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If you were to ask people to fill in the blank on the phrase: “Church should be about ________.”… the answers would vary across denominations, culture, and maybe even region of the country. Some would say the church should be about people. “Love God. Love People.” Some will criticize churches for their magnificent buildings and come up with great ideas of what they should have done with that 20 millions dollars and say, “They should have given it to missions.” And they’d say the church should be about missions. Or some live with the notion that the church should be about growing believers. They tend to refer to the Bible as “meat.” Then there’s churches who think the mission of the church should be to simply reach lost people. and they’d refer to the Bible as “seed”.
A worship leader might tell you church is about coming together and lifting up the name of the Lord. A children’s director might tell you church is about raising up a generation of kids that love Jesus.
And all of the above has a case in scripture. Come on. We can be lawyers any day of the week and defend any stance we want to win, but the key word in all of this is, “should.” Is the church about stellar communication and talented worship bands? Answer the question honestly. Another way of finding out the truth to the above question is answering a different one: Why do YOU go?
I’d be quick to say that church is NOT about numbers, but… I’d be lying. Name the last time you talked with a friend who planted a church and you asked, “So… how well have you guys been getting involved in the community?” On the surface, that would seem hard to measure, but asking how many they had in attendance tells us a much more intriguing story. The most politically correct phrase one professional Christian should use is, “It’s all about Jesus.” Except. It’s not. It’s about a whole lot of stuff with Jesus at the center of it all. Don’t say it’s all about Jesus and then go home and cry about YOUR circumstance. Clearly, it’s about Jesus… AND you. AND THAT’S NOT WRONG TO ADMIT. In fact, it’s silly to act like it’s all about Jesus, and not realize that the guy that it’s “all about”… died… for… YOU.
I don’t have this amazing statement that defines what the church should be about, but I do think we should steer away from terminology and phrases that simply make us feel insecure about our ministry block. Honor what other churches are doing. Respect what other ministries are trying to achieve. Reach lost people. Give to missions. Take care of the widow and the orphan. Worship with all your heart. Communicate like somebody’s soul depends on it. Make disciples. And in the midst of it all, keep your eyes on Jesus. Church is about all of the above… with Jesus at the center.
Perhaps one of the most influential phrases in the history of the English language that refers to what a true American should strive for is: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But as a Christian, shouldn’t our pursuit be on the path to holiness? I’m not saying it should be holiness INSTEAD of happiness, but I am saying holiness should demand higher priority in our lives.
Holiness almost sounds old school. Holiness isn’t trending in modern day culture, but it does trend in the Bible. The word “happiness” will deliver 6 results on biblegateway.com in the NIV Bible. The word “happy”: 20 results. The word “holiness” pops up 24 results, but the word “holy”… 551. Thank God for Jesus making us look so good now, but what motivates us should still have holiness prioritized higher than happiness.
In dating relationships or marriages, we ask, “Are you happy?”. Why don’t we ask, “Are you guys living holy?” I read that 78% of Christian couples have sex before they’re married. 100% of the 78% are trying to hide it. But as long as they’re happy, we’re cool with whatever they do?!?! I don’t think so. When it comes to a career choice we want to know if people are happy. It’s like we all want the dream job that makes us… Happy. But what if we made choices that helped us pursue holiness? I believe the daily choices we make in regards to the obedience of our Lord will lead to more happiness than anything we could strive on in our own ambitions.
Holiness isn’t us trying to prove something to God or other Christians that we are squeaky clean. On our best day we are still rags to the King, but in my opinion, holiness is just a response to the righteousness that has already been given, not achieved. And in our pursuit of holiness, I pray we would continue to simply respond to the God who gave everything to make us right with him.
What do you think?
The Hunger Games is a young adult novel written by Suzanne Collins. The book is the first part of a trilogy, therefore, we should expect sequels. Originally published on September 14, 2008, it is written in first person and introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. The Capitol, a super advanced metropolis, holds absolute power over the rest of the nation. And the big draw is that The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle in which only one person can survive.
The book itself deals with the struggle for self-preservation that the people of Panem face in their districts and the Hunger Games in which they must participate. The other draw for the book are the strategies the characters use to survive. I had a discussion on a plane with a guy who’s using the strategies from the book to push his business.
Here’s a link to some of the good strategies I’ve seen people learn from: Hunger Games Strategies
The movie comes out this weekend and I’m looking forward to see if it meets the hype.
Living in the great city of Dallas, TX, I get the opportunity to attend quite a few conferences considering some would call Dallas the buckle of the Bible Belt. I also get the chance to attend a few conferences in Hotlanta because the majority of my family lives there. And for the first time, I was invited to do speak during a small session at Jeanne Mayo’s National Youth Leaders’ Conference where we had speakers like Robert Madu, Reggie Dabbs, Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, and Judah Smith spoke along with Jeanne Mayo.
I could talk and type for hours about the unique things about this conference and how Jeanne’s team really did a great job setting people up to connect with other pastors and experience a touch from Jesus, but in our modern day culture, we often want to know what “celebrities”(inside Christian Hollywood or the normal one) are like off the stage. Because I was invited to speak at the conference, I was able to meet and hang out with a few of the speakers that really challenged a few areas of my life.
The 1st one was: Mark Batterson. His talk was on prayer. One thing he said on stage that help me put a larger emphasis on prayer in my own life was: “You are literally one prayer away from a completely different life.” Off the stage… I was blown away at how kind, down-to-earth, and personable Mark was with EVERY single person he met. He acted like he had a church of 25, and had written an article or two in a school newspaper. AND, he stuck around for other speaker’s sessions and took notes.
The 2nd one was: Judah Smith. His talk was on what you do when you feel like your soul is vexed, exasperated, and tired. His ability to communicate is stupid good. But off the stage… he made everyone feel important. He wasn’t just kind, he was interested in other people. His family has a motto: “We are the Smiths. We are kind and encouraging and we look for lonely people.” I saw the motto with my own eyes. His youth pastor, Elijah Waters, and him were genuinely IN the room.
Last, but not even close to least, there was: Jeanne Mayo. She spoke 3 times and had a special touch on each. On the last night, they had a boxing ring on stage, and she encouraged youth pastors not to give up the fight. They passed out boxing gloves… to everyone. Off the stage… she’s my youth pastor, my white mocha mom, and my friend. And there’s about 1,000 plus people that would say the exact same. Her goal with the entire conference wasn’t to get youth pastors to hear great speakers talk about how to do youth ministry better… (although that did happen) … Her goal was to get youth pastors to spend significant time with Jesus. And that happen. It’d be easy for the goal to be to get people to like you and your conference, but for Jeanne, her strategy was to get the man upstairs involved in youth ministries.
I walked away wanting to make others feel important and heard. And I also walked away asking myself, how much of my life is about me succeeding, and how much of it is about connecting with Jesus.
A student walked up to me during my Video Production class and said, “There’s this documentary we should watch in class today that is amazing! It’s 28 minutes.” I play a lot of videos in class to offer inspiration and creative ideas for something they can produce themselves, but she lost me when she said it was 28 minutes. At that point, Kony 2012 only had about 2 millions views. 12 hours later, it was 36 million. I guess I should have played it, eh?
Watching this 28 minutes felt like 5. The cinematography and editing is spectacular. The director for the documentary, Jason Russell, did a phenomenal job capturing the story by using his own child to creatively make any viewer aware of who Joseph Kony is. There has been some controversy with the documentary due to the speculation that Mr. Kony isn’t nearly as much of a threat to the world as he used to be since he’s fled to the Congo. Some have said, “Kony is an issue of the past.” And maybe it is, but Jason Russell is my new Kobe Bryant.
Near the beginning of the documentary, Jason comes face to face with the conflict Ugandan children fight everyday as he learns of killings, abductions, and prostitution from a little boy who lost his brother in the fight… and he looks into the eyes of a boy and says, “We’re going stop them.” Stop them? Wow. I see conflict and try to help in the moment. You know, I’ll give a homeless guy 5 bucks to satisfy his presumed hunger for a 1 of 3 desired meals for that day. The boldness of Jason inspired me not to shrug my shoulders and just throw a few bucks at issues, but to have the courage to do something about it.
I found the marketing, the strategy, and the filming of this Kony 2012 campaign brilliant. What’d you think of the documentary?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc]