Posted on 05/04/2015 3:26:20 PM PDT by NYer
In the book of Revelation, when Jesus catalogues the problems in each of several churches he gives a lot of great advice. Some churches need to “hold fast to what you have” others need to “return to your first love.”
But when he comes to the church of Laodicea, he has nothing good to say:
“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 4:15-16).
Jesus prefers bad Christians to nominal Christians — Christians who struggle and fall and get up instead of Christians who drift along.
Let us count the way nominal Christians are a problem.
Nominal Christians are the hardest to reach with the Gospel message.
To those who once believed but do no longer, Jesus Christ is either embarrassing or irrelevant. Jesus is like your Uncle Bob — that uncle you met a few times in childhood but didn’t keep up with. You remember him with a pang of conscience for not sending a Christmas card or with overwhelming indifference.
Nominal Christians think of Jesus that way. Have you ever noticed that, nowadays anyway, lapsed Catholics talk about “Catholic guilt” way more than practicing Catholics?
Practicing Catholics have a quick way to kill guilt: confession. Only those Catholics who have abandoned the sacraments stay guilty. Either that, or they have hardened themselves against guilt. That makes it impossible for them to hear the truths of the faith — they hear them not as a freeing pathway, but as echoes from a regrettable past.
Nominal Christians give the world a false sense of the strength of the Church.
I have long been haunted by a comment a priest once made: “The 1950s were the apex of Christian civilization in America. We need to get that back.”
He was wrong — tragically so. The 1950s strike me as a time when people were painfully embarrassed about Christianity, even though I suppose most Christians then wouldn’t dream of renouncing the faith. The cultural icons of respectability were faithless: Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers and the Kramdens never prayed or went to church.
One gets the sense from those shows that people thought our society should be strong and good, but need not be Christ-centered. In fact, Ward Cleaver and the Honeymooners “imagined no religion” in exactly the same way John Lennon did.
Successive generations of TV families, those families who imitate us and vice versa, did the same — from The Bradys to the Cosbys to Everybody Loves Raymond, religion never made anything more than a cameo appearance.
The fact that each of these families would probably identify themselves as Christian didn’t show the strength of Christianity — it showed the weakness of Christianity. The American culture they created allowed people to be satisfied good “Christian folk” without Jesus.
Nominal Christians give us a false discouragement about our declining numbers.
Christians often feel disappointed that we live in a time of quickly declining membership and church attendance. It’s true:
We do.
But we probably misunderstand what is going on.
The numbers don’t tell us: “People used to believe, but now no longer believe.”
Instead, they tell us: “People used to have to say they believe, but now they can be honest.”
The American Religious Identification Survey that inspired Newsweek to write its cover story on “The Decline and Fall of Christian America” certainly showed the drop in people who go to church services or associate themselves with a denomination. But it also showed something else. Said the survey:
“Most of the growth in the Christian population occurred among those who would identify only as ‘Christian,’ ‘Evangelical/Born Again,’ or ‘non-denominational Christian.’ The last of these, associated with the growth of megachurches, has increased from less than 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to over 8 million today. These groups grew from 5 percent of the population in 1990 to 8.5 percent in 2001 to 11.8 percent in 2008. Significantly, 38.6 percent of mainline Protestants now also identify themselves as evangelical or born again.”
Ed Stetzer explains the phenomenon here.
So...why do you continue to attend?
For the same reason we send missionaries to heathen lands.
So you are a missionary to your Pastor....
One never knows!! Ha!!
I used to be a soprano in our choir at my previous parish. One of the nicest times in my life. That was half a lifetime ago: with the way I sound now, if God weren’t omniscient, He’d think there was a scared chicken in the pew! Lol!
Catholic Ted Kennedy: an oxymoron! Funny, but actually very very sad when you think about it.
One who loves God the Trinity, as well as his own neighbor; follows the Ten Commandments; follows the Precepts of the Church; receives and attends the Sacraments, attends Mass (noteworthy fact, if one is late for Mass and misses the Scriptural readings, he or she is not considered as having actually attended Mass in Its fullness.); prays regularly, that’s some of it...
Sorry, forgot courtesy ping on my last post!
We send missionaries to heathen lands because we are more concerned about what He does than what they do.
Good luck with your Pastor...
I believe faith, being a Fruit of the Holy Spirit is indeed a gift from God: yet is it not, in part, an act of the will? That man begged Jesus for more faith because he desired it, that his son could be saved. His submission to Jesus was an act of will. Just a thought...
The church has a core group of conservatives that make his life miserable, as we did his predecessor. I sense a disturbance in the force as the church comes head-to-head with same sex marriage. If the UMC General Conference votes in favor of it, the church will become a ghost town.
My wife recently attended service at the PCA church in town and they are running out of seats whereas our numbers are decreasing.
You’re right. Some people wait a long time for the gift of faith to develop. It’s not for lack of effort that they are in a “spiritual desert” period of life.
Ward and June Cleaver always dressed like they were going to church, even when June was vacuuming or Ward was cleaning the garage. Dirt never stuck to them. They also didn’t sweat, lol
I so love that show!
Sprain of old TV shows, Ann B. Davis said on an interview that there was a "God-shaped" opening in every person that only God is able to fit. I thought that was a nice way to put it...
I enjoyed reading your story. I have a question, what is a”Birdie”? I know you wouldn’t take offense at my asking, and I didn’t quite get it from the context... Thank you, and thank you for sharing you story with us!
I can’t speak for anyone else, but Catholics believe in one God in Three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, while separate, they are coequal and One God. Jesus, in addition to His Divine Nature, assumed also our human nature, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, through the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother and ours.
You appear to be sorely confused.
Moohammud was an evil, pedophile follower of satan, aka "allah".
Jesus/Christ IS God...and is the "Word".
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
For an entirely out of context answer (I couldn't even find mention of a Birdie, so had to wing it, if you know what I mean) and in hope of bringing brief comic relief interlude to taco stands everywhere, let us turn to the legendary Three;
A “Birdie” is a reference to the “Birdie” Law at Bethany, and “Linnie Bird Sage” at First Christian Church (DOC) that I grew up in. Thus two ladies named “Birdie,” one where I grew up and one where I began attending in 1987.
Both ladies are deceased.
See my post 38 for explanation of “Birdie.” :-)
You referenced: “Every Disciple Church must be required to have a [lady] nicknamed Birdie,”
I left out a word, either “person” or “lady” that I just inserted as the adjective before ‘nicknamed.’
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