Tag: Christianity

Thoughts on Vision and Planning

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I overheard this conversation between two cashiers at a store the other day:

“…then he asked me what my 5-year plan was, and I’m like: ‘I don’t know! I don’t even think like that!'”  “I know, right?!”

I remember when I used to think like that myself. When I first planted the church in Eger, people often asked me what my “vision” was, or what my 5-year plan was. I told them, “I don’t know. I just want to lead people to Jesus, plant a church, and raise up Christian leaders.”
Little did I understand, that what I was expressing was a very clear vision and plan!

I have come much more to embrace the mentality of having a plan or a vision.

Dave Ramsey says, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time”.

I have been in circles before where it was seen as unspiritual to plan or strategize. The thing these people don’t often realize is that they have unspoken plans and strategies, even though they don’t articulate them. It can be a strategy, for example, to not plan, and leave yourself open to whatever the day brings you. That’s a strategy – it’s a plan, and one which, like all strategies and plans, has advantages and disadvantages.

The New Year is a time of year I have come to love and appreciate, because a year is a measurable period of time, which gives us a scale to measure by, a scale to reflect upon, and a scale to plan by.

In reflecting on this past year, I realized that God did so many great things in the life of our family and our church. We finished the legal process of our son’s adoption and immigration, our church had several successful outreaches and did more for mission work, my wife and I celebrated 10 years of marriage… I could go on and on.

When it comes to strategizing and planning, I believe the best way to do it is in accordance with your long-term goals of what you want your life, or your organization, to be about.

I have a lot of ideas about things I would like to do in this New Year, and I pray by God’s grace that I would be cognizant of these things, and be able to bring them through to fruition. After all, it’s easy to start things, and a lot of people start things – but few people finish things, and even fewer finish them well.

Happy New Year!

Charles Spurgeon on George Whitefield

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“Whitefield’s sermons were not eloquent, but were rough and unconnected. But it was not in the words themselves, but in the manner in which he delivered them, the earnestness with which he felt them, the pouring out of his soul as he preached them. When you heard him preach, you felt like you were listening to a man who would die if he could not preach. Where, where is such earnestness today? One sad proof that the Church is in need of revival is the absence of earnestness which was once seen in Christian pulpits.” [1]

Happy Birthday George Whitefield!

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People have often asked where we got the name of our church: White Fields Community Church.
The answer is actually three-fold:
1) In John 4:35, Jesus said, “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” The name White Fields aligns us with this, and is a statement that we exist to carry out the mission of God and be laborers in His harvest field.
2) The area where we are, North-East Boulder County, is full of wheat fields which turn white at harvest time. The name reflects the area we live in.
3) George Whitefield, the great evangelist of 18th century America, is someone we greatly revere and we want to follow in his footsteps of evangelism and bringing the Gospel to bear on people’s hearts in powerful ways.

Today is George Whitefield’s 300th birthday. He was born in Gloucester, England (where it just so happens that I attend seminary) on December 16, 1714. He later came to America and was used by God as a driving force for the Great Awakening.

Check out this short biography of Whitefield’s life to learn more about him.

“It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher.”
George Whitefield

Ferguson and the Need for Healing of Corporate Memory

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Many people have been asking what the role of the church is in what is going on in Ferguson, MO. Clearly this is a very broken community which has been divided along racial lines and two divergent stories of what went on and why it happened.

One of the most important roles the church has to play in this situation is what is called “Healing the Corporate Memory”.

Social memory is that which attaches to membership of certain groups, and manifests itself as collectively held ideas and experiences.
Most churches and local communities face needs for the healing of corporate memory and for increased awareness of corporate responsibility.
The intention is not to recollect the past for the sake of preservation, but to awaken a sense of responsibility for being the body of Christ in that place.
– Esther Reed: The Genesis of Ethics

Examples of what this looks like can be found in the mid-1990’s in South Africa and in the war crimes tribunals for the Balkan Wars. It consists of telling and hearing both sides’ stories and understanding (but not necessarily affirming) both sides’ narratives – and then condemning ALL of the wrong actions that took place and all of the SYSTEMIC wrong that contributed to the situation in the first place.

However, restitution is also a key issue when it comes to healing. If the white community can make efforts towards restitution for prejudice, disdain and lost lives – whether they feel it necessary or not – and if the black community can make efforts towards restitution for the destruction caused by the rioting – it will make major headway towards forgiveness, healing the corporate memory and creating a new narrative for the whole community – both black and white – to share.

I believe it is the place of the church to step across racial lines, link arms and lead the way in this.

 

Does Forgiveness Simply Mean Suppressing Your Feelings?

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In reading through some material for a class I’m taking on Christian ethics, I ran across an interesting discussion of the ethic of forgiveness, related to Jesus as Priest (part of that being that one role of priests in the Old Testament is that they were mediators of forgiveness between God and humans).

Here is the quote from Esther Reed in the book “The Genesis of Ethics”:

Christian ethics has much to share with – as well as to learn from – the survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence. A problem for both is that forgiveness is too often confused with passive acceptance of wrong, or the suppression of hurt and anger.

The supposed virtue of self-control, and the ideal of self-sacrifice or martyrdom, can lead women to believe that in accepting abuse and exploitation they are doing what Christianity, especially in its support for family values, requires. For neither, however, does forgiveness properly equate with sweeping wrong aside. Rather, it has regard for the specifics of a person’s situation and never trivializes any suffering endured. Anything less is what Bonhoeffer calls ‘cheap grace’, because there is no recognition of guilt and no call for genuine repentance.

I recently spoke about this very thing at White Fields Church – on the oft-missunderstood topic of ‘turning the other cheek’ and what that means, because it has often been taken to mean allowing people to walk all over you or permitting people to abuse you. I don’t believe that’s what it means – and I explained that in detail in a study titled “Loving Your Enemies” – the audio of which can be found here.

Christians and the Gay Debate

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Perhaps the biggest issue facing how people view Christians and Christianity in our society has been and will continue to be homosexuality.

An ever increasing percentage of the population – including many Christians – believe that homosexuals should be allowed to legally marry, and it seems that it is only a matter of time before gay marriage is legalized in every state. Yesterday Montana became the latest state to legalize it. Other countries have already done it. This brings up a lot of questions for churches and private parties who rent out facilities for weddings and for ministers who officiate weddings as to what will happen if they refuse to participate in gay weddings out of moral obligation.

Needless to say, there is increasing pressure for Christians to change the view held by Christians for 2000 years regarding homosexual practice.

This article is one of the best informed and best thought-out pieces on this topic that I have come across. It’s worth the read:

Tragedy, Tradition and Opportunity in the Homosexual Debate

 

 

Time Talks

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I found this quote in a book I am reading for a theology course on the history of Christian worship. The point of this chapter is how, unlike other religions which eschew time as insignificant or illusory, Christianity takes time seriously. Christianity does not just talk about salvation in general, but of salvation accomplished by specific actions of God at definite times and places. It speaks of climactic events and a finale to time.

Time talks. When we give time to others, we are really giving ourselves to them. Not only does our use of time show what is important to us but it also indicates who or what is most significant to our lives. Time, then, is a definite representation of our priorities. We reveal what we value most by how we allocate this limited resource.

I personally found that very challenging. It seems that time allocation is somewhat of a mirror. If what our time allocation reveals about our values does not match up with what we believe they should be in theory, then we should be challenged to change some things!

Evangelicals’ Favorite Heresies

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Christianity Today posted this article about surveys done of evangelical Christians, which revealed how many American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by some of the most important councils of the early church.

Here’s the article:

New Poll Finds Evangelicals’ Favorite Heresies: Survey finds many American evangelicals hold unorthodox views on the Trinity, salvation, and other doctrines.

It’s worth reading. Here are a few of the poll results:

The concluding statements were also very insightful and worth taking note of:

Beth Felker Jones, professor of theology at Wheaton College, said, “Orthodoxy is life-giving, and God’s people need access to it.” Participants who gave unorthdox answers are not heretics, but probably lacked quality resources, she said. “Church leaders need to be able to teach the truth of the faith clearly and accurately, and we need to be able to show people why this matters for our lives.”

For Nichols, one way forward in understanding God and ourselves is to consult the historic church. “While slightly over half see value in church history, [nearly] 70 percent have no place for creeds in their personal discipleship,” he said. For Nichols, the church’s knowledge of its past will determine its future. Knowing heresies and how they were overcome, he says, will help the church stay on the right track theologically.

Thoughts?

Christian Artists vs. Christians who are Artists

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This past Thursday night Lecrae performed a sold out show at the Paramount Theater in downtown Denver along with Trip Lee and Andy Mineo. A lot of my friends went to the show, and I wanted to go, but wasn’t able to make it.

All three of these guys are straightforward about their Christian faith (Trip Lee is a Reformed Baptist pastor), and their music reflects their faith, but at the same time they have wanted to avoid being labeled as “Christian artists”.

Lecrae and Andy Mineo have both won Dove awards, but yet Lecrae especially has been very successful at crossing over into the mainstream market. Lecrae recently performed on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and, most notably, IMO, reached #1 on the Billboard charts with his album Anomaly.

A friend of mine gave me the Anomaly album, and I have to say that I loved it. I’ve never considered myself a fan of hip hop, but what I love about the album is how thoughtful and intelligent it is. Lecrae’s lyrics aren’t shallow and predictable. The topics he covers are deep and sometimes difficult – like in my favorite song off the album: Good, Bad, Ugly.

Today I ran across this video of Trip Lee on the BET website talking about how he doesn’t want to be known as a Christian artist, but as an artist who is a Christian.

Why don’t these guys want to be known as “Christian artists”?   There are several reasons.

One big reason is because they want their music to be heard outside of Christian circles. How can you influence – which is unquestionably one of their objectives – if your only audience is people who already think like you do?

Another reason is because Christian art simply has a terrible reputation for being subpar copycat art, with a capital SUBPAR. If this were not the case, then why do the Dove awards even exist in the first place? Is it not because Christian music is rarely good enough to win Grammys? Sure, the case might be made that “Christian artists” get written off by the pop music community – but Lecrae has done it and so have other Christian artists who are making legitimately good art.

I think it is a much more thoughtful, mission-aware approach to be an “artist who is a Christian”, whether you’re a painter or a rapper or a photographer or a baker.

There are many things about the modern evangelical subculture which are much more cultural than they are “evangelical” in the true sense of the word – and I believe that if Christians are going to be heard by people outside of our own camp, we must distance ourselves from those things.
For example, a friend of mine (who happens to be a pastor) recently recounted a trip to a local Christian bookstore:

My trip to the Christian bookstore on Friday was downright surreal. 10 different Duck Dynasty books, assorted “Christian” candies, a $50 faux pumpkin, a prescription bottle with Bible verses inside and a “legalize prayer” t-shirt…Legalize prayer? Is that a shirt for North Koreans? Wow.
I have to admit I couldn’t bring myself to purchase the embellished Thomas Kincade Painting for $7500:)

These kinds of things, IMO, lend themselves towards an inwardly focused subculture that approaches faith like a hobby rather than a mission from God to save the world. With this in mind, I appreciate the attitudes of those who want to be known as artists who are Christians rather than Christian artists.

The American Religion of Parenting

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A few days ago I was scanning Twitter and was intrigued by the title of an article: How American parenting is killing the American marriage

The article is a very insightful critique of the culture of parenting – or “religion of parenting”, as the author calls it – in our society, and the results of it.

Of particular interest to me was how the author points out that there is an unspoken understanding in our society that the value of a human life peaks out at birth and diminishes from there.

The origins of the parenthood religion are obscure, but one of its first manifestations may have been the “baby on board” placards that became popular in the mid-1980s. Nobody would have placed such a sign on a car if it were not already understood by society that the life of a human achieves its peak value at birth and declines thereafter. A toddler is almost as precious as a baby, but a teenager less so, and by the time that baby turns fifty, it seems that nobody cares much anymore if someone crashes into her car. You don’t see a lot of vehicles with placards that read, “Middle-aged accountant on board.”

Today I talked with a great lady from our church who heads up an outreach called “Project Greatest Gift”, in which we provide Christmas gifts for children in foster care. Weld County told us that many of the children in foster care are living with elderly people, and they asked if we might be willing to provide gifts for the caretakers this year as well.
This seems like a great opportunity for us to show that we value all human life, both young and old.

Another important insight of the article is how this religion of parenting has led to a quickly rising divorce rate among empty nesters:

In the 21st century, most Americans marry for love. We choose partners who we hope will be our soulmates for life. When children come along, we believe that we can press pause on the soulmate narrative, because parenthood has become our new priority and religion. We raise our children as best we can, and we know that we have succeeded if they leave us, going out into the world to find partners and have children of their own. Once our gods have left us, we try to pick up the pieces of our long neglected marriages and find new purpose. Is it surprising that divorce rates are rising fastest for new empty nesters?

I think that one of the things the Christian church has done well is championing marriage. The writer to the Hebrews says: “Let marriage be held in honor among all.” (‭Hebrews‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬ ESV) I have had the privilege to see successful Christians marriages that thrived even after the kids left the house, because they made their marriage and not their children the center of their family.