Elliot Rodger

A name that flashed on the scene this past week… chances are that in a few weeks his name will be forgotten by all but his family.  If you are not familiar with the story – it happened in California.   He went on a rampage that killed 6 people, then shot himself. Basically because he felt snubbed by girls and the “obnoxious brutes” (as he called them).

He posted at least 22 YouTube videos. He wrote in his manifesto that he uploaded most of his videos in the week leading up to April 26, when he originally planned to carry out his attacks. He postponed his plan after catching a cold. "On the week leading up to date I set for the Day of Retribution, I uploaded several videos onto YouTube in order to express my views and feelings to the world, though I don't plan on uploading my ultimate video until minutes before the attack, because on that video I will talk about exactly why I’m doing this," Rodger wrote.In the final video posted Friday, he sits in a black BMW in sunset light and appears to be acting out scripted lines and planned laughs. "I'll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you," the son of a Hollywood director who worked on "The Hunger Games" says.(the above paragraph is from FOX News)

 Rodger’s father is a film director associate with “The Hunger Games” – the young man apparently had wealth because he is sitting in a very nice black BMW at the age of 22. Was Elliot mentally ill? Most would say yes, but honestly we, the general public, won’t know for sure. His family says he was under the care of a therapist. I watched the last video that he posted on YouTube before they took all of his videos down. It was disturbing both in what he said and the pleasure with which he said it. In my personal opinion, based solely on what I saw in the video (and I am not mental health professional) is that yes he did have a mental problem.

But that isn’t what this post is about, it’s not about him…. It’s about us. We never know what a person has or is going through. We pass people on the street in our daily life and it never crosses our minds that their life could be devastated, it could be falling apart.  These nameless faces could be in a sea of pain yet we can’t of don’t see it. I wonder if this young man’s trajectory been altered by the kindness of smile, an encouraging word, a pat on the back by a friend. I’m not saying that it would have fixed his mental illness, but how often has someone said something to me that changed my day, impacted my heart and lifted my spirit…This young man had money, he seemed to be a nice looking young man, according to society he had a lot going for him. But none of that mattered. If you had listened to his words in the video you would have heard one HUGE resounding need… relationship. Yes, in the video he speaks of sex and girls and virginity (by the way – being 22 and still having your virginity is NOT a bad thing – it’s a very honorable thing). The bottom line was I heard a young man who didn’t feel loved, and this is not a knock on his parents, but every person needs to know love from someone who isn’t “required” to love them.

 God created us as relational beings – first to have a relationship with Him and then to have relationships with others. These relationships NEED TO BE unconditional for if they are not they are not genuine nor are they fulfilling. In Mark 12:30-31

“…and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

There is nothing greater, there is nothing more satisfying than to know that you are loved…

The Black Eyed Peas have a great song that gets to me every time – “Where Is The Love” – take a moment later on to listen to the words. 

Anyway; today, this week, every day this week would you take a moment to be genuine with someone? Say HI to a sad face. Ask someone to lunch. Send an encouraging email or card. Take time to have a relationship, even a momentary one with a person that you run into. You may never know that you might have changed the course of their life by your act of kindness (and don’t make it random).

I have to blog this article – I cant claim it as mine, I wish I could but I found the article to be very pointed and honest and RIGHT…

 Finally: A Definitive List of Every Essential Element for an Effective Church

by Karl Vaters

 Too many church leaders spend too much time on too many things that aren’t essential for an effective church.

But what are the essential elements of an effective church?

Good news. I’ve found the definitive list, and today I’m going to share it with you.

But first, a few things that aren’t on the list.

A church doesn’t need to be big to be effective.

A church doesn’t need to be small to be effective.

A church doesn’t need a mission statement to be effective.

A church doesn’t need a choir or worship team to be effective.

A church doesn’t need suits and dresses to be effective.

A church doesn’t need to dress casually to be effective.

A church doesn’t need small groups to be effective.

A church doesn’t need a website to be effective.

A church doesn’t need a building to be effective.

A church doesn’t even need a pastor to be effective. (A shout-out to all my house church peeps!)

Our Priorities Matter

None of those things are wrong. Many of them can make a good ministry better. The church I pastor has or does most of them.

 BUT THEY’RE NOT ESSENTIAL.

When we start thinking they’re essential, then our way is right and other ways are wrong.

 Then we start obsessing over them.

Wasting time, money and emotion on them.

Arguing over them.

Alienating ourselves from other believers because of them.

And ignoring real needs because of our obsession with nonessentials.

What Are the Essentials?

There are only two essential elements for a church to be effective:

1. People who genuinely love Jesus.

2. People who genuinely love each other.

Anything less isn’t church.

Anything more is personal preference.

 No personal preference is worse than any other—unless it draws people away from either of those essentials. No personal preference is better than any other—except to the person whose faith is strengthened by it.

 The Relentless Battle

The problem with our personal preferences is that we really do prefer them. Sometimes we prefer them over the actual essentials.

It’s too easy to allow nonessential preferences to take over our lives, churches and ministries. The danger isn’t that we’ll fail, but that we’ll do the nonessentials so well that we’ll accept them as a substitute for successful, effective ministry.

Perhaps the #1 job of a church leader is not to let our guard down in the relentless battle to keep the nonessentials from crowding out the essentials.

So what do you think? How are we doing on the essentials? 

 

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Love God Love People – anything less – IS NOT CHURCH

Anything more is just personal preference…

God, Please don’t let me lose my first love, please don’t let me put my PREFERENCES over loving You and people… Help me to see You, help me to see people the way You do. Where a man-made rule hinders me from doing that, let me break it. Where my personal preference gets in the way of loving – take it from me…

 

  Play Song 

"Where Is The Love?"

 

 What's wrong with the world, mama     People livin' like they ain't got no mamas

 I think the whole world addicted to the drama     Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma

  Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism      But we still got terrorists here livin'

 In the USA, the big CIA          The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

 

 But if you only have love for your own race    Then you only leave space to discriminate

 And to discriminate only generates hate    

 And when you hate then you're bound to get irate, yeah

  Madness is what you demonstrate    And that's exactly how anger works and operates

 Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight

 Take control of your mind and meditate     Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all

 

 People killin', people dyin'     Children hurt and you hear them cryin'

 Can you practise what you preach     And would you turn the other cheek

  Father, Father, Father help us     Send some guidance from above

 'Cause people got me, got me questionin'

 Where is the love (Love)

 

 Where is the love (The love)

 Where is the love (The love)

 Where is the love, the love, the love

  It just ain't the same, old ways have changed     New days are strange, is the world insane?     If love and peace are so strong      Why are there pieces of love that don't belong?

  Nations droppin' bombs      Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones

 With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young     So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone

  So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong   

 In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin' in

 Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends

 Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother

 A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover

  The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug

 If you never know truth then you never know love

 Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know)

 Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know)

 Where's the love, y'all

  People killin', people dyin'   -    Children hurt and you hear them cryin'

 Can you practise what you preach  -   And would you turn the other cheek

  Father, Father, Father help us   -   Send some guidance from above

 'Cause people got me, got me questionin'

 Where is the love (Love)

  Where is the love (The love)?      Where is the love (The love)?

 Where is the love (The love)?      Where is the love (The love)?

 Where is the love (The love)?       Where is the love (The love)?

 Where is the love, the love, the love?

 

 I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder    As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder      Most of us only care about money makin'     Selfishness got us followin' the wrong direction

  Wrong information always shown by the media      Negative images is the main criteria

 Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria      Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

  Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity     Whatever happened to the fairness and equality      Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity

 Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity

 

 That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under

 That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down

 There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under

 Gotta keep my faith alive 'til love is found

 Now ask yourself

  Where is the love?  Where is the love? Where is the love? Where is the love?

 

 Father, Father, Father, help us     Send some guidance from above

 'Cause people got me, got me questionin'   -     Where is the love?

  Sing with me y'all:

 One world, one world (We only got)           One world, one world (That's all we got)

 One world, one world

 And something's wrong with it (Yeah)    Something's wrong with it (Yeah)

 Something's wrong with the wo-wo-world, yeah

 We only got             (One world, one world)

 That's all we got      (One world, one world)

  

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.

1 John 3:16-18

Today – I choose to die.

 I have heard too many people say that. Oh, they didn’t come right out and use those words, but they made a choice to die none the less.

What it boils down to is that they chose to do nothing to change the course, thus they made the choice by not making a choice.

Let me give you an example. My dear mother whom I love dearly, who died almost a year to the day that I write this, died and the cause of death listed on the death certificate reads – “Breast cancer.”

 

She had been diagnosed many months earlier, but once told that she had breast cancer she chose to do nothing. I mean absolutely nothing. Not just “no” to any treatment, but an emphatic NO to anything… no MRI, no CT scan, no Ultrasound and definitely no surgery. She didn’t even want to discuss the fact that she even had cancer.

Yet it was ultimately the cause of death.

I know that the whole discussion of quality of life and effects of the treatment are part of the discussion. BUT, the bottom line falls to the fact that she made a choice. She knew she was dying, she knew what was going on under the surface but refused to acknowledge it. I didn’t agree with her decision, but it was her life and I could not make the choice for her, I could only love her with the time we had until the inevitable.

Now, I see and hear of too many people, too many churches that make the same choice. They loudly proclaim that today they choose to die. Again, not that they actually use those exact words but they say it loudly and proudly when they refuse to discuss that there might be a “cancer” of sorts causing a slow wasting away of it’s body.

They don’t want to discuss it, they don’t want to even acknowledge it, they don’t want to even think about and there is no way, no how that they are going to allow a radical surgery to make the desperately needed changes to ensure not just survivability but “thrivability.”

 

Thousands of churches across the country are declining – one researcher notes that – “Approximately 80% of all churches in North America have reached a plateau or are declining.” (Daniel R. Sanchez, Church Planting Movements in North America (Fort Worth, TX: Church Starting Network, 2007)

Let me define “declining” for you – it really just the nice way of saying – YOU ARE DYING! In my opinion there is no such thing as “negative growth.” You are either growing or you are dying… Thom Rainer is quoted as saying – “According to my estimates, about one in four American churches, or around 100,000 churches, fit the definition of a dying church”

 

I am a young 50 years old. I can tell you that if I went to the doctor and they told me that I had some disease but that if I went through the treatment, as difficult as it might be, and that if I did I could continue to have a life with my family and my grandkids – well, I would ask they how soon can we start!

Yet, in his book “Autopsy of a Deceased Church” Thom Rainer talks about churches who actually get EXTREMELY ANGRY when told they are dying and need change, maybe even radical change. They (the churches) seriously refuse to admit or change – right up to the point that they lock the door and fold the flag.

Rainer, as well as many other church consultants, have said – if you just make some changes you can have a long healthy very possibly thriving life ahead of you… YET they still get angry and refuse the treatment, and instead say – TODAY I CHOOSE TO DIE.

 

I am not suggesting what the changes might be; they are different for every church. What I am suggesting is that every church has to look at itself honestly, even when difficult, and be not just ready and willing to make changes but to actually go ahead and make the HARD choice to LIVE! Even if that requires radical surgery.

Let me leave you with another example. I have an uncle who I love and respect. He was diagnosed with cancer, and might I add not at a “young” age. They (my aunt and uncle) didn’t try to pretend he didn’t have it, they didn’t stick their heads in the sand… they accepted the fact but then CHOSE to go through together whatever it would take to live.

He had treatment, he had surgery, he had more treatment… it wasn’t easy… I am sure that it was scary at times and they had a lot of people praying… but he in essence said – “Today I choose to live!”

And he is enjoying life even today, sure things changed some but he chose to live.

 

I guess the question I would leave you with is this – what will you choose?

I ran across this piece in a Dear Abby column recently and while not surprised I was struck by the content… take a look…

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DEAR ABBY: I, too, am in a "mixed marriage." I'm religious and my husband is an atheist. We agree to disagree on the matter. Religion (or lack of it) is a very personal thing, and however we feel, we owe each other respect for our different views.

 "Coerced" is great for trying to accommodate her husband, but now that they see it didn't work, he should stop pressuring her. She can refrain from going to services, but should consider attending the church's social events. This solution worked well for us. My husband and my church friends get along well.

 Of course, this depends on the nature of the church. Mine happens to be one of the more progressive. It's worth a try. -- KATHRYN IN OTTAWA, CANADA

 DEAR ABBY: I knew my husband was atheist when we married. Our spiritual journeys are different, and we're not going to change each other.

 We agreed I would raise our kids Catholic. I never expect him to be at church with us on Sundays, but on important sacraments (baptism, first communion, confirmation), he is there with the whole family because he realizes these events are important for his kids and me. He has become friendly with some of my clergy and fellow congregants, who accept him for the wonderful person he is.

 Maybe in the future "Coerced" could attend an event like a church spaghetti dinner, something outside of services, and get to know the people her husband spends time with on Sunday. And he could spend a weekend doing a silent hiking retreat with his wife and her friends.

Respecting each other's spiritual path is a first step toward appreciating each other's differences and growing together. -- BLESSED IN OREGON

 DEAR ABBY: "Coerced" is lucky to have a man who attends church and wants her to go, too. She might consider helping in the nursery. That way, she's there with him but doesn't have to listen to the message. Churches are always looking for help so parents can actually attend the service. -- LAURA IN CONNECTICUT

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 Ok, I see a problem here. I am all for relationship evangelism but not “relationship” evangelism. The bible is pretty clear in how it addressed this item of life.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:14

 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

There was (and is) a reason for this. When two people are put together and have distinctly different, often diametrically opposed faiths there will inevitably be conflict. This conflict will go beyond “how will we raise the children…”

Our faith system is at the root of how we act, who we are and how we live our lives (well, its supposed to be anyway). God, in His infinite wisdom knows that putting two people together who are at opposite ends of the spectrum would lead to marital conflict.

Some people will say – “But if I date them and if we get married maybe I can be the one that leads them to Christ.” Well, you better lead them there first!

Then they will quote something like 1 Corinthians 7:16

For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?

BUT they are taking that out of context. This verse is referring to those who are ALREADY married and one accepts Christ and the other has not.. yet… but that in the staying together in a marriage that is ALREADY established the result may be that the other comes to know Christ.

 It comes as no surprise that the believing spouse is writing to Dear Abby about their non-believing spouse.. but for the ones who knew that going into it, they knew better, so they honestly brought this issue on themselves. God told you that it would happen… so it should come as no surprise. What did you think was going to happen?

 IF you are someone who is currently dating, who is looking for that future husband and wife, it is far and away more advisable to find someone who is of the same faith and who has the same love for God as you do. Don’t try to use “relationship” evangelism if you are dating a non-believer. You will be better served by a future spouse who believes in the Biblical tenants of being a Godly husband or Godly wife and who will strive to BE that for you.

Don’t invite, welcome and embrace potential problems into your future relationship.