Christianity 101

Like a Mother. (And a Father.)

Over at Life in the Shoe, Dorcas Smucker as a short-but-excellent post on Looking Like a Mom:

Obviously the implication here is that looking like a mom is a bad thing. Maybe that’s because the popular perception is that looking like a mom is all physical, and all moms are sloppy and out of shape. At least that’s the impression I get when people meet me and insist that I can’t possibly have six children, which is flattering in its way, but I think the essence of a real mom shows up on her face and I hope that’s what people can see in me.

I am proud to be a mom, and I hope people can look at me and tell right off that if they have a problem they can tell me about it, that I’ve survived enough crises to know what to get upset about and what not to, that I’ll happily dispense advice, that I believe in better things for them, that I’ll drop everything to make them a cup of hot tea, that I’ll happily mother anyone who needs mothering.

And if someone stops me in a store to ask what to buy for a ten-year-old, I’ll feel honored.

Way to go, Dorcas!

While I do not wish to look like a mother (or a grandmother), I want to “feel” likewise honored in looking like a father or even a grandfather.

After all, that’s what I am.

Whether or not I look like one, let me be the best at both that I can be.

Long ago I wished for a father’s heart like the Father’s heart. My wish was sincere. And intense. And quite ignorant.

Ignorant because I didn’t know the breaking and restructuring the granting of such a wish would require.

Ignorant because I didn’t realize the fragility of such a heart. (No, that doesn’t make God fragile!)

Do I now have a heart like the Father’s? Not even close. But I’m far closer than I was before making that request of Him.

And I think I understand His heart better than I used to.

So — again — I ask: Let me look and love and lead and live like a father should.

And like the Father does.

Push a Christian

Over at WorldMagBlog, Andrée Seu has done it again. Here are some pieces to entice you to click the link:

Beyond “mere men”

Is there anything about you that, if people only knew, they would not judge you so harshly?

A little benefit of the doubt please.

We all want to be understood and accepted. But most of us have learned not to expect much from one another in the way of understanding and patience. How sad. We have learned that people are pretty much the same — Christian or non-Christian: they’re nice when you’re nice or when you appeal to them, and not nice when you sin or you look like a loser. Push a Christian more than an inch and he will react pretty much like a pagan.

But God has called us to be extraordinary. Paul chided the Corinthians for behaving like “mere men” (1 Corinthians 3:3). The place where God is glorified is the distance our love pushes through beyond where the world stops loving. Let us beseech the Lord for unkillable love. Let the world “[take] note that these men have been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Ouch!

Needed: Good Preachers

Here, my friend, is an excerpt from A.W. Tozer’s The Size of the Soul:

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used. If the Church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes and I pray God there will be not one but many, he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.

pages 128-129

So. What do you make of that?

And (secondly), would you put up with the kind of preacher Tozer envisioned?

Or are you enjoying the kinds of preachers he spoke against?

(Just thought I’d ask.)

Buy the book here: The Size of the Soul

Living Water vs Cholera

Clean water saves lives

This year, Living Water International is rehabilitating more than 100 wells in Sierra Leone, where many open wells are contaminated by surface water during the rainy season.

Sierra Leone’s sanitation is poor, and its water table is high. So surface water transports all kinds of filth and debris into the wells. As a result, many people contract diarrhea and cholera – often fatally. Water-related disease is the single largest killer of infants in developing countries. Sierra Leone, according to UNICEF, is one of the worst places on earth to be a child.

[…]

LWI has been addressing the global water crisis for 17 years and has directly implemented more than 5,000 water projects. It plans to repair at least 1,000 more wells in the year 2008.

For $2000, you can help restore clean water for a village in Sierra Leone.

I’m thankful for good water to drink.

And filters to buy when it’s not.

(Is that all?)

Church Planters in India

Despite Persecution…

It can take up to two years to train a church planter in India.

Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Mission India’s Dave Stravers says the spiritual climate is that ready. “It can be quite embarrassing because we don’t have the resources to train everyone who wants to receive help from us. We actually have almost 4,000 church planters on the waiting list, waiting for our training. So that’s the number one need–he training. Then, we of course provide them with materials, so they need some Scriptures,” and the ministry furnishes a bicycle to increase mobility.

Through this approach, many have responded to the Gospel. That has brought its own set of problems to church planters.

A backlash reaction to the sudden growth of the church has prompted anti-conversion laws in seven states. Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are giving indirect support to militant groups and resulting in ongoing violence against Christians.

Even in states where such laws are not written, they are acted on by the local authorities. Says Stravers, “Often, [the church planters’] lives will be threatened; they’ll get beaten up; they’ll be warned to leave: ‘Don’t come back here again or we’ll kill you.’ This is quite a common form of intimidation, and the high success of the church planters is really attributed to the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in India.”

Reports of village churches being attacked, raided or otherwise destroyed continue to be a daily reality throughout the country. New converts to Christianity are often cast out of their families and face poverty and ostracism.

Continue to pray that the Mission India team would remain bold in their vision. Pray, too, that God would provide the resources they need to train those who would be church planters, and that new believers would be grounded in the Scriptures.

Anabaptists During the Revolution

Ironically, once the fight for liberty started, the freedom of nonresistant Christians became sharply limited.
Anabaptists During the American Revolution

The Liberties of Nonresistant Christians. Some Americans supported neither side in the Revolution. Instead, as Mennonite and German Baptist leaders said in 1775, “We have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that can be helpful to the preservation of men’s lives, but…we are not at liberty in conscience to take up arms to conquer our enemies, but rather to pray to God, who has power in heaven and on earth, for us and them.” Chief among these nonresistant Christians were the Quakers, Mennonites, German Baptists, Moravians, and Schwenkfelders.

Most nonresistant Christians were quite content with their lot as British subjects. As three Mennonite bishops in Pennsylvania wrote in 1773, “Through God’s mercy we enjoy unlimited freedom in both civil and religious matters.” Ironically, once the fight for liberty started, the freedom of nonresistant Christians became sharply limited.

Militia Duty. The first issue that peace-promoting Christians faced was militia duty. After Lexington and Concord, patriot committees called all able-bodied men to join a voluntary association “to learn the art of war.” The associators noticed that the nonresistant Christians did not join in the drills. They demanded laws requiring everybody to serve.

In November 1775, Mennonite and German Baptist ministers sent A Short and Sincere Declaration to the Pennsylvania assembly. They suggested an alternative to militia duty. They would donate money to help poor families left destitute because their men were off fighting. Instead Pennsylvania passed a law levying a special war tax on all non-associators. Later it said nonresistant Christians could hire substitutes or pay a fine. Most nonresistant Christians refused to do either, because as the Short and Sincere Declaration stated, they found “no freedom in giving, or doing, or assisting in anything by which men’s lives are destroyed or hurt.” Therefore, Patriot officials confiscated their property to pay the tax and fines.

Who is Caesar?

Independence created another problem for the nonresistant Christians. Was King George III or was the Continental Congress the Caesar they were to obey? Many of them had promised obedience to the king when they came to America. Breaking their word was seen as a serious sin. Also, the king had protected their liberties. Now the patriots were taking them away.

In the end the nonresistant Christians put their trust in the words of the prophet Daniel in the Bible, “He removeth kings and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21). They patiently waited for the outcome of the war to find out who God would set up as Caesar. In the meantime they followed a pattern of strict neutrality. They refused to help either side to fight.

However, when hungry, sick, or wounded soldiers, whether patriot or redcoat, needed aid, the nonresistant Christians gave it. As a Hessian officer said, “They are the most hospitable to us.” The patriots did not understand this impartial love. They threatened men like Mennonite Christian Weaver with a whipping for feeding runaway British prisoners even though he had done the same for Continental soldiers.

Source: US Anabaptists during the Revolutionary War (excerpts from the fifth grade social studies course produced by Christian Light Publications)

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