Friday, December 25, 2009
How Now Shall We Read
There are both good reasons and bad reasons for turning to other Christian writings besides the Bible. The bad reasons stem from thinking the content of Scripture is tasteless and tame. The good reasons stem from a healthy appetite not only for the savory unbridled truth of the Word but to share in this rich banquet with other believers. The best writers may illuminate parts of the rich banquet table that may have been dark to us, thus increasing our appetite for the Bible, and especially for God himself. The worst of Christian literature will have us navel-gazing at self-validating ideas.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Critical Christianity
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for rebuking, rebuking, rebuking and rebuking all unrighteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly criticized for his every effort." 2 Timothy 3:16-17 MDT (Modern Day Translation)
Ok so maybe my translation is a bit facetious but if all you did was look around many Christian web sites, blogs, foyers, and broadcasts the above translation seems plausible. Now there's not much point of me adding to the hypocrisy by critiquing the critical Christians for the sake of critiquing. After all, the very term Christian basically means Christ-like. So if we're going to represent Christ our job bears some resemblance to a physician since Christ is the "Great Physician." Now imagine if you will a missionary who went to a far off land just to tell the natives of their countless shortcomings and give in depth analogies of all their sins. Then that same missionary packs up and moves on to another troubled spot to point out the troubles in that spot. Why, that's no missionary at all! And what if you visited a doctor who did nothing but diagnose all your symptoms and then send you off with no mention of a prescription or remedy? Why that's no Christian manifesto at all.
As it correctly reads:
2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." So let's see how this passage may work in application...
I've noticed lately that mega-churches have taken a beating by the Christian critics and that's no surprise. Considering how many of them seem to grab more ideas from secular corporations than from scripture. But more in-depth analogy of what's wrong doesn't necessarily bring us closer to the remedy. What simply needs to be re-stated about the Christian walk is that it is deeply dependant on our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Because none of us are an island unto ourselves and God created us as highly social beings dependent on nurturing, we should be looking for spiritual and emotional intimacy within our fellow local body of believers. Also, the responsibility of pastor and elders as shepherds is to be intimately acquainted with the growth of those in their flock. After all, the Good Shepherd has sheep that know his voice and He knows each of them by name so there we have a model for elders to aim for. When a church grows to such a number that the spiritual leaders can't keep track of everyone and people begin to "slip through the cracks" or "fade into the background" among the sea of faces... well, that's an indication a church may need to split, dividing itself.
Of course I'm just scratching the surface on a remedy to the over-stuffed church. At the foundation of it all needs to be sound Biblical doctrine with the teachings of Christ and Him crucified as the cornerstone and an emphasis on loving the Lord our God with all we are and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Further reading: A balanced review of the book "Why Join a Small Church?"
Ok so maybe my translation is a bit facetious but if all you did was look around many Christian web sites, blogs, foyers, and broadcasts the above translation seems plausible. Now there's not much point of me adding to the hypocrisy by critiquing the critical Christians for the sake of critiquing. After all, the very term Christian basically means Christ-like. So if we're going to represent Christ our job bears some resemblance to a physician since Christ is the "Great Physician." Now imagine if you will a missionary who went to a far off land just to tell the natives of their countless shortcomings and give in depth analogies of all their sins. Then that same missionary packs up and moves on to another troubled spot to point out the troubles in that spot. Why, that's no missionary at all! And what if you visited a doctor who did nothing but diagnose all your symptoms and then send you off with no mention of a prescription or remedy? Why that's no Christian manifesto at all.
As it correctly reads:
2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." So let's see how this passage may work in application...
I've noticed lately that mega-churches have taken a beating by the Christian critics and that's no surprise. Considering how many of them seem to grab more ideas from secular corporations than from scripture. But more in-depth analogy of what's wrong doesn't necessarily bring us closer to the remedy. What simply needs to be re-stated about the Christian walk is that it is deeply dependant on our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Because none of us are an island unto ourselves and God created us as highly social beings dependent on nurturing, we should be looking for spiritual and emotional intimacy within our fellow local body of believers. Also, the responsibility of pastor and elders as shepherds is to be intimately acquainted with the growth of those in their flock. After all, the Good Shepherd has sheep that know his voice and He knows each of them by name so there we have a model for elders to aim for. When a church grows to such a number that the spiritual leaders can't keep track of everyone and people begin to "slip through the cracks" or "fade into the background" among the sea of faces... well, that's an indication a church may need to split, dividing itself.
Of course I'm just scratching the surface on a remedy to the over-stuffed church. At the foundation of it all needs to be sound Biblical doctrine with the teachings of Christ and Him crucified as the cornerstone and an emphasis on loving the Lord our God with all we are and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Further reading: A balanced review of the book "Why Join a Small Church?"
All the good stuff
It's amazing how I can search for information for weeks and months and come up empty... then I sit down for five minutes, without agenda, and all the good stuff I've been looking for just comes flying at me.
First thing first: No matter where you live, there's a good church in your area (unless you live in eastern Montana or northern Nevada... God obviously doesn't care about those places ;). And today I noticed for the first time that one of my favorite resources has done all the work of finding weeding out the light and fluffy preachers and leaving nothing but a list of excellent pastors. All you have to do is type in your zip code and a search radius and blammo! a list of good churches in your area pop up. Yay for sermonaudio.com!
Second of all, if you add up all the statistics of sexual addiction you find that it affects 3,278% of all Americans. I never took calculus but I think that number constitutes a majority (of which I fit into). So it seems appropriate to offer up some resources that have so awesomely been gathered by our sister church (Living Water C.C.) on the other side of town. Of course, the following resources are Christ-centered and not just pseudo-Christian gobbly-gook psycho-babble:
Wife Boat www.wifeboat.com
Blog site for wives of men with sexual sin. Authored by Renee Dallas and contains stories, advice, and resources for wives.
Day Seven Ministries www.dayseven.net 866.301.3297
Counseling services, mentoring, and support groups with locations in Harrisburg and Lancaster.
National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families www.nationalcoalition.org 800.583.2964
Helpline, counseling services, and tons of information, resources, articles, and links.
Pure Life Ministries www.purelifeministries.org 888.PURE.LIFE
At home 12 week programs, live-in programs, helpline. Resources for men, women, and teens dealing with sexual sin as well as resources for spouses of those dealing with sexual sin.
Setting Captives Free www.settingcaptivesfree.com
Resources for a variety of issues including sexual purity, substance abuse, food addictions and more. Free online interactive
courses.
L.I.F.E. Ministries www.freedomeveryday.org 866.408.5433
Sexual addiction recovery ministry for men, women, teens, and spouses. Support group listings.
Home Word www.homeword.com 800.397.9725
Ministry for Encouraging parents and building families.
X3 Church www.xxxchurch.com X3 Watch www.x3watch.com 702.974.1690
X3 Church: A Christian anti-pornography ministry that aims to help those who struggle with pornography. This site is hip, relevant, irreverent, honest, and fun. Full of great resources. X3 Watch: Online accountability and filtering software. Offers web blocking, reports sent to chosen friends for accountability, time limits, alerts and more. Highly recommended.
Integrity Online www.integrity.com
Hailed as “America’s oldest and most reliable Internet filtering company”. Programs for families, businesses, churches, and
educational facilities.
BOOKS
“Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction” by Dr. Mark Laaser
A former sex addict himself, Dr. Laaser offers help and hope for regaining and maintaining sexual integrity, self-control, and wholesome, biblical sexuality.
“Breaking Free: Understanding Sexual Addiction & the Healing Power of Jesus”
by Russell Willingham
Gives an honest examination of sexual addiction and shows how Jesus offers forgiveness and healing. Includes real-life stories of individuals who struggle and twelve practical steps for recovery and accountability. Deals honestly with
pornography, fantasies, masturbation, adultery, prostitution, molestation, abuse and more. Willingham speaks on such issues as what all addicts have in common, the hunt of the malnourished heart, where to find the courage to face the dark side,
wrestling with shame and grace, and the healing effect of radical honesty.
“Hope After Betrayal: Healing When Sexual Addiction Invades Your Marriage”
by Meg Wilson
With honesty and hopefulness, Meg uses her own story, along with other examples and Scripture, to help women cope and find their way out of the darkness of their husband’s sexual compulsion.
“The Game Plan: The Men's 30-Day Strategy for Attaining Sexual Integrity”
by Joe Dallas
Using the acronym ROUTE-Repentance, Order, Understanding, Training, and Endurance-Dallas walks readers through the
steps necessary to attain-and maintain-sexual integrity.
“Think Before You Look: 40 Powerful Reasons to Avoid Pornography”
by Daniel Henderson
Written for men, the author explains what changes take place once a man becomes addicted and how it can change his relationship with and even destroy his family. He covers the excuses and justifications men use, and he combats them with 40 truths that equip men to avoid pornography.
First thing first: No matter where you live, there's a good church in your area (unless you live in eastern Montana or northern Nevada... God obviously doesn't care about those places ;). And today I noticed for the first time that one of my favorite resources has done all the work of finding weeding out the light and fluffy preachers and leaving nothing but a list of excellent pastors. All you have to do is type in your zip code and a search radius and blammo! a list of good churches in your area pop up. Yay for sermonaudio.com!
Second of all, if you add up all the statistics of sexual addiction you find that it affects 3,278% of all Americans. I never took calculus but I think that number constitutes a majority (of which I fit into). So it seems appropriate to offer up some resources that have so awesomely been gathered by our sister church (Living Water C.C.) on the other side of town. Of course, the following resources are Christ-centered and not just pseudo-Christian gobbly-gook psycho-babble:
Wife Boat www.wifeboat.com
Blog site for wives of men with sexual sin. Authored by Renee Dallas and contains stories, advice, and resources for wives.
Day Seven Ministries www.dayseven.net 866.301.3297
Counseling services, mentoring, and support groups with locations in Harrisburg and Lancaster.
National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families www.nationalcoalition.org 800.583.2964
Helpline, counseling services, and tons of information, resources, articles, and links.
Pure Life Ministries www.purelifeministries.org 888.PURE.LIFE
At home 12 week programs, live-in programs, helpline. Resources for men, women, and teens dealing with sexual sin as well as resources for spouses of those dealing with sexual sin.
Setting Captives Free www.settingcaptivesfree.com
Resources for a variety of issues including sexual purity, substance abuse, food addictions and more. Free online interactive
courses.
L.I.F.E. Ministries www.freedomeveryday.org 866.408.5433
Sexual addiction recovery ministry for men, women, teens, and spouses. Support group listings.
Home Word www.homeword.com 800.397.9725
Ministry for Encouraging parents and building families.
X3 Church www.xxxchurch.com X3 Watch www.x3watch.com 702.974.1690
X3 Church: A Christian anti-pornography ministry that aims to help those who struggle with pornography. This site is hip, relevant, irreverent, honest, and fun. Full of great resources. X3 Watch: Online accountability and filtering software. Offers web blocking, reports sent to chosen friends for accountability, time limits, alerts and more. Highly recommended.
Integrity Online www.integrity.com
Hailed as “America’s oldest and most reliable Internet filtering company”. Programs for families, businesses, churches, and
educational facilities.
BOOKS
“Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction” by Dr. Mark Laaser
A former sex addict himself, Dr. Laaser offers help and hope for regaining and maintaining sexual integrity, self-control, and wholesome, biblical sexuality.
“Breaking Free: Understanding Sexual Addiction & the Healing Power of Jesus”
by Russell Willingham
Gives an honest examination of sexual addiction and shows how Jesus offers forgiveness and healing. Includes real-life stories of individuals who struggle and twelve practical steps for recovery and accountability. Deals honestly with
pornography, fantasies, masturbation, adultery, prostitution, molestation, abuse and more. Willingham speaks on such issues as what all addicts have in common, the hunt of the malnourished heart, where to find the courage to face the dark side,
wrestling with shame and grace, and the healing effect of radical honesty.
“Hope After Betrayal: Healing When Sexual Addiction Invades Your Marriage”
by Meg Wilson
With honesty and hopefulness, Meg uses her own story, along with other examples and Scripture, to help women cope and find their way out of the darkness of their husband’s sexual compulsion.
“The Game Plan: The Men's 30-Day Strategy for Attaining Sexual Integrity”
by Joe Dallas
Using the acronym ROUTE-Repentance, Order, Understanding, Training, and Endurance-Dallas walks readers through the
steps necessary to attain-and maintain-sexual integrity.
“Think Before You Look: 40 Powerful Reasons to Avoid Pornography”
by Daniel Henderson
Written for men, the author explains what changes take place once a man becomes addicted and how it can change his relationship with and even destroy his family. He covers the excuses and justifications men use, and he combats them with 40 truths that equip men to avoid pornography.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Groaning to God
There are times in every one's life where the pain doesn't seem to make sense. And the soul seems so weak that a well-delivered prayer cannot be given. Thank God He does not require some standard for performance in prayer beause some days all I can do is cry out incoherent pleas of desperation.
"Lord, please remove this pain of want for what I do not have."
"Lord, please remove this pain of want for what I do not have."
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Ambiguous Church
Last Sunday I had the pleasure and privilege of visiting a church of fellow Christians in Colorado. The good news is they keep the gospel of grace message the main thing (according to their mission statement). The bad news is the gospel was not taught during my Sunday morning visit. Instead, a guest speaker gave personal testimony. Now I enjoy personal testimonies, but when I come to a church for a Sunday sermon I desire and expect a sermon taught so that I may be better equipped to glorify God.
The root concern I have (as I do for a majority of "Protestant" Christian churches in western culture) is that this particular church limits their statement of beliefs to the basic ones. This is problematic because if a church is going to claim the entirety of the Bible is God-breathed and useful for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16) then that church would inevitably have to cover some "controversial" teachings in scripture in the more "obscure" passages. However, this particular church, like so many other today, leaves the "more obscure doctrine or teachings with less support... to the individuals to sort out on their own-". In other words the scripture offers up "recipes" of doctrine with which a seasoned pastor can go on to make "gourmet meals" for his flock but instead what is produced on Sundays is Happy Meals (elementary teachings). A church cannot grow in maturity if it only sticks to the passages that are most agreeable to the current culture.
A prudent church does well when it tackles entire books of the Bible at a time (a.k.a. expository teaching) so that it addresses all that is God-breathed, since all of it is useful. After all, what good is a shepherd that feeds meals to his sheep that are best suited for the goats?
One of my favorite churches in the nation, that is thriving because of its devotion to desiring knowledge of God above its desire to be agreeable, recently posted this statement about their approach to scripture...
"One of the reasons that we preach straight through books of the Bible as our main way of hearing from God in corporate worship at Bethlehem, with occasional topical series thrown in along the way, is that it encourages us to consider all that God has to say in a book of the Bible, rather than just the parts we especially like or the parts that are easier to understand. Which means that we inevitably come upon passages that are controversial. "
The root concern I have (as I do for a majority of "Protestant" Christian churches in western culture) is that this particular church limits their statement of beliefs to the basic ones. This is problematic because if a church is going to claim the entirety of the Bible is God-breathed and useful for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16) then that church would inevitably have to cover some "controversial" teachings in scripture in the more "obscure" passages. However, this particular church, like so many other today, leaves the "more obscure doctrine or teachings with less support... to the individuals to sort out on their own-". In other words the scripture offers up "recipes" of doctrine with which a seasoned pastor can go on to make "gourmet meals" for his flock but instead what is produced on Sundays is Happy Meals (elementary teachings). A church cannot grow in maturity if it only sticks to the passages that are most agreeable to the current culture.
A prudent church does well when it tackles entire books of the Bible at a time (a.k.a. expository teaching) so that it addresses all that is God-breathed, since all of it is useful. After all, what good is a shepherd that feeds meals to his sheep that are best suited for the goats?
One of my favorite churches in the nation, that is thriving because of its devotion to desiring knowledge of God above its desire to be agreeable, recently posted this statement about their approach to scripture...
"One of the reasons that we preach straight through books of the Bible as our main way of hearing from God in corporate worship at Bethlehem, with occasional topical series thrown in along the way, is that it encourages us to consider all that God has to say in a book of the Bible, rather than just the parts we especially like or the parts that are easier to understand. Which means that we inevitably come upon passages that are controversial. "
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