Low-information believers

This morning I was getting my "Pastor to Pastor" e-mail from Prison Fellowship, and the quote that was used today, used a term that I hadn't heard since the time I was a very young kid (before I came to know Jesus as my Savior) at St. Dominic's Catholic Church:

“We should instruct [those who are teachable but ignorant] by means of a catechism. A catechism is a brief explanation of the foundational teaching of the Christian faith given in the form of questions and answers. This helps both the understanding and the memory. The content of a catechism, therefore, should be the fundamentals of the Christian faith.”-William Perkins (1558-1602)

The reason this caught my interest is that lately on Facebook, I have been using a term that I had heard and liked "Low Information Voter" (LIV for short). What this is is a person who watches more "entertainment" than anything else, just believes what they are told in the media (without bothering to check whether it is true or not), and doesn't keep up on the issues that are facing society today. 

But this morning a thought hit me...what about us as believers? Are we LIBs (Low Information Believers)? 

I looks at the definition given for catechism "A brief explanation of the foundational teaching of the Christian faith given in the form of questions and answers". Like I said, I usually have associated this term with the Catholic Church, but what about churches in general? 

When we have people come to the Lord, do they get a time of explanation of the even the basics of the faith? I mean for them to understand about Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit, the Word, what it means to be a believer?  Do we equip them in such a way that they are rooted and ground in the faith in such a way that when something happens to them, that their faith remains strong? Do we equip them to be able to share the faith? Do we equip them to be as Paul put it, "be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.". Do we teach them about things like apologetics (defense of the faith)?  

The late Chuck Colson had a quote that has burned itself into my brain and is something that has stuck with me: "The role of the church is not to make men happy; it is to make them holy". And how do make people holy? The first step is to make sure that they know what they believe in. I know of people who have abandoned the faith; one has become an atheist and the other might as well be. Her quote was basically that everything other than salvation was "up for grabs". My opinion is that had these people been rooted and truly educated about what they believe and what the Word believes, then they would not have drifted from the Word. 

But these are probably two of many that have done so, merely for the reason that they were brought to salvation, but then abandoned there to flounder on their own without any thought to how they were going to survive in a world that has abandoned all pretense and despises anything that has to do with the Lord. Or that they have gone to congregations that don't teach the Word or are given weak "be happy" sermons based on philosophies of the world and not on the bedrock of the Scriptures?  I mean we have "leaders" in the Body of Messiah and are "media darlings", but what do they teach? Is it based on the Word?  Have we abandoned the Berean mindset in the church-Acts 17:11
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.  

Or are we even teaching our congregations to be Bereans? Do people come to our congregations to be taught or to be entertained, just believe what they are told and don't keep up on what is going on in the world? 

This could go on for a long time, but to sum up, What kind of believers are we? Are we LIBs, being as Paul writes in Ephesians 4, being children: "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting," or have we been taught how to like what he write in 2 Timothy 2:15-"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." ? 

Being on the other side

This is has been a long week for me. On Tuesday, I had to sit by my mothers side while waiting to admit her. We found out that she had to be in the hospital-the initial reason being that she was anemic (one standard for measure blood or the iron in the blood normal is 12 her's was 4) and had to be given blood and to have a scheduled endoscopy the following afternoon. Then we found out that there was an internal tear in her body and would have to undergo a colonoscopy to find out the extent of the tear.

So here I am at home, keeping an eye on her stuff and finances, but part of me is remembering 2008. I remember that almost every day and night my parents were by my side going through what was unknown, first whether I would live or not, then the ups and downs of recovery. I remember that there were many times of fear, of joy, of sorrow, the whole gamut of emotions. And now here I am going through the same thing that they must have gone though and am beginning to learn again some lessons about the faithfulness of God, that no matter what happens that everything is under His control and that everything will turn out the way that He wants it-to His honor and glory.

I know that soon this will be resolved and that we will look back at this. I pray that when we do look back, it will be having learned all the things that the Lord wants me to know and remember.

Blog explosion

I was reading the paper this morning (which is kind of hard to do when it has been raining the last few days and the paper is wet), when I came across the above cartoon...

I have to admit, due to the popularity and the relative easiness of doing a blog, there are many that come out and decided to become bloggers. In my case, it wasn't due to the peer pressure, but I thought it would be a good way to share what had happened to me though my time of appendicitis and how that could help others. Evidently, that has branched off to other areas, but the goal is still the same; sharing so that I could communicate with others.

And for many, it is the same thing, it is their way of communicating to others; whether it's their love for a football team, sharing about how to work with computers, etc...And after seeing some, I have gotten to think of them like I do about people. Some are good and make you think about things. Then there are others that make you laugh and forget about your problems for a while. There are those that inform and discover things you may not have seen before. There are those that are forgetful and don't keep up for whatever reason. And then there are those that should just keep their opinions to themselves and not speak out.

Don't know where I fall in (hopefully it's in the first three), but until there's a better way to communicate my thoughts without becoming a "follower" http://1ncisfan.blogspot.com/2013/05/follower-or-imitator.html, I think I'll stay a blogger for the time being...

Something to think about

This month is Breast cancer awareness month, and everyone will be whole hog on going with the pink ribbons and everything....but if you ask me to contribute this month, my answer will be "no"....

It's not that I'm for breast cancer or anything...but here are a couple of thoughts that I have....

The wearing of pink...a nice thing...but then I remember that just a couple of months down here in Texas when they were having the debate on SB2, that pink was hijacked by pro-abortion state Senator Wendy Davis...she stood and filibustered for 11 hours against this bill while wearing pink sneakers to make her feel more comfortable....but it also reminded me of the vastly unreported (by the mass media) link between abortion and breast cancer. There has been study after study that have shown the ABC (Abortion Breast Cancer) link, yet these studies have been pooh-poohed by the media, So now, pink has more a connotation of pro-abortion support, rather than fighting breast cancer.

Then there is the matter of where the money is going to...the Susan G. Komen foundation...now the Komen foundation's stated goal is to eliminate breast cancer and that is a fine and dandy goal. HOWEVER....

1. Some of the funds that go to to SGKF are then used to fund Planned Parenthood (which despite the name has become nothing more than wanting nothing to do with parenthood, but rather supporting abortion on such  a mass scale that it would make the dictators of the 20th century proud)...so my question is-aren't you being a little hypocritical in saying you want to prevent one type of death, while promoting another?

2. If you were to ask the average person who gives to SGKF (and probably even SGKF people), whether they were against bullying, they would probably say "Yes". However last June, SKGF did precisely that in alliance with PP.... In February of 2012, SGKF decided that it wanted to be "neutral" in the abortion debate, so they decided to cut ties with Planned Parenthood, but then Planned Parenthood came back with such a backlash that three days after making the announcement, SKGF backtracked and restored their funding of PP and then SKGF turned on the Vice-President  who had made the recommendation and forced her to resign her position within the foundation.

So if you are giving this month in the fight against breast cancer make sure that the gift that you give ONLY supports the fight against breast cancer, not anything else...and don't buy into the hype, give because you want to give, not because everyone is shouting at you that this is the right thing to do....