'Pastors'

I was just wondering as I was going through the Bible... if you were to gather all the 'pastors' in all the 'churches' in all the land together in one place (it'd be like the Anti-Woodstock I guess - or at least I hope it would), and announce that as of tomorrow 100 percent of them must fulfill all the Biblical qualifications for elders, and that none of them would any longer collect any salary from their 'churches' but must work to support themselves as the Bible says... I wonder how many would still be there the next morning?

Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa Claus

Recently, our 25 year old was in the small local grocery store.
An elderly woman, turning to a very young child in line, asked, "Well are you all ready for Santa?"
"Yes we are," the boy's mother answered for him.
"And have you been a good boy?" responded the old woman?
"No..." his mother admitted on his behalf, explaining the frankness of her answer by adding, "We don't believe in lying."

******

Recently, our 25 year old was in the small local grocery store.
An elderly woman, turning to a very young child in line, asked, "Well are you all ready for Santa?"
"Yes we are," the boy's mother answered for him.
"And have you been a good boy?" responded the old woman?
"No..." his mother admitted on his behalf, explaining the frankness of her answer by adding, "We don't believe in lying."

******

Recently, our 25 year old was in the small local grocery store.
An elderly woman, turning to a very young child in line, asked, "Well are you all ready for Santa?"
"Yes we are," the boy's mother answered for him.
"And have you been a good boy?" responded the old woman?
"No..." his mother admitted on his behalf, explaining the frankness of her answer by adding, "We don't believe in lying."

Onward Christmas Soldiers

(The following was originally written for the 2009 Christmas season, but just as applicable today.)


    I haven't seen any statistics, but it seems as though Christmas goes up for sale earlier and earlier every year.
    When I was a kid my grandmother cleaned up from Thanksgiving that night and the tree went up the very next day. She absolutely could not wait for Christmas, but somehow it never occurred to her to interfere with Thanksgiving by piling Christmas on top of it. Nowadays they have Christmas out well before even the Un-Holiday (Halloween).
    Aside from the increasingly disproportionate weight that holidays take on as Americans are driven to add deeper meaning to their lives while drifting farther and farther from God, this grotesque overgrowth of the celebration of the Christ-child crawls out of our deep commitment to the Dollar – that golden image before which all peoples, nations, and languages must bow.
    Every year the news covers the Christmastide economic forecast like nervous meteorologists watching a Category 5 hurricane spinning in the Atlantic. American retailers pin all their hopes and fears for the year on Christmas sales. If the people don't spend themselves into a stupor at Christmas, retailers will close the doors, the axe is laid to the root of the American economy, and the Great and Powerful Walmart will be left shaking behind a curtain in the corner. The nightly message is clear: we must spend enough money to threaten the financial stability of our families, or the financial stability of the nation is in jeopardy.
    What on earth is going on here?
    It can be easy to mistake busy-ness for purpose, especially in the holiday crush with everyone else pressing into that busy-ness, and retail advertisers singing one more chorus of Onward Christmas Soldiers. But all that activity has nothing to do with the actual purpose of the holiday, which is Christ. Not a safe and cozy, sleeping, baby-in-a-manger snugglebox that everyone can feel comfortable, warm, and fuzzy about; but the infinitely blindingly brilliant Prince of Life whose eyes flame with fire, and whose very act of stepping down from the glories and power of heaven to enter this world as the poorest and most helpless of creatures places an urgent, immediate, and unyeilding claim upon our very lives.
    That is what we are shouting down with all our rampant gift giving. I mean, even in "hard" times cash is relatively abundant for us, and easier to throw around than sincere meaning, or real personal investment.
    It might be that our economy would be blessed more if we focused more on putting first things first. But it is absolute folly to suppose that we can somehow spend ourselves into prosperity, at Christmas or at any other time. Real prosperity is built on long term principles of financial stability. If the foundation of the building is compromised, then frantic building activity all over the house isn't going to solve anything. Construction will have to stop, and the foundation will have to be fixed no matter how much time and expense that might entail. If the families of America are financially shaky, then America is financial shaky, and all the bailout spending in Washington isn't going to change that.
    And if our spiritual foundation is compromised (as it surely is), then everything is compromised – economy and all – because that's where it all begins. That's where the principles leading to financial prosperity come from, and a hundred other aspects that are much, much more important than even the Dollar.

Dec 2010 Addendum
This year we saw what seems to be some sort of a record; the local Walmart actually had the Christmas trees back down and off display before December! No kidding. They had two big beautiful trees at the doors, and the big display of all the trees in the garden center. Our four-year-old literally waited all year long to see those trees, ever since last Christmas. All year he kept asking and waiting for the Christmas trees. This certainly beats all. Not even three weeks they had them all up, but they had to get those pesky things out of the way so they could put out racks and racks of important Christmas merchandise like 'Justin Bieber' paraphernalia. We just could not believe it.

Communion vs The Lord's Supper

(The following is taken from a personal communication to a brother and sister in Christ, with personal references removed. If you belong to or are in leadership of almost any 'church' in the land, just pretend that it is written to you personally.)

In the beginning, when the Ekklesia of God was a founded by the Lord Jesus, and guided by the apostles of the Lord through the Holy Spirit, the Lord's Supper was the very centerpiece of meetings of the Lord's people, the Ekklesia. Though they might have met together more often that this, at a minimum the tradition established by the Lord was for His people to come together on the Lord's Day (the first day of the week, Sunday) in the evening, specifically to eat the Lord's Supper. This was not a token fragment of a meal like 'communion', but was a full meal as the central focus of their coming together every week. It was the very centerpiece of Christian fellowship and association throughout the apostolic age; it was what their meetings were ALL about. Everything revolved around the Lord's Supper. You can particularly see this in 1Cor 11:17-34 and also in Acts 20:7-12.

Now we are repeatedly told in the Bible that we are to adhere to apostolic teaching and to continue to observe these apostolic traditions as the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ: In 1Cor 11: 2 Paul says, "Now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you." In 1Cor 14: 37 he says, "If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord." In 2Thess 3: 6 he says, "But we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." And in 1Thess 2:15 Paul says, "Therefore brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle."

We today are not of those who were taught these traditions by word, since we have never seen Paul, but we are those who have received the traditions through the epistles (the writings of the New Testament) and it is our duty to search them out and to do them to the best of our ability from what was written to us. Paul is not talking about the traditions of men that we have wrongly received from outside the Bible – whether Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Holiness Pentecostal – but the original traditions which are there in the scriptures for us to read and learn and do. Regarding the difference between human traditions and God's traditions the scriptures say in Jer 2:13, "My People have committed two evils: The have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." and again in Hosea 5:11 "Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked by human precept." This is the sad state of the 'church' today, and how sad that, "...he willingly walked by human precept." Yet how true. Point out to a churchman some difference between the traditions given of God in the New Testament and their current 'church' traditions, and the traditions will win out every time even if they are only a few years old.

People – even the Lord's people – love their human traditions and don't want to let go of them for anything.

But we fully believe that 'God's will for our lives is in the Bible itself' and that if we want to know His will for our lives, our families, and for the Ekklesia of God, it is found right there in the Bible. So many 'churches' that we have seen have been so close, but unwilling to step over the threshold to true Bible fellowship. So many 'pastors' just won't let go.

But today, and for well over a thousand years, the 'churches' have replaced the Lord's Supper with 'Communion'. Communion does not come from the Bible, but from the Catholic Church, which replaced the God-ordained Lord's Supper with a magical rite called 'The Mass'; unfortunately, when the reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox broke from the Catholic Church they still retained the form of the Mass, stripped of its magical doctrine, and called it 'communion', but they never obeyed the Scriptures in actually returning to the Lord's Supper.

In your particular case, you not only do communion in opposition to the Lord's Supper, but you are actually doing it in a way that is in direct opposition to Paul's entire point in 1Cor 11, for 'each one takes his cracker crumb ahead of others'. The Lord's Supper is supposed to depict and produce unity in the body, but leaving it lying around for everyone to have or not have whenever they want to is depicting and producing disunity. The only saving grace is that it is only 'Baptist Wine', so at least no one can get drunk. But if you read through this section of scripture as a whole, the dreadful things which Paul pronounces against the believers in Corinth are not so much because they come to the Lord's Table with some secret sin, but because they don't take the form of the Lord's Supper seriously, and thus are chastened by the Lord.

You asked me with surprising earnestness why it was so important to observe the Lord's Supper literally. I couldn't  help but think of a quote from Steve Atkerson of the New Testament Restoration Foundation that said, "The question is not 'Why do we have to do things as they did in the New Testament?', the real question is, 'Why would we want to do things any other way?' " And I think that alone goes a long way to answering your question. Try asking yourselves in earnest, "Why exactly would I want to do things some other way than what they did in the New Testament?" Try going to the Lord in prayer and asking Him that very question. "Lord Jesus, why would I want to do things some other way than what they did in the New Testament?"

Well for one thing, if you can believe that baptism should be done as they did in the New Testament – if you can agree that baptism is only for genuine believers, not infants, upon conversion, by full immersion – then you really ought to be able to understand why the Lord's Supper should be done as they did it then. It's really one and the same issue. Baptism is one issue that Baptists and Pentecostals and Charismatics are pretty well in agreement on; but when the first Baptists started insisting on it the established denominations thought they were a bunch of reckless upstarts stirring up trouble over nothing. But guess what? Those Baptists were right, they were just some folks that believed the Bible, just saying what was actually in the Bible, and we today are the beneficiaries of the persecution they faced. Even today many denominations refuse to accept the truth about Baptism, and they are still just as wrong as their forerunners. In fact, they are even more wrong because they have had a few hundred years to think it over now and they still choose to love and cling to their human traditions instead of simply submitting themselves to the Word of God.

And that is all we are saying, that the Lord's Supper is simply an issue on which we should bow the knee and submit ourselves to the Word of God: why would we want to do any differently? What would be the reason for that? What would be in us that would bristle and get defensive at the idea of doing the Lord's Supper the way the Apostles established at the beginning instead of doing it like some smart guys that came along a couple of thousand years later? Could we suppose that Jesus didn't get it quite right? Or that we have thought up some useful improvements that He simply hadn't thought of?

There are other reasons than this but this is really the beginning point.

Sunday School

Of late we have attended a local semi-itenerant 'church' on Sunday mornings. Though thinking themselves anti-traditional, they come from a holiness-pentecostal/charismatic background and the 'services' certainly reflect these traditions. And in general they have a very traditional 'church' mindset about what the body of Christ is supposed to be.

Case in point: they recently decided that it was time that they started having 'Sunday School'.

Now like a lot of things, Sunday School is as Sunday School does, and some does it better than others. Most of my experience with Sunday School has found it rather wanting.

"My, that certainly is a rather broad and sweeping condemnation if you will.." I can hear you thinking in a voice not unlike like J. Vernon McGee.

And yes I suppose it is. In fairness I want to say that for many years in my childhood my own Sunday School teacher was a very Christ-dedicated man named Terry Barns, and that most all of the core doctrine and real Christianity I learned as a child came from this man in Sunday School, who stuck with my age-group for several years and did about as good a job as anyone can do. I can think of no real criticism of his work, except that I do think he taught us the 'Once-saved-always-saved' doctrine, and being raised in a Southern Baptist Church I continued to labor under that error for many years until I really got into the Bible for myself. But mostly this man did a top notch job.

So it may surprise you to read that 'Sunday School', even at its very best, is primarily a failure of the Body of Christ, and as such, actually, a fairly predictable product of the 'church', which steadfastly refuses to embrace the ekklesia truths in the Bible. It's no surprise then that the Sunday School weed which My Father has not planted has gone on to produce increasing weeds like awanas and youth programs and children's church et al.

Sunday School, even at it's dead-level best, is primarily a failure of the Body of Christ.

The Ekklesia of God is so completely different from the 'churches' that it is hard to know where to begin to explain the magnitude of my statement.

The Ekklesia of God was interactive and vibrant and inclusive (of input from the believers I mean, not of sin or sinners). The Ekklesia of God was the assembling together of the believers, not of believers-who-hopefully-invited-their-unbelieving-neighbors-and-strangers-so-that-we-hope-they-might-get saved-at-the-'altar call'. The Ekklesia of God had real, intimate fellowship in Christ as the centerpiece of its coming together, looking at one another at the Table of the Lord, as they broke bread in the Lord's Supper as a full meal every Lord's Day. The Ekklesia of God had a body full of working parts that together built up and encouraged and admonished one another for the love of one another and their Lord.

The 'church' is a weak and pitiful thing, dead and dried up and run over, full of social club members who sit quietly in their pew (or maybe 'church chair'), facing the back of the neck of the person in front of them, thinking about how beautiful their new sanctuary will be, and letting all the edifying, encouraging, and admonishing be handled by an overworked, pretentiously educated, and 'licensed' individual known as 'The Pastor', who, considering the unwieldly load set before him, and the expectation to provide 30 to 45 minutes of entertainment three times a week, quickly devolves into a trite routine of anecdotes, rhythmic speaking, and jokes – trusting in the 'worship leader' to play the right beckoning chords to get enough people down to the 'altar call' to justify the salary that he depends upon his patrons for.

In such an impoverished setting, small wonder that the things that are lacking should be so evident that people should try to set up a 'program' in an attempt to supply their desperate want, like an aged and emphysematic cigarette smoker desperately drawing poison into their lungs to calm the fear they feel from their lack of oxygen, clutching the very instruments of their death ever tighter.

The Body of the Living Christ should react to Sunday School (and all those other programs) like a professional athlete would to someone who wants to put him in an electric wheel chair for the rest of his life.

The Un-Holiday

Imagine a world in which Hitler's birthday is celebrated every year. Laughing children dress in SS uniforms, with little Hitler, Goering, or Goebbels masks; or maybe in dingy gray and white death camp 'pajamas'. People put out cutesy little nazi or Führer figurines saluting 'Heil Hitler'. Lights are strung up with little death-camp-victim skeletons and skulls. Swastikas and little crossed Hitler Youth knives are hung on doors or placed on the table. Stores are filled with mock razor wire and styrofoam incineration ovens that you can place in your yard in anticipation of the coming 'holiday'. To heighten the atmosphere, recordings of Jews being mercilessly tortured are played in homes and stores..

A view into the future if the Allies had lost the war? No.

Recently we went into a local Kroger and were greeted by a very macabre, life size, motion-sensored, animated, dead-thing 'butler' with a severed head that 'spoke' to you from the silver platter upon which it lay. Just that day my beautiful wife and I had been discussing the fact that the stores would already have the Halloween stuff out. Thus far, we have managed to keep our two and three year old boys more or less ignorant of the existence of Halloween. I told her I hoped we could keep them from finding out about it at all for at least another year.

I must admit that in my youth Halloween was my favorite 'holiday'. My earliest remembrance of it was somewhere around four years old when I was dressed up as Spider-Man, with one of those cheap, ubiquitous, plastic-formed masks. I kept trying to stick my tongue through the little tiny mouth hole. That may also have been the last time that I dressed as something that was not particularly scary. It seems to me that in most years I dressed as a vampire, although once – at our 'church' Halloween celebration – I remember dressing as a demon (church : demon; church : demon; Anybody seeing any kind of problem here?). I always took Halloween very seriously, looking with disdain on people who carved silly faces on their jack-o-lantern, or who dressed up as ballerinas or any similar non-scary thing. After all, this was Halloween – get with the program, right?

And I considered myself a Christian!

Well, in all fairness, all of the Christians that I personally knew also celebrated Halloween. As I said, our 'church' had actual bona fide Halloween parties each year. It wasn't even one of these so-called 'church harvest parties' or some other mealy-mouthed excuse to celebrate the un-holiday while still feeling churchy, but an actual named Halloween Party. How disgusting is that?

In a corner sat a regular member of the church, dressed as a gypsy, who 'read' your fortune in a crystal ball! A part time baptist preacher who burned a very expensive book of world religions because he didn't want to expose his children to such things (a position with which I now agree by the way), occupied a dark closet where children could come in and reach into a bowl and squish supposed human brains through their fingers! Ghosts, spirits, demons, monsters (and at least one young vampire); occultism on every side.  Spooks and jack-o-lanterns and the whole schlemiel.

And the one constant that I remember about these 'church' Halloween parties from year to year was the inevitable discussion amongst varying parents and 'The Pastor' about how rigid and overbearing and legalistic it was for some Christians to fail to observe Halloween, thereby depriving their children culturally and certainly stunting their social development. So here was the pastor, the deacons, the Sunday School teachers, the parents, and all the good 'church' people teaching their children not only to observe Halloween, but that you are wronging your children if you do not.

Well, what can I say. It was, as Peter said, "..your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers." So for many years I continued to celebrate the unholiday as my favorite holiday. I thought it was fun. I thought that was what people should do. I thought that's what Christianity was.

Then God came.

When you give your life to the Prince of Life, when you really give your life completely to Him and give your heart to Him, and you get close to Him, there remains no longer any place in your life for Death. Paul said it this way, "What fellowship has light with darkness?" and "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons."

If you call yourself a Christian, and you partake of Halloween, the Un-Holy-Day, then something is very, very wrong. You can cry 'legalism' if you want to, but celebrating death is wickedness and sin-sickness, and celebrating death when you profess to belong to the Prince of Life is horribly mixed up. If you can find enjoyment in such things you are not where you need to be with Jesus – if you are with Jesus at all. If you are not repulsed by the things you see all around you in the celebration of Halloween – tapping into the very demonic realm that has fought and is fighting to drag you and your spouse and your children and your closest friends and loved ones screaming into hell – then you need to ask yourself very seriously if your are His at all. I cannot say emphatically that you are not – Paul was admonishing Christians after all not to drink the cup of demons – but that if you are comfortable with this stuff you really need to go back to the beginning and examine yourself carefully to ask if you are really saved.

Death is our enemy! Hell is our enemy! Satan is our enemy! Demonic spirits are our enemies!

Oh People! People! Open your eyes and see the unmitigated, inexpressible hatred leering back at you through evil eyes in this wicked celebration! Smell the putrid stench of decay rising up around you and clinging to your hair and clothes and skin! Hear the tortured screams of every deceived man and woman that has ever ended up exactly where they thought they would never go, eternally cut off, eternally hopeless, eternally dying and decaying in an unending death forever! This is the hope and desire of the lords of Halloween for you and all whom you love!

If you think comparing Halloween with Nazi Germany is a bit much, or maybe even over the top, then consider: Adolph Hitler and his followers were only men, mere flesh and blood, also themselves deceived by demons and now writhing in their own agonized hopelessness. But the real power behind that horror – the power that is waiting and desiring to show what they can really do, to unleash far greater horrors than that upon the earth – that is what you are celebrating on Halloween.

If you think the idea of celebrating the Holocaust is an unthinkable or unspeakable idea, how then can you celebrate the kingdom that makes Hitler look like a mere school-boy?

Pastor vs Elders

There is no such thing as 'The Pastor' in the New Testament.

There is one office of unpaid men of God operating in plurality in each ekklesia. These men are alternately called Elders, Overseers, Shepherds, or Teachers.

'Pastor' occurs only one time in the NT, in Eph 4:11. The Greek word there is poimen (poy•MANE). Poimen is used a total of 19 times in the NT, but every single other usage is translated as 'shepherd'. 'Shepherd' is one of four NT ways to refer to the elders of the ekklesia: 'elder', 'shepherd', 'overseer', and 'teacher'. (The word 'overseer' is the literal translation wherever you see the word 'bishop'. Since everybody knows that 'bishops' are unbibilical clerics who wear fantastic costumes and funny hats, like the Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride, 'overseer' is clearly the better term for this position.)

You can see these clearly linked together in Acts 20:17-28, Titus 1:5-7, and 1Peter 5:1-5.
In Eph 4:11 the Greek links 'shepherd' & 'teacher' together: "..some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some 'shepherds and teachers' ". (With that in mind you can better better see Paul's line of thinking in I Timothy 2:12 - 3:7: "And I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man..(however)..if a man desires the position of an overseer, he desires a good work."

In Acts 20:17-35, Paul plainly teaches that the elders of the ekklesia are to work to support themselves, not to be a special class supported by the ekklesia.

Acts 14:15, Acts 20:17, Phil 1:1, and Titus 1:5 clearly indicate that there are to be a plurality of elders in every ekklesia.

Keep Your Children at Home

The other day I heard just a bit of Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife speaking on Focus on the Family about the tragic death of their little five-year-old adopted daughter who was run over in their own driveway back in 2008. His wife told the amusing and poignant story of how – before her fifth birthday – the little girl had come to her and asked if it was true that God has a Big Big House.
"...and does He have lots and lots of room?"

" ...and does He have really good food?"

To each question her mother answered, "Yes He does," and then surprised the little one by adding, "But you know what? He also has a big big yard where we can play football."

"How'd you know?" asked the puzzled child, wondering how her mother could have anticipated the next line in the song.

I could hardly retell that anecdote to my wife without breaking up – kids and God...kids and tragedy...both just get to me. It's a wonderful story.

The part that really got my goat though, is that the mother stated that the little girl must have heard the song in school.

In school? Heavens to Elizabeth!

Now I myself am not really a Steven Curtis Chapman fan. I honestly can't even think of the name of the one song of his that I know I have heard. I know very little about his family, and I don't even know his wife's name. I do feel pretty confident in stating that his wife did not have the child in school because she had to hold down a job out of financial necessity. Obviously, the child was placed in school because they believed that was the best thing to do for the child.

People, people, people...!

Most children are not 'ready' for school until at least eight to ten years old. Some won't be ready even then. But even if they are ready from a standpoint neurological development, the best place for the vast majority of children is always with their own mothers and fathers at home.

The best place for children of even eight to ten years old is at home in their own place!

And a four year old? A four year old? Oh people, people! Children need their mother and father! Eight year olds and older need their parents, and how much more a four year old?

Everything in the Bible that you supposedly believe clearly indicates that God has given this child to you for you to raise! If you send them to a school – public or private – that's who's doing the raising, not you! That is who's getting your valuable and very short lived opportunity! That is who is teaching God-knows-what to your child while you are supposed to be raising godly seed – even if it a supposedly Christian school! You're still wasting your opportunity! You're still forfeiting your chance and the calling that you've been given!

Worst of all, you're giving up your opportunity and calling, to someone who only cares about your child because they're paid to, and most of that 'raising' is actually the 'mob-rule' of the school-children...

People! God's people! Don't be fooled by the god of this world any longer! Trust your God! Trust your Bible! Take your children back! Bring them home where they belong! Teach them yourself! God has blessed you and gifted you and anointed you and appointed you to do it! Don't give your precious stewardship to others who don't even care beyond the paycheck what happens to your child!

If you can read and understand this post then you can teach them at home yourself.

Don't let the schools have your child for even a minute!

Made-Up Church

For those of you who haven't run across Richard L. Reising's compelling blog, Beyond Relevance, you should certainly check it out.  Be absolutely sure to see the excellent and all-too-true video, 'What if Starbucks Marketed like the Church?'

After you watch the video, read 'Top Ten Church Communicator's Mistakes: #8 'Brand Name Overload'. Reising's thing seems to be revising the way the 'Church' presents itself to the community, and he does have some interesting things to say. His subject in this particular post is about the over-naming of all things 'church', which he illustrates tongue-in-cheek with the fictional sign below:

 

Reising then translates the various 'ministries':

 

Very amusing indeed.

And, unfortunately, all too true.

One thing that I greatly appreciate about Reising's approach to "'church' marketing" is his assertion that most churches need to look deep inside before trying to reach outside, and that is certainly the case! Consider the following from another entry, "Promotion without connectivity is destructive. I often share with church leaders that most of the churches in the United States should not promote themselves. Why? Simple. If your current membership is not actively inviting people or visitors are not staying, there are reasons why. If you do an advertising campaign, you are asking people to come in your doors only to realize why no one wants to invite anyone to your church. They never come back and leave to tell all their friends what they did not like about your church. This is not good marketing."

With this I agree whole-heartedly.

However...

In looking at the signs above, as – well – nauseating (not to make too fine a point on it) and accurate as they are, the point that most stands out to me is the name of the 'church', "Made-Up Church." Unfortunately – very, very unfortunately – that is exactly what we have all across the land on every corner in every community – Made-Up Church.

Take a close look at either of those signs again. What can you identify there that actually comes from the Bible?

If you were to revise the sign to reflect it's scriptural basis, it would look like this:

I dunno. Maybe you could leave the cross at the top. 

This sign illustrates so well the very thing that we have been saying is completely wrong with the 'church'. Supposedly the Body of Christ, we have abandoned the traditions given to the Ekklesias and have replaced them with Made-Up Church. Instead of coming together as a corporate whole under our head, Christ, we are divided up and split into every segment of the populace that you can imagine: children's ministry, youth ministry, young adults ministry, seniors ministry, women's ministry, men's ministry, singles ministry, divorced ministry, Hispanic ministry, etc., etc., etc. – and as if that were not enough we will now creatively enshroud these non-biblical divisions in hip neo-Christianese encryptions.

Brother, we have liberty in Christ to make up whatever churchy ideas you can think of, but we are set free from the legalism of the traditions actually given to us in the Bible by Jesus and His apostles, so don't try to put those chains on us!

Have we lost our minds? Have we really lost our ever-lovin' minds? How on earth can millions of followers and leaders and 'pastors' go to 'church' every week and not cringe at the obvious differences between what we do inside those walls and what the Bible plainly says?

As K.P. Yohannan said in Christ's Call, the American Church confuses obedience for legalism.

Boy is that the truth.

OK, just as one small example; the whole, entire, complete purpose of the 'body' analogy in the Bible is that the Ekklesia of God is supposed to come together in one place, as one body, for one purpose, each contributing what each one has to the functioning of the whole. But we intelligent, educated, industrial,

institutionalized, conveyor beltlings have streamlined and economized it into a crate containing a box of noses, a box of ears, a box of knees, a box of feet, a box of hands...

Why do we keep holding that little book up in the air and proclaiming that it is God's will for us? What on earth do we suppose that we mean by that?

Folks, we can do better. He died so that we can do better. He gave us the Spirit so that we can do better.

It is time to re-examine the whole thing from stem to stern and top to bottom.

Back to School: What's Wrong with this Picture?

One week last year my dutiful wife and committed mother of our children picked up the August 2009 Atlanta Parent's Back to School 2009 issue of Atlanta Parent. Having seven children of our own – ranging in age from 23 years to 22 months – whom we have always home schooled, we are always on the lookout for sources and information pertaining to local events and activities to augment our home. But we were particularly interested in this "Back to School" issue, as we have a particular interest in our society's attitudes toward, and efforts to cope with, schools.

In the years since 1991 when we first officially began "home schooling" our oldest child we have seen considerable change in attitudes about home schooling. In those still-early years of the home school movement, we were regularly questioned when out in public as to why our children were not in school. The majority of these early questioners had not previously encountered a home school family (nor had we), and obviously found the concept to be suspect. Some of my immediate family openly told us that what we were doing would be detrimental to our children. But as the years went by we were questioned less and less about why the kids weren't in school (we haven't even heard that one in years), and more and more people began to signal their approval of our choice – and their misgivings about the school system.

Likewise, our own thinking has changed quite a bit too. In fact, where once we proudly claimed the title "home schoolers," we now find a genuine and deep-seated dislike for that term. For one thing, children are flat-out, wide-open, full-throttle, busy learning machines even before birth – never mind "school age" – so it isn't as though they've been sitting around in a crate somewhere until the "educators" got them out at a certain age. For another, even the best school situations – whether Public, Private, or Religious – are inferior to a modest home regarding the child's overall development. So to tack that term "school" on there actually insults the "home." Unfortunately the "school" mindset has become so deeply ingrained in our cultural psyche that some reference to it seems altogether unavoidable and "home school" is what we are left with.

One important development in our beliefs concerns the nature of what precisely is "wrong with the schools." Like most of the people who signaled their approval of our home-school choice, and themselves had misgivings about the schools, we started out with an inherent assumption not that there was something fundamentally wrong with schools themselves, but that something had rather gone wrong in the system. From the school prayer decision to the lack of market competition to Heather Has Two Mommies, there has been a wide selection of ideas put forward attempting to analyze just what exactly is wrong with the schools, and what to do about it. Maybe we should have "year-round" schools? Maybe we should have even more extra-curricular activities to gain the child's interest? Maybe we should adopt uniforms to force children to focus on the "important" things? Maybe we should tie extra-curricular participation to academic performance? Maybe we should erase academic distinctions make sure the child's feeling don't get hurt. We should be more creative. We should be more old fashioned. We're too easy on the kids. We're too hard on the kids. We need more teachers! Get them into school earlier; no, earlier than that; no, earlier than that! And the perennial; we need more money; no, more money than that; no, more money than that! After-school activities, before-school activities, free lunch, free breakfast, free sex (at least with cucumbers – until they're ready for the real thing).
What do the Dutch do? What do the Japanese do? What Would Oprah Do?
(Has anyone seen my education-sponsoring lottery ticket?)

Maybe it is time to ask if we are asking the wrong question.

I myself for many years stated that the only way to fix the school system was for the American people to abandon it "en masse." My assumption was that the entrenched school establishment would never be materially changed until it was forced to by the public pulling the children out wholesale. But along the way, my wife and I have become convinced that the inherent and irreducible thing that is wrong with schools is; The Schools. That the whole concept is simply contrary to the nature and being of children, families, and society, and is doing nearly (if not quite) irreparable harm to all three.

Looking at the returning school year through Atlanta Parent's Back to School 2009 edition we found: a mother who writes to "Ask the Teacher" how to get her daughter excited about going back to school in the fourth grade (as if the Teacher who never met the girl should know the child better than her own mother of nine years!); a Nationally Known Psychologist who reports that the "fun" of Back To School will wear off after about two weeks (No surprise there – for me the "fun" of back to school wore off the minute somebody said, "Back to School."); and a freelance essayist assuring us that children entering kindergarten as a "formerly sweet and loving child" will quite certainly contract "kindergartenitis" which will progressively turn them into a "Grinch with a greasy black peel" (italics mine). In the article "Easing Back-to-School Anxiety" we are advised that a child's apprehension about the coming school year might manifest itself in "clingy behavior" (as though there might be something peculiar about a child that does not relish being separated from his parents and placed into an impersonal institution); and a nationally televised network news story covered how to help children cope emotionally with the "Pre School Blues" they are likely to experience in the time leading up to the start of the school year.

Question: How many children have you ever heard of "skipping" home in order to go to school?
Next Question: Is it possible that there might just be a reason for that?

In all our public dialogue about school and how to help our kids deal with it, it's way past time we got some rather obvious truth out on the table and into the discussion. Such as 1. The primary difference between a mother teaching her children at home and a Professional Teacher teaching other people's children at school is that the mother teaches her children because she loves them, whereas the Professional Teacher only teaches the children because she is being paid to. Take away the pay and that's as far as her "care" goes. 2. Children must be manipulated into being interested or excited about school because they are actually designed to be raised in a home environment by their own parents who love them, and even the very best Professional Teachers are a very poor substitute for that. 3. In point of fact, most of the child-rearing that does occur in the schools is the children raising one another, instilling in one another values (or anti-values?) drawn from popular music, movies, gaming, toy and clothing manufacturers, and – that perennial enemy of decency – the Television.

I for one find it very peculiar that the majority of writing and advertisement in a parenting magazine – devoted to helping parents in parenting their children – deals with removing the child from the parents and entering them into some form of educational institution, whose sole interest in the child – no matter what the form of institution – is monetary.

Now I realize that not every household approaches childrearing from a Biblical standpoint – neither did we when we started down the homeschool path – but even from a strictly secular, naturalistic approach to the subject, does it not seem reasonable to suppose that if nature has placed a given child into a given home with a given set of parents, that just possibly the best place for that child would be with those parents in that home? Our society assumes that much when we're only talking about baby squirrels or baby birds! At the risk of prematurely introducing a religious aspect to the subject, I would posit that each child's parents actually have a peculiar anointing from God to teach and to raise that child. Or put another way, that He gave that child to you for a particular purpose, and that you are doing yourself, the child, and God a disservice when you hand them over to someone else to raise. And you have handed them over to someone else to raise when they are gone from the home enough to amount to a full time job. In fact, the majority of time actually spent "together" between parents and children in a schooling household is spent sleeping.

I realize too that society has been accustomed for a long time to suppose that Professionally Educated Teachers have one-up on the poor parents who do not have the benefits of a Professional Education in Education. And I would have to admit that the average parent does not have all the benefits of being as knowledgeable in any one particular educational field – say mathematics for instance – as a specialist in that field. But the rearing of a child is concerned with much more than educational specialties, it is concerned with producing a whole person. And no battery of specialists arranged in any format whatsoever – even if they were each one the most dedicated and knowledgeable Teachers to be had – could replace the inherent bond and "anointing" between parent and child which is to the child's benefit. The truth, however, of the matter, which most of us who have been to School ought to be well aware of, is that our children are not too likely to be faced with a battery of the most dedicated and knowledgeable teachers. I would suppose that if they encountered two such specimens in all their travels through the schools they should count themselves fortunate, and, as previously noted, even those two would be home from work the next day if they were not paid to be there.

Now it is certainly true that no parent is the model of dedication, love, and determination just because they are a parent. They may not always act with their child's best interest at heart. But that is only to say that they are just as human as the Educators that we are expected to entrust our children to – no less certainly – and it is a fair supposition that no amount of college education is somehow going to remove the baser facets of our human character. Probably most Professional Teachers are parents themselves, but, strangely, if they were to quit their job as a "Teacher" to stay home and teach their own children, dedicating their lives to the foremost charges in their lives, teaching them day by day in a complete – holistic even if you will – teaching of a full lifestyle and the instilling of a well rounded and whole education, 24/7, without pay, they would be generally considered by overall societal outlook to be wasting their lives (especially if they happen to be a woman). But if they leave their children in another's hands, leave the home, and burn up their lives teaching a very shallow form of education, merely for pay, while losing forever their special opportunity to maximally impact their own children's lives, in order to minimally impact the lives of strangers, then they would be lifted up and considered worthy of honor and a special class of license plate on their car.

The plain fact of the matter is that children suffer from "Back-to-School Anxiety" or "Pre School Blues" or whatever you want to call it for one simple reason; that they are only going to school because they have to. And they only have to because their parents surrender them to this very peculiar and very recent notion called institutional schooling. Some because they have believed a lie that their children will be better off in the hands of strangers and hirelings than in their own home, some – shamefully – because the parents want to be rid of them and not bear the burden of rearing them. We encounter these latter people on an almost-everyday basis, who say things like, "How can you have seven? I can't even stand the two I have..." But whichever variety of parent the child happens to have, every "clingy" child innately realizes that their parents could save them from this unhappy turn of events if they simply wanted to.

I myself can remember having "Back-to-School Anxiety" every single week of every school year: about noon every Sunday I would realize that I had to go back to school the next day, and my weekend out-of-school bliss would be interrupted by anxious foreboding from that point on. And, as I recall, I never heard excited children cry aloud for joy, pouring off the buses on Monday morning – as they did on the way to the buses Friday afternoon.

So what is the fruit, then, of this very recent and very peculiar notion called the schools? Surely the time and opportunity that we have yielded in the lives of our children must have produced some advantage to society as a whole? I would suggest that even if it could be demonstrated that the schooling system was producing generations of Einsteins, that the effect of schools upon our children, our communities, and our culture has indeed done irreparable damage. Not to push this point too far, but consider the case of Nazi Germany: undeniably excellent in terms of sheer intellectual and technological development, but also undeniably harmful both to the world at large and to German society itself – which actually is the very birthplace of compulsory education by the way.

However, I do not think that anyone will soon make the case that we are producing generations of Einsteins through schooling – though they keep ramming the poor little tykes into the system earlier and earlier. In fact, as John Holt maintained, the difference between a good student and a bad student is merely that the good student waits until after the test to forget everything they have been taught.

Rather, I think it more obvious that with each generation since the introduction of compulsory education laws (established from the end of the 19th Century to the Beginning of the 20th) each generation has a weaker grasp upon the foundations of our society, has a hazier understanding of God and the Bible and His undeniable formative role in our culture, slides further down the path of unrighteousness and immorality, has a weakened commitment to societal standards and norms, and is progressively found to simply be weirder and weirder than each preceding generation. This is specifically because compulsory education has interrupted the parental bonds connecting each generation to the next and thus opened them up to shallower and more superficial change.

If you are inclined to doubt my assertion about shallowness and superficiality, go and stand in the children's clothing section of the local Wal-Mart for a little while. Look at the clothes that the newest generation is dressed in. Consider the vapid condition of our indecent but technologically excellent satellite television and gaming industries.

No, I never have heard of a child skipping home to go off to school, and neither have you. It's past time we began to ask ourselves if we've not been sold a bill of goods. It's high time we began to realize that when a child is born, God Himself has entrusted us – us – flaws and failures and baser facets and all – with a living, breathing, human being; a person who will make some kind of difference forever; and that one day we alone will stand before God to answer for what exactly that little one was and wasn't taught.
Looks like we'd better make some important parenting decisions right now.

Thoughts on Literacy

I learned to read at an early age; about four or five. I was an avid reader from that time –which is actually pretty early for boys– and have always been an exceptional reader. Strangely, I had no idea until three or four years ago that there was anything unusual about that.

Now, lest you think I boast, gentle reader, I should point out that I was always quite challenged by mathematics. I didn't care too much for it in first and second grade, and from third grade onward I really struggled with it. I can remember my mother and my school teachers saying in frustration, "You're just not trying!" But I really didn't get it. At the end of my junior year in high school I had to do some fast talking to convince my math teacher to sign me up to take the tenth grade geometry class in my senior year, and they did so with some misgiving I may say. Amusingly, in the first half of that geometry class, surrounded by tenth graders, while the course focused on the abstracts of theorems and such I had a consistent A while all the tenth graders had C's. In the second half, when we switched from abstracts to proving the theorems algebraically, the tenth graders all shot up to A's while I dropped down to a C, despite really trying at it.

My wife and kids could tell you several much more amusing stories about my mathematical ability.

My point is simply that each one has his or her gifts, one in this thing, and another in that, and none of these make the person in question of any greater or lesser value. Which brings me to my point.

Today we received the new 'The Homeschool Minute' e-newsletter from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. This issue focused on teaching boys. It featured a link to a blog entry entitled, "Books that my 13-Year-Old Boy Will Read  . . . Without Being Forced." I only glanced over the article, and have never heard of the books discussed therein, so I do not want to say too much about those particulars. But I have on many occasions heard or read homeschoolers (or public school parents too) say things to the general tune of, "My child is reading these so-and-so books (often of dubious character) but at least they are reading without being made to." The thinking often seems to be that reading is some sort of virtue in and of itself.

Well homeschooling is as homeschooling does, and we ourselves, as stated elsewhere, cringe at the very usage of the term 'homeschool'. The reasons that people homeschool are like the reasons that people go to the store: they can be quite variable and far ranging. And it does certainly seem to be the case that many people in our unusually literate society do consider reading to be a virtue in and of itself.

But I tell you it is not.

Reading is a skill. It is a valuable skill – perhaps even an invaluable skill – but it is merely a skill. The only virtue too be found in reading is in what you do with it. Reading good things is good. Reading bad things is bad. Even if you really enjoy it.

Being one who has read all sorts of stuff just for the enjoyment of it, I assert what should be the obvious: that a considerable amount of writing that is available to us is of highly dubious value at best, and a very large portion of what remains is simply not worth investing your precious time in.

The reading of books (or magazines) is a time consuming thing, and you need to be discerning about what you invest that time in. What you read should be for a purpose, it should be for your edification, and hopefully for the edification of brothers and sisters in Christ. That does not mean that you should only read the Bible, but the Bible should surely get the Lion's Share of your reading time, day in and day out.

In fact, if you haven't read the Bible that day, put that foolish book or magazine away and put the first things first. That goes for your kids too.

Do you know why our nation has such a cultural emphasis on literacy in the first place? So that people can read the scriptures. That's right. The Bible is the very reason why we began teaching our children to read, so that they could know the things of God for themselves.

Yes, there are some other things that are good to know, but the vast, vast majority of what is available for you to read ain't it.

Don't encourage your children to read just anything for the sake of reading, and don't model that idea for them yourself. We Christians should strongly encourage our children, and one another, to read – and to read such things that enhance your relationship to the King or that enhance your life in Him.

And, uh...that goes double for TV. Maybe triple. Or quadruple....

Christ's Call: Radical Obedience by K.P. Yohannan

Just heard this broadcast from KP Yohannan over the weekend. You may have to work through his accent, but you should do it if you have to.

Folks, this is what it's all about... reaching the lost and dying.

God, in the 18th and 19th centuries, established Great Britain as THE world power, an empire like there had never been before in the world. But He did not do it just so that you could buy Sri Lankan tea in London! He did it to further His Kingdom throughout the world. Sadly, our brothers and sisters there were more concerned with tea and coffee and sugar, and not a fraction was done for the Kingdom that could have been done. In WWII God took away the mantle of authority from Great Britain and gave it to her daughter America. Now we are outrageously blessed with authority and wealth like no nation has ever been.

Will we do any better? We sure aren't now...

You think we are drowning in money just to pay off personal bank loans, drink cappuccino,  and wallow in debt? We have only a very very short time!

Just (Don't) Do It, Moms

Ahhh... it's that time of year again... there's nothing quite like the smell of the Back to School season. Every store is loaded down with clothes and school supplies and posters promising impossible bargains, the air is practically abuzz with activity as beleaguered household budgets are overspent on children's apparel and the various accoutrements of compulsory education, and every mother's heart is all astir at the thought of the kids being out of the house and out of their hair once again. It all rushes upon the olfactory senses in a great accumulation of new paper, fresh denim, warm summer breezes, pencil erasers, and tiny beads of fearful perspiration as children of all ages realize that their brief reprieve of living (at least somewhat) in the way that their Creator intended is about to come to another end as they are rounded up and sent back to the institution for further conditioning.

In fact, most Moms aren't ashamed to state right out loud in the hearing of anyone and everyone that they can't wait to get rid of their own children, assuaging whatever objections their conscience does raise by bending or breaking the family's finances for the children's sakes – for Heaven sakes!

Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time there was a pair of twenty-somethings who had four children, including a set of two and three year old boys together. The years went by and the twenty-somethings grew older, as twenty-somethings are wont to do. One day they found themselves now forty-somethings, blessed by God in such a way as to have seven children total, including yet another set of two and three year old boys together. The forty-somethings discovered that there was a considerable difference between having a set of two and three year old boys together at forty-something than at twenty-something. The forty-somethings dearly loved their new set of two and three year old boys together with all their might, but were very glad indeed every day to have a necessary-though-brief respite at nap time, and very glad indeed each night to get the two little fellows to bed again so that the forty-somethings could collapse in a puddle for an hour or two before completely collapsing in bed themselves. The forty-somethings understood by way of experience how trying children of all ages and combinations can be, and how very creatively and independently a given child within any given set of children can approach any given set of circumstances – or, say, parental decisions.

The forty-somethings, though blessed indeed by God with every child with which they were entrusted, were never indeed blessed by God with a child that was somehow magically or miraculously or genetically perfect in their behavior – contrary to the musings of various persons in association with the forty-somethings at various times.

In short, the forty-somethings understood as well as anyone could that children are challenging and can even be rather tiresome. No wonder that when you see a photo of John Brown, the infamous abolitionist – himself the father of some twenty children – that he had such an intense, gritty, edgy, and slightly nutty look about him. It wasn't his commitment to freeing the slaves after all.

But seriously, we ourselves can understand to some extent why you would be tempted to want to hand them over to someone else to handle (i.e., to raise), but just don't do it moms! Say no to the easy and socially complicit way!

God has given those children to you, and He has given you everything you need to raise those children yourself as He intended! We know that they will drink the catsup when you aren't watching and that all kinds of bedlam can come about from their most innocently intended curiosity, but that is what it's all about! We know that they don't see any reason that the dirt in their diaper is less suited for play than the dirt in the front yard; or for that matter why they can't eat real tree leaves when they're playing giraffe – even after you have explained it to them.

We know that the great flow of our culture thinks that you are wasting your life and your potential as a person if you are raising your own children instead of sacrificing them to your career, and the culture makes that very clear to you in a thousand subtle and not so subtle ways. We know that very few people will look you in the eye and tell you this is a great thing that you are doing. We know that you will not feel yourself on most days to be involved in any great endeavor, and that your very real failures and flaws will never seem to stack up against the false mythical heart and training of professional teachers who have 'given their lives to make a difference in the lives of children'. We know that society – even close friends and family and supposed Christians – will look down on you for raising your own children at home for no pay, because you aren't doing anything with your life, whereas they would laud you from the Pulpit to Little House on the Prairie if you were keeping other women's children for pay, because then you would be 'doing something' with your life.

We know that you have been called by God and gifted by God to raise your own, if indeed He has given any to you.

We know that you will certainly stand before Jesus to give an account of what you have done with everything He has entrusted to you, including your children.

We know that your children are eternal beings and their choices and lives will have eternal consequences. We know that you have been given a stewardship over these eternal beings, and that there is no stage of their lives – even when very very small, or very very big – that your choices about them aren't potentially impacting them for all eternity, and impacting eternity through all of them.

We know that it is God's will that you yourself raise up these eternal beings in a godly way and point them toward God with all your life and choices.

We know that schools aren't going to do that. (No, not even 'Christian' schools: how on earth are you going to explain to your child that you are sending them, contrary to the will of God, to a place that will teach them to live in the will of God? If they are even trying to do so...)

We know that our society is off-balance, off-center, sick and wounded, unsound and reeling, because we have ignored the clear purpose of God and neglected the home in these very ways for many generations now.

We know that the Body of Christ in our culture is falling over itself shamelessly to provide unbiblical nursery, sunday school, children's church, and youth ministries to do a very poor job of doing your job, simply because we all know that you aren't doing your job in raising your own children in the way that God intended, and that no school can ever do.

People, don't give your children to the schools: not public schools, not private schools, not 'Christian' schools.
Not in kindergarten age and not in high-school age.

Trust God and do what's morally right: Raise your own Children at Home.

Excesses in the 'Church' Part II

I want to follow up on the thinking of the previous post, "Excesses in the 'Church.' " If you haven't read it, now is the time to do so.

Having already taken a brief look at some of the more obvious nuttiness available in a 'church' near you, I find a need to ask a few questions:
Q: Is it a sin to blow a police whistle in 'church'?
Q: Is it a sin to blow a shofar in 'church'?
Q: Is it a sin to turn on a bubble machine in 'church'?
Q: Is it a sin to wave a flag in 'church'?

A: Well, not necessarily.. I don't suppose...but....


Q: Do any of these things have anything to do with the Ekklesia of Jesus Christ?

A: No. Nothing whatsoever.


If you read the entire Charles Carrin article to which I referred in "Excesses in the 'Church,' " you will have read the following: "Thousands of conscientious Christians are leaving denominational churches weekly and looking for new places to worship. Many have seen the 'hand writing on the wall' and are abandoning their sinking ships. Even Southern Baptist Churches are on the endangered list. It is estimated at their present rate of decrease the Southern Baptist Convention will be gone in just five generations. Many Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian bodies will not last that long. Seekers from these declining churches are visiting Charismatic Churches. They need a safe haven. Wise churches welcome these wanderers, provide them with compassion, an opportunity to worship, give them acceptance and a safe-haven. But that rarely happens. When these new comers appear on the back row they encounter a similar reception for which Paul chastised the Corinthians. The newcomers hear no familiar songs, see nothing similar to their past, and are blasted out by the noise. In time they become 'drop outs' from the Kingdom. How tragic! Paul would be outraged. Before going farther, I must say what my heart believes: Charismatic Churches that are needlessly struggling and dying could reverse that condition overnight if they would listen to Paul’s advice. Use common sense! Stop scaring off the ones God wants you to convert!"

Folks, Charismatic or not, quiet or riotous, the 'church' paradigm has no part with the Biblical Ekklesia found in the New Testament. With all due respect, Carrin's advice may well be good and practical advice for growing 'churches', and, I will grant you, leans more toward the Bible than the alternative he describes, but God doesn't want 'churches' anyway.

I repeat, God Does Not Want 'Churches'.
If He did, He would have given us instructions on that point, and He gave none.
Instead, He gave us plentiful instruction and example of His Ekklesia.

Does it really matter if our unbiblical 'church' is slightly (often very slightly) more Biblical than the 'church' next door when they are both fundamentally unbiblical? If you don't know what I am talking about in contrasting the 'church' and the Ekklesia you can start here, but it really boils down to this: 'churches' are primarily viewer oriented with a professional pastor class, whereas the Ekklesia is primarily participant oriented with unsalaried elders-not-lords. 'Churches' are grown with artificial fertilizers and filled with artificial sweeteners and empty carbs, whereas the Ekklesia is wholesome, organic, and nutritious. 'Churches' are noisy in spirit even when they don't have noisy services, whereas the Ekklesia is tranquil in spirit, quieted like a weaned child. 'Churches' are the traditions of men, whereas the Ekklesia is formed of the traditions of Jesus Himself, given to us from His own mouth and through His Apostles.

'Churches' are cisterns, broken cisterns that you have made for yourselves that can hold no water, whereas the Ekklesia is the fountain through which Living Waters flow. (Jeremiah 2: 13)

Let's try it the Bible way.

Excesses in the 'Church'

Fascinating. I love it when the Holy Spirit confirms what He is saying..

Recently I wrote an e-letter to a brother in Christ I have not seen in many years. In it, I included the following; "After God came we joined a 'spirit-filled' Baptist church and have had some association with pentecostals and charismatics for many years. We agree with pentecostals insomuch as believing in the gifts of the spirit, and that a believer in the scriptures is on very shaky grounds (for example) by openly contradicting 1 Cor 14: 39. We have also seen that pentecostals and charismatics in general seem to be on rather shaky ground concerning 1 Cor 14: 40. We ourselves can and sometimes do speak or pray in tongues, have given prophecy, and have had genuine prophecy given to us. [My wife] has lain on the floor at Brownsville, and I cannot deny the influence for godliness that occurred in us from this event, though we have real issues with some of the things that have been done and said down there (for more on my position on that topic see here ). At the same time we have seen a lot of nonsense in the name of the Spirit of God, such as the pastor of a notable local Church of God teaching that the proper Holy Spirit way to handle 1 Cor 14: 28 is that if someone believes he has a tongue for the whole church he is to obey God and give it before the church, and that if it is genuine someone there will be given the interpretation – which is clearly in contradiction to what Paul is saying in this passage."

In thinking about this I decided that this topic would make a good blog entry. In thinking about that, I was reminded of Charles Carrin, a baptized-in-the-Spirit Baptist minister that we heard not long after God came and kept up with for a while, but haven't heard anything of or from in many years now (not personally, just ministry newletters and such). My reason for thinking about Carrin was that we had heard (or read – not sure which) him making the point back then that many churches who proclaim to believe the Bible have effectively torn out chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians. In their refusal to accept the possibility of tongues or prophecy or any such operation of the Holy Spirit today, they refuse to honor Paul's clear instructions in 1 Cor 14.

My flow of thought for the blog post was that although we have seen and known 'churches' that do indeed tear out chapter 14 as Carrin said, the counterpoint is that we have seen many 'churches' that have trampled on Paul's guidelines about orderliness in exercising the gifts of the Spirit, churches that really looked like nut-houses trampling on the Word and the true 'spirit' of the Spirit of Christ.

Figured I would link to Carrin's website if I could find it. So I found it.

And what do you suppose I found there?

The following is from Charles Carrin's current newsletter, July 2010, "Does The Public Think Your Church Is 'Mad'?"

"Transfer the Corinthian-crisis to many of today’s charismatic churches. Through a variety of abuses–tongues being only one of them–numerous churches are chasing off unsaved visitors as fast as they come. Instead of feeling welcomed, the people are repelled by excess. It matters not whether the problem is tongues or ear-splitting music, blasting shofars, tiresome services, flag wavers, etc. Paul would be just as angered at any one of our abuses today." ... "In some Charismatic Churches I witness an imitation of spiritual gifts that frightens me. Human emotion replaces holy order. In some cases the people have left the Holy Spirit and reverted to their earthy feelings. In these places a substitution is taking place. It is this: Human excitement is gradually replacing the Holy Spirit’s authentic presence. Most people do not recognize the change. Some of this is emotion out of control. Congregations do not always give the Holy Spirit the courtesy of awaiting His arrival. Instead they act as if He is automatically there if they wave flags, jump, blow shofars, blast the music, and clap their hands. He comes at their command. Not so." ... "I am grieved to tell you this: Several times, as a guest speaker, I have had to leave the pulpit and go to the office or lobby to wait-out the attack. The noise was unbearable. In one church when I went to the foyer I found it filled with visitors who had also fled the service. A very safe guess would be that once the “worship”was over they never came back. Does that fit Paul’s description of church madness? Absolutely. The most horrific moment of all came once when a matron bounded onto the platform dressed in a child-sized costume and did an interpretive dance to one of my favorite hymns. As a nine year-old, my grandson asked me to take him out of a service because the noise was giving him a headache." ... "During one service a young man ran through the congregation blowing a police whistle. In another, an old man walked about carrying a machine that blew bubbles into the air. Everybody had opportunity to do 'his thing'. Someone says, 'That is freedom, Brother!' No, it isn’t! It is religious silliness and has no place in the church."

And man do we have to agree with all of that. In fact at that 'notable local Church of God' to which I referred at the beginning of this post, there was a woman who attended there who we referred to simply as 'The Fire Alarm Woman', because at the end of every single service she would go down to the front at the altar call and make this ear-piercing 'woo-woooooo-wooo' fire alarm sound. You are never going to convince me that any of this foolishness and disorderliness has anything at all to do with the Spirit of God.

In fact, none of any of this churchy nonsense, on either side of 1 Cor 14, altar calls included, has anything to do with the Word of God.

Read your Bible people.

When God Came

Eventually you will hear or read me use the phrase, "When God came."

Most people don't know what to think when I use this term. I suppose that for the sake of clarity I could stop using it, but it's the best way I know to describe what I mean, and a sincere term of affection toward God because of what He did. I have used this term almost since the time of its occurrence, because nothing else quite describes it properly. You see, I wasn't looking for Him at all when He came to me, and no human being came to witness to me about the wonders of God or my relationship to Him. I did nothing to deserve it, I am no one for Him to do such a thing, He doesn't deal that way with everyone, but while I was not looking for Him in the slightest, He came to me.

So let me explain.

I worked for years in the Pre-press trade.

Starting at a German owned company that lived and breathed process control, I worked my way upward from there learning the trade. Never turned down OT, and usually asked for more. I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I advanced in pay –  and into the city – eventually specializing in high-end Photoshop work. The retouching suites there looked like a set from CSI: cushy leather chairs, nice stereo systems, stainless steel, black walls and just a hint of purple glow from black-light accents. Clients from national ad agencies paid a couple hundred dollars an hour to walk in and sit down with the retouchers. Very avant-garde.

Then God came.

It was a literal epiphany. I was minding my own business at work late one night when the Holy Spirit of God filled the room with a presence so thick...it wasn't visible, and you couldn't smell it, but it was heavy–like the room was filled with thick smoke. I could barely breathe and time stood still on that spot while all the world silently revolved around me. The finger of God touched the very heart of my being; I gave my life completely into His hands.

When it was gone, I was a completely different man.

Well, very different anyway. And getting more completely different. Work I had taken pride in I now felt convicted by. And since such work is common fare in the world of printing you might imagine there isn't much room for conviction about righteousness and sin. Of course, the true majority of work wasn't sensual revealing stuff, but mundane staples like important fried chicken, major jet liners in majestic vistas, and the famousest of soft drink brands. But the sensual stuff was now a real sticking point, and where I had fit in nicely before, it was like oil and water. Or maybe more like water and old grimy built up grease that really smells from not being cleaned in a long, long time; but the people are so used to it that they have no idea what you are talking about, and you can't understand why the health inspector hasn't shut the place down a long time ago.

Well, The Health Inspector is going to shut the whole thing down pretty soon.

But in the mean time I had this peculiar situation: Talent, skill, and experience in a field for which my relationship with God made me unsuitable for regular employment; The Holy Spirit like an Olympic home remodeling team tearing out the old and building new; And a family that had a well fed bank account, but was dried up and starving for anything that might be called a husband or a father. So I walked away from my primo position downtown, and took about a year sabbatical with my wife and (now) five children and God – until the money ran out. After that I learned trim carpentry, and branched out into some things I never had time or inclination to try before in the pre-press grind, like logo design, graphic design, and photo restoration. (That one I especially like: taking old battered and faded memories from the past and recapturing them for the future. That's much more satisfying than helping an older gentleman with phony military status sell buckets of chicken.)

Along the way I have learned a few things.

The average American family doesn't need nearly as much money as we think we do. Children do better in the daily presence of their mother and father than with all the schooling, entertainment, activities, programs, gaming, friends and even Vacation Bible School that you can think up. Wives need their husbands at home as much as children need their mothers at home. Men were not intended to spend the majority of their lives out of the home interacting with women to whom they are not married. People waste their time and money on hobbies and entertainment and leisure-time activities galore trying to fill their lives with meaning because they have abandoned A: God, and B: The Home; and thus are spending their 40 - 60 hours a week on a hamster wheel building nothing with any real meaning. The Western church is far, far afield of the Bible we think we believe, running hard after the society we think we're separated from, yelling, "Wait for us! Wait for us! Wait for us!" while waiving our Bibles in the air instead of reading them.

That really doesn't do it justice – just a few words straining at the limits of human language to try and express inexpressible things – but if you hear me say, "When God Came," that is what I mean.

Sixteen

Today our second oldest son is sixteen years of age: Happy Birthday! And truly a happy day it was and is. May the light always shine upon that day, and may no miserable or unhappy thing ever be remembered upon it. At your age your frame of reference is so small that it is hard to realize how quickly it is that a very small child is making comical and ear-splitting fireworks imitations, and the next moment he is old enough in the eyes of the law to drive a motor vehicle. Truly, truly, our lives are but a vapor, and you must always endeavor to remember that. When your own children are born – and may you have more than we have –
look at that tiny face and those tiny fingers and fear God because your days with that child are few in number indeed and he or she is depending upon you for direction to God and the paths of righteousness! You are a blessing to us, our son, and we bless you for it! And we wish you many happy returns of the day!
Happy Birthday Son!

Battlements of Silver

Song of Solomon 8: 8-14 
We have a little sister,
      And she has no breasts.
      What shall we do for our sister
      In the day when she is spoken for?
If she is a wall,
      We will build upon her
      A battlement of silver;
      And if she is a door,
      We will enclose her
      With boards of cedar.

I am a wall,
      And my breasts like towers;
      Then I became in his eyes
      As one who found peace. 

Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon;
      He leased the vineyard to keepers;
      Everyone was to bring for its fruit
      A thousand silver coins.
 My own vineyard is before me.
      You, O Solomon, may have a thousand
      And those who tend its fruit two hundred.

You who dwell in the gardens,
      The companions listen for your voice—
      Let me hear it!
 Make haste, my beloved,
      And be like a gazelle
      Or a young stag
      On the mountains of spices.


Listen My Love, My Sister, My Bride, to the blessedness of the Union of the Man and his Wife in the eyes of God! A Battlement of Silver honors this woman who fiercely guarded her virtue. If ever there was a wife who deserved a Battlement of Silver it is you My Love! How I wish that my own heart had always been as jealously defended by me as yours by you! Like the Shulamite you have looked with disdain on all who had no place in your garden, ready to pierce with an arrow any who dared to try; Your heart you fiercely defended, and in that, neither your Husband nor your God will find any fault in you on the Day! Hear how she describes her breasts like towers: the places of strongest defense! But; and made me the only one among all the sons who could enter freely! How you have honored me above all others! How you have trusted and opened your heart! All that a man might give for love would be utterly despised, but you have blessed me above all others by giving me all that you have, making a covenant of peace before God, and granting me authority in all that is yours! How I wish that I had been worthy all these years! How I wish that I had understood and appreciated and known how blessed that truly I was and am! My Sister in Christ Jesus, and yet my Bride upon this earth, You have set yourself under me and made me lord of all that is yours! The wife of my Youth, You have been to me an Excellent Wife, and I have been to you like Nabal: a fool in your eyes! Yet how our God has blessed our oneness in giving to us seven beautiful children, and How He has richly blessed us with fruit of the womb! May each of these be deadly arrows that sink into the heart of the enemy! May not one of them fall short or fail to bite! May your face be lifted up by our Sovereign when at last you stand before Him, and may He have nothing but reward for all that you have given and done! May He strengthen your hands to the work, and your feet to do all that He has set before you, and all that He has placed in your heart! And may your Husband be found worthy to have been granted a covenant of peace with you while your eyes flash fiercely at all the sons!

Joyous indeed is this day above all others! May you overflow with Happiness today upon our 25th Anniversary, the Anniversary of Silver, and glory in your Rampart of Argent!

Happy Anniversary, My Sister, My Bride!
Happy 25th!

A Little Consistency

Shortly after God came in 1998, I heard John MacArthur teaching about church discipline. In his teaching he spoke about his determination to practice biblical discipline. A friend of his warned him that such a thing would never fly and people today would simply never put up with it or join in with it. Yet they now had all these thousands of people at whatever church he pastors who have all joined in with it and do put up with it, because it is an important part of the New Testament experience.

Q: Which parts of the New Testament experience are unimportant? Which parts of the New Testament pattern are we at liberty to simply ignore?

I'm glad that MacArthur felt that way about 'church' discipline, and grateful to him for introducing that topic to me over a decade ago, but what about so many other aspects of the New Testament Christian life?

For those of you who have not read NTRF's House Church (previously and better titled 'ekklesia') they make the point that what they are arguing for is a little consistency. Unfortunately, a little consistency is exactly what we already have. It's the very thing that keeps the Body divided in a thousand sects (better known as 'denominations') and acting exactly like a body that has been divided. What the Body of Christ needs is plain old Consistency, period.

But, of course, consistency isn't like some sort of commodity that you can acquire, as if perhaps someone will give us consistency, or we can buy it down at Wal-Mart, or we are all waiting until Jesus instructs the Holy Spirit to give us consistency and then we will all be able to come to unity and one accord. Consistency is a choice, an act of will, and the only waiting is God waiting for His people to decide that His Word is important enough for us to take it seriously and do as He already said.

Most 'churches' and denominations have one or two aspects of the New Testament pattern that they have grabbed ahold of and that's their 'thing', and they take pride in the fact that they are doing this part of the NT pattern that all the other 'churches' aren't doing.

For example:
Baptists are known for their teaching and practice about water baptism; they baptize by full immersion instead of sprinkling, and they do not baptize infants, but only those old enough to clearly make a choice for Christ, because that is the clear New Testament pattern (although most Baptists do not adhere to other aspects of New Testament baptism, notably that new converts are to be baptized immediately). Secondarily, Baptists are known for their partial adherence to New Testament congregationalism similar to the ekklesia norm. But they do not adhere to other aspects, such as a plurality of unpaid elders without a professional schooled and salaried 'Pastor' to deliver the 'message' or 'sermon' every Sunday. Or celebration of the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day.

Presbyterians are known for their 'presbytery' – their elders, in partial accordance with the NT pattern – but they still retain the Catholic clerical position in the form of 'The Pastor', and lots of other unbiblical practices.

Pentecostals and Charismatics are known for their acceptance of and belief in the New Testament gifts of the Spirit such as tongues, prophecy, etc. But they don't much want to adhere to biblical guidelines for practicing these gifts (calling that 'legalism'), which results in a lot of ungodly weirdness and hocus pocus; and they especially tend to want to have nothing to do with biblical elders, lifting up 'The Pastor' over the 'church' as 'The Man of God'.

And non-denominational 'churches' each have their own salad bar approach to which parts of the New Testament they comply with, and which they reject.

Can anyone out there tell me what exactly would be wrong with all of God's people making a commitment to God and to their brothers and sisters in Christ to sincerely search the scriptures and to perform the things written there to the absolute best of their ability and understanding? Instead we all rest on our dividing unbiblical traditions – whether it's what Grandma and Grandpa used to pray, or whether it's a tradition that came out of some guy's new book last year, we all lift up our traditions above the clearly revealed will of God in the Scriptures.

People! Jesus died on the cross! He gave us the Holy Spirit! He caused the apostles to write for us all the words of this Life in a book! His servants in the reformation were persecuted, tortured, and burned alive to give this book to us that we might both read it and do it! Everything we need is in our grasp!

Come on people, now come on!