The Resolute

The other day I was sitting on the toilet… shocking I know. When suddenly a thought hit me… why is it that I have to spend so much of my day doing things like sleeping, eating and using the toilet when I could be doing useful things like worshipping God. It was really frustrating.

Then, a few days later I was reading my bible and I realised, hang on a sec… maybe I am worshipping when I use the toilet. I was really excited. Let me explain. I’d flicked to Romans 12 and found this verse (Romans 12:1-3) “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Or in the NIV “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship”.

It seemed pretty clear to me from that verse that as Christians we only have one act of spiritual worship; that is sacrificing our lives to God. Therefore whether I’m going to church, hanging with my mates, using the toilet or going on a man-date with Gus (see his post for an explanation of the term Man-Date)- then I should be worshipping. That is I should be living as a sacrifice.

So the other day I went to Church, and I worshipped God. Then I went home, and I worshipped God. Then I went to Uni, and I worshipped God, and then I used the toilet and I was still worshipping God.

So to conclude, as long as we are living with God and not ourselves as the focus of our lives, then that is how we worship God. Which is pretty relieving, because it means I don’t have to do special ‘religious’ type things to worship him, but at the same time it’s challenging, because I can’t just go to Church and be done with it… God wants my whole life… not just the little bits we sometimes give him.

When a new person arrives at Church there are a few basic principles to follow:

1. Don’t approach them, even if no one else has, after all you don’t want them to be overwhelmed. Anyway, you’re priority is to the regular members.

2. Make sure you have cool nicknames for everybody and lots of in-jokes so that new people realise how awesome you all are.

3. Use lots of unexplained Christian jargon.

4. Talk about all the great times you guys have at social gatherings they didn’t go to, and talk really excitedly about upcoming events but don’t invite them to them… that would be too intimidating. Anyway you don’t want newbies ruining the group dynamics.

5. If you see them sitting by themselves leave it that way, they probably enjoy being alone in a new place where they don’t know anyone.

6. When talking with them after Church be sure not to ask them what they think of the sermon or find out whether or not they’re a Christian, and definitely don’t explain the gospel to them… you might put them off!

7. Don’t introduce yourself or your friends, it’s up to them to work out everybody’s names.

8. After their third week it’s fine to ignore them, by then they should have already fit in with the group.

9. Stand in really tight circles talking loudly too make it hard for them to approach… it’s important to weed out the weak people.

10. Remember it’s up to them to adjust to the group dynamics, don’t make any allowances for them or the fact they’re new.

St Andy’s is having a Men’s Breakfast in a couple of weeks. Here’s the promo video.

Not sure that it meets all the requirements envisaged by my last men’s ministry post…

Church jargon is assumed knowledge in most Christian gatherings. It’s also unlikely that anyone will explain it to new-comers. So we’ve created this basic primer. Unfortunately this is a little harder than it should be since the definition depends a lot on the users beliefs. And then the Americans also have their own definitions for everything too… they just want to be different.

Anyways here goes:

• Evangelical is a term used to describe Christians who believe the bible. You’d think it’d be a synonym for ‘Christian’… but some how it isn’t…
• Liberal is used to describe ‘Christians’ who think they can make up stuff.
• Holy, sanctified, sacred and saint are all related and mean kind of something like: to be set apart, declared holy.
• Hallelujah isn’t even English. When the Bible translators did their translating they forgot to translate it. It means something like “Praise the Lord”.
• Church means gathering, meeting or assembly. Although most people think it’s the name given to pointy roofed, old, cold, locked up buildings that Christians meet in once a week.
• Justification means to be declared righteous.
• Righteous means to meet God’s standard.
• Sin is when we rebel against God.
• Grace is a girls name. It also means a free, undeserved gift.
• Faith is also a girls name. It means trust. Although some people use it to refer to an ooie-gooie feeling inside them.
• Service means to work for someone else’s benefit, ie. to give help. People talk about church meetings as being ‘services’, one of those oddities since God doesn’t really need our help.
• Worship is often used to describe the singing bit of church. Although of course it’s way bigger than that. In English it means to give worth to something… It means to desire, treasure, be devoted to something, and for Christians that something is God. One of the Greek words translated ‘worship’ literally means to lie down flat on your face.
• Minister means servant. Although now it’s also used to describe people who run churches. Also known as ‘pastors’.
• Pray literally means ask. When Christian’s say they are ‘praying’ they mean ‘talking to God’.
• Blessed – Christians will pronounce it ‘bless-Ed’. Or ‘blessd’. Not sure when to use which pronounciation.
• Christ is not Jesus’ surname. It’s the Greek for the Hebrew word Messiah. Does that help? Christ is actually Jesus’ title, which means ‘annointed one’, so Jesus Christ is like saying “Jesus: God’s-Chosen-Ruler”.
• Gospel means important news. The most important news is that Jesus is lord.

Anything I left out or you reckon I got wrong?

One of my roles is to organise the men’s ministry for our evening church. I have therefore been doing some thorough research from various blogs and podcasts and have compiled a list of requirements for men’s ministries:

1. Be masculine. That is: be hypermasculine. Your men’s ministry must be the most manly, active, brutal experience the men in your church have ever faced.
2. You must name your ministry with a hypermasculine name. Include words like ‘fight’, ‘club’, ‘war’ and ‘battle’. Do not use the words ‘ministry’, ‘care’, ‘group’ or ‘support’.
3. Meat. Preferably raw meat. BBQ it, eat it.
4. Paint ball, footy and cars are allowed. Books, singing and lettuce are not.
5. The leader must shout. When giving a talk, it must be shouted.
6. Ultimate Fighting is the sport of choice.

Let me know if you think I’ve missed anything.

The saga over the use of drums versus synthesized music in church continues.

Proponents of drums argue that they represent a long standing tradition in church music, are less likely to offend older and less churched people (particularly those who grew up in the 1980′s), and doggedly argue that percussion has a biblical basis from passages such at Exodus 15:20 and 2 Samuel 6:5.

Those advocating change bring up the usual comments about older people being too resistant to change, a need to focus on younger people (citing the statistic that 70% of Christians became a Christian before the age of 25) and that new synthesized music is 100% perfect in timing, consistently pure in sound and is never too loud (a very common problem with over zealous old ‘rocker’ drummers). Others note that removing musicians takes away the stumbling block of the performance on stage thereby keeping us focused on the words we are singing.

With congregations split on the issue some mediation will be required. It looks like troubling times ahead for church music leaders. Perhaps the drums could be dusted off once a month or for one song each week to keep the traditionalists happy. Or maybe there’s a bigger issue behind all this…

Imagine a future when no one actually goes to church. Instead we all sit at home and read the latest blog by our favourite theologian or listen to our favourite preacher’s latest podcast. When we do feel the need to congregate with other Christians we are all ushered into a large hall where we attempt to sing along to the ‘best’ Christian band (which some of us find hard seeing as they’re all singing harmonies and us mere plebs can’t find the melody) and watch the greatest preacher out of the States strut his stuff on a colossal screen.

Instead of going up to the aforementioned preacher to ask a question after church over morning tea or supper you post a comment on his blog, or on his Facebook fan page. Unfortunately you’re one of several thousand who post comments and while you learn a lot from the general discussion, although find it becomes rather tangential and hard to follow at times, you have to look elsewhere to find the answer to your question.

So you pop down to Kooroong and look for a book on the topic but you’re confused by the plethora of titles that all claim to have the answers and you honestly don’t know what to trust. Eventually you just decide to look for a commentary that covers the passage but even then you find yourself spoilt for choice. Finally you settle on one that the preacher who prompted your question has written a foreword to- it must be good right?

Christians are no longer divided down denominational lines, instead they’re divided by which preacher they follow. You find it all a bit confusing. Some claim that Driscoll has the answers but others vehemently support Piper… where do you turn?

Scary future right? Thankfully it could never happen… or could it?

(see 1 Corinthians 3)