Not too long ago, I posted all of my bad bar jokes on Facebook. Here are a few:

A man walked into a bar and fell unconscious on the floor. It was a chin-up bar.

A man walked into a bar and ordered a Godiva chocolate liqueur. The bouncer threw him out. It was a Hershey bar.

A man walked into a bar with his collar open. The bouncer threw him out. It was a tie bar.

A man walked into a bar to pay off his tab but his bank account was on hold, so the bouncer threw him out. It was a no-holds bar.

A miserably depressed man walked into a bar and the bouncer threw him out. It was a gay bar.

A man walked into a bar, twirling an absurdly long mustache and the bouncer threw him out. It was a handlebar.

A mime walked into a bar, but the bouncer threw him out. It was a karaoke bar.

A lactose-intolerant man walked into a bar, but shortly thereafter threw up before finishing what he’d ordered. It was an ice-cream bar.

(They were all jokes about a man who had failed to enter the kind of bar where he would fit in and find refreshment and camaraderie and I was going somewhere with it, but I forgot where.)

A mildly-forgetful man walked into a bar and … no, wait. That was me.

Probably because of a recent head injury.

A man walked into a bar and hurt himself. He should have used the door.

I saved the very worst until last, for this post:

A man walked into a bar and ordered a beer. “We don’t serve beer; we serve customers,” the marketing manager told him. He asked, “What happened to the bartender?” The CEO replied that the position was right-sized for economic reasons. So the man asked, “What happened to the beer?” The vice president of finance responded that the costs of purchase, transportation, cold storage and distribution were prohibitive, and it was decided to move that part of the operation online. But, the marketing manager added, the firm was doing very well promoting the idea of beer and the experience of beer; in fact, at the bar and in a couple of the booths there were usually several people each week discussing how thirsty they were and how much they would enjoy a beer right then … and there was, of course, free wi-fi. “But how do you make any money?” the man asked. They all chorused: “Volume!”

It was a foobar.

(“Foobar”, in computer programming, is the name for a variable which has no relevant meaning – and it should be distinguished from its acronymal cousin, fubar. At least a little distinguished.)

And that was not so much a joke as it was a sad commentary on the current state of American commerce. After all, imagine:

A bar without beer.

Sort of like a church without Christ.

– But I digress.

“It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” ~ Romans 9:6

I have a little bit of hero worship going on in my heart toward the saints who began the Restoration Movement more than two hundred years ago. They were people of great courage, enormous faithfulness to the scripture, and an irenic, Christ-like spirit. Yet they were also products of their time as well as their choices, just like you or me or the disciples of century one or anyone else.

Sometimes we choose wisely. Sometimes we don’t.

But there’s a good chance that the factors affecting our choices are shaped by the era and circumstances which surround us.

In short, the Restoration’s prime movers were men, dedicated to restoring a unified, non-denominational church at a time when a new nation had been formed of many united states. Their modus operandus was much the same as that of the nation’s founders: issue a sort of declaration of independence (Barton W. Stone’s document, the Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery) and then a sort of constitution (Alexander Campbell’s Declaration and Address). Within a few years, their groups discovered each other and merged as a unity movement called “The Christian Connexion” (sometimes “Connection”). It was all very modern, very rational, institutional, very corporate, and all very, very American.

As well as very, very focused on the church.

While there is nothing essentially wrong with that – and the language of both documents and other initial writings urges a faithful conformity to the life and teachings of Christ as revealed in the Bible – it must be, not balanced by, but superceded, by a focus on Him. The focus of the generations that followed became more and more on the church and less and less on Christ.

In that way, the Restoration Movement succeeded in the succeeding generations – duplicating the church of century one and all of its difficulties: the congregations became fraught with issues of structure and function and office and practice and tradition and some members lording their supposed superiority over others and propounding misconceptions about the return of Christ and precepts of men being taught as doctrines of God. So, of course, the unity movement of century nineteen seceded into factions over all these teachings of men.

In short, the New Testament church was almost fully restored as it had existed in century one.

Except that, in those more “modern” and “enlightened” times, the scripture became law by which others must be judged rather than the gentle yet firm instructions of the Righteous Judge would guide the lives of those who love Him back, along with the presence of His Spirit in their lives. Somehow, even that Spirit was judged inferior to the written word, and was banished to a place of retirement, trapped for all time within its pages.

Vestiges of that belief system persist today, loudly judging others and proclaiming their righteous superiority and “marking” by name those who dare to question it or the conclusions they have reached in order to earn it.

I began this post with a verse from Paul’s letter to the believers at Rome, describing his yearning for those of his Jewish heritage to be as accepting of Christ as Gentiles had been. He was pointing out that the failure to accept Christ was a matter of individual choice, not of the insufficiency of God’s word. In the wake of the law’s fulfillment in Christ, the time had simply come for something better than law.

I believe it’s time for something better than a church-focused church. I believe it’s time for twenty-first century revival, not nineteenth. I believe it’s time for a new Restoration Movement, a movement that seeks to restore souls to Christ.

Starting with our own.

Over time – inspired by the Spirit to share the gospel Story – that will restore the church, the assembled saints, as the natural result.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with going to church in a building on a Sunday, hearing God’s word preached by a paid full-time preacher, praying together, singing together, observing the Lord’s Supper together, giving of our means to support the church, all while men do the leading. But in addition to those “acts of worship” which have been legislated as the only biblically-authorized ones by some of our forebears in fellowship, there is also nothing intrinsically wrong with:

• Meeting other days of the week, breaking bread together at places of worship and in homes, sharing goods and possessions with each other so that no one has need, and praising God. ~ Acts 2:42-47
• Giving to relieve suffering ~ Acts 11:27-30
• Giving to the poor ~ Acts 24:17
• Part-time / vocational ministry ~ Acts 18:3
• More than one speaker and discussion when the church is assembled (as long as it edifies) ~ 1 Corinthians 14:29-32
• Women praying and prophesying ~ 1 Corinthians 11:3-9
• Worship with instruments, which are obviously not intrinsically offensive to God ~ Revelation 15:2

What makes these things (and many, many other ways to worship God ~ Romans 12:1-2) permissible? Well, in addition to the fact that they are right there in scripture, they also reflect what Christ did and taught in century one … rather than the rules and regulations laid down by men between then and now, based on assumptions and interpretations and sometimes outright additions to and subtractions from scripture. Forcibly retiring the Holy Spirit from His role in helping open that scripture to our hearts – quenching His fire, in other words – has been our failure by choice. Making the church of first importance, rather than Christ, is where we as a Restoration fellowship – as well as many, many other modern fellowships and movements – have gone wrong.

It is not as though God’s word had failed.

But for the true Israel of God’s people to seek and find Him, our goal should not be so much the restoration of a fallen church as the transformation of a risen Christ.

…my “unique viewers” counter will roll over 70,000 since January 7, 2005.

Most web statisticians will agree that means that only between 15-35,000 of those are actual, unique viewers. I’m pretty sure the numbers have slowed from a good-sized banquet gathering to a booth at the coffee bar, so “the next few days” is only a guess. Of those numbers, some will have dropped their blogging habit in favor of Facebook or Twitter or the next thing that requires fewer words, thoughts and commitment. I’m sure some will have only stayed long enough at this blog to learn they’re not interested, or are offended.

(Mike Cope once told me while still preaching at Highland that his personal motto was “A little something to offend everyone.” I still like that.)

I’m not big into the numbers. (I probably haven’t checked that dumb counter for weeks; just happened to see it when scrolling down to review an older post.) I’m not offering a prize for viewer #70,000. (It’d be junk, anyway. That’s all I own. Junk and stuff. I use the stuff and look at the junk.)

So, here’s a little something to offend and disappoint everyone:

I think the Restoration Movement started off in the wrong direction, and is still pursuing it.

I believe the whole idea of trying to restore the New Testament church of century one is wrong-headed (though probably right-hearted) and has led us into the divisive, contentious, denominational morass that at least some folks are willing to recognize for what it is.

(Mother Lemming to Teenage Son: “Well, if all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?” Teenage Son: “Duh! – Of course!” Maybe our fellowship’s plight is not that desperate. Or is it?)

Instead of trying to be like an institution of imperfect people – sinful people, made perfect by the blood of Christ – shouldn’t we have been trying to just be like Christ?

Even Paul instructs that he should be followed only inasfar as he follows Christ.

The whole Restoration exercise has made us church-centered instead of Christ-centered. We preach church instead of Christ. We preach what to do instead of what He has done – and is doing, and would like to do through us, if we’d just let Him. And far too often, we preach as doctrines of God what are really precepts and interpretations and legislations of men. Law, in other words, which cannot save. (Paul said that. I believe him.)

I don’t want to be like the church of the first century. Or the eighteenth century. Or the twentieth, or even the twenty-first. I want to be like Jesus.

But I need your help.

I need to know who Jesus is, and what I understand about Him that’s right, and what I misunderstand about Him that’s wrong. I need His Spirit inside me and His family – His church – around me. I need the comfort and reassurance of God without and within me.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

I believe that’s why God puts us, the lonely, in His family – so that we can see Christ in each other and get to know Him better.

I don’t give a flying flip anymore about who is in and who is out of the church, the saved, the redeemed. I’ll talk about Jesus Christ with anyone, and let God decide – and I will be glad to listen to what anyone believes about Him and glad to share Whom I believe and in the end, I will only be responsible for what I’ve believed and chosen and taught and so will they.

I don’t give a howling hoot any longer about how church must be structured or what name must appear on the sign in front or what you can or can’t do on Sunday inside the building as if it were somehow more sacred than the rest of the world the Lord God made with His own words of creation during six extraordinary days of creative work.

I don’t care a whining whimper these days about programs, series, lessons, lectures, theories, interpretations, deductions, conclusions, traditions, and any kind of religious claptrap that diverts attention from Christ to the church as if the church were of first importance. The church was of first importance to Christ, the Bridegroom who laid down His life for her.

If the church is of first importance to the church … well, good people, that’s just plain narcissism on the part of the bride. That’s the twenty-five cent word. The five cent word is “selfishness.” And it’s a sin.

Time is short. It has been for the better part of two thousand years, and an end of one kind or another comes to all and it awaits you and me.

I don’t want to squander the time pursuing a life as part of a bride that primps at the mirror, ignoring all of the other crucial things involved in preparing for the arrival of the bridegroom and the great wedding feast to come.

I just want to sit down at Christ’s table and dine with Him and with you.

I simply want to sing and pray His praise with our voices blended.

I genuinely want to be immersed with you in His life, doing together with you what He wants us to do.

I emphatically want to be a part of His church, His family with you – all of you – because that’s what He wants.

Now those are the sort of numbers I can get excited about!

Tomorrow I will have to get up, get dressed and go to work at my church, and either pretend that I did not write this and do not believe it, or own up to it with everything that I say and do hereafter – and possibly lose that job as a result. So I need you to pray for me, all three of you who are left reading this fool’s errand of a blog – and be God’s family for me.

When you create a profile on Google, they ask you to write a short bio. Here’s mine:

Short bio: I was born. I learned to walk and talk. I went to school. I learned to sit and shut up. I went to college. I learned to walk and talk with girls. I got married. I got divorced. I learned to walk and talk with God. I married again. We adopted two children. I am We are trying to teach them how to walk and talk with God.

And I don’t even think I used the maximum number of characters.

I told her – and her gathered friends and family – it was the moment that every Christian parent prays about for their child from the moment of birth … or adoption.

Still … it wasn’t quite the way I had pictured it; or quite the way I had hoped.

You see, I began picturing it and hoping it a long time ago, as I said. Continuously! And back among those years of picturing, hoping and praying were three years in Abilene, Texas at a church where our friends Randy and Jackie immersed their teen-aged daughter, together, and spoke words of blessing over her. So, of course, as nothing about that strikes me as the least bit unscriptural, I could not help but picture that moment shared with Angi right there in the water with our children and me.

No one in that pool of baptismal water would be “lording it over” anyone about anything – least of all authority, which belongs to Christ in totality (Mathew 28:18) but sharing a mile-marker moment, a privilege of ongoing instruction, a blessing made possible only by the Lord.

But that’s not the way it happened. Laura could have just as easily asked a minister at our church … a counselor at Bible camp … a teacher from her Christian school … all kinds of people! … to immerse her into Christ. She chose Daddy, and I’ll always be grateful and honored that she did.

Her sweet nature and generosity are already more example than I deserve or can live up to. (As if that weren’t enough, I also have her brother Matt and mom Angi to look up to!)

As more years pass, if we can all mature in Christ together, feeling free to speak and do and live for Him, all the time and in every place, it will be more than enough for this old soul.

The title of the post is a line from a song by Bread, “This Isn’t What the Governmeant.”

But the post has nothing to do with the state.

It has to do with the church.

For those of us in the Restoration Movement fellowship, we can look back at a time when our track diverged from the Presbyterian Church. From there, we sprouted a three-way switch throwing folks onto Christian Church, Disciples of Christ and Church of Christ sidings.

Sidings? dare I say. Yes, sidings. We are not the main track, and we are not the only ones going to heaven, and in fact, going to heaven is not the whole point anyway. But that’s a different post for a different time. (So please don’t start singing “I’m Goin’ Home on the Morning Train.”)

I don’t know church history well enough to know when we first jumped the track. But we did. Oh, I know, we weren’t alive then; we’ve just been following the track laid down by others.

Well, guess what? The track dead-ends. All but the Main Line.

When we got off track, I don’t know.

But I do know where.

We left the main line when we started being more concerned about church than Christ. You know it. I know it. We started fretting about this doctrine and that doctrine; works vs. grace; choice vs. election; what name is on the door; who’s got the authority; who’s in and who’s out; what must we do to be saved instead of what He has done and is doing.

We invented a new religion, Christianity. It was kinda like Christ. Kinda. On Sundays, anyway. Between the hours of 8:00 and noon, generally. As long as we were in the right building, doing the right things, and living lives that were self-deceiving enough that we didn’t feel motivated to confess our sins to one another while gathered. We would graciously part with a few minutes of our lives to remember Him, at least ceremonially, if not soul-deep in our hearts.

And we decided it was all about church.

Getting church right.

We thought: If we could just get church right, we’d be right. So we’ll figure out how to do it right. We’ll solve all those clues buried deep in the scriptures under ancient languages and customs and history about what God wants us to know and do, and we’ll know them and do them, and earn our way right back into His heart.

At least us Restoration folks concentrated on it to pretty much the exclusion of everything else, everything that matters. For the most part, we still do. We still want to restore the church of century one. Not the heart of Christ, or His Spirit living in us, or God working through us. Not the Way that early followers followed. Or the Truth. Or the Life.

Not the Main Line.

Somehow, soul-deep in my heart, I am persuaded that Satan could not have been happier when we built each switch and laid each set of tracks and followed them faithfully … because our eyes were no longer on the Main Line and where He leads, but on us, on each other, on our guilt and on failure and on imperfection and oh-what-the-bloody-blue-blazes-why-bother.

“Exactly,” Satan says; “got those bloody blue blazes right here for ya.

“Come on down the tracks.

“And build some more switches and sidings to accommodate all the others, willya?”

I could use lots of excuses: Summer. Travel. Workload. Posting a lot of back issues of New Wineskins to its site.

All of them have contributed to my delay in posting here.

But behind all of them is the problem of where to go next. You see, in the table meditations I’ve been trying to write in an order roughly following the timeline of scripture, we’ve come to that part of the Story of God and us in which we’ve sinned, heinously, and God has again put us into exile from His house … and His presence and despite our pleas and penitence, His response is pretty much silence.

For four hundred years.

That means “where to go next” is to the gospels, and to begin the story of the new covenant and the promises and prophecies coming true at last. It’s daunting. It’s the challenge of telling the Story of God and us in present tense, and first person – and He now has a name: Jesus.

It’s everything that the first part of the Story has been building toward.

He is the answer after the silence; the answer to the pleas and penitence; the response to the heinous sins.

Give me a little more time to prepare, and we’ll put our heads down and launch forward into the next part of the Story.

After the Pharisees failed to trap Jesus in his words about paying taxes, their rivals the Sadducees had their turn:

“That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?’

Jesus replied, ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.’

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.” ~ Matthew 22:23-33

Sometimes I wonder if we are often in error – even though we may know the Scriptures – because we do not know the power of God. Nor do we even try very hard to comprehend it. So we’re certain about things like:

• “If a person dies before he’s baptized – even if he’s heard and believed and repented and confessed and is on the way to the church and is killed in a car wreck – he’s lost and forever damned.”

  Really? The God who held the sun still in the sky for a day can’t prevent or delay the death of someone who wants to be immersed into Christ before he can do so? The Son of God who stilled storms and calmed lakes can’t forgive a broken, desperate soul who recognizes His divinity … even if he’s being crucified a few arm’s-lengths away?

• “If a person doesn’t understand that she is being baptized for the remission of sins, her baptism counts for nothing and she is condemned to an eternity in hell.”

  Oh? The God who knows the number of hairs on our heads and the number of IQ points inside them and the teachings we have been barraged with – for better or worse – by folks with the best of intentions teaching us at our churches … that God can’t credit the belief of such a faithful one (as He did with Abraham) as righteousness … or at least the deep desire for it?

• “If God is love and is not willing that any should perish, then eventually He will save everyone.”

  Are you sure? Then, the God who obliterated all the evil tenants of the earth in a flood, ordered the herem-extermination of child-sacrificers, and whose Son spoke in no uncertain terms of the fates of those on His left and His right … they were just joshing? That there is only kindness and no severity to those who will not believe? That He is merciful, but not just; loving but not righteous? He doesn’t really have the power to be perfectly both? Because, as I understand it, it is impossible for Him to lie.

We could go on and on. (Many have.) If we did, we would probably still be arguing as much from our ignorance of Scriptures as of the power of God.

But I think we especially underestimate His power.

And that may help explain why we so seldom pray and let Him work through us as powerfully as Paul did:

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~ Ephesians 3:20

Norman William Brenton
September 24, 1926 – February 25, 1993
Brazil, Indiana and Indianapolis, Indiana
From his three children, read at his funeral:

In the two and a half weeks since Dad’s heart attack, we have often found ourselves commenting on his fine qualities: his kindness, dry sense of humor, love of children and people in general, his efficiency and thoroughness–meticulous and logical in all areas; his gentle spirit. In fact, the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-24 and the admonition of II Peter 1:5-8 to “add to your faith, virtue, etc.” were reflected in his life. Perhaps most often in our thoughts and conversations, the Beattitudes of Matthew 5 came to mind, especially verse 9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Certainly our Dad is a son of God.

– Linda

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Sometimes when things just don’t seem right and we see no good in them, we need to stop and remember that God works all things together for the good. In our lives we experience what the Bible calls trials and sufferings, but when we are children of God, we are to consider them great joy. My father loved people like no one else I knew, except for God himself. He will continue to live through those of us who knew him and those of us who learned from his faithfulness to God our Father, and from his patience toward everyone. I pray we all will be worthy, as he was, to see Jesus Christ. He suffers no pain and no sorrow. He’s with our Father in heaven and that makes me joyful.

– Christy

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My father gave me life, of course; but you may not know that on at least two occasions, he also saved my life.

One time, when I was about two years old, I had gotten hold of some hard candy, and had managed to get a piece of it stuck in my throat. Upon hearing me choke, Dad hauled me up by my feet and slapped my back until the candy was dislodged and I could breathe again.

Another time — when I was eight or nine, and we were on one of our vacation trips together — we parked on a lot overlooking Royal Gorge. The lot was marked off by big wooden posts threaded together by a chain. I hopped right over the chain, heading for a slope where some gorgeous quartz crystals had been dumped like fill dirt. The slope was about 45 degrees, and it ended in about thirty feet with a vertical drop of about a thousand feet to the Arkansas River below. The quartz crystals began to give way underneath me as I struggled back to the top. Dad started to vault the chain, too; but I yelled back “Don’t! The rocks won’t hold you.”

So, holding the chain in one hand, he stretched himself as far as he could and reached out to me with the other hand. I had to take the next couple of steps myself, but then I felt his hand grasp mine and he pulled me to safety.

Maybe Dad didn’t do anything that any father wouldn’t have done. But he taught me a powerful lesson through those two episodes. He taught me that God saves people in two ways.

One way is when you feel like you’ve been picked up and turned upside down and life is hitting you from behind. That’s God telling you there’s something stuck in your craw called sin and you’ve got to turn loose of it or it will kill you.

The other way God saves us is when he vaults the chain in the person of His Son and, holding firmly on with His hand of Justice, He stretches Himself as far as He can and reaches out to us with His hand of Compassion. We have to take the first few steps on our own; then we feel His hand grasp ours and pull us to safety.

– Keith

What if each one of us challenged our ministers and teachers to preach nothing but Christ and Him crucified for an entire year?

What might happen if our churches heard nothing but the pure, unadulterated gospel of Jesus the Savior for twelve months straight?

How many might come into a relationship – either for the first time, or an even closer one – with the God of grace through His only begotten Son and inspired by His Holy Spirit if their time of worship and learning revolved around the One whom the law and prophets anticipate, the gospels celebrate, the epistles inaugurate, and holy revelation consummates?

Suppose every message shared; every sermon delivered; every class taught came back to the life and death and resurrection of the Messiah who makes it possible for us to live again, too?

Would His presence in our assemblies become more tangible, more real, more perceptible?

Would His influence in our lives become more welcome, more obvious, more of a blessing?

I can’t make a challenge like this without being willing to take it up myself.

In 2009, I am resolved to blog nothing but Christ Jesus and Him crucified in this place. If what I write about here does not point to Him – directly or indirectly – it is not worth writing about here and I will not do it.