This is something that I and my colleague, Curt Fuller, have been working on for many months, and it just went live today.
Additionally, Curt and I sat down recently to record a short podcast episode to talk about the other projects we have in the works, as well as to describe the process of writing and recording these books.
Curt Fuller is the Technical Director at White Fields Community Church. He was the editor of my first book, and he is the voice which reads the audiobook.
Prior to coming to work at White Fields, Curt was already in the audiobook publishing world and was involved doing voiceovers, so he was the right man for the job!
In addition to this audiobook, we have two other projects in the works: a group study guide for The God I Won’t Believe In, which is designed to be used in small groups, youth groups, or by families or individuals at home, and a new book tentatively titled, So That You May Believe, based on evidences for believing in Jesus found in the Gospel of John.
Curt Fuller is the Technical Director at White Fields Community Church in Longmont, Colorado.
Additionally, Curt is Nick's writing partner; he was the editor of Nick's first book: The God I Won't Believe In: Facing Nine Common Barriers to Embracing Christianity
The audiobook version of that book was published on February 1, 2023. In this episode, you can hear a preview of that book, and we discuss other projects currently in the works.
To read the Theology for the People blog, or to suggest a topic or ask a question, visit: nickcady.org
In this first episode of Season 3 of the Theology for the People podcast, I speak with Michael Payne about the biblical genre of lament and its role in the life of a believer today.
Michael Payne is the Worship Pastor at White Fields Community Church in Longmont, Colorado. Previously he served as a missionary and worship pastor in Hungary at Golgota Budapest. Prior to that, he served in the US Marine Corps.
How Long, O Lord? – The Biblical Genre of Lament and Its Role in Our Lives Today –
Theology for the People
Welcome to Season 3 of Theology for the People!
Michael Payne is the Worship Pastor at White Fields Community Church in Longmont, Colorado. Previously he served as a missionary and worship pastor in Hungary at Golgota Budapest. Prior to that, he served in the US Marine Corps.
Listen to Mike's original music on Spotify here, or see him in action on the White Fields Church YouTube page.
The books Mike recommends in this episode on the topic of the biblical genre of lament are:
Michael Card, A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament
Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy
Walter Brueggemann – The Message of the Psalms
For the Theology for the People blog, or to submit a question or suggest a topic, visit nickcady.org
Aaron Damiani is a pastor and the author of the book: Earth Filled with Heaven — Finding Life in Liturgy, Sacraments and other Ancient Practices of the Church.
In this episode, Aaron and I discuss some of the practices that Christians have traditionally done in their worship services, and how Christians today can benefit from incorporating some of those formative practices.
Additionally, we discussion some of the pitfalls or potential downsides of a liturgical approach to worship and discipleship, and some ways that High Church and Low Church Protestants can learn from each other in order to create an intentional order or service which helps develop healthy disciples of Jesus.
Aaron Damiani is a pastor and the author of the book: Earth Filled with Heaven — Finding Life in Liturgy, Sacraments and other Ancient Practices of the Church.
In this episode, Aaron and I discuss some of the practices that Christians have traditionally done in their worship services, and how Christians today can benefit from incorporating some of those formative practices.
Additionally, we discussion some of the pitfalls or potential downsides of a liturgical approach to worship and discipleship, and some ways that High Church and Low Church Protestants can learn from each other in order to create an intentional order or service which helps develop healthy disciples of Jesus.
If you benefited from this episode, please share it with others, and if you would like to help the podcast, the best way to do that is by leaving a rating or review on your podcast app.
Kellen Criswell is a pastor, ministry leader, and former missionary who holds and MA in Global Leadership from Western Seminary and is currently working on his doctorate. He is the Executive Director of Calvary Global Network and has a heart for the mission of God and the global church.
After a brief discussion about Kellen’s favorite music and the fact that he is from Utah (AKA “Colorado Jr.”), we dive into a discussion about Missional Ecclesiology, which is a way of understanding the identity, purpose, and function of the church within the Missio Dei (the love-motivated, self-sending, mission of God into the world to save, redeem, and restore).
One more thought about Utah: If you have to tell people (on your license plates) that you have “the best snow in the world,” you probably don’t. It’s kind of like using the world “Real” in a title. If you have to say that something is “real ______” – it probably isn’t. And also, what Margaret Thatcher said: “Being a leader is like being a lady: If you have to tell people you are one, you probably aren’t.” Same with the snow, Utah…
But I digress…
Ecclesiology is the discussion of what the Church is called to be and to do – including its nature, purpose, hopes, structures, and practices.
We discuss how this concept works out practically, including a discussion of “foreign missions” and how they fit into this understanding. Furthermore, we discuss what the past nearly two years of pandemic has revealed about ecclesiology, and why there is hope as we move forward.
Missional Ecclesiology: What is the role of the church in the mission of God? – with Kellen Criswell –
Theology for the People
Kellen Criswell is a pastor, ministry leader, and former missionary who holds and MA in Global Leadership from Western Seminary and is currently working on his doctorate. He is the Executive Director of Calvary Global Network and has a heart for the mission of God and the global church.
In this episode we discuss Missional Ecclesiology, which is a way of understanding the identity, purpose, and function of the church within the Missio Dei (mission of God). Ecclesiology is the discussion of what the Church is called to be and to do – including its nature, purpose, hopes, structures, and practices.
We discuss how this concept works out practically, including a discussion of "foreign missions" and how they fit into this understanding. Furthermore, we discuss what the past nearly two years of pandemic has revealed about ecclesiology, and why there is hope as we move forward.
Bibliography and recommended resources:
Hirsch, Alan. The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating Apostolic Movements.
Goheen, Michael. The Church and it’s Vocation: Leslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology.
Stetzer, Ed. Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply.
Newbigin, Leslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.
Van Engen, Charles. Transforming Mission Theology.
Wright, Christopher J.H.. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative.
Bosch, David. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission.
Hooker, Paul. "What is Missional Ecclesiology?"
Make sure to check out the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org
Make sure to check out some of the books and papers listed below for more information and study on this topic.
Yesterday morning I had something happen that has never happened to me before in 16 years of preaching almost every Sunday: I woke up and I had lost my voice.
My sermon was ready, so I went to church hoping tea would fix it, but it didn’t. I took a Covid test, which came back negative, so I prepared to preach the first service, but during worship I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do it. So, I went up on stage and asked our worship pastor, Michael, to preach my sermon from my notes.
My notes are in a manuscript format; I like to write out every word I’m going to say. I don’t read my notes, but writing out every word helps me process my thoughts and plan my message.
There are other benefits to manuscripting, some of which I’ve written about more here: Speaking Tips: Manuscript, but Don’t Read. For example, I know that 4000 words in a Pages document equates to about 30 minutes, so manuscripting helps me keep my sermon the right length.
Another benefit of manuscripting is that lately I have been re-preaching some of my older sermons which had lost or damaged recordings. For the sake of our radio show, and so we can have complete series archives, I have been re-preaching these “lost” sermons, and having a manuscript makes it easy to pull up my notes and re-preach an old sermon without much preparation.
If I get asked to guest speak, having a manuscript of my past messages makes it easy to create a new sermon based on something I’ve shared before. Or when people request a text version of a particular teaching, it is easy to send them my manuscript.
Furthermore, I am currently beginning the process of turning some of my sermon series into books. Having manuscripts of my messages makes that process much easier.
Certainly there are downsides or detriments to manuscript preaching, like when someone reads their notes in the pulpit and fails to make eye contact and connect with their listeners, or when someone is so dependent on their notes that they leave no room for the Holy Spirit to inspire prophetic ad libs.
But yesterday I realized one more benefit of manuscripting my sermons: Mike, our worship pastor was able to preach my sermon without any preparation, and by the second and third services, he was ad libbing and making it his own.
In our current series at White Fields called Grace & Truth, we are studying through the book of 1 Corinthians.
This past Sunday, we studied the second half of chapter 1, in which Paul talks about “the message of the cross.” In doing so, Paul makes clear between 1:17 and 1:18 that the message of the cross is the gospel, and the gospel is the message of the cross. This message is “the power of God” for all who believe; precisely the same thing Paul says about the gospel in Romans 1:16. In other words, the gospel (the central message of Christianity) is the message of the cross.
Martin Luther wrote about the difference between a “theology of glory” and the “theology of the cross.” In this week’s Sermon Extra, I explain some of this historical context for Luther’s differentiation between the theology of glory and the theology of the cross, as well as how we can recognize theologies of glory in our modern times.
You can also listen to the podcast of this episode here:
In this week's sermon extra, Pastors Nick Cady and Michael Payne discuss Martin Luther's description of Theology of Glory vs the Theology of the Cross and how it works out in modern thinking, as well as the way to be happy.
—
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/whitefieldschurch/support
You can watch the entire message from this past Sunday, “The Message of the Cross & the Power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:17-31), here:
One of the questions that is sometimes asked about the Holy Spirit, is whether God will ever remove the Holy Spirit from a person because of disobedience or sinful actions.
Certainly there are verses which talk about God removing the Holy Spirit from people, such as Psalm 51:11, where King David prays, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” David prayed this in the wake of his sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), so that brings up the question: Are there times when God removes the Holy Spirit from someone if they do something really bad?
Furthermore, in 1 Samuel 16, is says that the Spirit of the Lord departed from King Saul, and in the Book of Judges, it says that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Samson.
So, does this mean that God will REMOVE his Spirit from YOU, if you live in a bad way? If so, that would be a pretty big problem, because Romans 8:9 says “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
Understanding the Three Relationships the Holy Spirit has with different groups of people
In order to answer this question and understand what it meant for David, Saul, and Samson – and what it means for us today, we have to first understand the 3 different relationships that the Bible tells us the Holy Spirit has with different groups of people.
Relationship 1: “WITH” All People
In John 14:17, Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit had been with them up until that point.
Jesus then he told them that the work of the Spirit in the world is that He brings about conviction in people’s hearts and minds about 3 things: Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment (John 16:8)
In other words, the Holy Spirit is at work in the world in every country, with all people, and he is whispering in their ears and speaking to their hearts about the fact that 1)They are sinners (they have fallen short of God’s perfect standard), and 2) God is righteous, so therefore 3) There is coming a day of judgment when they will have to stand before that righteous God and give account for their lives.
The purpose of this conviction is not to just make people feel bad about themselves; the purpose is to draw them to Jesus by bringing them to a realization of why they need a savior, so they will embrace Jesus and what He has done in order to save them.
Relationship 2: “IN” those who have been redeemed by Jesus
Jesus told his disciples in John 14:17: The Holy Spirit has been WITH YOU up until this point — but soon, the Holy Spirit will also be IN YOU.
This indwelling of the Holy Spirit is something that was prophesied by the Old Testament prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah, that one day God was going to put His Spirit within His people (Ezekiel 36:27), in order to transform them from the inside out.
For people in the Old Testament, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was always a future event, but after Jesus had died and resurrected, we read in John 20:22 that Jesus met with his disciples and he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” It was at this moment, that the disciples received the Holy Spirit within them, and it was at this moment that they were “born again.” (See also: “What does it mean to be “Born Again”?)
What it comes down to is this: Only those who have put their faith in Jesus have the Holy Spirit within them, and every person who has put their faith in Jesus has the Holy Spirit dwelling with them.
The Bible tells us that when you put your faith in Jesus, God puts his seal on you and gives you His Spirit in as a guarantee(2 Corinthians 1:23). Furthermore, the regenerating and indwelling Spirit is called “the Spirit of Adoption” (Romans 8:15) It’s His guarantee that you belong to Him, and you are His.
The indwelling Spirit sanctifies, leads, guides, strengthens, and transforms from within.
Relationship 3: “UPON” Some people at different times, to empower them to do what God has called them to do
Remember how in John 20 Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”? Well, right after that, Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait until the Holy Spirit came upon them. (Luke 24 & Acts 1:4)
But… if they just RECEIVED the Holy Spirit, then why did Jesus tell them to wait for the Holy Spirit?
Because: this is speaking about two different relationships with the Holy Spirit!
When Jesus breathed upon them, they received the Spirit IN them (and they were born again) — but then they were to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come UPON them: to EMPOWER THEM to carry out the mission Jesus had given them.
That’s why Jesus His disciples 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.”
Throughout the Old Testament, before people could have the Holy Spirit WITHIN them — we read that the Holy Spirit would come UPON people, to empower them to do things God had called them to do. For example, it says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon! (Judges 6:34 NKJV) We’re also told that the Holy Spirit came UPON Samson, and UPON David, and UPON Elisha, and others — to EMPOWER them to do what God had called them to do.
So, Jesus was promising his disciples (and us) — that the Holy Spirit will also come upon us, to empower us to carry out the callings He has placed upon our lives.
Un-Adopting? Un-Sealing?
Remember: in the Old Testament, the Spirit was WITH people (to bring conviction) and the Holy Spirit was UPON people (to empower them), but at that point that Spirit was not yet WITHIN people. So when we read in the Old Testament about God “removing” his Spirit, it’s not in the sense of a person who had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, rather it’s in the sense of God removing the empowering work of the Holy Spirit from those people.
But for a person who has been sealed by the Holy Spirit indwelling them, we never read of God removing His Spirit from someone in that sense. The indwelling Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption. God does not un-adopt us when we make mistakes and mess up, rather: he disciplines us like a loving Father (see Hebrews 12).
If He has SEALED you, as a guarantee of your salvation, that’s exactly what it is: He has placed his Spirit within you as a guarantee that He will see you through and bring to completion the good work that He has begun in you.
If you are His child, He won’t give up on you – and that’s really good news!
Further Study
For more on the 3 Relationships with the Holy Spirit, see this study: The Promised Helper
Our NextGen team at White Fields is excited to put on our first ever vacation Bible school (VBS) this summer.
If you are within driving distance of Longmont, we would love to have your kids (3 years old – 6th grade) join us from July 12-16, 2021 for a week of fun and learning about Jesus.
What is the benefit of attending church? A person is demanded to surrender personal faith in Jesus and personal relationship with Jesus Christ to become a Borg in a socialist swamp. It’s great for becoming robotized, lobotomized, Romanized, and institutionalized.
But its pointless for knowing Jesus Christ personally.
Don’t go. Jesus isn’t welcome there. Conformity is King. Not Jesus.
I was tempted to ignore the comment, but I think this view of church is actually pretty widespread, even amongst professing Christians, that it warranted a response. And since I’ve recently started the Theology for the People Podcast, I figured this would be a good topic to discuss in more detail there.
In this episode Nick and Mike discuss a comment that came in to the Theology for the People blog claiming that church is only good for "becoming robotized, lobotomized, Romanized, and institutionalized," and is "pointless for knowing Jesus Christ personally." This comment represents a not-uncommon attitude to "organized religion" in general and church in particular.
This episode includes discussions about the Bible, Jesus, American history, and Henry David Thoreau.
The book recommended in this episode is The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History
Theology for the People 