RSS

Tag Archives: Church

Amos 5:1-6a

5 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:

²“The virgin Israel has fallen,
never to rise again!
She lies abandoned on the ground,
with no one to help her up.”

³The Sovereign Lord says:

“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,
only a hundred will return.
When a town sends a hundred,
only ten will come back alive.”

⁴Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel:

“Come back to me and live!
⁵Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel;
don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba.
For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile,
and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
⁶Come back to the Lord and live!

Amos 5:1-6a

Dear God, I was emailing with some friends who are pastors yesterday about a new statistic from Barna that, in 2000, 45% of Americans professed to be “practicing Christians, ” and that number has now dropped to 20%. They defined “practicing Christian” as they self identified as Christians who value their faith and attend church at least monthly. While some will object that “you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian,” it’s still a striking shift for this many people to now be out of Christian community. It makes me wonder what has replaced that community. News? Social media? YouTube? Straight up loneliness?

The pastors and I exchanged emails about the solutions to Americans’ drift away from you. What idols have we pursued and cherished? How do we get them back?

As I’ve thought about this since those emails, more questions have come to my mind: For the remnant that is left, are even we being faithful? What percentage of that 20% is actually pleasing to you in our worship and service? In our discipleship and growth? And which side of that cut line do I fall?

Before I went to bed last night, I was reminded of a question that has burned in my mind since last summer when Pope Francis found himself in some controversy when Christians did not like how he answered a question on 60 Minutes: “When you look at the world today, what gives you hope?” His answer was actually very fitting with Catholic theology and, when that theology is understood by the hearer, wasn’t wrong. But those without context were critical. But it left me to answer the question for myself: “When I look at the world today, what gives me hope?”

My best answer: You put something in all of our hearts that makes us long for you. We know we need something bigger than ourselves. We know we need something to worship. We know we need something to put our certainty in. The problem is we will be rebellious and Satan will offer us all kinds of idols that promise but fail to deliver that certainty. And he knows that we will suffer in that disappointment and it delights him. And when we are disappointed in an idol, we get angry. He loves it when we are angry because a lot of the time we will take that anger and lash out which causes division. Our hearts can be so dark! My heart can be so dark!

I’ve referenced this before, but the movie Jesus Revolution had this great scene between the old-school pastor and the hippie evangelist. The hippie tells the pastor that the other hippies are looking for the right answers (God), but they do not know they are looking for God. So they look in drugs, sex, or even just longing for a society that will reflect their values of love and peace. But they are always disappointed by these gods. Then when some of them find the real God–YOU–they are amazed.

Father, help me to know how to take the people in my immediate sphere who are looking for you but they do not know they are looking for you. Help me to know how to introduce them to you. Help your church to know how to introduce them to you as well. And when I say “church,” I don’t mean just the pastors and staff, but your people. Help that 20% of Americans who are self-professed “practicing Christians” to legitimately be discipling under your Lordship (that includes me), and help us to know how to offer you to our neighbors. Revival will not come from the top down. We cannot mandate revival. But your Spirit can stir and move. And it can grow like wildfire. Help us, Father, to grow in you so that your glory might be realized in all the earth and so that your kingdom will come and your will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. In short, to paraphrase Amos, help us to come back to you and live!

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

Luke 19:41-44

21 Nov

⁴¹But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. ⁴²“How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. ⁴⁴They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.”

Luke 19:41-44

Dear God, I wonder how things would have been different if they had recognized the time of your visitation. What if everyone had gotten on board. The Pharisees. The priests. The Levites. The common people. What if the disciples, even, had really understood what you were teaching them? What would that have looked like?

Sometimes, I think we are trying to answer that question as the church today, and different churches are coming up with different answers. Some churches want to forcibly bring your kingdom upon the earth, which I perceive is the mistake the Pharisees of the time were making. Some are silent and just quietly worship you without bothering anyone. Those churches are largely dying from old age and attrition. Some are screaming for justice, which is a legitimate cry because there is so much injustice, but it might also distract them from considering their lives worth nothing to them (see Acts 20:24). And then I do believe there are a few churches that are literally doing what they can to follow the radical teachings of Jesus. They love their neighbors. The meet needs. They worship you. They forgive. The eschew hate and lust. They consider the lilies and don’t worry. They give freely of their time and money.

What would it be like if every church in the world, or even in our community, really lived out the Sermon on the Mount? How would we be helping parents raise their children? How would we be helping the school? How would we be working with the prisoners and the courts? How would we be worshipping you so purely and letting your Spirit and its fruit grow so much within us that we would be a beacon that attracts others?

As for me, if I lean toward any of these categories on a personal level, it is probably the kind that silently and quietly worships you. Yes, I volunteer for some things. Yes, I donate to some things. Yes, I talk to those around me about my faith and how I’m living it out. But I’m not really leading people to you. I’m not teaching worship of you. I’m not teaching the fruits that grow from loving you and loving our neighbors.

Father, it was impossible for the people of Jesus’s time to recognize your visitation because 1.) they weren’t ready for that kind of humility and 2.) it wouldn’t have worked with your plan. Maybe that’s one reason you chose that time and place. And it can be hard now to understand what we would do differently if this were the time of your visitation. Would we put you on cable news and have you lead us to power? Would we reject you for your humility when you refused to do it? Yes and yes. But I worship you, now. I thank you now. Help me to love, forgive, serve, and worship well today. And help me to share that faith with others so that they might develop closer relationships with you.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

Emails to God – Supporting My Wife Going Catholic, Part 5

28 Nov

For those of you keeping up with this series that I’m doing to correspond with my wife’s blog, there is no Part 4 on my part because I didn’t really have anything to add to that part of her story. For those of you who don’t know what this is about, my wife joined the Catholic church this last Easter, and she is doing a 6-part series on how this came to be. I am doing companion pieces to her posts to give a view of what was happening with me and the family from my perspective as we all went through this process.

When last we left off, Megan had started visiting our local Catholic church, we were doing family worship times with our teenage children, but that was starting to fizzle out, and after I told a friend that I was feeling a little disconnected from Megan spiritually, he told me that I needed to “suck it up and go to church with my wife” as opposed to going to a nondenominational church that met in the bowling alley.

I started visiting St. Mary’s in late March. Frankly, I have never enjoyed Sunday morning worship so it didn’t matter that much to me. Also, as I’ve said before, I don’t have the problems that some Protestants have with Catholicism. I grew up in an ecumenical home, and after visiting a couple of times I found that I actually enjoyed the services more than I expected. My biggest hesitation was the more liturgical format, but, to my surprise, I didn’t mind it at all. In fact, after a few weeks, I got into the rhythm and kind of enjoyed it.

There is a local CPA in town who does the annual audit for the nonprofit where I work. He also happens to be a deacon at St. Mary’s. He had seen me at mass a few times and we talked about it in his office one day. He encouraged Megan and me to go through the RCIA (Right of Catholic Initiation for Adults) process to see if joining the church might be appropriate for us. I talked to Megan about it, and she had already thought about it, so we agreed to check it out.

On this point, I’ll disagree with Megan’s post a little. She said I had no intention of joining the Catholic church as I entered the RCIA process with her. That’s not true. I went into the process as open-minded as I could and willing to go through Catholic confirmation if I felt like that was what God wanted for me.

The classes were interesting. I knew that there would be parts with which I disagreed (as I do with any denomination), but I also didn’t think that was a big deal. I told Megan at the beginning that I was going to do my best to keep my mouth shut and not show any public disagreement because I didn’t want to be the person in the room that thought he was smarter than everyone else. For the most part I was able to do this. There was one night where the leader forced my hand a little, but for the rest of the time I was able to be a silent support in the class and not take away from anyone else’s experience as they sought out God and His call for them. I can say that I perceived that everyone involved in the leadership was very Godly and earnest in their love for Him. That’s all that mattered to me.

In the end, as I explained to one of the leaders about why I didn’t go through the final confirmation, I found that I agreed with 85% of the theology; 10% I didn’t agree with, but it didn’t matter; and then there was 5% that I didn’t agree with that was the deal-breaker. The interesting thing, however, was that it was NOT a deal-breaker for me, but a deal-breaker for them. If I couldn’t believe in this one particular part of the theology then they would not want me to join. I was okay with that, but my response seemed to vex the RCIA leader a little. I still don’t think he quite understands why I continue to attend mass every Sunday with Megan. The plain answer is that I think it is important that we worship together, and this is where she feels called to be.

There is one other reason I didn’t join the Catholic church. This became clear to me one night when the leader told me that one difference between Protestant churches and the Catholic church is that when you join a Protestant church you are joining that local congregation that may or may not be part of a particular denomination. When you join the Catholic church, however, you are joining the world-wide Catholic church and not just St. Mary’s Parish. Taken a step further, when you join the Catholic church, it is a life-long commitment to be Catholic. Frankly, I’m not willing to say that I am going to be a part of any particular denomination for the rest of my life, be it Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, or Catholic. I have found that my journey in corporate worship has taken me to different churches and different styles throughout my life, and that is simply a commitment that I cannot make.

One last thing. I don’t know if she’ll tell this part of the story, but I want to mention it briefly because it plays into the part of her post about rejection for this decision from different corners of her world. About a month before her Easter confirmation she received a letter from a “friend” of her mother’s. I came home from work and noticed she was upset. We were about to leave the house together, and when I asked her what was wrong she told me that she would tell me in the car. When we got in the car she read me the letter. It was someone who claimed that she knew Megan’s mother’s heart about this matter and that her mother, who had died two years before, would not be happy about this. The person wrote awful things about Catholicism and then didn’t have the courage to sign the letter completely, only giving her first name. I had to pull the car over while she read, I was so offended by what I heard. I knew Megan needed to understand that this letter was from hell, so I took the letter from her, crumpled it up, and drove to the nearest gas station where I threw it away to get it out of our lives as quickly as I could. I then told her that her father would scoff at the idea that this woman know’s Megan’s mother’s heart on this issue, and that it was full of lies. I think my response helped. Frankly, I consider it to be the most supportive thing I did for Megan through this entire process.

So to sum up, it is now spring of 2012, Megan and I are wrapping up going through the RCIA process. I am a little surprised that Megan is going to be confirmed, but supportive. Easter is coming, and she is wondering how her family and friends will respond.

1 Comment

Posted by John D. Willome on November 28, 2012 in Supporting My Wife Going Catholic

Tags: Catholicism, Church, Marriage, Worship

Emails to God – Supporting my Wife Going Catholic, Part 1

31 Oct

My wife has started posting a series on her blog about how she ended up “converting” to Catholicism (www.meganwillome.com). I decided it might be good if I posted corresponding posts to describe my own church journey as it corresponds with hers. I think mine will probably be longer and less succinct than hers, so if you’re game you can read along.

It starts when I was eight years old, and my parents were trying to reconcile after a six-month separation. They found themselves at a marriage retreat at Laity Lodge, which is in the Texas Hill Country about an hour from Kerrville. A Catholic priest lead the retreat, and it was through that process and a prayer my father prayed with the priest during one of the breaks that my father became a Christian. When my parents came home and my dad moved back in (the exact order of events is a little fuzzy for me), we all joined the First Baptist Church in our town. Now, many Baptists grow up with anti-Catholic sentiments, but I never did because of my dad’s experience with this priest. My dad, for his part, grew up Methodist, but during the separation had started attending a Baptist church in San Antonio, so joining the Baptist church in our little town seemed a natural fit.

So I grew up Baptist, absorbing more Baptist theology than I realized. I won’t go into the whole story about my own developing relationship with God, but, suffice it to say, by the time I met my wife 23 years ago I was a discipling Christian as was she. Neither of us felt like we had cornered the market on theology and approached our adult lives post college in a very ecumenical way. We usually drifted towards Baptist or non-denominational churches (which are usually theologically similar to being Baptist), but we remained open to different Christian denominations.

After we moved to our current town nearly seven years ago, we looked for a church our children would enjoy. They were both in grade school, and we were trying to replace a church with a vibrant children’s program. After visiting seven different churches, all of differing denominations, the children chose the Methodist church. This suited us fine, and the kids were happy.

Unfortunately, three years later the church went through a terribly divisive time. We tried to stick it out, but it was difficult because nearly all of the families left. The final straw was when we took our son, who was then in the 7^th grade, to the youth room on Sunday morning only to find that it was locked and the lights were out because there were no youth to serve. We needed to find something else.

We visited a Lutheran church for a while that my wife, daughter (three years younger than our son) and I liked, but our son didn’t. They were doing confirmation and he had trouble getting into it. Having grown up in a confirmation-free Baptist world I didn’t know how to coach him through it. So we tried giving him the freedom to go to other churches on his own. He tried the Evangelical Free Church youth group for a while, but he didn’t end up liking that.

This is where I’ll end this part of the story since this is about where my wife’s blog post today ends, but, in summary, by the end of 2009 my wife and I were attending a Lutheran church with our ten-year-old daughter, and my son was visiting the Evangelical Free church’s youth group. Something was about to happen, however, that would send my wife on a spiritual journey that God led me to support.

5 Comments

Posted by John D. Willome on October 31, 2012 in Miscellaneous, Musings and Stories, Supporting My Wife Going Catholic

Tags: Baptist, Catholic, Catholicism, Church, Lutheran, Methodist