Posted on Wednesday, December 27, 2006                                                 by Ben H

The Performance-Oriented Church

I think often about the Church today and how far we have come from the church of Acts. I am all about progress and I believe we live now in an age of opportunity for the church like never before. But progress is only good so long as we do not forget who we are and why we are here. This is what bothers me. 

Church-going has become a very self-pleasing activity. Church is a place, an activity we go to on Sunday mornings to “worship”—and then we go home. Pastors spend much of their time raising money for building funds so that they can build basketball gyms and host coffee houses. How much people like a church is based on how many activities the church has for the youth group, how great the music is, how articulate and moving the messages are. We all get dressed up (at least we do here in the north east) in nice ties and high heels. We like our pastors to have perfect hair, and we like the messages to be short and sweet. This message may not make me feel uncomfortable, but it certainly can make me feel better about myself. Ah, yessss! How far we have come indeed! The apostles would be very proud.

It strikes me how the church has become one big performance. I find myself saying things like “Oh, that was a wonderful message that Pastor preached!” “Oh, that girl can sing!” “He tore it up on the drums!” “That was a great suit he was wearing!” What have we become?  Just another social function? Just another activity to check off my spiritual to do list?  

What is the church anyway? An institution? An event? A building? No, it is the body of Christ! We are His hands, His feet, His mouth here on earth. We are here to build his kingdom. We are here to get down and dirty. No clean jerseys, so to speak. 

When we come together to worship corporately, we should be excited because we can bring something to offer the King of Glory. Not because we are going to be serenaded in by a man and his guitar, or whatever. 

We are called to be different and to preach the Gospel truth. We are not here to attract unbelievers with our great activities and to show people how cool being a Christian is. I fear that we have become too cool, too much like the world. We can hardly tell the difference anymore.  

If the church of Acts is our example, we are in bad shape. They were very different. They were very radical. They lived on the edge. They were filled with the Holy Ghost. They preached the gospel boldly and did miracles. That is a far cry from what describes us!  

As I was thinking about writing this article, I found myself crying out to God to forgive my entertainment-orientation.  I begged God to touch my generation and help me to impact it for him:  

I Peter 2:9—But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

   Posted on Wednesday, November 22, 2006                                                 by Ben H

Eyes on the Storm Treader

There once was a rough fisherman who allowed his mind to wander as he and his friends took the boat out to cross the sea. It had been a long day of listening to the great teacher who was his friend.  He had seen many mind blowing miracles, heard many strange and new things that day. It was all a blur in his mind, like an information overload. He wanted to stop and process it all. He was to meet his teacher friend on the other side; maybe they could talk more about it. He didn’t understand everything but he loved his teacher friend dearly.

A flash of lightning split his thoughts. A storm rolled in. The boat began to rock as the waves sloshed over the sides of the tiny boat. The fisherman and his friends grabbed anything they could to bail. Now the rains came. The sky turned to pitch. Things looked bleak. Just then his friend grabbed his arm tightly and pointed a shaking hand at something on the water. The rough fisherman glared through the darkness. Something like light was bobbing on top of the water approaching the boat…it was a man…It was his friend! He felt a rush of joy at the sight of Him: “Lord, let me come to you if it is you!”

“Come!”  The fisherman was shaking with excitement and fear as he stepped over the side of the boat. What am I doing? He thought. I’ve never been able to do this before? These are the same waters I’ve always seen. But…I know if my Lord is there he won’t let me drown. Here goes…One step, two steps…I’m walking on water! But, oh, there’s a wave. I know I won’t make it! Ughh!! I’m drowning…Lord!!! SAAAAVE MEEEE!      

That fisherman—you know who that is. It’s me. I go through life coasting along. There’s so much I have to learn, so much I don’t understand. Then come the temptations and the trials, the heartbreaks and pain. I’m drowning.

What happened? I took my eyes off my Savior. Somewhere along in my day I lost touch with Him. I looked at all the things that have knocked me down so many times before instead of looking at my Savior.

I’ve found that the best medicine for those battle wounds you get along the way is praise. Life is full of disappointments and heartbreak. We lose loved ones and we lose people and things we put hope in. God never changes. He is still good. Our own sinfulness does not change that so do not wallow anymore in self-pity. Praise him in the storm! Praise because He is good and his mercies endure forever! Praise Him because He is working out everything for our good! Praise Him because He deserves all we can give! 

Ps. 50:23—He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so I may show him the salvation of God.  

   Posted on Wednesday, October 4, 2006                                                        by Ben H

Don't Look At Me

Understanding the grace of God is something that can take your whole Christian life.  

We are always looking for a reference point—everybody wants a hero. That person you look to and say, man he or she really has it right. That person becomes your reference point, the stick by which you measure your success. 

I am not just talking about the people we feel have it “made” materially or athletically or charismatically. I have looked up to people spiritually as well. With me it has gotten to a point where I truly believe a person cannot do wrong, where I place hopes and expectations in that person they do not deserve or are not capable of meeting. God always has a way of reminding me of their humanity.  

Since the fall, we have been redesigned (in as sense) for failure. Outside of God’s saving grace we are an ugly mess. If you think that you are somehow beyond all this, that you have a very grounded view of the world and that you can never be disappointed in someone, you are fooling yourself. Man is always more depraved than you can imagine.  And you will always be reminded of that. If I myself was to be turned inside out for you to see, you very well might never talk to me again (although I hope you would still read my posts).  

We, then, who look to people as our reference point, are the most insecure people in this world, because there is nothing more unstable. When we truly understand God’s work of grace, we understand that it is God’s grace at work when we do anything good. So in that light I can only be grateful for the cross and what it has accomplished in you and me. In our world of sin and tragedy, do not be afraid when you feel like everyone has let you down. Look at one thing only:     

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Hebrews 2:9)

   Posted on Wednesday, July 26, 2006                                                            by Ben H

Two Women, Two Kingdoms, A Choice

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." [Matthew 4: 8,9] 

Recently this passage has taken on new meaning for me, because I have found that no matter how far I have come spiritually I have to battle worldliness tooth and nail.

It is as if I am battling a flood. I would say that the devil’s job has been made significantly easy, for we live in an age where the kingdoms of this world with all its beauty and ugliness can flash before our eyes with the click of a mouse or the flip of a channel. What an age of opportunity! Never has knowledge been so readily available…or corruption.  

Let’s be honest. The truth is that the world is a very attractive place, full of lights and lots of shiny toys. Yet while our technology is a marvelous thing, it has not saved us. We have not become a better world. It has given us opportunity for great good but also for great evil. This is not news for any of us. The world is calling us, flattering us seductively, like the whore of Proverbs [7:16-18]:  

I have covered my bed
with colored linens from Egypt.

I have perfumed my bed
with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

Come, let's drink deep of love till morning;
let's enjoy ourselves with love!  

Yet wisdom cries also, though she may seem to be a “plane Jane,” if you will:  

Prov. 8:1-2, 10,11:

Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?

She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.

Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.

For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.  

Proverbs compares the two ways before us to two women crying and cooing for the affections of the young man. One is so very attractive and exotic, the other a woman of deep understanding, How similar is that to our lives? We have the world (the harlot) and we have Jesus (the embodiment of wisdom). We have to choose between the two. I hope and pray for all of us that we will choose to lay our fish nets down and become fishers for the kingdom of heaven. Remember, it’s the pure in heart that will see God (Matthew 5:8). 

   Posted on Wednesday, June 7, 2006                                                             by Ben H

In Your Wildest Dreams

Follow your dreams. Have you ever heard that before? Maybe it was a song or a motivational speaker that said it. Or maybe you’ve heard this one: Whatever you want to do, man, if you put your mind to it, you can do it. I am sure that we have all heard wonderful stories of the girl or boy who grew up in the projects and became a celebrity of some sort. People have overcome amazing odds to accomplish incredible things. 

All of us have dreams. For some of us it may have been laid aside when reality hit you. Some of us still hold on. Some of us are determined to follow them through. Your dream or ambition may be anything from wanting to be a popular Christian musician to wanting to be a surgeon. Or you may just want be rich or have a certain car. 

There is nothing wrong with dreams. The problem comes when we think that their fulfillment is the only thing that will make us truly happy.  

I know you have probably heard what I just said before also, but don’t tune out yet. Christians have dreams too. They are real desires that cannot be ignored. They come from deep within our hearts, our souls. The struggle comes in trusting God with our dreams. It does not mean they will never be fulfilled. It only means that we have to give them into his hands.  

My greatest fear is that God will not let me pursue my deep ambitions. But if you think about it, that fear comes because I doubt that God’s will can be greater than my dreams. I don’t believe that Jesus can be more wonderful than my dreams. But He is. Don’t imagine life with your dreams unrealized. Trust in the fact that the One who made you and loves you will be with you every step of the way. 

Chances are He will, as my Dad always says, put your wildest dreams to shame. Life with Him is never dull. In fact the possibilities are endless. Life has been such a blast since I committed my life to serve him.

Just try it. I guarantee you will never regret it. 

Jeremiah 29:11—For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.    

   Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006                                                           by Ben H

Eaten Up

Studying the prophets of the Old Testament is a lesson on what it means to live life all alone, misunderstood and persecuted by those around you. The prophet Jeremiah was regarded as a false prophet throughout his entire ministry. God gave him the message and told him from day one that no one would hear him. Imagine!  God told him that he was going to have an empty church from the start to end of his ministry! Yet even in the lowest point of Jeremiah’s ministry he said that when he wished to keep silent, the word was like a “fire shut up in his bones.” In other words, the zeal for God’s word burned in him, drove him, empowered him. 

No one could have had it worse than Ezekiel (so when was the last time you had to lie on one side for forty days, then the other for another forty?). But Ezekiel, when God gave him the scroll (representing the word that God gave him to speak) to “eat,” said it tasted like honey in his mouth (Ez. 3:3). In other words, God’s word was a delight to him. No matter what he suffered, it did not matter. 

This word convicts me. So many times in my small capacities, I give up all too easily when I do not see results. God does not always let us see the results in our lifetime. It is in the obedience to His word that we are blessed (whether we see it or not). It is also the zeal for Lord and for His word that should drive our ministry, not results. The results may never come in our lifetime.  

Let the fire of God burn in you. Let it flow through you and consume you. Then you will have the right motive for ministry. The fire is internalized by eating his word daily. I am not talking about getting our chapter for the day in there somewhere. Eat it up! Know it! Internalize it! Let it become a part of you. I want it to be said of me as it was said by David (and Jesus later) “the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (Ps. 69:9). 

Burn every drop out for Him! Let’s build the kingdom of God together.      

   Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2006                                                        by Ben H

Common Men

The movie Miracle is the dramatization of how the 1980 American Olympic hockey team, who were overwhelming underdogs, defeated the unbeatable Soviet Union. My favorite scene in the whole movie is the scene after one of their preliminary games, which they lost. Their coach Herb Brooks is irate because they are not playing as a team. Despite the fact that they were exhausted from the game, Herb orders them to do skating drills. Under protest from the trainer and his assistant coach

Herb sends them again and again. Some of the players begin to fall, others vomit from exhaustion. Herb badgers them, asking each player if they are going to be the first player to give up. Then he gives one of my favorite lines in the play: “This cannot be a team of common men; common men go nowhere.”

Probably on of the most significant things ever said to me was by one young pastor. He told me how he was concerned over this contemporary brand of Christianity. People are so into this “Jesus is my best friend” movement that they leave out reverence for God. I have been guilty of such a mindset. And I have found that to be very true of many Christians today.

I have enjoyed as much as anybody this wonderful contemporary worship movement that has blossomed into multi-million dollar industry. I have enjoyed the outward expression of my love my “pal” Jesus. “Jesus is my homeboy.” “Jesus is rad.” (Sorry, I live in PA) Yea, I hear that a lot. But what about the heart? Is this approach to our awesome and holy God producing results? In my estimation, it has resulted in a mediocrity at best. What we see now are professional worshippers who only need a little scratching to see that their relationship with the one they are worshipping has little sway in their lifestyle. We have become “common men.” Simply going about our way of life with a fish bumper sticker on our car. What is this telling the world? Nothing, really. Absolutely nothing. They just wanted us to leave them alone anyway.

But while I had been taking shots at Christendom, God was trying the whole time that I am no different. I have allowed sin to creep into my life, and find a comfortable corner. It is ok, because Jesus will understand. He is my buddy after all. As a result, I watched as my prayer life depleted, and even the time I spent less fulfilling. As the year closed to an end, I began to reflect. So many things can blind you from your true needs….I needed desperately to be renewed by God. Faithful as the sun, God met me in my bedroom. All alone, no distractions, this is where true religion happens. I cried and wept until I knew God had revived me. But it was not a fuzzy feeling; it was dumbfounding! God was revealing himself as a holy God who demands my fear and reverence.

May I suggest that this be our resolution this year (come on, you weren’t really gonna go on a diet  anyway!): to know God. If we know Him, without a doubt it will change the way we live, the way we think, and the way we worship. Not common at all.

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”   (Phil 3:10)