Right on, R.T.!!

I never watched or visited a single service from the Lakeland, Florida meetings. The second-hand testimony I received from people varied quite dramatically in its perception of whether or not God was at work there. While I made a private, personal decision to not make our church facility available to persons in our Metroplex who wanted to use it for public, Lakeland related meetings, my words are in no way intended to be an, "I told you so...!" I never took any public stance on the matter. Furthermore, I certainly have no desire to "throw stones" at Todd Bentley. I have never met him. My heart breaks for him, for his wife, and for those who so strongly believed God was powerfully at work in Lakeland and who are now processing deep disappointment, confusion, even disillusionment.

I reference the excellent article I read yesterday in Ministry Today magazine by Dr. R.T. Kendall on the Lakeland phenomenon, written before recent revelations concerning Todd's personal life, because I believe it raises important biblical issues. I know R.T. well enough personally to be absolutely certain that the opening sentence of his piece truly reflects the attitude of his heart,

I can think of nothing worse than for God to be powerfully at work and I miss it—all because I was biased and devoid of discernment.

Over the past five years, the Lord has granted me the inestimable privilege of spending many hours with R.T. in private conversations. I have never met an individual so utterly Scriptural in his life focus and work, yet so completely open to any genuine work of God's Spirit, even those that are way out of his personal comfort zone.

R.T. has paid a high price for his openness to what he believed were moves of God that have been couched in controversy. That is part of what causes me to so appreciate his candid description of his own, inner "process" of evaluating what was going on down in Lakeland. He tried very hard to remain open to what was happening, yet was forced to acknowledge his growing unease in the face of what he increasingly believed were significant deviations from biblical principle. His ultimate conclusion is stated in his closing sentences,

It comes to this: Is the Bible true? Because I believe the Bible, I can testify: The jury of my mind on Lakeland is in.

Leave Lakeland alone.

I urge you to read his article and to prayerfully reflect on his specific concerns, including the following:

• He never heard the revival's primary leader publically deliver a clear presentation of the Gospel.
• He was deeply troubled by seeing the precious person of the Holy Spirit referred to as the "Bam! Bam!" during baptisms.
• He sensed no deepened fear of God and conviction of sin resulting from the meetings.
• He was taken aback by the leader's testimony that during visits to the Third Heaven he claimed to have been told that he should not preach Jesus (because everybody already knows about Him) but rather angels (which people know little about).

Thanks, R.T., for having the courage to communicate your convictions and to point the Body of Christ back to the Word of God...!

Elusive Excellence

Thanks to Skye Jethani for pointing the way to an article on the perils of pursuing perfection in ministry by Daniel Schantz entitled, Recovering from Excellence. Schantz writes,

To aim for excellence seems like a good thing, but it harbors some subtle dangers...The term excellence is often spoken by church leaders in condescending tones, as if to say, “Others may be content with being average slobs, but not us. We must have only the best.” This can be a slap in the face to members who don’t have the capacity or means to be excellent—the “good,” the “fair,” the “poor.” Can only good-looking, gifted singers serve on the worship team? Must church buildings resemble palaces in order to be useful? Do all preachers have to be Madison Avenue models, professional comedians, celebrities, best-selling authors, and able to speak five languages? The gospel was targeted to the poor, not just to the exceptional.

His words brought to mind a conversation I had once with a friend who pastors a congregation in the same area as one of America's most famous churches, one that I happen to admire, by the way. He recounted how a person with significant musical talent had begun attending the church he serves after having been told by the leadership at the other congregation that they would never be allowed to participate in its music ministry. The reason given? Their minor physical deformity did not fit the image they needed to project from their platform in order to appeal to seekers. Somehow that doesn't sound much like Jesus to me. What do you think?

Relevance

The folks over at Catalyst have an mp3 on file you can download here of an interview with George Barna where he describes why he wrote his book, Revolution. (I found it interesting to hear the man’s actual voice, instead of the one that my mind had created that played in my head any time I read his words. Have you ever been surprised to hear what someone really sounds like…?)

In the interview, Barna describes the frustration he felt after having trained so many church leaders in America for over a decade, while simultaneously coming to the conclusion that very little real life change was taking place as a result. His research revealed many people were leaving the church in order to draw closer to Christ and follow him more fully. He states, “Their call to action was not to go to church, but to be the church.” (Another articulation of this same idea can be found in a short video clip of Mark Driscoll discussing the difference between seeker churches and missional churches. It is taken from a series of short videos that were produced by the speaker lineup at a conference hosted by John Piper dealing with the relevance of Christianity in a post-modern world. I encourage you to check out the others by clicking here.) A lot has been written about Barna’s own personal journey since Revolution came out, some of it quite vindictive, in my view, accusing him of finding what he wanted to find instead of objectively looking at the data he uncovered.

While I am quite convinced that the church of Jesus Christ is and will always be triumphant in any and every culture, I do think his message needs to be heard by all of us who help lead God’s people today. Our answers to his questions must go well beyond simple matters of style. As my good friend, Ken Janke, often points out, what many people want more than anything else from the church today is authenticity. That is far more important to them than cultural relevance!

Witness the iconic stature of Mother Teresa. She never would have won an award for being “hip” or “cool,” yet her influence cut across the entire social spectrum of most every nation on the planet. Why? Because people believed she was real. In their eyes, what she did revealed who she was. Her credibility resulted from her authenticity. Even when people did not agree with what she said, they were willing to listen to her say it, and sometimes her words pierced their hearts. While this phenomenon has probably been true throughout human history, it is particularly the case in our western world. Before post-moderns ever get to the question, “Is it true?” they first ask, “Is it real?” No one I know seriously questions whether or not the diminutive nun from Albania believed and practiced what she preached.

As I read and listen to Barna and Driscoll and Hybels and Stanley and Batterson and a Tall Skinny Kiwi and a host of others like them, I hear God calling the church to a more intentional, active, and winsome engagement with those who do not know Jesus than ever before. In response, my own heart cries out to Him, asking for help for myself and the people I serve, that we might follow Him so closely that people will see right through the outward trappings of the clothing we wear and the music in our worship services and the technological means we acquire and the verbiage we use and everything else that makes up human culture, as beautiful and important and relevant as it is, and see straight into our very hearts to find the Jesus they so desperately need, living there. When that happens, it is amazing how effective He is at drawing them to Himself!

Post-Abortion Syndrome - New York Times

I noticed on the New York Times website a few minutes ago that the number one, most frequently emailed article today is a cover piece from their magazine entitled, “Is There A Post-Abortion Syndrome?” It is not only an interesting, well-written piece (though my own bias on the subject is different from the author's), but I was struck by the fact that it is causing so much of a buzz among the readership of the New York Times, which, though arguably the greatest paper in America from a journalistic perspective, particularly with the recent decline of the Washington Post, is renowned as a bastion of eastern liberalism.

As a pastor, the key takeaway for me is the need to remember that a lot of people in the congregation I serve, and in my sphere of influence in the broader community, carry a lot of guilt for a lot of things, and are in desperate need of a clear sense of forgiveness and "atonement," as the author puts it. Prayers, songs, sermons, dramatic sketches, small groups, etc., that provide a vehicle for expressing repentance, contrition, and the acceptance of forgiveness, are really important and should always play a central part in our worship services.

When I think about it, this was surely one of the great values of historical, structured liturgies in the church across the ages. I recognize, of course, and strongly believe in the finished work of Christ on the cross, and am in no way taking away from that reality or the truth that once our sins are forgiven, they are forgiven forever. In the sight of God, there is no need to ever express sorrow for them again. That said, I am quite sure it would shock most all of us as clergy if we really knew everything that had taking place during the proceeding week in the life of every single person in the audience we address as we stand in the pulpit on any given Sunday!

Let us constantly, and continually, lead them to the cross, where there is full and complete pardon for any and every sin!

French Evangelicals and the Polical Process

A post on Ben Witherington's blog entitled, "Evangelicals in a Post-Haggard, Post-Rumsfeld World" prompted me to take a subject I had referenced in passing in my own "Tony Campolo on Liberal Evangelicals" post and write the following,

Hi Ben!

Before becoming a pastor here in America, I served as a resident missionary to France for a number of years. It was a very interesting and eye-opening experience to pastor wonderful, Spirit-filled people who were highly committed members of the Socialist party, or who even voted for the Communist party during their elections...!

I came to discover a couple of important differences between what I perceive to be the mindset of a majority of French evangelicals as opposed to their American counterparts:

1. French believers have zero expectation that their civil government will ever be run by people who are actually born again Christians, so they do not examine the personal lives of their leaders from a biblical perspective before voting for them. It never enters a French believer’s mind that a politician’s personal life would be sufficient reason to withhold their vote from him or her.

2. French believers view the political process as inherently corrupt due to its built-in dynamic of compromise and deal-making, not to mention its potential for conflict of interest or illicit monetary gain through the trafficking of special interest lobbyists, etc. This causes them to conclude that it would be completely impossible for any believer to maintain his or her integrity and run for office with any of the major parties.

This is due, in part, to the fact that French politics are based on a parliamentary style system that renders it virtually impossible for anyone to run for office as an independent. In the mind of French Christians, no believer could ever attain the backing of any major party without having engaged in so much questionable prior activity in support of that party, or without having incurred so many "IOU's" to so many other political figures, that their integrity and freedom to act according to their conscience would have already been fatally damaged before even being put forth as a candidate.

3. Believing that the major power brokers of all major political parties have long ago compromised their personal integrity and conscience, French pastors and other spiritual leaders would view with deep suspicion any overtures from politicians trying to court the support of the church in the electoral process. Most French pastors have a very hard time understanding why their American colleagues get so excited when representatives from the White House or Congress come calling or send invitations to functions inside the Beltway. In their minds, Americans should understand that offers of political power and access are never altruistic, but always come at a price, namely, a requirement to stand by the party or candidate in question in other areas of public policy, even though those other issues may not be clearly biblical in nature or even of great importance to the church world.

4. As a result of these and other factors, French pastors tend to believe strongly that spiritual leaders, local congregations, and church movements should play the role of public conscience to the larger society and never try to forge any sort of alliance with one particular party.

In the beginning of my stay there, I questioned their perspective, given what seemed to be great gains made by the evangelical church in America regarding certain social issues in exchange for publicly supporting individual candidates and forming a de-facto alliance with one particular party. Now, I look back with dismay and think we were probably duped into believing that we could salvage our souls while selling our support.

Although I personally have strong political convictions regarding certain issues, and have voted for the same party’s candidates in every election for nearly thirty years, and though I believe there are individuals who are called by God to run for office, I have purposed in my own heart to only use my pulpit to proclaim biblical principles. I believe the best way I can shepherd all of my flock is to teach them spiritual truths, many of which do, in fact, have a direct bearing on one’s conscience and decisions when entering the voting booth, but that I should never use my position or platform to promote a particular party’s or candidate’s agenda.

In the end, the only real hope any of us have for making the world a better place, not to mention improving the state of our country, is the kind of profound spiritual renewal and transformation that comes through a deep encounter with the living God through His Son Jesus Christ. As a pastor, leading people closer to Him is the greatest contribution that I can possibly make to the political process in our nation, for the closer we are to Him, the more we will live and govern in a way that is in harmony with His character.

Tony Campolo on Liberal Evangelicals

The current issue of Christian Ethics Today contains an interesting article by Tony Campolo entitled, "Being an Oxymoron: A Liberal Evangelical." The title caught my eye and I found his explanation of his position very thought-provoking,

The word liberal has become a political label of ill-repute among many Evangelicals. But if by social liberal, you mean someone who believes America should guarantee medical coverage for all of its citizens; fund the public schools in poor urban and rural communities at the same level as those in rich suburban neighborhoods; be committed to progressive environmental policies; give more than four-tenths of one percent of its federal budget to help the poor of other countries; and give up its militaristic adventurism—then I embrace the label with enthusiasm.

Referencing the impact Charles Finney had on such issues as abolitionism and a woman's right to vote, he pens,

Back in those days, Evangelicals pulled their churches out of mainline denominations not because the denominations were too socially liberal on the race issue, but because they were not liberal enough.

Regarding abortion, Campolo (who clearly states his pro-life persuasion) says,

... many of the Religious Right Christians who share my pro-life sentiments tend to oppose enacting legislation that would enable poor women to give birth and keep their children. No wonder one of our critics says, “Evangelicals are people who believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth.” Too often it seems like we care about protecting the unborn, but we’re not willing to provide for the born.

Toward the end of his article, Campolo writes,

The Bible speaks more about justice that it does about anything else—except for love. But in the end, justice is nothing more than love turned into social policies.

My point here is not to take position on Campolo's particular views regarding social policy, although I think the quote he gives followed by his own thoughts, "'...Evangelicals are people who believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth.' Too often it seems like we care about protecting the unborn, but we're not willing to provide for the born..." should give all of us who hold a pro-life position serious pause, and merits honest reflection.

I simply want to underscore the greater sense of unease I have felt as American evangelicals have whole-heartedly endorsed one particular political party because we are so passionate about some particular planks in its platform, even when that same party strays far from our religious convictions in other areas. Might not it be better for evangelical spiritual leaders to take public stands along the lines of what Scripture says on every social and moral and economic issue, calling both parties to task when whey stray from the Judeo-Christian philosophical base upon which this nation was built, rather than align ourselves too closely with a party whose power brokers simply want to use us to elect their candidates, without necessarily sharing or promoting our convictions?

James Dobson's comments earlier this week on Larry King Live regarding one particular Republican politician seem to make the same point, saying that the man in question

...is an economic conservative. He is not a social conservative. He doesn't like to talk about marriage and about the unborn child, the sanctity of life and things like that. He wants to talk about smaller government. We believe in smaller government too, and we're economic conservatives too, but we're also social conservatives and he's not.

Years ago, I heard Teresa's mother make the statement, "Prosperity has silenced far more prophets than persecution." Could it be that the measure of acceptance by establishment, Republican power-brokers inside the Beltway in Washington that certain, high-profile evangelical leaders have experienced has tended more to silence the prophetic voice of the evangelical movement in America rather than further our values?

In the end, maybe it just comes down to each individual knowing the role God has called them to play. I have no question in my mind that for some public servants, politics is truly a vocation, but there does seem to be an inherent tension between a system of which it is commonly said, "Politics is the art of compromise," and the prophetic role of the church of Jesus Christ in the world.

Contemplating that reality gives even greater meaning to the admonition of the Apostle Paul, as rendered in Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message,

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. (1 Timothy 2:1)

Sallman's Head of Christ

Have you ever seen this painting? When I recently saw an article about its origins in Christian History magazine, it caught my eye. When I was a little boy, my parents gave me a children’s Bible with pictures in it, including this one of Jesus.

My earliest memories of thoughts about the Lord always included this image of Him in my mind. When I prayed, I would often imagine this was the person that I was talking to. To me, this is what He looked like, this was the “real” Jesus.

I must admit, though, that it created a bit of a conflict in my young mind when I heard preachers say that truly devout Christians should not wear a beard or have long hair like those hippies that were beginning to pop up everywhere outside my church world in the sixties and early seventies. The picture in my Bible seemed to prove that Jesus was an exception to some of their hard and fast rules.

Processing that apparent contradiction was the first of many steps in my life-long journey to understand and believe the things God's Word says about Him, even at the expense of some things I had been told about Him by some very well meaning, Christ-loving people. An important part of that dynamic was coming to realize there might be a difference between some things I had been told about the Bible and things the Bible actually said, that is to say, between some things I thought were in the Bible and those that really were in the Bible...!

As I have traveled around the world, I have been amazed to discover how many Christians are walking down a similar pathway. For some, the journey began when they came to understand that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit is just as real and available now as it was 2,000 years ago, in spite of the fact that they had been taught that miracles simply do not happen today. For others, it started when they discovered there were many sincere, devoted followers of Jesus who were quite happily a part of denominations they had always been taught to view with distrust, suspicion, or even disdain. For still more, the turning point came when they realized there were people who really did know and love God, but who had never been baptized with the formula they had been taught was necessary for salvation. And on and on the list could go...

Embarking on such a search for truth can be a very difficult thing to do, especially if your study of Scripture leads you to different conclusions than those held by some of the godliest people you have ever known. This is particularly true if you come to disagree on certain points with the very people who led you to the Lord, or first taught you about Him, or were instrumental in helping you step out in faith to pursue your destiny, and yet, Jesus calls each of us to be willing to do this very thing,

"32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “ ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ 37 “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:32-39, NIV)

As they would say in the Czech Republic, where Teresa and I have often been privileged to minister, “That is strong coffee...!” I am so glad Christ promised in that last sentence to reward us with vibrant, true spiritual life if following Him ever costs us friendships we hold dear. Thankfully, God created humans with the ability to form relationships and He places a very high value on them. He does not lightly call us to sever them, but works very hard to redeem them, even to the point of promising to save all our “house” if we place our faith in Jesus.

Allowing God to take you places you have never been, places far beyond where anyone around you has ever been, can not only be costly on a relational level, but it can also be spiritually dangerous unless you sail such uncharted seas with the Bible in in your hand as a compass. The infallible Word of God will never lead you away from God or His truth, but will always take you deeper in your knowledge of Him. As we follow on to know the Lord more fully, let’s be like the Berean Christians who heard the Apostle Paul preach and “...received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)

God is Back...!

CBS ran a piece on their website yesterday saying that a Baylor survey concluded that 82% of Americans are Christians, but that they are expressing their faith in very different ways than 40 or 70 years ago. While Barna's book, "Revolution," portrays Americans as increasingly withdrawn from traditional church, Baylor's survey said half of all Americans attend church at least once a month and describe themselves as "Bible believing." I wonder if those Barna portrays have really stopped attending church altogether, or if they just attend less frequently as part of their highly individualized approach to Christian faith.

I was also struck by the fact that half of our nation's population does not believe the Bible is authoritative. Communicating Christ effectively to them requires far more than just "repackaging" our communication style to make it more media rich. My experience as a resident missionary in France centered around touching this very kind of person and I quickly learned one very important lesson - convincing a total non believer of the truth of the Gospel is only accomplished via a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. The good news is, God wants to touch people far more than we do and He will work powerfully in their hearts if we will commit ourselves to communicating His message to them!

Consumer Christianity - Too Many Choices?

I continue to be amazed about how many parallels there are between the life of a local church and that of a family. Pastoring, in fact, sometimes seems a lot like parenting. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul instructed Timothy and Titus to careful consider the state of a candidate's family life when they looked for potential spiritual leaders. He did not say that elders and deacons had to be successful business men, but he did say they had to be sucessful family men.
Entrepeneurial acumen certainly does not disqualify one from spiritual leadership and can be very valuable when applied to the life of a local church. According to Paul, though, it should not be the grounds for considering or selecting someone for such a role.

I think the reason is very simple: while businesses and churches have many things in common, a local church is much more like a family than a company. In a business, people are a means to an end; in a family, people are the end. In a business, people are sacrificed if necessary for the sake of the bottom line; in a family, people are the bottom line. Jesus did not die for ministry buildings, projects, or institutions, but for people. Hirelings lead task oriented ministries; shepherds lead people oriented ministries. Moses was not only called to go to the Promised Land, he was called to lead a particular group of sometimes rebellious people to the Promised Land. His level of commitment to them and his love for them was much like that of a father to his children. As pastors, if we ever sacrifice our sheep on the altar of our vision, then our ministry has become our god and we are a hireling, not a shepherd.

In every other gathering of human beings, people are brought together on the basis of some degree of shared interest or commonality, be it a love of football, similar political persuasions, common educational goals or something else, but in a family, people are forever bound together by simple DNA, no matter how divergent their values or diverse their personalities. Though their interpersonal conflicts may cause them to want to flee from each other, even if they go years without speaking or making contact, it is amazing how inevitably some occasion such as a wedding or a funeral or the discovery of a congenital family trait by some obscure biologist will thrust family members together once again.

God designed the biological family this way for many very good reasons. One of the most important must certainly be the perfection of our character. We can easily sever every other difficult human relationship without ever learning the lessons on interpersonal relationships from it that we should, but not our biological family ties. As one wag put it, "You can pick your friends, but you're stuck with your kinfolk!" Have you ever noticed how rare it is for siblings to be just like each other in temperament? This is not an accident! God intentionally places very diverse personalities in the same nuclear family for the simple reason that this forces every member to grow relationally. As we succeed in our families, working through conflicts and walking out forgiveness and forebearance, we learn valuable keys to success in every sphere of human relationships in broader society.

In this vein, I came across an interesting article a few minutes ago on Christianity Today's website (click here). It addresses some of the downfalls in adopting a purely "marketing" approach to local church leadership, especially focusing on meeting people's felt needs without ever calling them to a long-term, "come what may," commitment to a particular congregation. At first read, I think most any pastor who has seen someone lightly leave the flock they lead might read the article and identify with the frustrations felt in the conversation which opens up the piece. I encourage you, though, to take the time to ask yourself the question, "In the church I serve, how intentional are we about promoting the kind of interpresonal bonding between members that would motivate them to stay with this community of faith no matter what?" If we fail to do this, we rob our people of God's perspective on the local church and they will not grow unto the spiritually mature individuals He intends them to be.

What do you think?

UPI says prosperity theology is booming

The United Press International news wire put out a brief item today entitled, 'Prosperity Theology' is Booming, stating that three out of the four largest churches in America preach this theology. They also reference a Time magazine poll that found 61 percent of Americans say they believe God wants people to be prosperous, although only 17 percent consider themselves to be part of the prosperity theology movement.

Should we do away with theologians?

Here's an interesting read from C. Peter Wagner entitled, "Goodbye Theologians!" I chuckled when I read that a student at Fuller Seminary had a research paper rejected by a professor because he had quoted Jack Hayford in it, saying Hayford was not "theological."

What the Bible says about fighting terrorism

As spiritual leaders, we are sometimes called upon by those we lead to provide a biblical lens throught which to view some significant current event. Here is a thought-provoking look at an Old Testament passage that its author believes provides some insight for an ethical approach to fighting terrorism. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13938178/site/newsweek/

What do you think?

Following is a post containing some very rough notes I have made about how to evaluate prophetic words. I beg your indulgence in advance for the poor wording of certain phrases, etc. I do not have time to rewrite them, but have included them in my blog in the hope that it can stimulate some interaction between those who are reading these lines, and that we can learn from each other. So, if you have questions or comments about this subject, or experiences to relate, please share them by clicking on the comments link at the bottom of the post.