The Backstory Behind Cerulean Sanctum
October 4, 2003
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, Blogging Feedback : add a comment
Back in April 2003, I was in church worshipping and had an experience in which I was overwhelmed by the fact that many people were worshipping a god of their own creation, not truly knowing God to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
I was staggered and had to sit down. This was in the midst of 3,000 worshippers.
I went home and could not think. But even as I lay there, I finally realized that what I had heard was true. As I examined my own heart by the light of the Spirit over the last few months, I realized that I was one of those people.
How can it be that I really don’t know the Lord? I gave my life to Christ twenty-six years ago on a cold, starry February night in the chill air of a Christian camp in Ohio. I’ve prayed, ministered in dozens of ministries, been baptized with the Holy Spirit (ironically at the same camp in a February years later), pursued a degree in Christian Ed, and certainly influenced lives in a number of places.
Truth is, over the years I was lulled to sleep. Much of that is my own fault, but I also believe that some of that fault rests with what is happening to American Christianity. We are falling asleep or abandoning the Truth altogether at an ever-increasing rate.
I’ve talked to others since that time and I am appalled by what people are telling me about what is going on in their Christian walk. More and more dedicated Christians are revealing to me that they really don’t know the Lord, either.
Now this is not a matter of salvation - at least I don’t believe it is in most cases - but it says how easily we have let the world consume us with its vacuous thrills and empty promises.
How many of us spend the hours a day needed in order to really know God? Is a half hour quiet time going to get us all that much closer to knowing the deep things of the Infinite One? How much of the Bible do I have memorized? If it really is so transforming, why have I not memorized it from cover to cover? We’ve held on to things that don�t matter and forsaken the eternal in favor of perishing things. We all know what they are, so I don’t have to state them all here.
I hope to think that like Paul, the scales are falling from my eyes and I am seeing the depths of how far we have fallen.
Through all this, I have realized that effort is needed and have been girding my own loins, so to speak. I hope to discuss all this here in days to come, but the point still remains that if we as the Church want to live out our calling we cannot let this continue.
Long ago, God called me to be a Barnabas that raised up Pauls. Perhaps now is the time for that to kick into high gear.
Do you really know Christ? Do you settle for tiny fragments of Him even though the fullness of His life can be lived in yours? Have you really died to this world at the foot of the cross? Are the sick healed when you lay hands on them? When you minister, do you get the feeling that it is mostly your own effort rather than the Spirit moving in power through you?
Good. Keep on asking those questions and let yourself be disturbed by the answers.
Then let�s do something about it.
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Why the need for Cerulean Sanctum?
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Best of Cerulean Sanctum, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Godly Character Feedback : 1 comment so far
Every day, throughout the world, children wake up to abuse. A drunken father beats his five year old son - just because. A drug-addicted mother fails to feed her toddler, using the little money she has to buy drugs instead of food. An uncle sexually molests his retarded niece. A hearing-impaired boy is beaten senseless by a school bully.
Does this make you angry? Does it make you want to do something? Do you love those children?
Me? I love the Church. I love the people of God who want to know Him, who want to behold Him with unveiled faces. And I believe that in many ways the Church is being abused by people who want to drive it into the ground. People who are only after acclaim. People who love error and hate the Truth. And even those people who simply don't know any better.
Aren't we all meeting people who are thinking, "No church for me please, it's too screwed up" or "not right" or "not meeting my needs" or "not showing me God" or any of the myriad reasons why people are out there trying to "re-image" the Church?
Why would anyone want to do that if the Church is truly being the Church?
I don't want the sickly Christianity that I see so many preaching today. This pop-psych, powerless, hopeless, error-ridden thing we are preaching is not right.
When your shadow falls on the lame do they get up and walk? Is God more real to you than your own life? Have you hidden the Word of God deep in your being? Do you go to bed at night thinking, "I can't wait to wake so I can spend more time with Christ in prayer?"
Where is the Church that turns the world upside down? That confronts injustice? That tears down strongholds? That goes to the lost and says, "We know the way out of the darkness and we will do everything possible by the grace of God to help you out of that darkness."
Ironically enough, I'm listening to a jukebox of several hundred Christian music MP3s and guess what randomly started playing when I was typing the last couple paragraphs? Keith Green's "Asleep in the Light":
Do you see, do you see, all the people sinking down,
Don't you care, don't you care, are you gonna let them drown,
How can you be so numb, not to care if they come,
You close your eyes and pretend the job's done.Oh Bless me Lord, bless me Lord, you know it's all I ever hear,
No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear,
But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds, and He cares for your needs,
And you just lay back and keep soaking it in, oh, can't you see it's such sin?Cause He brings people to your door,
And you turn them away, as you smile and say,
God bless you, be at peace, and all Heaven just weeps,
Cause Jesus came to your door, you've left Him out on the streets.Open up, open up, and give yourself away,
You've seen the need, you hear the cry, so how can you delay,
God's calling and you're the one, but like Jonah you run,
He's told you to speak, but you keep holding it in,
Oh, can't you see it's such sin?The world is sleeping in the dark,
That the church can't fight, cause it's asleep in the light,
How can you be so dead, when you've been so well fed,
Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can't even get out of bed,
Oh, Jesus rose from the dead, come on, get out of your bed.How can you be so numb, not to care if they come,
You close your eyes and pretend the job's done,
You close your eyes and pretend the job's done,
Don't close your eyes, don't pretend the job's done.
Come away, come away, come away with Me, My love,
Come away, from this mess, come away with Me, My love.
We're wrapped up in technique and we're "Purpose-Driven." We're conferenced, seminar-ed, and meeting-ed to death. We have all the talk in the world and yet there is no revival. I don't think anyone here can take a look at the Book of Acts and say the Church today resembles what we see written in those pages. Why not???
I have a zeal for the Church. I want the Bride of Christ to be strong, beautiful, unblemished and holy. I hope to think the anger I am said to have is a righteous and holy anger at seeing that Bride reduced to being less than she can be.
Some say the Church of the 21st Century is apostate. That may be true, but I am going to see what I can do to make certain that is not the case. I may be a fool, but I will God's fool, because I believe Him and because I believe He can do more if we simply abandon everything for Him. The man who sold all he had to buy the Pearl of Great Price did so because he knew the unparalleled treasure he held in his hand.
If you want to join me, please do.
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