April 24, 2008
Beginnings
Last Sunday I attended the very first service of a new church plant. If I were using a preacher’s count I’d tell you we had 100 people, but the reality is there were 91. As the organizers quickly set up more chairs they wondered aloud if we might also have to fill additional communion cups. I happened to be one of the last to be served the emblems. Reminiscent of Jesus feeding the five-thousand and the disciples picking up basketfuls of leftovers, when the communion tray was handed back to the server, only one cup of grape juice remained. --Gail
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11 comments:
I admire your thoughts and actions on your Blog. I don't want to
>"Blog" but I do want to tell you how I feel. "Grow up and Move Out"
>is the mandate of our Church. I looked up Mandate in Websters
>dictionary. It is defined as an authoritative order. So we are finally
>doing what we were told to do some time ago. But what kind of way is
>that to treat your Children??
>
>Thanks, Barbara
Thanks Barbara for giving me permission to post your email on the blog. Good observation on the church mandate. People certainly are moving out!
Gail
Gail and Barb;
-----And indeed they are moving out becuase finally, they are growing up.
Steve Corey
I haven't had the opportunity to read the Christian Ear for a while, but it seems much has happened. A new church start... how exciting. Although, I get the feeling that the new start wasn't so much an evangelistic effort as it was a matter of being upset with the leadership of the previous church. No matter the reason, the most important aspect of any church start is being sure that what you do, whether in word or deed, is done in love. I believe that we, as humans, stuggle to maintain positive feelings and attitudes toward our brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we disagree. Shame on all of us. Certainly, Paul and Barnabas disagreed over allowing Mark to go with them on their church planting and preaching tour. However, the outcome was that these men of faith now doubled the effort of a single tour to bring men and women to Christ. They allowed God to work through both of them. Later in life Paul even found Mark to be valuable in his ministry. Funny how things work out!
My only admonmition is one that really doesn't come from me but from a passage that was meant for all of us in the church to hear "Ephesus... you have lost your first love." Don't lose your first love. It's never about us, it's always about God.
Daniel
Hey Daniel,
Glad you were able to check back in and join the discussion. Yes, a lot of things are happening and it’s exciting. I would agree that the start up church didn’t have it’s beginnings as an evangelistic effort. Well on second thought, if God wants to throw together an evangelistic effort within a matter of two weeks, who am I to argue? Although I can’t speak for others, to me it feels like the shepherd called, I recognized his voice and I followed. If it were a matter of just being upset with leadership many of us over the last few years have had justifiable opportunity to leave. If I remember correctly, the tiff between Paul and Mark may have lasted as long as seven years and as you point out, the situation eventually bore fruit. Thanks for the Ephesus reminder. Taking it a step further, it would not surprise me to discover that the past church turmoil has indeed caused some to lose their first love…the new churches may be an opportunity to find it again.--Gail
Daniel;
-----“It is all about God.” And that is precisely what caused the rift in the previous church. For those who were upset with the leadership there were not upset just because the leadership was not what they liked. Albeit, that is certainly the way the conflict was cast by the leadership and accepted by many others. But the heart of the problem was that the leadership grew a devotion to their God through their perception of what God wanted. They were bound to lead the church into their perception, be-darned if anyone else had a different perception! Only theirs was valid in the previous church!
-----Now you and I, and anyone else who will stop for a moment and think, knows that no two people share exactly the same perception of what God wants. Some folks may be very close in their perceptions, but others may be far apart. And the perceptions of the leaders were definitely different from those of the many others who were the church before these new leaders seized dominance. But rather than finding a way to do church that would accommodate both perceptions, the leaders insisted on their own ways.
-----I am sure you are familiar with an old chicken trick: draw a line, calm a chicken, then set it down with its beak to the line’s end, and it will just sit there and stare down the line. I’ve never actually done that myself, but I’ve seen it demonstrated. The leaders at the previous church drew a line that was the precise way they perceived God’s wanting church to approach Him. Those who were willing to look down that line with captivated attention were welcome and served. But those who had seen other lines drawn by the Word of God, who were just as devoted to the Lord and committed to prayer, study, and worship were disregarded and not acknowledged. Because, of course, the leaders were serving God in their first love, and no one else.
-----Study Paul’s epistles carefully and thoroughly. He does not give church leaders the authority to lead in their own religious convictions, especially under the banner of “it’s all about God.” Because Paul did not teach “it’s all about God.” Neither did Jesus. When those on His left hand will say, “Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to Thee,” (Matt 25:44) Jesus will reply with an answer informing that it is not all about God, ”Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.” How much clearer does it have to be made that it really is about you, too? That is, about you from my perspective. And about me, from yours. If I do not serve you, I do not serve Christ, and visa versa. Did Paul not agree? “…let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him.” (Rom 15:2) “So, then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal. 6:10) “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ?” (Eph 5:21). Does that sound like it is all about God? No. Christ made us to be a body such that if even one member hurts the whole body hurts (I Cor 12:26). He made us to need each other, to serve each other, and to welcome each other such that if we do not, then we are not even needing, serving, or welcoming Him. In fact, John tells us that the way our hearts are reassured before Him, whenever we are feeling guilty, is by our efforts to lay our lives down for each other, giving when we have supply to meet a need, loving each other in deed and not in just speech. (I John 3:11-20)
-----The pressures to leave the previous church were not just those of “being upset with the leadership.” The leadership was not teaching love. In fact, as a result of the leadership’s attention to its own line drawn in the dirt, by motivation of its devotion only to God in its first love, by its unwillingness to acknowledge and welcome the previous line drawn by others Christ loves, and by its willingness to discount the validity of the needs of those who drew the previous line, the leadership taught hatred and murder of its brethren, not love. They were willing to bid them go worship elsewhere; they refused to give them drink when they thirsted for what meant worship to them; they refused to clothe them after stripping the sanctuary bare of all their expressions of adoration for God; and they scoffed at the idea of their bad behavior having anything to do with the refusals expressed in Matthew 25:44. The leadership gave full expression of the meaning of partisanship, which the Lord hates. And they did so because they were sure they were “all about God.”
-----When we are so sure that everything is all about God to the exclusion of anyone whom Jesus Christ died for, we have drawn a line in the dirt and ceased to be at all about God. We have, rather, become about the line. This is why there are two new church’s happening not by any efforts or plans of the previous church. And that one of the new churches is establishing itself upon the traditional model, while the other is establishing itself upon the purpose-driven model evidences the polarizing pressures to be less from devotion to one’s own line drawn in the dirt, and more from the hypocrisy of love spoken, but not acted.
-----My prayer for all three of these churches, each drawing a different line in the dirt, as well as all other churches drawing numerous varieties of lines in the dirt, is that we pull our little, bitty beaks away from our own lines. God drew His line in this earth, and for two thousand years we have revered it. Yet we have failed to place our beaks and attention to it enough to become captivated by it. Thus, our differences have never been fully melted away by its warmth. We have held His Word in our hands, but have not brought it sufficiently into our hearts to effect our authenticity. We always seem to let it tangle up in our minds and all the different ways we think it should be for our brothers and sisters.
-----Thank God He is able to extract benefit from us, anyway. Thank God for His mercy. And do not forget: our first love looses sight of not even one for whom Christ died. For it remembers His new command, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34). It is tragic when we are wrapped more into our lines of service than in those we were commanded to serve.
Let love be genuine,
Steve Corey.
P.S.----When I wrote, "And that one of the new churches is establishing itself upon the traditional model, while the other is establishing itself upon the purpose-driven model evidences the polarizing pressures to be less from devotion to one’s own line drawn in the dirt, and more from the hypocrisy of love spoken, but not acted," I was really unclear about what I meant. I did not mean these two new churches were established by "hypocrisy of love spoken," as if they were doing the hypocrisy. Not so at all! My deepest apologies! I meant that since each holds to one of the two different worship expressions involved in the rift at the mother church, there was something more than the dispute over cultural expression at the mother church that repelled these two groups of people. I offer that it was the hypocrisy of the leaders of the mother church speaking in love but acting in contempt.
Again, my apologies.
Steve Corey
Steve,
I should have been clearer, since I believe you misunderstood what I wrote. I isn't about what we want (It's not about us); it's about what God wants (It's about God). Otherwise, Jesus, when teaching us to pray, would not have said, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done..." Neither would He have said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” In both instances, where Jesus is teaching us to pray and when He is about to sacrifice Himself, Jesus is instructing us that it is, indeed, all about God and what He wants.
The Apostle Paul spent years in prison because it wasn't about him. He called himself not only a slave to Christ, but also a bondservant -- one who is totally given to the master. I don't believe Paul thought it was all about Paul. When Paul's cold heart was melted on the road to Damascus that's when it became all about God to him. Paul found out that what he thought, what he held dear, his life's work -- was dead wrong.
When we finally give in to God and allow him to live in us, when it individually becomes all about God, then we will have the love in our hearts (as Paul had) for the people we are to serve and/or lead. It is not until we give in to God's will that He manifests Himself in us through His Spirit.
I chose the example about Ephesus in my earlier writing for a purpose. The church in Ephesus had become an "all about me" church. Those Christians had lost their first love.
We can proof-text until the cows come home about our pet theologies; but the overarching message of the New Testament is clear. What you and I may "think," is really not very important in the eternal scheme of things. What is important is our belief in God and how we carry out God's plan in Matthew 28. We 20th and 21st century types make the simple so hard, just like the Pharisees. Go, disciple, baptize, teach... easy to understand and simple to do.
Nevertheless, we of the Burger King generation (do it my way) add our little caveats here and there. As Christians, some of us have become pretty good Pharisees.
To me, it makes no difference whether a church is traditional, non-traditional, purpose-driven, hymn-singing, chorus-singing, chorus and hymn-singing, instrumental, non-instrumental -- those styles are just tools we use to do God's will. It is a matter of style. When Jesus comes, He's not going to care about what kind of church I attended. However, He is going to judge me on how faithful I have been to Him and, and since I am a preacher/teacher I will be judged on how faithful I have remained in the Word as I taught and preached. It's not about what I want; it is all about what He wants.
Steve, I hope for your own benefit, you turn over what ever went on in your former church to God. I don't see you loving your enemies and doing good to those who are persecuting you. I pray that you quit fueling your own bitterness toward the people of that church. Move on; do God's will.
In Love Only,
Daniel
Daniel;
-----I am not so sure I did misunderstand what you wrote. Your reply supports what I understood. I am glad that those of us who have been made alive in Christ do not have to stop at such cliché’s as, “It’s not about us, you, me, what we want, you want, fill in the blank.” I am glad God gave us all good and strong minds and a Bible from which to feed them. Fellowship with others of the same also feeds them. He did not call me to fill up my understanding with clichés, but with the Word and with its meaning. And He called that meaning to come into my life, not to destroy and eliminate what it is, but to correct, repair, and make it into what He intended it to be.
-----In as much as He made the soul, He made it to want and desire. Whether Paul wanted to go to prison or not, or to be stoned nearly to death or not, he wanted to do what God wanted. Yet that did not dissolve the fact that Paul made tents, like he wanted. Or that he had a right to live at the support of those to whom he ministered, but wanted to earn his own way. When I gave in to God and allowed Him to live in me, He did not gut my being of personality, making me into a biological robot, lobotomizing me from my desires. No. He wanted my desires as well. And I recognize He wants my brothers’ and sisters’ also.
-----For many years I lived a life full of guilt because I attended Bible college but did not go into the ministry. I even felt guilt because I moved from Bible college to state college while needing only six more hours for a bachelor’s degree. It did not help that the purpose of my conviction for going to Bible college was to gain mental and spiritual tools for being as good a husband and father as I could be, and that that having been accomplished, the time had come to gain mental tools for a career by which to do the same. Was it that I was doing what I wanted? Why was it that I wanted to be a CPA? That also bothered me for all but the last three years. Now I see that, as I have grown in the Lord, my understanding of His Word and fellowship among His people has been deeply served by perspectives I could have gained only from my years of experience as a CPA. Did that mean I lost my first love?
-----I think you can probably honestly say the same thing about your being a preacher. It is what you want. Those who truck our food to the grocery stores, thank God, are doing what they want. Those grocers selling the goodies to our precious wives are doing what they want. So also is my sweetheart when she makes really yummy stuff for her family to eat. Do you think when I get up in the morning I pray and stress with sweat and tears over what color shirt God wants me to wear? No, Daniel, I think God is infinitely in love with who each one of us is, and loves what each one of us wants, and has no desire for us to be lobotomized robots.
-----Therefore, this Burger King generation serves to Him those who have desires to work computers so Gail will have a blog spot for me and you to lovingly chew on each others ears, by which even more true insights will be cast out for other souls, living in homes they chose, turning on their computers when they’ve chosen, to read what we write, if they choose. God is immensely interested in our desires because throughout the desires of our lifetimes our attentions are directed across the things that make us who we are so that He might have in us the material to make the variety of gifts He needs for the church. Now, I love the Amish and the insights concerning the Lord coming from their simple lifestyle, but I also am full of praise and adoration for the Lord concerning the way He made the human mind to search and seek multitudes of ideas, ways, gadgets, and alternatives. Because of all the wants and desires of His people, all the personal interests and differences from playthings to work-choices, He is given hands and feet to work in the furthest recesses of the human population.
-----In light of the fact that God made the personality, that He touched hearts which wrote songs too numerous for either of us to name, or even comprehend, stands the observation that God loves His people and the noises they make before Him. When it makes a difference to me whether a church is, “traditional, non-traditional, purpose-driven, hymn-singing, chorus-singing, chorus and hymn-singing, instrumental, non-instrumental,” is when those styles are tools for doing just the church leaders‘ will. Or do I detect under the surface of this conversation that the reason “it is not about what you want” is because then it will be about what the church leaders want. Is the Holy Spirit drunk? I have seen church leaders led this way replaced shortly by church leaders led that way. Down on yonder corner are church leaders doing one thing, while over one some other corner are church leaders doing something else. Which of them are most led by the Spirit? Or don’t any of them have the Holy Spirit leading them? Of course they do! As do you! As do I! The Holy Spirit does not gut us out of our personalities as shaped by our desires. Rather, He orchestrates them more gloriously than did Beethoven orchestrate “Ode to Joy.” He is even orchestrating you and me now, squeezing out of each one of us bits of truth to be enjoyed by all. So I allow my brother to be who he is, as the Lord has led him into who he is. My brother has the Spirit, too, and I am not afraid that he wants. In fact, I want to serve him what he wants, if I at all am able, because I trust the Lord. And I will trust my brother until badly stung, for I will love in all ways short of discernable sin.
-----In this same vein, I was turning over what ever went on in my former church to God even as the tragedy there was happening. From that I received courage to stand up and speak against the sin of the favoritism (James 2:9) causing the tragedy. As it yet does today. And, as far as desires go, mostly I desired to not speak out with the truth in love. Many times I said, “Why me Lord? Is there not another?” But my beloved brothers’ and sisters’ were being told the music of their hearts was deficient, the reverence of their worship was like a dirge, and the furniture of their sanctuary were mere sticks of wood, “…so get over losing it or go elsewhere!” Although there was continuous prayer about it, hardly anyone was actually doing much of anything! I could not just sit and watch while everything I read in the Scripture was turned upside down because “it isn’t about you” so “we can go into all the world.” At some point Jesus added a whip to His prayer and cleared the money changers from the Temple. Not that I am Jesus, not that I used a whip, and not that I cleaned the church. I can do none of those, but I spoke what is simply true from the Word.
-----Do not presume that you know me so well as to be able to condense the purposes of my heart into the accusation of not loving my enemies. That one does not love his enemies is that one will not speak the truth plainly to them. And that I speak the truth plainly to those leaders of that church (or anyone else who so steps upon his brother to further his own reach), and that I often express disdain for such ways, does not mean they are my enemies. God will choose my enemies, for I, as yet, am not exactly sure I want to claim any as enemies, except maybe such as the Muslim terrorists who also “do only what God wants.”
-----Twenty years ago a dear sister stepped into my office and said, “Steve, last night the Holy Spirit told me that you have a great rift down the middle of your soul.” Though I chuckled inside, I listened, and I understood, because we all do have that rift. If any of us claim that we have been perfected beyond sin, beyond error, then we have fallen once again deep into the arrogance of sin. So then, we press on, escaping the dead man, allowing the Lord to come to life in the new man. But still, escaping, and allowing. And continuing to escape and allow. So I lay my bitterness aside every time it is raised by actions of arrogant control and deceit perpetrated upon the innocent and naïve (including myself.) And having pushed again the bitterness aside, escaping its gripping vines, I am to close my eyes and sleep to the weeds whose nettles carry that bitter sting? No, Daniel, maybe you should not try to understand me. But when my socks fill with the stickers and seeds of the weeds, and my ankles are entwined in the nettle vines, I will bend over and clean them off, discussing them thoroughly with whomever is nearby so they too can be aware of what stings and scratches their feet. Church leaders were not given authority to ignore the principles of the Word of God. And I will continue to speak of the weeds and vines grown by those leaders who do ignore, walking upon their brethren, whether or not I sound bitter.
Love,
Steve Corey
Speak away my friend. No one is stopping you.
However, sir, you do not know me, nor do you know the fine people who were leaders where I have served. You have no idea about their godliness or what was in their hearts. So, don't make judgments about their leadership. You may criticize me all you wish since we have this “cyber relationship” (I have been criticized -- justly and unjustly -- before), but do not judge the wonderful people with whom I have served. Even though there were times when we disagreed, sometimes loudly, our prayers were always that God's will would be done. It may be difficult for you to understand that there are good leaders since you have had such a bad experience, but there are good churches with excellent leaders. I pray that you find one.
And no, it wasn't my decision to become a preacher. I had decided to do what I wanted and liked it. A calling from God changed me. Therefore, whether it seems like a cliché to you or not, it wasn't about me. Never has been, never will be. It’s what happened when I gave my heart to God. Just as you have had your life experience with the church leaders, this has been and remains my life experience.
Go in Peace,
Daniel
Daniel;
-----Maybe the most difficult problem I had in Bible college was with the scholasticism there. Not that they were holding to 9th to 17th century amalgamation of dogma and intuitional tradition of the Catholic Church, but they were certainly holding to many of their own things that just did not of themselves read up out of the Bible. I learned early to sort proof texts from rightly handled Scripture. The rightly handling of the Word comes to life only through genuine humility and obedience to the Word. For we can either create a theology from cherry picked passages such as, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done..." and, “…if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done,” or we can allow the entire Word to come together and formulate its own ideas. To those I will hold and not call them my own theologies. And I dare not build a theology of “it is not at all about my brother” around two passages, or any others in addition when the Word of God is replete with even one messages of opposite meaning such as: Ps 10:17; 20:4; 37:4; 40:8; 103:5; 145:16, 19; Prov 10:24; 11:23; 12:5; 13:4; 14:22; 15:22; 16:1, 3, 9; 19:21; 20:18; 21:5; Song 2:7; 7:10; Is 26:8; 32:8; Matt 3:11; 6:34; 7:7; 21:22; Luke 6:45; Rom 1:13; 12:6-8, 10; 14:5, 22; 15:2, 7, 24; I Cor 7:17, 20; 10:31; 12:31; 14:1, 39; II Cor 1:15, 16, 17; 8:10, 13; 9:7; Phil 1:23; 2:12; Col 1:10; 2:16, 19; 3:17; I Thes 4:11; II Thes 2:7; Heb 13:18; I Tim 3:1; Titus 3:8, 14; James 2:12; 4:13-17; I Pet 1:17; 2:16; I John 3:7, 11, 18, 23; 4:6, 7, 16, 20-21; 5:1; Jude 20; Rev 2:24-25. The Bible does not portray a life in the Lord that is meaningless to either one’s self or to others. It portrays lives that are greatly meaningful to everyone in the Lord, edifying one another, serving one another, caring for one another, giving attention to one another: I Cor 10:24; 12:8; 14:12, 26; Gal 5:13; 6:2, 10; Eph 4:32; 5:19, 21; Phili 2:4; I Thes 5:11, for we are living stones being built into His holy temple in which He dwells. How can it not at all be about His living stones?
-----There is no support in the Word of God for the “its all about Him” “its not about you” clichés. In fact, those clichés are unscriptural, and not just non-scriptural. Pointing out that simple truth is not being judgmental. It is rather being protective and caring for my brothers and sisters to inform them of the falsehoods brewing up around them by the carelessness of those who continue to go beyond what is written. I do it as a Berean and a watchman. Those preachers and elders of the churches should be doing it as good shepherds. But, then, they are from whom such has been coming. And to point out that is not judging them, either. It is merely speaking the truth in love. Would you rather I sit quietly, selfishly in the corner hoarding it to myself?
-----Of course you wouldn’t! And of course I will speak away. That is what watchmen do. And the Lord will stop me when I veer off the truth of His Word. He has something I respect very deeply and listen to very carefully. It is called good sense, common sense, logic, properly handled Scripture. When His servants speak with good sense verifiable from contexts all around the Word, I listen. My mind has been changed many times by these folks. And I may soon receive the joy of changing my mind at some good sense you will make. But this “it is all about…“ “it is not about…“ stuff is not the sense that will ever do it.
-----We are to do all things according to His will, by His will, however you want to phrase it. Even after all things are brought into subjection to Christ, then He Himself will become subject to God. And in that final sense, everything will be about Him. But until then, we have important things to do ranging from feeding ourselves to seeking rest and relaxation. The fact that we are to do everything by His will does not mean everything we do is about Him only, because His will is that we be about all our responsibilities, including the care, edification, pleasing, and fellowshipping with our brothers and sisters. Therefore according to His will it is about you, it is about me, it is about Jesus, it is about His Word, it is about my cat, it is about His church building, it is about the lost, it is about my wife’s car, gee, it is about her, too! According to His will for my being a responsible steward it is about whatever task is at my hand in the moment. So, right now it is about my treating you with respect as I ask you why as a leader of His people you have not discovered the church to be made of all the people to whom He gave such responsibilities, therefore having myriads of “it is about this‘s” and “it is about that’s” in their lives, which lives make the church, therefore causing the church also to have myriads of “it is about this’s and that’s” in its life? He is the Head to say what it is or is not about in the life of any particular soul at any particular moment, and therefore in any collection of His souls as well. You and the other leaders have in fact been called to be servants to all those folks, therefore must serve with respect to all those things it really is about, not poo-pooing them off with cutsie little cliché’s having no real root in the Word.
-----Now I am sure you have served with many wonderful people, and I am sure you are a wonderful person yourself, as well as a servant much pleasing to the Lord. Whether or not you have a point of disagreement with me detracts from nothing of the rest of what either you or I am. In fact, nothing will detract from either of us unless it is something one or the other of us holds in disagreement against the Word. In that I rejoice in my unity with you. Have I judged you? I don’t think so. I think I have pointed out a discrepancy between a popular expression and the Word of God. And I may be wrong about it; if I am, I will be corrected, but only with rightly handled Scripture, maybe by you.
-----My life experience is not with church leaders. It is with Him, through His Word exposed by His Spirit and the experiences I have with His people, including you, be they weak or strong, behaved or misbehaved, leaders or not. Therefore, since all experiences lend a backdrop upon which His Word will shine more illustration of its meaning, no experience, good or bad, with any church leaders, good or bad, is to me a bad experience. He will always reap from all things some benefit for those who love Him, including you. Therefore, I receive even what is uncomfortable with rejoicing and thanksgiving. I may grumble a bit, for I am human and flawed like the rest, including you. But thanks be to Him I always come back around to the need to screw my head on a bit straighter. Can you help me with that? Sure you can. But make sure you have not gone beyond the Word, that you have it only in your mouth, having properly handled it. But be assured, I’ve been doing the same for thirty-six years running. (I John 2:27-29.)
I love you dearly, too,
Steve Corey
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