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The Kingdom of Soup

Published September 26th, 2008 in All of Frank's Articles, Ancient, Modern, Truth | 5 Comments »

soupEASY AS SOUP
It’s pretty easy to find a church that has a soup kitchen, a church that puts its money where the hungry people’s mouth is. It just as easy to find a church that believes and teaches the Bible like it matters, as the real word of GOD, a church that reaches out with the good news to people who need to hear it. What’s not so easy is to find is a church that does both.

The church with the soup kitchen, too many times, has lost her faith, although she serves the poor (like the church should) she does not believe or teach the word of God, or reach out with the Gospel to the people who desperately need to hear it. On the other hand, the church that believes and teaches the Bible, willing to share the saving truth of the Gospel at every opportunity, well sometimes they forget to read the verses that talk about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the lonely (Jesus had some pretty hard words for them).

So what do you want; Soup, but no faith? Or, faith, but no soup?
(Faith without soup is dead. Soup without faith is evil.)

NOW, NOT YET
Jesus came to Earth and established His kingdom. He talked about it all the time. The kingdom of heaven is now. Now, but not yet. It is here in its beginnings and purpose, but not complete in its fulfillment and final glory. In the kingdom of Heaven Jesus offers mankind forgiveness of sin and restored fellowship with God. (These are two pretty awesome things, they change everything!) When we receive this truth we begin to live our lives as citizens of His kingdom. We begin to live our lives as Christians, as the church. We begin to do the work of the church. However, as we do the work of the church we immediately notice that evil is not yet put down, evil is all around us.

THINK OF IT LIKE A WAR VICTORY
The battle has already been won, it was won on the cross and in rising from the grave. The King has resumed His throne and His reign has been established. We (the church) have been sent out all over the kingdom (the whole world) to tell people about the newly established King. There are smoking remains from the battle that has been won, there are enemies hiding in foxholes, there are hidden land-mines, there are people to rescue, there are battalions of soldiers in need of medical help and supplies, and there are multitudes of citizens who do not know about the new King and the new kingdom.

This is the work of the church. It is the work of all who are faithful citizens of the kingdom of heaven. We are to tell the world about Jesus, meet the needs of the people God puts along our way, and fight the evil and the darkness wherever it can be found.

Wherever it can be found.

So, God is good and God is in control. The kingdom of Heaven is now, but it is not yet. We are the church and we have work to do.

Anyone know a good recipe for soup?

Chosen

Published September 23rd, 2008 in All of Doug's Articles, Ancient, Truth | No Comments »

genesis-michaelangelo.jpgIn the newspaper today I read a comment from a man who had lost everything to hurricane Ike.  He said, “How can you pray to something that allows this?”.  Its a good question and one which deserves a better answer than Christian’s often give.  Is God the god of suffering and chaos or is he the God of love that he says he is?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  

From the perspective of the Christian this is the wrong question to ask.  The better question is, why does anything good happen?  Why, in a world of occasional random destruction and bad people, does any good thing happen at all?  Now, there is a question that deserves an answer.  We find the answer in the book of Genesis. 

In the bible good things happen in a bad world because God’s response to chaos and tragedy is to restore his created order.  In the story of the flood we found the beginnings of covenant.  We saw that this means God binds himself to Noah and promises him an outcome far beyond his imagining.  Furthermore, God’s promise is unconditional.  God will make it happen – it won’t depend on Noah.  So, the creation is saved – Noah and the animals – from the tragedy that mankind would have brought upon it.  Good things happened to the creation because God chose to make it happen.  The same thing happens in the story of Abram.  It is the same story, different chapter.  Again God remembers his covenant, he calls to mind the promise made, and goes about making it happen. 

 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty ; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”  3Abram fell face-down, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram ; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  

How God makes things happen is by making a positive choice to bless the world through the descendants of Abram.  It is tempting in our very self centered world to see the bible as a story of the choices - good and bad - of individual human beings.  So, in the last days of Jesus we might think the drama comes in the choices of the characters.  In other words the story is driven along by, for example, the betrayal of Peter and the faithfulness of John.  What is important is how we choose to respond to Jesus.  But this is wrong.  When you look at the New Testament while standing on the Old you see that God makes a choice and decides that one will bring blessing to many and it is GOD’s CHOICE to do so.  What the Old Testament is able to show us is that our little choice for Jesus is only is strong as His great choice for us.  The story of Abram reminds us that everything we have in our faith is based at its very heart on a choice that God made for us. 

Christus pro nobus!

Why Do We Play “Secular” Music in Church?

Published September 4th, 2008 in All of Frank's Articles, Ancient, Modern, Sound, Truth | 14 Comments »

zeusDEVIL MUSIC?
What’s the deal with CrossPoint?  On most Sunday mornings the band fires up some ungodly, un-spiritual, secular radio song right before the preaching of God’s Word.  Why on earth is that a good idea?  Shouldn’t God’s Word be set up with the most sacred, religious, pure and holy music that we can imagine?  Isn’t listening to secular music a sin?  I mean, I smashed or burned all of my Ted Nugent records at youth retreat in 1982.  Don’t you guys know that God’s House is not the place for that kind of nonsense?  Does Bob Larson need to play more records backwards for you?

It occurred to me that some people may be asking these kind of questions when they see that we often play songs by all sorts of pagans during our Sunday service.  Since I have been the worship leader at CrossPoint we have played songs by  Kansas, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Good Charlotte, Coldplay, KISS, Linkin Park, Talking Heads, The Who, Madonna, Rare Earth, Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, Sevendust, Beatles, David Matthews, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Lenny Kravitz, Bob Marley, Kool & The Gang, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Tom Waits, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Blind Faith, Seal, The Cure, and honestly, we’re are likely to play a song by just about anyone.  I’m certainly not saying that all of those artists are rank pagans, because I don’t know any of them, but I am saying that their music is not usually thought of as sacred (or church music).  We tend to play these songs just before the sermon.  It sets the tone, introduces the topic, and gives an emotional and cultural touch-point for what is going to be talked about.

THAT’S NOT RIGHT!
There have certainly been people who are critical of this practice, but I believe their criticism is contrary to biblical teaching.  They would say that entertainment has no place in worship, and the music/lyrics of the  ungodly should not be used in holy worship.  One Christmas I received an Email from a very angry member of the congregation because we played John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas.”  She reminded me that John Lennon was an outspoken atheist, so his music was “not at all” fitting for a church service.  Imagine that.

WESTERN SOUNDTRACK
In the Western culture there are many works of music that “most of us” are familiar with.  We have heard them on the radio, on T.V., at the mall, in the grocery store, during football games, at the park, in movies, etc.  The soundtrack of Western Civilization includes many pagan artists that have become part of our cultural make-up.  I pull from this lexicon of popular music to find common ground with our audience.  If we are teaching on grace, I will search for a song that illustrates grace in either a positive or negative way.  Sometimes music can reach deep into us, places that logic can’t touch, places of deep memories and nostalgia.  Maybe the song will open our hearts in a way that some other sermon illustration wouldn’t.  Maybe it will open the door for a conversation at work during the next week, “You’ll never believe what song they played at my church this week!”

I’M GONNA NEED A VERSE!
St Paul certainly knew the value of using popular artists of his day to teach and preach.  He must have been a fan of Greek and Roman pagan poetry and philosophy (the secular rock stars of his day), because he used direct quotes from Hymns to Zeus in his sermons and in his epistles that make up the New Testament.  There are three famous quotes of pagan poets in the New Testament by St Paul, first the pagan philosopher/poet/mystic Epimenides in Titus 1: 12 when he says “Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”  The second is when Paul is speaking at the Areopagus (in Acts) and quotes Cleanthes (from The Phoenomena of Aratus) saying that their native poets had said, “For we are also his offspring.” And, the third is in his writing to the Corinthians where he writes, “Evil communications corrupt good manners” or “Evil associations destroy excellent characters” from a tragedy of Euripides.  These quotations were from popular hymns to Zeus that would have been as common to a Greek audience as the Beatles would be to us today.  These are not the only times in the Bible that the words of pagans were used by God to teach something true.  Evil men speaking evil words (untrue words)  and then God’s people using those words to say something right and true.  God is constantly doing this.  He is doing it right now, to a much lessor extent, through me.  (ahem)

KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!
You may be wondering why I put the word secular in quotes (up there, in the title).  The reason is because I don’t think anything is truly secular.  St Paul was pretty fond of quoting another popular poet, too, his name was David, and David said “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” in Psalm 24:1 (Paul quoted this in 1 Corinthians 10:26).  I take this to mean that some things might not be specifically “sacred” but that doesn’t mean that they are evil.  There is not a good team (God, the angels and the church) and a bad team (the Devil, his demons, rock stars and politicians) with secular things belonging to the bad team.  Next week at CrossPoint we going to be talking about how we must teach our children to honor their bodies and maintain sexual purity as part of a series on Biblical parenting.  So my job is to find a song that will remind us of this and set up the tone for the sermon.  Do you remember the Georgia Satellites?  “No huggie, no kissie, until I get a wedding ring!”  (See how this works?)

Bible Study - Deluge

Published August 16th, 2008 in All of Doug's Articles, Ancient, Truth | 1 Comment »

genesis-michaelangelo.jpgEvery time someone talks to me about how bad our world is I point them to two places that have served to give me some perspective.  One place is the books of Charles Dickens within which the upright and self righteous Victorians are revealed as cruel and ambivalent towards the great suffering of many on their doorsteps.  The other book I point people to is a short book of George Orwell’s letters written from England to a friend in America during the second world war.  We look around today and indeed we mourn the dead of Iraq and Afghanistan but still nothing we face fills us with the apprehension that pervades Orwell’s letters.  In the letters Orwell is not fearful but the uncertainty of the outcome haunts every word.  When we watch “Saving Private Ryan” it is from the perspective of knowing the good guys win - Orwell did not know the future but could only hope that right would prevail.  It was not a happy time.

So the world is not necesserily worse than yesterday but it is, it seems, unrelentingly bad.  Something at the core of the world pulls it back again and again towards the evil action or the cruel work. 

That world is the world of Noah.  It is the world God looks at and says enough! 

17I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark. 

I can tell you now that I will not do justice to the story of Noah.  In words the story of Noah and the ark is about the same length as the story of the creation.  Strange to think that Moses in writing the early bible spent as much time on Noah as Adam and Eve.  So I will not do the story justice but I will ask you to think over just a couple of quick points.

First, the story here should convince us of God’s intention to forever have a relationship with mankind.  Even in the face of ultimate judgement God searches out the few, those who have not bowed the knee, and saves them by his specific and all powerful act.  The deluge overwhelms the world but a few are chosen to keep the secret of God’s ultimate purpose.  This thought has comforted Christians for centuries and it has provided for Christian communities a purpose for their existence.  We often over complicate our Christian purpose - even at Crosspoint.  What the story of the flood tells us is that wherever we are we are called to be those few who honor God and who bear witness to Him in the world in whatever community we are placed within.  Everything else is just stuff that gets in the way.

Second, God makes his covenant with Noah.  This theme we will return to for no other reason that the bible again and again returns to this theme.  The promise God made to Noah, his covenant, was to save him from the deluge and establish his family on the other side of the flood.  How this covenant of salvation works is of course wholly at God’s prerogative, completely an act of his will.  God chooses the family he wants to bear witness too him.  He then gives them the means of their protection and finally establishes them in posterity.  God’s covenant is consecrated in God’s mighty acts.  As I said in my last post God’s covenant is a bit like him taking out a mortgage for us and on top of that making the payments on our behalf.  That is both humbling and encouraging at the same time.   The story of the ark is just one of these payments.

Oh, and a third thought occurs to me.  Why are the animals in the ark?  Because somehow, even if we are obviously at the head of creation, the creation is not the creation without those creatures.  I think this detail is important.  We are tempted to see the relationship we have with God in metaphysical terms, like it exists only in our head.  But this story seems to tell us that we need land and animals to really be at one with God.  We need the creation - in its entirety -to know and understand the creator.

The story ends with God communicating again that he will establish his covenant with the whole of creation.  This act of ultimate judgement would never again happen.

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

 17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Every time I see a rainbow I think of God’s promise and the days I will spend in heaven - we live for ever after the deluge.

The Metaphor of Worship

Published August 8th, 2008 in All of Frank's Articles, Ancient, Sound, Truth | 1 Comment »

bowingThere is a lot of talk about worship. What kind of music should be played, what form and style of service is best suited for the church, what is best pleasing to God, and what is best pleasing to us. We confuse the idea of worship with singing, and we turn the focus of our attention to our preferences and what is pleasing to us. We define and re-define worship to accommodate ourselves.  (more…)

The Kingdom of Chocolate Cream

Published August 2nd, 2008 in All of Frank's Articles, Ancient, Truth | 1 Comment »

chocolateThe Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who has a strange fruit tree in his yard. When he was given the land by his father he was warned to leave the tree alone or it would overgrow the whole garden. The man lived there alone for a while, but he was lonely, so he fell in love and was married to a beautiful woman.

It just so happens that a black hearted dragon lived next door, and he liked to look over the fence and talk to the man’s pretty young wife. One day the dragon asked the woman about the strange fruit tree.

“Have you ever made a pie from the tree in the middle of the garden?” the dragon asked.

“No, my husband thinks the fruit is poison,” answered the woman.

“Nah! He must be one of those kooky food nuts. You should try it, it tastes like chocolate cream. He probably just doesn’t want you to get fat.” (The dragon said this, but everyone knows you shouldn’t trust a dragon.)  (more…)

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