The Church: Lover or Prostitute?

A brother sent me this article by Dr David Ryserwhich seemed to me worthy to be considered by others. He writes:

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise. Some of the students were only 18 or 19 years old--barely out of diapers--and I wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding, “An enterprise. That’s a business.” After a few moments Martha, the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless, I acknowledged Martha’s raised hand, “Yes, Martha.”

She asked such a simple question, “A business? But isn’t it supposed to be a body?” I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, “Yes.” She continued, “But when a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?” The room went dead silent. For several seconds no one moved or spoke. We were stunned, afraid to make a sound because the presence of God had flooded into the room, and we knew we were on holy ground. All I could think in those sacred moments was, “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that.” I didn’t dare express that thought aloud. God had taken over the class. Martha’s question changed my life.

For six months, I thought about her question at least once every day. “When a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?” There is only one answer to her question. The answer is “Yes.” The American Church, tragically, is heavily populated by people who do not love God. How can we love Him? We don’t even know Him; and I mean really know Him. What do I mean when I say “really know Him?” Our understanding of knowing and knowledge stems from our western culture (which is based in ancient Greek philosophical thought). We believe we have knowledge (and, by extension, wisdom) when we have collected information. A collection of information is not the same thing as knowledge, especially in the culture of the Bible (which is an eastern, non-Greek, culture). In the eastern culture, all knowledge is experiential. In western/Greek culture, we argue from premise to conclusion without regard for experience--or so we think. An example might be helpful here.

Let us suppose a question based upon the following two premises: First, that wheat does not grow in a cold climate and second, that England has a cold climate. The question: Does wheat grow in England? The vast majority of people from the western/Greek culture would answer, “No. If wheat does not grow in a cold climate and if England has a cold climate, then it follows that wheat does not grow in England.” In the eastern culture, the answer to the same question, based on the same premises, most likely would be, “I don’t know.. I’ve never been to England.” We laugh at this thinking, but when I posed the same question to my friends from England, their answer was, “Yes, of course wheat grows in England. We’re from there, and we know wheat grows there.” They overcame their cultural way of thinking because of their life experience. Experience trumps information when it comes to knowledge.

A similar problem exists with our concept of belief. We say we believe something (or someone) apart from personal experience. This definition of belief is not extended to our stockbroker, however. Again, allow me to explain. Suppose my stockbroker phones me and says, “I have a hot tip on a stock that is going to triple in price within the next week. I want your permission to transfer $10,000 from your cash account and buy this stock.” That’s a lot of money for me, so I ask, “Do you really believe this stock will triple in price, and so quickly?” He/she answers, I sure do.” I say, “That sounds great! How exciting! So how much of your own money have you invested in this stock?” He/she answers, “None.” Does my stockbroker believe? Truly believe? I don’t think so, and suddenly I don’t believe, either. How can we be so discerning in the things of this world, especially when they involve money, and so indiscriminate when it comes to spiritual things? The fact is, we do not know or believe apart from experience.

The Bible was written to people who would not understand the concepts of knowledge, belief, and faith apart from experience. I suspect God thinks this way also. So I stand by my statement that most American Christians do not know God--much less love Him. The root of this condition originates in how we came to God. Most of us came to Him because of what we were told He would do for us. We were promised that He would bless us in life and take us to heaven after death. We married Him for His money, and we don’t care if He lives or dies as long as we can get His stuff. We have made the Kingdom of God into a business, merchandising His anointing. This should not be. We are commanded to love God, and are called to be the Bride of Christ--that’s pretty intimate stuff. We are supposed to be His lovers. How can we love someone we don’t even know? And even if we do know someone, is that a guarantee that we truly love them? Are we lovers or prostitutes? I was pondering Martha’s question again one day, and considered the question, “What’s the difference between a lover and a prostitute?” I realized that both do many of the same things, but a lover does what she does because she loves. A prostitute pretends to love, but only as long as you pay.

Then I asked the question, “What would happen if God stopped paying me?” For the next several months, I allowed God to search me to uncover my motives for loving and serving Him. Was I really a true lover of God? What would happen if He stopped blessing me? What if He never did another thing for me? Would I still love Him? Please understand, I believe in the promises and blessings of God. The issue here is not whether God blesses His children; the issue is the condition of my heart. Why do I serve Him? Are His blessings in my life the gifts of a loving Father, or are they a wage that I have earned or a bribe/payment to love Him? Do I love God without any conditions?

It took several months to work through these questions. Even now I wonder if my desire to love God is always matched by my attitude and behaviour. I still catch myself being disappointed with God and angry that He has not met some perceived need in my life. I suspect this is something which is never fully resolved, but I want more than anything else to be a true lover of God. So what is it going to be? Which are we, lover or prostitute? There are no prostitutes in heaven, or in the Kingdom of God for that matter, but there are plenty of former prostitutes in both places. Take it from a recovering prostitute when I say there is no substitute for unconditional, intimate relationship with God. And I mean there is no palatable substitute available to us (take another look at Matthew 7:21-23 sometime). We must choose.

Good Heaven.. it's 8 months since we wrote on this blog!

If you look back at our blogging history you would know that we (or rather I) am not good at maintaining a written blog! As I read other blogger's I can see that the concept of writing regularly is a great ambition but so many things push in and writing a column easily becomes the casualty! It is not as if life is anywhere near as busy as it was in our past but we just don't get to it! However today we make a start again! My intention of keeping this was of letting others know both what we are doing and some of the things that Father is bringing to my thinking.

Somebody I mentioned this rejuvenation of "blogging life" to, gave me a half grin and said, "Well nobody reads the blog anyway so save your time and energy and just pull the pin on the whole idea". However the pin is not pulled because we sense the discipline of writing helps us live with a little more transparency than otherwise may be the case.

Much has happened over the last 8 months or so. After returning from a time with brothers and sisters in Ireland where we enjoyed both encouraging the saints there and being encouraged by them. A few weeks home and then in December, I left for a two week sojourn in New Zealand.

It was a great joy to spend some time with Jack Gray, a brother who has been a faithful servant of God as a surgeon, a GP and a thoroughly lovely man. Jack now still has a ministry to many through the web site, thepilgrimpath.co.nz. This site shares the depth of Jack's great love for Jesus with many around the world. There are many people who correspond with Jack!

It was a joy to spend a weekend with Jan and John McGoran and attend a camp they had coordinated where people from all around New Zealand gathered for a few days together. Just another place where people who had sensed God leading them out of the traditions of their past to enjoy the freedom of living a day at a time where He led them.

Val and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit from Colm and Cloida Morris from Ireland in January. Their visit in mid January was an encouragement to all who met them. They left just in time to avoid the turmoil of the "Black Saturday" bushfire in Victoria!

While we were in Ireland last year Colin and Joyce Langran asked us to consider traveling to South Africa with them this year. So in March Val and I left to spend some time with brothers and sisters in South Africa! Again for a month we enjoyed fellowship with a varied group of people walking in relation to the Lord in very practical ways. We had time to meet folk in Johannesburg and a bunch of folk walking the same way in Ladysmith some 4 hours drive away. We were amazed at the beauty of the geography with the vast array of animals we had never encountered before and the unique beauty of the people we met there.

We spent many hours talking and sharing the good things that Father was doing in the lives of His people in every corner of the globe. Our conversation seemed guided and enabled and centered around the delight of the presence of Jesus in every part of our lives.

When we flew towards home, our Irish friends departed for Dublin while Val flew home to Australia and Kevin flew to Chennai, India to meet Neil Buckman from Sydney and enjoyed just under two weeks with another bunch of God's people in the heat of South India.

Again it was wonderful to be with people with different histories and cultures but all who were enjoying the radical experience of living in close relationship with God.

It's an amazing privilege to have opportunity to share with folk in different places on the face of the earth and find the excitement of God leading his people to walk in his ways and enjoy relationship with him and the danger of trusting their lives in his hands. What else is there to do?

Rachel's Camera

Rach had taken many many photos on her camera and 2 days ago we were visiting Glendalough and Kevin dropped Rach and Sarah and I off so that we could go down to the lake. We hurriedly jumped out of the car and when we got to the Lake Rach discovered she didn’t have her camera in her bag. So when we got back to the car and searched for it, it was not to be found!

We were so sad, however we asked God together to resolve the situation. Rach said she didn’t really mind about losing the camera, just so sad to lose all her photos. Less than an hour later Rach received an sms message on her phone from our host in Dublin asking her if she had lost the camera! We were astonished to say the least that he even knew about it.

The result of the story - the Guarda (policeman) on patrol at Glendalogh found the camera on the road. On return to his station he scrolled through the photos on her camera and saw a photo of the hire car we had used with the number plate clearly displayed, found the hire company, and rang our host to tell him he had it. The next day Rach had returned to Dublin, but this charming young policeman met me at the local police station nearby and delivered it to me in person - how about that!!

On the road again in IRELAND

18th September 08
Ireland:

Just a bit of a catch up to our blog. Some of you will have known that we decided in late July to attend our family reunion in August and to also accept the invitation from folks in Dublin to spend a month or so amongst them. We had no idea how this would come about, but God enabled it all to come together amazingly.

The few weeks leading up to going were quite busy and on departure day after a full- on-day Rachel, Kevin and I set off at midnight and travelled to Ireland via Singapore and London arriving many many hours later feeling very very weary – by the time we fell into bed again we had been up for 50 hours. It was fairly uneventful travelling, just long and not all that comfortable, but that is the nature of flying in the economy section of the plane.

We were so warmly welcomed and cared for wonderfully by our hosts in Dublin it was fantastic – the first couple of days we had lovely mild weather and had opportunity to recover and rest under their roof before we set off in our hire car to drive North West across this beautiful country to Sligo where the Barton Smith Family Reunion was to take place.

We were informed on our arrival that the B & B we had booked had cancelled their bookings due to illness. A neighbour of one of the cousins had offered to look after us for the weekend. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but were delighted to meet a charming retired doctor and his wife who really treated us like royalty. We had a most beautiful and comfortable room with private bathroom and an amazing view over the harbour. Rach also had a room with a view. Mary, the lady of the house, cooked us a full Irish breakfast each morning and was always ready to have a cuppa and a chat – it was just amazing hospitality and to be on the receiving end was a blessing.

We were quite excited at the idea of meeting many rellies again and to meet new ones who would be attending from all over the world. All in all there were 100 plus “Barton Smiths” who met together over the entire weekend.

To say we really enjoyed ourselves is a bit of an understatement. It was just a thrill to meet and talk, and talk and talk some more. We began the proceedings by a walk around the town of Sligo on the Friday afternoon; followed in the evening by the best BBQ we have ever been to, held in another cousin’s house where many of us began to meet each other for the first time.

The following day we began at the Radisson Hotel for morning tea, then lunch, then dinner, then a local pub for some live Irish music. There was opportunity all day to mix and talk – I think the most used phrase of the day would have been “hi, I’m such and such, who are you and where do you fit in”. It was certainly not a time to be shy, otherwise opportunities to meet some very interesting people would have been missed. The printout of the Family Tree extended about 12 metres along one wall and allowed us to check where we fitted in to this large family.

On the Sunday morning we all set off to attend a service at St John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Sligo. In the back of the building were the gravestones of the forebears of the Barton Smith Clan. We were welcomed warmly at the church service and just prior to the service the minister walked into the church and was heard to say ‘oh I say, looks like ‘rent-a-crowd’ are here today’ well knowing that we would all be there. He was a lovely man and had some good things to say.

After inspecting other family graves outside, we got into our private bus with Kevin’s cousin who acted as tour guide for the afternoon. We drove to a very old Irish house – Lissadelle House, (where another cousin used to work) which belonged to a family by the name of Gore Booths. We had a delightful lunch in “the stables” and then toured through the house. If only the walls could have told us a few stories as well as our official guide. Then we checked a few other sights on our way back and we finished off the evening at another Irish Pub/Café with our very own “fiddler” finally saying all our farewells around midnight

The following Wednesday “The Sligo Champion” newspaper ran a full page article about the Reunion click here if you are interested to see the newspaper article.

This occasion was also to celebrate the 220th Anniversary of the Barton Smith Business which operates right in the heart of Sligo. It is quite unreal for us Aussies to think about this because the “Barton Smith Business” was established the same year that Captain Cook arrived in Australia!

It was a wonderfully rich reunion and we really appreciated the amount of work and time and energy put in by so many of our family, but particularly Barry who was really responsible for instigating the whole thing – it was really a result of him checking out his own family history a few years back for his own family, which led him to write an amazing fact filled book which we discovered linked us all together. So Barry, if you are reading this – we think you are pretty terrific and we are so pleased to know we are distant cousins - thank you from us.

30th August 2008
When all was done we left Sligo and headed South West to a place called “The Burren” in County Clare. We met up with about a dozen of the folks we know from Dublin who were having a couple of days ‘break ’together exploring the beauty of the area. . We all stayed in the same hotel and had a lot of fun with them. Rach and friend Sarah joined us as well. There are some pretty amazing things to see in this part of the country, and we thoroughly enjoyed a few days there. We thought it was wet last year when we were here, but this year it is even wetter.! It has rained every day for the last two weeks but have to say we have seen the sun as well. You can be walking down a street in the sun and suddenly there will be heavy rain while the sun is shining and you can get soaked to the skin in a few seconds! It had to happen to me for me to believe it!

After leaving “The Burren” and departing company with the folks, we headed even further south to places like “The Ring of Kerry”, “Killarney” and many many little villages along the way. Our trusty GPS helped us find our way around really well. The Irish roads are always a challenge in that they are incredibly and unbelievably narrow. However, most Irish drivers are very patient and courteous and with roads so narrow, if there is an oncoming car, you have to slow to a crawl and breathe in to enable both cars to squeeze past each other, usually giving each other a wave at the same time. Trucks and buses are something else!!

We saw once again why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle and were awestruck by the rugged beauty, the ever changing terrain and the ever changing weather! After a few days exploring down south, we headed back to Dublin.

2nd September, 2008

Kevin and I are now staying in Ashford which is about 35 minutes drive directly South of Dublin. Rach and friend Sarah are staying with other folks closer in around Dublin. In fact, just a couple of kms away from well known people who live in Dublin, such as Bono, and Enya!

Kev and I stayed in this area last year amongst these folks and it is a great joy to be here again. There has already been much talking and much “sharing of what God is doing”.

Celebrating with Grandchildren!

One of the great delights of getting older in a family is the development of the new generation. Val and I sit back and enjoy seeing our six grandchildren growing and developing. Perhaps the biggest thrill is to see the birth of a new child into our extended family. We watched from the sidelines as Eliana Mercy Jane Boan arrived to be a little sister for Isaac and a delightful 8 pound baby daughter for Sarah-Jane and Justin.

Eliana made her arrival around 10 am on Monday 31st March and very soon after was being admired by two doting grandparents. She is a beautiful baby and while they are all beautiful, Eliana is more lovely than most! (There is a little bias in this statement!)

As I sat and held this little 2 hour old child, I looked at her long girl fingers and the features of her small face and saw a person, "...fearfully and wonderfully made..." with the minute organs of her body ticking away as they would throughout her entire life. I saw her hands grip the blanket that held her and remembered the intricate engineering that would be needed to replicate this action. But Eliana was more than just a physical miracle. I pondered what contribution this dear little person would make to the world in which she lives. I wondered how she would grow to know her heavenly Father. I wondered what joy and what sorrow would be her experience.

As I sat there holding this dear little babe, I asked Father to bless her to know Him, and with all her latent potential, that she might do what He desired of her and know his love and wholeness.

NOW this post is headed 'grandchildren' and the other exciting thing that happened in the same week was our oldest grandchild, Josiah, who having just turned 17 and passed his 'Learner Driver' test came by in his red Toyota Corolla motorcar. Another beginning. His father, Nathanael, sitting alongside and feeling the same nervousness that I had known years before when I had sat beside him in a similar situation. Josiah reversed out of our driveway and stopped to greet a friend then let out the clutch and drove away.

I wondered about the future for Josiah too. What would this new step in his life open for him? As he drive out of my sight, I asked Father to continue to guide this wonderful young man to know him in such a way that he might choose to be the person that God wanted him to be.

It has been one third of a year since we BLOGGED!

I can hardly believe that anyone will look at this blog as we have been quiet for so long! The days have rushed past and have been full. I (Kevin) have endured six weeks where an arthritic pain in my shoulder required some medical treatment and then twelve weeks of Physiotherapy. We have been learning in practice to '...be still and know that I am God...'

Time to be still has also been time to read and reflect. It was really encouraging to read the book, "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola and George Barna. The book explores a historical View of God's Church. It highlights places where men and women have seen things that God has revealed and then allowed their fingerprints to obscure the revelation of God with the ideas of humankind.

"Pagan Christianity" exposes the mistakes we have made as God's People through out the last 2000 years and explains that the Biblical material suggests that the
shape of the Church is best described as

"A grassroots experience that is marked by a face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings, non-hierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional leader and head of the group. Put another way, organic Church life is the "experience" of the body of Christ."

In answer to the question, "what are the signs of a healthy church?", Viola and Barna state:

"some of the signs of a healthy organic Church are:

• the building together of sisters and brothers into close-knit, Christ-centred community.
• the transformation of character in the lives of the members.
  
• meetings that express and reveal Jesus Christ, and in which every member functions and shares.
  
• community life that is vibrant, thriving, authentic and where members grow to love one another, more and more
• a community of believers who are magnificently obsessed with their Lord,
  and are neither legalistic nor libertine in their lifestyle

The authors highlight how we have moved ahead, as God's Church, with our eyes fixed clearly, on the past and often built on the places where grotty human hands have disturbed our view of the things God says will grow within his church. Others have written on this theme before, but the footnotes of each page make this book a great resource for all we who have been called In to Fathers family

If you'd like to see more of "Pagan Christianity" or read chapter one, check the website.

“I have given up religion for Lent!”

While Val and I were travelling recently we met a number of people who had been on a strong learning curve under the tutorage of the Holy Spirit! It highlights the many, many people from all backgrounds who have sensed that there is more to relationship with God than a group of rules or traditions. Knowing him is a deep friendship which is primary to all our life! I have often said, “I have given up religion for Lent!”

A young man in his late 20’s with his wife and young family expressed it this way:

We stopped going to formal structured ‘church’ services about 2 and a half years ago and have had a wonderful time relying wholly on the Lord EVERY day for His sustenance, satisfaction and provision. I have found it absolutely freeing and liberating just to live my life without being seen DOING anything but being able to share the Love of God with those He brings us into contact with.

I grew up going to a congregation (since I was born) that started out with very noble intentions and ideals and had a ‘Vision” for unity in the Body of Christ and that The Church would be just that, no walls, no denominations…just Christians getting together as the Lord lead and was just as effective as the early church. Unfortunately the leaders of that particular group have gotten impatient with the Lord as He has not moved like they would have liked Him to so they have set up their own ‘administration for the fullness of time’ with the Elders as the head of the church and……etc etc etc

They have gone to the extreme of being a cult now and are breaking up families left right and centre and all the typical stuff that happens in those kinds of places. It is hard for me and my family to see it because we have life long friends who still go there and they were forced to cut us off.

Basically what happened to us was that we all, individually met the Lord for the first time in our lives and it was wonderful. But because it didn’t come from the elders, they didn’t like it, and demanded that we renounce it but we just simple couldn’t, it revolutionised our family life and we’ve never been so close. We’re not without our challenges but the Lord is SOOO gracious and faithful. My mum has been a Christian all her life and she is one of 8 children. Her father was an AOG paster and they spent their whole life street witnessing and handing out tracts on street corners etc. So when she met the Lord it was such a radical change in her life, Likewise my father, who got ‘saved’ in his early 20’s.

I too gave my heart to the Lord when I was 4 years old, got baptised at the age of 7 and filled with the Spirit not long after and tried to live the best I could as a Christian through my teens and early 20’s. Unfortunately the congregation that we belonged to was so focused on ministry that you couldn’t not get caught up in the striving to be noticed and continually wanting to be accepted, especially by the elders and I had the perspective that the more full on for Christ you were the more of a leader you were. All my uncles were full time preachers by the time they were in their late teens so I just thought that being full time in the ministry was the ultimate.

When I was 24 yrs old the Lord put me into a situation that absolutely devastated me and I was completely out of control and all I could do was take each day at a time and trust that the Lord was doing something in me.

As time went on the situation in me got worse and I remember one particular week was just completely black. That is the only way I could describe it. By the Wednesday I vaguely remember reading in Isaiah 58 that if you fast….your healing will come speedily. I decided to fast but that seemed to make it worse and by Friday I just couldn’t bear it any more and when I went home from work I just wanted to be with my Dad and Mum (I was living at home at this stage), I didn’t care what we did I just wanted their company. I got home and the house was dark and empty and I didn’t know where they were so I went to my room and fell on the floor and sobbed my heart out.

While I was doing that, I felt something black leave me and sort of sink into the floor, hard to explain but looking back I know exactly what happened at that moment.

The next morning I woke up and something was different…I was still hurting a lot but now there was this sense of hope. Kind of like when you have had a nightmare and you wait for the morning to come and finally after a lifetime of waiting a faint slither of light appears on the horizon and you breathe a great sigh of relief because the night is over.

Well that next week was the most amazing week in my life to that point. I still hurt a lot but the Grace of God was so amazing and real it actually got me through. By Thursday the Lord said very clearly to wait. Wait??? What for?? Just about every ten minutes I would get the very clear word just to wait and keep in waiting. Gave up trying to figure it out after a couple of hours and began to wait…didn’t know what for, but I just waited.

On Friday, another hard day but I had an overwhelming sense to keep waiting so I just plugged on. I jumped into my car and started the trip home and turned a corner and out of the blue I took a huge deep breathe as if I had been under water for too long and came up gasping. I saw myself sit up (inside) and I knew that I was born again. It was the most thrilling drive home I have ever had because I KNEW that Jesus was Lord and the creator of the universe and the saviour of the whole world and I had his life in me – period!!

I remember seeing people who were saved out of horrible situations in their lives and they would be over the moon with joy with the fact that they were save and I would just say in my heart “yeah whatever, I already know…I’ve known all my life”. Now I completely new what they were feeling…I WAS SAVED. Praise God.

I drove down the road punching the air and absolutely praising God. All of a sudden all the scriptures that I had spent my whole life learning made sense and I knew I had just begun my life in Christ. I knew that in John 3:3-5 I had been born to see the kingdom of God to that point in my life but had not entered but now I was born to enter and I had entered and I knew it.

Well that was 9 years ago and my life has been the most amazing journey and soooooo much has happened that is waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond what I had ever planned for my life. The funny thing is I am doing much less in the lime light and just getting on with life and it is so much more satisfying. Please excuse my language but it is the clearest way to explain. What I had planned for my life was a pile of dog shit compared to the feast the Lord has given me now and it is still only just beginning.

Part of the journey has been getting shown the door at the congregation to which we belonged all our lives and that was very painful but we knew that we couldn’t go it alone so we found a local AOG and went there for a couple of years. During that time I met my wife and we got married and now have the 2 kids.

Someone show us Wayne Jacobson’s book ‘So you don’t want to go to church any more’ and it rang true with us. So my wife and I started to wait on the Lord for the right time to stop going. The more we waited the more uncomfortable we got as we watch all the classic controlling mechanisms and fake relating etc going on so finally after 6 months of waiting I went and told them that we wanted to stay in touch but would not be attending their services.

As I said earlier, since then we have enjoyed our lives every day and I especially enjoy Sundays now. It’s a great day to share our lives with our family and friends who don’t know the Lord and we’ve seen my wife’s dad come to know the Lord since.