There has been a massive over-complexification that has taken place in modern [Western] “Christianity” that needs to be seriously and radically addressed.
All throughout the Bible, God is portrayed as a God of exactness, precision, detail, and immense variety.
He is also portrayed as a God who is very simple – infinitely powerful, wise, knowledgeable, and perfect: yes, God is all of those things. But He displays those infinite perfections in intentional simplicity.
God’s directives for praise and worship are both viscerally powerful, and intensely simple: “make a joyful noise“, “praise Him“, “extol Him“, “sing“, “shout“, “pray“, “lift hands“.
Nothing in that list requires any special skills, training, or knowledge that is not to be had by all of God’s people.
Where, then, does complexity in the church come from:
I’m sure part of this is due to the entertainment culture and mindset that pervades modern Western culture: we have our iPods, our smart phones, laptops, TV, radio, internet, Playstations – and we think we are supposed to be entertained all the time. We have entitlement programs from the government, and we think it’s someone else’s job to take care of us.
We have seminaries to train our young men to be pastors, and we think if you haven’t gotten your degree from a seminary, you’re somehow “less” of a pastor than a man with a Doctor of Divinity.
One prime area I see this displayed is in the overtly complicated and highly specific church budgets with dozens upon dozens of line items: staff salaries, pastoral salaries, building maintenance, VBS materials, promotional banners, decoration, vehicle upkeep, janitorial supplies, food, children’s ministry, women’s ministry, singles’ ministry, missions trips, outreach, denominational requirements (eg participating the SBC’s NAMB and IMB), lights, music licensing … and the list goes on and on.
Several of these topics will be addressed in future posts, but I propose the following simplification for church budgets:
That’s it. five categories. Maybe one or two additional / altered for a specific church.
Over the years, I have witnessed many many churches doing things and performing activities both at the church and outside the church that have left me questioning “where did that come from - biblically”?
From “worship experiences” to children’s church, seeker-sensitivity to ministry breakdowns for every conceivable age group | demographic – the modern church (and, I suppose, the not-so-modern church) has failed to keep the Bible – God’s own Holy Word – at the forefront.
What concerns me today is the unbiblicality of the vast majority of so-called “children’s programs”. I have heard statistics quoted to me that “80% of all believers are converted as children”, and Jesus’ own words, “suffer the little children to come” used in defense of the dizzying array of children’s programs made available many churches. Awana is not – inherently – a Bad Thing™, but the focus that it gets among far too many parents, teachers, and the children themselves is frightening much of the time.
As an introduction, I have been working with the Awana program (in a 2d grade class) this school year at the church my wife and I attend (she is with kindergarteners this year). Prior to me joining as a “full-time”* Awana teacher, I had volunteered with my wife’s 1st grade class last year. I think the basic goals of Awana are good – reach children with the Gospel of Christ Jesus!
However, the program – as implemented at our church – separates children from their parents for the entirety of the Wednesday evening service of the church. This is Not Good™. Children were not designed to be constantly split apart from their parents – even with good intentions (education, church programs, etc).
Families should be worshiping God together as much as feasible – and separating them for “children’s church” on Sundays and programs like Awana other days is not at all healthy.
Another statistic tossed-about is the percentage of “churched” individuals who leave when they are old enough to do so. Some say it’s as low as 20% – others will claim as high as 90%. What’s wrong with this picture?!
What’s wrong is that we have split children away from their parents starting in nursery … and have NEVER reunited them in the church! Parents have willingly sent their children to nursery, Sunday School, children’s church, Awana – and the like – and as a “church culture”, we are seeing the effects of this segregation.
If a parent is unable (or unwilling .. but that’s the topic for a different day) to educate their children primarily themselves (be it homeschooling, tutoring, or private/public school with intentional involvement), it is only natural they would feel incompetent to educate them spiritually as well.
God would much prefer a non-scholar with a heart that burns for Him than a Nobel-winning scientist who claims He does not exist. That’s where our focus should be, raising kids for Christ, no matter where they go to school. –Dan Edelen parents did have family times of studying the Bible, but never claimed to be expert theologians. They’re continuing to learn even now, but they understood that the ‘heavy lifting’ in Biblical study was being done by my Sunday school teachers and our pastors. They reinforced what I was hearing at church –Warren Myers
God would much prefer a non-scholar with a heart that burns for Him than a Nobel-winning scientist who claims He does not exist. That’s where our focus should be, raising kids for Christ, no matter where they go to school. –Dan Edelen
parents did have family times of studying the Bible, but never claimed to be expert theologians. They’re continuing to learn even now, but they understood that the ‘heavy lifting’ in Biblical study was being done by my Sunday school teachers and our pastors. They reinforced what I was hearing at church –Warren Myers
I am fully convinced that parents are not half as involved as they should be in their children’s spiritual lives – as a general rule. As a child, I was fortunate to have parents who showed interest in what I was being taught in Sunday School by my teachers – and who would correct those teaching if they went awry.
Outsourcing spiritual education to others is not exclusively bad – but when no (or little) insourcing is done in conjunction, there is a HUGE disconnect between the children and the church.
To keep children engaged in church for the rest of their lives, of course, requires the working of the Holy Spirit. However, if we instill in our children the mindset that they have “kiddie church” while their parents go to “big church” – we have failed.
Add on top of this mix the fact that the “church” is expressly the collection and communion of believers - and you have to wonder where a church gets off having a “children’s church” service: children are NOT a “church” on their own; the CHURCH is the group of believers who meets together on a routine basis to worship, and, let’s face it, most children are not believers. Most Children are rank sinners who urgently need the gospel! Confining them to their own group(s) on a Sunday encourages them to think they’re – at best – ‘special’, and – at worst – unwanted. Children need to learn with their parents. They need to hear what their parents hear, and parents need to reinforce that teaching at home.
*We’ll [temporarily] ignore my work-related travel and how that has affected the “full-time” aspects of my volunteering this year
Jesus called us to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” [Mark 6:15] and to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” [Matthew 28:19-20a].
The first church in Jerusalem grew huge until persecution hit, and was then dispersed throughout the country and region of the Middle East – ultimately causing churches to be planted wherever the persecuted believers could find enough of a safe harbor to make those disciples when they got to them.
One of the churches I visited a few times when I lived in NC, Antioch Community Church in Elon, has a policy of never outgrowing their usefulness: when they hit a certain size, they intentionally plant a church in an area from which some chunk of their members are traveling from so that they can better reach underserved communities.
The church I was a member of in NC while I lived there had a practice of working on church plants – but not because they had been growing, but because a community far enough away needed a new church.
The church I belong to now has thousands of members – and there are many other churches in the Lexington area that are of similar size, or are even substantially bigger. While size is not inherently a Bad Thing, why is there such a huge focus on growing existing churches and getting people to “come here” rather than US going there?
There seems to be a false sense of priorities (at the least) when the focus of a church is to grow and get more believers and get bigger without any looking into the surrounding region and seeing what is lacking there.
Some of the major benefits of new churches match those exciting opportunities of start-up businesses – there’s a sense of urgency, drive, and fire that tends to be missing in large, established churches: the chance to identify more people who could and should be serving as deacons, pastors, teachers, disciplers, etc; the opportunity to help influence a community or region for the better; no “baggage” of an existing established church; and many many more.
For some reason, most American believers seem to think that churches can only be planted where there is no gospel witness… or at least no gospel witness of the “correct” type (Southern Baptist, Methodist, Charismatic, etc etc) – in places like Mozambique, Vanuatu, Montenegro, and the like.
Why do we think churches cannot (or should not) be planted next to (or even in) our homes?
Better yet, why are those of us in these huge churches not going out on our own and doing what Jesus told us to do?
I understand that printing a physical book entails some cost, but what makes Bibles so darn expensive?
As an example, Lifeway has a KJV Study Bible that costs $99.99!
Seriously? The book is hundreds of years past copyright – why is it [nearly] one hundred dollars?
It CAN’T cost that much to print it – so why is it so expensive? Shouldn’t – of all books – Bibles be the least expensive? Shouldn’t we want to get them into as many hands as possible?
I find it amazing how even the simplest of God’s commands can be so easily ignored by us.
Starting with Adam and Eve, and running all the way through Jesus’ “Great Commission”, we have been told to “go”. And yet – too often – not only do we drag our feet, we refuse to follow the command.
I have been reading Radical by David Platt, wherein he challenges his readers – indeed, all Christians – to follow Jesus’ teaching and truly dedicate ourselves to Him: believing He will do what He has promised – if we do what we are told.
The first command given to mankind was recorded for us in Genesis 1:28
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Before Adam and Eve went anywhere, though, Satan tempted them, and they sinned against God.
A few chapters later, God tells those who have come off the Ark to do something very similar:
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”
Yet again we see humanity ignoring God:
It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
Upon which He forces them to obey by confusing their language:
“let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
God’s command wasn’t complicated – it was incredibly simple. But man’s heart was hardened against Him – a remarkably recurrent theme in scripture.
One of the last things Jesus told His disciples (which, by implication includes us who claim to be His followers as well) was to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” {Mark 16:15} (alternatively recorded in Matthew 28 thusly, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you“). We are to GO into the world. We are to preach. And we are to make disciples.
For many of us, the “preaching” (ie, telling others about Christ) isn’t horridly difficult. It is also – typically – relatively simple to make disciples: learning together more and more about the Christ we love and serve.
It’s the “go” bit that we have problems with. We’re comfortable where we are. We claim to have “a heart for my city”. Really? Our city? That’s IT?!? Let’s pick the biggest city (metro area) in the world – Tokyo. That’s roughly 32,450,000 people. There are about 7,000,000,000 people on the planet. And all we claim to “have a heart for” is our city? If our city is Tokyo, that’s one half of one percent of the world’s population. Yes, it’s a lot of people – but it’s nothing like the heart of Christ who wants the world to come to Him.
Jesus’ command, like [almost] all of God’s commands, is simple: go, preach, make. Why don’t we follow it?
There is a new Stack Exchange site called “Christianity” now active.
I’m user 69.
{I am indebted to the wonderful work of wikipedia editors and contributors to find original sources on much of this}
Brewing alcoholic beverages is known to have started with the Babylonians at least by the second millennium BC (3000-4000 years ago). Some archaeological evidence puts production in ancient Mesopotamia as early as 5400 BC. The Code of Hammurabi had regulations surrounding beer and beer parlors. There was a Mesopotamian goddess of beer, Ninkasi. There are written records of beer in ancient Egyptian texts.
The oldest brewery in Europe is the Weihenstephaner abbey brewery, which has been in operation since 1040.
In 1516 (with an origination in 1487) the Reinheitsgebot was passed in Bavaria.
Distillation of alcohol spread to Europe via the Moors in the 800s. Distillation was written about by Greek alchemists in the first century AD, and by the 12th century, whisky was being produced in Ireland and brandy in Germany.
Wine (originally, and most commonly, fermented grape juice) is spoken of throughout the Bible; archaeological evidence also supports wine production back to the earliest days of civilization.
Alcohol has been produced for a variety of reasons:
Maximum alcohol by volume (or ABV) for a fermented-only product is approximately 18% (though some special strains of yeast have been developed that can survive to ~25% ABV); typical distillation can only achieve approximately 95% ABV, as anything above that is an ‘azeotrope with water’. Wikipedia has an interesting table of alcohol levels in common (and some not-so-common) substances.
For posterity, below is a table of all references to alcoholic beverages in the Bible, categorized into positives and negatives. For the record, there are 29 negative references, 75 positive, and 67 neutral.
Moral (as an adjective) means: “of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes;; capable of conforming to the rules of right conduct: a moral being.”
Amoral, on the other hand: “not involving questions of right or wrong; without moral quality; neither moral nor immoral.”
In short, if it is not sentient, it cannot be “moral” (or immoral) – it can only be.
What examples of this are there? Non-living objects (a car, a baseball bat, a rock) are obvious. But also any “living” object which has no choice regarding “rules of right conduct” – plants, animals, bacteria, etc. In other words, based on the definition of Genesis 2, the only moral creatures in the universe were thus imbued by their Creator with the capacity to choose whether or not to follow “rules of right conduct”.
On earth, the only moral beings are humans. In the spiritual realm, angels (both fallen and unfallen (ie, they chose to not follow “rules of right conduct”)) and God are also moral beings.
A moral being can choose to utilize any amoral object in either a positive, negative, or neutral fashion. For example, I could take a rock or club and beat someone to death (as Cain did to Abel). Or I could put rocks in a pile as a memorial to God’s goodness (like Noah).
On their own, the rocks have no goodnesss or badness. Rocks from the same location could even be used for good and bad at the same time (Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal).
Why is the delineation between moral and amoral so important? Because many people like to take amoral issues and turn them into moral absolutes. In the realm of music, for example, we are called upon by God to sing praises to His name. No where is there a stylistic convention, formula, or edict issued in the Bible. Music has no moral value – it is the singer or instrumentarian who can use their skills in a positive or negative way.
With regards to dress styles, we are called upon to be modest in our attire (specifically written to women, but I believe the case can be made for it applying to men as well). God didn’t tell women to wear ankle-length, plain, full-sleeve, black dresses anywhere in the Bible. Clothes on their own have no moral value or implication: it is the wearer who can use clothing in a positive or negative fashion.
It is always up to the moral agent (in our case a man or woman) as to whether or not they use any object in a moral or immoral fashion. It is up to the eater whether or not he uses amoral food in a way consistent with God’s glory – whether he eats to excess and is a glutton, or whether he takes his food with thankfulness to the One who provided it.
If you are doing something (as a Christian), it must be done to the “glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). The saint can never legitimately claim that if they commit a sin it was the object‘s fault: it is their own. Nor can any become more holy by means of an object, `And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, ”That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.”` {Mar 7:18-20}
It is not what you eat (or drink), but what you do and how you respond with your time, energy, and life that matters.
Sadly too often preachers and teachers give lopsided presentations of their subject matter to align with personal, political, or perhaps unknown biases.
This occurred recently at the church my wife and I are members of in an evening topic related to alcohol. For some reason, this (along with music styles) seems to be the biggest dividing point between otherwise-identically-believing Christians: is it OK to drink, or not? Does God condemn it or not? If it is not condemned, should I participate? If it is condemned, why would I participate?
While I work-up my entire response to the recent “sermon” (it was really more of a diatribe against drinking rife with missing biblical references, and gross historical errors), I want to leave a single thought: on its own, there is no physical object (natural or man-made) that has a moral value (positive or negative) – the created world is amoral, whereas it is only by the choices of divinely-inspired living beings (Gen 2:7) that moral issues can be seen; in other words, it is by the instrumentation of man that an object can be used for good or evil – on its own, it can do nothing.
