Believe It or Not: A Telling Hermeneutic

"How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it." – Lesslie Newbigin

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We are seeking to accomplish what God himself wills to happen

It's been a very long while since posting here. Lot's of reasons -mostly good methinks. However, the following link merits chasing. Enjoy :-)

So all our missional efforts to make God known must be set within the prior framework of God’s own will to be known. We are seeking to accomplish what God himself wills to happen. This is both humbling and reassuring. It is humbling inasmuch as it reminds us that all our efforts would be in vain but for God’s determination to be known. We are neither the initiators of the mission of making God known to the nations nor does it lie in our power to decide how to the task will be fully accomplished or when it may be deemed to be complete. But it is also reassuring. For we know that behind all our fumbling efforts and inadequate communication the supreme will of the living God, reaching out in loving self-revelation, incredibly willing to open blind eyes and reveal his glory through the treasures of the gospel delivered in the clay pots of his witnesses.

- Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, p. 129, 130

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Holy Love :: Offensive Cross :: Needed Win

With my thoughts turning towards the Lenten and Easter seasons and the continued shaping of our community, I'm often - and may it always be so - reminded that the benefits of the Gospel and Kingdom come only on the basis of the blood, death and resurrection of our King. Whilst being boldly loving folk and doing "good" things should lead us towards the peaceful fruits of justice, mercy, humility and the "blessing" of others - especially the "least of these", I cannot step over the stumbling block and offense of the cross which remains foolishness to some and the very power of God to others.

Seeking to anticipate the "sparks in the wind" sort of varied influences - especially the markedly heretical - that may contain the embers needed to influence, confuse or harm the folks of our community, I came across the following poem. It is an excerpt from Timothy Stoner’s The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditation on Faith (p. 30).

Certainly worth the read methinks.

Holy Love Wins

The love that wins is a holy love.

The love that won on the cross and wins the world is a love that is driven, determined, and defined by holiness.

It is a love that flows out of the heart of a God who is transcendent, majestic, infinite in righteousness, who loves justice as much as he does mercy; who hates wickedness as much as he loves goodness; who blazes with a fiery, passionate love for himself above all things.

He is Creator, Sustainer, Beginning and End.

He is robed in a splendor and eternal purity that is blinding.

He rules, he reigns, he rages and roars, then bends down to whisper love songs to his creatures.

His love is vast and irresistible.

It is also terrifying, and it will spare no expense to give everything away in order to free us from the bondage of sin, purifying for himself a people who are devoted to his glory, a people who have “no ambition except to do good”.

So he crushes his precious Son in order to rescue and restore mankind along with his entire creation.

He unleashes perfect judgment on the perfectly obedient sacrifice and then pulls him up out of the grave in a smashing and utter victory.

He is a God who triumphs . . .

He is a burning cyclone of passionate love.

Holy love wins.

Grace & Peace,

-T

Read entire originating post: Holy Love Wins

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A Needed Glimpse @ Nehemiah

For the Love of God , a daily devotional designed to walk a person through the Bible in a year, remains a helpful compliment to the M'Cheynne Reading plan. Sunday's commentary was particularly striking. Partly because of the pastoral context and needs in our community. Partly because of the tendency to drift that remains a resident lure in my own heart.

Reflect: A Swim Upstream Awaits

ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING EVIDENCES of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

Click here for the complete post. (D.A. Carson:For the Love of God: The Gospel Coalition)

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A Seamless Robe & Theology's Common Grounding

“When you encounter a present-day view of Holy Scripture, you encounter more than a view of Scripture. What you meet is a total view of God and the world, that is, a total theology, which is both an ontology, declaring what there is, and an epistemology, stating how we know what there is. This is necessarily so, for a theology is a seamless robe, a circle within which everything links up with everything else through its common grounding in God. Every view of Scripture, in particular, proves on analysis to be bound up with an overall view of God and man.”

J. I. Packer, in The Foundation of Biblical Authority (Grand Rapids, 1978), page 61.

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The Gospel - know it well, teach it to others, & beat it into their heads continually

“The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbour; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.

Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.

Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.” –Martin Luther, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co., 1860), 206.

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The Intrusion of Discipleship

There are advantages to working across multiple time zones. Catching up on work and ministry back home whilst wrapping up a late dinner in the Ukraine is one of them. And, that's a good thing. It's nice to wrap up a fruitful day of work here and still have time to tend to things in ATL . Anyway, enough of that.

If you're reading this, you can likely tell I don't post much these days. In fact, I've not done so for quite a while. Yet, tonight I want to post an excerpt from a blog I read a bit earlier. Just because I don't post to the blog often doesn't mean the wrestling has quelled. In fact, it has increased as I long to see Christ formed in my church, gospel community, family, and me. To that end, the following excerpt resonates. Hence, the post. actually, a re-post of Bill Hull : exploring a faith that embraces discipleship.

Who could say no to the statement that we ought “to teach people to obey everything Christ commanded?” ... but many believe that we can’t really do that, we are not setup to do it. What it involves is apprenticeship and submission. Our church systems are built on profession of belief, but often we do not believe what we profess. The church systems we have set up protect those who profess from the intrusion of discipleship. We say it is ok to be a part of our churches without a requirement to follow Jesus. Again because our gospel requires nothing of its recipients. What can be done about three generations of Christians who have been trained to evaluate their spiritual lives by how much they enjoyed the worship service? When we lose discipleship we lose the permission to teach deeply, to teach them to obey what Christ commanded. And when that is lost, as it is in our churches, we get the American church. So what to do? I commend to you the simple plan of Philosopher Dallas Willard.

“ I recommend that we not announce that we are going to change things. Just start doing things differently including, of course, teaching people to do what Jesus said. Begin to teach what discipleship is and lay down a theology of discipleship on a scriptural basis. Begin to assume discipleship in church activities. Begin to teach in depth the things central to the NewTestament teachings: God [existence and nature] his kingdom, Jesus in that context, discipleship as a way of life, and how one becomes the kind of person who will, out of inner transformation of mind, will, body, soul and social relationships, do what he said. This is the tried a true method of “Church growth” through the ages: Bigger Christians. And it is precisely what Jesus told us to do.” Willard,Dallas - taken from notes of speech, March 24,2009

Grace & Peace

-T

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Ed Stetzer - A LifeWay Research blog on theology, missiology, missional church, church planting, church revlitalization, and innovation.

Ed Stetzer - A LifeWay Research blog on theology, missiology, missional church, church planting, church revlitalization, and innovation.

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An Encouraging Perspective

I met Penn Jillette about two years back. A simple nice to meet you near the elevator at the Rio. Too many people and not much time to say much else as folks began to approach with paper and pen in hand to ask for his autograph.

I was struck by his willingness to stay put and meet the folks that drew near when it seemed clear he'd probably like a little space and a chance to enjoy a coffee in peace. Who knows, maybe he doesn't even drink coffee but he struck me one who requires time for contemplation.

This morning, in my own time of contemplation, I came across this video. It's a snippet from Penn Says. I'm struck by his honesty and take heart in his exhortation and what he took away from a conversation with a gracious follower of Christ. Penn was touched by the encounter. The manner and gracious heart of the one that spoke of Jesus is instructive.

Thank you Penn for sharing. I would that many who name the name of Christ would take notice. May we speak in a way "seasoned with grace". May we not acts as jerks when kindness should issue from the heart of those who know the gospel. One who has been "forgiven much" will be gracious with others for she knows what it means to be forgiven without the means to repay.

Take time to watch and listen to the link below. It's worth it.

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An Unpopular Message : A Needed Word

The Word of the Lord.

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

Greetings.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:1-4; ESV)

Thanks be to God
Amen



Note: Sir Norman Anderson is mentioned by Dr Piper. Without the aid of context from the broader message, maybe the following link, offered for your information,is useful?: FYI here.

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When Dying Men Preach

Today, I came across an interview- recorded some years back- with Dr John RW Stott. It merits a look see.

Found it at Between Two Worlds by way of link from Pure Church. I especially note two excerpts.

1 - The priority of preaching the Scriptures.

When asked, “What legacy would you like to leave with the leaders, with whom you have been involved?” Dr. Stott replied,

“ I would urge upon them the priority of preaching. It is the Word of God which matures the people of God. As Jesus said, quoting Deuteronomy, human beings do not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God. Moreover, what is true of individuals is equally true of churches. Churches live, grow, and flourish by the Word of God; they languish and perish without it. Of course the Word of God can reach people both in private Bible study (if they are literate and have a Bible) and in Bible study groups. But the major way in which the Word of God comes to the people of God worldwide is through preaching. I am an unrepentant believer in the power of the pulpit. I long to see a recovery of faithful biblical preaching from the pulpits of the world; the result would be a dramatic growth in mature discipleship.”

2 - The radical call flowing from the cross of Christ beyond the Atonement.

Again, Dr. Stott says,

“I have been concerned to write a book which is not just about the Atonement but about all aspects of the death of Christ as unfolded in the New Testament. For instance, Christ calls us to take up our cross and follow him. ‘When Christ calls a man,’ wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘he bids him come and die.’ We are always in danger of trivializing the meaning of conversion as if it involved only the adoption of a veneer of piety in an otherwise secular life. Then scratch the surface and there is the same old pagan underneath. But no, conversion is much more radical than this."

The article originally appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of the C. S. Lewis Institute Report. You will find it here. And the original post at Between Two Worlds can be seen here.

Grace and Peace,

-T

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Always, Life is War

Whilst listening to a preview of “Indelible Grace IV: Beams of Heaven", I came across the following quote by John Piper and, given my present pastoral context, it is both encouraging and sobering. Why would we ever expect that the war has subsided this side of His Kingdom fully come? So it is. Thank God He, our Father, leads, reigns, and sustains.

“Life is war. That’s not all it is, but it is always that.” We are in a battle, but not against flesh and blood. Christ is our champion and we are called to follow Him as His kingdom advances upon the parasite kingdom of Satan. Our encouragement is His promise that the gates of Hell will not stand. - John Piper in “Let The Nations Be Glad”

Note: Indelible Grace IV features 15 hymns performed by Sandra McCracken, Matthew Perryman Jones, Matthew Smith, Derek Webb and a number of other folks who merit a listen. If you want, you can hear the preview the CD release here.

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The Pressures of Missional Living

Wrestling to integrate faith and praxis is a good thing. Since meeting Christ and setting off in His embrace to follow Him, I've not been - nor do I desire to be- at ease with the status quo and pre-packaged pat answers. What's more, this tension between expediency and truth seeking remains after nearly 30 years of new life. In fact, it persists across the varying roles of my life as husband, father, employee, boss, elder, co-labourer, etc.

Staunchly resistant to consumerist Christian practice, I yearn, in His grace, to run towards the unsettling tensions of the seemingly necessary internal pressure that results as the pieces of my life puzzle continue to emerge in their formation and are fitted together through the ongoing “death and resurrection” process of continuing transformation. ( Soren Kierkegaard said, "Life can only be lived forward and understood backwards". Maybe there's some truth in his observation?) Yet, one surprisingly - albeit totally to be expected based on the Scriptural narrative of creation and redemption- positive point is my work.

I enjoy my industry and delight in adding benefit to the lives and work of customers. Granted there are times I’d like absolute liberty to stop,wrestle in solitude, and more actively (full time) pastor; however, I remain confident in the value of staying in the the struggle. Tension, whilst integrating and persisting to resist compartmentalized living as a believer, bears increasing fruit- especially over time. Plus, the requirements of my work spark necessary travel and provides the basis to nurture cross cultural and global friendships.

Recently, a friend and fellow shepherd, whom I see with some frequency in my travel to work, took time to share a reply he made to his sending organization. As I (I believe) am called to remain non-vocational as a pastor, my friend – and I believe he is called to do so- is working out his "calling" in the context of pioneering a church plant in the Midlands of Britain. Reading his reluctantly shared note builds empathy in the common struggle and heartens me, his friend and Christ co-labourer, to be a bit of a Barnabas and encourage his family and him in their missional endeavour, as well as, respond in praise to Christ.

My friend reminds me that he appreciates the encouragement he receives as we keep up with one another from across "the pond" and I suspect he doesn’t recognize – even though I have said it clearly- that the encouragement flows both ways. Anyway, here’s his note. (Location and denominational specific references deleted for the sake of anonymity.) I think you'll find it quite worth the read:

"What pressures have you, as pioneer missional pastor, experienced?"

I answer this for the sake of those who are romantically attracted to this role and those with responsibility for selecting and managing us.

I have felt pressure and, over the past winter, felt extremely bleak at the sense of slow growth and my own inadequacy. I am not often operating in my ‘comfort zone’ or my perception of my strengths. It has been crucial to know that I am called to this, and to believe that existing expressions of church (and even ‘freshly-tweaked expressions’) are wholly inadequate as a response to Christ’s calling to engage with him in His Mission.

Initially the pressure comes from all the space. There are no guidelines, no set role, and no fallback function. There are only a few who have ‘gone before’ so there is little possibility of specific guidance. My own sustaining spiritual discipline is key along with intercessors and encouragers. I give thanks for those people who are these to me.

The pressure to fill the space is intense and comes from my own sinful patterns of earning acceptance by achievement (I observe similar patterns in the institution which employs me). I could fill my diary with church meetings – filling in for clergy, meetings which exhaust rather than energise, speaking to people who have little intention of either being part of the project or responding to the call to do likewise (I still can’t discern exactly what people are really asking when they ask ‘How’s it going?’).

As people have come they bring their own pressure, as anyone in leadership has experienced. The imagined enthusiastic able and uncomplicated team does not quickly appear! Instead we have gathered a community filled with pastoral issues (real people with real problems). The temptation is to revert to chaplain/pastor problem-solver and so lose the missionary focus.

Growing community and growing networking with the demands of communication and development increase the pressure of administration. As I have become known and met strategic people in networks of media, local government, education, business and in the voluntary sector as well as potential partners in Christian organisations I have become pressurised by the need for administration to help develop these links as well as ensure the accountability, equipping and releasing of our fellowship’s members and communication through website etc. Because I have no base except the family home, the family shares this pressure. My children have no space except their own bedrooms and, as they are entering teenage years this is becoming difficult. Finding time to read and write this (and other) reports is a pressure and yet I know that time for reflection is vital. I just about manage a day each month at a local retreat house.

There is a pressure in reconfiguring and reconceiving the Gospel. For many years I’ve been aware that it is too simplistic to say that we need to hold fast to the Gospel and simply to repackage it culturally. We have to go through the insecurity of asking ‘What gospel am I holding too?’ With a lack of rigorous theological reflection around this is a challenge. I find myself wanting to challenge many ‘gospel’ assumptions proclaimed in word or action by Christians around me as well as having to ask hard questions about my own inheritance. This is the challenge of transformation, which involves both death and resurrection in Christ. There is a concern about syncretism if we do not defend the uniqueness of Christ and the foundational doctrines of the faith. We will be ineffective if we can’t communicate with emerging cultures and irrelevant if we are merely assimilated into the prevailing cultures.

There are also the pressures that come from the lack of an ‘official’ building. I can’t ‘go’ somewhere to worship and I can’t refer anyone to go there either. I’m sometimes isolated in a role that feels so different to any other and among people that are culturally very different to me.

Please don’t respond by preaching to me, or telling me I’m doing well really! I know that I’m called here. And that I’m God’s person for here and now. I know that He will help me in my weakness and lead me on. His grace is so wonderful – and there are signs of it. So pray for me and praise our Lord Jesus Christ!

A Fellow Elder in Christ
Church Planter/Mission Pioneer

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