About family, life, and pursuing God

#2

These days I'm learning a lot about fatherhood. I'll get to that in a bit. A friend of mine named Brian wrote a book called Engaging Your Teen's World: Become a Culturally Savvy Parent . In it he encourages parents to not simply treat bad actions of kids. He says beneath all actions are values. If we simply respond to the action we may stop the negative behavior but we probably won't change the bad value and we may even hurt our relationship. Rather, he says talk about the value. Ask questions. Affirm your child if the value was actually a good value but that they acted poorly. If we do that, they will understand why their actions were bad and will learn to have a healthy value. I've been teaching this lately to parents in my ministry and it really does work.

However, today I needed to listen to my own advice. Quinn has this "thing" where he likes to go into Tammie's drawer and pull out all of her jewelry and play with it or put it on. We have been getting on to him about this for about 6 months. Toddlers don't necessarily have the capacity to learn when you "affirm their values" so I scolded him yet again about getting into the drawer. As he started to cry I looked around and noticed something different...there were no necklaces or bracelets, no rings or hair clips. On the floor were three pens and a sheet a paper. He just wanted to draw (or as he says, "corrlor").

I said, "Wait bud, do you just want to color?" He stopped crying and started to smile. Then I said, "Next time you want to color either tell me or come over here and use these colors. But you still are not supposed to go into this drawer." He then walked over to the table on which I said he could color and happily created art. Again, he wasn't being bad just to be bad. In fact, he wasn't being bad. He just wanted to create art. I love this little guy.

I'm in a reflective mood. I decided that I'm going to occasionally post memorable things that people told me about life, love, ministry, friendship, etc. I may also post something that I've read or heard in the past. The key aspect in these postings is that I will only quote things as I remember them.

"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial." - MLK Jr.

In my limited observation I have noticed that many in the Evangelical church have focused energy on either saving somebody’s soul or giving them food to eat. While spiritual salvation is important and meals are essential, neither aspect works to break the cycle of injustice and poverty. If missions in the United States are going to be effective the church is going to have to deeply identify with hurting people and work towards salvation in heaven and on earth. We are going to need to learn lessons of empowering the poor from organizations like Habitat for Humanity. We are going to have to treat people with more dignity and respect. We are going to have to learn how to listen. Our love must be solely based upon another person being a child of God and not upon what they can do for us or whether or not they will become a Christian.

DISCLAIMER: The first three paragraphs are NOT statistically backed. These are simply observations. I could be horribly wrong.

In the American south the churches that seem to be thriving are doing one of three things. Some are holding tight to the traditions, institutionalism, and the history of the past. There are several large traditional churches. My theory is that these churches were already sizable towards the end of the 20^th century. As smaller traditional churches died their congregants flocked to these large churches in hopes of finding a worship style that connects them to their childhood experiences.

Some thriving churches are basically repackaging the same theology, doctrine, and ideals in a younger, faster, sexier package. Many of these churches started in the 90’s as “seeker friendly” churches. In my experience, they mainly attracted those who were already Christians and simply bored or discontent with their place of worship. The ethos of these churches seems identical to the traditional churches. Both are conservative theologically (and usually politically). However, the two look VERY different.

Finally, some churches that are thriving are rethinking what it means to be a church. These churches can look both traditional and “emerging.” They are not necessarily busting at the seams numerically. However, if you attend these churches you realize that they are authentic, warm, and deep. Many have put aside the traditional hot topics in pop-Christianity to engage the community in genuine and nonthreatening ways. Though these churches may be smaller than those mentioned above, they seem to be more numerous. I suspect that they are also more sustainable.

According to Jenkins, the growing church of the global South is successful for three reasons: new metaphors, indigenous worship, and social stances that are beyond any one political perspective. In our quest for precise theology and for meaningful acts of worship we have unknowingly confused our system of engaging with God as the only RIGHT way. Thus, our metaphors have become undisputable, timeless truths and our acts of worship have become the only acceptable way to corporately interact with the living God. Unfortunately, they only resonate with our culture.

Jenkins says that the church in the South is rewriting liturgy to better fit the context. In Africa some churches are calling God the “Great Ancestor.” This metaphor resonates with churches in Asia as well (135). Churches are also incorporating indigenous acts of worship such as dance and healings (145). I am sure many in traditional churches in the US would cringe if they ever heard this metaphor spoken in a prayer or song or experienced such a lively worship service.

Unlike pop-Christianity in the US, Churches in the South seem to take social stances that do not fit a particular political perspective. In some areas such as the role of women and homosexuality they are conservative (226). In other areas such as equality of classes and welfare they are liberal (215). Regardless of one’s particular view on these issues the church of the US needs to learn from this approach. We are not called to be Republican or Democratic. We are called to be children of God and followers of Jesus. This is a lifestyle that is bigger than any political party.