Charlie Wear’s Notes

 ^14-16“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16, The Message)

Woke up with this song on my mind:
Oh Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I seek,
For when your eyes are on this child,
Your grace abounds to me.

I got an email from a very good friend of mine this week. He and I haven’t talked much, or emailed much, in the last several months. In his email he was apologizing for the lack of contact. While it’s true that relationships need contact and communication, have you ever noticed that some relationships are so connected that you can be out of contact for months, or years, and pick up right where you left off?

About six months ago I renewed a friendship with someone I knew very well more than 30 years ago. Since then we have been meeting pretty regularly once a week for a long and leisurely lunch. These lunches have grown into my “church” gathering. We talk about spiritual issues and what’s happening in our everyday lives. I’m looking forward to Monday afternoon because we’ve missed the last two weeks.

I emailed a reply to my friend as follows: “There are some people that are such good friends that time can pass, and life can roll on, and the friendship is always there…Sometimes I like to think about Jesus that way, because I tend to stumble through life, sometimes, weeks and months at a time and barely remember that Jesus is my friend, or even talk to him. I remember when I first heard the song, Draw Me Close to You…It has a line, “To hear you say that I’m your friend.” The first 20 times I listened to that song, I cried.” Continue Reading »

An excellent prayer for a cloudy and expected rainy Wednesday in Southern California performed by the songwriter and worship leader, Carl Tuttle.

Here’s a tip for you, a prayer that always works, “Oh God, get me out of this mess.” Now don’t be surprised when you get some unexpected results from this prayer. You might find that you’ve lost your job, or that your wife has moved out, or that you’ve just checked yourself in for rehab. Just keep in mind that most folks praying those prayers don’t put any conditions on them. They’ve just hit rock bottom for the umpteenth time and need help. They need it so badly they will even turn to God.

I’ve been enjoying reading Craig Ferguson’s entertaining memoir, American on Purpose. Imagine my surprise when I came to page 166 and noticed an example of this kind of prayer. It comes on the heals of the breakup of a long-term relationship over his self-destructive alcoholic behavior:

“After she had gone, I went for a walk on the lonely Walberswick marshes outside the village. Out there I did something I hadn’t done since I was a farty wee schoolboy in the miserable damp town church. I prayed. I asked the God I still don’t really understand and have trouble believing in to help me—either to kill me or change me.

I had become something I despised, and I couldn’t break free of whatever spell had been cast. I was an inmate in a prison of my own construction. I told Him I was willing to go to any length to get out.

I don’t know if my prayers were answered, I’m not an Evangelical, or even a very religious person.

But things sure started moving quickly after that.”

As I was reading this passage this morning, my eyes welled up with tears. I was reminded that God loves us even before we have loved or believed in Him. I was reminded that He waits, like the Prodigal’s father, for us to turn toward him and then he happily goes into action to redeem us.

My heart-felt moment of desperate prayer came as I rode the Metrolink to Orange County about ten years ago. Amazing the rapidity of God’s intervention to get me off that train and back on the right track in my own life. Looking back, I can say that I see how He worked then, and when I stop long enough to think about it, I can see where He is working in my life now.

Take a few minutes and watch as John Wimber shares about one of those moments in his spiritual journey. It starts about 5 1/2 minutes into this youtube video:

My encouragement to you? Don’t wait until you are overwhelmed or bouncing off the rock bottom, just take a moment right now and pray that powerful prayer, “Oh God, help me.”

There are many things that can cause us to lose faith in God. In fact, Jesus’ parable of the sower and the following explanation to his disciples explained some of them in Mark 4 [The Message]:

14-15″The farmer plants the Word. Some people are like the seed that falls on the hardened soil of the road. No sooner do they hear the Word than Satan snatches away what has been planted in them.

16-17″And some are like the seed that lands in the gravel. When they first hear the Word, they respond with great enthusiasm. But there is such shallow soil of character that when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.

18-19″The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it.

20″But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.”

I am thinking about these things because I am wondering about what it means to make disciples. Evangelical Christianity has focused a lot of attention on the following verses quoted from the NIV and known as “The Great Commission.”

Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I like the Message version of these verses because they seem a little less mechanistic:

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”

We hear very little of Buddhist evangelists, Muslim evangelists, or Jewish Evangelists. However, this does not mean that, if approached, a practitioner of these religions would turn away a seeker. In fact, I would argue that Buddhists, or for that matter, Yoga enthusiasts, Pilates participants, or Recovery program practitioners are better equipped to lead others on a path to knowledge and practice of their various disciplines.

On the other hand, I believe that Christians have managed to be left with this answer to anyone that would express a sincere interest in their faith: “Come to my church.” Unfortunately, churches have managed to strip away the high level of commitment that following Jesus entails, I think, in the name of institutional survival.

If the behavior of Christians is not appreciably different than the population at large as reported by George Barna, then one might ask what difference being a Christian makes. Trials and losses in life raise difficult questions. Seeing the behavior of churches that cover up abuse and religious celebrities that seem to take advantage of the faithful could cause anyone to lose their faith.

Then there are the stereotypical high pressure salesman tactics practiced by some evangelicals. The street evangelist approaches a stranger and opens a conversation with “Are you born again?” And from there the argument begins. Surely this is not the message that Jesus brought to those who heard him during his ministry.

Jesus’ message: “Change your life, God’s kingdom is here,” meant different things to his listeners. But changing your life, or changing your way of thinking, or changing your mind implies that his listeners were practicing their religion in a way that needed to be changed.

It seems to me that if professed Christians followed the teachings of Jesus, then there would be a clear difference between them and the culture at large. Maybe the message to Christians today should be “Change your life, God’s kingdom is here.”

These are the thoughts that are occupying my thinking as I launch a new website, Learning to Follow Jesus. Seekers will be encouraged to gather in groups of two or three and read and discuss the Life and Teachings of Jesus as inspired by the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I am hoping that will provide a different answer to those who have been invited to start a spiritual journey of discovery that might include becoming a follower of Jesus.

I was raised in a denomination that does not pray the sinner’s prayer. I guess you can figure out that I was not raised a baptist! I had a friend tell me that Michael Jackson had met with Andre and Sandra Crouch in the last couple of months prior to his death. So I googled andre crouch michael jackson and found a number of entries. Some praising God that Michael had accepted Christ and others setting the story straight. One quote caught my eye: …”There was NO actual sinner’s prayer however.”
I’ve been working diligently on a tool to use in introducing seekers to following Jesus. This has involved a kind of deep immersion in the first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the gospels. Unfortunately, there was NO actual sinner’s prayer by any one of the followers of Jesus in the gospels. I guess we can say for certain that without the ’sinner’s prayer’ there is no repentance, can’t we? Uh, sorry, but I’m going to have to say, no way! If the quote had been the other way, “He prayed the sinner’s prayer,” I am afraid, after my recent study that I would have to still say, I don’t know. You see, the state of a person’s heart is in God’s hands, and from what I have read, in the hands of Jesus.
Repentance, that heart and mind-change that is motivated by the desire to turn around and follow Jesus, is an action that can’t be measured by human understanding or the performance of a ritual. No matter how proud we are of its effectiveness, altar calls and sinner’s prayers can’t really tell us if a person has begun to follow Jesus. I pray that Jesus found his lost sheep, Michael Jackson. Just as I pray that he finds the lost sheep in many church congregations around the world!

I have had the privilege of giving some “altar calls” in my life. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You are talking to a group of people, some who are not professed Christians, and at the end of your message you invite those who are not followers of Jesus to “accept Christ as their personal savior.”
I admit I did most of these invitations before I found out from my enlightened brothers that “decisions are not disciples.” Still I always felt pretty good when there was a response to the invitation I had made.
It’s been a while since I gave my last invitation, and over the years I have had plenty of time to reflect on the consequences and results of those “decisions” that were made by those who responded to the invitation.
The truth is, I have no way to measure the results. I ran across this quote from Greg Laurie on his blog:

I will be the first to admit that not all of the people who come forward are becoming Christians. Some come and never take the next steps in following Christ.

But I must tell you, many come and go forward spiritually and have their lives transformed by Jesus Christ. We have seen so many lives turned around, families saved, destructive lifestyles turned from, and the list goes on. Many are in ministry today as well, serving in the mission field or becoming pastors of churches.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to start a fight about predestination or “once saved, always saved.” Those issues are “above my pay grade.” I now think that much of the activity we engage in to encourage people to follow Jesus is counter-productive, whether it be small group fellowships, discipleship classes, church services, 6-part messages, or for that matter, “evangelistic crusades.”
However, I will never forget the Friday night several years ago when I walked forward with my son at a Promise Keeper’s event in Los Angeles, and kneeled along with him as he prayed a prayer of commitment.
Like every journey in life, it seems that that there must be some first steps. I don’t think it is necessary to pray a prayer. And hopefully, like some of the friends of Bill, we don’t have to hit rock bottom before we acknowledge that there is a higher power. In my life, I wish there had been someone who had said, “I am following Jesus, here is what I have learned, why don’t you join me?” There are many who assisted and tangentially guided me on my journey, but in many ways it has seemed like a kind of solitary journey.
I cannot say that the “church” did much more than attempt to make me a good “member.” While a follower of Jesus could be a good church member, it is not really necessary for a good church member to be a follower of Jesus. I hope I will be a better mentor to my six-year old than I was to my older children. I mean there is always hope that we will get better as we age, right?

Cooperative Friends of Jesus, Living Lives of Creative Goodness, For the Sake of Others, Through the Power of the Spirit — Todd Hunter from pps. 153-155 Christianity Beyond Belief by Todd Hunter