The other day, Andrew, a friend of mine, called me and asked me a question about strategies for missional church leadership (being missional simply means that you live as a "sent" representative of God in the world - a missional church is a church that does not depend on attractional programs to reach people, but rather, it sees its people live dynamic, "sent" lives for Christ in the world as His ambassadors). He is a student in seminary doing a paper on this for a class, and he had to interview a pastor that was seeing his church step out missionally and engage their community and their world. He asked me about strategies and vision and plans. He reads this blog, so let me first of all say that his questions were very fair and I completely understood his assignment. This isn't about the questions. It is about my answers.
My answers were pretty pathetic if you were looking for coherent strategies in the way that most "church" experts talk about strategy. But, I think that God is showing us some things and while my answers may seem kind of Sunday School-ish, I think that that they are right. Maybe we need some simplicity in this type of discussion.
In 1997, my wife and I had just arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area for me to attend Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. We moved onto campus in Mill Valley (North Bay) and I quickly got a job and started attending classes. I was pretty busy, but knew that I wanted to do ministry in the City during my time in seminary. In March, I was invited to a church planting party at a home near Golden Gate Park. It was a really interesting night where Erika and I met people that would challenge us and shape us for the years to come. One of those people was Andrew Jones (TallSkinnyKiwi) whose storefront church on Haight Street we would start attending a few months later. But, the party was hosted by Linda Bergquist and her husband Eric. Linda was the church planter strategist for Baptists in the Bay Area and Eric ran the Page Street Baptist Center near the Haight-Ashbury District. This couple would eventually have a profound influence on the way that I thought about church and people who were far away from God.
I worked with Linda and Eric on many different occasions while I was in SF and have continued to keep in touch with them over the years. My daughter, Ashtyn, and I even stayed in their home for 5 days this past March while we enjoyed a Daddy-Daughter visit to the city of her birth. They are wonderful people. So, I am really excited to begin reviewing Linda's first book that she has co-authored with Allan Karr, the associate professor of missional/church planting at Golden Gate. The book is entitled The Church Turned Inside Out. I am still reading it and plan to start reviewing it in full next week, but until then, here is the description from the back cover to get started:
There are no sacred models of church, no specific molds into which God pours blessings, and no special leadership styles that are holier than others. Too often, though, church leaders attempt to pattern their ministries after either tradition or the successes of a few prominent trendsetting congregations.
In Church Turned Inside Out, Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr push back on the one-size-fits-all approach. They invite leaders of all kinds of churches—new and existing, megachurches and microchurches—to walk through an inside-out design process. Instead of starting with models and methods, they insist that every sphere of church life resonates with and communicates what you really believe.
As the book unfolds, it moves from abstract concepts toward concrete suggestions. It considers the uniqueness of individual leaders, their teams, and their particular communities, cultures, and contexts while taking seriously both spiritual and practical dimensions. This process results in more potent and effectively organized churches. Perhaps more important, it helps church leaders discover ways to live and work more wholly and faithfully, according to how God created them. It really is possible for a church to be so beautifully designed that every structure, program, and relationship reflects what it intends. Sometimes this requires a whole new design, and other times it only takes re-aligning or refining what already exists. This thoughtful and systemic approach opens a wider array of possible church paradigms than most people ever imagine, but the real goal is not innovation but transformation.
Using a blend of theology, biblical imagery, and metaphors from culture and creation, Church Turned Inside Out provides respectful ways to consider adaptation and change. It offers a hopeful vision of what the church can and must become. It not only positions the church for its future mission to the twenty-first century but offers timeless principles for the church of today.
Linda is absolutely brilliant, by the way, and thinks on more levels than I can keep up with. One of my favorite parts about my trip to SF back in the Spring was sitting at Linda and Eric's kitchen table at night and talking with them until we could not keep our eyes open anymore. Like a fascinating kitchen table conversation, this book is opening me up to her (and Allan's) experiences and insight. It is especially helpful for church leaders in the South who have not yet experienced the full weight of the cultural change that is coming, but will very soon. More on that later . . .
A new series begins today at http://missioscapes.com entitled, "If We Were the GCR Task Force." Marty Duren writes the first of seven scheduled posts by the editors during the month of August addressing the GCR and offering our thoughts on what we would do if we were them. It should be a profitable discussion and I hope that you take a look at it. Leave a comment and give us your thoughts. By the way, I'll be writing quite a few posts like this announcing new articles for missioscapes.com since it is a new site and we are trying to let people know about it.
I picked up Eugene Peterson's, The Contemplative Pastor the other day and ran across his chapter on "The Subversive Pastor." He says, "I am undermining the kingdom of self and establishing the kingdom of God. I am being subversive." He says that he does not often engage in a frontal assault on the kingdom of self, but he works around the edges, so to speak. I am often a frontal assault kind of guy and it tends to be less effective than I hope for, just arousing people's defenses. Petereson's words here are encouraging and wise:
As a pastor, I don't like being viewed as nice but insignificant. I bristle when a high-energy executive leaves the place of worship with the comment, "This was wonderful, Pastor, but now we have to get back to the real world, don't we?" I had thougt we were in the most-real world, the world revealed as God's, a world believed to be invaded by God's grace and turning on the pivot of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. The executive's comment brings me up short: he isn't taking this seriously. Worshiping God is marginal to making money. Prayer is marginal to the bottom line. Christian salvation is a brand preference.
I bristle and want to assert my importance. I want to force the recognition of the key position I hold in the economy of God and in his economy if only he knew it.
Then I remember that I am a subversive. My long-term effectiveness depends on my not being recognized for who I really am. If he realized that I actually believe the American way of life is doomed to destruction, and that another kingdom is right now being formed in secret to take its place, he would be at all pleased. If he knew what I was really doing and the difference it was making, he would fire me.
I live in Montgomery, Alabama. I have lived and ministered here for almost 10 years. This past week, a horrible division occurred on Montgomery's school board along racial lines. Today, an article comes out confirming what everyone knows: White flight has completely taken hold in Montgomery County. In just 8 years, whites have gone from 50% of the population of the county to 45% and the number is declining fast. What will it be in 10 more years? Blacks have gone from 49% to 54% approximately. Of course, whether the city is primarily white or black does not really matter - it is the stigma that is attached to racial differences here that is so devastating. Racial division increases here as whites move to northern
Over the past year or so, I have become convinced that the greatest enemy to the Christian faith and biblical Christianity in the West, and especially America, is the philosophy of consumerism, which basically states that personal happiness can be attained through the acquisition of goods, experiences, or a particular lifestyle. Bombarded by goods, services, brands, commercials, and incessant advertising, we believe ignorance like "you are what you wear," "clothes make the man," that there is a "right" side of the tracks, and that our identity can be purchased by acquiring items of status based on a particular brand name or celebrity endorsement. This philosophy has crept into every area of life as we have succumbed to the idea of commodification of relationships and even religious experiences in that we use people and even God to satisfy our personal desires. When we no longer find immediate gratification, we move on to something else that promises to satisfy. Everything in our life (even God) becomes a means to an end of our own personal pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment). Of course, these views have always been present in the human condition (i.e., selfishness and sin), but only recently have we built an entire economy and way of life on the proliferation of consumption. Only recently have Evangelical churches grown based on the whims of the consumer class and their preference and choice for religious goods and services that meet their "felt needs."
About 9 months ago, we had a big breakthrough in our church when we began to reach teenagers in our community for the first time. Our youth group went on a mission trip to Houston and came back wanting to reach out to their neighbors. We started a Kid's Club on Sunday afternoons thinking that we would begin to minister to little kids, but instead, teenagers showed up. Hordes of teenage boys. They wanted to hang out and they wanted to play basketball. Previously, we had put up a couple of basketball goals in our church parking lot. The interesting thing is, in the whole eastern half of Montgomery, there are no public courts to play basketball. So, kids started showing up from all over the city. They started coming every day. On an average night, we'd have 40-50 guys hanging out and playing basketball. We had guys coming to church and several got saved. Their lives began to turn around as they encountered the love of Christ and a body of believers who loved them and accepted them. It has been amazing to watch.
A few weeks ago, a LIFE Group in our church had the idea of scheduling a 3-on-3 basketball tournament to give the guys something to do and to develop a platform to minister to them. It was a huge success. We had around 40 people participate and several responded positively to the gospel being presented. A bunch of people from the church volunteered to put the event together and we plan to do it again in the future. Actually, we are starting a summer basketball league on Monday nights in the church parking lot from all of this. The cool thing is that we are building relationships with these guys and they are becoming our family. God is working. (pic taken by my friend, Chris McCorkle)
Our local newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser wrote an article about the event that appeared in the paper today. A short video is included. It was very positive and really showed the heart of our church in reaching out to our community. Something amazing is happening at our church where we are reaching a tipping point. No longer are we trying to cast a vision for reaching out and loving others outside of our church family. It is just happening. God is moving in our hearts and it leading us to open our arms to all that we come in contact with. This basketball tournament was a great example of how a simple thing like a few basketball goals can change a church and a neighborhood.
We finished up the tournament today. I am really excited about what God is doing and can't wait to see what He has in store for us for the future!
A myopia is a condition of nearsightedness where you can see clearly the things that are right in front of you, but things at a distance are blurry. Southern Baptists struggle with this in regard to our spiritual future and I believe that some of this could be reflected in the response to the new document, the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR).
We tend to look backwards well enough, and we also find ways to look at the present critically, but looking forward seems to be a struggle. While the GCR is good and I signed it as a supporter, it seems that Southern Baptists are failing to address the cultural realities that we find ourselves entering and how those realities are presently affecting us now and in the future.
"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." Psalm 82:3-4
"Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatheless, plead the case of the widow." Isaiah 1:17
"He (the Lord) defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing." Deuteronomy 10:18
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." Isaiah 10:2
Those are just a few of the verses that tell us how God sees the weak, poor, and fatherless. How do we see them? There is an epidemic of fatherlessness in America. 40 percent of children were born to unwed mothers last year in America. Holiness requires that our hearts turn to the fatherless because that is where God's heart is turned. How can we do less?
We have lost two generations since the Great Evangelical Retreat began 50 years ago. It is time for us to turn and face the wreckage that we have left behind and begin to bring healing though sacrificial love. How can our hearts be different from God's and we still claim to walk with Him?
Questions that I am pondering today in prayer. God help us to join you in your work of redemption.
I now Twitter. I also Facebook. Is this good or bad? Read my thoughts on making social networking redemptive and tell me what you think about it.
Erika works on me about technology and communication. You would think that she would want be to back off, but instead, she encourages me in it and keeps telling me to move forward in communicating my thoughts. Lots of wives want their husbands to be quiet. Erika tells me to say more. I'm a lucky guy. Anyway, I started my blog a few years ago because I thought that I had some things to say and as a pastor, I thought that I could use it as a teaching tool. It has been far more effective than I ever dreamed. For a long time, I was very content with my blog. Still am, actually. I liked to think things through, write essays, and explore new ideas. My readership is not huge, but I have a few hundred people who regularly check out what I am writing and have had visitors from every country imaginable. So, it has been a good outlet. Like I said, I was totally content.
Then, Facebook came along. I must admit, I am not a huge fan of Facebook. I go there every once in a while and I have enjoyed reconnecting with old friends from the past. I feed my blog into my Facebook page, but I am not one to update with pithy sentences on what kind of cereal I had or how long I was stuck in traffic. You can only read about me being late for a meeting so many times before you realize that I have a tardiness problem. Seriously, it is just too much information. But, everyone was doing it and if everyone is doing it, it must be a good thing, right? I mean, EVERYONE can't be wrong, right? Um, right? Yeah, right. Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more that it seemed like a good idea, at least for the sake of networking and communication, which is pretty important for a pastor. Plus, Erika starts telling me that I've got to get a Facebook page. She got one first and she actually set me up with my page. So, I blame her.
Yes, it is good to connect with people, but it is not good if we reduce all of life to soundbites and pithy sentences that explain little. We lose something when we don't take time to really think about things in depth or we don't care to engage thought on a level more intricate than what can be said in 140 characters. The danger and superficiality of the technology was keeping me from seeing the possible benefit if used wisely. At any rate, for the first time in my life, I felt myself resisting new technology because it seemed strange and unnecessary to me. I am a pretty fluid thinker, but I suddenly realized that I was getting set in my ways.
So, at the continued urging of my wife, I have now joined the Twitter revolution. I use the term "revolution" loosely. There is no social networking Che Guevera leading us to publish every thought that comes into our head, but the way that people connect is being affected by this in a profound way. I do not pretend to be even remotely interesting enough to chronicle the events of my day for the public, but I thought I'd give it a try. I set it up last night along with a changed format on my blog. My Twitter updates will pop up in the upper right hand corner of my blog and they also update my Facebook status. The cool thing is that I can text Twitter updates from my phone so it takes virtually no time at all. I can do it at a red light or waiting in line at the grocery store, if I want. I might end up using this after all. You can subscribe to my Twitter if you want, but I haven't tried that yet. Click on here and follow instructions, I guess.
The more that I think about this, the more that it might be a good thing. I am always thinking about something and it often has to do with where I see God working in the world around me. Now, instead of having to wait and create a blog post once a day or 3-4 times a week, I can pull out my Blackberry and broadcast praises, insights, observations, and things that I am learning and experiencing in the moment. Again, I do not think that my life is all that interesting or that anyone is waiting around to gobble up my latest tweet, but it does organize my thoughts and I have had tons of conversations and connections with people through blogging and Facebook that I would not have normally had. Maybe Twitter will provide the same interaction or more.
Anyway, the whole process can be pretty disingenuous if we are not careful because people rarely write things that do not cast them in a flattering light. The whole social networking experiment has a tendency to cause us to only promote ourselves in the best light possible, which can lead to hypocrisy and vanity, causing us to see ourselves as much more important than we really are as we act as the star of our own life drama, displayed for all the world to see. Spiritually, this can be a very dangerous thing. So, I think that everyone needs to beware of trying to act cool online. For example, if you are going to put a picture of yourself up, make sure that it really looks like the person posting, not you from 10 years ago. As in all things, we must submit ourselves to God and serve and glorify Him in everything.
Will this enhance my pastoring? Perhaps, as long as I am genuine with it and truly reflect what I see God doing in my life, my family, and the world around me. The way I figure it, about half my church is on Facebook. I can send an email to our church and get only one or two responses. Email is so 1999, isn't it? Only a handful of people in my church comment on my blog, even though quite a few read it. Blogging was huge around 2005 but is already fading as a primary means of interacting in Web 2.0. But, I can put something on Facebook and I get comments there and people stop me in the hallways at the church and say something to me about it. Twitter is basically the same, but easier and faster than Facebook and it updates my Facebook page. Facebook is 2008 and Twitter is 2009-10. What's next?
This blog will continue to be my main outlet. It feeds into Facebook and Twitter updates here. It is my creative home and I feel comfortable writing long essays about what interests me. They do need to be shorter - yes, I know. But, I am willing to change and adapt to new technologies, especially if I can use them to give praise to God and chronicle the blessings that He pours into my life through my wife, children, church, and through all of my experiences.
By the way, we're getting a puppy today. HUGE learning experience for the family, but good for the kids. If you had read my last Twitter update, you would know that. :)
One of the major issues in faithfully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in the South is that so many people think that they know all about it when the really don't have a clue. They've prayed the prayer and gotten the T-shirt. Last year, I was volunteering at a big ministry event in our city that was giving out food, health care, and other types of services. I was working in the prayer tent and was asking people if I could pray with them before they got their groceries and went home. There was one lady that I started speaking with and she immediately began to show me disdain. She was looking away, rolling her eyes, and making it obvious that she didn't want to talk with me. I was trying to talk with her some about Christ and she would have none of it. Then, I asked her if I could pray for her and she did not want to. I said, "Well, it is obvious that you do not believe in Jesus, but I will be praying for you." At that point, she perked up, looked at me, and said, "Oh no, I'm a Christian. I go to so-and-so church." Excuse me? She had no interest whatsoever in the things of God, thought praying with me was ridiculous, and wanted to get away from me as fast as possible. I would think that it was me, but I had bathed and was being pretty nice to her. Other people had responded much better throughout the day.
It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to me. I didn't have a problem with that. I do not expect unbelievers to always want to engage in discussion about God. But, what shocked me was that she was fine with her behavior until I assumed that she was not a Christian. Of course she was a Christian, she told me! She attended church. She prayed a prayer. She believed in Jesus (what she believed, I don't know). Isn't that what being a Christian was all about? Why does behavior need to change? Why do I need to love Jesus? Why do I need to obey God? If I am forgiven and all is well, then what difference does anything that I think or do make?
I would submit that instead of really giving people Jesus for who He is, we have actually inoculated people against the power of the gospel. We have given them a little of Jesus - just enough to make them think that they have the real thing, but not enough to bring them to repentance. The gospel that we preach is often a means to the end of our personal happiness and a trip to heaven. Jesus is more than that, but we have reduced Him to a religious afterthought.
The conversation with that woman frightens me. She wasn't just having a bad day. She actually had disdain for any talk about Christ until it appeared to me that she was not a Christian. Being a Christian and going to heaven was far more important to her than following Christ and loving Him. There is something wrong when that happens again and again. What gospel are we preaching? Are we just inoculating people against the real thing? How do we break through this in people's lives?
Matt Chandler, a pastor from Dallas, TX speaks about this at this years Desiring God conference. He makes some great points about the need to separate the gospel from the religion that we so often proclaim and believe. Check it out.
What do you think about when you hear the word, holiness? Obviously, it means to be separate; to be set apart. But, when I think about holiness, invariably, I think about it from a religious perspective. In other words, I think about holiness as the characteristic that I am to achieve if God is going to be pleased with me. I think about what I need to put on if I am to enter into God’s presence, since God is holy. My religious upbringing has taught me to think about what I am to abstain from and what my life is supposed to look like. The whole, “don’t drink, chew, or go with girls that do,” perspective creeps in.Often, when I hear about holiness, I look for a rock to crawl under because my first thoughts, if I am honest, point out how I am not holy.The word itself condemns me and I am undone. Attempts at holiness, however successful I might be in overcoming sin, putting off old behavior, or acting a certain way, always fall short because there is always a new definition of holiness that I am not living up to. I am always falling short of what someone proclaims as “holy.”
I think that we have done the word a great disservice, however. We know that God is holy and we declare Him as such. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty” we sing along with the angels and the multitude from Revelation. God is holy. We know that much. But, what does it mean?Then, you add in that we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:47) and without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14), and we are all undone.
So, what do we do to reconcile all of this?How are we to be holy?Some, have retreated to the monastery.They have built walls around themselves and have completely withdrawn from the world. Their view of holiness is shown by what they are against and by what they disagree with. They focus on the “putting off” of Ephesians 4:22-24 and show their holiness through outward things. Others, focus on justification and God’s grace and the imputed righteousness that comes from faith in Christ.They often do not make it around to actually living like Christ, but that is okay. They aren’t perfect, just forgiven. Both of these views miss the bigger picture of what God’s holiness really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship tells Martin Luther’s journey to true holiness, and I think that it is a story that bears repeating.He says,
When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace. Luther passed through the cloister; he was a monk, and all this was part of the divine plan. Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience. He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life. He had learnt obedience to Christ and to his Church, because only he who is obedient can believe. The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the “religious.”The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc. The monk’s attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. The bottom having thus been knocked out of the religious life, Luther laid hold upon grace. Just as the whole world of monasticism was crashing about him in ruins, he saw God in Christ stretching forth his hand to save. He grasped that hand in faith, believing that “after all, nothing we can do is of any avail, however good a life we live.” The grace which gave itself to him was a costly grace, and it shattered his whole existence. Once more he must leave his nets and follow. The first time was when he entered the monastery, when he had left everything behind except his pious self. This time even that was taken from him. He obeyed the call, not through any merit of his own, but simply through the grace of God. Luther did not hear the word: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” No, Luther had to leave the cloister and go back to the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only a part of the world.
Luther’s return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity. The renunciation he made when he became a monk was child’s play compared with that which he had to make when he returned to the world. Now came the frontal assault. The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world. Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favourable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world. The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one’s daily vocation of life. The conflict between the life of the Christian and the life of the world was thus thrown into the sharpest possible relief. It was a hand-to-hand conflict between the Christian and the world.
Because the monastery was a place that Luther had retreated to justify himself and protect himself from the contaminating evils of the world, it actually became a part of the world system. Everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God is a part of the world system, even if it looks really good on the outside. Luther could only be justified through faith in what Christ had already done for him and he only came to a point of faith in Christ when he quit believing in himself.
But, here is what really strikes me about all of this:For Luther, and for us as well, holiness was not found in the monastery. It was found in engaging the world as an emissary of Christ. When he tried to separate himself from the world through withdrawing, he just demonstrated the world’s ways of self-justification. But, when he died to himself, renounced the world’s ways, and engaged the world for the sake of Christ, he was acting in accordance with holiness. It is all upside down from what we thought, isn’t it?The reason for this is because Christ is holy.Only Christ makes us holy and we are declared righteous only by faith in Jesus. But, that righteousness plays out in and transforms our lives when we are conformed to the image of Christ in our thinking and our behavior. We reflect the image of Christ when we become like Him.What did Jesus do?How did he act?Who did he care about? What moved him with compassion?Holiness is not just a state of declared righteousness that comes from faith, but the outworking of that holiness involves doing what Jesus did.Caring for the sick, the leper, the persecuted, and the downtrodden is holy. Rescuing the sinner is holy. Proclaiming justice to the nations is holy. Dining with tax collectors and prostitutes to show them the Kingdom of God is holy. Forgiving others is holy. Loving your enemies is holy.Everything that looks like Jesus is holy.Holiness is not just putting off certain behaviors.It is that, depending on what those behaviors are, but more than that, it is thinking about things differently and putting on the character of Christ. Humbling yourself before others and serving them is a holy act. We could go on and on. Holiness is not just a state of denial of certain things, it is action that demonstrates the in-breaking Kingdom of God. Holiness means that we live according to the "Otherness" of God apart and separate from this world system. It is a positive action, not just a negative renunciation.
We need more holiness in our churches.We need to put off the old life and see the world differently.Correspondingly, we need to put on the new life, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24).Our evangelicalism became destructive when it promoted a life that affirmed withdrawal from the world for the sake of its truncated conception of holiness. Jesus did not withdraw from the world. He engaged the world and brought healing and redemption as He did the will of the Father in all respects. THAT is holiness and that is what God wants from us.
Instead of feeling condemned by the concept of holiness because I know that I do not measure up to someone’s artificial standard, I now see holiness as being the outworking of God’s character and life in every area.To see the beauty of holiness in a primarily negative (i.e. what we put off) sense is surely an abomination and it is entirely incomplete.But, to see holiness the way that Jesus demonstrates and to know that we have been called to be like Him is amazing, creative, beautiful, and life affirming!It is something that causes me to want to be holy and to violently pursue Christ and lose myself in obedience to Him as He brings restoration to the world!
Has the SBC now reached a tipping point for change and reform from which there is no return?
Alvin Reid, professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary seems to think so. He thinks that we have reached a point of no return when it comes to being aware of the struggles of the SBC and developing a consensus that change is needed. Although my observations are much more limited than his, I am sensing the same thing. Everyone that I talk to in SBC life is finally recognizing that we are facing a catastrophe when it comes to our churches and our future. The population is becoming less and less Christian. Our churches are aging and shrinking. Evangelism is decreasing. Baptisms are declining. The consensus that kept Southern Baptists together has been shredded and churches are trying to figure out what the Convention is really for.
Reid points out a couple of key issues of concern. One is the Cooperative Program. It is not that churches do not want to cooperate, it is that we are all becoming aware of how much money is wasted on non-gospel issues. When I researched a couple of years ago how our CP money was spent, I was shocked. It is all called missions, but much of it has no resemblance to missions whatsoever. Concurrent with the CP travesty is the redundancy in our ministries. How do we justify spending money on local churches, associations, state conventions, and national structures that are all turning out the same things over and over again - in the South, no less? I have no doubt that through some simple restructuring and alignment of ministry focus, we could save tens of millions of dollars a year. It is very difficult for me to heed fundraising appeals when the people asking for money do nothing to make sure that it is spent wisely. I find it ironic that a Convention that is conservative politically and is generally for small government allows itself to be organized for mission by a bloated bureaucracy.
The other issue that Dr. Reid brings up is the future. He says that while those he talks to love the SBC and its gospel heritage, they are way more skeptical about the future. Where are we going? What are we going to be about? How do we engage a culture that is running from Christianity as fast as it can? How do we revitalize our churches? I think that one reason that we are concerned about the future is because we became captive to a larger culture that is also fading into the past and we feel ourselves being carried with it. Southern Baptists after WWII became thoroughly modern. We adapted to assembly line technology and we thought that through systematic programs and management techniques we could build churches that would turn out a consistent product, er, disciple. We expected this culture of efficiency and technology to continue forever. Then, when the full-blown, narcissitic individualism of the 70's, 80's, and 90's hit us, we realized that we must adapt, so we began to cater to a consumer, me-centered culture based on felt needs. We built megachurches and more programs to appeal to a culture that saw the individual and his self-actualization as the focus. As people moved to the cities, churches grew primarily from transfer growth from smaller, more rural churches and became large suburban enterprises. The factors guaranteeing our decline had already set in, but because we had large churches emerging, we didn't notice. In reality, our culture has changed yet again and we are unaware. Time Magazine has a very insightful article this week (The End of Excess) detailing the change from the "bigger is better" mentality to more frugality, conservation, and community. I highly recommend it and I think that the implications of this kind of talk are huge for the future of the church in America and also in the South. In chasing our culture and growing bigger churches, we could not see the decline that was coming because we didn't see that culture was changing and people's desires were changing with it. The churches that we were building in the 80's and 90's would become distasteful to postmoderns and we would never see it coming.
Now, however, the decline is evident for all to see. In 2006, I joined a group of blogging pastors who were calling for reform of the SBC. We could see all of these things happening. The movement gained steam and people began to take notice. The policies on baptism and private prayer language with the IMB catalyzed the movement, but the issues were much deeper than that. Our churches were missionally ineffective and we knew it and we wanted to see change. Then, I watched as the reform movement was hijacked by those who had a vendetta against Dr. Paige Patterson of SWBTS, believing that he was responsible for what ailed the SBC. I was never interested in that and did not participate in the attacks against him. He was not the main problem, no matter how much power he seemed to wield. The problem existed in our own hearts and in the pews of our churches. We were rotting from the ground up and any problems at the top only reflected what had been going on for a long time in our churches. We had stopped following Christ in a missional sense and we were pursuing our own comfort and prosperity just like the larger culture. Replacing Dr. Patterson without addressing the real issues of discipleship only guaranteed a continuance of our problems. Over time, I grew so weary of the political machinations that obscured the real issues of missional ineffectiveness that I withdrew from meaningful discussions about the SBC.
But, articles like the one by Dr. Reid give me hope. I think that we are going to see a much greater decline over the next decade as the dross is removed and lifeless branches are pruned. But, I do believe that a great number of those that are left will turn their eyes to Jesus. If we would focus on Christ, root ourselves in the Word of God, and follow the Spirit, we would not allow ourselves to be captivated by the larger culture. We would heed the prophetic call to return to God and hold out life to a dying world. This can happen and it is happening. We need more Alvin Reid's to speak the truth and point the way. There is hope for the SBC but it will not be found in our strength or our institutions or our plans. It will only be found in abandoning all and following hard after Jesus.
In my last post, I asked readers what they thought a missiology for the South might look like. I appreciate the comments, Mike, Bob, Les, and Rick. I was hoping for a little more discussion, but, let's face it, I'm not talking about the latest political brouhaha amongst Southern Baptists or anything exciting like that. I'm just talking about the future of the church in the South over the next generation. Relatively meaningless, I know. :)
At any rate, as I have been researching the theological weaknesses behind the evils of racism and segregation in the Southern Baptist South of the 1950's and 60's and how those weaknesses continue to affect us today (all for a book that I am trying to write), I have stumbled across an unexpected culprit that has caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. In my reading, interviewing, studying, and praying, I have come to believe that a major reason that people could fill churches all across the South on Sunday and then treat others horribly just because of the color of their skin without feeling conviction was because of the gospel that was preached and believed. If your view of the "gospel" is that it is mostly a set of propositions that you agree with so that you can go to heaven when you die (i.e., eternal life) and salvation cannot be lost no matter what you do, then the commands of Scripture about loving others will be ignored when they bump up against a culture that ultimately gives you your identity, especially when that culture tells you that the "other" is inferior to you. What is there to fear? You're going to heaven. Of course, fear came in when you committed really bad sins like drinking alcohol, dancing, or broke any sexual taboos. So, belief and lifestyle were connected on some issues but not others, even though those other issues were just as biblical, if not moreso in some cases. This hypocrisy became a major theological problem and it is still embedded in the "gospel" we preach and the theology that we believe. We've never dealt with it adequately. We still face a theological separation between belief and behavior because we desire and offer heaven without the cross. Unfortunately, this separation has weakened our churches to the point of impotence when it comes to standing against the world. This weak, cheap gospel of personal, individualistic salvation without discipleship is what allowed Southerners to be racists while they filled Southern Baptist churches. It is what allowed the Lutheran church in Germany to turn away from the Nazi brutalities toward the Jews and even accept them as necessary. It is also what allows us today to say that we believe one thing and live a completely different way and feel no shame or conviction. Isn't hypocrisy a great part of what the baby boomers rebelled against in the 60's? Didn't the church have a stake in that regarding how we treated others while claiming to follow Christ?
In our doctrine of salvation then, evangelicals must avoid commoditizing salvation into an individualist consumerist transaction, something we have been prone to. There is a reason why it sounds intrusive to ask a stranger the question "Do you know Jesus as personal savior?" We have privatized the relationship with Jesus so as to make him into a gnosticized faith that seems isolated from everyday life. We must un-privatize our faith in Christ and reconnect our relationship with God through Christ to a way of life that we can invite people into and a movement of God in history. Then we can ask, "Do you have a place where you can ask questions about life?" "Do you know a story that can make sense of your life?" When we do this, we focus away from scaring people out of hell to inviting people into a compelling way of life. We realize that making salvation about being saved from hell irrespective of being saved to new life cheapens it into a piece of individualist knowledge, bordering on Gnositicism, that does not take root in embodied lives.
In postmodernity, truth is about character. Religious truth can no longer be relegated to the realm of private feeling or preference. This is because modern science, which pushed it there originally, no longer reigns supreme. Truth is in the living. Any evangelism therefore that separates one's renewed legal status before God from the new life we have in Christ strips the gospel of its power for a postmodern evangelism. For the postmodern world, justification cannot be separated from sanctification and sanctification cannot be separated from a living people of God. The basis for a compelling Christian account of salvation in postmodernity is a changed life among a living community of Christ. (58-59).
Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. My mind was racing. Finally, I drifted off, but not before I ran through a dozen different subjects. I've been told by friends that I have adult ADD. Maybe so. It would explain a lot. Normally, I write essays for this blog because it is really rewarding for me to lock in on one topic and explore it and I use it as a teaching platform for my church. Today, I'll take you on a random tour of what I'm thinking about in classic, stream-of-consciousness form. Each of these thoughts could be a blogpost all their own and they have been building up in my head. So, I think I'll clean out my brain a little so that I can think more clearly and start over.
I'm going back to India at the end of next month. Around midnight last night, I called Thom Wolf in India and talked with him for awhile. It was almost noon there. He was my professor and intellectual mentor in school back when I lived in San Francisco and he lives in New Delhi. We will go north to the Himalayas and do our normal thing with the ministries there, and then possibly travel with him for a couple of days to the south of India to meet some people doing very interesting things.
I am working through Paul's letter to the Philippians right now in my Bible study and my preaching. I am also writing essays to go along with each topic. Philippians is a great letter to address the "God as a means to an end" syndrome that plagues contemporary Christianity. I am thinking of releasing the essays after I am through with this. It has been really interesting. Today, I am working on one called "Chains" about how Paul volunteered to put himself in less than ideal situations so that the gospel would be spread to others through his life and suffering. Check out Philippians 1:7-14. Am I willing to do the same?
"According to some estimates, Christians in developed Western countries now represent only 37 percent of believers worldwide. As I travel and also read chruch history, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God 'moving' geographically from place to place: from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where He's wanted." ~ Philip Yancey, Finding God in Unexpected Places.
I ran across a fascinating article today on urban development in post-Katrina New Orleans on Newgeography.com by Andres Duany. Duany, of Cuban descent, says that "New Orleans is not among the most haphazard, poorest or misgoverned American cities, but rather the most organized, wealthiest, cleanest, and competently governed of the Caribbean cities." He says that New Orleans is not really an American city at all. Rather, it is a Caribbean city. Jimmy Buffett, after Katrina hit, said that the northern Gulf of Mexico is actually the northern part of the Caribbean, not the Southern part of the U.S. I agree. Being from there, it is different that the rest of the country, and I love it. Totally different way of thinking, worldview, and lifestyle. Maybe this is why Baptists have had so much trouble reaching the Gulf Coast? Hmmm.
My two favorite songs on my ipod right now are "Rocket Man" by Angie Aparo and "A Change is Gonna Come" by Ben Sollee. They are both cover songs, but the music and vocals are really intriguing. If you haven't heard either of these guys, check them out. Here's a live version of "Rocket Man." I think about this when I am travelling too much.
And, Ben Sollee on the cello. Yes, the cello. This is amazing.
This week marks the 3 year anniversary of us finding a lump on Caelan's chest that was a cancerous tumor. It has been a hard three years, but I praise God everyday for His faithfulness. Last night, Erika told me that the little 3 year old girl that my family has been praying for since we saw her at Caelan's last scans died last week. Her name was Cassie. My heart was broken over that. Maybe that is why I keep singing "A Change is Gonna Come." Ben Sollee, covering Sam Cooke, says he doesn't know what's beyond the sky. I do, and more and more each day I pray that God's Kingdom come.
"As heretical as it sounds today, it is probably worth telling Americans that you don't need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality. Coming to the cross means repentance - not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God's drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makovers." Michael Horton, Christless Christianity.
Baseball season is about to start. I really don't like baseball. Too slow for my taste. During the dead of summer, it is almost like there are no sports going on. I'm just waiting for football. Although, our church has formed THREE softball teams with about 50 players and they'll be playing mostly on Monday nights, so I am glad for the fact that a lot of people from our church will be hanging out together and building relationships. Being blind in my right eye caused me to never play baseball because I have no depth perception, so maybe that is why I don't like it. I do plan to play summer league basketball, though.
The groundbreaking for our church's new building is April 5, right before we have a huge neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. We've been reaching a lot of teenagers in our community lately, and God really moved in their lives at a youth retreat that we had this past weekend. Several came to Christ and many more opened their hearts to Jesus. We have also started tutoring, GED classes, and are helping with job placement. God is doing some amazing things. The building is just a tool to help us with this, and it should be finished by October. I'll be very happy.
I keep watching Jon & Kate plus Eight. I don't know why. Erika keeps asking why I stop there when we are watching TV and I have the remote and I told her that I really can't believe how mean Kate is to Jon and I can't fathom how they manage eight kids like that. Wow. It's like a car wreck. I have four kids of my own. Do I really need to watch someone else's stress? Strangely, I'm drawn to it. That, and Clean House, which is about people who live in an unfathomable mess. I guess that it is cathartic to see other people's stress and mess instead of my own. Normally, these shows come on right after we put the kids to bed. Hmmm.
I turned in my taxes yesterday and I'm trying to get some insurance stuff taken care of. It's a pain and seems to be taking forever. Car tags have to be paid on Monday and I'm doing a TV interview tomorrow for a local religious broadcasting station about our work in India. I lump all of that together because it all feels about the same to me - stuff I have to do that I don't like doing. I'm not just trying to be humble about the TV thing either. I HATE stuff like that. Communication should be two-way and interactive with feedback, not captured on a television for people to pick over and misinterpret as they wish. Maybe I'm just insecure.
Books I'm reading right now (they happen to all be "Christian" books, which is not good - I need to vary things up a bit and learn from some other disciplines):
Finding God in Unexpected Places by Philip Yancey - picked it up in the airport last week. Yancey writes essays about where he sees God working in the world. Excellent.
Christless Christianity by Michael Horton - states that the American church has given itself over to an alternative gospel that he calls, therapuetic moralistic deism.
No Place for Truth - Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology by David Wells. This came out about 15 years ago, but it was recommended to me by a friend of mine. It is pretty dense, but a good read. Makes some of the same claims as Horton, but from a historical perspective.
My church is always heavy on my mind and my heart. I graduated from seminary over 9 years ago. I've been the lead pastor of our church for 3 1/2 years. I'm realizing more and more each day that I am not smart enough, talented enough, entertaining enough, or gifted enough to do what needs to be done, no matter how many books I read. God has to work through me. I need Him. I carry the weight of people's struggles pretty intensely. I greatly desire for people to walk with the Lord and to glorify Him and I want our church to hunger after Christ with their whole lives and to reach people who do not know Jesus. But, I am really having to pray about this and release it to the Lord. I can't make anyone do anything. I am completely powerless to make anything happen. God has to do it. I have always known that intellectually. I am learning that emotionally and spiritually and it isn't easy, believe it or not.
Ashtyn has started soccer.
I have great kids and an amazing wife who listens to me go on and on about everything that I am thinking about. She is really patient and she always gives me great feedback. I do not deserve her, and I'm not just saying that because it is what I am expected to say. She's really something. She texted me two days ago and said that we should go on the mission trip with the youth group this summer. I told her that I agreed. Not many mother's of four kids would do that.
My city, Montgomery, just elected a new mayor in a special election a couple of weeks ago. In his election night interview, he said that he hoped that he would "rule" well. Rule #1 in American politics: Never tell the people that you plan to "rule" them. It doesn't sit well in a democracy. Then, he said that he was pushing the inauguration back a week because he was taking his family to the beach. Rule #2: When we are in a severe recession, don't tell the people that just elected you that you would begin to rule, er, serve them, but first, you have to go to the beach. Go to the beach in a few months AFTER you have worked for them for a little while. Wow.
Look, a BUTTERFLY!!!! Sorry, had to get that out. Does anyone ever feel that way? Random as can be.
I've lost 10 pounds in the past two weeks and I don't know how. I guess that I haven't been eating as much. Duh. Stress? Busyness? I don't know, but I'll take it. I could stand to lose a lot more.
Well, that's about it. Not really, but I figure that no one is still reading at this point, so I might as well stop. Believe it or not, engaging in an exercise in complete randomness actually made me feel better. So, I leave you with a picture of my kids that I really love.
God is good, by the way. And, He's always working in every thing. Big, little, important, mundane. God is always at work.
Really, why do we have such a problem ministering in the cities?
My time in San Francisco last week was amazing. Ashtyn and I had a great time together and we will never forget it. I know my daughter much better than I did before and I am incredibly impressed with her. She is unbelievably smart, charming, and interesting. I can't wait to see the woman that she is going to become. An added bonus of our trip was that we got to stay in the home of Eric and Linda Bergquist. Eric is the director of the Page Street Baptist Center in San Francisco and Linda is a church planter strategist for the SF Bay Area with NAMB and the California Baptist State Convention. I knew them back when I was in seminary at GGBTS and they graciously invited Ashtyn and me to stay with them while we did the tourist thing. One of the favorite parts of our day, however, was when we got to sit and Linda and Eric's kitchen table each night and talk about what the Lord was doing in the Bay Area. God is moving.
Churches are being planted as God is placing it on the hearts of individuals and teams to move to the Bay Area. Responsiveness to the gospel is beginning to grow. The San Francisco Bay Area is really like another country and we should treat it as such from a missiological perspective. 6.5 million people live in the Bay Area and every nation in the world is represented. The population is only 2% evangelical Christian. Many are resistent to the gospel, but many are also open, especially among immigrant groups. Unfortunately, there are only 3 SBC churches that are primarily english speaking in the city of San Francisco with it's population of 750,000 people. Linda and Eric and the others working with them are trying to change that.
Ministry in this area is very difficult. Many church planters come and go. However, it is not impossible. More resources and more church planting teams are needed. Really, a great need would be for Christians who can work and support themselves to move out to the Bay Area with an intentional plan to be a part of a church plant. Could we provide theological/missiological training to people who want to move to and work in the Bay Area so that they could help churches grow and reach those communities? Could local associations and state conventions in other parts of America partner with Southern Baptists in the Bay Area? There are SBC associations out there and an SBC seminary along with the state convention, yet not one state convention or local association in AMERICA has a partnership with what Baptists are trying to do in San Francisco. Why is that? Alabama, my state, has 4 million people. We have over 3,000 Southern Baptist churches. We have over 80 local associations. We have a state convention with 66 state missionaries. We keep tens of millions of dollars of our cooperative program money in our state, not to mention the millions upon millions that we keep in our churches to spend on ourselves. Still, the number of Christians in Alabama is DECREASING instead of increasing. Is this a good investment?
However, if we can figure out how to reach cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, etc., then won't we see a change in America as a whole? The Apostle Paul seemed to understand this when he went to the cities of the Roman Empire to establish churches. He knew that if he reached the cities, he would reach the countryside as well. Why don't we do the same?
Southern Baptists struggle in these cities (even though we have seminaries in SF and New Orleans) because we, as a whole, really don't want to be there it seems. We are more comfortable in the suburbs or rural areas where life makes sense to us. We struggle to go cross-cultural because at that point, we have to change. We have to stop thinking about things in ways most comfortable to us and begin to incarnate the gospel, putting ourselves in the shoes of others. We have to sacrifice. We have to admit that life is not all about us and our needs and our desires. This is difficult for Southern Baptists as it is with most Christians. Yet, isn't this what God calls us to?
I fear that America has already succumbed to the homosexual agenda that is so accepted in San Francisco. The battle has been lost, even though we do not see it yet. Public opinion has turned. I truly believe that gay marriage and homosexual rights will be established in America in the very near future. The evangelical church must learn how to minister in this environment or we will be overwhelmed by it. Yelling at homosexuals has not worked. How do we minister to them with the truth of the gospel and the love of Christ? San Francisco is a great place to learn. What would it look like if 10 Southern Baptist associations partnered with Southern Baptists in San Francisco to plant 5 new churches over the next 2-3 years? What if those churches that were planted then began to support other church plants and you brought some more associations or churches on board? Within 10 years, you could possibly see an additional 40-50 churches in the SF Bay Area! That would make a HUGE difference in the spiritual climate of this region that is so important to the future of America culturally, spiritually, and economically.
What if we did the same in New Orleans, LA by partnering with the local association and the seminary there? Many seminary students at NOBTS go there to get an education and then try to get out of the city as quickly as possible. What if we sent some folks there who truly loved New Orleans and its people and weren't just looking to pastor a church somewhere in rural Mississippi? What if we had families move there and partner with church planters sponsored by local associations throughout the South? How different would New Orleans be in just a few years?
What about the great cities of the north? What if a group of churches worked together to support a church plant in New York City? What if state conventions appropriated some of the millions of dollars that they kept from CP giving and put it toward church planting in urban areas in the northeast, led by the believers that were already there? What we we moved to these areas with the idea that we were going to incarnate the gospel into these cultures, we were going to work and build relationships, and we were going to see the Kingdom come?
What if our missions dollars were used more directly for missions instead of for us?
Anyway, those are some thoughts. Now, for some pictures from the trip:
God has a purpose for His Church in all of this if we would but open our eyes and be salt and light. I believe that He has a purpose for the local church that I pastor in our community as people begin to struggle. Isaiah 58 is a guiding passage for me in all of this. Unless my hope is in the Lord, I will not be able to offer hope to others. Unless I am looking to Christ, I will not be able to point others to Christ. We need to be aware of what is happening in our nation and help people trust in Christ instead of what is fading away.
Richard Florida, the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and writing for The Atlantic, tells us that America has changed forever with the current economic crash. As a country, we will have to remake ourselves and the future will not look much like the past. Gone are the heady days of manufacturing, construction, and the suburbs. The creative class will group in large urban conglomerations of cities and those areas full of educated and versatile people will drive economic growth in America. This is a fascinating essay and if you want to be educated on what is happening and what is coming, I highly recommend that you take the time to read it.
Florida says,
On one level, the crisis has demonstrated what everyone has known for a long time: Americans have been living beyond their means, using illusory housing wealth and huge slugs of foreign capital to consume far more than we’ve produced. The crash surely signals the end to that; the adjustment, while painful, is necessary.
The result of this, according to Florida, is that the suburbs are dying. Housing wealth is declining at a rapid pace and it will not return. People are going to be stuck in areas because they will not be able to sell their homes. This will lead to rising unemployment and suburban blight. Florida says something that I have been saying for about six months now: It is smarter to rent than to own a home. Instead of an investment, home ownership is going to be seen as a liability in the future. Glenn Beck has an amazing video on that HERE (the average American home was worth twice the historic market value in 2006. A correction has started and will likely not stop until the average American home loses half its value from 2006-2007.).
This is a powerful clip from the TV show, ER, that I read about in Michael Horton's Christless Christianity. A man who was a former police officer and was responsible for the death of an innocent man is asking for answers about sin, forgiveness, death, and eternity from a chaplain who has no answers for him. She does not speak to him about truth, but instead, about his perspective on living and getting rid of guilt by refocusing. She has no answers - only questions and statements like "I think it's up to each one of us to figure out what God wants."
Powerful video. If you were in this situation, what would you say to this person? How would you tell him how to find forgiveness? What good does her "inclusive spirituality" do in a situation like this? We have the gospel of Jesus Christ and it is the only message that can save sinners. Romans 3:21-26 talks about this man's concerns as it addresses sin, righteousness, faith, forgiveness, and judgment. People need real hope, not nice platitudes that do nothing for us. What are your thoughts about this? What would you say to him? What would you say to her?
How much money net worth have you lost since September? With the market crash and the loss of equity in my home, I have personally lost thousands of dollars. I don't even look at my retirement accounts. The belief is that we will eventually get all that back, but many economic analysts are doubtful. Between the plummeting value of our real estate and the markets, Americans have lost trillions of dollars in net worth over just the past 6 months.
So, how are you managing? Are you miserable? Has your life fallen apart? Are you dead yet? Did the loss of money destroy your life? Hopefully, if you are a follower of Christ, the answer will be a resounding NO. Yet, I couldn't help but think about the poor around the world. The 1.5 million children a year who die because they do not have clean drinking water. The 3.5 billion people in the world who live on less than two American dollars a day while the average American teenager spends nearly $150 a week. The 1.6 billion people in the world with no electricity. The 40% of people in the world who lack basic sanitation while Americans use and throw away 49 million diapers per day.
Trillions of dollars lost in the economic collapse. How much did Christians lose? Recent estimates are the Christians in America give around 2% of their income to local churches for ministry. How much do you think we lost in the last 6 months? How much money just vanished into thin air with nothing to show for it?
What if we would have used it to bless others? For only $10 billion, every man, woman, and child in the world could have clean drinking water, yet we spend almost $500 billion per year on average on Christmas presents. What if just a fraction of the money that we lost over the past 6 months had gone to bless the poor, to support missionaries, to build the Kingdom of God? What if we had not been so selfish and we had not been trying to build our own Kingdoms of Comfort? What if?
It is all gone now. Moth and rust has destroyed it. Many of us cannot afford our pricey, lavish homes. We've spent the blessings of God on ourselves and we wonder why we lack a sense of purpose and why with all of our wealth, the number of Americans taking antidepressants has tripled in the last decade.
What if we had given it away? What if we had blessed others? What if we had followed the example of the Wise Men who traveled hundreds of miles to lay gifts at the feet of the newborn Savior in Bethelehem? What if we had not just thought about ourselves?
It is all gone now. We will scramble and work to get it back so that we can live in comfort while millions die around the world without their basic needs being met or without knowledge of salvation in Christ. It is not even because of them that we should live differently. It is because of God. God is the great giver. Freely we have received, now we are to freely give. When we live with open hands and hearts, we reflect the glory of God and we live in communion with our Creator. When we store up treasures in Heaven, we worship God with our faith and our lives. When we horde here on earth, we worship ourselves.
