RIdge Church Value #6: Fun

Well, we're finally to our final Ridge Church value! It may be the last one on our list, but it's pretty important, because it affects the way we approach our other values.

This weekend, when we held our first Ridge Church Pumpkin Carving, we had fun. When we meet in our small groups early in 2009, we will make sure to have fun. When we start our weekly worship services, we will have fun elements then as well.

It's evident that many churches have eliminated the concept of fun and enjoyment from their activities and programs. Step into many (but not all!) churches' Sunday worship services, weeknight activities, or whatever else is on the schedule, and you are likely to become bored and disinterested very quickly. This is so sad, because the Bible is a pretty exciting book, and the Gospel of Christ is the one thing that all Christians believe can completely transform a person's life!

Did you know that the Bible doesn't prohibit fun? Nope. Never. Does it say that you can't poke fun at things? No way. Smile and laugh? Nada. Does it have things to say about disrespect toward God and others? Yep. Cruel and biting sarcasm? Roger that. Dirty jokes? You betcha. So, we'll avoid those... They hurt God and others and therefore are not a good route to take.

That said, I like to think that Jesus and His 12 disciples didn't walk all over Israel in silence and with a frown on their faces. I like to think that maybe Jesus told them "the one about when the Father, the Spirit, and I were talking about making the platypus." Maybe Peter and the boys even played some games by the campfire, like the one where you assign a person to be "it" and they blink at people, and then other people have to figure out who is "it" before they get blinked at.

Anyway, I digress, but the point is that it's OK to have fun and talk about God or praise Him at the same time! Fun is just the polar opposite of boring, lame, and forgettable. David, the King of Israel, even had some fun worshiping God way back in the day. And, so will we! We are committed to doing things that are interesting, engaging, and fun, because they are cool to do as a group and result in enjoyable times of fellowship, learning, and worship. We believe the Bible is interesting and God is pretty engaging!

So, here's what Ridge Church has to say about our value of Fun, specifically in regard to our worship times:

"Worshiping our holy God should be an enjoyable activity. Although there must be serious times of repentance and spiritual challenge in the lives of all believers, the experience of meeting God in worship should be exciting, anticipated, interactive, and practical."

Some Bible passages that support our value of fun in worship and group life are Exodus 15:19-21, 2 Samuel 6:12-19, Nehemiah 8:10, and Matthew 26:17-20.

Since you read the whole post, here's a link to a funny video that brings back memories from my youth pastor days! Enjoy!

"Battle for the Bible"

Tonight, I watched a show on PBS called "Battle for the Bible." It was a great show... for the first 30 minutes. The second half was a bit too much commentary and too little history, but that's PBS for ya. The topic of the show was the difficulty that English people went through to get a translation of the Bible in their own language.

Even as a church planter, I often forget just how much struggle, sacrifice, and even martyrdom precluded our modern English Bible translations. We have so many Bibles available to us today, from the Bibles for sale at Christian bookstores, to the Gideon Bible you can find in a hotel room, to the Bibles (dusty, maybe?) that most of us have in our homes.

But the truth is that for hundreds of years the Catholic Church (the only one in Europe until the 1500's) prohibited the common folk (like you and me) to possess a Bible. On top of that, the only Bible available to the priests in the Catholic churches was written in Latin. The Catholic worship service, called Mass, was recited in Latin. Only Catholic priests and a very few other elite, educated people were able to read Latin or understand spoken Latin. So, knowledge of what the Bible said was pretty much out of reach for almost all people who called themselves Christians.

In the 1380's, Englishman John Wycliffe took it upon himself to translate the Bible into English, so his countrymen could finally read it. He believed that only good things could come out of people having access to God's Word. The Catholic Church condemned Wycliffe and other Bible translators who attempted to render the Scriptures in English and other vernacular languages. The new translations threatened the power of the Catholic Church, because they called its leadership out on many teachings that were not found in Scripture.

Wycliffe and his assistants had to translate the Bible painstakingly by hand, since Gutenberg had yet to invent the printing press! Wycliffe died of natural causes, but for the next couple hundred years, the Catholic Church labeled those who attempted to translate the Bible into English as false teachers. They chased them around Europe and repeatedly burned them at the stake when they caught them.

Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in 1517, when he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. During the struggles that followed this event, many men rose up to translate the Bible into the languages of the various people of Europe.

In 1525, William Tyndale was the first man to have his English New Testament translation mechanically printed. He was burned at the stake by Catholic authorities in 1536.

Myles Coverdale and John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers had worked with Tyndale on his New Testament. On October 4, 1535, they published the first complete Bible in English. This translation is known as the Coverdale Bible. In 1537, Rogers published the second complete English Bible, and the first to be translated from the original languages (Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament).

In 1539, the King of England finally allowed the Bible to be legally printed in English and read on English soil. Thus began the era of widely-available English Bible translations, although there were still periods of persecution of those who cherished the English Bible. For instance, during the reign of Catholic Queen "Bloody" Mary, hundreds of people (including John Rogers) were burned at the stake for being Protestants.

These days, hundreds of years after Wycliffe, we take our English Bibles for granted. Today, why not think about all that went into giving you the Bible you read today, and thank God for courageous men who would not give up until they made it possible for you to hold that priceless Word of God in English.

Of financial crises and daily life...

This has been a weird last week or so... Banks failing and people losing their homes. Accusations of lying, stealing, and corruption at the highest levels of corporations and government. Inflation (or maybe deflation), oil prices, lending rates, lack of liquidity in lending, debt, and repossession.

So much stuff is going on that it's hard to get your hands around the problem to figure out what to do about it. Such is the way things go when money becomes a problem.

Maybe the only good thing in all this is that we have some simple principles from God that we can follow to help us with how we deal with money.

In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, God speaks about the evil of corruption (Proverbs 15:27) and the dangers of chasing after wealth. (1 Timothy 6:9-10)

In a crucial discussion of wealth and money, Jesus told us about the importance of spiritual wealth and the shortcomings of greed and material wealth. (Luke 12:13-21) He then goes on to share about how much God loves us and how we don't need to worry about material things... There are more important things for us to be concerned with, like following God. (Luke 12:22-31)

The Bible has much more to say about money, stewardship, giving, and everything about living life in a way that is both enjoyable and brings honor to Him.

For more info at a great website, check out Crown Financial Ministries. It's a great place to start exploring ways God can give you financial peace and contentment, and take away worry and concern!

About today's sad event...

Today, a young man shot and killed another young man in the cafeteria at Central High School in the minutes before school started. It's a horrible thing that you hope never happens in your community... It's a shame and there's no way around that fact, regardless of the reasons that may come out for the violence in the future.

What made me want to post is some of the discussion that I heard today about the shooting. I heard some folks talking at lunch, and one made the comment that "this wouldn't have happened if we still had corporal punishment in schools." He claimed that students misbehave in school because they aren't paddled anymore.

Going back to "the good ol' days" will not make everything in our society better. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure child abuse, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, and other social ills occurred 50 years ago, people just kept that stuff quiet.

But, just as people weren't "better" 50 years ago, people aren't going to find themselves in some state of utopia in another 50 years. If you believe what God has to say about the matter, reactionism won't save our society. But, then again, neither is humanism the answer. Like legalism and license, both of these philosophies are in error; one is just erroneous to the rght and the other is wrong on the left side of the truth.

The Bible has a great deal to say about this type of thing, and Romans 3:9-24 is a great passage to read.

The Bible shows us that the real illness humanity has to deal with in order to find peace is our sin problem. Our sin caused a severed relationship with God starting with Adam and Eve. The root of our behavioral and emotional problems that lead to things like school shootings is simply our separation from God. The true answer to all the problems taking place around us is a restored relationship to God. And that can only happen via a life-transforming faith in Christ.

The Gospel has the power to change individuals and has done so for 2,000 years. Not only can the Gospel change individuals, it's truth can change families, neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, and nations. If we truly care about our world and want to see it reconciled to God, we must do what it takes to earn the right to share the truth of Christ with others.

That way, instead of bringing back paddling to public schools to keep kids from "smarting off," we'll do the smart thing and help people to discover what they really need--Christ.

Ridge Church Value #1: Truth

As I mentioned in my last post, this week we will begin to share Ridge Church's values with you. Values are some of the most important things look for when you check out a church. There are so many churches out there, with so many programs and so many styles of worship, preaching, and teaching. But values are the things that really drive the leadership of a church (or any organization for that matter).

Aubrey Malphurs (who is a seminary professor and also works as a consultant to help churches with issues) wrote a book called "Planting Growing Churches." It's like a textbook on starting new churches. He defines a new church's values as "constant, passionate, biblical core beliefs that drive its ministry." I like this definition.

Ridge Church's first value is "Truth." Here's what we have to say about Truth:

"We believe that truth is found in the Bible. This truth (the Gospel) leads to new spiritual life in Christ and fulfillment in daily living; the Bible's truth must be taught honestly, effectively, and practically by the leaders of the church so that those who hear it can apply it to their lives."

One thing to note is that we have a firm belief in the validity and relevance of the Bible. We really do believe it is God's Word to people, and it's the most important information that's ever been communicated. This belief will guide us in all of Ridge Church's future paths.

There are several verses in the Bible that support our value of Truth. Check out these: John 1, John 14:6, 2 Timothy 3:16-17.