Thoughts on the Decrease of Emphasis on "Not Being Judgmental"

We don't talk about "being judgmental" anymore. I just realized it this morning. Not being judgmental used to be a huge talking point for Christians, but it seems like the phrase has gone out of use recently. There used to be a huge emphasis on not being judgmental in Christian communities, but I haven't heard anyone talk about it in a long time. It could be that the Christian lingo has simply changed in the last few years, but I think that the relation between the church and those outside the church has shifted a bit, making talk of being judgmental somewhat obsolete.

It would be helpful to first define what it means to be judgmental. My definition is as follows - deliberately fingerpointing at other people's sins while being unapologetically hypocritical. Being "judgemental" goes beyond a declaration of both general and specific sin - it is characterized by the pride of the "Thanks God I'm not like that sinner" kind of attitude. Being judgemental inherently stems from a prideful, self-righteous, hypocritical attitude.

[I also think I need to take a quick moment to point out that people can feel judged, even when Christians aren't being judgmental. This is a huge topic and I could spend a lot of time talking about it, but in this post, I'm primarily addressing the decrease of exhortations to Christians by Christian leadership to be "less judgmental".]

The following are two possible reasons for the decline in talk of being judgmental.

1) The church has become less "judgmental".
No, I don't think that the church struggles less with pride and self-righteousness than in the past. Those are human problems that will never go away until eternity, but I do think that the church has shifted attitudes in two key areas in the increasingly secular environment, as described below.

The church has taken greater ownership of its past failures and present brokenness.
In my opinion, the eyes of Christians everywhere have been opened to the brokenness of the church and church leaders are finally admitting to being personally broken. Gone is the idea and the ideal that all Christians are morally upstanding people with perfect marriages. Gone is the illusion that being a Christian will fix your life. Gone is the myth that church leaders are less prone to temptation and sin than their members. As Christians, we've been hit in the face with the reality of the despicable actions by countless pedophile priests and the secret sins of evangelical pastors everywhere. We can no longer pretend that the church is a bunch of holy people led by even more holy ministers. Similarly, we can also no longer deny the historical atrocities of the church. As Christians, we've been taught and forced to confront the failings of the church in the past - the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch hunt, and the list goes on and on. More than ever, I think that Christians are forced to recognize and admit the brokenness of the church, dispelling a bit of the previously assumed self-righteousness for being a Christian.

The church has become tolerant, accepting, and sometimes even supportive of sin.
The decline in the seriousness towards sin is so obvious, I don't need to write much to convince anyone of it. The word "sin" itself has become taboo in churches, Christian music, and evangelism techniques all around the country. "Christians" living in licentiousness is almost the norm, and non-Christians can find churches to attend where they are comfortable for the simple reason that the people they see in church are living similar lives to the ones that they live. And then there are the churches far out in left-field encouraging the practice of what the Bible calls sin and even ordaining ministers that unabashedly, unrepentedly practice those sins. However, as easy as it is to pinpoint and blame the liberal, mainline church, we evangelicals are also very guilty for downplaying the seriousness of sin. How often do I find myself euphemising sin in conversation and evangelism with more user-friendly words like "struggle" or "brokenness"! How rare is it to hear contemporary Christian music that properly addresses the wretchedness of the human condition!

2) The objection to the church is much deeper.

In the past, most people agreed generally with the values of the church, but I think that now more than ever we see a divergence between the beliefs of the religious and non-religious. Where it seems like a few years ago, the complaint mainly was on how things were preached, but now it's about what is preached. We have seen the progression from "Practice what you preach, then maybe I will" to "Practice what you preach, but don't expect others to" to finally where I think it is now - "What you preach is wrong." No longer do you need to be carelessly insensitive or obnoxiously self-righteous about your beliefs to offend - simply holding certain beliefs is enough to be cause offense. For example, the mere suggestion, no matter how gentle and loving, that homosexuality is a sin is enough to offend and turn people away. The declaration of the universality of sin itself is considered a needlessly self-deprecating way of making people feel bad about themselves.

When others think that it is simply wrong to believe what you believe and the resentment goes beyond the presentation of your beliefs to the core of your worldview, most talk about being judgmental is moot. People feel judged not simply because of how you act or what you say, but what you believe.

"There is no higher testimony to their fidelity than for the servants of God to evoke the rancour and hostility of the reprobate." - A.W. Pink

In a way, I'm glad that we've started to realize as a church that it is impossible to sugar-coat sin, as Christians have been attempting to do for some time now. We've begun to see just how offensive the gospel really is to those who do not believe. I truly believe that it isn't long before Christians will be not only scorned, but hated for stating their beliefs on sin. Christians in our generation don't know yet what it means to be hated for their beliefs, but I genuinely believe that it won't be long before God bestows on us the privilege of suffering deep scorn and hate from the world.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree that there has been less talk of "being judgmental" in the Christian community? Do you think it's actually a real change in attitude or just simply a change in rhetoric?

"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

- John 3:19-21

"Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

- John 8:43-47

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you."
- John 15:8 

Reminder from a Jammed Pinky

"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, 
though many, are one body, so it is with Christ...

If one member suffers, all suffer together; 

if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it."

- 1 Corinthians 12

Last Sunday at pickup ultimate, I jammed my right pinky pretty bad. A picture I took of it the day after it happened is below.

My jammed pinky...look how fat it is!

I was hoping that it would heal up completely by today, but it's still a little swollen and pretty sore. And it's amazing how this impacted my entire game. It hurt a little bit catching the disc one-handed, so I tried to catch everything pancake, and had extremely low confidence and energy in getting one-handed grabs. I dropped a sweet layout that I should had. Because it was on my throwing hand, my confidence in my forehand, which already kind of sucks, also dropped. My intensity on defense which I pride myself in just wasn't there today. I think I was unwilling to stick out my hand in the fear of having it get hurt. All in all, I played a lot more lethargic than I usually play (maybe it had to do with my late night snack of pretzels and peanut butter too).

Anyone who's ever sustained any sort of sports injury knows that the injury really affects the whole person. I've sprained my ankles pretty seriously a few times, and after you sprain one ankle, the other ankle starts to get sore from the heavy load from walking. Eventually the knees start hurting too, as the body really isn't used to walking without an ankle. The weight of walking is no longer evenly distributed, and after a little bit, you really get the sense that your entire lower half is just exhausted and hurting from limping for so long.

My experiences from sprained ankles have always been how Paul's picture of the one body, many parts has been validated for me. But today, I got another great reminder that no matter how small and insignificant a part of the body may seem, when it suffers, the whole body suffers. I was really surprised at how my jammed pinky, which shouldn't affect my game that much, changed my entire play style and really dropped my level of play today. The Bible is right (surprise, surprise) that when one member of the body suffers, all the members suffer together, and I need to make more of an effort to seek out the other members of the body that may be suffering, however seemingly insignificant, and encourage them and lift them up and honor them.

Related post on ultimate (that I should update):
My One Haunting College Decision

Book Review - The Hunger Games

Hunger Games Overview
Book - The Hunger Games, $5 on Amazon, average rated 4.5/5 stars
My Rating - 3/5. An entertaining book but not worth the money.
Review in a nutshell - An entertaining but shallow and unsatisfying book of static characters and a predictable plot.

My Thoughts - Overview

I've been so excited to read Hunger Games after hearing about it for a while, and the release of the movie really pushed me over the edge, as I didn't want talk about the movie to ruin the book for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find Hunger Games on the Amazon Prime lending library, so I got to read it for free! I was surprised at how short the book was (only around 350 pages), so it didn't take long to read - around 5 hours over two days. For the most part, Hunger Games moves at an incredibly fast pace (it needs to, for such a short novel!), so it really wasn't hard to sit and read for a couple of hours. I just finished it last night, but I hate to say it, but I'm disappointed, so disappointed. I'm disappointed in, especially because of the intrigue and complexity of the premise, the utter simplicity of the plot. I was actually so disappointed that I couldn't sleep last night, just sort of fuming at how shallow and predictable the book is and imagining alternate, more exciting storylines. I know this review is overwhelmingly negative, but the book was actually enjoyable - it's just that I had much greater expectations for such a best seller. To put it into movie(ish) terms, I was expecting a book on the caliber of The Prestige, but what I got was Transformers (or any other Michael Bay film). Similar to how The Invention of Lying and Stranger than Fiction started with great premises but eroded into chickflicks, Hunger Games built up an amazing premise but eroded into a merely action book. Hunger Games is still a good book that's worth reading, but in the end, it's just intense action without a deeper plot, unconvincing characters without much personality - an entertaining book without much intellectual substance.

My thoughts are below, after this ginormous spoilers warning for anyone who hasn't yet read the book or seen the movie.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW. LIKE. TONS OF THEM. 

If you haven't already watched the movie or read the book, don't read any more of this post!!

There's so many things I can start ranting about. But I'll start with my favorite part of the book, which should set up my other points on why the book was a total letdown.

What I liked

My favorite part of the book was without a doubt Part 1 of the book, from the very beginning all the way until the beginning of the Games. Here, we get a glimpse into the crazy weird society and government that is Panem, and we see the cruel injustice of Capitol on the Districts. We learn the interesting history of the rebellion of the Districts, and we start to get the picture of how power-hungry yet insecure Capitol is. We see through Katniss' eyes the stark contrast between District 12 and Capitol - the contrast bet and how all the poverty in the Districts is really unnecessary. Like Katniss and Peeta, we start to build a real hatred for Capitol, the Careers, and even the Gamemakers, and along with Peeta, we think of a way that the tributes could possibly upset the system and bring it to destruction. I absolutely loved that the Hunger Games was clearly presented as not only a gladiator fight, but a real symbol of injustice.

What I didn't like

The Predictability
The predictability of the book is easily my top complaint against Hunger Games. The only time I was actually shocked was when Primrose's name was pulled from the orb, but after watching the trailer for the new movie, even that won't be a shock to anyone. The predictability of the story is really just a result of the over-simplicity of the plot and the lack of character development throughout the novel.

Katniss' Victory
I don't think anyone in the history of the world reading Hunger Games thought that Katniss was going to die. Not only was the book written in first person (making her death somewhat more improbable), we also know that the Hunger Games is part of a trilogy, making Katniss' death even more improbable. When you're reading a book about a person trying to survive against all odds and have this feeling that she's going to survive, a lot of the edge of reading the book disappears. When the Careers almost caught up with her and forced her up the tree, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that she was going to escape. When Chace had wounded Katniss, I didn't for a second think that she would die. She had gotten this far, why would the author kill her off now, especially by a character she barely developed? This certainty of her survival really made the book less exciting, and I secretly wished that she actually would die, just to make the book a little bit more surprising and more interesting. And as it turns out, Peeta didn't die either, but could anyone really see Katniss killing Peeta after reading the first part of the book? Also, did anyone not think that the Gamemakers were going to force the remaining two people to kill each other? Child, please. Tricks are for kids.

Static Characters
A lot of the predictability of the book stems from the lack of development of any of its characters. I absolutely hate that the characters in the book stay the same from the beginning of the book to the end. Katniss is stubborn and cold from the beginning to the end of the book. Peeta was soft and caring. Cato was angry and hateful. Foxface is sly and resourceful. Rue was shy and innocent. There's no betrayal and similarly no surprising acts of kindness. The "good" characters in the book stay good, and the "bad" characters in the book stay bad. The characters you like from the beginning you continue to like, and the characters you dislike, you continue to dislike.How much more interesting would it have been if Rue turned out to actually be cold-hearted and betrays Katniss by taking all of her supplies and leaving her for dead? What if Peeta, seeing how close the end is, decides to let Katniss kill herself and be the lone victor? How much more interesting would it have been if Cato turned out actually help Katniss survive in with his dying breath? Every character in the book was a cookie-cutter character, doing exactly what you expect them to and not doing anything that would surprise you.  To me, the only characters that actually show any sign of development are Haymitch and Effie Trinket. But in the arena? No one did anything unexpected or out of their percieved character, which obviously leads to predictability.

Allow me to rant a little bit - Is anyone else annoyed at how stupid the tributes seem to be in that they lack any critical thinking skills at all? Katniss especially, simply because we get to peek inside of her brain, seems quite...stupid. At what point did you say when you were reading the book, "Wow. That was really smart. I never would have thought of doing that?" Only one time in the entire book was I surprised by the intellect of Katniss - when she was about die of water and wondering why Haymitch still hadn't sent her any aid and she realized that she must already be near water. That's it. She's frustratingly slow about Peeta's feelings about her, and really doesn't seem to be able to come up with a clever plan for anything (her plan with Rue was elementary. You or I could have thought of that).

Hand in hand with this seeming stupidity of the tributes is the seeming fact that the tributes don't experience the same emotions, behaviors, or thought processes as regular human beings do. It seemed like Katniss was really angry that Peeta joined the Careers, but why didn't she ask him about it when they were in the cave together? Why is it that neither Katniss nor any of the other tributes seem to feel any real remorse or trauma after killing people? Why is it that none of the tributes refuse to fight? Why is it none of the tributes commit suicide in utter despair and fear of a worse death?  Maybe my examples aren't the best. But just think (like I'm sure anyone reading the book has) - "If I was thrown into the hunger games and wanted to get back at the Capitol, what would I do?" Maybe your strategy will be to stick with the other tribute from your District. Maybe you'll  convince the other kids from the poor districts to stick together and fight the Careers together. Or maybe if you're really defiant, you just kill yourself to refuse to give Capitol what they want (I actually thought that is what Peeta was going to do).

The Length of the Arena Fight/Survival Portion

Starting from where I left off before, I had thought that Katniss and Peeta weren't only going to fight the other tributes -they were going to fight Capitol....except they didn't. The majority of the book was spent inside the Arena, as Katniss was simply just struggling to survive...for 150 pages. As an action-movie lover, this may surprise you, but I thought that the time spent inside the Arena was too lengthy in comparison with the entire book. With the suspicion that Katniss was going to win, it really wasn't an issue of "if" but "when". As we followed the tributes get killed one by one, it just felt like a countdown to when the Games would finally be over and Katniss would be victor. Thinking about it, I'm sort of reminded of the movie 12 Rounds, where John Cena has 12 tasks that he needs to complete or else the villain will kill his wife. The tests he goes through are pretty interesting, but it gets kind of dull and repetitive halfway through those tasks. Similarly, the whole Arena thing got kind of dull and repetitive around halfway through, when it became abundantly clear that most of what Katniss was going to do was simply run, hide, and survive. I get it. The author was trying to convey the length and the brutality of the whole matter. The author was trying to convey that the Games actually lasted around two weeks, and she wanted the reader to be as anxious for the end of the Games as much as Katniss was. In reality, the number of pages the author spent on the Games wasn't actually that much, but it was the whole repitition and dullness of it all (and all the other reasons that I've described) that made it seem much lengthier than it really was. I get it. It's just never a good sign when your best-selling book is compared to a John Cena movie. 

In this middle part of the book, the only enjoyment I found in reading wasn't to see if Katniss was going to stay alive (I knew she was), but to see how she would stay alive, kind of like watching an episode of Man vs. Wild. With the end result already figured out, it really just became the journey that I had to be entertained by. I had also obviously hoped that she and Peeta would remember their hatred of Capitol and think of something to do about it. To me, this is the biggest conflict in the book, not that of the tributes against each other. Too bad the author refuses to address it (minimally) until after the Games are over.

The Ending

Lack of a "Bigger Picture" 

After the movie 12 Rounds, John Cena, along with all of the viewers, realize that the villain wasn't actually just trying to make Cena do 12 pointless tasks, but that there was a bigger picture to the details they had been focusing on. I had really expected something like that to happen in this book. I expected Katniss to leave the Arena and have some bigger realization about the situation at hand. I had thought throughout reading the book that massive things were going on behind the scenes that Katniss just couldn't see, and that after winning the games, she would realize what had been going on the entire time she was in the arena. This suspicion of mine is from the constant attention Katniss pays to the Gamemakers, the viewers, and basically the outside world. She makes a lot of assumptions about Haymitch and her sponsers and Capitol that I had hoped would be disproven in some way. Maybe she would leave the Arena and realize that the Hunger Games were fixed. Maybe she would learn that Haymitch was a rebel of some sort. Maybe there was a rebellion happening out in Panem, but she didn't know about it. But there was none of that. The entire book had the feeling of the entire stage being frozen except wherever Katniss was. The entire world was static and was unchanged whenever Katniss went back

Unanswered Questions...that will probably stay unanswered
Unanswered questions are obviously a great way to end a book that has sequels, but the problem I have with these unanswered questions is that they probably won't be answered in the next book. Even if they are, their application and relevance is immediate. Some of the questions that were burning in my mind as I was reading about her time in the arena - What's going to happen after she wins? Who are her sponsors, and how are they significant? Did she interpret Haymitch's gifts correctly? How did Thresh die? How were those dog beasts related to the dead tributes? The book refuses to answer any of the many questions that were raised in my mind in the arena and just goes on to pursue overly simply plot lines - the friendzone with Peeta and the "anger" of the Capitol. Neither of these are addressed properly, as the book, along with the train carrying the the tributes back home, comes to an abrupt halt.

Conclusion

I enjoyed reading Hunger Games. I really did. I wouldn't have finished reading it in a couple of days if I didn't. But it's the same kind of enjoyment I get from reading Redwall or Harry Potter - a simple, mindless sort of enjoyment. Maybe my expectations were just too high for a 350-page book, or maybe I've just been too heavily influenced from reading the epics of A Song of Ice and Fire. Either way, I was disappointed in the over-simplicity of the plot, the lack of character development, the static nature of the universe and the lack of parallel storylines, and the failure to address the  real, huge conflict that the first part of the book seemed to have been building up to. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, and I really hope that some of those bigger, more interesting issues (like the injustice and iron fist of the Capitol on the Districts) will be addressed. I hope the characters are more interesting, the plot is more involved and complex, and I hope the ending won't be a cop-out.

Loneliness and Christ

As I was driving back to Fort Wayne from Northville, where Jonny, Johnny, Nathan, Cory, and I had lunch, I was hit by this huge wave of loneliness and sadness. It's been over a month since I last visited my AIV friends in Ann Arbor, and I've gotten kind of used to the quiet, solitary working life in Fort Wayne. I didn't realize how much I missed late night talks, impromptu prayer sessions, hugging it out with brothers, and having fun, silly conversations with people. Not only did I really get that awesome, familiar sense of community in my short time in Ann Arbor these last few days, my heart was also riled up to God's mission, as the excitement, passion, and burden for the Church and the lost came flooding back to me as I participated in AIV events and talked about the chapter with friends.

The thing is, I haven't really been feeling too lonely in my last few weeks at Fort Wayne. So why was I feeling it so strongly all of a sudden? This is what I realized - Loneliness is most keenly felt after leaving intimate fellowship and community of any kind. I think anyone who has gone through any kind of break up or has left a great, tight community (especially of believers) knows that deep sense of loneliness that I'm talking about - and the closer and more intimate the community or relationship, the deeper the sense of loneliness.

After thinking about it for a little bit, it hit me that in his incarnation and eventual taking on of our sins, Jesus voluntarily chose to leave the intimate community and fellowship of the Trinity and take on humanity. I'm no real expert on all this Trinitarian theology stuff, but from what I know, the community and the fellowship between Christ and the other two members of the Trinity wasn't as infinitely intimate and infinitely perfect while Christ was on earth as it was before the incarnation. Not only that, when we talk about and imagine the suffering of Jesus on the cross, we almost always think about the physical suffering that Jesus experienced, not really being able to describe the spiritual suffering of Christ. In that passion accounts in the gospel, outside of Jesus saying he was thirsty while on the cross, the writers never record Jesus complaining about any of the physical suffering that he endured. Rather, the only cry of pain that Jesus makes is recorded in Matthew 27:46 - "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" The overwhelming pain of loneliness that Jesus experienced as he took on the sins of the world, when the infinitely intimate fellowship of the Trinity was broken, is absolutely unfathomable for us mortals. As I mentioned before, the intensity of the pain of loneliness and broken relationship is magnified by the intimacy of the fellowship in the relationship, which means that the  infinitely eternal, intimate, and perfect fellowship of the Trinity points to an infinitely painful separation and break of fellowship. For any of you that could relate to that pain I mentioned earlier (either through a breakup or a move of some sort), Jesus experienced that pain times infinity - suffering that we cannot even begin to understand.

Jesus knows what it feels like to be lonely, and he endured all that suffering so that I can come in relationship with Him. And I'm grateful for that.

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

- Hebrews 4:14-16

 Related Post - New Insights into Suffering

Some Interesting Dreams

Recently, I've been having some especially vivid dreams, of which I've been trying to keep notes of. These dreams have been so vivid that I've often spent my mornings thinking and reflecting on the dreams. There isn't really a "point" to this post, but I just thought that the dreams were pretty interesting and worth sharing. In this post, I describe four dreams that I've had, and after each dream, I add a short blurb on the emotion I was feeling as the dream ended (which I'm sure you can relate to when you have a really vivid dream that just ends) along with a short analysis of the dream.

I guess I should also say that while I do believe that God speaks to us in many different ways, I don't believe any of these dreams to be prophetic in any way. Another disclaimer - the dreams may not make a lot of sense and it may seem like I'm jumping around a lot, but that's kind of the way dreams are! I've tried to make them flow as well as possible, but dreams are dreams - the settings and details are constantly changing and they don't quite make sense.

Forgiveness for a Pedophile in a Wheelchair

I was reading a newspaper about this pedophile, a child-snatcher that would kidnap other people's kids and do bad things to them. His photo was in the paper, and it was common knowledge that this guy is the scum of the earth.

I am in church, and I see this guy in a wheelchair. I walk up to him, and I recognize his face. Holy crap. He's that guy from the paper! He explains to me how sorry he is and how all that stuff he did was in the past, and he wanted to learn how to be forgiven. He is clearly a broken man. I explain to him that because I'm at church, there's a lot of "better" people he could talk to. Lloyd appears, and I think it's perfect because he can probably relate to the wheelchair, but Lloyd just disappears all of a sudden as we're approaching him (as people do in dreams). I then go find an IV staff worker I know whom I regard highly. The man in the wheelchair follows me, using his arms to push the wheelchair (as a normal person in a wheelchair would do. I don't know how else to describe it). I tell her that this man in the wheelchair is that child-snatcher and that he wanted to find out about forgiveness and I asked her to tell him about Jesus. She refuses, saying that she doesn't want to talk to someone like him, and she starts to bolt. I follow her, begging her to talk to him, but she says that she needs to go to the beach, and putting on her sunglasses and grabbing a beach ball, she gets in her SUV and drives away. I'm left standing in the parking watching her drive away. I decide to go talk to the pastor, who is John Piper. I walk to John Piper with the man wheeling in behind me, and ask John Piper to explain to the man the gospel and forgiveness, and John Piper refuses. He says that people like this man don't deserve forgiveness for the horrible things he has done. I argue with him because I know he knows the gospel and that he was treating the gospel with contempt. He walks away. I have no one left to ask.

Ending emotion
Totally, completely disappointed and directionless. I had thought that this staff worker, who I had known to be super loving, and John Piper, who supposedly has a deep understanding of the gospel, would be able to lovingly forgive this man and point him to Jesus. But everyone refused.

Brief analysis
The whole moral of the story is quite obvious. It's that even the best human beings, the best Christians in the world have trouble forgiving the wickedness of an individual, so Jesus is the only one we can approach for forgiveness. Random sidenote: after writing this, I realize how close this story is to the story of the Good Samaritan.

Unfortunate Car Accident

My dad is driving my family in my car, and it is snowing. I had argued with him that it's my car, so I should drive, but he's driving anyways. We are on some sort of curvy road, when all of a sudden we lose control of the car, blast through the guardrail, and end up in a snow bank. The car is damaged, but everyone is okay. The police arrive and say that the penalty of reckless driving is a jail sentence, and before asking any more questions, I'm hauled off and thrown in jail.

Ending emotion
A huge sense of injustice. It isn't fair that I get thrown into jail for my dad's mistake. Not only that, it was my car, the car that I'm paying for, that he's destroyed, and I still get punished for it.

Brief Analysis
The lesson here again is obvious. Jesus suffered the ultimate injustice for me. He didn't screw up the perfect creation of God, so he didn't deserve to be nailed on that cross, but he was anyways. That deep sense of injustice that I felt gave me a better understanding of the sacrifice of Christ for me.

Awkward DPM

I'm walking in a street with some of my AIV friends (don't really remember who, but at the moment I think one of them was Besha), when I get a call. It's my friend (we'll call her Emily), and she's speaking to me in Mandarin. She informs me that something came up, and she can't go to the Daily Prayer Meeting (DPM) that she normally goes to, but she doesn't want the leader (we'll call her Sheila) to feel bad about not having anyone at DPM, so she tells me to go. I told her that I didn't really want to go, but after a little prodding, I agree to go. We hang up (the entire conversation was in Mandarin, by the way). She texts me the address of the DPM, and I walk there with my friends. Her apartment was in an interesting location. We knock on the door, and the door opens. I say "Sheila! I haven't seen you in forever!!". She awkwardly informs me that she's actually Sheila's sister (even though she looks exactly like her), and that she is taking off, but Sheila was in the shower and would be out in one sec, and she leaves.

As a little background, this "Sheila" individual is a fringe member of AIV, one of those people that I'm not sure if she's really saved or not. Anyways, I was excited that she would be leading a prayer meeting, so with my friends, we wait in the living room for her to finish her shower. It was a really nice apartment - really bright with nice carpeting and nice couches. We wait a little bit, then get bored and decide to play some games while waiting for her. We hear some strange noises coming from the shower. Then I remember that she has a boyfriend. Could they really be...? ...in the shower? Right before the DPM that she's supposed to be leading? We sit there and look at each other awkwardly, as each of us knows what's going on. She comes out, hair wet and all, and greets us. I give her a hug to say hi, but I'm not sure what to say or how to act. Her boyfriend walks out a few seconds later. It was awkward.

Ending emotion
Awkwardness, disappointment, and not knowing what to do.

Brief Analysis
There really isn't any deep gospel realization in this dream as there had been in the previous two, but I found it very interesting that I dreamed partially in Mandarin again (I do it every so often). It wasn't until I was eating breakfast that it hit me - in real life Emily is Canto and can't speak Mandarin! It was one of those facepalm moments where I felt like my entire dream was just foolishness. Nonetheless, I think this dream reflects the fear that I have (and that I've shared with some of you) that some/many of the leaders in AIV now may not actually be saved and are living a lie. I also think it's very interesting that this dream features two current non-Christians, but in my dream, one is a real Christian and one is a fake one. This dream really reflects the thinking I've done recently on assurance of salvation and how even those who serve God may be rejected by Jesus, who will tell them "I never knew you."

Seeking Reconciliation

We were in a Bible class in a big lecture hall, and the professor was talking about human rights and America. My friend (an old friend of mine) raises her hand and says, "I wish America would just have something like a French Revolution, where everyone was equal and we had no president or king or whatever." I then proceed to look at her kind of stupid and basically start ranting at her in front of everyone. "Are you an idiot? Do you have no idea of what a French Revolution would mean? And it's completely unbiblical! Do you not realize that the Biblical model is that Jesus is the king and that there will always be hierarchy? Jesus will be our king for eternity in the new kingdom! Trying to get rid of hierarchy is totally foolish!"

She looks at me kind of stunned and just looks down and goes back to writing in her notebook. The guy that I am, I keep on thinking in my head, Wow. Why would she suggest something so stupid? Then she passes me a note from across the table (yes, we are now no longer in a lecture hall but sitting across from each other at a table). The note on the table says, "I may have been wrong, but you didn't need to be such a jerk about it." Staring at the note, I all of a sudden realize the wrong that I did her. I feel horrible. But I'm not sure what to say. I close my eyes for a bit. And I write a note back, apologizing for it. We exchange a few notes, and after a little bit, things seem to be okay between us.

We are catching up, and she tells me that she just broke up with her boyfriend and that she's single for the first time in a long time. I think to myself, Could I be with her? But she's backslidden, and I don't actually really know if she's a Christian or not.

We are at an aquarium, in one of those basement-type rooms where it's relatively dark, with one of the sides of the room being completely water. It's like one of those underwater views of the pools at places like Sea World, where you can view the animals from either above water or underwater (we are at the underwater one, obviously). She's still mad at me for what I did to her. I try and ask her how she's been spiritually and try to share the gospel with her again. But she's still mad at me. We're about to get to the moment of both reconciliation (and possibly romance?) between the two of us and also really sharing the gospel with her, but as that happens, a bunch of elephants swim in, with their trunks above the water line so they can breath. As this happens, a lot of people rush in, and our conversation, which had been deep and serious, is cut off. We both stare at the elephants for a little bit as they play underwater, and then I turn back, and she's not there. I see her far away, and I chase after her to finish our conversation, but I never catch up with her.

Ending emotion
Loneliness. Lack of closure. Sadness.

Analysis 
There isn't really much intellectual analysis for this dream, but I just woke up with a real sense of burden to catch up to and pray for this old friend of mine who I haven't talked to in forever and really haven't even thought about for years. I think that I dreamed about her because back in the day, when I really didn't have any really close friends, I think she was the first really, really close friend that I had. In my current situation without really any close friends here in Fort Wayne, I probably remembered her in my loneliness. Also, she showed up on my Facebook feed the previous day (and the elephants are from this video).

Closing thoughts

I hadn't realized that all of these dreams ended sadly, because normally my dreams never end sad. I tend to win in everything. I always get the girl, make the last shot, and destroy the enemies. I'm not going to read too much into it, but I find it interesting that even though the dreams seem to end sadly, I actually tend to have quite joyful mornings after having these vivid dreams, as I'm just excited that I got a good night of sleep and have something to think about for the morning. It's really been a blessing that God's been able to teach me various lessons through these dreams. It's amazing how God can glorify Himself in my life even when I'm asleep!

As an aside, I actually had another dream this morning that was pretty cool but unfortunately, I can't remember it at all and I didn't write it down. Hopefully I can remember it and post it up later. I also have this weird irrational fear that because I'm posting this, my awesome dreams will stop. I have no idea why I feel this way. I guess it's kind of like how if you tell your birthday wish to anyone, it won't come true. Whatever. I'm off to sleep again. And hopefully dream. Goodnight.

"My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, 

and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, 

when I remember you upon my bed, 

and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 

for you have been my help, 

and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. 

My soul clings to you;

your right hand upholds me."

- Psalm 63:5-8

Church Hopping Week 5 - Northpark Community Church

This post is about Northpark Community Church, which I visited on February 26th. This church was recommended to me by a couple that used to attend there and

In A Nutshell: A medium-sized non-denominational family church with really good preaching.

Church Overview

Affiliation - None
Attendance - 300 people, but expected to grow
Demographics - Mostly white, multi-generational with a lot of families and kids.

Adult Bible Fellowship (Sunday School)

Walking into the church and asking someone about what Sunday School offerings they had, I was basically just told to go to one because the other ones didn't really fit. It wasn't before long that I realized that all of the Sunday School classes are split up based on age group, which is something that I haven't really expected or experienced before. I attended the "College and Career" group, which is basically for young, unmarried people that either just started working or were still in college. Doing some other research online, it seems like this kind of Sunday School model is actually common to the non-denominational churches in the area. I'm not really sure if I like it, as I find that it would probably be harder to meet and get to know the adults in the church, but it was nice to be able to meet some of the other young people. Other than me, there were four other young adults (three girls and one guy), and a middle-aged couple who led the class. The class was supposed to be studying Philippians, but we actually spent most of the time just talking about the church and its mission because I had asked about it (and because the teacher thought it would be a good idea to refresh everyone's memory on it). When we finally got to the Bible study, it wasn't much of a study - we just read the passage, and the teacher spent around 10 minutes talking about it and gave us some application, and we closed in prayer. I'm not sure if the lack of discussion was because of the amount of time we spent talking about the church or if it was the usual for the class, but I'll just need to go back and see.

Sunday Service

According to the young adults I sat with, this Sunday Service was completely unique and not how they normally did things. It was a communion service (they do their communions on the last Sunday of every month), so things were bound to be a little different. The sanctuary itself was undergoing renovation and expansion that should be completed in the next month, expanding the sanctuary from a capacity of around 300 people to one of around 600 people. Because of this, the sanctuary smelled a little like Home Depot, and didn't have much of the simple decoration that I've become accustomed to in even a Protestant church.

Probably my favorite bulletin cover so far

The Worship

The worship experience this Sunday was insane. It was new and traditional and awesome and unfamiliar all in one. What the worship pastor basically did this Sunday was he used the different elements of traditional worship services such as Scripture readings (both old and new testaments), responsive readings, and hymns to tell the story of the life of Christ. Starting with the birth of Christ, we listened to, read, and sang about Jesus' life, teaching, ministry, crucifixion and death, and resurrection. The songs that were sung were all hymns and very traditional but were for the most part familiar hymns. The worship style, which was never done before according to the people I was sitting with, was absolutely unique and amazing. I don't know if I would be able to take it if we did it every week, but I really enjoyed it this one time that we did it this way.

The Sermon

The sermon, which you can listen to here, wasn't the usual style because it was communion, so it was much more brief than it normally would have been (or so I'm told). I had previously listened to one of their sermons online and was impressed with the depth and seriousness of the preacher, which is something that I've been longing for here in Fort Wayne. Pastor Scott, the preaching (and lead) pastor of the church is easily the best preacher that I've personally seen so far, both in skill and in depth. At first, I was sort of disappointed that Pastor Scott wasn't going to give a more traditional kind of sermon, but the talk he gave was actually quite good. He spoke on the word "good", and gave a somewhat more application-level (but Scripture-drenched) sermon. He then did this awesome, one-time, unique thing that he had never done before - he had the entire congregation stand up and read a passage of Scripture in their own translations. This meant that there were ESV's, NIV's, KJV's, and whatever other translations being read together. It was this perfect unity of harmony and diversity. It was awesome to hear sections as we read aloud that diverted in translations and the parts that were in complete unity. I actually got chills from how awesome it was after we did the reading. Like the worship, this probably isn't something that I would want to do every week (and they almost certainly won't), but I really enjoyed the opportunity that I had to participate in these unique worship styles.

Reflection 

What I liked
Preaching - As I mentioned before, the preaching here is definitely a key strength of the church, and I probably enjoyed the preaching here more than any other church I visited. Pastor Scott definitely knows what he's talking about, and he wraps it all in a gospel-centered message devoid of much of the moralism that has so infected many of our churches today.

Young Adults- While there really isn't a huge group of young adults at this church, there's definitely more young adults than in any other church I visited. The college and career group seems to have a lot of committed members so there seems to be a potential to serve and to be a part of a good community.

Growing Church - Unlike every other church that I visited, Northpark seemed to be the only church to really be growing. Not only was the sanctuary packed Sunday morning, they are undergoing construction to expand it. Obviously, size often doesn't mean much for judging the quality of a church, but in this case, it is encouraging to see a Bible-preaching church growing.

Close to home - My biggest concern for joining St. Andrew EPC was the distance, but Northpark is actually really close to my apartment, which would make it possible for me to do stuff at the church during the week and it should make serving at the church much easier. In addition, the mission of the church and the ministries and charities that the church partners with
in the area would also be reasonably close to my apartment.

What I didn't like as much
"Adult Bible Fellowship" model- I love meeting young adults, but after thinking about it, I don't know if I like the model of grouping Sunday School classes by age. I find that it would be hard to really get to know the adults of the church. Maybe I've just gotten used to being one of the only young adults and only having adults to talk to in the churches I've visited in Fort Wayne, but I wish I got more of a chance to interact with the adults of the church. I think this sort of model is good for family churches (also like MCCC), where young parents and young married couples could get a chance to hear the advice of those in similar situations. However, I feel like this "life" kind of stuff is best done in cell groups during the week, and for me, Sunday School has always been less application-based but more about teaching Scripture.

Unsure of potential to serve - Being a bigger church with more resources, it seems like Northpark probably has "everything figured out." However, I would still like to be able to contribute to the body if I came here, and I'm not sure how I would be able to do that here. Again, I think that it might just be that I got so used to visiting small churches that were super excited to see me because in all honesty, the situation I would have at Northpark would probably be a similar situation to what I would face if I continued attending either Knox or MCCC. It is definitely good that the church doesn't "need" me (I don't think any church really does, anyways), but I would still like an opportunity to serve.

The Verdict

Northpark Community Church offers what has been weaker in many of the churches that I've visited - a young adult group and great preaching. I'm excited at the possibility of joining in on the church's mission for the community and serving in a growing church community. On the other hand, I didn't really enjoy the Sunday School class very much, which to me is the strength of St. Andrew EPC, so I have a big decision to make! For now, I think I will attend both St. Andrew and Northpark on alternating weeks to get a better feel of the church so I can make a better decision.

Church Hopping Week 1 - Fellowship Community Church
Church Hopping Week 2 - Calvary Baptist Church
Church Hopping Week 3 - Providence Presbyterian Church
Church Hopping Week 4 - St Andrew Evangelical Presbyterian Church

More than Slactivists

Social justice starts with you. Social justice starts with me. It's easy to share a video on Facebook. It's just as easy to throw a Christian fundraiser or awareness event. It's much harder to practice what we preach and to be men and women of justice. It's much harder to care about and confront the poverty, loneliness, cheating, and sexual immorality that we see around us and deal with every day.

If we say we care so much about world poverty and world hunger, why are we so reluctant to give a few dollars to the homeless guy on the street? If we say we care about the widows and orphans of the world, why is it so difficult for us to approach that girl sitting by himself at large group or sit down with that lonely guy in the cafeteria? If we say that we care about the cheated and those we take what isn't theirs, why is it that so many of us "Christians" still cheat on homeworks and projects and tolerate others cheating on exams? Yes, I'm telling you to be a rat. If you see cheating, report it. If you see your friends cheating, confront them about it, and if they don't stop, report it. Do you think the social justice workers that prosecute the oppressed aren't hated and persecuted themselves? If we can't even deal with the trouble of reporting someone for cheating, do we really think that we will be able to report criminals when the consequences are that much more serious? If we say we care about sex trafficking and child prostitution, can we not stop watching porn and contributing to the industry that drives these atrocities? Aren't we, just like those sick people we hear about, imposing our sexual will and fantasies on other children of God, created in His image?

All of these things, God hates. God hates apathy, cheating, lying, stealing, pride, sexual immorality, and he hates it as much inside of our hearts as out in the world. If we leave the sin in our hearts undealt with and claim to care about the apathy, cheating, lying, stealing, oppression, and sexual immorality of the world, are we not being hypocrites of the most epic kind?

But thanks to God, there's hope for hypocrites like you and me, and that hope is in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born into a poor, refugee family of an oppressed people that had been ostracized from the community. Jesus was the kind of person that slactivists like us are supposed to get all riled up about - a son in a single-parent home of an oppressed people. But we didn't make an emotionally-manipulative video about him, we didn't send him a shoebox of goodies every Christmas, we didn't send $30 a month to sponsor him. No, we religious folk, we "activists", we giver of alms - we killed him. Friends, apart from the saving grace of God, we have no power to do any good or think any good thoughts, much less make a "positive difference" in the world. We ended up killing the most postive influence the world could possibly imagine! In the end, it is only Jesus that can redeem the world. It is on the cross that God's righteousness, justice, love, and mercy met, and it is only through the cross that we can have any hope for the evil, sickness, and wickedness in the world and the evil, sickness, and wickedness in our hearts.

By the grace of God, we can be more than slactivists who only care about justice when it's convenient and when it feels good. By the grace of God, let's learn to hate sin as God hates sin, and by the power of God, let's be men and women of justice, men and women of integrity.

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
- Micah 6:8

Boasting in My Weakness

"So to keep my from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep my from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. 

For when I am weak, then I am strong."
- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

I have to admit that I've been slow to show vulnerability and weakness in all my time at Michigan (and my entire life, really). I'm not a very vulnerable person, and not that many people actually know that much about me. Yesterday was a hard day for me. It isn't every Sunday that you break down crying while praying alone in a church pew during worship, only to have a man you half-recognize put his arm around you and tell you to come sit with him. It isn't every Sunday you go up to ask for prayer from elders you don't recognize of a church you've only been to once. God really convicted me this morning during Sunday worship of this 2 Corinthians passage - of boasting in his weakness, and that's what I'm here to do.

I'm a weak, weak man. I really shouldn't even call myself a man. I'm a weak, weak boy. I'm a crybaby. It's often hard for me to pray out loud without choking up in tears for whatever reason. A friend recently told me that she has observed two things about guys - that they are stupid and that they are emotional. I don't really want to endorse this opinion for fear of losing all my guy friends, but I do know that this is true for me. It's so easy to always be stoic and look tough on the outside, but I'm really actually quite emotional. I am weak. I struggle with loneliness. It's hard for me to be alone, without friends to lean on and hang out with all the time, and in truth, it's even hard for me to ask for help. It's also hard for me to accept my singleness, of which I am often ashamed. I cope with loneliness by digging into books and getting a big head, both of knowledge and of pride. I am a needy man.

God has taught me so much in my weakness. I've learned how weak I am. I've learned that I can't rely on myself. I've learned how much I need brothers around me to care and pray for me, and I've learned not to take these brothers in Christ for granted. I've experienced the faithfulness of God through my times of deepest worry, and I've felt the warmth of God's embrace in my tears shed. I've understood more deeply the peace in clinging to God's sovereignty, and I've learned to appreciate how Jesus, my high priest, can sympathize with my weaknesses. God has shown me yet again how sinful and unholy I am, and he's displayed to me the comfort of his grace. And obviously, when I say I've learned these things, I really mean that I've grown in these areas, as I still have an eternity to truly learn it all, but God has really worked in my life through my weaknesses.

I'm not posting this for pity. I'm posting this to boast in my weaknesses in Christ. Don't feel bad for me - rejoice with me that God is making his power known in my life through my weaknesses! Jesus sees through the walls and barriers that I put up. Jesus knows how much of a scumbag I am. Jesus knows that I'm not as tough and emotionless as I pretend to be. Jesus knows how weak I am. And yet he loves me. Jesus loves me even though I'm a crybaby, and he loves me even though I'm weak. Jesus loves me so much that he died for me, even though I suck!

Thank you God for reminding me how much I suck and how weak I am and how much I need you. Use my weakness for your glory, and make me strong in my weakness. Your grace is enough for me.

Somewhat-related Posts: 
New Insights into Suffering
My Lack of Suffering

Acts 8 - The Guidance of the Spirit

This post will be a completion of my previous post on Acts 8:28-40. It would probably be helpful to open it up and read it one time through before reading this post (reading it through won't take more than five minutes, anyways.

"And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah."

Of the many different interesting things about the Ethiopian eunuch, I find it extremely interesting that he was returning from worshiping. This eunuch wasn't a heathen, a pagan, a persecutor of the church, but he was a man who desired to worship the only true God! He wasn't a man who needed to be reminded to go to church on Sunday or to study the Word. God had already placed in his heart a desire to seek Him and to worship Him. And yet he still didn't understand what he read. Many times in our churches and fellowships, we forget that often times, those who are the most lost and are in need of guidance are those who already come to worship! We often assume that just because people come to worship, they know who Jesus is and have a personal relationship with him. This wasn't true for the eunuch, and it certainly isn't true for our churches today, so let's not forget to be reaching out to those already under the roof of the church who may not yet know Jesus.

"And the Spirit said to Philip, 'Go over and join this chariot.' So Philip ran to him..."

This is the first explicit mention of the Spirit that we find in the passage (recall that it was an angel of the Lord that had first told Philip to rise and go). So we can imagine Philip just "chillin" in the desert, walking around, trying to see what God wants him to do, and he sees a chariot and is then prompted by the Spirit to join it. What is Philip's response? Philip runs to the chariot! He doesn't complain, he doesn't ask "God, is this really your will?", he doesn't walk - he runs! We should learn to imitate Philip's eagerness to obey the prompting of the Spirit and run with joy to the tasks that he sets out for us.

[As sort of an aside, I recall from my childhood picture Bibles and Christian videos that supposedly the chariot was actually going full speed and God have Philip the supernatural foot speed (as he had given Elijah) to catch up with a chariot going full speed. I really could be wrong, but this doesn't seem like the most likely scenario to me because of the following verbal exchanges that he has with the eunuch. Philip asks the eunuch if he understands what he's reading, and the eunuch says that he doesn't. It is only after this interaction does the eunuch finally ask Philip to join him in the chariot. To me, it wouldn't really make sense for the eunuch to see a man running full speed next to the chariot without slowing down to converse. But either way, the eagerness of Philip to obey God should be imitated.]

"...and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, 'Do you understand what you are reading?'"

Not only is Philip's eagerness to be imitated, but also his method of evangelism. We see in this simple sentence that Philip did two things - he heard and he asked. In Philip's eagerness to run to the chariot, he didn't get on his metaphorical soapbox and start spewing out the Four Spiritual Laws or the bridge diagram, but he heard the Ethiopian. I am probably the most guilty of speaking before listening, but how much easier it was for Philip to minister to the eunuch because he simply listened! He was able to meet the eunuch in his place of confusion and to address the eunuch's needs instead of imposing his own evangelism strategy on him. Philip listened, and that's something that I need to learn to do. After he listened, Philip asked. Last year, I attended MAC (Ministering Across Cultures) for the second time, and one of my biggest takeaways from the training event is how effective asking questions is to opening a person up and understanding a person. By asking the eunuch a basic question, Philip was allowing the eunuch to express his own thoughts and desires, which in turn made it easier for Philip to minister to him. Many times (for me, at least), our ministry tactic is a "speak and answer questions" sort of approach instead of Philip's "hear and ask" approach. There's definitely a place for both kinds of ministry (can you imagine Pastor Chuck simply "hearing and asking" on stage on Sunday morning? That would be horrible!), but Philip's example is a good reminder for me to be more open to gauging someone else's needs.

"And he said, 'How can I, unless someone guides me?' And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."

To me, this question that the eunuch asks is the central point of the entire passage. In my previous readings of this passage, I had always thought that the person the eunuch needed was Philip to explain the Scripture to him. While this is true, I think that God is pointing us to something much deeper than that - "the inward illumination of the Spirit of God [is] necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word. [WCF]" It is the Holy Spirit, not Philip, who is ultimately the guide of the Ethiopian! The easy takeaway from this passage that we've been taught since we were children is that we need to be like Philip and explain the Bible to those who don't understand it. We fail to realize that we ourselves cannot understand the Scripture without the guidance of the Holy Spirit! It is only through God that we ourselves can understand the Word of God and have any hope of explaining it to anyone else!

This post is really sufficiently long, so I'm just going to skip a bit of the passage and get to a few last thoughts I had on the passage.

"Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus."

This "opened his mouth" phrase seems to be used only one other time in this book, and that is in Acts 10:34, when Peter is preaching to the centurion's family. To me, it is a reminder that when we speak, we are merely using our mouths as an instrument of God, and it is really the "Spirit of our Father speaking through [us]". I may be imagining things, but I also see somewhat of a parallel between this passage and Luke 24, where Jesus explains to the two clueless fellows how all of Scripture is really about him. Obviously, Luke and Acts are both written by Luke, and it's cool to see how Luke comes back to a man explaining how all of Scripture is about Jesus.

"And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing."

I'm not sure if you've realized this, but Philip was straight up teleported away. The passage says that "Philip found himself at Azotus." Imagine that. Philip was in the water baptizing the eunuch and an instant later, was in a random town. How strange that must have been! And the eunuch also just got the most awesome baptism in the entire world. Again, this might be over-speculation, but I really think that the eunuch probably got a small feeling of the Spirit of the Lord carrying him out of the water. All of us who've been dunked know that when you're brought down into the water, you need the pastor to bring you back up, because there's really no other way you can get up out of the water from a prostrate position. Now, if Philip was teleported away as they came up out of the water, who would be there to help the eunuch completely up? I very well could be wrong, but to me, the passage seems to imply that the eunuch never saw Philip once he got out of the water, and it isn't a wild possibility to me that it was the Spirit Himself who helped the eunuch onto his feet after the baptism. That would be an awesome baptism - being baptized by God himself! But of course, that's all speculation.

To conclude this post, I really feel like this understanding that the Spirit is the guide is the central theme of the passage. The Spirit is the one who guides Philip to the chariot, the Spirit is the one who gives both Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch understanding of the Scripture, and it is the Spirit who again leads both the eunuch and Philip on their separate paths after their encounter. As Christians, we should allow the Spirit to guide us in all things - be it direction of life or our Scripture readings - and to obey quickly and eagerly when He calls.

Acts 7 - We the Pharisees
Acts 8 - Rise and Go

Church Hopping Week 4 - St. Andrew Evangelical Presbyterian Church

I'm am a little behind on posting, but last Sunday, February 12th, I visited St. Andrew Evangelical Presbyterian Church. As you all know, Knox is part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, so I wanted to check out an EPC church before deciding what church to go to. Though half an hour away, St. Andrew is the closest EPC church to where I live.

In A Nutshell: A small, familiar Knox-like church that is kind of far from home.

Church Overview

Affiliation - Evangelical Presbyterian Church (wiki, official site)
Attendance - 75-100 people
Demographics - Completely white, multi-generational with a good number of high-schoolers and male young adults.

Sunday Service

Overall, if my time at St. Andrew was extremely familiar and comfortable. As I describe below, other then an interesting candle-lighting "ceremony" before and after the service, the service was extremely similar to a Knox service. St. Andrew had a time of fellowship with some breakfast food (bagels, donuts, and orange juice) between the worship service and the Sunday school, not unlike the time in Knox hall that we have. The lady who say behind me in service, whom I introduced myself to after the service, took really good care of me and introduced me to a ton of different people in the church. I got a chance to meet the pastor, who actually had spent some time serving in Taiwan as a missionary, and learned that he actually was very familiar with Pastor Mike Frison from Knox!

MCCC really needs more colorful builletins.

The Worship

The music was simple but familiar. There was a piano, drums, and three vocalists on stage. The songs we sang were some of my all-time favorite classic Christian songs, so even though I was at a new church and didn't know anyone there, I was really able to focus on God and worship him. We sang songs like This is My Father's World, 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus, and How Deep the Father's Love for Us, which I really enjoyed. To me, the musical worship was a great balance between contemporary Christian and traditional hymns, much like the worship at Knox!

The Sermon

The sermon, titled "Can I be Sure" from Hebrews 6:4-8, was a talk on assurance of salvation (which is a topic that seems to be popping up a lot in my life). Assurance of salvation is always a difficult topic to speak on (thought I really enjoyed John Piper's sermon series on it), and Pastor Glen really went down the "a good tree must produce good fruit" route, but I thought it leaned a little too heavily towards moralism. Again, I know it's a really difficult subject to speak on, but I wish the cross was emphasized more heavily as the means and assurance of our salvation. As I said in my last post, I recognize that pastors here are probably used to speaking to completely Christian congregations, but to me, I still think that the gospel needs to be preached every week. To be honest, I'm more willing to give Pastor Glen the benefit of the doubt, as he is friends with Pastor Mike, and the church really does seem more gospel-centered than the other ones I've been to. Talking to one of the ladies, she said that it was probably just this Sunday that Pastor Glen decided to approach assurance of salvation from this angle.

Sunday School

I was pretty excited for Sunday School when I learned that they were studying Revelation, and it did turn out to be extremely enjoyable to me. The class turned out to be more like a directed discussion, but I thought that the conversation that we had was a perfect mix between head knowledge and life application, especially when it is so easy to get caught up in over-analyzing passages in Revelation. I was pleased that I felt like I was able to contribute to the discussion and felt honored and respected, despite being the only one in the room that was under ~45 years old. I was very pleased that the members of this Sunday school really knew their Scripture and knew what they were talking about, and it was obvious to me that the members of this church were sufficiently intellectual in their approach to Scripture (which really isn't always the case, especially in this culturally Christian, more blue collar sort of city).

Reflection 

What I liked
Familiar Worship - Maybe I just got lucky with the song selection, but I really enjoyed the music and found it easy to worship. Even though there wasn't really much of a praise band, and it didn't actually seem like the singing was very loud (probably because the sanctuary was around half full), but it was just a good time to commune with God privately, which is what we Asian Americans like to do!

Sunday School - Sunday school was fun, and as I mentioned before, I felt like my voice mattered and I was able to be part of a lively, well-informed discussion. If I came to this church, I would still want to have a more teaching-focused type of class, and it was obvious to me that the teacher was definitely knowledgeable enough to make the class that way if he so chose.

Conferences - After Sunday school, one of the ladies in the church asked me told me that I seemed interested in Reformed theology (I really have no idea how she knew from the limited interactions we had, and I don't think I really gave much away during Sunday school), and she introduced me to and invited me to a bunch of different conferences, such as The Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and Together for the Gospel. I probably won't be able to make T4G because it's in the middle of the week, but I'm going to be going to the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology next month with this church! I'm super excited to go to one of these "adult" conferences, and even if I don't end up at this church, I'm sure that it will be a good experience.

What I didn't like as much
Far from where I live- The number one reason I am hesitant to join this church is that it is half an hour away, making it hard for me to really be a part of the mission of the church. I want to join a church that I will be able to invite people to and a church where I can serve during the week. I feel like it would be hard for me to really feel like I'm part of a church that I live so far away from. I wouldn't really be able to contribute to the mission of the church if the church doesn't specifically reach out to Fort Wayne. In other words, this church would probably be good for me to be fed at, but may not a good church for me to serve at.

Lack of young adults - This isn't a very new problem for me visiting churches, but after meeting the guys that I did the previous week at Providence, I was a little disappointed not to really get a chance to meet any young adults. I knew that there were one or two young adult guys, but I didn't really get a chance to talk to them.

The Verdict

St. Andrew Evangelical Presbyterian Church was a very comfortable, familiar church that I probably wouldn't mind making my home church if I can't find a good church here in Fort Wayne. I want to go back to hear another sermon to make sure that the teaching is okay, but the focus of the church seemed to be good, and the people I met really knew their stuff and were enthusiastic about the Word. I'm really glad that I'm able to go to a conference with some of the people from this church, and I see myself growing spiritually at this church. However, I would still much rather join a good, missional church with good teaching that is closer to home so I could be able to join qthe church in reaching out to the community.

Next up: Northpark Community Church (2/26/2012)

Church Hopping Week 1 - Fellowship Community Church
Church Hopping Week 2 - Calvary Baptist Church
Church Hopping Week 3 - Providence Presbyterian Church