Greg, Jonathan, and J.D.,

Thanks for this conversation. If you don't mind me chipping in my $.02...

Now, I want to affirm all of the things that need to be affirmed: faith comes through hearing, the gospel is a proclamation of propositional truth, etc... but it seems to me that the epistles speak frequently about questions of social action. The picture of salvation that we see in the OT, the gospels, and the epistles is a total transformation of the world, a rolling back of the curse and all of its effects. That work was definitively done at the cross and will be consummated when the New Jerusalem descends (notice that we don't get sucked up to heaven to live as spirits) and "all things are made new". Right now creation groans, then it will be set free. Right now there are tears, then there will be none.

There is an already/not yet at play here. On one hand, the gospel comes to people in power and has huge social implications... off the top of my head the epistles deal with "social" issues like meat sacrificed to idols, family dynamics, the treatment of women, homosexuality, slave/master relationships, the relief of poverty... you get my drift. On the other hand, those things will never be completely redeemed or "fixed" until the Lord returns.

It seems to me that the preaching of the gospel can't be truly separated from its social implications. To do so is to preach a partial gospel that is merely "spiritual" or "supernatural". I think the Lord's redemption aims at more than that. Harvie Conn, in his masterful "Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace", describes his work among women sold into sex slavery in Korea. The women struggled with shame and guilt, and Conn writes "I discovered that a person is not only a sinner. He or she is also sinned against... a gospel that does not (also) address people as sinned-against poses a lot of problems for the publican, the sinned-against" (page 46). I admit that statement makes me a little nervous, because victimization is such a theme in our culture. But I think it rings true with Jesus' treatment of the afflicted and vulnerable.

So, what is the responsibility of the church? In J.D.'s words, to be a sign. In Jonathan's words, to be a display. Harvie Conn called it "Lordship evangelism". In short, we need to be what Christ called us to be: salty, light-giving, neighbor-loving, disciple makers.

Jonathan,

I found your and Greg’s thoughts on the article very insightful and helpful. I thought your initial “corrections” to my overstatements were entirely correct. Thank you. I am still learning a lot about this subject.

Re: that we see much of serving our community in Jesus and the OT but it does not seem to be on the mind of the Apostles, I would note:

• The Jewish roots of hospitality centered on kindness to the “stranger.” To make hospitality primarily for fellow believers would seem quite a dramatic development in the nature of that service.
• Pursuing “justice” and showing “kindness” are essential characteristics of the believer in both the OT and in the teaching of Jesus. This would seem to me to make the frequency of their appearance in the Epistles almost irrelevant. Christians are told in Matthew 6:33 to seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness (or “justice”). The Old Testament context of that word for the Jewish hearers had massive social ramifications. (Isaiah 1:11–17; Jeremiah 7:3–11; Amos 5:11–15, 21–24; Zechariah  7:4–12). Being new covenant Christians does not release us from the moral imperatives of the Old Testament, which consisted largely in fighting for justice in society and showing kindness to outsiders. Micah 6:8 lists social ministry as one of the essential characteristics of true believers. It may be taken for granted in the Epistles.
• The Apostles consistently define Christian witness in the Epistles as being a model of practical love in a world full of hatred. In the tiny book of Titus alone Paul exhorts the believers to “do good” 7 times.
• We also see in Acts early Christians living with social concern.
  1. We see Tabitha’s ministry to community widows in Acts 9. It was said of Tabitha that she was “full of good works and charitable deeds.” (9:36).
  2. Philip did many “signs” in Samaria and for that reason there was much rejoicing (Acts 8:7) While Philip’s signs were miraculous, couldn’t a changed life and aggressive charitable deeds also be signs of the Gospel? Isn’t that what we see in Tabitha in Acts 9?

This is helpful, guys. Thanks for dialoguing with me about it.

Since J.D. Greear got this conversation started with his blog post at Resurgence, "Should Evangelical Churches Be Involved with Community Ministry and if so, WHY?" which provoked the conversation between Greg and me (below), we asked J.D. if he had any thoughts w/regard to our conversation. He graciously agreed to join us (above).  

J.D. became the Lead Pastor at the Summit Church in 2002. Before coming to work at the Summit he had worked among Muslims in  Southeast Asia. He has a Ph.D. program in systematic theology from Southeastern Seminary.

J.D., we hope you'll feel free to join us anytime.

Jonathan and I have been having an email conversation about something that’s become a hot topic these days—the church and its mission of social restoration (and the question of whether there is such a mission in the first place). Looking back over the string of emails, we thought it might be something that could spur conversation on a wider scale.

Actually, I think the following emails raise questions more than they answer any, but maybe it will be helpful to you in your thinking, anyway. Without further adieu, here is (more or less) what we wrote:

Jonathan: Let me also suggest reading j.d. greear's post at resurgence. jd is a popular pastor among conservative missional types. we've had him contribute to a forum a couple of times. it’s helpful.

Greg: Interesting. Do you agree with him?  It sounds pretty good, but where would you find NT support for the whole idea of community ministry?

Jonathan: i think i agree with him most of the way. i like his point that we’re not building the kingdom here on earth (blind eyes will go blind again, he says), but we are presenting a “sign of it.” i think that’s very good.

i think we’re trying to emphasize the same thing at 9marks, except we use the word “display” instead of the more missional sounding word “sign.” plus, we tend to emphasize the internal attributes of the church like holiness and the love members show for each other (e.g. John 13:34-35). but i like the missional emphasis on being a “sign” through service. when i look at the "when pagans see your good deeds and give praise to God" in Matt 5 and 1 Peter 2, i assume that it's talking about love and care for the outsider as well, right?

i would want to be careful about greear’s emphases, however. where he says, "we don't serve to convert, we serve because we are converted" i'd want to say "we serve to convert AND we serve because we're converted." if some of these guys downplay the first half and up play the second half, i wonder if us more traditionals do just the opposite (wrongly downplay the second half). i think we have to nail both, but do so while stating more clearly than some missional writers do that the biggest problem people have is God’s wrath—not any form of brokenness in this world. it seems the Bible calls our attn to the brokenness of this world not just so that we would set our minds on fixing it, but to say "yes, there is an inescapable futility to this world (eccles)" and to warn us of death and wrath. i know greear agrees with all that, i’d just want to make sure it gets emphasized.

finally, i’d take slight issue with the single word “need” in his penultimate sentence, “we know that in order to preach the Gospel effectively to them we need to give them signs of the Kingdom we preach.” the bible doesn’t say we need signs—though they are certainly helpful. it says we need the word (rom. 10:14-17). this may seem like a small point, but as soon as guys start saying we need signs, they’ll be tempted to put more emphasis here than on their preaching.

Greg: I agree with all that. 

But on the other question---It seems to me there’s a good deal about social restoration in the OT and Jesus. But does anything come to mind from the Epistles that shows a concern for social work by the church?  Or even by believers as individuals? (On your point aobut Peter, even that seems really “defensive” to me, rather than “offensive,” especially when you compare it to Jesus’ words. It’s just “keep your actions honorable among them,” not “go out and restore them.” Not exactly a stirring “city on a hill” theme there.)

Anyway, is community minisry even on the apostles' minds . . . I mean, at all?

 Jonathan: that's a good question. i've thought about that. it does seems to be strangely minimal, not even for the church but for christians!

one place where it does show up is the theme of hospitality (love for stranger). see my article on 9marks site on the subject. hospitality is considered a prerequisite for Christians leaders (male and female; 1 tim 3 and 4), a basic of the Christian life (Rom 12), and an activity we're all to engage in as the end approaches (1 Pet 4). and when you consider the theology behind this, you see why it's so important. again, i try to trace this in my biblical theology of hosp on the 9marks website.

you got any other ideas?

Greg: I haven't seen your article on hospitality.  Do you not think that's hospitality for other, perhaps traveling, believers?

And no, not much else comes to mind.  There’s Gal 6.10 saying “do good to all men” but that’s sort of an afterthought it seems to me---“especially to those in the faith,” it adds. At the very least, there’s no big theology of the kingdom there. Beyond that……..

That's fascinating, because I think there are a lot more candidates for that sort of thing in Jesus' words, and certainly in the OT.  Why didn't that emphasis carry over after Pentecost?

Jonathan: I don't know why you would limit hospitality to traveling believers. Certainly, that's the emphasis of John's epistles; but if you look at the context (both the sentence before and after) of the command to "Practice hospitality" in Romans 12:13, I think there's probably a "both/and." Same with Heb. 10:34, which may not be referring to the confiscation of property received at the hands of non-Christians to whom they were showing hospitality, but could be. I've always assumed it was.

Admittedly, the evidence isn't strong, and I wouldn't push any of these very hard. I'm simply saying they're worth noticing.

Bottom line (did I already say this?): I believe a Holy Spirit indwellt heart can't help but care for the poor, broken, and down-trodden (Christian or not) because that's what God is like. Why did Jesus heal? To give us a picture of salvation? Sure, but I'm also of the opinion that when the all-compassionate God-man walked around his creation he couldn't help but care for the downtrodden, as a function of his character. It was an outworking of who he is. This is what I think we Reformed guys can miss because we're so adamant about getting the doctrine right; we fail to recognize that our hearts are not yet reflecting the compassion of our savior's heart. That's me, at least.

Greg: Yea, I agree with you about Romans. I don't see hospitality in Heb 10:34 (??—it’s just breaking and entering isn’t it?) but it's in 13:2, and could certainly be talking about people who aren't Christians.

I also agree with you, I think, about Jesus.  Though feeding the poor, etc. doesn't seem, as I think back on the Gospels, as much an emphasis of his ministry as I even might have expected.  He just doesn't go around doing unmiraculous things to help the poor and downtrodden, does he? It's all miraculous, and it's all about his own identity.  Do we ever see Jesus' emotions engaged by physical poverty?  But even so, I'm not disagreeing with you.

What I find more than passing strange is that apart from three or four references to "xenophilia," which (you have to admit) allow some doubt as to what exactly is being talked about, and two or three other references to “doing good to everyone” there's just no emphasis in the epistles on social restoration. Even if you grant them all----you’ve still got only about seven or eight really isolated verses that even hint at a social restoration ministry. (For that matter, the only time in the Bible where someone asks for alms, Peter tells him no!)

What a strange omission!  And telling?  If so, telling of what?

(Hey, maybe we should cut and paste this series of emails onto the blog, one after the other.)

Jonathan: You're right to emphasize the principal point of Jesus' miracles, i.e. establishing his identity. I think we're entirely on the same page. Shocking.

Do you think we should post this? I guess I would start by posting Greear's post, to which you respond?  I don't know. What do you think?

Greg: I think it's an interesting conversation---I'd like to hear the comments on it.

Thabiti,
I, too, agree entirely with your first observation that it doesn't make sense to say, "We're just asking questions but not looking for answers" (see my last post for context). In fact, there are so many things wrong with that statement I'm not sure where to begin. First, it's logically flawed. A question that admits of no answers is not really a question. It's a statement. In that sense, it's either tautological or, worse, disingenuous. Second, it may evidence a kind of spiritual pride, at least it does insofar as it presumes to know and dismiss the answers even before they're given. Third, it's culturally naïve or unaware. It fails to recognize how much of the relativistic, anti-God postmodern ethos it has imbibed. I could go on. Yes, all of these statements need to be qualified, but you get the gist.

(Here's one important qualification: I don't mean to identify the author of the quotation in my prior post with these critiques. Other posts of his, such as this one, demonstrate that his own approach to theology is willing to provide concrete "answers.")

But here's the shocker, Thabiti. His statement makes intuitive cultural sense to me. It resonates with an old way of thinking, and I trust it resonates with many of the young pastors and seminarians "out there." In fact, having grown up in mainstream, conservative evangelicalism, I might have "gone emerging" if I hadn't been snatched up by the loving, embracing community and powerful pulpit ministry of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

How does it resonate? First, stylistically. That's just how people these days talk. Second, I agree with many of the emerging church's critiques of conservative evangelicalism. But third, most significantly, it resonates because it embodies the deep suspicion our generation bears toward all authority, just like postmodernism. That's really all the quotation I posted said: "We don't trust authority. So nobody had better answer our 'questions.'"

The sad thing is, of course, the emerging church has baptized this kind of thinking into the church.

Now, from the standpoint of this fallen world, the emerging church is exactly right to be so suspicious (see John 2:23-25!). But this is precisely the thing that should not be baptized into the "kingdom" of God. The kingdom (or redemptive rule) of God is where authority is supposed to be regenerated, born again, and made a life-authoring thing (see how God's authority is used in Ps. 8). Yes, churches corrupt and abuse authority. But the point is, Christians should begin the difficult and complex task of trying to work out (in a Philippians 2:12 sense) a regenerated and redeemed practice of authority; we shouldn't simply adopt the cynical postmodern posture toward it.

Therefore, Thabiti, I posted this for you and other pastors for two reasons: First, it presents one very concrete example of how many Christians are baptizing postmodernism into the church. We need to be able to recognize this. Second, you and I love the emerging church. After all, many of them are Christians! And I guess I want to say to all the young pastors and seminarians "out there," who, like me, find a certain cultural resonance in the emerging church, "There's another way, friends!!!"

Jonathan, a couple of the people commenting on your last post spotted the problem I had with the definition you quoted.  I'm not sure it makes any sense to ask a question and not expect an answer or to act as though there is no correct answer to questions (even if we have to say we don't know what the correct answer is).  It makes even less sense to then try and build an entire "ethos" or subculture on questions without answers!

So, here's my question, why are we spending so much ink and energy talking about emerging and emergent churches anyway?  What is it about this "movement" that captures our attention, and sometimes ire?  I've been listening to the positions and counter-positions, but is there really anything there that warrants the energy channeled at this "thing"?  Can someone tell me if I should be more concerned than I am, and, if so, over what exactly?

Sincerely,

Out of the Loop in the Caribbean

C. Michael Patton, who characterizes himself as emerging but not emergent, has posted a five part discussion of what it means to be "emerging" on his blog. The following comes from part 3, and I'm posting it here simply because it helped me get a better grasp of the mindset. Perhaps it will be helpful for others as well. After describing why the emerging church is not a "church," a "movement," or the "seeker-sensitive church," he writes,

Briefly, I believe the best way to get ones arms around what it means to emerge is to define it as a widespread ethos, or way of thinking. This way of thinking is held by those who explicitly call themselves emergers and by many who don’t. It represents an articulated and unarticulated dissatisfaction with the current way that the body of Christ is perceived by the outside world and, indeed, truly is.

This ethos finds expression not in church planting, revitalizations of local church assemblies, or the creation of new denominations, but through conversation—conversations with other like-minded thinkers. People emerge on internet blogs, in chat rooms, and in coffee shops. They emerge through a shared ethos that expresses dissatisfaction and seeks change. These emerging avenues provide people with safety to ask questions—theological questions—that stimulate a conversation. These theological questions come with no assumed answer. In fact, most of the time they are not meant to be answered. Try to answer these questions too quickly with a definite and/or cliché answer and you will have immediately proved yourself disqualified from the emerging conversation. Why? Because you have illegitimized the question. You have insulted the intelligence of the emerging community by acting as if the questions that are bringing about conversation can be answered so thoughtlessly.

...

So What Does Emerging Mean?

In short, the emerging ethos represents a growing mindset which is, consciously or sub-consciously, willing to legitimize and take seriously anew the type of questions being asked, doubts being expressed, and the distrust and dissatisfaction that the a postmodern (emerging) culture has with the traditional church (and Christianity) because they identify with them.

Those that seem to identify with the postmodern mindset too closely, believing that traditional Christianity may not have the answers, are more on the Emergent side. Emergents call for radical change in doctrine and practice. Those that identify with the postmodern mindset yet feel traditional Christianity, while imperfect, does offer the answers to the most important issues may be part of the more orthodox emerging movement. These call for a more mild change.

Thoughts?

My friend Bob Kauflin has some more great thoughts about music and worship at his blog, Worship Matters.

Here's a taste:

Music is meant to affect us emotionally. Some times I've thought it was more “spiritual” or pleasing to God if I could be affected without music playing. But that’s not the point. Of course music isn’t essential to expressing or stirring up strong feelings towards God. But that doesn’t mean music is irrelevant or unimportant. God intended for music to speak to our emotions so that we would not only think right thoughts about him, but also have deep affections for him. Music can make us feel joyful, reflective, sad, or peaceful. When the effects of music are skillfully combined with Scriptural realities and lyrics that magnify Christ, those truths often become more vivid and alive to us.

Read the whole thing.  I think that in this whole conversation, I have not seen a better or truer or more helpful sentence than this one from Bob:  "The clearer we are on the reasons God wants us to use music in our public praise, the less likely we’ll use it for the wrong reasons."

Another March/April 9Marks eJournal sneak preview: here's my review of the soon-to-be- released Why We're Not Emergent (Moody), by Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck.

A recent Barna report offers an interesting snapshot of the current mood.

Surveying those who are “Christian” by self-designation—which, we know, is not of much use as a category—Barna found that a majority of adults believe that there are six alternative ways to attend a conventional church service that are biblically acceptable:

• worship at home (89%),
• active in house church (75%),
• watching religious TV (69%),
• radio broadcast (68%),
• special ministry event (68%),
• and participating in a marketplace ministry (54%).

Keep in mind, these are not both/ands, but alternatives! Each of the six was deemed by most adults to be “a complete and biblically valid way for someone who does NOT participate in the services or activities of a conventional church to experience and express their faith in God.” Barna also found two more alternatives regarded as legitimate by a significant minority of adults, including

• interacting with a religious website (45%)
• and engaging in spiritual activity on the internet (42%). 

Appended to this report are the conclusions from Barna's latest book (Pagan Christianity, co-authored with Frank Viola) which argues that much of what conventional churches do are rooted in pagan origins: church buildings, formal sermons, official pastors, the truncated form of the Lord Supper, as well as later accretions like stained glass, pews, altar calls, pulpits, pastoral prayers, church bulletins, clergy attire, choirs, tithing, seminaries, infant baptism, and funeral processions.

Assume for the moment that Barna’s numbers are correct and that they really do identify a prevailing mood. This mood will be in our churches. How are we going to respond to it? It seems to me that this has become a central question and we need to be careful that we are not caught fiddling while Rome—the reality of the Church—gets burned down. The problem, though, is that the consequences in our churches of increasingly vapid biblical teaching, personality-centered pastoring, invasive individualism, contempt for the past, and an egregiously non-theological kind of evangelicalism have now been accumulating for years. And this makes for easy-pluckings by anyone who seems to have a better idea or who offers more for less.

We're grateful that David Wells has agreed to join us for at least one conversation. Maybe we can persuade him to continue. He informs us that what follows will be his first blog ever! 

Dr. Wells is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts and the author of multiple books, including the upcoming The Courage to Be Protestant: Marketers, Emergents, and Historic Christians in the Postmodern World, to be published by Eerdmans.

I've just begun reading the Letters of Samuel Rutherford.  I've heard or read a number of pastors commending these letters, so I thought I'd add it to my devotional reading.  I've not actually reached the letters yet.  I've been slowly reading through the biographical sketch of Rutherford written by Andrew Bonar.

At one point, Bonar describes Rutherford's call to a small country parish called Anwoth. 

The parish of Anwoth had no large village near the church.  The people were scattered over a hilly district, and were quite a rural flock.  But their shepherd knew that the Chief Shepherd counted them worth caring for; he was not one who thought that his learning and talents would be ill spent if laid out in seeking to save souls, obscure and unknown.  See him setting out to visit!  He has just laid aside one of his learned folios, to go forth among his flock.  See him passing along yonder field, and climbing that hill on his way to some cottage, his "quick eyes" occasionally glancing on the objects around, but his "face upward" for the most part, as if he were gazing into heaven.  He has time to visit, for he rises at three in the morning, and at that early hour meets his God in prayer and meditation, and has space for study besides.  He takes occasional days for catechising.  He never fails to be found at the sick-beds of his people.  Men said of him, "He is always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying."  He was known to fall asleep at night talking of Christ, and even to speak of Him during his sleep.

Several things struck me.  Obviously Rutherford's faithfulness was striking, even if the repetition of "always" this or "always" that was a bit daunting and depressing.  I was also reminded of how many technological advantages in pastoral ministry we have compared to Rutherford's day. 

But what I most appreciated was this line: "But their shepherd knew that the Chief Shepherd counted them worth caring for; he was not one who thought that his learning and talents would be ill spent if laid out in seeking to save souls, obscure and unknown."

I wonder if one of the main challenges facing churches might not be that too many potential shepherds think their education, gifts, and abilities would be wasted in humble, anonymous service?  If there are not too many of us who remember too infrequently that the Chief Shepherd knows His blood-bought sheep in country villages are worth caring for?  I wonder how many men "settle" for this or that little congregation as a "stepping stone" to a bigger, "better" ministry?  How many fear that anonymity is synonymous with unfruitfulness and a certain kind of death? 

And, yet, Rutherford speaks to us hundreds of years later and his faithfulness shames the most gifted and talented among us (well, let me not project onto others; it certainly shames me).  Bonar adds this line a couple paragraphs later:

Anwoth was dear to him rather as the sphere appointed him by his Master, than because of the fruit he saw of his labours.

Because Christ place him there--not because he saw "great fruit"--Rutherford rooted his heart in that place and that people.  May we all be satisfied to serve, and find satisfaction in serving, wherever the Master places us.  And may we never regard our congregations--however small--as unworthy of our gifts or our care.

Here's an article in the upcoming March/April eJournal that no one should miss--Andy Johnson's meditation on 3 John 8. At one point, Andy writes,

John knows that one of the most reliable indicators of our love for Jesus is the degree to which we will work for the advancement of his truth when there is nothing directly in it for us.  Our love for the gospel is most clear when we delight to see it prosper—and to help it prosper—when other people will be viewed as the human agents of its success.

Imagine if every church leader in the world demonstrated this kind of humility and love for the gospel! May the Lord grant us all more humility and love. Here's the whole article.

Recently I spoke at a missions conference in the UK put on by a missions network that connects missional churches around the world. A very cool group. Anyway, they asked me to speak on social action and mercy ministries as they related to evangelism. Now, that's a topic about which I am passionate, but not one where I feel that I have been very successful or have led our congregation all that well. And so I was left wondering: how have I so badly misrepresented myself that someone would think to ask me to preach about that?

This is actually something I feel fairly regularly as I open my mouth to teach God's word... who am I to talk about this? In all honesty, I'm not the smartest, the most theologically sophisticated, or the most holy guy in our church.

So, with that said, I briefly present to you A Hypocrite's Guide to Preaching:

1. We are all hypocrites to some degree or another. None of us have attained perfection in any of the things we must preach about. But there's a line that shouldn't be crossed... if the gap between your words and your life is too great, you shouldn't be preaching at all. We need people in our lives who can help us think through these things so that we're not at the mercy of an overly tender or calloused conscience.

2. Systematic expositional preaching of Scripture is well-suited to preachers who are also sinners. It serves as a check against our natural tendency to focus on things that we do well and avoid areas where we struggle.

3. Your weakness highlights the power of God's word. There are only four reasons that people would want to listen to anything you have to say:

a. You're brilliant and holy (or at least you've convinced them you are).
b. They don't want to but they are too lazy to go somewhere else.
c. They are forced to listen as a condition of their parole.
d. You are telling them what God says in His Word.

Let's face it, you're not (a) and you don't want to be (b). When you feed your people a diet of God's Word and they learn to trust you to teach it to them faithfully they will listen on His authority, not yours.

4. We should take opportunities to acknowledge our own failures and limitations before the congregation when appropriate. If all of your children are under 5 years old and you are preaching on Ephesians 6:4, you should be willing to acknowledge that your personal experience is still somewhat limited. Then you can remind the congregation that the authority comes from God's Word, not from your personal experience. This approach models humility for your people and will (ironically, perhaps) cause them to trust you more.

And finally,

5. Since you're a hypocrite, every sermon should begin with your own heart. You shouldn't preach it to others until you've preached it to yourself. You can assume that you need to hear God's Word just as badly as the people in your congregation. Beware allowing a bifurcation between what you feel passionately in the pulpit and what you live in your day-to-day walk.

Walter Russell Mead has written an interesting article on “America’s Evangelical Future” in The Atlantic.  Here's the final paragraph:

In every way, the evangelical movement in the United States looks as if it is maturing. That means more social and political influence, not less, as the movement broadens, reaches into the elite, and develops messages with wider appeal. Yet it also means a more pluralistic and less strident movement, more apt to compromise and less likely to be held hostage by a single issue or a single party. The real story of the evangelical political movement today involves neither its death nor its triumph, but rather its slow (and ongoing) shift from insurgent to insider, with all of the moderating effects that transition implies.

HT: Josh Manley

I joined guest host Denny Burk on Friday evening for a broadcast of "Jerry Johnson Live," to talk about the danger of becoming too dependent on music for your "ability to worship" and your sense of spiritual well-being.  Here's the link:

Delving Deeper Into Worship Music in the Church

Also, here's a shorter segment Denny and Jerry did on the same topic earlier in the week.  The original articles are here and here.

The folks who produce Rob Bell's NOOMA  series have made the 19th video available for a sneak preview here, for about the next day-and-a-half (until noon on Wednesday).  You'll have to be signed into Facebook, and then you'll find the video in the right-hand column.

For those who have read my three part review of the NOOMA series, here's an addendum to that third part:

019 | Open
This video is about the role of prayer in our lives. Why does God answer some prayers “Yes” and some prayers “No?” Why does God perform a miracle in this situation and not in that situation? In the end, Bell doesn’t answer those questions, rightly saying “I don’t know why.” Using Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane as his model, Bell understands prayer to be neither a passive “whatever” to the will of God, nor an active rebellion against what God is doing. Rather, prayer is a means of being “brutally honest with your Maker,” telling God honestly how you feel, what you’re thinking, and then being open to what God is accomplishing in the world. Moreover, prayer leads us to understand that we ourselves are a part of God’s work. “Don’t pray for God to feed the hungry,” Bell says, “unless you’re willing to go feed them yourself.” The theological basis of the video is that God “left creation unfinished” and is now engaged in the “ongoing creation of the world,” of which we can be a part. Lots of things to wonder about there: Doesn’t God’s declaration of “very good” and his rest on the seventh day belie the idea that his work of creation was “unfinished?” Most troublesome is when Bell says that God “takes a great risk in creating,” because things might have “veered off course” and not turned out like he intended. Does Bell know that’s how the, well, Open Theists talk? . . . .

Remarkably, it seems that a missing chapter from Paul's first letter to Corinth has been found and it's on the topic of church announcements and bulletins!

HT: Brent Thomas

Hey Mike,

Great post.  Provocative as usual. 

It was also interesting reading the comments thus far.  Some think what you do at home is critical, others think what you hear in the preaching is critical, and some/most would probably say that the combination of private study and public preaching is the key.

I wouldn't disagree with those who see both private study and public preaching as critical to spiritual growth.  But I think the Bible holds out more.

The issue of private study and hearing public preaching, as currently defined, seem to place great weight on what we do as individuals.  That is, a certain kind of individualism is implicit in the tension between private study and listening to public preaching.  The discussion ends at "what will I do in my life with what I hear?"  If that's the end, then there really isn't much difference between private study and my individual listening to and applying of a sermon.

It seems that what is critical for public preaching is precisely the public nature of the activity.  What we do together.  How we collectively are shaped.  And what we do in our private study lends itself to growth when it is put to public use, not just private use.

The gifted persons in the church are given "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." (Eph. 4:12-16).

The local church, the body of Christ, is central to spiritual maturity and growing up in Christ.  If we are individualistic and privatistic (is that a word?) we will inevitably be less mature than we might otherwise be, and so will our fellow brethren if we don't commit ourselves to building up the entire body.  What we learn in both our private and public study is intended for the benefit of others, the whole.

The real tragedy with this current discussion about "study at home" v. "public preaching" is that they both reveal a woefully low valuation of the local church, the collective Christian life, as essential to spiritual maturity.  It's BOTH private study and public preaching applied in the gathered life of the body, neither done with a self-centered preoccupation with "my maturity."  If all we're doing is teaching people to read their Bibles (which is necessary), if we don't help them to see that studying and hearing the words is a means to building up the entire body, then we shouldn't be surprised that (a) they misunderstand spiritual maturity and are given to self-righteousness and the knowledge that puffs up, (b) they still don't mature as we'd hope, and (c) that others mature slower than we'd like. 

A couple other thoughts:

1.  If a preacher resorts to mocking the people by crying in a high chair, he's probably long abandoned belief in the sufficiency and efficacy of the preached word for producing God's designs (Is. 55:11).

2.  That man should take a vacation.  Get some perspective.  Talk with older godly pastors.  If after all of that, he finds that he really doesn't want to feed God's people, he should leave the ministry.

3.  If it is the preaching of the gospel that intercepts a hell bound sinner and translates him into the kingdom of light, saving his eternal soul, then as preachers we'd better have the kind of soberness and gravitas about our task that the stakes deserve.

4.  Mike, you were very kind in phrasing point 2 as a question.  Surely there is laziness in the pastorate, and we need to repent wherever we discover it in our lives.  This, I think, is a serious problem that pastors don't expose and talk enough about.  Thanks for bringing it to light.

5.  Mike, LOVED your point #4 and concluding sentence.  Thanks for serving us so well, brother.

From the Southern Seminary Office of Communications:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, will require additional surgery after a scheduled colonoscopy on February 11 revealed a tumor in his colon. An initial biopsy indicated that the tumor is pre-cancerous and further tests are to be scheduled, along with surgical options.

Mohler, 48, underwent major abdominal surgery in late December 2006, complicated by the development of bilateral blood clots in his lungs. Doctors will take special precautions to prevent a recurrence of the blood clots with this new surgery. Specialists are consulting on the case, and a decision on the date and location for the surgery is to be made in the very near future. The procedure is likely to require an extensive period for recuperation and recovery.

Mohler expressed gratitude to God that medical personnel found the tumor this early.

“Sometimes we take it for granted that we live in an age like this one, in which God has given us the blessing of medical technology,” Mohler said. “For most of human history, a tumor such as this one would have gone unnoticed until it was too late. I am thankful for modern medicine, but I am even more thankful that we live in a world in which our God hears us when we pray, a Father who listens to his children.”

Mohler said that Southern Seminary “would not skip a beat” during his recuperation.

“I have absolute confidence in the seminary leadership team. We will move forward with momentum,” Mohler said. “God has blessed and is blessing Southern Seminary. We do not take that for granted, and we pledge to be good stewards of that blessing, even through this time.”

Mohler said that his time of recuperation would necessarily alter some of his plans as he gives first priority to his health and his family.

“Some have asked how this new development affects my nomination to be president of the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis this June,” Mohler said. “I have decided to give my greatest attention right now to addressing this new challenge and to ministering to my wife and children. This is clearly not the right time for me to accept this nomination. I have asked my good friend Robert Jeffress not to proceed with nominating me for president of our Southern Baptist Convention this year.

“Frankly that decision is made much easier by my knowledge that there is at least one strongly conservative, committed pastor who intends to be nominated in Indianapolis,” Mohler said.

Southern Seminary will release additional information as it becomes available. The Mohler family has expressed appreciation for all concern, prayer and encouragement.

Dr. Mohler is a dearly loved friend and honored teacher. He and his family will be in my prayers, as I hope they will be in yours, too. As always, may God be glorified in all.

The other day I saw a video of a prominent pastor with a huge church preaching about preaching. Maybe you've seen the same video. He's mocking Christians who complain that they're not being fed by the Sunday sermon in their church. The pastor in question climbs up in a high chair and imitates a baby screaming for food. The point: mature people feed themselves. It's only infants who need to be fed by someone else. You see an echo of this in the Reveal report from Willow Creek. If you keep up with blogs from around the mega-church world, you'll see that this is a pretty common way of thinking.

A few thoughts:

1. Never, under any circumstance, should you climb into a high chair and imitate a baby during your sermon. No one wants to see a grown man doing this... seriously, it's disturbing in a way that I haven't fully been able to shake.

2. Usually the pastors making these points accuse the "complainers" of being lazy. "Go home and do the work of feeding yourself!", they seem to be saying. But could it be that there is a laziness on the part of pastors? After all, learning languages is hard work. Careful study requires discipline. So called "deep" sermons require us to do a lot of work that isn't a ton of fun. IMHO it would be much easier (or at least more fun) to crank out a topical message full of humor and props. Anyway, we need to watch that we're not the lazy ones.

3. I'm not sure why there's such a divorce between what happens at home and what happens at church. It seems like people should feed themselves at home and be fed at church. The church should be teaching the Bible, teaching people how to read their Bibles, reading the Bible in their services, and showing people from the Bible that they should be reading the Bible at home. This is seems like a no-brainer, a win-win.

4. It strikes me that the whole question is very Western and modern. We can't define "mature Christian" as "one who reads their Bible at home". What about societies without widespread literacy? Are the believers there less mature because they are taught the Scriptures instead of reading them themselves?

5. I was reading the Bible at home the other day and I noticed that Jesus seemed to think pastors should feed the sheep. Paul seemed to think that Timothy should teach sound doctrine. Yes, the Bereans are a model of the way we should reflect on Scripture, but they are reacting to a "deep" sermon by the apostle Paul! They weren't merely "feeding themselves", they were making sure the meal they were being fed by Paul wasn't poisonous.

It seems to me that pastors are shepherds: if there's malnutrition in the flock it may or may not be our fault, but it is most definitely our problem.

Profiled in Time magazine and called the heir apparent to Billy Graham by the Chicago Sun Times, Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grandville, Michigan, and author of Velvet Elvis, has been gaining a lot of attention for his hugely popular NOOMA video series. ("NOOMA" is a play off the Greek word for spirit or breath, "pneuma.")

To give you a sneak preview of the March/April 08 9Marks eJournal, here is Greg Gilbert's 3-part review of Rob Bell's NOOMA series.

Part 1 of Gilbert's NOOMA review

Part 2 of Gilbert's NOOMA review

Part 3 of Gilbert's NOOMA review

Mike, so, uh, I suppose you'll say that I'm a complete sell-out for saying that U2 is, year for year, the greatest band ever?

OK, Leeman. You knew that I was out of the country for a couple of days and this is what you do? U2? Really? You knew I wouldn't let you get away with that if I were here.

For the record: U2 completely stinks. On every level. The only way I could imagine paying money to see Bono would be if he and Michael Stipe from REM were in a Self-Importance Contest and the winner were forced to get a job and work for a living.

Note: this is the official 9Marks position on the matter. If you take the first letter from each chapter of Deliberate Church and put them together , it spells out "Bono is a Twit".

Having read and appreciated Greg's last couple of posts, I thought I'd relate a recent service I attended:

The Architecture the Chapel was classic protestant: Seats downstairs on a slight curve, with a balcony on three sides.It is designed to make it clear that the church is the people of God gathering around the word of God.It is designed so that the congregation might all gather near the front of the chapel and be able to hear the word of the Lord, see one another's faces and hear one another's voices.

The irony of a recent service I attended was that everything was done to try to undermine everything the building was designed for.

And it was deliberate.

Presumably the more "intimate" atmosphere that was created was designed to make the sense of "worship"  more authentic. Sadly I fear that what was achieved was merely that it was more Roman Catholic.

Let me explain:

The congregation was in darkness - the only faces that could be seen were those of the "worship leaders", on the stage, lit not by the thousands of candles, but by spotlights from the lighting rig that blocked much of the view to the stage: the spotlights colored to clothe the worship leaders in their priestly robes of purple - while the congregation was clothed in black.

From the lighting rig hung also such large speakers so greatly amplified that only the voices of the performers might be heard. We looked to them to see and hear where the worship was truly taking place, and we partook through participation only by seeing and hearing (and feeling the reverberations of) their priestly act.

There was a rood screen suspended 8 feet above their heads, the rood (cross) itself projected upon it.

There was even smoke rising into the air - not from the swinging of incense but from smoke machines...

The moment when the climax of the worship is reached is marked not by the ringing of a sacring bell
and the repetition of the "magic" words, "hoc est corpus meum" (this is my body), but by the moment when the shortest phrase of the song is repeated "haec sunt verba ad nauseum" (these are the words, until sickness results) and the drummer is slashing the cymbals without ceasing.

A few minutes later and the lights had been turned on, the smoke began to disperse, and the preacher approached the pulpit. We had been told that we would have a time of worship before we listened to the word being preached, and everything about the service had made it pretty clear that now that the music had faded and the preacher had begun, the part of the service where we worship was most certainly over. It was actually an excellent sermon expounding Genesis 3, with a powerful presentation of the gospel in which Christ bore the curse that had justly been pronounced on fallen mankind. But I couldn't help fearing that for some who were there it might have seemed something of an afterthought, or at least an anticlimax.

A Romish view of worship is not something that was surgically removed from protestants at the reformation. It is the kind of worship that we naturally tend to when our senses lead, and our minds (possibly) follow. It is the kind of worship we tend to as embodied spirits. When we have the preoccupation with musical excellence to the extent that it becomes affectually more important to us than the words we are in real danger of losing all that was gained in the Reformation.

I want to thank all of you who linked to my post below with lines like “Greg Gilbert comes out against music.” Or “See here why Greg Gilbert wants to kick all music out of the church.” That’ll do me wonders someday when somebody googles me to find out what wacky things I believe! So thanks again.

Seriously, given the conversation that’s ensued, I thought I’d offer up a few questions that might help all of us consider whether we’ve allowed our own hearts to become too dependent on music for our sense of spiritual wellbeing. Please don’t treat these like a Seventeen magazine “profile” or something. They’re not a checklist; there’s no scorebox at the bottom. All the questions aren’t even necessarily aimed at every person; not every one of them will be useful to you. Some are aimed at the person who doesn’t particularly like the music at their church. Others are aimed at people who love the music they hear at church week in and week out. These questions also aren’t meant to be exhaustive; they don’t come at this from every conceivable angle. They’re just a few questions that I hope might help you to think. Maybe you have others that help you keep a check on your own heart.

One last thing: Again, I’m not wishing here for a music-less Christian life, or for a Christian life with less music or even softer, simpler music. I love music; I think we were created as musical beings. In fact, if you forced me to pick, I personally prefer really plugged-in contemporary music to any other style. Bob Kauflin and Sovereign Grace, for example, are making some of the most wonderful, God-honoring, Christ-exalting music available today, and I love hearing and singing their songs, whether it’s in my own church, at some other event, or even over and over again on my own iPOD.

So I think music is a good thing, even a great thing. But as I said before, every good thing in this world can and will be misused by sinful human beings. And I think that’s something that’s deserving of thought among Christians when it comes to music. My hope is that these questions, and the thoughts they provoke in you, will help you to be on guard against your spiritual life becoming unhealthily dependent on anything it should not be dependent on. I hope they're helpful to you:

-  Do you get bored when someone reads a longish passage of Scripture in your church?  Do you start wishing they’d get on with the music?

-  Do you need music playing in the background for the reading of Scripture to affect your emotions?

-  Does a prayer seem too “plain” or “stark” to you if it doesn’t have music playing behind it?

-  Do you feel depressed a few weeks after a worship conference because you haven’t felt close to God in a long time?

-  Do you desperately look forward to the next conference you’re going to attend because you know that, finally, you’ll be able to feel close to God again?

-  If you’re in a big church with great music, are you able to worship when you visit your parents’ small rural church?

-  Do you ever feel worshipful in the middle of the week, at work, at school, etc. just because of thinking about God and his grace?  Or does that only happen when the music’s playing?

-  Do you tend to feel closer to God when you’re alone with your iPOD than you do when you’re gathered with God’s people in your church?

-  Do you feel like you just can’t connect with other believers who haven’t had the same “worship experiences” that you have? Can you only connect with other believers who “know what it feels like to really worship?”

- Is your sense of spiritual well-being based more on feeling close to God, or knowing that you are close to God because of Jesus Christ?

Speaking of worship music…

My wife and I attended the U2-3D Imax (see trailer) movie several days ago. All the reviews that say it’s incredible are correct. I’ve been to a U2 concert and a number of others, but you’ve never seen a concert quite like this. Imagine hovering over the drum set in 3D, or Bono lunging toward your face, or the textured pulsations of a stadium crowd. (I read somewhere that U2 is one of the last bands that can still fill stadiums.)

My wife asked me what I thought on the way out. Reflecting not on the production, but on the phenomena of the concert itself, I said, “Simultaneously juvenile and transcendent.” Juvenile because it contained all the posturing and gimmicks and mass hysteria and hero worship of your average rock concert. Transcendent because Bono becomes larger than life. And thousands, well, worship.

They know all the songs. They sing them with him. He holds the microphone toward them. They sing for him. They wear the band’s name on the bodies, and their entire bodies are enthralled. Hands are raised. Faces are enraptured and exuberant. Wherever he leads, they follow. His image, they image.

It’s amazing. Isn’t the rock-concert crowd one that you would expect to most bear the relativistic, pluralistic, cynical, hedonistic we’ve-seen-it-all-and-believe-none-of-it attitude of postmodernism? But here they were, uniformly, purely, devotedly, unashamedly worshipping a man and his music.

John Piper’s always talking about standing in front of the Grand Canyon or the mountains and being drawn outside of oneself in the worship of something majestic. He should attend a U2 concert and he’ll see 50,000 people doing just that.

Of course they were worshipping….Bono. Not Jesus.

Imagine what that stadium concert will be like.

Who will tell them about Jesus?

From Breitbart News:

Canadian folk rock legend Neil Young said he has lost all hope that music can change the world, as he presented a documentary about his 2006 anti-war concert tour at the Berlin film festival on Friday.

"I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality," Young told reporters.

I suspected the wonderfully musical and always thoughtful Bob Kauflin would have a helpful contribution to make following on Greg Gilbert's last post (as well as the many good commenters), so I asked Bob to respond. He doesn't disappoint! Bob is the director of worship development for Sovereign Grace Ministries and the author of the soon-to-be released Worship Matters (Crossway). Visit his blog worshipmatters.com. Here's Bob:

Let me begin by expressing a hearty “amen!” to Greg’s comments about the place of music in the church today. Insightful thoughts. Greg mentions the “pursuit of excellence in praise and worship music,” as a major contributor to the problem. A few other factors come to my mind.

The commercialization of worship music. I thank God for the proliferation of worship music over the past 20 years, otherwise known as the “modern worship movement.” Sovereign Grace Ministries, of which I’m a part, has played a small role in that development. On the bright side, we’ve seen a fresh influx of new songs to the church, people young and old are singing more passionately, we’re more aware that what we sing matters, and more young people are using their musical gifts to serve their congregations. On the negative side, worship music is now a product to promote, songs are often chosen more for their identification with an artist than their theology, and songs that were written more than five years ago can be viewed as irrelevant and not worth singing.

Influence of the rock concert culture in the church. Passion conferences and Jesus festivals have both had positive effects on the church. Neither one of them, though, is  the same thing as the church. The first two are events meant to draw a large crowd, hopefully to encourage people to live worthy of the Gospel. The church is an ongoing assembly of the worshipping community, being built into the Gospel, God’s Word, and each other. Technology plays a secondary and serving role. I once heard a woman describe how Bono and U2 taught her more about worship than any Sunday worship leader. That’s alarming. Our goal on a Sunday morning is unlike any concert and far more significant. We’re seeking to build a worshipping community whose lives demonstrate they are more impressed with the greatness of the Savior than their surroundings and modern technology. It doesn’t mean we can’t use electric guitars, drums, creative arrangements, and effective lighting on a Sunday morning. We just have to view them as potentially helpful rather than unequivocally essential.

Lack of teaching on worship in the church. The effect of the first two points has been increased because pastors don’t always teach the church how music “works” in worship. Too many pastors and church members can assume that everyone understands what’s happening when we sing songs of praise together on a Sunday morning. Greg’s observations and my own experience show that’s not the case. Congregations need to be taught that being emotionally moved by music is not the same as being morally changed by the Spirit. That misunderstanding can occur both in both modern and traditional contexts. Churches must be taught that worship is not the same as music and extends far beyond it, and that Christ’s accomplishments matter more than ours when it comes to worshipping God. They need to learn that it’s the Gospel that unites us, not a musical style, and that truth outlasts tunes.

Lack of musical variety in the church. God’s glory is too great to be contained in one style, whether that’s pop-rock, folk, classical, traditional, or praise choruses. Also, the range of appropriate responses to God’s greatness can’t be expressed in one style of music. We need many styles, many genres. We need to have the heart of Charles Wesley who longed for a thousand tongues to sing our great Redeemer’s praise. Obviously, the ability of a church to use different styles and kinds of music is limited by the gifts of the musicians in the church, among other things. But at the very least, we can vary the instrumentation, drop out a guitar for a verse, and even try singing a verse or chorus a cappella.

When it comes to worshipping God, no Bible believing Christian should really be “against music.” Music is a wonderful gift from God, enabling us to combine doctrine and devotion as we praise God. But as Greg makes clear, it’s possible to be too much “FOR music.” And when that happens, music turns from a tool into a god. It’s my prayer that more churches will help their people use music in a way that draws attention to the matchless beauty of the Savior, not simply the moving accompaniment of a song.

I think the entire evangelical world ought to put a moratorium on any kind of instrumental music, and just chant psalms in their worship services—for the next ten years.*

I’ve been amazed since becoming an elder in a local church just how dependent many Christians are on a certain style of music, or certain level of excellence in music. How many times have you heard someone say, for example, “I just can’t worship in that church.”? Or “I just don’t feel like I’m connecting with God there.”

Of course there can be a lot going on there, but I think that many times if you press in on statements like that, what you find behind it all is not very far removed from “I don’t like the music there.” People don’t put it that starkly, mainly because if you do it sounds silly. But I think that’s a lot of what people mean when they say, “I can’t worship there.”  The reality is that a single flat-back piano just doesn’t gig their emotions as much as a full electric band does. They don’t get that “transcendent feeling,” so they get discouraged and end up saying they “can’t worship.”

I wonder if the whole “excellence in praise and worship music” phenomenon we’ve seen over the past few years—for all the good it’s done—hasn’t also had some less-than-desirable effects on young Christians. I wonder if it hasn’t created a generation of functional mystics who gauge their relationship with God by emotional experience rather than the objective reality of redemption. 

When I was a sophomore and junior in college, I went to a few of the Passion conferences when they were held in Texas. Those were formative and amazing experiences for me. John Piper “Reformed” me in one earth-shaking sermon from Romans 3, and that has—in one way or another—shaped the trajectory of my life ever since. And the music was excellent—truly wonderful in every way. We sang loud, hands in the air, eyes closed and full of tears sometimes, and I believe I worshipped God through it all.

But then I went back to New Haven, Connecticut. The praise bands were gone, I didn’t have a group of people who’d gone with me and shared that experience, and the churches had a piano and thirty people singing Isaac Watts hymns.  That forced me to learn how to stoke the fires of worship with truths and words, and not just with excellent music. I’ve learned how to be emotionally affected by the excellent words of hymns whether they’re played and sung “excellently” or not.

There’s a whole generation of young people out there now, though, who aren’t emotionally affected by words, whose fires are only stoked when those words are accompanied by great rhythms, skilled instrumentation, and a certain well-recognizable mood that typically accompanies Christian “praise-and-worship.” And the result is that you have young people church-hopping around town, and one of the main criteria of their shopping is “the worship,” by which more often than not they mean “the music.” You have young Christians feeling discouraged because—despite the fact that they sit under faithful preaching of the word Sunday after Sunday—they say they haven’t “felt close to God” in so long. Maybe there’s something important going on there. But there’s also a good chance, I’d argue, that they just haven’t had a good endorphin rush since the last conference they attended.

I am really afraid that we’ve managed to create a generation of anemic Christians who are spiritually dependent on excellent music. Their sense of spiritual well-being is based on feeling “close to God,” their feeling close to God is based on their “ability to worship,” and being able to worship depends on big crowds singing great music.

Just as bad, think about how many church fights and divisions are rooted in disagreements about music. People leave churches because they don’t like the music. Christians who believe exactly the same things about Jesus worship in different buildings next door to each other because they can’t countenance one another’s musical style. Churches split because one faction wants “contemporary” music and another wants “traditional” music. It’s not the words that are at issue; it’s how the words are sung, and to what instrumentation. The thing even has its own name—the “Worship Wars,” which when translated with a little honesty is really “the Music Wars.”

The bottom line, I suppose, is that it would do every Christian well to do some honest heart-searching about what makes them feel “close to God.” Can you feel close to God just by reading or saying the words, “In Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”? Would you be able to function in a church that’s great in every way except the music? If not, you probably need to give some thought to whether your spiritual life is dependent on something it should not be dependent on.

*I'm being facetious with the title of this post and the call for a moratorium on music, of course.  The Bible tells us to sing.  God gave us music precisely because it affects our hearts and emotion, and that is a good thing.  But every good thing can be and will be misused by sinful humans.  My sense is that "excellent music" has become something of an idol.  No, we don't worship it.  But alot of people need it to worship, and that may be just as bad.  Music is a part of our lives as humans; in a certain way we'll always depend on it.  But as I see it, there's ample anecdotal evidence out there to suggest that for many Christians, the dependence has become unhealthy.

UPDATE: Some More Thoughts on Music

Well, actually they didn't.  But a certain young pastor in Virginia who did wear a mohawk seems to be channeling them these days.  Mike, I was wonderfully helped by your post on long, boring sermons.  Acknowledging for a moment that sermons can be long and boring, and that I've preached some, your comments shifted my thinking on this considerably.  You reminded me of a similar sntiment I read from Jonathan Edwards.

"The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered." (quoted in Richard A. Bailey and Gregory A. Wills, The Salvation of Souls, Wheaton, IL: Crossway, p. 11).

Obviously one can take that sentiment too far and act as though remembrance and active application of a remembered sermon are ruled out.  I don't think either you or Edwards intend that.  But what's helpful about the statement is that it makes "practical" considerations like sermon length and retention secondary to the impression of Christ we press onto our hearers. It shifts our thinking from entirely man-centered, perhaps man-fearing considerations (length, excitement, etc.) to Christ-centered, Christ-exalting considerations. 

Which is where Calvin seems so appropriate to this issue.  In his sermons on Galatians 4:11-13, Calvin opens with the following:

"Especially when it comes to preaching the Word of God, a man will never follow the right course if he cannot forget self, and close his eyes to anything that might distract him in this world from acting according to God's pure ways.  Indeed, he will surely stray away from the path, first to one side, then to the other.  Hence, God's doctrines are often corrupted because those who ought to preach them are inclined to malevolent, or to seek the favour of their hearers.  They may fear to incur bad feeling or to provoke anger against themselves.  Therefore, it is impossible for us to serve God in our natural state; we must be absolutely determined, with unshakeable constancy, to suffer for the doctrines that we preach, and not to let this cause us grief.  We must fight under the ensign of our captain, Jesus Christ, knowing that we cannot share in the glory of his resurrection if we have not first suffered with him, following his example.  All believers must certainly strengthen themselves to do these things.

"...those who are called by God to preach his Word must be resolved that they will not compromise, even if the whole world were to rise up against them.  They must bear all conflicts, knowing that God will help them in their need and always grant them victory, provided they follow their vocation in purity and simplicity.  The greatest insult and injury that we can give to God is in yielding to the desires of man, and twisting his Word both left and right.  It is not only a question of abandoning our own ideas, but also of constantly upholding God's truth, which is immutable; it must never be altered, however changeable and inconstant man may be." (pp. 503-4, 505)

Well, here we have Edwards agreeing with McKinley about the main benefit of preaching.  And we have Calvin exhorting preachers not to fear man but to forget themselves in devotion to the truth of God's Word.

Here's my question: Assuming a man wants to be faithful to the Lord and His Word, how should he respond to the critique and criticism he may receive about sermon length and content?  How can a man know when he is being faithful in shaping the people's ability to hear and attend to the Word, and when he is being proud and unteachable?

for the record, Greg, that prayer was awesome. I need to pray that way. Thank you.

That's right, friends, the key to growing your churches are long boring sermons and long boring prayers! Come one, come all. 9Marks will teach you to be long and boring! Step right up.

My home group is working through Graeme Goldsworthy’s Prayer and the Knowledge of God these days. It’s a great book, and if you haven’t read it you should—especially if you’re someone who believes with all your heart that God is sovereign in everything.

We had a great discussion last night about prayer, one that made me think about the public prayers in our church services. Why don’t our public prayers have more Scripture in them? Why don’t people stand up and just pray a Psalm, for example, word for word? Or one of Paul’s prayers? I don’t know the answer to the question “Why not,” but I’m convinced that churches ought to do that more.

Most of us think of prayer as a sort of billiards game: We pray, our prayers impact God, and God therefore acts in the world. In fact, if we can get enough people firing prayers off to God about the same thing, the impact on Him will be greater, and He will be more likely to act in the way we want Him to act. The biblical conception of prayer, though, is entirely different. It starts not with our desires, but with God’s revelation of His will. God tells us what He is going to do, He makes promises, and then our prayers are a matter of bringing our hearts into conformity with what He has revealed as His will.

I don’t want to do a whole theology of prayer here (unpacking the fact that our prayers are a means of God accomplishing his will in the world, for example). What I want to point out is that everything else aside, it is simply a fact that it is good and right to pray God’s own promises back to Him—which means taking a passage of Scripture and praying it back to God in the form of requests or praises.

If you listen to the public prayers that are prayed in most churches, most of them are made up of non-scriptural phrases. I don’t mean by that “unscriptural.” I just mean that the words we use to make requests of God are not those God has used to make promises to us. Where, for example, is “lead, guide and direct” in Scripture? Where are “traveling mercies?” I’m not saying that those things are wrong; I think something, at least, like all of them can be found in Scripture. But I am also convinced that our public prayers could be much more powerful if we filled them with promises God has already made to us. There are lots of reasons I say that: Scriptural prayers are filled with the massive meaning that is inherent inspired language.  They are energized by the assurance that God has already determined to do the things we're asking Him to do.  They are effective in molding the hearts of God’s people as we both hear and pray the words of Scripture.

You don’t have to limit your Scriptural prayers to the parts of Scripture that are actually prayers, either. You can turn just about any passage of Scripture into a prayer. Imagine a service where someone stood to lead the congregation in prayer, and instead of stringing together whatever phrases came to mind, opened his Bible and said something like this:
 

God our Savior, we praise you this morning because you have united us to your Son. We praise you because our old self has been crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be brought to nothing and that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. We have died with Christ, O God, and so we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all, and the life he lives, he lives to You!

God help us, therefore, to consider ourselves, in this same way, dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Give us grace not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. Help us not to obey sin’s passions. Strengthen us, Lord, so that we do not present our members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but give us grace to present our whole selves to You as those who have been brought from death to life, and to present the members of our bodies to You as instruments for righteousness. For sin has no dominion over us, because you have made us to live not under law, but under your grace. For that we thank you, and we pray all this in the name of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen!

We are a people, we say, who read the Scripture, preach the Scripture, sing the Scripture, and pray the Scripture. Being more deliberate about all that would be a very good thing.

It's trendy these days to deprecate the sermon as a means of communication. You know the argument... people only retain 10% of what they hear, but they retain a much higher percentage of things learned in conversation or by experience. We should thus shift away from sermons and towards more conversational or informal means of communication.

I am willing to concede that there's probably truth in those statistics. But as I sat down after inflicting 45 minutes of Hosea on our church last Sunday, I was struck by how information retention is really a secondary consideration. Do I care if people in my church can outline Hosea from memory at this time next year? A little, I guess. I mean, it would be nice. Certainly I hope the systematic teaching of the Bible will help my congregation understand the Scriptures more fully over the years.

But something much greater and more important is happening in a sermon. We are holding up Christ from all the Scriptures, we are exploring the ways that he is beautiful, we are feeding on him by faith and celebrating his works together.

In a sense, I'm hoping that experience has a seven day shelf life. I look out over this flock and see people who are hurting terribly, marriages in shambles, people whose faith is tottering, other people who are hungry for God, some people who are knowing God's grace freshly... and I pray, "God, graciously use this sermon to get them through until next Sunday. Then we'll do it all over again."

I am not saying that you can only have this experience in a sermon. Other people have made a good case for the centrality of preaching, so I won't rehearse them here. But I am suspicious of arguments that make the rate of information retention the deciding factor in how we teach the church.

The Together for the Gospel Conference just posted a 90 second promo video where CJ Mahaney's T4G-2006 talk is remembered.  It's sweet!  April is just around the corner.

http://www.t4g.org/promo/

From the Out of Ur blog:

"Church plants," "sister churches," and "satellite congregations" may be a thing of the past. In 2008, the language of missiology is changing, so look for "church franchises" in your town.

Eddie Johnson, the lead pastor of Cumberland Church, espouses the franchising concept when it comes to the relationship between his church in Nashville, Tennessee, and North Point Community Church in metro Atlanta. On his blog, he states, "Just like a Chick-fil-A, my church is a 'franchise,' and I proudly serve as the local owner/operator."

According to Johnson, his job is to "establish a local, autonomous church that has the same beliefs, values, mission, and strategy as North Point." He completed a three-month internship at North Point and continues to receive training and support. He claims to rarely deviate from the "training manual."

"Just like that Chick-fil-A owner/operator," he says, "I'm here in Nashville to open up our franchise and run it right. I believe in my company and what they are trying to 'sell.'"

Read the whole thing.

When I was thinking about blogging through Reveal, someone said to me, “You realize, don’t you, that the conventional wisdom is that this is just one more gimmick to keep people interested in their products?” I said that “no, I didn’t realize this,” but thought it would be worth finding out.

So is Reveal just one more gimmick? The emperor’s new clothes? Well, maybe a little bit, but not entirely.

In the foreword, Bill Hybels said that his understanding of the church has been “revolutionized.” We observed in a prior post that a revolution is a complete change. A toppling of one regime or worldview for another.

I can’t say I’ve seen anything like that. The mere fact that the whole project depends on surveys and not on the Bible suggests that no worldviews have changed, no regimes have toppled, no foundations have been re-laid. There’s a pragmatic worldview implicit in the very use of surveys, and it’s the same worldview that has characterized churches like Willow from the get-go. As they've been going, so they're still going.

As I’ve said in two different places now, the use of surveys assumes that you’re already doing everything you possibly could be doing—you’re just asking people to pick out “what works best” from the array of choices you’re offering them. But if you’ve never really offered them what the Bible says works best, your improvements will be marginal.

For instance, if the “true key” to spiritual growth is typing classes, but you’ve never offered typing classes, how will your surveys reveal this fact? Or if what churches really need is “expositional preaching,” but you’ve never preached like that, your surveys will remain silent.

Still, it’s the possibility for marginal improvement that keeps me from dismissing this entire project as plain old hornswoggling. Surveys are bound to turn something up. And Reveal’s surveys have turned up the fact that programs don’t do as much as Willow thought they did, that reading the Bible at home is good to do, and that it’s the individuals reading their Bibles at home who will most likely turn around and serve the church. If a church doesn’t already know these things, these are three good lessons to learn, and I trust that they will help Willow and any other churches listening.

So, Reveal reveals not a revolution from one regime to another. It doesn’t even reveal a changing of office holders within the same regime. The lessons it offers are more like a passed law or a new initiative that may just help a little. Same leaders, same philosophies, but here’s a good piece of pork that will bring a little more life to the constituency.

CHAPTER 4 & AFTERWORD 

Chapter 4 presents the three strategic changes Willow has made as a result of the research, and then three steps every church should be asking itself.

Three strategic changes:

1) “Our Message to the Congregation Has to Change”: Tell people early in their spiritual journey to look beyond the church to grow. Move from a “dependent model” to a “interdependent partnership” between church and members.

2)