ekklesia

Called to Be Productive

2012-02-13T20:46:00.003-05:00

Greg Forster on being Productive for the Glory of God, Good of Neighbors:

I don't think pastors should pretend to be experts on international finance, or try to handle political and policy questions beyond their knowledge. What they can do is equip people to discern the calling of God to productive work.
Imagine pulpits across America clearly and consistently preaching:

God is calling you to spend every day making the lives of others better through productive work in your home, workplace, and community.
God is calling you to be a spiritual leader who gracefully sets that expectation for others - because everyone made in God's image is called to productivity - and for our nation.

Productivity is a critically essential component of both discipleship and good citizenship. In the long term it is the only protection against both pietistic subjectivism in our churches and also economic collapse in our nation.

Missional: The New Christian Consumerism?

2012-02-05T18:54:00.004-05:00

Jonathan Dodson in Be Missional, Not Superficially Contextual (emphasis added):

The main impetus behind superficial contextualization is church growth, not gospel communication. As a result, missional may mean: "You can grow your church by getting a cool worship leader, an edgy venue, an anti-religion message, and a preacher with hip clothing."

When we become primarily concerned with church forms---building, music, service, website design---we dip below superficial contextualization into syncretism, blending Christianity with another religion, in this case consumerism. Christian consumerism gives people what we think they want, instead of calling them to what they need: repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Instead of cracking the missional code, many churches have cracked a consumer code, attracting people to culturally bland but comfortable services while occasionally injecting them with the feel-good serum of social justice. But if Jesus Christ is Lord, his lordship should produce particular expressions of the gospel---music with local flavor and gospel-rich lyrics, community that incarnates grace in the neighborhood, culture-making that reflects his grandeur, and fresh language that awakens locals to grace.

Some versions of missional are simply a new form of church growth that caters to consumer Christianity. Underneath superficial contextualization lurks a consumeristic impulse that gathers people around church forms instead of Jesus Christ as Lord. This misuse leads us to contaminate both contextualization and the gospel. We try to get people to buy in to a new form of church instead of dying so they might live for Christ. This is troubling.

In Defense of the Gospels

2012-01-28T15:10:00.005-05:00

Greg Thornbury at the BibleMesh blog talks about why four Gospel accounts of Jesus' life do not pose a problem to the historical accuracy of the Gospels. He makes three points in defense of the truthfulness of the Gospels; the first one is this:

Whenever someone raises a question about the truthfulness of the Bible, ask yourself first whether or not the same question would bother any other scholar about any other figure in history. How many biographies are there of George Washington, for example? Is this in itself a concern about the historicity of the life of a pivotal figure during the American Revolution or actual evidence of his greatness and importance?

Read the rest of his points here.

Weaning the Church Off Programs

2012-01-20T19:31:00.003-05:00

Bobby Jamieson has been writing about the The Post-Program Church. The series includes some practical thoughts on Which Programs to Cut? and Strategies for Becoming a Post-Program Church.

What then does it mean to be a post-program church? For now I’ll simply make one vision-level suggestion: instead of running programs, cultivate a culture. Specifically, nurture a culture of evangelism and discipleship.

Culture is a notoriously slippery concept to define because it’s so pervasive and all-encompassing. Culture is to humans what water is to a fish. We hardly notice it because it’s all around us. In this way, culture defines what’s normal. And my point here is simply that pastors should preach and teach and lead in such a way that evangelism and discipleship become normal parts of every single church member’s life. That’s the goal to aim at, anyway.

The New Testament instructs every Christian to make disciples (Matt. 28:19). It teaches that the church grows as every single member contributes to the body’s development (Eph. 4:11-16).

Although it doesn’t have to be this way, one of the dangers of programs is that they can make it seem like evangelism or discipleship only occurs within the program. But evangelism and discipleship are things that, in one way or another, all of us should be doing on a regular basis. So make that your plumb line for evaluating programs—and everything else in the corporate life of your church.

Is Our Charity Creating Dependency?

2012-01-14T15:35:00.005-05:00

Bob Lupton offers some warnings about How Charity Can Be Toxic.

There is a difference between crisis intervention and chronic poverty. The Good Samaritan is a story about crisis intervention. Gleaning is about how to share our assets and protect the world's poor. Don't reap to the competitive edges of your field; leave room for the poor to work so they can harvest where they haven't planted. In your grace don't strip the vines; leave some for the poor so that everybody can work at harvest.

The point is, let's examine the outcome of care. When I talk about the progression of one-way giving, first you elicit appreciation. You do it twice, you elicit anticipation. What's more, you do it three times and it becomes expectation that he's going to do it again. Four times and it's an entitlement. By the fifth time it's dependency. They've done it every year and we count on it. If anybody has been doing this kind of work, they begin to see that pattern. There is a chronic poverty issue and it calls for a chronic intervention, which is enabling people.

Children in the Church Gathering

2011-12-24T11:13:00.003-05:00

David Fitch deals with the issue of "Our Children Don’t Get Anything Out of the Service": Worship as Training for Life. I like what he says to parents:

... what I do when parents say to me “Our Children Don’t Get Anything Out of the Service” is a gentile nudge around three statements. I ask these parents, please remember three things:

1.) There’s an encounter with the living God here at our worship service. Your son/daughter need to be coached into that reality. They need to be prepared for the reality that we gather into His presence so that we might in turn know His presence in every area of our everyday lives....

2.) But Discerning God is Rarely Immediately Obvious. God is hidden. So your son and/or daughter and our church need to learn and be sensitized to discerning the presence of God. If we put God into sound bites or hyped up worship experiences, then your child will learn instinctually that church is the only place he or she can find God. And this simply isn’t true....

3.) Children Ultimately Will Follow/Imitate Their Parents and Adults They Can Respect – therefore one’s children and how they are progressing can function as an excellent diagnostic for our own level of engagement with God. I must be careful to not overstate this because children all develop differently. But let’s face it, eh? If we are forcing our children to do something we are ourselves are disconnected from, it ain’t going to happen....

Discipleship Resource

2011-12-24T11:00:00.003-05:00

Looking for customized, biblical discipleship material? I haven't searched through the site and material but Downline Ministries looks like it might be a helpful resource.

Sunday is for Encouragement

2011-12-17T13:44:00.000-05:00

Worship. On one hand, we say it involves all of life - our work, our play; not just Sunday but Monday to Saturday. On the other hand, we say it's what we do on Sunday in the church service/gathering/meeting - and not everything in the service, just the part where we sing; and not always everything we sing, just the music that makes us feel close to God.

Steve Atkerson helpfully cuts through this and reminds us to "Worship At All Times, But Meet Primarily to Edify.

The reason for “meeting together” is to “encourage” one another. We are to think of ways to “spur” one another on toward love and good deeds. In this sense the church meeting is to be designed to equip the believer to go out and worship during the week. As Francis Scott Key wrote, “And since words can never measure, let my life show forth thy praise.”

What's the Role of the Pastor?

2011-12-09T23:02:00.003-05:00

Mark Galli and Tod Bolsinger debate what it means to be a pastor.

First Mark Galli raises some concerns about the pastor as mega-church entrepeneur in this article: Why We Need More 'Chaplains' and Fewer Leaders.

Tod Bolsinger responds by contending that we need pastors who are missional leaders: We Need Chaplains...Just not More Of Them...Not Now.

MG pushes back on the pastor as missional entrepeneur: Mark Galli Responds: Pastors in a changing world--Leaders or Chaplains?.

TB insists that pastors are called to love people and lead them into mission: Leaders Who Tend.

I've enjoyed the discussion. I'm especially going to think on this for a while:

Let us remember that the early church made its way in a culture that was pluralism on steroids, and highly relativistic at that. Such was the legacy of the Greek mystery religions, among others. A god for every city. A philosophy for every man. And no one having the temerity to say he had the way, the truth, and the life—because each worshipped their own gods (Acts 17:16ff). The church grew up in this setting, and eventually transformed Roman culture not by being missional in the way it is talked about today, but when it acted like the church I’ve described above. No bold plans to transform society. [No] big dreams of changing culture. Just a focus on congregational life: worship, preaching, catechesis, and simple acts of charity (taking care of widows and orphans, attending to the sick during plagues, and so forth).

Rethinking Incarnational Ministry

2011-12-04T20:41:00.004-05:00

Justin Taylor provides the lecture of J. Todd Billings in which he talks about Incarnational Ministry and Union with Christ. Billings challenges the popular notion of incarnational ministry and proposes we think of relational/servant ministry arising from our union with Christ: "The act of God becoming incarnate is not a human act, it is a divine act - only something God can do. Rather than that being our pattern we should look to the humanity of Jesus Christ the servant." Worth the time to listen and reflect on.

"Christianity Explored" Resources

2011-11-23T19:43:00.003-05:00

One Life. What's It All About? is a site where a person can "explore Christianity and think through what life's all about." It also links to Christianity Explored Ministries which offers the Christianity Explored and Discipleship Explored courses. Looks like some good material ... I plan to explore the sites more.

Love and Service to Our City

2011-10-31T21:06:00.000-04:00

In The Gospel and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, Tim Keller draws on the story of Jonah to challenge the church's attitude towards its community:

Jonah is called to go to a pagan city to help it avoid destruction, but he is too hostile toward them to want to go. He runs away, but God puts him on a boat filled with pagans anyway. There Jonah is asleep in the boat during the storm. He is awakened by the sailors, who tell him to call on his God to ask him to keep the boat from sinking. They ask him to use his relationship to God to benefit the public good. The Scottish writer Hugh Martin wrote a commentary on this text and called this chapter “The World Rebuking the Church.” Eventually Jonah goes to Nineveh—but when God turns away from destroying them, Jonah is furious. This time God rebukes him for not caring about the whole city and its welfare. Jonah 4:10–11: “You pity the plant. . . . Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

This is a picture of the church’s problem in a postmodern world. We simply don’t like the unwashed pagans. Jonah went to the city but didn’t love the city. Likewise, we don’t love the postmodern world in the way we should. We disdain these people who don’t believe in Truth. We create our subculture and we invite people to join us inside, but we don’t take our time, gifts, and money and pour ourselves out in deeds of love and service to our city. Does the world recognize our love for them? Are we the kind of church of which the world says: We don’t share a lot of their beliefs, but I shudder to think of this city without them. They are such an important part of the community. They give so much! If they left we’d have to raise taxes because others won’t give of themselves like those people do. “Though they accuse you . . . they . . . see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Pet. 2:12; cf. Matt. 5:16 ).

How We Should Work

2011-06-18T08:16:00.002-04:00

The outline of Andy Naselli's address, “Called to Work: How We Should View and Do Work.” Part of it is on how we should work:

1. Work heartily and sincerely as for the Lord, not other people.
2. Work hard; don’t be lazy.
3. Work hard, but don’t overwork.
4. Work shrewdly, but don’t work dishonestly.
5. Be ambitious, but don’t be greedy.

Marriage De-idolized

2011-03-05T16:08:00.002-05:00

From a piece by Tim Keller, Three Ways with Families, where he quotes from Stanley Hauerwas' book, A Community of Character (emphasis his):

The Christian gospel and hope of the kingdom-future de-idolized marriage. "Singleness was legitimated, not because sex was questionable, but because the mission of the church is 'between the times' [the overlap of the ages]…We must remember that the 'sacrifice' made by singles was not [just in] 'giving up sex' but in giving up heirs. There could be no more radical act than that! This was a clear expression that one's future is not guaranteed by the family but by the [kingdom of God and the] church…" ( Hauerwas, p.190). "[Now, in the overlap of the ages], both singleness and marriage are necessary symbolic institutions for the constitution of the church’s life... that witnesses to God’s kingdom. Neither can be valid without the other. If singleness is a symbol of the church's confidence in God's power to effect lives for the growth of the church, marriage and procreation is the symbol of the church's understanding that the struggle will be long and arduous. For Christians do not place their hope in their children, but rather their children are a sign of their hope . . . that God has not abandoned this world." (Hauerwas, p.191)

How Husbands Should Love Their Wives

2010-12-12T09:13:00.004-05:00

Tim Challies shares an excerpt from R. Kent Hughes’ book Disciplines of a Godly Man. Reflecting on the Bible's command for husbands to "love their wives as their own bodies," Hughes writes (and Tim highlights): "We are to devote the same energy, time, and creativity to our wives as to ourselves."

Pretty Neat

2010-12-05T09:01:00.010-05:00

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes:

Answering Abortion

2010-12-01T13:55:00.000-05:00

Stand to Reason shows how to Answer Every Defense for Abortion:

It may seem like there are a myriad of defenses for abortion, but they fall into three categories. Here's a simple way to visualize how to respond to them. Since there are only three kinds of defenses for abortion, there are only three kinds of responses to them.

Every defense for abortion either:
Assumes the unborn is not a human being.

Accepts the unborn is a human being, but denies it’s a person.

Accepts the unborn is human being and a person, but argues that a woman’s bodily rights/autonomy trump the child’s rights.

See the flow chart of these three positions. The chart refers to the following:

- Trot Out the Toddler
- Scientific case that the unborn is human
- S.L.E.D. test
- Take the Roof Off
- Respond to the violinist and bodily rights arguments

Keller on Generous Justice

2010-11-19T18:46:00.005-05:00

Tim Keller whose forthcoming book is called Generous Justice, explains Justice and Generosity:

The main theme of my book is that the gospel of grace will turn anyone who truly believes it into a person who does justice for those in need. Doing justice includes not only the righting of wrongs, but also generosity and social concern, and a willingness to live a more modest lifestyle in order to be generous to the church and to the poor. This kind of life reflects the character of God (Deuteronomy 10:17-18; Psalm 146:7-9). We have the Biblical and spiritual resources to overcome the superficiality of our culture and become what the spiritual descendents of Abraham should be – a true blessing to our city and to the poor (Genesis 12:1-3; Galatians 3:7).

A Framework for Prayer

2010-10-27T21:42:00.002-04:00

Tim Keller draws from the prayer of Thomas Cranmer for How to Pray Better in Public and in Private, Too.

They have given me a basic structure by which I can compose good public prayers, either ahead of time, or spontaneously. Cranmer’s collects [prayer] consist of 5 parts:

1. The address - a name of God
2. The doctrine - a truth about God’s nature that is the basis for the prayer
3. The petition - what is being asked for
4. The aspiration - what good result will come if the request is granted
5. In Jesus’ name - this remembers the mediatorial role of Jesus

See this structure in Cranmer’s famous collect for the service of Holy Communion:

1. Almighty God
2. unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,
3. cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit,
4. that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name,
5. through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

See how the prayer moves from a doctrinal basis (why we can ask for it) to the petition (what we want) to the aspiration (what we will do with it if we get it). It is remarkable how this combines solid theology with deep aspirations of the heart and concrete goals for our daily life.

Appealing to Hearers of the Gospel

2010-08-29T21:24:00.003-04:00

D. A. Carson surveys Motivations to Appeal to in Our Hearers When We Preach for Conversion, and then provides four theological and pastoral reflections on this survey. His conclusion:

... all of the biblically sanctioned motivations for pursuing God, for pursuing Christ, say complementary things about God himself, such that failure to cover the sweep of motivations ultimately results in diminishing God.

Thus, the motivations characterized by fear are bound up with the truth that God is holy, that he is rightfully our Judge, that he gathers some into his presence and casts others into outer darkness, that his knowledge of us is perfect, extending not only to a grasp of our motives but even to a full-bore knowledge of what we would have done under different circumstances (a form of so-called “middle knowledge”). The burden of guilt reminds us that God does not grade on the curve, and unless we are justified by the one who is himself just while justifying the ungodly, there is no hope for us.

And so we could work through the list. The point to be made is simple: any failure to appeal to the full range of biblically exemplified and biblically sanctioned motivations not only means that there are some people we are not taking into account, but, more seriously, that there are elements in the character and attributes of God himself that we are almost certainly ignoring.

Getting to the Heart of Conflict

2010-08-15T09:57:00.004-04:00

Remley Gorsuch at the Peacemaker Ministries blog has a series of posts on "Getting to the Heart of Conflict." From the Introduction:

The heart’s central role in conflict is vividly described in James 4:1-3. If you understand this passage, you will have found a key to preventing and resolving conflict.... [It] describes the root cause of destructive conflict: Conflicts arise from unmet desires in our hearts. When we feel we cannot be satisfied unless we have something we want or think we need, the desire turns into a demand. If someone fails to meet that desire, we condemn him in our heart and quarrel and fight to get our way. In short, conflict arises when desires grow into demands and we judge and punish those who get in our way.

There is a series of posts looking at the progression of conflict one step at a time:

1. Part II - I Desire
2. Part III - I Demand
3. Part IV - I Demand (cont.)
4. Part V - I Judge
5. Part VI - I Punish
6. Part VII – The Cure for an Idolatrous Heart
7. Part VIII – Deliverance from Specific Idols
8. Part IX – Replace Idol Worship with Worship of the True God

One Way ... Only Way

2010-08-15T09:39:00.003-04:00

Melinda at Stand to Reason shares R.C. Sproul's "tactic when he's been accused of being closed-minded for thinking Jesus is the only way to salvation." Read the explanation here.

Love One Another

2010-08-01T09:17:00.002-04:00

Justin Taylor outlines Tim Keller's teaching on How to Love One Another: Affirm, Share, and Serve.

Affirm
1. Affirm one another’s strengths, abilities, and gifts.
2. Affirm one another’s equal importance in Christ.
3. Affirm one another through visible affection.

Share
4. Share one another’s space, goods, and time.
5. Share one another’s needs and problems.
6. Share one another’s beliefs, thinking, and spirituality.

Serve
7. Serve one another through accountability.
8. Serve one another through forgiveness and reconciliation.
9. Serve one another’s interests rather than our own.

Dealing with Idols in Your Child's Heart

2010-07-28T19:09:00.003-04:00

C. J. Mahaney has wise counsel about Video Games, Idols, and Your Child’s Heart. The post is less about video games and more about idols, for as Mahaney points out, "Your son may grow out of his love for video games, but he will not grow out of the idol factory in his heart."

At 12 years old I would want to start leaving your son with questions to consider rather than pronouncements. But from 12 years old on up, it is far more complicated than when they are younger. For a toddler, discipline is pretty simple. You are not having to work through heart issues. It is a blatantly ethical world, at that age, nothing but right/wrong, yes/no. But as they get older you want to draw your child in and give him an opportunity to think about his own heart, think about it in relation to material, think about it in relation to Scripture, think about it with time for the Spirit to possibly convict. You are not bringing every conversation to a conclusion that he must agree with.

With your restrictions, you want to explain why you are doing what you are doing. Restrictions are important. We are fully for restrictions as long as the purpose is explained—so your child doesn’t think this is just punitive action we are taking in your life without explanation, without a why, without a purpose. We want to create an alternative. We want to anticipate this temptation, anticipate this restriction and [ask] what alternative can we present to wean our child from that particular form of idolatry.

Church Is Not a Business Enterprise

2010-07-24T19:11:00.004-04:00

Frank Turk's guest post at Challies.com challenges the popular North American view of the "successful church":

And I think we have to ask: is that exactly what we’re supposed to be doing? Should we be trying to be as big as possible so we can turn out people in droves to missions and church planting?

Now: here’s the wrong answer. The wrong answer is, “house church is NT church, and everything bigger than a couple dozen is a bloated American drive-thru theology that is both unbiblical and unsavory.” That’s just simply wrong. The first church in the NT had 3000 members after the first day. The churches Paul planted usually met with trouble because they were large enough in ancient Mediterranean cities to cause economic and social changes by changing the way they lived. Big is clearly not bad, or unbiblical.

But in the context of North America, we have a problem the ancient church did not: we are experts at business process, and we are lean thinkers from the top down. We believe that mass production is a brilliant organizational and systematic approach, and we think that we should be able to do more with less - so for example, we think that one guy should be able to run an organization which takes in $5 million a year with relative ease, he should be highly compensated, and he should have an executive staff who runs things for him so he can be the vision guy. We can even cite the book of Acts where the Apostles say they refuse to wait tables for the sake of being the messengers of God’s word — to sanctify our own belief that some kind of executive pyramid is best for the church, and we can achieve more with less, and we can move from good to great....

Ministry Is Not for Financial Gain

2010-07-18T13:15:00.002-04:00

Jon Bloom's article, Give Without Pay, is a call for ministers of the gospel to present the gospel free of charge.

The gospel that Jesus’ disciples were to proclaim was the offer of the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and eternal life, all through faith in Jesus Christ apart from works of the law or any other kind of payment to God (Rom. 3:28). It was all designed to magnify the glory of God’s free grace. Therefore, payment of any kind to hear the gospel or receive kingdom benefits would completely distort the gospel. It would shortly turn the church into a den of thieves. It was crucial that the medium also be the message.

This is precisely why Paul worked so hard to make the presentation of the gospel free to his hearers. He had to fight the gospel distorters, the “peddlers of God’s word” (2 Cor. 2:17) who had figured out how to make godliness a means of great gain (1 Tim. 6:5). He even decided to forgo legitimate ways of making a living from the gospel (1 Cor. 9:14) in order to prevent any misconstruing of his motives. He resolved to “endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:12).

If peddling God’s gospel was a problem in Paul’s day, it is an epidemic in ours, especially in the affluent church of the West. We are a multi-billion dollar market. There is serious money to be made. And that is dangerous to the gospel.

Evangelism Is Not a Sales Job

2010-07-15T19:24:00.005-04:00

Shawn Young's reminder that You Don't Have to Sell Jesus:

Is it my job to “sell” Jesus? Is an evangelist basically a used-car salesman for the Lord?

Jesus made it clear that people can’t come to him unless the Father draws them to him (John 6:44, 65). He said that his job was to speak the words of life (John 6:63), keep all those whom the Father had given him (John 6:39), and give them eternal life. Did Jesus use language and images that were pertinent, meaningful and relevant? Absolutely. But he wasn’t trying to conjure up a spiritual interest that wasn’t already there. He spoke about the living bread from heaven because he wanted to bring forth those whom God had given him, those with a genuine hunger for life in union with God. He was looking for vital signs—for a spiritual pulse. In the process of keeping those people God had given him, Jesus also caused those who had no spiritual hunger to move on. That’s what the Father sent him to do.

I find this news liberating. Jesus wasn’t a slick salesman—he wasn’t selling himself, or the kingdom, or God. He was locating those who already belonged to him. He was giving substance to the indescribable hunger that true seekers have. He was putting words to their deep thirst. He was explaining why they felt strangely drawn to him. As an evangelist, I do not have the responsibility to create a hunger for eternal life. That’s not my job. I am only sent to point people to Jesus, let them hear his words of life, see him as he is, and check for signs of spiritual life.

Biblical Guidance for Business Decisions

2010-07-11T19:47:00.003-04:00

Galen Radebaugh and Vern Poythress look at Some Biblical Contributions to Business Ethics (pdf file).

To Change the World

2010-07-04T16:39:00.003-04:00

A book that is on my "to get" list is James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World. Greg Gilbert provides a few excerpts from it in a post on Thinking Humbly About Changing the World. One of the paragraphs he quotes addresses our attitude towards work, education, artistry, etc:

Even if our tasks in this world do not have "ultimate significance," that does not mean that the tasks we perform have no spiritual significance. . . . Indeed, when our various tasks are done in ways that acknowledge God, God is present and he is glorified. Such tasks may not be redeeming, but they can provide a foretaste of the coming kingdom. . . . To manage a business in a way that grows out of a biblical view of relationships, community, and human dignity before God has divine significance, irrespective of what else might be done from this platform. Policy pursued and law practiced in light of the justice of God is a witness to the right ordering of human affairs. Inquiry, scholarship, and learning with an awareness of the goodness of God's created order is a discovery of what is truly higher in higher education. And, not least, reflecting the beauty of God's creation in art or music is nothing less than an act of worship.

Building Relational Trust

2010-06-27T16:51:00.003-04:00

Chris Holdridge talks about the need for Time and Trust in reaching our neighborhoods.

This is not to say that the church planter should drop everything else and commit himself to only spending time with as many people as possible. That's not feasible. The point is this; the time you spend with carefully selected people in meaningful interaction will be of more worth than almost anything else you do, especially if you're ministering cross-culturally. I think re-neighboring is the #1 most important aspect of ministering in cross-cultural, broken neighborhoods. We must not be afraid to include this in our schedules, to list it as one of our "jobs," or to raise money in support of it. We need time with our people to develop the kind of incarnational churches that can change the world for the glory of Jesus and his Kingdom.

The Three Strands of Biblical Prayers

2010-05-30T13:23:00.003-04:00

David Powlison (Praying Beyond the Sick List) notes "three emphases of biblical prayer: circumstantial prayers, wisdom prayers, and kingdom prayers...."

1. Sometimes we ask God to change our circumstances—heal the sick, give us daily bread, protect us from suffering and evildoers, make our political leaders just, convert our friends and family, make our work and ministries prosper, provide us with a spouse, quiet this dangerous storm, send us rain, give us a child.

2. Sometimes we ask God to change us—deepen our faith, teach us to love each other, forgive our sins, make us wise where we tend to be foolish, help us know You better, give us understanding of Scripture, teach us how to encourage others.

3. Sometimes we ask God to change everything by revealing Himself more fully on the stage of real life, magnifying the degree to which His glory and rule are obvious—Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, be exalted above the heavens, let Your glory be over all of the earth, let Your glory fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, come Lord Jesus.

Six Principles of Generosity

2010-05-26T20:03:00.005-04:00

J.D. Greear presents The Generosity Matrix to help us think about money and generosity biblically.

When it comes to our money, I see 6 principles the Bible puts forward. Any one of these principles, taken alone, will lead you out of balance. But holding all 6 in reverent tension can provide you with a balanced approach to your money that allows you to be freely generous with your money and also to enjoy the things that God has put into your life.

The six principles are:

1. God gives excess to some so that they can share with those who have less.

2. Jesus’ radical generosity toward us should be to us a model and a motivation for radical generosity with others.

3. The Holy Spirit must guide us as to which sacrifices we are to make.

4. God delights in our enjoyment of His material gifts and gives us richly all things to enjoy.

5. We are not to trust in riches and not to define our lives by the abundance of our possessions.

6. Wealth building is wise.

Learning and Applying Wisdom to Work

2010-05-24T19:01:00.002-04:00

Tim Keller on Proverbs, Community, and the Culture:

It is also noteworthy that in Proverbs wisdom constantly raises her voice in the city's public places -- the commerce/market (where the roads converge), the court/justice system (the gate), etc. (Prov 1:20-21; 9:1-4.) For years I have been struck by the fact that discipling people for faithful living in their vocation is different than other kinds of discipleship. When I try to disciple someone to do work in the church, it is more one-way (I am the expert in Bible and ministry) and information-driven (I download my knowledge.) But how do you disciple a Christian actor to think out what roles to take, or a Christian financier to think out how to invest and how to treat profits? The Bible does not give us so much hard and fast rules as 'proverbs' -- motives, goals, and values that have to be applied with wisdom to situations in the world. And that wisdom happens more through communal reflection on Scripture, especially a text like Proverbs.

How can we best integrate our faith with our work? I think we need more experienced people in a field meeting with younger persons in that field and working through a book like Proverbs in community, always applying its insights to the work they are doing in the world.

A Humble Answer Turns Away Wrath

2010-04-04T18:10:00.003-04:00

Ed Welch's counsel on How to Disarm an Angry Person.

Don’t minimize the destruction of anger. You are getting shot at! Of course it hurts.
You are setting out to learn a disarming strategy that takes humility and love, and this is way over your head. As such, “Lord have mercy on me” is the order of the day.
Remember that angry people are blind to their own anger. They are the last to know that they are killing people. Instead, all they see is that they are right and others are wrong. Assume that they are spiritual lunatics.
Divest yourself of all the things you desire and cherish for yourself. Do you want love? Toss it and keep only the necessities, such as the desire to love. Do you need respect and understanding? It will only be an encumbrance. Get rid of it.
Move toward the angry person in love and humility. Fear runs away, anger attacks. Humility and love move toward. In a surprise attack they blindside angry people with weakness. Your timing will be important. Sometimes you can say something while the gun is aimed. Other times you will wait and speak later.
The person’s anger could have many reasons – you being one. But murderous anger is always wrong. At some point, from your place of love and humility, you will hold up the mirror and help angry people see themselves (Matthew 7:5).

House Church or Building?

2010-02-28T09:36:00.003-05:00

I like the house church setting for meeting together. But right now our family gathers with believers in a "dedicated building." I think there is a place for both. That's why I appreciate Ed Roberts comments on this issue:

Reading the NT, one gets the distinct impression that the gatherings of the local church were to be an expression of genuine Christian community, mutual edification and even various spoken word ministries by "non-teachers", as well as an opportunity for gifted teachers to teach.

So, it would seem to make sense that a church meet regularly in a location that facilitates rather than hinders the purposes of that regular (weekly) gathering. Thus, while meeting place is not prescribed in NT, neither is it an entirely indifferent matter, but requires wise and prayerful choices. A church's meeting place may interfere with that church's accomplishing NT purposes or it may assist in the accomplishment of those purposes.

Thus, I suggest the way forward is not Blame it on the Building nor is it A House Church Cannot be a Real Church. Church planters need to assist new believers (and in some cases assist local pastors and leaders) to discover the New Testament purposes of the church's regular gathering(s). This is the first and often missing step....

Where a church meets is a matter requiring wise, prayerful reflection on the Scriptural purposes of the church, and the context where the church exists or is to be planted. A building may or may not assist in the accomplishment of those purposes. Different kinds of buildings might be more or less helpful depending on the context. And, in some cases, meeting in a dedicated building is neither possible nor wise because of the authorities or extremely hostile social context. If all these seems obvious, thanks for letting me re-state it.

I think there's a need for more nuanced, biblical, informed, contextually alert, and less defensive conversation about building-based or house church models.

To Change the World

2010-02-15T14:33:00.003-05:00

Justin Taylor's promo of James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World got my attention. I don't buy many books any more, but I've added this one to my short list of books to get. Taylor writes:

Rejecting models of defensiveness, relevance, or withdrawal, Hunter argues for a theology of “faithful presence”: “A theology of faithful presence calls Christians to enact the shalom of God in the circumstances in which God has placed them and to actively seek it on behalf of others.”

Work and Calling

2010-02-13T18:34:00.004-05:00

First Corinthians 7:17 and 20 are sometimes used to defend the view that our work is our calling. I prefer Gordon Fee's (more nuanced, in my opinion) take on those verses:

Here the various social situations are to be understood as something Christ "assigned" to them at the time God called them to salvation.... The concept of "call" in the clause "as God has called" [v. 17] refers to conversion, that is, to their calling by God to be in fellowship with his Son (1:9; cf. 1:24). But the concern throughout is with their social situation at the time of that call, which is now to be seen as that which "the Lord assigned to each." That does not mean that one is forever locked into that setting. Rather, Paul means that by calling a person within a given situation, that situation itself is taken up in the call and thus sanctified to him or her. Similarly, by saving a person in that setting, Christ thereby "assigned" it to him/her as his/her place of living out life in Christ (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICOT, p. 310).

And:

Paul wants them to live out their Christian life (i.e., their "calling" to Christ) in the situation ("calling") where they were when God called them to Christ. The emphasis is on both, that they can be Christians in whatever situation God called them, and therefore that they do not need to change situations - precisely because they are in Christ. Let their "calling" (becoming believers) sanctify the setting of their calling (p. 314).

Counseling and Medication

2010-01-31T17:02:00.002-05:00

Rick Thomas has some thoughts on the benefits of medication.

By the time I met with Melanie, she was objectively affected physically because of her unattended spiritual issues. Fortunately, she was a humble lady, who wanted to be taught God’s Word in such a way that she could apply it to her life. The medication was useful in the sense that it “stopped the bleeding” so to speak, in order to get her to a place where she could be helped.

The meds functioned sort of like the way a cast does for a broken leg. The cast is not a long-term solution, but there is some usefulness in a cast. If Melanie believed the cast was the cure, then it would have been problematic. If the doctor had said the cast was the cure then that, too, would have been problematic.

Fortunately for Melanie, she was willing to listen and learn. It would not have been wise to try to wrestle the “cast” from her or put her down for using a “cast.” I focused on the problem and God graciously freed her from these underlying issues that were the real problem.

One Step at a Time

2010-01-27T17:50:00.001-05:00

Ed Welch shares Hope for the Depressed:

Take one small step at a time. Granted, it seems impossible. How can you live without feelings? Without them you have no drive, no motivation. Could you imagine walking without any feeling in your legs? It would be impossible. Or would it? Perhaps you could walk if you practiced in front of a large mirror and watched your legs moving. One step, wobble, another step. It would all be very mechanical but it could be done.

People have learned to take one step at a time in the midst of depression. It doesn’t seem natural, though other people won’t notice either the awkwardness or the heroism involved. The trek begins with one step, then another. Remember, you are not alone. Many people have taken this journey ahead of you.

As you walk, you will find that you must tap into every resource you have ever learned about persevering through hardship. It will involve lots of moment by moment choices: take one minute at a time, read one short Bible passage, ask for help, try to care about someone else, move outside yourself, ask someone how they are doing, and so on.

When in doubt, confess your unbelief, trust in Jesus, and look for someone to love. A wise depressed person once said, “The reason I get up—after years of depression—is that I want to love one other person.”

Haiti Earthquake Relief

2010-01-24T17:27:00.004-05:00

In response to the Haiti earthquake, there are many opportunities to donate and help. Over the years, as needs like this arise, I have given to FAIR (Fellowship Agency for International Relief). One of the things I like about them is that they partner with organizations that are already involved in the area. In Haiti they are partnering with Emmanuel International to distribute aid through local churches. Bonus: Until February 12th, every dollar given through FAIR will be matched by the Canadian government.

Update: David Daniels provides a recommendation for Emmanuel International.

Why Missions?

2010-01-13T21:28:00.001-05:00

Claude Hickman gives 14 Reasons for Missions.

Calvin on Church Finances

2009-12-21T21:18:00.003-05:00

Darryl Dash offers some quotes from John Calvin's Institutes on the subject of Church Finances, including this line: "Remember that you are not handling your own property, but that destined for the necessities of the poor."

See also Ray Mayhew, Embezzlement: The Corporate Sin of Contemporary Christianity? (pdf). I've mentioned the article several times in the past, but it's worth linking to again.

Business for God's Glory

2009-12-20T14:14:00.003-05:00

In The Kingdom Work of the Corporate World, Richard Dorster issues a challenge:

Christian artists add beauty and complexity to God’s creation, transforming the raw materials of paint, language, and sound into finished products that proclaim God’s glory.

Where are their business counterparts — the entrepreneurs and corporate executives who, with the same passion, reshape the world through business? And who, intentionally and for the sake of God’s glory, manage the power of free markets to make the world more productive? Where are the Christians who are propelling the world’s best corporations?

God’s people can, as agents of His redemptive plan, transform business, stripping it of selfish ambition and pursuing instead what’s best for their neighbors. Through business, God’s people can harness mankind’s creativity, and with it nurture His creation, developing products that make the world more satisfying. Through the economic power of commerce, Christians can make the world safer and healthier. The members of Christ’s Church, distributed in offices around the world, can transform greed into good stewardship, showing the world that business has a biblical responsibility to create new wealth and provide a fair return to investors (Matthew 25:14-28). But, with an eye toward the consummation of Christ’s kingdom, we also create wealth in order to create new and satisfying jobs, which offer the hope (and perhaps a glimpse) of a coming world where there is no poverty.

God has placed His people in business so that they can — in humility, and making full use of the talents and resources He’s given — serve customers, employees, suppliers, and the world at large, looking out for the interests of others and providing for their needs.

On their deathbeds, many Christians will regret that they didn’t love their neighbors, care for the poor, or advance Christ’s kingdom as they should have. They might therefore, with their final breath, gasp: “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”

The Body

2009-12-19T14:04:00.000-05:00

Charles Colson on how the church functions as the church:

It is within the church particular [a local body of believers] that we commit ourselves to intimate relationships with fellow believers and submit ourselves to accountability, duties, and responsibilities. In this community our Christian character is shaped; it is the context in which our gifts are developed and exercised. It is the family whose ties cannot be broken. It is the training camp that disciples and equips believers to be God’s people against the world and for the world. If we don’t grasp the intrinsically corporate nature of Christianity embodied in the church, we are missing the very heart of Jesus’ plan (The Body, p. 277).

The Gospel and Our Vocations

2009-12-06T16:11:00.004-05:00

Another excerpt from The Gospel Coalition's "Theological Vision for Ministry" is this statement of how the gospel affects our work:

The good news of the Bible is not only individual forgiveness but the renewal of the whole creation. God put humanity in the garden to cultivate the material world for his own glory and for the flourishing of nature and the human community. The Spirit of God not only converts individuals (e.g., John 16:8) but also renews and cultivates the face of the earth (e.g., Gen 1:2; Psalm 104:30). Therefore Christians glorify God not only through the ministry of the Word, but also through their vocations of agriculture, art, business, government, scholarship—all for God’s glory and the furtherance of the public good. Too many Christians have learned to seal off their faith–beliefs from the way they work in their vocation. The gospel is seen as a means of finding individual peace and not as the foundation of a worldview—a comprehensive interpretation of reality affecting all that we do. But we have a vision for a church that equips its people to think out the implications of the gospel on how we do carpentry, plumbing, data–entry, nursing, art, business, government, journalism, entertainment, and scholarship. Such a church will not only support Christians’ engagement with culture, but will also help them work with distinctiveness, excellence, and accountability in their trades and professions. Developing humane yet creative and excellent business environments out of our understanding of the gospel is part of the work of bringing a measure of healing to God’s creation in the power of the Spirit. Bringing Christian joy, hope, and truth to embodiment in the arts is also part of this work. We do all of this because the gospel of God leads us to it, even while we recognize that the ultimate restoration of all things awaits the personal and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the Common Good

2009-11-28T09:57:00.002-05:00

From the Gospel Coalition's "Theological Vision for Ministry" on how we should relate to the culture around us:

It is not enough that the church should counter the values of the dominant culture. We must be a counter–culture for the common good. We want to be radically distinct from the culture around us and yet, out of that distinct identity, we should sacrificially serve neighbors and even enemies, working for the flourishing of people, both here and now, and in eternity. We therefore do not see our corporate worship services as the primary connecting point with those outside. Rather, we expect to meet our neighbors as we work for their peace, security, and well–being, loving them in word and deed. If we do this we will be “salt” and “light” in the world (sustaining and improving living conditions, showing the world the glory of God by our patterns of living; Matt 5:13–16). As the Jewish exiles were called to love and work for the shalom of Babylon (Jer 29:7), Christians too are God’s people “in exile” (1 Peter 1:1; James 1:1). The citizens of God’s city should be the best possible citizens of their earthly city (Jer 29:4–7). We are neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic about our cultural influence, for we know that, as we walk in the steps of the One who laid down his life for his opponents, we will receive persecution even while having social impact (1 Peter 2:12).

Changed by Their Pain

2009-11-26T21:56:00.003-05:00

Dustin Shramek, in his chapter "Waiting for the Morning during the Long Night of Weeping," describes what he and his wife experienced after their son died, and how others' responses revealed a lack of understanding of the depth of their pain:

We struggled with anger toward God, wondering why he didn't comfort us. We had prayed; indeed, people literally all over the world had prayed for the life of our son, but God chose a different path for us. So why wouldn't he comfort us on this path?

Many people said things to us like, "Look to Jesus! Trust in his promises. He does care for you. You need to get in the Word and pray and fight for your joy. You need to talk with others about this and have them pray for you." We knew that this is true and right; yet, when we were overwhelmed with grief, it felt hollow and unhelpful. We needed to know that they too had been changed by our pain; that, in some sense, it was also their pain.

We don't love others in the midst of this kind of pain by pretending that it isn't all that bad or by trying to quickly fix it with some pat theological answers. We love them by first weeping with them. It is when we enter into their pain and are ourselves changed by it that we can speak the truth in love. When their pain becomes our pain ... we are able to give the encouragement of the Scriptures (John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, p. 177).

Church Is ...

2009-11-21T22:47:00.005-05:00

Our family is headed out of town this Sunday. I did a web search of some of the churches in the area where we're headed. One of them had a video promoting the church. It begins with a few screens declaring what the church is not and what it is. It quotes 1 Corinthians 12:27 about the church as a body. But as I watched the video, I came away with the idea that church is primarily about getting together with others in a variety of leisure settings. It may not be the message that the church intended, but sadly I think it is reflective of the philosophy that many churches have. Even though we declare that the church is not a social club, the fact is that's what we often promote and program.

The Interdependence of the Body

2009-11-15T19:18:00.002-05:00

Another Jim Peterson quote:

Among the most basic truths concerning the Church is the fact that it is a Body, an organism. This means God never intended for individual members to function in isolation from one another. True, we are individually accountable to God, but the Christian life and ministry is not to be individualistic. We can’t do it by ourselves.

I find it interesting that God has refrained from giving all His gifts to a single individual. Of course He could have done so. At first glance, it might appear that He would get a lot more work done today if He would simply give each individual all he needs to carry on a ministry by himself. But instead God has made us all specialists. He has given us gifts in some areas and withheld them in others. We need our limitations as much as we need our strengths. Without our limitations, we could go it alone. With them, we become interdependent (Living Proof, p. 140).

The Myth of Omni-Competence

2009-11-09T20:20:00.002-05:00

This is the way that many of us approach life: We have to have it all together, we can’t show any weakness, we have to be good at everything we do. And that mentality filters into the church and how we do ministry. But as Jim Peterson notes:

No one is good at everything, and we shouldn’t try to be. What God wants is for us to be good at what we’re good at, and let others in His body do the rest. We all have natural abilities, and all of us have been given spiritual gifts. Both of these are from God and we need to be good stewards of them.... When we see ourselves as a body, working in community with one another, we will find that what one person lacks, another person compensates for with his strengths (Lifestyle Discipleship, pp. 164-165).

On Offering Hope

2009-11-04T21:49:00.002-05:00

Winston Smith warns about offering hope that does more harm than good:

Proverbs 25:20 warns potential hope-givers, “Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.” Imagine you’ve been listening to a couple share their story of heartbreak and desperation for nearly an hour and suddenly, realizing that you’ve got to wrap up your time with them in five minutes, you shift gears - time to give them some hope. You share a verse and a few words of assurance about God’s love and care for them. You can see that your efforts fall flat. In fact, they seem a little irritated. The comfort that they received through the entire session from just being heard, from knowing that you understand, from hearing your compassion and concern has been snatched away like a garment removed on a cold day. Suddenly they don’t feel very understood at all. In fact, it seems like you’re not taking their problems seriously. It’s not that they don’t believe God loves them, but it just came across as a pat answer, tagged onto the end of the session – and it was. You made it sound too simple. It felt like they just shared how their lives are falling apart and your response was to hum a few bars of The sun will come out tomorrow.

Preaching and Application

2009-10-19T21:53:00.003-04:00

In the midst of a Review of Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church (a book that I have not read), John Frame talks about Scripture and application:

Showing how the teachings of Scripture are related to us is what I call “application.” In this sense, preaching, teaching, and theology are all kinds of application. The application of Scripture shows us how Scripture ought to change our beliefs, actions, feelings, indeed every aspect of human life (1 Cor. 10:31). As I mentioned earlier, preaching cannot possibly have the precise emphasis that Scripture has, for its work is not to replicate Scripture but to apply Scripture to its readers.

In this sense, it is wrong to distinguish “interpretation” from “application” in preaching. Often people think that interpretation shows the original thrust of the biblical words to its original audience, while application relates the passage to us today. But a closer look reveals that even in expounding the “original thrust of the biblical words” we are putting those words into categories that are meaningful to modern hearers and readers. There is no point in the preparation of sermons and lessons at which we can ignore the contemporary audience.

A New Church in Essex County

2009-10-14T19:47:00.005-04:00

Northshore Community Church is a church being planted in the Belle River, Ontario area. They are planning to "launch" in November 2009. Dan Valade is the church planter.

Their website is a Clover design (I love the concept and the look of the sites).

The Key Character Quality of a Pastor/Elder

2009-10-05T19:08:00.001-04:00

According to 1 Timothy 3:6, a pastor/elder "must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.” It's been said that some people have twenty years of experience while others have one year of experience repeated twenty times. The point is, just because you’ve been a Christian a long time doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a mature Christian.

That being said, it does take time and experience and growth to become spiritually mature. New believers lack the maturity to handle the responsibility of being a pastor. In particular, Paul says they face the danger of becoming puffed up with pride, and consequently falling like Satan. And it’s not just the pride of being in a position of leadership. There’s also the danger of pride in how a person reacts to people and situations. Pride keeps us from being vulnerable and teachable. And it makes us defensive and dishonest and hurtful.

I take from this that a major concern in our spiritual development is learning to put pride to death and to clothe ourselves with humility. I think this character quality is so important that I would consider it the primary character issue in the life of a pastor. The key way for us to measure the spiritual maturity of a pastor is the humility he exhibits.

Guidelines for Corporate Prayer

2009-10-04T14:00:00.002-04:00

Daniel Henderson shares these practical guidelines for corporate prayer:

1. Use the Scriptures – Learn to talk to God based on his word.
2. Rely on the Spirit – Submit to the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit as you pray.
3. Be specific – Keep your prayers targeted to the focus of particular themes for maximum agreement and continuity.
4. Keep your prayers short – You will have many opportunities to verbalize your prayers so be careful not to pray too long at a time.
5. Be sensitive as you pray – Listen to the Lord as he directs you in prayer. Listen to others that you might agree and complement their prayers.
6. Don’t sermonize for those present – Pray to God.

The Lord's Supper

2009-10-04T13:50:00.002-04:00

Some foundational thoughts on the Lord's Supper or Communion, in a question and answer format (drawing from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 and other scriptures):

1. Who takes part in the Lord’s Supper? The Lord’s Supper is for the church – for disciples of Jesus.

2. When is the Lord’s Supper to be eaten? It appears that in the early church the Lord’s Supper took place whenever the church gathered (v. 20; cf. Acts 20:7). Although this does not demand that we must do the same thing, it is a pattern we would do well to emulate. Also, we are to continue to regularly observe the Lord’s Supper until Jesus Christ returns (1 Corinthians 11:26).

3. What does the Lord’s Supper show? The Lord’s Supper confronts us with the work of Christ; it points to Jesus’ death (vv. 24-25). The bread represents the body of Jesus, which was sacrificed for our sins. Likewise, the cup represents the new covenant, which was secured or purchased by the blood of Jesus.

4. Why is the Lord’s Supper observed? Jesus commands us to observe the Lord’s Supper “in remembrance” of him. This is not merely an intellectual recalling of historical facts, but a response of faith to the death of Christ for our sins. It is the God-ordained means for reminding us of the cross and the gospel. At the same time it serves as a proclamation of the gospel (v. 26).

5. How is the Lord’s Supper to be observed? Paul warned the Corinthians to take part in the Lord’s Supper after they had first examined themselves. Specifically, they were to repent of their lack of concern for other members of the body. In the same way, we are to come to the Lord’s Supper in repentance, being reminded by the bread and the cup that Christ died us.

The Gospel and Social Action

2009-08-19T21:58:00.002-04:00

Andy Naselli has some helpful notes from a talk by Carson on the Gospel and Social Action. A few of the key takeaways for me:

"If you become so consumed with genuine physical needs that you don't have time for gospel proclamation, then you're losing the gospel."

"If you merely assume the gospel while being excited about implications of the gospel, then the next generation may not even assume the gospel. Keep central what is central."

"It is wise and important to address the relief of suffering, but put it on an entire scale, namely, relief of suffering both in this life and the life to come."

Strategic Missions Support

2009-08-16T09:31:00.005-04:00

Kevin DeYoung has some Questions for Your Missions Budget. Here are his four questions plus a few thoughts from each:

1. Are we supporting 1 Timothy 4:16 kind of people?

... We certainly don’t want to create an adversarial relationship with our missionaries by constantly checking their life and doctrine, but by some mechanism (e.g., through an annual report, through personal contact, through denominational oversight) we want to make sure we are sending out the sort of people we would be happy to have serving in our own churches.

2. Are we supporting ministry in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth?

... It would be pressing Acts 1:8 too far to think that we need to have our missions budget divided up exactly 25% into four different areas. But it makes sense that the priorities Jesus gave the disciples would be our priorities. We should be engaged in all four areas of missions. Jerusalem: ministry to those like us nearby. Judea: ministry to those like us away from us. Samaria: cross-cultural ministry that may be close to home. Ends of the earth: cross-cultural ministry that is far away.

3. Are we striking the right balance of word and deed in the ministries we support?

... So make sure that “word” missionaries know how to love people. Make sure your “deed” missionaries are looking for ways to tell others about Jesus Christ. And make sure you have room for both in your missions budget.

4. Are we giving priority to long-term missionaries?

... The church needs more people committed to cross-cultural missions for 5, 10, 25, or 50 years, especially in the places where the church is smallest or non-existent. Make sure your budget reflects this priority. It's not always as sexy as the youth trip to Kentucky, but it is the only way to win the world for Christ.

Counsel for Those Who Feel Deep Shame

2009-08-09T18:44:00.003-04:00

David Powlison encourages the use of A Personal Liturgy of Confession for those who are struggling with deep feelings of shame, guilt, and regret.

When I counsel with people who struggle with deep feelings of shame, guilt, and regret, I sometimes suggest that they design a personalized liturgy. In what follows, I walk through the example of a woman who has had an abortion, and all that led up to that choice, and all that follows in someone whose conscience is alive. But you can tailor it to whatever struggle you or another person needs to deal with. Where is your struggle? Is it temper or bitterness? Sexual immorality? Amnesia toward God? Gluttony, laziness or greed? Judgmental words or thoughts? Gossip? Obsessive worrying? God welcomes all who are weary with sin.

* * *

Designing your own liturgy of confession will help you to think through exactly what you need to bring to God, and what you need from God. It will give you serious words to express your sorrow, regret, guilt and pain over your abortion [insert your personal struggle here]. It will lead you by the hand to God’s mercy and to his washing away of your sin and guilt. The parts of this liturgy in italics are taken and adapted from the General Confession of Sin in The Book of Common Prayer. Even when your thoughts and feelings are chaotic, these words can serve as your guide. They are a channel for honesty. Instead of wallowing in misery and failure, these words help you to plan how you will walk in the direction of honesty, mercy, gratitude, and freedom.

Raising the Issue of Suicide

2009-07-20T11:17:00.003-04:00

Mike Emlet shares how CCEF trains interns in Dealing with Suicidal Counselees. He stresses the importance of asking counselees whether they have thought about suicide.

How we ask questions is important also. "You haven't thought about suicide have you?" is not a helpful inquiry! Such a question communicates, "Surely you haven't had a foolish thought like that, and if you did, I don't really want to hear about it." I try to stress the importance of progression in the line of questions an intern might ask a counselee. For example, a series of questions might look like this:
"I'm really struck by how discouraged and hopeless you are right now. Do you ever wish you were dead?" (If they deny it, I might press the issue, "Really, never?")
"Have you had thoughts of trying to make that happen by doing it yourself? Have you had thoughts of killing yourself? When? How often?"
"Have you thought of some ways you might do it?" If they are vague or deny it, I'll ask about specific methods—"Have you thought about taking an overdose? Have you thought about shooting yourself? Etc." I also want to assess whether they have the means for their chosen method available (e.g., gun, pills, rope, etc.).
"Have you ‘practiced'?" (In other words, has the person done a "dry run"—e.g., tying a rope to the rafters, putting a loaded gun in the mouth, etc.)
I would also assess "risk-mitigators"—what reason(s) do they have for living, for not proceeding with suicide.
It's clear from this progression of questions that a person can experience a wide range of suicidal thinking, and our job as counselors is to assess the level of risk and address it accordingly.

Weaknesses in our Theology of Evangelism

2009-07-18T19:05:00.003-04:00

Christopher Wright gives his analysis of False Dichotomies in Mission (and part 2) that have weakened our theology and practice of evangelism. His five false dichotomies:

1. Separation of the individual from the cosmic and corporate;
2. Separation of believing from living the gospel;
3. Separation of evangelism and discipleship;
4. Separation of word and deed;
5. Separation of evangelism from ecclesiology.

Regarding the last point, Wright writes:

The church itself is the product of the gospel, and the living demonstration, embodiment of the gospel’s transformative, unifying power (as we have seen in Ephesians), as a community of reconciled sinners. Instead our ecclesiology has a ‘lifeboat church’ or a ‘container church’ picture - the church is just somewhere to keep all the evangelized together until we all get to heaven. This is very deficient and far below Paul’s understanding and teaching.

The bad result of this is that the church itself can be riddled with sin, idolatry, abuses, and disunity, but we don’t care very much, so long as evangelism carries on. This is why part of our purpose in Lausanne must be prophetic, in the biblical sense. The prophets most often addressed, not so much the nations outside and their sins (though they did, of course), but the people of God themselves and their idolatries. If we are to be good news and to preach good news, we must seek a greater humility, repentance and return to the Lord. If we are to introduce Christ to the world we must look like the Christ we represent. So the call for integrity, Christlikeness, unity, etc., within the church, as part of a more robust understanding of what the church is meant to be, is an essential part of our missional task.

Delighting in God Daily

2009-07-15T20:22:00.000-04:00

Most of life (at least my life) is made up of the ordinary and routine. In the "dailyness" of life, how do I show that my significance, security and satisfaction are grounded in Jesus? I put together this mnemonic device - based on the Bible's timeline - to help me keep my eyes on Christ.

Creation ... reminds me that the entire universe belongs to God because he made it all. That leads my thoughts in these directions: awe at the beauty of God's world; thanksgiving for God's daily provision; stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to me.

Commandments ... reminds me to obey the Lord, to do his will.

Cross ... reminds me to keep central the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is for me ("All of Life Is Repentance"), for my community, and for the world.

Church ... reminds me to practice the love of Christ. "Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10).

Consummation ... reminds me to wait for Christ's return and to set my mind on things above.

The challenge: To remember these things more often in the busyness of business.

What Holds the Church Together

2009-07-13T19:10:00.001-04:00

Don Carson on the difference between the church and every other club, group, or organization (including "socially cohesive" local churches):

A close-knit society with shared ideals and goals frequently finds it relatively easy to foster love, tolerance, and inner cohesion. Whether we think of the local rock-climbing club, the regional football team, or a socially cohesive local church, a certain amount of fraternal depth is common enough.... Some measure of transparent love is not all that unusual in such groups.

Ideally the church is different. It is made up of people who are as varied as can be: rich and poor, learned and unlearned, practical and impractical, sophisticated and unsophisticated, aristocratic and plebeian, disciplined and flighty, intense and carefree, extrovert and introvert - and everything in between. The only thing that holds such people together is their shared allegiance to Jesus Christ, their devotion to him, stemming from his indescribable love for them (A Call to Spiritual Reformation, p. 42).

The New Testament Strategy

2009-07-08T19:26:00.000-04:00

Joseph Stowell asks the question, "How do we promote the Gospel in a world that cannot and does not want to hear what we have to say?" Then he answers:

We must remember how well the Gospel thrived in a culture far worse than ours, where Christians were more severely marginalized than we are. Theirs too was a highly relativistic and pluralistic environment. The New Testament strategy in this context is simply that we are to be committed to living out the principles of righteousness in such a way that the results of righteous living - our good works - become such compelling evidence of the reality of our faith that those in a world whose unrighteousness brings disintegration and despair will notice the dramatic contrast and in time come to inquire what it is that has made such a dramatic difference between us and them (Shepherding the Church, p. 41).

The Role of the Pastor

2009-07-05T17:02:00.006-04:00

The blog post at 9Marks about Triperspectival Leadership (i.e. church leaders tend to be prophets, priests, or kings) reminded me of an article that David Barker wrote about the role of the pastor as prophet, priest and sage. I couldn't find the article, but I did find a sermon that he preached on this subject (emphasis added):

What is a pastor to be and do to be sure that the central focus is “the art of spiritual direction”? What are the foundational things that a pastor is to engage in?

One of the most helpful places I have gone to understand this, for myself and for our church, is to a rather obscure passage in the OT. It is found in the book of Jeremiah and chapter 18 and verse 18. It goes like this:

They said, “Come let us make plans again Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not be lost, nor will the counsel from the wise, nor will the word from the prophets. So come, let’s attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says.”

What is going on here?

Answer: Israel is threatened with captivity because of her sin. The false prophets were saying that “all is well” and that the voices of the prophet, priest and sage will not cease to be heard because Israel was the special elect people of God. On the other hand, Jeremiah was sending a very different message, and he was not very popular with these prophets or the people for that matter!

But the point that interests me in this verse is this: these three voices were the critical pastoral voices that were heard in that community of believers. These were the voices that God had put in place to guide the spiritual and religious life of the people of God back then. These were the voices of “the art of spiritual direction.” I would submit to you, he continues to do so today. I believe that the foundational task of pastoral ministry in “the art of spiritual direction” is to carry the voice of the prophet, the voice of the priest and the voice of the sage into the life of the church. I believe that these three voices are absolutely crucial to our task as pastors and ordained ministers in the church.

So, what does it mean to carry these voices—to wear these mantles as it were? Let’s talk about each one.

1. The pastor with the voice of the prophet.

The prophet was the revivalist. He was the one who called the people of God back to faithfulness to God in all their daily lives. He was bold, he was loud, he was persuasive, he was passionate. He spoke to believers and preached sermons like this one:

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
You will eat the best from the land;
But if you resist and rebel,
You will be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1:18-20).

No, the OT prophet was not primarily involved in predicting the future. Very little of what the prophet did had to do with visions, dreams and extra revelations from God. He was all about revival. He was all about confronting hypocrisy among the people of God. He was all about how God could bless a community of people by ensuring that they were people of justice, truth, love and righteousness (mishpat, hesed and sedeqah).

This was a crucial pastoral voice that was heard in that community, and is one of the voices we must use and hear today. I call upon our pastors to rebuke, to challenge, to proclaim the truth of God’s Word and its demands on our lives with passion, conviction and persuasiveness. I call upon our pastors to be the spark that brings revival and blessing from God as we speak with the voice of a prophet among the people of God today. I call upon our congregations to hear and listen to our pastors as prophets—who speak to us about our spiritual fervour, who rebuke and challenge and us, and we listen and respond. Look for the mantle and voice of the prophet in your pastor.

2. The pastor with the voice of the priest.

Now, we get a little nervous about the priest thing. When we think of a priest we see all kinds of religious duty and sacramental ceremony. The priest in the Old Testament had two primary responsibilities:

#1. To make sure that what the community believed and lived out was orthodox and true to the Torah.

#2. To guide the public worship of the nation.

First, then, he was concerned about orthodoxy to Torah.

He was all about the Torah. He was concerned that what the people believed was true to the Word of God. He was concerned that how they lived out their faith was true to the Word of God. The priest was the protector of orthodox faith and practice rooted in the truth of Scripture. He was a theologian. He was an expert in the teachings of Scripture, and he protected and taught these truths.

So, as pastors who wear this mantle, who carry this voice, we are challenged to remember that theological and practical orthodoxy is both to be taught and to be protected by us as pastors.

This is partly why we have ordination. We want to ensure that our pastor is orthodox and that he is competent to defend and teach the things we believe the Bible says are true.

Pastors must always be theologians, teachers, protectors and disseminators of biblical truth. One of the primary qualifications for one who holds the office of elder “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). This is the mantle of the priest. Expect your pastor to wear it well. Again, it is up to the congregation to ensure that he can wear it well, and that the time and resources necessary are provided.

Second, the priest guided public worship.

He was the one who officiated and led in the worship life of the people of God. This is the task of a pastor. One of the most important things we as pastors do is say to our people each week, “Let us come into the presence of the Lord.”

This does not mean that we do it all. This does not mean that we have to be musical (which unfortunately has become synonymous with worship). But we must have a hand in it—guiding, directing, establishing its direction and philosophy.

Worship leaders must listen and be guided by the pastoral voice called the voice of the priest.

Yes, Jesus is our great High Priest. We do not need a priest to make intercession for us. But that has always been true, even in the OT. Every OT believer had access to God in personal prayer and praise, based on the blood of Jesus Christ shed before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).

So we are called to bring a priestly voice in protecting orthodoxy, teaching the Word of God and guiding worship in our faith communities. We need to look for these things in our pastors. We need to ensure that they can do these things well.

#3. The pastor with the voice of the sage.

This is the voice of the seasoned and experienced. This is the voice of the aged and wise. This is the voice of common sense!

This is why the Scripture says that we are not to lay hands on a person suddenly (1 Tim. 5:22). There is to a proving, an evidence of wisdom and sagacity. But at the same time Paul told Timothy to not let anyone despise his youth (1 Tim. 4:12). So there is obviously a place for younger men and women in ministry.

Pastors need to wear the mantle of the sage. We need to be able to give wise counsel and pastoral care. We need to be able to listen and respond with Spirit filled wisdom. The counsel of the sage is called by Qoheleth, “Tent pegs that anchor and ox-goads that prod” (Eccl. 12:11).

The foundational idea among the sages was “the fear of the Lord” (cf. Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Eccl. 12:13-14). They brought the reverence, worship and awe of God into all realms of practical living. They understood that God made the world and all the aspects of practical life we live—marriage, child-rearing, sexuality, entertainment, work, neighbours, alcohol, morality, money—and that to do them well the fear and adoration of God must guide the manifestations of these kinds of things.

This means several things for us as pastors:

1. We need to be becoming mature ourselves, and that as we grow in maturity we need to learn to listen carefully and take time in giving counsel and advice.

2. We need to have some senior confidants and advisors who can help.

3. We need to be buried in the truth, wisdom and principles for living found in the Scriptures. There is no substitute for knowing the Bible well. There is no greater investment a church can give than to ensure that much time and opportunity is given for a pastor to read, reflect, pray and seek God’s face.

When churches load their pastors up with administrative duties, expectations to be places and do things, and demands for CEO style management they will lose a critical part of what their pastor is called to do and be—to bring wise counsel and a careful and thoughtful listening ear into the spiritual life of the church community—wear the mantle of the sage.

I'm a Blind Man Who Needs Sight

2009-07-04T17:48:00.002-04:00

From Rebecca Manley Pippert's book Out of the Saltshaker:

Jesus wants to heal our sight. He wants us to see that the neighbor next door or the people sitting next to us on a plane or in a classroom are not interruptions to our schedule. They are there by divine appointment. Jesus wants us to see their needs, their loneliness, their longings, and he wants to give us the courage to reach out to them (p. 114).

"All souls are vulnerable to prayer"

2009-06-27T22:21:00.001-04:00

(Joseph Aldrich, Gentle Persuasion, p. 121)

Someone Who Has Been Down the Road Ahead

2009-06-16T20:16:00.000-04:00

R. Larry Moyer defines a discipler as “someone who has been down the road ahead … who can give direction and encouragement as needed"”(Bib Sac 151:343). Michael Holmes underscores the need for such relationships:

One of the major challenges facing Christians nearly everywhere today is that of helping believers break free from the shackles of a secular, self-centered, and often hedonistic mindset so that they can begin to think and live on the basis of a genuinely Christian view of reality. Like Paul, we face the challenge of … helping people learn that there is an alternative to contemporary social behavior and ethics, and how to live out that alternative lifestyle consistently (1 Thessalonians, p. 18).

Captivating Apologetics

2009-06-15T19:30:00.000-04:00

Don Carson, in commenting on 2 Corinthians 10:1-6, writes:

Argue a skeptic into a corner, and you will not take his mind captive for Christ; but pray for him, proclaim the gospel to him, live out the gospel of peace, walk righteously by faith until he senses your ultimate allegiance and citizenship are vastly different from his own, and you may discover that the power of truth, the convicting and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and the glories of Christ Jesus shatter his reasons and demolish his arguments until you take captive his mind and heart to make them obedient to Christ. The result will be a life transformed. Gone will be the principial egocentricity, the self-proclaimed independence. Replacing it will be a cheerful and devoted submission to the lordship of Christ. Only the weapons Paul advocates are sufficient to accomplish so stupendous a task. In the spiritual arena a successful campaign can be fought only when worldly weapons are self-consciously abandoned, and all our reliance is firmly set on spiritual weapons, which alone have divine power to demolish the strongholds where rebel minds cling to idolatrous, God-rejecting self-sufficiency and manufacture new forms of entrenched evil (From Triumphalism to Maturity, pp. 53-54).

I also came across this at the Stand to Reason blog:

Prove to an atheist that a God that he finds hateful and ugly exists, and that atheist will still find Him hateful and defy Him. But describe and defend the beauty and goodness of that God, and perhaps the Holy Spirit will move him to love.

Thin Books, Thick Prices

2009-06-13T23:24:00.005-04:00

James Hamilton has a great line in his Review of John Nolland’s Commentary on Matthew:

It is unfortunate that the price is as thick as the Index of Subjects and Modern Authors are thin.

Sadly, that line (with a slight modification) can be applied to whole books: "The price is as thick as the entire volume is thin."

Loving the Idea of Community?

2009-06-12T21:39:00.003-04:00

Many people have felt the disappointment of the church not being the place of fellowship and community that they desire. Larry Crabb describes his longing in the book The Safest Place on Earth:

My burden is to see spiritual communities develop, where spiritual friends and directors connect with people. I long to see communities where people feel safe enough to be broken. Where a vision of what the Spirit wants to do in people’s lives sustains them, even when they are far from it. Where wisdom from God sees what the Spirit is right now doing and what is getting in His way. Where the literal life of Christ pours out of one to energize that life in another, offering his divine touch (p. 56).

Yet even as Crabb shares his burden, he offers this warning: “But we must heed Bonhoeffer’s warning not to love the idea of community, but to love our brothers and sisters.”

The Example of the Macedonians

2009-06-12T21:15:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite commentaries is Scott Hafemann's volume on 2 Corinthians in The NIV Application Commentary series. Here's something he writes about giving, based on 2 Corinthians 8:1-15:

The example of the Macedonians is still instructive today. In a radical role reversal of the world’s values, the abundance of their poverty, fueled by the riches of their joy in God, led to a wealth of generosity. We usually think of “fund raisers” as encouraging those who can afford to give to give more; in the Macedonian churches those who had nothing begged to give. Why? Paul’s answer is the grace of God.... Giving is not merely an expression of compassion for the needy. Nor is it simply a reflection of our own concern. Rather, the spiritual gift of giving to others is to be the reflex of our own joy in the grandeur of God’s gift to us in Christ....

By participating in the collection the Macedonians were not trying to pay their dues or make a wise financial investment. Instead, they were savoring and seeking the kingdom of God. Only the greater treasure of the kingdom of God can free us from clinging to the competing treasures of this world... Only the deeper satisfaction that comes from spending ourselves for others can defeat the sinfully natural impulse to use others for our own ends. And giving up ourselves for others can take place only when our own security needs have already been met in the Christ who spent himself for us....

We lack models of that kind of joyful, “Macedonian” giving that comes from a profound experience of God’s grace. As a result, we struggle against a nominalism that chokes out voluntary, sacrificial giving as an unsavory example of religious fanaticism. What could be more “fanatical” in our day than to live below one’s level of income for the sake of giving away as much money as possible? In today’s world, the Macedonians’ giving out of their poverty serves as a wake-up call in the midst of our self-satisfying slumber (pp. 350-351).

"Our gifts are always 'ours for others'"

2009-06-09T21:47:00.001-04:00

(Os Guinness, The Call, p. 47).

Giving for Missions

2009-06-07T12:39:00.003-04:00

Alvin Reid issues a challenge to Fish or Cut Bait - to put up or shut up; to walk the walk and talk the talk - as far as missions support is concerned. While his focus is the Southern Baptists, his words have a wider application.

We do not have the funds to send missionaries. One might think this would be the last thing we would ever allow to have happen, economic downturn or not....

What if we took one year and asked our people to sacrifice like never before for, not for a building or an institution, but for the nations under the banner of the GREAT COMMISSION?

It is time to fish or cut bait. Enough of the “let’s not get too carried away,” “let’s be positive,” “let’s just keep doing what we are doing” talk. Enough bickering over semantics and excusing away our genuine decline. I submit this is the day of Amos and Micah. It is not a time to chill out, kick back, and remember past successes....

What if every one of us provoked by the economic effects on missionaries did just something greater than complain? What if each leader pushed for “not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice” for the nations?

A Response to the New Atheism

2009-05-24T13:42:00.003-04:00

A new leaflet put out by Matthias Media on the new atheism: Atheism Is Definitely Wrong.

Serve the Community

2009-05-16T19:58:00.003-04:00

Jonathan Dodson provides some ideas on Simplified Missional Living. Here are two ideas that kind of go together:

Volunteer with Non-Profits
Find a non-profit in your part of the city and take a Saturday a month to serve your city. Bring your neighbors, your friends, or your small group. Spend time with your church serving your city. Once a month. You can do it!

Participate in City Events
Instead of playing XBox, watching TV, or surfing the net, participate in city events. Go to fundraisers, festivals, cleanups, summer shows, and concerts. Participate missionally. Strike up conversation. Study the culture. Reflect on what you see and hear. Pray for the city. Love the city. Participate with the city.

What Constitutes a Local Church?

2009-05-03T16:40:00.004-04:00

Jonathan Leeman presents a Theological Critique of MultiSite Churches. It is a very good read, but more interesting to me was Leeman's discussion of what constitutes a church:

What shall we say constitutes a particular church on earth? The answer which the Bible gives us, I think, is very simple and very basic: a particular church is constituted by a group of Christians gathering together bearing Christ's own authority to exercise the power of the keys. Three things, then, are necessary for a church to be a church: you need Christians, a gathering that bears Christ's authority, and the exercise of that authority in the keys.

Leeman goes on to explain:

In Matthew 16, Jesus hands Peter and the apostles the "keys of the kingdom" to bind and lose on earth what is bound and loosed in heaven. What is Peter to bind and loose on earth? Commentators and creeds differ on the answer. Some say doctrine. Some say people. For a variety of reasons, I think it's the latter. But no matter how you answer the question, most writers seem to acknowledge that, one way or another, the end result is that Peter and the apostles would have the power to bind and loose people. The goal here, after all, is to build Christ's heavenly church, which they are to do on earth through this power for binding and loosing. Also, in Matthew 18, which D. A. Carson helpfully calls "an application" of the authority granted in Matthew 16, the church is told to treat an unrepentant individual as an outsider—to exclude him; and then Jesus again invokes the authority of the keys, seemingly as a foundation for the church's authority to do so. Notice two things about this. First, the authority given to Peter and the apostles in Matthew 16 is handed to the local church in Matthew 18. Second, the local church in Matthew 18 employs that authority to exclude an individual. Insofar as "binding and loosing" are opposites, I take it as self-evident that the authority to exclude implies an authority to include or to unite (plus, if chapter 18 merely presents one application of the authority given in chapter 16, there's no reason to limit the authority to that one example of application). This makes further sense of the context of Matthew 16, where Jesus gives the power of the keys to the apostles, again, for the purpose of establishing the church on earth.

John Newton's Cry for Mercy

2009-04-19T14:18:00.003-04:00

I was encouraged to read this account of John Newton's "conversion story":

March 21, 1748 is the day that John Newton (1725-1807) would look back on and commemorate for the rest of his life as the beginning of his conversion. But it wasn’t much of a conversion, in some ways: He was pumping water out of a storm-damaged ship somewhere in the Atlantic and expecting to die any minute. Somebody suggested making another desperate attempt to patch up the damaged hull of the ship, and Newton, who was swearing like a sailor as usual, said, “If this will not do, the Lord have mercy on us.”

“I was instantly struck by my own words. This was the first desire I had breathed for mercy for many years.”

Newton survived, and cleaned up his life a bit. He stopped swearing so blasphemously, started reading the Bible, and even started to pray (his mother had taught him to pray before she died when he was seven). But by his own admission, he didn’t come to know Christ or understand the gospel for some time. This is the man who would teach the world to sing about God’s amazing grace, preach 50 sermons on the text of Handel’s Messiah, and accomplish so much solid Christian ministry from his pastorate at Olney. Half-drowned in the middle of the ocean, he yelled “Lord have mercy” and surprised even himself that such words would come out of his mouth.

As poor a beginning as it was, it was a real beginning. Newton commemorated it for the rest of his life as his “great turning day” toward God. He observed the anniversary of this day along with his birthday, his call to the ministry, his wedding day, and New Year’s. These were all days he marked with special prayers, spiritual stock-taking, and resolutions when appropriate.

Thank God for dramatic conversions! But I like the fact that Newton's "real story’s a little dull and a little unclear." I imagine a lot of believers' stories are like this. It isn't always a clear point of conversion (though I believe there is a definite point when we go from darkness to light). The important thing is not so much when we turned to God, but that by God's grace we did.

"Convergent Evangelism"

2009-04-11T15:05:00.002-04:00

Alvin Reid has two posts adapted from the chapter “Converging on Evangelism,” in the book The Convergent Church: Missional Worshipers in an Emerging Culture, which he co-authored with Mark Liederbach. When it comes to evangelism, they argue "for a 'convergence,' a bringing together of the best of the more evangelistic conventional churches and the more evangelical emerging churches." From his first post:

1. Convergent evangelism will embrace the concept of missional living.

What is “missional?” Evangelism refers to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel, with unbelievers. “Missions” refers to the practice of understanding a people and a culture to become more effective in sharing that good news. MISSIONAL means we in the U.S. recognize that we now live in a mission field, and must shift our posture in evangelism from inside a church building to the lost world. Missional simply put means to live as a missionary, whether you are a pastor, a bricklayer, a school teacher, etc.

There must be a fundamental shift in how we perceive and practice evangelism. We have been effective at attractional evangelism, getting people to events at church facilities to hear the gospel. But as teeming masses of unchurched live all around us, we must shift the focus of our evangelism from our church to the culture....

When a nurse goes overseas to the mission field we call her a medical missionary. When a believing nurse works at the local hospital, we call her a nurse who is a Christian. Perhaps we would see a change in our effectiveness if we helped nurses and lawyers, barbers and homemakers, even the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker as missionaries where they live and work. So, the change we need starts not with a program but with a posture.

Vocation as the "Mask of God"

2009-03-29T15:14:00.002-04:00

In the article Authority in Vocation, Gene Edward Veith writes about the importance of our vocation:

Do you want to know how Christians can influence the culture? How to have a strong family? Do you want to know the meaning of your life? Do you want to know how authority works? Then attend to the Reformation doctrine of vocation.

This strangely neglected doctrine has to do with how God providentially governs the world of human beings. It also constitutes the theology of the Christian life....

Luther called vocation a "mask of God." He said that God milks the cows by means of the milkmaid. We see a menial worker and may even be so presumptuous to look down upon her, but behind that humble façade looms God Himself, providing milk for His children.

And we too are masks of God in all of our multiple callings. We have callings in the church (pastors, elders, choir members, parishioners); in the state (rulers, subjects, voters); in the workplace (employer, employee, factory worker, milkmaid, businessman); and in the family (husband and wife; father and mother; child; grandparent)....

The purpose of every vocation is to love and serve our neighbor. God does not need our good works, commented Luther, but our neighbor does. In our vocations we encounter specific neighbors whom we are to love and serve through the work of that calling. Husbands and wives are to love and serve each other; parents love and serve their kids; office and factory workers love and serve their customers; rulers love and serve their subjects; pastors and congregations are to love and serve each other. And God is in it all.

Imagining a Mission Way of Life

2009-03-23T19:41:00.003-04:00

David Fitch offers a list of ways for Instilling Missional Habits in a Congregation - As You Walk Among Your Community. His first suggestion is a reminder of the value of hanging out:

Direct the people’s imagination towards seeing the ways you can connect with people in their everyday situations by going to the same place at the same time every week. Stoke imagination for the way ordinary life is the stage of God’s working. Visit the same places at the same time every week (this is easy for me because I am pathetically boring and love doing the same thing everyday).

Another Look at Evangelical Worship

2009-03-16T19:53:00.004-04:00

David Nelson is doing a series on worship. In part 2 of the series, he seeks to define worship:

A substantial amount of what is said about worship by evangelicals today is folderol. That means foolishness or nonsense. I could have just used those terms, but I like the word “folderol” better. Emotional states don’t constitute worship, nor does music, nor does a particular order of service. The genuineness of worship is not determined by the building in which the church gathers, the technology we use in a service, or how trendy our clothes are. In fact, I would argue that worship in the Bible is not even primarily focused on the gathered assembly but is more often a matter of a way of life within the context of the community of faith that lives among the world in order to propose the truth of a better world. Worship is, put another way, the believer’s response in all of life to the Great Commandment (to love God) in light of the Father’s demonstration of His immense love toward sinners in Jesus Christ by His Spirit.

Celebrating the Lord's Supper Weekly

2009-03-08T14:33:00.003-04:00

Jim Hamilton offers One More Attempt to Stir the Pot: How Often Should a Church Take the Lord’s Supper? Based primarily on Acts 20:7, Hamilton argues that "the early church took the Lord’s supper every Lord’s day, that is, every Sunday," and thus we should too. He concludes:

Some object that taking the Lord’s supper every week will demean its significance. I think boring preaching and bad music demeans the significance of preaching and singing, but most Baptists churches take the risk and have preaching and singing every week. So I don’t think this argument that taking the Lord’s supper every week will make it dull is either convincing or significant. We should take the same steps to keep the Lord’s supper from becoming rote that we (should) take to keep the preaching from being boring or the music from being bad.

Someone may object: Paul preached all night. Do you think we should do that, too? No. The pattern we see in the NT is that the church was devoted to the Apostles’ teaching, and Paul told Timothy to preach the word, so we have preaching every week because the churches in the NT had preaching every week. But Paul’s preaching all night was driven by the fact that he was leaving the next day and had a lot to say. This was a special circumstance, but the gathering to break bread on the first day of the week was a regular feature of their lives. I think it makes sense for it to be a regular feature of our lives, too.

Church as Community

2009-02-25T20:54:00.005-05:00

David Fitch recounts two stories from Francis Chan:

Story One. Chan talked about a gang member who got saved and then baptized in his church yet disappeared a year later. A leader in the congregation noticed and sought him out and asked “What happened?” He said “I had the wrong idea about what I thought church would be. I thought it would be like family, a different kind of family. See, when I was in the gangs, we hung together, watched each other’s backs, took care of each other, we committed to each other 24-7, not just two meetings a week. When I got here, it was like each one was on his own. There was just no reason for me to be here with these people.” Chan said this broke his heart. The gang was better at being the church than the church was at being the church.

Story Two: Chan met with the elders over this (I presume). They talked about their commitments to each other. They talked about the ways they were so radically independent of each other and tried so hard to maintain that independence. Each had their own insurance policies to take care of their families if they died. Each sought hard to take care of their own needs and never ask each other for help. They saw in themselves what this gang member saw in the congregaton. And they started to break it down and commit to each other. In the midst of praying they started to make commitments to each other. “I commit to take care of your kids if you die.” “What is mine is yours.” “They opened up their bank accounts.” “They sold their insurance policies gave some money away.” Chan said these commitments were not haphazard that night they prayed. They were commitments out of deep trust in God and that relationship borne out in their relationships one with another. Chan said they left that meeting that night with a feeling of awe like you read about in Acts - kinda like - “Whoah … that just felt like Christianity.”

Learning to Talk About Jesus with People Who Know Nothing About Jesus

2009-02-23T19:42:00.005-05:00

D. A. Carson will be leading a seminar at Bethlehem Baptist Church called The God Who Is There: Naming God in a Pluralistic World. He explains the aim of the series:

Learning to evangelize men and women who know nothing about the Bible and who are bringing their own “baggage” or “context” with them does not require a super intellect or a Ph.D. in biblical theology. What it requires is learning to get across a lot of things that we Christians simply presuppose.

There are quite a lot of ways of doing this. One of them is to focus on a variety of biblical texts drawn from across the entire Bible and work through them with people. One might begin with Genesis 1-2: “The God who makes everything.” Genesis 3 becomes “The God who does not wipe out rebels.” We keep working through the Old Testament and eventually arrive at the New, coming to topics like “The God who becomes a human being” (John 1:1-18). The wonderful atonement passage in Romans 3 covers “The God who declares the guilty just.” Gradually the Bible becomes a coherent book. It establishes its own framework; it is the context in which alone Jesus, the real Jesus, makes sense.

This past year I've enjoyed meeting each week with a man who knew practically nothing about the Bible and Jesus. A resource that we found very helpful was The Bible Overview from Matthias Media.

I Enjoy Reading Stories Like This....

2009-02-22T20:22:00.002-05:00

The No-Stats All-Star by Michael Lewis in The New York Times Magazine, February 13, 2009.

Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win....

.... When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways. “I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together."

Deceitfulness of Sin

2009-02-09T21:20:00.002-05:00

"Men may persuade themselves that they have a general design for the glory of God, when they have no active principle in particular duties tending at all that way. But if, instead of fixing the mind by faith on the peculiar advancing the glory of God in a duty, the soul contents itself with a general notion of doing so, the mind is already diverted and drawn off from its charge by the deceitfulness of sin" (John Owen, "The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin," in Overcoming Sin and Temptation, ed. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, p. 319).

National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2009

2009-01-18T13:49:00.001-05:00

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world. We also underscore our dedication to heeding this message of conscience by speaking up for the weak and voiceless among us.

The most basic duty of government is to protect the life of the innocent. My Administration has been committed to building a culture of life by vigorously promoting adoption and parental notification laws, opposing Federal funding for abortions overseas, encouraging teen abstinence, and funding crisis pregnancy programs. In 2002, I was honored to sign into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which extends legal protection to children who survive an abortion attempt. I signed legislation in 2003 to ban the cruel practice of partial-birth abortion, and that law represents our commitment to building a culture of life in America. Also, I was proud to sign the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, which allows authorities to charge a person who causes death or injury to a child in the womb with a separate offense in addition to any charges relating to the mother.

America is a caring Nation, and our values should guide us as we harness the gifts of science. In our zeal for new treatments and cures, we must never abandon our fundamental morals. We can achieve the great breakthroughs we all seek with reverence for the gift of life.

The sanctity of life is written in the hearts of all men and women. On this day and throughout the year, we aspire to build a society in which every child is welcome in life and protected in law. We also encourage more of our fellow Americans to join our just and noble cause. History tells us that with a cause rooted in our deepest principles and appealing to the best instincts of our citizens, we will prevail.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 18, 2009, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

(HT: Stand to Reason Blog)

One-to-One Prayer and Bible Reading

2009-01-12T19:42:00.001-05:00

The Briefing Library takes a look at One-to-One Prayer and Bible Reading.

What are the benefits of reading the Bible and praying one-to-one? It is:
convenient: arranging to meet one Christian for one hour weekly is realistic, even in the busiest lives. It's easy to get started, with minimal organization required.
personal: the discussion and prayers can address particular individual concerns. In groups, it is impossible to deal with everyone's issues and questions.
accountable: meeting one-to-one is an ideal way of holding each other accountable to read and obey the Bible. It is hard to meet each week and pretend to be serious about submitting to Christ while playing around with secret sin. In our perversity, this is not impossible, but it's hard to sustain the performance.
strategic: this is a basic ministry to master, and will be useful in many contexts. Wherever we go in church life, we can find a Christian with whom we can read and pray. Sometimes at work we will find a Christian who would love to meet with us. In some ministry contexts, such as the military and educational institutions, it is almost impossible to gather Christians into groups, and personal ministry is the only option. For some Christians, the only opportunity for fellowship is with individuals due to family restrictions and persecution.

What to Pray For

2009-01-12T19:20:00.005-05:00

John Piper gathers a list from the New Testament on What We Should Pray For (see the article for the scripture verses):

Call on God to exalt his name in the world.
Call on God to extend his kingdom in the world.
Call on God that the gospel would run and triumph.
Call on God for the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Call on God to vindicate his people in their cause.
Call on God to save unbelievers.
Call on God to direct the use of the sword.
Call on God for boldness in proclamation.
Call on God for signs and wonders.
Call on God for the healing of wounded comrades.
Call on God for the healing of unbelievers.
Call on God for the casting out of demons.
Call on God for miraculous deliverances.
Call on God for the raising of the dead.
Call on God to supply his troops with necessities.
Call on God for strategic wisdom.
Call on God to establish leadership in the outposts.
Call on God to send out reinforcements.
Call on God for the success of other missionaries.
Call on God for unity and harmony in the ranks.
Call on God for the encouragement of togetherness.
Call on God for a mind of discernment.
Call on God for a knowledge of his will.
Call on God to know him better.
Call on God for power to comprehend the love of Christ.
Call on God for a deeper sense of assured hope.
Call on God for strength and endurance.
Call on God for deeper sense of his power within you.
Call on God that your faith not be destroyed.
Call on God for greater faith.
Call on God that you will not fall into temptation.
Call on God that he would complete your resolves.
Call on God that you would do good works.
Call on God or forgiveness for your sins.
Call on God for protection from the evil one.

Defending Life

2008-12-28T15:18:00.004-05:00

Scott Klusendorf offers three steps on How to Defend Your Pro-Life Views in 5 Minutes or Less. Part of what he writes is a response to those who say that the embryo is less than a human being:

Put simply, there is no morally significant difference between the embryo you once were and the adult you are today. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not relevant such that we can say that you had no rights as an embryo but you do have rights today. Think of the acronym SLED as a helpful reminder of these non-essential differences:

Size: True, embryos are smaller than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant? Do we really want to say that large people are more human than small ones? Men are generally larger than women, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve more rights. Size doesn’t equal value.

Level of development: True, embryos and fetuses are less developed than you and I. But again, why is this relevant? Four year-old girls are less developed than 14 year-old ones. Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings? Some people say that self-awareness makes one human. But if that is true, newborns do not qualify as valuable human beings. Six-week old infants lack the immediate capacity for performing human mental functions, as do the reversibly comatose, the sleeping, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed? If not, how can a journey of eight inches down the birth-canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from non-human to human? If the unborn are not already human, merely changing their location can’t make them valuable.

Degree of Dependency: If viability makes us human, then all those who depend on insulin or kidney medication are not valuable and we may kill them. Conjoined twins who share blood type and bodily systems also have no right to life.

In short, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature.

Gospel GPS (Global Progress Scale)

2008-12-28T15:12:00.002-05:00

Joshua Project's map of the Progress of the Gospel by People Group.

Linus on Christmas

2008-12-26T09:24:00.005-05:00

Fred Sanders writes about The Moment Linus Drops The Blanket:

By way of conclusion for a heavy sermon, we looked at something fun: The climactic scene of the 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas, in which Linus finally delivers his recitation of the true meaning of Christmas. There is a crucial detail that makes the clip relevant. Linus, he of the perpetual security blanket, delivers the speech with the blanket in hand (sometimes looking like a shepherd’s crook), until the moment he says the angelic words, “Fear Not,” at which he lets the blanket fall to the floor for the remainder of the speech.

It’s a perfect moment in a classic Christmas cartoon, and a profound insight. Jesus renders security blankets unnecessary. That’s not the same as calling him The Ultimate Security Blanket, as if that too-cheesy title could fit in the sequence in which Isaiah describes this Son who is given to us. But as the one who teaches perfect wisdom (Wonderful Counsellor), the one who has all power to deliver (Mighty God), the one who brings the Father’s love to us and exercises fatherly care for us (Everlasting Father), and especially as the Prince of Peace, Jesus certainly displaces our need to cling to the filthy rags of lesser comforts.

It’s just not possible to confess the “Fear Not” of the good tidings of great joy while also clutching surrogate security.

Of course, Linus, or author Charles Schulz, or director Bill Melendez, knew about the sloppiness and difficulty of leaving your security blanket where you dropped it. Watch the cartoon carefully and you’ll see that even the film editing is inconsistent: in a distant camera view of the stage, Linus is shown (impossibly) still holding his blanket.

And of course he picks it up again as soon as the speech is over. But if you know Linus, you know what a big deal it is that he dropped it at all, long enough to turn himself into a living witness to the truth of the coming of the Prince of Peace: “Fear Not.”

I'd never noticed this before but, here, watch for yourself:

Christmas Around the Blogroll

2008-12-25T11:17:00.003-05:00

Here are some Christmas-themed posts:

The Dark Side of Christmas, posted by Bob Bixby.

You may not have experienced divorce in your family, but certainly there are those around you who have. Many want to help, but few actually do. It is better for you to stumble over your words or actions, than to remain silent. As part of the body of Christ, we are to encourage one another, pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens, weep with one another, exhort, teach, comfort, and so on. This holiday season is a perfect time for you to reach out and help a family in need (Amy Johnson).

Disturbing Christmas, posted by C. J. Mahaney.

That’s the message of Christmas: God reconciled the world to himself through Christ, man’s sin has alienated him from God, and man’s reconciliation with God is possible only through faith in Christ …Christmas is disturbing (William H. Smith).

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, posted by Carolyn McCulley.

But Christmas teaches that God is concerned not only with the spiritual, because he is not just a spirit anymore. He has a body. He knows what it's like to be poor, to be a refugee, to face persecution and hunger, to be beaten and stabbed. He knows what it is like to be dead. Therefore, when we put together the incarnation and the resurrection, we see that God is not just concerned about the spirit, but he also cares about the body (Tim Keller).

On Christmas Morning, posted by John Mark Reynolds.

We are unworthy. We should be content with some soup eaten in the servant’s quarters. Given previous behavior, we would not deserve the slightest favor from King Jesus.

Jesus loved us anyway. He came down on Christmas and took on our pain. He proclaimed us his siblings and we accepted the adoption. The Father is a good parent and treats His adopted children as His own.

Blessed us!

Children often don’t deserve their presents on Christmas Day. We don’t get the coal we deserve in our stockings this morning, but Paradise. It is no wonder we can hardly wait for Christmas.

Christmas: Faith, Hope and the Christ-Child, posted by Glenn Penner.

But those with faith are not without hope. Salvation did not come by means of a muscle-bound, Greek-style, wresting warrior-god. Our deliverer did not arrive in a majestic Roman chariot with legions on fine horses behind him. Satan was not defeated by physical or military might. God, in all his perfection and wisdom, secured our salvation and revealed his glory to the heavens and the earth through Jesus Christ: a baby in a manger in a stable; a Jewish carpenter in Roman-occupied Judea; a homeless, wandering preacher; a naked, battered and bloodied crucified man. It is no wonder that the gospel has been described as a 'great mystery'. And in these dark days, we should know that more often than not, God's ongoing work of sanctification is equally mysterious (Elizabeth Kendal).

“Nativity” by John Donne, posted by Jim Hamilton.

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment....

Christmas, God Working in the Dark, posted by Ray Van Neste.

Christmas is not the pretence that all is well now. Such pretence is a sham and people see through it as Scrooge did. No, Christmas is the blessed assurance that God is still at work redeeming His people. It is the reminder that God accomplishes salvation even when it looks bad. This gives us hope and points us forward to the coming day when God will make all things right.

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-25T08:46:00.002-05:00

From Tim Keller, The Reason for God (New York: Dutton), p. 220-221:

The dance of joyful, mutually self-giving relationships is impossible in a world in which everyone is stationary, trying to get everything else to orbit around them.

However, God does not leave us there. The Son of God was born into the world to begin a new humanity, a new community of people who could lose their self-centeredness, begin a God-centered life, and, as a result, slowly but surely have all other relationships put right as well.

Bible Smuggling

2008-12-21T21:33:00.003-05:00

Glenn Penner questions Is Bible Smuggling into China Unnecessary?. He posts a response from ChinaAid Association to a November 12 press release from the Bible Society of New South Wales that "smuggling Bibles into China places Chinese Christians at risk and is unnecessary."
Mr. Willis says in his press release that, "smuggling Bibles into China places Chinese Christians at risk and ... smuggling is a waste of resources." However, many Chinese Christians feel the desperation for a Bible outweighs the risk. Zhou Heng was in prison from August 3, 2007 until February 19, 2008 for giving away Bibles. Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan was arrested on March 19, 2008 for publishing and distributing Bibles and Christian literature. He is currently in prison. These two men testify to the great need for Bibles with their actions and their lives.

Church Gatherings and Evangelism

2008-12-21T21:16:00.004-05:00

Tony Payne asks Is Church for Evangelism? and provides a reminder that church gatherings are not the primary place for reaching non-Christians.

Even if we acknowledge that there will be ‘gospel’ things happening all over the place in church, it is also important to say that evangelism is not the purpose of Christian assemblies. It is certainly not their focus. In the New Testament, churches are characteristically the fruit of evangelism, not its agent. Evangelism usually takes place outside the assembly—in the marketplace, the synagogue, the prison, and in daily gospel conversation.

Struggles Are About Sin and Suffering

2008-12-14T21:40:00.003-05:00

9Marks interviews Ed Welch on What Should Pastors Do with Fear, Medication & Addiction:

When people are out in the wilderness, they wonder where God is. If there's anything we know from people out in the wilderness, it is that they need the encouragement of God's people. They need to be able to fix their eyes on Christ who is with them in the midst of their suffering. You move toward everybody—absolutely everyone—because sin and suffering encompass all of this.

What about medical problems? You move towards someone who has cancer. It's a form of suffering, and we all know that we want to speak words of encouragement and point them to Christ in the midst of their suffering.

Psychiatric problems are the murky middle. Whether they are physiological or spiritual does not matter. It will involve both sin and suffering. We move toward them and we do the same thing we do with everybody else in our congregation by helping them to turn to Christ in a true and meaningful way. I think the Scripture has a simpler answer for seminary students and pastors. Someone is hurting over there. Somebody's stuck in sin. We are called to move toward them.

Mission During "Core Time"

2008-12-14T20:53:00.006-05:00

In thinking about Mission and Recession, Skye Jethani writes about building a church on “core time” rather than “leisure time.” This is what he means by the two "times":

The average week of a working age adult includes at least 40 hours on the job, and 40 hours to maintain the family, home, and health (think shopping, meals, bathing, and dentist appointments). These 80 hours represent a person’s “core time.” (I’m not including 56 hours of sleep - unless like us you’ve got a baby at home, in which case it’s less.)

That leaves most people with about 32 hours each week of “leisure time.” Most churches are trying to motivate people to turn off the TV for three or four of these leisure hours to spend on mission. The most valuable and celebrated members are those who give eight, ten, or even twenty hours of leisure time to the church.

Jethani's describes some implications of emphasizing mission in people's "core time":

1. It would mean helping people see the missional dignity of ordinary work; communicating that their jobs matter to Christ and his kingdom, not just what happens within the walls of the church.

2. It would mean elevating the role of family and household relationships as vehicles for spiritual growth and missional engagement. Yes, raising children and caring for aging parents honors God and advances his kingdom just as, if not more, than institutional church programs.

3. It would mean not extracting people from their lives and communities to engage in church programming or committees unless absolutely necessary, but equipping them to live in communion with Christ within the context he has placed them.

4. It would shift the focus of Sunday worship away from mission and outreach to a time of celebration and encouragement for Christians who are engaged in mission the other six days of the week.

5. It would mean deploying church leaders outside the institution to engage members in their native contexts; mentoring and coaching on their turf rather than ours.

6. It would mean a radical adjustment in what the church celebrates - not institutional expansion or programmatic growth, but stories of ordinary people incarnating Christ at home, at work, at school ... everywhere life happens.

It can be hard putting this into practice, but I'm thankful for churches that seek to do this.

Give More than You Can Spare

2008-12-14T20:47:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Ray Ortlund for sharing this quote from C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity (p. 67):

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.