Confessions of a Shiftless Mind

I connected with a church planter out in Chicago, who is a bit of a marketing whiz.  He has built a website called “Eat Jesus.com” where church planters and church leaders contribute articles based on the theme of how to be “self-feeding” Christians.  I have been asked to contribute articles there, and I am excited to be involved.  Check it out - subscribe, and learn.

It’s a great idea - too many Christians these days only eat “pablum” - spoon-fed Scripture by their pastor every Sunday, with a midweek snack, maybe, if they are involved in some kind of small group or larger group like Young Adults or Youth or Singles or Young Marrieds or Old Timers or MOPS or Men’s Ministry or Women’s Ministry… you get the picture.

Tell me: how healthy are you if you are only fed a bowl of pablum twice a week?  You’d be pretty anemic and starving to death.  Tell me: how often do you need to be eating physical food to nourish your physical body?  Twice?  Three times a day?  More?  Now tell me - if God made our physical bodies to need food regularly - like multiple times a day, how healthy will we be spiritually, if we only feed  spiritually twice a week? Now you get the idea of how important it is that we as Christians become self-feeding.  Our pastors cannot feed us as often as we need to be spiritually healthy.  If we are wondering why our spiritual life seems barren or fruitless, we need look no further than our feeding habits.  A starving, emaciated faith does not produce much fruit.

Jesus said in John 6:53-58, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.   Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.   Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.   This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” He is speaking about spiritual nourishment.  It doesn’t get plainer than that.  Eatjesus.com and live.

(Crossposted to Planting on Faith)

I was reading in Isaiah this morning.  This verse stuck out at me as needing consideration on this, a very important day for the whole world as the United States of America elects a new president.

For all of you out there who, like me, looks forward to a time when people aren’t left with a choice between the lesser of two evils, consider this hope to come, from Isaiah 32:1-5:

1Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
and princes will rule in justice.
2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
a shelter from the storm,
like streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
4The heart of the hasty will understand and know,
and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
5 The fool will no more be called noble,
nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.

It took a team of scientists to determine that “religious” people act more kindly, generously, and honestly than atheists?

And the “catch”?  That they need to be reminded of their faith or they act no differently than atheists.

We knew that.  It kind of says that in the Bible.

That’s why the Bible encourages people to read it and meditate on it day and night.

That’s why it says not to neglect the fellowship of other believers.

That’s why there is this concept of “spiritual disciplines” which include developing the habit of daily prayer, Bible study and other activities designed to remind you of God and your relationship to him.

And not doing them leads to acting as if God does not exist - acting like an atheist.

So, now the logical question must be asked - if “religious” people make better citizens, why is it becoming more and more common to look with disfavour upon “religious” politicians?  Why is it considered a “bad thing” to wish to convince others that it is a good idea to follow my religion of choice?  Because ultimately, from a governance and a peace standpoint, it is better for society to have more “religious” people than not.

Here’s the thing.  There are people whose mountains that surround their homes we can see from ours, who live in rotting, condemned homes.  They live on a reserve at the end of Harrison Lake without connection to the provincial power grid, without connection to regular phone lines.  There are 2 million people that camp, play, and recreate all around them but never give them a second thought.  What is up with that?

One thing I have had a passion for since I first became a Christian at 16 has been actually reaching out and helping people who live near me.  I’ve always known that churches support missionaries to faraway places around the world.  I have seen churches and gone to churches that sent teams of students and teenagers to Mexico and even the USA to build homes for those who need them, as an act of love.  But the needy are right here.  Why aren’t we helping the needy right here?

I used to 4×4 extensively up in the Harrison Lake area, and have driven by their community many many times.  I have kept tabs on the band’s website for information on what is going on up there.  I just found their Windows Live Space, and read an article from the Vancouver Sun just this last June.  In that article it says,

I saw houses with their roofs draped with cheap blue tarps. That’s because the roofs leak and the houses are condemned. At least five are subject to seasonal flooding from the river. Peters last warned the government they need immediate replacement a year ago.

In fact, he tells me, he told the government that the In-SHUCK-ch are now four generations behind in meeting infrastructure and service needs.

I want to find out what the holdup is in getting them new homes.  Is it funding?  Red tape?  Manpower?

I want to find out if this is a project that Habitat for Humanity can get in on.

I want to see if I can organize a team to go and build a house for these people.  They need someone to show them the love.  More, I believe that this community was affected by the residential schools problems, and these people may feel like God has abandoned them or hates them or something.  They have an ancient (historic) gothic-style Catholic church in the little village, but if that is all they have known about Jesus, then we need to go show them the real deal.

Everythings so blurry
And everyones so fake
And everybodys so empty
And everything is so messed up
Pre-occupied without you
I cannot live at all
My whole world surrounds you
I stumble then I crawl

You could be my someone
You could be my scene
You know that I’ll protect you
From all of the obscene
I wonder what your doing
Imagine where you are
Theres oceans in between us
But thats not very far - “Blurry” - Puddle of Mudd, 2001.

I don’t get it.  Everyone knows the truth of these lyrics.  We see it every day.  The disorder of hate, the disorder of killings, abuse, ignorance, apathy.  These disorders all come from within - from the heart of each human on this earth.

The only people who think there is nothing wrong are people who are so wounded that they have normalized the disorder.  They have fooled themselves, inoculated themselves, callused their hearts so much that they accept this now.

But this is not what life was meant to be like.

The song lyrics speak of a man desperate for meaning, and trying to find it in his love for a woman.  He is so close to the truth but can’t grasp it because his eyes won’t see past his own desires.  He doesn’t know why he thinks he will find meaning in another person, though he questions her ability to take away his sense of disorder in the world.

Her love won’t change the world.

But love can.

Throughout history, man has made his own gods.  There have been gods for everything - from harvest gods to war gods to death gods to love gods to sea gods.  Humanity sees something beyond its control and assumes that something must be controlling it - something that can be bribed.  Because sometimes the bribes “work” and sometimes they don’t, they assume that their god must be capricious.

But there is a God in heaven.  People hunt around for a God who will be appeased, because it is easier to deal with than a God who loves.

That God - not a god of love, but a God who IS love - has already told us about himself.  He has already explained the depth of his love for us and desire for good for us, but we turn away, we ignore him.  And then we write songs like this, bemoaning the hideousness of a life lived without this God who loves us.

Sin is insidious.  It has infected even those who do know and love God.  And because of that, there are those who have been hurt by them, and assign the blame to the God of those who sin.  But if they got past the human beings who really are no better than themselves, they would see who God really is and see that what he taught us - the way of life described by Jesus in his time on earth - is the only way for humanity to get past the fakeness, the emptiness, and the messed up parts of our lives.

It really is the only way.

Islam?  Appeasement of a capricious Allah.

Buddhism?  Turning inwards to attain a state of nirvana, and shutting out the pain of the world.  In the meantime, leaving the world suffering alone.

Judaism?  Trying desperately to follow rules that are impossible to follow (and ignoring the real message of their own writings - that one would come to save them and would be preceded by signs that show he is who he says he is.  That one has already come.

Animism?  Appeasement of capricious spirits.

Taoism/Shintoism?  Appeasement of dead people who have no power.

Atheism?  Living without meaning.

Christism?  A God of love, loves you, and wants you to love him back.  You already know what true love looks like.  You know in your heart how it works.  If you start doing it, then love for your fellow man, for your neighbour, for your enemy flows from that.  Respect for the world that God made for you flows from that.  Putting others before yourself flows from that.  Not needing “things” to make one happy flows from that.  Contentment and joy flows from that.  It all begins with love.  Why is it so hard to understand?

I probably don’t get this for the same reason I don’t get the government apologizing for incidents long past.  I mean, yes, it happened.  Yes, it was bad, and if there was something I/we could do to undo it, I/we would do it.  But I/we can’t.  We can learn from those errors, and we will, but throwing out apology after apology doesn’t do a thing.

I am glad it has meaning for some who have been hurt by Christians, but for me, I want my apology to be lived.  I want to be a Christian that brings credit to the name of Christ.  I want people to look at me and say, “I wish more Christians were like him!”  I don’t know what it will take to be that guy, but I am doing my best to find out.

From William Lane Craig, research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology.

Read the article - it deals with some of the classic arguments for the existence of a god, revised by modern philosophy.

I am more startled by the below quote:

The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that’s not postmodernism; that’s modernism! That’s just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can’t prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

I’ve been reading so much on postmodernism that I don’t know what to do with this idea.  I’ll need to think about it for a while.

Hollywood is trying to figure out why marketing approaches like the ones used for The Passion of the Christ haven’t worked with other “faith”-type movies, like the newest Veggietales, The Nativity Story, or Evan Almighty. (Hat tip to Goodmanson)

I have a clue for Hollywood: Christians can smell a rat.

The Passion of the Christ was made by Mel Gibson.  While he may be a closet anti-semite, he made The Passion with passion.  He made that film out of a genuine love for Christ and a desire to tell the world about his story.  This passion came through on every shot.  Some will quibble about the fine details like personifying Satan as an androgynous thing with a creepy baby and bugs crawling about her face, or about the graphic nature of the violence in the film, but taken as a whole, this was a film about God’s overwhelming love for humanity and a filmmaker’s overwhelming love for Jesus.  (It also helped that the movie’s star, Jim Caveziel was a devout Christian as well).

These other films are blatant attempts by Hollywood to make money off Christians.  Evan Almighty, while entertaining for its actors (Morgan Freeman and Steve Carrell) and riding on the coat-tails of the original Jim Carrey vehicle, Bruce Almighty, it was a fairly crappy movie.  Its only Biblical connection was one of light mockery, conveying in its subtext a mockery of the story of Noah, right up to the impossibiilty of a dam breaking in a mountain valley in the Appalachians flooding everything all the way to Capitol Hill.  To think that Christians would engage in this movie in a similar way to The Passion should have been ludicrous from the beginning.

The most recent Veggietales movie should have had a shot.  Veggietales has been a strong Christian brand of children’s entertainment for going on two decades.  What brought this movie down was a combination of two factors: first, the first Veggietales movie, Jonah was definitely in the style of their shorter serials but was not well-scripted and simply wasn’t that good.  This set lower expectations for a followup.  Second, the production compant, Big Idea, was bought out by another company, and with that went the overt Christian, Bible focus.  All subsequent videos produced by them have had Bible verses removed, and relied on the story to create an “inspirational” message instead of a Christian one.  The same was true of The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.  They were great characters, introduced and well loved in the serials, but because the movie had nothing to do with the Bible, Christians simply didn’t see the attraction.

The Nativity Story was the closest to really trying to recapture the The Passion’s market.  It was brought low by several things - first, the production’s lack of passion for the subject.  Second, its cast - the girl who played Mary in fact was pregnant at 16 with her long-term boyfriend.  Christians really find it hard to take seriously a religious message presented by an unrepentant sinner.  (Note: I said UNREPENTANT!  Everyone sins, we all blow it.  The issue is when someone sins then denies what they do is sin.  That person has no moral authority.)  Third, the film really wasn’t a significantly new take on the Christmas story.  Gibson did something with the Passion that had never been done before.  The Nativity Story did not.

There are new, unique takes on Biblical stories that have yet to be told.  The Bible is full of excellent source material for Hollywood to make real money off, and successfuly sell to Christians.  However, the missing ingredient for them is earnestness.  If they want to pull off another Passion, they need a good, unique take, and they need a production team and cast that actually value the story they are telling.  If it’s just a quick buck they are after, it’s doomed to fail.

This hit hard.

Hat tip to Chris Reeder.

I was reading this book last night, which talked a bit about calling.  It got into what it takes to lead in a church, and one thing it did that I found especially thought provoking was look at the qualifications outlined in 1st Timothy 3:1-3.

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

I like to think I am on the way or arrived at most of that.

• One wife - check.
• Sober-minded?  Well, I am pretty serious most of the time.
• Self-controlled?  Hmm.  Need to work on that.  I think I let myself wander into self-absorption more than I should.
• Respectable?  Well, you’d have to ask around but I think I am getting there.
• Hospitable?  I love having people over, but I think there is a missing ingredient there, in the sense that I don’t do enough to prepare my house to be open.  And I let “things” keep me busy.
• Able to teach - I am getting there I think.  The more I do it the more comfortable I feel in it.
• Not a drunkard - yes.  That is for sure two so far.
• Not violent but gentle - only one person has ever angered me to the point of violence.  It’s been a good ten years since that one occasion.
• Not quarrelsome - I used to be pretty argumentative, but I am slowly learning to rein that in.
• Not a lover of money - I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with that, but even more so lately, I see money as a means to an end.  I think of what can be done with money, not the money itself.

But you know what gets me?  The above reproach bit.  I think it is a call for personal holiness.  Man, I just feel very inadequate in that field.  I don’t pray enough.  I don’t spend enough time in the Word.  I don’t let Phillippians 4:8 guide my thoughts nearly enough.  When I wander off on the internet into “gossip” sites (which are more and more passed off as “news” but that’s no excuse) and junk like that, I can feel it sap my vitality.  It’s actually beginning to physically affect me.  You’d think that would drive me away from it, but oh no.

I do realize that I can’t overcome this stuff on my own, that I need to enlist God in it.  But you know what?  The Bible says flee from sin.  I don’t do that enough.  It also says I actually have to ask for help from him.  That I don’t do enough of.  So it’s my own fault.

I think I’ll quote the Paulmeister.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Like Paul, I know the answer.  Now if only I would actually take advantage of that rescue more regularly!