Many years ago, I quit going to a large church that began to put such a strong emphasis on worship, that it was very nearly all they did.
It wasn't as though that was my sole reason that I quit attending. I was in college at the time and exploring a myriad of churches in different denominations. I got married and--as husband & wife--we settled on a smaller church elsewhere.
We went back and attended that big church a few more times sporadically... but it really got solidified in my mind that we weren't meant to be there when the church began putting their primary emphasis on worship through music.
Their worship pastor had a brush with death when he very nearly committed suicide. I can't say for sure whether there was any connection between their "off" focus and the worship pastor coming close to suicide--it isn't uncommon for pastors wrestle with depression--but I do know that that church was confusing mission and worship.
They were drawing throngs of new people to their church, to say the least. All with the idea that we were placed on this Earth to worship.
Let me pause to clarify terms, here. Worship is expressing adoration to God. The word often gets muddled in modern Christianese to mean music and songs. What God laid out for us by the example and writings of early Christians is that we worship God in our hearts and by the lives we live, not just when we sing to Him.
Now, I do think singing and making joyful music unto the Lord are essential to the Christian life. What this large church was doing put so much focus on drawing crowds into a rock-concert-like Sunday service ...that they forgot what Christ commissioned us to do: make disciples. Our mission as believers is to share the Gospel with the world and continually help each other to become more Christlike in our daily lives.
In recent years, Facebook notifies me when someone in a group I'm in is looking for a recommendation for a church.
Nine times out of ten, they are asking for a church with "great worship" (read "uplifting music").
No one ever asks for help finding a church "that will really challenge me" or a church that is "reaching out to the community". I suspect it is because those things require a work mindset and not just a participant mindset.
I like great, uplifting music from a finely-tuned praise band along with gorgeous singing, lights, and a fog machine just as much as the next millennial. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not necessarily saying we should just get rid of that. What I am saying, is we should challenge weak or lukewarm Christianity that seeks only to be served rather than to serve.
P.S. I do also appreciate good old fashioned voices and acoustic instruments ;)
~
What do you think are the reasons modern Christians are always looking for a church with great worship?
In what ways do you think spending a lot of resources on music could be distracting us from learning essential tenets of our faith?
Does your church have community small groups, discipleship teams, or Sunday school classes that have challenged you to delve deeper into changing your heart? Are people radically changing their lives to look more like Christ?
Pray with me: I pray for that specific church which I haven't revisited in years has been focused on Jesus' great commission. You created us, and we were placed on this Earth to worship...making disciples and self-sacrificing love is our act of worship. I pray for authentic Christianity in the hearts of our new believers as well as those who've sought to walk with you for years. Refine us.
Amen
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Monday, February 20, 2017
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Purpose of Parenting
I'll preface this with I'm still never sure whether I'm qualified to offer parenting advice, but I guess for some people it's helpful. Christian parents will probably get what I'm trying to say here.
Or maybe--for some of you--this will be a "light bulb moment." I look forward to your comments.
My oldest son is about to turn seven. As I've been reflecting back on the past year, I realized he's matured a lot with trying to control his emotions. He doesn't always automatically jump into tantrum mode over that unfair thing his sister did to him. Often, I can visibly see him seek to control his body or anger when he's upset. That's quite difficult feat for most of us. Though, he's certainly still a typical first-grader.
While all of this maturing is going on, he's also seeking new responsibility and deeper levels of control over his life. He has always been a relatively "go-with-the-flow" kid, but I now see he wants to make more of his own choices about where to go and when, what to watch on television, and who to spend time with.
But, isn't that how all of us are from the time we're born until well into adulthood (or old age)? We're continually learning to do a better job of controlling our feelings...or at least we get a grip on what we do with our feelings. At the same time, we are seeking to have choices about what happens in our own lives for our own happiness, self-satisfaction, or whatever. You could go to California or New York or Indonesia, and it will always be true. That's our natural state-of-being.
As the years go by, though, at some point or another we've realized that our God has our better interest in mind much more than we could ever understand on our own.
Slowly, this shift begins to happen where we acknowledge that, "Hey, maybe making my choices on my own isn't always so simple or so great. And the consequences don't always work out the way I'd like them to. Maybe relying on God is the more favorable way to go here."
The tipping point comes when we realize we've got to rely on God for *everything* to sustain us. We can't blame anyone for how our lives are screwed up. We can't keep longing for fancy stuff that we want and may never have. Satisfaction and true joy come only from reliance on Christ. Even when truly terrible things happen to us, we can still have joy in Him.
Back to parenting.
So, when we're raising our kids we worry about them a lot, right? We worry whether they'll be able navigate the world without us. We worry whether they'll be able to make the right choices without us.
(By the way, all this worrying stuff doesn't make a lick of sense, so just stop it!)
What are we supposed to do?
We try to teach them about playing nice, following the rules, being respectful, and good hygiene. To what end? Does telling them all that stuff--or even modeling it for them--make them a productive member of society? Does it give them happiness? Does it give them real, true, deep-down-where-it-counts kind of joy?
We might even try to teach them to pray and read their Bibles. Good job, if you're doing that, since that's where the real answers are! But a lot of them will fall away. They'll fall away from the church or from God altogether...
if...
If...
IF...
If they're not grounded in relying on Christ for everything to sustain them.
So, parenting is not about teaching our kids to read and eat their vegetables and saying NO to drugs. It's not about pandering to their every whim or teaching them to suck it up so they can be independent from Mommy and Daddy. Parenting isn't even about teaching our kids to love one another (though, I think that one is of the utmost importance).
Parenting is about the shift...the shift from being dependent on Mom or Dad to being totally dependent on God. It is moving the child from relying on us to relying on Christ.
None of us will ever be able to get to a point where we have total control over our actions, our emotions, or making wise choices. Not in this life on this Earth.
But God
But God has us. He's got our backs, Parents.
He's got our kids' backs. He loves 'em way more than we do. Infinitely more than we ever could.
Our kids are going to make tons of crazy mistakes (just like we do, ahem). They'll follow the whims of their fleeting emotions without realizing the consequences of their actions. They will have days when they get into big BIG trouble.
But. If we have modeled for them that we are totally, utterly, unashamedly, dependent upon our Creator for our very breath
they'll come to Him.
They'll remember the times you were having the worst days and you cried out aloud to God to come rescue you. They'll remember that you didn't always act like you were the final authority on every. single. thing. I hope my kids remember that I even ask for forgiveness. A lot.
Yes, we should continue to parent in a manner that warrants our children's respect. I'm not saying you ought to look like a weakling, but in the grand scheme of the Universe we acknowledge that we are all so frail.
I hope my soon-to-be-seven-year-old will learn to love the Lord our God with everything that's in him. I hope he'll learn to love others and be passionate about relationships with other human beings. I certainly hope he'll learn how to eat right, use his manners, and run a household all by himself. I even hope he'll have a satisfying career in some field that I probably can't even dream up yet. But--above all else--I have to constantly remind myself that life is fleeting
none of this stuff matters
in the light of the One True Eternal Thing.
So, take heart, weary parents. God entrusted you with caring for these young ones, but he also trusts you. God trusts you. I'll let that sink in for a minute.
Let the little ones rely on you for now.
Just do your best to love them,
be real with them,
and model for the kids how you rely on God.
(Hopefully you're not worrying about it. I told you to knock that worrying stuff off! There's nothing you could do that could screw them up so bad that God can't redeem it, right?)
I will leave you with this song about being the example you need to be.
"...Let them see You in me let them hear You when I speak
Let them feel You when I sing
Let them see You, let them see You in me
Who am I with out Your grace, another smile another face
Another breath a grain of sand passing quickly through Your hand
I give my life an offering take it all take everything..."
- Let Them See You by JJ Weeks Band
Or maybe--for some of you--this will be a "light bulb moment." I look forward to your comments.
My oldest son is about to turn seven. As I've been reflecting back on the past year, I realized he's matured a lot with trying to control his emotions. He doesn't always automatically jump into tantrum mode over that unfair thing his sister did to him. Often, I can visibly see him seek to control his body or anger when he's upset. That's quite difficult feat for most of us. Though, he's certainly still a typical first-grader.
While all of this maturing is going on, he's also seeking new responsibility and deeper levels of control over his life. He has always been a relatively "go-with-the-flow" kid, but I now see he wants to make more of his own choices about where to go and when, what to watch on television, and who to spend time with.But, isn't that how all of us are from the time we're born until well into adulthood (or old age)? We're continually learning to do a better job of controlling our feelings...or at least we get a grip on what we do with our feelings. At the same time, we are seeking to have choices about what happens in our own lives for our own happiness, self-satisfaction, or whatever. You could go to California or New York or Indonesia, and it will always be true. That's our natural state-of-being.
As the years go by, though, at some point or another we've realized that our God has our better interest in mind much more than we could ever understand on our own.
Slowly, this shift begins to happen where we acknowledge that, "Hey, maybe making my choices on my own isn't always so simple or so great. And the consequences don't always work out the way I'd like them to. Maybe relying on God is the more favorable way to go here."
The tipping point comes when we realize we've got to rely on God for *everything* to sustain us. We can't blame anyone for how our lives are screwed up. We can't keep longing for fancy stuff that we want and may never have. Satisfaction and true joy come only from reliance on Christ. Even when truly terrible things happen to us, we can still have joy in Him.
Back to parenting.
So, when we're raising our kids we worry about them a lot, right? We worry whether they'll be able navigate the world without us. We worry whether they'll be able to make the right choices without us.
(By the way, all this worrying stuff doesn't make a lick of sense, so just stop it!)
What are we supposed to do?
We try to teach them about playing nice, following the rules, being respectful, and good hygiene. To what end? Does telling them all that stuff--or even modeling it for them--make them a productive member of society? Does it give them happiness? Does it give them real, true, deep-down-where-it-counts kind of joy?
We might even try to teach them to pray and read their Bibles. Good job, if you're doing that, since that's where the real answers are! But a lot of them will fall away. They'll fall away from the church or from God altogether...
if...
If...
IF...
If they're not grounded in relying on Christ for everything to sustain them.
So, parenting is not about teaching our kids to read and eat their vegetables and saying NO to drugs. It's not about pandering to their every whim or teaching them to suck it up so they can be independent from Mommy and Daddy. Parenting isn't even about teaching our kids to love one another (though, I think that one is of the utmost importance).
Parenting is about the shift...the shift from being dependent on Mom or Dad to being totally dependent on God. It is moving the child from relying on us to relying on Christ.
None of us will ever be able to get to a point where we have total control over our actions, our emotions, or making wise choices. Not in this life on this Earth.
But God
But God has us. He's got our backs, Parents.
He's got our kids' backs. He loves 'em way more than we do. Infinitely more than we ever could.
Our kids are going to make tons of crazy mistakes (just like we do, ahem). They'll follow the whims of their fleeting emotions without realizing the consequences of their actions. They will have days when they get into big BIG trouble.
But. If we have modeled for them that we are totally, utterly, unashamedly, dependent upon our Creator for our very breath
they'll come to Him.
They'll remember the times you were having the worst days and you cried out aloud to God to come rescue you. They'll remember that you didn't always act like you were the final authority on every. single. thing. I hope my kids remember that I even ask for forgiveness. A lot.
Yes, we should continue to parent in a manner that warrants our children's respect. I'm not saying you ought to look like a weakling, but in the grand scheme of the Universe we acknowledge that we are all so frail.
I hope my soon-to-be-seven-year-old will learn to love the Lord our God with everything that's in him. I hope he'll learn to love others and be passionate about relationships with other human beings. I certainly hope he'll learn how to eat right, use his manners, and run a household all by himself. I even hope he'll have a satisfying career in some field that I probably can't even dream up yet. But--above all else--I have to constantly remind myself that life is fleeting
none of this stuff matters
in the light of the One True Eternal Thing.
So, take heart, weary parents. God entrusted you with caring for these young ones, but he also trusts you. God trusts you. I'll let that sink in for a minute.
Let the little ones rely on you for now.
Just do your best to love them,
be real with them,
and model for the kids how you rely on God.
(Hopefully you're not worrying about it. I told you to knock that worrying stuff off! There's nothing you could do that could screw them up so bad that God can't redeem it, right?)
I will leave you with this song about being the example you need to be.
"...Let them see You in me let them hear You when I speak
Let them feel You when I sing
Let them see You, let them see You in me
Who am I with out Your grace, another smile another face
Another breath a grain of sand passing quickly through Your hand
I give my life an offering take it all take everything..."
- Let Them See You by JJ Weeks Band
Friday, April 18, 2014
A Short Post About Zombies
Zombies are a big thing in pop culture right now. My kids know all about zombies.
This morning, I used it as an opportunity to explain to my son that when Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't come back like a zombie.
"The Romans hammered sharp, spiky nails through Jesus' wrists to nail him on a big cross (or maybe a tree, we're not sure). And they hung him up like that, and it killed him."
"Then he rose from the dead!" my son says.
Yep! He didn't come back as a brain-dead creature, though, he came back to life for real, as God's son!
That's part of why we worship him.
I know some of you that follow me on my blog or facebook get annoyed about how much I talk about "Christianity" and how I "indoctrinate" my kids.
I do not believe that I should keep my faith a secret to myself.
Not after all the healing and wonderful things Jesus has done to transform my life! If I say I believe that Jesus is the answer to all of life's questions and the way be saved from separation from God with eternal life...
...then how sick and twisted would it be to keep that to myself?
(Not to mention completely contradictory to what Jesus told us to do)
Thanks for reading; that's all I needed to say for now.
This morning, I used it as an opportunity to explain to my son that when Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't come back like a zombie.
"The Romans hammered sharp, spiky nails through Jesus' wrists to nail him on a big cross (or maybe a tree, we're not sure). And they hung him up like that, and it killed him."
"Then he rose from the dead!" my son says.
Yep! He didn't come back as a brain-dead creature, though, he came back to life for real, as God's son!
That's part of why we worship him.
I know some of you that follow me on my blog or facebook get annoyed about how much I talk about "Christianity" and how I "indoctrinate" my kids.
I do not believe that I should keep my faith a secret to myself.
Not after all the healing and wonderful things Jesus has done to transform my life! If I say I believe that Jesus is the answer to all of life's questions and the way be saved from separation from God with eternal life...
...then how sick and twisted would it be to keep that to myself?
(Not to mention completely contradictory to what Jesus told us to do)
Thanks for reading; that's all I needed to say for now.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
On Babywearing and Corrie ten Boom
As a babywearing mom, I really appreciated coming across this little gem during my devotional time this morning. I've been reading Corrie ten Boom's book Tramp for the Lord which she wrote about her life & travels and her relationship with the Lord. In a chapter entitled, "A Place to Be, " she is telling the reader about how the Lord has a place just for us.
"Many years later I was in a primitive house in Africa...Walking into the kitchen, I saw an African woman with the white missionary child strapped tightly to her back....'Hey, how nice she has your baby on her back,' I said to the missionary mother....The white mother smiled and said, 'The baby was so fearful this morning. All she would do was cry. When the African cook came to the house she took one look at the baby, and said, "'Ah, misseee, give me the baby. I will keep her quiet." So she strapped her on her back and the baby has slept all morning while the cook has been busy around the kitchen.'"
...."In all these years that I have been a 'tramp for the Lord,' I have often been afraid. But, in those moments I have always reached up and touched the hem of Jesus' garment. He has never failed to wrap me close to Him. Yet, I still long for that time when I shall have a mansion in Heaven."
Babywearing parents might giggle a little about the apron. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman born in 1892 at a time when babywearing was at low point--it just wasn't done much in Western culture. I'm certain that she must have seen many mothers wearing their babies throughout her travels all over the world. And I'm certainly glad that babywearing is "in vogue" again in the U.S.
What a wonderful picture of our Father God.
Parents who wear their babies regularly know how soothing it is for the child. Wearing a newborn on your chest has been shown to regulate a baby's heartbeat and temperature. Babies who are worn by their parents...they simply cry less! And I believe with all my heart that Jesus has a place just like that for us. We can place ourselves tightly against the very heart of God--a place we can go to whenever we call upon him in prayer--and he will calm us.
P.S. I highly recommend Tramp for the Lord by Corrie ten Boom.
"I was born prematurely and my skin was blue. Uncle Hendrik, Tante Jan's husband, looked at me and exclaimed, 'I hope the Lord will quickly take this little creature to His home in Heaven.'...But my parents surrounded me with love and care. However, since there were no incubators in those early days, I cried much from the cold. Tante Anna, knowing I missed the warmth of the special place under my mother's heart from which I had come, rolled me in her apron and tied me against her stomach. There I was warm and quiet."
"Many years later I was in a primitive house in Africa...Walking into the kitchen, I saw an African woman with the white missionary child strapped tightly to her back....'Hey, how nice she has your baby on her back,' I said to the missionary mother....The white mother smiled and said, 'The baby was so fearful this morning. All she would do was cry. When the African cook came to the house she took one look at the baby, and said, "'Ah, misseee, give me the baby. I will keep her quiet." So she strapped her on her back and the baby has slept all morning while the cook has been busy around the kitchen.'"...."In all these years that I have been a 'tramp for the Lord,' I have often been afraid. But, in those moments I have always reached up and touched the hem of Jesus' garment. He has never failed to wrap me close to Him. Yet, I still long for that time when I shall have a mansion in Heaven."
Babywearing parents might giggle a little about the apron. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman born in 1892 at a time when babywearing was at low point--it just wasn't done much in Western culture. I'm certain that she must have seen many mothers wearing their babies throughout her travels all over the world. And I'm certainly glad that babywearing is "in vogue" again in the U.S.
What a wonderful picture of our Father God.
Parents who wear their babies regularly know how soothing it is for the child. Wearing a newborn on your chest has been shown to regulate a baby's heartbeat and temperature. Babies who are worn by their parents...they simply cry less! And I believe with all my heart that Jesus has a place just like that for us. We can place ourselves tightly against the very heart of God--a place we can go to whenever we call upon him in prayer--and he will calm us.
P.S. I highly recommend Tramp for the Lord by Corrie ten Boom.
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