O Canada!

Over the next week I, and six of my college buddies, will be off to the Canadian Rockies for a new set of adventures. I will post when I return (God willing). If I happen to fall off a cliff or get eaten by a bear, let it be known...

Jesus is Lord.
His love is supreme.
His kingdom has no end.
His cross is my confession.

Trying to Be Real...Or Just Another Kind of Cool?

"I have become all things to all people,
that by all means I might save some.
I do it all for the sake of the gospel,
that I may share with them in its blessings."
- The Epistle of First Corinthians 9:22b-23 (ESV)

Isn’t it interesting how “authenticity” for some is really just pining for a different type of cool? I find it somewhat funny how some, especially those a generation younger than me, critique many “contemporary”-styled churches as being too slick because their weekend service happens to be tightly programmed and runs smoothly but a church is much more real, “organic” and authentic if, for example, what takes place on Sunday seems as if it’s just happening and put together on the fly. The “More Authenticity” movement says, “Don’t give us theatrical lighting or well-timed, seamless transitions in the service, we should just throw a band out there that ‘knows’ how to worship and some guy who can ‘bring the truth’.” Really?

I guess then we shouldn’t pay any attention to the fact that the “worship team” (read: band) always seems to be dressed in the guise of any number of one-hit-wonder rock groups on the cover of SPIN magazine? Sport some disheveled hair, a well-worn skinny-T (preferably of a secular band the fundamentalist church of your adolescence would hate), a few tats, throw in a piercing or two, and don’t forget to give some obscure writers/theologians as your influences and BAM, you too can have insta-worship-cred for many in the “More Authenticity” movement. But what do we do with the fact that both types of churches often sing the same songs? Hmmmm...

Nor should we ever think to ourselves that the pastor of the “More Authenticity” church, with his frayed jeans, leather wristband and earthy sandals, always seems to look like he just came from a photo shoot for a Hollister catalog. Maybe those “attire desires” are the product of someone who is genuinely more in tune with the Kingdom of God than the poor souls who’ve committed the sin of donning socks and slacks in the pulpit (being the superficial people they are). I’ve forgotten, but can someone please tell me the reference where Jesus took off his mother-of-pearl-buttoned cowboy shirt and used it to wipe the feet of his disciples?

Okay, okay, maybe (just maybe) this is somewhat overstated, but it’s not as hyperbolic as some might think. The truth is, while some banter about the idea that the contemporary church is too inauthentic what they really mean is that the people on stage and the environments where they gather aren’t as cool as they’d like. The bottom line is that these critics, in their noble quest for authenticity have simply taken the lesser (and ignoble) route of image management – which is as far from authenticity as you can get!

Listen, I don’t have a problem with a band who thinks guys wearing eyeliner is cool or a speaker inked with some obtuse looking tattoo on the inside of his wrist that takes him an hour and two philosophers to explain, but don’t tell me it’s more authentic than the guy who wears a sweater-vest with a local golf course crest stitched on it or the worship team where everybody sings in a line with microphones in their hands. Frankly, while I prefer probably the former to the latter, hopefully both are an attempt to contextualize the presence of the church (and the Gospel) to their community. They are simply trying to reflect what the people in their communities look like, talk like, live like - trying to live amongst them (as “normal” as they can be) to lead them to Jesus. Now that sounds authentic regardless of your style palette.

So be careful when you hear someone spouting off about how much more authentic their church is than the one down the street all because they’ve lit candles while the others have chosen to utilize Edison’s discovery! They're just promoting another kind of cool.

I close with a story. A friend of mine (who leads a contemporary church) asked a “More Authentic” devotee, who was critical about the “slick” programming of my friend's services, if being more authentic meant the church staff didn’t need to work on putting a coherent, well-ordered service together. The response: “No, they can plan it out, just don’t make it look like it was planned out.”

Authenticity indeed.

Causes and the Cause: A Case of Means and Ends

***Okay, this is bubbling in my head currently. I'm not sure if my thinking is completely straight but I reserve the right to get smarter. So let me share my semi-baked thoughts...

"And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them..."
- The Book of Acts 4:33-34a (ESV)

Right now the rage for evangelical churches is to engage in more social causes - global poverty, slavery, children militias, etc. What had been the agenda of theologically liberal mainline denominations for the past several decades has now been adopted by the wider ecclesiastical crowd.

Before I go any further let me say that I believe engaging these causes can be a very worthy endeavor. As a matter of fact I have good friends who are leading the way in a few of these causes (Fair Trade Sports, Tom's Shoes, Invisible Children). One would do well not only to look at what they are saying but consider if he or she should dig in and help. But as church upon church jumps on the social cause bandwagon I humbly suggest they should pause and ask a question: Will these become a means or an end for us?

To discover the mission of the church is to look at the Book of Acts. Page after page describes how followers of Jesus went into all the ancient world declaring that the kingdom of God had come in the person of Christ. Their strategy was quite simple - share what you have heard, seen and experienced in Jesus. Listen to the Commander-In-Chief giving the orders in Acts 1:8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." The initial call of nascent Christianity was clear: go into the world and proclaim who Jesus is and what he has done through the Cross...be a witness. That was, if you will, the end toward which Christians were working, a soulish-end where people received forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus as Lord (cf., Acts 2:41). Everything else the church did - healing diseases, making the lame to walk, giving sight to the blind - only served as a means towards this end. Like their Master before them, they saw these causes as supporting the greater purpose of proclaiming the Word.

We would be wise to keep this in mind today as more and more churches go for the land-grab of cause after cause. As far as the church and her ministry is concerned, these social justice endeavors should be understood in light of the Gospel and not the other way around. Is helping feed the hungry important? Yes. Is clothing the naked? Yes. Is giving aid to the sick? Absolutely. But they are important tributaries that flow from the very powerful and preeminent river of seeing others give their heart and life to Christ Jesus and his saving work of the Cross! I'm not arguing we can't give a blanket to someone who is cold unless they first read a tract we shoved in their face; I am arguing that all the blankets in the world won't mean very much for anyone's soul a thousand years from now unless, like the Book of Acts, we connect our causes to the great cause of repentance and faith in Jesus.

When the weight of what a church says and does devolves to only (and I stress only) dealing with AIDS in Africa, eliminating the debt in underdeveloped countries or building a fresh-water well minus the framework of the Cross then we've made ends out of means. Frankly, we've been there and done that - it's called the liberal church who gutted the Gospel in favor for social issues. Should it surprise us that they are drying up as quick as spit on a summer sidewalk? To embrace social causes at the expense of the Gospel is like quitting a journey halfway into it because you've convinced yourself you've arrived. This won't do. With our apostolic and ancient forbears as inspiration, the church should engage in causes because of the Gospel not in addition to it.

To do so is to confuse the means with the end...and possibly those wondering what the church is all about.

Acts 5:42, "And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ."

I Dream...

Today we had a staff getaway where we looked over a document which outlined a vision for the staff of my church. You might call it a "dream page" as each paragraph began with the wording "I dream of..." followed by the hopes of what our staff would become (e.g, people who passionately love Christ, are the best in their respective fields, have a loving rapport with each other). At the getaway we were asked to reread it and offer any edits or additions. The following is an addendum I wrote:

I dream of a staff that seeks to be sound doctrinally, where everyone considers themselves to be a theologian instead of ceding it to the academic and ecclesiastical elites. I dream of working with people who desire to be theologically astute so that both God and man might be loved with increasing intensity, frequency and fidelity. I dream of a staff who knows, believes, proclaims and defends the essentials, who is magnanimous in the non-essentials, seeking to bring every thought and action captive to Christ. I dream of a team where liberty is our flag and responsibility the staff on which it waves.

Reformed Resurgence

“I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that,
if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him;
and I am sure He chose me before I was born,
or else He never would have chosen me afterwards.”
– Charles Spurgeon

Lately I’ve noticed the upsurge of Reformed theology in the evangelical church. It seems that, especially in the eyes of the twenty and thirty-somethings, historically Calvinistic understandings about salvation are on the rise (for example, see one of the seminal articles addressing this growing Reformed wave). But is this just the theology du jour, a trend ("Calvinism is cool!") that hip pastors and parishioners want to be a part of simply because it's trendy? I don’t think so.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a (super)natural response to the fruits of a self-centric Christianity of the last quarter century with its inch-deep (read: trivialized) worship choruses, therapeutic (read: new law) sermons and over-sentimentalized (read: near idolatrous) view of the Holy. In the end you have a painting that claims it is about God but unfortunately amid all the brilliant colors and broad strokes the only image that seems to rise from the canvas looks a lot like us.

I like Mark Devers' quote: Where'd all these Calvinists come from? Quietly, all over the world young Christians, young ministers have had their spiritual tummies rumbling after they've been reading many of the spiritual bestsellers, books that are full of jokes and life tips, whose height of profundity have been something like "Lighten up and Live!" And someone has turned them on to [Reformed teaching]. And, by God's grace, they have learned about the grace of God, and the God of that grace.

The reality is, today, that younger generations are seeking a better frame in which to view God, one where God is displayed as the God of the Bible. And it appears many have found it in the Doctrines of Grace.

That surely was the case for me. Early in my journey with Jesus I learned about comprehensive depravity, unconditional election and the other doctrines which revolve around the fact that salvation is entirely of God alone. For that I am very grateful and indebted to the Lord because those truths have increased my sense of awe, reverence and humility toward him like few other avenues have. Needless to say, I am encouraged to think this is going on around churches throughout our nation.

For what it's worth...
I don’t like to define my understanding of what I believe as Reformed or Calvinistic. I feel that doesn’t do justice to them. I’d rather say I am attempting to believe what the Bible teaches as best as I can understand it…period. I use the term Reformed because I acknowledge there are many who have arrived at different positions than mine who would say the same thing about their pursuit of biblical truth.

Hopefully, one day they'll come to their senses. ;)

PS - At any place where a system for understanding what the Bible teaches conflicts with the Bible teaches you’ve got a problem. But let it be known that I hold to a Reformed view of theology ultimately because of what I believe the Bible, not any one particular man, has said. Big boys get that. Only the immature Christian tends to accuse others of being led astray by personalities (e.g., Luther and Calvin) instead of the Bible. The truth is all of us are taught by others. Of the teachers we embrace, we do so precisely because we believe they have interpreted the Bible most faithfully. The more spiritually mature understand that and refuse to accuse others of blindly following a person. They've learned that many who stand on the other side of the theological street do so because they believe the Bible brought them there. Keeping that in mind should help us dialogue with both fervor and respect.