“Five Point Crankiness” December 30, 2010
Posted by mscrankypants in Baptist, Bible, Body of Christ, Christian, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, College Ministry, Faith, God, Jesus, ministry, Opinions, Postmodern, Religion, Youth Ministry.2 comments
General things that have made me cranky lately:
1) People put prematurely into leadership at church. My daughter knows a young man (he’s in his early to mid 20’s) who knows virtually nothing … and I mean NOTHING(!) … about the Bible or about the Christian faith. But he’s now been put into a position of upper leadership with both the college aged group and the high school youth group at church. (How stupid is that?)
2) Leadership in the high school youth group at church who are young in the faith and don’t have a clue how to live out their lives as godly young people. For example, one young woman’s idea of a good time is to go to bars, get drunk, and flirt with guys. But because she doesn’t officially “date,” she thinks she’s a good example of a Christian young person. She even leads small groups in both the high school and middle school ministries at church. (Hello?!)
3) Mission organizations that attempt to tack belief in Jesus onto the worship of foreign gods (or “idolatry”). Combining Christianity with other religions is called Syncretism … and it’s completely contrary to the Word of God. They’re not bringing people into the faith — they’re creating new religions instead.
4) Ministries to the “post-modern” world who attempt to become like them in word, action, deed, philosophy, etc., rather than minister to them from the position of propositional truth as revealed in the Word of God. These post-modern Christians discourage knowledge, discourage discovering truth (they don’t believe there is such a thing as “absolute truth”), and actually encourage deconstructing truths that have seen the Church through centuries of humanism, conflicting religious views, and even persecution. The post-modern world (read: post-“knowledge/thinking” world) doesn’t need the Church of Jesus Christ becoming just another option they can tack onto whatever the current wind of thought might be — the post-modern world needs the church standing up for TRUTH! God’s truth. The Bible’s truth. The faith handed down throughout the generations. The old, old story.
5) Pragmatism in the church. The idea that if a ministry doesn’t succeed (ie: “show the numbers”), then it’s dropped like a hot potato. What about missionaries who have struggled for years and years and years with essentially no measurable fruit, but they’ve spent all those years learning the language, translating the Word of God, building relationships, etc.? Planting and watering the seeds that someone else comes along and harvests later?
A Text Without a Context … February 16, 2007
Posted by mscrankypants in Bible Study, Christian, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Faith, God, Jesus, Middle School, ministry, Religion, Youth, Youth Ministry.4 comments
Just so you know why I haven’t posted very often yet, I’m not cranky everyday. Consequently, the postings on this blog might be few and far between. But, then again, sometimes crankiness seems to come in seasons. So there might be a cranky flurry from time to time. Whenever I feel a cranky moment coming on, I’ll try to remember to come here and let you all in on the current gripe.
So, on to today’s cranky post.
My 12-year-old daughter is in a small group at church for sixth graders. They have a little booklet for the girls to work through each week, and then they all get together to discuss it with their leaders and each other. So far, so good.
My older daughter (almost 20) helped out with a middle school small group last week, so she reviewed one of the booklets. She was pretty disappointed with it (maybe “horrified” would more accurately reflect her reaction?). Basically, it was poorly written, poorly edited, poorly thought out, and poorly communicated it’s poor points. Poor little booklet. I think my older daughter could write her own cranky post about what she saw and read, and for that matter, I could probably go and on about it, as well, but I’ll spare you the tirade (for today, at least).
My particular beef is more about something that came to me as I woke up this morning. (Yes, I wake up in the morning having cranky moments.) 😉
All the booklet did was have the girls look up fairly random verses and answer questions about them. Just so you know, I have a SERIOUSLY cranky attitude toward people who take a Bible verse out of context and then try to make the verse mean whatever the person wants it to mean.
It seems to me that by having the girls read one isolated verse from, say, Philippians followed by one isolated verse from Romans, followed by one isolated verse from the Gospel of Luke, it just trains the girls to think that Bible verses have no context and that you can just randomly choose a verse and read into it whatever you want.
As they say in some inductive Bible studies I’ve been in over the years, “A text without a context is a pretext.”
Taking isolated verses out of their immediate context — and out of the overall context of the entirety of Scripture — can be a path into error, false doctrine, and even trying to find ways to circumnavigate clear teachings of Scripture in order to gratify the flesh.
I would rather see the girls do something like maybe read an entire chapter of a Bible book, then discover what it means through good Bible study methods, and then try to find some sort of personal application. But it seems that the most common form of Bible study these days — especially for kids and teens — is to just grab an isolated verse and then immediately try to bend and stretch it into some sort of personal application, whether that interpretation or application has any validity within the immediate or overall context of the verse or not.
Maybe it’s time to write my own Bible study series for middle schoolers? 🙂
I personally subscribe to the belief that I shouldn’t officially complain about something at the church unless I’m willing to step in and be a part of solution. So I’m not officially complaining to the powers-that-be about the shallow and ill-thought out study books the kids are using. But if I decide I want to write my own studies, then I feel I’ll have a real purpose in stepping forward with a bit of constructive criticism. Hmm … just what I need. Another “project.” lol 😉
And speaking of random Bible verses, here’s one that’s running around in my head today:
“The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” Jer. 17:9
Are We Amputating Parts of His Body? February 2, 2007
Posted by mscrankypants in Baptist, Body of Christ, Christian, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, College Ministry, Faith, God, Jesus, ministry, Religion, Spirituality, Youth, Youth Ministry.3 comments
Our church has a ministry especially for the college aged people and other young adults (up to about age 30). On the surface, I think this sounds like a great idea. Young people can connect with others their age as they figure how to live out their life of faith in the context of today’s world. Great, so far.
I heard our Senior Pastor say the other day that when he retires in 15 to 20 years, he wants to hand off the leadership of the chuch to this new emerging generation. Yep, that makes sense. About the time the current leadership is ready to retire, the younger generation will be taking over the reins of ministry.
So far, so good. But remember, I’m Ms. Crankypants so of course I have a problem with all of this. Here it comes. 😉
The Bible is quite clear that one of the roles for older women in the church — women who’ve been married for awhile, successfully raised kids, and actually lived to tell about it(!) — are supposed to serve as mentors for the younger women. But if the younger women who are just starting their homes and families are all segregated off with their age-mates in their own church service, their own small groups, and their own ministry outreaches, at what point do the generations come in meaningful contact with each other?
I remember being a young mom and wishing there were older women in the church who I could rub shoulders with as I attempted to live out my faith in meaningful spiritual and practical ways. But the older women either weren’t there, or were all too busy with their careers, retirement plans, etc., to take time to walk alongside a fledgling mom like me and show me the ropes. I remember telling myself that when I found myself in the position of being one of the “older women”, I was going to make sure I was available to the next generation. Providing I didn’t grow up to be a complete spiritual imbecile, I wanted to be that “Titus Woman” for others coming behind me.
Well, now I’m getting close to that next stage of life. One child is grown … two others are quickly following. I’ve been married for nearly 30 years. I’ve almost hit half a century of plodding through this earthly life. Seems like it’s time to start looking around for opportunities to give into the lives of younger women.
But guess what? They’re no place to be found! They’re all hanging out with each other in church prescribed groups with others their age. It’s almost like they’re a small church within the larger church … but without any sort of meaningful contact with the older generations. It breaks my heart to see the walls … the official church programmed walls … that have been erected between the upcoming saints and the seasoned ones with wisdom and experience to share.
I can understand making connections with other people in your age group (we all need friends who can relate to our stage of life), but the Church (the Body of Christ) is made up of ALL ages and stages … young, old, healthy, sick, happy, broken-hearted, new moms, old moms, teens, elderly. Doesn’t it say in the Bible that the various parts of the Body aren’t suppose to say that they don’t need each other? The truth is, we all need each other deeply. Desperately. Iron sharpening iron, and all that.
Going back to that comment my pastor made about handing off the leadership to the younger generation someday, I find myself wondering just how prepared the next generation is going to be for that leadership role when they’ve been segregated away from the wisdom of their elders throughout all of their formative years (from those early preschool Sunday School classes to the college and post-college age groups)?
It seems to me that interaction with our age-mates is important … but should be secondary in the life of the Church. Otherwise we just end up with a bunch of feet teaching each other how to be a foot … rather than an entire body working together in unison.
For example, at our church, the younger generation has an entire church service that’s mainly just for them. It’s in the evening and is advertised as a way for the participants to get to sleep in on Sunday mornings. (Ugh.!!! Oh, sorry … had a cranky moment, there.) Anyway, my children and I go to the evening service but not so we can sleep in. We go to church at night so it frees us up to serve during the two Sunday morning worship services. Whether teaching Sunday School or ushering or helping with hospitality or working at an information table, we have the chance to serve the entire Body … plus we can still attend a worship service each week. It breaks my heart to think that all the young people in that evening service are being encouraged to sleep in, rather than to plug in and be of service to the rest of their local church body.
I think the younger generation has effectively been amputated at our church from the rest of the Body. And what happens to a limb that’s been amputated? Unless it’s saved quickly and reattached while life still remains, it dies.
I’m praying that somehow the living connections between the generations will reestablish themselves before it’s too late. I’d hate to see gangrene or rigor mortis set in.
Ms. Crankypants 