Finding Release From Our Spiritual Mistresses

God’s intention is to restore believers in Christ and turn them into new people. “If anyone is in Christ,” the Scripture says, “he is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.” As Christians, it is our job to cooperate with this new creation vision for our lives. Our motivation for embracing newness of life in Jesus is quite different than moralistic motivation. Religious moralists obey God’s rules to feel morally straight and morally superior, and also to earn applause from God, from others, and even from themselves. Christians, on the other hand, are able to obey God precisely because they don’t have to.

Let me explain that one.

If you are a Christian—that is, if you have anchored your trust in the perfect life and substitutionary death of Jesus on your behalf, then you need to know that God smiles over you before you lift a finger to do anything good. Christianity is different than moralism. In that unlike moralism, God’s embrace comes to us at the beginning of our journey versus at the end of our journey. He approves of us not because we are good people, but because Jesus was a truly good person in our stead. His moral straightness, his righteousness, and beauty have been laid upon us as a gift. That, and that alone, is the reason we obey . . . because it makes us want to obey. God does not decide to love us because we first loved him. No, we love God because he first loved us. That is biblical Christianity.

How idolatry works

Imagine you are a married woman and your husband tells you he wants to start dating around. “It’s not that I don’t love you,” he says. “I’m not saying that I want a divorce. You are extremely important to me. We have been through so much together. But I just think that my life would be more complete if I could also date some other women—play the field a little bit, you know?”

Absurd as this may sound, this is precisely what we do to God whenever we disobey him. Every act of disobedience flows from a desire for something or someone besides God to be our first love, our true north, our reason for being. Each of us has his/her own unique potential mistresses—whether money, power, cleanliness, control, relationships, material things, entertainment, or even a spouse or children. Whenever anything becomes more essential to us than God himself (by the way, anything is usually a good thing), it becomes an idol. According to God, our true and everlasting Husband, we become spiritual adulterers. An idol is any person or idea, any created thing that captures our deepest affections and loyalties and will—and in so doing steals our attention away from God. An idol is anything that becomes more precious to us than him. It’s not that we love the thing (whatever it is) too much. Rather, it’s that we love God too little in comparison to it.

Idolatry is the sin beneath every other sin

Idolatry is the root beneath all sin and beneath every choice we ever make to go our own way instead of following Jesus in faith and obedience. Sin, ultimately, is not a matter of behavior, but a matter of desire.

We always obey that which we desire the most.

When we desire something more than we desire God, we will obey that something if ever and whenever we are faced with a choice to obey God or to obey it. So this is what keeps us from being good in the purest sense. Our distorted over-desires escort us into the arms of adulterous lovers, pseudo-saviors, counterfeit Jesuses that put a spell on us and make them appear more life-giving than Jesus, our one true love.

How do we do this? Thanks to David Powlison and his insightful essay, Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair, there are several diagnostic questions that can help us effectively identify and name our specific spiritual mistresses:

• What do I feel I cannot survive or function without? What do I feel I must have in order to enjoy life, be acceptable as a person, etc.? What are the things I am terrified of losing or obsessed about having?
• Where do I spend my time and money with the least amount of effort? The things we give time and money to most effortlessly are absolutely the things that we worship and serve. They are the things that we believe in our hearts will give our lives the most meaning.
• What do I think and talk about the most? Where do my thoughts go most quickly and most instinctively when I am alone in the car, when I awake, when I am alone in a quiet, undistracted place? As Archbishop William Temple once said, “Your religion is your solitude.”
• Which biblical commands am I most reluctant to obey? What do I treasure so much that, if it is threatened, I will disobey God to keep it? What is so essential to me that I will disobey God to get it?
• What things anger me the most? What kinds of people, things, or circumstances irritate me the most, and what about these people, things, or circumstances give them this kind of power over me? What, if it happened, would strongly tempt me to curse God or push Him out of my life? (Remember Job’s wife. See Job 2:9)
• How would I fill in the blank? I cannot and will not be happy unless.

Dismantling idols after they are identified

Idols are dismantled when they are first exposed and then replaced. Dismantling our idols requires that we labor in our study and meditation of Scripture to understand the many ways that Jesus fills our emptiness in a much more adequate, life-giving way than any Jesus-substitute we may be tempted to worship and serve. Replacing our spiritual mistresses means giving them a back seat to Jesus in our hearts and lives. Basically, every idol (and every sin) traces back to a self-salvation strategy. We use this strategy every time we attempt to replace something that only Jesus can provide, with a counterfeit. What does this mean for us?

It means that we must face head-on our own idols, and humbly admit exactly how the things we love more than Jesus will reduce us, empty us of ultimate meaning, and even destroy us. We must admit that our “over-desires” cannot bring us the lasting wholeness, happiness, or fulfillment (salvation!) we desire. Only Jesus can. Ironically, only when we love Jesus more than these things, we actually end up enjoying these things to a much fuller extent! As CS Lewis once said, “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither.”

When our love for Jesus exceeds our love for other things, we end up loving, cherishing, and enjoying these other things even more than we would if we had loved these other things more than we love Jesus. However, if we put the gifts in the place of the Giver, our enjoyment of the gifts ends up being spoiled. Why is this so? It is so because we are made in the image of God. The human soul is so magnificent that only God is big enough to fill it. As Pascal is famous for saying, “Only God is able to fill the God-shaped vacuum in the human heart.”

Be possessive of anything but God—a romantic interest, a career, a net worth, a life goal—and you will never possess that thing. Instead, it will eventually possess you. It will have you and it will hold you . . . around the neck! This is why we are much better off when we learn to pray like the Puritan who had nothing to his name but one piece of bread and a glass of water: “What? All of this and Jesus Christ too!”

Redirecting our deepest loves

Christian growth is about learning to see clearly that Jesus will fill our hearts in much more adequate and enduring ways than any Jesus-counterfeit ever will. Using Scripture, we must immerse our minds and stir our affections with the many ways in which Jesus delivers fully and truly on the specific promises—especially the promises that our specific idols falsely make to us. For example, if we thirst for approval, only the unwavering smile of God over us through Jesus can free us from enslavement to human approval. Or, if we hunger for secure provision, only the God’s sure promise to take care of us like he does the birds and the lilies can free us from our enslavement to money and things.

So what about you? What are your spiritual mistresses? How are they working out for you?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for his righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

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

Originally posted at www.scottsauls.com. Used with permission.

The Presence of Advent

The Greatest Fear


What is the single greatest fear that most people have about the Advent season, especially Christmas Day? I doubt it has to do with finding the perfect gift. Nor does it seem like the inevitable holiday weight-gain would rank as the greatest fear. Debates over religion and politics at the dinner table might earn a higher rank but even those fights are nothing compared to a deeper fear of the soul.

I believe it to be the lack of presence. Not a lack of presents (or gifts) but a lack of presence. No one wants to be alone during this season. We sing songs about being home for Christmas. Many Christmas films riff on the theme of being separated from family and loved ones at Christmas. We cower at the thought of waking up to ourselves with no lit tree, no joyful laughter, and with nobody to share the day. Consider the very ghosts that haunted Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, they haunted him with lonely Christmases.  Studies indicate that depression hits widows and widowers deepest at the holidays. I can almost guess that a full 98% of people reading this article would prefer to have someone, even if they didn’t really like them, to be with on Christmas over spending it with no one at all.

What is it about Advent that reveals this fear in almost all of us? If we look at the very nature of what it means we will find the very reason being physically alone during this season troubles so many. At its core it is more than just remembering the coming of God into our existence, Advent is about the actual presence of God in our existence. It’s the one season that reminds us that God is with us. So, when we consider a season that tells us God is with us and yet functionally experience it in loneliness a massive discord hits. The discord, for most, isn’t with God. It’s within ourselves. We should be experiencing presence. We should be with others and God should be with us.

Presence on the Way

Four hundred years is a long time to wait. The United States of America has barely existed for half of that time. It would be nearly impossible to understand then the absence and silence from God for that amount of time. However, that is exactly where the people of Israel were. National culture and identity would go through an immense rewriting if it had been four hundred years since you had a prophetic word from the national center of worship activity. Certainly brief and dim glimpses of recovery and hope came and recharged everyone’s expectations but they were just that, brief and dim. Sure, they had the prophetic words of old to lean on. Isaiah did promise Emmanuel, even if that was seven hundred years ago.

Then, rumors started cropping up. Angelic visitations occurred. Barren old women conceived. Kings from the East traveled West. A nation immigrated within itself because of a census. A virgin was with child. Then, the rumors died down. Things went back to normal for another thirty years until a shabbily dressed man like Elijah began to speak for God in the wilderness. He was no respecter of persons and called kings, priests, and publicans to repent. A nation finally received a prophetic word: “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is present. God is with us. Emmanuel has come.”

Yes, Emmanuel, God with us. He was attested to be God by his words and works by doing things only God could do. God with us possessing authority to drive out sin, devils, and death. God with us doing justice, loving the outcast and the stranger. God with us dinning with the drunkards, the harlots, and the sinners. God with us clothed in the material flesh of our bodies. Emmanuel experienced the physical limitations, pains, and agonies of our condition. God with us bearing the wrath of God in our place for our offenses against God and taking our very own death-blow. God with us being laid in a tomb dead for three days, he, God with us, was miraculously raised to glorious new life again by the power of God–securing resurrection life for all who trust in him. God with us sent his eternal presence to indwell and empower us for lives of glory and mission. He hasn’t left us, in fact, God with us has come, became flesh, and lived in our very domain and gifted us his eternal presence so we would always be with him.

Advent as a Missional Teacher

This is what Advent points us towards. A seasonal reminder of presence. An annual celebration of God’s personal intervention and presence with us. Advent teaches us that God is with us and that God is for us. Advent shows us God-in-action working for his glory and for our good.  Our reflection of this reality can not leave us to merely feel good about God with us, it must propel us forward to display the God whose image we bear.

Advent becomes a missional teacher to us as we consider that God shares life with broken, messed up, needy, people of disrepute. As we increasingly consider God with us, we must ask ourselves are we displaying this reality to the world? Are we showing lonely people God with us by our presence with them? Are we enacting this good news for the same broken, messed up, needy, people of disrepute that God with us hung out with?

As much as Advent is a season for gathering with family and friends, for the church it is a missional launching point for us to inhabit and take the gospel to the world. The world sits and waits year after year for a savior. They make functional saviors of sex, power, possessions, comfort, and a billion other idols they can find. Yet, all the while being let down year after year by their little, failing, and distant gods. The world is waiting, the Savior has come, the church must be present!

Practically this boils down to one thing—be with people. In the same way God became present in the world, he sends us to go and be with the world. Be at the parties, the Christmas programs, the neighborhood celebrations, the family dinners, and the company gift-exchange. As you are with people, love them. Be the presence that the lonely, lost, waiting world is so eager to receive. Show them their Savior through your love, by the way you honor them, give them dignity, listen to their stories, and hear their hurts.

A rocket-science degree isn’t mandatory, just ask the Holy Spirit to show you someone that he can display his presence to through your presence with them, and then follow his lead. Go be present with the world because God is present with you. The world waits for God with us and we are blessed to display that God is with us!

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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.

3 Ways to Battle Spiritual Depression

Many people today struggle with depression in varying degrees and for a variety of reasons. Some people take medication. Some participate in counseling. Regardless of the cause of depression, the gospel can provide comfort and relief for those who are hurting. I want to look at Psalm 42-43 with a view to understand who God is and how he is a help to those who struggle with depression and discouragement. This post will conclude with a look at three ways to battle spiritual depression with the gospel. Solomon rightly notes in Ecclesiastes 1:18 that with much knowledge and wisdom comes sorrow. This means that as we grow in Christ, we may experience seasons in our walk with God where everything in our lives seems to be down in the dumps. That last sentence in my opinion is a neglected truth in Christianity today. While we are rightly taught that we are to be happy in Christ and enjoy him, it is also important to note that the Christian life is not about living on the mountaintops without also living in the valleys of daily life.

Hope in God

The writer in Psalm 42 points out that the one whose soul is indwelt by the Spirit “pants” for God. This means that those who love God are exhorted to “hope in God” (Psalm 42:5; Romans 5:5). The Psalmist here is describing an intimate relationship with God that Christ came to fulfill in John 14:21. He more fully and deeply can empathize with our feelings since he experienced the full range of human emotions but did not sin as the God-man (Psalm 42:14; Mark 15:35).

The sons of Korah refer to God with three names rich in redemptive significance: God, salvation, and rock. Because this God is living, the psalmist hopes that his thirst for satisfaction in worship will be quenched (Psalm 42:4-5). Christ personally came to bring this ever-living God—and the fullness of his joy—to spiritually dead people (Matt. 22:32; John 15:11; 17:13). The particular aspect of “salvation” that the psalmist pines for—the very presence of God (Psalm 42:2-3)—is precisely what the Savior provided. The psalmist needs around-the-clock protection (v.8); Jesus promises it (Matthew 28:20). The Psalmist mourns for a “rock” to give stability to his life (Psalm 42:9); Christ became the cornerstone (Matthew 21:42; Eph. 2:13-22). If we suffer from spiritual depression, we can find relief in the Savior anticipated in this psalm. We must call our souls to build their confidence on the living Rock who stabilizes, protects, and provides the only basis for joy.

Vocabulary for Our Deepest Emotions

The Psalter in Psalm 43 provides all the vocabulary necessary to articulate our deepest emotions. This Psalm encourages God’s people to express without fear even our disappointments with God. Though God has not rejected him, the psalmist feels as though he has. But God uses even our mistaken beliefs about him to draw us to himself. In Christ, God will ultimately show us the relief from despair for which the psalmist longs (“salvation”). By committing his spirit into God’s hands, the suffering servant experienced vindication (v.1; Isa. 50:7-9; Luke 23:46). Because the Lord upheld him in his righteousness, his “light” could not be overwhelmed, and the “truth” he personified could not be discredited (Psalm 43:3; John 1:5; John 18:37). After Christ’s life provided justification, he was raised in holiness and later ascended to Gods “altar” (Psalm 43:3-4). And there he has received with “joy” the inheritance of the nations (v.4; Acts 4:25-26).

Those who are united to Christ by faith may anticipate the same trajectory of “hope in God” (Psalm 43:5). While many languages do not have an equivalent expression to “my God,” this Hebrew poet assures God’s people that he offers himself to be possessed by faith (John 20:17). Complete consignment to Jesus as our Redeemer will result in vindicating righteousness, guiding light, liberating truth, and emboldening access to Gods throne in prayer (Romans 3:21-26; Ephesians 4:20-24; John 8:32; Hebrews 4:16)

THREE WAYS TO BATTLE DEPRESSION

First, fight spiritual depression with the gospel. The gospel is the power of God and provides the fuel by which we go out and face our day with all of its challenges by the grace of God. Whenever I’m feeling discouraged or depressed I don’t run to my books. Conversely, I spend significant time being quiet in prayer with God preaching the truth about who he is, what he is like, and who Jesus is focusing on what he has accomplished for me in his death, burial, and resurrection.  I have also found it helpful to note how he continues to move in my life to grow me to the image of Jesus. In a sense, battling discouragement and depression with the gospel is just another way of applying the reality of who I am in Christ given that fundamental truth alone helps me to get to the bottom of the issue. While I realize some people do seriously struggle with depression and discouragement (if that is you I encourage you to seek professional Christian counseling) what has helped me more than anything else is preaching the gospel to myself.

Second, realize you don’t fight spiritual depression alone. The Bible resoundingly teaches that in the abundance of counselors there is wisdom (Proverbs 11:4). Don’t fake your Christianity acting like everything is okay when it isn’t. Be real about where you are. For most of us that will mean being honest with our close Christian friends about what is going on in our hearts and allowing them to minister to us. On multiple occasions I’ve had to call on close friends to listen, pray, and encourage me. The more you realize that you are not in this Christian life alone and that we desperately need each other, the better. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation but in community with God’s people. Living in community with God’s people and having godly friends to pray for and encourage me has been a huge blessing from God to help me do serious battle against discouragement and depression.

Finally, battling spiritual depression may be spiritual warfare. Some of you struggle with depression and discouragement because a battle is being waged requiring you to take up the full armor of God. Rather than succumbing to the lies of Satan, you need to stand firm in the grace of God and take hold of the “nowness” of the gospel that is your identity as adopted sons and daughters of God. Battling depression and discouragement is hard, but preaching the gospel, applying the truth of who you are in Christ, living in community, as well as knowing when and how you get discouraged are keys in the fight against discouragement and depression.

Whether you struggle with discouragement or depression a little bit or a lot, please don’t suffer in silence. There is hope and healing in Jesus, a Redeemer who is not far from you but near to you. Know that God loves you, sent his Son Jesus Christ to die, rise, ascend, and to serve as our High Priest and Intercessor. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit has called you to the community of saints to hear his Word, to call on his name, and to grow in his grace. Grow deep and wide in the gospel by standing firm in the gospel, not being afraid to be real and honest about your struggles. Moreover, always have a view to lean on your brother and sisters in Christ in time of need so that together we may show the world his unfailing and unchanging love that flows to God’s people from the throne of his grace.

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

Originally published at Servant of Grace. Used with Permission.

The Legacy of a Disciple-Maker

Ode to a Mentor

My mentor’s name is David. We met at a local pastor’s gathering where he took voluntary interest in me. I needed a mentor and he wanted to make disciples by caring for the next generation of pastors. For the next year and a half, David poured into me. He taught me the importance of sharing life stories, hunting one other’s sin, and giving each other grace.

1. We shared life stories together.

One of the first things David and I did at our monthly meetings was share our life stories. David wanted to model life-on-life discipleship, and the best way to start this was by retelling our histories. This meant we shared big events, little events, and even those embarrassing moments we didn’t want anyone to know about in a stream of consciousness. It lasted ninety minutes to two hours. The who listened asked three questions at the end:

• What did you hear as David told his story?
• Is there any place where your story intersects with David’s story?
• What would you like to tell David in light of his story?

I remember David encouraging the pattern of shepherding leadership in my life. That meant a lot to me as I was approaching pastoral ministry. I encouraged his fatherly discipling of many men throughout his pastorate. It did not take long to become true for my relationship with him as well. Over the coming months we continued to talk about pastoral ministry, family, and God together. For as much as we shared life together, I wish we had shared even more.

2. We hunted each other’s sin.

Sharing our life stories with each other provided an opportunity to confess many of the ways we’ve failed. We were open about our sins so that we could hold each other accountable in our sin patterns going forward. This included anything from asking each other the blunt questions to searching out each other’s motivations. The purpose was always to help bring healing.

As we were beginning this fight against sin together, David pulled Timothy Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage off the shelf. He read a quote about granting each other a “hunting license” to hunt out sin in each other’s life. There were only a handful of people he’d given this license too, and now I was one of them. He, of course, claimed a hunting license for my life.

David didn’t use his license often, and I only used mine once jokingly on him, but I was glad he had it. Instead of causing me to hide my sins when I was around him, it helped me open up so that he could shine some light on my darkness. This light was a mixture of first admonishment followed by grace.

3. We gave each other grace.

What I admire most about David’s discipleship of me was his continual reminder of my need for God’s grace. He helped me not only understand the gospel, but relish the grace within the gospel. I am a sinner and that’s just how it is for now. But my great savior Christ Jesus has come to save me because he absolutely loves me. He has gone so far as to trade his spotless record for mine, so that now God sees me as he sees his Son. Holy. Righteous. Clean. What better news is there than this?

David was especially good at making grace practical to my everyday. Instead of wallowing in my sin, he taught me to release my guilt as I prayed Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” When I shared with him how I wanted to be more satisfied and joyful in Christ, he pointed me to the book Pure Pleasure by Gary Thomas. There I began to learn all the ways God has provided for his people’s joy.

My mentor lived a life of grace. When he was diagnosed with stage four cancer, nothing about that grace-filled life changed. He went much quicker than expected, but I got to write him a letter before he passed. In that letter it was my turn to remind my mentor of his need for God’s grace. His wife shared through mass-email that she had been reading letters to David from all the men he had mentored throughout the years. He would just listen and say, “My boy, that's my boy.” I don’t cry often, but I cried when I read this. Even at the end, my mentor loved his sons.

My mentor’s legacy of discipleship lives on.

I’ve tried to take the model David gave me for mentoring, and use it as a framework for discipling others. Already I’ve experienced the blessings of sharing life stories, the responsibility of having a hunting license, and the joy of giving the gospel grace. I’ve seen others grow in ways David must have seen me grow. I want to be the type of mentor David was to me. He loved me and was an enormous example of Jesus to me. He is now present with the Lord, but the impact of his discipleship lives on. Praise God for mentors.

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

4 Ways to Redeem Millenial Ideology

Every culture possesses true treasure. Gems of wisdom and truth that are worthy of affirmation. This is the “indigenizing” principle of Christian missionary work which affirms that the gospel is at home in every culture and every culture is at home with the gospel. Just as with every culture, the gospel is at home with Millenials. What are the specific redemptive windows of Millenial culture? Let’s explore a handful of those windows.

1. We must embrace the Millenial faith crisis as an opportunity, instead of fearing it as a danger.

David Bosch quotes Kraemer: “Strictly speaking, one ought to say that the church is always in a state of crisis and that its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it… [the church] has always needed apparent failure and suffering in order to become fully alive to its real nature and mission.”¹

As we, the Western church, acknowledge our failure to proclaim and embody an emotionally, culturally, and rationally coherent gospel, it allows us the opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit’s power into this unique moment of history. Up until now, the activity of many local churches has revolved around modern ministry methodologies and “best practices”. We have tended to plug and play rather than innovate and pray. But where we are travelling now, there are no roads.

Hand wringing about “losing this generation” accomplishes nothing to engage them. Lamenting the “hard-hearted, rebellious youth” will do nothing to instigate meaningful change. Rather than these fear-based attitudes, the Spirit invites us into a prayerful conversation of creativity about our present opportunities to participate in the Kingdom of God.

2. We can celebrate Millenials intolerance for superficial and overly simplistic reality frameworks.

We have already discussed Millenials disgust for know-it-alls, their frustration with canned answers, and their refusal to avoid life’s big questions. Young adults have recognized that life is more complex than it’s been made out to be. The arrogance of modernity’s assumed omniscience has been swept away and what seems to remain is a general attitude of teachability, humility, and curiosity. Of course, the extreme dark side of post-modern thought can bring unrelenting doubt, apathy towards truth, and agnosticism. But on the whole, these words do not seem to describe Millenials.

3. We can graciously engage a generation that is eager for honest dialogue.

Millenials aren’t looking for another sales pitch. They want an open conversation and thanks to social media and blogging, many are more used to self-sharing than many past generations. This kind of transparency can be redeemed to for the sake of conversations that really matter.

4. We can feed Millenial’s longing for exploration, experience, adventure, and discovery.

Don’t those words sound an awful lot like Jesus’ invitation to follow him? For too long, the concept of discipleship has been reduced to stuff an older guy talks about with a younger guy at Starbucks.

• Information – The “information” young adults must become acquainted with is the richness of the biblical narrative and their invitation to participate in what God is doing in the world. This is what it means to come to know Jesus intellectually. This can happen at Starbucks.
• Imitation – In a community of practice, a disciple will begin to mimic the behavior, rhythms, and practices of those who are pointing them to Jesus. There is a re-shaping of life and character that takes place in this facet of the discipleship process. This happens in living rooms, kitchens, cars, workplaces, gyms, over text, call, email, or wherever else life happens.
• Innovation – In this component of discipleship, the Holy Spirit empowers a person and/or community to creatively embody the way of the Kingdom in their context. Here mentors and teachers must partner with Millenials to unleash their biblically-informed imagination to discover what God wants to do in and around them. This kickstart can happen in Starbucks, but that’s only the beginning of the adventure.

The invitation to follow Jesus is an adventure that involves our entire personhood. It will literally take us new places in our neighborhood, our city, and our world. By feeding Millenials experiences that expose them to the way of Jesus, we can facilitate Kingdom exploration that will transform their lives. ^{1. Bosch, 2 ↩}

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Sean (@Sean_Post) lives in Maple Valley, WA with his wife and two sons and leads a one-year discipleship experience for young adults called “Adelphia”. He is completing his doctorate in Missional Leadership.

Adapted with permission from One Year Millenials, Short-Term Communities, and a Coherent Christianity. One Year explains how to cultivate community and relationship with Millenials in ways that truly benefit their faith formation. Anyone seeking to engage young adults with a coherent Christianity will appreciate the big picture research and heart-level insights that flow throughout the book.

The Prodigal Dad

I was recently with a father who has been through the ringer with his son over the past few years. Suffice it to say that he has run into the wall just beyond the line of God’s sovereign will and the common grace of parenting. Or perhaps more illustrative, he’s living in the tension of “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” This man is a great dad. His heart’s desire is that all of his children would, like the apostle Paul, “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:9)

As we discussed God’s sovereignty, man’s depravity, and the life lessons therein, I was reminded about something my own dad has always told me. “Never be afraid to come home.”

Six simple words that meant so much more. They meant that I will always have a home under my father’s roof. They meant that my dad would be the first person I call (save perhaps my wife nowadays) if I found myself in real trouble. They meant that there is literally nothing I could do to lose my right to be a part of my father’s family. I always knew this. And so do the kids of my friend above.

But as I drove away from our meeting, a distant realization caught up with me all too quickly. It was as if I had walked out my front door into a maelstrom of reality dragging me deeper into its grasp. You see, as I have often written about, I have a great dad. And my friend is a great dad. But many in our own church cannot say the same thing.

The fatherhood deficiency in American society is nothing new. In fact, the worldwide phenomenon has been pandemic for years. I was recently in Nicaragua. They have the same problem. I’ve been to 3 or 4 other Latin American nations that are in the same boat. It’s not a new thing.

But the striking reality is this. As the trend grows, fewer and fewer children will hear the words “Never be afraid to come home.”

Now, why are those words so important?

Because of all the things they tell us. “Never be afraid to come home” is a clear picture of the reality that God searches for his prodigal children. It’s the declaration that there is literally nothing a child of God can do to lose the right to be called his son or daughter. It means that, for the Christian, our first response when we sin is to run to our Father, rather than away from him. And that is a true mark of maturity.

But I’m fearful that without our earthly dads to tell us that, we will have a difficult time learning it about our Heavenly Father. My dad—his actions, his love, and his words—were instrumental in my regeneration experience. And what’s more, my dad was a father figure for some of my closest friends when we all lived in a house together. They may not have called him dad. But a good father is a father in the same way a good athlete is an athlete. It just comes natural.

Don’t think that I’m attempting to take the supernatural away from God, as if he couldn’t possibly regenerate hearts to faith without the example of good earthly fathers. The truth is, God has ordained fatherhood to be a vivid illustration of his relationship to us. Why else would he call us sons and daughters?  So, for Christian fathers, the office of fatherhood carries a grace-filled weight that is unlike any other office that men can occupy.

But the problem is we have too many prodigal dads. Fulfilling their own destinies through achievement. Chasing a different woman every night at the local dive bar to escape chronic loneliness. Exploring “feminization” and “metrosexuality” simply because they are the latest trends on their news feeds. Searching for the kind of identity that is only to be found within the scope of God’s good design.

So, this is a plea to the prodigal dads. It’s not too late. My dad’s not perfect. Far from it. But he was, is, and will always be—first and foremost—my dad.

If God can heal the most fractured relationship that has ever existed—the one between you and him—he can surely reconcile your relationship with your wife and kids by his grace. He can certainly bring you under the fountain of joy that comes from renewal in Him. He can put you back together.

Prodigal dad, “Never be afraid to come home.”

—

Alex Dean (@AlexMartinDean) is a pastor in Lakeland, Florida. Holding an undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University, Alex is currently completing his graduate work at Reformed Theological Seminary. His book, Gospel Regeneration: A story of death, life, and sleeping in a van, is available on Amazon, iBooks, and other online retailers. Follow his blog at www.GospelRegeneration.com and follow him on Twitter.

Used with permission. Originally posted at GospelRegeneration.com.

3 Ways to Grow Leaders

It was one of the best days I'd ever had in ministry. I was walking on clouds. All of my hard work, hours of leading, giving, investing, listening, coaching, and directing came to fruition. There was a wash of relief over me. I didn't lay awake at night wondering how things would succeed or what would happen. Quite the opposite in fact, I knew things would be fine. They would be better than fine actually. I was so happy and excited I don't think you could pull the smile from off of my face. No, it wasn't the day I graduated from seminary. It wasn't the day I started a new ministry or planted a church or launched a regional training center. It wasn't even the day my first book was published.

It was the day I quit my job.

Now, lest you think I was quitting a position that was emotionally horrific and destructive it was quite the opposite. I was quitting a fantastic position. For several years I had been working with a large church as the junior high pastor. Week-in and week-out I had the joy of teaching these students the Bible, loving them and their families, doing fun and crazy student ministry things, going on mission trips, and enjoying the grace of God in watch teens grow up in the Lord. It was a great job at a great church. So why was I so happy to quit?

I was happy to quit because I realized there were strong, capable, gifted, godly leaders developed who could continue the work pastoring those junior high students and their families without me. I was thrilled because the intern I worked long and hard with was ready and able to step into my role and move the mission forward without the ministry missing a step. I could move on to doing other things that would allow the church to cover new ground and grow in new ways while not neglecting the shepherding work that had already been established.

I learned that "growing a garden" is one of the most enjoyable and fruitful things that you can do in planting a church. In fact, I might be so bold as to say that unless you are working to train up and develop leaders in your church plant you probably aren't being faithful to the biblical calling you have as a planter.

Paul exhorts Timothy, "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

For church-planting ministry there has to be an eye towards growing a garden of faithful leaders who will be able to pass on what they have been taught so that the stream of gospel growth goes forward. Leadership training and development is one of the greatest joys in ministry. It's also one of the most essential works of the ministry.

What does that look like in the context of a church plant? Let me suggest a practical ways to develop leaders within your context.

1. Sow For What You Want To Reap

I want to warn you about assuming this point or placing it on the back burner of how you develop leaders. Whether we intend it or not sometimes the thing we long to develop in others is the thing that is missed most. They get caught up in our technique, our style, our delivery, and sometimes our appearance. By our practice alone the people that we are developing can assume that what they see externally is the focal point of what we want to develop in them.

But developing leaders is more than just replicating clones of ourselves who do ministry like we do ministry or who give sermons the way we give sermons. The development of leaders is the development of a culture, and to develop a culture we have to think with the end in mind.

My hope is that you want to develop a gospel culture in a place. I hope that your leadership development is fundamentally about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ for us. That his good news of liberation from sin, Satan, and death by mean of his life, death, and resurrection stand at the core of what you do. I long to see people that would come and encounter the grace and love and hope and transformation of Christ through the work of church planting.

If that's the goal then you must begin sowing that sort of culture in the leadership that you seek to develop. They must know, see, and experience a gospel-saturated leader. Their development must be means of development in the gospel. It should not be a development merely in technique or style but in the reality of what it means to be a dead person brought to life by the grace of Jesus.

Sure it's possible to develop leaders that will emulate your style or approach or technique. Just be sure that you will reap the kind of leaders that you sow for. If you want theological strong, gospel-saturated, wise, missionary-minded leaders, then sow for that.

2. Water Frequently

Leadership development is never done in a vacuum. You can't just toss a text book at a guy and say, "Read up on this and then we will plop you in ministry here." He might assimilate information, but he won't grow as a leader.

Developing leaders requires investment on your part. You have to nourish and help them as if you were watering your garden on a regular basis. It requires life-on-life relationship. Where will the struggle as a leader? Having them read a book and then regurgitating the information back to you won't cut it. You have to see them in the field. What's their predominate gifting? You won't know unless you're laboring alongside them. Where are they anxious, struggling or worried? You can't know that if you aren't with them.

All of this to say you, as the planting leader, have to be the one to nourish them as well. Don't leave this work up to others. Come along side those you long to develop, give them access far beyond what you would give others, let them see the way you've walked through the hardship of ministry and family and life. Nourish them with encouragement, affirmation, and involvement. Give them roles that are just above their head and then cheer them on when they succeed. As a leader do all you can to nourish and water the leaders you are hoping to develop.

3. Give Up Control

So much of growing a garden is out of the gardeners control. They can sow, water, weed, fertilize, and cultivate. But that doesn't automatically mean that growth will happen. Growth is in the hands of God.

So it is with leadership development. You can spend years pouring into others and never see the development that you desired in their life. On the other hand, you can put in a few weeks and find someone ready to take your job already in hand.

The point I want to make is that you have to give up the control-complex that often surrounds church planting.

Leadership development requires losing control of the timeline. It means that you have to be patient with people, continue to pour in the nourishment of God's Word and wise counsel, but it will take time. A two-year program might not be long enough to develop some leaders. Matter of fact a four-year program might not do it either. The point is sometimes you have to give up controlling the "when" of leadership development.

It also means you have to give up control of the role that you hold firmly in your hands. If you've developed leaders well there will be others that will be better suited for some (if not all) of the tasks you have. Give up control of those tasks. If God gives growth to another leader who is a superior preacher, let the man preach! If a better counselor, administrator, servant, or even entrepreneurial church-planter arises from your garden then give up control of them and deploy them further for the sake of the gospel.

Survival Is About Development

Surviving in church planting isn't about getting off the launch pad. It's about getting a church to the next generation. It's about the hand-off of what has been entrusted to you being entrusted to faithful leaders who will in turn hand-off the gospel to faithful leaders. Church planting isn't successful if it doesn't endure past the first generation. This is why leadership development is so essential. It's also why leadership development is so enjoyable.

As I have watched over the years nothing is more enjoyable and exciting to me in ministry than seeing the people I've spent time grow into the leadership roles I've held. It's let me grow into new spaces, and it's allowed the gospel to move forward in the church in new and vibrant ways. Go and grow a garden!

—

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.

Used with permission from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s publication The Church Planting Survival Guide. For more information visit www.mbts.edu or to obtain a copy contact The Center for Church Planting at 800-944-MBTS (6287).

Sabotaging Your Kingdom

Ambitions silently attach themselves to disciples who work for the Kingdom of God. The desire to be known. To be recognized. To be wanted. To be in demand. To make a name for yourself. To have a calendar full of important speaking engagements. We each indulge our favorite flavor. And often we think we’re helping Jesus out when we do it. With the same effect of a succulent burger ad, we salivate. Then we order “it.” We order to get what we saw the happy, successful Kingdom-workers enjoying. Then we pay for it. We justify a real sacrifice to get what others have and we want. Then we open the box. We encounter a disparity between the mess we’ve ordered and are experiencing and what was seductively held up to us through someone else’s life.

Two years ago, in the middle of my self-created busyness and self-supposed importance, I realized how desperately I was straining to be known. I was confronted with the reality that all of the “kingdom” work I was doing was really a convenient front for another empire I was building. My own.

In his book, Sensing Jesus, Zach Eswine recounts a jolt he received from a mentor (p. 243):

Bob looked at me.

“Zachary,” he said, “You are already discovered.”

“What?” I asked.

“I want you to know that you are already discovered. Jesus already knows you. You are already loved, already gifted, already known.”

Is that enough for us? To be known by Jesus? If you and I are never “discovered,” will our hearts survive?

Although this temptation is greatly pronounced in our modern evangelical celebrity culture, it is not a new problem. The Apostle Paul observed the same sin in the church while he sat in a Philippian jail. “Some preach Jesus out of rivalry and envy” (Phil 1:15). Paul was aware that many used the Kingdom of God as a platform to serve a more personal agenda—the kingdom of self.

I confess the sickness of my own heart and am disgusted by the surfacing of these motives in it. I’ve begun to wonder, “How can I destroy my kingdom? What measures must I take to keep my intentions and affections in check?”

Well, here are three habits I’ve begun to cultivate in response to this tension. In many ways these practices have the power to help us “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”

1. Cultivate a Skepticism Towards Your Use of Social Media and Entertainment

I was about to drop the name of an impressive leader with whom I’d met to another impressive individual with whom I was tweeting. It was relevant to our conversation on international church planting trends. Though just before firing off the message, I realized the pride that was embedded in it. I didn’t send the message.

I’m fascinated by how social media affects our daily lives. People now sleep with their smart phones. I would never do that! I just kept it on my nightstand for a while, and during that time the first thing I would do in the morning is check my Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail. You might feel that’s bad. Or you might feel it’s acceptable. I’m not interested in the verdict. I’m primarily intrigued by what my behavior tells me about my heart. What is it that drives the average American to check their smart phone 150 times a day?

In a real sense, we are tempted by a desire for omnipresence. Social media propagates the idea that we can be in more than one place at the same time. The idea that I can maintain the awareness of what 900 “friends” are up to indulges the illusion of real engagement with their lives. I can like a status. Or try to post a status or picture that will compel others to engage with me through clicking “like.” Resultantly, many sociologists have observed that social media leads to more interactions – but not more meaningful interactions.

My love for TV furthers my desire for omniscience. When my son crashes around 9 p.m. or so, my wife and I use all the energy left in our bodies to drag ourselves onto the couch. We then transport ourselves to the wilderness of Alaska. Or into a crowd watching America’s favorite dancers. We become part of an exciting auction. For a moment, we aren’t full-time working, toddler-worn parents. We are in a different place and part of a different story.

I’m not condemning social media or TV, but I do want to cultivate a healthy skepticism for my use of both. What does the frequency of your social media usage say about your heart? What does your compulsive need to rest via TV say about your soul?

2. Combat Boredom by Embracing the Ordinary and Mundane

In Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton has said that we must learn to “exult in monotony.” Why? If the ordinary moments of life are not deserving of celebration, then life itself is not worthy of being lived. The essence of boredom is discontentment with “what is” and a desire to be somewhere else, doing something else. This state of being indicates that we do not yet possess gratitude for our lives. We haven’t yet absorbed the simple weight of what it means to be able to change diapers, pay taxes, and put in contact lenses.

“For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony” says Chesterton. “But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike, it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them.”

What would it mean to oppose your boredom for the sin that hides beneath it? How might you and I come to celebrate those moments that leave us wishing we were present in another place and time? Perhaps, we were made to live like Jesus in life’s most simple moments. The Son of Man built stuff with wood in Nazareth for two decades. Perhaps, this is the kind of life Paul had in view when he said that we should seek to lead, “a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tm 2:2). If something in your soul recoils at this prospect, what is that part of you?

German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, observed, “The knowledge of the cross brings a conflict of interest between God who has become man and man who wishes to become God.” The incarnation speaks to the astonishing reality that God was willing to become “one of us.” Furthermore, the Son became the very best “one of us” who ever lived. The Son was the most fully human human  being who has ever been. He relinquished the benefits of his membership in the Trinity so that he could live life as you and I.

But the ironic tension Moltmann noted is that although God descended to be with us, our universal desire is to ascend to the place of God. In many ways, I deny the limits of my humanity and posture myself as divine.

If the most human human being experienced life the way it was intended to be by occupying one place (an obscure and impoverished town) and simply “being there,” what can that teach us about embracing the glamour-less moments and places we tend to despise in our lives?

3. Remain Aware of What Your Worship is Doing

My sin causes me to love the wrong things. I am a “desiring being.” I have cravings that actually shape my entire person. These “wants” form me, rippling out from the core of my being and driving my thoughts, will, emotions, and behavior. This is what it means to be a worshiper. I am always worshiping and must remain conscious of what my heart is treasuring.

I must constantly ask myself, “What am I looking for right now? What is it that I most deeply want?” Sometimes it may be important to even ask a layer beneath that, “I crave acknowledgement. Why do I want that acknowledgement? What am I hoping it will do for me?”

Conversing with the Father after viewing both him and ourselves in the mirror of Scripture leads us to pray, “Your Kingdom come.” And when we pray with this heart, we are killing our own kingdoms.

There are moments I sit quietly with the Father, unable to offer my Creator any kind of adoration. I remain silent, wondering why I can’t piece together some string of affection that would communicate a perception of his worth. And then I realize why I can’t. I can’t worship God because I am simultaneously pouring out my heart to something else. There’s something that I want more than him. There is some good “second thing” that I have enthroned as my ultimate thing.

And then I have to do something even more pathetic. I must ask God to change what I want. The convenience of more superficial sanctification is that I can change myself. I can modify my behavior. I can filter my thoughts and words. But I am powerless to change what my heart wants. Only God can do that for me.

* * * *

If your inner traitor is as sneaky as mine, then it’s almost certain there is a way in which you’ve been secretly siphoning off glory intended for God and stockpiling it for yourself.

There’s an impending rationale for why each of us must halt construction of our personal kingdoms immediately. One day, Jesus will take possession of the kingdoms of this world. He will set up his rule on Earth, and it will never end. You and I will sit under his rule as willing captives to his unmatchable radiance.

Then for many of us, the tears of regret will come. On that day, we will wish we could relive each hour we spent preoccupied with building our own kingdoms. Jesus will then wipe away tears of regret.

With the vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven in mind, let’s skip back a few scenes. Skip back to right now. Invite God to help you sabotage your kingdom so that you can begin to truly live in his. It’s not a kingdom where you rule. It’s a better and enduring empire.

—

Sean (@Sean_Post) lives in Maple Valley, WA with his wife and two sons and leads a one-year discipleship experience for young adults called “Adelphia”. He is completing his doctorate in Missional Leadership.

What Do We Mean By “Missional Living”?

When we look at the missional life of the disciples, it’s tempting to think the work they did in proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and engaging in the works of the kingdom were only done with Jesus. And while there is truth in the with, there was a much greater reality present in their time with the Rabbi. More accurately, the apostles were being led into mission. Jesus said as much, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). Following Jesus was prerequisite to mission with him. And while the disciples ministered alongside Jesus in many settings, all the while, they had actually been led into God-­appointed missional ventures by the God­man.

While missional living could be described as something the church does with Jesus as well, it is more appropriately something the church follows him into. As we step out in faith to be a “city on a hill,” we must remind ourselves that Jesus is already at work and we are to join him in the work he has already begun to do in our cities. And in the times we live, we need to take special care to discern the time as “men of Issachar” so that the mission we are being led into is at its most potent.

Here are four ways that the local church can follow Jesus into missional living in the twenty-first century:

1. Following Jesus Into (And Out From) Worship

All missional living starts with worship and leads to more worship, both personally and corporately. Just as faith without works is dead, good works separated from active trust in the person and work of Jesus, is also dead. Entering into the mission of Jesus requires that we first enter into his rest . . . receiving his easy yoke and light burden of grace. To help cultivate this mindset, we will:

• Encourage our people to see that the only way to become like Jesus is to prioritize being with Jesus daily. Ordinary, common spiritual practices like Bible reading, prayer, and “one-anothering” community are at the center of this. Apart from (Jesus) we can do nothing.
• Emphasize worshiping God with God’s other daughters and sons each Lord’s Day—encouraging our people to order the rest of their lives around worship, versus the other way around. Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another.

2. Following Jesus Into The World Through Public Faith

We are called by Jesus to follow him into the world as an expression of our worship. As carriers of heaven’s DNA and the aroma of Jesus in his world, we want to carry his grace, truth, and beauty into all the places where we live, work, and play–primarily through:

• Public forums and conversations (some church sponsored and others in living rooms and public spaces) about things that matter to us and to friends and neighbors who do not believe as we do. Subjects like sexuality, race and class issues, family-related concerns, the arts, politics, and loneliness are a few examples of subject matter. As some of your own poets have said . . .
• Loving friends and neighbors well. Being intentional, thoughtful, and creative about being the “first responders” wherever opportunities to extend the kindness, love, support, and hope that Jesus did to people who were hurting, lonely and alone, and feeling ashamed. Love your neighbor as yourself.
• Parties. Showing hospitality and giving life away by opening up our church, our homes, and our lives in order to turn strangers into friends, and friends into family. We have to celebrate.

3. Following Jesus Into The World Through The Integration Of Faith and Work

Because so many people spend the majority of their waking hours working—whether as a volunteer or for hire—it is important to see vocation as a calling from God and the workplace as a primary realm for following Jesus and loving the world. We express these truths by:

• Affirming that all creative work–work that takes raw material and makes something new for the benefit of the world and the human community—is an expression of God’s creativity through people who bear his image. God created . . . and it was good.
• Affirming that all redemptive work—work that fights decay and seeks restoration of people, places, and things—is an expression of God’s redeeming grace, also through people who bear his image. All creation groans . . . eagerly awaiting freedom. Jesus is making all things new.

4. Following Jesus Into The World Through Mercy and Justice

Because the poor in spirit are called “blessed,” and because Jesus gave special attention to the poor, the weak, the under-served, the overlooked, and those living on the margins, the church must dedicate her time, energy, service, and a significant portion of her financial resources to mercy and justice efforts. We will do this by:

• Emphasizing in our public ministry the importance of the poor, the weak, the overlooked, and the under-served in the economy of God’s kingdom.
• Creating intentional, supportive space in our community for children and adults with special needs.
• Forming partnerships and providing financial support to our cities “best in class” mercy and justice organizations.

* * * *

While there are many ways to live missional in our cities, these in particular have an eye and ear towards the age we live in. They place the onus on our churches to collaborate with culture rather than cede from it. The hope is that as we pursue this kind of missional living, our churches will, in the power of the Spirit, make Jesus, as Ray Ortlund has said, “non-­ignorable in our cities.”

—

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

Brad Andrews serves as pastor for preaching, vision, and missional leadership at Mercyview in Tulsa, OK and as a religion columnist for the former Urban Tulsa Weekly. He also was one of the ten framers of The Missional Manifesto, alongside Tim Keller, Ed Stetzer, Alan Hirsch, Eric Mason, J.D. Greear, Dan Kimball, Linda Berquist, Craig Ott, and Philip Nation. He blogs often at mercyview.com/blog.

Adapted from www.scottsauls.com. Used with permission. Brad Andrews contributed the introduction and conclusion.

Making the Most of Turkey Time: Thanksgiving on Mission

What if God had more for our kin this Thanksgiving than the Macy’s parade, tryptophan-induced naps, and NFL football? What if we saw our gatherings with extended family not as a chance to check out, but as an opportunity for Christian mission? It should be good news to us that we don’t have to be Jedi-master evangelists to be agents of gospel advance among those whom we know best. In fact, it may be better if we’re not.

So before bellying up to this year’s turkey feast, here’s a few thoughts from a fellow bungler to help us think ahead and pray about how we might grow in being proxies for the gospel, in word and deed, among our families this Thanksgiving. These are some practical ideas for what it might mean to see ourselves as sent among our relatives. These suggestions are inspired by Randy Newman’s excellent book Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well.

Sent on Thanksgiving

1) Pray ahead.

Begin praying for your part in gospel advance among extended family several days before gathering. And let’s not just pray for changes in them, but also pray for the needed heart changes in us — whether it’s for love or courage or patience or kindness or fresh hope, or all of the above.

2) Listen and ask questions.

Listen, listen, listen. Perhaps more good evangelism than we realize starts not with speaking but with good listening. Getting to know someone well, and specifically applying the gospel to them, is huge in witness. Relationship matters.

Ask questions to draw them out. People like to talk about themselves — and we should capitalize on this. And most people only enjoy talking about themselves for so long. At some point, they’ll ask us questions. And that’s our golden chance to speak, upon request.

One of the best times to tell the gospel with clarity and particularity is when someone has just asked us a question. They want to hear from us. So let’s share ourselves, and Jesus in us. Not artificially, but in genuine answer to their asking about our lives. And remember it’s a conversation. Be careful not to rabbit on for too long, but try to keep a sense of equilibrium in the dialogue.

3) Raise the gospel flag early.

Let’s not wait to get to know them “well enough” to start clearly identifying with Jesus. Depending on how extended our family is, or how long it’s been since we married in, they may already plainly know that we are Christians. But if they don’t know that, or don’t know how important Jesus is to our everyday lives, we should realize now that there isn’t any good strategy in being coy about such vital information. It will backfire. Even if we don’t put on the evangelistic full-court press right away (which is not typically advised), wisdom is to identify with Jesus early and often, and articulate the gospel with clarity (and kindness) as soon as possible.

No one’s impressed to discover years into a relationship that we’ve withheld from them the most important things in our lives.

4) Take the long view and cultivate patience.

With family especially, we should consider the long arc. Randy Newman is not afraid to say to Christians in general, “You need a longer-term perspective when it comes to family.” Chances are we do. And so he challenges us to think in terms of an alphabet chart, seeing our family members positioned at some point from letters A to Z. These 26 steps/letters along the way from distant unbelief (A) to great nearness to Jesus (Z) and fledgling faith help us remember that evangelism is usually a process, and often a long one.

It is helpful to recognize that not everyone is near the end of the alphabet waiting for our pointed gospel pitch to tip them into the kingdom. Frequently there is much spadework to be done. Without losing the sense of urgency, let’s consider how we can move them a letter, or two or three, at a time and not jerk them toward Z in a way that may actually make them regress.

5) Beware the self-righteous older brother in you.

For those who grew up in nonbelieving or in shallow or nominal Christian families, it can be too easy to slide into playing the role of the self-righteous older brother when we return to be around our families. Let’s ask God that he would enable us to speak with humility and patience and grace. Let’s remember that we’re sinners daily in need of his grace, and not gallop through the family gathering on our high horse as if we’ve arrived or just came back from the third heaven. Newman’s advice: “use the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us’ far more than ‘you’” (65).

6) Tell it slant.

Some extended family contexts may be so far from spiritual that we need to till the soil of conversation before making many direct spiritual claims. It’s not that the statements aren’t true or desperately needed, but that our audience may not yet be ready to hear it. The gospel may seem so foreign that wisdom would have us take another approach. One strategy is to “tell it slant,” to borrow from the poem of the same name — to get at the gospel from an angle.

“If your family has a long history of negativity and sarcasm,” writes Newman, “the intermediate step of speaking positively about a good meal or a great film may pave the way for ‘blinding’ talk of God’s grace and mercy” (67). Don’t “blind” them by rushing to say loads more than they’re ready for. As Emily Dickinson says, “The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.”

7) Be real about the gospel.

As we dialogue with family about the gospel, let’s not default to quoting Bible verses that don’t really answer the questions being asked. Let’s take up the gospel in its accompanying worldview and engage their questions as much as possible in the terms in which they asked them. Newman says, “We need to find ways to articulate the internally consistent logic of the gospel’s claims and not resort to anti-intellectual punch lines like, ‘The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.’”

Yes, let’s do quote Bible when appropriate — we are Christians owing ultimately to revelation, not to reason. But let’s not make the Bible into an excuse for not really engaging with their queries in all their difficulty. (And let’s not be afraid to say we don’t know when we don’t!)

8) Consider the conversational context.

Context matters. It doesn’t have to be face to face across the table to be significant. “Many people told me their best conversations occurred in a car — where both people faced forward, rather than toward each other,” says Newman. “Perhaps the indirect eye contact posed less of a threat” (91). Maybe even sofas and recliners during a Thanksgiving Day football game, if the volume’s not ridiculous. Be mindful of the context, and seek to make yourself available for conversation while at family gatherings, rather than retreating always into activities or situations that are not conducive to substantive talk.

9) Know your particular family situation.

In some families, the gospel has been spoken time and again in the past to hard hearts, perhaps there has been a lack of grace in the speaking, and what is most needed is some unexpected relational rebuilding. Or maybe you’ve built and built and built the relationship and have never (or only rarely) clearly spoken the message of the gospel.

Let’s think and pray ahead of time as to what the need of hour is in our family, and as the gathering approaches pray toward what little steps we might take. And then let’s trust Jesus to give us the grace our hearts need, whether it’s grace for humbling ourselves enough to connect relationally or whether it’s courage enough to speak with grace and clarity.

10) Be hopeful.

God loves to convert the people we think are the least likely. Jesus is able to melt the hardest of hearts. Some who finished their lives among the greatest saints started as the worst of sinners.

Realistically, there could have been some cousin of the apostle Paul sitting around some prayer meeting centuries ago telling his fellow believers, “Hey, would you guys pray for my cousin Saul? I can’t think of anyone more lost. He hunts down followers of The Way and arrests them. Just last week, he was the guy who stood guard over the clothes of the people who killed our brother Stephen.” (53)

With God, all things are possible. Jesus has a history of conquering those most hostile to him. We have great reason to have great hope about gospel advance in our families, despite how dire and dark it may seem.

When We Fail

And when we fail — not if, but when — the place to return is Calvary’s tree. Our solace in failing to adequately share the gospel is the very gospel we seek to share. It is good to ache over our failures to love our families in gospel word and deed. But let’s not miss that as we reflect on our failures, we have all the more reason to marvel at God’s love for us.

Be astonished that his love is so lavish that he does not fail to love us, like we fail to love him and our families, and that he does so despite our recurrent flops in representing him well to our kin.

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David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor at desiringGod.org and an elder at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis. He has edited several books, including Thinking. Loving. Doing., Finish the Mission, and Acting the Miracle, and is co-author of How to Stay Christian in Seminary.

Originally posted at DesiringGod.org. Used with permission.

Thankfulness: Deep, Loud, & Dangerous

This week until Thanksgiving, everyone will be talking about thankfulness, so it’s especially important to ensure we understand it from a biblical perspective. Scripture has plenty to say on this subject. Among other things, it tells us that thankfulness is deeper, louder, and more dangerous than we might think.

Designed by God

Thankfulness goes much deeper than we might think. It’s not a human idea. In fact, it was in the Creator’s mind when he created. The Apostle Paul says food was created by God “to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth . . . ” and then immediately goes on to broaden this out to ‘everything’ God created (1 Tim. 4:3-4). This is a massive theological claim. God created corn on the cob, steak, pasta, avocados (dare we say even brussel sprouts and liver?) with a specific purpose in mind: that they would be received and then result in thanksgiving flowing back to him. Even a grape and a tangerine can lead a purpose-driven life. Who knew that baby carrots and barbecue ribs and escargot had a telos? They do. So do sunsets and flowers and rain, and good conversations and sweet sleep. God intended them to produce thanksgiving. Thankfulness is the God-designed follow-through to God-given blessing.

Giving thanks to God is living along the grain of the universe, savoring God’s creation in sync with the Creator. It’s one of the very best ways of bringing glory to God (2 Cor. 4:15). On the other hand, enjoying a meal or conversation or movie without feeling thanks to God is a tragic exercise in missing the point. It’s a waste, like using a laptop as a paperweight. It’s a damaging mistake, like using a light bulb as a hammer.

Meant to Be Overheard

Thankfulness can be silent and personal. But very often it ought to be loud enough to be heard by others. Thankfulness wants to point others toward God. And it wants to be a group activity. “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!” Thankfulness is much happier when someone else can say “Amen” (1 Cor. 14:16-17).

In John 11, God (the Son) gives thanks to God (the Father). Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus and prays aloud, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.” He then continues praying, stating to God why he said just thanks out loud: “I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” In other words, Jesus gives thanks to God aloud because he wants the other people present to overhear his thanksgiving and believe in God and in his mission. That’s the whole point. Thankfulness is meant to point others toward God.

In Acts 27, the Apostle Paul is sailing for Rome as a prisoner. The ship he’s traveling on gets caught and driven along in a storm for many days, the crew frantically throwing all the cargo overboard. Finally, they approach land and spend a long night in the dark, anchors down. In the morning, here’s what happens: “Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, ‘Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food. It will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you.’ And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat.”

I love this little phrase “. . . And giving thanks to God in the presence of all . . . ” It had been fourteen days since Paul had eaten! He must have been starving. Here was bread in his hands, finally. But he paused and prayed. He gave thanks “in the presence of all”—clearly meaning for these sailors to learn something about God and about the purpose of food. Paul was living with the grain of the universe, going vertical with thanks, and doing it loud enough for others to hear.

Easily Misused

But thankfulness can be dangerous. It’s striking that in the famous story of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14), the one who’s recorded as expressing thankfulness is the Pharisee. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” Of course, this isn’t true thankfulness. True thankfulness is a posture of great humility before God the giver. The Pharisee is using his supposed thankfulness in order to puff himself up. He’s taking something designed to make much of God and instead using it to make much of himself. His thankfulness is false cover for his pride. The spotlight operator has turned the spotlight from the stage and is now standing, lit up with ludicrous glory, on the balcony. Pathetic and bizarre. God is clearly not pleased with this perversion of thankfulness. He rejects the Pharisee.

But lest we run too quickly to judgment . . . have we ever used thankfulness amiss? Have we ever publicly thanked God for an accomplishment and in so doing, wished for the accomplishment to be known more than the One we’re thanking? Have we ever tweeted “Thankful to God that my new article . . . my most recent speaking engagement . . . my kids . . . ” and mainly used our thankfulness to announce our latest achievement? Maybe? Just saying. How easy it is for the spotlight to turn from the stage to the stage hand.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for thankfulness, thankful that God has built it into the fabric of the universe, maximizing both his glory and our joy as we live in sync with his design.

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Stephen Witmer is Pastor of Pepperell Christian Fellowship in Pepperell, MA and teaches New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of the forthcoming Eternity Changes Everything: How to Live Now in the Light of Your Future (Good Book Company). Follow him on Twitter: @stephenwitmer1.

Cue Transformative Discipleship

What will the world look like in 100 years? Or more specifically—what will Christianity look like in 100 years? In a 1,000 years? In 10,000 years?¹ This might be very hard for us to fathom. Thinking about the distant future is not something that we practice naturally. It takes intentional effort to think about the deep future. And here’s the thing about it: once we truly contemplate on what the world may or may not look like, we will recognize that the landscape in which we currently conduct our discipleship ministries will look nothing like the world inhabited by our future ancestors. Just think about the difference 50 years makes. Compare 1964 to 2014. Think about how the discipleship playing field has changed. Just think about the different strategies that Christians have implemented over the course of the past 50 years. Culture is always shifting. People are always changing. Christianity, to a degree, even changes. So how should this affect our discipleship-making? What can the Christian church do today to ensure that it leaves a lasting mark for the next generations of Christians? The Christian message might not need to evolve, but perhaps its discipleship-method does.

Cue Transformative Discipleship

Transformative Discipleship can be defined as a method of discipleship-making that is willing to change its form, appearance, and structure to effectively engage current culture with the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

What might this look like? In Center Church, Pastor Tim Keller helps us out:

Paul himself presented the gospel content in different ways — using different orders, arguments, levels of emphasis, and so on — to different cultures. And we should too. The gospel is so rich that it can be communicated in a form that fits every situation.

He goes on to expound upon this idea of gospel contextualization:

A contextualized gospel is marked by clarity and attractiveness, and yet it still challenges sinners’ self-sufficiency and calls them to repentance. It adapts and connects to the culture, yet at the same time challenges and confronts it.

Now what Keller calls gospel contextualization, I call transformative discipleship. The reason that I prefer this term is because transformative discipleship calls us to look at how discipleship-making methods have shifted throughout history. What this means is that we should be willing to look into the deep past and evaluate the positives and negatives of our ancestors’ discipleship-making methods. This would call us to analyze past mistakes and construct better present-day discipleship-making methods. Practically, here is what this model would emphasize:

1. Transformative Discipleship is historical.

Christians using the Transformative discipleship method would be willing to learn from 2,000 years of church history. The positives and negatives would be discussed openly, and gleaning wisdom from the Christian church’s past would be promoted.

2. Transformative Discipleship is culturally-centered.

Every culture places value on different things. That is why a versatile discipleship method is needed. The Transformative discipleship model challenges Christians to focus on the culture that they inhabit, engage with society, and learn how to best infiltrate the culture with the gospel message.

3. Transformative Discipleship is evolutionary.

This model emphasizes the importance of changing and molding the way current discipleship methods are being used within the church if necessary. As culture shifts and changes, the Christian church must practically “evolve” the ways that the gospel message is presented. This might seem commonsensical, but far too often the Christian church has not been willing to adapt its practices to fit its patrons. However, a flexible model is what Transformative discipleship is all about.

4. Transformative Discipleship is multi-faceted.

One of the key aspects of Transformative discipleship is its willingness to promote a vast variety of discipleship techniques. This mindset will promote to Christians the importance of going out into their surrounding communities with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This may look like door-to-door evangelism or perhaps simply having home groups scattered throughout the city. The transformative discipleship model is open to a number of different discipleship methods and approaches.

infiltrate culture with the gospel for the Future

If you think that there is a possibility of Christians living on this earth even for the next 500 years, than perhaps teaching the transformative discipleship method would be beneficial to implement. Instructing present-day Christians the transformative discipleship method would hopefully begin to shift our focus to how this generation and the next generations can infiltrate culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our teaching would shift from teaching “one-size-fits-all” discipleship methods, to teaching a transformative model that emphasizes molding the message of the gospel to fit the audience that one is witnessing too. This is what Keller has in mind when he specifically talks about gospel contextualization. I just am taking it one step further and calling the church to consider the distant past and even the far off future when teaching discipleship techniques to today’s next generation of Christians.

Again the gospel message does not change, but the methods in which we teach the gospel is always transforming and molding. Specifically, our gospel-proclaiming techniques shift and change to best fit the people groups that we are ministering too. This aligns very well with what the Apostle Paul taught:

“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” —I Corinthians 9:19-23

I have simply introduced a few of the ideas that a transformative discipleship method would entail. There is no doubt that these ideas would benefit from being developed more thoroughly. However, at this point, it suffices to say that the transformative discipleship model is a method that I believe should be adopted by most Christians and churches simply because it teaches current believers to look into the past, live in the present, and expectantly look to the future when discussing various facets of Christian discipleship.

^{1. J.L. Schellenberg’s book, Evolutionary Religion, has influenced me a lot when writing this article. His ideas of thinking about the past, present, and future have proven extremely useful when writing about Transformative Discipleship. I am in debt to his wonderful writing. ↩}

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

4 Benefits of Stories for Discipleship

Not everyone values good stories. Sometimes Christians can be the worst of all, afraid of being of the world. What we must remember is that everything we do is part of a liturgy we live in. If we are not intentionally discipling ourselves and others with the truths of God’s story then we will be discipled by other things—for good or bad. Everything you hear, see, taste, and touch is telling a story. Reading good stories is crucial to combating these destructive stories. Christians must wisely choose stories that will help them mature as disciples.

1. Stories help us shed the skin of our unbelief.

“We are narrative creatures, and we need narrative nourishment—narrative catechisms.” — N. D. Wilson

Stories in the most fundamental way remove the barrier of believing that the impossible could happen. We read of dragons, knights, wizards, looking-glasses and these stories help prepare our hearts to believe truths that could not be believed without them. God has placed in our hearts the creativity to create stories that reflect the big truths of the story he is writing. Without these smaller glimpses, we might hear his story and balk at the fantastical nature of Red Sea crossing, killing giants, controlling nations and kings, and a virgin birth, but with them we hear his story and shed the skin of our unbelief.

Perhaps you enjoy reading fiction and you’re a fan of Lee Childs’ Jack Reacher novels. I enjoy these books for many reasons, but partly because my gut wants to believe that someone will make the wrong in this world right. That someone out there will make sure those who have acted wickedly and grossly immoral will get their comeuppance. Jack does this in a limited way. He’s limited because he’s a human with his own sinful actions and his thoughts aren’t always pure. But reading these books helps me to shed my unbelief, namely that the wicked I see now will go unpunished. These stories make me hope for a final judgement. For Someone perfect, unlike Jack, to come to earth and make all things right once and for all.

2. Stories mature wonder, bringing doctrine to life.

“We are like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of ancient instinct of astonishment.” — G. K. Chesterton

The book of Romans is masterpiece of logic and doctrine. Paul skillfully demonstrates his knowledge of Old Testament theology, the life of Jesus, and how it all connects for Christians who have been made alive. What I’m not saying here is that doctrine is boring. Romans in particular is one of my favorite books in Scripture. It’s a delight to read. But stories bring doctrine to life in a way that doctrine alone cannot. Stories create wonder and awe.

Paul understands this as he wrote Romans. His doctrine is attached back to the story of Israel—especially the Exodus—and what this means for Christians who have experienced this New Exodus from slavery to life. Also, a major theme in Romans is justification by faith and many have made the point (wrongly) that justification isn’t central to the Christian faith because Jesus never mentions it. However, what they miss is Jesus lives, walks, and breaths justification by faith. Jesus brings the doctrine to life—while Paul plumbs the story’s depth. Story and doctrine are protons and neutrons that make a complete atom. One without the other and you’ve got nothing.

3. Stories lay siege to our affections.

“We are essentially and ultimately desiring animals, which is simply to say that we are essentially and ultimately lovers. To be human is to love, and it is what we love that defines who are.” — James K. A. Smith

Stories have a way of grabbing our heads and our hearts. Suppose you were an atheists reading The Chronicles of Narnia and the crucial chapter is upon you. Aslan gives himself up for Edmund. He’s tied to the stone and wickedness and evil descend upon him. The darkness weighs in on the reader as well. In those short pages the reader is driven to grief and sadness, but Aslan doesn’t stay dead. He rises victoriously. Your heart will leap for joy as Aslan lives before your head realizes what your affections have been driven to. It could be days, months, or years. You may be minding your own business when a perfect stranger intersects with you and shares another story with you. “This Man died and rose from the dead,” she might say. For a second time your heart leaps for joy within you—even if for a moment. Why is that? Why did that happen? Because C. S. Lewis’ Aslan has already prepared your heart to hear the truth of the death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ. Stories matter because they lay siege to our hearts and prepare our minds. They are a narrative catechism, as N. D. Wilson says, maturing our hearts and minds to love rightly.

4. Stories brighten our sense of imago Dei.

“We know God’s character through story.” — Peter Leithart

Ultimately stories brighten our sense of imago Dei. They remind us we were created by God and placed in a story. That story continues on today and we are part of it. As imago Dei, we are more aware of what’s happening around us when we realize this. We do not have a meaningless existence. We do not serve a utilitarian purpose. There is love, beauty, and truth in this story. We must pursue these things.

We also must create a story of our own. Some of us play our part by writing stories. Some play music, paint, engineer, farm, mother or father, or pick up trash. These are all beautiful because we are all imago Dei. Tolkien reminds us of this when he calls us “sub-creators” and Lewis when he says, “There are no ordinary people.” Consider the superhero genre and one of the major fixed pieces—the mask. It could be anyone. Any of us could have these powers and be extraordinary. It could be the geeky news reporter, the teenager living with his aunt, the reclusive billionaire, or the blind man. Stories brighten the sense of the divine in our hearts.

Stories should play a crucial role in discipleship. Choose wisely. Read broadly. Let the stories grab your heart as they form you into a more mature disciple of Jesus Christ.

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

3 Reasons to Give Thanks

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.  —Psalm 107:1-2

Psalm 107 doesn’t begin by marshaling reasons to thank God. Rather, the worshipper leads off with gratitude: “Oh give thanks to the LORD!” Bubbling over before the Lord, he enjoins us to worship with him. Sometimes we find it difficult to be spontaneously grateful to God. Complaining comes more naturally. Fortunately, the Psalmist gives us specific reasons we should give thanks to God. Two big reasons we should be grateful to God are: 1) Because he is good and 2) Because his goodness overflows.

1. Give Thanks Because He is Good

The first reason for giving thanks to God is because he is good. You might be thinking, “You don’t know how much bad I’ve experienced this year.” Hold on. Notice the writer doesn’t say give thanks because of what God has done. Rather, we are to give thanks because God, in his essence, is good. We have to get our attention off of ourselves to see it. What does it mean for God to be good? His goodness can refer to his moral excellence, an inherent goodness. We thank him because he is the origin and fountain of goodness. In fact, apart from God being the source of good, we wouldn’t know and experience the good. We would have no basis for delighting in the good done by our children or praising the character of a public servant saying, “That was good.” God gives us a reason for goodness—himself—and as a result we have a moral compass. We can discern between good and bad and delight in what is good.

Goodness can also refer to God’s beauty. This meaning of goodness refers to the superior quality of his goodness. When a mountain top view of moving film is particularly striking, we will say: “That was very good” or perhaps “Awesome.” Beauty calls out awe. God’s innate goodness isn’t just morally laudable; it’s aesthetically provoking. His glory furnishes us with a sense of beauty, an aesthetic witness that says, yes, there are things that are truly beautiful because there is a God of beauty. Elsewhere the psalmist tells us: “Out of Zion the perfection of beauty, God, has shone forth” (50:1). We should thank God because He is morally good and aesthetically good, both virtuous and beautiful. He has left us a moral compass and an aesthetic witness.

2. Give Thanks Because His Goodness Overflows

With God’s goodness in view, why can we give thanks for his goodness? Because God’s goodness overflows. God is so good he can’t contain himself. He has to overflow his goodness in an expression of everlasting love. Not only do we get morality and beauty from his goodness, but we also receive love. Through his love he imparts his goodness to us. We know he is good because he is good to us. So, we thank him, not just because he is good in abstract glory, but also because he is good to us in concrete ways. How is he good to us? Through his never-ending love. His goodness isn’t a side hug or a splash of affection. It is a continual, never-stopping, never-giving up, always and forever love (thanks, Sally-Lloyd Jones). A never-ending fountain. He loves you. He loves us, with love inexhaustible. Now you may think you are unlovable, but the goodness of God transcends the mess of your life. You may say, “Oh, you don’t know my life. God can’t really love me.” Or, “You don’t know how many mistakes I made this year.” It simply isn’t true, his steadfast love endures forever; it extends beyond anything you’ve ever done. Instead of asking: “Can he love me?” We should ask: “How can I get under his love?”

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble. —Psalm 107:2

It’s the redeemed that can sing of God’s goodness and love. How can we get under his fountain of love? We become one of the redeemed. How are we redeemed? Not by being moral, not by being good. We get redeemed and loved by actually giving our badness to God. Like the Israelites, we return from exile. We open up honestly and say to him: “I’m bad, I’m actually worse than I really know, and I’m an offense to you in your never-ending goodness. Forgive me and take my badness. Take it in exchange for your goodness, the goodness that overflows to me in Jesus.” We get under the fountain of God’s love by walking under it with Jesus.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus. Romans 8:38 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” How do we get under God’s goodness? By faith in Jesus, God becomes good for us. He is good, and he overflows in never-ending love for all who hope in Jesus. So, we give thanks to God because he is good. And he is good, not just as a basis for morality or an object of spiritual adoration, but in the gift of his goodness through the gospel, through the good news that God takes our badness in exchange for his goodness, our deformity for his beauty, our imperfection for his perfection in Jesus.

3. Give Thanks Because God Redeems Us From Trouble

Why should we be filled with gratitude to God? Because he redeems us from trouble. The redemption here isn’t individualistic with God redeeming little individuals from little troubles all over the world. No, his redemption is corporate. God is redeeming a people, a community. He says: “And gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south” (Psalm 107:3). Historically, this is a reference to God rescuing Israel from exile. And yet, he’s continuing this gathering through Jesus, people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language (Rev 5:9) and this people is the church. When God redeems; he gathers. He redeems us into a community. He converts us not just to the Head but to the Body. God redeems, not individuals but a people, a community that joyfully shares in their redemption, giving thanks for their Redeemer. He redeems us from trouble into a new community.

As you consider God’s goodness, don’t forget to see it overflowing in the community around you. The church is his gift to us, and though awkward at times (because we are awkward at times), God’s people remind us of God’s redeeming grace. Pause to look back and look around you to consider the ways he has redeemed you and others from trouble. Often we see him redeem us from our trouble by sending us a community who reveals God’s goodness to us by buying us groceries when we cannot afford them, being supported through grief, pointed to Jesus in our sin, encouraged about our growth, prayed for and loved.

Gratitude is not complete until it is expressed. I can be grateful for my wife in my heart, but if she never hears it, she never benefits. Express your gratitude with words. Like a fountain, like God, gratitude for goodness should overflow. Take some time to call, email, or text someone today to point out the goodness of God in their lives. Thank or encourage a friend, someone from your church family, or a relative. Most of all, pause and give thanks to God. Give thanks to God because he is good–morally, aesthetically, and redemptively. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? 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

4 Reasons to Study Church History

Read your Bible. Pray with your spouse. Disciple your kids. Serve in the church. Meet with your small group. Mentor someone younger . . . and . . . study Christian history? I know what you’re thinking. There is way too much going on for me to think about juggling all the above, as well as maintaining a robust knowledge of the history of the faith. I suppose I can’t argue with you. Upfront, none of the above are requirements for admittance or acceptance into the family of God. The gospel calls us to enter a rest unlike we have ever known (Heb. 4). And because we’ve entered that rest by the blood of Christ alone, we are compelled by the love of Christ to grow deeper in the faith and to love people radically. I’m here to argue that God can use the study of Christian history to make you a mature disciple. Here are four reasons why.

1. The creeds and confessions were not written in a vacuum.

What is the chief principle of hermeneutics? Context, context, context! It’s no different for the historic creeds, confessions, and other writings. Many Christians have read the Nicene Creed, Luther’s Shorter Catechism, The Westminster Confession, and more, and taken them at face value. No doubt these documents were written to stand the test of time, but each one was also written within a specific historical context and toward specific historical debates.

Look at these titles from the early fathers: Against Heresies by Iraneus. On the Incarnation by Athanasius. Anti-Pelagian Writings by Augustine. Or how about Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will, which is entirely a reply to Erasmus’ On Free Will.

I’m not saying that you can’t take these things at face value. What I am saying is that if you do, you are only getting half of the story. The beauty of many of these creeds, confessions, and writings is set against the backdrop of heresy. We see throughout the history of Christianity a vigilant defense of the orthodoxy we enjoy today. We stand on the shoulders of those who have fought for the gospel over the past two-thousand years. Let us not take that for granted because we are ignorant of that rich history.

2. Most contemporary theologians are admittedly reproducing what has been first produced elsewhere in church history.

Trace this line with me. Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul espoused Christ’s gospel throughout his writings in the first century. In the fourth century, Augustine expounded and defended Paul’s gospel theology against the heresies of his day (see specifically the Pelagian controversy). Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk. Read Calvin’s Institutes, and you’ll find Augustine flooding its pages. The Great Awakening in eighteenth-century America was led by Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards. In the twentieth-century, C.S. Lewis picked up on the Edwardsian threads of beauty and wonder. And, as you likely know, the greatest theologians of our day constantly place the works of centuries past before our eyes to remind us that orthodox theology stands the test of time.

When you read men like Keller, Piper, Chandler, Carson—and many more—know that they too stand on the shoulders of other Christians through church history. We reap the benefits of their careful study of the history of the faith.

3. Church history, particularly during the Reformation, spurs us to be always reforming.

Theologically speaking, the Reformation is not complete. How can I say that? One of the chief tenets of the Reformation was Sola Scriptura. Can you say that your study of Scripture has totally transformed your life in such a way that you think and act Biblically at all times? Of course you can’t. Neither can I.

We are always reforming when we, like the Reformers, constantly go back to the Scripture as our standard for doctrine and life. The spirit of the Reformation lives on when we continue to challenge modern thought, practice, and life with the unchanging truths of Scripture.

4. The history of Christianity proves it has always been a disciple making endeavor.

Make no mistake, when Christ said, “Go and make disciples,” he meant it. Paul discipled Timothy. Augustine was deeply committed to his teaching and preaching ministry in Carthage as a way of transmitting the chief tenets of our faith to young believers. Wycliffe committed his life to Oxford, not only as a way of equipping, but also as a way of sending out some of history’s first itinerant preachers. Luther worked in a close relationship with Melanchthon. Calvin transformed Geneva through education and systematization of theology.

Step back and take a broad look at the spread of Christianity, and you’ll find a simple yet stunning reality. Since the book of Acts, God has built his Church by the power of his Spirit and the transmission of the gospel. He does this through discipleship. That means that he has invited you into this overarching story of Christian history. You are probably not the next Augustine, Luther, or Calvin. But, if you are in Christ, you are absolutely vital to his mission of making disciples. Who are you discipling today?

Here are a few great resources on historical theology:

• Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought by Alister McGrath.
• Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation by Mark A. Noll.
• Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther.
• Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God by Dane C. Ortlund (the entire series On the Christian Life from Crossway is church history gold)

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

3 Ways Not to Share Jesus with Millennials

Over the course of the last six months, I’ve been communicating almost daily with a friend who was my small group leader when I was in middle and high school. We’ll call him Kurt. Kurt was an awesome youth small group leader.

What I never knew was that he also loved making techno music. Now living in Berlin and signed to a record label, Kurt is one of the most popular DJs of house music and plays some of the largest clubs in Europe.

Many in the Christian community ostracized him when he began to pursue his music career, and the people of God have been more of a judge and jury than they have been friends and family.

Since leaving the country and experiencing a myriad of cultures, Kurt’s faith has started to wane. Today, he identifies as a Christian-leaning agnostic. He believes Christianity causes good, but he’s not sold on the inspiration of Scripture and many supernatural events in the Bible, which naturally produces obstacles on the road to true faith in Jesus.

As I’ve been discussing world events and sharing the gospel with Kurt over the last six months or so, I realized many of the phrases I was taught to use as apologetic tools while growing up in church simply were not working.

Kurt is a Millennial, barely, but his situation is not unlike many older Millennials. He’s smart, engaged with culture, and open-minded. He is open to Christianity, but when people share the gospel with him and cannot answer any questions that come from their proposals, he starts to wonder if anyone actually believes what they’re saying.

When we share the gospel with Millennials, we have to understand that everything will be called into question. Glittering Christian assumptions, like the ones below, may have been sufficient in our culture when Christianity was king, but they don’t work with Millennials now.

Here are three ways not to share Jesus with Millennials:

1. “The Bible says Jesus is the only way to heaven. That’s all you need.”

If you attempt to share Jesus with a Millennial by appealing to the authority of the Scriptures alone, you’re going to sound like you’re proposing that cats wear hats because Dr. Seuss says so.

Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point: if you try to prove the legitimacy of Jesus as Savior with Scripture, you’re going to immediately have to field the question, “Why should I believe what the Bible says?” and now you’ve just gotten yourself into a much more nuanced conversation that will be difficult to navigate, so be prepared.

Because of the increased secularization of American culture, you’re going to have to go beyond telling people to trust the Bible blindly—you have to explain why the Bible deserves to be trusted.

Instead of simply appealing to the Bible as the ultimate evidence one needs to believe in Jesus, be ready to defend the legitimacy of the Scriptures as reliable, historical documents, because they are!

2. “Jesus is our lover and protector. He makes life awesome.”

Have you paid attention to what happens to the disciples of Jesus? Faithful followers of Jesus rest in joy of eternity amidst the turmoil of the present.

The promises of God do not prevent pain, and pastors, don’t pretend they do.

If Millennial values hold true, and if the secularization of culture persists, the prosperity gospel is going to die a slow, painful, deserved death. Young people have experienced enough economic and institutional instability to know that life is tough, even for those resting in Jesus.

Pastors, pay attention to what your young people are reading and sharing on social media. People know the world is messed up, and they’re not naïve enough to think pledging allegiance to Jesus is going to make everything immediately better. To be sure, followers of Jesus find untouchable peace in the finished work of Christ, but that doesn’t mean life is always peachy.

Even the man who built his house on the rock had to endure the storm.

Don’t pitch prosperity nonsense. Not just because it’s untrue, but because it usually doesn’t work.

Having faith in Christ doesn’t prevent problems, but it gives us a foundation on which to stand when they come, because they will. Even more, if the storms of life leave us in a heap, the foundation of Christ is our only hope for new life.

Instead of pitching a health and wealth gospel, share the comfort found in Christ amidst life’s hardest times.

3. “The Church has been a dominant force for thousands of years, how could that many people be wrong?”

This is precisely the sort of thing you do not want to say to a Millennial to share Christ. Among many unchurched young people, particularly atheists, the Church is seen as an oppressive, money hungry organization built to be the biggest ponzi scheme in the world. We’ve already looked at the fact that Millennials are averse toward institutions, so pitching the authority of the Church because its aged institutionalism is probably not the wisest way to approach an unbelieving Millennial.

I love the Church deeply. I am committed to the establishment of the local church as the greatest force of social and spiritual change the world will ever know, but most young people are not. If you’re going to reach unbelieving Millennials, lead with the love of Jesus.

God sent Jesus (Jn. 3:16), and Jesus sends us (Matt. 28:18-20). The gospel has been missional from the beginning. The love of God fuels our love for others, and the grace of God fuels our pursuit of justice for others. The gospel is the fuel for social justice.

Instead of appealing to the dominant force of the Church, appeal to the life-changing love of Christ.

God Grows Faith in Millennials Hearts

Sharing Christ with others is almost never easy. We’re afraid of people rejecting what is at the core of our being, which makes us understandably timid. Thankfully, the same Jesus that saves sinners equips the saints to share the gospel. If you’re going to share Christ with Millennials, begin by praying and spending time with the Savior you’re sharing.

An unwillingness to share the gospel is ultimately an unwillingness to trust God and pursue the mission given to us by Jesus. The Great Commission is not a solo mission. In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” God will grow faith in Millenial hearts. He will make disciples by the power of the Spirit in that demographic. The gospel is the power of God for salvation—even among Millenials.

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Chris Martin (@ChrisMartin17) is a social media facilitator at LifeWay Christian Resources in, an M.Div. student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and blogger at Millennial Evangelical where he hopes to help pastors and Christians better understand, reach, and serve Millennials. He lives in Nashville with his wife, Susie, and hopes to pastor in the future.

Being a Non-Conventional Intern

Most guys who finish seminary either intern or land their first ministry position in pastoral ministry; that or they continue cleaning pools, painting, or selling insurance. Either way there is this natural progression forward in pastoral ministry: seminary graduate, intern, youth pastor, associate pastor, then senior pastor. Sure enough, some people fill multiple roles at the same time—like seminary student and pastor. But for the most part this is the progression. Not for me. I’m a non-conventional intern. I graduated with my Th.M. from Dallas Seminary in 2009, then entered my first pastorate in Tulsa as a High School Pastor. After four years, I departed as an associate pastor and have been a church planting intern with Joe Thorn at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois for the past year.

I remember one of the first times I shared this story with another pastor. They asked: “Aren’t you taking a step back?” Well, yes, and at the same time, no.

I’m kind of a trendsetter—a trend that no doubt others will adopt as well and already are adopting. Still, I imagine many probably wonder what’s wrong with me. Could you not get another position in pastoral ministry? Actually, I did. I had a number of churches asking me to candidate, some of them pretty notable too. I almost accepted an offer from one to be an associate pastor, but God drew us to Chicago, and we’re still discerning exactly why.

Many pastors will discover that if they wish to get involved in church planting then they will likely step back and serve in an internship and/or a residency first. It’s becoming a normal expectation for guys, wishing to church plant. This is wise, as I’m discovering, because it helps assess fit for this unique ministry.

Why should an experienced pastor be willing to intern? What should an experienced pastor expect from an internship? And how does an experienced pastor handle this transition? Let’s take these questions head on.

Why should an experienced pastor be willing to intern?

The benefits are numerous, beyond what I’m giving here, but here are three of the most significant benefits.

First, accepting an internship role builds in much needed rest. Every experienced pastor needs a sabbatical. And too few have ever experienced one. An internship is a great way for you to get a quasi-sabbatical. Let me tell you: being an intern is a breeze compared to being a pastor. I devote about twenty to twenty-five hours a week to my “official” responsibilities. The rest of my time is devoted to study, writing, and prayer. If need be, I would work, but the Lord keeps providing other avenues for our family’s provision. Because of this, I do what I can to honor that provision and serve the church “unofficially” as well. But still, an internship is like a part-time sabbatical, and you need one of those if you’ve never had one. If you’re like me, you were putting in sixty and sometimes eighty-hour weeks. You might also have been managing major anxiety issues like I was. This is a great way to get the rest your body and soul need.

Second, it offers you time for healing. Not everyone needs this, but I did. I experienced some amount of pain coming out of my last pastorate. It has taken time to rebuild confidence and process some of my feelings, expectations, and to learn more about my weaknesses that needed sharpening and skills that needed developing. My internship has offered time to rebuild that confidence, get fresh perspective from new friends and colleagues, and learn more about myself.

Third, it offers you time for personal development. You need fresh eyes on you telling you how you need to grow and what you need to learn. An internship gives you the opportunity to have godly men you respect and love sharpen you. At least that’s been the outcome for me. It’s given me ample time to study. I’ve been pushed to read a systematic theology and numerous other books on prayer, preaching, shepherding, and more. In turn, I’m given more time to pray, opportunities to preach, and people to shepherd. All of this will profit you.

What Should An Experienced Pastor Expect From An Internship?

I’m learning more and more that much of life is managing expectations, and my expectations need to match others’ expectations for me.

If you’re someone who preached every week in a pastorate, well, that’s just not going to happen in an internship. I’ve had half a dozen preaching opportunities during the last year. Of course, for others this may seem like a windfall. Nonetheless, you have to be ready and willing to accept that you won’t be filling the pulpit as much. That takes humility and patience, especially if you are set on fire by God to preach the Word.

People will also look at you different than when you were a pastor. Some of that has to do with your own public relations campaign at church. My elders haven’t broadcasted my pastoral experience. That’s actually a good thing for me, because being a pastoral staff member at a mega church is more like being a program director than a shepherd. Yes, I sure did shepherd a lot, but, tragically, most of my time was devoted to administration and events. Ask me how to manage thirty small group leaders and put together an event, and I have you covered. Ask me to counsel an addict or a marriage on the cusp of divorce, and you’ll find me hemming and hawing—all the more reason to be an intern.

If you think an internship is going to be one extensive hangout with the pastor—in my case a smoke—or that you are going to get to do everything with that pastor, then you may be disappointed. That’s not to say that I don’t spend a good chunk of time being coached by Joe. I do, but there will also be times where I won’t see him much because we have different rhythms and responsibilities in ministry.

There are couples that need to meet privately with him. He also needs private study time. At times I study parallel with Joe or do research for him, but I don’t expect him to hold my hand. That’s part of the benefit he gets from having an intern; he has someone to share the ministry load.

Furthermore, the lead pastor is not the only person you’ll learn from. I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed spending time with our associate pastor as much as I have cherished time with Joe. Likewise, one of our lay pastors/elders has been a constant source of encouragement and learning.

How Should An Experienced Pastor Handle This Transition?

First, you should handle the transition with humility (Ph. 2:5-8). A pastor who is willing to step back and put himself in such a teachable position must possess an attitude that says, “I care about protecting the reputation of Christ.” Having local eldership functioning as covering and accountability is a necessary precaution for testing, training, and affirming a church planter. The last thing we need is puffed up entrepreneurs creating the next big public relations nightmare for Jesus and the church.

Second, you must keep in mind the priority of providing for your family. Internships don’t pay a lot. I’ve got a wife and three kids, so I can only keep this up as long as the Lord provides the funds to do so. Likewise, there is an end in sight. You can’t be a perpetual intern like Ryan on The Office. There’s been times where I’ve stepped back and examined whether I need to work part-time or pursue full-time employment during my internship. So far I am 2/3s through and God has faithfully provided along the way, with a little help from freelance writing and editing here and there. Regardless, a man’s first priority is to care for his family. If you’re not managing your household, then you shouldn’t be managing God’s (1Tim. 3:4).

Third, remain teachable (Pr. 19:20). Your covering will call you to repent of sin, or at least you better hope they do. You’re not going to commit to a year of intern ministry without revealing a little bit of the indwelling sin you wrestle with. You’ll also need to ask lots of questions and earnestly ask for feedback. Being teachable means being tactical. As you receive instruction, you need to determine how to best deploy it so it bears fruit in your future ministry.

Being a church planting intern is a rewarding experience. If you’re someone who feels called to church planting, but you’re hesitant because being an intern or resident might be “taking a step back,” I encourage you to check your heart. It may say more about you than the role.

—

Joey Cochran, a ThM graduate of Dallas Seminary, is the church planting intern at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois under the supervision of pastor Joe Thorn. You can follow him at jtcochran.com or @joeycochran.

Tethered to the Gospel

Common Grace and Scoliosis

My mouth dropped and my eyes filled with tears as the surgeon lifted my daughter’s spine x-ray up to the light box. As a former chiropractic assistant, I had seen my share of spine films twisting and coiling from scoliosis; I had no idea one day the film I saw would be my own eleven year old daughter’s. Four months earlier, a checkup as part of a school transfer had revealed that Sarah’s thoracic spine was beginning to curve into her right shoulder blade. Now, the x-ray showed that instead of stabilizing, the curve had nearly doubled in size. At her age, with the trajectory of progress her condition seemed to be on, it was no longer a question of if my daughter needed surgery, but what kind she should have, and how quickly she should have it.

Scoliosis is rarely fatal in and of itself, but left uncontrolled, an excessively curving spine can make everyday activities painful, give women difficulty during pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause, and restrict heart and lung function—not to mention the psychological trauma of disfigurement so distinctive that in earlier centuries it was associated with demon possession (and still is today in some countries). The surgical “gold standard” for progressing scoliosis in adolescents is spinal fusion, a complex surgery which sandwiches the spine between rods, and screws threaded through them, into the vertebrae. Fusion is usually corrective, but it renders parts of the spine permanently immobile, inhibits growth, and can stress the non-fused portion of the spine, causing pain, arthritis and the need for more surgeries later in life.  Sarah would need to spend the formative years of junior high and high school in a shoulder to hip brace, which would hopefully squeeze her spine into submission until she was nearly done growing. Then she would have the fusion surgery and spend months recovering. It was a daunting, discouraging prospect. There had to be a different approach.

Through the common grace of the Internet, we discovered a brand new type of spine surgery that leverages rapid adolescent growth to correct scoliosis curves. Similar in approach to orthodontic braces with teeth, vertebral body tethering involves inserting screws on the outside of a spinal curve, and a heavy polyethylene cable threaded through the heads of the screws, which are then tightened to straighten the spine part way. As an adolescent child continues to grow, the tension on the cord causes the spine to continue to straighten, often completely. With no fusion to restrict movement or inhibit growth unnecessarily, kids who receive this type of surgery are able to enjoy sports and all kinds of physical activity with no restrictions, With freedom of motion and growth maintained, and little to no risk of complications associated with fusion, kids are able to grow, play any sport, and generally return to just being growing kids.

One month of insurance drama, round the clock emailing and phone calling, and an eventual plane flight across the country later, I again looked at an x-ray of my daughter’s spine with eyes filled with tears, this time from inexpressible thankfulness as she slept nearby in a hospital bed.  In less than five hours, the chief of surgery at Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia had done the tethering procedure, and taken a post-operative film to make sure everything was just right, and it was, beautifully so. Sarah’s curve was less than half of what it had been mere hours before.

Today, six months after her surgery, Sarah has dived, literally, back into all the water sports she loves, with several small scars her only visible reminder of the procedure, as the invisible tether helps her grow stronger and straighter every day. The experience itself was sanctifying for our entire family. But through it, I have given a profound, and profoundly helpful, picture of how the “tether” of the gospel, rather than the crushing of the law, empowers our life as believers in Jesus.

homo incurvatus in se

Martin Luther summarized our battle with sin with the Latin phrase homo incurvatus in se—humanity curved in toward self.  My natural “bent” is away from God. Left to myself, I see only myself—my needs, my desires, my idols—and I am powerless to change. I need spiritual surgery.

The gospel, Paul reminds us in Romans 1, is that power. United with Christ through repentance and faith and made alive through the Holy Spirit, it is the power of the gospel that “tethers” our hearts and minds, reducing the curving inwardness of our sin and lifting our hearts towards our heavenly Father. In our times of struggle with temptation and discouragement, it is the tether of the gospel that keeps us from coiling back in on ourselves.

When my children seem determined to make Titus 3:3 their collective life verse, it is the tether of the gospel that helps me respond to them with the same goodness and kindness God showed in saving me (Ti 3:4).

When the administrivia of junior high homework and house projects “get in the way” of my plans for writing and study, the tether of the gospel reminds me of the One who emptied Himself of his glory to become a servant for me (Phil 2:7).

When my husband does not utter the precise arrangements of words and phrases that would make me feel loved at the precise moment I want him to, the tether of the gospel reminds me that God exults over me with singing (Zeph. 3:17).

And when the weight of my sin and weaknesses and failures begin to curve my heart inward toward my wretched self, it is the tether of the gospel that reminds me that before the very foundation of the world, God had chosen me in Christ before the very foundation of the world and that redemption and forgiveness are mine in him, forever (Eph 1).

The law can only crush me into rigid, outer conformity. But the tether of the gospel empowers me to move freely, as a beloved child of God and a growing disciples of Jesus Christ by curving my affections towards the Triune God.

—

Rachael Starke (@RachaelStarke) lives with her husband and three daughters in San Jose, California. A graduate of The Master's College, she is now pursuing a master's degree in Nutritional Science, and writes about the intersection of spiritual and physical nutrition at What Food Is For. She also writes for and co-edits Gospel-Centered Woman, a newly repository of resources for for pastoral staff and lay leaders to support women’s discipleship through the local church. She and her family are members of West Hills Community Church in Morgan Hill.

Redeeming Our Offices

Today, we’re re-releasing Jeremy Writebol’s everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present via Kindle on Amazon.com. You can buy your digital copy with one click $6.49.

A Bad Day at the Office

Why is it that we so deeply despise going to work? What is it about the office that causes us to prefer calling in sick, staying in bed, or hiding out for months on end rather than be doing the very thing that God called us to do with his good creation in the first place? Maybe going into the office really was the curse of our dislocation. It seems that work really was the result of our crimes.

Scripture makes it plain in Genesis 2 that work was given to humanity and work was right. But instead of work as we know it, work initially was not about providing for our essential needs like food and shelter. For our first parents, work was art. It was labor to design, cultivate, and express dominion over the established place of God. It was an effort to put decorations and details on the first place of God.

Occasionally, there are projects that I get to spend time working on that are sheer pleasure. They do not provide food for my table or pay off the mortgage. Instead they are labors of love. Tonight my daughter interrupted my writing and asked me to assemble her new LEGO stables. Some 2,000 pieces (and many of them very tiny) and two hours later, we were done. It wasn't anything I was paid to do, but it was still work. And I loved it. This is what going to the office was originally about: forming, cultivating, and managing creatively what God had made. It was art.

Then came the dislocating break of our rebellion. We didn't want to be artists painting on God's canvas. We wanted to make our own canvas. With it came the curse that now plagues our work. Instead of having everything we needed for life, we had to labor to stay alive. Where we were once amply supplied by God, now we were forced to have our cake and eat it, too. We wanted to work independently from God and he allowed it. We have to work to stay alive. This is the daily reality of our rebellion and the curse.

The office lost all of its delight. We found productivity flittered away by thorns and thistles. The soil we needed to survive was dry, hard, and unyielding. Making an existence from day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck became our work, and that was where work lost all its art.

Maybe this is why no one feels like going to work in the morning. Mondays are synonymous with the death of our freedom, independence, and life. Work is death and no one likes it. We spend our youth preparing to work, our best years working away, and then end up dying from our work. As the preacher of Ecclesiastes wonders, "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" (Ecc. 1:3). This is the blatant effect of our sin and the curse. The office is a den of death.

This is why my friends Bonnie and Brandon don't see the progress of patients recovering to complete health. It's the reason why the hours and hours Eric spends designing aircraft feel fruitless. It's why Andy works a job he doesn’t really desire so that he can put food on the table. It is why, although we seem to see developments in technology, science, politics, economics and the like, nothing seems to be getting better.

Work as Role or Identity?

Is there redemption for our offices? Although we believe in a gospel that saves our souls, could we imagine Christ redeeming our workplaces as well? Could there be salvation for the office too? Yes, but only if we look to the work of Christ. For so many, our work has transitioned itself from a role we were given to an identity we possess. Work became who we are instead of something we do.

The proof of this is found when you meet someone new. Introduce yourself to someone you don't know and the likelihood of you identifying yourself by what you do is very high. Usually we start with our name (“I'm Jeremy”) followed by what we do (“I'm a pastor”). We weigh the value of our lives by our work. The important people are the ones with the great jobs, the large incomes, the high-yield, high-capacity productions. Those who achieve their vocational dreams are the great ones. Those who fail at attaining those degrees are just "working for the man." We live and die by our jobs and their perceived successes and failures.

That's why we need a relocation. Our identity must be shifted away from what we do to who we are. We must be redeemed from perverting our role as workers into our identity as workers.

I find it wonderful that Jesus didn't come with an identity-issue about his work. He knew who he was, the Son of God. He knew what his job was, to give his life as a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45). He didn't have the two confused. And so he came, reminded of his identity by his Father (1:11) to do the work he was sent to do (1:15). He came to do the work we could not do. In substituting himself for us, he worked to fulfilled the Law at every point and win perfect righteousness for us. By standing in our place, he did the work of satisfying God's wrath and removing our sin by dying on the cross for us. In such, he glorified his father and accomplished the work he was sent to do (Jn. 17:5).

Jesus didn't take work away from us. He redeemed us from a life of finding our identity in our work. He didn't live, die, and rise to life again so that we could skip out on the office or marketplace. He lived, died, and arose to life again so that we would glorify him at our office, not worship our office. Instead of living to fulfill the identities we find in our work, Jesus gives us a new identity, his brothers and sisters, so that we can go to work, not to earn an identity but to rest from identity seeking. We go into the office as kingdom citizens to create, cultivate, develop, and design all that the King owns for the King's glory.

Who Are You Working For?

One of the most frustrating aspects of work, beyond the inefficiencies and futility of fruitless work, is the people we work for. Just as we struggle with deep authority issues in relationship with God, we continue to struggle with the authority issues we have with our employers and supervisors. Our bosses can be tyrants, ogres, and despots all in one eight-hour shift. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have a decent boss, we still buckle, from time to time, under the difficulty of not always seeing eye-to-eye. We all have bad days with our superiors.

For Kingdom citizens, the presence of the King in our workplaces deeply alters the way we see our bosses. Paul calls Kingdom citizens to see their work in this light by calling servants to be obedient and submissive to their superiors as if they were serving the King himself (Col. 3:22-24). The renovated heart goes beyond just obedience as a people-pleaser, or giving appearance as such, and calls the citizens of the Kingdom to obey with sincerity while fearing the Lord.

My fighter-jet-engineering friend Randy told me one day of a meeting with his superiors. In the meeting over the design of the jet, his boss became rather irate and excessively direct about a particular portion of the jet's design. Randy was given clear directions that the design of the jet should in every way be "from scratch." It was as if his company wanted to be the Wright brothers all over again and invent flight, this time on the scale of a fighter jet. As Randy debated for particular design similarities, his boss became more and more indignant about the uniqueness of the design. As Randy listened and considered, he knew that he had a responsibility to obey his boss and honor Christ. It didn't make sense, but it was right. It was only later that he discovered his boss’s reasons and Randy ended up benefiting his company and business by his obedience.

This is the kind of renovating work the King does. He transforms his people from rebellious people-pleasers to sincere Kingdom-servants. Work is transformed by the way we work for the ones set in authority over us (1 Pt. 2:13-25).

Working Hard, Working Well

While obedience to our superiors is a kingdom value, is this all that a renovation of our work places brings about? Are we to just be dutiful drones at the jobs in which we take no delight? Does the gospel speak to what we spend our working lives doing? Is there a Kingdom renovation to be done with regard to occupations and vocations? Can a kingdom citizen find the art in their work once again?

Like the false dichotomy of the material and spiritual, bad religion created another dichotomy with regard to our work; sacred and secular. Those that worked jobs in the sacred realms of the church were the ones who worked within a higher calling. They had the blessing of God, treasure in heaven, and a trophy of accomplishing something that lasts for eternity to put on their mantle. For the bankers, butchers, and builders (also known as secular workers), there was the glib promise that one day they could go to heaven and maybe be a worship leader and really please God. However, their vocations and their work were sub-eternal and a less than great calling. What does God need with someone who can carve meat anyway? To this day, it's not too hard to find churches and Christians who still practically affirm this position.

But the Scriptures never affirm a sacred/secular vocational divide. Rather, the word of the King is that "whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord" (Col 3:23). Those three words, "whatever you do," are a major blow to any scared/secular mentality. In those words, the King affirms the unique occupations of Kingdom citizens. Whether it's banking, broadcasting, auto sales, brewing coffee, serving tables, or working at homemaking, the King authorizes his citizens to work well in what they do. He affirms the value of every occupation that cultivates, develops, and advances his authority in his Kingdom. This includes building bridges, teaching children, accounting financial assets, diagnosing physical diseases, and baking pies.

How is this so? How does the bakery become a Kingdom place? First, by the way in which we work. Paul says "whatever you do, do it heartily." There is a way in which Kingdom citizens work for the King. They, by their presence at their work, demonstrate God's nature. They reveal the God who worked hard at the creating of all things; a God who put his full wisdom and glory and creativity into play as he made all things. By the way they work, they show an industrious, productive, intelligent God. They show a God who didn't take short-cuts, who didn't get lazy on the job, and who didn't "phone it in" in his work of creation and redemption.

Second, they also show a Kingdom value in the trajectory of their work. They work "as for the Lord." Their work is aimed at pleasing the King himself. How does an aerospace engineer design planes for the Lord? By making the best planes he can. By using the wisdom and understanding and knowledge the King has gifted him with to understand the laws of nature and develop means by which the creation can be advanced to serve people. How does a baker make pies for the Lord? By baking in such a way that the King himself would enjoy her pies. By baking with a mind to serve her fellow humanity as they delight in the excellent tastes of the pie. They both please the Lord by being creative, honest, diligent, and excellent in their various occupations.

There is a further implication of the resurrection of Jesus here for us in our work. The resurrection of Jesus was his coronation and enthronement as King over all kings. Everything is being brought under subjection to him as King (Ps. 8:6, 1 Cor. 15:27). Our work, done in the name of the King and for the King is participating with him in bringing all things under his authority. The way we develop technology, or manage resources, or develop business strategies, or cook meals, or build houses, or any innumerable sorts of occupations are bringing all things under subjection to Christ. The computer programmer who develops software to advance communication can see himself as utilizing technology for the sake of the King and the advancement of his Kingdom. The doctor who develops wise and resourceful medical practices is bringing the field of medicine under the realm of the King when she does so to keep, preserve and enhance life. The teacher who works with fourth graders is bringing a classroom of students under the dominion of Christ, but educating her class about the physical and moral laws that govern the world in which we live in. All things are brought to rest under the Lordship of Christ as the resurrected King.

As such, the renovating work of the King brings us to our offices (or classrooms or kitchens or laboratories, or whatever we call the space we work in) to work hard and to work for him. He calls us into every sphere of life and vocation to develop and deploy our gifts to show His authority and dominion over all things. He must have workers in every vocation to demonstrate all things are for his glory, even the offices that we spend our days working in. By our work we display an ever-present King in every place.

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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.

Counsel One Another with Good News

Church: Love Poised between Faith and Hope

As Paul provides spiritual counsel for the troubled and confused Colossian Christians, he doesn’t envision them alone. Instead, he envisions them together “as God’s chosen people” (Col. 3:12) and “as members of one body” (Col. 3:15) — the church. Paul includes these words of one-another minis- try in the context of growth in grace (Col. 3:1 – 11) because sanctification is a Christ-centered community journey. “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ” (Col. 1:28).

In Paul’s letter of spiritual counsel, he does not move directly from Redemption to Consummation. Instead, he teaches that we find ourselves as the church living between two comings — the first and the second coming of Christ. We are poised between looking back with faith in our Redeemer and looking forward with hope as we await his return as Conquering Groom. What is our role in this dramatic waiting epoch?7 God calls us to speak and live truth in love.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col. 3:12 – 14, emphasis added)

And how is the church to love one another? “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom” (Col. 3:16). Where does the church find wisdom for life in a broken world? In God’s Word, where the grand gospel narrative is told. We are to build wisdom’s house together as the redemptive narrative dwells deeply within each of us and overflows lovingly between us.

What has the church to say and do that no other human institution can say and do? We are the Jesus-centered community that speaks gospel truth in love to one another in such a way that it opens a door for sharing the gospel message (Col. 4:3). In God’s grand narrative drama, the church is, as Kevin Vanhoozer pictures it, the theater of the gospel. We are to perform the gospel in our one-another relationships with the world as our audience so that they will ask us for a reason for the faith, hope, and love they witness (Col. 4:4 – 7; 1 Peter 3:15). As the church we are to embody communion with God and one another in a manner that entices and invites others to join in.

Consummation: The Way Is Won; The Bride is Wed

The Bible’s narrative presents life as a war and a wedding, that we can capture the Bible’s drama as “slay the dragon, marry the damsel.” To people beaten down by sin and beaten up by suffering, Paul says, “Let me tell you the rest of the story — the end of the story. We were under Satan’s domain of utter darkness. Helpless and hopeless, Christ has rescued us. Just as earthly rulers transplant a conquered people from one country to another, so Christ has transplanted us from our earthly citizenship to our heavenly citizenship. But he transplants us not from liberty into slavery, but from slavery into liberty. He transplants us not out of darkness into semi-darkness, but out of dismal blindness into marvelous light. He’s disarmed his enemies and ours, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col. 1:13; 2:14 – 15).

Paul not only pulls back the curtain to show us the end of the war, he also shows us the beginning of the wedding. “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, with- out blemish and free from accusation” (Col. 1:22). This is almost identical to Paul’s wording in Ephesians 5:25–27 where his focus is on Christ’s love for the church, providing the example for a husband’s love for his wife. This is wedding language!

Paul is letting us eavesdrop on eternity. Just like John does. “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear” (Rev. 19:6 – 8). The victory is announced. God reigns! The wedding march starts. All the scars and blemishes of sin are cleansed. The bride wears white!

Paul and John share the same message: “The war is won! The bride is wed!” Both messages communicate the same point: the gospel is about God radically changing people. The war Christ wins for us provides victory over sin and Satan where once we were their slaves. The wedding Christ prepares us for produces purity where there once was sin and shame. And it is all for God’s glory.

This victory narrative forms the foundation of our counsel and changes the agenda of our counseling. Typically we ask God and seek help from each other to change our feelings and our circumstances. God is in the change business, but a very different type of change — heart change, Christlikeness — presenting everyone “perfect,” or mature, in Christ (Col. 1:28).

Listen to the song of eternity — it’s about celebrating Christ’s victory and the Bride’s purity for God’s glory! We look at our lives and want instructions or explanations. What we need is imagination and vision to see life today in light of eternity.

Gospel-centered counseling highlights both Good Friday and Easter — the cross and the resurrection. The gospel message is not like the White Witch’s evil rule over Narnia, where it is always winter and never Christmas. The gospel narrative is Christ’s holy and loving shepherding of the universe where it is always spring and always Easter!

Confidence as a counselor begins with how we view the Bible. The central message of the Bible is God’s announcement of our past, present, and future victory in Christ. Because God so loved us, he sent his Son to slay the dragon and marry the damsel — the Bride of Christ — us!

The Good News as the End of the Story

Though the outcome of the war is sure, skirmishes continue. When our current dreams are dashed, when we surrender yet again to another temptation, we must remind ourselves that we’ve read the end of the story.

The grand narrative of the Bible shows that life makes sense. History is moving toward a God-ordained purpose. More than that, the stories of our lives have purpose. God is directing all of history toward the final defeat of evil, toward happily ever after, toward his people ruling with him and in relationship with him.

Christ’s triumph in the drama of redemption guides our interactions in our one-another ministry. We engage one another in gospel conversations, encouraging each other to ponder: “Why give up when we lose one battle, since we know we have won the war?” “Why choose mere survival, when we are more than conquerors?” “Why choose the cheap thrills of the pleasure of sin for a season when in the end we rule the universe forever dressed in pure white robes?”

— Bob Kellemen, Th.M., Ph.D., Bob is the Executive Director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition, the Vice President for Institutional Development and Chair of the Biblical Counseling Department at Crossroads Bible College, and the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries. For seventeen years he served as the founding Chairman of and Professor in the MA in Christian Counseling and Discipleship department at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, MD. Bob has pastored three churches and equipped biblical counselors in each church. Bob and his wife, Shirley, have been married for thirty-four years; they have two adult children, Josh and Marie, one daughter-in-law, Andi, and two granddaughters, Naomi and Penelope. Dr. Kellemen is the author of thirteen books including Gospel-Centered Counseling, Gospel-Conversations, and Equipping Counselors for Your Church.

From Gospel-Centered Counseling by Dr. Bob Kellemen. Used by permission of author.