This is Church

When I want to be reminded of the truth of gospel in new words & ways, I find Tim Keller’s preaching to be a helpful place to look. Without fail, every sermon he delivers ends up at the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross and its importance for every single issue in my life. For that reason, not only are all his sermons challenging to me, but they also give me the courage to face the challenges because I’m reminded of the work of Jesus, which gives me the strength I need to fight the battles over my soul.

One of his talks has recently given me a fresh new understanding of how to preach effectively. When I say “how to preach,” I don’t mean in the American sense of the word, which generally invokes images of an older white guy in a suit with a microphone and a pulpit (or if you have little church experience and attend U of M, a shouting man with a megaphone on the Diag with an angry sign or two). I mean in the biblical sense of the word “preach” (the Greek kēryssō), meaning how I publicly proclaim the news of Jesus (this requires no seminary qualification or pulpit and the audience might be quite small).

In this way, all of us Christians are preachers so long as we choose to be. In Mark 6:7-13, Jesus sends out his disciples into nearby villages to preach the good news of the arrival of the Kingdom and the necessity of repentance (something they saw modeled in Mark 1:15), and if you’ve read the entirety of the New Testament, you have far more theological understanding than these preachers did; yet Jesus approved and even commissioned their preaching ministry.

I’ve posted Tim Keller’s sermon below. If you choose to listen to the whole thing, I highly doubt you’ll regret it. It was utterly mind-blowing for me. In the first 15 minutes, though, you’ll be met with what I hope is a provocative lens through which to view the way you present the gospel of Jesus to others, and that will be the focus of this post.

“Timmy K” communicates that the Gospel of Jesus is often presented as the right/better choice between two lifestyles, two gods, either God or Self. I actually find this two-option presentation quite accurate and effective. It’s a paradigm I can use for every decision I make in life, and helps me repent of my idols and follow after Jesus. It acknowledges the sinful nature within every human being and the necessity of repentance unto another way in order for salvation. For that reason, it’s incredibly universal; I imagine it’s about as powerful in India as in the America. Methods of gospel presentation according to this model, like the Bridge Diagram, have led countless people to faith in Christ over the years.

However, Keller notes that because of a common American misunderstanding of Christianity (that following God actually means obeying a set of religious rules), he has actually found it even more effective in his Manhattan context to present the Gospel of Jesus as the best choice among three lifestyles, either Hedonism, Moralism, or Christianity (labels mine). And I think a man who leads a church of 5000+ in the heart of New York City (not exactly Bible Belt, USA) probably knows a thing or two about effective Gospel presentation. Because moralism is unattractive to the average American (especially compared to a lifestyle whereby they feel free to indulge the desires of the flesh) and because many in his context equate Christianity with religious moralism, Keller argues that Christianity is often considered unattractive by (wrongful) association. Thus he suggests that it’s crucial to distinguish between Christianity and religious moralism as two drastically different worldviews, as Paul does in Romans 2-3. This is a significant paradigm shift for Western methods of evangelism.

Later in his talk (about 30 minutes in), Keller presents a pictoral framework for understanding the process of evangelism to an “unchurched” person. If the gospel-teller is standing on one riverbank, and the gospel-hearer on the other, and the truth of the Gospel is precious cargo that needs to cross a river of secular (culturally-influenced) worldview held by the Gospel-hearer, Keller suggests we “build a raft” for the precious cargo that provides a foundation for it, yet doesn’t sink in the river of worldview because it is offensiveness. In this way we “float B-doctrines (culturally offensive doctrines) on A-doctrines (culturally attractive doctrines)” in how we present the Gospel.

What he means by this is that in order to help others hear and remain open the Gospel, we present difficult doctrines of the faith (B-doctrines) only after laying a foundation of Christian thought that appeals to their distinct cultural sensibilities (A-doctrines). In the case of this “three-fold gospel presentation”, he suggests that we float the necessity of repentance of sin (a B doctrine) on the raft of the freedom of the Christian from religious moralism (an A doctrine), which is drastically opposed to Christianity. The hope is that presenting the Gospel in this way both makes the gospel more appealing to average hearer, but also adds needed clarity on what it is not.

So what do you think about this idea of presenting three competing lifestyle options rather than just two when sharing the Gospel of Jesus? Does the added complexity take away from the core of the message, or does it add significant clarity? What kinds of cultural contexts do you think this would approach would appeal to, and which do you think it would actually hinder evangelism?

This is a post I wrote up months ago to save for a rainy day. It came to mind because I’ve been thinking a lot about culture lately. I hope it encourages you.

Andy Crouch says that the Church has historically taken four negative stances toward culture, and conveniently, they all start with the letter ‘C’:

Condemning Culture
Critiquing Culture
Copying Culture
Consuming Culture

He says that a much better posture is a fifth (which the Church has also historically taken):

Creating Culture

If I’m honest with you, I have to admit I generally have a pretty poor attitude toward things like “Christian movies”, “Christian video games”, and even a good portion of Christian books and music, because they tend to strike me as incredibly corny and poorly put-together. And when I caught wind that a vast array of Christian artists came together in a project to compile a song called “Come Together Now” for the Haiti earthquake (using the same name as a similar project the secular music industry put together for Hurricane Katrina), I’ll admit that I was instantly skeptical.

“Oh great, another Christian culture copy along the lines of iPray and Abreadcrumb & Fish”

But when I watched, I was excited to see the Church setting the bar of excellence. Below you’ll find the two comparable music videos, the first done by artists you’ll find on MTV, and the second you’re more likely to find on GMC (not the car company).

This gives me hope for where the Church is going in its culture-creating capacity.

Brennan Manning and Rich Mullins are two of my all-time favorite ragamuffins. If you are not familiar with the work of either, I beg of you to quickly acquaint yourself. I can’t seem to read a single page of Manning or listen to a single song of Mullins without feeling an overwhelming need to repent of my arrogance and bigotry and worship the God who still loves me. Intense stuff. Well, it makes sense, then, that I would be pretty pumped to share with you some words from Brennan Manning in a trailer for an upcoming film on the life of Rich Mullins entitled Rich Mullins: A Ragamuffin’s Legacy. The movie is still in the early development stages (it’s slated to shoot this June), but you can get more info here or follow on twitter at @RichMullinsfilm. Enjoy!

We ended New Life’s Florida Spring Break trip (themed “The War Within”) with a wrap-up on Romans 12. As we spent the whole week talking about the internal struggle between the flesh and Spirit (see my last post),I tried to pull some key truths from Romans 12 about the ongoing spiritual war that surrounds us…illustrating how the war on the inside determines the war on the outside. I realize this isn’t normally understood as a “spiritual warfare” kind of passage, but the last verse, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21) always makes me feel like I’m in Braveheart, so I decided that’s what this passage is about. Here it is.

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Below is my outline / what I had written on the whiteboard by the end. I don’t want it to be a spoiler, but rather to give you the visual aid the students had during the talk.

1) This battle deserves and requires everything you have (verses 1-2)

2) We are all commanders of the King’s armies (verses 3-8)

3) Love is our weapon (verses 9-20)

4) You are powerful and you can win (verse 21)

5) Fighting this war is the only thing that matters in your life (verses 1-2)

6) It is dangerous and foolish to not devote yourself to training for this battle (1 Timothy 4:7-10)

I gave my first full-length teaching to students on the Florida Spring Break trip. The last post was meant to end with a bit of a cliffhanger, and that’s what I wanted for the students as well. We walked through Romans 6, 7, 8 and 12 separately, and I wanted to paint a vision for the “end result” (Romans 12) at the beginning, and then describe the “path to the therefore” of Romans 12:1 via teaching through Romans 6-8. Erik Weber taught on Romans 6 and being free from the law of sin, and set me up excellently to teach on Romans 7. I talk about how the Christian’s struggle with sin is difficult, but how I believe the Scripture gives us the key to winning, and God loves us out of the worldly pattern of “Grace Avoidance”.

Before listening, download this file which shows the diagrams I wrote on the whiteboard as I was talking. But, if you want the full experience of the talk, don’t look ahead! If you look at the third row of boxes (past the two marriages), especially without the explanation, it will ruin the punchline!

Below you can stream the audio for the teaching live, or download it via the link.

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The following is an exercise I gave for students on the Florida Spring Break trip. I hope it blesses your life also:

Consider the following two (partial) sentences:

“____________, then the world will know that God sent Jesus.”

“Without __________, no one will see God.”

These sound like pretty grand, epic statements…if only we could fill in the blanks! I often ask myself what it is that needs to happen so that people would finally see and understand who Jesus is, because this world seems so lost. I play out these half-sentences in my head all the time.

I believe it is God’s #1 priority to have an incredible relationship with human beings. I know that it’s an insane thing to say that I know what God’s top priority is, but it’s the only thing that makes sense of the biblical meta-narrative to me. Why else would God pursue mankind so adamantly throughout the Fall, the Flood, idol worship, innumerable wicked kings, exile and even the murder of his own Son? It just seems that He goes to outrageous ends to reconcile us to himself, and I think it might be the guiding force behind what He does; the thing that most gives him glory (Acts 17:24-27, Colossians 1:15-20). And so that makes the above half-sentences really important. If we know what goes in there, we can know what fulfills God’s greatest purposes.

The question of how people will see and know God in response to His obviously passionate pursuit of us is one of the most important questions we can ask. The crazy part is that the Bible seems to give answers. To fill in the above blanks:

Jesus prays: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” – John 17:20-23

“Without holiness, no one will see God.” – Hebrews 12:14

A Church that is completely unified, bound together in love. This is holy; this is something the world would have to take serious notice of when it happened. I believe that Scripture’s teaching is pretty clear on this issue: The love and unity of the Church is what sets it apart from the rest of the world, and by this, the world will understand the love and character of Jesus. As Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). Jesus clearly has a dream here regarding what His Church, His Bride, would look like. I want to read a re-telling of this dream (a generous re-wording of Romans 12):

The Church offers their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—their true and proper worship. They do not conform to the pattern of this world, but are transformed by the renewing of their minds. By this, they are able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

They do not think of themselves more highly than they ought, but rather think of themselves with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of them. They, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. They have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of them. If one’s gift is prophesying, they prophesy in accordance with their faith; if it is serving, they serve; if it is teaching, they teach; if it is to encourage, they give encouragement; if it is giving, then they give generously; if it is to lead, they do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, they do it cheerfully.

Their love is sincere. They hate what is evil and cling to what is good.  They are devoted to one another in love. They honor one another above themselves. They are never lacking in zeal, but keep their spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  They are joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. They share with those among them who are in need. They practice hospitality.

They bless those who persecute them; they bless and do not curse. They rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. They live in harmony with one another. They are not proud, but are willing to associate with people of low position. They are not conceited.

They do not repay anyone evil for evil. They are careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on them, they live at peace with everyone. They do not take revenge, but leave room for God’s wrath. They are not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

It’s one of the most beautiful pictures of loving, unified community to be found anywhere. But this is the “therefore” in the scope of Paul’s epistle to the Romans (read Romans 12:1). Something came before it that was necessary in explaining how and why this is possible. But those chapters (particularly chapter 7) are clear that it’s extremely hard. The very nature of holiness is that it is rare, so these commands (in the original wording) are anything but easy to obey.

It’s important to realize the struggle for this in our own lives; to consider where we are at with sober judgment in accordance with our faith, as it says in verse 3. Therefore, I want you to take at least 30 minutes to soberly re-write Romans 12:9-21 according to this paradigm: I want you to humbly and prayerfully consider what someone would have to write if they were to give similar instructions as Romans 12:9-21, but their objective was to instruct someone to behave exactly as you do day-to-day; perhaps if they were giving brief, accurate instructions for how someone would have to play your character in a movie. What would they need to say?

For example, Romans 12:14 reads, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”
But if instructions had to be written for someone to act as I currently do, I think their instructions would have to read something more like,
“Ignore those who persecute you; bite your tongue in the moment, while inwardly telling yourself how much better than them you are, and make sure to use subtle condescending tones when talking about them to others.”

When I said sober, I meant it.

But be forewarned: if you believe, in sober assessment, that this is going to turn into a personal guilt party or time of serious self-loathing or self-justification, then please, please don’t do this. It’s just not worth it. This is meant to serve you, not discourage you. I think the translation of each verse is something to be entered into prayerfully. Ask God for his honest opinion; allow him to both affirm and challenge you in the area addressed by each verse; ask for what He’s proud of you for, and what could honestly use some work. Then write down what seems, in the Spirit, to be an accurate telling of where you’re at; neither overly wicked nor overly righteous. Simply consider this a tool to help you identify areas of your life in which God would have you grow in godliness.

The next blog post will be about how and why we fall so short of the ideals presented in Scripture, and the secret to being able to grow in Christ so as to not remain stuck in our sin patterns forever…

This past Sunday, I was invited to preach at First United Methodist Church of Cocoa, FL while on New Life’s Florida spring break trip. This was the first time I’ve ever preached at a church service, and it definitely had its challenges (I got into Florida really late the Saturday night and had to sleep and prep the sermon by 8 a.m. the next morning), but God encouraged me incredibly and equipped me to make it through. I absolutely loved teaching, it was one of my most “alive” moments ever, and I am beyond thankful to Pastor Gene and the rest of the church family there for this opportunity.

The format was pretty awesome; I was actually preaching outside to a “drive-in” service, where people literally sat in their cars and listened through their radios, like they might at a drive-in movie. You hear their honks (applause) at the end. It was a bit tough not being able to make much eye contact or hear audible responses to anything I was saying, but the reviews seemed to be that people did indeed laugh at a couple points.

The title of talk is “Adopting an Ambassador Mentality”. The audio is below for streaming or download, so enjoy!

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I haven’t written much on sexuality in this blog mainly because I know there are so many great voices in the Church already weighing in on it, and don’t feel I have much of anything original to add (and maybe because my mom reads this too). But seriously, if you haven’t yet, check out places XXXChurch and Dirty Girls Ministries for some awesome stories and resources that help us wrestle through this endless struggle of living a life of sexual purity in a culture that doesn’t value it.

As a missionary to a college campus serving in a college church, I’m now witnessing what it looks like when your church is literally filled with people who can’t recall a time when pornography wasn’t instantly accessible to them via the internet. Addiction runs deep and wide when its seeds are planted so early, so often. The following is a sort of opening act for this post; my friend Anne Jackson tells some of her story of struggle with past addiction. What you see and hear in it is quickly becoming the standard of what I see in men and women on our campus:

But since most all the Church voices I’ve heard weigh in on sexuality are of the contemporary variety, I thought I’d share with you a bit of a blast from the past that a friend recently shared with me. It turns out Clive Staples had a thing or two to say on the subject of sexual fantasy and masturbation, so thought I’d share some of his always-insightful words on the topic for those of you who haven’t yet heard them. Here goes:

“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete his own personality in that of another and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of brides.  And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.  For the harem is: always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival.  Among those shadowy brides he is: always adored, always the perfect love, no demand is made of his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.  In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself.”

citation: Letter (March 6, 1956) from C.S. Lewis to a Mr. Masson, Wade Collection, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL; cited in Leanne Payne, The Broken Image.

Snowpocalypse was descending last night, the work day was over, and I had just over an hour of down time before hanging out with Jessie for the rest of the night. I wanted something quiet, restful, reflective. I did something a bit different and decided to treat myself to some Sadako. I felt a bit weird walking into a crowded Japanese restaurant to sit by myself at the sushi bar, but I thought I’d at least try. I began to watch (in fascination) the sushi chefs at their work. I found the whole process quite poetic, so I wrote this poem, titled The Sushi Triumvirate:

The Sushi Triumvirate

They are Steady, Diligent and Precise.
Mature men
partaking of ancient art
with constant countenance of cool calculation:
Unravel.
Spread-pinch-pinch, flip.
Plop, pack…
Roll.
Condense.
Slice, double,
slice-slice-slice.
Dress….Present.
Again.
Hastened handiwork
in unsynchronized unison:
A distinguished display
of perfected passion.
They (silently) pronounce prowess
as delighted mastery dances
dormant beneath horizontal facades.

I hope you’re perplexed by the title question. It’s a hard one. You may have heard a similar one: “Can worship music be too emotional?” but I find this broader question much more crucial (and interesting). It seems that there’s been a strong suspicion of emotion in American Christianity for as long as there has been an “American Christianity” to speak of (smarter people tell me this has something to do with The Enlightenment). It seems that  criticism closely follows churches that intentionally create an (emotionally) engaging “worship experience” in their services.

I recently read a newspaper article that featured a local skeptic of  Bethel Church‘s style of worship, offering the common critique,

“The repetitive music, dancing, painting and excessive stimuli serve to get people worked up into an emotional frenzy where they’re expecting to see miraculous things.” – Bart

So you can get an idea of what he’s talking about, please watch this song from a Bethel worship set. Their style is considerably more charismatic than most, but still not far off the beaten path of churches like Hillsong, whose songs are sung by literally millions of people from every denomination all around the world any given Sunday. I’d like you to imagine yourself there, in the crowd. Maybe it would help to make your room dark and put the video on full-screen. I think personally experiencing the song (especially the middle-end) might help you evaluate the criticisms:

Many will warn that this loud, emotional format, clearly aimed at creating an “experience” is idolatry, because it is not God who is worshiped, it is the experience that is worshiped. “People are more interested in getting emotional than they are in singing authentic praise,” the reasoning goes. This may be a sincere caution against idolatry, but I wonder if, every bit as often, it’s a genuine fear of emotions, particularly emotions toward someone we can’t see (I’ll unpack the origins of my suspicion a little later in the post).

Emotion is wild and potent. If I” let myself go” during a time of worship and find the next day that I’m still every bit as sinful, I can face a deep sadness and confusion; I begin to wonder if I’m an authentic person or if God could actually work through me. Condemning the music is a safe alternative to condemning myself, and my evasion of emotional encounters with God is now justified. But I’ll let you answer for yourself: does this song allow you to worship God in a more or less authentic way than a “less emotional” song? Or perhaps the more fundamental question, do you trust that your emotions are authentic or that they come from a good heart?

This question hits close to home for me; from the moment I began attending church as an adolescent, I was hearing from my pastor what was and was not wise for worship music. And a thirteen-year-old baby Christian believes the leader. This is a quick video of the pastor of my home church speaking on the subject:

Don’t sing without your integrity; if you don’t really long for brokenness in the moment, don’t sing it. It sounds like a great argument on the surface (and trust me, I’m strongly in favor of a sincere heart-check before singing anything). But if I’m going to base a worship ministry on not “making people” sing something they might not mean, I actually can’t sing much of anything. How about “God is great” or “Thank you Jesus”? No matter what the lyric, the constant battle within between my flesh and God’s Spirit within me means that there’s a beautiful part of me that deeply longs for it, and a part of me that resists it.

To say that we ought not to sing the longings of the Spirit within us on account of the trappings of our flesh eliminates all beauty from what we can sing, and I’m having trouble seeing how “brokenness is what I long for” is much different from “thank you Jesus” in this regard. I think we give the flesh too much credit if we don’t ever allow ourselves to echo the plea of Mark 9:24 as we sing worship songs. And though James wasn’t clear on why his church doesn’t sing of being “in love with Jesus”, I’m curious as to why echoing Scripture’s romantic metaphors of Jesus and his Bride are to be avoided in worship songs. I wonder if this, too, has its roots in a deeper suspicion of emotion.

The Bible has some serious commands on this topic. Deuteronomy 6:5 exhorts us to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and strength (Mark 12:30 adds “mind”). As far as I can tell, this means that my love for Jesus ought to be without restraint. I should love him wildly and passionately. The Bible is pro-passionate worship, as far as I can tell. Psalm 149:3 says,

“Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with timbrel and harp.”

In Nehemiah, the people respond to the reading of Scripture by raising their hands, shouting, falling face down to the ground, and weeping (Nehemiah 8:5-9). And many of us know the story of how David danced in celebration before the Lord (2 Samuel 6:16-22). If these aren’t emotionally intense expressions of worship, I’m not sure what is. Yet it’s those who dare to get emotional rather than play it safe who receive the criticism.

I can only speak on behalf of my own church experiences, but from the college students I’m constantly meeting at U of M (who come from all kinds of church backgrounds), I’m inclined to think the following experiences are roughly par for the course in American evangelicalism: If someone from our youth group was pursuing seminary out of high school, people would generally encourage them and speak of how “noble” of a pursuit the academic study of God’s Word is. But if someone mentioned that they wanted to get to know God on a more emotional or experiential level through new forms of prayer or meditation, they were warned of such “dangerous” and “mystical” practices.

This is to me a symptom of a great disease that has overcome the American Church. It’s not that I favor mysticism over seminary; it’s that I think Jesus would have us lend equal encouragement and caution toward efforts to increasingly know and love God in each of the ways he commands in Mark 12:30. I just want a level playing field where Jesus presents one; it’s like I was subtly taught to rank “love the Lord with all your mind” at the top the list (when God didn’t even find it necessary to include that part to the Israelites!). Our prejudice, no…our idolatry, needs to come to an end.

Speaking of the I-word…I’m not sure I have enough fingers and toes to count all the accusations of idolatry toward extravagant music (an attempt to love Jesus with all our heart) I’ve heard, yet I have a hard time recalling even a single time I’ve heard an accusation of idolatry toward a pastor whose teaching was too “heady” (an attempt to love Jesus with all our mind). Again I ask, could it be that we simply have a far deeper distrust of our emotions than of our intellect? Yet would anyone disagree with me, that each contains an equal capacity for idolatry?

I think Jesus Culture (the band from the video) might actually be singing to us a generational (dare I say prophetic?) critique of the western Church’s suspicion of emotion. A postmodern worldview departs from the modernist’s combination of suspicion of emotion and trust (read: idolatry) of rationality, and I think this critique, one that longs for something deep and experiential (beyond mere intellection) is heard loud and clear in the song [around 5:05 in the video]:

I don’t want to talk about you
like you’re not in the room;
I want to look right at you,
sing right to you

This is the cry of a rising generation, and I think it’s been a long time coming. Do you similarly long for the kind of relationship with God described in these lyrics?