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I had an employee tell me the other day… Dr. Perkins, I’ve worked for you 15 years and I’ve seen you laugh and I’ve seen you cry. I’ve seen you happy and I’ve seen you sad. I know what you think is funny and what you think is not funny. I’ve seen you angry. I know when you get mad at me you won’t stay mad. I can read your face and tell you what you are thinking.
I don’t know why she told me that but what I find funny is that I have attended church with folks for thirty or more years and whom I love dearly who don’t know those kinds of things about me. And to be fair… I don’t know those things about them either.
Whenever we have people into our home I tell Julie we need some kind of activity. I found out that if we’re just sitting around talking (and I am mainly listening) that I get a little bored and start yawning which is embarrassing for me.
Julie tells me that I feed on emotions… when we’re sitting around talking… I’m starving but when we have an activity and when people are laughing and joyful and embarrassed and sharing their life with me then I’m… not starving… I’m forming the rudiments of an attachment.
I’m really kind of a loner. After I’ve been in the clinic and am inundated with social interaction with clients I like to go out to our place in Paplote and just be by myself driving a tractor or working on fence and feel best when I come home exhausted.
However to be the kind of Christian I need to be I invite church people to come out and work with me to show them a life that perhaps they are not used to and somewhere along the way we become close friends (if they keep coming).
I had a young exhausted Christian man tell me one time… Mr. Perkins I hope one day I’m as in as good as shape as you are. Stay busy young man work is your friend... TV is your enemy.
I never planned on that employee knowing me that well but that’s what happens when you share your life with someone. If we’re ever going to be closer as Christians we’re going to have to figure out a way to do something together that is not associated *only* with the church building
Most people would say that I have above average Bible knowledge. As I look back through the years one of the reasons would be that for the last 30-40 years I have been continuously teaching. I taught an adult Bible class continuously for many years and then I decided that as an Elder I needed to develop a better relationship with the kids growing up in the congregation so I signed myself up to teach one quarter per year for the Middle School class and one quarter per year in the High School class.
Keep in mind… I know all the kids in the congregation and they are friendly with me on a superficial level as happens when you just interact superficially.
Since I have been teaching those classes the last 2-3 years I am much closer to them. I not only go over the Bible lesson with them but ask them questions about what’s going on in their lives and share what’s going on in mine. It’s been transformational for me and one of the best things I have done.
It has also been good for me to tap a member who needs to be more involved to be an assistant teacher. They get to know the kids better, they get to know me better and they have a more in depth exposure to the scriptures. They have a better connection with the congregation.
Most people who are unhappy with their church-life are their own worst enemies. Even Stevie Wonder can see that the tools are there for a rich church/spiritual life… you just need to expend the effort to reach and pick up one of those tools.
The first letter to the Corinthians begins with Paul calling out the Christians in Corinth for wrongly judging their teachers. Namely, they were elevating and glorifying certain teachers and in so doing were demeaning other teachers.
This false judging of teachers had in its roots the idea that some thought they were spiritually superior to others because of who had taught and baptized them.
In addition, some of them had falsely judged Paul to not be a real Apostle. After all Paul had not walked with Jesus during his ministry and he wasn’t there at Pentecost. Certain of the Jewish Christians were mad at him because he wouldn’t make the Greek Christians follow Jewish customs like… circumcision.
So it was easier to vilify Paul’s apostleship, his teachings and his… converts.
The Corinthian’s were so high and mighty in their ability to judge Paul and other teachers that they failed to judge much more weightier issues (the Elephant in the room) like the member in chapter 5 who was in an inappropriate and sinful sexual relationship with a relative.
Their inability to properly judge was also revealed in chapter 6 when they took their fellow soldiers in Christ to Roman polytheistic magistrates to settle their civil matters.
Certain of them were so arrogant in their self-defined spirituality and superiority that they didn’t mind making others feel inferior and worse failed to recognize or to lift their sin sickened brethren out of Satan’s soul sucking quick sand.
You can see how improper judgement can destroy a congregation and render it ineffective in declaring the wisdom of God.
The ones in a congregation who are really spiritually superior don’t even recognize that. They are too busy helping others to even think like that.
As far as judging goes… let’s start by taking a critical and hard look at ourselves first and see how that feels before we serve a portion of that to someone else.
I occasionally see women wearing “head coverings” in church assemblies. The authority for that is found in 1 Cor. 11:5, “every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonors her head”. So… some women wear head coverings in the assemblies.
Let’s take a look at that. The activities being restricted are prayer and prophesy. This chapter in 1 Corinthians is surrounded with other chapters that are discussing “spiritual gifts”. Let me suggest that the prayer and prophesy being regulated here are prayer and prophesy that have been gifted to mankind... specifically women. And function to permit women to use their God given gifts and still show respect to her head (her husband, Jesus and God).
The gift of prophesy is a gift that is exercised in the assembly (1 Cor. 14). Women were given that gift. Phillip is cited as having four virgin daughters who had the gift of prophesy. How were they to exercise a God given gift in the assembly when it is “shameful for a woman to speak in the church" (1 Cor. 14:34-35)? ...By wearing a head covering.
Of course we don’t live in an age of miracles anymore and that regulation is no longer necessary. However, even so…I commend the women who wear head coverings for following their consciences.
There were two bodies of water that the Israelites passed through after they escaped from Egypt.
The first was the passage through the Red Sea. Of course it was a miraculous event… God parted the waters and the Israelites walked through on dry land headed for the Promised Land.
The second body of water was the Jordan River. After wandering around in the desert for 40 years God miraculously parted the waters of the Jordan River and they walked through on dry land into the Promised Land.
There’s another “water” that we have to pass through before we can reach our “Promised Land” and that is the water of Baptism. A miracle occurs when we pass through these waters… no the waters aren’t “parted” but what is “parted” is that we are parted or separated from our sin… Of course the miracle is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is mimicked in our own death (our old worldly nature), burial (in the waters of baptism) and resurrection (rising out of the water with a new life).
The Israelites were “baptized” in the waters of the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1-2) but that doesn’t mean they led perfect unblemished lives after that. No… in fact they failed Jehovah-God many times but God was always there waiting to forgive them and he’s waiting patiently to forgive us too.
If you haven’t accepted the “miracle” of Baptism… don’t waste anytime… do it right now. Try as best you can to never sin again but realize if you do God doesn’t give up on his people after all he didn’t give up on the Israelites who were the first ones to receive the Good News of Salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
In the book of Ruth we are introduced to a Jewish family consisting of a married couple… Elimilech and Naomi and their two sons… Mahlon and Kilion. There is a great famine in Judah so they temporarily relocate to the gentile country of Moab where there is food.
Elimilech dies in Moab and Naomi becomes a widow. Even in this life changing event Naomi finds some joy (for a while) as her two sons marry two young Moabite women… Orpah and Ruth and the prospect of grandchildren and an extension of Naomi’s family line looks promising.
But Mahlon and Kilion are married to their wives for ten years and no children… and then tragedy is compounded with tragedy and both Mahlon and Kilion die and now there are three widows living together… Naomi, Orpah and Ruth.
Naomi decides to go back to her hometown of Bethlehem and urges her daughter-in-laws not to come with her. After all, both of their parents are still alive, there hometown is in Moab along with all their friends. With many tears Orpah takes Naomi’s advice but not Ruth. Ruth utters these famous words…
“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
You see, Ruth probably became a Jew when she married Kilion and she wasn’t going to turn her back on Naomi and watch her walk the road to Bethlehem by herself to an uncertain future. She just wasn’t going to do it. Whatever the future held they would face it together and trust in God.
When they get to Bethlehem the whole town is “stirred up” and excited to see Naomi and of course they hear the story of Ruth’s unwavering devotion to Naomi and that story is told and retold through-out Bethlehem.
Ruth, following the Jewish system to provide for widows goes out to glean the fields. That is to follow the harvesters and collect whatever they have missed and ends up in a field owned by an older man named Boaz. Boaz happens to be a “kinsman-redeemer” a relative of Elimilech’s who is obligated to buy Elimilech’s ancestral land from his widow Naomi and take Ruth as his wife (and provide her with a child) to continue the familial line of Elimilech.
Boaz notices Ruth and asks who she is. He already knows Ruth by reputation and even though he is much older than Ruth commends her for not running after a younger man and makes her his wife.
Ruth becomes pregnant and she and Boaz have a son named Obed. The town is ecstatic and over joyed for Naomi. They give a blessing to Naomi and Obed and proclaim that Ruth is worth 7 sons to Naomi.
The book finishes by giving a short genealogy that shows that Obed’s son is Jesse and Jesse’s son is David (who killed Goliath). Ruth the young woman from Moab is the great grandmother of the famous and renowned King David.
We never hear anything else about Orpah. She probably went to live with her mom and dad and then married and had children and probably lived a nice life in Moab. She took Naomi’s advice and made a perfectly logical choice.
Ruth followed her heart and with no assurance of what the future might hold walked to Bethlehem hand in hand with Naomi.
Not only did God bless her with a great grandson in David… King of Israel (whom she probably knew) but also blessed her to be the mother of Jesus Christ… King of the Earth for eternity.
Logical decisions are good but may fail us. Always listen to your heart. Ruth did and look what God did for her.
Successful businesses usually have a superior front desk. After all, the front desk is who your clientele sees first and who they see last so it’s important to make a good impression at the front desk.
At the front desk you hire for personality and not for skills… you can train skills but you can’t train personality.
I recently had to join a new gym because my old gym closed down. I was in there one day and a very personable young man who happened (as I found out later) to be the director of trainers for this corporate owned gym walked up to me and introduced himself. He showed interest in me and invited me to join his Kettlebell class. He had personality and advanced social skills.
After several weeks in his class he turned the class over to a young woman trainer. I had noticed this trainer before and found her to be quiet and aloof and had already made the judgment that she wasn’t very “good”, but I loved the Kettlebell class and continued on.
I found this woman to be very skilled and once I got to know her came to like her and found her class to be better than the other guys.
In congregations, it is very important to greet visitors in such a way that they want to continue “the class”… so to speak.
Congregations should identify those (men and women) who have winning personalities (so important in businesses and gyms) and place them in a position to greet visitors. That means they probably need to sit in the back or make their way to the back during the announcements at the close of services because visitors tend to leave early. This way the greeters can hold the visitors up so the rest of the congregation can interact with them.
It takes a team in congregations and everyone needs to understand their own strengths and weaknesses.
We have an employee who works back in out kennel and it takes a special person to work back there with all the barking, etc. When Ethel (not her real name) brings boarding dogs up she interacts with the owners and they just love her. Ethel could never work at our front desk (and she knows that) but she is one of our most valuable employees and makes our business better.
Let’s work on making our congregations better too.
