East End Ecclesia

Who am I? This is such an important question that too often we can’t answer. As humans we all have a sense that we are lacking something, that we need to find an identity, meaning, value, and purpose. It is ingrained in our being.  Just spend a few days with some elementary school kids, or better yet think back to your school days. It is amazing how quickly as kids we began seeking to form an identity, trying to find our place, trying to feel a sense of value.

I remember when I was in elementary school, a group of us formed a “gang”. We had initiations and everything. We were very particular when it came to who could be in our gang, and we felt a sense of superiority when we denied other kids from joining. I’m not quite sure what our gang was supposed to do, but I can tell you we were the coolest gang on the playground! We really didn’t do anything, but we all got a sense of value and identity by being a part of the cool kid gang. There were other groups, the smart kids, the goofy kids, there was always that one kid who tried to gain friends and attention by eating anything someone gave to him. It really didn’t matter what group you were in, we all shared the fact that at a very early age we were looking for someone or something to tell us who we were. We were looking to create an identity for ourselves, and hopefully gain a ton of friends, so that we could feel valued.

Now hopefully we all have matured and become more sophisticated, but then again most of us haven’t changed. In college the smart kids joined debating societies and racked up huge honors in school, the kid who would eat anything became the kid who would drink anything, and the cool kid gang, well, still tried to be a part of the cool kid gang (just no longer calling it a gang and instead calling it a frat or something like that.)

After college (if you went to college) we moved onto real life. Now we became “real adults” and no longer needed these childish groups to tell us who we are. We now have a career to tell us that, or a sweet bank account, maybe a community at our favorite bar, we have our home and family, some have a little bit of fame, and some have come to realize they have no value and spend their days trying to escape the pain of their existence. How we try to find our identity and value may be different, but one thing is the same, we are all seeking for it.

As you look at ourselves, from childhood to adulthood, you will begin to notice that there is something strange about us humans, we are the most “evolved” yet most insecure of creatures. If any species would have a sense of who they are and what they are here for it would be man. Yet we have no clue.

Each and every one of us is striving to find out who we are, striving to find meaning, value, identity, security, and purpose. This is so pervasive that an entire economic system has been created to capitalize on this reality. Just spend a few hours looking at advertising (this should not be hard because our lives are surrounded by advertising.) The ad industry is driven by the fact that all of us are trying to find an identity, value, meaning, and security, but we don’t know where to find it. This is where the ad comes in, “with a little bit of cash our product will give you what you are lacking”. They even pay people who are perceived by society to have value and meaning to promote their products, because so many of us think “if in some way I can take a bit of their identity and make it mine I will then have value like them.” We spend ridiculous amounts of money on products purely because of the brand name, because that brand has successfully promoted itself as stating to the world “hey I’m somebody”. Now time after time we see these “celebrities”, the people we see as having a meaning and value, crash and burn. But we don’t learn from it. After one star falls, destroys their life, or commits suicide, we just raise another up thinking this one has the identity I need.

I could go on and on, but I hope it is very clear that we are a people who have no idea who we are or where to find our identity and spend ridiculous amounts of resources trying to find it.

In the world of philosophy we have seen theory after theory come by trying to answer these questions. The problem is no one can come up with a legitimate answer. One famous philosopher threw a huge wrench in the road for secular philosophy. For many centuries human value, meaning, purpose was just assumed as the humanist philosophers worked toward creating a Utopian society free from the constraints of God or religion. Then came Nietzsche. Nietzsche taught that “God was dead” and since there is no god we are no longer bound by the constraints that have come with our belief in god. The problem was that according to Nietzsche this “freedom” had a price. The price we had to pay was the death of any foundation for human value, dignity, meaning, or purpose that came with the death of god. Without God calling the shots we are free to do as we please. Yet without God in the pictures we are just a product of random chance, a compilation of chemicals, minerals, and electrons. We are just carbon based life forms produced by chance. Now we are very complex carbon based life forms, but complexity doesn’t create value. So what Nietzsche realized is that ultimately we are no more valuable than any other life form (such as a cockroach). Our only purpose (if you would call it a purpose) is to continue the evolutionary process, i.e. the will to power and the survival of the fittest. (As a side note it was Nietzsche’s philosophy that led Hitler and his companions to seek to take power by executing the weak, ultimately moving evolution forward to create the “uber man” or super man.)

Since Nietzsche we have had many philosophies rise and fall trying to restore the damage that had been done. We had the existentialist who said that we don’t have any real meaning, value, purpose, but we can create value by what we do. This has greatly influenced us as Americans, we are driven to create an identity for ourselves through what we do. ( Ever notice that the first thing we ask someone when we meet them is “what do you do”.)  We also had new-age thinkers who taught that we could find our value within ourselves. The problem is that when you tell yourself you are something you aren’t, you may feel good, but in reality you are just delusional.

I could go on and on but I know most of you are not that interested in philosophy. But philosophically speaking and subsequently within society, we have lost any sense of identity because we have abandoned God as our source of identity. This isn’t anything new, the scriptures teach that the first people “fell” because they wanted to be autonomous from God. The story tells us that while they were with God they were “naked and unashamed”. In other words they were vulnerable and yet they were secure in who they were, because their identity, value, meaning, and security was found in God. Yet as soon as they turned from God they became self conscious, defensive, and felt the need to cover themselves.

We are strange creatures because we were created with a void that is to be found in God. We are created to find our identity, value, meaning, purpose, and security in the one who created us. Yet we are all fallen. I have to say, the scenario that is painted in the scriptures is a very good explanation for the situation we see all around us. If we were created to find our identity in God, yet have turned from Him, becoming separated from Him, you would expect to see exactly what you do in our modern society.

Now to my point. (I know it took a while to get here.) All other religions and (pseudo religions) have a system in which we make ourselves valuable in order to reconnect to God. The problem with that is if being reconnected to God is our only source for value and yet we need to make ourselves valuable so that we can connect with God, then we have quite a dilemma on our hands. It is like someone saying “come out of that dungeon and I will free you from your shackles” yet you can”t come out until you are first freed.  The Christian message on the other hand is that God has come to us, through His Son, so that we may be restored to God. We are given an identity, meaning, value, purpose, security by the only one who is capable to give it to us. It is by grace not by works you have been redeemed. As it was in the Garden so it is for those of us in Christ, you are who you are because God has declared you to be so. To continue the earlier analogy, the Christian message is like someone saying “I will first free you so that then you can come out and be with me.”

So you would then think that Christians would be the most secure group of people. You would think we would never try to prove our value, try to find identity in something other than God, that we would always rest our security in God and we would never rest our security in our career or 401k. At least as you read the NT you would see letter after letter arguing just that. But this is not the reality and sadly (and quite ironically) our response in the church is often to “work harder at it”.

As you look into the scriptures you will see that much of the NT has a common flow. Rarely do you find a new testament letter start with something we must do, it always begins with who we are because of what Christ did. In more academic terms the “indicative” precedes the “imperative”.

So I ask, is your identity, value, meaning, purpose found by faith in what Christ did? Or are you still seeking redemption through work and effort. I know most of us will proclaim the proper theological answer, but looking at your life what is the real answer that you are showing by how you live?

I know for myself God has been convicting me. I so often don’t accept that which I proclaim. I’ve spent too long trying to gain affirmation of who I am and affirmation of my calling through the response of others. If people are not responding to my preaching, reading my blogs, and attending an East End Ecclesia service my identity, my value, my calling is in jeopardy. This is because I’ve sought others to tell me who I am instead of listening to God as He tells me “you are my beloved child, an ambassador, a prince, a coheir with Christ.”

I want to particularly challenge other pastors. What drives you? Where are you finding your worth? Are you working and striving because secretly you are finding your worth or identity in the ministry you create? Or are you functioning out of a deep sense of who you are because your Daddy has told you so?

No matter what your answer is, the only way we can find our true identity, true meaning, true value, true security, and a true purpose is to Trust God at His word and Believe you are who God says you are because of what Christ did.

As a Christian I believe that we are called to defend the faith. To me this is not an option. Clearly reality exists, so there is a true account of reality and there are false accounts. If you hold a view (which everyone believes something) you should hold a belief because you believe it to be true. Now if your belief is true, then you should share that view and hold onto it unless your view is proven to be false. Now in the Christian understanding of truth there are things that are essential to our world view and there are things that are “non-essential” that ultimately do not effect the foundations of our beliefs. I say all of this to say that we all must draw a line in the sand. But as Christians we must decide where the battle lines are to be drawn.

In 1 Peter 3:15-16 we have one of the foundational passages for “Apologetics” the defending of the faith. In this passage Peter tells us to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in us. The Greek term we translate as “answer” is the Greek work “apologoi”, which is where we get the term apologetics. So as you can see in this passage we are called to “give an answer” or defend the hope we have. So if you take this passage as being universal, then we all must draw a line in the sand. But the question we all must ask is where do we draw the line? In the name of defending the faith some Christians have drawn the line so far back that they act as if defending their chosen translation of the scriptures equates to defending the true faith. Too often Christians can begin to fall into the trap of believing that every belief they hold is an essential. I have run into many Christians that hold their view of the end times as fervently as they hold the physical resurrection of Christ. This is very dangerous. When someone begins to make all of their views “essential”  then if one of their views begins to be disproved, their entire faith begins to crumble. Also as Christians begin to defend a “non-essential” as “essential” many on the outside may be left denying the faith because they deny a chosen “non-essential” as apposed to denying something “essential” to the faith.

One of these battlegrounds surrounds a chosen “literal” interpretation of the first 3 chapters of Genesis. My fear is that many scientists are not dealing seriously with the Gospel because they cannot get past the many vocal apologists arguing for a 60,000 year old universe as if their interpretation of Genesis is essential to the Christian faith. The problem is that instead of having to face the evidence for, say, the resurrection of Christ, they are bombarded by argument after argument for a young earth. Now I’m not saying that it is wrong to defend a given view of creation based upon your understanding of Genesis. What I am saying is that this must be done with humility, recognizing that if you are wrong then it doesn’t change the fact that God is real, He is creator, and that Jesus is raised.

I’ve begun thinking about this as I read a book by Francis Collins (the head of the Human Genome Project). Collins is a Christian and proposes a view called “Theistic Evolution”. Now I don’t necessarily agree with “TE” but I’m also not a scientist. What I find enlightening is the fact that if Evolution is true, nothing essential to the Christian faith is in danger. The only thing in danger would be our chosen approach to interpreting Genesis 1-3.

To go back to 1 Peter 3:15-16, what is our hope? Is our hope found in a literal 6 day creation, is it in a pre or post trib rapture, is it in premillennialism? I would argue no. Our hope is found in a Sovereign personal Creator God, a creation with purpose and intention, a God who came into His creation to bring redemption, a Messiah who was truly man and truly God. Our hope is found in a Messiah who historically and literally died, was buried, and physically raided from the dead. Our hope is in a Messiah who will historically return and establish His kingdom for all eternity. Now there are some other essentials that make up the Christian hope. But we must step back and decide whether we are placing our hope in an interpretive tradition or the essentials of the Christian faith.

I ask, have  you drawn a line in the sand? Where is that line drawn? Are you being prepared to defend the Hope that is the Gospel, or are you arguing to defend a tradition that has been handed to you? There are many things that I would not consider as essential but hold as very important. It is very important to have “in house” discussions and even debates concerning biblical specifics. Hey, even what I’m writing about right now (where we draw the line) is not an essential, but that isn’t keeping me from trying to persuade others concerning my view. What I’m trying to propose is that when it comes to defending the faith, we must not create a stumbling block to the unbeliever over a “non-essential”. We need to let the non-believer stumble upon Christ. After all isn’t Jesus where the Christian hope is summed up?

I will close this post with a quote from St. Augustine concerning the literal interpretation of Genesis.

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we may find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”

I would love to hear your thoughts on where the line needs to be drawn.

Last weekend I went up to Pittsburgh with two of my friends, Jake and Chris. We went up to get some photos and video to create a “promo video” for the church plant. It was a long day, a lot of walking, a lot of driving, and a ton of eating. I didn’t mind the eating though. Can’t beat a good Gyro from a Greek street vendor with a sweet mustache and an even better accent. Then to top that off there was dinner at a little Polish pub in Bloomfield, where we got Pierogies, Kilbasa, and Halushki, cooked by a sweet old polish woman. OK what I ate has nothing to do with what I’m writing about, but I felt like reminiscing about the food!! Man I can’t wait to get up there! Anyway after we ate dinner we decided to go for a walk around the part of the east end that I’m planning on planting the church in. As we walked down the street a middle aged homeless man walked by. We all said Hi to him, and he stopped and asked us for money. We pulled out some cash and gave it to him. Then we told him we had no where we had to be, so we asked where he wanted to go eat and offered to buy him whatever he wanted. The guy made up a story then started to walk off. The interesting thing was that once he got a few steps away, he then stopped turned around and began talking to us again. After we talked for a bit, the homeless guy (his name is Mel), came straight and told us that he was a crack head and needed the money to pay off someone. He told us his story about how in the mid 80′s he had a decent job and an apartment. Then he told us about an incident when he saw his cousin get shot in the head and killed, right in front of him in the middle of the street. Mel told us that after seeing his cousin killed, he began seeking an escape and the escape he found was crack. He told us a few years later he was cleaning a gun while stung out on crack and shot himself in the head. He showed us the wound, where the 9mm bullet lodged into his scull never hitting his brain. He was lucky to be alive, but he said that he knows he is no longer completely right in the head. Mel then told us that since then he has been addicted to crack. He had lost his job, his home, his family pushed him away, and he is now living on the streets hustling to get a fix. Something that saddened me greatly was that Mel kept telling us that he has nothing and kept asking if we would just hang out with him because he has no friends. The thing that was interesting was that he never made excuses, he told us that he knows he was the one who screwed his life up. As we shared the gospel with Mel, he continued to tell us that he believed in Christ, but that he was nothing but a crack head and no one would want him, especially God. We then prayed with Mel, and I told him that even though “he made a mess of his life, and even though society sees him as just a crack head, and even though he sees himself as just a crack head, God sees him as one of his precious children who has gone astray.” I told him that in Christ he is a child of God, a co heir with Christ, not because of what he has done, but because of what Christ did. When we finished, Mel welled up with tears and gave us all hugs and went on his way. I don’t know what Mel did after he left, I don’t know if he was saved that night, but what bothered me was I did not know where to send him. Even if he became a Christian that night, I know that without a strong support structure around him, he will fall back into his addiction.

This was a powerful testimony to me. It reminded me of why I’m going up there to plant this church. All of the planing, fund raising, strategy, and programing is good, but I’m not going up there to plant an organization but to bring the Gospel to those who are hurting and dieing separated from God by their own sins.

As I began to think about this encounter, God spoke to me about the reality of sin. So many of us will look at Mel and shake our heads because we can’t understand why he would throw his life away for a temporary crack fix. We see the sad story of how he lost his family, friends, house, job, and ultimately his dignity to this little rock. But the reality is we all have done with our lives what Mel did with his. Sure many of us feel fine about ourselves because we aren’t drug addicts, and sure our sin hasn’t caused us to loose everything like Mel’s crack addiction did. But the reality is that the greatest thing Mel lost in his sin was not his house or family, but it was his relationship with the creator. We have all thrown away our relationship with God, for whatever sin that enticed us. Often we think that crack heads and junkies are so pathetic because they throw it all away for a stupid drug. But then again how many of us were willing to kick God to the side for some fleeting popularity, a stupid promotion, a house that has 5 rooms you don’t even use, a temporary fulfillment of some sexual fantasy. I don’t know what sins lie in each persons past, but the reality is we are just like Mel, willing to throw away true life for some temporal escape or fix. The scary thing is that at least Mel knows his life is jacked up, he can see the consequence of his addiction every day. But many people have thrown away their life for a simple fix, but they feel OK, because at least they aren’t a crack head, at least they still have a family, friends, a home, and a good job. The problem is they have thrown away the only thing that has true value, a right relationship with God.

Praise be to God, that He has come to redeem us through His Son. All of us were pathetic junkies, enslaved to our sin just as a crack head is enslaved to his addiction. But through Christ, He has set us free, we are no longer pathetic junkies, but God’s royal priesthood, children of the Most High. But just like Mel, without a support structure we are all bound to continue to fall back into our sin. I thank God for my brothers that are there to keep me straight and I thank God for my church family that are praying for me and encouraging me, and I thank God for my wife who as a sister in Christ continues to point me toward God. I pray that all of you have found the hope that is only found and Christ, and have surrounded yourself with a strong support structure. Please pray for Mel, I hope one day when I’m up there planting the church I will see him again and will have a place that he will have some sort of support.

The cool thing about all of this is that before our amazing polish meal, Jake, Chris, and I prayed that God would use us as lights in the city as we walked the streets. So next time you are out, ask God to give you the opportunity to pour into the life of someone who is in need. You may not live in an area that has drug adicts walking the streets, but everyone lives in an area that has people walking around who are enslaved to their sin and in need of a savior.

A final note. Just because someone addicted to crack is saved doesn’t mean that he will not have to wrestle with the addiction he has. In the same way, just because you are saved doesn’t mean that you no longer have to wrestle with the addictions you may have in your life. So set your eyes to Chris the author and perfecter of your faith and find some brothers and sisters to walk with you because we all need support.

With St. Patty’s day coming tomorrow I just wanted to give a little props to one of the great men of faith, whose story is often lost due to myth and tradition. St. Patrick’s day has become a holiday associated with parades, Guinness, anything green, and anything that fulfills the Irish stereotype. Every year when St. Patrick’s day comes around millions of people get out their favorite green shirt, head out to the local pub (on St. Patty’s day every one calls their favorite bar a pub), and spend an evening of celebration. I remember going out for many a St. Patrick’s days, the bars are unusually packed, tons of people are putting aside their normal American light beer for that ultra thick Guinness which is more of a meal in a cup than a drink, and every person who  is at least 1/16 Irish is running around river dancing when Flogging Molly comes on, while talking about their Irish heritage as if they had just got off the boat from Dublin. Everyone is celebrating, but do we even know what or better yet who we are celebrating.

St. Patrick’s story is an inspiring story of a man who loved His God and had a passionate love for the people to which he was called. Patrick was taken as a slave to Ireland as a young teen, after years of serving as a slave, he escaped to return to his home in England. You would think that Patrick would harbor hatred for the barbaric people called the Celts. He was stolen from his home as a teen by these people, he was beaten, enslaved, and placed in forced labor by these people. You would think that as a young man in England after escaping, he would have everything but compassion for these people. But Patrick had a growing burden for the Celtic people, in his journals he records having visions of the Irish people crying out for help, and Patrick knew he had to return to Ireland. Though these people enslaved him and beat him, the only thing that mattered to Patrick was these people didn’t know Christ. So Patrick returned to Ireland to preach the gospel to the barbaric warrior people called the Celts. During his ministry in Ireland Patrick escaped death many times, he endured times of extreme famine and poverty, all to bring the Gospel of hope to his former oppressors.

I’ve come to love St. Patrick’s day, because I have been so inspired by St. Patrick. His story is so convicting to me. I sit here with tons of fears about moving back to Pittsburgh to plant this church, I’m afraid that I will not be able to reach anyone, I’m concerned about finding enough funding to support my family and this church, just to name a few of my fears. Then because St. Patty’s day is coming up, I’m reminded of St. Patrick’s story. When Patrick returned to Ireland, his concerns were not of raising funding, finding a house, and building a leadership team, he had the concerns of, will these people throw me back into slavery or will they kill me as an escaped slave? St. Patrick was driven by a deep love for Christ and a radical love for the Irish people, he was not looking at this as a “good opportunity” to build his resume, and I’m not thinking he had in the back of his mind “man if I’m really successful maybe they will have a holiday for me.” I have to believe Patrick’s hope was to be able to keep from getting killed long enough to preach the gospel to as many as possible. It is also encouraging to see that from this young man’s obedience to preach the gospel and care for the needs of these people, even at the risk of his own life, God used Patrick’s obedience to bring thousands, eventually millions to Him, and to ultimately change an entire nation.

So this St. Patrick’s day, instead of being inspired to go to the local bar to fulfill the Irish stereo type of drinking to much and getting into a fight, let the story of St. Patrick inspire you to die to yourself, take up your cross, and proclaim the Gospel to our hurting and dying world. So if you are going out to your local pub this St. Patrick’s day, I hope you are going in honor of St. Patrick. Not to drink too much Guinness and dance like an idiot to Irish punk music, but to be a representative of Christ, proclaiming the gospel to those who are hurting and in need of the amazing Grace offered by Christ to all who would receive it.

If you want to read a little more about the life of St. Patrick Check out this link http://www.urbana.org/wtoday.witnesses.cfm?article=24