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Sexual addiction:  Breaking free

7/31/2013

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When I first started attending recovery groups in 1991, I met a guy who told me he’d had 2 years of freedom from sexual sin, and then fallen. I wondered how someone who’d gone that long could blow it.  It wouldn’t be long before I would learn from experience.

I jumped into the recovery program, achieved 18 months of sobriety, and lost it.

I bounced back, gained another three years of sobriety, and lost it again. The bad news was that for the next three years I averaged a precarious 3 months of freedom with plenty of small compromises in between.

So what happened? Why do guys go so long and then lose it? Here are five reasons why:

1. Pride. 
This is number one, by far. A guy gets a few years under his belt, then the others in his recovery circle start looking up to him as the “one with the answers.” He enters the danger is if he starts buying into this and thinking he’s arrived... “Yo church, lemme show you how it’s done.” A guy in pride-mode is living in his flesh-strength, and fighting the lust of the flesh with the flesh never works. It won’t be long before he falls flat on his face.

2. They’re not grounded in humility. 

All of us are stuck with the evil, wicked nature the Bible calls the flesh until the day we die. Then there is the battle with the god of this world, who smells our weaknesses from miles away. Past freedom from sin is never a guarantee for future victory; we’re always one or two bad decisions away from a nosedive off the cliff. Pride blinds a man to the truth and causes him to rely on himself and his past. When I’m grounded in humility, I realize that I need God every day for the rest of my life to stay free from sexual sin. There’s nothing good inside of me apart from the Lord and I can’t do it without Him. This isn’t going to change until death parts me from my flesh.

3. They start making small compromises.  
After a stretch of freedom, most men don’t fall instantly. What often happens is that they make little compromises that chip away at their resistance. They start allowing sexual fantasy to play in their mind, or they expose themselves to movies or other media they know is dangerous. “Hey, I can handle this; I’ve been sober for two years now.”  Over time these little compromises strip down his resistance, and the next thing he knows he’s flat on his face wondering what happened. Never give lust an inch. If you give it an inch, it will jam its foot in the door and try to gain more ground.

4. They isolate themselves.
It’s easy to get too busy and stop attending support groups or back off from an accountability partner “because we’ve got this licked.” Yeah right. Guys who haven’t walked on water don’t have anything on sin. We need other godly men around us until our time on this earth ends. If you make a small compromise with lust, the easiest and quickest way to douse the sparks of temptation and compromise is to expose it to a friend as soon as you are able. This keeps the door slammed tight on lust and stiffens your resolve to say “no.”

5. They don’t stay alert.  
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Last summer, a day before I was to leave for a three day business trip, the Lord gave me several verses about Him “walking with me through the shadow of death.” I have to confess to being dense and not getting it. The first night, the pull to turn on the TV was consistent but not more than I could deal with. The second night, at another hotel, the battle got a little hotter. Then the third night, it was if the enemy pulled off the gloves and went for it. There were banging noises in the hotel room above late at night, and the pull to turn on the TV went red-hot. I flipped the TV on. Once I crossed that line, the temptation to rent a porn movie increased to bonfire proportions. By God’s grace alone I shut the TV off before it went any further.

I didn’t get God’s warnings before the trip, and it could have cost me dearly. Who knows how far I might have fallen if I’d have rented a porn movie? What I should have done was spend more time on my knees in prayer every night to shore up my defenses and ask for spiritual reinforcements from above. Bible reading and praying Scripture out loud would have helped. I got hit by an onslaught of the enemy and was in a battle zone wearing pajamas. Not smart.

We need to stay prayed up, sober, and on the alert; we won’t see what’s coming at us around the corner until it’s in our face. 

This post was written by Mike Genung.  Mike struggled with sexual addiction for 20 years before God set him free in 1999. He is the founder of Blazing Grace, and the author of The Road to Grace; Finding True Freedom from the Bondage of Sexual Addiction, available at www.roadtograce.net. 



For the original post, go to:  http://www.xxxchurch.com/men/how-do-i-live-in-freedom.html



BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Choosing intimacy

7/30/2013

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Yesterday was my wife's birthday, a real milestone as far as birthdays go.  I won't tell you her real age, but she looks about 35.  If you look at the picture, I'm sure you will agree.  I'm 51, and I have been asked before about my "daughter" as we have been out traveling.  We've been married 29 years and over the years I've struggled with this question, "Did God make Karyn just for me and me for her?"  I haven't asked this question out of doubt of our love for each other, I have asked it out of a genuineness of wondering about God's compassionate care for people.  Is there always someone God has planned for someone?  

Over the years, we have had our disagreements, our joys, our hard times, and our good times.  When the disagreements come, I wonder, "If we're made for each other, then why can't we see eye to eye on this simple issue?"  (BTW - I've noticed most disagreements are over little issues.  That makes sense, because we agree on the big issues, if we didn't we wouldn't have gotten married.)  Even though we had very similar upbringings, it seems like, sometimes, we are from different planets, even after 29 years of marriage.  Our perspectives can be so different.  

When we were first married, I really, truly believed that we were made for each other, that God made our lives to be intermeshed, that our love for each other was God's perfect will for our lives.  After years of doing marriage counseling, I have come to appreciate her more.  But also marriage counseling makes me wonder if God does make couples for each other.  I have heard people say, "getting married was a mistake."  When I hear a couple say that, I ask, "so the children you have together are a mistake?  I hardly think so, nor do I believe God thinks that."  


Nevertheless, the years of marriage counseling has taken its toll on my belief that we were made for each other.

I have come to a general conclusion.  Are Karyn and I made for each other?

I don't know.  Sometimes, it feels like it, sometime is doesn't.

Maybe you were expecting something profound.  But I can't tell you exactly, fer shure, how God works.  If someone thinks they got God all figured out, then they have made a god who is a figment of their imagination.

As I've gotten older, I've become comfortable with a moderate amount of ambiguity.  I've learned that solid conclusions are not always to be found in life.  

I do have solid conclusions about these two things though:  
1) I'm glad that I married this wonderful woman.   
2) I have never doubted my love for her and her love for me.    

To get to my final conclusion, when we met, there was obvious chemistry.  We really wanted to be with each other.  We didn't look back with doubt.  We knew we wanted to be together.  

We were young and faced with a choice.  Do we continue to pursue intimacy and get married or do we go our separate ways?  

I think it is this choice that reflects one's love for God. 

Whether God made us for each other is debatable.  However, the choice was not whether we were to choose each other...  

The REAL choice was intimacy.  

When faced with the option to love or not love, we chose love.  We continue to choose love.  

In choosing love, we reflect what God desires.  

God's desire is for intimacy.  An intimacy with Him that is reflected in our relationships.  

By choosing to love God, we could choose to love each other.  By trusting God, we could trust each other.  By choosing to share our lives with each other, we choose to put God first.  All of these things lead to intimacy.  A deep love, affection, desire.  

A choice to pursue intimacy.

Happy birthday sweetheart.  

Thank you for loving me and letting me love you.  Our love has taught me much about relationships and about God and His love.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Public manners:  Advice from a young mother

7/29/2013

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Being a middle-aged, white guy, I wonder what young mothers think when I try to interact with them and their children in public.  So, I asked my niece what kind of things go through her mind in regard to this topic.  Here is her response:  


"There isn't a whole lot that I expect men to help with when I'm out in public alone with the kids. One of those reasons is because I have played the scenario a few times in my head of what I would do to try to take after someone who takes one of my kids...while I run after him while carrying my other two.

I like it when men hold the door open for the kids and I to all get inside wherever we are going...especially if I have the stroller in tote.

If a man is a real "kid" person and I've never met you, it's okay to say hi and have a very short small talk conversation with my kids, but keep it short and simple and move on. It's different if you're an employee somewhere and I can leave the store with my kids and not worry about him following..again the fear of a kid getting taken.

As for me, I already try not to make eye contact with other men. Small talk is okay if we're sitting watching our kids play at the play area or park. Make sure to tell which kids are yours, and some interaction between them proving it helps, so I know you're not there just scoping out the scene.

If my kids are throwing a fit, it's okay to say something like, "uh oh" or "that doesn't sound like a nice voice" towards the kid with a bad attitude. My kids usually straighten up when they notice a stranger watching their bad attitude. And I appreciate the attitude leaving at that point. Again, be short and simple.

If my kid is walking/running away, look for me, the mom, and go by my gestures. If I'm calm, not saying anything, and have an eye on my kid, I feel in control and I'm testing them to see how far they'll go. If I'm calling for them and looking stressed, get their attention and try to coax them back to me without touching them...i.e. holding a hand/picking them up. I had a lady pick my son up when he was heading a different direction and it totally freaked him out... she was an employee at the mall so I assumed she wouldn't take off with him, but had it been anyone else, I would have been on high alert with adrenaline pumping.

Pretty much, if you want to interact, keep things short and simple. Holding doors open are great...and elevator doors especially so the kids don't get trapped on the elevator and me not on there yet, or vice versa. I don't take the kids on an outting alone unless I know I can handle the time of day and amount of walking, etc. that we'll be doing."



I'm grateful for my niece's advice.  In short, here are some things she taught me:


- Be chivalrous.  Open the door and hold the door (elevator door, too) for young mothers and their children.


- Don't be alarmed when a child is not standing next to his/her mother.  Watch the mother for cues and watch from a distance so that you can help if someone snatches the child.


- Say mild comments (at the most) if the child is throwing a fit.  Words from someone they don't know may help him/her control him/herself.


-  Keep things short and simple if you do interact.  Don't try to monopolize the mother and/or her children.


If you want to follow my niece, here is her youtube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/godrox

BE HOLY.

BE A MAN.


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Sunday Meditation

7/28/2013

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There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest . . .let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.    Hebrews 4:9-11,16

God rested from his work.

And God invites us to rest from ours. In our time of need God invites us to experience the rest-full-ness that comes from receiving mercy and grace.

But we resist. Rest is such a reversal of our expectations. We don't expect mercy and grace. We expect criticism. We don't expect to be invited to approach with confidence; we expect rejection. We don't expect rest, we expect to receive a list of demanding tasks to perform. Becoming the kind of people who are capable of rest will require us to change. It will require effort on our part.

First, we will need to change the way we see ourselves. We are attached to the illusion that we have no limits. We may not claim to be immortal, but if you examine our behavior, we act as if we need less rest than God. God rested. We don't. Clearly something is wrong. If we are to become the kind of people who are capable of rest, it will take some effort to change the way we see ourselves.

Second, to increase our capacity for rest, we will need to change our behavior. Rest is not an idea. It is a behavior. It will take some effort to change the way we live. We will need to learn the skills that make it possible for us to say no to over commitment. We will need to build rest into the rhythm of our lives.

God rested. We need to do the same.

Help me to acknowledge my need for rest, Lord.
Help me to make quiet spaces in my life
when I cease all my doing
and allow myself to be.
Help me to make the effort to rest today.


Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan

National Association for Christian Recovery


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Weighty Worship

7/27/2013

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I can’t tell you how blessed I have been as a pastor. My church is amazing, and everyone seems to really be mission-minded. The fact is like others; I take things for granted, and often end up being convicted by the Holy Spirit of such things. One example is the concept of our worship service at church. In our history, we have had worship leaders who led and who were beyond talented. Their ability to lead people to the throne was amazing and the music was professional quality.

As it stands today, we do not have an official main leader for our music. Since this became a reality, we have been filling in with extremely talented musicians from our congregation. A while back, someone had the idea of allowing our children to lead a worship service. “What?!?! Are you crazy?!?!”, I quietly thought. We were used to such great professional quality. This could possibly ruin what we are doing…I was afraid. We went ahead and allowed the children to lead that Sunday, and the Holy Spirit swept through the service like I have never seen before. In fact as I am writing this, I am trembling as a result of recounting the memory. Then, the first time our teens led…the same thing happened.

These services started a journey that all of us at our church are on together. Trust, believing and waiting for God to move have been actions we have learned more about in the process. God has been showing up in our services each week, and the quality has been great, but each week leading up to the service (behind the scenes) has had its struggles. Before, I took the music for granted because I never had to think about it…now; each Sunday is a process of labor that always goes well, and God is able to freely move. The music has always been great, but with the work that goes into it now; we are feeling the weight of worship. We are not perfect in everything, but God is revealing more truth about this as time goes by.

In the Old Testament, God had specific rules about how we are to handle the Ark of the Covenant. This Ark was the tangible symbol of God’s presence and if it was mishandled, then individuals would be cursed (or die). God thought worship was so important that it had to be protected and handled with reverence. Certainly, we all could use more thoughtfulness when approaching worship, but corporately as a church the buck stops with me.

The Holy Spirit has impressed on my heart that I was not feeling the full weight of worship like I should have been. I took everything for granted, and through this, I am growing into a new pastor. Never again will I take God’s presence for granted…

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos.  For the original post, go to:  http://other-words.net/2013/07/24/the-weight-of-worship/



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Holding Apple responsible for pornograpy

7/26/2013

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Chris Sevier, a 36-year-old man from Tennessee, got so addicted to porn videos that his wife took his children and left him. Now he has sued Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), saying the Cupertino, Calif.-based company failed to install any filter in its devices to prevent his affliction.

In a 50-page complaint, Sevier calls Apple a “silent poisoner” responsible for the proliferation of “arousal addiction, sex trafficking, prostitution, and countless numbers of destroyed lives.” Sevier is seeking damages from Apple, but said he will drop the lawsuit if Apple agrees to sell devices with a “safe mode.”

Sevier claims that his addiction started when he “accidentally” replaced the “a-c-e” in Facebook with a “u-c-k.” Sevier said this F***book site “appealed to his biological sensibilities as a male,” and he started to prefer the images on the screen to his own wife.

“His wife abducted his son and disappeared, which was a subsequent consequence of Apple’s decision to sell its computers not on ‘safe mode,’” Sevier argued, adding that until he got the MacBook, he had never seen porn of any kind or been to a strip club or sex shop. “The Plaintiff became depressed and despondent, unable to work as a result of observing porn on his MacBook and the impact it caused.”

The lengthy description also blames Apple for helping to put old-fashioned sex shops out of business, ignoring the irony of several thousand other words describing the destructive effect porn has on people and societies. Sevier also compared porn, at various points, to cigarettes, weapons, alcohol and cocaine.

Sevier even took some time to remember the good ol' days of America in the 1950s, before things like the Internet and the ACLU created homosexuality, sex trafficking and prostitution. Apple, apparently, is responsible for turning people away from “the unquenchable reality that God is real.”

“Man has a spiritual side to him,” Sevier said. “Porn poisons the spiritual side of man.”

Perhaps the strangest part of the lawsuit comes at the very beginning, where Sevier includes a YouTube link to an edit of Zedd’s “Shave It Up” he made with his electronic music project, Ghost Wars. Sevier said the edit, called “The Demise of Guys,” a reference to a Phillip Zimbardo book, summarizes the facts of the lawsuit. Sevier even requested that Apple employ Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, to write the notice consumers are required to read in order to remove the porn filter.

This post was written by Ryan Neal.  For the original post with comments, go to:  http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-sued-porn-addiction-man-says-macbook-cost-his-marriage-kids-1345831#


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This is your teen's brain on porn

7/25/2013

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Popular search engines logged more than ten billion searches last June. Two and a half billion of those searches were for pornography. With the invention of the Internet and devices to log onto it, including that smart phone your teen may own, anyone, at any time, can watch porn. There are approximately 420 million adult web pages online to excite viewers, some of it free to a child of any age.

Many thirteen to sixteen year olds spend almost two hours a week viewing pornography, claims a 2009 CyberSentinel poll. Mothers have reported finding their children as young as eight watching. With more tweens and teens announcing that they watch porn, why aren't more parents talking about it? Because whether we are pro-porn or anti-porn, the conversation is usually emotionally charged. We do not have as much neural connectivity to our brain's more rational prefrontal region when that happens. However, our challenge with the topic robs us of the opportunity to help our teens deal with the impact porn has on their lives, and ultimately, on their brains.


Teen pregnancy rates are climbing. So are the number of teen girls committing violent crimes, acts that were once committed mainly by males. Teen dating violence is on the rise as is teen suicides. Could porn be adding to our teens' woes? Yes, according to Wendy Maltz, a sex therapist and notable researcher. She believes porn is creating a national health problem that harms our emotional and sexual relationships.

Research has yet to prove conclusively that viewing of pornography leads to sexism, misogyny, and the other problems listed above. However, a 2008 study linked the listening to lyrics of rap and hip-hop to sexism. It is not much of a stretch to think that watching women degraded, as opposed to simply hearing about it, would have the same effect. The brain reacts to viewing images as intensely as it does to reality.

More than seventy percent of porn users claim their porn viewing is a secret, according to an MSNBC study. Porn appears to bathe our brains in neurochemicals that lead to shame. Perhaps in part due to our innate sense of humanity. In Michael Tomasello's book, Why We Cooperate, he claims babies are born to be social and to help others. Could it be that watching women used for the pleasure of men, and often roughly or degradingly used at that, triggers our innate desire to help the woman? Yet, watching porn for our own titillation, are we not using her as well? Our brain circuits are attempting to deal with two opposite needs: Our erotic need, and our more humanitarian need. That is confusing enough for an adult. A teen's brain may not be mature enough to understand all the nuances of porn's impact.

By now most of us know that teen brains are less mature than adult brains. Teens use their limbic system more often for making decisions. That is the area of the brain used for feeding, fleeing, fighting and sexual reproduction. Growth and connectivity to the prefrontals takes decades. Without a more mature brain to help teens sort out the intense emotional arousal of porn, watching it could leave a teen feeling that porn is a true representation of what sex, relationships, and intimacy should look like in real life.

A teen who replicates porn-style relationships in their own life could suffer from lack of intimacy and the needed feel-good neurochemicals that go hand in hand with such a relationship. Teens need connections with others who have organized brains in order for their brains to grow properly. A brain "on porn: is not an organized brain. It is a highly aroused brain, not a "thinking clearly" brain.

Can we make an argument that porn is leading to neurological poverty in our teens and adding to their woes? While the researchers ponder the question, parents may want to ponder these ideas:

Be open to the fact that pornography may be harming your teen. Whether or not they watch it, forty-five percent of teens surveyed said their friends do.

Be willing to listen to your teen about how they feel about porn. That means you have to ask calm questions. The majority of the boys interviewed about how the media affects their relationship with girls claimed porn had a negative effect on our culture. How does your teen feel? Ask.

Find ways to think about, and talk about pornography with less emotional charge. Your teenager will instinctively know how to push your buttons and get you worked up so that conversations about the topic will become fruitless.

Examine the rationalization that porn stars know what they are doing, and get paid so there is no harm done. That rationale does not disclose the fact that studies reveal many workers in the sex industry were abused as children. Abuse reduces neurogenesis (the growth of new neurons) and synaptogenesis (the integrated connectivity of neurons) so it stands to reason that the neural networks for growing up to be teachers, doctors, engineers, etc. did not get a chance to form. Add that victims often reenact their abuse, and it does not take much to understand why some porn stars trade sex for money.

Compassionately study your own use of pornography. In order to help our teens, we often have to help ourselves first. If you feel you have a problem with porn, please seek help.



This post was taken from Psychology Today:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/guide-teen-girls/201002/your-teens-porn-brain

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Seeing with our hearts

7/24/2013

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A sower went out to sow some seed . . .
A man fell into the hands of robbers . . .
Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one . . .
There were ten virgins with ten lamps . . .

Think of it. You are the Son of the living God. You have come to earth to rescue the human race. It is your job to communicate truths without which your precious ones will be lost . . . forever. Would you do it like this? Why doesn’t he come right out and say it—get to the point? What’s with all the stories?

We children of the Internet and the cell phone and the Weather Channel, we think we are the enlightened ones. We aren’t fooled by anything—we just want the facts. The bottom line. So proposition has become our means of saying what is true and what is not. And proposition is helpful . . . for certain things. Sacramento is the capital of California; water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But proposition fails when it comes to the weightier things in life. While it is a fact that the Civil War was fought between the years of 1861 and 1865, and while it is also a fact that hundreds of thousands of men died in that war, those facts hardly describe what happened at Bull Run or Gettysburg. You don’t even begin to grasp the reality of the Civil War until you hear the stories, see pictures from the time, visit the battlefields yourself.

How much more so when it comes to the deep truths of the Christian faith. God loves you; you matter to him. That is a fact, stated as a proposition. I’ll bet most of you have heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren’t we the happiest people on earth? It hasn’t reached our hearts. Facts stay lodged in the mind. Proposition speaks to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the heart.

And that’s why when Jesus comes to town, he speaks in a way that will get past all our intellectual defenses and disarm our hearts.



This is an excerpt from the book, Waking the Dead by John Eldredge


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.


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A tale of three pastors

7/23/2013

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Let me tell you a tale of three pastors.  All successes in their own right.  I would be pleased to be a member of their congregations.  They are good men, godly men, holy men.  They have the same Holy Spirit working in their lives....  yet, they are different.  And sometimes, they rub me wrong.  

At least two of them do...

One pastor was talking about how the Military creates dependency.  "In the military, you don't have to make any decisions, all decisions are made for you, you just obey orders.  They feed you, house you, raise you into a fighting machine.  They tell you where to live and who to make friends with."  (Just in case you're wondering, no, this pastor has never served in the military, although he has had numerous military folks in his congregation.)  Yet, when I think about this pastor, he went straight from high school, to college, to seminary, to his first church.  He serves in a denomination where the pastor is a professional.  The churches in which he has served have always providing housing, paid his expenses, and given him a nice salary.  (He is well within the top 1% of financial earners in his church.  To his credit he does tithe his salary.)  His denomination tells him when to move to another church.  Does that sound independent to you?

Another pastor was talking about how the new generation of churches will be smaller and transient with bi-vocational pastors.  This pastor is a good scholar.  He has researched trends in the church and realizes that is what he needs to be training the next generation of pastors to do.  Yet, when I think about this pastor, he went straight from high school, to college, to seminary, to his church.  He serves in a denomination where the pastor is a professional.  The churches in which he has served have always providing housing, paid his expenses, and given him a nice salary.  His church isn't a mega-church by any standards but it is a good sized, medium church.  He remarked the other day, "I haven't mowed a yard in years.  People from the church come over and mow my yard (actually the yard of the parsonage where he lives that the church provides for him as part of his salary package)."  Does that sound bi-vocational to you?

Another pastor, now at the end of his ministry due to his age, reflected with me regarding his life as a minister.  He never had a church of over 250.  He accepted meager salaries in spite of having seven children.  He told me stories about God's provision:  coats for his children that suddenly appeared on the doorstep one frigid winter morning, receiving "blue milk" and cheese from the local dairy, having an abundance of fresh farms eggs from an unnamed person in the community, working side-by-side with parishioners in painting and refurbishing the church (and telling of the wonderful theological truths and friendships that occurred during these times), caring for the church building by cleaning toilets, mowing the yard, taking out the trash, etc.  Also, he never had a parsonage.  Every home he lived in he either rented or owned (ironically, now at a ripe old age, on his meager salary, he owns several homes and they are rented by pastors or parishioners of his former churches). Each of these homes, he cared for in painting, refurbishing, caring for the lawn and shoveling snow.  (Oh, that reminds me, he shoveled the snow at his churches.  He wanted his church to be welcoming even during bad weather.)  He stated he would never cancel church.  "What if someone found their way to the church during bad weather only to find the doors locked?  What if that was the time that they decided they needed Jesus?  If even only one person showed up, I still had church."  He NEVER wanted to count on the church to take care of him.  He told me that he knew that he was called to be a pastor and in doing a pastor's work, he KNEW that God would take care of him.  His salary was just to pay what expenses that he had as he never went into debt, owing no man anything.  

Like I said in the first paragraph,  three pastors:  All successes in their own right.  I would be pleased to be a member of their congregations.  They are good men, godly men, holy men.  They have the same Holy Spirit working in their lives....  yet, they are different.  And sometimes, they rub me wrong.  At least two of them do...

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Worship problems

7/22/2013

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Allow me to begin by saying that I am a musician.  I have played music since I was 13 years old.  I have played around the world in Christian bands and worship services for over 30 years.  I was part of one of the first Christian rock bands in the 70’s. I know what it means to play in church services, both traditional and contemporary. I have written and produced music for radio and television for almost 20 years.  I was even the producer of a recording used in the sound track of the hit movie The Bucket List.

So let it be clear: I am not against music or musicians when it comes to the Christian experience.  Quite the contrary; music can be a powerful part of the worship experience.  But, I believe we have some big problems when it comes to music in many churches today.



PROBLEM #1: We have defined singing as worship.

Look up the word worship and you will find definitions like this:

            to show devotion or reverence; adore or venerate; to have intense love or admiration for; to offer prayers; etc…

Interesting that there is no mention of music.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  One can surely use music to adore or show reverence, but one does not need music to do that.  In other words: Singing is not, in and of itself, worship.

Many churches today have wonderful music, great bands, singers, lights and effects, video screens and the like.  Many consider THAT to be worship.  Well, it may be a part of worship, but one does not need a Christian version of American Idol on a stage to engage in worship.  I’ll go even further: Just because one engages in a Christian version of a rock-star stage show, clapping and waving, it does not mean they are worshiping. Lots of fans of rock, blues, punk, rap, etc., listen to their favorite bands, sing along, wave, jump and scream, but are not “worshiping”; they are just having a good time.  (I dare say there is little difference, sadly, between many church “worship” services and a standard rock or country concert.)

Not only have many churches re-defined worship to be a full band on stage with lights and effects, they assume that only such an expression is true worship.  Remove the band and singers from many of these church services and people would scream bloody murder that the church is no longer worshiping. Sadly, remove the prayer, offering, sermon or communion and only have singing, people would shout to high heaven about what a great worship service it was!  Schedule an evening of just singing and we call it a “Worship Night”.  Many have defined singing as “worship”, when it should only be considered a part of the overall worship experience.

Has anyone ever noticed that no place in the Gospels does it ever record that Jesus and his disciples rocked back and forth, raised their hands and sang at the top of their lungs for 30, 40, 60 minutes or more?  In fact, there is only one record of them singing at all.  They sang ONE hymn and moved on.  I think that lots of Christians today would not have liked going to a church where Jesus and his disciples gathered. They would have bitterly complained saying, “They do not worship!”  Really??

And while the New Testament does refer to psalms, hymns and spiritual songs as part of the worship expression and we read in Acts how Paul and Silas sang out at midnight from their prison cells, does anybody really believe they “worshiped” like we do today—band playing, pretty girls jumping around, lights flashing as bass and drums rocked the house?  Seriously??

Look, I’m not against modern expressions of praise.  Just don’t make it the definition of worship. Historically, churches referred to the musical part of the service as “singing hymns” or “song services”.  They did not, however, define “worship” solely as singing.  That is a relatively new phenomenon.

Problem #2: We have elevated the status of the “Worship Leader”.

Not only have churches re-defined singing as “worship”, many have raised the participants of music to a level equal to the level of the elders of the church or the pastorate. Our worship leaders have become the de facto “priests of worship” in our gatherings.  And while I appreciate a great singer or musician, there is no mention in the New Testament of “worship leader” along with the five-fold ministry gifts that God gave the church.

Worship “leaders”, singers and musicians are told that they are something special, anointed servants, true vessels of the presence of God, leading others before the throne of God, and as the high priests of worship, must conduct themselves in just the right way so that God can “move” through the congregation. But this is utter nonsense.  They have created an Old Testament model akin to the priests of the temple or of Moses raising his hands to bring victory (remember, if Moses’ hands fell down, the army was defeated) or a model of Sampson who, if his hair was not just right, could not experience the power of God.

The truth is, however, that people can worship God, I don’t care WHO the worship “leader” is or how spiritual or unspiritual the band is.  My ability to adore Jesus has little to no connection to how “holy” or “un-holy” the musicians are.  We don’t live in the Old Testament where the “vessel” was everything—the connecting point for people to experience God.  We live in the NEW Testament where every believer has direct access to God and does not need a “priest of worship” to make that possible.

And the stories I could tell of the so-called “powerful”, “anointed”, “spirit lead” worship leaders who wowed and amazed thousands, only to discover later that these “priests of worship” were: fornicating (gay or heterosexual versions – let’s “include” everyone), committing adultery, faking cancer, gambling, getting divorced, or hooked on porn—the WHOLE time they were wowing the masses!  How is that possible?  Because God connects with his people and his people connect with him, no matter who the so-called worship “leader” is.  But upon seeing this empirical evidence, do the spiritual leaders of these churches come to the logical conclusion that there is nothing uniquely holy about singers, musicians and worship “leaders”?  Sadly, no.

In my church, musicians are on the stage for one reason: They can sing or they can play—period.  They are not pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists or teachers—they are musicians. They hold no special status like that of an elder or deacon. Quite frankly, their spiritual status is of little matter and in some cases, not required at all.  We don’t put the musicians on our platform through a spiritual filter anymore than we would ask that of the construction workers who built the building.    We do not hire a construction worker based on the condition of his heart, but on the status of his skill.  So it is with our musicians.

Now granted, if you get some highly skilled singer off the street to lead your song service, it may be rather awkward since he/she would not know the culture, the songs, the temperament of the church, or even how to begin to honor God in a church service.  It is always ideal and preferable to have a committed believer lead the music; one who understands who God is and what it is we are trying to do.  But at the end of the day they are up there for one overwhelming reason: They have musical skill.

Of course an argument can be made that a church doesn’t want people on the platform who do not reflect the values of their church.  I think that is fair and is certainly within the prerogative of the leadership of that church.  I suppose I would not want someone who is coming in, after snorting cocaine, leading the congregation in a rather spirited version of “Amazing Grace”.  But that still does not change the fact that the spiritual or “heart” status of the musician has anything to do with how people worship God.  Again, our singers and musicians are up there because they can sing or play—period, not because they have some unique Old Testament version of an “anointing”.

I remember being back stage at a big Christian music event before our band went on. The lead singer of the next band, some 20-something-year-old chick, was back stage whining, complaining and being quite ugly.  But as soon as she stepped on to the stage…WOW!!  She was amazing!  I’ll never forget it.  Was she experiencing some version of a spiritual anointing?  No.  She was just really talented and knew how to sell a song. She was highly skilled.

Speaking of skill… A lot of musicians and singers would find their ministries to be far more effective if they worked more on their musical skills rather than their “anointing” or state of heart.  Choirs would be more effective if they spent more time rehearsing and less time in their own mini “Singers Bible Study”.  Not that state of heart or Bible study is not important, because itis important—for every believer, whether they sing on stage or change diapers in the nursery.  Always strive for a pure heart, but good grief, if you’re going to play or sing on the platform: Work on your skills!!

I tell you that if Celine Dion showed up at any Evangelical church this Sunday and sang “Amazing Grace”, the place would glow with wonder and amazement and people would worship and touch God—and I’m not sure she is even a professing Christian.  Her TALENT would lift people’s hearts and minds.  True worship would happen because God’s people would connect with God—it has never been, nor will it ever be, about the spiritual status of the singer or the players.

And consider this: Many (if not most) of the musicians you hear on Christian recordings are not believers in Jesus at all.  Some of them, frankly, are quite accomplished heathens and pagans (I know—I’ve met them).  You think when you hear that big string section on your favorite worship CD that they are all committed followers of Christ?  Hardly.  Yet you worship and praise God when you hear these recordings.  Why? Because its not about the musicians—it’s about you and God.

I also do not refer to what our singers and musicians do as “worship”. It is not.  It is a part of the worship experience, but it is not, in and of itself, worship.  It is we, who gather in Christ’s name, who worship—as we pray, as we hear God’s word, as we give, as we take communion, as we serve and as we sing.

Problem #3: Singing has become the new “penance”.

I am stunned at how many people consider themselves committed Christians primarily because they come to church and sing.

They don’t give any money.

They don’t serve in any meaningful way.

They don’t pray.

They don’t study the Bible. (Anyone noticed the rise of Biblical illiteracy among professing Christians today?)

They divorce their spouses for unbiblical reasons.

They are up to their eyeballs in sexual sin.

Yet they consider themselves committed Christians.  Why? Because they sing in church.  The emotional vetting they experience during singing has taken the place of sorrow, confession, repentance and restitution. I can’t help but think of the words of Jesus when he said, “Not everyone who says [or I’m sure: sings] Lord, Lord, will get into the kingdom of heaven”.

Problem #4: It turns away men.

We have a “man” problem in the church today.  Christianity has become the only major religion that appeals more to women then to men.

Islam doesn’t have that problem.

Judaism doesn’t have that problem.

Buddhism doesn’t have that problem.

Even the most extreme versions of Islam have men lining up at the door—and they have to blow themselves to bits!  We have a hard time getting a guy to sit down for an hour!  Why?  The great emphasis on “emotive expression”, particularly in singing, turns men off.  And where in the New Testament do we see men singing for extended periods of time anyway??  Sorry, it’s not there.

This is a generality, but it is generally true: Men don’t like to sing. Get over it.  Oh, they would happily belt out several rounds of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” with a bunch of other guys, but join in emotive, soul revealing ballads?  Sorry.  Oh, they would happily do what Jesus and his disciples did—sing ONE hymn and move on. But that is not what we ask of them today.  We ask that they stand and sway and sing at the top of their voices like pre-pubescent girls at a Justin Bieber concert.

Have you noticed that a lot of guys come to church late intentionally?  They want to limit their exposure to the thirty-minute (plus) songfest.  Add the fact that the keys of the songs seem to be getting higher and higher, as though written for an Ethiopian eunuch, and you can begin to see why so many men just stand and stare during the song portion of the church service or attempt to avoid it altogether.

One of the reasons our church inGreen Bay, Wisconsin, can get 1,000 men to show up for a men’s conference (something churches many times our size don’t seem to be able to do) is because we clearly advertise: No hand holding.  No crying. No SINGING.

“You don’t worship!?!”

Oh, we worship at our men’s conferences—we just don’t sing.  Remember, singing is only a form of worship.  It is not, in and of itself, worship.  If we would begin to limit the “emotive” requirements imposed by so many churches, we would start to have greater success reaching men for the kingdom of God.

Conclusion

Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness.  If anyone was bitten by a snake, they only had to look to the serpent of bronze that Moses lifted up and they would be healed.  Cool miracle, right?  You would think the people would have celebrated the miracle and worship God, wouldn’t you?  But no, they took the serpent of bronze and started to worship it as a god instead.

Throughout the centuries, people of faith have been tempted to get their eyes off of God and focus on things that don’t really matter—like worshiping a bronze snake.

I fear we have made too much of the music part of our expression. Musicians are not spiritual just because they can sing or play. Singing can not take the place of true repentance and commitment to God, and men do not have to act like excited “Bieber fans” in order to worship God.

I love music.  I always have and I always will. Singing is great.  It is Biblical. It has its place. Just don’t make it into something that it is not.

This post was written by Mark Gungor who is the lead Pastor of Celebration Church, a multi-site church with 5 campuses, based in Green Bay, WI.  He is also the author of the best-selling “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage”. 

For the original post, go to:  http://www.laughyourway.com/blog/attention-all-worship-leaders-musicians-and-singers/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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