Mingling With the World

“…but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.”
Psalm 106:33

Psalm 106 is one of those Psalms that recounts the story of what God did for the people and how the people of Israel were quick to forget the mighty deeds of God. As I was reading this Psalm, verse 33 jumped out at me and got me to thinking.

One of the great sins the nation Israel committed was their failure to utterly destroy the peoples that inhabited the Promised Land to which God led them. Instead of destroying them, they “mingled” with them. One definition of the word is “to get involved or mixed up with.” That’s just what the Israelites did. They began to worship the idols of the people around them. They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. The Promised Land was desecrated by the innocent blood shed to these false Gods. It was not a pretty sight, the things done by these followers of God.

I know that we are not under the Law of the Old Testament. We are a people of Grace. I wonder though, is the statement of the Old Testament still not true for us today—“Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” Are we still not supposed to worship God and God alone? I sometimes wonder, if the church has “…mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.”

For example:

• We sit back and allow thousands of unborn children to be killed each year through abortion.


• We continue to let our rights be eroded in the public sector through legislation and rulings that say that our voice, our views, our ideas are not acceptable in our pluralistic society—and yet any other idea seems to have free reign.


• We bow down to the Gods of consumerism and we seek to keep up with the Jones’ and we enslave ourselves to our job and neglect our families.

What would you add to my list? What would you disagree with on my list?

The Way We Do Things

The Way We Do Things Around Here

Have you ever been a stranger in a new place. It’s hard to get a feel for the culture. Moving from town to town in our Annual Conference, I have noticed that each town has it’s own feel. It’s hard to put into words what I am talking about, but I bet those of you that travel a lot know what I mean. One word that I use to describe this different feel is to say that each town I have lived in has its own culture. Each town has its own way of doing things. Some of those things are traditions that go back for decades. In Jasper, I always knew I could count on going to the town hall/fire department on Halloween night. Members of the fire department, the mayor and his wife, and other town dignitaries would be there and they would pass out candy and gifts and even run a metal detector over a child’s bag of candy (That is a sign of the times that I really don’t like.) I knew what it felt like to be in Jasper on Halloween.

Churches are a lot like towns. They are made up of groups of people with differing ideas, values, and goals. I believe that each church I serve has its own unique culture. In my first church, the Walland United Methodist Church, I knew that after the Wednesday night Bible Study, everyone would be heading into town to eat the buffet at Pizza Inn. In several of my churches, I knew that when fall came, it was time to get out the copper kettles to make apple butter. In other churches, there was a certain way in which worship was conducted and a certain way that you conducted yourself in worship. All of these kinds of things help to make up the culture of any local church.

Culture, tradition, and heritage are all important things for a church to have. However, we have to make sure that these things do not impair the growth of the church. Imagine what it is like for a first time visitor to our church. We say, “Hello” to them at the door. We put a bulletin in their hand. We help them find a seat. Then they are off on their own. There’s a good chance, they won’t know when to stand. They might not know the songs we sing. They might not be familiar with the order and flow of worship. The tings that we take for granted as common and everyday occurrences—the things that define our culture of worship—are totally foreign to the visitor.

One of the things that we are going to attempt to do in the months ahead is define our culture and design an aid—probably a DVD—that we can give to visitors to help them begin to understand who we are and how we do things and invite them to come and join with us as we all seek to get used to yet another culture—the culture of the Kingdom of God—we are all strangers in that culture, but we are seeking to learn more about it with each passing day.

Standing at the Door

Standing at the Door

I just finished reading the poem, I Stand at the Door written by Samuel Moor Shoemaker. The poem recounts the thoughts of a character that is standing by a door. The door is a gateway to God. On the one side is heaven with all of its attractions. On the other side is a dark lost world. The door is the only way to God. The character in the poem debates with himself the side of the door on which he should stand on. He knows the way in. He knows where the door knob can be found. He realizes, however, that in the darkness on the side of door away from God, there are men and women groping along the wall trying to find the doorknob—trying to get it. The dilemma of the character in the poem is—if I go all the way in, I am afraid I might get so lost in God that I will forget the people on the other side that are seeking God. So, the main character feels that he must stay close to the door. Perhaps he can guide the hand of someone onto the knob so that she might come in. Perhaps he might convince those that do make it in and then get overwhelmed that they should stay. How far from the door will he go?

I think that sometimes, we are much like the character in this poem. We have found the door and ventured in and we get so caught up in the things of God that we forget that there are others outside of the door. We get so far away from the door that we can’t be of help to those that want in. Likewise, we can’t give advice to those that do make it in, but aren’t sure they want to stay. Perhaps, we need to stand closer to the door. Perhaps we need to remember that our goal is to bring others into the house—God’s house—and we can only do that if we are close enough to help when they try to get in.