Your Story

I subscribe to a few well-known pastors and Christian authors on Facebook and Twitter. They will randomly post little tidbits of insight which I enjoy reading and frequently gain inspiration from. However, today I saw one by Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California with which I don’t entirely agree. In his post Warren wrote: “Never buy into a man’s theology without knowing his biography.” Obviously it’s impossible to know exactly what was meant by such a short phrase and it’s very easy to read too much into it. But from what I garnered I don’t agree.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here!” When we come to Christ we are born again. We’re given a clean slate and a second chance. While it’s important to learn from them, our past mistakes and failures are no longer held against us.

We see this principle lived out in the lives of people throughout the Bible. People who despite their sinful pasts, were able to be used by God and made the most of their future. 2 Corinthians 4:6 says as such: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” God chooses to use the sinful, the broken, the damaged, the weak, etc. so that when they do great things people will know that God was behind it.

I guess the real reason Warren’s post didn’t sit well with me was because as I’ve written before in this blog, my hesitation in getting back into ministry was all of the negative comments I heard from Christians who told me that I wasn’t worthy to be in ministry. Even I’ll admit at the time I wasn’t. My head wasn’t where it needed to be and my relationship with God was lacking. That was why I ended up where I was.

However, I’m not the same person I was then. I’ve learned a lot in 2 years. And I believe it’s what I’ve experienced that makes me better suited for where I am. I’ve been on the other side of things. I’ve been outside the church walls and I now know what it’s like. Too many Christians and especially pastors, don’t know what it’s like on the outside. They’ve spent so much time inside the church that they forget what it’s like to be the outsider.

We wonder why people won’t come in and it’s because we preach the Gospel of grace and forgiveness, but we’re reluctant to practice it. Our God is a God of second chances, and our churches should offer them too.

My response to Pastor Warren was this: “Taken at face value I don’t entirely agree with this statement. The key is in letting Jesus help write the ending to your story!”

Cookie Cutter Christian

I think that probably the hardest thing for anyone to do is become comfortable and happy with who they are. Granted, I think everyone should be constantly trying to better themselves, however the catch comes in the what areas you choose to better and why.

Too often I think we aren’t happy with who we are because we’re spending so much time trying to conform ourselves into what others tell us we should be. We dress and act a certain way because that’s what’s expected of us, never quite really feeling like we fit in.

I think right now I can honestly say I’m finally happy with who I am. I’ve made a lot of changes in my life the past year. A lot of these have come about because of my wife and how she has helped me become comfortable in my own skin. She’s made me feel good about who I am, and made me want to continually better myself in the areas that I feel I am weak.

As I thought about this I came to the realization that our churches definitely don’t do a good job at helping people become comfortable with who they are in Christ. I went through this a lot working in churches. I would constantly try to fit in to the congregation where I worked. I’d adapt to their doctrine and other things which would help me be more like everyone else.

Oddly enough after I started working on this post someone talked to my pastor about my Facebook picture which shows my wife and I sticking our tongues out showing that they’re pierced. They were supportive of me, but said it didn’t look “professional” so I now have a “professional” Facebook page. In the meantime, someone else took it upon themselves to print said picture and leave a copy in the narthex.

This is the kind of petty stuff that made me not miss the ministry. Sad to say I felt more accepted working at Walmart than I ever did in a church. Having said this, is there any wonder why our churches are dwindling?

I still think that one day I do want to plant my own church called “Matthew’s House”. Our philosophy will be taken from Matthew 9:10-13 which says:

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

My only hope is that one day our churches do catch on. People like me are no longer the exception, we’re the norm. People with tattoos, piercings, blended families, who ride motorcycles, listen to rock music and have a history. This is why I believe where I am and where I come from makes me better at what I do. I’ve been there and I know what it’s like. I know how it feels to be judged, to be ridiculed, to be ostracized, to feel like you can’t be yourself.

If you’re feeling pressed to be a “cookie cutter Christian” just remember the quote I’ve used before in this blog “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” – Abigail Van Buren

Jesus and Social Networking

I am addicted to technology and always have been. I get panicked if my cell phone battery starts to die and I’m unable to charge it. And if I leave the house without my cell phone, I might as well have been dropped in the middle of a deserted island with Gilligan.

In thinking about this I began asking myself how would Jesus handle social media? Would he provide random status updates on Twitter? Would he log in his whereabouts on Foursquare? Would he tag himself on Facebook in his disciples’ pictures of him walking on water?

The truth be told I think Jesus would be one of those people we make fun of for not using any technology. No Twitter. No Foursquare. No Facebook. He probably wouldn’t even have an email address or cell phone.

The reason is Jesus was about relationships. He was about spending time with people. He liked to hear their stories and tell them his. He liked to break bread and sit around the table. He liked to touch and be touched.

I think there’s another reason Jesus would abstain from social media. Aside from the fact that many of the people he chose to reach out to probably wouldn’t have it. Jesus reached out to the poor and the sick, people who most likely wouldn’t be able to afford technology to begin with. But he also showed them that they mattered to him by spending time with them.

In Matthew 9:12-13 Jesus says “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” These were people who were written off by society as not being worthy of their time. But Jesus took the time to reach them, to spend time with them. He showed them they mattered simply by being there with them.

Think about this, what message are we sending the people around us by our use of technology? Are we interrupting a conversation to answer our cell phone? Are we listening to our iPod while being waited on at the store? Are we constantly texting while having dinner with our friends? Are we playing video games when we’re home with our family?

I know that I’m guilty of all of these. I know I’ve missed chances to spend meaningful time with the people I care about because I was too immersed in my laptop or cell phone. My only hope is that I can learn from this mistake and begin to lessen my reliance on it. It’s definitely a challenge for me, but one that will be worth it in the end.

Hello, my name is Scott and I’m a technology addict.

 

Facebook

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. While it’s a great way to stay in touch with others, I’ve begun to find that, at times, it’s an awful lot like being back in high school. This is most obvious by the fact that I, like many others, probably don’t really communicate with the majority of the people on my friends’ list. It’s like the end of the school year when you have people ask you to sign their yearbook when they’ve spent the majority of the year barely acknowledging your existence. It all ends up seeming like a popularity contest to see who can have the most people “friend” them.

It’s also a great way to end up feeling pretty crappy about your life. I actually came across an article online that quotes a study about how Facebook can affect our emotional state. My favorite part of the article was the title: “Facebook Makes Us Sad Because Everyone Is Happy But Us“. I got a pretty good chuckle when I first read title, but I have to admit that there’s a lot of truth to it. I know that I’ve had moments when I’ve look at other people moving on with their lives while I felt stuck. Vacations, new homes, new cars, new jobs, babies being born, marriages…all of these things often made me feel like somehow I’d failed at living my own life because I had very little to publicly celebrate.

In the end I was suffering from the “grass is always greener” syndrome. It’s the one where things always seem better somewhere else. In Genesis 13:10-13 we see where this came from. In the story Lot and Abraham were traveling together but soon found that the land couldn’t support all of their herds and flocks so they decided to part ways. Abraham gave lot first choice and “Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt…So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.” Lot chose to go to where the “grass was greener”, towards Sodom and Gomorrah (and we all remember what happened to them).

If you took the time to read either of the above mentioned articles you’ll read where they discuss that in all actuality people aren’t really as happy as they appear to be. Although there are acceptions to the rule, most people don’t post negative status updates. We rarely see people discussing those deep, dark personal things that keep them awake at night or haunt their dreams. The sad reality is we all have these regardless of how happy we appear to be. I’ll admit that I personally am the happiest I have been in years, but this doesn’t mean there still aren’t things that get to me.

In the end we must come to the realization that our happiness with our own lives should have nothing to do with what others are or aren’t doing. There’s a pretty good chance they aren’t always as happy as they appear to be. They, like us, have their low times too. Life isn’t easy. It can be a challenge at times and it can easily get us down. At the end of the day we have to celebrate what we do have, not what we’re lacking.

“A good memory is one that can remember the day’s blessings and forget the day’s troubles.” – Author Unknown.