new year's revolutions

No, I didn't misspell resolutions. I meant revolutions. As in the breaking free and declaring independence from type of revolution.

We've decided here at out house to, as much as is reasonably possibly, remove the profit motive from our faith for this year.

Sigh. I sure do love ordering or buying books And music

But being old enough to remember so many fads of the faith has us hungry to get back to a fad-free diet when it comes to Jesus and His church.

Some are old enough to remember "puff Graham." Others of us remember when a hyper-dispensationalism was all the rage. It sure has seemed at least that once the market for those books began to dry up, the young-restless-reformed movement came along, with Lordship Salvation, "purer" translations of the Bible, and all the books for that belief system. Now that might be drying up (and they aren't so young anymore) and we are all supposed to get Radical, and serve at the soup kitchen or homeless shelter, etc, instead of going to stuffy old Bible studies. In our area that fad hit the mainlines in the 60's, the evangelicals in the 70's, and was gone by the 80's.

Another fad of the 60's was for the old goats to move over and let the younger folks run things or else we were gonna lose that generation. The older folks moved over and yes, we lost most of the older boomers to the church. In the 70's and 80's we were told without lively youth groups we would lose that generation. We turned the church upside down for youth groups and lost them. In the 90's and still now you hear that if we don't do "their" music we will lose the younger folks. So we do it, turn the church into mosh pits, and watch them head off for the Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, or the old time traditional Pentecostal and fundamentalist Baptist churches.

Do we ever learn?

We know we cannot change the world. But our family has folks from grade school through their 60's in it, and every last one of us is sick to death of "the church" chasing and promoting and selling the latest fad. We don't even want to know what the next fad will be.

So we plan to encourage, support, and defend our church and its' actions when they concur with non-faddest-just-what-we-believe-faith. We plan to dress how "we" dress, talk how "we" talk, and be who "we" are without regard to what some Barna study shows church people are supposed to be. We will attend BIBLE studies but are just so done with whatever "pay your $20, pick up a workbook, do your homework and come watch the video" superstar studies are picked this year.

We plan to sing good wholesome hymns and gospel songs that are public domain and require no bill to be paid to sing them. We aren't interested in the latest greatest study Bible, commentary, sermon series on cd, or whatever else is being hawked in the foyer.

It is going to be interesting to try and detox from the American Evangelical (subspecies Southern Baptist) subculture.

It is going to be a revolution on the order of driving out the money changers from the temple.

It can all be done without a fuss, church fight, or hurting anyone else's feelings. Just a simple matter of picking and choosing which activities to skip and which to attend and support.

That is the opening shot of our revolution.

Do you have any new year's revolutions planned?