Earlier this week I received an email from Andrew Powers. I have to admit I think I might have been insulted just a bit, but only my pride. It reads in part

Nick,

I don’t know if you’ve ever considered having a guest poster for your blog, but I have a request — would you be willing to have me as a guest poster? Please? I would post this on my own blog, but I reserve my blog for more serious thoughts that I have about living for Christ, and hesitate to post satire.

Apparently my blog is much better suited to … less serious thoughts?

All kidding aside, once I decided I wasn’t insulted I gave the post a read. I enjoyed it and I think you will too. Be sure to give Andrew a visit at Thoughts…Centered on Christ and Applied to Man for some very thoughtful posts.

Coffee.

There’s no doubt about the fact that Christians like coffee. We like it plain, fancy, foamy, creamy, and black. In fact, we like it so much, we wouldn’t know what to do if we didn’t have our morning coffee. It’s so important that church wouldn’t be church if coffee weren’t provided.

Many churches like coffee so much that they have latte stands in their lobby. They realize the significance of a warm cup of joe to the Christian worship experience, and they wouldn’t want their people to be without such a necessity.

We have known for years that having a cup of coffee makes you a better Christian. That’s why we have coffee stands in our church lobby, in our Sunday school classrooms, in the back of the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall; sometimes we even have a designated “Tea Room.”

But now, yes, NOW we can say that we knew it first. We were onto this long before science finally came around to face the facts. But science has once again shown that Christians were right, all along.

CBS News reports:

Holding Warm Things May Make People More Generous, Likely To View Others More Favorably

Researchers “conducted two studies on undergraduate students to assess how temperatures affect emotions. They found that holding warm things may actually make people view others more favorably and may also make people more generous.”

“It appears that the effect of physical temperature is not just on how we see others, it affects our own behavior as well,” John A. Bargh, PhD, professor of psychology at Yale University, says. “Physical warmth can make us see others as warmer people, but also cause us to be warmer – more generous and trusting – as well.”

But science and religion are not at odds with each other. We can work together. Think of the applications that we simply haven’t tapped into yet! When you’re witnessing, offer to buy them a cup of coffee. Once their hands are warm, then tell them about Jesus. And never forget that you should always have a cup of coffee as you go witnessing. If worse comes to worst, ask them to hold your cup of coffee for a few minutes before you tell them about Jesus.

Now personally, I’m thinking that next time that grumpy old church member starts grumbling and complaining I’m gonna give them a cup o’ joe. Thanks Andrew for the guest post.

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There is something that I want to figure out how to get going. I believe the church is a single entity that is supposed to work together; rather I believe that is what the ideal church is, but not what the existing church is. Most churches I’ve been in have pretty distinct divisions. First there is the division of the “church” from the “Church.” That is, the entity that meets within a given building is separate from the entities that meet at other buildings in a community. This is not how I believe the Church is intended to exist, and it is a fairly recent phenomenon in church history that is failing miserably in America. I’ve talked about this a lot, so I won’t spend any more time on this here. The next division is in the strata of ages. We have children’s church, youth services, young adult groups, all the way up to our elderly groups. Generally each group is formed around common grounds in age, with some additional consideration for life experiences; for example a newly married group might have a pretty wide age range with a focus on the first two years of marriage. This means that not only is the church broken apart from the Community Church it is also fractured within.

I have been working on getting some more crossovers in the Youth and the rest of the church. We have Youth nights in the Sunday evening service once a month and other such things, but I’ve found that these nights have the lowest attendance in the church if the youth aren’t counted in the attendance. I have also asked about having our students involved with the “Prime Timers” group, but last year it never happened. The person in charge just wasn’t into that idea at all. Now things are starting to look different.

In the past month or two the new leader of the Prime Timers asked me about having some of my students come to their meetings. We have also started up a new ministry, Angel Food, which is involving people from the various groups. I am very excited to see the stuff that I pushed so hard for over the last year and a half are starting to fall into place. It is frustrating that I worked so hard and saw nothing, but now it is just working, but it is also satisfying to know that God put the desire in my heart and made it happen in a way that I would know He is leading. This is important because there will be times of great turmoil, but knowing that God orchestrated this will help carry us through.

Tonight was a great example of this. Last year we went caroling to our shut-ins and it went well. We had a pretty full van and nothing went wrong, but there was something lacking. This year we had a ton of snow, about 2′, over the weekend and several students assumed that the event was cancelled. I had notified many that we were still having it but then they had plans. I ended up with 2 students from my youth and two from my young adults plus myself, and 2 adults that don’t regularly work with the Youth. I was more than a little disheartened. We got to the second location, a nursing home, and went back to sing for one of our parishioners that is ill. I was surprised at how much weight he had lost and how his mental faculties had been affected. He was still attending church a couple months ago. After we finished there we walked by a group in a common area and sang for them. Without any prompting on my part one of the students that did make it got down next to one of the women we were singing to and held her hand as she sang to her.

It was the most amazing picture of the church. I wish I had brought my camera. She didn’t know this woman but she went past the “group” and made a connection. Later, as we were driving, this girl said she wanted to get the Youth involved with visiting the nursing home. I’m all for it.

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So I was going to write about this shirt that I love for the blog carnival on “Church” today but I was making a comment at Stuff Christians Like and I realized something about Sex and the Church.

We tend to think that inviting people to church is the solution, and what’s worse we end up spending most of our time inviting people from other churches to our church so our church will grow. Think about it. It is much easier to invite a Christian to your church than a non-Christian. It is also easier to invite a non-Christian than to lead them to Christ yourself. This is the way the church acts as if it is growing when it is really full of cancer and is wasting away … at least in America.

Now what does this have to do with sex? Well think about this. If we make sex the goal, then lots of weird things happen. A single person starts chasing people to have sex with. Awkward dates lead to sex sure, but there is the anxieties leading up to, during, and after. Does this person like me? Are they willing to sleep with me? What do they think of the way I look naked? Are they enjoying this? They aren’t really saying anything. It all leads up to “so was it good for you?” Now this might be slightly alleviated in a marriage relationship, but even then these issues show up if sex is the goal.

Now compare this to inviting people to church. We try to look around and listen for someone to invite. Then we start sweating and nervously invite them. If they say yes we are almost shocked at we spit out the time and place. That morning we dress better and show up early when we are always late. Then we wait and think, “they aren’t coming.” When they finally show up we worry through the service. We watch them and try to figure out if they are having a good time. We try to help them avoid the sweaty hugger during the meet and greet. Are they bored? Did they get the joke? Is the worship to weird? Is the pastor performing? After it is all said and done, “so was it good for you?” Ok we might say, “so what did you think,” but I figure it is about the same.

So how do we fix this? Well with sex, if we focus on the relationship and build a strong healthy marriage then sex becomes a frigintastic benefit. It is great and something that can really draw a couple even closer. I think church is the same. What if we stopped thinking of church as the solution? What if we stopped inviting people to church? What if we started building relationships with people and helping them find Christ? Then Church becomes this amazing benefit to being a Christian. The community of faith will strengthen our walk as a Christian.

Ok, so here is the shirt,

This blog was written for the Blog Carnival at BridgetChumbly.com

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I am afraid that I might be suffering from Post Traumatic Church Experience Syndrome, PTCES, as well as a great many people I know. PTCES sufferers might notice the following symptoms:

• Irritability, especially Sunday or Monday morning.
• Fear of new friends, old friends, strangers, answering the phone …
• Overeating
• Under eating
• Depression
• Anger
• Bitterness
• Backsliding

PTCES can be caused by many different circumstances but once set in it is not easily remedied. Years of counseling may yield little to no results and “going it own your own” rarely ever works.

Fortunately a new breakthrough in spiritual care science has allowed for a cure. If you or a loved one suffers from PTCES talk to God about Forgiveness.

Forgiveness allows for healing of PTCES injuries. When using Forgiveness you will need to apply liberally to yourself and all who caused PTCES. Allowing God to apply Forgiveness during initial consultations is key to the healing process.

PTCES is a serious disease of the body, mind, and spirit. Start healing today.

(Fine print) Forgiveness is right for everyone. While using Forgiveness you might experience the following side-effects:

• Love
• Joy
• Peace
• Patience
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness
• Self-control

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