Saturday, 16 January 2010
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A New Year's Resolution for the Church
By Brittany at Faith and GeekeryWe often use the start of each year as a time to reflect, set new goals, evaluate and strategize. For many, it’s a clean slate, a chance to start over and to challenge themselves to be someone new. In business, we set new goals, try new tactics and attempt to make the next year more successful.
But what about the church? Are we seeking to reevaluate, to understand where we could improve and learn how to be revitalized so that we may best reach the world around us?
This weekend, I attended Veritas, a revitalization seminar hosted by my church. We spent the day evaluating different stages of the congregational life cycle and what it looks like to be a healthy, growing, missional church. We started discussing our church, with all its strengths and weaknesses, and I began to see our church through the eyes of someone other than myself.
Churches in America get so caught up in their own way of doing things, fighting and focusing on the trivial stuff — the songs, the volume, the projector screens, etc. We get so lost in our internal battles that we forget about the real reason that we gather together and about the message of hope that we have been given to share.
It made me think about the state of church in our nation and the general rebellion against everything that the church stands for. But what if we took the time to evaluate our churches and sought to understand why our generation is so disenchanted with the church?
Mark Stromberg, of the Northwest Covenant Conference, while leading the class said, “We have to remember that inviting a young person to church is like inviting a member of your elder board to go out to a bar and sing karaoke: it’s completely unnatural and out of their element.”
This really struck me. Why is it so unnatural for young people to be in the church? As I thought about all the possible answers, I finally realized that in a world of tolerance and acceptance of whatever life you choose, the church has become the rigid rule maker. The church is viewed no longer as the place to find freedom but is instead often seen as a place to find judgment.So at the beginning of this new year, let’s take time to evaluate, to consider our mistakes of last year, and to learn from where we fall short. Let’s strategize and create tactics for how we can move forward and create a church — not just a building, but a body of believers that can rise up together in love.
Okay, but how are we going to do that?
I think the answer is through brokenness and honesty. We can often get caught up in the mentality that because we know the truth that we have all the answers, but the truth is that we are still sinners. We are still living lives that could do better at glorifying God. It is with a humble and broken spirit that we may, as the church, offer more to those who are hurting than just a building full of people with different preferences and opinions. Instead, we can walk with those who are hurting and say, “I understand what you’re going through because I’m a sinner too, but through the grace of Jesus Christ I step forward, forgiven and hopeful.”
What are some resolutions we can set for the church in the United States? What are areas we have failed and can improve in?
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Comments (17)
2. Have ARGUMENTS! This is the way the Jews learned and learning without opposition is not learning it is indoctrination.
3. Stop thinking that to give a "testimony" one needs to look happy all the time, even when it is unreasonable to do so. Jesus did not put up this facade, neither should the church.
4. Understand that Christianity is based on the idea that the true believers will always be a small number, and that if too large a group believes something it needs to be examined for veracity.
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Matthew 7:13-14 (New King James Version)
13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Luke 13:22-24 (New King James Version)
22 And He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 Then one said to Him, "Lord, are there few who are saved?"
And He said to them, 24 "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
Resolutions we can set for which church?
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - Did Jesus set up multiple churches?
@Theophilus166@xanga - Exactly.
@BiblicalTruth2@xanga - "Understand that Christianity is based on the idea that the true believers will always be a small number, and that if too large a group believes something it needs to be examined for veracity."
It's all relative. Five hundred million people is a relatively small group compared to the 6 billion people on earth (8 percent). If we're talking about 'too large of a group,' we're going have to be talking about hundreds of millions of people.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - Setting resolutions for the Church strikes me as odd. Resolving to follow the Church better and lead others to Mass sounds good, though.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - I'm sort of confused at what you're getting at.
@Theophilus166@xanga - Romans 9:6-8 (New King James Version)6 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they
arenot all Israel who
areof Israel, 7 nor
are theyall children because they are the seed of Abraham; but,
“In Isaac your seed shall be called.8 That is, those who
arethe children of the flesh, these
arenot the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
Hebrews 3:7-4:13 (New King James Version)7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
“ Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘ They shall not enter My rest.
12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said:
“ Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
Failure of the Wilderness Wanderers 16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.Hebrews 4 1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:
“ So I swore in My wrath,
‘ They shall not enter My rest,
although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works 5 and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:
11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account“ Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts."8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
@Theophilus166@xanga - I think mainly that it is not possible for one to set resolutions for "the" church when there are so many "churches" in this country, many of them thinking they are "the" church. You are right; Christ established one Church, and the Church has her own authority (given by that same Christ to St. Peter) to make her own resolutions, and she has for the last two-thousand years (and running!).
@monobeam@xanga - Great idea! Once we have full communion, then perhaps we can consider a unified agenda, setting resolutions and the like. See you tomorrow at Mass (through Him, with Him and in Him)!
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - yeah that makes a lot of sense. The church is so diverse that many resolutions apply only to specific christian communities - much like the letters in Revelation addressed churches that needed very different instructions.
@BiblicalTruth2@xanga - quoting large portions of scripture without really saying anything doesn't really help much.
@Theophilus166@xanga - "the letters in Revelation addressed churches that needed very different instructions."
Though churches, they were one Church, in unity, under the Pope.
@Theophilus166@xanga - Yep, and addressed by an apostle of Christ speaking to each community individually on one level and seeking to maintain their greater unity within the whole Church Body on another, advising and exhorting with the authority that is his by Christ.
@monobeam@xanga - Though they didn't refer to St. Peter as "pope"... yet.
I guess a reading of the New Testament Books might get us at the initial start up issues. I am not expert for sure, but some ideas could be:
1. jump start fulfilling the Great Commission. If that has been lax, that might be the first place to start.
2. Love--Jesus said that they (the lost) would know we are disciples of by how church members love each other.
3. Acts seems to say that they started out meeting in homes, praying, teaching, and fellowshipping.
4. Later widows were checked out to verify their needs were being met.
5. Apostles seemed to do the teaching and praying, and others did the manual labor services.
I moved 20 times in 40 years and always went to church. I just looked for their greatest need and tried to help there. Unlike some, I think the Holy Spirit gifted me to do the job that was needed at the time.
Very good idea here. Thanks
frank
@Theophilus166@xanga - it says what Jesus did that few are chosen even of the special.... of Israel even few were "Israel" spiritually. So the idea that it is just a small percentage of people that can follow the NARROW way instead of a small number is dismissed again.
I can see where you're going with this. I think more people just need to realize, however, that the church and the people within the church are not simply here to judge, but rather to guide. Judgment is saved for God Himself. But, that doesn't mean we should set aside the guidelines that He has left for us.
Of course, you are right, we are all sinners. But, the thing is, people need to want to do better, to walk in the way of the Lord, to strive forward to change whatever they possibly can that causes them to sin, to be diligent in watching themselves to make sure that they do not sin and if they do, that they repent, and to catch themselves from doing it again. To genuinely NOT want to sin and to genuinely WANT to change.
Of course, humans will always be sinners. But, that doesn't mean we should be lazy and say, "oh well, I can't help it, I'm human." and not try to change it. Maybe we can't change everything, maybe we can't stop every single sin, but that doesn't mean we should not try to change what we can.
I think that if we take too much of a relaxed approach, it might lead people to be lazy in that aspect of their faith and think that it is okay to be lazy about it. :/ And we don't want that!
Perhaps there would be a middle ground to find, though I don't know what it is. :/