I knew early this week I wanted to make some comments about the Elephant Room the day after the event took place. So here I sit, trying to figure out how to recap wisdom accumulated over lifetimes... and do it in a couple paragraphs.
It wasn't just food for thought, it was a buffet. I was surprised, however, that the conversations never got really heated. At first, I was a little disappointed, but then I was convicted for being disappointed that there wasn't a degree of discord.
But taking one giant step back and looking at the whole event, here is the real lesson: we need to talk with people, get to know people, before we judge people.
Most of what I knew about TD Jakes came from what I heard about him. But to actually hear him speak... honestly, he probably dished out the most heavy-hitting wisdom of anyone at the Elephant Room 2! He affirmed belief in Scripture as the inerrant, inspired Word of God, the Deity of Jesus Christ, and the atonement that comes only through Christ's finished work on the cross. My opinion radically changed about him. All because I got to actually hear from him. Shame on me that I formed an opinion beforehand.
Real lesson #2: let's think well of people serving the Lord in the first place and not assume anything until we have heard from them. Why is it so easy to disregard those whose methods, scope, and delivery are a little different than ours?
I am not talking about doctrine. We need to be as serious about the truth as the Lord is. But what I am talking about is throwing every ministry under the bus unless it isn't exactly like ours. Which is perfect. Because I never make any mistakes. Everyone should be just like me. Give me a break.
Real lesson #3 - someone at the ER said "People tend to act like their leader." I hope, for my sake, that is true. James MacDonald took some heat for holding this event. That blows my mind. The whole premise of the event is to sit down and have honest conversation with those who differ in theology and methodology. Why in the world is that a bad thing?! I don't get it. But despite the heat, James went ahead with the event. For that I applaud him and stand behind him.
If you missed it, DVDs will be available for sale at Walk in the Word in the not-too-distant future. Get them. And get on board with seeing the body of Christ as a bigger place than my little part of it.
p.s. - "It is easier to be a critic than a pastor." God help me!
A PS from James MacDonald...
I read this and wanted to re-post it here, because it tied in perfectly to what the sermon was about last Sunday. In the Our Journey devotional, Pastor James has been talking about change, and wrong ways to go about it. Read on! (And if you missed the sermon from last Sunday, listen to it from our sermons links: "Anti-Bullying Campaign".)
One of the persistent faulty plans for change among Christians is the idea of change by the rules. Change by unbending, merciless, military following of orders. Picture the drill sergeant barking out orders right in the face of the recruit. Well that’s the way a lot of churches are. This is the kind of church I grew up in: change by the power of the rules. This is not a new problem for the church of Jesus Christ—it shows up already among Christians in the New Testament.
Change by rules means strict adherence to a list of some kind. Keep the list and you will change. And don’t overlook the importance of making sure others are keeping the list too. Life becomes a daily nightmare of tracking rules and desperately trying to compensate or cover-up for the rules we’ve broken. That’s Christianity? A bunch of rules? Really!?!
I’m a Christian. I don’t do these five things. You know, the Filthy Five, the Dirty Dozen. Whatever they are; it depends on how fired up your church was. But there’s a list. Rules! Rules! Rules! The problem with that, as Romans 6-8 makes abundantly clear is that it reduces God’s work of life-change to a heart-hardening, mind-numbing, soul-stifling not-so-merry-go-round of effort and disappointment.
Read again the passage above from Romans 7 and note how the rules inflame your desire to sin. Legalism just makes you want to sin. Sin has power; rules have no power. Rules bring sin to the surface. I don’t want us to be a church like that. God hasn’t offered us a life like that! Some of us need to get off the rule-keeping treadmill and leave it behind. Otherwise, we will never change!
Nuff said!
p.s. - not certain who Nuff is, but he gets credited with a lot
God Keeps Teaching Me About This, and I Hope Someday Soon I'll Learn...
I want to circle back and say one more thing about expectations. I know, you are thinking, “Dude, move on, you blogged about that, like, 5 weeks in a row recently.” I know. But this is a forum where I can share where God is working on me. And this has been a big one for me. I don’t even think I got it down perfectly, because the Lord is still graciously teaching me.
When the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was in a jail cell. A jail cell, as in: a prison cell, as in incarcerated, confined, chained, the big house… as in no freedom, restricted, locked away from society at large. Why am I belaboring the point…? Because when you read Philippians, Paul seems so unbelievably joyful and content! You would think he wrote it from Disney World, but he wrote it from a jail cell (did I mention that?).
So where is the joy? It certainly wasn’t from his circumstances… but neither was it from wrong expectations. We often get depressed, frustrated, or angry because we have unbiblical expectations.
- If only my spouse were a better…
- My kids had better be…
- My job HAS to start getting better…
- My doctor better say…
- I should be seeing a better financial situation this year…
When we start laying out un-biblical expectations, we will lose our joy in a hurry. If there is something I had to learn in 2011, and am still learning in 2012, it was to not get my hopes up in my own expectations. Too often I did, and too often I became depressed, frustrated, AND angry. Things I was expecting to happen, didn’t. And things I was almost certain would not happen, did. And the Lord reminded me who is really in control here.
Did Paul have any expectations? He could have said, "I expect to get out of jail, I expect one of the churches to bail me out or break me out, I expect the Lord to rescue me..." He didn't have any of those expectations, really he had just one: it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1:20)
I want to honor Christ. In my life, by my death. That’s really all I should be looking towards.
That’s one thing that Paul is saying in this verse. We are not going to meet the Lord and say, “I wasted my life on You?! I gave my years on earth to telling people about You?!”
And I will not be ashamed. I will not look back on my life and say “Jesus disappointed me.” I will not look back on my ministry and say, “Jesus wasn’t enough.”
My expectation is that I will cross over to death and rejoice at this glorious truth: Jesus is worthy. Of everything I had, everything I did, every heartache, every trial. Every day that this was all uphill… He is more than worthy. And I will not be ashamed.
That is my expectation. Too much of this life disappoints. Jesus will not.
p.s. - I promise this is the last time I talk about expectations (until the next time)