End Times – So What?

Every morning I listen to a Christian radio show on the way to work. At least once a week, they talk about end times theology. In fact, a lot of Christians talk about end times a lot. There is a ton of talk about end times prophecy, signs of the times, what news event relates to what piece of Bible prophecy that has yet to come to pass, analysis of the tribulation period and what current  news makers could correlate to figures from it, and so on.

For years, it’s kind of annoyed me that people get so hung up on this issue. Whether it’s arguing about pre-trib vs. post-trib vs. mid-trib, premillennial, amillennial, etc. or just focusing on the end times to the point of near-obsession. People concern themselves with events leading up to and following the rapture at the neglect of other areas of their spiritual walk. People worry more about those that are ‘left behind’ by the rapture to endure the times that they neglect the fact that hell is going to be much, much worse.

Every day, people die without knowing Christ. Every day, our window to reach them closes forever. Only God can say what happens to them, but based upon what he’s told us, people dying without knowing Christ is much worse than them being ‘left behind.’ In many ways our preoccupation with eschatology is hindering our ability to reach the lost as well as consuming time and resources that could be used to reach them.

We spend our money and time on this when we could be reaching out into fertile mission fields right near us. The single best way to reach someone for Christ is to meet a need for them in the name of Jesus. There are people struggling to put food on the table every day, struggling to pay their rent. People that have trouble holding down a job because of the toll that living in a fallen world without Christ has taken upon them. People coming to the realization that if what the atheists and humanists have told them is true, there is really no point in the day to day struggle, and feeling the hopelessness. These are people we can reach right now, without having to scare them with horror stories of tribulations and Antichrists and the like. Chances are that if we don’t reach them, many of these people (if not most or even all) will enter eternity having never known Christ well before any kind of rapture takes place.

God said that it was not up to us to know the day or time of the events that are to unfold. And yet, we spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on resources and materials and books and shows talking about the coming events. There are entire ministries whose sole purpose is to analyze end time prophecy and current events trying to find a correlation which usually ends up being illusory. We spend so much trying to find out something that we won’t ever know until the split second it occurs, and we completely ignore the reality that’s been in front of us for millennia.

Instead of being concerned that time is running out before the rapture, we should be concerned that time could run out on anyone we know, at any time. We never know what the social or political climate will do to our ability to do outreach. Instead of fretting about end times, why don’t we get out there and get to work fulfilling the great commission?

Honesty in Advertising

The last few posts have either been links to things others have written or commercials for things I like, so I’ll do my due diligence and crank out a post of my own!

One big problem with the church’s current relevant movement, as well as with many movements from the recent past (recent past being all I can really speak to presently) is that they often misrepresent Christianity. This often leaves people with the sense of “Hey, this isn’t what I signed up for!”

Let’s take the school of thought that said that we should tell people that when they become a Christian, their life here on earth is going to be noting but peaches & cream. Once you receive Jesus into your heart as your personal savor and Lord, at that very instant your life will become perfect. Troubles won’t trouble you, you’ll get everything you want life will be happy all of the time.

I’m very sad to say that this is just not an accurate picture of the life God intended for his followers. God sends trials. God sends hard times. Sometimes the trials and hard times are just for the purpose of making us stronger. Other times, they’re just a natural result of the fact that we do live in a fallen world and God has not chosen to take that reality from us. Yes, God did say he would never leave us or forsake us, but that does not mean that we won’t go through hard times, have bad things happen to us, or have unpleasant emotions.

There are some that say that if God were real, then His followers wouldn’t have any problems, or that a Loving God wouldn’t allow suffering. That’s a very limited view which is primarily based in emotion rather than rational thought. However, the answer to that is not to lie and say “Ok then God is good and everything will be constantly happy!” Did the bible not tell us to consider it pure joy WHEN we face trials?

Along the same lines. The ‘relevance’ movement to ‘engage and leverage’ pop culture often results in Christians putting on display how ‘cool’ and worldly they are. I find this also to be dishonest. The Bible tells us that we are not of this world, and we are to be in the world but not of it. This is all elementary and those who follow this movement can easily rationalize it away. However, it is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to say that you can live your life, day by day being addicted to our culture and all of its distractions, and still be an effective follower of Christ.

Certainly, we are not commanded to shut ourselves up in caves and never partake of anything that the world has to offer. However, to immerse yourself in our society and culture so that you can win others with the idea that you can be a Christian and still live however you want is just as dishonest as telling them you can be a Christian and nothing bad will happen to you. As I’ve said before, God gives us a good deal of freedom and autonomy when it comes to our walk with him and our efforts to be as Christlike as possible. This does not mean, however, that God wants a church full of lukewarm believers whose lives as believers are only different from their lives as unbelievers in the sense that they attend a church and sometimes feel guilty for doing wrong.

God wants us to have a relationship with Him, not to have a tacit acquaintance mixed with guilt.

Goodbye, Evangelicalism?

Christiany Today’s blog, Out of Ur, has an interesting post entitled Goodbye, Evangelicalism.

The post is in response to articles by USA Today and the Christian Science Monitor.

From the USA Today Article:

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation.

“More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, ‘I’m everything. I’m nothing. I believe in myself,’ ” says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a “personal hobby,” and that the USA is “a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts.”

Today, he says, “religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many.”

So in a nutshell, people are becoming more “postmodern” and more morally relative. Not too surprising when you consider how much freedom we are given by God to make our own choices, and how often our message is either miscommunicated or ignored by the church itself. Without the message of home, love, and justice, there’s really no motivation for someone to follow a religion, as it becomes a restrictive hobby instead.

Haynes, like 69% of Americans, said in the ARIS survey that he believes there is “definitely a personal God.” He calls himself a deeply committed “follower of Christ,” rather than aligning with a specific denomination. He attends a non-denominational community church where he likes the rock music, but Bible study is the focus of his faith.

“We just look to Jesus,” he says. “That’s why I don’t pay attention to surveys. Christianity is moving totally under the radar. It’s the work of God. It can’t be measured. It happens inside of people’s souls.”

From the CSM Article:

A chilling opener:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

And more cheery predictions:

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

The causes?

1…We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2…We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it

#1: see the Screwtape Letters. It’s a work of fiction by C. S. Lewis. In it, a demon asks his uncle for advice on how to trip Christians up. One of the easiest was to get them so focused on politics that they lose focus on God.

#2: This is the biggest failing of the Christian community in my mind.

When I was a youth pastor, my main focus was not go bring huge numbers in, but to take the kids we had, and disciple them. This means teaching them to not just believe in God, but exactly what we believe in, and why we should believe in it, in addition to responses to the common humanistic arguments they will encounter. The problem is, many youth ministries have become kind of an after-school club where kids come to play games, eat food, and go back home. Not much life-changing there.

It is disturbing how many parents fail to live out their faith in front of their children, and then wonder why their precious little angel is all of the sudden rude, mean and insufferable as a teenager with no desire to follow in the faith.

If we don’t disciple people, meet their needs, and show them the way, then of course we’re going to shrink.

What do I mean by relevant?

Let me use this post to go into a little more detail about what I mean by “Relevant” and the “Relevant Movement.”

Many pastors and churches are placing the emphasis on the delivery of their message, and not on the message itself. They are more concerned with the glitz and glamor of their presentation than they are with its substance. They are often concerned with not offending the postmodernist sensibilities of those who may be in the congregation that are not able to cope with the fact that the Christian message, though open to all, is very exclusive and specific in how the ultimate goal of eternal life is to be obtained. Tickling ears and wowing crowds takes center stage while the actual message of salvation and discipleship takes a back seat. Lights and dazzle outshine righteousness and dedication.

Many church worship teams are more focused on the performance than they are on worshiping and glorifying God. They are more interested in sounding impressive than in leading the congregation into worship. They’re more focused on chords and verses than they are about meeting the spiritual needs of not only the congregation but the worship team members themselves and following the Holy Spirit.

In a lot of congregations, the church has become a completely social scene, where we go to belong. Having a church where people feel like they belong is a great thing, and it’s something that many churches will never have; but if all the church does is bring people into the church building and leave them there, without leading them to Christ and discipling them, then the church is no different from a hobby club or a political group. If all we do is get people coming in the door again and again, but never effect a change in their lives, we really drop the ball.

For all of our talk about ‘engaging’ and ‘leveraging’ pop culture, it seems like we’re more inclined to try really hard to be like the ‘cool kids’ and make the world think we’re cool so they’ll like us, rather than being who we are and still accepting them for who they are and showing the the love of Christ. It seems like we’re trying to bring the world to the world, and in doing so we fully negate any claim that we have to having any of life’s (and death’s) answers.

Un-Relevant

The Christian church in the United States of America finds herself in an all-too-common predicament. Many call it “Culture Wars.” The number of believers and church attenders in the US seems to be shrinking. As a result, many churches are, in an attempt to bring people in by using pop culture to “spice up” their services. In doing so, churches make their music sound more modern, use modern media and videos in their services, serve the trendiest coffees, and make their premises look as hip and modern as possible. Many Christian communities today have labeled this as becoming more “relevant.”

It is an admirable pursuit to make the body of Christ a more palatable place for the ‘unchurched’ and making church activities and services more comfortable  for people who have never attended a church. It’s wonderful that we’re using creative methods to appeal to the lost. However in the pursuit of numbers and popularity, many churches and church leaders have taken to watering down the gospel for the sake of relevance.

I believe that a Christian’s primary purpose is to glorify God. In order to do so, we must not dilute the Gospel for the sake of making it easier to swallow. On the other hand, we must also not become so arrogant in our own perceived righteousness that we become a stench to the nostrils of those who we deign to reach. The scope of this blog, though loosely centered on that theme, will extend to social and political issues, things I like, or what happens to be on my mind.

Now, please bear with me, but I think it’s necessary to post the ‘fine print’ regarding comments and the blog in general in this first post.

Comments are welcome, whether they’re agreeing or opposing view points. However, comments are subject to moderation, simply because I don’t want there to be vulgarity, name calling, or petty behavior. If you are incapable of expressing yourself without the above, then this is not the place for you.

All that being said, I’m glad you’re here. Welcome.