Archive for August, 2007
Here we are at the 15th and last post of August. It has been a very sad blogging month and I can only strive to make it the last of it’s kind. Here are some thoughts as we head into the long weekend.
- It’s only been 2 days says Angela and I started getting up at 5am to go to the gym. I love it and hate it at the same time.
- I have been going to the gym on and off for the past 6 months but have only been doing cardio up till now. These last two days I have started weight training and I feel like my arms are going to fall off.
- Our church website was down today. Somewhere there was a mix up in the domain renewal. It’s been straightened out and should be up shortly.
- I am really looking forward to Sunday. We are currently in a series that is very relevant…well…everywhere, but especially in our area.
- I am hoping and expecting that our finances are going to start to straighten out soon. Not just LifePoint’s but Angela and mine as well as Kevin and Jessa. I’m sure we are not the only ones but it’s been a rough last few months.
- Busy day tomorrow. I have to pick up our rental truck, hand off the lights we have been using and hopefully schedule a time to get them again before it gets to late, Get a pair of new tires for the car, make a deposit, send off a rent check and most importantly, gear up for Sunday morning.
- I’m tired and need to go to bed. Goodnight.
Angela and I have been talking some time about getting in shape once and for all and now with her new job providing a free gym membership we are going to attempt it.
There is a problem though. We both get back between 5:30 and 6pm from work and then there is my church work and meetings and just all out exhaustion from a hard days work that going in the evening appears to be out of the question. So we have decided to go at 5 am.
I hope we can make it.
This past Sunday we kicked off our series called “Religious vs. Spiritual” and it went really well so I thought I would share it with our readers. It will obviously not be as in depth as the message but I still hope you take something away from it.
The Problem
This is a passionate subject with a lot of people with a lot of opinions. This wouldn’t be nearly has bad if it weren’t for the fact that our passion is derived from our individual experiences and therefore never completely lines up with anyone else’s understanding of the topic. We think we all agree but we usually agree for far different reasons.
Where to begin
I have decided to start on the topic of religion. First lets strip it all down to a very simple definition of religion. The definition works whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or any other type. Are you ready?
Religion is the establishment of rules in order to facilitate or enhance a set of beliefs.
This was the purpose of the law, to set the Jews a part from everyone else and facilitate their dedication to God.
The Accusation
So what you are saying is that you are pro religion?! Yes, absolutely! Hang on. don’t tune me out yet. If religion is simply the establishment of rules or boundaries to facilitate or enhance beliefs that I already hold, how can that be bad?
Boundaries have helped me be a better son, employee, a citizen and much more. Boundaries have even made me a better Christ follower. Notice I didn’t say that they made me a Christ follower just a better one. But more on that in a bit. My point is simply that rules and boundaries aren’t bad. In fact when asked, Jesus counseled a young man to “keep the commandments”. That might seem to be a little religious of him but looking at my own life, it’s just plain good advice. You can read it for yourself in Matthew 19:16-17.
Tainted Religion
The truth is that religion can be corrupted just like anything else or it can simply be based on a flawed set of beliefs. Let me give you three examples of tainted religion. This is not religion itself, it is religion that has been distorted. Here we will begin to focus on the Christian religion to whom God is the one who sets the boundaries.
- Preferential Boundaries. These types of boundaries are those things that are based on you. God hasn’t necessarily made a formal statement on the topic but you feel strongly about it. A short while ago I wrote a post on those who choose to condemn Harry Potter and yet look the other way at inappropriate humor or other things that they may find more enjoyable. If you do not feel like you should have anything to do with Harry Potter then you shouldn’t, but when you impose your preferential boundary on others, your religion is being tainted. Another danger here is that many time our preferential boundaries take the place of God’s actual boundaries.
- Personal Boundaries. These are similar to preferential boundaries but God has said a few things about these. They usually aren’t for every person but God has told some to obey these boundaries. An example is that fact that I am not supposed to drink alcohol. Does that mean no one can drink alcohol? No, it means I can’t. Does that mean everyone else can drink alcohol? No, it means I can’t. You are going to have to take that one up with God yourself. Paul was called to stay single. That’s not everyone’s boundary but it is some people’s boundary. When we play God and try and decide that these personal boundaries are universal boundaries, our religion is tainted.
- Misplaced Boundaries. This brings us to a good point. There are some universal boundaries that God expects all of his children to obey. The corruption here happens when we enforce those boundaries to do something they were never meant to do. Remember a few paragraphs ago I said that boundaries did not make me a Christ follower, just a better one. It appears that many times the church today believes that morality is more important than a relationship with Christ. We preach how to live moral to people who are on the path of destruction and those morals we are teaching will not change their destination, only Jesus can. When someone is drowning it is not the time to teach them the breast stroke. They just need to be saved. Swimming lessons come later. When we enforce rules over the life giving relationship with Jesus, our religion is tainted.
Let’s examine ourselves. What boundaries do we readily recognize in our lives? Which ones are preferential, personal and misplaced?
That was part 1 and my 2 cents.
It has been hard to keep on top of blogging since I started my new job but I am trying to stay the course. Here have been a few things going on and on my mind.
- We had a great service today!
- Myk led worship in my place today which lifted a huge burden off of my shoulders. I think it really had an impact on my ability to present the message. There was a different kind of energy. It was pretty cool.
- I am so grateful for our team. There may not be many of them but they get the job done and I would hate to attempt to do it with out them.
- We finally put up a poster at the theater. It’s 24×36 inches right in the front center window. It looks pretty good but I designed it so I might be a little biased.
- We launched our series “Religious vs. Spiritual” today and I thought it went really well. This is a passionate topic for some and can be difficult to cover but I think we laid some pretty solid ground work. Tomorrow I will post a bit of the message highlights on the topic.
- In 3 weeks we are starting a series called “Heroes” that is basically talking about the potential within us all to be a hero where we live. This is going to be an interesting topic here in the conservative bible belt. In this series we will cover topics ranging from our homes, communities, politics, and the environment. This is also going to be a defining moment for LifePoint and our impact in the world we live in. I am extremely excited about this series.
- I have to say that I love my new job and the people I work with. It’s refreshing to actually want to go to work. The only thing better would be to focus full-time on the church but that time is not yet upon us.
- I think we were paying Kevin I would give him a raise. He has been doing an amazing job of keeping things together and keeping me on task during my job transition. There are a whole of things that I couldn’t do without him or at least I wouldn’t want to.
- God is on the move at LifePoint and I just hope I can keep up.
This is the title of our current series that starts this Sunday. Living in the “Bible Belt” I run into all kinds of people with many different views on this topic. I would dare say that Cleveland, TN is one of the most religious areas in the country with over 400 churches (this is just Christian denomination) in Bradley county alone. Yet, more and more people are not finding God in these churches and many have taken their search else ware.
The trend in our generation is to remove ourselves from any church or organized affiliation and pursue what some are calling a true spiritual walk. A true spiritual walk, that sounds great, sign me up.
In this series we will reduce religion and spirituality to the irreducible minimums and ask the question is one better than the other or are they both just an unattainable idea? If Jesus were to visit your hometown, would he be unwaveringly religious or deeply spiritual?
What are some of your thoughts?
This was the message that I shared with LifePoint this past Sunday. I figured I would put the whole thought in the title. That way if you decided not to read the whole post you still got the main point. I’m sneaky like that.
The point is that many times we strive to get ours and our own and then find that once we got it, it wasn’t enough. We wrongfully assume that contentment comes when we either get everything that we wanted or force ourselves to stop wanting things altogether. The truth is…neither works.
Why? Because true contentment comes not when we get what “we” want or even by our ability to “stop wanting” but by aligning our desires with God’s desires. Satisfaction is so much easier to obtain when you are seeking the things that God wants for you.
When what God wants becomes what you want, what you have will be enough.
It has been a crazy few weeks trying to get everything done but I think I am starting to pull it together. I haven’t had a chance to post much but there have been plenty of other blogs knocking it out of the park.
This particular one is by my friend, Zack. You can read his whole post here but here are a few quotes that stood out to me.
“acquiring material things (and especially going into debt to get them) is not God’s idea of abundance! And yet, this is exactly what a lot of Christians have been doing for decades.”
“Somehow I don’t think that the American Express card in your wallet is what God had in mind when Paul wrote, ‘my God shall supply all your need according to His riches and glory by Christ Jesus.’ “
“Shouldn’t the church be, like Joseph was in Egypt, the example of abundance and prosperity the world will look to in a time of need? This way we can point them to the One who gave us the riches we posses while we’re helping supply their needs. Wouldn’t that be a tremendous testimony?”
Wow! Instead of being diligent stewards of what we do have, most of us go through life trying to look prosperous in hopes that we will look righteous. which leads me to add a thought.
The state of your finances is not necessarily God’s judgment or his approval to your current spiritual condition. We have had it shoved down our throats that anyone who is financially prosperous is highly favored of God which only leads to the conclusion that if we are financially challenged that it must be because God is not pleased with us. This is crap.
Whatever the state of your finances, God is pleased with the one who is seeking him.
First let me apologize on my lack of posting. It has been a crazy past two weeks. I recently started a new job and we have been implementing a lot of new things with the church which has made me a little to preoccupied to post. I hope to remedy that this week although not with this post.
This post is just to let all the readers no that I am alive and well and will be writing a lot more often again. Are you ready…I know I am.
Sorry that I haven’t gotten to post in a while, but today is my first day at Tennessee Valley Credit Union as the webmaster. That’s right, I’ve traded in my graphics tablet and photoshop for notepad and more CSS. I’ve also got to deal with a lot of federal regulations and such, so it should be pretty interesting. I want to thank Kevin for turning in my application, I wouldn’t have gotten this job without his hard work! He practically convinced them to hire me all by himself. I just went into the interview, mentioned his name and was hired almost on the spot. Yeah, that Kevin is a great guy. I’m lucky to have a best friend like him! Well, I have to go, but I’ll post some more later.
(This post was neither written or approved by James Laws. The views and opinions stated in this post do not necessarily reflect those of the Rev. James Anthony Laws. Thank you.)
I want to apologize for the lack of posting this week. I had a feeling it would be a light week but still don’t know why. Just something I felt/feel in my gut. That doesn’t mean I can’t share the most read posts of the past month though.
- On Proving God’s Existence - In this post Kevin explains that science is not in the position to prove or disprove God. Those who do not believe in God claim this as a cop out but it is in fact a fact. It seems that the pursuit of proving God is going to have to be left up to some other means.
- Harry Potter has gone to far - Of all the evils in the world…this is by far one of the worst.
- Your log, their spec, my opinion - This is all about drawing moral lines in the sand based on preference and not on righteousness. There is a difference you know.
- Carpel Tunnel - Kevin shares his physical woes. Since I haven’t heard about it since I have to assume that some of your suggestions helped.
- Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union…Very Innovative - This started as a post to share how our local credit union was taking a chance at doing business differently and what we as the church can learn from it. It was then suggested that it was possibly a ploy to get a job with them that I applied for. In case you’re curious…I got the job.
Those were the top 5 posts of July but let me share one more as an honorable mention. This was my favorite post this past month simply because it finally clicked for me in a way that it hadn’t until now.