Pillars are Just Crutches

There isn’t much on the site yet but here is the link to the Collision movie featuring the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson.  It should be good!

I’m reading an amazing book by Eugene Peterson entitled, “The Contemplative Pastor”.  I would suggest that anyone even thinking about going into pastoral ministry read this book.  It’s quite thought-provoking and profound.  Here’s a bit that I appreciated about evangelism (page 79).

The witness points, mute, so as not to interfere with the sound of silence … [Witness] is an important biblical word in frequent contemporary use.  It is a modest word saying what is there, honestly testifying to exactly what we see, what we hear.  But when we enlist in a cause, it is almost impossible to do it right: we embellish, we fill in the blanks, we varnish the dull passages, we gild the lily just a little to hold the attention of our auditors … important things are at stake – God, salvation – and we want so much to involve outsiders in these awesome realities that we leave the humble ground of witness and use our words to influence and motivate, to advertise and publicize.  Then we are no longer witnesses, but lawyers arguing the case, not always with scrupulous attention to detail.  After all, life and death issues are before the jury.

Another quote along the lines of quietness and silence is a quote that I have on my Facebook page which is attributed to A.W. Tozer:

Man has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity, and bluster make a man dear to God

There was a time in my Christian journey when I would get down on my self for not being distinct from the world.  I didn’t think that I was that different – other than a few things here and there.  Then, I got a job in the secular workforce and learned very quickly that I was completely different, not just on surface level, but at a worldview level.

Lately however, it seems it’s very easy to see that I, as a Christian am very different, and I am convinced more now than ever that the current North American culture is completely and utterly evil.

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There is a good article on small group myths that I think hits the nail on the head on why small groups don’t really work.  At the beginning however he gives some reasons why small groups in North America are easier said than done:

1. We have few role models, at least in our own culture.

2. The literature on the subject has promoted the idea without offering practical methods.

3. The American concept of home privacy causes such ministries to develop more slowly here than in some countries.

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I’m in a predicament.

Even though I’ve blogged for several years on different sites here and there, I actually don’t have any friends who blog regularly.  Some of my friends blog intermittently, some think it’s geeky, some probably don’t know what a blog is.

It’s a predicament because I like blogging as a team.  I had tried it before (with a friend who rarely blogs) and when it was active and we were bouncing ideas and concepts off each other through blogging it created an interesting scenario.

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Here’s an interesting piece from Tullian Tchividjian on spirituality.  It’s interesting because being raised in a Pentecostal background has given me quite a different view on the subject.  So I hope this gives more people a new fresh perspective!!.  Enjoy.

Reformed people usually get charged with being doctrinal purists who are spiritually dry (hence the phrase “frozen chosen”). This charge depends, though, on one’s defintion of true spirituality. In the “Final Thoughts” column of the May/June edition of Modern Reformation magazine, Michael Horton describes Reformed spirituality by emphasizing that true spirituality is grounded first in what God has accomplished outside of us, not what he performs inside of us. “When we follow the opposite direction”, writes Horton, “we’re swimming upstream–against the current of God’s gracious condescension to sinners.” He explains:

Almost everything that is advocated as “spirituality” or “spiritual disciplines” today is private and focuses on the inner life of the individual, but Christianity is wildly, unashamedly, thoroughly public and focuses on Christ’s historical work and the way that he comes to us by his Spirit–not through private revelations or subjective experiences, but through ordinary human language (preaching), water (baptism), bread and wine (Lord’s Supper). God comes to us in Jesus Christ by his Spirit outside of our reason and experience. His visitation throws us off balance, surprising us instead of simply soothing us or confirming our piety.

So when someone asks us about our spirituality or piety, we typically talk about the public ministry of preaching and sacrament as well as prayer, Bible reading, catechism, and singing Psalms and hymns at home and at church. When the Westminster divines said that “God blesses the reading but especially the preaching of the Word as a means of grace,” they were highlighting this point. From a covenantal perspective, God works from the outside in, from that which God accomplished for us and outside of us to that which he performs within us and through us, from the public to the personal, from what has happened in the past to what is happening in the present. When we follow the opposite direction, we’re swimming upstream–against the current of God’s gracious condescension to sinners.

As I’ve noted in previous blogs by a similar title, I just finished reading the surprisingly powerful, In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen.  The book talks about what the author learned about leadership in his transition from Harvard to Daybreak.

The last temptation that Nouwen talks about in Jesus wilderness temptations is that of being powerful and wanting control.  Nouwen shares about how his arguments and nice words could not convince the handicapped people at Daybreak.  He had to let go of his need for control and power.  He offers good insight to why the temptation to be powerful can often be the most powerful temptation:

What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible?  Maybe it is that pwer offers an easy substitute for the hard love.  It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people that to love people, easier to own like than to love life.  Jesus asks, “Do you love me?”  We ask, “Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom? (p. 77)

Nouwen hopes for a poor church whose leaders are willing to be led in humility.  He is not referring to weak leadership, simply leadership that allows love to overrule.  The way to do this is through theological reflection.  Nouwen says, “the task of future Christian leaders is not to make a little contribution to the solution of the pains and tribulations of their time, but to identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading God’s people out of slavery, through the desert to a new land of freedom” (p. 87).

I agree with Nouwen that todays Christian leaders have become more ‘pseudo-social-worker or pseudo-psychologist rather than real ministers.  Pastors have (to some degree) forgotten that it is God who calls people into ministry and therefore God who will sustain, provide and help people in ministry.  To strictly rely on counseling or social-work techniques cheapens and diminishes what God wants to do.  Ministers need to be theologically and prayerfully prepared “to manifest the divine event of God’s saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time” (p.88).

I just finished reading a remarkable little book by Henri J. M. Nouwen who was a Catholic priest who taught at Harvard and ended up being a Chaplin at Daybreak for the mentally handicapped and their helpers.  The book is entitled, ‘In the Name of Jesus’.  The book is about Christian leadership, but it’s unlike anyother Christian leadership book I have ever read.

In his introduction he sets the stage of how he arrived at Daybreak from Harvard and he shares how that transition had given him a new perspective on Christian leadership.  In doing so he uses the tempation of Jesus as his guide.  The first temptation being turning the stone to bread.

This is the temptation to be relevant, and what a temptation, Jesus was hungry, he hadn’t eaten in weeks!  Some bread would have hit the spot!  Mr. Nouwen shares that Jesus came into the world, and when He was tempted with what He could do (feed himself with food that he desperately needed) He responded with what he should do, feed himself with God’s word.

This has big applications within the church today!  Many churches have tried to be relevant and reach out to the lowest common denominator, in doing so they have taken away the gospel message so as not to offend people.  They are being completely relevant to the world and feeding their congregations self-help messages that have been stripped of the Word of God.  They are no longer preaching sermon, they are giving seminars.  As a result, souls are lost.

Instead of attempting to be relevant Nouwen asks the question, “Am I in love with Jesus?”  The answer to this question is more important than what people may think of me or whether I get the result I expect or want.  It will also determine how close I am to Him and what my spiritual life is like.  He encourages us to seek God through contemplative prayer, simply dwelling in the presence of God.

To the churches great demise, prayer has become synonymous with ‘doing nothing’.  Churches are more focused on programs than spiritual disciplines and they have created a culture where busyness, noise, and attendance is often linked to success.  Whereas often the opposite is need, stillness, silence and solitude.

Instead of seeking relevance we should be prayerfully seeking God.