So turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Today’s post is hard to write. It’s been coming to me over the last month, and the delay in sitting down and hammering it out is that I want you to know my heart in these things, to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable…. and all of it with a heart of love and passion. No small mission, if I may say so myself.
Since as long as I can remember, I’ve been playing video games. Somewhere along the way (also as long as I can remember), it became an addiction. Something I woke up to, something I went to sleep to, thinking and dreaming about. The nearly-only source of entertainment day and night was some form of gaming. It interfered with work, school, relationships, and worst of all – my spiritual life. This wasn’t clear in the midst of it, though.
Sometime about 4 months ago, the Lord called me to fast from gaming… something I had tried several times before with varying degrees of success. But this time, it is giving birth to freedom, to new life, to a new Eric. It’s been amazing! Freedom in prayer and hearing from the Lord! A new spiritual depth and endurance I have never known before.
And that freedom is what I want to communicate to you. You see, I would wager a large number of you reading this have something in your life like video gaming – it may not be an addiction, but it’s the default activity that fills your life when nothing else does. It could be TV, reading, exercise, sports, writing, Facebook, texting, or any of 100 other things. None of these things are bad – unless they are keeping you from knowing the Lord more fully!
I can recall countless times in my life that the Lord would call me to prayer or to read the Word and I would say to myself, “I’ll just game for alittle while, then prayer after that.”… but that’s not how it works. The desire fades, and I would never do it.
But what’s been amazing, is that now the gaming is out of the way, when I respond to those nudges, THE LORD ALWAYS SHOWS UP. EVERY SINGLE TIME. It’s never a waste. I’ve received amazing guidance for the course of my life in small and large things, seen visions that encouraged individuals and the Body of Christ itself, seen my wife grow in maturity and discernment and the prophetic. We know the Lord better.
So where does this end? Two encouragements:
It’s worth it, every time. – Whatever hard thing the Lord is calling you to or from, it’s always worth it. You know that stuff about the mind of Christ, and the peace that surpasses understanding? It’s true. Love abounding more and more? True. Deep calling to deep? True.
Don’t give up! – The Lord’s heart is to bind up the brokenhearted, the down-trodden, the depressed. He’s for you, not against you. Trust him in the crappy, horrible, dirty times! It will get better!
1. Organic church and communal-living communities (two separate things, very different, we just happen to do both) live and die by following the Spirit of God. That’s a real vague phrase – following the Spirit – to some folks, but it at least has something to do w/ a real and dependable guidance from God. Which is related to prophecy.
2. Our community is made up of people of a variety of backgrounds – Baptist, Presbyterian, Charismatic, other house churches. A few years ago, we had what I would say was a 50/50 split of “Word”-church and “Spirit”-church background believers. Us coming together and staying together and being in unity has done a huge variety of things – but I always come back to one thing – we’re more alive. The word that best describes it is definitely – vigorous. We’re more vibrant/resilient/full/present. The spiritual heritage of our brothers and sisters gives us a beautiful, balanced take on things like speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, deliverance.
3. Speaking of those 4 things – here’s two scriptures that provide balance: 1 Cor 13:7 (ESV): “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” and 1 John 4:1 (ESV): “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Another way to say it – what Reagan used to say to Gorbachev: “Trust, but Verify.”
4. We’re definitely can’t claim anything approaching a maturity in some of the gifts of the Spirit – as an example, it’s difficult for me to read these guy’s blog – post after post after post of God healing people and giving words of knowledge out like they’re candy. I almost dread new posts coming up from them in Google Reader – without a doubt it’s a record of someone being healed. Where is the faith to see stuff like that??
5. Gifts are for edifying and encouraging the church toward the Lord.
6. I saw a vision of a demon clear enough to sketch it out on paper. We prayed for deliverance of the person I felt it was “on”. This was a leeetle outside of my comfort zone in such things.
Alternate title: The Sanctifying Nature of Intentional Christian Communities.
God has been bringing to mind the relational ways that we are sanctified, that is made holy. The two most common of these are marriage and child-rearing. Both require an enormous amount of sacrifice to another person at the expense of yourself. And when the believer does either of these two things well, we die to ourselves and become more Christ-like.
Today, I’d like to discuss a third type of relationship that can sanctify and bear fruit – when Christian brethren dwell together in the same home, or at least very proximal to one another. When they share cooking, shopping, cleaning, space, time, discipline of children (!), and much more.
If one of my housemates pisses me off, there’s no going back to my home and complaining about it to my wife in private (as was the case if the “offense” [term used very lightly] happened during Sunday School)… it will be dealt with quickly, as its going to cause friction in every interaction every day until resolved. I’ve been angered and angered enough people to guarantee that that will happen if a home is to function.
Ultimately for every person that’s added to a house, that’s one more set of concerns, quirks, desires, and pet peeves that the entire rest of the house must be aware of and think of when making decisions. To make it work, all of the members must be willing to submit to one another in many many small things. Suddenly my decision to:
-stay up late,
-get a new job,
-get a new car,
-stop eating certain types of foods,
-have people over to our home,
-believe a certain thing,
-not be able to stand a certain thing
all effect more people than just myself, my wife, and my children. They effect everyone I live with and may live with in our community.
That’s not to say its always hard and its all about dying to yourself and sacrifice. Much like marriage and children, when it’s good, its really good. I’ve grown closer to people that I have lived with/am living with than I could have ever expected to if we hadn’t lived together. We’ve laughed till we’ve cried, gotten the most amazing hugs from their children, and made some of the best home movies ever. We gather to pray in good times and bad, and we cook and clean for one another. It’s such a blessing.
Well, that’s the end of the post! Mostly.
(Theological footnotes: These are the benefits of communal living [partially], but not why we do it. We do it because we feel this is what God has called us to. We don’t believe Christians living communally is a command of the Bible generally for all everywhere, but that some of the language used to describe the church gathering in Acts 2 can be mimicked by living communally. To become a part of our church, there’s no requirement or expectation that you will live communally, and no condemnation if you don’t.)
This post is inspired by this video by R.T. Kendall – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82YlUWu_bAI – go watch it, I’ll wait. It’s two minutes long. This post offers a response and some further discussion of the topic.
This video speaks of the divorce of “Word” churches and “Spirit” church. I want to offer up some thoughts on what defines these types of churches , what causes division between these groups, and how our group attempts to walk the middle line.
Word Churches from the video – “We need to get back to: expository preaching, know our doctrine, earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints, the teaching of Luther, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards.”
Churches under the Word look to the Bible as the lens for their worldview. Living biblically, preaching biblically, evangelizing biblically are all paramount. Interpretation of difficult passages of Scripture is most often done by checking the Greek/Hebrew and checking the exact ways hard words are used in other verses. Verses about various mystic practices, be they prophecy, healing, or tongues, are usually avoided. Individual devotions are usually focused on a time of scripture and Bible study. Worship is usually led by a single person or team of people, with little or no time of open worship for individuals to sing apart from guidance.
Spirit Churches from the video – “We need to get back to: the book of Acts – signs, wonders, miracles, gifts of the Spirit. get in Peter’s shadow, your healed. Lie to the Holy Ghost, you’re stuck dead. And until we have that kind of power, we go nowhere.”
Churches under the Spirit look to the Holy Spirit as the lens for their worldview. Walking with the Spirit, speaking by the Spirit, evangelizing in the Spirit. Interpretation of difficult passages of Scripture is most often done by asking the Spirit what this passage means globally, or just what this passage means to me. Dwelling on the finer points of doctrine is not usually a priority, as it is understood that doctrine does not transform, the Spirit does. Worship is either directed by an individual or small team, but most often there are open times for individuals to express themselves – whether this means singing apart from others, dancing, shaking, and whatever else the Spirit leads, as crazy as it may be.
You may not agree with those definitions precisely – I wouldn’t blame you, I honestly haven’t been a part of a huge sample of both types of churches. But for purposes of this discussion, that’s what we’re going with.
The Divorce
It would be bad enough if these groups amicably operated apart from each other. A mere “agree to disagree” if you will. But that’s not the case – as is the case in many divorces, there’s criticism on both sides of the fence. They may be well-meaning, they may even be true, but at the end of the day they divide. Here is my understanding of how each group views the other.
What the Word churches say about the Spirit churches: The baptism of the Holy Spirit isn’t real. Too much these churches do is based in emotion and conjured up. Being slayed in the spirit/tongues/healings/etc. is manufactured, misleading, not real… or worse, being led by leaders that deceive.
What the Spirit churches say about the Word churches: Bickering about points of doctrine and meaning of words does not glorify God. In fact, a solid doctrine and not listening for the voice of the Spirit is a wasted life. If you memorize the Bible but can’t hear what God is telling you now, who cares? Their worship is at best dispassionate and at worse, lifeless.
Don’t mishear me – the vast majority of people on either side don’t slander the others – but it doesn’t take very many people to convince a much larger group about the other “side”.
The Middle
So where does that leave us? With two sides that have split apart from one so far that there is no hope for reconciliation? I don’t think so. It can’t be that way. The worst part of this split is that each side is unable to see the other side’s great parts.
By no strength or planning of our own, our church has been a grand experiment in how the middle of this looks. As of this moment, a quick review of the adults in our group shows that we are very close to a 45/55 split for Word/Spirit-background believers. Its close enough that we have no choice to meet in the middle. What does that look like?
It looks like a community learning to find balance through the strengths of others.
It looks like seeking the Lord for what he would have us do.
It looks like encouraging the formerly Word people to step out in the Spirit and encouraging the formerly Spirit people to study the Word deeply and daily.
It looks like finding unity in things that are eternal and not fighting over things that are temporal.
It looks like pouring over the Word in matters that we are ignorant or lacking unity, and then seeking the Spirit in how to proceed.
It looks like a community that melts away differences and focuses on the Lord.
At the end of the day, you may just have to come and see. Words on a computer screen can only go so far… maybe I’m just making this all up. Maybe I’m all talk, no walk.
As I said in my last post:
“One of the values we hold dear to is hospitality – so I offer you an open invitation – we’d love for you to come visit us. From wherever, whenever you like, with you and as many friends as you’d like. We don’t even need very long notice – just give me a call on my cell phone: 770-309-8213.
Don’t worry though. He doesn’t care about mine either.
When I use the word “church” in title, I’m referring to the the following things – the name, the structure, the doctrinal statement, your building (or your house!), sermons, traditions, the organization. Even crazies like us at our church have these things.
So what does God care about? He cares about people. He cares about his glory. He cares about people repenting and turning toward him. He cares about what he’s called his people to, whatever that may be. He cares about his Word.
So the next time you’re at church, look around. Are the things you do pushing you closer to God, or just taking up time/causing division/distracting you from the Lord himself? If they aren’t drawing you closer to God, why keep doing them? Aren’t these things just going to burn when it’s all said and done? I’m writing this just as much to myself as I am to you.
The reason we’re so ga-ga for our particular way of life and church is that it spurs each person individually and corporately to seek the Lord and to worship him. It pushes us to be dependent on him showing up for it to work. We believe, both scripturally and experientially, that this is what God is calling us to and what God desires for our church body.
We believe the Lord has spent the last two years tempering our church and dealing with some deep things in us personally and relationally. He’s taught us how to rely on him, he’s taught us how to rely on one another, he’s raised up leaders from the quiet and meek. He’s drawn the wayward toward repentance. He’s led us through times of prayer and fasting. He’s teaching us how to exercise our spiritual gifts.
And recently we’ve begun to sense him turning to change our focus. It has been a time to gather stones, but he’s turning us toward scattering stones, turning our focus outward. Part of that is people seeking us out because God is leading them. Part of that is discipling and mentoring, which we’re just on the front edge of. Part of it is outreach. Part of it might be you. One of the values we hold dear to is hospitality – so I offer you an open invitation – we’d love for you to come visit us. From wherever, whenever you like, with you and as many friends as you’d like. We don’t even need very long notice – just give me a call on my cell phone: 770-309-8213
So at the end of the day, what am I saying? Am I saying your church is un-biblical? Am I saying we’re the best and you should quit your church and join ours? No. I don’t know your church and I certainly don’t think we’re the best.
What I am saying is that I want you and your church body to be in the center of God’s will as both revealed in scripture and revealed to you personally by his Spirit. If you’re there, then by all means don’t change what you’re doing at ALL! But if you’re not, don’t just assume that that’s how it has to be. Sometimes the answer is to take it before God. Sometimes the answer is to bring it before the leadership of the church. Bottom line – God knows what he wants for you. Ask him, if you have his Spirit within you, you can hear from him. Ask him!
I’ll close out with a quote from one of those brothers I mentioned above. Britt said it best in his excellent Weekend at Bernies Christianity post:
At some point when I discuss these things, I get the usual statement from some: “Well, everyone is different. There’s no right way.” That sounds all nice and inclusive, but it can only go so far. I’ll give an example.
To be healthy you need to eat right, exercise, and sleep well. Lack in these areas cause problems, even serious problems unto death. There is plenty of freedom within these principles of health (what healthy foods you eat, when or how you exercise, etc). But to use that freedom to then justify eating junk food, complete inactivity, and insomnia is dangerous. There are some really creative arguments in the Church today as if living in an abusive way is healthy. And they love the one example they can find of the lady who lived in complete gluttony and self abuse and grew to be a hundred and eighty. Never mind the overwhelming majority of other people who have seen fruit from healthy living or died young from cancer or something from the lack of it.
The Bible says God has “ways.” Christ named Himself “the Way”. One of the names of the early believers had to do with their following the Way. There are ways, right ways, to do things, that are of Christ and not of you. And they produce fruit if you will follow those ways and try your best not to mix His ways with your own, or anyone else’s, really.
I have little to lose by calling dead things dead. I have everything, eternally, however, to gain by calling that which is of life, Life. Those that very creatively prop up Bernie can do what they do, but I’d rather tell the party-goers he’s dead and deal with whatever consequences occur. Better in the long run.
Nothing I can type here or say to you in any other way can convince you of anything that will make a difference.
So I’ve stopped trying. Anytime I would otherwise have sought to persuade you of, I now take to God and intercede on your behalf. If it’s even worth discussing, He’s the only one who will be able to make you able to hear it. I could link a bunch of examples of the type of stuff I’m talking about, but that seems counter to the point of this post.
Either you’ve already set your heart against it and there’s no point arguing, or you don’t care and there’s no point trying to make you care. The beauty of being led by the Lord is that he is fully capable of leading me to the people who aren’t against it and do care – and He does. You may have your own ideas of what “it” is, but trust me, I have no one specific “it” in mind. This applies to any spiritual concept, even salvation itself.
I’ve been thinking alot about how difficult it is to do two things well in one day. It seems that most people, given proper motivation and understanding, can dedicate themselves to only one sphere of their life in a day and make progress. They make give attention to other things, but it’s just maintenance, not really making serious progress.
The challenge seems to be in doing more than one thing well – here’s some examples of pairs of things that hard to do both well in one day:
work vs. family
time with friends vs. time with family
strategy/tactics vs. putting fires out/dealing with emergencies
Are you able to consistently accomplish two opposite tasks per day? More than two?
I wanted to share something that I’ve gradually been learning and putting together over the last few years. Perhaps this is fairly elementary and something I should have picked up on ages ago. This has to do with our interaction with those who attend more traditional churches. Sorry if I step on any toes or if this doesn’t make sense from where you’re coming from!
Here’s what I’m learning:
“There’s a level of maturity and self-control in being able to simultaneously disagree with a church’s structure and doctrine, while at the same time, being able to humbly join in worship at that church as if you were anywhere else.”
As I said above, this could be common spiritual sense. I guess that makes me spiritually dense.
This all came about in an interesting, round-about way. You see, a good friend of mine attends a very large church near to our homes. As he and I have become better friends, our conversations have turned to spiritual things, occasionally to how his big church and our tiny little house church are setup. And sometimes those conversations turn into arguments, or perhaps a better way to describe it would be “discussions.”
I’ve expressed how it appears to me that their worship services can seem more like concerts and less like worship, particularly when secular songs are a highlight of the service. How I am concerned that while the church is extremely effective at drawing people to the building, a large percent of the people can be completely nameless and uncommitted for their entire time as members. How spiritual growth, depth, leadership, and vision can be inhibited by merely the structure of the church.
And my friend has listened to my rantings with much patience. Probably with more grace than I gave him, based on my reading of the previous paragraph. And so I’ve cheer leaded house church, explained how our meeting is setup, how we try and let the Holy Spirit and no person lead the meeting. And how we are deeply involved in one another’s lives, and call those who would walk along with us to this same level of involvement.
Through all of this, my friend still decided to come and visit our meeting one Sunday evening. I was grateful that he was willing to try something much different than he was used to. The next weekend, on Sunday morning, I decided to wake up early in the morning on Sunday and go out to his big church with him. I think this surprised him, as based on my ranting, it would seem that I thought this church had fallen away from God and we’d be better off if it just closed its doors today. This is simply an ugly byproduct for my zeal for the way we do things at our church. As if we knew the best way. While I certainly believe it’s the best way (and that’s why I’m pursuing it), I don’t know everything that God’s doing and everything he’s leading people through.
Trust me, one of the primary temptations I face when visiting another church is a taking on a prideful smugness about how much better we are than these guys. How our worship is sweeter to God’s ears (not true), how our teachings are more deeply rooted in God’s word (who knows), how our members hear God’s voice clearer (like you could even know that!). If these thoughts and sins take over, then not only am I missing out on a chance to draw close to the Lord, I’m elevating myself and putting glory on my own church. This is something I have no desire to do.
So all said, God’s bringing my through this. I was able to worship and learn and engage when I visited his church that day.
One last thing – I have a few challenges to offer up to you:
– If you attend a traditional type church, have you taken the time to consider how your church operates, and what changes drastic or small could make a huge difference in member’s lives? Have you ever thought of attending a group with a radically different structure than your own?
– If you attend a house church/organic church/whatever type church, were you drawn to this type of church out of disdain or anger for the traditional church? Are you able to draw close to God and let distractions fade when attending a traditional church?
– If you don’t attend any church, examine in your heart why that is. If you have some specific reason about a specific church… well there’s lots of churches in the sea, don’t let a group of people be the thing preventing you from drawing close to God. If you just slowly faded away from God and/or the church… I can assure you he’d be glad to take you back.
At the behest of a nudge from the Spirit, I put together a photo story of my weekend as a counselor at Burnamwood, a camp that I attended in middle and high school as a camper. Enjoy!
A recent recommendation by a friend of mine brought this post to my mind. The recommendation was for my wife, who has not been feeling well for weeks, primarily because of morning sickness (btw, if you didn’t know, we’re having a baby!!!1)
The recommendation was to consider taking Ambrotose, the headline product made by a company called Mannatech as a potential way to alleviate some of the issues Heather’s been having. His wife had had similar issues and had noticed a difference when taking Ambrotose.
A little background info – Over the past few years, I’ve had a decent number of friends (7-10) purchase Mannatech products and said that they had see a difference in their life. During the time that I first heard of Mannatech and heard a sales pitch for it, I did what I do for most things I don’t know much about – I researched it. This process tends to be a bit more detailed when said thing desires money from me =). This was in 2006/2007.
Before I get in to what my research “found”, a brief aside – I am a cynic by nature, and my primary means of researching topics tends to be through the Internet. I realize these two traits means that I could pretty much disprove any idea or theory anyone ever had, by finding some whacko writing about how it’s untrue on some no-name blog. As such please bear with me and keep that in mind, and I’ll do my part to try and be impartial and present the truth – if that’s possibe.
So anyway, at the time of my first hearing of Mannatech, my research was generally inconclusive. The company was not well-known, and there was not a large amount of information on non-Mannatech websites. I’ll freely admit that I was skeptical from the beginning. Furthermore, Heather and I were in generally decent physical health, and didn’t really have the money to put forth $50 to $100 every-other-month for something we didn’t truly need.
Since that time, out of curiosity, I’ll google a few words related to the topic every couple months – specifically, Mannatech, glyconutrients, etc. I’ll check the wikipedia articles, and find forums where the topics are discussed back and forth, by supporters and detractors.
Given that the below points get kind of wordy, I’ll go ahead and summarize as succinctly as I can:
Though I have reasons to be completely in doubt of Mannatech and the glyconutrients they market, I cannot say for sure that their products are fraudulent. The anecdotal evidence provided by my friends would indicate that they can have a positive effect, but points #2 and #3 listed below makes it difficult for me to support a company with a growing history of deception and use of multi-level marketing to sell it’s products.
That said, here’s the things that I’ve found over the past three years that support what I’ve just said above. Read on if you care, stop now if you don’t =).
1. There is a disconnect in the science presented by Mannatech. This first and foremost reason tends to be the purpose of me googling terms about Mannatech. A study that decisively proves that taking glyconutrients would raise energy levels, or cure a disease, or anything would go a very long way to silencing my concerns. Something that I could use, that would make my life better. Sure, that’s a very consumeristic viewpoint, but they’re marketing a product for me to buy, and it’s not cheap.
To date, I’ve not seen such a study , so I can only conclude 1 of 3 things:
a. Studies were done, but proved little to nothing, and were not promoted.
b. Studies were not done and will not be done, and Mannatech has no desire to make their product have definitive proof behind it. This is either because they don’t care about people like me, they’re satisfied with their word-of-mouth endorsements, or they know nothing would be proven. As I don’t buy any products from them, the “why” of this doesn’t matter to much to me either way.
c. Studies are in progress, and take a long time. Hence I continue to search the internet, in case c is the answer.
I know this may seem sarcastic, but I’d love to be proven wrong on this point. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep trying to find a study that proves such things.
2. There are indications of deception in the leadership of Mannatech. Two main indicators here:
a. Sam Caster, the founder of Mannatech, has had two business ventures before Mannatech declared as hoaxes and not providing the benefits as advertised by the Texas Attorney General’s office. link. This point by itself is not enough to make a huge difference, but doesn’t lend credence to Mannatech’s credibility.
b. Mannatech paid $6 million settlement in a lawsuit stating that Mannatech launched “an unlawful marketing scheme” that over-promised what the effects of their products would be, including potentially curing Downs Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and cancer. link. Speaks for itself. I recall in the sales pitch I saw seeing a picture of a girl with Downs Syndrome, and then another picture of the same girl that did not appear to have DS any longer (as far as physical appearance goes). The implication was that glyconutrients was responsible for this change.
There was a seperate lawsuit, that Mannatech settled for 11.25 million, that was the result of similar claims being made. As it was settled out of court, Mannatech admitted no wrongdoing (unless $11.25 million out of your pocket means your wrong). link. 3. Mannatech is sold only through network marketing / multi-level marketing (MLM).
This one is more of a personal issue for me, and doesn’t necessarily say anything about the products efficacy. MLM raises two large red flags in my mind:
a. The inspiration that selling Mannatech will allow a person to reach “financial freedom” as mentioned on their Opportunity website. In MLM-speak, “financial freedom” is a euphemism for millions of dollars for little work. It’s laced with greed, which is ironic because….
b. Very few sellers in MLM networks break even, and even less of them make large amounts of money. The very nature of a business that requires exponentially more people for any one person to make money requires that the last people, the people at the bottom of these downlines, to completely lose out.
I’ll grant Mannatech that their marketing focuses more on the product than the opportunity to sell the product, but the point remains.
That’s all I have to say on this topic, for now. As always, your comments, emails, etc. are welcome.
