If ever you hear the Father’s call to come out of man’s institutional church to follow Christ alone, you’ll no doubt be accused of “forsaking the assembly of the brethren”. That’s found in Hebrews 10:25.

It reads: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom is with some; but encouraging one another … (Hebrews 10:25 Darby)

Ministers and church-goers assert that the Sunday morning worship service is the very “assembling” Paul wrote about. That’s preposterous of course, because when Paul wrote Hebrews, there was no such thing as a Sunday morning worship service. Rather, at the time believers assembled together in and by Christ and lived in community with one another.

Hal Lindsay’s book The Late Great Planet Earth was first published in 1970 the same year I received Jesus as Lord. It was about 10 years later I finally read the book whereupon I was gripped by tribulation-mania and the possibility of being caught up at any moment in the rapture with Jesus. How well I remember deliberating whether to renew my subscription to the Wittenburg Door Magazine for 1 or 2 years. If the rapture were imminent, renewing for 2 years would be a waste of money. Ever trying to be a good steward, I renewed for just 1 year. Thanks Hal!

It’s a silly story, but the fact is Hal Lindsey’s book and others like it, have sewn much yeast into the body of Christ. Christians fixated on the impending rise of the antichrist, the tribulation and the rapture have been rendered ineffective in the present by constantly fixing their eyes on a future escape from reality. Instead of living and rejoicing in our Savior who is here even NOW and who said “the kingdom of God is WITHIN you” (Luke 17:21), they await a future encounter with Jesus.

Lately I’ve been spending time in quiet meditation of the “come let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) sort, where a few scriptures have remained at the forefront of my thoughts and have proven very sobering by the questions they inspire. The scriptures are:

“I am THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life” (John 14:6)

“Walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7)

“Obey the Spirit’s teaching, then, and remain in union with Christ.” (1 John 2:27 GNB)

My meditations are aided by the experiences God has brought me through, such as my brief foray back into an institutional church, which gave me many things to examine and the effect they had on my fellowship with Christ and others. These have helped me to see more clearly the connection between my choices, actions and involvements and my unity with Christ.

When the service ended, two men introduced themselves to Karen and me at the front of the sanctuary. They welcomed us to Cornville and then the taller of the two turned to me and said “when you live here son, you got to declare which side you’re on”. Karen grinned knowingly and turned her attention to the woman who greeted her. Panic began to set in – how could my new wife – a native Cornvillain and familiar with their strange ways, abandon me like that to these 2 grinning sod busters?

“Ugh, politics already” I thought to myself. I’d hoped by moving away from Seattle there wouldn’t be any partisan politics to contend with. Yet there it was and in church of all places! “Do you mean what political party do I belong to?” “Nah, not that. But you still got to declare.” I must have looked to them like a deer caught in the headlights. “I don’t get it” I confessed. “Red or green” he demanded. “You mean like what’s my favorite color?” His grin was replaced by a look of consternation as he blurted out “Are you daft, boy, John Deere or Case IH?”

In the episode A View from the Cross, I shared a dream that the Spirit gave me 20 years ago called the “Strange Fishing Dream”. With the help of friends gifted in interpretation, the dream helped me understand the type of ministry the Lord called me to. Not long after, the Spirit gave me an even stranger fishing dream that for nearly 20 years, I had no interpretation for and I forgot about it. When writing the scripts for the Martha and Deacons episodes the Lord brought that dream back to mind, with an eye-opening interpretation.

The Cow Fish Dream

From the window of a vacant building on a pier over the Puget Sound, I was fishing and hooked a big fish, the size of a cow. Somehow I managed to reel it in on a pole much too small for the job, lifted it out of the water, pulled it through the window and placed it on what looked like a boat cradle. I don’t remember that the fish weighed anything.

NOTE: This article is a follow up to the article Martha! Martha! Martha!

I’ve been inspired to read Acts 6:1-6 in several different translations where I picked up on a few additional cues that raised even more questions concerning the creation and ordination of deacons.

Normally, I use the ESV version for casual reading, which for Acts 6:2, reads in part:

“And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples …”

The word “summoned” jumped off the page at me and leaves me rather unsettled, because it is often used in situations of authority, e.g., a court of law summons someone under the law to stand before the judge. Strong’s dictionary defines the Greek word προσκαλέομαι (proskaleomai / pros-kal-eh’-om-ahee) G4341 as:

“to call toward oneself, that is, summon, invite”.

You know the story; Jesus and the disciples drop in on Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and Martha gets steamed at Mary for leaving her to do all the serving by herself while Mary reclines at Jesus feet. Martha is upset enough that she even throws a little lip Jesus’ way (Luke 10:38-42). Sermons about the encounter typically conclude with “be a Mary, not a Martha”. Of course, such sermons are NEVER delivered on the same day that the church holds a potluck. No one gets served if everyone is a Mary.

The Greek word used to describe Martha’s serving is the same word used in Acts 6:1, when the apostles decided that serving food was a hassle and foisted the job off onto 7 deacons so they could focus on prayer and the word of God. Except for the Greek, one wouldn’t see the connection because the King James renders the word “serving” in the passage about Martha, and “ministration” in the passage about the apostles. I guess that means when women serve food, it’s service, but when the men do it, it’s ministry.

A discussion of daily devotion and prayer time featuring Karen Helser. The transcript for this episode can be found at RSS.com.

In the spring of 1966, the entire 4th grade class was marched to the gym where we were made to take a musical aptitude test. Other than listening to single notes played on a variety of instruments and answering whether or not they were the same, I remember little else about the test. Three weeks later, I came home from school and my parents greeted me saying “the school called.” Oh, how those words could make me sweat bullets and launch my suspicious mind into a frenzied inventory of excuses even before hearing the school’s complaint.

“Do you remember the music test you took?” my parents asked. “Uh, no” said I. Dad continued with a grin “it’s difficult to believe, I know, but the school says you have a talent for music.” My little mind did a Bat-Turn** trying to anticipate what was next. “The school wants you to play an instrument in the orchestra.” Ah, there it was – punishment – and I didn’t do nothing wrong. “But Dad! I want to play ball with my friends at recess, not play in some dumb orchestra!” In those days, the orchestra practiced during class lunch hour.

The Lord gave me a prophetic experience one spring that went a long way toward dealing with the guilt I’ve felt over NOT being successful in bringing change to the institutional church I attended for several years.

But first, I need to share a little background. I was born and raised in a suburb south of Seattle and lived there for 42 years before the Lord directed me to move to the rural Midwest. The good ol’ boys had themselves quite a time kidding me about being a city boy and I often joked about corn, bugs, stifling heat, and hog farms common to the area. I’ve written song parodies about farm life and sang them for the locals, along with the inspirational and worship music I write.