any political actions on this list of how to be like Christ?  That's because I believe we do the name of Jesus a disservice with much of the Christianizing we attempt in American political action.  For the most part, American politics is nothing like Christ.  I'm not saying political action is wrong for a believer; I'm saying it is often harmful to the true cause of Christ.  Jesus was apolitical.  His Kingdom was not of this world.  I think that if things get worse for Christians in America we will have no one to blame but ourselves and our own hateful and ungodly behavior.  We have turned the Good News into the bad news.

  Don't attempt to take back America for Christ.  Just return to Christ-like living yourself, in your neighborhood and your community.  Be nice.  To everybody.  Even the neighborhood bullies.

   "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ, who gave up his rights by taking the very nature of a servant, even being obedient to the cross." (Phil.2: 7-8)

  Be like Christ, be a lover and a loser. 

  What loving, losing deeds have you noticed among your friends?

  * Here's the irony (hypocrisy) of this whole push-back on the anti-bullying campaign: The backstory is that gay youths were being bullied at school (some by so-called Christian kids who thought it was their responsibility to "witness" to the gays, letting them know it was an abomination to God and they were going to hell).  Several of the gays couldn't take it anymore and killed themselves.  To stop the suicides, gay activists started a campaign to let the gay kids know that "It gets better".  They maintained that school is not the real world and life would improve after graduation.  At a seminar of one of these "It gets better" rallies, the moderator launched a tirade at the Christians, who left the room saying they were being bullied.  And they were.  They were being bullied by the anti-bullying spokesman, who blamed them for bullying the gays in the first place.
  Now the gist of this new campaign is that the Christians are not going to take it anymore.  They're going to resist the bullying of the anti-bullying campaign so they can continue to bully gays.  For the sake of Christ, of course. 
  When I communicated with the leader of this campaign asking him what practical steps the program would implement for role-modeling the nature of Christ in the face of persecution, he responded with sarcastic derision, saying the whole thing wasn't about being Christ-like.  He was pretty mean about it.
  Yeah, he sort of bullied me. I think it's part of his strategy to take back America for Jesus.

Disclaimer:  To my wonderful conservative readers, please don't be offended at my blunt commentary.  I realize my views are in the minority among American Christians, but after all, it's my opinion posted on my blog.  I hope you'll stay with me for the next post; I think it will be a very encouraging one.  Feel free to make a level-headed comment below.  Love ya!

Hypocrites-R-Us

  I'm a hypocrite.  And so are you.  If it's about performance, everyone who says he's a Christian is a hypocrite to the extent that he does not obey all of the commands of the scriptures.  And there are a lot of them.  The Old Testament laws were so extensive and so impossible to keep that only a few people were ever able to do it and not for long.  Then Jesus came and made it worse for us by preaching more impossibilities: "Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor."(Luke 12:33)  Who does that?  "If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out."(Mark 9:47)  I know lots of guys whose eyes have caused them to sin, but I don't know anybody who obeyed the Lord at this point (and I'm not suggesting it now).

  A few days ago a friend of mine shared this quote on Facebook: "HYPOCRITES: Blaming every law abiding gun owner for the deaths of children, while supporting abortion."  I immediately commented, "We are all hypocrites" and then deleted it without typing the rest of my response: "Hypocrites: People who say they are Pro-Life and then support the killing of enemies in far away places (or coming through the bathroom window), forgetting that Jesus said to "Love your enemies."(Matthew 5:43-48)  Did anybody here support the killing of Osama bin Laden?  Jesus said, "Do not resist an evil person."(Matt.5:39)  Sorry, that makes you a hypocrite.  We all like to select the scriptural commands that we will observe, and then ignore the ones we don't like.

  And we vote that way in national elections too, those of us who still vote.  Democrats are inclined to help the poor through social programs, and Jesus likes that (the New Testament Church practiced a form of sanctified socialism).  But they support the killing of unborn children.  Republicans won't help the poor, but they want to protect the unborn.  Both parties love to kill terrorists - who go directly to hell when killed, since they have no knowledge of Christ - even though both the Old and the New Testaments forbid murder.  It's easier to kill terrorists than to convert them; war is easier than missions - despite the Great Commission.(Matt:28:19)

  There are hundreds of points at which we are all in non-compliance with the commands of scripture.  And that's why we need a Savior.  There are over six hundred commandments in the Old Testament Law, most of which we are completely unaware, let alone trying to obey them (ie: If you wear a garment of blended fabric, you are breaking the Law).  And the New Testament is full of orders which we don't fulfill.
  "Our righteousness is as filthy rags"(Isaiah 64:6) and that's why we need the cross.  Because we have no chance without the cross.  There is no way on earth that we can behave well enough, be righteous enough, keep all the rules or always vote for the right guy in every election.  But that doesn't seem to stop us from trying.

  The cross doesn't seem to be enough.  There is this everlasting legalistic duty that we all feel that we must perform, this elusive perfection to which God calls us (along with our local preacher who calls us to do better every Sunday morning).  If we can't live up to God's standard, why do we keep trying?  We have a Savior, so why keep attempting self-righteousness?

  So this is one of the great hypocrisies of Christianity:  We claim that salvation is free to all, based on belief in Jesus (John 3:16) and that it's all about what Christ has done for us on the cross.  But then we live and act and preach as though we must earn our salvation through good behavior and righteous living.  And if somebody doesn't behave well enough or supports the wrong political platform, we take away his salvation.

  So which is it?  Galatians 2:8 says we are saved by grace through faith, not of works (behavior) lest anyone boast.  The whole point of the cross is that none of us can behave well enough to earn our salvation.  If self-righteousness were possible, why did God need to send us a Savior?

  I think the biggest hypocrisy of which anyone is guilty is judging, another point at which we are disobedient to Christ who said, "Do not judge."(Matt:7:1)  The reason I think the Lord prohibited this is that judging makes us god.  Can a Democrat be a Christian?  Only God knows.  Is a Marine who kills an enemy soldier going to go to heaven?  Only God knows.  Is a gay who believes in Jesus really a Christian?  I don't know, and neither do you.  Is an overweight believer really saved?  If not, 60% of Christians in America are out of luck, as the Bible prohibits overeating and in fact says you should put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony. (Proverbs 23:2)

  Because we are not God and because we are all guilty, we should stop judging.  Our only job as believers is to love.  We may be tough on sin in our own lives, but it is not our job to be tough on anyone else.  That's God's job.  We should just trust in the grace of God for our own salvation and for the salvation of everybody else.  We are not God; we should stop acting like it.  As an acquaintance and exiled pastor, Anthony Ferrell, says, "Judging is the very essence of gracelessness and goes counter to the grain of the Cross."

  And I need to stop letting inflammatory Facebook posts get the best of me, dang it!  At least this time I had the sense to move my arguments from Facebook to my own blog.

  Do you believe there's any need to earn salvation through Godly behavior?  If someone doesn't behave in a Christian manner or support the right party, are they still saved?  If you deny Christ by not "sharing" that cheesy Facebook status, will He really deny you in heaven?

Quit Planting Churches!

(This is Part 2 in a pair of posts: See Part 1, "The Church is a Com-bus".)
  
Sorry to be so negative.  I'm not really a dissenter most of the time, and I wonder about the irony of my continuing to be the troublesome elbow in the ribs of the church when I am not even a part of that world anymore.  I guess this unwelcome prophetic gift is my thorn in the flesh for now, and I feel sorry for Jeremiah, who was probably a really nice guy but was called upon by God to confront wrongdoing in the leadership and 2-1/2 millennia later is still known as the Weeping Prophet.  Poor fellow.

Church Planting is a Waste

  Anyway, today I feel called upon to state that church planting is a waste of time and valuable resources in a culture that is slowly abandoning the institution of the church.  In our local town of 1,200 people there are ten churches within a 2-mile radius, and they are all slowly shrinking except for one.  That one is the new one which was just started less than two years ago and which immediately filled up with all of the already-believers who were bored with their old churches.  Or maybe they were just excited to be a part of the next new thing and came over to help get it off to a good start.  Nonetheless, there are now more empty seats in the other nine churches, most of which are not even half full now.

  And the "new" church is nothing new at all.  It has already banned the misfits from the worship band and reprimanded the wannabe youth volunteers, and effectively ex-communicated some of its participants who asked too many questions about the nature of God in the Old Testament.  So this new church is a clone of every other conservative church in the neighborhood and perpetuates the popular views of the church as judgmental, critical, and exclusive.  It only makes sense, as the contributors to this new work all came from old works and brought their baggage with them.

  It must really piss off the visionary young men who are the most likely ones to want to plant a new church.  They are full of energy and excitement and aspire to win the lost and reach the world for Christ.  And then they see their new sanctuary fill up with the already-found religious vagrants who used to attend the church down the block.

  And in a year or two they take a critical look at what they have created and discover that there are no new believers and they have not made any difference in the world except to cannibalize* the other churches nearby, and they realize their "new" work is not new at all.  Although it probably has the best worship team in town, and there is something to be said for that.  And if numbers are a measure of success, then they are more successful than the other churches in town.

  I have a young friend who tried to be on the worship team of that new church. Rick has an idea now that we should reverse the trend and start consolidating.  We should close most of the churches in town and all meet at the high school gym on Sundays.  I mean, we all have a common belief in Jesus, right?  We could save a lot of resources that are spread out all over town in so many disintegrating buildings and properties, and we could save hundreds of thousands of dollars on pastoral salaries.

  Of course, the pastors would all have to quit their jobs and buy into this thing to make it happen.  Of course.  And the denominations that own those properties would have to relinquish  their properties and abandon their unique sectarian doctrines.  Right, that'll happen.  And the holiness camp will get along with the Calvinist camp and charismatic camp.  Uh-huh.

  Okay, look.  I'm not so naive as to think that anything like that will ever happen (and neither is Rick).  Here's what is naive:  The retiring president of my former denomination just posted his last editorial in the denominational newsletter saying, "I believe... it will take 100,000 new congregations to re-evangelize America...  Every church was once a church plant, and every church - in its life time - needs to plant multiple churches."**

  This man has not been paying attention.  Every denomination in America is declining.  And it wasn't churches that evangelized America in the first place, it was traveling evangelists.  Sinners who need evangelizing don't come inside churches, so there is little correlation between church planting and evangelizing.

  The only movement that is growing is the house church movement and the exodus out of the religious institutions.  America will not be re-evangelized until God initiates the next revival, and the signs are all contraindicative at the present time.

What to do:

  So that leaves only a few options for the would-be church planter:

1. Change your goals:  If you must plant a church, realize you will not be evangelizing or winning new believers but working with old ones.  And they will bring their old ways with them.  You will be like every other church in town, and you will make enemies in those other churches from which will come your constituents.  A new church plant simply starts the music for the next round of musical chairs where the believers all get up and march around to the next "new" chair.  You have to be okay with that, because your church plant will be no exception to this rule.
2. Change your mind:  Don't plant a church.  Stay where you are and keep pouring into the old wineskin.  Of course, you will still be serving the Body, not the Lost.  You'll keep feeding the already full, and you'll have little or no impact in the community.  You'll have to be okay with that.
3. Change hemispheres:  Become a missionary.  While there is no movement going on in America right now, there are thousands coming to faith in Christ every day in China and Africa.  You could win souls to your heart's content.  This will require radical changes in your life, and only a few rare souls are up to the challenge.
4. Change your direction:  Start a house church.  Again, you'll be working with believers but in a more organic way and without the stigmas attached to church, and you'll have a better chance of impacting your neighborhood.  To do this best maybe you should go cold turkey and quit going to regular church.  If so, study what's happening in the world by reading some of the books I've listed in the right sidebar of this blog, especially, unChristian, by David Kinnaman, the head of the Barna Group.  It's a real eye-opener.
5. Change your life:  Be like Bob; quit going to church and enter a whole new lifestyle of Being the Church.  Read and study the Bible from a new vantage point that precludes organizations and includes only Jesus.  Hang out with non-believers with no agenda but to love them and make friends of them.  This requires the most foundational changes in your faith and your approach to life as a follower of Christ, and you will probably have to start by entering an extended sabbatical - a time alone or with a few like-hearted pilgrims when you must first de-construct your former institutionalized life.  I predict you'll never go back.

    Okay, then.  I may have discouraged some potential church planters, but at least I've listed some alternatives which may save you a lifetime of frustration and disillusionment in a post-church culture where church planting doesn't work and is the wrong thing for you to do with your life.

  Love me for it.

* My brother, Gerald Sims, gets credit for the concept of the cannibal church and is writing a book about it.
** The Missionary Church Today magazine, spring 2013, Vol.46, No 1, page 3, Dr. Bill Hossler, President.  For their general conference this summer The Missionary Church has scheduled Alan Hirsch, co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come, which blows up the conventional ways of doing things.  I think they could have a tiger by the tail, but they're sure to ignore everything Mr. Hirsch says and keep holding on to their irrelevant traditions.  Sorry, but they won't let go the old wineskins.
  
  
  

The Church is a "Com-Bus"

  It's been four years since my church blew up and I was unceremoniously dismissed from the place I had served for forty years as youth director, worship leader, trustee, and missions director, among other things.  I had most recently served on the board of directors by virtue of my position as Elder of Missions and Evangelism when the new pastor told me, "Maybe it would be better if you didn't come at all; you're seen as a divisive person here." (yes, I'm actually quoting him).  I've got to hand it to him; it takes balls to actually ask a life-long leader in your church to quit coming.  He and the other leaders - right up to the district superintendent - had become fed-up with my constant challenges of the status quo.  I guess I should be happy - at least I didn't suffer the same fate as John the Baptist (actually, I am happy; I might still be there if I hadn't been asked to leave).

  One of my challenges to the system surrounded the inability or unwillingness of the church to get down and get dirty with the lost in our neighborhood and around the world.  We existed only to perpetuate our own comfort and our traditions.  We were all about protecting our way of life inside the four walls of the church and our denomination.

  I had seen a vision of what we were, and it was a rather unsettling picture.  I had actually awakened one morning and, still half asleep, an image was brightly projected on the screen of my mind, along with a knowledge of what it meant.  The picture I saw was what I later named the Com-Bus.  It was a large machine moving slowly through a wheat field, and the main chassis of the beast was a large combine, a harvester with a huge cutting head at the front, but there were two things unique about this machine.

  First of all, the cutting bars and the rakes were not moving; they were either shut off or disconnected so that, though the machine was moving over the ground, there was nothing being harvested.  The grain was just being flattened by the large wheels of the monster.

  The second odd thing about this harvesting machine was that the grain hopper behind the cab had been replaced with a bus body so that there were actually seats for several dozen riders.  Not only that, but as I looked closer, I could see that in fact the bus was full of people, but they were not just riding, they were worshipping.  There was a worship leader standing at the front and singing, and the whole crowd were singing along with hands raised and so entranced by the worship that none of them even glanced out the windows.

  If they had looked, they might have seen what I could see as a bystander: The rear emergency door was open and some of their participants - mostly high school graduates, I think - were carefully jumping from that exit and wandering away across the field, never to return to the vehicle again, so the crowd on the bus was slowly shrinking.

  This is where my vision ended and my troubles at church began.  Well, not really; I had been in trouble before for being the annoying elbow in the ribs that tries to awaken others to unpleasant hypocrisies of the system (We come from a long line that includes Martin Luther and a few other dissenters who are mostly all dead now).

  Now the most surprising thing that happened to me in the year following my vision, was that my wife and I, along with 150 other travelers, were also evacuated from the rear emergency door of that colossal machine.  And it wasn't a drill.

  So in the last five years since seeing this vision, I have changed locations and become an outsider, and my view of the realities is from a different perspective.  Mind you, nothing has changed about the church since I've left, nor is there any deviation in the obvious analogies about the huge harvesting machine that has transformed into a self-contained worshipping machine that was actually crushing the ripening grain onto the ground as it lumbered ahead.  And like most graduating seniors, I'm glad I'm on the outside now and do not intend to return.

  I am standing in the field with the other outsiders - both believers and nonbelievers - and have discovered that we really look very much like each other.  Like wheat and tares, I guess, and that's how the Lord said it will be until the end.  I have lately hung out with Mormons, former Catholics and Episcopalians, gays, atheists and "nones"* and have been able to spread the love of God in a less oppositional way than I ever did while functioning within the religious system.  It's a slow process, but more personal and authentic than before.  And more effective.

  I don't know how much longer the institutional Com-Bus will keep rumbling along.  The slow decline of organized religion in America is well documented, but I'm sure it will be around for a long time and still serves a valid purpose to insiders, I guess.  Gene Edwards, in his book Beyond Radical, says the decline started at the Reformation almost 500 years ago and that it will not be complete for another 300 years.  Sorry, I couldn't wait that long.

  The Great Commission has two parts: 1) Reach the Lost, and 2) Teach the Found.  The American church believes in both parts and preaches both parts, but only carries out Part Two.  This is partially because Part One can't be done from inside the walls like it could sixty years ago, and the church, for the most part, will not venture outside the walls.  In a gesture of wishful thinking - or delusion, every church marquee reads, "Everybody Welcome" to a world that passes by every day but will not come inside.

  And there's the rub:  The world will not come inside, and the church will not go outside.

  I guess it's up to outsiders to do the job.  For one thing, we are uninhibited by restrictive policies and denominational doctrines and hellish hierarchies and negative stigmas .  People aren't afraid of you when your only agenda is love.  Lots more could be written on that.  Later.

  Have a great day.  And be real.  And don't be afraid to challenge the status quo; it's not like you'll lose your head over it, although you could lose your comfortable religious world as you now know it.

* "Nones" are those mostly younger Americans who, when polled about religious affiliations, will check the box for "none".  They now make up 20% of the population.  The church will not/cannot reach them.

Pilgrimage to the Beach Part 2 - Another Family Secret

Gene Sims on a dune at the lake

  I ended the previous post saying that skinny dipping was an act of worship.  It is all natural, and with the right awareness, it's a sacred baptism into the essence of the omnipresent Creator who exists in the lake, the sunset, the forest, the water lily, the broom closet, and...  well, everywhere - if He is really omnipresent.

  And speaking of baptism, that reminded me of another childhood experience that was a perfect example of the generous orthodoxy of my dad, who must have been a misfit as a pastor in an untra-conservative era in the evangelical church in America.  I realize now that much of my own liberality must have come from him, as I am certainly not a legalist.

  Baptisms happened two or three times a year in the Missionary Church, and they took a lot of preparation.  In our church, the baptismal tank was under the podium and had to be opened up by lifting off the heavy platforms, drawing water overnight from a garden hose that ran out of the utility room nearby, and then placing electric heaters into the water for several hours to warm it (cold baptismal water could bring on a sudden manifestation that mimics a charismatic outburst, so it was quite unwelcome in the holiness church where the Holy Spirit was always required to "Be a gentleman").

  My two younger brothers and I watched this process with interest, and at some point that warm water - in the middle of the cold winter - reminded one of us of the warm waters of Lake Michigan where we had frolicked the summer before.  It seemed a waste to let it all drain out after the service without any participation on our part, and the obvious question eventually surfaced:

  "Dad, can we go swimming in the baptistry after the service tonight?"

  After a long thoughtful pause, and much to my mother's chagrin, the answer was, "Yes, but don't tell anybody."

  And sure enough, after everyone had gone home that night, we ran back to the parsonage next door, changed into our swim trunks, and ran back through the cold to our unexpected wintertime beach.  And there we received a second blessing, three boys, splashing around in the church baptistry, while Dad locked the doors and Mom nervously double-checked the parking lot.  After all, that kind of display of irreverence could be seen as a sacrilege to the elders and the church ladies (the other omnipresent entities in the spiritual universe) which could kill the joy in a moment and end a man's ministerial career with a short phone call to the superintendent.

  My dad took chances with his magnanimous and liberated spirit.  He had discovered a "wideness in God's mercy" that other clergy would sing about during the worship time and then refute a few minutes later in their challenging sermons.  I think Dad knew that his kids sometimes needed a break from the legalism that saturated the place.

  "Don't run in the House of the Lord!"  "Your heavenly father is watching you."

  I am convinced that much of the church world still lives and moves in the Old Testament and the Law and has never really discovered that through Christ we are now living in the age of Grace.  "There is therefore now much condemnation." (Roman 8:1 twisted every Sunday morning.)

  Only a couple of years ago I listened to a sermon from a pastor who suggested that it was irreverent to wear jeans to church on Sunday morning (I was wearing shorts that day).  When I questioned him about it later, he said, "If you were going to see the Queen of England wouldn't you dress up to be in her presence?"  And I realized that this man (and millions of others) had never really discovered the omnipresence of God in the world and in everyday life.  Though he had certainly studied the attributes of God in his theology classes in seminary, he was viewing spirituality from a pre-Jesus perspective, an Old Testament framework where God dwelt in a holy temple.

  The New Testament is clear that God no longer dwells in brick and mortar buildings but in us, his children, for we are "living stones being built up into a spiritual house". (I Peter 2:5)  I am no more in the presence of the Lord in the church building than I am in my garage or my pickup truck - or in the bathroom changing the baby's diaper.  Or down at the river fishing.  Or water skiing.  Or skinny dipping.

  If a person only feels the presence of God during a twenty-minute worship set every Sunday morning, then they really need to open their eyes.  God is all and in all, and "in Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)  That indicates an all-the-time-ness and everywhere-ness to our co-existence, our oneness with Him.

  Dad's been gone for five years and I miss him.  But his Jesus-filled irreverence will live on in my brothers and sisters and me and in generations to come (I don't remember my two sisters ever swimming in the baptistry, but it might have happened).

  This is probably why I've spent my whole life celebrating.  Jesus launched his ministry at a wedding party, and he ended it at a meal with friends, bracketing his ministry with feasting.  Fasting is so Old Testament.  Feasting is New Testament.  I'm living in the New.  My kids will recall the countless times as they were growing up that I said, "Let's order a pizza to celebrate!"

  "Dad, what are we celebrating?"

  "I don't know, but I'll think of something."  And I always did.

  Loosen up friends,  God is everywhere.  Enjoy Him.

  Now, since I'm telling family secrets, let me tell you about my mom, who broke the rules too....

  

Pilgrimage to the Beach

  In a few days I'm heading down to the beach.  As an act of worship.  Well, that's not how it started out, but I'm sure worship is in there, because it is a by-product of my life.  The main motivator for my relocation is that the harsh Michigan winters seem to stage a hostile takeover of an otherwise friendly and pleasant environment, the Great Lakes state being a beautiful place during the rest of the year but nasty and almost life-threatening in the winter.
  I have negotiated a reduced long-term rent with the owner of an apartment on the eastern seashore of the Dominican Republic, so Kaye and I are going to be living and working on the beach for the winter.  While Kaye works on a writing course - her Kindle loaded with books to read by the pool -  I am planning my next photojournalistic project, to compile and publish a book on the culture of the local fishermen, our next-door neighbors in this laid-back caribbean community.
  Years ago Kaye and I conducted mission trips to the Dominican Republic, and our accompanying pastor, Gary Butterfield, once made an off-handed statement about how it would be a sacrilege to bypass the enjoyment of God's creation by missing our day off to be spent at the beach and snorkeling over the coral reefs.  The implication was that God put it there for us to enjoy, and we would insult Him if we didn't do it.
  I have never forgotten that thought, and had it re-enforced years later when I read John Piper's book Let the Nations be Glad in which he explains how the glory of God is magnified by all of creation.  I was sitting under palm trees in El Salvador on another mission trip when I read that book, and it made an impression that was both significant and long lasting.  Right in front of me I could see the palms forever lifting their arms in praise.
  The concept was not difficult for me to adopt, because my dad was one who had caught on to the idea a long time before worship became the main objective for Christians.  I remember camping on the sand dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan when I was a boy, and I can still see dad at sunset, a silhouette standing at the crest of the dune that separated our campsite from the beach.  He would take it all in - for about a minute, then turn around and hurry back to where his kids were sitting around a campfire after supper and say, "You've got to see this; it's one of those great million dollar Lake Michigan sunsets; Come on!"  And we'd leave our fireside - hey, the box of marshmallows wasn't opened yet anyway - and climb the dune and plop down and soak in the red and orange grandeur in silence until the sun was gone.  Then we would skip a few stones on the calm water as the twilight faded and the fireside welcomed us back.
  Dad didn't call it worship, and at twelve years old I was quite unaware at the time that we were partaking in something that was, in a way, holy.  As I've traveled and pursued my own adventures over the years I've come to appreciate the careless and extravagant glory that nature exudes without the least bit of effort, and I look at these experiences as something of a spiritual pilgrimage, whether they come daily or once in a lifetime.
  You know, one of the five pillars of Islam is the Hajj, which is a pilgrimage to Mecca, their holiest site in Saudia Arabia, a once-in-a-lifetime trip that every good Muslim will make if they are able.  One of the rituals that they observe while they are there is the throwing of stones at the devil, a virtual act of spiritual warfare.
  It seems to me that if one of the holy rites of one of the world's most prominent religions involves the throwing of stones, then there is even more of an inherent holiness in a man skipping stones on Lake Michigan with his kids as the evening twilight fades.  Enjoying God's creation is worship.  And worship is the best kind of spiritual warfare.
  Though off-handed and casual about it, nature seems to be quite aware of its creator.  A few years ago I traveled to the other side of the world on a prayer trek with five other guys, our mission was to pray and worship as a means of piercing the darkness in the spiritual realms in an all muslim island country.  I felt strongly that I should follow the prompting of Psalm 108 and "awaken the dawn", so I rose before sunrise to worship on the seashore.  I thought I would be the only one there, but when I arrived at the water's edge there were about fifty worshippers already there, little sand crabs on the shore all staring east toward the sunrise.  They turned and looked at me and those nearest to me scooted sideways politely and made room for me to sit down, not surprised at all at my arrival and not distracted from their purpose.  We sat quietly together, fifty-one of God's children, worshipping in silence as the sun came up.
  This winter I will celebrate the glory in the white sand and the palm trees, and I'm planning to snorkel among the reefs just offshore almost very day and see if there are other water-loving worshippers there who, I'm sure, are already waving their fins to their creator.  And next year I'm planning on going to the mountains at Denali in Alaska and see how the tall pines and the snow-covered peaks raise their praise to their maker.

  Now let me say that a one-time pilgrimage to join in the glory of nature is a wonderful thing, and if you can take one cruise or visit one fiord in your life you'll be doing a good thing, but really, if you could do it every day wouldn't it be better?  I'm not talking about all of us going and living on the beach.  I'm talking about assuming an attitude of acknowledgment and appreciation wherever you are on a regular basis, more as a lifestyle.
  My oldest daughter has caught on to this.  Stacy gets home from work, puts on her hiking shoes and heads to the nearest nature trail and gets into the woods several days a week.  My middle daughter, Angie, a busy mom with a calm and quiet spirit, finds rest and glory in a sanctified cup of gourmet coffee or a visit with the kids to the neighborhood park.  And Wendi, my youngest, creates culinary offerings in a saucepan that are nothing short of divine, and her characteristic celebration of cultural diversity is innately righteous.
  Every day glory is all around us.  So if a pilgrimage is out of reach for us at the moment, we can at least achieve a moment of sabbath or rest and enjoyment at just about any time and any place, and it doesn't have to be anything as grand as a beach.  Psalm 148 has a long list of ordinary beings that bring praise to their maker, from trees and mountains to sea creatures, wild animals, and even cattle.  There's nothing that glorious about a cow, but somehow they give glory without even being aware of God or getting saved, and they don't give milk in the name of Jesus (although every good thing comes from Him).  They bring glory to God simply by instinct, simply by being.
  And it's in your nature too.  Just be a human BEing every day and you will instinctively get the job done, but there's even more joy in it for those who are aware of the world and its beauty and who take the time to acknowledge it.

The sunset from Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes

  Okay, one last thing.  If you are ever in Michigan in the summer and are looking for a pilgrimage to the million dollar sunsets over Lake Michigan, here are some directions.  First find your way to the virtual ghost town of Glen Haven.  When the road seems to end at the shore, turn left and keep going till the road ends at a trailhead parking lot in the woods.  Take a flashlight (for the return after dark), your camera, and you'll need your flip flops or sneakers for the first two hundred yards of the gravelly trail.  Kick them off when you come to the base of the sand dunes and hike the 1/4-mile trail up to the summit of the dunes.  You can observe the sunset from there, or head down the long, gently sloping dunes to the shore and plop down there and soak it in.  After the sun goes down and the twilight is fading, skip some stones on the water, and if you feel so inclined, take your worship one step further and step into the water.  If it's not too cold, and if you're the sort of uninhibited worshipper who throws up your hands at church, this would be the time to throw off your clothes and go skinny dipping.  Because skinny dipping is an act of worship. Raw worship. 100% pure and natural.
  Wow. Now I'm even more anxious to get to the tropics to work and live and... worship this winter.

  Where do you see the glory of nature and of existence?  Is it close to home, like the exquisite pizza on your table, or is it far away?  How do you honor it; by skipping stones or taking a picture, or throwing off your clothes, or what?