I was reading a brilliant article by Ed Stetzer oddly titled "You Can't Love Jesus and Hate His Wife" . The article can be found just by simply clicking on the link that i provided above. Basically just to explain about Ed's article, he is writing on the trend that is prevalent in the western world that I would term as church bashing. The tone of the article simply sounds like the author has gotten tired of all the negativity that comes from Christians attacking the church. I believe the attack that he is talking about here is simply the growing disregard of the present generation towards church which simply turns to abandonment or disolusionment of the whole idea of church.
Stetzer, reverts us back to how scripture supports the 'concept' of church, in the words of Jesus, the writings of Paul and the NT's mention of her (church). The church is God's idea and not our own construction. I think some part of the disabandonment of church is simply how church is done today. This can be one of the issues, but I must add that it is not the only issue. Stetzer has 4 suggestions in how the church can be a better bride. But i will not list them here. I will let your curiosity plunge into the article for yourselves. I like this statement made by Stetzer:
"And, let me say here, I have some concerns about how some churches operate - but I have tried to focus on how to help and not how to destroy."
Let me leave with you some thoughts:
1. The idea of church is God's not ours. We did'nt make it up.
2. Any concern that we have must simply be on how the church operates.
3. How can we help the church attain to it's divine focus?
4. How can we help and not destroy God's bride?
13 comments:
the church consist of people.. u n me n brothers n sisters, the problem with church is she consist of people, and people is complicated... that's the problem. but that's the church. love ur enemies? no wonder Jesus say tat, hehe.
Jon,
Interesting post there.
" the growing disregard of the present generation towards church which simply turns to abandonment or disolusionment of the whole idea of church. "
tend to happen when we are at the young adult age. and this is where i would believe that the church should get involve.
too many things that is more attractive outside there than just the church. In company, they value people regardless of the cut throat condition.
Tim,
love your enemies. thats a good and humble quote there. But it just occur to me, are the people in church considered our enemy that we have to quote that against them? I mean, its like suffering for christ. Is our suffering that is caused by the doing of our brother and sister in Christ consider suffering for Christ? i dont believe that it is relevant in that manner. the time will come when we will have to quote those verses for us to use and be encouraged.
unfinished quest,
You've raised an interesting point. I don't understand why people (i mean Christian) loves to use that phrase "love your enemy(ies)"...they often use it in a wrong context!
Tim,
It is true that church consist of people...but sometimes church totally forgot that people exist!...i mean people do see when thgs are not right / and they do know when good thgs are happening too!...
dear unfinishedquest/ anonymous,
regarding enemies, who is our enemies? is it some ganster or evil people. intresting to note that we dont really care about people that we don't know. but many times our enemies is our brother, our friend, our colleugue that we know and use to be close to us... mayb because of certains things, word that being spoken, money issue, disagreement.. it's no longer.. but hatred, dissentment, anger set in
the church is consist of people. just tat some people not agree with other people, that's y. everyone hv different perspective and opinions. things tat right to me might not be right to u... but mayb it's right from my perspective...
i do not suggest easy solution for the problem.. because there is none..
"regarding enemies, who is our enemies? is it some ganster or evil people. "
are we stereotyping when we say gangster is our enemy or evil people? I believe our enemy are those who are against our Lord Jesus Christ. Like war. Anyone who is against the kingdom is their enemy.
being a gangster doesnt make a person my enemy.
we are in one church and i believe disagreement and arguements will occur...but that dont make them my enemy. otherwise if my brothers and sisters are also considered my enemy...oh boy i have alot of work to do in the outside world. my bro n sis and me fight all day long..doesnt make them my enemy...my boss and i fighting and raising voice in the office doesnt make him my enemy.
but if u are using the word enemy not literally then anyone who is against us is our enemy i would have to agree.
but something to think about is that, we are fighting for Jesus. and 2 person in jesus being enemy? unless someone is fighting for himself or herself there is a reason for them to be our enemy.
Unfinishedquest,
Very interesting. I love your elaboration with regards to Tim's "enemy" definition.
Tim,
Wow, I guess you can't just call anyone your enemy just because they're against you, rite?!
Tremonti,
Keep on writting and posting good stuff in your blog. People do have a lot of things in mind. We just need someone to write about somethg. It works that way for some of us. Wonder why NOT everybody has a blog?!
anyhoot...oi...go yamcha. Grace n I go minum later at mings maybe..need to wait for my mama finish meeting at telang usan hotel. but if u dont want to go out its ok...otherwise we cant talk...rofl....(not dog yo)
ok, maybe my defination a bit not appropriate and out of context.
i agree that disagrement and arguement is normal and happens, my point is sometimes more than normal disagreement, people get hurt and all that. so, if Christ hv call us to love those 'who are againt our Lord Jesus Christ'. then the more we should love our those who are not...
i wan yamcha also hehe
Tim,
I TOTALY AGREE WITH YOU. we should love those who are against us. very true.
I was saying the point that i said coz sometimes I myself tend to abuse the word of God. gosh i duno how many people to talk to when i was younger il just quote anything that i feel is supporting my point but not looking in the context. so im learning a lil by lil how to argggghhhh....speak the truth nothing but the truth.... so hard kan? lol.
and yeah talking about ur points about a sharp and people getting hurt and stuff.
just some idea that i always had in mind.
im guessing this is the part where we all humble ourself and go and talk to a counsellor or physiatrist or phycologist...hehehe...maybe our church can look into that..i duno..just some ideas. There is this book i read, about a christian leader took 50years to actually be able to really experience the love of god coz of some words that the dad said to him when he was young. and it took phycologist to unravel. like the post that Jon did on what we can learn from Metalica.
not underestimating God's power of healing but another practical way that we can try.
what do u think? I would definitely love to listen to ur ideas on this.
ya, i think it's very important for us to communicate out our sentiment and feeling, and for people to actually listen. that's why the counseling, pychologist is good at, the art of listening and affirmation. sometime, even for myself, we know what we should know, we know abt bible, we know what is right what is wrong, we know the our problems, but we need people to listen and just listen. i think church should come out of taboo that receiving help is weak or faithless, and expectation tat believers is perfect because we are not, church is not perfect in any way, she's just sinners save by grace.
talking abt counseling /pychology i realise tat we are still very lacking, not easy to find a good counsellor or physiatrist or phycologist in malaysia. normally just medicine dispencer which doesnt go to the root of problem.
i am reading some book by christian pychologist, one of them is 'telling yourself the truth' by willian backus & marie chapian.
true. The way i look at it, we are poor in dealing with problems or issues. We fight then the end result would be buidling another church on our on..hehehe...not settling the issue 1st.
And good to know someone like you see the importance of us getting help too. Quality that every leader need. Get help when we know that we need help.
Something for us to think about and work out in our own self and i a church as a whole. And i have few good books on counselling too. but it needs practise to be able to be "good" at it. It is good we see the need so that we can improve and work on it.
Thanks for the wise idea and pray that you'll grow deeper in the truth and only the truth. GB.
Hey ya all, value your comments, got me thinking about something! Learnin from all you guys.
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