"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves."
-Romans 12:10
Growing up in my church, the word "fellowship" meant some sort of post-worship-service gathering that involved food and coffee. And that was about it. It seemed pointless then; but looking back, I can see how important those times were. A church is a family made up of different types of people. And the only way such a diverse group can become a real family--and not just a crowd--is by spending time together.
This week we'll see the members of the early Church giving money to one another, sharing their possessions, and taking care of each other. This is what a real church family is supposed to look like. But how do we get there?
In every church God wants to build something called "community," the sense that we're all connected in a real way. Serving each other, helping, loving, and giving are all ways we express real community. Believe it or not, this can be the most exciting and life-changing aspect of your church experience. But community isn't easy to come by. It takes a deliberate choice to be a part of the people of God. Once you join, the benefits are endless. This week we're going to look at how to build real community in our own churches.
Read Acts 4:32-37
Sharing isn't natural. No one has to teach a child to be selfish with his toys. That trait just comes naturally to him. But it applies to teenagers and adults as well. So how do you figure 3,000 people voluntarily selling their possessions to help other people? When the Spirit of God moves, we discover how the Spirit provides all we need--including a family of parents, brothers, and sisters to help us through life. Recognizing God's provision, Barnabas gladly chose to sell his land to aid the church. Would you be willing to do the same with your stuff?
Our culture is selfish; it's time we challenged the status quo by loving each other sacrificially.
Do you believe God will provide all you need--even when you help others?
Do you truly love the people in your church?
What are some ways you can serve the people in your church this week?
**
Taken from "Community" Student Life, copyright 2008 Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission.
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
DO-IT-YOURSELF SPIRITUALITY
Increasingly, people seeking religious input draw more from the Internet than from church history, more from their own intuition than formal study. When you wed the American independent streak with a postmodern skepticism toward institutions, you set the stage for what theologians call syncretism, which is the blending of elements from various faiths into a new form of spirituality. Like grazing at the buffet table at an all-you-can eat cafeteria, syncretists adopt doctrines that seem appropriate to them and leave behind others they regard as offensive or outdated. What emerges is a Jesus customized for their worldview--a designer Jesus.
A 2005 survey by CBS disclosed that 36 percent of Americans combine the teachings of more than one religion into their own faith. Thus, Los Angeles Lakers basketball coach Phil Jackson calls himself "a Zen Christian," while a well-known actress once identified herself as a Christian who is "into goddess worship." One Presbyterian minister described how he was taken aback when a woman introduced herself to him by saying, "I'm a Presbyterian Buddhist."
The attitude of many Americans is that they like Jesus but not the church, which they see as exclusionary, condemning, intolerant, and intent on strapping people into a straitjacket of rigid beliefs. But the Jesus they like may look very different from the historical Jesus. If the traditional church imagines Jesus as a finely painted portrait, then syncretists often render him as abstract art--many times to the point where he's unrecognizable from the Jesus of ancient creeds.
For syncretists, that's okay. Many of them find their Jesus more satisfying than the judgmental Jesus they learned about in Sunday school. Besides, they assert, who's to say which Jesus is more "real" than the others? If history is all based on someone's interpretation, they reason, then nobody can be certain who Jesus was and what he taught anyway. In this age when "you have your truth, and I have mine," the important issue becomes what "works" for each individual life.
INTERVIEW #6: PAUL COPAN, PHD
My wife, Leslie, and I were chatting about these sorts of issues in my office one Saturday afternoon. The title of a book, crowded among many others on my shelves, caught her eye: True for You, But Not for Me. She pulled it out. "Maybe you ought to talk to the person who wrote this," she suggested as she handed the book to me.
I was familiar with the author, Paul Copan. When Leslie mentioned him, I remembered he's among the leading experts in this area. "That's a good idea," I said, and within days I'd made arrangements to fl y to Florida and meet with him in his offices in West Palm Beach.
Copan and I sat down at a round wooden table in the corner of his office, flanked by floor-to-ceiling shelves teeming with books. I started with a broad question to lay the foundation for our discussion. As I did so, I thought of Pontius Pilate's question two millennia ago: "What is truth?"
IT'S ALL RELATIVE
"We're living in a postmodern era in which concepts like 'truth' and 'morality' are more elastic than in the past," I said to Copan. "How do you define postmodernism?"
"First, it's helpful to know what modernism involves," Copan said. "Modernism can be traced back to René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher who is famous for his pursuit of certainty. Descartes said that one thing he couldn't doubt was that he was thinking, so his starting point for knowledge became, 'I think, therefore, I am.' There was a sense in which you had to have 100 percent certainty or you couldn't know something," Copan continued.
"So postmodernism is a reaction to Descartes' quest for certainty and to the creation of systems like rationalism, romanticism, Marxism, Nazism, and scientism. These systems tend to oppress people who disagree with those in power--the Jews under Nazism and the capitalists under Marxism, for example. French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard said that, simplifying to the extreme, postmodernism is suspicion toward a 'metanarrative'--a 'big-picture' view of the world--that's taken to be true for all people in all cultures and which ends up oppressing people."
I was thinking through the implications as he was talking. "The idea, then, is that certainty leads to oppression?" I asked.
"When people are so certain that they've got the truth and believe their system explains everything, then people who disagree with them are on the outside. They end up in Auschwitz or the Soviet gulags," he said. "So instead of 'meta-narratives,' postmodernism emphasizes 'mini-narratives.' In other words, each person has his or her own viewpoint or story."
"And each viewpoint is as valid as any other," I said, more of an observation than a question.
"That's the postmodern view, yes. There's a suspicion toward sweeping-truth claims, which are seen as power grabbing: Whoever is in charge can say 'This is true' and then back it up by oppressing those who disagree."
"And suspicion of truth can contribute, in some cases, to relativism," I commented.
"Right. To the relativist, no fact is true in all times and all places. The beliefs of a person are 'true' for him, but not necessarily for anyone else. This means that one person's 'truth,' which really amounts to his or her opinion, can directly conflict with another person's 'truth' and still be valid.
"To the relativist, no religion is universally or exclusively true. You can have your kind of Jesus, and I can have mine; it doesn't matter if our views contradict each other. There's no universal right and wrong. Moral values are true--or 'genuine'--for some, but not for others. Since there are different expressions of morality in the world, there's no reason to think that one viewpoint is any more true than another."
I searched my mind for an example. "So adultery can be okay for some people but not for others?" I asked.
"In the view of the relativist, yes," he replied. "Something is wrong only if you feel it's wrong. Now, relativists may not approve of adultery, and they may even have strong reservations about it. But they'll say, 'Who am I to say someone else is wrong?'"
"What are the greatest shortcomings of relativism?" I asked.
"Relativism falls apart logically when you examine it. As a worldview, it simply doesn't work," he said.
I was looking for specifics. "Tell me why," I said.
"For instance, relativists believe that relativism is true not just for them but for every person. They believe that relativism applies to non-relativists ('true for you'), not just to themselves ('true for me'). The relativists find themselves in a bind if we ask them, 'Is relativism absolutely true for everyone?' To be consistent, the relativist must say, 'There's no reason to take seriously the claim that every belief is as good as every other belief, since this belief itself would be no better than any other.'"
Even so, I knew there must be reasons why postmodernism has taken root. "Are there aspects of postmodernism that make sense to you?" I asked.
"Despite some of its own incoherencies, yes, there are some lessons we can learn from it," he said. "For example, we do have our limitations, biases, and perspectives. We should admit that.
"Also, those with cultural or political power--even those with religious power--many times do try to spin the truth to suit their own agenda. And meta-narratives often do alienate and marginalize outsiders--although I should note that Christianity teaches the intrinsic value of every individual, including the disfranchised."
**
Taken from "The Case for the Real Jesus" by Lee Strobel and Jane Vogel, copyright 2008 Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission.
A 2005 survey by CBS disclosed that 36 percent of Americans combine the teachings of more than one religion into their own faith. Thus, Los Angeles Lakers basketball coach Phil Jackson calls himself "a Zen Christian," while a well-known actress once identified herself as a Christian who is "into goddess worship." One Presbyterian minister described how he was taken aback when a woman introduced herself to him by saying, "I'm a Presbyterian Buddhist."
The attitude of many Americans is that they like Jesus but not the church, which they see as exclusionary, condemning, intolerant, and intent on strapping people into a straitjacket of rigid beliefs. But the Jesus they like may look very different from the historical Jesus. If the traditional church imagines Jesus as a finely painted portrait, then syncretists often render him as abstract art--many times to the point where he's unrecognizable from the Jesus of ancient creeds.
For syncretists, that's okay. Many of them find their Jesus more satisfying than the judgmental Jesus they learned about in Sunday school. Besides, they assert, who's to say which Jesus is more "real" than the others? If history is all based on someone's interpretation, they reason, then nobody can be certain who Jesus was and what he taught anyway. In this age when "you have your truth, and I have mine," the important issue becomes what "works" for each individual life.
INTERVIEW #6: PAUL COPAN, PHD
My wife, Leslie, and I were chatting about these sorts of issues in my office one Saturday afternoon. The title of a book, crowded among many others on my shelves, caught her eye: True for You, But Not for Me. She pulled it out. "Maybe you ought to talk to the person who wrote this," she suggested as she handed the book to me.
I was familiar with the author, Paul Copan. When Leslie mentioned him, I remembered he's among the leading experts in this area. "That's a good idea," I said, and within days I'd made arrangements to fl y to Florida and meet with him in his offices in West Palm Beach.
Copan and I sat down at a round wooden table in the corner of his office, flanked by floor-to-ceiling shelves teeming with books. I started with a broad question to lay the foundation for our discussion. As I did so, I thought of Pontius Pilate's question two millennia ago: "What is truth?"
IT'S ALL RELATIVE
"We're living in a postmodern era in which concepts like 'truth' and 'morality' are more elastic than in the past," I said to Copan. "How do you define postmodernism?"
"First, it's helpful to know what modernism involves," Copan said. "Modernism can be traced back to René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher who is famous for his pursuit of certainty. Descartes said that one thing he couldn't doubt was that he was thinking, so his starting point for knowledge became, 'I think, therefore, I am.' There was a sense in which you had to have 100 percent certainty or you couldn't know something," Copan continued.
"So postmodernism is a reaction to Descartes' quest for certainty and to the creation of systems like rationalism, romanticism, Marxism, Nazism, and scientism. These systems tend to oppress people who disagree with those in power--the Jews under Nazism and the capitalists under Marxism, for example. French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard said that, simplifying to the extreme, postmodernism is suspicion toward a 'metanarrative'--a 'big-picture' view of the world--that's taken to be true for all people in all cultures and which ends up oppressing people."
I was thinking through the implications as he was talking. "The idea, then, is that certainty leads to oppression?" I asked.
"When people are so certain that they've got the truth and believe their system explains everything, then people who disagree with them are on the outside. They end up in Auschwitz or the Soviet gulags," he said. "So instead of 'meta-narratives,' postmodernism emphasizes 'mini-narratives.' In other words, each person has his or her own viewpoint or story."
"And each viewpoint is as valid as any other," I said, more of an observation than a question.
"That's the postmodern view, yes. There's a suspicion toward sweeping-truth claims, which are seen as power grabbing: Whoever is in charge can say 'This is true' and then back it up by oppressing those who disagree."
"And suspicion of truth can contribute, in some cases, to relativism," I commented.
"Right. To the relativist, no fact is true in all times and all places. The beliefs of a person are 'true' for him, but not necessarily for anyone else. This means that one person's 'truth,' which really amounts to his or her opinion, can directly conflict with another person's 'truth' and still be valid.
"To the relativist, no religion is universally or exclusively true. You can have your kind of Jesus, and I can have mine; it doesn't matter if our views contradict each other. There's no universal right and wrong. Moral values are true--or 'genuine'--for some, but not for others. Since there are different expressions of morality in the world, there's no reason to think that one viewpoint is any more true than another."
I searched my mind for an example. "So adultery can be okay for some people but not for others?" I asked.
"In the view of the relativist, yes," he replied. "Something is wrong only if you feel it's wrong. Now, relativists may not approve of adultery, and they may even have strong reservations about it. But they'll say, 'Who am I to say someone else is wrong?'"
"What are the greatest shortcomings of relativism?" I asked.
"Relativism falls apart logically when you examine it. As a worldview, it simply doesn't work," he said.
I was looking for specifics. "Tell me why," I said.
"For instance, relativists believe that relativism is true not just for them but for every person. They believe that relativism applies to non-relativists ('true for you'), not just to themselves ('true for me'). The relativists find themselves in a bind if we ask them, 'Is relativism absolutely true for everyone?' To be consistent, the relativist must say, 'There's no reason to take seriously the claim that every belief is as good as every other belief, since this belief itself would be no better than any other.'"
Even so, I knew there must be reasons why postmodernism has taken root. "Are there aspects of postmodernism that make sense to you?" I asked.
"Despite some of its own incoherencies, yes, there are some lessons we can learn from it," he said. "For example, we do have our limitations, biases, and perspectives. We should admit that.
"Also, those with cultural or political power--even those with religious power--many times do try to spin the truth to suit their own agenda. And meta-narratives often do alienate and marginalize outsiders--although I should note that Christianity teaches the intrinsic value of every individual, including the disfranchised."
**
Taken from "The Case for the Real Jesus" by Lee Strobel and Jane Vogel, copyright 2008 Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Media
Scripture teaches that believers have always had to be discerning when it comes to the things people create. In the Old and New Testaments, artisans were often involved in creating objects of worship. They built ornate temples so people could come together and worship false gods. They also forged statues of those gods--called "idols"--so people could worship them in their homes.
Rather than honor the true living God, the artists used their creative skills to glorify imaginary deities. It's likely that some of the pieces they created were awe-inspiring--perhaps even masterpieces. But they violated the first and second commandments:
"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them." (Exodus 20:3-5)
One of the best-known examples of idolatrous art can be found in Daniel 3. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ordered the construction of a golden statue that was 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide. Then he summoned all of the leaders in the region to attend the unveiling ceremony. To guarantee a positive reaction to his creation, Nebby decreed that when he gave the signal, everyone had to fall down and worship the statue. Those who didn't, he warned, would be thrown into a furnace and burned to death.
Among the invited guests were three Israelites: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They worshipped the one true living God, which meant they couldn't bow down to an idol. So when the signal was given, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood their ground. And true to his word, the king had the men thrown into the furnace. You probably know how the story goes from there: God protected them from the flames, and King Neb was so impressed by their Divine rescue that he declared the God of Israel to be the only God.
But that's not the point I want to make here. You see, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have just skipped the whole dedication ceremony. They could have refused to have anything to do with the creative work of idol worshippers. Their fate would have been the same either way.
However, Shadrach and his friends chose to attend the ceremony because they were active members of the government. They probably admired the artistic aspects of the statue and the craftsmanship that went into making it. Yet while the three men chose not to honor the creative work with their lives (by bowing down to it), they didn't ignore it or boycott it, either.
What's more, earlier in the book of Daniel we learn that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had been schooled in the Babylonian language and literature (Daniel 1:3-4). Because the young men excelled in those areas, the king placed them in positions of influence and authority where they were able to help others learn about God and come to know him.That should also be our goal in learning about our own culture. Movies, television, and music (along with art and literature) reveal the heart and soul of who we are as people. When we understand the culture we live in, we can apply that knowledge as we introduce others to God. The more we know about what people are really connecting with, the better prepared we'll be to introduce God in a context they can relate to.
**
Taken from "Wisdom On...Music, Movies & Television" by Mark Matlock, copyright 2008 Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission. Order the book here:
Rather than honor the true living God, the artists used their creative skills to glorify imaginary deities. It's likely that some of the pieces they created were awe-inspiring--perhaps even masterpieces. But they violated the first and second commandments:
"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them." (Exodus 20:3-5)
One of the best-known examples of idolatrous art can be found in Daniel 3. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ordered the construction of a golden statue that was 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide. Then he summoned all of the leaders in the region to attend the unveiling ceremony. To guarantee a positive reaction to his creation, Nebby decreed that when he gave the signal, everyone had to fall down and worship the statue. Those who didn't, he warned, would be thrown into a furnace and burned to death.
Among the invited guests were three Israelites: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They worshipped the one true living God, which meant they couldn't bow down to an idol. So when the signal was given, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood their ground. And true to his word, the king had the men thrown into the furnace. You probably know how the story goes from there: God protected them from the flames, and King Neb was so impressed by their Divine rescue that he declared the God of Israel to be the only God.
But that's not the point I want to make here. You see, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have just skipped the whole dedication ceremony. They could have refused to have anything to do with the creative work of idol worshippers. Their fate would have been the same either way.
However, Shadrach and his friends chose to attend the ceremony because they were active members of the government. They probably admired the artistic aspects of the statue and the craftsmanship that went into making it. Yet while the three men chose not to honor the creative work with their lives (by bowing down to it), they didn't ignore it or boycott it, either.
What's more, earlier in the book of Daniel we learn that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had been schooled in the Babylonian language and literature (Daniel 1:3-4). Because the young men excelled in those areas, the king placed them in positions of influence and authority where they were able to help others learn about God and come to know him.That should also be our goal in learning about our own culture. Movies, television, and music (along with art and literature) reveal the heart and soul of who we are as people. When we understand the culture we live in, we can apply that knowledge as we introduce others to God. The more we know about what people are really connecting with, the better prepared we'll be to introduce God in a context they can relate to.
**
Taken from "Wisdom On...Music, Movies & Television" by Mark Matlock, copyright 2008 Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission. Order the book here:
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