"For Wherever Two Or Three Are Gathered..."

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]

Perhaps it’s because Christians see it as a moral duty to suffer in silence, or maybe Christians just don’t want to cause a row. Whatever the reason, Christians have become a decidedly passive, and increasingly passive-aggressive group. When it comes to the relationships that are close to our hearts, we tend to avoid confrontation at all costs.

Your neighbor borrows your weed whacker and returns it without any trimmer line? No problem. You’ll just buy some more at the store. Your neighbor borrows your car and returns it on “E”? No problem. You’ll just leave a bit early for work tomorrow and get gas on your way in. Your neighbor borrows eggs…and then batteries…and then…your iphone charger? Well, ok. You can have oatmeal for breakfast and you’ll replace the batteries in the remote control later (it’s good exercise to walk up to the TV to change the channel anyway) and you were spending far too much time Instagramming from your phone. But eventually, over time, you can’t help but harbor a simmering bitterness towards your neighbor. A little trimmer line here or a few eggs there morphs into just one tiny, little complaint to a mutual friend. Then the gas and the batteries become just a little gossip a backyard BBQ. But over the course of a few months, you lose control of the bitterness and it creeps onto facebook. Then it becomes #slander on Twitter. And suddenly, one Friday morning, as you find yourself endorsing your neighbor for “5 finger discounting” and “Scam-mongering” on Linkedin, you realize that this conflict has evolved into something beyond your control.

So what does Jesus have to say about dealing with conflict? Well, Jesus says exactly what the modern day Christian would expect. Jesus tells his disciples to confront the person privately and to work out the disagreement quietly and discreetly. And if the wrongdoer refuses to listen, then Jesus suggests that one or two other trusted, reliable, wise Christians should be consulted. And if the neighbor still won’t listen, then Jesus says, well, to treat the neighbor like a “pagan or a tax collector.” When Jesus’ listeners heard this, they understood that Jesus was giving them permission to treat the neighbor contemptuously. But of course, Jesus’ words turn that understanding upside down. Rather than writing the wrongdoer off as a lost cause or a reckless crook, Jesus tells his listeners to pursue that neighbor in the same way that God pursues each of us. He commands his followers to gather round the one at fault and to continuously correct him out of love and concern, “For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them” (Matt. 18:20).

[Kristin vanEyk attends Encounter Church and teaches English in Grand Rapids, MI.]

The Root of Want

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]

What do you want?

Right now, wherever you’re sitting or standing or crouching while you’re reading this, what do you want?

Maybe it’s a cup of coffee, a nap, a new car, a vacation, or a bigger paycheck. Or maybe your want is intangible, complex, or difficult to admit. Peace. Relationships. Healing. Love. Forgiveness.

We can all think of something we want.

In I Timothy 6, Paul writes specifically about how the love of money can become a problem. Yet, as Pastor Dirk pointed out, it’s only partly about the money itself--more importantly, it’s about the condition of our hearts and the root of our wanting. 

While many people have misread this passage to say that money is the root of evil, the true root of evil is the condition of the heart. There are ways of wanting things--coffee, vacations, paychecks, relationships, peace--that are not bad. God desires to give his children good gifts, and, in their proper context, all of these and more are very good gifts. Vacations can be fun, paychecks allow for different opportunities, relationships enrich our lives, peace allows us to experience life without anxiety. 

Yet if we want these good things for the wrong reasons, they can become bad things that ultimately lead to our own destruction. Paul reminds us of the danger of loving things we’re not supposed to, and more than that, of the value of contentment. The difference between want that is good and want that is bad is whether we can learn be content with or without it.

Contentment is not a quick fix, nor is it something we learn once and are set for the rest of our lives. Just as each stage of our lives brings us different joys and sorrows, opportunities and closed doors, each stage of life brings different ways to learn contentment. It may be learning to be content with fewer material goods than we’d like, or being content at a different school or job than we imagined, or being content with relationships that look different than we’d envisioned. 

It’s not that God expects us to never want anything--sometimes wanting things spurs us to good, healthy action. The difference is in how we approach what we want, and whether we can learn to be content whether we get what we want or not.

Whatever it is that you want right now, maybe it’s time to examine the reason you want it, the true root of the want, and to look at what the condition of your heart is in the midst of your wanting.

[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]

Dig in and Take Hold

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]


It seems to me that there are a few themes in the Bible that run so deep they simply can’t be overlooked, and yet, somehow, I managed to do just that. We have been meditating on some of these deeply embedded themes recently at Encounter Church, and I was surprised to find that I had somehow overlooked much of the story of Israel for many years. As we’ve been living in both the Old Testament stories of Israel’s unfaithfulness and the New Testament grace of Jesus Christ, God has continued to bring us a word about about idolatry and repentance, filling this earth, and the grace of God that can only be found through Jesus Christ.

Much of what happens in the Old Testament revolves around God urging his people to leave behind their idolatrous ways and to trust him only as the one true God. It makes sense that the Israelites would want to worship a variety of gods--the sun god and the water god and the gods of crops or fertility or health--and it takes more trust in Yahweh that many of us muster on a daily basis to trust that only one God could look after our many needs. Still, God warns his people time and time again to repent and to turn away from their idols, for if they would refuse, then they knowingly choose defeat, capture, and torture at the hands of Babylon. No nation was to be feared more that Babylon; no captor promised a more agonizing obliteration than Babylon. And yet, despite God’s warnings and reminders that he would keep his promises to carry the people into exile, the people chose captivity and idol worship over freedom in God. The destruction and captivity of Israel by Babylon very nearly wiped the people off the face of the earth, but after 70 years, still a remnant remained to return to Jerusalem. After all, God had promised that the remnant would persist (Jer. 29: 14).

In the book of Revelation, Babylon reappears, this time as prostitute riding upon a scarlet beast. Revelation 17:5 records, “The name written upon her forehead was a mystery. BABYLON THE GREAT/THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES/AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” One chapter later in Revelation, Babylon falls, and with her the “dwelling for demons” and “haunt for every impure spirit” (Rev. 18:2). The word of the Lord is pretty clear on this: idolatry will captivate our hearts and steal away our lives until we find our salvation in the promises of God, which are fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

Perhaps this is why it became popular for a while to say that Christians are to be “in the world but not of the world.” Christians recognized that we are here on this earth to build the kingdom, but over time the spirit of the wary pilgrim surfaced, the spirit of one passing through this earth who had put on the armor of God to beat back any earthly temptations. Christians were told to long for the renewing of this earth, and not to get too comfortable while here in the physical realm. The image of the Christian pilgrim is popular still today, and perhaps, rightly so.

But as I read the Bible, I find that God continuously leads me back to the commands to “be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it,” or to stories like the Tower of Babel where God scatters people across the earth so that they’ll really dig in to this life (Gen. 1:28; Gen. 11). Even the Great Commission, it seems, includes an imperative to fill the earth, subdue it, and to really grab ahold of it (Matt. 28:16-20).

So when I read a story like the one in Jeremiah 29, where the people Israel have finally been exiled from Jerusalem into Babylon and God commands that they “build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease”, it seems to me that he is once again urging his people to dig into this place; to really grab ahold of it.

One of the most well loved (and misused!) passages from the Bible comes from this same story about exile into Babylon found in Jeremiah 29. God has just ushered his people into exile for their idolatrous and spiritually adulterous ways, but even there, God leads with grace. He says, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and a future.” It appears that God’s plans include exile. The ultimate plan necessitates Jesus, of course, but our instructions for our day-to-day plans for prosperity and hope include filling the earth, making disciples, and waiting for the return of the King.

The instructions are practical: “build houses, settle down, [and] plant gardens” (Jer. 29: 5).  So while we may feel like sojourners passing through, God reminds us that because of our sinfulness we live as in exile, but under his promise he will collect us back at the appointed time. In the meantime, we dig in.

[Kristin vanEyk attends Encounter Church and teaches English in Grand Rapids, MI. She passes most of her time reading, laughing, and playing with her kids.]

Saying No to Checklist Christianity

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]

Checklists are my friend. Whether it’s a list of what I need to do at work that day, a list of errands I need to run, or a list of what I need to pack for a trip, I like to see what needs to be done and check them off as I accomplish them.

Pastor Dirk told us that in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, there are 66 imperative statements--66 things to not do or to check off the list to do. Yet in his introduction, known as the Beatitudes, Jesus uses a different approach. Instead of directly telling his listeners what to do, he tells them ways of being. He tells them of being poor in spirit, of mourning, of being meek, of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, of being merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and persecuted because of righteousness.

The Beatitudes are not a list of tasks to accomplish, they’re ways of living that are to shape our lives.

This doesn’t mean that the imperative statements found elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount are bad; they are guidance for how to handle certain situations and create a framework for the Christian life. But as good as those things are, ultimately Jesus isn’t asking us to make a checklist of How to be a Good Christian and tick all the boxes. As Pastor Dirk put it so clearly, “Jesus isn’t asking us to be better people, he’s asking us to find our righteousness in him.” Because no checklist will ever get us closer to God.

What it comes down to is what we at Encounter talk about so often--grace. It’s pure grace that frees us to say no checklist Christianity and to live as an expression of gratitude for what God has done for us. No amount of money given to church, hours of time poured into ministries, or people we’ve told about Christ is enough to earn us a spot in eternity. It’s only when we realize our own incapability to save ourselves that we are freed to embrace the one who can save us. Jesus.

[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]