Father, Lord God Almighty – you are the Glorious One who keeps all his promises. We, your Church, have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, and turned away from your commands and ordinances. We have not listened to your Word.
 
Father, all righteousness belongs to you, but this day public shame belongs to us: the people of the Church, the pastors, and deacons, leaders, and congregations.
 
We confess and repent.
 
We have honored you with words, but our hearts are far away. We say we love your Word, but abuse and neglect it. We ignore the innocent and have embraced sexual brokenness.
 
We confess and repent.
 
We have embraced the yeast of Herod – mixing the politics of this world into the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints. We have confused the city of man with the Kingdom of God.
We are a double-minded people, swinging from one extreme to the other. Desiring entertainment over discipleship. Too focused on judgment and condemnation or not mentioning sin at all.

We confess and repent.
 
We stereotype other churches and see them as competitors instead of co-laborers in the Gospel – because we are too often focused on ourselves rather than those around us; filled with arrogance and pride instead of the Great Commission. We have been far too busy building our own empire, rather than serving in the Kingdom of God.
 
We confess and repent.
 
We applaud arrogant, proud, boastful, unloving, and unmerciful people while neglecting the poor, single people, the divorced, the abandoned, widows, foster children, and orphans. We have failed to be reconciled to persons of every people, tribe, tongue, and nation as image-bearers of God. We have made comfort our god while tolerating spiritual abuse from our pastors because they know how to twist the gospel to numerically grow a congregation. We have accepted hypocrisy while our pastors sexually abuse the flock because we are more concerned about protecting our name and our reputation than your truth, your justice, and your care for the powerless.
 
We have been overcome by evil and responded with fearful anger, rather than the confidence and love that comes from you.
 
We confess and repent.
 
Now, Lord our God – who brought your people out of the land of Egypt, and who redeemed your people through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus – may your anger and wrath turn away from your Church. Our sin has made us an object of ridicule to all those around us.

Father God, hear our prayer and petition. May your face shine upon the broken Church. Listen and hear us, O God. We are not presenting our confession and prayers based on our righteous acts, but based on your abundant compassion. Our sins are scarlet, in the Name of Jesus make them as clean as snow. Fill us with your Spirit once again so we might return to our first love and do your will.
 
Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord, listen and act! Our God, for your own sake, do not delay, because your Church and your people bear your Name.
 
In the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord we ask you.
​Amen.

As Covid-19 continues to infect and continues to be debated, I have seen a number of my dear brothers and sisters communicate something along the lines of, “God will protect me from the virus.”
 
I’ve had numerous conversations in-person, over the phone, and online with friends about this sentiment. On its face, this sounds very spiritual and faithful. But the sentiment fails to understand the bigger picture in the Bible. Bad things happen to believers all the time. God allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery, and wrongfully thrown into prison. God allowed David to be hunted by the mad King Saul for years. Years. Righteous Job lost all his children, and his health. Paul suffered from some sort of thorn in his flesh. Timothy had ongoing stomach issues.
 
Believers are not shielded from the natural evils of this life.
 
Most of us know this intuitively. It’s why many carry health insurance. Or use a seat belt. Or lock their doors.

I’ve had this conversation regularly since April 2020.
 
But it occurred to me today that this sentiment is actually satanic in origin.
(I’m sure most of my readers had this figured out already.)
 
“God will protect me from the virus” is one of the temptations the devil presented to Jesus in the wilderness.
 
Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written:
He will give his angels orders concerning you,
and they will support you with their hands
so that you will not strike
your foot against a stone.” Matthew 4:5-6
 
The temptation was basically this, “You are the Son of God. So why not announce your entrance in style? Jump from the top of the temple. Then God can make angels grab you by the arm, they will carry you down in front of everyone! No one will have any doubts who you are!
 
And the devil wasn’t incorrect. God can command his angels to rescue Jesus from the fall.
So, what’s wrong with this temptation?
 
Jesus told him, “It is also written: Do not test the Lord your God.” Matthew 4:7
 
Essentially, Jesus said, “Yes, God can send his angels to grab me, but he is not obligated to do so!”
 
Can God protect us from car wrecks and home invasion and Covid-19?
 
Absolutely!
 
Is he obligated to do so?
 
Absolutely not.
 
I understand that many of my brothers and sisters in Christ have made this statement in an attempt to communicate their trust in God. But that’s not the message that comes across. It is spreading the lie of the devil: God is obligated to keep me from all suffering in this life.
 
He is not, and he expects us to make wise decisions to minimize the effects of sin on our lives.
 
To my fellow believers who have said, “God will protect me from the virus,” I implore you to search the scriptures (the book of Job, Romans 8, James 1, etc.).

I made this observation over the weekend during my sermon on Psalm 146. 
You can listen to it here: ​https://www.orchardchurch.net/sermons/hope-in-politicians

Are you tired of the rage? The anger from others? The fire within your own soul? 
The answer isn't social media, or political education, or fact checking. 

I am a pastor of a small church in rural Northern Michigan. I love my church and I love my community. I also believe we need local churches of all sizes to build the Kingdom of God.
 
Yesterday I received several calls and direct e-mails from a variety of Christian organizations encouraging me to send my congregation to other churches’ livestreams. The rationale went something like this:
 
Because you are a small church and not able to match the production quality of larger churches, you should send your people to one of these large churches, so they have a good online-church experience.

The truth of the matter is that, no, I cannot match the production quality of larger churches. But, in the same respects, larger churches cannot match the production quality of Netflix. So, if church wins on production quality, we all lose.
 
But I firmly believe small churches are better positioned to have a better livestream experience than anyone else. It’s true that I can’t beat production quality, but I can beat the larger churches and even Netflix in interaction every single time.
 
Small churches excel in relationships. Our strength is in our size – we know everyone.
 
So, as churches shift to online-only services during the Covid-19 pandemic, I think small churches can give their congregations a very fulfilling service for not a lot of money or technology.
 
Because I’m crunched for time (as are you) let me give you the bullet points:
 
1. Livestream your service or sermon via Facebook Live (it’s free).
2. Mount your smartphone on a tripod and keep the phone close to the action.
            - No wide shots (so the microphone can pick up the audio)
            - Move the tripod during the livestream to the musician if you need to.
            - (Search for Cell Phone Tripod on Amazon for lots of inexpensive options)
3. Use a separate tablet or cell phone for the preacher to monitor the livestream.
            - Remember to mute the audio on this device.
            - Remember to change your settings, so this screen is always on.
4. During the service/sermon interact with those watching.
            - Tell the audience you will be interacting with their comments.
            - As you stream, you will see the names of people watching pop up. Say hello to them on
              the livestream!
            - Ask open-ended questions that you will later come back to
                 (i.e. what are your prayer requests?)
           - Ask open ended questions during the sermon that you will read later on – keeping in mind that there’s a 20 second delay between what you say and the stream your audience is watching. (i.e. “When do you do your devotional time? What are some things that distract you from praying? If you could travel with anyone, who would it be? How will you apply the truth of God’s Word today?)
 
My friend Francisco Ruiz hosts the Retro Rewind Podcast. Part of that show involves livestreaming video game playthroughs on Twitch. Watching game streams is not my jam. But I watch Francisco because he is my friend and because he interacts with me when I interact with him. It is very engaging. I suggest you go watch one of his shows to see how it’s done.
 
And if you want to see how we handled our imperfect livestream last week, you can watch it here. Note that we have a Mevo Plus – but if we did not, I would go ahead and stick my phone on a tripod and do service like I have suggested above.
 
Our broadcast last weekend was awesome… because the people I served loved having an opportunity to connect with the people they already know and love.
 
I can’t compete with production quality – but no one can compete with me in relationships at The Orchard Church.

I am not sure how I stumbled across this message. It was likely on Twitter under the #ChurchToo hashtag. I am incredibly grateful for Diane Langberg, Ph.D., for her words of wisdom last year entitled Power, Deception, and the Church.

The entire message is worth listening to, but this quote (around the 31 minute mark) struck me as particularly timely for The Church in the Western World.

Here's some of what Dr. Langsberg said about loving Christian leaders who abuse their power:

"And yes, the abuser - like all of us - is invited to be part of the ungiven [the protective Christian community], but that only becomes possible (and hear me clearly) when the light is shining in the darkness, and the offender falls down before our crucified God knowing that it is against that wounded savior that he has sinned.  And that abuser, who gets to that place, will demand nothing from any human – no position, no place of power, no restoration, no forgiveness. He will acknowledge (she will acknowledge) the inability to live in truth, and know better than anybody else knows that they are not to be trusted and that the actions they committed are theirs and theirs alone.

This is how we love abusers: By letting them be stripped of the trappings that they have used to deceive themselves.”

It seems to me that God is in the process of purifying his Church here in America. Part of that process is bringing many forms of spiritual abuse to light.

I am largely posting this so I can find this for future use, but I hope you find it useful too.

I want to offer a word of caution to my fellow pastors about seeking popularity.

As I confessed to my congregation in my sermon last Sunday, I have sought attention and popularity for much of my life. I lie to myself, thinking that if I were more popular, I could have a better impact on the world for Christ.

If I'm honest, though, that is a false virtue I try to wrap around my self-centered quest for personal glory.

Before most of my sermons I pray, "May Christ increase, so I may decrease." I must pray this. It is not a reality of my heart, it is a plea for God to change my heart.

God says: I am Yahweh, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another (Isaiah 42:8a HCSB).

A few months ago, I read Michael York's odd, yet satisfying memoir of filming the movie Megiddo: The Omega Code 2. In it, he recounted a quote from John Updike: Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.

I intended to post John Updike’s quote for a few weeks, and then I came to Luke 11:42-12:3 in my sermon series through the Gospel of Luke. In his famous woes, Jesus condemns the Pharisees' obsession with popularity and attention: Woe to you Pharisees! You love the front seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces (Luke 11:43).

I used Updike’s quote here.

So this post is a caution, but mostly for me: Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.

I have been slowly working my way through Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich edited by Dean G. Stroud.

Until this book, I had never heard of Pastor Julius Von Jan. He is not a major figurehead in the resistance against the Nazis. But his voice mattered.

When the Nazis began to their attack against Jews in November 1938, Von Jan spoke out against the Nazis. I have included below, some quotations from his sermon, O Land, Land, Land: Hear the Word of the Lord! Shortly after this sermon was delivered, he was dragged from his home by approximately 500 Nazis, beaten publicly by the Nazi mob, and imprisoned.

He survived the war. He is not household name. As far as I know, the only available English translation of his sermon must be purchased. And yet, his voice mattered. His courage mattered. And I think he still speaks to us today.