I'm proud to say that I often observe and sometimes admire ministers from many different denominations. I try to learn lessons of preaching, leadership and church growth from them and seek to apply what I can to my specific context. I realize that many of my colleagues do the same and while I applaud the open mindedness of those who observe and learn from the practices of ministers of other faiths, I have been led to wonder, from time to time, if we have lost our relevancy as Adventists.
At the risk of sounding "old school" I'm going to share my opinion. In our rush to copy other denomination's popular methods, many Adventist ministers have copied a popular message as well. We've adopted so called "psychological preaching" or "inspirational preaching" for Sabbath mornings and, as a result, have begun to sound like everyone else, and dangerously so. This begs the question: if Seventh-day Adventists are saying the same thing that everyone else is saying, does the world need Seventh-day Adventists anymore?
Let we go too far off into left field please allow me to clarify. I am not saying that all Adventist ought to preach is prophesy, nor am I saying that we are to spend all our time magnifying our doctrinal differences. Quite the contrary. Ellen White says that ADVENTIST are to be first and foremost in lifting up Jesus to the world. We ought to be the experts in preaching the truth about Jesus. While the rest of the world preaches sermons and writes songs about "encouraging yourself" and "believing in your dreams", we ought to be pointing the world to a risen Savior who died, rose again, mediates for us and will come back to save us one day. Does the world need Adventists? The answer is YES! As long as the world needs to hear about Jesus, the world needs a group of people devoted to uplifting Him. That's the purpose Adventist ought to serve. That's what Adventists preachers ought to do.
3/6/08
Priorities
A recent meeting left me frustrated and wondering why God's people spend time arguing over the most meaningless things. To be sure, everyone has a right to their opinions, and everyone's opinion is valuable- at least to them.
My question is, as Christians, are we really to believe that all issues are created equal?
Take for instance the issue that some of my friends and I just spent hours discussing. Handclapping. More specifically, should good Christians clap in church. I dare not minimize this issues seeing as how it is very important to some people. My question is, where are our priorities? Is handclapping really what we should spend our time talking about?
I could see worship wars being a top priority if there were nothing else of any importance going on in our world. If millions of people in our world were not hungry, if families were not under attack and being torn apart, if schools were actually safe for children to attend, if Christians had no friends, neighbors, or relatives that needed to hear the gospel, then I could understand why we spend so much time arguing about worship, make-up, or the myraid other issues that seem to occupy our time. I could understand why it would be near the top our priority list to make sure that everyone adhere to a certain set of rules as soon as they came into our churches. With so much to be done before our Lord returns, however, I don't see a lot of what we spend time focusing on being priority.
As Christians and as Adventist, we have issues that are important to us. My question is, are the things that are most important to us really important at all? In my opinion, if we spend more time and energy focusing on who's wearing what, who's clapping in church and the kind of music we sing than we do sharing the gospel with those who don't know the truth about Jesus and making an impact in our communities, then our priorities are all mixed up.
It may be time to get our priorities in order, before it's too late.
My question is, as Christians, are we really to believe that all issues are created equal?
Take for instance the issue that some of my friends and I just spent hours discussing. Handclapping. More specifically, should good Christians clap in church. I dare not minimize this issues seeing as how it is very important to some people. My question is, where are our priorities? Is handclapping really what we should spend our time talking about?
I could see worship wars being a top priority if there were nothing else of any importance going on in our world. If millions of people in our world were not hungry, if families were not under attack and being torn apart, if schools were actually safe for children to attend, if Christians had no friends, neighbors, or relatives that needed to hear the gospel, then I could understand why we spend so much time arguing about worship, make-up, or the myraid other issues that seem to occupy our time. I could understand why it would be near the top our priority list to make sure that everyone adhere to a certain set of rules as soon as they came into our churches. With so much to be done before our Lord returns, however, I don't see a lot of what we spend time focusing on being priority.
As Christians and as Adventist, we have issues that are important to us. My question is, are the things that are most important to us really important at all? In my opinion, if we spend more time and energy focusing on who's wearing what, who's clapping in church and the kind of music we sing than we do sharing the gospel with those who don't know the truth about Jesus and making an impact in our communities, then our priorities are all mixed up.
It may be time to get our priorities in order, before it's too late.
1/25/08
Why He Came
I happened to be reading the most well-known verse in the Bible just this week. John 3:16 tells of God's tremendous love for the world and how He manifested that love by sending us His Son. It was not this verse, but the next verse that caught my attention this time. It says that God didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
What's interesting about this verse is that Jesus began by first telling us what God did not intend to do and then by sharing with us the reason for His sojourn on this planet. According to Christ, God had no intention of condemning the world by seding His only Son. Rather, His intent was to offer the world its only means of salvation.
In an effort to really understand what I was reading, I decided to look up the word "condemn". The word, according to Webster's online dictionary, means: " to declare to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil usually after weighing evidence and without reservation". This blew me away! If that is the case, then many of Christ followers are in fact doing the exact same thing that Jesus told us His Father was against! How many times have people left our churches feeling guilty, wrong, evil, or reprehensible? To be sure, God is holy and will not tolerate sin. However, just so we are never confused on the matter, God made sure to inform us that He did not send His Son into the world drive us away from Him, but to draw us closer by His love.
This is the plan of salvation! God's plan was never to set humankind up so that He could catch them doing something wrong. Neither was God's plan to suck the marrow out of life and leave us with depression, guilt, and gloom. God never sent His Son into the world to make us feel worse off than we did when we came to Him, but to point us to a better way and then help us get there.
What if our churches were places where we followed Jesus' example and refused to make people feel more guilty, wrong, or reprehensible than they already do but rather, offered them the same hope Jesus offered to the world? What if people from all walks of life could come into our churches regardless of who they were or what they had done and find fellowship and acceptance? What if churches were tolerant and accepting of people who didn't dress like them or talk like them or even believe exactly as they did? What if we focused on showing everyone God's love? If we followed God's plan, then we would make a tremendous impact on this world for Christ.
What's interesting about this verse is that Jesus began by first telling us what God did not intend to do and then by sharing with us the reason for His sojourn on this planet. According to Christ, God had no intention of condemning the world by seding His only Son. Rather, His intent was to offer the world its only means of salvation.
In an effort to really understand what I was reading, I decided to look up the word "condemn". The word, according to Webster's online dictionary, means: " to declare to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil usually after weighing evidence and without reservation". This blew me away! If that is the case, then many of Christ followers are in fact doing the exact same thing that Jesus told us His Father was against! How many times have people left our churches feeling guilty, wrong, evil, or reprehensible? To be sure, God is holy and will not tolerate sin. However, just so we are never confused on the matter, God made sure to inform us that He did not send His Son into the world drive us away from Him, but to draw us closer by His love.
This is the plan of salvation! God's plan was never to set humankind up so that He could catch them doing something wrong. Neither was God's plan to suck the marrow out of life and leave us with depression, guilt, and gloom. God never sent His Son into the world to make us feel worse off than we did when we came to Him, but to point us to a better way and then help us get there.
What if our churches were places where we followed Jesus' example and refused to make people feel more guilty, wrong, or reprehensible than they already do but rather, offered them the same hope Jesus offered to the world? What if people from all walks of life could come into our churches regardless of who they were or what they had done and find fellowship and acceptance? What if churches were tolerant and accepting of people who didn't dress like them or talk like them or even believe exactly as they did? What if we focused on showing everyone God's love? If we followed God's plan, then we would make a tremendous impact on this world for Christ.
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