Fighting the Wrong Battles

 Allen typed this after watching the first video in Ken Ham's Foundations series. ~TK

I believe that we, as Christians, fight the wrong battles in the world today.  We have lost our focus on the foundations of Jesus' teachings.  The power of Christianity doesn't come from political control. The power of Christ does not come from stifling other religions or other lifestyles. The power of Christianity does not come from hate or fear; by telling people how wrong the are, or threatening Hell and damnation.  The power of Christ does not come from numbers, or from our own expectations of what power is, which, so often, seems to coincide with what the world sees as the standard.

The foundation for Christianity is Matthew 22: 36-40.  Jesus gets straight up asked.  "What's the greatest commandment?" Of all the things in the laws and from all of history, he says this.  It's Love. This is how Christianity spreads.  Not a single opinion has been changed through military might or by telling people they are wrong.  Every day actions of love. Listening to others talk about the problems they have, treating them like human beings with value, helping when and where you can.  We spread Christianity by not speaking ill of others, by quietly doing what is right day in and day out in our own lives so that others look at us and KNOW that something is different.   I discipline my children out of love for them. I stay with my wife, even when we aren't living a Hollywood happy ever after, because of love.  I treat my co-workers and the people that I am charged with managing with Love.( Even when I have to push them harder than normal. ).
People see the difference.  The people are more apt to hear me express God's message through the things I'm not saying. The world will always hear what Christians do louder than what we say.

Herod slaughtered children. Matthew 2:16.  He though the Messiah was going to be a great king or military leader that was going to overthrow him; take his place in a worldly kingdom.  When the Magi decided to not do the informant work for Herod, he slaughtered every single child in Bethlehem under the age of 2.  Fast forward 2000 years, Christians have grown accustomed to having our beliefs integrated into our political structures. God has been on our money and in our pledges and on our landmarks. God has been on the lips of our leaders. God has been called upon to guide our causes and our course so often that I think we have forgotten that this nation was founded on the notion of free will and equality.  In history books we learn that the pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution, I cannot believe that we would then turn around and create a government that is solely for one religion only.  We run the risk of becoming like the Muslim nations that adhere to strict Sharia law,  ruling from the Bible to the point of detriment for anyone not choosing to believe. Our power comes from what goes on in our hearts, our homes, our communities,how we treat others, how we spend our money and time. Not how many seats in congress we hold, or how many biblical laws we can force on other people through the courts and legislature.  For the first two hundred years, Christianity was hunted and persecuted.  It can happen again, and that's okay, because Christianity will survive.  We do not need the places and power we have carved out for ourselves in society and government to be Christians.  Matthew 4:8-10. He didn't come to be an earthly ruler.  He came to be the ruler of the hearts that chose to accept him.  Matthew 7:7-12.

  America is a democratic republic, it is ruled by the citizens that choose to be involved.  Not everyone here is Christian, and this is a good thing.  My wife,Teri, hit a point on the head when she was brushing our daughters hair before school one day. Kayley mentioned something about how everyone should like something that she was interested in, and Teri replied with "well, that would be boring, if everyone was the same and liked the same things".     We have people from all over the world here. We have people that believe in different interpretations of God, some believe in no God. Some that believe in science, some that scream for proof. We have, in the words of MLK Jr. " blacks whites Jews and Gentiles".  We have homosexuality and polygamists. We have people from every corner of the earth in our country and most of them are citizens. How dare we have the conceit and pride to think that we can force our Christ on them through laws; proclaiming that our government is only for us and our faith.  If this is a belief we hold onto, we are no better than the Taliban, and have no business calling on the name of Jesus.

People came to Jesus. He gave them choice.   Matthew 19:16-30.  He didn't command the rich young man to follow him, he told him what he needed to do and gave him a choice.  The same principle that our gov. Is based on.  America is about choice.  We are free to stay or leave, choose pro life or pro choice. Gay marriage or strict man woman marriage. But I find hypocritical the allowance of divorce for those that cite the bible for not allowing homosexuals to marry.  We have to remember that choice is the foundation for everything we believe in:politically and religiously. God placed both trees in the garden, told him the consequences and left it up to him (Genesis 2:15-17).  "All men are created equal.  Not just Christians, or straights, or rich men, or politicians.  ALL.  Everyone has the right to pursue happiness for themselves as long as it doesn't trample the right of others to pursue their happiness as well.  Westboro Baptist Church does more to harm the cause of Jesus in one afternoon than ten churches could hope to do for the cause in a year.  The idea that Jesus would stand on a street and shout hate and spew the venom that these people who claim to be for Christ is absurd.  Jesus would love these people, comfort them. These soldiers died protecting freedom. The right to choose. The very right that WBC is using to damn them.  We can hate the choices people make, we can abhor lifestyles, but those are choices other people have to make for themselves. They do not affect the choices we choose for our own lifestyles. And it should not affect us showing them Gods love, or living for God.  Does your neighbors faith affect whether you pray with your family?
 We must be careful of the expectations we have in life. We cannot and must not expect everyone to accept Jesus and his message.  Jesus himself knew that not everyone would accept his words. (Matthew 13:1-15),but they need to hear and make the choice themselves. Churches must also be careful when the are seeking direction or are met with the option of change or adaptation to the current culture around them. Leadership must remember that we are not of this world.  That what God has in mind, and what we think we want, are most likely two very different things. We must open ourselves up to God's direction, rather than going about our business, in Gods name, and missing what he is showing us because of our preconceived notions. God wants us to "be still, and know that I am God".  He doesn't boom from the mountain any more, he whispers, and you can't hear whispers over the shouts of your own expectations.

A co-worker once asked how I can carry on in this job with such a light heart ( this was during a time when management was being particularly hard on everybody), I simply said: "do you think I could do this job day in and day out if I really thought this was all there was?"  And I walked away.  My job is not what I hoped it would be when I was growing up.  I thought I would be a teacher or make my living writing or making art.  This is not what I expected.  A janitor. A night janitor at a retail store.  In the worlds eyes (and, honestly sometimes in my own), I am a loser. A nobody.  I have no earthly power.  My job can fire me at the slightest whim and I'm two pay checks from a tent along side the highway.  The only reason I am where I am is love. Christ has had a power in my life that can only be explained by the world as chance or luck.  However, every circumstance that has had a positive impact on my life has had its roots in Jesus and Love.  The negatives, when i have turned away from these foundations. The power and might of Christians does not come from wealth, political power, careers, outspokenness, cars, position in our church; it comes from the love of Jesus being shown by all Christians....to everyone. All the time.

This is how Christianity works. This is what Jesus was trying to show us through his example.  It didn't come from a big church building or a huge membership. Didn't come for worldly power, didn't work through the military, taught and offered THE choice.  Follow the words that have been given, or don't. This life is yours to make your choices with.  Others will not make the same choices. Should we be threaten by them? No, but rather we should guard our own hearts and families with the Word.  Our expectation should be Gods will. Our words and actions should be based in biblical love. Our lives should be based on our relationship with Christ and our love for others. By His own words: the greatest commandments are to love God and love others.  Power, control, expectations, hatred and fear have nothing to do with Christianity.

Don’t Hesitate

                I like a good war movie.  A lot of the modern ones seem to be more violence and special effects than story, so I tend to watch old John Wayne films more often than not. But I have to tell you, one modern war movie that I like is Mel Gibson’s “We Were Soldiers”.

                It’s the story of Hal Moore and the seventh Calvary as they train for and then carry out a battle of La Drang in Vietnam.  They are going to be the first “air Calvary”; using helicopters to drop off soldiers in an isolated and potentially surrounded location, and then being dependent on those helicopters to provide support and transportation in and out of the battle zone. 

                There’s a point in the training where Mel Gibson’s Character Hal Moore is watching his soldiers drilling the drop off’s, and he shakes his head.  He walks on the field and when the next helicopter touches down he pops up, surprising the soldiers on board and says “bang, he’s dead!” looking at the next soldier on the deck, “what do you do son?” hesitation. “he hesitated, what do you do?” pointing to the next one. “Get off the copter?” the kid looks like he’s about ready to wet himself.

“Get off the copter!” Moore shouts and the men all pile out. 

The Helicopter pulls away and Moore gathers them together. 

“I want each of you to learn the job of the man above you, and to teach your job to the man below you.” 

               

                How many of you have a job in this family of Christ that is vital to its survival?  How many of those have someone who can step in at a moment’s notice and continue the work that you do?  What is the transition model God has laid out to us in His Word?  For that is the example we are all striving to follow; is it not?  

                The easy, go to example would be to focus on Jesus and his disciples.  I’m going to go back a little further, to Joshua. Joshua was the leader who took over the Hebrew’s trip from Egypt, where they lived in slavery under pharaohs’ whims, to the Promised Land, where God promised to take them.  Moses led them as long and as far as he could. He served God and taught the Hebrews the will of God and how to live their lives in a holy way.  And then he died.  God called him home.  Do you know how many Hebrews were out wandering the desert?  10’s of thousands? 100’s of thousands? In Numbers 1:45-46, the number given of “all the Israelites 20 years old or more who were able to serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families. The total number was 603, 550”.     603 550 men of fighting age!  Add men too old to fight, crippled, women, children and the number jumps to millions, and that’s not even counting the tribe of Levi. (Numbers 1:48.49.)

                In Deuteronomy 31:1-8 Moses is 120 years old; his time of leadership is ending. He knows that there has to be a smooth transition in order for God’s people to survive out in the wilderness.  To leave them without leadership at such a delicate time would invite chaos and corruption.  Moses calls up Joshua, in front of everyone, and proclaims him the successor to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land.  In Joshua 1:1, the Bible says that the Lord spoke to Joshua, “Moses’ aide”, upon the death of Moses.  This implies that Joshua spent from the time of his appointment as successor until the time of Moses’ death at his side, learning the ins and outs of the job he was to inherit.  When the inevitable happened, he wasn’t taking the position “cold”.  He knew, by example, what his job was, and what it took to do it. 

                Ever try to apply for a job and the ad says “must have ‘this’ much experience to apply for this job”?  You think to yourself, “I need the job to get the experience to apply for the job”.   Frustrating isn’t it?  

                This is another example of God not working like the World.  God gives us plenty of examples of this.  Moses had Joshua, Jesus had 12 disciples learning from him, and Paul had Timothy.   Think of it as a biblical apprenticeship.  Experience comes from the example of , and instruction from, the person before you.        

As I look around, this is a critical time at this moment in our family at North Side.  We are beginning a new battle, so to speak.  The helicopter is landing. Who have you taken under your wing?  What happens to our Family if you are not here anymore?  Does the person behind you know your job? Who is your Joshua?  Preparation is essential for survival.

Back to The movie; “We Were Soldiers.”   The question was,

“What do you do?”   Answer:

Don’t hesitate.

Throw aside your nets and follow me.

My hubby wrote this at the end of October following the passing of our church's minister. ~TK  

Matthew 4:18-22

   I’m not much of an outdoorsy type. Don’t like to hunt, don’t like sleeping on the ground, don’t like using the bathroom in a port-a-potty or in a hole in the ground. But you want to know what really grosses me out? What really turns my stomach?  Fishing. I can’t stand it.  Those squishy wriggly worms, that’s the first thing. Sure, I love’m in my sunflower garden, I encourage the kids to hold them and I teach them all the good things they are for.  I teach them to respect the life of even these slimy creatures that God has made.  But I can’t stand to handle these things. 

          Then to fish, you have to stab these poor defenseless things with a barbed hook. Which you then throw into the water to suffer the fate of either drowning or being eaten by a underwater sea creature that comes out of no where and swallows it whole.  

          "Well, why don’t you use fake bait?"  Well, now, you have to dig that hook out of the fish you just caught.  A slippery squirmy fish, gasping for breath, with a hook in its mouth that you now have to go in after and pull out without damaging the fish too much.   And you think the violence on t.v. is bad….

          A few years ago, I was at a park with my kids.  One of those summer days that were too good to stay inside.  Well, this park had a small pond, and there were some fish in it; every once in a while they would come to the edge and the kids would get excited and watch them for Whole minutes!  Which is an eternity for little kids, or just enough time for me to sit down and get comfortable. At which point they would be done with it and get up and move on to the next thing…. 

Well, as we were walking around the pond looking for fish swimming on the edge, I looked across the pond and saw a young teenager tossing a net in the pond, letting it settle and then pulling it back out of the water; repeating at a pretty good rhythm. As we got closer I asked him if he caught anything. He says “every once in a while”. And tosses the net out again.  And as I’m standing there, he catches this fish. It’s about a foot, maybe less; and it’s struggling.  It’s flopping and it’s flipping and gasping for air and the boy’s trying to get it free and the fish is fighting to get away from the giant that just yanked it from it’s safe wet home. Struggling to get away from the one person who can save it. 

          Jesus called us to be fishers of men.  The first disciples were actually fishermen. The symbolism is lost on no one. They threw aside their literal nets and set off to learn from Jesus how to pull up lives and souls from the depths.  They gave up everything, they were open to anything that Jesus told them. For three years Jesus helped them develop the net they would use to save the world. For three years Jesus taught them how to throw the net into the oceans of peoples’ hearts.  For three years, they learned and grew and experienced and witnessed and for three years they had the most intense discipleship any one on this planet will ever have. 

 

And then the teacher was gone. He warned them.  He told them, “I’ll be gone soon.” 

Matthew 26:24,29

Left without a teacher, they became the teachers. And they cast their new nets wide. They reached out.  I imagine they tried crazy things that only young people that have no idea what they are doing would do. They pursued people in a way that the people needed to hear.  They networked. 

          “hey frank needs a job, lets see who we have in our community that needs help and connect the two.” 

          “Hey, that organization needs sponsers, and we need somewhere to connect with the community”

          There’s a young woman/man in a homeless shelter, lets see what we can do to help her out and bring her in to this family. 

          There are festivals and parades and fairs.  There are newspapers, there are ways of getting the word out there in local areas that this little church at the end of the road is here, close, and welcoming. 

There are times for a church to take a breath. Look at everything it’s doing and evaluate.  

 I’ve only been here a short time, but what I am sensing is that instead of being the fisherman we have become, as a whole, the fish that boy caught in his net.  We are full of energy. We are also struggling. It’s been six or seven years since this split that I have heard about, but wasn’t there to witness. From what I hear this church hasn’t grown much since. That’s almost a decade.  If this were a company we would have been eaten alive by our competitors.  If the disciples had this kind of decade at the start, we probably wouldn’t be here.  

Have we become so ensnared by the spinning of our wheels that we have failed to look around, realize we are not growing as a church anymore?  Have our “ministries” become “nets”. 

Don’t tune me out.  He just got here, he’s young, what does he know… 

The ministries we do are good ministries.  But the primary goal is to spread the word of God.  The only way for us to do that is to find ways to grow this church so that we can be here to spread the word of God, while remaining true to that word. 

Yes. We do good works caring for the widows the orphans the least of these, The shoe boxes, the Wednesday night meals, vbs…  But we are forgetting that those that seem like they have it all together need us too. Families need us, adults need us, parents need us, children need us, friends need us.  

I think we are mindful the great commission.

Go out and make disciples of all the world.

But it needs done in our town too. 

Because the reality of it is:

We need them too.   

This is the reality we are facing right now.

I need everyone in pews in their twenty's or younger to stand.

(wait)

Now stay standing.

I need everyone in their 30’s to stand as well.

(wait)

Stay standing.

Everyone in their forties.

(wait)

Everyone who is not a member, could you please sit down.

(wait)

Look around. This is the future of your church. 

Reality:

In twenty to forty years, this will be the congregation if we continue to struggle in the nets like fish instead of throwing the nets like fisherman.

We have good leaders. Knowledgeable leaders, Wise leaders that have done well as good and faithful servants to God, the church and us. But they will not be here forever.  What then?

Who will be here to lead?  Who will be here to follow?  Who will be here to teach? Who will be here to learn. Who will we greet in Heaven? how many will we be privileged to walk next to on the path that ends with Jesus saying “well done, good and faithful servant”?