Blogotional

Classical Presbyterian has written a couple of times about how what the PCUSA is doing is not working. Our response is to be more "evangelical," and yet what they are doing does is not working so well either. Toby hints at the best response:

The plain truth is, the more you are accustomed to the full richness of the whole counsel of God on a regular basis, the more drab, uninteresting and downright boring mainline religion will become to you.

...or any other pre-packaged, spoon-fed "program" for achieving:

1. salvation
2. your best life now
3. happiness
4. eternal life
5. all of the above
6. 1 and 4 of the above
7. 2 and 4 of the above
8. none of the above

Think about that phrase, "...the full richness of the whole counsel of God...," even "all of the above" does not come close to that.

It seems we are always offering only some part of that "whole counsel." People clasp onto that part and hold on for dear life. How many times have I said that only to hear a preacher respond, "Well, I can't preach everything every Sunday." I never said you could. The "whole counsel," in all its richness cannot be preached, it must be lived. And it cannot even be lived by one person, for we are all sinners and we all fall short. Hence the community allows us to see it all, becasue in a healthy community they'll be someone with exhibiting the aspects that we are missing.

And so, our first priority, as a church, is not to bring in, but to become. To become the body of Christ exhibiting that full richness of the whole counsel. Doesn't that change how we do business tremendously?

More, doesn't that change how we live tremendously. As individuals we seek not to achieve but to become someone that exhibits as much of that whole counsel as possible. And then, when we do the business of the church, we worry more about who we are than what we do.

Consider a governing board meeting for just a minute - one where the focus was not on what to do, but on who we are. Instead of asking attendance questions we asked questions about faith and hope. Imagine that board working to exhibit that full richness.

There is a business adage, "You get what you measure." It is fair to say the church in general, mainline or evangelical is measuring the wrong things.

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Heroes and Artists - Shadowcat

Tom Grummet

John Cassaday

Philip Tan

Al Rio

And, this week only - a comic geek bonus link.

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Justin Taylor quotes John Piper quoting C.S. Lewis and Jonathon Edwards. Quoting Piper:

Humility senses that humility is a gift beyond our reach. If humility is the product of reaching, then we will instinctively feel proud about our successful reach. Humility is the gift that receives all things as gift. It is the fruit not of our achievement but of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It is the fruit of the gospel—knowing and feeling that we are desperate sinners and that Christ is a great and undeserved Savior.

Humility is the one grace in all our graces that, if we gaze on it, becomes something else. It flourishes when the gaze is elsewhere—on the greatness of the grace of God in Christ.

I truly love this definition of humility. It is not about self-denial for self-denial has you still thinking about yourself. It's not about self-depreciation, for once again, that has you thinking about yourself. It's not about anything that has in its title, or is associated with self.

Humility is an absence of self. The moment you achieve humility you won't know it, because if you did, you would be paying too much attention to yourself.

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There is a lot of heresy in the world, but I don't often get worked up about it. Most of it does not make a huge difference in the real world. But,as MSNBC reports on the increasing acceptance of the so-called "prosperity gospel" in the wake of recession, I feel comment is needed. I am not alone. BothRod Dreher and Al Mohler seem to agree with me. I rarely quote Mohler in agreement, but his post ends quite well:

In the end, the biggest problem with prosperity theology is not that it promises too much, but that it promises far too little. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers salvation from sin, not a platform for earthly prosperity.

See, here's what I really think - people flock to it because compared to what we have to offer, it looks good. And that dear friends is mostly because we fail to demonstrate the truth of what Christ genuinely offers. We fail to demonstrate the real prosperity that life in Christ can give us.

The correct way to respond to this "false gospel" (In understand the term, but am growing to dislike it because I do not think "gospel" comes close to describing the totality of Christ) is not to condemn it, but to ask, what are we doing wrong. Why do false gospels look good when compared to the real thing?

This is not an opportunity for condemnation, but for self-examination. If you do not exhibit prosperousness, regardless of your financial situation, then you have not discovered the total truth of Jesus. If we can do that, we don;t have to worry so muh about "false gospels." They will all fall away.

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Justin Taylor links to Doug Wilson discussing legalism and taste. But in it I think he misses a lesson on intergenerational communication and delayed gratification.

His longish illustration is about older women teachng younger women to be "respectable" and that what is "respectable" can be a moving target. He concludes:

Now I am prepared to argue that bodily mutilation and tatting is a necessary manifestation of cultural unbelief (Lev. 19:27-28; 1 Kings 18:28; Gal. 5:12). Idols always bring the knives with them. God created man in His image, like a priceless Durer woodcut, and so the devil brings the marker pens to doodle with. But suppose for a moment that this is all wrong, and that hypothetically and postmillennially there could be a culture someday in which tatting up your thirteen year virgin with dragon pictures was a practice that God the Father thought was swell, and about time the Holy Spirit added, encouragingly. It still remains true that in our culture, in English, nothing says trailer trash like a halter top and a tat. And when you get a nose stud, you are a lot closer to Brittany and Paris Hilton than you were before, and farther away from all the fifty-year-old church ladies. Which, come to think of it, may have been the whole point.

Fair enough, but that is a lesson in evangelism.

Here's what I am thinking about - why would young people work so hard to be so different from the older generation? Lord knows that my generation did it - hippies, drug culture and all. I don't think it has much to do with external forms like dress and taste in music. I think it has a lot to do with communication. When we do not connect with young people on a real and vital level, they rebel because they think we do not care. we tend to act like they are weird, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is perfectly natural to explore when you do not have a guide.

Secondly, let's think about tattoos for a minute. They're permanent. If you are going to get one, it should be done when you are mature enough to have an understanding of the concept of "permanent." Yet, young people run out and do this at an age when they think they will live forever and there is no such thing as permanence. Why? Again because there is no one saying "wait" - only "no" if anything at all.

Somewhere along the line, we have lost the art of helping kids grow up. They have become objects to be managed, not people to be related with and lead. In my experience kids want to be parented and lead. To often they are given a set of rules and told to go about their business. Problem is, leading kids means getting to know them, listening to them, maybe even reasoning with them from time to time.

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Milt Stanley quotes the blog Wilderness Fandango:

Sometimes I sense that my Christian acquaintances only want to get together to "share" their problems. Over time, it gets to seem like Christians, though they may wax joyful about God from time to time, are not particularly satisfied with their lives.

The post's original author, Bob Spencer, then goes on to discuss learning to be content in all circumstance - a great lesson. But I think he is on to something in that set-up.

First, contentment equates to gratitude. We are not nearly grateful enough for the plenty that God supplies. When we are sharing, we need to share our grtitude as well as our desire. That's all about learning to pray.

But I know exactly what he is talking about and I think it is a problem in "forcing" community. So often we get together n small groups with people we don;t really like that well, because we are supposed to, so we need a "reason" to be together. Praying for problems seems to be that reason.

First of all, we need to learn ministry attitudes in small groups and that means learning to love people that we do not hang out with all that much. Which brings me to my second point. Most people we do not care for in a small group setting, we would probably like quite a bit, if we did in fact hang out with them more. Most small groups would be much better places if they invested in doing stuff just for the sheer fun of being together - go to a movie, play golf, the beach, snowball fight, whatever works.

Finally, small group formation needs to be less artificial. we need to allow people that are naturally attracted to each other to have a small group together. It's true, there are always going to be those individual that do not "fit" anywhere. The trick is for those that do like to hang out together not to be too exclusive. A group can accept a couple of peple that don't fit well provided the core is open and not exclusive.

It really is OK to hang out with people you like and whose company you enjoy.

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