No Rights. Journal of a Christ soldier.

Church Buildings Gone Right!

It is my pleasure to report a very encouraging story that I recently read. it is about a church making radically misisonal choices about how to treat their property and finances. Considering the nature of my last article, in which I was ranting about a church that was abusing its resources, this story was renewing and hopeful for me to read. 

The church is Brook Hills, located in Bimingham, Alabama. The pastor is David Platt. In addition to pastoring this church, David Platt is also the author of two very popular books: Radical and Radical Together. They are books that have been very transformative and encouraging to me. In his last book, Radical Together, Platt tells the story of a cross roads that he lead his church through. Their church is quite large. It has a multi-million dollar annual budget. When Platt took over as the pastor, the church had some grand plans to build on to their church...a new and better lobby, better parking lots, more class-room space and sports fields just to name a few. But as they discussed these potential investments Platt had some second thoughts. As they were going through the budget process for their church, he asked some very critical and risky questions for a new pastor. Here is an excerpt from his story,

"As a pastor, I believe that is when (setting the budget) the church comes face to face with how prone we are to give our resources to good things while ignoring great need. Christians in North America give, on average, 2.5 percent of their income to the church. Out of that 2.5 percent, churches in North America will give 2 percent of their budgeted monies to needs overseas. In other words, for every one hundred dollars a North American Christian earns, he will give five cents through the church to a world with urgetn spiritual and physical needs. This does not make sense."

These kinds of questions and thoughts kept on plagueing him as he attempted to lead his church through the budgeting process. So Platt and his leaders began to seek God through prayer and studying scripture. They laid all their plans before God and asked Him if their plans were God's best for their community and the world. And as they studied Scripture, God answered. Here is another excerpt...

"As we took this question to Scripture, we saw a clear plan from the mought of Jesus: Make disciples of all nations. Take up your cross, follow me and lead others to follow me in the same way. Jesus never told us to build lobby space, create more class rooms, or design sports fields. Not that it would be necessarily wrong to do these things... When it cam to our plans then, the question was, Is this the best way to align with the plan Jesus has laid before us? Is building a nicer, more comfortable lobby the best way to use our resources to lead people to take up a cross and follow Christ? Is building more space for classes the best way to help people obey Christ?"

He goes on to report how they answered these radical questions...

"And as we asked these questions at Brook Hills, our decision became clear. Instead of expanding the lobby of our church, we would use that money to start planting other churches. Instead of constructing more classrooms where we could listen to more lectures, we would become more intentional about gathering in our homes, where we could better share our lives."

This story restores alot of hope for me in traditional churches with huge budgets around the U.S. And this is not the only good story. There are plenty others. It is also not a story about how great David Platt was to lead his church through all these decisions. Many pastors would have been fired for asking these kinds of risky questions. Really, all of the leaders in this church deserve credit for making radical decisions about their money and resources. I think this is what encourages me the most about this turn around. We don't have to wait for incredibly gifted leaders to change things. They simply sought God through prayer and study of His word and asked God how they could best use their resources. And they said yes to God's plan!

I highly recommend this book. It is a great and challenging read. Platt raises the questions that we should all be asking of ourselves and the ministries that we lead!

Why Do We Exist?

Why do we exist at all? This really is the ultimate question, isn’t it? Why is there something, rather than nothing? If the answer to these is simply a Creator God…then where did He come from? What came before God? It is the question that silently bounces around in the back of our minds on rainy overcast days. It is the unanswerable thought that we feel every time we look up into the night sky. It haunts us every time we attend the funeral of a loved one. It is the topic most often contemplated by drunk (and/or high) teenagers around the campfire. And it is a question that remains a goldmine for publishers and the aspiring intelligentsia.

I still remember asking my dad the big question. I couldn’t have been more than 9 or 10 years old. We were headed down the driveway in our garbage can on wheels green station wagon. I have no idea where we were going. But that moment and that question, I remember vividly.  I can’t imagine what must have been going through my dad’s head after I asked him. I was in tears. The question was literally burning a hole in my entire being.

“Dad, what came before God? I asked. It was a question I often thought about after Sunday school lessons about God creating the world in the book of Genesis.

“Ahhh…..nothing. God has just always been around.” He answered, without much confidence.

“But, how can that be? Where did we come from? Where did God come from? There has to be an answer.” I asked with tears rolling.

“No one knows, son. That’s just the way it is.” He replied.

At the heart of my question was a longing to know why we are here. Without an answer, life just seemed like an overwhelming flood of chaos…even for a 9 or 10 year old. Life was supposed to be neat and orderly and understandable and nice. I had been taught from an early age that God was the reason for our existence. But God as the Creator of everything only raised another question for me. What came before God?

Stephen Hawking says this is an irrelevant question because God is irrelevant. For Hawking the question of existence is a matter of science and nothing else. This is the newest view of Dr. Hawking to hit the presses. His new book, "The Grand Design", has captured a lot of attention because of these new radical claims about science. In the book, Hawking makes the bold claim that theology is unnecessary in explaining the creation of the universe. (CNN article) In other words, he now believes that God is not necessary to explain how the universe came into existence. I suppose if Stephen would have been there to answer my question as a kid, he would have said something like this, “God doesn’t matter. The universe created the universe. Once there was nothing and then there was something.”  Wow, I’m glad my Dad was not a super intelligent physicist from England! I think this would have frustrated me even more…with good reason.

Keep in mind also, that Hawking’s recent views are a bit of a redaction to previous statements he has made about the place of theology. At one point, in a previous work, he is on record as saying that the entire discovery process is a process of discovering the mind of God. Of course Hawking shamelessly borrowed this view from JOHANNE KEPLER who once described science as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him”.

Stephen Hawking and I completely agree one thing. We agree that the ultimate question of all time is, in fact: “Why do we exist?”  But I seriously disagree with the thought that theology is unnecessary to answering this question. God may not fully answer the ultimate question. However, God is necessary in trying to answer it. God is as close to an answer as we will ever get. Hawking disagrees. He believes that science does not need God at all to describe how the universe came into being. This is an unfortunate stance for someone as gifted as Hawking. There are three reasons I find this new view of Hawking to be extremely unsatisfying:

1.   This view answers nothing important.   Scientists are usually the first ones to accuse Christians of deflecting or evading the question of existence by using God as an answer. But really we can say the same of modern scientists such as Hawking. They are also deflecting and evading the question by saying that science can explain how things came into being. Even if science can describe the exact process by which the universe popped into existence, this says nothing about why? And it really does not answer the how question either. Let me explain.

 

Quantum physics is a field of science that is advancing at an incredible rate right now. Leading academics in this field are considering and discovering things about the universe that no one ever thought possible. For example, scientists have observed and proven that certain things in the universe can spontaneously pop into and out of existence. What an incredible thought and discovery! However, knowing this happens, even predicting when and where it will happen does not explain how or why it happens. This remains a mystery. And it will likely remain a mystery given our finite limitations. Equations, science, even quantum physics merely observe and describe the universe. These disciplines cannot ever tell us what is behind the veil. They cannot tell us why or how the universe came into being from absolute nothingness

 

Hawking has called his view, “Spontaneous Creation”. The idea is that the universe simply created itself. The laws of the universe basically created themselves. Hawking believes that God is unnecessary because we do not need to explain how or why something came from nothing. He believes, that something (i.e. the universe) created itself and that is all we need to say. But that tells us nothing. How is this an answer? Why do we need a term like “Spontaneous Creation” to say, “I have no clue.” To me this view sounds a lot like a teenager trying to explain to their parents how they got into a car wreck.

 

“How did this happen?” the parents ask.

 

“Well, the car in front of me stopped suddenly and then I put my foot on the breaks and tried to stop in time but apparently I didn’t stop in time and then my front end smashed into his back end which resulted in two totaled cars and a traffic citation from the police.”  The teen answers evasively. 

 

The problem is, this is not really an answer to the question even though it does accurately describe what happened. The relevant question is, “What caused the accident?” not “how would you describe the process of the accident?” Who is at fault? This is what we really want to know.  And this is what we are really asking when we raise questions about the existence of the universe. Simply saying that the universe caused the universe is like saying the accident (and the physics of the universe that caused the accident) caused the accident. This answers nothing. Something from nothing raises more questions than it answers. In the end, the question of events leading up to the creation of our universe is irrelevant next to the question of why these events happened at all. What caused these events to be set into motion? What brought something from nothing? Who cares how it happened? We want to know why it happened! And this question can never be answered by science alone.

 

2.   This view lacks appropriate humility. ALBERT EINSTEIN once said, "Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe- a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."  And surely he must have been right. Science and discovery must be wrought with humility to be credible and good. Awe and wonder should be our natural response to the size and shape of the universe we live in. Whether we are looking into the depths of the universe or studying the complexities of the human body or considering the intricacies of the sub-atomic world we ought to be awed into silence, right? Right? The kind of science that says we have no need for theology is a scary one indeed. Any approach to science, which rules out God from the start, is arrogant and twisted.

 

Take for example, consciousness. Every branch of science is speechless when it comes to such things as this. It is unexplainable. It is one thing to say that matter came into being from nothing. It is quite another to say that from this matter came beings that are aware of themselves. Why? Why do I exist? Why do I know I exist? This is a humbling question. To say that science does not need theology to answer this question is arrogant and foolish. It is the kind of arrogance that is born from the belief that we (mankind) are capable of anything. This is simply not true. We have a great many limitations. I am not saying that science is evil or wrong or even unhelpful. Science is very helpful and very necessary. I am simply saying that science is not our savior. When I look at the stars and consider the wonders of this world in which I breath, I am humbled at my cosmic smallness and it is out of a healthy kind of fear that I say….God must be real.

 

3.   This view blinds us to the most important event of all time: The incarnation of God Himself.    The real question behind the question is, “Are we alone?” Ultimately we want to know if our existence is meaningful. If we are simply the result of a bunch of accidental processes in the universe, then we are alone. And this does not feel good at all. A meaningless world is a lonely world. To be floating on a very small rock in the vast ocean of space without any purpose is to be a cosmic orphan. We want to know if we are really orphans. If life has meaning and we have purpose then there must be someone out there who gives it to us….someone who is in control where we are not….someone who knows how to take care of us when we do not. If we have a purpose then we have a creator. If we have a creator then we have hope. This is what is really at stake when we ask this question of why we exist.

 

And here is the amazing truth of the matter. God, in his infinite goodness and love, did not leave us without an answer (contrary to what we might think). He did much more than just write down the answers in a Holy book (Although, He did this as well….thankfully). God did not leave us here on earth as cosmic orphans. He came to earth Himself. He wrote Himself into our story. He became one of His created in order to show us that we are not alone in this universe. We call this the incarnation. God became a man and walked among us. He told us that He loved us and then He showed it by dying a horrible death for us. God, knowing our deepest insecurities, showed Himself to us in the person of Jesus. Lost in the middle of this ultimate and seemingly unanswerable question, God showed up.  

 

I feel very sorry for Dr. Hawking. By removing God from the equation he has also removed the only answer to his deepest needs. He has cut Himself off from His Creator and Father…who is the ultimate how and why answer to life’s biggest questions. God does not leave us as orphans in this world, we make ourselves to be orphans.  

What came before God? I suppose the right answer is that there is no before. There is only God. But, honestly, I have no idea what this really means. I just know that I am not alone. Without God there can be no satisfying answer at all. With God, I have meaning and purpose. I have a father who loves me dearly. So it is ok if I don’t have all the answers right now. God has stilled my tears and brought peace and order where I felt lost in chaos. I pray the same will one day be true for Dr. Hawking.