connect

not that U2 has all the answers but as i thought about the disconnect between the church and the world but as this song played "randomly" on my ipod last week i thought atleast they have one. grace was first given to us as something we do not and will never deserve. how we are horrible sinful and fallen and do not deserve anything. but for some reason we were given grace. there is a way out of all the shame, guilt and horrible things that we have done. but yet as much as we, the church, have been forgiven we forget to to give grace ourselves. instead we look at others and condemn them because of the past and maybe even present.

i went home on vacation a while ago and one of my friends played a special music on his guitar at church. he introduced it as as a song that whenever he got down on himself, felt guilty about all the things he had done he goes back to this song. it is titled "what can wash my sins away?" i always go back to that moment when i saw him and remember that song. all these people who feel lost and all they need is Jeses to wash their sins away. it is not something they could do or they would have done it already.

i think this is why it is important for us to have relationships with a variety of people. whether religion or race, sex or age, poor or rich, it helps us to understand others. to see where everybody is coming from. and having these relationships without a hiiden agenda of, i am going to win these people to the Lord. but rather approaching it out of love for everybody. anyways the song i listened to was grace by U2. here are those lyrics.



"Grace" by U2

Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that could change the world
And when she walks on the street you can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma, karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work you can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flue for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark no longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace finds goodness in everything

disconnect

yesterday in sunday school our teacher posed a question, "is it okay for those outside of the church to judge those within the church?" quite an interesting question. one that i have thought about a few different times but really havent blogged on. so here are my thoughts. and i hope to have the 2 people that might actually read this to answer the question as well.

the question was posed with a couple scenarios. the first being about a woman who was reading her bible during a break at work. she is an unbeliever and was taking a business class at iwu that required a bible study. so she was doing the class work and enter in three people who she knew went to church and were believers of Christ. this was their response. "what are you doing reading the bible? you are too unholy to be reading that."

we as christians judge the world. we look at them and say they should not be doing that. or we might even tell ourselves that we will witness to this person because they would make a good christian. i am not sure how we have gotten to this place but i know it is not a place where the church should be. why would someone come to the church when they feel judged, or they will never measure up because they have messed up so much. why would they want to follow Christ when there only representation of Christ do not even measure up themselve.

we as christians also judge other christians. we look at them and say we are better then them. we do not struggle with the same sins as they do. they also do not know near as much scripture as i do, it must because they never read the bible in their spare time. or how could they struggle with their faith. isnt faith easy. this is also a place we shouldnt be. this is why so many people have left the church. they feel judged, and if they struggle in their faith then maybe they really do not belong there.

the world might look in on all of this and say it is not for them. they like this guy named Jesus. but have never seen Jesus represented well. they look inside the church and see all the stuggle and hypocrisy. i do not want to be like them.

the church is portrayed by the church as a safe place for those outside of the church. in fact the church is one of the few places that exists for those outside of the church. but i think we forget that. we have all these things for us to grow as christians and we call it discipleship. we have all these programs that bring people together to praise God and we call it worship. during the week we small groups and bible studies and we can call it fellowhip. we do these things because we love God and want to become closer to Him

i think the answer of changing the stereotypes that people have on the church is to be more involved outside of the church. which we call outreach or service. we do this because we love our neighbors and we want to be closer to them, which we call community.

so back to the question. is it okay for the unchurched to judge the church? no one wants to be judged because it shows where we lack, how we need to grow. it is never fun to be judged but we also need to stop judging those outside the church.

programmed or learned

i have always enjoyed charles stanley and this weekend was watching him while flipping through channels but i was dissappointed. he was talking about how parents need to "program their children." let me explain he said that teens are graduating from high school asking lots of questions and they are going off to college and having them answered the professors who are atheist and very liberal. he said that they were being programmed by these professors and said that it was the parents job to program them first.

first of all i am not a parent. so i am not sure how it works. but i do believe that programming isnt the best way of going about it. a child is not a piece of technology that has different software that can be downloaded or deleted any time one wants. i do believe that children are very ingrained to trust what the parent tells them. most of what a child sees in their parents behavior is learned and will be repeated. i know a very special girl who is five. she is one of the most caring individual who is able to care for her friends and is concerned about their feelings. was this something that she was born knowing what to do or was she able to learn this from spending lots of valuable time with her mother?

what is the difference of being programmed or learning these behaviors.i see the need to correct, train, rebuke and teach but i do not want my future children to believe just because i believe. i want them to own it, personalize their faith. i want to see them grow and be doctrinally grounded but i want them to search and question. i dont want to see them programmed but i want to see them believe.

accidentally

wednesday morning i was minding my own business as i was on my way to fall creek to prepare for the core 56 (5+6th grade) program. i was driving the speed limit as i went through a very green light at an intersection as i saw the purple dodge intrepid decide to turn right into me. sometimes vehicles turn to try to hurry infront of someone but she broadsided me in the passenger side door. i am not quite sure what she was thinking but i pulled over to the side and went over to the vehicle to see if she was okay. she was shooken up but physically okay.

she was a high schooler and her parents were there within minutes. the paremedics drove the 50 feet from the fire dept to there parking lot to where she was pulled over to check her out. we were both okay the vehicles damaged a bit but we werent moving very fast so there wasnt a lot of damage done. we talked to the cops and went on our way.

i left to go to wal mart because there was some glass inbetween the tire and the rim. the tire turned out to be okay and was back on the road $10 and an hour later.

today however i came back home and opened up my mail. there were two different letters from lawyers saying they heard that i was in accident and it wasnt my fault. they were asking if i knew my rights and if i was hurt that i could take them to court. in a way i feel more violated by the lawyers then by the teen who hit me. has anybody else ever gone through this. it seems a little odd to me.