Author: EggMonkey

It ?s back-to-school time! My kids don ?t share my enthusiasm, but I have always loved getting ready to go back to school. I could live in an office supply store, looking at pens and pads of paper, checking out the latest binders and backpacks. As I grew up, I loved choosing classes and planning for the year.

But for all that planning and preparing, I usually put off my schoolwork until the last possible minute. Early on, I could get away with it. By college, however, my mind had gotten lazy, and the work had gotten harder, and I certainly didn ?t do as well as I could have. Now, I regret not knowing what I had studied just enough to get by.

Are we seeing something similar in churches today? Churches that used to have strong Bible schools now see dwindling numbers and shrinking Bible knowledge. Churches that could count on droves of volunteers now find themselves going to the same scant 20 percent who seem to be involved in everything ?at least until they burn out. But churches still seem to want to be the spiritually vibrant communities they once were.

While we might like the planning and preparation that goes into bridging the gap, we have a hard time of doing it intentionally. Jesus talked about a similar concept in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. The man who buried his one talent did not use what he was given intentionally. He knew that his master expected a greater return, but his efforts went only as far as to keep what he had, hoping for the best. The master in the parable took away what the man had and gave it to someone else. Is the church today experiencing the same kind of discipline?

This body has a strong tradition of Bible knowledge and hard work. As we prepare for the Master ?s return, knowing what he expects of us, let ?s not focus on simply keeping what we have but on using what he has given us intentionally.

I spent the week of July 15 serving at Wolverine Christian Service Camp as a family leader and workshop leader during Senior High Week. The theme for the week was ?Audacious Authenticity, ? and the phrase of the week was ?lowering your waterline. ? The waterline refers to an iceberg, which has only a small fraction of its total mass showing above the water. We examined the reality that most of us show only a fraction of who we are, hiding our true selves, our dreams, desires, fears, and sins so that nobody can know them, for good or bad reasons.

We talked about how we often hide our true selves behind masks. Masks cover up what we don ?t want others to know and display what we want others to see, whether it is true or not. The challenge was to be ?real ? with yourself, God, and others; that is, we encouraged the students to examine themselves and identify who they really are, who they want to be, and who God wants them to be.

The problem with masks is they are based on distrust, which doesn ?t allow us to have healthy relationships, with God or other people. If we constantly hide our sins and struggles, we don ?t trust God to deliver us from them, and we don ?t trust others to love us despite them.

James 5:16 encourages us to bridge the gap by being transparent with each other: ?Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. ? If we can be real with ourselves, we know what lurks below the waterline. If we are transparent with God, who knows it all anyhow, and with other Christians, we can eliminate the distrust, fear, anger, and regret that keeps us from growing as individuals and as a church.

[As a side note, I want everyone to know that we have a great group of senior high students. Even though I preach in the 11:00 service, I didn ?t take the time to get to know them prior to camp. I regret that I didn ?t get to know all of our students at camp either. Be encouraged that many are growing as strong spiritual leaders, and we can look forward to their continued growth and work within the church.]

During the North American Christian Convention, I attended a workshop about the missional nature of the church. Basically, to quote author Ed Stetzer, ?Missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your zip code. ? In other words, Christians need to be missionaries within their own culture. While the phrase ?cultural relevance ? has become a buzz word, the fact is that the Good News of God ?s forgiveness and salvation ?which is relevant to all cultures across all times ?needs to be communicated in such a way that our culture can understand its relevance.

Our culture is a know-it-all culture, and it is a ?what ?s in it for me culture. If we can ?t bridge the gap of what people think they know about God, Jesus, the Bible, the church, and Christianity in general, they will tune us out. If we can ?t show them the value of what we believe, they won ?t care enough to listen long enough to accept it.

One way to bridge the gap is to practice hospitality. At one time, evangelism in our neighborhoods was to go from door-to-door ?calling. ? The fact that many new homes and communities don ?t have sidewalks or front porches should tell us that our culture isn ?t big on that kind of connecting. However, the glut of ensemble dramas and sitcoms should show us that our culture is big on relationships. In Romans 12:10-13, Paul gives examples of how we can appeal to this desire for relationships and share the core of what we believe: ?Be devoted to one another in brotherly love…. Practice hospitality. ?

As we continue through the season of picnics and backyard barbecues, let ?s put into practice the missional act of hospitality. Let ?s start sharing God ?s always relevant love and by opening our homes and ?calling ? our neighbors to join us.

As we continue to bridge the gaps between God and people and among people, we find ourselves experiencing various forms of discomfort. While many long for the discomfort of maxing out our seating capacity, the experiences we will have before we get to that point may cause friction among the people who come into our fellowship and those who are already here.

Friction will come from personal differences. Some will come into the church with the baggage of damaged relationships, past church experiences, and unforgiven or unforgotten sin. Some will come into the fellowship with strong personalities and preferences.

Friction will come from different ?measures ? of faith. Some will come with brand-new faith. Others have been Christians for much of their lives ?and the levels of maturity will vary among them as well. With this will come different understandings of the Bible and varied practices of worship and service.

When this friction occurs, or better still, before then, we must remember Paul ?s words in Ephesians 4:2-7: ?Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit ?just as you were called to one hope when you were called ?one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ?

Here are a few ideas of how to bridge the gap patiently. Be direct; if you ?re upset with someone, talk to them directly. Be flexible; Christ ?s death has given us a lot more freedom than we sometimes give others credit. Be quiet; listen to others, even if they obviously don ?t have the right answers. Be encouraging; help other Christians grow in their faith. Be transparent; your faith story, your ups and downs, may be the directions someone else needs to cross the bridge.

As we get closer to July 4 and start thinking about our Independence Day celebrations, I start thinking about what it means to be free. I ?m thankful to live in a country that offers us so many freedoms in how we live our lives. But I ?m more thankful for the ultimate freedom we have in Christ to worship and serve God in what seems to be an endless number of ways. The strange thing about our Christian freedom is that we ?re actually making ourselves slaves to God. Paul had a good grasp of this: ?Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible ? (1 Corinthians 9:19).

Paul continues through the chapter listing the different ways he makes himself a slave to different people. In verse 22 he sums it up this way: ?I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. ? Obviously we ?re not supposed to practice sinful behaviors in order to win people who do the same. What Paul is saying is that he uses every means that he can to win people to Jesus. And in this age, the means that we use are more diverse than ever. As we bridge the gap between people in this diverse culture and God, we must use our creativity.

An example of this creativity is how we can use the Internet. We have just added the domain name 5milechurch.org to our web presence. So, now you can send people to www.memorialchurchofchrist.org or www.5milechurch.org to see our new website. We ?re in the process of upgrading and updating the site, but it will include a new level of interaction between us and the people checking us out on the web. Soon we will be using the web to publish our events calendar, podcast our sermons, and provide online registration for events. Watch for changes in email addresses by the end of summer.

I ?ve always been intrigued by the mechanics of the human body. In fact, I was pre-med until the fifth grade. The most fascinating thing about the human body is how the many different parts and systems work together in a complex series of chemical, electrical, mechanical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual activities orchestrated to accomplish specific tasks. And if any of those systems or parts within those systems were to fail, down to the cellular and even molecular levels, then the task will not be accomplished, at least not effectively.

It ?s the same with the church. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:24, 25: “God has combined the members of the body ? so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.” We usually consider the earlier parts of this passage, trying to remember that all of the parts are important, and that ?s good. However, the point is really summed up in these verses. It is more important that the parts work together, undivided, with concern for each other.

With that understanding, then, nobody in the church should be able to say, “It ?s not my job.” And nobody should ask, “Why doesn ?t somebody do something about ” Because we are a body, there is a shared responsibility for everything we do. Granted, some parts are responsible for specific tasks, but none of us are working on our own, nor should we try, nor should we expect others to do so. In order for us to get the job done effectively, we must bridge the gap and share the responsibility of getting the work done. That means that we all need to pitch in to do the work when we can and also hold each other accountable, in love, for our individual responsibilities. While you ?re at it, watch for the people who are doing the “thankless” tasks and try to encourage them with a word of “thanks” ?or just take your coffee cup with you and turn the lights out if you ?re the last person in the room. Either way, we ?re in this together!

Many people look to Romans as a summary of Christian theology, but there ?s just too much there for it to be a summary. Read Ephesians 2. Now that ?s a nice summary.

?Let me sum up. ? Paul says that we were once dead in our sins, all of us, because we live in the world that is ruled by Satan. But God made us alive, by his grace, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have been saved because of our faith in Christ, and not by anything that we can do or have done. However, because we have been saved, we must do good works. And not only that, but because Jesus has made peace between us and God, we are all members of God ?s family, and we are being built up into the temple where God lives.

Basically, Jesus has bridged the gap between dead sinners and the living God. He has bridged the gap, bringing foreigners and aliens into the family. As a family, then, we need to work together to do the things that God has prepared for us to do. And there is a lot to be done.

You ?ll be hearing more about this soon, but the leadership has been working on the foundations of what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. The short answer to the question ?how is ministry teams. We ?ve looked at the committees and teams that have already been working, many of them informally and on their own without a lot of support or recognition, and we have identified more than 150 teams. And the list keeps growing.

We have teams that support the Sunday morning worship gatherings and programs. We have teams that help take care of our building and property and other administrative areas. We have teams that encourage fellowship and relationships through fun activities like sports and quilting. Whatever it is you are gifted to do, have experiencing doing, or just like to do, there ?s a team for you. Help us become what Christ has saved us to be and find a team where you can bridge the gap serving God and others.

This past weekend, the sermon directed us to look inward to find the tension we have with worship. Without rehashing the whole sermon, the inner tension we have with worship is probably related to the fact that we are created in God ?s image. Because we are made in the image of God, we sometimes confuse the worshipper with the One who should be worshipped.

For example, we walk into the Sunday morning worship gathering with preconceived notions about what worship should be like and what it should mean to us. When we leave, we comment about how good worship was, based upon what we liked about the time spent and about the feelings we have when we leave. While I don ?t want to negate those good feelings, perhaps they are misdirected. Shouldn ?t our good feelings be based upon the good things we brought before the One who is to be worshipped?

This internal tension becomes an “internal” struggle for the body of believers because we all have different understandings and expectations of worship. Our own internal tension is compounded by the internal tensions of the ones around us in the worship gathering.

The solution for our own internal tension is to give up our own self to God in our worship. Whatever it is that causes us to focus on ourselves in worship, we need to give it up selflessly and give God what he desires. Not only does that refocus our attention, but it redefines worship. With that kind of selfless attitude, worship isn ?t confined to an hour Sunday morning but to our whole lives.

By becoming “life slaves” to God, being completely, selflessly sold out to Jesus, we begin to reduce the tension in the body of believers as well. By giving up our own agendas and expectations for the worship gathering Sunday morning, we are bridging the gap within the body.