Andy's Blog

We Need Each Other

Very few people are expert in anything all by themselves. They need a supporting community. Do you know a good musician who was not trained, nurtured and sustained by the music community? Show me an athlete who achieves excellence all alone, apart from the athletic community. Very few wise men become so without the accumulated wisdom of the centuries as expressed in colleges and universities and libraries . . . Excellence requires participation in, and support of, a community of like-minded people.

Likewise in the church -- a forerunner of the new kingdom. Very few achieve Christian maturity all by themselves.

- Maurice A. Fetty, The Divine Advocacy

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

- The Apostle Paul, The Book of Hebrews

We need each other, you and I. This Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. Rather, Jesus, Himself, chose a group of disciples to start His church, and the Holy Spirit initiated the birth of the church on the Day of Pentecost by saving 3,000 people in one day. The first Christian church in the history of the world was a mega-church!

Sure, our faith in Christ must be personal. My mom’s faith will not save me, I must personally believe and have a relationship with Jesus. But beyond salvation, there is little in the Christian life meant for us to do alone. It is in the community of other believers that we achieve spiritual maturity. It is in the community of other Christians that we combine resources to make a difference in the world. It is in the community of other Christ-followers that we spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

The Church is not a business. We are not a corporation. We are not an institution. The Church is an organic community of Christ-followers. Yes, we are organized. Yes, there is a formal structure with professional staff. In our society, churches must have these things in order to legally carry out Christ’s mission. But let there be no mistake, we are not a “religious institution;” we are a living, breathing, messy, Christ-following community of believers who share one faith, one Lord, and one baptism. Therefore, let us not neglect meeting together for worship, as some are in the habit of doing. Instead, may we live in community together, worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ, encouraging each other to spiritual maturity, and uniting to bring God’s love to our world.
The God of the Experience pt 2

In my last blog, I talked about Jacob’s journey back to Bethel found in Genesis 35:1-14. I had the opportunity recently to hear a great sermon on this passage, and wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

First point - last time, we said that Jacob had an experience with God in a certain place and named it Bethel, which means, “House of God.” But an experience is not enough. God told Jacob to go back to Bethel (God’s house) and settle there. When we apply this to our lives, God is telling us to go beyond a one-time sinner’s prayer experience or a weekly Sunday morning worship experience and actually live life in His presence.

Second point - this blog entry, I’d like to highlight that when Jacob went back to Bethel, “House of God,” he renamed it El Bethel, the “God of the house.” He understood that God is bigger than the experience he had at Bethel. He understood that what was important was not the experience of God, but the God of the experience. Are you seeking God or an experience? God goes beyond our experience, beyond our imagination. It is God we should seek, not an experience.

This principle can be applied in many contexts. In charismatic churches, emotional experience is often overvalued. In other churches, traditional experience can be overvalued. Sometimes we value our traditions more than our relationships with younger generations. Sometimes our traditions might actually stand in the way of reaching the lost, yet we refuse to change them because we place too much value in our traditional experience.

For some people, the value they find in church is a musical experience. The worship service becomes a musical production where a choir, organist, or contemporary band perform. When this happens, congregational music is overshadowed by solos and anthems, specials and instrumentals, and the people in the pews become an audience listening to a concert instead of an actively worshiping community.

You can take this a hundred different ways. No doubt you’ve already thought of one that I missed. So what do you value? Are you seeking an experience? Is it all about emotion, or tradition, or music? Such experiences are not wrong. But let’s keep our priorities straight. Let’s not get so focused on the experience that we forget the God of the experience.
The God of the Experience pt 1

I had the opportunity to go to church with my brother this Sunday. God just brought them a new senior pastor after eight months without one, and Sunday was his first official service at the church. Anyway, the message he brought was excellent and I thought I’d share some of his thoughts.

He taught on Genesis 35:1-14, the story of when Jacob leaves his father-in-law’s home to go back to a placed called Bethel and settle there. To give you a little backstory, Jacob left his home to go live with his mother’s family and find a wife. On his way there, he stops to sleep and has a dream. In this dream, he sees Heaven open and angels ascending and descending between Earth and Heaven. At the top, he sees God, and God speaks to him. When he wakes up, Jacob remembers this experience with God, builds an altar there, and calls the place, “Bethel,” which means, “House of God.” He travels on to his mother’s family and ends up marrying two sisters, Leah and Rachel. He lives there and works for his father-in-law for several years.

In Genesis 35, God tells Jacob to go back to Bethel and settle there. He packs up his two wives and all his possessions and family, and makes the trip. On the way, he orders his family to get rid of all their foreign gods, purify themselves, and put on new clothes. When he gets back to Bethel, God again reveals Himself to Jacob, promises to make his descendants into many nations, changes his name to Israel, and promises to give this land to his descendants. Jacob builds another altar there and this time names the place, “El Bethel,” which means, “God of the house.”

First point - it’s significant that God told Jacob to go back and settle at Bethel. Jacob had an experience with God there, and then left. But an experience is not enough. It’s not just about an experience we have with God on occasional Sundays, or a “sinner’s prayer” we prayed at age 13. Don’t get me wrong, experiencing God is amazing. We long for that experience, we value and treasure it. But God doesn’t want us to just have an occasional random experience with Him, He wants us to settle at Bethel - His house, in His presence. Experience is not enough. God wants us to live in His presence.

Are you tired of having a faith that doesn’t really have an impact in real life? You know what I mean; you come on Sunday to worship, hear a message from the Bible, and during the time of decision at the end of the service you resolve in your heart to make it stick. But as soon as you get out to the parking lot, something changes. Real life comes back. Somebody cuts you off on the way home and words that shouldn’t come out of your mouth. You get into an argument with your spouse on Sunday afternoon, or your kid smarts off to you, and you think, “What happened to this morning?”

Why doesn’t our faith connect with reality? Why is church somewhere we go on Sunday morning, and being a Christian one segment of our lives? Why is “real life” real, while our faith is unseen, unfelt, un-lived?

It’s because an experience is not enough. God is not God only at a church on Sunday morning. He is God in the parking lot, God when somebody cuts you off, and God when you get mad at your spouse. He is God on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. He did not call us to a weekly “experience,” but to live in His presence. Let the command He gave Jacob apply to us as well, “Go up to Bethel [my presence] and settle there . . .” (Gen 35:1; addition mine).

So let me challenge you, reader, to look beyond your “sinner’s prayer” experience. Look beyond Sunday morning. If your only experience with the presence of God is occasionally on a random Sunday, you will always flounder in shallow waters, rightfully asking the question, “Surely there’s more to Christian faith than this?”

Continued in part 2 . . .

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