Separation of Church and Neighborhood

Did you know that the unchurched population of the United States is the largest mission field in the English-speaking world and the fifth largest globally?  There seems to be a major separation between local churches and the neighborhoods they are meant to serve.  We are accustomed to speaking of the great commission, but it is the commandment that Jesus calls “great.”  The commission erupts out of the great commandment:  “Love the Lord your God with all the heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  God has given us no greater commandments than these.  Fulfilling these commands demands connecting and establishing relationships that are genuine and authentic.  When the church closes itself off to the outside world, the result is an institution rather than a movement.

The church today is not listening to the millions of desperate, but unrecognized, cries for help.  It’s as though the Christian community is not listening.  To live out the “great commandment,” we must live out our faith among our neighbors.  Who’s your neighbor?  Whoever crosses your path.  To live out our faith is to genuinely care for others—especially those far from God.  It’s not to preach to them—it’s to simply love them in the midst of their circumstances.  It’s not to judge them—it’s to extend God’s grace and be reminded that, but for the grace of God, there go I.  To love others is to see them through God’s eyes.  There’s an old saying:  “You’ve never locked eyes with another human being who isn’t loved and valued by God.” 

The measure of our spiritual health must be considered against how we treat the lost and broken of this world.  Jesus viewed a person’s claim to love God by their love for others.  This is true of us as individuals but also as communities of faith.  Jesus established his church to serve the surrounding community. Wherever a local church is established, it should be to serve as a mission outpost to meet the needs of that community, to make it better, to enrich people’s lives, and to model the love of Christ. 

For the church to separate itself from its community is to commit spiritual suicide.  There’s no life where new life isn’t being realized.  The church’s mission is great.  It is to go and share our faith and hope with as many people as possible, and this is best done when we live out the “great commandment” to love others.  Jesus Christ was not sacrificed for the sins of the church.  He was sacrificed for the sins of the world.  The church is God’s mechanism to convey that message of hope.  If there is any hope of sharing this message with a community desperately looking for answers, the church needs to learn to sacrifice for its community.  We cannot separate ourselves from our community.  Let’s get into our community and shine the light of Christ. 

Learn more at www.newlifeonline.com or follow Steve Lingenfelter on Twitter, @stevOLL. 

*reprinted from the Peoria Times

God's Not Dead

Recently, I saw the movie “God’s Not Dead.”  It’s a great movie!  A friend of mine who also saw the movie was so inspired by it, she texted her entire contact list and said “God’s not dead!”  One person replied, “Really, what’s his address?”  It’s a fair question, and there is a great answer.  In a world of over 7 billion people, there are certain identifiers that pinpoint each of us.  It’s called our address.  For example:  You are identified by the country you live in and that gets narrowed down to the state, followed by the city, zip code and then house address.  Within the house address, you are identified by name.  That address identifies you and picks you out from among everyone else in the world.  

Jesus has an address that points to him as the Son of God.  Actually, Jesus has many more identifiers that point to him than our simple address.  Let’s start with Noah. Noah had three sons, Shem, Japeth, and Ham.  Today all the nations of the world can be traced back to these three men.  The Bible says that the Messiah will come through the linage of Shem, eliminating the other two.  Continuing down to the year 2000 B.C., we find a man named Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees.  With Abraham, God gets even more specific in identifying Jesus as the Messiah.  God tells Abraham that all the nations of the world will be blessed through him.  Abraham had two sons—Isaac and Jacob.  God chose the line of Jacob.  Jacob had twelve sons, out of whom developed the twelve tribes of Israel.  God singled out the tribe of Judah for the Messiah and eliminated the other eleven.  And of all the family lines within the tribe of Judah, the line of Jesse was the divine choice.  God is narrowing it down for us.  Watch this…Jesse has eight children.  The Bible says that God chose the house of David and that He would be born of a virgin. 

Like all addresses, it begins broad and gets more and more narrow—even the house.  But what about the name?  An angel speaks to Joseph, as it is recorded in Matthew 1:21:  “You are to give Him the name Jesus.”  Step by step, the Bible clearly identifies Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

Jesus was furthered identified as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, in 1012 BC through a prophecy that stated that His hands and feet would be pierced (describing the crucifixion).  What’s interesting about that is that this description was written 800 years before crucifixion was even put into effect by the Romans. 

God’s not dead and we even have an address that pinpoints who he is.  There is no mistaking that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world.  God’s not dead--He’s surely alive!

Learn more at www.newlifeonline.com or follow Steve Lingenfelter on Twitter, @stevOLL.

*reprinted from the Peoria Times

An Easter Prayer

After we have celebrated Easter and the greatest gift offered to mankind - a resurrected Savior who offers salvation to all - what do we do now? What should we do with the knowledge that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was resurrected, just as he said he would?

Of course, the first thing is to accept the gift offered. Praying a prayer of repentance and acceptance enjoins us with God, so much so that he calls us his children.

As children of God, we now have a new potential for higher living. However, the sad and disappointing truth is that many children of God never live to the level of their potential. It’s like they pray a prayer to receive Christ and the gift of salvation offered, but then disconnect. The power to live to the level God desires for us is through the power of prayer. Many of us are living below our potential simply because we are not tapping into the power source of life.

I heard someone once describe it this way: It’s as though God has prepared an incredible banquet for them, and they are sitting in the corner with a bologna sandwich. The problem is that they don’t want to risk giving up the familiar sandwich for the promise of the banquet.

It’s like saying, “Okay, I know I am saved and going to heaven, but I’m going to stay right here until then.”

An Easter prayer is meant to be just the beginning, not the end. Prayer changes us by drawing us closer to God. Even well before the first Easter, David understood prayer’s power as a mechanism to change us.

One of David’s famous prayers was: “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

Living to our potential means that we meet God in prayer. I believe in the old adage, “No Prayer, no power!” When our heart intersects with the heart of God, we are changed. We become more Christ-like. We begin to see things through God’s eyes rather than our own. We see people as God sees them.

That means that we become less judgmental and more loving toward others. We begin to see our circumstances through the lens of what God is doing in our life. We rise above our circumstances rather than being engulfed by them.

The Easter story is about a resurrected life. God’s desire is to resurrect in us new life. We don’t have to wait for heaven to enjoy an incredible relationship with God. Through prayer, we can encounter God and have the confidence that our life has meaning and purpose, because we know that he is leading and guiding our steps.

An Easter prayer has the power to elevate your earthly experience and align it with the God who paid it all for you.

Learn more at www.newlifeonline.com or follow Steve Lingenfelter on Twitter, @stevOLL.

*reprinted from the Peoria Times

Is Church a Destination?

How would you answer that question? After all, we talk all the time about “going to church,” or we talk about our church as the place “we attend.”

It sounds like a destination to me, but is that the way it is supposed to be? The American church has become very destination focused. It’s all about what church you attend. We’ve been lulled into believing that simply attending church is “doing church.”

The church is really more like an airport. Imagine an airport jammed full of people and planes sitting idle on the tarmac. It has the look of success, but is anybody really going anywhere? Airports are to transport people from one place to another - that’s their mission. If planes aren’t taking off full of people, the airport isn’t really functioning like an airport is supposed to.

Like an airport, the church is a connection hub intended to help people reach their destination. The church itself is not the destination. It is the vehicle God designed to move people.

The uphill battle in this is shifting our thinking away from seeing church as a destination to seeing the church as a movement. It is so easy for a church to fall prey to thinking they are successful just because they are attracting a lot of people. Remember, like an airport, the church should not be seen as the destination but as the vehicle to get somewhere. The church has been commissioned by God for an incredible mission. That mission is about sending people out, not holding onto them.

The church was never intended to be a container. It is designed and intended to be a sending mechanism that serves the needs of the local community and the world. It’s through sending that we bring the light of Christ into focus for all to see so that those served praise our Father in heaven. It is then that a person is more open to hear the good news of the Gospel because they’ve seen it in action through the members of the church who were sent out.

The church serves as a very important hub of connection. I like to say, “We gather to teach so we can scatter to reach.” Gathering and connecting is important, but it should not become the end-all. Leveraging the power of connection for the sake of missional accomplishment is vitally important. However, we must guard against becoming satisfied with simply gathering.

A church that doesn’t exercise the Great Commission is like a person who doesn’t exercise at all. Pretty soon their weight becomes a problem, they start feeling lethargic, and the excitement of life is gone.

Can you imagine churches committing to serve the needs of people outside their walls, refusing to be simply a holding tank for people and, instead, becoming a real missional force in their community and the world? It can happen, but we must change our thinking about church as a destination.

Learn more at www.newlifeonline.com or follow Steve Lingenfelter on Twitter, @stevOLL.

*reprinted from the Peoria Times

Let's Keep It Civil

I remember the day as if it was yesterday. It was a hot summer afternoon. I had received a call the evening before from a couple needing some help dealing with a conflict issue.

I asked them if it would work for me to stop by and visit with them the next day to help them work through their issue. So, here I am driving into their neighborhood and, not being familiar, I was watching closely for their house number. As I got closer to the house with their numbered address, I noticed neighbors gathered outside. Remember, it’s a hot summer afternoon.

“What are they doing?” I wondered.

As I got closer, I noticed they were focused on the house I was going to. I still didn’t get it. It wasn’t until I turned off the engine and opened my car door that I got it. The screaming coming from this house was loud and aggressive sounding. As I headed to the door, the people standing around just looked at me. I could see it in their faces; they were thinking, “Are you crazy? Only a crazy man would go in there!”

Well, that’s me and here I was. I knocked on the door but, of course, they couldn’t hear me over their yelling. I proceeded to pound on the door when all of a sudden it went quiet. In just a few short seconds later, they greeted me at the door with smiles on their faces and acted as though nothing had happened.

I’ve learned a lot since that time about conflict and helping couples work through the issues that pop up in a civil way. In the book of Ephesians, chapter four and verses 25 to 32, we get some great help in how to handle conflict in a civil way. Let me just outline the main ideas gleaned from this passage.

First, be committed to honesty and mutual respect. It’s amazing how a commitment to keeping it honest and mutually respecting each other can shape a conflict for the better.

Second, attack the problem, not the person. Too often, we attack each other rather than the actual problem.

Third, agree to a time that is right to discuss the issue. Forcing a conversation at the wrong time usually only leads to a bigger conflict.

Fourth, keep it positive. Be part of the solution. Offer positive solutions to the problem.

Fifth, keep it tactful. When the voices elevate, it’s a sign that the timing is not right. This is a principle that the couple I mentioned should have practiced.

Sixth, keep it private. Don’t put your dirty laundry out for all to see. Keeping it private is a form of respect.

Lastly, clean up the mess. It’s important to end it well. This involves extending and receiving forgiveness.

Handling conflict civilly can be accomplished if we’ll just apply the steps the Bible outlines for us. Let’s keep it civil.

Learn more at www.newlifeonline.com or follow Steve Lingenfelter on Twitter, @stevOLL.

*reprinted from the Peoria Times