CONNECTING THE GENERATIONS

Many people who grew up with a legalistic concept of the Bible have a lot of reprogramming to do, and it can be very hard to know how to untie the knots that we become comfortable with. We need a trusted guide to show us a better path ahead because there can be many missteps one can take along that journey that can derail one's faith.

What if the Restoration Movement actually set us up for the next leg for "church" in America? I am going to give you three reasons why I believe the underlying foundation of Churches of Christ can set us up to thrive in the coming years but it won't be easy (it wasn't easy for Jesus or the early church either).

I want to make you all aware of some changes coming to Wineskins. Over the last few months I have been praying for God's direction and it has become abundantly clear that it is time for me to transition out of my role running Wineskins. It is a long story and it is all very positive!

The initial impulse for a Restoration Movement that resulted in churches of Christ came out of a world of religious division. If the problem was division and the goal was unity, the approach was to achieving that unity was to shed tradition and get back to the basics of the Bible. The idea was that if we all go back to the way things were in the New Testament church then we would find unity.

Much ink has been spilt over the subject of hermeneutics. Most often, however, these discussions focus upon the method of interpretation. In this article I will focus upon the necessarily prior thing: the interpreter. Specifically, I intend to show that the spiritual formation and virtue (or lack thereof) of the interpreter is more determinative than any particular interpretive method.

When I first started in the world of ministry many years ago, one of the pieces of advice I received most often was to communicate, communicate, communicate. And then, if I felt like I had done a good job of communicating, I should do it some more. In other words, it would be impossible for me to over-communicate.

I’ve heard it. You’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it. People don’t want to be part of an Evangelical church. They are bothered by what they see online, and embarrassed at the behavior of some Evangelical leaders. They’ve had enough. They want out. In response to this, people occasionally ask me a simple question: Are we an Evangelical church? Though I hate to get into semantics, I usually respond with a discussion of word meanings: I guess it depends what you mean by Evangelical.

“My name is Alyssa, and I’m a PhD candidate completing a dissertation about representations of religious fanaticism in nineteenth-century British Gothic literature. When this is how you introduce yourself, you get used to a lot of responses. Typically, people mention books they think I’d like, make a joke about grammar, or tell me about their college English courses. But at churches, there has sometimes been a different response: that of distaste.

What do you do when church attendance shrinks, consolidation follows, and the meeting house and parsonage is left empty? A small Arkansas church moved their location from a remote part of their farming community to a main highway and used the empty parsonage and the old church building to house women seeking freedom from addictions.

The Choice I come now to this tenuous junctureWhere I must choose to believe.My breast-fed faithIs weakeningMy presumed and presumptuous tenetsAre eroding like river-run flagstone,Sloughing off like micaIn smoky-transparent sheetsI see no end to this hurting.I feel no confirmation of this hopeI have clutched for these long years;Nor do I require any giftings As brideprice for the unionOf my faith to You.

Many years ago I read this during my quiet time and it led me on a journey. Here it is: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph. 6:12, NIV)

Last year at this time we were preaching from Acts called “Walking in the Way.” I covered the man at the Beautiful Gate (3.1-10) and then moved through the pericope on Solomon's Portico (3.11-26). This is followed by the arrest of Peter and John in chapter 4. It is a story that merits reflection.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to discipling your own children. 1 - Start before they are born. Get in a routine of reading scripture to them, praying over them, etc. You cannot start too early!

They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). - Mark 15:22 They called that place; The Skull; And how true— Here love is stripped; Of all its softness, all Its warmth: Skinned alive, And reduced to A grinning death's head

“Thank you, God, for dwelling in thick darkness.”[1] As I listened to my 8-year old daughter pray those words a few weeks ago at dinner, I was moved by the way she spoke to God. The way her words were not simply a dinnertime prayer but a personal and deep conversation where she praised, entreated, interceded, and confessed to God. Where she expressed so much of who God is to her.

In a month of considering how God uses generations for His purposes I am drawn to an easily overlooked verse in Acts 2. We often focus on 2:38 to talk about baptism but what about 2:39? Here is what it says, "The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call." God cares about generations as well as the nations.

When we are trying to understand a passage in the Bible, the assumptions we bring to the text are our starting point. Beginning from them, we draw other conclusions. This is neither good nor bad. It is just inevitable.

It has become extremely popular to have specific ministries for specific ages. It makes sense on one level...I will even say it "works" depending on how it is done. People who are in the same stage of life can easily relate to each other. It isn't a stretch to spend time with people who are going through the same thing you are going through.

In my context, I’ve experienced and been familiar with both the old and new generation. I don’t feel either “old school” or “new school” (if there can be such labels) because I feel like my DNA/history as a Christian contains both. In my heart and life, I have to decide what it means to follow Jesus with the culture, scripture interpretation, and practice of faith I’ve inherited negotiating between the old and the new generation. What should remain of the old and what needs to become wholly new?

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a marriage. Yet many of those marriage problems can be avoided by simple marriage maintenance. We maintain our houses, our cars, our children (new clothes and doctor visits) and our health, but we often neglect the most important earthly relationship we have … our marriage.

Marriages and families are struggling. That’s not anything you don’t already know. The bad thing is that so many in our world are looking in the wrong place for answers. They are looking; it’s just that the church isn’t doing a very good job at providing the answers.

Do this in remembrance of me. - 1 Corinthians 11:24 Why is it that I can only anchor my thoughts? To what is real. By tying my mind to the jarring reality. Of a nail's impact. On flesh.

My wife and I recently spent a Friday date night at home watching the latest Downton Abbey movie. She did not expect to cry. Thanks to Rhonda’s interest through the years, we watched all the seasons and the prior movie. Without that context, I would have no appreciation for all the characters, personalities and storylines that unfolded during “A New Era.”

This is a meditation upon encountering the Prophet Hosea. Today is Day 200 of the Year 2022. There are 165 days left in this year. Every year I read through the Bible. To go through the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), the Middle Testament (Apocrypha) and the New Testament, I average about three and a half pages a day, which translates to about 15 to 20 minutes at lunch every day.