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Posts Tagged ‘church’

THE LESSONS OF INTERNET EXPLORER

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2013| 12 Comments »

Religion-and-Internet-ExplorerDid you know Internet Explorer is out of fashion? I didn’t, but then again, I’m a Mac person and Internet Explorer hasn’t bothered with us for years.

But what about the points that people of faith apparently have in common with Internet Explorer? According to this graphic, posted on an Atheism internet community, people like me are dumb, frightened and unwilling to question anything they grew up with.

Let me present you with a very different point of view:

This dude went to church as a child, but at the age of 16, his parents told him and his two brothers they were free to continue with faith, or drop it.

The decision was unanimous. The entire family walked away from even the shallowest pretense of faith.

For this one dude, it never came to a point of becoming an atheist, but he did get very angry at God and figured people who followed Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is God’s Son) were either naive children or frightened seniors.

That kind of attitude made him unpleasant to be around. And he knew it.

Then the day came, at age 42, when he became willing to change, willing to download something new, willing to seriously investigate what was there when he started.

After much discussion with mature, respectful Jesus followers, much reading of a wide variety of books from several very different points of view and after much thoughtful consideration, he decided to become a Jesus follower.

That person is ME.

Do I have all my questions answered? Nope. Do I understand everything in the Bible? Hardly. In the end, when I’m finished with this life, will either of these points matter? Not even a bit.

Because I accepted God’s gift to humanity (Jesus), I also accepted that He sacrificed His life for all the bad things I’ve done and all the good things I’ve failed to do. My slate is wiped clean. And as a result, I’ll spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

Does that mean I can just walk away and do whatever I want? Not unless I’m seriously deluded. If I take God’s gift seriously, then I’m overwhelmingly grateful for what Jesus has done.

That gratefulness opens the door for me to welcome Him into my heart and soul. Now He’s working to make me a better person – to myself, to my wife and stepchildren, to my parents and to everyone who doesn’t share my trust and faith in Him.

That gift is waiting for you, too. No matter what you’ve done (or not done), no matter how much you struggle with life. Interested? Post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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HOMER’S HALF-BAKED PHILOSOPHY

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2013| 5 Comments »

homer-simpson-quotes-about-love-7417I found this graphic on the Internet and, as a fan of the long-running Simpsons TV show, it got my mental wheels spinning.

First, the fun stuff. Homer Simpson the hard worker?? If you’ve seen the Simpsons, you’ll know Homer works hard looking for ways NOT to work at all. 🙂

“Not a bad guy”. Maybe not. But a good guy? Well, who among us is really good?

Consider these words from one of the earliest and most important followers of Jesus of Nazareth: “There is no one doing what is right, not even one.”

Beyond that challenging statement, I ask: what is “good”? Am I still good if I routinely exceed the speed limit (which I do)? Am I still good if I pay a contractor under the table to avoid taxes (which I don’t)?

And what about ignoring my creator? As a serious follower of Jesus (who many people believe is the Son of God), I know that God is interested in every part of my life. So if I live as if He barely exists, am I still “good”?

One of the reasons I follow Jesus is because in the end, I have to admit I’m NOT good. And no matter how hard I work at it, I can never be good on my own.

I welcome Jesus into my life because He is bringing me closer to “good”. And for the many times I still fall short, his sacrificial death and resurrection wipes all my shortcomings off the books. God sees me as he sees His Son – perfect, without blemish.

The other thing that grabbed me about this graphic is the notion of spending Sundays (in church, I presume) hearing about going to Hell.

I imagine if you’re not a regular church attender, then you’re nodding in agreement with Homer’s assertion. But it’s no more true than his claim about working hard.

I regularly attend church services because through them, I learn more about how to live as a Jesus follower. I’m also surrounded by other Jesus followers who encourage me, support me and pray with & for me.

Does Hell come up? Now and then. However, serious Jesus followers aren’t fixated on it because we know we’re not going there. But we keep in mind all those we know who don’t follow Jesus. We want to spend eternity with them in Heaven, so we pray for them and, at church, we learn how to lovingly show them and tell them about the hope we have in Jesus.

If that sounds appealing to you, then step out on the ledge one Sunday. Go to a church service and talk to the people you meet there. It just might change your life. 🙂

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THE GIFT THAT LIVES ON

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2013| 11 Comments »

ChurchBeyond being a proud stepdad to three wonderful young adults, parenthood – the 24/7, down-and-dirty real thing – is not and will not be part of my life. But I know for certain one thing my parents did right for me: they took me to church.

Despite moving several times, my parents continually had me and my two brothers attend Catholic mass with them until I hit age 16. For the most part, I found the experience a stand-up/sit-down/recite-this-standard-prayer exercise in boredom.

What probably didn’t help is that the experience didn’t seem much more interesting to my parents. The meaning and significance of a Catholic mass was never explained to me (I’m not sure Mom and Dad understood it, either), so when they told us we were old enough to decide for ourselves whether we wanted to keep attending, the result was no surprise. All of us brothers said “no thanks” and for me, that was the end of church for many years.

But the seed of something deep and spiritual was planted and, I’m glad to write, has blossomed into such significance that it influenced who I married and where I go to work.

So, I remain grateful for what Mom and Dad did all those decades ago, especially when I read a National Post blog by Barbara Kay on the subject of children and faith. One paragraph, in particular, stood out:

“Children are not satisfied with chaos theory or moral relativism. They want order, a system, a precise identity (my friend’s grandchild told a schoolmate he was ‘half Jewish, half Christmas’). They need an infallible ‘GPS’ to navigate their way through ‘mean’ playmates, unfair or insensitive teaching, the troubling deaths of pets and family members, rumours of war and natural disasters.”

So, imagine if I hadn’t had a childhood GPS? And just as important for young parents, imagine if your children don’t have a GPS? That’s why I write that even if you’re not quite sure where you stand with Christianity, even if you still have a ton of unanswered questions, even if some things make you scratch your head in confusion, set them aside and take your children to church.

If they aren’t regularly exposed to Sunday services, they will likely miss the chance to decide for themselves about a life of faith, about who Jesus is, and about the value of following Him. You will have made the decision for them, on a matter I believe is of supreme importance.

As Ms. Kay put it in her blog, “There is nothing to be lost in gifting children with God and religion, but much to be gained – for them as individuals and for society as a whole.”

Agree? Disagree? Put your thoughts in a comment below and let’s have a conversation.

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THE LESSONS OF WEEDING

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2013| 4 Comments »

weedingAs a husband, one of the things I’m committed to doing each summer is help my wife weed the back yard garden. Oh, can’t you just sense the joy in those words? 🙂

The thing that strikes me about weeding is it’s like laundry: the job never, never, ever, ever, ever ends. Pull out a weed today and, within a week, watch something just as ugly and useless take its place. Never mind the weeds, ‘cause after awhile, you’re ready to pull out your hair.

In my more lucid moments, I see a connection between weeding and my life: remove something bad I’ve done today — or something good I neglected to do — and in a few days, it’s right back in my life.

Like laundry, it seems to be a never-ending cycle. And it usually leads to frustration and, even worse, simply giving up and giving in to our less charitable, more self-centred tendencies.

But there is a solution. Brace yourself, because it’s not a quick-fix from Doctor Phil or Oprah or the latest self-help bestseller. It’s….Jesus.

Yes, that’s what I wrote. Jesus. As in, the son of God, the Christmas child and the reason for Easter. Still with me? Then here’s the explanation: if you check out Jesus’s claims and then decide to get serious — and I truly mean SERIOUS — about a life of faith, then what you’ll do is invite Jesus into your life.

And when Jesus comes into your life, He starts to change you. He loves you so much – He died to make up for all the wrong you’ve done and the right you’ve failed to do – that He’s not content to leave you as you are, haplessly pulling up weeds that are all too ready to grow back.

As your relationship with Jesus grows, as you start attending church, reading His words and words about Him and having faith conversations with longtime Jesus followers, you’ll start to see the changes. One of His earliest followers puts it this way: “The fruit that the Spirit [of God] produces in a person’s life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

In other words, you start to see less weeds to pull up. Of course, there will never come a time when there isn’t weeding to be done. For proof, just look at the news and the scandals that overwhelm some high-profile Jesus followers.

But if you’re serious and if you truly commit yourself to following Jesus and letting Him make you more like who God knows you can be, you’ll have more:

  •  resilience to withstand the hard times;
  •  strength to help others;
  •  contentment when the world screams that you need to buy more stuff and earn more money and;
  •  peace when you come to truly know where you will spend eternity.

Does this make sense? Post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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DRIVING YOUR CAR OFF THE ROAD

Posted in It's Not About 'Religion', tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2013| 12 Comments »

CarInDitchI’ve been reading a blog by a guy named Derrick Miller, who wrote about his trip in and out of Christianity and, finally, to atheism.

It’s pretty interesting reading, and Derrick makes some good points about some of the challenges of being a Christian. Among them, he notes:

•   The difficulty of reading and comprehending some parts of the Bible;
•   The challenge of living the kind of life he thought would be pleasing to God;
•   Coming to some sort of conclusion about the purpose of the universe; and
•   Understanding why there are so many Christian denominations (more than 50 in Canada alone).

Can I address these difficulties in a credible way? Some of them, perhaps, but not all. I don’t believe many people can, simply because they are huge topics requiring an incredibly wide range of knowledge.

But there’s something larger here to address. Something that Derrick’s blog made very clear: he didn’t understand that Christianity isn’t primarily about comprehending all the Bible or the universe. It isn’t primarily about pleasing God by trying to emulate Mother Theresa or Billy Graham. And it’s certainly not about grasping all the viewpoints held by Christian churches.

In the end, the things that tripped up Derrick are merely colorful, shiny billboards on the road of life. Spend too much time staring at them and, like Derrick, you’ll drive off the road and land in a ditch.

Ultimately, Christianity is about a relationship between you and Jesus, who many people believe is the son of God. Plain and simple? Yes, but it’s very radical and utterly opposite to doing stuff and understanding stuff and reading stuff and getting our act together and, and, and…

I suspect if Derrick had encountered someone who could have explained this relationship and lived it out in front of him – a mentor or a Jesus-following friend or an interested pastor, for example – then his life would have been very different.

A mentor could have guided Derrick to resources that would provide a new and relevant understanding of the Bible.

A pastor could have shown Derrick that while it’s great to get his act together, he (a) could never be “good enough” for God – and didn’t have to, thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection – and, (b) he didn’t have to even try on his own.

A Jesus-following friend could have made it plain to Derrick that there have always been, and always will be, unanswerable questions. Those questions are the evidence we egotistical humans need to remind us that God is God and we are NOT.

Are the things that put Derrick’s “car” into the “ditch” the same things that are keeping you from even sliding behind the wheel and turning the ignition key? Respond below and let’s have a conversation.

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WHEN CHURCH AND TAVERN COLLIDE

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2013| 16 Comments »

“People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.”
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)

MikhailBakuninWow; how’s THAT for a shot across the bow of anyone with a faith life? I stumbled upon this provocative quote on the internet the other day and it definitely caused my mental wheels to spin.

While I’m sure some of you agree with this Russian philosopher and revolutionary (he was a contemporary of communism co-founder Karl Marx), how about taking a moment to be open-minded and read something from the “other side”?

Going to church is like going to a tavern? Well, there are similarities. Both are social activities, since they include interacting with others in a confined space.

Forgetting our miseries? Yes, there’s some commonality there, too. Just as there is between attending church and going to a rock concert or a play or a movie. For those hours, we leave our lives at the door and enter into a new experience.

“Imagining” myself free and happy? Bakunin, who never saw a revolution that he didn’t like or try to encourage (no matter how pointless or violent), might dismiss church like this, but he certainly didn’t have all the answers to life. No one does.

But I will say this: I AM free and happier as a church-going man.

I am free from the guilt associated with all the bad things I’ve done and all the good things I’ve failed to do, because of the death of Jesus of Nazaareth (who many people believe is the Son of God).

His sacrificial death, for anyone who believes in Him and follows Him, means my “sins” have been wiped from the books. Want evidence? Then consider these words from an ancient Jesus follower’: “Jesus is the way our sins are taken away. And he is the way all people can have their sins taken away, too.”

Knowing what Jesus has done for me (and for you too, if you want it) makes me happier. It also makes me want to invite Him into my life so I can become more of the person He knows I can be.

The way Bakunin saw it, going to a tavern and going to church are equally useless. But attending church has transformed many lives for the better — and for eternity. Can you credibly make the same case for any tavern, pub or bar? Post your response and let’s have a conversation.

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THE EASTER STORY: GIVING YOURSELF AWAY

Posted in Special Days, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2013| 10 Comments »

EasterEaster makes me smile.

It probably makes you smile, too, since it’s the reason so many people have a long weekend with Friday off.

But I have another reason. Whereas Christmas — as a spiritual holiday — was long ago bought, packaged and cleverly marketed by the Retail Council of Canada, Easter still carries the whiff of something spiritual that our culture can’t quite remove.

All the bunnies and painted eggs in the world don’t change the fact Good Friday isn’t called that just because a majority of us get the day off. It, and the weekend that follows, stands like a sentinel of something important and mysterious.

For people of faith, Easter is the dramatic climax of how God reached out to a broken world. It marks the time when Jesus of Nazareth, considered by many people to be God’s Son, is transformed through death and resurrection. Around the world, the story is sung in ancient hymns and new pop songs, explored in sermons and re-enacted in plays.

Ancient biographical evidence paints Jesus’ death on a Roman Empire cross as a sacrifice to make up for all the past, present, and future wrongs committed by anyone who follows Him. Wrongs that imperfect people like me simply can’t make up for on our own.

For pastor Warren McDougall, who I chatted with about Easter, that amazing act can be seen as a metaphor for giving ourselves away — to our neighbor, community, or world. To set aside our egos and selfishness for a greater good. That is what many people believe Jesus did on Good Friday.

“The instinct is to preserve yourself and, yet, the counter instinct is generosity, with your life and soul,” said Ken Davis, another pastor I spoke to about Easter.

“Jesus said if you want to be great, serve. And the people we consider truly great are those who truly serve.”

The resurrection takes us from the enormity of service-through-sacrifice to the joy of renewal.

“It’s about good overcoming evil, life overcoming death and that transformation is possible, even from negative things,” McDougall told me.

For Mark Giancola, a third pastor I chatted with (these folks are almost always great conversationalists), the entire weekend can be seen through the lens of “hope for a new relationship with God and a new future.

“So if someone’s searching beyond eggs and bunnies, Easter offers that. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been in life, this offers a new start.”

Agree? Disagree? Post your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.

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YOUR 20-DOLLAR VALUE

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 29, 2012| 10 Comments »

moneyIt’s a refrain many people have said (or thought) and it usually goes like this: “I’m a screw-up; God doesn’t want to bother with me.” Or how about this variation: “God doesn’t care about me ‘cause I’ve done way too much bad stuff.” And finally, this one: “I can’t do any of that religion stuff ’til I get my act together.”

To all these statements, I present this neat little story: the pastor stood before many hundreds of people and asked if anyone had a mint-condition 20-dollar bill he could borrow. Someone put up their hand and handed over the cash.

The pastor held up the money and asked how many people saw value in this piece of paper. Hands shot up from all around the church. Great. Then he scrunched up the 20-dollar bill, tossed it on the ground and vigorously stepped on it.

After that, he picked up the beaten-up bill, held it high and once again asked how many people saw value in it. The same number of hands shot up.

Well, how about that? In perfect shape or beaten up and tattered, the congregation still saw the money as having worth.

If that’s the case for people and 20 bucks, why wouldn’t it be the case for the creator of the universe and us incredibly imperfect humans?

Looking for evidence? One of the earliest followers of Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is the Son of God) wrote this:  “God showed his great love for us by sending Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners.”

See? He didn’t hold back his compassion for us and His interest in every part of our lives until we cleaned up our act. God moved FIRST, knowing that we can never truly get our act together enough. God moved FIRST, knowing that something had to be done so people like me can have all our wrongs righted by believing in and following Jesus.

I’m about as imperfect as the most tattered, dirty and beaten-up 20-dollar bill you’re ever going to see. But to the creator of all that is good and right, I’m as valuable as the newest, cleanest, most perfect piece of currency you could possibly find.

The same is true for YOU. God proved it through Jesus and offers YOU a place in eternity with Him. Interested in knowing more about this offer? Post your questions below and let’s have a conversation

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WHAT’S THE POINT OF CHRISTMAS?

Posted in Special Days, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2012| 7 Comments »

It was a media release from a Toronto radio station, issued more than a month before Christmas, that did it.

At the time, I was an assistant editor at a newspaper in the Toronto area when this came across my desk: “97.3 EZ Rock is thrilled today to announce they will be playing 100 percent holiday music up to and including Dec. 25,” it said.

Grrr….

I felt my back go up and my eyes roll in disgust.
“Well, that’s one radio station I won’t be listening to until January,” I immediately vowed.

At this point, I guess it’s no surprise to write that Christmas and I haven’t always been best friends. In fact, when that media release came out, Christmas and I were like North and South Korea. I wouldn’t even call it the Christmas season; I labelled it the shopping season.

Then as now, the mass consumption fun quietly kicks off the minute you close the door on your final trick-or-treater. If you have a Santa Clause parade where you live, that’s when the ribbon is officially cut.

By that time, the stores are decking the halls with balls of holly, Christmas commercials are flooding your TV, and obnoxious radio stations are assaulting your ears with insipid music.

In other words, the squeeze is on. Start buying. Start listening. Start watching. Start organizing your social schedule. And start feeling what our culture says you’re supposed to feel.

Shopping season continues to Dec. 25, which is the shopping holiday where we can all relax and look at everything we bought. Just a day later, shopping season resumes for a final, intense week of frantic consumption, followed by a thank-you card in the mail from the Retail Council of Canada.

I’m a church-going man, but in this world, Christmas has so little to do with its real meaning (the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who many people believe is the Son of God), I’ve sometimes found myself resenting the entire thing.

“I can empathize with your feeling,” says Allan Baker, pastor at a church in Ontario. “It’s similar to how I feel — ‘oh my goodness, here we go again’.”

Rev. Baker says ambivalence towards Christmas is not a rare condition.

“Maybe it’s because I’m older that I encounter more and more people disenchanted with the micro-thin depth of Christmas. That’s part of the reason me and my (pastoral) colleagues find more people in church this time of year.”

Rev. Baker notes he’s a citizen of this world and of the world of Jesus. “It’s a tension in one’s life — there’s all this pressure of the commercial world, but I need to remember there is a real God I’m devoted to. So I can go shopping and know there is a god higher than the marketplace.”

Even in December, many churches consider themselves not to be in the Christmas season at all. They’re in Advent, “the period of preparation for the celebration of the nativity [birth] of Jesus”, according to Wikipedia.

In other words, it’s a time of waiting, generally stretching four Sundays.

“We try very hard to stay in the Advent season,” says Dawn Hutchings, pastor at a church in Ontario. “It’s really about emptying oneself and realizing our need for God. We don’t sing Christmas carols in church until Dec. 24.”

Rev. Baker calls Advent a time of discipline. Could that be any more radical in a culture that, at this time of year, stresses the exact opposite in everything from gift-giving to office parties to your entire social schedule?

“When we tell a 2,000-year-old story of Jesus’s birth and ministry, it’s sometimes a challenge for people to find it relevant,” admits Rob MacIntosh, another church pastor. “But it is. If we would live that part of Christianity — bringing (the Christmas message of) peace and relationship into our homes, then we could spread it to people around us. If we can get the love part working right, then we’ll have the authority to speak to people about our faith.”

And doing that, in a way that emphasizes God’s equal love for every single human being on this planet, could bring us to a place of seeing Christmas as a life-changing light in the darkest season of the year.

What’s your story when it comes to Christmas? Do you struggle with the season? Or have you found what Jesus followers might call a “peace that passes understanding”?

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CONSIDERING BLIND RELIGIOUS FAITH

Posted in Me & The World, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2012| 15 Comments »

We live in a world that, in ways you and I can’t even discern, goes out of its way to discourage serious thinking.

That’s why even though I’m a man of faith, I admire many atheists; I know most of them have gone against our culture and actually thought, long and hard, about their beliefs.

That’s also why I was so interested in a July 2012 National Post interview with Justin Trottier. At the time, he was with the Centre for Inquiry, Canada’s most organized atheist group.

Trottier is a crusader against blind religious faith. And I’m 100 per cent with him. Only one example is needed to explain our shared position: blind religious faith was among the major reasons for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

That said, beyond our obvious and dramatic differences, I want to highlight Trottier’s opposition to teaching religion to children. He told interviewer Charles Lewis that “robbing kids of critical faculties is a bad thing”.

From my vantage point, Trottier’s opinion sounds a lot like a characteristic of blind religious faith – in this case, believing there is no creator and teaching anyone otherwise is simply indoctrinating impressionable young minds.

In reading up on today’s best-known atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, the late Christopher Hitchens and Victor Stenger) I notice this militant absolutism is a common denominator.

Teaching faith to children simply gives them the opportunity to make up their own minds about what they do and don’t believe. How can I write this? Because I know that as soon as they are old enough to explore issues and weigh options, these young minds will be assaulted with an unending tsunami of images, events and opinions that are dead-set against faith.

Without any faith knowledge, the “fight” is over before it even begins. And if Trottier seeks to be a thoughtful and fair person, then I hope he will consider this incredible imbalance and change his stance.

What about you – are you a parent who’s unsure if there’s a God? Do you not know where you stand on the idea that not only is there a creator, but that He sent Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is His Son) to live, die and be resurrected for you and me?

Then set that aside for the sake of your offspring. Take them to church, let them hear about Jesus and allow them to make up their own minds. It’s a gift they deserve; a gift you won’t regret giving.

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