Getting the most out of church

We hear these things all the time:
"I'm just not getting much out of church."
"That church isn't meeting my needs."
"I thought the worship service was flat this morning."

And I have to admit that it is easy to slip into the "entertain me" mode of church-going. I've found myself in that posture more than once.

At other times, I have found myself in a very different mindset. I notice that when I have been spending a lot of time in deep Bible study, when I have been consistently in praise-prayer, when my mind is fixed on seeking God above all else, my trip to the church building on Sunday morning is much different. When I approach a Sunday morning worship service from a week of devotion, the church experience is much richer.

Here are some thoughts on how I get the most out of church:

(do these things during the week before going to church on Sunday morning)
Pray by name for the people I will be worshipping with.
Pray by name for the people who are shut-in/sick and will be unable to participate in the worship.
Lift for God's blessing the Bible teachers and their lessons for all Bible classes.
Pray for the minister's lesson preparation and delivery.
Spend regular times in meditation on scripture, letting God speak to my heart.
Invite someone to go to church.

(the night before)
Go to bed at a decent hour so that I will be rested and ready to worship.

(Sunday morning)
Get up early and pray for the church and its outreach to the lost.
Pray that those who are looking for excuses to skip church don't find them.
Pray that God will work through everyone in the church to welcome seekers.
Make sure I have plenty of time to get ready for church so that I can avoid being harried.

(at the building)
Take time to greet everyone I see, pausing with those who need to talk.
Watch for people who need extra assistance of any kind.

(during worship)
Glance around and thank God for my fellow worshippers.
As I look at each one, thank God (specifically if possible) for the talents of that person.
Recognize that God has gathered this group together for His purposes.
No making grocery lists or other unrelated notes!
Pray that the church's eyes will be opened to see the good works planned in advance.
Worship God for his daily care and saving grace.

When I prepare myself for worship, my heart experiences church in a new way.
I know this is a simplistic list, but it's a starting place for me.

Interruptions

I'm not so good with things that interrupt what I am doing or what I have planned to do. I tend to be task-focused.

Because of that orientation, I am a great list-maker. At any given time, I have lists of things to do at the office, another list of things to do at the house, possibly a grocery list, and maybe some other lists as well.

I calculate in my mind just how many things I can check off before noon, what I can get done today or this week, and on and on. I have it all planned out.

And as a result, I don't do well with interruptions.

I know my life is in sharp contrast to the pattern Jesus demonstrates.

He tells his disciples that he has come to teach the people, and more than once as he prepares to teach, he is interrupted by people bringing their sick to him for healing -- even taking off the roof to lower a man close to Jesus! Each time he has compassion for them, and his plans to teach are delayed while he takes time to heal.

In Luke 13 when he is teaching in a synagogue, he sees a woman crippled for 18 years who can't even stand up straight -- so he interrupts his own lesson to heal her.

He has plans for getting away for some down time (Mark 6:31) but the people follow him. He has compassion for them, allows his rest to be interrupted, and teaches them. He even feeds them dinner --- not what he had planned.

Over and over, Jesus demonstrates that loving God and loving your neighbor means that you respond to people when they need you -- regardless of what you had planned instead.

People are more important than To Do lists.

The interruptions of my plans might just be the most important things I do.

Knowing, part 2

I think we also get confused about what it means to know scripture.

Our approach to scripture reflects our check-off approach to our Christian lives. The thinking goes like this: I've read this scripture. I've studied this passage. I know what it says, and I know what the commentaries say about it. I've delved into the historical and social context. I know this scripture.

Later on, maybe years later, I read the same scripture and I learn new things from it. Maybe because I am older, have different experiences in my background, or approach the text from a different mindset -- or maybe because the Spirit reveals something new/different to me -- I know the scripture, but in a different way.

I think we get confused because we have the attitude that knowing scripture is a static kind of thing. It's that check-off mentality.

We don't leave room for scripture to be the living word of God. We don't allow for the working of the Spirit.

"Knowing scripture" is a noble goal, and we should aspire to greater and greater familiarity with the text. We should meditate on it, pray over it, and discuss it with others.

I wonder, however, if "knowing scripture" can become a straight-jacket that blocks our ability to continue learning about the nature of God through his word. If our thinking is: I know this scripture. I don't have to struggle with it. Been there, done that -- then further Bible study has no impact on our thinking.

Wasn't that part of the problem with the religious leaders Jesus knew? They knew scripture, but they were unwilling to accept anything different from their agreed-upon interpretations. They stopped hearing God. They stopped growing.

May we never stop growing! May we continually approach God's word with ears to hear, regardless of what we think we know.

Knowing

I think we get confused about what it means to know God.

We are familiar with all the verses that encourage us to know God and be known by Him. We want to know Christ and the power of his rising. We shudder at the idea that He would say to us, 'depart, I never knew you.'

We talk about knowing God relationally, rather than just knowing about God. And I think that's good.

But I think we are making some mistakes in the area of knowing God . . . maybe the same mistake the folks in Nazareth made when they talked about how well they knew Jesus. There was no doubt in their minds that they knew him -- they knew he was a carpenter, and they knew his brothers and mother by name. They knew his sisters. (Mark 6)

The problem is that they were blinded by what they knew -- or thought they knew.

I wonder if we make that mistake with God too. We study, we debate, we worship -- and we become certain in our knowledge of God. We think we know who He is and what He does and what he said in scripture. We've got it nailed, so to speak.

And I think that's what blinds us.

We have it so outlined and codified and parsed, that there is no elbow room left for God to be God. We have saved the file. We have tied a bow on the package. We are done.

But our God is infinite, limitless, unbounded. Our tiny brains can't know all there is to know about Him, and so by definition, we should expect Him to surprise us. We should expect the unexpected. We should be delighted by His capacity to astound.

In Nazareth, the people were sure they knew him -- and that led to a lack of faith, and that led to fewer miracles. Our self-certain knowledge of God probably has the same result. Because we are sure we know all about God, we are blinded and can't see anything that differs from our (incomplete) understanding.

Let's vow to recognize the fact that God is beyond our human understanding. Let's watch for God to take unprecedented steps. Let's enjoy His power at work in our world; let's pray that he will indeed do more than we can imagine -- or anticipate.

Let's be careful of being so confident in what we "know."
Let's be wary of letting our self-certainty diminish our faith.

Kingdom thoughts

Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven)

I've been meditating on that phrase recently. It's another of those combination of words in the scripture that I think I blaze past without really absorbing the full meaning. So I've been taking time to try to delve into what is intended.

In the first place, having grown up in the U.S. -- I don't have an experiential understanding of kings and kingdoms. My thoughts and attitudes are permeated with freedom and individual liberties and inalienable rights of determination. Perhaps there is a little bit of that "master of my fate, captain of my soul" thrown in there -- although that's English, not American. Historically, we as a people resist being "subjects" to the king.

Because of my distinctly independent mindset, I don't readily understand sovereignty or absolute authority, as vested in a person. I was taught as a child that no one person -- not presidents, not popes, no man -- was infallible. I was taught instead to respect law (civil and scriptural.)

As a result, understanding God as king and understanding the kingdom of God is uphill.

Not long ago I meditated through Matthew and now I am meditating through Mark. Kingdom is such an important concept in those writings. Jesus tells his followers that the kingdom of God is near.

Growing up, I was taught that he meant that the church would soon be established -- Okay, maybe so, but is there more to it than that?

One big-picture teaching is that the 'kingdom of God' is where God is the supreme authority, where He rules, where He is acknowleged as King. It is a spiritual kingdom that is unrelated to any geographic location or any spot in time. It includes the church but is not limited to the church.

And so when God enters our world as Jesus, He brings his authority, his power, his kingdom near to us.

In fact, throughout the gospels, various people comment with amazement about the authority they see in the teaching of Jesus, in his miracles, in his power over demons. Authority is an inescapable aspect of Emmanuel, God with us.

And God's position as King, His absolute authority and power -- is unchanged by humans' failure to acknowledge the King and the Kingdom. All of creation recognizes Him, even if we don't. If we didn't shout hosanna, the rocks would have.

We are invited to become citizens of the king. We are invited to voluntarily ally ourselves with the one who will be victorious over all other kingdoms. He will welcome us if we subject ourselves to his rule.

Subject ourselves. Ah, there's the part that is unnatural for me. My rights, my exalted value as a person is so ingrained in my American thinking. Kings and kingdoms are so unfamiliar to me.

10 Sayings

We have been studying the Ten Commandments, and I was interested to hear that the better translation would be Ten Sayings or Ten Statements.

I was also interested to hear the discussion about the purpose of those ten sayings.

During our growing up years, most of us were taught that the ten were indeed commands, directions on how to live. God is telling Man what the rules are for living properly in this world . . . rules for relating to God and rules for relating to fellow man. God is "laying down the law." Or maybe a softer approach: God knows best how things should be done so he is sharing with us the do's and don'ts that will make life better for us because he loves us.

This perspective usually leads to teachings about rule-keeping and obedience. . .

A different perspective suggests that the ten sayings are for the purpose of revealing the nature of God. With each of the ten sayings, we learn what God approves and disapproves. As we know more about Him, His nature, we move into closer relationship with Him. (If you know that I like classical music or who-dun-it novels, you know me better; if you know that God disapproves of stealing, you know Him better.)

This perspective leads to teachings about knowing God. . .

My natural inclination is to agree with both.
Yes, the ten sayings were given with both purposes in mind.

In fact, I find this same duality of purpose in all of scripture.
Is the Bible given to us to provide guidance on how we should live? Yes.
Is the Bible given to us to help us learn the nature of God? Yes.

I know many who shy away from the idea of the Bible as a rulebook. That sounds so harsh. And Americans in general tend shy away from the idea of obedience. We are fiercely independent and don't want anyone telling us what to do!

On the other side, however, I think there are many among us who would reduce the Bible to JUST a rulebook, missing the rich inferences about the God who inspired the book. In some cases, I think we take this rulebook approach because we are too lazy, too shallow, too whatever to wrestle with the text and too fearful to let the Spirit work on us during the wrestling.

And to muddy the waters a little: I think there are more than just two purposes in God's words to us.

Church

Because the church exists in this world, we tend to approach the church as though it were a part of this world. We expect the church to have the characteristics of other groups of people we experience daily.

We tend to think of the church as being like the company where we work, the professional association we join, a user group we participate in, a social group we belong to, and so on. We construct our expectations of church, based on our knowledge of other groups.

In fact, the church is something other-worldly. As originally designed by the Maker, the church is a place (not literally) where things work differently. Different rules apply.

Unless we take it over and make it in our own image . . .

Sitting in the pew yesterday, I was thinking about these things, and it occured to me to write an echo of the beatitudes -- those verses where Jesus talked about God's view of things, which differs greatly from our human view.

Anyway, as I thought about the church, I thought how glad I am that there is room for every one of us in God's body. The rules of other human groups -- who is valuable and who isn't, who is important and who isn't -- don't apply.

Here goes:

• Blessed are those who sing off key, for their songs are music to God's heart;
• Blessed are the socially clumsy, for they will be woven into the fabric of the church anyway;
• Blessed are those with the inability to verbalize their faith, for they will have the chance to preach through service;
• Blessed are the physically unlovely, for they will be viewed through the lens of brotherly love;
• Blessed are the professionally unsuccessful, for that is not how God measures people;
• Blessed are the self-centered, for God can use them in spite of themselves;
• Blessed are the least of the church members, for they will be exalted.

Aren't you glad you are called to be a part of God's church?