Heading To The Promised Land....Have a Great Week !

Well, maybe that's a little far fetched, but if I had to choose between streets of gold and the ocean-side setting of Pepperdine, well, let's just say I'd be packing my sunscreen.  Each year I wrangle and twist, persuade and promise, even beg and plead, and yet I fail repeatedly to get many (if any) young families to go to the Pepperdine Bible Lectures.  Maybe it's the title?   What if I invited people to a week of "Dialogue and Relationship Building"... would that work?  How about, "A Time of Rejuvenation and Rest?"  Maybe I should focus on the kids and say, Pepperdine offers "The Ultimate Enrichment Program for your Children;" is that the way I should go.  I could try to approach it from a long-term view and say, "Can you remember what you did the first week of May last year?" and then follow it up with "I can and it had a tremendous impact on my life...how about you?"  I could contrast the present and say, "what will you do next Wednesday through Friday?  Will it expand your understanding of Christendom, deepen your love, broaden your horizons, increase your faith, deepen your relationships and be just plain awesome?"
To be honest, I'm not sure any of these tactics or re-labelings would work.  If they do, great, see you there.  I can assure you that from my experience, and the experience of others, these are all accurate statements.  But in the end, I'm struck by how much this sounds like all the things we say and do to encourage young families to be more committed to "church" and its various activities and programs.  Not helpful.

So this year, I'm just going to say this: "have a great week."  If I see you at Pepperdine, let me know what you think.  If you can't make it, and I know some of you want to and can't, have a great week.  If you're on the fence, well, I will just say this: "have you ever struggled before about whether to do something and, in the end, after having done it, wondered why you hadn't done it before?  Pepperdine is that thing."  Whatever you choose to do next week, enjoy it!
 

A New Paradigm for the Proverbially Pooped...

Well, it's been over three months since my last post and I can hardly come up with a new title.  I've been thinking a lot about church lately, about how to reach young families and the "emerging church" in this day and age.  Frankly, I've been stumped.  We've had events, planned classes, tried new material and studied the issues, but in the end we still have the same people on the fringe and the same people at the center; it's a little depressing.  I hear that my tradition (The Church of Christ) is not growing and Christian churches in general are not growing and I began to wonder what's happening.

About a month ago I had the opportunity to participate in an event to feed the needy.  My family and I went to the dinner before hand to raise money, then we went to the event itself to help serve the food.  We had 20+ turn up to help feed the hungry at our church building; it was a great turnout...well, unless you count the number of needy people that were there.  In the end we did have a few, but most, if not all, drove themselves there and texted on their cell phones while they enjoyed their meal (not the mental picture I had created).  The majority of us helpers started visiting in various places around the building and before you know it, it was over.  I wondered where all the hungry people had gone?  As we started talking about the night, someone in the group suggested that maybe we should do the next dinner at a nearby labor camp, or in layman's terms, take the food to the hungry.  What a novel idea?

Not one to let a good idea pass me by, I've been ruminating on this for some time.  It occurs to me that what we are doing in our discipleship efforts is trying to bring the "hungry" to the church.  We offer new programs, new classes, new series.  We advertise, promote, and spend our tightened budgets.  Everyone rejoices when that "fringe" family shows up, only to be disappointed when they are not at church the next week.  Now I'm wondering, what if we take the church to them?  What if we stopped having more events, more programs, more classes, and started encouraging our members to spend time together, attend one another's events, take church to the activities they are already participating in?  What family wouldn't enjoy being let of the hook to attend their regularly scheduled tee-ball or swim meet.  What child wouldn't love having his cheering section multiplied by other church families who showed up to offer their support?  What if that burnt-out mom could feel like dinner with her girlfriend was enough church?  What if we stopped trying to compete with all the events in the lives of our members and just started bringing the church to those events?  What if we freed people from the obligations of programs and offered them a relationship with Christ instead?  What if we began to model Christ by what I'm calling, "meet the need and plant the seed?"  Does this make sense to anyone?

A New Year, A New Way of Thinking...

Well it has been some time since I lasted posted to this site, and I apologize for my tardiness.  We've had a full and wonderful holiday season, with friends and family all around.  As we begin a new study on Sundays, I have been forced to examine my spiritual journey, both its peaks and valleys, its triumphs and its struggles.  In the past year I've become more aware of what I bring to my journey, the lens through which I look, and the influences that have shaped my present understandings.

One question that we barely had time to touch on last week was the idea of "Right Doctrine."  It is a concept we have explored throughout 2010 and in light of our last class, I'm churning it over once again.  Is there such a thing as "Right Doctrine?"  In our faith communities, doctrine has been seen as a codification of beliefs, a summation of our position.  However, according to Merriam-Webster, doctrine is defined as, "teaching or instruction; something that is taught."  When looked at in this light, it appears to be more of a process than a result.  Although it may be semantics, I think the idea of "Right Doctrine" suggests that our goal is to find a singular understanding and practice.  While this tempting idea has found life in our tradition, I'm not sure that the Bible, as a whole, supports this idea.  It's not a matter of right v. wrong, which I believe truly exists, but a matter of "one-size-fits-all."  This is the inherent tendency in calling something "right," and scripture clearly demonstrates, from Genesis to Revelation, that our spiritual journeys are not "one-size-fits-all."  Further, when God chooses to interact with His creation, it is not a "one-size-fits-all" approach.

The Wheel of Unity....

Unity is something we talk a lot about these days.  This is not unprecedented and in fact the forefathers of our tradition had a lot to say on the subject.  I’ve shared before my interest in Thomas Campbell’s “Declaration and Address” in which he made an impassioned call for unity in the church of Christ.  Notice that wasn’t the Church of Christ, but the church of Christ.  In his declaration he makes 13 points that he believed are the key to unity.  One of my favorites is No. 7:

             7. That although doctrinal exhibitions of the great system of di-

             vine truths, and defensive testimonies in opposition to prevailing       
             errors, be highly expedient; and the more full and explicit they be,

             for those purposes, the better; yet, as these must be in a great

             measure the effect of human reasoning, and of course must con-

             tain many inferential truths, they ought not to be made terms of

             christian communion: unless we suppose, what is contrary to fact,

             that none have a right to the communion of the church, but such

             as possess a very clear and decisive judgment; or are come to a

                very high degree of doctrinal information; whereas the church

             from the beginning did, and ever will, consist of little children and

             young men, as well as fathers.

I love this one because it recognizes the value of scholarship, and at the same time makes it clear that he believes that there has been, and always will be, varying levels of understanding in the church.  Moreover, that there is should be no requirement that everyone understands or has reached a specific level of scholarship to be a member of the body.

The Real World...

Remember this guy?  His name is Puck and he is the reason that most people in America watch TV today.  Well, that might be overstating it a little, but not much.  Puck was "THE" star on a little show on MTV called, "The Real World-San Francisco."  It was 1994, the show was in its third season and maybe the most popular ever.  The idea of the show was summed up at the beginning of each episode with a voice-over that went something like this:

"This is the true story... of eight strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World." 


This, ladies and gentlemen, is the man you have to thank for "reality" TV.  Although the first seasons were unscripted, it's hard to look at a show like the "Real Housewives of Atlanta" and believe that these shows have anything to do with reality, let alone housewives.  So why the trip down memory lane and wandering discussions about pop-culture and media?  Well, over the course of the next few weeks or months I'm going to be putting up some posts that address what I believe America is looking for and has been for decades.  Reality TV, Facebook, and texting are all just symptoms of what I think good people all across this country are wanting.  And it goes much, much deeper.  It shows up in the cars we buy, the clothes we wear and even the food we eat.  And it's not Religion.

A Lawyer's approach to Scripture...

Today as I was reading Morris' blog today and thinking about how I wanted to comment, I realized that my approach to scripture has been highly influenced by my legal education (please hold the jokes to the end of this post).  It has actually been a very useful approach for me and I owe it, mostly, to Professor Wendel.  Anytime a case presented itself, Professor Wendel always wanted us to look at three levels of addressing the case.  Let's take a simple example that I've used many times before.  It won't be a case, but it will be somewhat illustrate the point.  A two year old child stands at Main street, a very busy street, and starts to cross.  Her mother, upon seeing this, rushes up, grabs the child by the hand and says, "you are never to cross this street without me."  Now, let's use the Wendel method on these events.

The first level of dissection is the "Fact" level.  At this level, you addressed the facts of the case, the specific set of circumstances with which the court was dealing.  Here we have a very young child, and a very busy street that the child is contemplating crossing.  These facts are extremely important because the let us know exactly what is happening here and help us understand why the mother said what she did.  However, in order for this situation to be useful to other situations, we need to go to the next level, the "Rule" level.  While it may be useful for this mother to say that "no two year old daughter standing at Main Street is allowed to cross the street without me," that isn't very helpful in situations that vary from this one.  What about First Street?  What about a three year old?  What about a calm street?  

"Forget ever being a Christian again...

and never ask a friend, family member or coworker to become a Christian again..."  That was the message from a book I was reading today called, "The Big Idea."  It was written by, well, a Christian, but this was what he hoped the takeaway would be from that chapter.  He went on to say that, "85% of all Americans call themselves Christians.  However, research in North America shows that Christians are no more likely to give assistance to a homeless person than non-Christians; those who call themselves Christians are no more likely to correct the mistake when given too much change by a cashier; a Christian is just as likely to have an elective abortion as a non-Christian; Christians divorce at the same rate as non-Christians; even though there are more big churches than ever before, 50% of Christian churches didn't help a single person find salvation last year; when groups were surveyed on over 152 different topics there was almost NO difference between Christians and non-Christians, no difference in attitude and no difference actions.  If there is essentially no difference between the attitude and actions of Christians and non-Christians, is "Christian" really the word you want to use to describe your willingness to sacrifice everything you have to see God's dream fulfilled?"  Powerful food for thought.  Now many of us know people who are "acting" like Christians, who's lives and attitudes are committed to serving Christ, but can the same be said of you?...of me?  Good friends of ours, John & Kari Sowers, are doing some amazing things for the fatherless children of their community in Portland, and teaching other leaders to do the same.  John has written a book about theses issues and also talks about some of the solutions that they're working on.  I encourage you to take a look at the book here as well as the group's website.  What about us?  Being a "follower" of Christ suggests action.  What actions, what attitudes are we developing to bring salvation to the lost of this world?  Are we being the kind of people that cannot be confused with non-believers?  Please pray for the Spirit to move me to this new level and I will do the same for all of you.

What do you REALLY want???

"Do you like God?  That may sound like a strange question, and I don't mean to be glib about God.  But if I do not like being with God, I simply will not be with him much...The point of this is not to make you feel guilty that you should want God more.  'Should' simply does not have the power to get you there." - John Ortberg

So what do you think?  Do you like God?  Does the thought of being with God create a sense of love and joy and excitement in your heart, or is it more of an obligatory, luke-warm, have-to-go-to-church kind of feeling?  I think I've definitely been on both sides of this fence.  Growing up as a kid, going to YFE (Yosemite Family Encampment) was the absolute, unparalleled joy of my summer.  I looked forward to it, longed for it, and was completely bummed when it was over... and then started anticipating the next summer again.  I loved the devo's, the fellowship, even the church services (and I was a kid). I loved everything about it.  Just like church camp, this was my utter joy, the closest I would feel to God all year.  The desire for this kind of event was a God-inspired desire, it was something that God put in me and the satisfaction of that desire through these events was an absolute blessing.  

Your Spiritual Life... taking your temperature

This morning I got back to reading a book I started months ago.  It's a great read, humorous and poignant, focusing on becoming who God created us to be.  The author's point in the first chapter is to say that God purposefully created each of us to do good work that He has prepared in advance (Ephesians 2:10).  What an awesome idea.  We are not our handiwork, our life is not our project.  God has created us with a purpose in mind and our goal is to allow the Spirit of God to direct us.  Can you imagine becoming what God, Adonia, Elohim, the Creator of the Universe has planned for you to be?  Sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to figure it out, trying to decide who I am and what I need to be doing and how to achieve MY goals that I forget that it's not about MY desires and plans, it's about God's.  Would you rather be the pinnacle of what YOU can achieve, or the perfect realization of what God has designed you to be?  It's silly, but I focus more of my time of the former rather than the latter; no wonder that leads to frustration.  When we become who God designed us to be, when we learn to live in the flow of His Spirit, we can then be used in God's work to redeem the world.  The author finishes by saying that "The me God wants me to be" is measured by my capacity to love (John 13:35)  (Uh-oh...).  To know if I'm living in the flow, the author suggests that I ask myself two things to indicate how my spiritual life is going:
i.   Am I growing more easily discouraged these days?
ii.  Am I growing more easily irritated these days?


Those are powerful and convicting questions... so, "how is your spiritual life going?"


Be encouraged, God has a plan for you and the more you learn to live in the flow of His Spirit, the closer you will be to being the you God created you to be...
Blessings!

Classes this Fall.... Wednesday nights!

Hey everyone.  We're looking at classes for the fall and I'm thinking about doing a combined marriage/parenting class.  Each series lasts six weeks, so we can do them back to back.  I have a couple of suggestions and I'm attaching them here.  Let me know if this is something you are interested in, or if you have another request.  I prefer classes like this that are "real-life" based, not someone's idea of what a perfect Christian family should be.  These look pretty good, and I think they apply to a broad range of families and "families-to-be," but give me some feedback.  You can comment below.

Marriage- Built to Last


Parenting- The Early Years

This Sunday... Families of Faith at the building

Hey everyone, I hope you're enjoying your family devotionals.  It's a great opportunity to bring faith into your home.  This Sunday night beginning at 5pm, we will be getting together again at the building for a brief devotional, followed by food and water play.  We would love to have everyone there, so bring your family, lawn chairs, and bathing suits and towels and join us for a great time.  Our last meeting had nearly 40 people and it was a blast!  Remember, we start at 5pm in the auditorium.  If you missed the material last week, send me an email and I'll send the devotionals to you.  An RSVP would also be appreciated.

Families of Faith, This Sunday, July 11 at 5pm at the Building

This Sunday night, from 5-7pm at the building, we will be starting our 6 week series on Families of Faith, a program put together by Peggy Scheppegrell and myself.  This will be a time of fellowship and fun, as well as an opportunity to get information and ideas on building your family of faith.  A national survey conducted by the Search Institute showed that when boys and girls from 7th-12th grade were asked who the "Most Significant Spiritual Influences" were in their lives, 81% of boy and 74% of girls said it was their mother.  That was followed by their Father, Grandparents, siblings, relatives and friends.  Their pastor didn't even make the top 5, movie and music stars ranked above any church activities with the exception of camps, their Youth Group Leader was 13th, the Bible was 16th and God himself didn't even make the top 20.  So what does all this mean?  It means that parents MUST take an ACTIVE role in the spiritual formation of their children.  The idea that sending Johnny and Jane to Sunday school or dropping them off with Grandma will ensure they have a strong faith is, at best, a misconception.  Our hope is to show you the importance of being involved in your child's spiritual life, give you ideas about how to make your home a place of faith, and help you connect to other families working toward the same goals.  We will be eating together and spending some time in devotional and then release the kids for a time of water play, including an inflatable slide.  We believe this will be a blessing for you and your children.  Please drop me an email letting me know if you and your family will be able to make it so we can be prepared with materials, etc.  Everyone with children in their lives is invited.

Many blessings,

Brice

Is your child your Status Symbol?

Mitch and Gayle were in a dying, if not dead, marriage.  They had already split when they came in to talk to the counselor.  Working session after session, the counselor struggled with finding the root of their issues, until he asked to look at their calendars.  Mitch and Gayle revealed that each morning before school, Mitch took their 13 year old to French lessons and then went to work for 9 hours at a CPA firm.  After work, he grabbed the daughter, drove 40 minutes to private dance lessons, spent 2 hours there, and drove home.  The money for French and dance was tapping their bank accounts and the time apart was tapping their marriage.  Most important to them was the success of their child.  Does this true story sound familiar?  Have we let our child become our status symbol.  My child goes to (fill in the school)... Little Pete is on (insert championship team) and (insert other sport) and...  Does scripture support this model?  Does this sound like God first, Marriage Second and Children third?  What did God say to Eli in 1 Samuel 2:29?  Does the status symbol child bring glory to God?  Does it create Godly marriages?  How can the church help families get back to a God centered hierarchy?  Stay tuned....

I take it back...

Forget everything I said in my last post... toss it out with the rubbish.  I want the first century church back, all of it, right NOW!  Well, maybe not all of it... but the part with the lions and the persecution of Christians... that's the part I want back.  Forget UFC on Saturday nights in Tulare (btw, did anything really happen on Saturday nights in Tulare before UFC?), let's get some good old lions and the Christians back in the ring.  I want Christians to be afraid again, afraid of the government, and I don't mean "Tea-Party" style, I mean afraid of oppression.  I want us to have to go underground, fear for our safety, have hand-signs and secret passwords.  I want us to be so busy trying to keep each other from prison, help each other survive, and caring for each other's needs that we have to band together like elephants surrounded by lions.  I want "Afghanistan-style" Christianity where being a believer means risking your life. Why, you ask, would anyone want this type of Christianity?  You tell me....

Restoring the Early Church.... No thanks!

I've been thinking about this a little today and does "restoring the early church" really make any sense?  Can you imagine any other group, business, organization, university, etc saying, "what we really need to do is go back to the way our organization was 2000 years ago."  Does it make sense culturally, philosophically, educationally, or spiritually to go back to the way things were?  Think about Paul's words to the Philippian church regarding his spiritual journey:

     "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.  Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.  Only let us hold fast to what we have attained."  Philippians 4: 12-16

      Paul is letting the brethren at Philippi know that he's ok in prison, and that he continues to strive forward in his relationship with Christ.  The early churches had their own wealth of problems and issues, at times even fearing for their own survival.  They lacked the texts we have today, they lacked the freedoms, and they lacked the decades and centuries of experience and education we have.  The culture of the early church was one that few if any of us have experienced today.  Do we really want to turn back the clocks on all we have "attained?"

     What I realized this past week was that we, the Church, have lost some of our community.  Being together morning, noon, and night, was a tremendous blessing.  We got up early and stayed up late (maybe too late) talking with our brothers and sisters, sharing a meal, enjoying activities, worshiping God, and sharing our triumphs and our burdens, and it was, in my mind, pure heaven.  Everyone was family and I was blessed to meet new members of that family while reconnecting with lifelong members.  Now I could go for a little more of that type of restoration.

     Admittedly the church (little "c"- institution) and the Church (big "C"- the people) have had our setbacks and struggles and continue to do so today.  But with the exception of the closeness of the community, the idea that somehow things were better back in the "good ol' days" seems like faulty logic to me.  In fact, even the closeness of those early communities were more likely a response to necessity than to mere "enlightenment."  (Today we likely have an even greater ability to fellowship and share with one another, we simply continue to make choices, material and otherwise, that make that more difficult, but that's another post.) Culturally, spiritually, and educationally I think that tremendous strides and additions have been made.  I think the bigger question is, are we prepared, as a Church, to reveal Christ, to be Christ to God's people "for such a time as this?"

Thoughts on Pepperdine...

Well, my intention of giving you updates after each class or each day obviously failed.  Let me say however, that it was a wonderful lectureship, perhaps the best I've been to in years.  There were so many fantastic classes being offered each hour that it made it very difficult to choose.  Thank God for CD's because the church will be bringing home quite a few of the classes.  I encourage all of you to check them out at the office.  I'll try to remember to drop a schedule by so you can see what the classes were about, but I highly recommend getting in there and listening to these dynamic, Christ-filled speakers.
A few themes really stuck out this year to me, and I think they were about redrawing our lines, emphasizing inclusion over exclusion, and focusing on the work in the world as opposed to the issues in the church.  It was emboldening, enlightening, and challenging.  One takeaway for me was this statement: "Jesus didn't come to start a new religion, He came to reveal the Father."  Just some food for thought...

The first night...

Yesterday we arrived at Pepperdine, only after a short delay at Pinkberry.  We went to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner and then returned to campus for a little praise and worship before bed.  It was awesome!  We were blessed to hear two fantastic worship teams: Psallo and Metropolitan Praise.  There are some truly wonderful singing groups on campus, but if you have not heard these groups, you've really missed the full experience.  I can't tell you how uplifting, inspiring, encouraging and spirit-filled these groups are, you just have to see and hear them for yourselves.  What I can tell you is, a couple of ministers and one or two elders from a congregation we all know and love were praising the Lord in a style that would have made King David proud!  Hope you are all having a blessed week and we miss you if you're not here, and we hope to see and fellowship with you if you are!

Exciting News...

I just wanted to make you all aware of a new blog that I think will be a blessing to the community of believers.  Morris Yates has just "sprouted" a new blog that I believe will grow into a mighty oak of resources for Christians everywhere.  I encourage you to jump over to http://helpsforthejourney.wordpress.com and post a comment of encouragement.  I can't wait to see what he does with it.
Blessings,
Brice

Chapter 9: "So Who Is My Brother/Sister?"

This week we're looking at a variety of issues in the COC and trying to understand what they say about who  my "brother or sister" is in Christ.  When it comes to baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Woman's Roles in the church, is there an authorized set of beliefs?  If so, where does the authority come from?  What if individuals, in their pursuit of Christ, don't come up on the same side of the coin?  Does that mean that one is wrong and the other right?  Can we fellowship with our "wrong" brother or sister?

"No one will be saved in rebellion and unbelief, but all who are saved will be so in spite of their imperfection of both their faith and performance."

Do you think this is a truthful statement?

Chapter 8: The Proposal At Work...

Today's chapter looks at the "rubber meeting the road," so to speak.  The author begins by looking at "Lone Ranger" Christianity, the idea that we don't need church to be a Christian.  So often in my past I have agreed with this, but then made the followup remark, "but it's really hard." Today I don't believe that anymore... what I mean is, I don't believe you can be a Christian without the Church.  I capitalize "Church" because I'm not referring to any congregation or building, but to a community of believers.  Today I believe that being a part of the Church is essential to Christianity.  A study is cited that shows, when polled, the growing group in America is "spiritual but not religious."  Many of us have decided that we can do without "organized religion" but we are increasingly feeling spiritual.  The question is put forth, "will religion survive the spirituality boom?"   Another important question arises: how can it be that "what was intended to be a catalyst for spiritual life (religion/the church) has become a hindrance to it in far too many instances"?  What do you think?  Do we really need a church?  The Church?

Further on, the author also goes on to suggest that perhaps our struggle with church may come from relational issues, wondering if we can be "distinctive without being divisive?"  The thinking is that distinctiveness without relationship can lead to division and even discord.  If we include relationship, we begin to understand each other in a better way, seeing the person rather than the issue.  In this manner, the relationship becomes more important than the distinctiveness, and we are able to enjoy each other without division.  The skeptic could argue that this is just a form of "I'm ok, you're ok," an idea that we have viewed as negative and unscriptural "relativism".  Is there room for this kind of thinking in our theology?