The Potential Trap

This is an excerpt from a great read, A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God, by Larry Osborne.

Why Being All We Can Be
Might be a Dumb Idea.

"We tend to see unfulfilled potential as a tragic shame; squandered opportunity as a sinful choice. We assume that God couldn't possibly be pleased with anyone who settles for being less than the best they can be -- in any area of life.

But it's a lie.

Potential is not a sacred responsibility.

Potential is a harsh mistress--seductive, never satisfied, prone to exaggeration, nearly impossible to figure out. Those who pursue her inevitably end up in the poisoned land of self-centered priorities and me-first decisions.

But it's a quest that's often justified with pious platitudes about following God's calling and using all the gifts we've been given.

However, God's highest calling won't be found there. It's on another path, far removed from the "me-first" orientation of the maximized potential crowd. It's found on a seldom traveled side road filled with opportunities for sacrifice, service, and self-denial...

The formula for maximized potential is strangely similar to the recipe for a nervous breakdown or a broken home...

To a culture enamored with the allure of self-actualization and fully realized potential, love is fine--as long as it doesn't get in the way.

But let it threaten to become a major distraction, an impassable roadblock, or a heavy burden, and it'll be quickly left behind, jettisoned in favor of the far more alluring goal of reaching our fullest potential.

Which is why I am so leery of this thing I call the Potential Trap. And why I believe trying to become all we can be is often the worst thing we could ever do."

Credit Squeeze

The number one stress in most people's lives is money, actually the lack of it and the debt that many people have been lured into. Banks and credit card companies are in serious trouble and because of their poor decisions, they are now putting the pressure on the average person who fell into the trap of debt. What is really incredible is that this pressure will simply cause more people to declare bankruptcy or walk away from their mortgages, which in the end will wreck the banks anyway.

Here is an article that describes one of the ways that banks are putting on the pressure.

CREDIT CARD FIRMS TRY OUT NEW SQUEEZE TACTICS

But then again, money, debt, inflation, foreclosure, deflation, bankruptcy are all pretty boring. If you would like something more interesting, here you go.

Celebrity -- Risky Business

Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.
Luke 6:26

In this short interview (click on question 7) with Wayne Jacobsen, he talks about the distraction of success. He is the publisher and editor of “The Shack”, a book that is shattering many people’s perceptions of who our Heavenly Father is and how He desires to love us. The challenge that Wayne is encountering is that he finds that people want to treat him like a celebrity because the book has generated over 7 million in sales with literally no end in sight.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.
Acts 14:14-15

Going Green

My wife and daughter made an interesting observation yesterday. I finally managed to switch over to green grocery bags. It was a bit of an adjustment since even once I purchased them I more often than not would forget them when I went grocery shopping. However, now that I have made the adjustment we are finding that we don't have any plastic bags for garbage.

Stores are happy. They just reduced their costs for providing plastic bags and can now charge a nickel for each bag with no one complaining since no one wants to appear environmentally challenged.

This reminds me. I need to put small garbage bags on my grocery list.

Success -- A Definition by Jesus

Have you ever heard this preached? Jesus defined success by how well one person invested money and made a substantial return.

"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'
" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'
Luke 16:16,17

Does Church Work?

Billions of dollars are spent each year on a myriad of programs within institutional churches. The following book reveals some unexpected results. Unexpected, that is, by the leaders of these churches. Even the authors call the results, "shocking." Young adults aren't surprised at all and their response is more like, "Duh!"

Already Gone

Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it

By Ken Ham and Britt Beemer

If you look around in your church today, two-thirds of the young people have already left in their hearts; soon they will be gone for good.

That is the alarming conclusion of the first scientific study of its kind, the Beemer Report, which reveals startling facts discovered through 20,000 phone calls and detailed surveys of a thousand 20-29 year olds who used to attend evangelical churches on a regular basis, but have since left it behind.

In Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it, popular author Ken Ham and consumer behavior analyst, C. Britt Beemer, combine to reveal trends that must be dealt with now... before we lose another generation.

The study found that we are losing our kids in elementary, middle school, and high school rather than college, and the Sunday school syndrome is contributing to the epidemic, rather than helping alleviate it.

The results are not just surprising; they're shocking:

• Those who faithfully attend Sunday School are more likely to leave the church than those who do not.
  
  
• Those who regularly attend Sunday School are more likely to believe that the Bible is less true.
  
  
• Those who regularly attend Sunday School are actually more likely to defend that abortion and gay marriage should be legal.
  
  
• Those who regularly attend Sunday School are actually more likely to defend premarital sex.

Reaching the Lost or Paying the Bills

I first heard the gospel at a little Pentecostal church over 30 years ago. The church had been around for over 25 years and had about 50 members. A new pastor had come in with the realization that if the church didn’t grow beyond this number that it’s doors would close. There just wasn’t enough money being generated to pay for a building and supply a decent living for a pastor.

The new pastor did a great job and the church did begin to grow. Slowly but surely the church increased its budget to the point where a pastor could make a decent living. The members worked hard to get others to join them. The gospel of Jesus carried with it the expectation/need that new members would help with the operation of the organization.

If the new believer coming in, read the fine print they would have discovered that 10% of their income (called either tithing or "free will" offering) was to be given to the local church for the rest of their lives. In other words, the person making $300,000 was to give $30,000 and the person making $10,000 was to give $1,000. A completely fair system of giving, seeing that the rich person ended up living on $270,000 and the poorer person still had $9,000 left over to live on. (One pastor told me that this wasn't true, the person making $300,000 should give a lot more than 10%.)

Note: Some churches actually teach universal tithing where the poorest of the poor will be financially blessed if they tithe on their welfare or disability cheque. This is a far different view from tithing in the Old Testament where only those who owned land or livestock, tithed. The poor were recipients of the storehouse tithe that is spoken about in Malachi 3 and never paid a tithe since they had no crops or herds to tithe on. They didn't receive grain or meat from the storehouse and then told to give 10% back as a tithe.

Of course, financially supporting the local assembly to the tune of 10%+ is never taught as part of an evangelistic outreach. The goal was to get them in and then later help them understand that part of maturing in Christ is tithing to the local assembly. The promise given, is that when giving to the local assembly is practiced, financial blessing is sure to follow. Not surprisingly, the person who tithes from a disability cheque never owns as nice a house as the pastor that directly benefited from their tithe. It also means that children that die of preventable diseases in Africa must not have been part of a family that tithed.

Ironically, most Christians in this teaching never reach maturity since only 18% of Christians in a church that teaches tithing, actually tithe. This creates a rather strained relationship between those teaching tithing and those not practicing it. It creates the potential for pastors to only listen to those who are shouldering the financial burden of their pay cheque and parishioners questioning a pastor's motivation in the care that is provided.

It also intrigues me that the only givers who substantially receive from church funds are the paid staff that teach this practice. Churches tend to give between 2-8% to the needy and 30-50% to staff. Even on missions trips, churches will pay a pastor to go but expect non-salaried people to pay their own way.

Is there anything wrong with giving to one's local church group? Of course not. As long as it is understood as being no different than paying for a golf club membership, except of course you get a charitable receipt for doing so. But when the impression is given that God somehow requires us to give in such a prescribed way, then that is nothing but manipulation, with no scriputural grounds for doing so.

We never thought that our evangelistic outreach was about increasing the church’s financial coffers but ultimately it is not "reaching the lost" but rather dollars that are the measuring stick of the viability of a local church. If the church had increased to 300 people but most of them chose to give their offerings to dying children in Africa, the church would have had to close its doors and the people giving to the children would have been labeled as immature or even worse, "robbers of God".