A Ministry Parable

This little poem by Charles Osgood used to hang on my paternal grandmother's fridge back in the day. Worth remembering when it comes to ministry in the church...

There was a most important job that needed to be done,

And no reason not to do it, there was absolutely none.
But in vital matters such as this, the thing you have to ask
Is who exactly will it be who'll carry out the task?

Anybody could have told you that Everybody knew
That this was something Somebody would surely have to do.
Nobody was unwilling; Anybody had the ability.
But Nobody believed that it was their responsibility.

It seemed to be a job that Anybody could have done,
If Anybody thought he was supposed to be the one.
But since Everybody recognized that Anybody could,
Everybody took for granted that Somebody would.

But Nobody told Anybody that we are aware of,
That he would be in charge of seeing it was taken care of.
And Nobody took it on himself to follow through,
And do what Everybody thought that Somebody would do.

When what Everybody needed so did not get done at all,
Everybody was complaining that Somebody dropped the ball.
Anybody then could see it was an awful crying shame,
And Everybody looked around for Somebody to blame.

Somebody should have done the job
And Everybody should have,
But in the end Nobody did
What Anybody could have.

A Warning for my Reformed Brethren

I'm a reformed pastor. I use the small "r" because I do not find myself fitting comfortably in the capital "R" reformed tradition, since I believe in believer's baptism, pre-tribulational, pre-millennial eschatology, and a future for ethnic Israel as the restored "natural branches" who will return to God after the times of the Gentiles are completed (Rom. 11).

That said, I find a lot to enjoy among my "big R" brethren. I find their commitments to the inerrant Scriptures, the doctrines of grace, and the revelation of Christ in all the Scriptures refreshing in our mushy evangelical world. I love their appreciation for church history and the consequent realization that the Christian life did not begin and will not end with them. I love the emphasis on expository preaching as the way which brings the Scripture to life such that God is allowed to speak old words to new days. I have attended and deeply benefited from their conferences (Together for the Gospel and the Gospel Coalition) and look forward to going again the future for soul refreshment and the encouragement that only comes from the Word of God faithfully preached and the fellowship of the saints.

That said, I am deeply concerned about some of the things I see in the broader Cool Calvinists movement:

1. The inability to disagree in an irenic way. I see this in everything from John MacArthur's well-publicized theological shiv for those who disagree with him on alcohol use to the commenters on the average theology blog, most of which comments I can no longer read for this very reason. There simply has to be some setting between "not a big deal" and "bury the needle." The sky is not falling nor is someone a hypocrite, a false teacher, or a heretic simply because he or she disagrees with you. This is closely related to #2, which is...
2. Pride. We who hold to the doctrines of grace are right about many important things, but it is simply arrogance to assume we are personally correct about them all. We do well to remember that we are not the definition of theologically orthodoxy, nor does disagreement with me (whoever "me" is) equal departure from "the faith once for all delivered to all the saints."
3. Exclusion. I never cease to find it odd that while Reformed Charismatics like C.J. Mahaney and Mark Driscoll are welcomed, Reformed Dispensationalists are the treated like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. Chuck Swindoll, Chip Ingram, Tommy Nelson, and others of like mind do not appear anywhere, but James McDonald was a headliner prior to that unfortunate Elephant Room business. Which is weird, to say the least. We shun those who could be reliable friends when we need them and we are limiting the potential unifying effect of what could be a much broader and deeper movement to renew evangelicalism.

These are worrisome not just because they involve sinful attitudes and behaviors, but because, if they are not corrected, I fear that the broader movement will fall apart just as it begins to have real influence and is most needed. Indeed, I fear it is already happening.

On politics and religion

Jonah Goldberg is not a Christian. I don't know what his faith commitments are, though my guess would be some variety of Conservative (as opposed to Orthodox or Reform) Jewish. Regardless, his comments from today's G-File are among the best and most reflective that I've read anywhere about the role politics currently plays in modern American life. Here's the meatiest part:

 If you clear the public square of what we traditionally call religion -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism etc. -- we will not have a public square free of religion. We have a public square full of religion fighting under the false flag of "secular values" -- with no opposing sources of moral authority to resist it.

The utopianism, millenarianism and radical egalitarianism at the emotional core of liberalism are fundamentally religious in nature. That doesn't mean liberalism is evil or totalitarian. But it is less than totally self-aware. The nice thing about traditional religion is you know where it comes from. The unwritten faith of liberalism masquerades in the costumes of modernity, progress, social justice and the like without recognizing that liberalism requires leaps of faith, too.

Liberalism's lack of self-knowledge about its nature makes it very powerful and very dangerous. Liberals can simply claim -- without seeming like they're lying, because they actually believe it -- that they are cold, rational presenters of fact and decency. Comte's "religion of humanity" has forgotten that it is a religion at all. But forgetting something doesn't make it any less real. Wile E. Coyote forgets there's no land underneath him. His ignorance doesn't keep him aloft.

This is how the New Class of experts and helping professions become secular priests of a wholly political religion. We confuse credentials for ordinations, regression analyses for consecrations. And without a conception of a higher authority, without a more enduring and transcendent dogma to inform our consciences, we are left following the captains of rudderless ships leading us to ruin.

Matt Chandler on Christian Dating

Sometimes, you run across something which perfectly encapsulates your thoughts. I have long believed that Christian dating has gotten really weird. I don't know when this happened, but some of us are not far from advocating something like temporary monasticism absent miraculous intervention. Here's Pastor Matt Chandler of Village Church in Dallas, a godly man I respect on the topic:

Soup Kitchens and Salvation, Part 3 (of 3)

I am passionate about evangelism. I don't apologize for this because I believe that people really do have the opportunity to either receive the new life that is found through faith in Christ or else spend eternity separated from Him. And if God is using me as a herald, warning people to flee the wrath to come, then I'm happy to shout loud for Him. As a result, I've spent a lot of time not only thinking about how best to share Christ with others, but also doing it. I've tried a lot of different forms: door-to-door, street preaching, congregational messages, small group evangelistic studies, and eyeball-to-eyeball over a cup of coffee. I have also been able, through my role as a pastor in two different churches, to distribute a substantial amount of money and material resources to needy people in Jesus' name.

And as I thought about it, I realized that while I have had people (in some cases dozens) come to faith in Christ by the Spirit as He spoke the Gospel through me, I've yet to see even one person come to faith in Christ through material assistance. And so, while I don't think Christians have no calling to improve the culture and society around them through material assistance and similar ministries, I do think that Gospel proclamation (in all of its forms!) take precedence and should do so even in "compassion ministries."

And since this is my last post on this topic (at least for a while), let me conclude it with a few stray thoughts about the whole interplay between Gospel proclamation and "good deed doing."

1. The Gospel is primarily a message not an act or even a lifestyle. While the Gospel certainly has implications for our lifestyle and our actions toward others, it is not seeing/experiencing those things which saves people, but believing the words of the Gospel. Thus, where the message is not proclaimed, the person draws no closer to Jesus and saving faith.
   
2. There are far more people who will take our money than will hear our message. This is perhaps a somewhat crass way of putting things, but most of the people who have ever approached one of the churches I have served are simply looking for "any port in a storm," and aren't interested in the beliefs of the people who offer such ports. There is far more of a sense of expectation (i.e., "You should help me, because you're the Church") than there is gratitude, nevermind any curiosity about why strangers should be so generous and kind. Compassion ministries are good in themselves, but let's not deceive ourselves into thinking they are good substitutes for meeting people's deepest needs, or even particularly helpful in getting them to recognize them.
   
3. Many Christians use money to assuage their guilt over their lack of evangelism. Okay, no here's where I know I'm going to step on some toes. But my observation is that there are far more people happy to pay their "atonement money" to a foreign missionary who will go overseas and share the Gospel with a distant people group than there are people willing to walk across the street and befriend their non-Christian neighbors in hopes of leading them to Christ. I suspect the same is true of a great many young evangelicals who are now championing compassion ministries (at least in part) to soothe their guilt over the fact that they've never personally shared the Gospel with anyone.
4. "Woe to you when all men speak well of you" is still true. Jesus knew that being approved of by society and cultural leaders was not the highest goal. A lot of evangelicals lament that we are not held in higher esteem by the wider culture. I wonder if that's as much a problem as we think it is, and if getting that approval should ever be a goal. I am not willing to compromise Scriptural moral standards ("Be holy as I am holy" along with all that is involved therein) nor Scriptural mandates ("Preach the Gospel to all creation") in order to win the temporary applause of the crowd. Yet increasingly, that seems to be the direction that the evangelical church is leaning, to its shame and detriment.
   

Your thoughts?

Soup Kitchens and Salvation, Part 2 (of 3)

So my first post on this subject stirred the most comments on a post (via Facebook) that I've ever gotten. And I think I may have confused some of my friends into thinking that I'm not the sort of Christian pastor who thinks that doing good in the community is a good thing in and of itself. So I thought, in the interests of clarity, I might just list the ministries we are doing that are more of the "community benefit" variety:

1. CrossWord Cafe: 10 years ago, our church founded a local hangout for teens called the CrossWord Cafe. It is designed to provide a safe place for teens to come every day after school for music and art lessons, tutoring, and a place for teen bands to jam in front of their friends. The Cafe also provides biblical instruction to interested teens one night per week.
   
2. Chillicothe Skate Park: For years, teens in our community had nowhere in town that they were permitted to ride their skateboards or BMX bikes. After discussions with the local park board and a vote by our congregation, we decided to lease a chunk of our church property to the City Park Board for the construction of a skate/BMX park. It has been open now for about a week.
3. CBC Deacon's Fund: A portion of the offering on the first Sunday of each month (typically the Sunday with the largest offering) goes into our Deacon's Fund, which goes to help both church members and community people with financial issues. Thousands of dollars every year are funneled through this fund to meeting physical needs.
   
4. Love-in-Action Food Pantry: Many years ago, the churches in town decided that, rather than compete with one another, they should simply band together to fund and support one local food pantry. It runs out of the local AOG church, but our church members support it with donations and time.
5. Community Charities Resale Shop: Recently, some of our members have plugged a vast amount of donations and time into getting a resale shop off the ground, the proceeds from which will go to support local ministries and the CrossWord Cafe.

Maybe I should have clarified sooner, so that people can understand where I'm coming from. Again, it's not that I'm against our churches benefit ting the communities in which we're located. What I'm against is prioritizing such things versus the vigorous proclamation of the Gospel. A hot meal, a paid bill, good clothes cheap, and a safe place for community kids to hang out, skate, etc. are all good things. But the best thing is still eternal life in Christ, amen? And to offer the former without offering (or at least de-emphasizing) the latter is to put Band-Aids on paper cuts while the person dies of cancer.

Soup Kitchens and Salvation

Christian people of my generation have "rediscovered" Christian social action. This is particularly true among a certain subset of evangelicals, most of whom describe themselves as "missional" Christians. They have become convinced that a true understanding of the Gospel, rightly applied, will inevitably lead Jesus' followers to feed the poor, clothe the naked, care for the downtrodden, etc. Moreover, a whole lot of them criticize their brethren for being too focused on mere proclamation of the Gospel itself without any accompanying relief of people's physical needs.

So far, so good, especially in a country with 17% real unemployment. But a part of me still worries. Maybe it's the amateur church historian or maybe it's the part of me which is sympathetic to warnings of the old fundamentalists like J. Gresham Machen and Lewis Sperry Chafer, but I get the distinct feeling that we in the church have been here before and the results weren't good. Please understand: I am not saying that churches shouldn't feed the poor or care for the widow and the orphan. But what I am saying is that what we define as the central and primary "mission" in all of our "missional" activity matters, and that if it isn't the spread of the Gospel which gives eternal life, then we are deeply in error. Being "missional" without being about that which Jesus defines as our central mission in Matthew 28:18-20 is to be successful at the wrong things. And church history does tell us that where the Gospel is assumed rather than actively proclaimed as the primary part of our mission, then it soon is not even assumed any more. Organizations like the YMCA and Goodwill are just two examples of formerly para-church organizations, and what used to be called the mainline denominations trod a similar path, to their own destruction.

So to my brethren who want to start soup kitchens and similar ministries, I offer this a final word: Be blessed, my friends, and save a place for me to come and serve from time to time. But don't forget that "Man does not live by bread alone." Don't forget to give the Living Water even as you offer a cup of cold water in Jesus name. And don't forget which one comes first.

The Contemporvant Church

This video is funny, in a bitingly sarcastic way. It skewers so many of the modern evangelical megachurch's methods all in one video. But it also grieves my heart in a way too, precisely because it is a necessary corrective. A motive to reach people can slip so easily into manipulating people to get the results we want to see, but which only truly come by God's power.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.