Church Grumblings: I'm Not Being Fed

Yesterday I read Jonathan Acuff's book of satire called Stuff Christians Like. You can download it for free this month at Christian Audio. I was listening to it while running yesterday and a few times I almost fell over from laughing so hard. I must have been quite a site - a very happy runner, indeed.

SCL is a book that makes fun of things we say and do as Christians that are well - quite foolish, sometimes hypocritical, and normally "just what we do." He is writing satire so you need to understand that he is using humor to make a point. I thought you would be challenged to read this one on church grumblers (not gamblers) - he says that their favorite line is "I am just not getting fed."

COMPLAINING ABOUT NOT BEING “FED” AT CHURCH

If you want to become a professional church grumbler, not just some amateur occasionally throwing rocks at the worship service, minister, or other attributes of the church, there’s one key phrase you need to know:

“I’m not being fed.”

This simple complaint—the teaching is lacking, the sermons are thin, the worship music is not uplifting enough, or a million other things that people find inadequate—is the official complaint of church grumblers the world over. If we could figure out a way to monetize it, we could permanently end world poverty. Forget cold fusion; if we could generate energy every time someone says this phrase, we’d be able to break our dependence on foreign oil in about four minutes.

It’s such a perfect thing to say because it deflects any attention away from me, while at the same time creating false humility and making me seem spiritually mature and advanced. “It’s not you, it’s me. I just want to learn. I’m admitting that I am incomplete. I’m hungry for deep, real spiritual teaching. I’m humbly confessing that I’m not getting enough out of church. Please help me get the rich faith-building experiences that i so desperately need.”

Just be careful who you say this to. Pastors are starting to get wily. When people tell my friend, “I’m not being fed,” he replies, “I’m perfectly happy to spoon feed my one-year-old. But if I’m still spoon-feeding him when he’s five, we’ve got a problem. Here’s a fork. Feed yourself.”

Should You Leave Your Church if Your Not "Growing"?

Here is a pastorally wise article by John Piper on the following question:

Watch the video here

If there is nothing specifically wrong with my church, but I feel like I've stopped growing, is that a good enough reason to look for another one?

I doubt it. I'm taking seriously the statement, "there is nothing specifically wrong with my church." There is always something wrong with your church!

So I'm just assuming this is a doctrinally sound church and a church in which pastoral care and mutual love is happening, and so on. And I would say, if you've stopped growing then you can't point to your church. It sounds like you can't blame your church.

Something else is going on here, and you need to dig down to the obstacles that emerge in you, and find out whether it's because you've stopped serving or praying or giving your life away. Given this first statement, "If there is nothing specifically wrong with my church, but I feel like I've stopped growing," I would say, do not assume going to a new church is going to change that.

What will happen in a new church, probably, is some artificial new buzz. The worship will sound different, the preaching will sound different, and the difference will feel energizing for a while. But it's artificial. It's probably not the main cause, and you're going to bump into the same stall at that church.

And if you keep doing that, you're going to fail to find out what the problem is. Because I think the Lord would have us grow continually in a church as long as we're there and as long as life lasts. And growth has lots of other obstacles to it than church.

So get people around you who can counsel you as to what the real issue is here, why you're stalling. And it probably isn't church.

From Desiring God.

Why You Should Come to the Funeral - Even If You Didn't Know Howie

Dear Grace Church Family,
The funeral for Howie Holm will be on Thursday evening at 5 PM, with a meal provided afterward. A nursery will also be provided for infants and toddlers. (see previous posts)

If you consider yourself part of Grace Church, I really think you need to come to the funeral on Thursday (5 PM) if at all possible. I say this to those who have known Howie and Marie for years and to those who never knew him personally.

Why do I think you should come to the funeral whether you knew Howie or not?

If you call Grace your home, here are some reasons why I think you should come:

1. You are a member of a body—if one member suffers, the whole body suffers… 1 Cor. 12:26 says that we are all members of one body and if one hurts the rest hurts. This flies in the face of our individualistic tendencies. It is easy to say – “I am busy and I really didn’t know Howie…” or “it really won’t make a difference if I come because no one will know who I am.” Instead, think it terms of the body – one member (Howie’s wife) is suffering and we are called to come together to minister to her. Here is an opportunity for you to feel the pain and joy of someone you are united together with and grow in love for people of the church.

2. You are part of a family and families serve one another even by their presence. In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul says the church is like a family or household. I don’t think my generation has this down very well, but we need to think this way. Families serve each other with their presence. Your being at the funeral has a great potential to impact far more than you could imagine. You may never know the impact that your being at the funeral may have on Howie’s family, others who are there to grieve, or even the pastor who will preach the Gospel to many unbelievers and needs your support.

3. Funerals are a unique means of grace for the soul as it makes you ponder the brevity of your own life. Ecclesiastes 7:2 and 4 say that it is better for our souls to go into the house of mourning than into the house of mirth or laughter. Funerals have a very sobering affect on a person. They remind you that life is very short and that we need to be ready (Psalm 90:12). It is very good for our spiritual life to be reminded of things of eternity and funerals are great reminders of eternity. Parents, this is a great teaching opportunity to your children.

4. You may have never attended a truly Christ-centered funeral. I know it is possible that some of you have never been to a truly edifying funeral before. Let me challenge you – come ready to be blessed by God’s gracious work. Thursday will be a true worship service. Will there be grief? Absolutely. But the grief will be accompanied by the glorious confidence in Jesus Christ and the saving power that He has lavished upon Howie and everyone who repents and trusts in Jesus for salvation. By God’s grace (please pray for me), the Gospel will be proclaimed and people will be invited to partake of the same joyous relationship of salvation as Howie enjoyed (and continues to enjoy).

I hope these thoughts are helpful to you as you ponder your involvement in the family of God at Grace Church.

Pastor Daniel

True Glory in Beijing

Here is a good article by Mark Altrogge on the Olympics, Beijing, glory, and the persecuted church in China. Read the whole article here.

He states:

Last week I caught part of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, reportedly planned and rehearsed for 5 years, and costing $300 million to stage.

It featured 15,000 Chinese performers. 33,866 fireworks were fired off – almost as many as our local Indiana County Fair on July 4th. It was probably the largest and most expensive show ever produced. Especially cool was the performance of 2000 drummers in playing in perfect synchronization. Obviously, China wanted to impress.

But China’s government is not impressive.

“They hung me up across an iron gate, then they yanked open the gate and my whole body lifted until my chest nearly split in two. I hung like that for four hours.” (read on here)

Too Easily Pleased or Impossible to Please?

The other day I read this needed challenge by Douglas Wilson:

As parents, teachers, elders, pastors, and as those in authority, we tend to fall into one of two errors as we seek to guide those who have been placed under our authority. One error is to be far too easily pleased. The other is to become impossible to please. For the former, not only is the glass always half full, but it is reckoned to be completely full because it is half full. For the latter, the glass is always considered to be completely empty because it is always half empty. Both of these approaches are destructive forms of leadership.

And apart from the work of the Spirit in our lives, we tend to fall into one of these two errors. But the work of grace sees what needs to be done, and also sees, in wisdom, what has been done. And the attitude that accompanies this wisdom is that of being extraordinarily easy to please, and extraordinarily difficult to satisfy. This is how our Father God is with us, and this is how we should be with one another. We don't want to be easy to please and easy to satisfy. Neither do we want to be impossible to please and impossible to satisfy. The former type of parent produces well-boiled noodles. The latter gives us neurotic dry twigs, ready to snap.

To you as a congregation, how does this apply? God is extremely pleased with you, and with how far you have come. Is He satisfied? Not even close. We are still on pilgrimage, and are not yet conformed to the image of Christ.

Good Job, EFCA on Statement of Faith

I am glad to be a pastor in the Evangelical Free Church of America and here is one reason why (read link):
HT: Justin Taylor

http://www.skweezer.com/bloglines/s.aspx/-/www~christianitytoday~com/ct/2008/julyweb-only/129-11~0~html
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Fighting Each Other

I am reading "15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall".

I read this quote from a British general's diary that reminds me of internal strife that can take place in the church:

"Running a war seems to consist in making plans and then ensuring that all those destined to carry it out don't quarrel with each other instead of the enemy." (Page 164)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Preaching and Worship

The Grace Church bulletin gives the order of service for the Sunday morning "worship service." For the sermon time it says: "Worship in the Word." This is on purpose.

I like what Mark Dever says about the Word and worship:

During a daylong seminar on Puritanism that I taught at a church in London, I remarked at one point that Puritan sermons were sometimes two hours long. A member of the class gasped audibly and asked, “What time did that leave for worship?” Clearly, the individual assumed that listening to God’s Word preached did not constitute worship. I replied that many English Protestants in former centuries believed that the most essential part of their worship was hearing God’s Word in their own language (a freedom purchased by the blood of more than one martyr) and responding to it in their lives. Whether they had time to sing, though not entirely insignificant, was of comparatively little concern to them.

—Mark Dever, What is a Healthy Church? (Crossway, 2007), 65, 67.

"Me Worship" and Other Satirical Videos

Having been on the topics functioning as a part of the body of Christ and becoming a suffering-servant as a disciple of Christ I thought I would share some humorous, satirical videos meant to point out our self-centeredness.


ME WORSHIP




ME WORSHIP




ME CHURCH - 2

Homeschool, Christian School or Public School?

My daughter, Grace (5), is entering kindergarten age. We are faced with the question--'What are we going to do?"

I am a pastor with families in my church who send their kids to Christian schools, public schools and (most popularly) who homeschool?

This a very serious and emotional charged topic and many Christians (our church included) who hold strong views on one position or another and act less than charitable to others in the same church who hold another position.

Josh Harris (author of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" and "Stop Dating the Church") is a pastor in Maryland and he has some wise and pastorally helpful comments in this video clip below:

Functioning as a Part of the Body of Christ - Sermon

In our "Following Jesus" series at Grace Church I preached this weekend on "Functioning as a Part of the Body of Christ. Here is the sermon manuscript and her is the sermon audio (right click and then click on "save link as").

Here is an excerpt from the sermon:

...Suppose God said to forgiven man that his plan was to create a new humanity of all the people who trust in His crucified and Risen Son and that they will form one organism called “The Body of Christ” or the Church and will be united together in Christ in a special way that by being united together the Son will restore them to the likeness of God that was intended for them in the original Creation. This God and His Son will use this united people, the church—the body of Christ, to show the world the glory, the wisdom, the love, the patience and the mercy of God and His Son—Jesus Christ. Now suppose many people who have been saved by this God say with their thoughts and their actions – “no thank you God. I don’t need to be a functioning and closely knit part of the body that you have formed. I know I need to be made like you originally intended and I need to glorify you but I can and will do it without the encumbering body and restrictive organism called the church.” How ungrateful, foolish, and arrogant would we be to say that to God! Yet so many Christians by their lives and attitudes do this very thing. Oh, they may admit that they are part of the big C Church but they do not submit themselves to real people in a local church with their time, money, energy, gifts and commitment...

"Rolling-Stone Christians" by Spurgeon

On Sunday I concluded my sermon with this illustration by Charles Spurgeon. He challenges professing believers who think it's OK to be a Christian without giving one's self to the church. He calls them a "rolling-stone Christians." Enjoy and be challenge (Spurgeon knows how to speak with wit and piercing conviction):

I know there are some who say, “Well, I have given myself to the Lord, but I do not intend to give myself to the church.”

Now why not?

“Because I can be a Christian without it.”

Are you quite clear about that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord’s commands as by being obedient?

What is a brick made for? To help build a house. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would be in the house. It is a good-for-nothing-brick.

So you rolling-stone Christians. I do not believe that you are answering your purpose. You are living contrary to the life which Christ would have you live, and you are much to blame for the injury you do.

Consumerism and the Church

I am preparing a sermon on "Functioning as a Part of the Body of Christ" for this Sunday and I have been thinking and reading about the concept of how many in the church (including Grace Church) are consumeristic in their approach to the church. What do I mean? Many people view the church in terms of what I can get for myself from the church, be it spiritual food or good feelings about God. Many, without realizing it, ask themselves -- "what can I get for my tithe or use of a Sunday morning? This church or that church?"

Paul David Tripp writes:

I am persuaded that the church today has many more consumers than committed participants. Sure, Joe and Sheila may volunteer for a specific activity like VBS or a diaconal project, but this frequently falls woefully short of the “everyone, all the time” model of the New Testament. Our tendency toward ecclesiastical consumerism has seriously weakened the church. For most of us, church is merely an event we attend or an organization we belong to. We do not see it as a calling that shapes our entire life. (Paul David Tripp – Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, p. XII)

I came across this article today from Leadership Magazine by Skye Jethani that you can read here.

Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:

When we approach Christianity as consumers rather than seeing it as a comprehensive way of life, an interpretive set of beliefs and values, Christianity becomes just one more brand we consume along with Gap, Apple, and Starbucks to express identity. And the demotion of Jesus Christ from Lord to label means to live as a Christian no longer carries an expectation of obedience and good works, but rather the perpetual consumption of Christian merchandise and experiences—music, books, t-shirts, conferences, and jewelry....

Approaching Christianity as a brand (rather than a worldview) explains why the majority of people who identify themselves as born-again Christians live no differently than other Americans. According to George Barna, most churchgoers have not adopted a biblical worldview, they have simply added a Jesus fish on the bumper of their unregenerate consumer identities. As Mark Riddle observes, "Conversion in the U.S. seems to mean we've exchanged some of our shopping at Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, and Borders for the Christian bookstore down the street. We've taken our lack of purchasing control to God's store, where we buy our office supplies in Jesus name."

Ultimately we shouldn't be surprised that American Christianity has succumbed to the pervasive power of consumerism. Alan Wolf, a leading sociologist and the director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, has concluded that, "In the United States culture has transformed Christ, as well as all other religions found within these shores. In every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture—and American culture has triumphed."

I also would recommend the reading of this article -- "The Danger of Consumerism"

The "slightly hyperactive male adolescent" in us all

Andrew Furgeson in the Weekly Standard wrote a piece on the brand new "Newseum" that just opened this April in Washington D. C. He describes the new style of museums and I couldn't but think how that relates to how many "do church" on Sunday morning with the "primary goal of seizing and holding the attention of a slightly hyperactive male adolescent, that cheerful, vacant fellow who has just clambered down from the school bus and has detached himself from the ear buds of his iPod and is in danger of growing fidgety from the sudden lack of stimulation."
Heres is the quote:

The wow experience has now become mandatory in the design of modern museums. A museum visitor no longer just visits a museum and sees stuff: He is given a visitor experience--a sequence of sensations that can be packaged, advertised, and controlled by the curators. If the visitor experience is interactive, that's terrific; if it's immersive--well, you're going to have one wowed visitor on your hands. For the great enemy of the museum designer today is not ignorance but boredom. Like most public institutions in American life, from movies to libraries to baseball parks, museums are designed with the primary goal of seizing and holding the attention of a slightly hyperactive male adolescent, that cheerful, vacant fellow who has just clambered down from the school bus and has detached himself from the ear buds of his iPod and is in danger of growing fidgety from the sudden lack of stimulation. His discomfort must be avoided at all costs. Sometimes I picture the entire educo-entertainment industry as one of those villagers in the old horror movie Children of the Damned, utterly terrified of offending the alien children lest they turn their scary X-ray eyes on them and .  .  . poof! Displease the kids and your museum (movie, theme park, retail store, school) is a goner.

If you click here, you can read the entire article online.

Piper - When God Will Not Use Bigness

John Piper writes a brief and encouraging to me as a pastor of a small church:

There are saving works that God will only do through small churches and ordinary people, not through large churches and more sophisticated people.

The Lord said to Gideon, "The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, 'My own hand has saved me.’” (Judges 7:2)

Beware of missing your appointed fruit by envying bigger trees.

Check out the Desiring God Blog here.