Scare the Hell Out of ‘Em

Some interesting stuff around the blogosphere around these themes…

Molly at Adventures in Mercy posted about her experience of praying the “sinner’s prayer” as a 4-year-old child. She describes what happened:

“More than any other mental image, I pictured God as my Shepherd and I loved Him. Then one night, a visiting missionary’s child told me that God was going to send me to Hell where I would burn forever in fire.

I already loved God. The only thing that night did was change the way I viewed Him. Instead of a Shepherd with a smiling face, I now had a different image of Him, a schizophrenic one, if you will. On the one hand, there was the good Jesus who loved me. On the other hand, there was the Scary God who would burn me.”

Makeesha adds some great comments to this post in the ensuing discussion of hell, damnation, and the wrath of God. In response to this statement by another commenter, “One thing we do need to realize, however, is that God will send people to hell,” Makeesha answers:

My focus though, of my question, was not about a literal hell but rather if God literally sends people there. It’s an important point in terms of how we view God and view his role in our lives.

Brother Maynard has an interesting post today about the use of rapture as a scare tactic in evangelism. Being of similar age, his post was an interesting trip down memory lane for me. I found the words to “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” intact in the dusty corners of my memory bank.

I also remember seeing (the last time in 1980) “A Thief in the Night” several times and the sequel! Bonus points to the first person to post the name of the sequel without googling. (I confess I had to google it. I only remembered one word of the title.)

Brother Maynard’s words:

“I no longer consider it very loving to attempt to scare the hell out of people. You can get people to pray anything if they’re terrified enough.”

We talked some about this topic in my earlier post, The Wrath of God. There were also a lot of great comments and good discussion in the comment thread of that post. On that post, I said:

“Legalism requires the harsh language of sin, judgment, and wrath. But what if God is completely confident in the power of love to transform a heart without threats and intimidation?”

Another post that I wanted to link to was Steve’s post at Theological Musings, You Might Be Misrepresenting God If… This post is so good because it emphasizes that as God’s ambassadors, it is important that we are aware of the message we send. I will quote his first and last points. Be sure to visit his blog to read the rest.

• If your message is not filled with hope, you might be misrepresenting God.
• If you believe that one’s beliefs about baptism, bible translation, rapture timing, tongues, or a particular interpretation of Genesis 1-2 are absolute essentials to salvation and/or fellowship, you might be misrepresenting God.

A few concluding thoughts…

The most important thing about this whole topic to me is the image of God that is being portrayed. It really matters if the overall image of God being presented to the world by the church is actually a distorted caricature of His true nature.

If our calling is solely to make converts, then sure, go ahead and scare ‘em into making a decision. It is expedient for producing submission based upon fear, condemnation, and intimidation.

However, if our calling is to make disciples, then the approach must be different. A disciple is a relationship of surrender based upon trust and love. Therefore, the most important thing is that we accurately represent God to those who would choose to follow Him.

Books by Friends

I took care of a little shopping today by purchasing a couple of books for myself.

The first is an advent book by Brother Maynard, That You Might Believe.

This book is available to purchase through Lulu as a hardcopy or through Brother Maynard as a PDF or hardcopy. If you purchase a hardcopy, he will provide you the PDF link so that you can begin reading the advent entries until your copy arrives.

Brother Maynard has also put together an Advent group blog for those interested in participating. This is an open invitation, so just let him know if you are interested in joining in. With a little hesitancy, I have added my name to the group blog list.

However, I must confess…ssshhhhhhh…I am an advent virgin. Never, in my fairly long life, have I participated in advent.

I have been around it some and heard of it. I remember things about wreaths and purple candles and white candles and pop-up calendars and yada, yada, yada.

For some reason the same inability to hear that I experience when people talk about sports also kicks in when I hear about anything advent related. My brain disengages and the words just skip right on by. Until now, advent has had no personal meaning to me.

I respect Brother Maynard and I enjoy Scripture, especially John, so this seems like a good opportunity to at least attempt to understand advent. I will be blogging what it is like through the eyes of someone who has never participated in advent before.

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The other book I ordered today is Out of Print:A Novel by John Frye. The link will take you to the web page where you can order this book.

I’ve wanted this book since I first heard about it. I have always loved John’s perspective and the wisdom in his words, especially the creative way in which he expresses himself and his ability to bring vivid clarity to deep insights and thoughts.

You could wait until I review the book and tell you how wonderful it is, or you could just go ahead and treat yourself to a little Christmas gift, sure to both please and inspire you.

First a Meme

Update:  Glenn at Redreaming the Dream also tagged me for this meme.  You might be interested in reading his response and following the trail of others who have participated in this meme.

Over the weekend, I was tagged by Gary at Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit for a meme answering the question:

How would you define simple faith in Christ?

My simple answer is that I believe in Jesus – God expressed in human form. I believe that His birth, life, death, and resurrection restored my relationship with God.

Moving beyond the Sunday School answer…because of my faith in Christ, I choose to follow Him, to attempt to live a life submitted to His rule and reign in my life.

At the forefront of this is to love God with my heart, soul, mind, and strength. To be honest, when I consider that even my ability to love Him is dependent on Him first, I cannot really say that I know how to love Him. I still ask Him to teach me how to love Him.

This is what I know about loving God today…

• I can have meaningful times of worship and prayer.
• I can rest in and receive His love.
• I can extend His love to others in both words and action.

If you feel inspired to answer this question on your blog, please feel free to mention it in the comments and remember to link back to Gary’s blog  or Glenn’s blog.

1.New Post 2.Publish

Thanks to everyone who posted on the previous thread. My hope was that as people stopped by over the weekend, they would encounter the words of those who responded to that post, describing what the kingdom of God means to them. It meant a lot to me to experience the life and power in the words and ideas that you shared.

Sometimes I press the “new post” button because I have so much to say. Other times, like today, I press “new post” and just hope something will happen.

We had a nice holiday (Thanksgiving in the US) weekend. Fairly quiet. I chose not to participate in the crazy Friday shopping, although I admit to perusing the ads, and I ordered a laser printer online. I am shopping for a laptop also, and I probably should have ordered one, but I am still undecided on what I want. Feel free to offer your advice.

I hurt my back again on Saturday which leaves me feeling vincible(?). Is that the opposite of invincible? When you have trouble putting your own jeans on, it kind of puts the whole, “what could I do with my life?” question into perspective. At the moment being able to take care of my family and home seems like an accomplishment.

I recently finished a couple of books. I highly recommend Uprising by Erwin McManus. Hopefully I can share a few thoughts from his book soon. I also read The Divine Romance by Gene Edwards over the weekend. I picked it up at our library on the used book table for $1. It was interesting.

Monday was one of those crazy days where I hit the ground running and didn’t quit until evening, payback for presuming to take a couple of days off.

Depending on the demands of the day, I am here at the blog off and on throughout the day or I only have the quiet moments in the morning before the craziness begins.

When I am not here much during the week, I try to catch up with reading and responding to blogs on the weekend. Today I have a few items of blog business to take care of, a meme and some referring links, so I will probably post several times. For now, it is time to press “publish.”

Open Blog – Reminding Each Other

The kingdom of God is like…

We know that Jesus used that phrase many times never giving the same answer twice. From this we can see that there is no single right answer, but rather that the description of the kingdom of God is multi-faceted.

There is value in sharing with one another our understanding of the kingdom of God. In fact, it is the nature of the gift of prophecy that we would declare the nature of the King, the nature of His kingdom, and who we are as the citizens and people of God within that kingdom.

The comments from the previous post brought up so many great ideas along these lines. Rather than just my single-faceted perspective, I would like to open up the comments for everyone to share their reflections about the kingdom.

Whether you feel that your ideas are simple or profound, I would love to read about your glimpse of the King and His kingdom.

The following questions are simply to trigger your imagination. Feel free to answer with whatever is in your heart.

Who is our king? What is He like? Who is He to you? How would you describe this King to others?

What does it mean to be a citizen of God’s kingdom? What kind of a kingdom is it? What are the values of this kingdom? How do those values define us?

How do we participate in life in the kingdom? What opens our awareness to the dimension of the kingdom? What is our role individually and corporately in the kingdom?

Go ahead and let loose with whatever ideas come to mind, knowing that as you share, you help us all in remembering and imagining the kingdom of God.

Stolen Identity…or Maybe Just Misplaced

“What is the church?” is a prevalent question.

Within that phrase are the questions of what is the church supposed to be? what is the ideal model or structure? what is the best way to function as a church? These questions have been and will likely continue to be enthusiastically debated and discussed.

There is, however, a deeper underlying question…

“As the people of God, who are we?”

Herein lies the importance of rediscovering a theology of the kingdom of God, of awakening to an understanding of who we are as God’s people.

Regrettably, it is common for church people to view the kingdom as a vague unknowable mystery or as something relegated to the future. The present reality and nature of the kingdom of God has mostly not been understood.

However, if the very gospel that Jesus gave us is the gospel of the kingdom of God, and the church has not understood the kingdom, then what the heck have we been doing for all these years?!

Instead our identity has been shaped by organizations and denominations, and we have become much more comfortable with the question, “what church do you go to?” than the question, “what is the kingdom of God?”

It is because of a lack of understanding of the kingdom that we have not understood our identity as a people. We do not know where to place ourselves in God’s story.

This idea of remembering and rediscovering our identity is a recurring theme in emerging/missional conversations. It is the underlying message of Alan Hirsch’s book, The Forgotten Way.

Brother Maynard talks about remembering in answer to the question, “What would be the most important thing for a people living in exile?” He comes up with these three important points:

• They must remember who they are, and who their people are.
• They must remember what they have been promised.
• They must remember where their home is.

With our loss of identity, we also lost our true purpose. The entire concept of being missional must flow out of an understanding of the kingdom of God. Our missional purpose and identity is rooted in knowing our role and place within the kingdom.

Robbymac, in his article Chrysalis, explains it like this:

“The Jewish understanding of “salvation” was a holistic shalom, and our understanding of the in-breaking Kingdom needs to likewise be holistic – preaching the good news, caring for the poor and marginalized, and listening for the voice of the Father as He directs and empowers us by His Holy Spirit. Anything less would not reflect the fullness of the Kingdom that Jesus was announcing.”

The point is not whether we adopt the labels of emerging, missional, post-missional, or any other brand. The point is that we rediscover who we are as the people of God, that we learn what it means to be agents of His kingdom.

We are to be kingdom people wherever we are, looking at every day and every opportunity as an opportunity and a kingdom moment. The love and purpose of God is our motivation, His desire for shalom.

If we truly understand our identity, it impacts how we live and interact with others. We become agents of God’s grace, His love, the power of His life, and we understand better how to participate in His kingdom life on this earth.

The Emerging Kingdom

I’ve been wanting to write this post as an introductory explanation about my blog name change, but I’ve had some difficulty finding the words.

In spite of the fact that on the personality test I score high as a Thinker, in many ways I am more of a Senser or Feeler. I usually have feelings and impressions long before I ever find words for them.

I enjoy discovering other people who have the words that express the things I am sensing. One of the things that drew me into the emerging conversation was a resonance with the thoughts and ideas that emerging bloggers were discussing.

When I named my previous blog emerging grace, I didn’t really know or understand emergent, the emerging church, or the emerging movement. I had no particular allegiance to emerging as a movement.

Over the years there were things that I came to love about those who were emerging. I was never ashamed or embarrassed that the name of my blog associated me with this movement.

I believe that the emerging movement, knowingly or unknowingly, has been a part of a transformation that God desires in the church. Many have followed in obedience to an intentional shift that they perceive in what God is doing.

One aspect of this transformation is a greater understanding and revelation of the kingdom of God and our identity as the people of God in relation to His kingdom.

There are aspects of the emerging movement that may fall short of fully emerging, and aspects of the movement may systemize under other labels such as missional. We will always see the tendency to contain and take ownership of what God is doing, to name and brand and build monuments that give us a sense of place and position.

However, possibly under the radar, there will also continue to be a movement of God’s people living into the prophetic imagination of expressing His kingdom on earth.

I hope that this blog will reflect my growing understanding and participation in expressing the kingdom of God.

More on this later.

Addendum to Revealing Results

While considering your comments in the previous post, I ran across this post by John Santic that I believe has some bearing on this discussion.

“What is interesting to note is how popular the term “missional” has become. This popularity has spurned a question within me that I have sought to answer throughout the gathering. The question is: “To what degree has the term “missional” been co-opted by motives for numerical church growth”? 

My assessment…is that the term is being co-opted by some; however, there is a strong movement away from seeing “missional” as a programmatic tweak to an existing model and more a systemic change and critique to church growth assumptions.

How do I know this? People are exhausted by the tweaking and pulling of levers to never experience the depths of discipleship needed for missional transformation.” 

What do you think?  Is the meaning of the word being diluted to the degree that it is no longer meaningful?  Does it matter?

I’ll jump into the discussion as soon as I get a chance.

Revealing Results

There is a lot of discussion lately on blogs about the reveal study. I was planning on writing about this as a continuation of yesterday’s post. Today David Fitch has written an extensive post questioning if it is possible for a mega-church to change.

While I think it is beneficial to examine these systems and structures, what I would like to talk about is the trickle-down effect that occurs at the local level.

Watching the Bono/Hybels video and hearing from those who attended the leadership seminar this year, it seems that Bill has had a genuine change of heart concerning the focus of ministry. I see him as sincerely desiring to use his influence to steer his church and others toward more of an outward focus.

The trickle-down effect in our church is the first attempt that I have seen from a pastor in this community to encourage and inspire a mentality of service outside of the church beyond one-time special events. The broader conversation within the small groups reflects their desire to find avenues of service. People are brainstorming about programs and projects.

What I see is a national pastor with a desire to see the church have a more outward expression of service, a local pastor attempting to communicate that message, and sincerely good-hearted people seeking a vehicle to fulfill that expression.

I believe that individuals are being encouraged toward missional engagement. In fact, those who are already engaged are being noticed for and supported in their service within the community.

Let me take a few minutes here to comment on a couple of the points that David addressed:

1. Consumer mentality -

If this is mentality being taught, it should not be a surprise that members are passive. It has been said, “What you win them with, you win them to.” Passivity is a big problem in congregational-style churches. Training people to be consumers simply makes it even harder to overcome the strong tendencies toward passivity.

2. Institutional sustenance -

David said:

“The fact is it is incredibly difficult to make any change to the mammoth machine that might disrupt its ongoing capital performance.”

This pretty clearly reflects the dilemma between sacrificial giving and the priority of maintaining the institution. It is likely that the needs of the organization will always have highest priority.

In his saga of all things missional, Brother Maynard explained,

“The shift toward missional engagement entails a reconnection of the church with God’s mission and with his Kingdom, not as a single doctrine, idea, or value among many, but as fundamentally at the core of it’s being, connected inseparably with its raison d’être.”

My expectation is that the mega-church will continue to be an attractional evangelistic organization with potentially fruitful mission programs and projects.

While they perpetuate the problems inherent in the attractional/institutional model, there is no denying that the mega-church holds vast resources in terms of both money and manpower that have potential to be directed in amazingly beneficial ways.

Overcoming Cultural Barriers

The native american indian reservation in our area has been an ongoing concern of churches and ministries here. The issues of racism and culture clash in our region are between the native american people and the white people. While most people might not want to perpetuate the us/them mentality, history has created a cultural barrier that seems nearly impossible to overcome.First let me be clear that I have no experience in ministry to native americans. I speak simply as a concerned believer, raised in the midst of this aspect of racism in our culture, frustrated with the reality of the barriers that exist.

Outsiders often come in to this region critical of the fact that the church has done nothing about ministering to the poverty and need on the reservation. However, the reality is that there have been and continue to be many attempts to serve and to help.

Quite a few years ago, I remember listening to a native american pastor explain the frustration of preaching the gospel because it is rejected as the white man’s gospel.The damage that has been done to their identity as a people is so great. There are no easy answers. I pray that someone can inspire them with a message of dignity, opportunity, and hope that will allow them to reframe their story and their identity in the light of the gospel.

In the meantime, there is so much to learn and mentalities to be confronted in becoming a person who understands authentic ministry that is missional and incarnational rather than condescending and imperialistic.

This short video seemed appropriate to the situation.

(ht:Backyard Missionary)