When I was down in bed earlier this year unable to walk as a result of a horrendous side effect to a round of Cipro antibiotics I ended up watching lots of video on You Tube. For some reason I was drawn to watch anything I could find about Detroit, Michigan and its incredible decline. I watched all types of documentaries focused on Detroit that included fires, drugs, gangs, the car industry, the bankrupt city, racial issues, vacant homes, and public schools. One documentary that was produced by Ford Motor Company around 1961 extolled the virtues of Detroit and had one scene that has stuck in my mind. It was a young boy staring intently with his eyes squinted so he could take in a statue on a bright sunny day in downtown Detroit in 1961. The documentary panned from the boy to the statue as the narrator on the documentary told about the statue that represented the foundations of our society- family and God. The narrator explained that these 2 things are the foundation upon which all other things in our society are built.
After the narrator spoke these words I stared at the video in disbelief for a few moments thinking about how dramatically our society has changed since that day in 1961 because so much of our culture is now focused upon undoing family and God as that upon which all other things in our society are built. We live in a society that is in the midst of dramatic change. We live in a society that ridicules anyone who encourages sexual purity or sexual standards based upon the Bible. We live in a society that views as suspect a large family, and especially if that family goes to church. We live in a society that says it is enlightened to have no religious beliefs and it is weak minded to believe in God.
The world as it existed some years back does not exist now. And to make it worse many Christians believe if we would simply reintroduce prayer into schools, outlaw abortion, or require creation to be taught in schools everything would be solved. The problem is that the Christians who hold these views are a small vocal fringe element of Christianity just as those who believe we should eradicate religion and God are a small vocal fringe element of our American culture.
Prayer cannot and should not be introduced into public schools because in our multicultural mindset we would require all students to pray to whatever god anyone believes in- that would not be productive. We can make abortion illegal but it will become a time bomb if we don't do anything to address the hyper sexual culture that is producing lots of unwanted babies. Teaching six literal days of creation will come back to harm Christianity just as teaching that the earth was flat has done immense harm over the centuries.
The solution to where Christianity finds itself in 2013 is not to go back to life as it was in 1961. Do we really want to go back to a time period in which discrimination of people based upon the color of their skin was justified by Christians? Do we really want to once again advocate for a legalistic Christianity that teaches that we are saved because we accomplish a specific task in a certain way and our brand of Christianity is better than the other brands because we _______ (you can fill in the blank!)___?
The solution to the radical transformation of the foundations of our culture lies in seeking the wisdom and power and grace and mercy of the God who created us. (...and yes, he might have taken billions and billions of years to create us or he might have done it a single microsecond!) If there is a God and if this God really did preserve the record of His work in this world for us to read today then perhaps we should take comfort in the possibility that this God is powerful enough to get us through a confusing time in the history of this country and our world just as He did when He sustained and guided countless numbers of people through the millenia.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
So... What Is Church?...
In the last few weeks I have some fascinating conversations with a number of different people.
- I have spoken with someone who is thinking about coming to church but whose life has been imperfect so they felt that they could not come to church and would not be accepted until they got their life nice and presentable.
- I have spoken with a church member who thinks the only thing the church should be doing when it comes together is doing Bible Studies and Worship Services, nothing else.
- I accidentally entered into a conversation with a woman in New York City who hosts a cable talk show, writes for the newspaper, acts on Broadway, does voice overs for commercials, and does motivational seminars. Her email address was one letter off from an email address of a Sugar Grove guest which lead to the accidental conversation. In the email I offered an invitation to get together and talk and pray for a few minutes on a Sunday morning. This person in New York City responded back to me as if I were a creepy stalker making it very clear that they were not religious and don't do 'the pray thing'. This person very quickly became hostile and wanted me to leave them alone.
All three of these people have a significant misunderstanding of what church is and is not. What has caused the misunderstanding toward what church is or should be? Is it a world that is bent on damaging or destroying the church? I don't think so. I have reason to suspect the views all three of these people have been influenced by churches themselves, not by some outside influence.
The guest who believed they needed to get their life in order identified that previous churches they had been connected to had made it very clear that things like baptism and membership could not happen unless you got your life in order first. The fallacy of this logic lies in the role of the Holy Spirit in our life. It is ultimately the power of the Spirit in our lives that gives us the strength to live a Godly life. Forcing someone to get their life in order without the strength of the Spirit in their life teaches a person to pull themselves up by their own boot straps. It teaches that we are made perfect by our own efforts, not by the work of God in our life. We can by sheer will do the right thing for a while but true change comes because we have allowed the Spirit of God to indwell our heart and guide our lives and convict us of our own sin.
At an even deeper level the fallacy of this 'do the right thing through your own power' logic is that salvation comes because of what we have done, not because of what Jesus has done. This logic says that we are saved if we do what God says correctly placing the power of salvation on our obedience through our own strength of will. This type of 'religion' has no need for God or the Holy Spirit because it is up to us. In fact my encounters with leaders in churches like this have literally told me that God does not actively work in the world today and that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than the printed word of God. These people have gutted the power of the Bible and have instead turned it into a 'To Do' manual.
The consequence of this view is a humanistic religion that creates either arrogance because of the 'look what I've done' attitude or a hopelessness because of the realization that you can never on your own do all that you are supposed to do. A secondary problem that is created is a bizarre set of tacit rules that identify which sins are unacceptable and which sins will be overlooked.
The member who thought the church should only be studying the Bible or in a worship service when they come together is influenced by a similar pattern view of church that has been taught by many people through the years. This view places limits on what the church can and cannot do so that the church as a whole will be acceptable to God. The problem is that the list of what the church can and cannot do is not agreed upon even though each group has been taught to believe that their view is correct and should be applied and adopted by everyone around them.
In the first century the church was a market place church meaning the life of the church was carried out daily in the lives of the believers led by the Holy Spirit as they worked, lived, and played. The Holy Spirit led each believer to share the message of the joy of salvation with those they were around. When the church came together it was to celebrate the savior, be convicted by the work of the Spirit in their midst, and renew their commitment to the journey of faith. In this atmosphere the idea of going to church was foreign because all that they did was church. God was powerfully active in their midst whether they were the believers meeting together or the believers living out their life. The idea of a compartmentalized religion such as we have today would have been foreign to first century Christians.
In later centuries the church developed into a cathedral religion meaning faith was primarily expressed when the church came together in a specific place for a specific purpose. In this type of environment there was less need for the power of the Spirit to work in their midst because what they did was planned out- the expression of religion became something to do and believe instead of something to live. This cathedral religion model has dramatically impacted our view of church today. This can be seen when we say we are going to go to church because church is what we do when we come together, not who we are.
The cathedral view of religion has a number of downfalls. It allows us to compartmentalize our life- we can live for God in one part of our life while disallowing God from another part of our life with very little realization that this is a problem. We can easily fulfill our religious duty by learning more about the Bible or participating in a worship service which takes away any significant sense of need to allow God to infiltrate our life outside the 'cathedral'.
The cathedral view has very little need for the Holy Spirit to work in our life because our religious duties are boiled down to planned activities and events which fits very nicely into a scientific and logical world view. When we go about our daily life with our heart, mind, soul, and strength open and available to be used by God we will be amazed at the never ending way in which the Holy Spirit desires to use us as a witness for God. But this thought process becomes foreign to us when we only do religious things that do not require the Holy Spirit to guide and help us. Consequently we end up with a religion that begins to shape and form around planned events that will work just fine even if God does not show up.
The person in New York City who had a panic attack and felt as if they had been violated when I offered to pray with them demonstrates something that has happened to view God, church, and Christianity as an incredible danger. I may never know what happened to this person but it has brought them onto my radar and I have been praying for God to work in their life, I'm just not going to send an email telling them! But this person brings to light how deep the damage can go in a person's life when 'religion' is allowed to become a set of rules to be followed.
I know of someone whose coworker is in the LGBT community. When this person in the LGBT community found out their co worker was a Christian they became defensive, rude, and sarcastic. This went on for a few years until one day the LGBT person told the Christian that God and all Christians hate them. The Christian asked questions and found out the LGBT's mother's church told this person that God hated them and would never accept them. This person loved God but knew the feelings and emotions they had in regard to their own sexuality that did not go away so they were left feeling abandoned by God, the church, and all Christians which left bitterness and pain. When this Christian told them God loves them tears flowed. This conversation and relationship has developed for a number of years to the point that the Christian says this person would probably be willing to be a part of a church that was willing to show God's love to this person.
All of these stories point toward a commonality... If the Church wants to be The Church it is going to have to let the Holy Spirit work and intentionally put itself and it's members in positions where it ain't gonna' work unless God shows up bringing His gifts of guidance, leading, power, strength, and healing.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Fort Bend County Ethnic Diversity
I recently attended a seminar presented by Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce featuring Rice University Demographer Stephen Klineberg. He discussed the demographics of the Houston metro area and the many areas of relevance to what he has discovered in his 30 years of researching the social demographics of the Houston area. Toward the end of his presentation he began discussing Fort Bend County and the amazing demographic mix it is. He told us that Fort Bend County, Texas is the most ethnically diverse county in the country. Period.
He said other metropolitan areas that have a large percentage of non white residents do not have a wide diversity but simply a large population of one ethnicity. What makes Fort Bend County unique is the fact that it has a diversity of ethnicity's that essentially comes out to be 25% asian, 25% latino, 25% black, and 25% white. Klineberg went on to point out that the even spread of ethnic diversity in Fort Bend County is even more remarkable when you realize the amazing vibrancy of the community and culture. He said that the entire country could learn a great deal from Houston and in particular Fort Bend County because this community is figuring out how to live successfully in a diversity that the rest of the country will experience 50 years from now.
Taking Klineberg's work a step farther would be to explore how Christianity is spread among a culture as diverse as Fort Bend County and realize that what is learned here could help Christians around the country in the future. However Klineberg is quick to point out when talking informally that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week referring to the reality that people will bunch up by ethnicity for religious experiences. So the question for Christians in Fort Bend County becomes do we follow the pattern of gathering by ethnicity or do we make some concerted effort to cross culturally spread Jesus Christ in our own back yard?
Each ethnic group brings its own bias of religion to the table. The white culture brings a European bred Christianity that has morphed over time in the united states. The black culture came to know Christ in the context of rescue from oppression. The Hispanic culture has a strong background in Catholicism. And everyone demographically marked as Asian represents a wide range of religions. The process to reach each of these backgrounds differs dramatically because political and social elements have intertwined themselves into each culture in very unique ways.
So the question is this: Do we stay segregated religiously while living integrated or do we figure out how to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to spread the message of Jesus Christ (not our version of political and social elements related to Jesus Christ...)?
He said other metropolitan areas that have a large percentage of non white residents do not have a wide diversity but simply a large population of one ethnicity. What makes Fort Bend County unique is the fact that it has a diversity of ethnicity's that essentially comes out to be 25% asian, 25% latino, 25% black, and 25% white. Klineberg went on to point out that the even spread of ethnic diversity in Fort Bend County is even more remarkable when you realize the amazing vibrancy of the community and culture. He said that the entire country could learn a great deal from Houston and in particular Fort Bend County because this community is figuring out how to live successfully in a diversity that the rest of the country will experience 50 years from now.
Taking Klineberg's work a step farther would be to explore how Christianity is spread among a culture as diverse as Fort Bend County and realize that what is learned here could help Christians around the country in the future. However Klineberg is quick to point out when talking informally that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week referring to the reality that people will bunch up by ethnicity for religious experiences. So the question for Christians in Fort Bend County becomes do we follow the pattern of gathering by ethnicity or do we make some concerted effort to cross culturally spread Jesus Christ in our own back yard?
Each ethnic group brings its own bias of religion to the table. The white culture brings a European bred Christianity that has morphed over time in the united states. The black culture came to know Christ in the context of rescue from oppression. The Hispanic culture has a strong background in Catholicism. And everyone demographically marked as Asian represents a wide range of religions. The process to reach each of these backgrounds differs dramatically because political and social elements have intertwined themselves into each culture in very unique ways.
So the question is this: Do we stay segregated religiously while living integrated or do we figure out how to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to spread the message of Jesus Christ (not our version of political and social elements related to Jesus Christ...)?
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Superstitious Religion
A superstition is the belief that a specific act will bring supernatural consequences... breaking a mirror brings 7 years bad luck... walking under a ladder...throwing a penny in a fountain...crossing your fingers. Some superstitions are harmless while others can have dramatic impact upon our lives. The danger is that we can come to put our trust in something which will produce many unintended consequences in our life. An easy illustration of this can be seen when I was a teen. A group of guys I hung out with honestly believed that if we did some good things from time to time God would protect us from harm when we did stupid stuff. We were gambling with the false belief that God would protect us from our own stupid behavior.
Religion is quiet often filled with superstitious beliefs. We believe that if we do a religious 'act' we have in essence purchased a comprehensive protection policy or at the very least a fire insurance policy. I grew up with some Catholic friends who believed if they went to Friday night mass they could absolutely do whatever they wanted to do the rest of the week. But before I seem too smug I should point out that I grew up in a religious tradition that in essence taught the same thing about baptism- as long as you are baptized by being fully immersed in water and saying the correct words and verbally acknowledging acceptance of the correct belief about Jesus Christ God has to let you into heaven. It did not really matter if I treated people with respect or allowed God to use me because I had done what I needed to get into heaven.
The Verge Missional Network has a great clip about 'praying Jesus into your heart' describing how that the Bible does not ever tell us we become a Christian by performing a ritual.
Verge Clip
The problem with believing that we have become O.K. with God by performing an external ritual is that it completely misses the point of the Bible. The point of the Bible, both Old and New Testament, is that God desires to have our heart, not just our actions. Why? If God has control of our heart then our actions will follow suit. But even more powerful than that is that God desires to fill us with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the affirmation of our salvation from sins and the Spirit is God's power within us. If we have allowed the Spirit of God to dwell within us then our actions are powered not by our own selfish desires but by the Spirit of God.
When we believe that we are O.K. with God because of some act we have done there is no need for God's Spirit to dwell within us because through our own power we have accomplished salvation, WE have done what is needed to be saved. There is no need for Jesus Christ to do anything. These external religious acts that save us consequently become nothing more than a superstitious belief.
In the absence of the indwelling power of the Spirit within our life we are left with nothing except external ritual to provide us salvation (which is a false salvation) forcing us to become focused upon the quality of our external ritual. We have to make sure that everyone performs the external ritual to perfection and we have to point out why that people in other religious groups who have focused upon alternate external rituals are inferior to our religious group because of their choice of external ritual. This type of religion is hollow and a waste of time.
However this is not what the Bible describes. The Bible does not describe religion to us- it describes relationship with the God of the universe. It describes a God who creates an entire universe but who is focused upon the beings created in His image. It describes how these beings became separated from their creator by sin. It describes God's long process to remove sin so that once again the loving father can walk side by side with his children created in His image. It describes how that God the Son lived and died to pay the price of sin so that all who accept His gift of grace may be redeemed. It describes how that indwelt with the power of the Holy Spirit we survive in a world damaged by sin until God brings this age to a close. It describes God's plan to redeem and restore this world so that freed from sin we can be resurrected to a new life in a new physical body in the new realm where God and His people will dwell together.
It is an insult to cheapen Christianity to the point that is nothing more than a set of rules and actions to perform; a prayer to be said, a baptism to be done, a worship assembly to attend, a communion to eat...
Christianity is a radical transformation because we have been redeemed by a radical God who desires to fill us with a transforming Spirit. How can you tell if you are allowing God to fill you? The message of the author of life will overfill your life and splash onto those around you.
Religion is quiet often filled with superstitious beliefs. We believe that if we do a religious 'act' we have in essence purchased a comprehensive protection policy or at the very least a fire insurance policy. I grew up with some Catholic friends who believed if they went to Friday night mass they could absolutely do whatever they wanted to do the rest of the week. But before I seem too smug I should point out that I grew up in a religious tradition that in essence taught the same thing about baptism- as long as you are baptized by being fully immersed in water and saying the correct words and verbally acknowledging acceptance of the correct belief about Jesus Christ God has to let you into heaven. It did not really matter if I treated people with respect or allowed God to use me because I had done what I needed to get into heaven.
The Verge Missional Network has a great clip about 'praying Jesus into your heart' describing how that the Bible does not ever tell us we become a Christian by performing a ritual.
Verge Clip
The problem with believing that we have become O.K. with God by performing an external ritual is that it completely misses the point of the Bible. The point of the Bible, both Old and New Testament, is that God desires to have our heart, not just our actions. Why? If God has control of our heart then our actions will follow suit. But even more powerful than that is that God desires to fill us with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the affirmation of our salvation from sins and the Spirit is God's power within us. If we have allowed the Spirit of God to dwell within us then our actions are powered not by our own selfish desires but by the Spirit of God.
When we believe that we are O.K. with God because of some act we have done there is no need for God's Spirit to dwell within us because through our own power we have accomplished salvation, WE have done what is needed to be saved. There is no need for Jesus Christ to do anything. These external religious acts that save us consequently become nothing more than a superstitious belief.
In the absence of the indwelling power of the Spirit within our life we are left with nothing except external ritual to provide us salvation (which is a false salvation) forcing us to become focused upon the quality of our external ritual. We have to make sure that everyone performs the external ritual to perfection and we have to point out why that people in other religious groups who have focused upon alternate external rituals are inferior to our religious group because of their choice of external ritual. This type of religion is hollow and a waste of time.
However this is not what the Bible describes. The Bible does not describe religion to us- it describes relationship with the God of the universe. It describes a God who creates an entire universe but who is focused upon the beings created in His image. It describes how these beings became separated from their creator by sin. It describes God's long process to remove sin so that once again the loving father can walk side by side with his children created in His image. It describes how that God the Son lived and died to pay the price of sin so that all who accept His gift of grace may be redeemed. It describes how that indwelt with the power of the Holy Spirit we survive in a world damaged by sin until God brings this age to a close. It describes God's plan to redeem and restore this world so that freed from sin we can be resurrected to a new life in a new physical body in the new realm where God and His people will dwell together.
It is an insult to cheapen Christianity to the point that is nothing more than a set of rules and actions to perform; a prayer to be said, a baptism to be done, a worship assembly to attend, a communion to eat...
Christianity is a radical transformation because we have been redeemed by a radical God who desires to fill us with a transforming Spirit. How can you tell if you are allowing God to fill you? The message of the author of life will overfill your life and splash onto those around you.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Day 105!
Today is the 105th day of my Cipro antibiotic side effects mess and I am doing really good. I would say that I am 95% recovered. I have been pushing through all the side effects working out with increasing intensity for the last month in a pool and then for the first time yesterday I rode a bike! I have been itching to get back up and going again on a bike and finally got to that point. I rode 8.7 miles at an average speed of 16.7 miles per hour which was better than I thought I would be able to do.
It has been a long hard journey that I could really do without having to repeat again. I have wrestled through muscle tremors and spasms, muscle weakness, chest pain, tendon pain, joint pain, mental fog, depression, and hallucinations all caused by the fluoroquinolone antibiotic I took- Cipro which is similar to Avelox and Levaquin. ( see article http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/20/fluoroquinolones-side-effects.aspx )
I have kept up with other people who have experienced side effects to fluoroquinolone antibiotics and began to realize I have improved quicker than other's who have had these severe side effects and I think it has to do with the 3 things that I focused upon for recovery. I discovered along the way that the people who had experienced severe side effects to fluoroquinolone antibiotics and then took additional medications to treat the side effects actually got worse with some of those never recovering and being permanently disabled so I determined from the start my solution would not include additional medications to solve the problem caused by medication.
The thing that I began doing from the start was praying and begging God to heal me because it was traumatic to go from being very physically active to being completely unable to walk in a matter of a few days. Three weeks into the ordeal the elders from church prayed over me and anointed me with oil asking for God's healing. I would have been very satisfied with instant miraculous healing but it did not happen that way. As I spent time thinking about my situation from God's point of view I began to realize some interesting things. I could imagine God looking at me and saying 'of course you are having problems, you put a stupid chemical concoction in your body that is known to cause problems because you wanted to feel better quickly.' This made me realize that there are times it is better for God not to heal us and instead to allow us to wrestle with what we've done to ourselves because quiet honestly sometimes the only way I can learn something is through experiencing the natural consequences of what I've done.
This led me to realize that there are times that I/we put our faith and trust in something other than God. In this particular case I had put my trust in a medication to heal me. It had never even occurred to me to deal with the spiritual side of taking medicine at the drop of a hat, that is it had never occurred to me until I had no choice but to be forced to contemplate how different things would have been if I had spent some time in prayer before I did anything else. For us in the modern United States we like to put our faith in science and medicine before we put our faith in God. All in all this experience has shaken me to the core because I thought I was doing really good at putting my faith in God and instead God has helped me to see how far I need to go to honestly put my faith in Him.
Twice in the first week of dealing with the extreme side effects I encountered a secondary problem of having extreme reverse reactions to pain relieving medications which produced greatly magnified pain instead of alleviating pain. I discovered this apparently happens because of the way in which the Cipro antibiotic changes your brain chemistry. This launched me into a quest to figure out how to get better apart from taking any type of medication. In fact it has now been around 90 days since I have any medicine of any kind at all and I plan to keep it that way. I had a chiropractor who for years told me God did not make our bodies to need medicine to function correctly but I did not fully understand what he was trying to tell me until now. Consequently I began to seek out what would help my body function as good as it possibly could so that the amazing work God did of creating my body and my immune system could be maximized.
I began visiting my chiropractor which provided some improvement but the most dramatic improvement came about as the result of visiting an alternative allergy specialist who utilized a number of non invasive and non medical techniques to help eliminate my body's bad reaction to the medication. ( see www.naet.com for more information). I discovered this group of practitioners when I lived in Colorado and had developed a whole range of debilitating food allergies. An NAET practitioner in Colorado helped to completely eliminate my food allergies and as a side bonus also eliminated my severe allergy to bee stings. It simply involves holding the substance you are reacting to while the practitioner stimulates significant pressure points on your body. When it occurred to me that I was for all practical purposes having an allergic reaction to Cipro I decided I would seek out an NAET practitioner in Houston. After my first visit there was dramatic improvement- it shut down my muscles tremors and spasms. As the NAET practitioner worked with me he discovered that I had been over exposed to a number of things including the metal lead which may have contributed to why the Cipro caused such a severe reaction. The upside is that I may come out better on the far side of this whole ordeal than when I started!
The temptation would be to say the NAET treatment is amazing and begin to elevate it to the same status as we currently tend to elevate medicine but the reality is that the NAET practitioners are simply working with our body to help stimulate the process that God set in motion within our body. The miracle here is not the treatment, the miracle is God's amazing process of creating our body so that it can heal itself. The mistake we make with medicine is that we believe that we can only be healed with medicine- which is why I am opposed to our current nationalized health care because it works from the assumption that all that everyone needs to be healthy is an array of medicines.
I have a new found commitment to continue to discover ways to help my body work how God designed it to work instead of working against it. A few things I have discovered have to do with diet; stay away from Canola oil- it's very bad news, stay away from artifical sweeteners including Splenda- our body does not have any natural enzymes to break them down, stay away from white flour, stay away as much as possible from processed foods...But I also am at a new starting point of discovering how many ways there in which I don't put God as Lord of my life and instead put other things as the Lord of my life- I think that is called idolatry.
Often we think the reason we need to put God as the Lord of our Life has to do with an eternity with God in heaven but the reality is that it also has to do with having a better life right now.
It has been a long hard journey that I could really do without having to repeat again. I have wrestled through muscle tremors and spasms, muscle weakness, chest pain, tendon pain, joint pain, mental fog, depression, and hallucinations all caused by the fluoroquinolone antibiotic I took- Cipro which is similar to Avelox and Levaquin. ( see article http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/20/fluoroquinolones-side-effects.aspx )
I have kept up with other people who have experienced side effects to fluoroquinolone antibiotics and began to realize I have improved quicker than other's who have had these severe side effects and I think it has to do with the 3 things that I focused upon for recovery. I discovered along the way that the people who had experienced severe side effects to fluoroquinolone antibiotics and then took additional medications to treat the side effects actually got worse with some of those never recovering and being permanently disabled so I determined from the start my solution would not include additional medications to solve the problem caused by medication.
The thing that I began doing from the start was praying and begging God to heal me because it was traumatic to go from being very physically active to being completely unable to walk in a matter of a few days. Three weeks into the ordeal the elders from church prayed over me and anointed me with oil asking for God's healing. I would have been very satisfied with instant miraculous healing but it did not happen that way. As I spent time thinking about my situation from God's point of view I began to realize some interesting things. I could imagine God looking at me and saying 'of course you are having problems, you put a stupid chemical concoction in your body that is known to cause problems because you wanted to feel better quickly.' This made me realize that there are times it is better for God not to heal us and instead to allow us to wrestle with what we've done to ourselves because quiet honestly sometimes the only way I can learn something is through experiencing the natural consequences of what I've done.
This led me to realize that there are times that I/we put our faith and trust in something other than God. In this particular case I had put my trust in a medication to heal me. It had never even occurred to me to deal with the spiritual side of taking medicine at the drop of a hat, that is it had never occurred to me until I had no choice but to be forced to contemplate how different things would have been if I had spent some time in prayer before I did anything else. For us in the modern United States we like to put our faith in science and medicine before we put our faith in God. All in all this experience has shaken me to the core because I thought I was doing really good at putting my faith in God and instead God has helped me to see how far I need to go to honestly put my faith in Him.
Twice in the first week of dealing with the extreme side effects I encountered a secondary problem of having extreme reverse reactions to pain relieving medications which produced greatly magnified pain instead of alleviating pain. I discovered this apparently happens because of the way in which the Cipro antibiotic changes your brain chemistry. This launched me into a quest to figure out how to get better apart from taking any type of medication. In fact it has now been around 90 days since I have any medicine of any kind at all and I plan to keep it that way. I had a chiropractor who for years told me God did not make our bodies to need medicine to function correctly but I did not fully understand what he was trying to tell me until now. Consequently I began to seek out what would help my body function as good as it possibly could so that the amazing work God did of creating my body and my immune system could be maximized.
I began visiting my chiropractor which provided some improvement but the most dramatic improvement came about as the result of visiting an alternative allergy specialist who utilized a number of non invasive and non medical techniques to help eliminate my body's bad reaction to the medication. ( see www.naet.com for more information). I discovered this group of practitioners when I lived in Colorado and had developed a whole range of debilitating food allergies. An NAET practitioner in Colorado helped to completely eliminate my food allergies and as a side bonus also eliminated my severe allergy to bee stings. It simply involves holding the substance you are reacting to while the practitioner stimulates significant pressure points on your body. When it occurred to me that I was for all practical purposes having an allergic reaction to Cipro I decided I would seek out an NAET practitioner in Houston. After my first visit there was dramatic improvement- it shut down my muscles tremors and spasms. As the NAET practitioner worked with me he discovered that I had been over exposed to a number of things including the metal lead which may have contributed to why the Cipro caused such a severe reaction. The upside is that I may come out better on the far side of this whole ordeal than when I started!
The temptation would be to say the NAET treatment is amazing and begin to elevate it to the same status as we currently tend to elevate medicine but the reality is that the NAET practitioners are simply working with our body to help stimulate the process that God set in motion within our body. The miracle here is not the treatment, the miracle is God's amazing process of creating our body so that it can heal itself. The mistake we make with medicine is that we believe that we can only be healed with medicine- which is why I am opposed to our current nationalized health care because it works from the assumption that all that everyone needs to be healthy is an array of medicines.
I have a new found commitment to continue to discover ways to help my body work how God designed it to work instead of working against it. A few things I have discovered have to do with diet; stay away from Canola oil- it's very bad news, stay away from artifical sweeteners including Splenda- our body does not have any natural enzymes to break them down, stay away from white flour, stay away as much as possible from processed foods...But I also am at a new starting point of discovering how many ways there in which I don't put God as Lord of my life and instead put other things as the Lord of my life- I think that is called idolatry.
Often we think the reason we need to put God as the Lord of our Life has to do with an eternity with God in heaven but the reality is that it also has to do with having a better life right now.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
What Makes Christianity Different From Any Other Religion?
The Youth Ministry at Sugar Grove has been learning about various world religions by letting 2 of the teens teach a class each week about a pair of religions. Some of my kids have taught some of those classes so we have had some fun conversations at home about various religions as well as about Christianity in the last couple of weeks. During this same time period I have also had a great time reconnecting with a 'kid' from one of my youth groups who I have not been around in almost 20 years. She has shared with me her horror story about marrying a Mormon guy and the conversations with her bishop questioning her dedication to the Mormon faith since she wasn't having enough babies.
These conversations recall an ah ha moment I had about 18 years ago when I was teaching a religions class with a group of teens. As I taught through this class the question that began to surface in my mind was "What makes Christianity any different than any other religion in the world?" I had grown up learning that Christianity was about going to church on Sunday, being baptized by being immersed in water and saying the right words, not using a piano to worship God, and a few other things like this. As I researched and taught through this religions class it started to stand out to me that all religions were similar; you believe something about a deity, you have a set of requirements to do in a formal setting, and you have a set of requirements to do in life. And why do you do these things? So that the deity or the higher force will be happy with you and move you to a better place. In other words... you earn your way into the presence of the deity or a better place. The deity is important but ultimately it is what you do, not what the deity does.
The 'kid' from my youth group told me when she first married the Mormon guy that Mormonism has a much better set of rules than Christianity- their rules were much more concise than the rules she had grown up with in a Christian church- so that was why she was converting to Mormonism. This was for me another ah ha moment. If picking a religion is nothing more than finding the set of rules and beliefs that work best for you then what is the point? If it is simply about a set of rules and beliefs then the core of the religion is actually nothing more than a myth- the power of that religion is not in the reality of what it believes but simply in the rules you must follow.
In the class I had been teaching I had to confront the falseness of what I had been taught growing up- that Christianity was about doing the right things and going to the right church. This is not Christianity. It is a humanistic offshoot of true Christianity. True Christianity is different than any other religion in the world. True Christianity is not about what we do (even though we like to make it about what we do), it is about what Jesus did.
God made the world including us. Sin entered the world and separated us from God. God then began a process to ensure that we had the chance to once again be with him- to again walk with him in the garden. This process centered upon Jesus Christ satisfying the demands of sin. What is my role in this process? Accepting the gift He has offered. Period.
Viewing Christianity as a set of rules cheapens all that Jesus did. It is much easier to view Christianity as a set of rules. It is much easier to think that if we go to our priest on Friday night and confess our sins we are ok. It is much easier to think if we are immersed in water then we are ok. It is much easier to view Christianity as a legal requirement than a relationship. However the consequences for viewing Christianity as a set of rules are immense. We take the power from God and put it in our hands. And since we are not God we make our religion no better than any other religion and we end up in nothing more than a pissing match arguing about whose set of rules is best.
Christianity is not about rules; go to church, be baptized, take communion, don't do this, do this... But on the other side of this pendulum we also make a mistake in thinking that we can detach Christianity from boundaries, behaviors, and beliefs. We go to church on a Sunday morning not to satisfy the legal requirements of being in a worship service but to gain and give encouragement to other believers as we focus upon our God through worship. We are baptized not to meet the minimum required standards to enter heaven but to express through an outward symbol the passion within our hearts to accept the gift of grace offered to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism does not save us, Jesus Christ saves us.
What makes Christianity different than other religions? It's not what we do, it's what Jesus Christ has done for us.
These conversations recall an ah ha moment I had about 18 years ago when I was teaching a religions class with a group of teens. As I taught through this class the question that began to surface in my mind was "What makes Christianity any different than any other religion in the world?" I had grown up learning that Christianity was about going to church on Sunday, being baptized by being immersed in water and saying the right words, not using a piano to worship God, and a few other things like this. As I researched and taught through this religions class it started to stand out to me that all religions were similar; you believe something about a deity, you have a set of requirements to do in a formal setting, and you have a set of requirements to do in life. And why do you do these things? So that the deity or the higher force will be happy with you and move you to a better place. In other words... you earn your way into the presence of the deity or a better place. The deity is important but ultimately it is what you do, not what the deity does.
The 'kid' from my youth group told me when she first married the Mormon guy that Mormonism has a much better set of rules than Christianity- their rules were much more concise than the rules she had grown up with in a Christian church- so that was why she was converting to Mormonism. This was for me another ah ha moment. If picking a religion is nothing more than finding the set of rules and beliefs that work best for you then what is the point? If it is simply about a set of rules and beliefs then the core of the religion is actually nothing more than a myth- the power of that religion is not in the reality of what it believes but simply in the rules you must follow.
In the class I had been teaching I had to confront the falseness of what I had been taught growing up- that Christianity was about doing the right things and going to the right church. This is not Christianity. It is a humanistic offshoot of true Christianity. True Christianity is different than any other religion in the world. True Christianity is not about what we do (even though we like to make it about what we do), it is about what Jesus did.
God made the world including us. Sin entered the world and separated us from God. God then began a process to ensure that we had the chance to once again be with him- to again walk with him in the garden. This process centered upon Jesus Christ satisfying the demands of sin. What is my role in this process? Accepting the gift He has offered. Period.
Viewing Christianity as a set of rules cheapens all that Jesus did. It is much easier to view Christianity as a set of rules. It is much easier to think that if we go to our priest on Friday night and confess our sins we are ok. It is much easier to think if we are immersed in water then we are ok. It is much easier to view Christianity as a legal requirement than a relationship. However the consequences for viewing Christianity as a set of rules are immense. We take the power from God and put it in our hands. And since we are not God we make our religion no better than any other religion and we end up in nothing more than a pissing match arguing about whose set of rules is best.
Christianity is not about rules; go to church, be baptized, take communion, don't do this, do this... But on the other side of this pendulum we also make a mistake in thinking that we can detach Christianity from boundaries, behaviors, and beliefs. We go to church on a Sunday morning not to satisfy the legal requirements of being in a worship service but to gain and give encouragement to other believers as we focus upon our God through worship. We are baptized not to meet the minimum required standards to enter heaven but to express through an outward symbol the passion within our hearts to accept the gift of grace offered to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism does not save us, Jesus Christ saves us.
What makes Christianity different than other religions? It's not what we do, it's what Jesus Christ has done for us.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Disciples
Since January Sugar Grove's elders and ministers have stopped their normal meetings and instead have been focused upon praying and seeking God's guidance about what He desires Sugar Grove to be and to do. There has been a great deal of prayer and as time has gone along more and more discussion. One thing that God has continued to bring back to our attention has been Jesus' words in Matthew 28 "...All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations..."
Disciples... what is a disciple? Freedictionary.com tells us that a disciple is:
Disciples... what is a disciple? Freedictionary.com tells us that a disciple is:
a. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.
b. An active adherent, as of a movement or philosophy.
In the context of Matthew 28 Jesus command is to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ. The question Sugar Grove's leadership have wrestled with is two fold; are we ourselves being shaped into being Christ's disciples? Are we going and making disciples of others?
Another question that is being asked is how do we know if we are a disciple of Christ. Traditionally our measuring stick of discipleship has focused upon a few external actions; Do we go to church every time the door is opened? Do we study the Bible? Do we believe the right things about God, the Bible, and his church?
However the problem with using these as the measuring stick for being a disciple of Christ is that even Judas Iscariot meet these criteria. He believed the right things. He walked the road with Jesus. He was there every time the 'doors' were opened. He knew and did everything right but it did not make it into his heart.
A disciple is someone who allows the teachings of their master to penetrate their heart and in turn impact every single dimension of their life.
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