Furthering my thoughts on my last post, I want to submit that there is a great danger to the big church building projects especially as it relates to non-Christians.
Take a look at your Bible. If it’s the same as mine the scriptures are full of a call for Christians to pour themselves out on behalf of others. It is a totally reversed idea from what culture says. We are called to sacrifice for the sake of others, to put others needs before our own, etc. And most non-Christians know that, at least some of it.
What message does our huge fancy buildings send to the world? It says that we are very interested in our own well being. It says that we some how reconcile the call to care for the poor, the poor on our streets, and our big building all together in this religion of ours. How does any of this make sense?
I’ll tell you, this is a struggle for me, and I guarantee you it is something non-Christians wonder too. Those who come to our comfortable, fancy churches and like it stay, not because of the radical call of Christianity, but because of the comfortable, country-club style church we’ve created (not everyone, but I would submit a lot of people). I’m gonna get in trouble for saying that.
I ran into this problem near the end of my time at the Christian college I attended. This is “fancy” place. They just spent $21 million on a new student center for the 2400 students that go there. In the classes we talked about the radical call to care for others, but we do it all the while with this underlying presumption that we can follow this radical call and at the same time maintain this extravagant lifestyle that we are offered at the college. Now, this is not to say my education was worthless, or the people there are horrible. I had an incredible education, and the people (staff, peers, admin) are wonderful, this does not take away from that.
What I am trying to say is that our buildings send a message about our values, and I think they send a message of values in the wrong places.
is “comfortable” what we are after?
Brian’s comment aroused a couple of thoughts in my mind and I’ll try and address it in the next two posts. The question it really brought up is: what do “unchurched people” or “non-Christians” really want in a church? From what I understood about what Brian said (and I think this is what a lot of people would say including myself at one point) is that non-Christians want a comfortable enviroment.
I think the reason we think non-Christians want “comfortable” is because that’s what we want. We want a comfortable place, so we build big churches, with fancy statues, waterfalls, game rooms, fireplaces and the list goes on. Sometimes we are honest and say it is for ourselves(“we simply need those extra rooms for Sunday school”), and other times we say it is for outreach (“we could have lots of concerts on this stage and people will get saved”). Now I’m not saying either of those things are true, or that they can’t be used for that, but I do question if that is really how we should be doing things. Or if Christianity is really about being comfortable in that way at all.
Hugo Chavez calls out the USA.
Now this is impressive. Chavez is interviewed on Nightline with Koppel. Chavez mentions during the interview that there are rumors circulating that are lies, and mentions Pat Robertson’s comment about his assissination. Koppel tries to write it off and say that no one in the government condoned it and the Robertson apologized. Chavez responds:
“Well, take a look at this.
The U.S. administration has to reject — should have rejected the term of terrorist that Robertson used. The U.S. administration seriously sinned with respect to international and national laws, because the call to murder a chief of state is, in accordance with international law, terrorism.
So this gentleman, Robertson, should be under arrest by the government of the United States — silence.
Consequently, harboring a terrorist,…”
How about that USA?
p.s. The interview is really good, and you can watch it on comcast.net if your a comcast customer, or just read the transcript.
That funny look.
You ever get that uncomfortable feeling that people are looking at you funny? I felt that way today. I walked into a church to use the restroom. I was in shorts, t-shirt and sandals. I had a couple days worth of stuble and my eyes looked tired from not enough sleep.
I stepped out of the bathroom, and there was a lady at a reception desk and then two ladies chatting nearby. The lady at the reception desk ask me how I am, I say fine as I head out, then she says can “I help you with something?” That was polite, but the two other ladies stopped their talking and looked at me. I said I was just picking somebody up, and turned to leave. That was awkward. Then another guy comes out of his office and asks me if he can help me with something. Again, very polite, but it felt strange. Sort of that “what are you doing here?” undertone.
Obviously, a lot of it is probably my own perception, but Mindy had asked me if I felt that way ever, cause she had an experience where she felt like that recently. And then this happened.
How about you?
why a building?
I think my intitial hesitation about the whole building thing came when the church building craze started my last year of high school. My church decided we need to add a $2.5 million addition on to our building. I didn’t realize we were outgrowing the original building in the first place, and now they wanted to add on. And in adding on they wanted it to look really nice, which is understandable since the current building looked quite nice. But I thought to myself $2.5 million is a whole lot of money, and it just doesn’t seem necessary.
Little did I know over the next few years practically every church I went to was doing a building campaign. Some of them really needed it, others I wasn’t so sure. We attended one church for a while and then they started a building campaign for a second building and they where putting an indoor waterfall in it. That was it, I was gone.
Then at some point I started thinking… Why the heck do we need a building anyways? I mean we all live somewhere, why don’t we meet in our homes? It seemed to me that’s mostly what the early church did. I mean, it’s true we couldn’t all pack in to hear the really good preachers, but since when is that what it’s all about? Some would say that’s what small groups are for, to meet in smaller communities in our homes and stuff (I’ll address this later).
I’m not saying church buildings don’t have a purpose, I’ve just started questioning if they are really necessary at all. I mean is it feasible to do the things we do in a church building in our homes instead? And what about bigger events? Is it possible to do those in a place other than our own building?
One of my main concerns about the building is that seems to be all we spend our money on, or talk about spending our money on. The main time you hear about making tithing pledges in most churches it seems is usually related to a building campaign. And then the church goes into debt to purchase the new building before they even have all the money.
That was just a rant of sorts, I really should fine tune it a bit, but there it is raw
Bush saying what needs to be said.
I’m very impressed.
do not resist…
(note: I’m skipping passages I’d like to come back to later, and trying to hit the ones that most affected me, and ones most people usually reference and want to talk about first).
38″You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. -Matthew 5:38-42
The idea of not resisting an evil person has got to be the most counter cultural concept I had heard in a long time. We’d certainly heard the “turn the other cheek” passage, but usually it’d been flaunted as a weak and cowardly thing to do to avoid further punishment. Growing up I can only think of one example of this being carried out in real life: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement. I later learned about Gandhi, Mandela, and others, but initially I had heard of nothing but the occasional reference to the Civil Rights movement. It’s no wonder I and many others didn’t take this passage seriously at all.
But, upon reading it one summer I was struck by the fact that a literal interpretation of it seems incredibly inline with what Christ message is. Self-sacrificial love seems like the only compelling force to this type of action. I later was enlightened by Walter Wink’s insight into this passage and I think it coincides with what I said. Christ calls us not to resist the person, but rather to show them love, and at the sametime maintain our humanity in the person’s eyes. Evil has no power over that kind of love.
(please let’s not discuss other things that Wink says in that article here. I’d rather just focus on the passage mentioned.).
If your gonna rip on Kanye…
There are a few other big names your going to need to confront too.
Jay-Z.
Matt Damon and Sean Combs
Is he a new voice?
Beginning thoughts on Church
Just a disclaimer to begin with: My reflections here are in no way a critique of the leadership or members of any church I’ve gone to in the past or currently go to. I don’t want anyone anywhere, pastor, leader, church member, etc. to feel like my reflections are an attack on them or anyone they know. These are just my reflections on church and they’ve been provoked by my reading of the scriptures.
I also just want to say that I have had quite a good experience in the churches I have been in. My parents started going to Crosstowne Community Church when I was little because of the children’s ministry. I guess we had a really good time there and we stayed through middle school. [Let me take a moment to say my parent’s are amazing and sacrificial. When I think about the choices they’ve made in life, so often it is clear the top priority has been what is best for us kids. You couldn’t ask for better parents.] When I got to high school I had gone to an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Atheletes) camp and really been challenged to actually live out my faith. Somewhere my freshman year I started going to High Point Church because of their rocking youth group. It was a place of amazing spiritual growth for me. In fact that is where my faith really began and flourished. After that I left for college and have had a hard time plugging in anywhere for much time. I have enjoyed my brief involvement at 1027 church in Atlanta, The Church in Lombard, and currently at Mosaic and Edgehill UMC in Nashville. And don’t worry, I’m not leaving.
Now that you got that intro, stay tuned for thoughts on Church…
Discretion in giving?
It appears that though we as a nation have been more generous with the recent disasters, a close look at giving trends shows that we are also becoming more discretionary. It seems we are more interested in giving to those we deem “worthy” of receiving our help. Mostly we want to help those who are innocent in their situation.
Is this the type of giving God has called us to? Does Jesus call us to give, but with stipulations? I’ll have to check my Bible on that one.