Satanic Religion

When I was in high school, a friend of mine invited me to play Dungeons and Dragons. This was exciting to me for a couple of reasons: first, I am and was a huge nerd, so D&D had always been something I wanted to check out. And second, I didn’t have a lot of friends in high school, so this invite was exciting to me!

There was only one problem: I was a child of the 80s, which means I grew up during the so-called “Satanic panic” when America was convinced there were covens of Satanists behind every rock and tree. D&D was alleged to be one of their primary recruiting tools. So my mom was not thrilled that I would be summoning demons with my friends so that we could sell our souls to the Dark Lord.

I’ll spoil the ending: she eventually relented, and my friends and I played D&D for several months straight and no one ever even saw Satan.

We certainly weren’t interested in selling our souls.

But even today, in many churches, bring up D&D and people who wouldn’t know a d20 from a d10 are convinced that D&D is a tool of Satan, along with rock n roll music, high school dances, and a host of other activities.

Which begs the question: really? And, in light of our last series about asking better questions, “Are those the right places to be looking for the devil?”

Today, we’re going to see the answer to that last question is, “No. Actually, if you want to find Satan, you might want to start by looking at religion. Because according to Jesus, one of Satan’s favorite tools is not D&D, but the kind of religion that shields us from looking closely at ourselves.

There’s a way to be religious that keeps us from being honest about our sin, so it actually keeps us from God.

The good news, though, is that Jesus offers to shine the light of truth on our satanic deception, freeing us to follow him into God’s life!

Join us Sunday as we learn how religion blinds us and how Jesus helps us see.

Into the Wilderness

Have you ever done a winter canoe trip?

I grew up in Missouri – the southern part of the state is full of rivers that make for great canoeing. One of them is spring-fed, which means even in the miserable Missouri winters, it’s never frozen.

Which means you can canoe in the dead of winter, as I learned when a group of guys convinced me to join them for their annual ‘crazy canoe trip’.

We rented a cabin for the night, and woke up early Saturday morning to get on the river. It was about 20 degrees when we put in the water – five canoes of ten guys. Everyone was wearing at least three layers and we took a lot of care not to get water in our winter boots as we loaded into the canoes and set off down the river. It was cold at first, but we quickly warmed up, paddling down the river in our coats.

Needless to say, canoeing in February is a completely different experience from being on the river in season.

It takes a lot more preparation – in addition to the normal food and camping details, we each had to pack a dry bag filled with an extra change of everything from underwear to boots and coat. We carried one dry bag full of dry wood, lighter fluid and matches, just in case we had to start a fire to warm up someone who fell in. No one did the year I went, mostly because it’s amazing how much harder you try to keep your canoe from tipping over when it’s below 30.

We were mostly silent, hushed by the snow and ice that blanketed the banks of the river. Not another soul was within miles, and we saw rabbits, deer and more come to the river to drink, confident that no screaming humans would bother them.

I quickly realized why these guys did this every year.

It was incredibly spiritual – the silence, the snow, the animals. There was a palpable presence of God in this place, away from all the things that normally kept us comfortable in the winter.

Let’s talk about wilderness. Wilderness places are harsh – harsh like a river in the dead of winter. So too the wilderness times in our lives aren’t necessarily fun – times of pain and suffering, times when it feels as though all the comforts of normalcy have been stripped away, when you feel lost, aimless, wondering when life is actually going to start.

As much as we dislike wilderness periods, we know they’re inevitable. Whether you’re in one now or not, we know that these times of transition are inevitable. And they’re hard. No way around it.

But just like that crazy canoe trip, wilderness places don’t have to only be hard. And if we prepare well, we can find God in those wilderness places like nowhere else. The wilderness offers a divine encounter that we simply can’t get anywhere else.

Entering the wilderness is about preparing to meet God, preparing to be amazed by the divine.

Join us Sunday as we learn how to prepare to meet God.

Which Laws do We Have to Follow?

Most religions have a god who’s confined to a mountain – high above the world with special people who can only access the gods on special days. But when God became human in Jesus, God left the mountain once and for all to live among us. This means that Jesus is with us everyday, everywhere we go!

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Am I Right?

Disagreement is tough – in the church as everywhere else in life. How do we engage people we disagree with – especially when we’re so sure we’re right? Paul tells the Corinthian church that “right” is the wrong framework. Unless we disagree on a foundation of love, we’re headed for disaster. How do we pursue unity above all else?

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