Life180

Life180 is a ministry we have just started, where we ask people to take 180 minutes of a Saturday, and give people in our community some help. Obviously, it’s also about helping people turn a 180 and begin to follow Christ. So we help out and we share our faith. It might be cleaning up a yard, washing a house, doing almost any sort of work for them. We don’t provide money, just a helping hand for anyone in the community who needs it -the elderly, the poor, people in bad health, anyone. We “officially” set these work Saturdays aside in the church calendar, although occasionally an emergency might arise which causes us to move the day up, or have an impromptu Life180 project.

I’m not trying to brag, I just want you to get a glimpse of what Church is supposed to be about and hopefully one of our ideas might be useful to you in your church.

Here’s a letter we received at the church this week from a gentleman we had helped as part of our Life180 project. What did we do? We hauled a bunch a wood for him to use for the winter.

To Everybody,

I’m sorry I took so long to write this card, but I did not and will not ferget what you all have don fer us out here. Yer kindness and thoughfulness has ment a awful lot to us. I won’t name names cause I don’t want to leave nobody out but thank you to everyone and who knos you may see me out ther wen I’m up to it. I’m gettin better every day. Thank you again it will not be forgoten.

Seventeen men showed up with pickups and trailers loaded with firewood. Enough to stock him up for the winter. We had cut it, split it, and loaded it on a Saturday morning when the temperature was about 8. Guys, there’s plenty to do in the kingdom of God besides all the “girly” jobs of teaching 3-4year olds or singing specials or cooking meals. There’s jobs for guys too. Looking after the people who need help, doing things to make your community a brighter place to be, putting other people ahead of yourself -even if it’s just for 180 minutes, that’s Christianity in it’s purest form.

God said:
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
-Isaiah 58:7-8

And oh, you gotta read this! Jesus said
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
-Matthew 25:37-40

Life180 isn’t all we do. I’m just using it as example. Whatever you do as a church, I firmly believe that while we are preaching the Gospel and encouraging people to “get saved,” that during all of that… we also have to BE Christians. And God not only cares about the poor and those who are struggling, but gets ticked off when his people ignore their plight. Just read Isaiah 58 where God tells the Israelites that he doesn’t answer their prayers because while they’re fasting and praying, they continue to take advantage of the poor and continue to exploit people with injustice. When Jesus tells the story above about people feeding the hungry and giving something to drink to the thirsty, he was using this as a measure by which people were allowed into heaven or kicked out into hell.

By our fruit people know us right? Jesus said you can tell who someone’s figurative Father is, by watching what they do…

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. -John 8:42-44

Jesus is really blunt when he wants to be. So is your church, are YOU, doing the things your Father desires? I mean I have to ask: Who’s your daddy?

yeah that was bad wasn’t it?

P.S. Feel free to start a Life180 at your church. I promise not to sue.

How Does the Whole Miracle Thing Work?

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. -James 5:14-15 (NIV)

The mere suggestion that God may not work a miracle, or does not very often, would rock many people’s faith. “Pentecostals believe in religious experience the way electricians believe in electricity,” writes Earl Creps in his book Off-Road Disciplines -Spiritual Adventures with Missional Leaders, “without it, we have no reason to show up for work. The Spirit moves in profound and observable ways, and our heritage teaches that most everything else just takes care of itself.” A very open and honest admission by a guy who has taught in the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and I’m told pastors a church these days.

He follows that with something akin to a bombshell when he speaks about his experience pastoring a church: “Our congregation’s story failed to line up with what our movement’s culture taught us to expect. At one public rally, for example, the only ‘testimony’ from two years of renewal came from one person who thought he might have quit smoking.” (p.12)

As this account shows, miracles haven’t always happened when we expected them to. Let’s admit it. People have had their faith rocked. Why didn’t God always come through? Why do miracles seem random?

And what those outside the church don’t always realize is that God has seemingly ignored one prayer while answering another. In fact, God ignored prayers in the Bible occasionally, AND answered others miraculously. As you can probably guess, there was always a reason. Here in the book of James, the Bible tells us to do one thing, but does it mean God will always, always, always answer with a miracle?

What do people think when church leaders proclaim with bravado that God has answered a prayer, or brought a miracle or WILL do wo-when in fact the prayer is not answered and the miracle never arrives? The simple answer of “God works in mysterious ways,” or “God answered no” does not fit with the stuff we were saying when we were so sure of ourselves and so sure God would do something miraculous. Compared to what we said beforehand, those statements seem like lame excuses.

However, our insistence God does what we want… well what does that seem like? Selfishness? Arrogance that we could demand things of our Creator as if He were simply an employee of ours? Even in this Bible of ours, God has refused to listen and answer prayers before, with good reason.

They have returned to the sins of their forefathers, who refused to listen to my words. They have followed other gods to serve them. Both the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their forefathers. Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them. -Jeremiah 11:10-11

Even James, the very same guy who wrote the verse at the beginning of this post which details what to do when someone is sick and needs healing, also happened to write this:

You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. -James 4:2-3

So even James, in context, wasn’t giving us a blank check. I know, I’m just as disappointed as you are.

But don’t think for a second that people haven’t been driven away from God or turned their back on salvation because their very faith in God’s existence and the truth of Christianity was shaken because God didn’t do what they asked. It has happened. Most atheists in fact would cite something along these lines when explaining why they don’t believe in God.

More people than we care to admit believe Christians are delusional because we believe in miracles that don’t happen (according to them) and no one is currently walking on water to prove them wrong. If they did, I’m sure 20/20 or Dateline NBC would discover they were being held up by invisible cables…

Rules About Disagreeing

I’m just musing and we accidentally got into this subject in a men’s Bible study over Daniel 9 of all places…

Disagreeing always gets people like me and you and trouble, but then again, if we don’t disagree from time to time, we feel like we aren’t standing up for anything. Politicians sugar-coat and avoid controversy, so do ministers, and I bet a lot of you do, too. Others take pride in taking a stand, which generally means, lambasting the person or view you disagree with. You know, what do you REALLY think of John McCain or Hillary Clinton?

Or put it in a Churchy context… Haven’t you heard that “Good Preaching” will always “step on toes” or offend people? Sugar-coated preaching is wonderful for curing insomnia, but not so good at changing lives. Do you feel that way? Hear those things? Believe’em?

In an age where we hide behind computer screens and don’t have so many face to face confrontations anymore, I’m not sure we’re even any good at this disagreeing thing these days. And truth is, count me in the camp that believes we DO water down our opinions to be less offensive. Ask yourself, do you even want people to know how you voted?? Most people keep that a secret, others… well they throw it in your face.

Which is good? The right thing to do? Can I just be me?

I think you can.

Christians Wrong About Heaven? Which Christians?

In an interesting interview with N.T. “Tom” Wright, TIME claims Bishop Wright is teaching new and revolutionary thought that throws traditional views about heaven out the window.

Want to read the article? Go here.

Truth is, however, that the Bishop isn’t saying anything new that many evangelical churches haven’t been teaching for years. To his credit, Bishop Wright actually looks at what the Bible is really saying. And amazingly, the Bible does not say we spend forever in heaven, playing harps on a cloud.

It’s good reading, but one caveat… the idea of heaven he gives does not contradict the Left Behind series. The Left Behind series supports the idea of a rapture, but not just a rapture of souls, but a transformation of bodies, the actual final resurrection for those who have believed in Jesus in the past and present. The question in regard to the Left Behind series is: Does God really resurrect his people before the end? Or at the end? (I’m not going to answer that one at the moment though)

Regardless, the Bishop is correct when he says the Bible speaks of us having literal bodies. The Bible describes living on a new earth, where there is also a new heaven and where God and humanity exist in an eternal state like Adam and Eve and God existed in the Garden of Eden. It’s not clouds, it’s a whole new world. It’s not disembodied spirits, but glorified and real bodies on a planet that has literally become perfect and eternal. A place where heaven has come down to us and the two exist together.

Check it out for yourself in Revelation 21.

Decisions, Decisions…

Are you voting? Not everyone is you know, but as my sister said to me the other day, I would like the right to complain, so I’m voting. Super Tuesday here I come.

Primaries are usually a different animal than general elections and for most of us we have better choices. Think about it. The primaries will be the one time when you have several candidates who you may like somewhat or quite a bit. Whereas in the general election, we tend to choose between one candidate we like somewhat and another we can hardly stand.

On Tuesday, I’ll have choices. As you can imagine, me being an evangelical type of guy and all, I tend to vote conservative. There’s Romney, the Mormon guy who will -despite what I may think of Mormonism- generally support and do things in office that I would agree with. However, I don’t agree with his immigration ideas and get the sneaking suspicion that he happened upon these ideas because the polls told him conservatives would flock to his side.

*Note to conservative candidates… Fix the leaky border and make sure we know who comes across and who leaves so drugs and nuclear devices can’t be transported so easily. That’s really all we want. After that, please be kind and humane to the people who came across the border in the past. Can we blame them for wanting to be inside the greatest country in the world? C’mon get real.

Then of course, there’s Mike Huckabee, a guy I’m supposed to like because he’s evangelical like me. Well, I’ve got news. I love Mike because he wants to abolish the IRS, not because he used to be a Baptist minister. For one thing, I don’t agree with everything the Baptists believe and secondly, I’m not voting to put Mike in a ministry, but a job. A real job with duties and public relation duties and necessary management skills and everything.

Not every evangelical I know would make a good President of the United States. Sure they’re saved, but do I want them figuring out the housing crisis? Maybe not. So Mike… you ain’t getting my vote just because man. Having said that, the whole IRS position of yours does help you in my opinion. A world with no IRS?? That’s like dreaming of Never, Never land. You are indeed my brother….

And then there’s John McCain, and I love how the same conservative pundits who have claimed for years that their listeners are not sheep, are today going ballistic because we listeners aren’t going to vote like they told us to. Ann Coulter gonna vote for Hillary if McCain wins?

Please. What’s wrong with you people? McCain is the bad guy because he wants something more akin to “Amnesty” (which Reagan did by the way), and stymied Bush several times. Last I checked, McCain would do more on the immigration thing than Bush ever did, supports the Bush tax cuts now, and if Romney gets a pass on his previous liberal leanings, why doesn’t McCain get to change his mind, too?

I hate politics. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’m fascinated and intrigued by it. Sometimes I just get annoyed by the demagoguery.

No I really don’t know what that means either, but it was fun to type.

Anyway, look, I’ve got real stuff to do.

There is a basketball game to announce tonight, a couple of guys are talking about getting baptized, and God answered my prayer a couple of days ago and my daughter’s cat was found. I’m not a cat person. I’m a daughter person.

I’d rather not have a health care system that looks like Canada, but I do love the one proposed by McCain, and the one in use in Romney’s State of Massachusetts, and of course I love what Huckabee has done with the IRS. I definitely want the government to quit allowing babies to be killed for profit and for convenience sake, and I would like the poor to be helped without being enslaved. In short, I have opinions and decisions to make.

Do I know who I’m voting for? Nope. But I am going to pray about it because win or lose…

I want to be able to complain later.