Category Archives: Religion in General

Dilbert Wonders About Talking to God

I’m becoming an increasingly big fan of the Dilbert Blog. Scott Adams is truly a hilarious writer, and a great thinker (though twisted). He’s not exactly a big fan of Christians or religion in general, and certainly not of Republicans (I love it when he writes about political issues), but I enjoy his stuff regardless. Especially today’s post which he titles “Talking to God.” It’s really quite funny.

I’m not a fan of bloggers who just compile links to other places. I prefer creating my own havoc, rather than lazily recycling somebody else’s. But every once in a while I can’t help myself, and this is one of those times.

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Jesus and AIDS

Interesting interview with Franklin Graham on Time magazine’s website. He was asked what Jesus would say about AIDS. His answer:

In his day, there was leprosy, which was incurable. And Jesus healed lepers. He didn’t turn them away. That would be the same reaction today. But Jesus did tell people he healed, “Go and sin no more.” And I think that to a person with HIV/AIDS, he would tell them, “Go and sin no more”….I think there are times where a sinful lifestyle can lead to a disease in our bodies. I think Jesus would heal a person who drinks too much alcohol and ends up with cirrhosis of the liver and say, “Don’t go back and do that again.”

We’re very concerned today about not appearing judgmental, about not doing anything that might hurt someone’s feelings or self-esteem. But I think Jesus was probably far more concerned about the person’s heart than about their disease.

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Worship, Sacrifice, and the Sabbath

I’m always grateful when someone provides a biblical insight into something pretty basic to my faith, but which I, despite 50 years in the church, hadn’t heard before. This doesn’t happen a lot. But it did happen a few days ago when I read a blog entry by Michael Hines called “Biblical Worship.”

The whole post was excellent, talking about the sabbath and the intertwining of sacrifice with worship throughout the Old Testament. It provided a fine lesson in Bible history. The part that gave me a Eureka moment was, “The sabbath day was not set aside as a day of worship. It was, instead, a day of rest.” And then he quotes Exodus 20:10-11, which says exactly that. It doesn’t mean you can’t worship on Sunday. But he explained how people went to the temple to offer sacrifices during any day of the week, and that worship and sacrifice occurred together.

He brings it all together in the New Covenant with Romans 12:1, which says we are to make our bodies living sacrifices all week long, “which is your spiritual act of worship.” Suddenly, a bunch of things came together for me and fit snugly.

I thought of Willow Creek, where the believers come on Wednesday and Thursday for their worship service, or preaching service–at any rate, the counterpart to what most of us do on Sunday. I attended one of those services a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it felt odd (to me) doing this particularly thing during the middle of the week. Willow still holds services on Sunday, but those are outreach oriented, geared more for nonbelievers. But now I realize (dumbly) that Sunday wasn’t designed for worship, but for rest, which I’m confident includes watching football games. ALL of the days were designed for worship. (I’m sure I’ve heard these same ideas articulated in countless sermons. My sudden enlightenment probably speaks more to my attention span and general intelligence than anything else.)

Anyway, it’s a wonderful piece, and I learned a lot about something I assumed I was already knowledgeable about. Those surprises are nice.

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More on Vertical and Horizonal Songs

Yesterday I spouted off about the lyrics of today’s worship songs–that they are all vertical (between me and God), and rarely address horizontal issues (relationships with other Christians, reaching out to nonChristians). Now, my youth group days (the 1970s) featured plenty of vertical songs: “I Just Came to Praise the Lord,” “He is Lord,” “God is So Good,” “Let’s Just Praise the lord,” “Something Beautiful,” “O How He Loves You and Me,” and Keith Green’s “O Lord, You’re Beautiful.” Most of these don’t hold a candle to the wonderful songs being written today, like “Worthy is the Lamb,” “Once Again,” and “Amazing Love.” I’ll take today’s vertical songs.

But I wish more songs, with just as much quality, could be written about the body of Christ and the lost. I’m talking about songs designed for congregational singing. And we had many of them in “my day,” that being the 1960s and 1970s.

Evangelism

In my youth group days, we constantly sang about salvation and the need to reach the lost. We exuberantly exhorted, “Get all excited, go tell everybody that Jesus Christ is King.” Another song, “Freely,” instructed:

Freely, freely you have received,
Freely, freely give
Go in my name and because you believe,
Others will know that I live.

Then there’s the straightforward “I’ll Tell the World,” which said:

I’ll tell the world that I’m a Christian
I’m not ashamed, his name to bear
I’ll tell the world, that I’m a Christian
And take it with me everywhere.

I’ll tell the world how Jesus saved me
And how he gave me life brand new
And I know that if you trust him
That all he gave me he’ll give to you.

We also, of course, sang “This Little Light of Mine,” in which we promised to shine our light all over our town, our school, our country, etc. The much-maligned “Pass It On” (which I unashamedly loved) says:

That’s how it is with God’s love,
once you’ve experienced it.
You want to sing, it’s fresh like spring,
you want to pass it on.

Another oldie said, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Who is “they”? Nonbelievers, of course. And then we had, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” In other words, if you’re saved, tell others about it.

The Church Body

We used to sing Lanny Wolfe “God’s Wonderful People,” which said:

I love the thrill that I feel when I get together
with God’s wonderful people
What a sight just to see all the happy faces,
praising God in heavenly places

We sang “Bind us Together.” We proclaimed, “We are One in the Bond of Love.” And we celebrated, “I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God.”

Those are just some of the songs I remember singing as a youth, songs with a horizontal emphasis. I can’t cite, offhand, a single current worship song which talks about the body of Christ. I love “If We are the Body,” by Casting Crowns; but that’s not a song you sing corporately. And only a few songs have an evangelistic emphasis:

  • “Salt and Light” is the clearest, sustaining the evangelistic theme throughout. “I Wanna Sing” is close behind, saying, “I wanna sing of your kindness, wanna share the good news. As long as I can sing I wanna sing about you.”
  • “Shine Jesus Shine” says to “Flood the nations with grace and mercy, send forth your word.”
  • Another of my contemporary favorites says, “We wanna see Jesus lifted high, a banner that flies across the land, that all men might see the truth and know He is the way to heaven.”
  • “Days of Elijah,” a wonderfully unique song, says:

We are the voice in the desert crying,
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord….

And these are the days of the harvest,
the fields are white in the world,
and we are your laborers in your vineyard,
Declaring the Word of the Lord.

Hymns are filled with lyrics about salvation: “Send the Light,” “Lead Me to Calvary,” “Just As I Am,” “I Surrender All,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “Since Jesus Came Into My Heart,” “What a Wonderful Change,” and many more. And songs about the church: “Bless Be the Tie that Binds,” “The Church’s One Foundation,” “I Love Thy Kingdom Lord.”

And then there’s “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which brings the church and evangelism together:

Like a mighty army, moves the church of God
Brothers we are treading where the saints have trod
We are not divided, all one body we.
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

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It’s Just Between Me and God

Tommy WalkerLast night, ten of us from Anchor attended a Tommy Walker concert at Blackhawk Baptist, one of the megachurches in Fort Wayne. The place was packed. We occupied the right side of two pews in the steep balcony. It was not a young crowd, so I wouldn’t put it in the post-modern fold. It looked to me like most people attending were in their 30s and 40s. Which described Anchor’s delegation.

I’m not sure “concert” describes it right, at least not in the way I think of concerts. This was a participative event, like a two-hour worship service without the preaching–just the congregational singing part. Only a couple of songs were sung “to” us. Nearly all of them included projected lyrics so we could sing along.

Tommy Walker leads worship at a church in Los Angeles, and is also a “hired gun” worship leader for Promise Keepers and other organizations. Worship leaders are sort of the new Christian rock stars. Yes, we still have Third Day and the Newsboys and MercyMe and lots of other “traditional” concert performers. But worship leaders/writers like Chris Tomlin, Matt Reddman, and Darlene Zschech now fill stadiums just as easily.

I’d never heard Tommy Walker before. I liked him, liked the concert, consider him genuine. He did a wonderful job leading in worship. I recommend him.

With that extended disclaimer, I’m going to comment on aspects of the event.

The music was nearly all of the vertical variety–me singing to God. This seems typical of contemporary worship music. Most of the worship songs written today can be summed up with these generic themes: God is awesome, he’s wonderful, he’s my strength, I love him, I need him, God is great, I praise him, I honor him…. You get the picture. Most of the songs we sing now are basically love songs to God. Now, how can you criticize sentiments like that?

But last night, there was nothing about the body of Christ, about being a mighty army, about going forth and changing Fort Wayne, about telling our friends and neighbors about Jesus. No, it was all personal singing, between me and God. Nobody else around me was needed. It was a collection of individuals who could zone off in worship, just them and God and Tommy’s superb lyrics.

I’ve noticed this trend for years, and others on the Anchor worship team are, by now, tired of hearing me gripe about it. I guess my formative years included a lot of “horizontal” songs which spoke about the church and evangelism–“One in the Spirit,” “Pass it On,” “I’ll Tell the World,” “Get All Excited.” I miss hearing the body of Christ express those themes in song.

It seems outlandish for me to criticize vertical worship, and please admonish me if I’m out of place or just plain ignorant. But I left the concert last night feeling that hundreds of individuals (myself included) had experienced a good time of individual worship, and that’s as far as it would go.

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A Self-Indulgent Study of Church Names

Being a simple guy, I find church names to be interesting. When I did my Masters project, a Promotion Manual for Local Churches, I did a little personal study of church names and categorized them. One of the few original-with-me things that I did. Now I’m going to inflict it on you.

Location Names. The location might be a street, residential area, township, city name, valley, or geographical region. In the United Brethren church we have Zanesville UB (town) and Atlantic Avenue UB (street). Location names can also describe the setting. In that case, we have the Lakeview UB and Countryside UB churches (both in Michigan). Location names work well because they tell people where to find you. That’s a good thing. But many churches are getting away from the location name, evidently deeming it too restrictive in this age of large regional churches.

Legacy Names. This name might refer to a religious leader, past or present. Or it could refer to a person important to that church’s past. William Otterbein was a founder of the United Brethren church. We still have two churches called Otterbein UB (Pennslyvania and Kansas); a few years ago, we also had Otterbeins in Ohio and a second one in Pennsylvania. My favorite UB church name was Boring Chapel, a small church in Ohio which, I was told, was named after the Boring family. The name has either been changed or the church has closed, I can’t remember which. But Boring Chapel is gone.

Biblical Names. These can be divided into several categories. First, there are biblical people, which are popular names among Catholics (St. Peter’s, St. Mark’s, etc.). Then there are biblical places. In that category, there are United Brethren churches bearing these names: Calvary, Gethsemane, Bethel, Bethany, and Jerusalem Chapel. We have biblical concept names: First Love, Living Water, Trinity, Grace, Faith, Agape. And then there are general biblical names: Good Shepherd, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, Shepherd of the Valley, Pentecost.

Concept Names. This is the popular category today. These names are abstract, and tend to convey something about the essence of the church: Fresh Breeze, New Hope, Friendship, New Life, Fellowship, True Love, Open Bible, Maranatha. The popular “First,” as in “First Baptist Church,” could fit in this category, for want of a better place.

In my lifetime, I’ve attended UB churches with these names: College Park (location), Devonshire (location), First (concept), New Hope (concept), Emmanuel (biblical), and now Anchor (concept). Three of them have changed names in my lifetime. New Hope used to be Etna Avenue (place). First recently changed its name to Hilltop Community (location). And Anchor, until 1998, was Third Street (location).

In recent years, many other UB churches have changed their names, and most go to concept name. That’s the hot category right now.

  • Two churches in Rockford, Ohio, merged (Calvary, biblical, and Otterbein, legacy), and are now New Horizons.
  • Two other nearby churches merged (Willshire‚ location, and Zion‚ biblical) and now call themselves PraisePoint.
  • Trinity (biblical) became Living Hope. Maple Hill became HomeFront. Shepherd Street became Crossroads. Prescott Avenue became Lighthouse. All concept names.

Biblical names remain valid options. Grayston Avenue and Greenfield UB (one in Indiana, one in Ohio) both adopted the name Good Shepherd (biblical). Banner Street became Banner of Christ (biblical).

In Ohio, Redeemer UB church became Living Word, switching from one biblical name to another. Sometimes, any change seems good, I guess.

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Preying on the Believers

Keith Drury published an online piece called “Let us Prey.” I highly highly HIGHLY recommend reading it. It includes “Five Things that Make Me Mad at Parachurch Organizations.” He really goes after TBN and Benny Hinn. I got a kick out of his statement about the “seed faith” TV preachers: ” I get angry when parachurch preachers promise poor people that God will bless them if they ‘plant a seed of faith’ by sending money to the televangelist. Hogwash! If this is true, then the televangelist should send money to the listeners‚Äîthen God could bless their own seed-faith! Seed faith preaching is a signal of crooked hucksterism.” (Read this eye-opener about the extravagant lifestyle of Paul and Jan Crouch of TBN.)

He also refers to an organization called MinistryWatch which keeps an eye of accountability on parachurch ministries. I checked out that site and was impressed.

In a previous life, when editing our denominational magazine, I did two special issues about parachurch organizations. I wrote to gobs of organizations requesting their audited financial statements and other info. It was all very interesting. It was also encouraging to see how many organizations are organized to humbly respond to requests like that. If they’re on the up-and-up, they’ll send you their audited financial statement. But then there are the low-life hucksters who bring shame to the body of Christ, and yet find ready victims among the seemingly infinite ranks of gullible, gullible Christians.

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Faithfulness Out of the Spotlight

Back in the mid-1980s, I came across an amazing little free-verse poem by Ruth Harms Calkin. I typed it and taped it on the wall above my AT&T MS-DOS computer (2 floppy drives, no hard disk). Back then, I was editor of my denomination’s magazine, a position which gave me quite a bit of visibility. People knew me. Because of a popular monthly humor column I wrote (disguised as an editorial), people often told me they had been wanting to meet me. Imagine that.

The AT&T was, blessedly, supplanted by a Mac II (still two floppies, but with an enormous 20 megabyte hard drive), but the poem remained in place. In fact, it hung on that wall until 1993, when I moved to a different office.

At that point, the poem found its way into a “keepsake” box. That’s where I rediscovered it a few months ago. It was originally typed on an IBM Correcting Selectric typewriter, which makes me wonder if it actually predates the AT&T. It’s still a wonderful poem, goading me on issues of humility and faithfulness.

So here it is. Enjoy, and be thought-provoked.

I Wonder

You know, Lord, how I serve You
With great emotional fervor
in the limelight
You know how eagerly I speak for You
at a women’s club.
You know how I shine when I promote
a fellowship group.
You know my genuine enthusiasm
at a Bible study.

But how would I react, I wonder,
If You pointed to a basin of water
And asked me to wash the calloused feet
Of a bent and wrinkled old woman,
Day after day,
Month after month,
In a room where nobody saw
And nobody knew.

–Ruth Harms Calkin

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Christmas Eve 2005 on the Rich Side of Town

Last night we attended (with some of Pam’s family) the Christmas Eve service at The Chapel, a megachurch located a couple miles down the road from our house. We live on the “rich” side of town, and The Chapel, from everything I’ve heard, is for the rich. It’s an independent church, conservative evangelical, with a vocally Republican pastor. That sounds negative, the way I put it. Actually, the pastor is a very good guy, and I hear tidbits of good things the church has done beyond itself, particularly in inner-city type things. For instance, I understand they’ve invested quite a bit in starting a new, multi-cultural church on the “bad” side of Fort Wayne. Since I attend an urban church (after having attended for nine years a church akin to The Chapel), I think that’s great.

The pastor once pastored in Fort Wayne, but moved elsewhere. Then he was recruited, probably by some rich people, to come back and start a church on the rich side of town. You couldn’t recruit of guy of that calibre to come start a church in my church’s neighborhood. Such is reality. But if The Chapel didn’t exist, then this new church in south Fort Wayne probably wouldn’t exist, either.

Nevertheless, something in me wants to dislike The Chapel. Maybe it goes back to the first time I was on the property, not all that long after the new sanctuary was built. They were hosting a monthly Bible quiz meet, and my brother was coaching a team (from Ohio) that was competing. So that Sunday afternoon, I stopped in.

When I walked into the foyer, just outside the doors to the new sanctuary, I just about gasped at the opulence. Or at least, that’s how it came across to me, coming from a church struggling on meager resources to minister to a very poor neighborhood. I felt like I was going to the opera. Seriously. If I would ever go to an opera, that is, which I wouldn’t. But with the grand piano sitting in the foyer and all the other accessories of fineness, it seemed to me like what an opera house would be like.

So last night, I prepared myself to go to the opera. I figured I would be turned off once again.

Now, you’re expecting me to reverse directions, say that the Christmas Eve service was a wonderful experience which shattered all of my previous negative impressions. Stop about half-way in between. The service was nice, nothing fancy. The place was packed, and we had to sit on chairs leading into the sanctuary, and frankly, I didn’t see much of the service. A truly lousy vantage point. But they started right on time and ended in exactly 45 minutes, a period which included some wonderful music, a children’s time with the pastor, a superb message to the “adults” from the pastor, and communion. Very efficient. I came away neither hot nor cold, just nicely warm.

Something deep within me really really really wants to dislike churches like The Chapel. Churches for the rich, and which spend hordes of money on themselves, particularly on their appearance. But The Chapel isn’t always easy to dislike, unless you’re a purely knee-jerk type of person. I guess I could criticize the pastor for his crack about tattoos, something which would have turned off the teens who attend our church, but which was probably okay for lilly white Republican territory. But that was a petty thing, and I need to contort myself to take his actual words wrong.

A church like The Chapel offers wonderful programs for all ages. It would be a good place to raise children. But I serve in a church located on a corner in a depressed neighborhood, on a street that has two convicted rapists and three convicted child molesters, and in a neighborhood inhabited by really messed up families. Our needs are great, and our resources are few. So forgive me if I have a hard time going to the opera.

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Barbara’s Heaven Can Wait

As my denomination’s Communications Director, I field calls from organizations wanting to promote themselves to our member congregations. Call me Gatekeeper. A couple of weeks ago, I received a call from ABC’s publicity department telling me about an upcoming Barbara Walters special called “Heaven.” I was told that Babs had interviewed Ted Haggard, and that our member churches would probably be very interested in the special. I told the lady to send me info by email or regular mail, and I would decide what to do with it. Though mentally, I had already deep-sixed it. They made it sound like the whole program would give an evangelical view of heaven, thus the mention of Ted Haggard, but I knew that wouldn’t be the case. Been around the block enough. And my master’s in Public Relations counts for something.

Yesterday, I finally received an email about the program. The show is airing next Tuesday. My suspicions were right. The email doesn’t even mention Ted Haggard. The piece is titled: “Heaven: Where it It? How do we get there? The answers may surprise you.”

The part “The answers may surprise you” just slays me. Yes, certainly, I’m totally excited about hearing Barbara Walters, theologian extraordinaire, reveal to the world the mysteries of heaven. I’ve heard low-lifes of the calibre of Billy Graham talk about heaven, but now, finally, I’m gonna be treated to real answers that may surprise me.

The piece continues, “Is heaven simply a myth dreamed up to give lives meaning, or is it a real place? Anchored by Barbara Walters, ‘Heaven. Where Is It? How Do We Get There?’ explores the meaning of heaven with religious leaders of the major faiths, scientists, people who say they believe in heaven because they’ve been there, celebrities who are vocal about their beliefs, and even with terrorists.”

Oh joy–celebrities get to tell me about heaven. Celebrities always display superior knowledge. And terrorists. Finally, some insight into the whole 72 virgins thing. I’m sure we’ll hear some New Age gurus telling us that heaven is all around us, and scientists who will say, “There’s nothing beyond. This is it.”

Sorry, Barbara, I’m really not interested in your theological revelations. But it’s nice that you included Ted Haggard as a token evangelical. You’re so balanced.

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