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How to pray like a man

5/31/2013

Have you ever noticed that Christians speak normally to one another, but when they speak to aloud to God they lapse into a strange language and tone? I call this “prayer-speak” and it’s epidemic in evangelical churches today.

Prayer-speak is especially prevalent among worship leaders.

Prayer speak silences men. Guys who might otherwise pray aloud are intimidated because they don’t know the “prayer code.”

A guy might be tempted to open his mouth and say, “God, I got a problem.” But he keeps quiet because his oration doesn’t sound holy enough.

The other problem with prayer-speak is that it makes our prayers sound rather wimpy. Here is a prayer I heard recently from a musician as he closed his first set:

Dear God, we need you. God, we just need your love. God, we just need your presence. Father be with us in this time of worship. Lord just send your spirit so that every heart is touched. Father, that no one would go home the same.

Lord, I just pray that we would run into your arms and seek safety there. Father nothing compares to your love for us.

Father God we just pray that we would honor you in all we do. Lord, give us boldness to proclaim your word to every nation. Father make us your witnesses unto the ends of the earth. We just pray that your Word would go out into the world and change lives.

Father we just ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Does this sound familiar? You probably heard something like it last Sunday.

I don’t really have a problem with what the prayer said. It’s how it was said.

Notice the prayer invoked the name of God twelve times – at the beginning of each sentence. This is just odd. Did Jesus instruct us to repeat God’s name over and over when we pray? When we speak to a flesh-and-blood person do we say their name each time we open our mouths? “Jeremy, thanks for having lunch with me. Jeremy, what will you be ordering? I’m thinking about the tilapia, Jeremy. Jeremy, can you pass the salt?”

And what’s with the frequent use of the word just? Placing a just before a verb softens it. It gives our prayers the sound of a beggar. Would you just give me a crust of bread, God? Lord, I’m just a miserable sinner, just begging you for some little thing.

We are God’s sons, not his slaves. John Wesley said, “Storm the Throne of Grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.” We should enter his presence with appropriate confidence. The tone of our prayers should reflect our place as God’s beloved children. Jesus was bold and familiar with his Father; we should be too.

Let’s reimagine the prayer above:

Lord, in the next hour we’re going to set aside all our worries and burdens and ask you to take care of those. We want to focus on what’s really important, but we’re so easily distracted by things that don’t matter. Forgive us for that.

We’re a needy people. We are nothing without you and your Spirit. We get beat up by life all week long, and we need this time with you. Thanks for loving us.

And we know you have a mission for us. You called us to be your witnesses, but we’re scared. We shouldn’t be – but we are. Next time we have an opportunity to speak up for you, fill us with your power.

We really look forward to this time in your presence. Speak to us now. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Feel the difference between the two prayers? They say basically the same things, but the second prayer sounds confident. You feel it in you gut. It’s not repetitive, hesitant or sing-songy. It’s surprising in its candor. It’s not stuffed with the usual churchy phrases.

Guys, we need to start modeling boldness in prayer. The next time you have an opportunity to pray aloud in a group I challenge you to do three things:

Invoke the name of God once, at the beginning.
Don’t place the word “just” before the verbs.
Speak to God as if he’s a real person. Make your prayer as conversational and “normal” as possible.

When our prayers sound like real conversation with a real God, more men will join in.

This post was written by David Murrow. You can find the original post here: http://churchformen.com/discipling-men/how-to-pray-aloud-like-a-man/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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My sins aren't as bad as yours

5/30/2013

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A temptation on the road to reverence is to stop and gawk at the wrecks in other people’s lives. Maybe it makes us feel better that while we may be struggling with one thing or another at least we’re not like that. Jesus tells a story of two men who go to the temple to pray. One was a gawker—that appears to be the audience Jesus intends this particular story to teach.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14, NIV).

Other people’s sins are much easier to confess than our own. Other people’s brokenness is much easier to mock than our own. But God seems to be seeking something other than “holiness police.” God loves those who, rather than sizing up the difference between themselves and other “more sinful” people, instead bow low in recognition of their own unworthiness compared to Holy God. The road to reverence is paved with humility.

Prayer Position

Notice the position of the two men in prayer. The Pharisee stands on his own two feet proud of his goodness but the tax collector “would not even look up to heaven.” One was confident in his righteousness and the other knew God was good and he was not. The tax collector trusted God enough, or at least was desperate enough, to cry out for mercy. Which one does Jesus say went home forgiven?

God desires honesty. God wants truth. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-12, NIV).

The Same Boat

We’re all in the same boat. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. None of us are all we were created to be, but yet somehow we have the audacity to condemn others while seeking pardon for ourselves. Or do we think we are without sin? We sing, “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” but then try to claim it exclusively. Saved a wretch like me, not a wretch like you, you’re the wrong kind of wretch.

None of this is intended to say that sin is not serious. It is. It is deadly. It separates us from Holy God. But God is greater than our sin. God is also greater than our neighbor’s sin. Remember what Jesus told Nicodemus? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). While we need to take sin seriously we must take God even more seriously.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin?

Sometimes Christians are seen as hateful when we point out the sins of others. But we claim this is not true. We “love the sinner and hate the sin.” I’m sure I’ve said that myself. But just this week I saw a quote by singer and humorist Mark Lowry with some important words to consider. They are helpful as we wrestle with sin and grace and how to live reverently. Mark said, “Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job. How about you hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin and let’s just love each other!”

But too many of us are like the Pharisee in the story. We thank God we are not like those… fill in your blank here. Those drunks, those adulterers, those gays, those right wingers, those liberals, those “whatever we are not” people whose sins we want to highlight rather than allow the light of Christ to work in us. It is irreverent to do what God does not, to rank the sins of others as worse than our own. Since we are all in the same boat maybe we shouldn’t be so eager to see it sink.

Mercy Triumphs

James challenges us: “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’, you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:8-13, NIV).

It’s stunning to consider we have broken the entire law. All of it! How in the world can we then turn around and point a condemning finger at others when their sin is ours as well? But if our guilt is stunning, this is more so. God has mercy on us. God casts our sin as far as the east is from the west. Through Jesus Christ we find not only pardon for our sin but power to become all we were created to be. Our response to God is worship. The appropriate response to others is mercy and love.

A Journey of Grace

Though we journey toward reverence we’re not there yet. We couldn’t have even started on our own. It’s all about grace. Grace, grace, grace: grace to draw us, grace to forgive us and grace to make us as we should be.

One thing I know is that gawking slows us down. Sometimes it even causes us to wreck. Let’s keep our eyes on the road.

This excerpt is from the book, Irreverent: Finding Our Way Home. Order the book here or the Kindle edition here.

This post is taken from Seedbed, provided by Rev John Leece. For the original post with comments, go to: http://seedbed.com/feed/noticing-other-peoples-sins/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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How to be a good neighbor

5/29/2013

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Arvada, a Denver suburb started an initiative called the Art of Neighboring. Here are their findings.:

1. Being a good neighbor begins with a positive, proactive mindset.

“The solutions to the problems in our neighborhoods aren’t ultimately found in the government, police, schools, or in getting more people to go to church. The solutions lie with us. It’s within our power to become good neighbors, to care for the people around us, and to be cared for by the people around us.”

That’s where becoming a good neighbor begins. It begins with how a man thinks. Instead of seeing the place he lives only as the place he hangs his hat, he begins to see the place he lives as a place he influences. He knows it’s up to him to make things better.

Author Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point agrees. Exploring the “broken windows” theory first articulated several decades ago, he described how even small things done or left undone in a neighborhood can spur crime rates up or down.

When litter isn’t picked up, when graffiti remains on a wall or fence, when a window is broken but not fixed—these can all communicate that a neighborhood is declining, Gladwell wrote. And when people’s outward environments appear to decline, people tend to respond socially with less care, thus the potential for increased crime.

The opposite is true as well. Just as lapses in signs of care and concern can set off an escalation in deterioration, so can positive actions create a chain reaction of improvement. Thus, a good neighbor’s mindset is focused on how he can influence his neighborhood for the better, and he seeks to address problems while they are still small, nipping them in the bud. He feels a sense of ownership, sees his neighborhood as a reflection of himself, and knows his actions affect others. He begins to be a good neighbor simply and in small ways, undertaking the responsibility of creating an environment that he—and others—will want to live in.

2. The simplest way to become a good neighbor is to smile, wave, and get to know names.

I was out for a walk the other morning when I saw a guy walking toward me on the street. I gave him a head nod and said, “Good morning,” as he passed, like I do whenever I meet anyone in my neighborhood. But the young man didn’t even look at me or respond in any way.

He was carrying a backpack bearing the name of our town’s community college, so that gave me a clue to his standoffish behavior. He may have had a test that morning and been focused on what lay ahead. He may have not heard me, or been in a bad mood and simply didn’t want to respond.

But I suspect it was something simpler. I’m not sure his exact age, probably around 18 or 19, but I suspect he was simply thinking more like a child and less like a man.

In this day and age, children are correctly taught never to talk with people they don’t know. If a 44-year-old stranger said good morning to my 10-year-old daughter as she waited for the school bus, I would strongly urge her to ignore him, even to run away.

But adult-aged neighbors need to be re-taught to engage with people they don’t know, at least when it comes to those who live near to them. If a car drives down my street and I’m outside mowing the lawn, I make it a habit to smile and wave. I see plenty of other adults doing the same thing.

The embryo of good neighboring is proactive friendliness. It means initiating a positive interaction with those you come in contact with. The simplest way to do that is to smile, wave, and learn your neighbors’ names. If someone moves in next door, take them an apple pie. If your neighbor goes out of town, offer to watch out for his place while he’s away.

3. Being a good neighbor means you treat others as you want to be treated.

Some years back when my wife and I bought our first house, we became fast friends with our next door neighbors, a couple about our age. We’d eat dinner together, we’d talk over the fence, we’d mow our lawns for each other when out of town.

They were the neighbors from heaven.

Then they moved out and another couple moved in. The woman was okay, but the guy was a grade-A jerk. There’s no polite way to say that. He was surly and rude, he made noise at all hours of the night, he held wild parties and left empty beer bottles on his front lawn. Other neighbors would actually complain to us—the people who lived closest to them—asking us to do something about it. Cowards.

They were the neighbors from hell.

The point is that when it comes to living in close proximity to other people, any number of relational issues can arise. No neighborhood is perfect, and it takes tact, timing, wisdom, forgiveness, boundaries, and at times courage to live alongside of other people.

Still, the best way to create a good neighborhood is to be a good neighbor yourself. As an adult, you might live in a suburban neighborhood, a rural area, or in an apartment in the city, yet wherever you live, the same principle holds true: your actions will affect others, and their actions will affect you.

This means you’re mindful of your actions. You realize you don’t live in a frat house anymore. You keep your music turned to a volume where it can’t be heard outside your walls. You pick up after your dog and keep him on a leash if your yard is unfenced. You carry your trash cans back inside the garage the same day as your trash is picked up.

When it comes to where you live, you help set the tone.

This blog post was adapted from: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/05/23/on-being-neighborly/

To read more about this study, go to: http://www.artofneighboring.com/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Racism - Am I part of the problem?

5/28/2013

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The other day, I hired a roofer to come and fix some hail damage on my house. I told him that my neighbor may want some roofing done too. I said, "he's from Guadalajara and was telling me that he could get some 'hispanics' to fix my roof and his roof but you might want to see if he needs some work done." My roofer (a white guy) kind of got this sly grin and said, "he's not a roofer?" I said, "no, he's an executive for a large bakery company." My roofer said, "I was joking (still with that sly grin)." I retorted, "yes I know you were. I just didn't think it was funny." The subject was changed and the roofing job was completed. In the area where we live, there are a lot of homes being built. A good portion of the construction crews (including roofers) are hispanic.*

Later, upon reflection of this interaction, I thought to myself, "There I went and did it again. I came off as a racist. Why did it matter that my neighbor is from Guadalajara?" I really like my neighbor. He 's been nothing but friendly and he brings over items from the bakery and his wife makes us the BEST quesadillas. My hispanic neighbor came from California before he brought his family to Indiana and built a home next to mine. I then thought about the number of people who have asked me if my neighbor was here legally. Honestly, that thought never crossed my mind. My neighbors on the other side are from California too but are a white mother and daughter. No one has ever asked me if they were here legally, I have no idea where they lived before California.

I recall I went to lunch with a couple of white men that were a little bit older than me. One of them made a disparaging comment about the race of our current president (POTUS). I didn't laugh. The other one said with a sly grin, "Oh, you didn't get the joke. You will get it later when you get home." I replied, "Yes I got the joke, I just didn't think it was funny."

In thinking of these two interactions, I have come to a couple of observations that sicken me:

1) White men seem to have this way of talking that is elitist. We make comments toward each other that subtly (and not so subtly) put down other races and/or women. However, we do it in such a way that among respectable Christian men it is not considered racist/sexist (if you're a white guy). I'm sure that if a person who wasn't white was observing, s/he would notice the elitism.

2) If you're a white man and you don't appreciate these subtle comments, you are considered to not be as intelligent as the person making these subtle comments. These white guys just can't imagine that you just don't appreciate their elitist comments. They just think that you haven't had enough bad experiences from "those people" to accurately determine that whites are better. However, they would never come out say that they are better than others.

These two observations aren't new to me, I didn't have an epiphany as I was writing this blog. However, to my regret, I did realize that I contribute to the sin of elitism/racism/sexism. By being blind to my white maleness, I inadvertently contribute to subtle white, male put downs of others. Sue (2004) points this out in his excellent article: "Whiteness and Ethnocentric Monoculturalism: Making the Invisible Visible" (see American Psychologist, Nov 2004, pp 761-769). He states, that white men are "trapped in a EuroAmerican worldview that only allows them to see the world from one perspective...little doubt exists that skin color in this society exposes people to different experiences (p. 762)."

Sue's last statement that skin color causes different experiences just makes me feel really, really, awful at an internal level. God's Word makes it clear that elitism/sexism/racism is a sin. Galatians 3:28 points out that we are all ONE in Jesus Christ. James 2 makes it clear that favoritism is sinful. King Solomon warns us in Proverbs 6:12-13 that a man who winks with his eyes and signals with his feet is a "worthless person, a wicked man." I believe that this section of God's Word is talking about those subtle things that people do to create an "us vs them" mentality.

I long for the day when we will be released from the sin of elitism/racism/sexism. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen this side of heaven. However, I'm grateful for times like this when God's Word and God's Holy Spirit speaks to me about my blind elitism. I don't want to treat people any other way than the way that Jesus treated people.

Now that you have come to the end of this blog post, I ask you for two things: 1) pray that I will be become more like Jesus, and 2) pray that you will become more like Jesus.

*My understanding is that hispanic is a political term. I prefer the term latino/a but I use hispanic in this post because that is the term my neighbor used.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Smart phones are ruining three-day weekends

5/27/2013

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Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer and all it evokes: vacations, slower workweeks, casual dress codes, getting the pool ready and pulling out the outdoor furniture.

It would seem an ideal time to take a break, but our ability to unplug and relax is under assault. A three-day weekend? We can barely get through three waking hours without working, new research shows. The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensation -- or even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors’ questions.

There's plenty of debate among economists and psychologists over whether the economy is to blame, or whether we did this to ourselves. There's little arguing that the concept of a Sabbath is in serious danger.

“It's like an arms race…everything is an emergency," said Tanya Schevitz, spokeswoman for Reboot, an organization trying to help people unplug more often. "We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It's unhealthy, and it's unproductive, and we can't keep going on like this."

There's a long list of horribles associated with our new, always-on-digital lives: You are dumber.You are more stressed. You are losing sleep, and more depressed.

People seem to know they need tech breaks, which have plenty of cute names now, like "Digital Detox" or "Tech Sabbath." Consumers pay for software like "Freedom," which cuts their computers off the Net for a pre-set amount of time (really, you could just unplug yours). Reboot even sponsors a National Day of Unplugging, which will occur in March next year. But no one seems to think the problem is getting any better.

It’s easy to blame the economy. Workers competing for too few jobs feel like they can't say no to their boss, even if it's a trivial request during a long weekend. It’s equally easy to blame gadgets, particularly smartphones, which have virtually tethered employees to their desks. It took labor unions 100 years to fight for nights and weekends off, some say, while smartphones took them away in about three years.

But those explanations are, at a minimum, incomplete. Some experts think these wounds are self-inflicted. Laura Vanderkam, who recently published the eBook, "What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekends," says that many executives she's worked with have learned they can unplug for a weekend without dire consequences.

"Many of us have an exaggerated sense of our own importance," she said, speaking on the eve Memorial Day weekend. "I can tell you that come Tuesday morning, the Earth will still be revolving, whether you have checked your email or not."

Besides driving each other crazy, we are also robbing our brains of critical downtime that encourages creative thinking when we skip weekends and vacations. At extreme levels of exhaustion, rest-deprived brains experience memory loss and hallucinations. But without regular rest, brains fail at more basic tasks. A study at the University of California, San Francisco, found that new experiences fail to become long-term memories unless brains have downtime for review.

Vanderkam also argues that taking breaks makes you more focused when you work. People who work 50 or 60 hours rarely get more done than people who work 40 hours, she argues.

Reboot's vision is a digital-age Sabbath, Schevitz said, but as she explained it on the phone, she was interrupted by a text message. ("Even I struggle with this," she confessed.)

“We need a modern day-rest that brings balance back to life,” she said.

Memorial Day weekend is a good time to start. She urged people to start small. Don't try to go 72 hours without e-mail; begin by promising your family one tech-free meal every day this weekend.

“I think that a three-day weekend provides a unique opportunity for people to unplug and decompress because there is a tradition of people going away. So the expectation by the boss that you will be reachable at a moment's notice is likely to be less," she said. "I do think there's hope. When people are given achievable steps, they start seeing that there's a difference.”

This post was written by NBC reporter Bob Sullivan. For the original post, go to: http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/24/18463775-how-the-smartphone-killed-the-three-day-weekend?lite

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Sunday Meditation

5/26/2013

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Many are saying of me, "God will not deliver him." But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.

We receive messages about ourselves from the important people in our lives. We internalize these messages and carry them with us, repeating them to ourselves as if they were gospel truth. When the messages are shaming messages then the internal chorus chants "You are not lovable. You are beyond repair. Even God cannot help you."

This chorus is a chorus of lies. The psalmist rejects these lies. And we need to begin to reject these lies as well.

The Lord is a "shield around me", the psalmist says. A shield protects. It comes between the blows of an enemy and a person's vulnerable places. Most shields are small and can only protect a limited area from attack. But the shield which the Lord provides completely surrounds us. We can let this shield protect us from these attacking messages.

The psalmist also says that the Lord "bestows glory on me and lifts up my head". Heavy burdens of shame, neglect and abuse have bowed our heads. The Lord listens, pays attention and cares about us. God's love counters the voices of our internal shame-chorus so that we can lift our heads. God replaces our shame with glory. It is a picture of a ragged, neglected child whose head is bowed and shoulders are bent. A king sees the child and goes to him. The king gently lifts the child's chin until his eyes meet his own smiling eyes. He asks the child to come home and live as royalty with him. The child is loved, honored, protected. You are the child. God lifts your head and bestows glory.

God help me to stop listening to lies about you.
Help me to stop listening to lies about me.
Be a shield around me.
Bestow glory.
Lift up my head.
Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
National Association for Christian Recovery

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God's lap

5/25/2013

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I had the opportunity, last night, to hang out one on one with my son while my wife went to a women’s bible study. Like always, it is fun to play with him and have a “boys only” club while mommy was away. When mommy is gone, we do cool boy stuff like build forts, play indoor basketball on his toddler hoop, and eat nutritionally unbalanced meals.

Yesterday, I became the resident horse and was ridden around the house until my arms felt like jello. After this experience, I needed to rest and Josiah decided he was going to play by himself for a few minutes. I took these few minutes to check my email.

After a moment of being on the computer, I began to sense that he wanted to play with me again. My main clue was the mountain of toys he decided to pile in my lap while I was typing. He had taken the time, one by one, to place every stuffed animal, puzzle piece, and book he could find in front of me to instigate me to play with something.

I laughed, because I felt like I was drowning in a sea of toys. After he had done this, he did something interesting…he wanted to climb on my lap too. There was obviously limited real estate on my lap so I had to clear everything off to accommodate him.

This situation made me think about my relationship with God. In my times of prayer, I always feel like I pile heavy burdens and relatively insignificant pleas in His lap to the point of overload. “God probably gets tired of hearing the same prayers”, I think to myself.

The truth is actually quite the opposite. God wants us to pile our burdens, requests, fears, doubts, and anger on His lap. He wants to hear from us on a regular basis. His lap is infinitely large. He enjoys hearing our voice and guiding His children.

This is only part of His nature though…because even though He enjoys when I pile everything on His loving lap, there is something He wants even more…all of me.

Climb into God’s lap today…rest in His care.

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos. You can find his original post with comments, here: http://other-words.net/2013/05/20/his-lap/

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Work out your salvation: A proper illustration

5/24/2013

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Let’s look at a specific example: Philippians 2:12-13 “Work out your own salvation…for God is at work in you….” Some (e.g., D. M. Baillie) have labeled this the “paradox of grace.” I have used that term myself. I’m okay with that. As I explained in Part 1, I find certain paradoxes inevitable signs of mystery. But is it a sheer contradiction? I hope not. One of theology’s tasks is to show that, even though we cannot plumb the depths of God’s agency and ours in salvation, thus reducing mystery to something completely comprehensible to the finite intellect, there is no need to embrace sheer contradiction.

Philippians 2:12-13 is not a contradiction once we see and acknowledge that our “work” is not the same as God’s “work” in salvation (including sanctification). Two different Greek words are translated “work” in these two verses. There’s our first clue that no contradiction is involved. However, knowing their meanings doesn’t automatically resolve the apparent tension. Theology steps in, however, to say that God’s work surrounds and underlies, enables, our “work” which is simply to allow God to do his work in us.

I use a homely illustration. Every summer here in central Texas I struggle to keep bushes alive. I turn on the outdoor faucet to which a hose is attached and drag the hundred foot hose around the house to a thirsty bush. I aim the spray nozzle at the bush and press the trigger. Nothing comes out. I go back to make sure the faucet is actually turned on. It is. Pressurized water is there in the hose. Then I realize there’s got to be a kink somewhere in that long hose that’s keeping the water from flowing. I track the length of the hose, find the kink(s) and straighten them out.

The water represents God’s grace; the kink(s) represents a wrong attitude or habit or desire that blocks up the flow of God’s grace in my life. My task is to remove those with the Spirit’s help.

The analogy breaks down, of course, in that, in my spiritual life, removing the “kinks” is just as much God’s work as mine, but I have to want it and permit it. The “energy” (one of the Greek words translated “work”) is all God’s. All I contribute is heartfelt desire, prayer and submission. That’s also “work” insofar as it’s not easy; it’s not what comes naturally.

Philippians 2:12-13 may express a paradox, but it doesn’t express a sheer contradiction. It would only be a contradiction if it said that salvation is exclusively God’s work and exclusively mine. It doesn’t say that. It implies a cooperation—a synergy. At least that’s the best way to interpret it.

This post is an excerpt from a blog post by Roger E Olson. For the original post with comments, go to: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/07/a-sermon-grace-works-philippians-212-13/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Elvis Church

5/23/2013

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When children try to dress like their parents, it’s often cute. When teenagers try to emulate rock stars, it’s often bizarre. When adults try to imitate their folk heroes, it’s often embarrassing.

Ever since the mass media began enabling fame for ministry leaders, adoring church people have scurried to emulate their heroes. The result has been a wave of copycat terms and behaviors–repeated not because they make sense, but because they’re used by the cool and the famous.

Here’s a sampling of ministry me-too-isms:

When you preach, sit on a stool.
But don’t preach. Give a message.
Call yourself a “communicator.”
Name yourself the “lead pastor.”
Don’t love people. Love ON people.
“Press in.” (Don’t know why.)
Call the worship location a “campus.” (Even if it’s in a jail or on the web.)
Refer to teenagers as “students.” (But don’t use the “student” word for elementary school students or college students. They’re not “students.”)
Dispatch men in little orange vests to direct traffic in the parking lot.
Wear a golf shirt or hawaiian shirt when you preach. Make sure it is untucked.

I guess it’s all scriptural. “Ye are . . . a peculiar people.” (1 Peter 2:9)

What would you add to the copycat list?

This post was written by Thom Schultz. You can find the original post here: http://holysoup.com/2013/05/15/9-ways-to-me-too-your-ministry-heroes/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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"We're the best church in town!"

5/22/2013

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“Our church has the best youth ministry in town.”

“Everybody knows we offer the best children’s ministry in the city.”

“Our vision is to be the best church in the area.”

Over the last ten years I’ve heard statements like these with increasing frequency. Is this a good thing? Does our desire to serve God with excellence naturally lead us to want to be the best in town? Is the “best” classification the most honorable way to measure our success and effectiveness?

Most people probably view the quest for best as a helpful ambition. Driving to be better and better, at any endeavor, raises the level of quality for all. Right? Competition makes everyone better. Right? In many ways, that’s true.

But what’s necessary to be “best”? In any competitive field, in order to have winners you must have losers. In order to be best, you must conquer the others.

And that’s where the quest for best begins to turn ugly, especially in the church.

In the church, this spirit of bestfulness and competitiveness leads to pridefulness. This has not gone unnoticed by the public. A non-churched mom I interviewed said, “Churches today just want to be bigger and better than the next one. That’s not what church is supposed to be about.”

Yet, the quest for best seems intoxicating. Church gurus advise congregations to find something they can be best at in the community. “What makes you stand out among the others?” they ask. The trouble is, we’re not called to stand out. We’re called to stand behind.

In Mark 9 we see the disciples arguing about who stood out as the best disciple. Jesus confronted their quest for best. He said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” In other words, we’re not called to stand out. We’re called to stand behind those we’re called to serve.

If a church is not called to be the best in town, what is it called to be? It’s called to serve. Humbly. It’s called to touch lives with God’s love, one by one. It’s called to be faithful where God has placed it.

No disciple is called to conquer the other disciples in a quest to be best.

Jesus illustrated and summed up his lesson on humble servanthood by picking up one small child and urging his disciples to do the same, to faithfully welcome the small.

It’s not the kind of pursuit that will jetison a church to anybody’s Best 100 list.

This post was written by Thom Schultz. You can find the original post here: http://holysoup.com/2013/05/01/to-become-the-best-church-in-town/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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