Church – Page 2 – Chris Linzey

October 8, 2013May 1, 2014

Glamorous Body Parts

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some parts of the body are just more glamorous than others. There’s no way around it. The muscular parts or the sexual parts get a lot of attention and make us look twice, but who looks twice at an elbow or a big toe?

When it comes to our experience in Christianity the Apostle Paul compares our belonging to being part of a body. And, just like the human body, there are certain roles within an organization that get a lot of attention and the spotlight. Other roles are more like the elbow or the big toe – not a lot of glamorous attention given to them.

Sometimes not being the spotlight person causes us to sit back and do nothing. “I’m not the pastor, I just attend.” “I’m not a Children’s Church leader, I just show up for the donuts and coffee and to get my spiritual fix for the week.”

But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

You see – in the Church there are no bench warmers. Everyone is supposed to step up and play an active role in the ministry. It doesn’t matter if you’re the bicep who does the heavy lifting and looks great when flexed. You have your own role to play. Paul puts it this way:

⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. ¹⁴For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-21)

There it is. Everyone has a role to play – you don’t get out of serving just because you’re not such-and-such like you-know-who. It doesn’t matter what others can do. God calls us to use our gifts to serve.

In practice it comes down to the local church being made up of DOZENS of ministers, not just the pastor. God has called ALL Christians to do ministry. Many churches have taken an unbiblical perspective that the pastor is the one who should do the ministry of the church. The fact is, if people are expecting pastors to do the entire ministry of the church then the pastor will burn out and the people in the church will never live up to the gifts and callings that God has given them.

As a pastor it is my desire to help people discover how they can use the gifts that God has given them in order to be ministers. My church is launching a pastoral care & visitation ministry in the next few weeks. We’re training church members how to do visitation and provide pastoral care to others in the church. That’s AWESOME! That’s people stepping up to do ministry, to BE ministers.

Pastor Leroy Howe says it like this:

“We must stop using the word pastoral to refer only to the work of a congregation’s leader. Instead we must use it to refer to a particular kind of caring relationship and attitude, one that all Christians are called to cultivate toward others, with shepherding as its central image.”

So get off the sidelines and get into the game! What gifts has God given you? How can you serve Him and minister to others? There is an important place for you in the Kingdom of God that is not being filled as long as you’re warming the bench. Every part of the body needs to be functioning if we’re to have a fully healthy body.

How can you step up and minister to others for God’s sake?

Follow @chrislinzey

August 6, 2013February 6, 2015

Fighting in the Worship Wars

Image courtesy of bplanet at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Did you know that some church songs are holier than other songs? It’s true. Just ask anyone. Well, that’s true subjectively. I’m pretty sure it’s not an objective truth. What makes a song appropriate for use in church? Is it about style? About content? For every 5 people you ask you will find 7 opinions on the matter. There is no unified voice in what make an appropriate worship song. Welcome to the WORSHIP WARS.

People complain about the contemporary Christian worship music that floods many churches and ask why we can’t go back and do the good old songs that were full of theology (yes, I’ve actually heard that argument before). But when those “good old songs” were new people were complaining about them asking why the church had to shift from its older style of worship. Each generation finds its own voice in worshipping God. Style doesn’t make one song better than another.

What about content, then? The good old hymns of the church had great content that is missing from a lot of these “ding-dong ditties” (an expression one octogenarian used in conversation with me). But let’s be honest – for every generation of sacred songs there are some that are wonderful. They are timeless songs that proclaim great truths and will be sung for decades (if not centuries). But there are also songs that are just plain junk. Read through any hymnal and you will find the classics, but there are also songs in there that were no good, are no good, and will never be any good.

There are songs being written currently that have wonderful content full of rich theology. There are songs being written now that are fluff, spiritual marshmallows that don’t nourish the soul. Don’t cast out an entire generation of music because of some bad songs – every generation has bad songs.

What does it really come down to, then? Personal preference. That’s it. We like the songs that we like. We dislike the songs we dislike.

Grumpy Cat

Sometimes we’ll like the way a certain line moves our soul. Sometimes the melody will capture us and we will love worshipping to it over and over and over and over again.

A mentor of mine once noted that people seem to love the worship songs that were present when they had a significant spiritual experience. What was being played when you had your first real encounter with Jesus? Chances are that those songs will have a special place in your heart. If you have attended a retreat or spiritual conference that was dynamic and revitalized your spirituality, the songs played at that event will have significantly more meaning to you than a new song introduced by your church’s worship team the following week. We are a highly subjective people. Our experiences lead us to like or dislike worship.

When we understand that our experiences and preferences determine our pleasure and displeasure with songs we are freed to worship alongside of people in spite of differences. We don’t have to like the same music, but we worship the same Jesus. I don’t even have to have all of the words of a song memorized to worship God. God transcends words and is not limited to what I can read on the projection screen and sing along with.

As a pastor, then, I have made a conscious effort to engage multiple generations and styles in our church’s service. This is typically called a “blended service” – which I guess is an adequate description. Our worship leader is prayerfully intentional in selecting songs that cover a variety of styles and eras. I don’t think that our way is the best way, but we do understand that people respond to different music in different ways, and we seek the good of the ENTIRE church, not just one demographic.

We recently conducted an unscientific survey in our church, asking people to rate 20 different worship songs. They were asked to scale how familiar they were with the song (little, medium, or very familiar) , how much they liked the song (don’t like, somewhat like, really like), and if they wanted to hear it more, less, or the same. We included 5 hymns and 15 contemporary songs.

We found an interesting phenomenon: even when people really liked a song they indicated that they would like to hear it played about the same in church. This was true almost across the board for hymns and contemporary songs. For example, Revelation Song received one of the highest favorability ratings in our church 73.1% of responders really like it. At the same time, the overwhelming majority said the frequency of play in church was fine and to keep it the same.

While we don’t pick music based on the subjective likes and dislikes of people, the surveys were interesting to see how people think and what they desire in a weekly worship service. I don’t think we’ll ever get it all right. No single service will make everyone content, but we do want to be intentional about creating a worship environment where it is easy to worship God, so we will continue to utilize the blended method. If your church does something else – more power to you. But we have to be faithful with what and who God is calling us to be.

I don’t think the worship wars will ever end. It’s about personal preference, so we will never achieve total unity. But we can worship alongside each other and embrace each other’s preference even if it isn’t our own. I really don’t think God cares about our preferences as much as he cares about whether or not we are actually worshipping. So, next Sunday at church, forget about what you like or prefer and attempt to engage and worship God no matter what song the praise team is leading.

How about you? What are your preferences? What songs move you? What songs make you shut down?

And, just because I know some of you are interested, here are the 20 songs from our survey:

1. Victorious –
2. Let God Arise –
3. Mighty to Save –
4. All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name –
5. Great is Thy Faithfulness –
6. When the Stars Burn Down –
7. God is Able –
8. 10000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) –
9. I Surrender –
10. Everyday –
11. My Savior Lives –
12. The Solid Rock –
13. Blessed Assurance –
14. Revelation Song –
15. Glory to God Forever –
16. Here In Your Presence –
17. Here and Now –
18. Wonderful Merciful Savior –
19. The Stand –
20. Days of Elijah –

June 26, 2013April 29, 2015

A Christian Response to Gay Marriage

Today I was contacted by a woman who had some pretty heavy questions regarding the LGBT lifestyle (unless you have your head stuck in the sand or are stuck at home raising multiple children you will know about the Supreme Court’s decisions today…). She had a question about an appropriate response and felt like and “outsider” because she didn’t feel contempt for the gay community or have a strong desire to convert them to heterosexuals. The following is the letter I wrote her back. I understand that you may differ in your take, but this is coming through my lenses on how I see the world and how I read the Bible – which I believe should set the standard for actions and belief.

From my reading the Bible is pretty clear that God’s design is that sex be restricted to one man and one woman who are married to each other. Do people break God’s design? ALL THE TIME! You are right that God’s design is also for marriage to be a life-long commitment without divorce, yet that happens as well. We live in a broken world in which people act in broken ways.

In that sense we’re all messed up, loved by a gracious God in spite of ourselves. There are probably several reasons why the church focuses so much intensity and anger towards the LGBT community, but that is our error. We are called to love people no matter what their personal sin is. Some drink to excess – yet the Bible says that drunkenness is a sin. We love them still. The Bible says not to divorce, but Christians do. We love them still.

I believe that God designed male and female to be compatible. Same-sex sexuality goes against the natural order. But let’s differentiate between sexual behavior and sexual inclination/attraction. I do know people who have same-sex attraction as a result of life circumstances (bad parenting situation, sexual abuse, etc.). There is also a cultural push to see same-sex friendships as gay because we are uncomfortable with the idea of a deep friendship between two men. I have heard some people interpreting the intimate friendship between David and Jonathan in the Bible as being a homosexual relation. While they were closer than brothers there is no indication that they were gay. But we are often uncomfortable with same-sex intimacy. How can you experience intimacy with someone of the same sex unless it is sexual? This is more of a Western point of view than an Eastern one. My wife, who has a degree in missions and has traveled quite a bit in southeast Asia, tells me that it’s not uncommon in foreign countries to see two men walking down the street holding hands as a sign of camaraderie and intimacy, even though they are both happily married to women.

Even still, some people claim same-sex attraction with no childhood trauma. I am not a scientist, so I will not deny that it may be possible that there is a same-sex attraction born in some people. To my understanding this has not been proven. But even if it were proven, I believe that God’s Word remains unchanged about same-sex behavior and that God loves them no matter what (if our behavior determined God’s love we’d ALL be in trouble).

To the person who claims attraction I would differentiate between attraction and sexual activity. Some see this as a cop out, but I believe it to be a valid way of maintaining a sense of truth to oneself and to God’s design. Just because you might find yourself attracted to the same sex does not mean you have to act upon it. Humanity has a marvelous capacity to exercise self-control if we want to – sadly, much of our society laughs at the idea of self-control (and not just in regards to our sexuality, but to every other area of life).

At the end of the day you are right that God calls us to love and embrace all people regardless of their choices. People go against God’s design all the time – we love them anyway. Ultimately God is judge and we are not. As a pastor I will tell people what I believe God’s design is. It’s up to them and God as to whether or not they act on it. I still love them no matter what they choose.

And I do believe that, at the end of time, there will be people in heaven that will surprise us – and people in hell that we never expected to be there!

Follow @chrislinzey

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