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A Word from the Lord

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Ever have anyone tell you that they have a Word from the Lord for you? BEWARE! Usually, such words from the Lord surprisingly like personal opinion, and usually, the “word from the Lord” benefits or helps the person who shares it with you in some way.

a word from the Lord

I remember several years ago when my family was moving from one town to another, another Christian in town called up my parents and said that they had a word from the Lord for them. Apparently, God had told this person that my parents should give them their house. My mom responded wisely, I think. She said, “If God wants us to give you our house, He will let us know.” He never did.

Anyway, be careful and wary of people who have words from the Lord for you.  Such “words from the Lord” may even be what God meant by “taking His name in vain.“

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I Am A Church Member (but Thom Rainer doesn’t get it)

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I am a church MemberI like Thom Rainer. I have benefited greatly from his books and research. But his most recent book, I Am a Church Member, is severely misguided and misinformed.

I Am a Church Member appears to be intended for “Church Membership” classes in local churches. While I am not a fan of  institutional churches or of the church membership classes that go with them, I do understand that if a group of believers are going to meet in an institutional way, they probably need some sort of membership rolls, and membership classes to go with them. Fine. If that is how you think it is best to follow Jesus, I have absolutely no problem with it.

So what is the problem with Thom Rainer’s book? I Am a Church Member uses guilt and fear to get new church members to do what the church leadership wants.

Let me back up.

By all reports, institutional Christianity is hemorrhaging.  Every year, millions of people abandon the institutional way of doing church, not because they are abandoning God, Jesus, or the Church, but because they find that intimate relationships with others and loving service in the community apart from the systematized and scheduled meetings on Sunday morning is a more natural way of following Jesus and living life as His disciples.

Naturally, this mass exodus from the church has church leaders scared. They need people to fill their pews. Why? So that they can give their tithes, so the church building can be paid for and the pastoral salaries funded, and so that there is a place and people for all the expensive church programs.

But how do you tell church members that to truly follow Jesus, they have to attend church, give their tithes, support the church leadership, and serve in church programs?

Apparently, you get Thom Rainer to write a book about it, and get 23 prominent church leaders and seminary presidents to endorse the book, and then price the book in such a way so that scared church leaders all over the country will buy hundreds of copies of the book so they can hand it out to all the people in their “Church Membership” classes.

A Summary-Review of I Am a Church Member

Here is a basic summary of Thom’s book:

Rainer begins the book pointing out that nine out of ten American churches are declining in attendance (p. 4). His book is the proposed prescription to this problem. (But is it really a problem?)

Beginning with a terrible misunderstanding of Paul’s “Body” imagery in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and how every “member” of the Body needs every other member, Rainer uses six chapters to propose six commitments that every new church member must make to the church they are attending. The six commitments are actually six popular cliches which church leaders around the world love to use in sermons and in publications to guilt church people into being regular church attendees.

The best (read: worst) part about each chapter, is that they conclude with a pledge for the reader to sign and date! I can almost visualize the conclusion of each week in the Membership classes, where the Pastor (or Elder) teaching the class get everybody to stand and say the pledge out loud, and then collects copies of everyone’s pledge to be stored in the person’s “Membership File” so that if they ever get out of hand, the pastor can pull their file and say, “See? You made a commitment. You signed on the dotted line. Are you going to break your word? Are you a liar? You know where liars go, don’t you?”

That may be a bit over the top, but you get the gist…. and if you have ever sat through one of these meetings, you know that this is pretty much how they go… See this satirical video.

The Six Commitment in I Am A Church Member

Here are Rainer’s six recommended commitments (summarized and reworded for this review):

  1. I will devote as much time and energy to my local church as possible, because if I don’t, I am letting Jesus down.
  2. Nobody is perfect. Not even my pastor. So I won’t talk or think negatively about him in any way, or challenge anything he says or does, because doing so would damage the gospel.
  3. Church isn’t about me. Even if I don’t like the music, can’t stand the preaching, there’s nothing for my kids, and I think the church is wasting my time and money, I will still attend faithfully.
  4. No matter what, I will support my pastor and pray for him every single day.
  5. I will bring my entire family to church with me, because the future of my family, the church, and the entire world depend on it.
  6. I love being a member of this church, and I never, ever, want to stop being a member. It’s the best! I promise. It’s a gift from God.

Yes, yes, my summaries are a bit snarky. But if you read Thom’s book, you will see that my summaries are not that far off from what he actually wrote. I am using satire to point out how guilt-laden and performance-driven these commitments are.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? Because I am tired of church leaders with expensive church buildings and bloated church budgets trying to shore up their ineffective church programs by demanding further sacrifice and greater commitments from tired and weary church members. What ever happened to “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”?

While there may be some people are leaving institutional Christianity because they are rebelling against God or forsaking Jesus, the vast majority are leaving so that they can better follow Jesus into the world. Isn’t this something to be praised and encouraged?

I am a church member

Look, being a church member has nothing to do with sitting in a pew on Sunday morning, listening to a sermon and praying for your pastor, giving your money to support a local church budget, and making commitments to serve on a church ministry program.

Are we all members of one Body? Yes. Does every member need every other member? Of course.

And that is exactly why so many millions of people are leaving institutional Christianity. It is not because they don’t want to be members of Christ’s church, but because they are members of Christ’s church, the Body, and have found that Jesus wants them to serve the Body and love the world in ways that waste less time and money.

Look, I am not against people attending church. Truly. I am not. I am not against “Church Membership” for people who attend church. The way that system is set up, “Church Membership” is a good idea. What saddens me is that church leaders think that people who “leave their church” are forsaking Jesus, abandoning the church, and living in rebellion against God.

Just once, I would love for a mega-church pastor or a prominent church author to come out and announce a blessing upon all those people who are leaving their church to follow Jesus in tangible and loving ways in the community. Why cannot church leaders see themselves as “sending these people out into the world” rather than see them as “leaving the church”?

So if Thom Rainer ever reads this review, I would invite him to write a follow-up book which church pastors can hand out to people who are leaving their church. It could be titled, I Am a Church Member (…even if I don’t attend church). The book would contain no pledges, no dotted lines upon which to sign, and no guilt trips. Instead, it would contain a commitment on the part of the church leadership to not condemn or criticize those who leave institutional Christianity, but to bless them and thank them for being the church by following Jesus in ways that take great courage and creativity.

I beg Thom Rainer (and all the Seminary Presidents and Mega Church Pastors who endorsed I Am a Church Member) to recognize that many people may be leaving the institutional church, not because they have given up on church, are abandoning Jesus, or are bad church members, but because they are good church members and they want to be the church by following Jesus into their neighborhoods and communities.

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Did Jesus Teach Social Justice?

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social justiceSocial justice has been a controversial topic in Christian circles for several decades. Part of the controversy is whether or not Jesus taught His followers to practice social justice.

As with many Christian debates, there are two main sides to this issue… and as with many Christian debates, I hold to a third position. Let me review the two main positions on social justice, and then present my own view.

1. The Gospel Leads to Social Justice

First, some Christians say that social justice is a perversion of the Gospel, and that rather than seek to engage in social justice issues, we should instead just preach the Gospel. They say that no amount of helping people will transform society and bring justice to the world, unless it is first founded upon Jesus Christ.

People’s lives cannot be truly transformed, they say, until they submit their lives to Jesus Christ, and adopt the values of the Kingdom of God.

Furthermore, these churches argue that we should not be wasting our time on social justice issues until people have heard and accept the Gospel. “What good is it,” you might hear them say, “if a person has a full belly but is still headed for hell? People still go to hell whether they are well-fed or not.”

2. Social Justice is at the Center of the Gospel

On the other side of the social justice debate are those who argue that social justice issues are at the center of the Gospel, and that as we look at the life and ministry of Jesus, we see Him engaged in social justice actions at every turn. He feeds the hungry. He defends the oppressed. He stands up for women’s rights. He loves the outcast, the despised, the rejected, and the sinner, and calls on the rich and powerful to give their money to the poor and take of the needs of the helpless.

While this second group usually agrees that feeding the poor and defending the powerless will not “get them to heaven” they argue that getting people to heaven is not the only goal of the Gospel. You will often hear them say, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care,” and “The way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.”

Social Justice and Jesus

Where do I stand on these issues?

Personally, I think that most of the problem lies in the term “social justice” itself. It is not that the term is wrong, it’s just that the term “social justice” means different things to different people, and so even if two groups of people are arguing about “social justice,” they may not be arguing about the same thing.

So my view is that we should stop talking and arguing about “social justice” and instead, just try to follow the example of Jesus.

Ah, but there’s the rub. What exactly did Jesus teach regarding the message of the Gospel, and what exactly did Jesus do regarding the needs of the people of His day?

social justice and JesusA full explanation would take a full book, but let me see if I can summarize three of the highlights:

  1. The mission and message of Jesus is pretty clearly summarized in Luke 4:18-19. He wants to give sight to the blind, liberty to the captives, and deliverance to the oppressed. If we look at the actions of Jesus throughout the Gospels, He did these things both spiritually and physically.  Sometimes Jesus met people’s physical needs before He addressed their spiritual needs, and other times He addressed their spiritual needs first.
  2. Jesus was not into free handouts. Yes, Jesus gave free meals and free healthcare to people. But notice a few things about these events. First, the people He is helping are almost always people who are following Him or who have sought Him out in some way. When He feeds the five thousand, it was because they had been listening to His teachings and He had gone on so long that they all became hungry and had not brought any food. The vast majority of these people were not homeless. They were not unemployed. They just forgot to bring food. Later, when word gets around that Jesus was giving free meals, and people started showing up just the free stuff, Jesus pretty much chased them away (cf. John 6).
  3. Jesus never called on the government to provide free stuff. Not once did Jesus ever call on the Roman Empire, or the local Israelite authorities to raise taxes so that the poor and unemployed could be taken care of. Taking care of the poor and needy in the community was a priority of Jesus, but He never saw this as the responsibility of the government. Taking care of the poor and needy in the community was the responsibility of the individual person, or of local groups.

social justice and the churchSo when it comes to Jesus and His Gospel message, I don’t think He would side with either of the two main groups in the social justice debate.

On the one hand, helping the poor and needy was indeed a priority for Jesus, and sometimes He helped people whether or not they believed in Him for eternal life and became His followers. Sometimes He helped people just because they needed help.

But on the other hand, Jesus was not a proponent of trying to legislate morality, of trying to get people to do what is right through higher taxation and passing laws. Jesus did not put much faith in human government to fix what was wrong with the world. Fixing the world, helping the poor, and defending the oppressed was His job, and the job He passed on to those who follow Him.

And fixing what is wrong with the world means looking not just at people’s spiritual needs, but also their mental, emotional, psychological, and physical needs as well.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a full-orbed Gospel which addresses all of humanity’s needs, and which He wants the church to spread throughout the world, and on their own initiative, not through taxation or legislation from the government. A church which calls on the government to take care of the needy in our community has surrendered–not to Jesus–but to the state. Helping the needy in our community is the job of the church; not the state.

Of course, as long as we spend all our money on lavish buildings, state-of-the-art soundboards, pastoral salaries, and excessive programming, we will have no choice but to ask the government to do what Jesus has called us to do all along.

This post was written as part of the October Synchroblog, where different bloggers around the world were invited to write about the topic of the social justice in today’s world. Here is a list of other contributors:

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4 Practical Suggestions for Being the Church

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If you are looking for ways to be the church in your community and love others like Jesus, here are some practical suggestions of things you can do. This post is by Sam Riviera who lives out these suggestions in his day-to-day life.

Be the Church by Picking Up Trash

be the church pick up trashTwice a month our group picks up trash on the streets and in the parks of an inner city neighborhood. We also try to smile and greet everyone who passes. Over the past few years this has resulted in some amazing conversations with people who hate churches and would never dream of attending one.

You’ve already guessed that picking up trash in an inner city neighborhood is not all sweetness and roses. Some of what we pick up is really disgusting. Several mornings I have stood on what appeared to be not quite dry blood, only to read in the afternoon paper that someone had been murdered on that very spot the previous night. On the other hand, there is no place where I feel the presence of Jesus more keenly than out in the street picking up trash.

Be the Church by Cleaning up the Alley

be the church - clean up the alleyTwice last summer our group cleaned one block sections of alleys. The first one was the dirtiest and most overgrown alley in that inner city neighborhood, and took us several mornings to complete. At the end of the final morning, we shared lunch together and invited the neighbors whose houses backed up to the alley. A few joined us, and a long term relationship was formed with one family.

After the second alley, we decided to return to picking up trash, which is an activity in which more people are able to participate. Trash pickup also tends to engage more of the people who live on the street in conversations. An unintended and unexpected consequence of cleaning alleys was that some of the people who lived along the alleys seemed embarrassed that someone else was cleaning their dirty alley. They closed their blinds and didn’t emerge until we were leaving. Once again, however, we felt the presence of Jesus out there in those dirty alleys.

Be the Church by Painting Over Graffiti

be the church - cover up graffitiGraffiti is a significant problem in most inner city neighborhoods. After checking with the city, we found that many areas have a group that volunteers to paint over graffiti. However, most groups have very few volunteers and are always on the lookout for people who will help. The job requires old clothes and an hour or two of time. This is also an opportunity to engage people in the neighborhood in conversation as they walk by or when they come out of their homes to say thank you.

Be the Church by Volunteering at the Recreation Department

Our group has helped the recreation department with neighborhood Halloween and Easter parties. Several of the members of our group have served on the department board. Again, these have been excellent opportunities to get to know the people who live in the neighborhood.

We have also cleaned up after street and music festivals, participated in the community dinner, helped the fire station acquire needed equipment, and thanked the center city police department with a visit, thank you cards, and cookies.

Have you tried some of the suggestions above or discovered other ways to be the church in your community? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Be the Church in Your Community

Be the ChurchWant to be the church in your community but don't know? Here are some posts which not only explain what it means to be the church in your community, but also gives concrete, practical examples of what it looks like and how to be the church whatever you do and wherever you go. Remember, you ARE the church, and wherever you go, Jesus goes with you! If you have questions about how to be the church in your community, please let us know in the comment sections below, and we will try to write a post which answers your question.

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The Next Christian Crusade

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christian crusadesThe Christian crusades of the Middle Ages were one of the greatest evils ever carried on in the history of the world. Oh, I know, I know. It was nothing compared to the holocaust, right? The crusades were just wars where one country was trying to get land from another country, right?

Wrong.

I would argue that the crusades were worse than the holocaust and all other wars. Why? Because the crusades were carried out in the name of Jesus and under the banner of the church. Though numerous evils occur in this world, they become exponentially more evil when done in the name of Jesus.

Which is worse? Rape, or raping someone in the name of Jesus? It does happen. Some men treat their wives like crap, and then when the woman doesn’t want to sleep with him, he rapes her, quoting 1 Corinthians 7:4-5: “The wife does not have authority over her own body; but the husband does,” and “Do not deprive one another…”

Which is worse? Killing babies, or killing them in the name of Jesus? Again, this happens also. We have all read news stories about parents who kill their children because they thought Jesus was telling them to do so. That is not Jesus; that is pure evil.

Which is worse? Going to war, or going to war in the name of Jesus?  War is bad enough, but when we go forward to kill and conquer others for the cause of Christ, we are not following Jesus but the devil instead.

The New Christian Crusade

So I was shocked and outraged to learn about a new “Crusade” that is starting to take place in Uganda under the guise of Christianity and bearing the name of Jesus. It is a new “Holy War” for Jesus where Christians are going out to kill other people because those people live a certain way. And before we too quickly blame African Christians for such barbaric behavior, it is American Christians who are going over to Africa to teach and encourage the Christians there to engage in this bloody and murderous crusade.

There is a documentary coming out this week about this newest Christian crusade. It is called “God Loves Uganda.” Here is the preview:

I have looked at some of the comments on this video on other blogs, and it is shocking to me how some Christians try to defend what is going on in Africa at the hands of Christians.

God loves ugandaI read one person who said, “They’re gay and under the curse of God!” WHAT? Even if that were true (it isn’t), that gives you the right to kill them? Such an idea is Satanic.

Another person said that what the Ugandan Christians were doing is nothing compared to what the Muslims are doing or what Kony is doing. So…. our standards of behavior are now Muslim extremists and Kony? Whatever happened to following the ways of Jesus?

Look, I am sure there are extenuating circumstances in Uganda that I know nothing about. I am sure that the makers of this film had some sort of agenda. I am sure that some of the people who kill others in the name of Jesus are not really Christians.

But I don’t care about any of that.

As long as there are Christians who teach people to hate others because of their lifestyle, politics, or skin color, there must be other Christians who stand up and denounce such behavior as having absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ or His church.

Where do You Stand?

If you want to read more about this film and it’s director, Roger Ross Williams, I recommend an interview he did here with the Sundance Film Festival. Here is one thing he said:

It’s OK to believe that homosexuality is not God’s way, but it’s not OK to condone or support or even look the other way when there’s violence against LGBT people. Many of the Evangelicals who are missionaries in Uganda, even though they’re not directly participating in violence, will look the other way and pretend it’s not happening. If you’re a Christian you don’t condone violence against anyone, but they’re not standing up. American Evangelicals have a huge amount of influence in Uganda.

I do not know if there were Christians who stood up and condemned the Crusades against the Muslims in the Middle Ages, but I, for one, stand up and condemn the Crusade against Gays in our own day. Where do you stand?

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