St. Patrick's Legacy

Many people do not know the story of St. Patrick.  The young man of the Roman upper class, who was made a captive by Irish pirates.  The young man who for 6 years lived as a slave.  Who then escaped, entered the service of God as a monk and then brought the Gospel to the very nation that held him captive.

 

We see in Patrick's story and his writings a man who left riches behind and became lowly to reach the lost.  In him we see an example of a man whose devotion to Christ was so sincere he would live in danger for the rest of His life.

Here is an excerpt from the end of St. Patrick's Confession:

 

"57 For which reason I should make return for all that he returns me. But what should I say, or what should I promise to my Lord, for I,alone, can do nothing unless he himself vouchsafe it to me. But let him search my heart and [my] nature, for I crave enough for it, even too much, and I am ready for him to grant me that I drink of his chalice, as he has granted to others who love him.

58 Therefore may it never befall me to be separated by my God from his people whom he has won in this most remote land. I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will deign that I should be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.

59 And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body. For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him."

 

Sadly this is a much different story than what is happening in some areas of the world today.  I will let Andrew Strom explain, in this video about the dangers and perversion of Gods word in the Prosperity Gospel.

Take Me to Your Leader

Isn’t it amazing to see the differences in the way humans view people and the way God views people?  One of the most important things for a youth group is to have leaders other than the youth pastor to build relationships and disciple students.  Being the guy who is in charge of choosing those leaders seems like it would be really tough.  I mean, you have the responsibility of filtering out the unqualified, the dangerous, and the unhealthy ones.  Plus, if something goes wrong, doesn’t it come back to the leader in charge?  It’s a lot of pressure. It’s a tough decision. Lucky for me. It’s not my decision to make.

 That’s right….

 Its Gods.

 We have been looking for more leaders for The Underground youth group.  The search isn’t going well. Or is it? 

 I was praying with a friend the other day about finding leaders.  He mentioned something about identity and I started thinking about the story of Samuel anointing the  king of Israel that would come after Saul.   The story is found in 1 Samuel 16.  It goes something like this.

 God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem to search for the new king amongst the sons of Jesse.  After he arrived and found his way to Jesse, Samuel thought that the son who stood before him must have been who God had chosen.  This son probably had the qualities that humans look for in a leader.  He was probably physically strong, tall, and thin.  He was probably well dressed.  He may have even had a nice voice.  But he was not to be king.

 So Samuel went to the next son.  Not him either. So Samuel went to the next son after that.  Again, not him.  Samuel ended up doing this seven times.  He was then forced to ask if any other son remained and there was one more.  David.

 So then came along a good-looking boy David, who probably smelled like sheep poop.  He probably wasn’t so well dressed either, being that he was tending sheep.

 But God chose David.

 This story really made me think about the way I look at leaders.  It is not my responsibility to choose the leaders.  It’s God’s.  Not to excuse me from searching for them or releasing them into ministry, etc. And of course it is my responsibility to filter out the people who could be dangerous to the youth.  But I realized how important it is, as a leader of leaders, to look for leaders in the way God looks for leaders. Because...

 “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

Practice Makes....Family?

Today I heard a quote that really caught my attention referring to the differences between Christianity and Judaism.  It went something like this:

 “Christianity is a religion of belief, and Judaism is a religion of practice.”

 My first thought at hearing this was, “Has the Body of evangelical believers really lost everything tangible in their relationship with God?”

 Then I began thinking, what are the tangible parts of a relationship with God?  What practices and actions exist to add structure and protection to the God given life within a church?  What did the early church do together that is cross-cultural?

 So I decided to list a few:

  -Eating together (yum!)

         -Communion (together!)

         -Reading the Word together

         -Singing together/Playing music together

-Creating together

 (Obviously, I am not talking about the practice of feeding the hungry or clothing the naked, etc. although I see them as vitally important.)

 Sadly, I began to realize that in some ways, many of these things don’t seem to happen, outside of a Sunday morning.  Now, I know this could very easily become one of those blogs that is constantly stating “it’s more than just a Sunday morning routine, live it out in the week.”  Which I totally agree with, but we’ve heard that before.

 What I am really getting at, is that while eating together and reading together and singing together are not the substance itself, (someone could sing or read together and truly the practice would have no life it at all) they do come into play as practical structure for fellowship.  These practices as a body are truly what a healthy family does together!  Healthy families eat together and read together, and even sometimes make music together.  They are often united by a bond of blood, and if not by blood often a deep, unexplainable love.

 Is it coincidence that we as believers are also bound together by the blood of the Savior? Absolutely not.

 Shouldn’t these practices exist outside of a Sunday morning?  I believe they should. 

 Perhaps, the pendulum has swung to far.  We have gone as a society from highly structured religion (which really should not be a bad word), to an unpracticed shallow relationship. Is the balance perhaps that a practiced relationship should have structure as long as the structure isn’t the focus?

 So I say no, Christianity was not created to be void of tangible practice.  Quite the opposite, instead our relationship with God as a body is to be given structure and health by these practices.