Jesus

They speak ill

On 03.02.10, In Dangerous thoughts, Go check this out, How unCanadian of me, Jesus, By Liam

I noticed that John Piper asked if the Church can grow when it has a bad name. He quoted the book of Acts “everywhere this sect is spoken against.” (28:22) For those who don’t know, Acts recounts the story of Christianity’s explosion after the death, and resurrection of Christ.

I thought this was an overly simplistic description, à la twitter; and perhaps a dangerous justification for the Western Church as it currently stands. The first century church was a group of the powerless doing powerful things. They loved the outcasts. They healed the sick. They got right in with the poor, inviting them into their homes, and selling what they had to help those who had nothing. They were despised because they associated with the despised. We are despised because we are despicable.

I remember watching the lead singer of Pedro the Lion talking about the modern church, and saying how people have this illusion that we are living in the book of acts. I would agree in as much as I’m sick of people taking statements like “they numbered around 5000″ in Jerusalem and using this as a justification for a church that barely functions as a place of learning, let alone of place of community. Every time we use scripture to justify ourselves, instead of having it convict us, we are in a dangerous position.

We have to become powerless, making ourselves as nothing, and become despised because of our living out Christ’s difficult call before we can claim the context of Acts 28:22. Otherwise we are hopelessly out of context, yet again.

For an example of people who are living it out please watch Shane Claibourne and Oscar Muriu on the Day Four video at the Urbana website.

Praise Idols

On 02.09.10, In Dangerous thoughts, Jesus, Leadership, Music, Religion, By Liam

I just read this post on worship bands by Fearsome Tycoon over at the Boar’s Head Tavern. He has this to say about worship bands.

A huge part of it is theological. There is no way to do “praise band” without turning the service into a “show.” Disagree? Find me one praise band that plays from a loft behind the congregation, where no one can see them except the pastor. A core purpose of a pop-rock performance is draw attention to the performers. I have watched and played in praise bands. I’ve never seen one that didn’t want, no, need to be seen. A guy with a guitar does not have the liturgical significance that an altar, a Bible, a crucifix, a font, or even a simple pulpit does. And I find it ironic that evangelicals tend to label as “idolatry” any and all significance attached to physical objects, yet their service is completely fixated on the power of the personality of the performer.

I had a strong reaction to this post. I have played in, and led, praise bands. I was reminded of an experience I had a year and a half ago. I was leading the worship team for the service we would have every Friday night on campus. We had lost the location we had played in the year previously, and I wanted to take the opportunity of a new space to get the band out of the way. The president of the Christian Fellowship and I decided to move the band to the side, facing the screen and words along with everyone else.

People did not like it.

The reaction was one of the toughest moments I went through with Christians, and is probably one of the reasons I have had little desire to try leading a team since. In discussions with other leaders of the group we moved the band back to the front, and reengaged the show. I have struggled with that whole experience for the 18 months that have passed since. I know I let my anger and the insecurity of being a new leader get in the way of properly explaining why I felt like having the band at the front was not the ideal. I also wonder to what extent we have been trained to mimic the leader at the front. The modern congregation feels lost when all they have are the words and God to meditate on, thus the worship leader serves as the model for engagement. I don’t think this is necessarily correct, but is it wholly incorrect? To what extent are sermons, liturgy, and prayers any less a moment where the leader’s ego can get in the way of God?

As a person who still plays in a worship band, and enjoys it, I don’t believe that the spirit can’t move when a band is at the front. I believe people can have a legitimate encounter with Christ. I do believe that there is a danger of idolatry in this current iteration of “church.” I believe though, that on the opposite end there is a danger in idolizing an irrelevant, or worse incomprehensible, liturgy and hymns at the expense of a meaningful service for the participants.

I thought about what Nakedpastor said about this recently:

Abraham Heschel once said that the first commandment… to not have any other gods before me… is the first one because idolatry is the root of all the others. Calvin said our minds are factories working around the clock in the production of idols, and labyrinths of idolatrous thinking. The church is constantly setting up idols for people to believe in. Then when these idols, these small gods, don’t deliver, and the people for good reason lose their faith in them, we blame the people for it.

I think to some extent idolatry lurks in every corner, and it is only with a Christ-centered team with strong accountability that any church can overcome this. Egomaniacs and psychopaths survive in personality dominated churches or movements; teams and accountability prevent them from ruining everything.

Tagged with: Accountability • Church • Team • Worship

January

On 02.03.10, In Jesus, Me!, Navel Gazing, By Liam

January was a strange month. It started out in one of my favorite places with some of my favorite people Ottawa, with my friends from Augustine College. I returned to Toronto to face a few realities though.

First among these realities was that 2009 was not the best year of my life, not even close. Somewhere in the process of coming home from school and turning a long distance relationship into a regular relationship I lost sight of the big picture. I realized last month just how self-involved I had been, and to some extent still am. I realized that I had not been able to see past my own nose, my own problems, and my own wants and desires to recognize the deleterious effects my self-involvement had on my relationships.

What I’m starting to realize is that when Christ told his disciples to die to themselves it was because the self is selfish. When we live in Christ all our relationships find a new, right, ordering. This ordering operates according to the original design for human relationships. I have realized in the past month, as I’ve tried to incorporate disciplines of prayer, study, and fasting into my life, that the more I lean on Christ, the better my peripheral relationships become. The more I turn inwards, the more I treat others like objects. My prayer while attending Candlemas tonight was this: “Lord, let me love you first, so that I may love others through you.”

I can only care, and love, so much from myself, before what I want gets in the way. I write this like I’ve got it figured out, but those who know me well know that the selfish me lurks and rears his ugly face far too quickly still. I can only say I’m growing.

We hold these things in tension.

On 10.28.09, In Jesus, Not Einsteins Relativity, Religion, By Liam

Yesterday it may have seemed like I was picking on a church here in Toronto. I made a comment that I believe is justifiable criticism. Now I would like to say one very positive thing the pastor said, that I think more churches could learn from. His comment was that they were a church that had Arminians and Calvinists, among other groups that do not necessarily hold the same theological viewpoints.

It was a powerful statement, whether intended or not, as to what things are essential. Instead of fighting each other, dividing and splitting over obscure theological unknowables, we should be aiming for unity. Let’s be honest, we cannot sort out the paradoxes of theology. God is an infinite being who holds within himself everything we view as opposite. To borrow a phrase from a quantum physicist, if you think you understand God, you don’t. We are given powerful indicators as to his character, his goodness, and his love for us. But we will never know this side of heaven, and possibly the other side as well, how the paradoxes unfold together.

I attend a Christian Classics Reading Group, hosted by my good friend Matthew Hoskin and a few weeks back we were discussing the creeds. While discussing why we need them it seemed to me that they are powerful forces for unity. They are a test of orthodoxy if you will. Instead of asking if someone is a five point calvinist, or some other strange standard for determining their orthodoxy, should we not be asking instead if they believe the Apostles, Nicene, or Athanasian creed? If we accept Christ as the center of Christianity, theology should not be a force for division.

Fly-Ins and Mega Churches

On 10.27.09, In Jesus, Leadership, Uncategorized, By Liam

Yesterday morning I was at a rather large church here in Toronto. It was a good service, the preacher there is very good. It was strange though because it was one of their pastors last days. He was changing roles. Instead of replacing him from within the congregation they had flown in a pastor from Australia. The church is a good church, the teaching is good. But it is a church of thousands, I found it hard to believe that they could not find someone from within their own community to step up and take a leadership role.

I hesitate to say at what size a church should be seeking pastors from within the community, because Christian discipleship means any church should be raising up leaders from within its congregation. I guess it just stuns me more when a church that has thousands to draw from goes off continent to find a new pastor. Shouldn’t finding the right person be easier when you have a large church?

Tagged with: Church • Discipleship • Leadership

The New Pharisiasm

On 12.22.08, In A.D.D., Go check this out, Jesus, By Liam

I was always fascinated by the pharisees. When I learned that they had created a whole model of living that had the weight of scripture with extrascriptural practices I could see why Jesus, the inspirer of scripture, was so mad at them. Neil Cole says we’re doing the same thing now.

Along the same line, the church has laid down what it considers healthy constraints to safeguard the righteous standards of God’s people. Directives are given such as: go to church (read a religious event on Sundays or in some cases Saturdays), don’t listen to secular music, stay away from R-rated movies, and abstain from all alcohol. These are not bad ideas for some people and may even be wise suggestions given the right context. Unfortunately, what begins as suggestion soon attains the clout of holy writ, especially when religious leaders pronounce them with authority and support them with Scripture verses ripped violently out of context. In little time we find ourselves functioning in a religious culture that has biblical principles intertwined with man-made injunctions, and few can distinguish between them. In fact we are certain to mix up the two, and spiritual priorities get messed up.

This is the problem, people start to think going to Church and living a good life abstaining from various “evil” things is all it takes to be a “good” Christian. Unfortuately,we’re called to so much more. As Cole says, we’re called to be living “in radical obedience to his word” not the extra stuff.

He is risen indeed

On 03.23.08, In Dangerous thoughts, Jesus, By Liam

and on this hangs everything.

A Prayer.

On 02.21.08, In Jesus, By Liam

God, You’ve got to be out there.
Because what do I do if you aren’t?
Amen.

Writing love on my arms.

On 02.13.08, In Dangerous thoughts, Jesus, By Liam

I feel a bit like an emo kid right now. I noticed that a few of my friends on Facebook were attending an event called Love is the Movement. I checked it out and the idea was to write the word “Love” on your arms on February 13th, a day before the celebration of love, as a way of spreading awareness about depression and suicide. Depression affects 121 Million people worldwide. 15% of the population of deveoped countries suffers from severe depression. Suicide is the second leading cause of death between ages 15-24 and the leading cause of death between ages 25-49. One in 25 Canadians will attempt suicide in their lifetimes. These are all reasons why I’m writing love on my arms.

There’s a second reason for me to write love on my arms though. It is because of someone who wrote love into his hands, feet, head, and side. It is about a God who so loved us he allowed himself to be horrifically murdered so that his love could break through into this broken world. It is about a God who walked beside me, and carried me, during my early teenage years where at the end of most days I couldn’t see a point to seeing tomorrow.

That’s why I’m writing love on my arms. So that people know they are loved. They are loved by others and they are loved by God.

Tagged with: Depression • Love • Love Movement • Suicide • To Write Love on Her Arms

Know your enemy…

On 01.29.08, In Jesus, Leadership, Quotes, Religion, By Liam

Here’s a thought that just struck me while reading this. Whoever a Christian calls his enemy he has to love. This is the basis of true revolution. The successful revolutions of the 20th Century, Be it Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement, Mandela’s anti-apartheid movement, or even Gandhi’s movement to free India were love revolutions.

People don’t know how to respond to non violence; people don’t know how to hate love. Someone asked Gandhi how he expected the British to leave India, he replied “as friends.” How do you respond to that? The paradox of the Death and Resurrection is the triumph of Love over Violence. The triumph of love over power.*

Instead of trying to win control of political systems, instead of trying to rule the world, perhaps we should be learning how to love our enemies. If people living in the slums of the Rift Vally weren’t hungry would they be killing each other?

How do we put our love in action? It isn’t enough to say the words, we need to act. We need to feed the hungry instead of indulging in our own gluttony. When we love those we despise we change everything, from how we perceive them to how they perceive us, and all the implications in between.

Turn the Rage Against the Machine song inside out: Know your enemy… so that you can love them. It’s harder to love, but sometimes that which is more difficult is more effective.

*for more on this read “Which Jesus?” by Tony Campolo

Tagged with: Gandhi • Jesus • Kenya • Love • Martin Luther King • Nelson Mandela • Peace • Religion

They speak ill

Praise Idols

January

We hold these things in tension.

Fly-Ins and Mega Churches

The New Pharisiasm

He is risen indeed

A Prayer.

Writing love on my arms.

Know your enemy…

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