Is Your Local Adventist Church Like Jesus? (A Quiz)
Is your local Adventist church like Jesus?
This week, I want you to take a quiz. Do it on your own, but also invite others in your church (leaders or not) and do it with them as well. In this quiz, we are going to identify wether or not your church is like Jesus.
Good news: There are only three questions. (Sort of.) But first, we need to read the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-7 because the quiz is based on the parable. So here goes:
“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
OK, now that you have read the parable I am going to break it down into 3 overarching points. Those 3 points will form the basis for our quiz.
Who Does your Church Attract?
The first point that leaps out from this parable is that the sinners were “all” gathering around to hear Jesus. Not the religious folk. Not the culturally conservative. Not the theologians or scholars. They were the ones in the back of the room judging, condeming and complaning about Jesus. In their heads, they couldn’t figure out how a holy and sacred God would associate with people like that—people who were clearly immoral. So the story begins with this simple picture: The religious people on one side of the room, Jesus on the other. And where are the sinners? With Jesus.
I had a friend years ago who was part of a ministry that gave free rides to drunk students on campus. During one of the rides, a student asked her: “Why would people like you (Christians) want to be around people like us?” In the same vein, I have had so many friends tell me they will never set foot in a church. “The building might burn down” some say. “Ill get struck by lighting” others say. But in the end, the message is the same - todays culture does not see the church as a safe place for sinners. We are, in effect, the opposite of who Jesus was. While Jesus attracted sinners, we scare them away.
So my first question in our quiz today is: Who does your church attract? Does it attract sinners or saints? The easiest way to find out is to ask a few followup questions. Questions like:
Who is most at home in your church? (If the religious folk are, its often at the expense of the non-religious.)
Who loves your church most? (If the religious folk love you, it’s because your church caters to them and not the lost.)
Who is most excited to attend your church? (If there is a trend of visitors coming and not staying at your church, it’s because your church only connects with saints, not sinners.)
So who does your church attract? Thats the first question.
Who Does your Church Prioritise?
Jesus attracted the sinners while the religious folk did not. So Jesus tells them a story that reveals exactly why. In the story, Jesus asks a really interesting question: Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
Jesus question is interesting because he states it as a matter of fact: “Doesn’t he”? Its as if Jesus is assuming that the normal thing to do if you lose one sheep is to leave the 99 and go find the one. But from an investment perspective, this makes no sense. If you lose one the best thing to do is count your loss. You don’t leave the 99 “in the open field” and go searching for the one because you risk losing another ten! It seems to me that the best thing to do is count your loss on the one and preseve the 99 you have left.
But Jesus does the oposite. He leaves the 99 and goes searching for the one. It’s as if Jesus is saying: The 99 are not my priority anymore. The one is.
Funny thing is, most of our churches tend to operate the other way around. We live to coddle the 99. We exist to keep them happy, pacify their desires and pamper their every whim. When the 99 complain, the leaders have to find a way to keep them happy. And the sad part is, many of the 99 want a church where they are comfortable—a church where the one doesn’t fit in.
And this is why Jesus attracted sinners while the Pharisees repelled them. Jesus did not exist to coddle the 99. He did not come to the earth to make church folk happy. He came to reach the one. He had a heart that beat for the one. He wasn’t concerned with meeting the expectations of the 99. He was concerned with reaching the one.
Who does your church prioritise? Is it the 99 or the one? Here are some build-up questions that can help you figure it out:
Which department in your church gets the most money? (If your outreach budget is tiny compared to the amount of money you spend on “in house” things, thats worth contemplating.)
How committed is your church to understanding its un-Christian neighbors? (Is your church constantly putting on programs that only feed the saints with things that have little to no missional use? Or is your church investing in resources and tranining on how to connect with its secular surroundings?)
How open is your church to changing its culture and methodology in order to more meaningfully connect with the lost that surround it? (Most churches refuse to change any of their cultural or methodological practices because thats the way they “like it”. This is a sign of a church more interested in the 99 being happy than in the one that is lost.)
What does your church celebrate?
People celebrate when they win. And the easiest way to know what your church celebrates is to find out what it considers a win. Celebration isn’t always a loud party. A celebration can be quiet and hard to identify. So don’t answer this question by trying to find the times when your church throws a party. Instead, dig for the “win”. What is your church’s win? Because when it happens, a celebration ensues wether or not its evident.
For Jesus and all of heaven, a win is the one coming home. When the one returns, Jesus celebrates. Now most churches are happy when theres a baptism - I mean, who wouldn’t be? But that doesn’t mean they are celebrating because a baptism may not be a win for them. Instead, there are churches who consider it a “win” when they disfellowship someone. Others consider it a “win” when they get rid of a particular pastor, gain control over a particular issue in the church, or when they finally scare off those pesky young people with their weird ideas.
Some churches have no win whatseover (in that they have never discussed what a win is or have no unified win) and others consider it a win to reject or resist particular theological developments (ex. churches that pride themselves in being anti-WO or anti-”new theology” etc.).
But Jesus didn’t have any of those as a win. His only win—the only thing the Bible says heaven ever has a party over—is when the one comes home.
So then, what does your church celebrate?
These three questions: Who does your church attract? Who does your church prioritise? And What does your church celebrate? constitute the “Is Your Local Adventist Church Like Jesus? Quiz”.
What are your answers? Share them below and lets chat.
You might be asking: What do we do if our church is not like Jesus?
To answer that question, I have put together an online mission and discipleship school. Tap the button below to learn more.
Is Your Adventism Beautiful?
Is your Adventism beautiful?
Or is it ugly?
Does it attract the seeking heart to God?
Or does it repell it?
Hang with me here.
In Isaiah 61:10 the Bible says,
I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Notice the imagery here. The text is saying that God adorns us like a bride adorns herself in jewels. Picture that for a moment. A bride getting herself ready for her wedding. She is careful to comb and braid her hair just right. Her skin is brushed to perfection. She hangs a necklace around her neck and earrings that match. The jewels themselves can’t be just any old jewel. They have to be just right—not so strong that they steal the show and not so weak that they look out of place. They have to compliment her eyes, her dress—even the shape of her jaw and the length of her neck. It’s a work of art intended to enhance her beauty and draw attention to her joy.
The Bible says that this is what God does for us. He adorns us. He clothes us in his promise of salvation, in a robe of his perfect life and love. The picture Isaiah is painting is clear. God isn’t interested in dragging us into a religion full of rules and weird standards. The exact opposite is happening. God courts us romantically and then, the day we embrace him, he adorns us in all the beauty heaven has to offer.
And God adorns us in this for one reason: He wants us to be beautiful.
But it’s deeper than this. In Psalm 90:17 David wrote,
“Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us…”
In other words, its not simply that God adorns us with his grace and forgiveness. According to David he adorns us with himself. He is like a jewel that enhances our beauty and draws everyone’s attention to his heart.
And yet, it gets even deeper! God is not simply an adornment upon you and me that others see when they interact with us. Instead, the Bible paints an even crazier picture. Notice what Isaiah says in chapter 62 verse 3.
“You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”
Did you catch that? Not only does God adorn us with himself, Isaiah goes so far as to say that he adorns himself with us!
Imagine God placing a crown on his head, or a royal ring upon his finger. That crown and that ring represent you and me. It’s not that God needs us to make himself more beautiful because he is the height of beauty. However, in some weird way I don’t fully understand God still describes his people as jewels he wears upon himself. I would suggest that because the great controversy is a battle over the character of God—Is he good or not?—then the biblical picture of God wearing his people as jewelry has theodical significance. In other words, when we live beautiful lives we beautify God in the eyes of people who think he is ugly. Our lives are the jewels that catch their attention and enable them to see the true beauty of his heart.
Zechariah also captured a similar picture when he wrote,
“The LORD their God will save his people on that day as a shepherd saves his flock. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” (Zech. 9:16)
And speaking through the prophet Haggai, God said to Zerubabbel,
“I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you…” (Haggai 2:23)
So let me ask again. Is your Adventism beautiful?
Is your faith like a jewel that God would want to wear?
Because here’s the pain truth: Countless people have turned away from God because supposed believers live lives that make God look ugly. Judgmental, arrogant, disconnected, sectarian, holier-than-thou, argumentative, critical, fault-finding, condemnatory, negative, obsessed with rules, traditions and mindless customs, tossed around by conspiracy theories and full of hatred toward those different from themselves. That’s the sort of stuff that makes God look ugly.
So my question today is, is your Adventism beautiful? Is your life beautiful? Are you adorned with the character of Jesus? Are you kind, fun to be around, and encouraging? And on the flip-side, if you were a jewel would he put you on? Would your life be filled with care for the poor, the vulnerable and the lonely? Is it the kind of life that would make others say—“wow, God really is beautiful.”
The answer to these simple questions is the difference between a life of missional effectiveness and failure. And the point here isn’t to stress you out with the pressure of “being beautiful enough for God to wear me” because the truth is, the beauty God is looking for isn’t all that complicated. Its simple. Its relationship. Its caring for others, defending the weak, advocating for the oppressed, and loving your neighbor.
So today I want to invite you—stop and think if you are adorned in the beauty of God and if, in turn, God would adorn himself with the beauty of you. Because the world doesn’t need more religious people with the right answers. It needs believers adorned with the beauty of God’s heart.
5 Things I Love About Adventism
One thing I do often (and by often I mean very often) is challenge the Seventh-day Adventist church - particularly in the West - to… well, to do better.
Whether I am calling our local church structures to be redesigned for mission, provoking our cultural quirks and questioning their utility, or disputing unhealthy theological frameworks that exist among us the message is fundamentally the same: we have to be better.
But this week, I decided I would pause the revolutionary broadcast to share 5 things I love about Adventism. So here goes:
I love our theological trajectory. I could go on and on about this, but in short Adventism is a theological narrative that is not about Adventism and I love that. Instead, Adventism is a story about God, his heart and his love, centred and strung together in Jesus. But the best part about it is that our theological narrative is not set in stone but constantly unfolding and developing. Yes, there are those among us who would prefer a more stringent, creedal kind of Adventism but its just not in our DNA. As a result, we remain committed to scripture rather than a statement of beliefs. And that commitment, I believe, has enabled us to develop an understanding of the love of God no other theological system around can match. No, that’s not a very politically correct thing to say. But hey, I wouldn’t be an Adventist if I didn’t believe there was something eccentric about what we have to say.
I love that we are Historicists. Historicism has been challenged for forever by people outside and inside of our church. Today, there is a whole new gang of voices repeating the century old attacks (with some new developments I must concur). And that’s fine, I mean, everyone is entitled to their own thing right? But for Adventism, Historicism is an apocalyptic interpretive method that has transcendent efficacy. Now, I don’t pretend that it’s a perfect method, that we have it all figured out, or that it can’t be misused (because it can and is). But Historicism provides us with a kind of sociological significance unmatched by alternative methods. For example, Historicism gives us a narrative that manifests the injustice of religio-political empire in a way that is not immediately self evident. This gives us a foundation to diverge from the collective pursuit of utopianism and the ever trending move toward social reform via church-state legislation. Instead, Historicism calls us to a kind of theological and ideological remonstrance on the one hand, and social preparation (as opposed to reformation) on the other. This approach is rooted in our view of human empire, which even when united with God’s kingdom ultimately self destructs as Daniel and Revelation so aptly reveal. It is also rooted in the denial of a coming golden age for humanity. Instead, Adventists see a coming catastrophe that cannot be averted by political manoeuvres. Our mission is therefore, to prepare the world for this climactic zero-hour in which the only righteous Kingdom will abdicate the throne of humanities global res publica. Sadly, other common interpretive methods of Daniel and Revelation point in the opposite direction by envisioning a coming era of righteous human dominion which in turn leads to political power grabbing in the name of righteousness. This, Adventists believe, is the precursor to a manifestation of religious intolerance and injustice of apocalyptic proportions.
In addition, Historicism is the only prophetic interpretive method that unveils God in action throughout the entirety of human time. Even during the Dark Ages where it appears God took a vacation (as Morgan Freeman put it in the movie “Bruce Almighty”), Adventisms apocalyptic consciousness helps us understand his presence and movement even in the darkest pages of the church’s sordid story, including the chapters yet to unfold. It’s also cool that we are the only Historicist denomination left. Some people see that as a sign that we are the only idiots left in Christendom. I see it as a sign that we are the only anti-conformists left. Of course, at the end of the day my love for Historicism is rooted in the text and not in whether I think its neat or not, but explaining that will take more space than I allotted for this short post, so I’ll move on.
I love our global structure. Despite all the challenges created by having an intercontinental and cross-cultural institution I honestly can’t think of anything better. Now some of my more post-modern, anti-institutionalist friends find this appalling. They wonder how someone as forward thinking as me can be so fond of our global structure. After all, all those super cool non-denom churches are as neat as they are because they keep all the tithe in house. Why can’t we do the same? My answer revolves around the pragmatic idea that while cynical anti-institutionalism has some value it falls flat when it comes to the practical needs of a global mission. The fact is, Adventism has a message that must go to the entire world. If you believe that, then you need an institution to facilitate that mission. Those who reject the institution are often only interested in reaching their immediate, local region. But Adventism doesn’t have a regional message, it has a global one - for every person on earth. So the bottom line is, we need a global structure. Now of course, I applaud the voices that say the institution needs reform. It definitely does! But that doesn’t mean we should abandon it. The fact remains that if we have a global message, we need a global presence and the level of organisation needed for that sort of thing demands an institution. And because I accept the premise that we have a global message, then I embrace our global structure as a needed tool to that end.
I love our health message. Yeah, there’s always the annoying people who are like super gung-ho and fanatical and no one likes them. I get that. Even non-Christian vegan hippies have their weirdos who will chop your head off for daring to eat your sweet potato quinoa salad in a plastic container (HOW DARE YOU??). But despite this wacko-reality, the health message is one of the coolest things about Adventism. It’s rooted in the idea that human beings are holistic creatures whose spiritual, emotional and physical nature is intertwined like the rhythm, melody and harmony of a musical composition. When they flow well together, something beautiful happens both at the individual and collective level. Even other denominations have started to pick up on the value of a holistic approach to the human as opposed to the dualist approach that has governed classical theology and given birth not only to generations of Christians with little care for physical well being, but also to doctrines like eternal torment that have driven scepticism to the heights of influence it enjoys today.
I love our potentiality. Because of Adventisms theological trajectory, its apocalyptic consciousness, global structure and holistic view of man I believe its future potential is beyond anything we have yet imagined. While our beliefs exist outside our church, they do so sporadically - here, there and everywhere. But in Adventism, each of these elements coalesce to form a movement and a story unheard of in the world. And the moment that we lock into that, get excited about it and refuse to allow tradition, fundamentalism and narcissism to get in the way of it that is the moment that we will sweep the world with something grand. Our potential is overwhelmingly exciting and I pray and hope for the day it is unveiled for the world to see.
What are some things you love about Adventism? Share your thoughts below!