Cheese Wiz

I will start this post with a warning. If you are a Christian and you are easily offended, stop reading now.

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If you are still with me you either didn't heed the warning, you're not easily offended, or you're not a Christian.

First, if you are the last, I want to apologize for the majority of Christians who by their actions and they way they behave give a bad example of what the Christian faith is supposed to be.

Now, to explain that, I want to talk about the phenomenon in the Christian Church that I call Cheese Wiz.

I have been dealing with something for the last couple of years that has recently went from an annoyance to a personal quest. I am on a quest to show believers in Christ that they can no longer be cheesy. Thus the name Cheese Wiz.

First, I want to examine the actual product of Cheese Wiz. Well, it comes in a pressurized can. It kind of looks like it could be cheese, but deep down, or maybe even right on the surface you know that it's not. You know that, if you change a molecule here and there, you just have semi-solid, almost liquid plastic. You squirt this substance on a cracker and it usually just ends up making you sick.

Now, how does this apply to the church as a whole? Well, when a Christian is talking to a non-Christian and there needs to be a translator present, that is Cheese Wiz. When a church has no relevance in the community, that's cheese wiz. When a Christian artist only performs in churches, that is cheese wiz.

How are we to be salt and light if we are disconnected from the community that needs Christ? Do we really think that if Jesus came today for the first time that he would come into our churches? I contend that if he was on the scenes today, he would turn the tables at any of our churches, just like he did at the temple. He would call us "White washed tombs filled with dead mens bones."

I, for one, don't want to get so caught up in church that I forget the reason for church, and the call that is placed on us as the church.

I'm tired of placing silly, contrived rules on people. Rules that are only convenient for the church, rules that God never put in place. Lets stop taking one verse out of the Bible and building doctrines around it, instead of taking the whole council and seeing what God is really trying to say.

We could look at the verse that says that women shouldn't talk in church, while ignoring the fact that Paul had two prophetesses (women preachers) that went around with him. Things like that upset me, because doctrines are built around things like that and they severely limit the power of the church, because of ignorance.

Another one that gets me is the holiness churches. The take a verses that say, "Be holy as I am holy.", or, "Be perfect as I am perfect.", and think that it has to do with the way a person looks! When are we going to stop looking at modern translations and to back to the original meaning? Concordances are out there for a reason. We need to learn how to use them. When the bible says be perfect, it doesn't mean to be without flaw, it means to be mature. God is saying GROW UP!

And I'm saying it now. We need to grow up. We need to stop acting like adolescents and start behaving like mature people.

I have had many people call me irreverent. That I say things that shouldn't be said. That I'm too offensive with the positions I take on a lot of issues. I had parents up in arms when I was teaching the youth group about Daniel translating the vision of the statue for Nebuchadnezzar. What was it that I said that would get the parents up in arms? Part of the passage talks about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I was talking about them for a second and I said "My shack, your shack and a billy goat." Ahh, that is soooooo offensive!?!?!? How could I say something like that. It's sac religious!

My response to that is... Yes, it is sac religious and we need more of it. Don't we understand yet that religion is bad? Devotion is good, religious devotion is bad. I'm devoted to Christ and His call on my life. I'm not going to get into a rut of doing this and doing that to prove that I'm devoted. I'm going to do what he called me to do.

My point? If you're going to call me irreverent, answer this question, is it more irreverent to act foolish, when you're called to act foolish, or is it more irreverent to act like a board when you are called to be foolish?

I try to present myself in a Hallelujah fashion. The word hallelujah comes from the Hebrew (or Aramaic, forget which.) word halal. The word halal means to "Act clamorously foolish." The word jah is shortened form of Jehovah. So, hallelujah means to act clamorously foolish before the Lord.

All of these things get to me. And they all, in my opinion separate the people who need Christ from the Christ that they need. Can we, as a church, please get back to the true call of Christ, which is:

Matthew 28: 19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."