A New Seed Planted: Why I Chose to Stay in the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

When I visited my parents’ home in Illinois after three months out of the country, the first thing to catch my attention on that long bus ride home from the airport were the cornfields, a magnificent sea of green receding forever into flatlands of our gorgeous state.

Now having grown up in the Land of Lincoln, I have driven past corn and soybeans since forever. Yet sometimes to appreciate the full beauty of something, you have to be deprived of it for a while.

Those three months in Mexico allowed me to return to the States and rediscover anew the simple beauty of the blue summer sky and a whole bunch of green leafy corn stalks.

I have had much to rediscover lately.

Two years ago I left the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

While this “abandon ship” moment was not physical--I still continued serving at a local Christian Church--spiritually and emotionally I had checked out.

Overwhelmed by political power plays and a watering down of Jesus’ teachings, it was fight or flight to save my faith, and I no longer had any fight left in me.

I remember sitting in the cafeteria of the Christian Church University I was attending at the time with a clear thought in my head: “I will not devote my life to this. If this is Christianity, I do not want anything to do with it.”

By “this” I meant the things I detailed in the post I wrote two years ago (I’d encourage you to check it out for further background).

This was not a statement of unbelief or apostasy, quite the opposite.

Every cell in my body screamed “more.”

Lying awake at night, the refrain repeated in my head: “there must be more.”

In a lonely apartment during the winter months, I battled depression and utter confusion.

Should I take communion?
Should I keep going to church?
Is there a true church?
Why would God let it get like this?
Why won’t He help me?
I am just trying to do Your will; why won’t You help me?
What am I supposed to do?

This was my dark night of the soul. And into the dark night I limped out in search for that “something more.”

I began attending services with the German Baptist Brethren, while also studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses (only a few people at the time knew I was seriously considering becoming a Witness).

The most recent consideration was the Apostolic Christian Church of America.

However, it was during the year I spent poring over Scripture with the Witnesses that I began to emerge from the darkness.

As I reasoned and debated with them, the false god I had been worshipping, which we both worshipped, was set clearly before my eyes: the god of Certainty.

I was certain that we had it right, that we were doing right, and that I was in the right group.

And that was fine until my eyes were opened to our huge gaping blind spots.

Suddenly, the certainty I had made my hope vanished and I went running to fill the vacuum.

Because for Witnesses there is (practically) no daylight between “Jehovah” and “Jehovah’s Organization” (their church), if the Organization goes down, so does God.

I tried to reason with them, that we have only ever had imperfect churches under the headship of a perfect Savior, and that security--doctrinal, ecclesial, or whatever--is no substitute for Christ.

What I didn’t realize was that I was preaching to my own heart.

As I have written elsewhere, there is simply no church that can be everything its people need it to be or everything Jesus intended it to be.

And that means there is no system of doctrine or theological answers that can dot every i, cross every t, or put all of faith’s complexities and gray areas into a neat little box with a bow on top.

We can pine away endlessly in a search for “something better” or we can learn to love what we have been given, praying that God would make us into something more.

That is what I have chosen to do.

Like the beauty of the cornfields, moving away from the Movement helped me to appreciate its unique beauty in new ways as I began to inch my way back in.

I appreciate what David French says:

The Church is like a navy, a collection of ships united in purpose and in destination. Each denomination is like a different ship in that navy, and while each crew is primarily tasked with the health and well-being of its own vessel, it’s also deeply invested in the strength of the fleet. Each vessel is more vulnerable as the fleet weakens. Each vessel is stronger surrounded by its protective armada.

You, my brothers and sisters, have your ships. My ship is the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

I believe in our principles. I am challenged by our history. I weep at our failures. 

Here is where I feel I can best exercise the gifts God has given me.

And as long as that continues to be the case, this is where I will stay.

I am planting new seeds and asking God to help me love what He’s given me.

The Lord is Not Slack: Why Has Jesus Not Returned?

One question which has nagged Christians and seekers for 2000 years since Jesus' walked the earth is why has Jesus not returned? 

This is a legitimate question, and I can remember being disturbed after reading one of my favorite theologians (who seemed to have answer for everything) say he did not know why God chose ¨soon¨ language to apply to Jesus' Coming in light of such a time gap!

This will be a longer than necessary post, in some respects, because I want to explain how I got from point A to point B in helping to answer for myself why the delay of Jesus' return does not invalidate the truth of The Way. 

The non-return of Jesus has indeed served as a basis by which some atheists and other assorted non-believers have scoffed at the Christian faith. 

And that Jesus (Matt. 16:28) and Paul (1 Thess. 4:15-17) (and presumably others; see James 5:7-9) seemed to think he, Jesus, would return in their lifetimes in the first century only exacerbates the problem. 

(On a more quirky note, Jehovah's Witnesses use this unfulfilled expectation to justify their failed prophetic speculations and subsequent disappointments.)

I understand many alternative explanations exist for the passages which suggest Jesus should have come back shortly after his ascension into heaven. 

Some have gone through each verse separately to explain why it does not teach what it appears to teach (John Piper takes this approach, for example). 

Living 2000 years on this side of the cross, I am conditioned to read these passages as if their writers and hearers were not anxiously expecting Jesus to return. 

However, a plain reading of the passages points in a different direction, prompting us to at least consider the possibility of a first century return expectation. 

The hope of the Coming of the Jesus in Scripture is routinely connected to the patient endurance the first believers were encouraged to have because they would be soon delivered (1 Thess. 4:15-17; Heb. 10:25; Rom. 13:12), not some future generation of Christians thousands of years later. 

At any rate, I am going to assume for the sake of argument Jesus did expect a sooner return, as did his followers.

So then what is the deal? Was Jesus a failed prophet? Were the Apostles and early Christians duped? 

That is, of course, a possibility. 

Indeed, maybe we are all wrong about The Way and Jesus is never coming back! 

Now obviously I do not believe that, but I am simply granting it as a logical (not actual) possibility. 

I believe the Bible shows how we may reconcile the teaching of Jesus' imminent return with his 2000 year delay to show neither Jesus nor the Apostles were wrong, per say, without forcing us to deny the earliest believers did, in fact, expect Jesus to return in their lifetimes.

Simply put the answer is that the soon return of Jesus in the lifetimes of his first followers was a prophetic prediction on Jesus' part, and that prophecy was conditional. 

I stumbled upon this answer while listening to the Bible Broadcasting Network, which airs sermons by the late Presbyterian Bible teacher J Vernon McGee who just briefly mentioned this view in answer to a related question about the end of times. 

Because this was an unanswered faith question of mine, I made a mental note to look more into it. 

However, it was not until I was doing some digging on Peter Enns' blogsite (Enns is an anti-innerantist OT Bible scholar) and saw he had featured some Bible scholars who had written a book taking this very approach (see their posts here, here, and here)! 

(I had also just read on the conditional nature of prophecy in Virkler and Ayayo's Hermeneutics for my hermeneutics class.) 

In other words, various streams of thought were coming together. 

So here is the basic argument:

1. Prophecy may be conditional. I won't spend much time on this but will refer the reader to the book of Jonah and Jeremiah 18:1-11 (other examples exist).

2. Jesus' soon Coming was conditioned on, at least, the repentance of the Jewish people. This is the linchpin of the argument. Read Acts 3:15-21 to grasp this point and compare it with Peter's words in 2 Peter 3:9-12.

3. Because the Jewish people did not repent, as was apparently the hopeful expectation of Jesus and the Apostles, the Messiah did not come as soon as expected (and we see a shift in the thinking of the church regarding these matters).

The authors I mentioned earlier have written a book to explain this (which I have not read) titled ¨When the Son of Man Did Not Come.¨ Their book's blurb summarizes their thesis in this way:

The authors argue that the deferral of Christ's prophesied return follows logically from the conditional nature of ancient predictive prophecy: Jesus has not come again because God's people have not yet responded sufficiently to Christ's call for holy and godly action. God, in patient mercy, remains committed to cooperating with humans to bring about the consummation of history with Jesus' return.

Theirs is not a new theory, but one I was up to this point unaware of. 

It does raise questions such as ¨well, is Jesus coming soon or not?¨ and ¨how does the snatching up (rapture) of the church fit into all of this¨, but the main takeaway, as one of the book's authors writes, is ¨the delay of the parousia [the Coming of Christ] does not falsify Christian hope.¨ 

The implications of this hypothesis are huge and I look forward to chewing on this more (and reading the book)! 

When I Think of My Grandmother: A Tribute.

A reading from the book of Jonah chapter 1:

In my distress I called to the LORD ,

and he answered me.

From the depths of the grave I called for help,

and you listened to my cry.

3 You hurled me into the deep,

into the very heart of the seas,

and the currents swirled about me;

all your waves and breakers

swept over me.

4 I said, 'I have been banished

from your sight;

yet I will look again

toward your holy temple.'

5 The engulfing waters threatened me,

the deep surrounded me;

seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;

the earth beneath barred me in forever.

But you brought my life up from the pit,

O LORD my God.

7 "When my life was ebbing away,

I remembered you, LORD ,

and my prayer rose to you,

to your holy temple.

8 "Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,

will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.

Salvation comes from the LORD ."

When my mother shared with me my grandmother's request that I say few words at her funeral service, I was both humbled and burdened.

I was humbled because, as with so many things, even in her death, my grandma was showing that...

she believed in me.
she supported my desire to minister and preach the gospel.
even though she never had the chance to hear me preach in a church setting like this, she was proud of me.

And as I reflect on this, I doubt she ever knew how much that meant to me.

Yet, I was also burdened by the task of taking

eighty-eighty years of life,
eighty-eighty years of impact,
eighty-eighty years of faith,

and doing it any justice in a few short minutes.

And while I can't say I have it all figured out, I will do my best and trust these words would have blessed my grandmother.

When I think of my grandmother I think of flowers.

My grandmother loved flowers.

The outside of her home was decked out in flowers--on her porch, in hanging holders in front of her home, and in large pots at the end of her driveway.

Hibiscus. Daylilies. Japanese Lilies. You name it.

On more than one lazy homeschool day, my mom and I went to grandma's house to abscond bulbs from some of those beautiful flowers and plant them in our own yard, they were so pretty.

Grandma knew exactly what to plant and when, when this or that flower would come up, and just how to care for them.

So, when I think of Grandma, my mind flies straight to a familiar image: her big house in the country, the towering trees guarding the edges of her property, the cool breeze in the summer time, and lots of beautiful, colorful flowers.

Flowers just as beautiful and as colorful as she was.

When I think of my grandmother, I think of her love of animals.

If you wanted to bring out the tender and the feisty from my grandmother, you need only ask her about her deer.

Heaven help the hunter who dared bother a single deer that visited her yard (or who upset even the wild turkeys, for that matter).

I think of her bird-feeders and the time she excitedly beckoned me to her dining room window to catch a glimpse of a humming bird who had taken up temporary residence there.

I remember and laugh about her love-hate relationship with Molly, her husband's bulldog and my grandma's reluctant housemate for many years.

Most recently, I think about how in her final years of life, God gave my grandma a dog she loved as a precious companion.

When my grandma and her dog first came to have each other, I remember she told me the dog’s previous owners had called her Ariel.

Suddenly, with all the seriousness my grandma could muster, still not betraying the characteristic humor in her voice, she looked me in the eye and said:

We are not calling the dog Ariel.

And that is how Ariel came to be known as Lady.

Truly, when I think of how that dog was with my grandma when she needed her the most, from beginning to the end, she could have been called a Blessing from God.

When I think of my grandmother, I think of her cooking.

...Bless her heart.

Grandma’s cooking ran the gamut...quality-wise.

She made wonderful cheese balls, Chex mix, and puppy chow which I always looked forward to around the holidays.

However, the times Grandma stayed with us when my mom was hospitalized, let’s just say we ordered pizza more than once.

But more than her cooking, I think of family Christmases and Thanksgivings.

Her kitchen burst with as much family as with food, spilling over on to the couches in the living room , all the way on to the floor.

The air rang with a beautiful symphony of laughter and teasing and catching up.

And where was grandma?

Honestly, there was no telling.

Maybe she was in the kitchen making space for food or in the living room chatting, or...who knew, really?

She didn’t insert or assert herself; she just loved that we were all there.

She just loved us, her family.

For that reason when I think of my grandmother, I also think of her children, my parents and my aunts and uncles.

I think about their love for her and for each other.

It is a sibling kind of love to be sure, complete with ribbing and rivalries, (who could pretend otherwise) but each were present during this long year of my grandma's declining health.

In their own ways, each did what they could to help Grandma when the strength to help herself had long left her body (this includes those who lived states away).

And while not a single one of them would ever look for a back pat or a word of praise, their selflessness over the past few years, and especially in these last critical months, speaks volumes not only to their Christian character, but to the Christian character of the mother who raised them, the impact she had on them, and their love for her.

When I think of my grandmother, I think about the 17 grandchildren and great-grandchildren she left behind and their own testimonies of what she meant to them, two of which you can read yourselves:

Life will be so different now, especially when our family gets together.

-- She was never too embarrassed to sing "cha-cha-cha" in the car while pretending she had maracas,
-- she made it to every grandparents day at our school

-- she celebrated every victory, whether big or small, and made sure she mailed her cards in time for birthdays.

--she loved telling stories

-- she always talked quiet when she was telling you something important, and laughed whenever she was thinking ahead to another part of the story

We will always miss her and hold tight to the memories we have, especially the night she took my cousins, my brother John and I to the Virginia Theater while my cousin Courtney and I wore matching shorts that she made us I love the memories that we have, and that I was able to get here in time to hug her one more time.

And this one, as well:

I'll never forget the sleepovers, when she let me use her "fancy dishes" to make pudding and have tea parties, and every night that she read me the story of "Lara's Doll" from the Precious Moments Bedtime Storybook. She never minded that it was the only story I ever wanted to hear. She saw me, and she loved me. I got to hear her pray the last time we were together, and I'm so thankful that there's comfort in the fact that she's with Jesus now.

 

On that note, finally, when I think of my grandmother, I think most of her faith in God.

At the beginning of this meditation, we read a chapter from the book of Jonah which I believe contains one of the clearest presentations of the gospel of grace in the Old Testament:

"Those who cling to worthless idols

forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,

will sacrifice to you.

What I have vowed I will make good.

Salvation comes from the LORD ."

My grandma knew this truth. She lived it. And she wanted others to know and live it, too.

Her favorite passage of Scripture was John 3:16-17:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Grandma had that life, that eternal life, which she lived out in word and deed.

No, she was not without sin, but it was for that very reason she exercised faith in Christ and was baptized into him for the forgiveness of her sins.

And you know something?

I will see my grandmother again.

The Bible says...

Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

15By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.

16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise.

17After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. -- 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

When Jesus comes again, all the dead in him will return with him to the earth in glory.

We know this is true because it is the first of three great promises.

The first promise was that God would send his Son, the Messiah, to earth to redeem us back to God.

We celebrate the fulfillment of that promise this season during Christmas.

The second was that the Messiah would be slain and raised back to life on the third day, which we celebrate during Easter or Resurrection Sunday.

The third promise is that Jesus will come again to receive us unto himself.

The Bible says:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. -- 1 Corinthians 1:20

He said he would come and he came.

He said he would rise and he rose.

He said he would return and he will return.

And when he returns, my grandma will be with him to meet us.

I know more than anything she wanted this promise to be true for her family.

For that reason, my prayer is that those who have not yet chosen to follow Jesus as Lord would do so and that, in doing so, they would find the true source of life and strength that made grandma’s life and death so special.

The Bible says precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of one of his faithful servants (Psalm 116:15) and I know that includes my grandmother.

The legacy she left is more than any one memory or even a collection of memories; it is an eternal legacy of treasures stored up in heaven.

While it pains me she won’t be there to know I passed Greek or to see me get married or to move to Mexico, I know she believed in me.

Grandma believed in all us, her family, because she believed in what God could do through us.

May we all endeavor to live a life of such faith and impact.

In memory of my Grandma Barbara Anderson (March 20 1929- December 7 2017) until we meet again it the twinkle of an eye: