August 2010

Living in a Post-Christian-Culture

Lately I have been faced with living the term, “post-Christian-culture”.  Not too long ago, I was speaking with a person about some challenges life had brought their way.  The problem increased because they desired please two opposing friends.  This person was very stressed because they were going to upset one or the other.  In listening to the story, it seemed like a no-brainer to me, because one of them was completely wrong.  I asked, “How could you possibly expect to make both sides happy?”  Then I asked a real stumper.  I asked if it was possible to be friends with both Billy Graham and Osama Bin Laden.  After a brief silence, the person asked, “Who’s Billy Graham?”

A few years ago I was driving into Port Townsend when I saw a small commotion on the side of the road.  There were two little boys, about 6 & 7, walking along Hwy 19.  A lady had pulled her car over to the side of the road and was following them on foot.  I surmised she was trying to stop them.  I followed the line of traffic past, pulled over, and parked on the shoulder.  I could clearly see the boys were on their way somewhere and the look on their faces told me they didn’t like being surrounded by strangers.  I let the tailgate down on my pickup and spoke to them as they approached.  At first, they wanted nothing to do with me, but as I reassured them that I would not touch, or let anyone else touch them, they decided to stop and chat a while.  The littlest one sat on the tailgate with me and I gave him the rest of my bottled water.  As we talked, I told them I was the pastor at Irondale Church.  They were very curious about what a pastor is and I did my best to tell them and explained where the Church is located.  That’s when one of them exclaimed, “Oh I know that place, it’s the one with the big plus sign on the front!”  Sitting on the shoulder of the road while we waited for the cops to arrive seemed an unlikely place to explain the difference between the Cross and a plus sign, but they didn’t know.

Not long ago in conversation with a friend, I mentioned I had invited someone to come to Church.  The nature of our conversation prompted my friend to say, “Don’t they know, they can come to Church?”  I said, “No, I don’t think so.”  Which opened a new discussion for us, because in the past, most people understood that churches were open to all who wanted to worship God; today they don’t.

According to the ARDA¹ 82% of Americans are Christians and the next largest group is Agnostics at 11%.  When Americans were asked, “How often do you attend religious services?” 19% said every week, 13% said once a year and 21% said, never.  This is up (or down) from 1972, when 9% said never, 28% said once a week and 11% said once a year.

When asked, “Outside of attending religious services, about how often do you read the Bible, Koran, Torah, or other sacred book?”  27% said never, 14% said less than once a year and 15% said several times a week or more ².

When asked, about how often do you pray? 11% said never, 30% said once a day and 28 % said several times a day³.

When asked, “How often did you participate in witnessing/sharing your faith with strangers?” 70% said never, 21 % said one or two times⁴.  But if you think telling strangers is tough, when asked how often they witnessed/shared their faith with friends, 50% said never and 31 % said one or two times⁵.

How important is it to you to be “born-again”?  When asked, “Would you say you have been "born again" or have had a "born again" experience?” 61% of Americans said no and 37% said yes⁶.

So if you’re keeping track, 82% say they’re Christian, 37% are born-again, 19% attend Church every Sunday, 15% read their Bibles several times a week, 28% pray several times a day, 70% never share their faith with a stranger and 50% say they never share their faith with a friend.  So how can people say they are Christians and not do the things Christians do? 

Here’s my list of why people don’t do these things:

1. They expect someone else to do it.

2. They don’t see the need.

3. They are ashamed to be a Christian.

4. They don’t feel equipped.

5. They think faith is a personal and private thing.

6. They are uneducated in basic Christian doctrine.

7. They don’t think about God outside of church.

Here’s my list of responses to those excuses:

1. All of us are called by God to live the faith (1 Peter 2:9) .

2. Many people want to hear; they simply never have heard (Romans 10:14).

3. Christianity is not a crutch; it is the completion of our character (John 16:24).

4. No one is equipped to share God’s holy word, but He will speak through us (Luke 12:12).

5. Faith is not personal or private, it is universal and everyone needs it (Romans 3:23).

6. Education is not as important as a kind and caring heart (Psalm 51:17).

7. The discipline of daily prayer and Bible reading transforms the willing heart (Romans 15:4-6).

This is a busy generation.  People don’t take proper time for faith.  Around 1650 Blaise Pascal said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”  But recreation, travel, alcohol and drugs seem to be plugging the vacuum for many people today.

So how important is sharing your faith if people can find happiness outside of a personal relationship with Christ?  Here is what James 4:13-17 has to say, “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”

Some will say, we are a post-Christian-culture, that we don’t need God anymore.  But post-Christian or not we don’t need God any less.  So share your faith, read your Bible, say your prayers “and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).

¹Association of Religion Data Archives;

² thearda.com/quickstats/qs_56.asp;

³   thearda.com/quickstats/qs_104.asp;

⁴ thearda.com/quickstats/qs_67.asp;

⁵ thearda.com/quickstats/qs_66.asp;

⁶ thearda.com/quickstats/qs_109.asp

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Irondale Bible Institute

Teaching the Foundation for Successful Living

Beginning the fall of 2010, Irondale Church will begin offering a structured and progressive education program that will earn the participants a diploma.  This is a new and exciting opportunity to measure your group Bible study, be rewarded for participating and earn a diploma from Irondale Bible Institute.

The classes offered will fall into one of the following categories: 

1. Bible (covers the study of the Books of the Bible)

2. Theology & Doctrine (The study of God and topics of Christian beliefs)

3. Personal Growth & Discipleship (Men’s & Women’s Studies, Marriage & Family, Understanding People, Financial Studies, etc.)

4. Practicum (teach Sunday School, participate in the Worship Team, be involved in VBS, be on the Church cleaning rotation, weed the flowerbeds, etc.)

Classes will be credited by hours.  An hour equals a single class, which may be more or less than 60 minutes.  For example a 12 week Sunday School Class will receive 12 hours, a 6 week class will receive 6 hours and a single hour will be counted as 1. 

12 hours will equal one credit, 6 hours a half credit and so forth. 

4 credits will equal 1 year.  2 years will earn a Basic Diploma, 4 years a Standard Diploma and 6 years an Advanced Diploma. 

A student must have at least one class from each category to earn a diploma.  That means that before you can receive a Basic Diploma the student will have to take a variety of classes and at least one class from each category, two from each category for a Standard and three for an Advanced.  The Deacons of Education and the Pastor will decide which category a class belongs in.

Teaching a class doubles your hours and therefore doubles your rate of time spent to achieve your diploma.  So over a 12 week period a person teaching Sunday School and an evening Bible Study could get 4 credits in 12 weeks and so on.  Hard work and devotion will pay off.

The program is available to all age groups.  So if a third grader can convince their teacher to teach a variety of topics they can earn a diploma as fast as an adult.

Attendance will be carefully monitored in each class.  To earn credit a student has to attend 80% of the classes.  In some cases a pre-approved homework assignment may replace a missed class.

Some of our material will come from the Evangelical Training Association.  By participating in their program a student will also earn certificates and diplomas from this nationally recognized ministry as well.

Put your mind at ease. 

A teacher may be concerned about how this will affect their current class.  Picture doing what you are doing right now, add to it taking attendance and giving your students a certificate of completion at the end of your series.   Say you are doing an 8 week video series on “Being a Man of God”.  The certificate will reflect 8 hours of study in Personal Growth & Discipleship while studying, “Being a Man of God” and the date completed.  One copy goes to the Student and one copy goes to the Church office.  Both the student and the office will keep track of the progress and requirements.  When enough credits have been collected to earn a diploma it well be granted (no hat & gown required).

Say a teacher is teaching a class and one Sunday they decide to cook breakfast and do a short devotional instead of the regular class.  The teacher thinks, “It’s not really a class, more like ½ a class.  Then just mark down ½ an hour, even if you don’t use the ½ hour for that class it can rollover to the next class in that category.  If a class lasts 15 weeks, the student earns one credit for the first 12 hours and has 3 hours left to rollover to the next class.

Rollover hours can come in handy.  Say you are taking a 12 week course and you miss two classes.  Instead of earning 10 hours, a couple of rollovers give you the entire 12!

IBI is simple and designed for success!

We will be starting as the current teachers start their next class.  We are also expecting to start a mid-week study probably the third week of September.

This is a very exciting time for our Church and hopefully kindles an even greater desire to study God’s word.

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God Keeps All His Promises  by Colleen

      A look of trepidation crossed the face of the local army surplus storeowner, as I entered with four children in tow into his well-ordered store.  Strategically placed were signs such as “all children must be supervised”.  Not a one had yet reached their 10th birthday and they had the combined energy of a small tank.

Carefully as I could I kept watch on my young charges, having fully instructed them before we left the house and again before we entered the store that they were to look and not touch. 

Their hands itched and twitched as they marveled at all the amazing stuff lain out like a bazaar, but until we reached the army caps they were able to contain themselves.  Then it was just too much, why there were even different sizes!

Camouflage green and tan drew them like moths to a mercury yard light.  Fingers that had remained stoically at their sides took on a life of their own and even with more signs that reminded every one to not make a mess,  the carefully stacked hats were being examined and tried on for size.

They were so delighted at their find that I had to “marshal” myself to behave like the adult and encourage them to look at the rest of the store.  Hopefully we restored the good humor of the owner as we moved away from his perfectly stacked treasure.

Reluctantly they pulled themselves away with many longing looks cast back at the desire of their hearts.  I hustled them off to look at WWII treasures and hopefully to help them gain perspective. 

Hah! They were having none of that! How could a German mess kit compare to the beauty of one of “those caps,” placed on the head of a small child and instantly transforming them into more than themselves!  What was I thinking?  They saw themselves as lean mean fighting machines set to right the wrongs of a world gone mad.

They politely gave a cursory tour of the rest of the store with just a few cases of slipping away to lovingly touch the caps.

There was a pause briefly to decide who would buy the only picture of a real black panther and for a moment, I had hope, but no, it, was quickly forgotten—the caps were a little more than I had hoped to spend.  But I was doomed. 

Another ray of hope foolishly pirouetted in my brain as they lavished attention on the military patches and medals but it was not to be.  We left the store with the pleased satiated looks of each head now covered with an ‘almost perfectly fitted’ army hat and four patches to be sewn on.

The storeowner heaved a sigh of relief and commented that they were the best behaved bunch of kids that had ever entered his premises.  He even gave them a little “go army” bracelet and with only a moment of anxiety at the close examination of a fire extinguisher by one of the smaller troops.  We had hopefully, caused his blood pressure to only rise slightly during our visit to his fine establishment. 

Off we went. 

Loading four kids in my little undersized Jeep with four booster seats takes more than a little doing and maneuvering just to get them buckled in, kind of a circus and quite entertaining for most onlookers.  You have to load them strategically to be able to reach all the buckles and it can only be accomplished, with any ease, if done in the proper order.

I am still buckling them in when a few minutes later the storeowner, comes out to water plants.  All the kids holler their thanks to him and he looks kinda dazed and returns to the store.  I am amazed too.  Nobody handled the knives and only one wanted the holster to the gun.  Nothing got broken and no actual debilitating events occurred to his merchandise.  Whew!  However, here we are, still posing a potential threat.  He comes out once more during the loading process.  He probably can’t believe it either.

He doesn’t know I prayed before we came.  He doesn’t know that one of my little charges has waited on pins and needles for weeks to make this desired perusal of his store and that they swore to be on their best behavior if we went.  The young person had also saved his money to be able to purchase any number of amazing things he might find there.  For these children and this one in particular, this wasn’t just any visit this was the shopping trip of all shopping trips.

Kind of like us as we wait for our trip to heaven.  We don’t know everything that awaits us we just know in our hearts its going to be very good and very different. 

What will it be like to experience the full presence of God?  What will it be like to have no more cares or worries?  What will it be like to experience no more pain or suffering, no more bills, no more awkward situations, no more broken relationships with friends or family, no more  people taking advantage of us no more us taking advantage of others or no more failing and breaking God’s heart and our own. 

What will it be like to Hear God say, “Well done good and faithful servant”.  What will it be like to have the purchasing blood of Jesus be all sufficient to have covered all the failings of this life? Will we know the weightlessness of a life free from the load of sin?

Will we have stored up treasure in heaven with our good works in God’s name?  Will He have been blessed with the treasure we stored in our lives for His glory?  Will we have been so anxious to receive honor for the things we have accomplished here on earth that we will have received all that we hoped for here on earth rather than waiting patiently for the applause of heaven.  Are there kindnesses tucked away in our lives that no one knows of?  Are there loving thoughts rather than bitterness stored in our hearts and minds where no one can see?  What’s there in the quiet center of our being, is Jesus sitting confidently enthroned in our hearts, are we submitted to His will and not our own? 

Like the little ones who wait outside the store; do we wait with breathless expectancy for what’s on the other side of the door?

What an amazing God we serve!  He keeps every promise in spite of all His opportunities He has to hold bitterness towards us.  He lets go of His grievances in the breath and blood of His Son Christ Jesus and counts the cost for our restoration to Him worth every drop and breath of the precious life given up for us all.

We will hold a Summer Sunday School picnic in August with the date to be announced.  We have some volunteers and could use more hands. 

Thank you to our wonderful kitchen crew and Roy’s Hot Dog cooking for the barbeque after VBS It was well attended and extended family members of our VBS kids attended and thought it was great!  Super job kitchen Crew!!