Jonathan Leeman serves as director of communications for 9Marks. He writes or edits most 9Marks communications, including website content, 9News, marketing material, and so on. Jonathan originally worked in journalism. Since his call to ministry, he has earned a master of divinity from Southern Seminary and has worked as an interim pastor. He is also working on his Ph.D. in ecclesiology. He lives with his wife and daughter in Cheverly, MD.
Church Advertisements from 1927
The assumptions being made are interesting...and instructive.
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by showing the Whole Bible in Pictures with this FREE Projector!
Vacations are over! Church and Sunday School attendance will now get back to normal. Everybody will be filled with zeal and enthusiasm. What special plans have you made to meet this renewed interest? How will you sustain it throughout this and the following quarters?
Here is a way to meet your Church and Sunday School more than half way. Here is a plan to keep interest in the Sunday School and Church at high pitch week after week.
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Posted on July 18, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
4 final thoughts about time in South Africa
Matt and I returned from our trip to South Africa Saturday morning. Here are four final, completely unrelated thoughts:
1) According to one pastor with whom we spoke, that battle for the gospel is on two completely different fronts. Among much of the White population, the battle is against secularism, postmodernism, epistemological authority, and the same things we're battling in the West. Among much of the Black population, Scripture is treated as authoritative among many. The battle is against (i) ATR (African Traditional Religion, e.g. ancestor worship) and (ii) Charismatics a la Trinity Broadcasting Network (called "The God Channel" in S.A.) and prosperity gospel. Talk about two different battles--both postmodernism and TBN!
2) One of our African hosts reprimanded our the pastors we were teaching about not finishing their food but leaving an entire plate on the table uneaten. At first, Matt and I thought, "Why is he taking them to task about not eating their food?" On the airplane home, I was reading a book on the African concept of ubuntu, which explained that in African Traditional Religion, people will often leave out plates of food for their deceased ancestors. Huh. We now suspect our host may have really been telling these pastors who struggled w/syncretism to stop following their old ways. Chalk it up as another lesson in cultural differences?
3) Ubuntu, the Zulu word for "humanness," is an African concept that goes back thousands of years, but has been popularized since the end of apartheid by the likes of Mandela, Tutu, and others. It's the idea that we can only be human through other humans. It promotes the community over the individual. Unfortunately, it can also promote relationship over truth, because (based on my reading), whereas an ubuntu-driven worldview can admit of a belief in God, it seems to be fundamentally humanistic (man-centered).
4) A friend recently attended a concert in which the conducter began by turning to the audience and telling them he envied anyone in the audience who was about to hear the symphony for the first time. In our second conference, it became increasingly apparent that we could not take for granted a biblical knowledge base among a number of the attendees. So along the way we rejigged and took the attendees through important passages of Scripture. And they were hungry for it! Imagine introducing a pastor to Paul's speech to the elder's at Ephesus in Acts 20 for the first time. We felt grief and joy all mixed--grief that all of them had not received more training, and joy at being able to point some of them to parts of of God's Word for what seemed like the first time. "Hey, check out this treasure over here!" You could hear the awes and gasps.
Posted on July 16, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
A Tribe Called... (part 2)
Thanks to Matt Mitchell who inserted Ray Ortlund Jr's insightful and convicting post from Ortlund's blog in the comment section to my previous post. Yes, you can go there and read it, but I want to highlight an excerpt here. After several paragraphs considering "Galatianism," Ortlund writes,
Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us.
What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).
My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.
Posted on July 15, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
A Tribe Called...
A colleague forwarded me a web tutorial on branding. One slide jumped out at me. It read
Marketing today is about creating tribes:
1900 – Features-"What It Is"
1925 – Benefits-"What It Does"
1950 – Experience-"What You Feel"
2000 – Identification-"Who You Are"
I wasn't around in 1900, 1925, or 1950. So I have little sense of how "tribalistic" Christians were then. But as I consider the evangelical landscape today, it does strike me as relatively tribalistic. You have the Reformed tribe, the Emergent tribe, the Fundamentalists tribe, the Seeker tribe, and so on. Even considering my own--the Reformed tribe--I can name several sub tribes.
In a recent 9Marks interview w/D.A. Carson (to be released later this year or next year), he used the word "clumps." Evangelicalism, he said, increasingly has no center but is defined by various clumps.
Is it fair to say that some tribes are more tribalistic than others? What are the symptoms of tribalism? And what's the difference between tribalism (1 Cor. 1) and a right and healthy identification with a "movement" or even person that has good things to say?
Also, my friend John Hardin, who's doing a Ph.D. in history at U. of MD, is writing on how churches have followed the course of business marketing through the twentieth century. Does evangelical tribalism indicate a greater conformity to late 20th, early 21st century worldy culture than we realize?
Posted on July 15, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
The Slow Death of Congregational Singing
Here's the opening paragraph to Michael Raiter's interesting article over at Matthias Media's Briefing called, "The Slow Death of Congregational Singing."
I was at a convention recently, seated near the rear of the auditorium. The music team at the front were ‘leading’ (and I use that word advisedly) and we were singing. Well, we were meant to be singing. And so I did what I've done quite often lately: I closed my eyes and listened to the singing. The song leaders with their microphones were clear and distinct. I could identify each of the several instruments accompanying the singers. But if you blocked out the ‘worship team’, all that was left around the building was a barely audible murmur. I opened my eyes and looked around. Most folk were either standing silently, not even making a pretence of singing, or were little engaged in the activity.
I turned to a friend next to me and commented, “No-one's singing”. He looked at me as if I'd just observed that no-one was flying. Of course they're not singing; we haven't really sung here for years.
Read the entire article here.
Posted on July 12, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
South Africa 4
Conference 1 last weekend ended very well. The Lord is gracious. For instance, one brother pastor told us that his understanding of church had gone through a complete paradigm shift. Others said similar things. It's always encouraging to see how Christians respond when you simply point them to the Bible. And I think that's all 
we're doing. God is good.
If you prayed for us, thank you! Conference 2, which starts Monday, may need even more prayer. Keep 'em coming.
BTW: Saturday I went on safari!
Posted on July 6, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
South Africa 3—How We’re All Basically the Same
One of the principle themes
of postmodernity is cultural difference and particularity. Even in Christian
circles, we fixate on how people from other cultures are different; on the
difficulties of communicating across cultural and ethnic lines; on the need
to contextualize.
Fine. That’s all true.
What increasingly strikes me
when I’m abroad, however, is how similar human
beings everywhere are. I haven’t traveled as much as some. But I have lived in Britain, Belgium, and Grand Cayman.
At one point last week, one of the young Khosa
(indigenous South African tribe) pastor apprentices whom we were teaching raised his hand and asked, “How do I fight against caring what people
think of me as a pastor?” Goodness. That sounds familiar.
Different cultures have different idols, but we’re all idolatrous to the core. Different ethnicities have different mechanisms for self-justification, but we all center our existences on it. Different nationalities have different ways of passing the blame, but find me one that doesn’t. Different economic classes may love different worldly treasures, but every man loves the world.
For all the time we spend talking about the differences of Adam's scattered sons, they're all his. I suspect that, if we as postmoderns had a more holy view of God, we might talk less about cultural particularity and more about our pathetic and predictable similarity.
Yes, Paul acknowledged the differences between Jews and Gentiles, barbarians and Greeks. But didn't he spend far more time talking about the sin we all share--as well as the one great hope?
Posted on July 5, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
South Africa 2
Matt and I have now finished the first day of 3 sessions. We covered the topics
- The Church is called to display God's glory... (theological foundation)
- ...by listening to his word (more theo foundation)
- (Then more practically) What is expositional preaching
More practical stuff to come today. Other tid bits about day 1:
- There is a range of denominations and backgrounds represented: from an Anglican parish priest to independent Pentecostal pastor to a number of things in between. Some are encouraged by what we're teaching, saying it's what they've practiced. For others it's new.
- One brother, who was trained by Cornhill in London and who shares our convictions about the centrality of the word and expositional preaching, planted a church in Soweto among the poor in February. They've seen 140 conversions since then! Praise God.
- There are probably 25 to 30 church leaders present for our conference. One brother told us that he recently attended a conference for pastors in Johannesburg sponsered by Willow Creek which had 1355 in attendance.
- S.A. has a "God Channel" on television which brings the nation Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyers, and more. Very popular, apparently.
- Over dinner one black pastor described for me some of the discrimination he still feels from white pastors today. He then went on to give God praise for the ealiest missionaries from England and Europe who sacrificed everything and brought the gospel to places like South Africa centuries ago. But he wondered if maybe Africa should now be sending missionaries back to the West. I told him, "Send them. We need all the help we can get."
We'd be grateful for your continued prayers.
Posted on July 2, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
South Africa 1
Matt Schmucker and I arrived in Pietermaritzberg, South Africa yesterday morning. Today we begin the first of two 9Marks pastors conferences--one this week and one next week. I'll try to post several times along the way. Just to get the ball rolling, here are some stats on South Africa that have struck me:
- S.A. has eleven official languages.
- S.A. has the fourth highest per capital income in Africa, but suffers from some of the highest income gaps in the world. In 2000, the average white household makes 6 times as much as the average black household.
- According to Wikipedia, 31 percent of pregnant woman are HIV infected and the infection rate among adults is estimated at 20 percent. This has resulted in many "AIDS orphans."
- Also, there are an estimated 1,200,000 ophans in South Africa (whose total population is est. 43,700,000). According to several conversations yesterday, that number is closer to 2 million orphans.
- Due to the government's present affirmative action policies, many Whites are now emigrating out of South Africa (according to one article in the Economist, there's been a brain drain among both educated Whites and Blacks.) It's fairly clear that ethnic tensions are one of the most significant factors of life in this country. Just about every conversation we've had so far has focused on this topic.
- The murder rate is 900 percent of the murder rate in the U.S.
- Food prices are up 30 percent since January of this year.
- 79.7 percent of the country is officially registered as "Christian," but our hosts suggest that that's about as meaningful as "Lutheran" is in Germany. Apparently, very few are born again.
Matt and I would be grateful for your prayers. Registration for the first conference begins in fifteen minutes!
(This week, the conference will consist mostly of urban evangelicals. Next week's, apparently, will be for African Independent Church pastors who don't consider themselves evangelical.)
Posted on July 2, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Mea Culpa
As you may have seen, the July/August 9Marks
eJournal focusing on the topic of marriage was sent out yesterday.
The eJournal began with my editor’s note in
which I considered the link between an individual’s marriage and one’s
evangelistic ministry. Here’s what I originally stated:
Can a man with a
good but wrongly structured marriage have a faithful evangelistic ministry?
This question was posed to me recently. The answer seemed obvious—"Look,
it may not be ideal, but if a person is out there sharing the gospel…"
I then presented the
question to a pastor whom I respect tremendously. I was amazed when he said
that he was unsure whether such a man could. His rationale: "A rightly
ordered and healthy marriage is that close to the heart of the gospel, and an
unhealthy marriage teaches a wrong gospel."
In response, a couple of very loving and
helpful brothers contacted us to say (essentially), “What are you talking
about?! Of course someone with a wrongly structured marriage can have an
effective evangelistic witness! God uses sinners, doesn’t he?”
To which my reply is, “Yes, of course, you’re
right.” Thank you, brothers, for your corrections.
So let me try to state the matter a little
more carefully, and then invite others into the conversation. If you click on
the (revised!) editor’s note on the home page, you’ll see that this is how I
should have stated that second paragraph from the get-go:
I then presented the
question to a pastor whom I respect tremendously, and his reply caused me to
see a link more clearly than I had before: a rightly ordered marriage presents
a picture of the gospel, and, in that sense, a distorted marriage can present a
distorted gospel. Yes, God can certainly use those of us with imperfect
marriages to be effective evangelistic witnesses. Thank goodness! But the more
biblically ordered a marriage is, the clearer will be the portrait of
Christ and the church—that is, the gospel. The clearer the marriage biblically
the better the display of the gospel.
Bottom line: I certainly don’t want to suggest
that a wrongly structured or unhealthy marriage entirely nullifies a couple’s
evangelistic witness. I do want to say that our marriages can present a
different message than our gospel proclamation itself does (like sin does in
our lives generally), and so we need to attend to them diligently. For more on
this, see C.
J. Mahaney’s even-handed article from this last eJournal.
Thoughts?
Posted on June 27, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Review of Deliberate Church
Sean Michael Lucas reviews Mark Dever and Paul Alexander's The Deliberate Church here.
Posted on June 24, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
pastor search
Thabiti,
Great points, brother. My sense is that a lot of churches use the "want ad" route. But my fear is that this only affirms the professionalization of the pastorate, in the same way that "personals" in the newspaper only affirm the consumerization of love and marriage. Are either of these routes necessarily "wrong"? No. Can you find a good pastor or a good spouse this way? Sure. But are these the wisest fields to go hunting on? I don't think so.
Now, insofar as a church looks to its pastor to be something of a service provider, you can understand why it would use the want ads. But if you're looking for a man to be more like a father-figure, a shepherd, a teacher, a disciple-maker, you're not just looking for someone to "do a job" (though that's part of it), you're looking for him to enter into the covenant relationship (whether implicit or explicit) of your local church's life--and to lead in that covenant relationship!
How do we tell a single brother or sister to find a spouse? Well, there are certain basic boxes that need to be checked. And then there is a host of less quantifiable, more subjective, time-testing-required issues of trust, character, and even personality that need to be considered. So it is with finding a pastor, which is why the advice you offered, Thabiti, is excellent.
In short, there's a difference between looking for an employee and looking for a spouse. What's tricky about finding a pastor is, it combines elements of each. The first big step is to be mindful of that fact, and then structure a search process accordingly.
Posted on June 24, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Finding a pastor
Someone recently emailed us asking if we have any articles on how to find a pastor. Uh, I don't think we do. Seems like a significant hole in the topics we try to cover!
So what do you non-connectional church guys think--what advice would you give a church on how to go about finding a pastor? Advertise in Christian publications? Ask any denominational agencies for a list of resumes? Ask your old seminary profs? What?
Posted on June 23, 2008 in Pastoring | Link to this Post | Comments
They're Racing In!
Registration for the 9Marks September Weekender is now open. Remember, we keep it limited to fifty spots, so you may want to act quickly.
Learn more about our Weekenders and register here.
Posted on June 18, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
What Is a Healthy Church MEMBER
Since other websites have already beaten us to the punch (thanks, Justin!), let me go ahead and introduce you to the latest 9Marks product, Thabiti Anyabwile's What Is a Healthy Church Member?
Thabiti, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman and the author of The Faithful Preacher and The Decline of African American Theology, has written a short, practical book for church members which we at 9Marks are very excited about.
Bottom line, pastor: once you read it, we think you'll agree with us that you'll want every member of your church to read it. IT IS ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT!
Here are some samples:
Heritage Books reviews the book today (thanks, again, Justin).
Posted on June 16, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
winners!
Friends,
Thanks for taking the time to fill out our website survey. Your replies should provide helpful guidance in our re-design. (Survey remains open for anyone who has 5 minutes to donate--see right column. Thanks!).
But the first nine to fill out the survey, who were promised a 9Marks T-shirt, include
- Mitch F. – WI
- James D. – GA
- Ronald M. – AR
- Matt M. – PA
- Lon G. – WA
- Travis H. – VA
- Samuel G. – TN
- Chris B. – IL
- Paul W. – Antrim (Northern Ireland)
We plan to email each of you shortly.
Thanks again, to all!
Posted on June 16, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
To Godly Seminary Professors Everywhere
This is a letter to any of you who are godly seminary professors.
I’ve want to write you about this for a while now. What sparked it recently is
the announcement of a new
biography on G. E. Ladd. Apparently,
the biography focuses on the paradox of his life, namely, the fact that he did excellent
scholarship for the evangelical academy while, simultaneously, sinking into
depression and alcoholism because he could not gain the mainstream academy’s
approval.
What a tragedy—to know God’s freeing truth in Christ in your scholarship so well, but to fail to apply that freedom to you own heart!
Here’s my purpose for writing you: I’d like to invite one of
you to write a short booklet, kind of in the tradition of B. B. Warfield’s The
Religious Life of the Theological Student or Helmut Thielke’s A Little Exercise For Young Theologians,
for aspiring Christian biblical and theological scholars and, more importantly,
pastors everywhere.
Remind them that Elijah never sent Elisha off to the
Assyrian academies, and Paul presumably never considered funding Timothy
through the schools of
Suggest to them that if, by God’s strange providence, one of
them finds himself training in an institution which happens to garner worldly
respectability, like Daniel and the three Hebrew boys in the palaces and
academies of Babylon, that they would do well to abstain from eating at the
king’s table and cozying up to the king’s banter. It’s a danger zone; it’s
enemy territory; so keep praying in the direction of the
Encourage them to ground themselves in the ministry of the local church. There’s nothing like the challenges of living and ministering together with fellow sinners in “real life” to bring the Bible’s claims into life-or-death reality. Also, you might encourage them to place themselves beneath a pastor or professor who demonstrates an indifference to the praise of people, the kind of man of whom the world is not worthy. How often does it seem like the young man who wanders off, enticed by the guild’s adulterous call to lie down in her Ivy perfumed sheets, is the pitiable one who has never been loved and nurtured by an older, wiser shepherd.
Brothers, will one of you write this booklet? Consider the
possibility that it might be used to save a sheep from wandering off into a
ravine and, what’s more, bring a whole flock with him. I’m tired of hearing
those stories. Every one grieves my heart. Indeed, I know the temptations to
hear the praise of men myself. That’s why we need one of you to write such a
booklet, one that will remind us all with the words of Luther, “There are two
days on my calendar, today and that day."
Posted on June 13, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
A favor to ask...
Friends,
We're beginning a year long process of overhauling our website, in order to make it more useful for pastors both here and abroad. Step one is figuring out what's helpful and what's not on our present site.
Can you help us with the first step in that process by answering 11 questions online? It should take you about five minutes.
The first 9 participants will receive a 9Marks T-shirt! Is that incentive or what?!
Complete the survey by clicking here. Thanks so much.
Posted on June 4, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
How to Waste Your Seminary Education
Esp. for those in seminary...
45 suggestions from Derek Brown.
HT: Justin Taylor
Posted on May 30, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
the let's-be-David Wells' game
Alright, I have a game to play here. I had some thoughts about this coolness thing. And then I thought, "Those thoughts are kind of in the David Wells category." No, not as insightful or profound as Wells, but sociological type thoughts. You know what I'm saying?
So, in keeping with our culture of celebrity here, let me address the topic of cool as if I were David Wells. To put it more piously, let me try to think about this topic in a way that Wells has trained us to think, i.e. sociologically and theologically. Then, I propose that Gilbert address the topic of cool as if he were...how about Piper. McKinley should address it as if here were...Driscoll, of course. And then Thabiti, I think you need to address the topic as if you were...I don't know...maybe counseling guru David Powlison? If you guys have better ideas, go for it.
So here's me trying to be David Wells furthering our conversation about cool:
What occurs to me in all this is how much our ability to "encounter God" or "engage Christianity" or "gather to worship" is affected by the media and marketplace. Making cool a component of ministry, or requiring cool from one's church, means that we're letting everyone from James Dean to Eminem shape how we relate to God and his people. That is, we're letting all the vocabulary, postures, and attitudes of "cool," however that's culturally defined in 2008, shape the way we love God and one another. Aren't we?
Now, to some extent this is inevitable, since we're all culturally bound. But what if we factor in Dever's point at the Whiteboard--culture isn't morally neutral?
Analogously, if all the music I hear on the radio, television, or ipod has highly professional and studio perfected, won't that affect how I approach the time of singing and praise on Sunday mornings? Think about it: someone in a worship service in 1900 expected, at best, a single piano plunking away the different parts of a hymn. Seldom in their life would they have heard anything better. Consider where then their focus during singing and praise would be--requiring less from the music and more from the words, perhaps? Now, compare that to the awkwardness we can feel when the only musical accompaniment is one hammer-out-the-chords piano player. How many Christians might be tempted to say they can't "worship" with such poor accompaniment?
Now, every person in every culture is enculturated like this, in one way or another. I just think it's worth observing that we often act as if the mental and emotional categories we've been given through professional, studio musicians on the radio and television affect our "worship" ("I can't worship to that!"). So then what does it mean to worship "by faith" and "in the Spirit"?
If you want, you guys can even rate my Wells performance.
Posted on May 30, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Chasing Cool?
I'm a vain man.
I was created to image God--his holiness, wisdom, and love. But there's something deep inside me that continually wants to parade my glory and wants for others to see my glory. It's an automatic impulse, like a dog that can't help but return to its vomit.
What's astonishing is, every time that I return to my vomit, God's Spirit again convicts me and mercifully calls me back. He is so faithful! I wish all the world would know how faithful he is. (World, come and see our merciful Lord. Treasure here!)
Given this battle inside of me, I have trouble with ministries that are built on "chasing cool." I say that not because I know that cool looking ministries are chasing cool, but because I know that if I were them I would be.
So here's my response to you, Matt. I assume that some guys in ministry are chasing cool. And they should stop. Jesus doesn't need cool. He wants faithfulness and faith, which is another way of saying that he blesses the humble. Chasers of cool, please, stop.
On the other hand, I don't think that all the guys who look cool are chasing cool. I think they're just dressing in the style of our generation. The dirty jeans and the untucked shirts that have a "cool look" to the Lands End generation are simply what they sell in the stores. That's what's on the rack so we buy them.
Bottom line: the chasers of cool should stop it. But if you count yourself among the uncool, I think we need to give the cool the benefit of the doubt and assume they're just being themselves and loving Jesus. Cool?
Posted on May 29, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Ed Stetzer Interviews Dever At Whiteboard
HT: Said at Southern
Posted on May 23, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
re. baptism
Greg,
Interesting post. I've never thought about this topic quite like you've laid it out. Thanks.
One thought for now: logically (not chronologically), aren't the outpouring of the Spirit (represented by pouring) and the forgiveness of sins (represented by sprinkling) subsequent to our union with the death and resurrection of Christ (represented by immersion)? Neither the Spirit nor forgiveness are granted if we're not united to Christ. Wouldn't that give the symbolism of immersion some type of priority (setting aside other exegetical considerations)?
Posted on May 21, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Re. Prob w/Evang...
Double Down Mike,
You write,
"Most evangelical churches don't trust [the Bible]."
Why is that? What's to be done?
Posted on May 15, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Personal v. Propositional
Michael,
One thing that struck me about your post is that point to God's words in Scripture to demonstrate God's personal
nature in response to those that want the spiritual experience or
feeling without the personal confrontation of a personal God.
Interestingly, there are other circles of Christians who move in just
the opposite direction: they want to de-emphasize the propositions of
Scripture for the sake emphasizing God's personal nature. What you
couple they want to de-couple.
Why would you say that the words and propositions of Scripture are so tremendously personal? (By this I don't mean to suggest that Scripture consists only of propositions.) I'm not asking for a professorial (e.g. epistemological etc) answer here, but a pastoral one. In other words, how do you encourage members of your church to approach all of Scripture as God's personal word to them individually and corporately?
Posted on May 15, 2008 in Preaching | Link to this Post | Comments
D. A. Carson dreams about the local church!
Adrian Warnock has a good video interview with D. A. Carson filmed during the recent New Word Alive conference. Beginning at minute 2 is a discussion concerning the role of the local church and the role of the seminary and why professors should dream of being pastors. Here's a few lines:
- "The front line is the local church, and there's a sense in which the seminary is a back up slot."
- "The first impetus toward ministry and toward stamping people for what ministry ought to be ought to be within the context of the local church."
- "A good seminary, a good theological college, helps to provide the kind of training, and further exposure, more technical knowledge, grasp of the language, this sort of thing, that virtually no local church can produce."
- "Yet it's really important for those who teach in such places, nevertheless, to be pastors first, because if they think of themselves as teachers and scholars first, then they tend to produce teachers and scholars. So there's a stamping not simply from the course materials, but from your own values, what you think about, what you dream about."
- "So at our seminary, we always hire a certain percentage of faculty who wish they were in the pastoral ministry or else, quite frankly, we don't want them. Now, they have to be academically competent and all the rest. But we don't want people who just want to be in a seminary.We want people who, in many ways, would prefer to be in the local church."
Posted on May 15, 2008 in Pastoring | Link to this Post | Comments
Jewish Emergent
Interesting post over at Out of Ur:
Apparently Christians aren’t the only ones feeling the urge to emerge.
Posted on May 9, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Policy Explanation
Dear Church Matters Readers,
We're grateful for the many good and constructive comments that many of you bring to the window, fulfilling the request we have made from the beginning (look at the right column) about comments being make "with the respect you would offer to people face to face." That's 99.9 percent of you.
However, since .1 percent of our readers have felt inclined to offer their insights in a slightly different vein, we've decided to take a more active role in deleting comments. As Mark D. has put it, we're not concerned about the "I don't agree" comments. In fact we welcome them. We're even grateful (sort of) for what may be legitimate criticisms of us, such as those recent comments which suggest that we suffer from a lack of humility (to steal a line from G. Whitfield, if you only knew how true that is!). It's the "I don't like you, and let me insult you" comments that we're going to remove more consistently. In our estimation, remarks of this variety do nothing to serve the conversation or edify its readers.
With regrets to the 99.9 percent for bothering you with this
announcement, and with apologies for all those ways in which we fail to
perfectly image our savior in tone or content,
Jonathan L.
Posted on May 9, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Late Night in Dever's Study--Mohler on reform
Al Mohler made an interesting remark about church reform late last night in Mark Dever's study: a young man entering a church should not expect to reform it so much by persuading the old guard, but by raising up and discipling a new generation of younger men and waiting for them to grow into positions of leadership.
Looking around Dever's study, he observed a room full of twenty-somethings. What that might mean for guys in their twenties is finding guys in college and pouring into them.
The problem with Mohler's counsel, of course, is that it takes patience and a total commitment. It means taking the long view. And who wants that?! There's gotta be a quick fix, right?
Posted on May 5, 2008 in Pastoring | Link to this Post | Comments
Fair enough...
I suppose I deserve that! ;-)
(But you're not helping my ego to tell me that I rule.)
Posted on May 2, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Greg, Point Taken, Yet...
Greg, Okay, all our sensible friends have tuned out at this point. Emo kid Mike didn't even want to jump in the pool. So for you, me, and our three remaining readers… (everyone else can just scroll down to see Hugh Latimer's, er, Mike's latest entry):
POINT TAKEN!
Point taken. I’m grateful for (and agree with) everything you affirm. That is, the “gospel” in the New Testament is that Christ has defeated sin and all of its consequences (I’m thinking of 1 Cor. 15 (the whole chapter), 1 Peter 1:3-9, Ephesians 2:11-20, and certainly the gospel of the kingdom passages in the Gospels). It is good news indeed that creation will be restored, that a covenantal unity now abides between formerly divided humans, that we have been given the seal and the first fruits of the Holy Spirit, that we are now free to live for God’s glory in our work, our service, and entire lives, and so on.
Thank you, brother, for helping me to be clear about this. Our explanations of the gospel to the church and non-Christian alike should ultimately point to all these things. I’m thinking about Jesus’ statement to John’s disciples about telling John that they see the blind seeing and so forth. Though we should take care not to over realize our eschatology, Christians have the amazing privilege of saying to non-Christians and their fellow Christians, “New life is happening here—just watch! And there’s more newness to come!” All this is cause for rejoicing.
YET...
Yet let me try to frame the discussion in a slightly different way, so as to illustrate what I believe is the bull’s-eye accuracy of what Dever’s getting at: our presentations of the gospel and understanding of the church’s mission needs to be extremely clear about the difference between sin and the consequences of sin. We have to start with sin. What is sin? Sin is that fact we disregard God and his glory because we want to be God, and so we break his law. In Genesis 3, Adam overlooks the fact that he was created to image God’s glory (1:26-28) and decides to be God himself (3:5). So he breaks God’s Genesis 2 law (2:16-17).
From this sin comes, perhaps most immediately, guilt (him looking down) and wrath (us looking up), because guilt and wrath are the most immediate measurement of the fact that Adam has broken a law. It’s not enough to say that a “broken relationship” is the most immediate consequence (as many authors want to say), because it’s the way in which the relationship has been broken that counts—Adam hasn’t just strayed off and got lost; he has defied his Lord. He has counted his own glory as worth more than God’s. He has blasphemed before the heavenly host about the lightness of God’s glory (vindicating Satan). He has, in Paul’s language, fallen short of that glory. God’s holy glory requires a punishment (not just a reconciliation). To say otherwise is to say his glory isn’t worth that much. To say otherwise is to overestimate our own glory and worth. (But isn’t the Bible clear that we’re like blades of grass, here today and gone tomorrow?)
(Among other things, this means we shouldn’t pit “law” and “relationship” or “person” against one another as so many are doing. God's law is an expression of his person and the very thing that he means to use to protect and safeguard our relationship with him and one another (consider Gen. 9:6). Loneliness is not the problem, lawlessness is. Not isolation, but insubordination.)
From sin, this fundamental disposition of hatred for God’s glory and defiance of his law, many consequences follow: Shame follows, so they’ll hide themselves behind fig leaves and trees. The curses follow, breaking fellowship between man and God, man and man, and man and earth. Among those curses, death follows, so Adam will return to the dust. And the dust itself will only yield fruit through hard work, because creation is breaking down. Also, sins against fellow humans follow, so the woman will desire to rule over the man, and the man will probably abuse her in return. Also, Cain kills Abel. You get the point.
Now, consider what’s probably going to happen to explanations of the gospel in a culture which is gradually losing its very capacity to understand sin and guilt (as David Wells argues in Losing Our Virtue). I would predict that Christians would be tempted to define the gospel in a way that emphasizes how the gospel overcomes the consequences of sin. So they’ll talk about the gospel as “reconciling relationships” or “inaugurating God’s kingdom” or “restoring creation.” And, yes, amen, all of this is part of the good news Jesus brings. Preach it! But they will also, perhaps, be slower to emphasize sin itself and sin’s most immediate consequences, like guilt and God’s wrath. “People just don’t understand that,” they’ll say. And maybe, just maybe, they will be less able than their historical forbearers to recognize the weightiness of these things either, because they too are creatures of culture (and let me put myself first here, brother: I completely fail to recognize the weight of my sin and God’s glory!!! That’s the story of my life.)
But when we’re not explicit on these first things—sin as broken law; sin as hatred of God’s glory; guilt and God’s wrath as the most immediate consequences—then what it means to “reconcile relationships,” “inaugurate a kingdom,” or “restore creation” becomes vague and, often, man-centered. And have you noticed how so many definitions of the gospel these days fail to use those old words like propitiation, imputation, or justification, words which give meaning to “inaugurating a kingdom” or “restoring creation” because they get at the heart of the root of the problem, not just a consequence of the problem?
All this is where Tim Keller has been so helpful for my thinking. In all his talk about “functional justification” and idolatry, in his connecting of the first commandment and justification by faith (a la Luther), he has helped me to understand my sin more deeply. My breaking the law (esp. the first commandment) is the same thing as idolatry, which is the same thing as my justifying myself, which is the same thing as my despising of God’s glory. Solution: justification by faith (!), which is the same thing as reaching for an alien righteousness, which is the same thing as having no other gods before him. (I’m using the phrase “same thing” loosely here. But you get the point.)
Posted on May 1, 2008 in Theology | Link to this Post | Comments
Indirectly Re. Dever's Cry # 1
Last week I attended a screening of AS WE FORGIVE
in one of the House of
Representatives office buildings. It’s a documentary that chronicles the recent
release of 50,000 Rwandan genocide perpetrators
due to a century-long backlog of court cases, and how Rwandan genocide survivors are learning not just to cope
with the return of the people who killed their friends and family members, but
to forgive and embrace them as neighbors.
(Two CHBC church
members were involved in the production of the documentary; and a member of
Church of the Resurrection, several blocks from CHBC, directed it!).
Some of the stories
of forgiveness are absolutely astonishing. To cite one example: imagine if one
of the men who participated in a movement that killed your husband and five
children moved back into your village…and he was repentant…and he wanted to
help build a new house for you…and to help you complete your farming work
before the food rotted for the season! How would you respond?
The documentary has played in such venues as the
World Bank or a Capitol office building (it's not explicitly Christian). And the themes and goals are clearly ones
that Christians will want to support and be involved in.
Also, the processes
of reconciliation between perpetrators and survivors are being facilitated by
an interesting interplay of government agencies, churches, non-church
ministries, and individuals.
Your church may want
to consider requesting a
showing at your location for the purposes of stimulating good conversations
among neighbors and colleagues in your community (though I’d suggest finding
some other time than your main weekly gatherings:-). Bethlehem Baptist in
Posted on April 30, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Re. Dever's Cry # 1
A buddy at church who works for "the government" was recently discussing this issue about defining the gospel versus its public implications.
He made the point that plenty of his non-Christian colleagues in government might agree with him on various social agendas (and are working toward real change!), such as reducing third world debt, making health care available to those who don't have it, and so forth. But then he asked (rhetorically), "If my non-Christian friends agree with me on these types of issues, what else do I have to give them?!"
Answer: the announcement that God has provided a way for sinful human beings to be reconciled to God and his wrath removed, sin being the heart-cause of all such structural maladies.
Mark's first point, I take it, is that there is a difference between that announcement and all the kingdom-seeking things people with new, compassionate, born-again hearts will necessarily do (e.g. Rom. 6:1-2; James 2:26) once they have embraced that announcement. And preachers should preach both: the announcement and the compassionate life which is commensurate with the announcement.
A Christian's compassionate heart is not the good news. A Christian's compassionate work is not the good news. The good news is that which, among other things, makes the Christian's heart compassionate and joyfully bound to doing compassionate works.
Mark's implicit second point, I take it, is that the local church is the only institution on earth that was given the special authority by Jesus to guard, protect, and proclaim this announcement (e.g. Mt. 18:18; John 21:23). Therefore, the local church in its capacity as a corporate entity must keep this task primary, not just equi-primary (don't equi-primary partnerships always, over time, give way to two separated primaries, some people going for one, some for the other).
Posted on April 30, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Thabiti's post reenacted
"Hey, you're interrupting my vacation! I can't believe you. I could be with my family right now! I mean, I could have simply not turned the computer on. I could have not read my email. And I suppose I could have chosen not to respond by blogging...but, it's still your fault! Don't you have any respect?!"
;-)
Posted on April 24, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be...
Greg (or others),
1) Have you really ever seen a cowboy church? I gotta check it out.
2) You wrote, "But I would think one of the implications of Thabiti’s talk is that we should strive to build churches that transcend not only race but also ethnicity—a place where cowboys, hip-hoppers, and yuppies all worship Christ together." So let's get real practical with that. Does that mean churches should incorporate music from these different ethnicities? Should churches adopt an affirmative action policy for staff hiring or elder nominations? I'm being serious here.
Let me pick up one of these ideas--elder nominations or staff hiring. No, I don't think an official policy should be set in place, but I'd like to propose that a church does well to pray and ask God to bring it members of multiple ethnicities for assuming leadership positions. In fact, given our nation's trouble with these matters, I propose that the gospel encourages us to pray in exactly this fashion.
Thoughts? And how about music?
No, I have no idea why I picked that title for this post. It just seemed like the thing to do.
UPDATE: reader Scott L. has informed me that there really is a cowboy church. Giddyup.
Posted on April 23, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Thabiti's talk
Mike,
Why are you equating Public Enemy and being a "brother" (or brutha)?
Thabiti,
As I've already said to you, great talk! I hope it makes the rounds.
1) I was sitting next to a pastor (and friend) who kept saying, "But the differences of race are biological." How would you respond to him?
2) I overheard another guy conclude from your talk that, since race is not a reality, churches should give no attention to differences of skin color, but simply preach the gospel. Is that an inference you intended?
Posted on April 22, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
9Marks mail bag--cool covers!
Here's an interesting email 9Marks received about Bible covers:
I'm not sure how you all choose potential topics to cover in your bi-monthly eJournals but...The youth pastor at our church purchases Bibles for our graduating seniors every year and he usually shops for those Bibles using two criteria: (1) external appearance, and (2) cost. He wants to be able to purchase a Bible for these young adults that looks 'edgy' and 'cool,' and he also wants to find a good bargain....So I decided to try to help him find a more appropriate Bible that was 'cool' looking, affordable, and also was a good formal equivalence or dynamic equivalence translation. What I found over the next three hours of researching Bibles was alarming. There are plenty of 'cool' looking, affordable Bibles that externally would be eye-catching and appealing to youth and young adults, but almost all of them were what I would consider to be poor translations or paraphrases....I found several, but was alarmed to see which versions they were. The New Century Version (NCV) and Today's New International Version (TNIV) have plenty of cool looking Bibles in the $10-$15 price range. There are also plenty of cool looking paraphrases like The Message and the New Living Translation which were eye-catching and in the same price range. After a lot of searching I did find a few cool looking NIV versions and a few cool looking Holman Christian Standard Versions, but price wise these Bibles were in the $25 range. Frustrated with what I was finding on-line, I then visited our local Lifeway store to only find more of the same.
Often times you hear parents complain that alcohol companies are gearing their advertisements to youth and young adults to make their products look cool, even though they can be very harmful. It seems that some of these Bible publishers are doing the exact same thing. They are taking the translations and paraphrases which many consider to be harmful, they are dressing them up in 'cool' 'edgy' covers and then they are charging significantly lower costs to get youth and young adults to purchase their products.
Posted on April 9, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Gospel Counterfeits
In their book How People Change, Tim Lane and Paul David Tripp lay out seven counterfeit gospels.
- Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”
- Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”
- Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”
- Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”
- Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”
- Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs."
- “Social-ism.” “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”
How many of these do you recognize in your own heart? How can we help our congregations to recognize them in their hearts through preaching, discipling, and counseling?
Posted on April 4, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Satan v. Church Leaders
Southern Seminary professor Chuck Lawless imagines what he would do if he were Satan, trying to ensnare pastors and church leaders. The whole article is here, but his seven basic points are
First, I would attack those who are most gifted . . . by reminding them that they are gifted.
Second, I would encourage leaders to talk about accountability . . . but not be personally accountable to anyone.
Third, I would challenge leaders to emphasize spiritual disciplines . . . but only for others.
Fourth, I would focus the leader’s attention on tomorrow . . . rather than today.
Fifth, I would encourage ministry by e-mail . . . especially with those of the opposite gender.
Sixth, I would not hinder ministry success . . . as long as “success” results in few changed lives.
Seventh, I would stress failure . . . and then lead the church to do the same.
Posted on March 31, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Sermon Review Still Cont'd
Thabiti,
I just listened to the Jeremiah
Wright sermon that you suggested we listen to. I wrote out these comments
and only then looked at what you and Mike wrote; and I haven't made any
changes since doing that (which is my way of excusing the repetition). Here’s what I might say to him if he were
sitting in review w/us:
Wow, you are a very gifted and clear communicator. Let me offer some critiques of the sermon, and then some encouragements.
Critiques:
- It felt like you took the text out of context b/c you didn’t tell us where it fit into redemption history? What does it have to do with the promises to Abraham and Moses? How does it point to Christ? Etc. By not doing this, you risk moralizing the point. Speaking of…
- I’m not sure how this was a “Christian” sermon. Couldn’t it have been preached in a synagogue or mosque? In other words, you gave us some good tips for living, but there was no gospel.
- I’d be careful about using the word “hell” to describe dire circumstances in this world. If hell is, in fact, a burning lake of fire, are we doing anyone any favors by causing them to think it’s something less?
- You veered a little close to prosperity gospel. You told us to “maintain the audacity of hope” in our prayers for our child, for our house, for our church. Are you suggesting that our hope should remain fixed on what God may give us in this world? At other times, gratefully, you spoke of praise to God even when our circumstances don’t change.
Encouragements:
- On this last point, I appreciate what you said about about how easy it is to give praise when we’re externally blessed; the real challenge (and real test) is the ability to give praise to God when this world fails us (“for the joy set before him”). I appreciated the way you called us to the vertical over and above the horizontal (note; just make sure you’re not slipping the horiztontal into the vertical; see last point).
- The illustration of your parents singing “Thank you, Jesus” in hard times was very compelling.
- Your pastoral sympathy and care for your listeners was very evident.
- Thinking about my own preaching, I was very challenged by the existential grittiness of your sermon. It’s very clear that you’re getting into the lives of your hearers and identifying with them where they are at. I think expositional and doctrinal preachers could learn a lot from your example here.
Posted on March 26, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Guest blogger: J.D. Greear
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.
Posted on February 29, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
There's another way!
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!!!"
Posted on February 26, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Emerging as a Mindset or Ethos
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?
Posted on February 22, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Review: Why We're Not Emergent
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.
Posted on February 22, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Presenting David Wells
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.
Posted on February 20, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
A Must Read
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.
Posted on February 19, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Are Evangelicals Becoming More Moderate?
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
Posted on February 19, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Paul on church announcements and bulletins
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
Posted on February 15, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Gilbert's NOOMA review
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
Posted on February 12, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Really
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?
Posted on February 12, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Why John Piper Should Attend a U2 Concert
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
Of course they were worshipping….Bono. Not Jesus.
Imagine what that stadium concert will be like.
Who will tell them about Jesus?
Posted on February 11, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Guest Blogger: Bob Kauflin
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.
Posted on February 8, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
actually
for the record, Greg, that prayer was awesome. I need to pray that way. Thank you.
Posted on February 6, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
L&B
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.
Posted on February 6, 2008 | Link to this Post | Comments
Church As Franchise--Not Just a Metaphor
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.
Posted on February 4, 2008 |