America, We Have A Problem

While at youth camp this summer I heard a statistic quoted that 80% of seminary graduates leave the ministry within five years of graduating.  I went snooping around to see where such a statistic might come from.  Well, it turns out that LeadingFromYourStrengths.com has come across various troubling studies.  They posted them at their blog about a year ago.  Here’s what they found: Read more

Jesus The Center

For a religion that takes its name from its founder it would seem that Jesus being the center of the Christian faith would be a redundant statement of the obvious. But is it?

I think there are two sources of competition for Jesus being the center in the modern American church. One of those sources of competition shouldn’t be competition at all because it actually points back to Jesus everywhere. The other source of competition is killing the church while we sit by and sing My Jesus I Love Thee. Read more

Semper Reformanda

You’d either have to know Latin or church history to know what that means, but Semper Reformanda was a phrase used by some of the Protestant Reformers to indicate that church reformation is always ongoing; literally “always reforming.”

As I look at 2000 years of church history one thing I note is that the church has regularly been called back from a place of compromise, apathy and lethargy to a place of greater faithfulness and vibrancy. Read more

Obscuring Reality

As I think about the last 2000 years in the history of the church there are many people and groups that I admire.  I often wish I knew a little more about the early church Fathers because they lived so close to Jesus that I’m inclined to the belief that their faith was more pure.  Untainted.  There are aspects of the lives and teachings of Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin that really hit home for me.  Later I see the deep devotion of the Desert Fathers.  Then, of course, there is Augustine.

I appreciate the devotion, the call to a simple life and authentic faith that can be seen in the Waldensians in France, the Lollards in England and the Moravians in Bohemia.

I’m inspired by the mind of the Reformers and the devotion of the Radical Reformers.

But looking at the history of the church, there is something in each individual or group that, to me, just isn’t quite right.   Read more

Lessons From Church History

Over the past 6 months I’ve been teaching a Sunday School class in church history.  When we step back from the specific details of God’s work in his church through time there are some repeated trends that one notices.  I want to think through some of those I’ve noticed as I’ve taught this class.  Rather than give a list I want to examine some specific trends and I’ll dedicate a separate post to each one.

Today, however, I want to lay my presuppositions on the table. Read more

There’s Demons Swirlin’ Around That Thing

That’s a line adapted from something I remember hearing Jamie Ragel say at one of our state Evangelism Conferences a few years ago. He was talking about drums in worship and how some people react to them. This wasn’t how he said he felt, but how some people do.

Dan Kimball has written about how the organ, in its early days in church, created the same sort of controversy we have these days about drums and guitars in worship. Not only that, but some of the most dearly loved hymns, especially in our Baptist churches, were criticized as worldly.

It’s interesting how we are so embedded in our own culture and how our cultural perspectives influence what we think about worship, doctrine and the like. A hundred years ago some people thought that What A Friend We Have In Jesus was too worldly and unspiritual for the church. Sometimes I wonder if a hundred years from now people in our churches will think we were strange because we didn’t like drums and guitars or because of the songs we use in worship.

(HT: Art Rogers)

Of Brides and Black Eyes

Some years ago an old high school friend was serving as Youth Minister at a church. Not being there I don’t know all of the details behind the story, but it is a church where I have friends and family, so I heard about it from their perspective. The Youth Minister was leaving the church. In the process he stood up in the service and began to verbally roast certain people from the floor, including the pastor. From all accounts it was pretty ugly.

I was appalled. I remember telling some of those people that when someone does that sort of thing it was like being at a wedding and punching the bride in the eye. After all, the church is the bride of Christ. Now, if that were a real wedding and someone went up front and punched the bride in the eye as she was waiting on the groom, he’d better get out of there quick, because when the groom arrives he’s going to give that boy a thumping like he’s never seen. What do you suppose Jesus’ response is when people blacken the eye of the church?

That happens in a variety of ways. It’s not just when disgruntled staff go out in a bad way. It’s not limited to what goes on in public meetings, either. Probably more often than not it happens in day-to-day life when we fight and squabble, say unkind things about one another and to one another, express ill will toward one another and sow seeds of division. It’s no longer just a Baptist thing to say that the most common way to plant a church in America is to split one that’s already there.

There’s often too little patience, too little kindness, too much envy and boasting, too much arrogance and rudeness, too much insisting on my own way, too much irritability and resentfulness, too much rejoicing in wrongdoing and too little rejoicing in the truth. We don’t bear all things, believe all thing, hope all things or endure all things. In other words, we lack love.

Jesus said that the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another. Not by our rightness. Not by our skill in defending our positions. Certainly not by our strife and discord. Do they know? Are our words seasoned with understanding? Do we seek more to be heard than we do to listen? Or are we like those Paul mentions in Galatians who bite and devour one another? In that same passage Paul admonishes us:

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

May we be people who walk in the Spirit, not the kind who give the bride of Christ a black eye.

The Church - Created For What?

In his book A Community Called Atonement Scot McKnight writes that any theory of atonement should keep the end in mind - what was atonement meant to produce? In answering that question McKnight notes that the atonement was not just meant to produce forgiven people, but that “the work of God is to form a community in which the will of God is done and through which one finds both union with God and communion with others for the good of others and the world.” Thus, the atonement was meant to produce a certain kind of community.

I like his approach. I think it is very helpful in formulating a well-rounded and holistic view of the atonement. It avoids getting “stuck” in one particular place, overemphasizing one aspect of atonement to the neglect of others. In fact, he mentions the various views of atonement and likens them to a bag of golf clubs. A golfer might make it through a round with just one club (I think there are even friendly golf games that might involve just such a feat), but don’t expect to shoot par, or probably even close.

Perhaps McKnight’s approach would benefit our understanding of the church as well. Read more

Being With

I love theology and philosphy. I love to think and stretch my mind. It is one of the reasons I love to read so much. I once took a sort-of “spiritual gifts inventory” that gagued how we primarily relate to important things in our lives - specifically how we primarily find meaning in our faith. Some are primarily guided and energized by doing. Others are primarily energized by how they feel about God and their faith. Others, like me, find joy and fulfillment in thinking. It’s no wonder that one of the largest sections in my library is theology. While many pastors stock their shelves with books on leadership, method and/or devotion, those sections are small for me compared to theology and commentary.

It would be very easy for me to promote the idea that a significant part of our faith entails “right” theology. I believe theology is important and that there are some aspects of it that are vital, essential to the Christian faith.

But as I read the gospels I’m struck by how little those first disciples had right, doctrinally. Read more

Community

Yesterday our church experienced a great example of Christian community.

One of our church members has been in the process of re-roofing his house. Sunday night there was only a 20% chance of rain in the forecast, but if you are from around the Tulsa area you know that 20% quickly turned into what a friend of mine used to call a “toad strangler.” At about 3AM water started to drip from the ceiling in several places inside the house. One of those places was directly above where my daughter and one of theirs were sleeping. Soon the ceiling gave in to the weight of the rain-soaked insulation in several places and it wasn’t long before the whole house was a mess. I found out when my wife went to pick our daughter up in the morning.

By 10:30 AM we had people from the church showing up to help out in whatever way they could. In all there were more than 25 people, from youth on up, who came to help clean up the inside and finish roofing the back section of the house. It was a tremendous outpouring of help. At one point I told someone that it felt like an Amish barn raising with power tools. On their day off they volunteered their time and energy to help their brothers and sisters in need.

I just wanted to write this in celebration of Christ at work through his people in a dedicated, self-sacrificing way. Thank you Faith Baptist Church!

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