Author: skipper

What I believe

On every church’s web site, there’s always a statement of faith — the “what I believe” part. This isn’t a church site, but here’s what I believe. It’s from a note I wrote to my wife back in January.

I believe that I should be giving my money away now to people who need it, rather than saving it for my own future use, just in case I live so long that I can’t make money anymore and no one cares about me. I believe I shouldn’t be saving for my kids’ college education, just so they can get high-paying jobs and start saving for the time when they also are too old to make money anymore.

I believe that if my life is too noisy to listen to God, then I should take drastic measures — like quitting my job — to quiet it down.

I believe that it’s more important for me to teach my kids to recognize and obey God’s voice than to do anything else. If they succeed at that, then everything else will be given to them.

The thing is, every other Christian will say that same things. It’s the ones who actually DO it who are different. My prayer is to be someone who is different.

Teach Your Children

Isn’t it great to hear a good report about your children? I heard such a report the other day, and it went a long way toward validating what we’re doing at home.

I was picking up a couple of my girls from the youth group meeting, and was chatting with one of the adult volunteers. He told me that the leader had asked the following question: “Who here thinks you can change the world?” Two hands went up immediately. The volunteer told me, “You can guess whose hands they were.”

This is the kind of person we are trying to raise…one who thinks she can change the world. One who is convinced that she was put onto this earth to make a difference. Not simply to get an education, find a job, marry, have kids, and repeat the process.

Our church is having a parenting class right now. I wonder if this is being taught? Unfortunately, I’m afraid it’s a “tips for Christian parenting” class. Not that this is bad, but by itself it’s simply not enough. Jesus didn’t teach his disciples “tips for Christian living”. He taught them that they could be world changers, and apparently, he was successful. I’m hoping to follow that pattern.

Center Stage

Tim Schmoyer’s post of a post about worship teams resonated with me. There are two thoughts there; the one I am interested in here is the way we present the worship team. (Although the cross icon really bugs me, too).

I noticed it when I first started attending this seeker-sensitive church. The three or four singers stood across the front of the stage, and sang the songs while making eye-contact with the audience. I say audience, not congregation, because it really did seem like a concert to me.

When I joined the worship team as a musician, I heard one of the singers encourage the rest to make this eye contact, and engage the people. This also seemed weird. It was weird, I guess, because the tradition I came from did things so differently. In that tradition, the worship leader would be close to center stage, but the other singers would be off to the side. The leader would often focus on the audience, but the backup singers never seemed to do that.

It struck me as odd that when singing words like, “we give you glory,” the singers would be looking straight out at the people. Where should they be looking? I don’t know, but whatever you do, don’t look at me!

A Man of His Times

I was interested in what a former pastor of mine had to say about some things I had read that John Calvin had done that did not impress me. This pastor is an enthusiastic Calvinist and had recently written a tribute to Calvin, in honor of the day of his death (May 27, if you’re interested).

Now, the details of what Calvin did aren’t relevant to my discussion; my pastor’s response is what I want to focus on. His explanation, or perhaps excuse, for Calvin’s behavior is this: he was “a man of his times”.

I found this to be a surprising response. To paper over someone’s behavior with “everyone else is doing it” is hardly the defense I was expecting. Especially when dealing with a hugely popular and respected Christian patriarch (he has a whole theology named after him!), I was hoping for something a little more substantive.

Perhaps a little more about the particular incident would be helpful. I had written my pastor to ask about some oppressive practices I had read that Calvin participated in while in Geneva. His response included this statement: “People forget that virtually everyone in those days, especially those in the Roman Catholic Church, supported the execution of heretics. Calvin was a man of his times.”

Let me tell you my first response. I’d hate to be standing before the white throne on Judgment Day (assuming that’s not all some literary analogy) and tell Jesus, “everyone else was doing it.” Being a man of my times here in the 21st century is hardly a cause for boasting, and I can’t imagine it was any different in the 16th century.

Why, if I were a man of my times, what would I be doing today? Well, over 20% of us men commit adultery (some studies say 60%!). Half of us divorce. We cheat on our taxes and spend the profit on pornography. I need not go on.

I would hate to be called a man of my times. This would be the worst epitaph I can imagine. So now I’m thinking, what about my life, my morals, my behavior demonstrates that I am a man of my times? I’m afraid that these beliefs and behaviors are so much a part of me that I can’t identify them.

Here’s my hope: if I can act as much like Jesus as possible, then maybe I won’t need to worry about whether I am being a man of my times. I’ll be a man with eternity in mind, not current social custom. And perhaps, I’ll be one step ahead of John Calvin.