Paul once wrote about how he struggled with sin. He talked about doing the things he did not want to do. I get that. He also talked about not doing the things he did want to do. I get that part also. He lamented about how tough it was to be saved by Christ, yet still caught up in sinful desires. Check that box too. Then, in the midst of his lamentations, Paul draws up and ends the pity party by clearly declaring thanks for Jesus, because “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ!” This is where a lot of Christians get waylaid in their walk with God.
Just Thinking
Tid-bits and Trifles on Faith, Culture, and Church from Whitney Clayton
Saturate: Chapter 3
Jesus is better.
That is a pretty simple message for anyone involved in the church for a while. After all, this is the core of the gospel, the good news; whatever you’re idolizing, loving, or desiring – Jesus is better. Whatever you’re hating, running from, or fighting against – Jesus is better. Whatever you’re pursuing, fighting for, or working towards – Jesus is better. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is better than anything in this world, and you can have him.
Saturate: Chapter 2
This chapter centers around one big idea: Jesus broke down the divide between secular and sacred, and we should do the same thing in our lives.
Vanderstelt unpacks this idea through a story from his own life (the poker game), the trajectory of Israel towards a divide and Jesus’ intervention, and a diagram that I found a little difficult to decipher. The secular/sacred divide seems to be at the heart of most missional community movements, so this is an important chapter to understand from a Biblical theological perspective. But make no mistake, this goes against the grain of much of the Western church’s history, as Greg, at Jeff’s poker game made clear.
Saturate: Chapter 1
The first chapter of Jeff Vanderstelt’s book focuses on the problem he saw with the traditional (practiced by our parents’ generation) understanding of ministry and church. Let’s first off note that Vanderstelt is an excellent writer. His ability to communicate big ideas through simple stories makes it easy for us to capture the heart of what he is saying. So let’s trace the problem as he encountered it.
Pentecost: The Original Launch Service
If you are protestant, you may not know it, but today is Pentecost Sunday. It is about 50 days after Easter, and on this Sunday Christians all over the world celebrate the day of Pentecost, where Christ’s disciples were given the power Jesus had promised to them. And the world was forever (literally) changed. The day of Pentecost marks the beginning, or the birth, of the church, God’s people, predestined by the Father, redeemed by Jesus’s sacrifice, and marked by the filling of the Holy Spirit. On this day, I want to share a two quick observations about this time, and its significance to me.
1. God will build his church. As a church planter, I cannot express to you how frequently I am tempted to think, act, and pray as though it is my job to build God’s church. That temptation easily overtakes men in my vocation, because we can easily blend our task of organizing and equipping God’s people with God’s promise to multiply His people. When I look at people in my community, I see sheep without a shepherd. The danger is when I move from compassion to action, because no action of mine will ever save anyone. Instead, I should look to the disciples as my standard. Even when I am fully confident of my calling and the needs of those around me, our job is to pray and wait upon the Lord. Because when he begins moving, the world begins changing.
2. God’s power > My action. Every. Single. Time. The disciples walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus, shared the same rock/bed with Jesus, and experienced the miracles of Jesus. But when Jesus left, he commanded them to wait. He gave them the most important mission the world has ever known – Go into all the world and baptize everybody, teaching them to be like me – and then told them to relax for a bit. The reason for waiting is simple. God was sending the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and anything they did before they received God’s power was pointless. God’s power trumps our work every time. I think our desperation to do stuff comes from a good place, like when my four year old son brushes his teeth by himself. I walk in and see about a month’s worth of toothpaste squeezed out on the counter, water dripping from every solid surface in the room, and my proudly smiling son standing in the midst of it all. He worked hard to please me. But it would have been much easier, and I would have been equally pleased had he asked for my help in the first place. The disciples did not need a discipleship strategy, a three pronged outreach focus, or a solid digital presence (maybe this is more for myself?). They needed God’s power.
On this day of Pentecost, some 2,000 years removed from the day God launched his first church plant, I feel only grateful for the simple promise Christ gave along with the most important mission the world has ever known. “I will be with you always.” That was no Hallmark sentiment. Jesus made a declaration of war and sent out his army fifty days later, armed with some pretty serious firepower!
Letting Christ Build His Church
This is a copy of our latest Newsletter. I have changed the names of the people involved to protect their privacy. Please pray for them nonetheless.
This week is the beginning of a new chapter in our church planting efforts. Specifically, we are beginning to shift from building a network of relationships to building a church. Now, in case you don’t know, Christ is the one who promised to build his church, not church planters like me. Nonetheless, God uses people who are willing to help in the task of building his church. I want to share with you a story from yesterday, that shows what our work with Christ looks like.
Yesterday, I met Mark. I was at Starbucks, and he sat down next to me with his wife. I went back and forth with God over whether this was the time to start scattering seed, because I am not the type to start sharing the gospel with a stranger at a coffee shop. Finally, God won me over, and I asked him about the book he was reading. After that simple question, I spent the next three hours sitting and talking with Mark and Theresa.
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The Pastor as Doctor: A Reminder to Pastors
I once heard the story of a man who went into his doctor’s office. He told the doctor he needed help, because there was something seriously wrong. Everywhere he touched on his body gave him a shocking jolt of pain. The doctor asked him demonstrate, and watched closely as the man winced with every touch. After a few minutes, the doctor brightened, “Sir, you have a broken finger.”
It’s a silly story, I know. But I think it serves as a great illustration for one of the primary tasks of a pastor, we need to help people assess what is really happening when life is giving them pains. Far more importantly, we have to help them move towards the cure. Dependence upon God.
As I consider my duty to point people to the root of their issues, I think of a passage written by Eugene Peterson in his memoir, The Pastor.
In the secularizing times in which I am living, God is not taken seriously. God is peripheral. God is nice (or maybe not so nice) but not at the center. When people want help with their parents or children or emotions, they do not ordinarily see themselves as wanting help with God. But if I am going to stay true to my vocation as a pastor, I can’t let the “market” determine what I do. I will find ways to pray with and for people and teach them to pray, usually quietly and often subversively when they don’t know I am doing it. But I’m not going to wait to be asked. I am a pastor.
If we believe what we say we believe about who God is and how he works, we should be modeling, which is teaching, dependence upon God as the first step in any prescription.
Filler Jobs, Dream Jobs, and Ugly Girls: Guidance for Graduates
If you are like me, you were taught that a college education was the key to your dream job, and your dream job was the key to everything else you want in life: a good salary, solid retirement, a happy wife, family vacations, and college funds for your kids. What everyone forgot to tell you is that going to college does not make you any more special than the other 1.8 million students who will graduate this year, which means your dream job may remain just a dream for quite a while. So how do you live life in the mean time?
A Caricature of Modern Marriage
I imagine it would be difficult for a fish to describe the feeling of being wet. Assessing your own culture is a lot like that. We live in it, and it always feels like it has always felt.
I also once heard that if you put frogs in water on your stove, they will stay there as the water slowly heats to a boil, and they die, never noticing the deadly change around them. Assessing your own culture is also a lot like that. Because we are constantly adjusting to our surroundings, we are prone to missing dramatic change until it is too late.
The Power of Reaching the Campus
I heard something today that I wanted to share, because it highlights what I believe is the most untouched yet influential area of ministry undertaken by the American Church: the college campus. What follows is a quote from Albert Mohler, one of evangelical Christianity’s foremost thinkers.
[I]t’s hard for us to argue against that very fundamental assumption – that what happens on the American college and University campuses long-term far more important than what happens in Washington, regardless of which party is in control.
The reason for that is clear. On the American College and University campus, that’s where the issue of worldview is being hammered out. That’s where young people are developing the ideas that are likely to last for a lifetime. And if you win the battle there – the ideological, the worldview battle –you win battles that are far more consequential than anything that can take place in politics.
Ideas matter. I think of J. Gresham Machen’s quote: “What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires.” College campuses are the cage fighting ring of tomorrow’s cultural movement; it is long past time for churches to strap on the gloves and step into the cage.
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