The current state of the Church

[fleshnblud]

I stumbled onto a quote by Karl Barth today, "And before all else, this community [the church] must be open to the world in order to make visible, with its proclamation of the kingdom of God, the clear, but also severe limits of all human movement and effort, progress and regress, ascents and descents. The Church does not exist by pondering, studying, discussing, and preparing itself for this relationship to the world. The Church exists in actually accomplishing this relationship in each time with the appropriate sense of security, realism, and necessity." What say you?

[cherryx]

agreed.

Sitting here and reading tons of books and attending the most Jesusified Bible college does crap if you dont have love,and are good with those relationships.

I dont have Bible knowledge out the butt (most people know this upon trying to talk down to me and shove verses in my face about my lifestyle),what I do have is that I can talk to people.Oh about absolutely anything and it doesnt have to always steer towards God.

ALOT of Christians make their whole conversations to end with God.I dont.I dont evangelize like that.I simply make RELATIONSHIPS with people,I dont hide my faith,but its God's job to make them come around not mine.

The best you can do...is just acknowledge and move on.Unfortunately (or Fortunately) I dont get hung up on legalism and people holding more water to which doctrine you follow,and nitpicking on how wrong you are and youre going to Hell.::shrugs::

If you dont read thelogical books all day...thats cool.

Shocking as it may be,Jesus doesnt love you any less nor does He loves the next person anymore because they have His whole world digested and disected into a million things.

So long as churches are teaching you have to read mounds of books,and attend this retreat and that retreat to be more Christian...they'll be missing the point.

[fleshnblud]

cherryx said:

I dont get hung up on legalism and people holding more water to which doctrine you follow

Legalism

Dude. Crazy that you should mention legalism...I just learned an awesome truth about legalism...when God gave Israel the law, which was never given as a means of salvation rather a mirror to show us just how much we need Christ (Romans 4&5), the teachers of that law (Pharisees, etc) wanted so much not to break God's law that they set a perimeter law around it. The wanted so much not even to encroach upon God's law that they set their own rules up to prevent them from ever getting there.

The problem is, that by the time you get to Christ the sub-law had become more important than the law. So much so that when Christ heals a man on the Sabbath, the Pharisees freak...Jesus never broke God's law but he did break the barrier that the Pharisees had set up around God's law. Jesus asks them, "How many of you if your mule falls into a ditch would get him out, even on the Sabbath? How much more so then this man?!"

Most people who are legalist are trying so hard not to break God's laws, but the problem comes when you enforce your own personal rules of conscience upon others. If God's word says not to do it, then there should be no argument. But if God's word is silent, and you, for conscience sake have set a standard for yourself, between you and God, then there is no authority to enforce than upon others! (Romans 14)

I do believe that this is why Jesus was so harsh with the Pharisees, it wasn't because He despised them, but because they were so close and yet so far. They thought they had it down but really they were separating themselves from the truth of God's grace through Jesus Christ and in the process keeping others from the same.

The goal is to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:29-31), this simplifies much but in no way does it make it easy! Keep on truckin' in Christ!

[cherryx]

yeah one of my good friends that stayed at my house for a week and tattooed me actually has strong Old Testament convictions.He talked about how when his dad died as a sign of mourning,he cut his hair.But it was awesome how he was like "I know thats drastic thats where I feel God was leading me to do.You maybe attend a funeral and shed some tears,but for me I needed to mourn in the Old Testament ways."

I thought that was pretty cool.

[DenverRockBrian]

Jesus said that all the commandments can be summed up in just two...

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

Love your neighbor as yourself.

If we do that... we're in good shape. Once you develop relationships with people, alot of times they start asking you stuff. Like a buddy of mine at work... the last few weeks he's been asking me about religious stuff like crazy, so I went out and got him a Bible and 2 books on my lunch break. Yeah... it's not all about studying, but studying does help.

I Peter 3:15 says to always be prepared to give an answer for the hope you have.

I take that as a direct command from God to know and understand my faith enough to defend it. BUT... if I don't love people, what's the point? You love peope first!

[fleshnblud]

Nice!

I love what you said about the two commandments!!! My wife and I were talking the other day, and we've been in the practice of, when we pray with our daughter every night to pray for her and with her that she would, "Love Jesus with all her heart, all her mind, all her soul, and all her strength and to love her neighbor as herself." As we were talking, I was so excited, because if our daughter can begin to form her ideas about Christianity to mean these two things then her life hopefully will be very simple---definately not easy, who can love God will every piece of their being or love their neighbor the same way they love themselves!?---and very fulfilling.

If we could take to heart these two commands, which pretty much consumes every faucet of Christianity---Christ is the foundation and these would be the two pillars that we are instructed to build our lives upon---everything else flows from these two commands. As you said, the command to know what you believe and be in the process of being able to communicate that to those whom God places in your life, flow both out of a love for God (pursuing Him as He has revealed Himself through His Own Word) and love for others (sharing the Truth of life).

Rad! Amen brother.

[DenverRockBrian]

Ya know... there's this street preacher guy that appears on campus (CU-Denver) on occasion and preaches at people. Always yelling at them and telling them they're going to hell and such. I've always wanted to walk up to him and ask him if he's a Christian. Then he'll condemn me for asking him that and I'll reply simple "HMM, I couldn't tell, The Bible says they will know we are Christians by our love... and well sir, all you do is throw condemnation at these people." This is my last semester, I wonder if I'll get the courage to say something??

[Solid]

I say go for it.

[DenverRockBrian]

Well, I gotta find the guy again first. I haven't seen him out preaching this semester.

[elegyforbabylon]

He probaly dropped or the school kicked him out.

My ministry is through music and just being a nice guy. Before i start talking about jesus i need to do some major cleaning up in my own life. On a few of my addictions and things.

3 days strong...how sad is that.

[thinman]

The current state of the church in Western civilization is a wreck. There are too many Rick Warren's out there trying to make the church worldly, rather that trying bring the world to the church. (over simplified) Look, I'm not legalistic or prude. I have tattoo's and listen to music that many in my church (or anywhere) would cringe if they heard it. There is no doubt in my mind that we need a serious reformation.