Scott’s Blog

We have an unquenchable thirst to be kings. We want to be at the top of some mountain and say we climbed there on our own. We want our lives to have distinction and we’ll go to almost any lengths to make that happen. I recently read of a sub culture whose prized possessions are their car stereos. Now I can appreciate good car audio as much as the next guy but this group takes it to a whole new level. Going by the moniker “decibel drag racers” they cross international lines to come together at competitions where the prize is given to the car audio system that can raise the decibel meter to the highest point. Never mind the fact that in the quest to be loudest the cars and vans can’t even be driven any more, they have to be trucked to the competitions! The holder of the world record at this point in time had poured 900 pounds of concrete into the floor of his van to accommodate the equipment and its decibel production. One competitor seemed to miss entirely the irony that there was no room for him in his car as he lamented the fact that he needed more batteries but there was just no more room in the vehicle.

We are passionate about making our statement whatever avenue we may choose to do it. This is entirely human and it is entirely dangerous.  Our passion for distinction and achievement can become an idol that infects everything we touch. We create things as a testimony to our own ability and then we passionately find ways to call attention to that which we’ve made. Because that thing we’ve made becomes our source of pride we protect it with everything we have. We need it. It really is idolatry.

Now here’s the problem. For some of us, that thing that we’ve made is the church. The irony is that we take over the instrument that is to carry the banner pointing to Jesus and we turn the arrow so that it points to us. Church becomes a testimony to our own pride and commitment to a task that really isn’t about God and his mission at all, it’s about us. Oh we’re very subtle about it to be sure, but our hearts reveal the truth of our real motives. The good news is that God can still use for his eternal purposes churches that are more human idol than divine instrument. He can still reach and grow people through those churches. The bad news is that the people with hearts tilted toward personal idolatry through ministry will lose all their rewards, that is of course assuming that they really are saved.

The very hard thing is that churches that are really idols to humans can look exactly the same as churches that aren’t. The difference is in the orientation of the heart. The difference is revealed in two things; our thought life and our talk life.

If you find that your thoughts are consumed with things of the church rather than things of God you’re in danger. Are you constantly thinking through the “issues” of church and coming up with things it could or should be doing or changing? Does this happen more than your dreaming of and enjoying of the beauty and majesty of God and your future in Him? If so you’re in danger.

Is your conversation with friends consumed mostly by the wonder of God and his grace toward you and the joy of your experience of that grace? Or do your conversations revolve around the church and whether it is everything you want it to be?

The church is a means to an end and the end is the moment by moment worship of God as our greatest pleasure.  When the church becomes a source of personal passion and pride it becomes an idol to human  achievement and is counterproductive. It’s churcholotry and it could cost us not only our rewards, but our souls.

Did you pass the thought life and talk life test? Let’s help one another stay faithful to the real purpose of the bride of Christ.

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One of the things our elders have done over the last eight years is open our building to the community. I think you’d be amazed at the cross section of folks that hold events here. Girls scouts, the YMCA, various support groups, Berwick schools and community athletic leagues among many others. We’ve done this to try to and build a bridge between our church and the community. Sometimes just getting people into the building removes some of the hesitance they have about us being a “church.” This has been very effective. I know of several folks who have come to services at ebc because they’ve come to some other event here and became curious about us. As is the case with anything, sometimes building use requests are controversial and present difficult judgments. One of those was when the YMCA wanted to use our gym to hold their basket bingo fund raiser. Basically, in basket bingo, everyone makes a donation to the Y as an entrance fee. Then they play bingo to win prizes of baskets. After discussing this with our elders we allowed the event in our gym. I’ve blogged about that decision in the past. This week one of the local midget football teams made a request to have a Halloween party in our building. My first reaction was to just say yes on the grounds that our building is open to the community and we’d love to have them here. After some reflection however I asked Colleen to hold off on getting back to them so I could think and pray a bit more. Halloween is not something we celebrate and I wondered if allowing a Halloween party might somehow be an endorsement of the things Halloween is about.  I tried to think through how Jesus would handle the request and I thought about what message we’d be sending either by allowing or not allowing the party. Then I thought back to my own childhood in Ashland. I remembered Halloween. We dressed up in funny costumes and visited our neighbors who gave us candy. That was it. I didn’t learn what the real Halloween was about until well into my adult years and our childhood celebration of what we called Halloween was very different from that. I then thought about my own sons. I remembered Brenda dressing them up in costumes that she made and their delight in getting candy from neighbors and relatives. I remembered pastoring in Selinsgrove where we had big “fall fun nights’ on Halloween so kids could get all dressed up and come and have fun and get candy. It occurred to me that there are really two Halloweens. One is a fun time of kids dressing up in costumes and having parties and getting candy. The other is an evil celebration of pagan worship. They have nothing to do with each other. I thought through what it would feel like to the families of this midget football program, who in their mind are having a fun, safe event for their kids, to hear that we think that Halloween in evil and we will therefore not allow them to use our building. I can imagine them wondering what kind of kooky person thinks having a protected party for kids that keeps them off the streets is an evil thing. So in the end I made the judgment that we would welcome this group to come and enjoy a safe, candy filled evening of playing games. While they’re here I hope their parents look around and get curious about what we’re all about. Through it all I was reminded that missions is messy and I’m glad that we’re a family that is willing to deal with the messiness of effective outreach so we can build a bridge to those who need to be rescued by Jesus.

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