Tag: one another

Shame

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            There is a vulnerability crisis in the church today.  What I mean is that far too many Christians keep up appearances and keep their human interactions on the surface level.  Simple exhortations to not be that way will do no good because at the root of the behavior is shame.  If we want to have healthy behaviors in the church, Christians will need to have their identities fully based upon the person and work of Jesus Christ.
 
            Shame is a mindset, not a behavior.  It is the notion that something is wrong with your personhood.  It is to believe that somehow you are deficient, defective, or worthless as a person.  It is to not have the ability to distinguish between what I do and who I am.  When we live with a sense of shame (either knowingly or subconsciously) we are setting ourselves up to practice idolatry.  If we really think there is something wrong with our very humanity, we will seek something to base our value and acceptance upon.  This is why the workaholic cannot stop working, because he believes that by much effort, hard work, and productivity it will make up for the deficiencies in his life.  Others will then accept him.  Indeed, he will accept himself.  This is also why so few people take Sabbath breaks or take advantage of a day off or even all their vacation time.  After all, they feel too guilty if they are idle.
 
            People who live with a sense of shame do not realize that they have the right to set personal boundaries.  If you have a terrible time of saying “no” to people, then it is a good bet that there is some level of shame working underneath the surface.  It just seems selfish to such people to refuse a request.  Living with shame is awful because one feels as though she is simply not good enough as a person compared to others.  The over-responsible, over-achieving, over-functioning person is compulsive about doing things perfectly well so as to avoid feeling ashamed of poor performance.  Conversely, others avoid responsibility, under-achieve, and under-function in the belief that if they were to do the job they will surely fail – so best to not do it at all.
 
            The real problem with all this is that it is a performance-based life.  And, so, it is crippling.  Always wondering if you measure up is a depressing way to live.  Unfortunately, there are far too many performance-based churches out there which shame people for struggling, asking honest questions, not complying with man-made rules, and not being like everyone else.  If I have not made it clear enough yet, trying harder does nothing to break the cycle of shame.  Satan has enough of the world on a self-improvement path; let’s put ourselves on God’s path to freedom.
 
            If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed (James 5:16).  Jesus has taken our shame away because he faced it down and achieved the victory for us that we could not achieve ourselves.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).  The cross may have been a humiliating experience, but Jesus did not let that stop him from bringing us salvation from sin and shame.
 

 

            We do not need to wear our hearts on our sleeves in order to become more vulnerable with one another.  Struggles with life do not mean we are defective – it just means we are real people.  Unless we come to grips with scorning shame, we will live stunted Christian lives in plastic Christian churches.  Only through embracing the truth about ourselves, and accepting Christ’s sacrifice on our part, will we experience genuine spiritual and emotional freedom.  There is no need to live in the isolation of shame.  Our identity is in Jesus.

How to Handle Opposing Views

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
There are as many opinions, convictions, and beliefs as there are people.  Whether it is at the workplace, in the family, or in the family of God, the church, the differences among us are legion.  In New Testament times, Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus were very different from one another, and did not understand each other.  
 
Even though the Jewish Christians had come to embrace Jesus, they did not abandon their two-thousand year history of being with God.  They still held to their food laws and special days.  The Jewish believers thought the Gentiles should be like them, and they wanted the Gentiles to begin holding to the same ritualistic behavior that they had done for centuries.  The Gentiles did not comply.  So, the Jewish believers passed judgment on them and condemned them for the lack of sensitivity to the things of God (Romans 14:1-12).
 
On the other hand, the Gentile believers felt no reason to have such rules and regulations concerning their Christian lives, and they ate what they pleased and saw no need to hold to special Jewish days.  They could not understand why the Jewish Christians were so stuck in their traditions, and so the Gentiles looked down on the Jews as hopelessly misguided.  It was a potentially explosive situation.
 
It may not be the first-century, but the church has struggled with this teaching for its long two-thousand year history.  In fact, every church I have served has had their particular issues of “disputable matters” that they felt so strongly about that it crowded Jesus out of the center.  In my first pastorate, education was the big issue.  Some believed in Christian schools as the only real way to educate their kids.  Some felt that home-schooling was the only way to go because of the rottenness of the culture.  Others thought that public education needed the light of Christians participating and sent their kids to the local schools.  The problem was that each group sincerely believed they were right and everyone else was wrong.  It was a potentially explosive situation.
 
            In another church I served, there were hard feelings about the place of men and women in the church who had been divorced and remarried.  In yet another church, the issue was about whether church members could drink alcohol or not.  And yet another church’s issue dealt with how we dress and what our attire is at church.  I still remember vividly one lady in that church talking with a woman who had just two weeks before given her life to Christ out of a life of prostitution.  The woman was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  The church lady was giving her a lecture about how she should be dressing up for Jesus.  And the whole time I am thinking to myself:  “Lady, I’m not sure you are going to like the woman’s idea of dressing up for Jesus….”
 
Whenever we want to place “disputable matters” on people’s must-do list, then there will be trouble. 
 
What is more, we will judge others who do not do as we do because we have the mistaken notion that our way of doing things is equal to the death and resurrection of Christ, as if not doing it our way will destroy the church.
 
 Is being right so important that we judge and condemn others who disagree with us?  
 
Here’s the deal:  we do not need to necessarily change our views on disputable matters; but we do need to change our attitude and our behavior toward those we disagree with.   
 
            For the Apostle Paul, the issues that divide Christians are very important, not because he championed one over the other, but because the church’s identitywas at stake.  For Paul, the really important question was this: 
 
Will the church be, at its center and core, a community of redeemed persons by the grace of God who center all their lives in the person and work of Jesus, or will the church be a community of opinionated individuals and groups all jockeying for power to have their way on how they think things should go?
 
            We need to use our freedom responsibly through basic human civility.  In a nation where we feel free to say whatever we want, we do.  In doing so, we elevate self-expression and our opinions over self-control and the mission of the church.  The need we have is for a “generous spaciousness” which allows room for us to discuss issues and disputable matters in an atmosphere of generosity, hospitality, and acceptance – seeking to first listen and understand before responding.  Our goal as Christians and followers of Jesus is not to win an argument or have our way; our goal is to uphold Jesus as Lord of everything and maintain our center in him, and him alone.  It is on this basis that we will be held accountable by God.  So, let us live wisely and well, knowing and pursuing Jesus with all heart, soul, mind, and strength.
 

 

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God (Romans 15:7).

On Loving Others

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Here are a couple of things to know when reading the New Testament:  whenever you see the phrase “one another” in the New Testament, it is talking about fellow Christians; but whenever there is the phrase “the other” (NIV “fellowman” i.e. Romans 13:8), the Bible is talking about outsiders, that is, non-believers. 
 
So, the Apostle Paul’s vision for the church is that it should love all people, without exception. 
 
We need to do away with any kind of notion of the church being like a country club that caters to members who pay their dues, as if there is no responsibility toward outsiders.  Yet, neither are we to see the church as heading out to the deer stand and spending all our time outside trying to bag non-Christians with no regard for what is happening internally with the believers.
 
            Loving others is a message that is really not anything new for us.  My guess is that none of you will read this post and say, “Well, that was new!  I’ll be!  The Bible actually says I am supposed to love other people!”  It is not as if we are ignorant about the need to love others.  Yet, at the same time, we all know there is a lack of love in this old fallen world, and sometimes even in Christ’s church.  When author John Shore did research for his book titled, I’m OK – You’re Not:  The Message We’re Sending Non-Believers Toward Christianity, to his surprise the over-and-above answer he got from those outside of the faith was this:
 
“Why do Christians hate us so much?”
 
            I don’t know about you, but over the past few years I have actually “de-friended” some of my brothers in the faith from Facebook because their postings were so often filled with hate toward “the other” that it was just bringing me down. 
 
Feeling justified to hate another person does not come from the New Testament Scriptures. 
 
We, as Christians, owe the world our love, not our hate (Romans 13:8-14).  Just as I was writing this sermon, a man came into my office I have interacted with many times.  He is usually down-and-out, and looks the part.  Sometimes I help him with tangible assistance, sometimes I don’t.  But there is something that he needs as much or more than help; he needs love.  He needs a friend.  He needs relationship.  All people, no matter who they are, have been created in the image of God and, therefore, deserve the dignity of conversation and relationship rather than being looked at as a project or overlooked just because they are different. 
 
            We cannot really love one another in the church or love the other if we are continually putting ourselves in the position to indulge our sinful nature.  Like wearing a set of dirty clothes, we are to take off our selfish sinful desires, and put on the new clean clothes of God’s love in Christ.  If we are busy demonstrating love, then there is no room in our lives to behave indecently in any kind of immorality, dissension, or jealousy.  If we are committed to exercising our spiritual gifts given by God, there is not enough time in the day to think about how to gratify our sinful impulses.
 
            Another potential hindrance to a life of love has to do with the law.  The law is a good gift from God.  Yet, law has its limits.  What the law cannot accomplish, love can.  The law must serve love of God and neighbor, and not the other way around.  That is, the law must bow to the demands of love.  In Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge was a law-abiding citizen, and when faced with the needs of those less fortunate, old Scrooge appealed to the law.  He saw no need for loving actions or words when there were already poor houses, relief organizations, and prisons in operation.  It is the appeal in our day of saying that I am a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen and have no obligation to “the other.”  This brings us back to relationship.  It is easy to say people need to just work harder and not be lazy when we are not in a relationship with anyone who is in need.  Furthermore, it can be easy to indulge our sinful nature when we believe that we have earned the right through our law-abiding selves, without seeing God’s hand behind our success, to speak ill of the other, and even to a brother or sister in Christ.
 
            As followers of Jesus, we need to take a kind of Christian Hippocratic Oath:  to do no harm to our neighbor, but to do everything within our power to love them.  Since Jesus will return soon, the prompting of the Holy Spirit that we neglect today may not have opportunity tomorrow.  When Jesus does return, he will hold us accountable for our conduct, our speech, and our spiritual condition.
 

 

            Our guiding principle as Christians is:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  The hour has now come to wake up and have eyes to see the people all around us in need of Jesus Christ and his grace so that we can be long on love of God, deep in our love for each other, and cast a wide net of love for others in the world.

The Necessity of Community

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
What stands out to me about the very earliest believers in Jesus was their amazing transformation (Acts 2:38-47).  Only 53 days earlier these same people had applauded the murder of the Son of God.  But they realized their terrible error, changed their mind, and turned from their sin and embraced the grace of God in Christ.  They became a group of Christians committed to learning more and more about Jesus; sharing their burdens and blessings together; enjoying communion and eating together; praying with and for each other, confessing sin and seeing new life and fresh spiritual health come right in front of their faces.
 
            They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship.  This is a picture of a group of Christian disciples who were hungry for instruction.  They were so hungry for teaching and fellowship that they met every day.  They met in the temple (large group), and in homes (small groups).  Both large group meetings and small group gatherings are necessary for healthy spiritual growth and development.  In other words, this is no superficial once-in-a-while get together; this is a deep devotion and commitment to learning Scripture together, and sharing life together in fellowship.
 
            A simple observation of the text of Acts chapter 2 is that all the pronouns are plural; those pronouns include everyone – not just a select few.  This is why throughout the New Testament the images used to describe the church emphasize its communal nature.  Church as the Body of Christ, the temple of God (building), and as the army of the Lord are all images that require the community of the redeemed working and worshiping and reaching out together in order to glorify God.  True Christian discipleship does not happen apart from life together.
 
            Therefore, we need to be aware of church images that emphasize only the individual and not the community.  For example, seeing the church as a gas station where you fill up your spiritual gas tank when you’re running low ignores the community. Get a good sermon and some energizing worship and hopefully you will make it through the week to another service without running out of gas.  For other people, the church may be more like a movie theatre, a place that offers an hour of escape, and leaving your problems at the door, with the goal of coming out of church feeling better than when you went in.  Or maybe some might view the church as a kind of drug store – a place where you can fill the prescription that will deal with your pain.  Yet others might opt for seeing the church as a big box retailer – a place that offers the best products in a clean and safe environment for you and your family. The church should offer great service and programs at a low price.
 
            Certainly, the church ought to serve and meet individual needs.  The problem arises when we only function as autonomous persons who don’t really need others in order to live the Christian life.  The early church was committed to learning the Word of God together; they committed themselves to fellowship, to practicing hospitality with each other and praying with each other every day.
 
            The results of those two primary communal commitments of learning and fellowshipping on a daily basis was that:  everyone was filled with awe (the fear of the Lord); everyone saw and experienced signs and wonders (miracles); everyone had everything in common (they met one another’s needs – the fact that they sold things implies personal property, not communism); everyone was glad and content with their simplicity of life (“sincere hearts” means they lived simply, and were not encumbered with a lot of stuff and their schedules and calendars overflowing); everyone praised God; everyone enjoyed the favor of the non-Christians around them; and, the result of all this behavior was that people were being saved left and right from their sinful, empty ways of life apart from God.
 
            If any of us today want to have that kind of community dynamic then we must be willing to devote ourselves to biblical teaching and Christian fellowship every day!  No church can become or remain healthy apart from Christian community; it requires doggedly embracing the commitments of learning Scripture, and eating and praying together through being yoked in fellowship.  Being part of a small group that meets once a week, for the purpose of learning more about the Bible and developing community is not really optional equipment for the follower of Jesus.  It is a small thing when you put it in the perspective of the early church meeting every day. 
 
            That early community had such a curiously learning and deeply loving dynamic that the poor among them knew no shame, and the rich knew no pride.  It was a community where the uneducated felt free to drink in knowing more about Jesus, and the leadership graciously gave instruction that they had gained from being with Christ.
 
            In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott shares a story she once heard from her minister that illustrates the necessary presence of others in our journey of faith:  “When my pastor was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, ‘You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.’”  Lamott further writes:  “And that is why I have stayed so close to my church—because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their voices, I can always find my way home.”
 

 

            The church, the Body of Christ, needs you.  The community of the redeemed needs your gifts and abilities, your presence and wisdom.  Disciples are made, formed, and forged in the context of community.  The sharing of your experiences and insights, as well as your hands and feet, are necessary for being spiritually developed in Christ.  Confidence is only gained through practice, and the spiritual practice of community is what is needed.  May the results of that early congregation be our collective experience, as well, as we devote ourselves to the teaching and to the fellowship.