On How We Do Church

The topic of church and how we ‘do church’ is one that fascinates me. And as those who have been called ‘the church’, it is a topic that demands our highest attention. In most circles and certainly from a historical standpoint, we can see that for many, the ‘church’ is a building where ‘the church’ gathers.

Usually lost in this understanding of ‘church’ is the fact that we as a people are ‘the church’ as opposed to being just a place of brick and mortar. All sorts of fights and disagreements and even movements have been established as a result of this distinctive difference. Besides debates over Regulative Principles of worship the one that comes to mind specifically would be the conviction of many church friends I’ve had over the years who insist on ‘home-churching’ because they are convinced that we don’t need ‘a building’.

Of course they forget the fact that their homes are buildings and in most cases a successful home-church model always outgrows the size of any one particular person’s home size and they inevitably end up renting a place if not weekly at least monthly for gatherings.

For moderns the church is a place where they come to find social networking and pleasures such as a coffeehouse embedded in the sanctuary or a junior softball league sponsored in their backfield. While these are not necessarily evil, many times they simply come at the expense of the gospel where a watered-down Jesus is put on cool t-shirts while the true and living God/Man is mantled into obscurity. A halcyon-inflected materialism gently mediates much of the modern forum causing biblicists to convulse and protest. And so the debate rages on.

Along the same lines of protest come outcries against the Emergent Church movement which tends to find more in common with Oprah and Deepak than with Christ and His church. However, when I read and listen to this debate I find many people talking past each other proving once again that the importance of definitions can never be underestimated. Far too often, anything ‘new’ is posed as ‘wrong’ and anything ‘old’ is labeled as ‘outdated’. This is simply false.

All things must be examined by the light of Scripture to see if they stand. In my opinion the bulk of the Emergent Church movement is the direct result of an overreaction to a stale and dull church that has under-contextualized itself. A church that has been stagnated and stuck in certain idolized centuries while at the same time leaving its doors open to pop-psychology, corporate-like ecclesiastical structures, and a blindness to understanding the rapidly changing culture in which it wishes to minister. Neo-mysticism is now riding the hedge with rampant skeptics and far too many have seen the solution in placating to felt needs and individual whims. The result has been a dismal failure to maintain Scriptural integrity putting much of the truth of God under the hip bus. Why can’t we simply be who we are where He has planted us? Isn’t it possible to stand fast on the timeless truths of Scripture wavering not one inch on the gospel of Christ while at the same time realizing that we are not 17th century Puritans and that our society while exhibiting many of the same personality, is completely different with new and unique challenges?

Surely this is not a compromise but an act of timely wisdom. Being strong on doctrine does not make you boring or indifferent anymore than acknowledging relateability makes you a compromiser. A fear of abandoning doctrinal integrity while maintaining a fear of being out of touch with your culture are really just two firm hands on the same stick.

There are many aspects of revisiting how we ‘do church’ that are good and refreshing. We have been called to challenge and discern all things biblically and so it is a happy journey to rethink. If we believe that the truth of God’s Word never waivers and that men have a tendency to change and stray from that unchanging rule of faith, then periodic examination should be required to make sure that we have not yet, once again, dipped into the hailing of tradition over truth or that we have not put our preferences in higher esteem than they need be.

Below is a clip from Pastor Tim Keller’s TV interview about doing church in an age of skepticism. Enjoy.

Supernaturally Loverific

No matter what we do in our Christian lives as we sojourn through crevice and peak, if it’s not done on the ridge of love - it’s nothing more than an hand-hammered cymbal resounding loudly from the clang of a flesh stick. If we do the most amazing acts of service and yet do not have love in our hearts, we are a gong of nothingness being beaten by empty mallets. No acts of charity or mercy or depths of ministry mean a single drop if they are not based in the purity of Christ-like love.

But what does this love look like? Well, we don’t have to go to a wedding to find out; we can turn to the great letter by Paul to the church in southern Greece any time we want to discover again the character of Christian love. Here’s a snapshot.

Love is patient and kind and not jealous.
Love does not brag and is not arrogant.
Love does not act unbecomingly and it does not seek its own benefits.
Love is not provoked and does not take into account a wrong suffered.
Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness but instead it rejoices in truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
And most of all love never fails.

Based on this definition, I encourage believers to abandon the overused and multi-definitionally dysfunctional word ‘love’ when thinking about the royal law of Christ and in its place use the term “supernaturally loverific“. Love has been clobbered with ambiguous baggage yet “supernaturally loverific” gets us more to the point. It draws us closer to the higher level and call that we’ve been given - to imitate our Savior. When we read this first Corinthians character list it should floor us for it is unimaginably transcendent. Every ounce of this description begs for divine direction. Every particle of this directive shows our holes and cracks. Every part of this call is a pull to a supernatural life that can in no fashion be of this world. We all have the scars and back wounds to prove it.

This is why Christ said that we are to be identified by our love; it is supernaturally given, nurtured, and maintained. It is the encapsulation of the fruit of the Spirit given to us at our new birthday as a free gift from the Godhead. Christ demonstrated what this love looks like while he was here on earth and the Scriptures continue to exhort us towards supernaturally loverific living till the day we pass on to eternity.

The next time you begin to rebuke a friend; remember where your heart should be. The next time you sing a psalm in church; remember the source of all peace. The next time you feed someone who is hungry or discipline your children; remember who laid down his life for you. The next time you do anything; remember love. And not just any type of love, but remember the supernatural affection that should swell within you as a work of Godly renewal in a once-dead existence. Only the elect of God can exhibit such a beautiful life.

May it bathe your words, thoughts, and deeds.

Real Church Growth is the Fruit of the Lips

Many believe that numbers indicate growth when it comes to the church but numerical prowess is never a consideration biblically when God speaks about our success. We never read passages that say, “And the Lord was pleased that their Sunday morning classes were twenty-five percent bigger than the previous quarter. And all of Galilee rejoiced and the people were glad for their goals had been complete.”

Yet, this is exactly the attitude of much of the church today - We are successful if we have lots of people in attendance. It seems that popularity is a virtue and the narrow gate is miles wide. Growth is mainly seen only statistically and is registered by head counts and figures. However, is this the real measure of a church’s growth or have we become accustomed to a statistician’s lie. When was the last time you heard this sort of exchange?

“How goes it?”
“Good, and you?”
“Fine.”
“How’s church?”
“Great, we had several people give public testimony to the power of God in their lives as they are seeing much more of their own weakness and sin and confessing it…”
[insert stunned and confused look here]
“Confessing sin? during service?”
“Yes it was great… and many others have voiced their joy in overcoming anger and bitterness in their lives …free now to be a greater witness to the gospel as a result. We are really growing as a church! And your fellowship?”
[insert continued stunned and confused look here]
“Uh… we had about a hundred in our evening service and the praise band was rocking. Umm… what did you say…people did what?”

Fidelity to the truth of His Word is our anchoring principle in the church as we practice our faith communally. And God constantly exhorts us in Scripture to move forward in our walk and confess our sins one to another as we are conforming to the image of His Son in incremental Christ-likeness.  I’ve always loved testimonies for this very reason.

“Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.” Hebrews 11:15

Nothing is better than hearing about the transforming power of God in a believer’s life and not just at the moment of conversion, but also when it comes to our progressive life of sanctification where we find ourselves changing internally - as we lay aside our old ways and habits and adopt “new man: living. This is real church growth when God’s people learn how to love and love more abundantly.

While there is nothing wrong with great increases in numbers - gauging our growth by adding up how many bodies show up each week has more to do with a marketing mentality than it does with the cause of Christ. We would do well to remember the praises of the apostle Paul as he wrote to the Thessalonians commending them for their work of faith, labor of love, and steadfast hope in the Lord Jesus.  Seeing our brothers and sisters in Christ possess the fruit of the Spirit and watching it increase in their lives as they give testimony and praise to our Father is a great joy!

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.” - 1 Thessalonians 1:2-5

This Sunday in our service we had an extra thirty-five minutes added to our service merely because we had that much testimony to the greatness of God in the renewal of His people. We were truly excited and blessed. What an encouragement to hear of His mighty work among the saints! And no one but Him gets the glory for divine transformation in our hearts.

Give room in your services to testimony time. Let your people publicly rejoice and be glad in their God as they testify to redeemed living. Edification is good medicine.

The GREEN Mandate

Yesterday was Earth Day - A day when hippies from around the world unite in geothermal bliss reminding the world yet again that the sky is not just falling, but that the earth is dying as well. Now I know that not every earth-bug is a hippie and not every environmentally conscience citizen is an alarmist; but there is no doubt that when it comes to the ‘green topic’, nostrils begin to flare and sensibility usually gets beaten with hemp shards so that she can no longer speak.

What I find interesting in this ecological debate is the fact that many Christians are not leading the charge. We who know and understand what God has said should be the biggest and most vocal advocates of the Earth; yet like many things the godless have hijacked the agenda. Believers should be aggressively inventorying catalogs of eco-friendly solutions since God has given us the earth and has committed it to our care as blessed superintendents.

“…Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” - Genesis 1:28

To ’subdue’ and ‘rule over’ in no way indicates destruction, desolation, or pollution. We, and not cattle, are made in the image of God and we, and not lizards or snails or eagles or dogs, are the caretakers of the earth. The problem with the green movement is that it is motivated by a corrupted nature that sees the world upside down - a world where the creatures and the created are worthy of worship and the Creator is relegated into an old woman named Mother Earth.

We know that since the beginning of creation man has clearly seen God’s invisible attributes, eternal power and His divine nature through the very things that He has made. But due to his sin-corrupted nature, man does not give thanks to God for the beauty of the world. Instead, he becomes futile in his understanding and invents endless theories and speculations while declaring that he is wise.

As a result of man’s rejection of God as supreme Creator, man has created all manner of gods and goddesses and altars and shrines and stone temples. Mankind has exchanged the incorruptible image and glory of the true and living God for a plastic banana wrap in religious cellophane. Man has adopted the corruptible image of the creature and worshiped it rather than He. The truth has been exchanged for a lie.

So now we see large demonstrations of green-friendly people who have rejected the One who invented green and the ones who should be the most green somehow end up on the outside. I believe that we have a GREEN mandate, a mandate from God to be good stewards of the earth and we should be the loudest party goers on Earth Day, but not because we celebrate the earth itself. We should be the loudest voice because the earth proclaims the glory of our Father to a world lost in blindness.

The next time you see a green hippie use that moment to testify to the author of green whose intense wonder and glory and beauty and majesty is seen even in a small sprout.

Expelled Excels

“Expelled”, the new documentary starring Ben Stein, is the single most important movie of the decade.

This film exposes the academic elitists for who they really are - bankrupted humanists who apply double-standards to their so-called science while hoping that no one catches their sleight of hand.

The intolerance of the tolerance camp has been exposed. The closing of the ‘open mind; is put on display as those leading the charge against Intelligent Design (ID) are allowed to speak for themselves about their presuppositions, biases, and refusal to allow anything that resembles a Creator to enter into the discussion. Stein’s work sheds light on a fearful secularism that bans any challenge rather than seeking the logic of the facts.

This movie is more than just a film about the need for open discussion though, it shows what is at stake when we allow truth and fact to fall into insignificance.  It has been alarming to see the amount of prejudice and apathy regarding this movie particularly among those who have the most to lose from the entrenchment of the information-controlling juggernauts.  This is exactly the ground that makes evil fertile - ignorance and apathy mixed with a firm dose of pessimism.

Everyone should take the opportunity to see “Expelled” — if nothing else, as a bracing antidote to the atheism-friendly culture of PC liberalism. But it’s far more than that. It’s a spotlight on the arrogance of this movement and its leaders, a spotlight on the choking intolerance of academia, and a spotlight on the ignorance of so many who say so much, yet know so very little. - Brent Bozell

This documentary is required viewing for any one serious about academic freedom, their faith and the future of our schools. And, no, that’s not an exaggeration. See it and you’ll see.

Fiddle Faddle

Supposedly Nero fiddled while Rome burned. There are times when I think we’re just fiddling away as well. Time is vaporized within the redemptive narrative as we find ourselves as points along an historical line. But this time line is not without purpose or reason; it is not the random whim of circumstance. Instead, it is the divinely set course of events in redemptive history whereby the decrees of God are actualized.

Now any sane person would realize quite readily that they really can’t comprehend such a grand scheme, but most have only heard of the goodness. In fact, with the dilution of the gospel becoming a pulpit water sport in our modernity the notion of ‘wrath’ and ‘curse’ and ‘damnation’ are seen as remnants of days gone by when people believed in pitch-forked demons and cancers caused by cantankerous forces of doom.

Be that as it may, the reality of the Day of the Lord does not change. The reality of this world being cursed by God and under His wrath remains true. The reality of the coming judgment of Christ when on the unknown day and hour He will judge the living and the dead in final justice and mercy stays as true today as it was the first day it was revealed through the prophets.

Salvation from God’s wrath is only found by faith in the completed work of Christ by a heart that fully affirms and believes that He and He alone has fulfilled the divine requirements of perfection. I would like to draw your attention to great reminder of this curse and blessing by pointing you to a grandfather in the pulpit - R. C. Sproul.

Listen to this message and drop your fiddle.

“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” 2 Timothy 4:1-2

From Contraband to Teaching Tool

This blog entry comes from an article that I wrote at the request of my friend Brent Thomas who pastors a church in Texas. His blog is topnotch and if you haven’t been to it you need to visit.

I was raised in a moral home, high on religiosity and regulation, but low on gospel. In that traditionally Catholic meadow my musical foundations were developed around a monolithic console stereo with a turntable and an eight-track tape player that belted out everything from Carole King and Stevie Wonder to Janis Joplin and Elvis. I can remember sitting on the shag carpet in my add-on den in the suburbs of New Orleans with my back leaning up against the vibrating speakers imagining myself playing in the band and becoming enamored with what I would later find out is called “the groove”.

Years later I would learn to play percussion taking up the drum kit as my mainstay and forming a local band called Fresh Young Minds which became highly popular in the early 90’s around the New Orleans music scene. God converted me during that time translating me from a bitter atheist into a green believer and I no longer pursued music as a profession; however, my love of music has never died. After battling rabid non-beat Gothardites and a stint with radical fundamentalism whereby I almost literally burned about seventy-eight CDs that were not “Christian” enough, I landed in a confused marshland not sure of what to listen to or whether I could even listen to anything at all without feeling guilty or overwhelmed by hyper-analysis.

Fast-forward to the present: I have a wife and four daughters, over a decade in the faith, pastor a local church, and have found a new love for music. I had gotten burned out on the CCM rotations after they seemed to me to be generating more cheese than gold. At some point I also did not believe that I could stomach yet another love song to Jesus that sounded like a sensual ballad from the star struck to lovelorn. And so I began to uncover my old discs and listened to forbidden rock fruits and nibbled on jazz-ensembled nectar and asked myself exactly why it was that I almost burned all of this creativity?

For the first time I saw these songs as gifts rather than enemies. Sure, some were rotten but I quickly found out that even the rotten fruits were good in that they taught me how to think through the volatile topic of music biblically and became examples that I could use in teaching the proper use vs. the improper use of creative talent. I began for the first time to see that I didn’t have to throw the baby out with the proverbial bathwater as it were and could instead take each song on its own merit to see if it had any redeemable qualities. Suddenly my musical acumen was not about castigating an entire musical genre but in taking the opportunity and time to listen, analyze, and learn. Later, I would see the tremendous benefit in applying this approach to my children and their schooling.

I found a great sale on refurbished mp3 players and bought three of them; one for me and one for each of my oldest daughters who are ten and twelve. I loaded our players with a variety of songs and tunes including two albums by Anathallo, some Thelonious Monk, the White Stripes, and a few Verdi arias. Their assignment was to listen to the songs and be ready to discuss them with me. They were armed with notepads and pencils as we sat down in our den listening to a few tunes from the selection on our Bose acoustic wave machine. We discussed dissonance and syncopation and crescendos and dynamics and tone and timbre and harmony and bass and counterpoint and rhythm; every aspect of appreciation. I gave them print outs of the song lyrics and we combed over them biblically to see if their subject and message melded or conflicted with Scripture and we talked more about chord structures and arrangements and whether they even liked the songs at all.

What I discovered is that instead of making a long list of musical do’s and don’ts and tabooed types, we should see music as a tool: a tool to teach our children how to discern for themselves what is worthy of discovery and what is worthy of the trash heap. Far more productive conversations have come from this type of discussion and discourse than from me simply banning certain bands from our home.

Give your children the tools they need to figure things out for themselves and you’ve stimulating their minds to think biblically with a critical eye while equipping them for life. Simply ban, dodge, and restrict their choices and you’ll only end up stirring the flesh.

Agnostic Epistemology or How it is that I know that you don’t know

Go back to Eden and you’ll find that the original agnostic was a snake. He was the bearer of doubt and obfuscation slithering reworded queries to confuse and deceive. God spoke, but did Eve really hear Him correctly? “Oh come now, surely you haven’t heard Him right… you will not die.” And so it was.

Not much has changed since then as one can still see constant attacks against the Word of God even within the ranks of the church herself. Many have decided to eat Wittgensteinian cupcakes for breakfast holding their worldview within the limits of their language while tossing certainty into the mire. In a post-modern drift professing believers increasingly believe that the Word of God is ultimately unknowable and yet knowable enough to be known. This strange position of uncertainty reduces the Scriptures from immovable solidity to a cafeteria cherry pick and when we combine that with an ADD McDonald’s drive-thru approach to ministry, we see it producing a herd of hypersensitive and biblically ignorant Chihuahua sheep who nibble and nip at doctrinal heels while carrying “Meanie!” picket signs.

Certainty in doctrine has become the new arrogance.

“How dare you think that you can know the true meaning of that passage!” Sadly this is not a novel cry. It’s the material and formal sufficiency dance that Romanists like to swing to marrying an Emergent unicycle act where the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. I think Descartes isn’t thinking anymore.

The problem with agnostic epistemology is that it slaughters the perspicuity of divine revelation.

Feelings and personal conviction wear the crown and biblical language itself is being forced into the street in favor of more ‘acceptable’ terminology that will both pacify the believers and lure in the seeker. The problem with all of this of course is that it not only makes a shambles of our epistemology but it slaughters the perspicuity of divine revelation. It puts a higher criteria for being certain than being certain puts on itself. The end result is that we have the very breath of God being shielded. Instead of the ‘Word’ of God we end up with confessionals based upon the ‘Mumble’ of the Lord.

I pray that we will all avoid the temptation to put ourselves above Scripture and resist the urge to adopt a fuzzy epistemology that sends our spiritual food back to the deli so that the cook can have it made to our own liking.

The Heart of Teaching Made Perfect in Known Weakness

“…we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.” 1Thessalonians 2:7-8

Teaching for those who are gifted to teach is easy. If you’re a parent you may not be a good teacher but you are teaching your children whether you know it or not. By default, you teach them what and what not to do and so the spotlight and magnifying glass are readily set before you day and night inspecting and broadcasting your ‘class’ to eager eyes and ears.

Praise God for grace for many times our parent-pods are not exemplary yet He is sufficient for us as family leaders and teachers to aid and supply. While living rightly is our command and our children should see our pursuit of holiness and life of gratitude- it is also good that they see us as real people; real people who struggle like them to do what God requires.

It is good that they see us fail for the last thing in the world we need is for our children to think that we have ‘arrived’ and that we don’t need God’s help through mercy and love and grace each and every day. The same can be said of the pastorate and with our friends. Certainly there should be a level of maturity present in those who lead, but far too often transparency is a commodity reserved for privacy rather than for the profit of all.

Students, no matter who they are, benefit from knowing that not only does their teacher have good qualities and information, but they are also not super-sanctified faultless humans. Everyone battles the flesh. The temptation to prop up the pedestal and make yet another idol is strong, yet as Christ taught us, only “… One is your teacher and you are all brothers…” Matthew 23:8

Concerning his apostolic position, Paul related to the church at Corinth how he had and ongoing pride temptation (as most who are highly gifted do) and he speaks counter-intuitively in 2Corinthians 12:7-10 to the assembly about the greatness of God in Christ seen through the admittance of his weaknesses.

“Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me– to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Crazy, eh? Now this is not a license to sin and merely claim “MESSENGER OF SATAN!” We are to put to death the old man and to live according to the new but realize that part of the new man is proper humility. Humility breeds the right gentleness for the humble man remembers from where he has come. The humble man is in tune with his weaknesses and struggles and embodies an empathetic soul. The humble man teaches with patience and reverence and self-control.

We shouldn’t forget where we have come from as the most miserable of men and yet we should still remember that even on our best day we are far from perfected. Let this sink in to your heart and let the flood of grace send compassion forth in all that you do.

Love people.

The Beauty of an Empty Tomb

Normally when a family member walks into an empty tomb there is distress, sadness and a mad dash to call the authorities. But when we, the members of God’s family see our Savior’s empty grave, we rejoice for why would we seek the living among the dead?

The supernatural validation that authenticates our faith is the resurrection of Christ. It is God’s signature on the canvas of Calvary’s suffering sacrifice. The angel told us to not be afraid for Jesus rose from the dead just as He said he would.

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay” Matthew 28:6

Christ’s resurrection represents the God-head’s conquering victory over sin and death through the foreordination of the Father , the obedience of the Son, and the power of the Spirit. In this redemptive work we find renewal and comfort and a salvation from every affect of sin.

Death has lost its sting and life eternal belongs to us. Mercy has been shown to the undeserved. Grace beyond description has been given to the rebellion. Love is our new signature.

Rejoice in Him always and again I, with the testament of the New Covenant say, “Rejoice!”