The Church Code

After visiting a different Church, my brother made a point about how complicated their code was for new people to decipher. You stand up, sit down, turn around, say this. It kind of got me to think about Church Culture. There are so many unwritten rules of conduct. Just like in Baseball, when your up by 10 runs, you don’t swing at a 3-0 pitch. There’s no rule about it, but your already killing the other team, don’t rub it in. The same is true in Football, if your up by 17 points with under a minute in the game, you don’t take a shot at the endzone, it’s bad sports ethic.
Church has many of these unwritten rules. You don’t swear at Church, (at least it’s frowned upon) you don’t show cleavage ( not everybody knows this one), you don’t sit in someone else’s “assigned” seat ( I know it looked like it was empty, but they have seniority ), etc…

The point is, people don’t go to church because they don’t believe in God, or even because they’re mad at God. They don’t go because they feel out of place. I have never left a church because “They just didn’t love Jesus as much as me.” It’s becasue the “code” at that church has made me feel like I’m an outsider.

Why is it that the first thing we do to visitors is give them a visitors packet, and ask them to fill out personal information so we can add their name to the mass mail list, so three years later we can ask them to give money to the “New Building Fund”, even though they only came once. I think Christians need to rethink the way we do things and ask ourselves am I part of a church that is making people feel out of place?

Banker to the Poor

This is a very interesting topic. It first got my attention because Myhammad Yunus won the nobel peace prize for founding Grameen Bank, He’s a econonmics Professor. So I wonder how could a bank spread peace, most people who have interaction with banks would define it as stressful. Yunus, had a different vision for how he thought a bank should work. He targeted poor women in Bandledesh ( where he’s from). And attempted to get them a loan so they could buy raw materials to produce skilled goods, like baskets, mats, etc.. But because they are poor, and female, no bank would touch them. These women were caught in a cycle of economic slavery, they worked for their masters and made only enough money to survie for one day, then they wake up and do it all over again.

Yunus believed if he could loan them just enough money, one time, so they could get out of poverty forever. He created mirco-lending. smaller loans, that are paid back weekly. today 94% of all loans are to women, and 99% of all loans are paid back. Because of his success other banks are taking a look at how to set up more mirco-lending banks, even churches are getting involed, all in an effort to end world poverty.

Read the Article

American Idol is Brilliant

Without doubt the success of American Idol is the goal of every TV show, and for most that success would be enough. For American Idol 30 millions viewers isn’t enough, they are now using their success to draw attention to global issues like poverty and AIDS. This is were they become brilliant, not only are they doing something good, by donating a % of every vote, but it makes the voters feel good too, encouraging them to vote more. It’s a win-win. I applaud American Idol for taking advantage of their success to inform people about global issues. And the main audience for Idol I would imagine is the 12 – 24 age group at least vote wise, it’s important to make their younger voters understand other people are important too. I really hope other companies catch on and start similar programs, because there is too much money in the world for people to be dying form the lack of it.

Church should be more like College Basketball

What if we structure Church more like college basketball. we could hand out AP rankings for what church is number one. Then we could schedule sermon-offs. The #2 Pastor could travel to the #1 Pastors church. Both of them would preach and then collect all the money from the offering. Who ever collects more money is the winner, of course it’s harder for the visiting pastor because of home court advantage. Then the power house churches take their money to recruit more givers, increasing their odds of winning. And if they end up with a lot of people on their team who arn’t worthy of “starting”, they just make them sit on the bench until they get so discouraged they transfer to another church, where they are good enough to start.

Instead of March Madness, the church has Easter Madness. Every regular season die-hard fan, and all those that don’t watch the games till the post season, come out for this one. We could pass out brackets with 64 of the characters from the Easter story. Then we could fill them out, and create little leagues to see who wins. We could ask questions like “Who do you have in your Final Four.” I got Jesus, Peter, Pilot, and the cinderella pick this the year the thief on Jesus right.

Just an idea.

10 Things you can do now.

The older I get the more of a social activist I find I’m becoming. The problem is of course there are far too many good causes out there. How in the world do you choose which one to support. here’s a list of some ideas that have my interest right now.

*world poverty\ local poverty

*supporting nonviolence

* environmental concerns

*supporting education

I did change the settings on my computer, now it shuts off every night, saving thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year. It’s a small step. I’m also considering recycling, I reuse my water bottles and fill them with tap water. The hard part of course, is giving money. That’s the true show of commitment. I’m not there yet, I am usually a slow adaptor. It takes me awhile to come around, I want the “phase” to pass and then see how committed I feel. I do believe everyone can do something starting today, that’s doesn’t cost them money, it might actually save you money.

Here’s a PDF of 10 things you can do now.

Should Christians learn about Judaism?

I went with my brother to Beth Messiah Congregation in Gahanna. Which raises a question, should two good Christian boys be going to a Jewish messianic church? I think as Christians if we don’t learn about Judaism, we do our faith a disservice. After all Jesus was Jewish, he never converted to “Christianity”. He followed Judaism his whole life. I think the reason there is such a disconnect in the American church is because we don’t understand what Jesus is really teaching.

I will say, the experience was good overall. There are a few things that would stop me from going weekly. One, tradition. It’s a two edged sword, I think some tradition is good. It makes you work to learn and appreciate your faith. The other side is of course, it’s hard for new people to get involved. there’s a whole new vocabulary of words you have to learn, customs, prayers, etc.. it would take forever to learn all of that. And tradition can very easily lead to routine.

What was really good, was the teaching. It’s almost like hearing the same things you have been taught all your life, but from a different view. It’s like putting all the puzzle pieces you’ve lost into the puzzle. You had enough before to see what the picture was but now it’s closer to complete. I have a sense that Christians are very internal creatures. It’s my faith, in my head, in my heart. And Judaism teaches about a more physical faith. it’s action, movement, a relationship with God is a “verb”. It not just how you feel, and what you say. Faith is about what you physically do with your life. Is your overall life, an offering to God.

So what would lead Christians to learn about Judaism? Well, I’m tired of the Christian culture, I’m tired of pastor’s and churches using Jesus to support every new building fund, and side project. We have God down inside out, on Sundays. But I’m tired of people you can’t talk to me unless I’m at church. I’m tired of people who use Jesus like a bandade. It’s old, it’s fake, it’s worthless.

7th Wedding Anniversary

My wife is an amazing women. She is strong and brave, and courageous. She is my rock, she loves me enough to question me. She tells me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. She lets me fail, and never says I told you so. When I’m with her I feel safe. Like no matter what happens to us, it will all be ok. She makes me feel comfortable in my own skin, she has seen me at my worst, and loves me no less. And she has seen me at my best, and reminds me of who I am.

I love You With Everything I Am

The Truth about Bottled Water

It’s scary when you start looking for truth. As Americans we are use to living our lives without having to answer to other people, and our selves. And we have enough inputs in our culture to numb any difficult questions that are eating our souls. So if something is convenient for us, if it’s trendy, it must be ok. don’t ask questions because we really don’t want the truth.

Americans spend $100 billion a year buying bottled water, even though the restrictions on our tap water is stricter than bottled water. We pay almost $10 a gallon for water when it’s bottled, even while almost 2 million people go without clean water everyday.

So the American mind set is to say ” why don’t we buy bottled water and ship it over sea’s to third world countries so they can have clean water.” Well because we already use 2.7 million tons of plastic a year just too make the bottles. then once the water is gone, 86% of the bottles becomes trash. Burning them produces toxic gases like Chlorine. Burying them takes a 1,000 years to biodegrade them. And more then 50 Indian Villages have complained of water shortages after Coca-Cola began extracting water to use for Dasani.

It’s estimated that $12 billion could provide the world with clean water and sanitation, that’s only 12% of what we spend a year on bottled water. It is a lot of money, but Americans spent $9 billion in one day last year, Black Friday. Why isn’t there a Politician, or environmental company stepping up to solve this problem.

So here’s where it gets hard. You have to ask your self, “Am I contributing to the problem”? And as a Christian, can I really go on doing something that destroys the planet. After all Christians should be the most vocal environmentalist. Drink more tap water, reuse plastic bottles, and if you have buy water there are companies doing something about this. Buy Ethos water sold at Starbucks they give a percentage to solve the “Clean Water Problem”.

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Politics

“Politics is a game of compromise”

-National Public Radio

Gandhi

“The only people who don’t know that Jesus was nonviolent are Christians.”

- Gandhi