ROUTINE AND BEING REAL
I remember sitting through chapel at Heritage Christian University as Coy Roper was delivering the message for the morning. Coy Roper was not the most dynamic speaker in the area, but when he spoke you listened. His lessons were always deeply insightful and cutting to the heart. This morning Coy had a lesson about routine and being real. He might not have called it that, but the lesson dealt with taking the special times of God for granted.
This is the problem with excessive routine. Routine can sink into mindless habit. The Lord Supper becomes a “sip and a chip” instead of a communion with God and with one another. The Body and Blood of the Lord are taken without proper reflection on the majestic work of Christ. A baptism can fall to the status of an interruption to beating the Sunday morning rush to Cracker Barrel. It sinks into a routine while all along one is telling the person dying to self and being raised to newness of life that this is the greatest decision he or she has ever made. Instead of a special time of fellowship and rejoicing, it turns into perfunctory handshakes and half-hearted platitudes. The great actions of faith must never turn into mindless routine or habit. We must always capture the magic and celebration of these glorious times.
Last Sunday night, after the three baptisms, one of the ladies in the congregation that I admire most made an insightful comment. She said, “Matthew tonight was out of the routine, tonight the fellowship felt real.” We had three baptisms, we had deeply sincere prayers, and we had a prayer with one another holding hands as we rejoiced as a congregation with the Ray family. It felt authentic, it felt real, and it felt what church ought to feel like. It felt real.
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About The Author
Nicely done.
Also for whoever might be interested, learn how to become Christ-Like in 3 easy steps.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi Shahinian
Parables of a Prodigal World
This is very good Matthew. Here is the thing about sincerity. One can be sincere or real and still be terribly mis-guided. Take for instance baptism. Just because someone gets wet that does not mean that they pledged their heart mind and body to God as Peter talks about. But people do it because they think it will get them to Heaven or something like that.
James says confess your sins one to another and pray for each other that you may be healed. This is probably the least practiced commandment in the churches of Christ.
If we had a little more perspective to go along with our sincerity we might be real more often rather than occasionally.
Perspective is what takes sincerity to realness or authenticity. I remember many baptisms growing up especially in the youth group. I was at my little sisters wedding this weekend and met up with some old friends. For grins we pulled out old directories and researched where the entire youth group had gone once they graduated from high school for the past 15 years. Well about 20% still go to church anywhere at all and about half of those who go to church went some where else besides a church with church of Christ on the sign outside the building. So my point is this very few baptisms were actually about faith where they had examined the evidence and arguments for themselves and actually pledged one’s heart mind and body to God. But a decade later we realize that something was dreadfully wrong. All but two of the 275 people that grew up in what would be considered a well above average church were baptized before graduating from high school. Now only about 50 or so still go to church anywhere. At these times we all held hands and sang and prayed and it felt wonderful and real.
The moments we are discussing here are definitely real as they embody teachings that reach to eternity. Joe raises a good point about baptizing young people. The problem is that as we age, we forget those moments and the teachings behind them only to grasp on to other things. Baptizing a young person has its questions. Does this child understand what he/she is doing? Can they comprehend the scope of commitment that their decision entails. Some do, some don’t, and the rest do it because it’s the thing to do at church camp. Regardless, we teach our kids that commitment is necessary and they follow through; hopefully with good intentions. It’s a problem though when they grow out of this part of their lives as they view it as something they did when they were a kid. Their faith does not grow with them as they mature into adulthood. I hope you’ll refer to my article on this issue.
http://dalesadler.blogspot.com/2006/06/when-i-became-man-i-put-away-my.html
i wonder, how could we alter our practice in order to engender authenticity? i think the LS could definitely be handled far differently, but everyone says that, right? that real matter is just how could it be handled differently, and what particular differences would arguably be more effective for accomplishing what the LS is meant to accomplish? Any thoughts?
my $1.50′s-worth-of-an-ingenious-idea is that we need to implement interaction (and a great deal of it) on sunday mornings rather than passive participation.
Right there with you guy. Interaction talking. I always thought that doing it in small groups around a table at a home and the discussion would center on what Jesus was been doing in our lives lately and where we really need Him.
I am reminded of James when he tells us to confess our sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
Thank you for the thoughts, Dale you make a great point in saying that young people see the baptism as something they did as a kid but grew out of. We must change this mindset.
I agree Matthew. I believe that this mindset comes from our teaching of Baptism as a work rather than a fundamental change in thinking or a pledge of ourselves to God based upon real faith. We do not let teenagers make any significant life decisions because their brains are still developing. We don’t let them drive until 16 or 18 because their brains can’t process it. The pressure to be baptized is immense, from church camp to youth rallies and everywhere in between we drag them to the baptistery. How much time is really spent going over the ideas and arguments about Jesus being God in the flesh and why we believe in Him and not some other god or religion? My son who is seven has already asked to be baptized. He can’t even remember to flush the toilet how can he have a faith that is his own? My father in law told me that in the church where he is an elder they have a goal to baptize all their kids before they graduate. I suggested to him that a better goal would be to help them develop their own authentic faith and answer their questions about belief and unbelief. Then they won’t have to worry about baptism.
We sometimes need to be reminded what being a Christian is REALLY all about.
Thanks for the reminder,
-bill