Why did she say No? and "Pop-Culture Church"

Things have been somewhat busy lately. I haven't written in some time however and feel the need to do so today to share some of the things going on in my life recently... while they may be a scattering of different things.

-First I want to share something that is an ever-present reminder of the redeeming nature of God's salvation. I think I've mentioned in an earlier entry that it's been a blessing to have helped mentor a friend of mine in high school as he shares his faith in that the public school. I mentioned how it's a blessing to (in a way) be able to be a part in reaching out to the public high school through him when I never had that opportunity. I was still far from God then. In that sense and a more general one, we sang a song today in church that just magnified the grace of God and His work in my life. In Chris Tomlin's (not Hillsong's) song, "This is Our God" a few words in the first verse really captured this for me...

"He will wipe away your tears and return your wasted years. This is our God."

I think of all those years I could reached out to those in my midst if I had been saved at an earlier age. I think about how I could have begun my growth process in Christ and perhaps be even closer to Him now than I am... if only I were saved then. The beautiful thing about the Lord is that He "returns our wasted years" however. I won't get those exact years back, but God has used me to reach out to them in other ways. Beyond that, He will continue to use me where He has me now in ways I may never know until I get to heaven. This is our God.

-For general updates... school is going well enough. Grades are alright. I'm keeping up with classes somewhat sufficiently. I have a big paper due next Monday on identifying the 24 elders of Revelation. I was recently given Halo for the computer and have since beaten it and sometimes play the online internet Halo games. It has been a small distraction, but I suspect boredome with it will soon surface. Speaking of boredome... it has combined with frustration to help choose to stop going to the gym regurlarly. It was becoming boring to go. I wasn't going with anyone and couldn't even develop a consistent enough time to do that anyway. One Saturday was the catalyst for me however. On Saturdays they close at 4pm and the locker room is closed off also due to the basketball games they frequently hold. this causes one to either come dressed in workout clothes (which is often too cold for me to want to do) OR change in the restroom. I trek up to the restroom only to find that the only stall in the men's room was occupied. That did it. I left and haven't looked back. I suppose what will seal the deal is when I start wearing my workout shoes on the street. It hasn't happened yet however... pray for me? lol. I've also began reading a chapter each week on Sunday mornings from Alistair Begg and Derek Prime's book, "On Being a Pastor." I'm on chapter 5 and have been very encouraged by this book. This week the chapter spoke about the role of prayer in the life of the pastor's personal life and as he relates to those he shepherds. A good reminder for me as I often don't give prayer the attention it deserves in many cases.

-Another item that comes to my intention in writing this blog is the Junior/Senior Banquet here at Moody. For the longest time my roommate has been threatening to set me up with someone. He may still do so. The banquet is such that we pay for it in our school bill whether we go or not. So I say then, why not go? My initial thought was to think to see if there is anyone would be best to ask on a date for such an event. Some people go in groups, some alone, and others... with dates. Obviously this can be as friends or in an actual relationship or as something that may lead to an actual relationship. All that being said, I don't talk to many people and I hardly have anything close to a social circle. I'm a homeworkaholic who stays in his room. This limited my "candidates" if you will to ask to this banquet. My roommate and I have been bouncing names off eachother... I don't really know the ladies he's referring to and he pretty much knows all the ones I have referred to. So... the list is rather short.

It came down to someone he recommended who I've yet to have any real conversation with and a friend I've had in a few classes who carries a personality that (in my estimation) is one that seeks humility. The more I think about what I find most attractive in a woman... the more I begin to eliminate fickle preferences of personal appearance, any other external factors, or even my own hobby horses that I wish every woman would agree with me about, but what it seems to come back to for me is that I want a woman who has a sincere desire in seeking after patience with people and humility before God. The rest flows out of these things for me. So beyond those two choices, it broke down to those I know a little less and have had fewer meaningful interactions with and beyond that... no one. I tend to have fewer close friendships and much less acquaintances. The trouble is... I have VERY few close friendships and even fewer of those are with women. I planned twice to meet and talk to the former of the two ladies and God didn't allow that to happen. SO... yesterday I met with the latter of these two and asked her out. It's been probably 3 years or more since I've asked someone out and at least 2 years since I've been on a date. The Lord was with me in boldness however as my heart beat heavily in my chest. I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that beating around the bush with these things is simply a waste of time and emotions. If I'm gonna say it... I need to just say it. And I did. 

Now... of all the answers that could be given for a question like this (Yes, No-I'm not interested in you, No-I'm interested in someone else, No-I'm dating someone else, No-I'm married)... there's one I would have NEVER expected. It came out to be No-I'm called to singleness. Now I've only met about 2 people in my Christian life that could say the same so this was certainly a surprise to say the least. Apparently my roommate says this answer is not so uncommon, especially among women who desire to do mission work. I told her I wholeheartedly respect her decision to devote her life to pleasing God and I would certainly keep her in prayer. I sat back in my chair yesterday afternoon and simply laughed. I looked up to the heavens and laughed in astonishment at the sometimes ironic nature of God's sovereignty. I've devoted much time to praying that if there's too much of me in "finding a date" that God would shut it down before I have a chance to mess it up further and tear into an old category of emotional wounds. I've often rested purely on God's sovereignty and timing when it comes to the thought of my future wife. Does this mean I am to continue waiting? More immediately... does this mean I am to go alone to JSB? Should I find a friend to go with me instead? Should I find an acquaintance? To these questions I yet have no answer.

The reality remains that registration is at the end of this week. What shall I do? What shall I do, indeed? My roommate suggest I continue to search. Part of me wants to and part of me does not. I'm not here to find a wife but to study God's Word. That has always been my first priority. My roommate says at the very least I should keep my eyes open... that I will do, while casually. My friendship with the latter young lady will continue unchanged on my end. I praise God there are absolutely no hard feelings and hopefully no awkwardness. Things are cool. This morning at church God also reminded me of His watchful eye and workings in my life as we happened to sing Blessed Be Your Name as the last song. The last time that song had significance for me was when I came to the restful realization of sovereign God's hand after my last breakup a couple years ago. I'll never forget the words in the chorus of that song, "He gives and takes away. He gives and takes away. [So] my heart will choose to say, blessed be Your name!" He certainly does give and take away, doesn't He? And sometimes He even prevents. I cannot forget this truth. It's as if God reminded me of His own sanctifying work in my life to show me that last time this song comforted me it was in a spirit of utter despair and emotional collapse. This time however it comforts me in a spirit of pure rejoicing that God knows what He is doing and that my longings are not unknown to Him. My desires are not foreign to Him... afterall I've made them known to Him more times than I can count. No, there's no need to worry Joseph. There's no need to analyze. I laugh to myself. I am so small and God is so big. It's only by His sanctification that I find myself more joyful that one of His children has decided to devote her life to Him and not to some man. This brings joy... because it's all orchestrated by God's capable hands. May the Lord bless your ministry my prayerful sister in Christ...

-Something else I want to discuss is that I've been greatly encouraged by the comments of Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book, "Preaching and Preachers" written in the 70's. One of the things he spoke of was when he visited a church once and the preacher was doing a series on Jeremiah. He was speaking on the text where Jeremiah could refrain no longer but had a "fire in his bones." Lloyd-Jones said the one thing that was entirely missing in that service was "fire." He said of the preacher, "the good man was speaking about fire as if he were sitting on an iceberg." I love it! Another thing Lloyd-Jones often rants about is the nature of how contemporary for my lack of a better word the church had become in his day. While he comes from a "high-church" Presbyterian perspective and I don't agree with everything he speaks about, there's something to be said about this aspect he portrays in his book. We would do well to pay attention to see if we as a Church universal and church local are becoming more than Paul's "all things to all men so that some might be saved" than Paul intended or expected to happen in our day. 

There is constant pressure these days on church leaders and pastors to adopt methodologies, develop programs, run the church like a well-oiled corporate machine, and perhaps more prevalent and yet along those lines... to bring this empty, advertisement-oriented, trendy set of  offerings of spiritual growth to people. These come in the form of "the next big thing" in "your Christian life." When I was new to the faith I remember this all too well. A church would announce the next 6-week series of Bible studies and say something like, "THIS will CHANGE... YOUR... LIFE." They would play a clip in the main service from a pre-packaged DVD small group Bible study set with some kind and promised results for those who attend. Or they would mail out somethig to the surrounding community about it and call this outreach. Results are promised seemingly without consideration of how God may or may not work in the individual lives of the people who may or may not attend. Perhaps you go and are blessed by the "study." Perhaps you go and have to sift through mediocre teaching from some mega-church pastor who is so far removed from your situation (often in another zipcode) that you wonder how the group leader can simply push a play button and ask discussion questions without ever opening the Bible (themself) and teaching with any reasonable depth of exegetical insight or application that is birthed out of knowing those to whom they minister. Even that though says you sifted and got something from the experience. Or perhaps you had the experience I often had... you came to hear and discuss things you already knew with perhaps different words, maintaining your routine until you finally admitted to yourself you were simply let down, left unchanged, and based how good it was on anything but you actually learning truth and the Holy Spirit speaking through that truth.

A friend of mine termed this "Pop-Culture Church." I think that's rather fitting. This could also come out in something the pastor promotes or emphasizes you to do with the same promise of growth. Sometimes it's worded in guilt-trippy phrases like, "you should only do this if you want to grow closer to God. If you don't want to grow closer to God, don't do this." This causes the faithful church member or attendee to come up to the front and grab their free devotional, their I AM LOVED pin, or who knows whatever else it may be and sit back down thus accomplishing what appears to be success in the eyes of the leadership and causes them to write about it in their newsletter, the pastor perhaps piously but subtly brags about it when speaking at other churches and with other pastors only for them to modify it or adopt it in their church because it works... right? This also comes in the form of vision statements that seem to change every few months and be forgotten or even annually to be shelved and probably re-used and/or re-packaged years later. I look at all this and shake my head in utter dismay wanting to stand up in my seat and read Ecclesiastes in a street preacher's voice until we get the point or I'm thrown out. It's all meaningless. Christ did not commission the apostles so that Christian leaders could ignore their example and become eloquent businessmen that carry a Bible, but to "give [their] attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word" (Acts 6:4). The apostles did not establish the church so it could become the latest set of Super Bowl commercials with a Christian logo at the bottom right corner in the smallest font, but so that they would "devote themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42). It's that simple! We don't need more than that! We need more OF that! 

May God help the church today and may He instill such a high view of Himself in us and in whatever ministry to which He has called us so that we may fall to our knees and repent before our High Priest and Great Shepherd who says He wants His people taught and built up... He wants the gospel proclaimed in no-nonsense clarity... and He wants us to seek Him in prayer as we do it.

Lord help Your Church today!