Is Life Constantly Hard For You?

Is life constantly hard for you? Do you consistently deal with drama? Is turmoil a constant in your life? 

Consider, not only your circumstances, but also what your mind feeds on. Your mental health and lack of righteous thinking may be due to your choice of entertainment.

Is the music you listen to negative with a theme of broken relationships, profanity, and/ or abuse? 

Do you watch pornography? Do you binge watch media for hours a day from a streaming service or app?

Do the movies/ TV that you watch include the exploitation of women (nudity/immodesty), sexual abuse, or immoral sexual relationships?

Do you play video games multiple hours every day (either on your phone or with a gaming system)? 

Does the "news" you watch include constant debating and arguments that are heated and loud? Do you enjoy watching talk shows that exploit broken situations and relationship?

Do you read books that would be considered pornography if they were visual? 

Expressing emotions, communicating, and responding to people in relationships is a learned behavior. The more time you listen, watch, or read things that tell you how to do it improperly, the more you will live them out in your own life. Thus, constant drama ensues because we feed on inappropriate ways to respond.

For example, if you regularly watch soap operas, do not be surprised when your life becomes a soap opera with gossip, lies, marital infidelity, and division. 

The people that seem to be having a good time on the beer commercials are actors and actresses. The reality is heartache and brokenness. 

It's good to consider what your mind feeds upon. It might make the difference between joy and sorrow for your whole life!

Check out these other articles:

I'm Getting Emotional!

When did Holiness Theology Shift to Calvinism?

We're All Winners!?

Why You Lost Your Kids to the Kingdom of God

Should Christians Celebrate Independence Day?

Dear Christian, 

Of course it is appropriate to celebrate #IndependenceDay. 

No pastor that I am aware of actually believes the country should be worshiped. (That's ridiculous.) No pastor, that I am aware of, advocates for allegiance to nation over Christ... that's idolatrous and a straw man. 

On July 4th you can thank God!

Picture: Phineas Bresee's "Glory Barn" Church of the Nazarene

Thank God for the religious freedom we have in this country to freely worship. 

Thank God for the freedoms the nation has developed over time (abolishing slavery, etc).

Thank God for those who have given their lives to protect the innocent around the world (like the Jews in WW2).

Thank God for the resources given to fund mission work around the world.

Ask for God's guidance on our leaders. 

Ask for mercy over the infanticide of abortion taking place. 

Ask for mercy over the celebration of sexual sin. 

Ask for grace to continue to make progress in racial strife. 

Ask for God to bless America... we certainly need it! 

Pray for revival.

Pray for another great awakening. 

Preach on freedom in Christ. (The freedoms our nation afford cannot begin to compare to the freedom afforded us in Jesus our Savior and Sanctifier!)

Preach total victory over sin. 

Preach the complete cleansing of the Holy Spirit! 

Social Media Etiquette

In this era of modern technology we seem to have lost common sense. Here are a few suggestions for those having trouble navigating the vast "super-highway" lane called Facebook. (If you cannot handle sarcasm... read no farther.)

1. Don't be vulgar, profane, rude, dirty, obnoxious, or hateful. The rest of us get enough of that at work, in traffic, from our neighbors, and watching politicians; we don't need that from you too. It really doesn't prove anything more than you have no class and you are not a gentleman or lady. It doesn't make anyone think you are cool or impressive. The rest of us don't like for that kind of junk to pop up on our news feed. Do us all a favor: clean up your language, your attitude, your life, and your posts!

2. Keep private things private! No decent person wants to read the details of your marital in-fighting, nasty break-ups, family feuds, financial disarray, intimate physical relationship details, or other personal stuff on Facebook. You may not be aware of this, but anyone who is your friend on Facebook can read you posts. That means your posts are public. (As an addendum to this it is worth noting that most... if not all... of your friends are not professional counselors. In other words your private problems will not be solved over a wall post with a number of friends responding.)

3. Don't forward or click on links to chain messages. If the message seems out of character with the sender then do not open it. You can always verify the link by asking the sender to verify whether they sent the link. You may have received the link because they clicked on a message from someone else, which spammed all their friends with messages. Please don't propagate this!

4. Some things need to be done face to face, not on Facebook. Don't dump your girlfriend/boyfriend by posting on their page. Don't release that employee from their job by messaging them and then removing them from your friend list. And don't ask someone to marry you by posting on their wall (that's not creative... it's cowardly). Remember that to get through life you must really communicate with people!

5. Social media is not a place to give or receive counseling. Licensed counselors do not have Twitter counseling or Instagram therapy sessions. Venting and then looking for encouragement from people is an extremely unhealthy habit to fall into. If you need counseling, schedule a visit with your pastor! Do not air all of your problems in an attempt to fish for affirmation. Social media can, at best, produce only a counterfeit healing.  

6. Picture discretion advised. Your father, brother, relatives, decent co-workers and friends don't want to see you in a bathing suit, thong, underwear, skin tight spandex, or other immodest apparel. Neither do we wish to see your cleavage, tattoos (especially in places not normally seen), post-surgery wound pictures, making out sessions, any bathroom pictures, or you after you've had a drunken stupor outside of the bar. This does not help anyone's ability to take you seriously. (The same goes with videos.)

7. Cut the mushiness. If you are "in a relationship", "engaged", or "married" to someone, then the rest of us assume that you love that person. To be reminded occasionally of that truth is okay, but try not to be excessive. Usually those who never have anything more to say than "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEE      UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" are actually the same ones that will break rule #1 at some point down the road.

8. Don't post about your illegal activities. If you are breaking the law, calling out people by name, cheating on your girlfriend, or calling in sick but actually running errands.... don't put it on Facebook. It wasn't the right thing to do to begin with and now you've just let the world know that you are a poor decision maker.

9. No one really cares about your quiz results. The rest of the world, if they have a life, does not care what movie star you are most like, what kind of animal best fits your personality, what your age at death will be, what your horoscope for the day says, what kind of a kisser you are, what movie best describes your life, or how much money you will make when you are 35, 45, & 55. We don't care. If you want to waste your time taking the quizzes that's fine, but don't waste our time by making us delete them from our homepage.

10. When you actually talk to someone in real life, don't make constant reference to Facebook. Constant references to information and knowledge you obtained on Facebook is weird and creepy. It makes you seem like a stalker and/or someone with no beneficial life functions... just don't do it. (While I'm at it don't put the following in your profile 'info' section: "if you want to know more message me" that's crazy! If they really did message you asking what your blood type was, wouldn't you be freaked out?) Real people are able to communicate and socialize beyond the confines of a computer screen, keyboard, and mouse... try it some time, you might just enjoy it.

What might you add?

Also check out the following articles...

Navigating Social Media

We're All Winners

I Want to be a Growing Christian

When Did Holiness Theology Shift to Calvinism

Why You Lost Your Kids to the Kingdom of God

I recently read an article by Jim Daly in which he gave 10 reasons kids leave the church. My pastor's mind was spurred into thinking about this subject as I reviewed my time as a pastor and asked what common practices distinguished families that had children leave the church and families that had children raise the next generation in church. 

Here is my list:

1. The church tried to entertain rather than disciple. We wouldn't admit it mind you. We would rather say we were relevant or engaging or evangelistic. The truth is, we were so desperate that they would enjoy church, that we turned it into a show. When they ceased to be amused by our trite antics they searched for the genuine outside the bounds of their Creator's character.

2. We didn't teach them anything. They do not know what righteousness, atonement, justification, sanctification, or any of a number of other Biblical words or concepts mean. We bought them fancy Bibles with colorful covers and interesting pictures, but never took them by the hand and dived in. We confused discipleship with entertainment. When the atheists came around with their worldly philosophies, our children were unarmed and unprepared.

3. We turned them against our elders. We created a spirit of generational conflict in our church. We sided with our children when our parents warned that things were not going in a good direction. We ignored wisdom from our elders and listened to the "wisdom" of youth. (Didn't Rehoboam do that too?) We convinced our children that their enemy was the elderly of the church rather than "the spirit of the age."

4. We made them consumers rather than contributors. We treated them like royalty and they grew up to believe the church was suppose to serve them rather than them serving the church. If they whine about something we "fix" it. If they complain about something, we change it. We expected the church to be formed around their need to be amused and entertained. They became dead weight; then they cut themselves loose.

5. We did not distinguish between the holy and the common. We were content when they didn't embarrass us in public, get arrested, or cuss at church. We told them all the things they were not suppose to do (although we never told them 'why'). But we never told them the things they really should be doing. We never showed them the difference between common lifestyle and holy living. They never desired to live a holy life, because we were content that they didn't live an outright wicked one.

6. We focused more on them than Christ. Our children became idols. Some of us tried to live our lives vicariously through our children. All of the perceived injustices of our childhood we would correct through our kids; all our dreams would be fulfilled through our kids. Instead of seeing us bow before the King of Kings they saw us trying to live out the "American dream."

7. We criticized and complained in front of them. Every Sunday afternoon we critiqued the pastor's sermon. We aired all of our frustrations with our brothers and sisters in the church. Following each committee meeting we blasted those with different opinions. We highlighted the problems of the church regularly. And we did all this within ear shot of those who were inflicted with more damage than we ever realized.

8. Church was just on the to-do list. It was a Sunday only event. It never permeated our lives. The rubber never met the road. We never connected the necessity of a church family with our biological family and our relationship with God. It was just something we did when convenient. There was no joy in it, no fun, no expectation, just dead, dry ritual.

9. We nurtured (probably unintentionally) a love of the world. By our actions we showed sports, good grades, and entertainment were more important than honoring and living for Christ. Sacrificial living was ignored for comfortable living. Our children became more at ease in the world than among the people of God. Church attendance, family altar & prayer time, and spiritually nurturing disciplines were always second to the demanding schedule of a sports, entertainment, and other activities.

10. We never really had anything to pass on to begin with. I know, this one stings maybe more than any of the others. We have played the hypocrite too long. We never really loved Jesus ourselves in any meaningful way. We passed on ashes instead of a fire upon the altar. Our children didn't know what to do with ashes so they threw them out.

Karen Burton Mains: "Do you rush, push, shout and become generally unpleasant on Sunday mornings? Do you complain about church? Are you irregular in your attendance? Are you over-conscientious about matters that are not really important? Do you always criticize the pastor, the choir, the length of services and the usher crew? Then don't be surprised if your children grow up to look at Sundays as the worst day of the week." 

Anything you might add?

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Why I Don't Play the Lottery.

10 Books You Should Read.

I Want to be a Growing Christian.

I'm Getting Emotional

I'm not sure when it first took place, but it seems like emotion in connection with worship of God has come to be viewed as a negative thing. We seem to have developed a ceiling of excitement when we are worshiping the God who saves us from our sins. Be excited, we encourage people... just not that excited.

It's kind of like we just decided that visible signs of emotion were a scary/bad thing. The ideal has been that everyone sit through the church gathering and fulfill their scripted responsibilities. Stand when instructed to, sit when asked to, and sing when the music starts. Emotion has a tendency to disrupt our carefully planned and skillfully constructed order.

Emotional responses in a collective worship gathering can also make some people feel uncomfortable. I mean, think about what might happen if someone next to you just started crying; seemingly without cause. A little emotion, and especially a lot of emotion, can give others the emotional sensation of uncomfortability. This emotion thing could cascade!

What if the preacher does not have the opportunity to share the sermon? What if someone were to get up and leave the church over a show of emotion? Is it too much to ask that everyone act a little civilized during worship? Does anyone else think that emotional outbreaks can come off a little irreverent?

The real problem is that I have sat through more than my fair share of emotionless services. A people who were unresponsive and unengaged. No one really wants to sit through a sermon devoid of soul, worship without passion, or a service without emotion.

It is important to note that God created emotion. While we live in a culture that is increasingly prone to sterilizing everything because someone will be offended or have some kind of an emotional response, we must acknowledge emotion has a purpose in our lives. If God created our emotions (and has them himself) then we need to learn how to utilize them in appropriate ways and not hide them away.

It starts with our parenting. No one likes to see a baby or toddler cry. Typically we rush to appease the source of their sorrows. We want to stop the emotion as if it is bad. Following funerals I have heard friends tell the family of the deceased individual that it is time for them to move on now. Translation = do not be emotional anymore.

We sometimes too quickly run to medicines to numb the emotions we are dealing with because they are not always very pleasant. Stopping emotions seems to be a favorite past time for some. I even recall someone getting quite upset in a medical waiting room because someone was reading the comics and laughing. When did emotions become so offensive?

We brought some of these things into the church. Remain calm, stayed, and collected during worship. Do not act in anyway that would disrupt the solemn attitude of those in attendance. I once remember a mother leaning over to her toddler child in the pew at church who was snickering about something while oblivious to what was happening in the sanctuary and saying: "Quit laughing, you are in church."

Certainly I am not advocating for some kind of emotionalism in our worship. Emotions should not be the driving force for any area of life! I am simply advocating for a healthy expression of emotion during our times of corporate worship as an essential element of worshiping God! We ought to be "emotional" when we worship!

If we really begin to think about what God has provided for us in His work of redemption we might get a little emotional. If we begin to review the steadfast love and faithfulness of God in our lives, we might get a little emotional. If we meditate on the tremendous sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross of Calvary, we might just get a little emotional. If we think about the promise of life to come in Heaven gathered around the throne of God, we might just get emotional. Bad? Not in a million years!

This Sunday, don't check your brain at the door when you walk into church to worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ. But do not check your heart at the door either. Worship our great Redeemer with all your heart, soul, mind, & strength!



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I Fired Jesus

Annual Pastoral Report Tips

Since my denominational pastoral reports are due soon, I thought I'd try to help all those other pastors who are fumbling through the statistics and numbers they have to report with a few tips. Disclaimer: I don't think these have been approved by any denominational boards.

  

The Basics:

(1) "Average" is such a strong word. It requires complex mathematical equations and probably does more to confuse than to give a good assessment of reality. I prefer to call them "educated guesses."

(2) Be positive when accumulating your numbers. Your "averages" need to be reflective of what you hoped they were going to be this year. Always round up, always guess high, always assume the counters missed someone or multiple people. If you are discouraged, your guesses will probably reflect lower numbers so keep positive. If you prefer you can call them "faith numbers" in reference to the coming year.

(3) Everyone will tell you "it's not about the numbers" but don't let that fool you. They are probably just trying to get you to focus on something like discipleship or evangelism while they build up their numbers. It is about the numbers! 

(4) Make sure our numbers are not round numbers as that seems a little "fishy." If you average 100 for Sunday School and 150 for Worship. Someone will start to wonder if you didn't "doctor" your numbers. Your averages should never be multiples of 10, 5, or 2. For example, your numbers would be more realistic if they were Sunday School- 103 and Worship- 151.

(5) I know that there is often a significant difference between intentions and reality, but not in pastoral reports! If they said they'd be there and intended to be there, they ought to get counted.

                                      

How to increase your worship average without actually increasing your worship average:

(1) Have a Sunday night service? Well, that's a bonus since most churches don't have one. Take your morning worship average and multiply it by 1.5. That number is looking better already!

(2) We all know that people get up and leave the service to go the restroom, fix their hair, take the baby to the nursery, etc. Whoever counts will probably miss those people. Add 7% to your worship average for the "hall & foyer traffic."

(3) Have babies in the sanctuary during service? You need to add 3% to your average attendance (round up). Do you know how difficult it is for the counter to make sure and cover every baby in the sanctuary? They can be easily missed... but not on your statistics!

(4) Is your church located in a subdivision or community surrounded by houses and/or apartments? Turn up the sound system and open a window and you could conceivably triple your worship attendance "average." The sky is the limit here!

(5) Maybe your church is located on a main highway instead of a subdivision. Do you have a message board church sign? It may be a short sermon, but its something! Use those three lines to bump up your worship average. You know that sign blesses hundreds... maybe thousands of people a day. You might just be the pastor of a mega church and not even know it!

(6) We take a strong stand on the fact that life begins at conception. With that in mind, any pregnant women in the church can be counted twice: once for the mother and once for the baby. (Just to be safe you may want to assume that mothers are going to carry twins.)

(7) Those extremely dedicated church attendees who sit on the first two or three rows need to be counted twice. Anyone who would put themselves through the torture of sitting that close to the preacher while he is preaching needs to be counted twice (maybe three times). That's just not normal.

(8) Snow day ruin your Sunday attendance? Rain? Sickness? Drop that Sunday from your average. Obviously, had God wanted that to count in your average attendance he would not have sent that pestilence among the people of the church. The sun would have been shining. To "average" in that low number may be in defiance to a higher authority.

(9) Have some "regulars" out this Sunday? Add them anyway. If they come 3 out of 4 Sundays a month they are regular attendees and need to be counted. If they weren't on vacation they would be at church. If they weren't getting the holiday shopping done they would be at church. If they weren't watching the ball game, they would be at church. If they weren't so tired, they would be at church. Since they would be there if they could, you need to count them.

(10) Does your church have sermons available online for streaming or download? If so, do you realize that the Internet is worldwide!? There are literally millions of people with Internet access around the world! You have the potential of doubling the size of your whole denomination! You are probably responsible for church plants in places you've never heard of before!

I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm going to have some major gains this year!! Prepare for district assembly rewards.



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Why I Like the Church of the Nazarene

Some Useful Pastoral Resources

Get a Back Bone

Why I Still Have Revivals in the Church I Pastor