DownshoreDrift

Sunday Worship: Busyness as Spiritual Idolatry

"How are you doing?"

"Good. Busy, but good . . . Actually, I am soooo busy."

"I know. Me too. I'm really busy."

This is a normal exchange between two Americans in 2009. Whether they are in high school, college, single and working, newly married, have children, or are retired, the constant refrain from most people is . . .

I'm busy.

I said it myself in a tweet earlier today without even thinking about it. It just rolls off the tongue (or the fingers on the keyboard) so easily. I'm busy. It is the explanation for everything. Saying that today reminded me that that is not how I want to see life.  When I say, "I'm busy," I'm saying that I'm doing stuff that I don't want to be doing and I'm running around like crazy trying to get stuff done because I have to. I am describing a state of physical, emotional, and spiritual unrest that leaves me worn out and depleted.  It is not healthy and it is usually unnecessary, for the most part.  So, I'm speaking to myself here.

Some people really are busy and legitimately so. I talked with a friend of mine the other day that is in the military. He's in a really stressful job and works 15 hours a day. He doesn't have a choice. Some days, I don't have a choice either because there are things I can't control. But, most of us have choices most of the time. We make choices about our lives and our lifestyles. The fact that those choices require constant busyness and motion might say something about the possible emptiness of our spiritual lives.

Tom Sine in The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time says,

An Obstacles to Growth Survey studied 20,000 Christians in 139 countries over 5 years to discover how busy they are. They discovered that the levels of busyness were extremely high in the lives of Christians, particularly in countries like the United States and Britain, and particularly for pastors. Dr. Michael Zigarelli, at Charleston University School of Business, described the problem as "a 'vicious cycle' prompted by cultural conformity." He added that this extremely high level of busyness results in God being marginalized in our lives and "Christians becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload. And then the cycle begins over again."

Our culture tells us what is important and it tells us what its expectations are. We have to keep up with everyone else, right? So, we go, go, go, trying to do more and constantly comparing ourselves to others. We do the same thing with our kids and have 4 year olds playing baseball multiple times a week. For what? Where is God in all this activity? How much of it really matters?

God addresses all of this and gives us a solution: the Sabbath - a day of rest to be spent in God's presence with God's people, being renewed and refocused on who God is and who He has called us to be.  We are to work 6 days and then take a Sabbath on the 7th. Christians moved the Sabbath to the first day of the week in honor of the Resurrection of our Lord. In declaring our freedom from legalism, we have thrown off all restraint and forgotten about the purpose in what God initiated for our own good. We often take our time of rest and turn it into extreme recreation (which isn't bad in and of itself, but does not replace a God ordained Sabbath).  What about a day of rest in the Lord's presence reflecting on the week that was and the week to come? What about stopping all of the motion and taking time to reflect on God, what He says is important, and the lives that we are living? God set it up so that we would take time to spend with Him and to rest. Few people find this to be practical, it seems.  It gets in the way of all that they want to do. Perhaps the source of much of our burnout, however, is the lack of spiritual rest that we get and the constant motion that we engage in. Maybe one reason that God seems so distant from us is because we do not stop our activity long enough to spend time with Him.

And, pastors are not immune to this. Just about every pastor that I know says that they are sooooo busy. Why is this? Eugene Peterson in The Contemplative Pastor has some very important things to say about this:

The one piece of mail certain to go unread into my wastebasket is the letter addressed to the "busy pastor." Not that the phrase doesn't describe me at times, but I refuse to give my attention to someone who encourages what is worst in me.

I'm not arguing the accuracy of the adjective; I am, though, contesting the way it's used to flatter and express sympathy.

"The poor man," we say. "He's so devoted to his flock; the work is endless, and he sacrifices himself to unstintingly." But, the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.

Peterson goes on to say that a busy pastor is a hurried pastor, always rushing around doing one thing or another with little time for God or people. He is busy because he tries to impress people with his importance regarding all that he has to do and he is also busy because he is lazy. He lets others dictate to him what is important and he does not take the time to set his own schedule with what is really important. He says that what is important is prayer, being drenched in Scripture so that you are able to preach anointed messages to the people God has put in your care, and taking the time to really listen to others. These things are the building blocks of pastoral ministry and everything else must come later.

But, what about those in other vocations who have demanding bosses, deadlines, crying children, soccer practice, housework, projects, and an unending demand from relationships with others? And, what about our own desires that often drive us to do more, be more, and become more? Peterson, in his book, Where Your Treasure Is, points to prayer as being essential:

The only way to escape from self-annihilating and society-destroying egotism and into self-enhancing community is through prayer. Only in prayer can we escape the distortions and constrictions of the self and enter the truth and expansiveness of God. We find there, to our surprise, both self and society whole and blessed. It is the old business of losing your life to save it; and the life that is saved is not only your own, but everyone else's as well.

He is talking about prayer as both a private act as well as a communal act that brings us closer to God as well as into deeper relationship with one another. This is what God had in mind when He gave us the Sabbath and it is what happens when we take the time to pray together.  When we pray, we focus on God and allow His character and priorites to order our lives. Yes, there are many things that we have to do and life is filled with activity. But, when we look to God in prayer, we will live our lives in His power and we will do the things that He leads us to do. God has good works prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10), but we are not to do them with a hurried, stressed, and distracted spirit, alienated from Him and the people that He has placed in our lives.

It is late on Saturday night. Tomorrow is Sunday. All over America, people will gather for worship. They will drive to a building, sing some songs, hear a message, and leave to go to lunch. They will spend the rest of the day catching up on things and doing what they want. But, will they meet with God? Will they slow down and lay their lives at His feet?  We are so busy doing so much stuff that we rarely take the time to reflect on who God is and what He has for us. We run off after a million things thinking that we can help God along with His work, all the while our souls are depleted. I am not talking about inactivity here. Rather, I am talking about living life centered in God's will, walking in His Spirit, allowing Him to direct us, and not allowing ourselves to be frustrated by the whims of a culture drunk on its own distractions. 

There is a reason that the fourth commandment, Keep the Sabbath holy, is right up there with the commandments telling us to stay away from idolatry and from taking the Lord's name in vain. Properly keeping the Sabbath (and also mini-Sabbaths throughout the week) keeps us aware of creeping idolatry and brings us back to God. So, let us experience what God has for us in the Sabbath. Let's stop, pray, meditate on God, contemplate His goodness, marvel at His mysteries, soak in His presence. Let us lay down our burdens and take on the mind of Christ. Let us reconnect with family and friends and enjoy the abundance of beauty in relationships with others. Let us feast on the grace of God. Let us make every effort to enter God's rest and cease striving. As we do these things, let's ask God to direct our steps and to order our lives according to His will.

Let us live by the Spirit.  

Consumer Christianity and Its Discontents

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."

My friend, David Phillips, writes an outstanding essay on this issue called Reframing Success: The Jesus Way or the Consuming Way?  If we do not understand how the Jesus Way is in complete opposition to the Consuming Way, or the spirit of our age, then true spiritual formation into the image of Christ is impossible. Discipleship in the 21st century almost wholly consists of learning to discern between the way of Christ and the way of our larger culture which is based and grounded on a worldview that is almost totally opposed to Christ when it comes to an individuals personal choices about life and where happiness comes from. David says, regarding the effect of consumerism on the Church: 

What does this consumerism do to the church in America? Large churches are growing, medium-size churches are declining, and smaller churches are struggling. The larger a church grows, the smaller the kingdom grows, because in America, those larger churches are pulling from the smaller churches who cannot offer the same goods and services as the larger churches. The religious consumer, wanting the needs of their family met heads off to the big church where they are busy with activity and have entertainment for all ages. The smaller church suffers, to the point of having to shut down because it cannot sustain itself.

The churches who are surviving are trying to put together the right programs and activities that will attract those religious consumers. They are spending time, money and other resources on buildings and productions so that people will enjoy (or be entertained) by the show that is put on in the church.

But is this real success? The Jesus goal cannot be achieved unless the Jesus way is followed. The end does not justify the means. God’s goal is that we become like Him, conformed to His image and the image of His Son Jesus. The goal is not heaven, the goal is Cruciformity, or conformity to the Cross of Jesus. It happens through Faith, which for Paul was a “total response to obedience to the gospel (Rom 1:5;16:26). It is also…a death experience in which one enters into the experience of Jesus’ crucifixion.” The Jesus Way is a process where God seeks to re-shape and re-form that person into his or her original identity, and to re-fill that person with His original purpose of relationship with God. In embracing the gospel of Christ, a person embarks on a journey out of brokenness and into wholeness that will only be complete as God works to restore all of creation. The Jesus Way does not have as its goal the creation of people looking to have their own needs met. Why then perpetuate the climate of the consumer church in an attempt to see people conformed into the image of God?

Success then is not following the consuming way, but the Jesus way. Maybe our measure of success should be an expression of people being conformed to the image of Christ, obeying the Gospel, and living the crucified life that is an expression of Faith.

A major conversation is beginning about the effects of consumerism on our faith and it is about 50 years too late, in my opinion. But, we were so "consumed" with success and numbers that we failed to see that we have been buying into a system that actually makes discipleship harder. Yes, Jesus meets our deepest needs, but He redefines what those needs are. He tells us that if we want to follow Him, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross. It is ironic that in America, the richest nation on earth, we have the prosperity gospel (which has infiltrated every denomination in one way or another) because we feel like we do not have enough.

Several excellent resources that address this topic are:

The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani. I have been reading this book over the past couple of weeks (it was my beach reading) and it is probably the best book on any subject that I have read in the past couple of years.  He uses the art of Van Gogh as a metaphor for what consumerism has done to our culture and the church. A review is forthcoming.

 

 

Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Louis Metzger.  Metzger makes the case that racialization is embedded into the church through the vehicle of consumerism, choice, and personal preference. He picks up on the groundbreaking work of Emerson and Smith as they detail how racial, class, and consumer preferences are hardwired into the foundation of modern evangelicalism.

 

                                    

The Big Sort: How the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop.  Because of unparalled prosperity and emerging diversity in America, we are using our freedom of choice and economic means to cluster together with people who share our lifestyles, values, and concerns. Bishop argues that this is actually not good for America because when people gather based on homogenous views, they become more extreme in their perspective and more alienated against others. Though a secular book, there is an entire chapter on the contemporary evangelical church and the Homogenous Unit Principle.

                                        

ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. Okay, this book rates up there with Jethani's. I read it last fall and it was amazing. Hirsch and Frost make the argument that the evangelical church has lost its way because it has failed to follow after Jesus. It contrasts Jesus with the prevailing culture and shows how we have compromised our vision for what the Christian life should be with a culture that seeks to satisfy itself.

 

                                               

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Like I said earlier, I fully believe that those serious about following Jesus in our current world have to begin to use discernment in these areas.  Pastors who want to lead their churches biblically have to become astute at helping their members work through the implications of living in a consumeristic, materialistic world. Emerson says that the religion that most of us have bought into can be defined as "theraputic, moralistic, deism."  If so, then how does that affect the way that we engage in life and ministry? 

I am actually very encouraged, however. Even though there is a lot of talk about what is wrong with us, an understanding of the problem is a first step to overcoming it. I don't know that we have always seen what has derailed us and how joined with the larger culture we really are. We have to understand that methods to proclaiming the gospel and living the Christian life are not neutral. The method becomes the message. Living missionaly in a post-Christian world requires that we understand that world and that we become aware how we are to put it aside. If we love the world the we cannot love God.  More and more people are getting this and I believe that God's Spirit is moving to draw us to Himself. That can only be a good thing.

It is time that we follow Jesus and lay all of this other stuff down. But, that will cost us something - everything, really. Are we willing to pay the price? 

Scot McKnight on the Gospel of the Kingdom

I am working on a new believer's study for our church that starts with the Kingdom of God. Instead of starting with us, I am trying to start with God and show where we fit into God's overall plan. I have been studying the Kingdom of God for a couple of years now and cannot believe that I've missed what Jesus was saying. Instead of seeing everything through the lense of systematic theology, I've begun to deal directly with Jesus' words and the rest of the words of Scripture and let them shape me and my understanding of theology. It has been more than refreshing. I am seeing things differently as the Bible comes alive.

At any rate, Scot McKnight is nailing it on the Kingdom of God, God's will in the world, and the role of the church in carrying out God's will. He says this:

What I am is someone who has, by reading the Bible, learned more and more that the church is the center of God's work and that the church ought to live out the grand vision God has for oneness, holiness, justice, grace, peace and love.

What would happen if we took that seriously?

Check out McKnight's posts on this. At the very least, He gets you thinking. I would say, though, that while McKnight starts first with the community that God is forming in Christ, I still think that the individual and the salvation of the individual is integral to the establishment of the community. McKnight believes this as well, but for the sake of deconstructing Individualism as a barrier to our understanding of Church, he starts with the community.

The excerpts below are direct quotes from McKnight.

Kingdom Gospel 1

Encountering Jesus' kingdom gospel not only makes us think, but it makes us think we just might have gotten lots of things wrong. It makes us rethink how we are reading the Bible. It makes us think about what the gospel itself is. It also makes us back up to the elements of the Story - creation, cracked Eikons, covenant community, Christ, and consummation - and see which of these elements are the focus of Jesus' own preaching.

Kingdom Gospel 2

Luke's Gospel, like the rest of the Bible, focuses on the covenant community of faith instead of on an individual's relationship with God. If you read Luke together with Acts you see that what Luke wants to tell us is that the transition from Israel to the Church is now complete and the work of God in the covenant community is alive and well.  The community - and here is how Luke defines the "problem" that flows out of the Story of Genesis 3--11 - is out of sorts. The community that confronts Jesus in Luke's Gospel is blanketed with social injustice, Israel's bondage to Rome, economic injustice and the like. Into this world Luke writes his wiki-story and says that Jesus formed a community, which we call the church, where those things are to end - right now.

Kingdom Gospel 3

[F]rom 1996 until now, as a result of teaching college students and listening to both their sharp critique of the church and, at the same time, listening to their lack of interest in attending local churches, I learned something else: the gospel we are preaching is so individualistic, so tied into getting the individual into heaven, that the church has become an afterthought for many Christians today. The current generation of young Christians is now living out, so I believe, the gospel my generation preached to them - the individualistic gospel. This gospel is deconstructing the church, making the church little more than a Sunday morning option for those who want to follow Jesus. Do you realize how far this church-as-option is from what we see in Luke's wiki-story of the Story? For Luke, the church isn't an option; it's the main stage.

Kingdom Gospel 4

What was the problem according to John? If Kingdom is the answer, what is the problem?  Here it is again: the solution is a spiritual and social resolution to a spiritual and social problem. Israelites had turned at one another's throats and John calls them to care for one another, to live in a community the way God wants them to live. Repentance is more than feeling bad about your sins, though it involves that. For John, repentance looks real: sharing extra possessions to take care of those in need, collecting a just tax, and ending the abusive use of power. When we talk about repentance today - the kind of repentance that leads to baptisms - the kind of repentance that leads to salvation, do we say "share your possessions, don't extort, be satisfied with your pay?" or do we have other things in mind? I think we will nearly all admit that we have other things in mind.

Kingdom Gospel 5

If this solution Luke tells us sounds strange to you, I ask you to read this passage (Luke 4:18-19) again. It's in your Bible and in mine. Mary's and Zechariah's and John's stories differ from Jesus' but only slightly. Jesus carries on their vision to announce that the kingdom he is setting in motion is a kingdom that will undo injustices, establish justices, and create a society where God's will is done. The gospel is about church formation before it is about personal formation.

Kingdom Gospel 6

So far so good: kingdom means community formation through commitment to Jesus. That community brings justice and it ends every form of oppression. Jesus' kingdom vision will mean a total spiritual and social make-over for Israel. With everything now in place, Jesus takes an about turn, faces his disciples, tells them they've got a blurred vision of what God is actually doing, and creates an entirely new vision for what kingdom means. Kingdom, formerly connected with triumph, will now be connected to cross.

Kingdom Gospel 7

When Pentecost happens, a cross-shaped kingdom community emerges. If we treat Luke-Acts as the wiki-story that it is, then we will read the first few chapters of Acts as the continuation of the story that began in Luke 1 and 2 with Mary and Zechariah and John the Baptist. And we will read it as a continuation of Jesus' first sermon, his Beatitudes, his answer to John, and his anticipation of the cross. So, now here are the words of Luke and I hope you read them slowly enough to pick up on all of Luke's resonances with the previous passages because Luke lets it all converge right here: the community Mary wanted and Jesus announced arrived with Pentecost.

Scot McKnight and iMonk on the Individualized Gospel

I saw this the other day on Scot McKnight's blog. Really good stuff on how the individualized gospel is killing us. Michael Spencer (iMonk) summarized it today and gives his own thoughts. I reprint his post here in its totality. Read this. Seriously.

From Scot Mcknight’s Kingdom Gospel series at Jesus Creed. I did a bit of creative editing.

I wonder what John would think of the gospel I sketched at the beginning of this chapter:

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
But you have a sin problem that separates you from God.
The good news is that Jesus came to die for your sins.
If you accept Jesus’ death, you can be reconnected to God.
Those who are reconnected to God will live in heaven with God.

Every line of that statement is more or less true. It is the sequencing of those lines, the “story” of that gospel if you will, that concerns me and that turns Jesus’ message of the kingdom into a blue parakeet. And it is not only the sequencing, it is the omitting of major themes in the Bible that concerns me. What most shocks the one who reads the Bible as Story, where the focus is overwhelmingly on God forming a covenant community, is that this outline of the gospel above does two things: it eliminates community and it turns the entire gospel into a “me and God” or “God and me” gospel. Who needs a church if this is the gospel? (Answer: no one.) What becomes of the church for this gospel? (Answer: an organization for those who want to do that sort of thing.) While every line in this gospel is more or less true, what concerns many of us today is that this gospel makes the church unimportant.

I believe this gospel can deconstruct, is deconstructing, and will deconstruct the church if we don’t change it now. Our churches are filled with Christians who don’t give a rip about church life and we have a young generation who, in some cases, care so much about the Church they can’t attend a local church because too many local churches are shaped too much by the gospel I outlined above.

Scot Mcknight has increasingly become a lightning rod in evangelicalism as he does his work as a New Testament scholar teaching the church to understand and apply the Bible. The “lightning” is the reaction of many conservatives to Mcknight’s views on Biblical interpretation, women in ministry and the Gospel of the Kingdom.

In the past few days, Mcknight has been asking some pointed questions and making powerfully honest applications regarding the “gospel” that has developed in recent evangelicalism. That Gospel, which he summarizes in the quote above, is the familiar Four Spiritual Laws/Billy Graham/Evangelism training version of bringing a person to have a relationship with God through affirming certain beliefs in a prayer or other. He points out that this “Gospel” is so individualistic that it not only makes the purpose of the church largely irrelevant, it also creates believers who have little or no concept of the entire Biblical story’s focus on the “people of God.”

It is a “gospel” that deconstructs the church and, in my opinion, largely deconstructs discipleship down to the components of individualism as interpreted through society, personality and personal experience.

It is a “gospel” that needs a minimum of “spiritual formation” or “Jesus shaped community” because its primary pattern is that God wants YOU to be YOU and YOU are the primary interpreter of Jesus for YOU.

At some time we are going to have to get around to talking about this, and Mcknight has opened the door.

Since I do a lot of evangelistic work and evangelistic counseling with new believers, I can give you a report from the lab.

Here’s what happens: right at the moment the student “gets it,” the whole movie needs to stop, and right there the student needs to look at me and say….

“OK. If that’s it, I want you to honestly know something. I can say I believe this because I do. I can pray the prayer. I can get baptized. I can call myself a Christian. But this little moment we are having here…this moment where I cross the line? It’s not going to change my life. It’s not going to change me. It’s going to take more than saying yes to a set of belief statements. I need some help. A lot of help from God and people. I’m only barely getting started and I know I can’t make it on my own.”

But I won’t hear that. What I’ll hear and what most of us will say is something along the line of how the “gospel” above is life-changing, and now that person has a life-changing relationship with God.

They should now, we’ll say, read their Bible on their own every day, pray on their own every day, witness on their own, find a good church on their own, and go there at least an hour a week.

And give their money.

And listen to Christian music. And buy Christian products.

And live up to the following 48 page, small print list of behavior rules, most of which wouldn’t make sense to the aliens ruling this galaxy, much less a new Christian.

Left with the “gospel” Scot has outlined, that new believer stands a better than average chance of getting nowhere permanent in a church. They will become convinced that their own views on things like sexuality and money are totally normal and can’t be changed. They will see their faith as highly individual, personal and private.

If they make it into some form of Christian community, it will likely be one that affirms them in this individual path by teaching them that Jesus is a life coach who wants them to experience lots of personal fulfillment and have a great dating experience.

Whatever steps they take in the Christian life will come down to “I got so much out of that.” The primary flaw with Christianity will be that it’s boring. The great quest will be relevance and good feelings. The church will either facilitate the authority and fulfillment of the individual and his/her version of the “gospel” or it will become optional.

Over time, expect most churches to fail the test. Chances are that this new Christian will be a church drop-out pursuing their own “walk with the Lord” outside of church before too long.

Welcome to the evangelical wilderness. Anyone else recognize that individualized gospel Scot is describing and what it has done to you, your church community and your family?

Anyone else sick of it?

Thank you, Scot. I love you for writing this because it inspires me to see how it has all worked its way into the heart and soul of lifelong evangelicals like me.

We need to talk about this some more. (Clue: Churches that surrender to this are destroying themselves. Your own message will deconstruct the purpose for which you exist. HA!)

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ME:  These guys are stumbling onto something here. I have been writing about this for a while now. We have salvation without discipleship or community and we call it good. Bonhoeffer calls it cheap grace. There must be a way that we can talk about grace and faith without adding works while still being faithful to the very words of Jesus when He gave the Gospel of the Kingdom. It seems that some people are wrestling with that and I am glad. We will all be much better off for it.

UPDATE:  My friend Joe Kennedy says the same thing in this post right here. Interesting thoughts. What do you think?

When Following Jesus Became Optional . . .

When following Jesus became optional . . .

We began to study Scripture for information instead of transformation.

We made ourselves, our happiness, and our comfort the focus of our lives.

We depended on elaborate church structures, staffs, and organization to make up for what the disciple of Christ used to do.

We justified rebellion and sin and called it dysfunction.

We focused on our past hurts and struggles instead of focusing on the Cross and Resurrection of Christ.

When following Jesus became optional . . .

We cared more about filling our churches with empty people instead of filling empty people with the Holy Spirit.

We lived for this world and our own kingdoms instead of the Kingdom of God.

We convinced ourselves that we needed to want to obey God before we obeyed and it was the job of the "church leadership" to get us to desire obedience.

We were changed by the world instead of living to change the world.

We became comfortable with saying "No" to God.

We began using grace as a cover for rebellion.

We became legalistic and defined righteousness as actions that had little to do with following Jesus.

We stopped praying about anything but ourselves.

We stopped praying even for ourselves.

When following Jesus became optional . . .

We thought we were spiritual if we went to church and knew stuff.

It became easy to overlook people different from us and ignore them.

It became easy to forget about the poor, the needy, the sinners, and the outcast.

We judged others for all of their failures and stopped looking at our own lives.

We compared ourselves to others instead of comparing ourselves to Christ.

We were overwhelmed by the desires and troubles of this world.

We were full of fear and anxiety and depression.

We stopped sharing the gospel with anyone and started making excuses about how we were too busy to do so.

We lost our spiritual passion and we filled our lives with other things (idols).

Encouragement Needed

How often do we see things that need to change in the lives of people we know or in the churches we attend? Judging by what is written on most blogs and spoken about in common conversation, pretty often, I would say. It is so easy to criticize others and tear them down.  As Christians, we point out the flaws of others easily because we are aware of the standard that God has for us and we notice when others fall short. We also do it to make us feel better about ourselves. We rarely judge others in areas that we are also struggling. If we point out the struggles of others, we invariably feel superior to them. I even see this in people who claim to be tolerant and full of grace. They criticize others mercilessly for being intolerant and legalistic. Our hypocrisy knows no bounds.

I am often guilty of this. I have a prophetic edge to my thinking so it is very easy for me to go from prophetic to critical. If I am not careful, I quickly move to cynicism and bitterness over the things that I see that are not right. Then, the devil gets a foothold in my life and I push God out. It is a pattern that I have seen repeated in my life and it is something that I try to be aware of. But, still, I struggle. So, I say all of what I am about to say as someone who knows the pitfalls of having a critical spirit and as someone who conversely knows the power of encouragement because people have encouraged me.

Hebrews 3:13 and 10:25 tells us to encourage one another. The King James uses the word "exhort." This word is parakleo in the Greek and it means to invite, invoke, beseech, call for, comfort, desire, and entreat.  The context for these verses is that when we encourage one another, we will keep our hearts from being hardened by sin (3:13) and that we will spur one another on to love and good deeds (10:25). When we encourage one another, we are not just slapping each other on the back and saying that everything we do is good. This is not self-esteem therapy that I am talking about. We are exhorting one another to be what God has created us to be. We are calling out of one another what God has placed within us. We are calling each other up into God's purpose for our lives.  We are building up instead of tearing down.

Ephesians 4:29-30 says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Unwholesome talk would be talk laced with bitterness and anger. It would be speech that tore others down in criticism. There might even be truth to what is being said, but the truth is being used in a way to tear down and destroy. This grieves the Holy Spirit. How many of us do this in our relationships? How many marriages are being destroyed because husbands and wives cannot stop pointing out what is wrong with the other? How many ministries are being destroyed because people cannot stop criticizing one another? How many dreams have been dashed because people exalt themselves by pushing other people down and trampling on what God is doing in their lives? We do all of this because we are insecure and we do not know the power of God.

When we encourage one another, we are engaging in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. A name for the Holy Spirit in the Greek is Parakletos, which means Comforter. This is similar to parakleo, the word for encourage or exhort. In the same way that the Holy Spirit takes from what belongs to Jesus and makes it known to us (John 16:14), so also when we encourage one another, we are calling out what God has placed within us in Christ. Even if we do not see great things in one another, when we encourage one another in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are believing in "the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were" (Romans 4:17). We see things through God's eyes and not our own.

This is the way that Paul ministered. 1 Thessalonians 1:10-12 says, "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into His Kingdom and Glory."  Paul did not deal with the Thessalonians on the basis of their problems, but he encouraged them on the basis of God's call on their lives. With the Philippians he was confident that God, who began a good work in them, would be faithful to carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). Paul saw them through the lense of who Christ was, not through the lense of who the world said that they were. He consistently called them up into what God had for them. We should do the same.

When we encourage/exhort, we engage in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. When we accuse and tear down through our constant criticisms and judgments, we engage in the ministry of Satan, for he is the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10). Satan often accuses us with the truth of the things that we have done wrong, but he leaves out the truth about what Christ has done for us. We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Rev. 12:11). I think that a lot of Satan's work is being done today by Christians who are trying to speak "truth" to others. The truth should always be present, but it should involve love so that people are built up.

Sacrificial love is what makes the difference. Jesus showed us how we are to love one another when He laid down His life for us. We are to imitate Him (Ephesians 5:1-2). When you truly love one another, you will seek the good of the other person. You see them as God sees them in Christ and you will call out the good that Christ has placed within them. You will call them up into what God has for them as they look to Christ. You will encourage them to walk with Jesus and you will believe that God has good things in store for them. You will build up instead of tear down. May we love more radically than ever before and build one another up.

God knows we need this kind of encouragement.

Is a Great Commission Resurgence Possible? Making Disciples in a Consumer's Paradise

How do you call people to forsake all and follow Christ when they are preprogrammed to focus on getting their own perceived needs met? In calling the church to be missional and engage in a Great Commission Resurgence, we are facing some huge obstacles. We, by and large, are not dealing with disciples of Christ that are willing to follow Jesus if just given some motivation, training, and leadership. Rather, we are dealing with Christians that have plunged their roots deep into the soil of consumerism. Choice. Preference. Freedom. Desire. Pleasure. Comfort. Ease. All of this is mixed up together in one big stew and served hot off the stove of the American Church. We call it "Grace" and the "Love of God" and people are eating it up. Instead of being a justified sinner who seeks to be conformed to the image of Christ through taking up our cross and following Jesus, we are causing people to think that their lifestyle, whatever it may be, is justified because God loves them. Change is not necessary because I am loved just like I am. Well, that is true, in a sense, but the real truth is that God loves us too much to leave us like we are. He has better plans for us.

Are we self-focused or Christ-focused?  I think that makes all the difference. If self-focused, then we are only going to do what gives us pleasure and satisfies us. We will seek God so that He will meet our needs. If Christ-focused, then we will follow Jesus because we want to know Him - we have nowhere else to go - and we will be conformed to His image no matter the cost. We seek God because He is worthy and glorious and because He requires our allegiance.

It is difficult to make disciples in a culture where most people's view of spirituality focuses more on self-actualization than self-denial.  Where we, as Christians, have capitulated to that thinking, we are in shape to effectively call people to a missional lifestyle. They have to know the real Jesus for that, not the plastic one.

Skye Jethani in the latest issue of Leadership (Spring '09) says this in his article "Stranded in Neverland": 

Given the extent to which American Christianity has adopted the methodology of consumerism by appealing to and rewarding desires, euphemistically referred to as "felt needs," we shouldn't be surprised at the spiritual immaturity evident in the church. To believe that employing consumer values in the church will produce spiritually mature Christians is delusional thinking akin to expecting a dog to hatch from a chicken's egg.

The problem is that by focusing first and foremost on self, we aim too low and miss God completely. If we try and satisfy ourself, we are limited in our ability to do anything for ourself - it all falls apart. But, if we focus on God, bow before Him, and serve Him alone, then the other things that we put aside to seek Him get taken care of. God does meet our needs, but only as we seek Him first. He is supreme, not us.

Jethani goes on to refer to C.S. Lewis' famous "mud pie in a slum" analogy from The Weight of Glory when he says,

The dilemma posed by consumerism, including the Christian variety, is not the endless manufacturing of deisres, but the temptation to settle for desires far below what we were created for. The forces of marketing have captured our imaginations and convinced us to desire mud pies and sneer at the possibility that even greater pleasures exist. We have been re-programmed to desire immediate satisfaction rather than infinite satisfaction. We do not desire too much, but too little.

Only God can satisfy. He alone is good. When we look to Him for everything, all of our deepest needs are met. When we walk with Him, bondages are loosed, addictions are removed, chains are broken. We become whole and begin to live the way that God intended. As we look to Him day by day and moment by moment, we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and we encounter far more in Christ than we could ever imagine. Consumerism tells us that our deepest pleasures are to be found in this world and in our own ability to acquire them ourselves.  Hmmm. Sounds like Adam and Eve in the Garden, doesn't it? Blaise Pascal talked about the folly of diversion and how we seek to numb the ache of the emptiness of our soul by engaging in trivial diversions to take our minds off things. But, Christ is real. He steps into our hurt, pain, loneliness, and everyone one of our needs and does His work of restoration. That is what the Cross is all about. Healing doesn't always happen the way we want. We have to lay our lives down to experience Him in a meaningful way. But, He is so much better than what this world offers.

A consumer approach to Christianity doesn't work. The problem is, so much of our discipleship models and so many of our churches are based on this fallacy because we went running after the world. If we really call for a Great Commission Resurgence, then how much of the false structure will have to come down?  How much will have to be uprooted and replaced with a simple devotion to Christ?

This will be interesting. Many doubt that it is possible. The only way that it can happen is if we start making disciples again. Or, if we first become a disciple of Christ ourselves.

"Wherever He leads I'll go . . . "

The Gospel is Irrelevant

I started thinking along these lines this evening when I saw a blog post sharing a similar title. The author went a different direction than I did, but I still wanted to give him credit for getting me thinking along these lines. 

The Gospel is the "good news" that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners by becoming sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21).  We have all sinned and have fallen short of God's glory - everyone one of us (Rom. 3:23). Because of this, we are separated from a holy God and there is no way that we can get to Him. The penalty for sin is actually death (Rom. 6:23). God loved us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die in our place so that God's righteous judgment against sin would be carried out, but also so that Jesus could take our place. He was punished for our sin and we were given His righteousness so that we could go free and be reconciled to God. All of this happens by faith in Jesus. We confess our sins to God, believe in Christ as our Savior, turn from our sins, and accept God's forgiveness. We then live for God and not ourselves. The gospel is the good news of what Jesus has done for us. We just respond in faith and repentance.

Through the gospel, Jesus also conquered death, Hell, the powers of evil, and began the work of reconciling the world to Himself. We are saved from judgment and hell through the gospel, but we also live by the power of faith in the gospel - the finished work of Christ - every day of our lives.

But, for some, the gospel is irrelevant.  It is irrelevant if

• You trust in your own strength and ability to live a good life and be acceptable to God on that basis.
• You believe that there are things in this world that will satisfy you more than God will. All acts of sin are ultimately a declaration that that act of sin is more satisfying than God is. Do we really think that our sin can satisfy us more than God? Unfortunately, yes. That is why we choose it. And, this is called idolatry, by the way.
• You think that Jesus is not enough - you need something besides Christ.
• You want to live to please yourself instead of God and others.
• You believe that there are steps that you can take that will ensure personal fulfillment or satisfaction apart from dependence on Christ alone.
• You are full of pride, spiritual or otherwise.
• You are full of unbelief that God does what He says He will do.
• You think that there are other options for salvation and satisfaction in this life and the life to come.
• You care too much about what others think of you. You live to gain praise from this world.
• Your identity is in superficial things - what you wear, how you look, your wealth, status, friends, or experiences.
• You think that you can manage God and keep Him on a leash to do your bidding, so to speak. You will have no use for the gospel.
• You think that there are things that you must do to earn God's favor.

There are probably a lot more people that I could mention who have no use for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are fit only for this world and not for God. But, this is why Christians need to fully embrace Christ and live differently from the world and hold out the word of life to those who are perishing so that they might hear and believe. I am not saying that we must engage in monastic withdrawal here. I am talking about living according to another truth - a higher truth. We cannot live as the world does and expect God to bless it or expect to draw people to Christ that way. What does light have in common with darkness? We must put aside the values of this world (power, greed, status, lust, grasping, pride, etc.) and crucify our own sinful nature so that we can manifest Christ. We must live "upside-down" from what the world tells us. Only then will the gospel truly be lived out through us as we incarnate Christ through proclamation and our lives.

1 Corinthians 1:18 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."  Amen.  God was most glorified when Jesus hung on the cross, suffering and taking the punishment for our sins. He made a way for us to be restored to God. THAT is the glory of God - the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.  The world does not understand this.  It tells a different story from the gospel. When we think about things the way the world does, the gospel becomes irrelevant to us, even as believers, and we begin to grasp for other things. We lose the power of the Holy Spirit. All of that grasping is futile, though, because God will not share His glory with another.

I am convinced that Christ is all that matters. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:2, "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Every truth about God flows from the truth about the crucifixion of Christ. The Holy Spirit takes from what belongs to Jesus and makes it known to us (John 16:14).  He is before all things and in Him, all things hold together (Col. 1:17).  If we look anywhere but Jesus for our strength and satisfaction, then the gospel becomes irrelevant to us and we miss out on the power of God (Romans 1:16).

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus and turn away from trust in everything else.

These truths were shared with me over and over again for the past 4 years by a dear friend of mine who unexpectedly passed away today.  He saw something of the Lord that was amazing and shared it with me. He will truly be missed.  I am grateful.

Inoculated Against the Gospel: Toward a Southern (Bible Belt) Missiology, Pt. 4

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.

  

The Full Meaning of Holiness - It Might Be Different From What You Think

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 Reached a Tipping Point? Toward a Southern Missiology, Part 3

Parts one and two are HERE and HERE.

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.    

The Weakness of a Privatized, Individualistic Gospel: Moving Toward a Southern Missiology , Part 2

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?  

David Fitch in The Great Giveaway says, 

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).

Developing a Missiology for the Bible Belt (the South)

I have been thinking a little about this lately. What does a proper missiology look like in the Bible Belt? Missiology is basically defined as the study of the mandate, message, and mission of the church as it relates to and proclaims the gospel among varying cultures, tribes, peoples, and nations.  Church attendance and participation is falling in the South. Churches are dying. Less people are claiming to be Christian every year. It seems that many in the South have been innoculated against the real gospel because they have just had a taste and they think that what they have experienced is all that there is. Southern Baptist leaders are calling for a Great Commission Resurgence, but much of the rhetoric so far has been a call to try harder and do more evangelism. Considering that fact that the church is having less and less influence in the South and the South is a fairly distinct culture in the United States, what would an appropriate missiology look like for this part of the country?  How do we make full-blown disciples of Christ in a Southern context?

Some questions come to mind:

• Do Christians in the South see our own land as a mission field? Are we aware of our own culture and the barriers and bridges to the gospel that exist in the South? What is unique about the South and it's culture, both good and bad?
• Do we understand the gospel and how to relate the gospel to this culture in a way that produces disciples of Christ and not just cultural Christians?
• How has the gospel that has been preached in the South been different from the gospel preached elsewhere and what were the causes/effects of that difference?
• How has the history of the South affected the churches and the message?
• What affect has the division caused by the sin of racism had on the abiltiy of the church (both white and black) to reach the South for Christ?  How can we address that both theologically and practically? What would it take to begin to see multicultural missional churches spring up all over the South?
• What role have the twin idols of personal preference and consumerism had on the church and the spread of the gospel in the South?
• What does cultural Christianity look like in the South and how has the church fallen captive to it? What have the results been?
• How will the church in the South pass on a vital faith to future generations and reach the native population of this land with the gospel in the future, especially with the widening gap between the Biblical church and culture?

I am surprised that this is not being talked about in our Southern Baptist seminaries or Bible colleges. It seems that our theologians and missiologists do little actual thinking in regard to our current context and how the church is to propel the gospel forward right here at home. I am afraid that the church in the South (the SBC in particular) is facing some difficult days. Are we even thinking about it? Are we giving thought to what it might take to reach a new generation? Are we exegeting our own culture?  In a short amount of time, relatively speaking, we are going to see a great exodus from our churches as the generation that is keeping them open begins to die off. With the South holding the largest concentration of Southern Baptists, what does this mean for our national presence and global missions?

I am convinced that God is speaking to us if we will but listen. There is always hope for a people that truly turns to Him. We must first look within at our own hearts and strengthen what remains. Then, we must come to understand what the gospel really is and what it is actually saying about God, humanity, sin, and redemption. We must take a look at the church and our mission. We must discern critically the culture in which we live. We need to learn to think like missionaries and join God where He is working. It isn't impossible. But, the question remains: have be so bought in to the lies of our culture that we are unable to extricate ourselves from its grip and speak prophetically to it? 

So I ask you: What would a missiology for the South that makes true disciples of Christ and plants missional churches look like?  What would we need to change? 

Baptist Identity and the Witness of the Church, pt. 1

Last Friday I posted an essay that was asking questions about the Baptist position on closed vs. open communion.  Based on the evidence that I have seen, I am leaning toward an open position, which would mean that we should share communion with anyone who has professed faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, even if their baptism is different from ours. I am still questioning this however, because there is an argument for both positions. But, that is where I am leaning. Fortunately for me, if I end up in this position, there are many Southern Baptists who would agree with me and their numbers are growing. Some estimate that a majority, or at least a healthy minority of SBC churches, practice open communion among believers in Christ. 

A comment on that post got me thinking, though. It was by Robin Foster, a pastor from Oklahoma who is an advocate of a theological position called Baptist Identity. Robin has a sincere love for Christ and I have known him for a couple of years now. But, I can't help but take his comments to their logical conclusion and wonder what effect they would have. He says:

Which View of Communion Best Reflects Our Spiritual Unity In Christ?

Over the past few months, there has been a great deal of debate in the Baptist Blogosphere on the issue of Communion. Who can take Communion in Baptist churches? What does the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M) say about this? Concerning Baptism, it says,

Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord's Supper.

Of course, for Baptists, this means that baptism by immersion is a prerequisite to church membership and to partaking of the Lord's Supper.  This would be the view of Close or Closed Communion. Open Communion would declare that any confessing believer in Jesus Christ can take Communion in a Baptist church, although they would not be allowed to join the church until they were baptized by immersion. The more that I study Scripture, the more that I am leaning to the open position, although I am very willing to be persuaded to the "close" or "closed" position. I have written this post to present my questions and emerging position on this subject and to ask for input from others. 

Would You Still Follow Jesus If . . .

Would you still follow Jesus if you lost your job and all your money?

Would you still follow Jesus if you lost your spouse and children or family?

Would you still follow Jesus if your family fell apart and your children rejected the faith?

Would you still follow Jesus if no one liked you and you didn’t have any friends?

Would you still follow Jesus if you weren’t always happy and you struggled with depression?

Would you still follow Jesus if you felt unfulfilled?

Would you still follow Jesus if you were bored?

Would you still follow Jesus if you lost your health and became very ill?

Would you still follow Jesus if none of your dreams were fulfilled?

Would you still follow Jesus if your prayers were not answered the way we wanted them to be?

Would you still follow Jesus if everything didn’t work out when you obeyed God?

Would you still follow Jesus if you were persecuted for it?

Would you still follow Jesus if it was inconvenient?

                                               

Or, let’s ask another question . . .

                                                                   

Would you still gather with the church if it were inconvenient?

Would you still gather with the church if you lost your job and all your money?

Would you still gather with the church if you went alone?

Would you still gather with the church if it was boring or it did not meet your felt needs?

Would you still gather with the church if the people there were different from you?

Would you still gather with the church if you were sick?

Would you still gather with the church if you had to walk an hour to get there?

Would you still gather with the church if there were people there that you did not like?

Would you still gather with the church if you could not perceive a personal benefit from it?

Would you still gather with the church if you were persecuted for it?

                                                                

There are lots of different ways that we could put this. But, here is my point: Do we follow Christ because we think that by doing so we will have the good life that we have always wanted, or do we follow Christ because He is God and He is worthy of our allegiance? Do we follow Jesus because He is our perceived means to the end of a good life, or do we follow Christ because of who He is?

                                                                                                 

I would submit that if we follow Jesus so that He will bless us and give us a good life, then we are no different from the adherent to the prosperity who puts $10 into the offering plate in the belief that he’ll get $100. I have come to believe that many Baptists and other evangelicals are just as eaten up with the prosperity gospel as the TBN crowd is. We expect other types of blessings besides money, but we’ll take the money if we can get it, I would think.

                                                                                     

I know that many of you have already answered these questions in the affirmative. But, we have to keep reminding ourselves that we believe in Christ and follow Him not because doing so causes everything to work out, but because He is worthy. He is God and He is my Lord. He is the Center, not me. I had to face this realization just this morning when I became very frustrated that something in my life was not working the way I wanted it to and I kept saying to myself that I had followed God and obeyed Him every way I knew. Why were things going so roughly for me? I had fallen back into that old legalistic, quid pro quo trap. Then, in a time with the Lord, He reminded me that I do not follow Him for what I can get out of it or use Him to meet my needs. That is idolatry. Rather, I follow Him because He is God.  He is my reward. He is enough.  My needs are fully met in Him, even if all of those other things do not work out the way that I had originally hoped. Ministry bows at the feet of Jesus. Family bows at the feet of Jesus. My personal life bows at the feet of Jesus. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

                                                                     

Yes, Jesus is enough. I learned that lesson when I almost lost my son to cancer. Apparently, I have to learn it again and again each day because I am foolish and I forget. I praise God for His grace and mercy.

                                                                                              

Jesus is enough.

Too Little Too Late: Baptist Leaders Finally Beginning to Speak Out Against Consumerism

More doom and gloom from Downshoredrift, I'm afraid.  I'm a lot more fun in person, I think. I promise I'll write something funny and trivial soon so that we can amuse ourselves to death as Neil Postman once said, and not have to deal with reality. But, until then . . .

Thomas White from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary writes a scathing editorial against the disease of consumption that has plagued America and especially Christians over the past few decades. Finally. Some of us have been sounding this message for quite some time, but no one listens when your home values are increasing like crazy. We were so intoxicated with our growing wealth that we never realized that it was all a house of sand. We were sitting on top of a bubble that has now burst.

Here are White's comments. I agree with all that he says and commend you to read it:

http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=29952

I do wish, however, that we had had more leaders saying this back in 2004 or 2006 or even early 2008. Apparently, we are only able to understand the dangers of materialism and consumerism when we have lost a lot of money and stuff. But, isn't that just materialism's lament? I mean, if we start harping on the dangers of it only AFTER our 401k and housing values drop, then doesn't that just show how in love with money we really are? The prophet is the one who could question the morality of all this even when things were going well. Of course, no one listens then. Perhaps they will listen now. 

It seems that the Bible should shape us more than the bottom line if Jesus really is Lord. How many of us gave thought to the dangers of consumerism when we were moving to ever trendier neighborhoods in the suburbs or bedroom communities? How many pastors challenged their church members to NOT run off after bigger houses, nicer neighborhoods, and more genteel living? Or, did we just chase the suburbanites with bigger and better megachurches to "meet their needs?" I know that John Piper was saying this mid-decade but few others joined the chorus. Now that everything is falling apart, people are piling on and acting like a bunch of know-it-alls. Me included, so I need to repent of that attitude. 

So, where do we go from here? Obama gave his State of the Union speech tonight and did not say much, as far as I can tell. But, I have been studying and I think that we are headed for complete economic ruin, unless something dramatic changes. The only thing even remotely keeping things stable for the average American right now is the value of the dollar. Many economists are predicting the collapse of the dollar sometime this Spring. If that happens, all bets are off.  I hope that it does not, and if it doesn't, we might be able to weather this storm. But, from all that I am reading, things are about to get REALLY bad. Like, rioting in the streets bad. 

My wife said to me the other day that this world's system is collapsing and at every point that we have attached ourself to the world, we are going to feel enormous pain. She is right. But, every place that we cling to Christ, we will stand. Jesus is not collapsing. His Kingdom is secure and will not be shaken. But, the world will. We are not to let our hearts be troubled. In this world we will have trouble. Trouble is coming, guys. We are going to be facing some very tough times. But, Jesus has overcome the world. He gives peace that surpasses all understanding. 

I am trusting Jesus. I am also frantically trying to get out of debt and I am putting away a couple of weeks of food for my family and to share with others, just in case. That sounds severe, I know, but if the things happen that many experts are predicting, then we will need it. If not, then I have a lot of extra canned goods. No harm there. 

From what I understand, things will be touch and go with the economy over the next few months. We could pull out of this. Or, things could become Great Depression bad. We need to be praying that God would have mercy on us. I also wish that evangelicals would have had just a touch of discernment about this over the past decade instead of just building bigger churches, buying bigger houses, and buying fancier cars.  What if we had been storing up treasures in heaven instead of building bigger storehouses for ourselves?

I am guilty too. I saw things that were wrong but I succumbed to pressure and went along with the world and other Christians because I didn't trust my own judgment and what I saw the Scriptures to be saying. I repent. Never again. Maybe that is what Thomas White and others are doing now too. If so, then I will give them the same grace that I myself need. No matter what we saw or didn't see, however, from this moment on we need to seek God and obey Him. He is our only refuge.  

The Folly of Christless, Gospel-less Preaching

I have told my church on many occasions to "beware of teachings." The Christian, Evangelical world is full of "teachings" that are full of good things, but do not point to Christ. Jesus is not needed for these teachings to be true or have merit. Paul said that he only preached Christ and him crucified. That means that everything that the Apostle Paul taught flowed from the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It should be the same with us, lest we be taken captive by humanistic, empty idolatry.

Matt Chandler is a young pastor from The Village Church (http://hv.thevillagechurch.net/) in Texas that I have learned to appreciate over the last couple of years since I first heard a clip from him on Steve McCoy's blog. Even though I have only heard him a time or two, he left an impact on me when I did. Now I know why: he lives and preaches to exalt Christ alone. Amen to that!  Here is a video of him at the Desiring God pastor's conference.  Michael Spencer (iMonk) posted this and I had to link to it here. Read Michael's post and the resulting comments for some more good commentary on this and watch the video and tell me what you think:

Family Worship and Devotion

This is NOT a post about how spiritual we are or how perfect our kids are. Far from it. I am tempted to not even write this because it could appear that I am trying to say, "Look what we're doing! Look what we're doing!"  Again, that is not the case. Please hear my heart in this. This is also not a post about worshiping the family in case the title is confusing. May it never be.

Fellow bloggers Joe Thorn and Steve McCoy have written about this for some time. I just saw a post by Dr. Jim Hamilton on Russell Moore's blog about this as well and I wanted to point to it: http://www.russellmoore.com/index.php/2009/01/06/family-worship-in-2009/ .

If you have kids, I would really encourage you to take some time each morning and/or evening to spend with them in the Word of God and in prayer. We have always prayed with our kids every morning and night and the 20 minutes that I take them to school has been a time of talking through issues, prayer, and listening to a message together on the radio. We also do a ton of "as you go" type instruction during the day. Lately, we have also started going through a book of family devotions by Josh McDowell each evening.  The kids are loving it and can't wait to do it each evening. Kieran, my 5 year old is in charge of the book and he always runs and gets it. It is a very approachable book and it has a scripture passage, a story to illustrate the passage, discussion questions, and a prayer. We adapt it and have great discussions around the scriptures and the topic. God has really been moving in the life of my family through this and I am seeing a greater spiritual sensitivity and desire to know and obey the Lord in my children. Kieran asked about salvation a couple of weeks ago and after some discussion, he prayed to receive Christ. He was incredibly sincere about it and really seems to understand. 

I honestly do not know a busier family than my own. We try and limit activities, but being the pastor of a church of around 250 with no other full time staff and being the father of four kids has me out doing something just about every night of the week. We hit the ground running early every morning, go all day, and have something just about every night, whether it is getting together with another family, going to an event with the church, attending a school function, or, well, fill in the blank. It never ends. Still, we really make spending time together a top priority. We watch no television before the kids go to bed in the evenings. That really helps. And of course, we also have to put them to bed each night, so inserting this time together the 20 minutes or so before they go to bed has been no problem at all. It has been a huge blessing, actually.

I am still learning how to do this. I make huge mistakes. I am not trying to say that we are some type of an example in perfect discipline when it comes to this. Life is busy and we are always running and there are many families that I can point to that are likely more efficient in how they do this. But, I will tell you that doing this has been a huge blessing and it is something that I am glad is a part of my life. ANY family can take the time together to focus on the Lord and pray for one another no matter how busy you are. Turning off the television is the first step. Being intentional about time spent together is the next step. Honestly, I have the greatest kids and wife that I can imagine, and they are incredibly easy to encourage in this area. God has been good to me.

I guess that I am just writing this to encourage other dads and families to take time to go before the Lord together with your children. Whether it is in prayer, Bible study, and/or discussion, take time to go before the Lord together. Yeah, I said that twice. It bears repeating. You don't have to be a spiritual giant to do it. Just make yourself available. God will bless you in amazing ways when you do!

Consuming Jesus

I have been reading Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Louis Metzger. It is a very provocative read.  Metzger's premise is that white, middle-class, Evangelicals, especially in our pursuit of church growth, have capitulated to consumerism, individualism, and preference and have reinforced the divisions of racialization and classism that the Gospel seeks to tear down. In that, we are actually working against Jesus and the effects of His Gospel by perpetuating walls of division between believers. Instead of making things better, our systems actually make things worse. He takes a specific aim at the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP), which states that churches grow fastest when they are focused on one specific subculture so that those who are targeted will not have to deal with any prejudice. They can come to church and be with people just like them, not upsetting any of their preconceived ideas. This view states that the gospel is the main thing and that we should not deal with social issues. Metzger says that the gospel does deal with social issues however (see Eph. 2:11-18), and that it tears down dividing walls between groups that have been historically divided for one reason or another.

Metzger addresses the preponderance of small groups among contemporary evangelical churches and says that these small groups only make things worse because they are almost solely focused on the personal preference of those attending:

Homogenous churches and care groups can easily - even though inadvertently - promote and preserve middle-class conservative values. Confronting race and class divisions lacks importance when this value and motivation is present implicitly or explicitly; and confronting the problems becomes counterproductive to the main goal of catering to a middle-or upper-middle-class target audience for Christ. Those targeted would quickly lose interest in Christ and that particular church if it were to suddenly gain interest in addressing these issues. However, while the church may gain that group in the short term, it may be found guilty of blaspheming God's name among the gentiles in the long term, as one lay leader said of his own successful church's homgenous ways when awakened to these issues. 

I think that Metzger makes some good points and they are points that I have made before. I am much more hopeful than he is, though. I think that many Evangelicals really do want to follow God and to obey Him. Yes, we are selfish and stubborn. We want comfort and what we think is best for us. But, for a very long time, we have also been told that that is what Christianity is ultimately about - us following God to have a good life, a good marriage, a good family, a good job, prosperity, health, and inner peace. Who would not want all of that? The problem is that those things, while good, have replaced Jesus as our goal and source of life. I think that things are changing, however. I think that many Evangelicals are tired of just getting their needs met. They are seeing that there is more to the Christian life than their own satisfaction or spiritual success as it has been defined by the "teachers." At least I think that they are. I am seeing that transformation occur in our church.

The Gospel tears down dividing walls between believers. It does not just get us into heaven. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom and it announces the reign and rule of God. It is good news and it changes things - turning the world upside down. We have to begin to articulate the message that our salvation is not just about "me and Jesus," but rather, it is so much more. We are saved to be ambassadors for Christ - His representatives in a fallen world. 

I like Metzger's book. It will shake you up on multiple levels. I hope to review more of it as time goes by. This call against consumerism, personal preference, and individualism in the church is getting louder and louder and it is one that we need to heed.