Redirection notice

This blogger thing just wasn't cutting it for me so I have upgraded to Word Press hosted on ISP. here is a link to my new blog please visit it there and thanks for stopping by.

http://www.revivedminstries.org/blog

Government: A Godly Institution?

My daily bible reading today brought me to Romans chapter 13:1-7 and is quoted as follows

Submission to the Authorities

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

I believe the Bible to the infallible word of the Living God, it is our road map that shows us who God is and points us to Jesus. II Timothy 3:16-17 puts it this way,

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (NASB)

Having said that there is a resounding question running through my head. If we submit to the governing authorities does that mean that we are to mindlessly follow whatever we are told to do? How does this affect Christians fighting against things such as abortion, what about our freedom of speech and our freedom to worship.

What if the government passed a law that said we could no longer witness, would we? Of course the scripture tells us that we are to seek Gods kingdom first and we all answer to a higher authority than the government. To me however this is were many who choose to condemn all Christians make their point. For whatever reason we (Christians) have been given this tag to wear around our necks that say "Sheep" the world I think interprets this as we should never have anything to say about anything, we should just always turn the other cheek. I don't believe this is the way God intends us to be at all.

Enter A.D. 30 something, Jesus has just entered Jerusalem and he went in to the temple and threw out those selling and buying and turned over the tables of the money changers. I would imagine this was a common practice, but Jesus didn't just accept it he said in Matthew 21:13 My house will be called a house of prayer,'but you are making it a den of robbers.

Everything Jesus did or said had one purpose, and that was to show the Glory of God, and that should be our daily goal as well. In today's culture we are under allot of laws and constantly have judges making decisions that can and will affect each of us. I don't believe we have to jump off the deep end on every single issue that we as Christians don't agree with, that just fuels the critics arguments, but I do believe that ultimately we have to follow what God has called us to do and if that means bucking the system then lets buck the system!

Bibles on the Playground

I was astounded to read where an Knox county school district and Karns Elementary school in Knoxville Ten. has banned any reading or discussion of the bible during recess. The principle and other officials are quoted as saying that recess is not free time and that, therefore, the school can prohibit Bible reading during that period.

This is ridiculous! when I was in school the only free time you had was at recess, granted I didn't spend it reading the Bible but 10 year old Luke Whitson has decided he wants to. Fortunately the ADF (Alliance Defense Fund) has come to the rescue with attorneys asking a federal district court to make the school district respect the Constitutional rights of this student.

If we as Christians do not do more to stand up for our rights we will lose them all together. I can respect the right of an atheist not to believe, and although I would feel led to witness to them as is my responsibility as a Christian, they have the right to believe what they want. The same would go for those of another faith.

The sad part is that in today's culture everything is permissible and everyone has the right to believe or do what they want except for Christians. Don't misunderstand me here, I am not advocating persecution of other religions or other people for their beliefs, but I am saying that as Christians we have the same rights guaranteed by the constitution as any other citizen.

Christians we need to unite in this, I think we are taking the "Turn the other cheek" approach to our God given rights and if we continue we will not have any God given rights because judiciaries and governments will have taken our rights and will begin dictatating to us what we can and can not do. They will tell us how and when we can worship.

This is already happening in some places, pastors are under persecution for preaching against homosexuality and are being charged with hate speech see this link. http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_hat8.htm

This is creeping closer and closer to our very back yards and our main streets and we must be the ones to stand and say enough is enough. Believe what you will but stop trying to stop me from believing what I believe about the one true God.

The Blog-Out for the Kingdom

See this original post over at Cerulean Sanctum about this worthy cause. I believe that sometimes we get so wrapped up in our ministries, whatever they may be, that we forget about what we are to be doing in our own communities.

I think this is a great idea, and one that we as bloggers need to get behind. I have to say that I do music ministry as well as maintain my website and try to keep this blog up, but there are people down the street from me that I don't even know their names, and I live on a dead end street "Very Sad".

So I can say without hesitation that I am in, I will not be making any posts to this site the week of November 20-26 and I would like to encourage others to do the same. I personally am going to make it a priority to meet and speak with everyone that lives on my block, and I will keep good notes and make a full report on this when I resume posting.

In the mean time there are a couple of other issues that I will be posting on in the next few days. I am also reading "It's not about me" by Max Lucado and I hope to give a review of that in the next week as well.

James

Mega Church Mania

I read this post the other day, a very interesting narrative on the condition of the small church on the corner. I want to address the other side of this story and really look into what drives the so called mega churches.

First off I have to say that I attend a church that is very much on the edge of becoming a megachurch. According to a report written by Scott Thumma, PhD of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research the minimum number of attenders needed to be classified as a megachurch starts at 2000 quoting from his report Mr. Thumma says

"The most overt characteristic of megachurches is their size, the number of persons attending in a given week. Although some disagreement exists over what size attendance should constitute a megachurch, this study uses a minimum weekly attendance of 2000 persons. The size of some megachurches can be deceptive, however. A count of thousands of attenders is seldom completely accurate to the person. More often churches estimate their attendance based on the number of people their sanctuary holds."

The church that I attend has consistently around 1800 folks on a Sunday morning spread out over three services. At the same time we have a bookstore a cafe and complete "Family Life Center". This consists of a gym, health and fitness classes, and a myriad of other things designed to give the members of the church the ability to consolidate all these things into one place. While from the outside for those who are used to a small church atmosphere, these things can and do pose the question "Is this about Christ?"

I will go on record here as saying that I believe the Leadership of my church cares about the community we are in and all the things that they do are geared to lead people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Sunday services are specific, the Gospel is preached! For some that begs the question, "We know the Gospel, we want the meat of the Word!" I say that is what a Sunday class or Wednesday night study group is for!

Sunday morning is quite possibly the time a person will get their first experience at a church. If that person is not saved and the Gospel is not presented how can they be saved. I will say in all the services that I have attended at my megachurch I still have come away with something from the message. I can agree that there are many pros and cons concerning megachurches as well as the church on the corner but in reality everything comes down to this one question, why are we there?

I believe Christ is in the midst of His people whether they are in a megachurch a church on the corner or gathered in a livingroom and if we are there and approaching God with the correct heart that is what matters. These churches promote family and community by allowing husbands and wives and children to attend and take part in more than just a church service together, they provide a place to partake and fellowship with other believers and be involved in many different things.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:20-22
"20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."

If megachurches choose to incorporate many things into their campus, to me it serves the same purpose as what Paul writes about. In essence megachurches are trying to offer many different things that appeal to many different ages and genders that by all possible means some might be saved.

I don't think it is unusual for some to put this down, and I will be the first to admit that left un-checked any church or ministry can go past trying to see people saved for the Glory God and get to the point of being self serving and more of a business. The reality is that when churches get to this size the rules change and some things just have to become a bit more structured and regimented.

Conclusions:
It should be the responsibility of any church to maintain the core mission given to the New Testament church and that is to go into all the world and preach the Gospel!

The responsibility of the body of Christ is to seek the kingdom of God first with all of our hearts, minds and strength.

I spent a lot of years being what I term a "lukewarmer" I went out of my way to find everything wrong with every church I visited just so I could say "see all churches are the same!" Then God broke my heart and made me realize it is not about me. I should attend church because I love Him, because it is my act of worship to Him not because of what I can get out of it.

I believe that churches that have the resources to offer all the things the so-called megachurches offer are simply offering opportunities that may draw the unsaved in so that they can be shown the love of Christ. After all without love we can not fulfill the great commission!

The Ten Commandments of Worship Music

This story is right up the alley of this blog. For the most part this represents my take on the use of music in worship. You can read the article HERE.

James

Halloween (Should Christians take part?)

With the less than mention worthy so called holiday of halloween upon us I felt compelled to ad a bit here. I found this post and it's related comments good reading. http://www.pantokrator.org/2005/10/18/Christians-celebrating-pagan-holidays/

I have to say that I do not believe we as Christians should in any way celebrate this holiday. In the above blog the question is raised about Christmas and Easter which a commenter plainly points out should be celebrated but only for the purpose of celebrating Christs birth, his death and resurrection.

My true thoughts on this however deal with the now common practice of having "Fall Festivals" or replacement celebrations at churches. In theory I understand the reasoning behind these is to provide a safe alternative to traditional halloween celebration, however is this a case where the church has compromised? While I have attended many of these and have seen many good aspects of showing Christ at these events somehow it still seems a bit awkward to me.

I can't say at present that it is a bad thing, because it does accomplish it's purpose of being an alternative, but I do wonder if the church and we as Christians should give this terrible night any recognition at all.

James

The Invisible Worship Leader

First of all I prefer the title "Lead Worshiper" because in effect that is what we are to be. I have taken the approach of trying to be transparent and didn't even know it. In the current issue of Worship Leader magazine there is an article entitled "At the crossroads of church and culture" by Kent Morris. The gist of the article is about the up to now poor quality of visual arts used to convey the gospel.

In the article Mr. Morris quotes the publisher Chuck Fromm as saying "Poorly executed art can lead to idolatry." The premise is that poor performances, and I use that word with some trepidation because I don't consider leading worship as a performance, can have the direct opposite effect on those that we are trying to lead. If we as worship leaders do not exemplify excellence in our craft we can become a distraction and accomplish nothing more than being the main topic at the Golden Coral lunch after the service.

The other point is that poor quality multimedia used in the service can have the same effect. I have to say that I can agree with both of these points. I am a strong proponent of using multimedia, video, dance, drama and other forms of art to convey the point, but I don't believe that these things should be used simply to fill some time. Anything that is used in a worship service must have a purpose and bring those in attendance one step closer to the throne of God, otherwise we are simply putting on a performance.

The one gripe I have is that quality multimedia is ridiculously expensive, leaving smaller churches to wallow in the mediocre video and images that they can afford. As the body of Christ we should be more interested in the end result of our worship services instead of turning worship into a fortune 500 company. Don't take me wrong I know that producing these things do not come cheap, I just whish there were more companies that cared more about facilitating worship than there bottom line, after all scripture tells us that if we seek God first and His kingdom, all other things will be added unto us.

I have always tried to be as inconspicuous as possible while leading worship, there has been many times when I would just step back from the mic, I continue to sing, but I don't need to be the focus. I have to agree that anything that distracts people from worshiping God can and most probably will become an idol, and I have no ambitions to be the next American idol. Although as a lead worshiper I have a myriad of things that I need to pay attention to, the most important thing to me is the leading of the Holy Spirit and if I follow Him I will never go wrong.

James

Welcome to the new Revived Writings Blog

Welcome to the new Revived Writings blog, a place where I hope to encourage meaningful discussions on worship and other religion based topics. As time allows I will try and incorporate into this book and music reviews as well and use it as a platform to address issues concerning worship and how music in particular can be used more effectively to show the love of Christ.

So, once again, welcome and I will try to start things off here in the next few days. If there are any topics in particular that anyone would like to tackle first please just leave a comment here and we can do that.

Serving Him,
James