Y'know What Would Be Funny?

It would be funny if people judged another person for judging.

Y'know what would be funny? It would be funny to use critical thinking to test critical thinking.

Y'know what would be funny? It would be funny to think that this post was funny.

It would be, like, ironic.
(Disclaimer: Not to say any of this has happened recently. It would be funny, is all.)

Leadership & Judgement

Don't let me scare you off, "judgement" isn't just a dirty word. Choose "necessarily evaluate in love without condemnation" if you prefer, since that's what this post is about.

Some time ago I had a discussion with another worship leader about how to effectively lead a congregation in worship. I mentioned that it seemed like we were having a difficult time entering into God's presence because the congregation wasn't participating but was merely observing.

In reply, I was told that you can't really know a person's heart by their actions. If people are sitting in their seats looking bored, they may in fact be having an intimate moment with God, or that may be the way they express their love to God. I was told you can't judge the congregation based on outward appearances.

Granted, this may be theoretically true and it may be applicable to some people. On the whole, however, this is not true. On the whole, it's fairly easy to tell if a congregation is choosing to enter into worship. More to the point, part of my job as a worship leader is to keep an eye on the congregation and lead them accordingly. If I ignore the congregation's response and just do as I feel I should, then I am not really leading at all. I'm just a solo act at the front of the church.

And that means, dear people, that a leader has to make a judgement call about the congregation. It's not motivated by anything but a desire to help the congregation and to be obediant to God. It does not involve condemnation in any way, but it is necessary.

From Faith, Obediance

That's the difference.

A Christian's heart is revealed by their actions. Of the numerous kinds of "Christians" that I mentioned here, the real test is not in word but in action.

Their actions may reveal that they are not Christians after all because their faith predicates no action whatsoever. Their actions may reveal a selfish Christianity, or a heart that won't submit to authority, or a heart that ministers to no one; a shallow faith. Their actions may reveal a personal choice to work out their faith in their daily lives.

Granted, all of this talk can easily lead to judgement. And to be clear, salvation is by faith alone and not by works. Yet if faith does not result in a changed life, how can it be called faith?

From Faith, Obediance

True faith reveals itself in action.

Blondini was a tightrope walker in the last century. He used to walk over the Niagara Falls, and people came from far and wide to see him. He would carry all sorts of things over the water. One day a famous duke and his entourage visited the Niagara Falls. They watched Blondini walk over and clapped. They watched him walk back and shouted for more. Then Blondini asked, “Who believes I could carry this wheelbarrow over the waterfall?” “Of course you can!” said the duke and his friends. Blondini took the wheelbarrow over. Everyone was ecstatic. “Do you believe I could carry this sack of potatoes over the waterfall in the wheelbarrow?” “Yes!!” He duly did. Then he asked, “Who believes I could carry a human being over the falls in this barrow?” “We all do!” they chorused. After a pause, Blondini asked, “Who will get in the wheelbarrow then?” There was an embarrassed silence - the Duke suddenly felt he had better things to do. Suddenly a little old lady came out of the crowd and got in the wheelbarrow. Blondini pushed her over the falls and back again, to the astonishment of the crowd. The lady was Blondini’s mother. Quote

What's the Diff?

I was chatting with my friend Richard the other day. He had introduced me to two actors he knew when went to see a play last week, and we had brought the youth group along. Our dicussion with these two people turned to Christianity and they expressed that they had given their hearts to God with the past year or so and were now reading various books to grow in their faith.

I was commenting to Richard afterwards that it was cool that they were Christian, and he agreed. Until then, though, he hadn't known they were Christian even though he had spoken to them before.

He commented that he finds it tricky to really determine if someone is a Christian, though many people would claim it. Case in point, he works with a lot of homeless youth in his job. When a conversation turns to Christianity, he has heard several kids immediately spout all of the right words and profess to be Christians. And yet, these same kids will profess other beliefs at other times. What's the difference between the actors and the homeless youth, each professing to be Christian?

I have some acquaintances who would strongly profess Christianity and yet they have not attended church regularly in several years. I have other acquaintances that profess Christianity while living common-law with their boyfriend/girlfriend. I knew a lady that had always been actively involved in church, but she eventually decided that she had to concentrate on her career so she stopped attending church and promised that she would 'get back into it' once she retired and had more time. I know of other people that fulfill the cliche of living like a Christian on Sunday and living like the devil the rest of the week.

So what's the difference? Would the real Christians please stand up?

Learning by Law

As a follow-up on my previous post, I constantly trying to learn and grow as a Christian and as a leader. Lately, I find that there are too many spots to try and clean up in my life. There are too many details about my communication and leadership that I need to tweak, aspects about me that aren't quite as good or as effective as they could be. I'm humbled by the constantly renewed realisation that I don't know half as much as I think I know - and that's very tiring to me.

It's like my days as a custodian at London Gospel Temple, my old church. After everyone had gone home on Sunday night, I had to the clean the numerous glass doors at the entrances to the building. These glass doors would be layered with fingerprints from people pushing against the glass all day long, rather than using the push bar in the middle of the door. I would use a ton of Windex and paper towels, rubbing out every inch of each door. And even after a full half hour of cleaning, I would invariably change my viewing angle just a bit and I would see yet one more fingerprint that I hadn't seen before. You just had to change your angle ever-so-slightly and voila, more prints.

That's what I've felt like lately. I'm intent on cleaning the glass in my life, but there's always one more print and one more grey fleck to clean up. Off-handedly, my dad reminded me that this is what happens when you live under the Law. You get tired, you lose perspective, you lose motivation...it's Death. Living under the Law is Death. Yes, I need to clean up the fingerprints in my life, but not by fixing each little thing like it was one more rule. I need to live in the Tree of Life and find freedom in Christ, I don't need to me another rule for myself.

The funny thing is, I have to learn how to not live under the Law and I can't learn this lesson under the Law. I need to learn in a healthy way, I need to learn how to learn in a healthy way.

Grey Areas

I had a discussion with a friend this weekend about one of the 'grey areas' of Christianity. It was one of those issues that I had a personal opinion about but that was not explicitely defined in the Bible. My friend had a different opinion about this particular issue.

It all comes back to Romans 14.

"Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters."
"...The man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him."
"...Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way."
"So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves."

To rephrase it a bit, don't pass judgement on something that isn't clearly spelt out in the Bible and don't try to prove that your opinion is the correct one that others should follow. Sure, you can talk about it in normal conversation, but you can't assume that it's anything that you should make an issue about. More than that, this passage says that the more mature Christian is the one that should be more flexible about such issues, if only for the sake of helping the younger Christian.

I especially like that last line I quoted. We are actually blessed for not making an issue about the grey areas. We are blessed for not saying anything. Gotta love blessing for doing nothing.

On a personal note, I actually find this to be a little more difficult for me to learn than I expect it to be. I'm very passionate about discipleship, teaching and leading younger Christians and youth. As a result, I tend to look for teaching opportunities all around me. (And as I stated in previous posts, I'm always looking for opportunities to learn things myself.) The thing is, the grey areas are not teaching opportunities. Most probably, the only thing that results from teaching on disputable matters is confusion and debate. There may a little benefit in discussing such matters, but they are not things that require 'correction.' It's sort of a paradigm shift for me, which is very good even if it is hard for me to pull off.

The Problem of Unity

Conflicts, church splits, people leaving churches, leaders resigning... I'm only twenty-five and I think it's frightening that I personally seen and experienced so many problems with church unity. (No, I won't bother with any juicy stories. I'm ranting here, not gossiping.)

When we talk about church unity, I most often hear references to theological/idealogical differences breaking churches up. In my personal experience, this has never been the case. The only source of church conflict that I've ever seen has been due to personal offence and that's it. Whatever the reason and whatever the circumstance, it becomes personal and people leave/get kicked out because someone was offended. Oh, the label we assign to it may be an 'issue' but it's deeper than that.

I don't know, I really don't get it. If there's a conflict, deal with it. If you're right, you still have to be mature. If you're right and mature, then maybe you don't need to be right (e.g. compromise). If I say that I'm mature but I haven't found a way to resolve an issue, the first place I look is at myself. No matter how perfect I may think that my decisions were, was there something more that I could have done?

To extrapolate, church unity is person-to-person, not person-to-church. If you haven't developed relationship with specific people, then you aren't in unity. A church isn't healthy if people have issues just hanging around between one another. It's like saying that a wooden table is solid even though the legs are not nailed to the tabletop. Sure, it may be able to support an huge Thanksgiving meal if you place the meal directly on top of it, but as soon as the family dog bumps into one of the table legs it all comes tumbling down. Each piece of the church needs to be nailed together.

Two Comments

I wanted to make two quick comments.

1) Why do young people tend to wait until their late teens and early twenties to make a meaningful personal decision about their Christian faith? Why do kids of age twelve and under prefer, of their own choice, to sit in church with a book or a game rather than participate in worship? Isn't a ten or twelve year old capable of understanding worship and making a decision to do so on their own?

I remember my days in junior high youth group at church. I fully entered into the worship times that we would have. Why is age such a factor? Aren't children capable of worship, prayer and evangelism?

2) To me, it seems that the mark of a mature Christian is the ability and proven history of discipling/coaching younger Christians. It's strikes me as odd that a person can claim to 'not need any advice' while at the same time not helping any younger Christians. Show me someone that does not disciple others, and I'll show you someone that doesn't care. I think this passage from 1 John 2 nails it by differentiating spiritual fathers from children and young men.

Young Man Syndrome

Exhibit A: There's a young man who has grown up in the church. This young man has personally accepted and followed the Christian faith, even to the point of defending it when necessary. During the initial university years, this young man reviews his belief and, after some struggle, decides to walk away from God entirely.

Exhibit B: There is a young woman who has grown up in the church. She develops a serious relationship with a non-Christian guy and, combined with a busy university workload, eventually stops going to church. She is still a Christian by name, but rarely impacts the world for Christ.

Exhibit C: A young 21-year old man is involved with a small group at church. During this time, he re-evaluates his Christian life and decides that his early years as a teenager were not very useful. He decides to devote himself fully to discipleship of other young men.

It absolutely amazes me to see how consistant this is. Almost every single young person that I know eventually reaches a critical stage somewhere between the age of 18 and 25. They re-evaluate their life and their beliefs and either become fully committed to or walk away from God.

I was the young man in Exhibit C and two of my closest friends were the previous two examples. I have a lengthy list of examples that demonstrate this crucial point in the lives of Christian youth.

There's a funny side to this. If the young person concludes that they were wrong for so many years growing up, if they conclude that they were seeing things in an immature fashion, why do they decide that they can now make the 'mature and correct' decision? How can they be wise if everything leading up to the decision was unwise? A hundred wrongs can make one right?

It's the Young Man Syndrome. We're sure that we're right, though we agree that we were wrong for so long. And not only that, but we'll look for any opportunity to explain our wisdom to other people.

The Setup

My previous post quoting 1 John 2:12-14 provides an outline of spiritual growth. As a child, you're still learning the basics of Christianity, like love and forgiveness. You're still developing your character and growing in strength. Much of your spiritual growth comes from what is given to you by other mature Christians.

As a young man, you start to exert this strength and apply this knowledge. You start to seek your own answers and make more of your own decisions, based increasingly on your own opinion and decreasingly on what has been told to you.

As a father, your life starts to revolve around helping the younger generation grow. Your character has been established, and the focus now shifts from yourself to others.

As a child, you needed to be defended. As a young man, you could fight your own battles. As a father, you are the defender. This explanation is a setup for my next post...

I Write To You

1 John 2
12 I write to you, dear children,
because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
13 I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, dear children,
because you have known the Father.
14 I write to you, fathers,
because you have known him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God lives in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

Teaching Is Like Purifying Water

Steve Clarke was relating an experience he had recently. He works for Compassion Canada and was in Kosovo, Uganda to evaluate a project they had been working on there. (http://www.compassion.ca/communityprojects/compro.cgi?Project=KWP&ProjectType=Health) One of the aspects of this project was to help provide sanitary
water for the people there. Along with building giant water containers to collect fresh rain water from the rooves of homes, his organization also had a second, simple solution.

The water supplies that the children usually use tend to be small holes of highly contaminated water that is rife with various diseases and bacteria. According to this site (http://www.sodis.ch/Text2002/T-HowDoesItWork.htm), the easiest way to purify such water is to bottle it in a clear, thin container and leave it in direct sunlight for 6 hours. Voila, almost all of the harmful contents are destroyed by the UV rays and heat.

Steve's team has a plan to introduce the neighbourhood to this simple purification process. Much to their surprise, they received incredulous responses from the people they told. Some people even went so far as to say they refused to believe it at all until they were given absolute proof. Even after a full presentation explaining the process and the science behind it, people still refused to accept the idea - it was so easy, it couldn't possibly be true. Fortunately for Steve's group, 3M has (recently?) developed a means to visibly show the diseases that are carried in a drop of water, so they were actually able to prove the solution first-hand.

To continue from yesterday's post, I think this is how a lot of people approach learning. Why should we trust the person teaching us? Why should we trust the evidence presented? Give me more evidence, give me better evidence - and then I might agree with you, maybe. Why shouldn't we be insulted by the insinuation that we don't understand something?

If you reject good teaching, from whatever source, then you keep using a contaminated water supply.

Leaders are Perpetual Learners

That title is a quote from "Developing the Leaders Around You" by John C. Maxwell. I've come to view my biggest strength as my will to learn. No matter how many mistakes I make or what my faults may be, if I keep learning as much as I can I will improve my character and my decisions. It's just a matter of time.

Last week, my worship leader Lynda was asking us what each of our learning styles were. After come thought, I came to the conclusion that my favourite learning style is through conversation. I prefer to flesh out ideas and get input from others, getting out my own little world. It's the trick of not knowing what you don't know. How can we be both teacher and student at the same time?

God, worship, discipleship and programming.