Church Life

Have you read Harry Potter?

I haven’t. Theologian and writer, Andy Naselli, recently finished the entire book series. Some people, not surprisingly, were disappointed/shocked by this and told him so. I’m certainly not endorsing the books, much less the movies (again, I haven’t seen or read any of them), but what Naselli discovered when he personally addressed each one of his objectors is sad.

I have spoken confidently against authors I’ve never read before. I can even think of occasions when, after reading more from a particular author, I realized that I caricatured and misrepresented the work. Oh, the inner bigot is ugly.

Yes, the prophets and NT writers as well were capable of outrage. But, outrage is a dangerous thing. And when outrage is not informed by the facts and the context, it either is or can come across as nothing more than bigotry. Either way, we lose credibility.

Filed Under: Books, Church Life, Cultural Issues

Blogging for Next Conference

Starting next week, I’ll be joining a team of bloggers pulled together to talk about, get prepped for and amped about the Next Conference (formerly New Attitude). Come visit the blog. Leave a comment and help us stir things up.

If you’ve been to this conference it really needs no introduction or sales pitch. It is perenially outstanding. We worship God together as we sing gospel-laden songs that help us fix our eyes on Christ. We hear excellent preaching – messages that are anchored to the text of Scripture and aimed at fueling our joy in God and strengthening our faith. We have loads of fun – lots of time to connect, deepen friendships, poke some fun, and meet new friends.

Go see the blog, bookmark it, and consider attending the conference. It’d be great to see you at the blog. But more than that, I’d love to save a seat for you in Baltimore.

Filed Under: Church Life, Miscellaneous

Kauflin on worship as counseling

Characters: David Powlison and Bob Kauflin

Context: In between sessions at the recent CCEF Conference

Question: What does our time of singing have to do with the struggles people bring into the corporate gathering?

Result: About 3 minutes of pastoral gold on the interface of worship and counseling.

Filed Under: Church Life, Spiritual Growth

Pastoring Pivoters: Cues from 2 Timothy

This past Sunday night, I gave a message at Pivot which was different than anything I’ve given before. I told them that having studied through 2 Timothy in preparation for the message I had the sense of giving them a sort of “pastoral covenant” which reflects my understanding of some of the priorities given to me by God as a pastor. I didn’t give the message the original way it came in the study, since – as I told them – I didn’t think I would be able to keep my emotional composure and neither of us would’ve been served by that! So instead of going through 2 Timothy and sharing personal reflections from passage after passage on how I’m praying that God would help me to serve Pivoters more effectively in those areas, I grouped those reflections under three primary headings: Proclaim (the gospel), Exhort (doctrinal instruction and exhortations to godliness), and Transfer (looking for ways to facilitate the transfer of gospel-truth, gospel-passion, and gospel-living from one generation to another).

In case you listen to the message, there was one point when I tried to remember the name of a sermon by Thomas Chalmers. It didn’t come to me, or to two friends who have steel-trap memories – I put them on the spot in a desperate attempt to recover the moment. The name of the sermon was “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”. Chalmers’ sermon is a classic.

For any who may be interested in reading the verse by verse personal reflections on 2 Timothy, I’ll paste them here:

Reflections on Pivot Ministry from 2 Timothy

1:1-2, 5-7 To give implicit and explicit proof of the fact that you’re not being led by a lone ranger pastor, or a first-generation witness to the things you are hearing. I have mentors who speak into my life – faithful Christian parents, extra local pastors/Christian leaders (dead and alive), and my wonderful friends (LCC pastors) who have and continue to speak into my life.

1:3-4 To pray for you constantly

1:8-14 To center my messages and ministry on the gospel; To not improvise, but faithfully uphold the truth of Scripture, with particular accent on teaching that produces/increases faith and love for Christ.

1:15-2:2 To not let the railings of gospel opponents be a distraction or discouragement, but rather an incentive to discipleship.

2:1-2 To diligently labor at transferring substantive, life-transforming doctrine to the next generation. Doctrine that turns civilians into soldiers, couch potatoes into (two images here) competitive athletes who have spiritual ambitions – hard-working, mission-minded, field workers for the Kingdom of God.

2:8-21 To resist the temptation to build this ministry on the trends of cultural spirituality. To build it on the foundational importance of proclaiming Christ and trusting that God’s Word – not my stories, jokes, hair style, cultural savvy, use of media – particularly the word of the gospel, is the power the Holy Spirit wields for salvation and growth.

2:22-26 To call you to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. To warn you about false teachers, bad books, unhealthy movements. To correct those trends in a spirit of concern and prayer. To remind you that wrong ideas are not just wrong ideas – they’re snares of the devil that capture people.

3:1-9 To not be trivial about the realities of sin in this world and the presence of sin in our hearts.

3:10-13 To walk in integrity by the grace of God. To confess sin, strive for holiness, pursue deeper amazement at God’s grace. To not have a double life.

3:14-17 To stand here under the conviction that if God’s Word doesn’t say it, you don’t need it in order to be equipped for every good work.

4:1-2 To hold onto the truth that the primary means God has given me to serve and disciple you is to feed on Scripture and to feed you scripture.

4:3-5 To resist the impulse to build Pivot ministry by parroting the values and creeds of our culture.

4:9-22 To regularly accent the irreplaceable importance of the larger local church setting for discipleship and mentoring. As much as possible, to create contexts for mentoring younger ministers and allowing closer friendships to foster a feeling of mutual mission as a group within the church. (Theoforum/Sheoforum/Small Groups)

Filed Under: Church Life, Messages, Spiritual Growth

The Cruelty of the Prosperity Gospel

Watch this and then watch this. Weep and pray that God would purge this idolatry from His Church.

Filed Under: Church Life

Why So Many Words in Worship?

The songs we sing on Sunday morning are not chosen, first of all, on the basis of musical style, but of content. What do the words say? What truths are brought to mind? How does this song hold before us the glory, beauty, mercy, power of the Triune God?

Lots of worship songs being written today have moving music and melodies, but lack specificity. They fall into the habit that C.S. Lewis urged good writers to avoid:

“It’s no use telling us that something was ‘mysterious’ or ‘loathsome’ or ‘awe-inspiring’ or ‘voluptuous…. By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim ‘how mysterious!’ or ‘loathsome’ or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you’ll have no need to tell me how I should react.”

Not every song that we incorporate in our singing is going to be a multi-verse work of poetic theology. Not every song will have the shelf life of Amazing Grace or How Great Thou Art. The overwhelming majority won’t. Some of our songs will be simpler. Some will have strings of adjectives. But I hope that our primary singing diet over the course of, say, a decade, would be composed of songs that direct our thoughts to the glory of God. Songs that don’t just say He is great, but recall to our minds the great things He has done, so that the natural response of our hearts is to exclaim, “You are Great!”

If you want to read a brief article, hot off the press, on the question of why we should sing songs that are poetic theology, enjoy these thoughts from Kevin DeYoung.

Filed Under: Church Life, Spiritual Growth

The sick you will always have with you: LCC pastors & visitation ministry

I have had the privilege of serving in pastoral ministry with dear friends – men for whom I have tremendous personal respect. I know their lives and have benefited greatly from their friendship and example. Pastors Keith Collins, Peter Davidson, and Jeff Ehrhardt are gifted preachers who have served my family and the larger body of Lakeview Christian Center faithfully for many years. But, in addition to that primary means of serving the church (preaching), one of the things that has most affected me as I’ve observed their pastoral care is the way they care for the sick.

They pay attention to the needs of the Body and they take great pains to be with the people when they’re suffering. Each of them excels at this. I’ve not only gone with them to the bedside of suffering saints, but have also experienced their care first hand on two particularly challenging occasions. September of 2000, we had to take our 2 year old son, on his birthday, to the hospital for emergency, exploratory surgery on a rare infection that was found in his finger. We received uncommon care from them and members of the Body as Hunter and my wife, Paula, lived at the hospital for several days with non-stop intravenous antibiotics pumping through his system. More seriously, in 2008, our then 3 year old daughter, Elisabeth, became gravely ill and required emergency surgery in order to drain a grapefruit sized abscess that was quickly shutting her system down. The whole pastoral staff, their wives – who are also exceptionally gifted to serve and minister comfort – and many close friends from LCC, brought incredible care, compassion, and encouragement during our nearly one month stay at Children’s Hospital.

All that said, and their denials notwithstanding, Keith, Peter, or Jeff could well have written this helpful resource, Visit the Sick, in Brian Croft’s place, had he – say – fallen ill midway through the project. What Croft has put into this booklet is, after all, what they do so faithfully.

The book is broken up under four helpful headings: biblical, theological, pastoral, practical. And I love the appendices! One of them is simply a checklist that bullets the salient issues raised in the book. I’ll leave that here to whet your appetite:

Take this list with you and review it before you make your visits.

Theological

Ask leading questions

Read Scripture

Pray the gospel

Affirm the promises and attributes of God

Trust God’s sovereign plan

Pastoral

Prepare your heart

Watch your time

Listen, don’t solve

Leave a note [if they're out]

Enjoy the moment

Practical

Make eye contact

Touch with discernment

Be pleasant

Be perceptive

Freshen your breath

I’d encourage anyone reading this to get Croft’s little book. It is a uniquely helpful resource for ministering to one category of people that the church will always have with us this side of heaven – the sick.

Filed Under: Books, Church Life, Spiritual Growth

A non-fundamentalist fundamentalist. Huh?

Is this an oxymoron? Dr. Russell Moore explains the way in which theological labels may be unhelpfully elastic and, at other times, quite useful.

Filed Under: Church Life, Theology

Meet Dave Harvey

Since the early days of our church’s exposure to Sovereign Grace Ministries, one of our long time favorite speakers has been Dave Harvey. At the Pastor’s Conference last year he delivered the best message on The Great Commission I’ve ever heard. If you want to get some fuel poured on your passion for the local church and the mission of the kingdom, you need to get you some of this.

That said, Dave has begun to share a blog with other guys we’ve come to love and respect over the past 10 years – C.J. Mahaney and Jeff Purswell. Here’s his debut post.

Filed Under: Church Life, Messages

Three Amigos & Pop Evangelical Theology

What is the primary purpose for God giving us the stories of David and Goliath, Moses interceding for idolatrous Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and many other critical moments in the redemptive flow of Old Testament history? To teach us to be brave like David? To deal a death blow to the “Goliaths” of our lives: the fear of man, worry, or impure thoughts? To teach us that we should intercede for others? That we should be importunate in our prayers, not taking no for an answer?

It’s funny how this speech from Steve Martin about “El Guapo” resembles the way we can empty the Old Testament of its primary aim, namely to foreshadow the person and work of Jesus Christ (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45; Rom. 1:1-4; Heb. 3:1-6, 7:23-28; 1 Pet. 1:10-12). He is the perfect Prophet, who reveals the saving purposes of God to His people. He is the Great High Priest, who offers Himself up once for all to satisfy divine justice, reconcile us to God, and he continually intercedes for us. And He is the risen and exalted King, who brings us into His kingdom, rules and defends His people, and conquers all of His and our enemies. Not only that, He is the new Temple, the Good Shepherd, the Suffering Servant, the Lamb of God, the Cornerstone of the church, the Last Adam, God’s fruit-bearing Vine through which His people receive life, the Psalmist/Worship Leader who leads us in God-honoring praise, and many more fulfillments of Old Testament events, places, figures, and ceremonies. To realize this is to read the Old Testament the way Jesus taught his disciples to read it, and to interpret it the way he taught the New Testament writers to interpret it: Christo-centrically.

Having understood these things, it isn’t out of place for us to derive models and examples for our lives from those events (1 Cor. 10:11). But, to jump to what “I should do in light of David’s courage” and what “I should do in light of Moses prayer life” while ignoring the way in which those and other passages show us the glory of Christ, is to go a long way towards emptying the Bible of its truly Christian content. What religion has a problem with you reading a passage and coming away thinking you should be a more courageous person? None that I can think of. A Christian interpretation of the primary intent of Old Testament revelation is one that repeatedly points to Christ and thus offers hope and salvation to those who repent and trust Him. It also maintains the God-designed pattern of the offense of the gospel for any who would stubbornly reject Him.

Let’s not turn Bible stories into “El Guapo” speeches”. Let’s take Christ at His word and look for Him in “Moses, all of the prophets, … and all the Scriptures” (Lk. 24:27).

Filed Under: Church Life, Spiritual Growth, Theology

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