Written last night:

Ok, so today I was at an “alternative service.” It’s my youth pastor trying his hand at the emerging church thing, and I must say, he definitely did his homework. While the music remained similar to my churches norm, he had the candle thing, and the post-modern “whatever you feel will express you best” type things: writing on paper on the walls, a sort for prayer journal at the front for anyone to write in, and a sit, stand, or lie down type of  setting. He used a lot of media and technology, and did the sort of things you would expect in this type of service. Overall I think it was a good worship setting. My problem: it was an outreach.

I suppose I hadn’t realised it since I have been away from my church, but it is very ‘seeker sensitive’. In retrospect I can see that it’s moving away from that, but I think it still always has it as a sort of mindset. The message at this service was an overtly evangelical one. It was about ‘new life’, and how our culture was searching for it, and how it can only be found in Christ. Now, don’t get me wrong: that’s all true and good, and I’m not against evangelism. It’s using the worship service as a means of that that I dislike. I suppose I should explain why.

We have all heard of the ‘seeker sensitive’ mega-churches. These churches that are filled with a thousands of members, and are growing rapidly. The focus of these churches is wholly evangelism, and they do it well. The problem is this: they may have a sea of believers, but it’s only an inch deep. Someone who hears the same evangelical message over and over will know it well, and I’m sure they surround it with lots of singing, but when you ask them why, they have little to say. Ok, I know I’m over generalizing here, but this type of thing does exist. Honestly I think this type of church is the reason someone like James Dobson can shut down the post office in Washington with a few words.

Thinking upon this kind of church has led me to think of many things: what is the best way to properly do evangelism, what is not, how important is evangelism, at what cost should we pursue it, how was it done in the Bible? I think the answers to these questions are exemplified in the convention of the Sunday service.

It has become the staple of basically every church in existence. Some might change the time, some might alter the format, but I think it’s fair to say every church has it. I ask then: what is it for? The obvious answer is a meeting of believers to worship God and learn for those who would teach. At this goal, it for the most part succeeds. Most churches will have praise songs, and a sermon; worship, and teaching. Now, under this the Sunday service is designed for believers. What if non-believers came? After all, if every church has one of these, a non-believer who would like to try out church will show up for this, and not some other program the church might run. If their are going to be non-believers there, we ought to try and convince them of Christianity: for they may not stick around long. How could we do that? Well, the sermon is perfect. They expect it to happen, so they won’t get scarred away by it, and it’s about the right size to say something of impact. So, we preach the gospel message, and maybe someone will be saved.

“It certainly can’t hurt,” says a man I respect when I mentioned my doubts about the service. But it seems to me something has been lost. Our original service was about worship and teaching, a sort of emotion-intellect mixture where God can speak to us, but we’ve lost the teaching. We end up with emotion only, and though that certainly has it’s place, it leaves the service lacking. It also leaves the congregation lacking. After all, no teaching means no learning, no learning: no growing. But what about those poor non-believers who may have wandered in, or been invited by someone? Shall we just ignore them?

Is personal growth among a congregation a price worth paying for more effective evangelism? Should we let people remain mostly ignorant in the hope of  filling heaven with these ignorant people? Is there a better way? I say yes, yes there is. God would not have us be shallow, nor would he have us not evangelising: he commended both. I propose that having deep Christians, and having those Christians go out into the non-believing world, will yield a better result then seeker sensitivity ever could.

Case and point: the early church. How did the early church spread so well? They did far better then the biggest of mega-churches put together. Did the apostles just host come-hear-our-message meetings: telling every new convert to go out and get as many people as possible to come to the next one? Certainly not. Most of the new testament is comprised of the apostles teachings to Christians, and these were for everyone is these churches. The goal of the apostles was not simply evangelism, but the growth of believers. These growing believers in turn saw new converts, and those more. But it was the depth of the church that made the difference. The apostles didn’t do it by themselves, they trained others.

It all comes back to tonight’s service. A room filled mostly with believers listening to an evangelistic message. However important that message is, they’ve all heard it before, and they can hardly respond to something you can only respond to once. Now I know they were people there who were not believers. This might have had something to do with this service being advertised as an ‘outreach service’, but whatever the reason, I’m sure the message must have had an impact. I wonder though: what were they doing when we were singing praises to a God they don‘t know? Not only that, but I think more non-believers would have come out to hear this message were the rest of the service dropped, and replaced with something entertaining and fun. And not only that, but I think a message with more substance would have opened up more opportunity for God to teach us, and speak to us.

In conclusion: a seeker sensitive worship service is counter productive. It’s a matter of short term gain, and long term suck. Now, somebody go out and change the thinking of modern popular Christianity for me.

I’ve been working. The temp agency that has had me on their list finally called. This resulted in two jobs. The first: Engineered Solutions. So I get a call around 5, and they tell me they have a job for me, but I have to show up asap. Well, seeing as I was getting desperate, I jumped all over it. I show up, and follow the instructions I was given by walking into this large building, and asking the first person that would pay attention to me where I could find the Engineered Solutions supervisor. Well, I forgot the name, and asked for engineering solutions, but either way, this guy seemed pissed at the world. He seemed angered by my presents in the room, I think that was his only reason for asking if he could help me, and when I asked him my question, he got in a huff, hurriedly sat down at a desk, and paged someone over the intercom. He then proceeded to ignore me for a good 5 minutes, until someone else chose to help me. Well, this person led me through a large warehouse, where people were operating large machinery, and making who-knows-what.

We arrived a what seemed to be a clearing in the stacks of metal crates, where there were people doing something without machines. I later gathered that this was the domain of engineered solutions, who, I think, tests products for this larger company. Anyway, he left me with a sik (sp?) fellow who spoke a shattered English (which I later discovered was par for the course). He demonstrated a rather simple task of placing one piece of metal into another to test the size of the first. So, that’s what I did, again, and again, and again, and again, and again. First lesson of warehouse work: monotony can be your friend. When you’re doing the same thing over and over, and that thing takes the brain power of a goldfish to accomplish, it leaves most of your mind to ponder your surroundings. Every once and a while, an important looking man with a blue overcoat and a pen in his front pocket would come by and argue with my supervisor in another language, when this happened, my instructions would change slightly. Before long, my supervisor asked me to work until 2 am, instead of 11, which I was originally told. After the guy who was working closest to me translated, I agreed.

Then, the lunch buzzer rang. I was starving. You see, I left for work just before dinner, and I hadn’t happened to eat any time before that. So, when I entered the lunch room and saw some instant noodles in a vending machine, I couldn’t help myself, though I think I was under prepared. After the machine ate my first 2$ attempt, and sketched out on the second, I got the noodles. I read the instructions: “step one, add boiling water.” Where was I going to get that? I looked around until I found a tap and a microwave. Ok, but now I need something to contain the water. A coffee machine! I took the Coffee container off it and filled it with water. Just as I was about to press ok on the microwave, I realised something crucial: it was metal. Ok, that plan scratched. Nothing to use. I know! I could use the noodle container itself. Not what it’s meant for, but what the hell, I’m starting to get desperate, I only have 20 minutes. Ok, noodles cooked, but what can I eat them with? I search the room, nothing. I sat down at the closest table to ponder to latest predicament, when the guy I was working with undigested something. There were coffee lids sitting by the instant coffee machine! Of course, Coffee Lid Chopsticks! It worked, and I was filling my stomach just fine, when some onlookers, who by now must have thought me quite nuts, asked me if I’d like I fork. Heh, I sheepishly said that would be helpful. Well, it turns out my original scower of the place wasn’t complete. She had me look on top of the vending machine: nothing there. She then went into some drawer, ruffled around, and pulled out a fork. “Is not mine. But you clean. Will me fine.” I had done it at Tyndale, why not here. By now I had just enough time to inhale my noodles and run some water over my ‘borrowed’ fork before the buzzer went again. Off to work.

The evening pretty well continued in the previous manner. Test part, put it aside, test part, put it aside. You know, I don’t even know that the function of the thing was. Anyway, 2 am came, and I called a cab to get home.

Job the second: Tabco. This time Armor Personnel was on the ball. My mother woke me up to a call from their office, I had a job for two days, and it was to start at 4. This time I eat, and packed a lunch, or, dinner I guess, and was off. Unfortunately, I could only get a ride for 3:15, but I sat and read the moral theory of one Clive Staples Lewis until I was called. So, after signing my life away to some corporation, I was led into another large warehouse, which was comparatively small. I was handed gloves, ear plugs, safety glasses, and a typical blue overcoat with the name “Steve” written in cursive over the right breast. I put them all on, and someone with the name Andrei on his coat led me to a series of large machines, one of which had “C 3” painted on it. “C for coining!,” Yells Andrei over the machinery and the ear plugs, “This number 3!” He explained the proper operation of this machine, but I didn’t really understand him. When you’re talking with someone who has a strong accent, often your best bet is to see what information you can gather by tone of voice. When you talking to someone with a strong accent and your warring ear plugs, you’re pretty much fucked. Anyway, I watched him demonstrate, and gathered enough to figure it out. I then signed something saying I was properly trained in the operation of a coining machine; well, I still didn’t know what a coining machine actually did, but I had to sign it to start working, so whatever, I signed Chris Jones (my name according to my divers licence, and therefore Armor Personnel, and everyone who talks to them, though most people here called me Steve). So I was off to the machine. This time, my monotony became an art. You see, to my right was a fellow welding brake shoes, and to my left a lady punching holes in them. I had to run the shoes through the machine fast enough to keep the pace going. At first I sucked, and they had to stop welding every once and a while so I could catch up. This is where the art came in. I was constantly figuring tricks to get the job done faster and faster: saving half a second could mean the difference between a large pile of shoes and a small one. I think this whole thing did a lot for my left handed dex, though it killed by the end of it. After a day and a half of this, my hands feel like their covered in a large bruise, which only takes a break in places where I have blisters; I’ll live though.

*Proverb of the Day: When you’re looking at the world through safety glasses, everything is blurry.* 

So, lunch break came and went without event this time, one fellow ate in the same room as me, I came to refer to him as “the guy in the pioneer shirt,” because I couldn’t pronounce his name (note to Jamie: he probably picked it up at a used clothing store, the guy had only been living in the country for a month, I doubt he had any association with the camp, I suppose theirs always a possibility though). I didn’t exchange words with the guy until the next day, but by then he was just trying to make conversation, and it was a little awkward because I could hardly understand his accent, I think it was something European. Anyway, I went back to work: more deathly monotony.

That night and the one before contained the dreams of yore post, I think the work was getting to my head. It was the next morning I wrote that, then went off to work again. When I arrived I opened the locker I was assigned, and got out all my gear. I was doing the coining thing again for about half the day, and then everyone seemed to switch machines. I guess Andrei thought it would be a good idea for me to learn another one. He again made another failing attempt to train me on a machine, but again, I though I had it. I signed another paper, and then went to work. Now, I’m not sure whether I was doing something wrong, or whether the machine was having a problem, but Andrei, with a frustrated look on his face, told me to stop. He apparently had no other job for me, because I spent most of the remaining time sitting one some crates wishing I had something to occupy my time. He had me packing shoes from a machine he would operate into a box for a while, but he takes fairly regular smoking breaks, and seems to take off for unknown reasons, so that didn’t last long. At one point the told me to go back to the machine he had just trained me on, and I did that successfully for an hour or so, until the spool of metal I was using ran out. I was definitely thankful for it running out though. You see, as a safety measure, we’re all forced to wear these safety glasses. For some reason, when I was operating this machine, mine kept fogging up. For a while I was quite near blind with them on, and operating a machine designed to punch out patters from sheet metal using about 600 tons of pressure, but they were keeping my eyes safe.

So, the day ended with me being board, sitting one crates again. The next day they asked me to work again… I said no. I probably could have gotten this job permanently if I had tried. But honestly, I don’t think I could handle it: either my arms would fall off, or I would go insane. Working 4:30 - 2:00, the only persona I ever see is my mother. But I took the possibility of getting a job at Boston Pizza as apt excuse to not go back. My sisters boyfriend (not Tim) has a hook-up there, and he wanted me to come in and deliver a resume while he was working.

So that has bee my life for the past few days. It’s 4:30, and I think I heard my dad get up to pray, so I should be getting to bed. Have a good one.

I have had two dream recently that have, I think, been rather interesting. I will retell the one I just had, the second of the two dreams, first.

There are two girls in this dream. In the actual dream, they had names. They are people who I have known. I don’t plan on naming then here, but let me give you the relevant information. The first was a very bad relationship. We were never really dating, but we used to spend a lot of time “fooling around.” We never had sex, but it went far enough. That is all she really was to me, unfortunately. I was saved while this was going on, and stopped it. To this day it is one of the biggest regrets of my life. The second girl I won’t say as much about. I never dated her either, but we had a good relationship. I cared for her deeply her. In the dream, girl two had no appearance.  It never stood out to me though, she was beautiful, her appearance didn’t seem to matter. Girl one, on the other hand, was wearing stage makeup. Her eyes were dark and her face was exaggerated.

So, on with the dream. We were going to have a party at my house. I say my house, because that is what it felt like, but it was more like a field with some tables elevated in the centre. In this dream, the first girl is my girlfriend. I recall faintly a brief dream before it were this came about, but essentially, I hadn’t seen her in a long while, and then one day he came to visit. I cannot remember the reason, but she asked me, and I said yes. I have not seen her since. But I hear that she is coming early to the party. My reaction, and I tell everyone this too, is that I can’t wait for her to come so we can make out. She arrives just as we are beginning to eat lunch before the party.

Just as we are finishing lunch, the second girl arrives. My attention is immediately stolen form the first girl. I leave her there at the table to go greet the second. I do this because her coming, and I didn’t think she was coming, was met with elation. I was exited to se her. I spent the whole day with her and the friends she brought, and we had a blast. Later that night, we were sitting in what seemed to be a small shed, watching a movie. Both girls were there, along with a bunch of other people. When the movie ended, girl one asked me to come with her, and so did girl two. I though, I ought to spend time with girl one. She is my girlfriend after all, and she deserves more then I am giving her. I didn’t go with her though. As with everything else in our relationship, I treated her with selfishness.  As girl two and I, with some others, were walking up a hill away from the movie shack, I regretted my decision for a second, but when I looked at girl two, I forgot my regret.

The other dream I had is hard to explain. You see, there was an actual event that it centred around, but it was more the emotions I felt that had meaning. I suppose I will try and explain it though. I was away somewhere, I don’t know where, and I had to share a room with a girl. This girl was not girl two from the other dream, but me feelings for her were the same. Care, concern, I don’t really know how to explain it. Maybe love works, but I don’t really know what that means fully. Anyway, we were to share a bed. And we did. While we were we laughed and joked, we had a good time, it was nothing sexual. In the morning, and this is going to sound strange, but remember it was more about emotion then what actually happened, her shirt fell up or something, and I saw her breasts. Now, the reason this matters, is because there was no lust there, no feelings of that nature. Not that it was like looking at a guy, don’t get me wrong, but it was like my feelings for this girl we so much more important then this, that it didn’t matter. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I guess to understand this dream you have to understand that I was once someone who would never be like this. This bed situation would have turned out very differently is it was in my dreams of the past.

I’m not sure why I’ve been having these dreams. The first one was from last night, the second was from the night before that. I’m not sure why I’m retelling these… I guess I like to understand my dreams, especially the ones that seem out of place.

Last night, about 1 AM:

Sitting at home for the last few week has given me a lot of time to think.  About what?  I’m not sure… all sorts of thing I guess. One thing though, I give my mind to much credit.  I always compare myself with myself of the past. I look at who I was and say, look at me now, so intelligent by comparison.  But it seems this only works on a relative scale.  *Today’s advice: never trust a relative scale.* I have come a long way, but I still have a long way to go.  I think sometimes I get carried away.

I read this book called The Dream Giver. It’s by the same author of the oh-so-trendy Prayer of Jabez.  Honestly, the plug for Jabez in the first chapter almost saw me putting the book down. I‘ve never actually read the book The Prayer of Jabez, my ish is with pop-Christianity, and it‘s whole hearted acceptance of it.  Anyway, I read this book because my father wanted me to, and I respect my father, but I opened this book with nothing but cynicism.  I was planning on giving his book a really hard time.

So, now I’ve read the book. And, no, it’s not perfect, I think the main point of the book is flat wrong, but I have opened my mind a little, I think. Haha, and it wasn’t the content of the book that did it either, I blame God, personally. You see, I couldn’t help but apply some of what this book said. Well, not apply in a practical sense, but think about my situation, and things I have gone through in the past in the light of what this book was saying. It fit, it was good, the book seemed to be correct. Not only that, but it was rather practical (as far as actual advice goes), and some of it would stand to help me in the future if I would let it.

God was using this to teach me something.  I guess, to put it frankly, pop-Christianity is not always wrong, in fact, it can sometimes even be good for you.  Wow, I can’t believe I said that. Over the past year I have grown to detest it.  I found I was even beginning to detesting Christianity in general, while still being a Christian. I guess I told myself that I only disliked the things that were incorrect, that many Christian things were true. (this is where the overestimation of my intellect comes in) I decided that I could single-handedly discount everything that most Christians considered correct, and for no other reason then that most Christians considered it correct.

Don’t misunderstand me, I still dislike many things that many Christians consider correct.  But maybe it shouldn’t be my default position.  There was a time when I would listen to Reliant K, and though Nirvana was morally wrong to listen to.  Not long ago I was listening to Nirvana, associated Reliant K with something I wanted nothing to do with.  Tonight their both on my playlist.  I guess that really says it all.

I'm curious...

Would everyone who reads this comment and ideantify themselves?

May 22, 2 AM:

I heard about a man once. He got on his knees, he begged God to expand his ministry, he wanted to serve God more. He waited… nothing happened… You see, he was assuming that anything God wanted to do would be easy; it would be natural; it would feel like singing praise music on a Sunday morning. Only, the truth was quite contrary. What God wanted of him, in order to achieve what he was asking, was going to feel shitty. It was going to be hard beyond what the man would think possible; it was going to be terrifying, well beyond anything he wanted; and ultimately,  it was going to one of those things that all around sucks to do. He couldn’t see this though; why would God have him do something terrible like this? It must not be from God is it is like this. So, he waited forever, until he gave up. God never used this man to do anything great. I should like to talk with him when I die.

If apathy isn’t a lie, this darkness is light. It’s ironic. I say I can do nothing because I am not good, only God is good, but if I believe this then my own inaction becomes good, primarily because it is all I can do to follow God. How else would I follow him? So apathy must be a lie, a lie from Hell, or this darkness is light: and that cannot be.

For some reason my mind was on you guys all day today...

I've always been anti-anti-intellectualism. I know, double negative. I speak of anti-intellectualism as a sort of movement in the church. A trend that has failed me in the past, even when I never wanted to be a part of it.

I saw it as a reliance on emotion. Putting to much stock in something that can be fleeting. I saw people lose faith because they had nothing in their head and the retreats ran out.

I think this was God preparing me for my own fall, because fall I did. My emotional footing was pulled right from under my feet. I fell, and all I had to cling to was my mind: the things I knew to be true regardless of how I felt about them.

It was a rough road back up. I don't think I'm even there yet. The climb was done in my mind, however. I didn't have the emotion left to get me anywhere. Not even a retreat could save me at this point.

It's worked though. And I'm thankful to God that my foundation is a little less unstable now. All this has left me with a distaste for emotion though. You see, I need to be anti-anti-intellectualism, it must be so, but I also need to recognise emotion.

I once got on a rant about emotionalism in the attempt to sound spiritual in front of my father when I felt like shit. He told me a story of 3 men: emotion, reason, and faith. They all had to walk along a wall... reason ought to be first, then faith, and then emotion. Ok, well it wasn't a very good story, but somehow I remember it well. Your emotion should be based on your faith, and that on reason. Without emotion, faith can fall behind, leaving reason by himself. It is a package deal.

The whole thing reminds me of freedomize. Not that it's a perfect church, but it has both emotionalism and intellectualism living together, without trying to negate either. Haha, reformed teaching, which, whatever your personal theological leanings are, screams intellectual, and Pentecostal worship, which definitely screams emotionalism.

I think one without the other leaves you lacking. All I need to do is implement this. Anyone know how? Haha, if only I could say something practical for once.

I'm looking for a job

I'm harrasing the innocent

I'm playing a lot of Final Fantasy

I'm missing my friends

I guess that about sums it up.