TheDeSocios.com

Last week the Northeast got blasted by record snow fall. In Pittsburgh we got over 21” in one 24 hour period. With snow like this there are lots of responses–kids cheer, some people grumble, while others simple start shoveling.

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Place for new Christians

Frequently, established church have pressure placed on them to care for the needs of the people already present, this means that often the older a church is the more time it ends up spending on programs and services intended to care for and retain its existing members. This doesn’t mean that older churches don’t care for new Christians, it just means that often they are better equipped at training more mature Christians.

Intentional reevaluation
The old saying “foundations are forever” means that when you start a new church, it is important to examine what cultural foundations you will be laying. New churches have the unique opportunity to reevaluate customary ways of doing church, with less fear that they might divide a church over any issue. This reevaluation gives does two things: First, it lets new churches establish new traditions. Second, it gives new churches the freedom to connect to the historic church in ways that the previous generation of churches might have seen as undesirable, or unattainable.

New Opportunities for Service In many existing churches the pathway into service and/or leadership is often a fairly long and complicated one. Church tenure is often expected before a member is invited to or allowed to influence a church’s culture. This can often hinder how well a long-established church ministers to new groups in their area. New churches offer opportunities that are often absent in established churches. This is especially true when a new church is reaching a new group of people or a new generation.

I’ve recently been thinking alot about a specific passage in the New Testament book of Galatians where the author of the book says: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
(Galatians 2:20 ESV)

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
(Galatians 2:20 ESV)

The author is saying that the new spiritual life he has because of Jesus is so powerful that it takes hold of his entire existence.

Very often as a Christian I hope that non-christians will begin to follow Jesus, but when I consider my own life I am living by my own set of rules. I do not see my life in such radical terms.

Most of the time I feel like I have tried to make some deal with God, where he gets a certain percentage of my week, but the rest is mine as long as I can keep my nose clean.

I wonder how different my life would be if I stopped living for myself, and began living my entire life by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I think my free time would be different. I know I’d care for my wife more. I probably wouldn’t avoid eye contact with people that I didn’t want to talk to. I might actually begin to follow Christ in a way that showed my friends and neighbors what it could look like for them to be reconnected to God.

I’m a hypocrite and thats one of the reasons why I need Jesus.

One very sad trend among many Christians is how quick they are to throw other Christians under the bus to prove they are better and more thoughtful about their faith. This often comes into clear focus when you read comments that Christians post around the web.

I don’t think most Christians realized that they only have two options when they are speaking about people:

1. The person is connected to Christ, and therefore we are connected to them, they are family.

2.The person is not connected to Christ and is what John Newton calls  an”object of [our] compassion”

John Newton who is most well know for his hymn amazing Grace, was a pastor and wrote many letters. In one of these letters he spoke about how Christians disagreements should be characterized.

I wish more Christians would take Newton’s advice when he says “before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing.”

Questions:

Are you really so short sighted as to assume that you are the only one who is a critical thinker?

How often do you pray for people that you publicly or privately  disagree with?

You can read Newton’s entire letter here.

I know that not going to seminary is coming back into fashion with many Christians, while others are arguing for their own seminary-esque training. I thought it might be helpful to share with you 5 things I got out of my time at seminary.
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Ed Stetzer recently posted a little twitter proverb which says: “If you can learn to order at Starbucks, then you can learn theological language at church.”

At first I thought it was insightful and funny but the more I think about it the more I think it reveals some of the problems with Christianity today.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I enjoy Starbucks, but I never say grande, I say medium. I think Starbucks can get away with charging you twice as much because you believe that they are intellectually superior when it comes to coffee. I’d hate for people that visit my church to think that we are superior because we use big words.
• I appreciate what I think Dr. Stetzer is getting at, the fact that when people want to learn something they will. Think about all the information that we use, just when it comes to technology in our daily life. My 50 year old mother knows how to post photographs to facebook, but do most of us know anything about where the Apostle’s creed comes from. I appreciate him bringing this up.
• Words are important, but its not ok for pastors or church members to develop or use jargon for the sake of jargon. In fact we should be seeking to remove all the unneeded church-slang that we can, so that people don’t feel as if they need an advance degree to participate in our churches.
• Id rather go to a Dunkin Donuts than a Starbucks. You can get the same quality coffee at Dunkin Donuts, but with out the meaningless jargon and the self-inflated pretense that is apparent at most Starbucks.