The Contemporary Witchhunt

I was wondering why it is that all of us (and I mean all of us.  Don’t lie!) have things that are hidden and that we keep hidden from each other.  You know what I’m talking about.  It’s those things that we don’t tell ANYBODY.  The ones that we have to totally get up the nerve to tell our accountability partners.  I’ve learned over time that everyone has them.  Anyone that says that they don’t has a confused sense of reality.  Deep down there’s secrets that only we know.  Why would we bury stuff and try to hide it?

Then I read an article in Charisma magazine…….

First things first:  Charisma is not a mag that I tend to read.  I’m more of the "Relevant" kind of guy with a good smattering (is that a word?) of digital video rags and the such.  It’s not that "Charisma" is bad.  It’s just not really for me.  It works for alot of other Christians quite well.  I just happened to end up with it at work because the mail room made a mistake. (I also ended up with "Black Entrepreneur" and "Trailer Boating" which don’t really fit me, either…)

The article was about a pastor in the south who was taking a stand against men caught in "down-lows",  otherwise known as men who have wives but also secretly have sex with men.  I don’t have a problem with the pastor talking about this issue.  If I’m going to teach on adultery I’ll teach on it from any angle.  The problem that rose throughout the article was the pastor’s stance in reference to the men he was talking about.  It seemed to me that he was offended and decided to start his own witchhunt.

One example from the article was his statement that "a righteous indignation prompted him to address then undercover culture".  I looked up "righteous indignation" and got this description:

retribution, retributive justice; anger and contempt combined with a feeling that it is one’s right to feel that way; anger without guilt

Anger without guilt?  Anger and contempt?  This was what he said started him towards "taking care" of the situation.  He then goes on to explain why he thought most pastors wouldn’t address the issue:

"I used to think pastors wouldn’t address the issue because it would mean losing gifted choir members, or offerings…."

Ahhh, the ugly stereotypes raise their heads.  I guess the only men involved with this type of relationship would, of course, be in the choir.  I’m sure that most pastors wouldn’t confront blacks on an issue because of being afraid of losing the church basketball team or women in the church because they wouldn’t have babysitters. (Yes, that was quite tongue in cheek for those who might be easily offended)  The statement itself shows ignorance and a lack of compassion.  That’s my problem.

Another part of the article had a quote from a man who did not want to be identified because he was afraid of being shunned.  Now we know why people have stuff that’s hidden.  We’ve gone on these witch hunts before.  It happens all the time.  I was talking to a guy I know who was telling me about the Mother’s Day message at his church where he was so proud of the pastor.  Why?  Because, in his words, he "stuck it to the dads that aren’t doing the right thing.  He didn’t lay off of them, like some people would.  He told them how wrong they were and took the opportunity to get them with both barrels while they were there."   Hmmm.  Is it any wonder that this would be the only time they would show up?  Are we really that confused why the ratio of women to men in church is something like 9 to 1? 

The pastor in the article wrote a book that he titled "Straight Up! The Church’s Official Response to the Epidemic of Down-Low Living" (Don’t you love the play on words?  Straight Up!!) I would prefer that he change the title, absolutely for my sake.  Why.  That wasn’t from my church and I didn’t ask him to make an "official" statement.  You see, my Christ handled things in a much different way.  He answered the questions, but left things open for the believer to discover the truth of God for himself.  His main response throughout the gospels is to follow Him and love one another.  Somewhere in the article I read I lost the "love one another" part.  I’m sure the guy that’s afraid of being shunned did, too.  I didn’t hear much compassion.  I mostly just heard contempt.

I wonder what Jesus would write.  Maybe "I’ve Heard You’re Dealing With Something and We Can Work On It Together".  I like that title much better.

Death to Turner & Hooch

I feel so bad.  I said all that stuff about the DaVinci Code before.  Now I don’t know what to do.  My eyes have been opened.  The ideas that are being spread around through that movie are a POISON!  They could totally take down the church and everything that we stand for!  I don’t think we should place the blame on The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, or even on the production company and Ron Howard.  They are just pawns in the game of someone much more powerful and cunning.  I’m referring to, of course, Tom Hanks and his evil plan of world domination.

Oh, you laugh.  Go ahead.  But while you do you must look at the past body of work that he has compiled:

Splash – A man falls in love with a mythical and pagan creature leading us to believe that it’s ok to worship something other than God.

The Money Pit – The worship of money.  Why didn’t we see it before?!?!

Bachelor Party – That one speaks for itself.  It’s just sinful in nature…..

Big – Occult worship and black magic.  Look at the whole "transformation" thing there.  We’ve let this seep into our children’s video collections!

The ‘Burbs – The evil neighbors with a hidden past and possible cannibalism.  The only thing good about the movie is that it taught us that we need to spy on everyone else before their terrible secrets start to infiltrate OUR perfect lives.

A League Of Their Own – He’s a drunk, women are taking a man’s role in sports, and Rosie O’Donnel is in it.  How unchristian can you get!?!

Forrest Gump – Have you ever listened to all those little "quotes"?  "Life is like a box of chocolates."  It’s gluttony at it’s best!  On top of that he was a cripple and heals himself.  ANTI-CHRIST!

Philadelphia – We all know that AIDS is God’s judgment on the gays.  This evil man is trying to change our ideas and our well deserved judgment on other people!

Castaway – He talks to inanimate objects and practices holistic medicine.  Plus that whole body transformation comes back in another way couldn’t be done without witchcraft.  I’m sure the "wings" emblem is a sign of the dark angel, too.

On top of all this his career started out with what?????  CROSS DRESSING!!!  My Lord, we have got to stop this man.  Picket the movie with everything that you’ve got!  We must prove to the world that God is not capable of handling this by Himself!  It’s up to us to do it for Him!  Tom Hanks must be stopped before he’s able to infiltrate the minds of our children!

If not, there’s no telling what "Toy Story 3" will be like.  Woody, the "Brokeback" cowboy?

Christians UNITE!!

Death to Turner & Hooch

I feel so bad.  I said all that stuff about the DaVinci Code before.  Now I don’t know what to do.  My eyes have been opened.  The ideas that are being spread around through that movie are a POISON!  They could totally take down the church and everything that we stand for!  I don’t think we should place the blame on The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, or even on the production company and Ron Howard.  They are just pawns in the game of someone much more powerful and cunning.  I’m referring to, of course, Tom Hanks and his evil plan of world domination.

Oh, you laugh.  Go ahead.  But while you do you must look at the past body of work that he has compiled:

Splash – A man falls in love with a mythical and pagan creature leading us to believe that it’s ok to worship something other than God.

The Money Pit – The worship of money.  Why didn’t we see it before?!?!

Bachelor Party – That one speaks for itself.  It’s just sinful in nature…..

Big – Occult worship and black magic.  Look at the whole "transformation" thing there.  We’ve let this seep into our children’s video collections!

The ‘Burbs – The evil neighbors with a hidden past and possible cannibalism.  The only thing good about the movie is that it taught us that we need to spy on everyone else before their terrible secrets start to infiltrate OUR perfect lives.

A League Of Their Own – He’s a drunk, women are taking a man’s role in sports, and Rosie O’Donnel is in it.  How unchristian can you get!?!

Forrest Gump – Have you ever listened to all those little "quotes"?  "Life is like a box of chocolates."  It’s gluttony at it’s best!  On top of that he was a cripple and heals himself.  ANTI-CHRIST!

Philadelphia – We all know that AIDS is God’s judgment on the gays.  This evil man is trying to change our ideas and our well deserved judgment on other people!

Castaway – He talks to inanimate objects and practices holistic medicine.  Plus that whole body transformation comes back in another way couldn’t be done without witchcraft.  I’m sure the "wings" emblem is a sign of the dark angel, too.

On top of all this his career started out with what?????  CROSS DRESSING!!!  My Lord, we have got to stop this man.  Picket the movie with everything that you’ve got!  We must prove to the world that God is not capable of handling this by Himself!  It’s up to us to do it for Him!  Tom Hanks must be stopped before he’s able to infiltrate the minds of our children!

If not, there’s no telling what "Toy Story 3" will be like.  Woody, the "Brokeback" cowboy?

Christians UNITE!!

A Flexible Faith

I’ve been watching all the coverage over the past week or so about "The DaVinci Code".  The movie, based on the best selling novel, has hit theaters with a huge bang.  Over 200 million dollars worldwide in the first weekend.  It opened in 4,000 something theaters across the US.  It also had people picketing and handing out "clarifying" flyers at most of those theaters.  Christians have been in an uproar.  Churches are preaching messages about it, either "clearing it up" for everyone or totally jumping on the bandwagon as another "wave" of God to ride towards the next level of church growth.   Everyone has an opinion.

Here’s mine.  One simple question.  The only thing that needs to be asked.

"How strong is your faith?"

That’s it.  I’m amazed at the Christians who are freaking out about this movie.  Why?  Because it’s a mainstream film?  Because it raises questions?  Because it causes people to think?  It does, if you really like to think.  Most of the people who were interviewed after seeing it said it didn’t make any impact at all.  WOW!  Someone showed a different point of view and the world didn’t end!  I’m not saying that I agree with that point of view.  I’m not saying that it’s right.  I just don’t believe that God is so small that a few actors and a director can destroy everything that’s been done over the past 2000 years.

I do have one other question, though:  What if we find out that not EVERYTHING that we hold as law is  necessarily true?  What if something is discovered that cannot be denied and it’s contrary to popular belief?  Does that mean that everything that we have lived for is fake?  Have our leanings on our faith been for nothing?  Does one idea by a writer or film maker suddenly have the ability to mess us up personally? 

If it does then I have a problem with our faith.  What do we believe in?  Christ or ourselves?  I pray that our beliefs, no matter what they are in reference to Christ, are strong enough that simple representations of Christ being a little more "human" can’t be shaken by them.  It worries me to think that our Christ is so small that we feel the need to attack anyone who thinks differently, even though most of the time we are actually standing on the teachings of people who weren’t even alive when Christ was.  My God is a mysterious God.  One that cannot be explained in simple, human terms.  He’s complex, divine, beyond imagination.  When we start blasting anything that someone says just because it’s not written in our Sunday School manual then we’ve started believing in the publisher’s capabilities, not God’s.  I’ve met some of the publishers out there.  I’m not real sure I want to trust them as the final say about God.  I want to trust the source.

After all is said and done we will go on just the way that we have been.  "The DaVinci Code" will leave the theaters and then everyone will start the conflict once again when the "Extended/Uncut DVD" version comes out with special director’s commentary and out takes that make people upset because now the film maker is "mocking God" in another way.  Geez.  Are we all that weak? 

We’ve forgotten that our faith was started by someone who questioned the authority of the day and forced people to think.  It’s pretty sad to me when we turn that wonderful revolution of thought and spirituality into a robotic, don’t ask, don’t tell type of lemming-like existence.

I believe what I believe.  That’s it.

Acceptance taken further

I’ve been trying to figure out how to communicate the concepts involved with being an accepting person as Christ was and have really struggled with how to say it so that people will understand the ideas and not get wrapped up in the "I’m not really like that" syndrome.  Luckily the way our church is structured it is perfectly ok for the leaders to admit that they don’t know everything (weird, huh?!?!?!?) and other people can take up the slack.

Amy posted a blog on her myspace that really starts the conversation in a great way.  Check it out when you get a chance.  The concepts of looking at our true selves before we can look at anyone else are awesome.  Hopefully we can all get this through our heads.

Click on the link below to see what she had to say

drewscrows_blog

Living Acceptance

This week in our gathering we will be tackling a tough subject:  How to really be accepting and not fake.  This is a really hard one to wrap our minds around.  We’re not designed by society to be "accepting".  We have been taught for years that there are people that are good enough and people that aren’t.  Unfortunately I would say that television (especially the "fake reality" television we all love to get hooked on) is causing this problem to get worse. 

Anyone remember COPS? Of course you do.  We’ve all watched it.  We love seeing someone else get nailed and act stupid.  If I asked you what the average suspect  on COPS looks like what would you say?  Low income, redneck/southern/trailer park, shirtless or "wife beater", unshaven, loud, drug using, not too smart……Do I have to go on?  We have a very specific image that has been created by this show and most of us come up with a pretty consistent version of it in our minds.  Think of The Real World, Survivor, The Surreal Life.  What images are conjured up in your mind?  If I watch "My Sweet Sixteen" I automatically think of extremely spoiled, bratty, stuck up 16 year olds who don’t deserve anything close to what they are getting for their birthday and don’t appreciate it.  Along the way we start believing what we see, even though 99% of it is completely staged.

There was a show on recently called "Black and White" where two families switched races through movie makeup and training to be able to experience what another race goes through. It was really funny to me that on this show the most closed minded people were the white couple.  They truly believed that they would just be able to "act black" and get away with it.  The only problem was that their concept of "acting black" was based on a white person’s perception, not a black person’s.  It was tainted.  Their actions showed it.  They wanted to do things that weren’t acceptable because they believed a stereotype and thought it was "cool".

We have the same thing in church.  Our stereotypes are everything from looks, size, dress, social status, money, language and the such all the way over to things that we have labeled as "sins" so that we now have guidelines, or rules, for being in our "club".  There has to be a way to erase the lines.  There has to be a way to accept like Christ did: unconditionally.

We have to look at ways to make it happen.  If you have any ideas I would love to hear them.  Comment on this.  Start the discussion.  Somebody has to do it.

Tired…..

I’m really tired.  We’ve been working on this video project all week at work and I’m just worn out.  The project is over, but the last few days have been rough.  I went in at 6:30 yesterday and didn’t leave till nearly 11pm.  Went back in at 6 this morning.  All I’ve done is stare at the Mac screen editing vid.

Everyone wonders what the leaders of the churches do during the week?  If you’re a part of NETChurch you work alot of hours…..

Tomorrow we party, though.  5:30 at our house.  The church is invited.  Should be fun. I’m going to sleep now…..

Andy

Reality vs. Hypocrisy

I know that this subject has been written about, blogged, googled, and soap boxed to death, but I have to put my two cents worth of questions in the ring.  The more time that I spend in this new "reality" called NETChurch I find myself questioning things much deeper than I ever have before.  It’s a little scary.  Before this things were so much simpler.  As much as I hate to say it I didn’t have to think.  Everything was explained to me.  Religion was laid out for me and I followed the person that was leading.  I didn’t have to question anything because obviously the leaders knew more than I did.  They were the leaders, right?

Things are so much different now.  Everything has a question attached to it.  I’m always wondering "What exactly does God want out of this situation?".  It’s weird.  Nothing is really "solid" anymore.  Alot of the things I believed for so long (and even fought for) just aren’t as important as they used to be.  I keep looking for reality instead of hypocrisy.  The only problem is a that the more real I become (in reference to myself and my relationship with God) the more I separate from most of the "churched" people I’ve known.  They don’t understand me anymore.  They see things in such a black and white manner compared to what I see now, which is much more colorful.  There are nuances to God that I feel are important.  Unfortunately most people want to worry about the rules and regulations more than the actual relationship or journey.

It’s really funny:  We carry such a large flag as Christians saying that we are truly believers and followers of His teachings.  We profess that we want to be more like Him.  We talk about how simple it is to "have Christ in our lives".  Then we spend all of our lives looking for more rules to restrict and judge.  Really, think about it!  How often have you or I made decisions about someone based on what we saw and not on what they really believed?  We know that someone doesn’t attend church regularly and we assume that they are "fallen back in their faith".  We see someone at a restaurant having a couple of drinks and no matter what we’ve known of them in the past they are now not as "Christian" as we thought they were.  If people ACTUALLY act like they feel, if they really reveal to us about their lives, if they stop hiding things and do some things that aren’t a part of the traditional church culture then whatever they are doing or even the person themselves becomes somewhat tainted.  A Christian would NEVER tell an improper story or joke about something delicate.  A Christian would NEVER drink in public.  A Christian would NEVER be seen with people that are questionable.  A Christian would NEVER watch a movie that is not "Godly".

I’ve sat with so many pastors that told the church to never watch anything questionable on tv and even stated that anything not uplifting would never come into their own home.  Then later on the same pastors tell me about watching Gladiator, Final Destination, or some other highly graphic/over the top movie when their wives were gone.  I’ve listened to and experienced the times that church members looked and talked with disdain because someone was seen drinking or smoking, stating that it was not "Christ-like" and yet they would do the same thing as long as it was in the safety of their own home.  I’ve listened to the youth leaders that chastised the kids about pornography and pre-marital sex but never told anyone that THEY were dealing with it right then because it would jeopardize their job.

I’m so confronted by these things at this moment.  It’s easy to say that people sinning in terrible ways.  Most of the time it makes us feel better and we forget about our own sins.  But what about pride?  What about ego?  What about lying?  What about taking the plank out of our own eye before even NOTICING the speck in someone else’s?  We’re so worried about perception and what other people think that we start making statements like "I’m just concerned about the church and what it stands for!"  But if it’s built on false statements and hypocricy then what are we protecting?  What are we building?  You can look at anyone’s actions and say that they are not being godly.  I don’t think any of us are!  We’re not expected to be!  We’re expected to cultivate a relationship where we grow and we’re nurtured.  We’re not the spiritual police.  We are supposed to be believers.  Followers.  Christians.

I just look at Christ and I don’t see hypocrisy.  Why do I see so much in my own life and in the body as a whole.  Though I know that what I’m saying will not be seen or heard kindly by some I have to say it.

To stay quiet would be hypocritical.

Comments anyone?

There’s never any comments.  I say all this inflamatory stuff and never any comments.  Weird.  Everyone looks.  No one says anything.  I guess I’m the only one with an opinion.

And what an opinion it is!!!!!

Life. Love. God.

Somebody recently asked me what our ministry was all about.  That’s tough.  What do you say? Restoring lives?  Everybody says that.  Reaching the unchurched?  That ones become a bit of a crock, too.  People want to know the basic idea of what you are all about and that’s hard to state in our case.  It’s almost like anything that you say is not going to be enough.  How do you fit what we are into a simple statement?

I’ve decided that you can’t.  This community has become something of a living, breathing organism that changes and evolves with each moment of the day.  We’re never the same.  We’re always looking towards something new.  To grow.  To learn.  That’s so much of our drive.  How much deeper can we go?  How much more is there to learn?  It takes a certain type of person to be a part of this ministry.  You have to WANT to question things.  You must have a NEED to reach further than you ever have.  You MUST be open to change.  Change in thought, change in style, change in life.

I did figure this out along the way.  There are 3 things that define us.  3 things that are paramount to everyone involved.  3 things that we will always investigate and cultivate.

Life.  Love.  God.

Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?  There should be so much more!  There should be some great purpose statement that encourages and motivates the masses to bigger and greater things.  And yet, there are basically these 3.

Life.  Love.  God.

Live this life.  Love everyone.  Pursue God.

No cute little acronym.  No hidden meaning.  Just simplicity.

Weird, huh?