Frequently in churches in the American South you will hear a prayer for our troops.  I have a tendency to cringe at the statement.  After all God “deposes kings and raises them up.” (Daniel 2:21).  It may sound patriotic to pray for our troops, but ultimately God chooses to have troops fail or succeed as in the book of Joshua.

So does God have particular interest in American troops keeping oil fields safe or to promote democracy among those under dictatorships?  I hardly doubt it.  It is God, not the troops that ultimately protect our freedoms.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am very thankful for the troops’ service.  However I don’t want to involve religion with the military, at least in worship services.  The troops’ mission may or may not be in God’s plan….and God will have the troops succeed or fail.

We must keep in mind that the morality of our American government and its foreign policy is virtually independent of our ultimate goal: an eternal home in heaven.  Our leaders’ choices may make it more or less difficult for Christians, but those with enough faith to finish the race will succeed with or without our government’s help.

It’s that time of year again.  Easter season is here and we start seeing some churches put in the expected traditions eggs hunts an sunrise services.  We also see Easter communion services.  While some churches choose to have communion once or twice a year or quarterly, the bible mentions weekly communion services (Acts 20:7).  However that is another blog entry for another day.

The above tweet popped up in my social media feed.

Anytime you lower the most important act of worship into a single hashtag, you cheapen it to the equivalent of a Justin Bieber song.  If your church is hashtagging communion, then you are going to the wrong church.

This church is trying too hard to be cool.  Those who seek churches based on hashtags have no root and will soon wither once a new cooler hashtag comes available..  The church has a job to preach the word (2 Timothy 4:2).  Those who earnestly are seeking God’s will in their life will find the Gospel (Matthew 7:7).

This popped up in my usual social media feed recently.  Seems a friend’s church is looking for stage manager and lighting techs.  I took the liberty of blanking out the domain of the church.

The very idea that a church would need a stage manager or lighting tech subtly reminds us that, at least at this church, the focus is not on God, rather it is on the performers on stage.  I find the whole idea reprehensible.

This underscores what I’ve said for so long.  It’s that we as Christians have become confused at what worship actually is.  Worship is not a concert.  Worship is not feel good religious experience.  Worship is a humble offering toward God.

In Genesis 4, Abel humbly offered his meat sacrifice of his flocks toward God.  Our Lord did not look on favor toward Cain’s offering of fruit.  This shows that there is an acceptable type of worship toward God and an unacceptable worship.

In Leviticus 10 we see Nadab and Abihu offering a strange fire to the Lord and their lives were taken because of it.  Again there is an acceptable form or worship vs. an unacceptable form of worship.

Unfortunately many Americans have a tendency to worship themselves, while proclaiming God doesn’t have a preference on how we worship.  The focus on their worship is the performer on stage, and the warm fuzzy feeling one gets from attending worship.  Granted, worshiping God should be fulfilling, but it is not always easy.  Remember when Paul and Silas were in prison singing and praying (Acts 16:25)?  I wonder how many praise bands were there in prison.  I wonder how many in the crowd would be willing to go to prison for their Christian beliefs?

I feel for these worshipers. I feel they are being led astray by mainstream culture and misguided pastors. I pray that they will come to a better understanding of God’s direction for worship and grow their spiritual understanding.

It is only within the past several years that I have been able to get up and speak in front of people….that is to give a spiritual devotional / sermon among believers.  I had never been a speaker growing up.  I wasn’t terrified of speaking, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite things to do, from a introvert’s perspective.

So when I read about my church’s youth group’s beach retreat where 70+ high school students attended….and several high school senior boys spoke, I was intrigued.  These boys are taught from an early age on speaking in front of people.  And what they do (many) of them do it well.

I couldn’t imagine myself doing that at such a young age.  I was unprepared.  I had no formal training, as in the 1980s it was unusual to train boys at an early age to preach.  But now we have Lads to Leaders and other training opportunities for young Christians, so it isn’t such a big deal anymore.

Even though I do not know many of these young Christians personally I am proud of them.  I am glad for their drive and need to spread the Gospel to their peers.  My mind is at ease knowing that these young Christians will be going into the real world with the tools to stay faithful and tell others of Jesus.  And I wish I had been given that opportunity when I was a high school senior.

I remember a college friend of mine remarking about participating in a worship service just after midnight on Sunday morning at a Bible camp.  Communion was taken and the participants were able to sleep in on that Sunday morning.  It was unusual, but scriptural.

Today after receiving 4+ inches of snow on Friday, many residents in Mt. Juliet are snowed in.  Our church leaders (appropriately) moved back our worship services from the usual 8AM and 10:15AM to a single worship service at 3PM.  Yet for me it is very unusual to sleep in on Sunday morning.  Except for some vacations I most always attend worship services on Sunday morning.

Make it a habit to attend church services….but not an empty habit.  Attend and participate actively.  Attend so often that when you are absent, something in missing in your week

There’s a video circulating which has Dutch pranksters take the Bible and put a dust cover over it implying that it is the Koran.  They then cherry pick some harsh Bible verses (mostly from Leviticus), read those verses and interview people as to what they think of these verses (assuming they think it is from the Koran).  Then they reveal that is actually from the Bible. I won’t bother linking to it as it has some vulgar words in it.

What is frustrating is that the video makes some major edits in the Bible.  My major beef with the video’s edit is below.

“I do not allow for a woman to teach…you will have to cut off her hand…do not forgive her.”

No where in the initial verse where it says to cut off a woman’s hand if she teaches.  Rather it is taken from two verses on the other side of the Bible.

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man, she must be quiet.” – 1 Timothy 2:12

“If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, ¹² you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.” Deuteronomy 25:11-12.

So we see that these Dutch pranksters have an agenda to push, even going as far as to splice verses together to get their point across.  Nevermind that it is fictionalize.  Plus no one realizes that it is false.

The bottom line?  Those being interviewed and those viewers watching the video don’t read their Bible.  Instead they take it at face value and believe whatever these Dutch pranksters / media / their pastor / bishop / priest tells them.

Leviticus, like the rest of the Old Testament is not in effect today, as per below verse.

“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:24-26

Let me summarize the above video.

“What about Jesus?”

-Oprah

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

-Jesus, John 14:6

When someone states they believe in different paths to God, I feel very uncomfortable. I feel like I should stand up to them without shifting in my seat and acknowledging their statement. My acknowledgement of their statement does not put a rubber stamp of agreement with what they said.

Anytime someone makes the statement there are many paths to God, then they make Jesus a liar. Jesus is the ONLY way.

Before I begin this blog entry, let me remind you that here in the south, county officials do not de-ice the roads. They do not budget such hit and miss weather predictions which may or may not be used each season. Therefore we kinda are gambling each year whether or not we have snowy weather and if the county budget covers for just a little sand and salt on the roads.
While growing up it seemed like we had more and bigger snows throughout the winter. And consequentially enough some of these snow days happened on a Sunday providing with some conflicts with church services. I can remember going on snow covered roads from our rural Lakeview home to Sunday morning service in the heart of Mt. Juliet. Only a few hardy souls were there and the worship service was abbreviated and no Sunday school class.
Were we foolish to risk a fender bender and physical harm in order to worship our Lord? Depends on who you ask. After all Abraham traveled three days to sacrifice Isaac to Moriah (Genesis 22:4). Many Christians out west travel all day to attend worship services as churches are sparse. Shouldn’t we be willing to put some effort into worshipping our Lord with fellow Christians on the first day of the week? After all it is the most important act we do from week to week.
At times I believe we are too quick to cancel worship and watch a rerun of a past recorded worship service. And it seems that the secondary worship services are less attended due to the opportunity to watch online even when weather is good.
At times there was always something different among churches of Christ in that we have a tendency not to cancel worship services no matter what. I can remember a few years ago when Christmas feel on a Sunday. Ironically other churches cancelled their Sunday morning worship services opting to encourage parishioners to spend time at home with families. This was surprising because other churches see Christmas as a holy day equating to Jesus’s birth date. By contrast most churches of Christ did not cancel worship services and kept their own schedule as it is throughout the year.
So I’m conflicted in the risk of human safety vs. worshipping our Lord weekly regardless of the weather. I guess it is something each individual and each church eldership will have to decide each winter.

The church I attend is currently having a door knocking campaign in conjunction with special seminars on questions we’ve all wanted to ask God, but never really knew the answer to them.
I’ll preface this with the fact that I’ve never participated in a evangelistic door knocking campaign for various reason. I’ve always imagined getting rejected when I knock on strangers’ door.
The photo on the right was taken by one of our campaigners. It solidifies the reaction many have when presented the gospel. There are so many churches soliciting converts. How does one make their own congregation stand out apart from others? The Mormons do it, and what they do they do well. We could all learn a bit from Mormon conversion practices, after all its one of the fastest growing religions on earth.
The question remain? How do you make your religion stand out in front of more aggressive or appealing religions or lifestyles. I’m convinced that if we water God will cause the increase. But that shouldn’t stop us from being innovative in presenting God’s word to the potential converts.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:15

I learned the above verse in 1985 in my 5th grade Sunday School class. I remember who taught it to me. I remember what room I learned it in. I remember my Sunday School teacher. This verse has stayed with me throughout my adulthood. It’s interesting that simply by learning this verse, the reader is fulfilling the divine directive.
Did my Sunday School teacher envision that these memory verses would be remembered for so long after it was taught? Maybe. He was definitely an effective teacher.
And I wonder if I am an effective teacher. Are the students remembering what was said in class? Am I teaching in vain? I would like to think I am effective. But I believe there is a grey where some students remember some of what I said for a season.