When I was a seminary student at Golden Gate in the late 90's, Erika and I spent months looking for a church where the Bible was taught and believed and where we could engage in ministry with a loving body of believers. We looked for several months and had trouble finding the place that we felt God wanted us to be. We went to a store front church for a few months led by Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi), and ministered to street kids in the Haight-Ashbury on Sunday afternoons. But, that wasn't where we ultimately connected. A friend of mine invited me to First Baptist Church, San Francisco where Jim Higgs was the pastor. Erika and I visited and immediately sensed God's presence and a leading to join with this wonderful church. Two weeks later, Pastor Higgs retired after 17 years or so pastoring the church. We stayed.
Eighteen months later after a long search, FBCSF hired Phil Busbee to be the pastor. He was from Southern California and had served under Thom Wolf at The Church on Brady (now Mosaic). Pastor Phil had a great heart, a focus on Jesus Christ, a love for the city and the nations, a love for people, and rock solid Biblical convictions. He took stands against homosexuality in San Francisco, yet he loved gay people sacrificially. He was a man after God's own heart. He was also an extremely generous and compassionate man. Our daughter, Ashtyn, was dedicated to the Lord by his prayers when she was just a few months old. He blessed us as we left San Francisco and moved to Alabama to minister. I returned to San Francisco on mission trips for during two summers (2000 & 2001) after moving to my current church and he let us stay in the church basement and use the church as a home base. When we visited, he invited me to pray during a service, which was a surprise to me. I was also fortunate to visit with him at a conference that he was speaking at in Seattle in 2005 and we had rich fellowship together.
This past March, I took Ashtyn back to San Francisco on a Daddy-Daughter trip, my first return to San Francisco in 8 years. Of course, we visited First Baptist for their Sunday worship service and I was fortunate to see him one last time. He preached from a stool that he was rolled up to in a wheel chair. Because of diabetes and other health issues, Pastor Phil was very sick and frail at this point. Yet, he spoke of God's love and care for him, even though he did not understand the reasons for everything that was happening to Him. He trusted God and he was passionate for Christ, even as he faced his own decay. I sensed God's presence in that church and during the worship I was greatly moved. Pastor Phil was a leader, a pastor, and a prophet to so many people. Hundreds of seminary students came through First Baptist during the 10 years he pastored there and I know that they are better for it.
When he first came to FBCSF, Pastor Phil preached a series on worship. I'll never forget that. He started his ministry there by teaching us about passionate worship of Christ. He ended his ministry there worshiping Christ and I praise God that that is what he is doing now with the Lord. I can still see him sitting in that wheel chair in March, with his hands lifted praising His King. He will be greatly missed and even though I only sat under his ministry for about a year, I was greatly impacted by his heart for God, his passion for prayer and worship, his missional lifestyle, and his deep love for people.
I am praying for his family and for First Baptist Church, San Francisco.
~ Alan Cross, Golden Gate Alum and member of First Baptist Church, San Francisco 1997-1999.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
It struck me that of the 15 cities, 11 of them were in states that were or have been considered Southern states. If you take out Maryland and Florida, then 7 of the 15 cities were in Southern states. At any rate, Evangelical Christianity, especially of the Baptist variety, is most prevalent in the South. Yet, the South traditionally has the most crime, divorce, alcoholism, and the worst education and social factors in the nation. The states of Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas vie for which state can be last in just about every important social indicator. Here are the cities from the Forbes list:
1. Detroit, Michigan 2. Memphis, Tennessee 3. Miami, Florida 4. Las Vegas, Nevada 5. Stockton, California 6. Orlando, Florida 7. Little Rock, Arkansas 8. Charleston, South Carolina 9. Nashville, Tennessee 10. Baltimore, Maryland 11. New Orleans, Louisiana 12. Baton Rouge, Louisiana 13. West Palm Beach, Florida 14. Charlotte, North Carolina 15. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Christianity has been present in the South for 200 years in a very strong way. Why has it not changed things in a more concrete way? You can say that the legacy of slavery and racism continue to have an effect. You can say that the devastation caused by the Civil War affected the South for a long time (although when you consider how Germany and Japan were destroyed during WWII, that argument falls apart). But, doesn't it make sense that if we lived out our faith, things would be more positive, especially among the African American community? What role do white Southern evangelicals have in this?
Recently, I had a conversation with a white man who bemoaned the state of the schools in Montgomery. He blamed integration and said that things started falling apart because of the blacks. Then, a moment later, he talked about how his Baptist church was dying. I told him that the problems in the schools had nothing to do with skin color and had everything to do with parental involvement, family breakdown, and cultural problems that existed among both poor whites and blacks. He didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. It struck me as interesting that his disparaging remarks about black people would show up in the same conversation that he said that his church was struggling. He did not notice a connection between the two.
Why hasn't our Christianity addressed these things? Do we have nothing to say to our cities? Why don't Christians effectively address crime issues? Why don't we go into neighborhoods that are falling apart and raise up a standard? Why don't we restore schools and rescue young people? Why do we move away to the suburbs or outlying towns whenever things aren't wonderful? Why does racism still exist in our hearts and our churches?
I am not trying to be utopian here. I know that sin exists and that we cannot control people. I am not saying that we can make things perfect. But, if the South cannot become a better place to live for all people because of the Christians who live here and the churches on every corner, then please tell me how we can possibly evangelize anyone? Could it be that the SBC is declining because we have so inoculated people against the gospel by talking the talk but not walking the walk? Why would anyone believe us? Where is our power? Where is the change?
Sometimes, I think that we give in to fear too much. We try to hold on to our own life and we try and make sure that we take care of ourselves. But, God called us to trust Him and engage people. I really struggle to see how we can talk about missions to the world when we won't even engage our own cities effectively. For those that do, keep going. Praise God! You are making a huge impact! But, I am talking about the retreat of the collective whole and the abdication of our responsibility. If we are the light, then why do we complain about the darkness? Why don't we just shine?
Praise God that several churches are addressing this in Montgomery through prayer and action, including a stop the violence campaign and 24/7 prayer. But, so much more is needed. 65% of the 30,000 children in Montgomery's public schools live below the poverty line. That's 19,500 children! Is this not a mission field and a place to live out the implications of the gospel? If we can't do it in our own cities, then why should anyone believe us when we say that Jesus is the answer? If we can do it in our own cities, imagine what the impact would be! What stops us but ourselves?
I am glad that the gospel has power in spite of us. Praise God for grace! But, imagine if we truly lived it out!
Joe Thorn got me thinking about loving my own city. I am not originally from Montgomery. I was born in New Orleans, LA and grew up in South Mississippi. I went to college at Mississippi State University and seminary at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Marin County of the San Francisco Bay Area. I have traveled all over the United States and all over the world. But, I live in Montgomery, Alabama and have done so for almost ten years. Let me tell you what I love about this place:
God sent me here when I was 25 years old - almost a decade ago. I was a fresh seminary graduate, married with one 7 month old daughter. I know that God sent me here and even though I have often wondered if it was time to go, He has reconfirmed that He has me here for a reason again and again. I know that God loves these people because He created them and has a plan for them. I now have 4 children and can say that this has been a good place to raise them.
I love the church I serve, Gateway Baptist. It is made up of people from all over the country who have served with the military (Maxwell/Gunter AFB) and it has a lot of young families and singles. When you think of a Southern Baptist church in Montgomery, AL, you might think of a certain stereotype, but Gateway is really more like the churches that I visited in California than it is like a traditional Southern Baptist church. That has helped us in that we have been able to adapt readily to a changing culture, but it has also hurt us in that we have never quite fit the native culture. That is changing as the culture changes, though, and we are pretty well positioned to reach a lot more people, especially cross-culturally.
Montgomery places a high value on family and children. There are children everywhere. Many parents seem to want to do a good job raising their kids. That is a good thing and it is something that God approves of.
God desires reconiciliation between people in Christ. There are a lot of people in this city who want that. Historically, Montgomery has been a city of racial and socio-economic division. That still exists here, but what better place to bring the Kingdom of God by addressing those divisions? What better place for God to be glorified in that way? This is a place where a problem can become a praise if we don't run away from it.
There are a lot of churches and a lot of Christians in Montgomery. There is a lot of religion here. While a traditional churched culture has drawbacks, it also has a lot of positives. When people really get to know Christ and churches really begin to honor God, much fruit can be produced.
Meat and Three: If there was a dish or cuisine that was featured in this area, it would be the traditional Southern Meat and Three, which consists of a meat and three vegetables, usually with cornbread or a roll. Restaurant's like Martin's, The Farmer's Market, Eastside Grille, and many others feature this type of food and it is pretty tasty. It is an example of how the farm and the rural South is never more than a generation or two removed from this city.
Montgomery is a big, small town. With a population of over 200,000 people and a metro population of over 300,000, Montgomery still has a small town feel to it. It actually feels like one big sprawling suburb. There are lots of things that I don't like about that, but it has its positives too in that housing is affordable and there are lots of great neighborhoods to raise a family in.
Montgomery is becoming more and more diverse. It is the state capitol, has a major military base where every member of the Air Force comes for school through Air University - including many international students, has four universities, and has a major Hyundai plant. People come in and out of this city all the time and more and more ethnic minorities are moving here. This is a great city to reach the nations from and it is also a great city to model a multicultural church in the Deep South.
There are other things, I know, but I will stop there. While there are challenges, there are also many opportunities for God to prove Himself strong and to right some generational wrongs.
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.
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.
I now Twitter. I also Facebook. Is this good or bad? Read my thoughts on making social networking redemptive and tell me what you think about it.
Erika works on me about technology and communication. You would think that she would want be to back off, but instead, she encourages me in it and keeps telling me to move forward in communicating my thoughts. Lots of wives want their husbands to be quiet. Erika tells me to say more. I'm a lucky guy. Anyway, I started my blog a few years ago because I thought that I had some things to say and as a pastor, I thought that I could use it as a teaching tool. It has been far more effective than I ever dreamed. For a long time, I was very content with my blog. Still am, actually. I liked to think things through, write essays, and explore new ideas. My readership is not huge, but I have a few hundred people who regularly check out what I am writing and have had visitors from every country imaginable. So, it has been a good outlet. Like I said, I was totally content.
Then, Facebook came along. I must admit, I am not a huge fan of Facebook. I go there every once in a while and I have enjoyed reconnecting with old friends from the past. I feed my blog into my Facebook page, but I am not one to update with pithy sentences on what kind of cereal I had or how long I was stuck in traffic. You can only read about me being late for a meeting so many times before you realize that I have a tardiness problem. Seriously, it is just too much information. But, everyone was doing it and if everyone is doing it, it must be a good thing, right? I mean, EVERYONE can't be wrong, right? Um, right? Yeah, right. Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more that it seemed like a good idea, at least for the sake of networking and communication, which is pretty important for a pastor. Plus, Erika starts telling me that I've got to get a Facebook page. She got one first and she actually set me up with my page. So, I blame her.
Yes, it is good to connect with people, but it is not good if we reduce all of life to soundbites and pithy sentences that explain little. We lose something when we don't take time to really think about things in depth or we don't care to engage thought on a level more intricate than what can be said in 140 characters. The danger and superficiality of the technology was keeping me from seeing the possible benefit if used wisely. At any rate, for the first time in my life, I felt myself resisting new technology because it seemed strange and unnecessary to me. I am a pretty fluid thinker, but I suddenly realized that I was getting set in my ways.
So, at the continued urging of my wife, I have now joined the Twitter revolution. I use the term "revolution" loosely. There is no social networking Che Guevera leading us to publish every thought that comes into our head, but the way that people connect is being affected by this in a profound way. I do not pretend to be even remotely interesting enough to chronicle the events of my day for the public, but I thought I'd give it a try. I set it up last night along with a changed format on my blog. My Twitter updates will pop up in the upper right hand corner of my blog and they also update my Facebook status. The cool thing is that I can text Twitter updates from my phone so it takes virtually no time at all. I can do it at a red light or waiting in line at the grocery store, if I want. I might end up using this after all. You can subscribe to my Twitter if you want, but I haven't tried that yet. Click on here and follow instructions, I guess.
The more that I think about this, the more that it might be a good thing. I am always thinking about something and it often has to do with where I see God working in the world around me. Now, instead of having to wait and create a blog post once a day or 3-4 times a week, I can pull out my Blackberry and broadcast praises, insights, observations, and things that I am learning and experiencing in the moment. Again, I do not think that my life is all that interesting or that anyone is waiting around to gobble up my latest tweet, but it does organize my thoughts and I have had tons of conversations and connections with people through blogging and Facebook that I would not have normally had. Maybe Twitter will provide the same interaction or more.
Anyway, the whole process can be pretty disingenuous if we are not careful because people rarely write things that do not cast them in a flattering light. The whole social networking experiment has a tendency to cause us to only promote ourselves in the best light possible, which can lead to hypocrisy and vanity, causing us to see ourselves as much more important than we really are as we act as the star of our own life drama, displayed for all the world to see. Spiritually, this can be a very dangerous thing. So, I think that everyone needs to beware of trying to act cool online. For example, if you are going to put a picture of yourself up, make sure that it really looks like the person posting, not you from 10 years ago. As in all things, we must submit ourselves to God and serve and glorify Him in everything.
Will this enhance my pastoring? Perhaps, as long as I am genuine with it and truly reflect what I see God doing in my life, my family, and the world around me. The way I figure it, about half my church is on Facebook. I can send an email to our church and get only one or two responses. Email is so 1999, isn't it? Only a handful of people in my church comment on my blog, even though quite a few read it. Blogging was huge around 2005 but is already fading as a primary means of interacting in Web 2.0. But, I can put something on Facebook and I get comments there and people stop me in the hallways at the church and say something to me about it. Twitter is basically the same, but easier and faster than Facebook and it updates my Facebook page. Facebook is 2008 and Twitter is 2009-10. What's next?
This blog will continue to be my main outlet. It feeds into Facebook and Twitter updates here. It is my creative home and I feel comfortable writing long essays about what interests me. They do need to be shorter - yes, I know. But, I am willing to change and adapt to new technologies, especially if I can use them to give praise to God and chronicle the blessings that He pours into my life through my wife, children, church, and through all of my experiences.
By the way, we're getting a puppy today. HUGE learning experience for the family, but good for the kids. If you had read my last Twitter update, you would know that. :)
We just finished an amazing weekend of worship, reflection on the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ, spending time with family, and looking toward the future. We look backward at what Christ has done so that we can more clearly see our present and so that we can look ahead to the hope that He has for us in Him. Jesus is risen and that means something significant for us today and for our future as well.
On Friday night, our church set aside time to reflect on the sufferings of Christ. We often skip over the suffering so that we can get to the victory, but unless we go to the cross, I don't think that we will be able to really understand the resurrection. We took time to sit in silent prayer and meditation on the Lord and Scripture before the worship started. We did this for about an hour. Then, we sang, prayed, had some Bible study, and took Communion together. One of the songs that particularly touched me was the modern hymn, "How Deep the Father's Love for Us." There is a verse that says,
It was my sin that held him there / Until it was accomplished / His dying breath has brought me life / I know that it is finished.
My sin is what put Jesus on the Cross. He took it from me so that I would be forgiven, be restored to God, be justified, and so that He could bear God's wrath instead of me. He conquered Satan, death, hell, and He fulfilled the Law, nailing it to the Cross - the debt was paid in full. He disarmed the powers and authorities making a public spectacle of them by the Cross. He rescued me from the dominion of darkness and brought me into His Kingdom. Because of what Jesus has done, I can now approach God with freedom and confidence. I can worship by the Spirit of God freely. Through Christ, God is reconciling the world to Himself, making all things new. What a glorious Savior!
Dwayne O'Riley, a man in our church, painted a painting for us during the two and a half hour worship/prayer service of the face of Jesus. He worked on it some more on Saturday and displayed it during the service this morning. Here is a picture from Friday night right before a tornado knocked out the power!
On Saturday, in the spirit of new life and God making all things new, I planted a small garden with the kids. We planted 7 tomato plants and a basil plant. I have tried this a couple of times before and something always went wrong. One year, I placed the plants too close together and they did not bear much fruit. Another year, we had too much rain and the plants grew huge but I didn't get any tomatoes out of them. I love fresh tomatoes. They taste totally different than the store bought variety. Anyway, it was a neat teaching time for the kids too. I don't try and make every little thing that we do have a spiritual application (even though all of life points back to God), but this just seemed to make sense and be very obvious. While we were digging up the ground, we talked about how we needed to have a soft heart toward God and how we needed to be humble before Him. We also talked about being good soil and the parable of the sower and the seed. They were really engaged and could understand a lot better with their hands in the dirt working to prepare the ground for planting. It was great to work with them too. They worked hard and, even though it is a little garden, tending it will be a rich experience this Spring. Here are some pics (Erika took them - I was filthy):
Yes, I know. A VERY small garden. But, it will be fun. If we do it well this year, next year, we're taking half the yard!
Worship on Sunday was great and we had a lot of visitors, although a lot of regulars were gone. Easter is not usually one of our larger services because we have so many young people and young families and they often travel to spend Easter with away with other family. But, we also have a lot of relatives come visit, so it is a different mix than usual. We started the day with a Sunrise Service and then about 25 of us went to eat breakfast together at a local restaurant. Our family made this an Easter tradition about 3 years ago and we just invite people to join us. We had a great time. After this, we went to church and continued to reflect on the great salvation that Christ secured for us. I preached about God's grace and mercy, but also about His justice and wrath. Jesus fully took God's wrath for us and brought us to God. My Mom in Mississippi will likely read this along with other family members, so I'll put up the picture that was taken of the family after worship. What a blessing my wife and children are to me.
Since I'm posting pictures, the following are from last weekend when Erika and I took the kids to some Greek gardens near Montgomery and then went to feed the ducks at a nearby park. There were some ducklings swimming in the pond that made for some amazing pictures, I thought. Enjoy and have a great week knowing and believing that because Christ is risen, He makes all things new!
I hope that you also had a great celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ! God is so good and I see Him at work all around me is so many amazing ways.
One of the major issues in faithfully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in the South is that so many people think that they know all about it when the really don't have a clue. They've prayed the prayer and gotten the T-shirt. Last year, I was volunteering at a big ministry event in our city that was giving out food, health care, and other types of services. I was working in the prayer tent and was asking people if I could pray with them before they got their groceries and went home. There was one lady that I started speaking with and she immediately began to show me disdain. She was looking away, rolling her eyes, and making it obvious that she didn't want to talk with me. I was trying to talk with her some about Christ and she would have none of it. Then, I asked her if I could pray for her and she did not want to. I said, "Well, it is obvious that you do not believe in Jesus, but I will be praying for you." At that point, she perked up, looked at me, and said, "Oh no, I'm a Christian. I go to so-and-so church." Excuse me? She had no interest whatsoever in the things of God, thought praying with me was ridiculous, and wanted to get away from me as fast as possible. I would think that it was me, but I had bathed and was being pretty nice to her. Other people had responded much better throughout the day.
It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to me. I didn't have a problem with that. I do not expect unbelievers to always want to engage in discussion about God. But, what shocked me was that she was fine with her behavior until I assumed that she was not a Christian. Of course she was a Christian, she told me! She attended church. She prayed a prayer. She believed in Jesus (what she believed, I don't know). Isn't that what being a Christian was all about? Why does behavior need to change? Why do I need to love Jesus? Why do I need to obey God? If I am forgiven and all is well, then what difference does anything that I think or do make?
I would submit that instead of really giving people Jesus for who He is, we have actually inoculated people against the power of the gospel. We have given them a little of Jesus - just enough to make them think that they have the real thing, but not enough to bring them to repentance. The gospel that we preach is often a means to the end of our personal happiness and a trip to heaven. Jesus is more than that, but we have reduced Him to a religious afterthought.
The conversation with that woman frightens me. She wasn't just having a bad day. She actually had disdain for any talk about Christ until it appeared to me that she was not a Christian. Being a Christian and going to heaven was far more important to her than following Christ and loving Him. There is something wrong when that happens again and again. What gospel are we preaching? Are we just inoculating people against the real thing? How do we break through this in people's lives?
Matt Chandler, a pastor from Dallas, TX speaks about this at this years Desiring God conference. He makes some great points about the need to separate the gospel from the religion that we so often proclaim and believe. Check it out.
What do you think about when you hear the word, holiness? Obviously, it means to be separate; to be set apart. But, when I think about holiness, invariably, I think about it from a religious perspective. In other words, I think about holiness as the characteristic that I am to achieve if God is going to be pleased with me. I think about what I need to put on if I am to enter into God’s presence, since God is holy. My religious upbringing has taught me to think about what I am to abstain from and what my life is supposed to look like. The whole, “don’t drink, chew, or go with girls that do,” perspective creeps in.Often, when I hear about holiness, I look for a rock to crawl under because my first thoughts, if I am honest, point out how I am not holy.The word itself condemns me and I am undone. Attempts at holiness, however successful I might be in overcoming sin, putting off old behavior, or acting a certain way, always fall short because there is always a new definition of holiness that I am not living up to. I am always falling short of what someone proclaims as “holy.”
I think that we have done the word a great disservice, however. We know that God is holy and we declare Him as such. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty” we sing along with the angels and the multitude from Revelation. God is holy. We know that much. But, what does it mean?Then, you add in that we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:47) and without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14), and we are all undone.
So, what do we do to reconcile all of this?How are we to be holy?Some, have retreated to the monastery.They have built walls around themselves and have completely withdrawn from the world. Their view of holiness is shown by what they are against and by what they disagree with. They focus on the “putting off” of Ephesians 4:22-24 and show their holiness through outward things. Others, focus on justification and God’s grace and the imputed righteousness that comes from faith in Christ.They often do not make it around to actually living like Christ, but that is okay. They aren’t perfect, just forgiven. Both of these views miss the bigger picture of what God’s holiness really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship tells Martin Luther’s journey to true holiness, and I think that it is a story that bears repeating.He says,
When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace. Luther passed through the cloister; he was a monk, and all this was part of the divine plan. Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience. He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life. He had learnt obedience to Christ and to his Church, because only he who is obedient can believe. The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the “religious.”The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc. The monk’s attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. The bottom having thus been knocked out of the religious life, Luther laid hold upon grace. Just as the whole world of monasticism was crashing about him in ruins, he saw God in Christ stretching forth his hand to save. He grasped that hand in faith, believing that “after all, nothing we can do is of any avail, however good a life we live.” The grace which gave itself to him was a costly grace, and it shattered his whole existence. Once more he must leave his nets and follow. The first time was when he entered the monastery, when he had left everything behind except his pious self. This time even that was taken from him. He obeyed the call, not through any merit of his own, but simply through the grace of God. Luther did not hear the word: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” No, Luther had to leave the cloister and go back to the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only a part of the world.
Luther’s return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity. The renunciation he made when he became a monk was child’s play compared with that which he had to make when he returned to the world. Now came the frontal assault. The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world. Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favourable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world. The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one’s daily vocation of life. The conflict between the life of the Christian and the life of the world was thus thrown into the sharpest possible relief. It was a hand-to-hand conflict between the Christian and the world.
Because the monastery was a place that Luther had retreated to justify himself and protect himself from the contaminating evils of the world, it actually became a part of the world system. Everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God is a part of the world system, even if it looks really good on the outside. Luther could only be justified through faith in what Christ had already done for him and he only came to a point of faith in Christ when he quit believing in himself.
But, here is what really strikes me about all of this:For Luther, and for us as well, holiness was not found in the monastery. It was found in engaging the world as an emissary of Christ. When he tried to separate himself from the world through withdrawing, he just demonstrated the world’s ways of self-justification. But, when he died to himself, renounced the world’s ways, and engaged the world for the sake of Christ, he was acting in accordance with holiness. It is all upside down from what we thought, isn’t it?The reason for this is because Christ is holy.Only Christ makes us holy and we are declared righteous only by faith in Jesus. But, that righteousness plays out in and transforms our lives when we are conformed to the image of Christ in our thinking and our behavior. We reflect the image of Christ when we become like Him.What did Jesus do?How did he act?Who did he care about? What moved him with compassion?Holiness is not just a state of declared righteousness that comes from faith, but the outworking of that holiness involves doing what Jesus did.Caring for the sick, the leper, the persecuted, and the downtrodden is holy. Rescuing the sinner is holy. Proclaiming justice to the nations is holy. Dining with tax collectors and prostitutes to show them the Kingdom of God is holy. Forgiving others is holy. Loving your enemies is holy.Everything that looks like Jesus is holy.Holiness is not just putting off certain behaviors.It is that, depending on what those behaviors are, but more than that, it is thinking about things differently and putting on the character of Christ. Humbling yourself before others and serving them is a holy act. We could go on and on. Holiness is not just a state of denial of certain things, it is action that demonstrates the in-breaking Kingdom of God. Holiness means that we live according to the "Otherness" of God apart and separate from this world system. It is a positive action, not just a negative renunciation.
We need more holiness in our churches.We need to put off the old life and see the world differently.Correspondingly, we need to put on the new life, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24).Our evangelicalism became destructive when it promoted a life that affirmed withdrawal from the world for the sake of its truncated conception of holiness. Jesus did not withdraw from the world. He engaged the world and brought healing and redemption as He did the will of the Father in all respects. THAT is holiness and that is what God wants from us.
Instead of feeling condemned by the concept of holiness because I know that I do not measure up to someone’s artificial standard, I now see holiness as being the outworking of God’s character and life in every area.To see the beauty of holiness in a primarily negative (i.e. what we put off) sense is surely an abomination and it is entirely incomplete.But, to see holiness the way that Jesus demonstrates and to know that we have been called to be like Him is amazing, creative, beautiful, and life affirming!It is something that causes me to want to be holy and to violently pursue Christ and lose myself in obedience to Him as He brings restoration to the world!
Has the SBC now reached a tipping point for change and reform from which there is no return?
Alvin Reid, professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary seems to think so. He thinks that we have reached a point of no return when it comes to being aware of the struggles of the SBC and developing a consensus that change is needed. Although my observations are much more limited than his, I am sensing the same thing. Everyone that I talk to in SBC life is finally recognizing that we are facing a catastrophe when it comes to our churches and our future. The population is becoming less and less Christian. Our churches are aging and shrinking. Evangelism is decreasing. Baptisms are declining. The consensus that kept Southern Baptists together has been shredded and churches are trying to figure out what the Convention is really for.
Reid points out a couple of key issues of concern. One is the Cooperative Program. It is not that churches do not want to cooperate, it is that we are all becoming aware of how much money is wasted on non-gospel issues. When I researched a couple of years ago how our CP money was spent, I was shocked. It is all called missions, but much of it has no resemblance to missions whatsoever. Concurrent with the CP travesty is the redundancy in our ministries. How do we justify spending money on local churches, associations, state conventions, and national structures that are all turning out the same things over and over again - in the South, no less? I have no doubt that through some simple restructuring and alignment of ministry focus, we could save tens of millions of dollars a year. It is very difficult for me to heed fundraising appeals when the people asking for money do nothing to make sure that it is spent wisely. I find it ironic that a Convention that is conservative politically and is generally for small government allows itself to be organized for mission by a bloated bureaucracy.
The other issue that Dr. Reid brings up is the future. He says that while those he talks to love the SBC and its gospel heritage, they are way more skeptical about the future. Where are we going? What are we going to be about? How do we engage a culture that is running from Christianity as fast as it can? How do we revitalize our churches? I think that one reason that we are concerned about the future is because we became captive to a larger culture that is also fading into the past and we feel ourselves being carried with it. Southern Baptists after WWII became thoroughly modern. We adapted to assembly line technology and we thought that through systematic programs and management techniques we could build churches that would turn out a consistent product, er, disciple. We expected this culture of efficiency and technology to continue forever. Then, when the full-blown, narcissitic individualism of the 70's, 80's, and 90's hit us, we realized that we must adapt, so we began to cater to a consumer, me-centered culture based on felt needs. We built megachurches and more programs to appeal to a culture that saw the individual and his self-actualization as the focus. As people moved to the cities, churches grew primarily from transfer growth from smaller, more rural churches and became large suburban enterprises. The factors guaranteeing our decline had already set in, but because we had large churches emerging, we didn't notice. In reality, our culture has changed yet again and we are unaware. Time Magazine has a very insightful article this week (The End of Excess) detailing the change from the "bigger is better" mentality to more frugality, conservation, and community. I highly recommend it and I think that the implications of this kind of talk are huge for the future of the church in America and also in the South. In chasing our culture and growing bigger churches, we could not see the decline that was coming because we didn't see that culture was changing and people's desires were changing with it. The churches that we were building in the 80's and 90's would become distasteful to postmoderns and we would never see it coming.
Now, however, the decline is evident for all to see. In 2006, I joined a group of blogging pastors who were calling for reform of the SBC. We could see all of these things happening. The movement gained steam and people began to take notice. The policies on baptism and private prayer language with the IMB catalyzed the movement, but the issues were much deeper than that. Our churches were missionally ineffective and we knew it and we wanted to see change. Then, I watched as the reform movement was hijacked by those who had a vendetta against Dr. Paige Patterson of SWBTS, believing that he was responsible for what ailed the SBC. I was never interested in that and did not participate in the attacks against him. He was not the main problem, no matter how much power he seemed to wield. The problem existed in our own hearts and in the pews of our churches. We were rotting from the ground up and any problems at the top only reflected what had been going on for a long time in our churches. We had stopped following Christ in a missional sense and we were pursuing our own comfort and prosperity just like the larger culture. Replacing Dr. Patterson without addressing the real issues of discipleship only guaranteed a continuance of our problems. Over time, I grew so weary of the political machinations that obscured the real issues of missional ineffectiveness that I withdrew from meaningful discussions about the SBC.
But, articles like the one by Dr. Reid give me hope. I think that we are going to see a much greater decline over the next decade as the dross is removed and lifeless branches are pruned. But, I do believe that a great number of those that are left will turn their eyes to Jesus. If we would focus on Christ, root ourselves in the Word of God, and follow the Spirit, we would not allow ourselves to be captivated by the larger culture. We would heed the prophetic call to return to God and hold out life to a dying world. This can happen and it is happening. We need more Alvin Reid's to speak the truth and point the way. There is hope for the SBC but it will not be found in our strength or our institutions or our plans. It will only be found in abandoning all and following hard after Jesus.
This morning after I dropped the kids off for school and before I went into work, I decided to stop at a local park and spend some time walking and talking to the Lord. It was cool and fog and mist rested in the trees. It reminded me of Northern California weather, so I had to stop and embrace it. I grabbed my ipod to listen to some worship music while I walked, but I realized that my headphones were in my camera case. No music. I was disappointed, but felt the question arise in my soul, "Do I want to be with God or do I want to listen to music?" Sometimes, even worship music can distract us from what God is wanting to say to us. I didn't need music. I got out of the car and straight away stepped into a glorious symphony as Creation was singing its own song. There was a bird singing in a tree right over my car. Suddenly, I realized that my morning walk was going to be full of God revealing Himself to me in unexpected ways through His creation. I was already thinking about things in a different way.
I walked to a stone bridge that traversed a narrows between two ponds. As I looked over the pond from the bridge, I saw turtles swimming in the pond together looking for their morning meal. Birds were diving past me to the pond, chirping and singing all the way. I drive past this park all the time. I never think about the turtles or the birds.
I left the bridge and walked along a path through the park. Trees are just beginning to get their leaves. Wildflowers are growing in the green grass. The cool, misty wind blew across my face and my morning prayers turned to praise and wonder. Just a few moments before, my mind was crammed with the tasks, worries, and stress of the day. Now, all that I could think about was God's beauty displayed in His Creation.
I walked up the hill to a lake that was full of ducks, herrons, geese, and fish. I watched them play, eat, fly around, swim, and fight with one another. A chorus of Creation's Song lifted from the lake to the heavens and I was in awe. Finally, it began to rain. The rain drops fell upon me cool and splashed in the lake and the puddles already on the ground. The whole world seemed alive this morning.
I actually stopped and wrote a poem from what I saw. I haven't written a poem in several years and it is amateurish and simple, but I was glad that I wrote it. It came to me as praise and wonder to the God who made all of this and puts it all on display for us every day, yet we do not stop and notice. We are too busy. So, here it is ~
Creation Sings Its Own Song
Creation sings it's own song Birds calling high in flight Turtles swimming, Flowers blooming Sun rising gives clear sight
A song sung to Creation's Creator Wind blowing across my face Ants building, Water rushing All sing the song of Grace
Creation sings it's own song Apart, separate from the roar of machine Intricate, Weaving, Fallen and Grieving, Yet bursting forth in new life green.
Creation sings its own song, Ducks paddling along the water's banks Fog lifting, lake drifting Singing together their song of thanks
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?
Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. My mind was racing. Finally, I drifted off, but not before I ran through a dozen different subjects. I've been told by friends that I have adult ADD. Maybe so. It would explain a lot. Normally, I write essays for this blog because it is really rewarding for me to lock in on one topic and explore it and I use it as a teaching platform for my church. Today, I'll take you on a random tour of what I'm thinking about in classic, stream-of-consciousness form. Each of these thoughts could be a blogpost all their own and they have been building up in my head. So, I think I'll clean out my brain a little so that I can think more clearly and start over.
I'm going back to India at the end of next month. Around midnight last night, I called Thom Wolf in India and talked with him for awhile. It was almost noon there. He was my professor and intellectual mentor in school back when I lived in San Francisco and he lives in New Delhi. We will go north to the Himalayas and do our normal thing with the ministries there, and then possibly travel with him for a couple of days to the south of India to meet some people doing very interesting things.
I am working through Paul's letter to the Philippians right now in my Bible study and my preaching. I am also writing essays to go along with each topic. Philippians is a great letter to address the "God as a means to an end" syndrome that plagues contemporary Christianity. I am thinking of releasing the essays after I am through with this. It has been really interesting. Today, I am working on one called "Chains" about how Paul volunteered to put himself in less than ideal situations so that the gospel would be spread to others through his life and suffering. Check out Philippians 1:7-14. Am I willing to do the same?
"According to some estimates, Christians in developed Western countries now represent only 37 percent of believers worldwide. As I travel and also read chruch history, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God 'moving' geographically from place to place: from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where He's wanted." ~ Philip Yancey, Finding God in Unexpected Places.
I ran across a fascinating article today on urban development in post-Katrina New Orleans on Newgeography.com by Andres Duany. Duany, of Cuban descent, says that "New Orleans is not among the most haphazard, poorest or misgoverned American cities, but rather the most organized, wealthiest, cleanest, and competently governed of the Caribbean cities." He says that New Orleans is not really an American city at all. Rather, it is a Caribbean city. Jimmy Buffett, after Katrina hit, said that the northern Gulf of Mexico is actually the northern part of the Caribbean, not the Southern part of the U.S. I agree. Being from there, it is different that the rest of the country, and I love it. Totally different way of thinking, worldview, and lifestyle. Maybe this is why Baptists have had so much trouble reaching the Gulf Coast? Hmmm.
My two favorite songs on my ipod right now are "Rocket Man" by Angie Aparo and "A Change is Gonna Come" by Ben Sollee. They are both cover songs, but the music and vocals are really intriguing. If you haven't heard either of these guys, check them out. Here's a live version of "Rocket Man." I think about this when I am travelling too much.
And, Ben Sollee on the cello. Yes, the cello. This is amazing.
This week marks the 3 year anniversary of us finding a lump on Caelan's chest that was a cancerous tumor. It has been a hard three years, but I praise God everyday for His faithfulness. Last night, Erika told me that the little 3 year old girl that my family has been praying for since we saw her at Caelan's last scans died last week. Her name was Cassie. My heart was broken over that. Maybe that is why I keep singing "A Change is Gonna Come." Ben Sollee, covering Sam Cooke, says he doesn't know what's beyond the sky. I do, and more and more each day I pray that God's Kingdom come.
"As heretical as it sounds today, it is probably worth telling Americans that you don't need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality. Coming to the cross means repentance - not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God's drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makovers." Michael Horton, Christless Christianity.
Baseball season is about to start. I really don't like baseball. Too slow for my taste. During the dead of summer, it is almost like there are no sports going on. I'm just waiting for football. Although, our church has formed THREE softball teams with about 50 players and they'll be playing mostly on Monday nights, so I am glad for the fact that a lot of people from our church will be hanging out together and building relationships. Being blind in my right eye caused me to never play baseball because I have no depth perception, so maybe that is why I don't like it. I do plan to play summer league basketball, though.
The groundbreaking for our church's new building is April 5, right before we have a huge neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. We've been reaching a lot of teenagers in our community lately, and God really moved in their lives at a youth retreat that we had this past weekend. Several came to Christ and many more opened their hearts to Jesus. We have also started tutoring, GED classes, and are helping with job placement. God is doing some amazing things. The building is just a tool to help us with this, and it should be finished by October. I'll be very happy.
I keep watching Jon & Kate plus Eight. I don't know why. Erika keeps asking why I stop there when we are watching TV and I have the remote and I told her that I really can't believe how mean Kate is to Jon and I can't fathom how they manage eight kids like that. Wow. It's like a car wreck. I have four kids of my own. Do I really need to watch someone else's stress? Strangely, I'm drawn to it. That, and Clean House, which is about people who live in an unfathomable mess. I guess that it is cathartic to see other people's stress and mess instead of my own. Normally, these shows come on right after we put the kids to bed. Hmmm.
I turned in my taxes yesterday and I'm trying to get some insurance stuff taken care of. It's a pain and seems to be taking forever. Car tags have to be paid on Monday and I'm doing a TV interview tomorrow for a local religious broadcasting station about our work in India. I lump all of that together because it all feels about the same to me - stuff I have to do that I don't like doing. I'm not just trying to be humble about the TV thing either. I HATE stuff like that. Communication should be two-way and interactive with feedback, not captured on a television for people to pick over and misinterpret as they wish. Maybe I'm just insecure.
Books I'm reading right now (they happen to all be "Christian" books, which is not good - I need to vary things up a bit and learn from some other disciplines):
Finding God in Unexpected Places by Philip Yancey - picked it up in the airport last week. Yancey writes essays about where he sees God working in the world. Excellent.
Christless Christianity by Michael Horton - states that the American church has given itself over to an alternative gospel that he calls, therapuetic moralistic deism.
No Place for Truth - Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology by David Wells. This came out about 15 years ago, but it was recommended to me by a friend of mine. It is pretty dense, but a good read. Makes some of the same claims as Horton, but from a historical perspective.
My church is always heavy on my mind and my heart. I graduated from seminary over 9 years ago. I've been the lead pastor of our church for 3 1/2 years. I'm realizing more and more each day that I am not smart enough, talented enough, entertaining enough, or gifted enough to do what needs to be done, no matter how many books I read. God has to work through me. I need Him. I carry the weight of people's struggles pretty intensely. I greatly desire for people to walk with the Lord and to glorify Him and I want our church to hunger after Christ with their whole lives and to reach people who do not know Jesus. But, I am really having to pray about this and release it to the Lord. I can't make anyone do anything. I am completely powerless to make anything happen. God has to do it. I have always known that intellectually. I am learning that emotionally and spiritually and it isn't easy, believe it or not.
Ashtyn has started soccer.
I have great kids and an amazing wife who listens to me go on and on about everything that I am thinking about. She is really patient and she always gives me great feedback. I do not deserve her, and I'm not just saying that because it is what I am expected to say. She's really something. She texted me two days ago and said that we should go on the mission trip with the youth group this summer. I told her that I agreed. Not many mother's of four kids would do that.
My city, Montgomery, just elected a new mayor in a special election a couple of weeks ago. In his election night interview, he said that he hoped that he would "rule" well. Rule #1 in American politics: Never tell the people that you plan to "rule" them. It doesn't sit well in a democracy. Then, he said that he was pushing the inauguration back a week because he was taking his family to the beach. Rule #2: When we are in a severe recession, don't tell the people that just elected you that you would begin to rule, er, serve them, but first, you have to go to the beach. Go to the beach in a few months AFTER you have worked for them for a little while. Wow.
Look, a BUTTERFLY!!!! Sorry, had to get that out. Does anyone ever feel that way? Random as can be.
I've lost 10 pounds in the past two weeks and I don't know how. I guess that I haven't been eating as much. Duh. Stress? Busyness? I don't know, but I'll take it. I could stand to lose a lot more.
Well, that's about it. Not really, but I figure that no one is still reading at this point, so I might as well stop. Believe it or not, engaging in an exercise in complete randomness actually made me feel better. So, I leave you with a picture of my kids that I really love.
God is good, by the way. And, He's always working in every thing. Big, little, important, mundane. God is always at work.
Really, why do we have such a problem ministering in the cities?
My time in San Francisco last week was amazing. Ashtyn and I had a great time together and we will never forget it. I know my daughter much better than I did before and I am incredibly impressed with her. She is unbelievably smart, charming, and interesting. I can't wait to see the woman that she is going to become. An added bonus of our trip was that we got to stay in the home of Eric and Linda Bergquist. Eric is the director of the Page Street Baptist Center in San Francisco and Linda is a church planter strategist for the SF Bay Area with NAMB and the California Baptist State Convention. I knew them back when I was in seminary at GGBTS and they graciously invited Ashtyn and me to stay with them while we did the tourist thing. One of the favorite parts of our day, however, was when we got to sit and Linda and Eric's kitchen table each night and talk about what the Lord was doing in the Bay Area. God is moving.
Churches are being planted as God is placing it on the hearts of individuals and teams to move to the Bay Area. Responsiveness to the gospel is beginning to grow. The San Francisco Bay Area is really like another country and we should treat it as such from a missiological perspective. 6.5 million people live in the Bay Area and every nation in the world is represented. The population is only 2% evangelical Christian. Many are resistent to the gospel, but many are also open, especially among immigrant groups. Unfortunately, there are only 3 SBC churches that are primarily english speaking in the city of San Francisco with it's population of 750,000 people. Linda and Eric and the others working with them are trying to change that.
Ministry in this area is very difficult. Many church planters come and go. However, it is not impossible. More resources and more church planting teams are needed. Really, a great need would be for Christians who can work and support themselves to move out to the Bay Area with an intentional plan to be a part of a church plant. Could we provide theological/missiological training to people who want to move to and work in the Bay Area so that they could help churches grow and reach those communities? Could local associations and state conventions in other parts of America partner with Southern Baptists in the Bay Area? There are SBC associations out there and an SBC seminary along with the state convention, yet not one state convention or local association in AMERICA has a partnership with what Baptists are trying to do in San Francisco. Why is that? Alabama, my state, has 4 million people. We have over 3,000 Southern Baptist churches. We have over 80 local associations. We have a state convention with 66 state missionaries. We keep tens of millions of dollars of our cooperative program money in our state, not to mention the millions upon millions that we keep in our churches to spend on ourselves. Still, the number of Christians in Alabama is DECREASING instead of increasing. Is this a good investment?
However, if we can figure out how to reach cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, etc., then won't we see a change in America as a whole? The Apostle Paul seemed to understand this when he went to the cities of the Roman Empire to establish churches. He knew that if he reached the cities, he would reach the countryside as well. Why don't we do the same?
Southern Baptists struggle in these cities (even though we have seminaries in SF and New Orleans) because we, as a whole, really don't want to be there it seems. We are more comfortable in the suburbs or rural areas where life makes sense to us. We struggle to go cross-cultural because at that point, we have to change. We have to stop thinking about things in ways most comfortable to us and begin to incarnate the gospel, putting ourselves in the shoes of others. We have to sacrifice. We have to admit that life is not all about us and our needs and our desires. This is difficult for Southern Baptists as it is with most Christians. Yet, isn't this what God calls us to?
I fear that America has already succumbed to the homosexual agenda that is so accepted in San Francisco. The battle has been lost, even though we do not see it yet. Public opinion has turned. I truly believe that gay marriage and homosexual rights will be established in America in the very near future. The evangelical church must learn how to minister in this environment or we will be overwhelmed by it. Yelling at homosexuals has not worked. How do we minister to them with the truth of the gospel and the love of Christ? San Francisco is a great place to learn. What would it look like if 10 Southern Baptist associations partnered with Southern Baptists in San Francisco to plant 5 new churches over the next 2-3 years? What if those churches that were planted then began to support other church plants and you brought some more associations or churches on board? Within 10 years, you could possibly see an additional 40-50 churches in the SF Bay Area! That would make a HUGE difference in the spiritual climate of this region that is so important to the future of America culturally, spiritually, and economically.
What if we did the same in New Orleans, LA by partnering with the local association and the seminary there? Many seminary students at NOBTS go there to get an education and then try to get out of the city as quickly as possible. What if we sent some folks there who truly loved New Orleans and its people and weren't just looking to pastor a church somewhere in rural Mississippi? What if we had families move there and partner with church planters sponsored by local associations throughout the South? How different would New Orleans be in just a few years?
What about the great cities of the north? What if a group of churches worked together to support a church plant in New York City? What if state conventions appropriated some of the millions of dollars that they kept from CP giving and put it toward church planting in urban areas in the northeast, led by the believers that were already there? What we we moved to these areas with the idea that we were going to incarnate the gospel into these cultures, we were going to work and build relationships, and we were going to see the Kingdom come?
What if our missions dollars were used more directly for missions instead of for us?
Anyway, those are some thoughts. Now, for some pictures from the trip:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity company Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 45 percent of the world's wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis.
I saw something the other day that said that America's household wealth before all of this started was $55 trillion. In the past 18 months, American families have lost $20 trillion of our wealth. Our investments went south and our home values were overinflated. Now, we are losing our jobs. Some are saying that actual unemployment is around 11% because of all those who have stopped looking.
It seems that Jesus was right. Moth and rust has done its work. When will we learn?
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."Matthew 6:19-21
The sad thing is, so many Christians continue to live conflicted lives, running after the things of this world and ignoring God. My hope is that this crisis will cause us to return to our first love and trust fully in Christ. He is all we have.
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."Matthew 6:24
America is de-Christianizing at a rapid rate. According to the American Religious Identification Survey released today, the percentage of those identifying with Christianity in America dropped from 86% in 1990 to 76% today. 15% say they have no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990. Keep in mind that these are people who, if you asked them what religion they identified with would say, "Christian" or "Muslim." These are not necessarily practicing Christians.
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:
God has a purpose for His Church in all of this if we would but open our eyes and be salt and light. I believe that He has a purpose for the local church that I pastor in our community as people begin to struggle. Isaiah 58 is a guiding passage for me in all of this. Unless my hope is in the Lord, I will not be able to offer hope to others. Unless I am looking to Christ, I will not be able to point others to Christ. We need to be aware of what is happening in our nation and help people trust in Christ instead of what is fading away.
