Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

From our family to yours, may your Christmas celebrations be filled with the light of Christ and may you be overwhelmed by the true meaning of the season this year.

God bless you all,
Love Chris, Jo, Jack, Harry and Penelope Smith.

You'll "like" this Christmas Story

This is a little older but well worth sharing. Merry Christmas everyone and if you're in Estevan this Christmas I hope to see you at our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at 7:00pm on Saturday.



With the Love of Christ,
Chris

What to do when everybody's doing it

Eighty Percent of young unmarried Christians have had sex.

Let that one sink in for a second. That is the headline finding of a new Gallup research poll as featured in the September/October issue of Relevant Magazine. For your convenience and further reading I’ve linked the article here. The article even got traction recently in the CNN Religion Bureau’s Belief Blog with the headline “Why young Christians aren’t waiting anymore”. What has long been suspected by the cynical among the flock is now being confirmed – and the problem is way more widespread than any of us had hoped.

I can’t say that I am terribly surprised either. The more I get to build relationships with people outside of the church the more I am becoming aware that the prevailing attitude about sexuality is that us religious fuddy-duddies are putting unfair and unrealistic expectations on people. If that is what people outside of the church openly opine – how many of our young people inside the church silently share their opinions? How many young people simply tune out when their pastor, or youth leader starts talking about how true love waits, or encourages them to take a purity pledge or virginity vow? The world it seems as moved on from the Christian ideas of sexuality and the emerging generations don’t seem to be far behind.

I don’t want to rehash everything that the article says itself – it’s well worth a read – but I do wonder what are the implications for the church and for the Christian values of sexuality in this over sexualized culture.

How do we deal with the paradigm shift that has happened while we’ve not been looking – the shift that says the people most in need of encouragement, teaching and support in this area of purity are not our teenagers but our young adults? And how do we recognise and affirm the new challenges facing the younger generations that their parent’s generations didn’t face – and not only the obvious ones like the sexualisation of media and the proliferation of pornography – but the oft-ignored ones like the continually escalating median age of marriage?

How do we acknowledge honestly for our single young adults that our traditional expectations of sexual abstinence are “absolutely not realistic” as biblical scholar Scot McKnight is quoted in the article in relation to the fact that young people today face on average 15 years of extra sexual temptation than a biblical era audience would have had to face with regards to pre-marital sexual purity (as well as around 5 years more than their parents and 10 years more than their grandparents); while at the same time boldly proclaiming the truth that “but it’s also not realistic not to do a lot of things, and that doesn’t mean the Bible doesn’t tell us the ideal and design of God is to not have premarital sex” as McKnight also states.

As a pastor I know of young people who are sexually active. I’ve known quite a few. Some make their mistakes while they are still in high school while many more follow the path revealed by this study and wander away from the standards they swore by once they enter into their post-secondary education or career. In every situation whether acknowledged or not these people have lost something and as someone who also deals with couples on the other side of the wedding day I can tell you that these issues continue to affect relationships well into the married years.  I wonder though, what do we accomplish in our efforts to scare people into purity by constantly reminding them of the dangers of extramarital sex (pre or otherwise)? What  do we gain by reminding them again and again of how they have failed to measure up to God's standards - beating them down with their own mistakes? If the majority (and if this poll is to be believed the VAST majority) of our young people have already crossed that line are we putting all of our eggs into the wrong basket?

How do we teach our young people the value of chastity and at the same time acknowledge the fact that the overwhelming majority of them have failed in that area and are in need of much more than condemnation and scorn from the people who are supposed to love and care for them most? How can we preach abstinence to a generation that has already let that ship sail and is now most in need of safe harbour? What does a ministry of restoration look like to a people who have been taught in the past nothing but avoidance?

Questions that I am still searching for the answers to. May God give us all grace and wisdom as we search for them together as the people of God.

Wonderful Counsellor

I’m reading through Tim Keller’s excellent book King’s Cross right now which is an examination of the life of Christ – a sort of biography of Jesus during his ministry years. Being a fan of Keller’s insights I’ve had this book on my “I should eventually get to reading this” pile for a while, but then I stumbled upon the information that the biography was extracted from Mark’s account of the Messiah I knew I had to bump this book up the list as I have already committed to (and started working on) preaching through the Gospel of Mark beginning after New Years. Along the way I’m gleaning many insights about this exciting account of Jesus and getting increasingly fired-up about tackling this subject matter in my sermons – but today as I was reading over my lunch hour I came across a section on the healing of the Syrophoenician Woman from Mark Chapter 7 and Keller made an interesting point that really got me thinking.

In tackling the issue of how well this woman responded to Jesus and his racial epithet about the dogs and the children’s bread Keller makes the connection back to the story of the death of Lazarus – how Jesus knows what we need and gives it to us rather than treating us all equally – or rather more appropriately, treating us all the same. Here is what he says:

“Jesus’s response to the woman’s request to heal her daughter is enigmatic, cryptic, even astringent. With the deaf-mute he’s melt-in-your-mouth sweet. In John’s Gospel chapter 11, after Lazarus has died, he comes to be with Martha and Mary, the sisters. Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” and Jesus rebukes her. Then Mary comes up and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” and Jesus just weeps with her. Same words—by no means the same response. Why? Because Jesus always gives you what you need, and he knows better than you what that is. He’s the Wonderful Counselor.”

In this season of holiday brokenness, of old wounds of hurt and loneliness being opened up again where the ‘joy’ of the season for so many can be like salt rubbed in a laceration – isn’t is good news to know that the prophet foretold of the coming of one who would be called:

“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

-Isaiah 6:9b

Jesus deals with each of us as we need him. For some of us it’s a gentle hand guiding us through our troubles, for some of us is a wise word of guidance and for some of us (and I usually fall in the latter category) it’s a swift kick in the rear end and a rebuke to get over ourselves and get back with the program. It’s good news this Christmas that we have a wonderful counsellor who knows us like no other counsellor could.

Just an interesting thought for you today,

Chris

I have the best job

A glimpse into the world of the Estevan Alliance Church Staff:

Chris walks in the church this morning shivering from the weather.

Chris: I've made a decision. I hate winter.

Bev: I know what you mean - sometimes I just want to hibernate.

Chris: [pausing to understand what Bev said from across the office] Oh Hibernate! I thought you said something about pirates. You know I could really go for being a pirate right now. All that time spent sailing in the Caribbean.

[Waylon starts to interrupt but is cut off by Chris]

Chris: And yes I know that there are many pirates who operate in less tropical climates but that's the type of pirate I would want to be. Scurvy seems like a small price to pay to avoid winter.

Waylon: Shall we have you test that out?

-------------------------

Thanks guys for brightening my morning.

Chris

Thoughts on ritual and tradition

I came across this in my personal study about the practice of communion this week. It's a wonderful quote form Ben Witherington in his book Making a Meal of It: Rethinking the theology of the Lord's Supper. The context is the ritual of foot washing that some traditions include along with the Lord's Supper but the implications of the thought reverberate much deeper into other rites and rituals within the church.

Here is the quote:

 "I was reminded in a telling way that ceremonies, if one partakes of them in an open and worthy manner, are more than just sign language, more than just symbols. They are opportunities for a spiritual interchange that produces communion with Christ and with one another. Perhaps we need more ceremonies, not fewer, more occasions to enact and depict our faith and serve one another. For if the Lord of Hosts is the Host and unseen guest at his own Table, then we too have a rebirth of understanding and wonder when it comes to such ceremonies. This is not because there is something magical about the ceremony, or because it has some inherent dose of grace to pass along. It is because Jesus meets us on such occasions, and there cannot but be blessing and communion and cleansing that happens. And that is something we all need with regularity."

An interesting thought as we move toward celebrating the Lord's Supper this weekend at church.

Chris