Coldplay is horrible

As the title mentions Coldplay is awful. Their songs all sound the same. They are like the Red Hot Chili Peppers in that regard. They have a pride and arrogance that is rooted in a desire to be bigger then the Beatles. Funny thing is that only the Beatles are going to be that big. ever. Every christian school I go to I find people clinging to Coldplay and extolling their glories. If these Christians were half as evangelical with God as they are with Coldplay then there would be more Christians. In conclusion if you like Coldplay then you are wrong. Jesus and the Beatles are way cooler.

I am back and culture.

I finally have some time. I was working at a church for a while but 4 months in I started getting some weird messages. Like you need to have a youth night, you should have started one a while ago. But no one ever told me that four months ago. Then I was told the hours I work on Sunday do not count as the hours I work for church. Sunday is the big day for pastors so that is silly. Some more bad stuff happened and I resigned. Then they called me selfish.

Now I have all sorts of free time. So that means posting some more:

Engaging culture is essential for ministry. If you read Stanley Hauerwas you may find that the church as been trying to accommodate to culture for a long time. I agree that the whole trying to synthesize rational philosophy, Christianity, and natural science is trying to accommodate modernist ideas and the issue that Christianity was very connected to the state. But I do not think there is Christianity without culture. Jesus would have started something totally new instead of being a good Jew. So /Jesus used the context and culture of his time to share his message.

As Christians we need to engage both faith and culture in a radical way. Christianity cannot kowtow to control but neither can culture be rejected out of hand. The church needs to address what people are concerned with and then share with them in those concerns. The church has a social justice role but is not the sole mover of social justice. The Church has a role of helping to guide the spiritually of people towards God. Without engaging culture the church cannot minister to people but instead stands off speaking its own language. If one visits a Christian college they see this “Christian Culture” at its finest unable to communicate to non-Christians without arrogance and pride. This is not something that there is an easy answer but it seems that the first step may be listening and approaching people in humility.

busy

Ugh work has me really busy right now. So here is a quickie.

Discipleship is just as important as outreach. It does not matter if you bring a lot of people into a church if there is no growth. When picking volunteers for youth ministry one chooses spiritually mature adults. Now if everyone in the church is new and not mature then there is no one who should be asked to volunteer. Disciple starts the life-changing experience that lead to someone impacting their world for God. Discipleship gives youth a foundation for them to live by and continue to grow no matter where they go. Discipleship and outreach are a combination that we should live by and not just think about getting more people into chruches.

(This is in response to some meetings going on at work)

Theological Youth Ministry

Something about youth ministry that is not very good or interesting is the lack of depth to it. Instead it is about playing games and getting kids into the church. Yeah it is good the kids are in church but what comes next is weak. They just do what any P.E. course does. PE sometimes does it better too. Youth need to be challenged more.

One way to challenge youth more is to actually teach them theology and the bible. One tells youth about sin. Not just a simple message of sin is bad and don’t do it, but sin separates people from God and leads to death. Then teach the youth about the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity. Youth are able to handle some theology. A High school student may be intrigued by the immanence of God and the Transcendce of god. What happens is a youth can start to use the mental capabilities they use at school on their religion.

Youth do not need to be coddled. They are not stupid. School work generally gets more complicated as time progresses. Youth need to be challenge to something deeper then they are experiencing now. Sometimes Christianity is made to easy for the youth. It is something that is just handed to them. Why keep Christianity so safe? They go to college and they face a world of hedonistic pleasure without a secure base. Where in youth ministry do with talk about the spiritual and theological ramifications of drinking? Where do we talk about the psychological and theological meanings of sex before marriage. Instead we just say that it is wrong. Youth go to college and find out that drinking can be a very enjoyable social experience. Some may have sex and then find out it feels good. That they do not feel bad for having sex outside of marriage. Then what they were told in their youth ministries is partly invalidating. These students have been left out without a solid reasoning and foundation. As a ministry there needs to be thoughts and reasons behind the lessons instead of a mentality that promotes legal rules based on authoritarian traditions.

This does not mean we use abstract reasoning with middles school students but instead that youth ministry combines the benefits and positive elements of theology and then combine that with street level ministry. There can be a new movement towards helping youth become lifelong Christians that will influence the communities they live in.

Politics and Religion

In California there was a speaker at a church that preached against war. Since the current administration brought war it is in essence a sermon against this administration. This brought the IRS to investigate this church and the church almost lost its tax-exempt status. The IRS ended that investigation basically saying that the church was guilty of being political but the IRS was not going to punish them for it.

I find this incredible because Christianity has always been very political. Jesus treated woman as humans having rights and certain expectations of dignity. This is incredible to the old standard that women had been treated at the time. Jesus was being very political. When Jesus was talking about turning the other cheek it was not a message of sub service but a message of equity. Depending on how you hit someone determined whether you were hitting them as an equality or with an attitude of superiority. Turning the other cheek meant a person was forcing the other to treat them as an equality. Equality and justice have always been very political.

Martin Luther King Jr. is a very political figure but he was also a religious leader. A Christian whose beliefs lead him to fight for political change and equality. The original Martin Luther was a religious leader who became a political leader leading to the creation of the protestant churches. Martin Luther broke the Catholic Churches hold of European politics that lead to the Catholic Church returning to more orthodox beliefs and practices. Christian churches are hotbeds for change and progression.

Christianity’s tradition of political involvement is not something that can be turned off. The Bible demands people not sin and then act as God would want them to act. They are not to take advantage of others, be violent, allow evil to continue. A Christian who honestly pursues God finds that they become political trying to align what the Bible says with how they are supposed to live. Christians are supposed to defend the voiceless and not help the oppressor.

The laws that are supposed to prevent churches from being political are anathema to what the church does. The church is intrinsically political and only when the gospel is watered down to nothing does the church stop being political. Churches do need to stand up and continue with their political tradition instead of kowtowing to political wishes.

As an aside the republican party is not anymore Christian then the democratic party. They both are self serving without many politicians honestly living the religions they proclaim.

A Prevenient God

One thing that has always bothered me was the “doctrine of the elect.” In a rough summary it means that God chooses who is saved and who is not. The reason I have a problem with this is that means God rejects people. I never felt comfortable with the idea that God rejects people. I always felt God was a wellspring of grace that was beyond human comprehension. I always felt that with this kind of logic God becomes exclusive. That God is only reachable by a certain group of people. My theological leanings lead me to think that the only exclusivity with God lies in the fact that Jesus is that only way to know God. This in turn is really the choice of a person. That one chooses God and not God choosing one person over another.

I was reading A. W. Tozer and he stated some things that made sense and where interesting. He stated that God put in us the desire to pursue God. I can understand this because humans have an penchant for spiritually. This explains why there are so many religions. A desire for spiritually is part of human nature. This then means that God is that one who can take credit for salvation because He was the one who created that desire to pursue spiritually matters. But also on a practical level it is man who has to work to pursue God. One cannot just accept God and be done, but must engage in action towards God.

So God is the starting point. Everything comes from God. Yet human reactions are important. God does the hard part and there is a call for humans to react and respond. It is not the same as letting God do all the work and it is not Humans doing most of the work. So I find God has put it in me and God desires a response from me. Really God has done all the hard work and I am just participating in God’s creation.

First Post is About TeeVee

I guess every now and then TV has to get the negative post about it. I realize That there are times when I just watch too much TV when I have better things to be doing, particularly reading. I am at home right now where my library is and I have the chance to do all of this reading but instead I am spending my night watching TV. How disappointing. Sometimes I find watching it to be a nice way to veg-out and enjoy media. But really I just need to watch it less. At least when I am on the internet I could make the claim that I am probably reading something. I guess this goes to show I should not get cable. I would watch it all the time or something. I have heard a lot of messages about TV. That because I have grown up with TV I have witnessed so many murders and I have lost so many hours to TV. I realize that TV is not always that interesting or well written. I think this break I am going to take advantage of my books more and do some reading. It will be nice to have quiet.

I am starting to think that sometimes TV can be a little to captivating. That Life is not meant to be lived watching something. That I can produce things instead of watching items already produced. The reason I bring this up is that I was not able to think about anything to write until I turned off the TV. I was engaged and stopped to simply view something. I turned it off and then I was able to start writing. My mind was engaged and my creative juices were flowing. It is nice to simply write and get something out. I used to want to write more and this is my opportunity to get more out.

It is great to create. And with a reduction in TV viewing I hope to create some more here. To be stretched and become a little more useful to God.