What is The Other Side?

September 10, 2005

The ten commands of Christian college dating

By Reverend John Stumbo

Presented during a Fall ’04 Deeper Life chapel series at Crown College, St. Bonifacius, MN

1.     Thou shalt not marry an idiot, including but not limited to the person who claims, “God told me you have to marry me.”

2.     Thou shalt treat engagement as engagement, not as marriage.

3.     Thou shalt marry a friend, but not thy only friend

4.     Thou shalt not attempt to create thy partner into thine own image.

5.     Thou shalt listen to the questioning voices.

6.     Thou shalt give greater priority to thine holiness than thine happiness.

7.     Thou shalt marry because thou hast found the right person, not because thou dost desire to be married and happen to be dating someone.

8.     Thou shalt not kiss passionately anyone with whom thou canst not pray passionately  (but just because thou canst pray dost not mean thou shouldst kiss).

9.     Thou shalt never require thy partner to be God.

10.   Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength and thy partner as thyself.

Used by permission of Rev. John Stumbo, Crown College 1983 graduate, and current pastor of  Salem Alliance Church and the Corporate Vice President of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (’05-’07).  Originally appeared in the Bridge, a publication of Crown College, Spring 2005.

July 12, 2005

My visions of a New Jerusalem by Reverend Henry K. Yordon

An Urban pastor explains why he believes his parish begins at the pulpit—and extends all the way to city hall

How few of us gathered to protest the governor’s paltry proposal for aid to welfare recipients!  It used to be the clergy would turn out en masse on behalf of welfare parents.  A welfare rally at the capitol was a festive occasion.  It was an opportunity to swap tall tales of picketing and protest with priests and ministers from all across the state.  This year we had an auxiliary bishop, an elderly black Baptist preacher, the director of a Christian community action program, and myself.  Where have all the clergy gone?

Many of my fellow ministers have gone from picketing to pastoral counseling.  They’ve hung out the shingle and are practicing transactional analysis for a goodly fee.  Others are busily engaged in various strategies for restructuring the congregation.  Some are involved in frantic evangelistic efforts.  full essay>>

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May 29, 2005

Being a Pawn on the Church Chessboard by Len Evans

I’ve always had a fascination with the game of chess and the strategy needed to play it well.  My fascination was never strong enough to join the chess club in high school, probably because I couldn’t weather the stigma.  As I reflect on the power issues that often crop up in churches, I realized I’m a pawn.

A pawn, despite popular opinion, is not worthless.  Its primary objective is to defend the good of its fellow pieces and to serve in any way necessary, even if it means sacrificing itself so others can survive.

I’m imperfect—I know it and everyone around me knows it.  So I don’t think I expect too much of those who are in power or wield power in local churches, because I don’t expect perfection from them either.  I do, however, grow tired of Christian leaders who can’t do what they said they were going to do.  I become angry and frustrated when they cave into desires and personalities and don’t act according to biblical principles.

Sadly some churches cave in to a consumeristic model that says everything is about personal pleasure and satisfaction.  We have too many churches that exist to make people happy rather than challenging them to live for the Kingdom of God and to die to self.

I hate the politics of church.  It’s a certainty that you can’t have church without politics, because the church is full of fallen people who, even though they’re redeemed, strive for power and other things God despises.

I’ve often wanted to be more of a leader in churches, but I haven’t been; because those who posses the power haven’t allowed me to.  I often long to be a more important piece on the church chess board—perhaps a castle or knight.  (I guess there’s only room for one king at a church and that position’s taken.)

A mentor of mine brought that to my attention, and I sat there with tears falling down my face as I realized it was true.  The truth is that I’ve resented that, but I’m coming to terms with it as I focus on being where God has me instead of focusing on where I’m not.

I must choose the position of humility versus the position of power.  I am a pawn in the hands of God, and I must lay down my life for those whom God has placed within my responsibility.  Then I can be fully in God’s will.

Len Evans is the Family Pastor at Grace Bible Church, La Vernia, Texas.  Posted by permission of author, originally published in YouthWorker.  Check out Pastor Len's blog, Looking out from my little place.

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May 1, 2005

Outreach is an "inside job" by Reverend Eric Marx

Wow, Words'nTone offers a lot to think about on subjects like evangelism and church growth.  Thought provoking to say the least.  I wrestle with the tensions between theology and practice (e.g., "can I separate them?").  I think that evangelicals have wrestled with this futility for some time.  Remember the old short movie entitled, "The Gospel Blimp?"  As I recall it, some Christians thought they just needed "just get the word out."  So, they came up with the idea of renting a blimp and dumping all kinds of Gospel tracts onto their town.  They were "doing their duty" to get the word out.  It seems, although they’d never admit it, that all the mega-trendy church growth principles are just variations on the “Gospel Blimp.”

The gurus of church growth have never tried their plans, strategies, and principles in small towns like ours.  Lanyon doesn’t even make it into the 10-year census figures it’s so small—it’s forty people are lumped in with other surrounding small municipalities and added to the largest city in the area.  Our average church attendance on Sundays is twice the population of the town.  Neighbors can be miles apart.  Yet, we want our church to grow.  We really do.  But, it seems that the trendy, up-to-date church growth principles are relevant to larger municipalities where growth is potentially latent in the vast numbers of their populations.  Not so for ours.

In larger cities, churches are able to blimp the Gospel because of the masses of people.  Praise the Lord for the Gideons and other groups “who can get the message out” to the masses, and mega-churches that can blitz a city with invitations and announcements.  The “Gospel Blimp” approach is possible where there is the population to play the marketing percentages for a half decent response.

Being a pastor in an extremely small town, I have come to recognize that outreach is an "inside job.”  I challenge our church to become relevant to our community by becoming their friends and helping them in what ways we can.  As I live in the community and have developed a heart for it, I have seen some fruit over time.  I think that the main battle (that is outreach, evangelism, and church growth) will be won in the trenches by people doing hand-to-hand combat with their neighbors, and where a choice to love them despite any unloveablness is needed.

Last week a neighbor saw me outside at the rural mailboxes and stated, "What have you been up to?  I haven't seen you for a while.”  I interpreted what he was saying: "Hey, I miss your company!”  When visiting with this gentleman, he always says, "Please come back again.”  No, he is not a lonely old man, though the town we live in doesn't afford close friendships.  Over the years, through smiles and acts of kindnesses, I have been able to enter into his personal world.  I am afraid that the easy way out is to just mail a few tracts anonymously—a modified blimp approach.

Every year I challenge our church to reach out in love to our, extremely small, community.  Most of those who attend Lanyon Covenant Church travel in from outside and drive nice cars into our lot.  The community consists of people who are lower income and have many lifestyle challenges.  This year individuals are going to give to each town family—not church family, town family (some families have two households in one home)—a half gallon of Schwan's Ice Cream.

Although evangelism is more than standing on the street corner and handing out Cokes in the name of Jesus, I feel comfortable keeping random acts of kindness before the community that we have chosen to love.  Mission boards set up medical hospital outposts in the most rural, least populated areas of Africa and Indonesia just to establish the love of Jesus and in hopes of telling those of the least populated areas that He died for their sins.  Not sure why this approach should be so different here on the home front.  Perhaps, someday, our neighbors here in Lanyon will ask why we do the silly, small things we do at our church, and then we can give our defense for the hope is within us. 

But, I admit, this year I am going to send out a Christmas Gospel tract as well.  Just in case they are ready to receive that message we have been telling them through actions.   But they’ll only be ready if we continue to make our church’s outreach and “inside job.”

Eric Marx is pastor of the Lanyon Covenant Church, Lanyon, Iowa (Church website).

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April 24, 2005

Enter the naked public square: the other side by Chip M Anderson

I have grand dreams for this website.  Well, at least I’d like it to offer some material that can impact how believers and non-believers think about Christianity, the Scriptures, and the world.  I am also a doodler-with-words.  Some say, “Chip thinks too much.”  One of my employees at work says, “There goes Chip’s stream of consciousness, again.”  I like what I am doing here in Words’nTone.  It is, in some way, a dream come true.  I want to promote good exegesis and Christian thinking, and how these should impact how the Church “is” (that is, “ought to be”) in the world.

I have wanted to start a page for guest writers that would promote the Christian faith and its relationship to our surrounding social environment.  My problem wasn’t the idea.  I knew what I wanted the contents to be.  I knew the subtitles: Faith and Community, and with an additional tag or slogan to further explain and emphasize what I am promoting: Enter the naked public square.  But I couldn’t think past a bland page title, Guest Column, or something close to that.

I doodled countless, mostly embarrassing, two word tags, but nothing was clicking.  Then a good friend and retiring pastor gave me an essay he wrote in 1979.  The essay was published in an older discipleship magazine with the title, The Other Side.  I knew I had my guest page title.  And the same day, in my devotions, I was reading John 6 and encountered verse 25:

When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

The Other Side.  I thought, “This is it.”  Exactly.  I wanted a place where fellow Christians could put their own thoughts on how the Christian life and faith work itself out in the communities that surround us.  Much like the disciple’s surprise and question, when we hear about how others have gotten to “the other side,” we’ll be surprised to find Jesus already there.  We'll ask, “Jesus, when did you get here?”  I want to encourage essays on Christian thinking, best practices, and ministry that will make us think how the Christian life and faith work itself out “in the world.”

A quick search of the phrase—the other side—gives us an interesting array of texts, mainly from the Gospels.  Interestingly, the consequence of being on the other side was to encounter new opportunities for ministry (often in enemy or opposing, foreign, and unsavory territories).  We read in Matthew 8:28:

“When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way.”

On the other side we meet the demon-possessed, tomb-walkers, those preventing others from passing by.

The other side is where we take on the enemy, cast out demons (as it were), and even feed bread to the hungry.  Sometimes on the other side we learn there are those who abuse the sacred text and wrongly, selfishly, politically interpret Scripture:

“And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread” (Matthew 16:5).

While on the other side, the disciples were concentrating on their stomachs, but Jesus wants them to beware of those—religious figures—that set forth false and unbiblical teachings:

“‘How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?  But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’  Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (16:11-12).

And finally, the other side can have a negative connotation, as well.  It is the place we escape from our Christian responsibility, like those who crossed to the other side to avoid helping the injured man in the Good Samaritan story.

“And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31).

 

“Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:32).

So, welcome to The Other Side.  Enter the naked public square.  Now, it is up to you.  Send your thoughts, ideas, examples of ministry and outreach, and sound Christian thinking to The Other Side.  Check out SUBMISSIONS…click.

Return soon to this page...two new guest contributions to be posted...

Outreach is an "inside job"

My Visions of a New Jerusalem

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