Status Quo-ting

What I’m about to express may rock your world.

Or not.

Churches of Christ (as a group) have lived with the status quo too long. You may be thinking, “Yeah! You’re absolutely right!”, if so – I’m not talking to you, you already know what I’m about to say. Or you may be thinking “What are you? Some kind of progressive troublemaker?”, if that’s the case – please, for all of our sakes, read on.

Allow me to explain myself – the status quo I’m referring to is the seeming inability to entertain new ideas or concepts. I’m talking about the absence of evolution of ideology. According to most Churches of Christ, understanding and explication of the Holy Word of God reached its epitome in the person of Alexander Campbell. He got it completely right, job is done, let’s get this show over with and get to Heaven! … hmm … If you detect a little sarcasm, it’s because it’s there. Alexander Campbell was a great man, an incredible man of God. And we want to give him the status of Prophet! At least in our minds, anyway.

Times change, people change, perceptions change – Truth is absolute, understanding of Truth … is not. Largely as a movement, the Churches of Christ have been unwilling or unable to entertain the notion that the “way we do things” is because that’s the way we’ve always done it! We have the same discussions over and over, and we use the same circular logic to come to the same unfounded notions about things that have nothing to do with the Gospel!! You all know what I’m talking about – clapping in worship, musical instruments, women’s roles, widows and orphans … the list could go on and on.

When will we wake up and realize that people are leaving the church more often than not for what we don’t do. We don’t preach the Gospel like we should, we don’t focus on getting each other to Heaven, we don’t build up our families, we don’t love people the way Christ did. Love is kind, love is patient, love is forgiving. Brotherhood gossip columns, rampant disfellowshipping – these are not loving actions.

We have slogans like “Meeting you where you are” , “Come and join our family” , “The door is always open” … do we actually live those words that adorn our bulletins and letterheads? Do we meet a man who is homeless and living on the streets, where he is? Do we even look out the door to see who is there? I firmly believe that if the kind of people that Christ accepted were to walk into a Church of Christ worship service today, 9 out of 10 congregations would either ignore them or ask them to leave. I hope to God that I’m wrong!

Do we accept the adulteresses? The drunks? The thieves? The prostitutes? The mentally ill?

Or do we sit quietly while Satan claims another for his keeping?

The enemy is close on our heels. Going into the all the world shouldn’t just be a nice thought.

Peace.

Why Red is my Favorite Color

Blood pressure is a funny thing. Side-splitting, as a matter of fact.

Mine tends to take an up-and-down ride about this time every week. The cause? My lovable, heart-pounding-in-the-ears, laughable, make-you-clench-your-teeth-until-your-jaw-pops, delightful, “I-had-better-not-hear-ANOTHER-WORD!” teens that I teach at church on Wednesday nights.

Let me make this excruciatingly clear: I absolutely love those kids. That being said – sometimes I wanna just kill ‘em! (Every time I tell that joke I want to clarify that I’m only joking.)

Here is my task: convince these kids that Jesus loves them, wants them and wants to use them. And I’m afraid that I’m failing miserably at it. I’m fighting an uphill battle against the world at trying to engage their minds to focus on spiritual matters. They are being attacked every day, and I think that most of them don’t even know it. How do I refocus their wandering adolescent minds onto the things that really matter?

The quarrel lately has been over the format of the class. Last summer we tried a video series. The unanimous verdict was: “BORING!” Okay. Let’s do a discussion class? “BORING!” Alright…<the vein in my head pops out right about here> How about a book that we can fill out together? Yeah, you guessed it. “BORING!” The urge to throw my hands up and walk away is almost overwhelming.

But that is what Satan wants me to do, isn’t it? He thinks if he can take me out, he can pick off the kids one-by-one. And he probably could. What’s stopping him? Just the greatest General of all time (literally!) The Commander of the Angel Armies, the Alpha and the Omega, the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace … the Son of Man … Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So what’s up now, Satan?! Not so big and bad now are you?! This is a battle that exceeds the bounds of Friendship Church of Christ in Olive Branch, MS. But it is part of the battleground. We have one thing Satan can never have, though. Read the book of Revelation and you’ll find it: we win. We know how the battle ends and we win.

Even the winning side takes heavy losses, though. That’s where I hope to be a battlefield medic. Running through flying shrapnel and hails of bullets trying to reach the wounded before its too late. Staunch the flow, tie it off and get them out of there to someone who can finish the job completely. The battlefield medic isn’t the guy who does the best job, or even does it completely right. He’s the guy who looks like the soldiers; who can get there first, while the battle is still hot.

So maybe I don’t always get the same amount of “respect” from my teens that the older guys get. But that’s okay. I can get closer to them. When Satan is breathing down their necks, I’ll be right behind – breathing down his. Count on it.

Peace.