26 Deaths but 1 Birth this Christmas

I do not know what it is like to lose a child. I do not know what war is like. I do not know what the scars of abuse feel like. I do not know the suffering of orphans. I do not know the feelings of hopelessness found behind prison walls and I do not know the loneliness of widowhood. I have been mercifully treated by our Lord and await what responsibilities that may require. But for those of you who have experienced some of the above I do know that if our faith cannot speak to the deepest shades of darkness this side of eternity then no hope remains.

Identifying the proper object of blame is a beginning step to speaking into the darkness- but it never finishes the job. When I visit inmates at our local jail I am able to release some of their pain from my heart by pinning blame on their foolish conduct or, in the sadder situations, on an imperfect justice system. When I counsel people we often talk about the wounds of the past and we identify the causes of present pain, but that road dead ends in no time. Inmates cannot survive incarceration by identifying their problem anymore than counselees can overcome their pain by identifying the source thereof. Victorious living requires we get off the dead end road of blame and onto the Solution.

From time immemorial mankind’s problem has not been weapons or government or poor legislation or crime or mental illness or single parent homes or homosexuality or slavery. Our problem roots deeper than those tangibles and because of this, shallow glancing eyes often miss it. At the root of every “problem” is an underlying “problem”. And although accurately identifying the problem will never solve the problem, it is a necessary start. So let’s start by identifying mankind’s problem.

Place twenty-20 year olds in a school gymnasium armed with fully loaded, semi-automatic assault rifles which they have been trained to use and if no sin resides in their hearts no one dies of gun wounds that day, guaranteed. However, place a butter knife in the hand of one twenty year old who has so let the sins of anger, rage and murderous premeditation flood his weak mind and corrupt his groundless conscience and someone is going to die or be seriously wounded, guaranteed. The problem with the world is not the things we have/don’t have, do/don’t do. It’s not that shallow. The bible makes it clear that mankind’s problem is not violence, but anger, not guns but sin.

Jesus said, “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean” (Mt.23:26).

James said, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight“ (James 4:1-2).

The problem with the world, folks, is sin in our hearts and unless we can find a fool-proof solution for it no hope remains.

The good news, no GREAT NEWS, is that Christmas is here once again. The CHRISTmas holy-day brings us back to God’s solution for mankind’s problem. Mankind’s solution involves a birth and a death; a baby lying in a manger and a Savior hanging on a tree. If there was another solution the Lord would have shown it. If there was another way Jesus would have been offered it (see Matthew 26:39, 42). But as it were there was no other way and as it stands today there is no other solution to the darkest shades of evil than the lonely birth and the cruel cross. Jesus is the only Way. He is the only solution to the evil in each of our hearts and unless He washes us clean from the inside out we shall all see the capabilities of human depravity once more.

For Christmas this year I want to challenge us to revisit our need for a Savior. It’s easy to point to others and say, “He needs a savior. How could he do that?” And no doubt Adam did a grave evil and we must comfort the victims with God’s solution and God’s love. But we must not be harder on others than we first are on ourselves. Thomas a’ Kempis said it well in his book Imitation of Christ,
“Even shouldest thou see thy neighbor sin openly or grievously, yet thou oughtest not to reckon thyself better than he, for thou knowest not how long thou shalt keep thine integrity. All of us are weak and frail; hold thou no man more frail than thyself” (Kempis, 1400’s, book I, chapter II).

Folks the world needs a Savior; always has. I need one. You need one. Mother Theresa needed one and we all need the same One. If you are a lover of Jesus Christ today then may this email and this ancient hymn bring you tidings of comfort and joy today as you eagerly wait for our Savior’s return;

 “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay; remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day, to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray. O tidings of comfort and joy.”

“Fear not”, then said the angel, “let nothing you affright, this day is born a Savior of pure Virgin bright, to free all those who trust in Him from Satan’s power and might.” O tidings of comfort and joy.”

 

Merry Christmas to you all,
In Christian love,
Shaun (minister)

Thanksgiving In NJ 2012

New Jersians are mindful this Thanksgiving of the change of lot which can come about in the blink of a storm or the rush of a wave. Many approach tomorrow’s day of thanks having significantly less tangible goods to be thankful for- particularly true of our shore neighbors. At the same time many New Jersians recognize the lack of thanks they once had for the things they no longer have. It’s sort of like not appreciating someone until they are gone, and once they are gone we wish we would have appreciated them more when they were with us. I believe people in New Jersey post-Hurricane Sandy are approaching this day of thanks from one of two perspectives; 1) They have developed a new thankfulness for the things now gone and so more completely appreciate the things which now take their stead, or the opposite 2) They recognize the futility of appreciating anything too highly which can so quickly be removed, and instead have come to value and covet more fully that which cannot be taken at all. It is this latter perspective that I would like to draw our attention towards this Thanksgiving Day 2012.

Thomas a’ Kempis in his Imitation of Christ once said, “It is vanity then to seek after, and to trust in, the riches that shall perish.  It is vanity, too, to covet honours, and to lift up ourselves on high…It is vanity to desire a long life, and to have little care for a good life.  It is vanity to take thought only for the life which now is, and not to look forward to the things which shall be hereafter.  It is vanity to love that which quickly passeth away, and not to hasten where eternal joy abideth” (Ch.4:1).

These olden words from a Christian monk illuminate for us a biblical truth long past in America- “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15). We feel the pain of displacement for those in NJ who have lost much. We sympathize with those still without power. We even seek to share the burden of those who have lost their homes altogether and know not if they shall ever rebuild. Relief efforts continue for this reason. But for bringing eternal truths to light in a way no other means could we can only give thanks, for a veil has been lifted.

Luxuries and abundance always cushion our feelings of helplessness before the throne of grace. They ground us to the present. They trick us into complacency. If abundance stays around long enough we will even mistake it as God’s blessing for a righteous life. But for Jesus there was no veil. Jesus knew that the more possessions man possessed the more those possessions possessed the man. He knew the great freedom possible only when we release our holding on worldly goods and so free ourselves to fly to Him. He knew that the more a man desires to be spiritual the more bitter the present life becomes to him and the more eagerly he pursues what is to come.

“Oh foolish and faithless of heart, who lie buried so deep in worldly things, that they relish nothing save the things of the flesh!  Miserable ones! They will too sadly find out at the last, how vile and worthless was that which they loved.”

“The saints of God and all loyal friends of Christ held as nothing the things which pleased the flesh, or those which flourished in this life, but their whole hope and affection aspired to the things which are above.  Their whole desire was borne upwards to everlasting and invisible things, lest they should be drawn downwards by the love of things visible” (Kempis, Imitation of Christ).

 Oh that loss would compel us after those things which can never be lost. Oh that we would not again set all of our energies on rebuilding our little kingdoms on earth, but that we would rekindle our fervor for the kingdom of Heaven. For it may be that possessions have so possessed us in NJ that, have it our way, we might rather live here always than walk with Jesus in the kingdom of Heaven. It may be that we have grounded ourselves so firmly that we no longer know how to fly to Him. Let it not be our desire this Thanksgiving Day to return all of NJ to middle-class-ness, as if that were the goal. Rather let it be our goal to free ourselves from this world such that losses as we have lost no longer seem like loss at all, but blessings in disguise. Let it be our goal the devaluing of perishable things and the exaltation of the eternal Christ. If it be that we regain the things we lost from the storm let us glorify Jesus not by re-possessing them, but by devaluing them altogether. Let us recognize every worldly comfort not as the very substance of life but simply as a shadow of the eternal rest available to those who will deny themselves their worldly comforts and pleasures and follow Jesus.

This Thanksgiving I am eternally thankful. Granted I have not lost but 5 days of inconvenience from the storm. Others have lost their homes. But I am seeking to set in my heart ahead of time the loss of all things temporal. If it be that the Lord allows all things temporal to be taken from me before I die I commit that I shall be ready- for I had let them go before they went. Let us all be ready at the blink of an eye to give up every temporal thing. Let us settle in our hearts today the loss of all of our possessions. Let us make like we do not own them, cannot keep them and do not want them. Only then will we be truly free and ready to fly to Jesus when He returns.

As you surround your table today may you take in the comfort of food, clothing and shelter not as the actual thing but as a shadow of the true comfort, rest and eternal life that will arrive to us when Christ returns.

Getting ready for that day today,

Shaun

Getting Back Our Voice

On my way back home this morning I was listening to NJ talk radio on FM 101.5. This particular talk radio program is beneficial to listen to if you desire to get a feel for how residents of NJ perceive the world. The topic this morning was about the teacher who resigned from her job because it was discovered that she had posted anti-gay information on her facebook page. The host I believe held a fair view of the issue and was advocating for the 1^st Ammendment rights of this teacher. One caller called in and suggested that the issue was really more about an intolerance to white Christians in the Senate than anything else. I am not getting all of the details right in my recollection here but the point I want to make came in the host’s reply to this comment. The host replied,

“It seems to me that Christians don’t stand up for themselves and the voice goes in the opposite direction by default more than anything else. Christians just lie down and let the opposing voice do what they want.”

I was actually grateful to the host for his comment. I thought it was dead on in many respects. But here is what I exited my vehicle to ponder on the rest of the day; How does it happen in society that a minority voice becomes a majority voice? Conversely, how does it happen that a once majority voice becomes a minority voice? It is this question that I would like to talk about today.

There have been various times and various places in history where the Gospel of Jesus Christ had minority status. The easiest place to point to would be those first decades after Christ rose from the dead. The Gospel (good news) of Jesus was spreading fast throughout the then known world. In fact just in Paul’s lifetime the Gospel spread all the way from Jerusalem to Rome. But Christians during this time were still considered a small sect of disruptive people. They were by no means the majority voice in town.

A couple things would be necessary (maybe more) over the next 500 years to bring the teachings of Christ and His transforming Gospel to every Western mind. To begin, each Christian would need to unite together with other Christians in the strong bonds of Christian love. These united bands of people would begin as small home groups and eventually grow through small villages, towns and into the cities. As the glue of the Holy Spirit (love) bound each believer with other believers, strength was gained. Each individual Christian was strengthened by the unity of the whole church such that when persecution arose against one the many entered into prayer and fasting for him/her (see Acts 12:12ff). It is unlikely in any time period that individuals will stick their neck out for an unpopular belief if there is not some assurance that someone, some group, some family of people will be there to back them up if ever they fall. Martin Luther King Jr. would not have had the influence he had if his family and church did not back him. There is strength in numbers. Solomon said, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up… Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Eccl.4:9-12).

However it is not enough to know that there are other Christians in the area who believe what we believe. We must also have some confidence that those fellow believers will cover our backs if ever we fall. My community might be 40% Christian by statistic, but I do not thereby expect those 40% to walk with me down dangerous social roads. To walk down dangerous roads requires I know those people personally. It requires that the ligaments of love be so strong between us that I can be assured of their prayers and their defense if ever in jail as Peter was (see Acts 12).

In the same way, homosexual persons prior to the mid to late 1990’s were hesitant to stand up for what they believed in because they had not yet acquired a substantial “family” of homosexuals who would back them when lash-back came. The tables have turned now and homosexuals are loud and proud primarily because they have more backing.  As the homosexual bonds of (perverted) love increased in America in the 1980’s & 90’s, the bonds of Christian love between followers of Christ continued to weaken and even sever.

During the 1980’s and early 90’s church on TV became an alternative expression of faith. Many justified their lack of involvement in a church family by saying, “I don’t go to church but I still pray, read my Bible and watch TBN”. Furthermore, although mega-churches grew in rapid number in those years, the bonds of Christian love did not. Mega-churches blessed Christian people with encouragement, opportunities to serve and biblical education, but they did not effectively provide Christians with a band of Christian support capable of sustaining them in the face of persecution. Ironically many Christians even today gather with hundreds of other Christians on a weekly basis but would not dare count on those people to back them in social, financial or psychological breakdown. Even though the Gospel of Jesus Christ reached many people in these years, those who were won to Christ rarely risked their necks for their faith because they did not have a strong cord of Christian community to support them if they did. As a result the Christian majority voice became softer and softer as the bonds of Christian brotherhood became weaker and weaker.

A second thing necessary to bring the teachings of Christ and His transforming message to every Western mind was a complete reorientation of life by every Christian. When someone became a Christian in the 1^st Century everything changed for them. They changed the way they thought. They changed who they associated with. They changed what they talked about and what they valued. They may have changed where they lived particularly if their family rejected them for their new beliefs. They even changed why they did what they did. If before they were a Christian they worked in order to make money, now they worked in order to glorify God. If before they used to steal, now they must steal no longer but "work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need" (Eph.4:28).To follow Christ for the 1^st Century Christian required a complete reorientation of life and those who were not willing to make complete changes were encouraged not to follow Christ at all (see Luke 14:25ff).

Sadly the homosexual population has done reorientation well. When a person decides to live his life as a homosexual a complete change occurs. He changes the way he thinks about the world. He changes who he associates with. He changes what he talks about and what he values. He may change where he lives-often moving to where his lifestyle is more accepted. He changes why he does what he does. When his life gets wrapped up in the sin of homosexuality everything in his life begins to revolve around that sin. There is not an aspect of his life that is not affected by it. This is true with any sin that takes hold of us- just look at the alcoholic.

But Christians today do not reorient their entire life around Jesus when they are baptized. They baptize parts of their lives but not every part of their life. Christ does not usually get thrust into the center of every aspect of life when a person chooses Him as their Lord. Rather, He gets thrust in the center of some aspects of life. We go to church but we still center the rest of the week around making money. We go shopping but not in order to have things to give to people who are in need in our family and church. We sit at home at night and watch TV but do not open our home to our homeless neighbor. We setup direct deposit but do not use that money to deduct the debts of our Christian brothers and sisters. We go to work but not to glorify God by it. We do not think about our jobs in this way because we have secularized our jobs to the point where we think Jesus has nothing to do with them. It is terribly hard to center 40-60 hours of my week around Jesus if I think those 40-60 hours have nothing to do with Jesus.

It is my belief that Christians have lost their majority voice in America because,

1. They have been weakened by the lack of support available in the church for each individual Christian. The bonds of love have been loosened in our churches and consequently our collective strength is weakened. And,
2. We have not reoriented our entire lives around our first love- Jesus Christ.

On the other hand the homosexual population has gained such a strong voice in America because,

1. They have been strengthened by the support now available to each individual homosexual in the homosexual community, and
2. They have reoriented their entire lives around their first love- sexual sin.

If we believe Jesus is for all and all are lost without Him; if we truly believe Christ’s voice is the supreme voice; if we truly believe that we are “a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because [we] have in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and truth” (Rom.2:19-20), then each of us must fight hard in our churches to strengthen the bonds of genuine Christian love between ourselves and reorient every aspect of our lives around Jesus.

This may require bold steps for some of us. I am pleased to announce that one of our members recently quit her job because she was no longer willing to run after the money. She now spends all of her time helping those who need help both in the church and in the community. As she does this God is financially providing for her through the people she serves.

I envision a day when the voice of Truth again has majority in America. Until then we must work to rebuild our weakened churches. What will you do today to build life around Jesus in your church?

The World We Have Lost...But Must Regain

We are living in a truly unique time in the history of the world. From the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800's to the latest Information Age we hopped into in the 1990's, no other generation has faced quite the same challenges we face today with the exception of modern Europe. In some ways the challenges of past generations may have been more difficult than our own (e.g. no running water, no electricity, persecution, oppressively corrupt governments, devastating plagues, etc.). At the same time previous generations could never have imagined facing the challenges we are facing now. The church today has a particular challenge, I believe, when it comes to making disciples. The former American world 200 years ago and European world 300 years ago enveloped Christians in a way of life where everyone had a role, a support system, a family, an enduring community, a place to belong. Today most would acknowledge the need for an enduring community as such but are at a great loss as to how to actually build it. Let me explain.

England in the late 1600's was a vastly different world than we experience today; that goes without saying. But just how different it was has a huge impact on making disciples for Christ. Laslett (1984) wrote of that world we have lost some 300 years ago now,

To the facts of geography, being together in one place, were added all the bonds which are forged between human beings when they are permanently alongside each other; bonds of intermarriage and of kinship, of common ancestry and common experience and of friendship and co-operation in matters of common concern. To these must be added those created by conditions of living now vanished so entirely that it is no easy matter to imagine what they felt like. The lack of running water in the dwelling brought people, mostly the women of course, into each other's company several times a day at the well, or pool, or brook. The labour of grinding your own corn by hand made frequent visits to the windmill or watermill a convenience for everyone, from the larger houses to the smaller ones. The want of ready supply of credit at the bank made everyone dependent on his friend, his neighbour or his relative at times when he needed ready money.

The world just described is indeed a world we have lost. It is a world that existed in almost eternal monotony generation after generation. Until the Industrial Revolution one generation lived pretty well the same way their ancestors lived 4-5 generations before. There was very little different in village life from one century to the next. That world is hard to imagine and hard to forget. It's over, it's vanished from our common experience, but I do not think it is gone from within us. There is some part of us that longs for the simplicity that enabled community and a part of us that requires it.

Oh for a home, a place, a position in the order of things in which I am needed, wanted, nurtured and loved. A place where I belong and fit. A place that is secure and not going anywhere anytime soon. Sounds boring to some but it sounds essential to me. In fact if we would look at America with an eye toward history we would find that some of the things Americans spend their time doing is done in an effort regain a lost world, in particular...community.

Let's consider athletics for a moment. Why do parents believe athletics are so important to their children's well-being today? Is it because they want their children to get college paid for through athletic scholarships? That is a drive of some for sure. Is it for the confidence it builds in children? That is also a driving force. How about health or sportsmanship or learning teamwork? Are these the root reasons for athletics? Would parents still involve their children in athletics if there was no hope of a scholarship, no obvious effect on their child's self esteem and little value to their physical health? I think so. I think so because the root reason for athletics boils down not to scholarships or confidence or health, but to community.

Why did I always feel a little lonely each time I drove by the droves of people at the Pop-Warner games on Sunday mornings on my way to church? It was because I wanted to be where the people were. I wanted to be a part. I wanted a place among the many. I wanted to be recognized as an important piece of the team puzzle. My greatest takeaway from all my years of athletics was not the coordinated ways I learned to use my body or the relative health I developed, but the deep camaraderie I formed with the other players. As teammates we saw each other everyday through the good semesters and the bad; when coach was even-headed and when he went bonkers. The championships we won meant so much because we won them together. I remember the 3 hour practices, broken bones, and sheer exhaustion on game days...but Oh it felt so good to be needed and to belong! It was all worth it. Parents are concerned today with involving their children in athletics and other extracurricular activities in a large part because they know those are some of the best potential places for their kids to find belonging.

Let's consider school also. Being homeschooling parents my wife and I hear all the time how skittish people are about homeschooling because of the social aspect of it. Parents want their children to socialize well and that is important. School is, for most parents, the place where their children learn the three R's but it is also the place where their children find belonging. Belonging has always been a by-product of groups of students learning together over a period of time but it has never been as important to parents as it is today. Some of our country's greatest leaders were home-schooled and it is doubtful their parents ever worried about their social life. Why? Because community existed outside of school in those days. Where in America today can a person gather with their neighbors 5 days a week, 6-8 hours a day for 12 straight years if not in school? Nowhere! Parents know and have experienced that once their children graduate high school they will never again find the depth of community they found between the ages of 6 and 18. For this reason many parents cannot imagine homeschooling their children even if the public schools imploded. Where else would their children find community?

The communal world has been lost...but it must be regained! I have run into so many people, especially elderly people, who were heavily involved in social organizations in the past but who find themselves without community in their final years. Why? Because in the end an organization is a false and short-lived form of community. Community is not something you go to or sign up for. Community is a way of life. 200 years ago community was a natural part of life. It was a communal world and one could not have escaped from it and lived long any more than one could have escaped from Earth and lived long.

Some see no logic in trying to regain the world we have lost. "We live in the 21st century" they say, "not the 16th". Granted. But what will be the long-term consequences of not regaining that way of life? Not agrarianism per se but communalism. What will be the consequences of prolonged isolation and extreme individualism? I do not believe it is a strong reach to see the connection between a loss of genuine community in early 19th century Europe and the rise of Psychiatry and Psychology as sciences. Is it any wonder that Psychiatry and Psychology first became independently studied sciences during this time? Aristotle didn't study Psychiatry. Roman philosophers did not take courses in Psychology. These sciences are new; as new as the Industrial Revolution. When the world entered the Industrial Revolution it set off such a huge social upheaval in the way people lived that many developed serious mental health problems that could no longer be consoled within the communal community. The communal community was disappearing. I have yet to meet a single individual today whose mental health problems could not be traced back to a breakdown in community at some point. Either the mini-community of the family has broken down or the larger group of families of which it is a part to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation.

My concern in this article is not to point the finger at others for their contribution to an unhealthy way of life, but to point to us, the church, for we are contributing no less to a loss of community in our nation than anyone else. Some churches have of course broken the mold but not many. We have adopted the same way of life as the rest of America even though we still wed before sex, avoid drunkenness, preach about righteousness and go to church regularly. Given all of that we are still just as void of community as anyone else and this creates a huge obstacle when it comes to making disciples.

A disciple of Christ outside of a community of Christ is as unhealthy and long-term detrimental to our faith as that of a baby outside of a family. Life cannot continue in any healthy way for a Christian unless he lives within community. I believe the church must take the lead in regaining the communal world we have lost because making disciples depends on it. Scripture confirms, "Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many...The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” (1 Cor.12:14, 21). The church is a body; we need each other.

But how to go about rebuilding genuine Christian community after it has been lost for so long is up for discussion. There is no easy answer. Understanding how we got here is the first part. Moving on to solid solutions is a difficult second. So that's what I would like to do here- contract this conversation out for discussion as to how we as the church can build genuine Christian community again. What do you think?

Day of Service Recap

July 25th was a full day of building life around Jesus in our community. My previous eNews talked about the push-back we were originally getting with this Day of Service both with the North Brunswick Senior Home and Oak Leaf Village Apartments. The actual Day of Service, however, was as if the authorities were pushing us forward not back.

In conjunction with the Cloverdale Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) we spent Wednesday morning cleaning the apartments of 9 senior citizens. Our 6 groups of servants cleaned windows, cleaned appliances, vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms, put together shelves and otherwise showed the love of Christ. Even the young ones served!

Those who finished inside assisted in landscaping outdoors, prepared for lunch or made cool gifts for the residents out of paper and other supplies.

Beginning at 11:30am the first of 65 residents began arriving for the cookout! Those residents who had been served in their homes came with smiles from ear to ear. They were so thankful for the help they had received.

Lunch was served by table and as you can see from the picture above, the young ones put their faith into practice as well. After lunch the kids sang three spiritual songs to the audience followed by a collective chorus of hymns from the adults. I closed with a vision message about our desire to see a whole community built around Jesus Christ again.

As the residents departed to their apartments we them say, "This was the best event we ever did here", "I'm gonna tell all my friends what you all did for us today", and "I am going to have to visit your church sometime". Even the Leasing Manager said to me, "This was really good. Very inspirational." One resident has joined us for church on Sundays for 3 straight weeks now. I have also been back to check on some of the residents we served; they invited me in like I was family.

More Favor From The Township!

On Wednesday of this week I met with Tom from the Township, the Leasing Manager (Jeanne) at the North Brunswick Senior Housing building, the Leasing Agent and the head maintenance guy to discuss the Day of Service we are performing on July 25th. Jeanne had not yet heard about the Day of Service happening in her building in exactly 2 weeks! We probably should have approached her first! For this reason our first order of business was to sell Jeanne on the idea.

At the beginning of the meeting Jeanne was showing an unfavorable-ness to what we were proposing. She mentioned a conflict of schedule with that date, was of the opinion that most residents, because they do not know us, “would not be up for having people in their apartments”, and overall seemed distrusting of our efforts. As I sat there I knew we did not have rapport with her yet and were up for a tough sell.

Noticing this aura of distrust exuding from Jeanne as the meeting pressed on, Tom chimed in with some powerful words that truly changed the course of the conversation. He said (paraphrasing here),

“Now I want you to know that the Brunswick Church of Christ has been an exceptional church in this town. We are not talking about allowing someone into the building whom we do not know. Carl the previous Pastor and now Shaun the current Pastor, and I hope you do not mind me bragging on the church a little Shaun, they have done a great deal for this town. The Oak Leaf Village Apartment complex is the eye sore of our town and for that reason many churches have stayed clear of it. But these guys have intentionally been there week in and week out holding Bible studies, getting to know the residents and baptizing people. What they are wanting to do here could have a ripple effect in that other churches might want to serve the residents here as well. For this reason I am of the opinion that we should give Shaun and the Brunswick Church of Christ our full support in this. I would like to see you guys promoting it to residents in the next 2 weeks to ensure that it is a success. It would be a shame to me if only a few residents took advantage of this Day of Service.”

I was taken back by Tom’s words and flattered for sure.

What happened next was transformational. All of a sudden in the next few minutes the skepticism went away. Jeanne made known her faith and involvement in the Presbyterian church and her church’s involvement with Habitat for Humanity. She began to throw out ideas on how to make this day a big deal for the residents. At one point Jeanne even said with excitement, “I got it; why don’t we call it “A Day of Faith” instead of “A Day of Service”? That’s what it is right; a day of sharing our faith through service?” Jeanne offered to print all the fliers on extra large-colored paper for us, distribute them under each person’s door on Friday, gave us her word that she and her staff would be strong promoters of the Day of Service from now till then and even rescheduled the fire inspections that were supposed to happen in the building that day.

What happened last was perhaps the greatest part of the meeting. As we finished up and were about to depart the room with our specific to do lists I asked, “Would you guys mind if we prayed about this opportunity together?” They agreed without hesitation. So there we were, the Leasing Manager, Leasing Agent, Township zoning authority, head of maintenance at NBSH and myself uniting in prayer about the many senior residents we were planning to serve in Jesus name.

Wow. I felt so taken back as we departed the meeting that I whispered to the Lord while chuckling to myself, “Lord, what just happened in there?” I felt so blessed by God! He had given me and His church so much favor. I believe God is teaching me, through incidents like these, that one of the keys to building Christ’s church in today’s day and time is each congregation’s long-term commitment to the physical and spiritual well-being of their community. It requires building rapport with community leaders over time such that people learn to trust you who once looked down on you with skepticism.

“Thank you Lord for Your continued favor upon us in North Brunswick!”

"Daddy, We Should Pray"

This past week I attended a week-long intensive class at Liberty University. Three years ago when I went down for a class the dormitories were open for visiting online students. This time, however, I had to go the hotel route. Since I needed a hotel anyway Marci and I thought it wise to make it a family trip where I would attend class all week and Marci and the kids would use the pool at the hotel, relax and otherwise peruse Lynchburg all day until I was finished in the evenings.

When we arrived at our hotel on Sunday evening at 11:30pm we had trouble finding the hotel. The GPS said we had reached our destination but all we could see was what our headlights illuminated- everything else was dark. Then I said to Marci, “Is that a building down there?” We took the entranceway down to our right and sure enough there was our hotel. The reason we could not see the hotel initially was because they were without power- along with 70% of the rest of Lynchburg we came to discover. Apparently recent storms had cause widespread outages.

We spoke to the attendant at the hotel who was sitting outside in the dark who informed us that they could not take any reservations even though we already had one; we were on our own. So at the top of the exit-way on what seemed like an abandoned road we stopped and talked about what to do. Marci scanned the GPS for nearby hotels within 10-20 miles and started calling. Every hotel that had power was completely booked. Turns out Lynchburg residents were taking up residence in local hotels until their power came back on. And I don’t blame them; no power is bad enough but no power with a heat index of 105˚ is a different story.

Perplexed by our unexpected turn of events and beginning to contemplate throwing in the towel and driving back home (7hrs mind you) my 6 year old son Mason peeps up to say, “Daddy, we should pray”. Thinking that was a brilliant idea I said, “You are right Mason; we should pray”, and we did.

One of the last hotels Marci called after we prayed was kind enough to inform us that the Thomas Road Baptist Church (Liberty University’s College Church) was providing a relief effort to any in need due to the power outages. So with no other options we headed on over to Thomas Road. When we arrived it became obvious that this congregation was doing a great deal to serve their community in a time of need. They warmly welcomed us at midnight, provided us drinks and food if we wanted to eat and then escorted the 5 of us to their gymnasium which was packed with families. They gave us blankets and mats and we fell asleep around 2:30am in a cool gymnasium with about 200 other people.

I got an early shower (about 5am) and a time to pray and ponder what the week might look like given our situation. We all walked to the church cafeteria at 7:30am where they served us a nice breakfast. As we finished our prayer together at the breakfast table thanking God for His provision overnight, a kind lady from the church approached our table and said, “I know you don’t know me from Adam and you may think this is kind of weird, but we heard you were Liberty students and we have power at our house. We live about 5 minutes from here. We have 2 extra bedrooms and a pool and you all are welcome to stay with us this week.” Wow. Wow was I thankful for this angelic messenger! I was most thankful because as I sat in the gymnasium the night before I could not help but say to myself over and over again, “How can I go to class tomorrow for 8 hours in an air conditioned room while my wife and children roam Lynchburg with no place to call home base? I can’t leave them to hang out in a gymnasium all day long when they don’t even know anyone.”

But now, by the grace of God through a Christ-like servant my concerns were relieved. We had a home, a pool, home-cooked meals and genuine spiritual conversation the rest of the week.

Praise God for His timely care for His children. Praise God that He gives us exactly what we need exactly when we need it. And praise God for my little boy Mason who knows an important part of what it means to build life around Jesus; “Daddy, we should pray”.

Looking More and More Like Community Everyday!

Our vision at BCC is to see a whole community united to build life around Jesus. Not united around our careers. Not united around our families. Not united around our hobbies. United to build life around Jesus.

As I discussed in our 5 part video series, community in America has been lost. Not overnight for sure but over time, and it is the challenge of the modern-day church to build community again- around Jesus.

It is my strong belief that the Holy Spirit is so often hindered from working among us today because of the way we live as Christians. We have adopted the American way of life just as much as anyone. We live isolated. We live exclusively independently not interdependently. We live out our Christian lives, but not together. We are individuals who inhabit buildings on Sundays, but we are generally not community. We are rarely community in the sense that the early church was community and we are rarely community in the same way the early Americans were community.

When we do not live communally the fruits of the Spirit have trouble growing. If I do not have a close body of people I can express love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to- regularly- my fruit (good works) lose their power to impact others and the world around. That's the importance of a becoming a "city on a hill" not a "person on a hill" (see related blog post)

To rebuild community once it has been lost is difficult, but it is happening!

This past Sunday a woman approached me at church about whether I thought giving a monetary donation to a certain individual would be a good use of her money. She wanted to know if this person had been stewarding well what little he did have.

I assured her that I had confidence that he was stewarding well his finances. She proceeded to write a check to the church on behalf of this member and asked me if I could work out getting the money to him. I said "surely".

That evening after church as I was getting ready for bed I pulled out the check she had given me and about fell over. $1,000!

What awesome news I got to deliver on Monday morning to this struggling member. I think he almost had a heart attack when I told him how much another member of the church gave to him. He could not find the words to express his gratefulness to his anonymous giver.

Praise the Lord when the church acts like the church of Christ! Praise the Lord when the church fights to become community again! Though I see many ways in which BCC can grow to become more of what Christ intends us to be, I do believe we are looking more and more like genuine community everyday.

I believe the Holy Spirit worked on Sunday night and Monday and I am almost certain word has spread since then.

You can build Christ's Christian community again too. In fact if you are a Christian then that is your commission. Christ builds His church (Mt.16:16) but He has enlisted us to help. Building Christ's church starts by having the right vision for His church. If our vision for Christ's church is an exciting Sunday gathering then an exciting Sunday gathering is all it may become. But if our vision for Christ's church is the vision of the church we read about in the New Testament, then we will become more and more like that church even in the midst of all of our technological advances.

So first get the proper vision. Then team with other Christians of like mind to begin living out that vision incarnationally.

A New Church Forming At The Motel?

I think I have mentioned what is happening at the Farrington Inn in nearly every eNews I have sent in the past 6 months. But I must speak about it again; cool things are happening there!

This past week Reneh, Bruce, Joann and I sat in a circle, Bruce and Joann on the door step facing the street, Reneh and I in chairs on the sidewalk. We began our time together by asking what was new with everyone. “How’s the job search going? How are you feeling? How’s your family doing?” Our time is at ease. No rush. No time limit I have to be gone by, generally. We sit. We talk. We then get to the chosen passage for the day. Last week it was John 8- Jesus with the adulterous woman.

Great conversation ensued from here: “Where’s the adulterous guy in all of this?!” “Do you think she ever returned to her adultery after she met Jesus?” “What’s the best way to respond to grace?” “Are you anything like this woman…the Pharisees?” It was a great conversation.

Then came the off topic questions which can be expected from beginners to the Bible. I try to handle them briefly. I try not to dive into new topics quickly. Their questions are good and they inform me of what is really going on inside of them. But I have learned that it does no good to talk much about Avenue Q until you have driven on Avenues A-P first. “I heard the Bible says women are unclean when they have their period. It’s not their fault. What’s up with that?” “Whoa!” I said to myself, another day, another time! You can imagine how confusing that conversation might be if I tried to answer it. It was humorous!

But then came the best part of the day. Our discussion was through. Our hearts were lifted with thoughts of Jesus and I asked what we could pray about together. Reneh shared. Bruce shared. Joann shared. I even shared. Then as Joann was sharing her struggles Bruce offered comfort. Reneh offered understanding. I listened. Voicing the difficultly of having absolutely no family around Bruce replied to Joann, “Well you got us”. Joann leaned her head toward Bruce and innocently kissed his shoulder as if to say, “Thank you, I know”. Then we prayed.

I left there last Thursday thinking, “Once they decide to marry Jesus in baptism we have a new church at the motel! Praise the Lord. It’s a church that shares together, prays together, cries together, reads God’s Word together and together watches the Lord move among them and reach others.”

I am learning that this group at the motel may never attend BCC’s Sunday gatherings (although I desire they do, and keep inviting!). But they can still be the church together, where they are, under proper shepherding and move on from their temporary residences to build life around Jesus with other Christians.

Please continue to pray for this small group of people residing in a motel. May they choose Jesus soon.

Shaun

Are We Better At Brotherly Love Than Drinking Buddies?

This past weekend I attended the funeral of an uncle of mine in NH. Funerals are always sad but this funeral was particularly sad because of the age of my uncle; he was 56.

Performing the funeral gave me opportunity to visit with various family members and friends the day before the service. It was really enjoyable to sit with people and listen to their stories of my late uncle. The most enlightening conversation I had was with a friend of my uncle’s whom I will call Steve. Steve knew my uncle for most of his life. They grew up together. They would hang out every weekend. In the last year of my uncle’s life they lived within walking distance of one another and saw each other nearly every day. As we stood in Steve’s garage reminiscing about the past Steve said of my uncle, “He was the only man outside of my family whom I loved.” It reminded me of what Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.

My uncle had 3 friends in particular who were as close to him as brothers. Most of their time, I must admit, was spent drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, but they were by no means always drunk when together. Drinking and smoking was simply what they did to pass the time away. But ever since the funeral I have wondered how many Christians have the depth of friendship together that I learned my uncle had with his 3 drinking buddies? While it is true that people should look at the relationships of a Christian and say, “I want what he has”, the reality is that many Christians today would look at the friendships my uncle had and say, “I want what he had”. My uncle had a connection with his friends I rarely see today, especially among Christian men.

With the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of us Christians ought to be able to take brotherly love to a whole new dimension. We ought to have a level of love flowing among ourselves that finds no secular counterpart. Imagine the depth of friendship my uncle could have had with his friends if the Holy Spirit were present. Imagine how much further brotherly love could have gone if each friend was personally committed to imitating Jesus Christ in their lives. I believe the level of love possible when Christ is at the center of relationships is to a degree most of us are unaware- especially today.

What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when Jesus sat down to commune with His disciples on the night he was betrayed by Judas. What level of love would I have seen? What display of brotherly love would I have been privy to? During their supper John asked Jesus a personal question. The Scriptures say, “Then, leaning back on Jesus’ breast, he said to Him, “Lord, who is it?” (Jn.13:25). “Leaning back on Jesus’ breast”? What was going on here? We can be assured nothing of an impure nature was taking place in this scene. Instead, the depth of brotherly love between Jesus and His disciples was such that embracing each other was natural. For most Christians today brotherly love to this degree is not natural, would you agree?

The sad thing is that it was probably more natural for my uncle to embrace his friends in this manner, with a beer and a cigarette in hand, than for Christian brothers to embrace one another with a Bible in hand today. But why?

Well very simply we do not give the Holy Spirit opportunity to grow such love among us. We are not involved in each other’s lives daily as my uncle was with his friends. Our Christian brothers and sisters are not the people we live out our Christian lives with; they are acquaintances; people we see once a week; people we have 5 minute conversations with; people we know of not about. My uncle’s friends, on the other hand, were people who could come over unannounced and feel like they could stay forever. You really miss those kind of friends when they’re gone.

I come back from a sad funeral convicted that if we want the Holy Spirit to be alive in our churches we had better allow Him to grow brotherly love among us. This cannot happen at “church”; it must happen at every other time and be brought into the “church”. I want to be a part of a congregation where the Holy Spirit radiates out of our community like static on a child’s head down the slide (there’ s a visual for you). And so in an effort to build this type of church I will

• Make time for people
• Come over ‘just because’
• Invite you over ‘just because’
• Buy you coffee
• Paint your deck with you
• Call you just to say hi
• Laugh with you
• Cry with you
• Let you borrow my car and not demand gas money
• See you more face-to-face than on facebook
• In short I will consider my Christian brother better than myself

So what will you do?

A City on a Hill not a Person on a Hill

John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, gave a sermon to his congregation of settlers aboard the ship Arbella in AD 1630 from the shores of England. His “City on a Hill” sermon has been quoted by Presidential candidates and called the greatest sermon of the past 1,000 years. In that sermon Winthrop spoke a great deal about the need for a fervent application of brotherly love. He said things like this:

“That which most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another burdens. We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren”.

He spoke of avoiding shipwreck by following the council of Micah “to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God…to be knit together as one man…to delight in each other”.

On and on Winthrop went with the call to brotherly love, self-denial, making other’s conditions our own conditions. This was perhaps the most needed message for these settlers because they were about to spend 3 months together on a ship in terribly claustrophobic conditions. No showers. No private suites. No cry rooms. Probably only a personal bucket for a bathroom which they would then toss overboard and store away for later. If they made it through this claustrophobic journey alive they would live together 24/7- helping one another build homes, clear the land, hunt for game, plant crops, fight off Indians, birth babies, bury dead and in every way worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

It goes without saying that if the church in this context would not put their faith fully into practice by loving their neighbors completely as they love themselves, their community would have dissolved into discord. And many such communities did.

Brotherly love for this Massachusetts Bay Colony, and many others like it, was not just a nice thing to have…it was an essential ingredient to survival. Without it the whole experiment would have been shipwrecked. Brotherly love would also be the very element necessary to make their colony a “city on a hill” to the rest of the world and certainly the reason Winthrop emphasized it so.

When we read Matthew 5:14-16 today I fear we read it differently than Jesus intended it. When I have read it in the past I imagined Jesus saying, "Shaun you are a light to the world." "Shaun you are a city on a hill." "Shaun you are a candle on a stick that people put up high to give light to others." Although there is a sense in which Jesus' words apply to me individually, the fact is Jesus' words are best understood communally.

The church is supposed to be a "city on a hill" not a person on a hill. A city on a hill is made up of individuals for sure, but if I am on that hill alone by myself I am no light to the world. If we are all up there together fervently applying brotherly love, however, then we shall shine!

I extend my appreciation again to the Brunswick Church of Christ for being the best "city on a hill" I have ever been a part of. Praise God. I will continue to challenge us to become so more and more.

What I Hear Christians Saying

My wife had two friends over tonight for some genuine conversation and crafting. I carted the kids around with me to karate and then to meet briefly with another brother in Christ. The kids and I arrived home around 7:30pm and I had them pretty well settled in bed by 8:30. While upstairs I heard bits and pieces of the conversation happening downstairs amongst the ladies. The conversation, I must say, sounded all too familiar: "I don't feel connected there". "I just want some genuine friends for myself and my kids". "We go there but we do not really know anybody". They were speaking of their individual churches.

So many Christians, I have found, are involved in churches but have no genuine friends within them. So many people go to church, appear to leave filled, but do not experience any semblance of genuine Christian community in their lives. Our churches preach the "correct doctrine"; we give people positive next-steps for individual spiritual growth; we even offer a plethora of support groups and Bible study groups for seekers, new believers and the aged. But the utopian ideals of the old Puritan, New England small-town, the ideals so prominent in the first churches of Christ we see in the NT, are so far removed from our experience.

I am hearing Christians say they want to live within a genuine Christian community. They want to know people and to be known. They want their children to grow up with life-long friends. They want to live in the times when everyone harvested their crops and brought them to the center of town where the elders of the church divided up the food to each as had need. But the reality is that the way we currently live will never accomplish what we say we want to experience. We must make changes in the very pattern of our lives if genuine Christian community will ever surface for us.

Christians today are facing the same challenges Christians in America have faced for centuries. They are trying to live between two opposing worlds. Page Smith, an author and professor of  Emeritus at the University of California, wrote,

"Here again we have tried to trace what was to be, in many ways, the most profound and enduring split in the collective American psyche: equality (the single-minded pursuit of happiness-money), which also called itself by other names such as individualism, free enterprise, and so on; and community, which denigrated materialism and struggled valiantly to establish or reestablish true communities. In a sense, there could be no genuine reconciliation between those two American dreams" (Smith, 1980, p.48).

Smith said that Americans have tried, vainly, to reconcile individualism (equality, free-enterprise, etc.) with true community. American history has shown that as our wealth increases our experience of community decreases. The less we have the more we need each other and the more we have the less need we have of each other. The same can be said of our faith; The more we have the less we think we need Jesus and the less we have the more aware we are of our need for Jesus.

I want to know...is there a way to live in prosperity but not grow spiritually and relationally impoverished? I am hearing Christians say they want to. They say they want both. But history has proved it unachievable. The solution then? According to Smith (1980) the solution has been to "give money away". "Americans", said Smith, "were almost as ingenious in discovering new ways of giving money away as they were in making it...In time Americans became better at doing that than any other people in the world" (p.46).

I want to propose today that if we really want to experience genuine Christian community and not just 'go to church' we have got to become expert philanthropists. We have got to let go of the money the Lord has given us so that others in the church can live thereby. We have got to choose to live communally such that what the Lord has given me I loose for the sake of others. We must live by this truth: The Lord gave to me so that I can give to others. This was how the earliest church lived. They lived communally. "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had" (Acts 4:32).

To the praise of God I am happy to say that over the past 8 years at BCC I have seen members of our congregation live communally. I have been blessed to be able to walk beside people who made a decision to build their lives around Jesus Christ. These people decided that what the Lord had given them was equally mine if I needed it. I am hearing Christians say they want to live in genuine Christian community- to do this, however, requires us to stop chasing the other, bankrupt, American dream- properity, wealth, money. We cannot have both.

Fred Baptized! Now he begins to build his life around Jesus.

Hey all,

This was an exciting evening on Wednesday. I just met Fred last week through another brother in Christ who met him on the bus. Fred, myself and my friend talked for a while on Tuesday night. I got to know him. Asked a lot of questions. Shared the scriptures together. Slept on it, and then he decided he was truly serious about the decision to marry Jesus.

God had been working in Fred's life far before myself or my friend met him. Fred was ready to surrender. I didn't have to do much convincing. He just needed some direction on how to turn around and come home the to Father.

Now that he has been baptized the really exciting part begins: watching the Holy Spirit build Fred's life around Jesus.

Rejoicing over one soul who repented,

Shaun