Category Archives: Uncategorized

ChurchETHOS Link Love

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Today I thought I would check through the stats of ChurchETHOS to determine what is of most interest to my readers and who is sending me the most visitors. Listing my top 10 posts for the past month will not only give a good indication of what has been interesting to you, but it will also give a good indication of what this blog is about. Hopefully, listing my top referrers will also give my reader a sense of other people who like my content and I hope you will visit their pages and subscribe to their feeds.

In fact, if you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to my feed now so you don’t miss any of the action!

Top 10 Posts from the past month

1. One God, Two Gods, Three Gods, No God is a post I wrote to show the dangers of believing that all religions are equally true and valid. In fact, all religions cannot be true because they make competing and contradictory truth claims. There cannot be one God while at the same time there are two or more gods, while at the same time there are no gods.

2. My Top Concerns for the Local Church is my most recent post and is probably the best representation this past month of what ChurchETHOS is all about. In this post I explore the most difficult and pervasive problems of the church.

3. Why I Chose the HCSB Over the ESV is both an apologetic for the use of the Holman Christian Standard version of the Bible but it also expresses my frustration with the obvious bias towards the ESV for the following main reasons: 1. The ESV has a theological slant towards the Reformed tradition and 2. Paul and Apollos (I mean Piper and Driscoll) use the ESV.

4. HCSB vs. ESV Update reflects the new data that puts the HCSB as the second most popular version of the Bible up from 6th most popular when I wrote “Why I Chose the HCSB Over the ESV”. In fact, the rise in sales is due to it’s readability (like the NIV), it’s accuracy (like the NASB and ESV), and from the attention it has received from blogs and viral marketing from HCSB users who recognize it’s readability and accuracy.

5. The Trinity Lives in a Shack? This is my reaction to the fictional book by William Paul Young called  “The Shack”. This book explores the Trinity from an unorthodox and harmful perspective. I felt like this was worthy to talk about on my blog because it reveals the habit of some Christians to derive their theology from fiction (or even nonfiction) rather than from the Bible.

6. Did Jesus Claim to be God? This is a theological and exegetical post based primarily on John’s view of the deity of Christ. The implications? Since Jesus claimed to be God, He can’t be respected as merely a great prophet or teacher. He either is the Son of God, or He is a liar and everything He has said must be distrusted. (Or he’s a lunatic but that doesn’t really fit with everything else He did does it?)

7. Tithing Ethos: The Habit of Giving in the Church is a post exploring the theological truths of stewardship. Tithing today is more of a minimum standard and we need to increase our understanding of what God requires of ALL of the resources, time, money, etc. that He has entrusted to us.

8. About – Well, I’m happy that some of you want to know about the author of ChurchETHOS. Please feel free to comment and introduce yourselves. I really want this blog to be more of a dialogue that is not only helpful to me in sounding out my own thoughts on the church, God, culture, etc. but also helpful to you and is a place where you can explore these topics as well.

9. The Case for Community is a theology of fellowship. This post explores from Biblical perspective how Christians are meant to live together. I would say this and “My Top Concerns for the Local Church” above are best representative of what ChurchETHOS is about.

10. What is ChurchETHOS? – Okay, maybe this post is MOST representative of what my blog is about simply because that’s the purpose of the post.

** Bonus Post from the Archives – My Top Ten Christian Books isn’t in the top ten for the past month but it is historically a pretty popular post that you might be interested in if you enjoy this blog.

Top Referrers to ChurchETHOS

I want to give some link love to those people who have sent visitors my way. As I mentioned above, I think this will also give you a sense of the people who enjoy ChurchETHOS. Thanks for sending people my way!

1. Tim Challies from challies.com

2. Matt Privett from themattrix.com

3. Tim Fenton from theefaulted.blogspot.com

4. Joseph McBee from josephmcbee.wordpress.com

5. Bobby Grow from theologyofbobby.wordpress.com

** Honorable Mention – Breezy Neon from breezyneon.wordpress.com

Note: These wonderful people are being mentioned here because they have either linked to me on their sidebar or in a conversation from one of their posts. If I do a recap post like this in the future I would love to share with you some of the limelight. Simply post to my blog or to a specific post and I will also do my best to send some visitors your way.

Pursuing Prayer

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Do Americans know how to pray?

I know I’ve been finding it difficult to talk with God and spend time with Him in the midst of such a busy schedule. But shouldn’t it be the goal of our life to simplify everything else so that we can increase our quality time with our Creator?

I tend to overextend myself. But I’ve been thinking about the things I commit to. The time that I give, does it belong to me? As a child of God, doesn’t my life belong to Him? Sure, most of the things I volunteer for are good things. But sometimes I miss out on prayer because I’m blogging helping a friend or meeting a need. Again, as noble as my motives may be – is it my time to give? My time, my resources, and my life are not my own.

Prayer is both the purpose and the process for getting our schedule under control. We need to spend time in prayer but if we don’t have time for God, prayer gets pushed to the rear. But prayer also enables us to get our schedule under control. How am I supposed to know how best to use my time if I’m not in communication with the One to whom my schedule should belong? I overextend myself sometimes because I mistake good things for the best things.

Prayer as Purpose

The end result of maintaining control of our time and resources should be that we can spend more on our relationship with God. If we are too busy to spend an hour a day loving and serving God then we are too busy. Some of that time could be spent in prayer. Some could be spent reading the Bible. Some could be sharing your faith or discipling a believer or investing in a small group of Christians with whom you are sharing life together.

But prayer shouldn’t be ignored. It’s easy to make it to a weekly worship gathering because people see you there and hold you accountable. Prayer is different. Prayer requires personal discipline. Prayer is a passion that you have to decide that this is more important than the American dream. It’s even more important than paying the bills. Overtime at work might help you put money in savings but it won’t keep you connected to God who is Jehovah Jireh (The Lord will provide). Prayer is the purpose. Prayer is the goal of a simpler schedule.

Prayer as Process

But prayer is also the plan. We are better able to comprehend God’s will when we communicate with Him and draw closer to Him. God is able to direct our steps but He won’t do it if we don’t let Him. If our schedule is packed from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed then there’s no room for Him. This is why Americans have such a hard time with prayer (including me). We work 50 or 60 hour work weeks (not to mention those who work even more). We fill our downtime with activity. We might get around to kissing our wife and hugging one or two of our children but that’s it.

I recently was sharing the vision of small groups and developing community with a group of church leaders. I was talking about the commitment to fellowship that seems to be missing and was encouraging a deeper level of commitment (like, say, 2 or 3 more hours a week) when one of them asked me, “How do you get people in the church not to think this is some sort of tax?” I think I handled my response appropriately but I couldn’t believe that a church leader would think that “being devoted to fellowship…” might be perceived as some sort of a tax on people’s time.

I totally understand the difficulty of spending time in community because I know how hard it is for us to even spend 15 minutes in prayer and in relationship with our God. But that’s not an excuse. Our current schedule is no excuse for not spending time with God, with our families, and with our community. We are ambassadors of Christ, not day laborers at our 9 to 5 job. God is not a task master but it should be our desire to do His will above all else. How can we know His will if we aren’t spending time with Him?

In times of prayer, God teaches us how to say “no”, but He also teaches us when to say “yes”. As we walk with God and talk with Him throughout the day, He directs our steps. He keeps us from burdening our lives with too much activity and helps us to say “no”. He opens our eyes to needs and opportunities where we need to say “yes”.

Stop saying “Yes” and start saying “Yes”

A few days ago I gave up something important to me because I knew my wife needed my time and attention. It was something that WE needed to do together and even though I hate cancelling something because it seems like I’m irresponsible, I know that has to happen sometimes. It should be the same way with God, we need to stop saying “yes” to every little thing that comes along that sounds good and we need to start saying “yes” to those things that bring glory to Him. If you’re like me, I always learn the lesson after I’ve already said yes to something and then I have to back out. This makes things difficult for everyone involved.

Americans know how to pray. But, just like the disciples, we need to be asking God to “Teach us TO pray.” Prayer is the easiest concept in Scripture to understand but it might be the hardest one to implement. Prayer at it’s basic definition is communication with God. We don’t need to ask “teach us what to pray, or how to pray, or when to pray, or how often to pray”. We need to ask God to help us carve out more room in our schedule to pray.

Related Post: My Top Concerns for the Local Church ::  Subscribe ::

World Missions

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picture-11Today was the first day of my winter session course on World Missions at GCTS. Tim Tennent is my professor. The class is 3 hours a day for 2 weeks including reading 1200 pages and 7 assigned theological journal articles, two tests, and exact memorization of 20 Bible verses and 150 countries on the world map. Since I read about 30 pages an hour, the task seems daunting as it will take me an estimated 120+ hours for lectures, reading, and memorization/studying. However, after the first lecture, I am extremely excited about this course.

For one thing, the professor began with an amazing description of the “Seven Mega-Trends Affecting Global Missions in the 21st Century”. Here are some of the highlights from my notes:

1st Mega-Trend “The Collapse of Christendom”

◊ For the longest time, Christianity was at the center of American culture. It was socially acceptable and sometimes even profitable to be Christian in our society. In the 21st century, however, Christianity will move more and more towards the periphery.
◊ Hendrik Kraemer said, “The Church is always in a state of crisis; its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it.”
◊ We are moving from a state of belief to a state of unbelief.
◊ We are moving from a denominational to a global identity. Being Presbyterian or Methodist is not as important today.

2nd Mega-Trend “The Rise of Postmodernism”

◊ There are theological, cultural, and ecclesiastical crises that arise from postmodernism. People no longer believe that truth is true. The power of the word is lost for most people. For a preacher who believes that God has revealed Himself through words, this is a dangerous mindset.

3rd Mega-Trend “The Collapse of ‘the West Reaches the Rest’ Paradigm”

◊ The emergence of a Post-Christian West (4200 people are leaving the Christian faith per day in Western countries).
◊ The emergence of a Post-Western Christianity (In non-Western cultures, Christianity is blossoming, for example, in Africa alone Christianity gains about 24,000 new members per day!)

4th Mega-Trend “The Changing Face of Global Christianity” (related to Mega-Trend #3)

◊ Top 10 people groups that are most accepting of the Gospel today are in India and China.
◊ Top 10 people groups that are least accepting of the Gospel today are in Europe and North America.

5th Mega-Trend “The Emergence of a Fourth Branch of Christianity”

◊ Traditionally, there have been three: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. Today, there is an undefined and indistinct fourth branch emerging.
◊ Sometimes, this branch is referred to as “independent” but that is a very limited title.

6th Mega-Trend “The Impact of Globalization”

◊ If it weren’t for the immigrant population in the U.S. the Western Church would be in serious trouble. Most of the growth in American churches are in minority populations. Contrast that with Europe where Islam is growing rapidly because of immigration.
◊ The rise of urbanization and new technologies also affect our approach to missions around the world. 19th century missions was geared towards rural communities. Today, most of the largest unreached people groups are found in cities.

7th Mega-Trend “The Rise of a Deeper Ecumenism”

◊ There’s no reason to forsake our denominational identity but we can no longer be exclusive to our denomination, or allow our denomination to be our overarching identity. Though Protestant, I can’t be confined or defined by some events that took place in the 16th century, there are millions of Christians around the world that don’t place the same emphases on what the Reformers emphasized.

The conclusion to this particular lecture was that as young pastors and missionaries, we will be engaging in a new frontier. Almost everything is changing. It is an exciting and challenging time to be joing God’s mission around the world.

Crazy Cat Pics

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I’ve been thinking way too much the past few weeks. From Athanasius to Haddon Robinson to Jesus’ claims to deity I have been busy pumping out content for both seminary and my blog. I could certainly use a break and I think you probably could too. So, I thought I would share a few fun pictures of my cats.

Enjoy!

Were there cats at Jesus' birth?

Were there cats at Jesus' birth?

If there had been, no one would've survived!

If there had been, no one would've survived!

She acts like she had nothing to do with it.

She acts like she had nothing to do with it.

Merry Christmas!

Why Should I Subscribe?

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rss8Since I didn’t have any time today to post anything important, I thought I would invite my readers to subscribe to my blog. So here is a somewhat humorous look at why I think you should subscribe to my blog today!

Why Should I Subscribe to ChurchETHOS?

I know not everyone uses a Feed Reader but I hope those who do will subscribe to my content. Why should you subscribe to ChurchETHOS?

rss A subscription to my blog will ensure that you always step in it while it’s still fresh (and hopefully some of it will stick to your shoe so that others can get a whiff).

rss2 It’s an easy process and it’s free. That’s right, my content isn’t worth paying for ;) Just click here (or don’t).

rss1 An email subscription will send my posts directly to your inbox. That way if you don’t like it or it makes you angry, you can have the satisfaction of sending it to the trash can. You can even print it out and physically crush it in your hand before throwing it in the trash can (but that’s not very environmentally friendly…or friendly).

rss3 You won’t check my blog one day and discover that nothing new has happened, OR, check my blog one day and realize you are way behind. All that wasted time stalking my blog could be spent stalking me on Twitter.

rss4 It’s like being subscribed to a newspaper. Except you don’t have to put on your wife’s bath robe and slippers just to walk out in the snow and retrieve your paper from the neighbor’s your sidewalk. How embarrassing! Oh yeah, and it’s nothing like being subscribed to a newspaper.

rss5 Subscribing to my feed will make me feel more important than I really am. Then, if I start sounding self-aggrandizing in my posts, you get to come in and set me straight in the comments section. You will be doing God’s work by holding me accountable. (By the way – self-aggrandizing, huh? – impressive word choice isn’t it? Look at me…look at me!)

rss7 I won’t have time to post anything today (other than this post), so make sure you get future content by subscribing now.

rss6 ***BONUS*** If you need a reason for others to subscribe to YOUR blog and thought these were good reasons to sign up, please link to this post, email me with the url, and in a few weeks I will write a thank you post that will include a link to your blog. Your readers will get great reasons to subscribe to YOUR blog, but will mistakenly end up subscribing to MY blog – but at least you will get some link love. (If you arrived here from another blog, you can subscribe to THEIR blog here).

Finally, If you already have more subscribers than me (you do), you should still link to this post…I won’t bore you with reasons because I wouldn’t want to insult your intelligence with something like “The 15 Reasons Why More Successful Bloggers Than Myself Should Link to Such an Unimportant Blog as This One”. Because if I wanted to, I could. You probably already know all of those reasons so please just subscribe to me and send me a link and I’ll show you some link love too and we won’t worry about such trivial things like “reasons”.

What is a feed reader? You read this entire post and you’re just now asking?

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Dark Knight vs. Jesus Christ

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Dark Knight became my favorite movie overnight. Literally because I just watched the midnight showing. The effects were amazing, the plot twists were unpredictable, but ultimately, Batman is such an appealing super-hero because of his humanity. Batman isn’t an alien, he’s a man. Batman doesn’t fly, he has a cape that rigidificates (made up word). He doesn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, he has a grapple gun. The genius of Batman Begins was that Batman had to learn to fight dozens of men using ancient techniques as well as technological breakthroughs. He learned how to become an icon, a symbol, a savior. He isn’t an alien, he’s believable…as believable as a fictional super-hero can be. 

In Dark Knight, Batman exceeded all my expectations for any sequel ever, and expectations were palpable during the hour before the movie started. Never since the re-release of the Star Wars Trilogies on the big screen have I seen so many weirdos in one place complete with costumes and make up (but without the lightsabers of course). With that many crazies in front of, behind, and beside me I had to make a mental note before the movie started not to get my hopes up that this would be as good a movie as Batman Begins. But again, I must say, Dark Knight exceeded my expectations. The crowd probably cheered fifty times during the course of the two and a half hour movie. We must’ve laughed together a dozen times in glee as the villains got their socks knocked off. We must’ve gasped twenty times at an unexpected plot twist. 
And the plot twists kept coming. I felt like I was on a two and a half hour roller coaster ride and every time our car came to a stop to let us off again the operator would flip a switch and we would go hurtling through one more time. Most movies are so unimaginative that the main twist in the movie is predictable. The difference with this movie is that there wasn’t just one twist, there were about fifteen and I didn’t see any of them coming. That really makes for a great story. Plenty of other people will probably talk about the special effects, the acting (Ledger was phenomenal), or the camera work, but I was simply swept away by the writing.
This leads me to another thought (and this is where you may want to stop reading if you were just looking for a review of a great movie): With all its twists and turns, this story can’t compare to the unpredictable, compelling story of Jesus. Don’t worry, I’m not the kind of person who tries to find the spiritual meaning in every movie. There’s probably a church somewhere that will develop a sermon series on the upcoming Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie. That’s not what I want to do here. I simply want to report that the thought struck me that although we don’t have visual stimulation and special effects, the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection will always be a blockbuster in the hearts and minds of those of us who have read it and have been changed because of Jesus’ heroics. 
There were a lot of plot twists in Dark Knight, but no director could ever have thought up the story that God has already written, directed, and starred in as the lead role. However, Jesus is such a great character for the same reasons Batman is such a great super-hero: his humanity and his believability. God, by his very nature is wrathful towards humanity (He’s just too perfect). Humans are the villains (ummm…we on the other hand aren’t that perfect) and deserve justice and God is the One who can give it. Human guilt must be punished. So what does he do? He dies for us. To pardon us would be unjust and therefore, imperfect. Watching a movie like Dark Knight makes me appreciate even more what Jesus did for me by dying in my place. For all the sacrificial, honorable deeds that Batman does in the movie, he never dies for anyone. If he did, he would only die for those who are good. He would never die for his enemy. And yet, “while we were still sinners [or "enemies"] Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8) Could you imagine Batman dying for the Joker? That would be a lame story – except to the Joker.
But it doesn’t end there, the story is so much more astounding when you factor in the twist that God died for humans. Indeed, he took on flesh and became a human so that he could reconcile us to God. It’s hard to imagine Batman dying for the Joker, but now try imagining that the Joker is an evil fruit fly trying to breed evil fruit fly anarchy around the fruit fly world? How insignificant is a fruit fly to you and me and how much more insignificant are we compared to the God who created the entire universe. Yet, God loved us so much that He died for us while we were enemies towards Him. Hollywood will never come up with a better story than this (not the one about the fruit flies, the one about Jesus). And what makes it so good? Jesus’ humanity and his believability. Jesus’ story rings true because it can’t be fiction. The fiction of the Dark Knight can’t compete with the truth of Jesus Christ. I love the action, the story, the special effects, the cast, the acting, and the experience of the movie Dark Knight, but nothing will ever compare to the story of Jesus Christ. I’m happy to enjoy Batman as entertainment and to leave it at that, but Jesus is more than a symbol or an icon, He’s my Savior.

Starving in China

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Did you know that in some parts of China it’s considered rude to clean your plate? Take that moms everywhere!

I wonder if there are moms in China saying to their children, “You cleaned your plate!? There are children cleaning their plates in America. Next time, leave some on your plate.”
Apparently, to clean your plate is to say that you weren’t given enough to eat and that you wish you had been given more.
How ironic.

Why I Blog About Christ

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When I first started this blog I wrote a post called Christ, Culture, Creation, and the Church. I wrote it to let people know about the four main topics that I will be writing about. In summary, I write about Christ because I follow Him. I write about culture because I know Christ can redeem it. I write about creation because I know Christ can restore it. And I write about the Church because I want to help the Church understand those first three issues better.
That’s right, I want to help the Church (and I’m part of the Church) understand Christ better. So, I want to write one post specifically about each of these issues to really help clarify why I’m blogging about them.
CHRIST
To begin with, I write about Christ. But I don’t just write about Him, I love Him. That means I talk to Him, I read about Him, I try and live my life like Him. Like Short Round mimicking everything that Indiana Jones does, I want my heart to beat like His. Normally, I call Him by His name: Jesus. I use the title “Christ” here because it goes so well with the other three issues that I like to ponder and write about. So, here are some reasons I write about Jesus.
Global Influence
I don’t know if there is another person with as much popularity today as Jesus. Easily one-third of all people today claim to be Christians. That means they’ve at least heard about Jesus and have respect for Him (even if they aren’t truly Christian). At least another third of the world population follow religions that would regard Jesus as an important prophet, or guru. This means that at least two-thirds total of the entire world would have respect for the man, if not actually follow Him as Lord of their lives. Add to that another 5% or so who take His name in vain and you’ve got quite a considerable amount of people who have the name of Jesus on their lips. Jesus’ influence globally is reason enough to write about Him and to study His life.
Historical Influence
In addition to global influence, Jesus also has a significant amount of historical influence. There was a time in history when Christianity dominated the religious landscape. He made such an impact that the years after His death and resurrection, His followers were willing to die for their love of Jesus. For roughly three centuries Christians (the followers of Jesus) were crucified, burned, and beaten for their faith. Sadly, after the age of Constantine, people claiming to follow Christ strayed further and further from His teachings, but the Church still stands as a monument to the movement that was created from the wake of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Not to mention that time is now delineated from the birth of Jesus to the present. Of course, we’ve changed that from BC (before Christ) to BCE (before the common era) because not everyone wants to acknowledge that even our calendar was affected by the birth of Jesus.
His Message
Another reason to write about, study, and follow Jesus is because of His message. The message that Jesus brings to us is a simple but important one: God created the world. He created humans as a special masterpiece of His creation and walked with them and had fellowship with them in the garden. However, the first people disobeyed God and thus, sin entered the world. Sin and disobedience to God invites His wrath and so God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden where they once had such sweet fellowship with Him. This was because of His character. God is holy (morally perfect) and just (cannot allow a guilty person to go free) and so humans were helplessly lost and separated from God. There was no way to reobtain His favor. The good news is, God is also merciful. At first, that doesn’t make sense with the whole “God is just” portion of the story, but this is where Jesus comes in. Jesus is God and He is also holy, just, and merciful. It so happened that while we were still in the midst of our sins, Jesus died in our place, taking upon Himself the wrath and justice of God. He was an acceptable substitute who could assuage the anger of God. Therefore, the good news about Jesus is that He died in our place even when we were still hostile and rebellious towards God. How great is the love of God. It’s not often that someone will die for another person, it’s even rarer that someone would die for someone that they don’t know, much less for someone who was hostile towards them. That is the message of Romans 5:7-8 which says, “For rarely will someone die for a just person – though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us!” Jesus’ message, and the message about Jesus is unlike anything humans could have invented. It’s a story and a message that invites people to follow Jesus.
My Story
Finally, I write about Jesus because I know Him. If someone said to you, “Oh yeah, I know Benjamin Franklin, we’re great friends,” you wouldn’t be able to stop laughing. So, for me to say that I know Jesus invites your ridicule and rejection. But that should prove to people either my sincerity or my insanity. Think what you want but I sincerely know Jesus. Thousands of people have died for their faith in Jesus because they knew Him and that invited derision and persecution. I follow Jesus because He has brought joy and peace to my life and I know that nothing that this earth has to offer can bring me more joy and peace than Jesus.
Conclusion
So there’s my reason for writing about Christ. Following Him affects everything that I do. The way I love my wife, my family, my friends, even my cats, all of it is affected by Jesus. I am a seminary student because I want to learn more about Him. The way I spend my money (or choose not to spend it) is a direct result of my relationship with Him. The causes, both humanitarian and environmental, that I involve myself with are because of my desire to bring the same joy and peace that I’ve found to others.
What about you? Why do you follow Jesus? Why do you reject Him?

The Wounded Body – Division

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THE WOUND OF DIVISION
One of the greatest problems in the Body of Christ is that of division. As a pastor and student of God’s Word, I take this very seriously. When God raises up leadership for the church it is for the purpose of unity (See Ephesians 4), but instead, so many local churches suffer from a lack of unity. Notice the issue here is “division” and not “denomination”. While I do wish we could be more unified on a broader scale and maybe have fewer denominations, the truth is, denominations are not all bad. Most of them were started for the purposes of fellowship, common mission, and unity. Some of them may have adopted an “us against them” attitude since their inception but in general, denominations are cooperative in nature.
We Like Sheep…
The problem of division primarily resides within the local church. In fact, it goes all the way down to the interpersonal relationships between one church member and another. Sadly, where two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, more often than not there is division, and they are paying no attention to Jesus who is there with them. What do we expect? We are like sheep right? Sheep are brought to a pasture. As they start grazing on the grass they start moving away from one another. They are only interested in the food that’s in front of them and they will literally walk off a cliff if that’s where their food path leads them. The shepherd has to keep an eye out for them to keep them together and not wander off into danger.
…Have Gone Astray
Members of a local church are the same (and I mean all members including leaders and including myself). Without guidance and correction, we begin to spread out. We begin to lose our sense of common purpose and unity. We get too absorbed in our own self interests and self preservation (our own tuft of grass if you will). If someone offends us, we offend back rather than seek the reconciliation for which God Himself has made us His Ambassadors. A member wanders too far astray and we keep nurturing ourselves and neglect our fellow members. This puts too much distance between us. Two members can be a part of the same church body and never speak to one another. This ought not be.
The Lamb Was Sure To Go
There was once this little girl named Mary. Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow. I don’t know if you know this story, but interestingly enough, everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. Okay, enough with the poem. I bring it up to say that the more we follow Jesus, the less we have a problem with division. Think of the previous scene with all the sheep grazing and following their own interests until they are spread out all over the hillside. Then imagine a scene where all the lambs want to follow the Shepherd. Sure they will grab some food for themselves here and there (you know, their basic needs), but their primary interest is in being close to the Shepherd until they are baaing and bleeting and surrounding Him. Sheep are side by side, bumper to bumper. There’s a huge circle of sheep with the Shepherd at the middle. This is the solution to division…each of us must follow closer and closer to Jesus until we are velcroed to each other’s wool. Wherever Jesus goes, we should be willing to go. The closer we are to Him, the closer we are to each other.
Let Not All Lead
Some of the problem comes from the general membership, but I say the large majority of the problem comes from the leadership of the churches who are leading the others astray. For too long the leaders have set themselves up as the ones to look to for guidance. The pastor is almost as infallible as pope claims to be. The people can’t read their Bibles at home, they just rely on the pastor to feed them. The pastor gets high on the sense of dependence upon him. The people look to the pastor as THE Shepherd. The pastor supplants the Shepherd with himself as a sheep in Shepherd’s clothing. Instead, the pastor should merely be the sheep bleeting the loudest that we need to get closer to the Shepherd. The pastor should be the one saying, “Hey look, there’s some room right up here…come one! You can do it!” I know that’s an oversimplification of pastoral responsibility, but it’s better than the egotistic, power hungry, “have your best life now, but not until I’ve got mine first” leadership of some of the churches today.
Conclusion
At some point, each member of each local church must ask themselves if they are contributing to the unity or the disunity of the church. We always see someone else as the problem and need to realize that if we aren’t actively being reconciled to God and to people then we are part of the problem. Our love for Christ needs to be so strong that we leave the good tuft of grass for someone else because being closer to Jesus is more important than in what sort of field we may find ourselves.
“Why does the lamb love Mary so?”
The eager children cry;
“Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,”
The teacher did reply.

Creitz Version of the Bible (CVB)

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Okay, so I’m not too keen on Bibles that have someone else’s name on them. Usually, that means they have more notes from the “author” than there is divinely inspired text from the “Author”. I would prefer people to hone their own skills on interpreting the Scripture and not just read a footnote. I have often conducted Bible studies where we read a passage and I ask a question that should be apparent from the context and someone says, “Well, I have a footnote that says…”
On the other hand, I recently ran across the beta version of a site called YouVersion. This is a site that has the text of the Bible in an easy to use reader. The user is able to read through the Bible in a year in any of the 13 versions (plus 3 Spanish versions) by subscribing to the rss feed, search the Bible for a particular verse by keyword or by passage, journal in a private journal or comment on a verse in a public commentary. They can also star a favorite verse or even put a tag on it to sort the verses later. This could be great for Scripture memorization. Selected text can be hyper-linked so that you can send a verse in an email or put it on a website. 
All in all, I’m excited about this site. It needs to work out a few kinks, but I want to encourage people to start using it. I have been using it for my personal devotion for a few days because the journal feature sits right beside the Bible Reader so I can journal my thoughts or my prayers and reflections, or I can write up a comment and post it for the benefit of the other users. You will also be able to “follow” other users if you enjoy their content and their insights. A home Bible study group or Sunday School class could use this to post throughout the week and then discuss their reflections the next week. You can even upload videos that are relevant to a specific passage. A pastor could link his sermon audio or video to the text of his sermon. 
As I mentioned, there are a few problems with this site and I also have a few ideas:
1) Scrolling through and selecting text is not as easy as it should be. The scroll bar needs to be simplified. 
2) I want to be able to create separate journal entries with unique titles in a given day but the journal entries are only sorted by day. 
3) Once you’ve tagged or starred an item there is no way to untag it or unstar it. 
4) As of yet, there are a lot of features that are not available in the beta version. 
5) I would like to see a user be able to follow everyone commenting on a particular passage or a particular book. That way, if you are preaching through a book, you can subscribe to the rss feed and rather than follow a particular user, you would be following a particular passage or book. 
6) I would also like to see the Bible reading plan customizable so that you can create your own reading plan for a month or a year. 
7) It would also be nice to see how many people are reading through the Bible on this site and be able to track their progress anonymously. This would provide accountability and an ability to set goals. It would be cool to have a personal or a public meter that would display and over time that meter would grow much like a download bar on iTunes. 
8) Finally, it would be awesome if this reader were also available in the original languages, but there may not be enough demand for this since there are some great Bible software programs for this which you can find here, here, and here. On the other hand, some more modern languages besides English and Spanish would be nice too.
This site has a lot of potential and I hope people will use it. It is provided for free by LifeChurch.tv and even has applications for your mobile device (such as the new 3G iPhone). If you have other ideas, please comment on this post AND go to YouVersion’s feedback form. I love that the point of this site is not to create a new study Bible, but it allows people to read God’s Word and if they’d like, they can access other people’s stories, experiences, and reflections on a particular passage.