Illusions again...

Ok, so back to the illusions of what church is or isn’t... often I find that the illusions come in pairs. The big pair that was thrown up to me not too long ago was that the ‘Church is full of perfect people” and then within a couple of breaths the idea “that the church is full of hypocrites”. So which is it really?

Well the reality is both and neither. Let’s take the second one first; ‘The church is full of hypocrites’. Aye too right too often. But are they really hypocrites? I am learning that many of the folk I know are not hypocrites so much as just struggling Christians that really need to learn what the Bible says we are to live like. We act wrong because too often we believe wrong. We somehow think if we are ‘good’ then God will love us more and be nicer to us. Truth is God loves us and will love us no matter what. But still we try to be good to get something better and God says ‘I love you so be good because you love me back.’ But it looks like hypocrisy because we are trying too hard to ‘DO something’ and we don’t always ken what it is we are to do, as much out of ignorance as anything.

The ‘Church is full of perfect people’ one is really the same problem but looks different to some because people are doing to make God be nice to us and to love us more. So we look good and smell good but have the wrong motivation too often. And then we end up talking like we have it all figured out and it ends up all show and no go.

So the church ends up in too many people’s minds to be full of perfect hypocrites... oh the joy...

Now to the reality; the church really just has normal ordinary folk who mess up. The church is full of exactly who you would expect it to be full of; liars, cheats, thieves, gamblers, drunks, adulterers, losers and well violators of all the Ten Commandments. HAH you shout with glee---‘I knew it’ all those goody goody folk are exactly what I thought they were... too right. The good news is for many of us that there is a wonderful not so wee clause that says that Jesus came to pay the debt for our sins so we can be forgiven. There is in the reality a bunch of folk who are trusting not in our ability to be ‘good enough’ to be better but rather trusting in God to change us, some days just a wee bit at a time and sometimes in bigger steps. We don’t have to live the lives we really represent, we can do good because it is the right thing to do.

It is about grace, not about doing. But if we get the grace right then we sometimes get the doing right as well... but some days we just do what you do and mess up and have to go back to that glorious well of grace for a new cup of the living water... Yes, church is for imperfect people, but ones who want to be changed by grace.

Loving Grace, because I am neither perfect nor a hypocrite,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Asking questions??? Maybe-maybe not...

Well it is for sure that time of year again. The Tattie Holidays are over and the nights are drawing in. The summer is trying to hang on but not doing a very good job of it. The harvest is coming in and much of it is well finished. The reality is that the nights are gettng chilly more than not...

But that doesn’t really mean the days get less busy. It is hard to believe that just  a few Sundays ago was Back to Church Sunday. Did you go and see if there was anything changed at your church since the last time you went? If you didn’t, why not? I know several folk did as you stopped me on the street and here, there and other places to say that you did. That really was a good start...

I also had some stop and ask me what exactly it is that church is supposed to be about. That always ends up an interesting dialogue. I got asked: what is it do you do your talk about? And that leads to an explanation of what preaching is. I don’t do ‘talks’, I preach... it is what preachers do among about 500 other things. It is that “foolishness of preaching”  thing that Paul says leads to salvation. Not because we champion certain causes but because good and great preaching centres on Jesus. Once the Jesus thing gets sorted then the response is doing good works. But like I said a few weeks ago we tend to get Christianity confused and too often it gets backwards. 

If you have a question about what Biblical Christianity is or should be do ask. You can often catch up with me out and about the City, or you can stop in for a coffee (I do tea as well some days if coffee isn’t your thing) or you can send me an e-mail question at bbfpastor@gmail.com. If I don’t know the answer I will make one up, not really, but I will do some home work and find one for you or just admit I don’t know. I get asked the one about why bad things happen to good people all the time so save that one for a face to face chat as this forum doesn’t allow enough space for that one unless I do a 52 week series. So it should make for a few interesting thoughts and before we know it the nights will be drawn in and Christmas will be here...

So ask away,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Some days doing what I do can be a really enjoyable thing. But too often I find that there really is a lot of confusion about what it means to live a ‘Christian’ life. There is real confusion about what ‘Church’ is all about.

I suspect this train of thought could go on for several weeks actually. And I know that there will be many that will take a different perspective to it than I will... which is ok... if they want to be wrong... (ok that was where you were supposed to give a wry grin and say to yourself ; Aye but what does he know? But those of you that know me also know I can be a bit tongue in cheek as well...)

I would like to focus on what church is to be about in light of the up-coming ‘BACK to CHURCH SUNDAY’ coming up. I talk to people that claim to be Christian but they haven’t been to a church service in donkeys. Sometimes for perfectly good reasons, well at least they think so, and sometimes I agree with them. But more often than not I find folk just miss the point. Somehow we have gotten confused and think church is about us, truth is it is about God, about Jesus and what he came to do. We think that if the church service doesn’t ‘do it for us’ something is wrong with it.

We were bored, it was too charismatic, not charismatic enough, the building was too hot, too cold, the singing was too loud, not lively enough, someone spoke to us and we didn’t like it, someone didn’t speak to us, the sermon was too loud, I couldn’t hear the minister. And on and on the excuses go. Just be sure you pick a good excuse, eternity is a long time to live with it.

Truth is too many folk haven’t been in years and have no idea what is going on in the church in 2010, rather it is stuck in their head that it is the same as it was in 1926 or something and they weren’t even born then. Or the opposite is true and they think the church has changed too much since 1926. And then there are many that have never been to church apart from school services and funerals or a wedding or two, but still think they won’t like it having no idea what it is really about.

Back to Church Sunday is 26 September and would make a good day to try it out. I will make a shameless plug and say the church I minister in is the best, but I suspect other ministers might say the same about their place of ministry... I won’t pretend that the church I am minister in is for everyone, not a chance. So check us out, you might be surprised.

Plan for being Back to Church on the 26th and I’ll address other confusion topics more in the future, I’m going to have fun with this one.

Rev. Jon Bergen

Illusions

It has been a wee while, OK, OK over 8 months... have I really been that busy...? I suppose not really but should at least be getting my stuff up that I do for the Brechin Advertiser most weeks... so here is one from two weeks ago and I will try in the coming weeks to do better, I know, I know--I keep saying that but... so here is a newish one anyway... (reminder to self--put this paragraph in the clipboard for future use...)

This past week I had a chance to talk with a good group of teens about illusions. The contrast of what you see compared to what is actually there. Our world is full of illusions at times that leave us a bit confused and wondering who and what we can believe. 

Religion is one of those things that too often gets confused for what it isn’t as much as what it is. Christianity especially these days is under a rather strange attack considering the long history it has had. Yet one of the problems is that ‘Christianity’ has to many become an illusion of being the same as religion. 

The reality of Christianity is far too many only see the illusion of the outer trappings of the ritual and the buildings and then they look behind the curtain and see the ‘rules and regulations’ and that is all they see. Or they see the rules and regulations and say that isn’t for me or worse say wow the hypocrisy of it when they have this stuff called sin but nobody pays attention to it. It really comes down to that it has never become personal to them. Many see the outside but never meet the personal God that is really there waiting to become a personal friend.

We celebrate the glitz and glamour of the celebrity life style and at the same time the celebrity types are trying to lock us out of the their world so we don’t see the illusion of  brokenness and shallowness of their world that they see. Yet some of them if we really knew the personal side that goes beyond the outer appearances, we would think ‘wow nice folk too bad others can’t see they are just normal. I remember well the first time someone looked at me and said; ‘Wow Jon, you are almost like a normal person.’ But then I realized I had shattered their view of what they thought a minister was supposed to be like and I said ‘thank you what did you expect green skin and horns or something?’ The problem wasn’t me it was with the illusion of what they thought from afar a minister was supposed to be, but once we got to know each other personally the image changed.

So it is with Christianity, it has its challenges and folk have illusions built up about what it is supposed to be, but once it becomes personal and the perspective changes the illusion goes away and suddenly it can make sense. I suspect that this is true of a lot of life but when Jesus becomes personal instead of a building in the middle of the town or out in the country, the whole story changes. 

Till the next time,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Where are the Prophets?

There is an interesting verse in the Proverbs that says; “Where there is no vision, the people perish...” (29:18), its parallel is in Psalms 74:9 as it says “We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, nor is there any among us who knows how long.”

I find in our current day that the crises seem to keep coming and that there is so often a knee jerk reaction from the leadership of the world. We endured in 2009 the banking crisis in which the governments dumped trillions of a variety of currencies at the banks only for them to give themselves massive bonuses for getting the world economy in such massive trouble. We saw and heard about the Copenhagen mess about 'Climate Change', which is an absolute joke of a topic in the first place if you read the Express article “Climate Change is Natural: 100 Reasons Why”, but getting off topic a bit and we see that the concern is the CO2 being dumped in to the atmosphere and how did the folk all get to Denmark? OH yeah, by carbon burning and CO2 producing vehicles and air craft... the participants and protestors probably made the most pollution in the world for that two week period...

Do we even want to go to the Nobel Peace prize recipient who’s only claim to fame is he is President of the USA? MPs that won’t change a system of benefits that amount to as much or more income than the average salary earned in the UK. Renewable energy folk protesting the clean wind and wave power they say they want... And the list goes on and on. Yet it seems there are none who have real answers to these challenges in our world as we start the New Year, even a new Decade. The answer it appears is more everything but nothing of substance. Nobody it appears is thinking long term, but rather trying to react to the polls and stay popular for the moment.

So what do we do? What can we do? Well the truth is if I really knew the answer to the mess I could write the book and save the world. So I guess I am not much help in saving the world, all I can do is try to affect the small part of the world around me. Try to make a difference in the lives of my friends and family, maybe at some level in the bigger picture of the City of Brechin. But maybe if we all get a sense of our own footprints and maybe for some of us a slightly bigger picture of what is outside our window we might at least make a difference in a small part of our world and in the end if enough of us do a little bit it adds up to something way bigger. It is that salary of a penny a day for a month doubled or £1000 a day situation where we all know that the penny doubled is the best way to go at the end of the month. Just doesn’t seem so to start. (Check out a movie ‘Play it Forward’ as well.) This brings us to Ecclesiastes 4:9-13 which points out; that if one is good, two is better and says a threefold cord is not quickly broken and ends with “better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king...” Let us work together in wisdom every chance we get, and maybe we can make a difference.

Rev. Jon Bergen

Thinking into the New Year

Hard to believe how fast the year 2009 has flown by. And now we are already into 2010. That double '0' was easier to type but we'll get used to the new one before it is all done. A lot has happened since the last post on the blog took place at the end of August. I wonder if all bloggers have this challenge of trying to keep something posted and up to date? I suppose so as one of my regular reads took a break and went to the archives to keep posts on theirs daily. My problem is that I haven't done enough years of this to have an archive to draw from.

So that brings me to resolutions for 2010 and the long list of things I should work on, but it seems year to year that I keep trying to make the same ones; lose weight, get organized, be nicer to the folk around me, read my Bible every day just for fun and not just for study, be a better dad, a better husband, a better sibling/son... and on and on the list goes... But like you and 6 billion others on this planet I seem to get a nice start and then I get busy and miss a day or three and that turns into a week or four and suddenly I am too far behind to catch up so start looking forward to the next New Year to start over. But the older I get the more I realise what others told me when I really was young that time flies and it seems 2009 just flew by.

So I hope to develop the gift that I want to develop of writing more and hopefully will have some things of worth to share and pass on as the year goes by. I do have several 'Thoughts for the Week' that I can put here as I do them. Some of the better ones that others write I will either quote or get a link to. Then also I can do wee short glimpses of Sunday messages here as well... so we shall see what happens and then there is the whole Twitter thing... but I am not known for saying things in less than 140 characters so not a good venue for me... LOL

So here is to a good New Year and keeping some basic resolutions as 2010 flies past...

Jon

So I left the topic of requirements for life a bit unfinished to say the least in the last post, so will pick up with the ‘Justice’ thought; We live in a world that is crying out for justice and even has many organizations that are set up to promote justice. But what is it really? Well a simple dictionary definition comes down to the idea of impartial... But at the end of the day it is something that when it is right we know it and when we are treated un-justly we know that as well.

There are days that justice would give me things I really don’t want, that I would receive the penalty of the deeds I messed up in. and there are other days I just want a fair go in life. So really what I desire in the area of justice is just getting what is fair and balanced and impartial. But we all tend to want our idea of justice for ‘me’ and let the other guy get what he gets.

But God requires us to ‘do justice’, this is about more than what we want, it is about how we live our lives. It is about how we treat our fellow man. I was reminded again of one of the great documents in history as I listened to a group of actors read the US Declaration of Independence. It has been a while since I read that document for myself, but to actually hear it read was well worth the effort and a reminder of the sense of what we are to be about. That famous line; “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It gives to me a sense of what justice is, it outlines things that are essential to human life and dignity.

But too often I fear we want it for me at the cost of others, forgetting that God wants us to live this principle for ourselves but also for our community, country and the world at large. While I understand that I will never change the world as such, I hope that I can at least influence a few others around me to be better, to live justly as we try to be impartial in our treatment of each other. It will often come back to the two great commandments that say; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength and the second is like it, love your neighbour as yourself, on these two hang all the law and prophets.

But as we add living justly, treating people around as they deserve to be treated in an impartial and fair manner, to our standard of life, we must grow into the second requirement of loving kindness or as the old Authorized Version puts it, love mercy...

To be continued...

Hard to believe how fast this summer has flown by. When I originally wrote this it was just a week and the children were to be back in school, and now they are a week into the new term. Several o of the children let me know they didn't want to be reminded of that tremendous fact. Yet some are so very ready for this event to take place... the mothers.

I have on my Facebook page an album of pictures I took around the Brechin and Glen Esk area in the early spring. I vowed that I would get back to these places several times over the spring and take up-date pictures. I wanted to do so each week to show the progress of spring, suddenly I find that even the thistles are well bloomed and my Elderflower champagne is ready to drink. Where did the time fly to? I think how busy I get some days and I am sure there are too many days you feel the same way. Busy. Busy. Busy...

Even as I am trying to think of something creative to say, to make us think as we go our way day to day I have a dozen things rattling about in my head that I need to do before my day is done. And yet again I ask myself if these are the important things or just good things. If all that list are the best things or just things that need doing.

And the reminder comes flying out of Micah chapter 6 that cries out with a similar question of what does it take to please God? All my good things I do day to day, bowing before the Lord on high, maybe it is offerings given, maybe a calf...? No surely it is not that easy, maybe it is a thousand rams given or ten thousand rivers of oil offered...? Maybe it is even that proverbial first born child?

But actually it is something simpler, yet harder in that it goes against our nature some days. It is the requirement of “do Justice, and love Mercy and to walk Humbly with your God...” Just three simple things; Justice, mercy/kindness and humility in our day to day walk, with God to help us in this our life journey. Can it really be so simple? Can it really be done? Well we have to try and God wouldn’t require it if it was impossible...

To be continued...

So picking up kind of where I left off last time;

How can living Bible principles as they are make a difference? Well, even as a minister, sometimes things in the Bible don’t always make me happy, some things kind of get under my skin and I have the same reaction as you do... I don’t like what it shows me about myself.

So just as the doctor who has the patient that has a major problem in their body, they have to speak up, they have to prescribe a solution to that problem. Some times that involves surgery or chemo that has some nasty side effects. It hurts and there can be scars, yet hopefully at the end of the day the patient gets well. But, what happens if the doctor says to the patient; “If you do what I tell you there is a 95% chance you will be fine but with no treatment you will die” and the patient refuses to take the treatment? Well the patient will die.

And so it is in our society with moral values. I read the papers most days and try to watch the news and too often it is pretty bad news, as I have mentioned, crime is up; theft, drugs, gun and knife crime, murder (even in our City which is by most standards safe), fighting in the streets, drunk and disorderly conduct... and the list goes on and on. Diseases of all types seem to be on the rise; STD’s, alcoholism and the effects of excess drinking, drug addiction, heart disease and things folk get living a lives of excess. How does greed affect the world we live in? We look at poverty and need. Pollution is another problem caused by careless living and greed.

All that bad news, what can we do? Well I happen to believe in God and the Bible as the word of God. I don’t always manage to live it perfectly, but I am growing in that direction and maybe by the time I am a hundred and five I might make it—almost. But the neat thing is the same Bible that shows where we are in error is the same Bible that teaches us love, forgiveness, grace and mercy. A cure for the things we run afoul of. It is the prescription for ‘sin’ (there is a word we don’t use much anymore), grace is effective 100% of the time when we apply it and it lets our society down when we ignore it.

Yet I know there are those of you that will say; “Well Jon, I don’t believe in your God or your Bible so what do you think of that?” My response is ‘that is your choice.’ I still submit that at the very least, if our society and culture would live by the principles one finds in the Bible we could still have a better society than we have now. We would do more good, less harm and have a better time getting through this life. While I don’t think we can really live life without God, I also still believe a biblical standard helps us all. We could get rid of a lot of guilt, illness and crime. We would show love and not prejudice, we would give to those in need, and we would use good stewardship to keep our planet clean and use the resources instead of abusing our world.

Jon

Telling Biblical Truth--Love? or Hate? I say loving.

Thought for the Week

If you have been following my ‘to be continued’ series, they have been wrapped up in the idea of the Bible being a good source for a world view and a guide to how to live life. The amazing thing in the context of several statements in the last few weeks has been an almost denial of the Bible as a source for Christian living, a dismissal of all but the four Gospels. In light of the General Assembly a few weeks ago even some ministers gave the idea of; ‘While ministers may read some of the Old Testament, they no longer read the Bible as literal or as the word of God.’ The way it was asked of me was; “You don’t take the Bible literally, do you?” To which my reply was “How else can one take it if it is the source of what you believe?” Of course that raises many issues on the topics to which the Bible speaks.

So, I have been asking about the Bible knowledge of some in our fair City, and though many have great opinions about the Bible, even of some that actually attend church, very few actually read it or know what it says. For while the Bible speaks to great values of love and compassion, it also speaks to great topics like the holiness and righteousness of God, the sinful condition of man and it really does explain why our society is in the shape it is in. It explains that lack of morals on the part of people leads to a price to pay. Look at the challenges in the area of honesty in the Parliament that has lead the news stories lately. Read the papers on crime stats and drug and alcohol abuse. Look at the rise of STD’s in our country and you will see that they are rising despite a ‘safe sex’ secular message. I have seen the late night commercials for avoiding these, as have you. The Bible tells us that we need to be honest, that we need to stay sober, that chastity is a virtue. Violent crime would disappear if the biblical mandate of ‘love God and your neighbour’ was followed. The Bible teaches us to limit sexual relations to a husband and wife married to each other. Teen pregnancy? Tayside has some of the highest rates in the UK, but it can be solved. HIV/Aids? Well, you wipe that out in short order if monogamy in marriage and/or abstinence is taught and practiced.

Are these messages popular in our world today? Not a chance! I have talked to too many even here in our City to think that. I am surprised though at the number of folk who don’t even really understand that this is basic Christian principle. But at the same time I find odd the concept that to take a stance for traditional Christian morality makes me “un-loving”? I have friends who live different than my sense of Christian values suggests they should, but we are still friends. As I was reminded, the doctor who tells the person with cancer that they need surgery or chemo is not unloving. But a doctor who tells a patient they are fine when the patient is sick is unloving.

And thus it should be with a literal Bible message, it must be shared for the truth it is, yet in love with a view to changing the world...

To be continued...

Rev. Jon Bergen, Brechin Baptist Fellowship