Questioning Your Faith

What would you let God do with you if you knew no force of Hell could stop God from accomplishing His will for the Church?  

We are far too timid for followers of the God who spoke the universe into existence and created the fire of suns with mere words.  I grow weary of cowardice and comfort when God said no force of Hell would stop Him from building His Church.  Today I was shaken by my own forgetfulness of God's promises, and I was inspired by Jesus words to Peter in Matthew 16.  

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. --Matthew 16:16-18

I noticed three profound facts about Matthew 16:16-18:

1. This conversation started because Peter realized that Jesus is God. (Matthew 16:17) Our capacity to understand what God will do is directly associated with our faith in Him.  
2. God promised that He would build His church, not us. (Matthew 16:18a)  Our role is to obey Him and watch Him make it happen regardless of our weaknesses.  
3. God promised that all Hell wouldn't stop Him. (Matthew 16:18b)  The Enemy might try to foil our human plans, but He can do nothing to hinder the work of Christ.  

 I believe that if we believed Jesus we would...

1. Pray with confidence
2. Worship faithfully (individually on a daily basis and corporately on a weekly basis)
3. Fight to preserve every relationship we have.
4. Tell our pre-Christian friends how much they need God.
5. Serve regularly in the church and the community.
6. Give sacrificially to God's work in the church and the community.  

Our obedience in these areas is indicative of our faith in who He is.  What would happen if we really believed nothing could stop Him from building His church?  I'd love to see that kind of faith in action.  I'm pretty sure it looks like an overflow rooms for prayer meetings, an overflow of people sitting on floors to worship God on Sunday, an overflow of volunteers in every ministry, an overflow of giving that forces the church to find new ways to use God's money, an overflow of volunteers in every community organization in the region, and an overflow of people surrendering to Christ that forces us to send mature believers away to make room for the new Christians.  Until I see that happen, I will continue to question our faith.

Serve Elyria Gardens

Last year, about 25% of our church went into the community on May 15th to Serve Elyria. It was a great day. Through that experience, we were able to build a lot of good relationships in the city and see a lot of good things happen. We were able to be a part of some really great things already happening in the city. One of those things is gardens.

Read this article from yesterdays paper (Elyria Woman's Garden Project Grows by Leaps and Bounds) and think about helping us bless 300 families with gardens!

Here's how you can help:

• $20 to cover the cost of each garden. That's right $20 feeds a family produce for a year! You can donate this Sunday at Open Door.
• 20 trucks and 60 volunteers to deliver the gardens on May 15th. Click here to sign up your truck and/or yourself.
• Volunteer for any of the other Serve Elyria projects. Click here to sign up.

See you May 15th at 9:00 am in Ely Square! This year, lets get 500 people out to Serve Elyria!

"Cludged"

Every now and then I come across an action, event, being or situation that requires the invention a new word. An uncomfortable encounter in the restroom today merited some lexical entrepreneurship. So, here goes….

Cludge (verb)
— to pass judgment based on one’s clothing or apparel: The man cludged the pastor for having his shirt un-tucked.
—to form a judgment or opinion of a person based on his/her clothing or apparel; decide upon critically based on clothing: You can't cludge a pastor by his cover.

Cludger (noun)

—one who cludges: The cludger said the man looked like he’d been mugged by a GAP mannequin.

I am a victim of church cludging. Only now have I gained the strength to talk about it. Months ago, I wore a green sweater on Valentine’s Day. Cludge reports came from all over. “Did the leprechaun and cupid trade jobs this year?” was my favorite sarcastic cludge. People couldn’t seem to overcome the fashion-forward idea of green on Valentine’s Day. It didn’t stop there. I have received comments insinuating that I have an addiction to sweaters, that I am physically incapable of tucking in my shirt, and that my gelled hair is sharp enough to cut flesh.

Generally, I can handle the cludging. In fact, I enjoy it most of the time. Teasing is my love language. However, today a line was crossed. While washing my hands before church, a man whom I don’t know told me to tuck in my shirt. He did not ask, mind you. He TOLD me to tuck it in. Apparently, there is an unwritten church by-law giving tie-wearing parishioners the right to give orders to church staff. “Tuck in your shirt. Get me some coffee. Mop the floor, and while you’re at it, drop and give me 20.” Unaware of this unwritten by-law, I stood in stunned silence. Realizing that I was a rookie and unaware of the tie-wearer directive, he took a gentler approach. “Why don’t you tuck your shirt in?” he asked, visibly frustrated.

“Hi, I’m Dan. What’s your name?”---No, it was too late for that. He didn’t seem interested in being friends. He was only interested in the 2.5 inches of blue shirt protruding from beneath my jacket. Fortunately, I was raised a pastor’s kid and am used to being judge by strangers. However, the reality remained that a man in a tie purchased decades before the internet was invented was asking me to justify my fashion decisions. Only now does the irony of the situation manifest itself.

I had to act fast. What was I to say? Realizing that any reference to current fashion trends related to shirt tuckage would get me nowhere, I simply said, “It adds dimension to the outfit.” This is true. It really is why I sometimes un-tuck my shirt. The inch or two of shirt tail brings more color and intrigue to the ensemble. Plus, I see it on the mannequins at the store (a good way to choose outfits). It really was a fashion decision, and not an act of youthful rebellion.

“I don’t understand you young people,” he barked as I wished him a nice day.

On occasion older members of our church have expressed their desire to see me dress nice, and I make it a point to oblige now and then. To some, I am known as “the tie guy,” because they see me in ties so often. A tie is a nice way to honor seasoned believers. It helps them remember that they are valued and that young people can dress up for church. Plus, it s a nice fashion statement! But, this situation was different. I felt judged, like I was bringing the place down. I think if I had let it get to me, I would have felt like I didn’t belong there, like I had to dress a certain way, like I had to be someone I wasn’t to fit in. I certainly don’t think that was his intention. I don’t even think he was upset with me. He just didn’t care for the way I dressed and felt like telling me about it.

What concerns me is that I am a paid staff member of our church. If I felt cludged and unwanted, imagine how a guest would have felt. I wish I knew who it was. I didn’t even get a good look at his face. I really was stunned by the whole situation. It was one of the few times that I was at a complete loss for words.

Fortunately, this is not the norm of our church. Most people come to Open Door in jeans and feel very comfortable. Many have said that they come because they don’t feel judged about their clothing. That makes me happy. In fact, this is why you will often see me in jeans.

I’m just afraid for the unheard cludging victims and victimizers, afraid to speak out. Well, I am declaring cludge amnesty. Cludgers and cludged alike are invited to share their hurts and feelings and walk away. Have you cludged or been cludged? Be free today!

Hitler, Hell and Atonement

I recently watched a movie about the Holocaust. Seeing families torn apart and children murdered made me feel an emotion I don’t often experience: anger. Most people will tell you that I’m a pretty easy going guy. I don’t get upset about most things. But when I see wickedness at its worse my sense of justice wells up. It infuriates me. Similarly, I’ve had people sit in my office and tell me they were abused as children. They still live with the scars today. My soul aches. Someone has to answer for this. We just can’t let this kind of evil go unaddressed. Worse than rape or murder would be to pretend they weren’t that bad. It would be like telling the victims that their pain doesn’t matter. To be brutally honest, in those moments when I hear about things like that it makes me glad there is a hell. Of course, in these moments I am forgetting how evil I am.

We don’t want God to wink at sin…unless it is ours.
Last night, I attended our Good Friday Service. It is a sobering affair. The pastor wears black. The band plays dark mournful songs about the suffering of Christ. Instead of a sermon Jim (our pastor) read a list of sins written on bricks. As he read the bricks, he tossed them into a rusty metal wheelbarrow. Each one makes a hollow, metallic noise. Some of the sins were murders and abuse. Others related to bitterness and deceit. All of them made the same heavy noise. In that place, hearing all those sins listed together, I didn’t want God to ignore any of them not even mine. They were all horrible. That same sense of justice that made me want punishment for Hitler, rapists and murderers made me call out for justice for my own sins. I am a wicked man. My sin weighed heavy on that cross. I deserve death.

At the end of the service, as everyone sat with the reality of their sin Jim pushed the wheelbarrow across the stage and dumped the bricks at the foot of the cross. The weight of my sins and the worlds were placed on Christ. Justice was served but at the expense of God’s Son. It was a powerful image.

Feeling the weight of my sin has helped me to see the greatness of God’s grace. The God of justice is also the God of grace, and my sin has made that grace very costly. Praise God for His justice and His grace. I am a bad man who has seen someone go to death for me. Grace is good and I want it for the worst offenders just as it was given to me.

Do you think that it is a good thing to wish for grace for rapists and mass murderers? How does it make you feel to think that Hitler could have gone to heaven if he had surrendered His life to Christ?