Had a fun Sunday yesterday - I taught in the 3 Vintage Faith Worship gatherings on why we should strive to be theologians (in the non-academic sense of the word). I was even able to use my Joey Ramone bobble-head as a prop when teaching, which I will explain later.
Theology means the 'study of God' and we all should be using our minds as Christians and the importance of Scripture in our lives. Jesus said to love God with our minds (Matthew 22:37). We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). So I focused on how theology comes alive when we are on mission and challenged with different ways of thinking. We should enjoy that and thrive in that if we are truly "missionaries". I shared if we aren't getting challenged in various theological questions, we probably aren't on mission as we then aren't interacting with people outside the faith to be getting the questions. There is a big difference in discussing theology with other Christians (and often that is discussing a lot of the same theological debates that others have had in the past too that we rehash in various forms) rather than theology for the sake of mission with people.
In the gatherings I opened it up to everyone there to give their thoughts on what are the doctrines we need to be secure in and know. And which are the ones which may have many opinions and we may hold one but don't need to fight about them. I drew them out on a white board as people in the gathering gave what they felt were the doctrines we need to hold as essentials and which are the ones which there may be a variety of opinions on. Such as "Jesus is coming back" was an essential doctrine, but how He is coming back (amillennial, premillennial etc.) wasn't as important to have a distinct opinion on. No matter what doctrine we hold to, which may in the more non-essential catagory we still need to think about the ramifications of our theology. So we if do hold a premillennial view of the the end times, it doesn't mean we abandon trying to make things better in this world - or simply bunker down and wait for the end to come (as some who hold this viewpoint can unfortunately do). So it was a great Sunday having this discussion as part of the actual sermon.
I wish I had photos for this next part of what we did, as it was quite interesting looking. I laid out several bowls of water with different food coloring in each one. Each represented something.... Scriptures - friends - entertainment - TV - hobbies - fashion/pop culture etc. I had a sponge and I shared how our thinking and mind is shaped by a variety of things that we are immersed in each week. I used the sponge and dipped it in the various bowls showing that of course we will watch TV, be immersed in culture, have friends we hang out with, have interests etc. and we take all of these in our minds like a sponge. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact it is good to do if we live in a culture to know the culture. But as we do that, how much do we intake Scripture and truly study it to be able to understand how we view things throughthe biblical narrative? For some Christians, do we spend more time reading the latest Christian book than be in the Scriptures themselves in addition to that? This was the last week of a 12 week series, so this was not just a "read your Bible" message. It was one week of a holistic series of being a disciple and the ways we are spiritually formed. This was one part of the whole about Scripture and our minds.
Because I didn't have much time to set it up the bowls and props, I grabbed some things from my office to put in front of each bowl. For the "media" one, I had a "Lost in Space" mini-television set. For "friends" - I had Joey Ramone and Brian Setzer bobble-heads in front of that bowl. For fashion and pop culture I had a Lon Chaney Jr. doll that I have who is dressed in a cool suit and some KISS cologne that a friend gave me as a joke. For hobbies I had a miniature model Ford Mustang and a NY Yankees banner. So I used those props that I just I grabbed from my office that morning and put them in front of the bowls and talked about each one of these things that we immerse our minds and time in. I dipped the sponge in each bowl and had fun moving it around and giving examples of how we do that. But the question was about how much Scripture and the biblical narrative is soaked into our minds in the midst of everything else?
Something fun that also happened in the evening gathering is that we got to have Rick Muchow from Saddleback Church there to share a little and play a song in the evening gathering. Rick is the primary musical worship leader at Saddleback for many years. I have met with Rick a couple of times over the years and he was in Monterey this weekend. So he drove up for the evening gathering at Vintage Faith Church and brought his guitar. He shared a little of his faith journey as a college student and then played a song he wrote. I have never seen him play a solo song like this and he is a really great guitar player and has an amazing voice. He played a James Taylor-like song if I could try and describe it on acoustic guitar.
It was kind of funny as we are entering our 5th year as a church plant and have 3 Sunday gatherings now, but not too big a church and Rick normally leads music to 20,000 people each weekend. And here he was taking time to be serving the people of Vintage Faith in a 350 seat room. He also shared that Saddleback Church baptized 900 people on Easter Sunday this year - which is larger than our whole church at this point. I am amazed at thinking 900 people were baptized on one day. 900 people who put faith in Jesus and then on Easter Sunday they were baptized is an incredible, incredible thing. My heart was so encouraged hearing about that.
After the gathering ended, Rick carried my Joey Ramone bobble-head for me back up to my office and placed it on my Ramones shelf. So he took good care of my Joey for me. And then Rick, myself, Josh Fox and Josh's brothers stayed with Rick talking until midnight talking in my office. So it was a great time and so encouraging hearing what God is doing at Saddleback in people's lives. A fun ending to an already fun week with Origins/Catalyst happening and Origins kick-off.
