How is First Baptist Dallas different?

There is a lot of outrage building in the blogosphere about First Baptist Dallas and their new idol, um, church campus. Let’s set aside the specific outrage for a second and ask the deeper question:

What is the difference between First Baptist Dallas and many local churches?

The number of decimal places is different but how many millions do local churches spend to upgrade perfectly serviceable buildings for purely aesthetic reasons? Our neighbors are losing their jobs and their homes, Christians around the world are starving for the Word of God, missionaries are stuck in place for a lack of funding, orphans languish without homes and we spend untold sums of money to build, maintain and upgrade our buildings that we use for a couple of hours a week. Whenever a church spends unnecessary money on their building (and lets be honest, much of the spending in the local church is unnecessary) they are invoking the same spirit of worldliness, covetousness and pride as FBD. So what if the carpet is ugly or the lighting is not perfect? Ought we not focus on what is the true focus, our Lord, and not on what is merely a convenience, the meeting place? The local church meeting house is not a temple, not the “house of the Lord”. It is a place where we gather and that building is not the church. Our buildings should be about the last place we spend a bunch of money. It might do us some good to sacrifice a bit instead of demanding every creature comfort before we will deign to spend a few hours in "worship".

Form versus function

There seems to be a great deal of confusion over where I come down on the issue of human leaders, authority, ministry. I think some of the confusion stems from the point of emphasis. Is the emphasis of the Scriptures on the form of pastoral ministry or on the function of pastoral ministry? I would argue that the Biblical focus is firmly on the function of the pastoral ministry and as such the form is far less important. Historically, it strikes me that we have repeated the same error as Rome in emphasizing the form over the function of ministry. This has been one of the greatest impediments to a more complete Reformation.

Looking primarily at the form, we focus on things like offices, authority, titles. Pastors become men to respect and submit to; based in large part on the office they hold. Someone with the title of pastor is to be respected and deferred to unless proven otherwise precisely because of the office they hold. A great deal of emphasis is spent on defining the role, the qualifications, the credentials. Ministry becomes whatever the minister does because ministry flows from the office of minister rather than as an “every Christian” focus of the church. In most churches I have been involved in the ministry of the church and in many respects the very character of that local church revolves around the pastoral office holder. In turn, the pastors themselves are rarely ministered to and by virtue of the isolated position their office creates, there is little opportunity or urgency felt to minister to the minister. We are left with the form focused church that is filled with mostly apathetic “members” and frustrated and overburdened pastors. In Galatians 6:2 Paul admonishes us to “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” If only that were the case.

If we shift our focus to the function of ministry, we emphasize attributes like servant-hood, humility, sacrifice. Ministry is something we all do and being a “minister” is less an official status than it is an absolute reality of the life of Christians. The “why” supersedes the “who” in ministry. We should be less concerned with who the minister is and more concerned with who we can minister to. Our focus ought to turn from the minister to the ministered. That may sound groovy and pie in the sky but I think it compliments the Biblical example far more closely than the form focused view of human leadership we so often assume in the church.

That is not to suggest that men who hold the office of pastor and hold to a high view of the form of pastoral ministry don’t believe in humility and self-sacrifice. Many of them do (and many unfortunately do not, in spite of lip-service to the contrary). It is to suggest that we have spent a lot of time and effort thinking about church government, about ministry, about pastoral duties, about preaching and teaching and have given little thought to the function and purpose that drives these. Ultimately we end up with the form being an end unto itself.

We always need to come back to the question of purpose. Why does God have and use human ministers? While it is clear that there are men who are recognized as elders, men who are leaders in the church it is equally true that these men are intended to lead the church through service, not to exercise authority as a select few over the rest of the Body of Christ. This goes way beyond ancillary issues like paying pastors or requiring a seminary education. That is where I have been focused and while I of course believe I am mostly correct in those areas, I also think I have been missing the bigger question of form versus function. When we rightly emphasize the function of ministry over the form of ministry, many of these other question settle themselves.

Does God need a $130 million edifice to be glorified?

I ran across a link tonight and nearly had a meltdown. I am naming names and pointing fingers and I do not apologize for it. First Baptist Dallas has decided to "honor" God by building a $130,000,000 "state of the art" church campus in Dallas.

As I look around downtown Dallas, I see spectacular temples of commerce, of culture and of government – many new, some restored to former glory, and all intended to stand for generations. The Kingdom of God needs a home to equal them – a spiritual oasis in the middle of downtown. - Dr. Robert Jeffress

Seriously. My God is glorious beyond all measure and His Kingdom is magnificent in such a way as to set all the wonders of the this world to shame.

From the press release:

In two special services this morning, Dr. Jeffress informed the congregation that already more than $62 million has been committed to this campaign. Mark Lovvorn, chair of the church’s Planning and Development Committee, further noted that the economic downturn has led to unprecedented potential savings in construction costs, citing research showing that for every dollar spent the church will receive up to $1.30 in value.

Oh that makes it OK. We are getting a good value because the economy is in the toilet. Some more:

“For more than 140 years, God has put First Baptist Church at the center of Dallas, the nation’s fastest-growing city in the heart of America,” Dr. Jeffress continued. “Jerry Jones recently unveiled a new $1.2 billion ‘temple to sport.’ In these tough economic times, why can’t we use our gifts to build a church building that provides a spiritual oasis and matches the splendor and majesty of God?”

A church building that matches the splendor and majesty of God? What sort of blasphemous statement is that? The thought that a building can even begin to match the splendor and majesty of God is a damnable heresy.

Is this what the Gospel ministry is about, building $130,000,000 church buildings in the midst of a time of economic crisis? Jesus didn't call us to try to outdo Jerry Jones, He called us to humility and servanthood. Do you think the hurting people of Dallas will read about "Christians" building this temple to wealth and see God glorified?

I am sure I am going to get aggrieved comments about "not judging". Before you do, here is my response:

Bull

Anyone who can defend this perversion of stewardship has a serious and sinful misunderstanding of the Kingdom of God and Christian ministry. Christ my King did not need or desire earthly riches because He has the cattle on a thousand hills and will reign over streets of gold. This building is an idol, pure and simple, an idol to greed and covetousness and worldliness and is unfit to wear the name of the King of Kings. This is a modern day Tower of Babel and the folly and pride of mankind is on full display.

Money in the life of the church

Alan Knox has a great post on one of my favorite church subjects: money. His post, Church Life # 9 - Money, examines the very different way that the gathering of the church where he fellowships deals with money.

We’ve found that by freeing people’s money from the constraints of an organizational budget, we are actually able to provide for more immediate needs as well as for larger and more long-term needs.

I completely agree. Budgets lead to constraints. In business we have budgets to make sure we don't overspend and that we make a profit. In the church, the budget by and large dictates how we can minister to each other and to the community. Budgeting and spending lead so often to contention and division and too often become the focus of the church. We give to meet the budget, not to minister to others.

What was really interesting is that we went to our first business meeting tonight at Carriage Hill Bible Chapel. There was zero contentiousness about spending and budget because we don't really have one. We take up offerings for different stuff and almost all of the giving is earmarked. If you don't feel led to support a particular evangelist or ministry, don't give to him/it. If you feel strongly about a different one, give to that one. About the only general funding we have maintains our building (utilities, insurance, etc.) It was the most pleasant business meeting we have ever been to and we finished with no one harboring ill will toward anyone else. The less money we spend on the operations of the local church means the less need for budgets and more freedom to minister.

On human authority

NE Michigan Reformation Society: In Defense of Pastoral Leadership

I came across a posting recently from the Northeast Michigan Reformation Society, our sister Reformation Society to the north. Since it specifically referenced me, and in a way that I think misunderstands what I have said, I felt it warranted a response.

Recently, a friend, Arthur Sido at "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness", has posted on his blog his own views and the links to others supporting the view that there is to be no human authority within the local church. The NEMRS affirms the view of church leadership expressed in the Westminster and London Baptist Confessions concerning the leadership of the local church. While these confessions differ in the details concerning church leadership, they both agree that the elders of a church are its leaders appointed by Christ to govern the local church.

Huh?!

Certainly I believe in having human leaders in the church. That is perfectly Biblical and if I may go so far as to say that a local gathering that persists without elders is absolutely unbiblical. We are accountable to one another, need leadership in love from one another and benefit greatly from others with greater maturity in Christ in the Body. If I rejected all human authority and leadership, I wouldn't gather with the church where elders lead the local assembly and I wouldn't go to conferences like Together for the Gospel to sit at the feet of men I look to as leaders and mature brothers in Christ. I would also say confidently that the men that I often link to, men like Alan Knox and Dave Black, likewise affirm the value and Biblical necessity of human leaders in the church. So I am not sure where the notion that I or those I link to reject human authority comes from. Actually, maybe I am sure.

Having said that....I also reject the absolute linkage that says that human leadership inexorably leads us to the traditional model of pastors as if there are only two options: the traditional pastoral model we adopted and adapted from Rome or utter chaos in the church. I reject the deferring of spiritual and ecclesiastical leadership in total to one or a few men which leads to the subcontracting of ministry. As I have said repeatedly, my biggest beef is with the "laity", not the pastors. Pastors are trying to do what the rest of the body is too lazy or too religious to do for themselves, whether in the family or in the gathering of the church. The life of the Christian is one of ministry, for all Christians and not for a select few by virtue of "ordination" by human organizations or by the assuming titles. I recognize that this flies in the face of some traditional Reformed thinking (or at least practice) and I make no apology for that. I specifically do not link back to my blog from the Mid-Michigan Reformation Society blog so as not to cause a stumbling block to anyone for that very reason.

I return again and again to this. Why did God give the church pastors, evangelists, apostles, etc.? To rule perpetually over the church or to use their gifts to bring all members to a maturity in Christ so that we may all minister and be ministered to by one another? The Bible tells us quite clearly:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph 4:11-16, emphasis added)

Note what Paul says the purpose of pastors/shepherds is. Not to DO the work of ministry to the exclusion of others, but instead to EQUIP the saints. That is an enormous distinction and one that is missed so often in these discussions, which is puzzling especially since this is the one place in most English translations where we see the word "pastor" or "shepherd" describing humans. I challenge anyone to search the Scripures and show me the clergy-laity distinction, the hierarchical church, the authoritarian pastor or the passive "member". These divisions do just that, divide the church. Titles, offices, denominations, education, all are often used not to edify and equip the church but to divide. The true Biblical leader is not the one who claims titles and honors and authority, it is the one who serves the Body lovingly and joyfully and sacrificially, who labors among the Body as a fellow laborer (1 Cor 16: 15-16), not as a ruler. The true Christian leader is not the one who has the ordination certificate, or the most education, or the smoothest speech or who wears the title "pastor" like a badge of honor. It is the one who serves others the most and that is hard to do in your study or behind your pulpit.

But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mat 20:25-28)

Our Lord said to His disciples: It shall not be so among you. Unfortunately it all too often is.

What hath the Reformation wrought?

492 years ago by my reckoning, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg and in doing so is credited with launching the Protestant Reformation. This movement would change Europe and the world in ways unimaginable to Luther. Make no mistake. The pernicious errors of Rome demanded a Reformation and I truly believe that in however an imperfect vessel Luther was, God used him mightily to bring reform to the Church.

So what sort of grade does the almost five century history of the Reformation receive? I give it an "I" for incomplete.

Much was accomplished, don't get me wrong. The tyranny of Rome was broken, giving people at least an opportunity to gather in a place that was preaching the unadulterated Gospel. The Scriptures were returned to their rightful place of authority in the Church. The gospel message of justification by faith alone was recovered and without that message there is no Gospel, there is no "Good News" to be declared. The choke-hold Rome held over European nations began to crumble.

On the other hand, we find ourselves in a world where much has not changed all that radically. Modern evangelicalism espouses a deicisonal regeneration model and a "moralistic, therapeutic deism" that smacks of Rome. Even in those corners of evangelicalism where that is not what is preached, we still find ourselves horrible disfigured by our splintering and our endless arguments. We replaced the Roman priesthood with one of our own and adopted the basic structure of Roman worship, replete with liturgies and rituals. Many of the leading Reformers embraced a "magisterial" Reformation that linked the state and the church and left a legacy of wars and a landscape littered with the bodies of Protestants, Catholics and Anabaptists.

So in short, Martin Luther started a great movement but that movement to restore and reform t he Church has been stalled for centuries. We need more bold men like Luther, men who will stand up and call for the Church to be reformed by being conformed to the Scriptures.

A disturbing statistic

I read an article about the effort by some in the evangelical movement to "dialogue" with mormons. The article in Christianity Today presented a very disturbing and sobering statistics in response to the question "Are Mormons Christian?" :

Evangelical Protestants

No 45%
Don't know 15%
Yes 40%

Mainline Protestants

No 23%
Don't know 15%
Yes 62%

Black Protestants

No 30%
Don't know 27%
Yes 43%

I found the 43% yes from black Protestants troubling given mormonism teaching that their black skin is a curse and that until the late seventies when political pressure became too great, blacks were unable to become full members of the mormon church (in that they were unable to hold "the priesthood" and not permitted to do temple work). What these stats tells us is two fold. First, many Christians are completely unequipped and undiscerning to the point that they don't realize that a religion that teaches that God the Father is an "exalted man" that has a body of flesh and bones and that Jesus Christ is a created being and the brother of Satan cannot by nature be a "Christian" religion. Second, it shows us that in the effort to win the culture war, we are allowing ourselves to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For example, check this very honest quote:

One undoubted factor in the search for better relations is that evangelicals and Mormons today unite on various moral issues and feel on the defensive, especially in shared opposition to same-sex marriage. Whatever differences they may have about the nature of God, "when you've been in the trenches together, it often generates new respect," said evangelical attorney David French, who leads the Alliance Defense Fund's (ADF) campus religious freedom project. "The LDS commitment to core values is one that betters our country, without question."

The Gospel is not a political tool. Better to lose the culture war than to put the cross of Christ to shame and deny the Gospel.

What should a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry look like?

To launch Dave Black's new book, Christian Archy, Energion Publications is sponsoring a blogging contest. The question at hand: What should a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry look like? Here are my thoughts...

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The question of what the life of the New Testament church should look like is a complicated one. In modern church life, circa 2009, we carry around an enormous amount of baggage in the form of preconceived notions about “church” that stem from centuries of tradition. That tradition may not have the Biblical record on its side but it has the advantages of presumption, money and inertia. On the other hand, I don’t know of anyone who is satisfied with the state of the church. Recognizing that in and of itself is not sufficient. It is far easier to point out how the church should not look than it is to describe how it should look.

First and foremost, the ministry of the church needs to focus on a central fact: we are, as God’s adopted people, a people chosen by God for His purpose and His glory. He chose us, He bought us, He gave us new life and He commands us to gather together. That central truth needs to override anything else. We are not a voluntary assembly or a bunch of autonomous organisms. We who were not a people are now a people, we who were condemned now stand redeemed (1 Peter 2:10), His people chosen as a remnant before the foundation of the world (Eph 1: 3-6). That fact overrides every other consideration and preference of men. When we choose to declare some people off-limits for fellowship because of a doctrinal dispute, it is not them we are rejecting. It is Christ. Each and every believer was bought with the blood of Christ, so who are we to reject those who are no different than us where it really matters? This is so vital: we don’t choose who to “go to church” with, the membership of the church has already been decided. It is up to us to live in community together. We are also not free to “make it up” when it comes to living and worshiping as a people as we go. The purpose and practice of our worship was not left to chance. The purpose is to glorify God and the practice is shown to us in the Scripture. That is where I will start and as importantly where I will stop as I explore the question at hand.

My focus on the New Testament church life returns again and again to a pivotal passage in Acts and this is where I will focus my response to the question of how a congregation following Jesus Christ should look:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:42)

This passage really gets to the heart and purpose of the church precisely because it is the earliest glimpse we get into the life and the focus of the nascent church under the direct leadership of men like Peter and James. These men were eyewitnesses of Christ and closer perhaps than anyone else to our Savior during His earthly ministry. If we want to know what the church should look like, we should look here before we turn to modern church manuals or even the giants of the faith in the Reformation era. What could be a better source than the men who were filled with the Holy Spirit, men who wrote much of the New Testament, men who were eyewitnesses to the risen Christ?

(As an aside, if there was ever a time when we would see a heavily hierarchical church with clear division between “leaders” and “followers”, it would be here. After all, who wouldn’t submit to the leadership of an apostle? This should be the birth of the hierarchical system. I don’t see that in these passages. What I see is something completely different. I see a vision of community among the family of God’s people.)

To answer the question being posed, I want to break down the four elements of Acts 2:42 and look at them in more detail.

“they devoted themselves to…the fellowship”

That is a kind of vague idea in a vacuum. My understanding is that the Greek word for fellowship, koinōnia, implies “participation, sharing”. That doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) lead us to a compartmentalized, segmented mode of church life where we elect this hour on this day as our time for “worship” and this hour one Sunday afternoon each quarter as “fellowship”. Acts 2:42 and the subsequent passages describing the church reveal a life of community, one lived out in joy and on a daily basis. Believers in Jesus Christ form a community within a community, a redeemed remnant among a largely pagan world. Community sounds great but what does it mean? I would hazard a guess that virtually every church would consider themselves to be a community, from the smallest country church to the largest megachurch. For that answer we look to the verses immediately following the key verse in Acts 2:42:

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2: 43-47)

Does that sound like a “twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday” type of church community? A basic principle that goes along with a life in community is that the life of a New Testament congregation following Christ is not a compartmentalized life. The clear, sharp dividing lines we traditionally have between aspects of Christian life are not in view in the New Testament. This is when we worship, this is when we have fellowship, this is when we are edified. No. We are to live life in community continually and the sub-functions we think of are outgrowths of that community of believers. We gather together as a loving community and because we gather we are edified, encouraged, uplifted. A congregation following Jesus Christ sees fellowship in community as the focal point of the Christian life. Not preaching. Not "worship services". Lives lived out in love and service to one another.

“they devoted themselves to…the breaking of bread”

One of the areas that I have really changed my stance on is the breaking of bread. I used to be a “fence the table” guy, keep the unworthy away. I loved the story of John Calvin blocking the table of the bread and wine with his own body to keep heretics away. That was then. I have concluded now that the Lord’s Supper should be a unifier instead of a divider, a common cup and loaf where we celebrate our common salvation and declare our Savior’s death, resurrection and pending return (1 Cor 11: )

When you deny someone the Lord’s Supper, you in essence are declaring them unfit for fellowship. I think it is disingenuous to say that you consider someone a brother but refuse to share the Supper with them unless they meet your approval on secondary matters of doctrine or on church practice. Who should we not break bread with? Scripture gives us this answer as well:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” (1 Cor 5: 9-13)

Is it too great a leap to suggest that if we as the church deny the fellowship of the Lord’s Supper to someone, we in essence are labeling them a sinner unfit to even eat with? I don’t think that is intentional but I think if we strip away the layers of tradition and ritual that surround the Supper we find that this is the net result. I don’t see the Supper as a doctrinal club but rather a joyous shared meal, a meal mind you and not a little emblem that represents a meal. The Lord’s Supper seems to describe a meal in the New Testament, so why should the church in 2009 accept a trivialized, ritualistic and infrequent substitute? We are to live in community with one another and what is more intimate, more communal than sharing a meal with one another? The congregation following Jesus Christ is one that lives in community and fellowship with one another, in “church”, in our homes and in the sharing of a meal with our brothers and sisters.

“they devoted themselves to…the prayers”

Prayer is one of the greatest areas of glaring weakness in the church (as well as in my own personal life). Saying we need to be a praying church is easy, explaining what that means can be harder. Prayer cannot be a rote repetition. Reading back a prayer someone else wrote strikes me as contrary to the spirit of prayer in the New Testament church. Listening to someone else pray for everyone else also seems to be a cheap substitute. Prayer is simultaneously an intensely personal act as well as something that clearly is a corporate act. Look at this account in Acts 1.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (Acts 1: 12-14)

Here we find the church immediately after the ascension of Christ and the first thing that the church was doing was gathering in prayer. What do we see here? First we see everyone gathered together and “all of these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer”. It strikes me as inconsistent to think that one of the men prayed and everyone else listened. A more natural reading was that they were all praying. Prayer is a personal and familial act with a God who restored our standing with Him. At the cross when Christ breathed His last, the veil was torn asunder (Mark 15:38) and opened the way of grace and mercy that allows us to pray with Christ as our advocate (1 John 2:1)and intercessor (Heb 4:16). Why would you let someone else stand in between you and the Savior? Prayer is the privilege and responsibility of the entire body of Christ and a congregation following Jesus Christ will exhibit prayer among the people as something to be desired for all, not reserved to the few.

“they devoted themselves to…the apostles’ teachings”

This is one that seems to get lost in the search for community and fellowship. Perhaps because doctrinal precision is often (perhaps rightly) linked with legalism and religious formalism. Nevertheless this is a non-negotiable. The danger of an emphasis on community is that we can lose sight of our common confession. I have zero interest in an assembly if we abandon the core truths of the Gospel in return for pseudo-fellowship. The church consists of God’s people in unity but that unity has a foundation. We are unified in our common salvation and our common confession. Let me be clear: there can be no genuine Christian fellowship where the Gospel message is altered, watered down or subsumed. The doctrines of the Gospel ought to unify us, not divide us. Where we see doctrine dividing brothers, we have a problem. Having said that, there are many passages which speak to the seriousness of doctrine. Space and brevity prohibit a full listing but even a cursory examination of the Scriptures demonstrates the level of concern that the writers of the New Testament for doctrine.

The congregation that follows Christ loves Him, loves His Word and finds itself searching the Scriptures as individuals and as an assembly. How can we love someone we know nothing about? How can we say we love Him if we don’t seek Him in His Word?

There is neither need nor room for speculation about what the gathering of the church is supposed to look like. We have been left a series of examples and commands that give us an adequate framework for the life of the community of redeemed believers. The Scriptures don’t contain set prayers or liturgies or church bulletins so why do we find them so vital to our church life? The congregation that follows Christ is one where simple community and fellowship, united by a common confession under the Gospel, has as their focus the only worthy object of worship, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our struggle is not to create whole cloth a worship system. Our struggle is instead to avoid the sort of traditions and rituals that humans have infected the worship of God with since the beginning. Scripture does not lay out a specific, liturgical schedule of events to govern the lives of believers nor is one desirable. All too often we have tried to push Scripture aside when it comes to the gathering of the New Covenant people as the church and replaced it with our own pragmatic solutions, rituals and traditions which may bring us comfort and a sense of being religious but bring little glory to God. Isn’t bringing glory to God what the gathering of the church is supposed to be about?

Deep Church - Initial Thoughts

I am about a quarter of the way through Jim Belcher’s Deep Church and have enjoyed it thus far. What I really have appreciated so far about Jim Belcher is his gracious treatment of the emerging church crowd. Far from the mockery and more visceral reactions just shy of pitchfork and torches you get from many more traditional conservative Christians, Belcher has the grace to recognize that while he has disagreements with the emerging crowd, for the most part they are disagreements with brothers. Are there some false professors among the emerging crowd? Certainly, just as I would say there are certainly false professors among the Reformed. Far from of resorting to caricature, Belcher starts off by recognizing that the emerging crowd has some very legitimate beefs with the traditional church. I agree that many of the concerns of the emerging crowd are legitimate but like Belcher my issue is with some of the emerging church's solutions to the problems. Too many people in the traditional church are unwilling to even admit that there is a problem or if they do admit that there is a problem, the answers is that the problem is probably with us, not with the institution. So I am highly encouraged by what I have read so far. Full review to follow.

The power of a praying wife

Last night I was at the local mormon church listening to a false prophet, one of the mormon “General Authorities”. As I looked around at all of the eager faces, listening raptly to a man proclaiming a false gospel and a false Christ I was heartbroken and oppressed. I didn’t find it uplifting, I found it horrifying.

An hour into the “Fireside”, I was feeling very burdened and discouraged when my blackberry buzzed. At that time of night, it was unlikely to be a work related email so I slipped it out of my pocket and read an email from my wife. It simply said:

I'm covered and Praying.

I love You, Eva

What a comfort and joy to know that in the midst of a sea of lost people being deceived, my wife was at home, thinking about me, chastely covering her head and in prayer. What a great comfort for a husband to have a wife who prays for him! I still was heartbroken for those around me but having prayer support at home strengthened me.

New subheading

I changed the subheading of my blog title to: The musings, ramblings and rants of a theological malcontent. I want to thank Frank Turk of Pyromaniacs fame for giving me that label. I find that it suits me. As I have matured, this blog has changed. Formerly there were a lot of posts about conservative politics, Reformed theology and railing against dissident Christians. It has changed quite a bit over the last year. My posts now focus on the church and on Christian life.

The church is way too comfortable, inert, mechanical. The last thing the church needs is more apathy, more going along with tradition. I hope that I am able to shake the branches, tip sacred cows and stir the pot. All in a way that brings glory to God.

Asking the right questions

I like it when I see people asking questions. I stumbled after five or six links on a blog and the writer asks "What If?" I like where he is going with this:

The question that really faces churches, particularly church planting pastors, is how they will define success. Will we develop a mindset that views success as something that might not immediately put “butts in the seats” on a Sunday morning? If so, do we really want all of our time, energy, resources, money, people and gifts going in to a church structure, whatever that might be? What might it look like if we became more outward focused? What if we had churches that didn’t believe that all ministry was simply up to the pastors?

Keep asking those questions Brent. Sometimes the answer you get is not the one you expect and it is not one that people like to hear. That doesn't mean we shouldn't ask the question...