The Church of the P.F.Y.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18 (New International Version)

It is one of the ‘culturally acceptable’ ways to get out of having to go outside your comfort zone for someone else…..to act like you are actually concerned and want nothing but the best for the person who comes across your path who is struggling. It is one I’ve faced in the recently ended season of my life….and why I’ve come from Holly to Canton…..when faced with someone who has a need, a struggle or difficulty…..you whisper:

“I’ll pray for you.”

And then nothing is done…..no memory to pray for that person comes to your mind as you offer up prayers for your family, your finances, your job and that enough people will ‘pony up’ so that the seats needed for the worship center can be purchased outright. You’ve forgotten the prompting of the Spirit that led you to offer to look for people within the ‘family’ who might be able to address the need, contact businesses that you have a relationship with to see if the need can be addressed in a way to help alleviate the burden that has been placed upon the person you’ve said, “I’ll pray for you…..” to.

Nothing gets done, and the person feels rejected…alone…and afraid. Pettiness, perceived grudges, real slights and hurts that develop into anger and causes the person to reject the Gospel message because the church, represented supposedly by individually redeemed souls, has forgone the commission in favor of worldly things. And it is so easy to fix this situation before it becomes a source of corruption and decay within the Body…..

Prompt action, candidness, clearing the air and moving step by step….not just to address the need but to bring that person into a place where the situation is truly resolved….as I’ve said before….not only teaching a person to fish, but making sure they have the right equipment, developed skill and self-image to achieve continuous and effective fishing. Mentorship, discipleship and friendship…..such easy things to give, most of the time, but harder and harder to maintain as time, money and personal investment are required.

Instead, we get to a point where “I will pray for you” is the leadership line, the ministry tag and the flippant remark we throw up in the face of the burdened…..slang for, “I don’t want to help you. You need too much, or You shouldn’t be experiencing this.”

We usurp God’s declaration, minimize Christ’s ultimate sacrifice and reject those who may be the workers in the revival to come before the end of days. Maybe even reject the angels who have come at God’s prompting to test us…..and fulfill the word of Christ who said, “I came hungry, without clothes and nothing to drink and you sent Me on my way (paraphrased).” If we treat our brethren this way, do we not also reject Christ….for we are all supposed to be the ‘children of God,’ part of the same family. It is the ‘Church’ that seems to have the most problems resolving such conflicts in a clean and happy way where harmony is restored.

We repeat the example set by Cain and Abel….the first family rift that became two distinct and separate families….that still feud against each other to this day. Abel; the example of righteous living, love, pity, righteous conduct and fellowship and Cain; evil, death, murder, hate, unrighteous conduct and hostility towards the truth.

One represents the commandment ‘from the beginning’ (John says earlier in his writing) to love one another… so clearly defined by Christ, who represented the love of the Father and whom all who are ‘born of God, living in the light’ are to reflect into the family of God. We cannot reflect God’s righteousness if we do not love as Christ loved….not to ‘the best of our ability’ but beyond the reasonable expectation of human ability into the realm of where God is primary and our own ‘agenda’ is mute.

There is no….”do your best” but rather….feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless. Not according to your comfort but rather with the degree of compassion that lead Christ to be put upon a Cross of pain and suffering for the sins of humanity who even as He walked among them rejected Him and tortured Him.
Of course, some would point to the passages before this as an example of the more ‘obedient to God’ the “church” is, the more discord and disconnection to the world it would experience…and justify the inaction, rejection and laziness that caused the conflict in the first place….alienating the ‘problem child’ as unsaved….evidenced by the continued struggles.

We judge the heart, ‘which no man can truly know’, and decide what God will do in the situation for Him. Much like Cain did, which led to the distinction of being the first of many murderers in the family…..and set a generational conflict that exists in the world today.

Does the Church represent today the unparallel love as represented by Abel and lived by Christ today or does it look more like Cain? Is the love for ‘its’ brother conditional on what it feels it can do, the offering that was rejected by God, and more ‘understandable’ in a worldly sense and therefore more representative of the world of the dead? Does the actions of the ‘church’ rob the brethren of life? Does it look upon the ‘problem children’ as burdens unfairly cast upon its shoulders, too many with too few resources, or does it look at them as opportunities to live the life that Christ empowers it, dare I say commands it to live, by His example?

It is not by our buildings, our worship style or even our programs that we are assured of our being in relationship with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit….it is not the size of the congregation, the impact of our sermons or the amount of tithe that are weekly gathered that shows how ‘biblical’ the congregation is. Nor is it the amount of opposition to a vision, a plan or a preacher that represents our proximity to God……

John tells us that we will experience, as the church left by Christ in the hands of His followers, hostility with the world simply because of conflicting loyalties and values and the attempt by the world to dissuade the children of God from the commitment to God. The challenge facing the church, to which it has failed in the modern day, is to discern between opposition that is God-inspired because of a wrong undertaking or from the evilness of the Cainian world.

As Matthew Henry says, “While the world's hostility is to be expected, it is not to be made a badge of the quality of our Christian life.” Whereas the love of one’s brother will lead to an Abelian offering of their first fruits, regardless of the attraction, desire or comfort of using it for oneself will lead to life-giving, the Cainian offering of ‘okay’ fruits that protect that attraction, desire and comfort for oneself leads to the murder of one’s brother.

Love for one another shows our separation from the world, the distinction between self-protection and living to die for one another and brings an undeniable testimony of how much we have experienced the love of God for us, developed in our understanding of God’s character and our discipleship under the self-giving love obediently lived through the commandments of Christ.

Love is not a simple expression of compassion, uttered too quickly in the form of ‘pray for you,’ but lived in the transformational, illogical (by the world’s standards) example that sets forth the fertile grounds for the transforming power of God to work in our lives, the lives of those who we interact with and even within the walls of the church.

It is the words of the ‘beloved’ apostle of Christ, one of the three closest to the Messiah, that undeniably sets the definition of love…..set forth in two distinct and conjoined statements as set forth by Christ’s sacrifice.

It is the example for us, as followers of Christ, to follow…undeniable and active, not merely words or thoughts but a lifestyle lived in the face of human self-protection.

It is the revelation of the extent of God’s love for us….though we were in sin, and rejected the source of our salvation, God was faithful in His provision to provide a way for us to know Him, have life and live a abundant life in the arms of His love.
Neither is something that can be simply admired, celebrated and cheered. It must be lived….

A person who stands upon the ship and tosses a life preserver overboard, turning to you and saying, “I’d save you if you were drowning.” It doesn’t mean much while you are safely standing upon the deck, secure and dry. So does the comment, “I’ll pray for you.”

But, if you are at the mercy of the sea and he jumps overboard to save you…..there is no questioning of his sacrificial love for you, even more so if he is a stranger to you. By that action, you know you are valued, loved and cherished…..the reality and greatness of the Father’s love is evident in an undeniable way through the action of that person….who’s love is an active, living and sacrificial thing for them….to the point where their physical life and comfort is not a hindrance, but a first fruit to give as a sacrifice to God for your sake.

The community of Christ, often labeled the church, manifests itself as a community that loves one another to the point where action and truth nurture a strong community where love is king and “self-giving” love is modeled after Christ’s example….drawing those away from destructive behaviors by representing actions that lead to life and healing and wholeness.

In voluntary, live-giving, truthful and giving from our abundance……..rather than building a bigger community that allows isolated living, hidden agendas and self-promotion, it would keep a close, interactive and relational community that gives birth to others and values that transparency that promotes accountability, prevents untruth and brings harmony under the banner of truth. Jesus' death and love creates the community of life and love.

Those within that community ought to manifest a love for others that serves the end of nurturing community (v. 16). And one does not strengthen community by speech alone, but by actions and in truth.

It is the commitment of the community to the ideals exampled, defined and lived by Christ to the truth, life and love of His bride that is reflected not in its moral superiority so much as its undeniable and humanly illogical commitment to what the reality lived in pursuit of those things that is the persistent aim and goal of relational living in the body as experienced personally in the relationship we have experienced in our relation with the Father.

The community should be able to give up what we possess in order to bless others….not waiting for the ‘right’ motivation but because it is the right thing to do. Often, it is the action of doing right that leads to a willingness and motivation to continue such rightful living.

It is manifested in so many undeniable ways, even in the culturalized western church of today:

In the travelling of a woman for an hour to deliver some money to a brother in Christ who she only knows by prayer requests to bless him with a 1,000.00 to put towards his needs…..

In a brother, blessed by an unexpected bonus through work, that gives 2,000.00 to another to help him by a car to get to work……

In a band of brothers who refuse to allow another who they know to stay in the darkness of his past, but continue to accept him as he is and call him to grow……

In a community that spans the world who comes together to promote the commission…regardless of the foolishness the world perceives it to be……

What would it look like in the community of believers who belong to the greater family of God, bound only by geographical location to the gathering they attend?

The mega-churched congregation who splits and mergers with other smaller churches not to incorporate under a common pastor, but to promote community, fellowship and the commission….

the larger giving freely to the smaller…..at the physical costs of newer buildings, fancier worship centers and comfortable relationships to instill, edify and promote the unity of the body….regardless of human denominational banners but because of the unifying foundations of Christ………

the free movement of small groups to other groups not to disrupt the teaching but to promote greater relationships beyond the familiar and to reach out to the unfamiliar within their own congregations…..

the discipleship of believers not to remain in the congregation, but to become apostles in the community as a whole; village, city, township, county, state, nation and the world………

the mentorship of disciples to be leaders who replicate the process; relationally being apostles to disciple those who seek a greater relationship with God by their examples……

What a church that would be against the tide of humanism and self-promotion of the secular world and such a desirable bride to the Bridegroom….

A reason to love…..

"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.  With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." Psalm 91:14-16

As this season's journey seems to quickly draw to an end and the new situations that will govern the future, if only for a little while, become completed, I struggle; against myself, against the experiences of the past and the not-so-surprising expectations of a future devoid of achievement. It seems whenever I get knocked down, I get back up….only to be knocked down again. I have fought against the tendency to isolate myself….to present to the church a 'rosy' image of myself and my situation to obtain 'acceptance' of both my family and my purpose. I have spoken clearly and freely about my problems, struggles, failures and disappointments and once again, it seems to have marked me as an undesirable…especially for ministry. To the point where I have uttered the words I did back when I was sixteen years old and the church turned its back on me, unlike what it had did with my older brother.

"I think I'm done with 'church'"

Two specific events in the last evolution of my 'church' experience have brought me face to face with this unspoken heaviness. One, when I had that accidental collision with the unseen landscaping rock thrown out into the road by another car that spun out during the snow storm and cracked the transmission case to my car….$1,700.00 plus repair bill and me travelling an hour to and from work. I went to my pastor and asked for his assistance in trying to find a way to address the problem. I made the prayer request list, under the anonymous titling "car repairs". One brother, from Germany, offered to loan me the money…..I refused, on the grounds of the biblical instruction not to enter into a loan with a brother. It was one brother, part of the ultra-church ministry I belong to, who was blessed with a unexpected bonus who gave me the funds to buy another vehicle. Fine, I thought at the time, God decided that the larger would not be as powerful a testimony as the one, so He planned this to happen this way.

Three months later, the same pastor who didn't return my emails about the church's 'relationship with several repair shops, maybe we can get the costs down' information stood in front of the congregation and asked for cars to be donated "for a few people in need." There were men, he said, in the congregation who will fix them up and give these needing families transportation. I was within a day of losing my job because I couldn't get there and it wasn't needful enough, apparently. After all, the bible says to care for the single mothers and widows….not single fathers.

It is this same pastor that I requested a meeting with in June/July to discuss the problem with babysitting for my children over the summer and through the coming school year. He said that he would see if he could find someone who "can help in exchange for monetary compensation" despite my honest comment of not even being able to afford to send the kids to the 'summer camp' program the church was operating because of costs. He came to the conclusion that maybe I should investigate moving closer to family as it seems God wasn't opening doors in the Holly area. I've heard nothing from him all summer, even when the kid's mother lost her power for over a week and I had to find an alternative place for them to go…..it was another individual, through my work, that stepped up and helped with my children….and she had others who helped her with them.

Two nights ago I went to church and was talking about my eminent departure; two separate individuals said they wished they had known, one operated a childcare from her home and the other would've stepped into some kind of helping role. The pastor apparently never mentioned it to anyone and I wasn't worthy of a 'congregational request.'

I am too far gone to change course again and stay where I've felt I was supposed to stay…..it would take another miracle to work all the severed links back together and make the situation work out now. I feel that, because I am a male, that there are those who feel I don't have to deal with the same issues that a single mother would, or that I should have everything put together in a neat and tidy box…..after all, there's nothing in the bible that says 'care for the single fathers and widows.'

Do I think the pastor is ungodly? No, I think that he is in the wrong position for his spiritual gifts and purposing. Do I think the church is more worldly than godly? I think it has become a hybrid of a corporate mentality, for spoken godly purposes, and has become a weak vessel……an old wineskin…..to which new wine is being poured. Sooner or later, it will rupture into a ungodly and secular corporate entity: when the man-after-God's-heart pastor has moved on to his reward or has become a liability to the collection of congregations that he has gathered together over his years in ministry. A ministry or vision built upon one man, except for Christ, is destined to fall when that man is gone. Maybe years, maybe centuries later…..but history proves its truth.

And they won't see it coming. Because, as another pastor said to me, 'I may not agree with everything this doctrine (name-it-claim-it healing) says, but it is definitely having results'. I believe that the Gospel does not go out void….God says it will not….and the enemy fully knows this. So, with a bit of scriptural sprinkling of truths coupled with wrong theology and understanding, results are garnered in the expectations of the humanity called "church" and any unbiblical or godly means to get to the 'results' is glossed over…..congregations grow to critical mass, property is bought to house the elaborate decorations of thousand-strong communities, worship becomes a stage-show that rivals the concert venues of culturally favored musicians and groups and slowly the erosion of the congregational responsibility to its family members and the community to which it is supposed to serve becomes commonplace……and the purpose to which Christ built His church looks more like a profit-loss graphic during the board meetings of the 'elders' and 'leadership' teams.

The community of 'believers' grows larger and larger, to the point where a pastor doesn't know the sheep he shepherds because it is simply logistically impossible and the mentality of the church is 'growth is progress', community involvement is 'public relations' of a cost-benefit ratio and true discipleship is a weeding field where the productive are advanced and the troubled are either conformed or shuffled to the darker corners of congregational life. And the excuse is "The need is too great for us to help everyone."

The individual becomes less important than the many 'possibilities' of dynamic lights, sound and stage presence. The message of one man, one God, becomes less important to remain truthful to than a water-down, we'll-get-em-later, message of somewhat Truth.

It no longer seems unlikely that 144,000 of the remnant will remain on this earth to herald the tribulation. The true believers of this world will either be gone through attrition or herded up into isolated communities to be wiped out at the convenience of the populace. The 82% of the American population that claims Christianity is actually only 8%....and the tides of cultural tolerance and corporate worship will whittle that down to almost zero…..if the current treads are true and 90% of the children today will never step back into a church setting once they hit the first year of college.

"Teach a man to fish" mentality; let's formulate what it takes to make a person in the congregation be 'spiritual', financially stable and happy so that we can develop them to support our ministries and services in the big building down the street. If they struggle, there's a study program or group…..if they are troubled, they've not gotten enough of the spirit….if they stray, then they must not be honestly converted and we'll have to cut them loose….. so that we don't have to do anything than our 'title' and can 'suspend' the common expectations of relationships in favor of the need to feed the vision of the 'mega-complex' down the road. That way, it seems, the expectation becomes not one of discipling to leave the community to support or redeem another but so that the congregate, in their self-supporting life, can support the church and the leadership visions for the church congregation. They can then sit back and watch it grow…….and feel accomplished, feel the 'work' is done.

It seems the lessons are quickly given, illustrated once and then the 'trainees' are sent to the fish and tackle stores to buy their own tackle and rods. Some have to go cheap and find themselves alienated by the better equipped individuals….and still starve. Others get to the store, having lost their list along the way, and find themselves rejected from getting a copy of it again…..and still starve. Some buy the best equipment, designed for easy fishing, and then when the equipment breaks, they have forgotten how to fish in a basic way….the equipment did the work for them….and THEY starve.

What would happen if we, the church, took the 'seasoned anglers' in our congregation and coupled them with younger fisher-wannabes (physically or spiritually)? The young anglers would be under the mentorship of the elder ones until the point where; regardless of the situation or equipment, they will still land fish…..then, they are seasoned anglers and the process begins again. If they fall, starving because of unfruitful fishing, the still-lifelong-paired mentor would know it and be able to address the failure in a productive way.

It would be "I'll teach you, watch you and then help you do the same to another" fishing mentality. Fathers take their sons time and time again….and then step to the side..going further down the stream until they are out of sight, ready to jump in and help, but watching to see the growth and maturity of their sons as they do it on their own…..the sons, properly taught, teach their own….and a legacy of fishermen are born. Doesn't mean that there won't be times of starvation…in those times, through the network of mentorship and relational community, there would be those who had more to feed those who have less. Doesn't mean there won't be times of correction, for even the professional anglers make mistakes….but mentorship/relational community would again be there to help them learn and recover.

The chief ingredient isn't a formula of this bait, this lure, this line, this pole and this river/lake/stream……it is individualized, direct and hands on relationship, commitment and above all…love.

God is love….and those who are of God are His representatives of that love.

Is God a cookie-cutter, formulaic God? Did He throw the lesson book out there and LEAVE? Did He look at your mistakes, even after the point of conversion, and say…."Well, guess you're hopeless?" Is He consistently loving, faithful and true…..delivering upon His promises, inviting us to work with Him in His larger story to bring glory to Him and furthering the kingdom? Faithfully wrathful, judgmental and angry in a level of righteousness consistent with His loving, merciful and compassionate grace…….

Is He disconnected from us, or as the song goes and the verse above testifies, "He walks with me and He talks with me……and He (repeatedly) tells me I am His own." He promises never to leave us, even in the depth of our disobedience, but is faithful to wait for us to reconnect to Him….and He doesn't just sit there, listening to our despair…but sends us help when we cry out to Him…..in ways we often don't recognize until later….when our spiritual growth is enough to see it.

Why?

Because we love Him…..from love comes desire….from desire loyalty….from loyalty obedience…..born out of love's intentional relationship with God that makes us want to please Him….and the only way to do so is to……

LOVE

From that action on our part, He responds in the same….loving us enough not to leave us where we are, helpless and hopeless against the onslaught of the enemy's intentions, but to grow and nurture us to join Him in the work He is already about. We aren't required for God's plan and aren't simply story fodder for His grander, pure Story….but are active and willing participants who are continually enticed by the Reader and Author of the story to join its telling. He's read the story, knows its end and still is entranced by our participation, caught up in the moments of our story within His….equally delighted when we hear and relate with Him….inviting Him to journey with us in the writing of our own smaller part in the annals of His story…….

God doesn't have formulas, He has solutions…He doesn't smash humanity into a thin mishmash of dough and apply a cookie cutter to its width and breath of life so to have automatons of the same molding…….The structure is in place, undeniably and un-individualistic dependant…..but our involvement in it is individually crafted, and unforced…..

Because of LOVE

A love born in a redeemed heart, lived in the woundedness of this broken world, painful and sorrowful because of the corporate humanism that plagues our very beings from the moment of our birth…..until we are more like our Creator…..more tranquil, more joyful and more illogical in our loving than we could ever realize……

Being relational with those who are in pain, suffering or burdened by the world…..not just for conversion's sake (for it is not us who CONVERTS) but because God so loved us……we fish with the broken, not just to teach them to fish, but to give them the ability to fish, the desire to fish and the confidence to fish………

So, when our legacy is called upon at the moments of our 'graduation', those left behind can see those who will ensure generations of fishermen are grown up.

We have become a people of manufactured, chemically-enhanced and man-designed fish eaters eating something that tastes like fish, is shaped like fish but has the nutritional value of cardboard…..and celebrate those who have the flashy lures, the fanciest poles and the graceful moves as legendary anglers, even though they don't 'really fish' anymore but are 'demonstrators'…..flocking to hear what they have to say and let them feed us. The old, wizened anglers who fish for the sake of fishing……who know more about fishing with a string and a stick than the latest fancy move in casting…who never make the competitions but feed their communities….are forgotten or labeled 'antiquated'.

It is not the 'we' in Christianity that God calls us to, through formulaic and ritualistic worship in cushy seats of grand cathedrals…….

it is the "I" in Christianity that He entices us to…….so that we can be the "I"

…….that rescues the lost

…….protects the weak

…….answers for the speechless

…….stand by the persecuted and oppressed

…….deliver the tortured souls to God

……..by standing as a living testimony to the salvational mercy, unending grace and agape LOVE of the God who sent His only begotten Son so that none will perish but have life everlasting.

It will be those in the end days, individual in their testimony and working as an organic living and breathing part of the 'catholic' (universal) church that will not meet in the halls of grand visions or the fields of lush red crushed-velvet seats, who will live and work beside the broken, battered and bruised of this world…..loving and caring for them at the cost of their lives to harvest the fields of souls for the purpose of their Savior.

That is the bride that Christ is coming back for…..and that is what God promises to protect, guide and prosper.