September 10, 2005

  • I'm feeling a little blah right now. Not sure why. So here's some random thoughts...

    Mike did an incredible job on a 9/11 powerpoint to go along with the Natalie Grant song HELD for this Sunday's service. It was seriously SO moving. And, of course, we'll have a live soloist and orchestra (complete with strings w/parts I wrote this week). I'm actually REALLY looking forward to it.

    I held the iPod Nano. It is phenomenally small and compact. It's incredible. Apple has outdone themselves again. The days of the corporate giant Microsoft are over, and Apple is rapidly gaining more and more market share with their corner on the digital music market. There is none like iPod, and Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) continues to outdo himself everytime.

    Oh yeah, there is a Harry Potter iPod here...Check it out.

    I went on a wonderful date with my wife last night. We usually have a date night every week, but for some reason we haven't been out in a while, so it was really fun. Ya know, classic dinner and a movie. There's nothing out right now, but we hadn't seen Wedding Crashers yet, so we went to see that. Although it was admittedly quite funny, it was also disturbingly dirty. I don't want to be one of those people that rants and raves about how our world is going down the toilet, etc. etc. but I was a little suprised. It was similar to how I felt about the movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which we walked out on because it was so disgusting-yet quite funny in the parts that we saw.

    I guess I'm not that shocked at how crass these movies were, what I'm more disturbed by is the fact that this is the stuff that everyone loves right now. Wedding Crashers was the summer's #1 comedy, grossing quite a bit at the box office. 40-year-old Virgin is not doing so badly either, and the audiences we saw these movies with were cracking up ALL OVER THE PLACE. So I'm feeling a bit removed from the world right now, and I guess I'm more disturbed by THAT FACT than the fact that these movies were gross and inappropriate. I'm more disturbed that I can't figure out how the church is going to reach these people for Christ, because it seems like to them, we're SO out-of-date.

    Believe me, I'm not saying the church needs to become more like a summer blockbuster-comedy. All I'm saying is that my heart breaks for the people around me, and I'm frustrated that I don't know how to reach them. It is creating quite the tension in my life right now. I'm trying to reach the lost, and I don't feel like I'm doing a great job reaching the people in my own congregation.

    I guess that's why I'm feeling a little bit blah. I'm caught in this place where I'm not sure where God is taking me in my Christian walk, and it's frightening me. I want what's next for me, but I don't know what God wants FROM me. So I wait, and listen...

Comments (7)

  • I think that when Paul looked around he saw the same differences in His day. I think that the fight for the church to become more relevant is historical and I think that it can't happen. Christ affects the heart. Not the brain. Movies affect the brain, most often they do not do anything to the heart. Once someone is introduced to Christ, in the life transformation, Christ and the things of Christ become totally relevant and it is amazing. I love watching the process.

    I wish more people's hearts broke for the lost the way yours does.

  • I do so totally know how you feel.  All I can say is that God sees the bigger picture that we only see in part.  Never underestimate what even ONE small act can accomplish for Christ in a multitiude of sinners.  Remember the little boy who gave Jesus his lunch and fed THOUSANDS?  I have not told you this, Daniel, but I want you to know that you have GREATLY ministered to me.  I know I'm not the big congregation--I'm not even in there most of the time because I'm in the nursery, or Kidventure, or trying to find a place for Shawn to get some "church", or somewhere--but you have shared Christ with me and with some of my neighbors and I think you are doing so much!  Thank you, brother! 

  • I think that when Paul looked around he saw the same differences in His day. I think that the fight for the church to become more relevant is historical and I think that it can't happen. Christ affects the heart. Not the brain. Movies affect the brain, most often they do not do anything to the heart. Once someone is introduced to Christ, in the life transformation, Christ and the things of Christ become totally relevant and it is amazing. I love watching the process.

    I understand the point you're trying to make, Donna, but I think I disagree with you.

    God commands us to love him not only with all of our heart but with all of our mind (and soul and strength). They are all imortant to him - and why not? He created us to be multi-dimensional beings and he wants all of us, not just the heart. We worship him in all of those ways. Why can not all of those ways, then, be used to draw others to him?

    I think the issue of relevance in culture is extremely important. It is a foolish church that believes it can just conduct itself as it sees fit - according to the tastes, preferences, and comfort levels of the pastor or the congregation - and that the lost around it will automatically be drawn. It just is not going to happen. Of course, God is the God of the miraculous and He could convievably do anything. But barring a miracle the average person is not going to be interested in a church that only sings John Wesley's hymns with a pipe organ and has a pastor how rants and raves about the evils of playing cards (or insert any other dated example of church behavior and practice here). People want truth - there is a God-shaped hole in all of us - but at the same time they're still PEOPLE and they are drawn to the familiar and the comfortable.

    It should not be the church's practice, then, to put up stumbling blocks between the Gospel and the lost. In other words, relevance is not only important but our duty, I believe. You brought up Paul, and that is the perfect example. Paul strove to become all things to all people. He used philosophy when the audience he was speaking to was sympathetic towards the philosophers. He emphasized his Jewish roots when he was speaking to a Jewish audience. He understood the importance of relevance and coming to the lost at their level and in their comfort zone. That does not mean, of course, that the Truth is compromised in the delivery. But we are foolish to expect the lost to conform to our delivery preference just because it is our preference.

    The Truth about God is unchanging. It is a stupid church and Christian who tries to change it. But I think it's part of being wise as serpents (I think that's what the verse said, off the top of my head) when we can present that unchanging Truth to the lost in a way that will interest them, draw them in, and hit them where they live.

  • Be still and know that I am God....I'm with ya on that one!  And I must say I totally agree with Mike...wow did I just say that...j/k!  May we all wait upon the Lord's leading as we continue to reach out to those in need of Christ. 

  • Did some research. Trying to figure out the date of last game you won of nertz. It was sometime in May, I think, from what I can tell. Christy last one on May 15. And, if memory serves, I think you won again after that at some point. I mean, you must have, right? But in June I was winning, starting my streak that Melody arrived on, when we tied for the win. So from what I can tell your last victory was sometime in late May or, at the latest, early June. I must not have blogged about that game, though, and neither did you, so I can't find an exact date. 

    Here's the blog entry I made for when Suzie played no cards in the entire hand:
    http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=MikeknaJ&tab=weblogs&uid=120665784

  • Wow, you really put into words the way I feel a lot of the time.  I guess it's at that point that I can fall into a depression or when anger flares up because instead of getting down and praying on my knees I focus on the world and my weaknesses and it all seems so overwhelming.  When I purposefully do as you are doing....pray and seek Him in His Word, then I have an inexplicable anticipation knowing that God has a Plan and I can't wait to see it unfold!

  • Glad I'm not the only one...

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