Ben Lemery | Church & Culture

A Personal Update: March 2010

Today I had a doctor's appointment for a 6 month checkup and to see what was wrong with my hip. 

If I could easily explain the season God has had me in for the past two full years, it would be probably laid out as such:

Year 1: Ben dislikes God
Year 2: Ben and God look at each other but not much is said
Year 3: Ben begins to embrace the season God has him in

Last year, I felt like the Lord wanted me to pursue and finish specific things.  One area was my health.

When I went to the doctor for my physical I weighed 311 pounds.  I was a 33 on the BMI scale, bordering on morbid obesity.  Clearly, some changes had to be made.  Finally, in October, I began to make some changes in my life to do this.

I joined a fitness center and started working with a personal trainer.  She has been great, a tyrant but great. 

Another blessing came into my life when I was at a work function in Denver.  Dave Grotto was participating in our work function and after chatting with me offered to mentor me in developing a good nutritional lifestyle.  Every week he goes over what I ate, encourages me where I can do better and laughs at my jokes.  Dave has written two great books that I would encourage each and everyone of you to buy:

101 Foods That Could Save Your Life
101 Optimal Life Foods

Dave has the ability to lay out food in simple ways and explain why it is good for you.  He isn't some hippie, all organic nutritionist that is full of fad diets.  As he told me when we met, he is a "foodie first, a nutritionist second."  If you have some extra money, get one or both of the books.  Both have great information AND recipes that taste great.  Check out his blog when you get a chance.

I say all of this to state that my doctor was very happy with me today.  After a starting weight of 311 pounds, I now weigh 269 pounds.  A total of 42 pounds.  This is a huge shift in my life and a huge change in how my pants fit.

So there you go, hopefully it can show that anyone can do this, it simply is about making a choice.  Thanks to everyone who has supported me and keeps on pushing me for the goal.

Oh and my hip has bursitis, which my doctor says is a good injury to have because it means I am working out.  No pain, no gain eh?

Church Dominance, Is It Good?

The UConn Women's Basketball Team has just broke their own record for most consecutive wins, having 71 straight wins.  For any sport, that is quite impressive.  The question that has arisen out of this streak is, "is this good for women's basketball; that one team dominates over all of them?" 

This made me think about the church.  "Is it good for church overall, if one church has a majority of one group over them all?"

I remember a few years ago a para-church group on a campus decided to become an established church that met on Sundays.  Me in my infinite wisdom, completely disagreed with that group becoming a church because they would take all the young adults away from the other churches.  It was kinda like I was the Rock from World Wrestling Entertainment and I was yelling, "know your role!" 

Of course, I am short-sighted and this church is impacting the community more than many of the other churches there.  The impact of this group now having a majority of the young adult Christians, left many churches questioning how they could get young adults back in their own seats. 

There are two perspectives, that I believe were well laid out in the response to UConn's dominance and representative of how churches respond presently.  They were stated in this SI.com article below:

"It's not their fault, but it's not a great thing for the sport," Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer told USA Today. "How can anybody enjoy a game that is really not much of a competition?"

Counters ESPN analyst Doris Burke: "Did anyone ask John Wooden when he was in midst of the 88-game streak, 'Is this good for men's college basketball?' It didn't happen. If they are beating your ass on a nightly basis, then get better."

If the one swear word in the quote threw your entire Christian life off, well, get a life.

These two responses are similar to how churches react to the giant churches in their midst.  If it is one church dominating a specific age group, another church that has six other campuses or whatever.  The church can have two responses to these issues:

1.  This isn't good for church because of A, B or C.  We begin to nitpick and tear them down because clearly all of those people attending there just don't know what they are missing here.  How stupid.  If someone really wanted to attend and feel like they were getting fed AND felt like they were in a solid community, then their butt would be in a seat right now. 

2.  If you are having trouble reaching people, then maybe that is a YOU problem.  Oh Ben, you silly boy, it couldn't possibly be our issue, all of our programs work.  Denial is the greatest and worst defense in these situations.  Because we own the vision and programs of our church, we never want to admit that they aren't attaining the goals originally envisioned.  It really takes a lot of guts to say, "we got it wrong and we're going to start over again." 

I think that we forget that the church isn't one big studio apartment.  We are not all sharing the same room and certainly not vying for the same people.  (John 14:2)  Just like Coach Stringer said, "it's not their fault."  It isn't a churches fault that they are good at what they do, it simply means that you need to get better if you want to reach the same groups of people. 

It is good for the church to have a little friendly competition.  It means that we indirectly learn and sharpen each others approaches so we can hopefully reach EVERYONE and not just a few.

What do you think?  Is it good for one church to have a majority of one cultural/age group in a community?  Do churches have to change the way they do things if they want to reach the same people?  Where does that whole unity thing come in?  Start the conversation.

I'm Going Pearl Hunting!

There is something beautiful in every person.

Every

single

person.

For years, I couldn't see that in other people, much less myself.  I couldn't see past the negative, the sin, the muck.  My eyes would simply see what was wrong.  I would ignore the right, the future and the hope.

When I first started mentoring, I would take an ax and simply chop and chop and chop at the person.  I figured, if you could chop them down, then God could do something to bring them back up.  My concern, wasn't specifically for the goal or outcome of the session, I only saw what needed to be dealt with. 

This is a problem with the prophetic gift.  Without love and faith, we speak out of an unbelieving heart.  

I had a problem. I didn't want to be feared.  I wanted to really love the person.  Could God change me?

As we started to talk about what their passions were and their desires were in life, it wasn't so much about what was wrong with them but what God wanted to do with them.  Suddenly, I was on a treasure hunt for a pearl, that God had buried a long time ago in them but it now was in the midst of muck.

Stacey Campbell, in here book Ecstatic Prophecy says, "A pearl always lies in the middle of the dirt.  Jesus demonstrated that it is worth buying the whole field for that one treasure.  The prophet looks ofr the pearl, calls it out, names it and prophesies to it, and sometimes the dirt drops off on its own. At other times issues may have to be addressed, but when prophets see the pearls, they see the dirt differently.  Rather than being an obstacle, the dirt is merely something to be overcome." (171) (Matt. 13:45-46)

From the grace of that first mentoring experience, God expanded that to a few guys.  Suddenly, we were on a treasure hunt for the pearl that was buried in each of us.  Goals were being established, life was being breathed into dreams and instead of looking at only the dirt that surrounded the pearl; now we could speak to who they wanted to be.

Until we recognize that there is a pearl buried in the patch of land, we will only see dirt and the challenge to shovel through it.  However, that pearl is worth everything because it is the identity that God put in us from the day of our conception.  It is worth the dig! 

This week, would you take time to go on a treasure hunt with God and rediscover the pearl that is buried in you?  Yes, you will see dirt as you are digging away but the good part is, dirt can we wiped and washed away.  God is bigger than our dirt. 

Have you found your pearl?  Do you recognize that God has a purpose for you?  Are you willing to encourage others this week to find that pearl in them too?

Don't Make the Pastor Beg For Your Tithes

After being a born again Christian for 10 years, I have seen it all in regards to getting people to tithe.  Catholics really don't make a big deal out of it, the offering bags come out, passed around and that is that.  When I became an Evangelical Christian, I remember the first thing that bothered me about going to church was "the way" people got you to give.

In a culture that is a tad cynical towards these attempts, I wanted to lay out a few in hopes that maybe we can simply be honest about how we do it.  I know the difficulty of taking an offering because when I did the Campus Cry events, I would be on stage and the most I could say to people was, "we need money to cover this event, if you feel like you can give, please do."  Asking for money is awkward because it is the one moment where you feel like you are on the street with a sign up saying, "please give."

Even in all of the cynicism that can surround tithing, we should never make our pastors stand up in front of a congregation, begging for money.  There is a trust factor involved that they are using our money in the best way possible and if you feel they are not, then you can privately share your concern.

However, that doesn't excuse the church from their own mishandling of how they get money from you.  Here are some ways I feel the church misses it when asking for money.

1.  Guilt.  There is nothing worse than doing a Bible study on all the verses in the Bible that state you should give.  That if you don't give, they won't be able to do XY&Z well.  My favorite is using a sentimental story to work your heart into a frenzy to give.  Missions organizations tend to be masterful at this, showing pictures on the Powerpoint and saying, "if you give, this child will smile."  We don't have to manipulate people into giving, I think if you simply laid out the need, people will give.  That is just me though.

2.  You will be blessed!  The prosperity gospel has ruined the verses in regards to being blessed if you give.  It is bad enough that our culture already feels entitled, it is worse when the church believes that you should be entitled to God's blessing ONLY if you give.  If you want to talk about wrong motives, these certainly rank up there towards the top.  I should not put a single dime in the basket thinking that that dime is going to turn into a $100,000.  To be blunt, that is idolatry, a plain worship of money.  We should be giving because we want to support the vision, the cause and the people of that church.  Plain and simple.  It shouldn't be what we could possibly get out of the deal. 

3.  Lack of transparency.  Churches do not do a great job on presenting where money is going towards and showing that what you put into has had results.  As much as people don't want to agree with me on this, there is a certain business aspect when running any type of church.  If you have a building program, people want to see a building in a timely manner.  If you have a missions fundraiser, then they expect that you will be going on a missions trip with that money.  Churches should bend over backwards to openly share where their finances go and how they are being used. 

So those are the three biggies that I see hurting tithing.  Just because they happen, doesn't mean you shouldn't.  If they do happen, then we need to act like grownups and approach our leadership, in grace, and share our concerns with them.  If God has called you to be apart of a church, then obviously there is a buy in through your time, finances and overall giving that should be required of you.  We certainly wouldn't question why you give your finances to video games, a marathon, a camping trip, etc.  You give money towards those things because you are passionate.  Why would you not give to your church then, if you are passionate about that? 

Any final thoughts for the week regarding tithing, giving or what I put here?  Please share below.  We had excellent comments this week and I look forward to hearing more. 

My View: Tithing Is No Longer Relevant, Giving Is

This post started because my friend Jesse Phillips tweeted an intriguing thought, he said, "I'm sorry, tithing to support a building & paid staff simply is not Biblically mandated.  Otherwise Paul, Peter & Jesus were way off."

I would have to say that Jesse is 100% correct.  This speaks to a bigger issue of the separation of the law and what Jesus brought when He came to earth.  In my studies of tithing, I wanted to prove that it was Biblical because so many churches have taught that you should give 10%, every week, without fail.  The argument becomes obtuse when people start to ask whether you should give 10% before taxes or after taxes. 

During a church service, the question came up about what happened if you couldn't tithe; the pastor explained that he would actually keep a record of the times he missed and try to pay it back in full.  I couldn't believe this, much less find this reasoning in the Bible.  That the God who is merciful but just would lay a burden of debt on us simply because we didn't have the money to give to the church that week?  That seems to be a little ridiculous and I certainly cannot find it anywhere in the Bible.

So I looked, and found some scriptures but they didn't quite support the argument I wished to make:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matt 23:13; Luke 11:42)

This is a powerful rebuke and I believe the key word here is "should."  "You "should" have done [these things] without neglecting the others." 

Isn't it amazing the things we should do versus the things we do because we are made to do it?  The reason a 10% tithe was put in place was the same reason a majority of the law was put into place; the Israelite's hearts were hard and not open to the greater grace & freedom that God could provide. 

Jesus comes to earth and turns the whole law upside down.  He says that the law forbids you to sleep with a woman but He now says, the bar is being raised, you shouldn't even look lustfully at another woman.  What we forget and the church mistakes, in regards to grace, is that Jesus was the new coach who came in and said we are not going to settle for the conference championship anymore, we want the national championship.  The standard of living was raised.  It was an expectation, it was an encouragement to go deeper than anyone had ever gone with God to that point.

So, where does tithing fit into all of that?  If the law was about 10% and that was all you had to do, then in all likelihood that was all you were going to do.  Jesus presses us to go beyond regimented practices and give even more!  Does that mean financially?  No.  If you couldn't give a dime because you are unemployed, then what about your time?  What about your skills?  What about the ability to make food for someone who is hurt? 

Obviously, the churches in the New Testament survived on financial support. There is overwhelming evidence that many churches met in synagogues or even built their own buildings to meet in.  They didn't get this done off of their good looks.  People gave to the cause.  Paul did live off of financial support from others, he thanks the churches in his letters for their prayers and support.  However, he even spent time working as a tent maker in the midst of being a pastor & teacher for three years.  

Let me clarify, I am not saying "stop giving to the church," I am saying that the Lord has ten million ways for you to give beyond just finances.  We should take care of our pastoral staffs and have places that we can meet in that won't fall apart from a sneeze BUT we shouldn't overlook the poor, needy and even the people in our church that may need help paying a bill or a nice dish to eat from that week.

Tomorrow, I will write about why people become sketchy to tithe or even give.  Tell me what you think, agree, disagree, whatever.  These are great conversations to have.