Blog series: Takes 1-2-Know-1: Dishing on Church Folk-We're perfect (or think we are).

Having been in church most of my life, I know a lot of "church" people.  I've been lucky though, because I've been able to have a wide array of experience in my life and part of that is knowing a lot of people who aren't "church" people.  It's amazing what people not in church think about church folk...most of it due to experience with a "church" folk who has somehow become representative for everyone.

From my experience, I thought I'd dish on some church folk and some common thoughts about them that ARE and AREN'T true.

MYTH #1:  Church people have it all worked out perfect with perfect lives (or they act like they do, but secretly, they don't).  It's funny that this is a common theme among folks.  Honestly, I've seen evidence to back the parenthetical part of this statement on more than one occasion, but a greater understanding of this myth let's you know it's not true.  I'll show you why it's ironically comical that this is a rep for people in church.

One...I've never met anyone on the Earth, that,in their right mind, in a totally honest moment, that thinks they are perfect...in the church or out.  I'm not sure that person exists.  I've seen arrogant people before, but usually, in my experience, that's really just subconscious/conscious overcompensation for weaknesses that they are really trying to hide or have yet to admit.

Two, one of the most fundamental beliefs of Christianity is that in the same way, ALL of us are imperfect and have NO chance to achieve it on our own.  The very fact that anyone walks into church and/or enters into a relationship with Christ is admitting that you are NOT perfect...that you are flawed.

This sparks a couple of other questions:

Why do some of them "act" like they are perfect?

- The easy answer is because they aren't.  Acting like you are, like anyone on the planet, is proof that you aren't perfect, because no one is.

Another reason is ignorance.  Some people still haven't learned what it means to admit your imperfections.  It means that you are always 100% flawed, but you are always trying to connect with a perfect God.  While God is moving us toward being complete or perfect one day, that's not done the moment you decide to follow Christ...some folks don't know what to do with that.

Another reason is insecurity.  It's not easy to admit your weaknesses to others, even though that's what the Bible asks us to do.  Some people mistakenly think that acting more "disgusted" or "appalled" at the acts that sin comes out as in a person's life, somehow makes them seem to be more right with God.  All that does is cause people to be moreActually, insecurity is fueled by pride.  We all want to look like we know what's going on and, true to form with our condition, we aren't...it causes some problems.

Another reason is misguided expectations.  Some people actually believe that when they enter a relationship with Christ that somewhere, somehow, they'll achieve this (pardon the expression) "Zen-like state" where nothing bothers them, nothing ever goes wrong, they never do anything wrong or make a mistake again and the sin nature that's part of of every person on the planet just goes away.  Not true.  Following Jesus' path is a way to deal with the effects of sin and because of Jesus' leadership and strength, we can have the power, the understanding and the awareness to choose a choice that isn't controlled by sin in our life, but to think that we will never struggle again is foolish.  For me, as I've grown in Christ and learned more about Him, I've actually found MORE things that I need Christ for, rather than less, and that's exactly how it's supposed to go as we grow in Him.

Another reason is that there is an enemy who wants us to fail.  The Bible tells us the Devil is alive and well and is trying to get us to be stupid and hurt others...like we aren't capable of doing it on our own because of our own problems.  He helps confuse people into thinking that if you are a Christ follower, then you hate sin, then you have to be perfect and hate people who aren't and then if you aren't a Christ follower, then you can't be one because you sin...it's flawed logic, but it's amazing how many people buy into it.

Basically in a nutshell, here's a Christian...an imperfect person who is resigning himself/herself to the fact that they can't make it on their own, but realizes that there really is a solution to making it through life and they've found Him.  His name is Jesus.  Now, they are trying to learn to live in that situation. 

There's a great song by Natalie Grant that says this and it kind of sums up this topic.  "There's no such thing as perfect people, there's no such thing as a perfect life, so come as you are, broken and scarred, lift up your heart and be amazed...and be changed by a perfect God."  The truth is that you've got to learn to exhibit grace to others, just as you receive it yourselves and that's how God planned for it to be.

This week, I'm going to try to deal with a few more dish on church folks subjects...hope this helps non-church folk understand church folk or maybe even, church folk understand themselves a little better.

Beyond the Vow...

This week we are starting a series at FBC Melbourne at our Bay West Campuses and Melbourne Campuses called "Beyond the Vow" and it's a crucial one.

As a pastor, I see a lot of marriages, both inside the church and outside of it, that are experiencing trouble and because we are human, it can get a little disheartening, even if the majority of the marriages around us are in good shape.  Even so, you have to think...why is that?  The disparity of marriages in the church in trouble or ending in divorce, really is not that different statistically from that in the world and why is that?

I believe that part of the reason is that we've legislated and written and analyzed and psycho-analyzed our marriages to death.  We've struggled through the definition of roles of the spouses and what's fair and what's not and what's too constricting and consequently, what's too freeing...and in all that verbiage, we've forgotten what marriages are for.

For the month of March, we'll be going through this series in our worship services, but we'll also be bringing in Dr. Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, who's done a lot of Biblical study on marriages, to help us take an intense look at our marriages on March 23-24 at our 2 to 1 Marriage conference.  Feel free to signup to come if you'd like here 2to1marriage.com .

Also, in the month of March, off the heels of our Hungry for God series, our church will be participating in a corporate fast***, seeking God intently to move in the marriages in our church that are under attack and for vision/direction for our church as a whole moving forward in how we serve God in the Melbourne/Palm Bay area...March is going to be a HUGE month.

In Beyond the Vow, we are going to take a good hard look at the reason anyone gets married in the first place, exactly what marriages are and AREN'T supposed to accomplish and how we can take that knowledge and "re-track" our marriages on a path that will really last "'til death do us part".

Don't miss it.

***Basically Pastor Scott, Senior Pastor at FBC Melbourne, has called our entire church to take some time and let go of something that we do this month, and use that time seeking God's presence in these areas.  Formally, we are asking members and regular attenders of FBC, both campuses, to consider fasting for a period of time in the month of March from food or some other form of physical gratificaion to seek God's presence in these two areas in our church.  For more info on fasting, you can click here for our page on fasting and some resources OR you can listen to our sermons on fasting here from our "Hungry for God" series.

The "Bay" Way

I confess...that's flippin' corny.  No doubt about it...I'm going to own that, but as I told my girls about commercials on TV, they aren't written to be the best song or the best acting, they are written to be the most memorable and that's what Bay is all about.

Hence, the Bay Way.  I've gone to church a lot in my life and I can navigate the culture pretty much, but if you haven't been in church all your life, you may not get the memo of what's "normal" in being a part of a group of believers.  So here's what we are...our core values are explained here.  Those are called "the 6" and are they are statements that guide what we are trying to do at BW to keep us on track as an organization.

But past that, for the individual, if you wonder what's the norm for involvement in church, here it is for us...and it's BAY.

Be here.  A primary purpose is for us is to help people love God more.  Our worship services are designed to help you learn about God and process through various parts of who He is through speaking, singing, and creative experiences.

Among friends.  Another primary purpose is to learn to love others more, from a God perspective.  Our small groups are designed to develop community and relationship.  People learning from God by being a part of each other's lives and learning to care/love each other from a God perspective.  These Bible studies meet in homes weekly or bi-weekly.

Your part.  Another primary purpose is to learn to serve the world around us.  We expect everyone to find a place that is their responsibility within the workings of Bay West.  That's usually on Sunday mornings taking a turn on our FIT (First Impressions Team), KidZone, Setup crews, Worship Team or something like that.  Everyone needs to be a part.  This practice reinforces the truth that we don't come to Bay West for ourselves.  It teaches us to give to serve others inside the church and hopefully, that habit translates outside the church.  It's important in the church because doing it in the context of "worship" helps us understand that worshipping God isn't a passive activity and we learn more by doing.

There it is, in a nutshell....Be here, Among friends, Your part..."BAY" Way.

Seeing isn't believing, it's only the setup for the payoff

Numbers 13
17  Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the land: “Go north through the Negev into the hill country.
18  See what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many. 19  See what kind of land they live in. Is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps?
20  Is the soil fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see.” (It happened to be the season for harvesting the first ripe grapes.)

These verses are the instructions that Moses gave his folks when they were supposed to "scout out" the land that God was about to give to Israel.  What ended up happening is that after 40 days of scouting the land, the team came back and about 80% of them were COMPLETELY opposed to trying to take the land...they were scared out of their mind... Even though, their nation had gone through a LONG journey, all the while, dreaming and relying on God through ENORMOUS struggles and hardship to get them right where they were...to this land.  It was their goal!  It was a motivation...and right at the edge of it, they were scared to death and said "no". 

My thought was "why even have them scout it, God?  I mean, You had decided on the destination...they had given up LOADS of stuff and followed You across treacherous ground to get there.   What was the point of evaluating now?"  Was this a bad leadership decision?  Of course not...it was a misunderstood command.

I think God does this to us...He asks us to really take a look at what's about to happen.  In His plan, He wants to us realize the immensity of the task He's about to accomplish.  It's not about deciding on an action, it's about setting up the praise for God and His power.  If we don't take in the huge task He's doing, our praise doesn't fill out, because without some sort of realization of how difficult and impossible the task is, we don't burst forth with how great God is through it.

Here's our problem...we think that when God calls us to "check it out", that somehow that's God saying "I don't know about this, what do you think?" and for a lot of us, we take that as our chance to get out of the scary thing in front of us...we run like scalded dogs.  We don't realize that God is just saying "Check this out...see how scary impossible the task is...got it...now WATCH THIS!"  Sadly for a lot of us, we have turned tail and are running at "see how scary it is" and we never get to the "WATCH THIS!" or even the incredible move of God that happens next that inspires us and challenges us and makes a statement to the entire world around how incredibly unbelievable God's ability and power is...  We miss the "I'm the master of it all" statement...sad.

Stick in there and realize that if God told you to do it...and you KNOW that for a fact... wait for the win, because it's coming.

Continue to pray for us at Bay West Church, as we try to be a church in Palm Bay and communicate Christ to west Palm Bay, Florida.

Dangerous series...incomplete

We started off at Bay West Church in West Palm Bay with our series "Incomplete" last Sunday. It had an interesting germination. In the development of the vision of Bay West, we wanted to identify some things that we would like to be core values to our campus. In meeting and praying with some of the couples on the launch team, we came up with what we call, "The Big 6". It's a list of 6 habits, characteristics, behaviors that we'd like to be known for at Bay West. In developing this list, I really felt God's leading to begin Bay West by preaching on these foundations of Bay West...hence the six-week series we are starting out with.

I was at Sun Shoppe in Melbourne, meeting with Elliott Davis, one of our worship leaders about a month or two ago. I shared what the first series was and he said "Hey, that would be a good thing to call this series, Incomplete" Of course, I was like...wha???? He went on to explain his thinking that 7 was the perfect number and this was one short, leaving it incomplete. Of course, we went to the same place....that the 7th and complete picture was Jesus that made it all relevant. Great! Incomplete was complete.

You know when you preach a series like this...that lists some good things to focus on in your life...there's always a danger. It's called the "holy checklist syndrome". The danger is that someone might think that if they do these 6 things, the "holy checklist", they'll be fine.

Nothing could be further from the truth....and it's part of the reason that the name of the series, "Incomplete", fits so well.

In the Bible, Matthew 7 says...
22 On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’
23 But I [Jesus] will reply, ‘I never knew you....

Hence the danger...there are loads of people, all across the planet, that think if they just can "do" enough stuff and put Jesus' name on it...even in a well-meaning, honest, trying-my-best, in-church-ever-Sunday sort of way, that this will be enough...but not so much.

Christ, right there in Matthew, puts it in black and white. The biggest thing, the foundation of our judgment, before all the "you did WHAT????? You mean I have to forgive THAT???" starts (just kidding - :-) ), the requirement will be if He knew you or not...did you have a relationship with Christ? Did you spend time with Him? Did you follow Him daily? Did you get to know Him in the ways He left for you to? It won't be because you did a bunch of stuff that impressed Him enough to make Him think you deserved it...just the opposite. We CAN'T accomplish that at all...impossible.

The Big 6 aren't your salvation...they are just good things that can help you understand, live, grasp, emulate what already exists in your heart...a relationship with Christ. So let's not get the cart before the horse, the ".com" before the "http:" so to speak...remember the foundational non-negotiable here...that's you...Jesus...healthy relationship...the rest will work itself out.