Liberating you from bad ideas about God
I posted some church demographic sites over at GraceGround.com today, and as I was comparing stats from the various sites, noticed this:
If you compare the previous two pages with this page, some interesting trends are revealed. One thing I noticed is that six of the sins–avarice, gluttony, lust, sloth, pride, wrath–are most common where church is sparsely attended. However, the seventh sin, envy, is most popular where church is widely attended.
Is envy a problem in the church?
The most popular post on my site scares me. Or maybe it excites me. I’m not sure which.
The post is this: “31 Million Sex Slaves.” About 25% of my total site traffic is from that post alone. It consistently gets more hits per day than even my daily post. Why is this? Though I occasionally make posts about human trafficking, that is not the focus of this site. So why do I get so many pageviews on that post?
I can think of two vastly different explanations.
People want to stop sex slavery
First, it could be that people are getting concerned about the plight of human trafficking and sex slaves around the world. They search for something like “human trafficking” or “sex slavery” and somehow land on my site.
This is the explanation I am hoping for, but two things make me doubt it. First, despite all the hits on this one post, nobody ever leaves a comment. If the people reading the post were really concerned about sex slavery and human trafficking, wouldn’t some of them leave a comment? Second, (and maybe this explains the lack of comments), the vast majority of the pageviews are from countries other than the United States. Just check the “Live Traffic Feed” widget on the bottom right of this page to see what I mean. As I look at it right now, my post got hits from the Philippines, London, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
So maybe there is a second much, much worse option.
People want to buy sex slaves
This is the second possibility, and the one that scares me. What if the reason nobody leaves a comment is because they are shopping for sex slaves, instead of wanting to stop it? I mean, if you were wanting to buy or sell sex slaves, doesn’t a post called “31 million sex slaves” sound promising?
I really hope the popularity of this post is not due to a worldwide increase in demand for sex slaves victims. But I somewhat fear the worst, especially since human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world today.
Get involved – Women and Children need you
Do you want to get involved in stopping the exploitation of women and children in the sex slave industry? In the “31 million sex slaves” post, I suggest you start by reading a few books. It’s not much, but education is half the battle.
If you want to do more, here are some websites which provide further information and actions you can take:
Getting involved in the sex slave industry can be quite dangerous, so for now, most people should educate themselves, give to organizations that fight sex slavery, and take what political action they can to increase the penalty on men who purchase prostituted women and girls, thereby decreasing the demand.
James 1:27 calls us to look after orphans and widows in their distress. I think there cannot be a more distressing situation than sex slavery. What are you going to do to help?
Have you ever had a wilderness experience, where it seemed that nothing went right, the devil had it in for you, and all your prayers bounced off the ceiling? I have, and while I’ve written about parts of it elsewhere, there are some parts I have never told anyone, except my wife.
But next Tuesday, as part of March’s Synchroblog, I’ll share some of this story with you.
It’s not that I want to air out my dirty laundry, but I believe that through sharing our stories of doubt and failure, we encourage others who might be going through something similar. So if you have a story of searching, mourning, anticipating, waiting, watching, or unknowing, please join us and post your own story for the Synchroblog.
To participate, submit your name, name of blog, title of post and link in the comment section of “Experiences in the Wilderness” by 6 p.m. EST 3/8/2011. The list of participants will be compiled and posted on 3/9/2011.
Start a free Blog at GraceGround.com
Don’t have a blog yet? Participating in a Synchroblog is the perfect time to start one at GraceGround.com where there will eventually be a community of people who will interact with your ideas. I, for one, will try to read and comment on every single post.
I am constantly amazed at how many churches do not have websites. I recently called about twenty churches in my area to see if they had any community outreach ministries I could serve with, such as a food pantry or a homeless shelter. I also asked if these churches had a website I could look at to find out more about their church.
Of the twenty churches I called, only two had websites. That’s only 10%. Two other churches actually told me that all the information I needed could be found in the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages?! I don’t even own a Yellow Pages. Do you? Who uses them anymore? If I want to find something, I jump on to Google, and within thirty seconds have addresses, phone numbers, maps, customer reviews, and often, a website.
With GraceGround, setting up a page for your church has never been easier, and best of all, it’s free. But if you are still undecided, here are ten reasons your church should have a website. All of these, of course, are why you should start a blog on GraceGround.com.
Creating a website forces you to think through what is more important about your church, and then organize it in a logical and orderly way.
If the site has a blog, calendar, forum, or members-only area, the regular attenders at your church can connect with one another during the week for prayer, encouragement, or updates. If the weekly bulletin is posted on the site, then members who missed a service can still get the announcements and any other church updates that the bulletin contains.
How would you find your church if you didn’t know where it was? Most people in our culture turn to the internet. When a person wants to find a church, they search Google for churches in their community. If your church isn’t listed, they will never know you exist. You must make it easier for people to find you.
When people are considering whether to attend your church or not, they want more information than just an address and phone number. They would also like to see some pictures of the building and the people, as well as a list of programs. They might also want to see doctrinal, mission, and vision statements. Some will even want to listen to (or watch) a few sermons to see what the teaching is like. A website can provide all of this.
If there are community organizations and events that your church is involved with, you can write about them on your site, and it is quite likely that your church will get listed on other websites as a participant or sponsor. Churches are always looking for ways to connect with the community, and the internet is one of the best ways to do so.
To read reasons 6-10, or to comment on this post, head over to GraceGround.com.
I have created another website over at GraceGround.com. It is for churches and ministries around the country (and the world) to set up free blog pages for themselves.
Think of it as Blogger.com, but with a location map and instant community built right in (of course, right now, the community is quite small).
So if you have a church (whether traditional, house, missional, emerging, whatever) or are simply part of a group of people who want to follow Jesus, you are invited to join us and blog in a community.
Here are a few pages to get you started:
I’d love to see you over there!
Here’s a quick question. Should a church have a doctrinal statement?
If not, why not?
If so, what should be on it?
In case you didn’t read it, this was posted over TheOoze.com last week. Hardly anyone ever comments over there, so now that a 48-hour waiting period is up, I am reposting the article here. It is similar in content to my post from yesterday.
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As I have read and thought, written and talked about the church over the past few years, I have come to realize that the purpose of the church includes something the world gets nowhere else. The church must be a humanizer.
If there is one thing the world, sin, and the devil does to people, it is dehumanize them. In this world, we become numbers, statistics, projects, targets, customers, consumers, and victims. We are told to sit down, shut up, and let the powers have their way. We are reminded that the majority rules and while individuals have a say, it is only money that talks.
The church has the chance to step into all of this, look a person in the eye—a person who has been beaten, battered, and trampled by the world—and say to them, “You matter. I hear you. I love you.” Remember how Jesus responded to the leper in Luke 5? By most accounts, this leper was no longer part of the human race. He was less than human, treated worse than a dog. He was dead, but simply didn’t know it yet. When he shouted at others, they threw rocks at him, and told him to get away. But when he shouted at Jesus, Jesus not only heard him, but walked up to him, and embraced him. In that one little touch, which was not so little, Jesus humanized the leper.
This is what the church must do. We are called to humanize. It doesn’t take much. A touch here. A smile there. A word of encouragement where criticism is the norm. Treat people like the image of God that they are, even if that image is buried beneath months of unwashed grime and the smell of urine. It’s not about preaching the gospel to crowds of thousands or inviting people to church. A gentle word or a generous tip are better than any gospel tract.
Who can you humanize today?
How would you respond if you heard that the lady down the street who spreads gossip about you slipped on some ice and is in the hospital?
What would your thoughts be if you heard that the national spokesman for the gay rights movement died of AIDS in the hospital?
How would you react if you heard that an abortion doctor discovered a bomb in his Mercedes Benz as he was leaving for the airport for a vacation in Palm Springs?
Some people might silently cheer and think “serves them right,” and believe that God was punishing these people for their behavior. Though I am ashamed to admit it, I used to think that way.
But no longer.
What brought about this shift? One thing: Up until about five years ago, I thought I had my life pretty much figured out. I was doing pretty well in my Christian walk. I knew a lot about the Bible. But then, through a long series of events (some of which you can read over at Oh Me of Little Faith, I came to see that I was actually a leper.
We often hear that since Jesus loved lepers, we should find the outcast and rejected in our own society, and love them like Jesus. I don’t disagree. But I believe that before we can love other lepers, we need to recognize that we ourselves are lepers also. Only after we see ourselves as lepers do we then have the right perspective to go and spend time with other lepers. We do not go as healthy and holy members of society to minister to the sick and dying sinners.
No, it is only from the stance of a leper can we follow Jesus to touch and minister to other lepers, learning to love the unlovable, and touch the untouchable.
So, are you a leper?
Do you ever feel like you are losing your faith? You are not alone.
I encountered the following poem in NT Wright’s book, The Challenge of Jesus, and was so struck by the last stanza that this poem became my second favorite poem of all time.
It seems to describe his tumultuous struggle with faith, and the sadness, loneliness, and fear this caused. In the last line, what armies do you think he is talking about? Literal armies of governments and nations, or figurative armies of faith and religion? What is his solution? Is he right?
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By Matthew Arnold
1867
The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Last week I reviewed The Challenge of Jesus
I am pleased to announce that “Justin B” is the winner of the drawing. My thanks goes out to everyone who commented. I wish I had extra copies of the book to send to all of you!
Justin, I will send you an email later for your mailing address. If you see this before I send the email, please send your mailing address to me through the contact form on my About page. Hope you enjoy the book!
