thechurchblog

You’ve all seen them – beautiful, intricate, painstakingly hand-crafted ships in bottles. They reflect the skill and talent of their craftsman, and not just anybody can build them. But as anybody who has seen one being built, or has tried to build one on their own knows, you don’t build the ship inside the bottle, you design it, fabricate it, and perform much of the detailed finish work outside the bottle. You then fold it up, squeeze it through the opening, pull the magic string, and “poof!” your ship snaps into place. Once this is done, the only way to get the ship out of the bottle is to break the bottle.

Is this a fitting analogy for how churches are built in America these days?
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Justus writes:
“I’d like to suggest “Great Commission Companies: The Emerging Role of Business in Missions” (InterVarsity Press, 2003) as a book that gives the church several new options in expanding her influence. ”

“This book highlights several different companies and describes their types, including a furniture/handicrafts manufacturing company based in Central Asia, a Real Estate company started by a church to augment their missions financing, and the Pure Vida coffee company.”
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After dinner a couple of nights ago, we played five-hand Hearts together with the family. I decided to be nice to my mother-in-law and not pass her the Queen of Spades (which is 13 points against whoever gets it at the end of the hand, for those non-Heart players). Her response was classic – “Thanks! You have my eternal praise and gratitude – for awhile, at least.” I followed up with, “Great. Now I know how God feels!”
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From CNN.com:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A split Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments displays in courthouses Monday, ruling that two exhibits in Kentucky cross the line between separation of church and state because they promote a religious message.
(Read the rest of the article – external link)

It’s official – the Ten Commandments are now “relatively true” in America, not absolute. Of course, we’ve known that for some time. Will we continue to lower our standards as a nation to the point where even the consequences of theft and murder are minimized or eliminated? Hey – if it can happen to adultery. . .

How can The Church do a better job of being truth in the world we live in? After all, our morals as a society largely came from the church in the first place. Are we so “out of the loop” in America as to have no influence at all anymore? (Incidentally, the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t apply to displaying the Ten Commandments at state capitols.)
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From the Arizona Daily Sun:
” MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — The police force in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez will receive spiritual training in an effort to discourage corruption and remind them that a higher power is watching their actions, officials said.

“We’re doing this to avoid corruption, by reminding them that there is a God watching them,” Valdez said last week.
(Read the rest of the article – external link)

I don’t know if Juarez is more violent than any other town along the border, but it is an interesting approach to combating police corruption (Juarez is only 40-miles from where we live in Southern New Mexico). I wonder what the emphasis in “spiritual sensitivity” is going to be – consequences for wrong actions, compassion, justice? Will the “Emerging Church” have an opportunity in this here in America – either formally or informally?
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We’re looking for people to help write articles for thechurchblog. If you feel you have something to say about the “Emerging Church,” church planting, evangelism, missions, worship, God’s glory, etc. – send it in. Follow the link at the very top of the homepage to find out more.

Of all the promises in the Bible, I think Psalm 37:4-6 is my favorite.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
Psalm 37:4-6 (NIV)

As a worship leader, I want my “cause” to flourish. That is, I want to be able to lead people to worship the Lord in the services I help with – every time we meet. I want them to experience a personal encounter with Jesus as if He were in the room with us. However, I sometimes get too caught up in that aspect of worship – and I end up focusing on the crowd rather than the Lord. Worse than that, I want to be the one to do this. I want to be the one people come to after the service and say, “That worship REALLY moved me. You are SO awesome, Dave. Wow – how do you do it every week?” Even as I type it, I know how ridiculous that sounds.
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From The University of Chicago Hospitals Website:
“The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University of Chicago and published (early online) in the July 2005 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults. Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.”

So doctors are people, too. It is interesting that most people agree that doctors are scientists, yet scientists are almost universally labeled as “non-religious.” I was once corrected after referring to myself as a scientist on a popular web-community website. I was told that as a Christian, I could be “scientific” but not a “scientist.”
Read more – outside link.

From a recent article in ChristianityToday.com:
“Short-term mission trips to foreign countries are the biggest trend to hit the evangelical Christian outreach scene since vacation Bible school. Between 1 million and 4 million North American Christians reportedly participated in STMs in 2003, and the number keeps rising.”
“Praises and critiques of the trend tend to be proportionately extreme, touting STMs either as miraculous recruiters of long-term missionaries or insidious sowers of third-world dependency.”
“But a new study, to which I contributed the literature review, suggests both sides are off the mark.”

This article uses dollars as the primary measure of missions effectiveness, although there is some mention of the quality of relationships (or lack thereof) resulting from the missions trips. What are your experiences in the world of missions?
Read more – outside link.