Should I Go? The Both/And of Body Life

Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. Acts 5:42

As a campus minister and pastor, I have a lot of conversations with people about their involvement in church, fellowship groups, and small groups. I’m noticing an increasing trend towards people opting in or out of these based on convenience, preference, and sometimes even belief.

Some people love a large group experience, whether it be a Sunday gathering, or a large fellowship group meeting during the week. They love the crush of people, the loud & talented worship band, the skilled speaker. They love the high production value. But a small or medium-sized group? Meh. Not so much. It’s too slow, too boring, too rough. “I’ll skip it.”

Others love the small to medium-sized group experience. The love the ability to actually meet and get to know a group of people without being lost and overwhelmed in the crowd. They embrace the intimacy of the setting. They value the deep relationships that can form. They know the importance of not just sitting back and listening as we tend to do in large group settings, but of contributing themselves. But a large group? Meh. Not so much. It’s too big, too loud, too impersonal. “I’ll skip it.”

Others don’t care for either of these. If they had their druthers, they would simply go with “Jesus and me.” Why do they need a building or an institution to meet God? the thinking goes. So they opt out of gatherings of any size, to go it alone.

What do we make of this? Is it ok for people to opt in or out of Sunday church gatherings, or Life Groups, or anything else as they see fit? Why or why not?

I call these “Body Life” questions. Anyone who would call themselves a Christian needs to know that they are part of the Body of Christ. That is, they are not only connected to Jesus, but to other people. Therefore, their decisions impact other people. Their presence is felt, and so is their absence. We’re not only connected to Jesus and other people, but in a very real sense, we belong to each other.

So in light of that mutual belonging, one thing we have to challenge: the deeply held conviction that “I know what’s best for me. I’m the last word, and the only word on that.” I find people are increasingly surprised that I would even ask questions and challenge some of their assumptions. Well, it’s part of my job. But it’s yours, too. No one is as wise as they think they are. We all (myself included) need other people to speak into our lives. That’s part of Body Life.

So don’t assume that “I just feel like…” or “This is what works best for me” is the end of the conversation, or even a legitimate answer to the question of why you do what you do. You’ve got to bring more than that.

As I talk with people who would choose one form of church or Body Life over another, I’m reminded of the biblical examples we have been given. Large group and small group. The early church met “in the Temple courts and from house to house.”  Jesus preached to the large crowds, but also formed his small group of 12 men. David led the armies, but also had his band of mighty men. Church history shows that when one form of Body Life is emphasized at the expense of another, it inevitably springs up and makes a powerful comeback. Why is that? Because God designed all forms of Body Life, big and small, and the gates of Hell won’t prevail against any of them. We shouldn’t act as if it’s our prerogative to choose one and not the other. All are biblical. All are important.

Meeting regularly with other Christians is necessary. The author of Hebrews makes this clear: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…” Why not? “…but let us encourage one another.” (Heb. 10:25).

The problem with the typical mindset out there is that they start with their personal preferences, and work from there. Biblically speaking, this is upside down. We must start with what loves and honors God. This is how we fulfill the Greatest Commandment, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. God wants his people to gather to worship together, pray together, study his Word together, serve together, and grow together.

In doing so, we also fulfill the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbors as ourselves. We do all these together. Occasionally people will say, “But I can get so much out of listening to podcasts, studying on my own, doing things at my own pace and timing.”

Have you ever considered that doing things based on OTHER people’s schedule, pace, and preference is part of the design? Community is the messy practice of being drawn out of ourselves, and dying to ourselves, for the sake of others.

That includes simply showing up. If you’re not there at Life Group, we miss your perspective. We miss what you have to share. You may be exegeting diamonds of brilliance in your personal quiet time, but you didn’t share that with us. If you’re not there at large group/church, we also miss you. I know you don’t believe that, but we do. We miss you cramming into the seats. We miss your singing with us. We miss the sense that God is doing something here today, and we’re ALL here to hear it.  You can’t capture that via a podcast. There are still some things where “you had to be there.”

Remember, you’re part of a Body. Your decisions don’t just impact you—they impact the rest of the Body, for good or ill. Let’s choose what gives life to others and honors God.

Some Recent Writing

I’ve been doing some writing recently that hasn’t appeared here.

In case you didn’t catch this, I wrote a well-received (and much posted and tweeted) article at The Gospel Coalition, entitled “Five Necessary Shifts for Missional College Ministry,” which was a distillation of chapter 3 in my book. I’m working on another article for TGC that I hope will run in the next week or two.

My friend Brad Baker, college pastor at Saddleback (Rick Warren’s church) in Orange County, CA, asked me to write up this article for his website, collegeministry.com. I called it “Why I Love Ministry to College Students (and you should too).” Some nice resources at Brad’s website for college ministry, worth checking out.

I also wrote a piece that will appear on the Immerse Journal website next month, on “Open Source Ministry,” a very interesting topic. Some very good articles there recently. Immerse does a good job of combining the print and online components of their journal.

I’ve also been writing some talks on Proverbs for Elements, our ministry here at PSU, not to mention this week’s sermon on Jonah 3, entitled “Am I Fish Vomit?” Yep, that’s the title. For reals.

One more thing–I’ve been working with some friends on a new website. Hoping to unveil that soon. Will let you know when I do.

Cardboard Testimonies of God at Work

Last week, our church held an all-together gathering on campus. It was a powerful time to worship God together and give him credit for what he’s done. Several people, including quite a few students I work with, gave their testimonies via the medium of cardboard. I’ll let you watch.

 

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Five Ways to Get Guidance

In a world with multitudinous choices that assault our senses constantly, how do we navigate these choices wisely? I wrote about the need for wisdom and God’s guidance as we make decisions earlier. Here let’s look at 5 Ways to Get Guidance, according to Proverbs.

1. TRUST!

To get guidance, we must trust God and his Sovereign plan. Trust is hard. But given what Jesus has done for us, how do we NOT trust him?

 PR 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

    PR 3:6 in all your ways acknowledge him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

 

2. COMMIT!

PR 16:1 To man belong the plans of the heart,

    but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue.

      PR 16:2 All a man’s ways seem innocent to him,

    but motives are weighed by the LORD.

      PR 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do,

    and your plans will succeed.

This proverb does not give carte blanche to do whatever we want and expect God to bless it. (I’ve heard people try to use it that way). Rather, it teaches that when we commit ourselves to God, and align our wills with him, we can expect God’s blessing on that which lines up with his will. God loves to bless what pleases him.

3. PRAY! ASK!

From the Proverbs of the New Testament, we get this wonderful assurance of the power of prayer:

James 1:5-8

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

 

4. Think/Take Responsibility

Thinking is a no-brainer, right? Unfortunately not. Plenty of people make decisions without adequate forethought.

PR 13:16 Every prudent man acts out of knowledge,

    but a fool exposes his folly.

PR 14:8 The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,

    but the folly of fools is deception.

PR 14:15 A simple man believes anything,

    but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.

PR 14:22 Do not those who plot evil go astray?

    But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness.

Think it out! Plan! Be strategic! Be thoughtful. Don’t just sit there waiting to get zapped, or waiting for a billboard to tell you.

 

5. Ask for Advice 

We need counsel! We need advice! 

I’m routinely surprised by how people make decisions. 

They’ll have a big decision to make, but won’t ask others for advice.  Instead, they’ll merely inform people, after the fact.

Ask them why, and they can’t explain it. “Just because.”

 

PR 11:14 For lack of guidance a nation falls,

    but many advisers make victory sure.

PR 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel,

    but with many advisers they succeed.

PR 24:5 A wise man has great power,

    and a man of knowledge increases strength;

    PR 24:6 for waging war you need guidance,

    and for victory many advisers.

According to Proverbs, people who make decisions on their own are losers.

Do you just inform people? Or do you ask them? When they speak, do you listen? Do you receive their counsel?

Making decisions without soliciting the input, advice, & counsel of others says “I know everything there is to know. I don’t need other people to tell me. I can see things from every possible angle.” That’s arrogant. It’s immature. It’s the way of the Fool.

Who are your advisers? An adviser is someone who can tell you you’re wrong, and you usually listen to them.

Not just anyone, but good people. Wise people. People who have demonstrated by their choices that they are wise. 

Getting Guidance, Part 1

From the NY Times//Jack Atley, Bloomberg News

PR 19:21 Many are the plans in a man’s heart,

    but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

Wisdom is navigating life skillfully. It’s living life well. It’s aligning ourselves with God’s design, not going against the grain, but with it.

In no area do we feel the need for wisdom more acutely than when it comes to making plans. Getting guidance. Making choices. Think about your day:

 

1. We are always making choices

• What to wear
• What to eat
• What to do: right now, tonight, tomorrow, this weekend, this summer, next year, the rest of your life
• who to hang out with

 

2. We are defined by our choices.  They make or break us.

• right major, right internship, right advisor, right job
• who should I date, who should I marry

 

3. Increasingly, like no other time in history we are paralyzed by our choices

So many choices confront us, more than ever. We’re told it will bring freedom, that more choice can’t be bad; but increasingly research is showing that actually people are paralyzed and depressed by choice. Overwhelmed and stressed.

One famous study depicted the problem of choice quite well:

In a California gourmet market, Professor Iyengar and her research assistants set up a booth of samples of Wilkin & Sons jams. Every few hours, they switched from offering a selection of 24 jams to a group of six jams. On average, customers tasted two jams, regardless of the size of the assortment, and each one received a coupon good for $1 off one Wilkin & Sons jam.

Here’s the interesting part. Sixty percent of customers were drawn to the large assortment, while only 40 percent stopped by the small one. But 30 percent of the people who had sampled from the small assortment decided to buy jam, while only 3 percent of those confronted with the two dozen jams purchased a jar.

That study “raised the hypothesis that the presence of choice might be appealing as a theory,” Professor Iyengar said last year, “but in reality, people might find more and more choice to actually be debilitating.”

Even if we have the capacity to endlessly research choices (a hotel, a camera, an internship, a potential bf or gf), that doesn’t mean we should.

Other researchers went on to say,

“It is not clear that more choice gives you more freedom. It could decrease our freedom if we spend so much time trying to make choices…Even in contexts where choice can foster freedom, empowerment, and independence, it is not an unalloyed good. Choice can also produce a numbing uncertainty, depression, and selfishness.”

“Society has become more self-absorbed through having too much choice, because individuals focus on their own preferences at the expense of what is good for greater society…”

 

Most of our decisions are moral. They’re legally permissible, but not necessarily beneficial. They are not wise. Fortunately Proverbs gives us WISDOM on how to make decisions, make plans. We need GUIDANCE.

 

Hebrew word for guidance connected with “ropes,” as in sailing. Ropes are ways of navigating: raise the sails, lower the sails.

How do we navigate life, getting God’s guidance? Proverbs tells us.  Here we’ll look briefly at what to KNOW about Guidance, and tomorrow we’ll look how to GET it.

 

What to KNOW about Guidance:

1. We need to get real about ourselves:

PR 12:15 The way of a fool seems right to him,

    but a wise man listens to advice.

 

PR 14:12, and 16:25 There is a way that seems right to a man,

but in the end it leads to death.

 

PR 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

    PR 3:6 in all your ways acknowledge him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

We need a sober self-assessment that realizes the limits of our own knowledge, experience, and wisdom.

 

2. Acknowledge God is in charge!

 

PR 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course,

    but the LORD determines his steps.

 

PR 20:24 A man’s steps are directed by the LORD.

    How then can anyone understand his own way?

 

PR 16:4 The LORD works out everything for his own ends–

even the wicked for a day of disaster.

 

PR 21:30 There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan

    that can succeed against the LORD.

      PR 21:31 The horse is made ready for the day of battle,

    but victory rests with the LORD.

 

PR 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow,

    for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

But God does.

 

3. Trust in the one who has given us Jesus Christ! 

In the Garden, we see Jesus at what I believe is the peak of his incarnation.

Never was Jesus more human than that moment when he questions if it has to be that way.  In deep anguish and physical shock that causes him to sweat blood, he asks, “Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done.”

Here, for the first time, Jesus questions what he should do. He had walked in perfect faith all his life, never questioning what he should do. But as the shroud of sin and death falls on him, and the Father begins to turn his face away, Jesus experiences the separation and uncertainty from God that characterizes most of our existence. He, just for a moment, has questions. But he continues in tremendous faith and strength, trusting his Father.

In that moment, Jesus enters into uncertainty so that we would know the certainty of the Father. He goes into unknown, uncharted waters, so that we could be known and have our future made secure. He is cut off that so that we could be connected to the Father. He willingly enters pain so that we could know the Father’s security and comfort.

Waiting on God’s Guidance is a matter of trust. So when he has given us Jesus Christ, how can we NOT trust him?

 

What the Kids Are In To

Pretty much nails it, as far as how young people relate.

The idea of them dating is about as retro as Stevie Wonder, though.

[HT: trevinwax.com]