Archive for August 2011
Can I Get A Witness?
Think about this. What if we told people EVERYTHING when they got saved? Like what if we said, “Jesus loves you. Believe he died and rose from the grave. Confess he is Lord. Oh. And 10% of your money, you gotta give to the church. Go get your trunks and get baptized. Attend one church service and volunteer in another. Love your neighbor, and mow their lawn. Go to Africa for a week once every couple of years. And lastly… get everybody saved. Tell every single person you run into about Jesus.”
I don’t know about you, but I feel this invisible pressure around “lost” people to not be extra spiritual, but to be extra CAREFUL about my spirituality. It’s like your walking on egg shells. And then you feel like God is your boss that you have to meet a quota for on how many people you tell about His son. It’s just flat-out a weird experience for the most part. Witnessing has always been painted for me as being really really hard or really really weird. I plan on writing a book on this topic in the near… or far… future, but for now, I share with you a simple warning as you continue to “witness.”
We far too often make the mistake of letting lost people dictate how we witness. And in my opinion, that’s why we sound like idiots at times. If a lost person says they don’t like church, you do everything in your power not to talk about church, but pray that somehow you can slip Jesus, religion, or faith into the conversation. If someone says they were hurt by another Christian, or that Christians are hypocrites, or that they feel judged by other Christians… whatever their excuse for not going to church somehow navigates your entire conversation. Please stop. First of all, you’re not trying to get people to come to church. People need to come to Jesus, not your building. So what if Christians hurt you! They hurt me all the time! And they’re my friends! So what if we’re not perfect! I hope that when I hang with lost people, I’m not trying to convince them how awesome I am at Christianity. I hope that my life constantly points to a perfect Jesus. If we’re worried about “ruining your witness”, we’ve missed the point of why we followed Jesus in the first place. Our imperfections are a constant reminder of why we need Him.
Lost and Found
There’s a trend in American Churches where the more spiritual the church is, the less creative it becomes for its attenders. Stereotypically, uber creative churches are churches “lost people would want to come to”, and are often times… considered less spiritual where professional Christians would say, “It’s cool there, but I’m not really growing.” Creative churches get mad at super spiritual churches for speaking in tongues during services because they believe it confuses the lost or flat-out pushes them away. Uber spiritual churches that practice the “gifts of the spirit” on a regular basis pigeon-hole practical and creative churches for “watering down the gospel.” My personal take on should the church be more focused on reaching the lost… or more focused on growing the seasoned vet… I have no idea. In a perfect world, we’d say it SHOULD be both. But the truth is… most churches, in action, pick one.
But what about you? Some of you have been in the church so long that, perhaps, you are sick of charismatic people “making things spiritual” that maybe just… aren’t. Or maybe you’re just bored, and going Creative would be something new for you. It’d spice up your spiritual life. But an even more important question that I believe needs to be asked to deal with this tension is simply: What about Jesus? He’s beyond uber spiritual, yet reached the lost very effectively. One time, He walked up to what some considered the worst of sinners, a tax collector, and His Master plan consisted of two words, “Follow me.” Doesn’t sound very creative to us, but dang, the dude got up! And Jesus had the whole constant miracles thing going on that drew the attention of people both lost and found. We sometimes believe we could do the same… but if we’re honest, our batting average on miracles isn’t very high… so we rely on creativity to grab people’s attention.
So how do you stay creative without losing your spiritual swag? How do you create a consistent lifestyle that is conducive for both the lost and found?
1.) Obey. We will opt out of what God told us to do because someone else thinks “it won’t work.” Never live your life by “what works”. Obey down to the last detail whether it’s against or with the current trend. Before you go do, God has to trust who you are. Be before you do.
2.) Use your gift. Everyone may not be “creative”, but everyone has been gifted with something. Whatever God-given gift you have, leverage that to reach people around you. And wherever you go to do that, make sure you repeat step 1. Doing both of these should create a healthy balance in your life whether in church or outside of it.
What do you think?
Let Me Upgrade Ya
From time to time I see articles about celebrities who’ve “gone broke”. But I’ve never seen one that broke down professional sports leagues as a whole. By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce. Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke. Here’s the full article from Sports Illustrated on this.
I could have easily entitled this blog, “Mo Money, Mo Problems.” But I’m not the guy to go there. I could go the route of talking about how I govern my own finances. (I use Mint.com and I could write a book on how it’s helped me save a couple thousand bucks this past year. No joke.) The elephant in this blog is that more money won’t solve your money problems. We could go on with “Don’t spend more than you make.” “Build margin.” Duly noted. Really. But I think there’s a simple verse that speaks to the heart of the issue, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” -1 Timothy 6:10.
The rubber meets the road for me with this verse when I’m constantly trying to improve my way of life. It’s like I’m addicted to upgrades of all kinds. 2 years after getting a Mac Book Pro, I’m thinking of ways to get a new one that Apple has upgraded. I’ve already made plans to sell my iPad 2 to get the 3. Once a week I look into what I could trade my car in for. My TV… is huge. But every single time I’m in Target or Best Buy or Wal-Mart, I look at a bigger LED one. Mine’s LCD. So why not upgrade, right? Maybe it’s going from an apartment to a condo. Condo to a house. House to a bigger house.
A descent portion of Christians give 10% of their income to the church, and the rest is fair game for whatever they want. And we also live with the notion that if we were to make more money, we’ll spend that on upgrades. It’s like we keep a wish list of stuff we’ll get “when.” By no means do I think upgrades or the constant retrieval of them is wrong. For me, the love… and the relationship my heart has with them when examined at the core, is not what I find wrong… It’s what I find similar to the people who don’t have Jesus. When a homeless guy ask me for money, I “don’t have cash”, but if Jesus Christ, Andy Stanley, or Kobe Bryant was on the same street, and they needed $200… I’d find a way. I can say all the right things about what I should do with my money, but the evidence thereof will always reveal what I really value.
The next opportunity you have to give to missions, or just a friend in need, watch how your heart responds. Giving generously but grudgingly won’t cut it.
What’s For Lunch?
Why do bad things happen to good people? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Why did God let this happen to me? The list of questions we have for God are endless. Frustrations in the home and at the job. How the world works. How people work. We are on an ever-ending conquest to figure these things out. It became real personal for me a couple of weeks ago when one of my best friends here in Dallas… was hit by a car. Amidst the array of emotions the family and I felt, you could feel an elephant in the room. It was one big fat question: God, WHY?
I don’t think we’ll ever stop having questions because I don’t think we’ll ever stop having problems. But I came across a passage of scripture that shifted my thinking. Mark 8 13-15He then left them, got back in the boat, and headed for the other side. But the disciples forgot to pack a lunch. Except for a single loaf of bread, there wasn’t a crumb in the boat. Jesus warned, “Be very careful. Keep a sharp eye out for the contaminating yeast of Pharisees and the followers of Herod.” 16-19Meanwhile, the disciples were finding fault with each other because they had forgotten to bring bread. Jesus overheard and said, “Why are you fussing because you forgot bread? Don’t you see the point of all this? Don’t you get it at all? Remember the five loaves I broke for the five thousand? How many baskets of leftovers did you pick up?” They said, “Twelve.” 20“And the seven loaves for the four thousand—how many bags full of leftovers did you get?” “Seven.”
What peaked my interest in this passage was this: The answer to their problems wasn’t in receiving answers from the One who had them all. It was in getting questions from the ONE who could help them connect the dots for themselves. We have a habit, a good one at that, of going to God with all of our problems. And we are the ones asking all the questions… to Him. I’m encouraged by this scripture because I’ve experienced God on major levels and then weeks later… I find my faith tank on E. The disciples witnessed masses of people get food from thin air, and then mere verses later they’re worried about what’s for lunch.
I simply say this… Mix up your prayer life a little bit. Sometimes He’ll provide answers. But for kicks, with whatever you’re facing now or in the future, ask yourself: What could God be asking me? We’ve come up with good questions. What questions do you think God could come up with for us?