If we become aware but not take action we waste time.
Action is the next obvious step. What should be done? What can be done? Our church will host a follow-up discussion on Sunday night the 18th at 6pm to grapple with these very issues.
In the same way we have spent the better part 6 months to discuss the problems with religion and the state of the church today. We have become well aware of the problems that surround us in the church and its effect. We feel it. We live it. We know it.
We are aware. Now what?
I would like for us to spend the next six months investigating and discussing ways of bringing back relational religion rather than regulatory religion. Religion is not wrong. We have been wired to desire God. We are called to worship and serve God. He established the church. Religion is a part of our following God but it must be relational.
This will feel a lot like taking tea and making it water again, but it can, and should, be done. Let's begin with Biblical principles.
- Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your being.
- Jesus then said to love your neighbor as your self.
Both of these involve love. I have grown up in an environment of regulatory religion where anyone with a problem should "have more faith". Although the sermon would convey that God accepts us as we are, the church members would not. I believe that God demands differently. I believe that God desires relational religion. If we are to love God with all of our being and love our neighbor than why do we judge and condemn? Are we lacking in self-esteem so greatly that we cannot accept others as God does? If God loved us enough to die for us, does that not, in some way, increase our esteem to a level that we can finally accept ourselves? Can we not, then, learn to love others so that we can help them become what God wants?
How should the two great commandments translate into an ongoing relational religion experience?
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Aaron - Just a thought. Jesus stated these principles in a definite order. For us to love and care for others as God does, we must first be immersed in an intimate love relationship with Him. Only then can we see others as He sees them. And once we see others as He sees them, we can relate to each other in a truly Christ-like manner.
ReplyDeleteI agree. In studying the contrast between relational and regulatory religion we see vast differences. In a regulatory religious setting we behave from personal opinion more than Biblical counsel. We find it easy to condemn, judge, rationalize, and justify our prejudices. We want, in the NAME of ministry, to help that family out by giving them clothes to have something to wear to church. What is wrong with what they have? Are they going to feel uncomfortable because of our glares and stares? If they come in the best they have isn't that at the heart of the worship? Now, if we want to love them and provide for clothing needs that they have for school and work and to maintain, or progress a little then we move toward relational religion. James told us that true religion is to help the widows and orphans. I believe there is more to that than simply the literal widow and orphan. We care for those who have no one. We care for those who need love, nurture, and support. The lonely, needy, helpless soul who needs Jesus and a hot meal.
ReplyDeleteRelational religion conducts itself out of the outpouring of God's love through us because of our relationship with Him.
Aaron, the difference between regulatory and relational religion goes back to the key difference between Christianity and all other religious practices. In my studies, Christianity is the only religion that believes man to be basically evil with nothing at all that he can do about the situation. All others see man as basically good and has the ability to get better. If we understand that man is basically good and can get better, the focus is on ourself. With Christianity, we can focus on the needs of others because someone (God through Christ) has already taken care of our needs and made us into a new creation. Instead of focusing our energies on self-improvement, we can focus on and see others as they are. Or we should be able to do this. And there lies the problem. We, as believers, have all we need to focus on others and not ourselves. Then why don't we?
ReplyDeleteThis is my point.
ReplyDeleteIf we examine the "discipleship" movement the last two decades we find nothing more than self-help and pop-psych. How to get over your grief, your divorce, your crazy kids. While these are great helps to use for outreach, they are not for spiritual growth. The church growth movement has positioned itself in such a way as to create the hunger for more new warm bodies without regard to developing the ones we already have. Reach new people through the shallow waters of self-help and discovery but purposefully move them on in to deeper waters. What I have seen is that we "develop" people out of those classes to be leaders of more of the same without actually giving leadership development and spiritual nourishment.
I believe we have become little more than your usual recovery group that feeds off of the war stories without giving hope of ever being recovered. By all means, help people through the crises of life but FEED MY LAMBS as Jesus said.
Relational religion would take a big picture approach and make sure all cylinders are firing.