to the ordinary

Osteen on Romney

This past week Joel Osteen made a statement on Larry King Live concerning 2008 presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Speaking theologically, not politically, Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon. The statement by Osteen is that Romney "...believes in Jesus as his Savior just like I do."

Watch it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS-hX0vRiHU

With the largest church in America, and possibly one of the largest television audiences in the world, Osteen reaches more ears than maybe anyone else speaking the name Jesus. Joel believes he and Mitt are worshipping the same Jesus. Major differences abound between Orthodox Christianity and Mormonism. The Trinity, the person and work of Jesus, Scriptural authority, and the Atonement are only some of the doctrinal differences between teachings of the LDS and Evangelical Christianity. Possibly the truest statement he made was that he hadn't studied it deeply.

To Health

A friend of mine shared with me a statement a pastor made to challenge his staff. He commented, "Healthy churches attract healthy people; unhealthy churches attract unhealthy people." The statement makes me cringe with the thought that the goal was to attract healthy people. Then, those healthy people might be a catalyst to attract...more healthy people. At this point, Jesus words might have deep impact: "Come to me all you who are healthy and doing well for yourselves."

I'd figure a healthy church might attract broken, hurting, helpless, and desperate people. We all are really those people, it's only that some of us live in this matrix where we deny our ultimate need for Jesus and try to hide our sinfulness.

Starched shirts and pleated pants provide litttle salve for the depravity of man, and if that is the majority of what we see when we look around our churches I wonder how healthy we are?