Spiritual Update 002

I recently finished reading ‘A new kind of Christian’ by Brian McLaren. The book made a lot of good points about things that I guess the author himself has experienced and been turned off by in Christian communities.

There were a whole heap of things that I identified with in the book which made it so readable and engaging for me. In it, the main character experiences doubts and differing views that get him into trouble with people who think more conservatively and express their faith in different ways.

I get frustrated by the church and how so many seem so far away from Jesus ideals. But...it took me reading this to figure this out....the church is full of individuals like me, who make mistakes. Therefore the more people there are in a church body the more mistakes will be made. It’s funny how I expect a church to be perfect when I know I myself am far from it.

I wonder what a church of Andrews would look like? Man, it would have its own set of problems!!

Here are some of the points in the book that stood out to me and got me thinking.

On sharing the good news about Jesus

· Instead of conquest, instead of a coercive rational argument or an emotionally intimidating sales pitch or an imposing crusade or an aggressive debating contest where we hope to ‘win’ them to Christ, I think of it like a dance. You know in a dance, nobody wins and nobody loses. Both parties listen to the music of the gospel and try to move to it. In this case, I hear the music of the gospel and my friend doesn’t, so I try to help them hear it and move with it. And like a dance, I have to ask if the other person wants to participate. There’s a term for pulling someone who doesn’t want to dance into a dance: assault…. “Of course sometimes the best of us get tripped up, and in doing so we trip others up too”

This winner loser mentality is true in the spiritual realm. We are in a battle with Satan and his forces and they do lose when someone decides to join Gods side and live lives that please him. But it seems I take this battle mentality into discussions about God where I either ‘win’ or ‘lose’. Leaving little room for questioning and seeking, and much room for pride and arrogance.

This book also stressed evangelism through actions and lifestyle. I hadn’t liked this quote for a while coz it seemed like everyone was using it but I think it is appropriate ‘Share the good news at all times… if necessary use words’

Jesus spent time with his disciples showing them what it means to be a follower of Christ and while He used words they were only effective because they were backed up with His life. I think to the most powerful examples of teaching in my life and they don’t generally come from people saying things but from people displaying things. I remember two people in particular with servant hearts whose humility inspired me, Josh Maskell and Steve. Their lives are far more profound to me than a year of quality sermons. It seems our life is the most powerful sermon we will ever preach. What’s yours saying?

· Getting to heaven is not the point of salvation. God purpose is for us to live redeemed lives right here and now by submitting to His will and letting his character, values and priorities take over our lives.

· The Bible isn’t the foundation of our faith. Maybe our faith is like a web where there are specific anchor points (church tradition, spiritual experience, scripture, community)

I think if anything is going to be the foundation it is Jesus. In many places He is called the rock, the stone the builders rejected, the capstone…etc. But we only know these things through relying on the Bible! Which, if isn’t true, Jesus may not be all these things He and the gospel writers claimed. I guess the Bible is the foundation of how we know about our faith but if the Bible is our only reason to believe in God then something is truly lacking in our Christian lives. What if it was found out some wrong books got put into the Bible? Would your faith survive? Interesting to think about.

· “We want it [the Bible] to be God’s encyclopaedia, God’s rule book, God’s answer book, God’s scientific text, God’s easy-steps instruction book, God’s little book of morals for all occasions……….I think that when you let go of the Bible as God’s answer book you get it back as something so much better.” I asked what that would be, and he said, “It becomes the family story. Look, you have kids. You must give them some idea of what the Poole family name means. You tell them stories and their great-grandparents and grandparents. You give them the idea that to be a Poole means something, right?” I nodded.

Well the Bible does the same thing. It tells the family story – the story of the people who have been called by the one true God to be his agents in the world, to be his servants to the rest of the world. It’s absolutely essential – to give the family a sense of identity, so we know who we are and why we’re here and where we’re going……..“What are you saying?” I asked. “That the Bible doesn’t have any answers?” “Sure it has answers, but I don’t think that’s the point. Think of a math book, Dan. Is it valuable because it has answers in the back? No, it’s valuable because by working through it, by doing the problems, by struggling with it, you become a wiser person, a person capable of solving problems.

I know after I have read the Bible I find myself thinking, “If I… then God will”. I also notice I have a habit of making the verse apply to just myself and not the rest of the world. Turning faith into a very individualistic thing which I don’t think it is supposed to be. God requires us to be a part of a community of believers for a reason.

· Our interpretations of the Bible reveal less about God or the Bible than they do ourselves.

· So when evangelicals say they’re arguing about the Bible’s absolute authority, too often they are arguing about the superiority of the traditional grid through which they read and interpret the Bible.

I also read another book at the suggestion of my minister “Truth and the new kind of Christian” by R. Scott Smith, which exposes some of the major flaws in taking up a post-modern version of the Christian faith.

In it the book shows how the author of ‘A new kind of Christian’ Brain McLaren and other post-modern thinkers believe that there is no objective truth. Which was already obviously wrong to me; but helped me understand better why I hate peoples loose interpretations of Scripture.

It seems a lot of it has to do with 1) A knee jerk reaction against Christians who turn people off by proclaiming they know the truth in an arrogant way. 2) It allows people to have control over what the Bible says. i.e. It means different things to different cultures, therefore in my culture doing such and such is fine. 3) A reaction against churches turning cultural or subjective things into objective truths.’ E.g. Raising your hands = worship, you cannot drink alcohol, certain “swear” words are unacceptable…

After reading that critique I am more cautious about swallowing certain things that are being taught by post-modern thinkers. I still feel there is a lot to be gained through reading both books with an honest and open mind.

Perscriptive vs Descriptive truth

I was talking to a mate a while back and he was telling me how prescriptive truth is stressed in church more than descriptive truth. Prescriptive truth tells you behaviours to engage in or refrain from, which is common to most of the sermons we hear. Descriptive truth is more along the lines of explaining what God has done for us, sharing his love and grace and letting that infect and shape us. Paul does the latter in his letter to the Romans and Jesus spent far more time with the disciples letting them discover who He was and how much He loved them than he did telling them what to do. I don’t know what an ideal ratio of prescriptive:descriptive truth would be or even if there is one, but it’s just something else I had thought about.

Maths analogy

I finally ‘got’ Logarithms for the first time the other day. Something just clicked and I finally understood why, Log x² = 2Log x

Now I feel this is a lot like the Christian message. Maybe it just takes time and/or God to step in and make it click. You can have it explained to you a lot of times, and even really well but if it doesn’t ‘click’ then you just don’t get it. We all know you can go through life doing the problems without really understanding what you are doing.

The Bible says “Seek and you will find”, so ‘clicking’ is a thing that naturally happens when you are seeking an answer, but I guess there are things that hinder people from clicking. Not really having a desire to understand, a hard heart, pride…I’m sure there are more.

Now about life…

I’ve been having some really good discussions with friends about God and the big questions in life. I can’t think of a better way to spend my time. Learning to listen to others and their struggles and having the privilege of sharing our experiences. I really genuinely love my friends too! I can remember a time in year 12 where I would see people only as potential converts but fail to enjoy them for the person God has made. As good as it would be for people to experience God, forgiveness, and join the rest of God’s family on the mission to restore this world to what He intended; it still isn’t right to view people like that. Now it’s great because I really enjoy their company regardless of their belief.

It is sooooo good to be living in a community where I can bang on my next door neighbours door at 2am in the morning to play video games. Where I can go kick a footy and have meals with my friends any time of the day.

This got me thinking back to Youth Ministry and circles of community…

Each circle represents something you are involved in with your life (Basketball, Bible study. The more circles you and another individual belong to the better friends you can potentially become. Of course there are exceptions; but I have a few relationships that cannot go any further because of the fact that all I have in common with this person is they cook me and omelette or swipe my zip card. We really have nothing much to talk about and then end of each conversation is fairly awkward. Up a level from that are people my age that serve food or work behind front desks and I can talk to them about University because we have that in common but it is still awkward coz we are not involved in each others lives. Then finally there are the boys on my floor that I...

The more overlap the deeper you can go

1) Eat with

2) Live with

3) Play sports with

4) Talk with

5) Play video games with

A relationship that shares all these things in common is far more likely to thrive. It gets me to thinking about the friendships that I am pursuing. It’s impossible to form deep relationships with everyone and I guess I could be focusing more of my attention on the people who I share more of my life with.

Church is going great guns, it all winds up in a few weeks and I am going to be sad to go. I have built some decent relationships at the youth group and over the past 4 weeks we had this guy come in and talk about creation + evolution stuff. He is really open minded, humble and wise. I really appreciated the fact that he said he is more interested in finding the truth than in holding to the Bible. That is, if the claims of the Bible don’t match up to how it really is he will throw them out. I also really love our minister. He has been so generous towards me and Kev in every way.

I really, really appreciate this. Especially from ministers who can easily become wrapped up in other things that are ‘more important’. I have been lucky to have two ministers who would take time out of their schedules to talk with me. If I ever became the pastor of a church I would like to be like that.

I haven’t really read the Bible for a while since I have been reading all this other stuff (A new kind of Christian, The story we find ourselves in and Disappointment with God, by Phillip Yancey) I think I like reading these other things so much because they are Bible based but they look at things from fresh angles and new ways very contrary to how I view and read the Bible. A lot of the time it is just a chore to read, so I don’t think it’s a matter of, ‘just keep reading it and the feelings will come’. But a matter of approaching the Bible with different attitudes and perspectives. I don’t know when the last time was that I read the Bible to enjoy it!

I need to be more patient on the girl front. I am just far to keen to get what I see as the next logical step in my life happening. (Marriage) Perhaps God in his wisdom has other ideas for me and maybe I won’t be happy with them at the time but I pray that I can submit to them. I can see a whole bunch of advantages to starting my teaching career single but why the heck did God have to make females so attractive!!

I’ve had one or two rough situations to deal with, but everything is turning out gold. “God works for the good of those who love him” seems really fitting for my life at this point.

Life sometimes still feels like I am wandering through with no apparent purpose except for self serving ones. That’s something that needs to stop, I need to get my eyes off myself and fix them on God and others. Probably on God first, then the focus on others will flow from that. At least the Bible suggests we ‘fix our eyes on Jesus’. (Hebrews 12:2)

That’s about it at the moment, sorry its been such a long time. I have been doing a lot of thinking but really I have no excuses, its not as if I am slogging away studying for anything!

Keep seeking to discover more

Andrew