How Deep Do You Plant A Church?

“When the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy;

when the Romans got it, they turned it into a government;

when the Europeans got it, they turned it into a culture;

and when the Americans got it, they turned it into a business.”

―Biblical Scholar, Dr. Richard Halverson

There's many reasons to plant a new church here in North America. The number one reason I hear is that the need to plant churches is from Jesus' essential call to plant churches. First of all, there is no essential call from Jesus to plant churches, secondly there's only one church - the church that Jesus built, the one we call the Body of Christ

I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. (Matthew 16:18)

Jesus didn't plant a church in a suburban neighborhood alongside four other churches, and he didn't insist that the lead guitarist become the worship leader for each congregation, He said (and put my first point in motion):

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19)

To start let's look at four very important words here and then we'll circle back to planting churches. Those words are Church, Hades, Disciples, and Nations. Church is not a building where the worship band has their light show and kicks off their concert series, it is not a series of buildings that funnel money to the denomination head office. The word that Jesus spoke we translated to 'church' is ekklēsia (ἐκκλησία) and that means "a group of people". Jesus could very easily have said "I will build my team" and maybe that's what He really did say. Let's go with that: Church = Team because Jesus sure didn't mean "Let's put up something with decent acoustics in the auditorium and plenty of office space."

How Does One React?

How does one react when you disagree with the a portion of a sermon? I'm not talking about a terrifying utterance of blasphemy, nor am I suggesting a honorific shriek of heresy so vile that Satan would rub his hands together in glee. Think of a disagreement with congregational policy that could never be construed as either biblical or unbiblical and hardly even political. It's just policy.

One might consider sitting down with the pastor for a little one-on-one time after hearing the entire sermon. Yes, the offending portion was spoken in a very Spurgeonesque manner (if I may coin a phrase) but could you tone down the passion a bit? My brother in law helped write that policy and my wife is quite upset, can you believe it? She actually thought it was a personal attack on her brother and... you'll talk to her about it? Thank you Pastor Ralph.

That's one way to handle it, another way would be to jump up interrupting the sermon, wave your bible in the air, attempt to make an impassioned but incorrect biblical connection between the policy and one of the Apostles, then storm out of the service, start arguing with the security people in the foyer so loudly that it disturbed people in the sanctuary, burst back into the sanctuary to express your displeasure, shout at the pastor's wife while you block her exit from an office, then at home start shooting off a barrage of emails to the church board members showing an unhealthy level of denial and anger, then resign from the church board, then rescind your resignation from the church board, and then it gets worse.

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Sorry I'm late - I've been sick all week, then heading here to Random Bits I got trapped by one of those self titled "Christian Anarchists". There's no such thing as a Christian Anarchist, it's like calling yourself a Meateating Vegan, or a Conservative Marxist or an Intellectual Admirer of AOC.

That's when I started coughing up little blobs of blood. I sent a note (and a pic of said blood blob) to Dr. Awesome who ordered me to report to St. Joe's ER, which I did. It turns out that '\my being "sick all week" wasn't bronchitis as ER visit #1/2019 told me, or C-DIF (which ER visit #2/2019 thought) but ER visit #3/2019 said it was pneumonia. yuk 😰

And there I go, mentioning Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm tempted to get all political here but I mustn't. On one hand, I'm a rail-fan, I love trains and her plan to replace airplanes with trains just warms my heart. I would love to take a train trip from Denver to Italy. But she has moved away from her initial Green New Deal Plan #9 From Outer Space silliness (I guess some people actually thought she was serious) and she has moved on to her actual agenda: dethroning God

However that's the tip of the rapidly growing iceberg, in Random Bits last week I mentioned a "goddess" that's running for president. This woman is not a goddess, she's not a guru, she's not a high priestess, what she is is Scary Dangerous. On with the show...

Abortion, hypnotism, astrology, augury, omen reading, necromancy, spell casting, seeking spiritual direction through natural phenomenon… is it any wonder that God Hates The Occult? part 2, part 3

Former first lady Hillary Clinton is defending the world wild human right to Kill The Babies!

What if Mormon missionaries told the truth about their religion?

What if Mormon missionaries told the truth about their religion?
by Matt Slick

If Mormon missionaries came to your door and told the absolute truth about their religion, how many people would really believe that? What if the Mormon missionaries had a dialogue that went something like this...

Knock Knock.

The door opens.

"Hello, we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And we want to tell you about the restored gospel. You see, after the apostles died, the church fell into apostasy. But God in his loving mercy restored the true gospel to Joseph Smith in the early 1800s. We bear our testimony to you that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true, restored church. All other churches are false.  Furthermore, we testify to you that, through heavenly Father's restored church, you have the ability, with the restored priesthood, by keeping commandments, and tithing, to reach godhood.  We want you to know Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that God was once a man on another world and by keeping the laws and ordinances of His God, he was able to reach the status of God himself. He, and his wife, now live in the heavenly realm and we are all their literal offspring born in the pre-existence before we came to this world. Our goal is to honor God by keeping his commandments, by going to the temple and receiving the tokens, and baptizing people for the dead, so that on the day of judgment we might become gods ourselves."

The man of the house stares back at the two young missionaries.  "Become gods?"

"Yes, you can become a God if you join our church, pay a full 10% tithe of your income to the church, and keep celestial law.  You can then call your wife forth and she will assist you as a goddess in populating your own planet."

The man's eyebrows can't rise any further, though he seemed to try.  "Goddess wife?"

"Yes sir, as you would be a God, she would be your wife and you and your family could stay together forever in heaven."

The man stares at the young men...for a while....not sure how to respond to all of that.

"Would you like a Book of Mormon?"

"What is this Book of Mormon?"

"The Book of Mormon is another Testament of Jesus Christ.  It was revealed to Joseph Smith who restored the true church when he was given golden plates by the Angel Moroni. Joseph translated the golden plates by the authority of God when he put a seer stone in a hat, he put his face in the hat, and then God gave him the translation of the reformed hieroglyphics that were on those gold plates."

After a few more seconds of staring, the man lowers his eyebrows and asks, "Hieroglyphics?  You mean Egyptian hieroglyphics?

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Welcome to LentFest 2019! the annual tradition where Roman Catholics, Psudo Catholics, and Fallen Catholics play their annual game of My Sacrifice Is Greater Than Yours. Some give up chocolate (my mom's favorite sacrifice), others give up alcohol (my uncles always gave up hard liquor which was probably not that hard because none of them drank hard liquor, but between the three of them they would put away 2 cases of beer a day) I tended to give up riding my bike (which wasn't that hard because Buffalo is a slush covered morass during Lent) I personally am giving up Lent for Lent, which is kind of difficult because I sooo love a good fish fry on Lenten fridays (but logic dictates that if I give up Lent I can have a friday fish fry any day I want)

So why not give up something that everyone loves and let's join our Catholic brothers and sisters in this: let's give up Sin. Let's quit rebelling against God. We love sin so much that God had to send His son down here to walk a few hundred miles in our shoes to show us that a sin free life can be led, then he let himself be killed so our sins were forgiven through Father's grace. I know we want to see Jesus, but I think it will be less traumatic to see Him in His house rather than see Him in His second advent down here.

Are the Roman Catholic Holy Days of Obligation Biblical?

Mr. Pope goes full AOC

Mr. Pope’ top financial adviser and the Vatican’s economy minister convicted of molesting 2 choirboys. Pray for the surviving victim (one of his targets killed himself with heroine)

United Methodist Church upholds biblical position against homosexuality, same-sex marriage

Schism feared after United Methodist Church's narrow vote to retain gay bans

The "Goddess" that is running for president