Merry Christmas!!

It is amazing to me the impact that a baby boy who was born about 2000 years ago had on the earth.

No matter, what you believe about Jesus, it is undeniable that he has changed the world.

This year people in China will exchange gifts and sing songs. People in India will attend Christmas events around the nation. People throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even here in the States will all celebrate. Many may not even know they are celebrating the Savior's birth - yet they still celebrate. The impact of Jesus is amazing.

Who could have imagined this when He was killed on a cross? At that time he had a handful of close followers, and a mixed reputation. Who could have even comprehended the impact he would have on billions of people?

Jesus is amazing.

Merry Christmas.

I Hate All Your Show and Pretense --God

There is a song called 'Instead of a Show' written by Jon Foreman. It is direct, convicting, and I imagine to a lot of people, controversial ... just the kind of thing I like. The theme is that God hates all your shows, pretense, and noisy hymns. Instead, he desires justice and righteous living.

I have often wondered about it. It sounds right, but I wasn't quite sure about the 'hate' word. Does God really hate all the things he commanded us to do like gather together, celebrate, sing, and have festivals? Then I found it in the Bible.

Amos 5

21 “I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of
your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. 22 I will not accept your
burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your
choice peace offerings. 23 Away with your noisy hymns of
praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous
living.

So there it is ... When we make following God all about attending a worship service, we have completely missed the point, and He hates it.

The tragic thing is that our first response to this passage is to think we need to fix our shows. We think we need to make them more flat, boring, and uninspiring, or do away with them completely. (Everyone knows that boring is more authentic, right?)

I guess in some ways this is accurate. If we're not following God, cancelling the show is probably the best thing we could do. However, if we want to address the core issue, we need to look at what God tells Amos in verse 24 - following God should be about justice and righteous living. The 'show' is intended to flow out of that.

Festivals and assemblies were commanded by God - we should not do away with them, but they must become a celebration of our justice and righteousness rather than take the place of it.

I confess, that too many times I make following God all about participating in the shows rather than doing justice and living righteously. I don't think I'm alone in this regard. Americans as a whole are on a dangerous path. Think about it. When we hear the word 'church', we automatically think 'a meeting on Sunday'. We measure our spirituality based on attendance. We feel good about ourselves for just showing up (particularly if we sing something heart-felt while we're there). This is exactly what God hates.

Church, Death, and Multiplication

What would happen if local church institutions were willing to add dying and multiplying to their mission?

I stumbled on this article today. It details some of the recent events in China between large unregistered churches and the government.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091210/ap_on_re_as/as_china_mega_church

Here is the crazy thing. Although it sounds like this is bad for the church, I believe that government actions like this are precisely the reason the church is thriving in China.

Think about it. The government just broke up a 50,000 person church. So what will be the likely result? It will result in an energized and supremely dedicated group of tens of thousands that will now likely form hundreds or thousands of new individual churches.

In 5 years, many of these new churches if not most will likely have doubled or tripled in size. If the large church were left alone, it is highly doubtful that it would experience this type of growth.

Jesus knew this and explained over and over again that the kingdom would grow through multiplication. We in the church tend to forget this when left to our own decisions.

I have often heard it said that a church is 'organic' and that organic things grow so a church should be focused on growth. However, this is a very incomplete and somewhat dangerous thought, particularly when applied to a single local church institution. In addition to growing, organic things also multiply and on an individual level, they die. While everything in our world is busy living, dying, and multiplying, the local church is busy trying to exist and grow - and losing ground in the process.

So think about it ... What would happen if local church institutions were willing to add dying and multiplying to their mission?