What Really Matters to You Right Now?

So I’m blog-hopping looking for something creative to post today and suddenly realizing how easy it is to be caught up in someone else’s issues.   There are discussions and debates going on about a wide range of topics that, if I am reading these blogs correctly, are so critical that the fate of civilization as we know it is hanging in the balance.

Sometimes a topic intersects an area of personal interest.   Other times, I think of something clever — okay, at least I think it’s clever — to add as a short comment.   But the next day that blog will be off on a different subject which really isn’t something I see as critical to my own personal walk with Jesus.

Many Christian blogs are caught up in discussions that make your head spin.   I love surveying the issues and seeing what matters to some people.   (A blog like Internet Monk — see the blogroll — will do that for you and give you a crash course in theological hot topics.)   But often I feel like this is someone else’s discussion. Maybe I just haven’t reached a level of spiritual maturity to burden myself with certain topics.   Or maybe — and this is a BIG maybe — they haven’t written their argument in such a way as to evoke from me a response out of the depth of my understanding and connection to that particular concern.

So…what really matters to you right now?   What topic would you like to find on a Christian blog that would hit you right where you’re living at this moment?

Break up into groups of 3-4 and discuss; OR leave a comment!   (Or both!)

Why You Should Have a Church if You’ve Been Shot (and more links)

I was thinking out loud today about the importance of having a church, a church family and a pastor if you get home from work and take off your shirt only to discover that there’s a hole in your stomach.

“I think I’ve been shot;” I announced to my wife.

Our immediate concern was for the shirt I’d been wearing which, although it is already dark red, is my newest shirt and one that I like very much.

“The funny thing is;” I said to her, “I don’t remember being shot.” I certainly didn’t feel anything.

She produced a paper towel and some warm water and determined that I had probably scratched at some kind of mole earlier in the day.

Still; if I had been shot, I realized that nobody would come to visit me and I wouldn’t appear on a prayer list at any church on Sunday, let alone make it on to a prayer chain.   It would be nice to pretend that somebody cared.

So all you freewheeling readers out there who are currently “between churches” should definitely get one soon.

Today’s Links:

• Kathy aka Kaybee quotes an excellent piece of poetry from Mother Teresa in this post, Who is Jesus to Me?
• More thoughts on Bible meditation, this time from a site with a name similar to ours, Thinking With Purpose; part of a study on Spiritual Meditation.
• Sherry at the blog Soiled Wings would get along great my wife, who has made an art form out of dodging the greeters at the door of the church.   Sherry spiritualizes it however in this post, God, Greeters and Germs.
• It’s been awhile since we linked to Nashville pastor Pete Wilson’s blog.   In this post, he talks about the expectations we have for people in our churches, that they will fit into a certain mold; or as he calls them Cookie Cutter Souls.
• Despite my attempts at trying to sell a “booklet” which is shrinkwrapped into packages of four or five, it’s been suggested again that The Pornography Effect, really could use more chapters, or some serious padding, if we’re going to find a publisher.   So in a new chapter (ignore the post date) we look at the idea of Detoxification.

A New Way To Read Scripture Aloud

Nothing strikes terror in the hearts of churchgoers like being asked to do a scripture reading.   Even some progressive, non-liturgical churches are trying things in the middle of the sermon which involve having the reader seated with a live microphone to jump into the middle of the sermon to read texts as needed.   (The change in voices might actually keep some from slipping into their Sunday slumber.)

Laypersons so asked to participate will often make a panic purchase of a resource with a title like, “How to Pronounce Bible Names;” only to find the pastor saying the names with completely different vowel sounds and syllable emphasis than what they read to the congregation moments earlier.

And then there’s always the critical question, “What should I wear?”  This usually transcends any consideration of the words being uttered.

Talking about this on the weekend however, we decided that what is usually lacking in these moments is passion.   It’s not that the participant is unsaved or involved in gross sins.   Rather, they just haven’t taken the time to examine the text and draw out its key elements in spoken form.

Which is a great place to interrupt this and add, in case you missed it, the excellent comment made by Jeremy two posts back, in ‘A New Way to Meditate on Scripture’ where he redefined this as:  “…like walking down a highway that you drove on every day.  Longer to look, to feel, to think about.”

So let’s cut to the “how-to.”   Here’s how to slow down on the highway and consider the text so you that can read it with passion.

Photocopy or hand-write the verses you have been asked to read.  Then go through and place EMPHASIS on the KEY WORDS you want to draw out.   You can do this with:

• underlining
• capital letters
• bold-face type (or retracing handwritten words)
• highlighting in yellow

In other words, whatever works for you; one, some or all of the above.   This is what newsreaders on Top 40 radio stations would do to keep music listeners from tuning out during the newscast.   Punch it out a little!   Sell it!   Make it sing!  (Unless you’re reading from Lamentations.)

In other words, short of doing a dramatic reading — which you probably were not asked to — communicate some of the fire and intensity in the passage.   Because, all scripture is God-breathed.

How I Failed The Doctrinal Test

I am now officially a heretic.

I was filling in an application at fishthe.net to be listed in another blog aggregator.   (Hey, traffic was down on the weekend…)

In addition to the thing where you do a word/character verification, this one impressed me by asking a doctrinal question.

Too bad I didn’t know the right answer.

The Tranquility Prayer: Life on Planet Trid

It was a dream that I woke from remembering it vividly.

I was living on Planet Trid, very similar to ours in many ways.   I was an activist, an angry activist pushing for every type of change, from major social change to why the clothing store never stocked enough of the statistically verifiable most common sizes.

I wrote letters.   I left messages.   And they even had blogging on Trid, and not to be outdone, I had a dozen of them; venting each day on a variety of topics that were the target of my latest frustration.   I would be attacking the government for a flaw in its tax plan on line one, while on line two chastising a local restaurant for having seating capacity for 200 but only a dozen parking spaces.

Ranting had become a lifestyle.   It was hard to change this pattern because, for one thing, I was always right.    Not that everybody else was dead wrong, they just didn’t have my wisdom.   How could I see these anomalies, I could I know so many better ways of doing things, and how could I be aware of so much injustice without commenting?

Then some of the Tridians came to me and had the nerve to suggest that it was I who wasn’t getting it.

“Nonsense;” I replied; “Yes, some things are good; but some could be better; others are on the threshold of being great.   What’s wrong with a little concrete criticism?   What’s wrong with a little objective commentary?”

“We have a something here;” the Tridians informed me; “It’s called The Tranquility Prayer, and it goes like this:

“God give me the peace and tranquility to realize that I can’t reform or renovate everything; the insight into those situations and structures that are actually pliable; and the discernment to know which is which.”

I paused and thought about the wisdom that one sentence contained.   You can’t fix everything; certainly not all at once.   And where I came from, only one man ever lived about whom it might be said he truly, totally revolutionized the world.

It was time to relax and experience the tranquility about which the Tridians spoke instead of trying to force my suggestions or my agenda on their lifestyle.

“Alright then;” I said; “We need to get that sentence on some plaques, and maybe some posters and bookmarks and greetings cards, and then after that we need to…”

A New Way to Meditate on Scripture

People talk about meditating on scripture, but for many of us, living in an instant age means we simply are in too big a hurry to get to the next verse to slow down enough to consider the verse we just finished reading.

This weekend I was in a part of Ontario that is more predominantly Francophone (i.e. there is a much more French spoken.)  So instead of the regular Gideon Bible in the hotel,  they had a New Testament with Psalms in a parallel French-English edition.

I found myself turning to familiar passages and reading both the English and the French.   My French language skills are somewhat limited, but many of the French words are either roots or extensions of English words we know, and many times they are simply not the English words we would associate with the particular word or phrase.

For example, seeing God as Holy is easy for us English speakers, but seeing Him as sanctified?   In English we tend to use that word for something common which is made holy. God, of course, has no reason to be made holy.  But languages vary in their composition and what matters most is how the word is now used and understood.

But in the process of weighing all this I was actually meditating on the verses before me.

The 73% of readers of this blog in the USA could do the same thing with a Spanish-English parallel Bible.   In fact, I think the less familiarity you have with the other language, the more it might slow you down to an appropriate meditating cruising speed.

You get to see the familiar passages in a different light, and you might even refresh your high-school second-language skills in the process.

Worship Team Meeting

This is something I put together several years ago which appeared one time on this blog.   I know some of you are recent readers or subscribers so I thought we’d run it again today.

WORSHIP TEAM MEETING
a very short play by Paul Wilkinson

King David, dressed in robes and crown, is sitting on his throne holding a clipboard and writing. A servant enters to interrupt…

SERVANT: King David, Asaph is here as you requested.

DAVID: Send him in.
[Servant exits. Asaph enters and bows]

DAVID: Thank you for coming, Asaph.

ASAPH: Your excellency… [bows]

DAVID: I wanted to go over the worship for the Sabbath.

ASAPH: “Go over?”

DAVID: Yes, review the songs we will be singing.

ASAPH: But surely, the Spirit of the Lord only reveals those to you as we are at worship. How can we know this now?

DAVID: Actually, I’ve been giving that some thought and it occurred to me that if the Spirit of God can inspire us as we worship Him, truly He can not also inspire us to choose those songs a few days ahead?

ASAPH: But…we’ve never done it this way before.

DAVID: You’ll get used to it. [Looks at clipboard] So I thought we’d begin with, “The Lord is One” from Deuteronomy, and then go into “Moses’ Song of Triumph” from Exodus.

ASAPH: Actually, we did that one last week.

DAVID: Oh…right.

ASAPH: I’m sorry, oh King, I spoke out of turn.

DAVID: What if we do it before the time of worship has actually begun? As people are gathering. A sort of pre-service song.

ASAPH: To what end?

DAVID: Just to help people get in the mood for worship.

ASAPH: “Get in the mood?”

DAVID: Hey, I’m King. We’ll try this.

ASAPH: You know we don’t have a drummer this week. He has to work.

DAVID: He cannot work on the Sabbath.

ASAPH: His master has introduced something called ‘rotating shifts’ at the brick plant. It allows them to keep the oven fired up all the time and produce bricks around the clock, but the men have to work at all hours.

DAVID: But he is one of the temple musicians. I don’t like this ‘rotating shifts’ thing; it could affect temple worship for generations. …Anyway…let’s move on. What if we open with “The Lord is One” and then go into the one I wrote as a kid, “Blessed is the Man.”

ASAPH: You mean the one you call “Psalm One?”

DAVID: Yeah, I am thinking of combining them into a book with some of the ones you wrote; there’s got to be over a hundred of them. Maybe I’ll get Solomon to do it.

ASAPH: Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk with you about “Psalm One.” With all due respect oh King, we often sing it after “The Lord is One” and well… you see “The Lord is One” is in the key of F, and your “Psalm One” is in the key of E, and when we go down one key it always sounds… oh, I don’t know… it just sounds wrong.

DAVID: Then we’ll do it first, and then sing “The Lord is One” and the musical keys will be in ascending order. This will be more pleasing to the ear.

ASAPH: But “The Lord is One” is the call to worship. “Psalm One” is not, but perhaps we could sing “Psalm 100″ which is a call to worship and use the other song later in the service.

DAVID: [picking up clipboard] Let me write that down. [Writes] Well…thank you for coming, I will call you again to discuss the closing of the service.

ASAPH: Do you need to write it? Won’t the Spirit of the Lord remind us of what He is telling us today?

DAVID: Yes… this list is for someone new I am adding our team, someone who I think will make a difference in our temple worship for years to come. I call this appointment, “The Sound Man.”

[Asaph exits, facing the crowd, and rolling his eyes upward!]

Currently Reading: The Misunderstood God

Just three chapters in, The Misunderstood God by Darin Hufford reminds me a lot of Your God Is Too Small by J. B. Phillips.   Only this time, with I Cor. 13 as a frame of reference.    This is yet another new project from the publishers of The Shack, this one releasing mid November.

I’ll have a full review in about a week.  In the meantime, as we often do at Thinking Out Loud, here’s what the publishers have to say about their own book:

Have you ever listened to a preacher talk about God and thought, “That doesn’t sound like God.” Millions have become repulsed by the God some churches present. From birth, many Christians have been bombarded with so many contradictory teachings and doctrines that their understanding of God resembles a tightly tangled ball of Christmas tree lights. The Misunderstood God throws out that twisted mess and replaces it with the soft, warm light of truth.

With so many confusing teachings about God and countless contradictions, misunderstandings, outright scams, and simplistic, fear-based teachings, how can we really know who God is for ourselves? The Misunderstood God analyzes some of the most common claims about God’s heart and personality, and measures them against what God has called Himself: perfect love.

Currently listening to:  Fearless by Phillips, Craig & Dean.
Currently watching on YouTube:  Clips from the cast of Big Bang Theory at Comic Con.
Current variation of Solitaire from Pretty Good Solitaire: Antares (but Penguin, Tuxedo and Fifteen Puzzle are still my favorites).  If you feel you need 725 variations of solitaire, click here.  (Note to Baptists:  Images of playing cards may appear on screen.)

More of the Best-Of From September, 2008

Keep Your Mind Pure

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

~ Phil 4:8 & 9 – The Message

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Are You a Spectator or a Participant?

Are the people at your church participants or just spectators? Cathy Lynn Grossman asked this question on her discussion forum on the religion page of USAToday (linked on my blog, but a new topic may have been introduced, pushing this one back to a ‘previous week’ status). She wrote:

When I looked at the challenges and changes in the realm of megachurches this week, pastors I spoke with were concerned.

They’re proud of the high quality of their worship services — good music, clear preaching, creative artistic touches and lots of talk about serving the world.

But they see a worrisome number of people who come to church the way they go to a movie or concert. A little entertainment, a little something to think about and then it’s time to move back to real life.

But one of the most interesting responses came up this morning from a Mormon woman. Here’s what she wrote:

As a member of The Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you cannot be an active member of the congregation and be just a spectator. All of the adults in the congregation take turns giving talks over the pulpit, we do not have our Bishop preaching to us each Sunday. I personally like hearing from those different people, their experiences, testimonies, and it’s nice to look at new faces across the pulpit each week. Also, we each serve in the congregation to make the rest of the Sunday meetings possible. From serving as adult Sunday School teachers, to teaching a youth class, or one of the many children’s classes. There are people who are asked to play the piano, lead the music, work in the library that provides supplies for the different classes, run a nursery class for the children 3 and under. We are all working together and contribute to have a wonderful Sabbath day experience worshipping at church. I think because of that, we are stronger members of the church and we feel like we need to “practice what we preach”, because we are all doing the preaching in one aspect or another.

There is much being written today about the small group movement and the house church movement, and I believe that the message to those of us who have chosen to remain in the institutional church is to greatly increase the interactive element in our services, and greatly increase the number and degree of lay participation.

The Male Domination of the Christian Internet

Although the blogroll at right lists a handful of sites I think are worth visiting, my personal bookmarks include some 70 + Christian blogs which I try to check out at least every other day. That’s a lot of blogs. And you know what? They’re all written by men. As in males. As in not women.

Tonight I landed on a couple of blogs written by women that aren’t part of my bookmarks. I immediately bookmarked both of them. I need to hear their perspective. I need to listen carefully to what they’re saying. I realize there is a certain dimension, possibly even a certain depth of spirituality that I don’t find reading stuff by fellow guys. A different understanding of God’s dealings with us in this broken old world.

I think that much of this has to do with the fact that men “publish” on the internet with the intention of reaching the widest audience. Women tend to be truer to the idea of blogs as online diaries; they write about raising kids, about intimate feelings, about deep personal discoveries in their reading of the scriptures. In that sense, women bloggers often tend to be more “Psalm-like” in their online composing. In the Psalms, David (or Asaph, or whoever) unleashes both high praise and extreme frustration towards God, who is always there as listening friend, whatever David’s mood that day. The Psalmist just wants to express something.

What do you think? Is it just me, or is Evangelical Christianity totally dominated online the way it’s dominated in the church, and in Christian publishing? What percentage of the bloggers you read are female?

Lighter Links

Our last link collection was rather heavy.   So here’s some stuff that won’t leave you drained.

• She once was lost, but now she’s found.   Christian music singer Jennifer Knapp has surfaced after being AWOL for what seemed forever.   Read her statement on her website.   “I haven’t actually disappeared.  I’ve been truly corporeal this whole time.”    Betcha the speculation will continue, however.
  
• Why is Ronald McDonald praying?   That was the question readers of the blog The Ironic Catholic were asking (and captioning.)    The answer was to be found in the link in the teeny tiny type under the picture as it appeared there, but we’ll spoonfeed it to you here.
• While some people are talking about Anne Jackson’s future book with Thomas Nelson, Permission to Speak Freely, which borrows the whole Post Secrets concept, here’s a variation on the whole online confessional thing from the folks at Long Hollow Baptist, a three campus church in greater Nashville, TN.   Sample from Anne’s: “I’ve tried so hard not to be the stereotypical Christian, that I’ve sinned against God.”  Sample from Long Hollow:  “God, I miss You and I want to come home.   I’m sorry I chose the world over You.”  (…and to think today we’re doing lighter blog links…)
  
• David Keen at the blog, St. Aidan to Abbey Manor (yeah, I know, I wanted that blog name, too, but it was taken) offers us some suggestions for naming the new NIV/TNIV hybrid when it appears in 2011.   Possibilities so far:
  - Tomorrows New International Version (TNIV, not to be confused with TNIV)
  - Newer International Version (NIV, not to be confused with NIV)
  - Very New International Version (VNIV, which is starting to look like a Roman date)
  - Brand New International Version (BNIV, which ceases to be true as soon as you’ve bought it, and so risks making a complete liar out of everyone who owns a copy)
  - New International Version 3.0, which can be released in digital form and updated by download whenever a new bit of translation becomes available.
  - 21st Century NIV: bit of a hostage to fortune, as you then can’t amend it again for 89 years. Actually ’21st century’ already sounds dated.
• Many years ago I attended a church where the pastor was roundly condemned for wearing Hush Puppies instead of Oxfords and a turtleneck sweater instead of a shirt and tie.  How times have changed.   Well, not everywhere.   The Coral Ridge Presbyterian faction would have new pastor Tullian Tchividjian removed for not wearing a robe.   (No, it’s not like he’s preaching nude; he wears other stuff.)  Anyway, they’re also upset that he isn’t weighing in on political issues.   Guess James Kennedy was more of a headline maker.   Tullian is safe for now, having been reaffirmed with a 69% vote.   Read the silliness here.

…and you thought I was always serious.    We’ll leave you with something from Pundit Kitchen:

Related posts on this blog:
Review of Anne Jackson’s first book, Mad Church Disease
Story explaining the revision of the NIV in 2011 and ending publication of the TNIV

Francis Chan on The Holy Spirit: The Forgotten God

I have to applaud publishers who are committing publishing deals to a whole new generation of writers, many of whom are only known to their local congregation and those of us in the blogosphere.

Francis Chan is one of those new voices.   The pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California has followed up his popular Crazy Love: Overwhelmed By a Relentless God with The Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit (David C. Cook).

Chan takes on a big topic here and tries to make it accessible to the common reader.   This book will whet the appetite of the novice Christian for more awareness of what we sometimes call, ‘the third person of the trinity.’  The book is relatively short, only 166 pages before the bonus chapter from Crazy Love begins.   With several blank pages throughout, it does leave the reader wishing Chan had written just a little more.

Although he quotes others who have written on this topic, such as A. W. Tozer, Chan is more concerned with presenting mini-biographies — one at the end of each chapter — of people who have experienced what it means to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.   Call it theology by example.

Here’s a sample of his writing:

Nowhere in scripture do I see “balanced life with a little bit of God added in” as an ideal for us to emulate.   Yet when I look at our churches this is exactly what I see:  a lot of people who have added Jesus to their lives.   People who have in a sense asked Him to join them on their life journey and follow them wherever they feel they should go, rather than following Him as we are commanded. The God of the universe is not something we can just add to our lives and keep on as we did before.   The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is not someone we can just call on when we want a little extra power in our lives.  Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us, He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow Him to the cross, to true Life.

This I would call passionate theology.

Chan is also not afraid in some chapters to be almost relentless in his use of interrogative sentences.   The tone is similar to what one might find in Chan’s spoken sermons in his church.   The reader is forced to respond.   This is devotional theology.

So again, don’t look here for depth of writing on all that the Holy Spirit is and does.   But don’t be too quick to dismiss this as lightweight, inspirational writing.  Chan is concerned that the Holy Spirit infuse both our lives as individuals and our churches.   This is constructive theology.

To hear Francis Chan in the context of his home church, download recent sermon audio from Cornerstone Church here.

To hear and see Francis Chan introduce this new title, click here to watch a 2:36 YouTube clip.

Coffee Time in the Middle of the Service

When I picture the first century Christians meeting together, I don’t picture rigid formality.   For example, I don’t picture the chairs being in rows, even though there’s something about the synagogue seating plan where the women were on one side and the men on the other.   I guess my mental image is more of an “upper room” kind of scene, and I can almost hear the baby crying towards the back.  And we know Eutychus was sitting in the window ledge when Paul spoke, which would greatly concern the insurance companies today.

I also realize that there is a whole history — some would say a whole theology — of fellowship around a meal table.   It’s an Eastern thing to be sure, but it’s also a very Christian thing.   The whole “love feast” concept.   Or the idea that the first communion service was, among other things, a supper.

But I can’t figure out the logic of churches who are taking the former pre-service coffee time, or post-service coffee time, and making it a mid-service coffee time.   We’ve been in a number of churches now where this is done and it hasn’t worked for us.   Today I spoke with a couple who — after three years which included some time in small group leadership – found it wasn’t working for them also.

Here are some reasons:

1. People are busy.  They make an effort to attend what they mentally budget as a 70-80 minute service and they expect 70-80 minutes of prepared content, usually meaning spoken or sung content.   It can be that the leadership has prepared it, or that individuals have brought gifts to the service that will be shared somewhat spontaneously.    But it’s content nonetheless.   Not ‘break time.’
   
2. People are visiting.   There’s nothing like standing on the sidelines when everyone else is catching up on the latest gossip when you’re a visitor and nobody wants to connect with you.   The couple in my above conversation found it hard to move past this point.   We know the feeling.   This ‘fellowship time’ could happen before or after.   Instead,this becomes ‘down time.’
3. People are literal.   They trust that when you say ‘five minutes’ you mean 300 seconds.   Not ten minutes.   Ten minutes is just too long for a time that is supposed to be dedicated to worship and teaching.   This is not the same as my first point; this has to do with expectations.   You said ‘five’ and you realized — as if for the first time — that you can’t serve that number of people down that much hot coffee that fast.   So as a result it went ‘over time.’

Has your church joined the growing number that have subscribed to this trend?   What are your thoughts on it?    Do some of you reap benefits from this worship order scheduling?  Or do you see other liabilities beyond the ones I listed?

Don’t Judge a Book By Its 2,900 Covers

As far as the book industry is concerned, Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren is the number-one, all-time, best-selling, non-fiction hardcover book in history. Period. So you can see why everyone is excited about the November release of The Hope You Need (Zondervan).

Well, not everyone. Certainly not at the blog, Church Marketing Sucks — yes that’s the name of it and don’t laugh, it was recently rated the 11th most popular Christian blog.

Their point of view, as outlined in this post, concerns Rick Warren’s decision to open the book jacket design up to a $5,000 competition, what graphic designers refer to as “spec work.”

Unfortunately, it’s not such a sweet deal. For the hundreds of designers who spent hours of time on your project, it’s a total loss. These kinds of projects communicate that their work is of little value.

As a double whammy, it’s not a very sweet deal for you, Rick. The quality of work you get is going to be sub-par … because the designers didn’t have the benefit of a working relationship with you the client where they could be privy to all the ideas, expectations, insights and everything else that goes into making a creative project work. In a nutshell: You’re not getting the best work because you’re not valuing the worker.

While the mechanics of getting a book to press don’t often register with readers, you really should read the whole article, and if for some reason you can’t, then you really MUST have a look at the 2900 contest entries.* You have to wonder why, given the success of its predecessor, a book that is this important is being put through this bizarre tendering process.

I can guarantee you’ll never look at a book cover the same again.

*That’s about 2,946 as of the contest closing.  Entries will remain posted online at the linked site until October 2nd, 2009

~from the blog, Christian Book Shop Talk

You Knew We Were a Christian Country, So Why Did You Move Here?

There was something in the USAToday story I wasn’t fully grasping:

By Stephen Brown, Religion News Service
GENEVA — The Swiss Council of Religions, which includes Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, has issued a statement rejecting a call for a nationwide ban on the construction of minarets at mosques. Some Swiss groups want to ban minarets out of fear of Europe’s growing Muslim population.

“For the members of a religious community, religious buildings are not only places to gather but also a symbol of their faith and an expression of their reverence for God. For many Muslims, therefore, mosques need to have minarets,” the council said in a 5-page statement issued Wednesday.

“The prohibition of minarets would injure these people in their dignity and their basic right to practice their religion,” the council warned.

The move to ban the construction of minarets was submitted in July 2008 with just under 115,000 signatures, and will be decided in a national referendum on Nov. 29.

If passed, the measure would amend the country’s Federal Constitution to include a new article stating that, “The construction of minarets is prohibited.”

…”Everyone has the right in this country to live their faith visibly, freely and in a community within the framework of the public order,” it [the Council of Religions] stated. “This also includes the construction of places of worship that are typical for their respective religions.”

~~read the entire article, with reader comments, here.

So I e-mailed someone who lives there, who I’ll let remain anonymous.   This provides more backstory, the section in italics (added) really holds the key:

Right now it’s not illegal to build a minaret. However, like trying to build anything in Switzerland, there’s a TON of red tape!  There are already 4 or 5. However there is one political party that collected over 100,000 signatures against building them, enough to send it to a referendum.

Their argument is that minarets are not mentioned at all in the Koran, and that they are more a political symbol of conquest than they are of religious freedom. They also question why these people have fled places where they are not allowed to practice their religion, so why didn’t they go somewhere that is mostly Muslim, instead of coming to Switzerland? In Switzerland there are only two recognized religions, Christianity (Protestant and Catholic) and Jewish, other religions have the freedom to practice and the meet, but they are not recognized by the state.

They are also concerned about Muslims asking for changes in other areas, like what is taught at school. Bible reading used to be normal in Swiss schools, since it is considered a Christian country, but the Muslims are fighting it, and now it has all but disappeared. I guess the idea is, they chose to be here knowing it was predominantly Protestant (the church is state run), it’s not fair that they want to change it now to suit them. I’m not saying I agree with all of that, but that’s the stance of the party that is fighting against the building of the minarets.

Not to mention that a sunrise call to worship would never get past the noise laws here; or the architectural laws for that matter…they are REALLY picky about the style you build here…we were afraid they wouldn’t accept the siding on our house!

So what happens when people of faith groups which are foreign to a particular piece of geography decide to move there?   Do they do so with the express intention of changing the religious climate there?   Increasing tolerance?   Warming the local population up to greater cultural and political influence and involvement?

Obviously the question that forms the title of this post is moot in some respects.   It’s possible that some people of other faith groups move into areas specifically because they are dominated by Christians.

But that brings us to something else altogether:

How is this different from the Christian Missionary movement?   Do we not also go into countries which are dominated by other faiths to proclaim the message of Christianity?   Do we not erect places of worship in those countries with our symbol (the cross) clearly visible on the exterior of these buildings?   Do we not seek to build bridges into the larger community so that these people have a day-to-day, living, breathing experience of what Christ-followers look like?

We tend to see this issue from our Christian point of view, forgetting that whatever freedoms apply to us have to apply to all.   But obviously here there is another factor at work, to which I added italics in the second quotation — “they are more a political symbol of conquest than they are of religious freedom.” One campaign initiator (watch the video link below) believes the desire to build minarets is a desire to “change the social order.”

But who decides this?

And does a referendum somewhat defeat the purpose?   Will voters grasp the larger issues or will they simply maintain the status quo?

You can almost feel the tension here on the other side of the Atlantic.

Pictures:

Upper:  This is the picture that accompanied the USAToday story, juxtaposing the minaret with a Protestant church steeple.   From this angle, neither seems much different than the other.
Lower:  This picture shows minarets towering over a local skyline.   Are voters picturing the upper picture or the lower one?

Learn more:

Our contact in Switzerland recommended this website, where we found this video story.

The Meaning Manifesto

This is a reblog from six months ago.    In a series of “what ifs” I am trying to suggest that a lot of what we do in the name of ‘church’ really lacks underlying meaning and purpose, but that another way is possible.

Because I paid the ultimate price for some things I wrote here a few weeks ago, I’ve had a lot more time to think about what it means to expect God’s presence in all that we do “at church.” I’ve heard people talk about being at a fairly typical church meeting thing, and “then God showed up.” This may assume that he wasn’t “showing up” at previous meetings, or it may mean that he was there all along but an awareness of his presence finally broke in on the assembly.

When leading worship, I have often — though not every time — begun by following the traditional concept of invocation; inviting God’s presence into our time together. Or at least, sort of. I take it as a given that God is already among us, especially on Sunday morning. He never misses our church service, right?

So I’ll begin with something like,

“Lord, we don’t presume to invite your presence because after all, you said you would never leave us nor forsake us. Furthermore, we sometimes say that this building is your house, a place set apart for your worship, so we know if you’re omnipresent, you’re everywhere, then certainly of all places you are here. No, instead, we ask you to help us have an awareness of your presence, an awareness of a presence that already exists, but we’re too distracted to realize. Open our hearts. Meet with us today in a special way. Amen.”

The fact of the matter is however, that some things the church — as opposed to The Church — does are purely perfunctory. And I think a church business meeting is a good example of that. Unless of course, you are committed from the beginning that this business meeting is open to the possibility of God breaking in and doing something greater.

Basically, the question I want to ask is, “What if we spiritualized church?” Yeah, seriously. What if we decided there were no task-only, business-only events, but lived out each time we gathered together as moments full of eternal possibilities? What if…

• What if every item run through the church photocopier had to have a ministry value, even if it was just a verse tacked on at the end?
• What if every church spring cleaning day was seen as a teachable moment, the way Jesus taught as he walked along the road with his disciples?
• What if every mailout and every church newspaper advertisement kept its seeker appeal, but still contained the DNA of the gospel?
• What if every church business meeting was more like a town hall forum where old men (and women) could prophesy and young men (and women) dream dreams?
• What if every time there were announcements, they were viewed not as commercials, but as opportunities for greater fellowship, greater teaching, greater service?
• What if every time there was a collection or offering, it was truly viewed as an act of worship?
• What if your tax receipt for those donations was accompanied by a note of thanksgiving, or a teaching on how God delights and will reward our cheerful giving?
• What if every salesman, tradesman, public sector worker, etc., who came in the front door of your church was told, “It’s no accident that you came in just now…” and then heard a piece of the particular good news that he/she needed that day?
• What are the “What ifs” that your heart longs for?

That’s what I mean by “spiritualizing Church.” Yes, God is there with us all along, but we need to leave him a place to break into our program.

Quick example. Before we got married, I was a performing Christian solo artist in southern Ontario. I worked alone. One time, a friend of mine who was a professional, recording-studio quality jazz bass player offered to do a concert engagement with me at a local church. To maximize his talents and contribution, we rehearsed the songs with some instrumental ‘bridges’ in them so he could do a few improvised bass solos.

But when we actually got out before the audience, I got distracted and started playing the songs the way I normally do, moving quickly from verse to chorus to verse. At the end of the first set, I realized this and told him, and his reply was, “I was trying to break in, but I couldn’t find a place to jump in.”

I think that’s how the Holy Spirit would say it to us today. I was there, but you didn’t leave me any room in the program. (See this post, Blocking Peoples’ View from exactly one year ago, for another way of describing this.)

Nobody is saying that God isn’t with us. But we need to see the spiritual possibilities each time we get together, even if it’s just to rake the leaves on the church lawn or clean the church kitchen. And just think, if we were really focused on doing this, we could actually invite our neighbors to “help out” in our church clean-up day, and they might actually see Christ in the most seeker friendly of all possible environments.

It would also revolutionize the way we do things outside of church. We would be spiritualizing or God-focusing our entire lives. Nah. That’s way too radical.

…After committing to write this piece a few days ago, I came across this today from Kaybee, a regular visitor here, on her blog Important to Me. She looks at the way we approach our local church as a sign of what our expectations are. Do we expect that God is really waiting to meet with us?