Hummmm! Do you want to answer these questions?
These questions were asked in a comments section of another post. These are such good questions maybe some of you would like to answer from your perspective.
My friend asked, "Again, I have to ask. What is it you want to see happen? What is the vision you have? I want to see change. I am seeing change. I believe God is a work... I know He is. So what is it that you are looking for."
What would you say with regard to these questions?
Do any of you have any idea what I am wanting to see happen in America? If people cannot distinguish between the old (going to) and the new paradigm (going out to) many may conclude that the church is already doing it. What say you?
I will comment along the way. Can you help my friend? Do you see problems with Americanized Christianity? Let's get into this one.
posted by Bob Carder @ 7:41 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I posted this on the previous blog also, as that is where the original question was asked. I have made this our motto at our Church, and outsiders still want to know what is wrong with the previous model.
I believe Isaiah gave us the answer to what we should be doing in Church. What does Isaiah declare true religion is? I include the scripture as given to us in “The Message”, as the writer of this puts it across extremely aptly: "Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back--a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what's wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people-- law-abiding, God-honouring. They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?' and love having me on their side. But they also complain, 'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?' "Well, here's why: "The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, GOD, would like? "This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The GOD of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, GOD will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.' "If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places-- firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community liveable again. "If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don't use my holy day for personal advantage, If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, GOD's holy day as a celebration, If you honour it by refusing 'business as usual,' making money, running here and there-- Then you'll be free to enjoy GOD! Oh, I'll make you ride high and soar above it all. I'll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob." Yes! GOD says so! (Isaiah 58:1-14)
This is part of an article that can be found at http://www.shamaministries.org.za/moses/YaBB.pl?num=1164192460
Regards
Louwrens
I'm not sure why we have to completely throw out the previous model. It seems like there's quite a shift today because many don't feel obligated to go to church like they did in the past.
So, inherently, numbers will go down because people who don't really want to be there won't be going anymore.
I can't speak for every demographic or everyone's situation, but I first shied from the church because I didn't have a good grounding in why we believe what we believe. If people aren't educated about the history of the church and the evidence we have to believe that these things truly happened in history...what foundation do people have to fall back on?
I think that's why many leave church during their college and young adult years. They're confronted with opposing opinions, and they don't have any ammunition. Educating people with books like "Reinventing Jesus" would help Christians fend off intelligent-sounding rhetoric and challenges to the faith (Da Vinci Code, etc.)
I Peter 3:15
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