Is the Traditional Church Dead?

 Do you remember the song “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. I remember singing it every Sunday growing up. “Red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight.(wait that’s the old non pc version) Every color, every race, all are covered by his grace.  Jesus loves the little children of the world.

I love the church. As Jesus’ love extends to all men, every color, age, and demographic, the church should be a picture of that that love. Here is the struggle; God has created every person different.  A senior adult will worship and “do church” far different than a young family with kids. Most churches divide along racial lines, economic lines and age lines. There was a day where most churches were vanilla and style played miniscule role. That day is gone. Today the divide between people in churches is growing larger and larger. You can go to a church just for cowboys or motorcyclists. It seems the new church is defined more by common interests than anything else.

I am the pastor of a “traditional church”. I have a heart that we would not be a church that is defined by our worship style, racial makeup or hobbies. As the divide in churches grows greater and greater how can a traditional church still function? Here is my answer, the gospel must be at our center.  The church should be a picture of heaven on earth. Heaven is not defined by any one race. It is not defined by any one social class of people. Heaven does not care about hobbies. In heaven every tongue and tribe of people will be gathering around God’s throne celebrating the great act of God’s redemption.  What if church could do that? What if we found our unity in God’s gospel and not in our silly wants and desires?

This Sunday as you walk into church ask yourself one simple question… Am I here to celebrate what I want or am I here to celebrate what God has done?

2012 Resolutions

Ok so here we go… my new year resolutions.
1. To go beyond just reading my bible.

I have noticed in my life how easily I can let devotion fall into pattern. I wake up, run, then read. There is nothing wrong in having a pattern in life as long as the pattern does not become mundane. It’s my prayer and hope this 2012 to do more than just check off boxes but instead read the word of God as it is the very bread of life.


2. To invest spiritually in my children.

It is really easy to come home from a long day of work, settle into my favorite recliner and relax until bedtime. As a pastor work is hard and emotionally draining. I have the privilege of investing spiritually into the lives of my people every day. That said, the most important people I need to invest in are waiting at home for me after work. I must begin to invest in my kids.


3. To become the pastor of Memorial Baptist Church.

Wait, you say, aren’t you already the pastor of MBC? Technically, yes. In actuality, no. A pastor is not made in a business meeting, he is made in a hospital room. It is my hope this 2012 to love the people of MBC and be with them both in their good times and their tough times.

4. To continue to blog weekly.

I did pretty well last year. I want to continue to grow in my ability to write and communicate about the things of God.

5. To run a marathon.

Hopefully by this time next week I’ll have accomplished this.

What do you see?

Recently my daughter has moved from recognizing letters to reading words. She has been working for months through stage one reading books, but I did not notice her brilliance until a few days ago when we were in the car. Ana’s has a new habit where she reads EVERY sign on the road. Every trip to the grocery store, gas station and church is filled with the play by play commentary of Ana announcing the companies and advertisements that we pass. For her it is a momentous experience as whole new world has been opened to her. Where my eyes have begun to churn the signage into white noise, Ana’s are popping with each new word.

Yesterday in my devotion I read the first few chapters of the book of Revelation. At the beginning of the book John exhorts 7 churches to fix their specific needs. The specific call I noticed was for a church that had begun to treat Christianity in a business as usual type of way.  His call was simple, return to your first love. 

I think we all get to a point in our faith when Jesus is no longer eye popping. Sadly we take the world changing gospel and churn it into white noise. The call for each one of us is simple, we must return to our first love and become childlike in our faith and rediscover the wonder of a Jesus Christ. As you read scripture, go to church and think about Jesus, are you even slightest bit excited or is it just white noise.

We Are Moving

Today is a bittersweet day for the Faulks. This morning at WesternHeights Baptist Church I officially said goodbye as God has called me to pastorMemorial Baptist Church in Pasadena, Tx. It is a sad day today as I rememberall of the good that God has done in my family’s life and our church over thepast 4 years. It is tough as we begin the process of saying good bye to manygood friends. God has been good to my family in His call for us to be atWestern Heights. We will miss all of our friends, church, and town dearly.  We love each and every friend we have had theopportunity to know here in Duncan. 

The Gospel According to Robert Irvine

One of my favorite shows to watch on television is a Food Network show called Restaurant Impossible. The show follows Chef Robert Irvine as he is challenged week after week to turn around small, failing restaurants. In this pursuit he is given an interior designer, a construction chief, a very limited budget, and 3 days. Most restaurants he walks into stink, have unappetizing food, and have a decorating scheme that looks like the 60’s never left.

In the show Chef Irvine tackles about everything. With a great amount of huffing and puffing and a little paint he takes the outdated decor and changes the look and the feel of the establishment. After tackling the decor he then turns and reeducates the wait staff.  In the final step of the show he then turns his attention to the most important problems in the restaurant, the lacking leadership of the owner and the unappetizing menu. The show teaches time and again that if the owner does not lead and the product does not excel, then the restaurant will fail despite its new look.

I have connected with this show because God has put a burden on my heart to pastor in established churches and see them excel. It is no secret that most churches (85%) are now declining and are within a generation if not less of permanently closing their doors. In a good majority of them they have tried redecorating more than just their walls. They have tried style, programs, and any number of things in attempting to revitalize what seems to be a sinking ship. The problem is they have changed the paint without ever looking at the bigger issues that keep them from turning the corner.

For the church to turn around it must go back to its menu and ask who and what it is serving. I believe that we as churches have forgotten what we exist to serve and have instead begun serving things that cannot sustain us in our future. We have directed our menus at trying to develop ministries and services that reach out solely to a saved and culturally Christianized crowd. I believe that this applies to both the “traditional” church and the “contemporary” one. What we have done in this is build an entire system of churches that attempt to grow off one another’s losses.

What must change?  I think we need to overhaul our menus. We must go back to seeing growth through men coming to trust Jesus, not men transferring their membership. We must design our church life to put our church bodies back in contact with people who do not know Jesus, not just plan and enjoy events that entertain us. We must lose the concept that people just randomly come to visit church and realize that me must go out to meet them and invite them.

The gospel is just as powerful as it always has been. The church has a bright and glorious future ahead of it. God will not forsake his bride. We are not looking at church impossible. That said we must change the foundational things that have kept us busy and blind. We must get back to the one thing that matters most: gospel centered living and church. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you have as much fun today as us!

Is God Angry with Oklahoma?

It has been one crazy year in Oklahoma. This past year we have had a snow storm that shut down the state, tornados that left trenches across counties, a drought that dried up nearly every tank , temperatures that averaged a high of 103.8 in July and  105.5 in august and this past week multiple earthquakes including the largest in Oklahoma history. What is going on? I’ve noticed whenever major weather events happen; conversation always turns to ask about God’s role in it. Are these catastrophes signs of the end times? What part does man play in their cause? Is God angry with Oklahoma? Is it His judgment?*

                                                                     

For me, I just don’t know if I can buy that these natural disasters are the purposeful acts of God. Don’t get me wrong God has used disasters and other means to judge men in the past, but he has always sent a messenger before it to communicate its purpose.  Here’s my take.

1.  God created the world perfect, man messed it up.

Oh no! Have I become one of those left wing, tree hugging, vegetable eating, love the earth people? Did I just say that the adverse weather that we are seeing more often today than ever before is man’s fault? Yep, and its biblical. God did create the world in perfection.  “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”  (Genesis 1:31) In that though, before you and I ever existed, man messed up the earth. “And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you;” (Genesis 3:17)

2. A broken world will continue to get worse.

As sin was brought into the world both man and the earth fell under the same curse: death. I know that my body will never be in a better condition than it is in now. My body will only get worse until I die. I know that because sin is in this world my body will face its curse daily until I go to be with God. The earth has the same curse. Just like our bodies, the earth is slowly dying because of the effects of sin.  I’m not a scientist and I cannot quantify how this will work. I am a theologian and I see scripture paints a picture of a dying earth suffering from the fallout of sin. We see more and more natural disasters because our world grows older more affected by the curse of sin.

3. Natural disasters should point our eyes to God’s grace.

Is there hope? Yes. When we attend the funeral of our dearly departed friends the message is always the same, our hope lies in eternity, not in today. Are we saddened by death? Yes. As we mourn we know that death is curse that we are still subjected to until Jesus comes back.

As we watch natural disasters it is much like attending a funeral. We look at the damage of a world cursed by death and are saddened. Our hearts do hurt when we see the destruction they bring along with the loss of life. We cannot look at these disasters without hope. Just as physical death points us to eternal life so the dying of this world should point us to God’s redemption of it.  

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”  (Romans 8:20-25)

* Henry Blackaby- The tsunami was judgment http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=19983

* Pat Robertson- Haiti made a deal with the devil http://youtu.be/aQ4dA6kZsEs