The Burr in the Burgh

I know I've blogged already about the mega-churches around the country who are cancelling church for Christmas this year, even though it falls on a Sunday morning. But this article was just too rich to pass by.

First is this gem:

At first glance it does sound contrarian," said Rev. Gene Appel, senior pastor of Willow Creek. "We don't see it as not having church on Christmas. We see it as decentralizing the church on Christmas--hundreds of thousands of experiences going on around Christmas trees.

The resources that would have funded the church's Sunday service this year will go toward the DVD instead, potentially touching thousands more people than the same message from the stage on Sunday morning, Parkinson said.

This is a handy little guide to help you sort out the Da Vinci Code garbage once the upcoming movie hits. It'll be a cultural tsunami and Christians need to know how to respond intelligently. There are many helpful resources, but I like this one because it's short. I've bought copies to give away.

With the huge box office success Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, the players in L.A. are anxious to get the next movie made, I'm sure. According to this report, they may already be in gear.

More thoughts on the Narnia movie. One of the key scenes is when the children are with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and are first told about Aslan (the Christ figure). The movie shortened the dialogue, so I want to offer you this bit here from the novel itself:

"Is - is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Go to Aardvark Alley for some awesome links. The earth pig has done a fine job sorting through the finest of the Lutheran blogosphere. The Burr has two links listed.

And I also want to thank Bunnie Diehl. She mentioned the Burr in one of her recent posts and I must have gotten over a hundred hits through her so far. It was what I like to call a Bunnie-lanche (instead of an avalanche).

Although the festival of the Annunciation is March 25, the 3-year lectionary my congregation uses has the reading from Luke 1 today where Gabriel brings the Word to Mary.

I'm sure that every pastor is concerned about improving the church attendance of his congregation. Every pastor has sheep that he seldom ever sees, except maybe on holidays or when a wedding or funeral is called for. Some call them the inactives or the delinquents or the under-churched. And when contact is made, there are numerous explanations given, excuses offered, and promises made. I'm not casting stones at those who because of illness or age or uncontrollable circumstances are simply not able to attend church as often as they would like. And I'm not trying to pummel faithful Christians who miss occasionally due to this or that unusual circumstance. This post is only about folks for whom going to church is simply not very important.

It should be noted that these words really only apply to people who call themselves Christians and consider themselves to be Christians. It is obvious why an unbeliever would not come to church.

Many pastors are shy to address this matter because of fear that they'll only offend people or make them feel awkward and thus even less likely to show up on Sunday morning. But I want to try to offer a brief explanation for why people should go to church and answer some of the objections or excuses every pastor hears.

Someone may say, "I can be a Christian without going to church." Well, actually, yes and no. First off, the physical act of dragging oneself out of bed and into a church is not what saves a person. Jesus Christ saves us by his incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. Going to church and Sunday school must never be viewed as "paying one's dues" in order to stay on God's good side.

Certainly, there are many who do gather with a congregation every week but do so without a living faith. These are the hypocrites who outwardly do right, but have no life within them. But you and I can't see their insides. God will judge them.

God's Word does command us to gather and certain promises are given for when we do. Jesus said that when two or three gather in his name, he is present with them. And Hebrews 10 tells us not to neglect assembling together. There is no question that it is the will of God for his children to come together in his name around His Word and Sacrament. To say that you don't really have to go to church is like telling God that you don't really have to do something which He clearly wants you to do. A person who says this is committing the sin of rebellion. So if a person continuously and insistently avoids assembling with the church around the gospel, that person is putting himself in terrific danger.

Others will say that they are too tired or too busy or have too many scheduling conflicts to make church attendance a priority. And somehow, with gentleness, humility and patience, we need to explain that this thinking is incoherent to the Christian mind. Are you too tired or too busy to breathe? Do you have too much to do to drink water and eat food on a regular basis? If you are too tired to breathe, then you are too tired to live and will die. If you are too busy to eat and drink, then you will starve, dehydrate and die.

You must go to church, not because of the mere fact that God commands it, but because you need to hear the Word of God preached and applied to you. And you need this often. More than just at Christmas and Easter. You need it like you need air; you need it more than you need air. Because without air, you'll only stop breathing but without the Word of God you'll go to hell.

The gospel of Christ crucified for sinners is your bread of life. It is your living water. It is the breath which animates you. If a man has no hunger to hear about God's mercy, if he feels no longing to be in the gracious presence of His Creator, if he cares nothing for the means of grace, then.... well, then something is seriously deeply wrong.

I encourage you to check out Julie's impressions of LWW over at her blog Jottings and Such.

And just for fun, I am tagging her to respond to the two memes that've been floating out there:

1) List Ten Guilty Pleasures

2) Five Random Facts about you

I took the family out to dinner and a movie this evening. After a meal of sushi and hot sake, we finally saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I loved it and I know you will too. And it gave me the opportunity to talk about the gospel with my 10-year-old son for the twenty minute drive home.

Many have written fuller reviews than I will, but here are a couple of my thoughts.

• First, I thought the casting was mostly excellent though occasionally mediocre. As many reveiwers have noted, young Georgie Henley was delightful as Lucy. Like Gene Veith, I hope the dear gets nominated for an Oscar. But I'd also give a best supporting actress nod to Tilda Swinton. I thought she was perfect. The book describes the White Witch as simultaneously very beautiful, capable of being charming, and mean as a snake. I thought I wouldn't like Liam Neeson's voice for Aslan, but I did. The other three child actors were only OK, the fellow playing Peter being the most disappointing of all. He didn't quite merit the title of "Peter the Magnificent." The actor who played Mr. Tumnus, the faun, was very good. The scenes with him and Lucy were among the very best.
  


• Like all of Lewis's fans, my great concern was that Disney would ruin another classic tale. I can't think of a single fairy tale they've told properly, so I would've expected them to obliterate everything good about this one too. But they did not. The Christian imagery was retained and comes through quite well.


• The film's Aslan was good - even great - but not perfect. Of course, how could it be? Having read all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia several times (and as a life-long disciple of Jesus Christ), I have a broadly developed, deeply reflected upon, relationship with Aslan. I knew this introduction to a character I already know and love so well would be lacking, and it was. But it does so much well that I still give the movie Aslan a thumbs up.


• The overall experience of the film, for me was an A-. I liked The Lord of the Rings better, even though the Christian imagery is clearer in Narnia. And that is due, I think, to the superior craftsmanship of Peter Jackson (and cast) to Andrew Adamson. Adamson is previously best known for directing the two Shrek films, the first of which was wonderfully good and the second of which was abyssimally bad.
  

Pastor Rip M. Auff of Abundant Life Family Center (a church) in Harbinger, Texas announced this week that in 2006, they will cancel their church services on Easter so that their employees and members can spend time with their families.

"I don't see what the big upset is about. This is just a desire for us to emphasize family time on Easter," Auff replied. To the hard-nosed stick-in-the-muds, this reflects an idea common in certain religious circles, the idea that one can strengthen one's family relationships by skipping church. The church, in other words, is an impediment to reeeaaallll spiritual growth.

Auff continued, "As our chums over at Willow Creek have said, 'we don't think of it as not having church. We think of it as de-centralizing church.'" Another highly reputable news source has observed that this is like having church by not having church.

Minister of Music for the church, C. Meinthemiddle, D.Mus., added "It's more than being family-friendly. It's being lifestyle-friendly for people who are just very, very busy."

In fact, the church governing board is planning to meet in the new year to discuss cancelling church every Sunday for the above stated reasons.

Rev. Auff explained, "Up to now, we average 7,000 attendees each weekend. Do you have any idea how much work goes into preparing for all that? And the number of volunteers? By Mondays, I'm really tired."

Another church leader who asked to remain anonymous stated that she has noticed that some weekends their numbers drop down below 6500. "That can be really frustrating, you know," she said. "All that work, you want a lot of people there to enjoy it."

While some church members have complained, "they're just hung up on human tradition," the pastor argued. "We're not about tradition. We're about Jesus. And you don't need to come to church to worship Jesus do you?!"

The leaders of Abundant Life Family Center said that they gave their church its name for a reason. It's all about family was the repeated refrain.

Related Burr post.

[P.S. I'm only kidding a little. See this right here. And if you don't go over to What You Do, Do Quickly for this trenchant post, I won't give you any pudding.]

Why is this news? Apparently, a new study in Norway concludes that having an abortion causes women to experience long-term stress and anxiety - more so than women who've have natural miscarriages. Isn't that obvious to everyone? It seems to me that that's like reading a headline that says "snow is cold." I guess you'd have to be pretty ignorant about snow in order for that to be new information to you.

Of course, women who have abortions experience long term stress and anxiety. The study also says that they have to work hard for many years not to dwell on what they've done. Again, this can be explained very simply: a conscience.

Every single person in the world knows that abortion is wrong. They know it regardless of what they say or think. And that's because of a little thing known as natural law, the law of God imprinted on every human heart. It's one of those things that you can't not know. Killing your pre-born children is wrong. Even the simplest beasts of creation know that. And so does every woman who's ever borne a child in her womb.

A rich couple in Manhattan hung this grotesque display in front of their home in order to, reportedly, protest the commercialization of the Christmas season.

Ah yes, nothing reminds folks of the true meaning of Christmas like images of Santa Claus decapitating children. Oh the magic of the holiday.

I, too, despise the mockery our culture has made of the Christian festival. But this stunt is only intended to shock and disgust. It accomplishes nothing good.

And even if their message against materialism were clear - which it's not - I have a hard time taking that seriously from someone who lives in a $3 million brownstone. It seems that commercialism has been good to them sometime along the way.

It reminds me of a Reuters report I read earlier about Pope Benedict XVI denouncing the materialistic mentality people have at Christmas. Huh?! Aren't those gold cuff links I see in your photo, Holy Father? The pope lives like a renaissance king and he's telling me and you how not to be materialistic. Those who live luxuriously simply have no credibility in this area. None. It's like a pornstar preaching about chastity. If you want to teach the world how to be un-materialistic, do what Jesus said and sell all you own and give it to the poor.


HT: GOP and the City

Well, I've been tagged twice with this one. First by The Cubicle Reverend (whom I believe started it) and now by the shy and cuddly Pastor David Petersen (if only he'd come out of his shell).

List Five Facts About Self
O.K. Petersen tagged me and I noticed that four of his five were things he dislikes. I'm going to do four things I like and one thing I dislike.

1. One of my life goals is to visit Egypt. I have always been fascinated by the history, culture, etc. And I'm intrigued by the Coptic Church and their current leader, Pope Shenouda.


2. Favorite beer is, without question, Guiness Stout. But I can't stand it from a bottle. Has to come from the draft. I also like Yuengling Ale, Corona, and Goose Island Honker's Ale. So if you were wondering what to get me for Christmas. . . .


3. My favorite local band is Good Brother Earl. I go see them live every chance I get. They are releasing a new CD early 2006.


4. Pop CD I literally cannot stop listening to right now is Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple.


5. I generally don't like cooked vegetables. If I can't eat it raw, maybe with a little dressing or seasoning, I'll likely pass. Exception: Corn on the cob. Is corn a vegetable or a grain? I've never understood that.
   

I have always loved C.S. Lewis (pictured left) and I'm delighted his The Chronicles of Narnia are receiving so much attention at present. I have not yet seen the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie, though I'm dying to. I offered to my son to pull him out of school to go see a matinee with me, but he didn't want to miss school. Weird. It's just that I hate getting a bad seat in these stadium style theaters which means that for popular films, I like going at off times or arriving very early. There are only a small number of decent seats in my opinion.

But anyway, the people I know who've seen it have liked it very much.

Here are a couple of other opinions.

Roger Ebert, Chicago film critic, appears to have liked it quite a bit.

And Rev. Paul McCain appears to have loved it.

I'm jealous. I want to see it right now. (sigh)

First, let me say that I have a great deal of respect for Jewish believers, particularly those of the orthodox varieties. And I was recently delighted to hear of an organization called Jews Against Anti-Christian definition.

However, as a Christian, I obviously believe our differences remain quite substantial. And over the millennia, even as many things have changed, many more have stayed the same.

On one occasion, Jesus said to a group of Jewish Pharisees:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!"