Lewis on purpose

The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became a Man for no other purpose. - C.S. Lewis

Vacation books

I've been working through Organic Church for a few weeks, but on vacation I really got into it -- and it got more into me. Neil Cole successfully got my attention with other writing. Organic Church resonated profoundly as it analyzes the American Church setting.

Following a sober discussion of Jesus' parable of the soils, he writes in chapter 5, "I am convinced we have made a serious mistake by accommodating bad soil in our churches...We try to woo people to come and keep coming. What we end up with is an audience of consumers shopping for the best 'services'."

Chapter 7 begins by stating the result of that accommodation. "American Christianity is dying...We are deathly ill and don't even know it..."

Then if that's not enough, he unloads with stuff that most pastors never utter in public (because we're engaged with a business model of "church"). It's time we said what Cole says, and what we've whispered to each other. He writes under a heading of "Church Shopping" --

"Imagine...people come to us because they are impressed by our music, children's programs, clean toilets, and parking spaces. What if suddenly being a Christian is cool and the newest fad is to attend church. What have we done? Are we better off? I don't think so. Now we have churches full of consumers looking for the one that offers the best "service" for them or their family. Whatever the next great show is, that is where the multitudes will flock. Does it sound familiar at all? What we draw them with is what we draw them to. If they come expecting to be entertained, we had better entertain them if we want to keep them coming back every week..."

I'm going to start praying for God to move some desperate seekers and new believers into our part of the Kingdom -- the sort of folks willing to dump the carnal urge to "have it their way" and just be serious about a Lord Who'd say things like, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal." (John 12:24)

Can you imagine what Christ might do with that band of followers like that?

Cole ends chapter 7 like this: "Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction. If we fail to reproduce ourselves and pass the torch of life into the hands of the next generation, Christianity will be over in just one generation. Yet because of the power of multiplication, we are also one generation away from worldwide fulfillment of the Great Commission. The choice is ours."

The human enigma

The hardest thing to believe when you're young
is that people will fight to stay in a rut,
but not to get out of one.

Ellen Glasgow

No interest in heaven

"When the followers of Jesus Christ lose their interest in heaven they will no longer be happy Christians and when they are no longer happy Christians they cannot be a powerful force in a sad and sinful world."

A.W. Tozer, Who Put Jesus on the Cross

We're reading and studying "God as He Longs for You to See Him"with our small group; we hear Chip Ingram often quote Tozer. He's a great, classic author who's been mostly lost to our generation; he's one we need to revive.

Kierkegaard on church

Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it. Soren Kierkegaard

I read that line in Neil Cole's Organic Church the day after getting an email from a friend. The email included a link to a news story about a massive church split in Florida -- the split was over "style, not substance" and there were big names involved. The friend said, "it's reading stuff like this that makes me never want to participate in a church again." If the outward forms and man-centered expressions of Christendom were all there was to "church" I'd agree wholeheartedly!

Serious Intake

A friend and I going to try it:

• read a significant portion of Scripture in a week's time, asking God to speak to us; if one of us (in a group of 2-3 men or 2-3 women) doesn't finish the reading, we do read it again until each has completed the reading and each hears God speak.


• we get together and discuss what God has said and confess our sins to one another.


• we pray strategically for 2-3 people who need Christ.

The reasoning behind a heavier intake of Scripture -- in part -- to develop your appetite for God's Word. Doesn't happen with a verse or short passage every day or two or less often. This week, Steve and I agreed we'd read John's gospel. My dear wife was gone Tuesday evening, so I sat down with John. He held my attention for a solid hour and five minutes. I saw such good things, ones I've not put together before, like: Jesus' clear call to the curious and the crowds and then the committed to -- "believe" (John is the "gospel of faith"), then to "come to Me", then "love Me" and finally "obey Me." But with the religious leaders -- the terms are often the same, but sort of in reverse. "You don't believe in Me because you don't believe, or know My Father." "You will not come to Me." Then, the final description, speaking to His men, "they will hate you because they hated Me."

It was astounding, and deeply encouraging to read through a longer book. I remember someone saying once: when you're reading the Bible "don't get too far from Jesus" -- don't stray too far from the gospels. Think I'm going to have to get through John again, before Monday.

Serving

Ray Stedman alludes to a thesis of an old book, The Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life; in it, a group of psychologists -- decades ago -- proposed that television was at the root of Americans forgetting how to serve. Stedman says: “perhaps in a Christian congregation this is not nearly as evident as it is in the world at large, but we face it also in the body of Christ.”

Jesus said that He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give Himself as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:28) Stedaman wrote, the source of true richness and fulfillment is in serving, not being served. When we demand to be served, always have something titillating our senses; “the end is loneliness, emptiness and ultimately despair”. The proof of that is visible everywhere today.

Imagine the influence if a group of Christians simply determined to connect what Jesus connected in that statement: serving and reconciliation. I wonder how a people who've forgotten what serving looks like would react if they saw it lived like He lived it?