Tag Archive - christians

Why No One Likes Evangelism

June 25, 2010 in Evangelism with 2 Comments

Over the years, I have encountered many Christians who do not feel comfortable with evangelism.  Loosely, evangelism is the process in which Christians seek to convert or share the Gospel of Christ to others.  When you say the word “evangelism” at a church meeting, thoughts of door knocking, Bible tracks, and street preaching come to mind.

Guy Kent at the Good Preacher/Homiletical Hot Tub blog, posted a funny telling of a Charlie Brown cartoon:

A Charlie Brown cartoon once had Lucy proclaiming to Charlie Brown, “I would make a good evangelist.”

Charlie Brown responds, “And why do you think that?”

“Well, I convinced the boy who sits behind me in school that my religion is better than his religion.”

Now Charlie Brown is intrigued. “How did you do that?”

Lucy tells him, “I hit him over the head with my lunch box!”

The “hit’em over the head” approach is often seen as the worst example of evangelism.   These days, post modernity has made us shy about sharing our faith.  Anyone who holds to an absolute truth is a nut or is too rigid.  Isn’t there a better way?

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Sacrament or Ordinance? (Part 1)

June 22, 2010 in sacrament with 2 Comments

Recently, Karen Bullock, professor Christian heritage and director of the Ph.D. program at the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute, commented on Baptists celebrating their 400 year anniversary by saying, “…several theologians across the past half century have advocated that Baptists reconsider both the terms and meaning of sacramental acts…Some of this thinking re-engages the sacramental notions of churchly acts and ordinances…”

Over the past few years, I have been actively involved in reading confessions and writings of early Baptists who saw a theological strengthening in the acts of baptism and communion.  Normally, to contemporary Baptists, the word “ordinance” is used over “sacrament.”  This was done to avoid the Catholic understanding of “sacrament” and to avoid any hint of works related faith.  However, over the next few weeks and months, I will present scholarly and lay research on the case for strengthening sacramental language among Baptists.

Indeed, the word sacrament was used among Baptists in the 16th and 17th centuries.  However, “ordinance” stuck in favor of Zwingli’s view of baptism and communion.  Even modern British Baptists use the word “sacrament” when they speak of baptism and communion.

I found this little bit of encouraging research that opted to spiritually understand what happens at communion.  The 1689 London Confession of Baptist Faith, states:

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Post Christian Europe: Not Dead

June 16, 2010 in Evangelism with 2 Comments

This past Sunday, we had the wonderful opportunity to have Pieter and Nora Kalkman visit us and share about their ministry in Europe. They spoke about their work in eastern Europe and their challenges in “post Christian” Europe.  Nora and Pieter are based in Prague, Czech Republic where they serve through International Ministries as liaison and volunteer coordinators with the European Baptist Federation (EBF). They match the skills and interests of short term mission volunteers from the United States and Puerto Rico with the needs of more than 50 Baptist unions that are part of the EBF.

Some interesting information they shared:

  • There are only 2.4% Bible believing Christians in Europe, making this is a priority mission field.
  • Georgian Baptist pastors wear similar liturgical vestments that Orthodox priests wear because of the historical Eastern Orthodox presence in that region.
  • In some countries, only 3% of the population go to any type of “church.”
  • There are a variety of needs to do mission work. Week trips, short term, and long term ministry opportunities can be found here.

So if there only 2.4% “Bible believing Christians” living in Europe, we have to ask the question: Is Christianity dead in Europe?

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In Front of the Church

June 11, 2010 in outreach with 2 Comments

Video blog thoughts…

Pentecost 3C

Once Upon A Time…

May 28, 2010 in trinity with 0 Comments

…there was a woman who set out to discover the meaning of life. First, she read everything she could get her hands on–history, philosophy, psychology, religion. While she became a very smart person, nothing she read gave her the answer she was looking for.  She found other smart people and asked them about the meaning of life, but while their discussions were long and lively, no two of them agreed on the same thing and still she had no answer.

Finally, she put all her belongings in storage and set off in search of the meaning of life. She went to South America.  She went to India.  Everywhere she went, people told her they did not know the meaning of life, but they had heard of a man who did, only they were not sure where he lived.  She asked about him in every country on earth until finally, deep in the Himalayas, someone told her how to reach his house–a tiny little hut perched on the side of a mountain just below the tree line.

She climbed and climbed to reach his front door. When she finally got there, with knuckles so cold they hardly worked, she knocked.

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Small Churches Are The Next Big Thing

May 26, 2010 in Churches with 3 Comments

Brandon J. O’Brien at Christianity Today’s Out of Ur blog, has a really interesting thought about the future of small churches.  The perception is that small churches are dying and are even the reason why Christianity is waning. However, O’Brien pulls from a number of sources to explain why the small church might be the next big movement:

In a conversation last week about the virtues of small churches, a pastor friend of mine, Chuck Warnock, quoted a passage from John Zogby’s 2008 book The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House). Zogby prophesies that “The church of the future will be a bungalow on Main Street, not a megastructure in a sea of parking spaces. It’s intimacy of experience that people long for, not production values.”

On the face of it, I couldn’t be more pleased with that prediction. I’ve pastored two small congregations and am now a member and deacon in another, where my wife serves on staff. My experience with these churches has led me to believe that small congregations are uniquely positioned to carry the gospel into the world in the 21st century. Few things would make me happier than if the “next big thing” in Christian ministry conversations was the small church.

Interesting take.  Certainly, the Emergent Movement has taught us that small churches can do big things and reach people previously thought to be “unreachable.”  Also, “house churches” have been known to start mega churches because of their simplicity and small community.

O’Brien also says there is a danger involved with small churches:

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Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

April 30, 2010 in faith with 0 Comments

For some reason recently, while typing my Friday posts, I have a song in my head.  Two weeks ago, I blogged about Bruce Springsteen.  Today, I thinking about Jimmy Buffett and a great song he wrote in 1977 that still gets radio play and is a popular song at his concerts: “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”

Over the years, I have learned a lot from Buffett’s music concerning life, success, disappointment, happiness, and hard times. During the moments where I am too serious or too uptight, I often return to Buffett’s music when I need a change of perspective.  “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is the perfect song during those moments of change or difficulty in life.  When changes pop up in our lives it is often at unexpected times.

The chorus from “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is particularly helpful: Continue Reading…

So you want to be spiritual? Try this:

April 29, 2010 in spirituality with 1 Comment

With so many Americans calling themselves “spiritual” rather than religious, many in the Christian community have asked, “How can we make Christianity more spiritual?”  That is a laughable question because Christianity is inherently spiritual.  Prayer, baptism, worship, singing, communion, fellowship, reading scripture, and the list can go on.  Sure, Christianity does not have rocks, stones, and other “new age” objects or artifacts, but there is a steady diet of spiritual things in Christianity.

For hundreds of years mystic, monastic, and ascetic Christians have sought to have a deeper connection with God. St. John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, and Thomas Merton are a few names that Christians may have heard before.  Sometimes their stories are bizarre, but often many mystics simply wanted a prayerful spiritual life.

Some Christians may run the other way when they hear the word “mystical”, but believe it or not every time we pray we are being mystical.  When we pray, we are praying to a transcendent God to ask or praise him for supernatural works.  When we Christians use the word “mystical” we are talking about the  spiritual life and we do not have to speak in tongues to be spiritual either.

One the most transformational components of the spiritual life is reading scripture.  However, many find the Bible boring and need a guide when reading.  One the most spiritual things we can do when we read scripture is to participate in lectio divina.  What the heck is that?

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Doubts, Faith, & Belief

April 8, 2010 in faith with 2 Comments

The Barna Group, an evangelical research organization has yielded some surprising findings about America’s Christian and spiritual beliefs:

  • Half of all adults firmly believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches. That proportion includes the four-fifths of born again adults (79%) who concur.
  • Just one-quarter of adults (27%) are convinced that Satan is a real force. Even a minority of born again adults (40%) adopt that perspective.
  • Similarly, only one-quarter of adults (28%) believe that it is impossible for someone to earn their way into Heaven through good behavior. Not quite half of all born again Christians (47%) strongly reject the notion of earning salvation through their deeds.
  • A minority of American adults (40%) are persuaded that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life while He was on earth. Slightly less than two-thirds of the born again segment (62%) strongly believes that He was sinless.
  • Seven out of ten adults (70%) say that God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today. That includes the 93% of born again adults who hold that conviction.

If the majority of Americans claim to be Christian, then this study brings to light about the faith of most Christians in America.  In our Gospel text for this Sunday, we will examine the faith in the disciples who saw Jesus.

We find our disciples, who are living in fear of the Jews coming to finish off Jesus’ followers, living in a house on a Sunday. The doors are locked and as they are living in a cowardly state Jesus appears in the house.

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"Twitter Storms" & Haikus Attack Glenn Beck

April 7, 2010 in twitter with 1 Comment

If a tree falls during a  “twitter storm” and no one is around, does it make a sound?

That is what I asked myself when I stumbled upon this morning’s Washington Post “On Faith” section that caught my attention: Protests on Twitter against Glenn Beck.  That’s right, cyberspace protesting using Twitter: a Twitter storm.  Apparently, this is the first such known protest on Twitter.

You may remember Glenn Beck pleading his listeners to flee their churches if their priest or pastor preached “social justice” because those are code words for “socialism.”  You can read my blog post about this at my Times Union Newspaper blog here and here.

These protests consist of “twitter storming” or “tweet storming” Beck.  Apparently, a “tweetstorm” occurs when users on Twitter inundate a user’s account with thousands of messages, mentions, and replies that use the user’s @ username.  The very interesting and funny website Haik U Glenn Beck has thousands of haikus that speak to our “inner zen” of poetry. The idea is to use these haikus to send to Beck’s twitter account — one a minute till they run out.

Some of the haikus that stuck out on the website are:

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