our roots

Often to learn and grow in this life a certain amount of pain and trial are required. 

We tend to fool ourselves into believing real progress comes by way of simplicity or ease, so we get frustrated when we don’t see it.  But if you’ve spent any amount of time on this planet and have attempted to do anything of value…or just attempted to go to the grocery on a Saturday…trial and difficulty are inevitable. 

This is life.  It’s hard.  It’s unforgiving. 

False hopes, cute taglines and hallmark quotes are not helpful to real people with real problems.  

So since we live in arguably the most perverse and spiritually bankrupt city in the United States (New Orleans), we’ve had to get rid of the junk that doesn’t help us and doesn’t help the people of God. 

The truth is - if you have problems, then you want solutions.

This sounds as basic as it is, but somehow when it comes to church “the basics” ARE “the struggle”.

My wife and I have been in the church world our whole lives.  I started my first ministry when I was 17 next to a trailer park.  We’ve been a part of ministries internationally, across the country in different states, and in and out of major cities.  I’ve been the leader in charge of creating ministry curriculum from children to adults, and I’ve been the guy sweeping floors and stocking toilet paper in bathrooms on Sunday mornings.  I’ve run security for multiple congregations, written and directed volunteer training, taught Sunday School classes, led missions teams, been on worship teams and have preached.  I’ve run addiction recovery efforts, discipled the mentally ill, worked with at risk youth, and have helped work to develop ministries for those with special-needs.  From Metro Louisville and Lexington Kentucky, to Honduras, to Romania, to Peru, to Thailand, to Chicago, to Las Vegas, and to our last 7 years in New Orleans my wife and I have participated in ministry far and wide…and you know what we see down here in The Boot?

Do you know what we see nationwide down to our local ministry context?

We see too much hurt and wreckage to think that the contemporary church world is doing “everything it can” to be the church. 

In fact, aside from leadership falling into sin, the thing that kills the real ministry of the church is “the doing”.  

Let me say that again - The “doing” is killing the church.

Doing things isn’t bad!  We have to do things.  You go to work, I preach sermons, we meet new people, but how often do we see what is really going on in the midst of the crazy year-in-year-out race we always are runing? 

One of the whole reasons regular worship and church rhythms even exist is because God knows us and our tendency and desire to forget about Him in the midst of all we do.  “Pause!” He says.  As the Epistles tell us over and over from multiple authors - “Remember!”.

So what we are called to is also what can kill us…(if you haven’t learned that yet, please brush up on the subject of Sin).

We can become so preoccupied with the “doing” that we stop “being” who Jesus died on the cross for us to be!

The “Being” of our Faith is the driving force behind the “Doing” of our Faith, and largely this has been forgotten.

So the last time you were in church, did you get a sense that you knew and everyone around you knew exactly who each other were and what this “family of God” is supposed to be about?

Have you ever seen yourself or a church or leaders struggle to bear burdens and just be honest?  (let alone “do good things” in the right spirit for the Lord.)

After a lifetime of heartbreak, ministry disasters, confrontations with cults, and toxic leaders, one thing has stood out to us over and over and over as the answer to the church not being the church - God’s Word is THE BOOK on church….the church just struggles to accept it and trust it.

But “Hey!” you might say, “my church has a great ‘community’!”

Cool…..what do you even mean by that?  Do you mean people who hang out? You have friends?  People brought you food when you were sick that one time? 

That’s great and all, but don’t you think the Family of God (which was created by the sacrificed life of Jesus the Christ, Lord of all the Cosmos) might actually Be More than just a “community”?  

Might we Be Made For More? 

Don’t you think God might have done something supernatural in this Family, and seeks to do something with this family that might just be unlike the good deeds of the local rotary club or a really friendly nudist colony?

Communities are everywhere.  And there are “communities” for everything.  It is downright absurd to see what is really out there for people to be a part of.  You can throw a rock and hit a “group” of “like-minded” people who are “pursuing the same goal” or chasing after a “global mission” that will or could “change the world”.  Heck, any one of these phrases in quotes could have been plucked from any corporate tagline from almost any company on earth too!

So then….what is the church?  How do I know when I see it? Should it look differently then these other things???

In short - yes.

In fact - the Family of God should be the pinnacle of what these other hollow communities can’t provide - the presence of the Almighty God that brings real belonging and rescue.

But there is another issue that makes this near impossible today in so many places - and here is an anecdote:

I recently attended a webinar event that hosted hundreds of thousands of people.   It was crazy.  The hype the “cool”, the marketing - it was great!  Yet I watched the chat explode from time to time as speakers got up on stage.  It was non-stop positivity and a ra-ra attitude.  One or two of the speakers even gave some affirmation that their leading and guiding in their business could only have come from the times they leaned on God in prayer.  People all over the chat were affirming them.  Praise was booming in these moments and comments just kept going and going.  It was really funny to watch and ironic.  By no means was this a Christian event or were these Christians responding.  This was a secular event, but even still in these moments people kept praising and emoji-ing in the chat. 

Then finally one guy came on stage.  He was passionate and people loved it.  He was on fire for his calling and people were all over it!  Then he dared to say something that was one-sentence long and uniquely Biblical……and right on cue…..the chat turned into a bloodbath.

People lost their minds over what he said because it is not acceptable in our upside-down culture.  He dared to be specific and unapologetic in this way and people in the chat attempted to “crucify” him and began calling for the event coordinators to renounce him or shut him down.

ONE SENTENCE…that’s all.

As frustrating as this can be at moments, the episode didn’t bother me all that much.  In fact, where we live and the secular circles that you have to run in at times cause you to quickly learn just how much the truth of Jesus is hated by the world. If you’ve been in ministry at all for any length of time and have had to stand sober-minded before a crazy world and do anything legitimate for Jesus, then you know the world is the world and it hates you.  The Bible tells us so after all.

But just as I was about to finish the webinar, I noticed a chat came through that several began responding to.  Of all the vile things being said, this chat popped up from someone who claimed to be a Christian, and it said this:

“What this guy said wasn’t okay because kindness towards everyone is what Jesus’s message was.  This was his purpose, don’t get confused or messed up.”

When I tell you my blood curdled, I mean it. And when I say every ministerial bone in my body just snapped, I’m not kidding. 

If you read the line above, are in ministry and this doesn’t break your heart and flip your stomach….then I encourage you to open your Bible again, repent and read the claims of The One you call Lord and Savior.

My reaction wasn’t just for the blatant unbiblical understanding and representation this person attempted to espouse of Jesus and the Gospel, but it was also because this person was taught someone, somewhere, who called themselves a minister of God. 

Someone spoke with, sat down with, or communicated with this person and their take away from the Person and Work of Jesus was heresy. And for every God-fearing Believer out there this should be unacceptable.

Why does this bother me so much you might ask?

Because this World we live in is not Gray. 

It may be confusing at times because the dark parts are so good at disguising themselves that it can be hard to discern at times, but it is anything but gray. 

Truth or Lies.  Black or White.  Darkness or Light.  Slavery or Freedom.  God or not. 

These are not categories man has created to talk about this life, they are the state of things as God has told us they are in His Word. 

Our God is Specific. Our Salvation is Specific. The Family of God is Specific. To mix or misrepresent them is to misrepresent what God cared to share with us through His Word that brings the dead in sin to life and light into the kingdom of darkness that is this world. So if this is what someone has taken away from the “ministerial” efforts of a person who claims to be a pastor or is speaking on behalf of God, then this person is completely ignorant to the Life of Christ, the Gospel, the New Life offered and The Hope that is unshakable.  This “leader” has robbed this person of truth through their ungodly work and has helped this person exchange truth for lies (Romans 1:25).

So at this juncture (if you’ve made it this far), you may be thinking: “Wow…..what a soap box…."

Yup. 

Some hills are worth dying on, and we have found ours…where heaven and earth meet in the Lord Jesus. 

If the Bride of Christ was worth the God of the universe dying so she might live, then we can dig in and fight to see her be Who God says she is, and mature her into the beauty she was made for.

The Bride is worth it.

In Christ,

Seth Earnest