Church Insanity

Churches are requiring a bachelor’s or master’s degree in order to be considered for a position as a “pastor.” Really? So you are telling me that in order to minister to the flock you have to get education from a Bible College, by professors who are not pastors, to teach you how to run a broken, archaic, unbiblical system, that they have never run themselves.

Every day in America, the doors of a Christian church closes. Every day in America are sold into slavery. Every day in America, churches look like ghost towns, and only come alive when the pastor opens the doors for board approved activity. Really? So we determine when the Holy Spirit moves? Really? We determine the dates and hours when God is present? Really?

Every Sunday in America, thousands of churches open their doors to hear the same person talk about God, the same perspective, the same expression of worship, guilting people into coming, because if you don’t, somehow you are not living the Christian life. Every Sunday in America, less and less people gather in the buildings that says “church,” the lie we have believed for hundreds of years, that “church” is the building.

Really? Have you not even read the Bible? Really? Church is NOT a building. Really? Church is not on Sunday! It is every day, all the time, in the everyday places we go, in the ordinary things we do, with the extraordinary people we encounter. Really?

Every year hundreds of people graduate from Bible Colleges, with papers in their hands that gives them permission to be a minister or pastor. It is dipped in the false doctrine of narcissism that says you are who makes the church successful. Today the new trend of Bible College training is “church planting” to fill the void of all the churches that are closing. They are using the old, archaic, unbiblical system they were taught to plant new churches.

Really? Is this some kind of sick joke. Planting the same system of churches, but expecting different results? Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. Really? A piece of paper from other people, who say that you are educated enough, determines your ability to minister? Really? Didn’t Jesus grab the uneducated men to turn the world upside down? Didn’t Jesus say that “greater things we would do in His name?” His name. Not the name of the college, not the name of the professor, not our own name.

2 Corinthians 3-6

“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the human hearts.”

So, we, 2000 years later, need letters of recommendation (degrees) by men on paper (tablets of stone). but the early disciples relied on the “Spirit of the Living God.” We are called to minister… PERIOD.  In our neighborhoods, communities, cities, states and even to the ends of the earth. We do not need a piece of paper that says we are able to minister. In fact, the Word of God says that we are made “strong” in our weakness, because it makes us rely on the Spirit of God.

My husband has been turned down for countless ministry “positions” simply because he does not have a piece of paper that says he was educated by men. Yet, we have letter from Christ, written on the hearts of every person, we have had the honor of ministering to. We have wisdom, beyond our years, as we have admitted our foolishness and allow God to make us wise. Churches hire young people right out of college, because they have a piece of paper that says they are wise. Really? How embarrassing for the church. How sad that we look like the world. How about use your discernment. Oh but most church leaders nowadays don’t even know what that word means. They rely on what they can see and touch. They follow the world’s pattern, instead of the pattern of God’s Word.

So, my husband and I, we continue to be a nobody. Undercover, secret agents of grace. Moving in and out of the shadows of the darkest places to bring light. We continue to be less so that He can be more. We are nothing without Christ. So in our journey as a nobody, people continue to see that Jesus is a somebody…. And that, after all is said and done is really our desire anyway.

John 3:30

I must decrease, so that He may increase.

Walking in the Hornets Nest

 There they were, holding signs that had a picture of a young man on a poster board, with words that read “CAR WASH for FUNERAL EXPENSES.” I drove past them, on my way to the thrift store to get some things for my daughter. In the car with me, were two young people who came to live with us, after some months of homelessness and drug issues.

“I think that car wash is for him, Mama T,” the young man in the back seat of my car said quietly. He was sitting next to his girlfriend and his eyes were fixed on the people on the street.

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked

“No, you can keep going,” he said.

His curly hair was getting long and his eyes began to water. The loss of yet another friend was a lot. Since he had come to live with us, he discovered that one of his brothers got locked up and the other one was on house arrest. Both under the age of 18. His girlfriend held his hand and did not say a word.

We arrived at the thrift store and got out. The couple lingered outside to smoke and my daughter and I went in to find some things for her Sadie’s Hawkins dance. When we were done, he asked me if he could go back to the car wash to see if anyone could give him and his girlfriend a ride to the candlelight vigil. So I drove back to the corner where everyone was.

When we parked the car, the group assumed that I was another customer, there to support the funeral, with a car wash. My car needed one, but I was not there for that purpose. The young man and I got out of the car, and my daughter and his girlfriend stayed inside.

There were close to 50 people there; all helping, grieving, remembering. As I walked closer to the group, all eyes watched me. The smell of marijuana was thick and the tattoos on their bodies, indicated they were from the Bulldog gang. Against the wall, one man, close to my age, tensed up to see what I was doing there. He glared with a fierce intensity as I walked up to the young man’s cousin. She had a joint in her hand and put it behind her back, so that I would not see it. She looked at me, confused, and then at the young man. The young man hugged her and she responded with, “This sucks man.”

He introduced me and I gave her a hug. Her stiff body would indicate that she did not expect my embrace; but I continued to engulf her in my Mama T way, until she relaxed. He introduced me to all the people who came around him. One by one, I hugged them and shared my condolences. Joints were being passed around and sadness hung in the air. My heart was broken for them, for the loss of a life so young.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around to see a young man that looked familiar.

“Remember me?” he asked.

“You look familiar,” I said, “but I can’t place where I know you from.”

“I met you at the Hall. You were talking to me and my mom and dad. Your husband was breaking it down to my dad, remember?” he inquired.

“Oh yes, I do remember.” I said with a hug. He too knew the young man who had just passed away. One by one young people started to come around me, curious as to who I was. I clearly did not belong there, hugging and talking to this community of people. Yet, there I was: talking, embracing and encouraging them in their loss. Many of them knew Will, one of our Bible Study boys who was killed just two weeks earlier, so their sorrow was heavy. As the smoke and conversations rose in the air, the man who was standing by the wall began to soften. No longer did he stare me down with a fierceness. His posture changed, he leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed and began to talk to the people around him, eyes off me. I was told that he was the father of the young man, who had just passed. So his intense, silent inquiry was understandable to me.

There I was, me, a 41 year old, urban missionary, standing in the middle of Bulldogs from McKenzie Street. Loving them, hugging them, and being accepted by them. I looked at their faces: broken, sad, lost and angry; and had compassion for them. I had just walked into a hornets nest and was not stung. They were swarming around me, checking to see if I was a threat, to see if I had fear, to discover what my motive was. The love that was exuding out of me, from Jesus, was so powerful, that it was like smoke to a bee hive. It calmed them, and took away the threat. I did not look like them, I did not belong, but they saw Jesus in me, and although they may not be able to articulate what was happening, they were experiencing the love of Jesus.

 So many times, we, as Christians look at a situation with judgement and condemnation and miss an opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus. So many times, we are stricken with fear and cannot even get out of the building called “church” to bring Jesus to the dark places. So many times, we believe the lie that people who want Jesus, will just show up to church, because, you know, it is church. We live in a post-Christian nation. People are not going to show up to a building to find hope. So many people don’t even know who Jesus is. A lot of people see Christianity as an elitist, judgmental, controlling organization that has no room for sinners or the broken or the lost.

The young man, who lives with my family, continued talking to his cousin and then asked me if I could take him to his Grammie’s house, which was a few blocks away from the candlelight vigil. He wanted to pick up the letter his brother had sent him from the Hall. I drove into Bulldog territory, filled with joy that I was shining a light in a dark place. I gave him a sympathy card for his friend’s mom. He looked at it with bewilderment, as this gesture was a middle class occurrence that he was unaccustomed to.

“If you don’t want to give her the card, you don’t have to. But it’s what we do when someone we know dies.” I said.

“Oh, okay,” he understood. “No, I like it, I think she will too.”

He got out of the car, with his girlfriend and walked up to the door of his Grammie’s house. My daughter and I drove away. She looked at me and smiled. She too felt the joy of just being the light. Not preaching, not condemning, not expecting… Just loving, just giving, just being the hands and feet of Jesus.

If only more people with the light inside of them, walked in the dark; to give hope, to show love, to be present. They are looked at as the scum of the earth, a gang, this gang. But they are human beings with souls and hearts, who need Jesus. Open your heart to those you look down on. Give your hand to those, who you think are beneath you. Share the love of Jesus to those who do not know him.

You will find that LOVE is the most powerful weapon on earth. The LOVE of Jesus, shown to a broken world, is the ONLY thing that will change people, change our city, our state, our nation, our world. No amount of programs, laws, events, organizations will do that. You may think you are a NOBODY, that has nothing to offer this broken world… but if you know Jesus, if you have experienced his love in your own life… you are a somebody- who has the most powerful weapon on earth- AGAPE LOVE.

GO… go and change the world… by showing God’s love… start with one person, today. You will be amazed at how powerful your act of love is. It starts with one, then another, then another.

Matthew 11:19