I am the Church, and so can you! (With credit and respect given to Mr Colbert)

I have noticed a trend developing recently among many of my friends on FB who are believers. They are posting blogs on their page that they have read which all play out along the lines of: "Why _________ is leaving the church...", or "Why I am choosing to walk away from _________ in the church...". Obviously, when someone posts something to their wall, it means an endorsement of said piece, unless they state otherwise. So I read these blog posts from the perspective of assuming that it echos my friend's sentiments. I often do this on my own page. 

Here's my issue with this. While there is much in the context of these posts that I agree with, I wonder what message it is sending to others about how we as believers view our church? 

I will be the first to admit that our church, especially the Western version, is deeply flawed. It would have to be. We are part of it, and as humans, we are deeply flawed. There are so many things about the Western church that need fixing, and desperately. But there is also a lot about the church which has always been, and always will be singularly amazing and full of Spirit-breathed inspiration. The very purpose of our gatherings (to ascribe glory to God and to edify, challenge, and encourage fellow followers) is a noble thing, yet most of what I read online about the church these days simply points out flaws. 

So what's the rub? Why is there a recent surge online of young people (20-40s) who are increasingly vocal about their dislike of aspects of the church? I'm not sure.

Social media has become the way modern society ingests information, opinions, statistics, etc; for better or worse. As such, the pressure that society has always placed on the church has moved into this realm. We are all familiar with society's impression of us as believers as hypocrites, racists, bigots, greed-famished Republicans who lambaste people over the head with heavy leather-bound versions of the King James with a brick in it for good measure. We are all well aware of media's portrayal of us as being in bed with the Westboros of the world, with the televangelists whose hypnotic words seem to lull only the incredibly blind into filling their coffers with hard-earned money, with the abortion clinic protestors, or bombers. It's no secret how the media feels about Christians. 

I think, perhaps in light of this view, many young people feel the need to respond to these claims by illustrating to the world that we are not perfect. That we're not hypocrites. "See? We don't have all the answers. In fact, here's a bunch of stuff that I hate about the church."

Keep in mind that I do think there is a lot of great content in these posts, most of which I agree with. But I'm left wondering if we are handling the church with enough care. I, for one, am at a point where I am honestly tired of reading from fellow believers what is wrong with our church. Don't get me wrong. There is certainly a need, a desperate one, to identify and seek to improve many different aspects of the church. But, at least to my mind, that should be something which is happening internally in a way which is constructive, not destructive. In a way which honors the Lord, not opens the door to more ridicule. 

Please be mindful of this when posting links to blogs. Perhaps if there is a blog you come across which is challenging and thought-provoking, you could send it to several friends in a private message, asking for their thoughts and feedback on the topic. Or perhaps you could write down your own reactions in a blog which then becomes very constructive in its purpose. 

While we live in a modern age where information and all the details of everyone's lives is literally at our fingertips, we still must take care to be "wise as serpents, gentle as doves."

God bless!

Accepting lies about the truth

For all the negativity and distractions that exist on social media, I still find myself grateful for a tool with which I can occasionally check up on friends' lives, no matter how distant, or how much time has past since my last face to face meeting with them. I love how each person's social profile is a combination of photo album, journal, and scrap book. One of the things I particularly love is being able to watch each person over the course of several years morph and change as they react to life and the path they have chosen. I enjoy watching friends' kids growing up, seeing people reach life goals and accomplishments. I really dig watching their thoughts on travels they take, and events they attend. The window into their lives that social media provides is awesome. Most of the time. 

Occasionally, though, I find myself watching some people gradually walking away from things that they were very passionate about in their earlier years. I have watched friends who were artists walk away from their art, people who were driven with very specific goals reach a point where those goals changed or disappeared altogether. Worse yet, I watch people who slowly turn their backs on their belief in God. This is always the most disheartening. 

Let me be clear about something. I don't look at these people and their choices from a perspective of being in the right. I don't judge their decisions based off of mine, as if I have somehow figured out life better than they have, or as if I were somehow a better person, better Christian, more in touch with the Lord, etc. I have no position to call anyone's hand and say they have made the wrong choices. It's not my place, and I'm generally far too busy cleaning up the mess from my own wrong choices to try and point any fingers.

Yet what truly saddens me is that I see choices that these people make, and I know that they are choices which would have, at one point, made them very upset had they seen another make the same choice. I've noticed friends who were genuinely passionate about their relationship with the Lord reach a point in their lives where they don't acknowledge even having a relationship with Him. People who made hard choices to sacrifice family, finances, time, and every other resource at their disposal to follow passionately after what they felt the Lord had called them to. When I got to know many of these friends, they were in a place where their passion, their calling demanded all of their focus, and they were deep in their commitment to it. Yet many of these people I have watched over several years reach a point where that focus, passion, and even calling are totally non-existent. 

Bear in mind that all of this is from the casual observances of their online profile. Perhaps it doesn't tell the full story. In fact, it is almost always a fairly biased and quite rosy persona that one sees online. I am fully guilty of the same thing. Yet there is enough there, or perhaps enough lacking, that I can't help but have doubts raised in my mind. One friend, who was a youth pastor for several years, is now in a place where he regularly posts updates to his profile which are articles touting his new-found atheist beliefs. Another, an artist with a very large following on social media, felt the need a few years ago to announce that he no longer subscribed to any belief in God, and felt that God had never really done anything in his life. This from a person who I saw lead hundreds of young people to the Lord. A very passionate preacher, consummate performer, and a person who always shared his story exclusively from the perspective of what the Lord had done in his life. These, and many other stories have brought me to a place of questioning things. What happened? Perhaps more impactful, how do I avoid reaching the same place? 

Again, this is asked not from a place of being in the right. I ask from a place of humility, walking out my own struggle. I am curious about these friends in the same way that I look at friends who have walked through divorce. How did they get there, and how in the world can I avoid whatever path took them to that place? 

I believe that circumstances are always a heavy factor in taking a person to a place of rejecting their faith and their worldview. But I also believe that the place they were in originally was a place of strength, and something must have eroded away internally to bring them to a place of denying what was once their actual armor and weapons, what was once the thing they sought to be defined by. 

Thinking about, and praying for, many of these friends and examining their trajectory through the very jaded and biased lens of social media has brought me to a realization of sorts, albeit one that I am still sifting through. 

This is a brief note that I wrote a few days ago, from a time of processing this issue:

 "Somewhere along the line, you accepted the lie that the truth is what you make it, and I'm sorry for that because that lie is the source of all that has ever been wrong in your life."

What I suspect (and could perhaps be quite wrong about, admittedly) is that there has been a slow creeping lie that has entered many people's minds which has eroded their perception of the truth. What truths they accepted as absolutes in their earlier days of passion and calling have somehow been chipped away at slowly, and it has brought them to a place where they accept the lie that the truth is relative. Truth is not relative, not in any definition of it. 

An analogy that one of my best friends uses is that you can, over the course of time, convince yourself that the color red is actually blue. You can find articles online to support your definition, you can quote experts on it, you can find many many other people who all think the same thing. In reality, however, the color red is still red. 

Many people, I think, reach similar decisions about their relationship with the Lord. Perhaps they have felt distant from the Lord for many years. Perhaps they have cried out to him from a genuine place of searching, and their search has been in vain. Maybe they asked for healing for a family member that still passed. Perhaps they were badly hurt in relationship, and the hurt caused was blamed on the Lord. Whatever the case, I believe that there are absolute truths that cannot be altered no matter what your beliefs. 

Gravity, for example, will never be altered. There will never be a point in time in all of eternity where the earth is not held in place by the bonds of gravity. With technology we are able to power ourselves temporarily into the air, seeming to defy gravity, but it is still an absolute law. If we run out of jet fuel, our airplane will be dragged back down to earth by gravity. If we slip past the atmosphere and away from the earth's gravitational pull, we may float for a while in the void of space, but only until another planet, moon, meteor, etc, comes along and we are then subject to it's gravitational influence. Still bound by the law of gravity. 

God's grace, His desire for relationship, His love for us, His pursuit of us, is much the same. It is an absolute truth. You can subscribe to any belief system and worldview that you want. You can deny His existence, and post articles on your social profile touting the latest scientific discoveries which disprove God's existence, but it does not change the truth. God loves you and pursues you as much as the color red will always be red. It is not God who changes, but us. Our beliefs change, our lives change. Circumstances, hardships, unanswered prayers, unmet hopes and dreams and goals can all influence the place that we are at in our lives, and what our beliefs are IF WE ACCEPT THE LIE THAT THE TRUTH IS WHAT WE MAKE IT. 

I believe that God's desire is for us to accept that His Truth does not change, as He himself does not change. There is strength in that to withstand any hardship, any turbulence. If we believe the truth that God's love is more constant and unchanging than the law of gravity, I think we can position ourselves in the right place. A place of strength, a place of continued passion, calling, drive, vision, and eternal life. 

My prayer for myself first, and second for my friends far and near, is that we will all reach a point of accepting that the truth is not what we choose it to be. As we seek truth, it will always eventually lead us to the Author of all Truth. 

January 1^st, 2015. A new year.  I imagine the first day of each year as a day of hope, a day of positive thoughts, a day of new starts. The jokes and memes of social media insinuate that most people’s goals and resolutions will last exactly one day, until Jan 2. For many, this is true. For many others, this day really is the start of a lasting change they are looking to make. For some, it is a habit they need to break, or form. For others, it is a specific goal they are trying to reach. Health, finances, work, relationships, etc. The new year represents a fresh start.

For a lot of people, the last year was a great year, where they were able to see some or many of their goals accomplished. They feel good about what happened, and they are excited to see what else they can accomplish in the next year. For others, the last year was a terrible year. Perhaps a loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job, some circumstance beyond their control which worked to crush them. Those people, I imagine, look to this new year in one of two ways. One, with nervous excitement, hoping that it will be better than last year, and imagining that nothing could get worse. Two, assuming that fate will mete out more portions of ill will, and resigning themselves to the idea that their year will be bad, so they don’t allow themselves the luxury of hope.

My heart is broken for those people who had a bad year last year. My hope is that they would be able to give room for hope to infuse their life and take the place of despair.

I am not a fan of unrealistic goals, and I have set many for myself throughout my life. I want to lose 50 lbs in one month! I want to learn a new language in 6 months! I want to travel to 20 foreign countries this year! I want to earn $1mil this year! All of these are great goals, but are obviously unrealistic. So I want to try and focus on realistic goals this year. Can I help someone else who had a bad year last year? In what way can I help another friend reach a goal that they couldn’t last year? Can I do something to help my family to reach a goal this year? Can I help give my children a better education? Or create better social interaction for them? Can I find someone to mentor me this year? Can I be a mentor to someone?

You’ll note that up to this point I have not factored the Lord into this equation. Now, I will do so. And that changes everything. You see, I believe that I don’t have the strength to carry any of these goals this year, even the realistic ones. I do believe, however, that God has goals for me this year. Not only goals, but the strength, patience, wisdom, discernment, and self-discipline that I will need to meet each of those goals. And that changes my perspective on everything.

It becomes not so much a question of how much weight I want to lose, but a question of how healthy do I need to be for my family, and what good health habits can I create for my family? A question not of how much money would I like to make this year, but a question of leaning more on the Lord for His provision and seeking His direction on how to spend that money. Not of how many countries might I get to go to this year, but finding God’s purpose in where I am at each moment of each day.

With God’s goals and plans in mind, it allows a person to have real tangible hope. Not false hope, not hope that will be crushed again and again, but real hope. Hope that rests in the knowledge that God’s plans are good. They are always good. They are always plans to grow, to become more like Him, to experience Him in a deeper way, to know Him more.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that this year will be perfect. For many who place their trust in the Lord it will still mean hardship, failure, and pain. There will still be much loss experienced, there will still be many goals unmet and unfinished. For some, it will be a blow that feels unmanageable. The loss of a loved one or career may require drastic changes and huge steps backwards. Maybe it means losing a home to foreclosure, or losing a relationship with a parent or spouse who passes away. Maybe for some it means losing a child. Such devastation cannot be planned for, and certainly can’t be discussed in any accurate way in a format like this. It will mean pain, more pain than most of us could imagine. But even in the depths of that lonely place, God has plans for a person’s life.

So as I look forward to another new year, I can be honest and say that I have no idea what it will hold for me, for my family. But I do know that it will contain hope. 

My prayer for you is that your new year contains hope as well.