LET'S BE FAT CHRISTIANS!

In this day of emphasis on being fit and trim I want to encourage you to be a FAT Christian.  That sounds like an odd statement, doesn't it?  But let's look at how I am referring to being FAT.  When I say FAT I mean:

Faithful
Available
Teachable

Let's look at each one of these.

Faithful
When I speak of faithfulness, I'm not talking about faithfulness to the organized church or the organization itself.  I'm speaking of faithfulness to God and the organic expression of church life.

There's no life in an organization.  An organization exists as a legal entity, but there's no life in an organization.

The organic expression of church life is focused on Jesus. Jesus is life! There is life in the things of God. There is life wherever Jesus is central.

Organic church life is a grassroots experience that is marked by face to face community, every member functioning, open participatory meetings, non-hierarchical leadership and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional leader and head of the group.

In a nutshell, I'm talking about allowing Jesus to truly be Lord and fleshing this out in a genuine manner.

Available
In today's society - even church life - we are much too busy doing the things of God that we are not available to the God of the things.  This is sadly true of most Christians these days.  As believers, we need to make ourselves available to God.  A couple lines of an old song comes to mind, "I'm available for God to use me, I'm available if God should choose me."  Are you available today?

Teachable
Its imperative we retain a teachable spirit in our spiritual lives.  Failure to do so will limit our growth in God thereby limiting our effectiveness for Him.

We won't "arrive" in our knowledge of God until we are walking down those golden streets of heaven.  Until that time, we need to maintain a teachable spirit if we desire to continue to grow in God's grace.

Faithful, Available, Teachable.  Let's be FAT Christians for Jesus.

Until next time, enjoy the journey!

Ray

HUMOR FOR THE WEEKEND

 Here's a little humor to take us into the weekend.  Enjoy!


The Young Man & The Cowboy

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California, when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out his window and asked the cowboy . . .

“If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?”

Bud looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, and then looked at his peacefully grazing herd. He calmly answered, “Sure, why not?”

The yuppie parks his car, whipped out his Dell notebook computer, connected it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfed to a NASA  page on the Internet. He then called up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he immediately fed to another NASA satellite that scanned the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opened the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exported it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.

Within seconds, he received an email on his Palm Pilot saying that the image had been processed and the data stored. He then accessed a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet via email on his Blackberry, and after a few minutes, he received a response.

Finally, he printed out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-Tech Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turned to the cowboy named Bud and said, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”

Bud replied: “That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves.”

Bud watched the young man select one of the animals and looked on amused as the young man stuffed it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud said to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”

The young man thought about it for a second and said, “Okay, why not?”

“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government,” said Bud.

“Wow! That’s correct,” said the yuppie, “But how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required,” answered Bud. “You showed up here even though nobody called you. You wanted to get paid for an answer I already knew to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are, and you don’t know a thing about cows . . . this is a herd of sheep . . .

Now give me back my dog.”



This was taken from a previous Beyond Evangelical blog (www.frankviola.com). 

DOING IT GOD'S WAY

We say we want to do church GOD'S way, but if we were doing it God's way we wouldn't be DOING church, we would BE the church He's called us to be.  We spend far too much time doing instead of being thereby rendering ourselves ineffective for the cause of Christ. 

Being the church entails us living the way HE wants us to live and doing the things HE wants us to do.  You see, when we live a life where Jesus is the focus of all we do we will be living a life pleasing to Him.  The centrality of Christ should be of paramount importance in our lives.  Everything else is secondary to Jesus.  As we like like to say, "IT'S ALL ABOUT JESUS!" 

Many people, today, find themselves at a crossroads in their spiritual journey.  They face the dilemma of wanting to BE the church as God intended, but they're not exactly sure how to flesh that out.  This is especially true in our day in which unbiblical expressions of the church are the norm.  We've become so accustomed to being told what to do and when to do it in the course of a church service that we no longer need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Someone else will let us know what to do and when to do it. 

Most Christians, today, are so steeped in the ways of religion that they wouldn't even recognize God's way.  Religion as we see it today binds one up.  Religion, as practiced today, brings with it so many unbiblical man-made rules that no one could possibly live by them.  

Combine religion with tradition and you have a real mess on your hands.  You need a pry bar in most churches, today, if the people are going to do things outside the realm of what has become known as the normal or ordinary.   Most have a "We've always done it this way" attitude. Guess what?  Man's way is not working! 

Man's ways, man's rules, man's guidelines (or whatever you would like to call them) almost always brings with it a spiritual bondage.  This bondage hinders God's people from their effectiveness.  This bondage hinders the child of God from enjoying the freedom God intends on our spiritual journey. 
Who do you think is behind all this bondage of the Christians that we see today?  Any guesses?  Satan must be thrilled when a believer is bound up with religion and all the baggage that goes along with it.  That's one he no longer has to be concerned with.

I'm of the opinion when a child of God wakes up in the morning and his/her feet hit the floor, Satan ought to go running.  Just knowing we are walking in the Spirit and Jesus Christ is the center of our lives ought to make old smuttyface shake in his shorts!  (By the way, I always picture him with pink boxers with purple polka dots!)

What do you say we stand up and be the Christians - the mighty army of God - we've been called to be!   Let's make the devil shake as we resist him and cause him to flee from us! (James 4:7)   Let's do it in Jesus' name!

Until next time, enjoy the journey!

Ray

I appreciate all of you who repost and/or forward the link to my blog to others.  I would like to have the opportunity to reach more people through this blog.  This is a ministry opportunity that God has opened up and I truly believe it will be a blessing to those who have the opportunity to see it. Not because I write it, but rather because God is in it.  Please do help me get the word out.  Thanks again!

PERFECT PEACE FOR THE BELIEVER!

One of my favorite verses of Scripture is Isaiah 26:3.  I like to look at it in different Bibles.  It reads as follows:

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee:  because he trusteth in Thee." - KJV

“You will guard him and keep in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You." - Amplified

 “People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole, steady on their feet, because they keep at it and don’t quit." - The Message

We live in a world full of turmoil.  This turmoil has even reached the church today.  I believe Satan knows if he can keep the Christians in turmoil in their own lives, he can effectively render the church powerless.  You see when we are in turmoil Satan wins!  

Every believer is afforded the opportunity of having this "perfect peace".  This is a peace that comes only from God.  It's that peace that passes all understanding.  It's that peace a child of God can have even in the midst of the valley.  It's that peace the child of God can have in the midst of heartache.  It's the peace the child of God can have that truly astounds those around him/her.  It's what makes others say, "I want what they have!"

The implication in this verse is that those whose mind is fully fixated and focused on God to the point that all trust is put in Him will be kept in perfect peace by our Heavenly Father.  Wow!  I don't know about you, but I find that to be encouraging.  As I like to say, "That's enough to make me wanna shout!"

Do you have this kind of peace in your life?  If you're a believer this is available to you.  You can and should have it.  Focus the whole of your being on God, fix your thoughts on Him, trust Him and He will keep you in perfect peace.  

Until next time, enjoy the journey!

Ray

JESUS - THE REVOLUTIONARY!

Most people acknowledge Jesus as the Savior, the Messiah, the Prophet, the Priest and the King.  But looking back at an account of His life as He walked this earth, we see Jesus as a Revolutionary.  Yet few Christians know Him as such and even fewer churches know Him as such.

Jesus was a revolutionary teacher, radical prophet, provocative preacher, controversial and a strong opponent of the religious establishment.  The status quo was not good enough.  Tradition had rendered God's Word ineffective - and it still does.

Jesus is not critical or harsh with His own.  He truly is filled with mercy, compassion and kindness and He loves His people with a passion.  This is why He will not compromise with those traditions that have enslaved and held His people captive.  He also won't ignore our own willingness to observe them and devotion to them.  We are oftentimes enslaved and don't even realize it.

"Jesus was never a rabble-rouser nor a ranting rebel (Matthew 12:19-20).  Yet He constantly defied the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees.  And He did not do so by accident, but rather with great deliberation.  The Pharisees were those who, for the sake of the 'truth' as they saw it, tried to extinguish the truth they could not see.  This explains why there was always a blizzard of controversy between the 'tradition of the elders' and the acts of Jesus" (Pagan Christianity; F. Viola & G. Barna).

It's been said, "A rebel attempts to change the past; a revolutionary attempts to change the future."  Jesus brought great change to the world - radical change from an old order to a new order.  Jesus came to usher in a new covenant, a new kingdom, a new birth and a new way!

Jesus intentionally did things contrary to the religious traditions of the day.  He usually did so publicly and with absolute resolve. He wanted them to know He was doing it.

Jesus refused to bow to the pressures of the religious conformity of the day.  He was different.  He spoke and did things with great authority.  He couldn't tolerate hypocrisy or traditions that put man in spiritual bondage.  He came to set man free!  It didn't matter that He angered His enemies to the point they wanted Him dead.   Jesus was a revolutionary!

Knowing Jesus as a revolutionary is a side of Him most believers have never known. Knowing Jesus in this manner explains why exposing the problems of the modern church so that the Body of Christ can fulfill God's intended purpose is so crucial to the Christian life as well as the life of His church.  It's really and simply an expression of Jesus' revolutionary nature.  The primary aim of this revolutionary nature is to put us at the very center of His eternal purpose for us.

Frank Viola and George Barna in their  book "Pagan Christianity?" wrote, "The early church understood that purpose.  They not only understood God's passion for His church, they lived it out.  And what did such body life look like?  Consider the brief glimpse below.

• The early Christians were intensely Christ-centered.  Jesus Christ was their pulse beat.  He was their life, their breath, and their central point of reference.  He was the object of their worship, the subject of their songs, and the content of their discussion and vocabulary.  The New Testament church made the Lord Jesus Christ central and supreme in all things.
• The New Testament church had no fixed order of worship.  The early Christians gathered in open-participatory meetings where all believers shared their experience of Christ, exercised their gifts, and sought to edify one another.  No one was a spectator.  All were given the privilege and the responsibility to participate.  The purpose of these church meetings was twofold.  It was for the mutual edification of the body.  It was also to make visible the Lord Jesus Christ through the every-member functioning of His body.  The early church meetings were not religious "services."  They were informal gatherings that were permeated with an atmosphere of freedom, spontaneity, and joy.  The meetings belonged to Jesus Christ and to the church; they did not serve as a platform for any particular ministry or gifted person
• The New Testament church lived as a face-to-face community.  While the early Christians gathered for corporate worship and mutual edification, the church did not exist to merely meet once or twice a week.  The New Testament believers lived a shared life.  They cared for one another outside of scheduled meetings.  They were, in the very real sense of the word, family
• Christianity was the first and only religion the world has ever known that was void of ritual, clergy, and sacred buildings.  For the first 300 years of the church's existence, Christians gathered in homes.  On special occasions, Christian workers would sometimes make use of larger facilities (like Solomon's Porch [John 10:23, Acts 3:11] and the Hall of Tyrannus [Acts 19:9]).  But they had no concept of a sacred edifice nor of spending large amounts of money on buildings.  Nor would they ever call a building a "church" or the "house of God".  The only sacred building the early Christians knew was the one not made with human hands.
• The New Testament church did not have a clergy.  The Catholic priest and the Protestant pastor were completely unknown.  The church had traveling apostolic workers who planted and nurtured churches.  But these workers were not viewed as being part of a special clergy caste.  They were part of the body of Christ, and they served the churches (not the other way around).  Every Christian possessed different gifts and different functions, but only Jesus Christ had the exclusive right to exercise authority over His people.  No man had that right.  Eldering and shepherding were just two of those gifts.  Elders and shepherds were ordinary Christians with certain gifts.  They were not special offices.  And they did not monopolize the ministry of the church meetings.  They were simply seasoned Christians who naturally cared for the members of the church during times of crisis and provided oversight for the whole assembly.
• Decision making in the New Testament church fell upon the shoulders of the whole assembly.  Traveling church planters would sometimes give input and direction.  But ultimately, the whole church made local decisions under the lordship of Jesus Christ.  It was the church's responsibility to find the Lord's mind together and act accordingly.
• The New Testament church was organic, not organizational.  It was not welded together by putting people into office, creating programs, constructing rituals, and developing a top-down hierarchy or chain-of-command structure.  The church was a living, breathing organism.  It was born, it would grow, and it naturally produced all of what was in its DNA.  That would include all the gifts, ministries and functions of the body of Christ.  In the eyes of God, the church is a beautiful woman.  The bride of Christ.  She was a colony from heaven, not a man-made organization from earth.
• Tithing was not a practice of the New Testament church.  The early Christians used their funds to support the poor among them, as well as the poor in the world.  They also supported traveling itinerant church planters so that the gospel could be spread and churches could be raised up in other lands.  They gave according to their ability, not out of guilt, duty or compulsion.  Pastor/clergy salaries were unheard of.  Every Christian in the church was a priest, a minister, and a functioning member of the body.
• Baptism was the outward expression of Christian conversion.  When the early Christians led people to the Lord, they immediately baptized them in water as to testimony to their new position.  The Lord's Supper was an ongoing expression whereby the early Christians reaffirmed their faith in Jesus Christ and their oneness with His body.  The Supper was a full meal which the church enjoyed together in the spirit and atmosphere of joy and celebration.  It was the fellowship of the body of Christ, not a token ritual or a religious rite.  And it was never officiated by a clergy or a special priesthood.
• The early Christians did not build Bible schools or seminaries to train young workers.  Christian workers were educated and trained by older workers in the context of church life.  They learned "on the job".  Jesus provided the initial model for this "on-the-job" training when he mentored the Twelve.  Paul duplicated it when he trained young Gentile workers in Ephesus.
• The early Christians did not divide themselves into various denominations.  they understood their oneness in Christ and expressed it visibly in every city.  To their minds, there was only one church per city (even though it may  have met in many different homes throughout the locale).  If you were a Christian in the first century, you belonged to that one church.  The unity of the Spirit was well guarded.  Denominating themselves ("I am of Paul", "I am of Peter", "I am of Appolos") was regarded as sectarian and divisive (See 1 Corinthians 1:12)"

I do believe these are some of the aspects of God's vision for His church.  Remember, the goal in our lives and in our church should be the absolute centrality of Jesus Christ.  Nothing less will suffice.

We need more revolutionaries today who will stand against the religious system of our day.  I encourage you to catch the vision God has for His church!  The freedom His plan and will brings is beyond words!  Let's "buck the system" and seek a complete upheaval of those church practices that are so engrained in our churches today that are contrary to biblical principles.  Let's build on the right foundation - Jesus Christ.  Anything less results in defect.  
Let's return to Bible basics and New Testament Christianity where Jesus is Lord!

BE A REVOLUTIONARY!

Until next time, enjoy the journey!

Ray 

This blog post is another in a series looking at the practices of churches today and how they line up with the New Testament.  Perhaps this series could be better called, "Kicking Over Sacred Cows". For further reading and research, I recommend the book "Pagan Christianity?" by Frank Viola and George Barna.

I want to thank those of you who are sharing this blog with others.  I so appreciate it.  It's my desire to encourage and challenge believers everywhere to be the church Jesus has called us to be.  Leave the baggage of organize religion and serve Jesus in freedom following the leading of the Spirit as we gather in His name.  Please feel free to continue to post a link to this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even email it by using the icons below.  Let's see what God will do

WHAT ABOUT CHAPTER AND VERSE DIVISIONS??

Sometimes in one's haste to make things easier and more convenient something gets lost along the way.  The meaning of it is missed or at the very least diminished.  So is the case with the division of the Bible into chapters and verses.  While it does make it easier to find a particular chapter and verse, something has been lost because of this division.

I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but the division of the Bible by chapters and verses was man-made. The originals were written in letter form.

Chapters were added to all the books of the Bible in 1227 by Stephen Langton, a professor at the University  of Paris.  Then in 1551 Robert Stephanus, a printer, numbered all the sentences in all the books of the New Testament (Norman Geisler annd William Nix, A General Introduction Of The Bible, 340-341, 451).

In the book "Pagan Christianity", authors Frank Viola and George Barna wrote, "So verses were born in the pages of holy writ in the year 1551.  And since that time God's people have approached the New Testament with scissors and glue, cutting and pasting isolated, disjointed sentences from different letters, lifting them out of their real life setting, lashing them together to build floatable doctrines, and then calling it 'the Word of God.'"  You see, we see chapters and verses when we open our Bibles, as opposed to the whole picture.

As is, man has turned the New Testament into a manual, of sorts, that can be chopped up into fragments to prove nearly any point.  This is done by taking a verse here and a verse there in total disregard for the context these verses were written in and belong to.

No wonder we accept as biblical the office of pastor, the Sunday morning order of worship, sermons, church buildings, religious dress, seminaries and a passive priesthood of believers without giving it a second thought!  We've been conditioned to believe it because we have been taught this way in this jigsaw method of Bible interpretation.

One scholar writes, "If future editions of the New Testament want to aid rather than hinder a reader's understanding of the New Testament, it should be realized that the time is ripe to cause both the verse and chapter divisions to disappear from the text and to be put on the margin in as inconspicuous a place as possible.  Every effort must be made to print the text in a way which make it possible for the units which the author himself had in mind to become apparent" (emphasis mine; von Sod en, Die Schriften des Newen Testamentes, 482).

Most of us have been raised to look at the New Testament under the lense of a microscope cutting out verses we want to use to establish the points we want to make. We need to give up this mentality and approach the Scriptures in a fresh new way.  We need to look at the New Testament as a whole especially the epistles.  We need to look at them from beginning to end in order to have a better understanding of the context.

When we do this, we will learn the story from beginning to end.  We'll no longer take Scripture out of context.  We will see and understand the entire picture and the Bible will come alive to us like never before!  We will have a better grasp on what was being said and why when we look at the context.  Let's be careful to "rightly divide" the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15).

Until next time...enjoy the journey!

Ray

This blog post is another in a series looking at the practices of churches today and how they line up with the New Testament.  Perhaps this series could be better called, "Kicking Over Sacred Cows". For further reading and research, I recommend the book "Pagan Christianity?" by Frank Viola and George Barna.

I want to thank those of you who are sharing this blog with others.  I so appreciate it.  It's my desire to encourage and challenge believers everywhere to be the church Jesus has called us to be.  Leave the baggage of organize religion and serve Jesus in freedom following the leading of the Spirit as we gather in His name.  Please feel free to continue to post a link to this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even email it by using the icons below.  Let's see what God will do!

WHAT DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT REALLY SAY?

Isn't it amazing that we can meet together and follow the same traditions and rituals every Sunday without ever realizing these same traditions and rituals are never found in Scripture and are, in most cases, at odds with the New Testament?  Tradition is a powerful thing! Jesus told the religious leaders, "...Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition"  (Matthew 15:6b).

This brings to mind the question, "What does the New Testament really say?  As it appears in our Bible, it's quite easy to get a skewed picture of  what God's Word is saying to us.  When we put it in its proper context, the Word of God comes alive!  

The New Testament is comprised mostly of Paul's epistles, or letters.  Paul wrote thirteen letters in nearly a twenty year time frame.  Breaking Paul's letters down, nine letters were written to churches in different cultures, at different times  who were experiencing different problems.  The remaining four were written to individual Christians who were dealing with different issues at different times.

Its important to note that Paul's letters do not appear in chronological order.  All of Paul's letters appear after the Book of Acts and were put in to our Bible from longest letter to shortest.

Early in the second century, someone took it upon themselves to compile all the Pauline epistles into one volume.  At the time, no one really knew when Paul's letters were written. Even if they had known, it wouldn't have mattered.  At the time, the writings of the day were not listed alphabetically or chronologically.  Instead the Greco-Roman world ordered its literature according to decreasing length (Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Paul The Letter Writer, 120-121).

According to the best scholars, the chronological order of Paul's letters are as follows:

Galatians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Romans
Colossiaans
Philemon
Ephesians
Philippians
1 Timothy
Titus
2 Timothy
 

There is a Chronological Bible available that is quite handy for personal study.  I recommend it.  It flows quite well as you are reading the New Testament.

Believers are rarely, if ever, given the view of the flowing story of the early church with the New Testament books arranged in chronological order.  Because of that, most Christians know little about the social and historical events associated with each of the New Testament letters.

One Bible scholar put it this way, "The arrangement of the letters of Paul in the New Testament is in general that of their length.  When we arrange them into their chronological order, fitting them as far as possible into their life-setting within the record of the Acts of the Apostles, they begin to yield up more of their treasure; they become self explanatory, to a greater extent than when this background is ignored" (emphasis mine; G.C.D. Howley in "The Letters Of Paul," New International Bible Commentary, 1095).

What's the answer?  What is the answer that will bring you into a living, organic expression of body life today?  The first thing would be to get a good grasp of the understanding of the New Testament itself.  We need to look at the New Testament as a whole especially the epistles.  We need to look at them from beginning to end in order to have a better understanding of the context.

When we do this, we will learn the story from beginning to end.  We'll no longer take Scripture out of context.  We will see and understand the entire picture and the Bible will come alive to us like never before!

Enjoy the journey!

Ray

This blog post is another in a series looking at the practices of churches today and how they line up with the New Testament.  Perhaps this series could be better called, "Kicking Over Sacred Cows". For further reading and research, I recommend the book "Pagan Christianity?" by Frank Viola and George Barna.

I want to thank those of you who are sharing this blog with others.  I so appreciate it.  It's my desire to encourage and challenge believers everywhere to be the church Jesus has called us to be.  Leave the baggage of organize religion and serve Jesus in freedom following the leading of the Spirit as we gather in His name.  Please feel free to continue to post a link to this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even email it by using the icons below.  Let's see what God will do!

A LITTLE HUMOR FOR YOUR WEEKEND

I've been posting some pretty heavy and challenging things of late so I thought I'd post something lite and humorous for the weekend.  By the way, this is not theologically correct.  Ha. Ha.   Oh...and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you moms that read my blog!

Ducks

Three women die together in an accident and go to heaven. When they
get there, St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven ... don't
step on the ducks."

So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place.
It is almost impossible not to step on a duck.  Although they try their
best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.

Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw. St. Peter chains
them together and says, "Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to
spend eternity chained to this ugly man!"

The next day, the second woman accidentally steps on a duck, and
along came St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing, and with him is another
extremely ugly man.  He chains them together with the same punishment
as the first woman.

The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for
all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps. She
manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St.
Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid
eyes on ... very tall, tan, muscular, and with good hair.  St. Peter chains
them together without saying a word.

The woman remarks, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to
you for all of eternity?"

And the guy says, "Well, I don't know what you did, but I stepped on
a duck."

Enjoy the journey!

Ray

WHAT ABOUT SUNDAY SCHOOL AND THE YOUTH PASTOR?

I, personally, have never been a big fan of Sunday School.  In two of the churches we pioneered we did not have Sunday School.  We opted not to have Sunday School as I didn't find a precedence for it in the New Testament.  I have never liked anything that divides the Body of Christ - whether it be Sunday School divided into different age groups, men's meetings or women's meetings, senior's meetings, etc.  I'm often invited to a local men's group, but have graciously turned down the opportunity.  For me, it's a personal conviction.  For others it may not be. 

Now back to Sunday School.  Sunday School first began in the 1700's.  Robert Raikes, a newspaper publisher in Britain established the first Sunday School not for the purpose of religious education, but rather to teach poor children the basics of education in general.

Sunday Schools peaked when they began in the U.S. in the late 1700's.  Even in the U.S. the original purpose of Sunday School was to provide education to poor children in order too keep them off the streets.  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many Sunday Schools operated separately from churches.

In the early 1800's Sunday Schools began to transition from an effort to help poor children to an evangelical outreach.  D. L. Moody popularized the Sunday School as an evangelical outreach in America.  The Sunday School became prime recruiting ground for the contemporary church - and it still is.

Today, Sunday School is a permanent program in most institutional churches and  is used to recruit new converts and to train children, as well as adults, in the teachings of the faith. Public education has taken over the role for which Sunday School was originally started.

One scholar noted, "There is no evidence to suggest that teachers divided groups on the basis of age and sex.  The responsibility of the child's early education and, in particular, religious education lay with the parents.  No special arrangements seem to have been made for children by the early church.  The Christian school was a long way off - the Sunday School even more so" (Norrington, To Preach or Not, 59).  Too often today, we want to cart our children off to someone else for their teaching about God and His church instead of taking the responsibility that we ought for our children.  It all should start at home.

What about the Youth Pastor?  The dedicated youth pastor came on the scene long after the Sunday School.  The youth pastor began working in large urban churches around the formation of Youth For Christ in the 1940's.  By the early 1950's literally thousands of professional youth pastors were on the scene working with young people in an attempt to meet their spiritual needs.

Today, Youth Pastors are considered part of the "professional clergy".  This contributes to the false and misguided notion that there is a division between teenager and everyone else.

According to Frank Viola and George Barna in their book "Pagan Christianity", "Put another way, the youth pastor did not exist until a separate demographic group called teenagers emerged.  In so doing, we created a problem that never existed - what to do for (and with) the young people.  It is not at all unlike the problem we created when a new class of Christian - the laymen - was invented.  The question 'How do we equip the laity?' Was never asked before the institutional church made them a separate class of Christian."

The New Testament is silent on how we should train and instruct our children and young people.  It does, however, suggest that the responsibility for the moral and spiritual teaching of our children rests on the shoulders of the parents (Ephesians 6:4; 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:15).

We can become creative in how we teach and train our children.  Some learn in different ways.  The bottom line, though, is that they are taught and trained by their parents.  Certainly they will pick up and learn things as they gather with the church, as well.

I cannot say Sunday School, in and of itself, is wrong.  I can say without hesitation there is no precedence for it in Scripture.  My personal preference is for everyone of all ages to be together and learn, fellowship and function mutually as a community of believers.  If it was good enough for the early church, it's good enough for us.

Until next time, enjoy the journey!

Ray

This blog post is another in a series looking at the practices of churches today and how they line up with the New Testament.  Perhaps this series could be better called, "Kicking Over Sacred Cows". For further reading and research, I recommend the book "Pagan Christianity?" by Frank Viola and George Barna.

I want to thank those of you who are sharing this blog with others.  I so appreciate it.  It's my desire to encourage and challenge believers everywhere to be the church Jesus has called us to be.  Leave the baggage of organize religion and serve Jesus in freedom following the leading of the Spirit as we gather in His name.  Please feel free to continue to post a link to this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even email it by using the icons below.  Let's see what God will do!

IS FORMAL EDUCATION NECESSARY TO SERVE GOD?

Most institutional churches believe formal training at a Bible college is what qualifies one for the work of the Lord.  If one has a degree doors tend to open.  If you don't have that degree you are viewed in a "lay" capacity or in a "para- church ministry".  Those without the formal training are not allowed to teach, preach, baptize or administer the Lord's Supper in most institutional churches.

When one acknowledges a call to the ministry it is expected they will begin looking for a Bible college or seminary to attend for their formal training.  I, myself, visited a Bible college in Indiana.  I looked at other Bible colleges, as well.  

It's interesting to note how this type of thinking fits in to the mind-set of the early church. You see, Bible colleges, seminaries and, for that matter, even Sunday schools didn't exist in the early church.  Each of these are man-made entities that were created hundreds of years after the apostles passed from the scene.  Don't you find that interesting?  I certainly do.

That, then, brings to mind a question:  "How were Christian workers in the early church trained if they did not go for formal training in a religious school or training center?"  It appears training in the early church was "hands on" training.  It was more like what we would call an apprenticeship as opposed to intellectual training.

The early church Christians called to the work of God were trained in a couple of different ways.  First they learned the essentials of the faith by being part of a group of Christians. They started their training by experiencing body life as a non-leader.  They learned to "flesh out" their walk with God.  Secondly, they learned the Lord's work under the auspices of an older, seasoned worker.  This was all very practical and God ordained.  All of this without Bible colleges or seminaries!  Can you believe it?

R. Paul Stevens said, "The best structure of equipping every Christian is already in place.  It pre-dates the seminary and the weekend seminar and will outlast both.  In the New Testament no other nurturing and equipping is offered than the local church.  In the New Testament church, as in the ministry of Jesus, people learned in the furnace of life, in a relational, living, working and ministering context" (Emphasis mine.  Liberating the Laity 46).

Yet in spite of the example of Jesus and the early church, there is great emphasis placed on Bible school and seminary training today.  Most institutional churches require this training of their pastoral staff.  "How else", they reason, "will the prospective pastor have the knowledge and speaking ability to be the pastor we want?"  (There is so much wrong with that statement!)

I like how Frank Viola and George Barna put it in their book "Pagan Christianity?", "Bible knowledge, a high-powered intellect, and razor-sharp reasoning skills do not automatically produce spiritual men and women who know Jesus Christ profoundly and who can impart a life-giving revelation of Him to others. (This, by the way, is the basis of spiritual ministry)."

No matter how much we want to deny it, contemporary theology being taught in Bible colleges and seminaries, today, is a blending of Christian thought and pagan philosophy. What a mess this has brought into churches today.  Contemporary Christian education is built on the false idea that knowledge equals moral character.  We know this it not the case.

Its imperative that we realize that Bible school training, seminary training and theological knowledge does not prepare one for ministry.  I'm not demeaning having this knowledge by any means.  But its not the primary central thing - or at least it shouldn't be.  All the intelligence and knowledge in the world does not, in and of itself, qualify one for ministry in Jesus' church.

Probably the worst problem with the Bible college and seminary is that the system, itself, perpetuates this system of a clergy/laity distinction.  This system of pastor primacy is kept alive and ingrained into the lives of the students and graduates.  Instead of providing biblical answers for the problems this distinction generates, these Bible colleges and seminaries make things even worse by defending these unscriptural  practices in our churches.

As stated previously, Christian workers should be trained in the manner Jesus trained His disciples and the early church trained their workers.  They had "on the job" training while living in community together.  It was and still should be about mentoring.

We need to let God be God in our lives.  We must realize there are no Lone Rangers in the kingdom of God.  God intended for us learn, grow and serve as a community of believers.  We need each other!  The sooner we come to that realization, the more fruitful and productive our lives will be.

Until next time, let's enjoy the journey!

Ray

This blog post is another in a series looking at the practices of churches today and how they line up with the New Testament.  Perhaps this series could be better called, "Kicking Over Sacred Cows". For further reading and research, I recommend the book "Pagan Christianity?" by Frank Viola and George Barna.

I want to thank those of you who are sharing this blog with others.  I so appreciate it.  It's my desire to encourage and challenge believers everywhere to be the church Jesus has called us to be.  Leave the baggage of organize religion and serve Jesus in freedom following the leading of the Spirit as we gather in His name.  Please feel free to continue to post a link to this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even email it by using the icons below.  Let's see what God will do!

THE LORD'S SUPPER OR THE LORD'S SNACK?

What was the Lord's Supper in the early church could better be described as the Lord's Snack in today's church.  A lady whose institutional church observes communion every Sunday morning recently shared with me that her four year old granddaughter was sitting with her in church and asked, "When are we having snack?" 

The Lord's supper, also known as communion, has changed dramatically from that of the early church.  In the early church the Lord's Supper was a festive meal shared together. Instead of a solemn mood, this meal was one of celebration and joy.  It was essentially a Christian banquet.  On top of that, there was no clergyman to officiate it.  Can you believe that?

That's a far cry from the way we observe the Lord's supper in our day.  Instead of a meal its more of a snack - a thimble of grape juice and a piece of cracker.  Today the Lord's Supper is observed in a somber atmosphere.  We are told to remember the horrors of Jesus' death and to reflect on our sins.  Today many would not consider taking Communion without a minister present.

Most of the time 1 Corinthians 11:27-33 is read as part of the communion service.  I have used this passage most every time myself.  A warning is given not to participate in the Lord's Supper "unworthily".  In this passage Paul appears to have been speaking to church folks who were dishonoring the Lord's Supper by not waiting for their poor brothers and sisters to eat with them.  There were also those who were apparently getting drunk on the wine.

As one scholar so eloquently put it, "It is not in doubt that the Lord's Supper began as a family meal or a meal of friends in a private house.  The Lord's supper moved from being a real meal to a symbolic meal...the Lord's Supper moved from bare simplicity to elaborate splendor.  The celebration of the Lord's Supper moved from being a lay function to a priestly function.  In the New Testament itself, there was no indication that it was the special privilege or duty of anyone to lead the worshiping fellowship in the Lord's Supper" (Barclay, Lord's Supper, 99-102).

The early church celebrated communion as a meal with an attitude of joy and celebration. In doing so, they proclaimed Jesus' great sacrifice, His victory over death and His future return.  You talk about a "This do in remembrance of Me" moment!  Wow!

In their book "Pagan Christianity?", authors Frank Viola and George Barna said of the Lord's Supper, "They [early Christians] also took it as a full meal in fellowship with the body of Christ, the church.  This is the way it was handed down to us by Jesus and the apostles. Therefore we ought to ask ourselves:  Is stripping the Lord's Supper from the meal and making it a somber occasion a development or a departure?  Have we improved upon what Jesus and the apostles passed down to us, or have we strayed from it?"

For additional thoughts on the Lord's supper I encourage you to check out the following links:

http://www.daveblackonline.com/lord1.htm

http://www.inthebeginning.com/articles/supper.htm

http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/openhse/supper.html

What would happen if we went back to the early church's way of doing the Lord's Supper?  What would happen if we celebrated the Lord's Supper - truly celebrated it in festive style - as a full meal?  I can see some Christians now getting all indignant on me.  I wonder how many times someone will say, "Well, we've always done it this way!"  How about we get back to Bible basics and New Testament Christianity instead of the way we've always done it?  Perhaps then we'll begin seeing Jesus' church have the impact we were meant to have!


These things are certainly worth consideration at the very least.

Enjoy the journey!

Ray



This blog post is another in a series looking at the practices of churches today and how they line up with the New Testament.  Perhaps this series could be better called, "Kicking Over Sacred Cows". For further reading and research, I recommend the book "Pagan Christianity?" by Frank Viola and George Barna.

I want to thank those of you who are sharing this blog with others.  I so appreciate it.  It's my desire to encourage and challenge believers everywhere to be the church Jesus has called us to be.  Leave the baggage of organize religion and serve Jesus in freedom following the leading of the Spirit as we gather in His name.  Please feel free to continue to post a link to this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or even email it by using the icons below.  Let's see what God will do!