Blog Yellek

At my small group this week we watched a DVD from the Nooma series called Bullhorn. It discusses the sort of evangelism that happens when someone stands on a street corner somewhere with a bullhorn and preaches at people passing by. In the discussion afterwards one of the things that we talked about was how the perception of Christianity in the wider community is affected by this sort of preaching and what it means to us as we seek to be Christ’s ambassadors to those around us. One of the points that was made is that society’s perception of Christianity is formed by only a very small percentage of Christians and not necessarily those that best communicate Jesus love and freely available salvation. The challenge to us was to represent Christ better to those around us so that Jesus love is communicated more effectively. In particular if the world will know us as Christians by our love, as it says in John 13:34-35 then we need to be able to show love for those around us just as we love God, as we are commanded in Matthew 22:36-40.

During the discussion we also talked about different wrong perceptions of Christianity and one of the things that came up was nominalism, sometimes also called religion, where people go through the motions of Christianity but don’t have a relationship with Jesus. To my way of thinking this is akin to the church being just another interest group or service club with many more complex rules and requirements than say Apex or Rotary. Many people come into contact with Christianity this way, as a set of rules and behaviors to be followed to be a good [insert denomination membership here]. The question is though, is this better than nothing? Is the fact that the rules and procedures were at one point based on a real relationship with Jesus a step towards having that relationship or a dangerous compromise? More importantly should we as Christians be critical of nominalism in other churches and what effect will this criticism have on the perception of Christianity by others? (more…)

Lesley Ey has written a good foundational article about Why go to Church?
that is worth checking out. It goes through a few of the reasons on why finding a church is important as a Christian and there are links to how to find a good one and even how to become a Christian in the first place.

Worth a look.

I am constantly amazed by the number of people (myself included) that have a negative view of themselves when others around them can clearly see the strengths that they have. Our capacity to overlook our own strengths and focus on our  perceived weaknesses seems to be never ending.

Is it because we just assume that our strengths are average and thus our weaknesses dominate or is it because we have a personal bias towards the negative? How can we have a better appreciation of ourselves?

God’s view of us is positive. He made us a perfect creation and died on the cross to restore us from our fallen state to that perfect state once again so somehow we need to get more of God’s view of us than our negative perceptions.

The opposite is also true, thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to but I don’t see that failing as much.

Paradise Community Church is a place where much is asked of the congregation. We are constantly exhorted to become involved, to do more, to give more, to serve. At every turn it seems that there is more we can do in our Christian lives. We are encouraged to go to church twice on Sunday, to life group every fortnight and 30 Something every 2 weeks. We are asked to read 4 chapters of the bible every day and write about it as well as praying. We are encouraged to give 10% of our income to the church. We are also encouraged to devote time to serving in some area of the church. On top of that there are many courses to help us enrich our spiritual life, conferences and special events to go to as well as prayer and fasting for special needs. All of this can add up to many hours a week.

Why would anyone devote so much time and effort to the church? Is all of that necessary? In looking at that list all together it seems wearying to me and yet I do most if not all of those things every week (and more, leadership brings its own set of expectations) and I do them gladly.

To those outside our church in other Christian denominations this begins to raise some very real questions: Why should a church set the standard of Christianity so high? Didn’t Jesus die on the cross so that we could have free access to salvation? Why then must we do all of these things so that we can be Christians? Who does the church think they are to demand this of us? Can’t we just decide for ourselves what is reasonable for us? So much commitment is unhealthy and I need to look after myself, don’t I know what is best for my life? It’s between me and God. I don’t trust the leadership of this church to look after my welfare, I have to look after myself. Why should I feel a constant sense of guilt at not measuring up when the message of the church is God’s grace and freedom from rules and regulations.

These are good questions. I know of people both within and outside our church who struggle with many of them and I admit to struggling with some of them myself from time to time. At the moment this seems to be a relevant issue to where a number of people I know are at so I’m going to have a go at providing some answer and explanation to them. I’m not going to be able to give a perfect answer so feel free to talk back in the comments so that together we can come to a better understanding.

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Ever since I discovered podcasting earlier in the year I have been filling my head with the latest and greatest in the tech world, with the latest web 2.0 sites on Tech Crunch, with del.icio.us bookmarks, Riya photo face recognition, News Alloy RSS reader and keeping up with the latest in the Java and SOA world. Listening to the Gillmor Gang has kept me up to date with the attention/intention economy and with the rise of RSS whilst David Berlind and Dan Farber continue to rail against DRM in all its many forms. I listened to Blogger Con IV and became enamoured again with the vision of blogging.

All of this is great but I find myself something of a lone voice in being convinced of all of these things. Sometimes it gets lonely. I long for a chance to just sit down and geek out with someone else who is exposed and engaged with all of these trends. I long for that geek intellectual connection.

When I try and convince people of the benefits of all of this, when I promote this website, when I try and tell people how good RSS is I sometimes wonder what my motive is. Am I really interested in all this stuff for the possibilities it brings and the vistas it opens up or am I just selfishly promoting it to meet my own needs? Am I seeking to transform others to suit my needs? I wonder sometimes. I wonder if I have lost my perspective on life.

God you know me, you know my motives and you search my heart. You know my longing for connection, the same longing common to the desire for relationship you place in all of us. You know the desires and talents you placed within me and you know the purposes you have for my life. You know the perfect balance of all the things you have given me. Help me to keep this technology in harmony with all of the abundant life you have given me.

I want to ask you a favor. If you have any time I would like you to go and listen to an MP3 recording made at BloggerCon IV about the Emotional Life of Blogging (that was the link to the MP3 in case you were wondering. Warning: Language) because I think it covers a whole lot of really interesting issues about the culture that this website is a part of and also about our society in general. If you want to see the brief notes of the session they are here.

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The RHCC Small Groups Blog raises an interesting point: Do people at megachurches take all the resources for granted and is this a problem?

The average church in Australia has a size of about 100 in the congregation. Paradise Community Church connects with something like 8000 people in Adelaide on a weekly basis. The resources available to a church of that size are just inconceivable to a ministry of about 100 people. Do people at Paradise take it for granted? Yes. Yesterday we had the chance to hear Dr Myles Monroe for 3 sessions for only $20 and again this morning. Tonight we have a multimedia presentation on the DaVinci Code. All of this takes place in an auditorium with TV facilities, lights comfortable seats, video screens and with a crew of over 100 volunteers for each serrvice. Having come from a smaller church I can definitely say that this represents more than the wildest dreams of many pastors around the country. Many people at Paradise, not having known anything else, tend to take this for granted.

Does that lead to a negative attitude when things are not provided the way people expect, a consumer culture? In some cases it does. The thing I find about those people is that they either change that attitude or they don’t last. Our job as leaders is to encourage people to come with an attitude of service to the vision that Ashley Evans our senior pastor puts forward. If people are not willing to listen then at some point they are going to get offended by something that happens. People get hurt by people in churches all the time. If the hurt is strong enough they will leave. Of course we can love them and encourage them to live in the grace of Jesus and accept the destiny in Christ that is theirs but if they persist in their stubbornness then ultimately God’s purpose will go on without them.

I don’t think this problem is unique to megachurches. I have seen it in smaller churches as well where people get familiar with the church and then offended when things change.

Tomorrow night at Life Group we are doing a DVD from the Nooma series called “Rain” and I just noticed that there is a free set of discussion questions on their site. Have a look if you are coming, they are good.