World Events–and what has me worried.

 

I grew up in the 1970’s where the evangelical world was obsessed with the end times. Books like Hal Lindsay’s “The Late Great Planet Earth”, and films like “A Thief in the Night” caused many of us to grow up with that insecure feeling. As a reaction to my upbringing, I have not given much thought to End Time scenarios. I have never preached past the seventh chapter of Revelation. I have never read the “Left Behind” series. I have not preached a series of messages through the prophecies in Daniel. 

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have studied post-millennialism and amillennialism and pre-millennialism, (and its offshoot dispensationalism) The result of my studies is “I don’t know.” I know that Jesus is going to come back again. I know that God has history in his control. I do know that things are going to get bad before the end. But the reality is, I don’t know what shape the end times will take. I know a lot of people who are sure of what they think is going to happen. I am not sure.

So as I look at the world, I am not trying to jam events into some preconceived end times scenario. But what I see as I look at events in the middle east are somewhat frightening. Last night I heard CIA agent, named Reza Kahlili (Not his real name), speak (over Skype).  He wrote a book “A Time to Betray”. As a CIA agent he infiltrated the Revolutionary Guard in Iran.

He said Hamas has about 60000 rockets. The events over the past weeks where they have shot over a thousand rockets into Israel has dominated the news. (It seems odd to me that much of News seems to be reported from the view – “How dare Israel shoot back.”) The question one should ask, according to Reza, is “where is Hamas getting these rockets.” The answer he says is Iran. 

It is the worst kept secret in the world that Iran has been working on building an atomic bomb. It has been slowed by the “Stuxnet” computer virus. There have also been “mysterious” explosions and key people in the program have “mysteriously” died. However, the program continues to advance. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September of this year, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,said that “Iran’s apocalyptic leaders were 70% of the way to building nuclear warheads.” He declared that they would be 90% of of the way by this coming spring. (Spring 2013)

Now all of this would be scary enough. Iran is supplying Hamas with rockets to drop into Israel, and they are close to getting the bomb. The Iranian President, in a speech to the U.N., declared that Israel should be eliminated. I find all of this scary, but this is not the worst of it.

The Iranian regime believes in a radical Shiite eschatology. (How the world will end) Reza and a book I read called “Israel at War” written by Joel Rosenberg basically say the same thing. They believe that there is a new world order coming where the “12th Imam” will arise and lead the world to follow Islam and Jesus Christ will be his deputy. The Iranian regime believes that it can create the context for this to happen. In fact Iran’s supreme leaders has said that he is the deputy of both Mohammad and this 12th Imam.

I don’t think our secular world gets the power of belief. Iran leaders have declared both that they do not believe that they can be hurt by western bombs, and that even if the whole of Iran was laid to waste, that those are acceptable losses if it ushers in the Muslim end times. What that means is that doctrine of “Mutually assured destruction” that held Russia and the U.S. in check in the cold war will not hold Iran in check. They will blow up Israel and the United States (who the Iranian leader refers to as the little Satan and the great Satan) even if they know they are going to get blown up in return.

I started this article by saying that I don’t know what to think about the various Christian views of the end times. I do know this though, Israel seems to be very central to whatever is going to happen. So I see all of this developing and I think, God may provide some sort of miracle to get the world out of this mess, or that Jesus may come back very soon. I don’t know what is going to happen – but I do see reasons to be alert.

The one thing that Jesus emphasises about the end times is that we should be prepared. It seems to me that being prepared to meet Jesus or to walk through difficult times would be a prudent course of action.

Information, the Church, and the Christian life

 

A little History

When the church was born 2000 years ago, information was in short supply. There is more information in the weekend edition of the New York Times than an apostle would have encountered in an entire life time. People tended to think deeply on relatively small bits of information, rather than process large quantities of information. The church would digest a letter from Paul. They would study the Old Testament. They would think deeply and profoundly through a few things. (If you read the thinking surrounding the church councils one sees that they tend to think more precisely than most Christians do today. This is also true of the early Puritans) 

I find it hard to imagine a world where there are no news papers, or radio interviews, or 6 o’clock news casts. But if the disciples wanted news of a church 100 miles away they would have to wait for a traveller from that town to arrive in their city. In our church, if we want news from the churches or missionaries we support, we Skype them into our church service.

When the church was first started, books were rare. Most people were illiterate. Only the very rich would own a lot of books.

Discipleship

When I think about that world, and when I think of current discipleship, I see a disconnect. Our discipleship is information driven. Sermons are good when they tell the people something new. Everyone owns a bible (or ten). To disciple someone means that we take them through this book study or that program – most of which is information driven. We have access to all kinds of pod casts, Christian books, Christian videos, Christian Radio, Christian C.D.’s Christian Websites, all of which are giving us information.

More Current History

When I became a pastor 27 years ago, before the time of the internet, I had access to information that no one else had. I pastored in a small town, and my personal library was best theological library in that small town. My theological library contained about 3000 books. When I went to school I made my library a priority.

This made me the theological expert in my small town. If people wanted information on theology they came to me. If people wanted resources to study the bible they came to me.

Current Reality

I now have a Samsung Tablet and Kindle account. There are very few weeks that go by where I don’t download a good book for free. Everybody has access to good information. This morning I downloaded Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts  by Jerry Bridges. The challenge now is not access to information, the challenge is the time assimilate the information.

However, even in saying that, you will notice how far our discipleship model has strayed from the first century. Discipleship in the first century was not about assimilating information. It was about something different.

Discipleship in the New Testament

It would seem that discipleship in the New Testament was primarily about the work of the Spirit in a person’s life. The work of the Spirit on the inside would then be translated into how one lived with others on the outside. Christian living was not about living out some philosophical system, it was about Christ in you, and the love of Christ through you. It was not so much about what you knew, but about what Christ had done in you. It was about your testimony.

There was some basic information that one had to master. At one point in early church history, one was required to memorize the book of Mark before one could be baptized. But discipleship had less to do with information, and more to do with the Spirit of God, and one’s own heart, and living out faith in community.

Discipleship was less about reading one’s bible every day. Few people could read and fewer people had access to a Bible. It was however, learning to follow Jesus by his Spirit.

Keeping the Main thing the Main thing.

We live in a world driven by information. Information doubles in our world every 10 years. The church has bought into discipleship by information. The reality is that we are going to have to deal with the information because of the world we live in. But information should never be mistaken for the core of the gospel. The person of Jesus, the power of the Spirit, and life in the community were at the historic core of the gospel. When we substitute secondary things (like information) for the main thing our faith gets warped, our churches malfunction, and our lives are impoverished.

Signature Sins–A book Review

 

Every so often a book comes along that I think I should read twice. Signature Sins;Taming Our Wayward Hearts by Michael Mangis in one of those books.

Mangis is a psychologist by training, but he seems also to be a gifted theologian. In this book he maps the human heart in ways that are both clear and helpful.

He starts by listing and defining what the Western Church has come to know as the seven deadly sins:lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy and pride. He says “Within these seven basic categories of sin the human heart has the astounding capacity to produce an infinite number of variations.”  What I found helpful is that he defines these sins in such a clear but nuanced way that it is easy to see what they are and how they reside in our own hearts.

For instance in talking about pride Mangis says, “Pride wants to put God on trial…the elemental struggle of pride(is): submitting to God’s definition of reality rather than our own.” Then he goes on to nuance it by talking about the outward manifestation of pride which shows up in “arrogant, haughty and snobbish manners” and ends up in inappropriate narcissism, and the inward manifestation of pride which “leads a person to be obsessed with other and how they feel about him or her. This person is self-focused.”

Mangis walks through all the deadly sins in this way. These definitions of sin are helpful to anyone looking to diagnosis their own heart, or those who have another’s permission to walk into their heart with the object of helping them live well.

Mangis then goes on to postulate that each person has a primary “signature sin.” Mangis says “the essence of a signature sin, the sin that clings so closely. We come to view it as part of ourselves.” It is hard to separate our signature sin from our identity. We may have a primary and a few secondary signature sins.

Now it would be very easy for someone to write a book like this that is guilt inducing. However, I found his writing liberally seasoned with grace. I also found some of the clearest thinking I have read on how our personalities affect our sinful tendencies. He also notes that culture and ethnicity and gender can move us toward particular sins. He even addresses the biology of sin and mental illness and sin.

Mangis is not content to point out sin. He wants to offer an antidote to our sinful patterns. He is perfectly orthodox when it comes to the cross or Christ. But while forgiveness is immediate changing our wayward hearts takes time. Often these patterns that have been engraved in our heart for a long time and they cause pain. He suggest that there is little we can do to change, but there are ways of cooperating with God for change.

He suggests that after confessing our sins, we need to pray into and take on the spiritual discipline that is in direct opposition to our sin. He acknowledges that this takes discernment. But he gives pointers to make this discernment easier. He talks about community and spiritual rhythms. He calls us to be who we were made to be in Christ.

I love the fact that he does not give easy answers. This is not a formulaic book, where is I do A + B I will get C. But he does give ways to approach our wayward hearts.

Mangis uses scripture and the tradition of the church while not ignoring the contributions of psychology to map the human heart. This book is one of the better books I have read on the nuts and bolts of spiritual formation.

Rethinking Christian Spirituality

It has concerned me for some time that many  in the church have a tendency to truncate the gospel. I thought I had resisted this urge. After all, I don’t have a theology of easy believism.The gospel is not about how many people we can get to say the sinners prayer. It is not about how many converts we can report on some statistical report. The gospel is about “Christ in us the hope of glory.” The definition of a Christian is “one in whom Christ dwells.” That happens by grace through faith, not by a formulaic prayer. I doesn’t matter if we have prayed the prayer – if Christ isn’t in us we are not Christians. If Christ is in us, even if we haven’t prayed the “right” prayer we are Christian.

I even understood that having Christ come into our lives was not the sole purpose of the gospel. We in the evangelical church are very good at getting people in the door of the kingdom of God – and then leaving them in the foyer. I have understood that the gospel was about allowing people to journey deep within the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is the place where the rule of the king is submitted to. So we journey into the kingdom by seeing his will done in our lives. On this journey we put off our old nature and we put on our new nature. If I am to use church clichés- we become “Christlike.” We become “spiritually mature.” 

I even thought I understood the difference between “means” and “ends.” The way we become spiritual mature is through prayer and through bible study and through other appropriate spiritual disciplines. But those things are not ends in themselves – they are means to an end of building a deep relationship with God.

Out of a life in which Christ dwelt and we were transformed into his image we would love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we would love our world. If we really had Christ’s eyes to see the poor and the hurting then we would naturally engage in what some people have called “the social gospel.”

The Gospel is Bigger yet

I am coming to see that my vision of the gospel is still too small. If I understand Genesis one and two right, God made people in his image to carry on what he began. When God made the world it was not completed. God had intentions for this world that were going to be fulfilled by a humanity that would continue to build and create and steward in the pattern that God had already established.

Of course the fall came and image of God  in us was deeply marred. But our power to build and create was never revoked.

To make a long story short, God’s answer to the fall came in the person of Jesus Christ. He dealt with our sin on the cross. But if we believe that he knew what he was doing – he did much more than that.

He created the church which, when it has been at its best, has been instrumental in medicine, education, science, and the arts. He set up a church that, when it has been at its best, has transformed women’s place in society, denounced and abolished slavery, and worked against addictions and poverty. He set up a church that, when it has been at its best, produced great artists and great works of beauty, He set up a church that, when it has been at its best, has transformed families and governments and economies in a way that has caused human life to flourish.

In other words he has called us to promote not only spiritual flourishing but human flourishing. The first two chapters of Genesis tell about this world beginning in a garden, but the last two chapters of Revelation talk about the culmination of creation ending in a city – the city of God. This is a place where creativity and building culminate to bring us the very best of culture. This is human flourishing at its finest. In fact it says the “glory of the Kings” was brought into the city. The very best of what we create is brought to that city.

Now I recognize that people have tried to divorce the concept of human flourishing from the cross – which is wrong. But it is wrong in both directions. It is wrong to try to create human flourishing (The biblical word would be Shalom) without the cross. But it would also be wrong to try to accept the cross – and only make it “spiritual” and about transforming our hearts but not our culture.

It seems that we have been so concerned about getting people into the city that we have not recognized what is in the city – and how what we do now contributes to the city.

The gospel is about “Christ in us the hope of glory.” The gospel is about coming under the rule of Christ and being transformed into his image. The gospel is about sharing love and good deeds with the poor and marginalized. But the gospel is also about human flourishing. It is about releasing us into who we were created to be in the first place. We are people who build, and create and steward in such a way that we fulfill the intentions of God for this earth.

If the church is to be the church, then we need to help people to flourish, not only spiritually, but in every way good.

Summer ministry in Canada

July and August use to be considered summer in Canada. But for anyone who is involved in church work in Canada know that the summer is being extended. It now goes from the May 24th long weekend to Canadian Thanksgiving which is on the 2nd week in October.

I pastor in a city. A city is a “from” place. If you pastor as church where people like to vacation you pastor in a “to” place. People don’t want to stay in a city in the summer time so the go “from” the city “to” their vacation destination, where they may or may not attend church. `From” churches shrink in the summer, “to” churches grow.

As a pastor I do not resent people going away on holidays. But it does create an challenging dynamic. Even in the winter time we figure on any given Sunday we are missing a quarter to a third of our people. I do not usually hear “I didn’t feel like going to church so I stayed at home.” It is usually, “We decided to go out of town to visit family,” or “we had family come to visit.” That is just a regular Sunday. But in the summer in Canada most people take vacation. Assuming that people take two to three weeks of vacation in the summer and there is eight weeks of summer, that means that on top of the usual missing suspects another quarter to a third of people are gone every Sunday in the summer on vacation. What that means is that on a Sunday in the summer we could be missing 50%-66% of our people.The numbers at Sunnyside would bear that out. In the winter, we will run 320-360 on a normal Sunday. In July and August we will 160 to 200.

It is, however, the extended summer that is becoming more challenging. People with cottages are opening earlier in the spring and closing later in the fall. They want to eek all they can out of the summer. Spring camping and fall weekend camping are becoming far more common. The May 24 long weekend and Thanksgiving weekend are now the brackets to Summer.

What this means for Ministry

This creates a dynamic in the summer where full participation in boards and committees is a pipe dream. If a committee needs to plan for the fall, the major decisions need to be made by the middle of May.

The dynamic of small groups change in the summer. Most groups are impossible to maintain. If one does a small group, it will need to be a low accountability small group. (Come when you can) The start time for small groups now is the end of September.

Communications of new fall initiatives are a challenge. Because everything seems to restart in the fall, it is easy to drown in a sea of announcements. Different ministries compete for people`s attention.Communication, to be effective within the church much become much more targeted.

Summer preaching does not foster organization vision. There just is not enough critical mass to create movement.

A minister can rail against these realities all he wants, but it does not change reality; it only creates hard feelings and guilt responses that accomplish nothing. It is best to look for other opportunities for ministry.

Opportunities in ministry

While organizational ministry is problematic, opportunities abound in organic personal ministry. I find that, while people don`t feel like they need to see me, they are often willing to take the time to see me. I often get to meet people in a relaxed setting like a coffee shop patio or a park. There I get to hear what is going on in their lives when they are not under extreme stress – and often am allowed to speak words that help them move forward in the discipleship process. There is just something different about working with people at this time of year.

People are often willing to give some vacation time to ministry opportunities. We have a couple of mission trips that go out in the summer – because many people want to make a difference with their holidays. Others take time to run VBS or Soccer camp. There are some real difference makers in the summer. Hockey families often have more time in the summer and are willing to give some of that time to concentrated ministry.

People may not make it to church, but they do check their email and facebook. In the winter, when people are under stress, they will often delete items that they don`t have to read. In the summer they will take the time to read what people write. Some of them will listen to sermons online. Others will take the opportunity to read. Alternative means of speaking into people`s lives must be explored and used.

Conclusion

It is better to recognize reality and work with it rather than ignoring it or fighting against it. The challenge is to keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing is the transformation of people into the likeness of Christ. In Canada, what works during the winter does not work during the summer. So we need to keep the mission and change the methods.