I stopped into one of our landmark “greasy spoons” the other day. Many senior church members have sworn by the personnel and the menu. I decided to give it a chance.
Nothing on the menu caught my eye, so I ordered that old standard chili, topped with onions and grated cheese. I canceled the cheese after learning it cost an extra 50 cents (that’s over $30/lb. if you’re interested).
However, the waitress forgot to tell the cook “no cheese,” so it arrived with onions and cheese. When told, the cook (visibly irritated by this infraction of the rules) grabbed the bowl and angrily scrapped the cheese off.
Unfortunately for me, he also scrapped off a ½ inch of my chili and the nice pile of finely chopped fresh onion. When I eventually got my bowl of cold, canned, microwave chili it was sprinkled with large and “potent” chunks of onion.
Now, as I tried to smother the quickly coagulating lump with a ½ pound or so of stale soda crackers, I was distracted by loud coughing. It only took a second to realize it was the cook. With uncovered and open mouth, he wandered about the kitchen hacking his nicotine clogged lungs onto everything not covered or in a cabinet.
Trying to be fair I thought to myself, “It’s okay, after all I’ve probably consumed worse raising six kids.” But then the cook applied the coup de grâce by inserting his index finger to his second knuckle in the nostril of his choice.
I don’t think I’ll tell anyone at the church I ate at the Village Inn, I’m afraid they’ll ask me how I liked it.
Many believers are allowing their churches to become the “greasy spoons” of the spiritual community.
Only the Mormons seem to avoiding this public relations disaster. Worse, many members of these churches, as well as members of some of our finer churches seem to be unaware that they are being watched.
Showing posts with label Church health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Church health. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2008
WITNESS: Our clandestine public relations campaign!
KOINONIA: The fellowship of believers!
A salesman drove his car into a ditch; nearby was a farm where he asked the owner if he had a tractor to get his car back on the road.
“Nope, but I got my mule, Blue.” Replied the farmer.
“I doubt a mule is strong enough to pull it out.”
“You don't know Blue!” The mule's proud owner responded. So Blue was hitched to the vehicle.
“Pull, Blue!” The car didn't move. So the farmer called out, “Pull, Elmer!” It moved a little. The farmer yelled, “Pull, Biscuit,” and the car was free.
“Thank you so much,” said the truck owner. “But I’ve a question. You called your mule by three different names. Why?”
“Simple,” said the farmer. “Blue’s blind. If he thought he was the only one pulling, your car would still be in that ditch tomorrow!”
GIVING: The biggest Crook In the World!
"Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings."Who is the biggest meanest crook in the world? Is it a terrorist? An abortionist? Is it a Los Angeles gang-banger? A Mafioso? A scammer? Some one who preys on seniors?Malachi 3:8
Robert Sumner said, “the biggest & meanest crook of all time is the one who steals from God.” [Excerpt from Sword of the Lord; 1960]
I agree with Sumner: those who steal from God must believe God doesn’t know or cannot see what they are doing. It’s like one convict stealing from his cellmate during a lockdown.
They’re like the tenant farmer who was to pay the land owner 10% of his harvest … but no matter how he planted, every harvest was only 90%.
I recall one couple who decided to drive out an unpopular pastor by recruiting fellow church members to withhold tithes. Not only did they fail to drive the pastor out but they brought shame and reproach upon the Body of Christ and the Name of the Lord as the community witnessed the brouhaha which followed.
I read of one lady who told her pastor she’d start tithing as soon as things got better. He looked her straight in the eyes and said, “No, Pearl, you won’t.”
“I beg your pardon!” She bellowed! To which he patiently replied, “If you won’t give $10 out of a hundred, you’ll never give $100 out of a thousand.”
The widow who tithes $540 out of her fixed income, then lives on the $4,860 remainder, is to be much more admired than the businessman who tithes $10,000 out of his income, then lives on the $90,000 left over.
I’m left in breathless wonder at those who claim the blood of the Lamb yet steal from The Great Shepherd of the Sheep.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
TRADITIONS: The Old Rutted Road -- Part II!
And now, the twist to the story ... there's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, we see two huge booster rockets saddled to either side of the rocket’s main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. Thiokol Corporation makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah.
The Thiokol SRB design engineers might have preferred to make them a bit bigger … wider not taller, but 1.) the SRBs had to ship by train from the factory to the launch site; 2.) the railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains; 3.) the SRBs had to fit through a tunnel which is only slightly wider than the railroad track; and 4.) the railroad track is about as wide as two Imperial Roman war-horses.
So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a horse's behind! Think about that!
Not only do unreasonable or irrational traditions ruin the vision of the church but they are the cause of some baggage that prevents it from being bigger and going higher and farther.
Ed. Note: Don't think that I'm anti-tradition; I am simply pro-church … the one that is made up of real, live, redeemed children of God.
[The Good, Clean Funnies List], Box 476, Harvest, AL 35749-0476; USA; “The Impact of the Roman Empire on Space Shuttle Design,” 20 October 1999, “ Received from L. Rodney Ford via Doug Taylor.”]
TRADITIONS: The Old Rutted Road -- Part I!
Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches. Why? Because that’s the gauge used in England; English expatriates built our first railroads.Mark 2:27-28
Why that spacing? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Again, why? Because the people who built the tramways were wagon builders, and they used their wagon wheel spacing jigs and fixtures to set the tram wheels.
Okay! One more time! Why that odd spacing? Because, if any other spacing was used the wagon wheels would break on most of the old, cross country roads? Okay, why? Because the road ruts were that spacing.
So who built those old rutted roads? The first in Europe (and England) were built by Romans for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? Roman chariots made the original ruts (which everyone else used for fear of destroying their wagons and wagon wheels). The wheel spacing of all Roman chariots was exactly alike.
Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
It seems specs and bureaucracies are eternal. So, when you’re handed a specification and wonder which horse's behind came up with it, you may be more right than you know. Because Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the behinds of two Imperial Roman war-horses.
Beloved, much exists in the church today that’s tied to an ages old tradition without much adjustment for the people who have to live with them.
Jesus taught us, "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”; since redeemed man is the Church, and the Church is to keep the Sabbath holy, we must likewise conclude the church was made for man, and not man for the church.
Traditions give flavor and honor to the blood, sweat, and tears of those who’ve gone on before us. But people use the traditions to provide the flavor and to give the honor, not the other way around. If the people of God decide to hold onto a tradition for a couple of centuries, or even a couple of millennia, that’s fine. But if the traditions are in place because of T’TW’ADTH (That’s the way we’ve always done things here), well then, the traditions are running us not the other way around.
[The Good, Clean Funnies List, Box 476, Harvest, AL 35749-0476; USA; “The Impact of the Roman Empire on Space Shuttle Design,” 20 October 1999; “ received from L. Rodney Ford via Doug Taylor.”]
EVANGELISM: The greatest danger to the Bride is her health!
We once lived in a mobile home park. Now you must understand, a mobile home park is a place where most everyone has enough time on their hands to be sure you're doing all you should be doing and "watch" you doing it.
One of the things that are evidently important to “seasoned-citizens” is your yard; you are regularly visited by people you don’t know, whose only interest is what you have or haven’t done to your yard.
At first, this seems picayune and a slightly irritating; but, as the Lord is fond of doing, this can provide you with an opportunity to reach out to these wonderfully nosy people. Not only that, but it can teach you something else: don't plant and ignore.
Plants need constant care. They must be constantly fed, watered (strangely they get very thirsty), nourished, protected, and pruned. But no matter how hard we work, some plants just don’t respond to what we do for them. We have to get beyond them.
The Lord never had it in mind that His disciples should be planted, then forgotten.
He challenged Peter to care for and protect His sheep [John 21:15]. The writer of the book of Hebrews says the mature disciple eats solid food [5:14].
Jesus said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ONLY, BUT ON EVERY WORD WHICH PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD’” [Matthew 4:4]. Jesus said to the woman at the well,“Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water which I shall give to him shall never thirst; but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”Jesus taught that His Father would prune fruit-bearing disciples, but that who were fruitless would be taken up and thrown out [John 15:2].John 4:13-14
My experiences with plants have taught me well … I‘m now watering, feeding, protecting, nourishing, and pruning all my nosy neighbors for the glory of God.
THERMOSTATS: And other things that set the pace!
“choose for yourselves whom you will serve”A thermometer reflects the temperature of the room; a thermostat adjusts the temperature for the room.Joshua 24:15
God has too many children who are more like thermometers than thermostats; what he needs is a house full of the latter.
Like Rip Van Winkle, the church is asleep … when it awakens the world will be so hostile to her that it will find itself an impotent representative of an omnipotent God.
John Curran said, “The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.”
Our culture reflects a nation running so hot on relativism, materialism, voyeurism and depravity, that it’s screaming for those who have the courage to march on the wall of opposition. We need those with guts enough to adjust our nation’s temperature, rather than giving in to the pressure to reflect it.
The church is imitating secular society at an alarming rate. Increasingly we are adopting secular views which seem good and feel good; gleaning, as it were, here and there, as the world’s spirit moves us, ignoring the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth!
Friday, January 07, 2005
Vision
Second Incarnation [Ephesians 4:1-27; other topics - Church (health & nature)]
David Hansen defines vision as “an incarnation of the will of God in a particular place.”[1] To that I would add, in the midst of a particular people.
Complacency and discouragement are the twin enemies of vision: Billy Graham said, “complacency makes us lazy; discouragement paralyzes us.”[2] Then he challenged his readers to understand the context for his statement: 1) 70% of the world remains unsaved, therefore complacency is not an option; 2) God is still at work around us, we dare not be discouraged.
A church needs to know where God wants it to go, what He wants it to be, and the purpose for which it exists; that journey begins with the mind and heart of God, it is translated into God’s vision for His Church, through His people. A believer cannot plow looking back; neither can a church.
A church is not a society, it is an organism; each member cell must be healthy or the whole organism suffers. A healthy organism has cells focused on the same end … unity in the bonds of peace … the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love [Ephesians 4:3, 16], which is ultimately to the glory of God.
[Adapted from [1] Current Thoughts & Trends, April 1996, 16 #11035; [2] ibid. December 1996, 22 #11686]
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