Eagle Brook Chruch - Gigachurch in Minnesota - Updated

EAGLE BROOK CHURCH

2014

For the past twelve years, my wife and I have been attending Eagle Brook Church in MN.  Since we started there, it grew and grew and grew.  Now attendance is in the tens of thousands.  I have been to other mega churches in other cities, and have had church growth classes from the "fathers" of the Church Growth Movement (at Fuller Seminary); so thought I'd like to talk about my experience at Eagle Brook.

To begin with, although I have talked with some of workers at Eagle Brook in different levels, this blog is more a commentary about my own personal feelings and experiences as an observer - one who has been a pastor of two churches in the past, one who has been to dozens of churches in dozens of cities and 4 countries.  Oh yes, and I have been to several seminars by leading mega church pastors including Bill Hybels at his church in Chicago.

THE MUSIC

 

The first thing one notices at Eagle Brook is the music.   If I were the pastor of a large church, I would have the same set up with music - the same kind of bands and the same kind of songs - at least most of the time.  Why?  Because it reaches people.  And for all that is said against large churches, one has to admit they are reaching people who need Christ.  I would venture to say that most critics and complainers are not doing that in their churches.

Having said all that, I will say that I am not a big fan of the kind of Christian Pop music that is played at Eagle Brook.  The music played at Eagle Brook is mostly borrowed from songs played on a local Christian music radio station that purposely targets women with children in their mid thirties.  I am afraid I don't fall into that category and with few exceptions I am not a fan of Pop music.  For me the best music came once in awhile during offertory when the band did something totally different.  But lately the offertory is no longer a part of the service and the song that went with it has disappeared.

(UPDATE: 9/2015, I am not sure where they are getting their music any more because I really don't listen to the local Christian station that much.  However, it seems to be the same style as when I wrote this 2 years ago.)

Personally, I would prefer more Blues, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Swamp Blues, Country and Southern Gospel, Gospel, Bluegrass, and most of all, some of good old fashioned hymns.  I can sing along with hymns and I can appreciate the sound of these other styles.  I am unusual (and I know this) in that I only like a small amount of Christian Pop; and the genres in music I do like and would like to hear may be too odd, reaching out to too small of an audience, and may not bring a lot of people into the church.  Even so, I would love to hear more of these other genres in church.

If I was pastor of a church that was willing to (and able to) try new things, I would try out more of these genres and include a few genres I am not too excited about as well, such as Hip Hop and Rap.

I think Eagle Brook is like a large company that grew because it was cutting edge.  I wonder if it may get to the point where cutting edge is no longer cutting edge?  Is their cutting edge in music becoming the norm?  The number of new people coming into church suggest that I am not right on this point - at least not yet - or perhaps it simply doesn't matter that cutting edge is becoming the norm.  

The quality of music at the campus I attend is amazingly good - top quality.  The band has been around for quite awhile and they gel.  Fill-in bands (which happen rarely) are not always as good and aren't always as tight - but bonding together comes with time.

Update - Christmas 2014:

I went to a Christmas service last night with my family.  I went to the main campus which is much larger than the other ones.  I appreciated the music and enjoyed the slightly different approach to songs than I am used to from my campus.  The drum was very heavy - perhaps too heavy because I couldn't hear the guitar solos as much as I would like to have.  The music reminded me of the Pseudo Folk Rock of Phillip Phillips, The Lumineers and Mumford and Sons.   One of my family members even pointed out that one or more of the musicians had suspenders on (like Mumford and Sons).  My family member doesn't like Phillip Phillips genre of music.  As for me, I enjoyed a different take on Christmas carols, and only one or two of the songs sounded too Phillip Phillips for me.

There was one solo which may have been one the best songs I ever heard performed live - "O Holy Night."  My family member was too turned off to the suspenders of the musicians and the music style of previous songs to appreciate the solo, but I loved it.

Upon reflection, you will have people who are turned off by different things.  That old expression will always be true, even with Christian and worship music.  You can't please all of the people all of the time.

Eagle Brook tries different things and I appreciate that, even when or if I am not impressed with all of the style of music I hear. 

THE OFFERING

Until recently, the church took offerings in their services and there is no way any church that passes out offering baskets can win with the stereotypical - "they just want my money."  Eagle Brook did about as good as any can by telling people over and over again, every week, that the offering is for people who attend regularly and not for first time visitors.  Nevertheless, there will be some who will complain that money is even brought up and that there is an offering. This complaining can't be avoided and if I were pastor of a church, I would most certainly steal what Eagle Brook used to say before the offering word for word.

But recently the church has taken the offering out of the service, leaving people with possibilities of tithing on line or in the back of the church at kiosks.  This is ideal for reaching that person who complains about churches wanting money, but I wonder if donations are going down as a result. I suspect that Eagle Brook may return to the old way of handing out money bags for the offering if what they are trying doesn't pay.  However, I am impressed with their attempt to reach those who need Christ, taking chances that few churches would dare.  It is a testament to their passion to reach people for Christ.

THE PRAYERS

Prayers at Eagle Brook are short, sweet and to the point.  For a church this size, that is good.  Furthermore, in any church of any size, if someone drones on and on up front in some personally centered prayer to God, my sleep apnea and snoring might kick in at a most unfortunate time.

CHURCH HISTORY AND OTHER CULTURES

Eagle Brook services and messages seem to ignore other cultures and church history. Creeds, traditional hymns and even denominational background (Baptist General Conference) are gone from every part of church services.  Ultimately I learn about myself, and can sing for my pleasure and God's glory, but I don't hear much about other times or other people.  I understand that this is a mirror of our society that focuses so much on the present and cuts away from the past.  I am reminded of legend of George Washington boldly cutting down his father's English Cherry tree (note that the Cherry tree was an English Cherry tree) and proudly acknowledging his deed. Modern readers see this as a lesson in telling the truth, but in fact, it was more a lesson in cutting down the past.  Cutting down the past is not just a church thing of the 21st Century; it is an American thing that has been with us in every generation since its beginning as we have left families and homes to come to the U.S. and build better lives.

Because we have such disregard for the past, it is only fitting that many churches follow the culture in this respect.  Is this wrong?  Studying missions in college and in graduate schools, I learned that although the Gospel is universal and unchangeable, we can change the clothes it wears.  As witnesses to Christ, we can adapt to different cultures and different ways to reach out.

When I was in the Congo for 3 years, I adapted somewhat to the culture, the music, and the ways of the Africans.  The Apostle Paul admitted that he himself was all things to all people that he might win more.  His gospel of Jesus did not change - only how he presented it and how he lived among the people.  Having said this, I don't want to get into debate taking this to extremes one way or another.  My point is this - Eagle Brook like so many other churches trashes the past in order to bring the gospel to more people who likewise are not tied to the past. 

THE PEOPLE

 

Eagle Brook is almost all White and seems to be middle class.  I remember studying Church Growth at Fuller Seminary and C. Peter Wagner telling the class that with rare exceptions, large (and growing) churches prefer uniformity in culture and race, because people are attracted to their own kind.  I cannot and will not fault Eagle Brook for doing and being this.  I am sure, the leaders know this is true and probably talk about it once in awhile.

As White as it is, Eagle Brook has a wide range of ages.  I have witnessed other growing churches with multiple campuses in the Twin Cities that are not only 99% White, but are filled with 20 and 30 year old people with few if anybody much older than that.

Should Eagle Brook make an effort to reach out to other groups?  I don't know if that is in their mission, but if they want to start a church downtown, in Uptown or some other places in the Twin Cities besides the outer suburbs, they may want to think about getting a little more diverse in hiring pastors and leaders.

REVIVAL

For many years in Seminary I studied past national and world revivals.  They fascinated me.  On one evening I had dinner with the world's foremost authority in and Father of the Church Growth movement (Donald McGavran) while at the same time taking classes with the world's foremost authority on spiritual revivals (J. Edwin Orr).  Both of these teachers had their differences.  Orr focused on spiritual renewal that came in waves from preaching and/or prayer that effected entire regions or countries; while McGavran took a business-like look at what works and what doesn't when building large churches.  Both of these men felt that God used their particular findings to help further His kingdom.

At the time, I believed that Church Growth by nature was not revival (I discussed this with Donald McGavran and he disagreed with me).  I felt that Revivals were shorter lived and effected more people in and out of different churches.  Church Growth seemed only to effect those coming into the church and Church Growth seemed less spiritual and more social science / business related. 

But I have since realized that God works very well in both and that both can be "revival."   There are a lot of people becoming Christians at Eagle Brook, so I think God is very much at work and I would consider this a modern day revival.

STEALING FROM OTHER CHURCHES

Smaller churches lose many of their people to churches like Eagle Brook.  Losing members to larger churches is also common in other cities as well.  This can be compared to Walmart coming into a small town and stealing customers from the local downtown businesses, thus shutting down entire downtown areas.

However, when smaller churches lose their members to large ones, smaller churches often call this sheep stealing, seeing their numbers dwindle and feeding their people to the bigger churches with many more resources, bigger budgets, TV screens, rock bands, and so on.  In a very real way, large churches like Eagle Brook are not unlike the Walmarts of God's kingdom.

The typical response I have heard from other big churches in other cities is that people aren't getting fed in their Catholic / Lutheran / or other churches.  So these people come to the big church to get what they lack and what they need spiritually.

Many smaller churches fault the bigger ones for being less personal, saying that people want to quit the smaller churches because they can be less responsible and less noticed in the bigger ones.  Although this might be true for some, I think  a lot of people joining big churches like Eagle Brook get involved in Bible Studies and service for the church.  So it is not all that different from the smaller churches as it seems.

I will mention briefly that there are very active Christians who leave smaller churches because they burn out in the smaller ones.  These are often people who could never say "no" and carry too many responsibilities in the smaller churches.

I was a pastor of two small churches - one in the country where I brought people in from around the church - the churches in that area didn't compete or steal; although I was told that there was a group of people who wandered from church to church - they, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were a wandering nomadic tribe of believers.  The other church I pastored was near Minneapolis where there was a lot of competition, but our focus was on things that larger churches in the area didn't do.  We had cultural diversity and ministered to the local Sudanese Refugees by sharing with them a big part of our church.

Smaller churches should stop beefing about sheep stealing and find ministry that they can do well.  God doesn't want every church to be big and we all have different ministries.  Serving Refugees was not glamorous and definitely hindered my church from growing; but it served God's kingdom and in a way that few others could.  Although we did not grow in Minneapolis, our church was affecting tens of thousands of Sudanese overseas.  So I would say to smaller churches: "Find what God is giving you and pursue it wholeheartedly - serve your community in ways that larger churches can't or won't - and get over the number game."

THE SERMONS

I teach at a local University in all things Bible, so I love sermons that are saturated in the Bible.  I want to learn new things and grow in my knowledge and understanding of the Bible.  Besides evangelism, that is my passion and that is the direction God has given me in this life.

We all have gifts that God has given us, and those gifts differ.  The preaching pastors at Eagle Brook will speak better than I do.  Their delivery is impeccable.  There are no "ums," and no going off on tangents or getting sidetracked in their messages.

The pastors are also marvelous at giving and using illustrations.  Having said that, I do want to mention, that Pastor Bob Merritt will use a lot of illustrations about his hunting experiences.  The illustrations fit well with the messages, but some of us are not hunters and don't relate much to the excitement he feels hunting birds and animals.

I like the vulnerability in the sermons that comes from the pastors - especially the lead pastor Bob Merritt, who openly talks about his humanness, illustrating sermons with stories from his less than perfect life.  His vulnerability connects people to him, helping them to see that pastors and godly people are real people.

The preaching at Eagle Brook is so consistently professional that I wonder how many hours each pastor puts in to preparation to get to the level they are.  I know some famous preachers of old spent 20 to 40 hours for every sermon; I spent 6.  For me to get to the level of an Eagle Brook pastor, I would need 12 to 20 hours per sermon.

The Apostle Paul did not consider himself a great preacher because his messages were filled with fear and trembling, without enticing words and leaving him looking weak.  But he knew that a message needed God's Spirit to speak through him. This was more important than delivering great messages. I often hear the voice of God in sermons at Eagle Brook - and there is no better critique than that.  Having said all this, there are one or two issues I do have.

First of all, I feel like the substance of many sermons is dictated by Pop Christian psychologists / writers / mega church pastors rather than the Bible itself; and for those sermons, I feel that Bible verses are brought in occasionally to support the message presented rather than the other way around.

I understand that Sunday morning may be designed to bring in the lost (much like the seeker-friendly services of Bill Hybels near Chicago) but when I started a small group for Eagle Brook, I was given a DVD by Andy Stanley to show to the group and to discuss.  This was hardly a deeper look into the Bible.  For my taste, Andy Stanley's messages were very much like the pop self-help messages on the "poppiest" of church service messages.

I don't speak for all the small groups, because I only led one group for about a year 10 years ago (the material I was given was what all the groups had).  And I don't know if small groups have changed in the past 10 years.  Also, although there are some weekend messages that are solidly built up in the Word of God, it is hit or miss at Eagle Brook. Some messages are rooted in the scripture and some seem to be more rooted in some Christian self-help book.

So the first issue I have is the lack of in-depth Bible teaching in all too many messages.   The second issue I have is that in two different messages, a certain Eagle Brook pastor confused stories from the book of John.  The pastor clearly did not know the book of John very well.  As a teacher of the Bible, and a dedicated member and supporter of the church I grieved a bit inside when I heard that pastor mix up the stories of the Bible. (update) However, having attended hundreds of services and listening to as many messages, this was the only goof up I have seen.

Although the pastors are great preachers, it is kind of obvious that some Eagle Brook pastors know the Bible more than others.  Still, I would like to see all of them submit their sermons each week to someone or panel to look for any scriptural discrepancies, add scriptural references, and help the pastors ground their messages to the best of their abilities in the Word of God.  In the book Galatians, Paul submitted his message to Peter and the Apostles for their approval when he visited them in Jerusalem (I am sure this was not easy for Paul to do - it may even have hurt his pride).  Even so, submission would help each message to be better grounded in the Word of God.

Secondly, I would like to see sermons focus a bit more on the source of our ethics, morality and decision making as Christians.  The Apostle Paul dedicated a huge proportion of his letters to the cross of Christ, explaining how that cross and the resurrection form who we are and how we should live in Christ as Christians.  Eagle Brook's messages encourage us to change toward a more godly lifestyle and acceptance of who we are - and that is good, but I would like to hear more about how that change is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the Word of God, and in his death and resurrection.

Update: 

I recently talked to one of the speaking pastors and asked him how many hours the pastors put into their messages.  He told me that they put 26 to 30 hours of work in for each message and Bob Merrit has recently told the church that he puts 40 hours a week into a sermon.  It shows.

TODAY'S EVANGELICAL ISSUES AND EAGLE BROOK

Eagle Brook seems to avoid some Evangelical issues of today's world such as homosexuality and abortion, but bring up pornography from time to time - maybe too much.  When I Googled Eagle Brook Church, I found discussions on homosexuality where some Gays felt comfortable and welcomed in the church; where some people felt the church ignored the subject of homosexuality; where some people said that there was plenty stated about the subject; and where some Gays were upset with Eagle Brook for something some pastor said.  In other words, there was no clear stand one way or the other on the issue that everyone heard.  As for me, I have never heard a message on any of these topics.

When I was a pastor I avoided those subjects because they were and are hot issues that divide the church, create hostility on both sides, and send people packing.  I know some out there will say, "So what? We need to preach the Gospel no matter how much it offends."  But the issues I have mentioned are overstated by many well-meaning Christians trying to make the world a better place.  Biblically speaking, these issues were not as central to the Bible as they are said to be by many today, who use and misuse the Bible to support one or the other doctrine.  That does not mean that these topics are not important and should be ignored entirely.

I am thankful that the pastors at Eagle Brook do not openly side with one political party or another, although I suspect they are Republicans - that's just what most Evangelicals are.  I could start writing more about this issue, but it would take too long and I have written elsewhere about Christianity and Politics (including the Principalities and the Powers).  I would only mention in passing that in politics, we are dealing with powers of this world that change and will change with the times. Furthermore, they will pass away.  But God's kingdom will endure forever.

Personally, I am glad they don't bring up these topics.  I have heard enough from well meaning Christians using rare verses that may or may not apply to today's issues, while ignoring hundreds of passages and verses concerning the care of and service to others less fortunate.

SERVICE TO OUTSIDERS

Eagle Brook sends a lot of money, people and resources to others in need throughout the world.  They are following what is important in the Word of God - part of what Jesus called "the weightier matters of the Law."   On the other hand, the religious leaders of Jesus' day focused on the small details of the Law, making them much bigger than they should have been.  Jesus told the rulers to re prioritize while not neglecting the smaller details.  As far as I can see, Eagle Brook more than passes in this area.

CONVERSIONS

Some will say that Eagle Brook makes conversion too easy and has very little follow up.  I disagree. 

I was raised in a nominal Christian environment and it took me time as a born again Christian to change and outwardly live as was expected (although I still don't get the outwardly right all the time). I think some are looking for young Christians to be all grown up right away.

Jesus gave a parable in three of the gospels telling us that when the word of God is planted, some grows and some die for different reasons.  It's like that everywhere in the Christian world.  I expect to see some Christians fall away.  I don't want to see it, but it is going to happen.

There will be shallow Christianity practiced by others.  I am not happy with that, but that's reality.

And there will be others who leave the church entirely.  That's the way it is.

On the other hand, there will be some who will continue in the faith and get involved.  Some will even become pastors, missionaries, witnesses at work and strong Christians.

My point is this: Complainers want to find bad things about big churches and will find bad things that are normal in all churches.  If those complainers won people to Christ, they too would find that a lot of their winnings will eventually leave the faith and others would judge them and point out that they too are less than perfect.

ON LINE MESSAGES

I have not been a fan of attending church by internet, but will have to admit that in my family it has been a great tool.  My son-in-law is in the music business and tours a lot in (and sometimes out of) the country.  Through Eagle Brook's internet site he is able to get a church service (the message anyway) on the bus or in some hotel.  My daughter who is in the entertainment business also travels a lot and is able to catch messages when she is not able to get to her church in NYC.  So for them and for so many others who cannot get out or get to church, I am thankful for Eagle Brook's on line messages.  But, ultimately, the Church is something that should be experienced in person.

CONCLUSIONS

Although I have studied church growth to some degree and have been to dozens of churches, my comments about Eagle Brook in this blog are only from one spectator's view.

Because Eagle Brook has so much going for it, I would send any seeker or new Christian to it before any other church.  Likewise, if my kids were still teenagers, and I was a die hard traditional hymn singer, I would still transfer to Eagle Brook for my kids' sake - no question about it.

But if someone wants a deeper level of Bible in the church services and messages or if they want more tradition and good old fashioned hymns, I would send them somewhere else.

What Is the Book of Job All About?

At the heart of the book of Job is a story of how the best religious and secular worldviews are never good enough to answer life's most basic question: Why does God allow good people to suffer?

BACKGROUND - THE IMPORTANCE OF STORY AND HOW STORY FORMS WORLDVIEW

Worldviews are collective - they build up around common stories and experiences.  In the U.S., we have many stories that are central to our common worldviews.  We have stories of ancestors seeking freedom and a better life.  We have stories of equality and possibilities, religious and political freedom, opportunity, and so on and so on.  We also have stories of broken promises and genocide to the people who were here before, and stories of slavery and oppression to others.

Different groups of people have different sets of stories that are important to each group.  Some stories seem to pass on better than others.  Most groups hold on to stories of persecution and suffering, so that even the most dominant and most powerful and most privileged groups believe that they are persecuted and denied the rights that they deserve.

In the heights of the Evangelical Right' political power, when it was the single most powerful voting block in the U.S., and when Republican leaders sought out the Evangelical Right more than any other group; the Evangelical Right promoted stories and published popular books that claimed that they were going through a tremendous persecution.  Their stories which were taken from small bits of redesigned history told them that at one time the country was at  a template of Christian morality and godly Christian ownership, but because of liberalization, pluralization, the media and Hollywood; the country was slowly going downhill and being taken away from the godly.  This entire story of losing the country is created and built up from many smaller stories through history and today.

Each individual story supports the overall story - which becomes a worldview.  And each story takes on a life of its own, shredding real history and what really happened, becoming almost mythological in nature; so that complex human beings filled with virtues and faults become larger than life heroes or villains.  Complex events are simplified to fit the story tellers' frame of storytelling and understanding.

Evangelicals are not the only ones who have hundreds of retold and redesigned stories.  Every group does.  Stories build the basis for our understanding of who we are in the world, who our enemies are, how we should live, how we should not live, what problems are and how to solve issues, and why things are the way things are.  Stories which build worldviews explain all this and much more.

Worldviews are personal - On an individual level, we all have worldviews built from many stories.  A 20 something girl has a hard time trusting men because she has had a few boyfriends that have betrayed her devotion to them.  Another trusts men entirely and looks to them to solve her problems.  Their individual experiences are filled with stories that told them that men were either good or bad.

One man trusts the government and police to help him when needed.  Another has learned that the system favors people of a different race, color or economic status.  Each person has individual and corporate experience that creates the trust or the distrust of the government and the police.

Worldviews tell us who we are - Both personal and collective worldviews tell us who we are.  They define the world and they define us. 

Worldviews justify what we do - Stories help tell us that we are on the right side of the world.  We are the good guys, others are not.  We are the ones who are moral, others are not as moral.  We have done right in the world, others are only as good as they are like us.

Worldviews guide us - Even though we have a bunch of different and sometimes conflicting stories, our stories build up the worldviews that tell us what we can or cannot do and what we should or should not do.  We may tell ourselves that the system will not let us get ahead or we may tell ourselves that anything is possible.  The weight we give to our stories and the stories we hold dear will determine what we believe is true about life and how we can or should act. 

Worldviews are by nature illusions - Stories that build our worldviews are rarely real stories - even stories from history take on a life of their own and change sometimes a little and sometimes a lot to serve their purpose as worldview builders.  The stories that build our worldviews reform and become better suited to fit the purpose they need to accomplish - to justify, to identify who we are, and to guide us.  As a result, the same story may be seen in different ways to different people.

The founding of America by European explorers and settlers was a wonderful event of a great beginning by heroes and iconic figures to many who followed.  But to those who were here before, it was the beginning of sorrow, broken promises, and genocide.

Even though slavery is now condemned by most people, in its day it was seen as a great way to build the economy and provide a service to the country through cheap labor. 

Worldviews are jealously guarded and protected - Even though they are by nature illusion, we guard and fight to keep the stories that build our worldviews.  We believe the worldviews we have are the right ones and the best ones, and we will fight and even kill to keep our stories alive and make sure that they are the most important ones.

ENTER JOB

Job lived in a world of worldviews just like we all do, and until one day shook everything he held dear, he believed those worldviews because they explained the world to him better than any other worldview.  But in one day, his worldviews fell apart and he was left in confusion.  On the other hand, his friends who came to help him were not confused - Job's situation could be easily explained through the worldview they held (the worldview that Job himself believed before tragedy struck him), and the explanation given by the worldview provided easy steps to healing and solution.

The Dominant Worldview in Job's Day

Worldviews blind us to things that contradict.  Worldviews tell us what to look for, and what we should look for is what supports our way of thinking.  Experiences and stories that do not support or contradict our worldviews are either explained away or ignored.  Experiences and stories that support our worldview add to our belief that our worldview is the best and the right one.  In Job's day, they saw that good people prospered and evil people eventually fell into hard times.  They saw that the world was just because God who created the world is just.  They saw that the righteous may suffer, but will always be blessed in the end.  They saw that the unjust my prosper, but it is only temporary and their sins would most definitely find them out and in the end they would die young or meet some sort of tragedy.  To say that experience was anything but this was to say that God was not just.  This is what they saw all around them, because this is what they were trained to see.

Most Christians today hold on to a very similar worldview.  Like the world in Job's day, we believe that justice will come to everyone and that the Judge of all the earth will be fair, but we believe that justice will come after death.  Any injustice in this world will be rectified in the world to come.

Job Challenges the Worldview

When Satan came before God in Job 1 and 2, he asked God to allow something unjust and unfair to take place.  The consequences of that injustice would shatter a worldview turning it upside down.  Suffering then became the best destroyer of this world's stories, leaving its story tellers looking like fools who build illusions and lies.  Does suffering do that today?  Or have we become so wise that we have the answers to suffering?

Job's friends were the story tellers and the builders and protectors of the stories passed on from generations.  They were the godliest of their time.  They were God' protectors and passionate warriors defending truth.  Job was to become their enemy who challenged that truth.  Job dared to put his personal life above the wisdom and the certainty of a worldview that defined life with such precision and such power as to never be doubted or questioned by good people - bad people? - maybe.  But not good people who knew better and who loved God.

In a nutshell, Job's friends tried to explain to Job things he already knew, but was beginning to doubt:
1.  Good people will be rewarded in the end.
2.  Bad people will be punished in the end.
3.  Truth is found in conventional wisdom and years of experience building a worldview that overrides all the personal experience of one person.

Job's personal experience challenged all this:
1.  Good people are not always rewarded for the good they do.
2.  Bad people can live long and good lives.
3.  The truths that we have come to believe are filled with holes that are left unexamined, unstated, ignored, neglected, and dangerous territory to go near.  The holes in the worldview are dangerous to go near because to examine too closely can tear down the entire worldview.  And bringing down the system brings chaos and destruction, fear and terror, and a world of unknown territory.

In reality, Job's experience should not necessarily bring down the entire worldviews.  Good people do generally prosper more because of their kindness and goodness.  Bad people in general are cut down earlier than necessary and face more calamities in life.  But Job shows us that these general truths are not universal by any means.

Today's Worldview

Today is no different than the day of Job except in this:  Our wisdom passed to us from good people of the past has Bible verses to support the worldviews given to us.  With individual Bible verses (often taken out of their original context) supporting good wisdom, the worldview itself can claim ultimate authority and perfection, never to be challenged and always to be protected.  But at heart, it is no different than in Job's day.  People still zealously protect the wisdom passed down to them from their spiritual fathers.  People still see individual personal challenges to the worldview as threatening and evil.

Today's Job would challenge how much "God has a wonderful plan for each one of us - for good and not for evil."  He would point out the tens of thousands of good Christians who are raped and killed in areas of the world that few of us care about.  He would look at the tragedies from life and from nature and question where God's wonderful plan was in allowing evil things happen to good people.  He would see holes in the worldviews that explain that all of this is due to Adam's sin and therefore somehow okay.  In fact, he would challenge God Himself, calling God to justify Himself before a court of law - this is what Job did.  Job would never had gone to such extremes when his life was good, but when he lost everything and life was so bad, he said things that he would never have allowed himself to say in his past.  And the weird thing is that in the end God sided with Job who challenged Him and not the protectors of good and the guardians of "truth," who believed that they were the ones protecting God's honor and God's sense of justice.

In the end neither Job nor his friends had the answers to suffering.  But in the end, Job was right in challenging the worldviews formulated and passed on from generations of good people.  Job was right in finding the holes in these worldviews and pointing out those holes.  In the end, there was and there is no known answer to suffering - it is hidden from us and wrapped up in the majesty of our God.

Preachers Who Steal

PREACHERS WHO STEAL 

When Jesus saw a widow give her last 2 cents to the temple, he told his disciples that she gave everything she had to the temple, and even though it was so little, because it was everything she had, it outweighed the money given from people who had a lot and gave large amounts of money.   (see Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-3).

In the passages preceding both of these accounts, Jesus condemned the teachers of the Law for pride and for devouring widow’s houses.  Devouring widow’s houses sounds a bit strange and has its share of explanations from various Bible scholars, who take this passage very literally and claim that these teachers found ways to physically enter widows' houses and steal from them.  I have never found any such custom in Israel in any legitimate source and those who claim the teachers had this practice base their findings entirely on Mark and Luke.

I don't think the ancient teachers entered the houses of widows to steal.  Rather, I believe that they were taking from widows' homes by living in wealth and in prosperity from the donations of the widows who gave everything they had to the temple.  

In Luke and in Mark, these passages are next to each other.  Context in the Bible is everything.  When passages and stories are next to each other in the Bible, it usually means there is a strong relationship between the passages - they were written to enlighten each other.  The passages in both Mark and Luke are meant to be together because they are addressing the same issue. 

The connection between the widow giving everything she had and the teachers stealing from widow is made even stronger because in both passages the "widow" stands out.  Again, context is important.  When words are repeated in the Bible, those words are meant to be looked at, and chances are, those words that are repeated are central to the story.  Both Mark and Luke want the reader to connect these two stories - the one about the widow who gives everything and the teacher of the Law who steals from widows.  

Out of poverty, the widow gave everything she had to the temple, which means she gave everything she had to those who lived from the tithes and offerings, which means she gave everything she had to the teachers of the Law, for the teachers of the Law lived off of the donations of the people who tithed just as pastors do today.  

Note that the Law did give permission for the priests to live on the sacrifices and tithes of the people who worshiped - this was proper; but because of greed, entitlement, corruption, and injustice; the poor were losing more and more while the priests and teachers of the Law lived “high on the hog.”  Jesus saw this injustice and this disparity and he addressed those who lived in the riches from giving widows.

So how did these teachers of the Law steal from widows?  Indirectly, they stole from them by living in wealth while those who donated to their grand lifestyle lived in poverty.

When modern preachers and teachers justify their wealth by saying that God wants us to prosper, chances are, they are living off of the gifts and tithes of those who are losing their homes, who live paycheck to paycheck, and whose families are falling apart because of insufficient income.

Is this the kind of prosperity that God would be pleased with?  Preachers who take tithes and offerings and who live in prosperity are just like the teachers of the Law in Jesus' day who, as Jesus worded it, entered into the widows' houses and took all they want.  Today's preachers do the same.

Jesus and Faith Healing

  When I became a Born-Again Christian, I was baptized into the world of faith healing from a Charismatic point of view.  I was taught that healing was bought for us on the cross and because Jesus took our sicknesses on the cross, we never need to be sick again.

  I was taught that if I get sick, I should never accept it or mention that I am sick; but rather I should speak health into my body by saying positive things acknowledging my health because words hold power to heal or to make sick.

  Through the years I abandoned a lot of what I was taught because I saw a cruel side to this type of faith healing; and to be honest, I thought it was better to err on the side of compassion for those who aren't healed than to punish the sick with a "you lack faith" trip.  Love is more important than faith, and compassion is better than doctrine; but it always haunted  me as to what Jesus said about faith.  So I bit the bullet and studied every time Jesus mentioned faith or the lack thereof.

FAITH

  We all know that faith moves mountains, but have you ever seen anyone move a mountain?  So its a metaphor?  Maybe, but then again, if God was planning to move some mountain, might he not use someone's faith to do so?  So then it would be God choosing, and then using someone to accomplish the task.  So does this mean that healing faith has to be tied to something that God already wants to do?  Then can we speak healing into someone only when God wants to do it?  Or can we any time?  I was taught that we can any time.  This verse seems to be very straightforward, but in the end is not as easily interpreted as it seems.  I will settle on the fact that faith can do amazing things that are impossible in the realm of science and human existence.

  Jesus never gave us a definition of faith or where it comes from.  He simply recognized its presence or its absence and he knew what faith could do.

A LITTLE FAITH GOES A LONG WAY

  Jesus compared faith to a mustard seed which is very small but grows into a large bush.  When the disciples asked for more faith, he basically told them that they had enough faith, because even a little is all one needs.  So then, faith is not about how much but rather it is how to use what we have.

LACK OF FAITH

  Jesus' moaned because his generation was faithless.  His generation was not all that different than ours in that aspect.  Rather, every generation including our own could be called faithless in the same way if not more than the generation Jesus lived in.

  Jesus also saw a lack of faith in his own hometown. This kind of lack of faith was brought on by jealousy, anger and downright hatred.  People had Jesus pegged as a normal kid who became an adult within a family that everyone knew.  For Jesus to fit into some messiah like character was not acceptable.  Other towns that did not grow up with him could fit their hopes and dreams into Jesus, but not his home town.  Other cities could make Jesus the figure who embodied their dreams and fantasies, but not his home town.  They knew him as a part of a poor family.

  Notice that these two examples show that the people who lacked faith did not accept or want Jesus around.  They completely and entirely rejected Jesus and because of that, the Bible says that Jesus was limited in his miracles.

  The disciples also lacked faith from time to time, however, besides one occasion, their lack of faith had nothing to do with healing.  It had to do with food and with walking on water.  Furthermore, when it came to healing and lacking faith, the disciples lacked faith as healers, not as those needing to be healed.  No one who needed healing was ever denied because of a lack of faith.  Only healers (the disciples) lacked faith in the Gospels.

THE PRESENCE OF FAITH

  Anyone who came to Jesus desiring healing was healed.  If Jesus told anything about faith to anyone coming to him looking for healing, he told them that they had great faith in coming to the healer looking for healing and expecting to be healed.  Jesus looked for, encouraged, and found the presence of faith in others.  The only people he ever saw a lack of faith in was his disciples - the healers themselves.

  In other words, Jesus only told sick people that they had an amazing faith.  He never told them they lacked faith.  Ever! 

  When the disciples who were healers in training could not cast out a demon, they did not blame the father of the possessed boy or the possessed boy.  They asked Jesus why they couldn't cast out the demon.  Jesus told them that they - the healers - lacked faith and commitment.  They should have fasted and prayed this thing out.

TODAY

  What we see and hear today by faith healers is not from the Bible at all.  The sick are blamed and turned away from healers who make money by selling books, by preaching.  The healers transfer the blame for their own lack of faith onto the person or people who come to them in faith hoping to be healed.  This practice and this teaching is not only unbiblical, it is cruel.  This teaching has reached down into the pews and into the hearts of very well meaning Christians who hope to help their sick friends, but more often than not, hurt them instead.

  I have heard the stories and have seen the hurt in people who had to deal with diabetes, tragedy, sickness, and the accusations of church members who tell them that they lack faith.  I have seen a friend who won dozens to Christ become an outcast in his community because he went to them for prayer but was not healed.  I have seen a man paralyzed from an accident publicly turned away from a faith healer, and told that he did not have enough faith.

  These people in need did not lack faith.  According to Jesus and according to his practice, the healers lacked faith but conveniently placed the blame on the victims - those who had faith to ask for prayer.

  I believe in healing and believe that God heals today.  I have been healed and have prayed for others who were miraculously healed.  But this teaching and this practice that blames the victims must stop. 

Fear in the Bible and Fear Today

I have always had this feeling that things are getting worse and that one day - probably one day soon - things are going to come to a head.  As I learn about history and about my own times, I realize that I am not the only person who feels this foreboding. 

This has helped to calm my fears, knowing that my times are no more threatening than the 50s when we feared nuclear war; or the 60s when we feared the breakdown of society; or the 70s when we feared the end of the late great planet earth; or the 90s when we feared Y2K; or the first decade of the 21st Century when we feared comets; or 2012 when the Mayan calander was about to end; or whatever other disasters or powers threaten our times.

Knowing that so many unfounded fears have always plagued us, and knowing that somehow life goes on, I have learned to curb my fears and to keep them in check.  But someday, maybe one of my innermost fears will be realized.

FEAR IS GOOD

As human beings living on this earth, we are created with an innate fear of the unfamiliar.  Worry and fear of the uncertain keeps us humans alert and prepared for possible dangers.  I believe that a good healthy fear is needed for human survival and continuous growth.

FEAR IS BAD

But like most good things, fear can also take some bad turns.  Too much fear can paralyze.  Too much fear can also create tremendous evils by turning nice, normal people into killers such as in the cases of the many genocides that take place throughout history.  I don't need to go through even our own past in the U.S. with the Pietists, the colonists, and so on, who have done untold evil acts because they feared. And to those who think that their own group would never do that... It would do that and probably did at one time. 

Fear is a healthy feeling designed to help us survive.  But it can become a monster.

Fear of the future has been with us since the beginning of humanity and it will continue until we end as a species; so it is no surprise that fear permeated the days of the biblical prophets. 

THE ANCIENT WORLD AND THE SPIRITUAL

Bible prophets and what the Bible calls false prophets addressed the fears of their day.  Some tried to ease the fears of the people, telling them that God was on their side and therefore would protect and deliver them.  On the other hand, the other prophets capitalized on the fears of their day and told the people that by obeying God, they could escape the future doom or at least prepare themselves for the worst.

In the world views of that day, the natural world was so intimately tied into the spiritual realm, it was assumed that bad times and good times were caused by the gods or God - and only by that spiritual realm.  So to avoid what they feared, it was imperative to please the gods or God.

In other words, there was no such thing as natural disaster.  The spiritual effected everything.  And because the spiritual world determined the events in the natural world, humans could get ultimate control of everything.  We could determine whether or not the spiritual realm was going to reward or punish.  Our dedication and obedience to the gods / God determined whether or not our fears would overtake us.  So ultimately, by appeasing the spiritual beings, people could have ultimate control over the natural world.

Both godly and ungodly people of that day held on to these beliefs.  The prophets did as well as the false prophets as well as the people.

THE TIMES

When I read the prophets in the Bible, I discover individuals who usually lived in fearful times.  They and the people around them lived on the edge of a terrible future, and the feeling of imminent disaster filled the air of their day.

In the midst of all the fear, there was a strong desire to find peace from that fear.  People wanted not to be afraid.  People wanted "shalom" which was rest from the tensions and perils of this life.  

People lived with both fear and the longing for peace from that fear.

SOMETIMES THEIR FEAR WAS REAL

When the Writing Prophets of Israel began to speak, there were real threats to the nation's well-being.

Assyria

Assyria was a nation growing stronger by the day, building a reputation as the most violent and cruel nation to ever have existed.  They took cities without mercy, slaughtering, raping and torturing people without mercy.  Did I mention that they had no mercy?  Israel lived under the constant feeling that one day, Assyria would focus their evil attention on them...and one day it did.

Babylon

When the threat and the viciousness of Assyria had come to an end, Babylon became the next power to be reckoned with.  It was also vicious and even more powerful as it took one city after another.

The Siege

Everybody knew what happened in seiges.  The stories were passed down to them from generations and the stories came from other cities of their day.

Enemy armies came into the land and then stripped the land of all that was good.  Those armies pillaged and raped as they went.  Small towns were defenseless and therefore, many ran to the large cities with walls for protection.   But the large cities offered only temporary relief from those armies.

Once inside city walls, the enemy army came and camped outside those walls eating and drinking, while inside the walls, supplies dwindled down to nothing.  If the city held out in hopes of some kind of deliverence (either from God / the gods or other foreign armies less vicious), many turned to cannibalism in order to survive, while eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine.

Eventually, if no deliverence came, and usually it didn't, the city gates were opened and the enemy armies flooded in slaughtering, raping and pillaging.

Because they all knew the stories, the people knew the reality that faced them when any foreign army was on the move.  Reports regulary came from different regions about the horrors taking place.  As long as those other regions were far away, people had some ease.  But Israel just happened to be in the center of where just about every army traveled, so fear permeated the air anytime an army was on the move.

TRUE AND FALSE PROPHETS

True prophets correctly discerned the times.  Jeremiah told the people to fear the future and prepare for it because it was going to be bad.  But Isaiah told King Ahaz not to worry when things looked really bad, because God was going to deliver Judah from armies already set against him.

IN THE 21st CENTURY

Today there are those who are doomsayers.  "Everything is going downward and getting worse," they say.  But is it really getting worse?  I have always held Ecclesiastes 7:10 as a guide to this issue:
  Say not, "Why were the former days better than these?"
  For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Using this verse as a guide, I have learned that we sometimes glorify the past and we glorify the past's leaders.  Using this verse I study deep enough into the past and into history and find that the past is not always as wonderful, as godly, as pure as it seems on the surface.

If I choose to read only certain books and articles, if all I read tells me how wonderful some time or era was, I will not learn the meaning to Ecclesiastes 7:10; but if I look well enough into any era or time, I will find that there people always feared what was coming in their day and that each generation had its share of problems and sins.  Many generations faced far greater problems than ours.

Another lesson I get from Ecclesiastes 7:10 is that I should not allow the great days of the past to blind me to the great things happening now.  After all, there will probably be a day when people will look back and say what a wonderful time the 2010s were.

The lesson I get from history is not to allow fear of the future and negativity of the present ruin today. Jesus told us not to fear the future because there are enough problems for us today (Matthew 6:34).