“In our case, the story we’ve heard countless times concerns how the secular state, our supposed “savior,” came to exist. As the story usually goes, after the Reformation, Europe was torn apart with religious strife. The infamous “wars of religion” wracked Europe until finally, with a great sigh of relief, our fathers stumbled into the virtues of tolerance, and the secular state took over the public square. Our “deliverance” was that bloodthirsty religious convictions were finally banished into the realm of “personal belief”—a realm, of course, that had no effect on public behavior. In this story, not only are we saved by something other than the Christian gospel, but we are also saved from the Christian gospel. The story is compelling, widespread, constantly reiterated, and almost entirely false. Unfortunately, even many Christians have been taken in by aspects of it. This is how most Christians in the West have made their peace with the “escapist” option mentioned earlier. Religion is to have no effect on our views of what should and should not be allowed in the public square, but may be allowed to inform us what will get us salvation in the next life.”
from “Heaven Misplaced: Christ’s Kingdom on Earth” by Douglas Wilson
Family and Ministry
In an era that sees work outside the home as the way a woman should find fulfilment, it’s not surprising that many zealous Christian young women can pit family against ministry. They may want to serve God, but think that family and children may get in the way. This is a mistake. As we have discussed previously (both here and here), your most important ministry is likely to be your family. God has designed women to be directed toward their husbands and children. This is the ‘helping’ role of Genesis. This is a good thing. To turn away from this godly gift looking for something better is a mistake. Kent and Barbara Hughes address this in their book Disciplines of a Godly Family, arguing that ministering to family actually enables other ministry.
We believe this is an unfortunate delusion. Aside from the obvious objections (namely, that such thinking reveals a shriveled view of parenting, and the fact that good parenti9ng requires every ounce of intelligence and creativity one can give), it also fails to recognize that family is at the very heart of authentic ministry and evangelism. As ministry professionals, we hold the firm conviction that family is ministry and that the most effective spread of the gospel occurs through family. We are also convinced that we were never more effective in evangelism than when we had children at home.
Kent and Barabara Hughes in Disciplines of a Godly Family
The Dominion Mandate and The Great Commission
Riches and the Christian
Wealth is something Christians in the West should certainly think about because, by any objective standard, we are all wealthy. We have at our fingertips more than the great kings of old could have dreamed of. Sure, some of us have less than others, but even those who are relatively poor in our nation are wealthy by biblical standards, so when we read passages in Scripture on wealth, we should read these with our ears pricked up.
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
I Timothy 6:17-19
One of the great dangers we face is demonizing wealth. This has been a common course in church history. We still hear it today from many Christians. Wealth corrupts and turns hearts from Christ. Thus, from the pulpit, we will often hear of the dangers of wealth and the importance of giving it away – especially to the church! Of course, it is true that wealth can corrupt our hearts. Moses warned the Israelites of this truth in Deuteronomy. Moses was worried that when Israel was settled in the Promised Land that they would become complacent.
Yet for all that, many saints have been rich. Abraham the father of faith was a very wealthy man. Here in writing to Timothy, Paul urges his son in the faith to charge the wealthy not to put their hope in wealth but God. At the same time, he avoids associating sin with the wealth itself. Instead, he reminds Timothy that it is God who richly provides everything for our enjoyment. Wealth is a blessing from God, and something we can enjoy without guilt. Sure it can be turned into a curse when we make it our hope, but like any good thing that comes from God, it should direct our hearts to God, and then to others in love and generosity. If God has blessed you with wealth, and if you are reading this from a phone in a home in a Western country, he has, then thank God for your wealth. Enjoy it, and bless others with it by sharing the blessings you have received.
This generosity lays up a firm foundation for the coming age. By giving and sharing we take hold of what is truly life. Just as Christ by giving up his riches and losing his life provided life, we too by giving ourselves and our wealth reflect Christ and reflect the paradoxical truth of his universe that giving of self is the only way we can lay hold of life.
A Shepherd With a Stick!
Bring Back the Doctrine of Vocation
In a recent sermon I heard, the congregation was encouraged to be at a second Sunday meeting (in the evening) as well as the morning service. They were encouraged to attend other weekly meetings of the church, and it was insinuated that it was Satan’s temptation that was causing people to stay at home. There was even that old chestnut, that we need to be careful we are not turning spending time with family into an idol. This was a fairly egregious example of what I have noticed is a serious temptation for many pastors – that of thinking that the church organisation and meetings they run are the most important thing in the lives of every member of the church, and that to miss one indicates a lack of seriousness about one’s faith.
This brow-beating approach to shepherding in order to get the flock to come to more church meetings is unfortunate. As one who has been a Christian for decades, I shrugged it off. I’m not about to be guilt-tripped into attending something because a pastor insinuates it is a sin to not attend. I know the Scriptures. It is dangerous for leaders in the church to put burdens on those they lead that Christ himself does not require. Young Christians however may be fooled by zeal into thinking this is indeed a requirement. The pressure this may put on them when they have a spouse or children and work may indeed cause unhelpful and illegitimate feelings of guilt.
Additionally, I’ve noticed and mentioned in a previous post, the tendency of many pastors to use the Sunday morning service as the opportunity to be evangelists. Instead of feeding God’s beloved sheep and assisting them to apply the gospel to their daily lives, some pastors focus on the gospel message of salvation every week as if their congregations are hardened heathens hovering over the fires of hell.
All this makes me think that our modern clergy need a reawakened understanding of vocation. A book helpful in this area is God at work by Gene Edward Veith Jr. Veith writes, “Churches should not demand so much “church work” from their members that it takes away too much time from their primary vocations.” We the laity are also called. God calls us to our vocations, be they son or daughter, husband or wife, doctor, teacher, labourer, retail assistant, nurse, or homemaker. Yes, pastor, God calls you as our shepherd, but don’t forget that he calls us to our vocations too. It’s easy for pastors to see the good things they are doing (and the vocation of pastor is a good and holy calling!) and expect everyone to turn institutional church-related things into the most important thing in their lives too. But it might be that in attending every church event, I may neglect my God-given calling as a husband or a father. Indeed, it might be that a pastor who fills his time with church events could well be neglecting his God-given calling to be a husband and father too.
Veith puts things this way, “We may assume that what happens on Sunday mornings is not enough, as if coming into Christ’s presence through the proclamation of His Word is a small thing, and as if the daily lives of ordinary Christians are not themselves arenas for divine service.” Pastors need to see their role as shepherds as Paul explained in Ephesians. Pastors are to equip the saints for works of ministry. Unfortunately, because we do not have a solid understanding of the doctrine of vocation, we miss that those works of ministry will often occur outside the institutional church meetings. The sum total of my ministry is not handing out the order of service at church, manning the kitchen, playing in the church band or being part of a welcoming team. These are good things, but my core ministries are being a father and a husband, and whatever God calls me to as I earn money to provide for my family. Paul writes earlier in the epistle of Ephesians, that we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. On a Sunday morning, what we need to see from our pastors is an acknowledgement of the good works God has called us to do in our vocations, and then the opening of the Scriptures to help us in that regard as we are reminded of Christ’s kingship and authority. As Paul writes to the young pastor Timothy, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Preach that word so that your congregation may be ready for every good work during the week.
Sounds Familiar
At this day, however, the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds – minds which are not afraid to employ the seed of Deity deposited in human nature as a means of suppressing the name of God. Can anything be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God? He will not say that chance has made him differ from the brutes that perish; but, substituting nature as the architect of the universe, he suppresses the name of God.
John Calvin – Institutes of Christian Religion 1.5.4
Tactics in Evangelism
I read the following in an interesting series on Christian capitalism by Tom Addison. He has a lot of good things to say about how Christians can use wealth for the kingdom, and I really appreciated his antidote to the somewhat negative view of wealth common in evangelicalism.
For too long, Christian donors have been too focused on retail evangelism and not sufficiently focused on what I call intellectual logistics. In war, it is said that amateurs and wannabes study tactics, whereas masters study logistics. Logistics is the art of having the right resources in the right place at the right time so tactical opportunities can be maximally advantaged. Evangelism was simply a lot easier even a generation ago when our culture had a consensus on the reality of God, sin, and man’s need for forgiveness. When a lost person shares those concepts with the church, it only takes a moment of personal crisis, or personal conviction, to make the final leap to a personal saving faith.
This is part of the reason I split my giving. I know some pastors argue that all your giving should be to the church and that church leaders should decide how best to use that for the kingdom. However, it has been my experience that many Christian leaders lack the sufficient wisdom to play the long game. Why are our leaders not pushing Christian education as one? It doesn’t take a prophet to see that we are losing our children and our strength because we are giving our children to the enemy to educate. So why are we not investing in schools that will help us train our children up?
Instead, we aim for low hanging fruit with walk-up evangelism and learned gospel presentations. These are all well and good, but this approach works best when there is a certain cultural knowledge of the historic faith. That time is almost over, and therefore, our strategy needs to develop. Addison goes on to suggest how it needs to develop.
When none of the preliminary ideas are held in common due to years of Satanic propaganda in the media and school – there is no God, no morality, no sin, no life after death – evangelism becomes ten times more difficult. The personal crisis or personal conviction that before might have led to a conversion now simply adds to a general sense of despair and a desire to drown those feelings in entertainment, drugs, or materialism. Before we can reap the harvest, we must sow, water, weed, and cultivate with Christian education and Christian values.
That is why I now funnel a large percentage of my giving into Christian education. Yes of course I still support my pastor and church, but because Christian leaders in New Zealand often do not understand the times we are in, I know that I (and other Christians who do) must put as much money as we can into Christian education. And I know this is having fruit among groups that our churches do not tend to reach. A Sikh or Hindu child who hears the gospel every day for 10 years or more is much more likely to come to faith (humanly speaking) than a Sikh or Hindu university student who has grown up in a government school and is hearing the gospel for the first time. I think it’s time that we Christians who see these things put continuous pressure on our leaders until they get this long term thinking. Imagine the impact the gospel could have in New Zealand if we were providing a quality gospel education for children from all faith backgrounds. Yes it is intensive and takes a lot of resources, but it is long term thinking that will reap long term rewards.
Strategic Evangelism
I recently read of a Gallup poll from the 1980s that looked at when people came to Christ. Apparently, 18 out of twenty people came to Christ before the age of 25. At age 35, one in fifty thousand became Christians, and at age 45, one in two hundred thousand. Now I don’t know the details behind these statistics, but they highlight what many studies of this nature have found, namely that people are more likely to come to Christ at a young age. I guess what would be of significance would be how many of those who came to Christ as children came from Christian families.
Regardless, I think this has huge implications for our evangelistic efforts. Targetting children and students in evangelism seems to be a sensible strategy, not only because of a much higher likelihood of success, but from a long term strategy perspective. People who come to faith early have a much longer time to grow in that faith and let it shape them and how they raise their own families. This should create a positive feedback mechanism.
If this data has merit, it makes me wonder why the church has not latched onto it in a more wholehearted fashion. Kids-ministry is definitely a priority for many churches, and Christian camps are often seen as strategically important, but why aren’t we seeing more churches in New Zealand thinking about starting Christian schools? If childhood is a strategically important time, why wouldn’t we want to make the most of that time? Wouldn’t having Christian Schools attached to our churches make sense? If these were integrated into the life of the church, they surely would provide powerful opportunities for mission and discipleship. Why not talk to your pastor and other key Christian leaders about these truths.
Preaching Christ
Recently I posted on some of the difficulties I have with the modern evangelical church scene. Today I will focus on another difficulty I see, that of the modern evangelical sermon. What do I mean?
Typically, the sermon will be aimed at what a friend of mine calls “Level One”. The sermon is aimed at getting people to ‘Trust in Jesus.’ A big thing in the evangelical movement is being ‘missional’, and one of the things this seems to mean is ensuring the church service is relatable to the unbeliever in the midst. In practice, this seems to mean that each sermon is a 30-40 minute gospel presentation based on Scripture. This brings new meaning to preaching to the choir. Why are we doing this? Why are we preaching to people every week that they need to come to Christ when most of them have already done so? Many good Christians are sitting there thinking, “Ok, yes done that, check…so what’s next?”
Now after a certain time in the church and being fed this, one of two things are likely to happen. The believer either assumes this is the way things are meant to be and taking this as given, deals with it. The sermon is not for me, except perhaps to remind me to keep holding on to Christ, which is a good thing, but mainly I need to get my friends along to hear this so they too can join the church and then repeat the process. Alternatively, they will switch off, bored with the constant formulaic repetition and then feel guilty that they are somehow a second-rate Christian for having these feelings.
Some at this point will object. But evangelicals do apply the gospel to the believer! It’s just that they want there to be a word to the unbelievers in their midst too. Firstly, I do not believe our application of Scripture to the believer is anything to celebrate. Most applications are sufficiently vague to cause no real challenge to any particular believer, unless they are on the topic of money, and then things can get fairly specific! Nevertheless, for the most part, applications tend to be fairly broad: let Christ impact all of your life, trust Him with your difficult period, make sure you are not deluded about whether you are a true follower of Christ. We don’t tend to hear sermons that help us apply truth to life more specifically. Who has heard a sermon about women, work and the family? What about the mandate for parents to train up their children and what this means for secular education? What about “How should I participate as a Christian in the political process?”
Others will object saying, “Of course the sermon should essentially be a gospel presentation. That’s how people get saved!” That’s the core mission of the church! Is it? Christ’s commission to his apostles was to go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey all that he taught them. Isn’t that a little bit more than getting ‘souls saved’? Doesn’t that require more than a ‘gospel sermon’ every week?
Where does this thinking come from? Why do we consider this normal practice? Perhaps it comes from our evangelical history. We take things like altar calls for granted, but we are perhaps unaware of the history of the great awakenings and the impact they have had on church life. Nancy Pearcey has some thoughtful commentary on this in her book Total Truth which I may outline in a future post.
Secondly, we may have become confused about what Paul himself means in I Corinthians where he says that when he came to them he, “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Some may see in this an explicit reason to have every sermon aimed at bringing an unbeliever to conversion, but I am not sure this is the case. To begin with, Paul was speaking about his time setting up a new church. Of course he would have been talking about Christ and his atoning death and resurrection. Furthermore, the phrase itself does not just mean ‘talking to the church about Jesus death’. It seems likely to me that since Paul sees the crucifixion resurrection and ascension event as the key event in history, he is saying that he focused his message on the implications of this key event to his hearers. Clearly, the letter of I Corinthians lends credence to this idea, because he deals with quite a few issues, that while they wouldn’t be part of a simple gospel presentation, are certainly implications for Christian living if Christ is indeed the resurrected king.
Again, don’t get me wrong. I love the enthusiasm that evangelical churches tend to have for seeing the lost come to faith in Christ. What I would love to see, is some of that enthusiasm channelled into creating disciples: men and women who are developing a Christian worldview and actively applying it to every aspect of their lives. Educated pastors who were able to do this would multiply the impact of the gospel in our culture significantly. This would be an example of long term thinking.