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Weekend reading (10/21)

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Weekend Reading

The Prosperity Gospel in Our Closet

Jimmy Needham:

It’s ironic that many of us are able to see the lies of the prosperity preachers, who promise new cars and houses for anyone willing to believe a little harder, but we don’t have eyes to see the more subtle threat of using our relationship with God as a means to boost our spiritual resume. This is the orthodox man’s prosperity gospel — going through the spiritual motions to acquire an elevated sense of self-worth. It’s the prosperity we keep in our closet, even our prayer closets.

How Historians Are Quietly Rewriting the Typical Story of American Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism

Justin Taylor:

Writing 10 years ago in Books & Culture, David Bebbington suggested that the general consensus regarding the American evangelical story needs revision.

Senior Pastors Are Not Always Right about Staff Decisions

Marty Duren:

During one session, a pastor/evangelist preached a sermon entitled, “When Is the Preacher Right?” It was a long, free-wheeling combination of texts and tales, with a primary purpose of undergirding pastoral authority. However, when I encouraged a pastor friend of mine to listen to it a year or two later, his response was, “Sounds to me like he thinks the preacher is always right and never wrong!”

4 Reasons to Make Your Kids Go to Church

Michael Kelley:

Should we, as parents force our children to go to church, even when they don’t want to?

Short answer? Yes. Absolutely.

But why should we do that? You could argue the opposite – that in making our children go to church we are actually turning them away from the church. They will grow up resenting this environment they had to go to week after week, even if they didn’t want to, and as soon as they get a little bit of freedom, they will abandon that practice forced upon them by their unrelenting parents.

The Un-Millennial Church

Cole Deike:

Never would I have admitted it, but in my first year as a local church pastor, I was deeply insecure and at least a little bit embarrassed by the word “pastor.”

I am not alone in this insecurity, especially as a young adult who is neatly categorized and narrowly classified as a “millennial.” So I hope it’s okay for me to be earnest about how this religious embarrassment impacted both my pastoral and church planting narrative.

Overestimating Sacrifice

Darryl Dash:

I left a stable ministry position to plant a church at the age of 45. I patted myself on the back for being willing to take a risk.

The reality: I was only risking my standard of living, and not even a lot. I moved to a community I love and enjoy my work. A martyr I’m not.

Christian, don’t begrudgingly affirm God’s Word

A favorite from the archives:

Now, I get it. Many people want to avoid putting up a stumbling block to unbelievers coming to faith. They don’t want to be seen as “those Christians”—the ones who are always fighting about this or that, or who are considered hateful or bigots. But dancing around the Bible isn’t the answer.

We don’t really need to do the dance. We don’t have to be backed into a corner where we begrudgingly accept what the Bible says. Not if we are viewing the Bible as we are meant to.

Links I like (10/12)

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Links I like

Fighting Sin with Love

Trillia Newbell:

I hate sin. It is ugly. It disrupts life. It messes with precious relationships. It confuses the mind. Sin is pervasive and gross. Sin affects us to our core. Sin wreaks havoc on much, but perhaps the greatest area of impact is on the commandments for us to love God with all our heart and soul and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. I think that’s perhaps one reason Paul rebuked the Corinthians about their selfishness and division with verses all about love.

Our Three Neighborhoods

Mark Dance:

I have categorized our neighbors into three relationship groups which I will call neighborhoods. Each neighborhood will be introduced based on its proximity and importance to you. Everyone in your life is equally important to God, but hopefully not everyone is equally important to you, because…well, you’re not God.

We all need a nudge to help us identify who our priorities are. God is not silent or subtle on who deserves our time and attention first.

3 Reasons to Regularly Get Others to Preach

Jeff Medders:

While I am the main preacher at Redeemer Church, I try to get out of the pulpit twelve Sundays a year for this reason. Now, this isn’t the only reason, but this is a good reminder. Handing the pulpit to my fellow pastors and leaders—and friends outside of our church like Jared Wilson, Don Whitney, Jim Hamilton—is a healthy practice for me and our church. It’s good for you and your church too.

3 Obstacles to Weeping with Those Who Weep

Michael Kelley:

But if rejoicing and weeping are commands, then we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, actually give ourselves to obeying them rather than just waiting for the feeling to hit us right. We are certainly living in a time when there is an occasion to weep with those who weep, so we would do well to consider how we might live out this communal command from Scripture.

Menus Create Church Consumers

Eric Geiger:

A menu approach to ministry is similar to a restaurant. People are offered long lists of programs and activities. Often new ones are added to appease someone who wants something new on the menu. Thus, churches with menus grow more and more complex. And as they do, people can subtly learn a message: “There are lots of things for me to choose from, surely there is something I will like, and if not, I can just ask someone to make me a new dish.”

Seeing Beyond the Rubble of Ministry

HB Charles:

We had three fulltime pastors on staff besides me. For the midsized church I served, this was a big deal. Ministry should have been a joy. Instead, it was a time of great discouragement. The pastoral team was a blessing, but I did not know how to lead the team. As a result, the obvious blessing felt like an unexplainable curse.

I was preaching through the book of Nehemiah and we had reached chapter 4. As I meditated on the chapter, my discouragement was confronted head-on.

What is the best Bible reading plan?

A favorite from the archives:

When we come to the Scriptures, we all have a reading plan. Sometimes our plans are highly structured—think “read the New Testament in 30 days”—while at other times, they tend to be a little more like Bible roulette.

That being said, I’m not a huge fan of most Bible reading plans. More correctly, I’m not a big fan of what they do to a lot of us. Although they are good for getting us reading passages we might otherwise avoid, they often turn what should be a delight into drudgery (or worse). We wind up reading a lot of books of the Bible just to read them and say they’re done, not for what we learn about our Lord through them.

Links I like (10/10)

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Links I like

Batman, Superman, and a Rebirth for the Family

Russell Moore:

A cynic might suggest that one reason for all this settling-down is that many comic book readers are not pre-teens but, like me, those who never stopped reading or came back well into adulthood and can thus relate to mortgages and figuring out curfews. But in talking to DC fans, young and old, I think there’s something else at play.

Like When Dylan Went Electric

Jared Wilson:

What you win them with is what you win them to. And if you’ve won them with attractional programming, you can expect they’ve been won to it, and thus any strong deviation, even moreso in the direction of gospel-centered preaching and biblically healthy church dynamics, because even those moves can be quite jarring for the uninitiated.

It reminds me, actually, of 1965.

8 Reasons to Love Sound Doctrine

Kevin Halloran:

Sound doctrine should be the content of every sermon, Bible study, song, and book we read at church. And it should be loved. Here are a few reasons we should love sound doctrine.

Learning to doubt our fears

Brad Hambrick:

What is the one thing you don’t doubt when you are afraid? When we are afraid, we will doubt just about everything except our fear. We will doubt things we know to be true (i.e., whether we locked our door or paid a bill, the faithfulness of our spouse, our preparedness for an exam, God’s care, etc), rather than that which scares us.

Why the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Guidance Matters

This is helpful.

How Singleness Prepared Me for Barrenness

Lore Wilbert:

My startling moment of clarity hit me when I met some friends struggling with infertility. As obvious as it may seem now, I hadn’t considered the similarities of our struggles. We were all waiting for good things we hadn’t been promised. We had to learn to be grateful for the strange gift of lack, when God doesn’t give us the good things we want, but we learn to trust his goodness regardless.

The Lord did have marriage for me eventually in my mid-30s, but after two miscarriages in the first five months of our marriage, we’ve been unable to conceive again. The lessons I learned in my singleness translate to infertility in a few ways.

Why is it so tempting to toss the Bible?

A favorite from the archives:

Honestly, there are times when I can see why it’s tempting to adopt a more novel reading of some of these passages (or abandon them altogether). I mean, who really wants to tell the Christian woman with a non-believing boyfriend that they shouldn’t be dating? Who really enjoys the scorn that comes from being against every “reasonable” person in the West (in the eyes of the media, at least) on the issue of same-sex marriage? Who looks forward to the awkward moments at get-togethers when family members’ eyes glaze over when you talk about what’s going on in your life?

Links I like (10/03)

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Links I like

3 Ways to Pray for Las Vegas: It’s a Powerful (Not Political) Act for Christians

Ed Stetzer:

Some will criticize politicians for their prayers today, calling them to action. But, I’m not a lawmaker and I think prayer is action. Not the only action needed, but a good one right now in this moment.

I don’t know all the details and I am not in Las Vegas, but I do have a heavenly father who hears my prayers as I cry out to him.

Here are three things you can pray for this morning as you process these news stories.

A Rural Pastor’s Warning About Megachurches

Jay Sanders:

I am the pastor of a small to medium-sized rural church. Nothing about us is mega. We aren’t cutting edge. We still do Sunday School, have a meet-and-greet, and have kids come down front during the Sunday morning service for a children’s sermon. I’m sure that there are things that we do that would make church growth experts cringe.

But we are still a part of the body of Christ.

And so is the church 30 minutes up the road where there are more people in the youth ministry than there are in our sanctuary on a Sunday morning.

Heroes, Hagiography, and Villainy

Tim Challies:

There was a time, and it was not so very long ago, that we wanted heroes who were flawless. We would look to the past to find people who had an outsized impact on our world and prepare biographies tipped well in the direction of hagiography. We might read a thousand or two thousand pages on a great statesman or theologian and never encounter more than a cursory examination of their shortcomings. Even if we did, those flaws might be brushed aside as mere peripheral information, for we defined our heroes by their accomplishments. There wasn’t much we wanted or needed to know about their flaws and foibles, their sins and transgressions. Any failings we encountered were interpreted in light of their successes. It was the successes that loomed large in our memories and imaginations.

Are You Praying the Right Thing When You Pray to Know God’s Will?

Michael Kelley:

Jesus told us to pray that God’s will would be done, even as His kingdom comes on earth. God’s will being carried out fits hand in glove with the coming of His kingdom, for it’s in God’s kingdom where His will is lovingly and joyfully obeyed. Though it’s good and right for us to seek the answers to specific questions like these, the plain truth is that the vast majority of God’s will has already been revealed to us. His Word is full of commands that reveal the way in which we should live and how we should pray.

3 Reasons Leaders Must Excel at Prioritization

Eric Geiger:

While leaders are often held accountable, as they should be, for how they spend other people’s money, leaders also spend other people’s time. Every decision, every meeting, every new direction requires time and energy from the people leaders lead. Leaders steward an incredible amount of other people’s time and energy. When leaders prioritize well, they serve the people they lead well as their time and energy is stewarded with wisdom. When leaders fail to prioritize well, they waste other people’s time, not merely their own. Here are three reasons leaders must excel at prioritization.

Let’s Get Real About Women’s Discipleship

Rachelle Cox:

Less than a year ago, I helped organize a women’s ministry event focused on discipleship. During this hour-long event, we offered women the chance to ask anonymous questions to a panel of female leaders in the church about the practice of discipleship. It went well. Frankly, a little too well. The five of us participating on the panel ran out of time long before those in attendance ran out of questions.

Two things Christians need to know about creativity

A favorite from the archives:

Art and creativity have value because of who we are as image bearers of God—because God is creative, so are we. Thus, if God does something, and models it for us to do, we should treat it as valuable. Our best efforts should be expended. We should eschew cheap knock-offs. Creative efforts deserve the best we can give them because God is worthy of our best.

Kids ministry is gospel ministry

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Child pointing at a bible

Ever since I’ve been a Christian, I’ve served in Kids ministry. For the majority of the last 12 and a half years, this has been a massive part of how I’ve served in the church. Why? Initially, because I was asked. That’s about it. The second time, it was because I actually did want to be a part of discipling kids, but I also wanted an outlet to teach. The third time, it was just because I wanted to serve wherever I could help with making disciples.

People give Kids Ministry a hard time because it seems to be all about playing games, handing out fishy crackers, and telling kids to be good. That’s not Kids Ministry, though. That’s babysitting. Kids Ministry is about making disciples. It is about feeding the smallest members of Christ’s flock. And if it’s about feeding the smallest of Christ sheep, then it’s not a lesser ministry. It is gospel ministry, and so they need the gospel, week in and week out. They need to know the truths of the Christian faith. They need to know all that Christ has done for them.

Spurgeon said it well in Come Ye Children:

With the weak of the flock, with the new converts in the flock, with the young children in the flock, our principal business is to feed. Every sermon, every lesson, should be a feeding sermon and a feeding lesson. It is of little use to stand and thump the Bible and call out,” Believe, believe, believe!” when nobody knows what is to be believed. I see no use in fiddles and tambourines; neither lambs nor sheep can be fed upon brass bands. There must be doctrine, solid, sound, gospel doctrine to constitute real feeding. When you have a joint on the table, then ring the dinner-bell; but the bell feeds nobody if no provender is served up. Getting children to meet in the morning and the afternoon is a waste of their steps and yours if you do not set before them soul saving, soul-sustaining truth. Feed the lambs; you need not pipe to them, nor put garlands round their necks; but do feed them.

Friends, especially those among you with aspirations of preaching and teaching, let’s never be too proud to serve in Kids Ministry. Never treat it as unimportant or beneath us. If you care about making disciples, you should care about serving with kids.

How do we make what seems impossible possible?

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Sunset

At the best of times, engaging in the life of a church (in the sense of the corporate body) can seem difficult. For those who have seen churches torn apart in splits, or been part of congregations where false doctrine or unrepentant sin have been allowed to fester, it can seem almost impossible.

It’s hard to feel safe enough to let yourself be known. To let people in. It’s risky to be vulnerable. But, despite our feelings, it’s not impossible.

I was thinking about something Ray Ortlund wrote after a new friend respectfully asked me a pointed question, to try to better get to know me. This friend’s question, and Ortlund’s article, got me thinking about how is it possible to make what seems impossible possible? Is there a the secret or equation? What are the elements of a healthy church culture that allows for this?

Ortlund boils it all down to these three points: Gospel + Safety + Time. And, as he says in his article, we need a lot of all three, because:

  • The gospel is for messed up people in need of grace, and God supplies it without fail to all who turn to Jesus in faith.
  • We need to feel safe to admit our failures, to be okay with not being okay as it were, and be in relationship with other sinners.
  • We need time, to meet other and be met by patience as we all stumble toward holiness together.

Over the last year, this equation has been what we’ve been looking for. It’s what we’ve needed as we’ve worked to become invested in a church in our community. This aspect of our lives has probably been the hardest of our entire move to America. But one thing I’ve been grateful for is that we’ve been met with these three elements, time and again. They have been so necessary for us as we’ve worked to acclimate into a church. And if there’s anything that makes me believe that what seems impossible really is possible, it’s this.

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