All posts in category Church

Why Do I Go to Church?

Everyone’s heard the statistics, a majority of the students in our churches will end up abandoning the church once they leave the home (18-20) and then somehow stumble back into the church in their 30s, seemingly without missing anything the church has done. I know many people who view church as not much more than a club for them to be members at, and it looks good to the people around you to go to church. Unfortunately, this is a profound misunderstanding of the church! So why do I, as a 24 year old single male go to church, besides the fact that it’s my job?

  • I really enjoy going to church. I don’t know of any other place where I can interact with people ranging in age from infants to late 80s. Most of these people aren’t those that I would generally choose to spend a great deal of time with, but because of Christ in both of our lives, we have Him in common! It’s a joy to get down on a knee and hear about a 2 year olds new bike helmet, and then turn the corner and get a hug from an 80 year old woman who told me she was praying for me this week.
  • We, as a congregation, reflect God’s purpose for his people. I’m reading ‘Doxology & Theology‘ which says, “Through the work of worship we “become something corporate.” We become the body of Christ, we become the bride of the King” (125). This flies in stark contrast to our individualistic American society where we are so focused on ourselves that we have trouble seeing anyone else around us.
  • I’m going to be spending eternity with Christ’s bride, the church. I need to learn how to love the people in my church who are different from me, because, as was just said, we together make up the body of Christ. I need to spend time with those I don’t always see eye to eye with in order to grow in my areas of weakness.
  • Last, but most certainly not least, is because the Bible commands me to go to church. Hebrews 10:25 says, “do not neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some.” This verse could have been written to many people today! We are commanded to meet together because together we make of the body of Christ.

For me, going to church has never been an option, and I haven’t always gone joyfully, but through God’s grace, I’ve learned to enjoy the imperfect church we have on earth. Why do you go to church? What are some of the excuses you’ve heard for why people have given up on the church?

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by mikethestrand on May 20, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 20, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/05/20/why-do-i-go-to-church/

What One Thing Do You Have?

Kevin DeYoung wrote a blog today titled ‘If All You Have Is A Hammer.’ He finishes the thought by saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” So many times and of so many people in the church this is true of them. They insist that they are the hammer and they view everything through a specific lens. To whom is Kevin referring with this? He says,

What do I have in mind? No one in particular but lots of things in general. The Christian who blames everything on fundamentalism and relates every story to their upbringing where they had to wear long skirts and watch Lawrence Welk. The feminist who sees the oppression of woman in every tweet. The conservative who can only sound the alarm of cultural declension. The Presbyterian who relates everything to the regulative principle. The church critic who sees every weakness as an expression of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The gospel-loving saint who smells legalism in every exhortation against vice and in every celebration of virtue. The philosopher who has concluded that every problem boils down to epistemology or the one and the many or whatever. The academic who thinks everything that ails the church finds its roots in whatever he wrote for his dissertation. The revisionist who is confident that the church is all out of sorts because of Greek thinking, Constantine, or Old Princeton. The wounded soul who can’t see past his own hurts or makes it her life mission to rage against the machine. The liberal who can’t stop talking about tolerance and dialogue. The Sunday school teacher who finds a reason in every class to beat on Charles Finney. The peacemaker who sees every conflict as a third way waiting to happen.

I know many people who have their one issue that they view the world through instead of through the whole of Scripture. From the people who think we can only sing one genre in church, to the people who still think dancing is a sin, to the people who view everything as an end times prophecy. This is one of the many reasons we need to read through the whole of the Bible regularly. We don’t get to pick and choose the things we make important, God does. Now this doesn’t mean that the things Kevin listed aren’t important, they are! BUT if that’s the only thing you have to talk about and you refuse to look at the other things God is doing through other people you are living life incorrectly. I’ve been reflecting on Philippians the past couple weeks, and think we all could take an example from Christ

“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Philippians 2:4-7

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by mikethestrand on May 16, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 16, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/05/16/what-one-thing-do-you-have/

Practicing for Heaven

Do you ever practice for anything? I have at least one practice every week for music on Sundays, and usually I have two practices. When I was growing up I practiced basketball for hours on end and my parents forced me to practice piano. These days my practice generally falls into two categories: reading and music. I read so I can grow in my knowledge of God and I practice music because I love it and because it’s part of my job.

Have you ever thought about anything on earth that we are practicing for heaven? My dad wrote a couple pieces recently on music (The Church’s Corporate Singing: Reflecting the Now and the Not-Yet-Ness of the Kingdom, and The Singing Church: Praise, Prayer and Proclamation). I also just recently finished reading ‘Rhythms of Grace‘ by Mike Cosper, a fantastic book I strongly recommend if you think through anything related to worship. Through my dialogue with my dad and reading that book I was reminded that singing songs together today is practicing for what we will one day do in heaven. 1 Corinthians 13, the famous love chapter says, “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” So many things people on earth put so much stock in today will eventually pass away, and what will remain? God’s love.

Revelation also paints a picture of us singing praises to our God, starting in Revelation 4 with the four creatures and twenty-four elders, continuing in Revelation 15 singing the song of Moses, and finally the great multitude in heaven praising God in Revelation 19. We are a people who sing praises to our God, and we are a people who will be singing praises to God for all eternity. Preaching will someday be done, because we will be in the very presence of God! Teaching will someday cease because God will reveal himself to us! But singing is something we will get to do for all eternity. So do you regularly sing praises to God, or are you too worried about what those around you will think? Do you view singing as a way to practice for heaven?

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by mikethestrand on May 8, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 8, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/05/08/practicing-for-heaven/

How To Preach A Confusing Text

The Gospel Coalition has a great blog today on ‘How To Preach A Text When You Don’t Know What It Means.’ In it, Michael Patton (great first name!) shows the difference between preaching and teaching and lists the following examples:

  • Preaching is exhortation; teaching is education.
  • Preaching is the discharge of the gospel of hope; teaching is discipleship of the gospel of hope.
  • Preaching puts wind in the sails; teaching put an anchor in the ground.
  • Preaching raises our eyes to the things we know with great conviction; teaching helps us to understand what things we can have legitimate conviction about.
  • Preaching tells you which option is correct; teaching gives you all the options.

To me, it gets down to the basic question of why do we preach? We should preach to proclaim the Good News of what Christ has done in our lives, how Christ continues to work in our lives and what Christ will eventually do when he returns. He ends the article saying,

Sometimes we need to settle for good sermons with wrong texts. Sometimes we are going to be unsure of the exact interpretation of a passage of Scripture, but we don’t have to sacrifice giving our congregations something to believe due to the obscurity of our text. We can still preach the Word with full integrity by focusing on the principles that are universally true even if we end up being wrong about our interpretation. It is important that you let people know there is some legitimate debate and what you are about to preach could be wrong. But assure them that the principles that you preach are not wrong as they are found in other places in Scripture. That is how you preach a sermon when you are not sure what the passage means.

Give them something to believe.

Do you have something to believe? Do you have the conviction it takes to preach a sermon on a confusing text or do you simply give up?

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by mikethestrand on May 7, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, Church, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 7, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/05/07/how-to-preach-a-confusing-text/

Preparing Your Hearts and Minds

What do you do to prepare yourself for the gathering of God’s people on Sunday? Do you even take any time to prepare for this special meeting, or are you too concerned with getting there on time with everyone’s clothes on and hair combed?

One of the things I’ve been pondering lately is how I can help people to prepare for Sunday worship. Should we encouraged people to read and ponder the passage that will be preached the next week? Should we give thoughts for people to think about throughout the coming week? And if we do this, how many people would actually put in the effort to read and prepare?

It seems to me that many people assume that the only person who needs to prepare for Sunday’s worship service is the pastor. Yet Luke 8:18 says, “Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.” Those in the congregation need to attentively and actively listen.

A blog titled ‘Let the Word of Christ Dwell in You Richly‘ has the following example of this in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Bonhoeffer ran an underground seminary for theological students during the oppressive years of Nazi Germany. He was a very intelligent man who possessed immense critical capabilities. But in his homiletics classes as he listened to his students preaching, he always set aside his pencil and listened intently with his Bible open before him – no matter how poor the sermon was.

He believed that the preaching of God’s Word ought to be attended as if he were listening to the very voice of God. That is how I try to listen too – always looking to the text, always engaged, always thinking, always praying.

Jesus has called us to be sure we really hear the Word of God.

How attentively do you listen to the sermons in your church? How do you prepare for the Word to be preached? And if you do not do either of these things, why don’t you?

–For more on how to listen to a sermon, check out this blog.

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by mikethestrand on May 1, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 1, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/05/01/preparing-your-hearts-and-minds/

Contextualization in the Church

The Gospel Coalition has a wonderful article today titled, ‘Don’t Throw Out Your Nice Suit Just Yet.‘ One of the most helpful paragraphs is:

It is interesting, then, to see church leaders intentionally get rid of these more traditional elements in order to contextualize the gospel. Churches all across our nation emphasize casual worship, and their pastors often sport graphic tees, jeans, and flip flops on Sunday mornings. They believe this approach will best reach a generation turned off by “churchiness.” However, while these churches may be contextualizing their church services for one particular demographic, they do not necessarily reach an entire generation.

This is where I think it’s very helpful to have multiple people on staff. One person cannot effectively reach an entire generation of people, but multiple people can. Tied into that, I don’t think that means that EVERY senior pastor needs to wear a suit when they preach, I think they should let their personality shine out in the way they dress. For me, I’m most comfortable in a button-up and jeans with a nice pair of Sperrys. The other two pastors wear slacks and button-ups every week! (I don’t really know how they do it!)

So yes, let’s not forget that not everyone is used to jeans and a T, but let’s not completely do away with them either. Wear what you’re comfortable wearing and praise God that he loves you not for your outward appearance, but for your heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

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by mikethestrand on April 12, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 12, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/04/12/contextualization-in-the-church/

Lead the Church and Family

I found a fantastic article today titled, ‘Leading the Church While Leading Your Family.’ I was again reminded how grateful I am for my dad who, although he didn’t always put the family first, he still does his best to put us first. I’m grateful for the example of my dad and pray for the strength to put my family first when I, Lord wiling, have one. One of my favorite things from the article is:

Fourth, little things really do matter. Every night when I would say goodnight to my children, I would usually pray with them and then my last words to them were, “I love you. I will always love you and there is nothing that you can do that will ever make me stop loving you.” (There were times I would have to add, “But don’t push it!”) I did this night after night, year after year, until when I started in they would say with a sigh, “Yeah, I know Dad, and there is nothing that I can do that will ever make you stop loving me.” And I would respond, “And don’t you ever forget it.”

I wanted them to know that what I attempted to do imperfectly was done for them perfectly by God through Christ. I wanted them to know their acceptance and security was not rooted in their grades, awards, achievements, and success as the world defined it. They heard this before solos, piano competitions, spelling bees, basketball and soccer games, final exams, college entrance exams, and every night before bed.

One day I was at a track meet for my youngest daughter. I was screaming loudly as she ran her event when my other daughter called from college in great distress. She was facing a test of monumental importance that would determine the success or failure of her entire degree program, and she felt that she was cracking under the pressure. Four years was resting all on this! I reminded her that she was not sufficient for this, but that her confidence and rest was in Christ. I was eleven hours away. With my fist pumping the air for my youngest who was crossing the finish line in record time, I cried with my other daughter and prayed with her to rest in Christ. Then I said again. “Remember, I love you, I will always love and there is nothing that you can do to ever make me stop loving you.” She knew I would tell her that and just wanted to hear it.

What would your family say about you? For those of you who are single, what about the people in your church and your siblings and parents? Is Christ leading and guiding all your relationships?

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by mikethestrand on April 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 5, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/04/05/lead-the-church-and-family/

The Wrath of God

It has become very popular in many Christian circles today to downplay God’s wrath. Many people I talk to quickly say that God is a loving God which means he wouldn’t ever punish anyone. Even Rob Bell last year questioned the existence of hell in his well known book Love Wins. In the opposite side of the spectrum is Tim Keller who in a sermon titled, ‘The Dark Garden,’ talks about how he came to realize that a wrathful God is MORE loving than a non-wrathful God. For him, it all hit home in the Garden of Gethsemane .

It was in the Garden of Gethsemane that I came finally to grips—I made my peace, as it were—with the wrath of God. Now, it might shock some of you that…a preaching minister was struggling with the very idea of a God of wrath, a God who sends people to Hell…. And then it was studying the Garden of Gethsemane when I finally came to peace with it because I realized this: The reason why people get rid of the idea of Hell and wrath is because they want a loving God…. They say, “I can’t believe in Hell and wrath because I want a more loving God.” And I came to realize in the Garden of Gethsemane that if you get rid of the idea of Hell and wrath, you have a less loving God.

You can read some more thoughts from the sermon here. I am grateful that Tim Keller took a stance on this issue and is willing to say that God is a wrathful God! He cannot tolerate sin, for he is a holy God. Praise God that through Jesus, we have a way into the presence of God!

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by mikethestrand on April 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 4, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/04/04/the-wrath-of-god/

Envy in the YRR

I have often identified myself as part of the Young, Restless Reformed movement (YRR, see this book by Collin Hansen). I am grateful for the many people my age who have caught a vision for reformed doctrine, rooted in the Scripture and glorifying to Christ. Yet this movement is not without its downfalls, which a blog written yesterday at Desiring God points out titled, ‘Why Envy Is a Danger for the YRR.’ So many times I have even found myself listening to some people who get accolades and get to speak at the various conferences and think, “I could do that much better than they could.” But that’s not what God has for me now! And I regularly need to remind myself to be faithful in the small things God has given me!

One of the main points I appreciated in the article was,

Where Christ increases, John is content to decrease. But are we? Are we content to decrease, when Christ increases through the ministry of another? Do we even acknowledge that Christ is increasing in the ministry of others? Or do we attribute their success to some other factor: their ambition, their compromises, and in our worst moments, to the efforts of the devil?

May everything we do give glory to God and continue to shake the gates of hell!

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by mikethestrand on April 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, Church, History, Life, Relationships
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 4, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/04/04/envy-in-the-yrr/

Watch Me!

I found a really well done video on how older Christians should help younger Christians in their journey. It uses audio from D.A. Carson as the background. It’s worth watching.

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by mikethestrand on April 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Relationships
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 4, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/04/04/watch-me/

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