I lost My Poverty - But I found it again...

Life is amazing. We can learn things even so late in the game. Well, I have been learning a wonderful practical truth, and the fruits are just wonderful.

I am coming into a greater awareness of how important an abiding sense of spiritual poverty is. What follows is my attempt to show, as feeble as it is, how freeing this awareness is and how this is the foundation of kingdom living.

Jesus taught us, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. I have attempted to define this many times, so I will not elaborate too much on the meaning of the text. Instead, I will give a few definitions and then tell my story of how this truth is so practical and revolutionary to our spiritual walk.

A Few Definitions:
1. Blessed are those who are aware of their spiritual poverty.
2. Blessed are those who abide in an orientation of dependence on God.
3. The truly happy or blessed life is to those who are beggars, spiritually speaking.
4. Blessed are those who know that they are spiritually sick and in need of constant grace to live by a power other than themselves.
5. I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in Me for apart from me you can do nothing.
6. I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in Me for apart from me you cannot live the life I am calling you to live to glorify the Father.
7. True happiness and a heavenly quality of life is to those who put no confidence in the flesh, as sick as the flesh is, but are continually looking for a righteousness which comes through faith.

So taking this principle, here is how I put it into a practical step:
We admit our spiritual poverty and powerlessness and accept that only on a foundation of this abiding admission can Jesus build in us a truly happy and heavenly quality of life.

My Story of Implementing this Principle
I do not feel free in this context to get into specifics so lets say my sin is I like to walk in front of moving cars.

Well, today was one of my less than perfect days. I have been walking under an open heaven for the last two weeks and just living a life that is happy. I feel completely free of jaywalking. But today, I forgot this principle that I am a sick man. I am sick. Oh!!! the liberty of knowing that I am sick. You see when I know I am sick and powerless over my weakness of character. I know I cannot just nonchalantly walk in front of cars like others. If I start this activity, for me, it becomes very dangerous.

Well, my sickness is not actually jay-walking. My issue is control of my tongue. I say things I shouldn’t. But it is as much a sickness and as insane as being tempted to jump in front of moving cars. When I see the sickness of my character defects and its fruit and I see that I am powerless, I am forced to live life from an orientation of spiritual poverty. From this awareness and openness to my sickness, I find I can see the sickness all around me. I fin seeing the sickness frees me greatly to the core of my real problem. The real problem is the self and the ego. When I see this sickness clearly, I simply do not play this ego game.

For a moment today, when I lost my poverty, I thought I could talk like a normal person ,but I cannot. You see - I am spiritually poor and sick and this lack of self-control is my sickness. Oh, the power that comes to us who realize that we have no power over such a simple thing as one’s tongue. In fact, when I see my own sickness, it is so easy to see that the whole world is insane. So many people walk in this sickness, just like I am prone to, but I have a secret. I believe that Jesus can free me and lead me, through His teachings, into a truly happy and heavenly quality of life that is totally free from this sickness.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is a heavenly quality of life. This new life is not like the life that the world lives. No, it is altogether different. This life does not play the insane games of the world. This good life is filled with an abiding awareness of one’s sickness and mourns over it. This heavenly life is filled with meekness, for it knows that the root of sin is selfishness and ego-mania.

When I lose an awareness of my sickness that is when I find myself back in the spiritual sickness of the world and the games of self preservation and fear that all the world plays. Oh, the blessed life is not like that at all. The blessed life is a life of awareness of the insanity of the flesh and the sickness of the self. The fruit of this self is clear if we come out of our pride and are willing to see it. The evidence may be hidden, but we all know what it is. So, we confess our sickness and the insanity that comes with it. We abide in this awareness and from this abiding awareness of our spiritual poverty, we turn to a righteousness which comes from God. This awareness of our spiritual poverty alone is not the totality of the way, but it is the first step.

God Bless,
brad

Sermon on the Mount - Sermon Series - Sermon #3 Meekness

I have been preaching a practical series on the discipleship method of Jesus and the narrow path to true happiness and a heavenly quality of life.

Today's sermon:
Sermon #3 - Meekness - The Doorway into the Kingdom (stream) (download)

Jesus Christ brings to those who follow Him a path, a spiritual program of discipleship, that leads to a quality of life that is stunningly morally beautiful. I believe there is a method to teach others to enter into this life. The method is not just preaching but also mentoring and modeling and discussing the path together. The method involves teaching but also intimacy and openness.

Our church is developing discipleship relationships and following, as best as we know how, the teachings of Jesus. We are learning together how to be followers of Jesus.

Our series and our discipleship program of mentoring began with understanding our spiritual poverty. We build our spiritual life on a foundation of an awareness of our abiding need, but to know this we have made some helpful journaling tools (I will post these later) and go through these together in our smaller group meetings. I am finding that people are calling one another and meeting almost daily to work and confess their powerlessness. Today we moved onward into the idea of meekness and began to look at "Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth". Here is the closing prayer:

Father, I am through with the self-willed life. I cease playing God and director of my life and the lives of others. I turn my life and will over to the care of Jesus Christ, the shepherd of my soul. I embrace the path of meekness and submission. I embrace absolute tolerance, absolute love, and absolute forgiveness. Teach me and lead me. Protect me as I trust in You. I accept all of your will and believe that you will lead me into true happiness and a heavenly quality of life.

So here is the whole sermon series so far:
Sermon #1 - The Discipleship Program of Jesus and the Mission of the Church(stream) (download)
Sermon #2 - Admitting Our Spiritual Poverty and Powerlessness (stream) (download)
Sermon #3 Meekness (stream) (download)

God Bless,
brad

Discipleship 101 - The Necessity of Discipleship

In our 95 theses project, I have been noting the need for a discipleship process in the church. The very DNA of the church needs to be one that is a discipleship making community.

Jesus gave us one job description to the disciples, “Go make disciples”. So who are you discipling? Is this one on one or one on two or three? How is it going? Is the person entering the kingdom of true happiness and a heavenly quality of life? How do you do it? What is the process? What life changing principles are you emphasizing? Does it work?

Who are you being discipled by? What is this person teaching you? Do you meet every day? Call each other? Does he or she know your life story and your limiting sins and shortcomings? Are you entering the kingdom or are you still stuck?

I ask these questions knowing that many of us can’t begin to answer these questions because we are not either discipling or being discipled.

The Need for Highly Intentional Discipleship
In Matt 4:23 – 5:2 Jesus sees the multitudes and (extracting from Matt 9) is filled with compassion and does what? Jesus seeing the multitudes as harassed and helpless (the way Jesus always sees the multitudes) begins to disciple the disciples in earnest. The passage says, “Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying: 3"Blessed are the poor in spirit”
Jesus’ life work (John 17) was to train the twelve. Why? Because it was specifically teaching the twelve how to enter the kingdom and find “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17) is the only way to give the kingdom to the harassed and helpless of the world. If we as believers do not possess victory over our own foolishness and sinfulness, how are we to lead the crowds into a heavenly quality of life?

So I ask you, “Have you walked down the narrow path into the life of the kingdom?” “Do you have a testimony of deliverance from our habits and limitations into true happiness?” If we do not possess a means, tried and found successful, to bring the harassed and helpless into holiness and happiness., then I dare say we are in need of learning how the teachings of Jesus work.

In the posts ahead, I will attempt to show this simple but narrow path into true happiness and a truly heavenly quality of life…

Theses #6: Those who preach and teach in the church must possess the kingdom and understand the teachings of Jesus by experience if they are to lead others into the kingdom life and if the church is to bring the Gospel of the Kingdom to the world.

God Bless,
brad

For more listen to this sermon:
Sermon on the Mount - The Discipleship Program of Jesus and the Mission of the Church (stream) (download)

For the Love of God - Sudan

This post at Passionofthepresent is very current on the situation.

Why not give a couple hundred $$$ for peacekeepers at Save Darfur

I have only lost 5 lbs so far in my "pounds for peacekeepers" commitment to my kids.

I am looking to post tonight on all the great work the Lord is doing in our discipleship work at our church.

brad

The Path to True Happiness and a Heavenly Quality of Life - Step 1

Below is a link to this sunday's sermon on the first two beatitudes of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Understanding these words of Jesus can help us begin down the simple path to true happiness and a heavenly quality of life.

Admitting our Spiritual Poverty and Powerlessness (stream) (download)

I am personnaly experiencing a deep season of spiritual renewal, a renewal that is leading me to work almost constantly with others to find victory!! Come along for a walk into the kingdom.

The sermon also exposites Phil 3:1-9, Matt 5:20, and John 15:3-7.

I prayfully hope this sermon helps you find the Kingdom!!
God Bless,
brad

I'm Still Here!!

Sorry for the light posts. I have posts in my head, but I have not had the time to focus on writing them out. I am finding that sermons are more inspired lately than blog posts. I will attempt to post last Sunday's sermon which discusses:
- The 20th Century Two-Step. In this sermon, preached last weekend, I discuss the relationship between our own spiritual program (what seminaries are calling spiritual formation) and our ability to offer help to the world. This sermon is from Matt 4:23-Matt 5:3. "Jesus seeing the multitudes, (filled with compassion for He saw them as harrassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd-Matt9:35ff) turned to his discipels and began to teach them saying , 'Blessed...'"

I am working on a few observations about the need to have a leadership model based on "attraction" and not position. Coupled with this idea is what does the church attender really expect from his or her church. If leadership is based on attraction, the attractiveness of our life, then the expectation will likewise be to obtain a new life from the church. Instead, it is often that the congregant expects religious instruction or information about religion from the church. Our leadership development model and our system is not really founded on being discipled into a spiritual formation program that brings a level of "righteousness, peace and joy" that is transferable when pursued. Instead, the church raises up leaders through a system based on the communication of information. In reality, the ability to communicate information has very little to do with one's effectiveness in making disciples and the attractiveness of one's quality of life. Effective discipleship is so much more whether one has spiritual experience through the implementation of certain practices. These experiences and the ability to teach certain workable practices is the foundation of effective ministry. Only a person with such a spiritual life can possess a truly attractive life in God.

Well, I am working on just such a post...

I am taking a few vacation days next week. I hope to write some during these vacation days.

God Bless,
brad

Bush at Calvin

Hat tip Gideon (a short quote from the President)

The whole speech.

Further Discussion on the 20th Century Two-step and The Urgent Need of the Church

I will certainly attempt to elaborate on this phenomenon of the twentieth century two-step over the weekend as I prepare for my sermon this Sunday on the Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, BUT, in response to a few comments, I would like to say the following:

I am not, for a second, blaming dispensationalism. I use this as an extreme example of actually making theology that justifies a lack of liberation. Paul in Romans 7 discusses the same problem of a person thinking simple knowing and presenting (Romans 6) works to find liberation from sin. But Paul says the reality is that if we just know and present without learning the basic principles of Romans 8, on-going confession and serious maintenance of our intimacy with God, then we end up back in the old misery. If I am stuck in Romans 7 then I need to realize my need for a Spirit-led program of some simple practices of relationship and community based discipleship. Instead, many Christians actually think Romans 7 is our inheritance. The need is not for a new theology BUT instead we who are liberated and walking in a program that liberates out of Romans 7 into the kingdom life, we need to go find other beggars and teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. The need is for a discipleship program that leads people into every aspect of the life of Christ. This current need is the point of thesis #5 and the preceding theses 1-4. We do not need better theology but simple practical discipleship.

The second issue is that "but we are not all alcoholics". I use a lot of AA but that is just again to make examples that illustrate a simple path to liberation. The biblical example I am using is Paul in Romans 7 and Paul's habitual sin wasn't some life debilitating addiction. Paul's problem was covetousness. Paul found himself resenting other people possessions and power. Paul found that that old Pharisee could come back if he didn't stay in the solution of Romans 8. Therefore, Paul left the legalistic path of his religious training and found a righteousness that came straight from heaven through faith and the power of the Spirit. But the key is that this extreme make-over that Paul teaches isn't just believe and preach. Paul finds that those who believe need again to learn the basics of Romans 8, which I am elaborating as a Spirit empowered community based discipleship program as opposed to the two-stepping methods we have in the 20th century. The two stepping program is to understand Romans 4-7 and totally get lost as to what Romans 8 is about. The reason for this confusion is because the 20th Century taught us about decisions and the autonomous individual to such a great extent that we only really have a grid for Romans 6 (knowing and presenting) but just knowing and presenting doesn't work.

Jesus took the disciples to the Mount for an explanation of the discipleship program that would equip them to enter every aspect of His life. The wonderful truth, the great liberating truth, is that Jesus actually made these men look like Him. These guys entered into every aspect of the life of Jesus, and this simple kingdom walk is available to all of us. All we need to learn is a Spirituality founded on our powerlessness and helplessness (the beatitudes), a simple but ruthless grid to take constant inventory of our hearts (Matt 5) and a radical orientation toward God and the world which guarantees our abiding renewal and maintains our intimacy with God (Matt 6). Having been equipped with these extreme but simple measures, the church will find again the keys to the kingdom and will become again a light that cannot be hidden. If we again return to the basics of community and relationship-based discipleship, the church will be rebuilt and restored to its former glory.

God Bless,
brad

The 20th Century Two-Step

In the introduction to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' master work on the Sermon on the Mount, Lloyd-Jones says nothing is so glaring of a problem in the 20th century church than its superficiality. Specifically, the church takes an embarrassingly superficial approach to sanctification. Lloyd-Jones places the blame with dispensational theology which certainly played a role in creating this lack of an emphasis on the transforming power of the Gospel, but it seems to me that the 20th Century was the perfect storm of superficial spirituality.

I call this tendency to “skip to the end” or skip the process of sanctification altogether the 20th Century 2-step. In the 20th Century, Christianity became two basic steps: 1) Make a decision for Christ or “get saved” 2) Tell others about Jesus.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, this immediate two step process is called 2-steppin’ and it is a perfect explanation of the superficial Christianity most of us were raised in.

The AA – Two-step
AA is known as a 12-step program. The steps involve the first three steps of conversion:
1. Admit you are powerless
2. Believe there is a power greater than yourself that can save you

To do the two-step is to do these initial steps and then jump straight to step 12 which is “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others”. But AA isn’t a two-step program. So to 2-step it is a total bastardization of the power of the program. The meat of the 12 steps is in steps 3-11. In this process, the sinner or addict or believer learns how to work a daily program to find all the keys to living a life of serenity. The “poor beggar/sinner” learns all the steps that are vital to long term sanity. The missing steps in the program of the 2-stepper include surrender and acceptance, taking a fearless moral inventory, confessing to a mentor, being willing to let God remove our character defects, asking God to remove these defects, making amends, continuing to take moral inventory, seeking to improve our conscious contact with God, and then seeking to take this program to others. Furthermore, all these practices are performed in the context of a mentoring relationship. Basically, the process is a structured discipleship process. The “two-step program” skips all the difficult steps of discipleship.
HELLO!! Sound familiar. The church has been two-steppin’ it for decades if not centuries. The bottom line is that the two-step discipleship program of Get Saved and tell others about Jesus just doesn’t work.
The Dispensational Two-Step
Whether or not we hold to a dispensational theology, we are all effected by some form of its teaching and influence. Now I am not saying dispensationalism is the only cause to the church’s problems but the dispensational theology represents the most glaring example of a two-stepper’s theology.

Dispensationalism, in a nutshell, taught that the kingdom era was not for today. Jesus presented the offer of the Kingdom to Israel but Israel rejected the kingdom. Therefore, God went to plan B – the church age. During the church age, the gospel (not the Gospel of the Kingdom) is to be preached to the ends of the earth and then Jesus will return and set-up the kingdom. In this church age dispensation, the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are not applicable as the pattern of life because those teachings are for the kingdom. The church cannot expect a “heavenly pattern of life” or the kingdom until the end. Basically Dispensationalism teaches a theology that promotes the two-step. In this age, we get saved and preach the message of forgiveness to others. I am not saying that this is the silver bullet of why we two-step it in the church but this example simply help us understand what two-steppin’ might look like.

The Decision-based Two-step
Lloyd-Jones also notes that one great example of glaring superficiality is in our evangelistic practices. Lloyd-Jones was a champion of Calvinism and wrote numerous sermons on the errors of decision-based evangelism (see his book the Cross). Decision-based evangelism is the by product of 19th and 20th century Western individualism and the worship of the phantom of individual freedom. In the decision-based worldview, God converts our will through conviction of the truth and the newly converted will now makes good decisions. The autonomous individual now goes to church gets inspired and makes good decisions. Here then is the decision-based 2-step. Gone is the role of the community in defining the identity of the believer. Gone is the role of mentoring. God is the Moral Beauty of the city on a hill. You are a light is now about the individual and not the church. Gone is the idea of the story of the community and the development of worldview in the context of being a people. Skip on that mentoring and discipleship stuff. Read a book in the privacy of your own home and make good decisions. Get saved and make better decisions. The decision-based two-step.

The bottom line is that the dance of the two-step of evangelism without discipleship is a miserable theology that leads to miserable Christians.

Which leads to my 5th thesis:

5. The discipleship program of the church must lead the believer into the quality of life spoken of in the New Testament as the Kingdom of heaven of the Kingdom of God. This discipleship must teach the believer to know, understand, and obey all the teachings of Jesus and ultimately leads the believer into conformity with the image of Christ.

Note: Having re-read this thesis, I realize the thesis sounds a little individualistic. In the context of thesis #4, (Relationship based discipleship) and in the context of the next thesis which will be on individual discipleship as a means to a greater end of Morally Beautiful Community, I ask the reader to not take this thesis out of context and criticize it for not addressing individualism. The problem of individualism is assumed.

The Darfur Collection

WOW!! Alltings2All has put together an awesome array of posts sent in by bloggers regarding the crisis in Darfur.

Change and the Need for Transparent Relationships

This post will link a handful of assumed concepts.
One is that our worldview is molded in the context of our community story or our culture. This article referenced by echoes from home and also by Jason Clarke talks about the difficulty of change and the need for a supporting community or a frame if individuals are to find change. The article emphasizes that change doesn't happen, even in life and death situations, unless this corporate life is created upon which to frame the change or learn a new lifestyle. In other words, change only happens through community. Lately, we have been making our way through the fact that the church is in need of a 21st Century Reformation. In other words, we the people of God must find a doorway to change if we are to recover a powerful witness in the West.

That being the said, let me share my expereince strenght and hope.

My life is simply going through a euphoric season of growth. After 20 years of being a passionate spirit-filled Christian, I am entering into a Christian practice and joy that I simply have never experienced. What has changed you may ask?

Let me give you a little background. If you have been reading this blog for long, you know that I constantly emphasize the need for changes in our Christian practice. I really believe we know enough of the bible but we lack a discipleship culture that leads us into the experience of the kingdom and of freedom that is our inheritance. I have contemplated “How to make disciples?” and I have been discipling Christians young and old through bible study and small groups for 15 years non-stop. I have lived in intentional community. I have attended cutting edge worship focused churches for years. I have been in conservative circles, Pentecostal circles, third wave circles, reformed circles. You name it I have enjoyed and prayed with the whole body of Christ.

Over the past 5 years, I have been contemplating the life of the disciples and their relationship with Jesus. I have come to the conclusion that the key to learning is to observe the life of another and to imitate and therefore, I have attempted to implement what I call “observation based discipleship” but it wasn’t until just recently that I have discovered a few keys to making the mentoring process work.

My renewal started when I asked myself a few basic questions:
1. If the job description of the church and the Christian is to make disciples then, who am I discipling? And who is discipling me? The sad answer to this question is that I am not effectively and consistently discipling anyone and being a pastor I am not being discipled by anyone. If this fact is true, and it is, then I am not doing my job. I am not getting the job done.
2. If discipleship is based on observation what areas of my life do I need to expose to a discipler and to anyone I am willing to disciple. The reality for me is that I think the discipleship relationship can be a mutual relationship of mutual observation of one another’s lives. The true break through was contemplating the areas that I as a leader need to expose.

True transparency, even in the context of a loving confidential friendship, was a fearful proposition. I am a pastor and are not pastors supposed to be “more mature” than most. But I know I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. My heart is filled with dead mans bones. But then it again hit me, we learn even the Spiritual truths of grace through the tactile context of grace filled relationships in the community of the church. Not only are skills like prayer and devotion or evangelism learned in community but spiritual truth like the grace of God are learned through the flesh and blood relationship of a no condemnation community. The forgiveness and grace of God is to be proclaimed to one another in the context of transparent confidential relationships. Confession in the context of a confidential discipleship relationship becomes the place of healing. So long the church has tried to teach people the love and grace of God by teaching contemplation and worship alone BUT the key is to model this grace and forgiveness in our relationships and specifically in our discipleship relationships.

So I have personally pressed into discipleship relationships. Though all these relationships are fundamentally peer relationships for we are all one in Christ, nonetheless, I have begun to cultivate such transparency with some spiritually “younger” than I and some spiritually “older” than I.

I have come to understand that the flip side of the doctrine of justification through faith is the practice of confidential transparent relationships where acceptance is assured and fear is driven out by unconditional love and the proclamation of forgiveness. Not only is the church to believe that there is no condemnation in Christ but the church is to become a “no condemnation zone”. It is in there discipleship relationships that we come in a tactile way to learn the grace and forgiveness of God proclaimed and experienced in the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Therefore my fourth Thesis is;
Thesis #4:
Since the job description of the church is to make disciples, a central aspect of community life must be loving discipleship relationships based on transparent accountability and which constitute a primary means, if not the primary means, of modeling authentic grace-based relationship.

A core aspect of the discipleship relationship is that of knowing and being known in the context of the living Christ and His word. Such relationships abide in an awareness of the Gospel of abiding and eternal forgiveness and the grace of God.
God Bless,
brad

Blog Swarm Update and Other Opportunities to Love the Least of These

Catez at Allthings2All is the hub of the Darfur blog swarm. Plese submit posts by Midnight EST this Sunday May 15th. More Info here.

Also, Tod Bolsinger is launching a long term development program in Malawi in cluding Child Sponsership with World Vision. Go to this link to support.

Both of these projects, the Blog Swarm for the crisis in Sudan and the long-term village/nation sponsership campaign at SCPC, are great examples of blogging for the world. Let's use the new media for the mobilization of the wealth of the West for the sake of the world.

Also, I am doing some discipleship with our kids. My children have decided they want to be "a missionary family". Also, my wife and I desire to disciple our children in the compassion of Christ. So I am doing a fun campaign called: "Pounds for Peacekeepers". I am going to give a sum of money for each pound I lose. So basically, "Daddy isn't eating dinner because he is losing weigh for the refugees in the Sudan" will become part of our dinner table ritual. Also, I weigh myself in the morning and then write a check if I lost any weight. The whole idea is to make compassion part of the culture of our home. Pretty cool lesson plan for this month in the on-going discipleship of our kids.
God Bless,
brad

Darfur, Our Children, and Matt 25

I am just beginning to educate myself regarding the on-going refugee and genocide crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

As well as learning about the current crisis, I am helping lead a parenting class at our church. In our parenting class, we discussed how would you want your children to answer the question, "My parents taught me ___________________". My wife and I agreed, we desire our kids to answer that question, "My parents taught me to be compassionate toward the poor". Even deeper than that my desire would be that the care for the poor would be central to our family's worship of Jesus.

Jesus said to the righteous in His parable of the sheep and the goats, "When I was naked, you clothed Me. When I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink."

So I have decided to take the following steps:
1. My wife and I are going to pre-screen, "Hotel Rwanda" tonight and see if it is a good video for my older children to watch.
2. I have ordered a copy of this video from "Human Rights Watch"
3. We will feed Jesus and clothe His nakeness by giving to World Vision here.
4. We will begin a new goal:

The Double Tithe Goal
I am going to challenge people to begin giving regularly above and beyond their normal giving to the church to give specifically to the poor and to development. As families, the goal is to live as simply as possible, before our children, and give all this extra savings to charity. What a beautiful way to make compassion a daily part of our worship life.

The situation in Darfur as far as I can tell is that the region is living under an often breached peace plan. The problem is that the region needs more African troops. To support the call by Human Rights Watch and others for more African troops in the Darfur region go here. Passion of the Present suggests that this is the best way to spend our dollars to help the stop the on-going genocide in Dafur. Students at Harvard in April had an Adopt a Peacekeeper Campaign using the above Genocide Intervetion Fund.

To help refugees with immediate needs go to World Vision.

God Bless,
brad

Darfur - Starting a Blog Storm

I am going to begin focusing the blogosphere's attention on Darfur, Sudan by findng and linking to other's who are seeking to bring attention to this on-going tragedy.
AllThings2All writes a post on the crayon drawings of Darfur children that show the pathos of the pain in this region.

A good information site is here.
And Here

As I learn more, I will post more.
My goal is to both raise awareness and to raise money. We would like to have a second relief concert this summer. If you know any bands that would like to play. Let me know.

Sin, the People of God, and the Gospel of Liberation

The most climactic and ecstatic chapter of all the bible is Romans 8. In Romans 8, Paul ends by declaring that the children of God will reign over all creation, and all of creation itself will be renewed as the reign of the children of God is revealed. Revolutionary stuff.

The context of this passage is that it is written to a small band of believers who live at the height of the hyper-optimism of Caesar worship and the Pax Romana. A modern example would be to think if Hitler won the war and was about 50 years into the 1000 year reign of the Third Reich. The uber-people, the Romans, had won all the wars and their megalomanic leaders were proclaiming themselves gods that could bring an eternal peace and prosperity to the Roman people. To this power drunk and victorious people, Paul and the Christians simply announced that these fascist Romans are crazy, pagan nutballs.

The early Christians refused to exercise any physical force but simply stood up heroically and proclaimed that Jesus was the true Lord and that freedom and liberty FROM SIN only came from Jesus. For this boldness, the Christians were killed.

I want you to think about this for just a second. As Paul proclaims Jesus as the Lord and true king with a mandate from God to deliver all mankind, he gives us the very personal story of Romans 7 and his personal struggle with sin.

So often when we think of our corporate mission, we think of the mission to proclaim the gospel. We think about our war against the culture and its powers. We think about evangelism, but Paul isn't talking about our mission to bring Christ to others but our mission to defeat sin. Liberation is always liberation from the sinfulness of this fallen age. The entire strength of our proclamation is that Jesus liberates from sin and that we are the liberated people who have been given a new life that the world cannot give us.

This being true, how empty is the Gospel if we do not actually possess victory over the enemy. It would be like going to an AA meeting and the guy who is sharing his experience, strength, and hope is drunk. That is what the church is like today when we do not have victory.

So, how strange it is that the church is not working to develop a new model, a new discipleship program, that leads the church into her victorious inheritance. How strange it is that our corporate identity is not that of the people who are learning the way of victory together and who walk in this glorious liberation from sin?

How do we come together then and the church function as the place where we are "putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit"? The great eschatological reality is that by the Spirit's power we possess salvation from sin. This liberation does not come from the law but from the Spirit. Yet, do you know the details of how we by the Spirit find this liberation? Does your church teach you the steps of this liberation from sin? Are you corporately finding this liberation and proclaiming it to the world?

These steps and the how to is for next time..
God Bless,
brad

Discipleship 101 - Putting to Death the Deeds of the Body BY THE SPIRIT

WARNING:Listen to this sermon at your own risk!(stream)! (download)
We have been discussing lately the vital need in the church for a discipleship methodology, a learning community, that is effective in bringing Christians into the new life and the new story of deliverance from all that ails us.

It is a huge paraigm shift in the church to begin to see that the process takes place, not between the individual soul and the Lord, but in the context of community. The bible has a word for this deliverance process being worked out in the context of community. It is called confession of sin (1 John 1:9)

Do you have a confidant to whom you are accountable? Do you have someone who you have confessed all your shortcomings and who knows your private life? Have you confessed and are you continually confessing the exact nature of your shortcomings and sins to this person? If yes, I will bet you are experiencing new life and a new deliverance. The body of Christ makes real to us all the deliverance we have in "theory". The body lives out the "no condemnation" reality which is true in the Spirit. The body makes forgiveness and the kingdom real.

Watch that 5th step. Its a doosie!!

Here is a sermon on the Path to Victory over Sin!!!! (stream) (download)

This sermon is the proclamation of all we have been discussing here regarding the "New 95 Theses Project"

God Bless,
brad

Thesis #4 - A General Solution

Over the last 10 days since I starts "The New 95 Theses" project, I have found that many of us have a strong tendency to jump to solution. I would like to say that I seriously doubt that any of us really have the solution. The reason I make this claim is because the nature of the problems I have outlined are problems of practice, and, therefore, the solution can only be seen as proven through implementation. In this case the proof is in the doing. Secondly, the problems I have outlined are community-wide problems. Therefore, the implementation of the solution is an implementation of leading a community into a new story of purity and moral beauty. So, needless to say, we are all traveling down this road together.

You Don't Learn Gymnastics that Way
If our problem was one of widespread misunderstandings of the creedal tenents of the trinity, then the solution might be mapped out and proven through the proofs of axioms and ideas, but the problems I have intentionally defined are purely in the realm of practices and behaviors. These problems of materialism, sexual sin, and marriage and divorce (just to name a few) are life skills. Such wisdom and solutions are only vindicated by their children. Here is a principle that is essential to approaching the problem correctly.

The practice of Christianity is learned more like gymnastics than geometry.

Most current approaches to teaching Christianity focus primarily on the disseminating of ideas or the publishing of concepts. Having the concept right is very important in spiritual growth, but it is not the missing link in the chain which will lead us to the effective learning of Christian practice. You see you don't learn gymnastics that way.

The True Love waits campaign is a perfect example. The assumption of the campaign is that if kids learn the standard of God's Word, understand the benefits of living according to God's Word, and then present themselves to obey God's word through faith in the Gospel, then more kids will actually prctice God's Word. BUT the fact is the methodology of the True Love Waits Campaign competely failed to generate purity. The entire campaign shows no statistical benefit. A pastor or leader seeking to find an answer to the problems of Christian practice must take responsibility for the actual outcomes of his or her efforts. In light of such facts, the anyone seeking to become a "wise master builder" must humbly re-evaluate the entire process. The conclusion must be that the design of a new discipleship process is necessary!!!

Why does knowledge of the truth and commitment to the truth not necessarily lead to actual practice? The answer is because you don't learn gymnastics that way!! If you don't learn gymnastics that way, then why would you expect to learn any other skill that way?

Could you imagine a coach teaching young gymnasts by saying, "Ok ,this is a video of a double back flip. This double back flip is a beautiful act of athletic prowess. Now raise your hand if you are committed to doing a double back flip."
All the hands raise, and then the coach just says, "Great. We have a meet tomorrow, and I expect you all to attempt double back flips".

"But I don't know how to do a double back flip. I don't even know how to do a single back flip or even a cartwheel for that matter. "

Taking such an approach to learning how to live in purity is no less foolish. This basic truth about learning true wisdom and Godliness leads us to our next thesis:

Thesis #4: The current culture of the church approaches discipleship from a generally academic perspective. The church does not possess a viable approach to discipleship which is effective in transforming the practices of the church.

The approach to discipleship which views the learning of the Christian life in the same way as learning history or mathematics is doomed to be forever ineffective because life skills are not learned in the realm of the mind alone. Instead, Christian practices are learned through a method which must include teaching and practicing new skills in the context of a coach who is an expert at the skill the student is attempting to learn. Such a method must look at the actual methods Jesus, the master disciple maker, used to transform His original disciples from conversion to trustworthy leadership.

God Bless,
brad

Thesis #3 - Shalom in the Home - Marriage and Divorce in the Church

In response to the problems I have noted in Thesis #1 and Thesis #2, many readers are offering solutions, but I do not believe that we can at this point pretend to have the answers to what ails the North American church. The fact of the matter is that as we look at the facts we can only come to one conclusion:
We need an...
EXTREME MAKEOVER - CHURCH EDITION
and we aren't talking about buildings!!!

The anemic witness of the North American church is part of all of our stories and is all of our responsibility. We are a people of unclean lips who live among a people of unclean lips. It is best for us simply to sit for a while in sackcloth and ashes and wait for wisdom. Leadership is needed. A word of clarity is needed. Such a word is a word that is most likely not spoken first with our mouths but is first spoken by our lives. To rebuild the age old wisdom, we must first live in the story of the new life for a season. Then, when our observable life is stunning, then we have the authority to speak to the rest of the body.

That being said, I would like to say a word about Marriage and the Evangelical.

Ron Sider in his book "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience" notes the harsh reality of evangelical marriage. We the church need to let these facts weigh heavy upon our hearts. Please read the following!!!!:
• Divorce:
In a 1999 national survey, George Barna found that the percentage of born-again Christians who had experienced divorce was slightly higher (26 percent) than that of non-Christians (22 percent).7 In Barna's polls since the mid-1990s, that number has remained about the same.8 In August 2001, a new poll found that the divorce rate was about the same for born-again Christians and the population as a whole; 33 percent of all born-again Christians had been divorced compared with 34 percent of non-born-again Americans—a statistically insignificant difference. Barna also found in one study that 90 percent of all divorced born-again folk divorced after they accepted Christ.9
Barna makes a distinction between born-again Christians and evangelicals. Barna classifies as born-again all who say "they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today" and who also indicate that they "believe that when they die they will go to heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior."10 In Barna's polls anywhere from 35 to 43 percent of the total U.S. population meet these criteria for being born-again.
Barna limits the term "evangelical" to a much smaller group—just 7 to 8 percent of the total U.S. population. In addition to meeting the criteria for being born-again, evangelicals must agree with several other things such as the following: Jesus lived a sinless life; eternal salvation is only through grace, not works; Christians have a personal responsibility to evangelize non-Christians; Satan exists. Obviously this definition identifies a much more theologically biblical, orthodox group of Christians.
What is the divorce rate among evangelicals? According to a 1999 poll by Barna, exactly the same as the national average! According to that poll, 25 percent of evangelicals—just like 25 percent of the total population—have gone through a divorce.11 Does it make no difference to evangelicals that their Lord and Savior explicitly, clearly, repeatedly condemned divorce?
"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." Matthew 19:4–6 (NRSV)
Professor Brad Wilcox is a Princeton-trained, Christian sociologist who specializes in family issues. Wilcox has studied two sets of national data: The General Social Survey and The National Survey of Families and Households. The result? "Compared with the rest of the population, conservative Protestants are more likely to divorce." He also points out the divorce rates are higher in the southern U.S., where conservative Protestants make up a higher percentage of the population than elsewhere in the country.12
A story in the New York Times in 2001 underlined Wilcox's findings about the unusually high divorce rates in the South. In many parts of the Bible Belt, the divorce rate was discovered to be "roughly 50 percent above the national average" (italics mine).13 Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma pointed out the irony that these unusually high divorce rates exist in his state, where 70 percent of the people go to church once a week or more. "These divorce rates," Gov. Keating concluded, "are a scalding indictment of what isn't being said behind the pulpit."

Could it be that making a commitment to Jesus Christ makes no difference in the most important area of life - our relationship with our spouse? We can point to any number of causes. We can blame men. We can blame women. We can blame pastors. We can blame the world and the flesh and the devil. But none of this blaming will help us to turn these trends around.

The fact of the matter is this: People are going to church and going home and fighting and arguing. These people are not equipped with the tools to get themselves into a joyful marriage. Worse than this where is the church as these marriages fall apart?

My father always told me, "In the church there should be no broken fences". What this means is that if a single mother had a broken fence, the church would know about it and fix it. How much more is this principle applicable to the church??!!??

Pastor, did you visit a hurting couple today? Does your church have divorces where both members are church members? Does our churches have discipleship groups for couples? Is it working?
Before reading these facts, I must admit, I had no idea that divorce was so prevalent in the church

Do you argue with your spouse? Are you getting counseling from your pastor? Do you have an accountable relationship where people see and speak to you about your marriage?

Thesis #3: The church does not have a discipleship process that is effective to lead people into the Kingdom of God in their marriages. The church is not discipling married people in to the ways of peace and Shalom in the Home. The fact is that divorce is as common among believers as it is among non-believers. This lack of a discipleship process that is effective undermines the testimony that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and that Jesus Christ is the savior from the bondage of sin.

The church must unite to solve these problems, or we cannot expect to be salt and light to our culture. The need for reformation is urgent.
God Bless,
brad

Update: continue to Thesis #4 - A General Solution
And the sermon that was the result of this week's blogs.

The New Monastic

Summer (Gideon Strauss's daughter) has asked "what would a new monastic life look like?" in the comments to Gideons post on the need for a new monasticism.

Just this weekend I made what I hope to be a monumental decision to begin living this monastic life in earnest. I make many such decisions and do not follow through BUT I have asked others to hold me accountable this time so I think this time may be different.


Here is the question I ask. What areas of life do i wish to model to the men I wish to disciple? To this I answer:
1. Devotional life
2. Family Life:
a. managing the home with my wife
b. educating my children
c. times of playing and learning other skills together
3. Doing missionary work in our neighborhood and beyond
4. The one on one discipleship process itself.

If you are a pastor or a leader, can you model these areas of your life to others so as they could live with you and would learn a new way of life that manifests the kingdom of God? This is the new monasticism!!!

John Wimber used to say with respect to gifts, "Everyone gets to play". The 21st Century Reformation will happen where there is a monastic style of discipleship where, likewise, "Everyone gets to play"
God help us dig deep as we build high,
God Bless,
brad

Benedict and Francis

Blue Goldfish points us to the role of the MONASTIC. I agree 100%. I would add that Francis of Assisi is the greatest monastic leader. I am convinced that the rediscovery of how to live the gospel as a "religious" community is the key to the 21st Century Reformation.

Gideon Strauss quotes Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue with this quote:
A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of the imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead - often not recognizing fully what they were doing - was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without ground for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a God, but for another - doubtless very different - St. Benedict.

It is for precisely this reason that the call is not so urgent to save the political realm from its fallenness, but the urgent and vital task, the task at hand, is to shore up the church. The renewal of the church is a foundational necessity that MUST precede the preservation of civility (i.e. civilization). If the church does not take serious the need for reformation, if the church loses it's saltiness, how can the church renew the culture?
God help us as we dig deep and seek to build high,
God Bless,
brad

Humility 2 - Owning My Responsibility

I am on a business trip and actually this allows for more prayer time than at home.

This morning I was contemplating my next sermon on Romans 6 and "no longer letting sin reign in your mortal bodies". My sermon is on the "How to do this".
My thought was that the church doesn't teach often how to do this putting off. Paul later explains the process as "if we by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh". The question is:

Has anyone ever explained this process to you?
Do you think the leaders in our churches know how to teach others how to do this putting off and ultimately bring others to victory?
If an addict came to you, could you lead him to victory and liberation?
If a person was struggling in their marriage with arguing, could you teach them, over say 6 months, how to find self-control and the means to be delivered from the impulse to anger?

If we can't do these basic discipleship tasks, are we making disciples?

I think that we might be able to get folks baptized and into the church but becoming a Christian isn't leading many of them into the life of the Son of God. Many enter the church but few are entering the kingdom life. Is this true? If it is, could it be that this is what Jesus meant when he said,

"You will travel around the world to make a convert, but when they convert they become twice the son of hell that you are." - ??
GUILTY AS CHARGED.

Thesis #2 - Looking at Ron Sider's "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience"

If you didn't read yesterday's post, Humility and the 95 Theses Project please do before reading this post. I feel that post was important to this project.

Today's post:
Bloggers spent about 2-3 days reporting on Ron Sider’s book and the related article in CT - "The Scandal of the Evangelical ConscienceWhy don't Christians live what they preach"? Did you miss it??

Just a few notes: What really is important in the world and the church? What alarms us and gets the church and Christians praying and writing and talking? The problems Sider addresses are the real problems and facts Christians need to stare in the face. Let's contemplate our priorities and our attention span.

From the statistics Sider sites, I come up with my
Thesis #2:
The church in North America is not providing the believer a life of discipleship which liberates the 21st Century Christian from sexual sin.

(note:I do not think this wording will be the final wording nor will this be the order of the theses as I think statements on "being a disciple" and "kingdom" need to be stated early on under which this thesis will be a sub-thesis.) - John at Blogotional has submitted a thesis regarding making kingdom a priority.

Sider runs down a litany of statistics that show that American Christians lack moral distinction from the world to which we are called to call minister to.

The Witness of the Church and Cultural Renewal
Sider’s theory is the same as mine and the same as Jesus’. Basically, our salt has lost its saltiness and, therefore, we are getting trounced in the culture.
Sider says:
If Christians do not live what they preach, the whole thing is a farce. "American Christianity has largely failed since the middle of the twentieth century," Barna concludes, "because Jesus' modern-day disciples do not act like Jesus." This scandalous behavior mocks Christ, undermines evangelism, and destroys Christian credibility.

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

Sexual Disobedience
Sider’s writing:
Popular evangelical speaker Josh McDowell has been observing and speaking to evangelical youth for several decades. I remember him saying years ago that evangelical youth are only about 10 percent less likely to engage in premarital sex than nonevangelicals.
True Love Waits, a program sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention, is one of the most famous evangelical efforts to reduce premarital sexual activity among our youth. Since 1993, about 2.4 million young people have signed a pledge to wait until marriage to engage in sexual intercourse. Are these young evangelicals keeping their pledges? In March 2004, researchers from Columbia University and Yale University reported on their findings. For seven years they studied 12 thousand teenagers who took the pledge. Sadly, they found that 88 percent of these pledgers reported having sexual intercourse before marriage; just 12 percent kept their promise. The researchers also found that the rates for having sexually transmitted diseases "were almost identical for the teenagers who took pledges and those who did not."

Barna found from a 2001 poll that cohabitation—living with a member of the opposite sex without marriage—is only a little better among born-again adults than the general public. Nationally, 33 percent of all adults have lived with a member of the opposite sex without being married. The rate is 25 percent for born-again folk.

These facts cannot be denied. Therefore, it follows that:
Thesis #2:
The church is not providing a life of discipleship which liberates the 21st Century Christian from sexual sin.

As I wrote yesterday,
I am aware that there are many causes and suggested causes but I think we simply need to simply allow the weight of the problems to sit in our hearts for awhile. Time will come for analysis and solutions. For now lets just sit before the Lord and cry out:
"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips..."
brad
God Bless,
brad

Humility and Problem Definition - The Heart of the "New 95 Theses Project"

Isaiah 6:5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips..."

I have begun asking myself a very specific question with a very specific deliverable as the questions answer.
The question: What are the most vital areas that we the church are in need of change?
The deliverable: How can these vital few areas be expressed in a series of theses in much the same way as Luther presented his call to reformation?

Prophetic or Pathetic
Immediately in even asking such a question, my mind is filled with caution. First, there are a million critics in the church. We all, if we have spent any time in the evangelical churches, have met the dissatisfied. We hear calls that, "The church doesn't pray enough"; "the church is Laodicean"; "church leaders are controlling and we need to break down the barriers between clergy and laity". Or we hear the basic consumeristic criticism, "The worship is too slow"; "The worship is too fast"; "The preacher preaches too long"; "The sermon wasn;t biblical"; "I like application"; "I like expositional preaching"...

Two problems with criticism:
1. Prescribing solutions. It is a poor strategy in implementing change to act like an armchair quarterback. Problems are always far more complex than we usually assume. Before we prescribe solutions, we need to have dialogue on what the problems really are.
2. Taking ownership. Being disgruntled is not a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Humility on the other hand is the spring from which all virtue flows. God gives grace to the humble. I have discovered the problem and it is me. "I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips".

I have a few suggestions:

Defining the Problem
1. Start with facts. I say here "start" with facts. Most of the comments of criticism that is made regarding the state of the church is of the "if we all got together and did this or that the church would meet its mission or be the church according to God's plan". Such statements are solutions. Solutions are not anywhere so simpler. If we are to have a discussion that could generate change, the discussion cannot start with solutions. Instead it is vital just to gather the facts and make clear simple statements that define the problem. At this initial stage, simply looking at the facts as they actually are is very helpful.

2. Be very precise about the real problem. Throughout church history men have attempted to define "what are the distinguishing marks of true religion". Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is the quintessential example of being precise about the real problem. Take Matt. chapter 7 as an example. Is a lack of evangelism the problem? Should we go "door to door" like the Jehovah's Witnesses? Well , Jesus says no. In fact, many will call Jesus 'Lord' and do great ministries and yet not know God at all and are actually "doers of iniquity". Jesus says instead "the wise man is the one who obeys these commandments (the things of the Sermon on the Mount) and teaches others to do them". Jesus is saying true righteousness is not always what we expect. Beware of religious forms and miss the true areas that need salvation. What areas of change are really needed? How can we be prophetic to really take the vital signs of the church and not just be spewing forth opinions and brokenness?

So let’s be slow and objective!!

Next post. I will o a little round up of other bloggers who are blogging on the "New 95 Theses Project"
God Bless,
brad

Business Trip this Week - Light Blogging

I might post from my hotel room, but I doubt it. I will work on the "95 Theses Project" or organizing my Morally Beautiful Community book out of posts from this blog.

The New 95 Theses Project - Bloggers and ADD

Evangelical outpost had an article on blogging as a short attention span media. Every day, the topics change. Well, my hope is to create a wave of bloggers looking to create a bit of a "new 95 Theses". This project will require a long attention span and a bit of community dialogue. I think the purpose is to describe the problem. The Theses do not give solutions but simply give problem definitions. Having agreed on the various objective problems, can not bloggers and chuch leaders get together to in unity solve some of these issues which disgrace the name of our Lord?

Blue created a new 21 theses. These are written similar to Luther's which are all related on a general topic. Because I think what is needed is pretty far reaching, I would summerize Blue's Theses into a few Theses. His main issues are the substitution of entertainment for worship and the money that is spent to maintain such entertaining enterprizes.
God Bless,
brad

I Have Been Liberated from My Political Exile

After reading this post on Civil Political Discourse from Through a Glass Darkly,
I think I just figured out why I do not blog politics.
1. I think church renewal is the real root of our societal problems BUT
2. The above post emphasizes that Christians need to remain humble and civil in all political discourse. This is my reluctance. Politics is simply not very gracious and to me spirituality is so much about being humble and gracious.
I will post on this later from the teachings of Jesus, but, in the meantime, read this great post.
God Bless,
brad

What a Beautiful Thing This Would Be

A fulfilled Jew as Pope.

Link to Under the Acacias - Series on Justice

Does this call today from Keith, a missionary in Burkina Faso, sound familiar.

Do We Really Need a 21st Century Reformation?

I am proposing that Christian bloggers and leaders take a deep look at the problems and opportunities facing the church(below). Jesus says we are "the light of the world". Paul proclaimed, "you are dead to sin..."

BUT the statistics show the church just isn't reaping the benefits of the "power of God unto salvation"....See Wesley Blog's review of statistics from Ron Sider's new book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience
Let's not be scared of the truth. Let's face the truth face to face..(John 14:6)

A New 95 Theses - A Short List in the Making

Blue over at Blue Goldfish has started the discussion by asking the question:
How can the various (Christian) bloggers and church leaders create a basic list for changes (i.e. a 21st Century Reformation) that we do agree on?"

So reading Tod Bolsinger's post this morning, I decided the reformation can start right here by joining together to do the mission here. This first bullet is not necessarily the most foundational of all the needs for change in the church but it is the one I am moved to emphasize today.

My list of one so far...(94 to go) is this:
Thesis #1. The church is not morally distinct with respect to love for those suffering around the world. Our witness is diluted by our materialism and the quest for economic security. We call the churches to engage the problem of poverty and development as a witness to the Love of Christ and our faith in His provision for us as His children. Therefore, we risk our own economic security for the immediate needs of others and to help secure the economic security of those who are in greater imminent danger of the loss of life's most basic provisions of food and shelter.

What is your short list?
Let's start the revolution..Pray for the reformation and join together with others who are already doing the stuff. I personally am going to ask Tod B. how I can get involved.
God Bless,
brad

Art, Technology, and the Story

Tod Bolsinger just got back from Malawi. He tells a great story about watching the Jesus Film in a village he visited. It is encouraging to see people respond and participate in the telling of the story. My question then is "How do we create art that is fresh and elicits such a response in our entertainment saturated culture?" This is a great challenge. I saw U2 last weekend and was challenged again. I believe the church has the gifting to create art that is easily as engaging as U2. I am being challenged to pick-up my guitar again and start writing fresh music.

I even went out and bought a drum machine to inspire my creativity. For me, it is all about the emotive quality of rhythms and the power of new technology to create fresh rhythmic textures. Also, the church needs to fully embrace the ability of digital audio to move air and create huge phat bottom end impact.

We are called to be excellent in every area of life and the our cultural artifacts can express our message of the GOOD with all the ingenuity of our God given talents. Worship the Lord with all our hearts, all our souls and all our technological and tool making minds.
brad

What Makes us Distinct - Presenting Yourself to God as a Slave of Righteousness

In Romans 6, Paul, in light of who we are through our identification with the death and resurrection of Christ, exhorts us to " offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness." Again Paul explains to the believer that we "have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."

Christians have a different status with respect to sin and righteousness than the world. Mankind is caught in eternal struggle between his desire to do good and his capacity for evil .

We are altogether free with respect to sin and free to live as righteous people. BUT it seems that so often and certainly as young believers we completely miss the heart of God as to the heart of righteousness.

What Righteousness is Not
Success vs. Failure
Is righteousness defined as the freedom to say no to addiction so that you can save your money better than the proverbial Jones'? Certainly, no longer following youthful lusts is a big plus, but many, I dare say most, unbelievers have the same life pattern too. We experiment as kids, and then, when the responsibilities of life come upon us, we grow up and put childish things behind us. For those who have a history of failure in life or were born in poverty, freedom from oppression and poverty seems like the promised land, and the temptation to call this liberation the freedom Christ promises is very emotionally seductive. Succeeding in life is still not yet righteousness. Success is better than failure no doubt, but Jesus didn't set us free from failure to make us alive to success. Jesus died to set us free from our sinful nature to make us alive to righteousness. So what is righteousness?

I could go on and on about confusing the American dream with the promised land. The cry of the urban poor and the global realities call us to a righteousness far greater than just being free to succeed. To hear the call to righteousness, we must put the call to succeed behind us and press on to the upward call.

Making the Good Confession with our Words
Is being Righteous maintaining our good confession? Bob, at Mr Steadfast, posted a few days back on the value of our testimony that "Jesus is the Son of God". This testimony is a great and valuable pearl. The testimony is a light to the world. But is this the light we are to shine? At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, from which we get the call to be lights to the world. Jesus warns us that confessing "Jesus is Lord" is not in and of itself a commendable service to His cause. Ain't that the truth!!! Jesus closes by saying, "He who hears THESE commandments and puts them into practice..this one is like the man who built his house on the rock." So to be righteous and to present ourselves to God as His instruments does not mean to carry the confession in our words. To talk the talk can be obnoxious to others, and to God too, without a presentation of righteousness. So witnessing with our words is not the distinctive quality of righteousness that can be considered presenting ourselves to God as His instrument of righteousness.

What about shunning the culture around us?
I have an on-going discussion with G. over at Blue Goldfish. I like System of a Down and Morrissey and I wish we could play music like both in church. I am a total music junky. I am downloading my Stiff Little Finger's CDs onto my iPod as I write. (I am switching over to "The Buzz*&^%" as I write.). So am I worldly because I like the cultural artifacts of the world. Paul says it is nothing to enjoy the by-products of idol worship. Paul literally says it is no big deal to eat meat sacrificed to idols. Think about that. We eat the Lord's Supper. This symbol is holy and to some has power in and of itself. To a pagan, such a mystical connection to a magical substance was an easy leap to make. But Paul says, "Nope, the meat is nothing. Eat it if you like. Now if there are still superstitious Christians around you who can't make the leap to put all this superstitious thinking behind them then eat the idol meat at home. But certainly the meat isn't actually unclean."

What a great analogy to music. To some, System or Morrissey is just pure devil music. Both groups are into eastern mysticism and certainly Moz isn’t voting the family values ticket. But, just because one likes the artifacts of Satan worshippers doesn't mean one is worshipping Satan. In fact, their Angus is just sometimes better than our Angus. Certainly, when it comes to music, this is true.

So, shunning the cultural artifacts of the world isn't worldliness, and burning all your old Black Flag records isn't the path to righteousness. Trust me. I know this from personal experience.

So the question remains, what is righteousness and what does it mean to be a distinct light in the world? Well that will have to wait for tomorrow.
God Bless,
brad

Christians Ethics in a Pluralistic Society - Evangelical Outpost

I am going to enter this essay contest at Evangelical Outpost. I entered Joe's last symposium and did rather well. This time I am going to write either on my own anabaptist and pietistic emphasis on the renewal of the church as the primary means of Christian influence, or I will write on the role of values in the "values-based company". I work for a values-based company that is obviously influenced by either American civil religion or maybe even east coast presybeterian Calvinism.
Maybe you should write an essay too.
God Bless,
brad

Our Identification with the Resurrection of Christ and Our Sense of Ourselves

We are currently in our church working out what it means to participate in the Victory of God accomplished through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Tomorrow, I will attempt to preach this theme from Paul's explanation of baptism as our union and identification with the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul is saying that in the Gospel event, the cross and resurrection, God has delivered His people, the people of faith, from sin and granted then new people a new life.

This new identity as people delivered from sin and delivered from the problem inherited in Adam is not given solely to Jews and it is not racially bound but is to ALL who believe.

Christians are to have an identity as people delivered from the bondage not of Egypt or Rome or some other political tyranny or slavery but delivered from Sin, the real enemy of our communities and our families.

As a Christian and a father, my children can be raised to understand this Christian identity as those delivered through faith from sin and its system, the world, to righteousness and its "system", the kingdom of Christ. My point in writing this post is two-fold:
1. This message is radical. This message of a people delivered by the covenant keeping creator God is a message that proclaims people of faith to be different. This message invades every area of life. It demands that I reckon this reality so in my thought life, at my dinner table, in my attitudes toward my fellow man and woman, that in everything I am to be morally and spiritually distinct.
2. This message is a message of a radically new consciousness of self. Such an awareness is more caught than taught. Our Christian sub-culture should model this newness in all our saying and doing. For my children to possess this righteous identity that is distinctive and to be able to walk in this awareness requires a culture that models this reality. It is for the sake of my children and their identity people who are kind must be known through a testimony of kindness in our people. For my children to identify a love for all people as their own, we must be a people who love in a manner that is distinctive and all inclusive. For my children to not enter the mind driven by self-preservation, we must be a people who think of others well-being and not our own. Such a proclamation of our identity in Christ calls for radical church renewal.
3. My new personhood in Christ, my new life, is an essential static, immutable, reality. Life itself and my dullness makes living in this reality in the dynamics of life easier said than done. Paul will answer this plaguing dilemma by introducing the need for the Spirit in our daily, dynamic life. Nonetheless, the unchanging foundation of my new identity is as unchanging as the reality of my past baptism and, upon this reality, we build our life of victory.
4. A proper identification with the resurrection of Christ is displayed also in an identification with His suffering. The crux of any display of moral deliverance is in one's response to suffering in this life. The one who is truly delivered from sin is also delivered from the drive to preserve self. To follow after Christ and enter into His life through our identification with His cross and resurrection is to "take up our cross". We are called to display this moral distinction in our ability to love and love while we suffer. This love while suffering is what is impossible in the flesh. Love of friends and fellow-thieves is easy. Even Mafioso's and gangsters do the same. But love of those who get in the way of our quest for personal power and success, this type of love is a daily battle.
So where do we go from here...How did we as a people fall so far from this reality?

Are we to proclaim such a fundamental deliverance and newness through faith in Jesus Christ? Has Jesus Christ set His people free from sin? I believe this is the message of the gospel. How do we go about becoming a people who identify ourselves and truly reckon such a reality to be so.
God Bless,
brad

Did I forget to Mention I saw U2 last Weekend - Review

Well, the worship band members and I went to see U2 on Saturday night last weekend. As you can imagine, it was glorious. I would like to make a few simple comments here:
1. Bono comes across as very likable and not pretentious at all. He is in my mind the greatest pop musician of all time. He handles his success with incredible grace and, more importantly, has leveraged his fame to promote the welfare of the poorest of the poor. His voice is obviously the best, but we all know that. One funny thing though is "that boy's booty is broken". The man cannot dance. LOL
2. The positive vibe of U2 is just to die for. When I started my first band after becoming a Christian, I wanted to make music that was inspiring and moving but also beautiful. U2 is the great example of making music that is inspiring and emotive but also points to the GOOD. They are a great inspiriation that a musician doesn't have to sell out to the lowest common denominator of human nature to fill arenas and be artistic. God bless these guys.
3. Edge is the greatest. The Edge's guitar tone (learn how to re-create his tone here) makes the band just sound fantastic live. His sound has that beautiful chime, and all that delay fills the hall so well. Also, his sense of melody and his skill at playing memorable lines just comes through wonderfully live. Bono's lyrics and Edge's tone are just a match made in heaven. Here, the tonal qualities match so well the theme of the music. Knowing how they usually work in the studio, it is, I believe, often the tone that creates the inspiration for the lyric. Bono usually starts to sing and write lyric AFTER the groove is already being laid down. This fact in itself is a testament to the power of music to have a directional influence for good.

I hope all you worship leaders out there are listening. Excellence and craft is vital to moving and inspiring a congregation toward positive and productive moral action.
God Bless,
brad

A Mountaintop Experience with Poverty - Bring it All Back Home

Tod Bolsinger is visiting Malawi on a missions trip with World Vision and other church members and churches. In today’s post, he quotes, Charles Ringma, Dare to Journey with Henri Nouwen:
Henri) Nouwen reminds us that ‘being poor is what Jesus invites us to, and that is much, much harder than serving the poor.’ If we wish to journey with the poor, we need to become poor ourselves—poor for the sake of the gospel and poor for the sake of our neighbor…at a deeper level.

This quote raises an essential question for Christians, "Is there a beatific blessedness in becoming poor?" Before we respond with a defensive and superficial "No!!" let us examine what might be a good or gospel poverty that indeed can be a means of living morally beautiful lives.

1. Poverty itself isn't beautiful. Involuntary poverty is certainly neither a virtue nor a free pass to blessedness.
2. By becoming poor, Nouwen means becoming incarnational with the suffering of the world and even one's own various forms of poverty. Becoming poor isn't a private virtue but a public and relational act of relating to the evil of the world. You cannot have this beatific life without having compassion as the core virtue of this spiritual discipline of "gospel poverty". Gospel poverty is not simply simplicity.
3. Can one be incarnational with the poor and live luxuriously?

Looking at this quest for the heart of God and a new monastic witness to shine forth in the church, we must take these questions very seriously. Personally, a life of compassion is a life I need to seriously contemplate. How to I enter such a life? How can this life of compassion be the rhythm of my family and the DNA of our church? What changes do I need to make to lead others into this Morally Beautiful life?
God Bless,
brad

This Makes Blogging all Worth It

I met a new friend, and fellow blogger, over the weekend. His blog is follow the sheperd.
This fellow blogger visited our church this weekend as a bit of a test to see if our little church is really into comunity like I suggest on this blog. Well, his story is quite encouraging. Thanks, Newton, you made my day.
God Bless,
brad

More than Conquerors - Reflections on the Death and Dying of Pope John Paul II

It is true that it is Christ who is our champion. Christ is our "Joe Louis", our hero, and we are called to indentify with the victory of Christ. But often, God gives us men and women of who are examples to us of how to identify with the suffering and the victory of Christ. The Pope, John Paul II, was a glorious example of how to both identify with the suffering of the world and in all this be more than a conqueror just like our Lord Jesus Christ.

For a billion Catholics, John Paul II was the Malcolm X and the Joe Louis of their faith. He was a radient example of what it means to be a Christian.

In death, John Paul II died with dignity and strength. He told us all that this life is not all there is, but, even in the end of this life, there can be victory.
Paul likewise was such an example of dignity in suffering. Hear Paul's testimony in Romans 8:
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is victory speaking in the midst of gospel suffering, suffering for the sake of the world.
Hear the Gospel again in the example of Paul:
7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this allsurpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. 15All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

The Pope John Paul II exemplified all of this victory and faith in his living, in his dying, in his sickness and, ultimately, in his death. May all Christians see in this man an example of living the story of the Gospel and becoming the Gospel for the sake of the world.

God Bless, brad

The Hebrew Narrative and the Proclamation of Paul

I am very tempted to quote a huge portion of N.T. Wright’s “The New Testament and the People of God” where he explains Paul’s story and Paul’s use of the Jewish story as the framework for his telling of the Gospel.

Wright’s argument at this point is to show that the earliest 1st century writings are essentially a retelling of the Jewish story and flows from the Hebrew worldview. To Wright, one’s worldview and one’s understanding of the story of history are two sides of the same coin. For example, the enlightenment story is one of the progress of human freedom as a result of the ascendancy of human reason. This is the modern story and this story makes up the modern worldview.

To understand the mind of the New Testament and therefore the mind of normative Christianity, we need to understand the narrative context of the preaching of the Gospel in the first century. In so doing, we come to understand the worldview of normative Christianity. This process of discovering the New Testament faith is the protestant tradition of sola scriptura. The prototype of the new testament faith is the foundation laid by the apostles, and to understand the faith of the first century Christians and the theology of the New Testament we must understand the relationship between the text, the implied story, and worldview.

Well, to make a short story long, I am going to attempt to make a small little quote and then place it in it's context followed by my foolish and ecstatic commentary.

So here is the quote, “Paul’s theology only makes sense within a large-scale retelling of the essentially Jewish story, seen now from the point of view of one who believes that the climactic moment has already arrived, and that the time to implement the great achievement is already present”.

So what is the “essentially Jewish story”?

Here is Wright's answer to hat question from the context of the above quote:
“Torah holds out to Israel life and death, prosperity and exile, and then (in Deuteronomy 30) speaks of new life on the other side of exile/death. Israel chose exile/death; the prophets warned that this would happen, and happen it did. Again, Paul is on common ground with his kinsmen according to the flesh. But again he subverts the Jewish story from within. (Note here how N.T. Wright starts sentences with the word “But” just like I do – LOL. I am experiencing grammatical liberation. Now if he would just leave in all the typos in the published text I would be in blog heaven)…(back to the quote)…

The end of this exile, and the real return, are not now future events to be experienced in terms of a cleansed Land, a rebuilt temple, and an intensified Torah. The exile came to it’s cataclysmic end when Jesus, Israel’s representative Messiah, died outside the walls of Jerusalem, bearing the curse, which existed in exile at the hands of the pagans, to its utmost limits. The return from exile began when Jesus, again as representative Messiah, emerged from the tomb three days later. As a result, the whole complex of Jewish expectations as to what would happen when the exile finished had come tumbling out in a rush. Israel’s God had poured out His own spirit on all flesh; His word was going out to all nations; He had called into being a new people composed of all races and classes, and both sexes, without distinction. …Paul’s theology only makes sense within a large-scale retelling of the essentially Jewish story, seen now from the point of view of one who believes that the climactic moment has already arrived, and that the time to implement the great achievement is already present”.

The fulfillment of this expectation is key to the understanding of the new life presented in the Good News. How anathema to the life of normative Christianity it is when we lack faith that the time to implement the great achievement is already present. How often I hear the unbelief of our hearts saying, "the testimony of scripture is that we will always return to exile and failure". Has the great victory of God occured in the cross of Christ or not? The very cancer of the curse has been removed from the society of the church. What then is the great achievement other than the building up of the people of God to be that city set on a hill?

How great a diversion it is to attempt to build upon a foundation other than the one built by the apostles which is the story of the Gospel and the People of God. Oh, how I long for a church, even a church as small as my own family, that lives not in the residue of Adam but the newness of a people of the presence of our God.

Paul's theology cannot be understood outside the context of his life story, the story of the People of God and, therefore, Paul's foundational worldview. Paul is not a gnostic ideologue or a stoic philosopher nor a politician. Paul is a Hebrew prophet and a New Testament Apostle. His vision is understood, and His work and the life of the church is understood, in this context of building Morally Beautiful Community. This task always has been the work of the Hebrew prophet and the New Covenant missionary, a task in which all Christians are called to co-labor.

God Bless,
brad