Category Archives: Church

What a Full Day Looks Like

I have LOTS of full days… and they get strung together and keep on going. Yet, in the midst of those full days I find such joy. The past few Sundays at my church have been incredibly encouraging for me. There is a hunger rising up in people. We had a prayer retreat a week ago where the agenda was just seeking God in prayer… and it was refreshing.

Yesterday, it was our church coming together to raise money for our youth to go to youth convention this next week. There was a spaghetti dinner and silent auction. Through all the effort, the group raised ALL the money they needed to send the kids!

It is a joy to watch God work. When the days are full, the work God does make the work joyful.

Arab Spring Isn’t All Blossoms

As we celebrate the “Arab Spring,” there are reminders that all doesn’t bloom evenly in the Arab world. The Church in Egypt is feeling the pressure.

And an Iranian pastor sits in prison awaiting execution.

Often when we see good things happening, what gets missed is the plight of the Church in regions of the world.

In our prayers, we must remember the Body of Christ. His Church.

The Danger of “Decision” Theology

Scot McKnight makes the comparisons of how the New Testament seems to be talking about Gospel… and how we “gospel” today. He pulls no punches.

When all we care about is bringing people to a decision, to pray a prayer, to just admit their sin and find Jesus as Savior, we are doing damage. Jesus becomes a personal Savior, but not Lord. The whole point of the Gospel is the introduction of the Messiah… the Deliverer… the Master. McKnight is not very “friendly” when he says this decision theology is “heresy” (p. 117). (Just tell us what you think, Scot!)

Anyone who can preach the gospel and not make Jesus’ exalted lordship the focal point simply isn’t preaching the apostolic gospel.

Unfortunately, I know people living in that world and they will continue to live in that world. Why? Because that world gets rewarded. Not by the Kingdom, necessarily, but by our church world. Their very straight answer will be, “Well, how many souls have you won to Jesus?” (Like numbers explain everything. And in our particular church world, numbers ARE everything.)

McKnight’s book is worth a look!

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited

Why I am a Confessing Pentecostal

The founding of the Assemblies of God (my denomination) was based on the lack of creeds in the very beginning. They believed in the Bible, bless God, and that was enough. It wasn’t long before theological controversy forced them into a statement of faith. (But it’s not a creed. ;) )

Over the years as I have studied more of Church History and spiritual formation and Pentecostal “sightings”, as I would call them, through the early church, I have grown in my appreciation for the creeds of the Church.

Scot McKnight’s book, The King Jesus Gospel, revolves around the basics of the gospel. His contention is American Christianity has more of a “salvation plan” approach rather than a “gospel” approach. The development of the gospel message in the New Testament, McKnight contends, is 1 Corinthians 15. Paul lays out the simple gospel.

McKnight then makes a bold claim. This simple gospel laid out by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is the basis for the Nicene Creed. In essence, to be Christian is to be in agreement with the creeds. Quite honestly, he asks, what could a Christian possibly disagree with in the Nicene Creed? What about the Nicene Creed is not gospel? (And, McKnight would say, add in the fact that much of 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 is in there, how can you deny the Creed and not deny the gospel?)

For the early church, to deny the creed was to deny the gospel. It is the very essence of the gospel.

McKnight articulates what has been going on in my own life over the past few years. I am far more “confessional” in my belief than I used to be. I am still solidly Pentecostal. Both “roots” are deep within the Church. This is just something I am learning to try to articulate better.

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited

 

The Pope and Pentecostalism

Pope Benedict made the following comments about Pentecostalism:

The geography of Christianity has changed dramatically in recent times, and is in the process of changing further. Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss. This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability. This worldwide phenomenon – that bishops from all over the world are constantly telling me about – poses a question to us all: what is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse? In any event, it raises afresh the question about what has enduring validity and what can or must be changed – the question of our fundamental faith choice.

While the Pope certainly nails our weaknesses, there is the disappointment in the lack of acknowledgement to what has happened in say, oh, the last 100 years.

We, as Pentecostals, need to do far better in our dogmatics and our stability. There are gifts we bring to the Body of Christ, and we need to partake of the gifts other parts of the Body bring to us!

The King Jesus Gospel — Messing Up the Message

I am beginning to work my way through The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight. My church staff will be making our way through it the next several weeks as well.

The diagnosis of the “evangelical problem” resonates with me. The struggle over “decisions” and “disciples” has been something I’ve felt for all my years in ministry. McKnight lays out his take on why this isn’t working.

As evangelicals, we come up with ways to explain “the plan of salvation” to people. We want to lead them to a decision. The problem is that it doesn’t capture the gospel.

The Plan of Salvation, to put it crudely, isn’t discipleship or justice or obedience. The Plan of Salvation leads to one thing and to one thing only: salvation. Justification leads to a declaration by God that we are in the right, that we are the people of God; it doesn’t lead inexorably to a life of justice or goodness or lovingkindess. If it did, all Christians would be more just and more filled with goodnes and drenched in love.

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited

Whiplash Politics and Microwave Christianity

David Brooks of the New York Times hits the nail on the head today. (HERE.) We think so highly of ourselves, we just think we can whip this economy back into shape without realizing the depth of the problem and that TIME will really help in pulling ourselves out of the mess.

This is leading to what I call “whiplash” politics. We get tired of the Republicans, so we vote them out. We give the Democrats two or four years, then get tired of their lack of “response” and vote in Republicans again. We want instant solutions when the issues are far deeper than something that can be talked about in a two year election cycle.

I have found the same fallacy in American Christianity. We don’t want to talk about time as part of the healing process. We have a problem and we want it fixed NOW. We need a good worship service… NOW. And if we don’t get “moved” by the Spirit in that service on that day, we’ll go try the next place down the road. We want microwave solutions.

Many years ago there was a youth pastor who was in one of his first churches as youth pastor. He took the kids away on a weekend retreat. The next week a mother confronted him in the church lobby because her daughter went to that retreat and nothing had changed!

“Lady,” he said, “Don’t ask me to undo in one weekend what it took YOU 14 years to do!”

We may not get out of our whiplash political mode for quite some time. As the Church, we need to get out of our microwave mode soon. We need to learn walking with Christ is, as Eugene Peterson puts it, a long slow walk in the same direction.

 

The Loss of a Moral Compass

David Brooks’ column in The New York Times gives a synopsis of where we have come.

Just yesterday in my Church History lecture I was talking with my students about the place tradition had in the Church for about 1700 years. While I will never argue that trusting tradition is always a good thing, I will say it is basically a good thing, and Brooks column helps explain why I believe this.

When we fail as a family, as a society, as a Church, to pass on a moral framework, we get generations that can’t define a moral framework outside their own belief of, “Well, this is what is good for me.”

When societies decided to throw off the authority of the Church in a wholesale manner, then a couple of centuries later decided to throw off biblical authority in a wholesale manner, we truly lost the ability to maintain any sense of a moral compass in community.

And now we are seeing some of those results.

The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste. “It’s personal,” the respondents typically said. “It’s up to the individual. Who am I to say?”

We can blame schools or government or some other civil order, but the Church is the one dropping the ball. When we allow a resurgence of the brand of liberal theology introduced by Schleiermacher, Lessing, and Reimarus in 18th Century Europe, we will reap rewards like this. When we, as the Church, cannot live under authority of the Word of God and church leadership, we will continue to reap these “rewards.”

Martin Luther didn’t want to throw off church authority. He wanted church authority to return to biblical authority so the people could trust the authority of the church once again.

I am not advocating for blind trust. I am saying we are too quick to put people in church leadership positions and then we watch abuses flow. We must take more care in the call of church leaders. (Which we refuse to do as a whole.) We must take more care in understanding the authority of the Word of God in our lives. (Which we refuse to do as whole.)

And we will continue to see results that Brooks describes.

In most times and in most places, the group was seen to be the essential moral unit. A shared religion defined rules and practices. Cultures structured people’s imaginations and imposed moral disciplines. But now more people are led to assume that the free-floating individual is the essential moral unit. Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.

We must do better.

Reflecting on 9/11

This is part of what I shared this morning with my congregation:

The tragedy of 9/11 is a lesson in misplaced faith. Misplace your trust in the financial schemes of this world or the arm of power this world can give you… and even THAT can come crashing down.

But what has the Church done since that time? We’ve chased the trappings of false security just like anyone else.

We need to hear the call of the Spirit once again. The call to fall back to the cross. To fall back to the power of Christ who gave himself up so that the Kingdom can be unleashed in true power.