"It's a personal thing, not an institutional thing...

Survey: Non-attendees find faith outside church
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

A new survey of U.S. adults who don't go to church, even on holidays, finds 72% say "God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists." But just as many (72%) also say the church is "full of hypocrites."

Indeed, 44% agree with the statement "Christians get on my nerves."

LifeWay Research, the research arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, based in Nashville, conducted the survey of 1,402 "unchurched" adults last spring and summer. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The survey defines "unchurched" as people who had not attended a religious service in a church, synagogue or mosque at any time in the past six months.

More than one in five (22%) of Americans say they never go to church, the highest ever recorded by the General Social Survey, conducted every two years by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In 2004, the percentage was 17%.

Many of the unchurched are shaky on Christian basics, says LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer.

Just 52% agree on the essential Christian belief that "Jesus died and came back to life."

And 61% say the God of the Bible is "no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.," although Buddhist philosophy has no god and Hindus worship many.

Belief in 'a generic god'
Non-churchgoers "lean to a generic god that fits into every imaginable religious system, even when (systems) contradict one another," Stetzer says. "If you went back 100 years in North America, there would have been a consensus that God is the God in the Bible. We can't assume this any longer.

"We no longer have a home-field advantage as Christians in this culture."

Most of the unchurched (86%) say they believe they can have a "good relationship with God without belonging to a church." And 79% say "Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people."

"These outsiders are making a clear comment that churches are not getting through on the two greatest commandments," to love God and love your neighbor, says Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research. "When they look at churches … they don't see people living out the faith."

But despite respondents' critical views of organized religion, Stetzer is optimistic. He cites the finding that 78% would "be willing to listen" to someone tell "what he or she believed about Christianity."

They already know believers — 89% of the unchurched have at least one close friend who is Christian, Stetzer noted.

And 71% agreed that "believing in Jesus makes a positive difference in a person's life."
"What surprised me is the openness of the hard-core unchurched to the message of God and Christianity — just not as expressed in church," Stetzer says.

"It's a personal thing, not an institutional thing. It's a matter of starting conversations."

The direct approach
Still, most of Christian belief has seeped into popular culture outside church walls and denominational tethers, says Philip Goff, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

New forms of community, such as Internet Bible study and prayer circles, also mean some people don't believe they need a church, Goff says.

"Is there a workshop for churches in being less annoying, less hypocritical?" asks Arthur Farnsley, administrator for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and a fellow at Goff's center.

"So much of American religion today is therapeutic in approach, focused on things you want to fix in your life," he says.

"The one-to-one approach is more attractive. People don't go to institutions to fix their problems.

"Most people have already heard the basic Christian message. The question for evangelism now is: Do you have a take that is authentic and engaging in a way that works for the unchurched?"

people never cease to amaze me...

Pair Brings Corpse to Store to Cash Check
By MARCUS FRANKLIN, AP
Posted: 2008-01-09 15:42:30
Filed Under: Weird News

NEW YORK (Jan. 9) - Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said.

David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare pushed Virgilio Cintron's body from the Manhattan apartment that O'Hare and Cintron shared to Pay-O-Matic, about a block away, spokesman Paul Browne said witnesses told police. "The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side," Browne said. The men left Cintron's body outside the store, went inside and tried to cash his $355 check, Browne said. The store's clerk, who knew Cintron, asked the men where he was, and O'Hare told the clerk they would go and get him, Browne said. A police detective who was having lunch at a restaurant next to the check-cashing store noticed a crowd forming around Cintron's body, and "it's immediately apparent to him that Cintron is dead," Browne said. The detective called uniformed New York Police Department officers at a nearby precinct. Emergency medical technicians arrived as O'Hare and Dalaia were preparing to wheel Cintron's body into the check-cashing store, Browne said. Police arrested Dalaia and O'Hare there, he said.

Cintron's body was taken to a hospital morgue. The medical examiner's office told police it appeared Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes within the previous 24 hours, Browne said. "He was deceased in the apartment when he was removed by these two," Browne said. Dalaia and O'Hare, both 65, were being held by police and faced check fraud charges, Browne said. A call to a telephone number listed for Cintron at the apartment he shared with O'Hare went unanswered Tuesday evening. Police said they didn't have an address for Dalaia or attorney information for him or O'Hare.

believing all things

1 cor. 13:7 (nlt) - love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

the love chapter is on most christian fridges, memorized by kids all over the place & preached on all the time. and rightfully so, it's a beautiful passage that reminds us of the love we've been shown & can show to others.

until recently, i've never really given these verses a whole lot of thought. i know them & can quote them, but i'm not so sure i live by them.

i'm finding that in the middle of a battle - a real battle, not a consequence of sin or the outcome of a bad decision - actually bearing, believing, hoping & enduring all things is much easier to quote than it is to do.

i keep reminding myself that if i've been delivered & set free, it's available to anyone. after all, the heart of God is that none should perish. if God called me out of darkness & into light He can call anyone.

these are my daily affirmations right now. it's a whole new world when someone else's actions change your life. i'm being pressed & challenged in ways i never thought possible. but at the end of the day, if i want to be able to honestly proclaim that i follow Jesus, then i must bring my will into submission to bear, believe, hope & endure everything that comes my way.

attempting duality

i've been doing a lot of studying on the topic of idol worship. for 2 main reasons - it's important to understand what it is & i'm convinced there's much more idol worship in my life than i really want to admit.

in 2 kings 17, we get an account of israel being taken into captivity by the assyrians. God allowed this captivity to happen because of the idol worship being done by the israelites. after the assyrians drove israel out of samaria, they went to live in the land themselves. the assyrians brought along with them all of their idols & worshipped them. God wasn't real pleased with this & sent lions in to devour some of the assyrians. the assyrians then assumed that the problem was they didn't understand the customs of the God of that land, so they brought a priest over from the isaelites to teach them.

verse 33 says this - "so they feared the LORD but also served their own gods..."

there is obviously a human tendency to learn the customs (outward acts) needed to please God while still serving our own gods. this is called idol worship.

i'm examining my heart - how often am i doing or saying the things that i know will outwardly make everyone happy when inwardly i'm still worshipping my same idols? how often do i offer up words to make things look ok when there's no real inner-man drive to change? how often do i give the appearance of fearing the Lord when i'm actually just serving myself?

for me, this is a call to repentance. not a call to parroting words or changing a few of my actions or praying a little more. it's a call from the Holy Spirit to sit down, get still, examine my heart, identify the areas of idol worship & change my mind about how i think about them. God is no longer going to tolerate my lip service, He is demanding change. He is demanding a disciplined life where i consistently make the choice to not serve anything other than Him.

seeking His face

i have been reading a lot lately about the face of God & watching 'the truth project' with a co-worker & have spent the last few weeks talking about evolution.

the video explains that evolution was essentially made up by men who absolutely did not want to look upon the face of God. rather than acknowledge that there is a Holy God, which is evident in creation & in the intricacies in each living being, they made up a theory that gave them a way out. a way to turn their faces away from God & put their faith in something else. they also talked about the movement called 'post-modernism'. they described it as believing that we are not a part of a grander plan. that history is not connected & that what we each do today has no effect on what people in the future do. we are each living out our own story & our story has nothing to do with anybody else's story. i think this is depressing & i know that this is another lie made up to avoid acknowledging God. to avoid looking at His face.

i do this too, as a christian. i make up reasons to not look at God. i turn my attention elsewhere & avoid seeking the glorious face of God. i become too busy to take a moment and look into the beautiful face of the God who loves me deeply. i can understand why people would want to avoid looking at God's face. His glory. standing in the light of His glory is a humbling experience more powerful than any other. it is in the light of His glory that we see all our flaws. our sins, our ugliness, our imperfection. we become aware of just how broken we are. for christians, standing in His glory, becoming aware of our flaws, is followed by an even more humbling experience. His grace.

something more powerful, more wonderful than anything else. it is completely undeserved by us, and yet completely essential. it is His grace that brought God to earth to be born in a stable. to live a life of ridicule and rejection, and later to die a painful death. it is His grace that attached every one of our sins to the body of the perfect Man. it is His grace that saved us from our sin. the Bible says:

if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and
seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and
will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
-2 chronicles 7:14

we need to seek His face and turn from our wicked ways. then He will forgive our sins. and the face of God will be a glorious thing to behold. a lovely thing. a breathtakingly beautiful thing to behold.

He's alive!

can you fathom what it must have been like the morning that mary went to the tomb to take care of the body of Jesus? to go, i'm certain that she was weeping, to see her beloved, one more time. then to find that the body was missing.

then to hear the words, “the One you search for is not here, HE IS RISEN! now, go and tell His disciples.”

what if Mary had been lazy or self centered and and said "no, i want the risen Lord to myself." the Bible tells us that she went and found the disciples and told them but just think for one moment though, if she had been disobedient, and didn’t obey what she was told to do. would the gospel message have stopped right there?

Jesus has given us a command to go proclaim to all people the good news: that He was crucified, buried, and on the third day rose from the grave. if we don’t obey His command to go and tell, will the gospel message die within our generation?

i'm convicted that i am lazy and sometimes selfish when it comes to sharing the gospel, especially with family. i pray that everyday the Lord gives me breath, i will be excited like mary and not walk but run and tell all, that “JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD IS RISEN! HE’S ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE!”

falling idols

it's been awhile, but i still remember how to type :-)

1 sam. 5:1-3 (NLT) - after the philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at ebenezer to the city of ashdod. they carried the Ark of God into the temple of dagon and placed it beside the idol of dagon. but when the citizens of ashdod went to see it the next morning, dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord!

this passage is very clear - when an idol is brought before God it falls. so, it leads me to question myself. if i proclaim to bring my idols before God & they don't fall, what am i doing? if i say "here God, i bring my idol of materialism before You" & find myself right back worshipping the same idol, where'd i bring it?

Scripture is very clear about what happens when an idol truly encounters God - it falls, every time. i'm strongly convicted to examine my heart & find out what's really going on. am i bringing my idols before my own mental ascent? is it all just lip service & emotionalism? do i have a wrong understanding & belief of God & what it means to lay an idol down?

i know this post isn't much after being silent for so long, but it's where i'm at. over the past couple of months the Holy Spirit has made one thing very clear to me - there is absolutely no grey area in Christ. it's always truth or lies. either i'm 100% a follower of Christ or i'm just not a follower at all. so, either i 100% let the idols fall before God or i'm holding on to them.