How to Disciple a Transsexual - Part One

This is part 1 of the 3 part series, "How to Disciple a Transsexual" by Bob Thune. Here are parts Two and Three of the series. My friend Ryan is a transsexual. He used to hate God, but now he’s at least lukewarm toward the idea of trusting Jesus. In this article, I want to share a few insights into how I’ve discipled Ryan. That way, if you ever disciple a transsexual, you’ll have some idea of where to begin.

Listen to Their Story

The obvious problem you’re probably noticing is that Ryan is not a Christian. At first it was a challenge to disciple someone who hadn’t even trusted in Jesus yet! But the more I did it, the easier it became. You see, evangelism and discipleship are fundamentally the same thing: pointing people toward Jesus as their all-satisfying treasure. So don’t get all worried thinking that this article doesn’t apply to you. It does. Even if you’re discipling Christians instead of unbelieving transsexuals.

The reason I met Ryan was because I didn’t ask enough questions. Had I been more careful on the front end, I could have avoided the whole situation and stayed inside my conservative evangelical Christian bubble. We have this student in our college community named Amy. She is the most Jesus-loving, extraverted, bubbly person I’ve ever met. And she’s extremely hard to say no to, because she says things like, “Jesus told me to talk to this person!” Or, “The Lord is totally working in your life!” Things that make you think Jesus must have ridden in the car with her on the way over. Amy grabbed me one week before our Wednesday night prayer meeting to ask if I’d meet with a friend of hers from school – a homosexual who was not yet a believer in Christ, but had been asking lots of questions about faith. I didn’t really want to. But she was so enthusiastic, so happy in Jesus, so convicting with her “you’re a pastor and this is your job” tone of voice. So I agreed.

Then, after I’d said yes, she proceeded to tell me the rest of the story: Ryan was an outcast at school because he dresses up as a woman once a week. He’d scheduled a sex-change operation for next spring. He was “married” to a lesbian woman as a mere formality, to allow them to pursue their homosexual lifestyles discreetly. His parents had disowned him and he hadn’t set foot in a church since childhood. Oh, and he wanted to meet as soon as possible. I feigned utter confidence in Amy’s presence and assured her I’d love to meet with Ryan. Then I went home and peed my pants.

The next morning, I hit my knees and began to pray out of my own dire inadequacy. I have never had much success in reaching out to homosexuals. I mean, I come across as harsh and intimidating – to Christians! So to those who have been wounded by the church, I must be Genghis Khan. My prayers that morning were brutally honest and not very creative to boot. They were something like “Oh, Jesus” followed by some expletives and mumbling. You might think that’s irreverent, but I think it’s just real.

That night I met Amy and Ryan at a coffee shop. And in those first few minutes, God did a profound work in my life. I guess I was expecting Dennis Rodman in a wedding dress or something. What I found was a human being named Ryan, created in the image of God, with the same wounds and soul-scars and questions as you and me and everyone else. Don’t get me wrong: there was great discomfort on both sides of the table. It was worse than a first date. Ryan was shifty and uneasy. I could tell he was testing me out to see if he could trust me. And I felt awkward as well, afraid that at any moment he would discover that I was Genghis Khan and would stand up and yell obscenities at me and make a big scene. Part of my fear was self-interest, but part of it was an honest concern for the kingdom of God. I was sitting across from a guy who had been deeply wounded by Christians. He had finally found one bubbly Jesus-girl whom he could trust. Now he was risking interaction with a real, live minister one more time. I felt that if I didn’t win his trust, this might be the last time he thought about Jesus. But if I could just show in some way how much God cared about him, maybe he’d hate God a little less. And that would be big.

My goal as I tell Ryan’s story is to convince you that discipleship must be centered on the gospel. In order to see true heart-transformation in a disciple’s life, you have to get him to delight in Jesus more than money or love or ambition or control or self-interest. The only way to do that is to constantly remind him of his deep brokenness and sinfulness – the “bad news” of the gospel – so that he despairs of his own efforts, and then to constantly rejoice in the powerful grace of God through the cross – the “good news” of the gospel – so that he deeply feels and believes God’s radical love for him. Jack Miller, a now-deceased missionary and seminary professor, used to summarize the gospel with these two phrases: “Cheer up: you’re worse than you think. But cheer up: God’s grace is greater than you ever dreamed.” The same gospel that saves sinners also sanctifies the saints. The gospel doesn’t just make you right with God; it frees you to delight in God.

“Cheer up: you’re worse than you think. But cheer up: God’s grace is greater than you ever dreamed.” 

Tell Them Your Sin

The trouble is that we don’t really believe that the gospel matters for Christians. Most of us only think of the gospel in the context of evangelism. We view the gospel as the ABC’s of Christianity, the starting point, the thing nonbelievers need to hear, the door you walk through to get “in.” Once you’re in, of course, then you move beyond the gospel to biblical principles and quiet times and religious books and worship CD’s.

Ryan was pretty sure that we were “in” and he was “out.” He knew that in the eyes of the average Christian, he was a really bad guy – a transsexual, for God’s sake! A pastor had told him once that he was on an express train to hell because of his lifestyle. (I wondered if that pastor would say the same thing to a perpetual gossip or a legalist or someone who eats too much.) So Ryan consistently steered the conversation toward his lifestyle – the thing that seemed to keep him “out” in the eyes of most Christians. He had been to the gay church in town, and they told him that his lifestyle didn’t matter. On the surface, he was fishing for me to say something similar: “It’s okay to be transsexual – you can still follow Jesus.” But underneath, I sensed a much more powerful question in play: “Am I more broken, more sinful, more hopeless than you?”

So I moved the conversation away from Ryan’s lifestyle and toward the common brokenness and rebellion of all of humanity. I told him the real issue wasn’t his gender confusion. It was his sin. He wanted to hear that he was worse than the guy next door. I told him that he wasn’t. I took out my Bible and made him read out loud some of the famous verses about sin. I focused on the fact that all have sinned, that all have turned away from God, that everyone needs to be reconciled to their Creator. Our external sins may be different, but our hearts are all the same. Then I took it a step further: I told him about my own sin.

“Ryan, do you want to know about me? I am a control freak. I like to have everything under my power. I like to put myself in the place of God and manage the outcomes. I am rude and harsh toward my wife and kids. I am judgmental when people don’t live up to my standards. I fail to love people the way Jesus does. I love people on my terms, the way I think they deserve to be loved, based on my criteria. I am uncaring and critical and resentful toward those who don’t see things my way. I bow down and sell my soul every day to the idol of Control. Ryan, I am a sinner, and Jesus is my only hope.”

Suddenly, Ryan began to soften. The conversation turned a corner. He fell to his knees and, through his tears, trusted in Jesus right there in the middle of the coffee shop. (Actually, he didn’t. But that’s the ending you were hoping for, isn’t it? Stop it already!) The conversation did turn a corner, because Ryan finally began to realize that his lifestyle was a secondary issue. Here I was, a happily married minister, telling him that my heart was as dirty and sinful and broken as his. The only difference was that I was trusting in Jesus to make me right with God and transform my heart, and he wasn’t.

We are good at telling non-Christians they need Jesus. No thinking follower of Christ would look at Ryan and say, “Change your lifestyle first, and then we can work on your heart.” We know that deep inner change must come first; “make the tree good, and its fruit [will be] good” (Matthew 12:33). So ask yourself: why don’t you apply the same truth when it comes to discipleship?

The gospel is not the ABC’s of Christianity; it is the A to Z of Christianity. When we forget the gospel, we cheat our disciples. We give the impression that being a follower of Jesus means becoming less broken, less sinful, less hopeless. So we create a caste-system-Christianity: there are the really broken people (unbelievers), the pretty broken people (young believers), and the people who have learned to pretend they’re not broken (mature believers).

Not only is this blatantly unbiblical, it is contrary to common sense. Jesus said that those who are forgiven much will love much (Luke 7:47). The mature Christians are not those who are less broken, but those who realize the depth of their brokenness and are clinging all the more tightly to Jesus.

To test this truth, just ask yourself how my conversation with Ryan would have differed if I had said, “Yeah, you’re really messed up. But the good news is, if you trust in Jesus, you can be as good as me.” You might be smart enough (or politically correct enough) not to say this to a transsexual. But unless your discipleship efforts are rooted in the gospel, it’s exactly what you’re saying to the people you’re leading.

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Bob Thune (@BobThune) is the lead pastor of Coram Deo Church in Omaha, Nebraska. Bob is also the co-author of The Gospel-Centered Life, a gospel-driven small-group curriculum that has sold over 50,000 copies and helped Christians all over the world understand the centrality of the gospel in all of life. Read more at www.BobThune.com

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Read more on making the gospel the gospel known in Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson. 

Read more helpful articles Questioning Discipleship by Will Walker and A Jesus-Like Church Culture by Scott Sauls.

The Dark Knight Rises (Or, the Return of Rob Bell)

Rob Bell was once a rising star in evangelicalism. Back in the day, many conservative evangelicals overlooked his pithiness and obscure descriptions of doctrine because his voice was different, his reach was broad (for example, the Chicago Sun-Times dubbed him "The Next Billy Graham"), and he seemed to be orthodox. Over time, many evangelicals began to distance themselves from Bell as he minimized the virgin birth of Christ in Velvet Elvis or even when he toyed with ethereal thoughts on quantum physics in "Everything is Spiritual." But, the nail in the coffin was his placation of Hell in Love Wins. This book's release even lead to an apparent denouncement from John Piper.

Like Batman, this hero became a reviled vigilante in the eyes of the very ones who once praised his work. Eventually, even Bell's own congregation couldn't handle the controversy.

Why is all of this important? Because he has a new book on the way. In What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Bell "shows how traditional ideas have grown stale and dysfunctional and reveals a new path for how to return vitality and vibrancy to how we understand God." (Here's the somewhat confusing trailer.) I'm not sure if this book is about evangelism or perhaps some sort of theology on the doctrine of God, but it's sure to sell and sure to confuse more than help Bell's target audience of people disillusioned with "traditional" Christianity. Get ready to immunize your church for the next wave of Bell.

Christian leaders have already chimed in on this subject and undoubtedly more will. Here are a few worth reading:

Owen Strachan:

If you want mystery and the ethereal stuff of faith without the burdens of inerrancy and orthodoxy, you could go his way. I do happen to love the “numinous” nature of Christianity, too. But I find it, and see my senses most come alive, not when I’m plumbing uncertainty (which leads ultimately to destruction), but when I’m peering into the mind of God in Scripture. This is why I so love Jonathan Edwards: because his vision of God, thoroughly biblical, is so transcendent, captivating, grand, large, deep, soaring, and exciting.

Carl Trueman:

[Y]es, people will take it seriously and the book will no doubt sell in vast quantities. As the old song has it: Find out what they like and how they like it and let them have it just that way.

Steve Knight also talks about Bell's promotional event for the book and the positive response he received from his supporters.

A Gospel-Driven Catechism for Kingdom Warfare

Jeff Medders is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, Texas. He is pursuing his M.Div. at Southern Seminary. He and Natalie have one precious little girl, Ivy.  Jeff digs caffeinated drinks, books, and the Triune God. He blogs at www.jeffmedders.org and tweets from @jeffmedders. ___

Today, we are at war. Not with flesh and blood, but in soul. Our heart, soul, mind, and strength are in daily conflicts with the Cosmic Powers. How do you fight?

The Apostle Paul wants us to be catechized. We need a catechism—a gospel-driven catechism of victory.

Dust off Your Catechisms

Catechizing believers, teaching a set list of questions and answers, is a long-rooted practice of the Bride of Christ. It's one that seems to be waning, if not already gone. It's definitely dusty, but we can recover it. Catechism is a powerful, helpful, biblical method of teaching others—and yourself.

How ultra-helpful are the Westminster and Heidelberg versions?

Westminster Catechism

Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Question 4: What is God?

Answer: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

The Heidelberg Catechism

Question 1: What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Preaching the Gospel to Our Hearts

We need to become experts in the art of preaching the gospel to ourselves. One of the greatest thinkers and pastors of the past 100 years was Martyn Lloyd-Jones, referred to by many as “The Doctor.” He rightly diagnosed why so many Christians flounder in their daily lives and experiences with God. The Doctor said, "Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?" How right on was he? A defeated, depressed, downtrodden, exasperated, exhausted, joyless, burnt-out Christianity is not Christianity.

We need to lay hold of the cross and remember our new life in Christ. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves. We need to catechize ourselves. Catechisms are a turnkey help in the practice of preaching to yourself.

Catechism ought to be in our spiritual discipline gun cabinet.

The long tested spiritual disciplines need a freshening in our perspectives. What can often be seen as a quiet and cute time around a cup of coffee, Moleskine, ESV Study Bible, assorted pens and highlighters—maybe some instrumental music—is nothing short of Kingdom warfare. We don't read the Bible to get a pick-me-up; we read to grow in the knowledge of the holy—yes, and amen!—and we take up the spiritual disciplines as weaponry against the ancient Reptile and his hobgoblins. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”(2 Corinthians 10:4–5 ESV). The last thing Satan wants of the Church is to obey Jesus, glorify Jesus, honor Jesus, spread the fame of Jesus—and that should be our first thing, the chief aim of all spiritual disciplines.

Attack With Gospel Truth

When the hiss of accusation, doubt, and fiery arrows draw near, Paul walks us through a catechism of victory in Romans 8:31-39; and if we resist the devil, and draw near to God, the snake will bolt (James 4:7-8). As you read Romans 8:31-39, look for the question marks.

Romans 8:31-39:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul sets up seven questions (in ten verses!) and gives the answers—what is he doing? He is catechizing us. Romans 8:31-39 may be one of the first Christian catechisms.

There seems to be four main questions:

Question: Why should I not doubt God's love and care for me? (vv. 31-32)

Answer: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Question: How come charges will not stand against me? (v. 33)

Answer: It is God who justifies.

Question: Can I ever be condemned? (v. 34)

Answer: Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Question: Can anything separate me from the love of Christ? Will I ever be unloved by God? (vv. 37-39)

Answer: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Glory to God!

It All Comes Back to The Gospel

The questions are helpful, but the weapon is the answer. What weapon does Paul give when we are wondering if we'll be condemned? Read your Bible more? Pray harder? No way. He gives gospel truth. Stand-alone spiritual disciplines are not an encouragement; they are a vehicle, meant to help us draw near to God (James 4:8). Spiritual disciplines alone aren't the answer to a struggling heart; they take us to the answer. And each question is answered with gospel glories.

• Question: Why should I not doubt God's love and care for me?

Answer: v. 32, He gave us his Son! (Gospel)

• Question: How come charges will not stand against me?

Answer: v. 33, It is God who justifies us! How? The Cross & Resurrection (Romans 4:25). (More gospel)

• Question: Can I be condemned?

Answer: v. 34, Never! Jesus died for you, is alive for you, is at the Father's right hand for you, and interceding for you. (Yep, more gospel!)

• Question: Can anything separate me from the love of Christ?

vv. 37-39, No! You are a mega-conqueror through Christ. You have victory in him & nothing can separate from him. (And again, more gospel!)

Gospel. Gospel. Gospel. Gospel.

It always comes back to God's love; it's lauded four times in the passage (vv. 35, 37, 39). Always come back to his love. And God's love is made plain and clear in the gospel.

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God wants you to know and feel his love. While else frame every answer with it?  You can never feel too loved by God.

Are you sure of his love (v.38)? That's the point of the catechism, to be sure. Preach to yourself the immeasurable, matchless bounty of God's love for you.

RESPONSIVE READING

Here is responsive reading based off of Romans 8:31-39, that could assist you catechizing yourself with the gospel.

I struggle to believe God's love and care for me. Is there hope?

God is for me. No one can stand against God’s plan for me. He didn't spare his Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Is it true that God won't cast me aside? I've done some bad things; I'll never be good enough.

No one can condemn me, for Jesus died in my place—more than that, He is alive—and he reigns over my life, and is interceding for me.

My life is heavy; things aren't going as I planned. I thought God loved me?

Nothing can separate me from God's love. Trouble, distress, persecution, poverty, danger, and death cannot remove me from God's grace. In all these things, I am more than a conqueror through him who loved me.

Satan prowls around me. I've sinned too much. I've sinned too big. I'm nervous about my future.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord.

I confess these truths, clinging to Jesus — I believe and live again.

Christ be praised.

How To Disciple Urban Teens

It was a sweltering summer night in Chicago at the church of my youth and an annual evangelistic rally was taking place. It was a time of team challenges and chants which culminated in a presentation of the gospel to mainly unchurched, urban teens. A young man, who by any account was from the wrong side of the tracks, went forward at the end of service and responded to the gospel, professing Christ as his Savior. Leaving full of hope and joy, he was dropped off at his home by the church van that night only to be shot dead in front of his house. This is the life in an urban center like Chicago, where life seems unpredictable, circumstances appear unchangeable, and hopelessness seems unavoidable. A reality show recently chronicled the lives of a group of high school girls going through years of schooling in Chicago. In the show episodes centered on the teens discussing sex, bad grades, identity, goals, violence, and pregnancy, among other things. It was hard to watch the show without gasping at what was being presented as an inside look into the lives of urban teens.

As a pastor in Chicago, I have the unique opportunity to engage with an assortment of people from different backgrounds, with different stories, and in different cultures. However, in addition to being a pastor, I also work at the public high school featured in the reality show and was able to engage with some of the teens featured. We know the gospel truly transforms lives and can radically change the lives of the next generation. Yet, we have to realize that in urban centers everything is intensified, multiplied, and amplified. How can we genuinely disciple a young person in the hope in which they've been called as they navigate through a hopeless city?

I was educated in one of the most diverse public high schools in Chicago while going to one of the most diverse churches in the area. I was discipled by my former youth pastor and it was during those times that the foundation for my future maturity in Christ was established. Having been discipled as an urban teen and now working with teens I have come to a few insights in affective ways to disciple urban youth.

CARE

There is usually something going on at home, be it an absent father, economic despair, or emotional upheaval. For example, fatherlessness is prevalent in urban centers. I was recently told of a young woman in our church whose father literally lived in the same neighborhood, yet was in and out of her life constantly. This is typical of urban youth. The first step in discipling these young people is to care. Care to know their lives; care for their whole person. Whether being fatherless or coming from a loving family, urban youth need to know you care.

In Gospel Coach, Scott Thomas writes that as Paul was pouring into young Timothy, he was interested in the development of Timothy's whole life: personal (1 Timothy 3:1-13, 2 Timothy 2:1, Titus 1-2), missional (1 Timothy 5:17, 2 Timothy 2, 5), and spiritually (2 Timothy 3:14-17, Titus 1:9). Paul even goes as far as giving Timothy advice for his stomach ailments (1 Timothy 5:23). They need to have a sense of belonging to you, before belief, just as Timothy was a "son" to Paul. Urban youth don't care what you say, until they know that you care.

CONTEXTUALIZE THE GOSPEL

Tim Keller says, in Center Church, active contextualization is a three-part process: entering the culture, challenging the culture, and then appealing to the listener. We need to engage urban youth culture to understand the hopes, beliefs, and questions they have to show how the gospel responds to these areas. Urban youth hear false "gospels" everywhere they turn. Their identity crisis is addressed in their culture by having more, being physically handsome, and beautiful (including being thin), and getting whatever you can from people. We need to understand the false "gospels" they are receiving from their culture in order to show how the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges their hopes, questions, and beliefs.

I remember my old youth pastor was actively engaged in our school life, building relationship with our school principals and teachers. To reach urban youth, we need to enter their culture, challenge their culture, and then appeal to them. Know what they are listening to, who they're listening to, know who their influences are, know who they idolize, know the movies, music, and books they enjoy. Then you can be able to say how the gospel according to Jesus is more hopeful than the gospel according to Bieber.

BE AN EXAMPLE

Paul tells the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." They are looking for someone to follow and to imitate. In my time with my youth pastor, I was able to be involved in the details of his life, including when his first child was born, going on hospital visits, visiting other youth in the projects, and in his own study of the Bible. I may not remember the weekly sermons preached each week at youth group, but I remember the hands-on life lessons I learned and still find myself remembering those lessons as I imitated him as he imitated Christ. As a pastor, I find myself still imitating him over 10 years later.

SHOW THE PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL

Urban youth are used to hearing, "Don't do this." Christian youth especially are told constantly, for example, "Don't date in high school," or "don't drink," and "don't cut class." Oftentimes good advice falls on deaf ears because we relegate the gospel to a list of do's and don’ts. Urban youth need purpose. When they are aware of God's redemptive plan, and his purpose, they can understand that the purpose of their lives isn't about which guy they can get to like them, or buying the latest Jordans, or getting good grades so they don't get punished. When my youth pastor shared with me the advice given to a young pastor (Timothy) in a large metropolis (Ephesus), to set an example to believers in speech, conduct, love, faith, and in purity despite his youthfulness, it gave me a sense of purpose. Although I failed time and time again, it still resonated with me knowing that I was an urban missionary in a concrete jungle, and my high school was my mission field. I was living in a world in dire need of reconciliation with Jesus, and that, as Rick Warren puts in the opening pages of The Purpose Driven Life, "Is not about you."

SHOW THEM IDENTITY

We live in a Facebook, self-centered, "me first" world, and our teens are growing up hearing their self-worth comes through people's worth ascribed to them. How many Facebook "likes" your picture has determined real beauty and significance in the eyes of urban girls, and how many girls you can sleep with determines value in the eyes of urban boys. Our youth are being given a Kim Kardashian and Kanye West "gospel" that shows that our sense of worth comes in how people view us. The gospel doesn't just address their behavior; it addresses their core value system, and cuts to the core of who they are. We need to show them that their worth only comes through Jesus Christ. Our security and significance comes from Jesus because we are "in Christ."

SPEND TIME

We have to remember that urban youth are surrounded, for over 30 hours a week, by conversations of drinking and drugs, opportunities for sex, friends encouraging cheating, and an assortment of other temptations. In walking through the halls of my workplace, I hear foul language, talks of weekend parties and getting drunk, and sleeping with whomever. We can't expect to have any influence in their lives unless they know we care and seek to spend time with them. Jesus lived life with his disciples, and although in our context that seems virtually impossible, we have to recognize that to have any impact on these youths, it will require an investment of time. I was able to spend countless hours with my youth pastor, including talking in his office, watching him work, and being the last person dropped off on the bus. Time is one of the greatest resources we can give young people.

EXPECT DISAPPOINTMENT

In my years of discipleship with my youth pastor, I was there to see friends slowly fall away. I was there when a few youth revealed they had been closet lesbians. I was there when two mature youth members revealed they had sex and had gotten pregnant. I was also there when we received word that one of our youth was caught in gang crossfire as an innocent bystander and was murdered in the street. Jesus himself dealt with a ragamuffin group of misfits who seemingly disappointed him throughout their three-year discipleship program, yet it didn't hinder him from seeing the big picture.  Jesus knew they would fail him, even to the point of prophesying Peter's repeated denial. Disappointments are times we can lovingly show grace and mercy, and bring truth. We have to point them to the truth of a God who loves them and died for them. We have to be willing to walk with teens through trials and tragedies, even the ones brought upon themselves.

BE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL

With youth, we know there comes a time when they will eventually leave us. Any pastor, youth or other, have the thought at the back of our heads, "Was it enough?" We want to know if the investment we made was even worth it. We can't make a beneficial impact if we come with the impression, "I will have this youth under my care for the next four years, and that's it."  Urban youth are constantly dealt disappointments and abandonment. We are in cities where everything is conditional, and we need to show them that, despite trust issues they may have or fears of abandonment caused by absent fathers or flings with the opposite sex lasting weeks, we are in it for the long haul. Whether it be wisdom in picking a spouse, a future career, or help in a time of need, we need to expect that our job of equipping doesn't end with graduation.

Make a Lasting Investment

Working with urban youth is hard, but it is ultimately a blessing. When we teach them to know the gospel and live the gospel, we are making a long-term investment into these lives. Teens have the capacity to reach a generation of their peers by demonstrating the gospel in every aspect of their lives.

In 2010, a former youth pastor set out to embark on planting a church because of the God's call on his life. Painting the vision to the former youth he had poured into and discipled over the years, they had decided to join him in starting CityLights Church a year later. They had desired the same gospel transformation that occurred in their lives to occur in others as they reached a relatively unchurched area of Chicago for Jesus. Giving up their time, their talents, and their treasures, CityLights has been able to reach hundreds in just two short years, making disciples that touch their world with the love of Jesus.

I have been privileged to be a part and a recipient of what God has done through these former discipled urban youth, as well as being added as one of their pastors. When time is spent, when care is given, when the gospel is made applicable in their lives, when they are shown who they are in Christ, when they're given an example and purpose to follow, and have leaders to disciple them for the long haul, we can be confident that God "is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us."

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Eliot Velazquez serves as a pastor of CityLights Church in Chicago, where he oversees spiritual formation and community groups. In addition, he works in the Chicago Public School system and is currently in graduate school. He lives in the northwest side of Chicago and is engaged to his fiance, Michelle. 

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Read Proclaiming Jesus by Tony Merida. 

Continue reading on this topic in Taking the Long View and Discipling the Disillusioned. 

The Disconnect Between Pastoral Persona and Private Person

Editor’s Note: This article is an excerpt from Paul David Tripp's book, Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastor Ministry, published by Crossway and used here with permission. --

I was a very angry man. The problem was that I didn’t know I was an angry man. I thought that no one had a more accurate view of me  than I did, and I simply didn’t see myself as angry. No, I didn’t think I was perfect and yes, I knew I needed others in my life, but I lived as though I didn’t. Luella, my dear wife, was very faithful over a long period of time in bringing my anger to me. She did it with a combination of firmness and grace. She never yelled at me, she never called me names, and she never called me out in front of our children. Again and again she let me know that my anger was neither justified nor acceptable. I look back and marvel at the character she showed during those very difficult days. I found out later that Luella had already been putting together her escape plan. No, she wasn’t planning to divorce me; she just knew that the cycle of anger needed to be broken so that we could be reconciled and live in the kind of relationship that God had designed marriage to be.

When Luella would approach me with yet another instance of this anger, I would always do the same thing. I would wrap my robes of righteousness around me, activate my inner lawyer, and remind her once again of what a great husband she had. I would go through my well-rehearsed and rather long list of all the things I did for her, all the ways I made her life easier. I’m a domestic guy. I don’t mind doing things around the house. I love to cook. So I had a lot of things I could point to that assured me I was not the guy she was saying I was and that I hoped would convince her that she was wrong as well. But Luella wasn’t convinced. She seemed more and more convinced that she was right and that change had to take place. I just wanted her to leave me alone, but she wouldn’t, and frankly that made me angry.

In ways that scare me now as I look back on them, I was a man headed for disaster. I was in the middle of destroying my marriage and my ministry, and I didn’t have a clue. There was a huge disconnect between my private persona and my public ministry life. The irritable and impatient man at home was a very different guy from the gracious and patient pastor our congregation saw in those public ministry and worship settings where they encountered me most. I was increasingly comfortable with things that should have haunted and convicted me. I was okay with things as they were. I felt little need for change. I just didn’t see the spiritual schizophrenia that personal ministry life had become. Things would not stay the same, if for no other reason than that I was and am a son of a relentless Redeemer, who will not forsake the work of his hands until that work is complete. Little did I know that he would expose my heart in a powerful moment of rescuing grace. I was blind and progressively hardening and happily going about the work of a growing local church and Christian school.

When being confronted, I told Luella numerous times that I thought she was just a garden-variety, discontented wife. I told her that I would pray for her. That helped and comforted her! Actually, it did the opposite—it depicted two things to her. It alerted her to how blind I was, and it reminded her that she had no power whatsoever to change me. The change that was needed would take an act of grace. Luella was confronted with the fact that she would never be anything more than a tool in God’s powerful hands.

But God blessed Luella with the perseverant faith that she needed to keep coming to me, often in the middle of very discouraging moments. What I am about to share next is both humbling and embarrassing. On one occasion, as Luella was confronting me with yet another instance of my anger, I got on a roll and actually said these deeply humble words: “Ninety-five percent of the women in our church would love to be married to a man like me!” How’s that for humility? Luella very quickly informed me that she was in the 5 percent! How blind does one have to be to let a statement like mine roll out of one’s lips? God was about to undo and rebuild the heart and life of this man, and I did not know I needed it and had no idea that it was coming.

My brother Tedd and I had been on a ministry training weekend and were on our way home. I never thought that a single trip up the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike could be so momentous. Tedd suggested that we try to make what we had learned over the weekend practical to our own lives. He said, “Why don’t you start?” and then proceeded to ask me a series of questions. I think I will celebrate what happened next ten millions years into eternity. As Tedd asked me questions, it was as though God was ripping down curtains and I was seeing and hearing myself with accuracy for the first time. There is no way that I can overstate the significance of the work that the Holy Spirit was doing at that moment in the car through Tedd’s questions.

As God opened my eyes in that moment, I was immediately broken and grieved. What I saw through Tedd’s questions was so far from the view of myself that I had carried around for so many years that it was almost impossible to believe that the man I was now looking at and hearing was actually me. But it was. I couldn’t believe what I saw myself doing and heard myself saying as I recounted scenarios in answer to Tedd’s questions. It was a moment of pointed and powerful divine rescue, a bigger moment than I was able to grasp in the shock and emotion of the moment. I don’t know if Tedd knew at the time how big this moment was, either.

I couldn’t wait to get home and talk with Luella. I knew the insight I was being given was not just the produce of God’s using Tedd’s questions; it was also the result of Luella’s loving but determined faithfulness for all of those trying years. I am a man with a lively sense of humor, and I often enter the house humorously, but not this night. I was in the throes of life-altering, heart-reshaping conviction. I think Luella knew right away that something was up by the way I looked. I asked her if we could sit down and talk, even though it was late. As we sat down I said, “I know you have been trying for a long time to get me to look at my anger, and I have been unwilling. I have always turned it back on you, but I can honestly say for the first time that I am ready to listen to you. I want to hear what you have to say.”

I’ll never forget what happened next. Luella began to cry; she told me that she loved me, and then she talked for two hours. It was in those two hours that God began the process of the radical tearing down and rebuilding of my heart. The most important word of the previous sentence is  process. I wasn’t zapped by lightening; I didn’t instantly become an unangry man. But now I was a man with eyes, ears, and heart open. The next few months were incredibly painful. It seemed that my anger was visible everywhere I looked. At times it seemed the pain was too great to bear. That pain was the pain of grace. God was making the anger that I had denied and protected to be like vomit in my mouth. God was working to make sure that I would never go back again. I was in the middle of spiritual surgery. You see, the pain wasn’t an indication that God had withdrawn his love and grace from me. No, the opposite was true. The pain was a clear indication of God’s lavishing his love and grace on me. In this trial of conviction, I was getting what I had so often prayed for—the salvation (sanctification) of my soul.

I will never forget one particular moment that took place months after that night of conviction and rescue. I was coming down the stairs into our living room, and I saw Luella sitting with her back to me. And as I looked at her, it hit me that I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt that old ugly anger toward her. Now, I want to be candid here. I’m not saying that I had risen to a point in my sanctification where I found it impossible to experience a flash of impatience or irritation; but that that old, life-dominating anger was gone. Praise God! I walked up behind Luella and put my hands on her shoulders, and she put her head back and looked up at me, and I said to her, “You know, I’m not angry at you anymore.” Together we laughed and cried at the same time at the beauty of what God had done.

NOT ALONE

I wish I could say that my pastoral experience is unique, but I have come to learn in my ministry travels to hundreds of churches around the world that, sadly, it is not. Sure, the details are unique, but the same disconnect between the public pastoral persona and the private man is there in many, many pastor’s lives. I have heard so many stories containing so many confessions that I have carried with me grief and concern about the state of pastoral culture in our generation. It is the burden of this concern, coupled with my knowledge and experience of transforming grace, that has driven me to write this book. There are three underlying themes that operated in my life, which I have encountered operating in the lives of many pastors to whom I have talked. These underlying themes functioned as the mechanism of spiritual blindness in my life, and they do in the lives of countless pastors around the world. Unpacking these themes is a good way to launch us on an examination of places where pastoral culture may be less than biblical and on a consideration of temptations that are either resident in or intensified by pastoral ministry.

Three Themes of Disaster

1. I let ministry define my identity.
2. I let biblical literacy and theological knowledge define my maturity.
3. I confused ministry success with God's endorsement of my lifestyle.

I was a man in need of rescuing grace, and through Luella’s faithfulness and Tedd’s surgical questions, God did exactly that. What about you? How do you view yourself? What are the things you regularly say to you about you? Are there subtle signs in your life that you see yourself as being different from those to whom you minister? Do you see yourself as a minister of grace in need of the same grace? Have you become comfortable with discontinuities between the gospel that you preach and the way that you live? Are there disharmonies between your public ministry persona and the details of your private life? Do you encourage a level of community in your church that you do not give yourself to? Do you fall into believing that no one has a more accurate view of you than you do? Do you use your knowledge or experience to keep confrontation at bay?

Pastor, you don’t have to be afraid of what is in your heart, and you don’t have to fear being known, because there is nothing in you that could ever be exposed that hasn’t already been covered by the precious blood of your Savior king, Jesus.

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Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization. Paul has written twelve books including Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands and Crossway's Whiter Than Snow. He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.

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Read more on this topic in the Gospel Amnesia by Luma Simms. Read related articles like: The Gospel Gives Us a Secure View of Self by Jared Wilson or The Podcast Church by Jonathan Dodson.

Book Giveaway: Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

Thanks to B&H Publishing and The A Group, we are giving away the updated and expanded edition of John Piper's Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.

After reading the original edition of this book some years ago, I was encouraged and blessed by Piper's wisdom and insights into being more than a teacher, Greek/Hebrew scholar, hospital visitor, or CEO. God's call is much bigger: To rely on the Holy Spirit and follow Jesus to the ends of the earth. With six new chapters and expansion of others, this edition will surely bless a new generation of pastors (and even laymen!).

Entry Requirements:

To enter, simply use the social media buttons at the top or bottom of this post to share it on Facebook or Twitter.

*Extra credit: "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

There will be one winner and the giveaway ends Sunday, February 10 at 11:59 p.m. CST.

Good luck!

6 Threats to Ministry and Friendship Mixing

If you want to stay friends than don’t do ministry together. 

It is either business or friendship; you can’t have both. 

It can be hard to find good help these days, and you can’t afford to lose an employee by becoming their friend.   

These are common sayings in ministry. Are they true? All too often, friends excitedly start ministries, businesses, and churches together only to see it end up tearing the friendship and work apart (even Paul and Barnabas get split up). We are often taught to no blur the lines between relationship and business. We learn to compartmentalize, isolate our groups of friends from one another--coworkers, family, old friends from high school, church relationships, new friends, and those created around a shared interest or hobby. I've noticed a tendency to not only keep these friends separate but also to keep them from knowing me fully.

Does this sound like good news: you can only have your friend in one avenue of life? Jesus models a lifestyle that included leading, teaching, serving, eating, ministering to and with his friends. In John 15:15 he no longer calls his disciples servants but friends. Though he is their king and savior, he considers them friends. This is incredible. Jesus models friendship that crosses cultural, social, and even spiritual barriers. Jesus was not afraid to “do ministry” with friends. Why? Maybe because there is no fear in love as perfect love cast out fear (1 Jn. 4:18).

It is counter-cultural to do all of life with your friends but that seems to fit with the way Jesus lived anyway. The cross, where the perfect loving God of the universe dies for the imperfect scum of the earth, is a constant reminder of how counter-cultural Jesus is and therefore how counter-cultural his followers get to be. Jesus told his followers that it would be their love for one another that would let the world know they were following him (Jn. 12:34-35). Sounds like Christian relationships get to look radically different from the world as the relationships themselves show off the radical love of Jesus of the cross.

What does this look like in real life?

I am glad you asked. About a year and a half ago I asked my good friend Dustin Nickerson to seriously consider and pray about moving to San Diego to join me in serving Red Door Church. Our church leadership felt that his gifts and experience would be a good fit for us at this time, but beyond that I missed my good friend and wanted to do life with him once again.

Dustin and I began praying and dreaming about what it would be like to lead together. I felt God strongly saying that our relationship was a unique gift and it would be better leveraged for the Kingdom by working together rather than apart. Now this sounds like a no brainer right? Here is the catch: we are both strong leaders who have started and led ministries. We are good friends who would be working together on staff for the first time. In addition, it would be a role reversal; last time we led together he was in the first-among-equals role and this time I would be in the first-among-equals role. If that was not enough he would be leaving and leading his family into an area of unknown and would be entering all of my church, work, family, and recreational relationships head on. Oh, and one more thing, our church doesn’t really do outside hires and was in no place to guarantee a long-term job. We had to offer a temporary 3-month trial with no guarantee of a job even if it was a great fit as we were projecting for a budget growth but had no guarantee of one.

With all of that reality on the table we were still excited, but Dustin came to me with a growing concern that this could be too hard on our friendship. After all, friends don’t work together in normal circumstances let alone the barrage of obstacles we were facing.

I began praying through this concern and as I did God spoke to me clearly of how the gospel could empower us to do this and not only survive as friends but thrive. He gave me a warning of four major enemies of friendship and leadership teams that he was graciously calling us to avoid. I wrote Dustin that we needed to watch out for the 4 C’s of death and we pressed on, believing that by God’s power and grace our friendship would be strengthened by working together. We knew the enemy would attack our friendship but also knew if we relied on the truth of the gospel and were watchful for our sinful flesh, we could enjoy a fruitful friendship and ministry together.

I want to share these primary threats to friendship with you in hopes that your relationships and leadership teams can hold off the enemy and his attacks. It really isn’t the circumstances that drive folks apart when they start to work together. It isn’t the work, but our hearts and minds which frequently forget the gospel.

1. Comparison

Comparison kills teams and friendships. When we compare ourselves to one another it will only lead us to pride or despair. Pride when we think that we are better than someone or despair when we believe we are worse. It also models a comparison culture that will lead people to comparing their leaders. People start gaining favorite preachers, teachers, and counselors and won’t want to submit or respond to the leader that is not their favorite. This causes tremendous division and creates room for Satan to have a field day in the church.

The remedy is the cross. Comparing ourselves not to one another but to Christ and his work on the cross. This reminds us that we deserve death and only he could perfectly live our life for us. It puts all of humanity at an even playing field as we all deserve the cross and yet the one who did not deserve it took it for us. A leadership team that focuses its thoughts on the cross is constantly forced back into a posture of humble worship of Jesus (Phil. 2:3-10). It is impossible to pridefully compare yourselves to others while believing in the work of the cross. It is also impossible to despair knowing the grace and love of the cross.

2. Complaining

When complaining leaks into a relationship, it falls apart. Complaining about leadership styles, preaching, sinful patterns, and more. This usually fuels the sheep to complain about the other person too and ends up causing a church filled with complaining gossips. We must not believe the lie that our complaining is justified as there is no complaining that is.

Leaders must lead in building one another up. There is no room in friendship or in the Kingdom for complaining. Scripture speaks of us being a people with praise and thanksgiving on our lips. Remember as Christians we are to do everything without grumbling and rejoice always (Phil. 2:14, 4:4). We must fight to remain thankful for one another’s friendship and gifts.

3. Critique

This is very close to complaining, and the two often hold hands. It can be easy to become an ear to critics and then become a critic. Leaders must not be an ear to critics but call others to check their criticism. If it is legitimate, we must go to our friend in person and speak truth in love. Critique grows outside of real relationship. Time and distance allow for us to characterize the other person into a criticism voo-doo doll.

The remedy is relationship. Friendship thrives in a community of light and confession. It thrives when friends recreate, party, eat and play together. Relational weight allows us to speak truth in love when necessary. Friends with a strong relationship are quick to call critics to be silent and to give their friend the benefit of the doubt. Relationship involves real hearts and real people instead of caricatures of a person’s weakness.

4. Competition

Leaders can forget they are on the same team and compete for audiences, status, and all sorts of junk that only leads to division. Dustin and I compete in all sorts of sports and games and are both very competitive. But we can’t forget that in God’s Kingdom we are on the same team. We are unified by the same gospel. We worship the same God and are empowered by the same Holy Spirit for the same purpose. A team unified by the gospel is quick to see each other’s gifts and victories as nothing short of sheer grace. A gospel-centered team is quick to point out and celebrate the evidence of God's grace in each other's lives! Dustin and I have committed to be for each other. We want the other one to succeed and be blessed.

5. Control and 6. Celebrity

Okay, if you are counting you realize that this is number five and six. Good work. But I thought I would throw in a couple of bonus C’s of relational death.

It can be so easy for the American dream and American individualism to creep into the life of the church. A mentality where it has to be about the one man starting something from scratch on his way to becoming rich and famous. In this environment leaders will have to fight to make all the decisions (control) and fight even harder to get all the credit (celebrity).

Does this sound like the gospel to you? No. The gospel is about one man having all control and all the credit but that one man is the God-man Jesus Christ! The gospel allows us to not be in control but to submit to Jesus, his word and his people as we lead humbly together. It allows us not to fight for fame but instead to weep when men want to give us the credit that only belongs to Jesus (Acts 14:4-18).

How are things going for the church and our friendship now?

We are over a year into Dustin and his family moving here and it has been an amazing blessing. Dustin is now a co-elder with me and helped lead one of the biggest transitions our church has experienced as we reorganized the whole church. He worked on staff for one year and we loved working side-by-side daily and our friendship grew as we worked together. We have now transitioned to him being off staff as God opened a local position in our mission field that became a "can’t miss opportunity" and our friendship has grown in that transition, too. We are next-door neighbors; our wives and kids enjoy and love one another. We get to share the gospel together in our neighborhood. The enemy has attacked our families and our friendship in a myriad of ways but by God’s grace we have walked in the light, confessed sin to one another, prayed for one another, and continued to trust Jesus to rule our friendship. We laugh, play, serve, teach, eat, and do ministry together. To be honest it is going great. It turns out believing the gospel and doing life similar to Jesus—with friends—can be fun!

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Jake Chambers (@JakeJayChambers) is a member of Jesus’ bride - the church. He is the 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.

Superbowl Ads and What They Say About Us

As the audience for the Super Bowl has grown over the years, so has the price tag for in-game advertising. With the higher prices, comes increased pressure on advertisers to outdo one another for memorability and influence. The result is that the "line" is pushed further and further every year. Advertisers want to have the commercial that is THE topic of discussion on social media and around the water cooler on Monday. Consequently, a polarization has occurred. We have created two Americas: a noble, inspired America and a sophomoric, risque America. Sunday night's latest installment of commercials seemed to have brought us to a new crossroads for both audiences and advertisers: will we point to the noble or race to the bottom?

The Original Commercial Arms Race

Possibly the most memorable commercial for many in our generation was the 1984 ad by Apple. It's an iconic commercial much like Coca-Cola's Mean Joe Green spot, Budweiser's Frogs, and McDonalds' Jordan vs. Bird. Everyone knows those commercials. But a funny thing happened along the way. Our once creative commercials devolved into sultry, uncreative attempts at shock and awe advertising.

Pepsi was one of the originators of this sex-sells strategy for Super Bowl commercials. Madonna's Like a Prayer ad in 1989 was the first to really garner national attention for its risque content.

They followed that up with the less-explicit-yet-still-sexualized Cindy Crawford ad in 1992. Even though ads were toned down some in the later 1990s, a precedent had been set and the DotCom boom in the early 2000s helped take things to a new low.

Sex Sells Website Addresses

While they are not solely responsible, GoDaddy is now the leader in the clubhouse when it comes to commercials that both objectify women and use sex to sell completely unrelated products. The website registrar began Super Bowl advertising in 2005 and has been on a downward spiral ever since.

This year's Kiss ad with Bar Rafaeli was just the latest example of how low the bar has fallen. What is discouraging is that ads like the Tim Tebow's Mom one from 2010 are the ones which draw criticism while sexualized filth like Go Daddy's ads not only don't draw much mainstream criticism, they actually are quite effective in selling their "product." GoDaddy saw more new sales and new customers as a result of this year's ad than any of their previous Super Bowl ads.

An Encouraging Trend

But there is hope. A "remnant" of wholesomeness is lurking. It's been there all along, yet it has never contrasted so much as it did Sunday night.

The Farmer ad from Chrysler was a runaway hit with much of America. Will it sell more Ram trucks? Maybe. Did it remind us of what America-- and our commercials-- could be? Definitely.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As trite as it may seem, we truly have become two Americas. We saw this clearly in November. Though it was presented differently Sunday night, there were red state ads and blue state ads. There is a clear delineation and polarization of values in our country. And advertisers know this.

Until GoDaddy isn't the #1 domain registrar on the planet and Calvin Klein isn't one of the most iconic brands in fashion, nothing will change.

Ad execs know they can keep pushing the envelope and moving the line because half of the country is with them. The ad execs are not to blame. Their job is to make their clients successful. And they are succeeding.

Why?

Because they are more in touch with their America than we are with ours.

Immorality is easy an easy target for marketers. It's a known commodity to us all-- even the most Christlike among us. We know our depravity. And we know what appeals to that. So do advertisers.

We live in a post-Christian culture. The Nones are rising. We are fighting an uphill battle against culture. It's a battle that has waged since the garden. And one that will not end until His return. It is a valiant battle and one we must fight.

We must connect with culture while not compromising our message. Why did the Farmer ad connect with so many? Because it offered hope. Honesty. Diligence. Tradition. Values.

But those values are becoming less valued. However a remnant remains. We are that remnant. We must point to the noble. To inspiration. To wholesomeness. And ultimately to the gospel.

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Jonathan Howe serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives at LifeWay Christian Resources, the host and producer of Rainer on Leadership and SBC This Week. Jonathan writes weekly at ThomRainer.com on topics ranging from social media to websites and church communications.

Close Encounters of the Unknowing Kind

Trillia Newbell is a freelance journalist and writer. She writes on faith and family for The Knoxville News-Sentinel and serves as Managing Editor for Women of God Magazine. Her love and primary role is that of a wife and mother. She lives in Tennessee with her husband, Thern, and their two children, Weston and Sydney. _

I recently posted an encounter I had with a man in a local grocery store parking lot on the social site Facebook.  Here is what I wrote:

Just got back from Kroger. In parking lot man asked: “Those your kids?” Me: Yep. Him: “I mean, you gave birth to ‘em?” Me: Yep. Him: Perplexed, “Well, they sure are pretty.” Me: Thanks.

There is one thing that is certain, if I ever found myself in a situation that required an army of women to fight for me, I’ve got those women. Many of my friends were appalled by the apparent ignorance of the man asking the questions. Other women replayed stories of their own strange encounters with people who asked personal and probing questions.  It is obvious that regardless of what the situation is, many women find themselves answering questions about their children and  their birthing habits.

My children are biracial. Their father is white, half British to be exact. From the moment our oldest was born I realized that I would be asked questions about my ownership, so to speak, of my son. He is fair-skinned (barely olive skinned, there are many white people darker than my boy), with bone-straight hair, and big beautiful brown eyes. He looks white and he identifies himself as such. Actually, he says he is peach and I am brown.

When my son was a toddler he would lick my face because to him, I resembled chocolate. He used to ask often why God made me brown. He was very curious about that. Now, 6 years old, he is beginning to understand that God created the world and everything in it and that we are all created in His image. But at first I was a bit of a mystery to him. I’m trying to teach him about ethnicity and differences in hopes that he would celebrate the diversity of God’s creation and grow to love others. But what I realize is that if he isn’t taught, he won’t know.

What I am learning through having a son who is learning about race and ethnicity and discovering his own identity  is that ignorance doesn’t automatically equate to racism. As a matter of fact, I would say most people who may have questions or seem unknowing are simply unaware and do not harbor hate in their heart towards others.

Maybe I am being generous or naïve. I don’t know. But I’ve spoken and corresponded with enough loving and well-meaning people to know that there are people who genuinely don’t know much about other races. I don’t want to assume the heart of a person because of a question. I surely don’t want to assume that ignorance equals hate, how I would define racism. I want to assume that they don’t know and I want to be open to sharing parts of me so that they would understand.

My Response Matters

Another theme in my comments section was over my response to the man who unwittingly questioned my motherhood. I truly was not offended. It takes quite a bit to offend me but especially in relation to strangers and race.  I would argue that in the case of interacting with people of different cultures or ethnicities, ignorance is not bliss. Therefore, I want to be a catalyst for open and honest conversation. If I respond in such a way that is defensive and angry,  I imagine that person will not attempt to speak to another person about their questions. If I had time, I would sit down with every person who didn’t understand race. In the end they’d probably know more about what I  believe God’s Word has to say about it than they ever wanted to know.

This leads me to my final point. As a Christian, I want to be a light to the world, especially as it relates to race and racism. I would like nothing more than to sit with a racist and share the gospel with him or her. It is the gospel that reconciles all tribes and tongues with God through the blood of Jesus. The gospel reconciles men and women to each other, changing our names to sons and daughters of God and bringing us into a new family. It’s the gospel that motivates me to have peace with my fellow man who doesn’t understand or know when he speaks. Again, I don’t think the man was racist in the parking lot, but if he were, I would love him because Christ loved me and gave himself up for me.

My response is key to racial reconciliation and it is important to proclaiming the Good News. I don’t want to assume that ignorance equals hate. I want to be gracious and maybe even through my response they will think before they ask the next person questions . But all in all, I want to be thinking eternally. There’s more to think about than the here and now. I don’t want to become a stumbling block for open and honest conversation about race or the gospel.

_

The original version of this article appeared at Trillia's personal blog.

Super Bowl; Super Disappointment

A Super Spectacle of Disappointment

It’s the day after. The game is over. The commercials have finished. The parties have been thrown, the crowds dispersed, the trophies awarded, and the annual ritual of American sport has run its course for another year. But not everyone is happy. Given the make up of American football only 1/32 of us are happy today. Chances are you might have actually cheered for a team last night, even if it wasn’t your regular, tried-and-true team. However, if your team didn’t win, even the team you rented for the night, you feel a distinct disappointment today. There is, in most of us, a bad taste left in our mouths that isn’t the cheese from too many nachos gone bad. We wanted something spectacular.

We wanted the heroes, the gladiators, the pinnacles of human physical fitness and physique to accomplish something. We wanted the wily veteran who is about to retire to go out on top. Or we rooted for the rookie, who is getting his first taste of championship-caliber life, to achieve the victory that he rose from the ashes to grasp. And yet, one way or another, failure is staring the majority of us in the face. It has been said that losing the Super Bowl is more difficult emotionally, professionally, and physically than to have never played in the game at all. Yet, every year 31 teams face the failure of not having won the "Big One” and one team in particular feels it more than any other. They’ve tasted the glory, if only momentarily, and now all they’re left with is a Big-Gulp of disappointment.

Athletes are not the only ones facing the Day of Disappointment this morning. For some of us we’ve woken up to the stark reality that we were cheering for a loser. As a boy I found myself waking up with the bitter disappointment of seeing my heroes lose three Super Bowls in four years. The only thing that made it feel any better was watching fans of the Buffalo Bills deal with the crushing blow of loss in four consecutive seasons. Still it stung. My heroes were failures. My friends would laugh and mock me for wearing the uniform of a known loser. People would feel sad for me because I chose to like the loser. Hanging my head in shame, disappointment greeted me regularly.

Disappointment Destroys

Where does the sensation and feeling of disappointment come from? Why are we downcast and troubled when our sports teams lose, when business prospects fall apart, when plans are shattered, or when commitments are broken? Why does disappointment plague us so often and in so many corners of our lives? The answer seems to be in understanding the opposite of disappointment, hope.

The wisdom writer of Proverbs seems to best illustrate that disappointment is really “hope deferred.”  It is that hope deferred, delayed, or denied that makes our hearts sick (Proverbs 13:12). Conversely, the fulfillment of a desire or dream is like a tree of life; abundant, enjoyable, nourishing, pleasurable, and sustaining. So disappointment is our dreams, desires, and hopes put off and abandoned until another time. We hoped and believed that something in some way would be ours, only to discover that it had been snatched away from us once again.

The consequence  is a sick heart. We feel terrible. If you were banking your hope yesterday on the team that lost you don’t feel so hot about it today. You may have a handful of excuses for their loss: the refs, the pre-game meal, the injured players, or the half-time show. Whatever your excuse is you still feel let down. This feeling can play itself out in much larger scenarios than sports. Anyone who has been dumped, duped, or lied to knows the feeling of this heart-sickness. In fact, the higher we place our hope in the fulfillment of an expectation, the deeper the disappointment we will feel once that hope is not realized. Next time you discover a friend of yours has unexpectedly had their love relationship broken, look into their eyes and you will see a deep well of disappointment.

Quit on Hope?

If misplaced and unrealized hope brings us soul-sickness, what sort of remedies are available to us? For some the answer is simply not to hope deeply in people or projects or teams again. We quote mantras like, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” We pledge ourselves never to get so close, never to hope so deeply, never to love so intensely, never to be fools again. We leave all emotion behind so that we do not get burned the next time around. Hope isn’t merely deferred it’s lost. We become calloused, cynical, skeptical, and worst of all despairing of everything. The reason the motto of a Chicago Cubs fan is “wait until next year” is because they realize it is never “next year.”

Distancing yourselves from placing hope and confidence in others however won’t undo the burden of disappointment. At our core humanity is utterly broken. Our brokenness will always find us being either the victim or the perpetrator of disappointment. The sad reality is that all of us, no matter how unattached and disenfranchised we are we will taste the ugly cup of disappointment. However, just accepting the reality that we will be let down at some point or another isn’t the right remedy. If we walk through life in that manner we will become the real-life-embodiment of A.A Milne’s character Eeyore. There is no joy, no hope, no actual life in life. Disappointment is the plague of humanity and we best accept it and get on with being disappointed in everything.

The Death of Disappointment

If disengagement from hope or unimpassioned acceptance of disappointment isn’t the answer, is there one? Jesus’ interaction with two close friends, and sisters in John 11 reveals something deep about overcoming disappointment. The simple plot of the story is that one of Jesus’ close friends, Lazarus, has died. The sadness of that event cannot be overstated. However, the expectations and hopes of Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha were not met either. They had sent messengers to Jesus to come as quickly as he could to heal their brother. They had banked hope upon hope that Jesus was able and powerful and willing to heal his friend. But Jesus showed up, in their opinion, too late. Their brother was dead and gone. There was no more hope and all that remained was the disappointment of loss, failed hope. Their hearts were sick. They had banked on a winner, and Jesus had come up a loser.

Both sisters expressed their disappointment to Jesus in the exact same way. “‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’” (John 11:21, 32). Many people feel a disappointment with God because he didn’t play by their rules. He didn’t meet their expectations or respond to their actions the way that they deemed he should have. Prayers were not answered in the manner they should have been. Distance and disappointment with God is felt because it didn’t happen as we thought it should have. If God had done what we planned for him to do, we wouldn’t feel the sting of hope deferred.

This all seems well and good, but if we consider the character of God we have a problem. Does God lie? Does he make promises and fail to meet them? Does he string us along with carrots of hope all the while placing an unbearable burden upon us that we can never haul ourselves?  If we are fair, we have to recognize that the problem isn’t with God, the problem is with us. The problem is so deep within us that we can’t even rightly put our hopes in the right place. We hope for God’s power to intervene in a difficult situation. We hope for God to work a miracle to undo us from the terrible circumstance that we’ve placed ourselves in. We hope in God’s actions instead of hoping in God himself.

This was the source of disappointment for Mary and Martha. They thought they had Jesus under their control, ready to do their bidding and serve their needs and problems however they felt most wise. However, Jesus had one purpose in mind, his glory (John 11:4). Jesus ordained the temporary death of his friend to more greatly reveal and display his glory and power over death. Lazarus was raised to life, but only after Jesus redirected the hope of his friends from Jesus’ ability to act onto Jesus himself.

This is our remedy as well. We will find disappointment in just about everything, even seemingly mundane things like Super Bowls. The reason we feel disappointed is because we have hoped in those people and things to deliver on whatever we were expecting. Our hope is placed in broken cisterns. Jesus invites us to place our hope in a different source. He invites us to turn from hoping in people, power, and events. He calls us to hope in him alone. He told Martha, “‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die’” (John 11:25-26).

If we want to overcome the paralysis of disappointment, we have to place our hope in a better source. We must bank our hearts desires and dreams on Christ himself. For so many of us we expect God to do great things, even to do things that bless and benefit us. However, when God doesn't do what we want, we live with Super-Bowl sized disappointment. Our solution is Jesus himself, not what Jesus can or should do. When we hope in Jesus we will not be overcome with despair and disappointment because things don’t work out as we always anticipate in our lives. We can live with faith and confidence that Jesus is doing all things for his glory, and for our good. We can rest with certainty that this hardship, failure, and frustrations of this life is met by our great and sovereign King that reigns over all things, even our lives.

Here is a world beyond all disappointment. Christ has taken our disappointment and buried it within himself. He has been raised to life again so that we would have our deepest hopes realized in Him. There is no disappointment with Christ. Our deepest desires, dreams and hopes are all realized and discovered when our deepest hope is placed in Jesus alone.

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

How Parental Authority is Good News

Editor's Note: This is  an excerpt from Tim Chester and Ed Moll's book, Gospel-Centered Family, published by The Good Book Company. It appears here with the publisher's permision. Purchase the book today for 20% off at the publisher's site using coupon code: GCFGCD13.

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Karen slumped onto the sofa.

“It’s just the terrible twos,” her friend had told her this morning. But there was no “just” about it. This was war! She loved Jack so much, but he was driving her mad. Refusing to eat. Throwing food on the floor. Pulling books off the shelves. Hitting his baby sister. Screaming on the supermarket floor. She’s tried reasoning with him. She’s tried negotiation. She’s tried bribery. Truth was she wasn’t even sure what she was trying to achieve. It just felt like crisis management.

Then the baby monitor crackled into life. Here we go again. “Is there more to parenting than survival?” she asked herself.

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

What is expected from children and parents?

Why should children obey their parents?

What does it mean for parents to “exasperate” their children? Can you think of examples?

Why does the writer point out that this commandment is the first with a promise?

What does this passage suggest is the purpose of families?

Gospel Centered Family by Ed Moll and Tim Chester

Show that God’s Rule is Good

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’ - Mark 1 v 14-15

Jesus began his ministry by proclaiming the good news – or “gospel” – that the kingdom of God was near. God’s kingdom was coming because God’s King was coming. Good news. Gospel.

Except that the rule of God doesn’t sound much like good news in our culture. No kind of rule sounds like good news. We want to be free. We don’t want someone else ruling over us. How can the rule of God be good news? Surely God’s rule is bad news.

This was the lie of Satan way back in the Garden of Eden when the “serpent” portrayed God as a tyrant holding Adam and Eve back. But God isn’t a tyrant. His rule is a rule of blessing, freedom, love, life, justice and peace. Good news. Gospel.

But isn’t this an article on parenting? What does this have to do with parenting? Everything!

Look at Ephesians 6:1-4. What does obeying parents have to do with living long in the land? Verses 2-3 are a quote from Deuteronomy 5:16, where Moses is recounting the Ten Commandments. He ends by saying: “So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.” (Deuteronomy 5:32-33) God’s people would live a life of blessing in God’s land if they obeyed God. Anything else would lead to chaos, conflict and destruction. Ultimately, if they rejected God, they would not live long in the land – they’s be exiled (as it turned out they were). Welcoming God’s rule = blessing. Rejecting God’s rule = judgment.

That’s true in families. When people in families live for themselves, the result is chaos, conflict and destruction. In families we learn to live alongside others, negotiate differences and express our views while tolerating other opinions. The Puritan Thomas Manton said: “The family is the seminary of church and state ... A failure in the first area will not be mended in the second.”

But it’s not just about having a happy family or a happy community.

The family is the place where you learn to submit to authority instead of living for yourself. In this section of Ephesians, Paul says our different roles in life are all to reflect God’s role in our lives. Marriage is an illustration of Christ’s relationship with his people (5:22-33), while working relationships are to be shaped by the fact that we are slaves of a Master in heaven (6:5-9). It’s the same with families. Parents are God’s gift to children to teach us how to live under authority. We learn to submit to authority instead of living for ourselves by learning to submit to our parents.

That’s why this is the first commandment with a promise. Learning to enjoy your parents’ authority is the first step towards welcoming God’s authority.

Don’t tell children off for being children. Children break things and drop things. They get giddy and raise their voices. But ensure they obey you. Teach them to submit to your authority. Discipline disobedience. Don’t let your child rule the home. If you do, you’ll be teaching them that they are king in their lives. They’re not. It won’t prepare them for wider social interaction. And it won’t prepare them to meet the true King.

Let your child realize they’re not the center of the world. It’s very easy, especially in early years, for children to be all-consuming. So invest in your relationship as a husband and wife. Not only does healthy parenting require a healthy marriage, it will also reinforce for your child that they’re not the center of the world, not even of your world!

Parents are to model God’s good, liberating, just rule in the way they bring up their children. We’re to show that it is good to live under authority. We’re to show that authority can be good.

Show that God’s rule is gracious

But hang on a moment. Is God’s kingdom really good news? Not if you’re a rebel! “Where is the God of justice?” people asked the prophet Malachi. He’s on his way, said Malachi. “But who can endure the day of his coming?” (Malachi 2:17 – 3:2) For God’s people his rule is good news, but for his enemies his rule means judgment and defeat. And we are all God’s enemies. We’ve all opted to live our life our way without God.

The good news is that the coming of Jesus as God’s King defied most people’s expectations. It wasn’t all about glory and conquest. That’s coming when Jesus returns at the end of history. But when Jesus came first time around, judgment didn’t fall. Or rather, it fell on the King himself! The King died on the cross in the place of His enemies. God’s rule is not only good, it’s also gracious. God makes it possible for his enemies to become his friends.

Jesus told the story of a family in which the younger son rejected the authority of his father (Luke 15). He went off and squandered his part of the family’s inheritance. But rejecting his father’s authority didn’t make him free or happy. He ended up wishing he could eat the food he was serving to pigs. So he decided to return to his father and ask if he could become a servant. But his father ran in a most undignified way to greet his returning son. He honored his son with a robe and ring. He threw an extravagant party to welcome him home. God is a gracious Father who welcomes wayward children.

Often parenting can feel like a battle. And the “enemy” is your two-year-old who’s just thrown their dinner on the floor (again); or your fifteen-year-old, who’s just slammed the door on you (again). But still your job is to show them what our Father in heaven is like. Yes, they need to learn to live under authority. But they also need to learn of a God who welcomes his enemies, loves his enemies and gives his life for His enemies.

Your number one aim as a parent is to show how great it is to live under God’s reign of love.

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

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Read A Beginner's Guide to Family Worship by Winfield Bevins 

Read more free articles: Gospel Saturated Family Discipleship and Raising Gospel Centered Children 

 

The Church Planting Wife: A Book for Every Man's Wife

I recently read Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp, where he pulls back the curtain on pastoral ministry. In his book, he confronts the notion that pastors have their lives perfectly put together, never fail, and have different needs from every other Christian. Many books have been written for church planters and for pastors, but few have been so directly applicable to the hearts and lifestyle of pastors. What Dangerous Calling is to pastors, The Church Planting Wife is to every pastor or church planter’s wife.

It is a breath of fresh air, reviving the soul with truth while sympathizing with the challenges that church planter’s wives face, but rarely feel the freedom to discuss. It is written to the woman who has the difficult task of ministering to the man who ministers to everyone else.

Christine Hoover is married to Kyle Hoover and in 2008 they moved to Charlottesville, Virginia to start a new church to bless the people of Charlottesville and the students at the University of Virginia. Her new book is candid, transparent, and direct in teaching to church planter’s wives about the joys and struggles, trials and triumphs of church planting. It combines storytelling, teaching, and counseling to care for the heart and life of the church planter’s wife.

The book begins with her recounting the difficulties of the first year and how they brought her to question God’s plan as they lost their meeting place one year into their efforts. While every person in ministry I know has come to this crossroads, Christine highlights God’s purposes so well as she unpacks God’s work in her life.

“God allowed the difficulty of church planting to sift me, to bring the issues of my heart to the surface. I realized that if I didn’t address these things, my marriage, my family, and my own heart were in danger. God was refining me, cleaning me out, and teaching me dependence rather than self-reliance. I could continue my attempts at controlling and relying on myself, or I could submit myself in dependence on Him…I chose to trust Him with my heart and let Him do – through church planting – the work He needed to do in me.” The Church Planting Wife, p. 19-20

Christine goes on to expose her heart and the lessons she has learned along the way. From wrestling with the role of the church planter’s wife as she hears God remind her “Follow Me. Serve your family. Love people.” to dealing with the sacrifices every church planter and pastor’s family face along the way.

She takes us along her journey to understand friendships in this new world of church planting, how she has learned to stay encouraged amidst discouragement and criticism, and provides practical wisdom connected with powerful truth to guide wives through their own challenges.

Impactful for Any Believer

I found myself incredibly encouraged and challenged simply by being reminded to be dependent on God, trusting Him, and letting faithfulness be my banner of success. This book is refreshing for any believer, but certainly powerful for every church planter’s wife. I would also recommend it to any pastor and his wife as well. The insights are spot on for what every pastor and his wife that I know have and are facing.

She includes interviews from other church planter’s wives, such as Lauren Chandler, Yvette Mason, Ginger Vassar, and Jennifer Carter. Women, who like her, have learned through joy and challenge the blessings of dependence on God in church planting.

A Book for Every Man’s Wife

As I read this book and heard Christine describe all she has learned while supporting her husband and family in church planting, I couldn’t help but see it as beneficial for every man’s wife. Church leadership and church planting have a unique way of reminding those involved that they are on God’s mission, but the call for every Christian is no different, we just don’t always see ourselves as sent by God to that new job in a new location.

I’ve seen many wives follow their husbands to new cities and new careers face some of the same struggles and challenges, and they would all benefit from Christine’s wisdom as she learned to trust God, support her husband, care for her family, and love her neighbors.

I’ve known the Hoovers for over a decade, they did our premarital counseling, and Kyle officiated my wedding. It is no surprise to me to see their faithfulness to God being used to start a church that loves people and serves their city well. It is also no surprise to see such a fantastic book filled with truth, grace, and wisdom be written and published to bless God’s church.

***You can buy it on Amazon here: The Church Planting Wife. You can also read more from Christine Hoover on her blog, gracecoversme.com.

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Cross-posted from Gentrified.

The 50/50 Divorce Rate and the Christian Example

Note: I spoke about this post (originally at For Christ and Culture) with Dr. Barry Creamer on 90.9 KCBI in Dallas. Listen HERE. ___

It has long been stated that 50% of marriages in America lead to divorce. If you ask most Americans how many marriages they believe end in divorce, they would probably point to this number. I’ve heard it all my life and it shaped my views on marriage early in life. When my parents divorced in my mid-teens, I remember thinking, “If two people don’t get along, divorce is a normal outcome. It makes sense.” In fact, I was pro-divorce in the case of my parents. As I grew older and learned much more about the biblical truths regarding marriage, I still never really doubted the statistic and have even quoted it in sermons and conversations more than once.

Encouraging Statistics?

Recently, Dr. Kalman Heller posited that his studies shed a more accurate light on divorce rates in America. He notes that various demographics apply and using specifically broad numbers is mostly unhelpful, but I do like the generalization that he is willing to make:

Rather than viewing marriage as a 50-50 shot in the dark, it can be viewed as having a 70 percent likelihood of succeeding.

Again, throwing around a 70% success rate does not do justice to the raw numbers, but what if marriage in America is not lost? Dr. Heller interestingly points out that divorce rates in first marriages particularly have overall decreased since the ‘70s. This is encouraging and should spur us on toward resiliency in support of marriage rather than lamenting at the seeming decline of lasting covenants.

(By the way, Kirk Spencer did a fine job addressing this topic last summer with more detailed statistics and Ed Stetzer has some helpful thoughts here.)

Christian: Play Your Part

There has been a significant amount of discussion, and dare I say venom, in evangelicalism regarding laws endorsing homosexual partnership and a diversion from traditional marriage. Indeed, the Bible is entirely clear on God’s one woman/one man design for marriage. However, where Christians often lack proper gumption is promoting the beauty of God’s intention.

In today’s culture, marriage is defined several different ways with many people not possessing a solid stance on what the marriage relationship should objectively be. Christians have the unique advantage and calling to shed light on the truth of marriage. God joyfully placed man and woman together (Gen. 2:20-25) and gave them specific roles that mirror Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:22-32). These two texts alone give us great confidence in our own marriages and counseling others’ marriages.

In a confused culture, here are two very basic ways that we can play our part in an attempt to improve the statistics and to present a commendable view of marriage:

1. Be a biblical example – Scripture has much to say about man and wife complementing one another, serving one another, praying for one another, and being faithful to one another (Eph. 5:22-32; 1 Pet. 3:1-7; Titus 2:1-6; Col. 3:18-19). We should honor God in word and deed via our marriages so that others (children, family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, church members) might see what marriage is supposed to be.
2. Refrain from hate speech – There is always a time and place to stand on biblical truth, but Christians have a tendency to let their passion for marriage paint a false picture of grace and mercy. We should certainly spend much more time demonstrating true marriage than railing against homosexuals, teen moms, and others who do not fit the conservative Christian checklist for marriage. It might be more helpful to love others with patience as God does with us (Rom. 2:4) and show them truth in your own marriage and life.

The Un-American Church: Discipleship Community

Alan Wolfe, though not a Christian, is an astute social critic of “American Christianity.” In his insightful 2003 book The Transformation of American Religion, he notes that, far from being a socially transformative movement, “American Christianity” has far too often been the one transformed by American culture:

In every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture – and American culture has triumphed. Whether or not the faithful ever were a people apart, they are so no longer. - Alan Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion.

One of the areas where we see “Americanism” infecting Christianity is individualism. We Americans love to believe in the rugged individual who never needs anyone else. This notion has infiltrated American Christianity so that we primarily think of our faith in “personal” terms. We think of our “personal relationship” with Jesus and our private “spiritual walk”. We often attend Christian events with lots of other Christians, but we’re not necessarily involved in anyone’s life to the degree that the skeletons are not only out of the closet but in the living room. We can attend a worship service with thousands of other people, yet live out the bulk of our faith isolated--just us and our bibles.

We Exist for More

We forget that not even the Lone Ranger was alone and that individualism does not seem to match the expectation God gives his people in the scriptures. God shows us that love, demonstrated in and through sacrificial, gospel-fueled community is the center of missional discipleship. God expects his people to live and grow in community. Joseph Hellerman argues in his book When The Church Was A Family:

Spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community. People who remain connected with their brothers and sisters in the local church almost invariably grow in self-understanding, and they mature in their ability to relate in healthy ways to God and to their fellow human beings. This is especially the case for those courageous Christians who stick it out through the often messy process of interpersonal discord and conflict resolution. Long-term interpersonal relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay also grow. People who leave do not grow.

It is a simple but profound biblical reality that we both grow and thrive together or we do not grow much at all.

We exist to reflect the image of God, who himself dwells eternally in community. This is why God can shockingly say: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God was not saying that he was not enough for Adam, but that Adam was created to exist not only in relationship with God (vertically) but also in relationship with others like him (horizontally). Adam was created for relationship and for community because God exists in community. Though God saves us as individuals, He saves us into community. Many of the admonitions of the New Testament seem to assume that community is the primary context in which the Christian life is to be lived. Consider Paul’s admonitions from Romans 12:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. - Romans 12:9-13

Continue reading just a few verses later:

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. - Romans 12:16-18

Reputation of the Un-American Church

Love is the summary of the Law--what God expects of us (Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:28-34; Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14, etc.). It is not, Jesus says, by our political affiliation, not by the movies we boycott, not by the “family-friendly” music we listen to, nor by the “faith-based soccer league” in which our children play that the world will know that we belong to him. It is our love for one another. That’s how people will know that we belong to Jesus (John 13:35). In other words, as we live in community we are also on display. Joyful, humble, self-sacrificial love for one another overflows toward and invites in friends, family, neighbors and cities. This love of the community on display shines like light in the darkness and as we spur one another on to maturity we also invite others to come along.

Jesus tells his followers that they are a “city on a hill”  that cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14). Imagine traveling through the desert for days. You’re nearly out of water and your sunbaked skin is beginning to ache. You ran out of food this morning, now it’s already dark and the heat gives way to the biting chill of the night breeze. Then, you see lights, city lights, on a hill! Your step quickens as you begin to get closer and as excitement, anticipation and relief well-up inside you. You can’t wait to be there. Rest. Refreshment. Company.

I wonder if our neighborhoods think of our church families or even our individual families this way? The New Testament assumes that: Love, demonstrated in and through sacrificial, gospel-fueled community is the center of missional discipleship. By “missional discipleship,” I simply mean that “discipleship” is the entire trajectory of the Christian life, including coming to faith. It does not begin “at salvation,” nor does it end at some point of spiritual maturity. “Discipleship” should be understood in terms of “mission” because we exist to make, mature and multiply disciples. The very nature of “discipleship” is always striving to bring people closer to Jesus, no matter where they might be at on the spectrum. Discipleship is joining in the missio dei, the mission of God.

One of the reasons so much of modern church community is not missional discipleship is because, in practice, we require people to “believe” certain things before they can “belong” to our community. We use belief to exclude people from community. They, the outsiders, must cross these church-made cultural or doctrinal barriers to be part of us, the insiders. Sometimes this might be as well-intentioned as wanting someone to declare publicly their saving faith in Jesus, but oftentimes, it is over our unique approach to particular doctrines and practices. After all, isn’t the point of most church membership classes to make sure you believe like we do so you can really belong.  While we use belief to exclude people from community, Jesus did the opposite. He used community to bring people to belief. Remember, this is why the religious leaders were so upset with Jesus: he ate with sinners and tax collectors. It wasn’t just cleanliness issues of the Old Testament law, though that was certainly part of it. Jesus was opening God’s community, allowing people to belong, in order to bring them to faith in himself. I am not saying we should do away with theological distinctives. Instead, I am saying that we should use community to bring people to belief rather than use belief to exclude people from community.

As my own church family looks ahead to the coming year, we are looking for more ways to involve those who don’t yet believe in our community life. This requires intentionality and may force some people to re-examine their own boundaries. I am reminded of our experience with “Tim” (not his real name, just for his privacy). Tim is a phenomenal drummer who was dating a girl in our church family. We slowly began to involve him in community life by engaging him in something he loves; we asked if he would drum for our gathered worship. Initially, we just asked for once a month, then twice a month, and then he became our primary drummer. Though this made some people uncomfortable (how can we have a non-Christian lead our worship music?!), Tim seemed to enjoy drumming with the band and gradually began paying more attention during the teaching time. As he began to develop relationships, he and his girlfriend got plugged in to a missional community and he began asking lots of questions. We were able to baptize Tim as a follower of Jesus last year. We are now humbled to truly call Tim family, even as he’s been living in our community for several years.

Church discipline struggles in individual-centric church, too. Church discipline has so little sting in the life of an unrepentant sinners because the original bite of church discipline was the exclusion from community. You could no longer be with people who loved you like family. The people who loved you regardless of where you came from and who loved you so much that wouldn’t let you keep on sinning. However, so many of our churches have so little community that we’ve lost almost all the intended impact of church discipline. Individuality robs us of the treasures (both comfortable and uncomfortable) of community.

Joseph Hellerman argues: “Spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community.” We need each other in order to be transformed. And it is as we learn to accept being wronged instead of insisting on our own rights (1 Corinthians 6:7), when we learn the humble confidence of considering others more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3), when we learn to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:1-5), and as we strive to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) in front of and with those who don’t yet believe that we live as a city on a hill, as we “shine like lights in the world” in the midst of a “crooked and twisted generation (Philippians 2:15). Love, demonstrated in and through sacrificial, gospel-fueled community is the center of missional discipleship.

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Brent Thomas (MDiv) and his wife Kristi live in Glendale, AZ with four biological sons and one foster child. Brent pastored in KY and TX before moving back to AZ to plant Church of the Cross which exists to make, mature, and multiply disciples through gospel, community, and mission. He sometimes writes at Holiday At The Sea and hosts house shows with The Habañero Collective.

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Read Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson

Read free articles: Gospel Community and Being Ministers of Reconciliation. 

Planting Churches vs. Planting Services

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 four children. Josh blogs at JoshCousineau.com.  

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As a church planter over the last year, I have been blessed to interact with many different guys who are planting churches. They come from many different denominations and networks, with just about as many different styles of church that they are seeking to do. I have noticed that as I have talked to these planters and guys who are future planters, many of them are not planting churches as much as they are planting services. I know that may not sound like much of a difference, but trust me there is a big one. However, what we have done with Redemption Hill is attempt to plant a church which will have a service; but the service is not the end goal, the church is.

Planting a Service

Most people I know that are church planters actually end up planting a service. What I mean by this is that they spend their time, energy, effort, and money on the starting of a weekly meeting of some sort. This is usually called “church” and it happens on Sundays. There is music, offering, and a message, to name a few things. Once they have planted their service, they then gauge the success or failure of their plant based on the attendance to this service, how much people gave, how many people come back each week, etc. This has been the common plan on planting churches throughout the United States (and beyond). For example, I have talked to organizations that have “practice services” or “preview services” for people to come and get a taste of what church will be like. If the service is not the end goal, then why are they giving a taste of the church by showing them a Sunday service? The reason is that we have boiled down church to an hour and a half meeting, once a week.

Now I am not opposed to having a Sunday service. We started Redemption Hill with a core group meeting in August of 2011, and then we developed two missional communities that met weekly for a meal and discussion from August to January. When January came, we started gathering weekly as a church family on Sundays. We had music, a message, kids ministry, offering – all the things that you would expect to find in a ‘church.’ However, when we started this Sunday time of worship, it was without much fanfare. No press release, no promotional effort whatsoever. Actually, if you wanted to learn when and where we gathered, you would have to know someone who went and ask them. We didn't even put it on our website or Facebook page.

The reason was that we were seeking to plant a church, not a service. There is a difference. Our goal was to spend time pouring into the church (which we define as the people who are part of Redemption Hill and the global church). We wanted to help them better understand the Gospel, what it looked like to live in community as part of the family of God, and how these two things lead to us living on mission for those who knew Jesus. We were planting the church and preparing them to be the church, not just simply encouraging them to attend church. We were cultivating a heart and passion for disciples who make disciples.

Planting a Church

Planting a church will include a service that meets on Sundays (or maybe Saturdays, or who knows, maybe a Monday afternoon… okay most likely not Monday) to gather, to celebrate, and to worship Jesus – but that is not the main focus of it. Planting a church is not gauged by how many people attend the launch service or your special Easter service, nor is it a failure if you don't have explosive growth on Sunday. Why? Because the goal is not to make a great service with amazing music that draws hundreds of people to hear your amazing oratory skills; the goal is people who are built up as disciples who actually make disciples rather than just attend a killer service. Let me explain.

When one plants a church, they are actually working with the end in sight, meaning that they have a view of what the church should look like. They are working towards the future and growing people and building the team to help them facilitate that goal. When one properly understands ‘church,’ they will see that it is the people that are the church. So building a church means helping the people to see this truth and live in light of this truth. It means that the pastors’ time, energy, and effort should be poured into the people who are the church, not simply the service which is a part of the church life. Even though those who plant a service have the best of intentions, they are in essence putting all their eggs in one basket. What has happened is that they have attempted to accomplish everything a church should be in one swoop on Sunday and have failed. We likely do not have churches that are overflowing with elder qualified men and we don't have men and women who are disciples who are making disciples. One of the main reasons is because the time has been invested wrongly. It is possible to plant a service and have some people who will fulfill these things, but let’s be honest about how much time, energy, and effort it is to have a killer service with lights, projectors, fog machines, etc. Our time is often put into these tings, not the life-on-life training that comes when your focus is on the church and not the service.

I want to reiterate that there is nothing wrong with having a service, focusing on the service, or even investing time, money, and energy into it. We spend (limited) time each week working on the flow, the message, the music, and all the other elements of our Sunday gathering. But I think we miss the point if this is the main focus of church planters.

Measure Your Efforts

I am extremely grateful for the renewed passion and the many young men who are being called to plant churches throughout the world. I am excited for what is happening in networks like A29, SBC, E-Free, and others. But if a church plant is simply defined by setting a date for an event, inviting a bunch of people to that event and calling it ‘church,’ we have missed the point. This is not what Jesus called us to do. He called us to make disciples who make disciples (Matt. 28.19-20). If we measure success when or if people show up, and failure if people don't, we are in grave danger. The church is not an event, it is a called out people – a people that Jesus died for. As church planters we should be willing to invest the time into the people rather than the service.

My hope is not that you would cancel your Sunday service and go all ‘super-organic’ and neglect the gathering of the saints for simply hanging out with people as you drink beer and coffee and then call it church. No, my hope is that you would take a real honest look at your investment as a church planter. Measure the time you spend each week, the way your budget is broken down, and where the people’s time is being invested and ask: Have I planted a church or a service?

How to Avoid Brain Meltdown & Increase Theological Vision

This past year I’ve learned a lot about leadership. One lesson can be summarized as follows: “Don’t plant more tomato plants than you can carry water to.” As an apostolic leader, I tend to start new ministries. Over the past five years, I’ve helped start five—too many tomato plants. Fortunately, God graciously brought capable men alongside me to help water these gospel works. I can’t imagine the fruitfulness of GospelCenteredDiscipleship.com without Ben Roberts (Managing Editor for eBooks) and Brad Watson (GCD Executive Editor). The ministry just wouldn’t exist.

What eBooks are Coming Out this Year?

Yet, 2012 was our strongest and first full year of publishing resources to help make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus. The “make, mature, and multiply” mantra guides our publishing. Our aim is to publish a mix of resources year after year that help you in the evangelism (make), sanctification (mature), and reproduction (multiply) of disciples. We're shooting for deep and diverse. You can expect eBooks in all three categories. Here are a few of the titles coming this year:

• 12: Making the Gospel Viral in Life by Jonathan Dodson
• Gospel Amnesia: Forgetting the Goodness of the News by Luma Sims
• Sound Words: Uncovering the Meaning of Scripture by Jeremy Carr
• Gospel Advance by Alvin Reid

We’re excited to get these titles out, and we’ll also be increasing our print publications. We hope they are a blessing to you, your churches, ministries, and disciples of all kinds.

Steering Clear of Doctrinalism & Pragmatism

As we forge ahead, we are leery of two things: doctrinalism and pragmatism. GCD.com is committed to avoiding the two extremes. We don’t want to create resources that beat a single doctrinal drum (with no practical orientation). Nor do we want to publish stuff that harps on best practices (with not theological grounding). We are committed to creating resources with what Richard Lints calls “theological vision.”

Theology is not inspired. It is the formulation of doctrinal beliefs culled from Scripture. When these beliefs respond to cultural values we end up with theological vision. Tim Keller describes theological vision this way:

It is a faithful restatement of the gospel with rich implications for life, ministry, and mission in a type of culture at a moment in history. - Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City

In March we will begin a series of articles called Questioning the Gospel. This series will query the gospel with present cultural and ministry questions in an effort to equip the reader to make disciples with theological vision. For example, article titles will include:

• “What Should I Say to My Gay Friend about Christianity?”
• “What Should I Do When My Neighbor Says He is Getting a Divorce.”

We want to strike a blend of gospel faithfulness and cultural shrewdness. We’re very excited about this series, but more importantly about honing our commitments for content. Instead of content dictating us, we aim to direct content in line with our vision to produce resources that make, mature, and multiply disciples with theological vision. If this is sparking some article ideas, send us an article query.

Blogs are Melting Your Brain

As you can imagine, articles with theological vision will require space. This lines up with our long-form commitment. You may have noticed that we don’t publish short-form blogs with fancy graphics and space to comment. That isn’t accidental. We’d like to think we are rescuing some readers from the deleterious practice of typical Internet reading. At Duke University, full-length books are infrequently assigned to students. Studies show that students write internally coherent paragraphs but can’t track with a sustained line of argumentation. They are losing their ability to focus. Why? Our brains are being rewired by our use of the Internet and social media.

In his bestselling book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, Nicholas Carr states: “The Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has come into general use.”

The Net encourages rapid consumption of information. When skimming (not reading) an internet article, we may also be viewing a rotating advertisement, reading a pop-up chat box, and responding to an email, and clicking away from the page and back, all while listening to Arcade Fire. Neuroscientists are showing us that the neurons in our brains are actually rearranged to respond to rapid consumption of data. While short-term memory may be improving, short-term memory is failing. Perhaps worse, instead of reading for in-depth reflection, we are being rewired for shallow consumption. Extensive reading, and therefore theological reflection, has become difficult and uninviting. Why read when you could surf the Net?

I know; we’re delusional, but we’re also hopeful that longer and better articles could actually rewire, not only our brains, but also our hearts. So pull up an article, grab a cup of coffee, and settle into some long-form reading on discipleship. It just might change you, and the disciples you make. And if you like what you read, be sure to Facebook, tweet, and blog on it so you can join us in rescuing others from brain meltdown. Who knows, it might even lead to a changed heart.

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

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Read the newly released book, Gospel Amnesia by Luma Simms.

Read free articles: Sanctification: The People We're Becoming by Jeremy Carr and Gospel Amnesia in the Local Church by Luma Simms

Of Sonnets and Discipleship: the Beauty of Limits

“. . . our human and earthly limits, properly understood,are not confinements but rather inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning.” “Faustian Economics,” Wendell Berry

Our assignment in my poetry class was to write a sonnet–English or Italian, our choice. But when it comes to sonnets, that option, in many ways, is where the freedom seems to end. You can’t write as many lines as you want (has to be fourteen, of course). You can’t make it rhyme–or not–however you might like (must be abab, cdcd, efef, gg for the English kind).  Line length is non-negotiable, either: five “feet” of “iambs” (unstressed syllables followed by stressed ones). Sonnets and the poets who write them take their metrics very, very seriously.

My classmates and I were a little freaked out. Writing formal poetry–poetry that adheres to form (e.g. sonnet, sestina, villanelle, tanka, ode)–seems the exclusive purview of the professionals. Plus, isn’t formal poetry too often, well,formal, in the other sense of that word: stuffy and standoffish?

Who wants to write a formal poem?

Not us, we all said. How can we say what we want to say when we’re so restricted? What is the point of writing a poem if you feel all hedged in–if the form itself seems intent on cramping your style, stifling your self-expression, limiting your freedom?

Yet here’s the thing:

Freedom, genuine freedom, (in any context) can be exercised only within limits. This seems counterintuitive, of course, especially in a culture founded on the idea of breaking free from all constraints (the sky’s the limit! no rules! live free or die!). America’s revolutionary war sloganism has had its inevitable end in modern advertising jingles that signal the swapping of one form of tyranny for another: in two hundred years we traded subjugation under King George for the slavery of the self to the forces of consumer-capitalism.

And so the so-called free individual finds it harder and harder to feel truly free. As theologian Philip Kenneson has put it:

How many people feel free not to buy a new car every three or four years? (Or not to buy one at all?) How many people feel free not to dress in the latest styles or fashions? How many people feel free not to look like, talk like, walk like and think like everyone else? In short, how many people feel free not to desire what everyone else desires?

As I often ask my brightest, most accomplished students: How many of you felt free not to come to college right after high school?

Unlimited freedom, it turns out, can be pretty limiting. Without a telos–an ultimate end or aim–and without a community of some kind in which such a purpose is given shape and substance, focus and direction, freedom can feel a lot like bondage.

Freedom and Constraint in Discipleship

But determined by a telos that has to do with the well-being and flourishing of all (and not merely the wish fulfillment of the unencumbered individual), genuine freedom is exercised in relationship and reciprocity. Etymologically related to “friend,” the word “free” carries the sense of “dear” or beloved,” and, as Wendell Berry notes,

We set our friends free by our love for them, with the implied restraints of faithfulness or loyalty. And this suggests that our ‘identity’ is located not in the impulse of selfhood but in deliberately maintained connections.

In Christian discourse, freedom is bound up (now there’s a theological oxymoron) in the freedom to love, to serve, to know and be known. We exercise our freedom for the sake of a life directed toward love of God and neighbor, not merely (or not really at all) as freedom from hindrance or constraint.  Freedom understood theologically is generative, fecund, prolific; its goal is not the casting off of encumbrances but fullness of life.  Freedom as free rein, by contrast, is narrow, small, often paranoid and suspicious—it fences out the neighbor, it feeds our narcissistic whims.

Fullness of life suggests that we live necessarily within certain kinds of restraints, certain disciplined practices that make evident what counts as a life lived fully before God and neighbor. Consider, for example, the Ten Commandments.  For Israel, the law given at Mount Sinai came as gift, as a liberating word to help the covenant people of God learn how to thrive in their new life together. Where we might see the keeping of the commandments as a way to earn God’s favor and escape God’s wrath (and even as a curtailment of our freedom), the biblical writers are clear that the law comes after Israel’s salvation and in response to it; keeping it, living it is how the people of God express their gratitude freely. And as Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed (from prison, interestingly), “nobody experiences the mystery of freedom unless through discipline.”

So disciplined, formal, speech like the Decalogue (and the creeds and the Lord’s Prayer) doesn’t restrict our freedom; in fact it makes genuine freedom—fullness of life and living—possible. As it turns out, astonishing complexity flows from the forms we adhere to.

What About Poetry and Freedom?

In the end, writing a sonnet wasn’t easy but it was surprisingly freeing.  The constraints of the form were not, after all, limitations to creativity but their necessary precondition. Once the boundaries were acknowledged not as confinements but as “inducements to elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning” (Berry), it was possible even to strive for and discover beauty: in choosing this word and not that one,  in making the rhyme scheme work, in finding a fitting image or metaphor.

The discovery of beauty in words, in life, in a life directed toward love of God and neighbor: What is our freedom for if not for that?

Editor's Note: This is a repost of Of Sonnets and Discipleship: the Beauty of Limits by Debra Dean Murphy. It appears here with the author's permission. 

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Debra Dean Murphy is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She likes books, movies, music, art, politics — and she likes to think and write about how religion intersects all of these arenas. She serves on the board (and is an avid fan) of The Ekklesia Project.

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Read the new e-book Gospel Amnesia by Luma Simms.

Read more free articles:  Redeeming Worship by Matt Oakes and How to Respond to Religious Pluralism by Jonathan Dodson

Is the Bible Anti-Wealth? No!

A few months ago, I wrote a review of David Platt’s Radical Together. I strongly commended the book. Here’s one major strength: its exaltation of and dependence on a sovereign, awesome God:

Platt wisely grounds human action in the sovereignty of God. There has been a great deal of discussion in certain circles over whether certain strands of theology kill missions. Is embracing God’s comprehensive sovereignty like a nail gun to the head when it comes to evangelism and discipleship? Not if Radical Together has anything to say about it. As the Bible does (see Job 38-41, for starters, or Isa40-48), Platt exalts a massive, awesome, authoritative, majestic God in his book. But he doesn’t end there. He knows that God is great and also good and so desires to extend his goodness to sinners. Platt therefore calls for holistic personal commitment to the Great Commission (see ch. 5).

God is using David Platt to help change the priorities of a whole generation of believers. That is truly remarkable.

I registered one concern with the book: that we not think that the Bible is anti-wealth. Actually, in some instances, wealthy Christians used their money to build up the church. Working off of 1 Timothy 6:17-19, I wrote this:

So Paul does not, in this passage, malign wealth, possessions, or even what you might call a “nice lifestyle.” We are tempted to look down upon such things, but it seems fairly clear to me that the biblical authors did not do so. In fact, as Richard Bauckham has shown in his book Gospel Women, wealthy women connected to the imperial court and possessing mind-bending wealth provided major funding to the apostles. It is not always right, then, for the wealthy (and, globally speaking, relatively wealthy folks like the American middle-class) to sell their homes and cars, or for churches to sell their buildings and end sports leagues. It might be. We want to feel that tension, in accord with Prov 30:8 (“give me neither poverty nor riches”).

There’s much to engage here, and I’ve only scratched the surface.

Evangelicalism desperately needs Platt’s laser focus on the gospel and missions. The church exists to make disciples for the glory of God, both locally and abroad. I would only point out that I think that wealth and philanthropy can actually be our friend here. In other words, if you want to apply the “radical” model–with its many strengths–I can think of few things more radical than using one’s wealth for gospel purposes. Maybe the most spiritual thing to do to support the promotion of the gospel is this: stay in your job, save and invest scrupulously, and keep pumping out money to support missionaries and pastors.

Here’s just one example of thousands we could give on this point. A forgotten man named Henry Parsons Crowell made vast amounts of money through the Quaker Oats company. Did he hoard it? Nope. He gave away 70% percent of his massive income and helped bankroll Moody Bible Institute, the school that Joel Carpenter has shown in Revive Us Again (Oxford, 1999) has sent out thousands upon thousands of missionaries in its century of ministry. Yes, every time you eat Quaker Oats, you’re paying masticular homage to a man who–merely by giving money–helped catapult the gospel all over the world. Read a full free book about this inspiring man here.

This is a testimony to what wealth, including but not limited to truly fabulous wealth, can do if committed to the Lord. It’s one of countless others we could share of evangelicals of great or small means who tucked money away not for themselves, but for the work of Christ’s church.

Let this also be said: beyond support of missions, I don’t think the Bible is against using money for other purposes, either: buying cars or houses or air conditioners or running shoes. Where, after all, are we going to draw the line on this issue–you can’t have indoor plumbing? You shouldn’t buy ground coffee beans from Starbucks? You’re in the wrong if you pay a photographer for family pictures? Where are such directives in Scripture? And wasn’t Job, for example, wealthy and prosperous as a sign of God’s blessing (Job 1, 41)? This is a pretty slippery slope, as one can see. It can lead to false guilt for leading a normal life. Platt has already given us all the foundational motivation we need in Radical Together: the greatness of God and the mercy shed abroad in the cross of Jesus Christ.

So Platt’s fundamental message is sorely needed and personally challenging: are you and I making and using money as if there is no such thing as the work of the gospel? Is the promotion of Christ in the 10/40 window to people who will never hear of him if we don’t send folks important to us? Do our church budgets reflect this reality? Do our home budgets?

Read Radical Together and Radical. Be challenged. Reorient your spending, even as you avoid false guilt. Homes, cars, coats, paved driveways, dark chocolate raisins, and good books are gifts of God. Let’s hear Platt’s sorely needed call and his powerful solution and subordinate all things to the kingdom of Christ and its advancement over all the earth.

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Cross-posted from Thought Life.

Similitudes: Truths from Everyday Life

I may have been taping my wrists, or perhaps I was adjusting my game-socks so the proper amount of white showed below my knees. Though I do not remember exactly what I was doing, I do recall I was sitting at my locker preparing to take the field for a football game as a member of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. This was my rookie season in the Canadian Football League and I was about to learn a valuable lesson. Mike Kerrigan, a Northwestern football alumnus and one-time New England Patriot quarterback, strode confidently into the locker room. He was not only announcing to the Christian athletes that the pre-game chapel was starting, but he was also doing his best to encourage the non-Christian players to participate in our weekly ritual.

Mike approached my locker and reminded me of the chapel that was about to start. Then he looked at the man in the locker beside me. “Dale, you coming to chapel today?” he asked. Our starting offensive center, a product of Tennessee's football program, looked up from adjusting his knee braces with a mischievous grin. “What does Jesus have to do with hitting, slapping, punching, pain, blood, sweat, and tears?” he replied half-serious, half-joking.

Kerrigan's profound response was, for me, unforgettable. It is etched in my memory and I have found myself replaying this veteran quaterback’s reply many times over the ensuing 14 years of my professional football career and beyond. With complete seriousness, and with a passion that indicated the gravity of his words, Mike said, “Jesus knows more about hitting, slapping, punching, pain, blood, sweat, and tears than you or I ever will."

His answer indicated to me one way I could honor God in my profession; I could allow my job to preach God’s truths to me. I could, and I believe should, be watching for God's truths in and through my chosen vocation: professional offensive lineman. It wasn't until I was retired that I would read about, and hence be able to articulate for myself, this enriching discipline of discerning theological truths from everyday situations.

Similitudes

In a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon, I came across the concept which had, and continues to have, a powerful impact on my Christianity. From a sermon entitled “Everybody's Sermon” I read,

Now it struck me that God is every day preaching to us by similitudes. When Christ was on earth he preached in parables, and, though he is in heaven now, he is preaching in parables today. Providence is God's sermon. The things which we see about us are God's thoughts and God's words to us; and if we were but wise there is not a step that we take, which me should not find to be full of mighty instruction.

Spurgeon articulates the sanctifying habit of looking for gospel truths in our everyday lives. He promotes a dynamic discipline for discipleship; searching and seeing God’s gracious truths in the daily rhythm and routine of life. He calls these edifying reflections of God and his Word “similitudes.”

A similitude is a likening or comparison in the form of a simile, parable, or allegory. A similitude compares two dissimilar things for the purpose of emphasizing something they share in common. A similitude is experienced when we apprehend God’s grace in the ordinary living of our lives. A carpenter might recognize the cross in intersecting lumbers as he frames a house. A homemaker might see the cleansing work of Jesus’ blood in a load of laundry that comes out clean. A truck driver might reflect on the narrow road while stuck in traffic on the interstate.

Spurgeon explains what Mike Kerrigan had recognized and what I applied throughout my playing career; the things that happen to us and around us can declare God's truths to us. Mike Kerrigan saw in the physical punishment of a football game a glimpse of the suffering of Christ.

Many of us are, as Spurgeon says, "engaged in a business which allows [us] to see but very little of nature, and yet even there God has provided [us] with a lesson." He gives the example of a baker who is warned by the heat of his ovens that the wicked will be consumed in fire. Spurgeon imagines the butcher contemplating his own plight when an animal is slaughtered; where would he be if Christ had not been the sacrificed lamb in his place? What mundane piece of life is God using to teach the gospel to you?

Providence is God's Sermon

Thus we see that the everyday providential occurrences of our lives are fodder for God's “mighty instruction” if we are open to seeing these things. The very fabric of our existence, our vocations, our relationships, and our experiences all have potential to teach and re-teach us biblical truths and encourage Christ-centered meditation.

Eventually, everywhere I turned as I played football professionally I could also see theology. And as I reflect on that part of my life, now over as a result of a forced “retirement,” God was and is able, by the Holy Spirit, to use everyday situations and scenarios to bring edifying truth to me. This daily devotional experience was, and continues to be, incredibly uplifting and educational.

For example, as an offensive lineman it was my job to provide a refuge for the quarterback. This would propel my thoughts to the refuge Christ provided when he propitiated the wrath of God with his death. Similarly, I enjoyed watching my young son gain access to a player’s sacred domain, the locker room, because of his relationship to me. My affections for Christ were consequently raised as I perceived that my relationship to Christ and his identity as Son of God gains me access to the very throne of God.

In many ways football is a ridiculous sport. They took a round ball that would bounce and roll with uniformity and consistency and made it oblong to remove its predictability. They drew lines on a field and decided that between those lines players could physically assault one another. The fact that God could teach me his gospel truths in the ridiculous world of football should be both enlightening and encouraging. Enlightening because this type of discipleship is available to anyone and everyone; and encouraging because if I could learn of grace on the gridiron, than God can certainly teach you truth on your turf.

I think it is our fallen nature, and the sin that so easily entangles us, that leads us to believe there is a discontinuity between what we do every day and what we do on Sunday. But this type of thinking neglects the fact that what we do, whether our jobs or our hobbies or anything else, is intimately related with who we are. And we are Christians, adopted into God’s family through Christ. And we take that identity with us wherever we go and in whatever we do. No believer should ever think that God is not intimately involved in every aspect their lives; seeing similitudes will assure the believer of God’s presence.

The Practice of Seeing Truth in the Everyday

This practice of seeing similitudes in our comings and goings is a practical way to remind ourselves of the all-pervasive power of the gospel; it applies to everything. Whether you are a dentist or a dock-worker, retired, just hired, or unemployed, this discipline will remind you that there is a Person at the center of your life that relates to everything you do and is relevant to who you are.

The first step to seeing sanctifying similitudes is to understand what they are and where they can be found. What they are, as Spurgeon has suggested, is God’s instruction in everyday life. They are the doctrines of the Bible illustrated in the regular routine of living. Jesus saw the Kingdom of God in the scattering of seeds, the hiding of treasure, the settling of accounts, the hiring of labourers, and many other day-to-day activities. We will be richly blessed as we are reminded, exhorted, and instructed  in the tenets of our faith through the moments of our lives. Don’t miss this everyday education; seek to see the spiritual in the spot God has placed you.

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Jude St. John (@judestjohn) played football professionally in the Canadian Football League for 14 years and currently teaches English at Saunders Secondary School in London, Ontario, Canada. Jude is married to Nicole and they share their lives with their 5 children: Ena, Adele, Mara, Judah, and Arwen.  He blogs at quercuscalliprinos.blogspot.com. 

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Read more in Jonathan Dodson's book Unbelievable Gospel.

Read more free articles: The Daily Gospel by Matthew Sims and Meditation by Tony Merida.

Leading Ladies Everywhere

Current trends in faith intrigue me because I'm a blogger and I'm a blogger because I'm innately curious. Trends interest me but they do not capture me, and I think this distinction is important. I have had times where I have been momentarily distracted by ideas and methodologies, shoes and styles, but at the end of all things, I think we can agree these momentary pleasures are best if they pass away. And good riddance, too. I am, however, still interested in faith trends. I'm lured by them because I love the culture of heaven and I think it ought to affect the culture of earth, and what are trends if not culture's response to heaven's delay?

Leading Lady

One such trend that has gotten less airplay in recent years is the Emergent Church Movement (ECM) (some of you are rolling your eyes here, having already moved on past that old thing and fancying some new thing these days), but I'm still paying attention to it because the effects and the sustainability of it are just now beginning to show their true colors. You only thought the effects of it were things like Love Wins and the rise of feminism, but they were only catalysts. The true effects are where are all those people now?

Phyllis Tickle is a leading voice in the emergent movement, a Christian-mystic, a contributor to USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, PBS, and NPR. I've often been drawn to Tickle's voice because there's a sense of reverence, the Holy, I've found lacking in much of evangelicalism these days. She's gentle and lulling, and of course she is—if there's anything the ECM is known for, it is half of the whole of love—the gentle passive half void of the justice of God.

The Death of Feminism?

In the recent Emergence Christianity Conference, Tickle spoke. (And I'm getting to the point about all this and why it matters.)

The audio for the conference is not available, but the blogs of attendees are in plenty. One such attendee-blogger wrote of how disappointed she was by Tickle's talk. This leading lady of the movement who has brought a voice to equality in the church, primarily in gender roles, spoke of the downfall of modern faith being the lack of women at home, bringing up babies and such:

"Phyllis described the freedoms working outside the home in WW2 and the ability to control our cycles the Pill brought women and argued that such things led to the destruction of the nuclear family and therefore the foundation of the civil religion of Christendom. While it is a narrow assessment of causality, I can agree with the descriptive observation that such things changed our culture. But then she jumped from these changes as that which brought an end to Christendom to describing how such changes led to the destruction of the ways the faith is passed on to new generations which thereby resulted in a biblically illiterate society. As she described it, when mom is not at home weaving the stories of scripture and the church calendar into her day to day activities in front of her children, they do not receive the basics of the faith. One cannot apparently have a sacred family meal over Papa John’s pizza picked up on the way home from work the same way that one can if one is baking bread, doing family crafts, and eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. Phyllis ended the session by encouraging us to discover ways to be back in the kitchen with our children and finding crafty ways to import the rhythms of the church year to them. Essentially to focus on the family and all that. That is the great emergence. The end."*

Because the audio isn't available (and I wish it was so I could not only give you a fuller picture, but give myself a fuller one too), I don't know if any of this was a direct quote from Tickle. However, I know the general thrust of her argument sent the bloggers into a tizzy, so I would guess this paragraph is fairly close to the original.

Passing Away

Here is my purpose in sharing this quote. It is not to raise the flag of complementarity, or to espouse the incorrect view that Biblical-Womanhood is home/baby-making and nothing else. My purpose is not to say the Feminist Movement got it completely wrong or dinner around the table is the answer to all the world's problems. My purpose is to highlight trends in the Church are trends; they are as temporal as the dew on the morning grass and the oak leaves on the tree in my back yard. They are not only passing away, but they are also not important enough for us to get waylaid by as they pass.

There are moments to confront with truth, to stand firm when the waves threaten to knock down what we hold most dear. Riding trains and beating drums of passing movements, though, is not as helpful as simply adoring Christ and preaching the simplicity of the gospel in every area of our lives.

Douglas Wilson shared this from his book Five Cities that Ruled the World recently:

"Truth and error will get sorted out in the long run, and probably much quicker if we just let it rip rather than try to manage the whole process. Somehow the managers of the process are frequently found to be an essential part of the problem, and it turns out they tend to manage the discussions in such a way that that interesting fact never comes out" (pg. 191).

Movements will pass away. Error will be seen. History might repeat itself, but it will always do so with a little more hindsight and a little more abandon. Things might not get better and we may feel the negative effects of feminism for a long, long time. But truth works itself to the light with the help of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of God.

What Lasts Longest

What we see in that snippet of a commentary on Tickle's talk is an acknowledgement that what a movement once espoused as best, was perhaps not best. And I think, in some ways, we all see a bit of ourselves in that. Ways we once thought were ultimate now pale in comparison to the bigger, more full picture of God's grandness we have.

Stay your eyes on Christ in these days, meditate on the truths of the Gospel, on the sufficiency of His word and the delight of the Father toward you. Do all of this with the help of the Holy Spirit and be not distracted by the morning dew.

It is passing away.