Some thoughts on the recent Evangelical Manifesto that so many are buzzing about right now . . .

Those who know me know I'm still quite keen on the "evangelical" label, not so much as a word itself but for what it still means and can continue to mean. I'm not ready to abandon it (like "fundamentalist," which was a justifiable abandonment, or what-have-you) simply because it has been loaded by the culture with the baggage of "fundamentalist" or because it has been carried as a flag by political-minded Christians keen on waging the so-called culture war. It's a good word, and it means something too important to give up. Evangel = gospel, and now, when more believers, pastors, and churches are dedicating themselves to gospel-driven renewal, is not the right time to ditch the word. It has the possibility to mean and communicate more now than it ever has, particularly if the Lord will grant us the revival many are praying for.

Os Guinness and others on the Manifesto's steering committee write in the Introduction:

For those who are Evangelicals, the deepest purpose of the Manifesto is a serious call to reform -- an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

Yes. Reform. Good.

What of the Manifesto itself?
For all of the drafters' insistence that it is not a reaction to media bias or political/moral culture wars -- Os Guinness tells USA Today, "Our problem is not mislabeling by the press or rebranding because we have a bad image" -- it is quite verbose on "the marketplace" and civic engagement.

The concerns as drafted are valid ones, good ones, and the exploration of them is incisive and important. These lines from the conclusion are laudable:

“Finally, we solemnly pledge that in a world of lies, hype, and spin, where truth is commonly dismissed and words suffer from severe inflation, we make this declaration in words that have been carefully chosen and weighed; words that, under God, we make our bond. People of the Good News, we desire not just to speak the Good News but to embody and be good news to our world and to our generation.”

Generally speaking, it's a fine and dandy resource. Taking a look at the ongoing accumulation of signatories reveals quite a few important leaders think so too.

However, I do believe the Manifesto is too long to be useful. I mean that seriously. There's nothing wrong with signing this thing, as far as I can see, but what will it do? Anyone remember This We Believe? A bunch of important people signed that too.

Evangelicalism won't be reformed by a long document full of distinctions signed by a who's who, particularly if that who's who thinks signing this thing is one of the most meaningful things they can do.

What we need is a merging of the groundswell of discontent among evangelical laity hungry for the gospel and a commitment by pastors and teachers and writers to center on the gospel. So long as the culture of therapy and politics and popular entertainment maintains its hold on the shaping of the gospel in the life of evangelicalism, signing a manifesto means nothing.

---

Joe Carter, who is a signatory, shares his thoughts here.
Justin Taylor summarizes the document here.

Last Sunday evening a fifty-something year old guy approached me after the Element service to express his thanks for the sermon. He was profusely appreciative and complimentary. Expounding on the greatness and the wonder of the glory of God in His wrath and His mercy from Habakkuk 3 had clearly resonated deeply with him.

I thanked him for his kindness and then shared with him that the message had occurred in spite of my weekly struggle with the temptation to offer something else.

We talked about that for a while, and another reason I gave for aiming high -- and by that, I mean in subject matter, not in quality of presentation, although obviously I don't try to suck either -- is that I don't want to leave the building in my car, get hit on the interstate and die, and have people be able to say, "His last message was on our inner potential to be awesome." Or whatever. I want to teach so that if any given message is my last, it can't be said that I went out failing to have preached the gospel, failing to have proclaimed the glory of God.

Why do we settle for less?
When we have in the endless fountain of Scripture "the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God" and "the unsearchable riches of Christ" why do we break even for one week from that stuff to preach the searchable riches of us? Why do we press pause on the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the amazing gospel of grace to press play on the Seven Steps to Being a Better Person?

From Ray Ortlund:

"As I pointed out in The Art of Political War, in political combat the aggressor usually prevails. Aggression is advantageous because politics is a war of position. Position is defined by images that stick. By striking first, you can define the issues and can define your adversary. Definition is the decisive move in all political wars. Other things being equal, whoever winds up on the defensive will generally be on the losing side."

-- David Horowitz, Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey

True in spiritual warfare too. Too many churches are not aggressive. They are not redefining what really matters. They accept the world's definitions and try to add in a little Christianity. They do not compel attention, even their own people's attention.

Are we aggressively redefining all of life according to God's good news for bad people through the finished work of Christ on the cross? Are we surprising people, beginning with our own churches? Are we getting people to think and rethink with new categories of gospel-thought? Or are we servicing the whiney, selfish American way of life with the greasy lubricants of religious self-reinforcement?

"The aggressor usually prevails."

Assuming you understand the rudiments of the gospel, here is my theory:
The bigger your God is (meaning, the more supreme and the more sovereign you view God), the more precious Jesus will be to you.

The fine edges of N.T. Wright's stuff on the atonement may be less sharp than others', but his stuff on the resurrection is better than anybody else's. Case in point: his doorstop-slash-book The Resurrection of the Son of God.
Wright's continuing call for a more biblical cosmology is not just reforming the way we view heaven, but revolutionizing the way we live our lives in the light of the kingdom that is "at hand."

Here's a quote from Wright's new book Surprised by Hope (HT: Darryl Dash):

The resurrection of Jesus offers itself, to the student of history or science no less than the Christian or theologian, not as an odd event within the world as it is but as the utterly characteristic, prototypical, and foundational event within the world as it has begun to be. It is not an absurd event within the old world but the symbol and starting point of the new world. The claim advanced by Christianity is of that magnitude: Jesus of Nazareth ushers in not simply a new religious possibility, not simply a new ethic or a new way of salvation, but a new creation....

We could cope – the world could cope – with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples; minds and heart. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one.

The resurrection, like the cross, is a scandal. But it's a beautiful one. The resurrection retroactively verifies the kingdom reality Jesus taught and lived in his 3 years of ministry and it effectively sets in motion the "rapidly gradual" invasion of the new heavens and new earth.

Now that sin is killed and death is conquered -- now that real life is the kingdom reality ruled by a death-proof king -- what ramifications might this have on the way we view just about everything?
Shouldn't it move us in ways deeper and more fulfilling than sports, music, art, movies? Shouldn't it imbue our work, our play, our pain, our desires, our dreams with more resonance, more meaning, more hope?

Sin has no power any more. Death is dead.
!!!

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

Shaun Groves with a helpful distinction between Compassion International and other child sponsorship organizations like World Vision.

Just in case you ever wondered.

Read Shaun's elaborations (he is not critical of World Vision, etc., but he is an official Compassion spokesperson, so obviously he's not unbiased), but they boil down to:
1. Compassion works through local churches.
2. Compassion sponsorship goes to each, actual sponsored child, not into a pool to be divvied.
3. Compassion works on holistic child development (education, health, discipleship, etc.), while other organizations focus on community development (infrastructure, etc).

If you don't sponsor a child through Compassion International please think and pray about doing so.

Many of us too often live our lives on a scale that is far less than eternal. We are not living, as Dallas Willard says, an "eternal kind of life." We are trained and taught that the Christian life is about winning at work, finding healthy relationships, controlling our finances, and/or having great sex. I firmly believe the Bible speaks to all of those things, but the Church is starving (starving!) for the glory of God. We too easily forget that what Jesus has done for us covers the scale of eternity, that it is the division between an eternal heaven and an eternal hell, that God is infinite and our sin is a condemnation-worthy offense against an eternally holy God. We forget that the grace of God in salvation for little ol' us is universe-sized HUGE.

We believe in and we settle for much less than what Paul calls in Romans 10:1 "the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God."

Our sights are set too small.

On that note, check out Jesus Creed author Scot McKnight's "Christianity Today" article on The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel.

In short:
1. The robust gospel is a story.
2. The robust gospel places transactions in the context of persons.
3. The robust gospel deals with a robust problem.
4. A robust gospel has a grand vision.
5. A robust gospel includes the life of Jesus as well as his resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit alongside Good Friday.
6. A robust gospel demands not only faith but everything.
7. A robust gospel includes the robust Spirit of God.
8. A robust gospel emerges from and leads others to the church.

Read the whole thing for explanations and context.
I could quibble with points here or there, but in general it is quite good. And the call for a big gospel is always good and necessary.

In a similar vein, check out this great post from Bob at In the Clearing.
Bob writes:

we don't even know what we really need. We think we need healing, or that we need a loved one to get right with God, or that we need to beat an addiction, or to forget a nightmarish past. But what we really need, above and beyond all that, is to know Christ, the height and depth and length and breadth of his love, and the power of his resurrection, and yes even the fellowship of his suffering.

And here's the thing. I don't truly understand any of this and I'm willing to bet you don't either. I don't understand my own need. I don't understand Christ. I have not been so "renewed in knowledge," as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, that Christ is truly all in all to me.

If we are really to understand our own need, we will have to learn with a keener and more ruthless insight just what sin is and what sin has done to us. Sin leads to death, but there is an author of life who has conquered sin and death, and he did so at the cross. To even grasp one thin thread of this knowledge, like the woman who grasped the hem of Christ's garment, is not only to be healed, but to be saved.

Here's my point: the solution to the problem identified by Frangipane is the cross of Christ. Look upon that scene. Perhaps we cannot fully grasp the full worth of that which took place at Calvary that day, but we can see at least that it is awesome and majestic and world-shaking and paradigm-shifting and presumption-shattering beyond all human kin, and that it is, as John Piper says, the sweetest thing we've ever seen, "the light which is the joy of all our joys."

He shares this quote from Francis Frangipane:

People give their lives to Jesus Christ for many reasons. Some need physical or emotional healing; others are in search of peace and forgiveness. Whatever our condition, God meets us in the valley of our need. Indeed, the Lord reveals Himself to man as heaven's answer for our needs. He is a "father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows." He even makes "a home for the lonely" and leads "out the prisoners into prosperity" (Ps. 68:5-6).

God uses our need to draw us to Christ. Yet, the consciousness of our need narrows our revelation of God, limiting His activity in our lives to the boundaries of our struggles. Thus, many Christians never awakened spiritually to the deeper call of God, which is to attain the likeness of Christ. We are forgiven, healed and blessed, but we experience a ceiling on our spiritual growth.

Is your gospel scaled to eternity?

(A version of this post also appears at The Gospel-Driven Church)

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things, the figure of him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger.
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (HT: Dying Church)

When was the last time someone accused you of proclaiming another president, namely Jesus?
-- N.T. Wright (HT: BHT)

Darryl Dash said it.

I've wanted to. Haven't known how (exactly). I think lots of us realize there's something not quite right about it.

But who wants to confuse or even further hurt someone sorting through hurts?

Darryl on forgiving ourselves:

It's popular to say that we need to forgive ourselves, but is that a valid concept?

I'd suggest that the desire for ourselves to be forgiven is a valid one, but we don't have the power to forgive ourselves. Telling someone that they have to forgive themselves before they forgive others doesn't make sense, just like forgiving myself for a debt I owe to the bank is silly. Forgiveness has to come from outside of myself.

This quote says it all:

The next time an individual says, "I just can't forgive myself," the first thought that should come to mind is, "That's right, you can't!" Then patiently and lovingly instruct him from the word of God so that his focus is on the only One Who can. A proper view of God's forgiveness sensitively taught from the word of God is what a person needs to bridge the gap between knowing he is forgiven and feeling he is forgiven. The facts should precede and supersede the feelings. Self-forgiveness is not biblical terminology. It should not be used in biblical counseling. When someone cannot forgive himself, he is not accepting the forgiveness of God. When God has forgiven, one must accept it and move on, serving Him and others as he goes.

(Baptist Bible College and Seminary. (2001; 2003). Journal of Ministry and Theology Volume 5 (vnp.5.1.98). Baptist Bible College and Seminary)

(HT: Transforming Sermons)

Yup. It's true. "I just had to forgive myself" or "I'm learning to forgive myself" are not biblical categories. They're therapeutic ones.
You don't need to forgive yourself. You need to ask forgiveness or grant it. You need to repent or rebuke. You need to claim the saving grace of Jesus, and I actually think that feeling burdened by your own sin is a great way to walk in awe of that grace.

Now, obviously, the objection is that "accept it and move on" (as the quote instructs) makes overcoming guilt and shame sound neat and easy. And we all know it's not. But "forgive yourself" is not the way to overcoming guilt and shame.

I have found in my own life that when I am most burdened by the sins and failures of my past, it's not because I am not forgiving myself, it's because I am not yet grasping how immense God's grace is and I have not yet really trusted that He has forgiven me.
There's an ironic pride in there, a sense of thinking that, well of course Jesus died for the sins of the world, but it's as if my sin is too big for Jesus to cover.

I may not be able to simply "accept it and move on," but grappling with the conviction of my sins and the incomprehensibility of God's scandalous grace is one valuable way to work out my salvation with fear and trembling.

(Also cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes . . .
-- Romans 1:16

The preacher cannot improve upon the purity of the Gospel, nor should he attempt to coerce responses to the Gospel as though the Holy Spirit lacked power through the Gospel to bring about conversion. "Moreover, to be ashamed of the Gospel is a fault of cowardice in pastors," rang out Martin Luther. "But to contradict it and not to listen to it is a fault of stupidity in church members."

The preacher must never let the audience's desires dictate the message. The common, seeker-friendly approach is to survey a community to discover what they want in a church, then shape the church and message to fit its desires. Yet Paul warned Timothy, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Tim. 4:3-4) . . . In those enduring words he rather instructed Timothy, "Preach the Word" (v.2). A pragmatic minister might insist that such preaching would drive people away, that the goal is to get people into church. I do not deny that the pragmatic approach will bring in numbers. But since it contradicts the clear biblical mandate for Christian ministry, I am concerned that what it produces will be less than Christian.

-- Phil A. Newton, "The Pastor and Church Growth," in John Armstrong ed., Reforming Pastoral Ministry

Toward the end of his life, Martin Luther warned the church that in every generation the gospel will have to be reaffirmed because when the doctrine of justification by faith alone is boldly and accurately preached, it will produce conflict. Some of us must admit that we are among those who, when faced with the option of fight or flight, prefer to flee. We run away even though we are not threatened by burning at the stake; but many are, however, burned at the payroll of our local church if we insist on fidelity to the gospel.

-- R.C. Sproul, "The Center of Christian Preaching," in Dever/Duncan/Mahaney/Mohler eds., Preaching the Cross

So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.
-- 2 Timothy 1:8

. . . For I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
-- 1 Corinthians 9:16b

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

. . . doesn't sell.

I talked with a guy tonight who sort of grew up with the Pentecostal-flavored prosperity gospel. He's made the paradigm shift and it has caused rifts with those close to him.
We talked about how the actual promises of Scripture for this life are for trouble and for suffering. About how the cross isn't for eliminating suffering but for endowing suffering with meaning.

Here's a good story I found via Tim Challies:
When God Doesn't Heal You: A Life Lived Suffering and for God's Glory

If Jesus had a church in Simi Valley, I betcha mine would be bigger. I betcha if the Apostle Paul had a church in Simi Valley, mine would be bigger. In fact, I betcha people would be leaving their churches to come to mine. Because I don't call them to the same commitment that Jesus called them to. Jesus would have a crowd of thousands of people, and by the time he's done preaching, there's, you know, a few left and he goes, "You guys wanna leave also? 'Cause I'm gonna walk out here and you gotta leave your father, your mother, your wife, your kids, and there might be a bunch of crosses out there, and we're just all gonna get crucified together. You wanna come with me?"

That wasn't real popular. I think, man, I'm more popular than Jesus. I can keep a crowd. I can keep 'em interested. I can say some interesting things. I can make 'em laugh. I can keep 'em coming. And it just bugged me, because I think, wait a second, that's not right. Am I really willing to say whatever Jesus called me to say?

-- Francis Chan, from the video shown below

If you view, watch it to the end.

When God called Moses to demand release of the Israelites from Egyptian captivity, Moses felt inadequate and unqualified. He asked, "Who am I to do such a thing?"

Now, when I ask this question of God, I usually ask in false humility. What I really want is God to reassure me of my qualifications and giftedness. What I really want is God to pump up my self-esteem. "Please remind me how awesome I am so that I'll be confident enough to do this," I ask God. And I fully expect God to respond, "Jared, you're good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like you."

This not what God said to Moses. In fact, he really didn't even answer the question "Who is Moses?" He answered the question "Who is God?"
The answer, of course, is God.

But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

-- Exodus 3:11-12

"Who am I?"

"Never mind who you are. You're right; you're a nobody. But you are called. I will be with you. And the sign of your success will not be a gold watch and a plaque and a place in Superduper Church Magazine's 100 Most Awesomest Churches and Pastors with Mad Leadership Skills, but worship of me."

"Oh."

Moses' "oh" consisted of more questions.

Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."

The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

-- Exodus 4:10-12

You've likely heard the dictum "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called."

This is why God uses shepherds, fig farmers, youngest sons, prostitutes, widows, etc.
This is why he uses sinners. Not so that they will realize their potential. Not so that they will finally see how inherently awesome they are.
But so that God gets the glory and so that he gets the glory in the vivid, repeating imagery of turning ashes to beauty.

God made man out of dirt. We -- you and I -- are dirt.

We only need to read a little bit of Paul to see how little he cares about human credentials and qualifications. And Paul actually had them.

The gospel is not the power to save because of our knowledge, our techniques, our systems, our innovations, our preaching style, our music style, our creativity, our conferences, our degrees, our viral marketing, our evaluations and efficiency, or our selves. None of those things is bad, but we make all of them idols so easily. They take so much effort, and yet we make them idols so effortlessly.

"Who are we? We're awesome!"

But the gospel is the power to save because of Jesus' work. Because God is with the gospel.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
-- 1 Corinthians 2:2

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

“Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.”

- John Calvin, Commentary on John

Seen at Of First Importance

That is crucial truth I have been treasuring myself lately and have been trying to impress upon those around me.

John Piper expounds masterfully on the connection between Christian nominalism and the non-understanding of what it means to "receive Christ" here. It's less than 3 minutes long; do watch it.
We showed this clip at Element last Sunday night, the same night I preached on the "treasure" parables (Mt. 13:44-46).

This is about worship and the object of worship.

In Taste and See, Piper writes:

Jesus Christ is not merely the means of our rescue from damnation; he is the goal of our salvation. If he is not satisfying to be with, there is no salvation.
He is not merely the rope that pulls us from the threatening waves; he is the solid beach under our feet, the air in our lungs, and the beat of our heart, and the warm sun on our skin, and the song in our ears, and the arms of our beloved.

This is that "savoring Christ as supremely valuable" stuff Piper goes on and on about. I know it's fashionable to criticize Piper right now, but I find this emphasis very valuable in my own walk right now (and I hope I always do).

At the Boar's Head Tavern this week (permalinks don't work), Jason Blair wrote:

I love theology as much as the next geek for Jesus. But reminding myself that Jesus is salvation is something I need. It’s what keeps me from going down the road to pride/arrogance that would otherwise make me shun or damn a brother who is otherwise orthodox in their thinking, even we disagree over some minor point. For example, I am no longer a dispensationalist, but I still love my dispy brothers.

I also like the CS Lewis approach, and I like what Capon said. To be fair to him, the quote is being stripped out of an introductory chapter of a study of Jesus’ parables. The point he’s trying to make is that while theology is important, and while we don’t want bad theology, we need to remember that it’s Jesus we’re after, and that the Bible is revealing Him to us. An unhealthy focus on breaking down the text into mere theology tends more often than not to forget that we’re supposed to find Him, not a system of thinking.

Yes.

Jesus is not just the means to the good stuff. He is the good stuff.

Last night at our weekly Element dinner/discussion, we were looking at the Beatitudes, and one young lady recalled how the ministers she knew in Africa had a better grasp of what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness because they knew exactly what it meant to hunger and thirst for food and water.
We all wondered whether not even knowing what it means to physically hunger and thirst affects whether we can even know what it means to hunger and thirst for God.

I think we can. But it certainly is more difficult when we do not lack for much of anything and have satisfaction in all sorts of other things offered in all sorts of place, including our churches.

I am not there yet, and probably never will be until I see him face to face, but I am beginning to awaken to what it means to crave Jesus. I am glimpsing what it means for a soul to long after him like a deer pants for water.

To live is Christ . . .
-- from Philippians 1:21

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)

An insightful post from Caleb Kolstad:

The syrup I have grown accustomed to is imitation “light” syrup. As a matter of fact I really don’t enjoy “regular” syrup anymore. It is too sweet for my liking. I would even choose light syrup over tree-tapped genuine Vermont maple syrup.

Sadly, I realized that many people are wired the same way when it comes to preaching. Many Christians have become so accustomed to shallow evangelical principalizing that when real expository preaching is tasted it’s rejected (at least initially) . . .

The problem is that many people want so many illustrations, stories, or application points that no time is left for true exposition. Who wants to hear about the historical background of Romans when in that time 3 or 4 stories, illustrations, or jokes could be shared? Now most people wouldn’t say that aloud but that is in fact what they’re thinking.

Those who most gifted in oratory are often most prone to this extreme. It’s what I call shallow evangelical principalizing. I noticed this response over 10 years when I was a student at the Master’s College. During a school sponsored Bible conference three gifted men brought the Word. All were great communicators but one was especially humorous and “relatable”. Unfortunately his sermons were also the lightest of the three. His preaching was thoroughly evangelical but not truly expositional or deep. Still most of the students I talked with in the dorms during and after the conference thought his sermons were the “best.”

Engaging oratory and great communication is not synonymous with a great sermon. In our preaching we should seek both light and heat. I’m not calling for dry, lifeless, preaching here. Passionate, clear, text-driven preaching is what our people most desperately need. Just don’t be surprised if you bring that type of syrup to your people if they initially reject it in favor of the “light” stuff.

I listened to a sermon this month that began with a 10-minute illustration, transitioned to 2 minutes of connecting the illustration to "spiritual truth," and then transitioned to another 5-minute personal story. Yes, I was timing. 17 minutes before any Scripture was referenced or cited, much less explicated. It was a 30 minute message, and the remaining 13 minutes included more illustrations.

I was bored.

But I'm a nerd, I admit. I'm also thirsty for Jesus and hungry for the manna of Scripture, and I've been starving lately. Light beer isn't cutting it. I want a straight shot of homiletical whiskey. :-)

(HT: Transforming Sermons)

Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church

I lead a ministry community for young adults called Element. Last year a Vanderbilt Divinity grad student asked if she could "use" Element for a congregational case study in her coursework. Despite our reminding her of the fact that we do not consider ourselves a church, she was not dissuaded, received approval from her professor, and was then welcome to speak to anyone and everyone who entered the sphere of our weekly gatherings, from regular attenders to first-time visitors.

I'd like to share the results of her study with you. This is obviously flirting with pride here, especially as much of her study involves appraisal of yours truly, but I'm just dang proud of the people I get to attempt Christian community with, every last one of them, and so I thought I'd share this as a way of publicizing what can happen when a pathetic start-up focuses on the gospel first. It has some interesting insights about young adults and young adult ministry, and reflects on the relative effectiveness or ineffectiveness an approach like ours might have.

If you know of someone between the ages of 18 and 30something in the Nashville area who is interested in connecting with other followers of Jesus, maybe this might convince you to send them our way. :-)

Note: It's a little long, even with some judicious editing on my part. She focuses on "style" and appearances a bit much for my taste, but I realize that's just part of the study and is valid for evaluation. I have excised portions that could be construed as critical of third parties, but anything that could be construed as criticism about me personally, in the interest of objectivity, I have left in.

Check it out after the jump . . .
Read the rest of this entry . . .

If the gospel is the pastor's bread, the pastor will always have bread to give away.
-- David Hansen, The Art of Pastoring

Last week I read another church leadership guru's rant about Christians who "complain" they aren't being fed in church. I won't link to it. It sounded the same as all the other orders to "grow up" and demands to "feed yourself." And it's not so much the person I have a problem with anyway; it's the sentiment.

As I said in an earlier post, For I Was Hungry and You Told Me to Self-Feed, "There are some lazy, consumerist, adultolescent Christians whose 'I'm not being fed' is nothing more than a whiny excuse for growing bored with their church's programs and not serving, but there are also some mature, self-sacrificing, wise Christians whose 'I'm not being fed' is a sign a church has gone off the rails."

As I read this latest indignant polemic against the beggars for bread, a verse came to mind. It is not just Jesus' command to Peter "If you love me, feed my sheep" that is in play here. "Feed yourself" strikes me also as an echo of Cain's "Am I my brother's keeper?"

(Cross-posted at Gospel-Driven Church)

The circle of gospel-centered bloggers grows larger.

Sovereign Grace's C.J. Mahaney now has a blog.

In his introductory post, he writes:

I think you can anticipate a disproportionate number of posts on one topic, “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), for that, by the grace of God, is what I am most passionate about. So here would be my hope for this blog, and for the handful of you that will join my family in reading it. If I can somehow draw your attention each week to the hill called Calvary and remind you of the Savior’s substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for our sins, if I can draw your attention away from yourself and direct your affections to him, then this blog will have served your soul and made some small difference for the glory of God.

May his tribe increase.

As in "on the floor". Ever been there?

If you've ever been there, or are there now, read this by Jared.

It will floor you.

As I say to those who for some reason don't mind listening to me, all this stuff can't just be something we talk about.

The gospel is for the real world, for real people. It conquers real strongholds, restores real brokenness. It carries the real weight of the real world.
This is why I was disappointed to see a Christian musician I respect positively review a book by Marcus Borg on Jesus. Marcus Borg is an intelligent, engaging scholar. But his Jesus is dead. His Jesus only rose symbolically, or quote-unquote spiritually. His Jesus is only as powerful as you believe him to be. Or something.

The Jesus of the gospel is really alive. His actual body came out of an actual grave. I need that. I cannot put hope in a symbolic resurrection, because I couldn't care less about a symbolic rescue. My flesh and my blood cry out for redemption, because my problems, my brokenness, my sins are real. A dead Jesus gives me nothing, even if he's written about eloquently and inspirationally.

We crave real resurrection. The weight of the world is equivalent to a heavy cross pressing on flayed shoulders. The gospel must account for that. Everything else is just pretty words that help nobody.

I'm right there with you Jared. You just say it better than I, or anyone else I can think of, can.