J. Mitchell Lane

According to a Gallup poll, 42% of Americans attend Church regularly (almost weekly). 47% of Americans who claim to be protestant have attended Church in the past seven days, and 42% of Catholics. If these statistics are correct, then why is immorality so rampant in our culture? If it’s true that almost half of our population is attending Church regularly, then why is the recession of morality from our culture increasing drastically, and not decreasing drastically?

They forget to mention that this isn’t actually a statistic on the number of Christians. They lump together all Protestants and Catholics into the same group, and call that group the “Christians”. In fact, according to another Gallup Poll, 81% of the US population is “Christian”.

This presents a couple different issues. First, It’s a very obvious example of John 10 and the presence of false teachers and false sheep who are not actually preaching the Word of God, but are instead preaching a watered down version that suits their lifestyle and motivation to exalt themselves above God.

Ask those 81% what Christianity is, and you would come back with a much smaller number of those who can explain exactly what being a Christian is and means Biblically. Beyond that, an even smaller number of those would say that they believe exactly that.

This leads to the extremely skewed view that the world has of Christianity. If you ask someone on the street what they think of Christians, most likely they will tell you that Christians are hypocritical, judgmental, and self-righteous. The problem is that they only see the false Christians. They’re looking at that very high percentage of Americans who are “Christians”, because they outweigh and out-speak the those that truly believe what the Bible teaches. Obviously this is a major problem.

One of the major contributors to this is that the true Christians are so incorrectly focused on trying to get people in the door that they forget to proclaim what Christianity really is. They are so focused on trying to reach non-believers that they forget to teach the true believers. These “seeker-friendly” Churches put so much emphasis on being culturally relevant, that they forget what they are there to do in the first place, and only end up adding on to the number of people who claim to be “Christian”, but have no idea what it means.

I’m echoing one of John MacArthur’s sermons from the Resolve Conference on this part. There’s some good notes on it here. I frequently come across people who are surprised to run into a Christian that knows exactly what they believe and why they believe it. I’m reminded of a conversation that I’ve had more than once. I will be talking to someone who is a “Christian”, and we will have to stop for clarification. On more than one occasion, the question for clarification has been phrased, “Wait, we believe Christ died for our sins, right?” That is the sobering reality of “Christianity” in America. What’s worse is that most of America can’t even get that far in a description of Christianity. It is an extremely harsh realization.

The second issue is trying to do something about it. Since there is such a skewed (or non-existent) view of Christianity out there, what can we do to make that view correct? I’m not saying that if the America knew what Christianity really was, everything would magically get better. It’s actually the opposite of that. John 15 says that Christians will be persecuted for their beliefs. However, most Americans don’t know what a true Christian (not the statistic) believes in, and that persecution is basically non-existent.

I’m also not saying that we need to invite persecution, but we do need to be able to communicate what our beliefs really are instead of sitting back and letting everyone have a false (or non-existent) view of Christianity. We need to weed out the false teachers and the false sheep by preaching the actual Word of God, and not sermons like, “A Christian’s Guide to Financial Security” where the Bible isn’t even opened.

We often think of missions and evangelism only being for the missionaries, and we forget, or don’t even realize, that there is a huge portion of people we come in contact with every day that have no idea what Christianity really is, but only that it has “something to do with that guy Jesus”.

We need to preach the Word through our lives and live out our beliefs instead of standing by the conversations people have around us about those “crazy Christians”. We should doing what many missionaries do every day. When we hear that familiar conversation, many of us have never turned to ask them the question “can you explain to me what Christianity is?” and then told them the truth when they respond incorrectly.

If we spoke plainly about our beliefs instead of keeping them to ourselves and letting the world interpret them for us, maybe that statistic would be more accurate and give us a sobering look at just how vast our mission field here in America really is.

When was the last time you had that conversation?

I found this news article on what could possibly happen to national health insurance under a new bill that is in the works. I’ll let the article do all the talking. Obviously this is something I’m not looking forward to.

“Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals.

In a revamped health care system envisioned by lawmakers, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face penalties.

Called “shared responsibility payments,” the fines would be set at least half the cost of basic medical coverage, according to the legislation. The goal is to nudge people to sign up for coverage when they are healthy, not wait until they get sick.

In 2008, employer-provided coverage averaged $12,680 a year for a family plan, and $4,704 for individual coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey. Senate aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the cost of the federal plan would be lower but declined to provide specifics.

The legislation would exempt certain hardship cases from fines. The fines would be collected through the income tax system.

The new proposals were released as Congress neared the end of a weeklong July 4 break, with lawmakers expected to quickly take up health care legislation when they return to Washington. With deepening divisions along partisan and ideological lines, the complex legislation faces an uncertain future.

Obama wants a bill this year that would provide coverage to the nearly 50 million Americans who lack it and reduce medical costs.

In a statement, Obama welcomed the legislation, saying it “reflects many of the principles I’ve laid out, such as reforms that will prohibit insurance companies from refusing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and the concept of insurance exchanges where individuals can find affordable coverage if they lose their jobs, move or get sick.”

The Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions bill also calls for a government-run insurance option to compete with private plans as well as a $750-per-worker annual fee on larger companies that do not offer coverage to employees.

Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said in a letter to colleagues that their revised plan would cost dramatically less than an earlier, incomplete proposal, and help show the way toward coverage for 97 percent of all Americans.

In a conference call with reporters, Dodd said the revised bill had brought “historic reform of health care” closer. He said the bill’s public option will bring coverage and benefit decisions driven “not by what generates the biggest profits, but by what works best for American families.”

The Congressional Budget Office, in an analysis released Thursday evening, put the net cost of the proposal at $597 billion over 10 years, down from $1 trillion two weeks ago. Coverage expansions worth $645 billion would be partly offset by savings of $48 billion, the estimate said.

However, the total cost of legislation will rise considerably once provisions are added to subsidize health insurance for the poor through Medicaid. Those additions, needed to ensure coverage for nearly all U.S. residents, are being handled by a separate panel, the Senate Finance Committee. Bipartisan talks on the Finance panel aim to hold the overall price tag to $1 trillion.

The Health Committee could complete its portion of the bill as soon as next week, and the presence of a government health insurance option virtually assures a party-line vote.

In the Senate, the Finance Committee version of the bill is unlikely to include a government-run insurance option. Bipartisan negotiations are centered on a proposal for a nonprofit insurance cooperative as a competitor to private companies.

Three committees are collaborating in the House on legislation expected to come to a vote by the end of July. That measure is certain to include a government-run insurance option.

At their heart, all the bills would require insurance companies to sell coverage to any applicant, without charging higher premiums for pre-existing medical conditions. The poor and some middle-class families would qualify for government subsidies to help with the cost of coverage. The government’s costs would be covered by a combination of higher taxes and cuts in projected Medicare and Medicaid spending.”

— The original article at Fox News.

I just wanted to take a second to update everyone on how FAULT is coming. The shoot back in February went well, and I’m in the process of making a few big decisions for it. This started off as a television series idea, but may be taking a few turns. I’ll update you all on what the turns are as soon as the plan comes together and I’ve made the decisions, but for now, enjoy the final cut of the scene we shot out of context.

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” – Hebrews 5:12-14

I was reading this tonight, and I realized how accurate of a description this is of most of the Church, and it struck me that this was also true of the Church in the first century. Many Churches are so concerned about trying to be “culturally relevant” that they water down the Word of God. They spend all of their time speaking (and I say speaking, not preaching, intentionally) about how to have a “better life” or how you can be a Christian and “still have fun”, or how “Christianity doesn’t limit you from enjoying the things of this world” that they miss the point. They are so concerned about entertaining people and shoving as many warm bodies through their “open doors” as the can that they forget what the Church really exists to accomplish.

What does the Church exist to accomplish? What is the Church? The Church is the body of believers of Christ. The Church is not the building, of course, but the believers inside it. It is the people who truly believe the Word of God and that Christ died for their sins, and the people who recognize that they are slaves for Christ. The Church exists to educate and equip each other to go out and preach the Word of God. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers…” I may be going out on a limb here (it shouldn’t really be a limb), but I’m going to say that the Church exists for the believers, and not to evangelize. The Church should dig down deep and exposit the Word of God. It should preach doctrine and Biblical Theology and equip it’s members to preach and evangelize to non-believers through their lives. It shouldn’t be watering down the gospel to milk and not solid food. Doing so starves and suffocates it’s members and doesn’t benefit non-believers because they won’t understand it anyway.

“…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

The Church does not exist for the entertainment of non-Christians. The Church exists for the edification of believers and the Glorification of Christ. The duty of ministering to non-Christians belongs to the Christians who have been well-fed with solid food through diligent preaching and exposition of the Word of God, and who’s salvation and credibility is blatantly apparent in the way that they live their lives.

“But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

“…by this time you ought to be teachers…”