Racism in the church

After recently being subjected to some verbal attacks from some proclaimed christians, (and I leave the word without capitalization for a purpose), about various people that attend the church I do and the amount of African American individuals in our church, I quickly came to realize just how much racism is still alive in the church today. These comments come on the heals of comments such as "did you attend church today, or was it a nursery again", and "you don't play hymns!?, we just can't be a part of that then", I realized that this racism goes deeper than just color. If you look up racism in Websters it defines racism as: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. So then let's define race.
Webster defines race as such: a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics .

See by these definitions statements like those carry a ton of racism. If we look across the church we can see many churches that are epidemically infected with this racism. Some people don't like youth, some people don't like the elder saints, some people don't like the babies, some people don't like the workers and the doers, some people don't like the music, some people don't like the way the preacher preaches. AND sadly enough, there are some that use the word christian and attach it to themselves and say they can't be a part of a church if it has too many of one color in it. So what does that say for us when we ALL get to heaven? There will be the white section of heaven, the African American section of heaven, the Asian section of heaven and so on? I don't think so. So what happens to this bigoted attitude from these so called believers?

Let's look at John 4:1-30. Racism was rampant even in the Bible, but as you see here in this passage, Jesus looked beyond the color of skin, or the sex of the individual or the nationality of the person. As Jesus sits at the well He asks the Samaritan woman for a drink and this is her response: “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” It was not customary for a Jew to talk to a Samaritan, let alone a Samaritan woman and this woman was shocked that this man would even give her the time of day, let alone ask her to help Him. But Jesus knew this would open the door for Him to witness to her on that very basis. By breaking down the racial barriers of all kinds he tweaked her interest and got her attention to allow Him to tell her of the Living Water He could supply. But it's not over yet, this racial reaction, when the disciples come back this is the reaction they had to Jesus as they find Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman: 27 Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?” This is the kind of racism we see most in the church. People who don't agree but don't have the nerve to say anything so they just wrinkle up their faces and think thoughts that only Satan would put in there mind. I mean look at the verse and where it says "what do you want with her", and tell me what does that imply? Take that and put that into a modern day setting and you have people of the church talking gossip of others in the church just because they talked to someone else of whom the gossipers either don't like or don't think should be conversing together. But if you look at the opportunity that Jesus took and the end result He had with breaking the mold of racism you will see in verses 39-42 of John 4 that He was able to make believers of many of those Samaritans. Had he not shown the love that Jesus shows, they would have likely been eternally lost.

Lastly as we read in Acts we see the beginning of the early church. Peter is going to the Gentiles and preaching the Good News and many are being saved. Peter is a Jew! Peter didn't go willingly at first, but God sent him a vision and this is what God told Peter in Acts 11:9 as Peter tells the story: “But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ And after Peter had won several Gentiles to the Lord, of course there was a big racial to do because he was proclaiming this victory that was presumably only for the Jews, yet these Gentiles had received it and Peter was witness of it. As Peter is getting grilled from the leaders of the Jewish realm, Peter responds with this: 34Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. 35In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right." PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Jesus sent us out to make disciples of ALL nations. He didn't segregate the command, He just said go and do this. So the next time you feel it is in your power to make comments of a church you visit or attend that are not pro-active for the church. Check your heart and see if you don't harbor some racism. Then ask yourself what are you doing to help make disciples of all nations, anything? Or do you approach this mission more as a spectator watching others do the ministry while you critique it?

Martin Luther, the great reformer, said this over 400 years ago, "Where there are dissension, divisions, and discord there is the dwelling of Satan." A racist disposition of any kind dissolves unity of all kinds. If there is no unity then there is sure to be division and Satan is lurking nearby to abolish as best he can the mission at hand. Pray that God will bring a sense of unity back into the church and abolish racism in the church first. Philippians 2:3Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
5You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Blessings to You All

Your Mission Field

So many times when we think of missions we think of third world countries or the reservations of the native Indians in America. We think of helping out the oppressed in devestated areas of our own country and sometimes the world. Think about it, how many organizations went to help with hurricane Katrina? I was blessed to be a small part in that effort myself, but as I study the Word and I look at our own churches and communities I often think that in our efforts to help "others", we often leave out those in our own immediate communities. In an evangelism class I recently took, there was discussion about evangelizing and it seemingly always went elsewhere. This class was full of pastors and as I sat quietly and listened intently to the discussion I finally asked the question. How many of you have churches running in the 100's? I knew that we all had small churches and that most everyone had less than 100 people in their church on average. I then asked the next question. Do you think if we took the same initiative and enthusiasm we have to help other areas of the world and the country, and took that to our own surrounding communities could we perhaps build our churches? There was silence for quite some time, then responses like "there are so many churches in our immediate area all ready we can't be as affective", to "people are more educated here and more set in their beliefs or lack their of". That posed my next question of how does the missionary in China succeed then if he can't even be open with his faith? How does the missionary that has to battle the buddist belief succeed since Budism is so prevelant in some areas, more so than the amount of churches in any part of this country. I believe we need world missions by far, but I also believe that as people of the local church we are also to be as missional as our world missionaries, but in our own communities. Did you know that if you took all of the people in the U. S. that didn't go to church, those people alone total more than the total number of people that do attend church at some place in America. That is huge, because there are some huge churches in America. That just reiterates the fact that the local mission field is huge as well. If you love your church and you love your God shouldn't you do your part in "make disciples of all nations", including the part of the nation that is right next door to you? Have you invited anyone to church lately? If God is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you, and I hope He is, then tell someone. Through the recent loss of a very close friend of mine who died trying to save another person from drowning, God made it clear to me that my mission field was right here. I had felt that before and was thankful that I had had the time to spend with this man who exercised John 15:13 to the extreme. Let's build the local church with the intensity of world missions right here in our own community.

God Bless and Empower you!

Why is it?

So often times in tragedy we as Christians are faced with the question of why does a loving, all powerful God allow such senseless hostility to innocent people as occurred at Virginia Tech? We really as humans will never really understand the whole concept of how this works and for those of us that see Jesus when we get to heaven perhaps it is something we may ask Him. But keep in mind that in heaven there will be no sorrow, no pain, so we may never know this part of humanity. I would like to offer some suggestions that may help in the understanding process for you. I am not saying they will make it go away but they may help us understand how this happens and God is still on the throne. You see, it is the unfathomable love of God that allow each and everyone one of us the freedom to make our own choices. As we were created in His image ( Genesis 1:26), he included in that image the ability to make our own decisions without God intercepting them even though He may know the outcome of such a decision. Think about how much power God must have to initiate on His own accord not to interfere when He knows such devastation is about to occur. The "All Powerful" God must exercise that very power on His own self, especially in instances such as Virginia Tech, September 11, or Columbine. These are horrific events in our history and very painful, so let my try to pull it down to scale for us in a simpler way. My son when he was 3 years old was playing around the swimming pool at my house one day. It was a big pool and definitely over his head. The rule was if he ever got into the pool he had to wear his arm flotation devices. This day he stood at the top of the deck ladder, then onto the deck eyeing me to see if I had noticed him at the pool without his flotations devices on his arms. As I continued to cut the grass I yelled over to him to get down and get his flotation devices on, or floaties as we called them. He gave me that mischievous smile of his and at that point I knew the floaties were not in his plan. It took all I had to keep from stopping my grass cutting and going over to him and pulling him down to put his floaties on, but I knew he had to learn. Sure enough he jumped in and went straight to the bottom. I ran to the pool and dove in and grabbed him up out of the water to hear him attempting to whimper through his deepest of gasps for air. After he had calmed I explained to him that that is why we don´t enter the pool or even walk around it without flotation devices. He never did it again. See sometimes God wants so badly to stop the atrocity, but knows He promised not to interfere. Then after the catastrophic moment God jumps in to the thick of it to offer healing and understanding to those affected by such an event, just like I dove in to save my little boy. God wants to be your comforter, and while the act of violence committed against you may be more than you can bear Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:28-30, that all of us who are hurting need to come to Him. He invites us to come to Him so He can offer us comfort and take our burdens on Himself. If you don´t understand you can go to Him and scream and holler if need be, He understands, He just wants to love you and comfort you. We may never understand these atrocities at all, but we can be sure of a few things for certain. 1) God didn't do it, but He dives right in to try and save us from the pain. (2) In all atrocities we see the true nature of sin, and (3) Jesus invites us to give our hurts to Him, and promises to give us rest. God Blessings to All

Is it Love?

Sorry for the lapse in time in blogs. I must do better. In our Adult Bible Study group we are doing the book Quest. It is really a good book, IF you take it full stride and study it and teach it the way it was meant to be. Last night we were on Discovery Two and we had a great discussion on love. Did you know the worldly definition of love is primarily that of a sexual desire. It's true check it out on Webster.com. No wonder the world is so messed up. Love is one of the most abused and misused words of all time right now. That would be probably why in early Bible times they used four different words for love, so as to be able to differentiate exactly what kind of love they were pertaining to. Sure there is a love from early Bible times that defines that of sexual desire, that being Eros love. Yet this love was the love meant to be between a husband and wife, a man and woman. This love may begin to develop in the "dating" stages of a relationship, but it is meant to be full circle only under Holy Matrimony, so as not to make a mockery of, or belittle the love the Creator has given His Creation to express. The other love terminology used in early Bible times that originate from the Greek language after a heavy hellenization period are terms like storge, which represents the love between kin or family, philea, which is the love between friends as in brotherly love, and the greatest of all is Agape. In the love chapter found in 1 Corinthians 13, the KJV Bible uses the word charity as being the greatest virtue of all Christians. That word is directly referring to Agape love, or an unconditional love that has no strings attached and has genuine care and concern for the well being of others without the expectation of something in return. You can find references to storge, as well as philea love in the Bible as well. But consider this, philea or the friendship love is never used in the Bible to relate to the love relationship between God and man. Why? Because God expects so much more than the casual friendship love from us. He wants us to love Him and other unconditionally, just as He did in John 3:16, and as He continues to do despite anything we have done. That's real love. So the next time you hear the L-word, think about it and try to discern if it really is love.

Blessings to you!