My Thoughts on Diseases

Before the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve literally lived in paradise.  God gave them everything: food, shelter, the whole world.  But one tree they could not and should not have eaten from, they ate the fruit from that tree.  Planet earth started to spiral from that point to what we have today.

Ebola and Other Diseases

Ebola has devastated West Africa for much of 2014.  So far, about 3000 people have died since the beginning of this year.  And many more will die from this.  But this is not the only disease that has threatened and killed people.  There has been polio, small pox, the bubonic plague, and even the flu virus.  Why are there so many diseases?

Let's start from the beginning.  Adam and Eve were just two people.  I bet the plants were not grown in crops and animals were running freely in fields.  No diseases exist yet.  Then they ate from the tree and all things fell apart.  They are to eventually die and return to the earth.  

Women are to give birth in pain, men are to toil the soil to grow their crops.

Then civilization happened.  People started to live in close quarters, in towns and cities, forming counties, states, countries, kingdoms.

People ate the crops they grew, and the animals they raised in farms.

Then diseases began to pop up.  You see this throughout the Old Testament.

It is a far cry from the paradise that God had initially given us.  People were spread out.  I am sure they were vegetarians too.  Here is an excerpt from Genesis 1:

God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:28-31 NASB)

Notice God didn't say, "I have given you animals as food."  Just plants.  And the animals are to eat the plants too.

I have this thought for sometime that while diseases originated from the fall of man, it is people living closely together that has accelerated the spread of disease.  People have to farm the land and raise animals as food, depending on each other.  As it is evident in West Africa, diseases can spread very quickly if people live close together.  Raising livestock can also pose an issue as animals can carry diseases that can leap to people.

If people live in the forest again and just live off the natural land, I wonder if this will slow down diseases?  You can see also in history that Native American had little diseases as they often live more spread apart before the Europeans came.  Europe was termed more advanced in civilization but also carry a lot of diseases.  

Conclusion: I am going to find an island far far away...

The American Church: Part 2

[Paraphrased]: To become leaders, we must become followers (of Jesus).

I have heard this many times in many different churches over the past many years.  I think I first heard it when I was a newly graduate from NC State, at the church I was attending in Raleigh, NC.  It sunk in and meant a lot, in many perspectives and many ways, and in the many different steps I have taken as a Christian.

Tonight was a wonderful night.  Pastor Erwin McManus came to speak to a group of leaders and volunteers tonight at my church Mosaic Church Charlotte.  It was great to learn about his past and how Mosaic Church L.A. became what it is today.

One thing that caught my attention tonight was "culture".  Although, it wasn't quite audible from Pastor Erwin's conversation with us, it was a word the Holy Spirit laid in my heard as I was listening to his story about Mosaic L.A.

In my own understanding, Pastor Erwin was tired of the church norm.  Society has put us in a box, a standard that we have to adhere by.  Even the church has gotten its own traditions and rituals.  But as creative beings that God has made us to be, we are to create the future, fighting the social norm, be unique and create our own culture for the world to follow.  In the first blog, I wrote that the church is not here just to survive, the church is here to serve humanity.

Let's talk about culture for a minute.  Each country has their own culture: language, food, traditions, rituals.   There are many times I have heard well-meaningful Christians go to other countries to establish and plant a church the "American" way.  Or they have their own theology of how it should be done.  And many times, these churches fail.  Why?  These church planters go expecting for the local culture to conform.  They have their ideology that the church should have a steeple, a pastor, board members, committees.  Failure happens then there is a misunderstanding and disconnect between the two cultures.  This ideal "church culture" clashes with the local culture.

The church should be a universal force.

One thing that Pastor Erwin spoke about tonight is seeing people the way God sees people.  God sees people as human beings.  People who are fragmented and broken.  This is the premises of Mosaic Church: to bring broken people (pieces) together to create a beautiful mosaic.  When followers of Christ start to realize this, Christians will treat people as people and not as a church project to bring them into a legalistic church.

Then we realize that our cultural battle is not between Americans vs. other countries.  It is against God and Satan.  In each country, there are broken people, torn by their own country's ideal of what a country should be.  Christians in America are no different.  American culture is fueled with the idea to be successful (monetarily), to look sexy, to be cool.  But the real church of Christ, those who see people as broken beauty and who serves humanity, creates the culture and the future that we are an unstoppable force of loving, serving people.  This carries over and reaches far more than the typically American church ideology.

I recently read an NPR article about morality in China.  In summary: it's bad.  Throughout the culture of China, there is an air of mistrust amongst them.  They just simple don't trust each other or even their own government.  If someone is in need (if they had fallen down the stairs, or get hit by a car), it could take 20 people passing by before anybody helps.  There have been cases where people pretend to be hurt, to only rob innocent people who try to help.  The other problem is that people expect the others to help.  And with the 1.3B people in China, sometimes I feel they do not have the same thoughts and feelings about human life as some people have in Western society.

But what brings me hope in this situation are missionaries in these type of countries.  A friend's mother was a missionary kid in Taiwan in the 60's and 70's.  Taiwan's culture is somewhat similar to China.  In one instance, a child on a bike was hit by a car.  The father of this missionary family immediately ran to the middle of the road to help the child, carried the child to the sidewalk and yelled someone to call for help.  One person asked him, "Why do you do this?  You don't even know this child."  "Because I am a follower of Christ."  People surrounding this event saw the compassion of this man.  They may not understand his thoughts but they saw his actions.  In countries like these, Christian missionaries work best by working on compassion and setting an example.

"Because I am a follower of Christ..." leads us to all understand the heart of God, and the compassion that God has for His people.

The American Church : Part 1

I started re-reading a book called An Unstoppable Force by Erwin McManus.  (Honestly, I would start a book and read like 1/3 of a book, and never finish.  So, I am re-reading the first 3rd and reading the last part... Hopefully.)  Reading and re-reading the book made me realize a few things about the state of the church.  Are we propelling or are we failing?

The book, in summary, is about the current state of American churches.  McManus talks about how most traditional churches are just surviving.  Wrapped in politics and legalism, the current church cares mostly about maintaining what's within and not focused on serving humanity.

I really like this sentence from the first chapter of McManus's book:

"The purpose of the church cannot be to survive or even thrive but to serve... the church is not called to survive history but to serve humanity."

I'll be frank: the word "unchurched" gets on my nerves.  They want to distinguish those who never been to church with those who are constantly and religiously going.  But the heart of the matter is, there are those who were very well "churched": growing up they go to Sunday School, they participate in all things Youth Ministry, wear their WWJD bracelet faithfully, are in the in-crowd of their youth.  Come to college, they realize, "The church my parents went to is their church."  Many people fall away for whatever reason, blaming the very politics and legalism of their home church, vowing never to go back to that church again.  We are faced with a generation who are just sick of traditional church.

Likewise, those who go to church religiously is just that: religious.  Some of these could care less about the hearts of the sheep... All they care about is their popularity status at church.  Are they in the committee with the church pastors, are they tithing the most, are they wearing the most modest clothing, are they friends with all the "right" people?

Most of the traditional churches have lost their focus... Actually they lost their focus when doctrines were created.  And what worked 50-75 years ago is not working anymore.  Some of these had lead to more books on how to worship and how to perform a service and created check-list on how to be a Christian.  These books then lead to rituals, which lead to legalism and judgment.  A lot of seminaries that are connected to a denomination teaches mainly on how to run a church like a business.

Church is not a business.  It is a body of believers, creating a community of hope for humanity.

Okay, but just to be clear, I do respect some of these traditional church.  I think a few of them have realized that change is needed in order to reach and serve the community.  There are many wonderful traditional churches I will or may go to from time to time.  I do love hymns.  And for all churches, a statement of faith is important or a creed.

But the traditional churches I'm talking about, you know who you are.  You're the very church that many people do not like, and to say it quite plainly, they hate. A church structure that was relevant 50-75 years ago is falling apart.  Culture is changing most rapidly and some of the churches are not keeping up.