My Problem With Bell…

Universalist? Not in the traditional sense, but my opinion is that rob bell is a bit confused about what he thinks about Christianity.
For those of you who don’t know Rob Bell, he is a 41 year old pastor from Grand Rapids Michigan who recently caught national attention with his book “Love Wins.” Before the man even released his book he released a promotional video full of the thought provoking questions that we are used to seeing from Pastor Bell. And although his questions were left without answers, the Christian community believed his answers were already clear.
So let me clarify two things before I continue!
1. The Position of a Christian Universalist when considering Heaven, Hell, and God.
a. Heaven – Exists, all ways lead to heaven
b. Hell – Doesn’t exist
c. God – an all loving God that will not judge anybody but loves us all and will take us all in heaven regardless of what we believe.

2. The Traditional Christian view of Heaven Hell and God
a. Heaven – Exists, as stated in the bible by Jesus – He is the ONLY way to heaven.
b. Hell – Exists, as stated in the bible – Eternal Punishment for the devil and all sinners that REJECT the cross of Christ, the son of God.
c. God – All loving and yet also perfectly Holy (set apart, different from creation) and Perfectly just in his judgment. Loves all and wants all to be saved but is leaving the choice up to humanities free will.

3. The Rob bell Position on Heaven, Hell and God.
a. Heaven – Exists but also exists in your mind – all of humanity will eventually be overwhelmed by the loving kindness of God and will come to him and go to heaven… in this life or “the next.”
b. Hell – Exists but also exists in your mind - exists but only for the devil and those that choose not to repent in this lifetime or “the next.”
c. God – all loving and couldn’t possibly send anybody to Hell. Gives the opportunity to all to choose Christ in this life and “the next.”
So here’s the deal. Bell has arrived on certain conclusions based on his study of scriptures. Namely the ideas that the word “eternal” in the bible means a period of time, The idea that heaven and hell are not only real places but also states of mind while you are on earth, the idea that God can not possibly allow people to go to hell, the idea that you don’t have to accept Christ in this life time, but that you will get to choose him in a separate life time if this lifetime was spent sinning without repentance, etc, etc.
Here’s the problem, None of these ideas are biblical or found in context within Scriptures.
- The word Eternal = taken out of context and then seen as meaning a period of time when bell found it convenient to do so.
- The idea that heaven and hell are states of mind = not found in scripture as a state of mind but as real places.
- The idea that God can not possibly allow people to go to hell = He is not sending them to hell, He is giving them a choice. The Choice is His Son on the cross. The Rejection of His Son is rejection of salvation and heaven as clearly stated in scripture. He made the way, He provided His Son, He gave us the Scriptures to show us not only that he loved us but also what would happen if we rejected Him. If we ignore it or reject it, it is completely on us.
- The idea that we don’t have to accept Christ in this lifetime, because we can do it in the next. = Not based on Scripture. The decision is to be made in life as states in the bible. Nowhere in scripture do you find the afterlife as a place of decision but a place of final judgment.
Part of me understands why Rob Bell is doing this. There are portions of scripture he doesn’t understand. There are parts of Christianity that don’t make sense. And I get that! I have doubts and ideas, but the difference is that we have to submit those to God in prayer and diligently search the scriptures to find with the answer.
What you can not do is decide to change God and doctrine by adding your own ideas into the Bible and proving these ideas by taking Scripture out of context. Here’s how that happens: You make certain assumptions in your mind without submitting them to God. You decide that your ideas are right and God is wrong. You want your God to fit your ideas. You take your ideas and eisegeticaly (idea not in scripture, use verses out of context to prove your idea) compare them to the bible. You change your God to fit your ideas. You create a false God.
And that is the problem with this whole Rob Bell Mess. He has created a false God, A God that is only loving but not Holy, and not just. He has created a Jesus that might not be who the bible states, but a being whose death wasn’t needed and is not considered the way, truth and life. He has created a doctrine that is not found in the Bible, but added to the bible. That is the problem. May Rob repent of what he is doing, may he pray to God for revelation and may he submit his heart mind and soul to Jesus.

On Top of The World...

I can recall a time when I arrived at a church and I was a nobody. People hardly said hi to me, People completely overlooked me. People forgot my name, or just flat out didn’t know it. Nobody wanted to be around me or hang out with me. Nobody wanted to take the time to get to know me. Fast forward a couple of years and I was at a church where everybody loved me. Everybody wanted to get to know me better, even wished they knew what I was thinking. Everybody wanted to be my friend and have me be part of their life. My phone was constantly blowing up, people sent me encouraging messages. Vastly different places, right? Wrong! Same place, same people, different position, title and level of influence. In the latter part of the story I was a youth pastor.
Obvious problems with this scenario:

1. People judged me – There is no hiding the fact that Christians are seen as judgmental. The truth is that many of us are. To expound upon this truth, we must note that people in general whether with Christ or without, are judgmental. We may become a bit more open minded or go through an experience where we judge and promise never to do it again, but the truth is that we constantly judge others. With this said, there is no reason for Christians, followers of the most loving man in history, to exclude anybody! People eventually abandoned Jesus, but Jesus never abandoned people. We must learn not to exclude or abandon people!

2. People were fake – In the great scheme of things I was able not only to go from the bottom to the top but to make note of it for future reference. Many forget what it was like to be the new person, to feel lost, to feel like quitting, but I didn’t! I took it with me and confronted everybody with the truth. Sometimes this has to be done! People need to know the error in their ways and when you are in a position of influence, you need to use that influence to expose the flaws and correct the mistakes, not to allow them to permeate the culture.

3. People want to be around those that appear to have it all together - Nobody likes to be part of the b-squad (as I like to call it). People want to be popular. People want to be likened to those that are considered great: the Leaders, those with authority, those at the forefront of everything, the poster-children of the organization, not those that are the least of these! (hopefully about now, conviction sets in your heart!)

4. People feel more accepted in a local bar than they do in a church – One of those ideas that I have the ability to speak about freely. I have been in bars and churches. I have been part of party crowds and congregations. You know what the main difference is? (aside from salvation) The fact that a drinking crowd, loves and accepts anybody willing to have a good time and let loose, as opposed to the church who wants people that already have their shtuff together when they step through the door! People are more drawn to destruction because destruction accepts them as they are and Christians make it appear as if Christ does not!

5. People don’t show the love of Christ – The truth of the matter is that the Church needs to repent and begin showing the true love of Christ! This fake, status driven, demanding, biblically inaccurate, judgmental, graceless, perfection demanding version of God’s heart that Christians call love… NEEDS TO STOP! That is NOT the heart of Our loving father who sees us, takes us up as messed up as we are but loves us too much to leave us that way.

6. People are insecure – People don’t know who they are. They allow everybody else tell them who they are, who they should be and who they should hang out with instead of believing what the Bible says about them, listening to God’s voice Who is constantly pouring his encouragement and love out to us, and unapologetically living their lives the way the Christ lived his!

7. Creating the negative systems in the church – Remember in High School there was a caste system that everybody was forced to obey? Well we brought that into the church. Remember when social networking became the societal fad and people forgot about friendship, replacing it with an electronic version which included small messages, birthday updates, and the ability to “KIT” without ever having to see them or talk to them? We brought that into the church. It’s ridiculous!

8. I was fixed on Christ, what about new people? – When I started going to the above mentioned Church, I already had a relationship with Christ… what if I didn’t? What if that had been a new believer or somebody stepping into the church for the very first time and that was the first impression I received, do you think I would want to step into a church again? The answer is no!( thank you captain obvious!)

9. The fact we view it as a top to bottom caste instead of an egalitarian brotherhood, a family. – The Church is not a Family anymore, it’s a high school clique. It’s little groups in the cafeteria, talking about what is going on in their little social circle instead of life being poured into each other in love.

10. This happened in a church! – I love the Church but it can be so negative a lot of the time. I understand it, and what it is composed of but most people don’t. I know I’m not alone in seeing this and wanting to end it and yet not many are doing much about it. We need to change Church culture to be more of what Jesus wants and less of what we want!

Believing God

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
I have been wanting to write this blog for some time now. The truth extracted from my overly cautious mind, which jumps firing hoops in order to avoid admitting that I have less figured out about life than I would ever like to show. You see, I believe Christians have a hard time admitting that they don’t have it all figured out in fear that this confession will somehow show to non-believers that we are wrong when we profess Christ as savior and The Bible as God’s inerrant word Or open a door to show our brooding doubts, which we believe are too sacrilegious to aknowledge. So taking that into consideration, I offer the following confession.
My name is Juan. I have been a Christian since 2001 when I felt God squeezing my heart in his powerful hand to the point of eruption through a preaching that I don’t even remember. It wasn’t on that day but roughly two years later that I made an agreement with God, “I am not going to say no to you anymore.” Following that statement came countless opportunities for ministry which allowed me to preach his name, impact the lives of youth and adults, lear the truth about worship, meet some great friends, and impact the lives of many. ..and yet I don’t fully trust God!
I’m afraid. There, I said it. Everything, including both internal and external forces, makes me doubt and question God’s will for my life every step of the way. I have taken both small steps and vast strides in the faith. God has lead me through the worst times in my life. God has allowed me to lead even youth pastors that had more years in a youth pastorship than I did. God has given me words that have changed the course of direction of the lives of youth and adults. So my question is, why do I doubt?
The above psalm states that he wrote my days before they existed. And so It would seem that I would have a steadfast grip onto God but the problem is that my mind tends to doubt it all. And so my realization is this, every person in the bible doubted God and acted accordingly to their doubts. But also, each one of them had a moment in time when they chose to simply BELIEVE GOD.
Although my mind doubts, my logic screams out, and my focus on God gets blurry, it’s time I make a choice to simply believe God. To take him at His word and believe that He will in fact provide, bless, fulfill, speak, direct, give me compassion and grace to not only continue on this journey, but to enter into a new level with Him. I will believe that He has written out my days and live them out With Him by my side.

update on small group!

“I of course have to look for a new group, but now I have to find a group, get to know those people, have them get to know me. Warm up to them, adjust to them and so on! And that could take months! Please pray that we would hit it off with our new cell leaders…” taken from my Feb 26th blog, “bummed”
So let me fill you guys in on my new Small group. Last Wednesday the 27th I attended my first small group meeting with what might have been my new small group. Dwight (who calls himself “D”) opened the door and immediately shakes my hand and then gives me a hug. I then proceed to meet Pat, D’s wife and about 7 more members of the group. They are all older white people in their 40’s and 50’s. One lady had sort of an accent, so I’m not sure if she was white.
(Let me take the time to say that I’m not racist. I am however very… ethnically conscious. Since I was a kid, any type of racism I have felt has been from older white people. To be quite honest, in my mind I always scan a person for racism before getting to know them well. I fear somebody might not like my “kind” and that scares me.)
Well anyway, We started off with worship[, and let me tell you, there is no better way to start off a group meeting, a church service, a hike, or a day than with worship. We started worshiping and by the time it was over all my fears, insecurities, and thoughts about race had left completely and I was ready to receive the word. The study was on a passage in John and it was great. Everybody contributed and D seems to be a good leader.
Afterwards we stuck around and ended up talking with Pat and D about how we ended up leaving our old church, which was great because they had a similar story to ours. I love how both of them sat, listened, didn’t judge and then said they related to our story and encouraged us.
I feel like this is gonna be a good group. I am really looking forward to growing close to these people, getting to know them all, hopefully finding a great person to mentor me in my journey with God and most of all just hanging with some Christ fam! I will keep you guys posted.
Thanks for reading!

Gimme Dat Christian Side Hug...!

So today I found out that something that my church created as a joke was actually taken seriously by the ENTIRE WORLD! lol I saw news articles from all over the US and even one from India criticizing the words and actions on the satirical video.
I think its hilarious that people are so quick to judge. This song is meant to be self deprecating in nature but apparently there were many people who thought this video was the real deal! Many flocked to youtube to mock the video and contemporary Christianity based on the assumption that the ideas behind this video were real. Many assumed that this song was created by fundamentalist Christians condemning regular “front hugs” but in reality it’s a song making fun of the “Christian side hug.” Personally, I think its all so hilarious. When I first saw the actual performance I was rolling! Then When I saw it on you tube and all the negative comments that accompanied it, I realized just how “under fire” Christians really are! Well anyway, I don’t want to get deep on this so I will just leave it here. Check out gimme dat Christian Side Hug from The Fathers House!

Gimme Dat Christian Side Hug -

Pat Rob and Haiti

The recent earthquake in Haiti has really shown the hearts intentions of many people. One of these of course includes the words of “700 club” host Pat Robertson. Robertson made it a point to mention that there was an alleged pact made between the founders of Haiti and the devil that probably brought about all of the calamity that has happened in the past 200 years including this earthquake.
2 points I would like to make.
1. Robertson DOES NOT represent the way that Christians think. Not all Christians think that bad things only happen to bad people. Only those that have an incorrect theology would make such a claim.

2. Churches across the nation made it a point to rise above those of the likes of Pat Robertson and give all of their weekend collection to Relief efforts in Haiti. We are called to love everybody unconditionally and show the Love of Christ either through hands on help, financial help, and/or prayer.

In conclusion, we need to love people without letting our incorrect theology; our own opinions or our biases get in the way. Christ loved us unconditionally and we need to show the same type of love, not only to those around us but any body weather suffering or healthy, rich or poor, Christian or non Christian.

Evil?

Lately I’ve been wondering about the evil in people’s hearts. I wonder why we do the evil things that we do. (I include myself because I am not above my own evil deeds or sins, I’m only a man.) I wonder if we do evil things because we want to do them or because we feel we have to perhaps to help our situation or to help ourselves somehow. I don’t think you just wake up one morning and decide I’m gonna do something evil today but rather it may be a combination of things going wrong in a life that could prompt a person to feel justified by their evil deeds as well as feeling like doing something evil is a way to release an overflow of things that they perceive as evil, flowing into their own lives.

Recently some kids from my old church released some statements on myspace speaking VERY negatively about my former church. At first I was outraged at what I was reading and wanted to speak out but then I began wondering what would compel a person to write such horrible things about a place of worship especially when you are supposed to be a worshipper. Now given the fact that we are not perfect, what was the intention behind this? You might think they may be hurt some how but actually they are the people to whom the pastor paid the most attention which makes you wonder if they released this statement out of a sense of entitlement to say whatever they please? Or perhaps they somehow felt that the spiritual state of the church was worth speaking out against? Then again why would they choose to denounce not only the church but speak out against the leadership, and basically all ministries? It could be that they just really want to leave and wanted to gain attention on their way out, but then again didn’t they know how many they would be hurting by releasing these statements? Did they realize that the church speaking out not only against non- Christians but also judging each other based upon some sort of invisible hierarchy (where some that “have it all together” judge and others that don’t get judged) is probably one of the main sources of hatred towards the church?

Either way I found the actions as evil but I am still at the point of wondering as to the motive and the cause of these nasty remarks…

Christians

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

-Mohandas Gandhi

OUCH! Why would he say such a thing? Christians are such good people. If anything hindus should not be liked. They don’t even believe in Christ for God sakes, they’re all going to hell. That man Ghandi was evil!

- your average Christian.

Hmm…you think that type of opinion is what helps Christian stereotypes continue? Its sad to say that Christianity is probably viewed as one of the worst “Religious systems” in the world, because of it’s followers. Our Christ-less opinions, judgments and hatred are what make this world think so negatively of us. And if you’re a Christian and you’re reading this and you have no idea what I’m talking about then it is time for your rude awakening.

The first Church of Jesus Christ (not referring to “Church of Christ” but the first Church that JC established), or “The Way” as it was called was unlike the church of today.
Acts 2: 44- 47 says,
“And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw.“

Wait; does this accurately describe all of our current churches? I think Today’s Churches are better described through these words:

…But this just isn’t how I imagined it would be,
With these random people just asking the most personal things
And to think that somehow I could always come clean
And you shake your head just like you know what I mean…
… Somehow, someone's more equal than others
depending on the words we choose to say
- Emery
The church has morphed into an institution that dictates our beliefs, demands perfection out of it’s followers, and hurts instead of healing. We tear down our brothers and sisters rather than edifying them. We judge them in hate rather than exhorting them in love. When did we become such horrible judgmental zealots? When did we begin focusing on the sin, instead of the sinner? When did we lose The “Christ” that was in “Christians?” Why do we look to people with hate, judgment and disgust rather than looking at the hurt and the needs of people like Jesus did? When did the church become so ugly?

When I speak of the church I don’t speak of the building because by God, those things are beautiful! I am however speaking of the body of believers that attempts to control our way of thinking rather than showing us who Christ is through their actions and methods.

Christians have taken upon themselves a “Holier than thou” type of mentality that has killed the church for the past few decades, probably longer than that. This attitude includes judgmental attitudes that look for perfection of people, rather that perfection of the God that is perfecting the people. Christians have taken it upon themselves to attempt to make others look Godly on the surface while their hearts are enslaved, hurting and still need more Christ within. Christians worry about themselves more than their fellow followers and therefore forget to be servants and to strengthen their brethren.

My conclusion is this: Ghandi was right, Christians are horrible people. That is why I choose to be less like a Christian and try to be more like Christ. We should all make this choice. You see, Christians will surely fail us but Jesus is real, loving, and compassionate. We need to be like Christ. We need to allow Christ to permeate every inch of our existence from our minds that think horrible thoughts to our hearts which honestly only desire Christ Himself. We need to be kind, compassionate, loving, forgiving, spirit-filled, prepared, non-judgmental, abounding in grace, and willing to serve others until death if necessary. Only when we follow and draw near to him will we become more like him and prove the world wrong when they say, “I do not Like Christians.” We need to put Christ back in Christians, beginning with ourselves.