THINKING ABOUT CHURCH OUT LOUD

Do you think that we should remove the ideas of denominational backgrounds and just have one "christian church?"

-We should follow what the Bible says, not what this former church father has said about the Bible.

-We focus on the wrong issues in the church. If we focused on the correct issues, then we wouldn't need denominations.

-Groups of people that think the same way should band together.

-Ever since the reformation, churches have been splitting into smaller and smaller sections. Its time that churches should start meeting at a middle ground once again so that we can help the oppressed and the poor in the world. What the church needs is organization.

-Legalism kills the unity that the church is striving for. Oftentimes people don't think that legalism is a problem.

-In history, unity has been attempted by the church, but it hasn't been implemented well. This lack of organizational focus caused those movements to fall, and fall hard.

What about having different worship services, but the same sermon is preached? Wouldn't the church body be separated into those different church services?

WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Aww yeh, some mutha bleepin' lessons dawg

Soo its summertime. 

Summer is the time when everyone lets loose a little bit, busts out the ol' grille, soaks up some sun, and enjoys the weather.

Summer is also known for the summer job pull. 1,000's of young individuals look for jobs to make a little scrilla to take their honey out with. When this system is clickin' everyone is happy as a fat kid in a hershey's factory.

that is, when everything is clicking.

The global economy caught a swift kick to the lower extremities about 6 months ago and it is still down for the count. Unemployment has reached an all time high, the stock market is as finicky as Billy Joel at a bar, and entire industries are being slaughtered to try and make international ends meet.

So! Now that the stage has been set, lets take a look at my predicament. My Mom urged me to search out an internship at a church (since that is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life). I cautiously agreed, seeing as how I was interested in makin' some G's this summer. Internships aren't the most glamorously paying of jobs, mind you. Eventually I found an internship at the church my parents attend in Alabama. Its a good little church with great worship and good membership, and it is really close to my house. I was pumped.

Time continued to drain out of the school year and I was looking forward to figuring out more about my internship. I e-mailed questions and called the ministers: no answer. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "Maybe it is just a really busy time!" Try again: no response. Again: Nuthin. It had been a couple weeks since I had heard from the church, and I was starting to get a little worried about my plans of "changing the world one internship at a time". 

When I finally got a call (finals week) the minister's said that they were deciding to go in another direction instead of an internship. They said that I could volunteer at the church all that I wanted to! What they were really trying to say was that they were dropping the bottom out of my summer plans in the 11th hour like a bunch of champions of inspiration. 

And now we're here. I'm currently sitting on my bed not really doing much of anything, which is what I have been doing for the past week. Jobs are scarce and jobs that pay well are even scarcer. I've gone to many different places looking for work, but the response has almost consistently been, "We're not hiring, but we'd certainly take your application!" Yea, I'm sure you would. In this market they probably are using the 1,000's of applications that are coming in to heat their workspaces. 

No job. No fat bank. Not much of anything is going on.

It is interesting though, that God still works in these times. 

First, I was bluntly taught that church leadership often has no idea what the (insert any crass word) its doing. For all the pomp and circumstance of a sunday morning service, the 166 other hours in a week seem to be filled up with a lot of "Ums", "Uhhs", and "???s". The church- on the micro and macro levels- is still growing and maturing. Just because you become a "senior minister" doesn't mean that you have it all together or that you have all the answers. Sometimes (and probably not often enough) things in the church get a little raw. It would be easy for me to be pissed out of my mind about how irresponsible the leaders of the church were! 

The alternative to going primeval on their hineys is to forgive and grow. The minister at the Mercy House talked about showing "Maximum Forgiveness" to all that we come in contact with. What a simple statement, yet how profound! If we don't forgive, then we aren't Christians. Why wouldn't I want to see the church learn from its mistakes and be better for it? That would be because I truly didn't have the love of Christ living inside of me. You can't see people for who they are, but rather for who they can be. 

God has also taught me to enjoy peace. I was scurrying about so much this past semester with all of my responsibilities that I didn't get much time to stop. When I go back to Taylor, school and Student Body President stuff are going to consume me. Possibly God wanted me to stop and smell the roses a little bit? 

This summer I'm going to be stretched in ways that I don't see coming. God, the guy who made me, knows what is best for me. Am I willing to follow his plan and see where that takes me?

We'll see.

PS- I'm writing this with my laptop in my lap and my computer battery is HOT. Is it reasonable to wonder if the heat is cooking myself to being sterile? AM I GOING TO BE ABLE TO HAVE KIDS IF I KEEP BLOGGING IN THIS POSITION!? 

The purpose of a church at Taylor University

What would the purpose of a church at Taylor serve?

I asked this question a while ago in a blogpost, and I think now I will try and answer that as best as I can. Hopefully the Dave Matthews i'm listening to can help me out. :-)

As many people that go to Taylor have realized, not everyone that goes to TU is a practicing christian. Some people go to church or read their Bibles every once in a while, but it isn't enough to constitute a strong relationship with Jesus. There are even some people on campus that are in opposition to christianity. A good example of this lack of spiritual concern on campus can be seen in chapel attendance. I know that chapel can be boring, and I know that sometimes I don't want to go or haven't gone, but there have been times where 5 guys from my floor have been at chapel. My floor is made up of 80 people. 

Another example is the growing problem with drinking on our campus (this was brought up by students). Now both chapel attendance and drinking are slippery slopes to use as examples, but they both have some of their roots in a much larger problem: spiritual apathy. It is this spiritual apathy that is a major cause in things like breaking school rules or cheating on schoolwork (another problem brought up by the student body). Now being realistic, I know that you will always have people that will break rules and cheat. Taylor isn't the garden of eden, and its not ever going to be. I'm pretty sure that the garden had more hills and less corn. :-) 

So, as a student that wants to try and combat this wave of spiritual apathy that is growing through campus, what can I do? How can God use me to stop the spread of disinterest in Him? My first thought was to make sure that rules were more enforced in my dorm. Being an RA, I could do this effectively. If rules were more strict, people would not want to skip chapel or break rules because of the consequences. 

That isn't my place though. Yes, I must enforce rules, but that isn't going to change hearts. Its the relationships that I have with my peers that really change me. Its when I see someone else cares for me that I can then be open in the relationship. Its when I see the passion that someone has for something when I can also be passionate about it. I can't tell you how much I really hate watching sports, but when there is a really intense basketball game on and everyone is on the edge of their seats around the TV, I have to watch. I feed off of other's passion. 

A great example of someone who is passionate about life is Tyler Kessler, or as he was more lovingly known as T.K. He just recently graduated from Taylor, but while he was on campus he lived on my floor (Penthouse W00t W00t). Throughout the entire time that I've attended TU, I've seen people drawn to him because of the general excitement and life he approaches everything with, whether it be relationships or a ministry. Because of that, I saw other amazing men come underneath his wing and become involved in the floor and in great ministries because of him.

Now enters the next question: How can we take people that are passionate (like T.K.) about Christ and christianity and combat the spiritual apathy on campus?

There is a multitude of ways that this question can be answered. In no way is the idea of a church the only way. I talked to Rachel Sawyer last night and she had the great suggestion of reshaping Vespers (a sunday night bible study). Justin Heth suggested that this idea be implemented at an already existing church. Many more have said something about just creating another organization or group on campus that can act out passionately. All of these are great ideas! My first thought was a real church on campus, and here's why.

I've been reading the book unChristian by Dave Kinnaman. The book is all about what the newest generation (our generation) thinks about christianity. Some of the things people said about christians is that we're judgmental (I felt great about wanting to be harder about rules) old fashioned, boring, and sheltered. Sadly, I have to partially agree with these observations by non christians. We can be all these things! This applies to Taylor more and more as the amount of non christians on campus grows. So where have these non christians gotten these views of the judgmental, old fashioned, and boring christians? More than likely, Church. Church is the initial place where a non christian interacts with a christian. 

Honestly, I haven't really found a strong church home at Taylor. It probably is mostly my fault for not getting directly involved, but I don't really feel a strong communal connection with any of the churches that I have been to in the surrounding area of Taylor. The churches do seemed old fashioned to me in a sense, and I have been bored in church (not just at Taylor). Now I'm not saying that a Taylor based church should constantly keep someone entertained or occupied, but there is a huge opportunity reshape the way people think about church. So now it comes to it, the real purpose. 

I think the purpose of a church on Taylor's campus would be to combat the spiritual apathy on campus by reshaping people's minds about Christianity, the Church, and Christ. This would be done through the people in the community that the church is in: Taylor. The topics at the church can be the things that Taylor students are actually concerned about, and what the Bible has to say about those topics. All in all, it would be to get people excited and on fire once again for a life in christ by showing them there is life in the church. To show that the church can change, that it isn't judgmental, and that it is concerned about the things of today.

Now obviously there are many questions that follow this. What does a student church look like? What about other's in the community? How would it be operated? What would draw someone back after you talk about the thing they care about? How would this be funded? Who would lead it? There are 1,000's of questions that can be asked and they must be asked. I'm sorry to the people that I've talked to and I've not been able to answer some of these. I felt like I had to have an answer whenever I talked to someone about this idea. Since then, I've realized that if God wants this to happen, it will. I don't have to have an answer for everything or everyone, because my trust is in God. 

This is the way that I see things, and I would love to hear how you see it. 

Thanks so much for listening to me rant! I hope to see responses to this soon. :-)

In Him, 

JB

What TU needs? Part 2

Sorry that it has been such a long time since i have blogged at all. It has been an wonderful weekend and i was very busy throughout the past couple days. My girlfriend Bethany came down to Indy and hung out with me for the weekend, so blogging wasn't really on the forefront of my mind. :-)

To recap, the idea of a church at taylor is what is being discussed. This church would be student run and student lead in almost all leadership positions and roles of responsibilities. The driving thought behind this is that we want Taylor to become more impassioned. We want taylor to be a true community of believers that is open and actively working toward the goals of the kingdom in both spirit and truth. The best way that I've seen that happen in every single community is when it clicks with people inside the community and when those people then influence others positively. I would rather listen to the guy down my hall who has struggled with pornography and gotten out of it than listen to someone that i don't know. When it is personal, it is stronger and more applicable. 

Hence the idea of a student lead church. When i think about the churches around the area of taylor, i think of taylor students as injections into those churches. We almost are like a cortazone shot. I don't really think that many of the TU students consider themselves members of a church at school. for me personally, I wake up, go to church, listen to the sermon, sit with my taylor friends, then i get up and go eat lunch back at taylor. At no point am i involved in the church the only time that we meet corporately. I know that this sounds bad or heretical or whatever, but i don't consider them my church family. I consider my church family the other christians that i'm living life with. This idea comes a little bit from Acts 2:42, but also it comes from some articles that I've read by Gabe Lyons. If anyone of you who reads this blog is interested in reading some of the stuff that has really reshaped the way that i have looked at church, check out this website. 

As I drove up to Michigan to pick up Bethany, i was given the time to sit down and call people about the idea for the church. All the people that i talked to helped me shape a little bit more of what the idea of a church at school could look like. Thank you to everyone that i talked to! Your input was very beneficial. One of the main points that i realized was that in order for the church to ever be operational was to be really organized and well thought out. This meant we would have to have some sort of a checks and balances system set up so that one person in the whole idea of a church couldn't "take control" of everything. As a community, we are going to be all working together, which will obviously cause conflict and strife at some point. Being organized helps avoid that. 

I would love to continue to have people become excited about the idea of a church, but i can't be the only person who is informing others about it. If you read this blog and you go to Taylor, please tell as many people about the idea for a church that you can. The more people that jump on board now and actively work toward developing it as a program, the better chance it has for actually happening. That means:

• Questions
• Comments
• Concerns
• Ideas
• Networking
• Resources
• Complaints

All of these things are going to be essential for the idea to work! Also and most importantly, we need to be praying about it! Toss this up to God and see what he says about it. I know that everyone that wants this to happen will be excited and passionate about it, so lets spread the passion and cause change!