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So how do you know when you are doing the Christian life right? How do you know when you are good at it? It's as simple as a game of ten pins!
Why we Bowl the Christian Life at Neighborhood Church The first pin is Discovery.
Focusing on the one pin in the first row, the new possibility that God offered in Jesus Christ commonly begins for people with the profound discovery that we matter to God. This is why Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. Those parables have five ideas in common:
1. Something of great value is lost.
2. In response to loss there is an all-out search or an anguished vigil.
3. When the lost is found, there is a great celebration.
4. God searches like the shepherd, the woman, and the father.
5. He does this because like the sheep, the coin, and the son, we matter supremely to the searcher.
It was St. Augustine that said “God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.”
The second pin features a person’s experience of a new relationship with God. This is the supreme promise of the Bible – that we shall know God, that we shall know forgiveness, acceptance and love of God, that we shall be born again and know God’s power and the life of eternity now within us. This faith relationship comes to us by sheer grace and can’t be earned.
In this new relationship with God we still “see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face” as Paul put it not understanding it completely. This means being saved and the relationship we experience in this life is what Paul called a down payment or a foretaste of the fuller relationship with God we will know one day. It provides moments in which we know God and more moments in which we know that we are known, and this experience shapes us to live as God’s people in the world.
The third pin is a new relationship with the people of God. Christianity is not a solitary religion but a social religion. It is not an individual game like golf or weight lifting but a team game like football or basketball. The church is the messianic community, the body of Christ and the new Israel. Becoming a Christian necessarily involves joining this people. Jesus promised to be present where “two or three are gathered” in his name. Many people experience the church in some form before they experience the faith relationship with God. That is natural because the Faith is “more caught than taught.”
It has been proven that people who drop out of church are vulnerable in time to the breakdown and loss of faith because Christianity is a communal faith. Being involved in corporate worship and a smaller group of friends from church enables God to strengthen us in miraculous ways.
The third row with three pins identifies what is basic in the new life that we now live from our faith in Christ and involvement in his church. The fourth pin is doing the will of God. As new Christians we discover that we are no longer our own but bought for a price by God. Now that we are reconciled to God, Christ calls us to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Paul explained that Christ “died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised.” Doing God’s will means first obedience to God’s commandments, “from the least to the greatest.” And it also involves devoting our talents to God’s purposes.
The fifth pin is love for people. Jesus taught us that the second commandment after loving God is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” This love (agape in NT Greek) is not so much a feeling of heart as a willful decision to have goodwill for humans. A Christian’s goodwill includes people outside the Christian family, social network, socio-economic class, nationality, culture, and race. Christians are called to will good for their enemies and even for the enemies of God, because God does.
The sixth pin is freedom in Christ. The central event of the Old Testament, the Exodus, involves God’s liberation of the Hebrew people from bondage in Egypt. The central event of the New Testament, the Resurrection of Jesus, involves the liberation of people of faith from the power of death. Paul also saw that Jesus Christ sets us free from the “Tyranny of the Law,” i.e. the legalistic trap in which we try to justify our lives by obeying all the “rules.”For Paul, Jesus Christ sets us free from the power of sin. While it is still possible for us to sin, we can be freed from the compulsion to sin.
The fourth row has four lifestyle pins. The seventh pin reminds us that we are called to live in the world, but not of it. That is we are called to live by Kingdom values, rather than the values of Hollywood or Wall Street. A Christian does not allow the values of this world distract him or her from keeping their eyes on godly values.
The eighth pin calls us to a lifestyle of service and ministry. We now join a movement that does good to all people by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned and no longer living for ourselves but others.
The ninth pin on the fourth row calls us to a lifestyle of witness and mission. A Christian does a lot of good for people’s bodies but even more good for their souls. Due to America becoming more and more secular we are on a great mission field once again. Jesus taught us to “let our light shine before others” and gave us the great commission, so that we know that every person has the inalienable right to discover that he or she matters to God, has the opportunity to join with God’s people and experience the new life and lifestyle.
The tenth pin affirms that, as Christ followers we discover our identity and we begin to become our true selves. The image of God is restored in us.
When all these pins are knocked down we score the strike that God intended for us to rack up. If you have ever wondered what the goal of the Christian life is to be and what a good church allows you to take a shot at. This is it. A good church is a bowling alley that clearly shows the pins to you and gives you lessons on hitting the mark. Not just pointing out to you how badly you missed. This is the church we want to grow into being. Will you join the construction crew?
This bowling analogy is taken from Dr. George Hunters book “Church for the Unchurched available at Cokesbury books by going to this hyperlink http://www.cokesbury.com/forms/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=443253 |
