American church Archives - Marissa Henley

Masks

April 14, 2012 by Marissa 2 Comments

A friend sent an email awhile ago, asking a group of women about what type of masks women wear. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. I think there is the obvious mask: the Martha-Stewart, perfectly-dressed-with-perfectly-dressed-kids, have-it-all-together mom. When you’re wearing this mask, you don’t want anyone to see any weakness or failure as you oversee the school fundraiser while cooking a three-course meal in your spotless kitchen and patiently serving as referee for your children’s bi-weekly disagreement over which one gets to take out the trash for you.

I think moms also wear the “I’m so obviously overwhelmed and stressed out that you shouldn’t expect anything from me” mask. The purpose of this mask is to make sure everyone sees your shortcomings, so no one would ever ask you to plan the school fundraiser . . . after all, you can’t even dress your entire family before leaving the house. This mask isn’t nearly as glamorous as the first, but I know I’ve pulled it out a time or two when the perfection mask wasn’t gonna happen.

There are probably other masks that we wear and variations of these. We all have our strengths and take on specific roles in our group of friends. If you are the organized one, you don’t want anyone to see your disorganized closet. If you are the phenomenal cook, you’d hate for anyone to know that your kids are having mac’n’cheese from the box for dinner (again). If you are the theologian, you must have an answer for every problem, complete with at least three memorized Scripture references. If you are the social butterfly, you hope no one ever finds out how lonely you feel most of the time.

In true friendships, especially in the church, I have seen a push to take off those masks. It’s trendy to be genuine and vulnerable. And I think we peek out from behind them with those friends we can trust. But lately I’ve been realizing how much my mask is still on, even when I think I’m being real.

Truly taking off your mask does not mean laughing with your mommy-friends about how frustrated you got with your kid yesterday or how annoying your husband can be. Taking off your mask means pouring out your heart, probably with tears, about how you have no idea what to do with that child and how scared you are about where it’s all heading. It means admitting your marriage is on rocky ground, no matter how many times you smile and grab your husband’s hand on your way into church. Sharing your shortcomings so that people find you approachable and witty is just trading one mask for another.

So my question to my sisters in Christ is, when was the last time you were real with someone? Not fake-real, not witty-real, not I’m-down-to-earth-but-I-hope-you-still-admire-me real. Because the bottom line is that we all need the Gospel. We all need to be reminded on a daily basis that Christ is enough and we are not. If we are willing to share with our friends that we aren’t measuring up, they can remind us that Christ already attained perfection on our behalf. His perfect record has been given to us by God’s grace, so we are free to be the screw-ups that we are.

When I admit my ugliest failures to my friends, it is an opportunity for them to preach the Gospel to me. And when they admit their failures to me, I can do the same for them. It might not be pretty or fun, but it is covered in God’s grace. That is genuine, mask-less community.

Now, who wants to meet me for coffee and take off some masks?

A Biblical Gospel – Radical, chapter 2

September 21, 2010 by Marissa 5 Comments

Click here and scroll down to read my other posts on David Platt’s book, Radical.

Are you believing the gospel as it is described in God’s Word, or are you believing an Americanized version? This is the poignant question posed to readers in chapter two of Radical. Many of us have bought into a watered-down, Americanized false gospel, and therefore, we have a watered-down, Americanized response to Christ’s call to discipleship.

When my grandpa was in seminary, he was asked to write a paper on the chief attribute of God. He wrote a wonderful essay on God’s love. And he received a big fat F. Grandpa wouldn’t mind my sharing this story–he loved to tell it–to illustrate the trap that so many Christians fall into. Is God loving? Absolutely. There are countless verses in Scripture where God tells us how much He loves His people. The problem comes when we stop at God’s love without looking at the whole of what Scripture says about God. God’s Word tells us that He is the sovereign Creator, the Holy Judge who must deal justly with sin. My grandpa’s seminary professor said that God’s chief attribute is His holiness–His purity and righteousness that makes Him God and us not God. Are we willing to give as much weight to John 3:36 as we do to John 3:16?

As Platt writes, “The gospel reveals eternal realities about God that we would sometimes rather not face. We prefer to sit back, enjoy our cliches, and picture God as a Father who might help us, all the while ignoring God as Judge who might damn us . . . We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in his Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him” (p. 29).

Platt asserts that we must also face what the biblical gospel says about who we are in relation to God. Here’s a pop quiz:

True or false?

1. “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved.” (Radical, p. 32)

2. “You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, and in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life. Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do.” (Radical, p. 32)

The first is what is being proclaimed in many churches all over this country. It leads to complacency, entitlement, and the expectation that God will fix all my problems and make me happy.

The second is what God’s Word says about our human condition. It leads to wholehearted devotion of our entire life to a God who came to us, to redeem us from the pit of our sin and make us righteous in His sight. It causes overflowing gratitude and commitment to our Creator who poured out the wrath we deserve on His sinless Son. In Platt’s words, “Surely this gospel evokes unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that he is” (p. 37).

Which gospel are you believing? And how will you respond?

The Cost of Non-Discipleship (“Radical,” Ch. 1)

September 3, 2010 by Marissa 3 Comments

In my last post on the book Radical, I shared David Platt’s convicting thoughts about how many Christians ignore what Jesus said about what it really means to follow Him. Instead, we choose to mold Jesus into a “nice, middle-class, American Jesus . . . who doesn’t mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have” (p. 13). As convicted as I was by these words, I was even more convicted by Platt’s discussion of the result this misunderstanding of true discipleship.

Platt writes: “While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the gospel remain in the dark” (p. 14).

While we are busy accumulating stuff and ensuring our comfort, BILLIONS are perishing apart from Christ. Do we care? Do I care? Do I care about the eternal implications for my family member who doesn’t know Christ? Do I care about the people of Bhutan, a small country between China and India that I read about this morning with my kids, where the government (a Buddhist kingdom) lets very few foreigners inside the country and any Christians who make it in are forbidden to talk about Christ?

If I say I care, do I back it up with actions? With my checkbook? With my prayers?

Another large group of people paying the price for our failure to follow Christ properly are the poor. Platt writes: “Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves. Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gate of contemporary Christian affluence” (p. 15).

Platt writes about two headlines he saw in a Christian publication in 2004. On the cover, the left headline read: “First Baptist Church Celebrates New $23 Million Building.” On the right, the headline read: “Baptist Relief Helps Sudanese Refugees” and the article explained that $5,000 had been raised to help refugees in western Sudan. Platt concludes: “Where have we gone wrong? How did we get to the place where this is actually tolerable?” (emphasis mine, p. 16)

This example makes me crazy. What are these people thinking? But then I look at myself. I don’t have $23 million to spend on myself, but if I did, I’m sure I would. If I published the amount of money I spend on myself on one side of the front page and the leftovers I give to the poor on the other side, what would my headlines read? Do my public and private lives honor the Lord Jesus Christ and my commitment to follow Him on His terms? What is the cost of my non-discipleship in the lives of those around me, both near and far?

These are tough questions, and I encourage you to wrestle through them with me by buying this book and reading it. In fact, my bloggy friend Marla is hosting a Radical read-a-long, if you’re interested. I know I can’t wait to hear what others have to say about how God is using this book in their lives.

“A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism” (Radical, chapter 1)

August 24, 2010 by Marissa 3 Comments

“Have you ever come to Jesus on His terms?”

That is the question asked by David Platt in his sermon series, Radical. (After listening to several of these sermons, I decided to get the book by the same name.) The first step to coming to Jesus on His own terms is to know what His terms are.

What does Jesus say about following Him?

Mark 10:21: “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Luke 9:23-24: And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Later in Luke 9, those who express interest in following Jesus are told to expect to be homeless like Christ, not to take the time to bury their father, and not to say good-bye to their families or finish up work at home.

Luke 14:26-27, 33: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple . . . So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

I think in our Christian culture, we are desensitized to the shocking nature of Jesus talking about taking up our cross. Put yourself in the shoes of those who heard Christ say these words before His death. The cross was an instrument of torture and death. Christ was telling those who wanted to follow Him that they should be prepared to be tortured and killed. Not exactly seeker-sensitive.

Platt writes: “Give up everything you have, carry a cross, and hate your family. This sounds a lot different than ‘Admit, believe, confess, and pray a prayer after me.’ . . . Ultimately, Jesus was calling them to abandon themselves . . . In a world that prizes promoting oneself, they were following a teacher who told them to crucify themselves. And history tells us the result. Almost all of them would lose their lives because they responded to this invitation.” (p. 11-12)

I agree with Platt’s assertion that modern-day American Christianity has watered down the true cost of following Christ. These passages from Mark and Luke make us squirm, and we would rather think that Jesus didn’t really mean what He said. But this rationalization is dangerous, as Platt writes:

“Because we are starting to redefine Christianity. We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with. A nice, middle-class, American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have.” (p. 13, emphasis mine)

Let’s be honest. My struggle with materialism is well-documented on this blog. And I’m guessing I’m not the only one who would like Jesus to be okay with just a little bit of materialism. This is America, after all. But as we, as the wealthiest people on this planet, mold Jesus to fit our desires, we are falling very short of the calling the real Jesus gave His followers. Billions are dying apart from Christ. Thousands of children die every day from starvation and preventable disease.

Do we love Jesus enough to follow Him on His terms? Do we care enough about the lost and the poor to obey Christ’s commands to forsake earthly treasure for eternal reward? Are we willing to give our lives in radical faith to Jesus who gave everything for us?