Eric Offstage

Wussification Of God's church Post # 1

Over the next few weeks I am starting a new series of posts entitled:  THE WUSSIFICATION ofGod's Church.  This series of posts is born out of looking out at Christians in America and many times seeing anything but the strong insane risk takers of the Bible.  

If you look in the Bible, God followers were radicals; not wieners:  (Check out Hebrews 11)

• Noah spent 100 years building a boat unafraid of the criticism of the entire world.  (FEARLESS)
• Abraham moved his entire family to a new country by faith without even knowing where he was going.  (RADICAL FAITH)
• Abraham also was so radical he was willing to sacrifice his only son to God.  (CRAZY!)
• Moses confronted a powerful king to see his people freed from slavery.  (CONFRONTATION)
• Gideon went to war for freedom.  (the original William Wallace)
• Samson went totally nuts on bad guys with a jawbone of a donkey.  (even without any resources, he refused to quit.) 
• Teenage David killed a giant.  (Fearless)
• Elijah confronted an evil king and hundreds of false prophets.  (Confrontation)
• Esther risked her own life to save her people.  (Selfless risk for the good of others)
• The disciples were tortured and beaten for the name of Christ.  (Strength and honor)

The stories of Scripture are filled with Great RISK and Great PAIN and Great JOY.  You can't look at these men and women and say:  WUSS!

But on the other hand, many times that is a great way to label many American Christians. 

• We sacrifice for Christ if it's easy. 
• We serve Christ if we have the time.
• We give if we have some extra.
• We praise Christ as long as no one thinks we are weird. 
• We speak up for Christ if we think no one will make fun of us. 
• We run from conflict, we avoid risk, we choose the easy way, we wimp out and give in to sin, we complain about hardship, we keep our mouths shut about Jesus, we give little, we serve halfheartedly and we complain we don't experience the powerful, miraculous, life-changing Christ. 

Do you see a problem here?  Why don't we EXPERIENCE A POWERFUL MIRACULOUS LIFE CHANGING CHRIST?  Because we wussed out on the call of Christ.  JESUS ISN'T FOR WUSSIES!!

Jesus said: Matthew 10:34-39  "Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household! If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it. 

Jesus is saying you can't be a WUSS and follow me. You have to be all in. If you want to find your life and experience God for real, you have to stop being a WUSSY and FIND YOUR BALLS and get a fearless, radical, confrontational (at times) selfless, risk taking faith. And when you do that, when you serve and give and risk it all you encounter our powerful miraculous life changing Jesus.  YOU FIND YOUR LIFE!! 

Crossing, I confess I have not been radical or courageous enough.  It is time I raise the bar again in my own life.  I want to be included in the great band of brothers and sisters of Scripture as hero of faith, and not a wuss of faith.

How about you?  Is it time to raise the bar again?

Let us never be wusses for Christ, but let us be crazy and radical and experience the real Christ. 

Stuff That Bugs Me (Part # 3)

Nerd Christians. 

I confess this is what I used to be, and I had to fall on my knees and repent of my nerdiness many times in my life.

What I mean by "nerd Christians" is this: 
People who love to sit and argue about what the Bible means at the expense of doing what it says. 

For a huge part of my life as a Jesus follower I assumed the point of my faith was to know stuff.  So I filled my head with all kinds of information about the Bible.  I learned some Hebrew and Greek.  I studied and argued many of the different teachings on what the book of Revelation might mean.  I tried to determine if I was a Calvinist or an Arminian.  (Don't worry if you don't know what those things are.)  I argued all kinds of things with all kinds of other Nerd Christians about the nuances of some random Bible verse.  And I did this at the expense of people far from God. 

I pretty much ignored people outside my Christian bubble so that I could become spiritually smarter than everyone else, and have all the right answers about God and faith in front of my other nerd friends.     

I now realize I will never have all the right answers, and that my job is not to know everything and argue every little detail.  My job is to represent Christ well to a broken world and take the simple powerful message of the love of God to people who need it. 

(That is MUCH HARDER, by the way, than learning a new thing about a Bible verse.)

Now, please don't get me wrong here:
Knowledge is a good thing.  We should learn about our faith.  But the point of learning the Bible and understanding Scripture is to look more like Jesus when we are done. 

It is about transformation--not information.   

If you find yourself in arguments with church people over the Bible that lead to trying to "one up" the other person, or leave you with bitterness or anger, I would question whether that conversation was valuable at all. 

Look at the fruit of your discussions and ask yourself, "Are these conversations making me a better, more radically loving grace-filled person?  OR "Are these conversations making me pride-filled, argumentative and hostile?" 

1 Corinthians 8:1  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

See, love trumps knowledge every time.  I pray that I am a person who always keeps love and grace the focus of my life and never again fall into the trap of nerd Christian. 

Happy New Year!  Be a person of grace; not just a person of knowledge. 

 

    

Things that bug me (Part # 2)

Small-Minded Critical people
Now don't get me wrong.  Being critical is not always a bad thing.  We should be critical thinkers and analyze things to make sure that we are bringing honor to Jesus and actually reaching people. 

But the problem I have is that many times church people would rather to be critical of new ideas rather than actually have any.  It is interesting to me that the people who are the loudest critics of new programs or efforts or ideas in a church are usually (not always) the ones sitting on their butts doing the least amount of work.

When people immediately assume something is shallow or evil or Satanic because it is new, or different, that is small minded.  When people sit around and complain rather than try anything new, churches die.  No wonder most churches aren't reaching anyone.  You have to take risks and try new things if you want the message of Christ to be heard in our world.   

I am totally up for criticism as long is it is from people who are doing AS MUCH OR MORE THAT ME to reach people.  See I can respect those people, because they are working as hard as me or harder.  Their heart and soul is passionate about seeing God's lost kids get found, and I can learn from that kind of criticism. 

But honestly I could care less about criticism from people who do jack squat and then whine and criticize and complain about how shallow or evil or suspect The Crossing is. 

The Crossing is on a mission to THRILL people with an awesome God and MOVE seeking people one step closer to Jesus.  And we ignore criticism from people who aren't working as hard as us to do the same.   

   

Stuff that bugs me (Part # 1)

Lazy Church People. 
This I think truly sickens and saddens the heart of God.  See, the goal of the church is to invade the world with the truth love and hope of Jesus Christ.  That is our goal.  TO SEEK AND SAVE THE LOST!!  To do that takes more than singing hymns, going to bible study and praying.  IT ACTUALLY TAKES WORK!!  AND TONS OF IT!! 

If we truly believed that our job is to invade the world with Jesus, We would be doing anything short of sinning to help people know that God is for them and not against them. 

To many religious people are really just plain lazy.  They don't want to have to actually do the hard work of developing deep meaningful relationships with people who are far from God.  They don't want to actually try and make their faith make sense to people who don't understand.

They just want to feel good about themselves by reading the book of Ephesians one more time and  singing some church songs while the people around them go straight to hell. 

HOW INSANE IS THAT?!!