Even If i Walk Alone

Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus

the church

World Wide Neighborhood

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At 42 years of age, I have seen many amazing technical innovations in my time. None can compare, in my view, to the piece of technology you are utilizing right now to read this blog: the World Wide Web. Never in history has the world been so small, so connected. There are nearly seven billion people on this planet, yet we can be almost instantly connected with a great many of them at any time of the day or night. The internet provides the medium for novice on-site reporters to broadcast images of what is truly happening around them. We are no longer beholden to the filtered and slanted view of the news we have historically gotten from our own media. This isn’t a political statement, but rather one of nationalism. It is quite obvious and common that every country tells its history from its own self-serving angle. This is why early American history will sound quite different when reading Anglo-American, British or Native American writings. All of this is to say that it is now extremely difficult to hide the truths and atrocities that occur around the world every single day.

The ultimate result of this brave new world that is laid bare before us is that we, as followers of Christ, can no longer feign ignorance to what is happening to our brothers and sisters on our watch. In countries all around the planet, Christians are brutally slaughtered and mercilessly tortured simply for professing to the same faith that we do. In a great number of countries, churches are illegal and not tolerated. Christians gather in homes, in secret shelters and hiding places to worship the Lord together. They risk being beaten, raped and murdered all for the sake of Jesus. Families are torn apart; loved ones who are sent to far off prisons are never heard from again. They are forced into 18 hour days of hard labor and given little food, clothing or shelter. Yet, still they endure; still they gather together to praise and worship Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, followers of Christ in the Western world leave the church and even walk away from their faith because of disagreements over the color of the new carpeting in the sanctuary or the style of music played in the morning service. We put in our hour every Sunday morning and forget about our commitment to God until the next week. We spend the days in between griping about the fact that there’s nothing to eat while our cupboards are full. We complain that we have nothing to wear while our closets resemble the inventory of a small boutique. We grumble that life is unfair and difficult while depositing a six figure income into the bank.

I am humbled and sickened when I reflect on our greed, self-centeredness and apathy. I am heartbroken when I recall the parable of the Good Samaritan and the command to love my neighbor as myself. We’re not getting it done; we are not obeying the simple command of Jesus. I’m not worthy to call Him Lord. When will we begin to understand and own up to the fact that our petty annoyances are repulsive to God? Much like the Israelites who wandered in the desert, we are a stubborn and whining people, unable or unwilling to see God for who He is. The blood of a billion neighbors cries out to us, and we walk by on the other side. God forgive us; God help us to repent and seek Your face and to live lives worthy of our calling.

This isn’t a feel good post. To be perfectly honest, I never really know where the topic is going to end up when I begin to write. Many will read this and be offended. That’s okay; I’m offended as well. I’m offended that I could be so blind and uncaring. I’m offended that I profess to be a follower of Jesus yet do so little to help my neighbor in need. The world has become smaller; our neighborhood now extends the breadth of the globe. Our brothers and sisters lay bleeding in the ditch. We are the called; we are the chosen. We are the ones who must reach out as the hands of Jesus and care for their needs. The command to love our neighbor as ourselves is simple, but it is not easy. We know what the problems are. We know what our response must be. Are we willing to serve Jesus and carry out the mission He entrusted to us? There are only two choices: follow or walk away. Our choice has eternal and incredible consequences. Which path will you choose?

Holy Dissatisfied

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The call of Jesus is simple. Love God with all that you are and love everyone else in the same manner. Feed the hungry, care for the sick, the widows and the orphans. Live a life of service; reflect God’s love to everyone you meet. This was and is the mission of Jesus Christ.

If you failed to recognize modern Christianity in the paragraph above, you are not alone. Christians have become known as an intolerant bunch of self-righteous homophobiacs who build big comfortable buildings with high walls in an apparent attempt to keep others out. Our building project budgets dwarf our missions giving and our internal activities far outpace our outreach ministries. How did this happen, and more importantly, how do we fix it?

The answer begins with you and me. We must repent; we must change. If Christ has been removed from the church, then it is our responsibility to seek Him outside of those comfortable walls, to find Him in the eyes of the people He came to save. We must go to the alleys, to the suburbs and to the ghettos. We will find Him in the poor, the sick and the abandoned. Jesus is near, but we have become blind.

It is time that we who claim to know Jesus begin to live a life that looks like His. We must walk where He walked and touch those whom He touched. The time has come to shed our Western trappings and live a life marked by simplicity and grace. Our closets are packed with clothing we never wear while half the globe walks around in rags and without shoes. Our cupboards and refrigerators burst with food in quantities unfathomable to the three billion people in the world who somehow exist on only $2 per day. Jesus said to give all that we have, but we quarrel about the proper amount to tithe, and whether that amount is before or after taxes. Although we are the most blessed generation of people in history, are charity pales in comparison to our earnings.

While some will give of their money, they will withhold their time. Other will give their time, but hold on to their vices. Following Jesus is all or nothing. You can’t do it half-way; you’ll simply get left behind. Following Jesus requires an intense faith a passion to do the works we were both created and commanded to do. Now is the time for this generation to rise up and rebel against the religious traditions we have been taught. Almost everything you’ve learned is wrong because it suffers from years of man-made additions to what is at its heart a very simple mission. True followers of Jesus will reject the pharisaical teachings of the past and return to a life spent in relentless pursuit of the Savior.

Let us begin that journey; let us learn to strip away all that is not of Jesus and begin again to walk in His footsteps. Along the way we will learn what it means to truly identify with the poor and the sick. We will discover renewed passion for life and a compassion for others that is unquenchable. When it comes to Jesus, it is essential that we yearn for more and more; we must never be satisfied. Our longing for Him must leave us aching for more and more. He is our Creator, the One who is madly and passionately in love with us. He longs to be known by you. Will you seek Him? Come with me and let’s learn to pursue Him at any cost. Let us learn together what it means to be a true follower of Jesus.

Are You an Observer or a Participant?

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Are you an observer or a participant in life? How about in your local church? Most importantly, which term best describes your walk with Christ? Often we simply float through life, unconcerned or even unaware of what’s going on around us. As long as our needs are being met and we are relatively happy, it can be easy to coast and lose track of the events unfolding right in front of us. We observe without seeing and we hear without listening. We were called to a life that is so much more than this. We were created for action and created for passionately pursuing God and the goals and dreams He gives to each one of us. We were created to donate our unique gifts towards the building of His Kingdom.

Following Christ is not a passive activity, yet Western Christianity has almost encouraged it to become so. We gather in ever growing buildings and are entertained in ever more sophisticated and professional ways. The argument goes that we need these things to compete with the rest of the world. Since when did following Jesus become a competition? Since when did loving others and caring for their needs become something reflected as an accomplishment for our churches? I have nothing against large churches; I attend a fairly big one myself. I do however have a problem with the mentality that says the number of people attending a weekend service is in any way relevant to the “success” of a church. I can safely attest from experience that the number in attendance has no relation to the spiritual health of the church. In fact, I have often seen smaller churches with bigger hearts and a better sense of mission than their larger counterparts. In a large church I believe it is much easier to become complacent and to simply be an observer. We can sit in comfort and be entertained by professional musicians and speakers, then leave feeling satisfied. This continues week after week with our only involvement being to perhaps drop a few dollars in the offering plate. It’s easy to hide in any size church but harder to do so in a small church. In a small church almost everyone is involved in the ministry due to a simple matter of mathematics: there are more positions to be filled than there are attendees. Still, having grown up in small churches I know it’s possible to simply observe in these settings as well. The bottom line is this: the modern church should not exist to entertain us. If they offer opportunities to carry out the mission of Christ (feed the hungry, care for the orphans and widows, and seek justice for those in need), then we should be participating in those activities. If your church isn’t doing those things, you need to be actively engaging them in discussions about creating those opportunities. Without enabling you to carry out the mission of Jesus Christ with other like-minded individuals, there is no point to the church. Neither is there any point in you attending if all you will be doing is playing the part of the casual observer. Get involved, lend a hand, and seek out ways to better minister to those around you with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

The church should simply be a magnification of what’s going on in your own life. We should be striving every day to become actively involved in following Jesus. Seek out His footprints on the path before you. Walk in His way. Don’t watch Him walk by, run out to greet Him and then walk along side of Him. Stay by His side; follow Him everywhere. Touch the sick as He does; shelter those without any place to go. Look after widows, single moms, and orphans. Seek out those in need and care for them in any way in which you are able. This is love, this is being actively engaged; this is following Jesus. We can learn much from studying Jesus and visualizing the life He led on earth, but in the end you’ll be measured by the actions you took, by the ways in which you contributed. You’ll never be measured by the depth of your beliefs, but rather by what you did because of those beliefs. You can fall in love with Jesus by observing Him but you stay in love with Him by participating in the works He gives you to do and discovering more about Him in the process. By working to make the Kingdom of God a reality here on earth you will fall deeper and deeper in love with Jesus. This is the beauty of participation.

Simply observing life, church or Jesus is not good enough. We must be willing to put our hearts into everything we do; we must live in a participatory manner. This is how we were created; this is how we stay on mission. How are you living your life, doing church, and following Jesus? Are you living each moment with passion, determined to jump in with both feet? Do you live life as a whisper or a shout? Jesus didn’t call observers; He invited participants. Which one will you be?

Irrelevance

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There is mounting evidence that the modern church in the Western world has lost its relevance. Rapid declines in church attendance in England coupled with college aged students in America leaving the church in droves should be a clear and obvious signal that something is desperately wrong. It is late in the battle and we have done little to stem the tide. We must act swiftly, and in strength, in order to build again the church God desires.

We have lost our way because we have lost our mission. Rather, we have created a new mission, one that is not that which we were called to carry out. We have become consumed with evangelism at the cost of mercy. We have delivered a truth that is devoid of love. In our era of prosperity and mega-churches we have allowed poverty and homelessness to proliferate. We have stood by and watched genocide occur in Africa. It has been on our watch that single parent households have become an accepted norm. The prevalence of AIDS creates millions of new orphans every year. We have become irrelevant because of our silence. When the world needed us most, we were nowhere to be found. When the world needed our hands, they were too busy building larger worship centers for our own people. When the world needed our feet we were too busy running to the latest committee meeting for our congregation.

The modern church has blood on its hands because we refused to act. The screams of murdered children, enslaved teens and hungry parents ring out in accusation against us. We turned our focus inward and forgot those outside the walls of the buildings we built to cater to our comfort. The world at large starves while we indulge in every comfort know to man. There is more bread in our communion plate each week than millions of people will see in a month. We have been blessed beyond belief and we have squandered that blessing.

It’s time to return to “square go”. We must start over and build anew the church that God calls us to be. We need to strip away all that we believe about our responsibilities as Christians and return with vigor to searching the Scriptures in order to reclaim our mission. Let us return to the basics and begin at once to affect change on our world in the name of Jesus. We have food, so we must feed the hungry; we have clothing, so we must clothe the naked; we have homes, so we must shelter the homeless. Silence must no longer be our credo, but rather we must stand up boldly and call out injustice wherever it is found. In anguish we must fall to our knees and repent of our apathy. There is no one else to blame. We are the church, and we have fallen short of our mission and our calling.

These are harsh words and I don’t say them lightly, as I bear the burden of conviction along with each and every one of you who claim to follow Jesus. God forgive us for our blindness, for our lack of action and for our unwillingness to be the body of Christ to a hungry world. It’s not too late, there is hope; but we must begin today, we can no longer delay. Forget what you’ve been taught and everything you know. Return to God’s Word and seek what He would have you to see. Discover what He would have you do to alleviate the pain in this world. Seek Him passionately and allow Him to speak into your life a fresh calling. Feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. Care for the widows, the single moms, and the orphans. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. Reclaim the mission to which you were called. Don’t be content with irrelevance. Repent and boldly reclaim our relevance in a world that needs the Church perhaps now more than ever. Let’s start again and let us boldly live our calling.

Which Parts of the Bible Do You Ignore?

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In my reading this week I was challenged by a question that, on its face, seemed ludicrous. Yet I could neither ignore it nor get it out of my head. The question was, “Which parts of the Bible are you choosing to ignore?” It was preposterous in both its implication that I would even think of picking and choosing parts of the Bible to ignore, and also by the insinuation that I indeed was ignoring parts of the Bible. I have been diligently striving to follow in the way of Jesus Christ, to do the things that He would do. That involves not allowing any compromise along the way. So how could I possibly be ignoring parts of the Bible, much less by conscious choice? This story, however, does not have a happy ending. Prayer and introspection revealed that indeed I have been ignoring parts of the Bible. In fact, I have been ignoring multiple parts of Scripture. This realization has been both sobering and challenging. Allow me to share a couple of areas I have been choosing to ignore.

The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28-31). I do my best to show kindness to my neighbors. I always smile and wave whenever I see them outside. In the winter I even clear their driveways and sidewalks with my snow blower. Therefore, I must be demonstrating love to my neighbor. So apparently I can check this box with an affirmative. Or can I? I am ashamed to admit, I’ve never invited one of my current neighbors over for dinner; I’ve never stopped over just to see if I can help in any way. I’m a great neighbor as long as we happen to be outside at the same time. Otherwise it takes a little work, and apparently that’s been a bit too much for me. For those who are way ahead of me at this point and are still content that they can easily check off the “love my neighbor as myself” box, let me ask you a question. Have you, like a great number of Americans, purchased one of the new, large, flat screen televisions in the past couple of years? If you answered yes to that question, did you purchase one for your neighbor as well? If not, why not? Do you not love your neighbor at least as much as you love yourself? In the interest of full disclosure, I picked the flat screen television example because I don’t have one. I figured that was fair since I took my lumps in the first half of this paragraph. How about groceries? When you purchase food each week, do you purchase a bag for your neighbor as well? I hope you see my point.

Most of us do just enough to make us believe we are doing what Jesus commanded us to do. But when we look a little deeper, if we’re honest with ourselves, we will be forced to admit that we are indeed ignoring parts of the Bible. We ignore that which makes us uncomfortable or requires too great a sacrifice. We give money to those in need, but will we sell all we have and then turn around and give all the proceeds to the poor (Luke 18:18-22)? We’ll volunteer at the soup kitchen, but will we take a stranger in to live with us (Matthew 25:35)? We are ignoring the parts of the Bible that most reflect the mission of Jesus. How dare we call ourselves disciples? We are at best a weak and hypocritical people. The Church is supposed to be the unified body, the very hands and feet, of Jesus. We are to be ushering in His Kingdom by doing the things He commanded us to do while we are still on this earth. We are only half committed; we speak the language but we fail in the execution of the plan.

We must all repent of the parts of the Bible we have ignored out of our selfish sense of comfort. If we would indeed be a follower of Christ, we must look again at what He expects of us. We must look again at the way He lived and the things He did. We must repent of the words He spoke that we have ignored. It is time to rise up as the body of Christ and leave behind the half-hearted effort most of us have given to this point; it is time to work in unison to accomplish the mission of Jesus. As you prayerfully consider the way in which you will live for Him, give fresh consideration to the parts of the Bible you have been choosing to ignore.