Culture Changes You

I remember taking an introductory communication course during my first year of college. It wasn’t a profound experience, really, just a community college course outlining a few social science theories while most of the class worked on math homework or played Angry Birds. Something from that course stuck with me though. It was the first day of class when the professor challenged us, “try to not communicate” the professor said. So we stopped talking and put on an expressionless face. “Nice try, but you failed” quipped the professor. “You are always communicating something. Through your body-language, your choice of clothing, your mannerisms, your vocal inflection. You can’t not communicate.”

After forgetting most of what I learned that semester, that stuck with me (granted, it helps that every communication professor starts their semester with this little exercise. Since I studied communication theory for my undergrad, I’ve probably blended a dozen or so lessons into the story above). But the point holds true.

Drenched in Culture

To take a page from my old professors, I would like to suggest that the same is true for culture. Take a minute to try to imagine a person not influenced by culture. I’ll wait.

Do you have your imaginary case study ready? Maybe it’s a sort of unabomber character, living off the land in Montana. Maybe it’s a small town fundamentalist preacher who hasn’t watched a movie, played a card game, or read a “secular” book since 1971.

Well, thanks for playing, but even these folks can’t escape the reach of culture. Culture is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. The clothes we wear (or don’t wear), the language we speak, and the things we buy—which are all evidence that we are all drenched in culture.

Culture is everywhere and, like it or not, culture is changing you.

After watching that movie last night, listening to that album, reading that book, binge watching House of Cards, and buying that new shirt you are not the same person.

On a recent Christ and Pop Culture podcast we asked Dr. Greg Thornbury, president of King’s College in New York City, about engaging culture. To which he responded,

“You want to engage culture?—too late! Because culture has already engaged you . . . It’s the air you breathe. You’re so suffused with it, that to talk about engagement is almost a misnomer.”

Thornbury then recalled this old Palmolive commercial. “You’re soaking in it,” Madge tells her friend in the commercial. Just as our curiosity is peaked about culture and Christianity, we realize that we’ve been soaking in it this whole time.

Maybe you fully realize this, but fear the growing influence of secular culture, and try to avoid that which seems antithetical to Christian morality, or liberal, or heterodox. However, because we are unable to escape culture and since culture is undoubtedly influencing us, the question cannot be “how can we avoid being discipled by culture?” and should be “how can our involvement in and consumption of culture be harnessed as a gospel-centered discipleship tool?”

For the rest of this article, I will lay groundwork for the latter question and, in a series of monthly posts at Gospel-Centered Discipleship, I will go through several case studies using different cultural artifacts.

What exactly is Culture, anyway?

What: What is culture? Culture is hard to define because culture is both profoundly visible and invisible. Both concrete and abstract. Culture is what you are expected to say when somebody sneezes. Culture is the free version of Hamlet in the local park. Culture is the billboard on the highway. Culture is how long you are expected to pray, if at all, before a meal. Culture consists of the shared ideas, norms, and practices that knit humans together. Culture forms us and we form it.

Why: Why do we create and consume culture? Maybe more important than understanding the precise definition of culture is understanding why we create and consume it. As articulated by James K.A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom, humans create and consume culture because we are lovers––that is, we participate in the cultural practices that we do because they promise to fulfill us. “We are essentially and ultimately desiring animals, which is simply to say that we are essentially and ultimately lovers. To be human is to love, and it is what we love that defines who we are,” says Smith (50-51). Simply put, the cultural practices that we participate—sometimes without even realizing it—reveal what we desire.

Culture is much more than beliefs and ideologies. Culture is a collective conscious and unconscious  striving for happiness, understanding, and fulfillment. To quote James K.A. Smith again, the ideas and practices that make us human are “always aimed at some vision of the good life, some particular articulation of the kingdom” (24).

“Pop Culture”: To briefly summarize for clarity, “pop culture” is the media, practices, and artifacts that are produced by culture.

Popular culture is one big, diverse collection of desire-driven narratives. We often buy certain clothes because we believe that how we look will lead to some sort of fulfillment. We watch films that explicitly reflect our desire for reconciliation or subtly reflect our desire for beauty. These artifacts are what Smith calls pictures of the good life. We are being discipled (changed into the image of something) by what we consume,

“[A]esthetic articulations of human flourishing as found in images, stories, and films (as well as advertisements, commercials, and sitcoms). Such pictures appeal to our adaptive unconscious because they traffic in the stuff of embodiment and affectivity. Stories seep into us––and stay there and haunt us . . . . we can’t not be lovers, we can’t not be desiring some kingdom” (58, 75).

Considering the power and ubiquity of culture, we cannot afford to ignore it. Nor can we afford to go to war with it. If “The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein”(Ps. 24:1), then we must recognize the import, God-ordained role that culture has to play in our lives. More than, culture can be used as a valuable discipleship tool. With all the complicated messages that culture presents, we need supernatural help to view it as such.

Trained by the Spirit to See

The beauty of grace is that we aren’t going to get it right, but that’s okay. God is actively living and working inside of sinful people.

I grew up in a non-Christian home, intellectually discipled by my dad to love and appreciate great film, music, and literature. Before becoming a Christian at sixteen, I found refuge in the music of Bob Dylan and Uncle Tupelo, the writing of Salinger and Vonnegut, and the films of Kurosawa and Wes Anderson. These cultural artifacts shaped me, dare I say, in wonderful and healthy ways.

When I became a Christian, my life was changed by Jesus. I understood that I was a bad person who needed to be saved from myself. I found security where I had only known insecurity. I also found Christian culture, and, for about three months, I gave up “secular music” and listened only to Christian radio because I thought that’s what Christians did. It was like only feeding a kid spinach for three months—”I know it’s good for me.” I would tell myself, “but it’s so awful going down!” I don’t remember the day that I gave in, but going back to my Wilco and Rolling Stones albums was a breath of fresh air. And those albums turned out to be some of the most helpful discipleship resources I’ve ever interacted with. They displayed what it looks like to wrestle through doubt, insecurity, and loneliness. Not to mention, expressions of joy, historical rootedness (here’s looking at you, Mick Jagger), and intimacy. As I began to study the Bible, I found that culture expressed similar emotions and often strove towards the same goals, and fell into the same trap.

There is an invisible thread that runs throughout culture. Christians have the grace of the revealed knowledge that this cultural mystery is the Logos—God himself working through culture, history, and music. Paul quoted Aratus and Epimenides of Crete in Acts 17 to show the Greeks that God was at work in their culture. While the Spirit teaches us the substance of this thread (the gospel narrative) through the preached Word, the sacraments, Scripture, community, and prayer, we can learn to boldly draw parallels between the seemingly secular, obtuse, or ignored and the Creator of the universe.

After years of being well-discipled in a gospel-loving church—a safe place to wrestle through the inherent goodness or badness of the pop culture that I love so much—the Spirit trained me (and is continuing train me) to see how, while broken, human culture is divinely infused. Through cultural expressions of honest doubt, sincere beauty, and vulnerable intimacy, the Spirit has taught me the cathartic joy of identifying with human longing and the art of seeing the sacred in the secular.

The Spirit teaches us to view the world and culture through gospel colored glasses. Humans who create culture are creatures who are longing for redemption—creatures with eternity written on their hearts and the image of God in their DNA.

“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.  And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual” (1 Cor. 2:12-13).

Our spiritual nature (that is, united by faith to Jesus) allows us to see the world for what it is. We are taught by the spirit to see people as made specifically in the image of God, longing for something to save them from their fallenness. The culture that humans create—Christian or not—reflects this Godward orientation and can itself lead Christians to understand God in rich, previously untapped ways.

Take The Brothers Karamazov—the book that, apparently, led Reza Aslan to reject Christianity. The same book that I would call one of the most import books in my spiritual life. While I saw pure, Christ-like grace exemplified in the characters of Alyosha and Zossima, I saw a wise vision of ecclesiology in the chapter “The Grand Inquisitor” and even when Dostoevsky inevitably strays from Protestant orthodoxy, as I read I grew in love. I don't need it to be explicitly evangelical to see God’s divine imprint in Dostoevsky's work.

Enjoying good culture is a joy and a blessing. When we see God’s fingerprint on it, we can be sure that the Spirit is teaching us that he loves his creation and culture as a good, undeserved gift. No need to freak out at the upsurge in “secular” culture. If God created culture and man is wired to know God, even the most anti-Christian cultural expressions will not be able to overcome God’s redemptive plan and will, in some way, reflect gospel truth. One of the joys of being a Christian is that we get to search for it.

Granted, Scripture says that some things are truly wicked and should be avoided (see 1 Cor. 10:23-33), and that many things are unhelpful, though lawful. Pornography, hate speech, and like are to be rightfully abhorred and actively fought against. However, everything is a mixed bag, including Christian culture (and certainly including this article!). So we must be careful not to draw black and write lines in the sand, calling everything that disagrees with our theological and moral sensibilities irredeemable smut. Culture is complex, and more often than not has much more to offer us that we think, not less.

Culture can be spiritually detrimental, but often it simply exposes our already corrupt heart. If we are unrepentantly greedy or adulterous, films like The Wolf of Wall Street and Goodfellas will feed those desires. However, if we approach these films with an explicit desire to understand the character of God, culture, even the most seemingly unredeemable can point us to the gospel.

Maybe you zone out to How I Met Your Mother every night after work. Maybe you just bought Weird Al’s new album and you’ve been jamming out to “Tacky”  this week. Whatever it is, it isn’t “secular”—it’s shaping you. Be encouraged though, as you learn to view it through a gospel lense—like Paul did with the poetry of Epimenides and Aratus. God can use it as a means to reveal himself and the good news of his Son.

—

Nick Rynerson lives in the west suburbs of Chicago with his groovy wife, Jenna. He is a staff writer for Christ and Pop Culture and a marketing coordinator at Crossway. Connect with him on Twitter @nick_rynerson or via email.

Choosing Grace Over Outrage

In his book, We Learn Nothing: Essays and Cartoons, political cartoonist and New York Times Op-ed writer Tim Kreider describes the modern epidemic that he calls “outrage porn”:

So many letters to the editor and comments on the Internet have this . . . tone of thrilled vindication: these are people who have been vigilantly on the lookout for something to be offended by, and found it…Obviously, some part of us loves feeling 1) right and 2) wronged. But outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out. Except it’s even more insidious than most vices because we don’t even consciously acknowledge that it’s a pleasure. We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it’s a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again . . . [It is] outrage porn, selected specifically to pander to our impulse to judge and punish, to get us off on righteous indignation.

The commitment to feel 1) right and 2) wronged seems to be a fairly common phenomenon. But is this a fruitful way for Christians in particular to engage in public conversations about the issues of the day? I think Jesus taught us another way.

There are surely going to be times when we will disagree with others, sometimes in a passionate way. A follower of Jesus is by definition a person who carries certain convictions. Yet when we must disagree, being steadfast in our loyalty to Jesus demands that we not be disagreeable as people. When people assume a different viewpoint than ours, we are never to hold them in contempt. Scorn and disdain and a chip on the shoulder are not Christian virtues. Rather, they are Pharisaical vices. They may at times contribute to winning an argument, but they will never win a person. A disagreeable spirit—or as my fellow pastor Ken Leggett likes to say it, “habitually putting on a no face instead of a yes face”—is not the way that Jesus intends for his followers to engage in disagreements and debates.

Tim Keller says that tolerance isn’t about not having beliefs. It’s about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you. This is where biblical Christianity is unparalleled in its beauty and distinctiveness. I am not talking about distorted belief systems that pretend to be Christianity but are not. I am talking about the true, pure, undefiled, unedited, unfiltered, unrevised, and an altogether biblical and beautiful system of belief—the one that visits orphans and widows in their afflictions, the one that loves all its neighbors who are near or in need, the one that is kind to its enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”

Jesus did not merely speak these words as an edict from on high. He became these words. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). While we were running from him, while we were passively resisting him, while we were actively opposing him, while we were his enemies, Christ in love gave his life for us.

Do we need any more reason to be kind to those who see things differently than we do? What more reason do we need than that through Jesus, we are forgiven and free and loved and will never ever, ever, ever, be condemned or scorned by the courts of heaven?

Having received such grace, Christians have a compelling reason to be remarkably gracious, inviting, and endearing in our treatment of others, including and especially those who disagree with us. Let’s be known by what we are for instead of what we are against. Let’s be less committed to defending our own rights—for Jesus laid down his rights—and more enmeshed in joining Jesus in his mission of loving people, places, and things to life.

When the grace of Jesus sinks in, we will be among the least offended and least offensive people in the world.

Jesus already took us seriously by giving his life for us. There is no better reason than this to take ourselves less seriously.

—

Scott Sauls, a graduate of Furman University and Covenant Seminary, is foremost a son of God and the husband of one beautiful wife (Patti), the father of two fabulous daughters (Abby and Ellie), and the primary source of love and affection for a small dog (Lulu). Professionally, Scott serves as the Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to Nashville, Scott was a Lead and Preaching Pastor, as well as the writer of small group studies, for Redeemer Presbyterian of New York City. Twitter: @scottsauls.

Originally posted at www.scottsauls.com/blog. Used with permission from Scott Sauls.

Picturing Discipleship at The Moulin Rouge

Embodied Desires

A common “churchy” response to this cultural situation runs along basically Platonic lines: to quell the raging passion of sexuality that courses its way through culture, our bodies and passions need to be disciplined by our “higher” parts—we need to get the brain to trump other organs and thus bring the passions into submission to the intellect. And the way to do this is to get ideas to trump passions. In other words, the church responds to the overwhelming cultural activation and formation of desire by trying to fill our head with ideas and beliefs.

I suggest that, on one level, Victoria’s Secret is right just where the church has been wrong. More specifically, I think we should first recognize and admit that the marketing industry—which promises an erotically charged transcendence through media that connects to our heart and imagination—is operating with a better, more creational, more incarnational, more holistic anthropology than much of the (evangelical) church. In other words, I think we must admit that the marketing industry is able to capture, form, and direct our desires precisely because it has rightly discerned that we are embodied, desiring creatures whose being-in-the-world is governed by the imagination. Marketers have figured out the way to our heart because they “get it”: they rightly understand that, at root, we are erotic creatures—creatures who are oriented primarily by love and passion and desire. In sum, I think Victoria is in on Augustine’s secret. But meanwhile, the church has been duped by modernity and has bought into a kind of Cartesian model of the human person, wrongly assuming that the heady realm of ideas and beliefs is the core of our being. These are certainly part of being human, but I think they come second to embodied desire. And because of this, the church has been trying to counter the consumer formation of the heart by focusing on the head and missing the target: it's as if the church is pouring water to put out a fire in our heart.

What if we approached this differently? What if we didn’t see passion and desire as such as the problem, but rather sought to redirect it? What if we honored what the marketing industry has got right—that we are creatures primarily of love and desire— and then responded in kind with counter-measures that focus on our passions, not primarily on our thoughts or beliefs? What if the church began with an affirmation of our passional nature and then sought to redirect it?

A Romantic Theology

The result would be what Inklings member Charles Williams called a “romantic theology.” Developed in a number of (unfortunately) forgotten little books, Williams’s argument is that the human experience of romantic love and sexual desire is itself a testimony to the desire for God. Williams would put it even more strongly: the person who experiences romantic love has experienced something of the God who is love. Treading a path opened by Dante’s meditations on Beatrice, Williams suggests that romantic love “renews nature, if only for a moment; it flashes for a moment into the lover the life he was meant to possess.” Love, says Williams, is a testament to the in-breaking or emergence of the divine in human experience, and thus to be affirmed as an expression of our deepest erotic passion, the desire for God:

Any occupation exercising itself with passion, with self-oblivion, with devotion, towards an end other than itself, is a gateway to divine things. If a lover contemplating in rapture the face of his lady, or a girl listening in joy to the call of the beloved, are worshippers in the hidden temples of our Lord, is not also the spectator who contemplates in rapture a batsman’s stroke or the collector gazing with veneration at a unique example of [a stamp]?

As we’ll see later hinted in Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins, the erotic—even misdirected eros—is a sign of the kinds of animals we are: creatures who desire God. As Augustine famously put it, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” This is not a matter of intellect; Augustine doesn’t focus on the fact that we don’t “know” God. The problem here isn’t ignorance or skepticism. At issue is a kind of in-the-bones angst and restlessness that finds its resolution in “rest”—when our precognitive desire settles, finally, on its proper end (the end for which it was made), rather than being constantly frustrated by objects of desire that don’t return our love (idols). But this means that even desire wrongly “aimed” is still a testament to our nature as desiring animals. Operative behind Williams’s “romantic theology” is a picture of the human person that appreciates affectivity and desire as the “heart” of the person.

An Augustinian Anthropology of Desire

An Augustinian anthropology of desire primes us to adopt just such a romantic theology. And this entails, I think, an interesting implication for how we’ll think about learning and discipleship. I have in mind The Moulin Rouge—a film set in that den of iniquity, Montmartre, at the turn of the twentieth century, during the fervor of the Bohemian revolution. A starving artist named “Christian” has rejected the “respectable” and bourgeois lifestyle of his father (as a clerk or salesman) and instead sought to pursue a life devoted to literature and drama, all in the pursuit of beauty. He rejects the nine-to- five machinations of “normal” people, refuses to be reduced to a middle-class producer and consumer, and instead takes up residence with the colony of artists clustered in Montmartre—infamous home to burlesque shows and the red-light district, but also home to painters and artists like Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh—all taking place under the watchful eye of the Basilica Sacré-Coeur perched atop the hill. Thus Montmartre represents a certain mix of the sacred and the profane—both of which seem to be at odds with the bourgeois life of production and consumption that the young artist, Christian, has rejected. The proximity to Sacré-Coeur almost invites us to look for parallels and comparisons between the bohemian artists and the mendicant friars, the decadent painters and the celibate priests, both of whom reject a life of moneymaking for the sake of very different visions of the kingdom, of the good life. But if both the bohemian and the friar desire a kingdom that rejects the pursuit of comfort and wealth, could it be that there are some covert similarities between their visions of the kingdom? Does the Moulin Rouge already point up the hill toward the Basilica? What, at the end of the day, is Christian after?

Above all, Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge is a “spectacular” love story revolving around the play within the play—a production of another love story, “Spectacular, Spectacular.” It is desire that brings the young man to art, to commit himself to the voluntary poverty of a bohemian literary existence. And it is in pursuit of this desire that another desire flames: his passion for Satine, a courtesan who reigns at the Moulin Rouge. Oddly, Satine herself represents the moneymaker, concerned primarily with acquisition, as attested in her hymn, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” (Indeed, her profession represents the very commodification of love.) Thus she resists his advances; above all she rejects his bohemian ideal, his naive commitment to love (played out in the “Elephant Love Medley”). But love wins. Christian’s evangelistic commitment to love captures the heart of Satine, and the effect is transformative: rejecting a lucrative offer from the duke, she too becomes a bohemian, and the desire for acquisition gives way to a passion for love and beauty. Love even has a kind of epistemological or perceptual effect, as indicated in their anthem, “Come What May”: “Never knew I could feel like this, like I’ve never seen the sky before.” The world is “seen” differently because of love. By the end of the film we learn that all of this has constituted a kind of education: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.”

On the one hand, this seems to be the very antithesis of the kingdom of God: a realm of prostitutes and addicted artists given over to wanton pleasure-seeking. This criticism is embodied in the figure of Christian’s bourgeois father, who berates the bohemian culture for its sinfulness, which seems to be most linked to its failure to be “productive.” But to “the children of the revolution” (try to hear Bono crooning the song from the sound track), our highest calling is not to simply be producers. Instead, they are committed to the bohemian ideals of “beauty, freedom, truth, and above all, love.” And the spectacle of the film is ripe for analysis in terms of Williams’s theology of romantic love—a love that is revelatory, that breaks open the world (“Never knew I could feel like this, like I never saw the sky before . . .”). Christians will tend to say, “Ah, but that’s not love—that’s eros, not agapē!” But a romantic theology refuses the distinction because it recognizes that we are erotic creatures—that agapē is rightly ordered eros. And so one could suggest that the kingdom looks more like Montmartre than Colorado Springs! The kingdom might look more like the passionate world of the Moulin Rouge than the staid, buttoned-down, talking-head world of the 700 Club. The end of learning is love; the path of discipleship is romantic.

—

James K. A. Smith (PhD, Villanova University) is professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he also holds the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. He is the editor of Comment magazine. Smith has authored or edited many books, including Imagining the Kingdom and the Christianity Today Book Award winners Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? and Desiring the Kingdom. He is also editor of the well-received The Church and Postmodern Culture series (www.churchandpomo.org).

James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, ©2009. Used by permission. http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Growing Pains and Making Messes

Enjoying the Growing Pains

I can’t sleep. My wife and I are expecting our third child. These two things aren’t related. Better said, they are not causally related. Our oldest is two and a half and our newly minted “middle child” just recently turned one. Both of them are in incredible points of their development that have been battering against my symbolic and typological head. Let me explain and apply.

The newly minted one year old, let’s call him Judah since his name is Judah, has recently begun to walk and climb all over the house. Chasing sister for toys. Chasing mom to be held. Judah emits guttural noises everywhere he goes. Both of pleasure and pain. The joy of seeing your child delightfully happy is marginally mitigated by the fact that the house is perpetually littered with toys and the child’s face littered with bruises from falls.

Our oldest, let’s call her Kenzie since her name is Kenzie, is a talking machine. She memorized song lyrics early on, so this year we started her with the Heidelberg Catechism. Kenize has nine Q&A’s memorized and recently was able to recite the entire Lord’s Prayer. She naturally recites well, but it’s her natural talking that is funny. It’s the words and sentences she develops in her own mind that cause my wife and I to roll around in laughter.

Growing Disciples Make Messes

Where am I going with this?

Last night, as I struggled to sleep, I was overcome by the realization that my kids were growing. Now this is a duh moment. I can see them growing with my eyes. But intellectually I perceived that bones were growing, organs expanding, and motor skills developing. My children at some point would no longer be children. Christian discipleship is like this. The Scriptures are replete with this imagery so I’ll limit myself:

“Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Pt. 2:2).

“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Eph. 4:13-14).

Almost all of us have read these verses. We have crafted ideas of what they mean and what they look like. God has placed real life images in front of my face. Christians are born unable to take care of themselves. The church is the delivering and tending nurse. The young Christian coos and makes small messes. They begin to mature. We hope they mature. They must mature. In this process, they become like Judah—a walking, tumbling, crying mess. And the church needs to be ready. These child-like disciples need to be fed constantly. Cleaned more constantly. They require direction on how to interact with the world. They won’t stay this way for long, but the instruction must be given if we expect them to mature.

Then these fresh faced Christians become little walking, talking Kenzies. They learn doctrine by rote. They talk and sing and sound like Christians. They do little chores here or there and are all-around delightful to have. But they also say things that make no sense. Sometimes they mean to be silly and other times they do not. This can be frustrating for the more mature, so the church must be patient. We must teach not only what words mean, but the proper tones to convey their truth winsomely. This immaturity shall pass in time. And new stages of Christian discipleship will be crossed. But the church should not be surprised at the messes created by young disciples. We should take joy that they are in fact growing.

—

Joshua Torrey is a New Mexico boy in an Austin, TX world. He is husband to Alaina and father to Kenzie & Judah and spends his free time studying for the edification of his household. These studies include the intricacies of hockey, football, curling, beer, and theology. You can follow him @AustinPreterism and read his theological musings and running commentary of the Scriptures at The Torrey Gazette.

The Pastor’s Kid: An Interview with Barnabas Piper

Being a pastor's kid (PK) is not something most of us can relate to, and yet the PK is someone we cannot avoid. PKs live in a world different from ours, a world where their family's every move is under intense scrutiny. But even if we're not a PK, it's important to understand the unique difficulties they face.

Barnabas Piper has written a book, The Pastor's Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity, hoping to use his experience to encourage PKs to trust in Christ and to seek community in the midst of public and private struggle. It is also an instructive book for those of us who want to love our pastor's kid better.

Barnabas was kind enough to answer a few questions for GCD, and I hope it will encourage you to buy the book.

BRANDON: What made you feel like this message was the one to turn into a book?

BARNABAS: I was reluctant, at first, to write a book from the perspective of PKs. I doubted whether it would connect with enough people and wondered if it might seem whiny or navel-gazing. But as I corresponded with PK after PK I heard the same stories and perspectives over and over again, and they meshed with mine almost perfectly. I saw a persistent need and consistent desire. After I wrote a couple articles on being a PK the responses flooded in—each one hit a nerve. I saw a clear void in resources speaking to and for PKs both to encourage them and help their parents too.

BRANDON: Pastors have the unique expectation of discipling everyone in the church at the same time, in some form or fashion. How did this affect your dad (John Piper) in discipleship at home with you and your siblings?

BARNABAS: My dad was always a preaching pastor. His calling was to preach and his gift was to preach, and he was uniquely gifted at it. For him, discipleship of the church was primarily in consistent faithful exposition of the Bible. It was similar at home, just without the booming voice and gesticulations. He exposited and applied scripture. It was a strength and a weakness. The consistent pointing to God’s word laid a foundation for understanding, but it sometimes fell short of feeling personal and relational. There are dads, especially pastors, who use scripture verses like a magic cure for every ailment. My dad was not one of those.  He was never trite in his use of verses and he didn’t proof text to make a point. Sometimes, though, I just wanted normal conversation and connection and his default was digging into the Bible.

BRANDON: Pastor's kids often carry the unfair weight of being expected to be perfect because of who their dad is. How can people in the church help pastor's kids feel more "normal"?

BARNABAS: The short answer is “treat them like you do all the other kids.” PKs get singled out for misbehaving and even small indiscretions get noticed and reprimanded or reported. Where one kid might be called out Sunday School for being a distraction the PK  will have his mother or father called about the same sort of incident. PKs often get singled out to answer questions in Sunday school even if they don’t want to or don’t really know the answer. In fact, not knowing isn’t really allowed either. It creates an expectation of perfection, or at least a faking of it. Last, let them ask questions, doubt, wonder, explore, and find faith. Too often faith is expected of PKs and what is actually there isn’t a relationship with Jesus but a recitation of what is expected.

BRANDON: What advice would you give pastors seeking to better disciple their own kids?

BARNABAS: Converse, don’t ever preach. Relate, don’t always council. Connect with your kids over what they enjoy and over what you enjoy. This means have a hobby that can be shared (not just reading or studying). Listen, don’t always teach. Sometimes they need to be heard and to know you care. Show them you enjoy being with them. And admit to your sins, not just to being a sinner, but to actual sins. Then ask their forgiveness. These kinds of actions create an atmosphere of trust, respect, and openness. Such an atmosphere is where faith is worked out, questions are more safely posed, and a real relationship with Jesus can be exemplified and developed.

BRANDON: What advice would you give pastor's kids struggling with the pressures they face?

BARNABAS: Trust somebody. Find one or two friends. (You don’t really need more than that.) No they might not totally understand, but they care. It will help you process your struggles to talk through them. You’ll begin to see the holes that exist in your life that only Jesus can fill.

Then look for Jesus. Sure, you’ve heard all about him for your whole life, but go look for him. What you see may differ greatly than the impression you have of him. He’s not your daddy’s boss. He’s not a killjoy or a judge. He’s not an angelic, halo-wearing, choir boy. He is profoundly powerful, gracious, loving, and present. What find see when you look for Jesus is that you find him. He will introduce himself to you in a way that is so real that all those pressures and challenges and issues become something that may still hurt but are manageable and secondary.

—

Brandon D. Smith is Executive Director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and serves in editorial roles for The Criswell Theological Review and The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. He is also Editor of Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus. He is proud to be Christa’s husband and Harper Grace’s daddy. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonSmith85.

Seeking Extra-Biblical Humility

My church raised me to love the Bible and all its stories, but didn’t talk much about tradition, or the historic creeds, confessions, and catechisms. I learned the Bible every week, but I was missing out on what my spiritual grandparents had to offer me. It wasn’t until seminary that the significance of what came before me began to sink in. That’s when I discovered my need for what I like to call extra-biblical humility. Extra-biblical humility is a humble respect and gratitude for all that God has provided for the health and vitality of his Church outside of the biblical canon. This means respecting and caring about words like dogma, doctrine, and theology. It means cherishing our rich heritage as evangelical Christians by paying attention to more than just our Bibles. It means recognizing the call for all of this is grounded in Scripture itself, as 2 Corinthians 13:5a says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.”

Up until seminary I had shown a willingness and desire to read my Bible and pray, but not much else besides reading a few modern Christian books and listening to my pastor preach. In so doing, I left some blind spots unguarded. If you feel like you only need to know your Bible and those who care about theology are slightly less holy than you, than you might have these same blind spots. Our weakness comes from redefining sola Scriptura from “no authority over the Bible” into “no authority except the Bible.”¹

When my sister-in-law started college in Boston, she met a group of people who knew their Bibles from back to front. They were zealous for God, called themselves a church, but something about their beliefs didn’t seem right. They told her she had to be baptized to be saved and their’s was the only baptism that counted. After all, Ephesians 4:5 says “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” so someone must have the one true baptism. Warning sirens! The group my sister-in-law ran into was a very real cult. But how did they get to a place of such poor theology? They got there, and we can too, by placing our personal interpretation of the Bible next to the Bible in importance.

Where then should our beliefs and practices come from? We first want them to come from the Word of God, but where should we check our beliefs to make sure they’re right? Where should our interpretation fall in comparison to other teachings? Michael Horton, in his systematic theology, unpacks a “proper order:”²

“(1) the Scriptures as the infallible canon, qualitatively distinct from all other sources and authorities;”

A healthy Christian belief system rich in extra-biblical humility is like a house. The Bible is the rock upon which we build our home. It is where we build our theology, not around it, but upon it. This differs from Roman Catholicism which puts Scripture and tradition on par. We test everything we believe today to make sure it stands upon God’s word.

“(2) under this magisterial norm, the ministerial service of creeds and confessions;”

The creeds and confessions are the foundation from which the house that is evangelical belief, practice, and personal interpretation should rise. Various traditions will hold to their own specific confession, like the Westminster, Savoy, or London, but we should all hold to the early creeds. This is why we need to recite the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds often. Catechisms like the Heidelberg or more modern New City also function as checks for our beliefs. All of these help us stand firm within the circle of orthodox Christian belief.

“(3) contemporary proclamation of God’s Word in the church around the world;”

We now build the structure of our home with the global preaching of pastors and teachers. As a pastor in America, I have a different perspective on God’s word than pastors in Asia, but we should all preach the same good news and essential doctrines. Our explanations of the Trinity, the fall, salvation by God’s grace through faith, the inerrancy of Scripture, substitutionary atonement, and more, although contextualized, should mean the same thing.

“(4) Long-standing interpretations in the tradition;”

Our house rises higher with traditional interpretations of God’s word. Our home is almost built, but not without caring about the past and what it declared to be right belief. Have you just created a brand-new theology that solves everything? Be wary. If you think the Church has really gotten it wrong up to this point, then you could be right, but you could also be undercutting the role of the Holy Spirit as he sustains the ministry and belief of the Church.

“(5) the particular nuances of individual theologians.”

At the top we come to individual theologians. We all have pastors, elders, preachers, theologians, and popular authors we like. It’s often tempting to put their interpretations of God’s Word on par with Scripture, but we should always be careful in doing so. When our favorites preach a biblically true sermon, they too preach authoritatively, but their interpretation should not deviate from the rest of the house, especially the creeds and essentials.

Finally, we come to you, the chimney. Consider that a chimney isn’t just on the roof, it is laid at the ground level and is built through the house. It works with the rest of the house to heat the home and give life to the faith. Your faith won’t align with every corner of the building, but it shouldn't ignore its place or a fire could start in the wrong location. When viewed from the outside, the chimney appears small in comparison to the rest of the house. For many evangelical Christians, we are simply a chimney on a hill, which is more like a fire pit than a home. This brings glory to us and our interpretation instead of glory to God and the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church.

A Rich Heritage to Mature Disciples

The Word of God is sufficient for faith and practice, but God has also given us a rich heritage to guard, protect, and mature us as disciples. Let’s make sure we and our churches understand the importance of what has come before us by reciting creeds in our worship services, teaching catechisms in our children and adult Sunday schools, and explaining orthodoxy from the pulpit. Knowing what’s come before and having extra-biblical humility is a sign of a humble and mature disciple. It’s a sign to those you are discipling that you don’t have all the answer and ultimately points them back to Christ and to the community of faith who looked to Christ before us.

When I arrived at seminary, I didn’t have much extra-biblical humility. I couldn’t have told you much about dogma, doctrine, or theology, but the more I learned about the history of the Church and all it has to offer, the more grateful I became. When I realized I didn’t have to figure out everything anew for myself, it gave me the freedom to enjoy, study, and discover the Bible in a whole new light because I knew I was safeguarded by historic orthodox belief.

—

Jonathan M. Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell) is the associate pastor at Immanuel Church in Chelmsford Massachusetts (CCCC). He blogs at PastorRomig.blogspot.com and recently finished teaching New City Catechism to his adult Sunday school class and self-published his first ebook How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.

^{1. Gary Parrett and J.I. Packer, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2010), 68-69.↩}

^{2. Michael S. Horton, The Christian Faith: a Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011), 218.↩}

Take It Back to Jesus

A lot of people are skeptical of Christianity and the the church in general. You’ll often hear statements like, “I don’t believe in organized religion.” How should we respond?

Take It Back To Jesus

Our goal isn’t to convince lost people that church is cool. We are witnesses of the Risen Lord, this is about Jesus. Jesus is the Savior of sinners, not a cool Sunday service.

When people say they don’t like organized religion, ask them their thoughts about Jesus Christ. More pointedly, ask them if their position on organized religion means that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.

If they think Jesus is dead, why go to church? Who cares? Why be in a huff over organized religion if its founder is a loser?

But, if Jesus is alive—everything changes. Their thoughts about the church and “organized religion” have to be seen in light of the risen Lord. Since Jesus is breathing, everything the Bible says about Jesus’ church has weight to it. It is solid. If Jesus conquered the largest obstacle in our lives—that’d be death—than we need to listen, and seriously consider everything his book says.

• Jesus said he was going to build his church (Matt. 16:18).
• Jesus came for the church (Acts 20:28).
• Jesus picked twelve leaders to start his church.
• Jesus is the head of the church (Eph. 5:23).

Jesus wants a church; if he didn’t, don’t you think he would have told the apostles in Acts to stop organizing and corrupting his vision for Christianity? In Acts they are meeting, structuring themselves, sending out missionaries, appointing leaders, etc. I don’t think Jesus wants a disorganized religion.

Jesus loves the church (Eph. 5:25). You can’t truly follow Jesus and not be a part of his church. It’s backwards. The New Testament doesn’t recognize that as Christianity.

A Rebellious Christian

If they profess to be a Christian and are against the church, then they should be called to obey Jesus, who is the head of the church, which is his body. To have Jesus, the head, is to also have his body, the church.

A professing Christian that is against the church is against Christ. If you are anti-Church, you are acting more like Satan, more like an anti-Christ, than your professed Savior.

The New Testament is clear, Christians are meant to belong to a local church (Heb. 10:24). I’ve met far too many Christians who are too “mature” to obey the Bible and go to church. Sheesh. Repentance is in order.

God Isn’t Against Organization

There is nothing wrong with the words “organized” and “religion.” But put them together and people get goosebumps.

God isn’t against organized religion. The entire Old Testament shows that. And the New Testament affirms the gathering, structuring, and ministry activity of God’s people for the sake of God’s glory and the spread of the gospel. Again, the Bible doesn’t prefer a disorganized religion, “But all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40).

So, the bigger reality is not what we think about “organized religion,” frankly, it doesn’t matter; the greater question is what does God think?

God is pro-organization. I’ll just give two pieces of evidence. Exhibit A: the Bible. And exhibit B: the universe.

What Do They Mean By “Organized Religion”?

When discussing or debating a word or phrase, define it. Ask what they mean by “organized religion”—it takes the conversation from the clouds to the ground. And then you can get going somewhere.

What they probably mean by “organized religion” is that they don’t want to be a part of some system that doesn’t care about them, doesn’t help them, just wants their money, etc. And I’d agree. That sucks. And frankly, that’s how Satan would run a “church”—which is not a church.

So, yeah, I’m against that kind of organized religion too—we all should be.

But the New Testament gives a different vision for the church—the main metaphor used is that of a family.

No one is against a family—or organized families.

We are brothers and sisters in Christ. God is our Father and Jesus is our big brother. We are adopted into God’s family (Rom. 8:15). We aren’t a perfect family. But we are family. There is real love, joy, and harmony to be had among the family God, the body of Christ, the local church.

We ought to acknowledge—and repudiate—the yuck of abusive, manipulative, serpent-like “organized religion,” and put forward the compelling vision of the family of God.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42–47).

—

J.A. Medders is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, TX. He and Natalie have two kids, Ivy and Oliver. Jeff digs caffeinated drinks, books, and the Triune God. He blogs at www.jamedders.com and tweets from @mrmedders. Jeff’s first book, Gospel-Formed: Living a Grace-Addicted, Truth-Filled, Jesus-Exalting Life, is set to release this November from Kregel.

Originally published on JAMedders.com “How to Handle the ‘I Hate Organized Religion’ Talk.” Used with permission.

Adopting a Missional Posture

Mission is why we exist as disciples. God’s love inspires us to be missionaries to the world around us. Emil Brunner says, “The church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning.” Mission begins at home, serving in our local church, and reaching our community. As disciples, we have been sent as missionaries to share the gospel in our present culture and to fulfill the Great Commission. The church is rooted in the concept of the missio Dei, which recognizes that there is one mission, and it’s God’s mission. The missio Dei is a Latin theological term that can be translated as mission of God. The word missio literally means sent. The church is not an end in itself; the church is sent into the world to fulfill the mission of God.

God is a Missionary

Understanding what it means to be a part of the mission of God begins with understanding that God is a missionary God. The very being of God is the basis for the missionary enterprise. God is a sending God, with a desire to see humankind and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed. God’s mission can be seen throughout the pages of the Bible and history. Nowhere is the mission of God better understood than in the person and work of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 tells us, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Many Christians and churches teach and preach that missions are something we support or do, such as sending or supporting missionaries in other countries. This was the case twenty to thirty years ago. However, in the twenty first century the mission field has come to us.

We live in a post-Christian world where people simply don’t know the gospel anymore. Therefore, we are all called to be missional disciples and share in the mission of God. Ed Stetzer says, “Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound.”

Jesus: The First Missionary

Being a missional disciple is simply following the way of Jesus. Jesus Christ was the first and greatest missionary. The Bible tells us that he came from heaven to earth to die for a lost and dying world. The following scriptures reveal how the mission of God was fulfilled through Jesus Christ and how we are called to continue and complete the missio Dei in our culture.

• “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work’” (Jn. 4:34).
• “I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn. 5:30).
• “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn. 6:38).
• “I know him; because I am from him, and he sent me.” (Jn. 7:29).
• “And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (Jn 8:29).
• “We must work the works of him who sent me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work.” (Jn 9:4).
• “And Jesus cried out and said, ‘He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me. And he who beholds me beholds the one who sent me’” (Jn 12:44-45).
• “For I did not speak on my own initiative, but the Father himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak” (Jn 12:49).
• “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Jn 13:20).
• “And this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (Jn 17:3).
• “For the words which thou gave me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from thee, and they believed that thou didst send me” (Jn 17:8).
• “As thou didst send me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (Jn 17:18).
• “Jesus therefore said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; as the Father has sent me, I also send you’” (Jn 20:21).

Sent on a Mission

As the Father sent Jesus, he also sends us into our time and culture. Mark Driscoll says, “It is imperative that Christians be like Jesus, by living freely within the culture as missionaries who are as faithful to the Father and his gospel as Jesus was in his own time and place.”

We have been chosen by God to live in this time and place in order to fulfill the mission of God. Acts 17: 26-27 tells us that God has determined the exact place and time where we should live so that that men may find him. It is truly awesome to realize that you have chosen by God to be his representative to this world. It is both a great privilege and great responsibility.

Paul describes our calling in the following way, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Being missional is God’s way of showing the love of his Son Jesus through his church. Christians must strive to always be like Jesus, our perfect example. Jesus said, “The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). This scripture beautifully embodies the task of Christian ministry. To be a disciple is to be a servant. We are to serve and give our lives for others. Serving is the example that Jesus gave; therefore, we should follow it.

As the church we are called to care for a lost and dying world that is in desperate need of a Savior. Too many times we compartmentalize the different ministries of the church. We have viewed social ministry as something we do on one hand and evangelism on the other. God is calling the church to rediscover the biblical model of holistic ministry.

Jesus met both the physical and spiritual needs of the people he ministered to. As the Body of Christ on earth, we are his representatives to a lost world. Therefore, what we do and say are of eternal importance. Being missional disciples is not an either or situation. It means that we care about people’s souls and their bodies. It means that because we care about the gospel we should care about social and environmental issues. Being missional disciples brings all of life together under the banner of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

—

Dr. Winfield Bevins is the Director of Asbury Seminary’s Church Planting Initiative. He frequently speaks at conferences and retreats on a variety of topics.  He has a doctorate from Southeastern Seminary. He has written several books, including Our Common Prayer: A Field Guide to the Book of Common Prayer. As an author, one of his passions is to help contemporary Christians connect to the historic roots of the Christian faith for spiritual formation. He and his wife Kay, have three girls Elizabeth, Anna Belle, and Caroline. Find out more at www.winfieldbevins.com.

Killing the Lone Ranger

Disciples were never meant to travel alone

In our present culture there is huge emphasis upon the individual. The post-modern mantra of “that’s good for you, but I’ll find my own truth” pervades every corner of our lives. It also has impacted and informed current day discipleship processes. Discipleship has become a process that is done to us—we attend a six week class at church and are pronounced “discipled”! Or, we are smart enough to know the right (intellectual) responses to doctrinal questions (that reinforce our denominational biases) and people think we are doing well as Christians. Perhaps, like me, you have been brought up in the church and have "learned" what prayers will get people saying “Amen!” or can lead worship in just the right way to make the congregation feel “tingly.” It is possible to do all these things and not be a disciple of Jesus. Let me say that again to reiterate that statement’s importance:

It is possible to say the right things, pray the right things, lead the right way, have just the right words to say . . . and not be a disciple of Jesus!

Now, I am not stating that prayer, praise, and rich biblical knowledge are bad—they most certainly are not . . . unless they are done with the wrong motivation. Discipleship is not a Christian conveyor belt through which we travel to achieve a better Christian status.

Discipleship is a deepening relationship with Christ Jesus with whom we travel through life in faith. Many Christians have started their journey of faith with 100% sincerity that the Christian life is for them. They started off enthusiastic about living for Jesus and got stuck into church life, maybe even being so touched by Jesus that they vibrantly shared their faith with anybody who would listen. Then they’ve been "discipled" into believing certain things and behaving in certain ways. For many the process of discipleship has removed their passion for Jesus and enthusiasm to share their faith and helped them to "settle down in faith."

Sadly, for others a dry non-relational discipleship process has not been enough to stop some from "forsaking their faith" when life has got hard or the church has been lacking in the grace that Jesus had shown them. It always saddens me when I see people turning from their faith in Jesus. It saddens me that often our programs have turned people off Jesus. But, more so, it saddens me that often we have judged these lost souls as not able to persevere (we love the parable of the sower), or worse—we state that they never had a real faith if they have "so quickly turned away." I believe that the problem is not always with the person who has left the church (although at times it is).  I believe that it is more to do with the fact that the church has not created faith communities that are conducive to growing disciples who reach maturity of faith. It is this point that I wish to stick on:

The church needs to create discipleship communities where disciples can thrive and mature in faith!

Disciples were never meant to travel alone! When we look at Jesus’ model of discipleship we never see him holding a class, handing out notes, and asking people to bring them back completed. Jesus intentionally chose twelve key people and called them to be his disciples. What are some of the keys we can find from how Jesus made disciples?

Jesus Created a Community of Disciples

Jesus called twelve men together to learn from him. He formed a band of brothers who traveled with him; questioned him; listened to him; watched him preach, pray, and perform miracles; they argued with each other (about who would be the greatest in the kingdom); they ate with him (often); they went through some terrifying experiences with him (stormy seas and a garden arrest!). Jesus invested his time, energy, experience, and spiritual life with them. Whenever Jesus went somewhere, they went with him. They served Jesus and each other. They prepared for festivals with him, and went to parties with him.

In thirty years of church life, I have rarely experienced this form of closeness with a group of Christians. There have been inklings of it once in a while. I spent six month on a YWAM Discipleship Training School (I was actively searching to grow as a disciple at a time when my church was not engaging in making disciples) and lived in a huge house with over fifty other people.  During this time I spent every waking minute (almost) with other members of the DTS. It was a great period in my life and I still look back on it as a period of massive spiritual growth in my life. I could put this down to the amazing teaching sessions I attended (although I think this was a minor facet in my discipleship at that point). I believe that I grew spiritually because I became part of a community of believers who were looking out for me, loving me, listening to me, correcting me, encouraging me, praying for and with me, crying with me, barbecuing with me, joking with me, walking on the beach with me, eating with me, and more besides—all of this with Jesus at the center of it all! During this time I shared my life intimately with about eight of these people and (I believe) added spiritual value and discipleship to their lives.

Gospel and Missional Community: A Basic Theology

Discipleship needs community, but community is not enough. A discipleship community needs to be on a mission with the gospel together. Here are three emphases I want to articulate:

1. We will glorify God together (gospel)
2. We will gather and grow in Christ together (discipleship)
3. We will go out in the Spirit’s power together (mission)

All of these center and depend on God in all his Triune glory.

Christian community begins and ends with God! In the Trinity we have the original community. Father, Son and Holy Spirit work together perfectly to fulfill their plan of redeeming the world and restoring humanity into a right relationship with the father again. The Father sent the Son on a mission. The Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to carry on that mission through the Church. And we are that Church!

Our community (Church) needs to relate to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. God-centered community, like other styles of being the church needs to maintain a relational balance in relationship with our Trinitarian God. Discipleship that does not relate to all three members of the Trinity will be unbalanced and unhealthy. Our God is a Trinitarian being so we need to be Trinitarian people in thought, word and in deeds as we journey together.

The other emphasis is on a very small word with big implications. That word is “we.” Disciples are not lone rangers. We do not do church or mission alone. In Luke 10, Jesus sends the disciples out in two's. Nowhere in the Gospels do we see Jesus sending the disciples out alone. Discipleship is a community thing because it is a relationship thing. We disciple each other—I need you and you need me! I am discipled by the strongest and the weakest members of my community. This is an amazing truth to grasp. We often think that we need to be discipled by someone who knows more than us—I have found that God uses the weak things to silence the strong. God does not just give revelation and wisdom to "leaders"—he shares himself and the riches of his grace with every member of the Church. This can be a very humbling experience for us. We need to expect that God will speak through every member of our communities. We need to create communities where we expect that God will minister and speak through a child or through a new convert, as well as through the mature disciples. This not only encourages our faith, but it will encourage new disciples’ faith as they see how God uses them. This encourages them to have an expectation that God will use them to play their part in the discipleship of other people. What a joy to hear and see young disciples of Jesus discipling others.

The emphasis on gospel, discipleship, and mission is also important in ensuring that our discipleship is balanced. Where we lack in one area there will be imbalance in the discipleship process. If we do not emphasize the gospel we will create disciples who do not depend on God, and who are not looking to see his purposes fulfilled. Discipleship very easily becomes about us when we do not look squarely to the cross of Christ and its far-reaching implications.

If we do not seek to grow as disciples together, we will not value the need to meet together and to grow in faith. The result is that faith and Christian community become low priorities for us and we may not have any commitment to the community of believers. This is counter-productive to the relational discipleship process.

If we do not look out in mission, we run the risk of being disciples without purpose—we become a closed club for the spiritually initiated. Disciples without a mission are like mountaineers without a mountain to climb—we learn how to be disciples by following Jesus into mission just as the first disciples did. Essentially, it is Jesus who disciples us (albeit often through his church). Mission is the disciple’s mountain upon which they will grow in their understanding of how to follow Jesus’ teachings in the reality of their particular life contexts

We need to disciple within the context of gospel-centered communities centered on God and going in mission together. Community offers us accountability to grow in faith in a loving and supportive environment as we share life together in the spiritual and practical experiences and conversations we have.

May we be a people who follow Jesus to the God the Father in the power of the Spirit to make, mature, and multiply gospel-centered, discipling, missional communities and churches.

—

Stuart McCormack has worked as a shelf stacker, bingo caller, archivist, youth minister and is currently living out his calling to missional living in the secular workspace as a Targeted Youth Support Worker/Mentor. He co-leads “Vintage,” a missional community which is part of Kairos Network Church based in Harrogate North Yorkshire.  He is husband to Jenna and father to Noah, Bella, and Sophia. In his spare time he tweets @missionalrev and blogs at www.missionalrev.wordpress.com

Eating Stories for Life

“We are narrative creatures, and we need narrative nourishment—narrative catechisms”

—N. D. Wilson

Many of my earliest childhood memories revolve around stories. My parents read to me a good bit. Many of these books were passed down to me and I now read them to my children. Although I didn’t know it then, I was being discipled through those stories. They were providing “narrative nourishment” as N. D. Wilson calls it. Just as we use catechism to sear truths deep into our bones, we must use stories to sear truths into our hearts. Stories mature us by laying hold of our affections. We love the truths of stories and so learn to love the God of truth. In Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith describes this “narrative nourishment” of affections:

Our ultimate love is oriented by and to a picture of what we think it looks like for us to live well, and that picture then governs, shapes, and motivates our decisions and actions . . . . A vision of the good life captures our hearts and imaginations not by providing a set of rules or ideas, but by painting a picture of what it looks like for us to flourish and live well. This is why such pictures are communicated powerfully in stories, legends, myths, plays, novels, and films rather than dissertations, messages, and monographs” (53).

Famed biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins acknowledges the power of story when he recently said, “I think it's rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism – we get enough of that anyway . . . ” and “Even fairy tales, the ones we all love, with wizards or princesses turning into frogs or whatever it was. There’s a very interesting reason why a prince could not turn into a frog – it's statistically too improbable” (The Telegraph, “Reading fairy stories to children is harmful, says Richard Dawkins”).

It was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that first fueled my affections. I was enthralled with Narnia’s fairy world, distant, yet so close to my own—a world where sacrificial love wins the day. Later in life, I was intrigued by mythology, King Arthur’s knights, Beowulf, and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and later J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth (a place that holds my affections fast even as an adult).

Many Christians read stories to their children or read fiction for themselves. Some don’t read at all, and simply don’t see the benefit. I worked with an older Christian woman who told me that she never reads fiction because it’s a lie. C. S. Lewis comments on this kind of thinking: “We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome.” Few, in my experience, read stories as “narrative nourishment”—as fuel to capture our hearts with a vision for beauty and truth that drives our affections to God. I hope to change that.

My daughters love stories with princesses (Frozen was on repeat for months in my home) and mystery like The Boxcar Children. They reenact these stories with cousins and friends using their imagination. My oldest daughter Claire just told me yesterday that it’s hard playing Frozen when her cousin and friend Emma comes over because they all want to be Elsa. The truths of those stories then are rehearsed, and rehearsed, and rehearsed every time they read them and play them out. If stories have this power to grab our affection, then the stories we read (and the ones we don’t read) are important.

The Gospel: A Story Aimed at Our Heart

When we meet together as a church, we rehearse a particular liturgy. The strength of that liturgy depends on how well it connects to the work of the Trinity. In my church, the pastor ends the service with a benediction from Scripture and sends us out into our city. We are scattered with the gospel speeding our steps.

That rehearsal of the gospel is foundation for Christian discipleship. But it should produce a life that’s centered on the gospel throughout the week as well. In a way, all of life should be part of our discipleship—whether we eat, drink, walk, sleep, whatever (Deut. 6:4-9; 1 Cor. 10:31). We live in light of the story of redemption (1 Cor. 15:1-3).

We are rescued by God, redeemed by Christ, and made new by the Spirit. Our lives fit into this gospel narrative, not as heroes, but as integral image-bearers, ambassadors, and heralds of the Christ. When God calls his people to live in a fallen world, he says, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today” (Deut. 15:15). He rehearses a true story to them. In Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, Christopher Wright says, “Personal experience of God’s goodness is turned into motivation for ethical behaviour that responds out of gratitude and love” (42). This doesn’t change in the New Testament. Paul regularly rehearses the truth of the gospel story (Rom. 1-6; 1 Cor. 15) before providing any kind of ethical imperative (Rom. 12-16). This pattern is a regular feature of Paul’s letters.

Even the development of the New Testament, bears this out. The church first held dear stories of the life and death of Christ and rich doctrine sprung out of those stories—because stories of sacrificial love, death, and resurrection dig into our hearts. We want them to be true. “We all like astonishing tales,“ says G. K. Chesterton, “because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment.” There is no more astonishing tale than God becoming man to die for his enemies.

Stories and Missional Discipleship

So as we read stories that highlight truths that the gospel also teaches us, these are opportunities to nourish the delight, astonishment, and wonder in ourselves, our children, friends, and unbelievers. Once our hearts are in love with the story, our minds will not be long in following suit. Tolkien makes this point in a letter to his son Christopher.

“[C.S.] Lewis recently wrote a most interesting essay (if published I don’t know) showing of what great value the ‘story-value’ was, as mental nourishment—of the whole Chr. story (NT especially). It was a defence of that kind of attitude which we tend to sneer at: the fainthearted that loses faith, but clings at least to the beauty of ‘the story’ as having some permanent value. His point was that they do still in that way get some nourishment and are not cut off wholly from the sap of life: for the beauty of the story while not necessarily a guarantee of its truth is a concomitant of it, and a fidelis is meant to draw nourishment from the beauty as well as the truth.” (‘96 To Christopher Tolkien’, 109)

With stories that don’t reflect truth of the gospel, it’s an opportunity to contrast the gospel truth with the shallow, faulty, affection grabbing stories of that “secular liturgy” as James K. A. Smith calls them. We can read and see what worshiping other gods looks like. How those false stories are lived out. Christopher Wright says, “The ethical teaching of the Old Testament is first and foremost God-centered . . . [T]his underlines for us the importance of the first commandment: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ For any ‘other god’ would result in a different ethic” (46). Some stories demonstrate what this different ethic looks like.

Also, reading good stories provides missional opportunities. Whenever I run into atheists who love Lewis’s Narnia or Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, my ears perk up. I know that if they love those stories, if they love truths rehearsed in those worlds, if their hearts are entangled in them, then they are not far from loving the gospel. It’s an amazing way to share the gospel. “If you love that this is true in Middle-Earth, God has done this same sort of thing in our world. How can your heart long for the truth and beauty found in Tolkien, but not in your own life?”

So we must not neglect narrative nourishment. We must eat stories for life—to grow and mature as disciples. Christians who refuse to do so are missing an important part of their discipleship because Christians are part of a story-formed community. C. S. Lewis compares the Christian who refuses narrative nourishment with the non-Christian who eats it as her regular meal.

“A man who disbelieved the Christian story as fact but continually fed on it as myth would, perhaps, be more spiritually alive than one who assented and did not think much about it. The modernist . . . need not be called a fool or hypocrite because he obstinately retains, even in the midst of his intellectual atheism, the language, rites, sacraments, and story of the Christians. The poor man may be clinging (with a wisdom he himself by no means understands) to that which is his life.” (‘Myth Became Fact,’ 67)

Let’s not waste the opportunity for making, maturing, and multiplying disciples that reading, talking about, sharing good stories affords. Scripture is made of stories. Christ fulfills the gospel story. We live in a grand story. And the best stories help us know the gospel better—by grabbing our hearts.

---

Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

Paying for Your Sanctification

I meet with a lot of people—that comes with the calling to be a pastor. So I spend a good amount of time in coffee shops and restaurants, talking about the gospel and how it interfaces with our lives. As I meet with folks, I tend to find myself having the same conversation multiple times a week. It’s not the exact same conversation—the names and details are different—but the bottom line doesn’t change. The thing they struggle with is really familiar because it’s the same thing I struggle with every single day. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe you do too.)

Here it is: I tend to view my relationship with God as a series of transactions. We could call this transactional sanctification.

Transactional Sanctification.

Think about the last time you went shopping—for groceries, batteries for the remote, a sweet iPhone that just got replaced with an even sweeter one . . . whatever. It probably went down something like this: You drove to the store, found the items you wanted, walked up to the counter, and the salesperson rang them up.  After getting your total, you pulled out your debt card, transferred money from your account to theirs, they gave you part of their inventory, and you went home.  (Unless you didn’t have enough cash or your card was declined—in which case you went home empty-handed and embarrassed.) Repeat as needed.

It’s amazing how much we tend to view God like that. I do things for God, God does things for me. Quid pro quo. I don’t do the right things for God, God doesn’t do things for me. Now, most of us wouldn’t say it anything like that—but it’s at the core of how we think. If we’ve been around church long enough, we’ve learned to use the language of grace, but most of us are still trying to figure out how to dance to its rhythm.

Let me give you an example. Awhile back, I was meeting with a guy from our church over breakfast. We talked about how he was feeling distant from his wife and how things had been pretty chaotic in his business. Immediately, he follows up by explaining he hasn’t been praying very much, not to mention the fact that he drank a little too much on a fishing trip last weekend. After thinking for a minute, he looks at me and says, “I guess it makes sense.”

You see the formula there, right? Life—inconsistent prayer + getting drunk = God not giving me peace at work or at home. Now, of course, obedience and prayer are important, but could it be that work is crazy just because it is? Could it be that his wife is just going through a lot at her own job, and when you combine his work stress and hers it makes for a pretty rough stretch at home?

Let’s try another example—this one is for all of us pastors. I was reading about a church recently that has experienced unbelievable numeric growth over the past few years. The church is only a couple years old and has several thousand people attending worship. In a recent conversation about this particular church, I listened to two other pastors talking about why this church has grown so quickly. The answer given? “I’ve heard that so-and-so (name of pastor from growing church) spends a ridiculous amount of time in prayer. That guy is with Jesus A LOT, and Jesus shows up in their church.”

Now, I have no doubt that this particular pastor loves Jesus with all his heart and spends tons of time with him. But did you catch the formula? Pastor who loves Jesus + spends lots of time in prayer = God blesses their church with tons of people attending. You do something for God, then God does stuff for you.

Life isn’t a Transaction

Here’s the problem—it doesn’t work that way. Think about all the pastors whose churches aren’t exploding with attendance growth. What do they hear in the above conversation? “I guess if I just pray more maybe my church will grow too. Maybe the reason we’re not seeing similar results is because I haven’t been committed enough to Jesus. Maybe I need to really get serious about prayer—maybe then God will bless our church.” I won’t tell you how many times I’ve had that very conversation with myself—in my head and in my journal.

Transactional sanctification always leads to despair—when you don’t see the results you want, it’s obviously because you didn’t pay a high enough price. If you would only try harder, not screw up so much, and have more faith like all those other people who it seems to be working for, then maybe God would bless you.

As I meet with people, I remind them (and myself) that we are completely loved, accepted, and perfect in Jesus. God is a transactional God, but the transaction has already been completed—at the cost of the very life of Jesus. There is nothing more I can add to it or take away from it. My standing with God is secure—regardless of the “success” of my ministry, family, or career. Can you imagine the freedom and peace that would come if we could truly live out this belief?

—

Bill Streger serves as the Lead Pastor of Kaleo Church, an Acts 29 Network church in Houston, TX. Born and raised in Houston, he attended Houston Baptist University and is currently pursuing his M.Div. from Reformed Baptist Seminary. Bill is a husband to Shannon, daddy to Mirabelle and Levi, and a life-long Houston Rockets fan. Twitter @billstreger

Wisdom in Manhood

I read through the book of Proverbs this weekend. As I was trying to discern the right way through a difficult question I was asked and wanted to make sure my answer wasn't couched in cleverness or pragmatic "well it sounds good so let's do it" philosophy. I wanted my answer to be anchored in real, biblical reality. The question I was seeking to answer by looking through Proverbs is an altogether different story. However, I did find something that I believe a lot of churches today would have a difficult time swallowing. Wisdom doesn't really appear like today's "manly man."

Darwinism, Not Biblical Manhood

Today's "manly men" are seemingly the guys that shoot first and take prisoners later. They conquer everything. Passivity has no room in the life of a man. He needs to mount up, shoot the wolves, vanquish the foes, and save the princess. Some of the descriptions I get of the "manly men" today sound a lot like a Gideon (Judges 6-ff) or Sampson (Judges 16-ff). Honestly, those aren't the most exemplary characters in the Bible. Don't agree with me? Read Judges again, you probably remember the flannel-board versions. If there’s no place for weakness in men in the Christian faith then we have Darwinism, not biblical manhood.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness” (2 Cor. 11:30).

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

“For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13:4).

Pursue Wisdom

Yet the kind of person I find in Proverbs that is truly wise is first described as a woman. Lady Wisdom "calls in the streets" (Prov. 1:20). Now, I understand the literary device the writer of Proverbs is trying to use here to coach his son to pursue wisdom. "Boy, think of wisdom as a beautiful, attractive, glorious woman. Pursue wisdom the way you'd pursue her." But then the book gets to describing wisdom. Wisdom doesn't sound like the manly man.

• Wisdom is quiet. It doesn't talk too much, and never runs it mouth (Prov. 13:10, 15:1).
• Wisdom waits, it's patient and sees all the sides before making a decision (Prov. 18:17, Jas. 1:19).
• Wisdom isn't flashy. It quietly goes about its hard work (Ecc. 9:10.
• Wisdom is kind. It covers a multitude of sins (Prov. 16:24, 1 Pt. 4:8).
• Wisdom isn't presumptuous. It lets the person finish before they respond (Prov. 18:13).
• Wisdom doesn't demand the right to be heard. In fact, it rarely even asks to be heard, but those who value wisdom constantly ask for him to speak (Jas. 3:1-12).
• Wisdom is meager. Not building a big platform or making a lot of noise about itself (Prov. 25:27, 27:2, Jas. 3:13-18).
• Wisdom is somber. It's not a coarse joker (Jas. 1:19-21).
• Wisdom is mature. It's not the juvenile, "wrestle-them-to-the-ground," berating, know-it-all that tells you how much he knows (Prov. 18:6-7, Jas. 1:26, 1 Cor. 14:20).

All-in-all wisdom seems like the slow to speak, respected, patient man that we should aspire to be. Not the goof-ball, overconfident, blabbering self-promoters that our culture clings to so much. If anything we should be quiet, grow up, listen up, and get to work. Wisdom doesn't look like the young hip guy with opinions to spare and a head of steam. It looks like the older man who quietly goes about his work. In fact, if you hang out with the older guy, he’ll share the sweet honey of his wisdom (Prov. 24:13-14). Wisdom is “sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Prov. 16:24). I hope to be the older wise man, not the young fool.

—

Jeremy Writebol(@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over thirteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He lives and works in Plymouth, MI as the Campus Pastor of Woodside Bible Church.

New Book: Make, Mature, Multiply by Brandon D. Smith

Today, we release the newest book from GCD Books—Brandon Smith’s Make Mature Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus. You can buy a digital copy from the GCD Bookstore for $3.99 or get paperback for $9.99. Here’s an excerpt from the editor’s preface: As a new Christian, I was told that being a disciple of Jesus could be summed up in his own words—“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk. 8:34). While this statement is certainly a foundational truth of being a disciple, is this it?

In one sense, yes. Jesus could have stopped there and we could aim to model our lives after the self-sacrifice and humility he displayed on the cross. There would be nothing wrong with that. But he didn’t stop there. Scripture gives us more. Much more.

The good news of the gospel is not only for self-application; it is for proclamation. It’s meant to be shared. A disciple follows Jesus, invites others to follow him, and then trains them how to repeat the process. Simply put, disciples are called to make, mature, and multiply disciples.

First, we are called to make disciples. This means that we evangelize, we share the good news. Making disciples is about telling strangers, friends, family, and anyone else who doesn’t know it yet that Jesus Christ is their King, their Savior, their God.

Next, we are called to mature disciples. So we don’t tell people about Jesus and move along. We don’t say, “I’m glad you believe! Enjoy yourself.” Maturing disciples is teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded (Matt. 28:20). It’s the process of sanctification—being made holy, becoming more and more like Jesus. We rely on God. We devour and dwell on the things of God found in the Scriptures. We pray. We kill sin in our lives. We serve others. We take “WWJD?” seriously by remembering what he actually did. These are but a few characteristics of a mature disciple. We model these things and we teach others to model them.

Finally, we multiply disciples. Mature disciples don’t keep the good news of the gospel to themselves. Mature disciples, by the Holy Spirit’s power, take Jesus to others. We are evangelized to evangelize. We are loved to love. We are forgiven to forgive. We are served to serve. We are redeemed to point to the Redeemer. We complete the cycle of discipleship by making disciples who make disciples who make disciples who make…

This is not a perfect process, but it doesn’t have to be. Jesus was and is perfect so that you don’t have to be. You can’t save anyone, but you can show others the One who can. The Holy Spirit is with you (Jn. 14:25-26; 1 Cor. 10:13). My prayer is that this book will help you become a fully-formed disciple of Jesus who makes, matures, and multiplies fully-formed disciples of Jesus.

These chapters have been adapted from articles that originally appeared at GCDiscipleship.com. We like to think of this book as a “best of GCD” compilation. I speak for every contributor in this book when I say: we hope you see the glory of Christ on every page, and that you are so captivated by the beauty of the gospel that you can’t help but take it to the ends of the earth.

_

GCD Store: All Digital Formats (Mobi/Kindle, ePub/iBook, and PDF)

Amazon: Paperback

—

Brandon D. Smith is Executive Director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and serves in editorial roles for The Criswell Theological Review and The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. He is proud to be Christa’s husband and Harper Grace’s daddy. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonSmith85

Birthing New Disciples

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” was Christ’s clarion call to his closest companions—those who had walked with him for over three years, and those who would sow the seeds of joy in Christ throughout the early days of his Church. Likewise, this banner is rightly taken up by any modern church that seeks to follow Christ’s call. But in our modern culture, an emphasis on process often leads to false pretext. In other words, the “how to” of discipleship often precedes the “why” of discipleship. C.S. Lewis explains the futility in this, asking, “What is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all?” But this phenomenon cannot only be attributed to a cultural emphasis on process. Rather, it stems from a lack of understanding around the nature of new life in Christ, or the doctrine of regeneration. Often, Christian churches struggle to connect doctrine with practice, but such a connection is imperative in the area of discipleship. And if this is true, regeneration—the birth of a disciple—bears tremendous weight on the outworking of discipleship. There are four major considerations around the doctrine of regeneration which should be woven into the fabric of any philosophy of discipleship.

Regeneration is the creation of a new affection.

One of the most fascinating things about regeneration is that God creates within the newborn disciple a new taste, or perhaps a more refined taste, for glory. Here’s what I mean. Everyone gets some satisfaction from the glory that comes from temporal things: family, food, drink, success, popularity, etc. Surely you understand this when your child brings home a report card with all A’s, or when your sports franchise wins a championship, or when you’ve just earned the promotion you’ve been working toward for years.

But here’s the interesting thing about glory: it always leaves you wanting more. So, when you seek the glory that comes from these temporal things, you will never be satisfied. Your kid will end up resenting you for all the academic pressure, your sports team will begin a new season, and the novelty of your new job will wear off, leaving you thirsty for more.

Graciously, when God regenerates you, what he is actually doing is introducing you to the only true fountain for the satisfaction of your glory-thirsty soul. He is killing your old taste for temporal glory and creating within you a taste for the glory to be found in the fountain of Jesus Christ alone.

So, a disciple is most fundamentally someone who has been re-created, as the Apostle Paul iterates in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Prior to such a work (which is wholly of God), no one has the capacity, nor frankly the desire, to accept Christ’s call to “take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). But, the Bible says that at the moment of regeneration, God grants a beating, fleshly heart, a heart that can feel (Ez. 36:25-27). This heart, created by God and guided by his Spirit, has a real sense of desire for attributing glory to God. It not only recognizes God’s worth at an intellectual level; it delights in ascribing to him ultimate worth at the level of the affections.

Now, we have come to the true and underlying motivation for discipleship: genuine affection for Christ, freely granted by God at regeneration through the work of the Spirit.

Regeneration means a change in identity.

The doctrines of justification and adoption are rightly heralded as chief tenets of the Christian faith. As we probe these doctrines, we understand that they are gracious gifts from a loving Father, wrapped up in regeneration. In other words, they are freely given to a newborn disciple.

A disciple of Christ must recognize, with Paul, that God is both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). This means that, because of Jesus, God does not compromise one ounce of his justice when he forgives our sins. His justice was executed on the cross, as Christ bore the penalty for all our sins at once. But very often, we feel that we need to be both just and the justifier on our own. When we sin, we run from God, owing our flight to the need to clean ourselves up before coming back to God. We carry around a medieval notion of penance for individual sins, thinking that we are more devout in doing so. But the kind of repentance that Jesus secured for those he regenerates is much bigger than penance for individual sins. It is a lifelong posture toward God which glories in his grace for sending Christ to the cross to make payment for all of our sins at once.

And while our need for justification is the most pressing legal matter prior to regeneration, our need for adoption is certainly the most relational.

Why is the doctrine of Christian adoption so life-giving? Because it gives us a new identity. At the moment of regeneration, God fundamentally changes who we are. In fact, Paul tells us that the transformation is as stark as “slave to son” (see Galatians 4:7).

The transformation from “slave” to “son” means a complete change in identity. It doesn’t affect one or two aspects of how we live or think; it literally changes everything. It offers a change in perspective. It gives us new lenses through which to see the world.

These two gifts are wrapped up with regeneration because there is absolutely nothing a newborn disciple has done to earn them. Like a baby that is birthed into a loving family, they are simply part of the new reality into which a disciple is born. Now, the task is to continually teach this newborn disciple about his new identity and how it affects all of life.

Remembering regeneration is a means of grace by which disciples are matured.

One of the most practical avenues God employs in the hearts of regenerate believers for stirring our affections for him is simply the remembrance of the gospel. In remembering this, our hearts’ affections are stirred to ascribe worship to God for the life-giving work he has done in us.

This is why observance of the sacraments is an important practice in the Christian life. When a church body observes baptism, are they not rejoicing in new birth? Regeneration is brought to the forefront of the hearts of the regenerate as we celebrate that act in the lives of our new brothers and sisters.

The observance of communion is also themed around celebration and remembrance. We commemorate the life and death of Jesus as we partake of the bread and the cup. All of this serves to bring us back to the humble realization that Christ’s sacrifice procured our regeneration.

Regeneration levels the playing field for mission.

Since all this is true, we understand that regeneration is 100% God’s work. The Father grants that the work of the Son be imputed to men and women, and the faith to rest in this work is wrought by the Holy Spirit. When God turns on the light, when he shines in the hearts of men to reveal the glory of Christ, a new disciple is born. An explosion of grace has birthed excitement, affection, and deep joy in the heart of a previously dead man or woman.

What are the missional implications here? Since regeneration is 100% God’s work, based on no merit of the individual, this brings to light the glorious truth that no one is too far gone. Christ’s call to make disciples of all nations was a call toward radical inclusion. It was a call to go into the dark places and proclaim the light, trusting God to shine in the hearts of men. It was a call to celebrate God’s good purpose of redemption for people from all walks of life.

You see, everyone is born spiritually dead. And, one way or another, we all try to make ourselves alive. But think back to your regeneration–the moment God illuminated the gospel in your heart and caused you to behold the glory of Christ. Were you not acutely aware that you had nothing to do with this change? After all, dead is dead. Christ is life. God is the one who regenerates, matures, and multiplies his disciples. And when He calls us to “go and make disciples,” He’s giving us front-row tickets to the greatest show on earth.

The experience of living the Christian life is tied up in a proper understanding of the nature of regeneration. How can one know how to live unless he understands how he has been made alive? Thus, the maturation of a disciple is driven by a daily reorientation around gospel regeneration. In light of all this, don’t stifle the experience of your new life by attempting to run back to the same streams you used to drink from. Drink from the stream of living water in Christ, for in this you shall find both deeper desires and deeper fulfillment. You will bank all you have, all you know, and all you ever hope to be on one thing: once dead, I have now been made alive in Christ. And He is enough. If this is you, never cease to praise God for the gospel regeneration He has caused in your life.

— Alex Dean is a pastor in Lakeland, Florida. Holding an undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University, Alex is currently completing his graduate work at Reformed Theological Seminary. His book, Gospel Regeneration: A story of death, life, and sleeping in a van, will be released in the summer of 2014. Follow his blog at gospelregeneration.com or follow him on Twitter @alexmartindean.

(Editor’s Note: This is adapted from Gospel Regeneration by Alex Dean available on Lucid Books. It appears here with the permission of the author.)

3 Ways to Serve Seminarians

Seminary is a journey unlike any other. There are dangers to be avoided and sweet moments to be cherished and celebrated (like actually finishing your reading load for the semester). It is a time filled with excitement, frustration, disappointment, and times of profound spiritual growth. However, seminarians cannot accomplish this task alone. They need the local church to come alongside them in this journey. After all, in Christ we are all one big family. While many Christians may want to come alongside seminarians during their years of study, they may often not know how or what to do. So, how can churches help seminarians mature as disciples and have a healthy experience—emotionally, physically, relationally, and spiritually?

1. Pray Seminarians Would Keep Our Eyes on Jesus

As a seminarian, I can tell you that it can be daunting. It can be overwhelming when “syllabus shock” sets in and you see all the assignments that you are required to complete. In fact, seminary can be dangerous, leaving many not with the white hot flame of godly affections for Christ, but a cold, dry orthodoxy that can’t sustain them during the many trials of life and ministry. This is not to say seminary is bad. Certainly not. Over the past semester, I have thanked God for the rich friendships that I have developed with other guys on campus and for the times in which my heart was stirred for Christ during a class lecture. In fact, there’s a group of guys I eat lunch with on a regular basis during the semester and inevitably, we bring up something said in one of the lectures and wrestle with it together.

These are good things I celebrate daily. However, that isn’t always the norm for students, especially as the semester goes along. Fatigue sets in, and so can discouragement. As seminarians, we need prayer. Just like any other Christian, we are at war daily, fighting for joy in Christ and mortifying indwelling sin that so easily can entangle us (Heb. 12:1). We need stamina and endurance that only God can provide to help us maintain a healthy perspective towards our studies, namely, that their aim is doxological, not merely to achieve some academic profundity. But most importantly, we need prayer that our eyes would remain on Jesus. As David Mathis in How to Stay Christian in Seminary writes,

“An essential mark of a solid seminary experience is continually being stunned by how everything relates to Jesus. When you look long enough, press hard enough, and feel deeply enough, you discover again and again that it all comes back to him. The whole universe is about Jesus. The whole Bible is about Jesus. Our whole lives are designed to be about Jesus. And any seminary experience worth a dime should be all about Jesus as well.”

It can be easy for us to take our eyes off Jesus and put them on our grades or our performance, instead of the glorious reality of what God has done for us in Christ. Additionally, recognize that seminary isn’t the only thing going on in our lives. We are still human beings. We struggle and worry about school and about the ordinary things of life. So as you pray, intercede for us not just in regards to our studies, but also in how we form relationships, how we embody our faith as employees, how we uphold honesty and integrity in all we do, and, for some, how we can best take care of our families who take part in seminary life as well.

2. Encourage Seminarians With Godly Wisdom

Seminary students need more than just, “Hey, keep up the good work.” Show them how their union with Christ changes their lives and how our justification is based on Christ’s merit, not how well they can exegete that pesky Greek participle. Your affirmation needs to have some depth to be an encouragement for the stress they may be under or the discouragement they can’t seem to shake.

For example, you don’t need to understand exactly what seminarians are going through because, unless you have gone through a seminary program yourself, you may not. We all have different experiences in our life, school, and work. But you can still encourage them by pointing them to the God of all comfort who has given them “every spiritual blessing” (Eph. 1:3) in Christ. You can remind them of the certainty of God’s fulfilling his promises to them and that, being a good Father, he will never leave them or forsake them (Heb. 13:5; see also Deut. 31:6; Ps. 94:14). Even still, encourage them to not neglect the local church. Seminarians can’t mature apart from the community of faith, which is just as true for the rest of the church body as well.

Help promote rest and a healthy view of their body by not demanding an excessive amount of their time. Help them recognize that rest is in fact a godly thing, that because Jesus is our Sabbath Rest, we can rest (and must rest) from our busy schedules and take a deep breath under “It is finished,” while being confident that God will still accomplishes his purposes for those eight hours we’re asleep. Let them know that their saying “No” to certain things doesn’t diminish your view of them as your sibling in Christ and that it doesn’t make God love them less either. Help them to see that saying “No” is crucial in surviving ministry and preventing burnout.

3. Come Alongside and Support Seminarians

Seminarian do want to use their gifts in the church, but that doesn’t mean they always have the time to fulfill every empty teaching role. For some, they simply do not have the time to faithfully prepare a sermon or small group lesson on top of their class work every week. Keep in mind that some seminarians struggle to faithfully serve the church and also use the little free time they have productively. The church must find other ways to come alongside seminarians and support them.

It can be devastating to sense that our local church has all but abandoned us and seemingly shows no care or concern for us, as if the local church finds our time at seminary irrelevant. While I’m sure no local church desires to come off this way (and while it is also the seminarian’s responsibility to find a local church to belong, serve, and be known in), sometimes a certain posture towards us may communicate that. One way a local church can support seminarians is through meeting tangible needs. For example, sometimes the busyness of a student’s schedule prevents him or her from being able to stop what they are doing and fix a home-cooked meal. Instead of leaving it up to the seminarian to pick up fast food, have a Sunday School class or home group sponsor that student and bring him or her meals every now and then.  Even better, have families set aside one night and have the student over for dinner. I would double this recommendation for single seminarians. Since you don’t have a spouse and kids there with you, it is nice to be welcomed in by members of your local church who treat you like family.

At my church, it’s always nice to sit down on Wednesday nights and share a meal with other believers who ask me what’s going on in my life and who are happy to see me. It’s an encouraging reminder of why I am in seminary in the first place and helps spur me on when I’m losing steam along the way and getting discouraged. Truthfully, doing life together is an integral part of discipleship. We need you to come alongside us and encourage us to rest, encourage us to know when to stop studying and spend time alone with God in prayer, or to set aside one night a week to do nothing school-related and just enjoy the company of friends. In fact, before you ask us what we could be doing for the church, consider asking us how the church can best serve us in this unique time of our lives. It can be much easier for a seminary to sense they belong to this family of believers if they know these believers actually care about them.

Additionally, a local church can be supportive by recognizing that many seminary students are struggling financially and could use some help—no matter how small. Whether it is tuition, books, or groceries, it can be encouraging to students to know their local church cares enough to not only meet spiritual needs, but physical needs as well. During one of the most stressful parts of my semester, one of my best friend’s mothers sent me a card in the mail. As I opened it, I saw that her entire Sunday School class signed it and told me they were praying for me and they included with the card a significant amount of money to help me with whatever I needed. I was so encouraged by their generosity and it was a simply gesture, but it meant so much to me.

Seminarians Need the Church

We seminarians need the local church, more than we might even realize. We need the encouragement and prayers of other saints, especially older ones who have much wisdom to share with us. We ask for grace when we get excited about something we learn in class and get frustrated when that same excitement isn’t reciprocated. We want to be encouraging to other believers and not a source of discouragement. More than anything, we need to be reminded that despite our perfectionist tendencies or, for some, academic apathy, that God still accepts us in Christ and the grounds for our hope is not in our exegesis skills, but in whether we have truly turned from sin and trusted Christ alone for salvation. Please, point us to that reality and always mention us in your prayers (Phil. 4; see also Eph. 1:16; 1 Thes. 1:2). Even if your church isn’t near a seminary or don’t have any seminarians in your congregation, don’t abdicate your role to pray for the seminaries and the students who will spend many years there.

Seminary is a time of discipleship. A time where we learn about Jesus, but an important part of that discipleship is the church and families coming alongside seminarians as they intentionally invest in them. They help us not only mature in our knowledge of the gospel while in class, but see how the gospel is lived out. And in the process, we may be able to share what God is teaching us along the way as well.

—

Chris Crane serves as Middle School Small Group Leader at Lake Highlands Baptist Church in Dallas, TX. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University and is currently pursuing a Th.M. at Dallas Seminary. He has previously written for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, as well as The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He also writes at chriscrane.net. You can follow him on Twitter: @cmcrane87

Pursuing Discipleship in All of Life

Discipleship is not a program. It’s life.  We’ve misunderstood discipleship too long as simply one part of our lives and we’ve strayed from the biblical teaching that to be a disciple means your identity is in Christ and that true disciples make disciples. I want to flesh that out practically. The purpose of discipleship is maturity, or Christ-likeness. Therefore, Christian discipleship must be intentional and purposeful. However, intentional and purposeful doesn’t always mean planned. Oftentimes, discipleship is spontaneous. This is a good place to point at that we are always discipling and that’s part of the problem in many churches.

There is intentionality in discipleship, but this is more than just formally teaching a class on “5 steps to be a better mom.” Our lives teach others daily. So, our pursuit of holiness (or lack thereof), teaches. Everything we do teaches. Our songs we sing, our Christianese sayings, the way we live, even how we drive. This is what I call informal discipleship.

Now, this does not take away from being intentional. It reinforces it. Informal discipleship is only one part of the discipleship process. I want to look at four ways to discipleship.

• Informal Discipleship—Model of good works (Titus 2:7), Character building, life on life, pursuing holiness together
• Formal Discipleship—Verbal instruction, Information transfer, biblical teaching, sound doctrine
• Spontaneous—No plan, just ‘happens’
• Intentional—Deliberate, purposeful, plan, commitment

We now have a launching point to look at the ways that Christians are always discipling. I want to encourage us to carefully think through all four of these areas in an effort to make, mature, and multiply disciples in all of life.

1. Informal Spontaneous Discipleship

This is Matthew 5:16 in action: "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." You don’t say at “2:37pm I’m going to plan a confrontation with a rude cashier so my child can see how a Christian responds.” It’s naturally happening in mature believers’ lives whether at work, home, or school. I don’t plan arguments with my wife, but they do happen (and they are usually my fault!). Am I clear in my repentance to her? My children see this. What about when I’m cut off in traffic? What about the way I treat our waiter when we are eating out? Our children are watching us.

Here’s another example. My oldest son has finally graduated from the type of “baseball” where everyone wins. This season he’s playing with a pitching machine, umpires, and real competition. How do I respond when a bad call is made? When he wins? When he loses? When the coach makes a mistake? The other parents on the team know that I am a Christian and when these things come up it is my goal to let my light shine in a way that gives testimony to the change that has been wrought within me by the power of the gospel. This is informal spontaneous discipleship.

2. Informal Intentional Discipleship

This is being an intentional model of good works that often happens weekly. This is intentionally putting yourself around others to show them what a Christian looks like. Specifically, this works best in a discipleship relationship in which you are pouring into a small group of people (1-3) from your local church.  This is loving them by showing them what a Christian looks like in daily life (Col. 3:12-15). This kind of discipleship occurs prayerfully, intentionally, and purposefully when we commit to invest in someone else’s life. This is done in homes, in restaurants, taking someone along to shop for groceries with you, hunting, fishing, volunteering together, etc. This is a small group we invest our lives in. Think of Jesus, Paul, Barnabas—each had a few that they built close bonds with.

Here’s what that looks like in my pastoral ministry. For my family, this is about letting people in our lives. In the last year, I became pastor of an older congregation in rural Arkansas. We continue to grow in being intentional in inviting people over for meals. We have given our congregation a copy of my son’s baseball schedule. When people invite us somewhere we try to make ourselves available to go. The point is for us to actually be around people in real life situations so that they can see what the love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts looks like “out there.” And so that we can learn from them.

3. Formal Spontaneous Discipleship

This is 1 Peter 3:15 in action: "In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect." I live in Arkansas where recently we experienced an EF4 tornado that wreaked havoc in several communities. None of us “planned” a tornado, but we can be intentional about using this experience to teach others things pertinent to the gospel. I was on a trip the other day with a church member to help clean up some of the recent destruction from the tornadoes that came through Arkansas on April 27th. As we talked about the power that winds can do, I shared the truth about God’s power over even the strongest winds.

In his book Follow Me and in his most recent Secret Church simulcast, David Platt talked about weaving gospel themes into our everyday conversations. Opportunities are all around us, but we must look for them. All of us want to grow in communicating the gospel more frequently, myself included. This is one of the ways I’ve grown in that, although I need to grow more! How can we connect our everyday situations to God? What does daily life tell us about our fallenness? What about God’s goodness or love? Or his wrath?

Think of Deuteronomy 6:7 “as you walk by the way” as things come up in life you give a biblical perspective on them. I use the moon and the stars often with my children asking them “Who made that?” And then when they tell me God, I ask “Why did God make that?” The answer of course being “for His glory” (Ps. 19:1). Have to be devoted to knowing Scripture to do this effectively. You can’t “plan” the providential hand of God but you can devote yourself to knowing and memorizing Scripture so that when things do come up, you can give a gospel-centered answer.

4. Formal Intentional Discipleship

When people think “discipleship” now days, I think this is what they think.  This is intentionally setting up time with others to teach them to observe all that Jesus has commanded us (Matt. 28:20). This happens semi-regularly and is purposeful teaching, usually verbal instruction. Maybe you meet every Thursday morning for half an hour over coffee.  Maybe you meet every Tuesday at lunch.  Maybe you meet every other Monday night. You go through Scripture together, you have a plan, whether reading a book together, or going through books of the bible together.

Also, family worship would fall into this category. Our goal is to have family worship 3-4 times a week. Some weeks it’s more, and some weeks it is less. For us, family worship is simply a time to sing a couple songs, memorize Scripture together, and catechize our children. Sometimes we use the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. This whole process takes about 15 minutes on average (sometimes more, sometimes less). We start out by singing the “Doxology.” We then move to the verses our children have memorized. Sometimes we stop on these verses and ask what they mean and tie them to the gospel.

On nights we don’t do memory verses, we do catechism. Right now we use questions from Carine Mackenzie’s My 1st Book of Questions and Answers. We also have recently been working in some questions from The New City Catechism. Then we read a passage of Scripture. It may be a Psalm, or where daddy is preaching from (currently, I am going through Genesis and Psalm 119), or something else that my wife or I have read in the bible that week. Our children are 6, 4, 2, and 4 months, so we don’t have lengthy theological discussions, although it is a joy to be involved in some of the discussions we do have! Sometimes it feels like the whole time is spent telling our 2 year old to listen or sit down.

Finally, we close by singing a song or two (my kids love “The Gospel Song” by Sovereign Grace Music) and then prayer. This is a time to weekly share the gospel with our children. I must emphasize though that this doesn’t “just happen.” It has to be planned and worked in and labored at or you will find that weeks have gone by and you’ve failed to have a family worship (I speak from experience).

Vital for Discipleship

All four ways to disciple are biblical and vital to making mature disciples. The examples in this post highlight the personal aspect of discipleship—what you are doing to disciple others. There are plenty of examples for the corporate aspect of discipleship as well—how discipleship fits in with the regular gathering of the local church. You’re still doing spontaneous-informal, spontaneous-formal, intentional-informal, and intentional-formal discipleship every Sunday. While Sunday is a major component of discipleship, it’s not all discipleship consists of. Discipleship is multifaceted and should be intentionally worked it into every aspect of your life. Christians are to be disciples who make disciples. My conviction is that you are always teaching. So maximize your efforts for making disciples to the glory of God by pursuing discipleship in all of life.

—

Allen Nelson IV  has been in gospel ministry for 8 years and is currently serving as Pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Clinton, AR.  He has an undergrad degree in History Education and is in the long process of pursuing his M.Div from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife Stephanie have been married for 7 years and have 4 beautiful children and 1 aesthetically challenged dog.  He is passionate about the amazing, awesome, and all encompassing grace of Jesus.  He also likes alliteration. You can follow him on Twitter: @CuatronNelson

Raising Teens in the Shadows

Discipleship in the Teen Years

We all want our kids to experience salvation through Jesus at a young age, don’t we? We sense that the earlier they know and understand the gospel, the better. If they can grasp the penetrating love of God in a personal way, they will be spared many painful years of rebellion and grief. And so will we.

So we share the gospel with them from day one. We contextualize the truth for our little ones, reading to them from children’s storybook Bibles and singing songs about Jesus. We want them to understand, as best they can, that Jesus loves them, died for them, and has made a way for them to be close to God.

Some of them get it. Their little hearts embrace the truth and they ask Jesus to save them. We rejoice, knowing that their future is secure and that the Father holds them close.

But our job doesn’t end there.

What happens when that little heart grows into a bigger heart and questions the gospel he learned and believed as a kid? What happens when the joyful little girl who knew the love of Jesus begins to look shadowed and burdened, wondering if it all makes sense?

Both our teenagers expressed faith in Christ and his gospel at an early age. We are grateful for that and feel blessed that God drew them to himself. In our joy and relief, we have been tempted to relax, thinking our spiritual job as parents is complete. But we all know that isn’t the case. Ahead of our kids lies a long road of discipleship, and they need someone to show them the way, continuing to help them apply the gospel to the different stages of their lives.

Discipleship in the Shadows

One of our kids has lately found herself in a lonely place. We raised her on a diet of truth, but she is struggling to see how the truth she knew as a kid relates to the pain she knows now that she’s older.  She wonders whether faith in Jesus can make any real difference in her life. Or whether the whole thing falls into the category of bedtime stories and lullabies.

She’s at the point where the stories need to come true. The stories have always been true, of course, but now she needs to know them true. For real. For her.

Her struggle makes me sad. I want to fix it, erase it, or make it go away. I want to go back to the smiling days, the happy days, the days before the gray cloud moved in and settled over her soul. And our home.

There are days when I handle the shadows well. I understand her struggle and feel compassion for her. I am able, by God’s grace, to love her unconditionally and to wait patiently for the Spirit to work in her heart, to lead her back into the light. I have faith that God’s got her.

And then there are other days. Those days her struggle frustrates me. I want her to get over it, get past it, move away from it so that we can get back to living in light and joy. I take her resistance personally and think about holding her at arm’s length.

Those days I feel like I’m getting in the way.

“He didn’t let his sin hinder my progress”

Last Sunday we heard a moving testimony from guy in our church who did not, unfortunately, come to know Jesus as a child. He told us the story of how his sin took him into the wrong crowd in middle school, into drugs in high school, and eventually into a 6x9 prison cell with nothing but a metal bed and a Bible on the counter.

God came for him in that 6x9, making his word come alive in that young man’s soul. We rejoiced with him as he continued his story, showing how God rescued him and is using him to minister to other troubled teens in our city.

But the part of his story that gripped me was how he described his father. All through his years of teenage rebellion, he told how his father prayed for him. His father continued to love him, sometimes in a tough and unyielding way. His father had his own rebellious past, his own current struggles, and certainly felt an enormous amount of grief as his son repeated his past mistakes. But rather than punishing or berating, shaming or abandoning his son, this father persisted in praying for him. His son told us, “He didn’t let his sin hinder my progress.” He didn’t get in the way.

Loving Through the Shadows

As I attempt to love my daughter through her struggle, I am trying to get out of the way. I am trying not to let my sin hinder her progress. As I fluctuate between good days and bad days in regard to my flesh, I’d like to share with you with some common traps I’ve fallen into, places where my sin threatens to entangle both myself and my daughter. Maybe you can recognize these lies in your own parenting:

You’re ruining my peace. As we have transitioned from the golden years of elementary school into the turbulent waters of teen life, I have been tempted to resent the one who is disturbing the peace. I tend to blame the one struggling for threatening to take the rest of the family down with her.

You’re making me look bad. When my kids struggle spiritually, I can make it about myself. I worry that their struggle somehow tarnishes my reputation. Diminishes my ministry effectiveness. (This trap can especially ensnare those of us in vocational ministry.)

You’re my life’s work, and you’re failing. We pour ourselves into our kids, wanting more than anything for them to walk with Jesus. When they question, struggle, or even rebel, we get angry. They are not cooperating with our goals. Our life’s work seems to be in shambles.

Ugly, I know. These traps reveal some pretty nasty idols. We find ourselves no longer worshiping God, but worshiping peace or approval or our performance instead. When we give into these lies, we get in the way of what God is doing in our kids’ lives. We let our sin hinder their progress.

Get out of the way

I am learning to get out of the way. I am learning how to keep my sin from hindering my daughter’s progress. These practices help keep me out of fleshly idol-worshiping traps:

Remember the gospel. I need to hear the same gospel that she does. I need to remind myself of Jesus’ work on my behalf, and allow God’s kindness to lead me to repentance. As I confess my sin and receive God’s grace, I am able to express compassion toward my daughter and struggle with her rather than against her.

Run to Jesus. I also need to daily remind myself that my peace, approval, and significance are all found in Jesus, not in my circumstances or my performance. My relationship with Jesus is the only dependable place to find what I long for. I need to look to him to meet my needs, rather than placing that burden on my daughter.

Pray for grace. I am realizing that it’s going to take a lot of prayer to keep my sin out of the way. I need to begin each day with a plea for grace, for myself and for my daughter as we struggle together.

Don’t panic. I need to remember that the gospel is big enough for any struggle. God is faithful to hold those who belong to him close, forever. He is the one working in the heart of my child, and he will finish what he has begun.

Birth is painful. And there comes a time when the gospel needs to “re-birthed” in our kids’ hearts. They have been taught the truth early on, but at some point the truth needs to show itself big enough to grow along with them. Big enough for bigger hearts, bigger problems, bigger struggles. And here’s the good news: the truth of gospel is plenty big enough for us all, no matter what we’re facing. We just need to remind ourselves of that. And remind our kids.

So read the stories and sing the songs to your little ones, but don’t forget that one day they will grow up. And so will their problems. But don’t worry. God can handle the shadows. Walk with your kids, struggle with them, and pray for them, trusting God to work. And in the meantime, you might want to get out of the way.

—

Lindsay Powell Fooshee is married to John, a pastor at Redeemer Community Church and church planter with Acts 29. They are raising 3 great kids in East Tennessee. Lindsay holds an M.A. in Christian Thought from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and blogs regularly at Kitchen Stool.

Bringing the Multiplication Mindset Home

Long days are draining. You need rest, but you’re not actually expecting it. You’re preparing yourself for children’s excited voices greeting you. You’re ramping up to mediate disputes between them, hopefully about who gets to hug you first. You also might greet a relieved spouse, fatigued from a long day of either being with the children or being at a long day of work. You’d think the daily re-assimilation into home would be seamless. But it isn’t, is it? Sometimes we are not spiritually or mentally prepared for it. Sometimes we are exhausted and our guard is down against pride and selfishness, resulting in ruinous family patterns.

Knowing this, practicing a routine that prepares the heart, soul, and mind for re-assimilation into family life is essential. It is an intentional discipline not just for your spiritual formation, but also for your wife’s and your children’s. It’s a small step taken as you lead and disciple them. In turn, you and they will duplicate the mindset in all other discipleship environments: school, work, extra-curricular environments, and third places. When we approach every place with this mindset, we are better prepared disciple multipliers.

Obviously, the mindset shift into a new environment is not always successfully executed. This is the case particularly for fathers or mothers re-entering home environments after a long day of work. That’s why I picked this one to discuss. It’s easy to re-engage home with work-brain. But when we shift to home-brain, much discipleship fruit is cultivated. And so is the model for your children to duplicate as they multiply disciples in other contexts (2 Tim. 2:2).

It takes only a few minutes each day to prepare our mindset. We can do this in our car before departing from work, or as we are driving home, or sitting in the driveway. It’s a really simple and classic process: shift your mindset, read Scripture, and pray.

1. Shift Your Mindset

Shifting our mindset is not some rote process. It is an intentional plan of engagement where we earnestly decide that what is ahead is more important than what is left behind. Thus, we plan to lay aside our pocket screens, ignore notifications, and push back any residual work until after little ones are tucked in bed. This is also when we place work cares upon Christ; anger, fear, anxiety are relinquished in him (1 Pet. 5:7).

We prepare our minds for inquiry. We want to be quizzical of how the day went: the joys, trials, conflicts, surprises—all that took place during our absence. And quite honestly, a stay-at-home spouse will crave adult conversation, so we must be prepared to listen.

We also want to enter with the posture of service. Typically, I am in the practice of swooping into the home and whisking all three children away for a walk or playtime at the community playground while my wife, who is the one staying at home in our case, gets 15-30 minutes of quiet solitude.

Most working dads—if they are honest—have a Ward Cleaver or George Banks expectation for home arrival: immaculate home, hot dinner, spotless and perfectly behaved tykes, and wife in a dress and pearls. My mindset is a little different. I’m hoping for no fire, flood, or other acts of God to have occurred. But most of the time, I’m certain a tornado hit our kid’s room.

However, we should have realistic expectations rather than idealistic expectations. God, fully anticipating our fallen condition, has been long in suffering with all our short failings. We, likewise, should follow in his step, not expecting a picture of Eden when we arrive home.

2. Read Scripture

Thomas Watson said, “The Scripture is the compass by which the rudder of our will is to be steered.” My will is prone to drift off a God-glorifying course due to the desires of my flesh. Scripture is what holds the course of the mindset.

It’s not enough to think on Scripture; we must share Scripture, too. We should be primary feeders of Scripture to our children. What if we had a Scripture to share with our children every time we returned home from work? How glorious would that be for our family? Not only would our will be set on the right course, but it sets a pattern for our children to be set on the right course with the right instrument to aid them: Scripture. When our mindset is built off Scripture, then it will be that much easier to mold our children’s minds towards the same end. In many ways, this will be effectively caught more than taught, as long as we are contagiously and earnestly conversant with our children about what the Lord is teaching us.

In Taking God at His Word, Kevin DeYoung says, “The word of God is more than enough for the people of God to live their lives to the glory of God” (55). He’s not just talking about Scripture’s sufficiency to tackle the tough question of apologetics, theology, and our wrestling with doubt. DeYoung is saying Scripture is sufficient for everyday people to live everyday lives to the glory of an extraordinary God. Scripture dishes up helpings of truths that sufficiently ground us in the fruit of the Spirit and armor us to wage war against our enemy.

Thus, we’re prepared to enter the foray of a potentially chaotic household. God’s Word serves as a sufficient implement of peace in our hearts and homes. That peace is the peace of Christ. For Ephesians 2:17 says, “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” That peace will then be spread afar by those whom we are training in our household to bear that peace to others. They will see us bring it, and they will long to share it with others.

3. Pray

You will regret watching too much TV, playing too much Candy Crush, and reading too many tweets. You will never regret praying too much. You can’t pray enough. Prayer is this incomprehensibly extraordinary gift where we have direct and full access to the God of the cosmos. He instructs us to ask for wisdom (Jas. 1:5) and to petition him with our requests (Phil. 4:6). Yet, we treat prayer like someone who picks a particular mobile carrier with unlimited talk minutes with a particular person, but who never actually called that person. That’s precisely what we have—full access; and that’s precisely what we do—full neglect.

Prayer doesn’t produce a desired outcome as much as it transforms our current outlook. When we earnestly pray for our family before arriving home, it reorients our family around God rather than our children or ourselves. Helplessly bringing every concern, fear, or potential conflict to the Lord sets us up for entire dependence upon him for resolution. So often we rack our brains on how we can provide solutions and fix problems. Perhaps those tensions or problems exist not to give us something to troubleshoot, but to direct us to shoot the message of our troubles up to heaven. They become a grappling hook that draws us up to God.

If we’re always praying about how we want things to change in our family, then it might just be us that require change. If nothing else, we need to open our eyes to the gift our spouse and children already are. They are a gift to steward, so we should ask God to show us how to steward, lead, and equip this gift as we prepare to commission them for gospel ministry.

So we shouldn’t just deliver requests to God, we should express thanks and praise to him for our family as well. Before you head home is a great time to do this. It will—just like reading Scripture—facilitate that right mindset you wish to have when you return home each day.

I know what Scripture says about praying in our closet, but there is something valuable about praising God’s answer to prayers before our spouse and children. If they never know that we’ve been praying for them, they will never have appreciation for God’s answered prayer. They will also not share the same value and import prayer into their mission contexts. So don’t just secretly pray for your family, openly discuss what you pray. Not only this, but solicit their prayer needs. That way, you can pray specifically for them as you are about to re-engage in your family context.

Multiplication in Mind

Our society is programmed to pull families further and further apart over time. This is not healthy; it is actually potentially harmful. The more families are apart, the more false doctrine and false teachers may slyly slink into the family and corrupt convictions. This could slay souls.

Those few hours that exist after work and before bedtime are critical. They are the hours that we have to build into our family the stronghold of a Christian worldview. We’re not just constructing a stronghold; we are training emissaries of our King. Our family will be sent out to herald good news to others. This means they must have first heard it from us, seen it demonstrated by us, tasted the fruit of it, and felt a stirring to multiply the process. Ones who have tasted the nectar of the gospel will naturally share it on to others.

—

Joey Cochran served as an Associate Pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma for four years before transitioning to be the Church Planting Intern at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois under the supervision of Pastor Joe Thorn. Joey is a graduate of Dallas Seminary. Joey blogs at jtcochran.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @joeycochran.

Serving Families in Christ

The women in my family are amazing--especially my mother. She’s one of the most sacrificial women I know. I know everyone says this about their mom. But seriously, my mom is sacrificial and amazing and giving when even I tell her, “Mom…stop," she’ll respond with, “You’ll understand when you have kids!” Well, because of her example and the other women in my family, serving each other is second nature. Nobody groans about watching kids. In fact, grandmothers and mothers beg to watch the kids. Tias will offer without blinking an eye. We serve in many other ways, borrowing money, moving without complaining. This is absolutely a culture thing, and it’s one of my favorite parts of my Hispanic culture. I take great pride in being born into a family where you can say “I’m moving to an apartment on the 3rd floor” and even if everyone lives an hour and a half away, they respond with, “Let us know what day, we’ll make sure you get moved.”

One of the biggest things I learned early on, and a huge reason I fell in love with the Lord, was a draw about having this new family in Christ. Just because I fell in love with Jesus I suddenly had all these new brothers and sisters. I had a new family, how cool is that?

Even though I was coming to church in Austin for a few years before actually moving here, the actual move really was a huge culture shock to me. To be perfectly honest, it’s had it’s toll. When I was living in North Carolina, I was not concerned about this issue because everyone in my church was my age and no one had kids. It was a non-issue. Moving to Austin, and seeing churches go years with having to “deal” with never being able to find childcare is so incredibly heart-breaking to me. It literally fumes me that it’s a problem. I pray for grace with this, too, but it is hard.

People with Children

Just because you have kids, this doesn’t give you an “out” to watching your family’s kids. Here are some things you can do to start fixing this insane issue:

1. Be Persistent. A lot of times, I hear, “Well, I asked so-and-so and they just always seem busy so I didn’t want to ask again.” Stop making assumptions!  Keep asking your small group. This is what they are here for--to be family. Family’s carry each other burdens, serve and love each other when needed, and come alongside each other when needed.

2. Start a Babysitting Club. You and three to four other people can swap date nights and “sleepover” parties for the kids. This will not only encourage date nights, but will also strengthen your little community (family). This time also provides essential opportunities to disciple children by sharing Scripture stories, praying with them, and sharing the gospel with them.

3. Communicate. If you are struggling, confess your feelings to your small group and/or especially your discipleship group. This is a real problem. Ask for prayer. Let those tears shed. People need to see this is a huge problem.

4. Do Something. Another line I hear all the time: “I wish I would have babysat more when I was single.” Again, just because you have kids doesn’t mean you can’t “trade” with your married friends and serve in this way. If your child is in childcare at church, you need to serve in that area. With everyone serving, it allows everyone to enjoy the services and prevents potential “burnout.”

It’s frustrating to hear a bunch of people talk about how big of a problem this is, but no one does anything about it. Everyone is just waiting for everyone else to step up.  Encourage everyone to join you in “stepping up.”

Babysitters aren’t trained in some special course. There aren’t qualifications for serving your family. If we are to be considered “the body of Christ,” what can we assume will happen if parts of it are failing? Right now, childcare is failing and the body’s health is at risk. What does Scripture say about a part of the body rejoicing? 1 Corinthians 12:26 says the rest of the body will rejoice with it. Is the body rejoicing in the childcare realm, or is it suffering? If it’s suffering, what are we to do?

People without Children

1. This Busy Life Doesn’t Belong to You. It’s 2014, and hearing the words, “I’m too busy” is so common and a large reason why this part of the Church is suffering. The idea of getting to church an hour earlier, or giving up a few hours to serve a family sounds like an eternity. Let’s again think about what we know about God. Christ is the definition of sacrifice. The idea of living a life where everything he does is for himself is impossible. If we are to be like Christ and if we are to look different from the world, then this is such an incredible opportunity to be that.

Our life is not ours. It just isn’t. This life belongs to God. We start believing that living a life where we sacrifice literally everything is a terrible thing, and it’s because we don’t believe it’s gratifying or good. The word “sacrifice” doesn’t even seem very nice. But God proved that sacrifice is the most incredible thing. And when we can sit down and examine how much of our time we don’t actually sacrifice, we realize we aren’t that busy. We just worship our busy lives.

Tim Keller said recently we “have an ‘it’s us or them’” attitude when it comes to singles and families. Part of serving families is learning to sacrifice now. Learning to serve now. It’s a rehearsal for the sacrifice many singles and people without children will make when they do have children. You’re sort of “launched” into sacrificing when/if those children enter the picture. Also, if you’re married, don’t forget to invite these people serving you to birthday parties--give them the opportunity to say no. That’s what family does.

2. You don’t need to be “called” to childcare. God did not put it on my heart to serve children. I didn’t get this push from God to serve kids. This is simply ingrained in me because my family was an amazing example and groomed me to believe that if you’re family. . . you bend over backwards to help. Over-spiritualizing something when there is an immediate need in the church is so dangerous. If your church family suddenly all went broke except for you, wouldn’t you bring them food and necessities? It’s an immediate need, and you have the resources, so it’s common sense.

Seeing an immediate need and ignoring it because “you just don’t want to” should be examined. If your thoughts are, “those kids are too hyper for me” or “I won’t be good at it” then you should either talk to the parents about it, or examine whether or not this can change. Immediate needs need to be met immediately. As I said before–we are the body. You don’t get called to save a drowning member. You jump in and you help them.

3. Kids are insane. You are capable of getting over it for a few hours. As disobedient, crazy, hyper, annoying, or selfish they can be–Jesus still says, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). We can go on about why he said that, but he constantly shows us how much he loves children (Mk. 10:13-16). If you don’t have your own, this is more reason you can give up a few hours to bless a family. Because as crazy as they are–it’s an opportunity to pray for the child and the family. And an opportunity to praise God for the life he gave you.

4. Stop your judgement. It saddens me when someone won’t watch someone’s kids because they don’t agree with the parenting style. I personally wouldn’t give my child cow’s milk and I would let them experience McDonalds, but I certainly will never use that as an excuse not to serve a family if the parent raises their child in a way I think I wouldn’t raise my kid. Every time I’d cry to my mom and dad about how it wasn’t fair they wouldn’t let me do something and they’d respond with, “You’ll understand when you’re our age.” I say the same to you. You’ll understand when you have kids.

Jesus Sacrifices and Serves

We have to remind ourselves that the one human to ever walk the earth that had a legit reason to not serve was Jesus. He was God. It's impossible to think about, but he served even when he had the greatest excuses. Paul says, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7). Serving is good. Jesus washed some guys feet (feet were probably more gross back then...yuck, you guys) and good things came from that (John 13:1-20). Imagine the good that comes from serving your family by giving them a night to focus on other good stuff--like their marriage.

I’m praying for a future where families aren’t “tied down” because they don’t want to move away from parents and grandparents for fear of never having childcare.

I’m praying for a future when you only have to serve the kids area at church on Sundays like twice a year because all of the parents of the kids in childcare serve, and everyone else is willing.

I’m praying for a future when Christians stop using the words “brothers and sisters” loosely and start realizing that’s what we actually are in Christ. I will continue to pray that the Church can realize that “babysitting” and “childcare” is more than just watching kids. There’s a lot of incredible opportunities to disciple there.

We pray that God would make disciples of us, and this is such a great chance to do just that. By doing this for each other--all of us--we open doors to get into each others lives. We aren’t just serving--we are doing life together. We don’t have to look at each other like babysitters. Like volunteers. We are given freedom in Christ to look at each other like brothers and sisters. And if that’s true--then there are a whole lot of nieces and nephews we are free to love.

—

Jessica Souza is currently the CFO of Shop With Care,  manages Social Media for Texas Style Council, and is directing a movie. To find out what else she's up to, follow her on Twitter: @SpookyJess.

4 Ways to Love Those with Mental Illnesses

I am one of the many millions of people who suffer from a mental illness. About five years ago, I started having panic attacks. My first one took place when I was out on a date (of  course)! Since then, I have struggled on and off with depression, irrational phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder. No doubt these struggles have been the toughest I have faced thus far in my life. I am the Director of Discipleship at my church in Georgia, and over these past few years I have come to the belief that there is a better way to disciple those who are suffering from a mental illness. I am by no means a mental health expert, but I am going to discuss a few ways in which the church can best love those with mental illnesses.

1. Offer Compassionate Community

People who struggle with mental illness often feel isolated and alone. They do not think anyone who is an “outsider” (someone who doesn’t struggle with a mental illness) will ever be able to comprehend what they are going through. This is why a compassionate community is something extremely important for the church to offer. Those who struggle with any type of mental illness do not want to be treated special or different, but rather they simply want to be a part of the body.

Of course, there are going to be plenty of times when compassion explicitly needs to be presented to those who are suffering from a psychological ailment. The church and its leaders should be willing to go out of its way to provide this care. Many times those who are suffering cannot even put into words what they are going through and so compassionate involvement and care from the church must be present.

2. Present The Gospel Constantly

Those who are struggling through the darkness of mental illness need to be presented with the light of the gospel on a regular basis. There are plenty of times that those suffering with mental ailments just need to continuously and definitively hear the good news that Jesus Christ is sufficient enough and has promised to never leave them nor forsake them. Today, even doctors understand the importance that spirituality plays in healing a psychological illness. For Christians, a combination of medicine and gospel-mediation can help those who are suffering from a mental illness. Full relief might not come, but there is no doubt hearing the gospel on a regular basis is important to a Christian’s health. The good news that Jesus Christ has done everything for our salvation must be presented constantly.

3. Preach Hope Relentlessly

Jesus Christ is our hope (1 Tim 1:1). He is the only one who has promised to be with you to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). There is no doubt that this message is what must be preached because of how easy it is for the mentally ill to struggle with losing hope. In a world that seems so pitch-black a lot of the time, the church must always remember to present the hopeful light of Jesus. This is a hope that will not relent even when the walls seem to be closing in. It is always important to remind those who are suffering from different kinds of mental illness that one day in the new heavens and new earth all suffering will be gone (Rev. 21:1-4). There will be no more mental illness. Counselors, pastors, and church leaders must share a relentless hope in Jesus Christ. He’s our anchor in this dark world.

4. Understand That You Probably Don’t Understand

Everyone who struggles with a mental illness comes from a different background and has different symptoms they struggle with. One of the most difficult things I have dealt with regarding my mental illness has been effectively communicating to others what exactly I am going through. What has been even more difficult though has been some of the responses and advice people have offered up to me regarding my mental illness.

The naive response of “Just get over it” surprisingly has been  proposed to me numerous times through my struggles. Now, of course, I have taken that advice with a grain of salt. The church must learn that everyone’s struggle is different and that no two situations are exactly alike. There is no doubt that the body of Christ needs to continue to educate itself on the symptoms and struggles of mental illness. However, simple education should not make one feel like they have become a mental health expert. Mental health issues are real and a struggle for many and there is no doubt that sympathy and care triumphs over input and words of wisdom.

This may mean just being present with a friend while they struggle. Even if you do not have the answer, just listening can be encouraging and goes a long way. Being present can sometimes provide more comfort, than our words could ever provide.

A Few Final Thoughts

My mental illness has made me feel secluded and crazy a lot of the time. I started taking medication for my anxiety a little over two years ago and have taken it ever since. There definitely have been seasons of my life that have been better than others, but there is no doubt I consider anxiety to be my thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7). I have seen counselors and have tried to seek console in the Word of God, but life has just been hard. I have had trouble being in a healthy relationship with a woman because of my anxiety and I have struggled preaching to my congregation because of panic attacks. Mental illness has won the battle plenty of times in my life.

It is time to face the fact that there are millions of people who struggle with mental illness and the church must rise up and disciple them. Jesus Christ is greater than any mental illness and even though anxiety wins many of battles, I always remember that Jesus Christ has already won the war. We will be raised up. We will have new creation bodies. We will not suffer forever. He is the resurrection and life.

—

Matt Manry is the Director of Discipleship at Life Bible Church in Canton, Georgia. He is a student at Reformed Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. He also works on the editorial team for Credo Magazine and Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He blogs regularly at gospelglory.net.