March 7th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

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FYI – This post has nothing to do with abiding, really. It is a random tangent born out of many different events and conversations… I hesitated to write it lest it come across wrong. Please know that I am vividly aware of just how far from “arriving” I am – I am simply a girl on a pursuit of Jesus who often fails.

I put it in the comments below but also wanted to add here – this post is a generalization over 30 years in different churches and church culture in general. We love our church and are challenged by many authentic believers there!

There is an interesting sort of peer pressure in the American Church.

• Be good… but not too good. If you really take holiness seriously, you might make other “Christians” uncomfortable.
• Believe the Bible… but don’t get all crazy on us. Just because that’s what the Bible says that doesn’t necessarily mean we should believe it and live by it, right?
• Love people… but let’s not go overboard. If Jesus knew how busy I was and how important my job/ kids’ sports/ lawn work is, He would understand.
• Be honest and voice your doubts about Scripture… if you don’t doubt what the Bible says, you’re probably just being fake.

I have felt this pressure as a child. In youth group. In Christian school. In Christian college. In church as an adult.

My husband and I were just discussing church accountability groups. So many times when we have been in these settings it begins to seem like these are simply safe places to fail – if we have been growing and God is granting us victory over sin, we almost feel embarrassed to share. Sometimes we feel like people don’t even believe us when we’re doing well. Sometimes during group discussion in Christian circles, I feel like I have to hold back my true feelings lest I make people uncomfortable with what I really believe and think.

I once had my high school history teacher challenge me on my beliefs. He put me on the spot in our class and kept pushing me, “sure, that’s what the Bible says. But what do YOU think?” That IS what I think. I believe the Bible is true and that is what I think! My public school classmates rallied to my defense and argued the point for me – she believes the Bible, that is what she thinks! There isn’t a difference between the two!

My classmates’ response was so encouraging to me – they knew me, they knew what I believed, they knew that my goal was for my life to line up completely with God’s Word… even though I was imperfect and often failed. Ironically, I’ve often wondered if my peers would have been defending me in a Christian setting, or if I would have been ridiculed for giving the “Sunday School answer,” for not being “honest” about my supposed doubts, for taking the Bible at face value.

Francis Chan put this in words for me beautifully in Crazy Love:

If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream.

Or, to use another metaphor more familiar to city people, we are on a never-ending downstream escalator. In order to grow, we have to turn around and sprint up the escalator, putting up with perturbed looks from everyone else who is gradually moving downward.

I believe that much of the American churchgoing population, while not specifically swimming downstream, is slowly floating away from Christ. It isn’t a conscious choice, but it is nonetheless happening because little in their lives propels them toward Christ.

If we choose to sprint up the escalator after Christ… we’re going to make people irritated. Sometimes other “Christians” are the most irritated of all. We’re not going to do it perfectly. We’ll struggle with pride and trip on the steps and sometimes get tired and just go with the flow for a while… but being serious about following Jesus is going to make us the weird people.

May God make us weirder today than we were yesterday.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds…”

Hebrews 10:24

Have you felt the pressure to be mediocre in your faith? Have you experienced Christians tending to drift away from Christ together rather than spur one another on toward Jesus?

October 15th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

When we started this Scripture Dig series on the local church, I wondered how these posts would hit those of you walking around with deep wounds from sinful actions of those around you in local churches.

It’s inevitable that there are some of you who fit that description.

And as we mentioned from the beginning, we understand. It is impossible to invest deeply in the local church and avoid being wounded. Sometimes we are wounded in a good way, as our pride and sin are cut open and exposed… sometimes we are wounded when those around us sin against us and leave deep scars on our hearts.

There is so much I would love to say to you if we had coffee in person. I would love to hear your story. And I would love to give you a book to read.

Whether you are a new believer in Jesus Christ and just learning the “ropes” of  investing in a local church, or a person who has grown up in churches and has battle wounds to show for it, or a person who is actively in ministry as a staff member, pastor’s wife, or other integral role… I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

You see, the church is a beautiful thing. It is full of broken people. It desperately needs the grace of God. And it is a gift from God to you.

In The Gift of Church, Jim Samra does a fantastic job of presenting the Biblical and practical reasons why we should treasure and value the church as a beautiful gift to us from God Himself. Samra never glosses over the very real issues that have plagued church life since the time of Paul… and oh, the stories that each of us could share to back up the fact that sin plagues our local churches still today.

But the church is a gift.

“We love the church because it is a gift from God. We participate in the church because God does. We do not give up on the church, because God refuses to.” – Jim Samra

To read the rest of this post and also enter to win a copy of this wonderful book, join us over at Scripture Dig!

October 14th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

“Experiencing God in the midst of an assembly, the gathered people of God – His church – is like hearing God in concert. We all, in different ways, experience God throughout our day as individuals: in our private devotional life, in the beauty of nature, and in our acts of service to the poor. But as wonderful and necessary as these experiences are, they do not replace the experience of God in concert. Like an iPod or portable music player, they replicate the music of the concert experience, but they cannot replace the concert itself. God is a master musician, and He is best experienced live in concert.

I’d like you to think about heaven for a moment. When the curtain is pulled back and we get a glimpse into the world of heaven in the book of Revelation, we see an enormous assembly-  a concert of living creatures, elders, and people of every tribe, nation, and tongue gathered together around the throne of God (Rev. 4-5; 7; 14). Heaven is not presented as a private recital of God’s glory. It’s not an individualistic experience. When the Bible speaks about the end-time return of Jesus Christ, we are told it is the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19) – a giant, celebratory, communal feast, not a series of private picnics. It’s a community experience…

When we assemble together as the church, we re-create the concert of heaven here on earth. Hebrews 12:18-29 teaches us that the gathering of God’s people is a re-creation of this heavenly experience. Just as Israel gathered around the temple and the tabernacle to re-create their foundational assembly at Mount Sinai, we do something similar when we gather as an assembled church. Instead of re-creating the assembly on Mount Sinai, we join our worship to the eternal worship of the assembled in heaven (Heb. 12:22-29). Because we have come near to God in this heavenly assembly, we should ‘worship God with reverence and awe.’ (v. 28)” [Samra, 32-33]

This quote comes from an excellent book written by my parents’ pastor and friend, pastor Jim Samra from Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His book, The Gift of Church, is an excellent read – highly recommend it! And *pssst* – tomorrow on Scripture Dig we’ll be announcing a giveaway of this book, if you’d like to try to win a copy for yourself! You might also want to consider purchasing a copy as a gift – this is pastor appreciation month, after all! :)

October 6th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Yesterday, Sandra gave us a better understanding of how the Church got started during the feast of Pentecost. Fasten your seatbelt today, because we are going to take a turbo-speed overview of the early history of God’s work in and through the local church through the books of Acts and the epistles!

Join us over at Scripture Dig for the high-speed tour!

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