Relevant Generation

So, recently my life has gotten crazy, but in a good way. Three weeks ago my church hired me as their “Production Assistant” - aka “help keep one of the pastor’s sane” plus “do whatever else is needed” guy. I love it and it’s amazing, but I also kept my other job. Both are part-time, but part-time for a growing church is code for full-time. Heh. It is great, though. I’ve been producing intro videos (check out our page on facebook) as well as editing sermon videos (for DVD and web) and creating a commercial (coming soon to local Raleigh TV and select movie theaters). I’ve also been revamping the webpage until our out-sourced redesign goes through (takeajourney.org) and setting up a blog for our pastor (not completed yet). There’s also a ton of other stuff, but I would have to pull out my schedule to remember it.

We’ll see how often I get to blog now. ;p

Ed Stetzer writes about Influencing Churches on his blog. In this, is lists different problems that surface in churches. Here is his abbreviated list; the full list is in his book Comeback Churches.

• Institutionalized church–this is the church that has lost its way within the forms and programs of ministry. This church is just going through the motions and has forgotten the real purpose for which it exists.
• Voluntary association church–this church functions more like a democracy rather than based on New Testament principles. Competing factions help maintain the “status quo” because of a desire to keep everyone happy.
• Unintentional church–this is the church that often has good intentions but have difficulty acting on those intentions. This church has a hard time embracing an intentional process for making disciples.
• “Us four and nor more” church–this is the church that practically believes that growth will destroy their “sweet fellowship.” The desire is to maintain a “family feel” which can make it hard for new people to break into the group.
• “We can’t compete” church–this is most often the smaller church that has concluded that there is no way they can compete with the program-rich larger churches, and so, they stop trying to be the church.

I’ve recently begun reading a vast quantity of blogs via Google Reader. I’ve noticed that many of them are a complete waste of time, especially the local news. It will give a snippet of some story about some random guy getting some sentence at a trial I never heard about for some very petty crime. Also a waste of time is any story related to some pop culture star. While I do want to be able to converse well with the culture and be relevant (hence the name of this blog), I struggle with the pettiness of some of it. Case in point: the TV show Extra. I feel like I lose one IQ point for every second I watch it. Anyone feel the same way about this?

Dan Kimball writes about the importance of words in our churches (like “worship” and “church”). Are the meanings of these words accurately known by those sitting on the pews or in the chairs? While I might cringe at some of his comments - like rethinking calling someone “pastor”, he makes strong points. Do non-”pastors” with the spiritual gift of pastor/shepherd feel under-qualified when someone with that gift in their title is getting paid to do it? Yes, I do believe in qualified leaders, but I believe qualification proceeds getting a job, and not everyone who’s qualified will be on staff. I’m not advocating changing things, but I do think we should think through things theologically before doing them - I think this is also Kimball’s main point in the article. Historically we have done things many different ways for both good and bad reasons. We should take that into account. Primarily, however, we should seek methods and such in Scripture - sola scriptura, if you will.

Mark Driscoll is quickly becoming one of my favorite preachers. Recently he’s done something really interesting by creating http://askanything.marshillchurch.org/ and giving anyone in the world the ability to get a whole sermon from Mark Driscoll to answer the question. The trick is, your question then had to be voted for and be in the top nine. There were 893 questions asked, 5,524 comments made, 343,203 votes cast in the end. And now Driscoll’s preaching on this. Sort of reminiscent of Paul’s letters when he addresses concerns that were raised to him. In case you were wondering, here are the final nine questions.

1. Do you believe that the Scripture not only regulates our theology but also our methodology? In other words, do you believe in the regulative principle? If so, to what degree? If not, why not? ( 310 comments and 25,181 votes)
2. What can traditional/established churches learn from “emerging” churches? (168 comments and 24,642 votes)
3. How does a Christian date righteously; and what are the physical, emotional, and mentally connecting boundaries a Christian must set while developing an intimate relationship prior to marriage? (222 comments and 21,373 votes)
4. If salvation is by faith alone (Romans 3:28), then why are there so many verses that say or imply the opposite, namely that salvation is by works (James 2:24, Matthew 6:15 & Matthew 7:21, Galatians 5:19-21) (105 comments and 21,337 votes)
5. How should Christian men and women go about breaking free from the bondage of sexual sin? (100 comments and 21,311 votes)
6. Of all the things you teach, what parts of Christianity do you still wrestle with? What’s hardest for you to believe? (38 comments and 21,285 votes)
7. Why does an all loving, all knowing, and all sovereign God will into creation people He foreknows will suffer eternal condemnation? Why does Romans 9:20 feel like a cop-out answer? (98 comments and 21,218 votes)
8. Why do you make jokes about mormon missionaries, homosexuals, trenchcoats wearers, single men, vegans, emo kids and then expect these groups to come to know God in the same sermon? (346 comments and 21,101 votes)
9. There’s no doubt the Bible says children are a blessing, but the Bible doesn’t seem to address the specific topic of birth control. Is this a black and white topic, or does it fall under liberties? (120 comments and 21,008 votes)

To listen or watch these messages online (or download podcasts), check out on Mars Hill Church’s website for the sermon series.

This is an article Tim Challies posted over at his site, Challies.com.

Yesterday I began a short series on the inerrancy of Scripture, looking at whether there are errors and contradictions in the Bible. You can read the first article and the response to it here: Are There Errors in the Bible?. When I first began to develop and understanding of this doctrine, I found that the doctrines of Scripture cannot be neatly separated, one from the other, for they are intertwined and interrelated. So in the first article I wrote about inspiration, canon, transmission and authority. Today I will turn to inerrancy, first explaining what it is not (often a good place to begin, I find) and then providing a working definition.

Read the rest of the article.

I’m briefly going to write about the life of Rev. Bob Green, a pastor from my home town. I was going to call this post “A Tribute to Bob Green,” but that would not correctly speak to what his life was about.

I first moved to Dahlonega in 1987 as a five year old. Since my grandmother attended Dahlonega Baptist Church, as did my mom when she was a child, we began attending there. Reverend Green was the pastor. I listened to him week after week from 1987 until 1993, when he retired. The entire time he was my pastor, he lived out the fruit of the Spirit. His life was love, which led to joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He was always digging into God’s Word and looking at the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek.

Very recently, he passed away from a serious medical problem. My wife and I decided to drive to Georgia to attend his funeral. We arrived there thirty minutes early to make sure we had parking, since we were bringing my grandmother. She’s in her eighties and has trouble walking. There were only one or two spots left in the entire parking lot of the biggest church in town - his former pastorate and current church. We barely got seats in the sanctuary. They also had overflow with video and audio all through the hallway and into the fellowship hall downstairs.

The fruits of his life include an amazing testimony in his children and grandchildren. His son Mark, currently a minister (of music, I believe), spoke of his amazing ministry to his family and how he never let his family fall by the wayside. He also read to us what was Bob’s last writing - a list of things he would like to do before he went to be with Jesus. At the end of this list, he said basically what Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane - “not my will, but yours be done.” Also, a hospice chaplain whom he had worked with spoke of his great humility. Finally, the pastor who came in after he retired, Bill Hutcheson, spoke of how Bob never got in the way when he released the pastorate. He also told of how, up to the end, he was asking how others were, what was going on in their lives, and how much he loved them all. Both Mark and Bill picked Galatians 5 - the fruit of the Spirit - as a focal passage. That was unplanned, but really showed how true it was in Bob Green’s life. One just automatically equated those aspects to his life.

Another aspect of the funeral that glorified God was his grandchildren. They all got up and read various Scripture. Of those grandchildren that I knew, each verse he or she read exemplified either where they were or were going in life. For example, one of those that is currently overseas working with a church plant, Andy, had the Great Commission read for him and his wife, by his little brother.

Obviously, his life touched many people. He officiated so many weddings and funerals and baptized and counseled so many people and touched so many lives - his life was a legacy. Now don’t get me wrong, this was not a legacy to him; it was a legacy to God.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23

Ok. This is a question that’s been in the back of my mind for a while, but there have been recent additions to it. First, there is the concern of churches spending much money on themselves and their member’s comfort than on spreading the good news of salvation to the nations. Should a churches’ missions budget be a measley 10%? One might argue that stuff is more expensive here in America than in third world countries. Might there at least be a reason to think of our use of money on ourselves vs. reaching the lost.

My second query may be more related conventional vs. emerging churches (terms borrowed from Dr. Reid). Conventional churches build buildings and spend much money on stained glass windows, steeples, organs, pretty wooden pews, ornate decorations, and the like. Emerging churches often use warehouse space and spend money on sound systems, lights, video, hazers, and the like.

They also critique each other on their use money and lack of worshipful surroundings. The conventional church (the high church tradition) uses their surroundings of ornate decorations to create a certain atmosphere of worship. The emerging church (or seeker-sensitive model) does the exact same thing, but through louder music, video screens, etc. They both spend money on things that create a more worshipful atmosphere for their demographic. Seems logical to me.

I read an interesting article today about preaching. It’s entitled “The Truth About Expository Preaching” and asks some interesting questions: How do you define expository preaching? Do you think the term “expository preaching” is applied too broadly? What forms can an expository sermon take? (Sequential and logical.) What are some examples of logical orders? Is there any problem for the listener when we present the most logical order but move through the Scripture out of sequence? To what extent is an expositor obligated to unpack all the elements of a passage–the verb tenses, shades of meaning, and so on?

He asked many more questions, too. I find it these are very important questions we should ask when listening and especially when preaching a message from God’s Word.

I pulled this one out from years ago. Justin Taylor over at theologica.blogspot.com wrote a review in June of 2005 of Joel Osteen. It includes some quotes with his interview with Larry King. Check it out.