How Soon We Forget...

239 years old...seems like a long time doesn't it.  I mean the oldest person in the world as of July of 2015 was 116 years old.  So yea 239 years is pretty old...but a quick look around finds that it's actually not as old as say something that had its start in 660 BCE Japan, or 221 BCE China.  If we were to look at ages then we would look at other's France is about 843, Austria sits at 976, Denmark started in the 10th century, Hungary is 1001, Portugal 1143, Mongolia 1206 Thailand 1238, Andorra 1287, Switzerland 1281, and Monaco 1419.

If you are a Christ follower and you believe the Bible you come to the realization that middle eastern countries have been around for a really really long time as well.  So again 239 not all that old in the grand scheme of things.

The thing that so fascinates me is the fact that in spite of the young age of our country, Americans as a whole tend to conveniently forget that before the founding of Jamestown in 1607, there were people who lived here.  I realize that if you add the 169 years between what is looked at as the founding of "our" people living in North America to 408 but still looking at all the countries I mentioned  well it's not really all that big a stretch to be amazed at the shortness of our memories.

My point is simple, unless you are Shawnee, Apache, Aroostook, Dakota...the list goes on you are not really from here.  The truth is you don't even have to go back nearly as far as 408 or 239 years to find that most of the people who are American citizens, even those born here haven't been around that long.  My great grandmother and grandfather came from Italy, I grew up knowing her, she babysat me, met my wife the whole nine.  Without an Antoinette there would be no Aaron.  If the vast majority of us did a bit of digging we would find that we came from someplace else. The reasons very,  Back in the 1600's people wanted the freedom to worship and so found a place they could go to do so in 1789 the following was written by Fischer Ames : 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  

We all recognize it and for many Christians we like the part that says congress won't make a law that prohibits  the free exercise of religion, but are less inclined to admit that the country was NOT nor ever would be defined as a Christian Nation.  That's what making no law respecting and establishment of religion means...We may be a nation that was founded by men who were Christians, and even that could be considered a stretch in some respects, but that is different than being a Christian Nation.  There is no national religion....anyway enough of that soap box.

Leviticus 19:34 (HCSB)
³⁴  You must regard the foreigner who lives with you as the native-born among you. You are to love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.

I'm guessing that some of you have already figured out where I'm going but in case you haven't indulge me in a bit more history, that indirectly links to that verse in Leviticus, the beginning of our nation, and where we stand today and how angry I am at a vast majority of people claiming Christianity, and "americans"  small a on purpose, in general.

If it weren't for Samoset and Squanto welcoming the Pilgrims and teaching them how to grow crops, there would have been no colony to kick this whole thing we call the USA off, and while I realize that at best I've just given a 1 graders Thanksgiving Report, there is something important to realize there.  These Native Americans were living out Leviticus 19:34, the tragedy is what those settlers, our ancestors did to the people who lived here in the first place, the real Americans as it were.  We should be taking a page from the Samoset book, or better yet, oh I don't know THE BIBLE...not Mein Kampf

Now to the part that makes me angry when I read stories about idiotic white Americans running for president wanting to deport Muslims or keep them from immigrating, or seeking asylum I get angry.  When I read about some dumb white person in a suit in Chicago spitting on a young woman because she "looks like" she's from the middle east, I seriously question what is wrong with my race, when I hear or see another story about a police officer beating someone because they have a badge and can seemingly do whatever they want, I feel I need to apologize to every person of color for bigotry and every person of a different faith than mine for the call to re-institute the Crusades.  If Republican...no no wait...if extremely right wing religious Republican...no that's not enough either.  If Extremely Religious Right Wing Republican Tea Party, NRA members want to claim Christianity as their religion then they need to start acting like Christ, and if they aren't going to act like Christ and they are going to end up being the face and voice of Christianity in the media and pop culture, then I'm out.  I will officially declare myself a Christ Follower, or as Paul said in Acts a follower of "The Way"

Acts 24:14 (HCSB)
¹⁴  But I confess this to you: I worship my fathers’ God according to the Way, which they call a sect, believing all the things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets.

The point is this.  God doesn't change,  in Leviticus he told the children of Israel to treat people that were different than they were as though they were part of the family..(sure that's an Aaron paraphrase but I think fairly accurate.)  In the New Testament Jesus tells us to Love God and Love People, he doesn't put any qualifiers as to the type of people or kind of people or whatever just love God love people.  That's what a christian is supposed to do...not encourage all his students to own a gun...not keep people out of the country or deport people because they are different.

I have said before that there are times I'm ashamed to be white....

I will say this.  I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God unto Salvation...I am not ashamed to be named with Christ, to be accused of being open and welcoming, full of love and grace and mercy to all... I believe with everything that is in me that if we live and move and have our being in Jesus, and model Jesus to others, God will deal with people, he will show them where they need to change, he will begin the process of rooting out the sins that so easily beset them...not me, not my church, not your church...

But I say with great sadness that there are times I am ashamed to be an american christian...because so many american christians have forgotten who Christ is, and that we are to be more like him and less like ourselves.

 

Long Division...

Thou shalt become like me or thou must not really be a Christian...Thou shalt believe and interpret scripture the exact same way that I do or you are living in sin...Thou shalt follow the precepts and teachings of the religious right or religious left to prove you are a true believer...Thou shalt speak ill of all those who do not measure up to the old testament standard of holiness...thou shalt look down your nose and speak in condencending terms to those that refuse to take into account, context, original language, and intent of the author, and favor a literal interpretation of scripture...

Over the past months and unfortunately years I have seen what I can only describe as the systematic dismantling of Christianity from the inside... The symptoms are all around us, easily seen by those that so desperately need to hear the message of Christ, and each one of them makes our job all the more difficult.  Christians will stand for gun rights, demand we close our boarders, advocate for registering of refugees, and of all things following Donald Trump as if he were anointed by God to and canonized by Rome...

I have read and heard and seen people claim that God's love and grace are conditional. I have watched people claim that sin is a relative term and we don't say that word because it can alienate whole groups of people who don't believe in the concept of sin or who don't think that it really matters.

In short Christians are great at tearing each other down, and in the process showing a world that is in desperate need of hope, hope that comes from Christ, that we are hopeless.

The more I read the Bible, the more I am convinced that we have it all wrong...that we are so bent on being right about the minute details of what makes God happy, at what gives us a shot at hearing "well done"  we don't get to doing.  I am never going to agree with everything another follower of Christ or Pastor says, how they interpret scripture, and what they deem are the keys to fellowship with God.  Peter addresses these very things though.

1 Peter 4:8 (HCSB)
⁸  Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins.

It's like he knew, knew that there were going to be things that Christians did not see eye to eye on.  There were going to be all kinds of reasons to not interact, to not fellowship, to point fingers and call names.  John addresses the issue when he talks about not all sin leading to death... I wondered about this, because in the same sentence he says all unrighteousness is sin, but not all sin leads to death.  Specifically John seems to be talking about when I notice sin in other people...my response to what I deem a sin...

1 John 5:16-17 (HCSB)
¹⁶  If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not bring death, he should ask, and God will give life to him—to those who commit sin that doesn’t bring death. There is sin that brings death. I am not saying he should pray about that.
¹⁷  All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that does not bring death.

I wonder sometimes if both Peter and John are giving us a clue on how we are to interact with each other...if they are trying to tell us in very plain terms that our judgment of sin isn't what matters, especially when we are dealing with each other, especially when we are dealing with people who claim to be followers of Christ and the evidence of their life, they way they live and move and have their being, clearly shows that they are following God, that they are Loving Him and Loving people.  What if what they both are talking about is the way human beings, the way you and I, decide what is sin and what isn't even when we can see that the persons life is lived in  a way that brings glory to God, that they evidence the character of Christ, but because we dislike something that they do, or it doesn't fit our interpretation of the Bible that must mean that they are in deep sin and can't be really "saved?"  What if we spent more time loving the people around us, the people who are supposed to be pulling in the same direction that are supposed to be salt and light, what if we began to realize that we don't have it all right, that we don't have it all wrong, and that the most important thing for us to do is work to bring the good news the Gospel of Christ to the world.

Imagine what would happen if we saw each other as allies, if we realized that the thing that binds us together a faith grounded in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is stronger than my personal opinion or agenda?  What if we prayed for people instead of preying on them in the world of the church.

So many what if's, so many opportunities missed because the church is busy fighting amongst themselves.

Love God, Love People.  Simple, to the Point...Love... When we respond in Love we will see the person before we see the problem... and we may find the problem isn't as big as we make it out to be...

The church world has been divided for a long time...the longer we remain that way the harder it will be to show the world that the need a relationship with the God we serve...

 

 

 

The Clock Kid and other frustrations...

I'm in the process of reading and summarizing a report about what happened in Baltimore last April for the association and conference that our church happens to be a part of.  I have watched and became frustrated with the way so many people who claim Christ desire to fist bump Donald Trump as the coming Messiah of the good old U.S. of A, especially with his obvious bigotry and prejudice on display on a regular basis and his ability to spot internet rumor and conspiracy as fact...because we all know what we see on TV and read on the internet is always true... right?  I've taken whats her name that wouldn't just do her job and the christians who found it more conducive to wave crosses and play Eye of the TIger and call her a Modern Day martyr for the cause to task for being annoying and cannonizing her as a protestant saint.  I realized the pure frustration that a family must have felt when their son was taken into custody for a "bomb" that was obviously not a bomb and that no one really thought was a bomb, given they way they kept everyone in the school etc.

As a pastor it's part of my vocation to speak out about things that the church is doing that hurts the cause of Christ...which in case we were all forgetting is pretty much summed up in our telling people with our words and our actions that God so loved them that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.  Love God, Love People that's what we need to be doing.

All of these things I have done.  Interspersed throughout those posts and my work as a pastor in Baltimore I have shared some of the hard dark sad parts of what I do, as well as some funny moments that will inevitably happen being a father of three girls.

It's a safe bet that I sit at odds with a lot of people that I know and love in many respects and I'm okay with that.

I write about good things and crappy things, things that encourage me and things that bother me, and so today I'm going to write about something that really bothered me...

When I looked at my news feed I found that Ahmed Mohamed's parents are seeking 15 Million in damages in a law suite against the City and the School system, as well as a public apology.

Don't get me wrong,  there should be consequences to the idiotic behavior that officials both in the City of Irving and on the School Board evidenced. There should be a public apology, as well as some form of punitive penalty to help all of them think before they act in such an obviously bigoted way...but...15 Million.  Think for a moment about who that amount of money is going to directly effect.  Students and families that rely on some of the programs that the city has to offer.  It's not going to affect the people who perpetrated the bigotry and discrimination, it's going to be taken from people who had no say in what happened.

What happened to Ahmed was wrong... and now when the city and school system pays out this 15 million what will happen to other students just like Ahmed will be wrong.

Ahmed has had some awesome things happen in the wake of the obvious bigotry that he was subject to.  He has met presidents, the CEO of Google and been named one of Times 2015 most influential teens.  He has been given a full ride scholarship to one of the best schools of Qatar, and while I think it's deplorable that in order to get the education he deserves and to be treated with the respect and dignity he deserves he has gone there, I think it's awesome that those things have happened.  The tragedy was turned to triumph in many ways because people were willing to step up and do the right thing, to not allow a few people to be the voice of the majority.

So why then are we punishing not the idiots that started the whole mess but the students and families that had nothing to do with it.  I wish it were different but it looks suspiciously like an easy pay day to me and nothing more.  There is it seems no impetus demanding change, or training to understand what was done wrong, there is no desire for disciplinary action evidenced in the demand for 15 million there is simply a desire for 15 million and oh yeah a public apology...

And this is my problem... the childish, greed and need to be right, that so many evidence.  Be it the Gay couple that decided that they would stick it to Memories Pizza, Ahmed's parents who want their payday, or a group of Christians who claim an elected official can opt out of doing her job because she doesn't like it, they all seem to miss the point and in my estimation set back the causes for which they fight when they resort to behavior that I would attribute to a spoiled child and not a rational adult.

When we punish the masses for the sins of the few, we create something frightening, a culture that will be less likely to speak up, use their rights of free speech, or want to put themselves on the line for what is right and what should be.  It's a different type of oppression, and places all the power not in the hands of the oppressed, not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of a select few who use money, and litigation to exploit rather than bring about constructive change.

Anyway I don't know.  I just was sad to see someone cashing in at what will be the expense of people who had nothing to do with the problem in the first place...

 

 

 

What we won’t tell you…

There are things that pastors won’t tell you.  Things that you don’t want to hear, things that make us more human than you want us to be. There are other blogs that have said things like this before, written by people far more important and far more famous in the churchesphere than I.  The things they say are true, but many of them leave out some of the things that we won’t tell you because well yea they just do.

I also realize that I am now telling you dear reader, the things that pastors won’t tell you, meaning you now will know some of the things that we don’t tell you or are afraid to tell you.

I want to be clear about something when it comes to these things we won’t tell you, this is ammunition, plain and simple. This blog all about me getting out the things that are in my mind and heart, pretty much unfiltered, and whenever this happens, whenever someone goes unfiltered they open themselves up.  It’s a safe bit that some of these things may be things your pastor won’t tell you.  Again I get it ammunition, what you choose to do with what I write and what you read is on you.

Anyway.  We won’t tell you…

1.  Pastoring is not just a full time job, or vocation.  We are constantly in pastor mode, even when we are supposed to not be in pastor mode we are.  40 hours is a joke when you’re a pastor.  You are always on call, even when you’re not supposed to be.  Sure we will block out time, we will attempt to disconnect for a while, we will even make lip service to taking a break and knowing we need to, but it’s just that, lip service. We are constantly thinking about praying for, and agonizing over the church we serve. Email, phone calls, texts, vision casting, service design, building issues, member growth both spiritually and physically, all of it is always there, it never goes away.  You can’t leave it at the office, you can’t just unplug from it.  You can set up some walls, and try and cut out space for a life beyond the church but it never really works.  When we aren’t pastoring, we’re miserable, and when we are pastoring we are miserable for a whole different set of reasons.

2.  Our family suffers.  Every time you pick at someone in our family, hold them to a higher standard or say something about them or to them about how disappointed you are or about how the other pastors significant other or kids would never have done or said or been fill in the blank it hurts.  Every time we have to say no to some family something because of a church something it builds walls between us and the people we are supposed to put first.   What makes I t worse is the massive amount of guilt associated with the suffering our family endures.  The worst part is we become accustomed to feelings of guilt, because when we do take time with or for our family, we feel guilty about not being there for the church we have been called by God to serve.

3.  We want you to like us.  Not our preaching, not the way we dress, not if we can sing or not, and not the things that we do for the church. We want you to like us, and we can tell when you don’t, and when we get that vibe one of two things will happen,  we will try extra hard to get you to like us, or we will come up with ways to avoid one on one conversation with you.

4.  We look at the service as art.  Putting it together, making sure it flows, spending time praying over each element, trying to get the timing down, all of it is art,  all of it takes time.  Sometimes the work is fridge worthy, sometimes it’s gallery worthy, and sometimes it’s rubbish that needs to be scrapped.  The problem is we don’t always know which it will be until we are in the middle of it, so not only do you get to see the gallery and fridge stuff, you also see the crappy pieces that we wish no one could see.

5.  Sermons are not just a weekly speech.  There is more to preparing a quality sermon than reading a few verses.  We know when they tank, in fact we know that they are going to tank when we open our mouth at the beginning of the message, and we feel horrible about that.

6.  Sometimes you bother us especially when you hurt the people we love.  We won’t tell you this, in fact we will feel really bad for not liking you at any given point, we will agonize over it, pray about it, and figure there is something wrong with us.

7.  We worry about your spiritual life, sometimes to the detriment of our own.

8.  We want the church to grow more than you do. Every Sunday that attendance shrinks is another punch to the gut telling us that we aren’t good enough, that we aren’t really called, and that we should just get out of this whole pastor thing.  The problem is it’s not so easy to just turn off the calling that God has on our life and so we keep working and working and working.

9.  Every time you bring up what the other guy did as the way it should be you are telling us that we will never really be your pastor, and that hurts.

10.  We are pretty broken people that aren’t allowed to appear broken.  We feel like we have to always be on, and when we aren’t on to everyone’s expectations we feel it, know it, and try working harder and longer, all of which is a detriment to our family, but we don’t know how to or are unwilling to stop juggling all the balls that is the church we are called to serve.

11.  Titles, committees, and fundraisers are not nearly as important as everyone thinks they are. We do know what we are saying, we want you to know Jesus, we want you to be a part of the church because you Love Jesus more than anything.  When you are doing it for any other reason we know this and it hurts because we are obviously not communicating the importance of a personal relationship with God that informs the rest of your life, in a way that helps you see how important it is and makes you want it.

12.  We are scared and scarred.  Scared to say the things that will hurt your feelings but ultimately help you in your life, and scarred from the times we did so and found out that you could really care less and have decided that we have no real say in your life. Again letting us know we are not  your pastor.

There you go 12 things that we won’t tell you.

Now for one thing that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least for me it is.  We LOVE you.  We LOVE you so much because it’s part of who we are and what we are made to be and what we want to do.

Pay Attention

Have you ever read something that speaks directly to where you are at the moment and you want to ignore it because you actually enjoy how you are feeling, sometimes it's fun to nurse anger, or bitterness, or frustration or euphoria or well you get the idea.  When we nurse those things along in our lives it's easy to slip into all sorts of behaviors that can be detrimental to our ability to function in our daily interactions with others, and to have a healthy faith life.

I can't stand platitudes, easy answers or refusal to look at more than one side of the issue.  It's so easy to find the people who you are most comfortable with, that like you and affirm you and listen to you and so immerse yourself in the subculture of comfort that we build to help ourselves make it through life.  What I'm finding is that in those moments where I am most conflicted, or that the things that I am thinking and praying about are not coming into focus the way they should, or the way I think they should it's usually because I am bringing my notions of what is important, or fair, or relevant into the mix in an unhealthy way.  Which brings me to what I read today and in a larger part what I have been reading lately and how it always seems to speak to the areas where my self-righteousness, and self-justification, grow the largest.



Hebrews 2:1 is another in an increasingly long line of verses that have been hitting me pretty hard lately.  Not in a bad way in a wow okay I need to step back for a moment.

When I think of all the things that I have heard, all the preaching, all the teaching, all the songs, all the conferences, all of it I realize that there has been a lot that has gone into what makes me into the Christ follower I am today but like everyone else I am subject to the winds of the world, like everyone I tend to gravitate toward people who will tell me what I like to hear, that will agree with me more than call me out on the possibility that I have it wrong, the my interpretation is off that I am missing some key parts of what God is saying through a particular passage, life experience or individual.

When Paul tells us to pay even more attention to what we have heard so we don't drift away, it's easy to look at what we were, at what we grew up learning or hearing and trying to get back to it.  It's easy to look at things and think that everything we were taught, all the things we understood were right after all.  That our earlier interpretation of scripture, or circumstance is actually the right way of reading things, that life and growth, and change in venue really are the enemies to a deeper more relevant, personal faith life.  But what if it's more than that. What if when we look at what we heard, what we grew up believing was Gospel truth, was wrong?  What if some of the things that I took for granted, really shouldn't be a part of the foundation of my life, and what if some of the new things that I have started to look at and wonder about are equally misguided.  If anything Hebrews 2 tells me that it's easy to drift away when we decide that one camp is all right and one camp is all wrong.  There is a place for commonality, but more importantly no matter where we stand on some issues and thoughts and fights. There is a real foundation to our faith that is embodied in the following...“

And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak.”
(2 Corinthians 4:13 HCSB)

Reading the verses around that verse we find that our faith is supposed to be rooted in Jesus, sometimes I get so caught up in the things that come across my Facebook feed, or a tweet from someone who I agree with, or disagree with, I get dug so deep into Orange or Patheos, or Outlaw preachers that I lose sight of the real foundation for my faith, Jesus.

My frustration with what I used to hold dear, or with what I now hold as important many times manifests in sarcasm, frustration and a predisposition to become judgmental.  What I have to remember is what I have heard so I don't drift away from what really matters, from the thing that should bind all people who profess to be Christ followers, the work of God evidenced in my life through the acceptance of Jesus death, resurrection and cross.  That last part can be the tricky part because if I read it right when I take up the cross, I'm placing myself in the lowest possible position.  The cross invites pain, ridicule, scorn and embarrassment. The cross exposes not just my soft bits but the bits that I thought were strong, that I thought were solid and well worked.  The cross not only demands but compels me to death, not once but if the Gospel of Luke is to be believed on a daily basis.

“Then He said to them all, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross DAILY, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23 HCSB)

That's the thing about remembering what we have heard.  We are supposed to remember it all, and when we remember those kinds of verse, at least when I do, I want to move on to something more comfortable, self-serving and easy.

I keep wondering what would happen if every day I would look at all the people who I know and love and even the ones I know and don't love and realize that if they claim Christianity we have the same foundation,  and if I really am going to be the Christ follower I claim to be or want to be, I need to wake up pick up the cross, climb the hill lay down and allow the nails to be driven in or the ropes to be tied, and death to come, over and over and over again.  With the hope that each time I do there is more of Jesus and less of Aaron.

Tripping Up...

Something has happened and I'm not sure when it actually happened I just know that it did.  Suddenly I'm 20 years out of college. 20 years not out of high school but out of college.  It's crazy because it doesn't feel like it should be that long.  It puts me even further out of High School.  It's just one of those things.

There are a few things that I remember though and one of them is one of those super embarrassing moments that happens in everyone's life, you know the ones I mean, where you look around and hope that no one sees you.

I was on the phone talking to who knows, I am pretty sure it wasn't my parents though, the conversation ended in a not parenty way if that makes sense,  I jumped up turned and sprinted into the laundry room.  See back in the day you had a pay phone and calling card, living on campus in a different set of dorms, you could have a phone in the room, or you could do the whole pay phone thing,  anyway instead of landing in the laundry room, I slammed into the window next to the door.  Pretty hard, don't get me wrong I recovered, but I also did that whole check to see if anyone had seen, I'm not sure how they couldn't have but it must have been okay because no one said anything, they were probably just being nice, who knows.  That memory brings to mind something that we all do...

Have you ever been walking down the street, and for no visible reason you seem to just trip.  Your foot catches some phantom root, or a crack in the sidewalk.  Which brings me in an admittedly circuitous way to my thoughts for today...



Rules are better than faith because rules are easily measured.  I make lists of what needs to be done,  I set a calender and live by it, rules make sense,  Follow the rules and happiness happens, ignore the rules and hard times ensue.  Right?  I mean that makes sense.  The problem is people suck at following rules, most of the times humans try to find ways around the rules, they look for loopholes, they follow the letter of the law but ignore the spirit behind it.  Why so many people want to go back to a rules based faith is beyond me but we can find that problem all over the place.  Equally troubling is why modern Christians, think that post modern seekers, and Christ followers, willing to read a bit for themselves and live out their faith in tangible ways, are messed up and far from God because they just don't get the importance of Levitical Law and it's meaning to our faith.  Which brings me to the whole reason for the post.

When I read the verses in Romans this morning something happened that seems to happen more and more often the further I get from my days as a know it all college kid studying to be "in the ministry."  I made a connection between an every day occurence and a Biblical truth.  We need to trip up, and many times our failure at the rules of faith enable our faith to grow more robust.  Think about it, when you trip over that unseen crack in the sidewalk, what's the first thing you do. I know what I do, when I trip on that unseen thing, I stop for a moment, and sometimes, no that's not really accurate, 98 percent of the time, I go back and try to figure out why I tripped.  I look at the spot that I lost my balance, I try to find the cause...Now apply that, to the verses in Romans.  When we try to live and move and have our being in the rules of Christianity, as opposed to in the person of Christ we are going to trip and if we do it right, if we trip up, as opposed to just tripping. We will be brought back to that place where we see that no matter how hard we try, without a living breathing active faith, that has its foundation not in Leviticus but in Christ, we are lost, we do what so many of us do, what I did when I ran into that window outside the Laundry Room, we look around to make sure no one saw what just happened, and if they didn't we turn around and act like everything is fine, like we have control of things, like nothing happened.  Meanwhile the person that we claim to follow weeps, not so much because of the misstep but because we are leaving out the one that wants more than anything to be more to our life than a label.

Imagine the difference in our world, not the world.. our world, the sphere of influence that we have, if we are willing to look at the places we fall instead of trying to act like they never happened, people would see us in a whole new, approachable, light, and isn't that what we're supposed to be?

Who talks like that?

“To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some.Now I do all this because of the gospel, so I may become a partner in its benefits.”
(1 Corinthians 9:22–23 HCSB)

This one's just a personal thing but it's attached to this verse in 1 Corinthians.  Now don't get me wrong I get it.  I know that I'm kinda pulling things out a bit on this one.  I know that this particular scripture has been used for all sorts of reasons, usually the wrong ones.  People use it as an excuse way to many times, when Paul talks about following the letter of the law, when he tries to reach one set of people, and not following it to reach another, people on both sides of whatever issue they have with law and grace have a field day.  The concept though is solid, Paul realizes that the intended audience is important, and how we interact with that audience matters when we are presenting something as important as the Gospel of Christ.

The problem for most of us is we don't really know who our intended audience is.  Which brings me to the title.  Why do so many people who are supposed to tell others about Jesus do so in ways that either make Jesus and more importantly his words inaccessible, or completely alienate them from the one known for hanging out with people not in religious in crowd.

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.””
(Matthew 11:19 HCSB)

Pretty harsh words for many of us, mainly because for years the church has done it's best to not be a friend of sinners, to be more worried about not smoking, not chewing, not drinking, not, not, not, not, not. The church doesn't really like that Jesus.  That Jesus makes the church uncomfortable, because that Jesus wouldn't really spend Sunday morning singing Heart of Worship, or Amazing Grace.

Phrases and words that bother me include but are not limited to "beloved," "Oh Church," "My People," "friends," "lets enter in," "close your eyes,"  "let's all join hands," the list goes on, I could sit here and come up with whole sentences that don't make sense but that's just a waste of time.

Perhaps the worst part of the title is that I have said those very same words at one time or another in my life as a Christ Follower and as a church leader.  It's easy for us all to get to a place where the phrases and words we use become more important than the message we are to give.  That playing to the base becomes easier than evaluating every part of what we do and finding the disconnect. Sometimes it's language, sometimes it's programming, it could be structure, or music, or decor.  There are all sorts of ways that we talk to people, many times trying to make our language more important than theirs.

Coffee shops are cool right so lets serve coffee shop coffee and make a cool sitting area like they have at the new place down the street, then the people at the coffee shop will come here on Sunday, except that the people are already going to the coffee shop.  Lights and sound and smoke are really cool, look at all the people who go to concerts, they like those things, let's incorporate them into Sunday Worship.  Except that in many cases we can't do it as well as they can, can't afford what it takes to make it really great, and if we can, we run the risk of looking desperate.  When we were growing up kids were seen and not heard, that's the way things were for us and what was good enough for us is good enough for them. Except that people with Kids now, especially Gen X'ers and Millenials don't want their kids to be treated the way they were treated when they went to church or any other function.  Look around the church, see the lack of young people, the mass exodus as soon as 18 hits and think about how you treated them when they came to church, that one can be painful.

The real problem that I see is that we try so hard to wrap the message of Christ in a package that is relevant, and attractive, and easy to understand and embrace...except that there are whole aspects of that package that are not attractive, not relevant by what churches assume are relevant standards, and are down right confusing to the people who spend their lives studying them, even if they won't admit it.   Sure the whole love thing is great.  and it's true.  If we would spend as much time loving people as we do telling them all the things we don't like about them, because face it when we point out a persons sin either to them individually or through a sermon series on Levitical laws and why they work for you, what we're really saying is "these are the things we don't like about you, if you want to belong, if you want to fit in, if you want to get to know the guy that we keep saying loves you unconditionally then you have to met OUR conditions.  Really loving people and talking about the love aspect of our faith is true and great but then you come to the harder things. Love is easy to make relevant and attractive and easy to understand. Repentance, sacrifice, taking up the cross daily, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile with the person that hurts you and hates you, standing up for what's right and just even when I'm uncomfortable with it, even when it's not my interpretation of, even when I don't feel like it.  Those things are harder to sell.  Which is why it's not our job to do so.  Look what Paul says...

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:6 HCSB)

We plant and water with love and grace and mercy, then God is the one that takes it from there, he's the one that brings about the realization that there are things in a person's life that need changed, he's the one that pushes a person to the point of picking up the cross.  The problem is we don't always like waiting for God to do the work, and so we start saying things that build walls around the very one that can and will make a person into what they were designed to be.  Romans 8 is one of those chapters that people use to prove their points about law, and faith, and love and freedom, but I am beginning to think it's more about what we say and what God wants us to say.  Starting in vs 26 and going to the end of the chapter we find an idea that I think is lost to many Christians today.

“In the same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.”(Romans 8:26 HCSB)

If all the stuff we have decided is important to say is so important why bother with the God part of our faith.  If we were really that articulate why does God have to intercede for us?  Why bother with verse 27 or 28 or 29.  Why say all things work together for good when so many things don't.  I hate it when people say that to me when things are going bad, mainly because that statement holds truth in regards to my eternity with God, not in my finite journey on this earth.  If I have a relationship with him, even when things go horribly wrong here I know that there will come a day when the there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain. but that's not necessarily today.  I fail to see the good that comes from a child diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, fail to understand the blessing that comes from that same child wasting away to nothing and dying, and from what I read and what I see I'm not supposed to be okay with it, I shouldn't understand it and I definitely shouldn't use scripture to explain away a persons grief or anger or resentment toward God.

Admitting we don't know, or don't understand is seen as weakness in the church world, but it shouldn't be.  We think that admitting a verse doesn't make sense to us, or that taken in today's context it may mean something different, must mean we don't believe it.  We think that we have to have all the answers, that we have to say all the right words and if we do if we talk the way churches have talked for centuries people will flock to God, and by proxy to the church, except it isn't working, in fact the opposite seems to be happening in a vast majority of churches and it's happening because we have tried to take our language, spoken, visual, and unspoken, turn it into cannon, and tell the people that if they will just listen to us, adopt our language, and do it our way then we will accept them, they will be loved, and we can then introduce them to the God we serve, the only problem is, in most cases, if we were really honest with ourselves and them...the god we serve is the one that is shaking their hand...