Lens Cleanse

Helping Octo-Mom: A Test Case for Wise Mercy in Action

2009-02-12T12:45:00.003-07:00

(Click title for story referred to in this post) Depending on your perspective, this church has done the dumbest thing in the world or done the only possibly right thing in the world in offering childcare for the 14 kids of Nadya Suleman.

Right off the bat this church has modeled a great principle of mercy ministry: Regardless of how you got to where you are, we are to love you in tangible ways that cost us. But this is where wisdom and mercy have to be wedded together. By giving an "in-kind" donation to Ms. Suleman the church has wisely navigated around a possible sucking vortex: mom has some real problems with finances, priorities, entitlement thinking, over-dependence, out of touch thinking. By giving to a tangible need rather than giving dollars to what might seem by some estimates to be a $2.5 million sinkhole, they have me one need without feeding possible idolatries and addictions.

This is the second principle of mercy we see at work: Some help is actually worse than no help at all. (Don't get me started on the President's stimulus package.) The Law of love in both Testaments requires us to see to it that there is food and clothing given to those whose needs come to our attention. Flat screeens, crack, alcohol, and vacations are not needs contrary to our culture of decadant spending and "everybody is an addict" approach to those who struggle. Giving cash will sometimes fuel the ongoing addiction to this spending and self-medicating.

Recently we have faced needs in our church around Christmas time. The mercy ministry provided grocery cards and avoided making sure there was "something under the tree." The celebration of Christmas as our culture celebrates is a huge exercise in missing the point. The Church can give at Christmas in the spirit of Saint Nicholas (the original being a pastor/bishop) and Christ without tempting people to go with the flow of our spendthrift culture during the "holidays."

One interesting thing that comes out in the article is that Ms. Suleman said she had attended this church in the past and that the older kids enjoyed going. A cynic would say that she is trying to look like she is not just on the handout trail and wants to do what is healthy and right for her kids in the spiritual arena. One thing that our deacons and elders have decided to do in light of the "drive by" calls for aid is to request that people attend worship with us and we can talk with them afterward. We are the Body of Christ and we do extend arms and hands of mercy. We also want people to understand that we are more than an agency. We are the agency of Christ which says (1 Cor. 5): be reconciled to God. God has made us firstfuits of a new creation so that we could be ambassadors to those who are trapped by all the entropic forces of the old creation: greed, lust, idolatry, self-sufficiency, rebellion. When they come to church they hear us confess together in various forms "and such were some of us". (1 Cor. 6.11) They hear our story (we are the redeemed covenant people of God), they get to hear the New Creation story of Christ making all things new (which is in every single book of the Bible if you look at it through the lens of Christ), and then we can hear their story of how Christ needs to make them new (all the gritty details of who, when, how much, etc)

Stories of great need and opportunity like this one will be more and more prevalent as we see our culture cut from the moorings of covenant marriage for life and live on what you make We have great opportunities to touch broken people. We have tough challenges to sift through with all the resources of Biblical wisdom and gifted tenderhearted members of the Body of Christ.

Speaking Truth to Power

2009-01-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

Boys 2 Men

2009-01-07T15:47:00.003-07:00

The faith exhibited by wise parents of boys is the faith of a farmer, or a sculptor, or anyone else engaged in the work of shaping unfolding possibilities. It is not the faith of someone waiting around for lightning to strike; it is the faith of someone who looks at the present and sees what it will become - through grace and good works.

Doug Wilson, Future Men, p. 9-10

Without God

2009-01-06T11:18:00.004-07:00

Atheists won't let Evangelicals have all the evangelism fun. The image above is from a bus campaign, mirroring a successful campaign run in the UK and Canada for Alpha, a course examining the Gospel as the reason for meaning in life.

While I was filing today (one of my new year's resolutions) I was watching a lecture by Steven Weinberg, 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics; Professor of Physics & Astronomy, University of Texas
2007 Trotter Lectures at Texas A & M University. Here's the synopsis from iTunes:

The advance of science has contributed to a widespread loss of belief in the existence of a Supreme Being. Dr. Weinberg says those who have lost or are losing this belief then face the problem: How is one to live without God?

The gist of the bus campaign and his talk was: religious people have selfish reasons for being good (we want to go to heaven when we die.) Atheists and scientists have good, altruistic reasons for being good - we like people, because people are all there is and all there ever will be (or a vastly improved version of the good people we are today). We don't have any ulterior motives.

Here is his concluding statement to that effect:

I don't claim that those of us who don't believe in life after death can look forward to the future with the same unanimity as those who have convinced themselves that there is life after death. But there is one other consolation I can offer that gains strength from the weakness of everything else that I have said; and that is, that living without God, we can at least enjoy the knowledge that we haven't chosen our beliefs for their comfort, but we've chosen them in the way most admirable, on the basis of our reason and our experience without wishful thinking.

It seems that Prof. Weinberg's whole argument relies upon wishful thinking. He himself has sacred texts, incontrovertible dictums of authorities, and is motivated by a desire for the facts of God, judgement, and moral accountability to be proved untrue.

This fact of agnostic and atheistic faith is something that Tim Keller handles well in his book The Reason for God. Every human is driven by a religious impulse that causes us to be heavily invested in the truths that we hold to be true, even if we don't name them "beliefs". Keller calls all of us "believers" to speak with truthfulness and charity regarding the things we and others believe, and we can best do this by dealing with these truths as belonging to the realm of belief.

Another great resource in examining the issue of rationality of belief for secular and religious people is Longing to Know by Esther Lightcap Meek.

Do Hard Things

2008-12-30T22:16:00.003-07:00

I've been lazy most of my life. (I was born early but that probably wasn't because of my assertiveness.)

I want to have a godly work ethic and a godly relationship ethic. Both fronts are a tremendous battle for me.

In the teaching and preaching department I have Isaiah and Leviticus on the go. I'm more crazy than gutsy so don't give me too much credit.

I ran across something that I'd like to do with a band of brothers in my church that want to step up and grow and be holy and intellectually rigorous and godly and winsome all at the same time. To that end is this reading plan for reading Calvin's Institutes in a year. I read it in Seminary for a class, but you know how that goes. Here's the link. Let me know how it goes: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2973671/A-Year-through-Calvins-Institutes-1559-b

Here's to a godly, gutsy, glorious 2009, by the grace of God.

Ultimate Intellectual Championships: Hitchens vs. Wilson

2008-12-19T09:11:00.001-07:00

Christ, Christmas, The Creed, Calvin

2008-12-18T10:42:00.003-07:00

My sermon preparation has gotten more enjoyable since I now use Accordance, the premier scholarly bible tool for the Mac. At my fingertips are Hebrew, Greek, John Calvin ($30 upgrade from the base edition), Matthew Henry, NET notes, ESV cross references (free bible unlock with Scholar 8 option).

Here's something neat I found this morning as I studied my passage for Christmas Sunday (just trucking along chapter by chapter in Isaiah. It was next but as usual fits perfectly.)

Is. 33:24 And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

Calvin comments on this verse:

"It is also worthy of observation, that none but the citizens of the Church enjoy this privilege; for, apart from the body of Christ and the fellowship of the godly, there can be no hope of reconciliation with God. Hence, in the Creed we profess to believe in “The Catholic Church and the forgiveness of sins;” for God does not include among the objects of his love any but those whom he reckons among [he members of his only begotten Son, and, in like Immanuel’, does not extend to any who do not belong to his body the free imputation of righteousness. Hence it follows, that strangers who separate themselves from the Church have nothing left for them but to rot amidst their curse. Hence, also, a departure from the Church is an open renouncement of eternal salvation."

Thus, we see that the blessing of being gathered to Christ's people is not to be taken lightly, and should not be shunned as is common among people who struggle to see Church membership in the Scriptures, since they believe the Invisible Church is the only church that matters.

In this Christmas season as we celebrate the advent of Christ, may we join together as the people to whom was promised Jesus, whose name means "He will save his people from their sins."

I'm Fixin' Tuh

2008-12-04T15:13:00.003-07:00

For all you non Southern Americans, the above phrase is pronounced: "I-um Fix-in T-uh" Translated: I am getting ready to do something.

But lately, thanks to the wife, I'm getting more cultured: turning off the TV and reading. Thanks to my Mother-in-Law I am now reading The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien. In an interesting letter to his son Michael, J.R.R. talks about the virtues of preparation but also the dangers of always preparing for the future and never really doing anything useful NOW. I need to heed this advice. I am perpetually in a tizzy preparing for Sunday, which means that I'm missing many redemptive now moments.

Enjoy the quote:

From a letter to Michael Tolkien 6 October 1940

I am very sorry indeed, dear boy, that your Varsity career has been cut in two. It would have been better, if you had been the elder and could have finished before the army took you. But I still hope you will be able to come back again. And certainly you will learn a lot, first! Though in teams of peace we get, perhaps (and naturally and for the purpose rightly), too in engrossed in thinking of everything as a preparation or training or a making one fit - for what? At any minute it is what we are and are doing, not what we plan to be and do that counts.

U2 Christmas

2008-12-02T14:46:00.001-07:00

(HT: Brad Brisco for noting a subtle change of lyrics from the original)

Earth Keeper not Tree Hugger

2008-12-02T14:31:00.003-07:00

(Translation since the image came out crummy: Once discarded in landfill sites, the exposure to sunlight, oxygen and heat will convert the plastic in this bag into water, carbon dioxide (read: plant food), mineral salt and biomass. Like a fallen leaf it will disappear over time and leave no harmful residue in the soil.)

I bought a DVD for the kids the other day and had the bag sitting on my desk. I was glad to see this written at the bottom. I'm always glad for progress in producing consumables that aren't destroying the planet for our children's children's children and reflects a mindfulness of the earth as a trust over which we are placed as managers by our honoured position as imagers of God and his good rule over a good creation.

We are Broken In All Ways

2008-12-01T20:03:00.006-07:00

For several weeks now my Sunday School class has been working through Tim Keller's book, Reasons for God. We have been challenged to be humble but persistent conversation partners with believers of all stripes, since in fact, by creation in God's image we are all worshipers. Biblical Christians can humbly say "This is what I believe. I haven't always believed this, and sometimes what I believe even makes me uncomfortable." Case in point is chapter 3 on the righteousness of God creating hell and sending people there.

This last week we wrestled with some Scriptures, the most stark and jaw dropping one was "God is in heaven and he does whatever he pleases." Even if we would like to play around with philosophical categories and take refuge in some emotionally satisfying untruths, we keep banging up against two realities that leave us speechless: God is righteous in all he does and evil is all around us and is in us. This means that even as we confess biblical truth and wrestle with it intellectually, volitionally, and emotionally, we are saying "I believe God" but with a lump in our throats and a tear in our eye as we groan together with Creation as we await the Renewal of All Things.

All this to say is that we hold onto the promise of "all things new" while we grieve at the brokenness that we contribute to God's world and to the tarnish that we put on God's glory and his glorious created gifts like wine, sex, money, and time.

Along those lines I came across a gripping blog post from Walt Mueller, who runs the Center for Parent and Youth Understanding. Below is a congregational confession of brokenness that he passed along that would be awesome for our churches to pursue sexual holiness together and groan together with those for whom sex is a word that causes them to cringe and run back into the shame that has ruled their lives, either through abuse done to them or abuse that they have done to themselves.

When I got into the office this morning there was a letter on my desk from the Pittsburgh Coalition on Pornography. The back page contained "A Confession for Sexual Brokenness" for use in congregational worship. Because of our shared brokenness, I pass it on to you in it's entirety here:

Suggested introduction by leader: We come now to our time of confession. Christians all over the world recognize the profound harm that pornography and sexual sin are having upon our culture - and upon many of us individually. God says to be free of sin, we must first confess our sin - so in a spirit of humility let us be first to confess our sexual brokenness before God - and we hope and pray that our confession will ignite a revival of God's standards for sexual behavior around the world. So, whether or not you've committed sexual sin or experienced sexual harm or brokenness - or if you would simply like to pray for our sexually broken culture, would you join with me now. . . .

Leader: O Lord our God, today we come before you to confess that in our sinful nature we abuse your gift of sex, which you meant to nurture our marriages with love, pleasure and children. Lord we have made sex an idol in our culture and sometimes in our personal lives as well. Lord, we often allow envy, pride and lust to control our sexual behavior rather than love, fidelity and selflessness.

Congregational Response: I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before thee.

Leader: Lord we confess that sexual sin has left many of us broken. Some of us have failed to keep your standards for love, devotion and purity in our relationships - or in our entertainment choices. Some of us nurture bad habits of lust that keep us from giving ourselves fully to our spouses. Some of us have been scarred by sexual abuse and yearn to forgive and be free from emotional pain. Some of us have developed a sexual addiction that controls our behavior, damaging ourselves and those we love.

Congregational Response: Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Leader: Lord we cry out to you for healing. Please accept our confession of sexual brokenness for ourselves and for our culture as we pray silently to you now. . . . Lord we thank you that you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess our sins to you and to one another.

Congregational Response: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from thy presence, and do not take thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.

Leader: Hear now the good news; a broken and contrite heart the Lord will not despise. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Amen.

(HT: Walt Mueller)

Peace on Earth: Iraq after the Surge

2008-11-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

What if we didn't participate in the Christmas Ratrace?

2008-11-15T16:20:00.001-07:00

2008-10-21T14:10:00.001-06:00

My wonderful wife got blogged by the coolest homeschool math people around.

Hi Tech and Sane Biblical Handling in one post

2008-10-14T22:10:00.002-06:00

A Christian rightly handling the word of truth and RFID technology to facilitate the protection of his family and property. Wow. What a combo. (FAIR WARNING: post includes mild non-cessationist rant and potty mouth comments.)

All of my french knowledge in one video

2008-10-07T19:51:00.000-06:00

Reason for No Posts Recently

2008-10-07T14:03:00.003-06:00

The short answer of why I haven't posted recently is this picture. My buddy John Ferguson is coming to Calgary as a church planter based out of our church as a member of our Session. The basement project I've been mentioning was so John and his wife and 5 kids could stay with us during his candidating and approval by Presbytery and the celebration of our church's 20th anniversary.

We're calling our partnership

We have a new tagline: "Renewed by the Hope of All Things New"

It is our contention based on Isaiah and Revelation and 2 Cor 5 that God wants his new creatures to view their neighbours, themselves, and their cities as the object of God's great goal: a new heavens and a new earth populated by renewed people. We aren't twiddling our thumbs until kingdom come, but being reconciliation ambassadors and agents for God's sake and the city's sake.

Our influences for this project are many:
Congress for New Urbanism (for a Christian vision shaped by this see Eric O. Jacobsen's Sidewalks in the Kingdom or the work of Comment Magazine
Tim Keller on how to be a church for the city
Thomas Chalmers on how the Gospel impacts the unchurched in the parish
A glorious gospel vision sometimes called "postmillenialism", popularized by R.C. Sproul, Gary DeMar (Paradise Restored), and Keith Mathisen
A love for Calgary, a beautiful city that is rich in culture, economic bounty, and natural beauty.

Quote of the Day 7 October

2008-10-07T14:01:00.001-06:00

Vocation/occupation: “The most important lifetime service that he can render
to God in which he would be most difficult to replace.” Gary North, Leviticus

Reaching the Lost, Losing the Reached

2008-08-29T13:53:00.002-06:00

A great symposium on Evangelicalism today over at Touchstone. Michael Horton had the most memorable lines so far:

J. I. Packer once described American Christianity as three thousand miles wide and an inch deep. Although he intended this as a critique, theological and spiritual channel-surfing is now celebrated as a virtue. Surveys reveal that a huge percentage (some studies have it as high as 80 percent) of those reared in Evangelical churches drop out of church by their sophomore year in college.

One thinks of Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. The seed is the Word of God, but the soil is the church, where the covenant becomes a living reality both “for you and your children and for all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself” (Acts 2:39).

I think we have failed to see that emotional summer-camp experiences cannot sustain a robust faith through the trials of real life. So, ironically, while Evangelicalism celebrates reaching the lost, it is losing the reached.

How do you label yourself?

2008-08-29T11:21:00.004-06:00

The wife and I were talking about where I fit in with the brothers at presbytery in terms of the regular subcultures in our denomination (TR, high church, broadly evangelical). (I get more questions now that I've been seen in a clerical collar.) I guess I'm a stew of all the best of all the subcultures (who am I kidding?).

Here are a few descriptors for what they're worth:

1. Small c catholic - I and my denomination and local church aren't the only ones belonging truly to Christ. That's what we affirm in the Creeds. The Presbyterian and Reformed crowd (to which I belong) are dangerously close to tearing out wheat when they think they are tearing out tares. Jesus will get a tap on the shoulder when it's time to do that.

2. Reformed - I'm such a mess because I'm still reforming. My church and your church is too. Hang in there.

3. Missional - Jesus didn't live, die, resurrect and ascend so I could be guilt free and ingrown. He preached the gospel of a kingdom and so must I and then live for that kingdom mission (transformationalist).

4. Covenantal - God works (at least) down to a thousand generations through his visible means of grace building his visible church out of all the nations. As the old saying goes, "We'll be suprised in heaven at who's there and who's not." We call the baptized and unbaptized to Christ, the King, the Lamb, the Firstborn of New Creation. Kiss the Son lest you perish in your way.

5. Postmillenialist - God's church has a glorious future that will bring fruitfulness to his garden before Christ's return. He will make his habitation glorious. I won't live long enough to see it, but I am working towards this biblical goal (Isaiah).

6. Culturally aware - At the core of the imago dei is engaging in "sub-creation" (Tolkien). I like checking out the latest creations in the indie music scene, textile arts, woodworking, technology (repenting of Apple idolatry, thanks Kenneth.), social networking (Facebook, Twitter) (great for this introvert)

7. Crazy white man who doesn't know what not to attempt - I was told by an Asian friend some time ago, "You white people think you can try and do anything. Shouldn't you hire someone to do that?" Case in point: my basement. (Pictures forthcoming)

Old School Missional

2008-08-06T10:49:00.003-06:00

We may be gaining new victories over the devil, the world and the flesh, even while here. Let it be our earnest endeavour to maintain this holy warfare within our breasts; and while we drink freely of the fountain of life, let us not forget to present its waters to that world which is 'dead in trespasses and sins.'

John Urquhart, 30 June 1826

John Urquhart was a 17 year old student at St. Andrews, Scotland, studying under the tutelage of Thomas Chalmers. The good doctor trained young John in teaching Sunday school and would meet with him on Sunday evenings to go over how the lesson went and any room for improvement. During the week they would then go house to house in visitation and preaching the gospel.

As Piggin and Roxburgh note:

There were not enough labourers. So in this same session 'a new system' was tried. The favourably disposed in every corner of the town were asked to allow their neighbours to meet in their homes to hear the Gospel. Sometimes fifty or sixty people attended, many of whom never entered a church. Chalmers had to admit that while not up to his ideal, this scheme was far more effective than 'common preaching', adding in a typical simile: 'It was like carrying about the magnet, and bringing it near to the iron filings.' (pp. 79-80)

"Carrying about the magnet" describes beautifully what our church is attempting to do with our New City Project. We are a small church with no permanent building. We are located mere miles from several large churches and one mega church that attracts people from throughout the whole city. It would literally take millions of dollars and hundreds more people (and stuff) to become a "magnet church." Instead we will be able to mobilize many small magnets to where the unchurched and our church people live. Our Assistant Pastor of Mission John Ferguson will be moving about the city looking to where the "iron filings" are collecting in significant numbers through our small groups that will function like Urquharts Gospel groups. One church in Austin calls these city groups - - groups of Christians living like the City of God welcoming neighbours to hear the hope of all things new in the non-threatening context of homes where the faith is "felt and telt" (to steal from an old Scottish preacher).

We firmly believe that the only way to reach and transform a city of one million plus people is to take the magnet to the shavings, seeing them forgiven, healed and transformed to unite their lives and all of life under the gracious rule of our Saviour King.

If you would like to give to this venture contact me via the comments and I can get you the donation information for your appropriate location (US or Canada).

Poor in Spirit or ADD

2008-07-24T12:02:00.003-06:00

My desk is a mess. My kids are screaming outside my "office" door. I have a lot to do and I don't know what to do next. All this is swirling around me and inside me. If I were to look at this problem materialistically the answers would flood in easily, "Clean your desk. Get some quiet space. Make a to do list."

While doing some reading (How a Man Prays for His Family by John Yates) in a rare moment of quiet I was struck by what my problem and the solution was. Yates was talking about what makes it hard for a man to pray: not objective, the clutter of our minds and demands of our lives that don't make it easy to make space or focus on prayer. And then he pointed me to something so "duh" and obvious. Jesus promised "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

When I don't know what to do or what I want or do next and feel generally fed up with the world and myself, what am I at that moment? Here's a guess, "POOR IN SPIRIT." Since I don't diagnose myself the way Christ does, I will never seek a spiritual solution. I will most likely consult lifehacker.com, wired.com, apple.com downloads for a solution to my cluttered desk and my cluttered mind.

Jesus is the King of my cluttered soul. But I have not trained myself to bow to this King in the middle of the clutter. Here in the mess I am blessed. I must turn to the King and claim my place in the kingdom of heaven that is at work at remaking earth into the shape of heaven's peace and order and joy.

Blogging Bibby - Chapter 1

2008-07-22T11:42:00.002-06:00

The Old Story about What's Happening in the Churches

As I noted in the last post, since we don't really know our neighbours and their faith(s) we settle for media soundbites about the plight of religion in our Canadian culture.

As Bibby notes (p.9),

National Post columnist John Fraser wrote in June 2000: "Religion, as a source of excellent stories of all sorts, is one of two great no-go areas in the contemporary media (universities being the other)." He noted that there are exceptions, "but as a general rule over the past few decades, stories on religion will break into the media only if they are (a)sensational, (b) bizarre, (c) goofy, (d) gee-whiz or (e) contemptuous." Such lack of media attention hardly suggest that Canada's churches have been seen in recent times as institutional heavyweights.

How do we as active believers handle being ingnored by the media? To be honest, when we are doing good work "seen only by the Father in heaven" we might get miffed! Drive by shootings, pedophile youth workers, and murder suicides get all the press. We might look down on self-promoting individuals and churches, but we wouldn't mind being promoted by others. Unfortunately we have bought into a model of influence that focuses on visibility. If kingdom living works more like leaven than a billboard then we should be used to, and embrace, the gracious nature of the infiltration of everyday discipleship and local obedience. On a structural level, we should be praying for and working toward the reformation of press journalism. The "pajamas media" model of blogging is tweaking the hegemony of the MSM (main stream media). A biblical version of this might be called the "overalls model" of visible Christianity. Jesus said for us to be "a city on hill" whose good works would be evident and bring glory to the Father. "Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is near."

Some recent news items have pointed toward the power of relational media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn) to overtake the popularity of a primarily passive activity, TV viewing. The stories that are catching people's notice are now real stories of real people we know and are in close connection to regardless of physical proximity.

Some hard numbers

Membership of Presbyterians in Canada 1871-1966 (p. 11)

1881 117,000
1901 214,000
1921 351,000
1931 181,000
1941 174,000
1951 177,000
1961 201,000
1966 200,000

Protestant Service Attendance, 1945-1985 (p.13)
Percentage of people who attended the previous week
1946 60%
1956 40%
1965 30-35%
1975 25%
1985 30%

Parting Shot

(From Bibby, Fragemented Gods (1987):

For some time now, a highly specialized, consumer-oriented society has been remoulding the gods. Canadians are drawing very selectively on religion, and the dominant religious groups are responding with highly specialized items - isolated beliefs, practices, programs, and professional services, notably weddings and funerals. A religion that speaks to all of personal and social life, pronouncing and, when necessary, denouncing, is largely dead in Canada. Ironically, in trying to get in step with the modern age, organized religion - by dismantling the gods and serving them up piecemeal - is running the risk of becoming increasingly trivial.

Yet the research through the 1980s was pointing to another important finding: people were not dropping out. Some nine in ten were continuing to identify with the predominantly Roman Catholic and Protestant ties of their parents. . . No, people had not dropped out; they were still at home. I noted back then that a student of mine, now my colleague Mary Thompson, summed up the situation well when she wrote on an exam that people were not "dropping out; they were dropping in."

Blogging Bibby - Introduction

2008-07-18T15:25:00.003-06:00

As a favour to my buddy John who is raising funds to join us in reaching a great Canadian city with a great Gospel of a great Christ, I've been reading Reginald Bibby's Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada.

For my American readers, and some of my Canadian ones, I need to introduce Bibby. He is a professor of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge (the first major Canadian city north of the Montana/Alberta border). He serves Canada and her churches in much the same way that George Barna does for the U.S. He is a Baptist believer who is a practitioner and student of Christian faith and practice.

Here's an important passage from his Introduction:

What a difference 40 years makes. Back in the early 1960s, experts who were trying to make sense of religious developments told us that religion in the Western world was in decline, an inevitable result of societies becoming more highly industrialized. The rest of the world would, with increasing industrial development, suffer a similar fate. Science made it difficult for people to think in supernatural terms, while institutional specialization left religion with a limited role to play. Religious organizations themselves were not only saying less and less to society, they were also becoming more and more like society. The overall result was that religion was declining in significance.

Such observations were part of what is known as the theory of secularization. Today the theory has been largely abandoned - - well in advance, incidentally, of the events of September 11, 2001, which poignantly underlined the ongoing presence and importance of religion worldwide. Among those who deserted the secularization ship were people who had helped to popularize the thesis.

I am glad I'm reading Bibby for the main reason that I can speak factually about the actual religious habits of my neighbours. One of the struggles of ministry and living in Canada is that relationships grow slowly like almost everything in this cold climate. Ducking into our garages in 20 below doesn't really help you get to know the stories, much less the beliefs and griefs and hopes of our neighbours. Slapping backs and hoisting brews over the BBQ every year for the 3 short months of summer means that over 5 years you've built 15 months of bridges. Since Bibby has talked to literally thousands of my new compatriots I am all ears and hopeful that I can engage my neighbours more knowledgeably and compassionately.

Retro Geek Awesome Current Tech

2008-07-09T11:46:00.001-06:00

iPod Touch Giveaway

2008-01-02T22:41:00.001-07:00

Go check it out. You could win an iPod touch at the contest held at The Big Bald Blog.

Random Stuffs

2007-10-26T19:52:00.000-06:00

Sorry I've been away so long.

Here's some of my excuses:

Ramping up Fall Christian Education classes.
Presbytery (committee secretary for Missions and Church Planting)
2 year olds birthday
Finishing distance ed class with Paul Trip www.ccef.org
Reading too many blogs, especially the De Regno Christi confab with FV heavyweights
Upgrading to Leopard
Swim lessons with da boys
Session meetings
Hanging out with small group
Cancelled cable but watching DVD's every night from the Library (All Creatures Great and Small)
House is back on

Oh, and just for fun, a little computer nerd humour:

Don't anthropomorphize computers.
They hate that.

For God's Favour and Glory

2007-10-02T10:45:00.000-06:00

"If the affections of the soul are not supremely fixed on God, and if our dominant desire and primary goal is not to possess God's favor and to promote His glory, then we are traitors in revolt against our lawful Sovereign" ~William Wilberforce

Little Kids, Big God, Big Gospel, Big World

2007-09-13T12:11:00.001-06:00

Dear Heathen:

The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be His kingdom. And God is not a man that He should lie nor the son of man that He should repent. And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers, and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples? And soon there will not be a Nation, no, not a space of ground as large as a footstep, that will want a missionary. My sister and myself have, by small self-denials, procured two dollars which are enclosed in this letter to buy tracts and Bibles to teach you.

Archibald Alexander Hodge, and Mary Eliz. Hodge,
Friends of the Heathen.

(June 23, 1833. A letter to the "heathen" from ten-year-old A.A. Hodge and his sister Mary Elizabeth, given to J.R. Eckard, a Princeton Seminary graduate who was to go to Ceylon. Quoted in Princeton Seminary: Faith and learning 1812-1868, v. 1, p. 193).

(HT: Christ Church Moscow Website)

Christ, the youthful Ancient of Days

2007-09-05T12:16:00.000-06:00

This one (Christ) was from the beginning —
who appeared new and was found to be old,
who is ever young, born in the hearts of the saints (Diognetus 11.4)

Theology: Jazz or chamber music

2007-09-04T10:33:00.000-06:00

In my Dynamics of Biblical Change lectures, Paul Tripp used an illustration that shed some light on the TR vs. Federal Vision controversy. With a nod to David Henderson's Culture Shift, he argues that being Biblical means that Scripture and its themes and nature as covenant story (vs. being frustrated with Scripture that it is a poorly organized Systematic Theology text) forms the "time signature" and "key signature" of our lives. In order to be faithful to Scripture and to Scripture's God, we must listen to the time and key signature and then, like a good jazz ensemble, look to the covenant community as we improvise making "covenant jazz" in faithfulness to the formative and authoritative nature of Scripture. If we are arguing over the score instead of making music, we have missed the nature of Scripture and missed the purpose, to make covenantal music to the glory of God and the spread of the kingdom.

The TR crowd is quibbling over an "authoritative" constructed score (read: WCF) while Federal Vision is improvising using the time and key signature of Scripture (read: covenant). The "heresy" of FV is that they are improvising. The "heresy" of the TR's is that they are not making covenant music. They are arguing over the score in a way that abuses the Confession and misses the covenantal story of the Scriptures.

"it's a lifelong song"

2007-09-04T10:24:00.001-06:00

Does Doctrine make us better Disciples or intellectual, combative Dorks?

2007-08-23T15:24:00.001-06:00

I think Kevin Vanhoozer shows the beauty and utility of Doctrine for Discipleship:

"Doctrine gives direction to disciples on the way. Is this direction a matter of metaphysics or morality? It is both; the way of wisdom transcends the dichotomy between a merely theoretical metaphysics and a merely practical morality. The directive theory of doctrine thus requires some reference to reality - call it 'theodramatic correspondence' or 'theodramatic realism' - where reality is defined not merely in terms of God's triune being-in-act. Theology aims at promoting theodramatic correspondence: a way of speaking, thinking and living that is not only 'according to the Scriptures' but a way that is 'according' to the real - God's creative, communicative and recreative activity, as revealed in the history of Jesus Christ."

p. 50, "Once More into the Borderlands: The Way of Wisdom in Philosophy and Theology after the 'Turn to Drama'" in Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology: Reason Meaning, and Experience ed. Kevin Vanhoozer and Martin Warner, Ashgate Publishing, 2007.

I'm back blogging, but nothing serious

2007-08-20T20:06:00.001-06:00

Here's my warm up to blogging. More of substance to follow!

You're The Guns of August!

by Barbara Tuchman

Though you're interested in war, what you really want to know is what
causes war. You're out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they
really are. Nevertheless, you're always living in the past and have a hard time dealing
with what's going on today. You're also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in
the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can
diplomats."

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

A fun idea helping Africa

2007-06-27T11:07:00.000-06:00

Last night we were hanging out with a friend who is in love with Africa and is going back to do missions and development work of some sort.

In today's news, First Lady Laura Bush will be touring an installation of a PlayPump system that uses kids playground equipment to pump clean water from their town well. What an awesome idea.

Click on the picture to read more about this awesome, ingenious project. If you're so inclined you can even financially support this project through the link. (I get no proceeds. Just passing on the info.)

Me and the FV, part deux or For the Love of Pete (UPDATED)

2007-06-26T08:50:00.000-06:00

(FV refers to the Federal Vision, a conversation amongst Reformed believers about the nature of covenant, sanctification, the Church, and the sacraments. To read from all sides of the debate go to www.federal-vision.com)

I didn't make GA this year but watched it via the wonders of technology. I missed the main action of GA this year - the discussion and vote on the FV Committee Report. Unfortunately I'm in the monday morning quarterback position. Well, actually, I was named in the GA paperwork as part of the original committee examining TE Leithart. In my initial post on that experience, a commentor was gagging at the apparent lovefest I was throwing for Peter. He's a dear man and does the whole Christian world a service by his humble and relentless questioning so that we would land firmly on the Scriptures. His use of the Scriptures is miles away from the proof texting of confessions and onto the rich and faithful use of Scripture known as Biblical Theology.

I love Peter, but only as a brother. But the following is a list of what I love more and you can decide if the current PCA or some contributions of biblical theologians line up with where I'm at.

1. Kingdom of God as defining theological centre - - I think the vote on FV at the GA displayed the tacit agreement that justification by faith must be the defining feature of our theology. Yet as true calvinists, we must start with Theology proper and see how creation, fall, redemption, and consummation form the whole of our theology. The FV often handles in a more biblical way the issues of Intra-trinitarian relations and as Calvin says "how the grace of God comes to us" in how justification flows into sanctification. This is why the FV is so keen on ecclesiology: God's rule is reestablished over his people via his grace that shapes a people into the Church and shapes those people into the image of Christ. All the FV men agree on the WSC on justification. TE Leithart's work on Justification is actually more biblical than the Confession, only because it deals with all occurences of the word, versus the narrowed focus on Pauline use of justification. They just press us on sanctification and ecclesiology in ways that keep them from just high fiving each other all the time over justification. The current tone of the PCA on grace and justification, is that we must embrace our justification for spiritual renewal. I agree. But what is the goal of renewal: renewal? No holiness, action, fruit, being the Church, displaying Christ. As Doug Wilson has said in his debates with Lane and RS Clark, why should we freeze frame justification? Let's roll it forward into sanctification and glorification. Let's enjoy the finished work by engaging in the work of grace. As Paul says "I worked harder than all you guys by the power of God that was so powerfully working in me."

2. Catholicity vs. Evangelicism - - I meet with a group of "young turks" every week. Some of them are well read in FV authors. Others are skeptical. I'm somewhere in the middle. We reached a moment of clarity this week as we talked about ecumenicity and the Gospel as we have a bunch of PCA-ers reading a Reformed Baptist and why we line up on some emphases and not on others. One thing that came out is that the PCA is moving in some parts towards a bland evangelicalism. Why is that? We're tired of being seen as wierd by other evangelicals. Isn't that odd, that the faith of the Apostles was viewed as strange, alien, and abhorrent by the world and that was its glorious offense. If we were focusing outwardly we would be dealing with the world and the strange nature of the Gospel as opposed to all other forms of rule at work in the world (hedonism, anarchy, statism, eco-apocalypticism). We're more worried about other Christians and that they freak out when they know we sprinkle babies. FV and others who might go by the name of missional, since they have anchored their practice and theology in a theology of Christ's kingship, they aren't too worried over heartburn over our practices and faith from other Christians. We expect the world to hate us. And we're not so concerned to be invited to Christian parties and drink lemonade and discuss finer points of worship style and which Bible translation. Christ is building his kingdom not managing acrostics, affiliations, voting blocs, etc!

BTW, the one part of the GA feed that I caught made me lose my appetite for GA forever. A resolution was before the floor that all churches be encouraged to fast and pray for the persecuted church. We've prayed for the persecuted church. We even announced a seminar on the persecuted church!! But the debate lasted longer, I'm guessing, than the nature of the role of the confession in our church's life. Celebrate the day for God's sake!!! Fast for a week for God's sake!! But this is not the business of the church to set days for Senior's Day, Left Handed Secretarial Appreciation Day etc. Be the Church rampant people!!

3. Biblical Theology is Confessional Theology This will be short, because it's simple and obvious. Chapter 1 of our confession seems to be saying this in essence "Stop arguing about the confession. Go do Biblical Theology. Not all parts are clear. Bring clarity to the discussion via the discipline of Biblical Theology. Then talk about it in terms of Systematic Theology. Then go do Biblical Theology. Repeat till Jesus comes!" Going beyond the confession is actually the way to be confessional. The way to be married isn't to stand around in a suit and a dress repeating words. Go enjoy your union! Our union with Christ came to us through the word. Our clarity, like our vows, come through creeds and confessions. But we camp out in the Scriptures, just as we must sleep in our marriage bed and live in our family home.

That's my rant. For the love of Christ and his bride. Not for the love of Pete

We've reached the end of The Dangerous Journey

2007-06-24T22:21:00.001-06:00

In the New Year we challenged people at church to read Pilgrim's Progress together. I am more convinced than ever that "the new kind of Christian" cannot improve on the "old kind of Christian" that mastered the Scriptures and was mastered by a "master narrative" that made sense of the junk of life and the calling of muscular, battling holiness that Pilgrim's Progress pictures.

I just finished reading the kid's picture book version with the 3 older boys. There were scary pictures ("why does that monster have fire coming out of the mouth in his stomach?") But we learned the scariest things on Pilgrim's journey were the dreaded short-cuts that turn into "longcuts" as Boy Blogicus reminded us. (Not unlike dad's attempts at saving time avoiding traffic jams and long lights by driving 3 km south and 1 km east.)

Some of the highlights were Giant Despair and his snaggly toothed bride, Diffidence. I had fun doing gravelly voiced Cockney accents for this beautiful couple. Lord Hate-good the unjust judge got some great toffee nosed British accents a la Curse of the Were Rabbit.

What I loved most about this book:

The boys learned that Christian had no armour on his back. Christians only go forward and it is shorter than going backward.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death, as well as the River of Death, is the way for all Christians as they go on to the Celestial City.

The best companions along the Pilgrim Way are Mr. Great Heart, Mr. Valiant at Heart, Hopeful, and Evangelist.

Don't lose the parchment, your passport as you take the narrow way that leads to life.

A Christian imagination fueled by biblical images will outlast the pretend Christian imagination that reads the latest productions of the Christian ghetto.

The Christian life through most of history has been gorey, rich in the company of the covenant community, and taking the kingdom by violence.

Go get the book and prepare the next generation of pilgrims for a valiant and victorious faith.

Why spiritual growth might be harder in the West

2007-05-31T11:05:00.000-06:00

For the last few weeks I've been meeting with a group of up and coming leaders in our church. They are leading a study around John Piper's When I Don't Desire God. In other centuries and on other continents, spiritual growth and multiplication is assumed and visible from the earliest days of Christian life.

We were puzzling over why that is not the case in the West. One brother, from the East who was converted in the West, mused that it was because we were ignorant and unaware of the nature of Biblical Christianity - - struggle, warfare, and growth go together. He really hit the nail on the head when he essentially stated that a call to discipleship and not just to belief is viewd as an addition to the Gospel, only because we have been proclaiming a Gospel that has subtracted all of the hard elements of the Christian life. I responded with the thought that "the Christian life" lived by Christ is normally viewed under the rubric "obedience", when in our Catechism and the Scriptures it is viewed under the rubric "humiliation" and "suffering service." One brother pointed to Job as the model and we chuckled how a PR campaign for the Christian life would look like with Job as the poster child!!

I had a feeling Newbigin would have some helpful insights, and lo and behold, he did:

The most famous and influential statement of the rights of man, however, defines them as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. there is reason to think that what was originally intended was 'public happiness,' that is to saythe happiness that comes from participating as free men and women in the management of public affairs. in practice, however, the pursuit of happiness without this definition came to be seen as the right of all people. Happiness is, of course, a word with multiple meanings. The question, 'what is true happiness?' can only be finally answered on the basis of the answer to another question: What is the chief end of man? But the age of reason had banished teleology from its way of understanding the world, and so 'happiness' had no definition except what each autonomous individual might give it. Moreover, there is a further element of pathos in this idea of the right to the pursuit of happiness. Medieval people believed with great seriousness that final happiness lay on the other side of death. They did not expect it in its fulness on this earth. But the methods of modern science provide no grounds for belief that there is anything beyond death. Hence, the whole freight of human happiness has to be carried in the few short and uncertain years that are allowed to us before death ends it all. The quest for happiness becomes that much more hectic, more fraught with anxiety that it was to the people of the Middle Ages. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, pp. 26-27

Abraham, Job, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and medieval saints had a strong teleology operating. They could look past (e.g. Jesus Heb. 12.2-3) temporary pain/angst/uncertainty because certain things were certain. Perhaps now, we are certain of our entitlement to present victory/joy/satisfaction and uncertain of "the weight of glory." The weight of sufferings is ever near and the weight of glory doesn't register on our scale. The Western scale has been calibrated on the pursuit of happiness rather than a pursuit of persevering, enduring, and saving faith. Maybe that is why we have an anemic and whiney faith.

Hi, my name is Shawn and I'm addicted to the pursuit of happiness.

It's like a filing cabinet in your pants pocket

2007-05-23T16:45:00.000-06:00

Introducing Wallet 2.0

Addictions are as close as your neighbourhood garage sale

2007-05-18T09:39:00.001-06:00

My wonderful wife left me with 2 boys at the soccer field while she went and found a treasure trove of gently used Math U See and saved us about $300. While saving money she found me a new waste of time: Age of Empires III. She bought it for Son #1 and I to play to "learn history" and examine empires from the inside. (Do you like my rationalization?) I do give dear wifey a hard time when she is blogging at 12:45 am. It was at that exact time when she told me to shut down AOEIII. I didn't even realize what time it was.

My answer: "I lost all track of time because I was in the Imperial Age and I just bought two fishing boats and an exploration craft called a Caravel."

The real bonus was that I saved the game and shut the laptop. While I was sleeping my happy little villagers were up 50000 food and 300000 wood. Civilization while you sleep! What a wonderful world. I gulp as I say this "Thank you Microsoft for building a wonderful world."

Ascension Day

2007-05-17T10:15:00.000-06:00

My reading plan this year comes to me via RSS from ESV Devotionals -- Book of Common Prayer:

8:1 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [2]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

This juxtaposition of majesty and meekness, strength and wisdom and baby intellect shows the divine irony of the Incarnation. Jesus' favourite self designation seems to be Son of Man. He is embracing a "lower than the angels" existence though he is Sovereign of the Ages. By this lowering he is able to take the highest place. Because he bows the knee and takes on his vocation as servant of the New Creation, he is able to trule over all Creation and be the head of New Creation.

Last Sunday in preaching on Mark 1, I showed our people how the Christian life is a glory sandwich, since Christ's life was a glory sandwich. We name a sandwich by what's in the middle, not what is on top.

Here's how the sandwich goes together in Mark 1.9-13

Slice of Shame #1: from Nazareth in Galilee. Mark doesn't highlight Christ's shameful birth, but his first 30 shameful years. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Slice of Shame #2: Joins Repentant Confessing Sinners at the Jordan to be baptized by John. Some guys in my discussion group this week asked a question that comes up often: "If John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, what did Jesus have to repent of?" All of the images in the early verses of Mark are controlled powerfully by Isaiah. The wilderness is a spiritual picture and a historical picture of an unrepentant people who are outside the land. Israel after Egypt was in the wilderness because of unbelief and entered the land through YSHUA (Joshua). Isaiah paints a picture of God sending his Spirit so that the wilderness blooms. Repentance prepares the way of the Lord so that times of refreshing can come from on high. Jesus as True Israel, as the True Son called out of Egypt, gets in line with sons who are returning to God and entering into New Creation. As Psalm 8 shows, Jesus comes as Son of Man to take the throne. The path to the throne is from desert humiliation, lifelong humiliation, cursed crucifixion, powerful resurrection, and rightful Ascension to power that we celebrate today 40 days after our Resurrection Celebration.

Glory (the meat in the middle): In beautiful echoes of Isaiah 11, 42, 64, God rends the heavens and comes down upon Christ the dutiful son, the obedient well-pleasing one, who is publicly acclaimed as the Servant upon upon his favour and Spirit rest. Peace on earth and goodwill toward men upon whom his favour rests comes through the One upon whom the Spirit rests. John announces that though he himself baptizes with water, the Coming One will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Here we see that he is anointed with gladness above all his brothers. (Heb. 1) In his humiliation he is exalted. God has anointed his king in the wilderness and empowered him for what's next.

Slice of shame #3: Driven (literally "cast out" same word used of casting out a demon ekballo) by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This will mess with your theology of the Christian life!! The Father by the Spirit drives the Obedient Son into direct combat with the Prince of this World. This shows that Rightful King has come to make war with the Perceived King. But notice where the temptation takes place. Adam was tempted in a garden where there was no hunger and there was intimacy with God. The Second Adam is tempted in a wilderness with wild animals. It's not about environment people!! It's about delight. Just look at your life. How many data/pleasure inputs or options do you have on a per second basis? Yet you are insatiably hungry. The visual and real calories we ingest do not take care of our hunger. We don't delight in these things, yet we desire them all the more. Christ's delight was in his Father. His hunger was in perspective, and so when bread with a catch was offered to him, he feasted on God's promises. This Son was victorious, obedient to the Father.

Punch line: Christ was humiliated for us as Son of Man. Christ took the way of repentance for us, since apart from Christ repentance is impossible for us. Christ received the Spirit for us, to be our Messiah and God's King (Ps. 2, 8). Christ subdues Satan and wild beasts, like Adam never did. All this for us.

This means that if we are to bloom as God's New Creation in the wilderness, in the place of obscurity and shame, we must be in Him. Union with Christ by faith means we rule with him, yet it means in the meanwhile we suffer with him. If your theology of the Christian life is only about glorying in your adoption, you aren't eating the Glory Sandwich. You're doing what my kids do. Throw out the gourmet sourdough bun with butter lettuce, red onions and gourmet trimmings and eat the meat. Christ looked at the crusty sourdough bun of his life and said "My food is to do the will of him who sent me."

So as sent ones who are walking in New Creation as we see it unfold through Christ's reigning and the Spirit's work, we must have him, not just approximate his steps. We must swallow whole his whole person, his whole work, his whole message, and the whole concept of the Kingdom of the New Creation which has him on its throne. Hallelujah he is risen and is reigning and his kingdom shall have no end!!!

Me and the FV

2007-05-16T10:18:00.000-06:00

Me and the Federal Vision

In 2003 I became a member of Pacific Northwest Presbytery of the PCA. The Auburn Avenue controversies were 2 years old. Lo and behold I was on a committee with Peter Leithart! As a member of several Reformed email lists who were spoiling to become a web-linked Inquisition, Leithart's name kept coming up in the inevitable "he reads this, sounds like so and so, so he must be a heretic" discussion that is now coin of the realm in our Reformed circles.

I was in a wonderful and awkward position depending on who you were talking to - - I was within spitting distance of Leithart and we could get him and forever stop this deadly creep of Romanism, sacramentalism, pomo noodling with words, etc. And then I met Peter face to face. There is not a more gentle, servant soul than Peter Leithart. He answers critics with grace. He offered me unfettered access to him and any question I would want to ask him via email or phone or face to face. As I have found out to my chagrin in this and other Presbyterian squabbles: no one was calling him, including me. We were taking him to task and never taking time to understand the brother, his views, and we had acted as if we had known his motives. I apologized to him as a brother and began work in a new way as part of the ad interim committee investigating his views. Our committee report was blasted as being soft on him and passing him as orthodox, as if Leithart was the Trojan horse par excellence.

Granted, Leithart is so smart and we are so crosseyed from concern for the church's purity that sometimes he is hard to understand. Leithart is getting clearer. In a recent response to Sean Lucas' review of Against Christianity, you can see his heart and his tone and begin to hear some of the themes of correction and reformation that Leithart among others seeks to bring to the Reformed Church and the catholic Church he loves so much.

Read and decide for yourself. I'm sure Leithart, though weary of the strife, is still accepting apologies and answering substantive questions.

http://www.leithart.com/archives/003020.php

Dad Gadgets

2007-05-15T13:58:00.000-06:00

The '80's man: power tie and power attitude for enjoying the rewards of Reagan's America.
The 90's man: apologizes for being a man by wearing flowered shirts and listening to Kenny G and Enya and joining sharing groups.
The 00's man: he moisturizes, but he's scruffy, organic, and is a nurturing, empowering individual who uses technology, recycling, herbal remedies and other goodies to be great dad, friend, citizen, earthkeeper, and all around dude.

Gadgets can help dudes be better dads. I wish this was around when I first had kids. (/a>">Watch the flash video to see what this bad boy can do.)

10 years, 2 countries, 4 houses, 4 kids later

2007-05-15T13:17:00.000-06:00

Our 10th anniversary is coming up. I'm reflecting on things more at this milestone, and also feeling the weight of daily parenting, not so much in "let's not screw them up too bad," but in enjoying their uniqueness and wildness sense. We were joking in the car yesterday that my temptation early on as a dad was to dis-engage (depressing events at work/church turned me into a relational zombie). My temptation now is to over engage, asking "Who's hitting the wall? What are you doing? Are you hitting each other?" All dumb questions with 4 boys and a dog in the house. I should just lower the red alert threshold a bit and anticipate total replacement of the drywall in 5+ years and enjoy them in the little (and enraging) moments along the way.

To my wife and to my kids I dedicate the following video, by viral video/internet music star Jonathan Coulton (warning: mild swearing in intro):

Knee Surgery is Over (medical images WARNING)

2007-05-11T09:47:00.000-06:00

It's been a 4 year journey to this day: from those humble days on hands and knees ripping out harvest gold linoleum, jack hammering imported Italian terazzo tiles, and smelling the wonderful popsicle stick aroma of spruce underlayment where I most likely sustained an injury to my knee. At the time they didn't know what was wrong with me. They thought I had a blood clot because of the pain in my joints and tremendous swelling. MRI technicians even worked overtime so they could come and scan me. I was unusual: not a drug user, not a heart patient, and my normally skinny white legs were looking like ball park franks.

A course of steroids and a move to Canada later (to ice my knee - - just joking) I was bopped around to different specialists (sports med docs to the Canada Olympic hockey team) and then the wonderful day of May 10. I'm very comfortable in hospitals as I go and pray with parishioners and friends while they're awaiting surgery or receiving treatment in hospital. But when it's me I get all squidgy inside. I hate the word and concept of stitches and the thought of my insides being exposed to the outside makes me curl my toes and tell Writer Mom where the insurance papers are kept.

After 2 hours of waiting in Day Surgery (quite short by Canadian standards) my name was called. I was wheeled through the bowels of the hospital and arrived at the OR where we were told to wait since they were still cleaning up from the last surgery. (Take your time I'm in no hurry!!) I was finally wheeled in and the IV was started and 4 seconds later I was in dreamland. An hour later I was awake in recovery and ready for pain medication.

As you can see from the picture (what are we looking at anyway?) it looks like there was some messed up stuff in there. I haven't spoken to the doctor yet about what he took out, cleaned up, scraped off, etc. But I'm up walking and feeling pretty good. Thanks for everyone who prayed. God is working through your service of prayer.

And I promise I won't show you my scar.

Toys of my childhood meme

2007-05-04T20:08:00.000-06:00

My dear blogaholic wife tagged me and nagged me to blog about my childhood toys.

My favourite is this one:

Joe has stubbly crew cut hair, plastic speedos, and the coup de grace, lifelike flexible rubber fingers, complete with manly veined hands. Mom made some tacky green leisure suits for when Joe was engaged in more peaceful pursuits like attending the local bible study or walking old ladies across the street.

Perhaps the '70's could be renamed "The Age of Synthetics". While I played with my foam athletic gear, I was wearing Garananimal's and Toughskins, all made of polyester. There was enough carbon based, pollutant heavy, evil oil business supporting materials on the average 5 year old to raise global temperature by 1 degree. Take that Al Gore!! And somehow we slept the sleep of the righteous.

So that (your town here) looks like Heaven

2007-04-26T10:12:00.000-06:00

Through the wonders of the iPod, I've been able to redeem large tracks of time and feed my soul and sharpen my preaching skill.

As I was on my way to some meetings yesterday, I was blessed and sharpened and emboldened by Matt Brown's teaching on Phil. 3 about our citizenship being in heaven. He told us about Philippi and how it was a Roman city built for Roman soldiers and all who were born in that city would become Roman citizens. Pastor Brown reminded us that our citizenship affects how we view our city. Just like the Philippians who were far away from home, built a city that looked like "home", Christians are part of building a city that looks like home.

Check it out for yourself. (sends you to another window and then to iTunes store to download podcast.)

Flames go down in flames

2007-04-23T17:15:00.000-06:00

Too many of these

means no more of this

Don't cry for me!

2007-04-20T08:42:00.000-06:00

O my southern friends and relations, don't cry for me! I get to look at this all the time. Glorious! (in the interest of full disclosure, this is not the view from my 25 storey office. This is the view from my office.)

We are hot!!

2007-04-12T11:09:00.000-06:00

Aren't we a hot couple? We were a hot couple on this day. This was August 2003 in Livermore, California at Wente Vineyards. It was 100 flipping degrees, no joke, that day. It was an exciting day to see our friends Bobby (fellow homebrewer) and Julie (documentary queen) get married. Son #1 was also a ring bearer. It was quite nervewracking to see a two year old careening back and forth down an aisle the length of a football field. We were stifling our urges to run down the aisle after him to keep him on track, but he made it!!

The one interesting thing about the heat was that most of the guests were seated under nice umbrellas during the reception. Except the fair skinned red headed bride and the Lutheran padre all done up in classic black, dog collar included.

We all lived to tell the tale. (Check out Wente wines. They're good!)

(Oh, and Nan you look great in this picture. You'll probably shriek from the next room and then sock me in the arm, but I like you in this picture. I like you. I love you. Don't hurt me!)

Skipped and blurred memories

2007-04-07T13:09:00.000-06:00

I'm terrible about keeping memories during stressful times of life. While this picture was taken we were living with the inlaws, I wasn't pastoring, I was working odd jobs, and life was just plain hard. I had just left a stressful ministry position, made a cross country move, and was really wondering what God had called me to do. I was also in a period of growth/testing/refining about what kind of husband was I going to be - - a strong silent type, a depressed basket case, or a humble leader.

This is son #2 who was a mere 5 months old when we made the trek to the Left Coast into God knows what. I hunted for this picture to "repopulate" my memory banks with this stage of his life that is frankly a blur to me. I love him dearly and he is too loud, too smart, and too fun to forget now!! God has brought us a long way and it's good to remember and "forget none of his benefits."

The Thrill of the Chaste by Dawn Eden

2007-04-05T16:48:00.000-06:00

I'm preparing for a message in our Proverbs series which I'm entitling "Wise Sex." I am obviously going to espouse the biblical perspective, but I will be speaking to them as a married, male husband. We have a growing number of singles in our congregation, and I can speak from experience as a single guy, but obviously quite unprepared in one sense since I've never been a single woman.

Enter Dawn Eden. Dawn was a hipster New Yorker in the music journalism scene, living the Sex and the City lifestyle. Until Christ got a hold of her. Her book is a sassy and delightful call to chastity, in the vein of Lauren Winner's Real Sex Her video below gives the sassy and pointed message that a casual hook-up will have you feeling more lonely and dirty. There is a loneliness to chastity that becomes a godly waiting for God's provision of a mate, that is both harder and easier than settling for just anyone to share your bed on a Friday night.

The Transfiguration according St. Sufjan

2007-04-05T16:35:00.000-06:00

I failed to mention in my previous post that My Brightest Diamond is head cheerleader for Sufjan Stevens and the Illinoisemakers.

Here is Sufjan's telling of the Transfiguration. He is allowed to do such things as he is a graduate of a certain Reformed college in the midwest.

Suprisingly Beautiful and Gripping - My Brightest Diamond remix video

2007-04-05T12:22:00.000-06:00

This video is of a song from My Brightest Diamond which is a new favourite group of mine. From the bio at http://asthmatickitty.com:

My Brightest Diamond is Shara Worden, granddaughter of an Epiphone-playing traveling evangelist, fathered by a National Accordion Champion, and mothered by a church organist. Spanish tango, Sunday morning gospel, classical and jazz were the accompaniment to her home life. Her first song was recorded at age three and by age eight she was studying piano and performing in community musical productions.

Shara honed her musical prowess singing along to Whitney Houston music videos and Mariah Carey albums. When pop music wasn’t enough, she enrolled in the music program at the University of North Texas, immersing herself in the songs of Purcell and Debussy. After college, she moved to New York City and fell in love with its cold winters and busy streets. She continued to study opera on the Upper West Side during the day, but at night she frequented downtown clubs such as Tonic, Knitting Factory, and The Living Room, catching performances by Antony & The Johnsons, Nina Nastasia, and Rebecca Moore. She began to spend less time sight-reading Mozart and more time de-tuning her Gibson electric guitar to play her own newly-written songs. Coaxed out of recital halls and onto the small stages of bars and clubs, Shara assembled a coterie of musicians to accompany her with bass and drums, music boxes, wine glasses, and wind chimes.

In performance she showed unusual versatility, channeling the vocal theatrics of Kate Bush, the soulful seductiveness of Nina Simone and the gothic pop of Portishead. Her infatuation with theater and costumes inspired her to wear superhero capes, ball gowns, or Tudor corsets on stage, depending on her mood. Her deeply personal songs transcended the histrionics of opera; Shara was at last singing about what was closest to her heart. She began to see her own music as the most precious gift she could give to the world — as reflected in her namesake, My Brightest Diamond.

This video reminds me of Vermeer and the Dutch Realists. It also might be a tweak of the left-behind dogma of clothes, dentures, etc. being left behind at the rapture. The singer has an evangelical background that might inform this song. What are your thoughts?

Doing Good for Grace's Sake

2007-04-05T11:26:00.000-06:00

Having come out of a semi-legalistic background and dealing with evangelical folks on a daily basis I have found this little nugget to be true: If legalism is the worst thing, then sometimes obedience will be the last thing. Any mention of discipline, law, effort, or fruit will inevitably raise the question, "Won't that turn us into legalists?"

What turns us into legalists? Is it focusing on good works? Or is it misunderstanding how grace works and that grace works? I think it's the latter.

Let's look together quickly at the Westminster Confession's treatment on Good Works (ch. 16)

I. Good works are only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word,[1] and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention.[2]

1. Micah 6:8; Rom. 12:2; Heb. 13:21
2. Matt. 15:9; Isa. 29:13; I Peter 1:18; John 16:2; Rom. 10:2; I Sam. 15:21-23; Deut. 10:12-13; Col. 2:16-17, 20-23

One of the most galling and glaring examples of good works that are clearly not commanded in his holy word and is the result of zeal blinded by the gauze wrappings of good intention is the teaching of abstinence from alcohol as a biblical command. This has come up recently as an Acts 29/SBC church in Missouri has gotten burned by their own denominational bigwigs for holding a theology discussion at a brewery. (Ironically the brewery is owned by the family of arch-conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly). Scripture clearly teaches that money, sex, and alcohol are to be received, treasured, and enjoyed in their covenantal, grace filled contexts with thankfulness to the glory of God. (1 Tim. 4.3)

Good works fueled by good intentions but not driven by the command and intention of God is where legalism comes from. Neonomianism is just as deadly as antinomianism. In fact neonomianism flows from antinomianism, since we really can't live in a moral vacuum. If God's clear revelation is disregarded, a new law springs up in it's place. All that goodwill has to go somewhere, and many a conscience and much joy is choked out by the defilement (yes, defilement) of mandating something God has not commanded.

II. These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith:[3] and by them believers manifest their thankfulness,[4] strengthen their assurance,[5] edify their brethren,[6] adorn the profession of the gospel,[7] stop the mouths of the adversaries,[8] and glorify God,[9] whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto,[10] that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.[11]

3. James 2:18, 22
4. Psa. 116:12-14; Col. 3:15-17; I Peter 2:9
5. I John 2:3, 5; II Peter 1:5-10
6. II Cor. 9:2; Matt. 5:16; I Tim. 4:12
7. Titus 2:5, 9-12; I Tim. 6:1
8. I Peter 2:15
9. I Peter 2:12; Phil. 1:11; John 15:8
10. Eph. 2:10
11. Rom. 6:22

Good works are shown in various lights in this section. Here's just a bullet summary:

fruit of a new heart as fruits of faith
sign of being new and therefore useful for assurance
a blessing to others
adorn our profession of the Gospel. (Real fruit will shut the mouths of those who mock us as God-talkers but not God-walkers. 1 Pet. 3.15, 4.4-5)
part of our predestination (everyone's favourite Rom. 2.8-9 is followed by verse 10 where our good works are predestined for us, for us to do them, not God.)
Good works, since they flow from God's election, are part of our salvation grasped and enjoyed by faith. This is where people start freaking out!!!! "Works, a part of salvation!??!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHH! Run away from ROME brothers!" Salvation is viewed in Scripture in three ways, which we traditionally call justification, sanctification, glorification. Justification is our passive enjoyment of the fruit of Jesus' active and passive obedience for us. Even the faith that we grasp this with is the fruit of his righteousness (2 Pet. 1)

As John Piper says in When the Darkness Will Not Lift,

" Confusing Justification and Sanctification Will Kill Joy
Then, and only then, on the basis of this forgiveness and this declaration of righteousness, God gives us his Holy Spirit and progressively transforms us morally into the image of his Son. This progressive change is not justification,
but is based on justification. This change is what we call sanctification. “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Rom. 6:22)." (p. 18 pdf version)

Much of legalism has stemmed from a disconnecting justification from sanctification. If we are active in our justification ("I gave my life to the Lord" "I turned my life around and chose Christ"), we are tempted to be passive in our sanctification ("If God wants me to be holy, he'll do it!). The wonder of grace is that we are passive in justification, and graciously, freely active in our sanctification. Quietism and various higher life teachings will do a strange mixture of placing real change under the heading glorification and a wierd "let go and let God" teaching in regards to sanctification. What this does is butchers the imperatives of the New Testament into something like "let the Holy Spirit obey through you" when in fact it tells you "Since you are new by grace, through faith, by the Holy Spirit, (fill in your name here) do this!!!" He has justified you which changes your standing and he is sanctifying you in a gracious partnership between you and Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

The culmination of this salvation is called glorification. In some senses this is "eternal life". But Jesus himself says "This is eternal life, to know you, and the one you have sent." We have eternal life now, and this points to the quality of life that is progressively changing in what we call sanctification. This is all based on the finished work which is the root of our justification. (Rom. 4.24-25)

III. Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ.[12] And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will, and to do, of his good pleasure:[13] yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them.[14]

12. John 15:4-6; Rom. 8:4-14; Ezek. 36:26-27
13. Phil. 2:13; 4:13; II Cor. 3:5; Eph. 3:16
14. Phil. 2:12; Heb. 6:11-12; II Peter 1:3, 5, 10-11; Isa. 64:7; II Tim. 1:6; Acts 26:6-7; Jude 1:20-21

Thankfully, our theological fathers pre-guessed some objections. "Well if salvation is from sovereign grace, then that part of it called sanctification will be by sovereign grace. I would dishonor God if I got ahead of him. I'll wait upon him to stir me up to this work and pursuit of holiness." And thus their answer. The Holy Spirit gave us our first desire to trust Christ. But this first push, although all-powerful, eye, ear, heart and grave-opening and Spirit driven is not for coasting. I almost said "This initial push is not enough to sustain." In one sense to say this sounds like an insult to the Spirit. But if we have no daily doings with the Holy Spirit at the level of motivation, trust, and repentance then we are really insulting or as Paul puts it "quenching the Spirit." Colossians and Galatians make this clear: "If we start by the Spirit, let's keep in step with the Spirit." This means there's no coasting, but instead, walking, running, fighting, straining, trusting, and yes, resting again and again upon Jesus who fought our sin and won us as the prize. He has won us outright by his cross (George Herbert "Easter Wings"), and is winning more and more of us by his Spirit and Word and grace. This is what is called mortification (see The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard or the original genius work by John Owen on Sin and Grace (vols. 6-7 Banner of Truth) or the updated version by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic) and is discussed under the heading of Sanctification in our Confession and catechisms.

IV. They who, in their obedience, attain to the greatest height which is possible in this life, are so far from being able to supererogate, and to do more than God requires, as that they fall short of much which in duty they are bound to do.[15]

15. Luke 17:10; Neh. 13:22; Rom. 8:21-25; Gal. 5:17

One of the greatest disservices to Christians (and this sounds odd) is books like The Normal Christian Life and testimonies of "great saints" who fasted and prayed and have received visions of how God is going to reach the world for Christ through this or that man or organization. I grew up in the shadow of such teaching and such leaders. Preachers or leaders or mystics who attain such heights are really so far away from what God requires!! The problem with legalism is it's stress upon doability. Even the most self-abegnating soul is so far from true holiness. Our bound duty includes frames of mind, attitudes, actions, thoughts, desires, and so on. How many of us have gotten these all to cooperate all at the same time? Therefore, no saints can "loan" you some of their virtue. They're going to be needing theirs. There is no way to do extra credit if indeed "we are unworthy servants." (Luke 17.10)

V. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom, by them, we can neither profit, nor satisfy for the debt of our former sins,[16] but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable servants:[17] and because, as they are good, they proceed from his Spirit;[18] and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God's judgment.[19]

16. Rom. 3:20; 4:2, 4, 6; 8:18, 22-24; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-7; Psa. 16:2; Job 22:2-3, 35:7-8
17. Luke 17:10
18. Rom. 8:13-14; Gal. 5:22-23
19. Isa. 64:6; Gal. 5:17; Rom. 7:15, 18; Psa. 130:3; 143:2

This paragraph gets at the debtor mindset regarding obedience. In Canada, refugee immigrants are welcomed to the country and are granted loans for their tickets and settlement fees. For several years of their newfound freedom they are paying off these immigration loans. Granted, there is much government help at this stage of their new life, but the debt remains. Our Father resettles us in his house at his expense. Our obedience is part of our life in our new house with a new Dad and new brothers and sisters. You aren't repaying the adoption fees. What we do for God, and I'm updating him at this point, John Calvin states is like a kid's refrigerator art displayed on the fridge. Is it great art? No, it's art done by a son or daughter. It's prized because of the relationship rather than it's quality. All our chores in God's house are done sloppy. We're still growing up into the image of Christ, even though we've been remade in his image. This is the now and the not yet part of our acceptability before God. Justification makes us acceptable to God through our union with Christ(Romans 4-5) , sanctification involves our living acceptably now that we are united to Christ (Romans 6-13), and glorification means we're "openly acknowledged" as what we truly are as truly redeemed and totally acceptable (1 John, Revelation). This is further fleshed out in the next paragraph as it speaks of "acceptability."

VI. Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him;[20] not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God's sight;[21] but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.[22]

20. Eph. 1:6; I Peter 2:5; see Exod. 28:38; Gen. 4:4; Heb. 11:4
21. Job 9:20; Psa. 143:2; I John 1:8

22. Heb. 6:10; 13:20-21; II Cor. 8:12; Matt. 25:21, 23; I Cor. 3:14; 4:5

Why should you obey God?

For Grace's sake of course. But the biblical witness and the encouraging, clarifying teaching of the Confession says the following:

He saved you for this purpose. (Eph. 1 "chosen to be blameless")
You get to. Freedom is for holiness not for sin. (All of Galatians, 1 & 2 Peter)
He told you to. Be ye holy. Yah, that's still in the Bible!
He is glorified by our obedience that flows from our dependence (John 15)
He rewards it.
It's your new love.
It's the fruit of the Spirit's presence in your life.
It's a nice walk, compared to the scenery you were used to. (1 Cor. 6.11)

I could go on, but you're supposed to close the browser and go pursue that high calling, that reason that grace grasped you. Go bear some fruit!

Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Alchemy

2007-04-05T11:18:00.000-06:00

I'm going to be hanging out with my father-in-law this week and attending a conference where he'll be offering the Creationist perspective to folks through books and pamphlets. We have great discussions about creation, intelligent design, and presenting the Gospel to people who are quite fuzzy on the Creator much less on how, when, how long, etc he created.

Over at a philsophy list I'm a member of someone posted an article by William Dembski that is quite excellent. He points out how both evolution and alchemy are more concerned with metaphysics than physics. His cartoon illustrations are helpful too.

As pilgrim found out, the lurkers come out when you post on evolution. Here they come!

Have we seen a Wilberforce in the last 200 years?

2007-04-04T14:16:00.000-06:00

The answer to the question could be (tongue in cheek)

Bono, but maybe you just think he's a singer and a talker whose glasses and mouth and audacity open doors and open minds.

Bill Gates - His money walks and talks and works. But he's really rich, so he must be really wicked. Plus he's a nerd.

Rick Warren - He's a preacher, but he talks about AIDS in church, so he can't be a good advocate for Christians to be engaged in meaty issues. Plus he wears Hawaiian shirts.

But a little guy you don't hear about much is Gary Haugen, whose organization called International Justice Mission is rescuing girls from sex slavery, attending hearings of genocide trials, and advocating for a gospel that engages the bloody mess.

I won a major award!!

2007-04-03T08:28:00.000-06:00

Thanks to wifey who voted for me to receive the thinking blogger award.

I award the honour to:

1. Rotundus - Who else regularly rhapsodizes about pi and reformed theology on the same day?
2. Foolish Sage - Who else can jump between Harvey Conn, pipe smoking, and music all with depth, wit and grace?
3. Reformissionary - He's your one stop portal for Keller, great music, great photos, and updates on Missouri Baptist wierdness.

In Memoriam: Dustin Salter RUF Minister

2007-03-22T14:19:00.000-06:00

The news just came through the blogosphere that Dustin Salter has passed away. Dustin was the RUF minister at Texas Christian in Fort Worth. I met him while I was in the D part of DFW, finishing seminary, starting my formal entrance into PCA ministry. He was a tall guy with a humble heart. He loved Jesus, and he loved to tell students and really anybody about how great and good and trustworthy Christ is. I wish I had known him better.

Several months ago, while riding bikes with his kids in his new neighborhood in the Carolinas, he crashed his mountain bike without a helmet. That was the start of a long road of brain injury recovery. Dustin and his family recently moved back to Fort Worth to pursue long-term care. He passed away just the other day.

Glenn Lucke at Common Grounds Online was a study partner and buddy of Dustin's in their RTS days. He does a wonderful, funny, and soberly joyful tribute to Dustin's life of friendship and ministry. Check out the post, meet the man, and rejoice in Christ who has triumphed over the grave and over our sins.

"No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make his blessings known
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness
The comforts of his love
The comfort of his love
The comforts of his love"

Joy to the World by Isaac Watts

New CD by the Choir

2007-03-21T14:55:00.000-06:00

Law and Gospel, Scottish Style

2007-03-20T18:10:00.000-06:00

James 3 says whoever can handle his tongue is truly wise and righteous. I'd like to steal that phrase and say, "Whoever can really handle the law and the Gospel rightly has made huge strides towards joy, faithfulness, and fruitfulness." Not as catchy or inspired, but just as true!

I've found particular help from John Colquhoun and Walter Marshall. Colquhoun's treatment is here and Walter Marshall's The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification is available in the public domain (ye olde version) at www.ccel.org and the updated version from Bruce McRae is available from www.monergismbooks.com.

Before missional was trendy - Intro to Weekly Newbigin quotes

2007-03-20T15:10:00.000-06:00

Before missional was the buzzword that followed pomo which followed "doing life" there was a man named Lesslie. He was pushing missional by being missional. As a missionary pastor to India he was engaging the Hindu culture around as well as engaging the assumptions that he brought to the endeavour. Every experience of the Gospel's message comes through language and with that language comes culture. Incidentally, that is why pastors are urged to go to seminary because they have to be a tour-guide, or match-maker, "between two worlds" (Stott), the biblical and the postmodern one, translating and allowing for both language and culture. When we pastor and preach in the west we are preaching to "our culture." But now in the West we are preaching to the toughest kind of culture: one that has received, rejected, and forgotten a vital Christian witness.

And now for the quote of the week (or if you're nice you might get more than one a week):

"[W.E. Gladstone said] 'Should the Christian faith ever become but one among many co-equal pensioners of a government, it will be a proof that subjective religion has again lost its God-given hold upon objective reality, or when under the thin shelter of its name, a multitude of discordant schemes shall have been put upon a footing of essential parity, and shall together receive the bounty of the legistlature, this will prove that we are once more in a transition state- that we are travelling back again from the region to which the Gospel brought us, towards that in which it found us.'

What Gladstone foretold is essentially what has been happening during the 140 years since he wrote those words. The result is not, as we once imagined, a secular society. It is a pagan society, and its paganism, having been borne out of the rejection of Christianity, is far more resistant to the gospel than the Pre-Christian paganism with which cross-cultural missions have been familiar. Here, surely, is the most challenging missionary frontier of our time." Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 20

My enterprising wife

2007-03-19T23:32:00.000-06:00

My wife is a picture of the Proverbs 31 woman version 2.0. She is the author and instigator of multiple blogs, just as she is the instigator of yummy food,family fun,sharpener of minds and characters, tickler of funny bones, etcetera etcetera. Check out her latest venture by clicking the picture of foaming mocha goodness.

Like Dude Whatever (HT: joethorn.net)

2007-03-16T09:43:00.000-06:00

Have you like, noticed how tentative we are, when we want to say something, you know?
Are you afraid of being a verbal bully, a fundamentalist terrorista enforcing your view point, like, with a sentence that just states what you think without all the wierd, questioning tones in your voice as you make a positive statement?

Check this out.

A little about meself

2007-03-13T17:43:00.000-06:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

The Jewish Origins of TGIF

2007-03-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

The impetus for this post came from a question from Dave aka Rotundus and a letter to the Editor in today's National Post from a Mr. Orr. Mr. Orr was commenting on anti-Semitism in several of its forms. One of the forms that he thought was under-considered was intermarriage. In his mind, preserving Jewishness via the purity of single faith marriage would be a blessing to the larger world, since the Jews are a blessing to the world, seeing they "gave us the weekend" and all. (Paraphrase) (I toyed with the post title "Love the Weekend?Hug a Jew" but could envision some notoriety that I wouldn't want!)

The weekend in its current form is entirely secular. It has come unmoored from its God-given status: Day Seven, as God enjoyed it and inaugurated it, as a day of rest. This day of rest was woven into creation. As rebels against the Creator and our created status, we have problems with our work week and our status as a creature that was made to run on a 6:1 work/rest ratio. With the advent of a constant tech culture ("crackberry" addictions) and a constant caffeine infusion we can work super-human amounts with the odd result of feeling subhuman!! Part of that is our rebellion against Creator's design. Enter Sabbath.

Sabbath sounds like a recipe for disaster. Stop working! Stop thinking like a producer and become a receiver of finished work from the God who made us. How can I stop working when the work is never finished? Short answer: because God rested from his work of creation and invites us to enter his rest. (Heb. 3) God reaffirmed the Sabbath as an enduring part of his people's identity as 1) created people and 2) redeemed people. (I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt . . .Thou shalt . . .) So properly, we should thank God for the weekend.

When should we celebrate the weekend? Is the Christian Sabbath a different concept since Christ has come to fulfill the law?

Dave pointed out to me the difference in two major Bible translations:

Colossians 2:16,17:

ESV - 16Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food
and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs
to Christ.

NIV - 16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or
drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration
or a Sabbath day. 17These are a shadow of the things that were to
come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Let me set up this clip first and then we'll look at the tense/time issue in v. 17 about "things to come/were to come". Colossians is written to people who were trapped between two extremes: a native paganism and an encroaching legalism. Paul is calling them to stay in the middle of the road since they had received Christ and had been freed from the darkness of their past and could say no to the darkness of legalism that would eclipse their freedom in Christ. The issue was "How should former pagans follow Christ?" The answer that was coming to them from religious culture was "Like Jews." The answer that was coming to them from Paul was "Like Christians." Paul is able to answer them this way, because in Christ a new time had been inaugurated. Paul's eschatology can be viewed in 4 stages regarding Sabbath: Sabbath was day 7 of Creation week. Sabbath was enjoined on Israel as part of their sanctification. A third age was at work in the coming, dying, rising, ascension, Spirit-outpouring, exaltation of Jesus. He fuflfilled these past shadows. Christ was the substance that was casting these shadows of rest and restoration pictured and mandated in the Sabbath. Stage 4 would be the final rest we read about in Hebrews 4, etc

Technically speaking, the ESV has it right, almost literally translating the Greek: "which are shadows of the coming." In English you have to supply the "things" which is inherent in the relative article "which". The Greek word for shadows is skia and is in contrast to soma. To use a phrase from Wendy's restaurants: Jesus is the answer to the "Where's the beef?" question. The shadows of ceremonies and days and feasts are begging the question: Where's the beef? God's answer is in the in-carn-ation. Jesus brings substance because he is the point, punchline, answer to God's picture/promises of the ceremonial law. For this reason they are not to haggle over days and ceremonies, because Jesus has delivered the promised rest that Moses and Joshua could never bring them to. The greatest Joshua/YSHUA (Jesus) brings us into permanent rest.

Interestingly, IMHO, the Saturday worship service craze among seeker and emergent churches takes this passage at face value but misses the biblical theological meat! The Christian Sabbath is the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. Do I have chapter and verse on "Thou shalt only worship together on Sunday?" No. I have something better. (just kidding) First Day of the Week worship does justice to what Christ has brought us in his ascension and the coming of the Spirit: we start our week off with the rest of God. We are living in New Creation part A. Theologians have referred to this as the now and not yet. We are living in the finished work of Christ in redemption, enjoying justifcation, undergoing sanctification, loving our adoption, and awaiting our glorification and the "regneration" of all things. This last part is New Creation part B. Part of what we are celebrating on the Lord's Day is the finished aspect of our salvation, and when we are partaking in the Lord's Supper together, we do so as the token of a future feast of consummation. (This is a part of the weekly communion argument.)

What the world and Judaism views as the weekend, people in Christ view it as the New Beginning. As people who look back to a BC existence and revel in an AD existence as New Creatures in Christ we can of all people say "TGIS." We need to introduce our Jewish and outside-of-Christ neighbours to the concept of New Covenant rest that our Lord's Day experience is. This is how the Sabbath debate can be reclaimed as a life-giving exercise rather than a church-splitting device.

Mercy Ministry in a Pandemic

2007-03-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

In an ironic turn of events, I was reading the Globe and Mail Focus Section (March 4, 2007, F9) on the way back from our Presbytery meeting in Agassiz, BC. While I was away, all four of my sons were "protein spilling" from both ends while my dear wife was holding down the fort and running endless loads of laundry. I was on the wrong side of the Rockies, doing "important" business. Who would dare to help my wife while the bug ravaged our home? Our dear friend Ina. She is our mercy ministry, landscaper, great friend, elder's wife extraordinaire. She braved the bug and brought Pedialyte, soup and salad for my crew and their presiding angel, Writer Mom.

Globe reporter, Ellen Himmelfarb asks this question: "You're on call during big break-ups and breakdowns. And you never hesitate to drop off Aspirin or chicken soup. But would you risk your life for a friend or neighbour in need? In the event of a flu pandemic, that's just what the British health service is counting on."

In the article, we are urged to find a "bird flu buddy." Health officials are entirely realistic that thousands would die before they could make it to health care facilities. Natural friendship networks would be the quickest delivery systems for Tamiflu and other medications. This is a sobering call for the Church to consider how she would care for her members and her neighbours. Here is a list of questions for deacons and mercy ministry types?

Does our church have a quick plan for contacting members?
Do any of our prayer chains or announcement networks have the ability to mobilize into concrete local actions?
Could we organize into parishes with an elder and deacon overseeing their geographical area of the city? Our part of Boomtown, AB takes 30 minutes to get from one side to the other. Our officers are located on the Western and Eastern extremes of this boundary. The middle or "mushpot" is represented by mercy types who have the heart but perhaps not the flexibility or physcial strength to muster and deliver resources.
Can we really depend on our overtaxed medical systems?
Are we approaching a situation akin to the Early and Medieval church where Christians took care of their own and the pagans too?

“For it is disgraceful when no Jew is a beggar and the impious Galileans [the name given by Julian to Christians] support our poor in addition to their own;" -Julian the Apostate, 360 AD

Our Favorite Jump up and Down Happy Music - Jars of Clay

2007-03-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

On Ash Wednesday, Writer Mom and I went to see Jars of Clay with some of our college and career folk and some other college and career folk from area Reformed churches. (PCA, CanRC, URC). Instead of sporting some cross shaped smudges, I reveled in the live music in a way I hadn't since a 1987 Altar Boys Concert in Southern California. Putting a bum knee and my "man of the cloth" solemnity aside, I pogoed and bopped to the music. The 80's are still alive baby!!

Our Favorite Mellow Happy Music - Innocence Mission

2007-03-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

My college in the NYTimes

2007-02-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

My alma mater, John Brown University, made it into the New York Times.

To my amazement, the school administration reversed its longstanding policy on dancing. That is dancing on campus! I have to admit that I crossed state lines to partake in some "boot-scootin' boogie." Not only did a break a basic fundamentalist tenet, but to my wife's horror, I attended aforementioned amusements in colored roper boots! All for the love of a brunette from Wheaton, IL.

Now that I've come to my fashion senses, it looks like John Brown has come to its senses and broken ties with its fundamentalist past and embraced a future where "all things are received with thanksgiving."

All hail, JBU. JBU all hail! (or something like that. What was our school song?)

Reformed Theology is a Microbrew

2007-02-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

To explore this analogy further, click on the beer.

Christian Blogger Survey

2007-02-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Christian bloggers are here and they're in your . . . face? grill?

A Christian communications guru asked some Christian bloggers to take a survey about our habits, intentions in blogging, etc. The following lads and lassies responded:

ministrypastor.blogspot.com
http://ministrypastor.blogspot.com

Simplyjosh.com
http://Simplyjosh.com

churchonomics.com
http://churchonomics.com

marcpitman.com
http://marcpitman.com

ifjesushadawebsite.net
http://www.ifjesushadawebsite.net

ngpfocus.wordpress.com
http://ngpfocus.wordpress.com

danieldecker.net
http://www.danieldecker.net

ericbryant.org/blog
http://www.ericbryant.org/blog

thefissiongroup.com/blog
http://www.thefissiongroup.com/blog
livelikejesus.com/blog
http://livelikejesus.com/blog

emergingwomen.blogspot.com
http://emergingwomen.blogspot.com

julieclawson.blogspot.com
http://julieclawson.blogspot.com

post-methodist.blogspot.com
www.post-methodist.blogspot.com

edbuford.blogs.com
http://edbuford.blogs.com

jeffsmithspeaks.blogspot.com/index.html
http://jeffsmithspeaks.blogspot.com/index.html

churchcommunicationspro.com

http://www.churchcommunicationspro.com

friesville.net/blog

http://friesville.net/blog

ministrymarketingcoach.com

http://ministrymarketingcoach.com

johnsmulo.com

http://johnsmulo.com

douglast.com/thoughts

http://douglast.com/thoughts

thebellsite.com

http://www.thebellsite.com

ghostofmediocrity.blogspot.com

http://www.ghostofmediocrity.blogspot.com

morethanstone.blogsome.com

http://morethanstone.blogsome.com

davedavis.typepad.com

http://davedavis.typepad.com

theflippingsweetblog.blogspot.com

http://theflippingsweetblog.blogspot.com

blog.aspiringindie.com

http://blog.aspiringindie.com

spirittalks.blogspot.com

http://www.spirittalks.blogspot.com

chiselrod.com

http://www.chiselrod.com

microexplosion.com

http://microexplosion.com

levite.wordpress.com

http://levite.wordpress.com

learning2beastoryteller.blogspot.com

http://www.learning2beastoryteller.blogspot.com

billspondering.blogspot.com

http://billspondering.blogspot.com

dhfriss.typepad.com

http://dhfriss.typepad.com

imageforth.com

http://www.imageforth.com

despuesdeldomingo.com

http://www.despuesdeldomingo.com

mattandnancy.org

http://www.mattandnancy.org

mondaymorninginsight.com

http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com

valuetheprocess.wordpress.com

http://www.valuetheprocess.wordpress.com

themerge.blogspot.com

http://themerge.blogspot.com

semilladeamorgt.blogspot.com

http://semilladeamorgt.blogspot.com

mattsingley.com

http://www.mattsingley.com

timsweatman.blogspot.com

http://timsweatman.blogspot.com

jenniclayville.com

http://www.jenniclayville.com

anotherstorm.com

http://www.anotherstorm.com

elblogdecristianosh.blogspot.com

http://elblogdecristianosh.blogspot.com

kelly94942.blogspot.com

http://kelly94942.blogspot.com

melindalgroth.blogspot.com

http://www.melindalgroth.blogspot.com

churchrelevance.com

http://www.churchrelevance.com

lapalabra.ws/blogs

http://www.lapalabra.ws/blogs

twelvewitnesses.com

http://www.twelvewitnesses.com

thoughtsofacountrypreacher.blogspot.com

http://thoughtsofacountrypreacher.blogspot.com

knhamann.blogspot.com

http://knhamann.blogspot.com

lizziesotola.com

http://lizziesotola.com

jdblundell.blogspot.com

http://jdblundell.blogspot.com

jason.voxtropolis.com

http://jason.voxtropolis.com

rwbooth.com

http://www.rwbooth.com

decloaked.blogspot.com

http://www.decloaked.blogspot.com

davetilma.com

http://www.davetilma.com

debbie-thoughtsof.blogspot.com

http://debbie-thoughtsof.blogspot.com

theclayvilles.typepad.com/brian

http://www.theclayvilles.typepad.com/brian

estudios-biblicos.blogspot.com

http://estudios-biblicos.blogspot.com

elcalvario.us/quicuj

http://elcalvario.us/quicuj

arator.wordpress.com

http://arator.wordpress.com

xanga.com/rtsguy

http://www.xanga.com/rtsguy

la-guarida-del-perro.blogspot.com

http://la-guarida-del-perro.blogspot.com

forgodssakeshutup.blogspot.com

http://forgodssakeshutup.blogspot.com

determinacionhoy.net

http://www.determinacionhoy.net

discipleshipmeanderings.wordpress.com

http://discipleshipmeanderings.wordpress.com

challies.com

http://www.challies.com

allensonthe.net

http://www.allensonthe.net

nanolog.blogspot.com

http://nanolog.blogspot.com

donniejohnson.blogspot.com

http://donniejohnson.blogspot.com

missionsconnexion.com/cs

http://missionsconnexion.com/cs

tonydye.typepad.com

http://tonydye.typepad.com

brianeberly.com

http://www.brianeberly.com

curtbradford.typepad.com

http://www.curtbradford.typepad.com

gavin.inthebackyard.com

http://www.gavin.inthebackyard.com

communionreflections.blogspot.com

http://communionreflections.blogspot.com

victorychristianfellowship.net

http://www.victorychristianfellowship.net/index.php?page=blog

timothymyson.blogspot.com

http://www.timothymyson.blogspot.com

rbcgrace.com/deanblog/index.html

http://www.rbcgrace.com/deanblog/index.html

youthguy68.blogspot.com

http://www.youthguy68.blogspot.com

digitalchurch.com.au

http://www.digitalchurch.com.au

djs-book-rants.blogspot.com

http://djs-book-rants.blogspot.com

robertpooley.org

http://www.robertpooley.org

wideworldof.blogspot.com

http://wideworldof.blogspot.com

revunplugged.blogs.com

http://www.revunplugged.blogs.com

xanga.com/welcometotheedge

http://www.xanga.com/welcometotheedge

collinwimberly.blogspot.com

http://www.collinwimberly.blogspot.com

thecrossers.com/blog

http://www.thecrossers.com/blog

atravelersjourney.blogspot.com

http://atravelersjourney.blogspot.com

kairosofthisworld.blogspot.com

http://kairosofthisworld.blogspot.com

revnorman.blogspot.com

http://revnorman.blogspot.com

soomah.de

http://www.soomah.de

leadingsmart.com

http://leadingsmart.com

pontiacbible.org/brian

http://www.pontiacbible.org/brian

tianke.multiply.com

http://tianke.multiply.com

mountain-top-musings.blogspot.com

http://mountain-top-musings.blogspot.com

discipletim.blogspot.com

http://discipletim.blogspot.com

macmike.typepad.com

http://www.macmike.typepad.com

mcfaddencircle.blogspot.com

http://mcfaddencircle.blogspot.com

getanchored.blogspot.com

http://getanchored.blogspot.com

bucketsfromgoldie.blogspot.com

http://bucketsfromgoldie.blogspot.com

leslieherron.typepad.com

http://www.leslieherron.typepad.com

adoracionyartes.blogspot.com

http://www.adoracionyartes.blogspot.com

johnnyleckie.blogspot.com

http://johnnyleckie.blogspot.com

ridleybarron.blogspot.com

http://www.ridleybarron.blogspot.com

davebowmanonline.com

http://www.davebowmanonline.com

kevinpurcell.org

http://www.kevinpurcell.org

evtales.com

http://www.evtales.com

checkyourcompass.blogspot.com

http://checkyourcompass.blogspot.com

theoskaris.blogspot.com

http://theoskaris.blogspot.com

samshaw.wordpress.com

http://www.samshaw.wordpress.com

zayasbazan.blogspot.com

http://zayasbazan.blogspot.com

explorechrist.blogspot.com

http://www.explorechrist.blogspot.com

gracepages-mbc.blogspot.com

http://gracepages-mbc.blogspot.com

morganchurchdevotional.blogspot.com

http://www.morganchurchdevotional.blogspot.com

2timothy22.blogspot.com

http://2timothy22.blogspot.com

mixmastersean.blogspot.com

http://www.mixmastersean.blogspot.com

freedombc.org

http://www.freedombc.org

velocityhsm.blogspot.com

http://velocityhsm.blogspot.com

josue.townhall.com

http://josue.townhall.com

echalelena.blogspot.com

http://www.echalelena.blogspot.com

myspace.com/ncm.pcc.syl

http://www.myspace.com/ncm.pcc.syl

anopendoerr.com

http://www.anopendoerr.com

rockc3.com

http://www.rockc3.com

youthministryhilarity.blogspot.com

http://www.youthministryhilarity.blogspot.com

otbthinking.blogspot.com

http://otbthinking.blogspot.com

cowboycountrychurch.com

http://www.cowboycountrychurch.com

xanga.com/apolizzi

http://www.xanga.com/apolizzi

newlifebrisbane.blogspot.com

http://www.newlifebrisbane.blogspot.com

straightfrompastor.blogspot.com

http://straightfrompastor.blogspot.com

lifeofchrisrandomthoughts.blogspot.com

http://lifeofchrisrandomthoughts.blogspot.com

arktrav.blgspot.com

http://arktrav.blgspot.com

jurgenvandenherik.nl

http://www.jurgenvandenherik.nl

johannesrueschel.de

http://www.johannesrueschel.de

hufi.blogspot.com

http://hufi.blogspot.com

completinggodsmission.com

http://www.completinggodsmission.com

cobbsinger.blogspot.com

http://cobbsinger.blogspot.com

fellowshipdayz.blogspot.com

http://fellowshipdayz.blogspot.com

bridgecommunity-mike.blogspot.com

http://bridgecommunity-mike.blogspot.com

jonathaneverette.blogspot.com

http://www.jonathaneverette.blogspot.com

thegatheringplacehome.blogspot.com

http://thegatheringplacehome.blogspot.com

seabourn.org

http://www.seabourn.org

gupdate.blogger.com

http://www.gupdate.blogger.com

jonathaneverette.blogspot.com

http://www.jonathaneverette.blogspot.com

myspace.com/morelikeyou

http://www.myspace.com/morelikeyou

preacherjoe.blog

http://www.preacherjoe.blog

theworldfrommywindow.blogspot.com

http://theworldfrommywindow.blogspot.com

attemptedphilosophyblog.blogspot.com

http://www.attemptedphilosophyblog.blogspot.com

amandaowen3.blogspot.com

http://www.amandaowen3.blogspot.com

pastorsview.blogspot.com

http://www.pastorsview.blogspot.com

severnrun.wordpress.com

http://severnrun.wordpress.com

waitingforsunday.com

http://waitingforsunday.com

lynda.pongracz.blogspot.com

http://www.lynda.pongracz.blogspot.com

reverandd.bravejournal.com

http://reverandd.bravejournal.com

oncoffee.blogspot.com

http://oncoffee.blogspot.com

otherstudentministry.com/blog.cfm

http://www.otherstudentministry.com/blog.cfm

jayhardwick.com

http://www.jayhardwick.com

stonecreekchurch.com

http://www.stonecreekchurch.com

unfoldingneurons.com

http://www.unfoldingneurons.com

the-beat-goes-on.blogspot.com

http://the-beat-goes-on.blogspot.com

fbcsulphur.org

http://www.fbcsulphur.org

evenyou.blogspot.com

http://evenyou.blogspot.com

now-lets-see.blogspot.com

http://now-lets-see.blogspot.com

becoming.voxtropolis.com

http://becoming.voxtropolis.com

emilioetaty.multiply.com

http://emilioetaty.multiply.com

hblogcpj.blogspot.com

http://hblogcpj.blogspot.com

marshilltop.blogspot.com

http://marshilltop.blogspot.com

jeffreycrawford.blogspot.com

http://jeffreycrawford.blogspot.com

thewhatisup.blogspot.com

http://www.thewhatisup.blogspot.com

trevorscott.vox.com

http://www.trevorscott.vox.com

gmchurch.org/blog

http://www.gmchurch.org/blog

blog.myspace.com/servingtheking

http://blog.myspace.com/servingtheking

chipsanders.blogspot.com

http://chipsanders.blogspot.com

tommyham/typepad.com

http://tommyham/typepad.com

highercallingchurch.blogspot.com

http://www.highercallingchurch.blogspot.com

livingwatermuscatine.com

http://www.livingwatermuscatine.com

thislamp.com

http://www.thislamp.com

blog.myspace.com/nathanhyde

http://blog.myspace.com/nathanhyde

bibleblog.typepad.com

http://www.bibleblog.typepad.com

peanutsizzler.blogspot.com

http://www.peanutsizzler.blogspot.com

danmoore.livejournal.com

http://danmoore.livejournal.com

cmol.org

http://www.cmol.org

mikebellanti.voxtropolis.com

http://mikebellanti.voxtropolis.com

lenscleanse.blogspot.com

http://lenscleanse.blogspot.com

darinsrealtruth.blogspot.com

http://www.darinsrealtruth.blogspot.com

graceforme.org

http://www.graceforme.org

jeffsmithspeaks.blogspot.com

http://jeffsmithspeaks.blogspot.com

simplyhsp.multiply.com

http://www.simplyhsp.multiply.com

untilsunday.blogspot.com

http://untilsunday.blogspot.com

umbl0g.blogspot.com

http://www.umbl0g.blogspot.com

lorenhicks.typepad.com

http://www.lorenhicks.typepad.com

caldjr.blogspot.com

http://caldjr.blogspot.com

thewallah.blogspot.com

http://www.thewallah.blogspot.com

louicanchola.typepad.com

http://www.louicanchola.typepad.com

tommyhargrove.blogspot.com

http://www.tommyhargrove.blogspot.com

leehodges.blog.com

http://leehodges.blog.com

growingtogether.net

http://www.growingtogether.net

nathanrice.org

http://www.nathanrice.org

sdmkp.blogspot.com

http://sdmkp.blogspot.com

360.yahoo.com/genblessings

http://www.360.yahoo.com/genblessings

donbillie/myspace.com

http://www.donbillie/myspace.com

pastorjohnccc.blogspot.com

http://www.pastorjohnccc.blogspot.com

ministrycenter.blogspot.com

http://www.ministrycenter.blogspot.com

brassworld.blogspot.com

http://www.brassworld.blogspot.com

pastoringonpurpose.com

http://www.pastoringonpurpose.com

kimzweygardt.com

http://www.kimzweygardt.com

tonymorganlive.com

http://tonymorganlive.com

andrewcairns.com

http://www.andrewcairns.com

paulpeterson.wordpress.com

http://www.paulpeterson.wordpress.com

freshfaithworship.blogspot.com

http://freshfaithworship.blogspot.com

newhopeaubrey.com/consume/consume.htm

http://www.newhopeaubrey.com/consume/consume.htm

markbatterson.com

http://www.markbatterson.com

runwithgod.com

http://www.runwithgod.com

sequimur.com/banditsnomore

http://www.sequimur.com/banditsnomore

kemmeyer.com

http://www.kemmeyer.com

danieldecker.net

http://www.danieldecker.net

adventurefaith.blogspot.com

http://www.adventurefaith.blogspot.com

michaeldeutsch.blogspot.com

http://michaeldeutsch.blogspot.com

xanga.com/timsmithxa

http://www.xanga.com/timsmithxa

tonystewardblog.com

http://tonystewardblog.com

p-robspot.blogspot.com

http://p-robspot.blogspot.com

johnnylaird.blogspot.com

http://www.johnnylaird.blogspot.com

chadkmiller.blogspot.com

http://chadkmiller.blogspot.com

anchorite.org/blog

http://www.anchorite.org/blog

e-devotion.blogspot.com

http://www.e-devotion.blogspot.com

chriswhitehead.blogspot.com

http://chriswhitehead.blogspot.com

nathandiehl.com

http://nathandiehl.com

girlrev-cindy.blogspot.com

http://girlrev-cindy.blogspot.com

revsonic.org

http://www.revsonic.org

jameslaws.typepad.com

http://jameslaws.typepad.com

elhammond.vox.com

http://elhammond.vox.com

georgejromano.blogspot.com

http://www.georgejromano.blogspot.com

faithengineer.com

http://www.faithengineer.com

edbuford.blogs.com

http://edbuford.blogs.com

stevansheets.com

http://www.stevansheets.com

baileythoughts.wordpress.com

http://baileythoughts.wordpress.com

barryclarke.blogspot.com

http://barryclarke.blogspot.com

lizardsmommy.blogspot.com

http://lizardsmommy.blogspot.com

wonderingthoughtsbyjoe.blogspot.com

http://wonderingthoughtsbyjoe.blogspot.com

achristianchronicle.blogspot.com

http://achristianchronicle.blogspot.com

blurty.com

http://www.blurty.com

theviewfromosprey.blogspot.com

http://theviewfromosprey.blogspot.com

trydyingtolive.blogspot.com

http://trydyingtolive.blogspot.com

genejennings.com

http://www.genejennings.com

ericmesselt.blogspot.com

http://ericmesselt.blogspot.com

InsightsfromRick.com

http://www.InsightsfromRick.com

chuckmusselwhite.com

http://chuckmusselwhite.com

stanchfieldbaptist.com

http://www.stanchfieldbaptist.com

pastorjohn58.blogspot.com

http://pastorjohn58.blogspot.com

rpc-foundation.blogspot.com

http://rpc-foundation.blogspot.com

discoverychurchjason.blogspot.com

http://www.discoverychurchjason.blogspot.com

simplystudents.blogspot.com

http://www.simplystudents.blogspot.com

wdmbarker.blogspot.com

http://www.wdmbarker.blogspot.com

timschmoyer.com

http://www.timschmoyer.com

serialyouthpastor.blogspot.com

http://www.serialyouthpastor.blogspot.com

gondimenespanol.blogspot.com

http://gondimenespanol.blogspot.com

pastorbrad.org

http://www.pastorbrad.org

ridgethoughts.blogspot.com

http://www.ridgethoughts.blogspot.com

xanga.com/revshortridge

http://www.xanga.com/revshortridge

jonsampson.blogspot.com

http://jonsampson.blogspot.com

juniorhigh.blogs.com/joshuamichael

http://juniorhigh.blogs.com/joshuamichael

wideopensecrets.blogspot.com

http://www.wideopensecrets.blogspot.com

studying-by-grace.blogspot.com

http://studying-by-grace.blogspot.com

undertheeagleswing.blogspot.com

http://undertheeagleswing.blogspot.com

myspace.com/blogpastor_charlie

http://www.myspace.com/blogpastor_charlie

mattandmeganmckee.blogspot.com

http://mattandmeganmckee.blogspot.com

flowerdust.net

http://www.flowerdust.net

revitalizeyourchurch.blogspot.com

http://www.revitalizeyourchurch.blogspot.com

xanga.com/samwisegmge

http://www.xanga.com/samwisegmge

pcnotas.com.br

http://www.pcnotas.com.br

supermom56.blogspot.com

http://www.supermom56.blogspot.com

lastsermon.blogspot.com

http://www.lastsermon.blogspot.com

djchuang.com

http://www.djchuang.com

tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com

http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com

pastormikeinantigua.blogspot.com

http://pastormikeinantigua.blogspot.com

myspace.com/stevepatient

http://www.myspace.com/stevepatient

268pastor.blogspot.com

http://268pastor.blogspot.com

growthstarts.org

http://www.growthstarts.org

horizonscommunitychurch.blogspot.com

http://www.horizonscommunitychurch.blogspot.com

paulneel.blogspot.com

http://paulneel.blogspot.com

cyword.com/jesusheaven

http://www.cyword.com/jesusheaven

jasondeuman.com

http://jasondeuman.com

talawas.com

http://www.talawas.com

chrisburke.ca

http://www.chrisburke.ca

joshcrain.com

http://www.joshcrain.com

jaycurlee.blogspot.com

http://jaycurlee.blogspot.com

themerge.blogspot.com

http://themerge.blogspot.com

weskenney.net

http://weskenney.net

churchtechmatters.com

http://churchtechmatters.com

daves-doodles.blogspot.com

http://daves-doodles.blogspot.com

blog.myspace.com/ricolsen

http://blog.myspace.com/ricolsen

doug-hart.net

http://www.doug-hart.net

chetswearingen.wordpress.com

http://www.chetswearingen.wordpress.com

armyrenewal.blogspot.com

http://armyrenewal.blogspot.com

bittersweetblue.blogspot.com

http://bittersweetblue.blogspot.com

randompokes.org

http://www.randompokes.org

calvaryaustin.org/blogs/allen

http://www.calvaryaustin.org/blogs/allen

debbie-thoughtsof.blogspot.com

http://debbie-thoughtsof.blogspot.com

gjblog.com

http://www.gjblog.com

wallsandgates.squarespace.com

http://wallsandgates.squarespace.com

nomad4god.blogspot.com

http://nomad4god.blogspot.com

vidaplus.blogspot.com

http://vidaplus.blogspot.com

smconger.blogspot.com

http://smconger.blogspot.com

mynameiselisabeth.blogspot.com

http://mynameiselisabeth.blogspot.com

timliu.org

http://www.timliu.org

praisegodbarebones.blogspot.com

http://praisegodbarebones.blogspot.com

assembling.blogspot.com

http://assembling.blogspot.com

gomotion.blogspot.com

http://gomotion.blogspot.com

pollections.blogspot.com

http://pollections.blogspot.com

downshoredrift.com

http://downshoredrift.com

talesfrommiddleearth.blogspot.com

http://www.talesfrommiddleearth.blogspot.com

davesamples.blogspot.com

http://www.davesamples.blogspot.com

davidpete.blogspot.com

http://davidpete.blogspot.com

worldoffaith.wordpress.com

http://worldoffaith.wordpress.com

mightyfowl.blogspot.com

http://www.mightyfowl.blogspot.com

blog.jasonkearney.net

http://blog.jasonkearney.net

kevinbussey.wordpress.com

http://kevinbussey.wordpress.com

pathwaycc.blogspot.com

http://pathwaycc.blogspot.com

robwitham.com

http://www.robwitham.com

matt-knight.blogspot.com

http://matt-knight.blogspot.com

themiracleofmercy.blogspot.com

http://www.themiracleofmercy.blogspot.com

texasinafrica.blogspot.com

http://texasinafrica.blogspot.com

reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com

http://reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com

blogministry.com

http://blogministry.com

glenwoods.blogspot.com

http://www.glenwoods.blogspot.com

journals.aol.com/marqduncan/the-bishop-blog

http://journals.aol.com/marqduncan/the-bishop-blog

suzy.theshipmans.co.uk/blog

http://suzy.theshipmans.co.uk/blog

CriesOfTheHeart.com

http://www.CriesOfTheHeart.com

pcnotas.com.br

http://www.pcnotas.com.br

dancort.gospelmais.com.br

http://dancort.gospelmais.com.br

marriagevictory.com

http://www.marriagevictory.com

videoadoracao.blogspot.com

http://www.videoadoracao.blogspot.com

blindbeggar.org

http://www.blindbeggar.org

paulmayers.blogs.com

http://paulmayers.blogs.com

missiodeiscandia.wordpress.com

http://missiodeiscandia.wordpress.com

thiagocarvalhodesign.blogger.com.br

http://www.thiagocarvalhodesign.blogger.com.br

iwerth.blogspot.com

http://iwerth.blogspot.com

thewearypilgrim.typepad.com

http://thewearypilgrim.typepad.com

coisasdemim.blogspot.com

http://coisasdemim.blogspot.com

davethepastor.vox.com

http://davethepastor.vox.com

davethepastor.livejournal.com

http://davethepastor.livejournal.com

newhopevalp.org/blogger.html

http://www.newhopevalp.org/blogger.html

itslikeherdingcats.blogspot.com

http://itslikeherdingcats.blogspot.com

prayershake.blogspot.com

http://www.prayershake.blogspot.com

missionalchallenge.blogspot.com

http://missionalchallenge.blogspot.com

igneousquill.blogspot.com

http://igneousquill.blogspot.com

chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com

http://chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com

amicusdei.com

http://amicusdei.com

dennyburk.com

http://www.dennyburk.com

stevebishop.blogspot.com

http://stevebishop.blogspot.com

ngpfocus.wordpress.com

http://ngpfocus.wordpress.com

cantodojo.blogspot.com

http://cantodojo.blogspot.com

gotgrace2.blogspot.com

http://gotgrace2.blogspot.com

littlepastor.blogspot.com

http://littlepastor.blogspot.com

julieclawson.blogspot.com

http://julieclawson.blogspot.com

larzmarshall.blogspot.com

http://www.larzmarshall.blogspot.com

e-devotion.blogspot.com

http://e-devotion.blogspot.com

faithfulweb.wordpress.com

http://faithfulweb.wordpress.com

oddideas.com

http://oddideas.com

pastor-jons-blog

http://hopebaptistsingles.squarespace.com/pastor-jons-blog

alliancefriendschurch.org

http://www.alliancefriendschurch.org

veldugo01.blogspot.com

http://veldugo01.blogspot.com

countercultureblog.com

http://countercultureblog.com

markkelly.wordpress.com

http://markkelly.wordpress.com

Tag (but not the body spray)

2007-02-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

Erin, formerly of Canadian Adventure, tagged me and made me tell 4 obscure things about myself.

1. I have a long white scar on my left inner thigh that I received at age 8 when a brand new BMX tire stipple cut me. If a cougar or coyote ever chews off my head, you might be able to identify my remains in this way. This is good information to know.

2. I have 2 uncles named Rufus and Pee Wee. And yes, they do hail from Tennessee.

3. Pictures of my tongue appear in medical textbooks, thanks to Loma Linda University Medical Center.

4. In high school I wore platform boots before they were goth and cool. Problem was only one boot was that big. I was told I had a short leg, so the orthopedist and my parents made sure I looked like a circus freak.

I tag pilgrim, rotundus, clarkie and gummby.

Give me Real, Don't Give Me Fake (updated)

2007-02-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Look at earth from outer space
Everyone must find a place
Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don't give me fake
Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul
Give me time, give us a kiss
Tell me your own politik
~Coldplay, Politik

(just as an aside, I laughed and mused about the future of the PCA as one of the committee reports was being given by a Teaching Elder in a Coldplay t-shirt in front of the 2006 General Assembly. "Fathers and brothers, let us pray . . ." This year's GA had live chat to go with the live AV feed. In the chat room some people were gasping, others were high fiving. Alas, a parable for our times.)

This has been a wonderful year for our family and ministry. When people ask how church is going, I keep saying "Fun". Our family is best described by "crazy as usual, but all good."

Things have developed in our church in ways I could have only dreamed. How we got there was a mix of simple use of the means of grace, some humbling through strains and stress, and most suprising of all, some helpful "processing" insights from a quarter I would never have expected: leadership books.

Since "leadership" was the mantra at my seminary (which I won't mention so as to protect my blogger "street cred") , I fled the other way by going to the past (Owen, Edwards, Calvin, Augustine, Irenaus). I looked sideways and down at guys that were talking about "finding their niche" , "empowering the laity", discover your uniqueness, ad nauseum. In what we Calvinistas term "common grace" is a huge body of work and thinking that describes how people and organizations work because they are made in the image of God. By design, people and groups of people work (albeit in a fallen way) "predictably" and by working consistently with the way God has designed us, we start to both understand and utilize what good things God has worked into creation. Christian Schwartz of Natural Church Development has called us to understand and utilize biological models of growth rather than manipulative models of psycho cults and hipster gurus.

I have found further corroboration of this in the following books:

A few months ago I wouldn't have picked up such books much less lauded them. Why do so now? What these books describe and offer is the answer to the cry: "Give me real don't give me fake." The world wants something that works. We say Christianity is true, but don't show how Christianity works.

One biblical example: "And he gave pastors and teachers to equip God's people for the work of ministry." Eph. 4.11. What this verse describes and teaches is that elders are given to be catalysts for the growth and involvement of God's gifted people. When leaders desire to be in control rather than serve and thereby encourage and influence, God's people are pushed or stopped, rather than unleashed to serve in their unique ways. Leadership becomes a bottleneck to go through, butt heads with, or vote out. This is hardly what Jesus intended. When we see our role as equippers rather than managers, and see organic growth versus top down mandate as the goal, we will see the kind of collaborative growth seen in internet phenomena ("viral marketing") like YouTube and Wikipedia, and open source exploration like Ontario's Goldcorp. (One of the most fascinating tales in Starfish.)

One of our greatest areas of growth this year is in the desire and thought put into outreach. This is where Church Marketing 101 was useful. Our congregation meets in rented facilities with no permanent signage and at the moment no temporary signage, beyond our website. No one knows we exist. This means we must make ourselves known. People who cringe at the word "church marketing" think of it as "tickling ears" and "giving people what they want vs. what God wants." As the author of this book points out, marketing in its truest sense is telling people who you are so that they can't mistake what you're about and what you are offering. The way we love people is by being clear on Jesus and the Gospel and clear on who we are. The sheer exercise of explaining who we are helps us refine who we are and stay on target with our Christ centred and Gospel fueled mission. We are not doing theology via focus group but opening a conversation with Christ at the centre and confusing messages in the dustbin.

In these ways we can have real ministry, communicate who we really are, and in the process communicate that Jesus is ruling all things, especially his church, with truth and grace.

Reformed Chicks Blabbing: President of Czech Republic Disses Gore

2007-02-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

Reformed Chicks Blabbing: President of Czech Republic Disses Gore

You have to love this. The current Czech president, applying reason, scientific acumen, and a healthy dose of chutzpah, has taken on the environmental juggernaut head on! He highlights how it is an ideology rather than a coup of scientific evidence.

Read on and think for yourself. I just shoveled a half a foot of snow from my drive, 18 hours after I did the same yesterday. Not warming in my postal code!

Ashmouth

2007-01-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

In my daily reading today , I read God's ridicule of idolatry. But in his gracious, severe mercy he mocks what is mockable. He shames what is shameworthy. Why? Does mocking a mocker deliver him from his folly? Apparently! (Although prophets get away with this in ways pastors never do, with maybe the exception of Doug Wilson and his Serrated Edge).

Are you an ashmouth? God said I didn't!!

Isaiah 44.18 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. 19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” 20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

Part of idolatry is the delusional lack of discernment that makes folly look wise and death look like life and ashes look like food!! The blindness of our God-forsaking lusts lets us mistake all kinds of worthless things for something to which we could sing, "WORTHY!"

One of the keys to understanding what God does in granting us repentance is that not only are we offered the worthy object of worship and trust but also the appetite for him. If ashes are on our menu by nature, then he must change us so that we seek after him. After we are renewed we can and must say, "EEWWW! Why am I holding this, this, thing in my hands. It is nothing and it's disgusting. Show me something worthy and clean me up, please!!"

Do you know how to reproduce?

2007-01-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

People who walk past our family (with four boys, and now a baby girl puppy) in our local mall will never ask us this question!! Our kids even like to form a line like "crack the whip" which makes us few friends among our fellow shoppers!

This questions haunts me when it comes to church and discipleship. Recently I've been gripped by the need and desire to see disciples made of our existing and future church community. Our church and presbytery is quite keen on reproducing churches to reach Canada for Christ. But it has been hard going with mixed results.

Over at World Changers I came across this stunning quote that I want to unpack in this post:

“If you can’t reproduce disciples, you can’t reproduce leaders.
If you can’t reproduce leaders, you can’t reproduce churches.
If you can’t reproduce churches, you can’t reproduce movements.”
Neil Cole

Our church has had both a dearth and death of leadership in its 18 year history. One of the reasons, I now believe, stems from the inability (for whatever reason) to reproduce disciples. In our small churches getting adherents is a thrill, adding members causes us to swoon, and to produce a disciple we would say "Beam me up Jesus. My life is complete."

In their book, No Man Left Behind, Patrick Morley, David Delk, and Brett Clemmer state "We pray for disciples and make workers" when instead we should "Make disciples and pray for workers." Trying to get our slots filled is deadly competition for our real mandate of the Great Commission that must and will be fulfilled.

As I've done a lot of reading about this phenomenon lately I'm convinced that it's possibly (how's that for humilty) a lack of a conceptual map of what a progression of discipleship would look like.

Dennis Bennett, Training Consultant at the PCA's EQUIP for Ministry mag offers this map:

Level 1 Searching: UNSAVED Being nurtured along and is very interested in spiritual things
Level 2 Believing: NEW CHRISTIAN Immature, needing nurturing
Level 3 Growing: ACTIVELY GROWING personally, but not involved in ministry
Level 4 Becoming: SPIRITUALLY MATURING needs now to be trained to disciple new believers
Level 5 Serving: SPIRITUALLY MATURE train to disciple to others ( A-C)
Level 6 Leading: SPIRITUALLY MATURE should be leading the Church (A-F)

A few questions might help us use this map and address the needs concretely:

How long will we let a person call themselves "a new Christian"?
What signs of growth would we be looking for? Regular attendance? Small group participation? Tithing? Witnessing? A fish sticker on the tailgate? Starting a blog on theology?
If discipleship becomes the "portal priority" or defining grid through which all ministry takes place, would discipling become a test case for leadership readiness? Which is the question "do you know how to reproduce"? This is a tad different than the "apt to teach" required of elders, but is related to it. (Check out No Man Left Behind for a definition of discipleship as "portal priority")
If we don't have a framework for training believers, how will we reproduce leaders who could nurture disciples?

This last question is one reason why many of our churches never move past the "one cell" level that Carl F. George discusses in Prepare Your Church for the Future. If only the pastor has the power/knowhow/woo to make disciples, the one thing each of them will have in common is the pastor. What this will produce is a small number of disciples, and will perhaps produce a groupie/clique dependence that they will never grow out of. The ego of the pastor and the dependence of the disciple will hamper the ability to go out and reproduce. He will not be free to" play the field" and shepherd the whole flock, and definitely not be able to seek and save the lost outside of the fold.

This is one of the most powerful but also deadly characteristics of the lead planter. If he is a winsome communicator, empathetic counselor, and a mediocre networker, he will start the church and perhaps never outgrow a group of needy, dependent "cling-ons." Humanly and practically speaking, our planters should be winsome communicators, occasional counselors, and rabid networkers that takes the shape of discipling disciplers who will also be networkers. The growth needs to be viral rather than architectural (see George's analogy of coral growth and yeast growth). By the way, I'm all for counseling and I'm taking training to correct this blindspot in my schooling, but we should look at counseling as short-term, focused discipleship rather than a long-term relationship that leads to a "forsaking all others."

So what does this look in terms of ministry for 2007 for me?

The current situation and future growth requires that I focus on reproducing reproducers (Bennett's Level 4-6). It's a painful admission to say that even though we are a small church and even though I'm a nice guy, I can't connect with everybody at a deep level. But other people in their God-given uniqueness can. This means I can and must identify people and their natural networks that are the perfect context for either peer-to-peer or mentoring style discipleship. Being intentional in this way monopolizes on the viral/biological power that we often ignore. (Natural Church Development has captured this powerfully and they have cool color diagrams!)
Getting out and meeting Level 1's.
Short term counseling and regular encouragement of Level's 2-3
Prayer! The stagnancy demons will probably only come out through prayer and fasting.

The Enemy WIthin Audio from Kris Lundgaard

2007-01-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

To my friends and parishioners who need John Owen but would never read him, I recommend Kris Lundgaard's "remix" called The Enemy Within.

Thanks to the Irish Calvinist and his church, Omaha Bible, we can have the contents from the horses mouth. Check it out here.

Insomniacs

2006-12-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

I know people who regularly experience insomnia. It drains them of energy and can begin to wear on the psyche. I had a few hours of insomnia last night. Thanks to Starbucks and God's grace, I'm cruising and getting a lot done. T.S. Eliot describes feminine insomnia quite poignantly in "The Dry Salvages". This goes out to my wife and my sisters who are on the night watch:

The tolling bell
measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending . . .

Those last lines point us towards eternity. Sleepless nights seem like an eternity, yet eternity is drawing our hearts forward, the grace of God has covered our past, and in sleepless nights and restless days "he is the song of my life."

Education for a digital age

2006-12-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

My friend over at Rotundus has been taking some courses over at Biblical Training.

The courses are taught by some of the big, and smaller, guns of Reformed and Conservative Evangelical Theology. One class called Practical Theology by John Piper looks well worth the effort (if I only had the time!)

Mr. Rotundus has wondered aloud what the value of a seminary (or unseminary) educated computer scientist would be. I think it would have the same value as the Puritans espoused: a man walking behind the plow knowing his Bible, knowing his God, and worshiping his king. It makes one a better worker (since you begin to see God as the only boss worth pleasing), more motivated (his glory is our object), and keeps our handle on the word fresh. All to say, don't go off to seminary, but get filled up with all the good things God has for you in Christ, through the word, through free tools!!

New Goldsworthy book

2006-12-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

The kind folks over at Beginning with Moses have alerted us to the latest contribution of Graeme Goldsworthy to the Biblical Theology movement. This is very exciting as his usual clarity producing scholarship is now focused on how the Gospel is the hermeneutical key to the Scriptures. This is a far cry to the dispensationalism of my youth which made reading the 70 weeks the key to the Scriptures. Thanks be to God for Christ our indescribable gift!!

http://beginningwithmoses.org/library/gospelherm.htm

Blogging on Longing to Know by Esther Meek

2006-12-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

I was originally turned on to this book through Per Caritatem, who is featuring a series on Polanyi. Prof. Meek's book is a popularization of the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. As I read the introduction of the book while waiting for a friend to get out of his doctor's appointment, I thought to myself, "I have never been so excited to read a book after reading the intro."

Prof. Meek had strugglers, among others, in mind when she wrote the book:

I have in mind people who wrestle with questions concerning truth and possibility of knowledge as a result our culture's recent consensus shift from modernism to postmodernism. Philosophically, the shift has been centuries in th emaking, but it has only in recent decades reached the street. We have gone from struggling to conform to a stringent criteria to shore up our claims to absolute, objective truth to outright rejection of the entire enterprise - from absolute truth to no truth. Affirming no truth is not always a comfortable position for a human being. It leaves nagging questions.

She writes as a seminary prof at Covenant Seminary. I'm reading this book as a pastor, hoping to reach the same kind of people. My people swim in a postmodern pool and when we talk about being sure about the truthfulness of Scripture, being assured of salvation, and "let us affirm what we believe", people are squirming. They are asking "Can we know what he says we can know?" "How sure am I that I'm sure?" "How sure do I have to be before I say 'I'm a believer in Jesus'?"

To make the fullest use of the book, she asks the reader to Get a journal and Get a friend. This blog will be my public journal and you, reader, will be my pretend friend, in a very special Mr. Rodgers Neighbourhood (for US readers) or Mr. Dressup (for Canadian's, eh) way.

Are you sure you want to come along? I knew you would. Come along, neighbour.

Echo Prayer Manager

2006-10-11T09:48:00.000-06:00

As someone who is called to the word and prayer, how often have we told someone after church, "I'll pray for that." In the press of busyness and neglected duties we don't.

Josh Harris' little brothers linked to this site. It helps you track your prayer requests, receive email reminders or text messages to pray, and you can mark answers to prayer!! Read more at www.echoprayer.com/mana...

Thank You, Dr. John Piper | TheResurgence

2006-10-04T16:02:00.000-06:00

Piper got a lot of flack for having Mark Driscoll at DG 06 this weekend. Though rebutting unnecessary and unChristian blogossip, these two heavy hitters hit back with grace and truth and brotherly affection. Both of their stocks went up in my book!

Transcript of Keller's 9/11 sermon

2006-09-20T10:49:00.000-06:00

Reformissionary has the scoop.

Reformed University Fellowship & PeruMission: The Ability / Inability To Take A Hit

2006-09-19T12:05:00.000-06:00

Reformed University Fellowship & PeruMission: The Ability / Inability To Take A Hit

My brother and friend has done us a great service in saying that the true Gospel shows that our religion can take a hit. Jesus did! Can your master forgive his assasins? Can he rescue murderers?

Hmm.

3 Elders on the driveway, 2 Gospels, 1 True

2006-09-19T11:27:00.000-06:00

As I met 2 LDS elders (who were considerably younger than this 35 year old elder ;) on my driveway yesterday and argued against "another testament of Jesus Christ" I was struck by a line from the new single by Jars of Clay, "Work"

Demons sound like prophets/I'm living out every word they say.

The day before in my sermon on Hebrews 1, I put our people on notice that in the finality of Christ's revelation, all previous true prophets were fulfilled and outranked by Christ. All previous and subsequent false prophets were vanquished and deemed irrelevant and irreverent by his appearance as Word of the Father, Perfect Prophet. I even named Mohammed and Joseph Smith as belonging to this category.

Ironically, as CS Lewis has pointed out, Islam is a Christian heresy. To that I would add LDS who even dares to call Jesus "Saviour of the World" and "Son of God." Heretics parse their words differently though they use the same vocabulary. Now is the time for the Creeds: Christ, very God of very God, Light of Light, is of homoousias of the Father. His deity is eternal, permanent, and he eternally proceeds from the Father. Mohammed and Joe Smith's authority comes from the Father of Lies.

Demons sound like prophets. Their spokesmen are walking up to your porch and dancing burning your flag and slandering your Saviour. Don't say I didn't warn ya! I'm just passing on what's been given to all the saints (Jude).

Men and Women in Ministry

2006-09-13T16:18:00.000-06:00

Anyone who was a teenager/young adult in the 90's would remember Pat on Saturday Night Live. We weren't sure if Pat was a she, he, or an it. The subtitle of the sketch was "Adventures in Androgyny." Androgyny is literally the combination of the Greek words for Man (andros) and Woman (gune, pron. goon-ay). In being both, someone is neither.

In a very challenging and timely book, Women's Ministry in the Local Church, Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt attack the egalitarian approach to ecclesiastical androgyny.

We need to help Christian women appreciate the manifold areas of service that are open to them in the chrch and to equip them distinctively as women to fulfill their ministry. But this will never happen if our approach to discipleship in the church is androgynous - -that is, if it refuses to take into account the gender distinctives of the disciple. And it will never happen if we are not brave enough to address the Bible's teaching on male-female roles and functions in the home and church. (p. 38)

The standard egalitarian text that supposedly teaches that "a woman can do anything an unordained man can do" is Galatians 3.28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This passage in context is setting out the radically unified ontology of those who are in Christ Jesus. They have access to the gracious promises of God to Abraham and are marked as part of the visible covenant community via baptism (which in the Old Covenant, the sign was only placed upon males for obvious reasons.)

To do justice to our gender, as we must with Christ our Lord who was fully male though celibate living a life of deadly service for his Bride, we must disciple men and women to be Godly men and Godly women, not Godly Its (or as we joke at our house about non-anatomically correct mannequins, "smoothies").

The Bridegroom calls us to respond to him as a Bride. Husbands are called to die like the Bridegroom. Wives are called to live like the Bride. Single people are to be committed to the Lord, freed from the cares of pleasing a spouse. This could be called "Adventures in Particularity" living for Christ in "the state in which you were called." (1 Cor. 7)

Pastor's Wives blogroll

2006-09-13T15:28:00.000-06:00

Mrs. RevGoT has started a pastor's wives blogroll. Go get 'em ladies!

Thankful for team ministry

2006-09-13T15:14:00.000-06:00

With Paul we should all say "I am what I am by the grace of God." If any of you knew me in my teen and college years, you'd probably be amazed at what I do now. Much of what I've become is through the grace of God exhibited in other people. This is true of the strong team serving around me in our church.

Just today in a meeting with Lori our Ministry Coordinator she arrived at a great solution to moving our church forward in team ministry. In focusing on projects rather than standing committees (a 5th mark of the Church Calvin never invented but Presbyterians are addicted to!) we have found a way to include more people without administrative overkill.

Our elders and deacon and faithful friends make ministry a delight. I'd be remiss in not mentioning my wife who sharpens my ideas and forces me to explain my lofty ideas in real world context. She also puts together a pretty sweet newsletter on her trusty little iBook that looks like a million bucks!

Thanks everybody!!

Demotivators

2006-09-08T12:23:00.000-06:00

Do perky sales people drive you up the wall? Does a purpose driven life make you feel like somebody's making you do what you don't want to do? You've never had a manic monday . . .

Well, Demotivators are for you!

New design

2006-09-08T10:15:00.000-06:00

I've been remiss in not publicly saying thanks to my wife for redesigning the template to my blog. She's a coding queen among other things. Thanks a million!

Do preachers bug you?

2006-09-02T21:50:00.000-06:00

HT: Slaves of Righteousness

Communion in small groups

2006-08-31T11:56:00.000-06:00

I was asked about this last night and surfed to no avail until I uncovered this. It's roughly the answer I gave.

"Lord's Supper in a small group setting?"
Throughout my Christian life I have always been uncomfortable when the Lord's Supper is served outside of the church, say, in a small group setting. I didn't know why until I dealt with the issue further in my RTS studies. Here's why such a practice should be discouraged:

Christ instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as a sign and seal of the new covenant He established with His church. The church has certain characteristics not found in small group setting. One of the most important is the oversight and rule of the elders. In a small group setting, since there are no elders present, it would be improper to administer the Lord’s Supper because the Lord’s Supper is a method of disciplining the congregation (withholding the Supper is the penultimate step of discipline - excommunication is the ultimate). Serving the Supper apart from the elders severs oneself from the sphere of discipline of the elders.

In summary, the administration of the Supper:

(i) is in the hands of the leadership of the church and,
(ii) accompanies the word, so it is to be administered by a minister.

While administering the Supper in a small group setting would indeed be an "irregular" celebration of the sacrament it would not be an "invalid" one. It would be impossible to argue that in celebrating the Supper in such a setting that there is no communion with Christ, however, it is clearly irregular and should be discouraged.

The same argument holds true for family communion, wedding communion, and church plant communion where the plant does not yet have elders."

My hunch is to say invalid, but it's based on the same argumentation regarding authority and discipline. Those two words are hardly popular in pop evangelical spirituality. The invidual is seen as authoritative in a twisted reading of the priesthood of all believers, and discipline is a bad word!

Barna's recent book Revolution seeks to applaud the entrepreneurial vein of pomo Christianity. He bids good riddance to the church and institutional authority in favour of sacramental understandings of Starbucks and any gathering between two Christians. This means that we need to redouble our efforts and retreat to the Scriptures to "sell" this notion of communion with Christ with his body in covenantal worship not just Christian fellowship.

Let me know if you can improve on these answers anybody.

What's not new about the New Covenant

2006-08-31T09:25:00.000-06:00

I was reading several chapters yesterday of The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism ed. Gregg Strawbridge. A great book and very useful in looking at several aspects of the biblical theology surrounding our practice of covenantal baptism. Chapter 7 by Jeffrey Niell, (at time of writing) a CRE pastor in Arizona, answers an assertion from John MacArthur based on Hebrews 8. The punchline of MacArthur's assertion is that the New Covenant is new in that it stresses interior, spiritual reality ("all shall know the Lord") in contrast to the exterior, formal reality of the Old Covenant.

In response Niell offers these zingers of what's not new in the New Covenant:

A people of God called the church.
Internal religion (Heb. 8.10 cf. Deut 6.4-6)
Divine initiative
Vital, covenantal relationship with God (Lev. 26.12)
Vital, personal knowledge of God. (Heb. 8.11)
Grace, mercy and forgiveness (cf. Psalm 85, Ps 32, Ps 103)

What is new then? JESUS HAS COME AND FULFILLED THE LAW!!
We have in Christ

the prophetic word now made sure
a perfect, high priest
a perfect, final, unrepeatable sacrifice
a brother in the battle against sin
the reality forecast in shadowy figures, types, and symbols
no more bloody sacrifices
no veil in the holy place
a share in the fellowship offerings as a kingdom of priests
and we will go on in eternity enjoying his fulness, transformed now from one degree of glory to another.

I'll leave you with a hymn to lead your heart to praise and wonder at Christ's fulfillment of both covenants!

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong a perfect plea

A great High Priest whose name is Love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within

Upward I look and see Him there

Who made an end of all my sin

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

For God the Just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there the Risen Lamb

My perfect spotless righteousness

The great unchangeable I Am

The King of glory and of grace

One with Himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God

Free Derek Webb (no, he's not in jail)

2006-08-29T14:08:00.000-06:00

Two shameless plugs: Read my wife's blog as she plugs Derek Webb's free downloadable album!

Skill in Prayer and the Grace of Prayer

2006-08-29T13:53:00.000-06:00

"There is a great difference between the skill and the grace of prayer. The skill is but the outside, the shape, the carcass of our responsibility. The grace is the soul and spirit that gives it life, vigor and efficacy, that renders it acceptable to God and of real advantage to ourselves. The skill consists chiefly in a readiness of thought consistent with the various aspects of prayer, and a facility for expressing those thoughts in speaking to God. The grace consists in the inward workings of heart and conscience toward God and our life of faith. The skill has a show and appearance of holy desires, and real conversation with God belong only to the grace of prayer. The skill and the grace are often separated from each other, and it has often been found that the skill of prayer has been attained in great measure by study and practice and by the common workings of the Spirit of God communicated to some persons that have known nothing of true grace. Conversely, there may be a lively exercise of the grace of prayer in some wouls who have a very small measure of skill - - who hardly know how to form their thoughts and desires in a methodical or regular way, or to express those desires in tolerable language" Isaac Watts On Prayer (1715)

A pastor cannot get on very long without skill in public prayer. It's scary how much we can get done without the grace of prayer. I've been recently encouraged by some who have sensed "unction" in my preaching. I'm afraid. I have seen God use my preaching without the matching grace of prayer. Am I a carcass without a soul? Is public prayer for God's consumption alone? Private prayer is conversation - - where the things of God and the things of the child of God are going back and forth from heaven and earth through the Mediator by the power and groanings of the Spirit. Pray for me and with me as I seek the grace of prayer.

Originality and faithfulness

2006-08-24T11:08:00.000-06:00

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” C.S. Lewis (HT: Per Caritatem)

This quote captures the struggle of the preacher giving an eternal message in changing times. There is so much reimagining Jesus going on in the hopes of having our culture come to Jesus. What you have then is a new Jesus and a culture that has changed since you had it in your sights. Being original about Jesus sells books. Simply telling the truth will make you so original. Mark Driscoll is a great inspiration to me in this regard. In chewing out a cheesy mega-pastor (whose initials are Joel Osteen) he gave this encouragement (as only Mark can): "You're a mail man. Just deliver the freakin' mail. Don't add to the message. Don't take away from the message. Just deliver the freakin' mail. You're a mail man for God's sake."

I often tell people with tongue firmly in cheek: "My job is easy. All I have to do is deliver the truth." It is so freeing and so binding at the same time. I have to ask myself: Did I understand the text? Did I explain the text well? Did I reflect God in all of his glory? Did I understand my culture, myself, and my people accurately? Did I plead with men or merely deliver a lecture? Did I preach as if my life and their life depended on it (1 Tim. 4.16).

Preachers, be original - - tell the truth.