Church Trumps Nation

I hear a lot about how the nation is going down the drain and how it's falling apart and all this stuff. . . . And I believe it. I know that the US, on a whole, is degenerate, that we need godly men to step up and lead; that we're raising generations of couch-potatoes and mental midgets, that we need God's mercy if we're to continue.

But I think when we focus on that, our priorities are way off.

It's not that the nation is not worthy of our prayers, or that we shouldn't be seeking it's good - I believe we should. Just that it should not ever be coming FIRST in our hearts and minds. The US is not God's chosen people - the Church is. And the Church, on a whole, seems to be floundering to a terrible degree in certain areas.

I grew up in conservative Christendom. We sang hymns and wore long skirts or dresses to church. We didn't have an orchestra or especially a set of drums. And you know? That's all fine. My heart is not more prone to worship because I now go to a church that has drums and where there are multiple people up front with microphones, singing harmonies. The music is not sweeter; the form does not make it better (or worse).

My heart is heavy because I've been on both sides and I see where they can both learn from the other. Conservatives need to learn to stick to the Bible and stop making rules that aren't there; they need to learn when tradition is ONLY tradition and when it's actually based on the Bible. They need to understand that as so many worship songs seem repetitive and fluffy, there are quite a lot of hymns that are fluffy, too, and not all repetition is bad. (Psalm 136, anyone??) It's not old hymns or modern worship songs that are well-done or poorly written - it's just individual songs.

Liberals need to learn that there is SO much that they are tossing away under the guise of liberty. They need to learn that dressing up for church doesn't make you "holier than thou," that it's simply a national norm to dress up for something that important to you, to want to look nice when you're meeting someone you care about. Why isn't church worth getting up fifteen minutes earlier to ensure that you make it on time? Why isn't church important enough to you to wear nice clothes and make sure you get a good night's sleep on Saturday? They need to understand that weighty lyrics are not a burden, but a blessing. That getting to go to Church and hear two good messages in the same day is an extreme privilege, not tedious or an annoyance.

There is SO MUCH that each side has. Why, oh why, are we focusing on this silly, fading, temporary nation when the CHURCH, the Bride of Christ, is so divided and is MISSING so much? When one side is growing stagnant and the other side is giving up their heritage, like Esau selling his birthright?

If conservatives will not loose their grip on tradition in favor of the Bible, liberals will never give them an ear. If liberals don't learn to look beyond the attitude of license to the purpose behind it, conservatives will never believe they CAN hear.

Being Careful

I saw something on Facebook this morning that turned my stomach. It's not something new; I've seen things like it many, many times. Yet, it still makes me angry and upset and sad.

It's when Christians are given a platform, given a podium, given a place of authority, and they go and say something really dumb. My first reaction is usually just, "Ugh. . . ." I shake my head and want to crawl into a closet where Christians don't say and do stupid things and hurt the name of Christ and the message of the Gospel with flippant words.

As much as I want to curl up and hide though, I also want to rush out shouting, "We're not ALL like that! We don't ALL think that way! Don't think that he/she is the representative for all of Christendom!"

Then, I usually get angry and start ranting against whoever did or said the thing. And that's where the biggest problem lies, because that's fueled usually first and foremost by pride. I certainly would never have said something so dumb, something so easy to take out of context, something so easily misunderstood, something that - even if you didn't mean it that way - SOUNDED so awful. I'M smarter than that. I know better. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

In all that thinking, I'm setting myself up for the same kind of fall, the same oversight. In thinking that I will never do something like that, I'm ensuring that I will not be careful of it (I've no reason to be!), and therefore, I will almost undoubtedly do it.

After all that there's the question of do I get involved in this? If you're going to, how do you go about it? You certainly can't argue that he/she did nothing wrong; they messed up - usually they admit that they messed up and have apologized for it by the time I hear about it. So what then? The world isn't going to forgive it; the world is going to hold it up and every time, it's going to return to bite you in the face over and over and over. You are going to be the guy/gal that "said such and such stupid thing" - at least for a while.

It's different (or should be) with family. By family, I'm referring to Christians. Family, they know where you're coming from. They usually know you well enough to know what you MEAN, even if you say it wrong. They don't require you to be ridiculously precise with your words. They're gracious, understanding. They know we all make mistakes; we all say things that come out the wrong way; we all say things that we haven't thought through or that we don't really mean. There's more grace, more breathing room.

Strangers (the world) KNOWS a lot of that, too, but they don't really care. They don't like us, and they're looking for those slip-ups, waiting for them. They like them in everybody; but they like them PARTICULARLY in people who hold themselves to a higher standard. They pounce on every opportunity with those people to say, AHA! Gotcha this time! I caught you breaking your rules! The Psalmist talks about those people - the ones who say, "Aha! Aha!" The prophets also talk about those people and how God will judge them for being pleased when His people stumble, and I believe that if God will judge the people who said, "Aha!" about Israel and Judah falling, that He will judge the people who do the same when Christians stumble.

What's the point of all this? Well, for one, we need to be careful. It could be you and me next time. Two, the bigger the platform we have, the more seriously we need to take it. The more people we influence, the bigger the issue is going to be if/when we mess up. Three, we can't be those people who laugh at the mistakes and mock those who made them. We all make mistakes. If the person doesn't see it, kindly point it out. If they apologize, forgive them. Isn't that what you would want if it were you? It's what I want. If you hear a Christian swear, don't be happy that they slipped. And don't mock them either. Four, be cautious lest you jump to conclusions about what people mean, even if it is what they said. Oftentimes when things like this happen, people are talking to their family, their close-knit group who understand them; and so they talk more freely, less carefully. Yes, we should all be careful; but we shouldn't be so judgmental that we cannot look past words to see the meaning behind them.

Train first; Send second

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." - Proverbs 22:6

"Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." - I Corinthians 15:33

When I was at college, I got into a debate once with one of my fellow students about sending kids (specifically very young children) to public school. I was arguing that it's not good for them; he was saying it's a tool for evangelism.

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." - Proverbs 22:15

Children need to be trained first; they need to be taught and schooled and educated before they can teach someone else. They need to have foolishness driven out of them. How many kids are even saved before they go to kindergarten or first grade?

Train them from a child in the right way, and when they are OLD then they can be trusted to remain in it. But only if they're trained as a child. If they only get half the training, they're only going to stay half in the way (if that much). If you quit training your kids when they become teenagers, they're not going to stay in the way. You might have to change HOW you go about it, but teenagers are not old. They still need training, teaching, direction.

If you send your kids out into the world when they are too young to discern between the unclean and the clean, they are going to spend a lot of time around evil living. And it's GOING to rub off on them.

I'm not a social person. I'm a homebody; I like staying at home; I'm not good at making friends; I don't generally talk much. I didn't have a lot of trouble with that one for a long time. Then I got the internet while I was a stupid teenager. And after some time, I got comfortable. And evil communications corrupted good manners. To this day, my brain automatically hears innuendo in innocent things that I otherwise wouldn't have given a second thought. (Part of why I love my Zack - most of the time, he misses it completely and I don't have to think about it any further. There's no comment, no smirk, no look. It's not acknowledged. And that is SOOOOO refreshing. Even amongst Christians, there's usually SOMETHING. Not with him.)

Evil living rubs off on everyone. And thanks to internet and television, we have it brought into our houses. I used to watch a TV show. It was funny and quirky and the characters habitually said, "oh my god" usually many times in an episode. I started to catch myself thinking it. And then, one day, it came out. I don't know how, because I'd been thinking "oh my goodness," but it did. I stopped watching the show; it hasn't happened since. That happened to me as an adult; how much more is evil going to have an impact on young minds? Kids, who have a tendency to absorb EVERYTHING. Kids who learn to read by hearing their parents teaching their older sibling to read.

Can kids evangelize? Sure. All Christians are told to spread the gospel. But that doesn't mean you put them in a public school. That's like saying I should send my teenager into a slum because they need to evangelize. You can spread the gospel wherever you are; you don't need to make your kids spend six-eight hours a day in the world for them to talk to someone about their Lord Jesus.