We live in perilous times.  Corporate and personal faith in Christ Jesus have taken a beating and are tested in many places.  Some of us are distracted; many are lured away by promises of wealth and perpetual health; yet others might have been lulled into complacency; and perhaps many more had been seduced by the lie of self-indulgence.

Of late, my thoughts had lingered on our Lord’s word of admonition to the church of Ephesus in Rev 2:4 “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”  And Jude 12 warns of “spots in your love feasts…”  How then should we, as disciples of Christ, live? Allow me to share with you some thoughts from the epistle of Jude.

1. We need “to contend earnestly for the faith…” v3

Stand up and be counted!  But to do so our bodies must be strong; and that can only come from God’s nourishing word.  We are to remember and live out the words and teachings from the all-wise God v17.  Only then would we be able to detect error from truth.  Many teach liberty but not responsibility; many preach love but not discipline [judgement]; many had turned God’s “grace…into lewdness and deny the Lord.”

2.  We need to consider and be alerted to the great errors of every era. v11

· The way of Cain: speaks of jealousy, murder and, lies and cover-ups.  It could also speak of pleasing our personal wants and desires irrespective of, or concern for God’s leading. 

· The error of Balaam: speaks of lust and greed.  The willingness to exchange God’s truth and glory for temporal earthly gains. [Romans 1:25]

· The rebellion of Korah: speaks of rebellion and rejection of God’s authority.  There is great danger in believing and living out the idea of a “self-made person”.  [Luke 12:15-21]

3.  We need to conduct ourselves well before God and man v20-23

We are called to the building up our faith, praying, holding on to God, looking expectantly to God’s mercy and grace, showing compassion and love to others, sharing the gospel of Christ, and hating [strong word] all fleshly/earthly desires. 

We all know how easy it is to fail our Lord and fall.  So Jude exhorts us to remember and claim the victory we have in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our great God and Saviour, and who alone can keep us from stumbling and present us faultless [guilt-less]. v24-25

We live in perilous times.  But we have a great and wise God who will lead and guide us through.  Our task is to hold on to His hand with trust and obedience.  May we consciously keep our love vibrant and aglow for the Lord. 

James Dieu

Note: I use the word church in the sense of a body of believers.

Recently we read in our Sunday school a couple of articles from Wayne Jacobsen (his website: lifestream.org) including the article entitled Why I don’t go to church anymore.

His background in a nutshell: a former pastor he left his church due to differences with the leadership. He then started his own organization that disapproves of the structure of today’s churches.

We all know, or know of, people who have stopped going to church because of disappointment in the pastor, leaders, other church goers or whatever else.

If the basement in your home starts to flood, what would you do?

Would you consider your home a write-off, pack your bags, and then move out?

Or would you immediately grab some buckets and start taking out the water?

How would leaving a church fix anything? If there’s a problem then let’s fix it.

An inter-church organization like Contempo is a great way to facilitate sharing of experience between people of different churches. Many problems a church faces are not unique. Why not learn from each other?

What do you think? Discussion welcome.

Contempo movement emphasizes living in the presence of God at home, at work and in the church. One of the most revealing tests of how much we really practice the presence of God is shown in our wedding vows.

Today many wedding sermons and marriage vows are astoundingly pagan by permitting only a peripheral place for God in the ceremony.

First, many weddings focus on what the couple brings to the marriage by way of love and commitment. Of course, weddings are meant to be celebrations of two people’s love for one another. Such love is indeed a reason to rejoice. On the other hand, we must also admit that at this stage the couple’s love and commitment is at best ideal and perhaps even naïve. Can such love really form the basis of a lifelong union?

Second, some contemporary weddings have shifted the emphasis to the special role of the body of believers present at the ceremony. These believers are asked to pledge their commitment to help keep this couple married. While such intention is honourable, is it really possible for a small group of people attending the wedding to provide the social network in developing a new relationship characterized by Christian love and joy?

Third, some opt for a more realistic approach. The couple pledges only to stay married as long as they love one another. The basis of this approach is clear: lifetime commitments are unrealistic and dishonest; therefore, we should not hide our heads in the sand. We might as well be bold to acknowledge the obvious.

This is where Contempo steps in.

We believe that life is a gift bestowed by the Giver of life. A Christian wedding is a celebration of the gift of life from God. Every breath we take is a gift from God. Every part of our body belongs to our Creator. Hence we should submit ourselves before our Creator. When understood this way, the Christian wedding becomes an occasion when two people decide to open themselves up to our Creator who alone can mould and transform us. It is an act in which the couple’s intentions, although important, are dwarfed in comparison with the graciousness and revolutionizing power of God’s almighty love.

We readily acknowledge that lifelong commitments are indeed unrealistic, but that is precisely the point. Being able to live together for life has much less to do with confidence in ourselves than it does with our openness to God. Only God can transform even the darkest moments in marriage into rays of hope.

Such is the true meaning of practicing God’s presence in our marriage, beginning with the wedding ceremony.

Since practicing God’s presence in all areas of life is what Contempo is really about, we need to think about weddings more often.

N.B. Many of the points are taken from Church as Parable (1994) by Harry Huebner and David Schroeder.

Two posts before, we talked about the art of permissioning.  This reminded me of the list, on the Contempo website, of why we need Contempo (http://projectcontempo.ca/about/why.html).  The first bullet was:
 
“Many young Canadian Asian Christians are highly competent and successful in their careers but are drifting away from God and church.”
 
Part of the purpose of this blog/Contempo is to bring together the experience and thoughts of leaders from the various Contempo/CCCBPA chapters across Canada.  We want to build the Contempo network so that we can work together to solve problems and be change agents in our workplace, churches, cities and nation.
 
So let’s all put our thinking caps on at the same time and answer some questions.  For the sake of simplicity and clearer communication we will refer to Gen X as the generation immediately following the Baby Boomers (anyone over 40ish).  We need input from all to figure things out.
 
What is causing Gen X to drift away?  What are their priorities?  What are the criticisms/perceptions that they make of our churches?   

“I am too busy with my work and family to make it to church.”
“Our church only cares about our church.”
“Our church is too political.”
“They only want me at church because I can serve and help.”
“We say we care about the homeless but what is our church doing to help?”
“I want change, but our church is stuck on tradition.”
“What good is it to sit here each Sunday and play church?”
“Our work/school excellence requires so much time that we cannot serve.”
“After I get enough money, I will be able to do more ministry.”
What else have you heard?  Leave a comment.

What needs to be done to keep Gen X from drifting away from our churches?  What can I do to help? 

“We need to build bridges between the generations.”
“The church needs to be more relevant to our current culture.”
“We need to empower Gen X and let them do things their way, not ours.”
“We need to pray more than ever before.”
“We need to be less rebellious and more willing to learn from the Baby Boomers.”
“We must be sensitive to the baby boomers resistance to change and strong sense of ownership of ministry when trying to introduce change.”
“A big part to figuring this all out is understanding the generational differences and how to work together, better.”
“We need to talk more in forums and address problems that all our churches share.”
“We need to get rid of our pride.”
What else have you heard?  Leave a comment.