A Time for Change

Change is the only constant that life promises us.  We encounter it everywhere.  Sometimes it's good.  Sometimes it's bad.  Sometimes it's expected and sometimes it's sudden.  For the past few months I have been struggling with a choice about a change.  Is it a major, life-altering choice?  No.  But it is one that is important to me, and that choice has been whether to re-locate my blog or not.  After weighing the options and praying for several weeks I have made the decision to relocate my personal blog to www.ponderingpreacher.com.  Before you jump ship, please allow me to explain my decision.

Why This Change?
Over the past year I was privileged enough to be a contributor on a couple of different blogs.  They used a different host site than Fuzzy Reflections, and I got to see how the software and administrative controls worked.  In other words, as a contributor I got to lift the hood and see what makes the engine run on a different blogging host.  The more I contributed, the more I liked the tools available.  It also gave me more options as far as design, domain name, and pricing if I choose to upgrade in any of several ways.

But I also noticed that in just setting up the skeleton of my blog I generated more traffic (site visitors) in a day than my blog here gets in a week.  While I don't foresee my blog ever becoming a mass-appeal site, extra-traffic is always good, especially when you write about things that, hopefully, help people draw closer to God.  I realize some of this traffic may be curious passers-by, I am hoping to expand my reach to a more global audience.

What Will Be Different?
The obvious difference will be the name of the website.  It is now simply ponderingpreacher.com.  The other obvious difference will be the name of the blog.  No longer is it 'Fuzzy Reflections' but it is now 'The Pondering Preacher.'  Why the name change?  Because, my focus has shifted.  Will there still be some 'fuzzy reflections' on every day life?  Yes!  But there will also be articles that challenge church leadership and deal with current event issues.  There will also be my musings on any number of doctrinal and theological issues.

The other main difference will be the layout.  I have simplified and downsized some of the gadgets in the side column.  My hope is for a cleaner, more professional look.  But when you see the site you will find it is just as easy, if not easier, to navigate through past posts and articles.

What Will Be the Same?
There will still be articles and occasional book reviews.  All of the old posts from Fuzzy Reflections are archived on the new site and so are the comments.  So if you have a favorite article to show someone, it will still be available on the new blog.  You can still access my podcasts from the new blog as well.  Just click on the link in the right hand column and it will take you to the media player for my podcasts.

Change is Risky
I realize that I am taking some risks in switching my blog to a new site, the biggest one being losing some of my wonderful readers as followers.  Please, if you followed Fuzzy Reflections, follow The Pondering Preacher.  It means a lot to me that so many people read and view my blog.  I hope that you continue to do so, and spread the word to your friends to check out ponderingpreacher.com!

Why Marriage Matters

Recently I read two articles (one on msn.com; the other on csmonitor.com) that examined the downward trend of marriage in our culture.  One article revealed that now, barely more than 50% of adults aged 18 years or older are married (compared with 71% in 1960).  The other article revealed that adults under the age of 30 are more likely to view marriage as obsolete than ever before.  Both articles revealed that younger people are waiting longer to marry and that cohabitation among young adults has trended upward while marriage amongst that same demographic has dropped.  Now these two articles did not surprise me nearly as much as a third article on CNN.com’s faith page did.  It revealed that more and more young adults who claim to be Christian are cohabitating.  In fact, it revealed that ‘Christian’ young adults living together is trending upward at the same rate as their non-Christian counterparts.

 

More Than Just a Sin Issue

The first reaction for many Christians is condemnation.  Some may chalk it up to the rebellious nature of youth while others may count it as one of many signs of the times.  But we, as the Church, must realize that this is much more than a sin issue that needs to be confronted.  The problems that the disintegration of marriage presents go much deeper than a lifestyle choice or a church discipline issue.   What is at stake is how we communicate God’s relationship to humanity and the fabric of society as a whole. 

Building Blocks

I remember several years ago being confronted with a statistic that read one out of every two children is either from a broken home or a home with a single parent.  That statistic astonished me at first, but as I thought about the friends I had growing up, I realized I was the only one who had parents that weren’t divorced at some point.  When I thought about the kids in the classes I was teaching at the time, easily half of them would have fit into the broken home/single-parent demographic, and I taught at a ‘Christian’ school.  The result has been a generation that views marriage as either inconvenient or disposable.  So we saw divorce rates rise in the 70s and 80s, but eventually they leveled off and began to drop as the practice of cohabitation began to be more readily accepted by society.   TV shows like ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ (as well as a score of others) portrayed cohabitation as normal, healthy and funny, and if Satan can get you to laugh at sin then you are no longer taking it seriously.

There is nothing funny about sin.  As a minister, educator and friend, I have seen the pain, heartbreak and confusion of divorce.  I have witnessed how cohabitation destroys trust rather than builds it.  But as I said earlier, this is deeper than a sin issue; it is a family issue.  God, in His infinite wisdom, ordained the family.  There was to be one husband, one wife and they were to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’  The family became the basic structure for society.  Inside the family unit a child learns how to respect others, obey rules, treat the opposite sex, take care of property, work ethic, basic people skills as well as a host of other things.  History has proven that when the family structure declines within a society, social problems increase.  Crime rates rise (a child wasn’t taught that breaking rules has consequences).  Economies suffer (a child never learned a work ethic from his parents).   Violence increases (a child missed out on respecting others).  I am not saying that it is impossible to bring up good-citizens in a broken home, nor am I saying that all nuclear families will bring up perfect kids.  What I am saying is the higher the percentage of kids growing up in single-parent/broken homes, the more likely that several of them will not learn lessons that most kids learn in the traditional family setting.

But the family is more than a building block for society.  It is also a microcosm of the Church.  Fathers are called to be ministers to their families.  Godly instruction begins within the home, not the synagogue, tabernacle, temple or Sunday School class (see Deuteronomy 6:4ff.)  A Father is to instruct his child about God through everyday routines.  A mother is to impart wisdom to her child through Godly example (see Proverbs 31 for the ideal example of a Godly mother).   When we forsake God’s blueprint for marriage, we are destroying the Church from within by destroying the next generation of Christians.  If we love Christ and we love His Bride, we must respect and restore the institute of marriage to a place of honor.

Marriage as Evangelism

As Paul began to conclude his letter to the church in Ephesus he shifted his attention from what the Church at large should look like to what the Church in the home should aspire to.  He gives wives and husbands specific commands.  He tells wives to submit to their husbands and he tells husbands to sacrificially love their wives.  Both commands he links to the Church and to Christ.  Marriage is a living parable of God’s relationship with the Church.  In other words, our marriage is a testimony to the world of whom God is and who the Church is and how the two interact with each other.  The love, passion, respect and submission that takes place in marriage teaches ourselves and others about God.  More to the point, marriage is at its core a tool for evangelism.  If more and more young people inside the Church are forsaking marriage for cohabitation then we are teaching about God falsely.  God didn’t merely decide to coexist with us; He entered into a covenant with us!  He made a full-fledged commitment to us and backed it up with His blood.  His vow?  To never leave us or forsake us.  His dowry? The cross.  His guarantee?  The empty tomb.  Marriage is a powerful picture of God’s love and commitment to us.  Frankly, ‘shacking up’ just doesn’t convey the same message.

Tackling the Issue

Realizing how much is at stake, I believe we have been going about preventing the rise of cohabitation all wrong.  The Church for too long has been reactionary to this problem, and our meager efforts at being pro-active have hardly proven effective (do I really need to dig up statistics on how many purity pledges are broken?)  Our children are missing out on the Bible’s full teaching on marriage when we focus on sin-prevention and purity, and as a result they grow up not seeing the real importance of marriage.  So what do we do?  How do we educate, not only youth, but their parents about marriage?

Teach the Positives

Instead of focusing on the negatives, which many purity programs do (abstinence protects us from disease, heartache and sin, etc.) let’s stress the positives about what marriage provides.  I’ve already touched on a couple of things: a foundation for society and an evangelistic message.  There are more positives than merely these.  There is the sense of security that marriage was designed to bring.  Another positive is the level of intimacy that a Biblical marriage provides.  The sense of stability that children need to thrive and prosper is best found inside the bonds of marriage.  Marriage provides fertile ground for the next generation of Christians to grow and mature into productive disciples of Jesus.  Are there negatives aspects to forsaking marriage?  Yes, and they need to be taught as well, but let’s no let those things dominate our teaching about love and marriage.

Equip Parents

It is not the Church’s job to raise children.  That responsibility falls squarely in the laps of parents.  The excuse, ‘I brought them to church every week’ isn’t going to cut it.  Parents have more opportunities to interact with their children than anyone else, thus it is their responsibility to teach their children about the benefits of a Christ-centered marriage.  But many parents are at a loss as to how to do this.  Why?  Because their parents never taught them!  For too long the church has focused on teens with purity events and abstinence programs.  If we want to reach the kids we need to teach their parents how to talk to them about issues surrounding marriage, including sex, intimacy, expectations, etc.  Only then will we begin to make any headway in this particular battlefront.

Imitate Jesus by being ‘Full of Grace and Truth’

I love the Gospel of John.  His near mystical approach to the life of Christ has always appealed to me.  From the opening lines I find myself mesmerized, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  As you keep reading, you discover something even more miraculous, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld Him as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  I love that description of Jesus, “full of grace and truth.”  When I think about His ministry, I see evidence of both grace and truth.  The woman at the well?  Jesus offered her the grace of living water before confronting her about the truth of her cohabitation.  The woman caught in adultery?  Jesus offered her grace by forgiving her before confronting her with the truth about her love life.  If we are to reach a culture that is outside of Christ with the truth about marriage we must be willing to offer grace.  There are many single-parent homes that need the grace of Jesus if we are to teach them the truth about marriage.  The homes across America are littered with the broken pieces of marriages that did not live up to the Biblical ideal.  The last thing many of these families need are stones cast their way.  Instead, they need some living water and the assurance that they can come to Jesus, even if they are embarrassed, naked and guilty.  As I said earlier, this issue is much deeper than sins that need to be confronted; its lives that need to be restored.  I pray that by the grace of God, we restore and rebuild marriage to be what God intended it to be.

Lessons Learned this Year

It's getting to that time of year where I start looking back and seeing what I have learned over the past 12 months.  There have been dozens of books read and scores of sermons and lessons prepared and presented.  There have been nearly 60 articles written for three different blogs, including a few that were published in our brotherhood's most recognized magazine.  But what did I learn?  How did I grow?  All this productivity is for naught if I do not grow through it.  Below is a brief list of ways that I have grown and lessons that I have learned along the way.

Issues take a Backseat to People

When I look at Jesus' life and ministry I see that He constantly put the needs of people at the forefront of His ministry.  Whether it was breaking the social, racial and gender barriers by approaching a Samaritan woman a a well or by defusing the attempted execution of an adulteress caught in the act, Jesus always took the side of people over the issues.  Does this mean issues aren't important?  No.  Jesus managed to maintain a perfectly holy lifestyle and, because He's God, He had perfect doctrine.  But His adherence to truth never got in the way of Him helping those in need.  Rather, His doctrine seemed to motivate Him to help.  Remember His answer to which commandment is the greatest? 'Love God. Love People.'  His theology motivated His charity.

Too often when we look at issues, whether they be homosexuality, abortion, the existence of Hell or any other hot-button topic of the day, we get caught up in whether we are right or wrong and people become an afterthought.  I can't help but think that Jesus would turn that on it's head.  Motivated by love, He would teach the truth concerning these issues while never losing focus that there are people who bear the image of God within them who are caught up in these issues.  Sin would still be confronted, but it would be confronted from a position of love rather than a position of self-righteous condemnation.

Not Every Issue is a Hill worth Dying on.

I read an article last week about a minister in a small Wisconsin town.  The town was being sued by an atheist group to remove the nativity from the town square which was local government property.  Of course the townspeople, which are mostly Christian, are fighting back.  But this minister was very aggressive in His commentary on the matter.  "This is a hill worth dying on!" He proclaimed.  Really?  A creche display is worth dying for?  Wouldn't it be more impactful of a statement if the citizens of the town displayed the nativity in each of their lawns, OR (now this is really radical) if they all displayed Christ-like behavior on a daily basis?  I'm not saying I think the nativity should be removed, nor am I saying that I think the town is wrong for filing a counter-suit.  What I am saying is that there are things MUCH MORE important than displaying baby Jesus in the town square.  Starvation, AIDS, clean water are major issues all over the world, yet people want to get mired in a fight over a display.  Shame on BOTH sides of the issue for being so easily distracted.

The American Church Needs Jesus

I know some of you are now saying, "Come on Captain Obvious, tell us something we don't already know."  But it's true.  Too many churches are adopting business models to grow their membership.  Even more are more focused on outward appearances than inward change.  Discipleship has taken a backseat to conversion.  Oh, and by the way, these are problems that are 20-30 years old and what we are seeing is a generation of young adults totally and completely disenfranchised with the Church.  The lack of trust in big-corporations isn't limited to the occupy Wall St. crowd.  It is being applied to organized religion as well.  Young adults are more cynical than ever before, and the result is that they see through the facade of programming to the heart of the matter: do we really believe in Jesus?  If we really believe that He is God, then why don't we act more like Him?

But personal discipleship isn't the only ingredient missing in the American Church.  Fellowship, sharing one another's needs and church discipline have all taken hits.  The results have been disastrous with declining attendance numbers and stagnating churches becoming more the norm and less the exception.  If we are to recover, then we need to heed the words of Jesus to the Ephesian church and "remember our first love."  To quote Kyle Idleman, are we "fans or followers of Jesus?"  A fan lacks true involvement, whereas a follower will sacrifice anything to please the Master.

Christians Need the Church

I've met a number of people who have rejected organized religion to go on their own personal faith journey.  The idea appeals to many Americans.  We respect people who take the initiative to accomplish something by themselves.  We are a self-made country built on the backs of self-made individuals, so the person who says, "I'm doing it my way" is admired.  The problem is that this goes directly against what the Bible teaches.  Paul told the Corinthians, Romans and Ephesians that the purpose of Spiritual Gifts was to build up each other.  Hebrews tells us not to forsake gathering together.  Why?  So we can encourage one another (see Heb. 10:25).  Are there times when we need to focus on our personal walk with God? Yes!  But not at the expense of the Church.  We need the Church for purposes of accountability and encouragement, and the Church needs us and the gifts God has given to us to build up the body of Christ.  If you want to see the Church improve, contribute!

You Can't Convince Someone by Trying to Please Everyone

Everyone wants to be liked, and I'm no different.  But when you teach and preach and write about Biblical truth, there are times you must take some unpopular stances on controversial issues.  Yes, people come first, but not at the expense of truth.  The result has been a fair amount of criticism.  I decided several months ago to contribute to a controversial blog that was designed to shake up leadership within the Church by pointing out some flaws in modern church philosophy.  I got some 'hate mail' from people who were surprised that a 'conservative' like me would join forces with 'liberals' like 'them.' (Of course, those terms are so relative, that it's laughable whenever I am labeled as either conservative or liberal).  But, more than any other year, I was able to let the criticism slide because my conscience was good.  Everything between me and God was still good, so a little criticism didn't hurt as much as it had in previous years.  I doubt I could say that if I had tried to compromise for the sake of popularity.

These are just a few lesson I have learned this year.  My goal is to continue to grow and learn as God molds me into the vessel of His choosing.