5 Lessons from C. S. Lewis’ Grief Observed

“Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My mother, my father, my wife. I wonder who is next in the queue.” —C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I never wanted to have this in common with C.S. Lewis. I never wanted to major in suffering.

Yet I am here, and she is there. She is resplendent in memorandum. . . and I cannot write fast enough. And I am left holding a copy of C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. As Lewis observes his particular grief, I too observe my own. C.S. Lewis got it.

I would rather have other things in common with the man. I would have much rather been an “Inkling”—instead we are widowers observing grief.

I believe Lewis understood that one cannot simply skirt grief. Not without consequences anyway. Grief cannot be skipped over as one would skip over the fast kid in a game of “Duck, Duck, Goose.” No, rather, it seems as though grief is such-a-one whom demands to have a day of reckoning, be it now, be it later, it matters not so much. Be that as it may, it almost behooves the mourner to ride directly through the tempest of grief; keep on pedaling. Lewis himself writes, “Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?” (33).

I started this short book several weary years ago. I had started a book club at church and chose C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed because I wanted my people to walk the valley of the shadow of death before death rapped at their doors. My Resplendent Bride was diagnosed with cancer before we finished chapter 2. Over the next twenty months, I would pick up this slender book of terror and read a paragraph or two, only to set it down again because I never wanted to understand what this man was writing about, and the possibility of understanding ebbed and flowed as that fox cancer raged and retreated, raged and retreated.

The Lord took her home on the third day of May. Perhaps God told her nothing would ever hurt her again. I do not know all the words he speaks to new arrivals, but I do take solace in the truth that nothing will ever hurt her again. Lewis writes, “I had my miseries, not hers; she had hers, not mine. The end of hers would be the coming-of-age-of mine. ” (13).

The gospel of Jesus Christ has sustained, maintained, and supported me all this time.  My solace is in his truth.

But it is farce to claim hope in Christ makes one immune to the sheer pain of life under the sun.  I have not found hope in Christ to be mutually exclusive to the feeling of bereavement.

As spring bloomed outside The Hermitage, winter set in inside.

The lingering challenge for the widower is to somehow fill the void left by the dissolution of all the loving, all the care-taking, and the family unit itself.

So it was that I once again picked up this slender volume, and it was there within the pages of A Grief Observed that I was surprised to find a friend in C.S. Lewis.

He gets it.

Few do, and for that I am thankful.

I have found C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed to be helpful to the widow or widower in five ways.

1. In  A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis does not make a false dichotomy between hope in Christ and mourning over searing loss.

Lewis accomplishes this feat by allowing heavy sorrow to hang on his pages longer than others dare. Lewis does not seem to be in any hurry to provide the “Sunday School” answer so many follow up their condolences with. Some folks are born with Congenital Insensitivity To Pain, a condition wherein one cannot feel pain. This is a troubling ailment because our bodies warn us that things have gone awry such as “You stepped on a hornet’s nest” or, “The Sun is burning away your epidermis” or, “This machine you paid to be baked in is burning away your epidermis” through the sensation of pain.

Now, how shall the slow rending of the one flesh once again in two not hurt (Gen. 2:24)? Widowerhood is not the “conscious uncoupling” actress Gwyneth Paltrow euphemistically described her recent divorce as.

To be widowed is to be torn asunder. Sometimes the hurting need to hurt.

2.  A Grief Observed, seeks to answer the question, “Can God still be good when He hurts us so?”

My family was dissolved by death.  God is sovereign over both life and death.  Open Theists as well as some other theological traditions will not be too keen on this truth, but the Bible is.

Psalm 139:16 states, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

Ecclesiastes 7:17 and 3:1-2 indicate that there are times appointed for all to live and die.  If so, then surely it is God who is the divine scheduler?

And shall we forget that it was God who drove and barred man from the tree of life growing in the Garden of Eden lest man steal immortality just as he had stolen knowledge?

Genesis 3:22-23

Then the LORD God said, ”Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever– “therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”

The New Testament informs us all flesh is destined to die someday:

Matthew 4:16, “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”

The author of Hebrews argues that death is “appointed for man” (9:27).

So it is, and so it shall always be: God is Lord over both thanatos and zoe. Herein lies the rub:

• God has dissolved my family by death.
• The ruin of that which remains are great.
• And, I love him.

Lewis writes, “Is it rational to believe in a bad God?  Anyway, in a God so bad as all that?  The Cosmic Sadist, the spiteful imbecile?  I think it is, if nothing else, too anthropomorphic” (30).

Lewis goes on to write,

Feelings, and feelings, and feelings.  Let me try thinking instead.  From the rational point of view, what new factor has H.’s death introduced into the problem of the universe?  What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe?  I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily.  I would have said that I had taken them into account.  I had been warned—I had warned myself—not to reckon on worldly happiness.  We were even promised sufferings.  They were part of the programme.  We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn, and I accepted it.  I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for.  Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination.  Yes; but shout it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this?  No.  and it wouldn’t for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for other people’s sorrows had been real concern.  The case is too plain.  If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards.  The faith which ‘took these things into account was not faith but imagination.  The taking them into account was not real sympathy.  If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came”  (36-37).

The question Lewis is wrestling with is whether God is a divine veterinarian or a divine vivisector (in other words one whose cutting is aimed to heal, or one whose cutting is motivated by sadism)?

“And I must surely admit — H. would have forced me to admit is a few passes — that, if my house was a house of cards, the sooner it was knocked down the better.  And only suffering could do it.  But then the Cosmic Sadist and Eternal vivisector becomes an unnecessary hypothesis” (38).

“Of course the cat will growl and spit at the operator and bit him if she can.  But the real question is whether he is a vet or a vivisector.  Her bad language throws no light on it one way or another.  and I can believe He is a vet when I think of my own suffering” (40).

Lewis believed that a good God only hurts for a greater good in the Christian’s life. This notion frees the Christian from having to use lame circular arguments to defend God from that which is plain. God is sovereign. God is good. I hurt. All three are true.

3. In  A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis rightly observes that grief can lead to laziness.

Lewis writes,

“And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief.  Except at my job — where the machine seems to run on much as usual — I loathe the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much. Even shaving. What does it matter now whether my cheek is rough or smooth? They say an unhappy man wants distractions — something to take him out of himself. Only as a dog — tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he’d rather lie there shivering than get up and find one. It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy, finally, dirty and disgusting” (5).

Lewis’ observation on this point is useful for the widow/widower in that knowing and naming the temptation helps us to not only fight the temptation but to recognize it as it slowly encroaches upon us.

Those of us in bereavement must continue to take care of ourselves. We must try to eat right, exercise, keep house, do laundry, and for the sake of our fellow man, shower. We must continue to stimulate our minds even though it hurts to not be able to share new things with our cherished one. We must endeavor by God’s grace to work at our vocation and hobbies, because whether we find the joy in it all at the moment: we still live.

Work is the antidote to the temptation to amuse ourselves with the specter of time travel as remedy to regret. There is no redemption in regret.

4. In  A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis warns the widow or widower that they may be treated as the harbinger of death.

“An odd byproduct of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not.  I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers. To some I’m worse than an embarrassment. I am a death’s head. Whenever I meet a happily married pair I can feel them both thinking, ‘One or the other of us must some day be as he is now’” (10-11).

Lewis’ words ring true.

• The widow/widower, especially young ones, remind all the marrieds of the dread truth that there is a 50% chance that this, all this, is coming their way, someday, sooner or later.
• Nobody knows what to say. The friend does not know. The bereaved does not know.

Furthermore, in the absence of anything to say the things which are said tend to get under the widower’s skin.

People will ask variations of, “How you holding up?” or, “How are you doing?” and let us know forget, “How is your heart?”

Muscle, grit, and pumping are certainly not acceptable answers, but regardless of the answer there are those who are never satisfied that your answers are truthful unless you cry all over them.

Not likely.

The widower suddenly finds himself in a situation where every person with the capability to pass wind through their vocal cords in his general vicinity now places themselves in a position of authority over him for his own good. If a question is asked it must be answered to any and all’s satisfaction, or he shall risk a raised eye brow and the ever quizzical, “How are you really doing?”

Everyone is Barbara Walters.

Shall everyone presume to be both inquisitor and confessor?

And all this in the name of “community”?

Widower. . . They may love you, and it is a terrible fate to love someone who is hurt and to have nothing to say by way of making the dreadful affair better. Widower, I know it is tedium because you don’t know what to say either. But grief is no excuse to be a tool. Nor is grief an excuse to be an over analytical fool. This isn’t Dawson’s Creek. . . and your friends didn’t kill her. They’re just trying to help.

Those who are suffering from grief must be aware that they may be much more easily annoyed than they once were. As the movie Swing Kids says, “Put your glasses on.” Your friends simply wish to help, and they are suffering too: for they cannot help you, and they probably love whomever you lost as well.

5. In  A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis takes Heaven back from the family reunion and returns it to the Glory of God.

Heaven does not primarily exist for me to see my Resplendent Bride again. Everything, and I mean everything in me wants to see Danielle again. It is a visceral need. A couple of days ago I teared up as I brought her pills to the pharmacy for disposal. I miss her so much that I didn’t even want to be parted with her pills.

Yes, I am damaged in every which way.

But, heaven is about Jesus.

Heaven is about the glory of God.

Anything less is idolatry.

From the talk I hear at funerals I am fearful that people are giving God lip service in order to get what they want from him, namely, an eternal family reunion.

Almost as though we would approach God and use his throne like a friend’s lake house. “Hello there! God, we’d like to use your house for this thing. . . you’re. . . not going to be there, right?” Lewis writes,

“Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H., it runs through Him?  But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road.  If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all.  That’s what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions ‘on the further shore’; not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End” (68).

Lewis goes on to write something that is helpful for the widows and widowers who have read Matthew 22:30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

“Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet.  We shall see that there never was any problem” (71).

So say we all.

I recommend A Grief Observed for the bereaved, as well as those who have a 50/50 shot of standing in my ever so scuffed dress shoes.

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Evan Welcher is senior pastor of First Christian Church in Glenwood, Iowa. Husband of the lovely Danielle. Evan graduated with a B.S. in Bible from Emmaus Bible College in 2005. His goal in ministry is to stir up love for Jesus Christ by the giving of great care and fidelity to the teaching of the Scriptures. He blogs at EvanWelcher.com. Follow him on Twitter: @EvanWelcher

Originally published at EvanWelcher.com. Used with permission.

Loving One Another

“Let brotherly love continue.” —Hebrews 13:1

The New Testament resounds with the command to love the “brothers,” an idiom for fellow believers in the faith (Matt. 22:39 John 1334; Rom. 13:8; 1 Cor. 13: 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 2:10; 3:10 4:7).  The word “love” used in Hebrews 13:1 is φιλαδελφία transliterated from the Greek as philadelphia which means “Love of brothers or sisters, brotherly love; in the NT the love which Christians cherish for each other as brethren.” We all have heard of Philadelphia before because of the city of brotherly love.

Christians are to love one another because Jesus loved them first. Paul declares, “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess. 4:9). Loving other believers should be as easy as falling off a log. Christians should not wait to get to church where they can drink in the fellowship of the godly. For the early church, the fellowship of their new brothers and sisters was delectably mysterious to them and they rejoiced in plumbing the depths of each other’s souls.

Brotherly love is to be a telltale sign of the salvation of the people of God and being a disciple of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle John would later write, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 Jn. 3:14 ). The impulse of the early church to brotherly love provided a sweet, inner self-authentication. It also announced to the world that their faith was the real thing as noted in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

What a glorious phenomenon brotherly love is, a sense of the same paternity (a brotherly and sisterliness taught by God, a desire to climb into each other’s souls), a sweet inner authentication, and the sign of real faith to the world.

Christians are to practice brotherly love. Inwardly, this requires that we consider the stupendous implications of our shared adoption—that we truly are brothers and sisters with those terms being more than sentimental notions. They are objective facts—that though we are millions, we share only one Father. We will still be brothers and sisters when the sun is no more, and that God is pleased when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity (Ps. 133, Jn. 17). Our status as brothers and sisters in Christ is truly an eternal bond to be treasured. Outwardly, we must will to say and do only those things that will enhance our philadelphia. Furthermore, we must will to love one another because of the gospel.

When Jesus readied his disciples on the night of his arrest, he gave them one clear command to guide them in the days ahead, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12 ). As we look at the message of Hebrews 13:1, it must be noted the Book of Hebrews was sent to a body of Jewish believers who were tempted to revert from Christianity back to Judaism in order to escape persecution. The great refrain of Hebrews is both a warning against apostasy, against a falling away from the faith, and an exhortation to hold fast to Christ for salvation. Five times this warning is given in one form or another, including the one at the end of chapter 12 referring to the voice of God in the gospel: “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking” (v. 25).

Not unlike Jesus on the night of his departure from the twelve disciples, the writer of Hebrews prepares to leave his readers, and in this last chapter he gives his final words of exhortation. It is no surprise, therefore, he begins in the same manner Jesus did, exhorting them to “Let brotherly love continue” (v. 1). Hebrews 13 begins with a command for Christians to take seriously, “Let brotherly love continue.” We are to live continually by this principle as Christianity is all about being in the family of God and the church is to be a community characterized by family love.

One person who wrote much about Christian love was Francis Schaeffer. Much of his life was caught up in church disputes that were quite divisive. Schaeffer was known as a powerful defender of Christian doctrines, yet at the same time he strove to maintain love within the body of believers. One of his books begins with these words, “Through the centuries men have displayed many different symbols to show that they are Christians. They have worn marks in the lapels of their coats, hung chains about their necks, even had special haircuts. But there is a much better sign. It is a universal mark that is to last through all ages of the church until Jesus comes back.”¹  That mark is love among Christians, and Schaeffer proves it with Jesus’ teaching, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”(Jn. 13:35 ). This is a conditional statement predicated on the reality that if we love one another, the result will be that people will see this as the mark identifying the disciples of Jesus.

In another of his excellent books Schaeffer writes, “Evangelism is a calling but not the first calling. A Christians first call is to return to the first commandment to love God, to love the brotherhood, and then to love one’s neighbor as himself.”² This means we are to show love as an essential part of our witness, as an essential part of being a mature disciple, but more importantly because God is love and we are called to Godlikeness in the world. The Apostle John puts this in challenging terms, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 Jn. 4:7-8 ). Loving others is an overflow of our relationship with God and it is how we show gratitude for his love to us.

Love is a central mark of the Christian life because it demonstrates that the Christian has been transferred from the Kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God. This means love is the fruit and necessary by-product of the Christian being born again. To love one another is not a suggestion; it is a command grounded in the finished work of Jesus Christ. When Christians love one another they bear each other’s burdens (Gal. 6:1) and seek to faithfully live out the “one another” passages in the New Testament. All of this is because of the gospel which provides the basis for loving God and loving others.

Love one another, my brothers and sisters, because of the great work of God’s grace. The Christian who has been born again can’t help but love his brothers and sisters in Christ because they know it is the love of God in Christ that has wooed and won them over. This is why Christians are to love one another before a watching world greatly confused about love. Let us love one another as Jesus has loved us and demonstrate his love within the confines of our local churches and to a watching world to the glory of God.

^{1. Francis A Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian, in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1982), 4:183 - See more at: http://servantsofgrace.org/love-series-brotherly-love/#sthash.vTrY8psZ.jLP5ozRR.dpuf↩}

^{2. Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time, in Complete works 1:85 - See more at: http://servantsofgrace.org/love-series-brotherly-love/#sthash.vTrY8psZ.jLP5ozRR.dpuf↩}

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Dave Jenkins is a servant of Christ, husband to Sarah, writer, and Seattle sports fan. He serves as the Executive Director of Servant of Grace Ministries, the Executive Editor of Theology for Life magazine, the Book Promotions Specialist at Cross Focused Reviews and serves in a variety of capacities as a member of Ustick Baptist Church in Boise, Idaho.

Originally published at Servant of Grace. Used with Permission.

4 Ways to Apply Grace to Fight for Holiness

Christians believe in the gospel. Simply put, God became human in Jesus Christ; Jesus lived a sinless life; in his perfection, Jesus died as an atoning sacrifice for sin; and he was resurrected. Christians believe this life to be the power of God’s grace—we are powerless to save ourselves, but God in Christ has reconciled us to himself. Grace is what justifies us before God. Millions—if not billions—of people alive believe the truth of the gospel. They confess it freely. But the question many of them have is what’s next after this confession. They might say, “I believe the gospel to be true. But what do I do now? How do I grow spiritually?” For centuries, churches have recommended corporate worship, Bible study, prayer, and a host of other spiritual practices. But I’ve recently found when people ask me how they are to grow spiritually, they are actually asking a different question. They are recognizing a universal experience in the Christian life—they are still tempted to sin.

If grace has justified me before God, how does grace change me over a lifetime? God gives his grace freely in Jesus Christ and in Scripture; the Christian journey is one of applying that grace to our brokenness over the course of a lifetime. The application of grace is the way we fight for holiness in life.

How to Fight For Holiness

1. Identify the lie you believe.

We all believe lies about ourselves. These lies are different for each of us, but belief in lies is universal. The prophet Jeremiah puts it this way: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9) You do not need to wonder whether you, too, believe lies about yourself. Instead, you must identify what the lie you believe is.

Our tendency is to focus on the concrete, to focus on our actions. We spot the actions or attitudes in our lives we do not like, and we want to change them. We make plans or resolutions and through sheer willpower, we change behaviors. This sort of behavior modification is good and works in many circumstances. We want to stop biting our nails, so we resolve to do so.

But the darkest places in our heart and actions are not able to be overcome by willpower, for those dark places are not about the actions. The dark places are about motives and loves. And these are the places where the lies live. The place where anger, jealousy, insecurity, lust, lies, and fakery thrive. And these sorts of motives and loves feed upon the lies. As Matthew 12:34-35 reminds us, “How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

If you want to apply the grace of Jesus to your life, you must be willing to spelunk into these dark places and examine your heart. You will need to ask some difficult questions to find the emotional and spiritual motives behind some of your actions. No easy answers are allowed in the dark places.

Addictive behavior often falls into the same trap. I choose to look at pornography, drink excessively, or abuse illegal drugs because I believe that the pleasure I will receive from succumbing to my addiction will supersede all other pleasures available to me. I have convinced myself peace comes through my addiction; the behavior killing me is the one I believe best-suited to satiate my thirst. I believe a lie: The greatest pleasure in my life comes from participating in addictive behavior, not God.

Surface behavior is rarely the root problem. Behaviors are often symptoms of something deeper within our hearts. We believe things about others, ourselves, the world, or God, and we then act upon those deeply held beliefs. Often those beliefs are so deeply rooted within our personality or our past that we cannot even immediately identify them. As a lifelong struggler of insecurity and people pleasing, it took multiple conversations with my wife and friends—along with extended time in prayer and reflection—to begin to notice the lies beneath my behaviors. Rooting out the lies we believe can often be the most difficult part of the process, for it often requires us to visit emotional and spiritual wounds we would prefer to forget or ignore.

2. Find the grace-centered truth of Scripture.

The preceding spiritual lies are false thoughts taking up residence within our current belief structures. These false thoughts are causing us to behave in ways we know are in opposition to Kingdom living. In order to fight the lies, we must replace the false thoughts with the truth. The written source of truth for the Kingdom life is found in Scripture. In order to change our life, we must find the truth of Scripture and allow it to combat the lies. Hebrews 4:12 describes the Scripture as a sword, able to divide between soul and spirit. The truth found within the pages of the Bible must become the weapon you use. These lies are not new; humanity has been recycling the same lies for millennia.

To battle lies with the truth, we need to know the themes of Scripture. Because the lies we tell ourselves are not always about the outward symptom (drugs, pornography, etc.) but instead about heart motivations, we must ensure we are allowing the Word of God to speak to the lie itself, not simply the symptom. Take anger for example. A root lie for anger says, “I believe I am entitled to a life I control.” In order to combat this belief, I must find what Scripture says regarding control.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:24).

“In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10).

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Ps.115:3).

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20).

Repeatedly, Scripture testifies that the Lord is sovereign over all of creation. While I am allowed great freedom to act within the world, the Bible clearly states that everything is seen by his gracious eye and everything passes through his hand. If my anger stems from a desire to control, these (and many other) verses are essential. The lie? I am entitled to a life I control. The truth? God is in control and sovereign over my life.

Once you have identified the lie, finding the truth of Scripture becomes a quest. Do not only settle on the easily discovered Scriptures; instead, dive into Scripture every day. Read the New Testament repeatedly—like any great text, it takes multiple readings to grasp its depth. The more you read, the more the truth of God will replace the lies within your mind. If you keep a running list of Scriptures with the truth that combats your resident lie, you will soon find you have an extensive armory. Even further—and perhaps more important—Scripture is best understood when it is read and interpreted in communally. You need to read the Scripture with other believers so that you can understand it. Deuteronomy 6 exhorts parents to teach their children in this way—talking about the Scripture as they journey together. When you read Scripture in community, allowing it to address the lies present in your life, you will quickly find Proverbs 27:17 true, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

3. Apply the grace of Jesus.

Once you have stocked your built your armory, you are now prepared for the fight. And there will be a fight.

When temptation comes, you will be better-equipped to recognize it for what it is—the seduction to believe and act upon a lie. You will recognize your anger as the lie of control; you will know your desire for people-pleasing is actually your misguided understanding of self-worth.

And in that moment, you must act decisively—you must choose to act upon the truth instead of the lie. This is a tension, to be sure. You are not justified by your action; you are justified by grace. But in that justified state, you are now freed to act upon grace as empowered by the Spirit. The Spirit’s leadership is found within Scripture’s truth. Therefore, you must remember those stockpiled truths and act upon them. Acting upon Scripture instead of self-created lies is the practical application of the purchased grace of Jesus.

• God is ultimately in control (Scripture), not me (lie), so I can resist anger.
• God declares me to be a child of the King (Scripture), not others (lie), so I can resist the need to unnecessarily people-please.
• God alone is the judge (Scripture), not me (lie), so I am not required to immediately criticize the actions of others.
• God is the ultimate pleasure and joy in life (Scripture), not my addictive behavior (lie), so I am free to enjoy him.

Contemporary neurology affirms what you instinctively know to be true. Years of acquiescing to spiritual lies create neural superhighways which feel like second nature. To choose to act upon Scripture’s truth will be difficult, because it will be the hacking of a neural path through the thick underbrush of amassed past decisions. In fact, current neurology explains that to create new neural pathways can be painful, as it indicates new neural growth. In spite of the pain, the decision to act upon the truth is the step toward freedom. You are creating new thought patterns within your mind; you are participating in the inception of holiness.

4. Repeat. For life.

The temptations will always come, but the more you choose to act upon the grace of Jesus imparted within Scripture, the more your machete-hacked neural path becomes a well-worn road. Eventually, the decision for holiness becomes its own superhighway. Like any behavior, the new habit of holiness will eventually take hold, and the truth will more naturally supplant the lie.

You will fail and fall down some days. You will fall prey to old temptations and use the old pathways. But, on those days, do not believe the lie that you are a failure. Instead, embrace the truth of the gospel. Remember 2 Corinthians 12:9, “‘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.” In your weakness, God continues to give grace, and he never ceases to do so. The well of Jesus’ love does not run dry.

Spiritual maturity is the journey of a lifetime, and it is a journey that we never complete until the day we “will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2). Paul encourages believers to “work out your salvation” (Phil. 2:12). Much like our contemporary use of “working out,” the application of grace is an exercise or a solving of spiritual issues. It is breaking old patterns of thoughts and behaviors through the process of grace. It is what Jesus referred to when he commanded his disciples to take up their cross each day (Lk. 9:23). Nevertheless, walking with Christ daily is a source of incredible peace and joy—it is the greatest delight of the heart. So find the lies you believe; replace them with the truth of Scripture; and act upon the grace purchased at the cross. This is the path of holiness—the path of a mature disciples.

This is the Kingdom life, the truth of Jesus, made alive in us. As Paul wrote in Galatians 2, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!” May you apply the grace of God each day in your journey to know him alive in you. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

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Steve Bezner is Senior Pastor of Houston Northwest Church. He holds degrees from Hardin-Simmons University (B.A., Bible; M.A., Religion) and Baylor University (Ph.D., Religion). He is married to Joy and has two sons: Ben and Andrew. Follow him on Twitter: @Bezner.

Temptations During Difficulties

“And they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’” (Mark 4:38b).

It is easy to ridicule the disciples at this point, to see them in some sense as being quite dramatic. But the text does not tell us the ride is bumpy. It tells us that the boat is filling with water from the waves. If it were you or I in that boat, even if Jesus were in the flesh with us, nine times out of ten fear would trump theology. In a situation like the one described, terror is practically instinctual. In the middle of a raucous storm, boat taking on water, “We’re all gonna die!” is not a punch line. It’s a valid prediction.

And yet, Jesus is sleeping. Like the disciples, I can’t get over this. How tired do you have to be to sleep through getting knocked about in the stern of a jostling boat, getting water sloshed on you from the rising level in the bilge, let alone thunder and the frantic shouting of your friends? There is, in a way, something quite comic about this passage. And it makes the disciples’ question sort of humorous. I assume there is a level of anger in it, a smidgen of sarcasm added to the terror: “Don’t you care that we’re dying?”

Does that sound at all like any of your prayers? Does it at all resemble your theology these days? “This stuff must be happening because God doesn’t care about me.”

Two Temptations in the Midst of Difficulty

The cry of the disciples is as common as the human heart. Their question evinces two great temptations we face in the midst of any difficulty.

First, we are often tempted in trouble to equate worry with concern. Just as the disciples leap to conclusions about Jesus’s sleeping, you and I tend to get very frustrated when others refuse to get infected with our anxiety. I’ve counseled quite a few married couples, for instance, who have wandered into a communication standoff in part because the wife has mistaken her husband’s failure to mirror her nervousness as failure to care about the issues involved. Sometimes explaining the different ways men and women tend to process information and deal with stress helps to clear the air, as does encouraging husbands to be more vocal about their thoughts and feelings with their wives. But very often the essential breakdown comes from logic like this: “This is a very big deal. That’s why I’m freaking out about it. You must not think it’s a very big deal because you’re not freaking out.”

The reality is that sometimes people share our concern without sharing our worry. That’s a good thing. And it’s quite Christlike. Remember that worry is forbidden for the Christian (Matt. 6:25; Phil. 4:6) and that it won’t get you anywhere anyway.

And as in Mark 4, Jesus may come to your pity party, but he won’t participate. He will sit by you, loving you, caring about you, and overseeing all of your troubles, but he won’t for a second share in your anxiety unless you’re trying to get rid of it.

There is a reason the most repeated command in the Bible is “Be not afraid.”

The second temptation we face when going through enormous difficulty is more directly theological: we tend to assume that a loving God would not let us suffer.

There is perhaps no line of thinking more dangerous, more insidious, and more utterly unchristian than this one. The cry “Do you not care that I’m perishing?” becomes the accusation “I’m perishing and you don’t care,” which gives way to disavowal: “If there is a God, I don’t want anything to do with him. He is cruel.”

Where we get the idea that Christianity excludes suffering, I don’t rightly know. It likely comes mostly from our flesh, from our prideful idolization of comfort and pleasure. It comes somewhat from just plain ol’ crappy doctrine. It certainly does not come from the Bible.

The Cross Is Laid on Every Christian

In the story of the man whose house is built on the rock (Matt. 7:24–27), the firm foundation does not keep the storm away. In fact, according to the Scriptures, being a Christian means being willing to take on more suffering than the average person. Not only must we endure the same pains, stresses, and diseases of every other mortal, but we agree to take on the added burden of insults, hardships, and persecutions on account of our faith. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we em- bark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

The call to discipleship, in other words, is not an invitation for one of those popular Christian cruises. I can see the advertisement in the Christian magazine now:

Jesus! Shuffleboard! Seafood Buffet! Join Jesus Christ and twelve other influential teachers for seven luxurious days and six restful nights on the maiden voyage of our five-star, five- story ship of dreams, the S.S. Smooth Sailing. Enjoy karaoke with your favorite psalmists on the lido deck or splash your cares away in our indoor water park with a safe crowd of people who look just like you!

Instead, Jesus calls us into nasty crosswinds in a boat specifically designed to make us trust totally in him. And if the boat even appears to offer safety from the waves, Jesus may actually call us out of it and into the sea (Matt. 14:29). But in either place, he will be there with us, not to help us worry but to help us believe. Thus, it is imperative that we have our theology straight before we even get in the boat.

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Jared C. Wilson (@jaredcwilson) is Becky’s husband and Macy and Grace’s daddy, and also the pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont and the author of the books Gospel Wakefulness, Your Jesus is Too Safe, Abide, Seven Daily Sins, Gospel Deeps, The Pastor’s Justification, and The Story-Telling God. He blogs almost daily at The Gospel-Driven Church.

Excerpt taken from Jared Wilson, The Wonder-Working God, Crossway, ©2014. Used by permission. http://www.crossway.org

Curved Inward

Augustine may have introduced it. Luther certainly formed it. But the Apostle Paul wrestled openly with it as he penned lines he most certainly knew would be authoritative for the Church of Jesus Christ. When you read Romans 7, you most certainly identify with Paul’s struggle. If you are honest, no matter how long you’ve been following Jesus, you must admit that, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom. 7:18-19). Most people would agree that the battle with the flesh rages throughout the life of a believer. But the question is: Why would Paul so openly confess this here? Surely toward the end of his life, he came to understand that his writings were being circulated. He knew that the letters he wrote were authoritative (1 Thess. 2:13). Paul, this great church-planting pastor, the leader of a movement, the greatest missionary in Christian history. Paul, who endured countless beatings, imprisonments, and persecutions for the sake of Christ. Paul, who would give his own life under the persecution of Nero. Why in the world would he openly admit this struggle?

Incurvatus in se is a Latin phrase, coined by Luther and rooted in Augustine’s thought, which simply describes the primordial evil in the world—humanity curved inward on itself. And it is precisely this idea that Paul wrestles with in Romans 7. How do I know? Turn the page.

In Romans 7:24, after Paul has written himself to the point of frustration over his own struggle with sin, he is completely undone. He writes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” In other words, “I look within myself and I find absolutely nothing that is not wretched, depraved, and totally self-absorbed. I need deliverance from someone other than me!”

Gazing on Jesus Christ

What happens next is stunning. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25). And he doesn’t stop there. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1).

Don’t you see what Paul is doing here? Are you catching the whole scope of what is going on? Paul struggles, he wrestles, as he acknowledges his inward curvature. As he looks within, he is given over to despair because of his total depravity. But . . . do you see where Paul’s gaze turns? Upward! To Christ! To the gospel! Romans 8 is one of the richest expositions of the gospel in all of Scripture, and we so often forget that it comes on the heels of Romans 7.

Why does Paul do this? Is he just given over to his own emotions, carried along by whim as he is writing? Certainly not. Paul is giving his readers a picture of exactly what the gospel does. It redirects our gaze. It restructures our natural curvature. We move from inward to upward. When we look within, we find nothing but condemnation and despair. But when we look to Jesus, we find a banner which reads, “It is finished. No condemnation.” And perhaps the most gloriously counterintuitive part of this message is this—it has absolutely nothing to do with us.

So how does a man go from being a self-absorbed Pharisee (Paul’s former life), to being a selfless missionary who leverages everything he has for the cause of Christ? The gospel redirects his gaze. He meets Jesus, and his eyes are fixated on the cross.

The Chief Enemy of Discipleship

Incurvatus in se (being curved inward on oneself) is the main enemy of making, maturing, and multiplying disciples. More than Satan’s plans to thwart our evangelistic efforts. More than the apologetic arguments of the leading atheists. More than the newest scientific discovery. Men and women curved inward will never desire to make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus.

This is why so many theologians have remarked about the power of the gospel especially for Christians. We need to have our gaze redirected every day. The gospel reminds us, over and over, that nothing good resides in our members, and yet, there is no condemnation because of the finished work of Christ. We are drawn to look on Jesus. We are moved to consider him. Something like worship begins to stir up in our hearts. And do you know what the automatic outflow of worship is? Making Disciples.

Christian, you are the chief enemy of the make, mature, and  multiply mentality. You are not exempt from the natural curvature of all humanity. This is why being gospel-centered is absolutely necessary. It is not a catch phrase. It is not a buzz-word. It is the power of God for salvation.

Looking Outside of Yourself

When your heart is set on yourself, you will never look outside of yourself. You’ll get home from work and retreat inside your home, where you’ll neglect your wife and children, owing it to the need to decompress after a long day. You’ll never engage in small-group discipleship because it’s all about giving of yourself, not getting for yourself. You’ll hardly care about the lost and dying around you because you are probably too busy checking who has commented on your most recent self-glorifying status update.

If the gospel captures your gaze, day after day, you’ll be reminded of the glorious reality of no condemnation. You’ll spend your time looking up and out. You’ll be free to serve everyone because you need nothing from anyone. You will live a gloriously counterintuitive kind of life in which you won’t care about your own power, position, prominence, or praise. You’re only concern will be the glory of Jesus and the praise of his glorious grace.

Christians, let us come before the glory of the gospel each day, that our gaze may be lifted upward and outward. Let us remind each other of the glorious reality of no condemnation with ferocious vigilance. Let us seek to make, mature, and multiply because our gaze is fixed on the One who told us “There is no condemnation.”

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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.

The Bait and Switch

Texas Only Has Three Seasons

Unlike most of the nation’s spring, summer, fall, and winter, we have springtime, ridiculously hot, and football season. From preseason to Super Bowl Sunday, football talk is everywhere. From fantasy teams, to social media feeds; from pro and college jerseys worn proudly in the grocery, to conversations and watch parties, our world revolves around our teams. You may not love football, but something is just as important to you as football is to the stereotypical fan. The next installment in your favorite movie trilogy, your family, your job, your church, a new restaurant you visited, a big project you’re working on: whatever it is, we all talk about what’s important to us.

If you’re a Christian, it’s likely you’d consider Jesus more important to you than football. Although sometimes we wonder about some men in our churches . . . And yet, this Cornerstone of our very lives, motives, actions, and decisions often becomes the least-discussed aspect of our entire lives. Many Christians pull a “bait and switch” on those around us. You know that image: a newspaper ad lures you to a store, where you find out there were “only ten at the special price, but look what else we have . . .” If we’ve gotten to know a neighbor for nine months, and only then we reveal that we follow Jesus, we’ve done the same thing: they question our motives, wonder about our relationship, and feel like we’ve lied to them. And we have: as the courtroom oath goes, we’ve showed and told “the truth,” but not “the whole truth so help me God.” How do we share the gospel without killing the relationship? The first way is to be open about our faith from day one.

Why do we do this? Maybe we hesitate to talk about faith because it’s divisive. Maybe we’re nervous: what if they then ask us a question we can’t answer? Or maybe, since they don’t follow Jesus and we lack that shared experience—which a football game easily provides—we might wonder if we have common ground. Each of these breaks down. First, if we incarnate ourselves into a mission field, eventually people find out we follow Jesus. Our neighbors see us pull out of our driveways every Sunday, frantic and late, or see Bible-toting friends enter our home every Wednesday. Second, when (not if) they ask a question we can’t answer, we have two viable options. We can answer from our own experience, since experience is sometimes more meaningful than cold, hard facts. Or we can show humility: “I haven’t studied that specific element of faith yet, so I don’t know.” Then we can go find the answer and honor them by remembering to follow up. Third, we may lack the shared experience of faith, but we’re normal humans, so have plenty to talk about.

A Perception of Shame

One thing comes across in our lack of sharing the gospel: shame. If we can’t look someone in the eye and talk about our personal experience with Jesus with confidence, we appear to be ashamed of the very thing we claim as most important to us. We go directly against the apostle Paul’s exhortation to Roman Christians, not to be ashamed of the gospel1. It takes great faith to share the gospel: it is divisive—God promises it to be, and others will consider our belief foolish. It can make us nervous—they might not respond well; they might laugh at us. And it is intrusive—the cross draws a line between beliefs. Such is Christian experience, throughout history and across the world. But the faith by which Paul and the righteous live isn’t faith in others’ perspective of us, or the relationship we have with them. It’s faith in a far greater God than those idols. And that faith caused Paul—and causes us—not to be ashamed of the gospel.

Eboo Patel started the Interfaith Youth Core, which works primarily on college campuses. Eboo—a Muslim who I (Bob) admire deeply and love—once asked what I believed. “Eboo I’d never offend you in the world, but I really believe based on the Bible that Jesus is God and the only way to Him.” I told him of working in Vietnam and later in Afghanistan with Muslims. He told me one of the reasons partnered with us is because I held to my faith and still wanted a relationship with him. People do not just want honesty, but clarity to understand what we believe. It’s a matter of how we say it. I’ve become convinced that truth is always kind and humble. Harshness, mean-spiritedness and arrogance often displays insecurity about our beliefs. If we believe the truth, we should be the most secure, humble, compassionate people on earth. We have nothing to be ashamed of.

Christianity in Everyday Conversations

And we’re not encouraging forcing God into every conversation, at the exclusion of everything else: that will ensure a ‘no’ the next time you invite them over. We are encouraging allowing our faith to be a part of our normative, unforced conversation. Just like other parts of our lives are. Sharing the gospel begins by not omitting parts of our lives that speak to our beliefs. If your boss asks what you’re doing this weekend, instead of “yard work and a birthday party Saturday, then some other stuff on Sunday before I watch the game,” simply acknowledge that “some other stuff” means “going to a church gathering, and even serving on the parking team.” If a neighbor wants your opinion on a hot-button issue, instead of simply talking about politics and human rights, bring your Higher Authority into the conversation.

Tim Keller said it like this: “You have to be willing to talk about how your faith integrates with your life. Because if you’re in non-superficial relationships with people, your faith simply has to come up! Why you do this and why you do that, and why you don’t do this and why you don’t do that, and how you were helped with a problem—you just have to mention it. It should be very natural . . . You have to have a lot of non-superficial relationships with not-yet-believers, and you also have to have a willingness to talk about your faith, and how it affects how you think and live.” Here are a few, among many, common ways to bring faith into common conversation3:

• Talk about your faith and community: speak of church gatherings, events, meaningful relationships, and God’s work with excitement and joy: it raises intrigue.
• Talk about our redemption stories: talking about our lives both before Jesus and after takes courage, but is deeply moving in its vulnerability. And talk about moments of brokenness and reconciliation in your life since He redeemed you. It shows that you’re still not perfect, but that Jesus continues to redeem areas of pain, struggle, and disbelief.
• Share the result of your faith: show people our true rest, joy, peace, and comfort in God alone, because of His ongoing work in us. How does faith impact your daily life?
• Give God due credit: as you talk about good things in your life, rightly attribute those blessings to God, the giver of every gift.
• Point to the bigger story: as we discuss conflict, sin, pain, and brokenness in the world, or as we discuss success, joy, and echoes of redemption, acknowledge that every specific act is part of a larger story of brokenness and redemption.
• Be generous with praise: whether watching a mountain sunrise or hearing a co-worker complain about her assistant, point to beautiful things God has uniquely put in them
• Show great grace: instead of engaging in gossip, and instead interacting with someone who’s failed or hurt us, display the grace God first showed us.
• Share our true thoughts when asked: instead of avoiding advice, or downplaying the fact that the gospel drives us, boldly give answers from a faith-filled worldview.
• Don’t talk about God differently with not-yet-believers than we do with believers: we normally talk openly about God, faith, and even struggles and doubt with our community; do the same in our mission field. Honesty and openness shows others we don’t have every answer.

The gospel is important to us. While we must listen well, the other side is equally true: to really get to know people, they need to know what’s important to us. You talk about everything else in your life that’s important. Don’t stop talking about the big game, the hit movie, or your big project. Just make sure they’re in their place and don’t ignore the bigger driving force in your life. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel. In normal conversation, and early in the relationship, let people know you’re a follower of Jesus.

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Ben Connelly, his wife Jess, and their daughters Charlotte and Maggie live in Fort Worth, TX. He started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts29 network and Soma family of churches. Ben is also co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers, 2014). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ben teaches public speaking at TCU, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country, and blogs in spurts at benconnelly.net. Twitter: @connellyben.

(Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from A Field Guide for Everyday Mission by Ben Connelly & Bob Roberts Jr. available from Moody Publishers starting June 2014. It appears here with the permission of the author and publisher. For free resources and preorders, visit everydaymission.net.)

Catching God’s Vision for Multiplication

There are many reasons—some good and some not so good—why churches consider planting other churches. Church planting, going multisite, and revitalizing churches have increasingly become options for churches today. At the same time, evangelism and discipleship are being talked about and mulled over more than ever. Amidst all the debates about how to do it and what to avoid, we might begin by simply looking into the grand story of Scripture and being propelled by God’s big vision. The Bible tells us to gather around and listen to his plan for multiplication and the spread of his glory.

Filling the Gaps with Glory: A Theological Rationale for Multiplication

At Creation, and later in Redemption, God implements a grandiose vision for filling the earth with his glory. The Bible tells the story of God spreading his beautiful, holy, and glorious image to every nook and cranny on the earth. The endgame or supreme goal of missions, evangelism, or discipleship is the glory of God. Thankfully, the glory of God and the good of humankind aren’t at odds with each other. We don’t pursue God’s glory at the expense of our joy and fulfillment, but rather we pursue, proclaim, and replicate God’s glory as the means by which our joy and fulfillment can reach their highest heights.

Consider God’s original great commission to humankind. After God creates man—male and female together—in his image and likeness, he places them in his kingdom and says: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over” every living thing (Gen. 1:28). Humankind is meant to exercise dominion and care over God’s creation as his ambassadors, but we’re also called to spread in the earth and bear fruit as we multiply. God intended that Adam and Eve would faithfully follow him and as they see what he’s like they’ll reflect him (similar to how kids mimic parents). As they multiply and spread, their children would also reflect the glory of God. As this happens from person to person through fruitful multiplication, and as it spreads throughout the earth, you can envision God’s image and glory filling the entire world.

God’s heart for multiplication is clear in this passage from Genesis. His desire is that we would be image-bearers who reflect the glory of God back to him. To take it a step further, the desire isn’t that we all stay in one place but that we fill up the earth with more glory-reflecting image-bearers who spread God’s glory to every square inch of his kingdom. Unfortunately, we know in Genesis 3 that sin comes into the picture, and with Adam’s fall we are plunged into darkness, and the image of God in us is marred (though not completely erased). We are now like dusty and cracked mirrors that reflect little of God and instead reflect increasingly of the earth’s corruption.

However, as heartbreaking and tragic as the fall is, God’s plan in redemption eclipses that with a soul-stirring hope that provides the “happily ever after” that our hearts long for. God is recreating a new humanity in Jesus, and all those united to him by faith are being restored back into the image of the glory of God. On earth that transformation is by degrees as we’re sanctified, but on the new earth it will be instantaneously completed as we’re glorified (Rom. 8:29; I Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10).

The Great Commissions: How Genesis 1 Relates to Matthew 28

You might be asking at this point what this has to do with church planting in its various expressions. Church planting is really just about multiplication and the making of disciples who reflect God’s glory everywhere (“fill the earth”). When the New Testament speaks about evangelism or missions it isn’t a new idea and it’s not separate from God’s plan for us in Genesis 1. God’s vision is the fulfillment of his commission in Genesis 1—that man would fill the earth with his glory. This is the eschatological hope of the prophets and is stated beautifully in Habakkuk 2:14: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (cf. Mt. 28:18-20; Rev. 21:22-22:5).

In the Great Commission passages (Mt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8), Jesus is tasking the new humanity in him with the Genesis 1 mandate. The goal is to go and make disciples, followers of Jesus Christ who know him, represent him, bring his kingdom, and reflect his glory. Throughout the book of Acts we see this taking place as the gospel spreads out from Jerusalem to Samaria to the surrounding countries to the ends of the earth. In all these locales new people are converted and new churches are set up. In the New Testament, there’s no idea of disciples being made apart from their incorporation into the church (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5). Church planting wasn’t one way of “doing church” but was simply the necessary and authorized way of maturing disciples in the locations the gospel reached. Epaphras might hear the gospel and be converted in Ephesus (Acts 19:10), but he then goes back to his own community in Colossae where he shares the gospel and starts a local church (Col. 1:7). The commission to make disciples of people everywhere is accomplished by planting local churches, and people are discipled in community best when the local church is truly local.

Colossians: A New Testament Example of the Spread of God’s Glory

Let me provide one example in Paul’s letters where I believe he subtly builds on this theology. Paul writes this to the church at Colossae: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing” (Col. 1:5-6). Paul’s says what is happening in Colossae is fulfilling the commission in the garden and the commission Jesus gives to the Church. In the whole world, and in Colossae as one example, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing. God desires multiplication, not only numerically but also in a way that it spreads. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing as the whole world is filling up with the glory of God through the conversion of sinners and the planting of churches.

It’s not just that people are saved but that people are being remade into the image of God by becoming a new person in Christ. Later Paul tells them to act differently because they are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). They are reflections of the glory of God and should live in such a way that people get a glimpse of what God is really like and what it looks like to be an image-bearer flourishing. People in Colossae are being renewed into the image of God, and in this way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world. Hopefully you see how multiplication through conversion and church planting in each pocket of the planet is accomplishing God’s plan for spreading out his glory over the entire world.

We’re told this will one day be fully realized when a new earth (God’s city) comes down out of heaven as the final home for the people of God. In that place, there will be no sin and no sinners (Rev. 21:1-4). Jesus will fill up the place with his radiant glory so that every piece of creation sparkles in his light (Rev. 21:18-27; 22:1-5). We ourselves will have a glory derived from Jesus that refracts back to him (Rev. 21:24-26). The hopes and visions of the prophets will be fulfilled as the glory of God does indeed cover the whole earth. This has always been God’s plan, and although dramatic twists and turns take place within the narrative, his plan will surely be accomplished. The work of the church now in making disciples, of planting churches in every community, and reaching the nations with the gospel is rooted in this theological vision of God’s glory spreading and increasing through multiplication.

Each of us are part of one local church, one drop in the bucket wanting to fulfill our God-given task of spreading the glory of God locally and globally. As your church thinks about multiplication—individually and corporately—pray to see the glory of God spread throughout your neighborhood, city, country, and globe through the transformation of image-bearers and the planting of local churches.

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Dustin Crowe has a bachelor’s degree in Historical Theology from the Moody Bible Institute and studied at the master’s level at Southern Seminary. He is Local Outreach Coordinator of College Park Church, a church of 4,000 in Indianapolis, where he also helps with theological development.

Learning Outside the Camp

During the first week of August, a pastor that I respect and admire quoted 20th century German thinker and author Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. The quote, which reads “I had to experience despair before I could experience grace,” is a beautiful sound byte that sums up the ubiquitous human illness of wanting to cling to everything and anything before we submit in brokenness to the grace of God. Everything seems sure until it isn’t there anymore—when the only thing left is God’s mercy in Christ. The only problem is that Hesse was a syncretist and about as far from what even the most ecumenical Christian—evangelical, progressive, post-liberal, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anabaptist, you name it—would consider within the boundaries of historical Christianity. And to be sure, people on Twitter let this pastor know this.

In that tweet, pastor Tullian Tchividjian set out to teach his tweeps (that’s a real term, look it up!) something about the grace of God using the writing of somebody who did not accurately understand the grace of God as articulated in Scripture. Someone who would certainly qualify as unregenerate in almost every Christian tradition. In other words, in one of those pop-psychology word association test nobody has ever shouted out “Hermann Hesse” when prompted with “orthodoxy.”

Likewise, the news of the band Gungor’s recent departure from several historically Christian positions has the evangelical internet aflutter with mourning, condemnation, and nuance. If you haven’t heard, in a blog on their website back in February Michael Gungor articulated his position on Adam and Eve, the flood, and metaphysics:

I have no more ability to believe, for example, that the first people on earth were a couple named Adam and Eve that lived 6,000 years ago. I have no ability to believe that there was a flood that covered all the highest mountains of the world only 4,000 years ago and that all of the animal species that exist today are here because they were carried on an ark and then somehow walked or flew all around the world from a mountain in the middle east after the water dried up. I have no more ability to believe these things than I do to believe in Santa Clause or to not believe in gravity. But I have a choice on what to do with these unbeliefs. I could either throw out those stories as lies, or I could try to find some value in them as stories. But this is what happens . . .

If you try to find some value in them as stories, there will be some people that say that you aren’t a Christian anymore because you don’t believe the Bible is true or “authoritative.” Even if you try to argue that you think there is a truth to the stories, just not in an historical sense; that doesn’t matter. To some people, you denying the “truth” of a 6,000 year old earth with naked people in a garden eating an apple being responsible for the death of dinosaurs is the same thing as you nailing Jesus to the cross. You become part of ‘them.’ The deniers of God’s Word.

In the last few weeks, World magazine and a few other publications got ahold of this and lamented Gungor’s lapse from orthodoxy. While a lot has already been said about this, both of these little case studies expose something about our hearts:

We (humans!) are often terrified to listen to and learn from people who hold to different (and sometimes contradictory) beliefs than us. In fact, our default reflex is to shun, condemn, and caricaturize.

The Bible, Orthodoxy, and Imago Dei

Ironically, the Bible is not afraid to affirm the God-implanted wisdom from those who fall outside of the perceived orthodox tribe. Most are familiar with the stories of Rahab the Canaanite prostitute who helped the Israeli scouts, the Roman gentile God-fearers who ran to Jesus, and the Greek polytheistic poets Paul quoted from memory who unwittingly proclaimed aspects the gospel. But there is often a disconnect between these Biblical examples and our on-the-ground understanding of our fellow image bearers.

Just as the seraphim called out in Isaiah 6:3:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

God has filled the earth and the people of the earth with his divine imprint. The pinnacle of God’s creation—human beings—have been given a special conscious and unconscious understanding of his ways. God  “has put eternity into man's heart” (Ecc. 3:11) and thus, has given each human being the capacity to teach every other human being something significant about the character of God.

Certainly, those of us whom God has saved, adopted, and, through the Holy Spirit, given special revelation into the character of God through Christ have a lot to offer a world groping at the shadow of God’s image. The damage of sin and rebellion has dimmed humanity’s understanding of God dramatically—and that should not be ignored.

Yet the image of God is still there in every person. Hiding in plain sight. Sitting somewhere between the doubt, confusion, and rebellion. Believers who have been illuminated to the glory of God’s grace through Christ have “everything [we] need for life and godliness” (i.e., God’s Spirit in us), including the ability to learn about the things of God from all of his creation—even those who seem to be fighting God’s revealed truth at every turn.

This process is far from complete in me—I am not the discerning, godly, thoughtful, gracious student of truth that I delude myself into thinking I am. Still, despite my weakness and foolishness God has used various people and media that fall outside of evangelicalism to teach me about the God who reveals the same orthodoxy that I love. And God has probably done the same in you.

My Story and Zossima

No fictional characters (and only a few real-life people) have ministered and instructed me in God’s love, grace, and mercy like Father Zossima in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brother’s Karamazov. Dostoevsky created the character of Zossima to be a Christ-like figure amidst a world and church institution fraught with sin and hard hearts. Zossima is not a Protestant pastor, but a Russian Orthodox monk. A system that is fraught with what I believe are major theological errors. However, the words of gospel-dependent love and tenderness that Zossima speaks in Brothers is a spiritual opus that I return to regularly.

Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he recognises that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge. Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me. If you can take upon yourself the crime of the criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for him yourself, and let him go without reproach . . .

. . . Know the measure, know the times, study that. When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don't be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect.

This passage—and many like it—showcase a beautiful, tender, gospel-rich love that Zossima beautifully articulated and, in the book, lived out. When I read it I am usually moved to tears. Though I don’t agree with some of his conclusions above (e.g., “if I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me”) I can see  and learn from Zossima’s Christ-like tenderness and love for sinners. I am moved by the tender love that Zossima articulates, and I believe that this tender love of people, God, and creation is close to what Jesus talks about in Luke 10:27. Zossima has discipled me in God’s love and grace, even though his systematics would not fly at any church I would ever join.

Back to Hesse and Gungor

So when Tulllian quotes syncretist Hermann Hesse about grace and suffering, I am free to nod and agree as I discern glimmers of God’s truth in it. To learn from Hesse’s saying, though he may not understand grace as articulated in Scripture, is to affirm his humanity and the divine imprint (common grace) on his musings. With orthodox grace-colored glasses, we can explore the world in search of God’s love. We can discern the good, affirm the truth, and love the person without harshly condemning and shunning all that is secular or not theologically airtight (because, honestly, besides Jesus, who is theologically airtight?).

We can disagree with Gungor’s steps away from an evangelical hermeneutic while still celebrating their music and whatever truth is in their statements. In fact, to love them and doubters like them, we must insist that their doubts may arise out of their honesty. As George MacDonald observes “doubts are messengers of the Living One to the honest”—they keep us humble and remind us of our humble dependence on God’s revelation to lead and guide. Though Gungor may still be in process, their doubts may be evidence of God working in their life—and like Thomas before them, Jesus will show them his wounds.

From here, we can listen to Michael Gungor’s words and hear the image of God. For example, when Gungor says,

To some people, you denying the “truth” of a 6,000 year old earth with naked people in a garden eating an apple being responsible for the death of dinosaurs is the same thing as you nailing Jesus to the cross. You become part of ‘them.’

We may at first just hear a jab at Biblical literalism, but there is much more there. He points a finger on the painfully shaming nature of much public and private discourse on doubt, grace, and orthodoxy. We (being, those who identify as more-or-less “conservative” evangelicals) should see this as a prophetic encouragement to love our enemies, bless those who persecute us (though this is not anything close to persecution), and to love our neighbor as ourself. We can say, “Thank God for these comments! Thank God for Michael Gungor!” Thank God that he used Gungor to articulate the pain that doubters often feel amongst those with less paradigm-shifting doubts.

Grace

At the heart of all charity and discernment is grace. The more we realize that we have been given amazing, free grace, the more we will desire to extend that grace. As our condition becomes clear, we’ll have more sympathy on other ignorant blasphemers. Our rejection of God and our reflected imaging of God is as instinctive

I remember teaching Sunday School with my wife, trying to get an adorable three-year-old to sing songs with us.

“Don’t you want to sing songs to Jesus with us?” I asked, as he sat in the corner of the classroom.

“No” he declared, as astutely as a three-year-old can

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like Jesus”

Nobody taught him to say that. Nor does anyone need to teach us to deny God’s truth, doubt God’s promises, or disobey God’s statutes.

When this little boy told me that he didn’t like Jesus, I didn’t shun him. Neither does God when we daily, repeatedly declare that we don’t like Jesus! That is the beauty of grace. The patient, one-sided love of God that has blessed us with divine wisdom amidst our rebellion. This grace is patient with us, and so we can be patient with others. This grace sees the good in us, when we are a complete stinking mess. This grace teaches us when we don’t want to learn—as Newton reminds us, “t’was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.”

And this is the same kid that will come up to you with innocent affection, give you a high five, and tell you all about Super Mario with a glimmer of passion in his eye. Just your typical God-imagining blasphemer.

This grace can be extended to others as it has been extended to us only as we see ourselves in need of it and the grace of God’s image in others. And hopefully, in doing so we can, like Paul in Acts 17, see God’s fingerprint on the un-orthodox and lead the un-orthodox to a more beautiful, robust understanding of God than they could’ve ever imagined—all the while as we are learning from them.

Learning from un-believers sounds dangerous. It sounds like capitulation of our ideals and our morals. But the cross of Christ assures us that we can dangerously extend grace because grace has been permanently, legally, imputed to us. In our exploration of God’s world, we are securely tethered, inseparably united to Jesus who promised to be with us always. So, in light of that Christian, search for truth and explore grace—even when it comes from those who also do not fully understand grace. And may God lead you in his Truth and his Grace.

What a beautiful grace it is!

—

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.

Pursuing Accountability in Community

We are commanded to grow in our faith and to look more Christlike as time goes on. However, this command was never meant to be something we just did by ourselves. The Bible constantly expects that we will be a part of a local community and that there will be people who know us and walk with us in our Christian life. In fact, churches where people merely attend and do not belong, where they sit in a big service, but nobody knows their struggles and issues is not really doing what the church was made to do. Discipleship is a community event. You are one part of the body—not the whole thing. With that in mind, here are some helpful tips on how to do accountability and confession within a Bible study, home group, or other Christian community.

1. Make Accountability a Priority

We are commanded in James 5:16 to "confess your sins, one to another." Without accountability people will not be able to work through their sins and their spiritual growth will be hindered. The church is not merely for Bible studies, but also times for community, worship, confession, and prayer. The easiest way to make accountability a priority is to set aside time for it as you meet together in groups. Meeting together should be done often (Heb. 10:25). You may not need to have a time for accountability every time you meet, but it needs to be done regularly.

2. Break up men and women

It is fine to hear Scripture taught, worship, and pray for each other together. When it comes to accountability, it is best to split up men and women. Not only is this extremely wise (you don't want woman who struggles with lust confessing to the man that struggles with lust, for example). It also allows for greater freedom with confession. The man who struggles with pornography will not confess that to a group of women. The woman who struggles with weight and body image issues will not confess that to a group of men. This allows people a level of comfort in dealing with their struggles that is good and appropriate.

3. Lead from the front

Your group will confess as much as the leader is willing to confess. If you want them to be honest and to lay their issues on the table, you have to start by doing the same in your life. When someone sees that a leader struggles with sin and is open and honest about it they feel freed up to do the same.

4. Request more mature disciples to participate

All through out Scripture the more mature are encouraged to lead younger Christians, so before you meet, call a few people who are mature disciples in the group. Ask them if they would be willing to confess sins and share how God has worked in their life when they repented of sin in this way. So, when you confess, you have a few other people who are willing to show how God works through accountability and repentance.

5. Give direction on how to do it

Let people in the group know that the accountability time is not just for personal prayer requests or for "how they are doing" but a time to be honest of where they are at spiritually and to be encouraged by other brothers and sisters in Christ. Also, let people know not to gossip about other people's issues. However, there are times to tell other people of something that is confessed. For example, a husband who has cheated on a wife and has never told her will eventually have to have his wife let in on this.

6. Overwhelm people with grace

Once someone has confessed their sin, there is a temptation to wallow in shame. Overwhelm them with grace! Encourage them in the gospel and in how much Christ loves them. In fact, I think this is the most important part of accountability. The focus is not on how bad we are, but it is on how much we have been forgiven. It's not about our failures, but about Christ's victories!

7. Follow up

After accountability you may have to meet with people to follow up. Some people may need to get into a recovery program or get plugged in with a counselor. Other people might have tried to make the time all about them and will need to be asked to try to be more considerate of the other people trying to confess as well.

Accountability is not easy, especially if you are new to it. Also, taking the first step to begin accountability can be tough. It is countercultural to express where you fail and struggle. However, the Spirit uses our weakness (Rom. 8:26, 1 Cor. 1:25, 2 Cor. 11:30, Rom. 5:6) to glorify Christ—so guide your community as they mature as disciples and rest in the mercy of the gospel. —

Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy.  Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.

Multiplying Disciples in Bivocational Ministry

Bivocational ministry is a life many pastors find themselves in these days. Of course, it is not a new phenomenon among pastors. In the area that I live, there are many small rural churches that have been around for many years. Back when these churches were planted the pastors were bivocational, often farming besides preaching. For those pastors, being bivocational was not a choice instead of full-time vocational ministry, it was the norm and more or less required of those called to ministry. Today, there are still many pastors required to be bivocational because they live in a rural area, are church planters, or are pastoring a smaller church that couldn’t fully support them otherwise. Being bivocational is not the lesser calling. To be bivocational does not mean playing in the minors until God decides to send them up to the big leagues of full-time vocational ministry. I will confess that I held this view, though I would not have explicitly said it. Depending on what the “other” job is for bivocational pastors, it can be very easy to feel discontent and weighed down by the seemingly unimportant duties of what we incorrectly deem as our “secular” work. That’s good! Now we know how our entire congregation feels much of the time. When we view bivocational ministry as a lesser calling, we both belittle God’s explicit call on our lives and idolize full-time vocational ministry as something that will fix all our problems.

Work is hard, regardless of what it is that we do. We know this from our own experiences and because of the curse God spoke to Adam (Gen. 3:17-19). I have been bivocational for about seven years and I have friends that are also bivocational and friends that are in full-time vocational ministry. They all say that their work is hard. They all say there are days and seasons where they would like their situations to be different. Within the context of the hard work that all Christians do, pastor or not, we are still to be about the work of being a disciple of Jesus in, through, and by our vocations. A primary way that we do the work of being a disciple of Jesus is to make other disciples (Matt. 28:16-20). The New Testament gives many examples of disciples of Jesus that not only make new disciples, but make new disciples who make new disciples who make new disciples and on and on. The spread that took place stemming from the original twelve disciples is one example. There is a clear picture of multiplication that happens.

This process of multiplication can take place in the ministries of bivocational pastors both in their church work as well as in the supplemental work that they do. For bivocational pastors there are some distinct challenges and some real blessings that come from the work of multiplying disciples in both contexts in which they live and work.

Time

Full-time pastors have more margin in their schedules to be able to devote to meetings with people and, therefore, do the work of discipleship. Or do they? Do bivocational pastors really not have any time to disciple people? If you are bivocational, should you only look to preach and teach and leave the rest of the work to someone that has more time?

I think it comes back to redeeming the time that we have. We all have margin in our daily schedules; the challenge is whether we use it and how we use it. Everyone eats lunch, so there is anywhere from a half hour to an hour that could be used to meet with someone or make a phone call. Depending on what time work starts, other people in the congregation probably have to go to work too, so getting up a little earlier before work to meet is an option. Using the time in our commute to and from work for a phone call can be beneficial as well. These are all scenarios a bivocational pastor can use to connect with someone from his congregation in the midst of his work schedule. However, there is also a large pool of people at his workplace that need to and can be discipled.

The effort needed to disciple at work is less than one might think. A great example of how this is done is parenting. Parenting children is discipleship. The life of the parent is lived out with and in front of the children. The discipleship that occurs in parenting does not only consist of sitting down with the child to talk about their walk with Christ, although that happens.

Discipleship in parenting happens while the parent and the child are folding clothes, working in the yard, and so on. The same can be said for discipling coworkers. The little conversations on the way to a meeting, during a break or downtime, at the coffee pot are the primary avenues for discipling coworkers.

Reaching the multiplication stage at work requires a bit more organization and intentionality. This means setting some time aside to meet with fellow believers at work. I meet with a group of guys to do this very thing every other week at lunch. As one would do in the church, there should be an awareness of leaders and/or other strong Christians to develop. Once those folks are identified, then the process of making them into the second generation of disciples in that place begins. In Acts 14:23, Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in the churches on their way to Antioch in Syria and the same principle stands at work. We are not Paul and Barnabas and we are not appointing elders, but a similar work needs to take place for multiplication to happen. The development of leaders and the passing on of the responsibility for making disciples must take place so that disciples can be multiplied.

Purpose

A pitfall for many in bivocational ministry can be denying that they are bivocational. We can spend so much time pretending that our supplemental work is only temporary and that very soon God is going to give us that full-time gig. Our time in bivocational ministry may be our life’s calling or it may be only for a season. In any season of waiting on the Lord, there is work to be done while we wait. The sooner we realize we are indeed where we are for a purpose—and God sovereignly plans that purpose—the sooner we can be effective.

I look at God’s sovereign purpose in the time spent in bivocational ministry as a development of my gifts and laying down of my rights. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about all the rights that he has as an Apostle and a minister of the gospel. He immediately says that he does not take up those rights, but essentially lays them down for the sake of the gospel. “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 9:12b).

Like Paul, we who are bivocational (Paul was too by the way) are ministers of the gospel, who have the right to be taken care of through the ministering of the gospel. There is at least a partial surrender of those rights, whether it is by our volition or not, when we are bivocational. There was power that came from Paul’s laying down of his rights. There was an identification that Paul could have with others because he set aside these rights. “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings,” (1 Cor. 9:22b-23). One of the evident purposes of God in the calling to bivocational ministry is the ability to identify with those to whom we minister. There is both purpose and blessing in this identification, which serves as a foundation for the multiplication of disciples in our contexts.

Humility

The reality is that if we are bivocational we are probably not speaking at conferences, writing best-selling books, and garnering thousands of Twitter followers. Of course, our mistaken definitions of “making it” in ministry in relation to any of these measures are far different from God’s. The ministry work that is done bivocationally is probably mostly done in the shadows of public view. Ministering bivocationally can be humbling. You may be a church planter that celebrates when there are more than thirty people that show up for a Sunday service. Your greatest joy in ministry for a week may be a good conversation you have with a coworker. This is all very, very good for our souls.

The pitfall of parts of our Christian subculture is an issue, not only for our congregation, but for all those in ministry. There is the fanboy culture of authors, speakers, and podcasts. There are those that many have deemed celebrity pastor. When we are working in the trenches of bivocational ministry, we need not covet fame and fortune in ministry. Our placement in bivocational ministry may be a protection from our own prideful selves. It may be a season that God uses to refine us and humble us. It may be a time where we learn how to celebrate all the small ways that God works. Some of us simply may not have been able or may not ever be able to handle the platform of full-time ministry. God may be protecting us and those to whom we minister from what we would become on that platform. He may at the same time be preparing us.

Humility is one of the most attractive things about Jesus. Think about it, “He is God and he did what?!” You probably know Philippians 2:5-11, but I will remind you. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 2:5). The mind that Paul is talking about is that of humility, which he goes on to describe in the verses following. When we exhibit Christlike humility, people see the grandeur and beauty of Jesus. We could say that Jesus makes and multiplies disciples through us by showing himself in us. As God teaches us humility in bivocational ministry, people start to see glimpses of Christlikeness in us. The humility that God is teaching us is for our good and his glory. His glory is then magnified by the disciples that are made and multiplied through our lives and ministries.

Thankfully, God does not put us anywhere that he does not intend to put us. If we find ourselves in bivocational ministry, we can be encouraged that it is God who has put us there. It is not the B team and this is not our lot because of some shortcoming that we have. It is the particular vocation that the God of the universe has prepared us for and placed us in for such a time as this. We have the responsibility of multiplying ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ wherever we are. We have been given time to be redeemed and used for the kingdom. God has a Spirit-powered, Christ-exalting purpose for our vocations. In light of all this, we cannot help but seek humility in our hearts and in our actions as we embrace the challenges and receive the blessings of serving Christ.

—

Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

Men, Don’t Just Talk the Talk

If you were to read the hobbies section on my Facebook, you would notice I am into reading, blogging, and running. I do all those things almost every week. If you keep reading, however, you will notice it also says I like to work out, rock climb, and surf. While those things are listed, if I am honest, I haven’t done any of those activities in quite a while. Now, I can talk to you for hours about each of them. I know the lingo, but I don’t actually climb, surf, or workout anymore. So while I can talk the talk, I am not walking the walk.

Talking the Talk Without Walking the Walk

Often times a lot of churchgoers know how to talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk—especially those who have been around church for any length of time. They can talk all about the Bible and “churchy things” because they have been around it for most of their lives. However, when it comes to obeying all of Jesus’ commands (Matt. 28:20) they don’t do it. They aren’t walking the walk. Instead, they are just talking the talk.

Disciples of Jesus—those who have been regenerated by the Spirit, repented of their sins, and placed their faith in Jesus—not only talk about Scripture, they also allow it to guide their lives. They walk the walk.

Walking the walk is an everyday activity that involves us applying God’s Word to every area of our life. Family, work, play, and community involvement should all be informed by God’s Word. One major area is our families. God commands men to lead their families. Specifically, the husband is to be the leader and shepherd of their family flock.

Family Shepherding

Since we are to walk as Jesus walked, imitating him in all things, it is only right we look to Jesus for the “how to” of family shepherding (1 Jn. 2:6, Eph. 5:1, 1 Cor. 11:1). Let me offer you a few guiding principles to get you started.

First, we must know those we are shepherding. In John 10:14, Jesus tells us he is the Good Shepherd. After which, he tells us what the Good Shepherd does, namely, he knows his own.

Applying Jesus’ idea of the Good Shepherd to our own Christian walk means we have to know our families. The best way to get to know our family is to spend time with them. Family time doesn’t just occur because we are in the same room with them. It’s more involved than just being in close proximity. It requires us to engage them in conversation. Conversation that gets to know the heart of your family in an effort to draw out their interests, fears, and concerns. We cannot effectively draw out the hearts of our family if they have to compete with the television, Facebook, or our iPhones, so we have to disengage from our technology in order to engage with our family.

Second, we must protect our families from spiritual danger. Jesus tells us the Good Shepherd is willing to lay down his life for his sheep in order to protect them (Jn. 10:11-13). If we are going to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we must do the same.

In order to protect our family, we have to know their world. We have to be aware of what they are watching, reading, and their friends. Also, we must understand the culture in which they live and know how to combat its worldview with the gospel.

Lastly, we must instruct our families. During his earthly ministry, Jesus intimately instructed his disciples, teaching them how to both read and understand Scripture (Acts 1:3). We must do the same.

There is no one size fits all way to instruct our families. Some may choose nightly family devotions, other families may benefit from weekly Bible studies, and still others from discussing that weeks sermon over lunch. The method will differ from family to family, but the principle remains the same—men, who walk in Jesus’ footsteps, instruct their families in the Lord.

You see, being a believer means more than posting spiritual quotes or Bible verses to Facebook, knowing the lingo, or making a claim of faith. Being a believer means we live according to God’s will; it means we walk the walk. So it doesn’t matter what you say. What matters is what you do.

Gospel Change Causes Us To Walk the Walk

Now, I am not trying to frustrate you by telling you you have to work harder or that you have to produce change on your own. Change doesn’t occur solely through our effort. Instead change primarily occurs through the gospel. When the gospel pierces our heart of stone, it does something we could never do. It causes our heart—our will, desires, and wants to change. It’s that change which is necessary for us to walk the walk.

However, gospel change doesn’t mean all we have to do is believe and all of a sudden we are perfectly walking as Jesus walked. We must still put forth effort. We must still work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12) Even so, we can be assured that while we work, God is working in us, changing our will to be more in line with his (Phil. 2:13).

Since God changes us, we know change is possible. In fact, we will be changed into the restored image of Christ (1 Cor. 13:12). Put another way: if we are disciples, there is no way we won’t change to live more inline with God’s will throughout our Christian walk. We may hit some valleys along the way, but we will always be moving up the mountain. Since that is true, men, walk the walk, don't just talk the talk.

—

Casey Lewis currently serves as the Senior Pastor of Sycamore Baptist Church in Decatur, TX. He is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a husband, father, and a follower of Jesus Christ . He currently blogs at ChristianityMatters.com. Follow him on twitter: @caseylewis33

Exporting Love

The chief export of a local church should be love. Churches do many things, but the main thing we are to express to God, to one another, and to the world is supernatural love—because God is love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). Boil all Christian activity down to one word and it’s, simply, love.

Since our God is love, we are to be people who are known for love. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”(Jn. 13:34–35).

“God so loved the world that he gave us” Jesus (Jn. 3:16). And we love because he loved us first (1 Jn. 4:19). Love is the superstructure of the gospel. The cross of Christ is the supernova of God’s love for sinners. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

It’s Pretty Simple

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is—the greatest duty of God’s people, his reply: robust love for God and real love for others.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”(Mk. 12:30–31)

Love God. Love neighbor.

That’s Christianity.

It’s really not that complicated. Our pesky flesh just gets in the way.

We can try and contort Jesus’ words, like a good Pharisee, with questions, “Well, who is my neighbor? How should I love my neighbor?” Jesus makes it pretty clear. Love your neighbor like you love yourself. We are to have counter-cultural love for the culture—nothing less than loving our neighbors like we love ourselves.

And we are to have gospel-formed love for our brothers and sisters. “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). We are to do good to everyone, and especially those in the Church (Gal. 6:10).

This is a difficult way to live. But not impossible. This kind of love is not beyond the Kingdom of Christ. This is the Great Commandment, not the great impossibility. To walk in the Greatest Commandment requires great power, great ability—given from the Holy Spirit. What’s the first fruit of the Spirit again?

What Are We Exporting?

Our first priority is loving God. Always. Our chief task is not to put on a slick Sunday service, or to assimilate people into community groups, to serve the poor, to defend doctrine, to write books, to preach sermons—our first and greatest aim is love. (Then good works will follow.)

And if we aren’t careful, we can get caught up in the good things and forget the main, the best thing.

The church at Ephesus received a letter from Jesus, commending their sound doctrine—but rebuking their lack of love.

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” (Rev. 2:4–5)

Every church should take an assessment of their ministry manifest and ask, “What are we exporting?” What is our church churning out? More love or more or more pride? More gospel or more Oprahisms and Osteenifications?

Solid doctrine is a good thing. So important. But churches with stellar doctrinal statements die every day. Lampstand status requires love.

The Ephesians didn’t lose their love for Jesus and others because of sexual immorality, drugs, Netflix, or Jim Beam—it was the good things, overtime, that wore them down. Like the slo-mo drag of the ocean, they lost their bearing. Caught in the motions of Christianity and they were no longer caught up with the risen Christ.

Stay The Course

Let’s not assume we aren’t there, or that we aren’t a weekend away from being there.

• Does our church really love Jesus, the person? Or are we bored with him?
• Does our church really love one another? Or are we a lame event?
• Does our church really love the lost? Or are we a city in a bunker, instead of a city on a hill?

This is too vital to not consider. Where are we today?

Let’s stay the course. Let’s do the two firsts that Jesus mentioned to the Ephesians.

The love we had first. The works we did at first.

We never move on from there. There’s no advanced Christianity. This is it. Love for God, love for neighbor. Word and deed. Hear and do.

We remember Jesus; we get reignited by his volcanic love, and then we act accordingly. The Way. The Truth. The Life.

We love because he first loved us.

—

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.

Looking for Hope in a Better Person

You’re a night security guard and the only Christian on duty. Another guard suddenly sticks his head into your office. Pointing his finger he almost accuses, “You’re one of those ‘Christians,’ right?” Nothing good ever follows that question. No one gives you a high five, says “good job,” and goes about their business. They want to debate, challenge, or stump you. You hesitantly respond, “Yeah . . .” He crosses his arms, looks you square in the eye and then comes the challenge: “I do drugs. What would Jesus say about that?” How would you respond—in a way that might actually resonate?

Three Insufficient Responses

I’ve posed this scenario, which actually happened to a guy I know named Nick, in trainings around the country. No matter where I am, I hear these responses,

“Um, I Don’t Know Exactly”

For some, our gut response would be to look down, stammer, and ashamedly admit we don’t know what Jesus would say. Maybe it’s the outlandish honesty or the shock of a challenge at 2 a.m. Perhaps we have a hard time putting Jesus’ response into words. Or our people-pleaser kicks in and we simply can’t tell him the core of what we believe. A common response to this question is a blank stare. Put yourself in the shoes of the asker: “I don’t know” looks like ignorance.

“He’d tell you to stop”

For others, the answer would stem from the moralistic, humanist culture we grew up in. Our answer is some form of Bob Newhart’s MADtv sketch: a counselee admits a number of struggles, while Newhart “counsels” each with a blunt, “Stop it!” Even if we intellectually know Jesus is our savior, we function as if He is a good guy with ethical advice. Maybe we advise a few “good works.” Perhaps we appeal to legality (“you’ll get arrested”), personal welfare (“it might kill you”), heartstrings (“if you get arrested, can you imagine how your family will feel?”), or moralism (“you know it’s wrong”). It could be that we even quote a verse: “He’d say ‘you shall have no other gods before me’; that’s the first commandment.” Put yourself in the asker’s shoes again: “‘Stop it’” fits a view of God many already assume: a rule-giving, demanding, and impersonal deity.

“He died for your sin so you can be with Him in heaven”

A final common response acknowledges their need for the gospel. Maybe you’ve been praying for this guard. You’re elated that God finally opened the door. So you gush the gospel many of us know well. “He’d tell you that God is perfect and heaven is perfect, but because of sin, you’re not perfect. God sent Jesus to die for your sin so you can be reconciled to God and live eternal life with Him. If you accept Jesus He’ll forgive your sin of drugs.” This is true—and praise God it is! But if he’s ignoring God, he doesn’t care about heaven. If he’s like much of the world, he doesn’t believe he’s too bad a person. If he’s a common American, it’s likely he doesn’t fully understand sin or his need for Jesus. Even the objective, big-picture gospel is not a sufficient answer.

“Like Children, Tossed To And Fro . . .”

These responses fail to get to the heart of our faith. The first is empty. the second is moralistic. The third sees the gospel as merely a past event that greatly benefits my future, but that has nothing to do with today. Many who question the gospel need to know how it applies to them in their current situation. Behind the challenging question is a heart in need of applicable truth.

Futile attempts like these are not unique to our culture. Writing to first-century Ephesus, Paul explains the goal of Christian life is maturity, then gives three ways we cannot attain that goal: “every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” First, exclusively pursuing doctrinal trends, teachers, or head-knowledge of the Bible isn’t enough. Second, we will always be let down by relying on our own power, to make new rules and fix each other. Third, false teachers deceive, spouting false hope and false ways to solve real issues.

But these are ways we often answer many questions, not just the 2 a.m. drug challenge. “How can God redeem my broken marriage?” “I’m so angry at my boss, what do I do?” “We just want a baby.” “How do these verses or commands apply to me?” “Where is God in this (recent tragedy)?” We answer, “I don’t know” (and if you’re really good, “. . . but I’ll pray for you.”) “Let me give you a great book on that.” “Let’s meet every week for accountability.” “Do these three things or steps.” “You just need to trust Jesus.” “One day, all this will be better.”

Applying An Objective Gospel To Subjective Situations

None of these, Paul would say, are sufficient for faith or maturity. He even calls answers like this childlike. Answers like these miss one of the great blessings of the gospel. It is a past event, both historically and personally for every Christian. It does give future hope, for personal reconciliation and the renewal of all things. But it also impacts every moment of our present lives. The gospel means something, to everyone, everyday, for every situation, whether they know it or not. Paul says that while those other ways fail, the one way to grow in Christ is to “speak the truth in love.”

This is why we listen well; why we learn stories. Within every complaint, struggle, and idol hides an opportunity to speak the objective truth of the gospel into someone’s subjective circumstance. Jeff Vanderstelt offers four areas to listen for, in every story, frustration, and situation, where we can intervene and point people toward Jesus:

• Identity: Who or what shapes their understanding of themselves? Where do they find personal value and worth?
• Brokenness: Where are things “different” than they’re supposed to be? What are areas of pain, hurt, and frustration? Who or what’s to blame?
• Redemption: What or who do they look to, to fix the brokenness? What or who makes everything right? What or who’s their functional redeemer?
• Hope: What does “right” look like? What would everything look like once everything is fixed? What or who is the center of that hope?

When we identify false identity or hope in someone’s life, see a misplaced view of brokenness, or hear the letdown of a false redeemer, we can point them toward a better story. We lead them to an identity and hope in God, not anything or anyone else. We define sin as the true brokenness, not any other problem. We point to Jesus as the only true Redeemer in the midst of the siren calls of false saviors. That loves them well, and speaks gospel truth in a way that addresses a direct need.

How Would You Respond?

“I do drugs. What would Jesus say about that?” Based on today’s content, how do we answer that question? What deeper need do the drugs really cover? What true struggle is he admitting? Put yourself in Nick’s shoes: how does the objective gospel apply to the guard’s subjective situation?

After thinking for a moment, Nick responded, “I think Jesus would tell you you’re looking for hope in a place that lets you down. And you know it lets you down because you have to take a hit three times a day. So I think Jesus would tell you He’s a better place to put your hope, because He promises He’ll never let you down.” Nick spoke the gospel truth into the basis of the guard’s personal hope. In thousands of years of history, sixty-six written books, and millions of lives across history, God has proven that Jesus is our greatest hope. The guard didn’t fall on his knees weeping that night. God didn’t redeem his soul in that office. But he uncrossed his arms, shook his head, and told Nick, “No one has ever told me that before. That actually makes a lot of sense.” That night, the guard walked having heard the gospel in a way that resonated with his present life and need.

—

Ben Connelly, his wife Jess, and their daughters Charlotte and Maggie live in Fort Worth, TX. He started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts29 network and Soma family of churches. Ben is also co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers, 2014). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ben teaches public speaking at TCU, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country, and blogs in spurts at benconnelly.net. Twitter: @connellyben.

(Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from A Field Guide for Everyday Mission by Ben Connelly & Bob Roberts Jr. available from Moody Publishers starting June 2014. It appears here with the permission of the author and publisher. For free resources and preorders, visit everydaymission.net.)

Grieving Well

Crisis struck our church body suddenly and without warning. One of our staff members gave birth to her fourth child, only to have that sweet, little life end just a few days later. This sudden loss came as a surprise to everyone. Many in our church body mobilized to surround this family with prayer, meals, and whatever kind of support we could think to provide. My husband and I, who have also suffered the death of a newborn, were uniquely positioned to come alongside this couple with the empathy that is only bought through similar suffering. As we spent time with this couple and their children, we hoped we might bring them some comfort. We also hoped we might be able to help them grieve well. As my husband assisted with planning the graveside memorial service for little Lucy, he asked me if I might be willing to speak at the service, sharing what I learned through our loss. Even though we lost our daughter fifteen years ago, the lessons are still fresh and real. I agreed. Through our loss and subsequent suffering, I learned two valuable truths about God and in that process learned how to grieve well. I share these deeply-learned lessons here so that they will encourage those who grieve as well as those who are called to grieve alongside someone else.

God is God

The first truth I learned through our loss is that God is God. Sounds fairly straightforward, but it’s a difficult truth to grasp in the middle of suffering. When we lost our daughter as a stillbirth, many well-meaning people said many unhelpful things. One person gave us a book that tried to reconcile God’s sovereignty with personal loss and suffering. I took away from that unfortunate gift that God did not have anything to do with my baby’s death. This attempt at comfort ultimately proved flimsy and unsustainable. God didn’t have anything to do with this? Well then, if that’s the case, God might be love, but he is not God.

That interpretation of my suffering wasn’t good enough for me. I couldn’t believe that God had his hands tied and that this loss happened totally outside his jurisdiction. I began to search the Scriptures on my own and pray, begging God to help me make sense of it all. He led me to 1 Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” Studying that verse along with many other passages describing God’s sovereignty led me to this conclusion—God had everything to do with my daughter’s death. He is God. He is absolutely in charge. I can trust this loss didn’t happen apart from him. He allowed her to die for reasons known only to him, because only he is God. He is the one with the mighty hand. My job is to humble myself under it.

God Cares

Left by itself, however, the truth that God is God (and we are not) can leave us feeling resigned at best and bitter at worst. “Great,” we think, “God is God. Where is the comfort in that?” Thankfully, the second truth about God comes fast on the heels of the first. The next verse in 1 Peter 5 tells us “Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” God is God, yes. But he is a God who cares for me more than I can ever imagine. That truth is a game-changer. That means that not only can I trust his sovereignty, but I can also trust his character. Because he cares for me, he will never, can never, act in a way contrary to his character. I can trust him to always, always act in a way that is loving. So as I humble myself under his hand, I can relax. This is a good hand I am under. I can trust him.

Learning to Grieve Well

Armed with those two truths about God, I found myself in the position to grieve well. I crawled under the mighty hand of God and stayed there. Though at times tempted to blame a decision made by myself or a doctor, I received the grace to reject that temptation and stay put. “God is God,” I reminded myself. “It is his loving and caring hand I am under.” I also resisted the temptation to run. Escape by numbing myself with food or movies or prescription medication or whatever proved fruitless. I chose to stay under the hand of God and trusted him to lift me up whenever he was ready.

I crouched low, and really, really grieved. I let the emotions come and I let them out. I cried to God and yelled to God and clung to God all at the same time. That’s what you can do with a God who cares. I cast all my anxieties on him like Peter told me to . . .  again and again, throwing in my fears and despair and anguish as well. God took it all. And still I stayed there, crouched low. Grieving. Waiting.

Once my tears began to dry a little, God began to lift me up over the following weeks and months, just as he said he would. I have found as the years have passed since then that during that time I was able to grieve well and fully. I didn’t run from it, but fully gave into it, trusting God throughout the process. There have been other opportunities to grieve since then that I have not handled as well, so I know the difference. That time God gave me the grace to do it well. I humbled myself under God’s hand and trusted him to lift me up. I cast all my anxiety on him, knowing that he cares for me.

The Gift

My husband and I discovered something precious during that difficult time of loss and grief. As we crouched there under his hand, God gave us something irreplaceable: the gift of himself. That could potentially sound cliché until you experience the presence of God in the middle of grief. When our daughter died, I felt the presence of God fill our hospital room in a powerful, almost tangible way. I literally thought about trying to reach out and touch something that I could feel, but couldn’t see. He was that real, that present. We have experienced the deaths of others that we love since that time without that same visceral experience. That’s how I know it was a gift. “God is near to the brokenhearted” (Ps. 34:18), and we, in our broken state, experienced the gift of his nearness that day. Experiencing God’s nearness set us up to grieve well. We knew he was God. And we knew we could trust him.

Grieve Well

If you’re in the middle of grieving, I hope these words point you to the one who is in charge of everything, including your loss and your mind-blowing grief. I encourage you to humble yourself and crawl under the hand of God. Crouch there and grieve well. Let it all out. Trust him to lift you up. While you’re there, cast all your anxiety on him, along with your fear and grief and anger and tears. He cares so much for you. My prayer is that, as you draw near and remain close to him, that he will draw near to you and gift you with his presence. There is no greater gift.

And if you’re called to come alongside someone who is grieving, I hope these words give you some direction in how to speak life-giving truth them. Truth that is sturdy, sustaining, and healing: God is God. He is absolutely in charge, which means you are not suffering randomly or meaninglessly. He has you under the palm of his mighty, protective hand. Remember, though, that you can trust him because he cares for you more than you could ever imagine. His purposes toward you are always love. So stay there. Crouch low. Grieve well. And trust him to lift you up when the time is right. He will be faithful to his word to do this. And you will walk away stronger, blessed with the irreplaceable gift of his presence.

—

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.

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.

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Pastoring

There are two common dangers in pastoral ministry and Paul is alert to both of them. They are what we might call over-pastoring and under-pastoring. Over-pastoring is what happens when a leader or leaders exercise too much control in the life of the church. They are quick to suppress any dissent and may even end up bullying people. They often personalize issues. Suggestions for change or criticism are responded to in a personal way with counter-accusations. The unconscious aim of such leaders is personal control rather than the maturity of the congregation. This is why Paul says an elder must not be “over-bearing, not quick-tempered” (1:7).

Under-pastoring is what happens when a leader or leaders exercise too little leadership within a congregation. They avoid confrontation, so they fail to correct false teachers or challenge ungodly living. They may be good at encouraging people, but weak at rebuking those in error If the aim of those who over-pastor is personal control, the aim of leaders who under-pastor is personal comfort. They want a quiet life. But Paul says an elder must “refute those who oppose” the gospel (v. 9) and tells Titus that “rebellious people . . . must be silenced” (v 10-11).

You may not be in leadership. But, as we shall see in Titus 2, we are all called to pastor one another in the church. So we can all have a tendency to over-pastor or under-pastor.

If you think you have a tendency toward over-pastoring or under-pastoring, then the key is not simply to modify your style. The key is to “hold firm to the trustworthy message as it has been taught” (v 9). This is why holding firmly to the gospel is so important.

Why Under- or Over-Pastor?

What is it that drives someone to over-pastor? Proverbs 4:23 says: “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (NLT). In others words, what shapes our behavior is the thoughts and desires of our hearts (Marks 7:20-23). Our behavior goes wrong when our thinking about God and desires for God are misaligned. People over-pastor because they want to feel they are in control, or they are trying to prove themselves through their ministry. They have not embraced the truth that God is great and he is in control; or they have not embraced the truth that God is gracious and their identity is found in Christ. They may believe these truths in theory, but they do not hold them firmly in their hearts—and this is revealed in moments of pressure.

What is it that drives someone to under-pastor? People under-pastor because they fear the rejection of other people or crave their approval or they want to be liked (what the Bible calls the “fear of man,” Proverbs 29:25). Or they may under-pastor because they want a comfortable life, so they avoid the hard things involved in leadership. They have not embraced the truth that God is the glorious One, who should be feared. Their fear of man is not being eclipses by the fear of God. Or they have not embraced the truth that the God is good. True and lasting joy is found in him—even in the midst of hard situations.

Leaders need to disciple themselves with the gospel before they can disciples others. That does not mean they need to be perfect—progress rather than perfection is what is required (1 Timothy 4:15). But leaders do need to apply the gospel to their own hearts—otherwise they will be like the hypocrites of whom Jesus warns, who try to take specks out of people’s eyes when they have planks in their own eyes (Matthew 7:1-5).

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Tim Chester (PhD, University of Wales) is pastor of the Crowded House in Sheffield, United Kingdom, and director of the Porterbrook Institute, which provides integrated theological and missional training for church leaders. Chester also coauthored Total Church (Re:Lit), Everyday Church (Re:Lit), and has written more than a dozen books.

Excerpt taken from Tim Chester, Titus for You, The Good Book Company, ©2014. Used by permission. http://www.thegoodbook.com/

Prioritizing Church Attendance

Let’s just face the facts. Today, many Christians do not think attending church is that important. In the past, Christians believed that actively being a part of a church body was absolutely necessary to one’s faith. There used to be an understanding in Christian families that unless one was deathly ill or there was a family emergency, you just never ever missed church. So what has changed and caused so many people to view the church as a disposable good instead of as an intricate part of one’s spiritual life?

Why We Don’t Attend Church: A 40-Hour a week job, but no time for God

Pastor Kevin DeYoung is right. Our lives really are “crazy busy.” There is no doubt about it. Whether you are a college student, a newly-wed couple, or have a family of seven, we live in a day and age where the mentality is simply: go, go, go! This is one of the main reasons why church attendance is viewed as optional. Most people work 40-hour a week jobs in the United States, and so once the weekend hits the mindset of rest and recovery sets in. Trust me, I get it. Everybody wants some downtime. But why do we think that rest and recovery should take place outside of the confines of the house of God?

Recently, Trevin Wax wrote an article titled: “Are You A Part-Time Church Goer? You May Be Surprised.” Wax explains various reasons why people miss church in today’s society. There are 52 Sundays a year. If you only attend 25-30 Sunday services, you are a part-time church goer. Congratulations!

Do you recognize what is clearly wrong with this? Our jobs, which of course we must have to be able to support ourselves and our families, are seen as absolute necessities, while church attendance is simply seen as a dispensable activity. Brothers and sisters, this is not how it should be. Of course, the mindset of just attending church, getting your church attendance ticket punched, is absolutely wrong as well. Pastors and church leaders should preach against this mentality as well. However, think about this for a second. Just like you gather with your biological family, shouldn’t you also desire to gather with your spiritual family?

Why We Need The Church: A Biblical Case

I know the arguments that are going to be raised about what I have said thus far. People are going to say: “Does he really believe that attending a local church, going to its building, and doing this once or twice a week is what the Bible is suggesting?” Well yes and no. Kevin DeYoung explains, “I know we are the church and don’t go to church (blah, blah, blah), but being persnickety about our language doesn’t change the exhortation of Hebrews 10:25.” I couldn’t agree more.

Fellowship with your spiritual family is a sign of maturing in the faith as a disciple. Hebrews 10:25 says, “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Have we really become so “new-agey” in our thought that we now think that we have matured past the need to attend church? Lord, let it not be so.

Gospel-Motivated Church Attendance

There is no doubt that what we need to recover in the life of Christians today is a gospel-motivated church attendance. What might this look like? Well, in my opinion its demonstrating the fact that when the church gathers on the Lord’s day, she proclaims the gospel, meditates on the gospel, and rehearses the gospel. By doing this, lives will begin to fundamentally change. It really is just that simple.

When the gospel is at the center our focus shifts. We no longer view church attendance as something we just need to check off, but as an intricate part of our spiritual lives. Instead of serving the god of individuality, we will be serving the God of Scripture. The gospel changes everything. However, we must first let the gospel change our low views of the church, and recognize that the house of the Lord is absolutely vital to the Christian life—to the life of a mature disciple. Should not the good news of Jesus Christ dying for our sins motivate us enough to enter into God’s house on Sundays? I would say so.

We are all at different points in our spiritual walks with the Lord. No matter what point you are at on your journey, I hope that you will come to see the importance of attending church. Do not be so narcissistic and self-consumed to think that you do not need the body of Christ. That is simply a sign of spiritual immaturity and a straight-up lie from the Devil.

I am not trying to guilt anyone into attending church regularly either. However, I am issuing a challenge to those who consider themselves Christians. If you consider yourself to be a part of the bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7-9, 21:2), tell me why would you separate yourself from the body of Christ (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17)? Logically, that makes no sense at all.

So Christians, live in light of the fact that you have been redeemed and do not have to earn your acceptance before God through your church attendance. The community of Christ needs you because it cannot function without all of its body parts. This is not condemnation, but rather an exhortation. Attending church is a blessing that should not be taken for granted.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.