Mission New England (Part 2)

Josh Cousineau is church planter of Redemption Hill, located in Auburn, Maine, and core team member of the Gospel Alliance New England. He enjoys spending time with his high school sweetheart – now his bride since 2002 – and their three children. Josh blogs at JoshCousineau.com.  

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In my first post I talked a little bit about the culture of the Northeast, especially New England. In this post I wanted to put forth a couple thoughts on the 'how' of mission. The question begs to be asked, 'If people do not know their need for a Savior, how do you reach them?' The short and simple is that it has to be a work of the Spirit. If He is not living and active in New England, or anywhere for that matter, then there is no hope and no point to our efforts. But the glorious truth is that the Spirit is at work, especially in the hearts of those who do not know they even have a need for Him.

Preach Jesus - The number one thing our churches must do in any culture, especially one who doesn't know anything about Jesus, is to preach the real Jesus. We need to stay far away from the 'your best life now' Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible will be the only one who can reveal people's need for healing from the brokenness that is this world.

Preach Truth - We need to not waver or wallow in our view of firm Biblical doctrine. Many people will 'water down' things that are clear in the Bible under the name of 'reaching out' to the lost. While this could be considered noble, it misses the point. What is needed in a world full of people who claim truth, is a people who's lives point to an ultimate, life-changing truth.

Be Real - Fakeness has struck many blows to the church. What is needed now is not more hypocrisy, but transparency. People need to hear about how we have failed, how we have messed up, how we have been about us or about an agenda and not about what Jesus was about. We need to confess our sins to those in our midst and show them how we turn to Jesus! Only in our real, brokenness will the world be freed to be broken.

Be Normal - All those things listed above are not to be done on Sunday during an hour-long service, but in our daily, normal lives. We need to be real at our 9-5, when we drop our children off at day-care or school, when we go on a date with our spouse, or sit and play catch at the local park. We also need to preach truth in our dealings with our boss and co-workers. We need to show that the truth we believe in is not simply a good, morally upright set of beliefs, but something that has changed us from the inside out. We need to be people that will hold firm to the truth of the Scriptures and be willing to take it on chin if need be.

Church in New England will never penetrate the culture by meeting for an hour each week, even if it is the greatest show in town. What we will do when we have the greatest show in town is draw people away from the other shows and have them join ours. This drawing is not true conversion, but transplant growth. No matter how great our show is, people that are not interested in watching the show will never attend.

Think of it this way. I don't play disk golf. So if a new course was to open and be the best in town, or even the region, or the world, it would not entice me in the least to go try my hand at it. The most it will do is draw people from the other 3 or 4 disk golf courses around my area. This makes total sense in the setting of something we do not like to do, or care to do. Yet we are baffled when we try it with church and it doesn't work. Here is the reason; you and I love the church. If you are spending time reading this blog, then you love the church. You are the disk golfer who is at the ribbon cutting for the new course. Just replace 'disk golf' with church, and you get the picture.

Yet we, in New England, live in a world that couldn't care less about church, so no matter how much we tell them it is amazing in our advertising, or no matter how 'cutting edge' we think we are, the only people wowed by it are those who are already playing church.

This is where things need to change. We need to take Ephesians 4 and live it out. We need to be pastors and ministers who equip our people to preach Jesus, be real, and stand firm on the truth of what Jesus has done for them.

(Photo courtesy: TGC)

Mission New England (Part 1)

Josh Cousineau is church planter of Redemption Hill, located in Auburn, Maine, and core team member of the Gospel Alliance New England. He enjoys spending time with his high school sweetheart – now his bride since 2002 – and their three children. Josh blogs at JoshCousineau.com.  

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I have heard stories about people who live in the Bible Belt and how everyone down there is a 'Christian.' I have visited the South and been blown away by how many church buildings there are, and how big they are. I grew up in the Northeast and this is my home. I love it, but it is a little (ok a lot) different than what I hear the South is like.

I remember one trip to Alabama where I met with a Southern Baptist pastor for breakfast. When we were at the local breakfast joint, he started to pray for our food. There was nothing special about his prayer, nothing that stood out to me as unusual. During the prayer the waitress came to the table. Now, I don't know if you are like me, but this seems to happen often when I am out with my family or friends for a meal. We pray and almost like clockwork, the waiter or waitress walks up to see how our food is. This is what stood out to me. Not that she walked towards us during our prayer; that was normal. The strange thing was that the waitress stood about five feet from the table, bowed her head, and waited for us to be done praying. This would never happen where I live. More often than not they just walk up and ask you their question. It is not that they are intentionally interrupting your time of prayer, it is that they don't even know or notice what you are doing. In the Northeast, people don't pray before meals.

It is not that those who serve us in the Northeast are slow to notice that we are eating and those in the South are that quick. It is that the thought of praying before a meal is not normal to those who call the Northeast home. Not only do people not pray before meals, but the 'Christian-culture' that so many of us have grown up in and are used to, is non-existent in the majority of people's daily lives.

Gospel-Depleted Culture

To say that we (those who live in the Northeast, especially New England) are in the midst of a gospel-depleted culture would be an understatement. I could throw around statistics about how dry it is up here, but who really cares about statistics. I would much rather talk about real life stories of real people, with a real eternity looming on their horizon. I could point to a local coffee shop where the people who work there are all about spirituality, but this spirituality has nothing to do with biblical worldview. It is actually fully opposed to those beliefs. I could talk about a guy who told me he could not believe in a church that has rooms full of gold and does not care about the poor or the down and out. I am not sure, but my church doesn't have rooms full of gold. The church he was talking about is the Vatican. His view of Christianly and the Church is based only off of what he knows about the Roman Catholic church, not my little church plant, or any other church I know of. I could tell story after story about students, parents, and teachers who do not see an issue with premarital sex, as long as you use protection.

In the Northeast, Christian is more likely to be found on the lips of someone making a derogatory comment, than someone talking about the hope which they live their lives by. Jesus is about as far back in people's minds as who won the medal count in the 2008 Olympics. Not only do the vast majority of people not know about Jesus, they don't even care that they don't know about Him. It is not relevant for them, so therefore there is no need.  See, it is not that they have turned their backs on the family religion, or let their parents down by bailing on the Easter service this year, or the Thanksgiving Eve prayer service. Their parents probably didn't go to church much in the first place, so they don't really care. You would have to go back to grandma, or even great-grandma before you would find someone who actually had a 'Christian-Rhythm' to their life. This is just how life is, and there is nothing one can do about it.

There is Hope

In the midst of this darkness, I find hope. The pastors I talk to have a joyful expectancy upon their lips. Student ministers are eager to pour their lives out for the next generation. To be honest I would rather work with people who don't have a care in the world about God, the Bible, the Church, or Jesus. Because what I find is when these people come face-to-face with the gospel, it changes everything. They are more like the prodigal son who 'comes to his sense (Lk. 15.17 NIV) that living as a servant with his father is better than the life he has now, eating pig slops, than the elder brother who sits by ticked that his sinner brother got back into the family (Lk. 15.28).

No matter if the waitress comprehends that people will pray before a meal or not, the gospel is still the same. That is our only hope. Not that she would see us praying and think, 'oh, I need to be considerate and wait.' No, our only hope is that Jesus is in the business of bringing people to Himself, lost, sick people. People who don't know they are lost or sick. People who think they have it all together. This is what Jesus came to do, and as a pastor and missionary, this is what I cling to. Jesus came to save the sinners.

(Photo courtesy: TGC)

The Love of Our Father

I love the mornings when my boy Ezra wakes up and he just wants to snuggle. He is a year and a half old, twenty some pounds of dynamite and energy. He seldom wants to snuggle. But some mornings he does. I love getting to hold my son and telling him I love him.

And I do love him. I adore him. I am crazy about him and love being his daddy. And he adores me. He loves to wrestle, play, and tell me about the “capuchin” monkeys at the zoo. And he loves to cheer on his daddy. One day I was beating my friend Dustin at backyard soccer, and Ezra was on the trampoline jumping and watching. After I scored an epic goal, Ezra ran to the edge of the trampoline and put out his arms. I ran over to him thinking he wanted down. Instead he just wanted to give me a hug and yell, “Go Daddy!” It was awesome.

I remember the first night I brought Ezra home and it felt like my heart had exploded. I wept with joy and love. Lindsey and I both felt like Will Ferrell in Elf after his first date with Zoey Deschanel. All we could say was, “I am in love, I am in love, and I don’t care who knows it.”

ABBA FATHER – DADDY GOD

Ezra and I have a real relationship. I am his daddy, and he is my boy. That means something. It is a gift, and it is a blessing. Some will read this and be sad they don’t have kids, and some might read this and be sad they had a crappy dad or no dad at all. That is sad and is part of the curse of the fall. We were created to love and be loved. Sin has come into the world and separated us from God and one another. Sin is a relationship destroyer. But God is love. Christ proves his love for us through his death on the cross, and brings us back into perfect relationship back with our heavenly Father.

Our God is a Daddy. He reveals himself as Abba Father. One whose arms we can rest in. One whom we can watch, adore and, cheer on. And he loves us too. We are his beloved children. His kids. His girl. His boy.

GOD’S COVENANTAL LOVE

One of the things I told Ezra when he was born was that he never has to work for my love. That I love him with a covenantal love. I choose to love him forever. It is a love that is not based on his performance. This is the love our Father loves us with. It is an everlasting covenant.

He chooses us, adopts us, creates the way for us to be in his family forever, and loves us in spite of our performance and rebellion. This is a love we do not deserve, and it is a powerful and perfect love. He is not ashamed to love us as he loves us and doesn’t care who knows it!

It can be so easy to forget this covenantal love when you feel the weight of trying to perform — trying to prove yourself to the world and to others and ultimately to God. I remember feeling this way not to long ago. I can often slip into this feeling, and it is heavy and exhausting. One day, I was feeling this weight and some friends prayed over me. One of them had a vision of God looking at me and saying – “I love you. You are my boy. Rest, Jake. The Father loves you. You don’t have to perform, as I am already here with you.” I wept under the freedom of these powerful and loving words. My God is a relational God. He is a Daddy that loves me. And I get to run to him, hug him, and cheer him on – “Go Daddy!”

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?

Knowing our Father helps us know who we are. As Christians we are sons and daughters of a holy and perfect Father. We are not alone. We belong to a heavenly family and will live together for eternity. We don’t have to take on life’s pain and struggles like a cowboy in a Clint Eastwood movie, but instead we get to share our  triumphs and trials as a church praying together to “our Father who art in heaven.”

If you are feeling the weight of loneliness or the pressure to prove yourself, I want to encourage you to confess it to God and to your church family. I want to encourage you to run to your Father’s arms and let him embrace you and tell you the truth of his love for you. Praise and thank him that you are not alone and that you don’t have to perform for his love. Tell some of your church friends to remind you of these truths — that you have a perfect daddy. Rest in this beautiful truth and when the world asks you why you have such peace and rest in a chaotic world, point them to your loving Father!

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Jake Chambers is a member of Jesus’ bride - the church, husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to his boy Ezra. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring. You can read more of his writing at reddoorlife.tv.

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For more in-depth reading about family discipleship, see Family Worship, by Winfield Bevins. 

For more free articles about loving our children with the love of the Father, check out Ways to Love Your Children, by Patrick Morley, and Kids in the Family of God – Part One and Kids in the Family of God – Part Two, by Ben Connelly. 

Kony 2012, Sex-Trafficking, and the Christian Response to Justice Issues

I’m not sure there’s a more amazing piece of storytelling than the Kony 2012 video. It’s worth the 30 minutes as long as you are prepared to cry, be angry, and get fired up. [WATCH: KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo]

As I’ve spoken with a few people about the Kony video and how Christians should respond, I’m struck by a few thoughts.

There is so much brokenness in the world, how can you ever identify where to get involved? It seems that various winds of doctrine have been joined by various winds of mercy and justice initiatives. Paul obviously has negative connotations for the winds of doctrines and it is rare, though not unheard of, to have heretical justice initiatives. Nevertheless, being tossed about by doctrines or justice opportunities can make us completely ineffective if we do not assess ourselves before jumping in.

Every day we are confronted with a terrible issue in our world, whether it be sex-trafficking locally and globally, the Invisible Children, the global orphan crisis, racial inequality, and global poverty. Every time we see a new issue we could jump at the need to get involved but constantly be shifting our focus.

Living in New York City with 8.5 million people, it is easy to both see and be overwhelmed by the need. How should we respond? How should we approach involvement? Are we supposed to be involved in every justice issue? How does the church or the individual Christian approach these initiatives?

The Gospel Motivates and Empowers us to Mercy and Justice

Imagine pockets of people giving themselves to seeing brokenness restored, injustice ended, and local/global issues resolved. This is not our creation of the church, this is Jesus’ vision and mission for the church. We are inspired by these issues because we were created to embody our God’s character toward these issues. When we engage the brokenness of the world we are reminded of God the Father who sent Jesus, publicly declaring His passion in action to initiate the end of brokenness, suffering, and ills caused by the selfish desires that live inside of us. (Ed Stetzer has some good scriptural evidence for us)

Christian faith gives us a view towards the Kingdom of God where Jesus is King and eliminates all tears, pain, and injustice. There is no greater motivation or means of empowerment.

It also means we have responsibility. None of us can stand on the sideline and avoid issues of justice and needs for mercy. We must engage and we must do so led by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Don’t Just “Like” Everything - Settle On and Do Something

Now that Facebook is integrated into everything in the world, I am guily of hitting the “Like” button and settling into armchair advocate of a cause. Causes aren’t changed simply by web-interaction. It helps with exposing people to ideas, making an idea viral, but personal involvement and engagement of the issue is what rallies people to a cause. So choose a cause and focus on it.

Get Informed Beyond a Moving Video

Joe Boyd had a great article about a Christian response moving beyond emotive acceptance to informed action. Storytelling is powerful, so we must be careful to not enter an issue naively assuming we know the simple solution to an often complex reality.

Invest Deep More Than Wide

Real change happens over a generation. The moving video of Kony 2012 was a decade just in the making and could be a decade in accomplishment.

A sustaining impact comes from commitment to the idea which requires that we move our excitement and emotions to lifestyle-changing action.

The diversity of the body of Christ allows for us to find peace in addressing deeply a few issues rather than addressing broadly every issue on a surface level. We need to encourage people to develop discernment in line with their gifts, talent, and passions to mobilize more people for more issues.

These types of movements make me excited about heaven where we will get to celebrate Jesus’ destruction of injustice. I can’t wait.

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Cross-posted from Logan's personal blog.

Gospel Discipline

My oldest daughter is made in her father’s image. She has my personality — good and bad. Maybe that’s why I get frustrated so easily with her. My knee jerk reaction is to respond swiftly and often in anger. So much of what frustrates me is more about my own hurt pride than anything else. We’ve all been in the store where the child is screaming - whether it’s your child or not. It’s easy as a parent to grit your teeth and smile and say something like “When we get home, you’re gonna get it!” and rush out of the store.

However, it’s much harder but much more beneficial for parents and children to patiently and loving discipline while using that as opportunity to share the gospel with our children. What’s even more important is what we do in the days and weeks and months leading up to these incidents. Those moments will impact our response and the discipline we give out.

I don’t have all the answers for disciplining children, but the gospel empowers us to patiently and loving use those moments and informs how we must disciple our children.

Foundational: The Gospel for All of Life

The gospel must inform all of our family life. Being Christian in name only must not be tolerated in our churches, families, and communities. We must not compartmentalize our lives. The death and resurrection of Christ is a dramatic climax in the one Story and that singular event should reverberate through out our own story. Moses understood something about this. God had just dramatically displayed his power and glory by delivering his people out of their slavery in Egypt. He then commanded them:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. - Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Your knee jerk reaction may be that’s Old Testament. But the story of Israel’s redemption out of Egypt is meant as a type of our own redemption (for more development on this theme read Mike Wilkerson’s Redemption or Tom Holland’s Contours of Pauline Theology). More importantly Deuteronomy is a packed full of gospel truth. Darrel Bock in his Deuteronomy NIVAC calls the book "the gospel according to Moses." Through Moses, God commands parents to rehearse his covenant faithfulness in redeeming his people from Egypt to their children. Likewise, we must rehearse the covenant faithfulness of God in redeeming the church by the blood of Christ.

This habit must be foundational for our family. The gospel story should saturate our family’s interactions - when we’re walking, hiking, eating, driving, helping with homework, and disciplining. It’s this foundational gospeling which allows us to weave our children’s story - both before their salvation and after - into the one Story.

Before their salvation we speak of the covenant faithfulness of God in Christ. We share our stories and give testimony of the power of God to save. We speak boldly about our former condition as those dead in our sins and the new life and power we have in Christ. We share that we are united with him - adopted as sons and daughter. We do not strive for peace and right-standing with God. He has justified us. We now live out of gratitude and joy by the power of the Spirit pursuing the holiness, which is ours in Christ.

We can also echo the one Story in the way we interact with our children in other ways. For instance, my older daughter’s birthday just passed, and we promised her we would go to the aquarium. She asked us many times in the days leading up to our trip if we were really going to the aquarium.

I'd ask her, “Did daddy promise we would go to the aquarium?”

“Yes,” she'd reply.

I then explained that when I promise her something I work as hard as I can to keep that promise. But guess who never breaks a promise? God. Even when daddy tries his best sometimes unexpected things happen. But nothing catches God off guard. He’s planned everything out in advance and is in control. And he’s promised that anyone who comes to him in the name of Jesus will not be turned away. He’s also promised that if you ask him to forgive your sins and place your trust in Christ that you will be adopted into his family.

We share these gospel truths and confidently tell our children these promises are their promises if they place their trust in Christ.

After their salvation, we remind them of the mind of Christ, which is theirs already (Philippians 2). We rehearse the promise of God in Christ and encourage them to lay hold of those promises in faith daily for encouragement as they struggle to walk worthy of their calling in Christ. Especially with children who may profess Christ early this is important. We do not point them back to a moment of time or the sincerity of their profession. We point them back to the promises of God. “God has said he would do this. Do you believe that promise? It’s yours then.”

What about Discipline?

At this point you may be asking. OK that’s well and good but what does this have to do with discipline? Paul admonishes the Ephesians:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. - Ephesians 6:1-4

First, Paul tells the children to obey the parents. This command is not a bare command. He’s not just saying kids obey because I said so. These household codes are connected with the gospel foundation he’s laid at the beginning of the book (Ephesians 1-3). Second, Paul tells the parents not to provoke the children to anger. Both commands are rooted in the gospel.

The instruction is what I’ve already laid out. It’s the daily gospeling. It’s the faithful living in light of that truth. Christian parenting should look like the faithful stewarding of our Lord’s children. We sacrificially serve him by disciplining them. They are first and foremost people created in his image, and if they are saved they are especially his bride. We should not lose sight of either of these truths.

What’s more. We do this particularly by not provoking them to anger. If the gospel doesn’t inform our parenting, it will be hard to love our children and discipline them with out expressing our frustration and anger. The gospel reminds us that our sins were serious enough to send Christ to the cross - preventing our anger from seeping out. But it also reminds us that our children’s sins are serious enough to require a Savior which informs the way we discipline.

If you do not rehearse the gospel story faithfully like Moses in Deuteronomy commands then when these volatile situations arise, sinner(s) (parents) plus sinner (children) will equal anger and frustration for both parties. However, if the gospel informs all of our family life then those truths will inevitably transform the way in which we discipline our children. It will prevent us from provoking them to anger and on the occasions where we do let our anger and frustration out, it allows us to ask for forgiveness admitting humbly it was a sin against God and them.

Practically, you might say something like “The way you treated your sister was very unkind. This is the type of sinfulness that Jesus died to save us from.” Insert appropriate discipline. “Now come sit with daddy and let me give you a hug and a kiss. I want to tell you that I love you even when you disobey and if you’ll place all your trust in Jesus he will take your dirty heart and give you a new heart so you no longer have to sin.”

Or for children who are saved, “The way you acted in the store was sinful. You acted selfishly. Jesus covered your sins on the cross and put your old dirty heart to death and gave you new life. Let’s pray that the Spirit would continue to transform your heart making you more like Christ.”

Gospel Discipline

By God's grace, we can make discipline less about us and more about God. We must create an atmosphere in our homes where the gospel informs all of life - allowing the covenant love and faithfulness of God to impact the way we love our children. When that moment comes when our children disobey, the gospel is in the forefront of our mind and our children’s. We’ve already established our love for them which empowers us to approach them calmly and places our discipline in the context of all the gospeling we’ve already done.

It turns a potential powder keg for resentment and anger into a discipleship opportunity. An opportunity to share the gospel with our children instructing them through the discipline. And hopefully as they grow older, mature, and place their faith in Christ (if they haven’t already). These times will be a positive experience--which provides you leverage to speak the gospel into their lives as they have more difficult circumstances and life choices to make.

If we fail to disciple our children through gospel-centered discipline. If we do provoke them to anger, they will look back at these times of discipline with resentment and anger. They will distrust us and we may not have the opportunity or leverage to speak into their lives later. Don’t lose hope - it’s never too late. You can start discipling them now by asking for their forgiveness and then demonstrating how the gospel has and will impact your relationship with them moving forward. Don’t miss out on the joy of sharing the gospel with your children. The great commission starts in our homes.

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

Defining Gospel Centered Mission

Editor's Note: This is a repost of Mission. It appears here with the writer's permission. ---

A lot of Christian terms get thrown around. "Mission" is defiantly one of those terms. Mission is key to the church, and should be valued and practiced by a church that wants to be faithful to Scripture.

Gospel centered mission can be defined as: Glorifying God by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus for the sake of gathering God’s people to him.

There are four key truths about mission throughout the gospel of John that will help us be better missionaries for Jesus in our context.

1. Incarnation (Example of Mission)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:14-16)

Jesus is the greatest example of a missionary. The incarnation of Jesus (God becoming a man) gives us the example of contextualization. Jesus came from the culture of heaven to the culture of earth. He ate their food, wore their clothes, spoke their language, went to parties, had friends, and worked a job. He learned the culture, and engaged the people in his context. He also helps us understand we are to come in grace and truth. This means that we come humbly and full of compassion. We listen to people, show interest in them, and care for them just as Jesus did. However, this also means we will call out sin, hate sin, fight against the culture's idols, and proclaim the redemption of God through Jesus. We need to dwell among the people in our city, proclaiming God’s grace and truth.

2. Salvation (Heart of Mission)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

These two verses show us God’s heart behind his mission. He wants to see people saved. God desires that people believe in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son for eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to condemn us (for we already were because of sin), but to save us.

3. The glory of God (Purpose of Mission)

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)

Our purpose for mission should be aligned with Jesus' purpose for mission: to glorify God. Our main motive for spreading the gospel is to see people come under the rule of Christ. We want to see the glory of God made known to the world. God desires that the world be full of the knowledge of his glory. When we join him on mission we faithfully desire to see him glorified through the proclamation of the gospel.

4. Spirit empowered (Power of Mission)

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending “you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21)

We receive authority from Jesus himself because he himself has all authority (Matthew 28:18-20). Just as the Father sent the Son, and the Father and Son send the Spirit, so the Son and the Spirit send and empower us for mission. This is our source of power for the mission. We have the Holy Spirit of God to empower us to witness to the nations of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

Faithful in Mission

Gospel centered mission is key to the vibrancy and health of the local church. We are commanded by Jesus to be faithful missionaries who understand our context, have passion to see the lost saved, for the glory of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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Garrett Ventry is a church planting intern at Vintage 21 Church in Raleigh. He serves under the regional director of the Acts 29 Network's southeast region. He is also a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife Megan live in Raleigh. Twitter: @GarrettVentry

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To read more on sharing the gospel, see Unbelievable Gospel, by Johathan Dodson.

For more free articles on gospel centered missions, see Missional Living in a Complex World, by JD Payne, and What is Missional Culture & Why Does It Matter? by JR Woodward.

Biblical Prayer

Editor's Note: This is a repost of On Prayer. It appears at GCD with the writer's permission. ---

Prayer is the great privilege and joy of the believer in Christ, but it can also be a source of frustration and mystery as we seek God. In one sense prayer is quite simple to define – it is coming before God to speak with him and interact in relationship with him. On the other hand, it is hard to carve out time to pray and to understand how prayer functions. In this essay, we will look briefly at the vast subject of prayer in Scripture and in our lives. For those who want to read more, I highly suggest Paul E. Miller’s new work, A Praying Life.

For our brief purposes here, we will take the following path together. First, we will look at some pagan understandings of prayer and how believers in Jesus can at times treat prayer in the same manner. Second, we will look at a few ways in which prayer is described in Scripture. Then we'll close with some guiding principles and practical suggestions relating to living a life of prayer.

Pagan Prayer

In many religions and philosophies of the world, prayer is used to either please or appease some deity. Those who believe in multiple gods have always believed in prayer.  If you prayed the right way, at the right times, with the right trinkets you could get a god on your side. Not a bad gig save one problem: There is one God who is sovereign ruler of the world, and he does not exist to obey our commands or be manipulated by our “prayers” and rituals. There are several ways prayer becomes pagan, even in the mouth of believers in Jesus. We’ll just look at three.

1. Pinata Prayer. Humorously coined by Mark Driscoll, piñata prayer treats God as if he is a big piñata in the sky. If we whack him with the stick of prayer, lots of candy and goodies fall out. Prayer is not just trying to get goodies out of God, but many times we approach it this way.
2. Dancing Prayer. When I was a little kid we had a dog -- a short haired miniature schnauzer named Gretchen. My brother and I loved to make that dog dance in order to get a treat from us. We would make her jump on her hind legs, spin around and do back flips (well, maybe not). When she performed, we would give her a treat. Many times we think if we do the right things, say the right prayers and dance a little, that God will give us a reward for our performance.  This is an odd way to see God: If I pray 'correctly' then God will give me treats.
3. Trading Places. In the early 1980s, there was a movie where Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd “traded places” in life. Murphy was a homeless con man who became the rich tycoon and Aykroyd became the homeless guy. Sometimes, we think by praying we can “trade places” with God. We act as if we are God and can give orders to get what we want. Remember, we are his servants and we exist for his glory, not the other way around. I know it is silly to think of prayer as telling God what to do, but that doesn’t keep us from doing it. There are even preachers on TV that encourage this sort of thing.

If we do not want to pray in these ways, we must look at how Scripture presents a life of prayer. We’ll look at this issue by describing biblical prayer then close with some practical stuff.

Biblical Prayer

In Scripture we find descriptions of people praying, recorded prayers, as well as commands and instruction about prayer. Although this will be far from complete, there are several ways we see prayer described in the Bible.

1. Prayer is approaching God and desiring to be relationally in his presence. In Psalm 42:1-2, we read the following: "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" We see the same idea in the New Testament. We are encouraged to "approach the throne of God with confidence to find mercy and help in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). So prayer involves approaching God, through Jesus Christ, in the middle of the joys, pains, triumphs, and sufferings of every day life.
2. Prayer is seen as intercession and supplication -- coming to God with petitions and requests. Philippians 4:6-7 teaches us not to be anxious about anything, "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." We must remember, we do not come into the presence of God to command him, but rather to find mercy and help in our lives. Yet prayer does include making requests of our Father.
3. Prayer is a time to share our hearts cry with the Father. The Psalms are full of both thanksgiving and lament (sadness expressed). In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, we are commanded to rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances, whether good or bad. We can have confidence that nothing in our life is meaningless; even our suffering or the evil done to us by others can be redeemed by God. If we belong to Him, he will work it all out for his purposes in the end. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." We need to know this truth before times of suffering come, when we are disoriented in our pain. When our friends are mourning we are instructed to “mourn with them” and not treat others’ suffering with frivolity. Yet Romans 8:28 is no trite phrase in the Bible; it is our greatest hope and his great promise in a world full of madness and sin.
4. Prayer is confession, where we come before God to get honest about our sins and shortcomings. Confession is not telling God some secret that you are hiding from him. Believe me, God knows all things, even the mistakes we make and the sin we commit against him and others. The word confession is actually a compound of the Greek prefix homos, which means “same”; and logeo, which means “word.” Confession literally means, "to say the same word." To confess means to agree with God about something, to say the same thing about our sin that he does, and turn from our sin. It is to come clean and experience the grace and forgiveness of God purchased by Jesus. Confession restores closeness in relationship with God and keeps us from drifting away from him over time.
5. Finally, prayer is the fuel and language of relationship. Just as Paul begins Ephesians 1 in praise to God for his saving work, he follows it with praying for his friends that they would know God. Prayer is coming to God in hope, as he is our Father. We come near to him; he draws near to us. In the ups and downs of our lives, what we need more than anything is a close relationship with God.  He is the anchor in every story, the author of our journey and the one we trust to bring us safely home to his Kingdom in the end. Prayer is the expression of the human soul crying out for its creator. In Jesus Christ we have access to God as his kids and there is no other power who has greater control over our lives. As a brand new Christian, I found myself wanting to pray, wanting to talk with God, wanting to learn his ways. Yet I didn’t have a clue.

Prayer Principles

The following are just a few principles I have learned along the way that have helped me understand a life of prayer.

1. The first principle to keep in mind as we pray is that we are seeking the will of God for our lives, not just our own purposes. So many times we can hear “the will of God” and immediately jump to thinking about a detailed road map for our future. This is not what I mean by “seek the will of God.” What we ought to seek is how God desires our life to be lived in whatever circumstances as well as what sort of people he wants us to be. We find the will of God in his character and commands as revealed in Scripture. Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be "done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:9-13) and 1 John 5:14-15 promises that God hears and answers prayer that is according to his will. Here are some simple examples of prayers that would be according to the will of God: God, make me a good friend. God, help me be more patient and kind. God, help me to serve others. God, help me leave my selfishness. God, help me be a thankful person. God, help me rejoice in you, even when my life seems to suck. God, give me wisdom for the choices and decisions I face tomorrow. God, provide for my basic needs. God, open a door for your gospel with my friends. God, help me be a better wife/husband, mother/father, sister/brother, daughter or son. God, make me more like Jesus in my character and actions.
2. We need to come to God with the right motives. James 4:2-3 teaches us that we should not come to God with a selfish heart, simply asking God for stuff to fit our current passions. Oh God, if you don’t give me a boat, you must hate me! James teaches, "You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly."
3. When we pray, we must believe. We trust he is our good father who wants to hear from us and answer in the way he deems best for us.
4. Finally, we should not just come to God trying to get a spiritual buzz.  Sometimes there are deep spiritual experiences, other times there are not.  God’s presence is not your emotions. Paul E. Miller sums this up well in A Praying Life: "You don't experience God; you get to know him. You submit to him. You enjoy him. He is, after all, a person."

As we close, I want to just drop a few practical ways to help us to pray amidst our hurried lives.

Prayer in Practice

Did you know that Jesus’ friends actually asked him to teach them how to pray? His reply, found in Matthew 6:9-13, has been called “The Lord’s Prayer” or “Our Father.” Though many say this prayer from memory, Jesus' response is actually a pattern to follow. Looking at this pattern, we find several things we can include in our prayers:

• Hallowed be your name. We want to praise God in our prayers for who he is.  We want to love him, respect him and honor him. Tell God what you love about him as you get to know him better.
• Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
• Give us this day our daily bread. Thank God for life and provision.
• Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. We ask God to lead us in what is good, right, and true.

The acrostic ACTS has helped many to remember some basics about prayer that are seen in Jesus’ pattern. The acrostic stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, and can be helpful in praying.

• Adoration—praising God for who he is, that he is our treasure and joy
• Confession—coming clean with our Father and receiving grace and forgiveness
• Thanksgiving—thanking him for good times and hard times
• Supplication—bringing your needs and the needs of others before the Father.

To close, I want to be honest with you. Prayer is hard. We are busy people who are surrounded by the hum of cars, trains, cell phones, IM, chats, and social media. Furthermore, human beings are so intent on living apart from God that we don't naturally want to pray. We pray when things go bad and ignore God when things are good. I am often amazed by my own self-centeredness and desire to do life on my own without the guidance and wisdom of God. Yet when I come to God in prayer, I find life, relationship, and hope for the day. I will leave you with an excellent quote from Miller about the effects of a prayerful life on the soul:

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love ...

When Paul began his letter to Ephesians, he reminded them of the great work that God had done in saving them. Then he prayed. He prayed that they would have the most important thing in life — depth in relationship with God and an understanding of every good thing we have in him. We ought to pray in the same way for one another — that all of us would deepen with God.

I am praying for you to that end and hoping that you seek your Father in prayer.

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Reid Monaghan is doing graduate work in Applied Apologetics at Southern Seminary. With a team of friends, he is currently planting Jacob’s Well, a theologically driven and culturally engaged church in Central New Jersey. He is also a speaker, addressing students and athletes on campuses throughout the United States. He thanks God for the gift of his wife Kasey (married 1996) and kiddos Kayla (circa 2001), Kylene (circa 2003), and Thomas Reid (circa 2006). Twitter: @reidSmonaghan

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To read more about prayer, check out Prayer Life, by Winfield Bevins.

Also see Bevins's free article, Spiritual Warfare Prayer.

Provocative Thoughts on the Precious Puritans

*Editor's Note: This was #6 on our Top Posts of 2012. _

The talented Christian rapper Propaganda just released "Excellent," a strong new album on the Humble Beast label (buy it here).  Humble Beast is the home of Beautiful Eulogy, the group from Portland, Oregon that put out an excellent album this summer.

Propaganda is equal parts slam poet and rapper.  He hits hard in his content and is one of the most provocative rappers around.  I've listened to him since his Tunnel Rats days, and I've always enjoyed him.  His skill is undeniable, and he loves the Lord.  His new album, "Excellent," includes a fiery song on the Puritans.  Here's a sample (complete lyrics here):

Pastor, you know it’s hard for me when you quote puritans. Oh the precious puritans. Have you not noticed our facial expressions? One of bewilderment and heart break. Like, not you too pastor. You know they were the chaplains on slaves ships, right? Would you quote Columbus to Cherokees? Would you quote Cortez to Aztecs? Even If they theology was good? It just sings of your blind privilege wouldn’t you agree? Your precious puritans.

On Joe Thorn's site, there are also some comments from Propaganda about this torch of a song (see some helpful historical thoughts here).

This song raises some very big issues for evangelicals.  It confronts us with our past, one that is chock full of racism and racist oppression; it asks us to think hard about how Christians of different backgrounds perceive one another; it wonders out loud how much we should listen to past Christians who sinned publicly; it drives us to think about how edgy to be in our quest to influence and edify one another.  I'm glad that Propaganda raised these kinds of questions.  His honesty is needed in evangelicalism.  Racism is real and awful, historically and now.

There is a danger here.  Specifically, I wonder if Propaganda isn't inclining us to distrust the Puritans.  He states his case against them so forcefully, and without any historical nuance, that I wonder if listeners will be inclined to dislike and even hate them.  He groups all the Puritans together, which is problematic.  Not all of them were chaplains on slave ships, as he says later in the song.  Many were not.  But Propaganda blasts them so hard that, though he's not ultimately dismissing them, it sounds as if he is.  He qualifies his words on Joe Thorn's blog--pretty strongly, in fact--but what about all the people who hear his song but won't read that specific blog?

Some people will respond by saying, "Well, he's an artist.  He's supposed to provoke.  That's like the Old Testament prophets."  It is true that artists can provoke reflection that might not otherwise come.  I am a rapper myself.  I love art.  I love creative expression.  I love hard-hitting exhortation.  But the motive of edification does not justify any level of critique.  Artists are not exempt from giving account to God for every word they speak (see Matthew 12:36-37).  I don't know when that idea got in the evangelical bloodstream, but it's there, and it's not helpful (this is not a veiled reference to Jefferson Bethke, whose controversial videos I liked).  Let me say it again: artists will give account.

Let me be clear: If young men are failing today, strong critique and exhortation are needed.  But as a Christian, there must be grace in the mix.  I am not justified at being so edgy, so angry, so authentically steamed, that I take my fellow sinners off at the knees.  I fear that, though Propaganda ultimately points the finger on himself in the last verse, he has been harsh against the Puritans, sinful as they were in being racist and not opposing racism in the power of the gospel.

Look--I'm for public criticism of evangelical "heroes" on this point.  See the biography of Jonathan Edwards that Douglas Sweeney and I wrote for Moody.  We strongly critiqued Edwards for owning slaves, as we should have.  But that doesn't mean that we should tear him down.  He is a sinner like us.  Furthermore, if being a sinner in even a deeply regrettable way disqualifies you from being referenced by modern evangelicals, we are going to have a very difficult time finding anyone to emulate.  Luther was anti-Semitic; Calvin could be preening and cold; Edwards held slaves; and the list goes on.

Racism is awful.  Horrible.  Reprehensible.  It must be called out and condemned.  But one must do so carefully.  To tear the Puritans down with very little nuance of the kind I've offered here is problematic.  Propaganda wrote that he has learned a great deal from these forefathers despite their sins.  I fear that people who don't have his prior appreciation will not do the same.  They will write them off.  That would be a mistake.  It would also seem to be counter to the general spirit of Galatians 6:1.  This is not a passage about who to lionize, but there's a principle that seems to apply here:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

And we take note of this:

Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Fighting with Scripture

*Editor's Note: This was #4 on our Top Posts of 2012. _

I am a child of the Southern Baptist Convention. I attended my first SBC service en utero. Not only that, I am a child of the Conservative Resurgence. I am extremely grateful to men like Adrian Rogers, Paige Patterson, Judge Pressler, and others who helped pave the way for my generation. I love that the conversations I have with my peers almost always center around biblical theology and methodology. Due to the diligence of the men who came before us, we no longer even wonder about each other’s commitment to the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture. For those in my circles, this is a given.

Recently, though, I’ve been thinking through our commitment to Scripture's veracity. More specifically, I have been searching my own personal commitment to the integrity and efficacy of Scripture. As I have thought through this, it occurs to me that although the fight for the reliability of Scripture is much different in my day than it was 20 years ago, it certainly still remains. See, when I grew up, the great enemy of the gospel was almost always known as “liberalism”, or possibly, “moderate theology”. Today, however, it seems that we must equally be on guard against a different enemy. This new enemy is just as old as the first, but it is often more difficult to spot. Of course, it would be the enemy of legalism.

These two polar opposites of liberalism and legalism both stand apart from each other, in a sense, but in a very real way, they both accomplish the same goal; that of undermining God’s word. Liberalism, of course, reduces God’s word, and in doing so attempts to make a mockery of those who would dare take that word at face value. It assumes a position of great authority, in fact it could be argued that it assumes a position of greater authority than scripture itself as it attempts to “rectify” the “errors” found in the bible. Legalism, however, is also guilty of reducing the power and authority of God’s word, albeit in a much more insidious manner. While liberalism takes away from God’s word, legalism adds to it, and although it is different in practice from liberalism, it is essentially accomplishing the same goal, that of assuming authority over God’s word. While liberalism claims that scripture says too much, legalism claims that scripture does not say enough.

In all of this, however, I often find myself wondering if legalism might not be a greater danger to the Gospel, than the danger that liberalism itself poses. Liberalism is often easy to spot, and certainly within SBC circles, is easy to ridicule. Legalism is not nearly so easy to highlight, and often seems to find a more comfortable home amongst us. As I have thought through this fight that we must engage in if we love the gospel, I have noticed a few particular dangers inherent within legalism.

First, legalism is a difficult to diagnose cancer. All too often legalism is a subtle, creeping cancer that masquerades as holiness. In Matthew 23, Jesus points out that the Pharisees were guilty of adding “heavy loads” to the backs of their disciples. In Philippians 3 Paul points out that the Judaizers were “dogs” who “mutilated the flesh” in their pursuit of holiness. Both of these groups were guilty of affirming Scripture and yet adding to it in a further attempt to clarify their brand of “holiness”. When we take our personal convictions and apply them unilaterally, regardless of their clarity in Scripture, we may be guilty of this same creeping legalism. To oppose this vision of “holiness” is difficult, because to do so may cause others to paint you as a hater of all things holy. To oppose legalism can be seen as embracing the profane, which most often, could not be further from the truth. Because legalism masquerades as holiness, we can often struggle with whether or not we are right to identify it as a false gospel.

Second, legalism leads to a diminished recognition of sin. While some might find this to be a strange response to legalism, I think it is an accurate one. Notice, if you will, how many times in the New Testament we find the Pharisees trying to point out the sin of others, or even better yet, trying to “catch” Jesus in sin. A certain mark of legalism is a capacity to recognize others’ sins while failing to see our own. In his article on a topic similar to this, J.D. Greear cautions us concerning this danger. Good legalists get so busy playing watchdog for the sins of others, that they fail to see their own gross failure. As a result, personal sin is diminished, all in the name of “protecting holiness”. We often see this in our convention today as we get far more emails celebrating the latest boycott, or pointing out the moral lack of those in political leadership, than we do sharing about the hearts of broken Baptists, contrite in spirit and repentant before God regarding their sin.

Third, legalism worries more about “its reputation” than it worries about Jesus’ reputation. You could also say that legalism is uncomfortable with “go and tell” and rather enjoys “come and see” as an evangelistic strategy. As I have studied Jesus’ life, I have come across a really fascinating truth, that is that Jesus often seemed to be comfortable in places, and with people, that we often tell ourselves “good church people” would never go. Legalism worries more about whether someone else saw them talking to that “sinner” than it worries about that sinner actually being engaged with the gospel. Legalism is happy to preach to the sinner, so long as they will clean up and show up at the church on Sunday morning, but it would recoil in horror at the thought of going to the gutter with the person who is far from God. Ironically enough, at this point legalists are terrified of becoming like Jesus as we see Him in Mark 2:16. This unhealthy understanding of God and the gospel undermines the Romans 5:8 nature of the gospel and assumes a false righteousness must precede our ability to respond to the gospel, while also denying our own personal depravity and in doing so it neuters the heart of the gospel.

Fourth, legalism trumpets man’s capacity to do good, and in doing so undermines the depth of God’s grace. Legalism, in its efforts to adhere to the “holiness” code of rules and regulations, assumes man’s ability to “do good” and in doing, pulls the legs out from under the grace of God as exhibited in the gospel. Legalism loves hard work, and lots of it. The more you are able to work, the more holy you must be. Interestingly enough, this kind of pursuit will almost lead to a forced, false spirituality. Legalism judges you on behavior, not the condition of your heart, and therefore can encourage behavioral change, regardless of the heart’s condition. It is because of this that our churches are filled with unregenerate people, who still feel completely at home in our congregations. They have applied the appropriate levels of behavior modification to be found acceptable, so that their dark hearts are rarely if ever noticed.

These are just a few of the many dangers that legalism poses to the heart of the gospel. While liberalism was, is and always will be an enormous threat to the gospel, I would plead with Southern Baptists to recognize the danger that legalism also poses to the gospel. While it is easy to preach about the liberals “out there”, it is probably beyond time that we preach against the legalists who are among us; who often are us.

If we love God’s word, if we desire scriptural fidelity, we will stand equally opposed to liberalism and legalism, understanding that both attempt to stand in a position of authority over God’s word and in doing so, tear at the heart of the word, and inevitably, the gospel itself. We must oppose this kind of danger.

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Cross-posted from Micah's personal blog.

Gospel Lunacy

I've been reading C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters lately and I am continually floored by Lewis' insights into the human condition via his fictional senior demon's advice to his nephew, the junior tempter Wormwood. This quote particularly grabbed me recently:

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Much has been said about the state of the American church and our propensity to be distracted, allured to affluence, or encouraged toward various forms of debauchery, but perhaps the greatest threat is modern American Christianity's inclination toward inactivity. Unfortunately, pew-sitting has been encouraged and promoted by far too many pastors without emphasis on the true calling of the gospel to go - carry your cross and make disciples. Because of this, "church culture" has entered a lull that does not produce bold followers of Jesus but rather lukewarm spectators. Dull faith is a painful thing to both watch and experience, but perhaps the most grievous part may not be the Christian's personal spirituality as much as the lost people of the Christian's context.

Screwtape advises Wormwood to set his "patient" not on a trajectory of wild sin and habitual immorality, but to a pointless life that leads to the ultimate end of apathetic belief or no belief at all. Truthfully, most people are willing to settle for the standard moral posture of being "better than that guy" while maintaining a safe distance from conviction from God or anything that may challenge their worldview or self-built justification. And while Christians sit by and watch, non-believers are robotically drudging through life without any milestones, without any signposts.

The gospel is too epic and beautiful to bury within ourselves. While our family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers play cat and mouse with fantasies of karma and subjective ideals, we must put in work for the Kingdom. We must be aware of the amazing grace that saved us and let that awe for God drive us into the world. Paul is clear:

 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. ¹² We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. ¹³ For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴ For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; ¹⁵ and he died for all,that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

¹⁶ From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸ All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

- 2 Cor. 5:11-21

Notice how Paul is even willing to be considered a lunatic - indeed we could call him a gospel lunatic - because the love of Christ so controls him. We have been reconciled, and this reconciliation leads to only one logical conclusion: that we extend such a great hope to others. Through reconciliation with God, we become by nature ministers of reconciliation. God has chosen, for reasons beyond our comprehension, to use us as his ambassadors. We must cry out with Paul, "You can call us lunatics, but it is for God's sake!" The message of Christ is not just cultural but anti-cultural, and this will inevitably lead to perceived craziness by some. Do not be the weird Ned Flanders Christian, but do be aware that the more like Christ you are, the more distinctive your life will be perceived by others.

Work, study, serve, love, and forgive like a lunatic. May we not allow the world to settle for the mundane, but show and offer them the greatest party that is beginning on earth and will carry on into eternity.

Discipleship in the Sporting-life

One of the common frustrations I hear from Christians is often tied to a misunderstanding of what discipleship is. For many discipleship is some mystical journey that entails deprivation and discipline in order to reach a stage of enlightenment that few share. For others discipleship involves deep academic study, the mastery of ancient languages, and usually a few diplomas to hang on their walls. Some have made discipleship an add-on option to Christianity, like a sunroof on a new car. I suspect much of what underlies all this confusion is that we’ve twisted the concept of discipleship into something we wouldn’t recognize in ordinary daily life. We wouldn’t know what discipleship was if it stared us right in the face. And yet, we do know what discipleship is. We might not know how to label or categorize it, but discipleship is intrinsically seen in our passions for sports. Furthermore, the multi-billion dollar sports industry shows us just how good at making disciples we really are. The trouble for many of us is that we fail to translate what is common and ordinary for our daily lives into an understanding of what Christianity really looks like.  We’ve deeply separated the concepts of sacred and secular. We won’t allow ourselves to see how discipleship happens in everyday life.

Discipleship is always happening.  It might not be Christian discipleship, but we are always being and making disciples of something.  The question remains how can the sporting-life help us see what Christian discipleship is?

Discipleship DNA

In his book,  Disciple, Bill Clem identifies four strands of discipleship DNA. These traits show-up in the sporting-life on a daily basis. In fact, these four strands of discipleship DNA are lived out almost subconsciously by fans of particular teams or sports. By comparison, they show us what a life of Christian discipleship can really look like. Simply put, a life of discipleship gives us an identity, directs us in worship, gathers us into community, and sends us on mission.

Identity

I like to listen to sports radio. From time-to-time I will laugh about the way fans talk about sports and the teams they like. Inevitably they speak in the first person: “If we would have started a different quarterback, we would have won.”

My favorite is the off-season talk, “We just need to draft that great running back and acquire another hot free agent, and I am sure we will win the championship!”-as if the person talking has any influence in the front-office at all.

Why do they talk that way?  It's because sporting-life can give us an identity - so much so that we include our lives as part of the life of the team. Their victories are our victories. Their losses our losses.

As Christians our discipleship is about an identity as well. We were once defined as “no people” and ” and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1-3). But because of the grace of God and the work of Jesus we are given a new identity.  Peter declares that who we are before God is now defined as a “royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). The Scriptures tell us that we are now loved, alive, raised up, God’s workmanship, sons and daughters, and so on (Ephesians 2:4-10).

We have a new identity in Jesus. Just as the sporting-life gives us an identity around a particular team or club, Christian discipleship redefines our identity from sinner to saint. When we think about Christian discipleship, we are calling people to live in this new identity and reality.  We are calling them to “put on Christ,” to receive his grace and turn from lost, dead and doomed to loved, redeemed and reconciled. Discipleship begins with identity.

Worship

Worship? At a football game? Seriously?! Yes, absolutely.  Think about it. Where in culture do thousands gather weekly and cheer, sing, cry, celebrate, and lift up the fame of another? It happens in sporting events all over the globe. Discipleship is about the object of our worship and the sporting-life provides an example of an object of worship.

We will talk about our teams during the week and how great they are. We decorate our homes, vehicles, faces, and kids with colors and logos. We want others in our neighborhood to know exactly who we think is the best and spend our team cheering for them. We cry when our team disappoints us, rejoice when they win, and every off-season deeply hope our team fulfills our wishes and expectations. Worship is a major aspect of discipleship.

So how is worship for the Christian disciple to be any different? We have a greater and better object to celebrate, sing over, rejoice in, declare, and exalt (Revelation 5:9-10). Jesus and his work on our behalf is worthy of much greater song, affection, devotion, and praise than any other object. One reason our worship of God is so anemic is because we don’t see and feel just how awesome and worthy he is. Discipleship gives us an object of worship. Christian discipleship gives us the Greatest One to worship.

Community

Sports fans are notorious for the communities they form around their teams and sports. It is estimated that American’s spent eleven billion dollars on Super Bowl parties this year.

We gather in homes, bars, stadiums, or anywhere with a TV so we can see the game. Rarely, do we do it alone. And for the occasional individual who travels to these gathering sites alone it won’t be long before they're surrounded by others cheering on the same team. The sporting-life brings us into community with others.

Christian discipleship is no different. We are not saved into individuality but into community. Our identities are marked as “a chosen race” and a “people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). These are plural identities. When we live as disciples of Jesus, we are gathering into community because of his saving work. We identify with others because of the shared life of the gospel. We serve, love, forgive, confess, encourage one another because of the community God has formed by the gospel.

Discipleship is living together as a community in, around, and for the gospel.

Mission

It has always amazed me how sport franchises can have such a global following. Why do people in New Mexico care anything about the Premier Football (Soccer) League in Europe? It has to be because someone made them a disciple of a team. Someone went on mission and told them about the team, showed them some highlights, sat down and watched a game with them.

One person told another and showed them just how great Manchester United is. And the person being discipled believed it. The next thing you know they bought a kit and made the wallpaper on their laptop screen a team logo. They started going to the local sports bars and watching games and discovered there were other fans of the team and started hanging out and talking with them. Shortly thereafter the converted fan was telling his neighbor about the team and inviting the neighbor to watch the game. The next week the neighbor was seen applying a team decal to the tailgate of his pick-up truck. Disciples make disciples who make disciples.

Christian discipleship is the same. We tell people and show people the greatness and goodness of God (Romans 10:17). We live lives of compelling love and speak words of compelling grace to the lost (1 Peter 2:12). We invite them into our lives and our homes and into our communities and show them all that Jesus has done for us and in us and through us (John 13:34-35). We let them see us worshipping Jesus and declaring our affections and devotion to him. As this happens we pray that God would open their eyes to the beauty and grace of Jesus and that He would replace their identity as sinners with a new identity of grace. As that happens the cycle begins again. Disciples make disciples who make disciples.

Discipleship always demonstrates itself in mission. Whether it technological discipleship, celebrity discipleship, athletic discipleship, or Christian discipleship, disciples of something always find themselves on a mission to make more disciples.

Discipleship in the Sporting-life

A question remains though: how do we move and make disciples in a context where sports are the gods that are worshipped? How do we see lives transformed when folks are so captivated by the glory of youth and athletics that the glory of God can hardly be comprehended? A few brief practices are beneficial for walking into the sporting-life on mission for Jesus.

• Inhabit sporting spaces and places - We must be present in the lives of those being discipled by sports. We will never gain traction to earn respect and speak the gospel into the lives of those we never inhabit space and place with. Frequent a sports bar. Coach kids sports leagues. Be present in the lives and rhythms of a sporting community. I coached an under-nine soccer team and was able to get to know the parents. I didn’t know anything about soccer really. I just wanted to have fun with these kids and get to know their parents.  As the season passed, I was able to develop these relationships and see them become a platform for sharing the gospel.

• Invest in those consumed by the sporting-life - I speak of investment on several fronts here. Being involved in the life of another for the sake of the gospel will cost you something. However your investment will demonstrate the seriousness of the gospel. Buy tickets and go to games with lost friends. Spend time with them on their turf watching sports. Sign up to play in the city sports leagues. Wichita Parks and Recreation, for instance, offers all sorts of adult sports opportunities from basketball and volleyball to a wiffleball league. Even if you are not a very good athlete, the goal is to be investing in the lives of others.  Humble yourself and go as a missionary into these cultures. The key here is high relational contact. Be in their world.

• Be attentive to their lives beyond sports - It’s nearly impossible to share the gospel with someone while you are watching the Super Bowl. But the relational traction that you have developed with someone else while inhabiting and investing in them will lead to other opportunities beyond the game to share Jesus. Look for these areas. Don’t merely associate with lost people around sports. Listen to their stories, discover their life rhythms, include them in your everyday life.  Invite them into your story, and more importantly invite them, as your lives connect, into the story of Jesus.  Show them a better identity, a more glorious one to worship, a more faithful community and a greater and more valuable mission for life.

• Be patient, take your time - This is by no means an overnight process or event. It takes patience and endurance. It was two years before a friend that I was investing in through the tools of the sporting-life opened the door for me to talk about Christ with him. We can’t give up after a few weeks or the end of the season. Disciple-making is a long-term, low-key, intentional activity. Stick with it. Continue to inhabit their lives. Continue to invest in them. Pray for them and the opportunity to share the gospel all the while living out the implications of the gospel before them. Let your urgency be in prayer and before God and your endurance be toward your lost friends.

I’m convinced that we have muddled the concept of discipleship. We’ve made it sound like college calculus more than everyday life and have forgotten what ordinary everyday discipleship is. The reality is every human being knows a lot more about discipleship than they think they do. Sometimes is merely takes seeing how discipleship plays out in another context to make it more clear for our own. Jesus didn’t tell Peter he would never fish again. He told him that he would fish for a different catch (Matthew 4:19). In the same way, Christ hasn’t called us to reinvent the wheel when it comes to discipleship, he’s just called us to make disciples of a different nature (Matthew 28:19-20). Let’s use the practices and paradigms of sporting-life discipleship to engage in eternal, Christian discipleship. Let’s be disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus.

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Jeremy Writebol is Christian who really enjoys sports. He is the husband of Stephanie, daddy of Allison and Ethan, and lives and works in Wichita, KS as the Community Pastor at Journey the Way. He is the director of Porterbrook Kansas and writes at jwritebol.net.

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For more resources on how to share the gospel authentically, check out Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson.

For more free articles on making the gospel part of your everyday life, read: The Neighborhood Missions Startup by Seth McBee, Messy Discipleship by Jake Chambers, and Plant the Gospel, Plant Churches by Tony Merida.

Missional Living in a Complex World

Editor's Note: This is a repost of an article that originally appeared in J.D.'s blog: Missional Living in a Complex World. It appears here with the writer's permission. ---

Missional living is not rocket science. When we look at the great number of discussions and writings about “missional,” it is easy to assume that the matter is difficult to understand – and close to impossible to live out in our world today. This is certainly not the case. Now, while I’m all for such discussions and publications (and have contributed to the conversation), the reality is that missional living is nothing new for the church.

Missional Living Occurs When ...

Missional living occurs when Kingdom Citizens live according to the Kingdom Ethic. People enter the Kingdom of God through the confession that Jesus is Messiah (Matt 16:13-19), and begin to live according to the standard of the King. His ethic transcends the ethics of the kingdoms of this world. Take a look at the Kingdom Ethic Jesus taught:

• “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt 5:27-28)
• “You have heard it said ... ‘You shall not murder,’ ... but I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” (Matt 5:21-22)
• "The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. Not so with you. ... The first must be a slave …” (Matt 20:25-27)
• "Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt 18:4)

The Kingdom Ethic is the standard by which Kingdom Citizens are to live in relation to God (Matt 22:37-40), other Kingdom Citizens (Matt 18:15-20), and those who are outside of the Kingdom (Matt 28:18-20). Packed into this divine rule is what we find throughout the Scriptures. As a Kingdom Citizen, we do not have the option to relate to God on our terms or desires. There are appropriate guidelines by which we engage with other brothers and sisters. This rule instructs us on how to interact with those who have never confessed Christ as Lord.

And while this ethic is to be lived out in covenant with other Kingdom Citizens in what is understood to be Kingdom Communities (i.e., local churches), missional living is specifically directed toward the relationships with those outside of the Kingdom.

(A note: While space will not permit me to address the comprehensive nature of the other two relationships related to Kingdom living, it is important to understand that a breakdown in fellowship in these other two areas hinders missional living. When Kingdom Citizens walk out of fellowship with God and other brothers and sisters, global disciple-making is hindered. When the Spirit of God is grieved, Kingdom expansion is affected.)

Missional Living Requires …

Both actions and words are requirements for missional living. Kingdom Citizens are to “let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:16) But Kingdom Citizens must also preach the gospel in season and out of season (Tim 4:2). We cannot do one without the other. While some situations will require that we spend most of the time living out the Kingdom Ethic before unbelievers (1 Peter 3:1-2), we must proclaim the gospel. Without the sharing of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus (Acts 20:21), no one will be saved.  Other situations will require more time spent on our words. Peter’s encounter with Cornelius is an example of this matter. And while Peter spent most of his time preaching, his loving actions as a Jewish man being willing to enter into the home of a Gentile communicated the nature of the Kingdom Ethic (Acts 10).

The following diagram, developed by my friend and colleague, Tim Beougher, reveals the range Kingdom Citizens often find themselves in as they journey through life encountering those outside of the Kingdom. Sometimes we’re closer to the right, other times we are near the left. Many times we find ourselves somewhere between the two poles.

Study this passage, and feel free to use my outline when teaching others.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

—Colossians 4:2-6.

Let's consider six principles for missional living from this passage.

1.  Missional Living Must be Done Prayerfully

We need to pray for opportunities to connect with people and share the gospel with them. Paul desired prayer for such opportunities. We must also trust in God to open such doors for the message. We need to pray for opportunities, words to speak, and for open hearts to the good news.

2.  Missional Living Must be Done with Gospel Clarity

The mystery of the gospel has been revealed; now we must clearly communicate the truth to others. Our language (and actions) must be understood. We are to watch our language and constantly be asking, “How are they ‘hearing’ what I am communicating by my words and deeds?”

3.  Missional Living Must be Done Wisely

Literally, we are “in wisdom, to be walking.” This walk is our lifestyle. Do we live wisely in relation to those outside the Kingdom? Unfortunately, many people today are not interested in Jesus because they know some of his followers. Are our lives reflecting the Kingdom Ethic, or do we manifest the ethics of another kingdom?

4.  Missional Living Must be Done Intentionally

We must go throughout our day with “Great Commission Eyes.” A wise evangelist of yesteryear once stated, “When I meet new people, I always see an ‘L’ or an ‘S’ on their foreheads. The 'L' stands for ‘lost’ and the 'S' stands for ‘saved’. I assume that everyone has an ‘L’ until I know for certain that they are followers of Jesus.” This is a good practice for us to follow. Missional living does not just happen. We must be intentional about it. We must be intentional about gospel engagement.

5.  Missional Living Must be Done Graciously

Paul notes that our speech should always be gracious and seasoned with salt. Whenever people encounter us, do they see grace or a grouch? Humility or a hypocrite? Joy or a jerk? Love or a liar?  1 Peter 3:15-16 is a great verse to memorize:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

6.  Missional Living Must be Done Flexibly

The never-changing gospel must be communicated in ever-changing situations. Paul writes that we should know how to answer each person. This means that a customized approach is necessary when it comes to sharing the gospel. We must be students of God’s Word and ready to respond appropriately to others.

Obedience is not a complicated matter. As I said before, missional living is not rocket science. So, let’s take off our white lab coats, put away our scientific calculators, stop analyzing and debating the trajectories as to who gets to go to the moon, and start living out of the calling we have received.

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J. D. Payne serves as the pastor for church multiplication with The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. He is married to Sarah who is a physician in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, working part-time at a clinic for uninsured populations in Birmingham, Alabama. They have three young children Hannah, Rachel, and Joel. 

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To read more about missional living, check out Tony Merida’s Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles on this topic, see Living the Mission, by Winfield Bevins, and Transformative Grace, by Jason Seville. 

Deep Preaching: Shine - Helps on Revealing the Treasure of Truth

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today’s "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor’s Note: This post is the fourth and last in Dr. Smith’s series, “Deep Preaching.”

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A sea diver finds a treasure that has been buried for 200 years and you get to see it. What do you expect to see? Well, the treasure is in fact a treasure because of its age. No one has really been able to get a good look at this – it’s rare. It also has inherent value because of its beauty. However, when the diver surfaces you can see none of that. It is covered in the oceanic grime of centuries. It is a treasure by itself, the value is inherent, but the beauty of the treasure is not seen until he takes the time to remove the things that show its beauty.

On Monday, a preacher entered the study. He decided not to be superficial, but to go deep into the Word of God. He desperately wanted to mine out the treasure of the Word for his people, so he did not stop until he got to the bottom where the treasure lay. And, wisely, he did it in time. He got the treasure and began to go to the surface. As a result he has a well crafted structure to his sermon that mirrors the structure of the text. He sank for treasure. He surfaced to bring the treasure to the people. But before he enters the pulpit he must polish off the sermon. He must remove the barriers that impede a view of the beauty of Scripture.

How to Polish

Scripture needs nothing added to it. We add nothing. However, the people to whom we preach are so removed from the cultural and theological worlds of Scripture that they need someone to remove the barriers that keep them from seeing the truth clearly. So by "polish" I am not suggesting that we add to the Word. It does not need our rhetorical flourish. Rather, I am using the word "polish" to describe the process by which we remove anything that keeps people from seeing the beauty of the Scripture. Personally, I am an advocate of a plain style of preaching. By that I mean that we need to remove any forced words or structure that keeps people from seeing truth clearly.

However, demonstrating the simplicity of Scripture is not easy. Simplicity is extremely difficult. So here are some strategies to help so show the beauty of the Word:

1. Look for models.

I am not aware of an effective preacher who is not reading widely or listening to other sermons. To steal another’s sermon is a crime. However, we are always looking for ways to say the same things in new ways. The flavor of someone’s communication style, the insight into a text: these things can be learned by humbling ourselves and reading others.

2. Manuscript for clarity.

Manuscripting does not imply that you will preach with the document in front of you, it simple means that you have worked out the key phrases, you have the transitions down, you know how one thing will lead to the next. You know all of this because it is one complete document. The discipline also keeps you on task so that when you read through it you will see where you have gaps in logic or flow, it will really jump out. As a pastor, I rarely manuscripted my sermons, and I think I paid the price in a lack of oral clarity. I leave the manuscript on the hard drive, but the discipline of doing it is very helpful. If I am pressed for time, I will at least manuscript the introduction and the conclusion.

3. Never preach a sermon for the first time.

Once the manuscript is complete, stand up in the study and preach through the sermon. One pastor I know gets to the church early Sunday morning and preaches it from the pulpit. The goal is that when you enter the pulpit, you do so with confidence because this is a sermon you have already preached!

My dad used to tell me that preaching “goes from paper, to preaching, to paper." What he meant was that in the study as we are “writing” our sermons, a thought will come to us. The natural reaction is to preach it out loud. It is often in the vocal working out of this that the thoughts really come together. So we write, we preach, and then we write some more.

4. Listen to the Holy Spirit.

This is so subjective that I hesitate to insert it here. An encouragement to be “sensitive to the Spirit” is interpreted by some to mean "don’t study and just go for it." We don’t mean that. What we mean is that often from the moment of leaving the study to the time when enter the pulpit, the Holy Spirit will prompt us in certain directions. This may happen at any time before or during the sermon. It is often in those promptings that a way to express something becomes clearer. One preacher told me he prints out his sermon, lays it on his bedside, and reads through before he goes to sleep on Saturday night.

Deep Preaching

So, after we sink and surface, we must shine. To do less is laziness no matter how we describe it. So again, when we dive into the text we must leave time to surface by understanding the structure of Scripture, and to shine by removing anything that hides its beauty. After all you risked your life at the bottom of the ocean for this, you want your people to know that the treasure is worth risking their life for. The goal is that when they began to love the words of the Word, they will want to go deep themselves.

A pastor then knows that he is effective when he never dives alone.

Deep Preaching: Surface - Preaching that Brings the Truth to the Top

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today’s "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor's Note: This post is the third in Dr. Smith's series, "Deep Preaching."

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If sinking to find the treasure is the translation of the text, surfacing is the communication of the text. We know we sank deep when we say, “I know what this text means.” We know we have surfaced when we can say, “Now I know how to say it."

In the last post we discussed going deep enough that we know what a text means. This is the preacher’s work in the study with linguistic and exegetical tools. However, there is a danger in going deep, namely staying so long wrestling with the meaning that we never surface to find a way to say what the text means. When people hear preaching and say, “He was so deep, I didn’t understand a thing!” that is not a compliment. It probably means that the preacher did not understand the text himself. Or, perhaps he did understand it, but he stayed so long in the deep murky waters of the study, he did not surface. His problem is never being shallow, but being so deep others cannot understand him. However, when you understand something thoroughly, you are generally able to make it clear.

It goes without saying that we are not advocating shallow preaching. We are advocating going as deep as we can and then coming to the surface in time.

Preaching at its core is the translation and communication of the text. The translation works the text into our hearts; the communication works it out. There are times that we are called upon to say speak before God has spoken to us in His word. Yet there are other times that when God has spoken to us through His word, we understand it, but we have not done the necessary work to find a way to work out what God has worked in. We may gravitate toward the translation side of things because we like the time in the study. Or, we may gravitate toward the communication side of things because we enjoy the preaching moment, the thrill of engaging communication. We all have our strengths. 

So when we sink deep enough to find out the meaning of the text, how do we surface in a way that people can understand the meaning?

OK, there are roughly one million things to say here which have been said in thousands of books.  However, this list represents some things that I struggle with and things that I don’t think we cover well enough in formal training; so not exhaustive, just a few diving strategies that will help you surface on time.

1. Repent

If a preacher is not willing to bend his will to the text, then it will never live in the pulpit.This may be the hardest part of the process.When we arrive at a text of Scripture and it calls us to change something about our character, confess a sin, right a wrong, we must do so immediately.What is at stake, of course, is our own sanctification.However, what is also at stake is the sanctification of others.This is a heavy thing to bear, but it is no less true.Procrastinated repentance is the foundation on which unprepared sermons are built.Meditate on I Timothy 4:16.

2. Look for a clear structure borrowed from the text.

When we sink to see the treasure of Scripture, a structure will emerge.The structure will be based on the genre.An epistle will have the feel of a lecture or a lesson.It may even be filled with commands like the 50+ exhortations found in James.However, a sermon on an Old Testament narrative does not need points.They simply are not there.The narrative is built around the scenes of the story.A parable will have scenes that are sometimes followed with Christ commentary on the parable, so in one sermon you have narrative (the parable proper), and exhortation (Christ’s commentary on the parable).We don’t have to scramble for a structure for the sermon; we simple borrow the one provided for us by the text.The reason for this is simple: there is meaning at the structural level.So mirroring the structure is actually a part of finding the meaning.

3. Emerge with the spirit of the text in mind.

Every text of Scripture has an embedded emotional design.When we preach we are not just communicating the substance, and borrowing the structure, we are finding out what about the emotional design of the text has meaning as well.Was it the beauty of poetry, the sting of a rebuke, or the rising tension of a narrative?All of those are embedded to help us with the meaning of the text.

Phillips Brooks says that preaching is “truth through personality."I agree with the spirit of this, but my job is not to front my personality.Rather, I can gladly borrow the personality of the Scripture that is imbedded in the genre.

4. Stop studying.

The best preachers know when to stop.They know when they are done with the exegetical process – what the text means, and can move to the communication process – how I say what it means.If God were to give you 100 hours to prepare, this would be a different sermon.But He hasn’t; you just have a few hours.In the few hours God has given you to steward, there comes a point when you are done - you just have to be wise enough to recognize when that is.

At some point you say, “I know what this text means to the best of my ability, now I have to spend time figuring out how to say it."

One encouragement is that every text is different.Some texts demand more exegetical work and others more communication work. For example, if you are preaching the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15, you will find the meaning pretty close to the surface.You will need less time on the exegetical side.However, that parable is so well known that you will need more time trying to figure out how to say it in a fresh way.

If you are preaching the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16, you will need plenty of time on the exegetical side of things to read yourself clear in that text.The meaning of the text is not near the surface and it demands much more time in the study.

So, you sank deeply to find the treasure, you surfaced with a clear outline that reflects the structure and the spirit of the text.  All that remains is to show its beauty, which is the subject of the next post.

Mission: Suburbs

Editor's Note: This is a repost of Mission: Suburbs. It appears here with the writer's permission. ---

The Great Commission that Jesus gave to His disciples is often quoted when discussing world missions. Jesus sends his disciples out to make more disciples.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

– Matthew 28:18-20

I remember sitting in a seminary class and the professor began talking to us about the Greek and the idea that the word ‘Go’ in the Great Commission could really be read, “As you go” or “While you are going.”  This opened my eyes to an understanding that Jesus' command doesn’t only apply to world missions, but to living our lives as missionaries.  As we go, we make disciples.

This truth brings meaning and purpose to those of us who reside in the security of suburbia. This is not written as an opinionated diatribe towards those who live in the suburbs. I live in and minister to people of the suburbs. It’s a reminder that all peoples matter to God, and that you don’t have to go to obscure lands to make disciples. To be honest, if you are not an effective missionary where you are--as you go--then what makes you think you have any authority serving as a missionary elsewhere?

WE HAVE A MISSION IN SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

To serve as a missionary in a suburban context has several inherent complications. People in suburbia enjoy their individuality and privacy. They are busy and often living beyond their means. We need to realize that we have a mission at hand, not in a far off land, but down our street, in our schools, in the stores and restaurants we patronize. There are people all around us who are separated from God and need to know and love Jesus.

The question is whether you will make disciples as you go, or will you wait for other, more professional people, to do it for you?

I often receive questions on how to be a missionary in a suburban context. Here are a few things to keep in mind as we consider our calling to make disciples as we go:

1. People Matter to God: This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s good to remember that God has sent us into the world as His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) to bring the message of reconciliation. We are not sent to only reach those like us, but to minister to all whom we come in contact with.
2. Places of Impact: We are creatures of habit. We all have places that we frequently go to eat, shop, and play. Remember, the people who work in these places are often dismissed, but this is a great place to start building intentional relationships. Not only is it important to minister to them, but also they can connect us with other regulars.
3. Go Out in Pairs: The mission we are on is a communal mission and an individual one. We are not just inviting people to ‘church’, but calling people out of darkness into light, from death to life, from isolation to biblical community.  Jesus sent his disciples 2-by-2, so we should be intentional about being on mission together. Examples of this include BBQ’s, play dates, library activities with kids, work out spots, etc.
4. The Golden Rule: Remember what it was like to be lost? If not, then you should begin there. Isolation from God may give the appearance of freedom, but ultimately leads to death. We need to do for others what we would hope they would do for us, especially when it comes to sharing spiritual truths.
5. People are NOT Projects: One of the most arrogant things we can do is to treat people as projects. People do not need to be ‘worked on’; they need to be loved on. What are ways that you can serve them, speak to them, and treat them in a way that communicates your love for Jesus and your love for them?
6. It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint:  We never know when God is going to regenerate a person. That’s not our business. What we are to be about is making disciples as we go. Befriending people, serving people, and pointing people to Jesus with our lives and our words. This could take years in some instances.  Perhaps it is just as much about your sanctification as it is about their salvation.
7. Jesus Saves People / You Are the Mid-Wife: I’m often stunned how bad theology leads to ineffective evangelistic lifestyles. People get paralyzed when they believe that they are the one’s to save people. What I mean is, when people believe that it’s up to them to lead a person to the Lord, they get stuck with fear or prideful with their ‘success.’ Keeping in mind that God is the sovereign King who is able to save even the hardest of people, should give us rest in His provision. Our calling is to be faithful to the Gospel, to share the faith, and to serve as midwives to those who are born again.

FAITHFUL & INTENTIONAL

These points are valid regardless of your context. It is important to note that while we are in a unique context living in suburbia, we are not relieved from the commission at hand. We must be faithful to present Jesus in our lives, words, families, and deeds.

We live in a fallen world that is in great need of redemption and restoration. The question is whether you will make disicples as you go, or will you wait for other, more professional people, to do it for you? Let’s not fall into the suburban stereotype of outsourcing local missions, rather, let us invest into our communities, connect with our neighbors, and continually strive to be intentional about seeing lives transformed by Jesus.

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Casey Cease  is husband to his high school sweetheart, Steph, and they have a beautiful daughter named Braelyn and another little girl on the way. He serves as the Lead Pastor of Christ Community Church  in Magnolia, TX and travels and speaks throughout the United States. His first book about his tragic car crash and his journey to faith in Jesus, Tragedy to Truth, will be released February 2013 through Lucid Books.

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For more ideas on missional living, check out Tony Merida’s Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles on missional culture and neighborhood missions, see What is Missional Culture & Why Does It Matter, by JR Woodward, and The Neighborhood Mission Start Up, by Seth McBee.

Deep Preaching: Sink - The Value of Sinking Before You Surface

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today’s "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor's Note: This post is the second in Dr. Smith's series, "Deep Preaching."

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Deep sea diving is dangerous. You can deplete yourself of oxygen, do permanent damage to your body, and of course die a slow painful death by drowning. These fears are very real to the deep sea diver, and they are no less real to the preacher.

So, why go deep into the meaning of a Scripture?

Consider the risk: the preacher can spend so long in the icy black of commentaries, online resources, and exegetical nuance that he cripples himself by the fear of saying something wrong. He might spend so long there that he picks up words and phrases that do not translate well for surface-dwellers. And, then there is the greatest risk of all – he might not surface on time. Perhaps he is so enthralled in the depth of his study that when he finally looks at his watch, he realizes he does not have enough time to surface! It is Saturday night and he is still a hundred feet below the meaning of this text. He still does not know what this text means. He then enters the pulpit with a half-prepared alchemy of the collected thoughts of others, garnished with a compelling introduction and conclusion.

Besides, we have heard deep preachers before: boring, academic, exegetical – no thanks.

Even though the fears are real, if the preacher is going to dispense truth he must sink deep enough to find the truth, surface in time to present the truth, and polish it in a way that makes the truth accessible. He must sink to find the treasure and surface in time to make the truth shine.

If the Risk is So Great, Why Go Deep? 

The reason is clear: the meaning of a text is rarely on the surface. If what our people need was naturally on the surface, then Scripture would only need proclamation and not explanation. A few thousand years have passed since the writing of Scripture. A lot has changed. There has been a shift in the way we communicate and learn – from an oral tradition, to a written tradition, to a literate tradition, to an electronic tradition, and now to principally a visual tradition. The way we communicate, and thus the way we learn has radically changed. To borrow a phrase, these realities separate the modern listener from the ancient text.

Also, when God composed Scripture He imbedded it with meaning in its structure as well as its substance. The way sentences and clauses are shaped carry meaning. Yet, there is also meaning on the macro level as well as the micro level of Scripture; on the structural level of the cannon of Scripture. What superficial, cursory reading of Scripture will see that the Warrior Messiah image of Rev. 19 is directly lifted from Psalm 2? Will the most studious of our people see Psalm 78 is fulfilled in Matt 13? These textual relationships are real. They have meaning. They were meant to be seen. And, they are not on the surface. They must be mined from the bottom with the daunting slough of hard work.

It might be good to stop here and recognize that this metaphor may be offensive to some. After all it suggests that the people are on the surface, and that they are far separated from Scripture. Surely this line of thinking is suspect. Isn’t the word of God for all people? If all truth is God’s truth isn’t all truth for all people? Don’t we all have access to Scripture? Or are we so arrogant to think, as the character Mack bemoaned in The Shack, “God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.”[1]

I am not sure how wide reaching this line of thinking is, however, the objection is out there and we have to address it. So are we suggesting by this metaphor that understanding Scripture is only for the spiritually or cultural elite? Of course not. Perhaps two responses are needed.

First, we need not confuse God’s accessibility with His intricacy. God is accessible. I happen to believe that giving people a copy of God’s word is a wonderful way to share the faith. In fact, when I have the chance to share my faith I find that whatever text I am preparing or meditating on is a great entry point. This is especially true of the parables. What parable it is does not matter. All of them are about the kingdom and they all ultimately provide a way to share the Gospel. Why? Because God’s Word is accessible to all people at all times in an unlimited number of ways. We are all swimming in the tsunami of grace that was brought to us by the sweet simplicity of God’s accessibility.

This does not mean that Scripture is always easy to understand. There are a number of texts that do not make sense on the surface, or even after a few readings. The majority of these are actually easy to understand if someone has a basic understanding of how Scripture relates to itself or the cultural background in which it was written. In other words, a medium amount of training can equip one to understand most of Scripture. To deal with the other hard texts, one needs a little more training.

So again, God is both simple and complex. And since words reveal character, we anticipate that His word is both simple and complex. God is accessible – therefore His word is accessible. God is intricate, nuanced, and complex – His word reflects that as well.

God Expects Us to Go Deep

But, one might say, doesn’t it bother you that you are suggesting that the average person can’t get the meaning of certain passages at first blush? It really doesn’t. I don’t think it bothers the average person either. My experience is that they want to hear from someone who has thought about these things more deeply than they have to provide insight, wisdom, and counsel. And beyond this lay expectation, there is a divine expectation as well. Scripture is clear about the fact that pastor’s are to guard the sacred trust with their very lives (I Timothy 4:16; 6:20; II Timothy 1:13,14; 2:1-7; Titus 1:9). Nothing is clearer from Scripture than the fact that those held accountable for preaching have a dual stewardship: to protect God’s sheep and protect God’s Word. We keep the sheep safe by keeping the sword sharp. Both stewardships come from God.

So, when we mount the pulpit, God expects us to be deep. Our people should expect that we have gone deep. Not muddled or convoluted preaching, but preaching that demonstrates that we have wrestled with the text long enough that we are clear; we know the meaning to the best of our understanding. This is the objective. When it is clear to us, it has a chance to be clear to them. The greatest compliment one could pay a preacher is when they say, “Now I know what that text means."

We may think of this as a nice, but unattainable, goal for those who are really going to get into their preaching at a high level. But really, it’s what our people want.

People will excuse about any kind of preaching except boring preaching. But remember that there are two types of boredom – intellectual boredom and emotional boredom. Preachers often fear emotional boredom so we try to make people laugh and cry in the sermon. However, it is possible to be emotionally engaging and intellectually boring. This, in my opinion, is a chief reason why more college students are not engaged in church. Their pastor stimulated their emotions; he just did not make them think. He surfaced before he sank.

Deep diving is dangerous. However, the risk of sinking deep is no greater than the risk of staying on the surface. In the first you die, in the second your people die. And at the end of the day, if we have to tell our Dive Master that we almost died while trying to get people deep, He will understand. He’s made that dive before.

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[1] Young, William P. The Shack: where tragedy confronts eternity. Newbury Park, CA: Windlown Media, 2007.

Deep Preaching

Steven W. Smith is Dean of The College at Southwestern and author of Dying to Preach, winner of Preaching Today's "Book of the Year" in 2009. He is married to Ashley. They have two daughters (Jewell and Sydney) and one son (Shepherd).

*Editor's Note: This article was originally posted at Theological Matters. Dr. Smith will be writing three follow-up posts for Project TGM as a series entitled "Deep Preaching."

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There are days when the sermon just feels “on.”

The illustrations hit just right. The applications connect. Preacher and people ebb and flow in synchronized rhythm from opening words to closing illustration.

Dismounting the pulpit, you will be shocked if the people don’t hoist you on their shoulders hailing you as the greatest preacher in the world. In fact you’re a little surprised they didn’t interrupt you with shouts and applause like a political rally. (The humble tweet that follows: “God was really good today,” belies the fact that you killed it. Killed. It.)

Yet, in my experience, this is rare. It happens, but not often. Rarely is a sermon, from start to finish, exactly what we want it to be.

How Are We to Evaluate Our Own Preaching?

For those with a commitment to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, we evaluate our preaching by one criterion: faithfulness. After all, we do not invent messages, we proclaim truth. So we measure our effectiveness by how faithful we are to the text. In fact, this is the only reason I preach. By God’s grace we may mount the pulpit free from any obligation to express our feeling on anything—much less eternal matters. Eternal truth is settled. We are in the business of delivering the message not inventing it. Therefore, we must be faithful.

And yet, this being true, why is it that so many times my best attempt at faithfulness to Scripture falls flat? I really did try to say what the Scripture said and say it the way the Scripture said it, but it just did not work. I am not suggesting there is more than faithfulness; I am suggesting that we who are faithful must constantly re-examine what we mean by that.

If by “faithful” we mean simply getting the text correct, then we have failed. If you’re passionate about preaching, then that last sentence may seem disconcerting, so let me clarify. We know that there is a glut of preaching today that has precious little to do with a text of Scripture. This breaks our hearts. Scripture alone is enough! In reaction to this, it’s possible to swim against the tide of shallow, light, trivial, entertaining preaching by countering it with preaching that is boring, mundane, passionless, and disengaging. Some of us who love Scripture the most are profoundly boring. Just to be clear, I am not saying this as a reformer but a penitent. This might be my biggest homiletic challenge. I want to be so clear about what the text says that often I can be dry. People are disengaged and bored. Of course when I realize this, I justify my ineffective preaching with an internal monologue that says, “Well, at least I got the text right. Those other guys, sure they were engaging, but they never dealt with the text.”

A light, trivial, man-centered sermon is a mix of God’s Word and man’s hubris. But isn’t there as much hubris in preaching that is academic boredom as there is in preaching that is folksy banter? Let’s be honest. We can’t excuse boring sermons because we parsed our verbs correctly any more than we can excuse light fluffy sermons because we entertained.

Scripture is not boring. Therefore, if I preach a boring sermon, then that was not in the text. I brought that. I imposed boredom on the text in the same way those “other” preachers imposed their own ideas on the text.

The entertaining preacher excuses his sin because he made people laugh. The boring preacher excuses his sin because he made people yawn. Neither one has really preached. I know, because I have been both.

So, again, how are we to evaluate our preaching?

Well, first let’s crush the mental metaphor of “balance.” This metaphor gives the idea that we can be too faithful, too expositional, too exegetical, too deep, too textual, too engaging, or too funny—we just need a little of all of it. But that’s unhelpful. Can we really be too faithful to Scripture?

Maybe a better metaphor than striving for balance is embracing the tension. There is a tension in all of us—it pulls us to engage the text while engaging people. This tension does not need to be suppressed; it needs to be embraced. We are called to go deep into the text, and then bring the text to the people. If our exegesis is shallow, we have nothing to give people on Sunday. If when going deep I wait too long to surface, then I give people a dry exegetical exercise that does not help them. After I find the meaning of a text, when do I surface? In other words, when I study a text, how long do I spend on its meaning, and how long do I spend on how to say what it means? This is the tension. And, it will not go away.

Deep-Sea Divers

Now we have backed into a helpful metaphor: a deep-sea diver. The treasure that he wants is not buoyant. It’s not even at 25 ft. If he wants the real treasure, he must sink deep. However, if he stays in the depths too long, he will not have the oxygen needed to bring the treasure to the surface. Even when he does, he has to polish it off so people can see the original beauty of the treasure. If he wants to access the treasure, bring it to the surface, and have people appreciate the treasure the way it was appreciated before it sank, then he must sink, surface, and shine. And here is our task. We must spend time on what the text means, what we are to say about what the text means, and how to say it.

So while there are a thousand preaching rubrics out there, lets at least answer three questions:

1. Did I sink?

Did I go deep enough to find the treasure?

2. Did I surface?

Did I bring the treasure to the surface with illustration, application, and the force of imagination?

3. Did I shine?

Since the truth is beautiful, did I show its beauty or lazily offer it unpolished?

May God give us grace to go deep and be so overwhelmed with what we find that we want to surface in time and show the rich beauty of the treasure, which will exalt Christ and call us to joyful obedience.

The Practicality of Mission

For the purposes of this post, I define "mission" as Mark Driscoll does in Confessions of a Reformission Rev. – Christians being a missionary to their local culture.

Simply put, there is plenty of inward-focused discipleship without much outward contextualization in the church today. At best, there is the occasional “special event” in hopes that the congregation brings friends who stay long-term. Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to discipleship - in fact, I often wonder if we're even doing that very well today in order to train our people to evangelize. And while I’m not against the practice of evangelistic events, I am opposed to lack of dedicated missonal outreach. I once worked at a church that was in a 65% Hispanic community with three Hispanics in attendance on Sunday mornings. This church was also in a community that was in large majority under the age of 40 with less than 20 members under that age (including children). Imagine being a 28-year old Hispanic walking through our doors.

It is the role and responsibility of the local church to reach its community. If the church fails, society fails. The world will find a place or community to have their needs me and we must - for lack of a better phrase - compete for their attention. The natural inclination of the world is to chase the world. We must find a way to adapt to the demographic that we are in while not compromising Scripture. It would be great if you could even be multi-ethnic and flourishing from ages 15 all the way to 75, but let’s start with our community context. It doesn't necessarily have to be a certain school or business (though it could be), but a starting point is to intentionally get to know those within a relatively close radius of your people.

We tend to view missionaries as those who parachute into the remote villages of Africa. We use the excuse that culture doesn’t easily accept the gospel. We let our natural insecurities hinder us. We argue that we do not have enough time. I've even heard people use Satan as an excuse. In fact, we should expect Satan to use all obstacles against our efforts; but Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19 places mission on all of our lives regardless of where we are. It is a call that the Christian simply cannot ignore.

Here are some practical ways to get on mission (for both the church and the individual):

1. Pray, pray, pray – The most obvious and crucial step is to seek God’s will and blessing. You must be on board with his Kingdom and what he is doing, not what you yourself want to happen. There are many (most) times when our plans are not his. Beg the Holy Spirit to empower you.
2. Understand your Bible – It is no good for you, your hearers, your church, or the Kingdom if you do not know what you believe. Sound doctrine is crucial to your evangelistic efforts. There is no point in hitting the streets of your community if you cannot answer the hard questions that the seekers, the skeptics, and the all-out opposition will throw at you (Col. 4:6).
3. Be well-learned and prepared to reach them – The next most obvious but crucial step is to find out who is in your community, both by getting out and meeting people and by looking at statistics that can be found by a simple Google search. There are more resources on demographics (income, race, age, religion, etc.), becoming missional churches, and everyday evangelism than you could imagine. Find them. Study them. Rinse. Repeat.
4. Love them – Perhaps the most difficult part is to simply love people. Our depraved nature prevents us from being naturally drawn toward it, but our new nature in Christ empowers us to do it anyway. In the aforementioned church that I was on staff at, we could not get our older white crowd to get on mission in the Hispanic community because they did not want to love them. It is not our church, our gospel, or our Kingdom - it is all God’s. If you think someone is below your efforts, you are forgetting how low Jesus had to become in order to reach you. The world is looking for relationships, not conforming rules. Let's give it to them!

Meet Jill & Cliff (& The Holy Spirit)

Meet Jill and Cliff. They have a somewhat similar story, yet at this point they have very different outcomes. I have been in a relationship with Cliff for five years now. We met at a local coffee shop. Cliff and I have eaten many meals together, drank hundreds of cups of coffee, and spent hours just hanging out over the past five years. We have built a great friendship. One where we text back and forth about everything from the mundane to the important. Cliff is a guy I could go to if I ever needed anything, and I know he feels the same. I have only known Jill since January. When she heard about our little church plant, she decided to give religion a go. She showed up the second week of our core team gathering. Since then Jill and my family have had meals together, and spent time talking about the challenges and struggles she has had in her life. She is a single mom with three kids and has had a rough life the last couple of years. Church was kind of a last ditch effort to find hope.

Similarities & Differences

I have a deep love for both Cliff and Jill. They are good friends, ones I have been praying for and trusting Jesus to bring to faith. My method has been the same. I have shared the gospel with both of them on many different occasions. They both have had major needs, one is dying of terminal cancer, the other is struggling with a 10+ year drug addiction. Their need for God in their life is present, and both of them would tell you they need God.

Yet, in the midst of all these similarities there is a major difference. About two months ago, Jill put her faith in Jesus, after only being part of our church family for 4 or 5 months. No one person led her to Jesus. She did not say a 'sinners' prayer one day during a passionate plea from me. None of that happened. She just simply came to us and said she had faith in Jesus. She believed in all the things he said he did. She understood he had died for her sinfulness. He had forgiven her. He had risen again. She knew it all, and more importantly she believed it all with her heart and was willing to give her life over to Jesus. The only thing she didn't know was now what. She didn't know if she had to sign anything or say any special words. It was beautiful. The Spirit was working in her life!

Cliff, on the other hand, has heard the gospel. He has seen it at work in my life as I talk about struggles, about my past, and as he has seen me parent my children and love my wife. But he has still not placed his faith in Jesus. He has asked for a Bible and for me to study it with him, but that is as far as it has gone. I love Cliff. Cliff is not a project. He is my friend. He is my friend who I will earnestly seek God to bring to himself. Not for my sake, but for Cliff's. Jesus is the best thing that could happen to Cliff.

Time & Truth

The reason I compare these two friends of mine is that nothing different was done with Jill that wasn't done with Cliff. We did not have some amazing discipleship technique that worked on Jill, which we somehow forgot to use on Cliff. No, it's just how the Spirit works. The Spirit quickens who he will, and he tarries when he wants, and there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is pray.

This is always a concern we must have when we think through discipleship. We must always factor the Holy Spirit into our equation. It is not that I failed with Cliff and succeeded with Jill. Far from it. God simply works in his way in his time. This is something I need to come to understand better. I need to realize that only by living a life that points people to Jesus will I have the chance to see God work in his timing.

It also gives me a deep hope for Cliff, and everyone else I know who is not submitting his or her life to Jesus. The hope is that the Spirit will work when he will work. It is not in my eloquent speech, or persuasive words. It is when he desires to lead those who he has called unto himself. All I can do is be faithful and pray and proclaim and display the gospel and sit back and wait.

When I think through the difference between Cliff and Jill, I can get frustrated. I remember sitting across from Cliff, asking God, “why?” What had I done wrong? It seemed like I had done everything right, from my limited perspective, yet Cliff’s heart was not changing at all, not in the slightest. I was looking at myself and becoming frustrated that I could not come up with the right things to say, or the right pitch. Later, I was re-reading Tim Chester’s book, You Can Change. Chester points out that, “Behind every sin is a lie.” (pg 73)

When I thought about the different outcomes between Jill in Cliff, I was getting discouraged and down, forgetting that God is good. I was forgetting these truths about Jesus, and believing the lie that it was in my hands to convince Cliff.

In the fifth chapter, Chester looks at Psalm 62.11-12 and points out 4 truths that we need to daily remind ourselves, when the lies assault us.

1. God is great – so we do not have to be in control.
2. God is glorious – so we do not have to fear others.
3. God is good – so we do not have to look elsewhere.
4. God is gracious – so we do not have to prove ourselves.

These four truths rushed in and brought comfort to my struggling heart that day. They were the very thing I needed to remember. These four truths are critical for my heart when I am in the midst of a situation as talked about above. We will all be in a situation that has the same storyline. We will fail at discipleship, in our own mind. Yet the truth is that in the midst of what we may label as a failure, God is still great, glorious, good and gracious. Each of us will have people that we invest time, money, prayers, all we have to show them Jesus’ love, and they will do nothing but cause you headaches. Whether Cliff ever comes to know Jesus or not, God does not change. I must never believe the lie that my value and worth is found in my fruit or in Cliff’s conversion.

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Josh Cousineau was a youth pastor for over 5 years & is now the lead pastor of Redemption Hill Community, which launched in Auburn ME in 2012. Josh is married to his high school sweetheart, Anna. They have 3 amazing children (2 boys & 1 girl). Their daughter was adopted from Uganda in 2011. Josh blogs at http://joshcousineau.com

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For more insights into evangelism & discipleship, check-out Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.

For more free articles on the discipleship process, read Street Grace by Jake Chambers, The Unqualified Disciple by Lindsay Fooshee, & Behold the Beauty by Jason Garwood.

Gospel Centered Religion

These days, it's not polite to speak of the gospel and religion in the same sentence without a "versus" in between. This trend of thinking is unfortunate. In the final tally, we lose more than we gain. Religion is not antithetical to the gospel. Let's unpack this truth.

The Problem

Pitting the gospel against religion stems from two very real and very dangerous problems: self-righteousness and an attempt to please God by good works or good merit. These problems are certainly anti-biblical and need to be called out wherever we notice them.

The False Solution

One popular solution offered in recent books and viral YouTube videos is to castigate religion itself. To show how the gospel of Jesus Christ is actually the antithesis of religion. For the uninitiated, this is what's at play when you hear things like:

"I love Jesus but hate religion." "Jesus hates religion." "Christianity is a relationship, not a religion."

And so on. Note: Being "spiritual but not religious" is related to this discussion as well, though this mantra suggests a rejection of both religion and the gospel.

The Problem with the Solution

The problem with "Gospel vs. Religion" is that it misses the point. This is a case of rightly seeing the problem, but coming up with the wrong steps to eradicate it. Moreover, it is not the perspective of the biblical writers. The Bible never speaks of religion as being bad, in and of itself.

If the problem is self-righteousness, we should couch the discussion using more biblically faithful polarities, such as:

• Gospel vs. False Religion
• Gospel vs. Self-Righteousness
• True Religion vs. False Religion

If this is really how the Bible speaks of the situation, we need to adopt biblical language in our own discussions.

Gospel vs. False Religion

The five chapters of the book of James is replete with favorable statements on the "doing" that is consonant with a gospel-saturated lifestyle:

• "faith without works is dead" (James 2:14-17)
• "be doers of the word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22)
•  a doer who acts "will be blessed in his doing" (James 1:25)
• "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:26-27)

This final passage is most relevant to our discussion: James 1:26-27 contains over half of the NT uses of the Greek word for "religion" (threskeia), and the connotation is certainly not negative.

Even in James' day, there were abuses of religion. There was worthless religion, impure religion, and defiled religion. So, did he punt the word? Did he conclude that "religion" was therefore the opposite of the gospel? No, he took the time to explain what true religion looked like.

The other two instances the word threskeia occur in Acts 26:5 and Colossians 2:18. The word in Col 2 is typically translated as "worship." Most agree that worship is good,  though there can be true worship and false worship. For instance, worship of angels (Col 2) is certainly wrong.

Likewise, in Acts 26, Paul used threskeia as a defense for what a good Jew he was. He certainly wasn't saying his strict observance of religion was bad. It was simply incomplete.

Gospel vs. Self-Righteousness

Passages like Matthew 6:1-24, Romans 9:30-33, and Matthew 23:23 teach on practicing righteousness. In my blog post on Matthew 6, I explain that the problem against which Jesus is warning his followers is not practicing righteousness itself, but one's motive behind practicing righteousness. Don't be afraid to practice righteousness; just be sure to check your heart for the impetus therein.

Similarly, Paul explains why Israel did not arrive at the righteousness they pursued: "Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone ..." (Rom 9:30-33). If our works is the path to righteousness, we will stumble over ourselves. Jesus is the only true way to righteousness.

True Religion vs. False Religion

The word "religion" has been hijacked in 21st century western culture. When people hear it, they think of rules and dos and don'ts. I get it. I don't agree, but I get it. What I don't get, however, is the current trend for believers to attack the biblical term!

Perhaps it is for the sake of cultural relevance. Instead of fighting for a biblical definition, many believers have acquiesced and allowed the word to be redefined wholesale. In my experience, it's a short leap from rejecting "religion" to becoming anti-church. I've seen it happen.

Why revive "religion"? Another way to put it: "Isn't it just semantics?" First, "just semantics" is a pretty big deal. Councils have been called, martyrs have been slaughtered, and wars have been fought - "holy" and otherwise - over the definition of words. More importantly, no, this isn't just semantics. Words do have meaning in context. If our cultural context is moving toward unanimously defining "religion" as evil, we need to take note. (Thankfully, we're not there yet.)

This perspective can easily morph into the before mentioned "spiritual but not religious" trend, which takes serious issue with rules. After all, Christianity is a relationship not a religion, right? We must acknowledge that being against rules is often code for bristling at the mention of obedience, accountability, and discipline.

Obedience is important. I once heard Chuck Swindoll say that there were more rules for riding a bus in Dallas than there were for joining a church. You can get kicked off a bus, but don't try to institute church discipline!

There are plenty of places in the NT where believers are admonished towards obedience. It's an obedience that flows out of the gospel and not to the gospel. Some of Jesus' last words were for his disciples to teach their disciples to obey everything he had commanded (Matt 28:20). This implies both that Jesus had commanded some things that needed to be obeyed and that this obedience was an important part of the Christian life.

There are directives within Christianity for which we need not apologize. These don't save you, but they're essential for a gospel-centered lifestyle within the Christian religion.

To conclude:

• We believers should concede no more ground and fight for a return to a biblical understanding of religion. Can religion and gospel be at odds? Sure. But it doesn't have to be; the two aren't necessarily opposed.

• Some words are worth intentionally and unequivocally defining so that people know what we truly mean by them. This is what I've tried to do in my ministry and I have not noticed a surge in people giving in to legalism and self-righteousness as a result. If we are too quick to discard "religion", the net result might be discarding obedience and a healthy ecclesiology along with it.

• We should draw a distinction between true and false religion (cf. James 1). The contrast is between believing and doing things that God desires of us (submission and obedience to Christ) and what is not required of us (e.g., don't dance or drink or watch rated-R movies). This is the distinction all believers should strive to make. It is another thing when the contrast is "faith vs. obedience," which are two things the Bible never pits against each other.

• The gospel is the beginning and foundation of one's journey in discipleship. It is the first step toward true obedience. I'm in full agreement that practicing empty rights and rituals in order to please God is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, most young believers, new believers, or even non-believers I know don't easily separate empty rights and rituals from all rights and rituals.

As a friend recently told me: "We shouldn't conceptualize faith as opposed to 'doing'; rather, we should more carefully define what 'doing' God expects of us."

Final Disclaimers

I agree with the importance of attacking the enemy that the Gospel vs. Religion proponents are attacking. I'm for the gospel! I'm for obedience that flows from faith in Christ, not obedience that somehow leads to a relationship with Christ. I am also fully convinced that the Gospel vs. Religion camp agrees with the importance of obedience in the Christian life; they're not antinomians. We are on the same team. I just think they've given the wrong label to the enemy they're fighting, and there might be some unfortunate unintended consequences.

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Jason Seville (Th.M) lives in Memphis, TN with his wife, Kim, and daughters, Sydney & Sophie. They are members at First Evangelical Church, and Jason is on staff with Downline Ministries, where he writes curriculum, teaches, and heads up Downline Builder. You can follow him on Twitter @jasonCseville. 

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For more thoughts on gospel centered religion, check out Tony Merida’s Proclaiming Jesus.

For more free articles on this topic, read: How to Respond to Religious Pluralism, by Jonathan Dodson; and What Is Gospel Centered Ministry, by Winfield Bevins.