All posts in category Church

The “Perfect” Church

Many people today like to talk about how great things USED to be. Even my little sister, who has a slight obsession with books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, continually wishes she could go back to being a pioneer on the prairie. Many people regularly do the same thing with the church, continually complaining that the church today should just get back to the way things used to be. After all, the early church had it right, didn’t they? WRONG! So many people seem to forget about all the epistles written after Acts. There Paul and Peter warn about selfishness, pride, sexual immorality and a host of other sins. Even Peter, the “Rock” of the church was confronted by Paul for favoring the Jews over the Gentiles.

Marc Cortez, a professor at Western Seminary in Portland, OR has written a wonderful blog about this very issue, titled “There Was No Golden Age”. You can read his personal blog here. Ultimately, when we look at Church history, there has never been a “golden” time where the church was as “good as it’s gonna get”. This is similar to a post I wrote a couple weeks ago on Propaganda asking why do Pastors continually quote the Puritans when they owned slaves? As I said there, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, every generation has certain sins they’re blind to, even our generation today will eventually be critiqued for the areas we fell short in.

One of the best lines from Marc’s blog is when he says, “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Our Age isn’t as bad as we think it is. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this generation is perfect, or even great. It’s not hard to look around and see all the problems and challenges we face. But, as we’ve seen, that’s been true of every generation.” What areas do you see us being blind to right now? What areas are we doing well that previous generations didn’t do as well?

(HT: Challies)

Do Not Neglect Meeting Together

We’re currently going through a preaching series on Hebrews at the church I have the immense privilege of serving in, and this next Sunday we’re going to be in Hebrews 10 and discussing an often quoted verse on why we continue to have church, Hebrews 10:24-25. The text reads, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

We also are going through the fantastic book on worship through music by Bob Kauflin titled ‘Worship Matters.’ This past week we talked about the purpose of church. Looking at this text in Hebrews, we see that the purpose of getting together as the church is to “encourage one another” and to “stir up one another to love and good works.” So many times we approach church with the attitude of, “What can I get from church this weel?” We’ve completely turned the purpose of church around. I hate to break it to you, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. So who did you encourage at church this past Sunday and who can you encourage this coming Sunday?

For more Scripture on this topic, see 1 Corinthians 14:26, Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. Ultimately, let’s “outdo one another in showing honor.” (Rom 12:10)

Where Are All the Young People?

So while I enjoy writing and blogging, I haven’t been the most consistent when it comes to blogging, so I’m hoping to change that now and start blogging twice a week most of the time, and at least once a week. So there will continue to be regular updates from me in what’s going on in the church and my life.

This past weekend was quite a crazy weekend at church with both a missions workshop and a wedding that I was involved in so I’m still recovering from the weekend, but a topic we spent a good chunk of time addressing at the missions workshop is the question: why don’t we have more young people involved in things like missions and other leadership positions at church? This is an issue that has been addressed multiple times and in multiple ways yet continues to plague the church. One of the big reasons I think this has happened is that there’s this awkward stage that contains a bunch of 20-somethings and some 30-somethings, where do we “fit in” at the church? There’s usually a good ministry to college students, then another good one for parents of young children and ALWAYS something for the older retired people, but what about those who just graduated college and are for the first time navigating the waters of full time work and financial independence? Most of the church seems to stay away from them like the plague, yet we need so much help as we try to figure out how to invest our time, talents and treasures to further the kingdom! Will someone please come around us and support and encourage us, even have us over for meals to just talk about what’s going on in our lives?

So my biggest frustration is that everyone sees this as a problem and continues to ask why young people aren’t more involved and my quick and short answer is: it’s not that hard, just walk over to us and start a conversation. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me when some of the older people in my church have stopped me and just asked how my week was, or how something I shared encouraged them, or even the fact that they took the time to stop and talk to me meant the world to me! So instead of continuing to bring up this issue and then assume someone else is going to take care of it, just come and talk to us, I promise, we won’t bite!

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All posts in category Church

The “Perfect” Church

Do Not Neglect Meeting Together

Where Are All the Young People?

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