Comments on: The Impact of the Resurrection (part one)

By: Bill Crowder

Bill Crowder — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:34:31 +0000

Thanks Keith,
I appreciate your willingness to share your heart and your concerns. And, what you have shared is one of the great challenges facing church leaders in our growingly secular culture. How do you balance the need to reach people with the message of Christ with the need to guard those young in the faith from misunderstanding. I suspect a lot of it has to do with making sure that we give people full information. That we allow them to enjoy something “fun” but with the understanding that these things are not the real story—or even a part of the real story. By turning the focus on the Savior, and making sure the attention is on His work, it might protect against misunderstanding.
Thanks again, Keith.

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:59:59 +0000

Thanks Bill,
For answering so quickly, This seems to be a very well run forum.
From the information I can gather about Paul, he appears to use his past as a tormentor of the Christian brotherhood to which he now belongs to fuel his humility before the Lord. His rememberance of his being the “greatest” of sinners may be a characteristic that allowed him to be more sensitive to the need to magnify the name of Jesus in whatever way worked than to being a religious zealot as he was when he was named Saul. In this respect, I agree wholeheartedly with what you said about approaching people with familiarity. Yes , the impact of the ressurection was a confidence builder in the first ones who went forth into all the world. Paul’s race was not to win prizes here on earth , but to gain heavenly inheritance at the end of it. Paul talked as if he almost could not wait to reach that finnish line and his own ressurection to everlasting life.
That said , I must say that before I accepted Lord Jesus as my savior and He saved me, for about 20years before, I watched new age paganism and outright witchcraft essentialy destroy my family. Although I ,personally did not participate directly, like Adam, I allowed it to exist in my family until finally the truth set me free and I went crying unto the Lord for help i did not deserve to get…but He gave.. In a way reverse from Paul’s sensitivity caused by his own Christian-bashing activities , my own sensitivity to pagan and worldly thinking has caused me to perhaps be overly guarded about what I am willing to allow into my new home and my new Christian family. Maybe this is just a guilt trip I have but as Paul said that even as food sacrificed to idols was lawful (and not harmful) for him to eat, his prudence told him that indulging in such things might cause a weaker brother to stumble and , therefore should probably be avoided.
My problem with the egg hunt was not that it would affect me , but that a weaker brother and/or a child might suspect that a “Bunny” played a part in the ressurection of our Lord.
However; as you correctedly stated this America today is not my grandfather’s America . Looking forward to the day when all the dead in Christ shall rise and the rapture has had a liberating effect onme and I no longer judge other’s actions like I used to. I just can’t help feeling that the worldly things we see going on in churches today are precursors to the ‘great pulling away of the church’ I have read about that will foretell the last days. Even so , come Lord Jesus.
Then let us love that by various means ,some may yet be saved.

By: Bill Crowder

Bill Crowder — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:14:08 +0000

Thanks Keith for your thoughts. I wish the question had an easy, cut-and-dried answer, but I think there are a couple of things that need to be looked at. One thing to consider is that our culture has changed so much in the last 50 years that we do not have the same kind of Christian awareness or base of thinking that may have been present years ago. That means that sometimes we look for opportunities to connect with people that would seem out of place in other circumstances. For example, in Acts 17, Paul uses a very different approach in Berea, where the people had a working knowledge of and appreciation for the scriptures than in Athens, where it was a largely secular environment (much like our day today). In Berea, he taught the Bible but in Athens, he doesn’t even quote the scriptures. Instead he quotes from two pagan Greek poets. I think the model of building a bridge to people through things familiar makes sense. Having said that, we need to be careful that what we do and how we do it draws people to the Savior, rather than clouding the real spiritual issues. I suspect that this may have to do more with the execution of the event rather than the actual goings-on themselves. In the end, as you say, the goal is to glorify Christ, and it is easy to lose that priority while trying to do a good thing. Feel free to respond or push back. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:42:23 +0000

Hi all,
This is my first time here and please tell me if this is not on topic for “The Impact of the Ressurection”. I have a question on how local assemblies convey the impact of Jesus being raised from the dead.. My question stems from a recent experience I had acting as an elder of my local assembly. Our pastor decided that this year we would not have a sunrise service and instead would have an easter egg hunt after breakfast with the intent of “luring” in folks who would never normally come to our easter service so they would hear the Good News at least on that day. While the pastor said that no bunnies or commercial interests would be allowed, his only spoken explanation was that new people would hear the Word and maybe get saved.
I objected to the “hunt” and held out for the “Sonrise” service , both of which were held, New people did show up and the congregation had fun with it. I looked like an old stick-in-the-mud ,and parts of the service did glorify Jesus. One man ,who was not at the easter egg hunt,did come forward and , hopefully,accepted the Lord at the end of the service.
My question is this: Is the act of bringing worldly things such as egg hunts into Christian services lessening the “impact of the ressurection” ?