Christianity

Christianity / people — 13 Comments
2
Dec 09

Koo Koo Ka Choo Mrs Keaton

mbbSo, Meredith Baxter — known by many as Mrs. Elyse Keaton, mother to Alex P. Keaton on NBC’s Family Ties — has come out to declare to the world that she is a lesbian (news story here). Why? Why is it so relevant to us to know that Meredith Baxter considers herself to be a lesbian and has done so for the past 7 years? Do we really care so much about her business that we now feel compelled to judge her for her sexuality? Is it because she was Alex P. Keaton’s mother and now somehow her being a lesbian takes away from that memory?

One of the things about being involved in ministry is how people in the church will use this news as a reason for us Christians to rally together and pray for her to cleansed of her homosexual lifestyle. Unfortunately, this discounts some very important things:

  1. Only God can change someone, and it is his decision alone as to whether or not Ms. Baxter needs to be changed.
  2. If Ms. Baxter’s profession of homosexuality has doomed her to a life of eternal hell, then what about your viewing of internet porn, getting drunk on occasion, turning a blind eye to those in need or yelling at your husband/wife in anger?
  3. People are turned away from hypocritical Christians judging them, yet drawn to imperfect humans loving them through grace and kindness.

I guess Ms. Baxter felt compelled to share her lesbianism with the world, but in the end I doubt it will be what the world thinks in return that will matter to her. I sense this as a way to free herself from having to somehow hide her identity and pretend to be straight. Who is it that benefits from that perception of being straight? Obviously, those of us that choose to live in judgment and harbor prejudice. The problem here is, did we care about Ms. Baxter’s eternal salvation in Christ before she announced she was a lesbian?

Not to run away from my roots as an evangelical Christians, so for the record, I do believe that being a lesbian would prevent Ms. Baxter from knowing God–alongside him–in heaven one day. However, it is not my job to change her back to being heterosexual, if that were even possible. It’s not my job to view her as different or defective or eternally persecuted because of who she is attracted to or falls in love with. She is a person made in the image of God, just as you and I are. We all are. How he deals with each of us and our role in the eternal makeup of the universe is at his discretion. I can believe firmly in the truth as I see it, but must never move away from the truth behind the truth, which is:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. –1 Peter 4:8

It is my sincere hope for Ms. Baxter that she one day comes to know God eternally in heaven, yet only on God’s terms and through his love for her as revealed by others. May her value and worth be in who she is–as made in the image of God–rather than who she dates or what we (personally) think of her.

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Christianity / life / ministry / people — 1 Comment
20
Nov 09

A call to mentors/mentees

Watched the interview below between DJ Chuang & Kyle Reed regarding mentors. It’s a sad story, but one that I think can be resolved. Watch the interview and then read my commentary below:

This is sad, but it mirrors a lot of my own experience as a new Christian with a call to ministry. I actually had to go outside of my local church to find mentors.

In my opinion, the biggest challenge in finding a mentor is getting people to understand the mentor/mentee relationship. Those asked to mentor think it means a big burden of their time and that they are being asked to teach someone in their ways for free. Mentees think that mentors should teach them in their ways for free.

If you’re asked to mentor someone, count it as a privilege. Know that you were asked to be a mentor because someone saw value in who you are. I know your immediate response is that you don’t have time to mentor someone. Maybe even you admit to yourself that you don’t know how to mentor someone. These are things that are easy to overcome.

If you are someone seeking a mentor, be sure to clarify in your mind what you are looking for. Don’t expect to ask a bunch of questions and get a bunch of answers. Your mentor won’t want you following them around their office looking over their shoulder either. Assess what you are looking do and why you are seeking a mentor. Be able to explain yourself in a brief paragraph so you can get someone’s attention and allay their fears that you want to take up their time without any return in their investment.

Mentors:

      Be passionate: As a mentor, one must understand a very key thing. It’s passion. Are you passionate about what you do? If so, then it’s easy to allocate a little time each week to share that passion with someone else who may be called to a mission. If you’re not passionate about what you do, then you definitely should pass on being a mentor. A mentee will feed off of your passion and be encouraged by it. It’s probably the greatest thing you can pass on to someone else.
      Be passionate about who you’re mentoring: What are their goals? How motivated and teachable are they? Do they have some agenda? If some of their passion mirrors yours, it’s easy to establish a relationship of moving forward with them. You have a lot of experience and have learned from your mistakes. You have an opportunity to help someone with passion, yet maybe lacking in mistake-making, to possibly avoid making some mistakes based on your wisdom.
      Set time constraints: Establish up front before even considering a role as a mentor, what the expectations of time will be. In your mind, you may think you don’t have time, but in all seriousness, isn’t investing in someone in the next generation worth 30-60 minutes of your time once a week? If you’re gonna take at least one coffee break a week, why not share some of your story with someone else or make a standing lunch appointment to do the same.
      It’s not about you!!! This gets most people when they reject a request to mentor someone. They make it about their own personal time or their own success. If one works hard to get where they are, why help expedite the process for someone else, right? You don’t have time in the day for what you already do, so how can you make time for someone new? Sorry, these *excuses* just don’t work because in the end they are simply selfish. Step back for a minute and look at the situation from the mentee’s point of view. It took a lot of courage for them to even approach you. They are at the beginning of figuring out what they were called to do and needing a little direction, just like you were at one time. They are full of passion, energy and enthusiasm in ways that maybe you once exhibited, but have since been a little jaded from getting chewed up and spit out any times. Give a little investment into someone new and the return isn’t your own, but instead it is shared by all.

Mentees:

      Be humble: Know that no one owes you anything. Be very cautious of asking for too much from someone gracious enough to consider mentoring you. Let them know up front that you want to learn, but mostly you just want to hear their story and be encouraged by it. That you will have some questions along the way, but making the burden of the relationship your own and not theirs.
      Be teachable:Don’t just say you are teachable, but truly be teachable. Don’t just pick and choose the wisdom you will embrace and toss the rest aside. Know that everything you hear and learn has value and should not be taken lightly. Open your mind to what you hear and see, not just try to extract what fits your agenda and direct the session to suit your needs.

        Listen, don’t speak: This is an area where I think mentees really get disconnected from mentors. You want to learn and someone just gave you an open door to their life’s journey and you have a million questions to ask and not enough time to ask them all. Stop! Don’t have an agenda! Just be open to listen to what your mentor has to say. Maybe you meet for coffee and he tells you a story about what happened that day and you think it is obscure and not relevant to your future. Know that it is! Take it home with you and store it away…it will come back to you and in the end you will understand it. Go with the flow, don’t steer the conversation.
        Wax on, wax off For those that have watched The Karate Kid, you know what I’m saying here. In the movie, the mentee (Daniel-san) was given a bunch of mundane chores to do around his mentor’s (Mr Miyagi) house. Things like wash & wax the car, sweep the floors, etc. Daniel-san didn’t understand why he wasn’t karate and protested about being the servant of the house. Then, one day Miyagi shines a light on the situation. He attacks Daniel-san and tells him to do the move he did when waxing the car: Wax on! now, wax off! By doing those mundane chores, Daniel-san was learning humility, how to have a teachable spirit, memory from repetitive motion, etc.

        I remember going to a session with a mentor one week and was whisked away from the office to go help someone move a sofa from a downstairs apartment to her new upstairs apartment. My hour was spent moving furniture. Where was the pastoral wisdom? How would this help me be a better church planter? I was quite disappointed after that session. However, now I see the light. Ministry is about people, not building a large building and leading a large staff. Ministry is about service, not getting respect. It was one of many of my Daniel-san moments that I am now learning the meaning of.

        Your mentor may ask you to do something you don’t quite get. Don’t complain, just do it! It’s not about what you *think* you are learning today, but it’s about your future.

If people are willing to set limits and boundaries to their time and really look at investing a small amount of time in order to make a huge amount of difference down the road, mentoring someone is a great opportunity to help see ones legacy continued through someone that credits you for their success through their future actions. It’s not about us. It’s about the countless others that will benefit as we learn and grow together.

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Christianity / church / culture — 28 Comments
9
Nov 09

Fueling the fire of Christian celebrity

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. –1 John 2:15 New International Version

I just Re-tweeted something I saw mentioning that my friend Charles Lee was going to be speaking at Exponential 2010. I was excited! Then I saw a tweeted link from the website on a national church planter’s conference announcing The Idea Camp being in Portland 11/20-21. I was excited! Then…it struck me like a ton of bricks. There it was. I saw an image of Rob Bell being displayed in a banner as if he was Elvis Presley circa 1972:

robbell-elvis

Sorry, but this image disturbs me…seriously disturbs me. What are we doing? We’re mimicking the secular world and hyping up big budget Christian events with Christian celebrities–treating them like celebrities, marketing them like celebrities, ogling after them like celebrities–and putting our hopes into one big social event every year. It’s our chance to hear first-hand from famous people why they are famous and we are not. We are basically acting like the world that idolizes fame, except we are operating under the premise that it’s different because we are working for God. Seriously, are you buying in to the hype? The better question is, should you be buying into the hype?

We are Christians that are supposed to live in the world, yet not be a part of the world, yet we are doing the exact same thing to attract Christians that worldly idols do to attract idolaters. How can this be right?

Imagine what our faith would be like if we read in the Bible that Jesus went from town to town preaching the Good News and charging $300 per person in order to hear the message. Imagine what the Apostle Paul’s story would have been like had he gone to Rome, Galatia, Ephesus and spoke from the coliseums and amphitheaters to a crowd of paying spectators, while watching the rest of the people perish because they couldn’t afford to hear him speak.

Take a look at some of the additional images that are rotated through the banner for this national Christian conference below and you decide:

catalyst

What do you see when you see the images above? Doesn’t it look like a promo for some celebrities or a rock concert? Is that the image we in the church really want to portray to the world? Is that an image we as the church want to portray to Christians? Does anyone else even really care? Maybe you should:

No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments. –Exodus 20:4-6 The Message

I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among yourselves! I’ll tell you exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.”

I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.) –1 Corinthians 1:11-16 The Message

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. –James 1:27 New International Version

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Christianity / church / people / twitter — No Comments
19
Oct 09

Why do we make our giving a public event?

One of the issues I have with the attractional model of church is that the church is always doing what it can to draw people to itself. It can come across as asking people to come into the church and see how Christians act for an hour on Sunday, rather than going into the world and sharing Christ with them where they are at. Many instances of giving or acts of service for the attractional church come at a price. That price is fame and notoriety and glorification of the church. Ever notice how a group of church members all agree how cool it would be if they went out onto the streets downtown and gave water to homeless people on a hot day? The notion is a good one and it meets a need, but then why does the water bottle need to have a label with the church logo on it? Seriously, are they expecting the homeless people to travel from their downtown shelter to the suburban outpost where you conduct Sunday services? Why do you need the church-branded water bottle? Who does that message connect with? It’s just an outward sign to show that XYZ Church of The Suburbs came into an area where homeless people congregate and gave them some water. Does anyone else find anything wrong with that?

I don’t know if you heard the news about Drew Carey giving $1 million to help fight cancer if he gets 1 million followers on twitter by the end of the year (Read about the story titled, “Make Drew Carey Give Away $1 million” by clicking here). So, Drew Carey makes the announcement, which gets picked up by the news agencies, and then he writes a blog post about his thoughts post-announcement. In essence, he makes a point that our giving should be done in secret. We shouldn’t broadcast our giving for the world to know about it, if it is the notoriety that motivates our gift more than compassion for our fellow human beings. Funny thing is that Drew uses Matthew 6:1-4 as an example of how we should not make our giving a public enterprise, but then goes into a sort of exegesis to breakdown the intent and content of the passage in Matthew:

This is from the New Testament, Matthew 6:1-4 (NIV) “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

I’ve always used that as the general rule for my charity giving. It’s tough to do when you’re famous though. I get invited to a lot of things involving a charity auction of some kind where I have to announce to everyone how much I’m giving just to be able to give money and get the auction item. But I still think it’s better to just give the money and shut up about it whenever you can. Don’t take out an ad. Which is why I’ve been feeling the way I’ve been feeling.

But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the meaning of that passage lately, and maybe I got it wrong.

Jesus is talking about intent here as well as action, no? If the intent of your charitable contribution is to let everyone know what a big man you are, then verily I say unto you that the good karma stops there. But if you would just do all your giving in secret, well then… problem solved without even thinking about it. Theology students and bible scholars, feel free to chime in via the comments section.

My guess is I fall somewhere in the middle on this. My intent is totally pure, but I did it publicly AND asked for something in return (a million followers), so see you in hell. (Ha ha. Just kidding. The idea of a bunch of people suffering for all eternity in a big cavern of fire being poked in the butt with pitchforks by demons and whatnot was made up by Dante. It’s not really in the Bible. The concept of hell is, but not the pitchfork in the butt stuff.)

If one is a celebrity like Drew Carey, I can see how giving in secret every time could be difficult or maybe even impossible. Being the host of The Price is Right and on our tv screens every weekday, it’s obvious he doesn’t need to do anything to gain more attention to himself. Therefore, I believe that his intent was to be gracious and to give to others. I also believe that even Drew makes millions of dollars per year as a celebrity, that writing a check for $1 million to help find a cure for cancer is not pocket change for him. However, what about us as the church? How do we give? What do we expect in return?

Mr. Carey declares in his blog post:

And though I’m now miles from what you would call a practicing evangelical, a lot of the teaching I received from that time in my life still sticks with me. After all, good advice is good advice. Doesn’t matter where it comes from. Nowadays I’ll take a spiritual lesson from wherever I get it: Jesus, Buddha or the guy who cuts me off on the 101.

Knowing that there are some instances of profanity in Carey’s blog post and an admission that he spent his youth as part of a Pentecostal church, I think we in the church would tend to disregard Carey as not being relevant to us. For me, I argue that Drew is absolutely relevant to us and that we can learn from him. If someone can take the Scripture and not try to take it out of context, and even go the extent of using it to sort of convict himself of doing something that may have went outside of his personal beliefs as to what is right, that speaks volumes to me! In a world where so many people try to take examples from the Bible and extract them out of context as proof of how God does not operate under grace and love, I am encouraged to see someone in the public spotlight like Carey studying a Bible passage and relating it to his own life in a positive way. If only more Christians would do the same thing, we could then show the world that we aren’t just blindly following some ancient book that has no merit or relevance to our lives today. May we examine how we give…why we give…what expectations or demands we place on our gift, and shed our nature of seeking recognition for our acts of kindness. Instead, may we give from a clean and pure heart and bless others rather than seeking to be blessed ourselves.

Thank you Drew Carey for making this Evangelical Christian analyze how I give to others and how we as the church can learn from people outside of the church, Buddha, or the guy that cuts us off on the freeway. Thank you for your compassion for others and for your openness in sharing your thoughts on your blog.

PS. For those of you on twitter, won’t you help Drew Carey (@drewfromtv) raise money for the fight against cancer by simply becoming a follower? Who knows, you may get some wisdom along the way as well :)

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Christianity / God / faith / jesus / life — No Comments
29
Sep 09

What time is it?

Well for me, the answer lies within the first words Jesus preached from Matthew 4:17:

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

The essence of Christian faith is grace. We learn in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” With grace comes the forgiveness of Jesus for any and all things from our past. We start with a clean slate.

Repentance tends to be an evil word to those outside of the faith. It is misunderstood. I know when I was living as an atheist, I would hear people talk about repenting and seeking forgiveness, but in my mind there was nothing I felt I needed to be forgiven for. Now as a follower of Christ, there are many things I do and think about that I need to seek forgiveness for. However, repentance isn’t just about being forgiven. It goes much deeper than that. When one repents it must be a turning away from that which is wrong and then turning towards that which is right. We then must continue to deal with moving towards what is right. That is the difficult part.

When I first came to faith I made a commitment to God. In that commitment I asked for forgiveness and as a result I have never been made to feel guilty for anything from my past. All of my hurt and pain and emptiness was replaced with the grace and love of Jesus. That’s the great part! However, that’s been Jesus’ part of the commitment. He has remained true to that. My part of the commitment hasn’t been so true. I didn’t merely ask for forgiveness–instead, I made a commitment to repent.

In what others may see as a nasty word, I find beauty. When I feel the burden to turn away from doing things that I should not do, I know there is someone there to take those burdens away from me and to help guide me in the right direction. God did not create me in order to watch me fail. He reunited with me and called me into his embrace so that I could know true life. That life is filled with ups-and-downs, joy and pain, gain and loss. However, this new life I’ve been given has meaning and purpose and I need to always direct my eyes towards God and remember what he first called me to do–repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Repentance can seem like a scary thing. It may require us to turn away from something like causing physical harm to another human being, or it can be something as simple as being judgmental or speaking negatively about someone unjustly. No matter how big or small, turning away from something we know we shouldn’t do and honoring our commitment to then focus on doing only what we know is right is something that God requires from us. It’s our part of the commitment. If we truly believe we are in a relationship with God through Jesus, then we all know that there are two parts to any relationship.

Have you honored your part of your relationship with God lately? Not the part of doing what you feel he has called you to do or taking when he has extended his hand to you? I mean the part of your relationship where Jesus asks you to repent and come closer towards him and you look into your heart and seek to turn away from the things he wants you to.

Maybe you have felt the pain of carrying around a huge weight on your shoulders and you have not known how to be removed from it. It may be such a part of you now that you can’t imagine living a day without it being heavy on your heart. As difficult as it may be to imagine, won’t you just ask Jesus to come into your life and remove it? Nothing else has worked so far, because knowing Jesus is the only way. Know that God didn’t create you to be a table for heavy burdens. He created you to rise above all things and equipped you with the strength to get through it and to know joy through his spirit residing within you. Asking him into your heart and seeking new life may seem like a stretch of the imagination at first thought, but you’ll find that once that thought enters your mind, you won’t be able to forget about it. It eventually feels like the right thing to do. Go with it. Talk to God. Lift up your burdens to him. Tell him what you’ve been carrying around and ask him to forgive you of it and take away the pain. He will do it. In fact, he already knows about it. It’s not new news to him. However, he has not sat in judgment of you, nor will he cause you to feel guilty. He just wants you to come to know him and seek to live a new life walking together with him.

For all that Christ has done in my life, it is so easy to talk about the good things. However, it’s not so easy to talk about the bad things. As the one that has brought some bad things into my relationship with God, it is time for me to shun those things and do my best not to look to doing them again. Today is the day that I take time with God and repent from doing some things that I need to stop doing. It may cause some distance between me and some others, but it’s a small price to pay to honor my commitment to the Lord. It isn’t about guilt–it’s about God’s kindness that leads me to this place of repentance. Lord, I ask that you give me the strength to confess those things that I want to turn away from and that you give me the strength to never go back them. May it be so for all those that come to you on this day seeking your love and kindness and turning their backs on those things that need to be left in the past.

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