Porn and Christianity

Would we have any ministers if it were stated “if you looked at porn you could no longer be in ministry?” This question came up a couple of year ago, I interviewed a head Human Resources (HR) person of a large church. This Church had over 25,000 members across multiple campuses.

I was interviewing this lady about my master’s extended research paper (Like a thesis but this was only 68 pages long). The subject was hiring practices in the Church. They had a core philosophy in hiring of Character, Competency and Chemistry. They said different people interviewed the different C’s. With her being apart of HR, she asked a lot of hard personal questions in regards to Character. They did a great job asking all sorts of questions. One of the questions they said they ask is do you look at porn?

The conversation around porn was interesting. I asked what if they were honest and answered yes, would they be instantly eliminated? She said no. I was surprised and asked why? She said depending on the study, about 60 percent of ministers admit looking at porn, if we said no, we couldn’t fill half the positions in the Church. I said how do you handle this answer?

She explained, we appreciated the honesty and have our follow up questions: When was the last time you looked at porn? Do you have accountability partners? Do you have software on your electronic devices to help protect against porn or to hold you accountable? If they answer yes to these questions and give us explanations to the questions we continue on with the interview. If they answer no or say they are able to hold themselves accountable then we stop the interview and no longer pursue the interview. She said porn is a problem and mention as of that day, she was going to have to let two members go because of porn being sent across computers. Porn is a problem and is nothing new from biblical times.

Paul shares about porn and Christianity in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4…

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable.”

The Greek word used for sexual immorality is porneia meaning: to engage in sexual immorality of any kind, often with the implication of prostitution—‘to engage in illicit sex, to commit fornication, sexual immorality, fornication, prostitution.^[1] 2,000 years after this was written and it is still a struggle we have. Living for Jesus is living above and trying to live a life pleasing to God.

Honestly of out of all the sins, this is a huge temptation to me. I grew up with my mom leaving my dad because he had a drinking problem, I haven’t really been tempted to drink as a result. I don’t believe alcohol is evil or a sin unless you indulge in way to much of it. For the most part I stay away from it. I don’t smoke and I have never tried an illegal substance of any kind. Porn is a temptation for me though and I have fallen into temptation in the past. I have to make sure as I am trying to live a holy life, I have different steps to keep me accountable.

I am a firm believer in www.xxxchurch.com, every electronic device I am on has their accountability software. I have my wife as an accountability partner (I usually have another person in my life as an accountability partner too, and am looking for a new one). I want to live a life that is holy and honorable, this doesn’t mean that I am perfect by any means, but as I live for Jesus I have times I fall short of this. I am still trying and working on being a better person all around everyday.

How about you?

Have a great day.

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^[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 770.

Worship

Through my bible study I write about what I read and what I feel God is trying to teach me. I look at this time as personal devotion and sometimes I share this in a public setting that God can use for other people too. Yesterday’s section was on Orderly Worship. Worship is a has been a hot topic button at so many churches as of late. As I was praying about it and reading the scripture I debated writing about it. Could this offend people? Am I truly qualified to talk about this subject? Am I doing this out of the wrong desires? The more I read the scripture and prayed the more I felt God was telling me to write this. So before you is what I learned about worship through 1 Corinthians 14…

I think back to my own desires of worship. If I had a choice of worship music, DC Talk’s In the Light would be played every Sunday. It’s a song that has always touched my heart and love for the church and Jesus. This would be pointless. People would get tired of hearing this song even if I wouldn’t. Those are my own desires. One question we have to ask ourselves is what we want from worship? We have different songs, instruments, singers and leaders that touch our hearts. We constantly have to ask ourselves is the worship service supposed to be for me or for more then me?

At Seminary I was taking a preaching class and was taught about humbleness from a man who has been preaching for about 40 years. Chuck Sackett was teaching about the overall worship service. He said something along the lines of…

“For the most part I don’t enjoy the worship at our church and that is a good thing. I have been a Christian for over 50 years. If everything we did was to make me happy we are pleasing an already baptized believer who has been preaching for a very long time. That is not the intent of the worship service.”

I pray that I have this humbleness when I am older. Worship isn’t about my own desires, it’s about God. Hailee and I had a guest over the weekend. This guest over the age of 50 has visited our church several times and said this is the first time they felt the Spirit of God in the service. The goal of the worship service is to plan a service designed to grow people closer to God not to please people. If it was to please people I would imagine most would want five minute sermon.

On a couple of different occasions we have had communion mediations go longer then the three-five minutes they are supposed to go. Sometimes I will have a guest with me and they will turn to me and say, wow that was a great sermon, it was short and had a point. I have to tell them that was the communion meditation. They will look at me with shock and disgust. One said to me, “You mean I have to listen to two sermons!”

1 Corinthians 14:26 and 40…

“What then shall we say, brothers and sisters When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.…. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”

We need to make sure we try not to take scripture out of context. Now there is much I can say about speaking in tongues and interpretation but that will be for a separate time. One of the words I first see that can cause division is the word hymn. We have to have a hymn. The word hymn is translated from a word meaning Psalm. We need to make sure we aren’t looking at just what we want with worship.

The Christian Church was broken up about musical instruments in worship. Some people hated the use of the piano in the church. It caused a church to divide. The people didn’t like the traditional hymn Hallelujah Thine the Glory. Why? It was a bar song (The only place the piano was in were bars and carting that over to the church was wrong) and titled “Hallelujah I’m a Bum.” Therefore the church was divided on it. Honestly, I am glad they kept with the instruments in the church. My brothers and sisters at non-instrumental church I have much love for and no hatred. They still love Jesus just as much if not more then me, but we can worship in that difference and still love each other.

The point of verse 26, we are supposed to be lifted up through the worship service. In order to please God there has to be a plan and practice to execute that plan. Opening Up 1 Corinthians…

“When Christians gather together to praise God and hear his Word, nothing should be given prominence that draws attention to human personalities or distracts from concentrating on the Lord himself and his message to his people. ‘Does it edify?’ is a question to be asked about every part of any coming together of the church.”

We are not supposed to have our own desires in mind with worship. The musical aspect of worship is not supposed to be a request line. People need to pray and think about the song selections to whether they tie in with the overall message about God. This can take hours of planning and sometimes we as non-worship ministers have no idea how much time and planning goes into every aspect of a church service. I see this from the two worship ministers’ I have served beside in Wally and Kris. These guys put a ton of effort more then anyone would know.

The second verse that goes hand and hand with this verse is verse 40. The Corinthian church was struggling with the worship services and The Message writes verse 40 like this, “Be courteous and considerate in everything.” The worship leader needs to look at not their own preferences but God’s. The Bible Exposition Commentary puts it this way…

“The Corinthian church was having special problems with disorders in their public meetings (1 Cor. 11:17–23). The reason is not difficult to determine: they were using their spiritual gifts to please themselves and not to help their brethren. The key word was not edification, but exhibition. If you think that your contribution to the service is more important than your brother’s contribution, then you will either be impatient until he finishes, or you will interrupt him.^”

From this section we are to learn that the worship service is supposed to build the church up and it needs to be done to with careful consideration. This is why I have a special love for those in this position. The worship minister is not an easy position. We need to realize that we can be part of the problem rather then the solution. No matter how much I want In the Light played every Sunday, it’s my own selfish desires and not for the Glory of God.

When you worship this Sunday, no matter what the song, who’s singing, who’s doing the communion meditation and who’s preaching, all the Glory goes to God and not the individual.

What can you do to lift up God instead of yourself? This is what God keeps telling me through this post.

Have a great day.