Category: Approach God (Page 6 of 18)

Christians Shouldn’t be Advocates for Homosexuality

May 4, 2015 / Bruce Pagano II / 4 Comments

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog titled, “Keep YOUR Gospel to Yourself.” I wrote it on the heels of a group of high school students in Pennsylvania that organized an “anti-gay day.” To be honest, my issue wasn’t that they planned such a day. I spent two decades in the military for the very purpose of protecting American’s right to say what they want, not matter how shortsighted or ignorant it sounds. My issue with their ”anti-gay day” was that they used Christianity and scripture to be hateful and violent toward other people. In that article I tried to make the point that if you use Christ and His teachings as the foundation for your hate, it isn’t Christianity and suggested that they weren’t followers of Jesus.

Last Friday I had a friend repost that article on Facebook, to which I had someone comment on it. They even went to my blog and commented there. I was stoked. I don’t get a ton of comments, so when I do, I get excited. After reading it, I wasn’t so excited. The commenter suggested that because I called a kid, that was using the cross as a symbol of hate, ignorant, I was hypocritical because I was being “judgmental and hateful” toward him. He suggested a few other things, but ended with, “I skeptically wonder if the author would also turn his hateful judgmentalism toward Christians gathering for anti-abortion? Or anti-child molesting? Or anti-drug abuse? Or anti-anything else other than homosexuality?” I won’t even start on the ignorance in that thought. I can only assume the commenter doesn’t think through things on a regular basis. You can read my response to his dribble HERE. I could have deleted it, but I’m not afraid of people disagreeing with me.

The comments and questions continued much further on the FB post. Most of what he said doesn’t even warrant repeating. But, toward the end of our back and forth he asked, “Are you not an advocate for homosexuality?” I thought about it for like 5 minutes and responded with,

“I’m an advocate for Jesus. I’m an advocate for not spewing hate at people and choosing to show Christ’s love. I’m an advocate for choosing to let the Holy Spirit deal with people’s hearts and souls. I’m an advocate for being in the world, with people and ministering to their deepest need, Jesus. On my best day, what I have to offer Jesus is filthy rags. I’m an advocate for doing life with people and pursuing Jesus in a community that cultivates love, so that others can meet Him. I’m an advocate for Christians applying the bible to their life before they try to force others to live by the standard it sets.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for him, so he insisted I answer, but I ended it because nothing I could say would be good enough, lest I quote Leviticus and call for the stoning of gays everywhere. But, it did get me thinking about whether I’m an advocate for homosexuality or not, because I’d never put a any thought into it. The short answer is, I’m not and I don’t think any Christian should be, even if you identify as a Gay Christian.

Jesus followers are people advocates.

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An advocate is someone that publicly supports a particular cause. In that case, I’m an advocate for Jesus. The cause that I want to publicly support is the one that He came for; to seek and save the lost. God’s chief cause for sending Jesus into the world was not to “condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” The real answer is, I’m a people advocate. My cause in this world revolves around Jesus’ command to love God and that’s done through loving your neighbor, other people. Jesus made no distinction about who that was. Well, actually He did. In the story of the “Good Samaritan” the injured man’s neighbor was a man he looked down on, so there’s that.

Bottom line is that if you’re a Christian, Jesus requires you to not only serve those you think are beneath you, but commands you to love them. Jesus followers are people advocates. Plain and simple. It doesn’t matter if they’re a different skin color, economic status, gender, religion, sexual orientation or anything else, we’re called to love others. That’s it.

I know some will read this and have issue with the fact that I said “Gay Christian” earlier and may try to use 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 as an argument for their responsibility to tell other Christians how they’re living in sin. But, before we worry about others, let’s remember that Jesus said, “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” I think it’d be beneficial for most of us if we started to worry more about how we’re following Jesus, rather than how others are.

Whether or not I’m an advocate for homosexuality is irrelevant. That isn’t the cause that I stand on. I’m an advocate for loving God, through loving others, so that they can come to know Jesus. And for those that already know Him, I’m an advocate for loving them well, so that others will know we’re His and so that we grow in unity and deeper in our love and knowledge of Him. If you’re a Christian, you ought to advocate for the same. His agenda is people, our agenda is His, so our agenda is people.

*I‘d love to dialogue with you. But, I want to dialogue with you only if you’ve actually read what I said. If you chose to comment, please start your post with “Fish Fingers & Custard.” Thanks.

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The Politics of Love: a Christian response to the Baltimore riots

May 1, 2015 / Bruce Pagano II / 0 Comments

I’ve thought all week about what I could write about Baltimore, from a Jesus and love perspective. While I’m confident that as long as I was to keep it in line with what Jesus taught about love, I was worried it may seem disingenuous, for two main reasons. First, I’m not from nor have I ever lived in Baltimore. To pretend I understand the environment and could affect what’s happening there, would be naive at best. Second, I think it would just add to the noise of thousands of already written articles. I don’t want it to ever seem like I’m writing about something just to simply capitalize on current events.

With that said, I’ve read some great article about Baltimore and I’ve read some horrible ones. This one is one of the best. Stan lives in and pastors a church in Baltimore. Baltimore is his home. He suggests that “We need a new story, a better story about what we can be.” I agree.

If you found Stan’s article helpful, show him some love and click one of the below share buttons. Then head over to his BLOG and give it a follow.

The Call to Tear Down the Church’s Four Walls

April 29, 2015 / Bruce Pagano II / 0 Comments

In recent years, the idea of getting outside the church walls has become the mantra of the millennial church goer. There’s this open air tension between traditional vocational pastors and the new (actually been around forever) “trendy” house church leaders. On the house church side you have some leaders that insist that the idea of a church building is wrong and that we need to get back to the Acts 2 church, which consequently gathered mainly in homes; mostly because they were a new religion and didn’t have a building. Oh, but they did actually go to the temple, which is THE building, so they could worship together. On the traditional church side you have leaders becoming defensive and feeling the need to justify the fact that they meet inside of a large, high-tech, church building. The argument is silly and for both groups saying, as often as they do, that “they aren’t saying their way is the right way, just a way,” they seem pretty adamant that their way is the right way. So they argue back and forth about a building

In reality it has little to do with not having a building. Very few churches don’t have some sort of a structure. If you meet at home, you have a building. In a community center? Building. Movie theater? Building. At the Krispie Kreme? That’s a building. In the public restroom of a city park? That’s gross; stop doing that. You get the point. But in truth, it’s so much less about meeting in a building and so much more about what focus you give the building as part of your ministry.

In the church my friends and I just started, right now our building is our homes; which actually means we have two buildings. We’re only a couple months in, but we’re already talking about where we’ll meet for larger gatherings. The most obvious and cost permissible way is the elementary school in our neighborhood. We’re not afraid of having a building. We’re not even afraid of what happens when we do move into a building. We’re actually so confident in the call that God has placed in us that we’re excited for the time that we get to meet in a larger group.

I think one of the biggest confusions with churchies (shout out to my girl Sheri) is what the word “ministry” actually means. There’s an assumption that ministry only happens behind the walls of an actual church building. It’s almost like there’s some secret method to conducting “ministry” and only a select few have the ability to administer it. In reality, when you “minister” to someone, you’re simply “attending to their needs” or “giving aid or service to” them. It’s by that definition that we are called to be ministers of The Word. And just so we’re clear, everyone’s “need,” whether you’re a believer or not, is Jesus. When we minister to each other and others, we’re attending to our need for Jesus. In our church, we’ve made a very specific distinction about what type of ministering happens in which place. For the sake of this article, we have two spaces: The Communal Space and The Open Space.

The Communal Space

The Communal Space is for the believer. Inside the communal space, we will gather corporately to attend to the needs of the believers that are part of our community of faith. We will gather as a body of believers and equip each other for the work of attending to the needs of those outside the communal space. We’ll minister to each other until we have attained unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God; until we all reach mature manhood and womanhood and grow into the fullness of the character of Christ. (Eph 4:11-13) We will gather with other believers to celebrate all the good things that God has done, is doing and will do. We will gather together to seek God in prayer. We’ll gather to grieve our losses, as one body. We’ll gather to encourage those that struggle. We’ll gather to worship and sing God’s praises. We’ll gather to break bread and participate in Holy Communion, that we might remember our Savior’s sacrifice and imminent return. We’ll gather to make much of Jesus and in doing so, minister to each other’s continual need for Him, so that we’re able to minister to others’ need for Him, so that they may make much of Him.

The Open Space

The Open Space is for the unbeliever. We live life in the open space with both believers and unbelievers. This is where we do life. Inside the open space is where we allow others to see how messy and un-put-together our lives really are. This is where the glitz and polish of “I’m great and just keeping busy” turns into the bedraggled mom that’s told her 5 year old one too many times to put their shoes on or the dad that has a bad day at work and instead of leaving it there, takes it home to his family in the form of shortness and snappy remarks. This is where others get to see that being Christian doesn’t mean you have it all together, but that Jesus is strength in our weakness. It’s where other see that following Jesus isn’t about perfection, it’s about progress. The open space is where you get to be the love of Christ to those that don’t know Him. In the open space you get to be with others to celebrate and to grieve loss. You get to be with others to encourage and counsel. You get to be in real life with others, without exception to who they are. That means we be with them regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender, economic status, or religious belief. We do so without placing expectation on them, even that they might be “saved.” You hope they come to know Him, but it isn’t a contest of conversion, it’s a long walk of revealing Him, in hopes that they meet Him. The open space is where we get to love God by loving others and we get to love each other so they know we’re His.

That’s how Bucknell Neighborhood Church has decided to minister to each other and others. There is value in gathering corporately with other believers, in a building. Right now, because there’s like 12 people in our church, we attend a corporate gathering at National Community Church. They have 7 campuses and the lead pastor is Mark Batterson. We love it, but eventually we’ll start our own corporate gathering and stop going to NCC. But, all the value that corporate gathering brings equals nothing if it doesn’t equip you to operate in the open space. That’s where Jesus sent us. That’s where the command to “make disciples” was intended to be acted out. We gather together with those who depend on Him, to be in life with those who need Him, but don’t know it yet. In that, we are Him, to them.

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Category: Approach God (Page 6 of 18)