Retreat to worship in spirit

by Dan Grubbs

Not long ago, I taught about the spiritual disciplines of retreat and solitude to a group of young adults. In my study and research in preparation for the lesson, I believe I had a personal revelation about worshiping God and about Christ’s words in John 4:23-24. Maybe everyone else already understands this, but I wanted to share what the Holy Spirit showed me during my study.

Worshiping in spirit was sort of vague in my thinking (admittedly, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer). When I read this story about the Samaritan woman at the well, frankly, I just assumed that Christ was focusing on the mental dialogue we can have with God. Here’s the passage for those not familiar with it. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

I will confess to having a limited understanding of what Christ truly meant from His perspective. To what was Christ referring when He used the word “spirit”? Many will point to the corporate prayer and singing as important elements of worship.Others will remind us of giving and service as worship. I agree fully that these are examples of worshiping our God. But, I’m not convinced that is completely what Christ was talking about in this passage.

Here’s where my thoughts began to been enlarged about worship. I was digging into Christ’s and Paul’s examples of practicing retreat and solitude when I realized that these ‘spiritual’ disciplines are, I believe, largely what Christ was talking about. Paul going into Arabia; Christ slipping away into the wilderness; are examples of retreat and solitude to be alone with God to worship.

Christ was, in part, referring to worship as those times we are in communion with our Creator. It’s like the famous quote about Paul. Before his Damascus experience, Saul ‘said’ his prayers to God. After conversion, Paul ‘prayed’ his prayers. He was in connection as a personality with the personality of God.

When we retreat away from our schedules, our activities, and generally the ‘noise’ of living, and spend time in solitude with God, we are worshiping in spirit. That eternal part of us is ‘together with’ the eternal Spirit. This is exactly what the word communion means — together with. This is what Christ teaches us that the Father seeks from us.

This prompted me to quickly review other spiritual disciplines. I came to the same conclusion for each. When we can put ourselves away, and enter into a spiritual discipline, we are in communion with God and thus, worshiping Him in spirit.

You may ask, “Where’ve you been? That’s a principle the church has understood to be true for thousands of years.” I cannot deny that this truth was pre-existent to my own personal realization of it. Nor can I deny that I should have grasped this sooner. However, when I look around, I don’t see the fruits of a church who is regularly practicing the spiritual disciplines that lead to “worshiping the Father in spirit.”

In fact, what I see is a church who has come to revere time itself and put away the spiritual disciplines and salve our conscience with singing hymns and praises on Sunday and having a running dialog with God amidst the activities of our day. Do not misunderstand me. Corporate worship is vital, and we are not to neglect it.

We are privileged to be able to communicate with our God at any conscious moment. But, these things are not to replace the communion we experience with the personality of God when we (among other times) meditate, sit in silence, close the closet door, or retreat away where we will not be disturbed.

I know I’m taking a narrow picture of what spiritual worship can be. But, I think we need a foundation upon which to build other forms of spiritual worship. I’m quite sure that there are other disciplines that we could arguably focus on. But, as I said, we must begin with a foundation. Imagine the worshiper coming to Sunday service or a Bible study who has spent the week with a daily retreat. How much sweeter will our singing, our offering, our service, and our fellowship be?

We must teach our children, our youth, our young adults, our middle aged, and our elderly that we must practice the discipline of retreat to answer the call of worshiping the Father “inspirit and truth.”

C.S. Lewis put it this way: “God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other…God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Is "family" the new idol?

by Dan Grubbs

Well, I'm not sure I can say it's a new idea that "family" has become a distraction from our focus on God, but my larger point is that our society has used the family as an excuse for a deteriorating individual relationship with God.

What sparked this line of thinking is the fact that Christmas church services are nearly non-existent in a country where Dec. 25 is a specifically Christian celebration of the birth of the Messiah. Oh, there are Christmas-eve services aplenty still. But, according to an article by Amy Sullivan for Time, services on Christmas day are hard to find. Sullivan speculates, "most Protestant churches are closed on the actual religious holiday. For most Christians, Christmas is a day for family, not faith."

My unbelieving acquaintances would think Sullivan is daft for writing that last sentence. They'd say, "Of course Christmas is a holiday for the family." But, what struck me is Sullivan's central point -- that Christmas is no longer a day for faith. Her article indicates that this is a reflection of our cultural evolution in America where the family has been raised "to a sacrosanct level."

Now, before anyone goes down the road thinking I'm advocating that we abandon our familial responsibilities and lock ourselves away in some utopian cloister, think again. What I'm simply pondering on is how we in America live out our priorities.

If we claim that we are followers of Christ and desire to be obedient to His teachings and commandments, then our lives should be ordered in priorities that begin with our personal relationship with God, then our relationships and responsibilities to our families following. With that, then, I ask the simple question, What would stop us from attending a Christmas day church service? And, I believe the honest answer would be because we have family plans and activities that don't involve our local assemblies.

In my mind, one question leads to another. Therefore, I ask, how does this behavior reflect the choices we make regarding God? One thing I do know is that our God is a jealous God. He desires all of us, not just part of ourselves. It's also been my experience that when some distraction gets in the way of our relationship with Him, He will often remove that distraction. As the logical flow continues, if we esteem anything higher than God, it has then become an idol. Where does that leave us, then? As stark as it may sound, many of us has made an idol of our families insomuch as we esteem them (by our behaviors) higher than we do the Creator and Lover of our souls.

Can families remain at home and celebrate Christmas in a way that is faithful to Christ? Absolutely. To deny that is simply silly. However, I am sceptical that the majority of Christian families are actually celebrating Christmas day in a way that their focus is on their need for a Messiah to come to Earth.

Bound with unbelievers

by Dan Grubbs

My previous post may seem like it made too far a stretch to connect King Saul with Rick Warren. I understand that sentiment. However, I think there are other biblical teachings that directly apply to this situation in which Rick Warren finds himself.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 is the main text I'll refer to in my disagreement with Warren accepting the invitation to deliver the prayer for the inauguration. Paul is teaching the believers in Corinth not to connect themselves with the false teachers around them, and secondarilly, not to associate themselves with unbelievers. The passage reads:

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have
righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or
what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an
unbeliever?

In application to our own lives, the idea of being bound together is often referred to as unequally yoked, as two draft animals yoked together to work for a common purpose. If you yoke two oxen that aren't matched as a collaborative pair, you can't plow the field properly. If believers yoke themselves together with those who are in opposition to God and His word, they will be unequally yoked.

It is clear that President-elect Obama stands in opposition to God on many issues. This fact cannot be denied. What partnership can we, as believers, have with one who so starkly stands in opposition to the God whom we serve?

Continuing in the 2 Corinthian passage, God calls believers out from among such as President-elect Obama, whose public position on many issues count him as one associated with darkness.

Should we pray for Mr. Obama? Absolutely! Not only as the leader of our nation, but more importantly, for his relationship with God to be healed. Yet, Mr. Warren will not be praying for Mr. Obama's salvation on Jan. 20, but instead, will be by his presence, endorsing the agenda of the chief executive.

Is that bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen I hear?

By Dan Grubbs

If I wasn’t a fan of Rick Warren before, I certainly am not a fan now that he will deliver the invocation at President-elect Obama’s inauguration next month. I’ve read that Mr. Warren views this as an opportunity for national healing. However, I see this as something else.
I don’t think God was too happy about King Saul withholding the sword from Agag, the Amalekite king, and brought back spoils of war when Saul was directly commanded by God to destroy all.

Of course there’s not a direct comparison of Mr. Obama with Agag, but there is something of a parallel. Mr. Obama's support of the slaughter of millions of American citizens, among other things, should cause Mr. Warren to refuse, just as Saul should have put the enemies of God to the sword.

Any man should always consider their actions from God’s perspective, considering how they fit into His plans as we understand them through the Bible. I’m not convinced that Mr. Warren’s motives to accept the invitation to deliver the invocation are healthy. As Ruben Navarrette, Jr., wrote for CNN, Mr. Warren’s appearance is supposed to be about “American’s learning to agree to disagree without becoming disagreeable.” This feels a lot like wanting to negotiate with Agag, an enemy of God; or, at best Mr. Warren is attempting to make a pleasing act of sacrifice. However, let’s review how God’s prophet Samuel replies to Saul, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”

Personally, I could not make a public endorsement of Mr. Obama in this way because abortion is disobedience to God. And, there’s no apologetic to rationalize this appearance in any other way than a public endorsement.

Yes, Mr. Warren has been vocal about abortion, marriage and moral issues in this society. But, there is no eternal healing that can happen by delivering this invocation. And, it’s eternal healing that a pastor is supposed to be about.

Mentoring, it's a God thing

by Dan Grubbs

It’s interesting that today’s church, as hard as it works at small-group ministry, often misses Paul’s clear teaching in Titus about the older women teaching the younger and the older men guiding the younger men.

Small group ministry is absolutely vital. It’s there were the church experiences a profound blessing as the body of Christ. It’s a lot of what Act 2:41-47 is all about. But, why do local congregations have the tendency to make small groups homogeneous by age or life stage?

There is merit to meeting in fellowship with others going through similar things in life. But, this leaves out the more significant needs of mentorship, which is very effective when it occurs in the context of a small group. Today’s church needs to be careful about how it builds small group ministries and any limits it may impose.

Simplistically, discipleship is that growth and work we exercise in our spiritual lives to be more Christ like and glorify Him. We can’t rest on the fact that we are saved. Christ commands us to learn, grow and do, after that blessed work of salvation in our lives. But, that learning and growing and doing is severely limited if we rely solely on corporate assembly. We see this clearly in 1 Thessalonians.

Mentoring works

The secular world understands the results of mentorship. One of the most successful social programs I know is the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. It has helped thousands of young people grow into productive adults when the odds were against them. Are the odds against young people growing up sound in the faith today?

Business has even latched on to mentorship in its management training efforts. Businesses around the world understand mentorship and use it for succession planning. Companies will continue in their successful strategic plans largely through some form of mentorship. What legacy will today’s church leave to its younger members to take up?

I know there are many local churches with awesome mentorship programs. I’ve seen the lives of young people profoundly impacted by a caring and loving Christian mentor. But, without the willingness of mature Christians to mentor a younger believer, every program will fail. For, it’s in a mentoring relationship that the Truth can be passed on by teaching and by example.

Mentoring is a biblical model

A walk through the gospels will reveal Christ’s own example of how mentoring is the key to discipleship. Being who He was and understanding their future purpose, Christ took on 12 men for this purpose.

In this amazing mentoring relationship, Christ is the model for all who answer this call. He loved them, first. He guided them. He impacted their personal lives in everyday ways. He challenged them. He corrected and rebuked them. He imparted His knowledge of God’s will to them. This is our challenge to be the kind of mentor to young believers as Christ was to the Apostles.

Mentorship is also displayed in detail in almost all of Paul’s epistles. We need to emulate what Paul did and how he loved the people with whom he ministered.

Maybe at no other time in history is the need for mentorship greater than it is today. This is largely because of our mobile families and our normal mentors no longer live in our nuclear or extended families.

What should you do about it? Check out the biblical passages below to aid our understanding about mentoring:

Job 12:12 “Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?”

Psalm 71:17-18 “Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.”

Deuteronomy 1:37-38 “You also shall not enter. Joshua son of Nun, your assistant, shall enter
there; encourage him, for he is the one who will secure Israel’s possession of it.”

2 Timothy 2:2 “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit
these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Titus 2:1-7 “But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored. Likewise urge the young men to be sensible; in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, wit, purity in doctrine, dignified.”