Tagged: Christianity RSS

  • Ryan 9:00 am on December 5, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Christianity, consumerism   

    Consumer Christianity 

    I’ve noticed a concerning trend in Christianity today: consumerism. Yes, that shop-till-you-drop mentality has penetrated the Church at large. Don’t think so? Think about how many churches you or your friends have attended. Think about what you do today in church. You go, you sit, you listen, you get up, you leave, you sit, you listen, repeat. That’s your Sunday service in a nutshell. It reminds me of the way I used to look at the Catholic liturgy when I was younger.

     

    That isn’t inherently bad so long as you then go out and live the gospel. But how many “Christians” today do that? Too many people with an icthus on their cars drive like maniacs and “revenge drive” when cut off in traffic. I’m perhaps blind or cynical or both, but I just don’t see it that often, even in myself. That troubles me.

     

    Wiersbe again here:

     
     

    Suffice it to say now that a true disciple is not a reservoir but a gushing fountain, an artesian well of spiritual blessing. He does not live to get; he lives to give. What he receives from the Lord, he shares with others; and in sharing, he receives even more. He is careful to guard the precious spiritual investment God has put into his life, but he also invests that treasure in the lives of others.

     

    Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

     

    Amen? So what’s happened? Why? Why you? Why me? Where is our love for Jesus Christ?

     

    • Julie RileyNo Gravatar 8:51 pm on December 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Excellent point, Ryan. I, too, fail to see the Gospel in myself and oftentimes resort to my comfort zone of routine, forgetting the amazing GIFT He is to me. Wiersbe’s point of not living to get, but living to give is so simple, yet comfort-zone-shattering.

      I would also offer that churchs are representative of the church-goers’ heart. I know my prayer life can oftentimes be considered ‘consumer-minded’. Coming to Him for what I want, need, or desire, versus coming to Him to just be with Him, striving to have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2: 9-16). If we focus on getting our own hearts right with Him, the church will come back to being the Church.

    • HoustonmomNo Gravatar 10:24 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I agree. I think we’re consumers in at least two ways: material and spiritual. We like the material comforts that this time and place in the world has provided. I love having an a/c church with electricity, pews, piano, etc.

      I think a bigger danger to the church is that we’ve become spiritual consumers versus worshipers. That is why churches have different services with different styles. This has resulted in a huge generation gap between different ages of Christians and is far away from the Bible’s standard. Because we want to consume worship in our comfortable way, we have a fragmented American church. We even have segregated Sunday School classes. Many people who attend Houston churches do not find meaningful relationships (within the church) with folks outside their ages/marital status. I’m concerned the American church will have to undergo severe persecution before we return to a Biblical model.

  • Ryan 11:16 pm on April 28, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Christianity, Darwinism, documentary, , evolution, freedom, Intelligent Design, movie, nihilism, politics, religion, , , thought, worldview   

    Review: Expelled 

    Ben Stein\'s ExpelledJulie and I went to see Ben Stein’s Expelled tonight, and we both loved it. Expelled is perhaps the most entertaining film on science ever made. It was also very well balanced and thought provoking. Most interesting and entertaining of all was Richard Dawkins‘ (author of The God Delusion) admission towards the end of the film that a form of intelligent design (possibly aliens or Luke Skywalker’s great-great-grandchild) could be possible and that they really don’t know where life could have come from. (Another “scientist”’s assertion that life formed on the backs of crystals was a bit more ridiculous and entertaining.) (More …)

     

  • Ryan 8:00 am on April 23, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Christianity, motivation   

    Christian Motivation… or Something 

    My verdict is still out, but these “Emergent-See Po-motivators” from Pyromaniacs are interesting for sure.

     

    • DustinNo Gravatar 6:28 pm on May 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I am still laughing from the first time I saw them.

  • Ryan 11:21 pm on April 20, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Christianity, , confession, , Lord,   

    Thank you, Lord, for brothers
    Who walk through thick and thin
    With me, this drifting wanderer,
    So in need of a good friend.

    I talked with one such brother
    Tonight about how our souls
    Need your indwelling Spirit
    To ignite our darkened coals.

    You see, we’ve oft not listened
    Nor hearkened to your voice
    That all your Spirit’s whispers
    Have ceased to be our choice.

    Tonight, however, we chose
    To hold each other true.
    We won’t forget to listen
    And cease to talk with You.

    Born in utter sin
    And full depravity,
    Yet still you gave your Son
    For the lives of him and me.

    Jesus Christ, our Lord
    Now sits enthroned on high!
    We long to be there with Him
    In the sweet by-and-by.

    So fill us, Lord, we ask You,
    With the Helper from your Son,
    That we may walk forever
    With you, the Holy One.

    (More …)

     

  • Ryan 8:00 am on April 20, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Christianity, ,   

    What I Long For 

    Amen.

     

  • Ryan 11:07 am on April 19, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: belief, , , Christianity, , , power   

    Faith 

    I was looking back through an old journal (from March, so not really that old) and found an interesting entry that I thought I would share. I had just read Luke 18:1-8 and wrote about faith. Here were my thoughts from that passage that day. (More …)

     

    • Julie RileyNo Gravatar 4:50 pm on April 19, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Great post, Ryan! The concept of what faith truly looks like and is seems to be (thankfully) a constant conversation. I agree with your conclusion – we cannot limit the amazing gift faith is to our menial rules and logic, rather we must just walk, trusting His power, persevering to the end. Since this inherently takes out the checklist of rules and expectations (as a rules-follower, this is quite challenging for me), we are forced to communicate with Him directly. Developing our relationship with Him as a product of our perseverance, not a product of our well-intentioned logic.

      It is definitely humbling that at the end of the Luke passage, Christ asked in question form, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”. I know it is a question I should consistently ask myself…

  • Ryan 9:14 pm on April 17, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Christianity   

    Private or Public 

    Should your religious beliefs be held privately, or should they be expressed and lived out publicly? I can’t imagine that anyone who has met the Lord would be able to hold it in, but having been raised as a Catholic, I can remember that many in the church did indeed keep their beliefs held very close. Well, it came as a surprise to me when I read that the pope said, “Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted,” according to azcentral.com. I agree.

     

  • Ryan 3:52 pm on April 6, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: , , Christianity, , , Leadership, Shepherding   

    Shepherding 

    This is the sermon I will deliver to Artifact on Sunday, April 6, 2008.

    Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” John 21:15
    (More …)
     

    • ChadNo Gravatar 11:35 am on April 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Ryan, I really enjoyed the discussion last night and appreciate all your effort in preparing to lead it. The thoughts really led to some honest dialogue about our unwillingness to reach out to those around us whether they are in the church or not. I was having some theological questions as we went on but I thought those would best be discussed here, since it most likely would have killed the spirit of the evening. Here are the two questions I am having, I was interested in your thoughts sinve you have spent the most time looking into these ideas:

      1. In John 10:1-6 the sheep seem to be described as those who hear the shepherds voice, follow his lead, and flee from those who they do not know. This imagery is taken from Numbers 27 and Ezekiel 34 and I find the same sort of descriptions of sheep predominant there. My question is can we shepherd those who do not claim to be sheep? This is not a call for us to judge who are sheeps or goats, but to be considered a sheep seems to infer that one claims the Shepherd (Christ). So we as undersheperds, can we truly attempt to shepherd those who do not claim to be sheep?

      2. Did you see a difference in Scripture between “everyone as a shepherd” and those called to be “shepherds”? I am only beginning to look at this idea so I was wondering if you came across any sort of defining characteristics of those called to be shepherds compared to the responsibilities of all as shepherds.

    • RyanNo Gravatar 1:08 pm on April 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Those are excellent questions, Chad. As I studied, I found that the rabbit hole seems to grow deeper as you go, so I finally cut off my thoughts and didn’t really address some of these things, nor did I come to conclusions on many of them. As to your first question, however, I do think that we do need to attempt to be under-shepherds to even those who may not yet claim to be sheep, at least in the sense of the analogy. Jesus came to seek and save the lost sheep (Luke 19:10). These, then, did not claim to be sheep, but Christ came after them. We may not be able to easily recognize a lost sheep from a goat, but I think that the more we abide in Christ, the more familiar will the eyes of our heart be to recognizing them.

      As to your second question, I didn’t go there but left it as a question for the group. The early church had apostles, elders, deacons, and others, whereas we have no real positions. In Ephesians 4:11-13, Paul describes how Christ “gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints.” This indicates that “shepherd” is a called-to position in the body, which appears to counter this post and the general consensus last night. However, I would say that in our case, we are all at that level and, through our discussions of wanting all to be involved in one another’s lives, have on some level raised all to be shepherds.

      Travis’s description of the overlaps between shepherding and discipleship I think were right on–that there is an extra bit to discipleship that goes deeper into the growing up into a mature Christian and that shepherding focuses on tending the needs of the flock and leading it in the right direction. As for characteristics, all I could really find were what seemed the obvious analogies to a real shepherd, as we discussed last night. Unlike elders and deacons, I gathered that the writers intended for their readers to take shepherd literally, much like Jesus when He said, “I’ll make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

      I hope that makes sense. Also, please note that while a lot of the scripture used references aspects of Jesus’s Messiah-ship, I tried to pull the general shepherding aspects out that apply to the shepherds of his Church. There is meaning behind “I lay down my life for the sheep” of which none of us has any part; that meaning is purely for our Lord.

    • ChadNo Gravatar 1:41 pm on April 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for the reply. I am still of the opinion that shepherding is for sheep (or at least those who claim to be sheep). The use of Jesus coming to seek and save the lost sheep is to much like the example you give in your last paragraph. It is a desciption of the messianic nature of Christ and cannot be directly applied to our ministry. We can in no way save lost sheep (I am not implying that you are stating we can). Obvioulsy, there is a responsibility to those outside the flock, but I do not think of it in terms of shepherding. This may be only a wording issue since I guess it comes down to how one defines shepherding.

      The second question was in a more general since not specifically related to Artifact. Just asking what it means to be called out as a shepherd not so much what would it mean to shepherd Artifact specifically.

    • RyanNo Gravatar 1:55 pm on April 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      You are right on it depending on definition. I may be throwing too much of evangelism under shepherding, and certainly it is Christ’s role to seek and save the lost sheep. I do think it falls within the definition, though, since as the shepherd He does that, and we are to do the work that He is doing. I generally think of evangelism as telling everyone the good news about Christ, not specifically bringing people to him, which would seem more like shepherding. That’s probably an overlap of definitions.

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