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During a recent visit to a seminary, a student raised his hand with a question as we discussed the relational focus of ethnic culture and ministry. He asked, “How do you get into a relationship?”

I suspect that many people of our generation are asking the same question. Somehow, as life has become overloaded, techno-laden, material-focused, and self-centered, we’ve become relationally challenged. We know about things and we know about knowledge, but we have no clue about people--and what it is to be one.

How do you get into a relationship?

1. Be present. Instead of always doing, be aware and available where you’re at.

2. Watch and listen. You’ll be surprised how many people need to be heard and need someone to value them.

3. Learn how you can bless others. Instead of being all about you, find out how you can bless the people you encounter.

4. Take time. A relationship means you’re committing to the long haul. Don’t give up on the people God places in your life. Time is grace--it is always on God’s side.

What if Christians and churches focused on lasting relationships instead of the latest fad programs? What if Christians and churches were patient in the Word, in prayer, and with people to see how God might effect Kingdom growth?Posted on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 6:47 AM - 0 Comments

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My daughter was telling me the other day how she was sick of Tim Tebow. It wasn’t him, so much, but the constant media blitz about him. For a while he was counter-cultural, the hope of the grass roots and the outsider. Now he was mainstream, overplayed, imitated, the spokesperson for companies trying to make a profit.

This is what happens when something becomes too common, too hyped, too much a part of the established cultural flow. People start to resist. New and alternative movements cause a buzz of excitement. A mainstream fad causes resistance.

The tendency to bash the church is moving into fad territory. I watched the popular YouTube video “Jesus>Religion.” While it reflects today’s prevalent anti-institutionalism and this generation’s movement toward deconstruction of established systems, its slick and commercial appearance, along with a its faux alternative tone, show that church/religion-bashing has gone mainstream. In other words, the church is trying to lure people in by bashing itself. This has become a fad. And people see through fads. They don’t like them. They resist them.

So, as the church resists itself so people who really resist it will be attracted, the resistors of the church will resist the resisting. Got that?

What’s the answer? Ephesians 3:10 says that God’s intent was that “now, through the church, [His] manifold wisdom should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The answer is for the church to be the church. Not to resist itself or bash itself or destroy itself, but to BE itself. That, because of the very nature of the church, IS alternative. The answer is to go back to the Savior Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but shakes every generation from sin and complacency with His counter-cultural Word.

A church that has strayed from being the church need not jump on the bandwagon of bashing the church. There is no need to try to find self-righteousness in self-flagellation. On the other hand, a church that has strayed from being the church can’t sit tight in complacent inaction. Self-righteousness through self-satisfaction is off the mark, too. The church needs only to hear His call back to its first love, back to the Savior, back to being Christ’s church. The church is the always-new movement created by God to transform the world. It never was and never will be a fad.Posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:09 PM - 0 Comments

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