Category Archives: Clarifications

McChurch Followup

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If you read my blog then you saw on Monday that I published a post entitled “McChurch: I’ll take a Bible study and a super-sized playground with that.”  I am able to see the hits that my blog gets and let’s just say that it put all my other posts to shame.  Apparently, it sparked some interest to say the least.

Today, I don’t want to get into why you should leave a church.  I really think that leaving a church should be a VERY worst case scenario.  It shouldn’t be something that’s entered into lightly and like I said before if your reasons for leaving have the word “I” prominently displayed then you should reconsider.  I got a lot of reaction asking what people should do now and so I thought I might take some time over the next few days and address those things.

Wounded Body Parts

What do you do if you are a part of a body and have been wounded by another part of that body?  Due to no fault of your own they’ve struck out against you, they’ve said something to hurt you.  They’ve done something malicious.  What do you do about that?  Here’s what Jesus says:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” (Matthew 18.15)

You know what that doesn’t say? It doesn’t say talk about it with everybody you know or even a single other person.  It says if another believer (wherever they may be) sins against you, go to him (or her) and them ALONE.

One of the things that I’ve seen happen in churches is someone has been legitimately sinned against and instead of dealing with the issue head on they run from that person and to others where they spend enormous amounts of time discussing the issue.  They talk about it, discussing the motives, the ideas behind it, etc.  They take a legit sin against them and compound it into something so much larger and in the process sin against the person who sinned against them.

Is going to someone and confronting them on something easy? – NO!  It isn’t, absolutely not.  It is hard and puts you out there saying you have feelings and have been wounded.  I’ll quote Liz Lemon from 30 Rock (btw, this is the funniest show on TV) “Sometimes the right thing and the hard thing are the same thing.”  My personal experience with this is that you have to go to them with HUMILITY, thinking the best of their motives, but also honestly putting out there how they have sinned against you.  That’s not easy.

Jason, what if they don’t respond?

Great question.  If they don’t respond you don’t give up and run.  This is the reason I love original languages (let me unveil my nerdiness) The New Testament (where Matthew is located) is written in Greek.  The way that the verb is formatted is as a present active verb.  What that means is that the going to them isn’t a one time event.  It’s a thing that you do several times. YOU DON’T QUIT ON EACH OTHER! You are family. You are brothers and sisters.

Believers in Jesus are called to work through differences in love.  That’s not easy stuff.  It’s painful, hard, but not doing it retards our growth and…breaks the heart of our Heavenly Father who gave His Son so we could be reconciled to Him and…each other.

Christ is all,

jason

A Clarification: I Do Hate Religion, but…

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Let me explain a little more clearly what I mean.  I do hate religion that is man-made, especially where the object of that religion is self-exaltation.  I hate the rat race, the resume building, and the hope that the things we do will make God pleased with us.  I hate the idea that we do God favors and because we do Him favors we get blessings, Heaven, etc.  I hate religion that places man as the treasure.

Man is not the treasure.  Yes, man (and woman) has a special place in God’s heart.  We are the only creatures in all of creation that bear His image.  We are important, but not His treasure.  Jesus is the treasure.  He’s the one that God is pleased with (Matthew 3.17), He’s the one who stands in our place (Philippians 3.8-11), He’s the one who suffers the shame.

I love religion that is pure: loving widows and orphans.  I love churches and movements that are Gospel-Centered. If you classify that as religion then I love it.  I love house churches in Southeast Asia that meet though their lives are in peril for doing so.  I love orphanages in faraway places (like ours in Kenya) that administer food, water, clothing, and especially Jesus.  I love the student who wants to share their testimony with their senior class so that they might know Jesus.

This is religion that I love, I guess I wouldn’t call it religion though.  I’d call it a relationship overflow.  Love for Christ has overflowed into love for people.  I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.  Call it what you want, relationship, religion, whatever, but the treasure MUST be Christ.