Did We Miss a Step?

I foresee an abrupt ending to my current thought on religion. I'm leading a small group in the fall. But in thinking today, I realize I've set my focus to inevitably meet an unwanted and ill-timed end. Maybe it's lack of ministry experience, but my current focus for ministry aims at the idea of questioning (thanks goes to my "post-modern" counterparts). I think too many people have become comfortable with their beliefs and don't desire to re-examine them. A personal relationship with God begins with re-examining the assumed and accepted. Examination eliminates trite religiosity in society and creates zeal for Christians created in and for today's generation. But that's where my thought ends: re-examine, then what? This is where the older generation has more of a voice. They built the foundation of contemporary religion's "how to's". Thinking critically and refreshing belief is one thing, but creating new practices to match the newly acquired insights is another. If my Stage 1 is formed in and for today's society, then why shouldn't Stage 2? Where does the sense of excitement from the newness of belief continue, if not into newer practices formed in the same religion? Unfortunately, it has formed a newer generation's church that lacks the theological-density older churches do/did. In creating a new starting point for this generation's take on religion, we are mandated in refreshing the practices of how ministry is done today. The older generation's answer worked for them. But we're not in the 50s, 60s, or 70s anymore. They created a standard for themselves that we have been unsuccessful in re-working for ourselves. We won't be taken seriously, nor will we be helping ourselves if we do not begin to build newer practices for our refreshed thoughts.

Religious Popularity Contest

Do you read your Bible more in church or at home? If you read your Bible in church more than on your own time outside of church, is it not as if you are worshiping your pastor more than God? If more insight into your life comes from your pastors pointing out things in the Bible than you coming to them in your own devotions, then are you not valuing your pastor more for insight than the God of the Universe that knows everything? Two questions: who are you really worshiping/following? And is your pastor presenting an atmosphere where God is on the pedestal, or whether consciously or unconsciously does your pastor take the role?

Survey

Do we swallow the conditions imposed by others, or do we dismiss anything except our own ideological dreams?

Synergy

Sometimes I get the idea in my head that God’s plan for us is never really what we want to do. It gets tiring sometimes doing things that we know we should be doing, but are only half-heartedly doing. It’s refreshing, then, to see something that you know is God’s plan line up with your own personal wants. Seeing old mentors and friends I only see once a year helps with that. It’s an old cliché, but the group you associate with says a lot about you. I think instead of saying who you hang out with, but who you respect and trust does. It’s just good to have a God that cares about my desires, and people to help develop them. I heard a pastor jokingly say recently “God knows what to use as bait.”

Double Negatives

Why is it that every time I wake up early in the morning to work out at the Y, it ends up being the most productive day of the week? This isn’t just a onetime occurrence; I’ve tested it a number of times. For me, summer denotes a vacuum for needed accomplishments: daily devotions, working out, reading, in a sense, productivity. Lying on the couch all day, watching TV does not fall under “productive”. Let it be the dreaded 7am alarm or the faucet I stick my head under to wake up or the sore-inducing workouts: it ends up being worth it. Waking up early to work out is a double negative that somehow becomes positive. Waking up at 7am is painful. Working out is exhausting. Pain and exhaustion…where’s the fun in that? Yet they simultaneously curtail laziness and actuate progress. Some things require more than a briefness of pain; some involve an initial wake-up followed by belated fatigue. Holding on to hope in the face of discomfort brings both a lucid understanding of evil as well as more achievement through our actions. But do we see only negative? Or do we see the positive that could come from standing against the discomfort?

Return

It’s been a long couple of weeks. All I feel that I’m doing anymore is scheduling more of my time with work and trips. But there comes a time, like the last couple of weeks, where I actually try to breathe so as to not just go from one busy semester to another busy semester. Thinking about the tough academic schedule I have ahead of me, my work schedule (here and at school), and co-leading a small group next semester is exhausting.

So I come to two not disconnected thoughts after an extended leave from the blogging front. The first comes from paying attention to the whole Iran situation that’s been going on recently. The first condensed looks something like this: Change comes from opposing the majority and having the guts to challenge what hasn’t been challenged before. The second came in a recent conversation (again quite a different matter) I had with a friend: Too many people have accepted Jesus without accepting their failures.

I’ll have to expand later, but I’ll start back into blogging briefly.

Stressors

I’ve always found it interesting the irony in our prayers and the things that happen around us. One of my better friends and I have been praying for each other the last couple of months, and I’ve constantly asked him to pray for struggle in my life in that I will be able to grow. If there’s one thing I hate the most it is spiritual stagnancy, or any form of stagnancy at all. Summer has been rough because I am fighting the fact that I know I should be doing something, while living in a confined spot where there is apparently not much to do. And then in that reclusive state come a streak of irritations that sparks a drive for action. There’s some movie that I watched with the line “stress is the fertilizer for creativity”. Currently I am frustrated with the lack of effective Christianity for me. I see a high number of well-intentioned Christians who are well-read in the Bible who in my observations tend to be conservative religiously (as well as politically). Then there are the more “liberal” Christians who take the effort to be different but sell themselves on Biblical intelligence. It may seem hard to argue with a “love everyone” approach, but believe me it’s not as difficult as it may seem. These stressors are at present my current motivation to be better. Why do we not see more Christians who are both well-read, as well as having the liberal practices that would boost the non-believing world to take Christianity more seriously? So friend (who I believe should be able to pick up on who I refer to), thank you for your constant prayers for trials in my life.