Do we live our faith?

Henry Neufeld has food for thought in "Do we live what we believe?". He's editing a book that has some pointed comments. The book's author asserts that the problem with congregational decline may be that people attending church don't really believe what they say they do:

What I do question is how God can be especially present at so many worship services with so little impact. People go back again and again to experience the presence of God and then leave and go on living in the same way.

Either we are not experiencing the presence of God as much as we say we are, or that presence is having much less impact on us than it should.

Beth Quick picked up and expanded on Henry's posting.

Tony Campolo once quipped that Nietzsche came up with his formula that “God is dead” after observing a church service and noting how it felt like God’s funeral.

So ... are our worship services "dead"? Are the hearts of the "faithful" beating only faintly with the Spirit? How many truly feel the presence of God during worship versus how many say they do? Can anyone tell that we are Christians if we don't explicitly broadcast it?

God is with you

A posting at the Methodist Corner blog by Allen McGraw got me thinking about God-with-us. He referred to the song "Signs" by Five Man Electrical Band. I used Bing to find the song lyrics and then smiled as I couldn't help myself -- I started singing it (the song's guitar chords at a different site).

Near the end of the song, the man says, "thank you Lord for thinking about me, I'm alive and doing fine." God is with us during hard times. Not that he prevents suffering, but that he's right there with us. Jesus suffered on the cross ... in our place ... for our sins. God knows our pain. As a great piece of inspirational music from Joe Parks said, "We're never alone with Jesus."

Distinctive Methodist doctrine

What's distinctive about Methodist doctine? A good place to start your journey on the topic is Wikipedia's several pages on "Doctinal distinctives", which are listed in the "Methodism in America" section of the Methodism page.

• Articles of Religion
• Prevenient grace
• Governmental atonement
• Imparted righteousness
• Christian perfection
• Conditional preservation of the saints (not "Saints")

Serving others vs personal holiness?

In "Serving Others vs Serving Self", Allen McGraw relates an incident in which someone implied that he preached too much about serving others and not personal holiness. Allen is a United Methodist pastor and seminary student who authors the Methodist Corner blog.

He cites Mark 12:28-34 and states that you can't separate personal holiness from serving others.

This reminds me of the periodic tension between those fervently advocating an evangelism-only approach to outreach vs. those who lean toward a service-only approach. The reality of where Wesley fit was between those two extremes, folks. He preached the gospel and also served the poor and needy.

Allen has it pegged -- if you have real personal holiness, you'll have a true desire to help others. Good deeds flow from faith in God. Good deeds are then God deeds -- we are the vessels of his love.

In the news

Some news, feature, and just interesting articles:

• Fiji bans Methodist Conference
• American Religious Identity Survey 2008
• Struggling congregations look to change, grow
• History of the CME
• Christian Comedy Association

God = Allah?

An article titled "YourSay: Each one expresses 'God' in their own way" has an interesting perspective on the term "Allah" as used by Arabic-speaking Christians. The commenters are responding to an original letter suggesting that use of "Allah" by Catholics was offensive and that Methodists and others do not use the word.

Responders point out that differences in the word used for "God" varies worldwide due to native language, not religion or denomination. They also point to early use of "Allah" by people in the ancient world before the coming of Islam. The insistence that Christians not use the term "Allah" is an example of religious persecution of Christians in the modern world.

These are reasoned responses that lead me to wonder about some of the varied Christian viewpoints on Allah. Some hold that God and Allah refer to the same deity. Others insist that God and Allah cannot be the same. These people assert that the Koran and the Bible show two widely different deities.

Is it just possible that we fallible human beings have come to learn of and about God in different ways, through different means, and under different circumstances? If so, would it be so remarkable that each group of peoples would then have different views about God, Heaven, and so on? Since we are fallible, it's highly probably that no one group has the "complete" picture of God.

Perhaps if the proponents of God, Allah, and Yahweh were to approach each others' beliefs with that in mind, we could all work toward a common goal of doing God/Allah/Yahweh's work while we are here on earth.

God - Allah - Yahweh ... the three are one?

• The original letter -- Christians should not use "Allah"
• About Malasiakini online

Americans increasingly change Faiths

Research by the Pew Research Center shows that Americans increasingly leave the faith they were brought up in for others or desert religion altogether. The Pew study also has interactive section about the survey results.

• U.S. Religious Landscape survey results (Pew Research Center)
• Religious Landscape survey - interactive
• Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate (NY Times)
• Religious makeup of the United States

Spam hurts the earth?

According to a study released by McAfee, “Carbon Footprint of Spam,” the world expends 33 billion kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity to send, route, and filter spam messages. That’s the equivalent of the electricity required to power 2.4 million homes, the study estimates. And that much energy use emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gas.

An Information Week article by Thomas Claburn (Apr 16), "Spam is killing the planet", reminds people that even unnecessary computer use causes pollution.

"... the argument that spam should be fought to save the planet can be applied to other computing activities. Consider the environmental impact of more than 11 million World of Warcraft subscribers, or the broader population of gamers and their consoles. How much energy is frittered away as a result of Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks?"

I must confess that I have procrastinated in replacing a power supply in my older computer. So I've had to leave it running 24x7. This reminder should prod me to get that done this weekend. So how serious are we, really, about being good stewards of God's earth? What can you do this week to reduce your computing carbon footprint?

He is risen. Alelluia!

OK, it's really a Praying Mantis in defensive posture, but I got this photo in an email from a relative near Easter.

"He is risen!" is the first thought I had when seeing it.

Lament at the cross

Love has departed.
Joyful hearts are dark with sorrow.
Our hope has been extinguished.
Oh God, why have you taken the one we need most?
We pray for strength in our hour of need.
Bring us hope again.
Bring joyful light to a darkened world.
Let love return.