5 Ways To Be Unsatisfied With Church

1. Don’t participate, merely consume. If I had to say the one thing holding the American church back today, it would be a consumeristic culture. We’ve come to expect that the latest technology comes standard in our cars. Our movie theaters should have wide rows with extra padded seats and that lean way back. Unfortunately, we think our church should be no different. Just like the movie theater, we come when the production starts, sit in our seats, are entertained, and think we should leave satisfied when it’s over. When I was a pastor, those most unsatisfied in our body, were those who just showed up on Sunday’s (sometimes). There was little to no participation in small groups, service projects or teaching and serving within the church. Obviously there are those in most churches who are seekers, or young in the faith that just need to be taken care of for a season, but that should be a temporary state. 2. Criticize your leadership. I once heard about a couple who didn’t like their pastor because he told stories about his family in the pulpit before beginning his sermons. Quirky? Yeah, kinda. Unbiblical, sinful, illegal, harmful?! Definitely not. We’ve really got understand the difference. It’s also not fair to compare your pastor to the celebrity pastor on the other side of the country whose book we just read and now believe that every church everywhere should be run like that celebrity pastors church. Remember that celebrity pastor is in a completely different context. He doesn’t know your church, and he also doesn’t come to your home when you have a tragedy or celebrate with you when you have a baby or other joyous life event. We’re hard on our pastors. Their job is a very public job. One that’s performed in front of an audience (by ‘performed’ & ‘audience’ I just mean that the duties of the job are undertaken in front of a crowd of people). We would do well to remember that our pastors/church leaders are human beings like us, full of quirks and wrestling with sin and struggles just like we do. Instead of seeing our pastors with targets on their backs, we should see them with love and compassion and as people who have dedicated their time to serve the body. If you have a legitimate concern, approach your leader about it, and don’t talk about the them behind their back. Be kind, be loving. 3. Don’t spend time with your church outside of the church building. Most of our churches corporate gatherings serve a great purpose. We worship together and we learn together. But most aren’t very conducive to getting to know each other on a deeper level. This isn’t a failure on the part of our leadership, it’s just the nature of a larger gathering. We need these small group gatherings (not just official ‘small groups’, but parties, coffee dates, men’s/women’s nights, etc.). I’ve found that I learn more about a person over 30 minutes of sharing coffee or a beer, than I did attending liturgy with them for several months. 4. Believe that everything should be about you and for you, all the time. Not long after Kate and I started attending our current church, they undertook a ‘season of kids’. There was additional time in liturgy given to teaching the children in the church. The kids participated in the service in various ways. Even the sermons were about child-like faith and other themes centered around children. Kate and I didn’t have children (we now have one on the way if you’re not keeping up), and we were not ourselves children. We had to understand – not everything is about/for us all the time. That’s not to say that we didn’t get anything from the season of kids, it just wasn’t aimed directly at us, but even that taught us something important, because the church that teaches you that everything is about you, all the time, is preaching a very different message than – lay down your lives for each other. We were also appreciative to be apart of a church that found value in children and went to great lengths to show it to them. 5. Be unhappy with the fact that it isn’t perfect. “There is no perfect church, and if you find one, don’t join it because you’ll ruin it.” I don’t know who first said that, but it’s true. All churches are strong in some areas and weak in others. Hopefully churches are always working on those weaknesses, but if we can’t settle for anything less than perfection, then we’re in real trouble. In his book “Under the Unpredictable Tree,” Eugene Peterson helps pastors be content in the church they are in. Maybe there needs to be a version for church members. In the book Peterson coined the term “Ecclesiastical Pornography.” That is the perfect term to describe the problem that so many people have. We look at the church down the street, or the church in town that’s “doing really well,” or the celebrity pastor’s church and think – “they have it all together” or “they’re doing church right.” Many people start attending those churches and after the honeymoon period wears off, they find that church has weaknesses of its own. Sadly many people go through life thinking the perfect church is just around the corner, or as many young evangelicals do, they decide that they don’t need church at all and embark on solo-Christianity. Church is like marriage in a lot of ways. In the beginning it’s fun, and exciting, but eventually the honeymoon comes to an end and it’s work, real work, but we find that the work is rewarding and worthwhile, and it’s work that God meant for us to be doing. Thanks to Shane blackshear...

hello, my name is church

Hello, My Name Is Church

The Unappreciated PastorOct 20, 2013

Hello my name is church,

I'm sure you've heard a lot about me. I have no shortage of critics. Perhaps you have heard that I am...

Boring Shallow Cheap A waste of time

You've heard that I am full of:

Hypocrites Clowns Greedy people The self-righteous

Maybe you have visited me before and discovered:

Horrible music Passionless singing Dry preaching Rude congregants

Maybe you needed me and I was:

Too busy Too "righteous" Too broke Too blind

Maybe you joined me and found I was:

Distant Demanding Dull Preoccupied

Maybe you tried to serve in me but were caught off guard by:

Business meetings Committees Teams Bureaucracy

Maybe you left and were surprised that nobody:

Called Cared Noticed Invited you back

Perhaps your experience has driven you to:

Speak negatively of me Swear to never come back to me Proclaim that no one needs me Believe you're better off without me

If this is true, I have something to say to you:

I'm sorry I was wrong I blew it I made a huge mistake

But remember, I never said my name was:

Perfect Flawless Complete Arrived

My name is church. I welcome the:

Hypocrite Dry Self-righteous Shallow

I welcome the

Sincere Passionate Forgiving Selfless

I cannot shut my doors to the people who make you:

Angry Uncomfortable Impatient Self-conscious

But I would remind you that we couldn't always worship in the same room. In the Old Testament there was a division between the:

Gentile Jew Man Woman

In order for us to all worship in the same room Christ was:

Shamed Beaten Killed Resurrected

Which is far worse than being:

Bored Uncomfortable Embarrassed Ignored

So why not come back to church and let all of these messed up people:

Challenge you Sharpen you Strengthen you Humble you

I can't promise you that the people will be great. This is church. It's not:

Heaven Paradise Beulah Land The Celestial city

Come back.

God wants you here. The body needs you here. The world needs your witness here. You belong here.

Hello, my name is church.

I miss you.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

Can't wait to see you.

Follow The Unappreciated Pastor on Facebook:www.facebook.com/unappreciated.pastor

An Empty Chair at Christmas

Sometimes the hope of Christmas is, “Next year all our troubles will be miles away.” That’s what the song says anyway, but many will not have a merry Christmas just because of that. They know it is not true. Many start with and cannot get past the empty chair—where their husband used to sit, where their daughter used to climb, where grandma used to stand to reach up high. Sure, the stores have been visited, and the goodies consumed, but joy will not be unmixed this season because someone isn’t there. Death has come and cast its shadow upon Christmas.

Lurking in this shadow is the great beast, depression—slithering through the house as the family arrives, waiting for an opportunity to steal your joy. Satan loves to use good memories to bring pain. The fond remembrance of how it used to be can become a sea of sadness because it will never be just like that again.

I can still remember Christmas as a boy and teenager when my grandpa was still alive. He would read from the Bible and pray and some years would surprise the family with interesting gifts that he wanted to keep at his house after you opened them. Unforgettable. He is easy to miss and it is not uncommon for the tears to flow while remembering how it was before he died. But he did die, and so did your sister, cousin or father. And people only die once so they are not coming back. Let the weight of death affect you.

I’m sure you have tried to lift it, and maybe you feel like this time of year is another opportunity to hopelessly carry the burden. The heaviness of death that Christmas has the tendency to bring is the reason Jesus came. After his birth, the murderous Herod called for all children around Bethlehem under the age of two to be killed when he could not find out exactly where Jesus was staying. Jeremiah prophesied, “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more,” (Matt 2:18). This is the world that God entered, a world of horrifying fatality. A world that was broken and lost, estranged from God and spiraling downward into the depths of hell.

Into this blackness, the true light broke when God became a man. “Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.” Jesus came to bring new birth, bind up the broken hearted and release the captives. He came because sin reigned in death. Both spiritually and physically, death had reign, and then Jesus came to beat down the old king. He was born so that “as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Rom 5:21). When Jesus came that man no more would die, he brought tidings of great joy. Grace has arrived.

Because death no longer rules, true joy cannot be swallowed by storm clouds of despair. This does not mean that there will be no tears this Christmas, that is still to come. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away,” (Rev 21:4). The former things in this glorious future are still our earthly reality. So we long for the end, the second advent of our Lord.

Jesus has come and provided rescue from sin and life eternal. Because death no longer rules, songs of a trouble free next year are not our hope. A humble man from Nazareth has lifted the burden of death from your shoulders, and is coming quickly to wipe all tears away. Our hope at Christmas is the One who experienced death to conquer it – forever.

- See more at: http://www.ccwtoday.org/an-empty-chair-at-christmas/#sthash.aBL4R5Bh.dpuf

The "X" in Christmas

What Does the X in Xmas Mean" by R.C. Sproul

The X in Christmas is used like the R in R.C. My given name at birth was Robert Charles, although before I was even taken home from the hospital my parents called me by my initials, R.C., and nobody seems to be too scandalized by that.

X can mean so many things. For example, when we want to denote an unknown quantity, we use the symbol X. It can refer to an obscene level of films, something that is X-rated. People seem to express chagrin about seeing Christ's name dropped and replaced by this symbol for an unknown quantity X. Every year you see the signs and the bumper stickers saying, "Put Christ back into Christmas" as a response to this substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ.

There's no X in Christmas

 

First of all, you have to understand that it is not the letter X that is put into Christmas. We see the English letter X there, but actually what it involves is the first letter of the Greek name for Christ. Christos is the New Testament Greek for Christ. The first letter of the Greek word Christos is transliterated into our alphabet as an X. That X has come through church history to be a shorthand symbol for the name of Christ.

There's a long and sacred history of the use of X to symbolize the name of Christ, and from its origin, it has meant no disrespect

We don't see people protesting the use of the Greek letter theta, which is an O with a line across the middle. We use that as a shorthand abbreviation for God because it is the first letter of the word Theos, the Greek word for God.

 

X has a long and sacred history

 

The idea of X as an abbreviation for the name of Christ came into use in our culture with no intent to show any disrespect for Jesus. The church has used the symbol of the fish historically because it is an acronym. Fish in Greek (ichthus) involved the use of the first letters for the Greek phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." So the early Christians would take the first letter of those words and put those letters together to spell the Greek word for fish. That's how the symbol of the fish became the universal symbol of Christendom. There's a long and sacred history of the use of X to symbolize the name of Christ, and from its origin, it has meant no disrespect.

 

Adapted from Now, That’s a Good Question! ©1996 by R.C. Sproul. Used by permission of Tyndale.

      

A Christmas Birth

The account of Christ's birth in Luke 2 is an invitation to all of us to the Bethlehem Birthday.

1)  It is THE BIRTH OF A MAN-God in flesh with mucous in his nose & tied umbilically to a young Jewish virgin girl (Luke 2:7).

2)  It is THE BIRTH OF A MESSIAH- "unto you is born a Savior..Christ The Lord" The ONE & ONLY (Luke 2:1).

3)  It is THE BIRTH OF A MESSAGE-it is "good news of great joy for all people" (Luke 2 :10).

4)  It is THE BIRTH OF A MISSION-"on earth peace" (Luke 2:14) we are on mission to share there is no peace w/out the Prince of Peace

5)  It is THE BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT-He said "I will build my church"& 2,000yrs later this movement abides "til He comes".

6) It is THE BIRTH OF A MIRACLE-this virgin birth was a miracle but greatest of miracles is when He is born again in you.

 

(copied and shared)

The Touch of God at Christmas

This is from a 60 Minutes broadcast from

several years ago. It’s an excerpt of what Harry Reasoner said around Christmas time that I want you to hear. Listen carefully – he said:

Eleven years ago I did a little Christmas piece and it seemed like a good idea to repeat it. The basis for this tremendous burst of buying things and gift buying and parties and near hysteria is a quiet event that Christians believe actually happened a long time ago. You can say that in all societies there has always been a midwinter festival and that many of the trappings of our Christmas are almost violently pagan. But you come back to the central fact of the day and the quietness of Christmas morning, the birth of God on earth.

It leaves you only three ways of accepting Christmas. One is cynically, as a time to make money and endorse the making of it. One is graciously, that’s the appropriate attitude for non-Christians who wish their fellow citizens all the joys to which their beliefs entitle them. And the third, of course, is reverently.

If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day. It is a startling idea, of course. The whole story that a virgin was selected by God to bear his son as a way of showing his love and concern for man. It’s my guess that in spite of all the lip service given to it, it’s not an idea that has been popular with theologians. It is somewhat an illogical idea and theologians like logic almost as much as they like God. It’s so revolutionary, a thought that it probably could only come from God that is beyond logic and beyond theology. It is a magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God and almost nobody has any real idea what he is like, and the truth is that among men the idea of seeing God suddenly and standing in a very bright light is not necessarily a completely comforting or appealing idea.

But everyone has seen babies and almost everyone likes them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, He moved correctly, for a baby growing up learns all about people. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of man, He moved correctly, for the experience of birth and family-hood is the most intimate and precious experience that any of us will ever have.

So it comes beyond logic. It is either a falsehood or it is the truest thing in the world. It is the story of the great innocence of God the baby. God in the power of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart that if it is not true to Christians, then nothing is true.

So if a person is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it. And maybe on some given Christmas some final quiet morning, that touch will take. The touch of God coming into this world as a vulnerable baby.

 Merry Christmas,

 Bro. Greg

An Advent Prayer for Our Kids and Grandkids

An Advent Prayer for Our Kids and Grandkids
 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:76-79

Dear Father, I often forget about the other special baby promised and delivered in the Advent story: John the Baptist—the forerunner, way-maker, and friend of the Bridegroom. As this Scripture reveals, his birth and life are a great testimony to the ways of the gospel.

Oh, to become a man like John the Baptist—whose joy was to become smaller in the world’s view that Jesus’ greatness might be seen by everyone. Oh, to be a parent like Zechariah, wanting only what you want for our kids and grandkids.

With palm’s up, Father, we relinquish our parenting agenda for the perfection of your plans. What better story could we write, or what other story would we choose, than for our kids to be a means by which your love and grace would impact the community and culture?

Father, we lift our kids and grandkids to you. For those who don’t yet rest in your grace, we ask you to bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus. For those who do know you, we pray that the gospel would go deeper and deeper into their hearts—assuring them of your tender mercies; granting them sufficient grace and wisdom for each season of life.

Father, as parents and grandparents, help us to live and love in such a way as to make the gospel attractive to our offspring. Free us from ways and words, which hide the beauty of Jesus. We want to be bridges of grace, not obstacles to faith. Grant us quicker repentances when we fail.

So our prayer for our kids and “grand’s” is the same one we offer for ourselves: Father, guide us into the heart and habits of the gospel; lead our feet more surely onto the path of peace; restore our first love for Jesus and daily love for everyone else.

So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ tender and triumphant.