As I’ve mentioned before, we’re visiting churches.  Finding a church home has not gone as quickly as I had originally envisioned because first we thought we were going to live in one city and thus visited churches there, and then we realized we weren’t but were staying in a house in another part of the Metroplex and so decided to visit good (and renowned) churches in that area.  And now that we’re “here,” there are a couple of churches that we’ve heard good things about and want to visit, but for one reason or another we don’t anticipate that we’ll make one of these our church home.  That is true for the church we visited last week and the one we visited today.

I’ve always thought of myself as a “Baptist,” even though I haven’t been a member of a Baptist church in 15 years.  Probably the last place I would expect to go is to an Anglican church.  But last week, at a Baptist church, my feeling was that I had been to heaven but Jesus wasn’t there.  I realize that that statement demands more of an explanation than I am going to give it, but suffice it for now to say that the service was spectacularly produced but entirely self-focused, and the pastor seemed to love himself above all.  But they had an amazing facility, with everything but streets paved with gold.

This week we went to a “non-Baptist” church.  We were about ten minutes late getting into the service (yes, the church maze when dropping off four kids in classrooms can be tricky), and I may have missed something before we arrived.  But for the first half of the service that we were there, I felt right at home.  The singing was beautiful, and the songs were ones I am familiar with.  The pastor (actually not a pastor but a “rector”) preached a very solid, biblical message (and so was the one he preached last week, which I listened to last night on the internet before we visited).  I think we are on the same page as far as our spiritual pursuit.  Thus I was seriously questioning my denominational categories midway through the service.

The second part of the service, however, removed some of my hope that I could actually belong to this church.  While described to us by a couple of people we met in recent weeks who attend there (we actually met them both when they were hosting garage sales!) as “liturgical,” it wasn’t the “liturgy” that bothered me.  Reading prepared prayers has a certain value.  Having the congregation recite those prayers is also of value.  Kneeling at different points was different from my experience, but no problem here either.  What I struggled with was the feeling, towards the end of the service, and particularly in connection with the “Eucharist” (Lord’s supper) that I was in a Catholic church.  I’m going to offend with this next statement, but this is my blog and I have no reluctance in stating how I feel.  To me, Catholic = pagan.  I do not say this from reading many books about their theology (I haven’t).  I don’t say this from what someone has taught me (they haven’t).  I say this from my own experience in living in Israel and visiting other countries, including Italy and the Vatican.  Those rituals, including the priests’ offering of the “sacrament,” seem entirely out of touch with New Testament teaching.  I realize that the things I associate those rituals with are not necessarily part of what I saw today.  But it is hard for me to disassociate them.  The distinction made between the “priesthood” and the “laity” was also troubling.  And so I left the service feeling that I had just been to a schizophrenic church.  From one perspective though, the “schizophrenia” is a good thing, in that solid, biblical teaching is largely absent from churches like this.

The next time you find yourself without a church home, you might take a few weeks to go and visit some churches outside your regular orbit.  You might find it very instructive.

Last year I noted here how impressed I was by this guy who recited Hebrews 9 and 10.  He not only quoted it, but he did it in a way that inspired me to get working on a memory project I had not made much progress on.  Because he motivated me, I thought that I might be able to motivate others to memorize Scripture.  So I made it my goal to memorize Ephesians as a “gift” to the IBEX Spring 2007 group.  Which meant that I had to finish by the end of April.  I also did it in secret, so that even Kelli did not know.

A good friend, Josh Clutterham, videotaped the presentation of it and then improved it with an opening scene and background music.  This he uploaded in 4 parts.

I am hesitant to share it, not primarily because I think that it could be done much better, but because my intention was for this to encourage and inspire my current students.  What is one thing in person may be something else online.  It’s not a professional presentation; it was done for friends in a bomb shelter.  It also has the potential of drawing attention to me, instead of Paul, the people in Ephesus, God, his Word, and his amazing(!) purposes for the church.  I have overcome my hesitation on the hope that it will benefit other friends who couldn’t be there that day, and on the assumption that you won’t miss what is truly glorious.

There are some important realities that are not communicated in this video.  The first is that while I always thought of this as a “gift” to others, I benefited far beyond anyone else.  I was forced to have Scripture running through my mind many times through the day for many months, and that was a rich blessing.  I learned so much about God and his ways that I never have before (and I’ve read and studied this book quite a bit).  A second reality is that while I’ve carried various portions of Scripture around in my back pocket for years, so that I can pull it out and memorize it when I have time, it is 10 times better to have that Scripture in your mind so you can “pull it out” literally anytime.  It takes effort to read it off a page; it takes far less effort to just say it to yourself.  In other words, once you do the hard work to get it in your mind, there is wonderful reward.  A third comment is that I probably benefited even more after I finished memorizing the book (and after this video was made) as I reviewed the entire book time and again in my mind.

There are some good things that could come from this.  You could be encouraged just in hearing the book of Ephesians.  There’s something about hearing it when it is not being read that is different and perhaps better.  You might hear some truths in a different way than before and be stunned by God’s purposes and convicted to obey his commands.  My prayer is that you would also be motivated to memorize Scripture yourself.  Many godly people have commented that Scripture memory is the most personally beneficial spiritual discipline, and I agree.

Each of the four parts is about 5 minutes long.  One thing you should not do: use the audio for learning the book as I was very nervous and made many mistakes.  May God be glorified and may you be encouraged.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4