I was making a delivery for work earlier and was exiting off the highway and pulled behind one of those seven or eleven passenger vans. You see them a lot, the kind that belong to churches or large families. Anyway, across the back door of this van was approximately a two foot by two foot decal that said "The vehicle donated by Ministries." On the drivers side of the vehicle was the same decal in the same size. I was not able to catch the passenger side of the vehicle, but I can assume it was there as well.
When I saw this, I didn't know quite what to think. After the event had some time to sink into my head, I came to the conclusion that the reason for this donation was to make the ministry look good. People will no doubt drive by this vehicle numerous times, and some will think 'how nice it was of this church to donate this vehicle.' The church has put its' name out, and has gotten the attention that they think they deserve. They want people to see what they are doing for charity, and maybe then drop on by the church, or send a donation.
I thought about this for a while and Matthew 6:1-4 came to mind. Jesus says:
"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites to in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Emphasis added)
There is an even greater principle at work here. This passage does not just apply to how we give, but how we live. If you haven't noticed before, I can get on a tangent about the way people worship. So here I go again. When I get on the topic, I say that it is not so much about the what but about the why.The what can be pretty much anything: When to stand, sit or kneel, what to say, how to dress, etc. The question needs to be why? You need to ask yourself: Is this for the glory of God, or is this for the glory of man?
Practical example #1: Habitat for Humanity is a very well known charity that helps provide housing for lower income families. They rely mainly on volunteers for labor and donations for materials. To this end, a church group decides they are going to help Habitat for Humanity build a house or two in the community that the church serves. They all agree that Christ says that we need to help the needy and the homeless. They show up with matching T-Shirts that say "First Church of Marketing: Habitat for Humanity Project." They decide to put up a banner with their church logo on it.
Practical example #2: In the past two years, Unassuming Local Church has grown from an average Sunday attendance of 150 to 500. It has gotten to the point of having two services to five every weekend. The only problem is that the sanctuary is not large enough to grow the membership any further, and people are actually reluctant to attend regularly because they feel crammed. The leadership of the church has decided it needs to expand, but doesn't have the funds to do so. They get some bids, and figure they need $100,000 to build a larger sanctuary and expand the parking lot. The church goes on a fundraising campaign, including asking for special donations during church services, and even holding a barbecue in the parking lot with signs saying "proceeds will help benefit our new sanctuary and parking lot." After the $100,000 is raised, the fundraising stops, and the building begins.
Now, which one of these situations is for the glory of God? The first one helped out the community at large, while the second one seemed to help the church. The first one built homes for low income families, and the second one raised money for their own church. With this all being said, It is the second congregation that showed glory to God. It is true that the first church helped others and the second church helped themselves, we need to not only remember the what, but the why. The first church helped out with the intention of getting their name out there, much like the ministry mentioned in the first paragraph of this blog. You might even say 'they announced it with trumpets'. The second church expanded their own building to suit the needs of the community. Yes, it dealt with a touchy subject for churches, raising money, but did it tastefully and without overdoing it.
Now, the question I leave you with: What are you doing? And are you doing it to glorify God, or glorify yourself?
Amen.
Well, it's Lent. For those that don't know, Lent is the forty days from Ash Wednesday, leading up to Easter. It is a time of personal reflection, and remembering the sacrifice that Christ made for you, and for all.
Traditionally, people have sacrificed something from their daily lives in order to remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us on the cross. Because Christ was beaten, bruised, cut, whipped, and executed so that we may have the promise of eternal life, we give up things like coffee, soda, cigarettes, alcohol, Facebook and other internet things, and meat on Fridays. Last year, I gave up soda. It was the longest and most tiring forty days of my life.
All things aside, no sacrifice we make will ever amount to the sacrifice that Christ made, and no one in Heaven or on Earth has a reasonable expectation that you do so. What we need to do is give up the things that separate us from God. All the things listed above have the capacity to do that, but we need to keep the focus on God.
So the first question would be: Do I need to sacrifice something for Lent in order to be a good Christian. The answer is no. However, as I will demonstrate in future posts (so stay tuned for those), there is a spiritual benefit to doing so, even if it is not explicitly Biblically required. What I suggest we all do for Lent is not give something up per se, but to do something that will bring us closer to God.
Confusing? I'll give an example. A certain blog writer who shall remain nameless (me) has a very hectic life. Between working forty plus hours a week, helping raise a three year old son and a five month old daughter, trying his best to make a weekly blog post (sorry about last week by the way), attend worship services, attend mentoring sessions, lead a youth group, and spend what little time I have left with my family, my days are booked solid from when I wake up at around 5:45 - 6:00, until I go to bed about twenty minutes after my daughter does. Notice anything missing? I did: prayer. I need that one on one time with God. Prayer is important, even Jesus prayed here, here, here, and here. So what I'm doing is finding time for intentional prayer.
To avoid just laying down in bed about to go to sleep and saying "oh yeah, and God I pray for...." I have decided to follow a format that can be found here. I usually only do either the morning or evening prayer, but am working towards doing both. What these formats allow me to do is intentionally pray for protection throughout the day, pray for others, pray for myself, and especially pray that I am given the words to speak in order to minister to others. Also, it gives me the opportunity to ask the inevitable forgiveness for when I mess all that up, along with many other sins.
But that's just an idea, you don't have to use it. If you choose to steal it, that's cool too. As always, I'll end by saying keep your head in the word. I'll also end with this: What are you doing for Lent? But more importantly, Why are you doing it for Lent? Feel free to leave a comment so other people can get other ideas. I'm also kinda curious.
Amen
Yes, it's another music inspired post. Like the first one, this one deals with a Casting Crowns song. Before I give the link, I would like everyone to watch it, even if you have heard the song or seen the video before. When you do, I want you to be thinking about the following points:
1) Do I know of anyone who fits the description of the woman in the video? It doesn't have to be a physical description, just similar behaviors.
2) What are my reactions toward these behaviors? For example: Do you feel sorry for this person? Are you disgusted? Do you wonder why they do these things? Do you hate this person?
Now, with those thoughts in mind, watch the official video: Casting Crowns: Does Anybody Hear Her?
Casting Crowns is one of my favorite bands (I go back and forth between them and Third Day for who has the number one spot). A great deal of the Christian bands out there paint a picture of a perfect relationship between you and God. While this is good, and that music needs to be out there, Casting Crowns goes further by pointing out that there are people out there searching for something greater than themselves, and the people that have this knowledge already aren't always very good about showing it.
True confessions time. I am one of these Christians that aren't very good about spreading the gospel. Sure I take time out of my schedule to write these blogs every week, but I have a feeling that the people who read them are very similar to me. To demonstrate, I will answer the questions I have posed.
1) Do I know of anyone who fits the description of the woman in the video? Absolutely. In fact, I know of more than one person. People fighting addictions, people who have addictions who have stopped fighting. People who have been left behind by someone along in their lives and try to fill the void with things like alcohol, sex, and drugs.
2) What are my reactions towards these behaviors? For the most part I am disgusted. I look at these behaviors and think to myself "What are they doing to themselves! Can't they see that they are ruining their lives! Are they so blind that they can't see that they are taking others down with them!
I am a Christian. Like every other Christian, I am not perfect. I have practiced what I preached and have tried to share what I know with them. But I get so much tunnel vision that I expect for them to have some Aha! moment where they turn from what they are doing and follow Christ, and when they don't I get frustrated and give up. That's when I go into critical mode. I've been told in the past that if I don't have anything nice to say, to say nothing at all. So I give up even trying to talk to these people.
I've learned something from this video, and would like to pass this on to you. Christians do a lot of stupid things in the name of spreading the gospel. One of the things we do is leave little cards and comic books on tables, under windshield wipers, or thrown on the ground in the hopes that someone will pick them up, read them, and then fall on their knees and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. While it may happen this way, I have yet to meet anyone who found God from a comic book they found laying on the ground in a grocery store.
Another thing we do is form groups and isolate ourselves to just people in that group. It's sometimes a church small group that got the wrong idea. For those that don't have a lot of experience with small groups, I'll explain. Sometimes a congregation will form little clubs called small groups with the idea that people with like interests (the over 60 group, the single women group, the men's group, etc.) will meet outside of church for a Bible study, coffee, a baseball game, whatever. There are two ideas for these groups: The first is that it brings people within a congregation together, which is good. The second idea is that it may be easier for someone who doesn't know God to attend a men's group than make the leap into attending church every Sunday. Also good.
I's like to say that I am in favor of the small groups, however, we often forget about that second part. What happens sometimes is that the small group becomes the only group worth worrying about. We've got the right amount that the pastor says we need for our small group, so we're done trying to get more people. If the isolation gets bad enough, all these small groups will stick together in the worship service, not even talking with the people outside of their small group.
What we need to do as Christians is to quit isolating ourselves. It will be uncomfortable at times, but just imagine the alternative. I'm not telling you to shove the gospel down people's throats, because all that does is make them choke. The things that should be done are:
1) Pray: Ask God to give you the words to speak and the strength to speak them, as well as the knowledge of when to speak them.
2) Live a Christian life publicly and privately. Your private life affects your public life, and vice versa. Make sure God is at the center in both circumstances.
3) Talk to people. It doesn't have to be about anything specific. If you don't know when to start talking about Jesus, the opportunity will arise when you least expect it, and the words will come to you. Especially if you follow step one.
Amen.
