I love our church family and there’s no place I’d rather be on a Sunday morning. But I deliberately took time to visit other congregations during my vacation. Learning from other churches and getting to know the rest of the body of Christ is important to me as a pastor. Over the last several weeks I got a wide spectrum of worship experiences. None of the denominations was baptist. From Anglican to Christian Reformed to Brethren, the churches all had different traditions but were thoroughly evangelical, teaching Biblical messages focused on Scripture. From a church that met in a park, and another in a modern facility, to another that gathers in a building that dates to the 1800’s, it was clear that there is a great variety in church building aesthetics. I’m still trying to shake the image of the pastor preaching from his lawn chair.
One of Satan’s most successful strategies through the years has been to focus his energies not so much on making Christians deny the faith, but in convincing them that their faith is largely irrelevant. He loves for people to compartmentalize their faith so that Jesus is still Lord, while limiting His ‘area of expertise’ to some narrow fields of religion and morality. Whenever I have seen people come alive in their faith, it’s as they’ve seen how Jesus impacts all of their life: from family to finances to career and entertainment. When Alfonso began to live for God and see his skills as an auto mechanic as a gift from God, it revolutionized how he approached life.
When we work, we’re imitating God Himself. And our work takes on the greatest significance when we work the way God does. God never worked for a paycheque. He didn’t work to “get ahead.” He didn’t work to prove His worth. God worked to display His glory and to bless His creation. When we make the world a more beautiful place through flowers, art, computer code, or physical labour, we glorify God and bless people.
This week I headed to Huntsville for the FEB Central Pastor’s Conference. Fellowship with other like-minded pastors from whom I have much to learn was a big part of the three days that I spent there. Suffering was a common thread in many of the messages. One spoke of how to deal with disappointment in our relationship with God. His ten-year-old son was hit by a car while delivering newspapers, and having faced such a loss he knew the limitation of superficial platitudes.
In the New Testament, next to Jesus, no one’s service stands out more than the apostle Paul. And yet he made a puzzling statement about serving God: The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:24-25)
God doesn’t need anything and so there’s a sense in which no one could possibly serve Him. We don’t “help God out” by our service. If He could create the heavens with a word and part the Red Sea by His power, surely He doesn’t need our help to change diapers in the nursery. And yet the God who cannot be served, commands us to serve Him. What’s going on?
The plight of Syrian refugees has largely dropped out of the news cycle, but for most the painful road continues. On Friday evening, I attended “Faith Rising,” an event sponsored by Partners International, highlighting the work being done by Arab Christians to bring help and hope to those still trapped in refugee camps in Lebanon. While the protests of the Arab Spring in late 2010 and early 2011 seemed like they might freedom to many living under corrupt and oppressive dictatorships, in Syria they led to a civil war that has claimed nearly 200,000 lives.
Last week I wrote about Christopher Yuan’s remarkable testimony of faith and transformation. Having walked the road that he has, he’s in a unique position to educate the church on how to minister more effectively to people from an LGBT+ background. The reality is that there are almost certainly people within our congregation who experience temptations toward same-sex attraction or transgender identity and yet our words and attitudes can vilify them and communicate that we’re not safe people who can be approached for help in dealing with these issues. The following are some of the lessons that I learned from Christopher’s workshop.
In the last decade, public opinion on issues related to the LGBT+ community has shifted so rapidly that many Christians are still trying to catch up. It’s never helpful trying to understand an issue from a distance but the reality is that many of us have never sat down and had thoughtful conversations with people who have a first-hand understanding of same sex attraction and transgender temptations and are also fully committed to the Scriptures as the Word of God. That’s why I found Christopher Yuan’s workshop on “Christianity and Homosexuality” so helpful. Let me share some of what I learned.
Wisdom doesn’t just sit on the side of the fence that feels most natural. It maintains a biblical balance especially where it confronts our blind spots. David Murray helps describe this tension: “Patient waiting doesn’t excuse us from teaching, correction, discipline, exhortation, etc., but it does save us from exasperation, exhaustion, and expiration.”
People think their church is friendly because they have developed friendships with others in the church who are, of course, friendly to them. Jesus taught us that that kind of friendliness doesn’t really say much about our faith, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” (Luke 6:32). Being a friendly church isn’t just about being friendly to your friends; it really comes down to how friendly you are to the people at church that you don’t know.
