This post is the product of a series of conversations with Mike Baker and a recent post by Daniel and Heather Cosby entitled “Demolition of the Heart…”. In Daniel and Heather’s post, they wrote:

“Over the last year or two, we have spent considerable energy trying to expose and dismantle the beliefs surrounding this worldly-derived system which identifies itself as “the Church”. To a large degree, this has been driven by the assumption that it is this system which is holding so many people back from experiencing true, authentic, unfettered Life. . . .

But these assumptions have proven to be pretty short-sighted. They forget what lies at the core of everything that diverges from God’s intentions. They neglect the underlying reality of sin. . . .

While it is true that so many of the practices embraced by religious legalism today were borrowed from a combination of pagan influences and Old Testament Law, it is also true that these practices are adopted and preserved essentially because they provide an appealing alternative to simply finding oneself standing naked and condemned before a Holy God. They are safe. They are convenient. They appeal to our flesh. And though they do provide a platform on which pride and self-reliance can flourish, they are not the cause of these ugly human traits. They are a symptom, but not the disease, a manifestation of what lies at the root, an unintended showcase of our fallen nature, which always tends to value ingenuity over dependence, and personal achievement over brokenness…

If we simply focus on knocking down the religious edifices that have been built by those who would trust human wisdom more than God’s, we can easily ignore the reasons why these systems were ever formed at all… We can strive to live as “organically” as possible, and yet in our hearts be just as cold and dead as the bricks in the church buildings we’ve left…

Is it the institutions which enslave people, or is it sin itself?“

I think that is a profound question, and one I’ve been considering a lot lately. Perhaps the issues we have with the institutional church can’t be resolved by merely a new approach. Perhaps the issues are there because of our sinful nature, regardless of our methodical approach to church (or deconstruction of it)? This can be seen clearly in the history of modern day Methodism (hence the name “Methodist”).

John Wesley emphasized a conversion experience and personal holiness and began making many practical reforms to the way church was done, especially how people lived throughout the week and interacted with other believers. He was discontent with the apathy and dead tradition he saw all around him. Wesley never intended to invent a new church, he merely formed small groups known as “United Societies.” It didn’t take long for the Church of England to ban them from speaking in any pulpits, so John Wesley and his brother Charles soon began preaching in homes and other non-church settings. Today Methodism is not much different in practice than most mainstream evangelical denominations, nor is it faring any better. Clearly a new “method” didn’t help – human nature prevails.

Perhaps the reasons we tend to form traditions and hierarchy are because of embedded sin, not because our initial approach was bad. This is really making me reconsider how I approach a lot of issues concerning church practice. I still think things could be a lot better than they are, but I’m becoming much more forgiving of many different traditions and how they came to be.

What do you think? Are we just fighting man and his sinful nature, or are we legitimately fighting corrupt man-made methods? Which is it: fighting man or his methods?

That’s the message from Seth Godin in his book Tribes. But not in the sense of choosing to err, but rather the colloquial usage, acting like a leader and ’standing out’ from the rest. I just read a great blog post over at backyardmissionary.com about this. Some notable quotes from his post (which are from Tribes):

“Faith is critical to all innovation. Without faith its suicidal to be a leader, to act like a heretic. Religion on the other hand, represents a strict set of rules that our felow humans have laid on top of our faith. Religion supports the status quo and encourages us to fit in, not stand out.” p. 68

“Challenge religion and people wonder if you’re challenging their faith. Heretics challenge a given religion (he is using the word broadly to speak of systems and not specifically about ’spirituality’) but do it from a very strong foundation of faith”. In order to lead you must challenge the status quo of the religion you are living under” p. 70

I’d encourage you to check out backyardmissionary.com’s post. One last thought from Tribes:

When you fall in love with the system you lose the ability to grow” p.71

“We are satisfied by our decent little life. We are pleased with our good habits; we take them for virtues. We are pleased with our little efforts; we take them for progress. We are proud of our activities; they make us think we are giving ourselves. We are impressed by our influence; we imagine that it will transform lives. We are proud of what we give, though it hides what we withhold. We may even be mistaking a set of coinciding egoisms for real friendship.”
        - Michel Quoist

The word ‘missional’ has been tossed around quite a bit in Christian circles lately, but by the looks of it, few have actually grasped its meaning. The only action I’ve seen taken missiologically is a small sign near the exit of a local church saying, “You are now entering the mission field.” This is actually a good reminder, and a good first step in a positive direction. But we have a long way to go before we put this truth into action.

To be missional means that we begin to understand that every Christian is a missionary, not just the pastor or people in the missions department of our local church. We must begin to see ourselves as Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). According to the dictionary, an ambassador is:

• an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to a foreign country.
• a person who acts as a representative or promoter of a specified activity.

We are Christ’s representatives here on earth, sent by Him with a great commission! Many in the Church today must think that God saved us so that we can sit around in a comfortable building and become more immersed in what Dan Kimball calls the Christian subcultural “bubble.” But Christians have been commissioned and have a great purpose and duty to fulfill! God is pleased to use us to fulfill His mission (hence why we co-labor and cooperate with Him in His mission – thus our commission).

Being missional means we stop thinking of the church as a place we go on Sunday, but rather realize that it’s something we are every day of the week. We must form meaningful relationships with nonbelievers and stop thinking of them as only evangelistic targets. I can’t tell you how many times I hear people sharing their faith using evangelical ‘gimmicks,’ giving a presentation rather than having a conversation. Jesus gave quality time to people because He loves them, Christians too often give limited time to nonbelievers because we are focusing more on them as a target than as people. People are messy. Loving people is not efficient nor easy. But it’s what we are called to do.

We must realize that we no longer live in a Christian culture, and we must approach our culture as missionaries approach foreign cultures overseas. This means taking the time to listen and learn from outsiders. Instead of building a local Christan subculture in your community, begin building a mission. The focus of the two is totally different. A local subculture invites people to come and see Jesus. A local mission goes out and shares Him wherever they go, equipping others to do the same and then sending them out as well. The subculture invites people to hear the Gospel message, the local mission brings the Gospel to the people with words and action (because outsiders won’t listen to a message with no action behind it). The local subculture dedicates its resources to creating a better atmosphere inside the walls of the local church, the local mission dedicates its resources to reaching outsiders and being the Church in the community.

I pray that the Church will stop trying to find 40 days of purpose, financial peace, or whatever other activity or program it is pushing. Instead I hope it wakes up to its primary purpose, glorifying God by co-laboring with Him in advancing His kingdom – our great commission. We must be sharing the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Gospel is a person, not a presentation. You can only share a person through a relationship, not through an evangelical gimmick. This is what it means to be missional.

More than a few people have contacted my wife and I asking us what we believe. Several readers have been curious to know our perspectives on various issues after reading our posts. Others simply like to know where people stand before reading their writings – it’s a form of transparency. For these reasons, we’ve made available to you a concise statement about What We Believe. It is not meant to be a complete theological treatise outlining all of our thoughts on every issue, but merely a simple statement showing the essentials and a few other items we feel strongly about. Feel free to check it out. We’ve made it available as a PDF document for your viewing pleasure and so that you can print it out.

Click the above link to open the belief statement. This statement will always be available from now on in the “Pages” links in the top right column, labeled “What We Believe”.

“[I am] glad that the Father was not as merciful to His Son as He was to Abraham’s son.”
        - Charles Lehmann

Here’s a short (7 minute) video I put together highlighting some prominent American preachers and their teachings. Tiffany and I are going to begin posting vlog posts (video blog posts) alongside written posts. My wife is much more of a visual learner, and I prefer to read. So in order to effectively communicate with both audiences, we now present both mediums. I spent A LOT of time putting this clip together and finding clips of all the preachers I have in here. I’ll let the video speak for itself.

UPDATE: The vimeo difference. I uploaded this to vimeo to get better quality, it looks much better. You can still watch it on YouTube below as well if you’d like (or if this player doesn’t work for you).

Return to the Bible Vlog Post from Dan O'Day on Vimeo.

YouTube Version: You can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-sC9CC22gM&feature=player_embedded to view it if the above video does not work for you.

Is the American church in trouble? Are wackiness, relativism, and postmodernism overcoming the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ? What will happen if churches continue to embrace the teachings of prominent preachers in America who teach false doctrine? What did you think of the film?

Tiffany went to Baum’s Natural Foods in Merrillville and got an ion cleanse / foot bath. I compiled her short clips and posted a video of her experience on YouTube. Here’s the clip. I was really disappointed in how YouTube destroyed the video quality – it looked awesome in iMovie and exports great to QuickTime, but YouTube killed the quality. Oh well, without further ado, the video:

If you have any further questions about the ion cleanse post them in the comments

“Discernment is not telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is the difference between right and almost right.”
        - Charles Spurgeon

Well, this is the first blog post on my new Macbook! Just had to point that out. Lately I have found myself in MANY conversations about life, God, philosophy, psychology, and more. One individual I have been chatting with is Mike Baker, author of BOLL: The Lutheran AAR Center. Mike and I discussed Adolf Koberle’s book, The Quest For Holiness, and how people reach for God. Mike made some profound points that I wanted to share:

[Koberle] points out that there are three ways that people try to reach God regardless of religion. Rationalism (that we can experience deity with our reason), Mysticism (that we can experience diety with our experience, feelings, and enthusiasm), and Moralism (that we can experience deity by becoming more holy through right action). All religion can be lumped into these three main groups except for one: True Christianity.

In true Christianity, it is Christ who makes us holy and connects us to God… not by us reaching up, but by God reaching down. False teachers try to make Christianity into a work that follows one of the ladders of man-made religion. Yeah Christ died for us, but we need to worship Him better (mysticism), or we need to apply his teachings better and uncover new truths in Scripture (rationalism), or we need to become people who live moral lives and set good examples (moralism). Paul criticized the early church for this. This is putting people back under the Law. This is the heresy of the Judaizars. It turns Christianity into a man-made religion whereby Christians are fabricated by human work and experience rather than reborn by the Holy Spirit.

So a lot of Christians turn their faith into just another human belief system. They become like Muslims, Hindus, and any number of other false religions. They pay lip service to the True God, but they do not worship Him. They worship their worship of Him.

For many churches these days, the primary focus of a Christian is not about obedience, repentance, and faith. Instead, they make it about living a life of purpose and being God-pleasing. Once they get you to focus on pleasing God by what you are doing, they have driven a wedge between you and the Gospel. You have already stepped totally outside of Christianity and into idolatry. You have denied the essential truth that Christ alone is the source of God’s pleasure. The truth is that if he smiles mercifully upon us, it is because of Christ. Christ is our mediator. Oh how poor the church is! How many co-mediators have we constructed!?!

So is God pleased with us because of how we worship Him? Does He really need our service at all? Of course not. So is church about what we do for God? NO! How arrogant! Church is about what God does for us!

When good works are considered our holiness before God and the way that we please Him, our true selfishness is revealed. The good works that we do no longer are done out of love, but out of expectation of eternal profit. Grace stops being a gift and becomes our wage for being good. When one considers works to be worth anything of value to God, that becomes the underlying reason for doing them. They are no longer done out of the goodness that they produce, but for the eternal approval that they achieve. They become self-works which are done to improve our standing rather than help our neighbor without expectation of any return… here now or in heaven later.

Some profound thoughts from Mike. How are you reaching for God? In reality, we cannot reach for God – He is unattainable through our own efforts. But that is the amazing news of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ! God came down from heaven and became a man – He reaches out to us! We cannot reach for Him, but He reaches for us. That is the amazing Gospel of true Christianity.